Nowhere to Hide (2 page)

“Tell me why we need that?”

Argel looked at Cole and then turned to Ian, “The method used to land their forces on planets is to have a giant transport extend a force field and drop their troop ships under the protection of the force field. The troop carriers are not armed except for beams that are used on the surface for defense. This attack ship can blow a hole in the force field and attack the transports before they can make atmosphere. They are also structured to be able to fly inside an atmosphere. If needed, they can pursue the carriers down to the planet.”

Ian nodded slowly, “I understand; when are you starting production?”

“We’re already building the first thousand. If its trials go smoothly, we’ll start general production within two months.”

“Where are you getting the pilots?”

Argel smiled, “That’s the good thing about these ships; pretty much anyone can fly them. Normal Humans or Kilpers can do it and we have millions of volunteers seeking a role in the military. This new ship will allow citizens of the Alliance to take part in the conflict. They don’t require High Genetics to operate them.”

“Keep me up to speed on how the trials go.”

Cole nodded, “We should know something shortly. The initial trial is being done at this moment.”

***

Annie Newsome watched her display and saw the huge ship on it. The giant Kilper Dreadnaught was moving at high speed through the deserted planetary system and was not going to be an easy target. The number of beams on its hull was truly awesome. “Sammy, have you seen anything we can do to get in close?”

The ship’s computer immediately answered, “Not really; that ship is on high alert and is watching for us to come after it. Getting a shot off won’t be easy; we’ll be detected as soon as we emerge into normal space. If we’re hit by one beam, we lose the exercise.”

Annie railed at the rules that knocked her out of the exercise if her ship was hit by a single beam from the dreadnaught. However, she knew that the new ship had to prove it could survive against an invader battle ship. Even if it killed the Invader, every Attack Ship produced would still be outnumbered by the thousands of battleships in the massive Invader Fleets. They had to be able to take out more than just one ship. Annie thought about how to hit the fast moving target without being hit first, “Let’s think about this. What advantages do we have?”

Sammy immediately began listing their strengths, “We’re much faster and more maneuverable. We can stop faster than that ship can imagine. Our jump and FTL drives operate at twice the speed of any ship in the Alliance’s inventory.”

“I know they’re expecting me to attack. If you were in their place, where would you expect me come in?”

“Either from the rear or the sides.”

“The sides of the ship are where the bulk of their blasters are located.”

“Yes, but it offers the largest target; you could fire from much further away.”

“Yes but they could take out the missiles with their beams before they could arrive, if we fired from too far away. I’m sure their beams will activate as soon as we enter normal space.” Annie thought about it, “Here’s what we’re going to do.” She explained the plan to Sammy and the computer said, “Only three things in that plan are impossible, but we might as well give it a go. I don’t see any other way to make this happen.”

“Set the jump coordinates out in front of that ship and light the thrusters.”

***

Captain Tegen watched his scanner for the small ship that was coming to attack his ship. So far, nothing had appeared and he wondered if the pilot had called the exercise off. He smiled and knew his Dreadnaught had eight hundred blasters capable of producing overlapping fire at any target detected; it was practically impossible to make it through their coverage. Tegen saw nothing on his sensor display and looked at his weapon’s officer, “Make sure the tail is covered.”

“I’ve got eighty blasters covering it. They’ll fire automatically if anything is detected, Sir.”

Tegen nodded and wondered where the small ship was. The time for the exercise would soon be over. He looked at his sensor commander and he shook his head. Where was that ship?

***

Annie watched the giant ship growing in her display as she roared in on it. She had accelerated to fifty miles a second and had activated the FTL field. Now her ship was moving toward the giant ship at an enormous velocity. “Time this well, Sammy.”

“That’s not the problem, Annie.”

“I know but the rest won’t matter if you can’t get the first part right.” The tiny ship shot in toward the giant ship’s bow and suddenly the blue field around it disappeared. The attack ship arrived five miles in front of the Dreadnaught with its nose pointed perpendicular to the oncoming giant; its entry speed of fifty miles per second immediately took effect as soon and the blue FTL field disappeared and pushed the ship directly vertical above the Dreadnaught. Ten beams fired out of the bow of the ship but arrived after the ship had moved away vertically. Annie turned off the main thrusters and flipped the ship end over end. As the bow lined up with the giant vessel, Sammy fired a salvo of six missiles at the Dreadnaught from the three launchers as it passed below. The attack craft continued to rotate and once the nose was vertical to the giant, the FTL Field activated and it disappeared. The entire attack took less than a half second.

The six unarmed missiles began hitting the Dreadnaught’s force field, where they were burned out of existence. Tegen looked at his weapon’s officer, “Tell me what just happened!”

The weapon’s officer was shaking his head, “The Attack Ship came at us head on and was inside our scanner’s range before we could react. It evidently came in using its FTL field at a high speed and the pilot had the ship arrive with its nose pointing above our path. Once the FTL field disappeared, the speed it entered the field sent it moving above us at a high rate of speed. It moved out of the bow blaster’s coverage in less than a hundredth of a second. That’s too fast for us to react, Sir. Once it was above the bow it flipped and fired six missiles at us and then accelerated away FTL. The Blasters on the side of the ship couldn’t redirect to the bow in time to fire on it.”

“Did we even get a shot off?”

“The bow blasters fired ten beams and the side array could only get off two; it appears we missed. The blasters defending the sides of our ship redirected but not in time to hit it.”

Tegen stared at his officer, “Are you telling me that attack craft arrived sideways to us?”

“Yes, it did.”

“How did it manage to do that without changing course?”

“It evidently turned off its thrusters and was coasting inside its FTL field. It arrived perpendicular to our line of travel and once the field was deactivated, its entry speed and direction when it went into the FTL field became the main force acting on it; it sped away above the bow.”

“Is there any defense against that maneuver?”

“The only thing that would stop it is to be moving at a much slower speed and constantly changing our course. This can only work when its target is moving on a predictable heading. If we had been changing course at random, that approach would not have worked. It would have appeared inside the coverage of our side blasters.”

Tegen shook his head and smiled, “Well, they got us this time. Let’s not allow that to happen again.”

“I’ll do what I can, Sir.”

***

“Sammy, that really was a great flip!”

“I really didn’t think I could do it fast enough but my new thrusters are remarkable. The small size of our ship is what made it possible. It’s much easier to turn than a Theta. This opens a whole new set of tactics.”

“What do you mean?”

“We can accelerate in front of a ship or from the rear, deactivate the FTL field, have our original speed take effect, flip, fire, and run. There are numerous permutations of this to work on. Our ship is so small that it’s simple to change direction. We could even appear and bait them to redirect their blasters as we moved into the area vacated and fire on them.”

Annie thought about it and smiled, “Let’s hope Fleet appreciates what we’ve done.”

***

Two hours later, after Annie was read the riot act for her reckless behavior and threatened with court-marshal if she ever endangered another ship by such foolish stunts again, she decided the lessons learned were still worth it. Fleet wouldn’t care if she endangered an enemy ship. Two hours after that, Ian Montgomery promoted her to Captain and gave her a hundred new Attack Ships to teach the maneuver. She shook her head and Sammy said, “I’m not going to try and figure this out. It doesn’t make sense.”

Annie smiled, “It makes sense, if you see those actually doing the fighting know what works and what doesn’t. Desk jockeys will never get it.”

“I suppose.” There was a pause and the computer said, “You have to admit it was really fun doing it.”

Annie’s smile was huge, “You have no idea how much. What made it the most fun was seeing that Dreadnaught Captain having to congratulate us.”

“If nothing else, that alone made it worthwhile.”

“D
rey, what sort of test processes are you using to select the new pilots for the attack ships?”

Drey chuckled, “Why do you ask, Ian?”

“It appears that the one who conducted the initial trial of the new ship was somewhat inventive in her tactics.”

“Don’t you mean to say she was downright reckless?”

“That’s a better description…it also appears the other pilots that have been selected are also a bit…uhhhh…”

“Crazy?”

Yes, crazy is the right word.”

“Who would you say is the best pilot we’ve ever seen in the Union?”

“It was Gary Lungen before he died.”

“Have you ever looked at Gary’s traffic report?”

“I can’t say that I remember it.”

“It was longer than your arm. It was that wackiness that made him so effective and we need that quality in pilots that will fly the attack craft.”

Ian paused, “Tell me why?”

“Because they’re expendable and they know it; they’ll be attacking ships a hundred times their size looking for a way to get close enough to attack. They have to have an edge in getting in and they have to think they’re ten feet tall and indestructible.”

“Sort of like you and Dee.”

“And Gary.”

“Are you finding enough qualified pilots to fly the ships?”

“That’s not been an issue so far; although they are somewhat difficult to control.”

“That’s not good.”

“They’re straightening up; I shot one of them in the leg with a blaster for not paying attention to my instructions and all the others have now determined that they need to follow our military protocols; at least when I’m around.”

“Was that necessary?”

“His injury will save them. They need to understand discipline and that this is not a game for fun. The instructors tell me things have changed dramatically since that incident.”

“What did that pilot do to deserve being shot?”

“He asked who died and left me in charge.”

Ian stared at Drey on his display, “Are you serious?” Drey nodded. “Didn’t he know who you were?”

“He did; but it appears my reputation has been forgotten or not known by many of them. Now they know and all their instructors have to do to get them in line is threaten to call me in to discuss their issues.” Drey paused and sighed, “Ian, those pilots will be at their best when flying alone against a target; however, there will come moments where they are going to be ordered to attack in an organized fashion with other ships and they will have to be disciplined enough to do it.”

“Have you caught any flack for shooting him?”

“Not really; it appeared the other members of his wing were glad to see him out of the service. He didn’t play well with others.”

“Moe thinks the invasion will start in less than a year.”

Drey’s expression changed and he remembered his conversation with Dee’s subconscious, “What makes him think that?”

“Our probes have seen that the galaxy that sent the original probes to M87 is close to being completed. They’re going to have to go somewhere else once their food supply runs out there. Moe says the probes don’t see many places for them to continue their current attacks. We have some time before that happens but not more than a year.”

“Do you think they’ll come here first?”

“Actually, I was going to ask you that same question. Does Dee sense anything?”

“No, not really; that would make me think they’re going to M87 first.”

“It does make the most sense they would go there; especially if they think most of the major inhabited planets here have been destroyed.” Ian paused, “We need to know how our ships measure up against their technology.”

“Are we going to assist M87?”

“The jury is still out on that one.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know if you’re aware of the most recent discoveries we made about that species, but they have the King and First Councilor really concerned.”

“What have we learned, Ian?”

“We’ve sent probes to the other galaxies that had signals beamed to them from the one that will be coming to invade and the magnitude of the invader’s size is scary. It appears the invaders are a space faring civilization with numerous fleets that invade galaxies. Their numbers are in the billions and their main warships are more than two miles long.”

“Do we have a reading on their beam strength?”

“We do and it’s not good.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“It’s been decided that when they send ships to M87, we’re going to send a couple of the older model Thetas to attack them. We’ll know better where we stand once that happens.”

“What are you going to be doing in the meantime?”

“We have to update the old Thetas to the new reactors and get our fleets organized. We’re approaching more than forty million ships and getting them working together is not easy. New ship production is going to slow while we update our existing fleets.”

“You should use Moe and the Kilper Computer to make that happen in an organized fashion.”

Ian paused and thought about the suggestion, “I haven’t considered that. That might work. What are you going to do?”