Nowhere to Hide (25 page)

“You think we’re wrong in attacking civilized planets?”

“I didn’t give it much thought until the family was decimated. Now, if we lose the coming conflict and, by some miracle we are able to escape, we will be attacked in the future. It made me think about what we’re doing.”

The former Senior Father looked up from his panel across the bridge and said, “I agree with your daughter. We should have never attacked that galaxy. Truth be told, we should never attack any intelligent species.”

“You’ve never mentioned that before.”

“When arrogance is your main attribute, it’s difficult to see reality. The death of my former family has removed every trace of arrogance in me. My former Family had what we’ve been doing for centuries done to it.”

The Father stared at the two of them for several long minutes. “I have to know if we can survive.”

“You have some time to trial it, Father.” His Daughter looked at the other Father, “I’m impressed with your insight.” He lowered his head and looked back at his panel.

The Senior Father looked out of the viewport again and watched the explosions on the planet’s surface. “Recall our transports.”

The Daughter looked up, “What?”

“Recall all our ships from the surface and send them to one of the uninhabited planets we’ve bypassed to feed ourselves. I need to see if we can still use our natural skills.”

“The Council will be angry if you do this.”

“They won’t know; this small number of ships will not draw attention. Make sure they understand to follow communication silence until they complete the assignment. Issue the orders now!” The Senior Father turned to the new Father, “I want you to move to the First Battleship in this group and go with them to the selected planet. Report to me what you discover.”

“Should you place me in command? Won’t there be resentment from our Family’s Fathers?”

“I use my best tools to ensure my family’s survival. You’ve earned my trust; now don’t let me down.”

The new Father actually showed the first moment of happiness since his Family’s destruction. He stood and left the bridge. “Father, he is much more than I thought.”

“What do you mean, Daughter?”

“He is brilliant. He is also fearless and possesses much more leadership than most of our Ship Fathers.”

“I think they’ve seen what you’ve determined; they’ll give him the respect he deserves. Now, I hope he knows what he’s telling me is good advice. I’m concerned about what might happen.”

“I suspect he is your equal, Father. You know how highly I treasure you; he is an asset you should exploit.”

The Senior Father nodded and watched his ships begin moving away from the planet.

***

The planet’s inhabitants were stunned. The ships that had dropped to the planet’s surface and started stunning the local populations suddenly recalled all their troops and lifted. Ten hours later, the huge fleet in orbit disappeared. The microprobe following the Senior Father’s fleet recorded the incident, followed the fleet to an uninhabited planet, and continued to send the feed to the Obelisk. Moe watched the information being collected and wondered what was going on. This was just not their usual behavior. Their attacks on other planets continued but this attack was called off. It continued to collect information and couldn’t figure out what the Invader Leader was doing.

***

Commander Lynch watched the military shuttles that had left the huge colony ship start landing operations on the planet. The first eight shuttles landed and were suddenly barraged with missiles and beams strikes. Their force fields held up and he heard on his panel, “It appears there are survivors from the Invaders attack. What do you want me to do?”

“See if you can get them to communicate.”

The Lieutenant saw the area around his shuttle exploding and he looked at his communication ensign, “I’ve sent a message out on every frequency and I’ve not received a response. All eight shuttles were targeted and the explosions were huge. He took a deep breath and said, “Open the landing bay.” He stood and walked off the bridge. He stepped out of the bay and walked forward to the edge of the force field surrounding his shuttle and stood there looking out. He saw the area where the missiles and beams were being fired and waited for the attackers to see him. The barrage continued unabated. He thought a moment and said, “Weapons, I want a full powered beam fired over the location of those attacking our shuttles. Do not hit their positions!”

“Yes Sir.”

A brilliant white beam lanced out from the shuttle and moved over the position of the attackers and swept from one end of the hill to the other. Instantly, the barrages stopped. He stood inside the force field and waited for a minute. He pressed a button on his wrist unit and neutralized the force field in front of him and stepped out into the open. He walked fifty yards through the blasted soil and stopped. He hoped he wouldn’t be fired on, but anything could happen. Fifteen minutes later, he saw a creature leaving the hill in front of him and start moving in his direction. After an hour of struggling to understand each other, the computer had enough information to decipher the inhabitant’s language and the Lieutenant began discussions with the creature.

“We thought everyone on the planet was killed by the Invaders.”

“Most of us were but some of us managed to escape into the wilderness. Why are you here?”

“Our home is going to be attacked by the Invaders who came here. We’re searching for planets to move some of our populations to safety. We will leave and look elsewhere.”

The strange blue colored creature looked around and said, “This is our home.”

“We respect that and will not bother you further.”

“There is room for others here now. Can you live in peace with us?”

“You will have to assimilate into our society but yes, we can live in peace. Your people will become part of our civilization if you so choose.”

“Why would you come here?”

“Where’s the last place those Invaders would look for us?”

The blue creature changed color from royal blue to light blue, “You make a good point. There’s not many of us left and our survival is uncertain. If you will help us, we will gladly share our planet with you.”

“I will bring one of my leaders here and you can discuss your expectations with her. I hope we can work together to make this happen.”

Six days later, the automated machinery landed and began building the structures to support an advanced civilization. The blue inhabitants watched and were amazed at the changes taking place. It was six months later that the Colony Commander learned the skill of the blue creatures in flying ships. These people were amazing in their ability to fly any device. When one was allowed to fly an attack ship, the amazement increased tenfold. A month later, the first thirty Lengel pilots enrolled in flight training. They were eager to face off with the killers of their planet again. The only reason they lost to the Invaders was due to their technology not being advanced enough to take them on. Ian and Drey quickly determined that the Lengel would have to fly with their own species. No one could match their ability to fly the Attack Ships. No one! It was later learned that the ridges on their backs enclosed a set of wings. Some talents could not be learned; they had to be evolved.

***

The Senior Grandfather looked at the three Grandfathers chosen to go to attack the huge galaxy, “Are you ready to start organizing?”

“We are.”

“I want you to make sure that the first family to attack there leads your forces in the initial attack.”

The Grandfathers looked at each other and one asked, “I’m not sure what you’re saying?”

“That family are a bunch of trouble makers. You should not endure the losses associated with the first wave being sent against the enemy’s most advanced civilizations. Do whatever you need to do to make sure they are on the front line of the invasion.”

“We will follow your orders.”

“Make sure you are the only ones that hear them. Am I clear?” The three nodded; they weren’t willing to incur the anger of the Senior Grandfather. The third Grandfather contacted his eldest son and played the secret recording of the meeting. “Grandfather, is what he’s doing legal?”

“Of course not; but who is going to challenge him? Make the plans accordingly.”

“Yes Grandfather.”

***

The Senior Father’s Daughter-in-law was manning the sensor console and heard the discussion from her navigation board. She went into the system, copied the recording, and sent it via a young son to her father. He watched the recording and sent it to the Senior Father of the targeted Family. He viewed the recording and his rage grew by the moment. He looked at his Daughter, “What have we discovered about feeding ourselves?”

“The Father leading the group has informed me all that’s necessary to feed our family is to just simply go out into the oceans and absorb what we need. The entire group was fed in less than three days and nothing was needed to be brought on board to store. Going after the local animals was unnecessary.”

“How did he know about sea water?”

“He thought, rightly, that if we evolved from sea life, we should be able to still feed there.”

“Stop our attacks and send our ships to feed at a planet with oceans. I’m not going to waste anymore of our warriors attacking planets in this galaxy. We’re going to need them to survive the coming invasion. Order our ships to prepare to attack.”

“So we’re going to the galaxy with the other three families?”

“Just get them ready.”

“Yes Father.”

***

“Ian.”

“Yes, Moe?”

“Three of the Invader fleets are starting to move outside the galaxy they’ve invaded. It looks like they’re starting to organize to invade here.”

“What’s the time estimate, Moe?”

“Between three and four weeks.”

“Can you be more precise?”

“No, it depends of whether or not they have to make formation after they exit the galaxy or if they form up and are ready to jump.”

“Keep me posted on what’s going on.”

“I will.”

“Drey, it’s starting.”

“How long?”

“Between three and four weeks.”

“I’ll notify my strike fleets. Contact Kregen and get his teams ready to act.”

“Get back with me when you can.”

Drey smiled, “Will do.”

“Ian.”

“Yes, Moe.”

“That first fleet that attacked here is not moving out of the galaxy they’re currently occupying. It appears they are organizing their ships in formations separated by large distances.”

“Do you think they know what we’re planning?”

“How would I know? However, we can’t do anything to them if they continue the process.”

“Then we’ll have to do what we can. Send me the feed from the probes tracking those fleets.”

“You’ll receive them momentarily.”

Ian waited and the feeds began streaming in. He slowly shook his head; those fleets were massive and they were still growing. There were still eight of them left and it appeared half of them were preparing to attack. He shook his head. There just wasn’t enough time. Time was not something he could create…or could he? “Moe!”

“Yes, Ian.”

“During the last attack we disrupted space for forty million miles around the planets being attacked. What’s the absolute limit of distance we could disrupt?”

“I don’t honestly know if there is a limit, Ian.”

“What do you mean?’

“In theory, we could just have continued to disrupt the space around the planets targeted by the invaders as far out as we chose to go.”

“Could you disrupt space inside an entire planetary system?”

“Give me a moment.” Ian knew if Moe needed a moment the sheer magnitude of the calculations must be incredible. After ten minutes, Moe answered, “You’d need eighty ships per planet spaced ten million miles apart. They would have to fire approximately one thousand blasts within the planetary system as they circled the star at the center. What are you thinking about?”

“If we were to disrupt space in Euclid’s planetary system all the way out to the last planet, how long would it take a ship traveling 250,000 miles an hour to arrive at Euclid?”

“More than three years.”

“How long would it take to disrupt that much space?”

“Less than a week; remember, we have FTL drives to get to the next area to be disrupted.”

Ian felt his excitement go up, “Do we have to use our military ships to cause the disruption?”

“They’re the only ones with boson blasters.”

“Drat, you’re right. How long would the disruption last?”

“The space we disrupted months ago is still disrupted. Subspace doesn’t recover quickly from a boson disruption. We could disrupt it again if needed.”

“I want you and the Hub to organize all of our ships except for the four Strike Fleets to start disrupting space around the planets in M87. Start with the capitals and then move to the other planets.”

“I’ll start the process immediately. It’s going to take some time to make the assignments; there are more than two million civilized planets in M87.”

“Get on it.” Ian hit his panel, “Drey, I’ve just had an idea. I need you and your senior staff to plan for a video conference in an hour.”

“What’s going on?”

“I’ll explain in an hour. I think I know how to buy us some time.” Drey looked surprised and disappeared from Ian’s display. He leaned back in his chair and tried to determine if there were any drawbacks to what he was planning. He let his mind follow the question and saw millions of possibilities but none of them were severe enough not to do it. Only one presented a real problem and he decided even that could be eventually resolved. But it would take time.

T
he video conference was attended by fifty of the major planet leaders in M87. Ian presented his plan and the shock was immediate. The Gedna was finally able to say, “You mean it would take years to travel to our planets.”

“If you don’t have an FTL drive, yes it would.”

The silence continued and Ian waited for someone to see the main problem but the shock prevented them from seeing it. Ian said, “The main problem is going to be your commercial ships. They are going to have to be converted to a FTL drive before they can operate. They must all be at your planets when space is disrupted or it will take those ships years to get home. I suspect their stores will not be enough for them to make it.”