The Fight for Creation: Book 02 - Scout Warrior (25 page)

“It’s not that simple. These people built the ships and weapons used against us.”

“At laser point; if I held a laser on you and your family and threatened to kill your children if you didn’t obey, would you do as I commanded?” Sam paused, “As I understand it, your people were also forced to build weapons for the Dictator on your planet. You used those weapons to eventually defeat him, just as the people here did.”

The Admiral was frustrated and Sam said, “Let’s just say that I don’t like what you’re doing so I go and blast your planet. These people here manage to kill me. So now you come here to kill them for killing your enemy. Are you that incredibly stupid?”

“This planet invaded my world!”

“These people didn’t. They fought with you against the same enemy and if you come here to punish them, you are no better than that Dictator.”

The Admiral didn’t think about them fighting together against the same enemy. That was a completely new concept and now he was struggling with what to do. Sam slowly shook his head and the Admiral said, “What?”

“Your two planets have more in common than you are willing to admit. If you could be invaded once, it could happen again. Wouldn’t you rather have this planet as an ally to help you if that happens? I’ve seen countless evil civilizations that are out there looking for planets like yours to enslave. Spreading your forces between two planets is not a wise thing to be doing right at this moment.”

Something clicked with the First Minister and the Admiral at the same moment and they looked at each other. The First Minister said, “You killed the Pack.” Sam shrugged. “They had more than six million warships.”

Sam smiled, “Had is the definitive word.”

The Admiral said, “What are you going to do?”

Eyes showed Sam the Admiral’s fear. “At the moment, nothing; I really hope the two of you can resolve your differences without me having to get involved.”

The Admiral said, “We were told by the Gothes that you will not tolerate innocent planets being attacked.”

“I really like the Gothes. They’re just so refreshingly honest.”

The Admiral looked at Sam and said, “Do you consider this planet innocent?”

Sam smiled, “I see it as anyone with a brain would. I’ll be watching what happens here.” Sam disappeared.

The Admiral turned to the First Minister and didn’t know what to do. He had seen the images of the destroyed home worlds of the Pack. “You know he’s right.”

“What?”

“We would be better served working together to ensure our survival than becoming enemies.”

“How could we ever trust you?”

“Because we know what that Dictator did to your world and we hated it. We owe you a collective debt for ever allowing someone like him to take power over us. It won’t happen again. Even if you decide to attack us, we’ve defeated one tyrant. Defeating another is something we’ve learned how to do.”

The Admiral knew that the being was right. This planet would suck up all of their military just to keep control. The thing that decided the issue for him was he did not know if the strange being saw this world as being innocent. It was stupid to take the risk if he made the wrong choice.

“We will be leaving your world. My leaders will be in contact with you about what happens next.”

“I truly look forward to meeting with them, Admiral.”

Sam remained in orbit until the attack fleet had jumped away. He smiled, “Eyes, keep an eye out on these planets.”

“Yes Sir.”

“Sir, we have a Pack Fleet moving in on the Gothes’ home world.”

“Where did they originate?”

“One of the Pack’s fleets left a captured planet to exact revenge.”

“How many ships?”

“Thirty thousand, Sir.”

“Take the squadron and handle them.” Sam thought a moment and pressed a button, “Dort, how close are you to being ready to liberate a planet?”

“I just returned with my Regiment. Gon’s is ready to go active.”

“The Planet is currently undefended from space and has only two million enemy warriors on the surface.”

“We can do that, Sam. We’re still in our transports and can start our liberty when we return. That shouldn’t take very long to handle.”

“That’s what I thought, Dort. The coordinates are on your display. I’ll have two of my ships to meet you there for support.”

“One should be enough, Sam.”

“You’re probably right. I’ll send one. Call for more if you need them.” Sam thought, “Lt. Arget, meet Admiral Dort at the Pack’s Planet.”

“Yes Sir, on my way.”

• • •

Six hours later Dort linked mentally, “Sam, the Pack have killed every inhabitant on the planet.”

“What!”

“It appears that as soon as their fleet stopped communicating, the Pack Warriors on the planet beamed the compounds where the inhabitants had been rounded up. Six more planetary fleets have arrived here and according to the Cats, the planets they left are training heavy blasters on the populations. If we destroy their ships, I believe they will kill all of the inhabitants on those six planets.”

Sam felt his anger rise and he said, “What’s left on the planet?”

“Only the Pack Military Forces. The six fleets have come to defend them against our invasion.”

Sam forced himself to calm down and said, “And if we remove those fleets, the populations will be killed.”

“It appears that’s what will happen.”

Sam thought about it and said, “Jump your fleet away.”

“Sam, we can’t let this go unpunished.”

“Six planet’s populations might think differently, Dort. We need to think this through.”

“We’re moving out.”

Sam looked at his display and pulled up a map of the territory controlled by the Pack. “Eyes, how many planets does the Pack have under its control?”

“Fifty three.”

“Get Pride and the Cats to take a look at how many of them have rounded up the local populations.”

“I’ll let you know as soon as we have an answer, Sir.”

Sam punched a button, “Jason, how many Life Warriors are available for combat operations?”

“We have twenty million on active duty, Your Highness.”

“How many reserves?”

“We have thirty million total but some of them are retirees. Why do you ask?”

“We may need to liberate fifty three planets simultaneously. An aggressive species is killing the populations on planets if we attack their fleets.”

“I don’t know if we have enough munitions to come close to pulling that off. I’m also not sure if we can transport that many simultaneously.”

“I need you to look at what we can do. This is not something we can put off.”

“How soon would you need to do this?”

“Yesterday; and while you’re at it, this species has rounded up the local populations and has them surrounded by heavy blasters that are active. At the first hint of trouble they’re going to open fire. We’ve got to find a way to remove that threat before we can even think about invasion.”

“How many compounds are there on each planet?”

“I’m waiting on a report from the Cats. I’ll let you know as soon as I find out.”

“I’ll start issuing the call ups of our reserves, but I can’t produce munitions we don’t have.”

“The Pack’s Warriors are not as advanced as our warriors. Blasters will handle the vast majority of them. We’ll send in some of our Life Warriors with them that hear the music to handle the heavy stuff.”

Jason shook his head, “Even at that, I’m just not certain we can pull this off.”

Sam leaned back and closed his eyes and listened to the melody, “Jason, how many warriors can fit in the landing bay of a main battleship?”

Jason got a far-a-way look and said, “Ten thousand.”

“So a thousand of them could move a million warriors.”

Jason slowly nodded and said, “But there wouldn’t be any munitions for them.”

“So we load them up before they board.”

“Those main battleships don’t have cloaking. They’ll be seen by the enemy on the ground.”

“The Pack doesn’t have teleport suppression fields, Jason. The ships will all teleport in simultaneously and the warriors will teleport out to their targets as soon as the ship breaks into normal space. How long would it take to get them on the ground?”

“If nothing went wrong, and that’s a huge if, two seconds.”

“Pretend you’re an enemy sensor officer. Tell me as fast as you can that enemy ships are overhead.”

“Alert, alert, ene…”

“You’ve passed two seconds.”

Jason stared at Sam and started slowly nodding his head, “It might work. If each warrior had a specific target programed into their attack system before arrival…it might work.” Jason paused, “Sam, we’d have to be able to issue millions of individual targets. There’s no way we can do that. It would take months to make that happen.”

“We can’t do it, but the Cats and Algeans could do it.”

“Let me know what they say and if they can generate the targets.”

“I’ll let you know.”

• • •

Jessica Brown felt a vibration in the wrist unit she never took off. She was shocked when she read the message. Lawrence said, “What’s going on?”

“I’m called up.”

“No really, what’s going on?”

“I’m not kidding. I’m being called up. I’ll let you know about it when I get back.”

“Jess, you’re retired!”

Jessica smiled and laughed out loud, “No, I’ve just not worked in a long time.” She twisted her dial and disappeared. Lawrence looked at the spot she had just occupied and still saw a smile that he hadn’t seen in years. He looked up at the sky and wondered what was happening. Jess hadn’t worn the armor in years. He shook his head but knew that life with Jessica was going to be better when she returned. He paused and thought, “If she returns.”

Throughout the Realm, millions of former Life and White Warriors were disappearing from their normal day to day activities leaving worried families and friends behind.

Jessica and sixty members of her old unit appeared on the Demon’s Curse and their excitement was monumental. They were going back to war and all of them celebrated their inclusion in the coming action. They reunited with their old comrades and shared where they had been and what had happened since they left the service. Their wrist units were reactivated and the millions of warriors donned their armor and began the diagnostic checks on its many systems. Many had to plug into the battleships reactors to recharge, but they completed the process within ten hours. By the time the data began downloading into their armor, they were ready to fight with the ones they trusted with their lives. The bonds had never been broken.

• • •

“Sam, all of the planets are moving the populations out of the largest cities and gathering them inside a circle of heavy blasters. They’ve left the smaller communities out of the process at this point.”

“They know they don’t have enough time to get all of them. It would stretch their forces too thin.”

“They will if given more time.”

“We are going to attack every planet and attempt to protect the populations.” Pride didn’t say anything. “You don’t think we can do it?”

“It will be difficult.”

“What I need to make this work is an exact location of every heavy blaster around the populations.”

“There’s eight thousand or more at every site.”

“Are you able to determine their locations?”

“We can’t, but the Algeans could do it.”

“If they can give you the exact location of every blaster, could you send that information mentally to our warriors?”

“How many warriors do you intend to use?”

“Between thirty and forty million.”

“We don’t have that many serving the Realm!”

“We’re calling up our reserves and retirees. We’ll have that many.”

Pride thought a moment and said, “You will assign a specific unit of warriors to each site?”

“That’s the plan.”

“There are fifty thousand sites on the planets. I can have one of us go to each unit and give the information to the warriors. The one that goes to each unit will go with them during the attack. If any of the blasters move, they’ll update the specific warrior assigned to it.”

“How long will it take you to make this happen?”

“You know how fast the Algeans are at processing information. We should have it by tomorrow.”

“Get moving on it. Time is critical.”

“I can see that. The Pack is thinking about killing the populations and consolidating their forces on one planet. There is some disagreement at the moment, but they should resolve it within twenty four hours.”

“Keep me updated.”

“You know I will.”

• • •

The fifty three planetary leaders of the Pack were looking at each other on their displays. One of them said, “We must evacuate the planets and combine our forces.”

“Who put you in charge?”

“That’s just it. Since the destruction of the home worlds, there is no one in charge. There are fifty three of us and we can’t make a decision. If we don’t combine, we’ll be killed individually.”

“What makes you think we can defeat those ships even if we combine?”

“There are only sixty of them. If we combine we’ll have more than a million ships. We’ll ram them if we have to but that’s the only chance we have.”

The oldest planetary General said, “I’m not certain about combining, but you make a good point about choosing a commander. Someone needs to get us organized.”

The youngest said, “And just how would you suggest we make that selection. Do you suggest we do it by age?”

“Don’t be so sarcastic. Is there any of us that want the position?”

“Twenty two Generals said they were interested.”

The oldest said, “We’ll I’m not, so I’ll lead the proceedings to make the selection. All of you rank the ones that want the job and the top ten will be allowed to address us and try to convince us to choose them. Is that satisfactory?”

“Who’s going to count the votes?”

“If you don’t trust me, pick someone.”

After two hours of argument, the oldest was settled on to collect the rankings.

“Send me your lists without your names on them and I’ll make them available for all of you to view.”