Annihilation: Love Conquers All (12 page)

“Hold that position for a moment, Colonel,” Esa said. “Jack, go down there where the second gunman was about to shoot and take a position like you were going to take a shot.”

“Yes sir.”

“Okay, Colonel, continue.”

“As I was saying, notice that I can’t see the gunman behind me. The only thing I can do with the time I have left is to roll forward and throw the knife between my legs in the middle of my roll, then come to my feet in time to grab the first attacker’s broken arm. The problem is that when I have to release the knife I still wouldn’t be able to see the gunman. Let me show you with this rock.”

The colonel then rolled forward and threw the rock between his legs at Jack. The rock completely missed.

“Thanks for not hitting me, Colonel,” said Jack.

“Don’t thank me; I was doing my best to hit you.”

Esa noticed that when Colonel Ortiz released the rock his vision was blocked by his body making the roll. “Colonel, are you sure that he made the throw the way you’re describing? It looks impossible to hit that gunman anywhere, much less in his heart.”

“Inspector, there’s nothing else he could have done in the time he had. And yes, that throw is impossible, but there’s one thing that you’re missing.”

“What’s that?”

“Remember, he threw the serrated knife into the first gunman’s eye socket with his right hand, and he hit a moving target the size of a dime. He was holding in the other knife in his left hand, which means he made that blind throw left-handed.”

“Holy groad,” said Esa.

“Exactly,” said Colonel Ortiz.

“Colonel, do you know anyone that could have done what you’ve seen here tonight?” Major Daniels asked.

“Major, I have won six planetary hand-to-hand competitions over the last fifteen years, and I know the other nine winners. I am not bragging when I tell you that I am considered the best at hand-to-hand combat on the planet. However, the other nine winners and I could not come close to doing what happened here tonight. We could, perhaps, take out the first two attackers, but catching that first knife before it hit the ground, then finishing a roll holding both knives; that’s impossible. Something else that I should tell you: the victim hit two targets the size of a dime while avoiding knife thrusts and gunshots in less than three seconds. No one, and I do mean absolutely no one, that I’ve ever known or seen could do that. And remember, one of those throws was made with his non-dominant hand.”

“Colonel, are you saying that this was done by more than one person?” Esa asked.

“I would really like to believe that if for no other reason than to save my ego, but it’s just not possible.”

“Why not, Colonel?” Major Daniels asked.

“The other persons would have to come into the fight, help the victim accomplish this, and then disappear within ten seconds. Remember, all this happened within the ten-second camera sweep. Also keep in mind that these four were killed by someone directly in front of them. Also, the cameras did not see any other people there but these six. No, it had to happen as I described it. If someone were to tell me that someone did what we’ve seen tonight, I would never believe it. Even now there’s a part of me that refuses to accept it, but I think that’s out of jealousy. Whoever did this is much better than I am. I wish I had never seen this because this humbles me.”

“So we have some kind of hand-to-hand superman,” Danielle stated.

“Miss Ash, whoever did this has the finest eye, hand, and body control of anyone on the planet. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t want to get within arm’s reach of this person,” Colonel Ortiz said.

“It’s worse than that,” said Major Daniels. “He also has a way to make himself invisible.”

Even Colonel Ortiz looked dumbfounded.

A
dmiral Dorg sat across the table from the Glod ambassador and could sense his hostility. The Glod’s ridge just above his eyes was a light orange color, which indicated anger moving toward rage. If it turned deep orange then the Glod was probably going to attack and he was wearing the long ceremonial swords. Even though it was not easy to see emotion on a Glod’s face due to little or no animation of their features, the crest gave them away. Dorg could easily sense the ambassador’s anger. After the two ships that had set the ambush had been destroyed, the Alliance sent investigators to determine what happened. Their findings were that the two ships had destroyed each other.

“We agreed to help you and you destroyed our ship,” the ambassador said. “You will pay a heavy price for this insolence.” The Glod’s face resembled that of a human of Asian descent and everything about this angry Glod official screamed danger. His seven-foot height and five hundred pounds of mass appeared ready for lethal action.

“Sir, we did not destroy your ship. I assume you saw the investigator’s report.”

The ambassador said, “Yes, I did.” He had been surprised when the Cainth admiral came into his presence without arms or bodyguards. The ambassador had almost killed the admiral on sight, but seeing he was unarmed, had no bodyguards, and came in with all four arms crossed to show nonaggression caused him to pause. He respected the admiral’s bravery in coming alone. There weren’t many that would confront an angry Glod.

“Then you know that they concluded that our ship was destroyed first by missiles from your ship. Not by much, but our ship died first.”

The ambassador looked at Dorg and said, “I thought your ship was going to be hidden and undetectable. How could we have attacked the ship if we couldn’t see it?”

“You couldn’t.”

The Glod was surprised by the admiral’s answer. He looked out the window at the five dreadnoughts escorting his ship and took a deep breath. He pulled out a chair, sat down, and said, “Then what happened?”

“I don’t know,” Dorg said. “I don’t know how, but the Earth ship detected our ship. Listen to this.” And he played a recording of a transmission that was made to the Glod cruiser from the concealed Cainth ship.

“Jump now! Jump now. I don’t know how but we’ve been detected. They’re moving toward our position. Coordinates follow.”

“Jumping now,” they heard the Glod commander say.

“Our ship was at least sixty thousand segs from the route the Earth ship normally took on its patrol,” Dorg said. “All systems were down except for minimal life support, and you know that you would have to be right on top of the ship before you could see it. One thing we know, the Earth ship detected ours at a tremendous distance.”

“Detection is not destroying,” said the ambassador.

“No, it’s not. We weren’t able to salvage much from the wreckage. It appears our ship was hit by at least ten heavy missiles. It also appears that the ship’s screens weren’t up. Ambassador, how long do you think it would take to raise defensive screens if you were powered down?”

The ambassador thought a moment and said, “Not long at all. It would take less than ten sems to power up the reactors, and the screens would then be immediately available, however, not at full power. It would take less time than it would take you to get up and walk out of this room.”

“Then it begs the question,” Dorg said. “Why weren’t our screens up when your missiles hit? The Earth ship was a long distance from our ship when it was detected. They should have had plenty of time to power up and raise screens if the humans got too close. It would take twenty sems for the star drive to power up from being completely powered off.”

“It doesn’t make sense, does it?” the ambassador agreed. Then he leaned back and said, “Something else is not right. Our ship was also hit with its screens down and it was at full power when it jumped.”

“There’s something else that disturbs me, Ambassador,” Dorg said. “The investigator’s report says that the Earth ship detected the explosions, then jumped to the scene. They’re trying to make us think that they weren’t present or involved in what happened. We know differently.”

The ambassador said, “We don’t have any proof that they were there other than your cruiser’s transmission.”

Dorg pulled a photograph from a folder and handed it to the ambassador. “You heard the transmissions between our ships saying that the human ship was coming at them, and there’s one other thing: our ship was so badly damaged that any recordings it made were destroyed. This is the only thing we were able to salvage from its sensors.”

The ambassador looked at the photo and realized that the Cainth were not so paranoid after all. The photo showed a small white ship with ten heavy Glod missiles chasing it.

“I believe those are the missiles your ship fired at the Earth ship and the ones that ultimately destroyed our ship,” Dorg said. “I don’t fully understand how it was done, but we can draw some conclusions from this.”

“Such as?” said the ambassador, now more curious than hostile.

Dorg noticed with a sigh of relief that the Glod’s crest had changed color from orange to its normal yellow. The danger of fighting the ambassador had passed. “The investigators said that your ship was hit by more than twenty of our missiles, but that no energy weapons were used. Ambassador, could the screen of a Glod heavy cruiser handle twenty, twenty-five, or thirty of our missiles?”

“If no energy weapons were being used, it could handle them easily.”

“The Earth ship was there and was involved. This small ship knocked down the screens of two ships that were ten times its size and managed to destroy them both with each other’s missiles. It was obviously fast enough to stay ahead of the missiles fired at it, and it was able to detect a depowered ship at extreme range, which we know we would not have been able to do, and in the process of accomplishing all this suffered no damage.”

The ambassador looked intently at the admiral and said, “So we didn’t destroy each other’s ship. What do we do now?”

“Obviously, we lay another trap, and this time we make sure we’re prepared.”

“What do you mean prepared?”

“We’re not going to send just one ship, and the ships we send will be much better able to defend themselves.”

“Are you planning to use battle cruisers?”

“No! We are going to use dreadnoughts.” The dreadnought was the foundation of Alliance warships. It ranged from 3,300 to 3,800 feet long and had from three to five force fields protecting it. It had between 190 and 220 primary lasers along with twenty-five missile batteries that could launch more than one hundred missiles per salvo. It usually had a crew of more than 1,200. The Glod dreadnoughts were recognized as the most deadly of all due to the strength of their force fields.

“I’m not going to question your decision,” the ambassador said. “I thought a heavy cruiser was overkill. Now I agree with you. Let’s not take any chances. How can I help you?”

“If you will provide two dreadnoughts, I will provide two. We’ll catch the Earth ship between us and claim that it was destroyed by accident during the battle between your ships and ours. We will tell the Alliance that we were seeking revenge for the ship that was destroyed. The Alliance will then send all kinds of emissaries to patch up our troubles, which will be fine by us because by then we’ll have the information we seek on their ships’ capabilities.”

“Send me the details. I’ll set up the two ships immediately. What size of ship are you going to attack this time?”

“I’m going after the same ship. We owe them something. Our revenge explanation is partially true; however, our revenge is directed at the ship that destroyed our cruisers.”

The ambassador almost felt pity for the Earth ship. Then he looked forward to hearing of its destruction.

Captain Kosiev sat across the table from General Masseem, the commanding officer of Earth Station Seven. On one side of the general sat the Directorate ambassador and on the other Colonel Solerio, who represented the military board from Earth headquarters. This was not a meeting that Kosiev wanted to be in. “I hope I survive this,” he thought. He looked out the window in the conference room from Earth Station Seven, hanging in space against the background of the horse nebula, and wondered if humans were ever going to be able to go outside the twenty-light-year limit to explore those far stars. The light from that nebula that he was seeing had left when humans were primitive cave dwellers. Then he thought, “I’d be happy to just make it outside of this room.” The officers conducting the board of inquiry filed into the room and took their seats.

General Masseem looked at Kosiev and said, “Captain, we’ve gone over your recordings of the battle and have examined the commands you issued. Tell us why you made the decision not to run.”

“Yes sir. When I discovered the Cainth cruiser attempting to hide from our sensors, I went to investigate. As soon as I turned toward their location and had gone a very short distance, sensors picked up a star drive breaking into normal space.”

“We know all that, Captain.”

“Yes sir. I immediately turned and accelerated away from the ship entering normal space. It was my intent to leave, but the ship that emerged challenged me to stop and lower my screens for boarding. As you well know, primary order one prohibits me from allowing any other race access to the technology of our ships. So I continued to run and answered their communication, informing them I was contacting the Alliance ambassador to determine what the ships were doing in our zone. They then fired ten high-speed missiles at my ship.”