Annihilation: Love Conquers All (32 page)

“What if they surrender?”

Tag looked at Kosiev for a long moment and then said, “If they surrender we will transport them to a forty-mile-wide cavern we’ve carved on Europa. We’ve installed environmental systems, and there are provisions to feed them. They can govern themselves; we’re not going to waste personnel watching them. We’ll store their ships in another cavern on Callisto. Jupiter is inside the star drive limit so no one can approach without us knowing it. If this conflict ends peacefully, we will send the prisoners and their ships home.”

Kosiev said, “If they surrender, the entire crew should be made to leave their ship in lifeboats, and then their ships should be destroyed.”

“Why?” Tag asked.

“They could have self-destruct mechanisms with delayed timers. Or communication devices designed to be deployed after capture. We would endanger anyone charged with moving those ships.”

“Hold on just a minute,” Tag said. Then he commed Danielle and explained the discussion he and Kosiev had just had.

“He’s right, Tag,” Danielle said. “Do our ships have delayed self-destruct?”

“Yes.”

“So do theirs. Destroy the ships.”

“Thanks. Bye, love.”

“Bye.”

“Admiral, you will be receiving new directions from the director concerning how to handle any Alliance forces that surrender.”

“You value her opinion a lot,” Kosiev said. He was bothered that Tag had taken her opinion but not his.

“Admiral, she has a talent at putting unrelated facts together and coming to the truth. I’ll bet that if you call her back now that she’s had a minute to think about it, she’ll be able to tell you that even taking prisoners will be next to impossible, because their ships will be programmed to self-destruct before they can leave.”

“How could she know that?”

“It’s the way she said delayed, Admiral. She doesn’t think there will be much of a delay. Knowing the Cainth, she’s probably right.”

“I’m surprised that you don’t just destroy them outright after what they did to the hostages,” Kosiev commented.

“I considered that. But I’ve seen too many old history movies where I’ve seen the terrible things that we have done to each other. You have seen them too. Either we have grown and have learned from those experiences, or we’re no better than the ones we’re fighting. It’s wrong to kill someone who has decided to stop fighting.”

“I agree, sir,” Kosiev said.

“We leave in twenty hours. I’m making skid marks to see a lady with blue eyes while there’s time.”

“Skid marks?” Kosiev thought.

W
ashington and her four sister ships were leading a long line of one hundred warships. They were traveling single file toward the planet Ross to minimize the amount of mass that would be visible to the Alliance’s mass sensors. Tag was able to use his talents to maneuver the ships so that they fell into psychic shadows. He closed his eyes and saw that the only place not covered by one of the shadows was the artificial nose of the Melbourne, which was the lead ship. All the other ships followed in her shadow. He placed the sixty destroyers at the end of the long train of ships because of their small size. The bridge crew was looking at views of the Alliance fleet provided by Saratoga. The Cainth fleet was spread out evenly around the planet with the dreadnoughts evenly spaced around the equator.

“Do you think our little disguise might fool them?” Tag asked Kosiev.

“I’m not sure of their sensor capability. It should allow us to get somewhat closer than we would otherwise,” Kosiev said.

The Melbourne had left three days earlier than the other ships and made a stop in the Ort cloud that surrounds Earth’s solar system with millions of comets. An engineering team had selected one of the smaller comets that was 6,500 feet wide and hollowed it out to its core prior to the Melbourne’s arrival. The Melbourne, commanded by Captain Alverez, who was Kosievs’ former weapons officer, had then moved into that hollow and began to slowly accelerate to its jump point. It was not easily done, but the power of its drives took it out of orbit, and with its comet nose piece, the ship started picking up speed. The Melbourne had used a traditional force field to keep the comet from coming into contact with its hull and used the Coronado screen to enclose both of them to safely make the jump to the assembly coordinates. It waited there for the other ships. Once the other ships arrived, Tag lined them up, and then they jumped to the Ross system. The long train of ships accelerated and used the sun’s gravity well to slingshot them toward the planet. They had been traveling using only minimal environmental power for sixteen hours. “They should be tracking us by now,” Kosiev said. “That comet nose piece is hot from our passage by the sun and is leaving a vapor trail.”

“I’ve noticed that,” Tag said. “It actually helps mask our ships and might buy us more time. If they are tracking us, they haven’t started changing their fleet positions yet, according to Saratoga.”

“Excuse me sir,” Lieutenant Kelley said. “The Saratoga reports that the Alliance transport ships are evacuating their troops from the planet. It appears that they might be anticipating an asteroid strike on the surface. You would think that they would come out and destroy it before it impacts the planet.”

“They won’t do that,” Tag said. “This is a golden opportunity that the Cainth won’t pass up. Now they won’t have to execute the population and be blamed for an atrocity. They’ll let the comet impact do the work for them.”

“It appears you’re right, sir. The ships located on its line of approach are moving to new locations.”

“That’s the hole we need to drop our transports through,” Kosiev said. “We won’t even have to fight our way in.”

Sub-admiral Ecsra looked at his sensor officer and said, “Why didn’t you see this coming long before now?”

“Sir, it came in from the other side of the sun and is so small that it just entered our sensor range. It is coming on a line from the sun and was evidently catapulted on a path that will have it impact the planet. It’s moving at a very high velocity, and when it hits it’s going to destroy most of the life on the surface.”

“What’s its composition?”

“An outer layer of ice but a core of metal and rock, and at the speed its traveling it won’t have a chance to burn up in the atmosphere. It might even penetrate to the planet’s core and split the planet.”

“Contact Admiral Dorg and fill him in and ask for instructions.”

It took half a drag for the admiral to be contacted, and then he appeared on the communication screen. “It appears that if we let the asteroid impact, then our work here will be over.”

“Sir, it will kill every living thing on the planet.”

“Then you better start the evacuation of your troops immediately. You didn’t think we were going to leave any survivors behind, did you, Admiral?”

“But we can destroy the asteroid and execute the humans at our leisure, sir.”

“I’ve already received a massive number of communications condemning us for executing the other humans. This way, I can rightfully claim it was an act of fate that killed them and that we did a favor to the ones we executed by a quick painless death. Quit wasting time. Evacuate your troops. If they have to leave some of their equipment behind, so be it. If we can leave quickly we can say we left the humans alive.”

“Yes sir. Issue the orders ship leader.”

“Sir, do you want us to exterminate the people in the concentration camps?”

“Why waste the time and energy? They’ll be gone soon enough; there are only fourteen drags until impact, and you need all that time to move your troops off the surface.”

“Saratoga reports that the Alliance fleet is moving away from the planet and assembling into two groups,” Lieutenant Kelley reported. “The closest group to our line of approach has eighty ships with five dreadnoughts and their supporting ships. They appear to be positioning themselves to view the impact. The others are on the backside of the planet, helping with the evacuation of the ground troops. They’re using ship transports and shuttles to supplement the troop transports.”

Kosiev said, “Notify the transports following us that they are to hold position and wait for further instructions.”

Tag said, “You might want to think that through, Admiral.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s say when the groad hits the reactor and the leader of the Cainth ground forces sees his fleet being shot up around him, what do you think his options might be? Those transports cannot outrun a warship. He’ll know that there’s no way he can make it to the star drive limit. What would you do?”

Kosiev thought for a moment and said, “I’d land my transports on the planet and take the population hostage against my safety.”

“So would I.”

“Cancel that order. The original plan stands.”

It was an hour until impact, and Tag could see the ships on the end of their fleet start to come out of the psychic shadow. “Have the last twenty ships move up to just behind the comet, Admiral. They will be detected in less than a minute if they don’t.” The ships fired a brief thrust and moved close to the comet. Tag asked, “Is there any reaction from the Alliance?”

“No sir. Saratoga says they’re maintaining position.” Mikado said. Time seemed to crawl. Finally Lieutenant Kelley said, “Eight minutes sir.”

“The explosive device in the comet—is it strong enough to totally destroy it, Admiral?” Tag asked.

“We’ll give it a push far enough out to gain separation. The fusion blast won’t leave pieces bigger than a marble. They’ll burn up in the atmosphere. Melbourne’s screen will shield us from the blast,” Kosiev answered.

“Is her screen that strong?” Tag asked.

“It could handle twenty of those simultaneously,” Mikado answered.

Kosiev said, “On my command, order comet separation and destruction, have Saratoga disrupt their communications, and then move to assigned targets. Three minutes, two minutes, execute,” Kosiev ordered.

On board the Cainth flag ship Armed War, the sensor operator said, “There’s something odd here, Admiral. That comet is emitting a low energy source.”

“A what?” Admiral Ecsra asked.

“It appears to be coming from behind the comet, but our sensors show an energy source there.”

“Put that comet on visual,” Ecsra said as he stood up and looked closely at the comet on the screen, and suddenly the comet exploded in a nuclear blast, which overloaded his screen. When the screen reset he saw human warships closing on his position at incredible speed. “Sound battle stations, fully charge the screen. Evasive maneuvers, get us underway.”

The Earth fleet tore into the Cainth fleet like a pack of wolves attacking a bear as their troop drop ships flew right through the Cainth fleet’s formation, unnoticed to the planet’s surface. Sixty destroyers paired off and attacked the Cainth cruisers. One would fly by and knock down a cruiser’s screen, and the second would follow and fire missiles and primary lasers into the exposed hull. Thirty cruisers were destroyed outright or badly damaged within the first minute of the conflict. Each pair of destroyers then turned and attacked their second target. On board the Clearwater, Captain Franklin looked at the cruiser she and her sister ship were about to engage and saw one of the dreadnoughts moving to give supporting fire. As she flashed by and fired on the cruiser, blowing its hull into two pieces, she saw her partner’s screen turn violet and explode. Then she saw the second dreadnought. They had both fired more than four hundred primary beams into the single Earth destroyer. Now her five screens were going from white to light blue as Captain Franklin turned and flew through the screen of the Los Angeles. The Clearwater emerged from the screen with the excess energy drained off and paired up with another destroyer that had lost its sister. They targeted another cruiser and moved in to attack.

The Los Angeles moved in on the two dreadnoughts and began taking on the massive armaments of those two monstrous ships. Each of them was 3,300 feet long and housed 430 primary lasers and missile batteries that could launch ninety missiles per salvo. Beside them the Los Angeles looked tiny. The Earth ship’s screen glared from the missile and the laser beam attack being directed at it from the two dreadnoughts.

“Screen status?” Captain Rubens of the Los Angeles asked.

“Holding, sir. We aren’t into the red yet. If we wait for another of those monsters to join in, it could get dicey real quick.”

“Let’s not keep them waiting then. Have we absorbed enough energy to supplement the primary beam?”

“We’re at 90 percent.”

“Then fire on the dreadnought on our port side, and then roll to use our starboard beam to finish the job.”

On board the dreadnought, the commander could not believe what was happening. That small ship was taking the fire of two dreadnoughts, and its screen was not even in the red. That ended abruptly. The entire length of the port side of the Earth ship fired a beam into the dreadnought, ripping through its five screens and blowing a seven-hundred-foot hole through the center of the 3,300-foot-long warship. The missile magazines ignited and blew the ship into tiny fragments.