Annihilation - Tommy's Tale (Annihilation Series (Book Four)) (26 page)

Cassandra talked as she thought to the buoy. “I am trying to speak with the leader of the red ships. We have not received an answer from you.” Almost immediately the buoy stopped transmitting.

“Well, that didn’t take long, they found that buoy in less than a minute,” Tommy said.

Rose said, “Then its war to the death. Unfortunately, the only weapon we have to use is the Kosiev.”

“Perhaps,” Tommy said, “however the adolescents think that they can produce more ships like the Kosiev and I’ve learned not to bet against their hunches.”

Danielle said, “What are these so called “eight legs” the Captor spoke about?”

Cassandra said, “I was listening to him telepathically and I saw a picture in his mind of huge clouds of planet sized green ships flying through a galaxy like a plague of locusts. I don’t know if it was real or just a metaphor but I do believe he was being truthful.”

“Do any of you feel any danger when you think about what he said,” Rose asked the group at the center table.” All of the gathered psychics shook their heads. “Well, if he was truthful, they are not a danger to us in the near future. Let’s deal with one crisis at a time. Does anyone have a suggestion about what our first course of action should be?”

Misty Nicole said, “I want to kick them out of our solar system. They killed more than half a million people and they should pay a price for their actions.”

Rose looked at Tommy and said, “What do you think; the home world or Earth first?”

“Earth should be first. I don’t want to run the risk of Atlas’ kin being destroyed if we fail in our first attack. Captain Dodd, do you agree?”

Cassandra closed her eyes and said, “Yes, Earth should be first. I need some space to flex my strength.”

Rose, Tgon-Gee, Tag, Danielle, and Tommy all worried about her remark. Everyone knew that her strength was an unknown quantity but they all suspected it was massive.

“Then Earth it is.”

“As the conference continued Cassandra thought to Tommy, “We need to go look in on the adolescent’s efforts.”

“Why don’t you go ahead and take the Kosiev. I’ll join you with Atlas later.”

“Don’t be long, I miss you already.”

Tommy smiled and thought, “You just made my day. Keep me informed.”

Cassandra got up and left the conference. On the way to the shuttle she commed Wes, “Prepare the ship for a jump to the learning center; I’m on my way.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,”

The Kosiev came out of null space and its battle alarms went off a full blast. The crew scurried to their stations while Wes read the ship’s sensors. “We have a megaship on fire off the port bow, Captain”

Cassandra looked at her view screen and saw a megaship totally burning. The bright glow was coming from its covering of Coronado power cells. The Kosievs’ intercom came on with Sprig saying, “Everything is ok, we just made a mistake and as you can see, the results were somewhat dramatic.”

Wes said under his breath, “Not as dramatic as the deck three toilet.”

Cassandra smiled and said, “Yes, but these are in 3D.”

The entire bridge crew laughed and Wes turned bright red. Linda Kay thought to him, “Now that we can share our thoughts, I want you to show me what happened on deck three.”

Wes thought back, “Never happen.”

Linda Kay thought back, “Oh, I think I can get you to talk.” Wes smiled and knew she was right.

Cassandra thought, “Sprig, why don’t you and Twig come over and tell me what you’re attempting to accomplish?”

Cassandra waited a moment and the two Algeans materialized on the bridge of the Kosiev. Cassandra said, “You have got to give me that device.”

Twig said, “I’ll make one for you this evening and show you how to use it.”

“Tell me what went wrong,” Cassandra asked.

Twig looked at the view screen with the burning megaship and said, “We tried to drop some small black holes into the surface of the ship.”

“That has already been tried and it didn’t work,” Cassandra said.

“Yes, but they were doing it wrong. They were trying to blast the holes into the surface.”

Cassandra looked at Twig and said, “Bring me up to speed. What is it that they were doing wrong?”

“Do you have a recording of the destruction of the Moscow?”

Cassandra reached over and pressed a button on her console and entered a command. She waited a moment and said, “Here it is.”

“Play it on the main monitor, please.” Sprig said.

The main monitor showed the Moscow charging the Algean frequency ships with its nose bright white from the constant firing of its primary beams.” Twig said, “Notice that the Moscow is moving two times faster than any ship had ever traveled. She was able to do this by overloading their reactors. Please slow the video down to one thousandth speed, Captain, and watch the hull of the Moscow.”

Cassandra slowed the video and the entire bridge crew watched as the primary beams began to fail. They also saw the hull of the Moscow start to go from bright white to a dark color moving from the rear of the ship forward. This process continued until the dark color moved forward and covered the nose of the ship just as the primary beams failed.” The ship then launched all of its penetrators and the entire ship went dark.

The crew was in a somber mood. This was when one of humanity’s hero’s had perished. Admiral Kosiev and his entire crew died as the Moscow was hit by hundreds of anti-matter missiles. The ship exploded and the bridge crew saw a piece of it fly off the top of the ship into space.

“What am I looking for, Twig?”

“Every attempt to recreate the event that created that piece of the hull that later became the skin of this ship has failed. They failed because they misunderstood what they were seeing.”

Cassandra furrowed her brow and said, “I don’t understand.”

The skin of the Kosiev was formed not because of the blasts that destroyed the ship but because of the total lack of energy remaining in the Coronado power cells.”

Cassandra thought and reran the video. Sprig added, “Notice that the piece that flew off was directly over the black hole reactors. The skin had already absorbed those black holes before the missiles struck.”

Suddenly, she understood; it was a lack of energy that gave birth to the skin, not the blast from the missiles. “I think I understand. The power cells were totally depleted and the reactors had failed. There was no place for the cells to draw energy so they absorbed the black holes.”

“Exactly, Captain; we believe that the power cells are like a regular battery and develop a memory of the charge they hold. When that charge is absent, the cells look for another source and draw it to them.”

“So what went wrong here?”

Sprig said, “We don’t know. When we dropped the black holes on the hull after fully discharging the power cells the ship exploded and started burning.”

Cassandra said, “Well, we have three more ships; let’s try it again.”

The second megaship was moved out and the ship began constant firing of its primary beams and its screen was brought to full power. The process took more than four hours bur finally the screen and primary beams failed. “This is where we were last time,” Sprig said.

Cassandra closed her eyes and looked at the armored skin of the ship and said, “There is still power in the hull coating.”

Twig and Sprig looked at Cassandra and said, “Our instruments show zero power.”

“You instruments are wrong.” Cassandra closed her eyes and let her mind roam the megaship. I see you’ve disconnected the reactors from the hull.”

“Yes we did.”

“Are you aware that each of those reactors has a backup 18 volt battery to keep the display working in the event of power failure? There are also four more batteries on the bridge consoles. They are being drained as we speak.”

Sprig and Twig looked at each other and then said, “Let’s remove the batteries on the ship and see if that changes anything.”

Cassandra said. “I don’t think it will. That charge, even though it’s small must be discharged but the hull doesn’t have enough power to operate the discharge system. That little bit of power won’t allow any system to turn on to remove it.”

The adolescents thought a moment and Cassandra said, “The batteries will be drained completely in thirty minutes. We will then hit the skin of the ship with a weak beam until it has enough power to trip the primary beam circuit. Then we’ll take another reading.”

Thirty minutes late the Algeans read their instruments and said, “They still read zero. If there is energy in the hull the charge is too small to detect.”

Cassandra said, “Weapons, hit the megaship with a low power laser.” A laser stabbed out and hit the megaship.

“Sprig looked at his instruments and said, “The screen is now active, Captain.”

“Weapons, increase the power of the laser to three million watts.” The laser grew in intensity and hit the ship for three minutes. “Cease firing.”

The megaship hung in space and Twig pushed a button on her hand held instrument. The megaship fired its primary beam for two seconds and then went out. Cassandra closed her eyes and felt the ship. “There is still a charge. The ship is drawing power from the learning facility. We need to move further out into empty space.”

The megaship was towed away from the learning facility and the process was repeated. Cassie closed her eyes and said, “We’re drawing power from the star in this system.”

The Algeans were shocked. “Captain, lets charge the ships so we can jump it out into empty space between the galaxies.”

The laser was fired again and the power increased until the ship had enough power to operate. The two ships jumped out into empty space and the megaship was discharged again. Cassandra closed her eyes and said, “The ship is empty of any energy. However, I want to attempt something.”

The adolescents looked at her and Cassandra said. “The black holes that entered the skin the Kosiev were converted to negative matter when the hundreds of ant-matter missiles struck the Moscow. Instead of dropping black holes into the skin, I want to deposit some of the matter from the Kosiev and see if it takes it.”

The Kosiev stayed back from the megaship to prevent it from drawing any power. Cassandra looked at the Megaship and tried to think of a command that would make the transfer. Then a thought wormed its way into her mind; “Feed the ship” she thought. A long black tube shot from the Kosiev and entered the megaships outer plating. Nothing appeared to be happening until Wes said, “The megaship has just gone off our sensors.”

The Algeans looked at each other and jumped off the floor. “We did it!”

Cassandra looked at them and said, “We have one more task before it will be ready for combat. We need to move it to a system that is dead and drop it into the star.”

The bridge crew looked at her with mixed expressions. “The ship must have enough material to fight the Captors. A star should do the trick but first we need to put in the control systems. Lt. Ortiz, take a team of five and jump the ship to the learning center and I’ll contact Sten to begin the work. Leave now and Lt. McAnn, bring the last megaship here and let’s make the conversion.”

Two months later eleven megaships had been converted, had their control systems installed, and had been dropped into a star. Cassandra went to each ship and changed the penetrator launchers so that they were mounted inside the ship and the barrels stuck into the inside walls of the hull. She then melded the launchers to the negative matter inside the skin of the ship. Now when fired, the launchers would send a piece of negative matter at the target. The size of the matter was set for a medium size captor ship. It should destroy the largest but would leave wreckage. On a smaller ship, there would be negative matter left behind that would need to be reabsorbed into the skin of the ships. Tommy watched Cassandra fine tune the launchers and marveled at her mental control of the ships systems. “You’re remarkable, Cassie. I have no idea how you’ve made this work but these ships should give more than they get in a battle with the Captors.”

“This is easy; I’ve always had an affinity for machines. They talk to me now and I just tell them what I need them to do. Well, something like that.”

“You do that to me, too.”

“Yeah, but you don’t always listen.”

“That’s true, however the Royal Family has approved you for a medal and I’m here to present it.”

“I don’t deserve a medal. Everyone on the ship deserves one as much I do.”

Tommy moved in front of her and said, “That maybe true but there’s only one person on this ship that the metal will fit.”

Cassie tilted her head to the side obviously confused when Tommy opened a ring box and held it up to her and said, “Cassandra Dodd, will you marry me?”

Cassandra looked at the ring with a stone the size of a small planet on it and felt her heart swell ten times its size. She started crying and said, “Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.” She rushed forward and threw her arms around Tommy and held him tight.