Defending Earth-Discovery Means Death (8 page)

“Better pack up.”

“Why?”

“We’re taking a light ship out to a Feeder occupied planet to determine if they can detect us.” Olivia stared at him and he smiled, “Don’t worry. Their occupied planets don’t have warships so you won’t be put in a dangerous situation.”

“Why is Fleet allowing you to go? You’re too important to risk.”

“My device has adjustable settings on it. I need a Feeder to find the optimum frequency to use. No one else is familiar enough with it to do it. You do know how to fly a light ship, don’t you?”

“Well, yes. I flew one before I was transferred to Intelligence.”

“Well, this model is different and you’ll need to go to Fleet Training and go through the tutorial. Do that first and let me know when you’ve completed it.”

“But I’m supposed to stay with you.”

“Admiral Gibbons said I can use you as an assistant; this is your first task.” Olivia stared at him and Jack smiled, “I know you’re a Commodore but I think it’s clear that I’m in command. Or do we need to ask the Admiral?”

Olivia began immediately disliking him. “No, I’ll go to training and start the tutorial.”

“That’s good. Contact me when you’re done.” Olivia left the room and began to understand why his girlfriend walked out. Unfortunately, she didn’t have that option. If his sister was like this, she didn’t have to worry about competition.

• • •

“Rocky, what are we going to do about this?”

“I’m trying to decide.”

“My scanner is overwhelmed with the number of Feeder Warships and more are arriving every minute.”

“We can’t wait for all of them to start moving toward that cluster, Jill. We’re going to have to hit them here before they complete the defenses around their central planet.” Rocky thought for a moment and blew out a breath.

“What are you thinking?”

“Willow, the only way to reduce the numbers of warships here is to attack the home world.”

“YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS!”

“Jill, it’s the intelligent thing to do.”

“And just how are you going to pull that off!?”

“Amber, how many nuclear missiles do we have in the armory?”

“Three.”

“What’s their range?”

“They have a light drive but it won’t work effectively in the planet’s atmosphere. It will have to be launched from less than three thousand miles out.”

“Why is that? The smaller missiles have a much longer range than that?”

“The nuclear material on board the missile interferes with the light drive’s recognition software. It scrambles it just enough to require a closer launch.”

“Our light drive isn’t affected by the three missiles we have on board.”

“That’s because they’re stored in a highly shielded shroud. The ship is also much larger than the missile and they’re located at the stern of the ship while the light drive is at the bow.”

“Rocky, there’s no way for us to get close enough to do this!”

“Jill, I’ve been giving some thought to how we fought our first battle and it’s my belief that we did it incorrectly.”

Jill’s eyebrows went up, “I’m not sure I understand.”

“We went in attacking five hundred Feeder Warships and we were hit ten times by their gravity beams. The missiles killed ten thousand Feeder Warships and those ships were no danger to us.”

“Some of them were pretty close.”

“Yes, but not close enough to open fire before they were hit. We should use the missiles as our primary weapon and only use our disruptors to defend the ship. From now on we’ll gather light signatures on the targets we want to hit and launch the missiles to take them out. If we collect all the light signatures of the Feeder Warships directly above one of their larger cities, we should be able to open a path in to launch the nuclear missile.”

“I suspect there will be more than ten thousand warships above their cities.”

“I do as well, but there shouldn’t be that many between our course to the planet and three thousand miles. That’s how far we’ll have to go to launch.”

Jill stared at Rocky on her visor and said, “Ok, let’s do it.”

Rocky’s head went back, “That was quick.”

“What you’re saying makes sense. We’ll go and check it out and if there’s more than ten thousand warships between us and the planet, we’ll reevaluate.”

“I thought you said after the last battle that you didn’t know if you could do it again?”

“I did.”

“What changed?”

“I guess I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that we’re probably not going to survive this mission.”

“That’s a fatalistic view.”

“Yes it is; however, I know that if I don’t do this, my family and friends are probably going to die. Do you disagree?” Rocky shook his head. “Why are you doing it?”

“It’s my duty to defend the Alliance.”

“I guess that’s as good a reason as any reason. My quick agreement to do this comes from wanting to get on with it. If I’m going to die, sitting around waiting for it to happen is a fast way to insanity.”

“Willow, do you have the coordinates to the Feeder’s Central Planets?”

“I do.”

“You and Amber haven’t said anything while we’ve been discussing this.”

“There’s not much to say. If you intend to attack them, it’s better to do it now than wait for the defenses there to be completed.”

“I agree. Amber, skip us to where we can take a look around.”

“What about skipping in and dropping a probe?”

“Are the probes as stealthy as our ship?”

“Not really.”

“Then no on using a probe.”

“Skip in ten seconds.”

Jill looked at her monitor and pushed her fears away. Once she knew she would die, fear wasn’t so hard to deal with. She almost changed her mind when they arrived at the Feeder’s planetary system and saw what they were up against.

“M
y, my, they’ve been busy while we’ve been gone.”

“Why do you say that, Amber?”

“I’m putting an image on your displays that we took of that planet more than three hundred years ago beside a current image.”

“There was a long moment of silence and Jill whistled, “It looks like they’ve built planetary disruptors around every city.”

“They’ve actually covered the planet’s surface with them. If you take a closer look inside any city you’ll see them intermingled with the buildings.”

“They won’t stop the nuclear missile.”

“No, the missile’s light drive will skip it instantly to within a half mile above the target where it will detonate. No disruptor can target it fast enough to stop it.”

“They may not have to target it.”

Rocky looked at Jill through his view port, “Why do you say that?”

“Amber, do an analysis of the coverage of those disruptors.”

They waited and heard, “You’re right, Jill. Those disruptors are placed so they can fire a barrage of beams that completely cover the cities. The missile would be vaporized as soon as it emerged into normal space.”

“How did you see that, Jill?”

“The pattern is obvious. I’m pretty certain that the moment one of their warships is attacked above the planet, the disruptors will then automatically open fire.”

“Amber, did either you or Willow see that pattern?”

“No, we did not.”

Jill shook her head, “Hey, I’ve always been fascinated by patterns and shapes. When you connect dots as many times as I did as a child, it’s not that hard to see how those disruptors are aimed.”

Rocky nodded and leaned back in his chair, “This changes things.”

“How?”

“We can’t use the nuclear missile.”

“Are you saying we should call this off?”

“I don’t want to do that. Amber, how much damage would a thousand of the light missiles do to a city?”

“It would pretty much devastate it.”

“What are you thinking, Rocky?”

“The light missiles will not be disturbed by nuclear material. We can gather the light signatures of targets on the surface and hit them simultaneously with a thousand light missiles.”

“No we can’t?”

“Why not, Amber?”

“Because we can’t launch them that fast. We have twenty launchers scattered around the hull and they take a half a second to reload a missile after launching. That’s about 2,400 a minute.”

“Actually, that’s not quite true.”

“You’re right, Jill; it would be slightly less when you factor in the slight delay in the belts moving through the channels.”

“That’s not what I meant. I’ve done some research and found that if you change a piece of the missile’s software, they can be fired on a continuous basis. The belts are programmed to make that pause for safety reasons.”

Rocky lowered his head, “What do you mean safety reasons?”

“The belts might jam. They won’t explode but they could catch on the belt notches. That’s the only reason why I thought this might work. Did any of you stop to consider that if we fired the missiles normally at 2,400 per minute, it would take about four minutes to take out ten thousand warships? I suspect that is long enough for more than fifty thousand to move into the space we’re attacking above the planet. We’re going to have to use the continuous fire process to pull this off.”

“I don’t see why we need to take out the warships if we’re just going to fire light missiles at the city.”

“Rocky, how is Amber going to collect light signatures to program the missiles fired at the city?”

“Amber?”

“She’s right, Rocky. There are so many warships in orbit above their cities that a direct line of sight to the planet is blocked. Have you also considered that once the disruptors start firing, they may take out the light missiles?”

“I don’t think that will be an issue.” Jill’s response was greeted with silence. “The Light missiles can be programed to arrive just ten feet above their targets. If the disruptors are firing that close to the surface, we won’t need to destroy the city, the disruptors will burn it to the ground.”

Rocky shook his head. Jill was far beyond his understanding of how the weapon systems worked. “Amber, how long would you need to gather a thousand light signatures on the surface?”

“About a second. However, did you consider that my vision would be blocked by the explosions of the ships we hit?”

Jill was startled by the question. “No, I didn’t think of that.”

“So let me make sure I understand what we’re up against.” Rocky paused and leaned back in his chair, “The nuclear missile option is off the table, right?” The two computers and Jill agreed that it was.”

“In order to hit one of their cities, we have to create a clear path for Amber to gather light signatures from the surface. If we blow a hole through the ranks of the warships above the planet, their explosions would also mask the surface from Amber, right?” Everyone agreed again. “Amber, do you have an estimate of how long it would take for the explosions to clear?”

“Between five and thirty minutes and I suspect it would be closer to thirty than five.”

“The Feeders would fill that gap faster than the explosions would clear.”

“You’re right, Jill.”

“Rocky, we should be just back out and call it a good effort.”

Rocky shook his head, “Willow, have they rebuilt that city we destroyed three hundred years ago?”

“Judging by the number of warships above that site, they have.”

“Do you still have the light signature of where the missile fired at the planet was sent?”

“Yes, but it won’t help us. We still don’t have the light signatures from the surface.”

“Was that signature below the ranks of the Feeder Warships?”

“Yes.”

“Then here’s how we’ll do it. We will skip the ship in to that coordinate and start rapid firing the missiles at the warships closest to us the moment we determine they’ve detected our presence. Amber will collect the light signatures from the surface and we’ll skip out the moment she’s done. We’ll program the light missiles and launch them from outside the ranks of the Feeder Warships above the planet.”

“Why don’t we just launch the nuclear missile?”

“Jill, the planetary defenses will detect the missile leaving our hull and will start firing. The first missile fired at that planet went in to that coordinate and used its thrusters to hit the city. The Feeders didn’t have disruptors at that time and even if the nuclear missile used its light drive, it won’t arrive before the disruptors have laid down a protective shield.”

“Jill, can we modify the missile to use its light drive to hit the surface?”

“No, Willow. Its light drive just isn’t good enough to make that happen. It’s shielded so much that it can’t make that adjustment. The half mile limit on it is a mechanical detonator, not digital.”

“We need to talk to Fleet about that when we return.”

“Don’t you mean if we return?”

“Call me a glass half full type of person. I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t think we had a chance of surviving. There are still the fleets we have to slow down and I wouldn’t take the risk if I didn’t think it was justified. Amber, how long will we have to stay above that planet?”

“Less than two seconds.”

“Rocky, two seconds is an eternity to a computer.”

“But someone will have to sense us first. If our minds are really what our scientists say they are, they won’t even know we’re there.”

“They probably won’t sense you but the scanners on the planet will see something blocking their view of the warships above them.”

“You make a good point, Amber, but I suspect they haven’t really thought about that as a possibility and it will take some time for someone on the surface to make a decision that it’s a threat. If we try it again, I suspect the systems on the planet will automatically fire. But they should delay firing at their own ships in orbit the first time. Jill, start your targeting system collecting signatures of the closest ships the moment we enter normal space. DO NOT FIRE ON THEM UNLESS YOU SEE THEM REACTING TO OUR PRESENCE!”

“Yes Sir, oh Great Commander.”

“I’m serious, Jill.”

“I figured that out all on my own. You don’t have to worry about my being trigger happy.”

“I think she should launch before we leave.”

“What?”

“She could fire at all the ships directly above the city and really make them worry about how we did it.”