Escape to Earth 1: Running From Fate (32 page)

Suddenly the wall speaker activated and a voice said, “If you move your ships or open a door to launch your attack craft, my ships will open fire on you.”

The Fleet Leader’s eyes narrowed and he jerked his head around to the Communications Operator, “Who is that?”

“I don’t know, Leader. It’s come in on a Fellowship Frequency.”

The Leader’s face showed his anger, “We have taken possession of this planet and the Sentinels have declared us the victor. You will leave or the Sentinels will remove you for violating Fellowship Covenants.”

“We are not members of the Fellowship. We are part of the forces from the planet you are attacking and as such, fall outside the Covenants to which you’re referring.”

“Leader, your conversations are being broadcast to the planet.”

“How?” The Communication’s Operator lifted his head in a shrug.

The Leader looked at this Scanner Operator, “Leader, I do not see anything near our ships.”

The Fleet Leader leaned back in his chair and said, “Ship ten, launch a missile.”

• • •

Tim and Julie saw the missile port open on the battleship they were assigned and Tim said, “I’ll go up the left side bow to stern.”

“I’ve got the right from stern to bow.”

Tim said, “Arm disruptors, take us down the left side.” The small Attack Pod roared in on the giant battleship and the three disruptors began firing. Three shots left the small ship every second and they punched through the giant’s force field and massive explosions walked the entire left side of the battleship as the other side of the ship was hit by Julie’s disruptors. The Pods activated their force fields as they started their attack and they withstood more than fifty disruptor beams fired at them before the giant ship went up in an explosion that lit the dark side of the planet below.

The missile that was in the open port exploded and after the blast cleared, there was nothing remaining but a debris field of particles no bigger than dust motes. The Fleet Leader watched the ship blown up and he was frozen in shock.

• • •

Jim sat at his desk and looked up at the images of the giant ship blown into dust. He recognized the voice; it was Jinks. He lowered his head and prayed for the survival of his family and thanked God for the intervention.

• • •

Jinks waited a moment and said, “I have all of your ships targeted and if you make an aggressive move, I will blast them into rubble.”

The Fleet Leader looked at his display and didn’t see any enemy ships around his fleet. But he also didn’t see the two ships that destroyed his ship. He heard, “Leader, Hagette is opening his doors to release his attack craft.” The Leader jerked his eyes to the main monitor and saw the massive explosions walk the length of the Johan Battleship and the monster exploded before they moved halfway down the ship. A disruptor beam punched into the reactor room and the nuclear fuel blew up in a run-away reaction. The entire ship exploded scattering debris out from the blast’s center. The two Attack Pods were blown away by the shockwave but were undamaged. John Avery broke an arm but was otherwise ok. He straightened his horn-rimmed glasses with his good hand and turned his pod around to join the ships at the eight surviving Johan Battleships.

Jinks said calmly, “I see that you didn’t order that ship to attack so I’m not going to destroy your ships for your subordinate’s obvious stupid behavior. You will move your ships away from this planet and leave this planetary system immediately. If you fail to follow my instructions, I will blast your remaining ships.”

“We can’t leave! There are thousands of Myot and Welken Battleships waiting for us. They’ll attack if we move out of this system.”

“Then I hope you manage to outrun them. I will tell you that you will certainly die if you stay. I should destroy you now for the deaths you have caused on my planet. However, I want you to deliver a message to your Ruler.”

“What is that?”

“If he sends ships here to attack us again, the Myot and Welken will follow their skip drive traces back to your home world and take this planet out of your possession. I would caution him to not make a fatal mistake.” The Fleet Leader was frozen. Never in the past had a primitive planet defeated an invading fleet. He had no protocol to lead him in what to do. Jinks paused and said, “I will commence my attacks on your ships if you don’t skip out of here in ten, nine, eight, seven…”

The Weapon’s Operator yelled, “ALL SHIPS, MOVE AWAY FROM THE PLANET AT HIGH SPEED AND SKIP AWAY OUTSIDE THE PLANET’S GRAVITY INTERFERENCE!!”

The eight Johan Battleships lit their thrusters and accelerated away from Earth at their maximum speed. Twenty minutes later, they arrived far enough away to activate their skip drives and the eight survivors skipped away in eight different directions.

Julie completed her attack and turned toward her second target. She roared in on the Fellowship Probe and blasted it into vapor. She looped back around and joined the other ships following the Johan ships out to the skip point. John didn’t follow them out but headed back to the island to get his broken arm looked at.

Salud looked at Lukas, “Why did you allow them to escape?”

Lukas looked at the Leadership Team standing around him and saw that the laborers had stopped working to hear his answer. He looked around at the angry faces and shook his head, “If you were caught out in the wood by a pack of wolves and they killed several of you, would you then go out and kill every wolf?”

His question was greeted with silence. After a few moments Julio shouted, “The wolves were only doing what they know to survive. You were just unlucky to encounter them, Señor.”

“The Johan were doing what they’ve learned. Their ships aren’t the strongest in the Fellowship by far. If I killed them, I’d be little more than what they are. I will tell you again that our ships are not being built for us to become universal conquerors. They’re being built to prevent us being conquered. If you don’t understand this, you should leave now.”

Amanda said, “But they killed so many.”

“That’s on us, not them. The Swiss Scientists blindsided me and I’ve learned that we should always prepare for the worst to happen. I fell asleep at the wheel thinking we had more time than was actually there. We will not allow that to happen again.”

The room was silent and Salud came up and moved under Lukas’ arm. “It’s so hard to do the right thing when so many have died. But I will stand beside you and follow you to the end.”

Jinks looked at Lukas and took a deep breath, “I will as well, Lukas.”

The laborers began cheering and Julio shouted out to George, “See, I told you so.”

George took off his hat and threw it in the air, “You were right, wise little man.”

Lukas looked up, “Willow, connect me with Stoney.” Stoney appeared on the wall monitor and he was holding a baby. Lukas smiled, “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“I’m working with Kathy and she’s currently in the simulator.”

“Stoney, I need the second Gold Star Class trained and bonded with a ship as fast as possible.”

“The ships have selected their pilots. I would suggest that they work in the simulators non-stop until they complete the entire program. They will be able to fight after going through fifty percent but they will be much more effective if they can complete the entire simulation program.”

“You should pull them out long enough to show them what happened. That way they’ll know what they’re fighting for.”

“We’ll do that tonight. Are you going to use the current classes at the University?”

“We’ll run them through the tests and see how many pass. I think we’re going to have to go outside the normal channels to find enough pilots to man the pods we’ve built.”

“Just make sure they’re sheep dogs and not wolves.”

The monitor went dark and Jinks said, “Stoney actually looked like he enjoyed holding that baby.”

Salud smiled, “I think it was the baby that enjoyed it.” Jinks looked at her with his eyes narrowed and then he smiled and nodded. Salud looked at Lukas and whispered, “You deliberately sent her to Stoney.”

“Perhaps.”

Salud smiled and kissed him on the cheek. Lukas looked at her and said, “I want you to think about coincidence.”

“What about it?”

“You tell me.” Lukas turned away and walked over to the workers and began installing disruptor modules with them. Salud thought about the word coincidence and looked around the room. She looked at Trevor and Amanda. She turned to Jinks and Sarah and then heard the TV announcer say that all of the leaders in Iran were killed in the nuclear blast that destroyed Tehran. The survivors were coming together and were gathering up the Oman’s that called for suicide bombers and attacks on the innocent. The Chinese were in the mist of another revolution and the United States was reeling from the loss of all its elected officials. Suddenly, the nations around Earth began calling each other asking what to do.

She looked Willow and shook her head. Now, events came rushing into her consciousness. She looked at Lukas and saw him glance at her. He put his finger to his lips and went back to work. There was too much coincidence. Far too much! Even her working on the force field equation at just the moment Lukas inserted his correction. She thought that their fate was to survive. But this wasn’t fate, it was something else entirely.

She walked out of the building and sat down on a beach chair. She started shaking her head but the events kept rushing into her mind. Lukas’ name was the same as the dead boy he used as a background. That was impossible. Lukas won the two pro-golf tournaments never having competed before and he couldn’t explain why he chose to golf but that it had to be done. One of them was Augusta for God’s sake. It was playing golf that allowed her to meet Jinks and he was one of the most important pieces of the puzzle they were putting together. Lukas had to be seen on national TV for Kathy to identify him to Jinks. It was also being his caddie that cemented their relationship. Without golf the threads would have unraveled and not come together at just the right moment. But there was more; the owner of the apartment that could identify Lukas to Jinks died of a heart attack three months before Willow blasted away. Tehran was the only city destroyed. One of the least powerful members of the fellowship won possession of Earth. Jinks didn’t turn her in, when he should have. The Swiss developed a stardrive and didn’t reveal it to anyone until it was too late to stop them from activating it. The Military and the CIA stopped investigating them when those two paranoid agencies never stopped. Two very high powered people were working at the same restaurant who were absolutely necessary for this project to ever get off the ground and they joined with little resistance. She stopped and could see the monitor in her mind with Stoney holding Kathy’s baby. She was only with Lukas once and…

Salud stood up. She looked up at the stars and shook her head. She thought about fate, destiny, or whatever term you chose to describe a future that followed a proscribed path. Fate was not something that lent itself to outside control. But Lukas saw it happening around him and never spoke about it. Impossible events were taking place and he remained silent. Even now he told her not to say anything. She felt a chill run down her spine. Something or someone was controlling what was happening down to the smallest details. She knew Lukas had run a risk to tell her. It was clear that something was amiss and she couldn’t talk about it with anyone; not even Lukas. She shook her head at the misery Lukas must have been enduring watching all the events happen around him and not being able to say anything.

She stood up and went back into the building. She walked over to Lukas and hugged him tightly and nodded slightly on his chest. She released him and walked over to the disruptor modules and picked one up. Lukas watched her go to one of the attack pods and insert the module into a disruptor. She looked at him and saw him nod and then smile. He was no longer alone in his attempt to escape fate. But was an escape possible? She aligned the module and fought her fears. She examined all of the decisions he had made and then she saw it. He hadn’t begun the fight…yet. Telling was his first salvo.

The End