Escape to Earth 3: Defending Holy Ground (3 page)

“Notify Joey that he needs to start the blackout practices in earnest. We will remove all traces of our facilities on the moon and we’ll fight them outside the Milky Way’s edge. If we attack them inside the galaxy, the Fellowship Civilizations may be attacked as well. I’ll notify the Welken and send them a recording of what’s coming. They probably need to speed up their migrations as well.”

“What do you intend to do?”

“Once they make it inside the galaxy, moving our fleets around Earth will only lead them to it. All of our ships that survive will skip out to open space between galaxies and wait to see if Earth is found. Make sure every ship is carrying a huge supply of food pellets.”

“But…”

“There is no but. We can’t stop them once their force enters the Milky Way. They won’t know who was attacking them and they’ll be focused on finding Pat. I hope they ignore everything else and then go home if they don’t find him.”

“Why would they?”

“Because it’s extremely difficult to provision a warship with enough food for the time it’s going to take them to arrive and find Pat. They’ll have to go back to provision their ships or send another huge fleet with the necessary provisions. We’ll attack those ships and hopefully shorten the time they can remain in the Milky Way. I am going to leave Loree’s Scout Fleet behind to attack any conduit they try to build. If we can destroy those targets, they’ll be forced to leave. If they don’t find Earth quickly, they may be forced to leave and come back later.”

“With that many ships coming, how can they not find Earth?”

Lukas smiled, “There are 300 billion stars in the Milky Way and it’s estimated that two thirds of them have planets. Even with that many ships, the search will take a lot of time and if they miss it the first time they fly by, they’ll have to start the search over. I’m praying the blackout will make them miss.” Lukas nodded toward the monitor, “The more of them we can destroy on the way here, the more difficult it will be for them to find Earth. We cannot have a ship anywhere near our Solar System and the probes are going to have to be moved before we leave.”

“How are our battleships going to take them on?”

“We’re going to have to hit them on the edges and run. We’ll find out what the real range of their missiles are during this phase of the battle.”

“The ships have been equipped with DM Pebbles. Their missiles will run into them at a speed that will send them through the drive field.”

Lukas sighed, “Jinks, each battleship would have to carry six battleships’ loads of them to make a difference and that’s not possible. We’ll fight until we can’t survive and then we’ll fight some more.”

“Are you going?”

“I don’t want to but once they find Earth, Willow, Salud, and I will skip to the new planet.”

“Good!”

“I need you, Jinks. Don’t go and do something stupid like getting yourself killed.”

“I’ll try to avoid that.”

“Don’t just try, do it!”

“You know me.”

“That’s why I said that. Stick and move and make sure you move fast.”

Jinks looked at the Monitor, “I’ll be leaving tomorrow and start getting the fleets organized. We’ll seed their path as soon as the Invaders show us which way they’re coming.”

“That’s pretty easy.”

“Oh?”

“They’ll be coming just outside the disruption the first conduit made. It’s the most direct path here. Start seeding there.”

Jinks nodded and put out his hand. Lukas shook it and Jinks left the Operations Center.

• • •

The Great Ones linked their minds and the Leader thought, “I don’t like doing it this way.”

“What choice do we have? We’ve seen that we’re unable to defend the passages. Once we arrive at that galaxy and remove all the warships that have been attacking us, we’ll start a new passage.”

“What happens if that fails?”

“We’ll have enough ships to make sure it isn’t attacked.”

“You better hope so. We won’t be there long if it’s not built.”

“Even if that happens, we’ll combine stores and leave enough ships to find that being.”

“If we don’t get the ships back to our conquered galaxy, we could lose ground.”

“You talk like it’s an option.”

“You’re right. Even if we have to start all over, we won’t be allowed to delay finding the Creature being sought.”

“I’m worried about sending the ships with fewer crewmembers on them.”

The Leader sneered, “That’s the least of our worries. There’s enough to fight the ships. Most of the time is going to be spent traveling through the void. We don’t need to feed crew members that will be sleeping most of the time. We need the extra space for the provisions needed to make the trip. Get the next passage builder powered up and it can start when the fleets are halfway there.”

• • •

Windy and Indra watched the massive gathering of Orange Warships just outside the edge of the giant ball galaxy and wondered when ships would stop arriving. Windy spoke over her combat helmet, “Indra, do we have an idea of how many ships are out there?”

“Not really. They’re packed so tight the probes can’t make a determination.”

“It seems like a real waste of a good time to just let them gather without letting them know we’re looking forward to their arrival.”

“What do you have in mind, Windy?”

“We’re a really long way out from them but I see my Magnometer is swinging back and forth along their lines. I think the DM shells would be attracted to them from this far out.”

“Ummmm, if several hundred thousand shells arrived, I suspect they might try to break up that formation.”

“That wouldn’t be easy to do without hitting each other.”

“Do you think Fleet would approve of us firing now?”

“Fleet says our entire mission is to reduce their numbers. I don’t think Fleet cares where that happens.”

Indra stared at the monitor and shrugged, “We need to make sure every shell hits a ship. Let’s do this. Let’s line up our fleets into a long line and put some space between our ships. Each of our ships will fire a DM Shell directly at that line of Invader ships, wait five seconds, and then fire another round. We’ll watch what happens and if it works, we’ll do it again.”

“How much spacing?”

“I think twenty miles between our ships should do it, Windy. We still won’t be able to cover their entire line.”

Windy nodded, “You go right and I’ll go left. Our fleets will use our flagships as the anchor to line up on.” Windy looked at her communications officer, “Greg, send the orders. Indra and I will be twenty miles from each other and have my ships line up to my port side.”

Windy watched her fifty thousand battleships move quickly into a line and saw Indra’s fleet doing the same. Greg looked at Windy, “Admiral, the ships are in position and their cannons are loaded and live.”

Windy activated the general frequency, “All ships in both fleets will fire on my command, wait five seconds, and fire again. Ready…FIRE!!”

• • •

A hundred thousand DM Shells shot away from the ONE WORLD Fleets and headed toward the distant Invader formations. They were traveling at an incredible velocity but the attraction of the Invader magnetic fields doubled their speed by the time they arrived. Most of the Invaders wouldn’t have known they were under attack with twenty miles separating each ship that was hit. However, the DM Shells were traveling so fast that they blew through the bows of the ships they hit and exited out the stern, taking out two more ships behind the first one hit before they ran out of energy. It was the explosions of the three ships that warned the Invaders that they were being fired on. What followed was too crazy to follow.

• • •

Windy watched her monitor showing the massive Invader formations and from her vantage point, she saw massive explosions happening within their ranks. The entire line of Invader Warships all tried to break out of formation just as the second salvo of DM Shells arrived. Windy shook her head at how many Invader ships were hit by another trying to escape. She heard Indra over the loud speaker, “On my command, fire another salvo and withdraw. Ready, FIRE!!”

The two fleets fired again and the hundred thousand battleships turned and accelerated away at top speed. Windy looked at her monitor and saw a massive wave of Orange Ships was accelerating toward their previous positions. Windy said calmly over her helmet communicator, “My fleet will go vertical, you take yours down.”

“See you after this is over.”

The two fleets separated and flew away from the path of the approaching Invader fleets. The massive wave rolled past them as every Orange Ship continued on the path toward the Milky Way. The Supreme Supal decided the late arrivals could catch up. He was not going to sit in line waiting to be fired on. The war was on.

• • •

Loree’s squadron was powered down far above the Invader formations and saw the massive explosions roll through the long line of Orange Ships. Once the massive gathering had managed to get organized and start moving, she saw thousands of broken and blasted ships left behind. “Barbie, how many ships did our two fleets take out?”

“More than two hundred and eighty thousand have been destroyed or damaged to the point where they will be unable to fly.”

Loree pursed her lips and nodded, “Good shooting. I don’t know if getting them started was a good thing but it was probably worth it to take out that many ships. Contact Operations and tell them the Invaders have launched their ships.”

“Yes Sir.”

• • •

Gunny Johanson and Scott McCagg watched the feed coming from the probes and Scotty said, “They’re moving on the trajectory Jinks told us to expect.”

“My fleet is seeding the path.”

Gerome Kitchens came on the frequency, “It seems like a long time ago when we were sitting on that helicopter, Gunny.”

“You really got under my skin that day, Kitch. I almost stopped liking Green Berets.”

“Now here we are with our fleets taking on an enemy that is beyond belief.”

“Are you ready to take the lower route?”

“I am. Scotty, you’re taking the upper aren’t you?”

“I am.”

Gunny sighed, “Once my ships have put the pebbles in their path, I’ll be joining Windy and Indra in normal space above your fleets. If they stick to their pattern, you should be able to fire the Gatling rounds and not have to worry about missing. We’ll be launching DM missiles as soon as they enter normal space.”

“Do you think this will make a difference, Gunny?”

“We want to accomplish two things and this should help with both. We need to slow them down so they use most of their provisions and we also want to reduce their numbers. With their void missiles, we can’t stand and fight them toe-to-toe. So fire and join us in normal space.”

“We’ll be right behind you.”

“Here they come. They will be hitting the DM pellets in about two minutes. Remember, fire and get out of there.”

Kitch watched Gunny’s fleet disappear from the void and looked at his scanner. The massive wave of Orange Ships were moving toward his fleet at high speed. He punched his panel and said, “Alright, you know your job. Fire a ten second burst from all your rotary cannons and get out of the void. If you hesitate, you’re dead. Don’t aim, just fire and drop your drive field!”

Scott’s fleet was above the path of the oncoming wave of invader ships just beyond the Dark Matter balls. He saw the massive wave come boring in and suddenly, hundreds of thousands of them began exploding as they ran into the Dark Matter balls. The massive wave suddenly broke into two waves, with one going vertical and the other diving below their former line of approach. Scott’s and Kitch’s fleets opened fire with their rotary cannons firing tens of thousands of DM rounds into the two masses. The Invaders launched a wave of void missiles that blocked out the view of the Orange Ships. The high-speed missiles came flashing in on the ONE WORLD battleships and went through the space they occupied a moment before.

• • •

The numbers of Orange Ships popping into normal space was staggering. Gunny and Windy’s ships began salvoing their DM Missiles and they bore in on the magnetic fields the Invader ships gave off. The wave of destruction was running rampant in the Invaders ranks. Gunny and Kitch joined Windy and Indura’s ships and in a few moments, space was filled with missiles accelerating into the ranks of the Invaders that had been hit in the void.

Windy watched the destruction and shook her head, “Pan, what about the wave in the void?”

“The probe shows that they are continuing to move above and below the balls. Some are starting to slow down.”

Windy yelled into her communicator, “PREPARE TO GET OUT OF HERE!! THEY’RE SENDING SHIPS OUT OF THE VOID!!”

Gunny yelled, “SKIP NOW!!”

• • •

A massive wave of Invader ships appeared in normal space and opened fire on the four ONE WORLD fleets. Hundreds of battleships began blowing up around him just as Gunny left normal space. A giant wave of the Invader’s disruptor beams shot out at the thousands of DM missiles that were fired by the battleships. However, even though the Dark Matter warheads had their thrusters burned off, they continued to be attracted to the magnetic fields of the Invader Ships. They picked up speed and massive explosions walked the ranks of the Invader Ships that had just arrived in normal space.

The Human Battleships entered the void and skipped away with thousands of Invaders chasing each ship. But they couldn’t match the speed of the fast moving human ships. Windy looked at the feed coming in from the probe and saw the giant wave of Orange Ships had come to a stop to counter the ambush and to avoid running into more DM Balls. She saw more than three thousand battleships had been destroyed when the Invaders entered normal space and opened fire. She glanced at the tactical monitor and saw the probe’s report that more than a hundred thousand Invader Ships had been damaged or destroyed, but it was not a victory. Humanity could not afford to lose that many ships even if a hundred thousand enemy vessels were destroyed. This was a definitive war of attrition and so far, the Invaders were winning.

“Windy, we didn’t react fast enough.”