Ultimate Warrior (The Fight for Creation (Book Three)) (26 page)

“It would have worked but we would have been forced to work over the top or bottom of the formation. This allows us to go into their ranks.”

“I see you’ve been able to make the field thin enough to fly between ships. We can drop our attack ships on the enemy above and below our path of entry. That should open a hole large enough for Fleet to exploit.”

“I suspect the Destroyers will scramble their forces once this gets started. We’re going to be forced to choose a path that gets us into the largest concentration of their ships.”

“I’ll be showing you what I see.”

“We don’t have much longer.”

“Well, we still have some work to do. Let’s do the exercise again. You were slow picking up the second group.”

“The first three were late in killing their target.”

“I don’t like saying this, but we can’t jeopardize all the other ships because one group is slow.”

“I know. I needed you to tell me that.”

“They will just have to catch up or teleport out. If they fall out of the formation, we will not change our attack to accommodate them.”

“Tell Dad and he’ll inform the squadrons. It’ll be better coming from him.”

Ken reached for his communicator.

• • •

The warning went out that the Destroyers were forming up and the three squadrons formed up away from the planet being attacked. Pixie looked at the feed being sent by a Zord and said, “It’s a shame we just can’t hit their ships with five beams simultaneously. That would make this much less dangerous.”

Ken looked up at her and suddenly closed his eyes. He hit the communicator and yelled, “WE’RE CHANGING OUR ATTACK PROFILE!”

Jixie looked at Sam as he said, “It’s entirely too late to make changes now.”

“Your Highness, we know that if we hit their ships with four beams in less than two seconds, their force field will fail. What if we all just line up on one long line in five ship groups and fire on the ships as we pass by. We wouldn’t have to pick up ships and drop them. We’ll destroy every ship we fly over.”

Jixie said, “He’s right!”

“They’ll also not be able to see us and have time to determine what’s hitting their ships. They won’t see the ships dropping out of nowhere. All they’ll see is beams hitting their ships. I’ll watch the pattern and let you and Pixie know whether to go under or over the ships we’re approaching. We can move twice as fast using this pattern.”

The Algeans heard the discussion and immediately formed in five ship groupings. Ken watched them make the formation and said, “Give yourselves about half a mile between each other so you can move left or right to hit a target. If we go into a dense cluster of their ships, close the distance. If the enemy ships are spaced out, increase the distance. Pixie and Jixie will extend the screen twenty miles from each side of the center. Fire together and move on to the next target. The center ship in your formations will fire at the reactors or weapons storage a hundredth of a second after the other four fire on the force field.”

Sam said, “I wish you had thought of this sooner.”

“It was Pixie’s idea. I just came up with a pattern to do it.” The eighteen five ship groups spread out and waited for the Destroyers to arrive.

Sam looked at the groups on his display and said, “How fast can we go through their ranks using this process?”

“You know the Algean’s reflexes. We’ll be moving too fast for them to target us. We’ll go through and turn outside their formations to pick another path. If we had practiced this we could have just kept moving through their ranks but I’m nervous about attempting that without having ever practiced.”

“I suspect the path we’ll follow will be determined by Ken. If I had to guess, we won’t be leaving their formation.”

Jixie shook her head, “Well, this should be more fun than I’ve had in years.”

Sam looked at his display and said, “Admiral Dennis’ Fleet has just arrived above the planet and are forming up. I’ll let him know we are going to be hitting them just as his ships attack the front of their fleet.”

• • •

The Destroyer fleet appeared a hundred thousand miles from the planet and saw the Realm’s thirty thousand ships waiting on them in orbit. The bronze colored ships remained stationary and Ken saw they were stretching their formations into a wider pattern. “They’ve called in additional ships.”

“How do you know?”

“They’re moving into a wider formation. Someone is going to form ranks behind them.” One moment there were only twenty thousand bronze ships and in the next moment there were thirty five thousand.

“Dennis has released his attack ships.”

Ken yelled, “Tell them to focus on the front five ranks. We’re going in between the sixth and twelfth.”

Jixie said, “Done. We’ll start our attack as soon as Dennis’ ships start firing.”

“You and Pixie should tune to my thoughts and follow the pattern I see.”

“We’re seeing it. Launch in five, four, three, two, one, NOW!”

• • •

The ninety two ships hit their thrusters and accelerated directly over the ninth rank of the invaders. Eighteen bronze ships exploded followed by eighteen more just inside the outer edge of the enemy’s formation. Then the line of ships exploding moved rapidly across the invader’s fleet killing more than four thousand ships in less than thirty seconds. The invisible line of ships arrived at the far edge of the enemy’s formation and turned hard left toward the enemy’s rear. A mass of ships eighteen wide exploded all the way back to the rear of the Destroyer fleet and then moved up the left side of their formation. Pixie and Jixie moved under the next ships as every ship in the Destroyer Fleet fired their beams over the top of their formation. The Bristone Realm Fleet arrived and slammed into the Destroyer formation that had gaping holes in their ranks. Ken thought, “Bear sixty degrees left. That’s where their flagship is located.”

The Bronze Destroyer Commander saw a long line of his ships exploding in a wave that was moving quickly toward his ship. He saw thousands of ships burning and he pressed the emergency jump button. His ship barely disappeared before the line of destruction washed over his former location. Suddenly, there were no Bronze Ships left. The survivors had all jumped away.

Sam said, “Where did they go?”

Pixie said, “They’re ten light years from here licking their wounds.”

Jixie said, “Stay in formation. They need to know the consequences of attacking a defenseless planet.”

The ninety two ships jumped to the enemy’s location and swept into their ranks again. This time the Commander wasn’t so lucky. Only fifteen hundred warships managed to survive of the original thirty five thousand.

• • •

Jixie, Sam, and Pixie began celebrating with their pilots. Ken replayed the video of the attack and let the images flow through his mind. Pixie looked at him and saw him sigh. “What’s wrong with you? We won.”

“We need to sit down and discuss this with your parents.”

Pixie didn’t like his expression, “You see something?”

“I do and it’s not good.”

• • •

Sam, Jixie, and Pixie sat in Castle Gardner’s Map Room as Ken worked the display. Sam watched the video of the battle and at the conclusion he looked at Ken, “I don’t see what has you so concerned?”

Ken looked at Pixie and Jixie, “Do either of you see it?” Both of them looked at each other and shook their heads.

“I want you to watch the video from the point where we dove under their ranks. Pay attention to what the ships in that fleet were doing. You couldn’t see it from below their ships.”

The video started and the three saw hundreds of thousands of beams crisscrossing above the Destroyer Fleet. Clarke shook his head, “I’ve run an analysis of the pattern they were firing and every square foot above their formation had a beam fired through it once every four seconds.”

Pixie’s eyes narrowed, “What does your analysis say would have happened to us if we had not gone under their ships?”

“If we had continued on the course we were flying, every one of our ships would have been hit multiple times.”

Sam shook his head, “There’s something else that’s bothering you.”

Ken slowly shook his head, “Why do you think the survivors jumped just ten light years away instead of back to their home worlds?”

Jixie stared at the frozen image of the Destroyer ships that had jumped away and said, “They were moving into a staggered formation.”

Ken nodded, “Now you see it.”

“This won’t work again.” Ken nodded again.

Sam said, “Why not?”

Ken nodded to Jixie and she said, “The survivors saw that something was moving across their formations firing at their ships. They could see the line of exploding ships and could see that whatever it was moved above and below their ranks. The duration of their beams when they all started firing was about five seconds. If they form a staggered formation, we won’t be able to fly between the different levels. The ships will be too close to move through their ranks. All the entry lanes into the middle of their formation will be blocked. Now that they know what we can do they will continuously fire their beams above and below their fleet. The stagger between their ships will give them complete coverage on all sides.”

Ken nodded, “And if they see a line of ships being hit, they’ll fire a massive barrage of their main beams into our path. We might be invisible, but that field will not protect our ships.” Ken paused and said, “This new formation will also make it impossible for our Fleet’s attack ships to penetrate their formation. They have actually emerged from this conflict stronger than before. It is my opinion that they will be back momentarily to attack that planet again and it’s certain death to try and stop them.”

Pixie and Jixie thought furiously trying to find a counter to the new formation and came up empty. Pixie said, “Is there nothing we can do?”

Ken looked at the formation on the display and put it into motion in his mind. The three watched him and after a minute he raised his wrist unit and pushed his com. Sprigly appeared on the wall display and Ken said, “I’m sending you the video of the battle and a recording of the conversation we just had. Let us know when you have it digested.”

Three seconds passed and Sprigly said, “You’re right. We can’t attack that formation without losing massive numbers of ships. All that fleet has to do is get close enough to the planet to blast it and we won’t be able to prevent it.”

“Sprigly, what’s the most powerful bomb we have in our arsenal?”

“It’s a Captor energy ball.”

“Is it strong enough to penetrate their force fields?”

“Not by itself. The Captors found that when they fire their main beams into one of them it exploded with ten times the force. Even if it didn’t break through their force fields, it would slam the ships so hard that it would break them in half.”

“What would be the radius of the destruction?”

“The balls could expand to thirty thousand miles wide but the immediate shock wave would only be effective for about five thousand miles. Why do you ask?”

“If they use a closely staggered formation, thirty thousand ships would only occupy a two thousand mile front. Their ships will be so close together that if we could get one of those bombs into the center of their formation…”

Sprigly was thinking furiously and after thirty seconds he said, “It should destroy the entire fleet.”

Sam said, “First of all, do we have any of the Captor Balls?”

“We do.”

Sam turned to Ken, “Secondly, just how do you intend to get that ball into the center of their fleet?”

“I’m not going to do it; Pixie is.”

Pixie jerked her head toward Ken and said, “And just how am I going to do that?”

“You are a Scout and you do have a main beam in your armor. Just jump it into the center of their formations and fire your main beam into it. Just make sure you run as soon as you do it.”

Pixie turned to Sprigly, “Just how big is one of those balls?”

“It’s really small compared to the amount of energy it creates.”

“How big is it, Sprigly?”

“About fifty feet in diameter.”

“And what does it weigh?”

“About a ton.”

Ken looked at Pixie, “You won’t have to carry it in. Just jump it in, fire on it, and get the fletch out of Dodge.”

Pixie furrowed her brow, “What’s Dodge?”

Jixie said, “Look at the ancient entertainment video’s that ancient humans used to view.”

Pixie thought a moment and said, “That’s an appropriate analogy.” Pixie turned back to the display, “How long does it take before the Captor Ball explodes from the beam strike?”

“It’s pretty much instantaneous.”

Pixie turned to Ken, “I thought you cared about me?”

Ken shook his head, “Pixie, jump in and drop the ball then just jump away. Those ships are going to be on a hair trigger. What do you think they’ll do if an object suddenly appears in their formation?” The corner of Pixie’s mouth turned up and Ken said, “If they don’t fire on it, jump forty miles away and fire on it yourself and you’ll have enough time to jump away. My suggestion is to hit one of the ships with your beam that is close to the ball. You’ll have plenty of time to jump away before they can target the source of your beam and fire on the ball.”

Sam didn’t like putting Pixie in danger but Jixie said, “Pixie, you can do this in your sleep. If you’re not comfortable, I’ll do it.”

“No, I’ll do it. You know you’re starting to get a little old and you might be too slow.”

Jixie stared at Pixie and said, “Sprigly, send me one those balls. I need to show my daughter who the slow one is around here.”

“Aw Mom, I was just kidding.”

“Sprigly, send me that ball!”

Sam said, “Hey, hey, this is not a competition.”

Pixie said, “Send two of them.”

Sam looked at Ken and said, “See what you’re getting in to.”

Ken smiled and said, “They both should do it. It will be good practice for them.”

Jixie turned to Ken, “Practice for what?”

“To destroy their home worlds; we need to take the initiative and quit responding to their attacks. However, we should only use one this time.” He pulled out a coin and said, “One of you call it.”