Nowhere to Run (19 page)

What space warfare lacked in duration it more than made up for in destruction that happened every second. The millions of ships were enmeshed in a massive tangle where chaos ruled. Eight waves of invading ships arrived and were finally defeated by the Black Ships. Of the ten million Black Ships that started the fight, only three million remained but they had prevailed against the invader. The space outside Andromeda was littered with millions of blasted and burning warships. The Black Ships began celebrating their victory and the Black Civilization breathed a sigh of relief. It was at just that moment that their alarms went off again and the incoming wave dwarfed all the others they recorded. Four million invading ships of all different colors emerged into normal space and now the Black Ships no longer had the advantage of numbers. They fled into the galaxy and fought the invaders among the planets and stars between them and their home star cluster. The fight continued for three days and that’s when the home worlds of the Black Civilization began enduring what they had visited on all the other civilizations in Andromeda. A month later, the Black Civilization became a footnote in history.

Then the struggle began among the invaders on how the newly conquered galaxy was going to be divided. None of them would attack each other due to repercussions that might arise back at their home worlds. Some of the invaders had left the fight early to claim the more valuable systems and it took a long time to persuade them that possession did not imply ownership. The struggle lasted more than two years before order was brought out of the chaos. It took another year for the various civilizations to move the needed building materials and technology necessary to colonize a planet.

It was at that moment that the invaders began looking across space at the spiral galaxy a short distance away. Nothing feeds conquest like victory. A meeting was called and the rules for the next invasion were hammered out among the attendees. Three years, eleven months, and six days after the invasion of Andromeda began, ships began gathering.

• • •

The new scanner watched the ships gathering and sent the data back to the Union. Moe sent the data to the updated and highly modified Hub Computer and both civilizations went on a war alert.

• • •

The two hundred thousand planets of the Union were only able to build one ship each the first year after the fall of Andromeda. The second year they were able to manufacture ten ships each. By the end of the third year they were producing fifty a year.

The Kilper Civilization was far ahead of the Union in ship building capacity but all of their facilities had to be modified to construct the new ships. That process took a year and a half but once they began the numbers built was impressive. Those hundred worlds were building a hundred ships a month the first year and five hundred ships a month by the end of the second year. The crews for the ships came from the planets of the Union, the Kilper Civilization, and the billions of former slaves that knew their survival was now tied to the two civilizations. The common enemy had removed the old wounds and now they became invested members of the new alliance and were represented in the governing bodies that made the decisions that directed their efforts.

• • •

The two civilizations had also taken steps to ensure their survival in the event the Milky Way fell to the invaders. Thousands of colony ships had moved to other galaxies and new worlds came into existence to exact revenge in the future. The Main Obelisk and Hub Computers were the main tools that make it possible to drive the massive changes. They organized the production of raw materials and distribution of all the things necessary to make an advanced civilization function optimally. The coming conflict was going to be monumental but now there was at least hope of survival. It all hinged on the new ships and their ability to face the invaders head on and fight them toe to toe. It wasn’t going to be long before that question was answered.

I
an looked at his display with the tactical arrangements of the million ships he was directing. They were divided into fifty fleets of twenty thousand ships and his group was going to go into M87 on a parallel track to the trajectory the Black Ships had followed. They were going in looking for trouble. He looked at Violet, “Have the Fleet Admirals reported in?”

“They have.”

“Have them standby.” Ian pressed his board and Doc appeared, “Are you ready to be rowdy?”

“We’re systems ready and waiting for your Battle Group to lead the way.”

“We are not going to hit their planets on this mission.”

“Spoil sport.”

“I’m serious, Doc. Our first effort is to force them to delay any operations against our galaxy. I’m hoping we can ultimately negotiate with them. Once we start destroying their worlds, all bets are off.”

“I’ve issued those instructions to the fleets. I guess we’ll find out if this new technology actually works.”

Ian shrugged, “If it doesn’t, then there’s nowhere to run.”

“I hear you. Count it down.”

Ian turned on the general frequency and said, “We will be jumping into M87 on my mark.”

Suddenly Dee interrupted the countdown, “Ian, we can’t jump to M87.”

Ian said, “Damn that woman!” He pressed the board and said, “The countdown is on hold. I repeat, the countdown is on hold.” Ian released the button and said, “For God’s sake, what is it this time?”

“There aren’t any Green Ships in Andromeda.”

“What!?!”

“I’ve just looked at the scan sent us from the advanced scanner and there aren’t any Green Ships in Andromeda.”

Ian looked at Violet and she shrugged, “So?”

“Ian, that means that there are civilizations in M87 that didn’t participate in the invasion. They are not supporting the conquests. If we go into M87 and attack those that aren’t participating we will unite that galaxy against us.”

“How do you know the Green Ships aren’t the only one that didn’t participate?”

“I don’t know for certain.”

Ian focused on the idea and after a moment said, “We can’t risk it.”

“That’s how I see it.”

Ian thought a moment and said, “Violet, do we have the location of the ships gathering in Andromeda?”

“I do.”

“Doc, are you hearing this?”

“I am, Ian.”

“We’re not going to waste a good opportunity. We’re all here, dressed, and have a ticket to an event. We need to use it. Moe, can you issues attack profiles to our ships to hit those ships in Andromeda?”

“I’ll handle your fleet and the Hub Computer will issue the coordinates to Doc’s fleets.”

“How long will it take?”

“An hour and thirty minutes.”

“Get on it.”

• • •

Doc looked at Dee, “Why didn’t you see this before now?”

“Something has been bothering me but I couldn’t get my mind around it. I looked at our attack path into M87 and saw we would be taking on the Green Ships. I decided I wanted to have a good look at one of them and looked at the scan from Andromeda. Now I also see that the Grey Ships are also not among the invaders.”

“Did you deliberately prevent yourself from seeing this before now?”

“How would I know? I don’t have a clue how I do this. However, this feels right.”

Doc waited for the new assignments to be sent and he thought about his new Theta Ship. The entire ship was now a hull built around a Higgs-Boson blaster. A Higgs field surrounded the new ship with only an atom’s thickness separating the force field from the hull of the ship. Any beam fired at the ship would be collapsed into Boson particles and funneled into the Boson Collectors. The enemy’s beams would actually be used to increase the power of the new Boson Blasters. The Boson Beam was only an inch wide but would cause a nuclear explosion in anything it hit. The small beam had a range of two hundred miles but was best aimed at less than fifty miles. The ships still had their prism shape and if the Higgs Force Field was weakened, the force one deflectors would take over. The ships performed in their trials but had not been hit with a beam possessing the power of the invader’s beams. This would determine if the new ship could stand up to the ships from M87. The two huge Battle Groups reoriented toward Andromeda and began receiving their assignments.

Ian watched the data flow into his computer and saw that the two giant groups of ships would be coming in at the ship gathering in the shape of a sphere with the invader’s ships in the center. He thought about it and decided that this attack profile would allow his ships to fire head on at the enemy fleets and not have to worry about ships to their flanks. Doc’s ships would form another larger sphere around the inner globe facing outward and take on any of the enemy ships that managed to jump out.

Dee sent a thought, “Dom, be careful.”

“I’ll do what I can, sis. My ships are well trained and D does an excellent job of adapting on the fly. I’ll see you after this is over.”

“Hug Becky for me; I don’t want to lose a sister-in-law.”

“I will.”

• • •

Ian finally received the notification that all the ships had their targets and pressed the general frequency, “Alright, let’s try this again. We will be jumping directly to our assignments on my mark in five seconds. Hit them hard and jump away. We’re jumping in five, four, three, two, one, and mark!”

• • •

The Invader Commander watched as his five waves organized to jump to the spiral galaxy. The final wave was finally getting organized when his navigator screamed, “A MASSIVE WAVE IS RUSHING AT US!”

The Commander only had time to look at his display and see a million green ships appear in a sphere surrounding his formations and then his ship exploded in a nuclear blast. The Union/Kilper Fleets fired into the invader formations at the ship groups that were assigned to them. They hit their initial target and began firing at the ships close by their first target; the huge sphere of ships grew smaller as it rushed at the tightly packed warships. A million ships exploded within a second of the fleets emerging into normal space and another eight hundred thousand exploded two seconds later.

Gary looked at Abbey and flew the ship between two giant ships and Abbey hit both of them with a Boson Beam. They exploded and Gary saw four Union Ships being hit by multiple beams. He flipped the ship and accelerated back toward the ships and killed six enemy ships before he left normal space for an instant as a hundred enemy beams ripped through his former location. He reemerged into normal space and flew through four more ships as Abbey hit them and exploded them in massive nuclear fireballs. Abbey watched her scanners and said, “Are we having fun yet?”

“This beats training pilots.”

“You’ve got that right.” They hit six more ships and flew away. After the battle the computers determined that Gary and Abbey had killed more enemy ships than any other crew.

• • •

Two million invader ships jumped out of the attacking sphere and turned to come back at the attackers from outside the sphere, only to be faced with another million ships rushing at them from outside the inner sphere. A million of the Invader Ships were exploded and another three hundred thousand exploded moments later. Suddenly, the attackers shot away from the site of the attack in millions of different directions at a speed faster than the speed of light.

One of the surviving Invader Leaders yelled, “Follow those ships!”

“How? We don’t have a means of tracking ships moving faster than light.”

“Where did they come from?”

“That wave came at us from open space.”

The Leader looked at his panel and saw that of the original five million ships, only one million, seven hundred thousand ships had survived the attack. The Leader yelled, “Spread out; don’t congregate in large groups.”

The survivors jumped away and put more than a hundred miles between them. The leader looked at the nuclear shock waves moving out from their former formations and jumped away before they rolled over his ship. This planned attack on the other galaxy was over before it started.

• • •

Doc said, “Drey, did we lose any ships?”

“More than eleven thousand were destroyed.”

“How?”

“They were each hit by more than sixty of the enemy’s beams and their Higgs Force Field failed in one place and allowed it to touch their hull. That contact collapsed the ships into particles smaller than an atom.”

Doc looked at Dee and said, “That removes one worry.”

Dee nodded, “They didn’t explode in a tremendous nuclear blast like we thought they would.”

Doc thought a moment and said, “I think I know why.” Dee raised her eyebrows and Doc said, “The Higgs Field hit the Boson particles in the collectors and they canceled each other out.”

Dee thought about it and said, “The Boson only exists for less than a second before changing into a Higgs Field. The collapsing Higgs Field must have accelerated that process.”

“This removes the need of a self-destruct circuit.” Dee nodded. Doc said, “Your determination that they don’t use a Skinner Field on any of their ships was also a stroke of genius to use FTL to escape.”

“How can they track something they didn’t know existed? They can track us through other space but they are blind to FTL tracks.”

Doc pushed his board, “Ian, how many ships did you lose?”

“More than fifteen thousand.”

“We were more fortunate being outside the inner sphere; we only lost eleven thousand.”

“Head back to Fleet Headquarters and we’ll take a look at what we accomplished.”

Violet said, “The advanced scanners report that we destroyed more than three million ships.”

Ian smiled, “It appears we have a weapon to use against them.”

Violet smiled, “Indeed it does.”

Doc came on the display and said, “Ian, Dee just did an analysis of the beams that were used by the ships we attacked.”

“And?”

“Most of them were quite powerful but none of them came close to the beams being used by the Green Ships.”

Ian stared at Doc on the display and asked the question he wanted to avoid, “How close were they?”