Saxon Andrew - A rose grows in weeds

Tag was smiling and he immediately noticed that Mikado and Chen were shaking their heads in admiration. Dorg stood and said, “Commodore, you are tasked with setting up the five jumps and getting the penetrators in place. Our fleets will be slaved to your ship, so take us on a ride that the Plants will not soon forget. We might get them to quit trying to follow us eventually if they keep losing ships.”

Ron-Dar stood and said, “Yes sir, I’ll have it set up in five rotations. I don’t want to take the penetrators from our ships stores so I’ll get Cade to transport the penetrators to the five systems selected in advance.”

Chen asked. “How long will it take to get the penetrators in place?”

Ron-Dar said, “I suspect it will take at least twenty more rotations. I think we have time because the harvesters at the planet have not started moving out yet.”

Tag stood and said, “This meeting is over, we will probably leave within three days after the penetrators are in place. The sensor probe we left behind in the system indicates that three of the harvesters have gathered away from the planet but it looks like forty more are still being loaded. I suspect that within thirty days they will start their exit and of course that is when we will make a grand entrance. Get your ships ready, we will form up at the jump point we will use to exit the system. We’ll start our attack from there.”

Everyone stood and left the room and Tag sat back down thinking about the upcoming conflict and then thought, “Atlas, did you listen in on our meeting?”

“Yes, I did,” Atlas replied.

“I don’t know why, but something doesn’t feel right about this upcoming battle.”

“Listen to your feelings. I would suggest that your departure plans from the harvesting system not be delayed if things get out of control.”

“Do you know anything?”

“No, but I’ve seen too many of your hunches to know that you should listen to them.”

“Ok, I hope it’s not something too bad, but I don’t feel right calling off the attack simply because of a bad feeling.”

“I think that’s the most important reason to call it off. Remember, your psychic skills will protect you. Don’t try to analyze them, just trust them.”

Tag sat a moment in silence, and then he thought to Atlas, “I’ll contact Sung Lea and see if she sees anything. Beyond that, I have to think about what we should do.” He stood to leave but the feeling of wrongness would not go away and followed him out of the room.

Rose was sitting in her play room with her toys on the day of the fleet’s departure and could sense the bad feeling her father was experiencing as he sat on his ship getting ready to travel to the weed galaxy. She got up and walked out of her room and went to the library where the map of galaxies was located. She sat down surrounded by the ten bunnies that had followed her into the room and looked at the maps. She took the band out of her hair, let her pony tail fall to her shoulders, and closed her eyes. The cursor began moving by itself on the map; it stopped on the galaxy of the Algeans. The galaxy grew larger and soon filled the whole room. She closed her eyes again and let her mind move from planet to planet until she found what she was looking for; two huge plant fleets holding position with all the ships in formation. She looked closer and saw that they were loaded with anti-matter missiles already charged and ready for launch. She listened in on the transmissions between those two fleets and the fleet at the planet being harvested. They were planning a trap. She thought about what she should do and decided that this was information she needed to share with her father but first she was going to ask her mother if that was misusing her talents. She walked into her mother’s office carrying her favorite bunny where Danielle was meeting with Leila and Eric about expanding the west wing of the castle. She stood there and waited for them to finish their work. Leila was saying, “I think we can complete the plans within two months and, oh, hi, Rose. Is there something you need?”

“I need to ask Mommy a question.” Rose said softly.

Danielle looked at Rose and started to tell her to wait until later but noticed that Rose had her big girl look on her face. “Leila, will you and Eric excuse me for just a moment?”

“Certainly, Your Majesty.”

Danielle walked over to Rose and took her hand and then walked out of the office into the reading room. “What question do you have, darling?”

Rose looked uncomfortable and looked at the floor and said, “You know how you and Daddy say I should not use my talents to take advantage of others?”

“Yes, darling, why do you ask?”

“Does that include taking advantage of the bad weeds too?”

Danielle straightened up and said quickly, “Rose, what do you know?”

“The weeds are planning a trap for Daddy and his friends.”

Danielle turned pale and said, “What kind of trap?”

“”Are you sure it’s ok to use my talent if it hurts the weeds?”

“Absolutely, Rose, especially if your Father in danger.”

Rose smiled and said, “I thought so but I wanted to make sure. The weeds have two very big groups of ships waiting to attack Daddy when he goes to help those people.”

“Tag,” Danielle thought, “I need you right now,”

Tag was sitting in his command chair on board the Retribution talking with Sung Lea again to see if she had seen any new visions of the upcoming attack and he did not want to be interrupted. “Can it wait, Darling?”

“Absolutely not; stop what you’re doing, pay attention and stop your planned jump immediately.” Danielle said in a stern tone.

Tag looked at his com and said, “Sung Lea, I apologize but I have an emergency call I need to take. I’ll contact you in a few moments.” Sung Lea nodded and disappeared off his screen. He then turned to Ron-Dar and said, “Put the countdown on hold until I order otherwise.” Ron-Dar looked startled but turned and issued the order over the general fleet channel. “Danielle, what’s going on,” he thought at his wife.

“Tag, Rose sees two huge Algean fleets preparing to jump in and attack your ships when you jump to the harvesting system.”

Tag sat straight up in his chair and thought, “Rose, what do you see?”

“May I show you my mind picture, Daddy?”

“Show your Mother and me, Rose.”

Suddenly Tag and Danielle could see the two huge Plant Fleets waiting in formation. Danielle said, “Oh my god. How many ships are there in those fleets, Tag?”

Tag said, “It looks like more than a million ships in each fleet. With close to half a million ships at the planet being harvested, they total close to two and half million.”

“Tag, you can’t lead our fleet into that trap,” Danielle thought.

“Rose, how did you see those fleets?”

Rose looked guilty and said, “I could feel you feeling bad about your trip for the last three days and I thought about why you should feel bad; I could sense that it had something to do with the weeds. So I took a look around their home stars and my attention was taken to those ships.”

“I was feeling bad about this attack, Danielle, and I couldn’t explain why. Now I know. If that many ships spread out and then jumped in on top of us and hit our screens with energy beams to stop us from jumping; we would have lost our fleet. I expected a big response from the Algeans but I planned to launch our weapons at the ships jumping in anyway and try to cut down on their reserves. With that many ships jumping in on us, if we had hesitated to jump away as soon as a star drive was detected, well, we would lose our fleet. Rose, if you see anything that you think is important about the Plants, please tell me as soon as you know,’