Saxon Andrew: A rose grows in weeds

Tag watched the display of the Los Angeles and the intense beam struck her again and burned a hole thru her hull but did not penetrate out the other side. “One more shot weapons but this time I want 10 hornets loaded into the needle; fire when ready.”

Tag saw that the screen was still working on the wounded ship; it was pretty good shooting to miss the screen generators at this distance. Once again the beam struck and burned a hole in the hull but this time the ship exploded into a huge explosion that shot debris in all directions. “What have we learned Admiral?” Tag asked amazed at how fast the hornets destroyed the Battleship.

“Well, it looks like our standard size needle is good on normal ships out to ninety miles. If a standard ship gets closer than twenty miles we will have to expand the needle to thirty feet wide to prevent total penetration. We will write into the needles software the parameters based on distance. There are three hundred needle ports on the new Megaships and there are three gunnery crews handling one hundred each. We need that many because of the numbers of ships we expect to encounter. We also have a brand new weapon that has been developed out of our needle technology.”

“Do I dare ask what it is?” Tag said.

Kosiev said, “Currently, our ships do not use missiles over long distances. We have to wait for the enemy to come into range and fire at them with our screen weapons. Our weapon scientists have developed a pulse penetrator.”

“What is that?”

“It’s similar to a needle. An energy cannon shoots a pulsed beam containing anywhere from 10 to 500 hornets thru our screen and it leaves using a Coronado Cell for propulsion. The hornet’s guidance system inside the pulse will be attracted by any ship that doesn’t have a Coronado Screen within 300 miles. It will penetrate the screen of most ships and release its hornets. This is a shoot and ignore weapon. Like the hornets, it will designate a ship with its Coronado sensors and once illuminated, the other pulsed penetrators will ignore that target and search for one that is not illuminated. If the penetrator doesn’t destroy the ship, once its illumination beam ends, other penetrators will lock on the target.”

“Admiral, can you believe how fast our weapon development is happening. The old Washington is now obsolete and wouldn’t last five minutes against these new vessels. We call it old but its less than two years that the Washington was commissioned. Its eye opening to see where we’ve come is such a short period.”

“Mr. Gardner, I suspect that we will be facing an enemy with more than ten million ships. I’m still worried about whether we can handle them. I’m hoping for faster development and I suspect you are too. They are going to run out of planets to harvest in their galaxy and they will start expanding in to other galaxies. We have to stop that.”

Tag smiled and said, “I think you and I are on the same sheet of music. How many Megaships do we have to take to the system?”

“Only twenty, but we have more than 40 thousand of the old ships converted to Coronado Technology. Why don’t we call a meeting of the leaders and plan our response.”

“Good idea. I’ll contact Terl and Tgon-gee and have them contact all the interested parties.”

“Looks like war again, Mr. Gardner; this time we won’t be taking prisoners.”

Admiral Dorg Leaned back in his chair and saw Tresk looking at him. He had just finished the meeting with Captains Ren-Bir and Mikado. All three ships were at battle stations and were waiting for the order to jump. They were going to jump into three other galaxies before jumping to the coordinates that Thomas Gardner had provided for the Dremels system. The jumps would happen in quick succession and Dorg had made it clear that if the Plants were in the Dremels system then the three ships would jump out immediately to the last galaxy. If the Plants were not present then they would begin to attempt to contact the Dremel. Dorg had also made it clear that no one had permission to open fire on any ship that was not a Plant vessel. He thought again about the colonists that had been murdered due to his orders and hoped to try and make up for his mistake by saving the Dremel. “Captain Tresk, notify the other two ships we will be jumping in twenty sems and count it down, please.”

Tresk punched a button on his com and said, “Engage star drives in 5, 4,3,2,1, execute.”

All three ships disappeared then briefly appeared in three other galaxies before breaking out into normal space in a system with a medium size star. “Ships approaching firing weapons, sir,” Glensh the sensor officer reported.

The three megaships were surrounded by 50 ships that had jumped in on their location and were firing beams and nuclear missiles. “Status of our screen Lt. Glensh,” Tresk asked?

“Their weapons pose no danger, sir. They are actually adding power to our screens.”

“How many ships are attacking?” Dorg asked.

Fifty in the initial wave but ninety more have just jumped in and are joining in the attack. They still pose no threat.”

Dorg looked over at Klas whose race had contact with the Dremel before his planet was destroyed by the Algeans and said, “Would you please broadcast a request for a meeting with their leadership; communications broadcast it on the frequency those ships are using to communicate.”

Klas was a Pydres. His species was humanoid in appearance but were dark brown in color and had six fingers on each hand with two opposable thumbs. Their arms were shorter than Humans but had elbows that appeared to be able to rotate 360 degrees. Their black hair was sparse but covered most of their body. The head was large with a brow that had a ridge of raised skin that ran from their eyes to their ears which were small almost bat like. He raised the com to his mouth and began speaking to the attacking ships. The ships continued to attack and it appeared that his message was not getting thru until suddenly the 140 ships stopped firing and surrounded the three Stars Realm ships. A voice came over the communications console and Klas interpreted. “Why have you intruded into our system? We are the Dremel and we are expecting to be attacked by a huge invading fleet; you only endanger yourself if you stay.”

Klas raised the com and said, “We are aware of the enemy coming to your system. They have already devoured my world that you tried to help by warning us of them. We have come to try and help you in the coming conflict and would request a meeting with your leaders.”

There was silence for a few minutes and then the voice said, “My leaders request you come to the planet and they will meet with you there. Only send one ship, the other two will stay here with us.”

“Notify your leaders that we will arrive in five seconds,” Klas said after he heard Dorg tell Tresk to jump to the planet in ten seconds.

The Dremel stuttered, “No one can get there that fast.” Then he watched as one of the Ships his fleet had surrounded disappeared.

The Rossville broke back into normal space just above the main planet and waited for the Dremel to contact them. Klas looked at Dorg and said, “From this point on, I will translate what I hear and what you say. I think you need to speak directly to them.

“Message coming in, on speaker.” the communications officer said.

“…are the Dremel. I believe my fleet leader was planning to escort you to our planet. He’s concerned that we can’t get a ship here from the jump limit within ten hours which places us at your mercy.”

Dorg spoke and Klas translated, “You have nothing to fear from us. We did not retaliate when your ships attacked us; we are here to open a dialogue to see if we can help you in the coming conflict with the Plants. It’s our opinion that wasting ten hours to get here was not a good decision.”