Saxon Andrews - The power of a Queen

Kosiev slipped out of the room to give them time for each other. He hoped Tag was right about the new tactics and formations but he knew that barroom fights and space battles didn’t always happen like you plan them. He knew one thing for certain. There were 4,000 reasons to be nervous coming their way shortly. “I wonder if they are worried,” he thought.

Aboard the Vgrig flagship Mass Murderer the Warmaster was discussing the coming battle plans with his Subleader. “You understand your responsibility.”

“Yes Warmaster. We will follow your jump two hours later to give you time to reach the planet as we move into their system. The third group will jump in 30 minutes after we arrive or when we call them if conditions change.”

“That is correct. You must tie their fleet down in the outer system. We’ll go to the planet from the backside and put some of their cities to the claw. After some of them have been wiped completely out of existence; I’ll call for the surrender of their fleet. If they hesitate, two more cities will be clawed from the surface into dust. They’ll give up. Then we can enjoy ourselves with their population. Do not disappoint me, Subleader!” The Vgrig Warleader stood up to his eight foot height and spread his leathery wings, his fangs were dripping from anticipation of the coming slaughter. He looked even more like a gargoyle. The silver plume on his head stood straight up showing his eagerness to start the killing.

“I’ll do my duty and make myself worthy of stature. May our claws dig deep.”

The Warmaster smiled and looked forward to the kill.

Admiral Kosiev, Admiral Dorg, and Tag watched the monitor on board the Washington for what they knew was coming. Kosiev could tell the bridge crew was apprehensive about the coming battle but they maintained their discipline and though fear was a part of their daily meal, moral was high. The six week warning was over today. The Alliance fleet would make their jump soon. “Keep your eye on the small group of 800 ships. If I’m right they should be jumping first,” Tag said. They continued to watch and then they saw the small group start moving away from the planet. After 90 minutes had passed, a second larger group of 2100 warships started moving away from the planet. Both groups had moved into their assigned attack formations when the third group started moving an hour later.

“You’re going to have to tell me how you know these things in advance, Mr. Gardner.” Kosiev said. “It looks like you were sitting in their planning session.”

“I could have been wrong, Admiral. But they don’t know that we know how many ships they’re sending. We also know how they are organizing their fleet. It’s easy if you have those facts. If we didn’t know that, this plan would be hard for us to handle without the asteroid forts. We probably couldn’t handle it even if we did know. I’m surprised they didn’t just jump all 4000 ships and head straight for the planet. If they were spread out enough, there’s no way we could prevent them from attacking Earth at least not without matching ship for ship. I believe that part of their plan is to also totally destroy our remaining ships.”

Dorg said, “It is never good tactics to leave ships that could attack when you invest a planet; especially when one is uncertain of their number.”

“That’s what they’ll do next time,” Danielle said. “There won’t be any attempt at occupation; they’ll be coming to destroy us. That is assuming that they don’t do it this time. They’ll send over whelming numbers to destroy the planet. Then they will go after the fleet.”

“Have faith, dear. We still have those 6,000 ships in the outer system if we absolutely have to use them. If we get all the recording ships, we just might use them to cleanup any survivors that run for the limit to escape. We still outnumber them. That’s why I’m not concerned about the final outcome this time.”

“Sir,” Lt. Kelly announced, “the Cleveland reports Alliance ships jumping into our solar system on the other side of the sun. She counts 750 plus shaping up and moving in system.”

“Keep me informed,” Kosiev said. “Open a channel to all ships. Jump alert, jump alert. The first group of Alliance ships has jumped into our system on the sun side. The first fleet we’ll face will be coming shortly. We will wait on them to come to us. Hold your formation and we will attack together. Commodore Davidson?”

“Yes sir.”

“You are to hold your ships until the third group jumps in to support the ships we’ll be facing. I want them at least 45 minutes in system before you jump in and then close at full speed.”

“Commodore Johnson?”

“Yes sir.”

“I need you to find those recording ships before I jump in my second fleet. They will be moving inward with their fleet. Look for them to be trailing their fleet by 60 minutes travel distance. Bobby, we will have to jump in once that third fleet moves in system 45 minutes, we can’t delay any more than that. That’s how long you have to find them.”

“We’ll do our best, Admiral.”

Time passed slowly then after two hours they watched the second Alliance Fleet disappear from their feed. “Battle stations all ships,” Kosiev ordered. “Hold formation; we’ll wait for them to come to us.”

The Alliance ships broke into normal space just outside the star drive limit and tightened up their formations. The Subleader of the Vgrig saw on his sensors that the Earth Fleet was located an hour’s flight time inside the Jump limit. “All ships; hold formation and begin moving to close on the Earth Fleet; go to full speed.” The Subleader looked at his communications officer and said, “I’m not going that far inside the jump limit without support. There are more ships than we thought they had. Contact the support fleet and tell them to move their timetable up and jump in as soon as possible. Let me know the soonest they can arrive.”

“Yes Subleader.”

Bobby Johnson had started his two groups coasting an hour’s travel distance behind the jump zone the Alliance Ships had entered. Their screens were extended to the limit of their range using only the power that leaked from their power cells. He had insisted that all eight ships had to be located and targeted before any attack. He knew his time was short and after 20 minutes, none had been found. “Are they going to come after the next fleet,” he thought? “No, they wouldn’t want to miss anything.”

“Sir,” Lt. Bergin said, “We have six new targets on our grid with five of our ships within range of each of them.”

“There’s two still unaccounted for. Find them.”

On board the Saratoga, Captain Rick Stevens looked at his communications officer and ordered, “Start the feed and send it to the Cainth Assembly and Central Command.”

“Yes sir. Feed starts now.”

Terl was waiting in the assembly hall when his monitor started showing the battle beginning in the Human’s solar system. The other Clan Leaders watched and Terl could see their nervousness. He then put the channel number that Admiral Dorg had been given by Tgon-Gee and relayed a copy of the feed. All the Clan Leaders in Terl’s office watching the upcoming conflict were standing and crossing and uncrossing their four arms as the Alliance fleet moved in system. Terl said, “That is a Big Alliance fleet. Let us hope our brothers have planned well.”

On the Glods home planet, Tgon-Gee received notification that the feed was coming in from the Cainth Empire. He went to his office and looked at the positions of the fleets and immediately noticed that the Humans had a lot more ships than the 140 he was told by the Alliance. Still, 4000 ships should handle that number easily enough. He sat down and ordered a meal. He also called his Grand Fleet Commander to join him. “This is going to be a long day,” he thought.