Saxon Andrews - The power of a Queen

Tag sighed and said, “The new ships will have to be able to travel to far galaxies and fight for extended periods; they have to be big just because of the weapons and provisions they’ll have to carry. They have power cells on their surface that are 45 feet square. It takes eight black hole reactors just to keep them charged and it’s twice as fast as the Ultras. It carries three hundred needle ports that can deliver more than 300 hornets each. The hornets have also tripled in power and six of them would kill one of the old dreadnaughts which used to take 200 or more. It can also jump into a system right next to the star. We’ve changed Admiral Dorg’s ship to one of these new ships and he will be leaving in two weeks to make contact with the Dremel. The Rossville will be the second ship to lift.”

Kosiev grunted and said, “The second, what about the first? Just how big is it? It seems that Sten won’t tell anyone and it has been a well kept secret.”

Tag smiled and said, “You’ll know is about ten seconds.”

The giant ship lifted from the ground and Kosiev gasped. There was no flame or any other evidence that the ship was being lifted. Tag said, “Sten discovered that with Coronado Cells that big, the ship is basically weightless. When the screens are at full power and pulled in next to the hull, gravity no longer affects the ship.”

Kosiev heard him but was amazed at the new ships size. It was five thousand feet long and had the sleek lines of the Ultras. Tag heard him mumble, “I’ve gotta get me one of those.”

Tag smiled at him and said, “The first ships name is “Moscow” and she is the new flag ship of our fleet. She’ll be waiting for you in orbit.”

Kosiev hollered like a little boy finding a new toy and ran from the room leaving his popcorn behind. Tag watched his long time friend leave and walked over and picked up the bag of popcorn he left and began munching on it. Tag thought as he watched the ship rise into orbit, “Sten says that within another four months his world would be building fifty of those monsters a month; within a year, a hundred. All of our facilities are being converted to begin building these monsters. “

He thought about his wife and how wonderfully lucky he was to have found her. He and she would talk to their baby as it grew; it could hear them without needing a link. He and she were amazed at the strength of their child’s mind. He leaned back in his chair and reached into his back pocket and pulled out an old worn red covered booklet. “Who would have thought how you would have caused so much change just by my taking you,” he thought as he held it. “It’s from little things that great things emerge.” He put it slowly back in his pocket and thought, “It won’t be long until we go to do some weed whacking. We now have the tools to do it.”

Excerpt from Annihilation, Book III-A Rose Grows in Weeds

“G et Mikado and Ren-Bir on the com,” Dorg ordered. The two ship captains appeared on his display and Dorg said, “We have a Plant scout that just jumped into the system on the other side of the sun. I am sending you the coordinates of the ship and I am planning to jump in and surround that ship with our three ships and fire immediately on emergence from null space. The Dremel are going to detonate a nuclear weapon on an asteroid close to the scout and we will all jump one sem before it goes off. Have your jump officers synchronize their systems with Rossville and use your primary beam and two needles. We’ll begin the operation as soon as the plant ship crosses the jump limit by 15 minutes, any questions?”

“No sir,” they both said and broke connection to ready their ships.

Lt. Glensh looked up from her display and said, Sir, the scout has crossed the jump limit and is 15 minutes inside it.

“Klas, tell the Dremel to launch the missiles on my mark, we will jump at 14 sems after launch. Ready, mark; please count down the launch for us.”

“Ten sems, nine, eight, seven… two, one, fire.”

“Mark 14 sems and jump; ready weapons,” Dorg ordered.

The time counted down and Glensh said, “Jumping now.”

The three megaships jumped and broke back into normal space surrounding the Algean Scout just as the nuclear explosion detonated. “Fire now,” Dorg yelled!

The scout was hit by three 5,000 foot wide primary beams and six needles. The 6,400 foot long scout disappeared in an explosion that didn’t even leave rubble. Nothing remained of the huge ship bigger than dust motes.