Saxon Andrew: Love conquers all

“I understand,” Atlas said. He then told Tag he was going to take a look at human history. “I wonder what this human would say if he knew when I put the shield in him that I changed his lifespan too,” Atlas thought as he started looking around at Tag’s memories. “I have begun to understand what friendship is, and I don’t intend to lose my only friend for a long time.” Then Atlas noticed in Tag’s memory that humans often lost the will to live with the loss of their mate. “I’ll have to do something about that soon, perhaps next time he sees her.”

The Cainth dreadnought Sharp Claws and its escort ships emerged from star drive and entered the Ross system. They parked just outside the star drive limit with their drives on ready and sent two cruisers in to investigate the planet. Their sensors were set as sensitive as possible and the two ships’ crews were nervous; however, nothing showed up on their scans and they continued to proceed in system until they were parked in orbit above Ross. The planet rotated below them and looked absolutely normal. If a comet had struck here, it had left no evidence. The eerie thing was that there was no sign of intelligent life remaining on the planet’s surface, nor was there any sign of the two hundred Cainth warships that had taken possession of the planet or the twelve thousand ground troops. On the surface they found the grounded Cainth troop transports and the shuttles sent groundside were sending back recordings of the battle sites from around the planet. “Sir, there was fierce combat here. We’ve counted more than nine hundred burned out floaters and weapon platforms near the main captive camp alone, and most of them are still smoking.”

Ship leader Haronk looked at his visual screen and saw the extensive wreckage of both Alliance and human military hardware. “The last report from the fleet before we lost contact was that a comet was on collision course with the planet, and the admiral was ordered to evacuate his ground forces.” Haronk looked at his console and continued, “Up to that point the civilian population had not resisted our forces. According to ground command, there were no weapons on the planet for them to use in a resistance.”

“Something happened to change things, then,” one of the crusier commanders said. “Sir, there is human military hardware here and a lot of it that was destroyed. The battle here must have been extraordinarily fierce. My scouts also report the same thing from the other sites around the planet. We see nothing anywhere on the planet that would suggest it was hit by a comet.”

“Keep me informed it you find anything else, captain.”

Haronk continued to stare at the beautiful blue-green world on his screen. Try as he might, he just couldn’t come up with what had possibly happened to all those ships and men. “We were in total control,” he thought. “Now what?”

He turned and ordered, “Communications, open a channel to Central Clan Leader Terl.” Haronk had been ordered to report his findings to the clan central chamber. He was not sure what he was going to report. He also wasn’t sure what action he was expected to take. He hoped that they would pull his task force from this system. Nothing remained here but ghosts of a battle and unanswered questions. Until an answer was found, he worried about his men and ships.

Aboard the Cleveland, Captain Patel recorded the movements of the Cainth task force. It appeared that they were nervous about entering the system. The flagship and five escorts remained just outside the star drive limit, and sensors showed that their star drives remained charged and ready to make an instant jump. The two cruisers had come in cautiously with screens and weapons ready, and over the last four hours they had landed shuttles on the planet while they remained in orbit and received information from their scouts. All the shuttles returned to the cruisers and they headed back out of the system. The dreadnought and its seven escorts jumped into star drive as soon as the cruisers arrived back to their position and disappeared from the Cleveland’s sensors. “Send the sensor records to Earth command and a copy to the Washington,” Captain Patel ordered as he thought about what the Cainth must be thinking. “They have to be nervous, or those ships would have stayed,” he thought. “Ah well. It shouldn’t be too long before the main Alliance fleet will arrive. Things should get interesting then.”

Admiral Dorg looked at his conference screen, and Head Clansman Terl was asking him questions that he could not answer. He was scared and he was trying his best to hide it. Terl continued his barrage: “Are you aware that we have lost two hundred warships and twelve thousand ground troops and there’s no trace of what happened to them?”

“Yes, I am, Clan Leader. I have not been to the scene yet, and I won’t arrive there until tomorrow.”

“Please explain why you felt it was necessary to attack that human colony with only two hundred ships instead of your entire fleet.”

“I felt that the humans needed to see that our occupation was coming and that we would not tolerate any resistance. This colony was taken easily and all appeared to be going as planned.”

Terl looked at the admiral and said, “Of course it went easily; they surrendered as soon as the first ship showed up and welcomed you to their planet. You showed them your appreciation for that warm welcome by executing 25 percent of their population. Now we are missing 10 percent of our naval forces and a division of our infantry. Didn’t you tell me that you didn’t know what the humans’ capabilities were?”

“Yes, I did.”

“So you thought you could send two hundred ships and twelve thousand troops and they would be perfectly safe against an enemy that you said represented a grave threat to our race?”

Dorg felt the chill run up his spine. His life was in the balance here. His face was damp and his heart was almost out of control. “Sir, I covered your assigned officer with my plans to make sure the clans approved them. I was told they were approved.”

“That’s the only thing saving you from execution. You are supposed to be the human expert. You are supposed to make the right decisions about them. You more than anyone should not under estimate them, but you obviously did. It’s that inefficiency that has the clan leaders angry. Do you have enough ships to handle the job?”

“I believe so. After what has happened, I’m hesitant to be sure of anything.”

“Will the Alliance send more if we request them?”

“State Leader Sten is furious about the executions and the early start of our occupation. I suspect that we would be publicly embarrassed and forced to request help from the general assembly, where our actions would be censured,” Dorg replied. “It’s also hard to justify more ships when we don’t know how many ships the humans have.”

Terl stared at the admiral and said, “If you had simply waited and took your entire fleet to the home world of these humans and occupied their planet, then you could have taken your time finding out just what capabilities they have, and we’d still have our ships and men. Your hatred of the humans led you to make mistakes, and now there is no way you’ll occupy their planet without a fight, which, incidentally, I think was your intention from the start. What makes this problematic is that you still have no knowledge of their capability. I agree with you that the remaining 1,200 ships should be enough, but I’m not going to take a chance; when will you arrive at the colony world?”

“Tomorrow, Clan Leader.”

“I have spoken with the Glod ambassador and he has agreed to send an additional four hundred ships, and we will also send another four hundred ships. You will take your fleet to the colony world and wait for those ships to arrive. Keep the majority of your fleet outside the star drive limit prepared to jump. While you’re waiting, investigate in detail and see if you can determine what happened to our ships and men. When the additional ships arrive, take enough time to organize them into your fleet, and then go after the human home world. Do you have any questions, Admiral?”