Saxon Andrew - Escape to Earth-The Legacy of a Conqueror

“Thank you, Sir. Coming from you, that means a lot.”

“I think I can convince Lukas to relieve you of this burden.”

“No, I think I want to see what a telepathic ship can do and you’ve tickled my curiosity. I need to see what we’re up against to plan an effective counter. Thank you for helping me see the situation. You did it nicely and I don’t know if I would have showed your patience.”

Chris nodded, “Let’s talk about what we need to do.”

“Obviously, we need to look at M-86 and then see where the Progen are in their ship developments.”

“Where do you think we need to go first?”

“M-86.”

Chris laughed, “Well you know what they say about great minds. M-86 it is.”

“Why do you want to go there first?”

“Before we can take on the Legends and their forces, we have to see if the other galaxy represents a danger to us.”

“That’s how I see it.”

“I want a few more days with Michael and I understand our ship won’t be ready for another week. If you want to take a look at what they’re building for us and offer suggestions, I’d appreciate it.”

“My time is free and I’ll be glad to handle it.” Allison stood up and stretched, “I’ll go and start doing that in the morning. I’ll stay in contact and let you know if I see anything you would want input on.”

“Thank you, Allison.”

“Glad to do it.” She grabbed her towel, turned, and headed up the beach. Chris stayed and saw a pink and blue sail in his mind.

The next morning Allison parked the pod outside a giant manufacturing facility and walked through the entrance. She saw the giant converters scattered around the building and started walking into the giant structure. She walked up on an A-Pod that was being finished and saw the engineer working on the scoops. “Excuse me.”

The engineer looked up and saw the woman dressed in a military uniform. He looked closer and saw the two stars on her collar. He jumped up, “I’m sorry Admiral. I didn’t see you coming!”

“That’s ok. Can you direct me to Amanda and Trevor Ambrose?”

The engineer turned and pointed to the north end of the building, “They’re working on a ship over there.”

Allison smiled, “Thank you.” She walked away and the engineer watched her leave. He was stunned by what he saw. Her red hair was as fine as silk and her complexion was flawless. She moved with a smoothness he had never seen before. If ever an image was needed to show perfection, a picture of her would do it. He stared at her until she disappeared around the bow of the ship he was working on and he shook his head. He bent down to continue working but couldn’t get the image of the woman out of his mind. It was an image he would remember for the rest of his life.

There were numerous engineers that stopped what they were doing to watch Allison pass through the building. She was quite unaware of how beautiful she was and didn’t notice the stares as she moved between the ships being built in the huge facility.

She walked around the nose of a B-Pod and heard, “Allison, we’re over here!” She looked to the left and saw Amanda jumping out of the port of a large ship. Of course large was a relative term. It was small when compared to a battleship but it was twice the size of the pods. Amanda ran up and hugged her, “It’s good to see you again.”

Allison smiled, “It has been too long. How’s Trevor?”

“He’s inside installing the three computers. Come on, I have a lot to show you.”

“Lead the way.”

“You’re going to like your new ship. It’s really something.” Amanda started talking at a fast rate and though Allison wanted to interrupt her to ask questions, there was no way to get a word in edgewise. She mentally listed the questions and decided to hold them for Trevor. As they walked closer to the huge pod, Allison saw four disruptors instead of the usual three. They were lower on the hull and the twin barrels extended out of the ship’s hull from about six inches above. Amanda pointed at them and said, “Those are the new disruptors. Each of the two barrels pack the same power as the old single barrel mounts. The barrels can fire in unison at a single target or they can be independently targeted. The smaller mounts allow them to swivel at three times the speed of the old mounts.”

Allison shook her head, “The old mounts weren’t slow, Amanda.”

Amanda paused her running commentary and said, “Compared to the new ones they are.”

She began speaking again and Allison stared at the new disruptor barrels. They were three times the diameter of the old. She stopped walking and said, “How can these be powered without weakening the defenses?”

Amanda stopped talking and Allison discovered how to get her questions answered. Amanda could talk up a storm but didn’t miss anything that was said. “That’s one of the real surprises I was telling you about.”

“Oh?”

“The four DE reactors have been taken out and they’ve been replaced by one larger reactor.”

Allison stopped walking again and looked at Amanda. Amanda saw her expression and stopped talking. “Amanda, we switched between those reactors to use them where they were most needed. We could increase the power to our thrusters, disruptors, or force field.”

Amanda smiled, “Allison, the new reactor is more than ten times more powerful than all four of the ones they replace. You can still increase the power wherever you choose but there is a lot more of it than before. There is also no delay in making the changes unlike the switches that had to be used before.”

“How long will a full charge last?”

“The ship will have its mini-scoops extended whenever it’s not being hit by an enemy’s beams. The new reactor stays at full charge and will keep its charge a lot longer than the old reactors.”

“That’s incredible.”

Amanda smiled, “It is, isn’t it? Come on inside and take a look at the new stardrive.”

“New stardrive?”

Amanda lowered her head and leaned in to Allison and whispered, “The universe just got a lot smaller.” She grabbed Allison’s hand and started running toward the port. Allison started running with her and wondered if Amanda ever ran out of steam. It appeared she didn’t.

After meeting Trevor inside, she made a decision. She pressed her wrist unit and saw Chris appear, “Sir, I really think you need to come here and meet with Amanda and Trevor.”

“But I want to…”

“Bring him with you. It’s time he started learning about our ships.”

Chris looked away and she saw his lips moving quietly and then she heard, “ALLLLLL RIIIIIGHT!!!” He looked back at Allison and said, “We’re on our way.”

Two hours later, Chris was sitting in one command chair with Michael on his lap. Allison sat in the other command chair and Trevor and Amanda sat in folding chairs they brought in for the meeting. They brought Chris up to speed on the new armaments and reactor and Michael’s eyes stayed wide the entire time. Allison was shocked the young boy didn’t interrupt them once and then she realized that Chris was answering his questions telepathically.

Chris said, “I don’t understand what you mean by this new stardrive being faster.”

Trevor raised his hand and Amanda closed her mouth, “Let me try to explain.” Amanda leaned back in her chair and nodded. Trevor looked at Chris and Allison and smiled, “We discovered something entirely by accident. We had an A-Pod’s stardrive go haywire. It was attempting to skip back to Earth to have repairs done before it quit working all together. The thing is, the probes kept detecting it disappearing from the void and then it would reappear in a different place a lot further than it could have traveled in normal space. After the last attack, an alarm was sounded and a squadron of A-Pods was sent out to intercept it. They found it skipping in and saw it repeatedly disappearing and reappearing in the void. When they contacted the pilot, he kept telling them that he had not entered normal space. He insisted he had never left the void.”