“Ridiculous!” said Clun, rising to his feet. “They are only a one-star system, and they are far away from us and the Empire.”
“Nevertheless, they have defeated all three of the fleets we have sent against them,” replied Damora, his large eyes focusing on Clun. “I recommend we send a small fleet of warships to monitor the Earth System. We must stay abreast of what occurs there. While the Human Empire is a danger, I am more concerned about what Earth may do after our recent failed attack.”
“Should we send a second fleet now to destroy the system, while it has been weakened by Admiral Horrabe’s fleets?” asked Head Councilor Ardon Reull, a Lormallian.
Damora was silent for several long moments, and then he spoke chilling words. “I have spoken to a number of Morag military analysts. We have analyzed in detail the scans that Admiral Horrabe took of the Earth System. We estimate it would take, at a minimum, twenty thousand warships to destroy it.”
“Twenty thousand!” spoke the Zang councilor in shock. “Of that twenty thousand, how many would we lose?”
“Twelve to fifteen thousand,” answered Damora calmly. “Many of the surviving ships will be damaged to some extent.”
“What do we do?” asked Klug, the Morphene representative, as his form flowed and shifted.
“We build up our fleets but leave Earth alone for now,” replied Damora. “In time we will be ready to deal with Earth. For now, we must turn our attention to the growing threat within the Confederation from the Human Empire. I propose we repair Admiral Horrabe’s fleet and greatly reinforce it. We then send it to the Human Empire and retake all their worlds. Once we have dealt with their Empire, then we can return our full attention to the Earth Humans and can decide what we must do to deal with them.”
Ardon Reull frowned. On one of the viewscreens, a heavily damaged Lormallian battleship was visible. It had several large holes in its side, with burn marks the length of its hull. Ardon was surprised the ship had made it back. “It will take us weeks to repair all the damage to our ships. While we’re doing that and then conquering the Human Empire within our Confederation, what will Earth be doing?”
“The small task group will be monitoring that,” explained Damora. “I want Earth kept under constant surveillance. We have another problem. Fleet Admiral Horrabe faced over seven thousand of the Humans’ small attack craft. We must have a way to deal with them.”
Ardon Reull reached forward and switched to one of the viewscreens to show a small heavily armed light cruiser. “This is a ship stored in our military archives, specifically designed to deal with small ships. After a few minor modifications, it should deal with the Humans’ attack craft. The specs are in the archives on Bator Prime. We can modify several of our shipyards and produce these immediately.”
Damora nodded. He saw how these vessels would be useful. They might have made a huge difference in the previous battle for Earth. “Send a copy of the specs to all the member races of this council. Each should build sufficient numbers of these light cruisers to protect our larger warships.”
“It will be done,” replied Ardon. “In the meantime, all member races of this council need to continue to build new warships. Our remote scouts indicate the core worlds of the Human Empire are now producing large numbers of warships. The same is true of a number of other worlds in the Empire. Taking some of those worlds, particularly the core worlds, will be very difficult.”
“Two weeks,” said Damora. In the back of Clun’s mind, Damora placed a mental command. In two weeks, we must send more ships to the Human Empire to retake those worlds for the Confederation. We must commit at least another five thousand warships to this endeavor.
Druin Councilor Clun nodded approvingly. “I would suggest we start on the periphery of the Human Empire and work inward. We take the weakest worlds first and, by doing so, reduce the resources available to the core worlds. In time, only the core worlds will stand against us.”
“And it will take time to conquer so many worlds,” commented Ralor Conn of the Zynth. “The Human core worlds will be no easy victory.”
“But they will fall,” responded Clun. “Let us repair our ships and make preparations for a full-scale attack on the Human Empire.”
All the councilors nodded in agreement. None knew that Damora had placed the suggestion to repair the ships and for an all-out attack on the Human Empire into Clun’s mind.
-
Admiral Dylan Cleemorl was in the Tantula Five star system. Every day new warships arrived from the core worlds. So many in fact that he had already sent a sizable portion of his fleet back to Earth. Cleemorl was intent on making the Hagen Star Cluster a roadblock for any Confederation attack on the core worlds. The cluster had seven major inhabited planets and eighteen other systems with major mining operations. Several of those systems had terraformed moons and large populations.
On the main viewscreen of the Themis an ODP was being assembled in orbit of Tantula Five. This would make the sixth one. On the ground, large and powerful PDCs were under construction. Around all seven of the major worlds in this cluster, these massive defense grids were now in place. Over the coming weeks ODPs would be installed around all the major worlds, as well as continuing construction of PDCs.
“We have 230 battlecruisers and 4 more dreadnoughts due to arrive by the end of the week,” reported Captain Fulmar. “That will put us up to 720 battlecruisers and 43 dreadnoughts.”
Dylan nodded. “Yet all the
