“Sir, it will kill every living thing on the planet.”
“Then you better start the evacuation of your troops immediately. You didn’t think we were going to leave any survivors behind, did you, Admiral?”
“But we can destroy the asteroid and execute the humans at our leisure, sir.”
“I’ve already received a massive number of communications condemning us for executing the other humans. This way, I can rightfully claim it was an act of fate that killed them and that we did a favor to the ones we executed by a quick painless death. Quit wasting time. Evacuate your troops. If they have to leave some of their equipment behind, so be it. If we can leave quickly we can say we left the humans alive.”
“Yes sir. Issue the orders ship leader.”
“Sir, do you want us to exterminate the people in the concentration camps?”
“Why waste the time and energy? They’ll be gone soon enough; there are only fourteen drags until impact, and you need all that time to move your troops off the surface.”
“Saratoga reports that the Alliance fleet is moving away from the planet and assembling into two groups,” Lieutenant Kelley reported. “The closest group to our line of approach has eighty ships with five dreadnoughts and their supporting ships. They appear to be positioning themselves to view the impact. The others are on the backside of the planet, helping with the evacuation of the ground troops. They’re using ship transports and shuttles to supplement the troop transports.”
Kosiev said, “Notify the transports following us that they are to hold position and wait for further instructions.”
Tag said, “You might want to think that through, Admiral.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s say when the groad hits the reactor and the leader of the Cainth ground forces sees his fleet being shot up around him, what do you think his options might be? Those transports cannot outrun a warship. He’ll know that there’s no way he can make it to the star drive limit. What would you do?”
Kosiev thought for a moment and said, “I’d land my transports on the planet and take the population hostage against my safety.”
“So would I.”
“Cancel that order. The original plan stands.”
It was an hour until impact, and Tag could see the ships on the end of their fleet start to come out of the psychic shadow. “Have the last twenty ships move up to just behind the comet, Admiral. They will be detected in less than a minute if they don’t.” The ships fired a brief thrust and moved close to the comet. Tag asked, “Is there any reaction from the Alliance?”
“No sir. Saratoga says they’re maintaining position.” Mikado said. Time seemed to crawl. Finally Lieutenant Kelley said, “Eight minutes sir.”
“The explosive device in the comet-is it strong enough to totally destroy it, Admiral?” Tag asked.
“We’ll give it a push far enough out to gain separation. The fusion blast won’t leave pieces bigger than a marble. They’ll burn up in the atmosphere. Melbourne’s screen will shield us from the blast,” Kosiev answered.
“Is her screen that strong?” Tag asked.
“It could handle twenty of those simultaneously,” Mikado answered.
Kosiev said, “On my command, order comet separation and destruction, have Saratoga disrupt their communications, and then move to assigned targets. Three minutes, two minutes, execute,” Kosiev ordered.
On board the Cainth flag ship Armed War, the sensor operator said, “There’s something odd here, Admiral. That comet is emitting a low energy source.”
“A what?” Admiral Ecsra asked.
“It appears to be coming from behind the comet, but our sensors show an energy source there.”
“Put that comet on visual,” Ecsra said as he stood up and looked closely at the comet on the screen, and suddenly the comet exploded in a nuclear blast, which overloaded his screen. When the screen reset he saw human warships closing on his position at incredible speed. “Sound battle stations, fully charge the screen. Evasive maneuvers, get us underway.”
The Earth fleet tore into the Cainth fleet like a pack of wolves attacking a bear as their troop drop ships flew right through the Cainth fleet’s formation, unnoticed to the planet’s surface. Sixty destroyers paired off and attacked the Cainth cruisers. One would fly by and knock down a cruiser’s screen, and the second would follow and fire missiles and primary lasers into the exposed hull. Thirty cruisers were destroyed outright or badly damaged within the first minute of the conflict. Each pair of destroyers then turned and attacked their second target. On board the Clearwater, Captain Franklin looked at the cruiser she and her sister ship were about to engage and saw one of the dreadnoughts moving to give supporting fire. As she flashed by and fired on the cruiser, blowing its hull into two pieces, she saw her partner’s screen turn violet and explode. Then she saw the second dreadnought. They had both fired more than four hundred primary beams into the single Earth destroyer. Now her five screens were going from white to light blue as Captain Franklin turned and flew through the screen of the Los Angeles. The Clearwater emerged from the screen with the excess energy drained off and paired up with another destroyer that had lost its sister. They targeted another cruiser and moved in to attack.
The Los Angeles moved in on the two dreadnoughts and began taking on the massive armaments of those two monstrous ships. Each of them was 3,300 feet long and housed 430 primary lasers and missile batteries that could launch ninety missiles per salvo. Beside them the Los Angeles looked tiny. The Earth ship’s screen glared from the missile and the laser beam attack being directed at it from the two dreadnoughts.
“Screen status?” Captain Rubens of the Los Angeles asked.
“Holding, sir. We aren’t into the red yet. If we wait for another of those monsters to join in, it could get dicey real quick.”
“Let’s not keep them waiting then. Have we absorbed enough energy to supplement the primary beam?”
“We’re at 90 percent.”
“Then fire on the dreadnought on our port side, and then roll to use our starboard beam to finish the job.”
On board the dreadnought, the commander could not believe what was happening. That small ship was taking the fire of two dreadnoughts, and its screen was not even in the red. That ended abruptly. The entire length of the port side of the Earth ship fired a beam into the dreadnought, ripping through its five screens and blowing a seven-hundred-foot hole through the center of the 3,300-foot-long warship. The missile magazines ignited and blew the ship into tiny fragments.
“Belay that roll,” Rubens said. ”Fire the starboard beam at the second dreadnought.”
The second dreadnought saw what happened to the other and turned to escape. They weren’t fast enough and the entire rear end of the dreadnought was blown away. It could no longer maneuver and it had lost screen integrity. It would have probably survived the battle, but it made the mistake of firing at the Los Angeles as it moved away. Two Earth cruisers moved in and launched ten strike missiles and blew the rest of the ship into rubble.
“Sir,” Lieutenant Kelley said, “we’ve lost the Taj Mahal.”
“What happened?” asked Kosiev.
“Six dreadnoughts cornered it and overloaded its screen. Those six are now moving on the Melbourne, and her screen is moving into red. It can’t last much longer.”
“Can we get there in time?” Kosiev asked.
“Probably not, sir,” Lieutenant Kelley said.
“Wouldn’t screen dumping work for the empire ships feeding our smaller ships?” Tag asked.
Mikado, Kelley, and Kosiev all looked at Tag with blank expressions. Then Kosiev said, “Make it happen, Kelley, and Helmsman, move us alongside the Melbourne.”
“Attention all ships close to the Melbourne,” Kosiev said over the general fleet frequency. “Switch your screens to charge and fly through the Melbourne’s screen. Melbourne, switch your screen to discharge mode.” They watched as two Earth cruisers flew through the Melbourne’s screen, entering and exiting it at the rear of the beleaguered ship where it was not the heaviest direct attack. Six more ships flew through so fast that the dreadnoughts didn’t have time to target them before they were out of range. Melbourne’s screen went from light blue to red and finally yellow. Now the ship could use the energy the enemy ships had poured into its screen. It had been using all its power to support its screen integrity during the attack, but now it could turn its attention to the
