command felt that any ship that would record the coming battle would have to be inside the orbit of Uranus to get a clear picture, especially when the Alliance fleet encountered the remote-controlled Earth ships. The empire battleships waited and watched.
Kosiev sat in his command chair aboard the Washington and watched his command screen, which was showing the Alliance fleet feed from the Cleveland. The ships had been going through maneuvers for the last five days after the other four hundred ships arrived. Tag was right again. The ships were also identified as Glod, which had joined the Cainth in both of the earlier attacks on the Earth destroyer. “Obviously, they must be close allies,” Kosiev thought. Their dreadnoughts were 30 percent larger than any other member of the Alliance fleet. They also had 50 percent more fire power per ship. He watched the movements and thought, “This fleet is pretty good. They are practicing ganging up on individual ships quickly. They’re slow in changing direction, though. That will pretty much make those maneuvers worthless in battle. Our ships are more maneuverable than they know. It looks like they’re starting to form up. I miss Tag being on board but it’s time I stand on my own. Then he said, “Lieutenant Kelley, notify the fleet to take control of their remote ships.” Two hundred and ninety ships had been assigned a remote control ship to attack the Alliance fleet on their emergence into normal space. Their controllers turned the force fields on the old ships and waited for the Alliance fleet’s arrival.
“Tag, Danielle, it’s time,” Atlas said.
“Where are you?” Danielle asked.
“I’m right off your balcony, Danielle.”
“I’m standing on the balcony and I don’t see you. Tag, do you see anything?”
Suddenly an open port appeared hanging in space just above the rail on their balcony. Atlas said, “Climb aboard, passengers. This ship is departing for a scenic tour of the planets.”
“Where is the rest of you?” Tag asked.
“I’m all here; I’m just masking my image so no one can see me visually. The Alliance fleet is preparing to jump, so we need to leave.” Tag and Danielle climbed over the rail and into the port. The room they entered was big. There were chairs and couches along the wall.
“Atlas, I don’t remember you being large enough to have a room this size.”
“You’re right,” Atlas responded. “This is just a process of using space to its maximum effectiveness. I have space inside my hull that is forty times larger than my outer dimensions. I won’t bore you with the dimensional technology. Just make yourself comfortable.”
“Are we going to get there in time? We’re inside the star drive limit and it is a long way to go.” Atlas didn’t say anything, and Tag stated, “You don’t have a star drive limit.”
“Correct. However, even if we chose to go through normal space, we would be there in twenty minutes,” Atlas said with a touch of pride.
Tag said, “Atlas, that kind of speed in normal space is theoretically impossible; you would have to travel faster than the speed of light.”
“Tag, you’re going to have to eliminate the word impossible from your vocabulary. The universe has endless possibilities. What kind of view would you like?”
“What are our choices?” Danielle asked excitedly while holding Tag’s hand.
“You can have a view screen or you can sit in space and have everything surround you.”
“Let’s try the second one first.”
Suddenly Tag and Danielle were sitting beside each other in chairs that were flying out of Earth’s atmosphere at an incredible speed. They passed the moon in less than two seconds after clearing the atmosphere. Danielle said, “I think I might prefer the view screen, Atlas; this is making me dizzy.” Instantly they were back in the comfortable room with a view screen that went completely around the room. Danielle said, “Thanks, Atlas.” They were accelerating at an incredible speed, but they felt nothing to indicate they were even moving. Mars flew past them and Jupiter was getting larger by the second.
“I didn’t go full speed because I wanted you to be able to enjoy the view,” Atlas said. The speed slowed down quickly and Atlas began filling them in on what they were seeing. “We’re passing the Saratoga right now, which is powered down and keeping station here to send a live feed back to Earth and your command ships. They cannot detect or see us so we can move freely.” A map of the area of space they were entering with a red circle on it appeared on their view screen. Atlas told them, “Here is where your ships are hiding, waiting on the Alliance fleet: seven groups of fifty ships. About one hundred thousand miles in front of them are the old ships that will initiate the flight.” Another circle appeared on the map. “And out here on the moons of Uranus, ten of your largest ships are hiding, waiting to destroy the ships the Alliance will send to record the attack. We are going to move out to where the actual fighting will take place and actually place ourselves so we will be looking down on the action.” They seemed to leap forward and then stop. “The Alliance force just jumped. I’m going to split the screen in two so you can watch those ten ships out near Uranus and the battle taking place here.”
Danielle looked and Tag and thought, “This is one remarkable vessel.”
“Thank you, Danielle,” Atlas replied.
Admiral Dorg watched his fleet go through their maneuvers and was pleased with their performance. He had taken additional time to work the Glod ships into the fleet network. He kept the Glod ships together in a separate unit because they just didn’t play well with others. “Enough of this,” Dorg thought. “We are as ready as we will ever be. Let’s get this done.” Then he said over his com channel, “Form up. Prepare to jump to the human system in sixty sems. Subfleet leaders, set your jump coordinates for a simultaneous jump. Make sure you keep your spacing after emergence from star drive. The ships assigned to record this battle will jump in right behind the fleet and maintain separation from the fleet action. They will open the feed to Cainth, Glod, and Alliance headquarters upon arrival in system.” Admiral Dorg sat and waited for the countdown to finish.
Finally, Admiral Dorg ordered, “On my command, execute jump into the human home system. Execute!”
The Alliance fleet broke out of star drive and immediately had the Earth fleet on their sensors. The huge fleet turned and moved forward. Meanwhile, just inside the orbit of Neptune, five Alliance ships broke out of star drive and moved into the system, recording the approaching battle. On Cainth, Glod, and state leaders Sten’s office, the interested leaders watched on their different worlds the movement of their fleet toward the small fleet of Earth ships. “Is that all they have?” Terl thought, but then he settled in with the rest of the clan leaders to see what was going to happen.
The Earth ships went to full power, moved toward the incoming fleet, and split up and scattered as they approached the Alliance formations. Forty of the Earth ships were blown up before they reached the first Alliance ship. Then the Alliance fleet fell on the Earth ships like an avalanche. The Earth ships were being blown out of existence faster than anyone thought possible.
Two Cainth cruisers bore down on an Earth battleship and saw the missiles that the ship launched coming at them. The energy weapons of the Earth ship were having no effect, and the missiles were exploding harmlessly on their screens. They split and passed the Earth ship on opposite sides and fired their energy beams into the flanks of the big ship. It tore in half and then exploded, scattering debris out from the center of destruction. The two ships turned, and each selected an Earth destroyer and changed course to chase them down. Ship Leader Kerlt ordered, “Hit the screen with primary lasers just as our missiles arrive.” He watched his screen and saw the small ship explode and whirl away. “I thought these humans were supposed to have up-to-date technology. These ships are as bad as the Grendap. We could have done this with less than half our ships. This should be over quickly, and then we can finish the planet.”
“Have you got them, Bobby?” Kosiev asked Captain Bobby Johnson.
“Yes sir. There are five of them, and I’ve assigned two ships to each. We’re jumping in ten seconds.”
On Cainth and Glod the leaders were watching the live feed and had begun cheering their fleet’s success. The Earth ships were almost totally destroyed, and it didn’t appear that the Alliance had lost any ships in the conflict. But suddenly, the screen went blank. The cheering stopped and the leaders looked at each other. “Get a communication channel to the fleet and find out what happened to our feed,” Terl ordered.
“We can’t get through, Clan Leader,” the communication leader said.
Terl yelled, “Get another ship ready to jump to that system and find out what’s going on. Do it now!”
Ten of Earth’s empire battleships powered up their systems and jumped to the five Alliance ships recording the action. As soon as they entered normal space, both Earth ships fired their primary beams into the cruisers and vaporized them instantly, giving them no chance to send a warning. Captain Bobby Johnson commed Admiral Kosiev and said, “The slate has been cleaned. Beginning communication disruption. Good luck and good hunting, sir.”
