Chapter 5
Admiral Kosiev, Admiral Dorg, and Tag watched the monitor on board the Washington for what they knew was coming. Kosiev could tell the bridge crew was apprehensive about the coming battle but they maintained their discipline and though fear was a part of their daily meal, moral was high. The six week warning was over today. The Alliance fleet would make their jump soon. “Keep your eye on the small group of 800 ships. If I’m right they should be jumping first,” Tag said. They continued to watch and then they saw the small group start moving away from the planet. After 90 minutes had passed, a second larger group of 2100 warships started moving away from the planet. Both groups had moved into their assigned attack formations when the third group started moving an hour later.
“You’re going to have to tell me how you know these things in advance, Mr. Gardner.” Kosiev said. “It looks like you were sitting in their planning session.”
“I could have been wrong, Admiral. But they don’t know that we know how many ships they’re sending. We also know how they are organizing their fleet. It’s easy if you have those facts. If we didn’t know that, this plan would be hard for us to handle without the asteroid forts. We probably couldn’t handle it even if we did know. I’m surprised they didn’t just jump all 4000 ships and head straight for the planet. If they were spread out enough, there’s no way we could prevent them from attacking Earth at least not without matching ship for ship. I believe that part of their plan is to also totally destroy our remaining ships.”
Dorg said, “It is never good tactics to leave ships that could attack when you invest a planet; especially when one is uncertain of their number.”
“That’s what they’ll do next time,” Danielle said. “There won’t be any attempt at occupation; they’ll be coming to destroy us. That is assuming that they don’t do it this time. They’ll send over whelming numbers to destroy the planet. Then they will go after the fleet.”
“Have faith, dear. We still have those 6,000 ships in the outer system if we absolutely have to use them. If we get all the recording ships, we just might use them to cleanup any survivors that run for the limit to escape. We still outnumber them. That’s why I’m not concerned about the final outcome this time.”
“Sir,” Lt. Kelly announced, “the Cleveland reports Alliance ships jumping into our solar system on the other side of the sun. She counts 750 plus shaping up and moving in system.”
“Keep me informed,” Kosiev said. “Open a channel to all ships. Jump alert, jump alert. The first group of Alliance ships has jumped into our system on the sun side. The first fleet we’ll face will be coming shortly. We will wait on them to come to us. Hold your formation and we will attack together. Commodore Davidson?”
“Yes sir.”
“You are to hold your ships until the third group jumps in to support the ships we’ll be facing. I want them at least 45 minutes in system before you jump in and then close at full speed.”
“Commodore Johnson?”
“Yes sir.”
“I need you to find those recording ships before I jump in my second fleet. They will be moving inward with their fleet. Look for them to be trailing their fleet by 60 minutes travel distance. Bobby, we will have to jump in once that third fleet moves in system 45 minutes, we can’t delay any more than that. That’s how long you have to find them.”
“We’ll do our best, Admiral.”
Time passed slowly then after two hours they watched the second Alliance Fleet disappear from their feed. “Battle stations all ships,” Kosiev ordered. “Hold formation; we’ll wait for them to come to us.”
The Alliance ships broke into normal space just outside the star drive limit and tightened up their formations. The Subleader of the Vgrig saw on his sensors that the Earth Fleet was located an hour’s flight time inside the Jump limit. “All ships; hold formation and begin moving to close on the Earth Fleet; go to full speed.” The Subleader looked at his communications officer and said, “I’m not going that far inside the jump limit without support. There are more ships than we thought they had. Contact the support fleet and tell them to move their timetable up and jump in as soon as possible. Let me know the soonest they can arrive.”
“Yes Subleader.”
Bobby Johnson had started his two groups coasting an hour’s travel distance behind the jump zone the Alliance Ships had entered. Their screens were extended to the limit of their range using only the power that leaked from their power cells. He had insisted that all eight ships had to be located and targeted before any attack. He knew his time was short and after 20 minutes, none had been found. “Are they going to come after the next fleet,” he thought? “No, they wouldn’t want to miss anything.”
“Sir,” Lt. Bergin said, “We have six new targets on our grid with five of our ships within range of each of them.”
“There’s two still unaccounted for. Find them.”
On board the Saratoga, Captain Rick Stevens looked at his communications officer and ordered, “Start the feed and send it to the Cainth Assembly and Central Command.”
“Yes sir. Feed starts now.”
Terl was waiting in the assembly hall when his monitor started showing the battle beginning in the Human’s solar system. The other Clan Leaders watched and Terl could see their nervousness. He then put the channel number that Admiral Dorg had been given by Tgon-Gee and relayed a copy of the feed. All the Clan Leaders in Terl’s office watching the upcoming conflict were standing and crossing and uncrossing their four arms as the Alliance fleet moved in system. Terl said, “That is a Big Alliance fleet. Let us hope our brothers have planned well.”
On the Glods home planet, Tgon-Gee received notification that the feed was coming in from the Cainth Empire. He went to his office and looked at the positions of the fleets and immediately noticed that the Humans had a lot more ships than the 140 he was told by the Alliance. Still, 4000 ships should handle that number easily enough. He sat down and ordered a meal. He also called his Grand Fleet Commander to join him. “This is going to be a long day,” he thought.
Commodore Johnson was starting to worry. The second fleet had jumped in and started moving in behind the first Alliance fleet. He knew his time was running short and that in less than fifteen minutes the second fleet of Earths ships was going to have to jump. “Sir, we found the other two. They were trailing the second Alliance fleet. We have 10 ships in range to attack.”
Bobby opened a channel to his ships and said, “Only the ten ships in range of the eight recording ships will attack, on my command, take them out then jump out of the system. Execute!”
On the Alliance Central Government World, State Leader Sten and Headman Dgzh were watching their monitor which showed their ships moving in on the Human Fleet. According to the analysis, the Humans had 450 ships facing 3500 Alliance ships. The Cainth must have been mistaken on how many ships the Humans had. The Humans had probably not used all their ships in the first battle. Then he heard over his feed a Human voice saying in Alliance, “This is the Earth Ship Peaceful Living with a message for the Alliance Warships invading our system. We are going to have to resist your occupation because of the murder of our colonists. We can’t trust that we will be treated fairly. Please abandon your plans and return to the Alliance and let’s try to work this out thru peaceful means.” Sten got a visual on the Earth Ship which was just behind the second Alliance fleet. Then he saw two Alliance Cruisers turn back and close on the Earth Ship and fire their primary weapons into the small ship. Nothing happened for a moment then the Earth Ship blew up.
Then a Voice was heard from the Alliance Fleet that said, “Resist and we will kill every Human in this system. There will be no negotiation.”
Sten said to Dgzh, “They shouldn’t have fought us the first time.” Then his screen went black. State Leader Sten remembered what happened last time his screen went black and he opened a channel to his Military Liaison, “Get a ship ready to jump to the Humans system. I need to know what’s happening.”
“State Leader, we don’t have a ship ready to send. All of them are in the Human’s system. It will take three hours to get a ship from our inner system to the jump point to go investigate.”
Sten looked at Dgzh and said, “Get me a ship, Headman. Get me a ship there now.”
The eight Alliance recording ships were trailing the fleets and everything was moving according to schedule. On board the command ship for the recording flotilla, Ship Leader Monjh heard his sensor officer shout, “Sir, a ship is powering up and bearing down on us. Contact in 2…” He never finished his sentence. Two needles from two different ships struck the cruiser and it blew apart piecemeal. All eight ships were destroyed within three seconds of
