each other. The ten Human ships then disappeared from the system.
“Commodore Davidson, Bobby said. “The slate is clean.”
Commodore Davidson ordered, “All ships, jump to assigned coordinates on my command, Jump!” The second Earth Fleet jumped in behind the two Alliance fleets and went to full speed. The first Alliance fleet was still 20 minutes from contact with the Earth fleet when their sensors showed the second Earth fleet jump in behind them. The Subleader didn’t like this situation at all and ordered his ships to stop and wait for the second Alliance fleet to join up with his ships. Then he noticed that the first fleet of ships was no longer waiting for him to come to them. They were accelerating at an extremely high speed toward his fleet. “How fast are those ships coming at us,” he asked his sensor officer?
“Sixty Thousand segs per sem and still accelerating, Subleader.”
“You must be mistaken, no ship can fly that fast?”
“Every one of their ships is moving at that speed and will be here in less than five dregs.”
The Subleader looked at his screen and could visibly see the Earth Ships getting larger. “Order all ships to prepare for battle. Target the big ships first.”
The sensor officer looked at the Subleader and thought, “All of us see the same thing you do. We know these Humans destroyed two thousand ships in their last battle and I think we are all afraid that we have been placed in a terrible trap that none of us will live thru.” Then the Human ships were upon them.
On Glod, Tgon-Gee saw the Human ships accelerate at an inconceivable speed at the Alliance Fleets. Now he could see that the Humans had more than 900 ships and had trapped the Alliance fleets between them an hour inside the Star Drive limit. The third Alliance fleet was approaching the Humans home world but he couldn’t take his eyes off the space battle. He saw the eight Alliance recording ships all blow up within a couple of sems of each other and he knew he was seeing this when no one else in the Alliance was getting any information on what was happening. Now he was thankful to the Cainth Admiral for getting him to not be a part of this action. Then the fleets smashed into each other and ships began to die.
Misty Nicole went on the Earthwide emergency channel and made an announcement to everyone on Earth. “We are going to be attacked within the next four hours. There are eight hundred Alliance heavy warships approaching our planet from the Sun. Their intention is invasion to hold us hostage so our fleet will stop fighting the 4000 plus Alliance ships coming in from Jupiter. I am declaring an emergency holiday and request that everyone go home and await the outcome. We have installed a heavy shield around our planet that we feel will protect us from any harm until our ships can come and remove the Alliance threat. Do not panic. Take your time going home. We will keep you informed of what is happening.”
Director Nicole watched one of her public display monitors where a news person was saying. “We knew this day was coming. The traffic lanes are full and millions are leaving their work locations and going home. Only essential personnel are remaining at their stations.” Then he stopped a person on the street moving toward a parked floater and asked him, “How do you feel about the Director’s announcement?”
“I’m very frightened but I know our leaders have planned for this and that we’ll come out of it ok. We all pray for our sailors putting their lives on the line. Now I need to go home to be with my family.” The citizen then calmly boarder his floater and waited in line to enter the traffic lane.
“No one has panicked and it appears to be an orderly evacuation, John,” the news reporter said. I think the man has summed up how we all feel right now; back to you.” Director Nicole felt a sense of pride in how her people were handling this crisis and then went back to the feed from the battle. “Let us hope that screen is all they say it is,” she thought.
The Warleader saw the blue-green planet ahead and looked at his sensor officer. “How many ships are here to protect the planet?”
“We detect none. The only things we see are the nine moons circling the planet.”
“There’s only supposed to be one moon according to Alliance charts, a large single moon,” the Warleader said.
“There is one large moon further out than the eight small ones circling the planet. It’s interesting that those eight moons are all in the same orbit and equidistant from each other.” Suddenly the planet disappeared behind a bright white colored light.
“What is that?”
“They have surrounded the planet with some kind of screen, War Leader; according to our readings, its more than 60 degs thick.”
The Warleader’s eight hundred ships arrived in Earth orbit and looked down on the screen that covered the planet. “Communications; ask the Humans to drop their shield or we will begin bombardment of their planet.”
The message was transmitted and an answer was immediately received. “Take your time. We will enjoy the show down here. If you want to surrender, please let us know.”
The Warleader was livid, “Fire all weapons into the screen. Target their largest cities.”
More than 80,000 primary beams and 4,000 missiles were fired at the screen surrounding the Earth. The flashes were gigantic; but nothing got through the screen.
“Warleader, it appears that the screen is getting stronger with our attack. It was 60 degs when we started our bombardment and now it is 86 degs thick.”
“Move all our ships to one side of the planet and have them fire all our weapons into one part of the screen.” The 800 ships gathered above Central City and formed a circle. “On my command fire all weapons into the marking beam on the screens surface; fire!”
The Alliance fleet fired into the screen and the Warleader could see waves of color move out like ripples into the rest of the screen. “Warleader, the screen is now 93 degs thick.”
The Warleader slammed his claws into his console. “How am I going to get thru this screen he yelled at his crew? Hit it with five fusion missiles.” The Warleader thought, I didn’t want to destroy this world, we’ll just have to take what we can of the remains.”
Five 400 foot long missiles left the massed Alliance ships and impacted the screen. The blast knocked all sensors off line momentarily and when they came back on the Sensor officer said, “The screen around the planet is now 110 degs thick.”
‘Cease firing energy weapons at that screen,” the Warleader ordered. “How am I going to break thru this screen?” He thought.
The four hundred and fifty Human ships hit the Alliance fleet at 60,000 miles per second. The three ship teams found spaces between the Alliance ships and flashed in among them before they could respond to their presence. Each of the small ships fired two needles into the ships they encountered and the battleships fired their primary beams as they passed thru the Alliance fleet and then turned to come around for a second attack matching the speed of the Alliance ships, 450 Alliance ships exploded. Five of the Human ships died when they collided with an Alliance ship. “Reduce speed,” Kosiev ordered. “Pull up vertical and come over the top of their formation. Keep your formation together. Use each other’s screens and hold your positions in the line.”
Captain Rubens in the Los Angeles was amazed at the number of targets around him. There were twenty dreadnaughts moving in to attack his ship and escorts. The huge ships were beautiful and all looked on fire as they fired their beams and missiles. Some were so close that their screens were bumping against each other. “Weapons, target the closest Dreadnaughts and fire two needles each into them. Use the primary beams on those more than ten miles from us. Helm, pick the cleanest path thru.” The Los Angeles was being hit by more than 800 primary beams when she began firing. Six of the dreadnaughts were hit by the two needles each and seven others were hit by the awesome 700 foot wide primary beams. All thirteen were damaged with seven of them blowing up into small rubble. The surviving six continued to fire and were being joined by eight others. “Weapons, I want the primary beams fired every three seconds whether we have a target or not. We need to bleed our screens.” Captain Rubens saw his screen moving into red as the Los Angeles turned and flew between four of the dreadnaughts as they sought to surround the smaller ship. The dreadnaughts beams followed the Los Angeles as it moved away from the mass of gathering dreadnaughts. The two escorts of the Los Angeles would fly thru her screen and take some of the energy then attack other Alliance Ships. The Los Angeles moved thru the Alliance formation killing ships and darting between open spaces to avoid being rammed. Some of the Human ships were not as fortunate.
The Dallas was also being attacked by twenty dreadnaughts and was having success until two of 3,600 foot long ships accelerated and rammed her from both sides. Before she died she fired 40 needles into the surrounding dreadnaughts and fired her primary beams into the two ships ramming her. The resulting explosions cleared space
