would take thirty minutes to walk so tubes were installed to move the crew between decks and levels. Tag arrived and his shuttle crew lifted and took him to the Washington. He entered the bridge and thought, “Well old girl, this is a good way to make an exit.” Some of the Empire class ships had to be used in the attack or the subterfuge wouldn’t work. The oldest were selected to be used and the Washington was the first and oldest of her class of ships. “I’ll bet Kosiev didn’t like to see you go on this trip. He still misses the Moscow.” He pressed the entry code into his console and it came on and all the displays lit up. Kosiev commed Tag and said, “I see your board just came on. I’ve downloaded the coordinates into your guidance system for where your fleet will jump. Remember, your fleet will jump in the shape of a hollow sphere then close on your ship and form into a three ship line. All you have to do is steer toward the largest mass of ships and when you start to get surrounded, hit the change formation dial.”
“Admiral, you’ve taught me all this already. Don’t forget to pick me up; I’m jumping in 10 seconds, 4, 3, 2, 1,” and the fleet disappeared from Kosievs screen.
And reappeared in the middle of thousands of warships that were maneuvering to move away from the 600 breakout points of his fleet. He hit the execute button which released the weapons on all of his remote ships. He turned toward a group of cruisers and saw his needles hitting ships around him and watched as his two primary beams destroyed a dreadnaught in his path. He let the ship fly itself and watched his monitor as his ships cut a path thru the Alliance Fleet as they formed up on him. His sensor display indicated that 830 alliance ships had been destroyed in the brief moments of his fleet’s arrival. The remote controlled ships formed on his ship and turned into a group of 400 dreadnaughts. He lost sixty ships before he reached them when fifty of the dreadnaughts would target one of his ships and overload its screen. Then he was among the huge ships firing needles and primary beams into the mass. He lost 100 more ships as he moved thru their formation. He hit the formation dial and his ships began a weave pattern turning rapidly right and left. He saw that more than 340 dreadnaughts had been damaged or destroyed. The Alliance fleet was caught by surprise but they were quickly getting their act together and grouping up to attack individual ships. He hit the formation dial again and began an up and down weave. He had lost fifty more ships but had destroyed another 439. He then sent all the ships directly away from his ship and had them turn sharply and return to a line formation. He was flying the Washington thru the fleet and used his talent to avoid being targeted by the Alliance fleet. He could see the shadows in their formation where they would miss him and he steered the Washington toward them. He lost eighty nine more ships as they fought singly before returning to formation but the Alliance lost another 278 ships. He was now down to 279 ships as he watched more of his fleet destroyed as they moved thru the Alliance formation. Then he saw the huge formation of dreadnaughts bearing down on his fleet. Sensors showed more than 4,000. He hit the escape button and fifty four of his ships turned and jumped out of the system. The remaining 224 split in two as Tag turned the formation dial and went above and below the dreadnaught formation then turned and flew into the middle of those behemoths firing needles and primary beams as fast as they could reload. He flew the Washington around the formation and watched as seventy five dreadnaughts turned and targeted his ship with their primary beams. Tag thought, “Atlas, I’m ejecting. Now would be a good time.”
“I’ll be waiting for you. Just keep moving in the direction you seat shoots you out.”
More than 8,000 primary beams were hitting the Washington as tag ejected and still it refused to die. It destroyed ten dreadnaughts with its needles and three more with its primary beams. As Tags seat passed thru the Washington’s screen into the primary beams of the Alliance ships, his seat was burned away. His personal screen came on and he continued to fall away from the ship he had made his home during his battles with the Alliance. It was almost as if the ship refused to die until he was safely ejected and the ships attacking him were drawn away from his vicinity while the Washington continued to take a deadly toll on the Alliance Dreadnaughts. Then the Washington exploded. There wasn’t even rubble left. Every earth ship had self destruct mechanisms on them to insure the Alliance wouldn’t get anything on power cell technology. Every power cell released all its energy when it lost contact with the ships control board.
Tag could see the dreadnaughts that were chasing the Washington above and to the left of him. He looked over at the main group of dreadnaughts that the remainder of his fleet had hit and saw hundreds of Alliance ships damaged or totally destroyed. Many of the survivors were leaking air into space. “You might want to pay attention, Tag.”
Tag jumped and looked down to see a hole in space directly below him that he was about to enter. Then he was in and the hole disappeared. “Thanks, Atlas, you’ve got the coordinates?”
“Before we go do you want to see the results of your handiwork?” Then Tag saw on Atlas’ screens the Alliance ships that were destroyed or damaged by his fleet. They seemed to fill all of visual space.
“Wow,” Tag said. “How many did we get, Atlas?”
Counting those that won’t be able to fight in the next conflict, 5,908.”
“I guess you can never underestimate the power of surprise. Take me home, Atlas.”
State Leader stein was sitting in his office screaming at Headman Dgzh, “What do you mean the Glod have selected a Human Female to be their Queen?”
“Leader, our ambassador on the Glod Home Planet has sent us video of them parading her thru the streets. The entire planet has gone Human crazy. We also hear that this Human female is also the chosen Queen of the Cainth and the Humans. I don’t know how it happened, but it has.”
“So the Cainth have been misleading us about just how many of their ships were destroyed by the Humans?”
“Leader, we know they lost more than 80 % of their fleet in the last battle with the Humans; we have that on recording. Perhaps they are being forced to take this Human as their leader and we have not sent any help to prevent it. They may not be at fault here. It could have been, make her your queen or face total destruction.”
“Then designate some ships to go and investigate what’s going on. The Glod don’t appear to be under any duress to accept her.”
“It certainly looks that way.”
Suddenly one of Steins subordinates rushed into the room yelling, “The Human fleet has jumped in system and is attacking our fleet.”
“Get me a feed immediately,” Stein ordered.
The wall screen came on and they watched as the Human fleet moved thru the ranks of their ships destroying ships by the hundreds. Stein and Dgzh were stunned by the slaughter. They saw Human ships blowing up but the rate of destruction was too slow. Those small ships were killing thousands of their ships and it seemed to go on forever until the final Earth ship was destroyed. “How many ships did we lose?” Stein asked in a quiet voice.
Headman Dgzh looked at his console and said, “Almost 6,000, State Leader.”
Stein looked at him stunned. “That’s almost 50 % of the ships we have assembled. How many ships did the Humans use?”
Dgzh looked at his console again and said, “They only used 600 and fifty four of them escaped.”
The wall screen changed to the face of the Vgrig Warleader who said, “We’ve destroyed over 500 of their ships.”
Stein looked at the Warleader like he was a crazy man and said, “How can you say that in a tone that sounds like this was a victory.”
“Don’t you see State Leader? They only had 640 ships at the end of the last battle. Our sensors show that most of the ships we were able to identify before we destroyed them were among the survivors of the last battle. We lost a lot of ships but they are down to less than 100 ships to defend their system. That many we can destroy easily.”
Stein looked out at the wrecked and destroyed ships and turned to Dgzh and said, “I don’t care what he thinks. I want an additional 6,000 ships called up from the reserve. We planned to invade with 17,000 ships and that’s how many we will use. Use the authorization that the Ten gave us.”
“Yes, State Leader, it will be done.”
Stein turned and looked at the Warleader and said, “You better make sure these Humans are destroyed. You can leave their planet and jump straight to the home planet of the Glod Union and destroy it too. I’ll be notifying them of our impending arrival momentarily. I’ll also be contacting the Cainth Empire to inform them that we will be occupying their worlds as soon as we finish with the Glod.”
Kosiev waited aboard the Zeus just outside of Ross’s Planet and wondered just how Tag would arrive. There was no way The Washington would escape that deathtrap. So he sat and waited. Then he heard Tag say over the
