“So do I, my friend. So do I,” Kosiev said.
Mikado came on line and said, “Admiral you’re worth more than all of us. Don’t do this.”
Tag winced. That was exactly what Kosiev had said to him when he had dropped into the middle of the Rossville ground battle. He knew there was no stopping his long time friend.
Kosiev then looked at Tag on his display and said, “I don’t know what is going to happen, Tag; but I’m certain of one thing; you have to come back and be the point of the Stars Realm Spear against these creatures. We were most successful when you were leading our battles. Mikado is better than I am at handling fleet actions and Admiral Dorg is better at fleet organization. I see now that we are going to need everything we posses to win this war.” Kosiev then smiled and said, “We’ll talk about it after I take care of those six ships.” Kosiev then turned off his com.
Dorg ordered, “Mikado, give me a feed from those ships he’s after.”
The Algean ships broadcasting the frequency were 900,000 miles inside the jump limit clustered together to make their signal stronger. Suddenly one of the stranger’s ships came out of null drive at the band limit and began accelerating toward them. The Algeans didn’t worry; there were 1,800 ships between them and that single ship.
Tgon-Gee, Terl, and Misty joined Tag, Danielle, Dorg, and Mikado as they watched their displays. The Moscow accelerated at an incredible rate even for one of their Megaships. They could see that there was no screen around the ship only the two focused primary beams glowing sun bright in front of the ship. One beam would fire for four seconds and then the second would begin firing. Mikado said, “He’s overloading his reactors. They’ll only last another few minutes but he’ll cover that distance in less than two minutes at his current speed.” They watched as 800 ships converged to destroy that single ship. They fired a swarm of those new anti-matter missiles at it but it burned the ones in front out of existence and out ran those coming from the sides. Twenty ships tried to ram him but his overloaded reactors tripled the power of his primaries and they were burned out of his path. One huge plant hip blocked the Moscow’s path but the primaries burned a giant hole through the ship and the Moscow flew through the ship. Nothing could reach him from the sides; his ship was moving too fast. Finally fifty miles from the six ships his last reactor burned out and Kosiev launched twenty thousand penetrators programmed to hit their targets with 100 of their numbers. They watched the Moscow as it slowed and fifty of the anti-matter missiles struck it. The blast was unbelievable and when the screens cleared, nothing was left. Tag grabbed Danielle and held her close as they watched their friend die. Dorg sat and remembered all of his moments with Kosiev. This loss hurt as much as the memory of the Rossville Colonists. “I hope I can die as gloriously,” he thought then stood and sadly lowered his head for his former adversary and friend.
Mikado watched with a heavy heart as his former commander’s ship was destroyed but those penetrators got away and homed in on those six ships. Now they tried to escape but it was too late. The penetrators locked in on them and their new five force fields were blown away by the first seven penetrators that hit them. The remaining then locked on the Algean ships protecting the frequency ships and began killing them by the hundreds. The six ships were blown up so quickly that one moment they were there and the next they no longer existed. Mikado’s sensor officer said, “Star drive is back on line.”
Mikado knew that they had to jump quickly before the Plants jumped in more frequency ships but then he noticed that the Plants had left more than 130,000 ships outside the jump limit and he suspected that they were going to follow their jump to track them back to their home world. “Send all ships our jump coordinates in Gamma,” Mikado ordered. “Attention all ships and forts, I’ve just sent you the coordinates I want you to jump to in the gamma galaxy. I believe that we will be followed. As soon as you come into normal space, release half of your inventory of penetrators set for thirty. Then jump to your individually assigned jumps and fire the other half at your second jump. Then make your third jump and wait to see if anything is able to follow you. If there is, you can’t jump home until you lose them. Set your penetrators, prepare to jump, Execute.”
The Plant fleet moving in system at high speed had reached 1000 miles from the planet and launched a missile salvo of a million missiles at the forts surrounding the planet. The missiles were halfway to their targets when every ship and rock circling the planet disappeared. There was nothing to stop the missiles so they continued to the planet and totally burned everything on it in anti-matter fire. The planet actually cracked in the middle of one of the smaller continents and the core of the planet blew up thru the surface causing huge earthquakes and then the escaping core burned the atmosphere. The planet disappeared under a black cloud cover and shook in its death throes. The Half Fleet leader watched his video grimly, “There was a whole continent of food source not harvested.” Then he watched it all burn. “There’s going to be hunger in the fleet,” He thought. “Perhaps the Leaders might want to rethink their attack plans at the next planet.”
Mikado’s 3,000 surviving ships came out of null space and ejected 1,300 penetrators each; the forts released another two million then all the ships and forts jumped to their second jump coordinates leaving 6 million penetrators behind. Ten seconds after the SR fleet disappeared; the 130,000 plant ships came out of null space trying to read their jump tracks. They had the misfortune to come out in the middle of 6 million penetrators. Unfortunately for the Algean ships, they did not have any coordinates in their star drives because they were going to load in what they tracked from the stranger’s ships. The three seconds that it took to load in any coordinates was two seconds too long. Every Algean ship was less than a mile from a hundred of the high powered penetrators when they emerged from their jump and the penetrators only took one second to lock on and another half second to hit. All 130,000 ships were destroyed. The explosions also erased any drive tracks the Stranger’s had left. The ships that followed up on their tracking ships only found wreckage. The first 750 follow up ships had the misfortune to jump into that cloud of penetrators and ended up like the first 130,000. After no response, a Plant Leader finally suggested jumping to a different coordinate close by. The Algean Leaders were once again frustrated in trying to track where the Strangers were coming from.
The Leaders were elated at their victory, but now they did not know where to go to continue their success. The Elder said, ‘Get the explorer ships out. Look in that Galaxy they keep escaping to and start looking to see if there is another planet in our galaxy they are using. Find them before they can counter our advantage.”
Another Elder said, “We can’t do anything even if we found them now.”
The Eldest said, “Why is that so?”
The Strangers lost a hundredth fleet to our missiles. We lost almost a third of our new ships when we tried to track them. Those ships have to be replaced and it will take half a planetary cycle to complete them.”
The Eldest stood waving in the wind pondering what he had just heard then said, “Making the new ships will do us no good if we don’t know where to send them. Use all of our old ships to search and hold the new fleet together to attack when we find them. Now that they know about our new ships and the frequency generators, we have to find them quickly before they develop technology to defeat us. We can’t give the Strangers time.”
All of the Plant Leaders stood silent waving in the wind contemplating what the strangers might come up with next.
There was sadness and grief among the members of the Stars Realm at the loss of their most decorated and famous Admiral. The loss of the battle was secondary to the weight of losing Admiral Alexander Kosiev. The video of his death was shown to the citizens of the Stars Realm and they all saw the bravery of Kosiev and the crew of the Moscow. Director Misty Nicole ordered a memorial built in Central City surrounded by parks to give honor to the Admiral and crew of the Moscow for their sacrifice. Queen Danielle Gardner issued an edict that Admiral Kosievs statue would be the central feature of the new Fleet academy that would forever forward bear his name. Kosiev became the first Human to win the Solar Star three times. He was the first recipient of the Crimson Crown which the Queen decreed would be the Stars Realm’s highest award for bravery. The medal was placed in clear armor on his statue with a description of his action and listed all the members of his crew that died with him to save those trapped at the planet.
Admiral Dorg, Tag, Danielle, and Admiral Mikado sat on board the Rossville in orbit above Ross. Admirals Kelly and Chen were also present on display along with Tgon-Gee, Terl, Misty Nicole, and Sten. All of them had bags of popcorn in one hand and the drink of their choice in the other. They had spent the last two hours reminiscing of their memories of Kosiev. Tag told them about when the Vgrig Warleader was allowed to escape and to make it look real missiles had been fired that came remarkably close to hitting the escaping ship before it jumped. “Kosiev had laughed so hard he could barely breathe,” Tag said, “Finally he got out that the Warleader had probably opened a porthole and pushed some of the missiles away.” Everyone laughed and they ate their popcorn and missed their comrade and friend.
Danielle then stood and said, “The name Moscow will never be assigned to another ship. It will be retired and
