to harvest and the scouts had found three more during the previous five years waiting for attention. One disturbing discovery was of an advanced technological world surrounded by those small rocks that had destroyed so many of their ships in the early conflicts with the strangers. The Elders think that the system might be the Strangers home system. Before any other harvesting was begun, that system was going to be visited, unless the Strangers came here first. The Fleet Leader was not sure which scenario he preferred. He felt certain of one thing; the next contact was going to be brutal. He hoped he was wrong, but somehow he knew he wasn’t.”
Chapter 20
The Stars Realm Command Team along with Tgon-Gee, Terl, Misty Nicole, Sten, Headman Dgzh, Cade McAllister, Danielle, Rose, Sten, and Tag sat around a large conference table in Castle Gardner’s meeting room. The room had displays that covered most of the walls along with an active universal map. The room was circular so any display could be seen by all. Tag pulled a photo the two new penetrators that had been developed and then said, “Cade, explain how these two new weapons actually perform.”
Cade stood and used a laser pointer to indicate the first display, “This penetrator is designed for ship to ship conflict. It has an armored skin of Coronado Power Cells that are charged to the maximum. It can accelerate faster than anything we’ve ever created or seen and it will also penetrate any screen we’ve ever observed, even ours.” Everyone immediately sat straighter in their chairs; this was an important development. “Once its sensors detect immediate impact, the entire screen around the penetrator will focus directly in front and burn a hole thru any screen it impacts. Once the penetrator hits anything solid, then it will release all of its stored energy into a single blast. We have measured the diameter of that blast to be five miles.” Cade faced the group, “Nothing can out run it, no screen can stop it, and anything it hits will be destroyed. Even the ships that are twenty miles long will not work if a five mile wide hole is blown into it. This is the ultimate ship killing weapon.”
“Is there anything that can stop it?” Dorg asked.
“An anti-matter hit will stop it, however, it is programmed to avoid their missiles and it will blow past anything in its path faster than they can react. Theoretically, if you can surround your ship with antimatter missiles so that there are no gaps smaller than the width of this penetrator, then you might be safe. However, if you do that, then the blast will then lead to a chain reaction of explosions of all the other missiles which will probably destroy the ship in the middle.”
Tag stood and said, “The second penetrator is just like this one except we can jump it to any coordinates programmed in using the null star drive.” Everyone gave a start at this statement. “We have learned that if you use the null drive to jump into a system, it will only read the coordinates of the place it arrived and not the null coordinates. However, if you use it to jump out of the system, then the null coordinates will be read running the risk of letting the Plants learn of the null star drive system. These penetrators, however, will only be jumping in, not out.”
Terl said, “Why do we even need to risk a ship; just jump enough of these in system to destroy their ships.”
Tag looked at Cade and nodded; Cade stood and said, “Picture in your mind what would happen if we jumped these penetrators into the Plant fleet. The fleet would scatter and we don’t have a system big enough to target millions of ships rushing out of a system on different trajectories and get their coordinates into a single missile for each escaping ship. These penetrators have a 1,200 mile limit. Even with their acceleration, ships would block the penetrator’s sensors if they were bunched and a large number would be able to escape. The Megaships could use their systems to target ships that were escaping.”
Tag remained in his chair and said, “It really doesn’t matter about this particular penetrator because we are probably not going to use it in our first battle at the planet the Plants have been harvesting.”
Tgon-Gee said, “How could you attack them without using it? It’s suicide to hit them head on if you can’t use the null star drive to escape.”
Tag sat in his chair and listened to the meeting disintegrate into the various participants all giving their opinion about the best use of the new penetrators. In his mind he could see Admiral Kosiev leaning back in his chair, eating his popcorn, and saying to him, “Now is when you tell them how it’s going to be.” Tag smiled and once more missed his old friend; then he reached under his chair and grabbed his bag of popcorn and began eating a few kernels. Dorg and Mikado saw him eating and stopped talking. They knew him well enough to know that he had something that would make a huge impact. Chen then saw them eating popcorn and he also sat back and quit talking. Then one by one, everyone noticed the popcorn and the room became silent.
Dorg chewed his popcorn and after a few minutes of silence he said, “Oh how I miss Kosiev.”
Tag stood and said, “He’s still here with us. We’re not going to use the new star drive penetrator for two reasons; first, I want to have the biggest impact possible when we do use them; and second, we won’t have enough manufactured by the time the Plants finish harvesting the planet. I have asked Cade to use all of the facilities to produce the ship-to-ship penetrator so we can have enough in time for the first battle.” Tag looked around the room and made sure everyone was listening to him. “We are also going to go into the harvesting system with only half of our megaships.” That statement started the room buzzing but Tag held up his hand and the room became quiet again. “We are going to use tactics that we used to defeat the Alliance. We are not going to reveal our numbers to the Algeans. They know we have 40,000 ships so 50,000 won’t be a huge surprise to them. They cannot stand up to our fleet with the new penetrator. We can carry fifty of them on each megaship and that means we will have two million of them in our fleet. Remember, each one of them will destroy any ship it hits. We can enter the system and go after the fleet that’s there in the system then choose our route out and fight our way to the jump point. The Plants might be able to jump a fleet in on us but the penetrators will clear us a path out. We will then immediately jump to the Dremels system.”
Dorg said, “Now I understand. The Dremels population has left for the former planet of the Grendap so no civilians are endangered by leading them there. They already know about our forts there so they would be planning to attack there as soon as their fleet was free from harvesting operations.”
Mikado leaned forward and said, “And since you hurt them in the harvesting system, they will bring the biggest fleet possible to the Dremels’ system setting up the use of the new jump penetrator.”
Tag nodded and said, “I also suspect that they will take some time to organize their response which will give us more time to manufacture the new penetrators. When we use them, we will jump them straight to the Dremels’ system and not go through multiple galaxies. We will stockpile all we have in one location and jump them from there.”
Danielle watched Tag lead the meeting and it reminded Danielle of all the reasons why she had fallen in love with him. She sat and remained quiet during the meeting sharing her thoughts with Rose. “He’s doing a great job, isn’t he,” she thought to Rose.
“Yes he is, Mom. These people have learned to trust him and he really doesn’t know his own importance to us. He’s not humble but he isn’t self important. I’ve learned a lot from him.”
“As have I, little one.” Then Danielle had a thought, “Rose, can we handle the Plant’s response?”
Rose was quiet and then thought, “Our ships can escape if it gets too bad. Now that we can destroy the frequency ships, everyone should be able to survive when they attack at Dremel.”
Danielle was very quiet and then thought, “What about at the planet they are harvesting. Is it going to be that bad,”
“Yes Mom.”
“Are you going to tell your father?”
“He already knows at some level but I still won’t tell him. Mom, we can’t avoid them and win. We have to reduce their ship counts and by avoiding every battle that the Plants use huge numbers will only give them more time to build better weapons to use against us.”
“Are you going to suggest anything that might help them?” Danielle asked.
“No, but you are.” Then Rose shared a thought with Danielle.
Danielle said, “I have an idea that the group might consider.”
The room was silent; then Tag said, “What it that, Your Majesty?”
“If those missiles can release all of its energy at one time, can the mobile forts do the same thing?”
