Chapter 6
The Algean sent a message to a ship that had not reported in on schedule. He tried again but received no response. It was troubling. All ships reported on schedule and this particular scout had not answered. He sent another message but only silence answered him. He thought a moment and then decided, “Elder. I have a scout that has missed its scheduled report and it does not respond to my inquiries.”
“Where was it at its last report?”
“It had finished scanning a system out in the third quadrant and had decided to move further out into the quadrant.”
“In what direction was it moving?”
“It did not say, Elder. It was going to report after it entered another system.”
“So now it’s missing and we don’t know what part of the quadrant it went.”
The Fleet Tracker felt nervous, “That appears to be what happened.”
The Elder thought a moment. With more than fifteen million scouts searching for planets to harvest, the chances of accidents happening were miniscule but the odds were still possible. Ships do sometimes blow up or have collisions. “Do we have any other scouts in that quadrant?”
“Yes, Elder; we have more than fifty thousand.”
“Warn them to be careful and to scan for any debris in any system they scan. It was probably an accident but they should be on guard. I can’t see anything that could have destroyed the ship without them reporting unless there was a reactor explosion or nova that destroyed the ship. How old was that scout?”
“Two thousand cycles, Elder.”
“It was an old ship. They are more prone to reactor problems. Keep me informed if anything turns up.”
Yes, Elder.
Admiral Dorg and Kosiev sat on the bridge of the Moscow and looked at the replay of the destruction of the Algean Scout Ship. Kosiev and Dorg had worked for a month getting the fleet organized and the Megaships crews trained which had now grown to a hundred and ninety ships. They now had the time to look at the scout’s destruction. “Slow it down to 500 ^ th speed,” Kosiev asked. The replay started just as the three needles struck the screens of the scout. “There, did you see it?”
Dorg watched closely and said, “I think you’re right. The first needle didn’t penetrate but the other five did. I didn’t notice that before. Their screens are strong but appear to have slow recovery. It makes me wonder if our primaries would have penetrated on the initial salvo.”
Kosiev leaned back in his chair and gazed off into space for a moment then said, “If that small scout stopped one of our Megaship needles, what would their larger classes of ships do against it? It also causes me to question whether our pulse penetrators would get thru their defenses.”
Dorg stared at the display and lifted his two bottom arms straight out which showed his agitation. “We don’t know their capabilities. Our old ships may not be able to match up with their heavier ships; we just don’t know enough.” Dorg leaned back and grabbed a bag of popcorn and replayed the recording again.
“Klas shared his recordings of their fight against the Plants and his ships were only successful when their fleet attacked one of the plant ships with ten or more of theirs and he readily admitted that his fleet was not nearly as strong as ours.” Kosiev paused, “Most of his weapons were nuclear missiles. They didn’t have strong beam weapons.”
“Could the needle have been defective? Perhaps a hornet exploded early.” They slowed the recording even more but it yielded nothing new. “We have to go see,” Dorg said.
Kosiev nodded, “I must reluctantly agree. We must be careful in planning this; we don’t want to lead them here or to our Galaxy. We also don’t want to reveal a Megaship to them or that we can jump into a system close to the star.”
“Ok, then I’ll go and investigate,” Dorg said.
“I don’t think so,” Kosiev countered. “This is your show here and you have fifty new Megaships that just arrived to assign positions in the fleet to bring up to speed on your tactics.”
“Are you saying you’re going to go?” Dorg asked in a strained voice.
“No, for the same reason; it’s time we started trusting our subordinates to handle the dirty work. You and I are needed much more here.”
Dorg didn’t like hearing what Kosiev said, but he knew he was right in his assessment but the warrior in him was not happy with the assessment. “Then who do we put in command of this expedition.”
“I would send Captain Mikado. He was the captain of my fleet flag ship in all our confrontations and has watched first hand all the decisions that were made. I would assign two Ultraships and maybe three of the old Empire class battleships so we can see how they match up to the Plants. Unless you have someone that you feel better about, I think he would make the right decisions.”
“I’ve just learned another lesson from you; you’ve groomed him to take your place. I’ve always worked on my own without helping someone grow in their command skills. I’ll resolve to solve that problem immediately. Tresk will begin an accelerated education. However, your choice is obviously qualified to command this.”
“I intend to promote him to Admiral once we have enough ships here to constitute several fleets. Let’s call him in and brief him on our plans and see if he has anything to offer.
Dorg smiled and said, “Good idea. How do we find a Plant Fleet to attack?”
“I would guess that there are still ships at the Pydres world. It takes a long time to completely strip a planet clean. We’ll go there first. Of course we’ll jump in from a completely different line from here. Then we’ll wait at the jump limit for them to come and visit.”
Dorg pressed his com console and said, “Tresk, please invite Captain Mikado to join Kosiev and myself on board the Moscow at his earliest possible convenience.” Dorg released his com and said, “Until he gets here, have you decided how we should organize the ships we have here?”
“Yes I have,” Kosiev said, “but I’m not married to my plan and I am open to any of your suggestions.”
Recently promoted Commodore Lin Mikado stood on the bridge of the Zeus; it was like a homecoming. It had been a fast four weeks since the meeting with Kosiev and Dorg. He had been assigned a new Megaship for his command with Captain Kelly as his ship’s captain upon his return from this mission but he had to select the crews going with him to confront the Plants and train them on the tactics to be used. He had brought Kelly and members from his old crew with him for this assignment and his former Ultra ship felt like home. His five ships were now in the Pydres system watching the Plants as they continued to strip the planet they had invaded and destroyed. He thought about the meeting he had with the five ship commanders to make sure they understood their roles. “We will jump to the Galaxy we have designated gamma. We will then jump into the Pydres system on the line from that Galaxy on the chance they can read Star Drive direction. Once the mission is complete, we will jump back to gamma and then to delta, then to beta with no pause in our jumps. Make sure your jump officers have the coordinates preprogrammed into their jump drives before we exit the system. We will wait at the jump limit for them to come to us. If other ships jump into the system after we’re detected, we will jump forty five degrees around the limit. I don’t want to be surprised by what comes after us. Keep your jump drives hot throughout this exercise and avoid being hit with a beam weapon that would prevent your being able to jump. We will launch two stealth sensor buoys on our emergence into the system to record anything that happens on the off chance none of us make it back. One will jump back on a route that takes it thru eight other galaxies and the second will find a hiding place and send us a feed. Are there any questions? No. Good hunting.”
“Sir,” Captain Kelly said, “Sensors say than none of the ships at the planet are moving our way. Communications report that as soon as we emerged into normal space that the frequency we recorded from the attack on their scout started and it is still being broadcast.”
“They know we’re here.’ Mikado said. “They recognize that it would take the ships at the planet more than 18 hours to get out here so I think they’ll jump in on us. Attention all ships. Keep your jump drives hot and as soon as you detect a star drive field, immediately jump to the next assigned site.”
The Stars Realm ships waited and recorded what they saw taking place at the planet. After 30 minutes, Mikado thought that he might have to go in system and provoke a fight then suddenly Colson his sensor officer said, “Multiple star drives breaking into normal space.”
“Jump,” Kelly ordered.
