“Yes but there is something you must do during the upcoming battle.”
Danielle could hear his concern, “What is that?”
“Part of my talents revolves around being able to see places where we won’t be in the line of fire. When you see a dark shadow around us, you must move the ship into it. Time will also slow down and we’ll be moving much faster than the ships around us. I’ll be busy with the weapons and I have to depend on you to keep us safe. Can you do what I’m asking?”
“Yes, I’ll make sure we move toward the psychic shadows you see. You just make sure you use your weapons effectively.”
“I only have one weapon that is some kind of beam. I’m sure I’ll be able to target the enemy. You keep us moving.”
“I will. I still look forward to retirement.”
“Are our ships ready?”
“Yes, they are.”
“Is everyone prepared?”
“Everyone but the one healing from the first contact.”
“Why is he not here?”
“He is still unconscious; evidently the blast did more damage to him than we thought. His skin has regenerated but evidently his brain was shocked severely by the blast. He is unable to fly any kind of ship.”
“I was going to make him lead the attack. Losing a tool is unforgivable. Could we put him in a ship and push it at the barrier ahead of us?”
“It would be a waste of a good ship and he’ll just get in the way.”
“Ummmmm, perhaps you’re right. He would probably just slow us down, the incompetent fool. When he wakes you should eliminate him; he’s your son.”
“He is your grandson.”
“Don’t remind me; he’s an embarrassment.”
The Demon lay in his cocoon listening to the conversation. He was conscious but had disconnected the dial from the neural reader so no one could see. He was angry to the point where he almost came out and attacked his family. Then he calmed down; there was no such thing as family in his species. He thought about that as he remembered the feelings of the two in the blue ship that had nearly killed him. He saw that both of them would gladly give their lives for the other. Why would they do that? He decided to watch what happened and decide what to do after the battle was over. He knew his ship was no match for the blue ship and this was a battle he was happy to witness from the sidelines.
“They’re coming.” All five hundred ships saw the huge fleet of orange ships moving toward them. There had to be millions of ships in that fleet and some of them were thousands of miles long. “Hold your formation; we must block their entrance; link with your partners now and go to full power.” The blue glow increased in brightness.”
“Do you see it?”
“Yes, I see it. It’s brighter than I have ever seen in my life span.”
“Should we reconsider this attack?”
“If we don’t attack now then this force can only grow stronger. It’s brighter than ever before but it is not a huge source. We are still stronger and larger. We will prevail.”
“Should we try to break in and then attack?”
“Send all the ships to different places along the barrier and breakthrough in multiple locations.”
Matt watched as the huge fleet spread out and moved toward the blue barrier from millions of different locations, “Hold your formation. They won’t break through unless they gather all of their ships at one location; be patient.”
“Grena, no matter what happens today, I am so thankful for you coming to me.”
“It does not matter, Life; we will be together no matter what.”
“This is a glorious way to protect our people.”
“We are not breaking through the barrier. It seems that where we use high numbers of ships we get further through but we don’t have enough hitting it and we are thrown back.”
“Use half the ships at two locations.”
“Stay alert; they will combine their forces shortly at one of those two locations. We will move as soon as they declare their intention on which one they will attack with the entire fleet.”
“Matt, do we start firing before they penetrate the field?”
“I believe they will force a corridor through the field as wide as our formation. As they approach the final hundred miles of the field, we will begin firing. Use full power on your shots, hold nothing in reserve.”
“We are still not getting through. We penetrate half way.”
“Move all our ships to the first location and get all of our ships behind each other pushing those in front.”
Matt watched as the ships on the right disappeared, “Go, Melanie.”
The psychic ships appeared in front of the oncoming Demon fleet. The Demons were now moving quickly through the field and were approaching normal space. Matt watched and saw the orange ships move to within a hundred miles of their ships, “Weapons free, fire.”
The five hundred blue ships had a twenty mile separation between them. The entire front of their thousand mile wide formation erupted in blue fire as each ship fired thousands of blue beams into the oncoming Demons. The front rank of the Demon ships exploded into gigantic explosions. Six hundred thousand orange ships were blown into nothingness but the huge mass continued to move inexorably forward.
“We have lost thousands of ships!”
“Yes, but we will soon be through. Keep pushing forward.”
The Demon Fleet was now filling the thousand mile wide break in the blue field all the way back to the hundred thousand mile depth where it began. The Demon fleet was now only five miles from breaking through and then the front rank came through in the center and started firing at Cassandra and Tommy’s ships. Twenty blue ships exploded.
“Move toward the center. Close the gaps,” Matt ordered as he began firing at Demon ships breaking out in front of his line.
The front line looked like fire and ice as the orange and blue beams ripped into the two enemies facing each other. Another hundred thousand Demon ships were destroyed but a hundred more blue ships were destroyed with half of them being in Cassandra’s group. She saw that the Demons were bunching together to push through her weakened line. Life and Grena were killing orange ships faster than they could count and then a hundred orange beams hit their ship and it exploded. Stem and Pedal moved into the space between them and drove the advance back a mile but then their ship was hit by more than five hundred beams and blew up in a huge blue flash that destroyed every orange ship in front of them back to a distance of three miles.
Matt and Melanie were firing as fast as possible and knew that if they couldn’t get support for the middle of the formation and that the line would be broken but there were too many attacking their line to leave. “It looks like we’ve failed, Darling.”
“Melanie, I will love you forever.”
Matt saw on his display more than a thousand orange ships drive toward Cassandra’s ship. “Matt, please take care of the Kosiev.”
“I will, Cassandra.”
Out of nowhere the Kosiev appeared and flew into Cassandra’s ship and absorbed it into its skin. Immediately more than twenty thousand blue beams erupted from its surface and killed every Demon ship in front of it. It stayed there killing everything that came near it. Matt thought about how it could possibly be using the psychic beams and then he understood, “Attention all ships, go into the Kosievs’ skin. Go quickly, go now!”
Twenty blue ships dove into the Kosievs’ hull and disappeared. The blue beams coming out of the Kosiev multiplied fifty times. Hundreds of thousands of blue beams erupted and tore a devastating hole in the Demons front. Fifty more ships flew into the Kosiev and the entire hull of the Kosiev became one huge beam sweeping the Demon ships in the corridor. The remaining seventy nine psychic ships darted into the Kosiev and the beams now had the power to reach the entire width of the corridor and the front of the Demon fleet was blown out of existence. The Kosiev began moving forward killing every Demon ship in front and to the sides all the way to the
