Annihilation: The Power of a Queen (13 page)

“Danielle, Atlas and I have discussed it and he will be there to pick me up in the event of my ship being destroyed.”

“So, you’re in to this too you overgrown microwave freezer.”

“Does she always get this way?” Atlas asked Tag.

“”You shouldn’t have said that, Atlas.”

Danielle began calling both of them things she was proud she thought of and she called them some things Tag told Atlas he should write down. Finally she ran down.

“Danielle. You can come with Atlas to make sure I’m ok. This is the best way to save lives; otherwise the Alliance will use their superior numbers to ram our ships. We can avoid a lot of them but at 10,000 plus ships it is going to be too chaotic to keep track of everything. We have to pen them against the planetary defenses and make them come at us from one direction.”

Danielle sat there crying. Atlas thought at Tag and said, “This is where you have to handle it alone. I feel her pain and your resolve. Open your heart to her, Tag.”

Tag sat by Danielle and put his arm around her and just held her. She snuggled into his arms and finally said, “I know you’re right. I’ve lost you once and I don’t ever want to go thru that again; I’d rather die first.”

“Danielle, we didn’t choose our roles in this conflict. I’d still be hiding my talents except for taking Leila’s test. And If I hadn’t taken the test, I would have never met you. There is a role we have to play and we can’t shirk it. If we’re not willing to risk ourselves, then how can we ask all the brave soldiers and naval crews to risk their lives at our instructions?”

“Tag, I’ll not leave your side while this is happening. If it’s safe for you, then it’s safe for me.”

“Daniellllle!”

“That’s the only way I’ll accept it.”

“Atlas, talk to her,” Tag said.

Atlas said, “When the Alliance blows the ship up around you two, make sure you enjoy the moment. It’ll give you an appreciation of what the other ships are going thru.”

Danielle laughed and said, “There, it’s settled.”

“No it’s not.”

Danielle looked at Tag and said, “If I were going to place myself in harm’s way, would you stay away? Answer me honestly that you would and I won’t push it.”

Tag looked at his wife, the love of his life, the one he woke each day to love, and said, “We’ll put a pool table on the ship so I can teach you how to shoot.” Danielle ran up and jumped into his arms and he swung her around and around.

Terl and Admiral Dorg were sitting in the Central Clan Chamber facing a communications screen on the wall where Tgon-Gee was looking at them. He had commed them and asked to speak with them. Dorg said, “It’s good to see you Ambassador.”

Tong-Gee smiled, “We can dispense with the Ambassador from now on. I know that you know who I am. It was a good charade for both of us because it allowed us to save face in the event something embarrassing happened.” Dorg looked at Terl and then nodded to the Crown Prince of the Glod. “You said some things that made me take a hard look at the way my society functions. We are a warrior race that prides ourselves on being strong and aggressive almost to the point of being belligerent. I suspect that if you had not stopped us from taking part in the Alliance invasion then our world would have been attacked after we lost our ships. I must honestly say that I can’t blame them for doing so. There would have been a rush from at least eighteen races to be the first to destroy us and this is because of the way we have dealt with other races. I suspect that none of them would have given us mercy as the Humans showed you. Now I have to look at where we’ve been and also where we’re going. I called a congress of all the tribe leaders and asked them to predict what our future holds if we continue our morays and customs. I then told them about what happened between you and the Humans. I asked each of them what would have happened if we had lost 90% of our ships. They didn’t come to it immediately but finally they saw that we would be destroyed by those we have wronged over the years. It took some discussion to finally get them to see that the greater warrior is the one that can destroy you but chooses instead to spare you and become an ally. I then introduced a new concept; the role of our society is being the strongest warriors possible in the defense of those who are defenseless. Our intent is to make sure that we treat others as we would like them to treat us. I then told them that as their ruler that each tribe to be prepared once a year to show all the other tribes how they have fought to make sure justice is done in all our dealings. They were initially resistant because they felt they were losing their right to fight and were not going to be allowed to be warriors. I told them that anyone can fight for no reason or even the wrong reason; the true warrior fights for a reason worth fighting. They have agreed to discuss this concept in their tribal conferences.”

“Now I see that I also must make a choice about where we are going to go from this point on. I have decided that I would like to discuss this with the Humans. Will you set up a conference in five rotations for us to meet with them and you on your home world?”

Terl said, “I’ll ask them and let you know in half a rotation. I think you will find them an interesting race, your Excellency.”

“We’ll see in five rotations.” Then Tgon-Gee cut the connection.

Director Nicole had called the meeting to order when Colonel Salerio told her that Terl was on her com and needed to ask her an important question. Misty asked for silence and then punched her com button, ‘Head Clansman Terl, it’s good to see you; however we are in a planning session for the next phase of our campaign to survive the Alliance. We have a full room here, is your question one I should take in private?”

“No Director, I have just spoken to the Crown Prince of The Glod Union and he wishes to have a meeting with us five rotations from now. Does your schedule allow for that to happen?”

Misty looked around the room and nodded to Danielle, “Head Clansman,” Danielle asked, “what do you think about this meeting. Is it important?”

“I believe it is Mrs. Danielle. They have had an epiphany about the danger the universe holds for races that think might makes right. He sees that if he had lost all his ships in the last Alliance invasion then there would be races lined up to conquer them. It’s like having a close brush with death; you see yourself much clearer afterwards. They are still a very powerful race and they are at a pivotal point in their choice of where they go from here.”

Danielle said, “We will meet with them. Director Nicole, Tag, Admiral Kosiev, One representative from the SFT, and I will be there in five of your rotations.” Danielle had looked at each person as she called their name and they had all nodded.

“Good, we look forward to seeing you again.”

Director Nicole said, “Colonel Salerio please set up the travel plans. Now, I closed the meeting yesterday when Tag had suggested placing himself in great danger trying to deceive the Alliance. Has anyone come up with an alternative plan?”

No one said anything for several minutes; then Danielle stood up and said, “I remove my objection to his plan.”

Misty looked shocked and asked, “What caused you to change your mind?”

“I’m going with him.”

“Oh no you’re not,” Misty said! “We cannot afford to lose both of you.”

Danielle looked at The SFT and said to the Director, “Why don’t you ask Sung Lea about that.”

Misty looked at the SFT and Sung Lea stood up and said, “Director, we must allow her to go with him. Our vision is clear; we will only survive if she stays by his side throughout this conflict. If he goes alone; we perish.”

“What can she possibly add during a battle? She’ll only be in danger.”

“We don’t know the role she plays in this but we know she must be there. Director, this is not an opinion of our group, it is a decision.”

“Do all of you agree?” Misty asked and all six members stood up and nodded.

“Admiral Kosiev, I want steps taken in the planning of this venture to insure their safety. I am going to hold you personally responsible for keeping them alive.”

Kosiev looked at Tag and Danielle and said, “Madam Director, how am I going to order two people around who outrank me?”

Misty smiled and said, “No one said your job was going to be easy. I’m holding you responsible.”

Kosiev looked at the Director and then at Tag and Danielle who were both smiling and said, “Oh that’s marvelous. Isn’t this going to be a hoot.”

State Leader Stein was looking over a diagram of a machine in his office and discussion it with the Alliance’s head scientist. He glanced out the window and there was another winter storm brewing. Then he turned back to the scientist that was talking in terms he had no idea what they meant. “Just a minute; in layman’s terms, describe what this machine of yours does,” he said.

Vew Nicht looked at the State Leader and thought a minute and said, “The screen around the planet that you want to get thru is basically a battery, it absorbs and uses power. The only way to weaken a battery is to drain it. This machine will absorb energy from the screen and dissipate it into space. We build this device into 100 of your largest ships and park them outside the limit of their beam weapon which is the distance the Warlords ship was from the planet during the last attack. We then hit the planets screen with our energy displacement beam and start discharging their screen which will then cause that screen to fail and then planet will be open to attack.”

Stein looked at the scientist and asked, “Are you sure this will work?”

“I’m sure it will drain energy from their screen. We analyzed the makeup of the screen from the Warlords recordings and designed the machine accordingly.”

“So you need 100 dreadnaughts to build to your specifications?”

“That’s right’”

“Well I want you to equip 800 ships with your device. Will that drain their screen faster?”

“Eight times faster,” the stunned scientist said.

“How long will it take you to have them ready?”

“Between 25 and 30 rotations to complete the refit, State Leader.”

“We’ll plan our invasion for 30 rotations from tomorrow. Let’s end this Human problem once and for all.”

Kosiev looked at Tag and said there are four major controls you need to be familiar with; formation control which gives choices of five different ones, speed control for the fleet, weapons activation which turns on the sensors that control the firing systems, and the escape button which will cause all ships to spread out, run, then Jump back to Earth when clear. The ships will fight themselves, however they just can’t be programmed to run in and out of each other’s screens. That type of programming is too complicated for remote control systems. This should accomplish the end result you want to achieve; their screens will eventually overload and the ship will explode. This small screen keeps track of how many ships are still fighting. It will start with 640 and reduce by one each time they destroy one of our ships. Over 40% of these ships have sustained damage in battle but have been refurbished. The Alliance should see the blast burns on their skins and figure that we’re down to our last inventory. Do you have any questions?”

“No, I just need the diagram of what the five markings on the formation dial line up with.”

“Ok, I’ll get that to you. One of our clan brothers commercial ships have dropped one of our passive sensor buoys in the main Alliance Governments system. It’s been sending a feed of all ship traffic around the planet and so far there has been no real significant buildup of ships.

“I’m hoping that that they will form up outside the jump limit this time,” Tag said. “I think that after all the commercial ships that were made to wait for six days last time will make them reconsider blocking their planetary approaches. If they stay inside the star drive limit, then this plan won’t work. We need to be able to jump into the middle of their fleet to cause enough confusion to make it worthwhile. If we’re going to basically throw away 600 ships we need to extract a good price for them.”

“You’re right. Couple that with the weapons systems being tied to sensors and we have to be close. I understand that our engineers have set up every ship to fire their full complement of needles upon emergence so we for those to be effective we have to be close,” Kosiev said.

“Do you think they will move away from our breakout points?” Tag asked.

“Everyone has seen what happens when two ships occupy the same place at the same time and no one wants to be the victim of that; there wouldn’t even be atoms left after that explosion. They are going to have so many ships coming in that I’m hoping they just think some idiot didn’t get the right coordinates. They should just move a short distance away.”

“What pattern are we jumping them in on?”

“We’ve decided to jump them in the shape of a hollow sphere and have them fly toward the command ship, which would be you, in the center of that sphere and form up on you. That should give you some space to operate and move your formation to the most target rich area. Mr. Gardner, is your wife still going with you?”

Tag looked at Kosiev and shrugged his shoulders. “Sung Lea insists that it is absolutely necessary in order for us to survive as a species. I don’t like it and I don’t understand it but I will comply with it.”