Annihilation Saga IV - Fight and They Will Come Page 20

  • • •

  “WE’VE DETECTED RESIDUE!! GIVING CHASE NOW!”

  The Commander saw the coordinates of the jump and asked after five-jumps, “Senior Monitor, this ship appears to be reversing its course. Why would it do that?”

  The Senior Monitor’s mind went into over-drive and it began processing information at an incredible speed. After a few moments it changed color as it smiled, “It’s going back to where it started.”

  “Why would it do that?”

  “I’ve calculated the size of that ship and the number of missiles it has fired at our ships pursuing it. It has run out of missiles and is going back to rearm.”

  The Commander was astounded at the Senior Monitor’s mental ability. The silver ship not firing missiles for hours had gone unnoticed. He issued a general command, “Jump back to the planet of the Advanced Civilization!!”

  • • •

  Tag and Danielle’s last jump landed them on one of the ship elevators at the moon where the weapons depot was located. Tag hit the transmit button on his console just before they were teleported out. Bong waited for a few seconds, until the giant OA fleet arrived at the planet. He mentally activated the telepathic switch for the elevator and saw the silver ship start disappearing into the moon’s surface.

  • • •

  An OA warship located at the outer edge of the giant fleet reported, “I’VE DETECTED ENERGY READINGS ON A MOON LOCATED AT THE NEXT PLANET OUT FROM THIS ONE!!”

  “SHOW ME WHAT YOU HAVE!!” the Commander ordered. The Commander stared at his display and saw the silver ship disappearing into the moon’s surface. “You were right, Senior Monitor. That ship is on a moon at the next planet out from the central star. All ships jump to the coordinates of that moon.”

  • • •

  Tag and Danielle appeared on the Nightmare’s bridge, as Danielle rushed over to Tag and put his arm over her shoulder. She assisted him to one of the chairs behind Eddie and Janie and saw them staring at her, “She helped Tag ease down into the chair and said, “We’ve confirmed the OAs have dimensional capability.” Eddie shook his head and Janie sighed heavily.

  Eddie looked up and said where everyone could hear, “Bong?”

  “The Gardner’s ship was detected by the OA fleet. They’re jumping in now to surround the moon.”

  “Don’t take any chances!”

  “I’m not, Ed. They’ve stopped a hundred-miles out from the moon’s surface and the leader of the fleet has decided to send some of his warriors down to the surface to dig in and find the ones flying the silver ship. He’s also ordered his fleet to move in to twenty-miles to cut off any escape route out of the moon.”

  Eddie didn’t need Bong to see what was happening. The Nightmare was a thousand-miles out from the large moon and he could see the giant fleet surrounding it through the viewport. The fleet moved in closer and Bong said, “Three-warships are moving in to land on the moon. They’re about as close as they’re going to get and I’m activating the self-destruct switch now.”

  “GET OUT OF THERE, BONG!!” The bridge suddenly turned bright orange with the explosion of the moon, and everyone turned away from the viewport.

  • • •

  The warheads used by the advanced civilization were powerful enough to break through the OA’s forcefield; there were more than a billion of them stored inside the moon. When they went up, the large moon blew apart faster than a watermelon with a stick of dynamite going off inside it. The OA fleet was only twenty-miles above the moon’s surface, when giant debris blew into their ranks moving faster than fifty-miles per second.

  The OA commander happened to be looking out of the viewport on his flagship when the moon went up. He saw a giant piece of the moon’s surface moving toward his vessel at incredible speed and he didn’t have time to do anything but watch it rush in on his ship. The huge rock was more than hundred-and-fifty miles long and sixty-miles wide. It was traveling at an impossible speed and it smashed into more than hundred OA war ships as it blew through the fleet surrounding the moon.

  The force fields surrounding the OA warships were the most powerful ever discovered by the New Stars Realm; but, no force field could withstand the trillions-of-tons of matter slamming into it at fifty-miles-per-second. However, some did. A few warship’s force fields burned into the surface of the rock and the ship sunk a few-miles into the fast-moving rock. That only lasted for a moment, as the shock of the impact ripped everything inside the warship from its anchors and slammed it into the wall at explosive speed. The reactors powering the force fields were some of the first things ripped from their anchors. The reactors slammed into the armored wall and broke open their containment vessels allowing their fuel to come together. It reached a critical mass, and went up in a huge nuclear explosion.

  One nuclear explosion wouldn’t have slowed the giant rock down much…but there were more than ninety-warships hit by the rock and all of them exploded fracturing and blowing the giant rock into smaller pieces that blew out in all directions. Some of the pieces were still larger than six-miles in diameter still traveling at incredible speed.

  • • •

  Eddie shook his head as his vision returned and heard, “You were right, Ed. That was a real blast!” Eddie started laughing, looked out of the viewport, and saw the giant shockwave from the moon’s destruction blowing out at incredible speed toward the Nightmare. On the front of the approaching shockwave there were giant rocks moving toward the ship at high-velocity; they would be on the ship in less than two-seconds.

  Tag was staring out of the viewport and saw the approaching shockwave, instantly went into his accelerated state, rushed over to Eddie’s console, entered a coordinate into the teleport module, and pressed the button. The Nightmare disappeared just as the shockwave blew by.

  Eddie reached for the controls and knew he’d never make it. Then he saw open space outside the viewport and Tag standing next to him. “Ed, you should follow your own advice.”

  Eddie shook his head, “I’m an idiot…and you’re right.” He looked at Tag and sighed, “Thank you for saving us.” Tag nodded and smiled, as Eddie saw Janie laughing, “What’s so funny?”

  “Your expression when you saw that shockwave. It was priceless.”

  Eddie looked at Danielle and saw she was pale. “Cut that pretty close, Admiral!” Danielle said with a trembling voice.

  Tag added as he sat down in his chair, “It would have been a shame to manage to escape the chase and die afterwards.”

  Eddie took a deep breath and blew it out, before saying, “This is a memory we won’t forget.”

  Danielle started chuckling, “You can say that again.”

  “Did you happen to record what happened to that OA fleet?” Tag asked.

  Eddie looked at his panel and pressed a button. The moon appeared on the wall monitor and then a huge orange flash appeared. Eddie shook his head, “I forgot those missiles use the energy that keeps the universes separated. I should have anticipated a much larger blast but didn’t.”

  They watched the moon blowup and the shockwave bearing down on them. “Eddie, you’re going to have to slow it down. I want to see how the OA warships were affected by the blast.”

  Eddie rewound the image and changed the speed four-times before the images became clear. The crew watched the giant blast rip out from the moon sending giant pieces of the surface flying out into space. The OA fleet surrounding the moon was hit by an avalanche of giant rocks and shockwave from the explosion. Eddie stopped the recording, rewound it slightly and moved the view in to a gigantic piece of rock that blew through the OA fleet. He slowed the recording down even more and they watched a giant OA ship hit by the massive rock.

  Eddie looked at Bobby, “Take control of the monitor; you’re better at this than I am.”

  Bobby took the remote and started the video moving extremely slowly. Tag stood up and walked to just in front of the wall monitor, stared at the giant ship, and mumbled, “It looks like
the ship’s force field is burning into the rock.” The force field was clearly disappearing into the rock’s surface and the giant ship followed it.

  “Freeze it, Bobby!” Janie shouted out. The image froze, and Janie walked up to the monitor and pointed at the ship, “Is it just me, or is that ship pressed up against the force field?”

  Tag squinted and turned to Bobby, “Bring the view in closer, please.” The ship grew in size instantly on the monitor and Tag started nodding, “That ship is pressed up against the force field.”

  Bobby looked away from the monitor and replied to Tag, “That force field is the most powerful we’ve ever seen, and it’s anchored to the ships emitters. With the speed and mass that rock was moving, it was like slamming a hard metal ball with a billion-ton-bullet. I suspect everything in that ship was ripped off the anchors holding it in place to the ship’s deck and slammed into the hull.”

  “Why is the force field still operational, Janie asked as she continued to stare at the image?”

  “If I were a betting man, I’d say that is about to stop.” Janie turned to him and raised an eyebrow. Bobby continued, “The reactors that power the force field are tremendously heavy and I doubt they were able to stay anchored. If they did rip loose…” Bobby shrugged.

  “Move it forward one frame at a time,” Danielle ordered.

  The giant ship’s force field disappeared two-frames later and the ship was crushed into a four-mile long sliver of metal. Five-frames after that, the ship went up in a massive nuclear explosion. ‘Go back to just before the explosion and move the view out from the rock,” Tag requested. The view moved out and stopped when the entire piece of debris was in the image. “Before you start moving forward, how many OA ships are on that rock?”

  Bobby looked at Eddie and he pressed a button on his console, “Computer, how many OA ships are on that rock’s surface?”

  “Ninety-six,” the computer immediately responded.

  Tag lowered his eyes, “Bobby, move the view in and show what happened to the other OA warships.” The view started moving across the giant rock and they saw OA warships crushed into long slivers of metal. Several appeared to be a mile-wide-cylinder. “Those cylinders must have been OA ships with their bows pointed toward the moon,” Tag said to the group. Tag turned to Bobby, “Do you have any idea how much force hit those ships?”

  “The surface of that moon was primarily made of rock. I’ve asked my computer how much mass that rock weighed, and the answer is more than a-hundred-billion-tons moving at a speed of about fifty-miles-a second. It would be the equivalent of dropping a hundred-story-building, traveling at 180,000 miles-per-hour on a ground car.”

  Danielle stared at the monitor and asked, “But their force fields held; shouldn’t that rock have pushed the ships away from it?”

  Eddie shook his head, “No, the old-adage of mass times velocity still holds. Those ships could not go from zero speed to 180,000 miles-per-hour instantly. And if they were pushed away, the shock of the push would have caused the same thing to happen; the ships would have been crushed.”

  “What caused the ship to explode?” Danielle asked.

  Tag turned to her, “All of the reactors in that ship were located in the same place. When they were ripped from their anchors, and slammed into the ship’s hull, the combined fuel from them came together and reached a critical mass. By slamming into each other, it caused a nuclear detonation.” Tag turned to Bobby, “Right?”

  “Exactly right. I suspect that ship isn’t the only one that exploded.”

  Tag turned back to the monitor, “Move the view out and let’s see what happened to the other ships.”

  Bobby moved the view out and started the recording moving one-frame at a time. Six-frames later, more than ninety-nuclear explosions went off on the rocks surface blasting it into smaller fragments; smaller being a relative description, some of them were more than ten-miles-wide.”

  Janie turned around and looked at Bobby, “Run the video back to just when the explosions started.”

  “Do you see something?” Bobby asked.

  “I think I did,” Janie replied. The view went back to when the first explosion went off and Janie shouted, “Stop it there!” The recording stopped, and Janie walked closer to the monitor and pointed at a place above and to the right of the giant rock, “What is that?”

  Bobby’s eyes narrowed, and he moved the view in closer to what Janie was pointing toward. Everyone focused on it and Janie turned around and looked at the group on the bridge, “That also appears to be a nuclear explosion and that ship has not been hit by a flying piece of debris.”

  “Keep that ship in your view and back it up!” Danielle ordered.

  Bobby rewound the video and saw nothing at the new nuclear explosion. He started the video, and, after a few moments, a crushed OA warship tumbled into the view and exploded as a bright orange shockwave blew through. Bobby looked at Janie, “It appears the shockwave from the moon’s destruction was powerful enough to crush their ships.”

  Eddie looked up, “Bong, I need you to go out and see if any of the OAs on those ships survived.”

  “Why do you want to do that?” Danielle asked.

  Eddie turned to Danielle, “We’ve built weapons that we believe will kill them. I think all of us can agree that the forces that hit that fleet are far beyond what our Mag-guns can generate. We need to stay here and see if there are any survivors.” Eddie paused, “Must you return to the Realm now?”

  Danielle glanced at Tag, “No, not really. We left Rose and Cassie to handle any issues.” Tag nodded to her.

  “Bong, stay safe and go scout the remains of that fleet. Be careful; I expect another OA fleet to be arriving momentarily. I’m moving the Nightmare out far enough to avoid trouble and don’t take any chances.” Tag looked up and saw the small DEC disappear.

  Chapter Twenty

  Eddie looked at Tag and Danielle, “While Bong is out scouting, we should take a look at the recordings of the Mag-Guns and your use of a psychic beam on one of their warships.”

  Tag walked back to his chair and sat down, “Start with the Mag-Guns.”

  Eddie nodded and pressed several buttons on his console. The image on the monitor changed to the interior of the building where Tag and Danielle were waiting to ambush two-OA-warriors. “Bobby, if you’ll do the honors, please.”

  Bobby pointed the remote at the monitor and started it playing in slow-motion. Janie went to her chair and stared at the monitor. “Why did you wait for them to get so close before activating your armor?”

  Tag kept his eyes on the monitor and answered, “Remember, the probe above the planet was still operational and we worried it would detect the energy of our armor.” Janie nodded as she watched the two-large-OAs move to the front entrance. Bong had moved behind the Gardners to watch what was going to happen and Bobby slowed the video. The OAs paused just outside the front entrance and then rush ahead at a startling speed. Tag and Danielle’s armor appeared faster than the video could capture but everyone saw that the Mag-Guns were in their hands as the OAs exploded through the glass front entrance. Bobby slowed it to a slower speed and everyone saw the rounds fly out of the two-Mag-Guns and impact the two-OAs. “Freeze it!” Tag ordered. The video stopped, and Tag squinted at the monitor, “Where did we hit them?”

  Bobby moved the view in closer and the two-projectiles were a seen hanging in space a few inches above the OA’s outer layer. “Tag, your projectile is going to hit hallway up the OA’s outer surface. Danielle, your projectile is going to hit about a foot below the top of the OA’s outer layer,” Bobby answered.

  Tag snickered, “I’m still a better shot.” Danielle punched him on the arm. Tag winced and continued, “We didn’t see any of what happened after we fired the Mag-Guns; we were teleported out.”

  Eddie stared at the monitor, “Continue, please, Captain Cor.”

  “I’m backing up the projectiles slightly and then run it.” Bobby pointed the remote at
the monitor and Tag saw the projectiles move back to a few-feet from the Mag-Gun’s barrels before they started moving forward. He focused on the round he fired and saw it hit the OA dead center. The OA’s outer layer compressed into an inverted cone and he estimated it pushed the outer layer three-feet into the OA. He looked quickly at the OA Danielle hit and saw the top of the OA’s outer layer was pushed into the opposite side of the top-third of the creature.

  “Neither of them were killed instantly,” Eddie interjected. The video continued, and it was obvious the OA Tag hit was terribly wounded. After a minute, it stopped moving and its outer layer collapsed flat. The second OA was writhing on the floor, as numerous OAs began appearing around it; it took ten-minutes before it finally collapsed flat. Eddie began saying as the video continued, “I don’t think either of the OAs you hit were able to communicate with the others. Notice that the outer layer of the OA Danielle hit has no organized flashes on it. Also, the OAs that arrived appear to be confused about what happened. I ordered Bong out at that point.”

  “So, the Mag-Guns do kill them?” Danielle remarked.

  Eddie raised a shoulder, “I’m concerned about having to face them out in the open where they can rush in on you without warning.”

  “That shouldn’t be an issue,” Tag said while watching the video again. “Our armor’s tactical system should be able to detect any of them near us.”

  “I agree you’ll know where they are, but I hope both of you noticed that you hit them when they were only ten-feet from you, and you saw them coming. It also begs the question of whether the OA warships in obit can detect your armor when you activate it. Can your armor withstand an OA blaster beam?”

  Tag smiled, “We’ve faced that issue many times in the past and we found that the rule of the day was to fire and teleport out instantly. At least we stand a chance against them on the ground now.”

  “I think I’ve come up with a way to prevent them from dropping their warriors on a planet using those orbital drop ships.” Everyone turned to Bobby and he continued, “We can build planetary teleport systems that throw up a field in front of those drop vehicles and teleport them into the central star of any planet they invade.”