Pray for the Prey (6 page)

“Yes, we might as well go ahead and find out if we’ll survive her attention. I’m surprised our fleet hasn’t made an appearance yet.”

“I understand you moved all your ships from every planet to your Capital.”

The Moet dropped his eye stalks and said, “I guess this is where I see if you really are going to keep your word about attacking us.”

Tenah smiled, “Oh I’m sending the fleet out as we speak.” The Moet and Watcher turned light Grey in shock. “I’m sending them to join your ships at your planet. I don’t know if the White Ships will show up, but our destiny is now tied to yours. All of the Leaders of our Member Planets insisted that we help you.”

The Moet Baron stared at the display and said, “You have earned our loyalty and trust this day. We will also come to your defense if you ever need us.” He paused, “If we survive the fleet that I know is coming.”

The Watcher shouted, “Thousands of ships are breaking into normal space outside the moon’s orbit.”

The Baron looked in the display, “Recall your ships. There are more than a hundred thousand dreadnaughts that just arrived. Your fleet would not stand a chance against just eight of them.”

Tenah heard the warning but struggled with what to do. The Moet pushed his eye stalks forward and said, “You cannot help us. Save your ships and try to free us if they allow us to live.”

Tenah nodded and issued the commands. He turned back to the Moet and said, “Please keep me in on your feed. I want to see what they are going to do.”

The Baron nodded and took the incoming call.

“You will ground your ships and surrender yourselves to the warriors that will be landing momentarily. Failure to follow our orders will lead to your deaths. Do you understand?”

The Baron took a deep breath and started to answer when he saw the Watcher lift one of his pods. He looked back at his screen and saw twenty white ships that had appeared between the huge Moet Fleet and the Planet.

Chris said, “Well if it isn’t the prince. I would have thought you learned your lesson last time you were leading warships against us. I’m going to just tell you this one time and I hope you listen. I am really going to hate destroying all those perfectly good ships, but I will do it if you don’t turn around and leave this galaxy.”

The prince recognized the being on his display and felt a surge of fear. But there were only twenty ships. He looked closer at his panel and saw that these ships were three times larger than the one that attacked his squadron. He pushed his communicator and said, “This does not concern you. This is an internal affair between those on the planet and our Sovereign.”

“Ordinarily, I would agree and step aside but these are not ordinary times. You left the populations on your worlds to be slaughtered by the Blue Giant Ships. You pretty much lost authority over them with that action. You are also aware that if the Blue Giants attacked, all of your planets would have been pretty much destroyed and wouldn’t have been available for you to use on your return. I would suggest that you do what you planned to do and find some new worlds to settle and just write the ones you left behind as a total loss.”

The Moet Fleet Master listened to the conversation and had to admit that the being in the White Ship was probably right. However, he knew being right really didn’t matter. He looked at the prince and saw his fear. He had been informed that the White Ships had attacked his squadron and destroyed some of his ships but he needed to grow a courage pod. Twenty ships against a hundred thousand; they should be attacking instead of talking.

The prince said, “Do you honestly think your ships can take on this fleet?”

Chris smiled, “Actually, we could probably do it with two, but some of you may try to slip by and bomb the planet. I brought enough to make sure that doesn’t happen.” Chris paused and said, “I’ll tell you what; I’ll just destroy half your fleet and allow you the opportunity to run away with the others. However, we are not going to wait for you to attack. You have a slow count to ten and them we will remove your ships from this system.”

Chris looked over at Cyanna and she nodded. “Needle launch is six seconds.”

The Fleet Master was amazed at the tone of the being in the White Ship. He was even more amazed seven seconds later when the first nine rows of ships in his fleet were blown into gas.

A hundred and sixty Needles launched from the hulls of the twenty battle ships, spread out across the front of the Moet Fleet, and launched the first salvo of mini-strikers. They aimed for every other ship and the blast from the one hit took out the ships next to it. The twenty large battleships spread out across the Moet formation and began firing their main guns. Any ships missed by the Needles became targets of the ships that were now moving into the ranks of the huge fleet and were hit and destroyed by the heavy beam pulses. Cyanna watched the ships being killed and shook her head. They had no chance. These Moet Dreadnaughts didn’t have a force field that would stop their regular beams much less the main guns.

The Fleet Master watched as the wave of destruction rolled inexorably through his fleet. He looked at the Prince and yelled, “Order us out of here!!!” The Prince was frozen at the horror of exploding ships but he hit the recall panel. The remaining Moet Dreadnaughts jumped into Green Space and disappeared.

Cyanna ordered, “Cease fire and return to your ships. Battleships remain at the front of the damaged ships while the Moet look for survivors.”

Chris appeared on the Baron’s display and said, “You should go and see if any of those crews survived. They had no choice but to follow their orders.”

The Baron and Tenah were shocked silent by the massive amount of destruction that had only taken a few moments. The Baron issued orders to his ships and they left orbit and moved out into the massive destruction visited on more than twenty thousand dreadnaughts. The Baron said, “Thank you for coming to our defense. We owe you for your assistance.”

Chris looked at the Baron and said, “Do you really mean that?”

“Yes, I do. If there is anything we can do to repay you, we will gladly do it.”

“There is something you can do.”

Tenah broke in on the conversation, “You saved us as well. We will also gladly assist you.”

Chris smiled and said, “We expect to be attacked by ships from the giant galaxy again and we are going to need a massive number of weapons to try and hold them off. Would you consider building them for us? If you agree, we will allow you to arm your ships with them to protect yourselves, provided you agree to never use them as an aggressor but only to defend yourself.”

Tenah said, “You’re not worried about us ever using them against you?”

“We heard your conversation with the Baron and know you were coming to fight with him against the Dreadnaughts. I think your civilizations have learned the lesson of what value peace holds for all of us. This struggle boils down to our galaxy against the massive forces in the other one. Besides, you may have our weapons but you don’t have ships that can penetrate our force fields. You will, however, not ever have to worry about the High Master threatening you again.”

Tenah said, “We are willing to sign an agreement to never be an enemy of yours and will come to your defense if you need us.”

Chris smiled, “You don’t need to sign anything. We’ll take your word as your bond. Are you willing to start building our missiles?”

“If you’ll send the plans, we’ll start immediately.”

“The ships with what you need to get started will arrive later today. Thank you for helping us.”

• • •

Chris turned off the display and Jillian said, “You know they will have access to gravity technology if they start building the Strikers.”

“Yes, I do. But the Alliance was going to send their fleet here to protect the ones they had made a treaty with. Those thousands of planets that were living in substandard conditions now know the benefit of a good standard of living. They will do all they can to defend that against all that would change it. They are going to need everything they can get to survive another invasion from M-87. The Alliance planets are heavily industrialized for ship building and they can make a difference immediately in our store of Strikers. Besides, where did we get the original gravity gun?”

Chris had a shocked expression, “I completely forgot about that.”

“What about the Moet?”

“They can be trusted even more than the Alliance. The Moet populations share a common bond of knowing they were to be thrown away by their Masters. They are united in their determination to make their planets better. Even the Masters left behind are allowing the populations to direct their actions. If we survive, this galaxy is going to prosper beyond our wildest belief.”

Cyanna listened and determined that she needed Arvolo’s take on what was being done. This was beyond her experience. She missed him. She sighed and continued to scan the thousands of destroyed ships for any that might pose a threat. Two days later the twenty ships left and she went back to the man she missed so much.

• • •

The Hive Controller was surrounded by his top Controllers. They had completed watching the scans and communications from the failed invasion attempt of the second galaxy. The Controller asked, “What can we say about this event?”

The Fleet Controller said, “That species in the Blue Ships have a weapon that can defeat our force fields.”

“And you arrived at that conclusion by…”

“We know the large Blue Ships would not be able to penetrate our linked force Fields.” The Fleet controller saw the Hive Controller start to get angry and he quickly said, “They were unable to penetrate them during the initial phase of the attack and our ships killed thousands of them with our pulses. The ones that attacked our wing defeated them before they could link their fields. It couldn’t have been those ships that destroyed our fleet. Something else had to do it.”

The Hive Controller moved back in his chair and motioned for him to continue.

“We heard our Fleet Sensor Controller say that twelve hundred small ships had appeared directly behind their lines and our communications ceased a moment later. Something on those ships was able to defeat our force fields, allowing the larger Blue Ships to attack our fleet and overwhelm them.”

The Science Controller said, “You are partially right.”

“What have I missed?”

“We immediately tried to contact the other ships in the fleet and none of them were able to respond within two mebs after the Controller stopped responding. That was too fast for the Blue Ships to arrive and kill all of our ships. Whatever defeated our force fields also destroyed our ships.”

“I really find that hard to believe.”

“I don’t see any other answer. If the force fields were defeated, our ships would have scattered and at least one or two of them could have escaped. There is less possibility of our ships being killed after the failure of the force field than as a product of the same event. The time frame just doesn’t allow it. We should also consider one other possibility.”

“What is that?”

“Every Blue Ship we’ve observed has been huge. Our Fleet Controller said that twelve hundred small ships had appeared behind his lines. Could it possibly have been another species that caused the destruction?”

The Feet Controller thought about Science’s statement and finally nodded, “You’re right. This is more serious than I thought.”

The Hive said, “What do you mean?”

“If a weapon exists that could destroy our entire fleet in that short a time, they could represent a far larger danger to our hive than the Yellow Horde.”

“I still don’t know why you say that.”

“What if those Blue Ships, or this other species we suspect, show up when we’re in the middle of a major battle with the Horde and destroy the ships in the middle of our line of attack. We could be overwhelmed by the ancient enemy. They could sweep us all the way back to our Hive.”

The Hive Controller suddenly understood. “Those Blue Ships must be eliminated. And if another species shows up, we must also eliminate them as well. Do we have enough ships in reserve to attack?”

The Industry Controller said, “It was our reserves that were destroyed. We will not be able to replace them for at least five seasons.”

“Could we take the ships needed out of our lines?”

“Only if we’re willing to risk being overrun by the Horde; we’re in a state of equilibrium at the moment, but removing ships could alter the balance. They have a head start on replacing the attack fleet we destroyed four seasons ago. We would have to be able to double our production in half the time they have been building just to match the number they’ve built. Also consider, are we willing to send the same number of ships that were destroyed? I suspect we will need at least double or triple that number if we go back to that galaxy.”

The Hive Controller looked around at his staff and said, “Start the building of new ships immediately. We will not initiate an attack on the Horde and force them to come to our lines while we are rebuilding our fleet. Make good use of the time available. If any of you have another idea, make it known. Those Blue Creatures must be destroyed.”

• • •

Jeff looked at his console and saw his communication light illuminate, “Dolly, we have a message coming in from the Blue Giants.”

Dolly yelled, “George, get in here and bring Hemon with you.”

Dolly took a deep breath and activated the circuit just as George and Hemon arrived, “It’s good to hear from you. Have you reached a decision?”

“It was not an easy decision to make. Our populations really were divided on this issue, but one of our Leaders pointed out that the only civilization to ever attack us came from that Giant Galaxy. We will accept your offer, provided that we can be preemptive against the aggressive civilizations located there.”

Dolly looked at George and he shrugged. Hemon nodded. Dolly said, “What are you planning to do?”

“We suspect that there are many civilizations in that galaxy that are in a constant state of war. We will attempt to reduce their ability to leave their galaxy.”