“It should destroy it when it sets off their magazines,” Dorg said.
“What if they aren’t carrying missiles and the only weapon they use is a beam.”
“Then a five mile wide hole will be blown in them,” Mikado said.
“And what will happen to the remaining fifteen miles of ship?” Tag asked.
Then they all saw it. Ron-Dar said, “The remainder will continue moving toward the planet because of its inertia which will still give the smaller ships a huge moving screen to hide behind.”
Tag pressed his com and got Cade on the channel and explained what he believed was happening. “Are our penetrators programmed to handle this situation?”
Cade looked worried. “No, we aren’t. The penetrators are programmed to ignore ships designated by another penetrator. The harvesters will only be hit by one penetrator at a time. Since the ships that have been hit will probably not be under power, our penetrators will probably ignore the damaged ships.”
Tag said, “Begin reprogramming as many of them as you can. Notify me when you’ve made progress.” Tag then looked at the commanders and said, “Change of plans, our fleet will use their penetrators to target the damaged ships. To totally destroy a harvester may take four penetrators to destroy its twenty mile length, however, I want you to assign a section of the incoming plant formation to your ships and hit them as them approach. We will move the fleet to within twelve hundred miles of the five hour mark and begin firing as we retreat toward the forts matching the Plants speed. We cannot allow them closer than the penetrators range. Cade, as soon as the Plants hit the five hour mark in system; start volleying the jump penetrators; we will hit anything that comes thru the volleys; any questions?”
No one said anything, so Tag ordered, “Move the fleet forward now.” The 83,000 ships of the SR Fleet moved to 1,200 miles from the five hour mark and watched for more than four hours as the Plant fleet entered the system. The Plant formation was more than thirty million miles long and was picking up speed as it moved toward the planet. The SR ships watched amazed at the huge numbers moving toward them. Now the only thing separating the two enemies was a short period of time.
The Fleet Leader watched as the Stranger’s ships left the planet and moved out toward his fleet. “I knew they weren’t stupid,” he thought. “They have figured out that the heavy ships will be used as a shield and are moving to counter them.” His fleet had been jumping in system for more than four hours and finally, all of his fleet was moving toward the planet. They were limited to the speed of the heavy ships but that was a risk that he had to run to protect the new screened missiles. He keyed his fleet frequency and said, “Form the attack formation and begin full acceleration.” The Algean fleet picked up speed and formed a huge cylinder four hundred miles wide with the harvesters composing s hundred outer layers. The plant fleet moved inexorably toward the planet.
Five hours into the system the heavy ships in front of the plant formation were suddenly being hit by jump penetrators coming out of star drive. The Algean fleet leader was amazed at the new weapon. “How can they jump a missile with a screen so close to the sun?” He also received notice that every frequency ship had been destroyed. He moved more in but as soon as they crossed the jump limit they were hit and totally destroyed. He watched his display as thousands of the missiles began hitting his ships but the damaged ships continued moving toward the planet as other ships dropped in behind them. The cost was going to be heavy but his fleet was still moving forward.
The SR Fleet was firing penetrators at the huge ships that were damaged that continued to come at them. The entire front of the Algean fleet looked like a giant wall of fire that huge pieces of wreckage would come out of and continue toward the planet. As the damaged ships moved forward the jump penetrator’s arrival points had to be moved backward because they would not come out of null space close to another object. The Algean Fleet moved slowly but surely toward the planet. The SR Fleet backed away from the Algean formation firing at the huge ships that came thru the wall of fire. Dorg commed Tag and said, “We’re not killing them fast enough. There’s only an hour and a half left before they reach the planet and we run out of space to jump the penetrators in.”
Tag looked at the display and said, “We need to give ourselves some room to operate. Jump one of the forts into the front of their formation now.”
Dorg pushed his com and said, “Mikado, jump one of the forts 50,000 miles into the plant formation and detonate it.”
Mikado pressed the control on his control panel and one of the forts moved out from the planet and began moving toward the plant fleet. The crew on the fort boarded their ship and counted down their jump to coincide with the forts jump. Mikado turned on the fleet general frequency and said, “Ten seconds until the fort jumps.”
All of the human ships watched until the fort suddenly disappeared and a blast engulfed the front ranks of the plant fleet. The plant ships in the first 100,000 miles were blown out of existence. Rose watched the blast and closed her eyes and saw what was going to happen. She turned to Tag and yelled, “Withdraw the fleet now, we’re about to be hit.”
Tag looked at her and looked back at the huge blast in front of the Stars Realm fleet wondering how they were going to get hit by anything. Then he commed the fleet and said, “Withdraw toward the planet now.”
The Stars Realm fleet turned and accelerated toward the planet. Then Tag saw what Rose was yelling about. More than two million of the new plant ships came around the blast from all sides moving at a speed that was incredible. They were going to be on them in less than five minutes and the fleet was not going to be able to outrun them.
Tag commed McAllister and said, “Launch as many penetrators as you can. We’re about to be overrun.”
Cade commed him back and said, “We won’t be able to get enough in to stop them all; we are still trying to slow the rest of the plant fleet coming around the forts blast.”
“Do what you can but we are going to lose ships if you don’t slow these new plant ships.”
The Stars Realm ships began firing their penetrators and space between the two fleets looked like hundreds of thousands of laser beams as the penetrators accelerated into the incoming plant ships at half the speed of light. There were so many plant ships that the front ranks would be targeted by the penetrators but those in the second and third ranks were hidden behind the front rank. Then the two fleets hit and ships began to die.
Tag watched as his ships killed thousands of ships every second but more than six thousand of the plant ships made it through and hit his fleet. Five thousand mega ships died with nine hundred more being damaged severely within five minutes of contact.
Tag lifted his com and said, “Admiral Mikado, prepare the remaining forts to make their run into the plant formation to take out the front of their fleet. Walk the forts out with the second one exploding 25,000 miles further into their formation than the first one. Let’s see if we can’t back them up to give us some room to maneuver.
One of the forts jumped into the front of the oncoming fleet and exploded clearing a hundred thousand miles of their front ships. The next fort jumped to the back edge of the explosion and cleared out another hundred thousand miles. This continued until all sixteen forts had made their jumps. Almost two million miles of the front of the incoming fleet was blown away in the huge explosions of the forts. Of the plants eleven million ships, more than six million were destroyed.
Rose looked at the plant fleet and knew that most of the ships killed were the old heavy harvesters and that more than four million of the new missile ships were still coming. Now there were no more forts. She looked at Tag and said, “You’ve got to prepare the fleet to jump away. They are coming and there are still more than sixty thousand miles of heavy harvesters to get thru before you can hit their new ships. Those new ships will be on you before you can get underway if you wait.”