He switched his visor to tactical and the images from the probes were fed directly to his visor. The massive explosion that ripped out of the Legends’ formation was really something to see in full color. Hundreds of ships in the outer layer around the Monsters were hit by the massive debris of the exploded ships in the third layer as the formation flew past them. Jinks said, “Ship Loss.” He looked at the column and saw that another four thousand ships had been lost. But more than a million Legend Warships were destroyed. Bear’s pattern worked.
Jinks thought about what the Commander of the Legend Fleet must be thinking after the last attack. He smiled and issued orders to the probes. It took more than an hour to gather the light codes but finally, every ship had one glowing on their panel.
Jinks smiled and said, “Now this is going to be tricky. I don’t know how the computer prioritizes your inputs but I’m going to assume that the escape button won’t function as long as you’re at the place where it would take you. You now all have a code of a ship in the innermost layer. On my mark, you will push the blue button and pull the escape trigger at the exact same moment. Forget the orange button. Forget about everything except those two buttons, if you take the time to fire, you’re dead.”
The Telepath was in a rage, “WHERE ARE THOSE SHIPS COMING FROM?”
“Commander, we’ve detonated explosions in the narrow band above the void and the void is disrupted. There is no possible way for them to be doing this!”
“MAYBE YOU SHOULD STEP OUT THERE AND TELL THEM!”
The Weapons Controller said, “Commander.” The telepath looked at him with a snarl showing his fangs. “Those ships just jumped between two layers of our ships. What if they can jump inside the inner layer?”
The Telepath’s eyes flew wide open and he yelled, “RELEASE THE DISRUPTORS!”
The navigator said, “But our ships…”
The Telepath consumed his brain in an instant. The Navigator fell out of its chair and the Telepath looked at the Second-Navigator, “NEVER QUESTION MY ORDERS!!” The Navigator lowered its head and focused on its monitor.
“Michael, what is Admiral Jekins doing?”
Michael smiled, “He’s a genius. Watch this.”
“On my mark, remember, simultaneously; three, two, one, MARK!”
Jinks watched the hundreds of thousands of Battle Pods all disappear and suddenly reappear. It happened so fast, it was difficult to see they had skipped. It was little more than a flicker. But the computers that directed the giant disruptors on the Monsters could detect that flicker and they opened fire with hundreds of thousands of massive barrages into the ranks of the Mini-monsters flying in formation around them. The core of the giant Legend formation continued moving toward the third planet but the millions of ships around that core were decimated. Less than seven thousand Mini’s survived the barrage and half of them suffered sufficient damage to be useless.
The Elder Legend screamed, “YOU IMBECILE. YOU JUST DESTROYED ALL YOUR ESCORTS!”
“Those enemy ships skipped inside the inner layer. Would you rather I allow them to destroy our major ships?” The Elder Legend realized he was not safe from those ships. He turned and fled with his personal fleet of ships. The Telepath sneered at the image of the fleeting Elder. How could his species ever allow themselves to be allied to these sniveling cowards? What to do now? He was inside the orbit of the fourth planet and the third was less than ten hours away. He had no doubt that he could turn and run and endure the continued attacks of those small ships if he continuously fired the disruptors. But then he would have wasted the millions of Mini’s. “Order all disruptors to fire continuously and continue toward the planet.”
“Yes, Commander.”
“Admiral Jekins.”
“Yes Sir.”
“You’ve completed your mission. Your ships aren’t going to be able to stand up to the Monsters. Take your ships and report in to Talel in M-87 and offer your assistance.”
“Yes Sir.”
“Jinks.”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s been my pleasure, Michael.” The hundreds of thousands of Battle Pods remained in place briefly and then disappeared.
Michael looked at his visor and said, “Katy, it’s ShowTime.”
“Waiting on Audrey’s command to launch, Sir.”
Jan looked at Michael, “Why are they letting them get so close to Earth?”
“That’s how I’d do it. They can’t run if they’re penned in between the planet and the fleets. This time there will be no quarter.”
“And there was before?”
“Well, maybe you’re right.”
The ten thousand Monsters roared toward Earth and just as they arrived in orbit above the force field, a hundred of them exploded. The Telepath looked at his scanner, “How were those ships killed?”
“A different ship moved in close to their hulls and fired some kind of missile!”
“Order all ships to start firing across each other. I want every disruptor fired to create a crossfire covering every ship from anything moving toward them.”
Admiral Jacobs looked at the devastating crossfire and pressed his communicator, “Admiral Greenwall, we’ve got to do something to break up the crossfire to get my ships in.”
Katy said, “Stand by!” Katy pressed her panel, “Admiral, we need to do something to break up the crossfire. Admiral Jacob’s ships can’t get through it to their hulls.”
“Give us a few more minutes. Have him hold off until we open fire.”
Katy sighed and saw the ten thousand Monsters form up above Earth and prepare to open fire.
Audrey looked at Stoney, “We can’t wait!”
“Give it a minute. We can’t let this opportunity get away. The other fifty satellites will be in position in thirty seconds.”
Audrey pressed her panel, “Katy, rush them and break away!”
The ten thousand Monsters prepared to fire on the planet but were suddenly distracted by more than a million silver colored warships that flashed in, fired, and withdrew. The Commander felt fear when they appeared but after a few moments saw their beams weren’t making it through his disruptor’s beams. He turned back to order his ships to fire on the planet under the force field and saw huge numbers of giant satellites that weren’t there a moment earlier.
Stoney nodded and Audrey pressed the red button on her console. Each defense satellite was a giant more than three miles long. All of them had loaded their missile tubes with the Heavy Missiles and the huge weapons rested on their magnetic rails. When Audrey pressed the button on her panel, every missile accelerated out of its tube at an incredible velocity. Every Monster was targeted with a missile and as the missiles left their tubes, another one rolled off the rack, into the tube, and launched less than a second later. The disruptors on the Monsters facing the planet were not firing. The sensors detected the incoming missiles and the giant disruptors swiveled to fire but the missiles were too close. The satellites were only two miles away from the Monsters and the missiles hit before the disruptors could swivel to target them.