The next morning Chris contacted Allison on his wrist unit, “You can sleep in.”
“Why, is the meeting delayed?”
“No, Loree’s ship just arrived. She had to fight it out with one of the Black Ships and the Team wants to hear what happened before they make any substantive decisions.”
“I’m going!”
“What?”
“I need to hear what happened.”
“I’ll pick you up. They’re starting in thirty minutes.”
“Give me twenty and I’ll be ready.”
Lukas lowered his wrist unit and said, “We’re going to delay the meeting for a few minutes to allow Chris time to arrive.” Everyone nodded and turned back to their conversations. Six minutes later, Chris and Allison walked quickly into the room. “Sorry I’m late.”
“It was my fault.”
Lukas looked at Allison and once again marveled at her hair. “Let’s get started.” Everyone moved to a chair and Lukas looked around the room. Everyone grew silent and he looked at Loree, “Why don’t you fill us in on what happened.”
Loree looked around the room and then began speaking, “I lost twenty-one of my battleships to the Black Ships. I ordered all my scouts to escape and those that were the furthest from the Legends’ Planet managed to get away. Twenty-two of us were on the Legends’ side of the galaxy and weren’t able to escape before they saw us. I had a Black Ship blow past my ship at an incredible speed and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to outrun it. I ordered my ships still in the galaxy to use their dark matter clouds to hide them. The twenty ships that were destroyed had to slow to prevent the clouds from being stripped away.” Loree looked around the room, “They could see the cloud if the ship was moving.”
Jinks said, “How do you know that?”
“I’ll explain in a moment.” Jinks nodded. “My ship had run to a dwarf galaxy circling M-87 but I was followed there. The Black Ship was making a turn to come back at me just as I ordered the ship into normal space. We emerged into a planetary system and I ordered the pilot to land on a small moon that was close by and take the ship into a crater. I knew the Black Ship would have to come back to where we entered normal space to be anywhere near our exit point. My pilot did an impossible job of landing the ship in a huge crater just as the Black Ship entered normal space and started looking for us. The black cloud was still being emitted and my ship was almost covered but not before I saw the Black Ship fly over the crater. The cloud covered us and we waited to be attacked. All of us were frightened out of our wits and we remained in that crater for three days. I had an antenna extended beyond the cloud and saw on our passive sensors that the Black Ship was still holding orbit above the moon. The ship’s power had been shut down and we were all living in our armor. We were too frightened to do anything but time was running out on us. We had to turn on the environmental systems or we were going to run out of power in our suits and die.”
Lukas looked at her, “How did you escape?”
“Actually, we didn’t.”
Allison said, “Before you continue, Admiral, you mentioned that all of you were frightened?”
Loree looked at her and nodded, “We all knew that we were going to die. There was no way to escape.” Allison nodded and Loree said, “We were saved by my Aman, my weapons officer.” Loree took a breath and smiled, “I think he took all he could take and couldn’t take it anymore.”
Jinks said, “What did he do?”
“He turned every disruptor on top of the ship toward the Black Ship and opened fire.” Loree took a breath and slowly exhaled, “I was ready to strangle him but the disruptor beams blew through the black ship. It didn’t die before getting off two shots at us and it couldn’t miss. We were a sitting duck in that crater. Once again, it was Aman’s fast thinking that prevented our destruction. Immediately after he fired he activated the force field to full power. The first disruptor beam was slowed by the force field and the silver coating stopped the second. The coating was melted but it stopped the beam from penetrating our hull. The black ship blew up in a massive blast before it could fire again. I ordered the ship to full power and we got out of there in a big way.”
Stoney said, “Did you reprimand Aman for his actions endangering your vessel?”
“No, I’m putting him in for the Fleet Crescent.” Stoney’s eyes narrowed and Loree said, “I wish I could describe the emotions we were all experiencing. None of us were thinking clearly and we probably would have died there doing nothing. He saved us.”
Chad said, “Admiral, First Commander Stone has postulated that the Legends are able to generate a field of some sort that amplifies emotions to an unbearable level. Your experience would appear to confirm that idea.”
Allison said, “Admiral, did your fears start to go away after you fled?”
“We destroyed that attacker, so there was nothing left to fear.”
“But they didn’t disappear immediately, did they?” Loree stared at Allison and, after a moment, nodded.
Lukas looked at Allison, “What are you suggesting?”
“Sir, I experienced losing control of my emotions. I was almost paralyzed by fear. Commander Stone suggested that this field that causes the amplification of emotions is either a mental field produced by the Legends’ minds or a technological device. I think we can now assume that it’s done by technology.”
Everyone in the room stared at her and Loree said, “And you arrived at this conclusion by…?”
“The ship that had you trapped did not have a Legend on board.”
Jinks eyebrows wend up, “There’s no way you can know that one way or the other.”
Allison tilted her head, “Look at the conversation we recorded between that Legend Leader and the Legends on the planet. The Leader ordered them to send their ships out to destroy the probes and he continued talking to the Legends on the planet after that order. That means the fear that was being generated in Admiral Barber’s crew had to be done by a device on that Black Ship above her.”
Everyone stared at Allison and Salud said, “What difference does it make how it was done?”
Amanda spoke up, “It makes a huge difference.”
Everyone turned to her and Salud said, “How is that?”
“Because stopping telepathic fields is a different kind of beast from an electronic field. An electronic field can be blocked by the application of more power.”
Lukas leaned forward, “Are you saying we can stop that field?”
Amanda sighed, “Sir, we only use three volts to power the thought blocker.”
“What?”
“We didn’t think more would be needed. We can directly wire the blocker into the armor’s main power supply and I can assure you no electronic field will get through it. If it were telepathic, stopping it with more power would be very iffy.”
Jinks shook his head, “Do you know how long it will take to rewire all those suits of armor.”
Amanda looked up at the ceiling and after a few seconds she said, “About twenty seconds, if you take your time.”
“What?”
“The helmet is set up with subroutines to reroute power to all of the systems it uses. I’ll type up the instructions on how to do it and send it out on a mass message.”
Chris looked at Allison, leaned over, and whispered, “This is why you insisted on coming? You knew about that sub-routine.”
“Yes, but if it wasn’t electronic, more power wouldn’t have necessarily worked.” Chris nodded and straightened up.