But what about the third group, Danielle asked?
Tag looked at her and said, Its the makeup of that group that gives away its purpose. Danielle and Kosiev looked at him showing their bewilderment. Just like their occupation of Ross, if they can take control of the planet, then they can hold our civilians hostage to stop our resistance. Its the Vgrig killers that are going to do that because that is what drives them. If Im right, the smaller group will jump first to the other side of the sun from Earth and start moving in system to time their arrival at Earth with the battle at Jupiters orbit. Im sure if they nuke a couple of our largest cities we would get the message. Then it wont matter who is winning the battle, we would have to surrender.
What are we going to do about it, Danielle asked?
Basically, nothing; well have 450 ships waiting an hour inside the limit and 450 out of our system ready to jump in when called. When the first group reaches our position and the conflict begins, the second Alliance fleet should jump in. They might come earlier once they recognize that they must travel an hour inside the jump limit. Once the second group jumps in, our ships not in our solar system will let them get 40 minutes inside the SD limit and jump in behind them. Our ships are so much faster that we will close on them is less than 10 minutes after we jump. I hope the recording ships come with the first group so the Alliance wont see our tactics. Its also important that none of the ships that attack Earth escape. We have to keep our fortresses a secret as long as possible.
Kosiev pressed a button and said, Ensign Kelly, get me the Cleveland on a secure channel. Im going to send the Cleveland to the other side of the sun and have her track any movement in that part of our solar system. She can also disrupt any communications if necessary.
Thats a good idea. I suspect that the Vgrig will be somewhat frustrated trying to get thru our screen around the planet. Once we settle the battle with the first two fleets, half of our ships will jump to the other side of the sun and start moving in on the Vgrig ships from that direction. Well be much closer to the Star drive limit and should get back there and jump across the system before they could escape. The remainder of our ships will move in system toward them. Thats the plan unless you have any other suggestions.
Kosiev thought and said, Do we use the forts weapons?
Tag thought a moment, Only if they try to fly a suicide ship into it at full speed. I still think the screen would hold; its at half power now and has grown to 50 feet thick. But theres not a good reason to see with so much at risk if Im wrong. Does this plan meet your approval Admiral? Danielle?
Kosiev said, It sounds good to me.
Danielle said, Dont forget the ship warning them that we will resist their occupation.
Tag looked at Kosiev and the Admiral said, Its already in place. The Saratoga will control it and will also be sending a feed of the action to Central Command and to Terl on Cainth. At the end of the battle, one of our ships will be shown approaching the Saratoga and firing as we cut the feed.
Danielle looked at them and said, Are we over confident? Were sending video of this assuming that we are going to win. Are the two of you sure of the outcome? I confess that four thousand ships scare me.
Tag looked at her, Danielle, before we took on those 2000 ships with 350 of ours, I was petrified that our technology would not win out. I saw so many of our ships dying in flames and felt that we were in serious trouble but most of our losses happened within the first 30 minutes of the conflict. After that our ships learned how to use each others screen to protect themselves and our losses stopped. We also learned the right mix of ships to fight together and also to hold our formation and attack together instead of just picking a target and going after it. Our ships know how to save each other now. The small ships empty their overloaded screens into the battle ships screen and the battle ship releases the excess energy by firing its primary beams. We would not fire before until we were next to a target; now we know that firing the primary beam keeps their screen stable. Danielle, weve learned a lot and now were going to use 900 of our ships against 4000 of theirs. Thats more than a 30% improvement in the ratio of ships than last time. We will lose some ships but we will learn from it. Our plan is to try and make sure that no one else learns from it. Are you sure you want to be here when the battle begins?
Danielle looked into Tags eyes and saw his concern and fear for her and said, I wouldnt want to be anywhere else but by your side. Whatever happens; well face it together.
Kosiev slipped out of the room to give them time for each other. He hoped Tag was right about the new tactics and formations but he knew that barroom fights and space battles didnt always happen like you plan them. He knew one thing for certain. There were 4,000 reasons to be nervous coming their way shortly. I wonder if they are worried, he thought.
Aboard the Vgrig flagship Mass Murderer the Warmaster was discussing the coming battle plans with his Subleader. You understand your responsibility.
Yes Warmaster. We will follow your jump two hours later to give you time to reach the planet as we move into their system. The third group will jump in 30 minutes after we arrive or when we call them if conditions change.
That is correct. You must tie their fleet down in the outer system. Well go to the planet from the backside and put some of their cities to the claw. After some of them have been wiped completely out of existence; Ill call for the surrender of their fleet. If they hesitate, two more cities will be clawed from the surface into dust. Theyll give up. Then we can enjoy ourselves with their population. Do not disappoint me, Subleader! The Vgrig Warleader stood up to his eight foot height and spread his leathery wings, his fangs were dripping from anticipation of the coming slaughter. He looked even more like a gargoyle. The silver plume on his head stood straight up showing his eagerness to start the killing.
Ill do my duty and make myself worthy of stature. May our claws dig deep.
The Warmaster smiled and looked forward to the kill.
Chapter 5
Admiral Kosiev, Admiral Dorg, and Tag watched the monitor on board the Washington for what they knew was coming. Kosiev could tell the bridge crew was apprehensive about the coming battle but they maintained their discipline and though fear was a part of their daily meal, moral was high. The six week warning was over today. The Alliance fleet would make their jump soon. Keep your eye on the small group of 800 ships. If Im right they should be jumping first, Tag said. They continued to watch and then they saw the small group start moving away from the planet. After 90 minutes had passed, a second larger group of 2100 warships started moving away from the planet. Both groups had moved into their assigned attack formations when the third group started moving an hour later.
Youre going to have to tell me how you know these things in advance, Mr. Gardner. Kosiev said. It looks like you were sitting in their planning session.
I could have been wrong, Admiral. But they dont know that we know how many ships theyre sending. We also know how they are organizing their fleet. Its easy if you have those facts. If we didnt know that, this plan would be hard for us to handle without the asteroid forts. We probably couldnt handle it even if we did know. Im surprised they didnt just jump all 4000 ships and head straight for the planet. If they were spread out enough, theres no way we could prevent them from attacking Earth at least not without matching ship for ship. I believe that part of their plan is to also totally destroy our remaining ships.