The Warleader thought, I wouldnt waste them either. Well probably have to deal with them at the end. Continue scan, he ordered his fleet. At this rate we should reach the planet in two rotations, He said to his bridge crew. It will be worth the time though; there wont be any hidden surprises. Let me know if anything is detected, then he left and went to get some rest before the actual fighting took place.
Tag and Taz watched as the fleet moved closer. Looks like theyre not taking any chances, Tag said.
Do you think they will be able to detect the caverns on the Moon? Taz asked.
No. Those caverns are deep and shielded by miles of metallic rock. Even the Launch tubes were just cut with a power laser so there wont be any exotic metals. Their sensors arent that good and Im not convinced that we could detect them either. I know Kosievs ship couldnt.
At the rate theyre moving, we probably have a couple of days before they reach moon orbit. Why dont you get some rest, Taz said.
I think I will. Thanks, call me if anything changes.
Count on it. Im taking a shift off but Captain Glenn will keep us informed.
Admiral Dorg and Tgon-Gee were watching the feed from Earth as the Alliance fleet moved toward the Humans home world. Dorg said over his com, That fleet is the largest Ive ever heard of and it looks like they arent taking any chances.
Youre right. Do you think our Human brothers can handle that fleet?
I dont know. If they can lure them in close to the planet, those asteroids pack quite a punch. It just depends on how the fleet commander decides to play it out. If they wont come closer, it will be a space battle. I understand that the Humans have more than 7,000 ships which give the Alliance less than three to one odds. That is the best the Humans have faced so far. If they can destroy most of those ships, then the Alliance will be in real jeopardy.
If that many ships are lost by the Alliance, I know at least five hundred members that would take advantage of the moment and attack other members. Have you been directed to stay out of this battle?
Dorg thought for a moment and said, No, we just havent been invited and I sure would like to see how our new ships perform in combat. Why, are you planning to crash the party?
Tgon-Gee chuckled and said, Those Humans have some very descriptive sayings. Ive thought about it but like you said, we dont have an invitation. Thats odd, whats the Alliance fleet doing?
Dorg looked at his feed and said, I dont know. I wonder what theyre up to now.
After two days of scanning the solar system the Alliance fleet had finally reached the orbit of Earths moon. The planet was totally surrounded by the Alliance fleet and then suddenly, half the fleet turned and accelerated away from the planet toward the Star drive limit. The Vgrig Warleader issued his instructions over the main Alliance frequency. Half the fleet will now go to the Star drive limit to make sure no ships from outside the system jumps in to trap us. Start the Dreadnaughts draining of the screen and no ships get closer than 50,000 trigs. Keep me informed of your progress. One hundred dreadnaughts moved in position to start draining each of the eight asteroids circling the planet. They established their orbit to stay even with the Asteroid they were assigned to drain. The Lead dreadnaught commander Brantu ordered his ships to start draining the Humans screen. Eight hundred beams shot out simultaneously and struck the eight asteroids.
Tag and Taz had watched the Alliance fleet advance closer and closer over the two day period and waited for them to arrive at earth orbit. When they finally did and half the Alliance fleet turned and ran to the star drive limit it genuinely surprised both of them. Well, thats something I hadnt planned on, Tag said. It seems our Alliance neighbors are suspicious of our intentions. I guess this changes the number of invitations we send out.
Taz laughed at Tags humor and said, So what is the plan now?
Colonel, Im not sure that we can trick them in close. If they are so worried that half their fleet leaves, I just dont see anyone getting close to the planet unless the screen just goes completely down. Even then I suspect they will fire a few nuclear missiles at some of our population centers to make sure were not bluffing. Do you think differently?
You think theyll stay away even if we let a few shots get through?
Put yourself in their place. Their commander has seen firsthand how powerful your weapons are on these asteroids. Would you get close under any circumstances?
They watched their monitors and the ships surrounding Earth moved no closer than 70,000 miles. Youre probably right. What do you want to do?
How are the dreadnaughts affecting your screens?
They are actually draining a huge amount. If they could stay at it for a year they could probably get us down to dangerous levels. I would have thought we could hold our own with solar energy but whatever system they designed really takes energy.
Is there anything you can do about it?
We can send them more energy than they can handle. They are outside our beam range but they give us a perfect conduit to fire a needle thru their beams into their ships. It will give us a chance to try the new larger needle. With the oversized Coronado Cells, the size of the circle got much bigger with nine foot cells. We can fire more than 3000 hornets in each of those beams and not even worry about them touching the sides of the beam.
Hold off on that, we need to decide what to do about this divided fleet. Tag touched his control panel and commed Kosiev, What do you think about the Alliance tactics, Admiral?
It does present a problem with preventing their escape. Half their fleet could just jump out of trouble any time they chose. If I didnt know better, Id think that the Vgrig Warleader had a little fear in him. I notice he placed his ship in the middle of the fleet out near Jupiter. Id say we got his full attention on his last visit. Kosiev paused and said, If hes that afraid, I dont think you could trick them in close. You would have to be willing to lose some population centers before any of them approached the planet.
Colonel Taz and I have reached the same conclusion. Do we just destroy those ships around the planet? I dont see the outer ships coming in to support the ones in close. Do you?
No, once they see we have more than the ninety or so ships they think we have, I expect Chicken Little out there to make a run for it. Kosiev paused and said, We could cut their numbers down, though.
How? Tag asked.
We have the ultra ships. Where do you think they will try to escape to if they run?
Probably back to the Alliance main government planet where they jumped in from.
Kosiev reached into a bag of popcorn and munched a few kernels then said, We could jump all the Ultra ships to the Alliance system and be waiting for them to jump in. As they enter normal space we could hit them with needles. I could have the ships running full speed crisscrossing thru their arrival location so we could catch a large number of them before they realize whats happening.
Tag thought about the idea and said, Wed be giving away the existence our new ship.