Williams faced Ensign Collins. “What do you have on sensors?”
“Nothing sir, but if they just launched it will be another hour or so before we get confirmation back.”
Tolukei was their eyes and ears in the delicate situation, what he said Williams had to trust completely and base all tactical decisions around. “Tolukei, what’s the ETA on those ships?” Williams asked him.
“Two minutes, they are . . . very fast.”
Two minutes to travel across the distance of thirty light minutes, they were officially dealing with ships capable of FTL. Something both Radiance and Hashmedai were incapable of developing, and something that wasn’t surprising when human scientists first learned of how fast their ships travelled as it only confirmed that Einstein was right, it was impossible to travel faster than light. The situation at hand confirmed otherwise.
“This is Commander Williams to Captain Foster, do you copy?” he transmitted, but as he feared there was no reply. “EVE, what was their last known location on the surface?”
“They entered a central chamber located approximately two kilometers into the alien structure.”
Williams considered sending another transport jam packed with Hammerheads to retrieve them, but there were too many risks. If those Hammerheads didn’t return, then he’d be dealing with two missing teams. Even if they did find Foster and her team, they had less than two minutes to get back to the Carl Sagan before the hostile ships arrived. Hell, the whole process of getting a rescue team suited up and a transport down to the surface would have taken two minutes.
What Williams needed was instant extraction and he needed it forty-five seconds ago. He faced Tolukei, knowing full well he was that source of instant extraction. “Tolukei, can you teleport down and recover them?”
“That will leave you without a psionic and at a disadvantage,” Tolukei said.
“I’m not leaving the captain and her team behind!”
Tolukei nodded. “As you wish.”
Williams addressed the rest of the bridge crew as alert alarms began to blare throughout the ship, springing the crew into action. “Everyone, strap in or get your magnetic boots active, we’re gonna lose gravity.”
Tolukei folded his hands together as the cybernetic devices on his body started to glow brightly. Williams couldn’t help but watch as the Javnis psionic used his gifts to teleport away. He had heard all about the abilities of psionics, viewed photos, watched videos. But never in his life had he witnessed one use their skills with his own two eyes, eyes that he had to shield with his arms. Tolukei’s body was consumed by extremely bright blue that dematerialized his body. Once it subsided, Tolukei was gone and the bridge lost gravity instantly.
Williams was tasked with the next part of the plan, survival. Survival without a psionic against an enemy that could move faster than sensor scans. “Shields at max, activate all defensive weapons,” Williams ordered, he then opened a comm link with Rivera. “So, Chief, we might be going into our first combat situation.”
He heard Rivera laugh and reply. “I was wondering what those alarms were.”
“In less than two minutes we’re going to be outnumbered four-to-one,” he said. “So, if you have any tricks up your sleeve, now’s the time to get them ready.”
“Commander,” Collins said, directing Williams’ attention forward.
From the horizon of the planet Williams saw two of the four ships arrive on a direct intercept course to the Carl Sagan. The ships were round-shaped almost like an egg, their shiny, grey exterior hulls reflected light from the white dwarf star in the distance. A hexagonal shaped crevice on the front of the ship began to glow red, and Williams assumed it was the opened weapons port.
“Try contacting them on all channels, let them know we don’t want a fight,” Williams said.
The red hexagon on the two ships pulsed briefly and sent out white beams of energy which impacted the shields of the Carl Sagan, distributing blue ripples of energy across it. It was strong enough to send slight tremors throughout the ship and trigger computers to beep with warnings.
“Something tells me they want a fight anyways,” Collins said.
One of the alien ships broke off and sunk into the atmosphere of the planet, while the remaining one continued its assault with its beam cannons.
“Return fire!” The words Williams had hoped he wouldn’t have to use during their peaceful exploration.
The Carl Sagan’s forward rail guns slid out from beneath the hull of the ship. They quickly acquired a target and sent targeting scanner data to Collins’ computer. EVE’s calculations assisted, and helped to compensate for the drift between the two ships. Magnetically accelerated slugs discharged rapidly, leaving behind red streaks of tracer light on their one-way trip to the alien ship. Every bullet that hit put holes into the hull of their target, there were no shields on the alien ships to hinder their performance. And judging by newly collected tactical scans, shields might not have been needed.
The Carl Sagan’s defensive assault left the alien ship with gaping holes torn through not only from the point of impact, but from the opposite end. They swiss-cheesed the hell out of it, and it refused to falter from its beam weapon assault against the Carl Sagan. Whoever the hell was piloting the ship was tough and still alive, much like the internal systems of the ship which should have suffered critical damage by now as another salvo of devastating energy collided with the Carl Sagan.
“Any idea where that other ship is heading?” Williams asked during the weapons exchange.
“To the surface, where the captain’s team landed,” EVE said.
Tolukei hurry up man! Williams thought as he established a comm link with him. “Tolukei, have you found them?”
“My teleport put me further away from them than I thought; it will be sometime,” Tolukei transmitted back.
“You might have incoming from behind, so hurry up!”
The Carl Sagan rumbled again while the next energy beam blast collided with them. “Shields holding sir, one-on-one, we got this,” Collins said as he checked his computer screen.
The remaining alien ships decelerated from their FTL jump and entered the fray, displaying the same deadly show of force the previous ones had. “You just had to say it, didn’t you?” Williams groaned and sighed at the sudden change of events. He had forgotten that Tolukei had mentioned four ships total.
The three alien ships ceased firing briefly and flew closer to one another, entering a tight formation. Energy that looked like bolts of electricity danced back and forth between the three ships and formed almost a triangle shape between them. It was a power exchange Williams figured, and EVE’s computing also agreed with his theory. With the three ships in sync with each other the lead one emitted a long and continuous burst of white and blue energy at the Carl Sagan.
“Forward shield down to sixty-five percent,” EVE reported, “sixty-four percent. Commander, at this rate we will lose shields in approximately one minute twenty-three point eight seconds.”
“Fire on the lead ship, throw everything at them, missiles and all,” Williams said.
The Carl Sagan’s rail guns snarled as its missile ports opened and released multiple plasma missiles at their focused target, white contrails were left behind in the missile’s wake. Williams hoped it would be enough to take it out of play as they had a limited supply of missiles. Until they got a manufacturing plant set up and mines producing enough resources, every missile fired, was a missile they didn’t have for a future conflict. And something told Williams, that even if they got out of this, it wasn’t going to be the last encounter.