“They are not our ships, Pleabaen.”
“More Juireans?”
Hoden turned back to the Kracori.
“Give me answers, Fleet Master!” Linuso lifted out of his seat and took a step toward the screen. At the same time, the senior military advisor seated next to him hurried out of the theater room and into the main command center.
Adam looked over at Riyad, who was seated to his left, and raised an eyebrow. “It appears as though our Klin friends do not like surprises,” Riyad said through a bright, toothy smile.
“Yes, the plot thickens,” Adam said, sitting up a little straighter in his chair and glanced around at the others seated around him. He caught Lt. Tobias’s eye, and sent him a wink.
“Classic,” was all the Lieutenant said.
Fleet Master Hoden leaned in toward the screen. “The gravity signatures match our own, Linuso, but they are not our ships. And we count over five hundred of them closing on the battle scene.”
Chapter 52
For two billion years, each of the gas giants had played host to a pair of massive asteroid rings, and for most of their orbital journeys, these tiny bodies of rock and metal remained at relative peace and stability with their sisters. Yet there was a place where the two rings merged, to intertwine in a complex and violent dance of unpredictable collisions and billiard-ball like disbursement. This place was called the meat-grinder.
It was here that the two gas giants of Falor and Kapel fought for dominance within their system, not allowing any smaller planetoids to gain footholds to become planets in their own right, not against the completing tidal pulls of the giants. It was through this invisible tug-o-war that the somewhat uniformed rings would enter, then scatter, only to be pulled back in line by the colossal gravities of the giants once emerging from the meat-grinder. And this had been going on for billions of years.
Near the confluence of these rings, there formed a narrow corridor of relative quite between the giants and the colliding asteroids, where gravity and matter were formed a tenuous alliance. Unfortunately, there was only one way in or out of what was known as the Kapelean Corridor. Arriving along the elliptical plane was suicide; the only approach came from the top, with the bottom of the corridor effectively blocked by the thickness of the completing asteroid belts.
To travelers familiar with the Falor-Kapel system, the Corridor was well-known. To others, entering this stellar Venus-flytrap, without knowing the way out, could spell disaster.
The Juireans knew the system well, and as such, found the confusing dynamic of dead-ends in space to be particularly ironic when planning their trap for the unsuspecting Humans. Escaping from the rear of the Corridor was nearly impossible. And now with the damper field strung across the entrance, the Juireans were effectively planning to place themselves at the bottom of a jar and then close the lid, effectively trapping themselves inside with a swarm of wild and angry Humans.
For the Humans, the trap was simply too inviting to ignore. Here was a small force of Juireans, the remnants of their much larger fleet, now backed into a corner with nowhere to run. With nearly all of the recent battles ending with the Juireans engaging deep-gravity wells and departing, the Humans would surely find the lure of a fight to the death fitting justice for the attack upon their homeworld. Yes, the Humans would bite. They would enter the Corridor — their bloodlust would allow for nothing less.
Yet unknown to the Humans, there were over three hundred additional Juirean ships already in the jar, invisible, in dark status. Once the invaders were in the jar — and with the lid snapped shut — the Humans would have no way to escape. It would be a glorious and momentous victory for the Juireans, and reestablish their reputation as the greatest warriors in the galaxy.
The Council knew that the Juirean myth of invincibility had suffered greatly over the past several months. The strategy of hit-and-retreat was making the once-vaunted Juirean military the laughing stock of the galaxy. An attempt to lock down the media coverage concerning the string of Juirean defeats had failed miserably. Recently, however, the Council had begun to use the media to spread the rumor of even greater Juirean losses, hoping that the news would filter its way back to the rapidly advancing Humans. The more the invaders believed the Juireans to be weak and on the verge of defeat, the more headlong would be their flight into the trap.
Council Elder Hydon Ra Elys was feeling conflicted with the strategy. He was the proudest of the proud Juireans and hated to see the reputation of his race besmirched, if even for a greater good. Even though the plan was sound, Hydon still made a resolution: after this conflict was over he would show the Expansion just how powerful the Juireans were — and still are. Even now, the factories were running around the clock churning out the machines and weapons of war. Going forward, he would not have them slow. Instead, he would rebuild the Juirean military might and then clamp down on any uprising, and squelch any discontent among the Members. Within the Expansion of the future, there would be no doubt left as to who was in charge of the galaxy.
The threat from the Humans had opened Hydon’s eyes to the complacency his kind had been guilty of over the millennia. In reality, the galaxy was still a dangerous place, and one never knew from where the next threat would emerge. From here and evermore, the Juireans would be ready to face any foe. They would not be caught unprepared again.
Chapter 53
Captain Lee Schwartz had already fallen for the old ‘run ‘em through the asteroid field’ ploy once before, and as a result, he wasn’t about to fall for it a second time. Of course, this did limit his options as to how he would deploy his numerically-superior shadow fleet in the coming battle.
Thus far, there had been no confirmation that the Juireans had even reinforced their rapidly dwindling fleet, yet the strategy was too obvious to ignore. And now they had backed themselves into a corner. Lee — along with all the top brass in the fleet — just couldn’t believe that the vastly more-experienced Juireans would let this happen by accident. No, this was deliberate, and as such it must mean that it was here where the aliens planned on springing their trap.
On the charts it was called Falor-Kapel; for Lee, it was a chance to get back in the action.
Of course, it had been drilled into him time and again by his uncle that Captain Lee Schwartz was now in command of the fleet, and not just one of its jet-jockeys, as he called them, even though that term no longer applied to ships in space. It was now his job to stand back and observe the entire battlefield and to deploy his forces as needed. Lee agreed that would be hard to do with your ass on fire, in the middle of a dogfight with an alien spacecraft.
And yet Lee had not asked for this assignment. It had been foisted upon him primarily as the result of nepotism, as a way to insure the absolute secrecy required while assembling the Human shadow fleet. Lee had done the deal, and now his fleet consisted of five-hundred eighty-five ships. Most of these ships were perfectly clean vessels that had been reported as destroyed in battle, and yet having suffered no damage at all. About a third of his fleet consisted of ships that had been damaged but were now repaired and battle ready. It was a sizeable force, nearly double that of the supposed main Human fleet of two-hundred ninety-two ships.
Although Lee hated the boredom and lack of action associated with his new status as Fleet Commander, he nonetheless loved the strategy. Soon he could deploy his forces in battle — and he would love to see the look on the face of the Juirean commander when he did. It would be priceless.