Spacewolf (Cleaned up)

[Isolder74]

Spacewolf
Chapter One
Spacewolf,
The First Encounter
By Daniel Bradbury

Out of the void of space, a small canister drifted among a field of twisted metal–all that was left of a prestigious starship. Dismembered bodies floated amongst the rubble, and a handful of recovery shuttles rummaged through it. They resembled a pack of vultures pecking through a dead corpse as they searched through the floating debris. One of them moved towards the drifting canister.

“Hey, it’s an escape pod! We might still have some survivors! Get the recovery shuttle over here immediately!” The shuttle pilot cries out.

“Where’s this one from?” The recovery officer quiried.

“Looks like it’s the bridge pod, sir. And I’m getting some faint life readings.” He repied.

“Bring it aboard and let’s get the hell out of here! If there is anyone on board we’ll take care of them on the way out of here. Whoever blew this thing apart might be back any second.” The recovery officer ordered.

“Copy that" Responded the shuttle pilot.

"There’s nothing more for us to find here. If whomever is in this pod found it necessary to disable the pod’s beacon, then we are playing with borrowed time.”

They weaved their way out of the mass of twisted metal, some of the several dozen shuttle’s safety shields flickered as small pieces of debris hit them.

“Is everyone accounted for?’ The recovery officer queried.

“Everyone’s ready; lets go.” The pilot pushed his throttle forward accelerating his ship away from the mess behind him.

The flotilla of shuttles approached an almost glass-like square in the fabric of space. As they entered the square, they seemed to disappear as if they had passed into the surface of a still pond and in a flash the square was gone.

AUDIO LOG TRANSCRIPT:
Dr. Peter Christinov, MEET #64 Chief Science Officer, JULY 27, 2164

To my knowledge, I am the only surwivor. I have been adrift in deep space for more than two veeks. I am making this recording so that vhen my surwival pod is found somevone vill know vhat happened to us.
My ship, MEET #64, vas on its last stellar surwey; the first Manned Exploratory Excursionary Transport to be retired. The computer log was so full of names and numbers for stars that it vould no longer accept any more. To save time ve named this star MEET after our ship’s designation.

Things vere going vell ... until ve had entered the inner system. The asteroid field contained an asteroid that had been carved into a huge starship of some kind. It vas abandoned, apparently due to a meteor impact. The forvard portion had vhat looked like two sections. The larger section resembled a crescent moon with an extension in the center of the crescent that attached to the smaller section. The smaller, ... a relative term, resembled an ellipse and it had three noses. It vas another ship of this type that attacked my ship. Ve were attacked after ve began to surwey the third planet. The inhabitants of the planet resembled large insects so ve logged the planet as Arthropodia.

The air in my pod is running low and it is ... getting hard to breathe. I only have a few hours left to live. I vill now go to sleep so that my death is somevhat pleasant.”
(mechanical noises)

...
RECORD ENDS Transcribed by Samuel F. Mason

“Was that everything in the recording?” Earth President McCleary, asked, as he finished the document, as he spoke he looked up at the stern figure standing before him.

“Yes, it is Mr. President. Fortunately Dr. Christinov was rescued.”

“What condition is he in?”

“Last I checked, it was critical. The doctors don’t think he will make it through to speak to us about his ordeal.” Staff General of the Corps of Engineers, Charles Eicher replied, rubbing his cyborg eye. Despite the large number of cyborg parts he received years earlier, only those who knew him well could tell, as he appeared normal.

“Was he the last?”

“Sixty percent of the crew is still unaccounted for. We do not expect anyone else we find to be alive. Fortunately, those who escaped using the shuttle craft avoided the trauma Dr. Christinov suffered. Still, it’s a shame to see your former command destroyed without provocation like this. She was a good ship. ... How will we respond, sir?.”

The president turned to gaze out the space station’s windows. After nearly a minute his voice broke, “But, why?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t think it matters right now. According to the survivors’ reports the bastards have something like our stargates which they carry on individual ships. Worse they can reach Earth without giving us any warning. I don’t think it will take them much more than twelve months to backtrack our own stargate signatures in hyperspace. I suggest that we begin immediate construction of a space navy and planetary defenses for Earth and the colonies.” Charlie opined.

The president’s reflections in the titanium-steel walls spun as he turned to face his advisor across the red carpet. “I don’t think that such drastic measures are in order, Dr. After all this whole thing may just be a misunderstanding. Too many wars have been started for such reasons. Maybe we should try to establish diplomatic relations first.”

“That’s the answer I expect from a former first-contact expert. But, if that doesn’t work we would be left defenseless and at their mercy,” Charlie rebutted. “We still need to have something here. I suggest that we reactivate and refit all of the old war equipment stockpiles, especially the hover-tanks. As head of the Corp of Engineers I represent the only true military force we have active right now.”

“Aye, old friend, but that will require a recommendation from the Planetary Senate, Charlie, that might take some time. After all this is the first war request since the Seige of Babylon It might be best for you to start doing design work on a space navy yourself. That computer-enhanced brain you have should help you a lot in that regard.” The president replied standing up and shaking Charlie’s hand. “Okay. That’s it. Get to work, you don’t have time to waste.” Added the President shaking his slightly sore hand.

_

August 26, 2164

“This cabinet meeting is called to order. The Orthropatarian threat is growing. We have failed in all attempts to contact these aliens. Charlie tells me that the Spacewolf designs are complete. The working prototype will be finished in two months. We still need three men to fly it. And since we have not been at war for over a century not many people have the training required to operate a military craft. Does anyone have a suggestions were we might find a qualified pilot and two gunners?” the President queried.

“Is there a reason it is called a Space ‘Wolf ‘?” asked the Secretary-Of-State, Daniel Sutton.

“Certainly,” replied Charlie, “I designed the ship to be compact and to attack in groups of at least twenty—much like a wolf pack”

He stepped up to the table and placed a disk in the table’s disk reader slot. The lights immediately dimmed and a hologram projected from the center of the table. A long cylindrical ship appeared; the ship looked like a past ages rocket. Its nose was made of three pods which merged into one single cylindrical ship, the center pod extended to the front slightly longer than the other two. Atop the central pod the pilot’s cockpit rose, on the other two a small triangular window was visible. Just aft of where the cockpit pods joined, on the bottom, a long fin extended to the rear of the ship where it then gradually merged with the general cylindrical shape of the ship. At the rear, a pair of swept wings extended from the last 1/4 of the vessel to the beginning of the engine port, on each wing extended a long laser cannon. On top near the center was mounted a massive missile launcher, almost 1/4 the length of the ship. Just in front of this a small square door is visible. At the same position as the missile launcher on the sides a smaller laser canon was mounted, three more were fitted on the nose of each of the cockpit pods. The hologram started at a oblique front view and rotated laterally.

“Of course this isn’t a final design image but it shows what it will look like.” Charlie said eying the hologram. He pressed the eject button on the table and the lights immediately brightened.

“And just how much is this going to set us back?” asked the Secretary of Finance, James McDougall.

“We could be a smoking crater and you would still be pinching pennies.” joked Thomas Armstrong, the Secretary of Trade.

“This is serious,” the president reminded all present, stopping the smirks and snorts short. “They’ve already attacked some of our colonies near their system, and they didn’t think twice about shooting a defenseless shuttle carrying diplomats.”

“So you need a pilot, huh?” responded the President of North America, Samuel Johnson. “Well, that’s easy to solve. Tomorrow in Chicago we’re having a big airshow and pilots from all over the world will be there. They have a dogfight competition scheduled. Surely we can find a qualified pilot there.”

“Good idea, Sam, but where are we going to find people qualified to operate the guns?” Charlie asked.

“How hard could that be? You just have to know which buttons to push, right?” quipped the Secretary-of-Education, George Sagan.

“Actually, they’ll need to be very comfortable with operating in a V.R. helmet for long stretches. That’s in addition to being fantastic shots and having lightning reflexes,” answered Charlie.

“Sounds like a video game addict to me,” George Sagan shot back.

“Either that or a programmer, tester, or something similar,” replied Thomas Armstrong.

“Well, that’s a start, gentlemen. Thank you.” Charlie said. “I’ll have my assistants start compiling a list of programmers that might fit the bill."

"Now, about that Krajickan trade agreement...” The President continued.

_


The President’s entourage arrived the next day at Chicago’s O’Hare Interplanetary Spaceport’s Butch O’Hare Annual Air Show to see thousands of pilots competing for the year’s trophies in several events including air races and formation flying. Professional pilots provided entertainment by performing stunts and engaging in mock dog fights. The President and Charlie were especially interested in these professionals.

During the air show, an unfortunate accident occurred. Simon 'Ace' Skyhawk’s antique F-15 began to have engine trouble. One of the engines suddenly burst into flames and he began to lose altitude, the plane shuddered violently and almost began to spin out of control. Much of the audience screamed in horror as the plane begin to drop from the sky. Inside the cockpit, Ace struggled to get his plane back under control. The plane spun several times before he was able to regain control of the aircraft. It shuttered several times a he swiftly brought it into a shaky landing. Smoke rose from the tarmac and the fire crews immediately pulled him out the smoldering craft within seconds after the plane touching down.

He walked away from the plane throwing off his air hose and tossing it aside with disgust. His actions were so spectacular that the president rushed down toward the tarmac to meet the pilot, dragging Charlie with him.

“Charlie, this man is just who we need!!” The President cried excitedly.

“You really think so, Sir? Well, we did just see something very amazing, but it could have been just part of the act.” Charlie said.
As they were speaking the plane on the runway burst into a ball of flame. The ground and fire crews ducked for cover as the debris flew everywhere. Ace removed his helmet and gave his plane a final salute.

“Now what do you say, Charlie, just part of the show?” The President chided. “Surely, with that cyborg eye of yours you should be able to tell a real fire from a fake one?”

“Hey, can’t a guy ever be wrong? Being half machine doesn’t make me perfect!” Charlie grumbled under his breath.

“Mr. President,” Ace said approaching the group with the president, “They said you wished to speak with me. What can I do for you?”

“As you have seen in the news, we are under a national emergency. The aliens from the planet that we designate as Orthropataria have already begun attacking our colonies near their star system,” the president replied. “They have also killed all of our diplomatic envoys. We have, fortunately, under construction an advanced space fighter. I want you to fly the first prototype. This will be a big commitment because this fighter will be our entire navy for about six months. What do you have to say?”

“Your not mincing words are you? I saw the news story on the diplomatic team. Ever since I have wondered if there is anything that I could do.” Ace said looking around and noticing that all of the reporters and cameramen were being held away from airfield by the firefighters. “Sounds like fun, Mr. President, but are you sure you want to trust me with that expensive a craft. It only took me three years to destroy my grandfather’s F-15, I spent over ten reconditioning it.” Ace responded pointing at the rubble behind him over his shoulder with his thumb.

“I think the engine failure was a mechanical problem rather than a piloting error. We want you to fly the thing, not build it,” replied Charlie.

“Well, that being the case, I accept! Finally something to do with my piloting skills besides loop-de-loops at air shows! When do I start?!!” Ace replied excitedly.

“The ship itself will be ready in about two months, Mr. Skyhawk,But we need you to come with us now to get some combat training in our flight simulator. The ship we want you to fly has a minimum crew of three. Is there anyone who you would like to have fly with you?” Charlie asked, “They need to be well trained in computers and be extremely good shots. The new cadets will not be trained for several months.”

“I can think of two people who would fit perfectly. They are also in the entertainment business and design and test virtual-reality chambers. Joint owners of Reality Games Inc, they also design the flight simulation programs for most of the commercial units in North America. Above all they are good friends of mine. If you want good marksmen, they would fit in quite nicely. My best friends, George and Jonathan Star”

“Where can we find these men? They are on my list as potential candidates but I have had a very hard time contacting them. I want to meet them.” Charlie replied, “I think that they could give us some pointers in the flight-training simulators that we are building for the new navy academy.”

“I can tell you where they are, but finding them there will be a little tricky. Most of the time they are usually in their V.R. chamber here in Chicago testing new scenarios or making the games difficult for their patrons. It is not easy to find them while in the chamber.” Ace replied.

“Well take us to meet them.” Replied Charlie.

_


The virtual reality chamber at Reality Games Inc. contained a maze of slot canyons. The hot sun seemed to beat down on the new occupants of the chamber and the walls of the canyon appeared to rise high into the desert sky. The entire scene was visible to the naked eye and the walls could be touched with the bare hand. A pleasant stream flowed through the canyon. The small group

“When you said Virtual Reality chamber, I didn’t expect this! This is what I would call a reality chamber!” President McCleary stated raising his arms into the air.

“Wow! This is the most amazing use of a Matter Transducer I have ever seen. This scene is totally realistic. I know that objects created with my invention can last for several months if not under stress; I invented it as a form of prototyping. In the standard system the matter in the storage chamber becomes energy for a short period. I would like to play with this use of my invention but don’t want to end up being vaporized. Can it be safely be changed while we are in here?” Charlie said.

“Huh, oh the MT unit? Yes, it can. Since I know their codes, I can override the computer system. You know, they usually don’t like me doing this. I was planning on it anyway because I figured that you didn’t have all day to look for them,” Ace, replied. “Computer, alpha sigma epsilon, code-blue eagle. Reset the chamber to a plains land environment and remove all vegetation. Also, I want a bright red spotlight over both George and Jonathan Star. Execute, code-blue eagle.”

Around the President, his guards, Charlie, and Ace, the canyon terrain began to disappear layer by layer. Within a few minutes, sterile plains appeared and the true size of the room was revealed. The room was larger than a standard football field, having been converted from an old indoor stadium. The red spotlights shone down on a pair of men wearing sensor suits in the center of the room. They looked a little bewildered at the sudden change in their surroundings. A few robotic target drones wandered the landscape.

“See, much easier this way, Mr. President.” Ace stated,

“Hey! Why don’t you two shooting stars get over here? I’ve got an important person who wants to meet you!” he yelled across the room and his voice echoing around the room.

When the first of the two reached the group he spoke saying, “So, Ace, not used to knocking are ya? You do realize you just deleted a weeks worth a work don’t you? Well, who is this important person that wants to meet us?!... Oh, um, uh, hello, President McCleary. How are you today?” said Jonathan rather surprised.

“I’m feeling fine, but our planet as a whole is in dire circumstances. The alien attack will arrive much sooner then previously thought. We are building a space fighter prototype called a Spacewolf. Your friend Ace has already volunteered to pilot the new ship. We would like you and your brother to serve as the gunners of the vessel. Will you accept the position?” The president answered.

“We sure will, Mr. President. I am sure George here would love to be a hero for real.”

“Hold on, Johnboy. Why do you always have to push me into things. You know that I don’t like doing things like that,” snapped George.

“Hey, I’m flying, what have you got to worry about,” Ace said.

“Plenty, someone could shoot at me, I could get maimed, I could get killed, or, or... a lot of other nasty things like that,” he snapped back.

“But, you spend all day under fire in here making it difficult for our players, George. You have nothing to worry about,” Jonathan said.

“Yeah, so? I can get bruises in here. That’s a lot different from having my eyeballs explode due to vacuum, being impaled by a laser, or ending up as a slave to some slimy alien. Besides, didn’t he say prototype? We could blow up on the launch pad! ” replied George. “I’d rather stay safe in my V.R. chamber and make more games”

“Nothing will be safe if they orbitally bombard the planet, George.” responded Charlie.

“And they’d do it three months.” added President McCleary.

“You can’t possibly mean that. How could they do that?”

“Simple; teleport into the system, grab a convenient asteroid, and drop it on any inhabited planet. And that is only one scenario”

“You can still make games in the meantime. I want you to fly with me because you’re the best shot I know. An enemy is like a shark. Once you pull their teeth they can’t hurt me or you.” Said Ace.

“I guess you are right, no one can fly better than Ace here, and if we are as good of shots in the real world as we are in the virtual world we ought to do well. I’m sure the pay will be good too,” George admitted.

_


Two months later, on January 1, 2165, the Spacewolf fighter was ready to be launched. The launching had received large amounts of press attention. There were news crews from The Galactic News Network, and every major news corporation from most of the galactic powers was present. The fields around the Kennedy National Spaceport was filled with reporters, cameramen, and spectators. The once exclusively government space center was now a bustling starport. Even during this occasion dozens of starships were coming and going from the various terminals. This launch was taking place in the historic section of the base in order to better isolate the launch from all of the normal traffic. A special launch tower had been constructed just for this new ship and its design obscured much of the new ship. The crowds that has assembled to veiw the launch had been positioned across on of many waterways on the base. A large grandstand had been set up with a large flat 50 meter tall screen as a backdrop. The loudspeakers announced the crew, Stardust, Nova and Supernova, their new code names, was boarding the new ship. In the monitors, the 45 meter, powerful-looking starship stood gleaming in the morning sun. They saw the large hexagonal main hatch as it swung shut and was secured by several technicians. The technicians scramble to the elevator gantries and then into an underground bunker. The wing tips of the ship could be seen on the sides of the launch scaffolding with the silver laser cannons reaching for the sky.

The spectators strained to see as the final countdown began. For several times, the countdown was halted, as various checks reported problems with the systems in the untested ship. The worst, threatening to delay the launch for several days, was the tower’s anti-matter fuel injection system slightly glitched once among other small problems. The crowd grew restless as the anticipation and anxiety grew with each passing minute. Finally the launch neared the last few seconds and everyone strained to see the final seconds.

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-Ignition-1-0-liftoff! boomed the loud speakers, and with a spectacular trail of fire, the ship, gleaming, rose into the sky. A towering plume of smoke and briefly obscured the ship as it rose off the pad, creating an eerie sensation as the sound arrive a few seconds later, the ship already half-way through the atmosphere, the spectators, news reporters, spaceport personnel and effectively, the whole world cheered as the ship rose into the sky. The booming sound of the engines and the sonic boom arriving a few seconds later, creating an eerie sensation.

The ship flew out of the atmosphere and its course sent it flying past a majestically lit space station. The sunlight behind it lit up the shiny new paint and polished steel on its weapons. The wing’s long laser cannons active amplification crystal sparkled as the sun hit them.

As the wash from the engines slightly shook the windows of the central spire of the massive John Marshall Space Station, a man stood behind one of the central windows, hidden from view, talking in hushed tones to a small device on his hands.

“Stardust, glad to see that you have finally made it off the ground. This is President McCleary speaking. There’s been a change of plans. No time for the target practice session we intended. You’re going to need to head for the stargate immediately. I just received a transmission that Orthropatarian forces are attacking the planetary nation of Vega. We want to send the Orthropatarians a message. We will not tolerate them attacking us or our allies. I will now switch you to Charlie for further instructions.”

“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but we appear to be forced to do a field test of the ship. All right, you three hot shots are going to get the Reader’s Digest version of a mission briefing. Your destination is gate coordinates 1243-Vega. The Vegans have extensive planetary defenses and army, but due to many treaties with the Taurusans have no space navy. Your objective is to stall the Orthropatarians until the Vegans can get their systems to full combat readiness. By the way, we don’t understand much about the Orthropatarian’s command structure. It’s important for you to come back in one piece. Note, we didn’t load a complete weapons arsenal at the launch so be careful.

Remember, besides having the standard Multi-Ordinance Weapons Launcher we added the ability to launch the device as a sort of doomsday weapon. You have the ability to fire two of these devices but because we didn’t expect combat that’s all you’ve got. So if you fire them both you will have no missile defense. We felt that this was a good addition to your standoff firepower. That is all. See you in twelve hours. By the way make sure that your flight recorder is on before you enter the gate. ... We need the information it will provide us. I will now turn you over to James Woodbury.”

At this moment the radio switched into only Stardust’s cockpit. The face of a man in his thirties appeared on the moniter. His light brown hair was cut in a short busimen style cut. The navy blue suit he had on was addorned with a white nametag and above it a gold pin with 4 small stars and an eagle with spread wings above them, the Republic seal on his nametag was visible but his name itself was not. His position as Secretary-of-War was well known to them.

“The military situation on Vega is uncertain. As of right now there is little chance you will have any vegan fighters left to back you up once you arrive. It is estimated that the Vegan Planetary Shields and Defense Batteries will be online when you arrive. The shields will not be at full combat strength and their battery range does not extent into high orbit. I feel it unlikely that their shuttle bases will be intact or operational when you arrive. If need be you can retreat to the satellite network if things get too hot. Good luck, boys.”

The Spacewolf fighter approached the spherical stargate, it had a cylindrical equatorial collar; attached to the collar were several large, T.V. shaped objects with what looked like the screens facing out. A square-shaped portal projected from one of these.

“We are preparing to enter the stargate matrix. I want you two to hang onto your hats and be ready to engage the enemy. According to my navigation computer, it looks like we’ll be hot dropped out of the gate in the orbit of the second moon of third planet of the Vegan system. I’m sure that our arrival will draw a lot of attention.” Stardust said.

“You have got to be kidding?!” said Nova.

“Of course not. Weren’t you listening? Did you think that this is going to be a cakewalk.”

An operator’s voice came over the radio system, followed by a loud beep. “This is Stargate 1, coordinate control center, state your coordinates after the beep. Have a safe journey and thank you for using the Terran Space Rapid Transit Network.”

“1243-Vega, execute code red defensive mode upon exit at our destination.”

Within seconds the square portal slammed into the ship and with a burst of light the ship began its journey into history. The president watching from his window gave them a parting salute.

“ Good luck my friends, and may God go with you.”

_


“What do you mean there are bogies in the outer net?!” Asked Colonel James Donaldson, “I don’t believe it, activate main holo-display. ... Holy smokes, where did they all come from?”
In the center of the room a gigantic 3D-view of the beautiful blue-green planet appeared, all around it thousands of red dots flashed on and off. Each red flash indicated where a sattilite had just been destroyed. Several transparent spheres indicated the boundaries of the two satellite networks. On the display the three orbital shuttle bases could be clearly seen in between the two satellite networks. The planets three moons were shown partially transparent.

“They just appeared, like they came out of a hole in space. So far there are approximately one thousand of them and they are firing on our satellites!” Major Betty Sonner responded in a hurried voice. “The system was not designed for this type of attack, sir. Because of the safeties, the satellites are not returning fire even though they are active in the outer net.” She added.

”Sound general quarters and get those things marked as hostiles, now, Major. Lieutenant Mecham, notify Marshal Rodin immediately!” Colonel Donaldson ordered. Major Sonners hands were already flying all over her keyboard trying to get as many defensive systems activated as possible, rolling her eyes at the order, as if the need wasn’t already obvious.
The claxon blared throughout the room and red lights flashed. This forced the colonel to yell his orders over the din. All throughout the entire base bewildered officers and solders staggered around in a daze as if the entire place had just been bombed.

”But, it’s midnight and he’s at home, sir,” responded Lieutenant Peter Mecham.

”Then wake him!” The Colonel snarled.

”Why me? The lieutenant whined.

”Just do it.” The Colonel demanded. ”Major Kersey, what is the situation at Alpha Base.” He added towards his communications officer.

”Sir, I have a call from the Alpha Base Commander!” Cut in Major Anthony Kersey one hand on the headset, while the other swept over his console, as he tried to sift through the heavy radio traffic.

”Put him on!”

On one of the large screens appeared the image of a slightly balding, blond-haired man. A look of worry permeated his silver face, his dark brown eyes drooped with fatigue. The signal was slightly fuzzy and lines moved up the screen.

”This is Commander Abrams, I’ve got bogies all over here! They will be able to strike my base in less that four minutes! I’m going to have to use at least half of my forces just to cover the base. ... It would be nice to have some guns on this hunk of junk. Curse those Taurusan treaties.!” He said grumbling.

”We have similar reports coming in from Beta and Gamma, sir.” Major Kersey quickly added.

Marshal Rodin stormed into the room, slamming the armored doors behind him, his uniform ruffled, unkempt and only half buttoned. “All right Colonel Donaldson, this had better be good.” He snapped, a sour look on his face.

”What did you say to him, lieutenant? One min, twenty-five sec. is a new record.” Major Kersey muttered in the background as Colonel Donaldson addressed the Marshal.

”Marshal Rodin, there are thousands of bogies in the outer net. We have already lost 10,000 of the outer laser satellites, leaving us at 95% and falling.” he responded waving his hand towards the holo-display as the general quarters lights shone red all about him.

”How long have they been here?” The Marshal inquired gazing at the holo-display of the planet.

”Almost two minutes now, sir. That’s not the worst of it. Look at the screens! More ships continue to jump into the area. Losses are up to ten percent of the outer laser net. Still no losses among the missile or sensor platforms, or the inner net.” Colonel Donaldson reported.

”Send a communication to Earth, immediately!” He looked at his watch. “They warned us about these guys but we didn’t take it seriously enough. They should be launching their Spacewolf any second now. Also activate Defense Plan Wraith, immediately” Marshall Rodin ordered.

“Outer missile Satellites are operating at optimal efficiency. We have 50% activation on the inner net. One hundred fifty seconds to full combat effectiveness.” Major Sonner’s soprano piped.

“I have President McCleary on the horn, sir.” Major Kersey reported.

“Give him a report on our situation.” The Marshall ordered.

“We have a priority-one signal from Alpha Base, sir.” Major Kersey quickly reported.

“Put him on the screen.” Marshall Rodin ordered. “Bill, old buddy, what is the problem.”

“We have all of our 300 ready shuttles launched from all three of my bases but we there is a new problem! These aliens seem to have at least some intelligence, for as soon as we launched our fighters they have teleported right into range of my base. I may not be able launch all my fighters if they are going to destroy them as I scramble them.” The transmission shakes violently and loud crashing noises can be heard. “I need something to cover me. How long before the Inner net will be ready?”

“In about two minutes, commander. Begin emergency procedures now!” Rodin ordered. “Switch me to the wing commander, Major Kersey.”

“Yes Marshal, one moment.”

“This is Captain Thomas Zimmermann. My men and I are doing the best we can. (Squads four and five to sector 1-6, Squads two and three set up cover fire in sector 1-1, take down enemy units only if you can do it without losses.) I’m a might bit busy out here, Marshal. What do you need!?”

“How good are they, Zim?”

“Individually they’re not, but they attack like a swarm of hornets. Swatting one or two just isn’t cuttin’ it. (Squad one, cover Alpha Base now! Large numbers of bogies heading that way.) Uh oh! Got one on my six! Gotta get back to business, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Marshall! Scanners report that a large energy disruption just appeared on the outer edge of the system at about the eighth planet.” Major Sonnor interrupted. “It might be something for the Earth’s Spacewolf to check out.”

“Marshal, Earth reports that their Spacewolf is in the air and on its way. They should be here in less than seven minutes. Is there anything specific we want them to know?” Major Kersey reported.

“We wouldn’t have the time to tell them all that they would need to know. It would be best to fill them in on the fly. That is assuming at least some of our pilots are still around when they get here.”

“Colonel, the aliens seem to have slowed their arrival rate.” Reported Major Sonner.

“Let’s see those figures.” The coronal demanded leaning over to look at her consol. He watched as the rate of new target blips slowed to almost nothing.

“She’s right, Marshal. We seemed to have survived the first wave, sir.”

“If that’s the first wave I’d hate to see the second wave.”

“This is Gamma Base.” The communicator blared. “I don’t think that this slowing of the alien arrival is a respite. I think that they’re just testing our defenses. They’ve paused to either analyze or apply what they’ve learned.”

“Zim, here. My men and I have eliminated about ten thousand of the enemy fighters, but we lost over 45% of the 500 shuttles launched. I don’t know how long we can hold out. We have used 90% of our missile payloads.”

“You’ll just have to do your best with cannons.” Responded Commander Abrams.

“But each shuttle only has two laser cannons, sir. That’s the max that the treaties will allow. That’s why we carry twelve missiles.” Zim answered with an annoyed tone.

“I’m fully aware of that!” Abrams fired back.

“Reload the outer net’s 200,000 Missile Satellites.” Ordered Rodin. “Commander Abrams, how long before we can launch all of our fighters?”

“I’d give it two minutes just to get them ready and two more to launch the remaining 1900 attack shuttles. That’s assuming that we aren’t attacked for four minutes.”

Rodin lips started moving as he started to add things up in his head. He now realized that something more needed to be done. The standard defense plan was not going to be enough. His hand furrowed his brow as he tried to think of what else there was to do. Then he snapped his fingers and ordered briskly. “Execute defense plan Romeo Sierra. Shut down everything not defense related. I want every available joule going to the planetary shields. Get them up the fastest.”

“Missile satellite magazine recycling complete, sir.” Sonner reported. “Ground installations are now online and will soon be ready to fire. The outer net has lost 35 % of its laser satellites. The inner net is now at 95 % readiness. All Inner Net missile satellites are armed and ready ... wait!” Her screen suddenly came alive with threat warnings. “New bogies in the net! I read about 10,000 units.”

“All units move to intercept, now!” Rodin barked.

“If this is the start of the wave than we’re in trouble, Marshal.”

“Open up with the ground installations. Launch all shuttles, don’t wait to load all of the missiles, we need them all in the air now.” Rodin ordered.

“Surface air control, reporting, we have 10,000 attack shuttles of Plan Wraith ready to launch and they are fully loaded. I just hope that the Taurusans don’t eat us alive for having over the quota.”

“This just might turn the tide.’ Rodin said with a hopeful tone. “Hey Bill, could you use some help up there?”

“Sure could, I just lost twenty men. You’re not really planning what I think, are you?”

“Launch our secret arsenal. This should even the odds.”

“Zim, here. Cmdr. Abrams, hey, where all those shuttles come from? I thought we could only have 3200 combat capable shuttles?”

“We felt that we needed to keep our options open.”

“So where are the inflatable battleships?”

“Not funny.”

“Four point six-five minutes to Spacewolf arrival. Six point six-three minutes for planetary shielding to reach full charge but they are ready for activation at 35 % power.” Major Sonner reported.

“The Earth’s stargate reports that they can target anything within point five light-years. They could send one of our shuttles or satellites to the location of that strange disturbance.” Kersey cut in. “The only problem is that if they do that they won’t be able to use their defensive portals and the aliens might be able to take the stargate down. What do you recommend, Marshal, they are standing by?”

”Tell them to continue to defend themselves. We can’t afford to have the stargate go down. What is the estimated power level of the planetary shields when the Spacewolf will arrive?”

”I estimate that they will be at about 75 %, Sir.” Replied Major Sonner. “But that is assuming that they take no damage.”

”The shields are down on Gamma Base, I’m taking heavy fire from all sides ... Ah!!” Static filled the communications channel followed by a foreboding silence.

”Marshal, we just lost Gamma Base! I’m afraid that Alpha and Beta aren’t far behind. I’m evacuating them now! They are almost empty without the pilots.” Reported Cmdr. Abrams.

”All enemy units are retreating, repeat all enemy units are retreating. Alpha and Beta bases now stand on automation only, all personal evacuated. Outer Net is now at 45 % and we lost 65 % of our legal fighters. We have eliminated over 1,000,000 units.” reported Major Sonner, “I don’t know how much more of this we can take.”

”What is the Earth thinking. There is no possible way that one hot shot is going to be able stand against these guys?” Rodin muses.

”Well what was the American Revolutionaries in their history thinking when they took on the British Empire in a fight for freedom?” The Coronal answered.

”I guess you’re right but what does that have to do with this situation?” Rodin replied.

”Think about it, sir. I think that they are planning to strike and fade in so many places that the Orthropatarians will assume there are hundreds of units instead of just one.” Donaldson suggested.

”Uh oh, here they come again. These guys just can’t seem to quit.” Cuts in Major Sonner looking at her screen with a hint of frustration.

”I just hope that Earth’s Spacewolf is all that it’s cracked up to be.” Rodin grumbled.

”You’re right, they should be here any second.”

_


So far every wave of the Orthropatarian fighters had been destroyed but their numbers seemed limitless. The seemingly endless bombardment had begun to take it’s toll on the Vegan’s inner net of defense. As the enemy forces began to fire on the planet itself, they didn’t notice the flash of light from the stargate in orbit of the planet’s second moon. They were so intent on their targets that several were nearby the stargate were hit by its defensive portals; which instantly vaporized them. This was more than enough to attract the attention of the nearby Orthropatarian force. Like a swarm of hungry locusts they turned to engage this strange new ship. As they moved to engage Stardust fired his MOWL’s primary weapon, the Explosive Cluster. A meter square door snapped opened and several ball shaped objects that were covered with spines launched from it. The enemy was surprised by the sheer maneuverability of the weapons as they were hit from long range. They burst into spectacular balls of flame. Enraged by this move, several of them teleported within only a few hundred meters of the ship. As the Orthropatarians appeared in the sights of the Spacewolf’s gunners, laser fire lit the sky as the Orthropatarians, one by one, were shot to pieces or destroyed by Anti-Matter Modules, from the MOWL. Undaunted the swarms of ships closed in on the small Spacewolf with all the enthusiasm of a swarm of angry hornets.

“There are just too many of them! They are all over us. They didn’t tell us that they could do that! We need cover!” shouted both Nova and Supernova. “Head for the satellite net.”

“I think command expected this tactic to be used by them or they would not have installed a doomsday weapon on the ship. Keep blasting them until the swarm is in range of the MOWL weapons cluster.” reassured Stardust. Targeting the swarm of fighters in the MOWL target computer, Stardust reported to his crew, “ Lets take Charlie’s little doomsday toy for a test drive.”

Releasing the MOWL unit from the holding bay just behind the pilot cockpit created a spectacular display. The one meter cube exploded with the furry of a volcano sending a thousand small warheads into the swarm. “These aliens are easier than I thought!” Stardust shouted across the intercom.

“Yah, they seem to fly right into our weapons!” Supernova shouted back.

“You would think that they at least try to dodge.”

“I don’t think that they have really met with much opposition before. Either that or they are just dumb.” Nova added.

Something massive had just appeared in high orbit of the planet. It appeared, like the other craft had done, in a slight flash of light. It looked like a large metal encased potato with a pair of sickles placed next to one another forming a crescent-like object extending from the front of the thing. Inside this crescent, what appeared to be a small three-nosed attack ship was attached to the center of the crescent-like protrusion on the front. The entire ship moved rapidly towards the planet below.

“Probably because they can hide behind that.” Stardust shouted “Look at your scanners at what just entered the system. These fighter ships whole purpose may be to just soften up the defenses so that whatever that is can finish it off!”

“It’s huge.” Shouts Nova, “It must be over two kilometers long.”

“Don’t over exaggerate, Nova,” said Supernova.

“I’m not exaggerating, Johnboy,” Nova fired back

“We’re here to stop them from destroying this planet, Stardust, and we have already gotten a lot of fighters. So, lets take that thing out and get out of here!” Supernova shouted “Why don’t we turn that thing into star dust, Ace–er, Stardust!”

“Right with you, boss!”

“Guys, couldn’t we think about this first?”

“Shut up, Nova!” They both shouted back

The vessel had so many small gun emplacements that it looked like a porcupine along it’s sides. It was obviously a world killer as near the tail were two very menacing looking gigantic missile pods with missiles that looked about as large as the Spacewolf itself.
The ship’s immense size did not thwart the Spacewolf crew, while one of them, Nova, did seem to develop a trigger finger. The Spacewolf jinked and dodged so much that the ship’s smaller guns could barely get a clear shot. The command ship’s six large laser turrets were to slow to be effective even before some explosive clusters destroyed them. The missiles that the ship was able to fire were quickly intercepted by the Spacewolf’s micro missiles flying out of the MOWL at high speeds.

Stardust shouted, “I am going to try Charlie’s little doomsday weapon on this thing. I doubt anything else will phase it. Be ready to cover your eyes everyone.”

At this moment, as soon as he had finished speaking, he launched the ship’s MOWL. The weapons cluster was amazingly effective. The MOWL module exploded with all types of its submissions. The large cloud of warheads obscured the ship for a moments and the the ship was enveloped by a massive cascading explosion. One quarter of the giant ship was destroyed and the mountains of debris filled the vortex of space. It was apparent that no one had ever damaged the ship, to this level, before as escape pods and shuttles were jettisoning from the ship in all directions.

“Looks like we scared them!” Stardust shouted to his comrades. “Sensors are detecting some kind of plasma-fusion bomb on the ship. It appears that they have set some kind of self-destruct device. I’m going to get us some distance.”

“Sounds good to me.” Exclaimed Nova and Supernova.

“Hey, all of the other fighters just vanished!” Stardust shouted in dismay.
He checked and double check his sensor display tapping it several times. “I think that we must have really scared them. Never thought that they would retreat that easily. If they had taken out a battleship that belonged to us we would be trying to get as many of them as possible. There must be something very important about that vessel that makes it either impossible for them to fight or very difficult.”

Behind them the enemy ship burst into a brilliant ball of flame. The victorious Spacewolf headed back toward the now reactivated stargate. Calls of thanks came by the hundreds from the planet below as they entered the stargate bound for home. Their arrival at the Earth’s capital space station was greeted with cheers from the docking crews. They were escorted to the president’s office in the center of the John Marshall Space Station. There they were given medals of honor, Earth’s first war heros in over a hundred years. The crew of the Spacewolf knew however that their adventures were far from over. They were looking forward to the day when they would once again strap themselves into the Spacewolf Fighter.

[Isolder74]

Chapter Two
The Swarm Returns


“This emergency cabinet meeting of The Republic Of Planet Earth is called to order.” The President said rising from his seat. “Even though we have just helped the Vegans yesterday in a very decisive victory in orbit of their planet, there are matters that need to be discussed. This station is now armed with the best weapons available but, if the Orthropatarians attack us, at this time, we will still be faced with annihilation because the station alone is not a strong enough defense to withstand their swarms. Marshal Rodin and Captain Zimmerman of the Vegan Defense Council are here to report their findings up to this point. Unfortunately Commander Abrams is recovering from wounds he received in the battle as he barely escaped from Alpha Base when it went down. Also the crew of the Spacewolf fighter is here to give the battle from their point of view. —Marshal Rodin—“ He finished waving his hand towards Marshall Rodin.

Marshal Rodin stood up with a look of fatigue. His deep brown eyes had bags under them. The silvery-white hair crowning his head made him look even more tired. Even so, he still looked dignified in his crisp-white uniform. His silvery-gray skin shined in the lights.

The Marshall placed a disk into the table and a holo-display of the Vegan Defense System appeared. Red areas flashed on and off indicating areas damaged in the attack including all three shuttle basses and showing a large hole in the outer satellite network near Gamma base.

”Gentlemen, I have headed the Vegan Defense Council for almost forty years. And in all that time I have never seen anything like these beings. I can see why you would name them after the Terran locust. They do have capabilities that make them deadly but their threat is their seemingly endless numbers. Though we can’t yet confirm the numbers, during the five minute battle we destroyed over two million Orthropatarian units. Unfortunately, we lost all of our orbital shuttle platforms in the engagement as well as twenty-eight hundred assault shuttles, which was almost the entire legal treaty force. Also, our outer satellite net is now at under 50% Strength. Capt. Zim, please.”

Captain Zimmerman's blue eyes sparkled as he stood up. He had obviously faired the night better, perhaps it was his youth. Wearing a bright navy blue uniform he looked smart and dignified, he was not wearing a tie like Marshal Rodin was, although his black crew cut hair still made him look very official. He too had silvery-grey skin that sparkled in the lights. His pronounced nose stood out among his features and made his head look like a weathercock. Standing taller than the average human his stature made him a head taller then Marshal Rodin.

Zim stepped up to the table and inserted a disk into the reader slot and the holo-projector came once again to life. In the center of the room appeared a recreation of the Orthropatarian’s main fighter unit sighted during the battle. It resembled a river-smoothed flat rock. It was tear-dropped shaped, looking down on the top, with a long conical nose mounted on the tip of the tear-drop shape. Just behind the nose cone a spherical window showed where the cockpit of the vehicle was located.
“I am the Vegan Head of Orbital Strategic Operations, and the Attack Shuttle Wing Commander. I have the good fortune of being one of the shuttle pilots to survive the attack. This is in no way connected to my own ability or prowess; hundreds of men died to save my life. As you can see from this image, the “Orthropatarians” as you call them have ships that are heavily armed for being just 25 meters long with an 18 meter wingspan. They have 27 laser cannons and four missile launchers. Their ships top out at speeds up to 40% of the speed of light which is just over 50% slower than our assault shuttles top combat speeds, and this may serve as a weakness. They also apparently have a type of hive mind as they perform better when attacking a single target as a group than they do engaging multiple targets. This is why that I feel that our defensive satellite network performed as well as it did.

Our bi-level satellite network, is one of the best in the known galaxy. Each net contained 100,000 Laser sats, 200,000 Missile sats, and 10,000 Sensor/EW sats. Even with the excellent coverage these gave to the planet and our orbital installations, the enemy's ability to jump past them made them much less effective then normal. The fact that most of the Laser units were positioned on the outside of the bands did not help much either. Of course, the system was designed to hold off a conventional planetary attack and not these strange new enemies. As I speak, work crews are scrambling to clean up the battle debris and replace the lost satellites.

Our orbital shuttle bases were really nothing more then orbital flight decks. They, by treaty restrictions, had no defensive weapons, but it was planned that by the time any enemy had reached them both satellite nets would be active and an enemy would have fight their way to them. The lack of weapons on our orbital platforms, I feel, cost us hundreds of valuable lives. –Stardust–”

“My name is Simon ‘Stardust’ Skyhawk, but you can call me Ace. I would like to say for the record that I think the Vegan satellite net is second to none. I was very impressed.”

He pressed a button on the table and the image changed to a image of the giant command ship. It looked like a large metal encased potato with a pair of sickles placed next to one another forming a crescent-like object extending from the front of the thing. Inside this crescent, what appeared to be a small three-nosed attack ship was attached to the center of the crescent-like protrusion on the front. The image rotated slowly making it seem even more menacing.

“In the battle, it seems to me that the enemy’s entire command structure is based around a single ship. Nothing we did seemed to make much of a difference until we attacked this large ‘command’ ship. When that ship was destroyed the attack stopped completely. We are still unsure what the objects on the front are or what their purpose is. Any Questions?” Ace finished and sat down whipping out his PDA. He leaned back in his chair and begin to do something on it. It appeared that he had lost all interest in the meeting. All around the room, a low murmur rose after Ace had finished his remarks. Next to him sat the twin brothers George and Jonathan, and they were talking to one another whispering in each other's ears as Ace sat down, James Woodbury slowly raised his hand.

“Mr James Woodbury, Republic Secretary-of-War.” The President said pointing in his direction.

“Marshal, are you sure that they have really retreated?” Woodbury queried. “Even though I gained my position because I am one Earth’s leading authorities on military history, it seems hard to believe that they would run away after just one heavy unit was destroyed.”

“Mr George Sagan, Republic Secretary-of-Education.” The President recognized.

“Well sir, if they truly have some kind of a hive mind based on technology or even biology the destruction of the control unit could result in the breakup of the entire chain.” Sagan Injected.

“As far I am aware they have not returned.” Responded Marshal Rodin. “If you value my opinion I don’t think that they will for a while. I am sure that it will take some time for them to regroup after the loss of such an important a vessel and so many fighter craft.”

“And all of our long range scans have failed to find any more of them in the staging area we detected on the outer edge of our system.” Added Zim.

A low din now filled the room, as theories went back and forth and the discussion of ideas. For several minutes the sound in the room started at a low murmur but quickly rose to a frantic din. The voice of James Woodbury could be heard as he argued with several people about various things that in the noise it was impossible to tell what he was trying to say. President McCleary rose, doing so brought silence quickly to the room, and faced his cabinet and queried. “Are there any other questions gentlemen?”

“Yes,” James Woodbury said, turning his head towards the hero of the moment, “Ace, if my analysis of the flight recorders is correct then isn’t it true that the destroyed ‘command ship’ used a self-destruct mechanism after taking crippling damage and most of said ship’s crew escaped unharmed?”

Ace looked up from his PDA, he seemed startled that someone actually noticed him. His green eyes showed a slight bit of boredom as he responded to the question.

“As far as I could tell from the cockpit that was true. I am afraid that I was not able to review the tapes I just know what my sensor panels were reading and that definitely wasn’t enough damage to destroy the gigantic starship. It’s lucky they did self-destruct as we had used our last MOWL unit on board leaving us without missile defense. As for the crew, I did see several small craft escaping the ship as it exploded.” Ace answered.

“I think that I should begin negotiating with the Taurusan Ambassador to allow both the Vegans and the Taurusans to have a larger force of attack shuttles and to build armed orbital installations.” Opined the Secretary-Of-State, Daniel Sutton. “Obviously, one of the things that saved the planet was the Vegan’s secret force of attack shuttles. Now if we can just get past the treaty violation part and get them to see the desperation of the Vegan’s position we might get some results. We may even be able to convince them to build fighter-class ships like the Spacewolf.”

“That can be discussed later,” Dismissed James Woodbury with a wave of his hand. ”The point I was trying to make was that it is highly likely that most if not all of the crew of this ‘command ship’ was able to escape. This means that the leaders, hive mind or not, survived the battle. And we are not sure how many of these ships they have. This means that they could attack again in weeks and I doubt that the Vegans could survive another attack like the last one.”

“Even though I think it is a waste of energy, I have ordered our entire defense system to be on full alert until further notice.” Interjected Rodin. “And all of our remaining assault shuttles are running on six hour shifts so that we have a full force on patrol at all times.I think we will be able to hold our own now that we know what to expect. After all this is the first time we have fought beings with starjump technology. All of our defense plans prior to this attack were for a possible attack from Taurus, I think it is about time that we finally put aside our petty personal squabbles”
“And we are at this time studying the hulks of the Orthropatarian ships in our labs on Vega.” Added Zim.

The president's panel suddenly buzzed loudly and a red light flashed on and off. “Yes, this had better be important” The President responded pressing a button on his desk.

“Uh, I have a priority call for Marshal Rodin from Vega. They said its extremely urgent.”

“May I take it in the your office, Mr. President?”

“Go ahead, we’ll hold the meeting until your done.”

“What do you think the call is about, Mr. Woodbury?” Asked Ace.

“That is a good question. I think it might be a good idea to have the deck crews warm up the Spacewolf.” Woodbury responded. “Docking bay #3-21, have the deck crews prep the Spacewolf immediately!” He said pressing a button on the desk in front of him.

The marshal enters the room with a worried look on his face. “We’ve got a problem, President McCleary, that was the Vegan Defense Ministry. They have detected small rocky satellites in orbit of the Vegan system. Zim, should we despatch some of our fighters to investigate?”

“That would be prudent. But they need to be cautious, we don’t know if these objects are armed. Ace, do you think the Spacewolf would be useful in this situation. If these aliens think that Vega is Earth, it might be useful to keep up the deception. They may be expecting the ship to show up.” Zim suggested.

“Sounds like a good idea to me.” Ace responded, than turning to Nova and Supernova he said. “Alright guys, lets get out of these monkey suits and into our flight gear. Mr President could we be excused, I’d like to check into those satellites.” Responded Ace.

“Permission granted, Ace, give us a full report when you get back.” The President responded.

“So they now have spy satellites. Now do you see my point, Gentlemen." Jim Woodbury said, turning towards the audience waving his hands for greater effect. His voice was firm and authoritative. "These aliens seem to be full of surprises. I think we need to accelerate our ship building programs; I don’t feel that fighters and shuttles will be enough for our defense. We need warships, ladies and gentlemen, and we don't have time to play the budget game anymore.”

“In light of these new developments I move that we suspend the meeting until Ace gets back and can give us his report.”

“I second the motion” Added Daniel Sutton.

“Done, this meeting is adjourned until 15:00.” Said the President.
They all got up, talking among themselves, some of them in deep thought, James immediately walked over to Secretary of Finance, James McDougall, placing his hand his back, and begin to talk to him in hushed tones.

_


The Planet Vega gleamed in the sunlight as did the mountains of debris surrounding it. The twisted remains of the shuttle bases spiraled in space and were slowly drifting towards the planet. The cloud of debris and half damaged satellites floated amidst the still operational ones. In the midst of the rubble hordes of freighters and construction craft weaved in and out of the mess frantically trying to repair the damage caused by the battle. Several large debris gathering ships were combing the rubble picking up as much of it as they could. The opened front cargo bay of these specially designed ships, had large magnets and tractor beam arrays, these were drawing debris into the ship's large holding bays, automatically sorting the rubble by size and makeup. Other ships painted white and marked with red crosses were looking through the wrecks of Alpha, Beta, and Gamma bases.

Moving through the debris hundreds of attack shuttles flew in four ship formations. As if they had been stung by a bee they all turned toward the outer orbits of the system. As they activated their landing lights a myriad of small balls of rock seemed to appear out of nowhere. The objects drifted through space at a random spacing. From the sides of these rocks, extended delicate solar panels that looked like dragonfly wings.

“Flight Leader to command center.”

“This is the command center, proceed.”

“I’m surprised the sensors even picked these things up. They barely even show up on my scanners and I’m almost on top of ‘em. How did you detect ‘em?”

‘We didn’t, Corpsman Thompson crashed into one of them. Pull in closer and see if you can get some good pictures of one of them. Don’t get too close though, they might be armed.”

“Roger, moving in now, data feed activated. Are you getting this?”
One of the four Vegan attack shuttles pulled in closer to one of the odd satellites. From beneath the ship, the light played from the rocky center to one of the delicate, nearly transparent, solar panels.

“We’re getting the feed, recording now.”

“They seem to be made of material similar to stony meteorites or asteroids. If not for the solar panels they would be indistinguishable from space debris. How did they get here?”

“They must have been dropped during the battle. We have detected none of the energy signatures from their Starjump devises. And no Hyperrifts, except Earth Stargate Traffic, either. Move in closer, the readings aren’t detailed enough.”

“Copy that control, any word from Zim?”

“He says sit tight, and be cautious Earth is sending a scouting party also.”

“Do you want these things eliminated?” He asked, putting his target reticle onto the nearest satellite.

“Not at this time, just keep an eye --”
Suddenly, all of the objects begin to unfold like a flower bud revealing something in the middle.

“Wait, something is happening! The center of the closest object is opening!”

“Pull out now, Lieutenant!”

_


In orbit of the greenish-brown planet of Orthropataria several dozen massive asteroid ships hovered menacingly. The Battle Moon that they used to fit out the massive ships could be seen off in the distance. The massive installation, similar to all of their spacecraft, was carved out of the planet’s second moon. It had a gigantic iris-like door on one side near the center. The moon bristled with gun emplacements and large turrets. Behind it millions of fightercraft of various sizes drifted in an artificial ring surrounding the planet.

One of the many command ship’s lights suddenly came to life. Many small craft appeared right next to the ship and docked with it, followed shortly by thousands of fighter craft. The fighters descended towards the planet while the command ship continued to hang in orbit.
On the inside, a buzz of activity began as the ship activated. Near the aft of the ship a large domed window lite up as the main command center came online.

Inside the giant room the Emperor Sage and his attendants discussed the recent engagement. As they talked dozens of screens flashed on all around them showing both the Vegan Attack shuttles and the Spacewolf fightercraft.

“We have never been defeated! This is inexcusable! I want the head of the creature who dared attack my Hive Ship!” The Emperor Sage Fumed, his large compound eyes glistening with rage.

“My Lord, they damaged the repeater, our fighter’s built in safeties sent them home before their connection to the hive could collapse." The Emperor Sage’s Chief Underling responded, bowing with all four of his hands pressed together in front of his chest. "The lesser Sages lost with the hive ship will be replaced. We will strike back, we just need a good plan. I have already sent observation satellites to the system. In the chaos of the retreat they shouldn’t be detected. They should give us the information we need to destroy these creatures”

His multi-colored wings glistened as he did so, but they paled in comparison to the opulent wings of the Emperor Sage. The rainbow-colored wings seamed to overshadow all others as they sparkled brilliantly. The wings of the Emperor Sage, as with all his other attendants, crowned his back like a proud display of Peacock feathers. As he moved on his throne the sections of the wings changed color from brilliant reds to glistening greens then shifting to fiery yellows.

As with all Orthropatarians the Emperor Sages’s face resemble that of a giant blowfly, his compound eyes had a fiery reddish color and looked like a large group of rubies, his carapace glistened emerald green and sparkled like it was imbedded with jewels while all of the others had a drab brownish color.

In the center of the large hexagonal room his throne stood on a large elevated platform from which he could see everything that transpired in the room as well as see out of the gigantic dome that covered the room. Below thousands of lesser sages were running from consol to consol jumping into chairs and small pits next to them. There was no apparent sense of order in their movements as they scurried about.

“Activate the satellites,” ordered the Emperor Sage, “We must know what those abominations are up to.”

All around him thousands of consoles came to life as one by one each data feed started to come in immediately showing in almost every one the buzz of activity on Vega. In about half of the screens the bright landing lights of Vegan Attack Shuttlecraft panned back and forth across the screen obscuring the visuals. On one screen the satellite was obviously spinning erratically as if it had been hit by something. The Vegan ship’s delta wings glimmered as did the missiles on the wings and wingtips. They had dropped their landing gear in order to use their landing lights. The Emperor Sage studied the screens carefully with a look of shock as he realized that the satellites had already been detected.

“You indicated that they should not be detected!” He fumed, “We must exterminate these creatures before they further sully the galaxy with their presence. Do not act until you find that thing that attacked my hive ship. I want it’s pilot’s head on a spike! Is that understood?”

“Yes, M’Lord, we are searching for it now. It is suspicious that we have not seen it yet." The Advisor Sage answered, bowing, he cowered, fearful of the anger of the Emperor. "This planet may not be their true homeworld. I will endeavor to begin further analysis of their starjump signatures. Even though all ships that entered our system came from here, that does not mean this is their homeworld. Their defenses are strong M’Lord which lends credence to this being a species homeworld. There is also heavy traffic to a planetary system only a few light-years away from this world.” The Advisor Sage responded, bowing.

“Really, Send a scouting party to determine if it is a viable candidate for these Human’s homeworld." The Emperor Sage ordered. "From the looks of the images from the satellites this world will have repaired the damage we inflicted in six hours. There must be someplace we can more easily exterminate first. The planet is much too fortified! It doesn’t make sense, there must be someone else nearby that they are at some type of war with. This could be to our advantage. If there is any place with similar defenses nearby then it would safe to assume they would not help one another.” The Emperor Sage mused. “Find them and perhaps we can incite their war to a new fury.”


_


In the John Marshall Docking bay section #3-21 deck crews were swarming over the prototype Spacewolf fightercraft. The ship was sitting on the deck near the back of the cavernous hanger. To the side of the deck one could see up and down into the multiple levels of the large docking center. Off in the distance the main doors of the massive docking center were open to space. These armored doors had just recently been added to the bay. A force field shimmered in the opening as dozens of light to heavy shuttlecraft, large freighters and passenger liners were constantly moving in and out. On the wall behind the Spacewolf fighter a large elevator opened. Three men wearing flight suits and carrying helmets under their arms, stepped off the elevator and walked toward’s the fighter.

“You think they could’ve put the thing in a less busy docking bay, Ace” Grumbled Jonathan. As they pushed their way through the large crowd waiting to board the elevators.

“There is a business convention here this week you know. Not only that all of the major planetary powers are sending delegates to discuss the recent turn of events.” Ace reminded, “You really can’t expect them to not use an entire deck of this hanger just for us? Even if it wasn’t a busy weekend we wouldn’t have this deck all to ourselves. I runs over a Kilometer long.”

“You know, Johnboy, these people are probably thinking that having to wait for a elevator that was reserved for only three people was us getting in their way.” George added.

“I don’t know about that, I enjoyed the opportunity to bump into three old college chums who happen to be big heros now.” A strangely familiar voice piped up behind them.

They turn around to see a richly dressed man in an opulent double-breasted Sharkskin suit. The man was wearing a pin on his lapel that had a shield with a sword behind it. It had a diamond studded Greek Sigma on the front of the shield and the gold of the pin sparkled. It had in small letters inscribed on the bottom of the shield ‘Centaurus Forever.’ He extended his hand towards Ace.

“You three were voted most likely to succeed at our Graduation party. And here you are, the last bastion of Earth’s safety. Have your life insurance policies been cancelled by your brokers yet?” He said winking.

“James Boudoir, is that really you?” Ace spurted out spinning around dropping his helmet, his brownish-blond hair swirling as he did so. “So have you finally clawed you way to the top of your dad’s shipping company?” He added chuckling.

“Well, I’d hope you’d remember an old Frat buddy from your college days at Centaurus Institute of Technology.” James said chuckling. “But I’m here as one of the delegates for The Bernard’s Star Co-op. I think this was ‘cause they knew that I was coming here anyway for the business convention and had already booked a flight to Earth. The funny thing is it seems most of the others had the same idea and sent people to the summit who had already secured flights to Earth. Then they convinced other people to go to the business convention. It seems every house and guild has sent at least one delegate, needless to say my city's starport was insane today.”

"How many delegates did they think they'd need? Vega only sent three." Ace grumbled. "The Krajickians may not even 'lower' themselves to send anyone at all. And the Taurusans might be mad enough not to send anyone either. Me, I've been trying all day to think of a way to weasel out of going to the meeting. Nothing I hate more than sit in a stuffy meeting listening to a bunch of politicians argue."

"You know, Ace, you don't have to go to the conference its just for stuffy dignitaries like me. But I do see your point if the Taurusans do send representatives most of the first half hour will be them raising Cain over the Vegan's secret arsenal. The irony is according to my sources, the Taurusans have more skeletons in their closet then the Vegans ever did." James said sighing. "My company has been looking into the Taurusan Royal Freighter Industry and we don't like what we see. Some of the things they are pulling if they ever came out would be sure to start a war. Then again the Vegans seem to be the ones who would not rekindle their blood feud."

"How would you know stuff that the weapons inspectors don't know about?" George queried.

"Hiding things from inspectors isn't all that hard, ask Saddam Hussein about that." Jonathan added chuckling.

"Frankly, I would like to know where you got your information. We Vegans could use some dirt on the Taurusans right about now." Injected a voice behind them. They look around to see Captain Zimmerman standing nearby. "I thought you were anxious to get out of the meeting? If you keep talking like you are you will still be here when it starts." Zim added laughing.

"What are you doing down here, Zim?" Ace queried. "You can't leave 'cause your one of the Vegan delegates."

"I was told to be down here to meet the Taurusan Delegation. We just received word that their transport has just left the stargate. They should be landing any minute."

As Zim was speaking, a section of the docking bay 20 meters down the deck from where the Spacewolf was sitting the floor lite up with bright yellow lights. The lights covered a large section of the floor and the rectangular lights pulsated towards center of the area. On the far end of the docking center a medium sized transport ship entered the open doors but it was obviously flying erratically.

"That is definitely not normal." Ace said putting his hand above his eyes.

"I'd better take off or they will give away my hotel room, I'll see you at the meeting, Ace." James Boudoir said rushing off.
All of the sudden yellow lights begin to flash all over the docking center. Alert sirens blared, as the ship in the distance was obviously not slaved to the traffic control center.

"Is that ship trying to land on manual?" Ace exclaimed to Zim in dismay. He rushed over to the wall next to the elevator. Pressing a spot on the wall, a panel lite up showing a keypad into which he typed a five digit code. From the panel came the sounds of frenzied traffic control operators.

"Transport #470 arriving, you are ordered to turn your flight control systems over to station guidance." One flight controller ordered.

"Emergency docking tractors, begin activation. Transport, you are ordered to shut down your engines immediately!" Another controller responded.
"'hic' I can land thing in my shleep, I don't need no trinking stactors. 'hic' You hace no right to take my ship away from me. 'hic' I hace been flying spaceshlips since before you were a twinkle in your mother's ey--" The transmission is cut off.

"Thank you he was getting on my nerves. Notify the deck crews, that a drunken fool is landing on manual. Activate safety forcefields! There is no time to the drop the blast doors, that joker is going way to fast!" The first controller said.

"Whistle up the dock chief. Inform him that we have someone for his brig. All ships, clear the central breezeway. Notify the tug captains to stop that ship!" The head controller ordered.

"Can not lock on tractors, ship is using heavy combat jamming! Scanning ship for contraband." The second controller cried out in dismay.

"Zim, can you identify that ship." Ace said, turning to look at the transport with his hands over his eyes squinting. All over the docking center tugs of all sizes were lifting off to intercept the eratic freighter.
Zim, reaches to his belt and takes his holo-binoculars from off his belt. Looking through them he exclaimed "Looks like a Taurusan transport. It appears to be silver plated, it must be the Taurusan Royal Delegation. Figures, wait something looks funny. I can't quite make it out but it looks like it has doors of some kind all over it."
From the wall panel, the voice of the pilot of the ship said lisping badly. "Dropping landing gear, 'hic' now which one is the right switch. Oh, here it ish...."

"What the hell, those doors are opening. It looks like the ship is armed! I just hope that the drunken fool doesn't fire the things by mistake." Zim exclaimed.

"The fact that he is drunk makes that a distinct possibility." Ace said, grimly.

The warning lights in the docking center changed from yellow to red as the transport careens through the central breezeway. It smashes into several other ships as it does so. Several dozen spotlights shown on the ship from the tugs trying to stop it. For past minute they have been trying to lock on their tractors but have failed to do so. The blue-white beams lanced past as the ship speed by. All over the bay ships are clearing the lane to try and avoid it crashing into them as well. Suddenly, the silver ship lurched forward. As it did so two of the smaller tugs locked their tractors on to the ship. They looked like toys compared to the massive medium transport. The small shuttle-sized tugs tried valiantly to slow the ship down but were no match for the larger ship's engines. It dragged them behind it, trailing the small rectangular tugs like a fishing trawler would nets. The blue-white beams shimmered off of the polished-silver hull of the Taurusan ship. Other tugs moved in to help their beleaguered brothers. It was easier for them gain lock-ons now that they could draw on these brave tug captain's data. So now several dozen of the tug's tractor beams lance out stopping the ship with a lurch. It shows no sign of slowing its engines as the tugs strain to get it under control. From the top, bottom, and both sides of the docking bay near the ship large tractor beams attach to the ship.

"It's lucky for those tugs he is only going half throttle." Zim commented smugly.

Just at that moment, a blue-white energy field enveloped the ship. A look of shock and dismay filled the faces of Ace and Zim as they looked each other with dismay.

"Zim, am I seeing things or did he just activate his Lightspeed engines."

"No, unfortunately, you didn't. That is definitely a Anti-Inertial Field. Could this get any worse" To top it off it looks like it is heading right for MY ship" He'd better not scratch the paint, that Vegan Joyrider is brand new."
Everyone's eyes in the group suddenly shifted to Zim's cherry-red luxury transport. It had elegant smooth lines and white racing stripes down its sides. The cockpit dome rose from the center of the front half of the ship. It was parked only a few meters down the deck from the Spacewolf. A small loading ramp and hatch extended from the port side of the ship. This side of the ship was facing towards the Spacewolf fighter.

"Well if he hits your ship you can buy another one. If he hits my ship, we all will be in trouble 'cause it’s the only operational starfighter we have. Come on you two," Waving his hand towards his two companions. "We had better move our ship." he said rushing towards the Spacewolf's loading ramp.

The transport accelerates suddenly slamming into Zim's ship crushing it against the wall destroying the ship completely. The resulting crashing sounds echoed across the docking center. As it slid to a stop, with a grinding scraping sound, several of the gun turrets sheared off throwing sparks across the deck. One of the turrets bounced off of one the safety force fields falling into the open breezeway spewing sparks as it fell. The noise of the collisions and ship's engines was deafening forcing Zim to cover his ears. Its engines finally powered down. Sparks were flying from both ships but fortunately their anti-matter tanks were not compromised although other fuels were leaking onto the deck. Docking Center Fire Engines were converging on the area their sirens blaring, as they sprayed fire regardant onto both ships, the firefighters were taking no chances. The tugs joined the effort with their own fire suppression systems. Zim looked on with a distraught look as his ship disappeared in the white froth.

"They had better have good insurance." He fumed. "Someone is buying me a new ship. If not, they will be hearing from my attorney. This isn't going to set well with my insurance. I have already lost one ship yesterday when Alpha Base went down. Now this one...well at least my starship dealer will be happy."

Inside the ship the Taurusan Delegation, including the Crown Prince, were preparing to disembark. Those inside the main passenger compartment appeared completely unaware of the mess outside as they grabbed their luggage and walked towards the nearby exit hatch. They looked quite fancy in their opulent silk costumes. As they joked with one another about the bumpy landing, they popped open the hatch to be met by a flood of fire retardant. The white froth quickly filled the entryway covering the entire group. Over by the elevator bank Zim could not hold in his laughter as the entire entourage was buried from sight. This was followed by the entire group sliding down the ship's boarding ramp into the mess below. Zim had just regained his composure when the Crown Prince stood up from inside the foam. Foam covered him from head to foot looking something like more foam creature than a humanoid. His half covered face and foam filled hair caused Zim to break into another round of hysterical laughter. The Prince looked over at Zim, then looked down at himself, at the rest of his entourage and he too broke into a jovial belly laugh. Just at that moment the drunk pilot staggered into the ship's entryway and he too slid down the ramp, sliding into the back of the Crown Prince knocking him down once again. Above them, the shadow of the Spacewolf fell on the group.

From behind Zim, one of the elevators opened, out stepped a group of twenty police officers, including one man wearing a fancy dress uniform. They surveyed the mess and the dock chief stepped to the front of them.

"Everyone stop where you are." He shouts. "Shut down those fire engines" There is no fire." He said into his radio. "This mess is bad enough. I WAS suppose to be at board meeting right now." He grumbled to himself.
The fire engines immediately stop spewing forth foam. Fire fighters jumped out of them rushing into the froth to pull everyone out of the mess.

"What idiot would think they could land any ship on manual in an enclosed docking bay? And drunk to boot." The dock chief muttered to himself. "All right, someone has a lot of explaining to do." He said to the foam covered group. "Who was the joker flying this tub?" He demanded pointing at the wreck.

"I resent that." The Crown Prince growled. "This is the finest ship in our merchant fleet. It is also the royal yacht. I will take personal responsibility for the repair costs."

"That's very generous of you, but that's not the answer I wanted. Once again who was the pilot?"

"Ish wassh, Copper." The pilot yelled. "That wash e perfrect landing until yur tugsh gut their noseshs inso ist. I'm nut dsunk. An yous can't make tests take any me, I'm notsh a Tserran. Yous lahs no applysh to meh."

"That's all I needed to know." The chief said scowling. Turning to the other officers, he said. "Arrest him. And if he asks what the charge is it's DUI and reckless endangerment."

Up above, inside the Spacewolf, Ace was watching the whole thing with one the ship external cameras. He was laughing hysterically even though there was no sound with the images.

"This is better than an old classic silent movie." He shouted across the intercom. "Are you guys watching this?"

"Yes, Ace were watching it–" George begin to say but was cut off by an external transmission.

"This is Charlie, I've just been informed what's going on you had better not let that fool damage my baby! The information you requested is that in four hours the Vegans will have replaced their satellites. The rocky satellites in question, are positioned in extremely high orbit of the planet. Since I note that your ship indicates to me that you have already lifted off, I suggest that you head out on your recon mission and then head back ASAP. Docking control will be with you shortly. One other thing, your deflector shield was acting up when you came back and I haven't had a chance to have it checked out yet, so don't go starting something you can't handle. Charlie, out."

"Stardust, this is docking control, prepare to switch over to station guidance. We will be with you shortly."

"Docking control, the ship is on auto-pilot and ready for departure. Take control at your leisure." Ace Responds. As he does so, he begins to fasten his safety harnesses, he then puts on his helmet and leans back in his command chair.

"Stardust, station guidance locked on, enjoy the ride." A female operator's voice came over the speaker.

Stardust watched as the docking bay's levels pass by him. He noticed an area, at the far end of the deck his ship was docked on, partially obscured by scaffolding.

"Hey Ace, what's all that construction for?" George suddenly asked breaking his thoughts. Ace smiled to himself as he thought, didn't he get the memo?

"That's the Philadelphia, George." He said rolling his eyes. "Didn't you read your E-mail this morning from Charlie about it? They laid the keel sometime last week, and now are constructing it in earnest. I think Charlie said it would be completed in about six months if the Senate doesn't increase the funding. He said something like if they give him the men and money he could have it ready for space trials in three."

"Yes, but what is she doing on the deck in the docking bay?" George queried. "I thought it would be at a shipyard nearby. What do you think about the other part in the memo about the battleship, Freedom? We will be flying by the new shipyard they are building for it on our way to the stargate. I just wonder how they are managing to build it and the shipyard at the same time and not run into major logistics problems?"

"Much of the main structure of the shipyard is already in place, I understand.” Stardust replied. “So they are merely installing the construction equipment as they need it. We are getting closer to the Philly we should be able to see what she looks like. I'm curious myself why Charlie is having it built here. Since a dedicated shipyard could build it much easier and quicker. I wonder why he would have the ship handmade anyway."

"Maybe Charlie wants the ship to be where the politicians can see that something is getting done.” Jonathan piped in. “I've gotten the impression that like you, he hates sitting though board meetings. It's a good thing you never started your own company, you'd never be able to sit through all of the meetings. Just a word of advice, you could at least try to look interested in the meeting."

"What I do in meetings is my own affair!" Ace fired back. "I accepted this job to fly a starfighter not to sit through meetings. And up until yesterday, that's about all we've done. I'd just prefer flying the mission, go through debriefing and then let someone else deal with the politicians. Lets just get this over with so we can fashionably late for the really big meeting today."

"Truthfully, I wouldn't mind missing the first half of it myself. If not the whole thing. Surely nothing is going to get done but the pointing of fingers." Jonathan replied.

"I can see the Philadelphia, or will be the Philadelphia, and it looks like all that is up is the scaffolding. It should be fun watching the ship rise out of nothing." George piped in after a few minutes. As he was speaking the ship was nearing the large outer doors of the docking center. "And I agree, the Taurusans are sure to make a big deal about those extra attack shuttles that the Vegans had. I would love to see what they would have had in a similar situation."

"Be careful what you wish for, George." Ace replied.

"You are nearing outer doors. Please prepare to return to manual guidance." A female operator's voice came over the speaker. "Enjoy your trip."

"Alright boys, lets lock and load." Stardust shouted. "Lets go play pin the tail on the satellite"

Out of the docking bay, the Spacewolf flew. It came out of the side of the space station's doughnut, the docking bays were inside of the four spokes of station. The central core of the station now had mounted on it twelve super-classed particle cannons, three each mounted above the station's spokes; there were another twelve of the cannons with the same configuration mounted on the bottom. The doughnut now bristled with light point defense laser cannons.

"The John Marshall looks quite impressive with the new weapons. But it is just one installation." Ace thought to himself looking over his shoulder at the huge station. "I hope that we can buy enough time for us to get a decent defense net up and running. Now to get to actually doing my pre-flight checklist."

He punched into his navigation computer the coordinates 2248-Vega. As he did so he directed the ship towards a large construction area. The large new shipyard was swarming with activity. Ace looked at the craft swarming around the superstructure and then pointed his ship into a higher orbit to avoid the mess, typed a course to the stargate into the computer, and engaged the auto-pilot. He then begin running a system diagnostic. Suddenly, a yellow warning popped up. He noticed that it indicated that the main power regulator for the shield generator was damaged.

"Shouldn't be a problem. There is always the back-ups." He thought. "We're not going into combat. But we had better make this trip quick."

[Isolder74]

Double Post

Would a Mod Please eliminate this and the next post

Thank you

[Isolder74]

Triple post

Would a Mod please Fix both of these

[Isolder74]

"M’Lord, the Scout Ship section of The Hive Ship has returned. It reports that there is an inhabited planet that is definitely a homeworld. The Minor Sages also report something strange." The Commander Sage reported to the Advisor Sage. "There is a large debris field in between the system and the place that repelled us. They have good defenses against any conventional attack, but it will not hinder us. It consist of a single satellite network that is identical to one of the nets at Falsance. It does not appear to be active. They also have a large mine field surrounding the system that goes out to half a Lightyear from the system with a heavy concentration of mines facing Falsance. Should we awaken the Emperor? This system looks like a easy nut to exterminate. The evidence of a extended war with Falsance is obvious. The odd thing is that they spotted dozens of Falsance ships in the system."

"Interesting, so if we strike all their satellites at once we can strip them of their defenses. The presence of Falsance ships is troubling though." The Advisor Sage responded. "Is there a chance that Falsance has somehow ended their hostilities? If so would they come to this planet's aid. Is there anything else of note about the system?"

"They report that one of the orbital installations is identical to the one at Falsance, and its architecture does not match anything from either system. This means–"

"That there is at least one more planet out there to worry about." The Emperor Sage interrupted. "Why did you not wake me?" He demanded.

"M’Lord, We did not feel this was important enough to disturb you.” Replied the Advisor Sage, startled by the presence of the Emperor. “We had not finished analyzing the Scout's data. One thing worries me, they report spotting many different looking ships coming into and out of the odd orbital installation. It appears to be some type of rapid transit system. All attempts to destroy the one at Falsance failed due to its superweapons. If it is a rapid transit system, we must find a way to destroy it." Responded the Advisor Sage.

"M’Lord, we have spotted the ship that destroyed the hive ship!" One of Lesser Sages monitoring the satellites reported. The other Lesser Sages seemed oblivious to the things going on around them and were completely engrossed in their consoles. "It is doing close scans of them. They can somehow penetrate the satellites exterior! That is something Falsance ships have failed to do."

"This definitely proves that they are not from Falsance." The Emperor Sage mused. "We dare not send the entire command ship. We will give the Tripod Fighter-Scout section of the Hive Ship the honor of destroying it. The several thousand fighters it can control should be enough to keep the Falsance Fighters from helping it. Have the Minor Sages attempt to draw it out of Falsance orbit. That way they will fight without having the cover of those accursed satellites." He ordered.

"M’Lord, Falsance satellites and fighters are firing on our surveillance satellites. Do you wish me to activate their laser cannons?" A Lesser Sage reports. "The strange ship is leading the attack."

"Yes, perhaps they can soften them up a bit for our final thrust into the system. Have them target the starfighters." The Emperor Sage responded leaning back in his throne. He quietly contemplated the victory that was soon to come. He smiled at the thought that soon he would have his revenge.

_


The Spacewolf fighter weaved in and out as it blasted rocky satellites. All of the sudden, a laser blast hits the starboard wing. A small scorch mark appeared where the ship's Energy Absorption Armor absorbed the blast.

"You didn't have the shields up!" Nova suddenly yelled. "Stardust what were you thinking? You decide to have us shoot at satellites of unknown capabilities and you didn't raise the shields? One other thing, you turned off my damage control computer"

Outside, the Orthropatarian satellites were firing on all of Vegan ships as well. Laser fire now danced all around them and the Spacewolf, they were terribly inaccurate only hitting something about every 100 shots. The Spacewolf being a larger target took three more hits this time being deflected harmlessly away by the ship's shields, the shields glowed blue with each impact. Inside on Stardust's monitor yellow warning lights now flashed constantly.

"It seems Charlie was right about the shields needing some work. Just hope the power regulator holds out." Stardust thought to himself. "I had my reasons, Nova" He responded. "Didn't want to strain the shield system until I had to. Back-ups are never as good as the mains."

"Do you mean to tell me the shields could fail at any moment!" Nova cried out in dismay. "When were you planning to tell the rest of us?"

"I didn't feel it was going to be a problem.” Stardust replied, keeping himself busy by targeting the satellites. “Didn't expect anyone to be shooting back at us. Besides, that hit barely even scratched the paint. Just calm down and keep shooting those satellites until there aren't any left. It is bad enough having to fight hoards of fighters without having to worry about someone watching our every move." As he spoke, he marked all satellites as hostile and set the MOWL control system to full auto. Now it begin firing Explosive Clusters at a phenomenal rate.

"Cool, this will give those scum something to think about after seeing this" He thought as ten satellites nearby go up in smoke in under a second. "According to Charlie this mode is supposed to good for two hours before the 'ammo' is spent. The computer selects whatever submission is most appropriate and auto targets the weapons."

"Hey," Supernova cuts in. "Your stealing all of the fun! Leave a few for laser target practice"

"He can blast as many as he likes, the less things shooting at us." Nova said.

"But at this rate, there won't be many left after a few minutes. The Vegan fighters are taking down about four a minute each plus the several thousand the satellites are killing. We're taking down at least 600 a minute!" Supernova fired back. "I don't want the computer to get all of the kills."

Within a half of a hour, the Vegan fighters, satellites, and the Spacewolf had destroyed most of the Orthropatarian satellites.

They then noticed a small cloud of enemy fighters off in the distance. The fighters surrounded a slightly larger object but were not moving to attack. From a distance, the cloud of fighters looked like a swarm of ants. In the center, a larger ship looked like a larger version of the normal fighter except it had three cockpits and noses, the center one being slightly longer.

The Spacewolf slowed and slowly turned to face the large group.

"Conducting a full scan of them. What do you make of it? Why aren't they moving to attack?" Said Stardust, with a confused tone. "It appears there are about 10,000 of them. Which is about what they started the attack with last time."

"Before we do anything, I suggest we call HQ. This not the sort of thing we were sent to deal with. On my scope, the larger object appears to resemble one of the things on the front of that Command Ship." Nova recommended.

"I don't know we did just destroy all their spy sats, they may be mad." Supernova said. "What worries me is where is the rest of the Command Ship?"

"Good point, why would they only send a small part of the Command Ship and then not aggressively attack like they did before?" Stardust adds. "Is our assumption that losses mean nothing to them really right? I'm forwarding the new situation to command via Starcom now. We'll see what they have to say about it." Stardust said firing up the ship’s Stargate Communication array these communications are almost instant.

"This is command, do not engage, go the main hanger of the Vegan Defense Center. They will repair your shield system and once this is complete you may then engage. There is no reason to provoke an attack you are not ready to respond to. You do not have permission to engage!" A voice sounding like Charlie responded.

"We don't have time for this!" Stardust grumbled. "We have to do something about these ships now."

"I think it's a good order." Nova cut in. "After all the ship is not ready to take on a major battle. With the shields on the fritz we have to be careful, the ship's armor will only go so far you know."

"You know for once he has a point!" Supernova chimed in. "How long could it take to replace a power regulator?"

"Too long, if they begin an attack like the last one! The Vegan's ships would not last long if we left and they did attack."

"But if they do attack and we lose our shields the Earth and Vega could both be incinerated!" Nova fired back. "We are playing with more than just OUR lives here!"

"Would it appease you two if before we engage I activate the back-up power regulator?"

"Heads up! The Orthro's are moving! Form up, here they come!" Suddenly piped across the radio.

The Vegan attack shuttles started to regroup into delta formations. Several hundred of the Orthropatarian fighters swooped in towards the planet. When they were almost in range of the Vegan fighters but still out of range of the Vegan satellites, they fired off a volley of missiles and then disappeared. Within a few seconds they reappeared back with the their group and another few hundred fighters begin a similar run. The first volley of missiles flew past the Spacewolf and the Vegan fighters and struck the outer edge of the satellite net. The satellites shields held on most but on a couple dozen of them they visibly collapsed creating huge blooms of light.

"They are trying to eliminate our satellite cover!" Stardust cried out. "Not to mention trying to draw us out after them! We have only one ship with enough cannons for effective dogfighting. If only our superweapon had been reloaded we could take them all out right now."

"We can't just sit here and watch as they pick the satellite net apart! We have to do something!" Supernova piped in, somewhat apprehensive.

"With MOWL on full auto, lets show them what we are made of." Nova added. "And the Vegans are with us. Lets do this!"

"Alright, calling all units, form up and we'll engage them as they come in. Try to stop them from firing off their missiles!” Stardust broadcast across the open channel. “We have to minimize the damage to the satellite net and give the construction teams time to repair the damage from the last battle. You take the smaller fighters and we'll go after the big one. We'll just fight until there are no more hostiles left. Everyone with me?"
All of the Vegan squadron leaders responded as they all moved to engage the next wave of incoming fighters. Two of them formed up behind the Spacewolf. All of the Vegan fighters fired a spread of missiles into the swarm annihilating the incoming wave of fighters. The enemy fighters made several more passes and were likewise destroyed. Just as the debris of their destruction cleared Stardust noticed that several hundred new fighters had appeared.

"This is not working! We have to take out the command ship section. It's allowing them to bring in reinforcements. Tell the Vegans to cover us." Supernova shouted.

"This is Stardust to all Vegan ships. We have to eliminate or drive off the Command Ship section! Knowing this may be a suicide mission, I need volunteers to punch a hole in their formation so we can get through to attack their command unit." Stardust's voice buzzed across the open channel. His transmission was followed by a buzz if activity as nearly every Vegan pilot volunteered for the job.

"I guess we have no choice but to charge into the thick of them." Stardust mused. "Let's go."

The Vegan ships shot forward, firing their missiles at as many targets as possible. Balls of fire lite up to sky and they all plowed through the explosions to begin dogfighting with the Orthropatarians. The Vegan ship spun into a dance all around the larger Spacewolf, but as if the enemy fighters suddenly realized what they were doing, they all turned to fire on the Spacewolf. The Spacewolf flew straight at the larger Tripod Fighter at the center of the group. As it flew by the other Orthro fighters they took pot shots at it with their lasers. The shots glanced off of the ship's shields and their missiles exploded harmlessly on the fringes of the ship. The Tripod Fighter-Scout swiftly came under direct attack. Lasers from the Spacewolf strafed the ship cutting large holes in its armored side. The ship instantly disappeared as did the rest of the Orthropatarians.
Suddenly, there was silence, the battle was over. "That was too easy! Something is up." Nova piped in. "They weren't even half trying! I smell a rat, they may have another target in mind. Do you think that its really over?"

"Well at least for now, its over.” Stardust replied. Turning the Spacewolf back towards Vega, amidst the gigantic cloud of debris left from the battle. ”But we need to reload and the Vegan Command Center should have the proper facilities. They still won't be able to rearm our Weapons Clusters but they can at least refill the stores on the MOWL and our missile launcher. Lets try and get that problem of ours fixed, too. Perhaps we could even grab us some lunch."

_

...
"Before we discuss any military cooperation, lets discuss the Vegan's violation of their current treaties with our nation." Demanded Taurusan Crown Prince Yohan Tumadoras. "If they had 10,000 extra Attack Shuttles, then they must have had other secrets that they did not reveal. We think that a Earth controlled inspection team should be sent to determine how many treaty violations they have really perpetrated. This is the only thing that will convince us that we can truly trust any cooperation effort with the Vegans."

"Well what about the hidden weapons I saw on your Royal Yacht?” Zimmerman asked, furious, not caring for protocol. ”Your government has secrets too. We will only agree to a Earth run inspection if they do a similar inspection of your facilities. These should be unsupervised inspections, meaning the inspectors can go where they wish and look anywhere they want. They should also be allowed unscheduled inspections."

"The reason I want Earth run full inspection tour is that if your people could hide 10,000 Attack Shuttles from our inspectors then you obviously are very good at hiding things. Also if they find anything incriminating you can't explain it away as planted or simply a biased report." The Crown Prince fired back.

"Gentlemen, Please, this is getting us nowhere!" Interrupted Republic Secretary-Of-State, Daniel Sutton. "The important thing right now is the Orthropatarians and their capabilities. We have information to present that was gathered by a scientific expedition at great risk of men and material. We sent a MEET to study the star systems near the Orthropataria system. Captain Timothy Chichewa of the MEET #98 will now explain the findings as of this time."

"I have served in Republic of Planet Earth's Science And Exploration Fleet for twenty-one years. In that time I have been part of hundreds of expeditions. I have say that the things we found examining twenty-one barren, lifeless, and heavily cratered worlds surround the MEET star system were astounding. On most of the crater ridden planets we found only fossil remains that indicated that life of some kind once existed on these planets. On the last planet we visited we found evidence of a civilization on the verge of entering the Space Age. We found a city buried under the collapsed side of a nearby extinct volcano. The city had been hit by a multi-Gigaton blast of unknown origin. The blast had undermined the side of nearby volcano and it collapsed on top of the city. What we appeared to have was a Steller version of Pompeii, of interesting note we found evidence that some of the city's inhabitants had survived the initial blast in the city's underground areas but were killed by the landslide. There were no other sign of civilization on the rest of the planet, it appeared that any evidence of it was erased. It was the opinion of my archeology team that the mountain collapse saved this city from a similar fate. We were able to recover 600 metric tons of material and fossils for study. The volume of material recovered filled my ship's cargo bay and a good portion of the shuttle deck. It will probably take us years to shift through the things we collected, but one thing is clear. If the Vegan's defenses hadn't held they would have been subject to a similar bombardment."

"You are expecting us to believe that you have just completed a major expedition? How could you be back already? The systems in question are outside your stargate network. When did your government have the time and money to risk sending another science vessel into potentially hostile territory?" Krajickian Crown Prince Byren Pachucki demanded, speaking through an interpreter.

"Well, sir, I can take you on a tour of our MEET cargo bay and you can see the artifacts and fossils for yourself. We knew it was a risk but we had to know what we were up against. It was not as much of a risk as it could have been because we had one our new mobile stargates with us allowing us to travel between planets fairly rapidly or retreat if need be. The total devastation of the planets has chilled my entire crew." Replied Captain Tim Chichewa not offended by the Prince’s verbal attacks.

"Artifacts can be faked, images can be doctored. What I would like is to have some of my scientist examine the artifacts. We would rather see for ourselves." Krajickian Crown Prince Byren Pachucki responded.

"We would be glad to let your people come to our lab and examine the artifacts. The only catch is that until we have had a chance to examine and catalogue each piece, before we can let them be taken for examination to ensure that no important data is lost or damaged."

"Of course this science mission could just be propaganda. The Krajickian Empire will only agree to any military cooperation if you do not insist on a centralized command. Krajickian ships must remain under the control of our government. We will agree to joint fleet actions and will pledge to come to the aid of other members of the alliance. But we must insist that your ships and armed units stay out of our system unless called for." Krajickian Crown Prince Byren Pachucki demanded pointing a menacing finger towards Daniel Sutton.

"The big problem right now is that as of now the only nations with any real naval forces is us and the Krajickians.” James Boudoir said speaking for the 1,500 Bernard's Star delegates. “We of the Bernard's Star Co-op had just completed the moth balling of our navy when the Earth's MEET was destroyed. All of our Starfighters and Attack Shuttles had been scrapped so we are currently designing new ones and plan to make use of some features on the new Spacewolf. Some of our ships have already been refitted for duty but they are only our smaller System Patrol Crafts and our Frigates. They should be sufficient for our own defense but we do not have the forces to loan out as of right now. A minor note, since our System Patrol Craft have limited stores and range, they may be legal for purchase by both the Vegans and Taurusans."

Their voices could be heard as a slight murmur behind him as they whispered with each other. The large size if the Bernard's Star delegation is why the meeting was moved to the Republic Senate chamber instead of where it was originally scheduled, the diplomatic conference room. The room was large enough to seat up to 3,000 each at their own desk with built in computer terminal. From the ceiling was mounted a holographic display unit that showed a full 3-D image of whoever was speaking. The desks were arranged like a amphitheater with access hallways running from the main floor to the top tier. At the top large doors allowed the room to be emptied rapidly. The main doors were down on the main floor. Today President McCleary sat in the desk of the President of the Senate.
Suddenly, one of the Taurusan Crown Prince's aid came in the main doors and swiftly worked his way to the desk where Yohan Tumadoras was sitting. He handed him a memo and whispered something in his ear. He swiftly rose to his feet and quickly spoke with a shaky yet firm voice.

"I have just been informed that My planet is under attack. I guess this would a good time to request assistance. The attack has already stripped my planet of it's satellite net and the Othropatarians are already bombarding the planet. Our planetary shields are currently holding but won't last for long. We are doing everything we can but I'm afraid it won't be enough."

President McCleary swiftly rose his feet and stated. "The Spacewolf is already at Vega and can be in the theater in a matter of minutes. We are behind you."

Captain Zimmerman and Marshall Rodin were already barking orders into their starcom phones. What they were saying could not be heard over the din now filling the room.

_


"You know the cafeteria at this command center is better then I expected! This is the best Pastrami on Rye I have had in a long time." Stardust said with pleasure.

"Your right I didn't expect to find Terran cuisine here, but I guess good things get around. This is the best Ham and Cheese Melt I have had in a long time. Not only do they serve Terran food they have an excellent chef!" Supernova added.

All of the sudden alarms sirens begin to go off and the lights dimmed. Red lights flash and a voice came across the loudspeakers. Nova dropped his Club Sandwich that he had only taken two bites out of. "Oh great," he grumbled. "What now?"

"All pilots to your stations! All pilots to your stations! This is a battle alert, Taurus is under Orthropatarian attack! Pilot's briefing in 1 min."
Stardust's starcom phone suddenly begin to ring off the hook. He picked it up and answered it.

"Yes, Stardust speaking.–They've taken out what!–Uh huh–Yes.–We'll get right on it.–No, I don't know if they had time to fix it.–Okay, we'll be careful with your baby, goodbye."

"We have your ship reloaded and refueled, but were unable to fix your little problem. We will be covering your backs so if you get into any trouble you'll have someone to cover you." Colonel Donaldson said to them, stopping them at the doors of the cafeteria to the main hall, breathing heavily. "Don't worry about your sandwiches, we'll get them boxed to go for you. And as a consolidation when you get back I will treat you to the best Steak Dinner you could ever dream of. Vegan Scrub Cattle has the most tender meat you could imagine."

"What are they like?" Nova queried getting up and hurrying towards the hangar along with his companions.

"Well they're a lot like your cattle but have no horns, and have six legs instead of four." Replied Colonel Donaldson. "I'll even make it traditional Terran with works. Our chef is very good."

"Meat and potatoes?" Asked Stardust running along side.

"Yes, with real gravy, not that reconstituted stuff."

"Well I think we wasted enough time here, we'd better get to the hanger." Stardust said moving down the corridor.

The hallway was now dimly lit and a strip of lights running down the center of the ceiling were barely on. There were people moving in every direction. The hallway was easily large enough to accommodate the traffic. The cavernous hanger was mainly empty now since most of the Vegan fighters had already launched. There were still a half dozen still on the deck but the large room looked very empty as it could normally hold tens of thousands of Attack Shuttles.

The Spacewolf had technicians swarming all over it trying to close all of the access panels they had open in an attempt to repair the damaged shield generator. The last of the Vegan fighters to launch, gave quick salute to the three entering the hanger as they hovered into launch position. The technicians closed the last panel and begin to prep the ship for take-off as Stardust and the Spacewolf crew ran up the boarding ramp and down the small hallway leading to the three cockpits.

Stardust strapped himself into his chair at the same time typing his command code into the console. The console came to life and immediately the alarms on the damage control computer flashed orange. The shield's main power regulator was almost at the point of failure. An on screen text recommended bypassing it. Stardust tapped the YES on the screen with his gloved hand and the orange screen returned to yellow. The new text indicated that at current calculated values the backup would only hold for only 20-25 hits from the enemy's lasers. “Not good,” he thought, firing up the engines, the comforting hum relaxing him. He set the ship for station guidance they lifted off and headed out the massive armored doors of the hanger.

Within a few minutes, they were in orbit surrounded by thousands of Vegan attack shuttles. A squadron of them formed up behind the Spacewolf fighter; the rest formed groups and headed for the Earth stargate. The long tunnel of the stargate opened before them. On the other side, which normally was dark was lit with a strange eery flashing light, the light of battle.

After a few minutes, the Vegan relief force jumped into the middle of the maelstrom. All around them ships were exploding and shooting at each other. Taurusan transports had now revealed themselves for what they really were, pocket battleships, but they did not carry the shielding or armor of a real warship. They were dropping like flies under the intense bombardment. The Taurusan orbital platforms were fairing better than the transports and their hidden weapons proved the Vegans right. If their shuttle bases had been armed they would have lasted longer. Orthropatarian fighters were concentrating most of their fire onto the planet itself. They were firing volley after volley into the planet and for now the shields are holding but they won't last forever. The Taurusan ground batteries were returning fire but they were designed for attacking enemy warships not fighters so were not scoring many hits. Their anti-starship missiles set on flakburst were performing better, only succeeding through sheer luck, but they prevented their own fighters from engaging the enemy near the planet. Taurusan cargo shuttles were also revealed for what they really were, heavy assault fighter/bombers. They launched their heavy missiles into clouds of enemy fighters attempting to destroy them through collateral damage but few of the large ungainly missiles hit their targets. They were hundreds of thousands of the shuttles so their efforts were helping but obviously it was a losing battle.

The Vegans immediately formed up around the Spacewolf in order to cover it. They knew about the ship's shield problem and were attempting to protect it. They begin to fire on the Orthropatarian fighters and Stardust fired up his long range sensors and focused his attention on one of the crippled enemy fighters. The Vegans were already hitting the enemy ship hard firing their missiles at as many targets as possible. The fact that the Taurusan satellite network was gone did not help their normal strategy work better. At this time most of Taurusan legal attack shuttles had been destroyed, even with their secret detachable extra cannons; the cargo shuttles had these too, and theirs also added two extra missiles per cannon. Since they were only good for a few shots the illegal weapons provided no real benefit in a dogfight.

“I think I found something!” He said across the open channel. “It appears that the devise they use to teleport around the battlefield is located midway down the nose of their fighter. It appears to emanate the same signature as they do when they appear. If you hit that they might not be able to teleport away from the battle or out of your field of fire. I also appears that they have a limited number of channels for their hive network so every craft you can disable and not kill may prevent them bringing in further reinforcements.’

“Well keep that in mind, but if that works we will have a chance to make some headway.” The Vegan commander responded. The com blared to life and he ordering his men. “Form up! They’ve noticed us! Large energy fluctuations detected in the outer part of the system. We’ve seen this before guys! Cover as many of the Taurusan ships as you can without leaving your formations. All units mark your targets.” The Vegan commander ordered. “The Spacewolf needs escort on this one so squadron alpha stay with it.”

Most of the enemy fighters stopped firing at the planet and vanished. "They have run of!" Nova shouted with an ecstatic tone.
"You only wish!" Stardust replied after looking at his scopes. He could see their wormholes appearing all around them. "Heads up, people! Here they come."

Immediately appeared thousands of enemy fighters including some new ones not previously seen. They were smaller than the others and didn't have the nose. It took only two hits from the Vegan's cannons to kill one rather then the four to eight hits the others took.

The Vegan fighters had all seen these tactics before so they begin dogfighting with the enemy fighters. They were taking light casualties and many hits right at the outset. Even with nearby Spacewolf's MOWL anti-fighter support everyone knew that their only hope was to force a retreat.
Suddenly, the massive Commandship appeared on the far side of the planet. It fired its six main guns at the planet immediately firing its six large-bore guns, the duel beams from the six turrets smashed against the planet's shields causing them to ripple slightly. All of the remaining Taurusan units directed their attention to the large ship, in the midst of the confusion the Spacewolf took several dozen hits. Its shields failed and the laser on the starboard side and missile launcher were hit knocking them out of commission.

"We're hit, we're hit!" Nova cried out in horror. "We're done for! We have to get out of here fast!"

"Where would we go?" Stardust muttered back as he dodged another strafing attack. "We have support an attack on that Commandship! It's the only way we'll be able to get out of here alive!"

"I agree." Added Supernova, calmly, as he shot down another enemy ship. "The sooner the better."

The Taurusans were now desperate. They threw everything at the massive ship but it was just out of range of their planetary defense batteries. The commandship hung in high orbit and continued to fire on the planet below. The already weakened planetary shields were starting to buckle but the Taurusan cargo shuttles unleashed a full volley at the massive 2 kilometer long ship, this was just the kind of beast they were designed to attack. Their missiles flew true to their targets ripping the massive laser turrets from off of the ship. Just as the last turret was destroyed, several missile doors opened at the rear of the command ship, two missiles, forty-five meters long, came out, the smoke exiting from the missile bay indicating they were getting ready to be launched at the planet in only a matter of seconds.

Stardust saw the new menace, and instantly decided on a bold move, engaging his Lightspeed engine and at supra-light sped towards the commandship making him arrive at the command ship as it started opening its missile doors. The ship barely stopped short of smashing into the side of the massive ship, but he was now within shooting range of the missiles.

"Kill those missiles!" He shouted switching the MOWL from full auto. "Hit it with everything, throw the kitchen sink at 'em if you have to!"

"Ok, but it's kind of bolted down in the living area." Supernova smugly replied while firing all of his weapons at the missile on the starboard side of the commandship.

The missile exploded enveloping the back end of the commandship. The huge fireball expanded away from the command ship making it impossible to see or target the other missile. The second missile managed to launch from inside the fireball and headed for one of the cities directly below the command ship through the now open section of the planet’s shields.

“We have to stop that thing! It’s heading right for the Taurusan capitol!” Supernova shouted.

“On it already!” Stardust shouted back. “I’ll have to go to max combat speed, the thing’s moving rather fast!

“I want my mommy!” Nova whined as the rest of the weapons hard points on the starboard side were hit and knocked out. “I have nothing to fight with! We are done for!”

“Well if we save the planet our deaths will be worth the sacrifice.” Supernova fired back.

“I do not plan on dying today!” Stardust answered as another volley of Taurusan missiles hit the commandship behind them. “I have a steak dinner to collect on!”

“So we live by your stomach!?” Supernova said snidely as he fired his lasers at the giant missile. To his dismay the lasers bounced off the surface of the missile doing nothing. The missile which before had been a dull grey had now taken on a silver color. “Target the thing with a missile, oh yeah that’s out, I guess it up to the MOWL. Try an anti-matter module on it lasers are useless!”

“We’re too close but I’ll give it a shot. I will have to pull up after I fire it in order that we will stay alive so if it doesn’t work then we can kiss 6 million people goodbye.”

“Do it, it’s our only chance.”

“Done.”

Out of the MOWL unit a round fuzzy looking ball shot, it went straight for the massive missile. When it was about to hit it the ball turned into a large cloud of antimatter which enveloped the missile and the cloud imploded into the missile and there was a massive explosion. The flash of light was blinding as the missiles payload cooked off creating a massive ball of fire.
The damaged Spacewolf was sent into a lateral spin by the cloud of expanding matter from the explosion shaking it’s occupants down to their bones. It was at this moment that the shuttles finally succeded in crippling the command ship with a volley of heavy anti-starship missiles from the Taurusan fighter/bombers hit the command ship. The port side of the ship peeled open and fire shot out of it. The massive ship vanished in a moment and with it most of the enemy fighters. The only ones left were crippled derelicts. The Spacewolf continued to spin out of control until one of the Taurusan freighters grabbed it with a tractor beam and finally stopping it.

“Well that was quite a ride!” Supernova remarked smugly. “I almost lost my lunch on that one. Can we go again.”

“I did lose my lunch.” Nova said groaning. “This is why I hate amusement park rides.”

“Lets get this thing home before anything else happens so we can have Charlie chew us out for breaking his baby on only the second date. That is after I get that steak dinner.”

[Isolder74]

Chapter 1 here has been updated to the latest draft of it.

[Isolder74]

Chapter 2 is now updated with the final version

[Isolder74]

Chapter 3
Broken Toys

The mighty doors of the John Marshall Space Station slowly opened, as small black and white patrol ships opened a lane directly from the stargate portal into the space station, whilst stopping all traffic in the busy Earth space lanes. Time seemed to stop as two objects exited the stargate, the closing flash of light briefly illuminating the mangled Spacewolf. As they slowly approached the station, the ship seemed to vanish in several places where its light blue paint was now blackened and burned, the once gleaming laser cannons were now twisted with the exception of one cannon on the port command pod, but even it was scorched and black. Black scoring covered the windows making it impossible to see into the cockpits.

Slowly the ship was towed by a small space tug whose bright red paint shimmered from the floodlights of hundreds, if not thousands, of vehicles whose lights panned all over the damaged ship, several illuminated the starboard side’s twisted and mangled weapons mounts that were nearly twisted off the frame of the vessel, as a thick white mist vented from the starboard wingtip where the long medium laser cannon used to be mounted.

The pair of ships approached one the main doors of the John Marshall Station and a pair of tractor beams reached out and grabbed the Spacewolf and the tug releases it tether on the ship and pulls away from the opening as the Spacewolf is slowly drawn into the docking bay.

Inside the docking bay the Spaceport was silent for the first time since it opened in 2028. People all over the docking center’s 24 levels stared in disbelief at the charred ship now fully illuminated by the center’s lights. As each tractor pair took turns drawing the ship farther into the docking center people moved to the safety rails surrounding the decks at the edge of the central breezeway; reporters and spectators alike were snapping off hundreds of pictures the myriad flashes further illuminated the battered ship, several of them were crying as the ship past thinking the ship's crew must be dead. A large twisted hole allowed them to see into the living area and cargo bay of the ship. The living area centrifuge could be seen slowly rotating the only thing that seemed to still be working on the ship.

On Deck 3-1 a small group was also watching the ship come in. Deck one, being the one of the smallest, was mainly a maintenance and repair facility. In the center of the group stood Charles Eicher, President McCleary, and James Woodbury. While most others were shielding their eyes from the glare of the lights, Charlie's right eye had taken a glassy look, he leaned on the hand rail and inspected every inch of his brainchild.

"Doesn't look good, Mr President," James Woodbury said, also inspecting the damage through a pair of holo-binoculars, "The ship is all shot to Hell! There is no way we can fix that overnight."

"It could be worse." Charlie replied with a slight comical tone.

"How could it possibly be worse?" Woodbury inquired with a confused tone.
"Warranty could have run out." Charlie said with a smirk, but his tone quickly went serious, he didn't look back to Woodbury's fuming expression, and continued talking, half-voicing his thoughts. "This problem could have easily been averted if I had just replaced a five Credit part the day before like I should have. This whole thing's all MY fault."

"There is no need to blame yourself." The President replied, condescendingly. "You couldn't have expected the ship to be taken out into combat so soon. Its not your fault."

Charlie didn't reply immediately, his cyborg eye was on infrared mode, he could see the burned out components, the small fires that were still alight, and the big bloom that was the warm reactor core, safely shutdown. With a mental command, he switched back to normal vision and analyzed the hull, they would need to replace most of the offensive armament, but noted with pride that the MOWL unit appeared still functional. The Energy Absorption Armor also performed better than he expected! He could see where Laser fire had hit the armor plate and only the paint appeared scorched, most of the physical damage had been from the explosion, or where there was no armor, like the weapons mounts, too small or moveable to have armor plating.

"I shouldn't had left them leave." he thought, shaking his head and banging his fist on the metal railing. "I knew those hotshots would fire on those satellites... The delay to put it in would not have cost the mission much time, five to ten minutes at the most, and it would had prevented most of the damaged, if not all. A simple, five credit part..."

He banged forcefully on the railing, bending it, and the noise breaking the group's silence like a hot knife through butter. Everyone turned to him, as he turned to the President and crossed his arms.

"The ship is fairly intact, Mr. President, what we see is only superficial damage, the reactor is ticking, the internal structure undamaged, but this will set back our new factory for a while."

"How long?" Asked the President a few moments later, trying to catch up to Charlie's mood swings.

He shrugged. "I still need to determine the full extent of damage, but most likely I'll have to pull model two off the assembly line, model one is already too far advanced to be cannibalized for the parts we need."

"But, you did make the ship's system modular," Woodbury interjected, "so all we need to do is swap the new components in and at least we can get it operational again."

"It's not that simple," Charlie replied, shaking his head and pointing back with his thumb, "this is merely a prototype, a very capable prototype, but still an experimental ship. The production models are different, we've made some changes that we deemed were necessary, including to the system from where the fault developed, there may be a lot of compatibility issues involved, we can't just plug them into a socket like a light bulb... " Charlie turned back once more to the now docked ship. "No, not like a light bulb. Looks like it will be another all-nighter for me and my overworked crew."

"Do whatever you have to do, Charlie." The President replied. "I'm sure you will work another one of you miracles before the morning."

"Tell us what parts you will need and we will get them too you ASAP." Woodbury added. "We need this crate operational yesterday."

"Don't you ever again refer to this ship as a 'crate' again." Charlie said spinning around waving his finger under Woodbury's chin. "A 'crate' was slang for a flying deathtrap which this is obviously not." He added waving his hand in the direction of the now disembarking crew. "As you can see their uniforms are not even singed and even with all this damage the life support system remained functional."

"Sorry, I didn't mean that as an insult." Woodbury replied taking a step back and raising both hands apologetically.

"No insult taken." Charlie replied, shaking his head. Placing his hand on Woodbury's back. "I'm just a little frustrated right now. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. By the way, I need to talk to you later about getting the funding to finish the Philadelphia. I made this ship too well, Congress is starting to think we can get by with just fighters and that warships are just a waste of money. How can we get through their thick heads that starfighters just isn't going to be enough. I had hard enough time pushing the Spacewolf Program through. Right now I am using my Engineering Budget to pull things together but its not going to be much longer until someone notices that certain civil projects aren't progressing as they should be."

"I don't know,... " Woodbury replied, scratching the back of his head. "Those yahoos don't really trust me very much. I don't even have much of a budget right now. It was hard enough to get the Spacewolf program approved. I have been fighting for this since the day I was appointed. It's going to be hard."

"Come on, Jim, you know as well as I do that we can't win this just fighters!" Charlie pressed the matter, grabbing Woodbury's arm, pinching it just a little too hard. Woodbury winced in pain. "We need those ships! My fighters will be space litter without them. And if these aliens follow their MO they may just ignore the fighters and just blast the planet to bits."

"Charlie, let go of my arm! That hurts!" Replied Woodbury gritting his teeth.

"Sorry, the arms must need recalibrating." Charlie quickly let go of his arm, and smiled faintly. "My emotions are somewhat out of control right now."

"I'll see what I can do, but I will make no promises." Said Woodbury. "But you know as I do how much trouble we had creating the officer corps training center. I am hoping that the shape this ship is in might help get us some more funding."
"Thank you." Charlie replied shaking Woodbury's hand. "If you will now excuse me I have a lot of work to do." Woodbury walked back towards the group, rubbing his arm, while pretending to straighten his sleeve.

He turned around and waved his hand towards his repair team. "Ok, boys, tear it apart! Throw out anything that is not working only after you have checked it to see if the part is fixable. Lets use as many of the original parts as possible. Don't worry about the hull panels, as they are about the only things that are identical to the line model." To himself he added. "My wife is going to hate all of these long hours. It seems like I don't go home anymore."


–


"Well, it seems you three have just about disobeyed every order we gave you today." James Woodbury began his debriefing in a sharp growling tone, standing in front of the daredevil trio, in the debriefing room. "You do realize that you have set back getting our Spacewolf production line running several weeks not to mention costing the taxpayers MILLIONS of Credits for your little joy ride." He continued, walking back and forth at the front, hands clasped at his back, the forceful paces echoing throughout the silent room. "You can just thank your lucky stars Charlie built that ship as well as he did or you would all be dead right now. If you weren't the only people trained to operate that ship I would court marshal the whole lot of you." He let the last words sink in, placed both hands on the table, and continued with an ironic tone. "Fortunately for you, your actions were good enough to warrant a Congressional Medal of Honor and the fact that you saved the Taurusan Capitol was only icing on the cake."

"You made several mistakes today, gentlemen, and the first one was firing on those satellites in direct violation of your orders." Woodbury lifted one hand and counted with his fingers. "Your second was firing your Lightspeed Engines inside a planetary orbit, you know damn well that firing your Lightspeed Engines inside a planetary orbit goes against every safety protocol in the book here and anywhere else in known space. You do realize your actions burned out the ship's Anti-Inertial Field Generators. What do you have to say for yourselves, gentlemen?" he stopped speaking and stood up straight, arms crossed and looked on the three crewmen with a stony gaze.

"I would like to make it clear, for the record, that attacking the satellites was not my idea. Also our fearless leader thought he didn't need to tell us what he was planning until he had us start shooting." George said grumbling. "Why don't you ask Ace what he saw as so important that he thought attacking the satellites was necessary."

"Gut feeling mostly, but I noticed in my initial scans of the things that they had hidden weapons." Ace shrugged. "Forgive me for not informing headquarters before I ordered my gunners to open fire at what I saw as an immediate threat to my ship and crew." Ace added apologetically. "I will try to follow procedure from now on."

"You will not TRY to follow procedure, Mr Skyhawk," Woodbury replied, with a stern tone, leaning towards Ace. "You WILL from now follow regulations. If you and your friends want to stay alive for very long in the future." Another dramatic pause, no one of the trio looked back at the general, Woodbury's stern gaze seemed to sear right through them. "When you detected that shield problem you should have IMMEDIATELY turned around and returned to base. The estimated time to replace the faulty part was five minutes, not much of a delay is it, Mr Skyhawk?"

"Then why couldn't the Vegan Technicians find the problem and fix it then? They had plenty of time to fix it, didn't they?" Ace responded.

"Possibly because they had not been given a schematics of the ship yet?" Woodbury replied, as if talking to a cadet, or a small child. "They had to use diagnostic computers to try and find the faulty part rather than simply reach in pull it out and drop the new part in."

"The recon mission, gentlemen, I will have to call a failure." Woodbury continued. "You did exactly what a recon patrol should never do. Engage the enemy." Woodbury paused to let his words sink in. "Also you in your arrogance you sidestepped the chain of command and ordered allied units to join your attack. Actions like that can very easily strain or damage our relationships with our allies. You are lucky it was the Vegans and not the Krajickians. The Krajickians might have opened fire on you. Relations with them are already strained at best."

"Sir, I did find something of note." Ace reported. "Their command ship appears to be able only control a limited number of ships nearby it. When a ship was taken out of action rather then destroyed, another ship did not jump in to take its place. It is now certain they must have some type of hive mind or mass control system."

"Sir, the unfortunate fact is we are going to have take this fight to them sooner or later." Jonathan added. "When are we going to be getting some backup?"

"Not for a while, I'm afraid." Woodbury responded shaking his head. "The damage to your ship is enough to require pulling one of the line models off of the assembly line. This will require shutting down the entire assembly line just as we were getting it up and running. The delay of doing that and getting the parts we need, we will have to pull model two off of the line. Since it is a good assumption that neither Vega nor Taurus will allow the other to operate a Spacewolf without them both having one." Woodbury said with a sigh. "Your help will have to be delayed."

"We understand, Sir, we will do our best from now on to be more professional." Ace responded getting up from the table. The other two followed suit and headed for the door.

"Wait a minute, I wasn't through yet! Sit down!" Woodbury ordered gruffly. "The Vegan Government has demanded that you give them a formal apology for needlessly endangering their planet. I have also received a request for you to appear before the court of the Taurusan King, Maximilian Tumadoras, it appears that they wish to give you some type of medal or accommodation."

"You are to report to Marshall Rodin to give your apology and then to catch the 16:00 flight to Taurus. I suggest, gentlemen, you take a few minutes to find the proper words. My secretary will have your flight tickets for you, see her on your way out. One other thing, Mr Skyhawk, you are not dismissed until I TELL you that you are, UNDERSTOOD!" Woodbury said leaning towards him over the table. "You are dismissed!"

"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir" Ace apologized, saluting. The three then quickly headed for the door.


–


The skies above the Taurusan Capitol of Langworthy shimmered as battle debris rain down from orbit. All over the planet one could see this light show, but over the capitol it was particularly heavy. The streaks of light and brighter flashes were visible here even during the daytime. Overhead, fighter aircraft were now on orbiting patrols of the area. Also overhead, flying at high altitudes, the contrails of their heavy fighter shuttles zigzagged across the sky. the rising sun gave them a reddish glow.

People were walking the streets in a stunned silence. Outside of the Taurusan Denavore Castle, reporters and their camera crews were attempting to get into the palace. They were being turned away from the entrance gate by the palace guards. The din from the reporters reverberated throughout the grounds of the ancient, majestic, castle. Vines that climbed the walls lessened the echoes inside the courtyard of the complex, but the noise could still be heard even in the highest towers. Behind the castle, every so often, a starship or shuttlecraft would land or take off.

In one of these high towers, King Maximilian looked down on the reporters ten stories below him. He turned away from the window, which automatically shut behind him, his deep red cape twirling behind him. A servant placed his small golden crown on his head while another pinned several golden, jewel encrusted, medallions on his tunic. His red and gold tunic was held in place by an ornate gold clasp.

"When will our guests arrive?" The king inquired turning towards his prime minister. "I need to have my speech ready. Do you have the medals for them?" He paused for a second and then added. "Isn't it ironic that the first Denavore Starbursts that we have awarded in over 100 years goes to three people not even from our own planet?"

"They are scheduled to leave Earth at 16:00 Zulu time. They should arrive here at 18:00 Royal time, just in time for our victory banquet."

"That seems like a unusually long trip, why the delay? Will they be coming in their remarkable starfighter?" The king asked. "I was hoping to get a chance to look at the ship."

"The only flight they could get was a luxury scenic cruise to Taurus via their planets of Jupiter and Saturn and unfortunately no, your majesty, the Spacewolf was pretty badly damaged. Truthfully, if one our ships didn't stop it, it is very likely they would have smashed into what was left of our planetary shielding. Those three must be the luckiest men in the universe."

The two left the room and stepped into the elevator. The king looked his minister directly in the eye and then demanded. "How much longer did we have? What was the status of the planetary defense screens when the enemy retreated?"

"Your Majesty if that missile wasn't intercepted this city would no longer exist." Lord Jenathore responded after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, the King never leaving his eyes from him. "Considering the warhead's yield, the shelter beneath this castle would not have protected you. With the loss of the castle and command center, the rest of the system would have gone autonomic. This would have isolated all of the shield units on just local power rather then global power sharing, resulting in the weakening of the maximum shield strength. Since the shields were already near the point of failure in all likelihood they would have collapsed. The complete decimation of the planet would have followed."

"One thing I want you to explain to me... the Vegans had already been attacked twice before they hit us, so why was our defense systems not on alert like they should have been?" The king demanded while pressing the button labeled, conference room. "I see no excuse for our satellites to not have been active after we saw what they did on Vega."

"Lord Tuiton never considered that these, Orthropatarians, would ever strike at us, your majesty." Lord Jenathore replied, eyeing the king carefully. "He assumed that they would continue to strike at Vega and leave us alone. I saw their tactics as very narrow minded and figured as long as the Vegan defenses held we would be safe. It is apparent, sire, that they appear to only be able to strike one major target at a time outside of their own system."

"Are you going to wait for them to prove you wrong again before you secure our planet properly?" He demanded. "Or are you still going to play the 'we can't trust the Vegans game?' It will be self evident, after that debacle yesterday, which one of us was the one who had more to hide. I find it very hard to believe that the Vegans did not use everything that they had available to them. Not to mention, several hundred of them died saving our world from total destruction. Without the Earth's new fighter and the Vegan Attack Shuttles we would have surely been lost! That was with the Earth ship having major technical problems! It is time we put aside the past and finally work together as true allies."

"We might believe that, but parliament never will and you know they are ones who set policy." Lord Jenathore responded. "We may be able to convince them, eventually, but after 400 years of anti-Vegan propaganda it will take a long time to convince the people in general to ever accept the rearmament of Vega. They may support our rearmament, but never theirs. Remember, we have a press conference to prepare for and I suggest that you plan your words carefully, the last thing we need is a coupe-de-grâce."

The elevator door opened and the two men stepped into the main conference room of the castle. In later days this place would have been referred to as the throne room or the king's court. From the doors of the elevator and large main doors that led to the rest of the castle, a narrow, highly-embroidered red carpet lead to the pair of large golden thrones. The thrones stood at the center of the back wall on a raised platform. Above these gold encrusted thrones a pair of red and orange banners hung with the image of a male lion-like creature while the other had the female version. Behind the thrones a pair of beautifully engraven axes were crossed with the ax heads hanging directly over the two thrones. The rest of the wall had hanging on it the banners of former kings.

In center of the room a large table with chairs only on the side that faced away from the throne where dignitaries could sit. The walls were covered with tapestries that depicted scenes from history including one that depicted a chaotic space battle. The doors of the elevator were on the small platform containing the throne.

Inside the room, a large number of dignitaries had gathered, including one man who really stood out because of his diamond inlayed pins, buttons, and buckles that he had on all over his intricately embroidered purple costume. He seemed to sparkle as he moved as nearly every decoration he wore was embossed with diamonds of all sorts from the horizontal piping that extended from his buttons to the macaroni on his sleeves. The others in the room wore costumes similar to the king's only with different capes and brooches representing their various houses or clans.

The occupants all stood to attention when they saw the king's elevator open. A trumpeter immediately begin playing the Taurusan national anthem and all of the Taurusans begin to sing. The two men stood at the elevator's door while they sang, patiently waiting, as soon as the song was over, the king solemnly marched over to the throne and sat down. The prime minister walked down to the large table and banged on it three times with a gavel that was sitting on the table. He cried out, "This session of the court of King Maximilian Tumadoras the Third is now in session. All those who have reason to speak approach the table and you will be heard in due course."

Several members of the group approached the table lining up in front of the chairs as if they knew their place, all that is except the one who was wearing the diamond studded uniform. He stepped forward and then looked awkwardly at the prime minister as if asking where to go. Lord Jenathore motioned for him to take a seat at the head of the table. Following him taking his position, everyone at the table sat down. Once seated the prime minister motioned for the opulent visitor to rise and banging his gavel announced. "You may speak, state your name and rank and then your business."

"Lord Stavros Patrovich of the MIGHTY Krajickian Empire." He spoke rising from his seat bowing towards the king. "I must request to be excused from the victory banquet later tonight as I and my ship have been called home to my post. I would like to request that before I leave if I could get a sealed copy of the data log tapes from the battle. I need to have one of my valets confirm that the tapes were directly transferred from the main databank rather than another source. If I am to ever convince my government of the reality of this new threat, I need another source to verify the data collected by my own ship. I must apologize about my ship retreating to the far edge of your system and not lending a hand defending the planet. My government did not give me permission to engage. I have not been graced with very good luck lately as I has just landed after a short shuttle trip to Vega when the first attack hit there and then their attack here commenced just after I got back. I am beginning to think I am cursed."

"As the only Krajickian to speak with us on favorable terms, the lack of your presence will be missed.” Lord Jenathore responded with a sad tone to his voice. “As for the data tapes, I think it is safe to say that we are willing to share the information if it will help you garner the military aid of your people. Yours is the only known nation that still has a fully active battle fleet. As such, having some of your warships to help in the defense of our great homeland would be most helpful."

"Then I will tell my aids Baron Lucas Barán and Captain Yohanne Jackson III to report to your records department to retrieve the data tapes." Lord Patrovitch responded. "I hope that the friendship between our great empires will continue into a long and glorious future. Hail Lord Jenathore and King Tumadoras, may your days be long and your kingship last forever." He finished sitting down.

"Is there any other business?"

At the other end of the table there was heard a small tapping. Following which a man dressed in a richly adorned military uniform stood. His manners and the fact that he never lowered his eyes to anyone gave the immediate impression that this was not a man to mess with.

"Lord James Tuiton, Keeper of the Keys of the Armory, Master of the Stars, and the First Lord of the Admiralty. I am the Defender of the Wastes and the Grand Predator of the Empire."

"And I thought our titles were long." Patronvich muttered to himself in his own language as the other man spoke.

"I have to report that even though our treaty shuttle force has been decimated and our defense net has been lost, we still have intact our orbital shuttle bases..."

"Not ever willing to admit defeat are you?" The King suddenly cut in. "The fact is you were literally caught with your pants down yesterday does not add much credibility to you. What do you plan to do about the fact that our planet is now totally defenseless? This is not the time for flowery speeches."

He looked the king with an expression that portrayed discomfort and displeasure. He stood silent for nearly thirty seconds and then after regaining his composure responds. "Yes, your majesty, our defensive net has been seriously been compromised and our planetary defenses were severely strained, yet we have survived. I estimate that using our reserve units and satellites, as well as our production facilities, we should be able to replace our defensive systems in just under 48 hours. The loss of the defensive satellites will not cost our defense plans any time at all. Our war factories can begin churning out weapons and equipment in only a matter of days."

"You are the one who did not consider us as a target of these creatures. You are the one who insisted on not putting our forces on alert despite my erging for you to do so." The king responded with a angry tone. "And you are the one who is in danger of losing your job. I don't care how long it will take to recover our losses! We NEVER should have lost them in the first place. If the satellites had their shields active, they would not have been able to eliminate them so quickly. They have already deployed spy satellites at Vega, what are you doing to ensure they have not done so here?" The king added his gaze almost seemed to sear through the back of the General's head.

"Nothing as of yet, your majesty, but I intend to aggressively patrol the system for any threats." Lord Tuiton said after a moment as if planning his words carefully. "It will be hard because our sensors are not sensitive enough to detect their ships until they open fire. Their ability to appear almost out of nowhere complicates the problem. We have now constant patrols running which I hope will discourage any further attacks."

"The king does have a point, your lordship, we had the warnings from The Republic of Planet Earth, we saw the effects of two attacks on Vega and yet we still did not have our systems on alert." Lord Jenathore said in turn. "We clearly had no excuse. The only reason I see for it is because we were afraid to tip our hand to the Vegans and therefore weaken our political position regarding them. We have given away our true assets now and must deal with the fact that we are now having to rebuild our defenses from basically scratch. Add to this the complication that the Vegans might insist that we decommission our now illegal freighter fleet."

These words caused a slight murmur to rise from the others at the table and from those in the room. The noise started out as a slight whisper but quickly rose to a low roar. The king raised his hand the room becoming suddenly silent, and everyone turned to look at him. "Let us continue the discussion at hand," he said, speaking with authority. "There is still much to discuss."

"Your majesty, I request permission to dismantle our minefield and to use the parts and metal to build a secondary defense net." Taneb Phyrux Lexillion, the Commander of Starfighter forces and Knight Errant of the realm said rising to speak. "My reasons are three. One, we are now confronted with an enemy that can circumvent our mine field making it obsolete, two, the cost to reprogram them to ignore the Earth’s new fleet will be highly prohibitive, and three, I feel that the Vegans have shown that they have no intention of invading out space. I think we should take over the civilian shuttle base on the our second moon and convert it into a auxiliary command center. Thirdly, it is obvious that treaty shuttle limits are inadequate. I propose that we get together with the Terrans and the Vegans and renegotiate our treaty with them. The Bernard's Star Co-op produces an excellent patrol ship that we both could use to support our starfighter forces. I also would like to purchase from the Terrans or Bernard's Star some of their new heavy starfighters. I doubt we can get concessions on the building of a warfleet, but I feel that we need to assist the Earth in building up their's and let them base ships in our space."

"Silly idea," Lord Tuiton replied sharply. "What makes you think that the Vegans would allow any type of fleet to be based in our system." He added with sneer. "I am not willing to give any concessions to the vile Vegans. They killed my ancestors." He continued waving his hand towards the large tapestry on the right wall of the room. "They can never be trusted!"

"I take it you slept through the battle yesterday." The king said, his voice rising to a low growl. "We would ALL be dead right now if it wasn't for your 'vile' Vegans. Do you really think our forces had a chance after we lost our defensive net? That command ship had us over a barrel, the only reason these Orthropatarians didn't turn our 'cargo shuttles' to dust was the arrival of the Vegans and the Spacewolf. Our defense plans are in major need of retooling. One other major thing worries me, these Orthropatarians have an excellent covert intelligence network evidenced in that they knew our weapon ranges, all of them!"

"Obviously, the Vegans want something." Lord Tuiton fired back. "I don't believe that they would have come to our aid otherwise..."

Just at this moment, the main doors of the hall flung open. Into the room strode a man wearing a costume almost identical to the king's. Beside him stood a richly dressed woman wearing a intricate gold tiara. Servants were holding open the doors for them as they marched into the room. All eyes in room turned to the doors as a valet spoke and a trumpet sounded. "All hail, Queen Maxine and Crown Prince Yohan II"

"What is the news from Earth?" Lord Jenathore said when he saw them enter the room. Behind him a servant was placing a smaller throne next to the other two. "We have need of news of the conference."

The prince and the queen strode up to their thrones and sat down. The prince then rose and addressed the council. "Lords and Ladies of Taurus, we are at a crossroads. The time for action is now. Unless we buy time to allow the Earth to build up their defenses we all may perish. The Earth is willing to station units in our space under their command to help us defend our realm. The Vegans have suggested that we continue to maintain our defenses as they are. The Earth has suggested we create a large stellar alliance with the pledge to come to the aid of other members of the alliance when attacked. It was under the premise of this, that the Vegans came to our aid. Vega has also pledged to give us a supply of their defensive satellites. The shipment can arrive as soon as we give the word as the transports are being loaded even as we speak."

"Never!" Lord Tuiton snapped rising swiftly to his feet, a murmur of voices echoing throughout the great hall, some agreeing, others discordant, like the pompous Lord Tuiton now standing and shaking his fist with rage, his now bright red face pulsing with emotion. "I will not let them set up anything of their's in our territory! And I will never allow the dismantling of our mine field! They will only use them as a means of spying on us. I will NEVER allow it."

"Despite the fact that this would allow us to have our defense net back up in a mere matter of hours instead of days, not to mention the fact that our minefield has been proven to be a complete waste of money." The Crown Prince growled remaining seated. He pointed his finger in the general's direction. "Are you so set in your ways that you can't see that? They have already insisted on having them back as soon as we have our own capacity rebuilt as they wish to send them to Earth to secure there as quickly as possible. The factories on Earth are gearing up to built weapons at an enormous rate but they need time to get them going. Frankly, gentleman, our two planet's jobs is to buy that time, one way or another."

"What you are suggesting is that we let the Vegans occupy our space with only their word as an guarantee that they will withdraw." Lord Tuiton returned his voice rising and face turning redder with rage. "Furthermore we cannot let them deploy a major force at Earth without us also doing so. We cannot afford to have them taken over by the treacherous Vegans. Before we will allow them to give Earth a defense net we must be able to give them one of equal strength!"

"What makes you so sure they are the treacherous ones?" The Crown Prince replied coolly. "If I remember correctly, we were the ones to fire the first shots in our little private war. We were the ones who shot down a science survey ship without the proper investigation. I see it only fitting that we be the first ones to make moves towards a final peace between us. Informing the council, and you Admiral, of the transfer of the defensive satellites is merely a formality as Parliament has already approved the measure."

"I and the people will never stand for this!" Lord Tuiton shouted now completely out of control. "We were not the aggressors! They invaded us. The truth is in the tapestry!" He then spit in the direction of the throne, everyone in the room let out a gasp of shock, a death silence fell on the throne room, in their laws this meant instant death, the only sound came from the boots from the two guards that rushed from their posts drawing their swords as they did so. The King raised his hand stopping them as they were about to strike the offender down.

"Sheath your swords!" Ordered the king to the guards, his words echoing through the chamber. "The last thing we want is to make him a martyr!" Tuiton stood his ground, not flinching one single muscle, a sneer on his face his eyes shooting sparks towards the royal family, his hands clasped so tightly his knuckles went white. He stood tall and defiant with an air of invulnerability. "Not to mention we will need his expertise during this crisis..." Commented the king in a low voice, though his words were well heard in the silent room. "Take Lord Tuiton, and place him under house arrest, we will be benevolent and give him a chance to calm his nerves."

Lord Lexillion then rose and spoke in a forceful manner. "We are at a crossroads, do we forget our past and move on to an uncertain future, or do we continue with our mistrust and bigotry and face certain annihilation. The choice is ours. Personally, I chose the uncertain future. If our kingdom is to continue many unpopular choices will have to be made."

"I think there has been enough bickering for one day." Lord Jenathore said rising, raising his hands. "We are truly at a major crossroads in our history. I move to adjourn this meeting until the banquet tonight."

"I second that motion," Lord Lexillion said with a booming voice. "We have bickered enough for one day. This should be a day of great rejoicing. Taurus Forever!" This was followed by cheering all throughout the great hall. Except for Lord Tuiton who scowled towards his rival as he was being escorted from the room.

"Then I declare this court adjourned until tomorrow." King Maximillion said in his booming voice.

The crowd began to disperse, the opulent visitor stopped and walked over to the large tapestry on the right wall of the hall. Squinting he begin to carefully scrutinize the images. On the far right, showed a large group of very demonized looking Vegans marching onto a obscurely depicted starship heading into space. Next to this showed the Taurusan fleet blasting the ship to vapor. Immediately followed the Vegan's ruler on a throne with a look of rage. After which a huge fleet of Vegan ships were shown shooting into space toward the previous depiction of the Taurusan fleet. The next scene showed the two fleets tearing into each other with a savage display of weapons fire as they tried to plow past each other. The last part showed the few remaining ships limping back home but Vegan ships were no longer depicted.

Lord Jenathore noticed Patrovitch admiring the tapestry and walked over next to him. He spoke rather frankly, "Do you have any questions about the Battle of the Wastes? I must admit that the tapestry it is not entirely accurate to the facts of history."

"Yes, I was wondering if the piece was similar to one I've seen in Bayeux, France on Earth in one of my visits there." Patrovitch responded rather thoughtfully. "It was the only remaining record they had of a pivotal battle in their history, The Battle of Hastings. It was very similar to this one in most respects." He added scratching his chin. "How old is it? What was the battle really like?"

"This tapestry is over 400 years old. It was commissioned to portray our glorious 'victory' in the first battle of The Great Interstellar War." Lord Jenathore begin with a ironic tone. "We attacked a Vegan starship that entered our solar system. It was simply a survey ship and when our side heard the uncoded distress call, they realized what they had done. Expecting a full retaliation for our act of aggression, we sent every warship available towards the direction from which the ship came. They in turn, in an attempt to save their ship, sent everything they had in our direction. The two fleets met about halfway between our systems and each fleet attempted to fight its was past the other. The battle resulted in only a few survivors on each side, which generated overly inflated stories of the savage battle on both sides. "

"For 300 years us and the Vegans fought a brutal war in what became a no man's land between our star system and theirs. For decades each side would build up massive battle fleets and when one side felt they had enough, they would send them on an attack course towards the other. Naturally we or they would detect the incoming ships and send their fleet to intercept them. When the two fleets would meet, a savage battle would ensue until both fleets would annihilate each other. The few survivors would limp home telling overblown stories of the ruthlessness of the enemy."

"This continued until we both had devastated our economies and resources from the constant production with minimal gains. This resulted with us finally talking to one another, resulting in the Vegan-Taurusan Peace Treaty that is such a concern right now."

"The treaty established limits on the number of attack shuttlecraft each side could have and ceased either side from operating combat starships. To ensure compliance, yearly inspections were set up. As you can see from the last few days much has escaped the eyes of those inspectors."

Patrovitch turned and walked out of the hall past the men guarding the room. Lord Jenathore followed him walking next to him in the hallway. They both stopped to look at one of the many viewscreens lining the hallways. Each one showed a different view of the city outside or some beautiful vista of the planet. The thought of having such a wondrous world being destroyed went through Patrovitch's mind.

"I see, so the mistrust between the two empires runs much deeper than I had realized." Patrovitch replied thoughtfully. "I had wondered what was going on for two empires of your caliper to not have your own defense fleet. With all of the infighting I've seen today, it appears that things are not going to go smoothly for a long while in terms of relations with your neighbors."

Continuing down the hallway they turn left down a corridor that widened into a large room. The room looked like it had once been used as a stable. It now served as a large garage for the castle's array of vehicles and the sound of motors and hovercars reverberated throughout the area. On the far end could be seen another large room attached to the far wall. On the walls on the right and left the exits could be seen.

"Lord Patrovitch, of all the Krajickians to serve as emissaries to our nation, you have impressed me the most." Lord Jenathore said in an upbeat tone. "You are the only one to take the time to learn our language, and talk with us as equals. I was starting to get the impression that your nation felt outsiders as some sort of threat to be eliminated. The great trade disagreements over the diamond and technology sectors seemed a sure road to war. The restrictions on flight patterns through your space concern me though, since if trade was allowed in all of your systems, profits could be much higher for everyone. Can you help me to understand your people's reasons for your supreme isolationism."

They passed through the large stable into a relatively new section of the castle, this was a large hanger richly decorated to look like the rest of the buildings. It appeared to connect seamlessly with the rest of the complex down to a control tower positioned on the right corner next to the entrance, the room was large enough to house two of the royal family's yachts as well as two dozen smaller craft, only one royal transport stood in the hanger and several attack shuttles painted bright silver rather than the usual yellow. Standing out amongst the parked vehicles stood a boxy, faceted shuttlecraft with a purple general color and a whitish stripe running down the middle, the ship sparkled like a gemstone and the colors deepened or darkened depending on how the light struck it. The two men talking together moved towards it.

"Yes, if these vile Orthopatarians ever attack Krajick, we will be destroyed before our Emperor would allow us to call for assistance." Patrovitch responded with a sad tone. "I hope that with the proof now available, I can convince my government that these creatures are not only real but truly pose a threat to our people. What scares me is that we have no defense nets of any kind covering our planets, nothing, no planetary shields, no satellite defenses. Our only grace is we do have some defensive battlestations, but they are only deployed on the edges of our solar system."

"If you convince your government to implement defenses similar to ours, our factories will be quite capable of producing the needed material." Jenathore replied.

"Thank you for the offer, but I am sure that my superiors would not accept such help." Patrovitch replied. "Getting to accept that these Orthopatarians are a threat to our Empire will be hard enough. Getting them to use foreign weapons will be near impossible."

"As for our isolation, it may stem from our feudal culture. The nobility of our people have trouble accepting outsiders as equals. This may be why it is so hard to convince them of the verity of an outside threat."

"Considering the fact that the Earth's Spacewolf appears to have a better point defense system then even my battleship, I am starting to doubt our kingdom's technical superiority. We have constructed a massive network of giant rapid transit conduits…"

"No small feat might I add," Jenathore interrupted. "I have heard of those conduits. We would be hard pressed to build such a network."

"Yes, but they do not even compare with the Earth's Stargates!" Patrovitch replied. "The distance between here and Vega is very similar to Krajick and our colony Alpha which I oversee. I was able to travel between Taurus and Vega twice in two days using the Stargates. It would take almost nine months to make a similar trip using our Sub-Space Assist network. To transport goods between planets in days or even less helps explain why Earth's trade is so strong when they control such wondrous technology. Even we had to concede that their trade was too important to not agree to limits on certain goods."

"You mean by 'certain goods' diamonds." Lord Jenathore replied. "That was the doing of Vega, The Bernard's Star Co-Op, and us. The Earth just applied the leverage we needed. Your diamond market was decimating our economies. One of our most valuable commodities suddenly became worth nothing!"

"To be frank, the restrictions you imposed actually benefited our Empire, yet my superiors insisted on the restrictions on the technology trade." Patrovitch replied. "They felt that they were losing out in the negotiations, even though with limits on the export of diamonds we can now sell them for much higher profits. So they insisted on restricting goods like your high quality lightspeed engines. Engines we could use to greatly improve the performance of our fleet."

"Why do you maintain a fleet anyway?" Lord Jenathore inquired running his hand over the entry hatch of the Krajickian shuttlecraft. "You are not at war with anyone as far as I can tell. Not to mention they are decorated with precious gems. How can you afford it?"

"To secure the realm." Patrovitch replied. "We are a feudal culture and by nature of that in order to hold the empire together we need a standing army as a show of force. Truthfully, we have fought more wars among ourselves than can be imagined."

"As for the gems, remember we have an unusually large supply of diamonds available to us. So we use them to decorate everything." He said pointing to the many gems on his uniform as he popped open the hatch. "Using gemstones almost as paint really means nothing to our people. The only drawback is that our ships are very hard to hide. It's hard to hide a ship that sparkles."

"Godspeed and good luck to you on your journey." Lord Jenathore said shaking Patrovitch's hand. "I have business I need to attend to."

At this Lord Jenathore turn and headed for the castle proper, whilst Lord Patrovitch stepped into his shuttle, he nodded to his driver he was ready to leave, and seated on his opulent couch. Behind him sat two similarly dressed men,

Patrovich spoke without looking behind him. "Did you get the information I requested including the sealed tape of you uploading it?"

"Yes, Milord, everything is in order." Replied Baron Lucas Barán. "Now we just need to convince the Emperor of the facts we all know firsthand."

"These Othropatarians are definitely not Earth propaganda." Captain Yohanne Jackson III Added.

"We can only hope for the best." Patrovitch replied. "You may lift off when ready." He ordered the pilot. The navigator sitting next to the pilot was already preparing the flight plan to be sent to the control tower. After a few minutes, the shuttle lifted off and flew out of the large doors of the hanger. Behind the ship the castle stood majestically over the grand capitol city of Taurus the recently risen sun silhouetting the towers of the buildings. The shuttle swiftly rose into orbit disappearing from sight.

–

Ace stood looking out of the window of his cabin. Outside he could see a grand vista of the Great Red Spot of Jupiter. The swirling red clouds seemed to match his thoughts, as he contemplated the events of the past few days. The bright plumes of the volcanoes on the moon of Io were also visible as the ship was also passing within a few hundred kilometers of the eerily beautiful moon. The flight would take them past all of the Galilean moons of Jupiter and then on to a supra-light flight to Saturn. Ace liked the idea of getting a wondrous tour of the solar system for basically nothing, even so his face showed signs of boredom. "I would just have rather simply taken a starliner." He thought to himself. "Its no fun to take a nice cruise all by myself. I would rather have Marsha with me to enjoy this view."

"Of course I am traveling with my two best friends but they have different cabins and managed to disappear somewhere. I have a good guess where to look, but am not in the mood to play a computer game right now."

He looked out the window at the white icy surface of Europa, its alabaster disk now blocking the view of Jupiter the light brown lines that littered the surface made the view even more striking, also visible were the various settlements. All this time, the captain had been commenting about each location as they past it, even though Ace wasn't really listening.

"If I ever do go on one of these trips, it would have to be the three week cruise of Jupiter and Saturn. I would love to take the opportunity to cross country ski on Europa, or rock climb the crater on Mimas. If only I wasn't so busy."

As the window panned past Callisto, Ace thought to himself when he saw the crater covered surface. "That is how I feel right now, battered and scarred. The only thing I have to smile about today is my apology to Marshall Rodin. He simply said to me apology accepted, Commander, I see no need for this formality. Go enjoy your party."

"Some party," He mused. "Having to take a six hour trip because I broke my ride and then have to sit through another meeting disguised as a dinner party. At least I am getting a medal out of the deal and a nice trip."

After the window past the dark moon of Ganymede, the captain announced that they would be jumping to faster-than-light travel soon. He advised the bars and restaurants to close down as they made the transition. He then begin to comment on how the ship was now following the path of the Voyager Probes. He asked the passengers to note the rings of Jupiter and its spectacular lightning storms.

As Ace watched Jupiter slowly recede in the window, silhouetted in front of the sun, its black disk illuminated by flashes of lightning. To the side, the thin spindly rings sparkled. A low hum swiftly rose to a moderate whine, suddenly a bluish color filled the window and the disk of Jupiter blurred into a point and then vanished, the stars becoming streaks and then resolving into a bright tunnel. The whole ship lurched slightly, causing Ace to slightly lose his position at the window, and a chandelier to flutter slightly. The captain announced that in about three hours the ship would arrive at the wondrous planet of Saturn. The tour of the rings and moons would begin about that time.

Ace said to himself, "I might as well check out the buffet. Passing Io made me think of pizza." He added chuckling.

Three hours later Ace and his friends found themselves on the bridge of the ship. The captain had found out somehow about his distinguished passengers and had insisted they join him on the bridge for the flyby of Saturn. Ace found himself, with the insistence of the captain, at the helm of the ship. He looked out from his station at the grand promenade of the bridge below him. The captain stood behind him and the rest of the stations were slightly below him. Windows surrounded the entire bridge and in front of Ace a large hologram projector showed a computer readout of the planet Saturn and the ship's planned flight path. The captain gave the order to cut the lightspeed engines. The tunnel slowly resolved into a grand vista if the planet Saturn its rings shimmering and the planet's shadow obscuring a small part of them. Ace knew these trips were preprogrammed and he would only need to enter the flight code for today and did so on cue. Before starting his normal commentary, the captain announced about the ship's special guests.

Ace rolled his eyes at the announcement and looked over at his two buddies. They seemed to be eating the whole thing up. They were talking with the crew, signing autographs and generally acting like celebrities. Ace, being used to being famous, was not enjoying all of the extra attention. He had hoped to make this trip as unobtrusively as possible. He figured George and Jonathan were the ones to let out their secret, directly in violation of their orders. "I have had enough of a grilling from Woodbury today." He thought as he brought the ship to starboard. Pressing the autopilot on cue. "This thing handles like a pig." He muttered under his breath. "I hope I don't crash this thing since I am not qualified to operate it."

"Activate flight pattern two seven one." The captain ordered. "Notify The Space Control Station-Saturn of our approach to Stargate 002. All hands prepare the ship for stargate transport." He then activated the intercom and begin his commentary on the sights of Saturn.

Most of the flight around Saturn went rather normally, until the drew near the massive two-tier Space Control Station. The station was the same diameter as the John Marshall Space Station on Earth except this station has two rings. Orbiting Saturn's moon of Titan, the station glistened in the sunlight. Orbiting near the station, the stargate was projecting portals in all directions. Traffic from it traveled off in all directions but most headed for the station or the many moons of Saturn. Out of the station came hundreds of tugs who begin to spray streams of fire retardant into the path of the large liner. From one of the stargate portals, six silver attack shuttles emerged forming up in two lines next to the stargate.

"Maybe it was the Taurusans who tipped off the captain," Ace thought. "It seems they have something big planned for our arrival." Looking out from the bridge, one could see the dummy missiles that Taurusan fighters had launched, giving the impression of the lights on a runway or a red carpet, then suddenly fireworks started shooting out of the beacons.

Ace jumped reflexively at the flashes and had to stop himself from jamming the helm, which resembled an old wet navy wheel, into evasive maneuvers. "I've got to get ahold of myself." He thought, trying to maintain his composure. "I've only been doing this for two days and I am already getting shell shocked. The lack of sleep isn't helping either."

Down below him, the Star brothers had also flinched at the sudden flashing of light and color. George who had gritted his teeth was reflexively grabbing for non-existent controls and a blush forming on his face when he realized his mistake. Jonathan, who was facing aft, had spun around and had drawn his custom VR Pistol. "I play too many video games." He said with a smirk.

"How did you get that past customs?" Ace asked half grinning half frowning. "I see you still as sneaky as ever. You never play a game without that gun of yours. So what makes it so special? Is there some sort of gimmick in to help you win?"

"What do you think?" Jonathan replied holstering the obviously toy gun. "Its no different than any other model one on the inside, it only just happens to be the first Reality Games VR Pistol Model One ever made. In some ways the newer one are far superior."

"Helm, ready ship to enter stargate. Navigator, send coordinates to stargate control." The captain ordered. "And cut the chatter."

[Isolder74]

Chapter 4
For King And Country

"These are interesting developments, Lord Jenathore." King Tumadoras said to his minister. "How many of our freighter captains were observed visiting Lord Tuiton?"

"At least two dozen, your majesty." Lord Jenathore replied. "They came to see him about one hour after his arrest. What the meetings were about we do not know, but they were all quickly identified as very loyal to Lord Tuiton's house and are captains of ships that regularly make runs to Vega and Krajick. He is definitely up to something, your majesty, and I don't like the looks of it."

"Hopefully he will try nothing stupid." The king replied. "Have the guard doubled, nonetheless, just in case."

"The Terran Tri-Star Cruise Liner has just docked at the starport." Jenathore replied with haste, putting his hand to his ear. "We need to get you there so the ship can disembark."

"Then have them prepare my arrival." The king replied. "You have my permission to tap all Tuiton's transmissions."

The king climbed into his personal hovorlimo and the chauffeur closed the door. The limo rose into the air and flew off. It flew over the courtyard and past the topmost tower. Soon it was out of sight.

Inside the grand stables of the castle, Lord Jenathore stood scratching his chin. "What can James be up to?" He thought to himself out loud. "It cannot be an invasion of Vega, too obvious, not his style. He does have the resources to try something much more dangerous if he wanted to. I just hope my days as an ambassador to Vega will pay in helping me defuse this situation."

At that he turn swiftly and headed for the main hallway. Since the attack, the castle has become a bustle of activity. It even more busy with preparations for the victory banquet and awards ceremony coming up. As he entered the hall, a chef past him wheeling a large cake made to resemble the castle. Others past carrying various other dishes from all around the galaxy. The large imported turkey stood out from among the other dishes.

Lord Jenathore in his haste nearly knocked the cake off of its cart which elicited a very mean look from the chef pushing it. Turning down the hallway, he bumped into a man dressed in an opulent police uniform. The man was standing next to a similarly dressed woman. She was holding a computer holographic disk and they both looked very worried. The man raised his hand motioning for Lord Jenathore to stop.

"Sir, can I speak to you in private." Rex Fantoone, Chief of Local Security said in a worried tone. "I doubled the guard as you asked but when I tapped his holo-com, ... I really need to see you in private."

"My office is just down the hall, we can talk in there." Jenathore replied.


–


A large grandstand had been erected at the main entrance to the Langworthy International Starport. The broad majestic structure rose behind it. Attached to it was a grand starship. The luxury transport had been fashioned to resemble a majestic ocean liner from days past, a large portion of the dock was designed to support several of the massive 300 meter long starships. The sides of the vessel towered ten stories into the air obscuring the expansive landing field for the starplanes behind the terminal, the roar of the starplanes engines could be heard as ships rose into the air behind it. Several gangplanks ran from the ship down into the building their glass walls shimmering in the setting sun. Next to the terminal stood a sausage shaped vessel, its wide stubby landing struts forming a tripod beneath it. The markings on the side read; GNN Transmission Studio–Broadcast Ship, Walter Kronkite BTU#12. From the front a boarding hatch had been lowered and many hovervans were going in and out.

The king, dressed in his finest, approached the grandstand's podium. "I am pleased, on this momentous occasion, to welcome three Terrans who showed forth valor in battle not seen in over a century, but the great heroes of the past ages never had the pressure these men have." The king began with a great booming voice. "These men fight alone knowing they have no one coming to help them. Our heroes only died fighting for their own homes and families. They risked their lives saving our planet from almost certain destruction(with disregard for their own safety). For their valor and great fighting skill I am pleased to welcome ... Knight Errants; Stardust, Supernova, and Nova."

The king paused for the roar of a spaceplane before continuing, every few seconds he was forced to do so. "For centuries mistrust and misinformation have blinded us to the virtues of outsiders. Then we met the Terrans. They showed us that the first response to problems does not have to be hostility. Now they are the only force standing between us and destruction."

"This has been a momentous day which has seen many new landmarks in history including the unexpected military help from Vega. Truly this is a crossroads in our history. The dawn of a great stellar alliance is upon us. With the Terrans to guide us, let us push forward to a new tomorrow."

"It will take time for us to heal the wounds left by centuries of war and mistrust yet if we can bind them up, new strength can be found. This strength will lead our people into grand horizons yet unimagined."

Following the king's remarks, doors behind the grandstand opened. A loud cheer reverberated from the crowd obscuring even the noise from spaceport. Three men dressed in simple military uniforms stepped onto the grandstand, they looked out at the crowd and paused for a second. "Did he just call us 'knights.' " Jonathan whispered into Ace's ear. "Or was I hearing things?"

"Yep, must be their term for what we do." Ace whispered back. Looking out at the crowd, he added, "Wow, they really went all out for this thing, we were met by the king himself even!"

"Enjoy the fun while it lasts." George replied. "We may not get many more of these if you keep pulling stunts like the last one."

"As long as I can walk away from a stunt, I am happy." Ace replied. "I suppose they want us to give a speech or something."

"I think that would be only natural." George replied.

After the noise from crowd died down, the king spoke again. "Welcome to you for whom we all owe our lives. For your great courage we wish to give you a token of our gratitude." After saying this three women placed a golden wreath around their necks, which resembled the mane of a lion. Three men dressed in impressive military uniforms, their red and gold colors shining in the camera lights, handed the men a short golden spear.

"Now come with us and enjoy the fruits of victory." The king continued. "Your thoughts on this grand occasion, would be appreciated."

After a few moments, Ace walked up to the podium, his movements looked forced as he tried to get used to his new ornamentation. "This was my first opportunity to look upon the grand sights of your magnificent planet. The views I saw as we came in to land made me appreciate what it was that we had saved. Our actions were guided by population, but your world truly is magnificent!"

The crowd cheered forcing Ace to pause his remarks, after the noise died down, he continued. "I pleased to have the opportunity to celebrate yesterdays victory with you. We are greatly honored by the gifts we have received and hope that the events of the past few days will help to cement the friendship of our two nations. Thank you for wonderful and most spectacular welcome." He ended bowing to the king.

A hovorlimo pulled up next to the side of the grandstand. A chauffeur stepped out, opened the door and then bowed. Taking the cue, Ace and his friends stepped into the limo and were followed by the king. A group of four swept-forward fighter jets flew over the grandstand and then flew upward separating to the four corners of the compass then coming back and crossing over the crowd to then disappearing off into the distance. Slowly and ceremoniously the limo pulled away from grandstand with four police cars pulling up behind and in front of the grand flying limousine their orange and purple lights flashing brightly, soon the five vehicles soared out of sight, the cheers from the crowd drowning out the sounds of their engines.

Back at the castle, Chief Fantoone and Lord Jenathore exited his office. "I will inform the king about this encrypted transmission. The real mystery is where he obtained an Extra-Tauren encryption protocol."

"Yes, I'm sure Tuiton knows it will take us an unknown period in order to break the intercepted signal." Chief Fantoone added. "None of his other calls used this encryption method."

"The location is what troubles me." Lord Jenathore answers. "The first mystery I want you to solve, is who did Tuiton call on Bernard's Star?" He adds scratching his chin. "Our guests will be here soon, we need to get to our places. Lieutenant, I want your best people working on cracking that code, understand." He finishes turning to the woman that came with the chief. The two men then head for the main ballroom, soon the king's procession would arrive.

Inside the Grand Ballroom, chefs and servants were rushing about doing last minute tasks to ensure everything was ready. When they saw the Prime Minister they hurried to finish their preparations. One chef placed the cake in the center of main table while another two placed turkeys on either side of it. They then picked up a large knife and metal fork. The chefs seemed quite pleased with the feast they had put together.

At this moment, almost as if on cue, the royal family entered the ballroom. Trumpets blared and music announced the arrival of the guests of honor.

“All hail the King!” The announcer’s voice echoed throughout the room. “All rise to honor the heroes of the hour! Simon Skyhawk, Jonathan and George Star!”

The king raised his hands to quiet the applause and then lead the heroes to the center of the table in front of the ballroom. Nametags on the settings indicated where everyone was to sit. Once the king had sat down, the chefs began to carve the turkeys. Servants approached the table bearing three gilded boxes. The king turned to face them and they opened the boxes. He took the center pin and held it up. The red-painted gold starburst. The pin sparkled with the diamonds in its center. “For your acts of great valor and bravery we present you with the Denavore Starburst. The highest honor that can be bestowed by our people.” He then pin it onto Ace’s uniform. He repeats this with the other two medals and then turn to face the assembled dignitaries. “Ladies and gentleman, we have just witnessed a momentous occurrence! We have just seen awarded the first Denavore Starbursts awarded in almost 100 years. We must humble ourselves to the fact that we are giving those medals to member of the military of a foreign power. Their great courage and disregard for their own safety was more one would expect from a any man in combat. As part of our gratitude we invite you to join us in the feast of celebration.” The King then sits back down.

At this point the chefs and servants began to serve the multi-course banquet. First they set a dish of battered fried crustaceans. Soon before Ace was a array of fine foods to the likes that he couldn’t possible imagine. Food from all corners of the galaxy were featured and soon Ace did not know what to try first. Wines and beverages of all variety tempted the tastes of the guests.

“Your Majesty, I do not wish to spoil the festivities but there is something I must tell you.” Lord Jenathore whispered into the king’s ear. “Lord Tuiton has made a highly encrypted holo-conference to an unknown location on the moon of Powell, the homeworld of the Bernard’s Star Co-op.”

The King’s face went dark after this and though Ace did not know what was going on he could sense there was something wrong. “Is there anything the matter, your majesty?”

“Only a domestic matter.” The King replies with a frown. “It is none of your concern. Enjoy your party.”.The King’s frown made Ace feel very nervous and a chill went up his spine.

The cutting of the cake drew Ace’s attention as he marveled to watch the masterpiece being cut to pieces. He almost was reluctant to accept the top of the cake when the Chef brought it over to him. He was overwhelmed by the beauty and spectacle of the entire banquet. It will be something he was sure he would never forget. “If only they would let us bring our wives, they would have loved this.” He thought to himself.

Ace looked over the dignitaries that had assembled for the occasion and he noticed that at least one chair was empty, Others of the dignitaries looked like they were not happy to be seeing the award being given to foreigner. Many other looked at them as if they were some type of heroic savior. “What a mixed assembly.” Ace thought to himself. “To some it seems like we are their salvation to others, its like we are usurpers. I always did hate politics!” The rest of the evening went fairly smoothly as after the meal was over the dignitaries mingled with the heros. Ace notice that only certain people would dare even address the king. He then started to finally understand what an honor had been bestowed upon him.

[Isolder74]

Chapter 5
More bugs than a bait store


Charlie looked at pile of parts scattered about the deck. "Not as bad as I had imagined. Of course this sets back the Philadelphia by at least a day." He thought to himself as he looked at them, then he looked at his PDA. "Lets see, deflector control circuitry; out, like I didn't know that already, wing coolant pump port side; out, all laser weapons but port #1; destroyed, missile launcher; destroyed; and starboard gunner's control console; shorted out by vomit. Not bad really. We only need to replace a few dozen small parts and most of the hull plates other than that everything is in pretty good shape."

"Ok, men, lets get this put back together ASAP!"

From the cargo elevator, forklifts were delivering stacks of hull plates and large crates of parts. The piles of stuff arriving made the bay start to look like a large parts store. All about the repair deck, people were running about their tool belts jingling. Cargo cranes were bringing the massive Heavy Amplified Laser Cannons, which measured almost half the length of the ship, into position and workers were preparing to attach them onto the exposed superstructure of the ship's wings. Another crane was moving a new missile launcher into position. A sea of hover platforms and repair decks had risen out of the floor to surround the now skeletal ship. Matter Transducer generated supports appeared under the platforms now hiding the ship from view. Slowly cranes brought the smaller Spacewolf-class Laser Units into position to be installed. On the decks and platforms, men stood with tools ready and began to install parts as soon as they were delivered.

"It's almost as if we are putting it together for the first time, only rushed." Charlie said as he helped open crates. "Lets hope everything still works when we are done, there may not be time to test everything!"

"I have no idea how we can get it all put back together by tomorrow morning." He adds with a sigh.

Sparks started to fly in all directions as workers started to attach the massive laser cannons onto the wings. Others could be seen moving around inside the ship installing modules. People had now started to swarm all over it like flies on a carcass.

"Faster!" Charlie urged as he picked up a box of parts and moved towards the entry ramp, the sounds of his feet clanking on the gangplank. "We have no time to spare. I wish we had at least one more of these now that it has come to this point. Then they would at still have something to fly."

If things couldn't get any more chaotic, a metallic shrill echoed throughout the large hall from one of the cranes, the large Laser Cannon it was moving starting to swing in wider and wider arcs. The crane was moving faster than normal and as it did sparks started to fly from its mounting track. As it moved closer to the Spacewolf its attempts to slow were received with a new flurry of sparks. Like ants, men scattered all over the place, trying desperately to avoid being hit by the metal monster, all but one managed to find safety. The cannon slammed into his chest knocking him off of the platform. Hanging from his safety line he cried out in terror. After securing the cannon to stop it from swinging the crew turned their attention to their fallen colleague. He hung limp at the end of his cable in obvious trouble. Below Charlie had already begin shouting orders, his booming voice echoing about the room. “Who is driving that crane!? When will you people ever learn how follow safety protocols. Hurry does not mean exceed your equipment’s safety ratings.” Sparks were flying from the crane above as the problem became obvious, the crane had slipped off of the track and was hanging by some safety cables.

Two more cranes were lumbering to the scene. One to secure the cannon the other to save the crane. Alarms had started to sound on the deck and workers were clearing the entire area. Men were scrambling onto catwalks above the crane hooking extra cable onto the Crane via magnetic clasps. Others were lowering cables onto the precious Laser Cannon. Both were being secured to the gracefully curved roof of the complex.

"Delays, more delays." Charlie said shaking his head. "Its always something! Its not like I have enough problems for one day already! For the last time secure that crane before more people get hurt!"

“Sir!” A technician cried out. “We have reinstalled the main deflector array, reattaching the other interior equipment is proceeding ahead of schedule. We are having problem matching up the new parts with the old parts though.”

"Do what you need to make it work." Charlie fired back. "If I am correct you will need to splice two parts together manually. This will allow everything to work. I just have one fear, that it might make the ship less able to sustain damage. The best solution to the problem may be to simply replace everything. If only we had time for that."

Charlie stormed into the interior of the ship and then stopped. Looking down he saw a set of wrenches laid out on the floor. One or two of the set was missing. A fire suddenly came to his eyes. He put down the crate he was carrying and grumbling under his breathe he picked up the wrenches and put them into the tool box sitting on the deck next to them and picked up his crate again and stomped into the main cockpit. His footsteps echoed about the ship followed by the sounds of panels being opened inside the cockpit.

A few minutes later, a technician popped up and looked at the bare floor scratching his head. Shrugging he started to look around for where his tools went. He looked perplexed when he found them neatly put away in his toolbox. Tossing the wrenches he was using inside, he picked up some more and disappeared back to his work.

–


"Jonathan, that was really quite grand!" Ace said leaning over in his chair. "I've never been to a royal function before! I hope I did everything right."

"Hopefully they didn't expect perfection from us." Jonathan replied as he buckled on his safety belt. In the background a flight attendant was giving her usual speech. "I think we did ok for being foreigners. I still think it's funny you thought it would a meeting in disguise! My question is why couldn't they get us a starplane for the trip over? It would have been cheaper and we could have taken a tour of the castle or something."

"I think they wanted to get rid of us." George replies to his brother. "I got the impression from the brass that they were not too happy with us."

"What do you expect!" Ace replied. "I'm a rebel! And we all gave the brass quite a scare saving this world. But you guys keep a low profile. I have no wishes to be asked for autographs right now. Nor do I want to end up piloting this tub." He adds whispering.

The plane's large engines now rumbled to life behind them. After a few minutes, the craft climbed into orbit. When Ace looked out the window, he saw the plane was being escorted by a silver painted Attack Shuttle. He rolled his eyes and then looked at the others. They were straining to see out of the window. Out of it he could see Vegan starfreighters deploying defense satellites. Behind that, ships flew about picking up the spinning twisted pieces of debris.

"The place outside looks like a huge mess." Ace said with a look of guilt. "I wish we had done more than we did. If only our ship wasn't broken."

"Its not our fault." George replied. "Most of the damage was done before we got here. Though we might not have gotten our medals if everything worked like it was suppose to."

"Jonathan, I have a bad feeling about all of this." Ace said. "The Vegans are putting up a defense screen to help but I worry about what the Taurusan people will think of it. I have extreme worries about one of the nobles in particular, the one who was not at the party."

"You mean the defense minister?" Jonathan replies. "I assumed that he was simply too busy to attend."

"I'm afraid not." Ace replies grimly. "I talked to Lord Lexillion after the dinner and he told me he was under house arrest."

"House arrest!" George cries out. "How in the name of heaven did that happen?"

"I don't know he wouldn't tell me." Ace replied. "Both of those nation's attitudes make me nervous."

"I couldn't help but overhear you." A voice from behind interrupted. "I was at the session of the king's court when the unthinkable happened. Lord Tuiton showed the king an insult so grave, that barring immediate execution, he was placed under house arrest."

“What do you mean barring immediate execution?!” Ace cried out.

"Well he gave the king and royal family an insult so grave, that under our law, only the word of the king himself saved him from an immediate execution."

“Well that does explain why he was not at the banquet. Who do I have the pleasure to be speaking with?” Ace asked.

“I am Baron Zanzaban. My family owns a large production firm on planet. Even though the attack might mean extra profits for our company, I am with you. If it wasn't for the Vegans, I and my people would be dead right now. To top if off many of us now have heavy financial ties to the Vegan trade networks as well as the Bernard’s Star Stock Exchange that is now pivotal to our economy. I commend your people in their attempts to remind us all of this fact. We are now a galactic community whether or not some of the old timers are willing to accept it.”

“Interesting.” Ace replied. “So you are leaving Taurus for some business?”

“Yes, I am heading to a meeting on Earth regarding the leasing of Taurusan Arms factories to your government to aid in the creation of a defense force. I hope I can get a little more than just light munitions. I am very impressed by your fightercraft, I at least, found it to be quite impressive. Your piloting skills are to be commended. The best unit that size we could build would not have survived what that ship has been through.”

“It was nothing of my doing.” Ace replies shaking his head. “I'm new to this space combat stuff. Its you and the Vegans whom I admire. Without your fighters we would have been lost!”

“I'm afraid we were not able to give you the fire support that was really necessary.” The Baron responded. “Our fighters were being torn to ribbons by that attack and our ships were quite inadequate. While our particle weapons are the best in known space, our shielding systems are not as good as the those produced by the Vegans. Because of the bickering between us we have had to force you to make due with your own designs though I suspect that you have gotten, from some source on both our planets, access to technical specs on both. Your ship’s strange point defense interests me. How does such a small unit put out so many different types of weapons at that fire rate? It can't possibly be using any type of magazine.”

“Well I tell you the particulars, but it uses an technology called a Matter Transducer.” Ace replied uneasily. “It basically makes the weapon from a storage of matter on the ship just before it is launched. The missile launcher on the ship makes use of a similar system.”

“I understand.” The Baron says nodding. “If I am correct that technology has only been used in a grand scale in computer gaming arenas, is that correct?”

“Yes!” Jonathan jumps into the conversation. “I can tell you all about that since I part own Reality Games Inc., it is also used in our industry to prototype and in construction to erect things like concrete forms and scaffolding. Usually it is only used for things not meant to last for very long as the objects created lose molecular integrity over time.”

“And for a throwaway weapon, the device is perfect!” The Baron finished for him. “That is really quite ingenious! I will have to take some time to talk to the man who thought that one up once I get to Earth.”

“You may find that hard as I am sure he is quite busy right now.” Ace says chuckling.

The starplane, at this moment, enters the stargate and the ship slightly lurches forward. The space outside now took on a bluish hue.

After a few minutes, the ship lurched slightly again. Now out of the window the disk of the moon shown brightly. On the moon, the massive Farside Moon Base, which covered almost a fourth of the farside of the moon, glistened in the light. Its nearside section's, that wrapped around from the main section of the base, facets and iris-like main door shown in the sunlight. The door opened and several ships flew in and out. More ships were landing on platforms situated all over the main section of the base.

At this point the plane turned towards The massive John Marshal space station. As it did so several black and white patrol ships pulled up along side the plane. Their lights flashing, they escorted the plane into the massive docking bay, pulling away after it reached the main doors. When the plane landed thousands of reporters were there to meet it. As the three heroes exited the plane now attired with their new medals and adornment, the light of thousands of camera flashes illuminated the jetway. The President and James Woodbury met them just after they came out of the gate. Before any of the eager reporters had a chance to talk to the three men, the two whisked them away, Woodbury was whispering something into Ace’s ear.


–



The Emperor Sage sitting on his throne glared down at the creatures below him. Around him the destruction from the battle lay about the command center of the massive ship. Sparks still flew from power conduits in the ceiling. The Emperor Sage turned his seat to look at the body of his Advisor Sage. His eyes shimmered with anger as he looked at the beam that had impaled him through his head and his anger elevate even more. The Commander Sage limped to the base of the throne and attempted to bow but his broken body no longer worked right. All around the command center, The dead and dying lay over their consoles. The once clear dome overhead now was scorched and black. The back wall had imploded into the large room and bits if it had impaled themselves into all parts of the room. Only the large back of his throne had saved the Emperor from serious injury. Its damaged machinery no longer allowed it to rotate. The few still functioning screens and computers were displaying damage lists.

"Milord." The Commander Sage strained to communicate. "I'm afraid the ship is a total loss. We have near total casualties on all levels. ~~~~ We will not be able to repair the damage..." He then falls to the floor nearly lifeless an white sheen coming to his outer exoskeleton.

"Those creatures are far too clever!" The Emperor Sage fumed. "We played right into their hands! Well now we know that their hostilities have ended." He then looked down at the Commander Sage's lifeless body. "Sleep well, and enjoy your promotion. In a week I will have a new advisor."

"Ready my shuttle, and abandon this ship." The Emperor Sage ordered. "Teleport the ship to Falsance and ram it into their planet."

"Yes, Milord." A Minor Sage responded. Two workers entered the room, not daring to even look at the Emperor Sage, and carried out the body of Commander Sage. After they leave, the Emperor Sage descended from his throne and stately marched out of the room through a small hidden door in the back wall. A few moments later, a small hexagonal, crystal-like ship shot out off the back end of the ship and then descended towards the planet. Seconds later the burning remains of the massive ship vanished in a bright plump that looked like an explosion and then all was dark.

The small crystalline ship entered the planet’s atmosphere and dropped towards a massive towering structure ascending from the center of a large mesa. The side of the tower resembled that of a termite mound, its sides riddled with dozens of small holes which sparkled with lights; the mesa itself was surrounded by similar structures blending its base into the ground and into the massive structure on top of it. Heading away like the roots of a old gnarled tree, massive enclosed passageways connected the complex to other similar towers which dotted the massive plateau that surrounded the central structure. Thick marshland surrounded the plateau, the strange twisted trees and greenish-brown land made the dark mounds look even more striking. Off in the distance, more mounds rose out of the mists, their lights flickering in the twilight. Behind one of these a crescent moon was rising, two other moons already high in the sky each with a different phase; the highest in the sky, sparkled with a metallic sheen.

[Isolder74]

Chapter 6
A true alliance at last?

Inside the Vegan Command Center, Colonel Donaldson was sitting reading a novel, when all of a sudden the klaxon blared, startling him and he falls off his chair. With his heart racing, he jumped to his feet and turned to the holo-display, his eyes went wide with the display of a massive energy surge. “Planetary Shields up!” He ordered without a second thought. “All fighters prepare to launch. All units on patrol arm your weapons. Satellites prepare to fire. Planetary Batteries Power up. Get a transmission to Marshal Rodin.”

At this moment, on the display just outside of the outer satellite net appeared the holographic image of an Orthropatarian Command Ship, the ship appeared damaged with it only having half its sickle front. inside of which, the three nosed attack ship was missing, other parts of the ship showed large cratering and pock marks, with one of its three engines now twisted beyond recognition. It hung in orbit for a moment and then begin to charge towards the planet, the Colonel stared at the screen with a look of shock. “What are they doing? Where are the fighters!” He said in awe. “Squadron Leader, What can you tell me?”

“Not much.” He responded. “All I see is a Orthro Command Ship that is missing almost a quarter of its structure. All it seams to be doing is heading straight for the planet.” At this point it came into range of the outer net’s satellites, all within range opened fire. “Sir, the ship is not returning fire. It is simply accelerating towards the planet at all possible speed. Your orders sir?”

“Destroy it!” The Colonel responded without a second thought. “Whatever they are doing its not to stop by and say 'hello.'”

At this the Vegan fighters all opened fire; thousands of missiles flew true to their targets, this was followed by the missile satellites opening fire on the massive ship. Volley after volley of missiles pounded the massive asteroid ship, laser blasts burned its sides from both layers of the defense grid and the massive blasts of the planetary defense batteries tore huge chunks out its sides, one blast obliterating the remains of the detachable section on the front.

"Shield status?" The Colonel demanded. "Will they hold if that thing manages to hit us?"

"Easily," Major Sonner responded. "They are at full strength and could deflect an asteroid ten kilometers across before collapsing. The worst thing it could do is overload one section of the shield grid. I will tell what it will do though, it will open a hole the size of itself in our already weakened satellite nets."

"Squadron One reporting, missiles exhausted, we need a reload." Came over the speaker followed by many more of the same. "Enemy ship now 500 meters from outer net, accelerating rapidly, it's now at 15 m/s. That thing is going to make quite a bang when it hits!"

"We just don't have the ammunition to destroy it before it hits the planet!" Another pilot shouted on the same channel. "Our laser cannons won't even make a dent in that thing."
Just at this moment, the stargate opened a portal, and out of it flew ten Taurusan Freighters and ten thousand of their large delta winged fighter/bombers. From the belly of the bombers, doors snapped open, and massive revolver-like twin launchers dropped down, spewing out volley after volley of MkX Heavy Anti-Starship Missiles, the bomber's six wing pylons adding to the myriad of white trails that filled the empty space, all heading to a single point, the Orthro ship. Doors also opened on the freighters, with gun turrets and missile tubes extending, the large lumbering vessels seemed to disappear under the bright flash of light from the particle cannons, tearing chunks out of the enemy vessel, with their MkX Missiles following behind the wall of bomber fire. After two full volleys, the Orthro ship broke in two pieces and the pieces slowly drifted apart, the back end with the engines and other equipment accelerated due to the loss of the mass of the front end, the front spun away into its own trajectory soon being pummeled by the ground batteries. Volley after volley of weapons fire slammed into the disintegrating ship breaking up the front into a mass of small pieces, the rear section took hit after hit, spiraling out of control, jets of fire shooting out of huge holes made by the missiles and other weapons. Then it disappeared in a massive fireball, shards of the ship formed a huge cloud of rock and debris that continued to head towards the planet at high speed.

Vegan construction ships, which were in the area, started to scoop up as many of the pieces as they could, the rest smashed into the planetary shield grid disappearing in spectacular balls of fire.



–


Woodbury was pacing back and forth in his office when Ace came in. His brow was furrowed with worry and his dark brown eyes had darkened with frustration.

"Stardust," He said finally sitting down. "During your trip home, the remains of the Orthro ship that attacked Taurus made a suicide dive right into the planet of Vega. It did no real damage thanks to timely intervention of units in the Taurusan King's Personal Guard. What worries me is that WE were not ready to help when it was needed, again."

"Sir," Ace replied calmly. "If what you are saying is true, than it appears that our efforts are working. We have gotten two old enemies to help defend each, quite a feat I might add. Though things on Taurus are still rather shaky."

"Yes, Tuiton." Ace's green eyes went wide when Woodbury mentioned the name. "I may have to do some talking with him. If he tries any form of insurrection, it will result in possibly the destruction of us all."

"What of the Spacewolves soon to be complete?" Ace asked putting his finger firmly on the desk. "I know for a fact that we can definitely build them faster than we can possibly crew them. We have access to well trained pilots who I know have the skills to do the job from Vega and Taurus. There is no way I can justify sending green men to their deaths needlessly. Then there are the warships under construction, how can we man them? All our spacers are from the scientific or merchant sectors. Even using Reality Games Training Equipment, we could never get crews with proficiency of those fielded by even the Krajickians or Powellians. I know for a fact that the ships will be too valuable to lose."

"I have already considered these problems." Woodbury replied smirking. "If the Vegans and Taurusans agree, I have something that might work. I will request the use of some of their officers to advise our new line officers until they have gotten the hang of war and warship operations. As for the fighters, I was hoping you could recruit some of your pilot friends into a sort of elite squadron which we will rotate cadets through until they have gotten the experience needed to survive. I'm afraid having it any other way may not fly with the Vegans or Taurusans."

"Interesting idea." Ace replies leveling an annoyed look at the man sitting in front of him. "When were you planning to let me in on this little 'plan' of yours? The day before creation of the squadron?" After this the smirk on Ace's face grows revealing his sarcasm. "I know several jealous friends who would jump at the chance. Is there any other thing you need from me? If not I will take my leave."

"There is one thing," Woodbury replies smiling. "Charlie has decided to add some new classes of Spacewolf fighters. He has done so in a way that will require only replacing small parts of the ship with different modules at construction. Take this and study it well." He then hands Ace a disk labeled 'Top Secret EYES ONLY' and a folder similarly labeled. "Now don't mislay these now will you." He then turns to look out the window. Ace stands unmoving in front of the desk. When Woodbury looks back his eyes narrow. "Are you still here?" Then his eyes suddenly brighten. Smiling he orders briskly, "You are dismissed."

Ace spins on his feet and then marches out of the office. After the door shuts Woodbury says to himself. "We might just make a soldier out of him yet!"



–



The Emperor Sage looked on watching his viewscreen in his personal quarters. His anger grew as he watch the Command ship disintegrate under the determined defenders of Falsance but his wrath grew even more at the arrival of the Halsance ships. His rage grew as each wave of missiles hit the ship and soon he was in a state of true fury.

“I wanted to drive them father apart and all I have done is brought them together!” He fumed. “It is now obvious that we have to destroy those portal generators, but how? Ever time we attack they use their portals to deflect the fire away from themselves. They are as skillful with them as we are with out teleporters . Perhaps they only have so many channels to draw on. If so it may be possible overwhelm it. Neither side must be allowed to aid one another any further. Then there is the matter of the phantom ship that keeps showing up. Where is it from?”

At once he presses a button on his throne, a Sage enters looking only slightly less opulent then the former Adviser Sage. He bowed and stood waiting patiently.

“What are you wishes, my lord.”

“Send scout ships to as many stars surrounding these two planets as are possible.” He orders to the Ruler Sage. “Also put all Queens into full production. Our only chance to defeat this foe is to overwhelm them with numbers. We need as many workers as possible. Unfortunately until my new Advisor Sage emerges from his transformation we can not attack with more than token forces. Regardless, start construction of as many ground vehicles as possible. I have a feeling an ground invasion will be required to eliminate these creatures.”

"Yes, Milord." He replied bowing. "Thy will be done."

The Emperor Sage leaned back in his throne his four hands gripping the sides of it in frustration, his eyes flashing with rage.


–


Inside Nova's cockpit, Charlie locked the last panel of the consol shut and snapped the tamper seal into place. He then pushed the diagnostic button after typing in his code to power up the consol. Much to his surprise, the guns for the starboard side showed up as 'active' and other systems still showed up as 'offline.' "They couldn't possibly have those in already!" He yelled in annoyance. "I see something is in need of my attention." He then stormed out of the cockpit into the ship's narrow hallway. As he passed the toolbox, a wrench sitting on the deck caused him to pause suddenly.

Memories flashed back to his mind and for a moment he was no longer inside the Spacewolf but sitting in the control room of a power plant watching a wrench fall off of a catwalk. Time seems to stop as he watches the wrench fall. It spins slowly until hits the top of the donut shaped reactor core and then bounces several time until it falls inside a opened maintenance hatch and disappears with a loud clattering sound.

Sparks started to fly as the sound of the wrench bouncing about inside the electric coils could be heard. Alarms started to sound and on the control panel in front of him, a section of the main containment coils started to flash red. His eyes flashed with panic for he knew that the shut down system had just been taken offline for repairs. The core was not still powered up but he knew that if he did not act quickly fiery hot plasma would soon melt its way through the reactor vessel. Almost robotic he pressed the emergency evacuation button and the started throwing as many switches as he could to try and bypass the short in the main containment coils. After several minutes of trying he realized that the wrench has landed so that it shorted out both the mains and the secondaries at the same time. “Damned bit of luck.” He shouted in frustration. ‘The damn thing had to land on the spot that was open for an inspection check of the coils! Any other day and it would have landed harmlessly!”

Flipping more switches he powered up the final back up containment system, The force field surrounding the vessel that would at least stop the plasma long enough to allow most everyone to get out of the building. Then through the window he saw it, the main power lever had not been shut off, the reactor was still at full power! Everyone was exiting the building as quickly as possible but unless someone shut down the reactor everyone would die. Tried repeatedly to use his remote switch to deactivate it and realized that the system was shorted out as well. Then his eye saw something that made his hair stand on end. A small spot on the containment vessel that now was starting to glow red. Knowing it would be a death sentence, He stormed out of the control room and ran for the emergency cut off switch across the room. Running faster than he have ever done in his life he raced over to the switch throwing it down. Turning around, he could see it was too late. The reactor’s plasma was already starting to burn a hole in the outer reactor vessel. Only one thing to do, stay at the controls to try and keep the plasma back until it cools enough to be a none factor outside of the room. He raced back to the control room and started channeling all power into the active containment system. The red spot on the vessel’s walls appears to dim slightly but it slowly start to glow red again.

The memory faded as he snapped back to reality. As he did a man popped up and grabbed hold of the wrench but before he could drop back down Charlie had grabbed him by the collar and lifted him up to arm’s length. “Are you trying to get somebody killed!?” He shouted shaking the man.

“N-n-n-no sir.” The man stammers a reply. “Just trying to do my job.”

At this Charlie finally realized where he was and embarrassed drops the man and glumly stalks out of the ship. As he leaves he quickly apologizes to the man and walks out of the repair bay.

At home, his wife was surprised when Charlie came home early. “Is there anything wrong.” She asked him.

“Betty, I do not allow childish outbursts of emotion on the repair deck.” He replies plugging a cord from a compartment in his right wrist into his computer.

“Who is having childish outbursts of emotion?” She asked a look of hidden apprehension crossing her face.

“I am.” He replied pulling up the calibration program. “I sent myself away. Seems that I have pushed myself too hard. I’m having flashbacks again.”

“Flashbacks! Not again. I thought the doctors said you shouldn’t have those anymore. Hopefully you will be alright. What did you do?” She replied hugging him from behind. Tears had started to appear on the sides of her cheeks her red eyes becoming more evident.

“I yelled at one of my best employees,” He replies with a tone of regret pushing her away. “And I scared the living daylights out of him, too. Obviously the computer in my head is in major need of calibration. If I don’t do this I might end up killing someone, even you.”

“If he is one of the best he will survive your anger.” She replied pulling him closer to her. “You have to take some time off, dear. You can’t keep working like this. You have missed the last three calibration sessions and not slept for two days. You are simply falling apart. This war is going to be the death of you if you don’t watch out. The ship will get repaired without you, the Philadelphia will get built without your supervision.”

Charlie activated the calibration procedure and he slumps back in his chair with fatigue, his eyes snapping shut. Betty looks down at him and starts to cry. Letting go of her husband’s shoulders she walks over to the couch and slumps down crying. Frustrated she puts her head in her hands. She thinks to herself. “The doctor never said it wouldn’t be like this. The computer enhancement would make him normal again, able to interact without any problems. They never said he would be forever tied to a computer for the rest of his life. I almost lost him once, I do not want to have it happen all over again.”


–

“You look happy. Did you enjoy your free trip?” Marsha Skyhawk said as Ace entered the apartment. “What’s up?”

“I enjoyed the trip immensely. I wish I could have taken you with me, you would have loved it.” Ace replied hugging her. “I can’t tell you everything, but I’ve just been told we will be getting some help real soon. They will have some new toys for us to play with as well and some of my old friends may be joining the three of us in this fight.”

“Anyone in particular?” She asked. “Tom or Stanley?”

“Maybe both, perhaps Shooter and Daredevil, too.” Ace replies locking a disk and folder into a safe he opens with his thumbprint. “Nothing is certain just yet except that it will be some time before either Vega or Taurus will allow each other to field heavy fighters. On that note, I am worried, there is a Taurusan noble that may start some real trouble if he isn’t watched.”

“Oh, wonderful.” She replied rolling her eyes. “You mean they are still at it after 100 years. I guess some things will never change.” She sighs. “By the way, your two friends took their wives to a movie. Don’t they ever get tired?”

“I guess not,” He replies. “As for me I’m beat. I’m ready to hit the sack, how about you?”

“Tired.” She replies. “You have no idea how hard it is to sleep when you head off on your little missions.”

“Don’t worry, I’m too cocky to get killed.” He replied smiling. “Besides if my luck holds, you will never have anything to worry about.”


–


“My Lord, Tuiton.” An aide replies bowing. “As you figured, the king sent forces to aid the defense of Vega from an Orthro attack. It will take our industry two more days until we will have the ability to defend ourselves once again. As you predicted, our cargo ships and shuttlecraft make a superb strike force.”

“What has been the public reaction to this occupation of our space by the Vegans?”

“Nothing but positive so far.” He answers having to dodge a pen tossed at him. “I’m sorry you find this as bad news, your grace, but we have to admit that those creatures gave us all quite a scare. You have to admit that the Earth and its new ship was instrumental in the battle. Whatever happens, we have to get our hands on a fighter that can perform with the fighting power of that ship. If we don’t the Terrans will be able to dominate the theater to exclusion of our own forces. I understand that the Earth’s War Chief got hold of you. What did he have to say.”

“He wanted me to get together a corps of our best officers to serve onboard their new warship to help train their crews for combat operations.” He replied. “From what I’ve seen the new Earth Navy will outclass everything in known space. I’m not sure if we want to send them but I have privy to information that the Vegan’s have already agreed to the program. I suspect that the Vegans do this to allow them to get access to the Earth's new high tech weapons and equipment. Even if it is only to get our hands on that equipment, we need to send our own officers.”

“Who will you send?” He replies. “The King will want to ensure at least some of them are loyal to him. This can’t go over too well if we are caught trying to steal any military information.”

“I will lead the group, myself.” Tuiton replies. “Here is a list of officers I wish to propose to Lord Jenathore. See that he gets it. I intend to be on the bridge of The Philadelphia when it launches. Now take your leave.” Tuiton then turns and faces a facsimile of the ‘Battle of the Wastes’ tapestry hanging on his wall.

[Isolder74]

Chapter 7
The Land of Commerce and Rings

The day begin for Ace with the sound of a phone ringing loudly. Groggily, he reached for it barely picking it up without dropping it. Looking at the clock he noticed it was 4:30 Marshall Time. To his dismay, on the other side was the sound of the voice of James Woodbury.

“Hello.” He replies with a strained voice.

“May I speak with Mr Skyhawk please. It is a matter of national importance.” Woodbury snapped quickly.

“Speaking.” Ace replied yawning. “What’s the emergency?”

“No emergency, we would like you to inspect the shipyard facilities of Bernard’s Star. You will be taking the place of Charlie who has just put himself on leave.” Woodbury responded. “I understand that they have some techniques that could make our shipbuilding much cheaper. James Boudoir will be picking you and your friends up to leave for Powell at 8:00. I know you are not the best qualified for this, but you three are the only ones I can find available in time. Sorry to have awakened you.”

"Now I know that you are trying to get rid of us." Ace replied almost jokingly. "Beside a chance for me to check out the best view in The Terran Sector, what good is this going to do us?"

"Much." Woodbury relied. "Right now we are building a war fleet from scratch. It would be most advantageous for us to make use of the most efficient ship building methods in the galaxy. Since The Co-Op has gotten most of their fleet out of mothballs in the time it took us just to put up the Spacewolf facilities. Such efficiency is worth looking into even if you don't understand most of it"

"I understand." Ace replies. "Do you want me to take a camera?"

"No." Woodbury answers. "But you can take your wives if you want since you will be riding on Mr. Boudoir's personal yacht."

"Oh and how are the repairs going?" Ace asked. "I was hoping to actually get to try out that training facility."

"Ahead of schedule." Woodbury replied gruffly. "They actually have it put back together. The only thing they are doing right now is testing everything. With the Vegans and Taurusans helping to defend each other, it has taken some of the pressure off of us. Actually, I'm a little worried. Its been almost a day now and we haven't seen a single Orthro, ship or otherwise anywhere in both systems since that command ship made its suicide dive into Vega. I'm sending you to Powell in hopes we can make use of their System Patrol Crafts in the defense of Earth, Vega and Taurus. Even if it ends up with them being Earth operated, they will prove to be quite useful."

"I knew there was more to this then just go check out their shipyard." Ace replied. "You want me to talk an old college friend into selling us some of their warships."

"Sort of." Woodbury admitted. "I want to stage a simulated attack on The Co-Op to see how they would fair with their heavy ships fighting alongside a defensive fighter force. I'm not sure after seeing Taurusan armed freighters in action if a fleet will be an effective use of men and material. Do not mention this conversation to Charlie. He is dead set on having a starfleet."

"I'll see what I can do. Of course you know those freighters aren't real warships." Ace replied. "Goodbye." He finished hanging up.

Haven been awaken by the telephone, Marsha was looking at her husband. "So what was that all about, dear." She replied with a smirk. "Another awards ceremony?"

"Uh, no." Ace replied. "How long will it take you to pack for a day trip? How would you like to take a tour of James's yacht?" He said smiling broadly Marsha's mouth dropping open with surprise.

"Wow! What is so important to need a trip in your friend's ship?" Marsha asked her eyes lighting up. "I guess about an hour would be all I'd need to get ready. Where are we going?"

"To Powell, James' home." As he did so her eyes go wide. "We will be looking over their shipyards."

"Just the shipyards?" She replied with a smile. "I know you better than that. I know we will be taking the rings shuttle like we did on our honeymoon."

"Oh we can do better than that!" Ace replied. "His yacht is gas giant rated. We can go and watch the Floater herds."

"That would be great!" She replied. "I hope there will be time for me to do some shopping. Can't go to Rome without going to the Forum!"

"While we are taking the tour, I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to check out The Mall Of The Galaxy."

"You're kidding, right?" She said smiling. "There is no way the three of us could even begin to window shop there, the place is huge!"

“Well lets grab a few zzz’s before we have to leave.” Ace replied. “We can get ready later.”



–



Lord Tuiton sat in his front room, a huge life size copy of ‘The Battle of the Wastes’ tapestry hanging on the wall behind him. He sat there pressing his hands together when his phone chimed loudly. Quickly he picked it up an switched it on. When he put it to his ear, his face went hard.

“I thought I told you to not call me?” He said gruffly with a low tone. “Every time you use this channel is one more time the King’s men can analyze the encryption. What do you want?”

After a moment his face went pale and he dropped the phone. After retrieving it he replied. “What do you mean the Terrans are inspecting the shipyard? Will they be able to notice our project?” There is a sort pause. “Well I hope you are right!”

He hung up the phone and then tossed it into a couch across the room. A look of concern started to cross his face. Then he look behind him on the wall at the tapestry.

“I will avenge you my fathers!” He growled up at the images. “No one will stand in my way!”

His home phone rang, after picking it up he smiled. Looking out of a window he smiled. “The officer exchange program has been approved!” He grinned. “And the king will think he is getting rid of me!”

His face suddenly went hard and he rushed over to a desk and began to rummage through it. After a few minutes, he pulls out a small hand scanner. Moments later he was scanning the entire room. With almost robotic movements he moved about the room and the disappeared out of the front room into another part of the house.


–


Zim entered the Central Defense Headquarters, looking about he surveyed the screens at the activity surrounding the planet. He could see that despite the attacks that civilian traffic had almost returned to normal. He looked over at Colonel Donaldson, sitting on the command deck looking completely dead tired.

“So there’s been a lot of excitement around here I see!” He says with a smirk. “So how have you enjoyed having the place to yourself all this time? Any news from the lab?”

“I haven’t had a nip of sleep for two days.” He replied spinning the chair to face Zim at the door. “You will be happy to know that Cmdr. Abrams has been released from the hospital. As for the lab, the enemy only looks like an insect. They have both an internal and external skeleton. Their ships are made of asteroid material encased in a sheath of high tensile strength metal armor. From what we can tell, the ships seem to be hand carved, which doesn’t seem to be very efficient. No sign of any type of deflector technology has been found.”

“Wow!” Zim replies. “I didn’t expect as much. I noticed on my way in that the satellite net is almost at full strength again. What can we do now about our lost shuttle bases? Thanks to the Taurusans deceptions, I think its safe to say that any new ones will have to be armed. What do you think?”

“I completely agree.” Donaldson replies. “Even if they are only point defense weapons, arming them is almost necessary with these bugs. They don’t play by the rules! How can we plan a defense against an enemy that can appear almost anywhere?”

“Any way we can.” Zim replied leaning over the holo-projector in the center of the room. “Get to bed. You look like a wreck! I'll take over from here. No defense plans will be any good if everyone drops dead from exhaustion.” Zim then walks over and looks at the main tactical display. He looks at it scratching his chin, he then sits down at a console and start flipping through different screens until he suddenly stops at one. “Lieutenant Mecham, could you come over here please. What do you make of this?”

The Lieutenant marches over and stands next to him. “What do I make of what, sir?”

“This?” Zim says pointing at a system display.

“That’s a tactical readout of our colony of Debora.” He replies. “Other than a full patrol screen and light orbital defenses, it looks normal to me.”

Zim’s eyes narrow. “You mean you don’t see it? There is something here that does not belong.” He points to a blip on the screen. “Here is an object showing up as an asteroid...”

“And Debora doesn’t HAVE an asteroid belt!” Mecham interrupted. “I'll get you touch with the Governor of Debora immediately!” He then rushed over to his station.

"While your at it, set me up a video conference with all the rest of our colonies. Major Sonner." He said turning towards her. "Get me in touch with the Earth's High Command. They will want know about this!"


–


The King enters the Taurusan Command Nexus, the moment his elevator door opened everyone jumps to their feet. Looking over an huge electronic map that stood in the center of the room, Lord Lexillon stood with an expression of worry and frustration on his face. His golden hair sparkled in the light of the screen. Looking up, he saluted the King and then quickly looked back at the map. The King walked over and gazed at the map. "As you were." The King said waving his hand. "What's the matter, Lord Lexillon?" He said roughly. "What is it that you see?"

"Nothing good." Lexillon replies gruffly looking up for a moment. "I am having to sift through thousands of reports of unidentified objects, mostly unconfirmed, and then have to figure out which ones are just paranoia and which ones are real. Frankly, Your Majesty, its been a long day."

"Would it help if I put Lord Tuiton back on active duty?" The King asked. "And what do you mean by unidentified objects?"

"Not really. He is too obsessed with our old enemies to be of much help. Frankly, Your Majesty, I don't trust him." He replies with a sigh. "I mean every sensor blip, every bright flash, is being reported to the point of overwhelming our early warning systems. Reports from at least three of our colonies are late for this very reason. I'm at a loss as to what to do."

"Whatever we can." The king replies. "Even using Earth's stargates, we can't afford to send units away from Taurus to support them. Our colonies are on their own."

"Do you realize what you're saying?" Lexillon replies, stunned. "Its comments like that which will give Tuiton rope to hang you with!"

"I understand your concern, commander, but truly this whole mess is all his fault to begin with."

"That is one reason I am letting him lead the Officer Exchange Program." The King whispered conspiratorially. "He will be out of the hair around here."

"Also he just scanned his home for bugs, not finding any. That equipment we bought from the Terran FBI was well worth it. To top things off, he just received, on a coded channel, another call from Powell." The King replied. "More rope to hang him with."

"Well truthfully, we would be hard pressed to fend off another attack, without Vegan assistance, at this point. Tuiton's investment in attack bombers and freighter'nauts has been a complete waste of resources." Lexillon said pounding his fist on the map causing the image to ripple. "The Vegans had the right idea, they built themselves a secret defense force. This left them with many more options after the attack. We on the other hand now have no fighters left to cover our homeworld without withdrawing units from the colonies. And if we do that how can we defend them?"

"Simple." The King replies. "We have to WORK with the Vegans. I see no other way to survive. Earth can only send, what, one unit right now. It has turned the tide once, but how many more times can they expect to pull it off?"

–


"Why do you need three suitcases for a day trip?" George said almost annoyed to his wife. "Do you really need the kitchen sink?"

"Oh very funny." Naomi replies. "You know we will be visiting the galaxy's largest mall. These are for the return trip."

"Just don't break the bank, ok." George replies.

"Forget anything?" Jonathan said snickering as he and his wife came around the corner.

"Not you too!" She said rolling her eyes.

"What." He says throwing his hands in the air. "What did I say."

James came into the hallway from his hotel suite. He looked at the group and made a sly smile. "The cavalry is late as usual, I see." He said looking around. Where is Ace?"

James looked at his watch and then sighed. He pulled out his phone and dialed a number. A huge grin came crossed his face and he hung up the phone.

"What did you find out?" George said. "Where's Ace?"

"You'll never guess." James replies.

"He is giving your ship a pre-flight check." Jonathan said with a knowing smile.

"You must know Ace real well." James says winking. "Shall we be on our way?" He adds bowing.

They all head off together with George carrying his wife's bags. The whole way he grumbled under his breath. They all climb into the elevator and when the doors open, they look out onto the massive expanse of deck 3-21. As many of the dignitaries had left, the still busy spaceport now seemed almost empty. The deck was almost empty now, the only ships left shining in the lights.

On the far side of the deck, stood a blue white elegant looking pleasure cruiser. On the back quarter, the stripes of Powellian religious lore and culture sparkled with its orange paint. Its grand angular front and command deck sparkled deep blue with a white stripe on the windows stretching to the rear. From the nose back, its lines became graceful curves which rose in the rear to a grand observation tower standing 3 meters into the air above the ship, its grand transparent dome shimmering. All about the ship grand windows with dark tinting broke up the shape of the hull into an art like mosaic. Its angular engines sparkled with their bare bones Bernard's Star look. James stopped for a moment and smiled at his ship sparkling in the deck light.

“My pride and joy!” He remarked. “She is one of a kind! I designed her myself!”

George drops the bags with a clutter onto to the moving walkway and jumped on after them. “Amazing!” He said smiling. “You designed the whole thing yourself? What were you smoking at the time?” He added with a smirk.

“Ignore him.” Naomi said gruffly almost embarrassed. “He’s in a sarcastic mood today for some reason!”

“Don’t worry, I’m not offended.” He replies stepping onto the walkway. “I get a lot of flack at home about the look of my ship.”

Everyone jumped onto the moving walkway, the small talk echoing about the deck. As they neared the ship they could see someone in an leather jacket talking to the technicians underneath the ship. A woman in a purple dress stood by watching. The curved surface of the sides of the ship blended into a flat surface littered with hatches and access ports. To the rear, the last quarter of the vessel expanded to the ground, it sitting on a pair of huge struts which blended into the massive engine pods. The white underbelly contrasted with the blue engine pods and the light blue body of the ship. Some ground crews were hooking up fuel lines into the ship and getting ready for take off.

"....is fine I mean look at this, there’s nothing wrong with this ship." The ground crew operator was saying showing Ace a computer readout on his computer pad.

"Look Junior.” Ace grumbled. “I'm a bit old fashioned about this so stand aside so I can make sure this damn thing is safe. My WIFE is going to be flying on it. Just let me kick the tires so to speak and we can be on our way."
“I don’t care who you are!” He grumbled back. “No one is telling me how to run MY ship! What makes you think that you can barge in here and take over?”

James was almost at the point of laughing by the time they reached the ship. “I’d just let him have it!” He said behind a low chuckle. “He won’t get on until he has looked things over. Besides he almost got killed a few days ago when he didn’t inspect his ship.”

“But sir!” The engineer replies. “He is being so difficult!”

“I just want to give the ship a quick look over, that’s all.” Ace added. “In no way am I suggesting you haven’t been doing your job.”

At this the man relented and after opening and shutting a few panels and looking over the engine, Ace smiled and bows to the man. “Everything seems to be in order. I did notice a small bit of fluid leaking out of the front port landing strut hydraulics.” Ace winked at the annoyed engineer. “You run a tight ship!”

“Of course I run a tight ship!” He replied icily.

James and the rest of the group approached the underside of the ship. James pressed a button and an elevator dropped down to the deck. They all step inside, the door shuts, and it rises upwards.


–


Zim sat in the command chair multiple holograms of people's heads sparkled from the center of the room. One was of Marshall Rodin, another was of James Woodbury. Zim tapped his fingers as the last few popped up, many of the governors awakened in the middle of their sleep cycles. Zim hoped to keep this short as he knew these starcom tele-conferences weren't cheap.

"Captain Zimmerman!" One of them grumbled. "Should have known. So what was so blasted important?"

Zim motions to Lt. Mecham. A tactical display of Debora appeared. The asteroid blips highlighted red. "This." Zim replied almost annoyed. "You still are as cranky as ever aren't you, Oliver. Still annoyed your little brother out ranks you?" At this the hologram scowls back. "On a serious note, we've detected a series of asteroids in the Debora star system. We now have to assume that Orthros have discovered our colonies, all of you have to assume that your colony has been visited."

"Why are you using my colony as an example?" Governor Oliver Zimmerman grumbled. "You trying to prove something? What are you doing, watching me?"

"Nah, your colony's signatures were the obvious ones." Zim replies laughing softly. "My point is all of you need to place your planets on alert. These critters are able to appear anywhere. What are your thoughts, Mr Woodbury?"

"This is a matter of grave concern." James Woodbury replies. "If it can be confirmed that Orthros were detected then we will have to assume that we have a major problem. Only two potential targets we could plan for. This could get out of control real fast. This I see as a reason to renegotiate The Vegan-Taurusan Treaty."

"What do you mean renegotiate?" One of the other governors piped in. "What sort of things did you have in mind?"

"Well, to start, I think both sides should consider operating Bernard's Star System Patrol Crafts." Woodbury began. "These ships have the performance to patrol the innermost regions of a system yet are two small to carry the stores and fuel for an interstellar trip, without a stargate. These ships have enough weapons to be a major asset to any defense effort. They also have a small fighter deck and are fast enough in combat to fly with fighter formations."

"I don't know..." Oliver Zimmerman replies. "Its going to be a while before we will be able to order any. It might be best to have an Earth squadron be set up in all of our systems and the Taurusan systems. That way they won't be in violation of any treaties as we set up a new one to allow our government to purchase them."

"Frankly, whatever we do we have to do it now" Marshall Rodin responded as the other governors muttered to each other making a low din in the background. "New treaties will take time we just don't have. It is clear that we need to sit down and talk about a new treaty as it is obvious that the current treaty is obsolete. I mean both sides have already violated the treaty in some way. Without these violations both planets would be smoking craters now."

He paused for a moment and then continued. "Thankfully, we have on all of our colonies, full treaty fighter forces and orbital bases. Not all of our colonies have the duel layer satellite nets but what you do have will still help, that is if put on alert now."

He paused as the murmur of the governors became a low din. He than continued. "It is possible for us to call on Bernard's Star fleet units if need be."

"Are you declaring a state of war, Marshall?" The governor of Gyhrifdom interrupted. "Do you realize how this will affect my re-election campaign? My population is decidedly antiwar."

"Of course we do." Cpt. Zim interjected. "You do as we suggest and survive to be reelected or you can do nothing and be destroyed!" The man scowls at Zim his eyes flashing with anger.

"I have no problem with putting my planet on alert, in fact it already is." The governor of Vega IV responded. "I have a major penal facility on my planet to worry about, I don't need an orbital attack too."

"I still think that the defenses we have in place will be adequate for now." Oliver Zimmerman added. "We all have standing colonial guard units if it comes to that. What I have seen of the planets destroyed by these creatures, we have to stop them in orbit."

"You can say that sitting safe under your global shield grid!" The governor of Guilimash snapped. "For once I'd like to see you work with what I have! Just a small deflector array over the capitol and hardly even a half satellite net. How am I suppose to calm my people?"

"Begin first by telling your people the truth." Wislor Chen from Mauga colony cut in. "They must prepare for an Orthropateran attack of the same magnitude as our beloved homeworld. Do what ever is necessary to secure your planets. I have already put in an order to Bernard Star two days after the Orthros attacked Taurus for defense of my colony. I knew their system patrol crafts were in violation of the treaty but this action was dictated by my conscience. My colony houses an university of architecture and a population of 450 million which are trusting my judgment. I knew our homeworld defenses must stay at Vega and I was on my own. My hope is the order will be delivered before the Orthros attack. Do what you can to prepare your people to defend your colony or be wiped out."

"You did what?" Cpt. Zim said jumping out of his chair. "Do you realize what this might cause! Reverse that order right now!"

"And make myself and my people an open target for extermination! No! I would advise all of you governors to do the same to defend your colonies." Wislor answered back.

"I understand your concern." Zim replies. "But we can't afford to endanger our warming relation with Taurus. There are those there who would love to have rope to hang us with. Fighters are legal, we can order as many of them as we want."

"The Powellians assured me that without the patrol craft the fighters they carry will be useless in a defense plan. I may put the patrol craft order on hold only temporarily till the entire shipment is complete. My orders first shipment of 400 fighters is due tomorrow with only six weeks till the entire order is finished. The Taurusans may hang me but I cannot cancel this order and feel safe. Which makes a renegotiate of the terms of treaty more urgent"

"I'm sure that they will understand. The Powellians are businessmen." Governor Zimmerman interjects. "I doubt they would want to jeopardies such a large potential order. If the new treaty is approved, they can count on a massive order of SPC's from both nations. If you have them mobilize all your wraith units until we can get things settled. I know from a Taurusan noble, I have as a game partner, that they are as anxious as we are to get their hands on those patrol ships."

"With that, I think there is nothing else to say. This holo-conference was expensive but I feel it was worth the cost. The important thing is that you know your planets have been found." Cpt. Zimmerman said. "Just put all your forces on full alert until further notice, that is all we can do right now. End conference!" At that the images vanished.

–



"We will lift off as soon as we are cleared." James said to his butler as he handed him his jacket. "When can I expect to arrive at facility 1A?"

"After lift off, Sir." Arthur Benaford said bowing. "We should be there in no less then 20 minutes. How may I serve your guests? Will they need a room?"

"Set them up. They may not have time too use them, but do prepare them one though, they will need a place to stow their gear."

"I don't know about the others, but I plan on using my cabin." Ace said winking over to Martha. "Even if it's just to move the furniture around." He adds laughing.

"That’s why I gave you the room with the furniture nailed to the floor." James replied smirking. "Well they all are actually, for safety reasons."

The group then stepped out of narrow hallway into the ship's grand entrance deck. The wide room featured a bank of elevators on the far wall, the elevators decorated with a rich red wood trim. The door were exquisitely crafted with a v-shape formed by the wood panels having the motif of Powellian lore, the center of each half of the door bearing a vertical bar up to the diagonal wood trim forming the v.

The black stone of the floor shimmered in the lights, its polished sheen reflecting the images of the wall decorations and people in the room, hallways extend off to the left and right. Bright orange stripes with gold trim formed a grand diamond about the center of the room, away from the midpoints of each side of the diamond, extending to the hallways, were more stripes attaching to the walls at right angles, in the very center is inlayed an image of a blue-green ringed planet.

A couple of richly dressed valets collected their bags and disappear with them into the elevators. Ace looked at his reflection in the floor and smiled. "James, could you give me a tour of the command deck? I'd like to meet your helmsman."

"Your looking at him." James said waving his hand towards Arthur Benaford. "I'm sure he'd be happy to let you drive."

"Nah," Ace replied laughing softly. "I'll just watch thanks."

The others had already followed their baggage onto the elevator leaving the room almost empty now. The three men and Marsha turned and walked down the hallway passing several suites until the hall opened into a wide windowed gallery a raised platform with a stool and a wrap around control console stood in the center, its silver joysticks gleaming. To the right and left on the main floor are two computer terminals one displaying a stargate chart. The other a map of Earth traffic and a list of time tables. Both had casually dressed women sitting at them. One looked up and smiled at James. "Hi, Honey." She said. "Is this you friend Simeon from college?"

"Yes, June meet Ace Skyhawk, The craziest pilot in the galaxy."

“A pilot is only crazy if he’s dead.” Ace butted in smirking broadly. “As long as he can walk away he’s just cocky!”

“He has quite the sense of humor, dear.” She replies laughing softly. “What is it that makes you call him crazy, anyway?”

“Well to put it bluntly, your looking at the first person to make a Lightspeed jump towards a planet.” Ace replied.

“You did what?” She says raising her voice and jumping to her feet. “How are you still alive! That’s suppose to be impossible!. You should have become a small crater.”

“Well the ship has a very well made Lightspeed system.” He replies smiling. “I burned out the braking system, but it stopped on a dime. It was the only thing I could think of to get where we could shoot down a pair of massive bombardment missiles.” He finishes shrugging.

"Well that certainly qualifies you as being 'crazy.'" She said sitting back down. "Do you like our little ship?"

"Haven't seen interiors this nice on even a fancy Terran cruise ship. Its almost on par with a LeerTrans or Jack-Be-Quick private starliner."

"Of course it is.” James replied. “After all I am the CEO of a shipbuilding company. I get pretty much whatever I want.”

A text message then appeared on her console. Flight plan approved, launch scheduled for 11:00, have a nice day.

"Looks like we take off in about twenty minutes." June replied looking at it. "We have a channel reserved at Saturn like you wanted."

"Good, Launch when ready." James replied. "Best speed to Saturn."

"Why Saturn?" Ace asked with an odd tone. "Any particular reason? That seams a bit far."

"Nostalgia I guess. I like flying past those rings into my own planet's rings. Don't worry, we won't be making any scenic stops. Lightspeed all the way."

"I see, so how long will we be in transit?" Ace asked.
“Twenty-five minutes at full cruising speed.” James replied smiling. “This baby is outfitted with Jack-Be-Quick TurboFast Engines and Anti-Inertial Suite. She is faster than anything in known space.”

“Impressive, Fury Freight will be jealous.” Ace replied. “But I can still beat you to Saturn in my Spacewolf.”

“And how would you manage that?” James replies rather suspiciously.

“Oh I would just use my military channel to Jump their via stargate.” Ace replied laughing. “Five minutes top.”

“If you boys are done beating your chests,” June cut in. “Can we take off now?”

“Of course.’ James replied. “I’ll give Ace a tour of the engine room.”

James, Ace and Martha walk out of the control deck together and back down the hallway. Looking up Ace noticed the grand chandelier hanging in the center of the entrance gallery. He marveled at the intricate crystal form of it crafted to look like James’s home planet. Looking closely he then noticed that the small crystalline moons of the planet slowly rotated around the rest of the chandelier, one of the moons shown slightly brighter than the rest. The center elevator slid open and they stepped inside.



–


“Your Majesty.” Lord Jenathore said stepping into the King’s office. “The Vegan Ambassador is here to speak with you. He has a request to make. I have heard it and since Lord Tuiton is on house arrest I have refereed him to you.”

“Of course.” The King replied. “I was hoping he would drop by. Send him in.”

Promptly Lord Jenathore turned to the door. “The King will see you now” In walked a man dressed in a neat business suit. He bowed to the King respectfully. “Good Afternoon, Your Majesty. My government would like to thank you people and your armed forces for your gallant effort in defending our planet.”

“As do I yours.” The King replied smiling. “So what brings you to me, Mr Henley? How can I be of service?”

“Well for starters, I would like to present to your people these friendship medals.” He says placing a large red wood box he was carrying on the King’s desk. There is a medal there for each soldier who came to our aid.”

“Very gracious of your government.” The King replies opening the box and smiling. “I’m sure this in not the only reason you have come as you could have presented this to my Prime Minister. How can I help your government?”

John Henley opened his briefcase and took out a sheet of paper, he handed it to the King. “We would like to request the extension of the treaty to include Bernard’s Star System Patrol Crafts for both our planets local defense. Also until this new proposal can be ratified, I would like to ask that the Earth be allowed to deploy these craft at both our homeworlds and our colonies until we can legally operate then for ourselves. Our government recognizes that we can’t rely on your people’s forces in the advent of an attack on both us and you.”

“Very interesting idea.” The King replies smiling. “Since we have quasi warships already, I see no problem with it. Some of my ministers, on the other hand, might. I do see your point, however, with current events our treaties are now worthless as the paper they are written on. Do you agree?”

“Yes, I do.” Lord Jenathore replies. “You can see there that the Vegans agree as well, am I correct, Mr Ambassador?” He added turn to him.

“Yes.” John replies. “My views of course are of little consequence. The truth of the matter is that we are only nations with full standing defense forces. Bernard’s Star has a small fleet, but only limited defensive bases. The Earth is building up their forces but I doubt they will be of much help until they can get their shipbuilding facilities up and running. That leaves us, and frankly, we can barely defend ourselves. I note that you have heavy attack bombers and we have a surplus of interceptors. How long would it take for a new treaty to be ratified?”

“Uncertain.” Lord Jenathore replied. “The King can sign it anytime but to be valid Parliament would have to approve it. Your government might take just as long to ratify it as we would, maybe longer. I feel the Vegan’s proposal is a good idea. The new units, even if under Terran control, would free up forces to increase patrols. This would also buy us some time to allow us to get everything nice and legal.

“Very good.” The King replies. “Tell your people that we will allow the idea. Also the officer exchange program is approved and can begin at once.”

“Thank you, your Majesty.” He replied bowing again. “I see this as leading to a grand alliance that the galaxy has never seen before. Good day.” He then turned and walked out.

“Well that went better than I expected.” The King said after the man had left. “I was almost expecting a huge complaint about our blatant violations.”

“Me to.” Lord Jenathore said rubbing his thick golden goatee. “Of course Earth run ships would pretty much end up under command of our exchange officers as they have no real spacers that can do the job. That might cause problems.”

“Not too many, I hope.” The King replied. “This seems to be a refreshing turn of events. Now what can you tell me of this sighting of a strange craft in the Leptailurus System?”

“Well a strange slender ship, resembling the nose of an Orthro fightercraft, was sighted and destroyed by a Royal Guard Unit there. As far as we can tell it was only lightly armed but had several sensor emplacements. The analysts suggest it was some type of scout craft, And I think they’re right. Several odd sensor blips have been reported in other colonies.”

“I was afraid of that.” The King said leaning back in his chair. “The Vegan’s promptness in their proposal, seems to suggest they have spotted them too. Put all sections on the alert.”

“Yes, your Majesty” He replied and walked out of the office.


–


As the ship emerged from out of a bluish colored tunnel, the stars and the planet Saturn came into view. Out of the main windows the heavily cratered moon of Mimas swung past. As they passed it, the grand double rings of the Saturn Space Control seemed to rise above the rocky surface of the moon. Beside the station shimmered the large spherical structure of the Saturn Stargate. Extending out from the portal generators, energy spindles spread out to form a square-shaped window. Gazing upon the portal, one could see the planet’s reflection along with its rings. Out of the other surrounding portals, some ships emerged from the twinkling surface while other ships entered the doorway. Most of these ships were arriving at the station, a few had far away destinations to planets beyond the portal. Slowly, a grey-brown asteroid tumbled lazily about, apparently caught by Saturn's gravity, but if anyone cared to notice one more rock in the emptiness of space, the asteroid actually used Saturn to correct its course, into the inner solar system.

James looked out the window of the ship's observation tower smiling. "What a view!" he said to Ace. "You Terrans have it so lucky. Every part of your system is filled with some of the grandest sights in the galaxy!"

"Well, what about your own world?" Ace replied. "You live where you can look up and see something like this every day. And then on planet night, you look up at a sky pitch black with the shimmer of your planet's rings glimmering in the sky! That was a night I will never forget!"

"I certainly hope not," Martha said, laughing softly. "That was our anniversary!" she added, squeezing his hand.

The ship then flew past the edge of the upper ring of the massive space station which slowly rotated beneath them. The new point defense guns on the rim sparkled in the dim sunlight as they passed. Rounding the upper rim of the ring, the ship turned towards the stargate, as a portal opened for them from a generator facing them. They accelerated towards it disappearing into the portal’s mirrored surface.

The dark tunnel twinkled with the lights from the ship as they sped through it. Emerging from the other side, a spectacular sight came into view. A planet that resembled Saturn sprung into view, its clouds, a swirling blue and green maelstrom encompassing most of the planet. A small yellow storm swam across the equator of the beautiful planet. Its golden rings shimmered in the red sunlight. The planet’s many moons appeared as small points of shimmering light, one of them having a green and blue surface partially covered by a myriad of white clouds.

The ship flew slowly towards the small world seeming to hang on the far edge of the space beyond the delicate rings. They passed a single-ringed space station and then the ship turned towards the surface of the moon of Powell. As they hit the atmosphere, a plume of fire glanced for a moment off the ship's Infrared Deflector shield.

They descended quickly through the clouds, the sprawling cityscape of the capitol sparkling below. The ship dipped down towards a large building on the outskirts of the city. All around the huge complex, hovercars glistened in the sunlight, traffic constantly entering and exiting the parking lots. On the far corner, starships were incessantly landing and taking off from a spaceport attached to the massive complex.

“We’ll drop off the ladies at the mall and then head straight for the shipyard,” James said, smiling. “I have my own landing pad here at the mall.” He then handed Martha a money card. “This should let you get just about anything you three might want. Have fun!”

“Your kidding right?” Martha said, staring at the card. “You can’t be serious.”

“Very serious,” he replied. “Go have fun, its on me. That’s 250,000 Credits you have to spend. Consider it a late wedding present.” He added winking.

The pitch of the observation deck tilted forward as the ship dropped towards the spaceport. On a far hanger the doors swung open, the ship dived towards it and then slowly flew inside and came to a graceful stop. Moments later the lights switched on inside the hanger and a small multi-person scooter came into the room below.

“Well lets get the rest of the ladies and they can get to having fun.” James said turning to Ace. “Then we can get to that ‘inspection tour’ of ours.”

“Right.” Ace replies. “Lets look at a bunch of machines I don’t even have a clue how they work. Other than seeing a huge starfreighter under construction I see nothing that will interest me.”

‘You might be surprised, honey.” Marsha replies. “Keep you eyes open and you might notice something that you might like.”

“Thanks,” Ace says kissing her. “You get the others and go enjoy the mall. I’ll be fine. I’m sure it will be better than I am making it out to be.”

Martha turns and gets in the elevator. A few minutes later the scooter left the hanger and the ship lifts off and backs out of the hanger. From the observation deck they can see the ringed planet above get bigger as they accelerate upwards. Soon they are back in the black expanse of space as they left the shining moon below them and sped towards another moon closer to the planet’s delicate rings. Hanging in orbit of the small rocky moon, the spindly filaments of the shipyard twinkled in the light. Nearby the three rings of an Industrial Space Station appear to rotate slowly as cargo ships darted from it to the shipyard as well to the nearby moon. Massive ore carriers slowly made their way to the bottom ring of the station. The closer they got the better could be seen the row upon row of ship construction areas and assembly plants of the shipyards itself. several monestrous orbiting structures floated half a kilometer from the open structure of the shipyards. Massive prefabricated ship sections were being moved into position by huge space cranes.

The ship turn and flew gracefully into a spacedock attached to the massive facility. Slowly they came to a stop. "I guess we need to check our bags now and pass through security." Ace says with a smirk. "Are there any military ships being built or serviced at this facility?"

"A few." James replied smirking. "I'm sure we will have to take a look at the System Patrol Craft assembly area. We aren't the only shipyard complex on planet and we mostly build cargo vessels."

"Any strange orders lately?" Jonathan said entering the observation deck.

"Not that I know of." James replies. "Of course, I haven't been in the office for almost a week now. Anything could have slipped through my net."

"Well lets keep our eyes open then." Jonathan replies.

"And our ears, too." George added.

James nodding they all enter the lift and the doors swing shut. The elevator dropped and soon the doors open on the deck of the docking pad. A neatly dressed man was there to meet them.

"Good morning, sir, did you enjoy your trip?" The man said with a nod of his head. "I trust the conference went well. Who are your guests?"

"A team from Earth interested in our construction methods and procedures." James replies. "Go back to work I will show them around myself"

The man turns and disappears into an office, through the window Ace noticed him pick up the phone and call someone. Thinking nothing of it he turns to follow James into a small room with the walls lined with overall-like spacesuits. "Put these on." James said. "They will allow us to have a closer look at the ship assemble areas. In some areas of the plant there is no environment."

Each of them grabbing a suit and clipping on the helmets, James then checks all of their seals and gets on his own suit. Pausing for a moment, James then opens the door. They step into a massive room containing a nearly complete super starfreighter stood imposingly in front of them its 400 meter length streatching off into the distance. Workers and robots moved about around the ship installing equipment and adding finishing touches, sparks flew about the room from the huge array of welding devices at work in various locations.

"This is one of our fitting out areas. This is where we attach things like the engines and thrusters, etc." James said with a wave of his hand. "As you can see, the freighter is still missing the massive cargo containers that are built at another facility. These are made to fit the requirements of the customer. What you see here are the command, engine, and docking sections."

"Do all ships have the engines installed here?" George asked.

"No." James replied. "Only this model, since it uses Terren engines that are shipped in from Earth to be attached."

"I see." Ace replies. "How is it usually done?"

"As part of a superlift hull section." James replies. "Even this ship had most of the equipment installed with the respective hull sections. I can show you that next."

They walk down a catwalk and then out onto an observation deck. The glass floor gave an immediate feeling of vertigo. All about them, floated huge hull sections being guided into position.

"Is there reason you do this in micro gravity?" Jonathan asks.

"Yes, it takes less energy to move these massive superlifts around in zero-G." James replies. "Now, if you will follow me I will show you one of the vacuum test bay."

The group go down a hall together, passing welding areas with sparks flying about, and the through a pair of large doors and then out into empty space. Hooked by cables to the wall they look about at a finished super starfreighter hanging in the center of the room. "I wish there was a better way to do this, but this is the only way ensure the ship can maintain its life support system. I usually require about three weeks to ensure all gaskets are installed right."

"Usually?" Ace replies. "When don't you?" Added looking at him incredulously.

"Only when a customer insists they have their ship as soon as it is finished." James answers. "If they do, we insist on giving them the liability."

"Right." Jonathan says. "Couldn't you just put them in parking orbit?"

"Too must space dust in the area."

They then go back through the airlock and they step into a lift. It lurches sideways and when the doors open they are at the landing bay. "Well other than the assembly plants, that's all there is to see." They take off their suits and hang them back up. "Any questions?"

"Nope." Ace replies

"You could increase efficiency using what we use in our VR game systems." George says. "You could then add rigging as it is needed."

"Safety concerns say otherwise." James replies. "Matter Transduced objects last for only a week at the best under such conditions. I wouldn't trust them for such purposes, we are moving multi-ton loads around."

“Good thing to consider,” George replies. “But I was referring to the scaffolding being used to install parts on the exterior. How long are they in use before being taken down?”

“One or two days.” James replies. “It usually takes us 2 days to set them up, why?”

“Well you see you can use matter transducers to do the same job in a matter on minutes.” George says smiling. “It would save you two days.”

“Oh, I see what you mean.” James says smiling. “I’ll have my R & D teams look into it right away. This way to the SPC construction area.”

“No suits?” Ace says.

“Yes we will look down from my office.”

They all walk down a hallway until the come to a huge pane-glass window over looking a huge factory floor. Looking like a aircraft assembly line, System Patrol Crafts are being put together. In the production line sat 40 unfinished ships in various states of completion. Periodically, a crane would pick up a ship and move it to the next section of the line where a new part of the ship was being brought into position. At the end of the line a finished ship, unpainted, was moved by a crain into a neighboring room.

“As you can see with our smaller vessels, we use an assembly line process,” said James, waving his hand towards the window. “I can take you down to the floor because of security issues, but I will tell you that is is the best way to put together a ship this size. Most of the hull sections are delivered to the line will all fittings installed an then mated to the rest of the ship.”

“Impressive!” Ace said, leaning on the window. “How many ships can you roll out of this line in a week?”

“Fifteen or twenty. We are currently a bit swamped right now with the other lines of the factory being used to put ships that were mothballed back into service.”

“Interesting.” Ace replied. “How many lines do you have?”

“Six at this facility,” James replied. “Our company has 10 more on planet.”

“What’s the biggest order you can handle?” Ace asked.

“30,000 units, Why?” James says looking over at him.

“Our government may be making a massive order soon.” Ace said with a smile. “We need training and combat craft to flesh out our navy.”

“I’ll keep it in mind, lets go pick up the ladies at the mall.” James replied.

“Yes.’ George says. “Before my wife spends too much.”

[Isolder74]

Chapter 8
The Test.

Ace looks out of the observation deck of James’s ship his arm around his wife. “Look over there!" he says pointing as a group of green skinned Floaters drift by. The Floaters looked like a small collection of hot air balloons, their small flippers flap lazily as they use them to stay together, and their tiny beady eyes glistened in the light. “It’s a small Floater herd! They all look so relaxed,” He adds giving her a kiss. “Too bad no one else wanted to watch this.”

“Yes, so peaceful here,” she replies smiling. “Nothing but peaceful clouds and creatures who have no understanding of violence and fear.”

Ace smiles, “Well this world isn't completely perfect. It does have predators,” Ace then points to a small streak in the distance. “There is a Floater Ripper.” The thing at the moment was just a tiny wave that slowly flapped up and down as they watched the Floaters one of them slowed a bit and the rest all turned to follow it. The slow one’s body was large and round and it seemed a bit distressed. Ace smiles, “I think that one is about to give birth!” Ace points towards it as the rest of the herd drift to surround her. “Never seen this live before.”


“Yes but that Floater Ripper is getting closer!” Marsha said worry filling her voice. “It can’t, not at this moment!” Off in the distance the small squiggle can now be seen as a black dot with Wings flitting on either side, soon it drew closer and the small blades flitted on either side of its wide gleaming tooth filled maw, the wings and the blades made it look similar to a Terran Manta Ray as it glided ever closer. Seeing the nasty thing made Martha pull Ace closer. “Ace we can’t let it kill the poor mother...”

“Don’t worry just watch,” Ace replies. Outside they watch as the largest and most colorful of the Floaters drops out of the herd. It flits its flippers quickly and moves in the direction of the Ripper and begins to act injured, the Ripper turns towards it and seconds later its lip blades twitching it surges forward. Suddenly the Floater shot upward leaving behind what looks like a small puff of smoke, the Ripper goes through the cloud and the sticky fluid disorients it. A minute later it turns and flies up at the Floater, eyes glistening with rage. A puff of gas leaves the huge sac above the colorful Floater and it dropped suddenly causing the Ripper to miss it again, The Ripper, its back turning red, spins around and goes into a dive. Just as its about to slice into the Floater huge sac, the floater tilts forward and grabs the ripper on its back sinking its long flipper-like limbs into its flesh. Twisting in the air they spin downward until the Floater lets go shooting upwards, the Ripper turns and flying erratically it heads away. “See.” Ace says pointing. “This turned out just fine.”

In the midst of the herd the female reared forward and a small gas bag dangled out of it and slowly inflated, with a puff of red the bag rose upwards and then hovered next to its mother. The defending male joined the herd and they all slowly drifted off into the distance.

Behind them the elevator opens and James steps out. “Anything interesting happen while I was gone?” he asks. “I see the Herd has moved on.”

“Well a Ripper attacked and one of the Floaters gave birth.” Ace replies. “Never seen a Ripper attack in person before.”

"Well I have," James replies sighing. "It is not usually a pretty sight. How did this one go?"

"The dominant male drove the Ripper off," Marsha replies smiling. "It was quite the thing to see!"

James smiles, “Ace, I have a call for you on hold. Mr Woodbury said it was urgent.”

Ace heads for the elevator and disappears. James smiles at Marsha. “So have you enjoyed your trip? I hope you had fun at the mall.”

“Yes, its been almost a dream, I’ve almost forgotten about the whole war for a beautiful little while,” she said sadly. “Now Ace is gone again. But I got to see new life come into the world, oh its such a miracle.”

Just then a huge herd of Floaters began to drift into view. Surrounding the herd was a half a dozen Floater Rippers and they weaved in and out amongst the herd probing for weakness. Every so often a floater would rise swiftly into the air with others dropping downward. Near the back, hung a floater that had a twisted and infected flipper. It limped along in an effort to stay with the herd.

“I feel like that one sometimes,” Martha said pointing. “Life filled with troubles and then assaulted on every side with no sign of respite. When my husband got this job I lost a bit of him ever day. I fear him not returning to hold...” She stifled a sob as a pair of ripper slashed their lip blades across the air sac of the sickly Floater. The Floater lurched downward spinning erratically. The Rippers shot downwards and slammed into is body tearing chunks of flesh out of it. Soon the rest of the hideous black beasts, backs flashing blue and white, systematically tore its body apart. “Oh its so awful!” she sobbed.

“Don’t think of it that way,” James replies. “Ace is good at what he does. I’ve never seen anyone out fly him. Rippers do have things that eat them. Drifters, bigger than my ship and look much like your jellyfish. I think there is one, he says pointing towards a shimmer in the distance the nearly transparent creature hung in the clouds its long tentacles twitched in the wind and it then disappears off into the distance,

Ace step in the room and looks over the activity outside and smiles. “Woodbury wants me to play the part of attacking commander in the simulation later today. I’m not sure how I will do playing general...I’m not the management type.”

“Oh don’t give me that!’ she giggled. “I’ve seen you playing war games with your pals. You can give orders with the best of them.”

"But those were just games!" Ace replies. "This is real!"

"Isn't your entire attack force going to simulated holograms?" Marsha asks. "If so just think of it as a big computer game."

"Right but if I do win, then what?" Ace replies. "It may mean the end of this place as we know it."



–


The Emperor Sage looked over the reports coming in from the thousands of scout ships he had ordered dispatched. Each one returned with almost the same report. Around almost every one were defensive satellites and all on full alert evidenced by the hundreds of ships that had failed to return. He noted planet 27 had destroyed every scout ship within minutes of their arrival.

"Send a detachment to gage their defenses, a token assault with the Lesser Section serving as command base" He Ordered pointing at planet 27. "Once attacked, return and report all defenses."
"Yes, Milord." A Ruler Sage replied. "Your new Advisor Sage has just gone into full pupae phase. He should be ready in a few days. I assume you wish to crew all the fighters with mated drones rather then workers for this mission."

"Yes," the Emperor Sage responded. "The drones will be dead in hours anyway. Reserve the workers for our real attack."



–


Inside the command center of an orbiting Bernard's Star Space Station, Ace looked over the controls. The system wrapped around his chair allowing him to reach all the buttons without having to turn his head, the twin monitors and the holo-display, allowed him to see the entire battle zone at a glance. Right now all they showed was the massive ringed planet and its many moons.

Ace looked over at the simulation clock and noted he had one minute to go before it would begin. He looked over his forces at his command and gave a wry smile.

"It's ironic, really." He said chuckling. "I get to play with the enemy's toolbox."

The timer beeped and Ace tapped his screen and dropped 20 of the tiny scout ships around each moon of the ringed planet and moments later, they appeared on the map. He watched as the ship's AI operated them as they made the orbital facilities appear on the map. Three minutes passed and one of them came upon a System Patrol Craft. Ace typed commands telling it to go silent, but it was too late. The Powellian ship fired the Heavy Particle Turret under its nose shattering the tiny scout ship with one blast. Ace placed the rest on silent running hoping they would not be noticed, and then started dropping onto the map thousands of his spy satellites into orbit of all the moons of the giant ringed planet.

A large hologram of the ringed planet rotated slowly in the back of a large commanded deck. Behind it sits a robust looking humanoid man in a crisp military uniform. He looked over the image noting the movements of his various units on the 3-D map. A man in a uniform with the insignia of a double eagle on his right breast walked up to him.

“Admiral Crane,” he said. “The patrol ship Ardent Reports spotting an enemy scout ship in sector 25. I have ordered the fleet to launch all fighters. A spot on the map indicates the sighting. It just seems to be a scouting foray at the moment. What are your orders?”

“Captain Kayton, make a full scan of the system.” He replied. “Leave no stone unturned. We know they like using rocky spy satellites so lets spot them before they have a chance to see anything valuable. Send all fighters on full sweeps of the area surrounding the fleet and the shipyards. Put all ships on the alert with orders to shoot enemy units on sight.”

“Yes, sir” He replied nodding.

Outside the wedged shaped ship the dust of the planet’s rings drifted by, at this distance the spectacular rings look like nothing more that specks of random dust sitting in space. The ships array of 7 engines sent an eery glow onto the rings they also dimlly lit the huge balconies on the top and bottom of the ships back gallery. All about the ship its weapons turrets played about scanning for targets. As simulated fighters zip about, their illusion given away by the fact that they are partially transparent. They zip past the glowing windows of the massive cruiser and the bright windows of the bridge.

Nearby, several smaller Star Frigates Streak by their silvery engines and bright lights sparkling in the sunlight. Their squat nose and wedged shaped bodies accentuated by their many round gun turrets as they panned about on the ship’s surface, the winglets on the edges of the ship send shadows over the side of the ships. On all the ships the orange stripes of the Bernard’s Star's luck symbol contrasting against the ships white paint. The position of the bridge windows on all the ships made then look like huge fighters rather than frigates and cruisers. Then one of their destroyers flew into view. Its shape seemed to make it feel like it was a member of a different navy if the stripes on its side didn't give it away. Its front half was actually larger than the section containing their engines almost twice as wide. Its huge diamond shaped flat front was studded with rows upon rows of small square and diamond shaped doors. All along the sides its many turrets rotated about as it flew through the formation, on the top, near the front, its prism shaped bridge windows glistened.

Bernard's Star System Patrol Craft flew about the fleet formations with the agility of the smaller starfighters. They dived in and out of the larger ships of the fleet, the attack shuttles attached to them flying in formation behind them.

Out in space, started to appear simulated versions of Orthropateran Fighter ships both large and small. Instantly the fighters broke formation heading into interception course for the new targets as thousands of the Fleets fighters turned to respond. The huge 294 meter long Battle Carrier turned to the direction that the cloud of fighters had appeared, to only have a cloud of fighters appear behind it. Turrets on it and its supporting ships flashed as laser and particle beams glinted away from the turrets the ion tracers glowing orange for hundreds of meters before fading away. The ship’s hanger doors open and its contingent of heavy fighters are lifted onto the large balconies on the top and bottom of the ship, as soon as they are fully extended, the fighters are detached and they dart away from the ship after the incoming fighters. Patrol Craft dart about their turrets and missile batteries blazing tearing though the unshielded Orthropateran ships like a hot knife through butter.

Wave upon wave of attackers appeared by the thousands into the area as their numbers began to take its toll on the defenders. Already several dozen System Patrol Craft have been designated as crippled and a dozen more as destroyed. The small ships were doing an excellent job of screening the larger capitol ships which had, as of the moment, received minimal damage.

Captain Kayton looked over the battle reports and a sensor reading catches his eye. He strolled over to one of the sensor stations. "Lieutenant Guiana, focus a sensor sweep on sector 45 alpha. I noticed an anomaly in the last sensor rotation."

"Aye, Sir," she responded and began typing commands into her console.

"Admiral Crane," he said in the direction of the back of the bridge. "I think we've found something."

"What have you got?" Admiral Crane said strolling over to join them.

"We might have located the enemy's commandship." Captain Kayton said turning to face him. "A small energy spike has been detected in sector 45 alpha. We are running a full scan of the area now."

"Good," Admiral Crane responded. "Prepare our section of the fleet for a Lightspeed to that sector. I want be on the way there the moment you confirm it."

"Of course, Admiral, I will send out the orders immediately." He responded. "Any other orders, Sir."

"Yes, recall all our parasite units at once. Planet based fighter squadrons can cover our ships. I want to be ready for Supralight transit as soon as possible."

"Right away Admiral."

Outside the battle did not seem to change much other than all of one small part of the fleet circling the system pulling into a tighter formation. Attack Shuttles and Starfighters continued their dance of whirling death as a small number broke off their dogfights and flew back to one of the large Battle Carriers, they landed aided by the spindly and glowing tractor beams. Moments later, all the ships flying near the large carrier turned 70 degrees and then a dull blue field enveloped them and they stretched off into the distance and vanished.

Ace's fingers flew over his console. He only half watched the sector where he had dropped his commandship to allow his forces to attack with more numbers, nor did he notice a section of the Powellian Navy jump to Lightspeed. Suddenly alarms rang as a Powellian Battle Carrier along with 4 destroyers and a dozen frigates slowed out of Lightspeed almost right on top of his commandship.

"What?"

Out in space, the massive battle carrier's fighters were already in position for launch and their clamps snapped open, the fighters shooting into space towards the gigantic commandship. The doors on the front of the destroyers all snapped open and a massive volley of large and small missiles shot out into space. Moments later, the plumes of the missiles intersected with the simulated commandship and it vanished in a massive fireball.

"Simulation, Terminated....Simulation Terminated. Victor...Planetary Naval Forces of the Bernard's Star Cooperative. Losses, acceptable."

Ace leaned back in his chair. "Touche!" He said. "Admiral, you know that won't work next time of course."

"Indeed," A voice replied out of the console. "Nevertheless, we have demonstrated that a fleet can be a very effective defense by virtue of its ability to actually bring the battle to the enemy. Like was said by your Winston Churchill, 'The best defense is a good offence.' See you at the debriefing."



–



In the main office of his governor’s offices, Oliver Zimmerman was looking over reports from planetary defense forces. So far 47 strange rocky ships had been shot down by his planetary national guard units. It seemed at this point that everything was running smoothly.

He leaned back in his chair and flipped shut his laptop computer. He looked about the room at the dozens of portraits of the planet’s previous governors. They all seemed to stare sternly down at him as he contemplated his current situation.

“This planet has not seen war since the Taurusan Raid 200 years ago....” He said to portraits as if they could tell him what to do. “How do I prepare billions of people for a full scale attack?” He looked over the plush green carpet engraved with the ram’s head seal of his planet’s government and sighed slightly. The case of his sports trophies caught his eye and he looked over the 3 tiers of awards and trophies that stood behind the glass.

He is so lost in his thoughts that he doesn’t notice the door to the room open and his military advisor enter the room. “Sir?” Oliver jumps almost tipping his chair over. “I'm sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It wasn’t your fault Frank.” He says smiling. “I was lost in thought. What is it?”

“We have detected a cloud of enemy starfighters. Our forces are moving to intercept. I have sent notification to High Command.”

“Well I guess this means I get to hear my brother gloat about being right, again?” He says laughing. “How is the battle going?”

“Well.” The man replies smugly. “I can’t say much at this point but we have sighted the three nosed ship from the front of that commandship. Orders?”

“Fire on the command unit to capture if possible. It will give me great satisfaction to capture something that important. Have a shuttle with marines ready to go at a moment’s notice to board the vessel.”

“I’ll see to it” He salutes and marches out of the room.

–


Ace walks out of the debriefing for the simulated battle and is surprised to find James Woodbury standing in the hall. Ace's eyes go wide and shock fills his face.

"Is there a problem, sir?" Ace says looking over at him fearing the worst.

"Yes," Woodbury replies grimly. "Enemy units have been detected in orbit of Deborah. We fear the worst, Earth might have already been found by them. I'm going to have to put you on alert. A military transport is standing by to take you and you're crew home immediately."

Ace raises an eyebrow. "What about our wives? We can't just leave them here?"

"You're friend will take care of it. They are free to come back at their leisure. I need you back now."

"Don't you think this is rather rash?" Ace replies. "Can't see how one ship is going to make much of a difference."

"True, but its best to be prepared."


–


In space, over Deborah, thousands of starfighters danced and weaved about as they spiraled about trying to blast one another. The teardrop shaped Orthro fighters often vanished to reappear behind their Vegan opponents. In the middle of the fray, the three nosed attack ship darted as laser blasts flew about it. As it took a wide banking turn, several Vegan attack shuttles strafed the ship's main body with their lasers pitting the thick metal armor and leaving dark scorch marks. In a moment, the large ship vanished and then it reappeared several kilometers from the battle.

Once it had reappeared, a squadron of Vegan Attack Shuttles, broke off the main battle and headed straight for it. Soon after it reappeared, a cloud of new fighters dropped into the space near it and they headed straight for the Vegan network of defensive satellites. They would head toward the floating gun platforms until the were just out of their range and the release a volley of missiles. Moments afterward the fighters, with perfect precision, would all vanish then reappear near the Small Command unit and then start another similar run towards the Vegan defenses.

"Admiral, We may have a problem!" A voice marred by static bursts across the CIC down on the planet. "They are definitely getting smarter! We need more fighters up here to keep our defenses intact. Please call for backup from Deborah IV and II national guard units."

"Copy that," Admiral Markem replied. "Lieutenant Frederick, call in more attack shuttles and launch our emergency reserves immediately."

"Aye, Sir"


–


Ace sat solemnly in his chair on the small Terran Trader transport, the Gryphon, that had been converted into a military transport. He sighed looking about the bare bones interior of the small cargo ship. These trader-class ship were never known for having posh interiors but this one was more Spartan than usual, this ship didn't even have padded seats. On the far side of the room sat the access ladders to the gunnery posts of the pair of Medium Particle turrets that had been installed into the ship, the turrets were a standard option for the ships to discourage piracy, though these were larger than the standard weapons. The rest of the room was basically just bare other that the 20 seats positioned in two short rows. George and Jonathan sat next to him looking at the only luxury in the ship, a flat screened television. On it they were watching a GNN news story on the simulation earlier in the day. Ace was half watching it when they switch suddenly to a instant news report.

"This is Benjamin Harrison coming to you from the GNN Transmission Ship, Walter Kronkite, Now in low orbit over the Vegan Colony World of Deborah III. I am here to report that the planet is under Orthropateran attack. As of this moment only the small three nosed section of an Orthro Commandship has been sighted appearing to be leading the assault. As of this moment, the planet’s defenses are holding, but the assault is appearing to be gaining ground.”

Just at this moment the man put a hand to his ear, he nodded for a few seconds then looked up again. “I have just been informed that National guard units from the planets Deborah II and Deborah IV have just exited the stargate and are moving to engage Orthro attack ships. The moment new information comes to our attention we will come back with another instant report. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.”

Ace stretched and sighed. “I guess we will be going into action as soon as we get back. I just hope they have the ship all put back together.”

“I’m not so sure,” George interjected. “From what I saw it seems the Vegans are holding there own. They may not need us.”

“I think they might, just in case the enemy steps up their attack. After all right now all that has been spotted at the moment is a small piece of that massive ship we keep seeing.” Jonathan replied stretching. “I suppose the Taurusans could send some of their freighternauts to better effect then our one ship would be able to add to the situation.”

“We’ll just have to wait and see.” Ace replied with a yawn. “I hope not, I’m tired and that’s not a good thing to be heading into combat.”

“Maybe they will just put us on call.” George grumbles switching off the TV. “I’m not in the mood to shoot stuff right now.”

“Me too.” Jonathan replies. “Its about time we gave the ship a proper test run. Its long overdue. And with the overhaul, it could never be a better time.”

“Yes it will almost be a new ship now.” Ace adds. ‘I think I am going to insist on it. I do not want to have some critical part fail on me in the middle of combat, again.”

“Agreed.” The other two say together.


–


“10% of our sats in sector 12 have been destroyed. All fighters vector to 215-25 for an attack run on the enemy command unit.”


“Roger that Captain. Any word on homeworld reinforcements?”

“None yet.”

“Copy that! Wait I’m detecting portals from the stargate.”

Just at that moment all the portals on the spherical stargate opened and started to shimmer. The portals flash brightly and then out of them flew thousands of Vegan attack shuttles. The shuttles formed up and flew towards the edge of the battle.

“Captain Zim reporting.” A voice crackled over the radio. “What is the situation?”

“The enemy is making multiple attack runs on the defensive satellites. They come to just outside the laser unit’s range then they fire a volley of missiles. We just can’t kill them fast enough. We have tried to capture the command unit but every time we hit it, the ship pops out to reappear too far to reach an instant later. We are glad to see you.”

“That’s all I needed to know. All unit engage the fighters. Alpha squadron follow me.”

One small group of fighters formed up behind the bright red and white painted fighter that belonged to Captain Zimmerman. The rest flew to engage the cloud of enemy fighter swarming about the planet. Zim’s group vector out towards the small commandship section firing a cloud of missiles into it. The silvery white trails of the weapons twist as they move to it till they strike the ship in a spectacular fireball. The blast cleared, the ship’s remains drifted the three noses clipped off. After a few seconds the ship drifted til in a brilliant flash exploded. Not long after the rest of the attacking ship disappears from the planet.

“Well it was worth a try. It seems the moment one of the parts of the commandship is disabled and unable to withdraw they blow their own ship up.” Zim grumbled over the radio. “Lets head home in case this was just a diversion. All homeworld units form up and return to base.”

“So couldn’t let me have all the fun I see.” The governor came on over the radio. “Glad to see you, but why did you leave the homeworld unprotected?”

“I only brought 2,000 Units the homeworld should be alright without me and our elite pilots. I’ll catch you later, bro, we have to get back to rearm and refuel just in case.”

“Thanks for the help. We will gather all the damaged vessels we can for study. Keep in touch.”

"Will do."


–


Charlie stood on the deck overlooking the testing of all the systems of the repaired Spacewolf starfighter. He monitored all the systems on his PDA as each was turned on one at a time. A technician powered up the ship's engine and lifted it into the air and hovered a few feet from the deck, then with a low hum the deflector shields were turned on and for a brief instant a blue glow appeared around the ship following its contours. Moments afterward the engines whined and then shut down the ship resting back onto the deck.

"Excellent work, people!" He called out smiling. "We did the impossible once again. I'll recommend you all for accommodations, unless they break it on us again, you can all take the next two days off."

"Sir," A man holding a datapad asked. "Should I notify the President that we have the ship ready for combat?"

"Yes. And make note that we have added an extra backup power system for the shields."

"Yes sir."

Charlie turn and stalks off the deck his feet making a low clanking sound on the metal floor. He stands tapping his foot as he waits for the elevator. When it arrives, he steps into it and presses the button for his level on the habitation ring of the station.