Chapter 14

They sat in almost silence for five days. Jim had brought all the plans he and Mary had worked on improving shields, power consumption, and increased power output. Looking over everything, Mary was impressed at the sheer magnitude of power that these new shields, which Jim worked to incorporate into the existing system, were a bountiful powerhouse in their own right. The plasma turrets were so powerful Mary was having trouble calculating exactly how powerful they really were. Jim worked almost tirelessly, checking everything at least twice a day. On the last day before the attack, Jim actually disappeared for a few hours, and she tried as hard as she could, but she couldn’t pick the locks well enough to get all that far. Then, just as suddenly, he reappeared. When she asked, he just said he was checking the backup systems, smiling. Mary had known him too long to not know when he was and wasn’t lying.

The next day, starting like the rest was abruptly interrupted by a loud wailing of several alarms. Outside, Jim and Mary saw a huge rift open, thousands of beetle-shaped ships spilling through, increasing by the second. Turning the guns on, Jim and Mary ran for their central positions. Jim smiled, “Not this time,” he thought. His shields were a thousand times more powerful, his weapons had three times the power, and there was an endless system of self-perpetuating power sources. To say he wasn’t ready was the understatement of the millennium. The Krong was still pouring out of the rift when an insect-like face (if you could call it that) appeared on the screen.

“I know that you can understand me, we give you one of your hours to surrender, or then you die,” the Krong commander said.

“Then I have a message for you. Come then, and your race is finished. You are nothing to my tech.” Jim spat out the hate apparent on his face.

As if to answer, Jim fired at the lead ship and watched as several hundreds of ships disappeared. Smiling, Jim was pleased the gun was better than he’d hoped. A few hundred ships attacked and were blanked out by Mary’s gun just as fast. There was an almost palatable thickness to the situation as the Krong fleet broke into four parts and moved into attack positions. Jim jumped up and started syncing up all the guns around the station to act as one. Within minutes, the fleet started to attack. For an hour, they wiped out wave after wave of the Krong, and then there was an even louder alarm going off.

“It’s about time,” Jim said, pointing out to Mary, “That’s a world ship, but I know there’s more than one. I suspect there are three more out there. Keep alert. I’ve got a surprise for them.” With that, Jim started flipping switches, and a few moments later, ships all around the station started to disappear, not blown up, just vaporized. After ten minutes of this, they actually backed off. All that is but the world ship. It was eating up space at an alarming rate. Jim could see that they were going to try to ram the station. Smiling, he pressed another button, and the world ship exploded in a titanic show of debris and lights.

“Well, that’s one, still got a ways to go though,” Jim shouted, “we should be seeing the others soon.”

Mary just nodded her head. There was debris everywhere, and still, they kept coming. It was just as she’d seen in the woman’s mind. Mary could swear that they hadn’t thinned at all. The next two hours, they were still destroying the beetle ships when another alarm went off, this time on the opposite side of the station. Jim had been expecting this, arming the second planet killer. He saw the sudden build-up of ships that started firing at the shield. Damn it! After two hours, the shield had started to weaken in one spot, firing the weapon early. Everything was wiped out within three miles of the station. Sighing, Jim saw that a fourth of the world’s ships had been left well. He thought at least it was useless now. Running to the shield generator, he saw that part of the circuit was fried. Damn it! Switching to backups would limit the amount of backups later.

For another two hours, they fired, the Krong coming in wave after wave. Though Mary had been expecting it, to her human mind, it seemed as if they’d never stop coming. The third-world ship had moved in much faster than Jim had thought it would. Still, he’d been ready to catch it within a mile of the station, rocking them. Jim had run, making sure everything was still working. Four of the ten reactors had shut down to recharge, taking in more outside energy before they could restart. Down almost half power, Jim estimated that in five hours, they’d eliminated half of the fleet, but he couldn’t be sure. He swore that he could feel three more world ships out there. After another two hours, Jim started to feel fatigued. He was sure Mary felt it also. The fourth world ship came in, blasting with everything it had, destroying it. The alarm continued to go off. The fifth had attacked, thinking his weapon had to recharge. Smiling, Jim flipped the second set of switches and watched it go up in an amazing display of destruction.

Jim knew that the battle might go on for a day or more, and sighing, he tried to think of a way to speed up the battle. After seven hours of continuous firing, the Krong backed off just out of the station’s range, and Jim breathed a small sigh of relief. The Krong didn’t know it, but they’d sealed their own fate. They were giving the reactors time to re-energize. Jim was a little worried and had worked briefly on the back-ups, getting one set ready to go again, though he didn’t know just how long they would last. For maybe an hour, the Krong held off giving Jim and Mary time to eat and rest a bit.

“Dickie status,” Jim asked of his AI.

“We are experiencing a loss of twenty percent of full power. At present, I have marked the destruction of one million the hundred thousand eight hundred fifty-one Krong ships. This includes five world ships. I am not detecting much beyond the front line of ships. I suggest we finish the battle soon, as you and The Willow are showing first-stage signs of severe fatigue.” It quipped.