Chapter 13

I was trying to find a way to get a pearl inside the 51 other ships. I did manage to slip into four more when they opened their hatches to exchange vehicles carrying transferring crew. A fifth had a tiny flaw in its shielding, and I was able to conjure a pearl inside it.

All six of the 52 ships were all nearly identical in layout, armament, and crew quarters. Poolnar was able to provide detailed schematics using the downloaded repair audit data. The flagship had one notable difference from the rest. It had a special door at the front that opened and held a piece of equipment that was hidden behind multiple layers of Kempu and neutron shielding.

I was ready to charge in, use weapons to hole the ships, and slap everyone inside into storage. Then I would demand the surrender of the hub. The rest were concerned by the data gleaned by Poolnar. If they had a way to harm me, capture me, or immobilize me, then Earth would be defenseless.

I created a pearl, with a normal universe inside, 1200km across on the inside, and slightly smaller on the outside than I had ever achieved before. I placed a back up Me inside, who began to immediately start working on turning it into a livable space.

I conjured the pearl, and aimed it away from all the local galaxies, deep into interstellar space, and fired it off at fifty thousand times light speed. It would get lost in the emptiness of the vast universe. I deleted my copy of it from storage, so I would only have access to that pearl from inside it.

With my back up in place, I felt ready to confront the Trade Federation. With weapons ready to trigger, and all stations manned, we were ready for war.

My single initial ship jumped into space 1 light minute from the ship furthest from the Lakenar Hub. I broadcast my identity immediately.

“This is Admiral Barkley, of the Poseidon Dominion. I wish to speak with the commander.”

I waited for the signal to reach, and a response. The response was an excellently crafted micro jump, every one of the 52 ships jumped to perfectly encircle me, my ship, and crew.

I had the TV in my office showing me the details as I watched carefully from Proxima. Which is why when I suddenly doubled over in excruciating pain, I expected to find that my ship was an expanding cloud of debris when I could lift my head again.

The Me on the ship was gone. But my eyes showed me that the ship was still there, and that the flagship had deployed its singular special weapon.

The voice of the crew on the ship came thru the TV speakers, “Admiral is down, medical to the bridge,” called Val.

“All weapons, fire on the flagship,” Tyr calmly said, taking command.

I stretched my senses thru the pearl and conjured a neutron star inside the flagship. It crumpled and collapsed as the Vengence’s weapons sparked off its exterior.

I was inside the flagship with a pearl, and there was plenty of room for a 15km wide neutron star. I conjured more neutron stars, giving them a velocity of 500 million kph. A Val stepped into my office, “Tell Tyr to demand their surrender. If there’s no response I will keep destroying ships,” I told her, so she could pass the message to Tyr.

“None of us are connected to anyone on the ship anymore,” she informed me.

“Poolnar, emergency message to the Revenge. ‘Tyr, demand their surrender. I’ll stop destroying ships as soon as they do.’”

“Message sent,” Poolnar informed me.

My phone rang, and I answered it. “I’m glad you are ok boss.”

“Me too, how is it on the ship?”

“Everybody’s a little slow, we are all singles again.”

“You got my message?” I asked.

“Yes, we’ve transmitted the demand, but they are all sitting there.”

I conjured another neutron star smashing a ship into pieces. “Well they aren’t going anywhere, the flagship is now a gravity well that they can’t jump from, and the speeding neutron stars are sending ripples through space that will keep them from using either a local space drive, or a needle drive.”

I conjured a globe of AI fighter craft around the globe of large Federation craft. “Poolnar, message to fighter crew, start putting holes in them.”

The fighter craft were powered by pearl provided power, and each one had three energy cannons taken directly from Poolnar Hub’s defensive armament. The cannons had a charge time, but three allowed a constant stream of energy pulses via a matter to energy conversion generator.

“They just surrendered, all except the ship trying to flee by using a gravity drive to swing them behind where the flagship used to be.”

“I’ve got it,” I told him, and started pushing on the neutron star that had once been the flagship. The 1500km wide ship had too much speed to stop as the gravity field of the 15km wide star pulled it in. The ship became unwound as it started to rapidly orbit the star, leaving layers of itself across the outside of the star.

“Tyr, order all the ships to open exterior hatches,” I told him.

He gave the order as I watched all but one comply. That one I focused my power on the cargo door. I conjured a chunk of neutrons and fired it at the door, reabsorbing it as it punctured the door at 500,000 kph. The energy release killed everyone on the other side of the door. Their fault for not complying.

With the ships open, I stored every living creature that remained, and conjured them onto Lakenar Hub. I picked up my phone, “Tyr, remember you just have the one life to live. Call on the surrender of the hub, if they refuse, let me know, and I’ll replace the AI,” I explained to him.

He answered a minute later that the Hub had surrendered. I conjured troops surrounding the naked and dispirited soldiers that moments ago had been the officers and crew. The heavily armed Wolves growled menacingly, and ordered all creatures to sit on the ground.

A team of werecats joined me as I conjured myself and them outside the office of the station administrator. The same stiffly moving creature gave me a deep bow, “We submit to the Poseidon Dominion,” he said, his bright purple robes swirling around as he lifted up from the bow.

I looked at him directly in the dark black eyes of his grey face. “I am Admiral Barkley. I accept the surrender of this station on behalf of the Poseidon Dominion. This is Tigress, she will be your liason to the Dominion. Her word is law, but you may appeal to me, after you have complied with her directions,” I said, introducing the two.