Chapter 73

Admiral Soduk felt good now. His flotilla was finally on the move. There were now four battleships though one of them had recurring propulsion problems. Thirteen empty troop carriers for slaves or food animals were protected by six heavy destroyers and two of the lighter variety. His flagship, eight other heavy cruisers and a few dozen smaller ships accompanied him. The idea was to go from one system then to another dropping off a garrisons and sending some of the troop carriers home to market their cargo if there was enough.

The main worry was that other Samutz would try to either take the systems first or possibly try to take the worlds after their defences had been compromised. Soduk smiled, for he himself had done this a few times and it seemed to feel so right when he could wrest control of a system from a mauled victor. In fact, that was where he had gotten the ship he now rode. The battle had been very one sided but it kept the race strong to be fighting a worthy enemy even if it had to be other Samutz.

Eleven days into his flight the crew had started to harass the techs again as they did on all voyages. Soduk's exec went on the screens to all ships and gave the standard warning that the admiral insisted on. A Samutz that found himself too bored and had to play games with techs would be tortured to death with the entire complement watching. It had worked in the past and only a few deaths had occurred on each trip.

The admiral was anxious to be getting to his room. A food animal was now running around trying to hide as they usually do. The quick movements of the animal on the large screen brought out the instinctual urges to hunt and kill.

He was about to leave when the quark flux officer reported a ship coming from a few points off his bow. Their closing speed was great and he just remained seated till they were within hailing distance. The officers manned the defences just in case and soon after the communications officer gave his grunt the admiral spoke.

A data packet came back instead and in a few seconds the small approaching ship started to decelerate. It would have to completely stop before trying to catch up again.

The comm officer sent the message directly to the admiral and it came up on the screen for his eyes only. When this operation was first contemplated he had sent out small stealthy probes to each of the target systems. This was the scout ship that was to collect the data and bring it back to him for assessment.

The news was disturbing in a way because he could not see the reason for what had happened. A small group of ships had gone into one of the systems without the defences being actuated. Some communications had taken place and the ships left again. Two other systems remained unchanged but getting to the last system he was now shocked.

A group of Samutz must have conquered one of his targets for it held two major ships and two more had arrived with a few escorts just previous to the scout ship's data retrieval.

The urge to hunt now took on a much different meaning. The system only had three battleships a carrier and a half dozen or so escorts. The system would be unprepared for his arrival and he could get more ships to add to his personal fleet. Presently he had four battleships a carrier and fifteen escorts. His ships had crack troops, both Kronik and Dofer were professionals and had instilled a lot of discipline in their own crews.

The comm officer connected to both of the other major players in this combined fleet. The data was shared and Soduk gave his interpretation and desires. The faces of Kronik and Dofer showed similar intent and they began to make preliminary plans.

Captain Shingle tried to make some sense out of how the academy was allotting the recruits. The governments were up to their usual games and all the misleading publicity was keeping new recruits away. Instead of a million new faces there was hardly a hundred thousand the same as last time.

The food that was asked for had gone up in price and there was very little that could be done about it. Mom had detected a lot of pressure from first world countries on all the rest to keep them in line. If Mom hadn't kept up her barrage of facts there would be nobody that would join. There were always a fair number to choose from but the recruiters had only chosen from the ones that could drop their old prejudices for a new life.

The food was only a way of easing the transition because the ships could easily feed everybody simple rations but the ability to produce appealing meals relied either on the natural grown food or enough excess capacity for the machines to make a substitute. As the population grew, the workload grew as well and the ability to produce a wide variety of food was termed a frivolous waste of computing power.

Paul Santo was studying the new ships. The cruisers and destroyer were crewed by men and women that had come through their tutelage. Hisako and Jõao had both ended up with a heavy cruiser each. Their new families seemed to fit right in. Others that had not scored as high in the competition had gotten similar prizes and they all seemed to be happy at the fortuitous event. These ships had gotten only a few raw recruits and the battleships were being run with their AIs alone so far. All the ships had needed a lot of repair because the Samutz did not really care for the needless frivolities like a fully functional air purification system or even one that had the occasional breakdown. The techs were just as happy to not have to help the Samutz out any more that was needed.

The two battleships did not have names or crews yet but repair crews were working hard to bring them up to a minimum ability to fight. Looking through a close up view of the ship he could see thousands of people working in various machines. Some wire in small ships with manipulating arms while others were in suits to get portions of plate installed and fused into place. The plate and sensors had to be stripped and replaced in large areas. Their weapons' stations were slated next for alterations. The galvanized missiles had to have much smaller launchers and then all the missiles had to have maintenance performed on them before the galvanized sheath was installed.

Duc was just leaving the academy. He had been trying to assist the tutors with the new crop of students. Until recently they had been senior citizens down to the minimum age of fourteen. A few slightly younger people had been allowed in because of their more mature disposition. In most cases these had been girls. His own children came to mind and he could readily see their shining faces as he would approach them. They were all getting the idea of what a father should be and he loved the idea that they were looking to him with that kind of trust.

Kitten was sitting with her three children as she talked to Doris and Lam. The two Humans had children suckling from their breasts while others nearby waited for their turn.

Lam was saying, "I don't know why you want to have one of those big ugly ships. Mom tells me that they are death traps. Besides in a fight they would be targeted first."

Kitten replied, "The ships when they are finished in another six months will be much safer than here in this base. The ship can evade shots fired at it and can shoot back just as well as we can here. There is a serious shortage of trained people and I just want to do my share."

"Your share! What do you think you were doing since all this started? Didn't you get elected to govern the Earth bases anyway? Your children need you and you need to stay and protect them first."

Doris added, "I agree. I think your place is here with your children. Let the others fight. That is what they are training for."

Kitten said, "Doris that is what I have been training for too. It started when I was just a girl and lasted many years. I just went to sleep in between. Granted I wasn't trained for bridge crew yet but I may have. All of the Tandra were given a broad range of courses and we can fit in most places with a fair understanding of what we are doing. To say that my children needing protection is true. I can do that better by directing a ship that will fight the enemy before it can get anywhere near enough to hurting them."

Mom was having problems too. The Humans were using a new type of device and had found many of the old bases on Earth. They were all safe because she had got their shields strengthened. Bases with failed shields had their technology destroyed to keep it out of Human hands. Now she saw coming from North Bay a similar crew with the same device. Rather than have the base pinpointed she used a newly installed shield that could keep most low tech peoples or animals out. It extended all the way to Cobalt in the north and formed a circle sixty kilometres in diameter but centred ten kilometres north west of the base's position.

The shield formed a pink haze and would get denser the further into it a person tried to go. She watched as a large truck plough into the field and slowly come to a stop as its engine stalled. In ten minutes there was a long line up of cars and trucks on every road that the shield cut. The driver of the truck was arguing with other. Drivers behind him came to find out about the cause of the mysterious fog. All they wanted was to continue to their destinations. Soon the military trucks came by and it wasn't long till the device was brought out and used. Mom's probes studied the machine and found it the same as the others she had found. It was just a type of signal generator that worked a bit like a sonar unit. If the signal bounced back a certain way then the probability of a shield was there. A drilling rig at the end of the convoy was used to get closer to any likely spot.

Some aircraft carried the same type of device. They had flown over most of northern Ontario mapping out various spots. The truck in a matter of weeks would find the base then Henry's house would be further defiled by more soldiers as they tried to find a way in. She was sure of one thing; when Henry came back he would be seriously angry at the way his house was robbed and vandalized.

Clarice sat at the tutor as she digested five dimensional math. Beside her sat her cousins. Uncle Henry and Aunt Susan had a lot of children. They all were so nice, even if they were all a little older than her except for Moesha and Kimberly. Her sister Michelle sat at another tutor but was still working, for she had her eyes closed and her mind was furiously active. She looked to find a way to reconstruct a damaged dimensional tap before it blew up and destroyed the ship and everybody in it.

Clarice watched as the clock was ticking down and soon Michelle was thrown from her studies. "Oh, I was killed again." She looked to her side and saw Clarice. "I failed again. How did you do it?"

Clarice thought how she had done it yesterday and went through the steps very methodically. "Oh, you ran to the storage rack and used a tool to sync with the temporal field as well as the other dimensions. No wonder I couldn't do it with my flux generator. Thanks Clair."

She went back into the same problem but now found the storage rack destroyed and had to find another location that would have the needed devices. This time she made the necessary repairs in time but was fatally irradiated because she was not quick enough. Her fellow crew members put her in a tank to be completely restored. She came out of the simulation and said, "I did it. Did you get killed too?" She was happy to see that Clarice had died as well that time.

Admiral Soduk stopped his small fleet far outside the now occupied system while the scouts and probes continued. His scouts were the cream of his troops for they thought before they did something and this made them invaluable in this instance. Some had even been accused of cowardice because they did not immediately try to kill their fellow Samutz when provoked.

Now was the time to just wait. To allow his crews to relax he sent some of the food animals through the ship with simple weapons and then sent the ones in his crew that performed better after them. In ten minutes all were dead and one Samutz was scratched by a spear. He would have to fight his teammates now for they would not allow him to live the fact down.

Five very frustrating days later the scouts came back. Very small probes had been able to travel almost three light years into the system and brought back pictures of the opposition. Two battleships were orbiting a moon while they were being repaired. Hull plates were seen to be missing on both craft. The other battleship was close to the carrier while ships went back and forth between them. Before the probe left it showed the two ships separating to probably patrol the system. This was very odd because Samutz did not do this sort of thing usually and these must be crack troops too.

The probes that could see the planet though told of untold riches. Giant cities with millions of people that used simple machines to swarm all over the place. The rest of the planet was the same because it was so densely populated. There was either enough food animals here or even techs to make all of the crew fantastically rich.

Soduk had to stop his revery because those around him were seeing the same thing and were working themselves into a frenzy. The thought of unlimited hunting was almost too good to be true. Dofer and Kronik were on a private channel and talked to Soduk about how rich the system was. Kronik said, "That has to be why the ships patrol the system so well. It is a fantastic find. I think we should take these ships if we can and just protect this system. Nothing we have found in hundreds of years has come close to this." Dofer readily agreed and so did Soduk.

Soduk said, "The governor will want this planet for himself. I think we should only take this system and split it up. If necessary we can hire more people to help keep this place safe for us. But I do not know who I could possibly trust with this information. Even our king would want a large portion of this find."

For the next half day they made plans for the conquest of the single planet. Dofer the youngest would take the troop transports and two cruisers for both protection and to clear the mine field. They knew that any sane Samutz would take the battleship and carrier and attack right away. The carrier could do nothing and the only opposition would be the battleship. The decoys would leed the defenders out of position. The battleships and some cruisers would proceed at their best possible speed through the cleared section of the minefield and attack the enemy on their flank.

At the other end of the system, the carrier, the heavy cruisers and destroyers would break through the field. They would attack and try to capture the two battleships that were being repaired. All the troops were told to leave the planet alone unless it was actively protected by the Samutz garrison there. This was a forlorn hope because when it was seen how rich it was some would have to go down to hunt even if they knew they would be killed after for disobeying rules.

The ships separated into groups and headed for their assigned positions.

Captain Meech was having a meal with Toosm in his wardroom when the alarm went off. Both interfaced with the computer and saw that this was not a test. All the bridge staff along with all the mechanical intelligences on the ships came together and saw the incursion. The outer surface of the Oort cloud was over twelve square light years in area and there was very little in the way of ships in that area. It would take hundreds of years of constant work to replace all the mines. This section happened to have very little attention paid to it.

Video came in and it was deduced to be two heavy cruisers a light destroyer and six troop transports. This was more than enough to take a battleship if crewed by Tandra. By Samutz it would be a toss-up till more information came their way.

Escort ships started toward the enemy soon. The crews had settled into place in the Nautilus and it too headed to the coming battle.

Terra's Pride was heading the opposite way when the warning came in. With no other enemy in sight the ship stopped and reversed course. This took over an hour and allowed fighters stationed on the ship to return. The carrier could go many times faster than they could and the fighters relied on the mother ship to take them to the battle.

The two unnamed battleships were in the middle of a one hour refit schedule. The remaining time was needed to fasten down what was loose and to prepare for battle. The people of many species hurried to complete their duties so the ships could start. One crew were working on an engine and the ship would have to go into battle with only seven functional.

Mom went on all television and radio stations and told the Humans of the invading ships. These had to be Samutz for they were destroying the defences as they worked their way through the minefield. The fact that they didn't come openly to the system further attested to this fact.

Fighters throughout the system looked for further incursions as they worried about their one and only planet. If this one were to be destroyed it was evident that the Human race would die.

The lunar base had people running all over. Kitten made her plea to command one of the ships and was given the authority by Mom. Her children were entrusted to Lam and Doris as she organized what she could. The AIs had already placed what people that could help from those available. They all boarded shuttles to take them to their stations.

Duc got all of his children into protective suits and sealed them with his command. They were all sent to his apartment to be with Lam and Doris. He went about and found others and handed out personal shields in case of sudden decompression. When they all met back at the apartment Doris excused herself and found her combat suit ready for her. She left it where it was but wanted to just check on it if it was needed.

Most of the simple things the AI performed were now simply not done as more pressing matters were handled. Marcus like all the other AIs went through their records to see what might happen next.