Chapter 15

Preliator never had time to order the Acer One into combat. It was over before he and his crew could have blinked. The new ships, the massive fleet, had swarmed the Ghaleran cruisers, pouring thousands of lances of plasmatic energy into their hulls. The Ghalerans were overwhelmed by the sheer power of this assault, and were quickly incinerated, nothing left of their once mighty ships except a few specks of space dust.

Auctorita smiled at Preliator from the communications console. "Sir, our new friends are hailing us. On the United Nations standard combat frequency, augmented to accept video input, I should mention."

Preliator raised an eyebrow. "Interesting. Put them on my con-"

He stopped short, remembering that his console was still blown out.

"Erm, put them on the overhead monitors."

A row of screens hanging from the ceiling snapped to life at the front of the bridge. They all showed the live image of Admiral Dryson, the commander of the United Nations peacekeeping Navy. He was smiling widely at them.

"Surprise!" he said by way of introduction. "I am Admiral Dryson, as I am sure some of you have already figured out. I am aboard the Freedom, one of the four battleships the United Nations has agreed to contribute to the Great Alliance. I am sure you have quite a few questions, Captain Acer, so perhaps we could speak together on my ship?"

Several hours later, Preliator was sitting across a conference table in one of the many spacious diplomatic lounges inside of the Freedom. It was quite large, and from what Preliator had seen of it, quite advanced. But the fact that this ship even existed was pissing him off.

"Excuse me, admiral," Preliator began, "but forgetting military secrets for a moment, why the hell wasn't this ship and the others sent with me to attack Ghalera?"

Dryson quickly formed an apologetic look, attempting to pacify Preliator. "Sorry, but we had to leave a small force behind, near Earth, to defend it in case you failed. Not to mention that these ships were designed and built with technology we did not publicly announce possessing. About fifty years ago the United States discovered how to create a flux in space-time reality, a small anomaly that could be created through specific modifications to a nuclear reactor. So, we built an aircraft testing facility as a disguise for this Project Otherworld, as it was called, and proceeded to use what we discovered was a fold-space wormhole to communicate with very distant species. At the time, America was so afraid of the Soviet Union discovering this technology that we buried it with other secrets, so no one would discover the testing base's real experiment. This facility was built in Nevada, about ninety miles from Las Vegas. Its most popular designation is Area..."

"51." Preliator finished for him. "Damn, I'm an alien to Earth, and I never guessed that all those UFO-nuts were right. I can't believe this... years and years of cover-ups, when the truth was always known..."

"Well," Dryson continued, "it wasn't like the Groom Lake testing facility's real purpose was known. No one believed the UFO crap for good reason; no alien spaceships were ever captured. However, we did make quite a few advances through talking to other species. The Freedom and her sister ships are a culmination of these advances."

"Now, what exactly is the Great Alliance?" Preliator asked.

"Ah," Dryson said happily, evidently relieved to get off the topic of Area 51, "the Great Alliance is sort of a counterpart to the Interstellar Defense League. Years and years ago, the Quevians- your species, if I remember correctly- found out from shape-shifted agents inside the Ghaleran command structure exactly what they were up to. So, they gathered together people from the outer edges of the galaxy, where the Ghalerans had never bothered recruiting. While the Liodammians and the Ghalerans were dishing it out to each other, the Great Alliance prepared, expanding its borders to cover thousands of star systems. They now have over five thousand military ships, and are ready to take up arms against the I.D.L. It still seemed like a petty squabble to most of the members of Great Alliance, though, up until two weeks ago. Then, they learned of the Ghaleran plan to destroy Earth. So, they called together every civilian ship they could find- more than eighty thousand, I do believe- and evacuated every single human from Earth. Currently, humanity constitutes of refugees spread across eighty worlds... but still, we're alive. Anyway... that's the story. The Great Alliance is currently working out the details of a treaty that will incorporate both humanity and the Liodammians into their ranks."