Chapter 404

... Turning, the General called out, “Sergeant, see that my wives get home safely.”

“Yes, Sir,” the Sergeant responded, snapping off a salute before hurrying to get their luggage.

“My office at the Retreat, or shall we use the Lieutenant’s office here?”

“Let’s use his. I want him to be part of this, anyway.”

The General stopped to kiss his wives tenderly and quietly tell them something, then followed Jeff toward the Security building.

A few minutes later, Whitworth rapped on the Lieutenant’s door, opened it and went on in, not even amazed that Mayfield was already up and on duty. The Lieutenant dropped the paperwork he was holding and rocketed to his feet. “General!”

“At ease, Lieutenant. Seems that the Colonel here is in need of an emergency conference.”

Mayfield picked up the phone and said, “Tell the cook I need a pot of his special coffee delivered to my office five minutes ago.” Gathering up his papers, he was obviously preparing to leave when the General motioned the Lieutenant to sit. “You’re included in this too, Lieutenant,” then turned to Jeff as they all sat. “Let’s hear it, Colonel.”

“Well, Sir, as you both know, Arlene and Ann have been taking turns with Dave and Evie to observe the aliens who are roughly six light years out. My wives have just returned with some very disturbing video as well as some assumptions that I believe have merit. Dave and Evie are standing by while we have this conference, and then they will be on their way back to continue the surveillance.”

Jeff handed Mayfield a flash drive. “This is a compilation of the seemingly most important things we have recorded while observing the aliens.”

The Lieutenant started the video before handing the control to Jeff. After a few minutes, the Prime froze the video with one of the aliens on the screen as he conversed with the smaller vessels. “I’m aware that you have both seen this part of the video from an earlier observation of the aliens, but I wanted to refresh your memory on what they look like. At this point, they were spending a lot of time mining the asteroids. They also have inadvertently shown us some of their offensive vessels,” he said as he started the video again and waited for the first appearance of what he was now calling the Paladins.

“You will note that only a few of these vessels were launched to practice the first time we recorded them, but even with the distance involved, the flash of energy releases and the exploding asteroids were impressive. But that practice session is quite different from what I’ll show you in a moment.”

As the video ran, “You will note that the alien ship seemed to pulse or waver in and out of visibility during these early surveillances. From data that the scout collected, plus these videos, Ship has concluded that the aliens were experiencing problems with their warp drive and were probably working to repair it.” As the video continued to run, “You will note that there is a subtle change in the effect over time, until we are no longer able to note anything out of the ordinary. Logic would dictate that they have either given up on the drive, or else they have repaired it. Ship is convinced of the latter.”

The video went on. “Now we see groups of ten Paladins launched and eventually practicing. The scout’s AI was again able to tap into a transmission, this time from the practice field as it was beamed back to the mother ship, and consequently, we have a much better view of events. To give you perspective, Ship has estimated that the asteroid targets range from roughly fifty feet to three hundred feet with a few much smaller ones thrown in and traveling at very high speeds and random directions relative to the target field.

“To put it mildly, these guys are good, or their computers are. Same end result however the method. And as I’m sure you have noticed, each Paladin is bristling with energy weapons that fire independently of each other. Whether or not each turret has a gunner or crew, or whether computers operate everything is something we don’t know. What we do know, is that the Paladins are serious weapon platforms. They do not – thankfully – seem to have inertialess drives, but Ship suspects that they do have some type of inertial dampening system, or else the crews can withstand repeated 10g surges as they maneuver while chasing the targets.”

“They would eat any manned Earth aircraft flying on this planet,” the General said grimly. “And ... it’s obvious that they are designed for atmospheric maneuvering in addition to their abilities in space.”

Jeff froze the video with a highly magnified close-up view of one of the Paladins. “Note that in addition to all the energy weapons, there are what I suspect are missile launch tubes under the nose there.”

“How many of those ... Paladins do you estimate the alien ship carries?” the General asked.

“Well ... Arlene and Ann observed two groups of ten each, and there was a lag between energy releases at their firing range, but just before the scout went to warp, it recorded another series of energy releases. That would seem to indicate that another group of Paladins had begun their course of fire. If so, that would make thirty of the things. How many more they might have is pure speculation, but with the size of the ship, I would suspect that there could be still more of them. And nothing says that they don’t have other craft within that monster as well.”

“Ship needs to go out and destroy that thing before it gets near Earth,” the General muttered.

“Obviously, I agree, Sir, as we’ve discussed before. But... how do we argue with her? We all know her reasoning on this, and as embarrassing as it is to me, she will not change her mind concerning me and my family. She says her programming is built upon that foundation and cannot be changed. In addition, she says her race was tempted away from one of their planets, and while the majority of their forces were lightyears away, their practically defenseless planet was devastated by the main component of the attackers.”

They paused while a private brought in a pot of coffee. When he had served them, they thanked him and he quickly left.

With coffee in hand, Jeff continued, “She also says that an attacking force will probably get as close as they can before dropping a number of attack craft – presuming that they want to preserve as much of the planet’s resources as possible. She is relatively certain that subjugating the planet is their mission, since a warship sent to destroy a planet would have no reason to carry so many attack craft.”

When the video was over, the three sat quietly thinking for a moment before the General turned to Jeff. “We knew this before, at least to a certain degree, but I suspect there is something else, Colonel...”

Jeff sighed as he sat back and crossed his legs. “I suppose I’ve become accustomed to thinking that Ship is the ultimate answer to any force. She’s practically indestructible, has enormous firepower and is intelligent almost beyond human comprehension. I feel that the aliens – one on one – stand little chance against her, but... it looks like their standard mode of attack may very well not be one on one. In addition, Ship tells me she will stand little chance of detecting them until they are reasonably close to Earth, and that refers to the mother ship as well as the Paladins. If the aliens drop all those Paladins well away from Earth, it isn’t practical to think Ship will be able to detect and destroy the lot before they are within destructive range of their targets here on the planet. While Ship is tied up fighting the ones on this side of the planet, there will be little she can do to stop what’s happening on the other side of our world.”

“But your people all train on the interceptors...” Lieutenant Mayfield began before stopping in mid-sentence as he realized the obvious. “There are not that many interceptor crews training, are there?”

Jeff let out a long sigh. “And that’s the reason for this meeting. We need more interceptor pilots and gunners, and we’re very limited on interceptors, too. In fact, we’re outnumbered at least three to one, and probably that’s a low estimate.”

“You’re saying we have only ten interceptors?” the Lieutenant asked incredulously.

“Afraid so. Ship is desperately trying to add to that, but she’s designed as a ship of war to take on enemy fleets. Apparently, small fighting craft were not something that was used much by the race who built her brain. From her description of the battles, the small fighters just became cannon fodder when the big guys duked it out.”

“But now we have to fight them,” the Lieutenant said.

“Probably,” Jeff returned.

“I have fighter pilots,” Whitworth commented, “and I suppose that’s the reason for this meeting.”

“Yes, Sir. After Ship saw the Paladins, she insists that we use only the two person interceptors; thus one of the reasons we only have ten. As you are aware, there is a tremendous time dilation effect when we train at her academy. I have been pushing my people, and more than half are almost through the courses, but only a few will qualify as exceptional interceptor pilots and gunners. I don’t want to send any of them into battle unless they are exceptional to begin with. I would expect that the Paladin crews will be exceptional for their species, as well. Truth be told, I don’t want to send any of my family into this, but I see no other way. I really think that Ship’s technology is well beyond the aliens, but only combat will tell whether I’m right or wrong. But no matter what, there just aren’t enough of us to get the job done.”

“I can provide the best of the best, and with the block in place, they will never be able to tell our secrets to anyone,” the General said. “But do we have time to train them? We’re all assuming the alien ship is ready to be on its way. Hopefully, it won’t be coming toward Earth, but I strongly suspect they know we’re here and will come visiting.”

“And they damn sure don’t look friendly to me,” the Lieutenant put in.

“I agree,” Jeff said.

“Colonel, how many crews are we going to need?” Whitworth asked.

“I’m not absolutely sure. I think we have three crews that will be exceptional, but we haven’t totally shaken them out just yet. But most everyone trained a good portion of yesterday. With the time dilation, that’s a lot of academy time. I’ll need to discuss with Ship just how they are doing in their advanced training – particular the interceptor pilots and gunners. The positions are somewhat interchangeable in that either pilot is capable of piloting the craft in a pinch. In other words, if the main pilot is injured, the other pilot can operate the interceptor, but primarily, the co-pilot is responsible for the craft’s offensive and defensive capabilities while the main pilot does his or her job. But the pilot can also fire the weapons if need be.”

“So, I need to dig up seven pilots and seven gunner/co-pilots?”

“Affirmative, Sir. I had hoped that we had more time, and granted, most of the women have finished the minimum requirements at the academy, but yesterday was scheduled for advanced combat training in the interceptors and I want to continue until we have to break it off because the aliens have arrived.”

“So, is anyone watching the aliens now?” Whitworth asked.

“Not at the moment, but Dave and Evie are ready to return as soon as I give the go-ahead with their mission. It only takes them a couple of hours to be on scene, and much of that is in the last couple of light minutes as they creep to within sight of the aliens without using more energy than the scout’s shields will suppress.”

The General poured himself another cup of coffee, sat back and crossed his legs, thinking. “How long to train them after I bring in the best fighter jocks?”

“With the time dilation, only a day or so our time. But Ship has to wake them every few hours to eat and do the necessities. The person is fully involved in months of intensive flight training. Trust me, a full day our time leaves you a bit ... whipped from that much academy time. Remember, as far as the person involved is concerned, he or she has been gone for months each time they awaken. The toll is not physical, but there is definitely a mental toll that has to be paid, and ... it’s sometimes exhibited in... unusual or unexpected ways.”