Chapter 17

Tongue stuck out like a little kid drawing, James watched the feeds from the sensor platforms. When the aliens came to a stop, he said, "They're here."

Ann shook her head knowing that he had stolen the delivery of that line from a movie. Captain Klein, blissfully unaware of the cultural reference, said, "Send the greeting message."

Ann hit the button that broadcast the message across the known communications channels. It was a declaration of peaceful intentions and an invitation to talk. To prevent giving away the location of the ship, the communications were routed through a small communications satellite that was located a quarter of a light second away. Almost a minute passed before she reported, "There's no answer."

"They're scanning the area," James said.

Captain Klein said, "Open the umbrellas and rebroadcast the message."

James typed a few commands on his console while Ann sent out the message a second time. When the Chitiniodians opened fire on his umbrellas, James said, "They sure aren't a very friendly bunch."

Captain Klein stared at the screen. A number of holes had appeared in the umbrellas where the weapons had passed through the thin metal foil. He said, "Return fire."

James ran his fingers over the keys for a second and said, "Fire returned, sir."

Captain Klein looked over at James and shook his head. He didn't trust it when James talked like that. He watched the screen. There were massive explosions at six of the alien craft. Unlike the movies, the explosions didn't make a sound. They were just little flashes on the screen.

The ships weren't destroyed, but they did start to spin in an uncontrolled manner. Frowning, he asked, "What happened?"

"The Electromagnetic Pulse probably fried all of their electronics," James answered studying the feeds from the sensors. He had expected the ships to get vaporized, not spin out of control. Nodding his head, he studied the sensors. He said, "Yep. They are electrically dead."

"Oh," Captain Klein said. He figured that the enemy would have been shielded against an EMP.

The last remaining ship fired another salvo at the umbrellas. James asked, "Should we torpedo it?"

"Not yet," Captain Klein said. He turned to Ann and said, "Send them a message demanding their surrender."

"Yes, sir," Ann said as she entered the appropriate command.

The last remaining ship fired another salvo at the umbrellas. The result was the same as the first two salvos — a bunch of holes appeared in the foil, but none of the weapons exploded. There was one minor problem and that was that one of the weapons passed very close to their ship. James asked, "Now?"

"Yes," Captain Klein answered thinking that they had been lucky with so many missiles fired in their direction.

James was about to type the command when he noticed something on the sensors. He said, "Hold on a minute."

"They're firing at us man," Captain Klein yelled.

"No. They've been holed," James replied watching as fragments of the ship separated.

"What do you mean, they've been holed?" Captain Klein asked staring at James.

"Uh, it looks like the cannons took out their ship," James answered scratching his head. He had just meant to use the cannons as a distraction. Although he didn't know it, he had just discovered a major weakness of the Chitiniodian ships. Like all ships that fired weapons from within their meteor shielding, they had to lower a portion of their shields when they fired their weapons. By a very odd bit of luck, two 50mm projectiles managed to reach the ship at the same time they had lowered their shields for the third salvo.

Captain Klein asked, "How did they reach the ship in that short of a time?"

"I launched them at five hundredths of the speed of light. It took them nearly fifty seconds to reach them," James answered. At the high speeds they were traveling, the two projectiles had torn through the ship leaving a swath of destruction behind.

Captain Klein stared at the screen unable to believe that they had managed to defeat the enemy fleet with umbrellas. At nearly a light year from their position, there were flashes on the screen showing that the first salvo of missiles fired by the aliens had exploded. Frowning, he asked, "What was that?"

"I guess their weapons have an autodestruct if they don't encounter a target," James answered. It made sense. It wasn't particularly healthy to have armed missiles cruising through space forever.

Captain Klein turned to Ann and said, "Have our fighters investigate the wrecks."

Ann relayed the orders to the four fighters that had moved into fighting distance once the umbrellas had opened. Fire King and Ice Queen would investigate the lead ship while the other two pilots would investigate one of the other six ships.

James looked over at Captain Klein and said, "I'd say that went well."

"It went better than I expected," Captain Klein replied.

Standing up from his console, James asked, "Do you know what the best thing about this was?"

"I'm afraid to ask," Captain Klein answered. He ignored the next set of explosions that were taking place a light year away. His attention was focused on the fact that James was wearing his cape. He hadn't realized that.

Taking a heroic pose, James answered, "I can tell my uncle that I, Super-spaceman, and my wife, Super-spacewoman, have protected him from the evil intergalactic hordes on their way to ravage our solar system!"

"I feel sorry for your uncle," Captain Klein said shaking his head. The sad thing was that it was true. James had protected them.

James looked at Captain Klein and said, "Do you want to know something else, Captain Klein?"

"What?"

"You're a hero for saving Earth. Who knows, you just might get a cape of your own," James said with a grin.

The reaction of the Quatyl aboard the Quatyl scout ships to the unfolding battle was one of stunned shock. They had been ready to flee the moment the Chitiniodians had opened fire. The first salvo had consisted of a hundred and five missiles. The second and third salvos had consisted of fifteen missiles each. The idea that any race would travel with that kind of destructive intent was staggering.

The human response of six missiles had looked rather pathetic compared to the rate of fire unleashed by the aliens. All of the servant species had watched the initial exchange assuming the worst. The result of the human missiles had been extremely surprising.

The sudden destruction of the final Chitiniodian ship had appeared like magic. Captain Beac stared at the feed from the human ship wondering what had happened to destroy the ship. The small projectiles didn't even register on the sensors. One second the ship was firing and then the next second it was coming apart.

Captain Beac asked, 'What happened?'

'They destroyed the whole fleet, ' Bear answered staring at the sensors. The destruction of the last ship didn't make sense to her.

'How did they destroy the last ship?' Captain Beac asked.

Bear answered, 'I don't know. These humans are dangerous.'

'I know, ' Captain Beac answered staring at the scene of destruction that was floating in space.

From aboard the Explorer, Siegfried used a Slathern to communicate to the Quatyl Scout ship. He said, 'The humans have been victorious.'

'What are they doing?' Captain Beac asked.

Siegfried answered, 'They are celebrating their victory.'

Bear said, 'These humans are very dangerous.'

While investigating the remains of the lead ship, Ken noticed that one part of the vessel was nearly intact. He maneuvered his fighter to investigate the matter further. As he came around, he could see that it was laid out like the bridge of a ship. Excited, he got on the radio and said, "This is Fire King. I've found something interesting."

Ann replied, "What?"

"It looks like the command deck of the ship. It is pretty much intact," Ken answered.

There was a long moment of silence while Ann relayed the news to the captain. Ann said, "Stay where you are, Fire King. We're sending a shuttle out to tow it back to the ship."

"Will do," Ken said resigned to floating in space for a while longer. So far this engagement had been pretty boring from his perspective. He didn't even get to fire one of his torpedoes.

It was nearly an hour before two shuttles appeared beside Ken's fighter. The pilot of one of the shuttles said, "Fire King, this is Dowser. We're here to tow your find back to the ship."

Ken replied, "Dowser, the find is right in front of me."

"We see it, Fire King," Dowser replied.

"Good, Dowser," Ken replied.

"This is Ice Queen. I'm on my way over to check out one of the other ships," Kim announced.

"Hold on Ice Queen," Ken said, "Dowser, do you need me here?"

"You're free to go, Fire King. We can handle it from here," Dowser answered.

"Ice Queen, this is Fire King. I'm on my way to join you. You need a little fire by your side," Ken said.

"Promises, promises," Kim answered.

The six intact ships were found to have no survivors within them. All that remained of the aliens were green smears on the interior walls. The electronics systems throughout the ship were fried, but they could still learn a lot from the remaining hulks. All of the races, except for Quatyl, were aboard the ships poking and peering into every nock and cranny. Unexploded missiles were neatly lined up in the racks that feed the launching mechanism. The ships were a treasure trove of technology and the humans loved to reverse engineer alien technology. After all, that was how they reached space.

The little Dactites, wearing their space suits, swarmed over the wreckage of the lead ship that had been towed back to the human ship. They were having more fun than any Dactite could recall having since the race first encountered the Quatyl. They appreciated the chance to completely dismantle the alien space ship.

The Dactites had just removed a large console and discovered what appeared to be the hardware of a computer. Their initial examination convinced them that it had been undamaged. It was immediately brought back to the human ship by the four Dactites that had discovered it. They knew that it would require the cold logic of a Dromat to figure out how to access the computer.

Wearing a space suit, James met the Dactites in the dock. They were soon joined by two Dromats. It was an odd group of suited figures that stood around the computer trying to decide what to do with it. Grabbing a pencil and paper, James started drawing as the others gathered around him. There were head shakes, arm waves, and other gestures as the pencil was passed from one to the next.

For the next two days, no one saw or heard from James, the Dactites, or the Dromats. The dock remained locked and inaccessible. Much to the displeasure of the crews, the shuttles and fighters that had been on duty had to land at the Quatyl ships. Every one was demanding that the dock be redesigned.

While having James locked away for two days was viewed as a positive turn of events by Captain Klein, Ann was worried. The great fear was that there might be some disease that could be brought aboard the ship with the introduction of alien germs. She stood beside the door to the dock worried that he was lying dead on the floor.

Ann did not have a reason to be worried. Working with the Dactites and the Dromats, James had constructed an isolation chamber. They had kept the dock in a vacuum until the alien computer had been put into the isolation chamber. It was only after getting a good connection to the computer and filling the isolation chamber with nitrogen that the atmosphere was returned to the dock.

James and the Dromats had attacked the problem of decoding the programming with a vengeance. They worked with single-minded intent to learn the secrets of their attacker. The Dactites scurried around making the electronics required to interface with the machine. Everyone was having a great time.

Two significant successes occurred while they were working together. The first was that James, the two Dromats, and the four Dactites had figured out how to communicate without requiring the presence of Quatyl and Slatherns. The second was that they had managed to decode the programming language of the Chitiniodians. It should be mentioned that the first success was far more important that the second, although it would be a while before that was realized by anyone.