Chapter 2

The new spaceship was christened 'Michael' in honor of Janet's brother who didn't make it to his bar mitzvah. The first flight of the 'Michael' was to Earth to come up with the kind of guns that Jacob was looking for. They found just what Jacob wanted already mounted on several ships. They were the Gatling Gun defense against incoming missiles. These guns fired depleted uranium slugs and had a tremendous muzzle velocity. The kinetic energy released when one of these slugs impacted under normal conditions was almost unbelievable, so it would really be a force to be reckoned with when a significant percentage of the speed of light was added.

It took almost two months to get eight guns removed from a pair of cruisers and installed on 'Michael'. The guns were bigger than anyone had realized, so eight was all that there was room for. They were placed with 90 degree separation in a ring around the hull, four near the bow and four near the stern. Some rather long "legs" had to mounted on the hull to support the ship when the guns were mounted on the bottom of the hull. The submarine was no longer the sleek undersea craft that she had been, but she would be a true killer in space.

The crew of 'Michael' consisted of Janet and her two husbands, Elizabeth and her two husbands, and Jennifer and her three husbands. Jacob was captain and Janet was the XO (eXecutive Officer). Elizabeth handled navigation and Jennifer did most of the steering. The men handled the missiles and guns. Housekeeping chores rotated among everyone but Jacob and Janet.

Their first trip was simply to see how long it took them to reach jump speed when moving at 90 degrees to the plane of the ecliptic. It took about six hours to get up to jump speed, but they had not been accelerating as rapidly as it was possible to go for fear of tearing something loose from the hull because of the stress. One of Jennifer's husbands was a professional welder, and he had done all of the final fastening of stuff in place, but he was the one who advised caution at first so that they could see how well everything held together.

They didn't have any particular target in mind, so they jumped to Alpha Centauri B and back to test out the controls handling the Lurie Effect. No problems, so they headed to the asteroid belt to test the guns. Actually, this was not a test of marksmanship, since the radar controls handled that. Rather, it was a chance to have a little fun while they fired the guns enough to make sure that they would not be jarred loose by the vibration from shooting them. Everything passed with flying colors, so they headed back to Luna to plan for acquiring more spaceships.

The realization came to all of them that they really needed to move back to Earth. No matter how careful they were, they were living on the edge of disaster by staying on the moon. Furthermore, there were too many things they needed in order to maintain the advanced life style that they were enjoying. When the situation was explained and the idea was put to a vote, the result was a unanimous vote to move back to Earth.

Despite the well known difficulties with the weather, they decided to move to the NASA complex in Houston. Initially, for convenience, they all moved into the same group of motels near the complex. Many of the people were in a state of physical shock because of moving into the increased gravity. The children were especially bothered by the change in gravity, and they had to spend a lot of time in a daycare facility that was supplemented with a gravity control device to give them the relief they needed from 1 g.

Two families took over managing the daycare operation, so the other parents were released for other duties. Jacob insisted that the hierarchy be rearranged so that he could be the full time commander of the 'Michael' spaceship. He also wanted to be the overall commander of the fleet, and he had no arguments on either wish.

A ruling council was organized and elected. All of the voters were very intelligent adults, so Jacob was sure that the rest of humanity could prosper without his direct supervision. Crews were selected for the upcoming spaceships, and a search was mounted to find the other four nuclear subs they were looking for. The subs were found without too much difficulty and conversion began immediately.

It took approximately seven months to complete the fleet, and it was a big moment when the fleet took off to start their search. The first stop was the Alpha Centauri system to do a thorough examination of the likely places the aliens might have destroyed. They did not find any sign of sentient life on any of the planets. All of the planets had an oxygen-based atmosphere, so they were likely candidates for colonization, if and when that time ever came.

Jacob had planned to run a spiral search pattern from the Sol system, stopping at every system they came to. In most cases, they could complete their survey in only a few days, so they began to accumulate a considerable amount of data about this arm of the galaxy.

Maybe it was a joke by the fates, but the 13^th system they visited had an active civilization of oxygen-breathing sentients whose technological and sociological development was on a par with the humans. The Trusans, as they called themselves, had some intrasystem travel capability, but they had nothing approaching any form of FTL travel.

On the other hand, the Trusans had some technology that the humans would love to have, so a major effort was launched to learn each other's language. English turned out to be so much simpler than the Trusan language that the Trusans decided to concentrate on learning English, much to the relief of the humans.

The device most wanted by the humans was the replicator that seemed to be able to make anything that was in its program. Of course, the humans were most interested in replicating food and oxygen, but even more exotic items were possible. The real spark of genius associated with the replicator was that it used electricity for fuel and raw material. The replicator was a true energy to matter converter, so there was no problem with using it aboard the human's spaceships.

In exchange, the Trusans received the details on constructing the gravity control machines. A great rapport was established between the two peoples, and a firm friendship was well on its way. Suddenly, there was a great alarm spread through both peoples: the aliens who had destroyed Earth were entering the Trusan system!

At least, the spaceship looked to be the same design. This may not be the same ship, but it looked close enough like the one the humans had experienced that they knew that something had to be done. 'Michael' and 'Susan' rushed to challenge the incoming spaceship while the other three human spaceships, 'Mary', 'Archy', and 'Helen', stayed behind to protect the Trusan's home planet.

'Michael' was the leader and 'Susan' flew as wingman. Aboard each ship was a Trusan observer; HO'gor was the one aboard 'Michael'. They were still several million klicks away from the invading spaceship, and still out of range for their communication devices when the 'Michael' was jarred by something they could not identify.

A moment later, a voice from 'Susan' came over the communicator. "'Michael', you were just hit by a laser beam. You had better start evasive action and prepare to fight."

"Thank you, 'Susan'. You had better start the same evasion. Break away from 'Michael' and make your own attack runs. This is obviously not a friendly visit."

'Michael' turned left and 'Susan' turned right. This time, observers on both ships were able to see laser beams flash by. There was just enough stray gas around to allow the beams to be seen. Jacob had the navigating computer plot a random zig-zag flight pattern rushing them toward the alien as quickly as practical. It seemed that 'Michael' was faster and more nimble than the alien, even though 'Michael' was much smaller than its opponent.

They had pulled to about one million klicks from the alien when they felt another jar against the hull; several pieces of one of the forward guns were recognized as they fell behind while 'Michael' charged on toward the enemy. The range was still a little long, but Jacob ordered one of the torpedoes prepared for launch. He didn't really expect to do much damage, but his whole crew was tired of not being able to fight back.

It took nearly 10 minutes to get everything set up, since this shot had to be pretty much a dead reckoning one. Radar tracking was of no value, since it was limited to the speed of light, and the torpedo was going to be traveling nearly that fast. The computer aboard the torpedo was capable of some very sophisticated navigation as it guided the torpedo toward the enemy. Therefore, the torpedo was going to do a three-dimensional zig-zag as it approached the target. Hopefully, this would protect it from laser attack.