Second Expansion Book 1: Shadows of the Ancient War Part 4: The Sword is Drawn By Mike (mjm_keen@hotmail.com) A cloud was masking the great jewel of the Denubian Galaxy. Thousands of ships were assembling around Arus in the largest fleet build up in the known history of the Galaxy. Almost every member of the Arusian Stellar Alliance and the independent worlds had contributed most of their main battle fleets. From one of the gas giants in the outer solar system, a small fleet of five battleships was making its first inter-solar jaunt for thousands of years. The Zeus Strike Squadron resembled five arrowheads slightly over a kilometer long each and carried as much firepower as the entire fleet currently assembling at their destination, not including the fleet from the Milky Way. King Marcus was still several hours outside the system, just returning from an emergency meeting with the Denubian Defense Committee. Also still several hours out, was the Einstein and her escorts. The entire Commonwealth fleet and the Commanders of the Arusian fleet were in conference over secure hyperspace communications. Admiral Clint Shelby stood at the podium in the Einstein's main conference room. This time, because of the size of the group being addressed, the wall-mounted holos were empty. King Marcus was currently on the line to introduce Clint. Finally, Marcus finished. "For the last several months, long range sensor grids have been detecting many large x-ray emissions at the far edge of Denube. Intelligence believed this to be a sign of heavy Zylon activity. A few days ago, that hypothesis was confirmed by a contact within the Zylon Continuum. According to our contact, in roughly forty-eight hours, the Zylons are going to initiate an attack that threatens all of mankind. "For details about this, I defer to our Chief Engineer, Harry Seldon." Clint stepped back to give space for the engineer. "The Zylons have developed an extremely powerful hyperspace cannon. This weapon generates Hypons, the particles that hold Hyperspace itself together and anti-gluons and projects them in a tight beam that rips through N-space and lets Hyperspace erupt into N-space. This weapon is capable of taking out a solar system with one blast. The Zylons have found a way to make it far more effective." The holo-display in front of him activated to show an image of the Denubian Galaxy. A purple, irregular cylinder sat just off of the center of the galaxy, perpendicular to the galactic plane. It diameter was half that of the galactic center and stretched quite a distance to either side of the galaxy. "The badlands, an area covering over 300,000 cubic light years that crosses through the Denubian Galaxy in the Crimson Quadrant close to the galactic center, is an area where the barriers between N-space, Hyperspace, and Subspace are very weak. All inter galactic traffic avoids this area because standard forms of FTL are ineffective and most ships are destroyed from the dimensional energy surges." The holo-image zoomed out to show the area of the four Galaxies. "The Zylons are going to fire the weapon in the badlands where it will not just tear apart the barrier between N-space and Hyperspace, the Hypons will also flow into Subspace where they will flood through the whole galactic cluster. They will tear through subspace, back into N-space, and then return to Hyperspace." On the holo-display, the image flashed into a flux of differing shades of blue. "In order to reach the Zylons before their target, we'll have to fly through the badlands. We have found that by producing a field of gravitons in front of the ship, we can strengthen N-space enough to make hyperspace travel possible." The holo-display changed to show what looked like a large, brown olive with globs of matter hanging around it. "This is the Zylon ship Fol'ect yog Wert, which translates into Sword. It was one of the original Zylon colony ships that came to this galaxy three thousand years ago. It has been refitted to house the Hyperspace Cannon, which is the large red circle on the front. The ship is slightly over a hundred klicks long and eighty in diameter at its thickest point. The shielding is very strong, strong enough that most of our weapons will do nothing. Only the Graviton Cannon and the Trinities will be powerful enough to destroy it. "Here's a quick run down on the Graviton Cannon and the Trinity Torpedoes." The holo-display brought up a spinning image of the Einstein. "The Graviton Cannon is a the most powerful weapon equipped on the Einstein. Theoretically it is powerful enough to destroy a small planetoid, but in this case we will not be firing that powerful of a blast." What Harry didn't say was that the Einstein alone couldn't generate enough energy to fire a blast to destroy a planetoid. The other ships of the fleet needed to transfer that extra energy over. "The Trinity Torpedoes," Harry continued, "are bomber based weapons that cause a rupturing in the fabric of space and throws off massive gravitonic and spatial distortions. The three torpedoes are capable of throwing a planet off of its orbit." Harry nodded his head in conclusion and stepped away from the podium. Clint stepped back up. The holo-display again changed, this time to show the battle plan. "This will be the basic battle plan. The Einstein, Hubble, Essex, and Endeavor will spear head the attack against the Sword. The rest of the Commonwealth Fleet will be split between Hawking and Faraday. These two groups along with the Zeus Strike Squadron will serve the first line attack against the other ships covering the Sword. The rest of the ships will be broken into a hundred squadrons who will cover the three strike groups. Their main goal will be to pull away the Sword's Escorts so that the main group only has to deal with the Sword. "The most effective weapon we have against the Sword is the Trinity Torpedoes. Unfortunately the Sword's shields which are designed to protect the ship from the Hyperspace Cannon and the Badlands, will absorb most of the spatial distortions given off. However, a strong blast from the Graviton Cannon, or G-cannon as we often refer to it, will temporarily take the shields. All the Trinity Torpedoes will then be launched and should be able to take out the Sword. "Any questions?" * * * * * During the conference, Doris had gotten an emergency call from Lieutenant Marx on bridge and had to slip out. She got onto the bridge slightly angered at being pulled out of the meeting. Mr. Marx was sitting at his station, engrossed in whatever he had found. Doris walked up next to him at the console. "What's so important to pull me out?" The communications officer answered with an extreme seriousness that he hardly ever used. "You know how you asked me to look closely for anything 'odd' with communications. Well, I just found it. I've found a signal piggy-backing the direct feed we're receiving from the Hawking." "We need to move this to-" He interrupted, "I've put in place a dampening field around the console so we can't be understood by the rest of the bridge. It won't be necessary to go to your ready room. Just keep your head down so they can't read your lips. "I'm slightly paranoid so I've slightly adjusted the console. As soon as I saw this I realized that you were looking for a traitor. Anyway back to the signal, it seems to disappear right after being received by the main receiving array. The main signal carries on through the ships communications lines, but without the worm. I wouldn't see it at all except that I've put a communications sensor onto the array." Doris gave him a disgusted look, "Next time I'd like it if you'd let me know about your changes, especially on my ship." "Admiral Shelby and Commander Seldon both knew of them. "The signal just stopped. I've got a full record of it in the computer. There must be a sort of drop box that pulled that signal off of the main communications network and onto a separate system." "What can you tell about the message, it must be heavily encrypted." "It seems to be. I've currently got the computer separating the two signals. From what I can tell, it's a data file. The bandwidth of it was kept small, only about twenty kiloquads a second, to avoid interference. "There! I've got it pulled out. It's about three megaquads in size. Its encryption is like nothing I've seen before. It'll take the computer a while to break it." "Do you have any idea who sent it?" "None. There is nothing I can find to identify its source, except that it comes from the Hawking." "Is it possible for someone to be able to tag the message on from a different ship?" Marx shook his head, "It's over Hyperlink, any meddling after its sent would destroy the signal. Whoever's doing this is on the Hawking. They'd have to be there to set it up. Also the only communications traffic to the Hawking is with us. Admiral Grier is on that ship, shouldn't we contact him about it?" Doris shook her head, "We're keeping this to as few people as possible. The Admiral is a possibility of being the spy. Though I've known him for many years and do trust him, the events of the last few days have shaken some of the trust I have in the crew." Doris gave him a pat on the shoulder, "Keep working on figuring out that code. I'm going to fill everyone else in after the conference. I'll have Harry look at that drop box." * * * * * On the screen, an orange dot began to flash in the upper right hand corner. It would be several minutes before it would be noticed. The computer terminal sat within the quarters of Security Officer Dimitri Shornel. He was expecting a signal. Earlier that morning, Shornel had sent a signal to his boss that Langely had been capture. So far for this operation, he had acted as an observer. Langely's engineering experience and position had been needed for the mission. If Langely was captured, Shornel's security position allowed him access to the prisoner for "disposal of evidence." Shornel stepped out of the shower and walked across his quarters with only a towel over his head. He was a short, compact man with decent physical strength but lightning quick reflexes. He was also adept with a wide variety of weapons. Since childhood, he had been obsessed with combat. He had been repeatedly kicked out of schools as a boy for his violent conduct and was sent to a military school. There he had learned to control himself and rapidly developed his fighting abilities. After school, he had gone into the marines where he had hisfirst contact with the Revolution. For this mission, he was needed as an emergency assassin to take out the target in a pinch if trouble came up. Shornel stopped at the terminal, dropping the towel from his grainy, brown hair and setting it in the chair to sit. He brought the message that had just been received up on the display. He was to eliminate Langely as soon as possible. Also there was a slight deviation in plans. A new target had been added to the list, Chief Engineer Harry Seldon. He had been helping Miss Clark with her abilities. Attached with the message, were the clearances he needed to get at Langely and several security override codes that were only privileged chief officers of the fleet. Shornel got up to get into his uniform. The next few days would be rather busy with the battle coming up in less than forty-eight hours. * * * * * The maintenance shafts leading to the hyperspace transceiver array were not for the claustrophobic. It didn' get any better in the area below the array, which was a cylindrical space a meter and a half in diameter filled with equipment. Even with the tight space, Harry and Lucy had been able to squeeze in to inspect what was being called the "drop box." The "drop box" was a green cylinder two centimeters in length that had been spliced into one of the cables running down the center of the room and had a wire coming from the side that connected into a power conduit. Harry thought as he looked down hopelessly. Harry gave her a puzzled look. Lucy interrupted, she replied teasingly. Lucy put on an exaggerated look of shock, Changing to a more questioning look, she asked, Lucy could feel a deep sadness in Harry as he said that. The stress was evident on Harry's face. Lucy put a reassuring arm around Harry. <- single tight energy blast hit her. We never saw it coming. Being aware of it, my father and I detected the assassin. The assassin was well enough aware that his actions would bring about his detection, so he ran. A few telepath agents caught up with him later and took out a few Revolution members. Following that, I ran and went into the Academy.> Over that conversation, Lucy's reassuring arm had turned into a reassuring hug. She needed a way to get out of the situation. Looking over his shoulder at her chronometer, she said, "I need to get to a flight wing meeting." * * * * * Clint was rushing down to the brig. Just a few minutes ago, Langely had been found dead. From the brief medical scan, all the neural activity had ceased. His entire nervous system shut down. There wasn't even anything left in the brain to try to extract. It had to be suicide or murder. There was nothing else in Clint's mind that it could be. But what caused the neural shut down was yet unknown. Hopefully an autopsy would figure things out. Clint jogged down the corridor and into the detention hall. The Security Chief, Commander Hall, and a medical assistant were already down there with the guard who had found Langely dead. Clint took a look into the cell. The cell was a small with only a bed/ledge, sink, and toilet. The medical assistant was frantic over the body lying on the bed and Clint soon found out why. Right there, before his eyes, the body was decomposing. Clint turned to the Security Chief, "Where's Doctor Lau?" "She and the other doctors are in an emergency surgery, sir. A medical team, ohh, there they are now." Four medical officers in their red and white uniforms were rushing down the hall carrying a bunch medical equipment. Down the corridor, another lift opened and Dr. Lau, the chief medical officer, bolted out still wearing a white surgical suit. Clint stepped out of the way to let the five into the cell. Clint turned to Hall, "What happened Chief?" Hall shook his head, "Just the strangest thing I've ever have had happen. I came through on inspection and found Langely dead with no guards down here. According to the computer, no one was on duty." "How the hell?! Someone tampering with the computer?" Possibly the chief? Clint thought to himself. "Must be. I had assigned Lieutenants Lazor and Marl to this shift. I haven't contacted them about it yet." "All right. Keep me posted." From what Harry and Lucy had found, the other spy was very likely in security. But Hall's quarters isn't even near there. It was just down the corridor from Clint's. A shout pulled Clint out of his thinking. "Admiral!" Clint walked into the cell responding to Dr. Lau. Lanegly's body had mostly become a pile of dirt. Dr. Lau banged her fist against the bunk. "I've never seen anything like this before. There is only one explanation I can come up with, but I hardly believe it myself. But considering this." She gave a slight pause and continued. "All electrical activity in his body just somehow grounded to a halt, including brain functions. The way the activity stopped removed all traces of neural activity. Even when someone dies, there's an electromagnetic imprint left on the body. But it was removed in Langely. Without that imprint, the body lost its natural image of itself and decomposed. "It's fairly wild speculation, but the only thing that makes sense." The mind-body link had been hard to prove, but it only fit this case. It had been proven that matter in animals was somehow held together differently than in plants and other objects. Clint looked back to the doctor, "Let me know everything." Clint left; even less sure whom he could trust then he had the day before. * * * * * A day had passed since Langely's death. The fleet had regrouped and the entire armada was headed out for the badlands. Lucy sat in her office, above the flight deck, looking over the report on Langely's death. Someone had tampered with the computer logs removing all traces that they had ever been there. The tampering had been done perfectly, no sign at all that it had been tampered with. Whoever had done it really knew the system. From the sensor data, they had been able to find that there was an energy discharge right before Langely had gone into spasms. The energy signature matched nothing in the data banks. Harry, though, recognized it. It was a neural disruptor and did exactly what Doctor Lau had expected it to. But it didn't help identify who was the murderer. Chief Hall had interrogated the two who were on duty and they said that they had received notification that they had been reassigned. The two on duty before claimed that Hall had relieved them over the intercom. Investigation of the intercom had turned up no leads either. Hopefully they'll wait till after we defeat the Zylon to do anything, Lucy thought to herself. Right now she just needed some time alone to think. Lucy put down the data slate and leaned back in her chair. So much had happened in the past forty-eight hours: getting telepathic powers, the Revolution trying to kill her, the Zylons trying to destroy humanity, and her new relationship with Daneel. The Zylon threat she could deal with. It was just another threat to our freedom thing and it was just too big to fully get a grasp on. Even though she had only had them for a few days, she felt like she always had her psionic abilities. When Harry trained her, he had only needed to adjust parts of the brain chemistry to use those abilities. She never had to go through all the work to learn the basics. But now that she had the abilities, what was she to do with them? Would she use them for good or evil? That thought made her chuckle. She was sounding too much like an old super hero comic. What was with all that secrecy that Harry wanted to keep about this? She could perfectly well understand not going out and shouting about it, but with telepathic abilities you should be able to know better then anyone who to trust and who not to. Probably even better then that person knew themselves. Lucy deeply felt that both Doris and Clint should know. But Doris' knowing is Harry's decision. But, still, she couldn't betray Harry and tell Clint. On the other head, she was betraying Clint by not telling him. Whom should she follow more, her father or her new mentor. It wasn't as if she was eight and should tell him everything. She was a grown woman. She felt that she really needed to sort this out with Harry. Just give it more time. Even with all that, the thing she thought about most was Daneel. The previous night at been wonderful and she craved to be with him right now. But had she been rushing things a bit? Even though they had been great friends for thirty years, was it right for when she finally found her true feelings for him that they hop into bed? She didn't want to lose that close friendship they had. She probably wouldn't be seeing Daneel till after the mission. But that was just too far away. All this personal reflection wasn't her. She had changed really changed these last few days, hopefully for the better. * * * * * "Two minutes till the badlands. The Zylon ships are continuing on their course." While the sensor officer spoke, Shelby kept his gaze on the holo display before him. Rf'near saw that his face was cast in a multicolored spectacle from all of the visual displays in the CIC. Most of the light in the room came from the displays since the illumination was low, giving the CIC a very different feel from that of the brightly-lit bridge. Rf'near looked up from the Shelby. The main holo display showed the entire human fleet and the edge of the badlands. In the center of the image, was a cubic insert that showed a zoom in of the Einstein and the ships immediately around it. On the room's main screen was an overhead map of this region of the galaxy. The center of the display showed what looked like a solid orange ameba with many pseudo-pods stretching through space, the badlands. On either side were sets of dots, representing the two fleets. The blue human fleet on the right and the red Zylon fleet on the left. At the top of the display were two counters: the one on the right, which was nearing one minute, was the ETA to the badlands and the one of the left, which still had several hours, was the estimated intercept time of the Zylon fleet. "Have the fleet drop to five Dehms and get into formation for badland insertion." The communications officer quickly carried out the Admiral's orders. From what Rf remembered, a Dehm was equal to the speed of light and named after the lead scientist for Multidimensional Theory which lead to Hyperspace travel. A few moments later the sensors officer responded, "The fleet's in formation and traveling at five Dehms." The Admiral hit a button on his chair. "All right Harry. We're ready." Over the com, the Chief Engineer responded. "Roger that Admiral. Extending forward deflectors. Generating Graviton Flux. The shield is reading fully deployed." On the holo display, a pink umbrella had formed in front of the fleet. All of the CTW ships were generating the field for the entire fleet. Only those ships could be set up for it in time. "Bring the fleet back up to half of its previous speed." The badlands counter, which had changed to show thirty minutes remaining, now changed to a little over a minute. "We're going through some fluxes from the badlands, but it is not causing a problem for the Graviton Field," the sensors officer reported. To pass the minute, Rf flashed back quickly on the time since he had come on board. Most of it had been spent going from meeting to meeting to brief everyone on just about everything Zylon. Surprisingly, most of the crew welcomed him with open hands. Many of the female crewmembers had given him some rather odd looks that he thought had something to do with human mating. He still didn't fully understand the concept of flirting. Colonel Clark had said she would be willing to talk to him at anytime if he needed help adjusting or just someone to talk to. Admiral Shelby had been surprised of this. Evidently, the Colonel was someone who kept to herself, but the Admiral had said she had been acting differently the last few days. His thoughts were interrupted by the sensors officer. "We're reaching the edge of the badlands. The fleet has now completely entered. No effects so far from the badlands. Hyperspace fields are holding." "Have the fleet slowly come back up to full speed. If there are any fluxes during acceleration, stop accelerating and hold at that speed" So far everything was on schedule. If it kept that way, they'd meet the Zylons a light year from the badlands. Talk about cutting it close. * * * * * "Dropping from hyperspace in five minutes. All fighters get ready for launch." The pilots quickly broke from the meeting and ran to their fighters with helmets in hands in response to the intercom. Lucy stepped down from her small podium that they had set in the middle of the flight deck for last minute meetings. She looked over to Shark, who had been standing next to her on the podium. "Ready for this?" He put on a forced smile, "As ready as I'm going to be." "Lucy!" Lucy spun around at the call immediately knowing whom it was. Daneel ran up to her and they held in a tight embrace. "Aren't you supposed to be on the bridge?" Lucy asked after a moment. "I slipped out for a moment." Lucy pulled back, "Isn't the Captain a bit angry about that?" "Let her be angry. I'm not planning on doing this too much" Lucy laughed at this. They kissed briefly, then Lucy let go and ran to her fighter. Lucy looked back at Daneel as she was climbing into the cockpit and saw that he was still standing there watching her. Doris isn't going to be too happy about that and Lucy promised herself that she wouldn't give him an easy time about it either. Lucy strapped herself in and brought the fighter online. She gave the reactor a brief double check for irregularities. The tractor beams in the flight deck brought the fighter up to the launch ramp with several in line behind. Lucy rested for a moment thinking about what she would do with Daneel when she got back to pass the next few minutes. * * * * * Clint stood stiff behind the console. These last few minutes were taking forever and his normal pacing made the crew nervous. "We have cleared the badlands. Dropping to sublight in ten seconds- Five, four, three, two, one." The sensors officer paused to wait for a reaction from the Zylon fleet, "They're staying at hyperspace. Looks like they are changing course to go below." "Fire a reversed gravimetric pulse off the forward deflectors to knock them out of hyperspace. Have the Essex and Endeavor load all torpedo bays and fire on the Zylon ships when they have a lock." The room was quite for a few moments until the sensors officer broke the silence, "The Zylon fleet has dropped to sublight. Torpedoes are away, impact will be in ten minute, fifteen seconds." he said. "Launch all fighters! Begin the full strike." * * * * * "Fighters begin launch." Lucy was pushed back in her seat as the fighter was pushed out, down the launch ramp into outer space. She opened the engines to full throttle and banked her Broadsword from the front of the carrier. The fighters were just pouring out of the launch bays. On her holo-display, Lucy could see all of the fighters grouping up into their strike groups. Lucy had set this strike up enough so she would need minimal input into the actual mission. Clint would actual do most of the directing this time. Lucy pulled back to ten klicks, a virtual stand still. A few moments later, Shark pulled his Broadsword up to her right. Lucy didn't so much as see it, as feel the ship's electromagnetic signature. She could sense any craft within a couple klicks of her ship because of her new abilities. Lucy closed her eyes and just felt all the ships around her. On each ship, she could feel a cocoon around each, which was their energy shields and ram scoop fields. "All fighters are launched and in formation. All ahead at 400 klicks." Clint's voice brought Lucy back to the real world. She quickly pushed the throttle up to 400 kps. It would take fifteen minutes to reach the Zylon fleet. The torpedoes would impact in about seven minutes. The seven minutes slowly dragged by. The torpedoes took out one Zylon cap ships and damaged two. A few Zylon fighters had been able to take out most of the torpedoes. When the human fighters got within half a million kilometers, the rest of the fighters started to be launched. The large, melon shaped carriers were shooting out what resembled croissants that had been left out for a few days so mold had completely grown over them. The fighters were coming in fast. Lucy hit the com, "All Scimitars attack the Zylon Fighters." The Scimitars hit full thrust and shot out before the group. The Scimitars soon entered into a complicated dance, as they weaved in and out of each other, firing bright beams at each other. "Shark, set course for the destroyer at heading twenty-five mark five." "Roger that Colonel." The destroyer looked like a slightly larger version of the corvettes they had first attacked. Lucy pushed her ship to full throttle. The weakness here was the same, the containment sac at the rear of the ship, which was the heaviest shielded. "We'll take raking runs on the rear weapon emplacements. You know the rest of the drill." "Roger." The destroyer came on them quickly. Lucy cut speed to five hundred klicks and leveled off horizontally with the destroyer. Flying just over the shields, the Broadsword fired its positron cannons across the destroyer's surface, targeting the weapons. At the close distance, the positrons went through the destroyer's shields. The surface just turned into a brown streak with purple and blue beams of energy firing upwards. The return fire was being absorbed by her ventral shields. Each hit drained just a little bit more energy away from the shields. After passing the Zylon Ship, she hit the boosters and arched up to get out of weapons range, then cut the engines and flipped her fighter. Inertia kept the Broadsword going in its previous direction even though it was pointing the other way. Lucy opened up the throttle. The main engine's force threw her back down for another pass. After the second pass, all the rear weapons had been taken out. Lucy went a thousand klicks from the destroyer. Shark was right on her tail, covering her fighter. At a thousand klicks, she headed back in. Lucy stared to hit buttons and switches all around the cockpit. The two additional fusion generators came online. All power was being rerouted to the forward shields and the plasma cannon. The plasma cannon came online. A blue circle formed around the targeting recticle showing the weapon charging. Lucy gripped tightly on the stick, ready to pull the trigger. Several other Zylon ships were closing in to cover their damaged comrade. The weapon indicator flashed. Lucy pulled the trigger. A green beam of highly energized particles shot out before the ship. Lucy pulled her fighter up and hit full engines. The plasma discharge ripped through the destroyer's stem, severing the singularity, sack housing from the rest of the ship. The front piece was ripped apart by explosions that broke through the ship's spine. Seconds later, the singularity exploded. A spherical shock wave erupted from the sack, vaporizing the sack and the debris of the front piece. Two Zylon destroyers shook from the shock wave. The destroyers had taken medium damage from the explosion; at least that's what the screen showed with flashing yellow over the ships. Lucy and Shark took a wide arc to bear down on the other two ships. The Zylons' shields were knocked out. Lucy switched the plasma cannon back to stand by and armed a dumb fire missile. "Shark, brake off and attack the forward destroyer." "Heading out." Shark broke off to port. Lucy flew right for the front of the destroyer. She hit the missile button and fired the missile, which impacted on the front of the spine. The explosion ripped open the front of the spine. A green liquid oozed out. Lucy threw a loop and when she regained bearing, fired tachyon cannons into the hole. An explosion broke the front pair of ribs off. A second brake soon formed farther down the spine thanks to Shark. The second destroyer opened fire. A few shots hit Lucy, but most hit the first destroyer. Her ventral shields were about to collapse. Lucy flew to the side of a section of the first destroyer, keeping it between her and the other destroyer. "Shark, Move back here. I'm going to hit it with the plasma cannon." "Moving out." Lucy brought the weapon back up to power and let it fully charge before making a move. She looped over the first destroyer. The second ship appeared in the top of her canopy and moved down. She fired just above the ship. The charge came across at a slant and cut through the spine. The energy of the blast flowed through the spine and caused the ship to blow. Lucy glanced at her damage control display. All of the damaged was to the bottom of her fighter. The ventral shield generator was off line and heavily damaged. The ship's repair systems would take ten minutes to bring it back online. Armor damage was moderate. She looked at Sharks damage. He had been luckier. He had taken the same amount of hits, but they had missed the shield generator, so he still had full shields. He was keeping his fighter below hers to cover the shields. "We'll hold it out here till repairs are made," she said through the com. * * * * * The hatch snapped shut on the escape pod. Admiral Grier was strapped in along with three other officers. The pod was only a meter and a half high and two meters wide and deep. Just big enough for four people sitting with just a little bit of leg room. The lights in the chamber dimmed. Grier was pushed into his seat by the force field that formed around him to protect him from the g-forces of launch. Ten seconds later, the chamber lightened and the fields dissipated. A hollo formed in the center of the chamber displaying the Hawking. Zylon ships were flocking over it. The damage was quite apparent. Large breaches dotted the hull. "They seem to act like a hive, they're not even acting against the possibility of an explosion," Commander Wilson said. When the ship self-destructs in about half a minute, all those ship should be destroyed, Grier thought to himself, along with almost everything linking me into the assassination attempts. Now if only Shornel would commit suicide after the hit. He already had stuck his neck far enough out. Even though he was a strong follower of the ideals of the Revolution, killing was getting a little too far. But he felt it needed to get done if the Revolution was to succeed. Telepaths would destroy man. They were defects that needed to be weeded out. Now he hoped to be able to stay in Denube and keep out of the affairs of the movement. The other three stiffened up and saluted. Grier followed. The Hawking disappeared into an explosion. Seven Zylon ships went with it. A tear fell down Grier's cheek. She had been a good ship, just a few too many good hits near the main reactor. Grier slumped his head back after lowering the solute. They weren't in the clear yet. Life pods were sitting ducks. No weapons and not much shielding. One hit from just about any modern weapon would take them out. The craft shuddered, caught in a tractor beam. There were no ships on the scanners. Just the tractor beam coming from the middle of space. The group was in shock and getting themselves mentally ready for just about any possibility. The ship shuddered again, probably an atmospheric force field. The hatch vaporized. The group recoiled in terror. Behind were two Zylons with blasters. * * * * * Lucy re-launched from the Einstein after a weapons reload. The battle had been going on for an hour and a half. A quarter of the human fleet had been destroyed including two Commonwealth Capital Ships. Half the Zylon fleet was destroyed. The escort for the Sword was obliterated. Lucy joined the rest of the human group in a large holding pattern, circling the Sword and the Einstein at a 100,000 klicks out. There were no other Zylon ships within five light minutes. Lucy looked out the cockpit to her right and could see strings of bright light of energy beams. An occasional yellow sphere would also appear. There was no way to tell at this distance whether that had been a Zylon ship or a human ship. "Trinity bombing groups in place. All ships prepare for firing," came Clint over the com. Lucy cut the engines and within moments the drag from the ram scoop field brought her fighter to a near standstill. She was 98,000 klicks to port of the Sword. The human ships were forming a bowl with its base behind the Einstein and the Sword half sticking out the end. The Hubble, Essex, and Endeavor held parallel to the Einstein, very close. White columns of energy came from the Hubble, Essex, and Endeavor to the Einstein. Extra energy was being transferred for the G-cannon. "G-cannon firing in ten seconds, bombers prepare for run." The G-cannon was glowing red. A cone of brown was emitted and headed for the Sword. The Sword's Shields showed as a bubble around the ship. The bubble was convulsing from the gravitons. The cone continued to expand as its end passed the ship. The sensors showed the shields were down. Three groups of fighters headed in from different parts of the bowl of ships. Each of the Sabers was being escorted by six Ferrets. At almost the same time, each of the bombers launched the Trinities. The bombing groups pealed off, back to the fleet. The small, silver slivers continued on their way to the Sword. When they were near to the Sword, the torpedoes turned into blue tulips. The sword disappeared behind folds of distorted space. Lucy's fighter shook as the surge of gravitons finally reached her. But she kept her eyes pealed on where the Sword had been. The distortions subsided, revealing red and yellow explosions. A cheer erupted from the com. Lucy, however, wasn't quite so sure that it had been destroyed. Clint's voice came over the com, breaking the cheers, "The attack failed. The Sword is still intact." Only one thing came out of Lucy's mouth, "Holy Shit!" To be continued-