FOUR
It had been 5:27 seconds since the ship folded into the area of the station. Jol had not seen anything, he had felt the use of large amounts of power, normally what would have been used to move small ships. Then the suddenly all of the limitations on the ships and the station was gone. He felt the displacement of the Guild ship; it was gone, he did not know where, but knew it could not be that far. He looked at his Captain, then said "Sir, I think he has finished, his ship has folded someplace, not far, but gone, and I think you will find that all controls are working properly. :
This is when the various areas started to report normal, undocking had begun, and was continued, the Captain wanted away from the station where they could maneuver and fight if needed, the other two ships of the Flotilla were also getting lose from the station. Jol could sense that the Guild Merchants were also getting lose from the station, and knew that they were going to start moving out system. This was a problem now.
Sub-director Mass was a happy man. His controls were unfrozen, had had been in contact with the Director who was on the way to the Command location. The automated system was allowing the ships to depart as quickly as they cleared with priority to the Federation Warships that were at dock. They were about 5 million kilometers away from the station and moving out, but not toward the Fold Point, but were going toward the planets.
There were now nine people in the Command location, the others had been waiting at the airlock when it opened. He was in communication with ships when needed, and things looked better. Then the older man called. "Sir, you might want to look at this. He pressed a couple of buttons, and said look on your screen."
Mass looked down on his personal screen, and his eyed widened. The recon buoy just outside the national space of the 2d Planet was transmitting an alarm. The 2d Planet had two small moons, one was about 1,800 kilometers in diameter and was almost twice the size of the other, it was called Pesha, which meant something to the locals, he had never bothered to learn it. But the more important part of the view, was the small dots that were expanding out from the moon. There were dozens of them, all were clearly designated ships, but were also not given types, so that the computer did not have the ship type in the register. This was not good. He said, "is this going to the Commodore?"
The older man looked over and said that he had just gotten through to the communications and they were linking even as they were talking. Mass was looking at it and thought of what his Grandmother had said of situations like this. From the Frying pan into the fire.
Jol got the information about the larger moon of the 2d Planet as it came, in he plotted course changes and also began to dig for data on the ships. There were none. This was clearly more Tactical's job, he wanted to know. What made him want to know so badly was the fact that as soon as he had looked to this area he saw nothing. It was like he was looking at a well shielded Task Force from the Federation. This was not good, he did not know of any Guild members on the payroll of the local Government, in fact their entire status with the Guild would have forbid it. He still was listening and looking when he heard the Tactical Officer.
She was a Lt, and she was good at her job, she had to be to pass the tests and get the job. They did not allow politics to get in the selection of Tactical Officers, since they were basically in Command of the ship if there was a fight, it took too long for a Captain to give orders then to be obeyed, the officer would have a lot of independence if there was a fight. His present Captain had never been able to get a tactical position, so he had a lot of patrons to get the Command chair of not just a ship, but a small Task Force.
"Sir, we are picking up 53 ships, they are a wide variety of ship sizes and none are in the database for ship type. We have five that are Battlecruiser size, and from what data we can get on them they seem to be well armed. There are another 10 that are Cruiser size, and 20 that are Destroyer size, and the last 18 are Frigate size. The Destroyers are a little smaller than our ships and seem to carry less missile arms." She stopped still working her console trying to get more data.
The Captain said, "make sure that we are in formation and move toward the force. Communications attempt to talk to them, I want to know who they are and why they are." He turned to Jol, asking, "what can you tell me."
He did not like to have to say it, but said, "Sir, I can tell you nothing. I cannot see the ships nor can I see their pilots. It is like a fleet formation with shielding to insure that they are unseen to Guild Talents."
The Captain asked, "why are Guild pilots doing that?"
Jol replied, "There are no contracts with this system and the Guild. The people of this system come from two waves of migration, the 4th Planet is from two colony ships that left Old Earth and went beyond the frontiers of the time and found the system. They survived as a lost colony. The second wave was the Caliphate of New Arabia, which fought a war with the Guild in the aftermath of the Kapac Wars, just before the formation of the Federation. The Guild put them on the 2d Planet before they found out about the lost colony on the fourth," he paused then went on. "The Caliphate has been under embargo of Guild Contract since then. When the Federation approved of the conquest of the 3d and 4th Planets the Guild did not interfere, but it has never taken away the embargo for Guild Contracts."
The Captain thought a few seconds, then asked, "do you know if the Guild was pleased with our decision to allow the union of the three planets?"
"Sir, I do not know officially. However, in the Academy it was stated as conquest not union, and the Guild is never happy when a weaker world is taken over by a stronger by violence," he said it as diplomatically as he could.
"OK," the Captain said, "So someone in Foreign Relations could not understand that the Guild was not pleased. So we have a government that the Guild feels is dangerous enough that they will not provide pilots, and this is the group that provided the pilots to both sides in the Kalden Civil War." He looked down and said, "I hope these guys talk."
Jol had been on the bridge for the 14 hours it had taken the three small warships to get close to the Caliphate Fleet. The 53 ships had been joined by two other ships, they were of the tonnage of a Battleship, the smallest Capital Ship in the fleet. Those were huge, larger than the big transports that the Corporations used. It would take a Red to fold one, so they were big. In fact one of those ships would swat the three Destroyers that was there like a fly. Their missiles could hurt them, but they were not likely to get through if they even had a poor defensive system. He was clearly not the only one on the Bridge who understood that.
Even with their overwhelming advantage with firepower, even if under gunned, the Caliphate Fleet had not replied to their attempts to talk. They had deployed in classic wedge formation, with the Destroyer and Frigates on the north and south of the main battle line. The line was screened by the Cruisers and consisted of the two Battleships and five Battlecruisers.
He had been trying to break through with the help of the two Oranges with them, and they were being rebuffed, but the attempts to get through their shields were at best juvenile. It seemed that someone had taught them defense, but not offensive moves, which was likely good for them, as one of the attacks was clearly a blue, who should have been able to get through.
He then felt the displacement not far away, of a fold. He knew that it had to be the Guild Member, no one else routinely moved by folding inside a system.
Tactical said, "Sir, we have a ship that just materialized off port of our position, it seems to be a small ship," she stopped and was trying to find out more data.
Communications spoke up, "Sir, I have a communications with the Guild Representative. He is asking to speak to you through Holo."
It was clear that the Captain would have rather done almost anything than talk to him, but at this point he felt that he needed to, so he said, "put him on."
As soon as he had finished, before the Communications Officer, could react, the Holo came on, standing on the bridge was a plain man. He was not tall, but he was not short, he wore old type clothing, but it was not out of place on him. He wore of all things glasses, Jol had not seen anyone in glasses since he was a child before the Guild took him off his backward world. He had not long hair, but it was not short and it was not styled as all men wore it now. It was in a fashion that had to be centuries old, or from a backward part of the Federation. He was looking at the Captain and said, "Captain, I see that you have a problem. Would you like some help?"
Jol thought that the Captain was going to have a heart attack, he had turned red, and was barely containing himself, he knew. He said to the man, "Yes, I would like to have some help."
"Good," the man replied, "As you know the Guild under Article VII of the Treaty with the Federation is not allowed to help unless asked by the Senior Military Officer present on the field."
Jol had known that, but he did not think that the Captain had known it, he almost deflated. The man went on, "If you will be prepared to pick up survivors I will be taking out the ships."
The Captain with all the effort he had asked, "You just you? You are going to take out all those ships, there are Ships of the Line in that formation."
The man said, "Yes, that is going to make it harder to do it without killing a lot of locals. But I am going to attempt to do that. The ships are configured differently and the pilots on them are poorly trained, and thus it makes it harder to do things without hurting them, but I will do my best. I am sure at least one ship will be destroyed, but I will be trying to not do that."
It was at this point that the Tactical Officer hit the Red Alert button, and said, "multiple launch from the ships. All ships of the fleet are firing their missiles, and they are flying true and will be here in 10 minutes. I make at least 400 launches to this point and they seem to be firing several volleys."
This was not good, they were just three destroyers, the pilots and the defense might take out one volley like that, but several would make it harder and less likely that they would be able to do it.
The man said, "I see that you are busy as am I, I will let you know when I am done, just try not to return fire, if I succeed then your missiles will go for defenseless ships." He was gone. The Captain did not look well, he knew that if they did not fire or fired it would not matter a lot, at least two volley's fired, and likely more, they were not going to be there a lot longer than 20 minutes.
The bridge of the small Scout ship looked about the same, the man sat back down in the Command seat, and he put his hand into the bracket that was rigged to allow the power of the ship to flow through him. He asked, "Skinny, you still cannot get into their controls?"
"No, they are not using any Federation or earlier systems, so have built these up from scratch, they have not used any known systems. Then they refuse to answer any communications, this does not allow me to get into those systems. I have been able to hack into one of the missiles they just launched as it got its download from the ship. This is allowing me to access the missiles, in about five minutes I should have control of any of their missiles, but their ships are still a no." She did not look happy, but then winked out.
The man put up a tactical display of the Caliphate ships. He did not have the system displays that would allow him to disable the ships with a minimum loss of life. He could do one thing so set about it. He closed his eyes, concentrated, the black stone around his neck began to glow, if black could glow, and the room was filled with static charge and the feel of power coming into use. It was much more than with the movement of a ship. The man felt the fleet, the smaller ships would be first. He could have torn the ships apart by moving small parts in the hull with far less power, but that would have killed thousands before he was done.
It was true, and he knew that killing thousands now would prevent millions later, the Caliphate was a government that he had argued needed to be eliminated. However, the Committee had decided that they were not going to be, the diversity was needed. So he was fixing that problem now again. The Caliphates last war had cost over 1,500 Guild members lives, and killed billions on dozens of systems, to stop. They were fanatics and would always be fanatics, but he stopped thinking about that right now. He needed to do the right thing and keep as many alive as he could.
So one second there were 55 ships in the fleet, the next only 54, one of the Frigates were gone. The man let out a small grunt. He felt and the ship had made it to where he was moving it without breaking up. He then began to do it faster. Over the next four minutes he moved all the small ships out of the fleet, this left the17 larger ships.
Jol was surprised when the information came in that one of the enemy ships was gone. Then another and another were gone. This was odd to say the least, he knew that Purples could move things at a distance. But the scout ship was 25 million kilometers from the fleet, that was a long way to anyone. Then to move something the size of a ship, any ship, that was a feat. Over the minutes one by one the smaller ships disappeared and they had tried to evade what was coming, but could not. The flight time of the missiles was 7 minutes, so that the first wave would arrive in only three minutes. He saw the last of the small ships gone. The enemy had fired six waves of missiles, each with over 300, as they had gone on, the last couple had been reduced by the loss of ships. The ships still closed on the three Federation ships. So they were scared.
With the last ship gone, Jol felt the visit again. The person was tired, that was for sure, but he was still talking with strength. He told him that in a minute the missiles would not be a problem, that they should change course directly for the Capital ships, by the time they got there they would be able to help. Jol turned to the Captain, "Sir, I have word that the missiles will be neutralized in one minute, if we would change course to intercept the enemy fleet, then we will be of help."
The Captain looked at Jol, like he was in first contact with an Alien race, Over the last few minutes the Tactical officer had been updating the Capitan as ships just vanished from the formation. They were the small ones, but they were gone. So the Capitan gave the order and the ships moved toward the enemy fleet.
It was 4 minutes and 52 seconds when the front wave of missiles self-destructed. Then every five seconds the another wave blew up for no reason. It was a very pretty light show as millions of kilotons of explosive power went off without hitting anything.
The man on the Bridge, had rested for a minute. He needed it, the power needed to move the small ships to the location he had sent them, was hard. This was going to be a challenge, to someone who had not had a lot of challenges over the last few years. Skinny showed up, saying, "Sir the missiles are gone. Have you made contact with the pilots on the ships?"
He sighed, "no, I could force it, but I am afraid, they were taught very good defense, but that was it, if I break that it is most of their control, and I could harm the pilot forever, and could destroy their ship. So I am only sending out a plea to talk, as I do the job."
Skinny said, "I always disliked these guys, from the beginning."
The man replied, "I have had longer to dislike them, and from my first life, I have faced these people, or people like them."
Skinny looked at him, "can I help?"
He smiled at her, "No friend, you have insured that the Federation does not lose some good people, with all that you can do this is not a things that you were put her to do."
The girls walked over to him and put her hand on his arm, and the man smiled and closed his eyes, as the power grew.
Jol was more shocked, the Cruisers were all gone, one by one. Just now, one of the Battlecruisers had disappeared. The ships had begun go launch missiles again, they went out just out of range that would damage the ships and exploded so they were powerless. He had felt the displacement that had come from the huge ship. He had felt the others, but a Battlecruiser was five times the tonnage of a Cruiser that was here. That took about 20 times the power, and it was more power than Jol had ever felt. Then came the second, and another of the five was gone. It hurt to listen at the expending of power, the waves coming in were hurting all the pilots, those in the enemy fleet so close to the source had to be hurting even more.
Mass was watching from his post on the Station, he knew a little about warfare, and ships just did not disappear. Sure there were cloaking systems, but they used so much power they were basically useless. This was not that, these ships were going someplace and he had started to look, then he got a news feed off the Caliphate's Capital world and city. It showed a destroyer laying in the desert, they were talking Arabic, which he could have translated, but he did not need to. This was impossible, these ships were not built to go onto planets. They were built for space, several systems were clearly collapsed on the ship and it would never get off that world. But how did it get there. He pressed buttons and sent the feed to the Federations warships that were in the area.
The man was breathing hard and clearly was not doing well. His hair was matted to his head from sweat, and although you could see his breath from the chill in the room, he was still sweating. If you looked at the hand in the feed of power it was blackened, burning from the power he was pulling in from his ship. Standing beside him, not a hair out of place, was skinny, her hand still on his other arm and watching him.
Skinny, said, "got it." He stopped. "I am in, wait a minute." She closed her eyes now and the man let the power feed slow, as the time went on, the power stopped entirely. The feel of power in the room receded, and the man relaxed somewhat. His hand was not normal, but was not smoking any longer.
Skinny then said, "alright in one minute the plasma for both the Battleships will be jettisoned into space. That will remove all power from the ships, I have also froze their weapons, all of them are going down as we speak. So they will be without weapons, and will also be without power, except for emergency which will only power life support and general function of critical systems, of which engines were never going to be in need of. "
The man said, "good; just a minute and I will stand to talk to the Federation Captain."
Jol and the entire Bridge Crew was watching the News report from the planet. On the desert floor not far from the Palace of the Caliph sat the hulls of the ships that had been in the space millions of miles away. Some had broken from the way that they had been put down, they had been moving in space, then dropped stopped onto a world that they had never been designed to land on. They would not get off the ground, and they were as much scrap metal, all the spacers on the ship knew that.
What was frightening was that even though the ships had broken in some cases, and there were some fires, the ships were in tact enough that most of the crews were still alive. It was frightening. How could anyone, do this, Jol thought that some of the demonstrations of the Purples at the Academy had been frightening, this was the thing of nightmares.
The Tactical officer spoke, "The plasma from the Battleships have been evacuated into space, the plasma is dissipating. It is not blowing up, which is odd, the ships seem to have been disabled." She was both doubtful and happy.
The Communications officer came on, "Sir, the two ships are surrendering and asking for assistance, they have lost most functions on the ships and need help to evacuate their crews." This was clearly a turn of events.
Just as this was sinking in, the Holo opened up, the man was standing there again. At least she thought it was the same man, his clothing was matted to his body, as was his hear, she could see that his left hand was injured, and when he spoke it was not as loud, "The ships are disabled, and they need help. When you do so, take them to the station, you will need to get information from them. Also there is a new Guild Representative in the System. Jacob James, he will be able to help you and his ship will be coming to this area to help with the evacuation of the ships. He has a cargo ship that has enough life support to get most of the crews to the station. He will also be able to control any of the Pilots on the ship." Jol noticed that which most did not, he did not say Guild Members, like he did when he talked to him, but pilots, that denoted not Guild, and thus renegade pilots. "I would like for the pilots to be turned over to the Guild Academy on Frozen V, as soon as possible."
The Captain, who knew that he had just faced death and been saved, said, "Yes, that will be arranged. Is there anything else?"
"Yes," you will need to pass sanctions on the system as quickly as possible, you have the authority due to unauthorized Interstellar vessels, please do so and get the Federation to clean this up before the Guild does." '
That was just short of a threat, Jol and everyone knew that. However the Captain ignored that and said, "I have already drawn up the documentation to declare interdict on the system, and one of the Destroyers will be going with all the tapes and my recommendations that a Federation Envoy be sent to fix what has clearly gotten out of hand here."
The man smiled then and said, "Good, out." He was gone.
Jol was shocked when seconds later the scout ship was gone, and gone with enough power to move it almost anywhere.
The man on the Bridge sat in his chair, if you looked at his hand the crust of the burns were slowly chipping off as the hand was healing. He had a look of pain on his face, and the young woman stood on the bridge with him.
She said, "Are you going to your quarters, no one will find us here."
He said, "No, I am going to heal here, I will go when I feel a little better, is she alright?"
"Yes," said the girl, "she is still asleep, but without drugs, and doing it well, I will notify you when she wakes."
"Good," was all the man said, he laid back his head and in less than a minute he was snoring.
The girl said, "good night." Then was gone.
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