Free SODIUM:5 Assault by Stephen Arseneault Page A

debris floating in space near an alien world.
    The long wave sensors on the cruiser were soon put into service and the result was detection of a fluid state of movement in an area more than five million kilometers across. Whatever it was that we had detected was at too great a distance for the cruisers optical scanners to make out, but it was of extreme power.
    Before any definitive data returned from the cruiser, it too went silent. Another crew had perished without us knowing why. I next ordered the second fleet to immediately halt. It came to a stop more than three light years away from Eldred.
    Even though we considered Drillers to be old technology each of our battleships had a contingent of 50,000 of them aboard. Two Drillers were refitted, one with sensors and QE communications and the other as a tow. They were launched in the direction of the fluid anomaly. When they reached two light years distance the lead Driller would detach and continue towards the target, thus allowing the sensors and QE comm to drift in silently. We reasoned that with its small size and inactive BHD it might go undetected.
    Back on Earth four of our fleets and all available space transports were ordered to Toleda to evacuate their population. It was a massive undertaking with more than nine billion citizens in need of rescue. The new facilities being built on Alvin would only accommodate about two billion of the refugees. Many of the rest would be offered refuge on Earth where makeshift housing was already passing the planning stage.
    We moved as many of the Kurtz citizens as possible making trip after trip and coming into Earth's ports loaded with hungry and terrified citizens. The heavy gravity of Earth was also extremely uncomfortable to our guests, but we had nowhere else to hold them. The housing on Alvin could be doubled within a month, but the biggest problem was with getting the billions of refugees from Toleda to there.
    Each fleet could carry 40 million Kurtz crammed into every nook and cranny. Each journey to Alvin took eight days round trip. With only five of our fleets participating, the numbers game was not looking good; it would take more than six months to fully evacuate their population. Our best estimates were that we only had three months before the remaining air on Toleda was too thin to breathe.
    I paced the upper deck of the bridge of the Atlanta as I waited for the first reports from our Driller sensor to arrive. I was stunned with what we learned when it did. The fluid anomaly that was first reported had been identified as a large black hole with a containment field keeping it in check. On one side of the gravity field was a massive vessel that was making use of gravitational lenses to focus the pull of the black hole into a beam.
    The beam was aimed in Toleda's direction and estimates were that it had taken nearly a month from the time it was activated before the full strength beam arrived. I ordered our science team and our Battle Planners to come up with a solution, a solution that would stop the nightmare of a weapon or at a minimum slow it down. We needed time to evacuate the planet.
    Our first attempt at stopping the gravity beam was to launch 1,000 Drillers into the beam with programming for them to exit the beam at the last minute and attack the lensing structure. The Drillers were soon launched and their 18 hour journey began. Again we waited patiently for the results to come in.
    When the lead Driller reached its target location it turned on its BHD and attempted to attack, but the pull of the gravity beam was too strong, keeping the Driller captive. The first Driller, followed soon after by the others, proceeded past the lensing structure and soon disappeared into the black hole beyond. The strategy had failed.
    The cruiser’s captain next ordered another 100 Drillers launched. The programming would command them to stop and exit the beam starting at two light years distance and then at every 10 billion