Free Annihilation: The Power of a Queen by Saxon Andrew, Derek Chiodo Page B

their discipline and though fear was a part of their daily meal, moral was high. The six week warning was over today. The Alliance fleet would make their jump soon. “Keep your eye on the small group of 800 ships. If I’m right they should be jumping first,” Tag said. They continued to watch and then they saw the small group start moving away from the planet. After 90 minutes had passed, a second larger group of 2100 warships started moving away from the planet. Both groups had moved into their assigned attack formations when the third group started moving an hour later.
     
    “You’re going to have to tell me how you know these things in advance, Mr. Gardner.” Kosiev said. “It looks like you were sitting in their planning session.”
     
    “I could have been wrong, Admiral. But they don’t know that we know how many ships they’re sending. We also know how they are organizing their fleet. It’s easy if you have those facts. If we didn’t know that, this plan would be hard for us to handle without the asteroid forts. We probably couldn’t handle it even if we did know. I’m surprised they didn’t just jump all 4000 ships and head straight for the planet. If they were spread out enough, there’s no way we could prevent them from attacking Earth at least not without matching ship for ship. I believe that part of their plan is to also totally destroy our remaining ships.”
     
    Dorg said, “It is never good tactics to leave ships that could attack when you invest a planet; especially when one is uncertain of their number.”
     
    “That’s what they’ll do next time,” Danielle said. “There won’t be any attempt at occupation; they’ll be coming to destroy us. That is assuming that they don’t do it this time. They’ll send over whelming numbers to destroy the planet. Then they will go after the fleet.”
     
    “Have faith, dear. We still have those 6,000 ships in the outer system if we absolutely have to use them. If we get all the recording ships, we just might use them to cleanup any survivors that run for the limit to escape. We still outnumber them. That’s why I’m not concerned about the final outcome this time.”
     
    “Sir,” Lt. Kelly announced, “the Cleveland reports Alliance ships jumping into our solar system on the other side of the sun. She counts 750 plus shaping up and moving in system.”
     
    “Keep me informed,” Kosiev said. “Open a channel to all ships. Jump alert, jump alert. The first group of Alliance ships has jumped into our system on the sun side. The first fleet we’ll face will be coming shortly. We will wait on them to come to us. Hold your formation and we will attack together. Commodore Davidson?”
     
    “Yes sir.”
     
    “You are to hold your ships until the third group jumps in to support the ships we’ll be facing. I want them at least 45 minutes in system before you jump in and then close at full speed.”
     
    “Commodore Johnson?”
     
    “Yes sir.”
     
    “I need you to find those recording ships before I jump in my second fleet. They will be moving inward with their fleet. Look for them to be trailing their fleet by 60 minutes travel distance. Bobby, we will have to jump in once that third fleet moves in system 45 minutes, we can’t delay any more than that. That’s how long you have to find them.”
     
    “We’ll do our best, Admiral.”
     
    Time passed slowly then after two hours they watched the second Alliance Fleet disappear from their feed. “Battle stations all ships,” Kosiev ordered. “Hold formation; we’ll wait for them to come to us.”
     
    The Alliance ships broke into normal space just outside the star drive limit and tightened up their formations. The Subleader of the Vgrig saw on his sensors that the Earth Fleet was located an hour’s flight time inside the Jump limit. “All ships; hold formation and begin moving to close on the Earth Fleet; go to full speed.” The Subleader looked at his communications