Annihilation: The Power of a Queen (2 page)

“I’m available anytime you need me,” Danielle responded nervously.

Please sit down,” and the small woman indicated a chair facing them and Danielle sat down. “We know you’re probably curious about why we asked you here and I’m going to let Sung Lea Yung explain our reasons to you.”

She looked to the right as a woman stood up and said, “Most people don’t know how the members of our group here are chosen. We’re called Special Forces because every one of us is endowed with some form of psychic ability. Our talents are very special and taken together constitute a very important tool for protecting mankind. It was Tam Dillon,” and she looked to her right at an old man with grey hair and mustache stood up and nodded to Danielle, “that felt your husband’s psychic aura and began our quest to find him and bring him into our group. Tag leads this group because his psychic strength and talents are superior to any other member of this team. But more than that, I told the group that the Human Race was doomed unless he was made our leader. You see, my particular talent is that I can psychically see possible futures and in every future I envisioned we were destroyed except the one where Tag was made our leader. My visions didn’t reveal if we ultimately survive, but it didn’t show us being annihilated in the near future. Now my visions have become clearer and other details have been revealed. Those details involve you.”

Danielle listened to the young woman and noticed that she had a presence that could almost be felt. She was tall for a human of Asian ancestry and her green eyes were unusually bright. She had on a navy blue jumpsuit and looked Danielle in the eye as she talked. “Me! Wait a minute. You’re able to tell the future,” Danielle said changing the subject trying to absorb what she was hearing.

“No. I’m able to see possible futures and any of them can happen depending on the outcome of critical events. Our group exists to try and do things that cause the best possible future to take place and avoid making a critical error when one of those events happens. Once a new future starts happening, then new possible futures appear. Do you understand?”

Danielle furrowed her brow, “Yes, I think I do. When you made Tag your leader the other possible futures without him in that position were no longer possible but there are other possible directions the future can go after the decision was made. Is that right?”

“Yes,” Sung Lea nodded approvingly, “I see you understand. I try to find the critical events that cause multiple futures and make sure we do what causes the most successful future to take place. There are new possible futures where we are still destroyed even with him as our leader. The best possible future in my visions right now has you involved heavily in it.”

Danielle was nervous about asking the next question but she said anyway, “What kind of involvement?”

“You are going to have to be with your husband at every battle or confrontation with the Alliance. Your job with the Security Division will end with this meeting and you will be made a member of the SFT. Tam Dillon will be stepping down partly because we may only have eight members and he has requested to be replaced to spend time with his wife in their latter years.”

Danielle looked at the group for a long moment then said, “I thought you had to have strong psychic skills to be a member of your group.”

Sung Lea looked Danielle directly in the eye and said, “Danielle, you know you have psychic skills. You are able to see the truth in any situation and quite frankly, your skills are as strong, or stronger, than anyone else on this group other than your husband. I think you already know this at some level. After the initial contact with Thomas Gardner your psychic skills increased dramatically.”

“What do you mean increased?”

“Danielle, we are able to see psychic auras of people with psychic skills. Before you made contact with Tag, we did not sense yours. Afterwards, your aura was clearly visible and is getting stronger. We really don’t understand how that happened but we know that it did.”

That statement surprised Danielle but then she thought, “Why didn’t you discuss this with Tag before telling me?”

Alesia stood and said, “Because he will resist this with all his power; he will not willingly allow you to be put in danger especially where a fleet action is happening. However, I must get you and he to understand that unless you are present with him our race will die within six months and possibly sooner than that if you miss the Cainth invasion.”

Danielle looked into the woman’s face then back at Sung Lea; she could feel the truth of what they were saying. She also knew with her talent for seeing the truth that Sung Lea would never lie about something so important. “So what must I do?”

Alesia gave a heavy sigh and said, “We have an Empire Class Battleship waiting in orbit to take you to him. You will need to move quickly because he will be jumping out of system within eighteen hours. We will try to delay him until you arrive, but he may not cooperate because of his fear for your safety. If we have to we will have your ship follow him.”

“Atlas,” Danielle thought, “can you get me there in time?”

“Plan to leave your living quarters within the hour.”

“Thank you for your offer of transportation, but I’ll arrange my own,” Danielle told the group.

They all started speaking at once and she said over them, “I’ll get there in time. If I’m not there in six hours, then you can provide a battleship.”

That silenced them. They all looked at her then looked at each other. Then Alesia said, “It will be done as you say. However, nothing can get there in six hours; star drives do not work this close to the sun and nothing can go faster than the speed of light in normal space. Are you certain of arriving in time? This is a critical event.”

Danielle could tell they all had numerous questions about how she could possibly get there so quickly, but Sung Lea said, “This is not something we need to inquire about. Let her go her way in peace. Danielle, you are now co-leader of the SFTwith your husband. The only authority over you is yourself. We will notify the Director and Tag of this change in six hours and 20 minutes.”

“Thank you but now I must go home and pack.”

“We have an emergency shuttle on the roof waiting to take you. You’ll arrive at your quarters in less than ten minutes. We will inform Inspector Connor about the change.”

“How did you know I would go?”

Sung Lea smiled, “This is the future all the others branch off. This meeting is the critical event. I’ve already seen the other futures begin to disappear when you entered the room; it’s not in you to refuse to help when you’re needed. Contact us upon your arrival with the fleet.”

Danielle turned and ran from the room.

“Admiral, do we have any idea how many ships the Cainth Empire has remaining in their fleet,” Tag asked as he replayed the battle counting the Cainth ships that had been destroyed. “I think we’ve destroyed eight hundred in both battles.”

Kosiev looked at his screen and said, “That’s accurate but we have no idea of their total numbers. I would think that they would have as many as we do but we’re been overbuilding because of their threat. I don’t really think they have been threatened for hundreds of years and it’s an economic drain to maintain a huge fleet. I would guess between 1,800 and 3,000,” Kosiev answered.

Tag reached over and poured himself a stimulant drink and leaned back in his chair. “Let’s try and figure this out. Would they use half their ships to ensure our destruction?”

Kosiev thought a minute and looked back at the screen and rewound it to the frame of the Alliance fleet as they emerged into our solar system. We know they sent two hundred of their ships to Ross. The remaining Alliance ships from all participants totaled about 1,200 that came back from the destruction of the Grendap. I think it would be safe to assume that they would use 20% in their initial plans.”

“Why not more ships?” Tag asked.

“Remember, they had no idea of our number of ships. They wouldn’t feel threatened enough to use more plus their colonial empire would require some of the fleets presence. They thought we were limited to two space ports and their estimate would be low if they used that to figure our numbers. I think 20% is about right initially. Once they lost the two hundred ships at Ross, then their threat estimate went up and they sent an additional four hundred ships. If four hundred represents 20% then they should have 1,200 plus those that escaped. So a good guess would be between thirteen hundred and eighteen hundred remaining.”

“Admiral, do we need more ships than the two hundred survivors? I really don’t want the Alliance to think we have more than the three hundred and fifty we used in the last battle. If we show up with more than two hundred then there will be questions about our total that I would prefer to delay. Is the mix of ships the right ratio?”

“Our ratio is actually stronger than the original mix because the majority of the ships we lost were cruisers and destroyers. We had fifty Empire Class Battleships at the start of the battle and lost nine. The Alliance ships that jumped to safety at the end of the battle saw the ten battleships we used to destroy the sentries in the outer system as they moved in to assist in the mop up so we can include them in our totals.” Kosiev rubbed his chin and said, “Our seven squadrons will now have thirty ships instead of fifty but one third of them will be battleships now instead of one of five. I actually think that this is a better number to manage than fifty. The ratio of battleships to the others will make it easier to discharge the screens of the support ships. Now every battleship will have only two ships to support instead of four. The majority of our losses were due to ships that would have been used to discharge other’s screens weren’t available after they had been destroyed.”

“Did we learn anything else from our tactics,” Tag asked?

“Yes we did. In both of the battles so far we have had our ships preselect targets and rush in and attack them. As a result, our ships lost contact with the battleships that would decharge their screens, which led to their destruction. We are now going to do it another way. We have found that Alliance tactics are to try and gang up on our Battleships. It’s no longer necessary to chase them, they will come to us. In our next battle, we will hold our line together and go thru the middle of their formations. The two smaller ships will place themselves above and below to make maximum use of the larger ship’s screen. They will maintain that position thru out the conflict.”

“Then you’ve reorganized the makeup of the squadrons and practiced the new maneuvers.”

“Yes and our rearming should be completed in two hours. The provisions will be completed an hour later.”

“Then we should be ready to leave shortly,” Tag said. “I’ll inform the Director. I’m also going to have an additional hundred ships ready to jump to support us in the event we have misjudged their number of ships.”

“That’s a good idea but why only a hundred? Why don’t you make it two hundred ships?” Kosiev suggested

Tag looked at the display and said, “Good idea. Why take a risk when we would have to reveal we have more ships anyway if we called them in. Let’s make it three hundred and they can be learning the new attack tactics while they’re waiting. You might also get Fleet operations and start training the other 6,000 ships on those tactics.” Tag lifted his com and said, “Open a channel to Central Command; I would like to talk with them about the additional ships.” He sat and tapped his foot to the rhythm of warships exploding on his screen. Then he remembered and thought, “I wonder what they wanted with Danielle?”

Danielle arrived home and rushed in to pack her bags. She looked in her closets and they were empty. “Atlas, have you been busy?”

“Yes, Danielle. I’ve already transported your belongings and you can choose on the way to the fleet what you want to take; I’ll return the rest.”

“Where are you?”

“Just a moment, I think the SFT are curious about your method of departure. The shuttle that brought you here has a camera on your quarters and is remaining stationary above your dwelling. Go in your bathroom and close the door. I’ll extend a corridor you can walk thru to leave.”

Danielle did as he asked and when she closed the door she saw a round hole in the wall extending toward the balcony. She entered it and walked into Atlas’ port. “They couldn’t see me could they, Atlas?”

“No, and they are going to wonder after some time has gone by why you haven’t come out.”

“Oh, well. You can’t know everything,” Danielle said as she started going thru her belongings selecting what she was going to take. “How are you going to get me to Tag without being seen?”

“Pretty much the same way; I’ll run a corridor into Tags cabin on the Washington and you just walk in with your bags. It will be up to you to explain how you got there. You might want to finish packing your bags now so you can take them with you. We should be there in less than ten minutes”

“Holy groad, Atlas; you can get to Jupiter that quick.”

“I’m going to jump there this time. So hurry up and get ready to leave.”

“Tag was right; you really don’t have a jump limit. I’m glad that everyone else has to be outside Jupiter’s orbit to use a star drive otherwise we would have no warning of uninvited guests.”