Nemesis 1: Revenge Is Best Served Hot (18 page)

• • •

Tricky opened his eyes, “The attack is on schedule. Everyone get some rest and we’ll start moving toward the port later today.”

• • •

The Fleet Commander was almost hopeful that another attack wouldn’t happen. Nothing had happened for more than a week and the Principal had recalled half of his ships to assist in an attack on another civilization. He sat in his command chair and wondered how much longer he was going to have to stay on station above the planet. He stared out of his viewport at the distant stars and suddenly his Scan Leader said, “SIRE, I HAVE NUMEROUS EXPLOSIONS AT THE MUNITIONS PORT!!”

He jerked his chair forward and focused his monitor on the city far below. He closed his eyes as he saw numerous giant creatures knocking down building and blaster beams reaching out hitting ships on the ground. He pulled himself together and pressed the last button he wished to press. The Principal appeared and he said, “Sire, there is a massive attack by the giant creatures in the Port City.”

“The Missile Ship will arrive shortly. Follow your orders.”

“Yes, Sire.”

The Scan Leader looked at him, “Are you going to do it?”

The Commander looked at the self-destruct circuit on the back wall and blew out a breath, “Do I have a choice? If I refuse, someone else will do it.”

“There are still three billions civilians on the planet.”

The Commander nodded and then shook his head, “Not for much longer.”

• • •

The crew of the Nemesis watched the destruction taking place on the planet and watched subspace closely. If a track appeared, they would put an antenna in normal space and see what it was. An hour later, a track appeared and they moved the antenna. Grant looked at the monitor, “That has to be the ship they use to destroy planets.”

Whippet nodded, “It has ten giant tubes around the hull and the covers are starting to be rolled back. At the current speed, they should be ready to fire in ten minutes.”

Grant hit the communicator and said, “Tricky, the ship is here. They’ll be firing in about ten minutes.”

“Thanks, Grant.” Tricky closed his eyes and focused.”

Oily was hidden behind a ceiling mounted speaker on the Raider shuttle and he heard Tricky’s call. He looked at the three crewmen on the bridge as he increased his size. He spat small blasts and all three of them disintegrated. He went to the control panel he had been observing for two weeks and pressed the landing bay door button.

The door opened and he stepped out of the small shuttle into the battleship’s landing bay. He faced the front of the giant vessel and spit a massive blue beam. It shot through the ship and vaporized a twenty-foot wide hole through the bridge and out into open space. He walked around to the back of the shuttle and spit another massive blast toward the rear of the stricken ship. He turned toward the battleship’s landing bay door and blasted it away. He rushed into the small shuttle and closed the landing bay door. He lifted it off the floor and flew out of the ship and headed toward the planet far below.

• • •

The Sensor Leader looked at his Ship Commander, “Sire, one of our ships has just been hit. A shuttle has managed to escape and is falling toward the planet.”

“I want to know what fired on that ship! FIND IT NOW!”

“What about the shuttle?”

“The idiot is going to die shortly when the planet is blasted. Find me the ship that attacked!”

• • •

Oily kept the force field active to prevent the shuttle from burning up on entry through the planet’s atmosphere. He roared down to the city being attacked and landed the shuttle in the middle of the Crocs. They rushed toward the shuttle and shrunk to four feet long as they dove through the door. The Spiders on their backs jumped off and climbed on the hull of the shuttle and went to their largest size. The twelve spiders covered the entire hull of the shuttle and four of them moved to the underside as Oily lifted it off the street. Thousands of Raider Warriors fired their blasters at the escaping shuttle but the Spiders absorbed the beams before they could hit the shuttle’s hull. They fired blue beams at the projectiles fired at the shuttle and melted them. The spiders dug their legs into the shuttle’s hull and watched as the planet’s surface moved away from them at high speed. Oily went to full thrusters and the shuttle leaped toward high orbit.

• • •

The Commander of the Missile Ship saw the red light illuminate on his panel and took a deep breath. This was something he did not want to do. He looked down at the planet and saw the massive destruction in the coastal cities but there were other cities that were undamaged where billions were still alive. He shook his head. The Principal had ordered it and it was a death sentence if he didn’t obey. He looked at his Second-in-Command and said, “Missiles are free.”

The second pressed a button on his console and stared at the Commander for a moment before he said, “Missiles are free.”

The Commander paused and offered a quick prayer that his soul wouldn’t be lost because of this and then pressed the red button. The ship shook as twelve missiles left their launch tubes.

• • •

The Scan Leader yelled, “Sire, I have a shuttle leaving the planet with those creatures on its hull.”

The Commander looked at his display, “What about the giant creatures?”

“We can only see the multi-legged creatures.”

The Commander slammed his communicator, “Abort the launch! Abort the launch!”

The Commander of the Missile Ship heard the order and turned white. He pressed his communicator, “It’s too late, Sire. They launched ten seconds ago.”

The Commander stared at his panel and waited fifty seconds as the Planet Killing Missiles moved over the planet to the coordinates they were assigned and then dove toward the planet. In another thirty seconds, he saw a giant flash and the planet went up in flames. The atmosphere caught fire and blew away from the stricken planet and the surface was burned down to bedrock. The destruction appeared to start in twelve huge blasts and then they moved across the planet’s surface until the entire planet was black. He shook his head as he watched the blackness engulf giant cities and vaporize them. His sorrow was interrupted by his Scan Leader, “Sire, that shuttle has cleared atmosphere and is heading directly toward our ships.”

The Commander saw the shuttle glowing bright blue and he stood up, “Jump us away from here now!”

The Jump Leader dialed in two thousand miles and pressed the jump button. The other Raider warships turned and began opening fire at the tiny shuttle moving toward them. It began glowing brighter blue and then it was in their ranks. Warships began exploding in large numbers as huge blue beams blew through their force fields and hulls. The shuttle turned toward the largest concentration of ships and the Commander saw on his display that nothing they fired at the tiny shuttle had any effect. He yelled, “Get them out of there! Order them to jump away!”

There were four hundred Raider warships above the planet before the shuttle arrived. When the last Raider ship disappeared into subspace, two hundred and sixteen of them were left behind burning in space. Tricky pressed his communicator and the Nemesis appeared in normal space. Oily flew the shuttle into the landing bay and the ship disappeared leaving more than two hundred ships behind that were exploding in space and a giant rock that had once been a living planet.

G
rant looked up, “Ana, jump us to the Animal’s planet.”

“Jumping in ten seconds.”

Grant stood up and went to the landing bay to join Cinny and Whippet.

• • •

Cinny and Grant sat beside a fire one of the Spiders had started to keep them warm during the cool evening. Winter was approaching and the night temperatures were falling into the forties. Cinny watched the animals celebrating the return of the first expedition and they were really excited. “They really know how to celebrate.”

Grant nodded. He watched a young Spider leap over a tall tree as two young Crocs bellowed their approval. Whippet was fully accepted by the group and the Crocs begged him to ride them through the forest. Grant looked over to the edge of the forest and saw ten ants watching the gathering. He knew the Ant’s mother was seeing what was going on and he wondered if she was going to do something about the additional animals. The Ants weren’t moving and that was a good sign.

Iggy, Slick, Tricky and Slippy came walking over to them and Grant sat up straighter against the tree trunk he and Cinny were lying against. Grog came walking over and Iggy looked at him, “I didn’t request your presence.”

“I know, Father, but if you’re going to discuss future attacks, I feel I should be present.”

“Why?”

Grant said, “If he thinks his presence is needed, he should be allowed to stay.”

Iggy looked at Grog and nodded his huge head. Slick said, “We think that our children can land on the next planet without endangering your ship.”

Cinny sat up straighter, “Oh?”

“You saw how the shuttle they took was able to destroy their most powerful ships. It should be quite capable of moving through their defenses and releasing the next ones assigned to attack the Raiders.”

Grant looked at Iggy, “Do you agree with this?”

“They were quite effective.”

Grant stared at them for a moment and Iggy said, “We’ll leave the shuttle in orbit above the planet and it will fend off any ships the Raiders send.”

Grant noticed Grog was squirming and he said, “Grog, what’s bothering you?”

“I’m worried about that.”

Slick said, “About what?”

“Leaving the shuttle in orbit.”

Slippy looked at his friend and said, “What has you concerned?”

“Do you remembered what happened after the nuclear blast went off?”

Slippy tilted his head, “Not really. I do remember you taking me in your mouth.”

Grant looked at Tricky, “Who was your partner during the attack?”

“Biggy.”

Iggy looked out at the lagoon and roared. A huge Croc came running over and Iggy said, “This is my oldest hatchling, Biggy.”

Grant looked at the giant, “Biggy, do you remember when you and Tricky were hit by a nuclear explosion?”

Biggy shook his huge head up and down, “How can one ever forget it?”

Grog said, “Biggy, immediately after the blast that hit us, I found Slippy was highly disoriented.”

Biggy snorted a laugh, “Tell me about it. Tricky was singing for the Raiders to launch another missile.”

Tricky looked at Biggy, “I was what?”

“You were singing at the top of your voice for them to launch another missile. I had to grab you by the legs and pull you into the ocean. After a while you came to your senses and went into my mouth.”

Slippy looked at Grog, “I don’t remember being disoriented.”

“Trust me on this one, Slippy, you were out of it.”

The group remained silent for a minute and Cinny said, “It appears a nuclear explosion overloads your senses. You must absorb too much power too quickly and it’s like a human being drunk.”

Iggy looked at Cinny, “Why should this bother you?”

Grant leaned forward, “I suspect the Raiders now know that the Spiders are immune to their strongest blasters so I don’t expect them to use them in the future. However, what would happen if they fired one of those planet killing missiles at the shuttle?”

Tricky looked at Slippy and then looked at Grant, “Now that would be a great meal.”

Grant smiled, “And if all of you covering the shuttle’s hull was disoriented at the same time?”

Grog said, “They would leave part of the shuttle’s hull uncovered and the next blast would destroy it leaving them floating in space.”

Iggy looked at Grog, “This is why you wanted to be here?”

“It is. It would also place all of us in danger as well.”

Slick looked at Grog, “I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying.”

“What if the shuttle is attacked before we’re taken down to the planet? That huge missile that was used to destroy the planet would kill us. We saw how Hoady died when two blasts hit him in short order.”

Iggy looked at Slick and shook his head, “We haven’t thought this through.” Slick bobbed once in agreement.

Cinny nodded and said, “Your plan to use the shuttle to take your children down to the planet will work; you just have to use two shuttles.” The six giants looked at Cinny and she said, “One shuttle will go in and attack the Raider ships in orbit as a second shuttle blows through them for the planet’s surface. Once the second shuttle is in atmosphere, the first shuttle will continue their attack but not stay in one place very long. After the others are on the planet’s surface, it will jump away.”

Iggy said, “Why would we have it leave?”

“Because we don’t want them to uncover the Spider’s disorientation by a nuclear blast. The longer we can keep that hidden the better.”

“But what about the ones on the planet?”

“The Crocs will pull their partners away if they’re disoriented. They’ll also have a shuttle they can use to escape if another planet killer shows up. We want the Raiders to use their nuclear weapons against our attackers. They did much more damage than anything the first mission accomplished.”

Iggy looked at Grant, “Do you agree with this?”

Grant tilted his head, “Cinny is the best tactician between us. She see’s things I often miss.”

“There is another problem that the shuttles will have.” Everyone looked at Cinny and she continued, “With every square inch of the shuttles covered in Spider, the pilot won’t be able to use its scanners to see what’s going on around it.”

Tricky went up on his legs, “That won’t really be a problem for very long.”

Slick said, “Why is that?”

“We are starting to see things through each other’s eyes, Father. Oily and I have made mental contact and he can see everything I see.”

The gathering was struck silent. Grant stared at the young spider and said, “Use your mind to call him over.”

“I don’t have to, he’s been listening to us.”

The group turned and saw another Spider walking toward them from the lagoon. Iggy and Slick were stunned by what they saw. Oily arrived and Iggy said, “Oily, close your eyes and tell me what Tricky sees.” Oily closed his eyes and Iggy motioned Grant and Cinny to stand up. They stood and Oily said, “Our two friends just went to their legs.”