Читать книгу Adventures of Space Cadets 101: Weddings - Darryl Dean Wright - Страница 13

The four Turtle ships came around Jupiter doing light-speed plus. It would only take ten minutes to reach Sol. There was no way ED could catch up or even fire on them now. They were way too fast.

Chung said, "Coming up quickly on the asteroid-belt, Sir."

Deana said, "All ships fire our special torpedoes." Back on the Turtle, the four ships were loaded with extremely fast fifty-megaton nuclear warheads. All four ships let loose with all ten each warheads. That opened a corridor for them to sail through. Good thing sound doesn't travel in space.

Mars was the first to shoot its long range laser. Hydrogen fusion lanced out with a deadly discharge. Earth's moon didn't take long to follow suit with its prodigious amount of energy. Deana looked at Kim and nodded, and Kim sent out a narrow broadcast beam at both of the platforms. Before the beams reached any of the Turtle ships, both lasers went silent. Now all they had to do was fly through maybe a thousand ships without hitting any of them or being hit by any of them.

The President was furious. "What do you mean we lost our lasers on the moon and Mars?"

The defense minister said, "They received some sort of virus from the head Turtle ship and shut down completely."

But the President would not be deterred. He turned to everybody in the room and said, "You see why we have to get rid of these people?" Then he provoked a flurry of profanity for the room to hear. Admiral Moore said, "Sir, you ordered over a hundred ED personnel to their deaths on JR's platform."

The President got really loud, "Yes, but we got that son of a bitch, didn't we? Hopefully the Seals have taken his brothers out." He was known for gambling on long shots. He had some spit on his face that he wiped off with his hanky. "Where is that damn Turtle and why are four of its ships here anyways?" the unscrupulous sociopathic man demanded.

Admiral Moore said, "Something about some lion people blowing up our sun is what they said."

The President laughed and said, "That's preposterous. Has everyone lost their minds? I want every ship we have ordered to take out those four ships NOW!" He was through with commentary.

All four ships were passing Earth and all its ED ships. All Earth Defense could do was watch and give chase.

Qworn said at tactical, "Sir, I'm picking up an ED ship passing Mercury now. It is the only ship on our long range sensors."

Deana turned to Jamie Lee at the science console and asked her, "Who is it and are they carrying anything that might go boom and take our sun with it?"

Jamie answered, "Our scans can't penetrate their haul, not due to radiation, but because our scans just bounce off it."

Deana said, "Like a Leonsian ship, huh? We aren't going to make it in time, are we?"

Qworn turned to her and said, "If we do, there's no room for error, Sir."

Deana asked Kim to open all hailing frequencies, and Kim asked, "To whom, Sir?"

Deana said, "To anyone in front of us. I know there's no one there, but I have to try."

Kim said, "All channels open, Sir."

Deana said, "I don't know if anyone can hear me, but I plead someone does. There is a ship with a nova-bomb on it that will blow up our sun if no one stops it. We didn't find out until it was too late. An alien race came to this solar system to conquer my planet, Earth. We fought them back, but one must have gotten by us. My husband- to-be says to never give up hope, and he never turned down help, so I beg you please stop that ship before it reaches yours and my Sun … Please."

The four Turtle ships were passing Venus. Deana felt something, almost like a feeling from Derek, but not quite the same. She stood up and closed her eyes. She opened up her mind and listened.

"WE WILL STOP THEM, NEIGHBORS. STAY AWAY!"

Deana told Kim to tell the other three ships to come to a stop, and then she told Pilot Chung to come to a complete halt. SSSaa's ship stopped but Nick's and Tim's kept going. The two that kept going asked Kim if her captain had lost her mind, when all of a sudden, a quick thick beam of white, bright, light shot out of Mercury, and it totally disintegrated the Lexington!

Nick and Tim's ship immediately turned back towards Deana's ship. They both were up on a split-screen asking her how she could have known.

She smiled and said, "That just became classified, Captains." Nick did not like the answer, so he cut the connection, but Johnson was used to that kind of answer, so he smiled back and saluted her. She closed her eyes and sent a mental "Thank you" to her saviors, but received no reply.

On Mercury, the silicone people that lived there were hard at work in their caves. Morg asked his brother, "Are they leaving?"

Borg said, "Yes they are, so now we can get back to work." They both turned around to their computers which were … different … from ours. Their computers consisted of human brains that stored enormous data on them. They stayed cool by swimming in nitrogen gas and they were hooked up to oxygen connectors that looked like arteries.

It was a good thing they had those kinds of computers because Deana might not have gotten through to the silicone people if her thoughts had not come up on every one of their screens. The human head computers saved everybody.

As their two ships caught up to Deana and SSSaa, Tim and Nick both came up on her screen as it split in two to show them both. Nick said, "We have a problem."

Qworn said, "It looks like we have eight hundred ships coming our way, Sir."

Deana said, "Out of the fire and into the frying pan. OK gentlemen form up on me."

Derek was knocking on Austen's door again. Austen opened it and asked, "This isn't going to be a habit is it?"

Amy asked Derek in but he said, "No thank you." He looked at his brother and said, "It is another feeling. There was a nova bomb, but not anymore; they did it."

Austen asked, "That's good news, but?"

Derek said, "We still have to get there. They're still in trouble."

Austen said, "OK, that's where we are headed," and he shut the door on Derek.

Derek said, "Good night, Brother," and he went back to the bridge.

The Turtle entered the Sol System by Mars and was immediately swarmed by Leonsian ships. Austen was talking with the President who was demanding that Austen and Derek surrender themselves, but Austen thought that the President stepping down was a better idea. The President said that he had Austen's family, including his mother, in prison along with all his crew's families.

Austen said, "Step down now or we'll shut down Earth Defense all together, and then we'll be coming for Earth and you, President Paul. Believe me when I say that this is not a threat."

The President laughed and said, "Bring it on, Turtle boys."

By then the Turtle was being shot at but had received no hits yet. Austen said, "Turtle, activate the JR-nanites we hid on all the Leonsian ships in ED. Have the nanites shut down on the Mars and Lunar facilities, and in the shipyards." A chest-crushing sensation of guilt inhibited his every breath. He was about to commit mass murder on a scale that could not compare to history.

Turtle said, "Yes Sir, this will cause over fifty-thousand deaths. Please confirm."

Austen said, "Confirmation, code ELVIS 2 B."

On the other side of Mars, four Turtle ships had been fighting for their lives and had taken some damage. There were no casualties yet, but it was a numbers game. All of a sudden on every Leonsian ship there was a major hull breach. On the Moon and on Mars where there used to be installations, now there was nothing but ED bodies floating in the vacuum of space. It was the same at the shipyards. Even the number of ED sub-ships had hull breaches where their Nano-screens turned into nanites which ate through to the bottom of their ships. It was by far the Houstons' easiest war and biggest regret.

Post-traumatic stress, an emotional repercussion from his highly enormous dealing of this situation in killing fifty-thousand innocent ED military personnel, and now the horrendous tableau of decompressing human bodies floating in space, and the guilt like a pain now sharper than any blade was piercing his guts. He thought that the only cure for war was peace, and if he did not end the war then, the President was sure to kill all his innocent hostages, which were now Austen's next priority.

His second guessing and questioning of so much loss of life would keep him up at night, but he was sure that his brother would have done the same thing, because Earth Defense was in the process of trying to destroy Deana's ship when he entered the solar system. He hated Galactic politics, but nine hundred kilometers below him the President's illicit orders and guerrilla interdictions had to be stop. He was glad that Derek had not had to give the order because he was sure he was stronger than his little brother was.

When Austen was notified that it was over and done with, he asked the Turtle to reactivate the nanites. Now all of the installations were back to operational and all of the ships were whole again. There were ED personnel alive at the installations and on the ships, but they had been decimated by Austen via the Turtle.

Austen saw the Turtle's four ships coming his way, so he told the Turtle to let them in. He also saw they each had significant damage, and he knew they were definitely running out of time.

Deana came on the bridges screen and said, "We are so glad to see you guys. We were getting a little worried. All our ships have damage and need some patch work, but I'm glad to report no casualties."

Austen said, "Job well done, Captain, and welcome home." He was so glad to see her.

Deana said, "Well we had help. It will be in my report. Is Derek sleeping?" Austen said he was interested in her report and that Derek was sleeping. Deana said, "Not for long, and it's good to be home, Sir." She gave orders to shut down her ship in repose at the Q-hangar bay.

During the next shift, Earth was surrounded by almost every ship the Turtle could send out including most of the Caprices and JR's fleet. Derek asked the President once again to step down, but President Paul refused to. He refused even to believe that all ED space craft had been shut down. He ordered the Air Force to engage the alien ships, but Admiral Moore would not give the order because he remembered what happened the last time the Houstons and their advanced ship took on Earth.

The President said, "I'll do it myself!" He was fed up with his underlings and their fright.

Derek was letting everybody in the President's room know about their chief's order that sent ED to kill over one thousand and eight hundred people on the defense platform. He told them about the unlawful order that sent twenty-eight people to their deaths on the planet Kess as they tried to assassinate the Houstons. And then he told them all that the President had started the illegal war even knowing the power of the Turtle. He went on to say, "He shut down our company on Earth and froze our accounts, and illegally arrested the families of our crew. Overall, he is just a bad man!"

Just then, a Nano-JR beamed in behind the President and shot him in the back of the head. The general in the room tried to jump JR but now lay unconscious on the floor. N-JR put his hands in the air but he didn't drop his sidearm. He had a piece of paper in his other hand for everyone else there to sign.

Derek said, "My brother is holding the paper for Earth's unconditional surrender. You will let the vice-president take over the job of speaking for Earth after you let our company, finances, and families go free, or we will rain hell-fire all over Earth."

Admiral Moore said, "We will sign your armistice cease fire, but you are causing riots all over Earth with all your alien ships hovering everywhere in our atmosphere."

Derek said, "Have everyone in the room sign it and then have Mrs. Johnson, the new President sign the accordance. Once we beam our brother back onboard, we will start to collect our fleet. By the way, due to blind orders and all, we will be taking over Earth Defense. That is, our company, which ED will pay one hundred trillion dollars to for illegally shutting us down, because we have share-holders to answer to. From now on we will make the decisions for our Solar System."

Everybody in the room agreed to Derek's terms, and truth be told, they were glad the President was being replaced.

Deana's mother begged her daughter to come back home, but Deana refused. She also told her mother that she was finally engaged with Derek Houston, and her mom was happy for her.

Derek, Austen and JR talked to their mother too. Derek said he was engaged and his mother knew who he was talking about. She said that it was about time and she was mad at him for taking so long. Austen said that he was engaged also. His mother hadn't met his fiancé yet, and they didn't have time to meet just yet because they were very busy right then.

After all of the Turtle's ships were back at home, Austen and Derek asked JR what he was going to do now. JR said, "What? Are you kidding? I've just been promoted to admiral of the fleet. There are a lot of survivors to rescue. I'll need my fleet full of Nano-droids and Caprices, and I can save all the ones trapped in the new space-graveyard that Austen created.

Austen said, "That's great and no problem. Just stay away from Mercury."

JR said, "Like you needed to say that. Who knows, I might be President by the time you idiots show back up." JR was wearing a homicidal gleam on his dark complexion.

Derek said, "I've seen a lot of scary things, but that really frightens me."

JR hit him in his arm and said, "I want to see my nephews before you all leave."

Nick came up on the Houstons and said, "I didn't mean to eavesdrop, Bros., but I wouldn't mind being an admiral too." He was leaning conspiratorially close listening in. This was his big break and he was not about to let it just pass him by.

Derek and Austen said, "Sure, we'll miss you. Don't do anything we wouldn't do."

JR, who knew Nick, smiled and said, "Sure thing but you work for me, OK?"

Nick said, "That's fine with me. You don't have as many rules as the Turtle has."