Star Traders

“Of course they’re going to agree,” Jayne said in answer to Lars question. “They have no choice. We have them by the proverbial short hairs. They are up against a superior force. They will lose if they take on the invaders and they know it. The only thing keeping that bunch from bringing down the rest of their invasion force is the fact that the ground forces on E-1 are holding their own, and then some. The invaders own the air. Any time we get an aircraft within fifty miles of them, they take it down.”

“The question now is: can we turn the tide?” Jake asked.

The three of them were again sitting on the bridge of the Earth Princess. They had come to use the bridge as their main meeting place of late. All communications were there, and they wanted to be close when any calls came in.

“Not much doubt of that, Jake,” Jayne said. “We can fire our missiles at a greater distance than they can. We have an indeterminate range, actually. As long as we can lock onto a target, we can hit it. They, on the other hand, have to be within 50 miles in order for their Lasers to be effective. And they can’t stop our missiles. We can fire them at 10% of the speed of light. Correct me if I’m wrong, Jake, but that’s 18,000 miles per second give or take a few. In less than a second we can hit them. It takes three seconds continuous connection for their lasers to destroy our missiles. Sounds to me like they are over a barrel.”

“On the surface, it sure looks good, Captain,” Lars added. “I can’t see any downside to our position. There’s almost always a surprise in every battle, however. I hope they don’t have any surprises for us.”

“I think they would have used better weapons if they had them,” Jake said, deep in thought, his fingers steeped under his chin. “They’re barely holding their own in the ground action despite the fact they have air superiority. It shows some weakness on their part, and it must be in that they have no better weapons than those they are using. And you are right, Captain, our missiles can be used for offense as well as defense, and our range and speed far outclasses theirs. The only other downside, if there is one, is that we have to get fairly close to be sure of our target. Especially a ground target. We could waste all of our ammunition on absolutely nothing should we try to get their fleet on the ground without specific, individual ship targets. Otherwise it would be just shooting at the moon haphazardly. The backdrop of the surface will guarantee hap hazard strikes at best.”

“How close do we have to get to a target before being sure of a hit?” Jayne asked.

“In space we can do it at almost any distance,” Jake answered. “There’s no litter around out there to accidentally lock onto. The target is the only thing around for thousands of miles. In a space battle it would be no contest. We could beat them hands down. On the ground, however, we will have an advantage, but not as great an advantage as one would think. We can still find a target from a distance, but we won’t be able to pinpoint it unless we get within a few miles of it. That would put us well within the range of their lasers.”

“Damn!” Jayne said. “I thought this was going to be easy!”

“Nothing is easy, Captain,” Lars stated. “But maybe we can run a bluff.”

“How’s that?” Jake asked.

“You say we can beat them in space. Suppose we suck their fleet out into space? That would make them vulnerable. We then knock out whatever comes off the moon. We might be able to do that several times before they get wise to it. We will have demonstrated we can whip them at will. Maybe they will get the message and give up.”

“Don’t I wish!” Jayne said. “The fact is they have never tried to communicate with anyone on earth before. We may not even have the same kind of communications.”

“They have the same as we have, Captain,” Jake said. “We have heard their radio signals with our equipment. They’re just not interested in a palaver from the looks of it.”

“Then I guess we’ll have to force them to the table!” Jayne said grimly. “I think your plan is a good one, Lars. The devil is in the details, however. How can we get them to come after us?”

“That should be simple, Captain,” Lars grinned. “Let’s just take our 22 ships fitted with the Hyperlink drives and stand off just beyond their range. It should drive them crazy. As long as we just sit there and don’t fire on them, they will think we also don’t have the range either. They are bound to come out to us.”

“It could work, Captain!” Jake said excitedly. “We have another advantage over them. As long as we can drop into Hyperlink at will, we can avoid their lasers. We just don’t let them lock onto us for the three seconds they need. We can fire our missiles and drop into Hyperlink quickly!”

“You forgot one thing, Jake. If we jump into and out of Hyperlink that fast, we stand a chance of coming out in a space already occupied by a ship. Especially that close. It may be too chancy.”

“Well, hell, we are faster than they are too. We can outrun their ships.”

“True,” Jayne said, “but not their lasers. And their tracking system is pretty good. We only think they need three seconds to destroy our ships, but suppose the distance is relative? Suppose they can disable at a greater distance, or suppose they don’t need a full three seconds to disable a ship? All they have to do is breach our hull to destroy us. No one said they have to blow us completely out of the ether. And guys, I don’t want to find out the hard way!” Jayne grimaced.

The 24 hours Jayne had given President Ahern to acquire the trade agreement with the rest of the governments of Earth was almost up.

“Do you realize your ship broke all the windows on the south side of the Whitehouse, Captain Rice?” President Ahern said angrily when he answered the first ring of the red phone.

“I would have been disappointed if it didn’t, Ahern,” Jayne said simply. “That was the plan, and I love it when a plan comes together! Get to the important business! Did you get the trade agreement?”

“And I read your book!” he said.

“Oh, stop it! You know and I know you didn’t read the book! You had someone else read it and advise you on it!” Jayne said disgustedly. “Since you know what’s in it, then you also must know why I can’t publicly appear anywhere on Earth. The Muslim countries have vowed to kill me, even after most of their so-called splinter groups have been destroyed. The fact is, a larger than thought percentage of Muslims are fundamentalists and they still want to make their women second class people and kill anyone of any religion except their own. And they are not sure but that they might want to kill those people too.”

President Ahern looked embarrassed at having been caught in the little white lie. “Be that as it may,” he said. “you are not from this Epsilon 4, or whatever you called it. You are from here on Earth, not from another world.”

“Oh, but I am from Epsilon 4, Ahern,” Jayne disagreed with him. “That was the last planet I was on. We have trade relations with them there, just as we expect to have trade relations with Earth, which reminds me of why we are having this conversation. Does Earth want us to save its ass or not?”

“You have a strange way of negotiating, Captain Rice!” the President claimed. “You are not very subtle!”

“If you want someone to walk around you on their tippy toes, Ahern, you are talking to the wrong person! I never liked you and I think you are an obnoxious jerk. But I have to do business with you regardless of the fact I think the American people could have done better with Mickey Mouse, given that choice! Now, get down to business or I go elsewhere. I’m sure the Russians would be glad to see us!” Jayne was livid.

“The main world powers are willing to give you exclusive trading rights. The only holdouts are insignificant. These are mainly the Muslim countries of the Middle East. They seem to think you don’t like them for some reason,” President Ahern said snidely.

“Don’t give me that attitude, Ahern!” Jayne commented. “It doesn’t become the President of the United States to act as childish as you are acting.”

“And you didn’t act childish?”

“Yes, I did, but then, I’m not the President of the United States, either!” Jayne reminded him. “The lack of agreement with the Muslim countries doesn’t worry me. The only thing they have to offer is oil, and before long none of the rest of Earth will need that from them. Our main trade item will be a new power source for Earth. One that is cheaper and much cleaner than oil. It will be many years before we can completely convert Earth to that source, but we are working on it. That’s why we were on Epsilon 4. They have the source, and we can trade with them for it. The other end of that trade will be selected items from an industrial complex such as you have here on Earth. They need certain items only you can provide. Lucky you. If not for that, we would have left you to the invaders.”

“A cruel woman you are, Captain Rice. And we are your own people! How can you say that?” President Ahern looked shocked.

“Oh, stop it, Ahern! You can fool a lot of people with that innocent look, but don’t try it with me! I know you and your group are about as power mad as anyone can be. You’ll do anything to maintain that power. Enjoy it while you can. I expect this will be your first and last term. The people aren’t that stupid, you know. Expect action as soon as you sign the agreement I will be sending you.” Jayne was about to dismiss him again.

“The agreement YOU will send to us? I was thinking more along the lines of you signing the agreement we were going to send to you!” President Ahern informed Jayne.

“Shows where it gets you when you think, Ahern,” Jayne scoffed. “Sign my agreement and have the rest of the coalition do the same. It’s a simple one-page agreement. I would imagine yours is more like a book. You have 48 hours.”

President Ahern looked sheepish. His agreement was 126 pages long.

Jayne signed off.