SWNOVELS Chapter 19 - Earth
50,000 Miles From Earth
The image of planet HG-281 filled the view screen in the master control room of sub-commander Gwess Hakwerr’s mother ship. He had to admit Hisspat Zeck had found an appealing world for colonization. Blue water covered large portions of the globe, and the varying shades of green on the land masses indicated a landscape filled with lush vegetation. Typing in a series of commands on his input console, he ordered his computer to display all machinery orbiting the planet. Instantly, hundreds of orange-tinted dots arrayed themselves across his screen.
“Interesting,” he mused. “The bipedal Humans have formed an orbital network of mechanical satellites. I wonder what their purpose might be?”
Keying another sequence, he had the master computer analyze the output of the various satellites and found they were primarily communications hardware. The largest of the satellites was a conglomeration of tubes with long, wing-like appendages Hakwerr recognized as solar power panels. His sensors indicated there were six Human animals aboard the satellite, and he almost laughed out loud at the primitive construction.
The ring of mother ships closed to within 45,000 miles of the planet’s surface, and so far, the only indication the Humans had seen the Chrysallaman ships was the increased communications now clogging the electronic net connecting all the satellites.
Flipping the switch on his ship-to-ship communicator, Hakwerr advised all the other group leaders of his findings.
Rasshur Grr answered him matter-of-factly, “One of my group is targeting the primitive, tube shaped pile of garbage as we speak. Ah, there it goes.”
Just as he finished his sentence, the image of the largest satellite exploded in a cascading shower of flaming debris. There was so little oxygen in the satellite, the flames winked out almost immediately, leaving only drifting pieces of black glass and metallic, structural beams.
“That ought to provoke a reaction,” Hakwerr grinned.
40,000 Miles From Earth
Tom watched in horrified fascination as the Hubble telescope captured the destruction of the International Space Station. One moment the ISS was on his screen, the next it was blown into a thousand pieces.
“Six lives gone.” he muttered and pounded the top of his desk in anger, splintering the thick, wooden top as if it was made of balsa wood.
Looking ruefully at the bashed-in top of his desk, Tom rushed out of his office toward the communications suite. Hurrying over to the pulpit on the raised platform, he turned on the wall-sized monitor and brought up a Hubble transmission of the destroyed ISS with the approaching mother ships in the background. A digital meter displayed in the upper right-hand corner of the screen showed how far out the alien fleet was from Earth. 40,000 miles.
Suddenly each mother ship released five saucer-shaped scouts. The scouts formed a line in front of the mother ships as the ring formation circling the Earth tightened inexorably.
Beale walked up and watched the approaching horde. “My guess is they’ll begin taking out all our communications satellites. It’s a good thing we kept the Hubble telescope in such a low orbit. At 550 miles, it should be one of the last satellites they destroy.”
Sure enough, as the digital meter counted down to 30,000 miles, bright streaks of silvery light stabbed out from each scout ship. Hundreds of satellites in geosynchronous orbit began to explode. The satellites were too small to show on the wall-sized monitor, but as each one exploded, a brief flash indicated its position. Tom was astounded at the accuracy of the Chrysallaman weaponry.
The warfare advantage of spacecraft was frightening. All the Earthbound military theorists had been correct. The Chrysallamans could float in space out of the range of any rockets the people of Earth could launch. Not only that, their craft were faster than anything created by Humans, even the F-35 Lightning. All they had to do was turn on their lightspeed drives and instantly retreat from any perceived danger. Like it or not, Tom knew he was going to have to wait for the Chrysallamans to get comfortable with their takeover of Earth before he could order the one and only attack that could possibly wipe out the alien threat once and for all.
The digital meter on the wall monitor kept counting down as the enemy fleet drew nearer. Just as the counter reached 5,000 miles, hundreds of smoke trails rose from the Earth. Kurstow had launched the nuclear missiles.
5,000 Miles From Earth
Sub-commander Tuurket Axxdo chuckled as he watched the smoke trails rise toward his ships from the planet’s surface.
“At last,” he thought. “We get a defensive reaction.”
Quickly typing a series of commands, he instructed his master computer to determine the weaponry aboard the primitive rockets. It advised him the rockets were each armed with multiple, Level 50 nuclear warheads. Along with a few other factual tidbits of information, it told him the range of the rockets was approximately 9,000 miles.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he chortled as he pressed the stud on his control console enabling fleet communications.
“To all warships. The primitive rocket -propelled weapons approaching from the planet’s surface are Level 50 atomics. Their guidance systems are rudimentary, controlled by solid-state electronics our ancestors were toying with 200 years ago. The range of the missiles is ridiculously short. I suggest we use 90% of them for target practice and return the other 10% to their ground-based launchers as a reminder not to anger their future masters.”
He received unanimous approval from the other sub-commanders followed by an enthusiastic okay from General Zeck.
A wicked glint sparkled in his eyes as he entered the commands on his console instructing the master computer to override the programmed flight controls of the thousands of rudimentary rockets thundering up from the planet’s surface.
Keying his transceiver for ship-to-ship communications, Axxdo sent a thought command to all the scouts, “All scouts, target the incoming rockets and destroy them. Don’t harm any rockets I’m redirecting back to the planet.”
4,300 Miles From Earth
Tom watched the nuclear-tipped rockets blasting their way toward the approaching alien fleet with a modicum of hope. The smoke trails left by the rockets made it easy to track their positions as they closed on the alien saucers. Suddenly, hundreds of smoke trails began ending in whitish, red-streaked explosions that appeared like Fourth of July fireworks rockets detonating in a dark sky. None of the smoke trails came anywhere near the Chrysallaman ships. The 1,000 foot proximity detonators were useless.
A numbing chill coursed down his spine as Blunt watched some of the smoke trails turn in a U-shape and streak back towards Earth. Grasping the meaning of the reversals, Tom stabbed at his intercom button and called for Major Kurstow.