Star Traders

A message from E-6 was received at midnight of the day after loading of the Gravity Wells was completed. The duty communications officer woke Jayne immediately and handed it to her.

Jayne rubbed the sleep from her eyes and began reading the message.

To: Earth Princess.

From: Command, E-6, Sol System.

Subj.: Attack on E-1.

Attn: Captain Jayne Rice.

Captain Rice:

Shortly after your departure we were apprised of an emergency situation on E-1. The Earth has been attacked by entities as yet unknown to us. As information continues to come in, we will inform you of the latest developments.

The reason for doing this now is to ask for your help should you be in a position to study the defense systems of the participants in the conflict on Epsilon 4. Your information concerning the defenses you used to outwit the Epsilon 4 people have been noted and passed on to ship commanders sent to E-1 to assist in their defense.

Our supply of the necessary equipment for transfer into Hyperlink is limited however, and will take some time to manufacture. Please pass any additional information on to us should you have a contribution.

Eric Tanner

Command, E-6.

Jayne immediately set up a meeting with Jake and Lars to show them the message.

“Wow!” Jake commented with wide eyes, “I wonder where the attackers came from?”

“One thing is for sure,” Lars added. “They’re not Larn. There are no Larn or Dran on any of the worlds in the Sol systems except E-6. They must be native of the Universe containing E-1 as Earthmen are.”

“Which means they could be far ahead of us technologically speaking,” Jake said thoughtfully. “We just don’t have enough information yet. For instance, do they have Gravity Wells? That would make a difference here because we can offer a defense against that power source. If they don’t have Gravity Well power, we may need explosives to take them out.”

“I need something positive, guys,” Jayne said. “Negatives we have. What do we have that’s good?”

“We have a guidance system better than anything I have ever seen,” Jake commented with a nod. “What we aim at, we hit. Always. There’s not a miss in a carload. If we can see it, and if we can fire at it, we can take it out.”

“What about anti-missiles they might have?” Jayne asked. “It seems the Expedition people used theirs with great effect against the Epsilon 4 missiles, and they were powered by the Gravity Wells.”

“Epsilon 4 missiles were slightly slower than the Expedition missiles. That’s why they were able to destroy them. The speed of the missiles powered by the Gravity Well is pretty fast. If those that attacked E-1 don’t have that drive, they must be relegated to a fueled missile. That would make it much slower than ours. That’s the only positive thing I can come up with given the sketchy knowledge we have about those attackers of E-1.”

“OK, guys,” Jayne nodded. “Let’s work with that. We may get more information from Eric as the days go on. We may not, too. Any suggestions?”

“We have fast missiles and a delivery system that is probably faster than theirs,” Lars said. “Is that how you see it?”

“That’s it, Lars,” Jake nodded, “I can’t see any other advantage we might have over them, other than the obvious one.”

“What’s that, Jake?” Jayne asked.

“Hyperlink. We can escape any of their weapons by dropping into Hyperlink. They won’t be able to touch us. We can hit them, and they can’t hit us. That is, if we do it fast enough to get out of the way of their weapons.”

“So,” Jayne said thoughtfully, “They can’t touch us. What we are going to need is an explosive warhead on a Gravity Well guidance system.”

“That sums it up quite well, Captain,” Jake said waving a hand. “The problem is, the Larn and Dran on both the Expedition ship and Epsilon 4 do not use explosive weapons but rely on the Gravity Well missile to breach the hulls of their adversaries and release the Gravity Wells in the weapons used against them.”

“True,” Jayne agreed, “But E-1 has just scads of explosive missiles. Suppose we were able to attach Gravity Well guidance systems to the nose of SAM missiles, for instance?”

Lars sat up straight. “And filled those SAMS with additional explosives!” he said excitedly, “They wouldn’t need fuel, you know! It might just work!”

“Jake!” Jayne turned to him. “Send Eric the information we have now. Tell him of our plans and to get E-1 to have as many SAM missiles ready as they can. Have them fill the missiles up with a powerful explosive instead of fuel. Tell him to have those missiles ready in about 6 weeks if they can. That’s about the time we should be arriving there. Maybe even sooner if we can finish here.

“I have another idea guys,” Jayne informed them grimly. “Let’s talk to Assure about converting as many Gravity Wells as he can to a guidance system we can use with the SAMS. Something simple, like attaching them to the nose of the SAMS. Assure and his crew will be able to work on the guidance systems during the trip back to E-6. At the same time, let’s talk to Artur about changing our order a bit to include smaller Gravity Wells that can be used in that conversion. The ones we have been negotiating for are much too large for the SAM purpose. That should do it for now, until we can get more information from E-6. Get some sleep. I’ll see you at breakfast.” It was 2 AM when Jayne finally got to bed and she was up by 7, having gotten little sleep.

The next day brought more information from E-6 regarding the invasion of Earth by the unknown force. The invasion force had landed on Earth itself and taken over the upper reaches of both the Amazon and the Congo Rivers. While most of our satellites had been destroyed, they were lucky enough to have gotten some satellite pictures of the enemy.

The invasion force was reptilian in nature. While they were man-like in form, the photos showed a definite scale on the outer skin and a short tail. They were apparently amphibians, and it was assumed that was the reason for the takeover of the rivers.

Additional information about their weapons systems followed. Their main offensive and defensive weapons were a Laser technology. Apparently the lasers had to have about three seconds contact before being affective, but their tracking was phenomenal. None of the E-1 ships were fast enough to escape the lasers once they had a lock on their targets. The good news was that the weapons became ineffective at more than 50 miles. Once they locked on, our own ships from E-6 would have three seconds to drop into Hyperlink or outrun the lasers. Outrunning the lasers was a distinct possibility since those ships were extremely fast. The bad news is that didn’t give us time to fire our weapons and have any chance of a strike, since it took some time to lock onto any target. The existing Earth forces were completely ineffective against the invaders. By the time their rockets got close, the lasers would destroy them. On the other hand, they were successful in containing the enemy with ground forces. The invaders were not expanding their territory.

The main forces of the amphibs were on the backside of the moon. There was no way to know how many, for the invaders have the capability of destroying any traditional ship sent there. E-6 claimed they were in the process of sending one of the Larn vessels on a surveillance mission to find out what we were up against.

“The problem is”, Eric said on the Hyperlink radio, “until we are sure of ourselves, we are not about to tip our hand very much. If we can’t beat them even with our weapons, there is no sense letting E-1 know we exist. We have offered our help, but only as an outside force. They are not crazy about allowing us to work outside of their control. Our position is to wait and see. Right now there is little danger of the invaders expanding very quickly. We are depending on you to come up with something definitive for our success on E-1.”