Star Traders
Chapter 21

After the initial shock of seeing all those ships waiting for them on breakout, the Earth Princess correctly assumed they were friendly. The hailing of their ship by the flagship of the waiting convoy affirmed their suspicions. The voice of Eric the Younger came over the com.

“Welcome home Earth Princess!” He said. “And welcome to all aboard the Expedition vessel. I will come to the point. You implied you might have a propulsion device we can use with SAM missiles. Do you still feel you have the answer?” Eric seemed to be anxious.

“We have your propulsion system, Eric. About 3,000 of them. All we have to do is land and get them aboard your ships. Did you do your part?” she laughed, knowing he would have done so.

“I haven’t done as well as you have, Captain. I only have about half that number of SAM missiles on these ships. But let’s not wait to transfer them to our ships. We can do that while we make the trip to E-6. We have 80 hours after all.”

Lars glanced at Jane. “I think we can do it, Captain. Those cones are spread around a dozen or so pods that have airlocks large enough to take a small shuttle. It will be a matter of logistics to have them transferred to the Federation ships. I’m sure I can handle it.”

“Go for it, Lars. Eric,” she said into the mic, “Lars will set up a schedule for shuttles to come aboard various pods here to pick up the Gravity Well cones I had made on the trip home. We can start as soon as he has it set up.”

“Sounds good here,” Eric said. “Do you think it will work?”

“No problem with it working,” Jayne stated with authority. “One worry I have is whether we have a sufficient number of weapons. The other worry I have is that you may not have the launch system necessary to launch the missiles from your vessels. Another thing: Do you have a Hyperlink drop on all the ships?”

“We can launch without any problems. The problem is with having enough ships outfitted with the Hyperlink drop. We only have four of them. You will make five.”

“I was afraid of that Eric,” Jayne commented wryly. “We had a brainstorming session aboard and have come up with a strategy we think will work. I would like to have about a two hundred of those SAMS aboard the Earth Princess. I suggest we use the Earth Princess as the flagship for this mission. I think you should come aboard and go over the plan.”

“All Right, Jayne. Put out a strobe and I’ll be over as soon as I can. Leave a red strobe going and we’ll start bringing the SAMS aboard for you.”

“We’ll be looking for you.”

All the ships maintained a constant speed on the way to E-6. The fleet was spread out ahead of the Expedition ship and shuttles could be seen transferring the cones to the Earth vessels.

Eric arrived within three hours, carrying with him several dozen SAM missiles. He met Jayne with a hug and a long kiss. Lars jabbed Jake with an elbow. “Ah! My suspicions have been upheld!” he whispered.

Jake smiled knowingly. “I kinda thought so too, Lars.” he said, “But damned if I’d ask! She’s too damned tough to get that familiar with.”

Lars laughed. “And to think I thought she was a softie when I came aboard!” He shook his head.

“Gentlemen!” Eric stuck out a hand. “Good to see you again! I trust you’ve taken good care of your Captain?”

Jake looked at him with no little surprise. “Sir, you have no idea. If anyone was taking care of anyone, it was Captain Rice taking care of all of us. I could tell you stories...”

“Enough, Jake!” Jayne admonished. “We have a lot to do. I suggest we retire to the lounge for coffee and some serious planning.”

They all followed her to the lounge where Trina had set up four places around a large table. They all sat and were served coffee and doughnuts. Sprinkled with sugar, of course. The Larn cooks learned well.

“Let’s start with some intelligence, Eric,” Jayne said as they sat down. “Give us the latest information you have on the invaders. Let’s see if it gibes with what we have done in our planning.”

“We don’t have a lot more information since our last message. That was the one telling you we had contained them on the Congo and the Amazon. Did you get that one?”

“Yes,” Jayne nodded. “You have nothing on their base on the back side of the moon?”

“No,” Eric informed her. “Every time E-1 sends a ship around there they take it out. They’ve lost 12 so far and I don’t want to send our ships and men on something we can’t accomplish. The last ship made an observation before it was destroyed. But it’s hard to believe. They said they saw thousands of the invader ships there. We are operating on the assumption they are correct, however. It’s the only information we have.

“And we are having some difficulty with the E-1 governments. They really don’t want us around. They think they can deal with the situation. If the invaders have that number of ships, I don’t think they can handle it. It’s only a matter of time before the invader lands in the secure portions of the Congo and Amazon. Then shit will really hit the fan. We feel they are close to sending the rest of their force down to Earth. We have to act quickly.”

“How many of your ships are equipped with the ability to transfer to E-1 without going through the gates?” Jayne asked pointedly. “It’s fine going through the gates, but time is of the essence. From what I can see, it would take 100 days to get this fleet to E-1 at the rate of one per day.”

“We have a few of them so equipped,” Eric informed her. “But the bulk will have to go through the gates. Myself included. My accumulated immunity has run out. I can’t do that at all any longer.”

“I can fix that, Eric,” Jayne explained about the drug perfected by the Dran and its success on the return trip. “We only have about 5000 doses, however. Once we get a sample to E-6, I’m sure our labs will be able to duplicate it quickly.

“In the meantime, put all the SAMS you can aboard those vessels equipped to make the quick trip to E-1. I have a plan….”

“She always has a plan, doesn’t she!” Lars said to Jake as the meeting broke up and Jayne had outlined her plan.

“And those plans always seem to work, don’t they? This one is a bit far out, but workable.” He was obviously worried, however. This plan was a bit far out.

The Expedition ship, along with the Earth Princess, arrived in the vicinity of E-6 in 28 days. Transfer of the Gravity Wells went quickly as all four ships that held the wells landed at the newly completed spaceport that accommodated the trader vessels.

Assure and his people had been shown the world maps on the way from Epsilon 4 and had chosen the American Midwest as their first choice for settlement and the population of the Expedition ship was rapidly arriving there and immediately began building shelters. Since the time of year was early spring, planting of fields was of top priority. Corn and wheat was planted even before any buildings were constructed. In just a week, the Expedition people were well on their way to settling in.

Jayne immediately set the Expedition people to work gathering more of the small Gravity Wells they had chosen to power the SAM missiles. They were working closely with PerSec, who was providing the missiles from E-1. 3000 missiles might not be enough to defeat the invaders.

“Time to expedite the first part of our plan,” Jayne said at the end of a busy week of readying the ships for battle with the invaders. “Let’s get that intelligence we need.”