It wasted the middle of the ship, but they were landing a small army anyway, each time they deployed, and the waste probably didn’t bother them. In fact, they probably needed the wide open space to stay sane on a ship. Especially those enclosed on a bridge, in engineering, or doing maintenance in some very enclosed space. After their shift, I could see them heading for the wide open.
The battleships didn’t have the same setup, but their deck spaces were more than twice the height of ours, and certainly higher than they needed them to be. It also occurred to me the titans were around for another purpose, being there to provide an open space to ship crews who got too close to the edge of going nuts in an enclosed space, and couldn’t get down on a planet any time soon.
I was guessing of course, but it all added up to something which did make sense to me.
The lead ships were thirty two undamaged battleships. The titan followed them, with forty six ships after, of which only thirty two were undamaged.
The problem I had was I wanted the titan, but I needed to be seen killing it. Although, as I thought about it, one was probably enough. And if I needed another one, I could pick and choose any more we encountered in the future. Assuming we did. Which we might not. I sighed. I really had overdone it today. Still, last one.
I moved all the dinosaurs once again, took the front sixteen battleships from each formation, and then on a whim, took all three hundred landers from inside the titan. It belatedly occurred to me I could sell a Rawtenuga inspired destroyer sized landing craft to the Imperium, with only, hopefully, minor modifications. All of that took me only seconds.
The bombers jumped out, and we demolished the remaining battleships. I called a cease fire for a moment, while I changed the width of the outflow end of the rift to be the same as we were firing into. This spread our fire out a lot, but as I moved the rift around the still much bigger hull of the titan, the result was the same, only it took longer, and ran us right out of torpedoes. But I’d kept it up until all the major debris was reduced down to rubble and dust.
I let us sit there and survey what we’d done for a full minute, then called the home jump. We moved well away from the debris fields, and took the time to rearm properly, including the destroyers taking their last reload from Judge.
While that process was ongoing, I had Leanne prepare the report for the admiral, looked it over in my ready room, and satisfied the feeds showed nothing beyond fleets getting pulverized, sent it off to him. It was a day early, but now the job was done.
I’d collected two hundred and one enemy battleships, which no-one knew about but me. And I had plans for the extra one. Aisha already knew them. All she needed now was the resources to feed the fabricators.
Serena woke me up, and I hadn't even felt myself nodding off.
“Bud!”
I jerked up from having my head on my arms, and looked over at her, bleary eyed.
“What?”
“We’re docked back at base. Do you want to go straight to bed, or are you eating with us first?”
“Eating. But give me a moment.”
I pulled myself up, and went into the fresher, where I splashed water all over my face until I was feeling almost normal. But I could feel fatigue lurking there, waiting to drag me under again.
The squadron leaders ate with their pilots, and the captains ate with me. And everyone was in high spirits but me. I felt nothing. I’d had a plan for the day, it had gone off flawlessly, and if I’d expended a bit too much magic, well it had been worth it. But I was way too tired to do much more than eat mechanically.
As dessert was being delivered, Jill threw something to the walls, so we could all see it whichever direction we were facing.
“The scenes you’re seeing right now are a series of actions conducted by Navy Mage Squadron One and the First Bomber Wing, across a section of the galaxy being attacked by the dinosaur like Rawtenuga. Details are not being released, but we understand several hundred ships were destroyed without the loss of any of our own. Well done to all the pilots and crews involved. In other news…”
And it snapped off without us finding out what the other news was.
I continued eating while everyone talked about the news item, speculating on how the media got hold of the actual feed footage. Although Jill’s suggestion that Admiral Jedburgh released it deliberately, was probably close to the mark. I gathered myself to go to bed, when Serena stopped me with a hand on my arm, and I noticed they’d stopped talking, and were all looking at me.
“Bud?”
“Serena?”
“Where did you move all the dinosaurs to?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t play games, Bud, please. You’re totally gutted. You moved half the ships into suns to hide the fact you were moving the Rawtenuga to a planet. Don’t try to deny it.”
I looked at them.
“What makes you think that?”
“Because we know you,” said Loren. “And we saw what dropping beings into a sun did to you last time.”
“You went up a level,” said Gitte. “Didn’t you. You can move an entire ship’s crew in an instant now, but doing it hundreds of times for the ships, and then doing the tens of thousands on those titans, was still a lot more magic than you should have been doing.”
I said nothing.
“Bud?” asked Jill.
“What?”
“Fess up.”
“Okay, I admit it. I put all the dinosaurs on a continent where they should at least be able to live out a normal dinosaur life. No tech, no way off, but alive and with food to eat.”
“Doesn’t that feel better?” asked Mel. “Getting that off your chest?”
“I guess.”
“Go to bed, Bud,” said Serena. “Or we’ll need to carry you there.”
I gave them all one last nod, and went to bed.
Forty Two
“ALL PILOTS DON COMBAT SUITS AND REPORT TO THE CARGO BAY.”
I’d had seven hours sleep, but being bounced out of bed at two in the morning wasn’t my idea of a good way or time to start the morning. The status boards were showing us already sliding back from our station base, but not why. Since I was still in my uniform, I jumped myself straight to the bridge.
“Report.”
I started to sit without waiting for an answer.
“You remember that planet which went quiet,” said Leanne. “Well, a trader just reported in with the fact it’s waging a war against the dinosaurs, and slowly losing, even though they were dropped off by shuttles.”
“And?”
“That would be sixty four platoons of we don’t know how many troops, or what concentration they landed in anywhere.”
“What do we know?”
“The planet belongs to white rats, and they want our help on the ground if we can offer it.”
“Not much of a war with that few troops on the ground. Why do they need us?”
“The rats have no troops. Just regular police forces. One on one, the dinosaurs have bigger teeth, and I bet the rat claws probably don’t even make a dent in dinosaur hide. Not to mention troop level weaponry. But we have some surprises for the dinos.”
That we did. We were jumping already, and I didn’t have much time for orders, but I gave them anyway.