New Neighbors

Chapter 16

Amy was awaken from a sound sleep by the irritating beeping of an incoming message alert. She went to see what was so important that the Officer on Duty couldn't handle it. Was she getting lazy or just exhausted? Amy thought. When she accessed the message she was surprised that it was from Admiral TuLak and was a text only message.

Admiral Ward of Sol System,

We are under attack and it looks like we will most likely lose this battle, the Iberians have joined with another race, a reptilian race. The two of them have amassed a large fleet, approximately 100 ships, and are taking over worlds very quickly. This system will hold out for as long as we can. Any help would be greatly received and appreciated. This may be the last message I can get out, so be warned that they will probably come after your sectors next.

Admiral TuLak for the Protectorate Defense Force.

The message was very disturbing to Amy. After reading it a second and third time she called an emergency meeting of her senior staff. She also had the message relayed to Jones and Kate in the Alpha system.

As soon as everyone was present, Amy told them what was going on. Ted suggested that they send a couple of ships to reinforce the PDF headquarters. He told them that they had four more of the new Battleship class coming out in the next two days. Just then Jones and Kate responded and were conferenced in via secure subspace. Jones reported that since their last transmission they had recovered several bodies from the life pods that landed on the barren planetoid. The bodies were not only Iberian but there were several reptilian bodies also. They had been lucky and had found some technical data that appeared to be the design for the new shields that these ships had. Jones said he would forward a copy of the data for evaluation and analysis. 

Well TuLak had said that they might be next. This appeared to have been a probing mission on the part of the Iberians and their new allies. Amy had Ted start the process to send three Battleships to the Organo system to help the PDF. On the way they would be joined by Turrini and a couple of ships from the Alpha sector.

Just as the meeting was breaking up, there was an urgent message from the Moon base that they had several inbound ships on scanners. The data matched that of the Iberians, but with some unusual traits. The ships had fired on the base but there were not very many injuries yet. As soon as Amy heard this report she had two battleships dispatched. The PDF would have to wait, Sol and Alpha were first priority. Ted would be in command of the two ships.

When Ted and the other Battleship arrived he found one ship in orbit around the moon and five ships around Earth. Ted had the second battleship fire on the ship closest to the moon while he took his ship towards Earth. The ship orbiting the Moon was firing and trying to defend itself from the fighters from Moon base when the battleship's fighters attacked. This ship had the improved shields and was not taking much damage. That changed when it was hit by the main guns of the battleship. After three to four hits on the shields they failed. The invading ship didn't last long, it seemed they couldn't hit what they couldn't see. As soon as that ship was just about done the battleship called back it's fighters and went to help Ted.

As Ted approached Earth sensors showed that the US and Russia had both launched missiles at the invading ships but the missiles were not getting through the shields. Ted remembered that in the Alpha sector the ships had been lacking in the rear shield area. Ted launched fighters while cloaked and then opened up with his own missiles and main guns. That got the attention of the first ship targeted. The fighters were going after the next ship when Ted noticed that the invaders were sending landing craft down to the surface. This did not look good, even with the second battleship to help him it would be hard to defeat this invading force. When one of the ships exploded suddenly after being hit from an unknown source on Earth, Ted started to wonder what had happened. Then another ship exploded. Ted noticed that the ships exploding were the ones directly over the area of the centers Amy had set up. What was up with that? There was an abundance of radio traffic from Earth, all reporting that their weapons were not effective against the invaders. The Air Force was not having much luck downing the landing craft either. As the second battleship arrived it took up station on the opposite side of Earth and attacked the ships in that area. Then the battleship exploded. The fighters from there now had nowhere to land except on Ted's ship or Earth. Ted sent them to help the Earth forces. There were two invading ships left in orbit, and they were sending craft down to the surface as fast as they could. One of the ships left orbit and Ted's ship was shaken by the sudden explosion in his own port engine. The invading ship went into hyperspace before Ted could get a lock on it.

Ted was surprised when the fighters from the Moon base joined with his and attacked the remaining ship. But their weapons were not very effective against the shields. The remaining ship had shifted it's shields to protect itself from attack from the rear as well as the front and sides. Things were getting tough. Just then Ted was informed that there were two jump points forming between Earth and the Moon. Two ships came out of the jump points and made straight for Earth. One of the ships was Amy's, the other was nothing Ted had ever seen before, it was about 1/3 the size of the moon! When Amy hailed Ted and asked if he needed help, Ted told her he would be okay if he wasn't hit again. The strange ship started "pumping out" ships at a rapid rate, most of them cloaked as soon as launched and headed towards the last invading ship. Then Amy told Ted that she was going to Earth with two companies of Cmdr Thomas's Marines to take care of the ground forces. Ted knew that two companies were all the Marines available from Mars. Ted was hailed by Jake from the large ship and told to bring his ship for repairs as the large ship started to "unfold" in to a platform big enough to handle two ships the size of Ted's battleship.

The invaders had taken over Las Vegas, Reno, and Memphis. Each city now had a force field surrounding it. There were similar sites in Russia, Africa, France, and China. These sites would be the hardest to retake.

After Ted had his ship docked he joined Jake in the control center. Jake explained that AL had come up with the idea of collapsing the space platform and towing it to Earth. While enroute Jake had the facility make as many drone fighters as it could, these were what Ted had seen. Earth had been invaded and now was asking for help from the Amyins. 

Ted contacted the UN and told them that help was on the way in the form of two companies of Marines. Next Ted contacted the Moon base and had Russell sent to the platform via shuttle. Once Russell arrived Ted asked him, based on his past experience, what would be the best way to retake the invaded cities with the least amount of civilian casualties. Russell, who had been able to use the rapid learning, said that getting past the force fields would be the hardest but he thought he could manage it. With Russell's help and skill, the retaking of the cities took about two weeks.