Ashes of the Realm - Death of an Empire (Ashes of the Realm (Book Three)) Read Online Free PDF

said, “Lead the way great Flyer.”
    * * *
    The giant Black Ship entered a solar system and moved on the planet. It was obviously civilized and had a huge population centered in numerous industrialized cities. No ships rose to meet the incoming Invader and the only thing indicating the planet had space technology was two giant satellites orbiting the planet on opposite sides. The satellites were more than a hundred miles in diameter and the Invader saw a force field go up as it drew closer.
    The Ship Master looked at the huge structure on his display and turned to his Sensor Master, “What can you determine about that satellite?”
    “The force field is quite strong. Before it went up I scanned the surface and didn’t see any type of beam emplacements. Once the field was active, my scans were blocked.”
    “Send a copy of this to Fleet.”
    The Sensor Officer nodded and sent the report.
    “Prepare our beams.”
    “They are targeted on the structure, Sire.”
    The Ship Master quickly looked back at his display as the Sensor Master said, “Incoming missile.” The missile was tiny. It was less than three hundred feet long but it did have a force field around it. The Satellite had only fired the one missile and that bothered him.
    “Readings?”
    “None are getting through the force field.”
    The Ship Master may have regretted his next decision if he had lived long enough. He decided to allow it to hit his force field and destroy itself. The missile went through the force field without even a spark to indicate it had impacted. It hit the giant Black Ship and it exploded so violently that the force field didn’t have time to drop before the blast was reflected back into the center of the explosion doubling the intensity of the blast.
    Timmy looked at Robby and Dani and said, “I wondered what you saw that brought us here.”
    “We weren’t sure, Timmy.” Robby looked at Dani and continued, “We just saw this planet and knew we should come here.”
    “It looks like we’ve found a weapon to use against the Invaders if we can persuade the planet to give us the technology.”
    Dani shook her head, “No, that’s not going to help us. This will actually harm our efforts to survive.” Timmy leaned forward in his command chair and stared at her. Dani saw his expression and shook her head, “The only thing this will do is cause the Invaders to build a stronger ship.”
    Robby nodded, “They’ll lose ships here but they will record the technology that planet is using to enhance their capabilities. This is not good.”
    Greyson said, “So getting the technology is wasted effort if they are going to come up with a counter to it.”
    Robby and Dani nodded. They waited as fifteen Black Ships jumped in and were destroyed.
    Greyson said, “There’s a Black Ship at the jump limit recording what’s happening. I can see their scan. Should we teleport one of those missiles to open space to take a look at it?”
    Robby shook his head, “No, the Invader will record its disappearance and know that there is another adversary here. It would make them start looking for us again.”
    Dani watched the battle and sighed, “We need to see how long it takes them to build a new ship and bring it on line. Greyson, leave a screened microprobe here to record what happens.”
    “The probe is launched.”
    Timmy looked up from his command board, “How did you know to come here?”
    “Timmy, Dani’s and my ability to sense danger is growing stronger. We saw this happening and knew the best decision was to come here.”
    Greyson said, “I did get a reading on the force field being used by the missile. It appears to match the frequency of the force field it hits almost instantaneously. Maybe Alex can use this.”
    Robby looked away from the display and thought a moment, “No, it won’t help. I suspect that the invaders will simply modify their force fields to use two different frequencies so that if one is read the other will stop