by Saxon Andrew
“Does she know?”
“There are some things you just don’t ask permission; you ask for forgiveness afterward.”
“Atta boy, Girl.
The Ship’s Male looked at his board and saw the two transports on the second planet of the system. His communication board came on and the other Ship’s Male asked, “Should we launch ships?”
“Not this far out; we’re still seven hours from the planet. Keep you scanners active, I’m nervous about two ships that are not moving.”
“As you order.”
“Fleet Command.”
“Yes, Admiral.”
“I want the five thousand megaships armed for the small ships to be ready to teleport into this system. Notify Commodore Hasdf to go to battle stations and stand by for my order to port. Also notify Colonel Brez to notify his warriors to be prepared to repel boarders on those ships.”
“Orders are issued and receipt confirmed, Admiral.”
“Do you think they will launch before we hit them, Admiral,” Melanie asked?
“I don’t think they will but they probably have ships ready to launch and they might be blown out of the mother ships when the energy ball detonates. I don’t want to take any risks. I see some of their launch ports are open.”
Melanie looked closer at the display and saw that he was right. She had missed that; this was a good officer.
Matt appeared on Destiny’s bracelet, “Can you tell if they are in communication with their fleet?”
“They have been communicating but they just stopped a minute ago. I’m sure they were issued instructions to investigate the two ships. What are you planning to do?”
“We are going to hit them with one of those penetrators we told you about in two minutes. If this turns out well you can take the two transports and go pick up your children. The coordinates of where we sent them are on the bottom of your display.”
Destiny looked and saw the coordinates and felt relief at their being safe. “I want to see what happens here first.”
“I can’t say I blame you. It won’t be long.”
Leo watched the two huge ships move just inside the jump limit and just before they passed over head he pressed his com and said, “Fire penetrator.”
The penetrator shot out of its tube and looked like a light beam as it moved almost too fast to track and struck the mother ship.
The Sensor Male said, “Object fired at us,” was all he got out before the huge ship shook violently.
The penetrator penetrated the ten mile hull and went through fifty transports before it stopped and ejected the energy ball. The detonation was instant and the huge blast filled the interior of the mother ship.”
The second mother ship saw the first penetrator hit just as the second penetrator struck them from above.
Leo watched his screen and saw thousands of ships blown out of the mother ship by the blast. He hit his com, “Commodore Hasdf, launch your ships and begin action against the invader’s small ships.”
Five thousand megaships appeared in the system with their red screens glowing and began launching the smaller penetrators. Leo ignored them and continued to watch the mother ship with his finger on the com. The huge ship stopped accelerating as the blast erupted out of the open ports and began to fall off the trajectory it was taking to the planet. He then ordered, “Move us out; let’s give Commodore Hasdf room to operate.” The Rising Sun teleported away from the battle as thousands of penetrators flew into the invaders small ships.
The Ship’s Male was floating in the interior of his ship. Every wall and support had been disintegrated and there was a vast open chamber where ships and warriors were floating around. Then he saw a second small blast in the interior of the ship and small balls began bouncing around. “What are those?”
Destiny watched as the two main ships were hit and then started drifting. He looked at Eyes and said, “Scan the inside of one of the main ships and tell me show me what is happening.” A view appeared on his panel and he watched as thousands of small balls began bouncing around the interior of the ship. As he watched he saw those balls go from moderate speed to moving too fast to follow. Then ships floating in the interior started breaking apart as thousands of the small balls penetrated them and exploded out of them to continue bouncing. Everywhere inside the vast chamber was death. Those balls killed everything they hit and punched through to continue their mission of death. Eyes looked at Destiny and said, “That could have been us.”
“But it wasn’t. Those main ships were coming here to kill us and we should be thankful for our protectors.”
“I am, Destiny. I know at some level I should feel bad for them but I just can’t find it inside me.”
“I know, Eyes. I know.”
Colonel Brez hit his com, “Fire Teams, port to you positions.” On the five thousand megaships teams of three Red Warriors appeared on the surface and set up their guns. Any invader ship that came close was hit by the fire teams with a projectile that penetrated and burned out the interior before releasing fifty iron tree balls. The small ships couldn’t see the megaships but some of them were coming close simply by accident. Some of them actually split in half and the crew was floating in space. The Red Warriors hit them with their hand weapons whenever one was in range killing them with the penetrating iron ball. One megaship had an attack craft hit its surface but the Red Warriors immediately teleported and hit it before it could use its penetrator. For the invaders, there was only death. After ten hours the last invader was killed.
Leo watched the battle from his display and decided that there was nothing else to do. He then ordered, “Teleport teams, go to your assignments.”
Two teams of ten engineers teleported to the surface of the two mother ships and positioned a device over the hole made by the penetrator. Once it was in place, the chief engineer hit the engage button and a teleport screen appeared inside the dead ship and expanded to the far hull thirty thousand miles away. The screen then rotated a hundred and eighty degrees teleporting everything inside the ship not made of the green material into the star at the systems center. It was only then that the iron balls stopped bouncing.
Destiny commed Matt, “It appears that your weapons are very effective. What are you going to do with the ships?”
“I don’t know. We can’t teleport them out of here so it looks like they will have to remain where they are.”
“If it would help, I can push them into a trajectory that will take them to the star in this system.”
Matt smiled and said, “I think that would be a great idea. Will they be able to see them there?”
“No, we’re good but not that good.’
“Then I would greatly appreciate it if you would do exactly that.”
“We’ll also push the smaller craft with them.”
“Thank you, Destiny. That would help toward hiding what we can do.”
Eyes began moving and collected small ships on the surface and then moved up on one of the mother ships and began pushing it into a new trajectory. The huge ship picked up speed and then flew away from Destiny’s ship as it stopped to go and start the other ship on its trip to the star. Fifteen hours after the operation begun, there was no evidence that a battle had been fought.
The Supreme Male was working hard to get the family ready for the harvest and received a communication from his Sensor Male, “Supreme Male, I am unable to contact the ships sent to find the other family’s main ship.”
The Supreme Male immediately felt fear, “How long have you been trying?”
“Two dgsgs.”
The Supreme Male fought his fear and turned on his communicator, “Nest Mother, we have lost contact with our two ships.”
The Nest Mother felt her rage building but then felt it evaporate. Something was happening in that universe that was too far out of the ordinary. She knew the missing main ship could not defeat two main ships so there must be another agency causing ships to disappear. She wondered if the crystal
creatures were causing it but the evidence gained before she had consumed the first family indicated that it wasn’t them. She now regretted consuming that first family. They would already be there harvesting except for her anger and impatience. She sighed and decided not to make that mistake again. She composed herself and said, “Send a ship through and make a quick scan and then have it return. Tell me what it sees.”
The Supreme Male took a quick breath and wondered why he was being spared. He immediately responded, “I will order it now.”
The Nest Mother thought about what was happening and began looking through the data from the previous harvests in that universe to see if there was anything that might be a clue s to what was going on. She inserted her two back legs into their receptacles, closed her eyes, and began looking at the information.
Destiny had moved to the planet and sent crews down to fly the transports to the planet where his children had been teleported. They came on board and Eyes began moving the ship out of the system. Suddenly he yelled, “Destiny, another main ship has appeared at the entry point.”
“Tell me what they’re doing.”
“They’re scanning.”
“Matt, another main ship has entered.”
“I can see them, Destiny. We have a screened probe there and I’m getting a feed from it. What do you think they’re doing?”
Destiny thought a moment and then said, “They’re looking for the two ships. I don’t think they will stay long. If it was a major investigation you would have more than one ship.”
“Let’s see if you’re right. If they’re leaving quickly, we couldn’t react fast enough to hit them.”
After an hour the huge ship disappeared back into the entry point. “Looks like you were right. What happens next?”
“I heard one of your officers use an expression, “It’s gonna be one big shing ding of a party”“. Next time a ship comes through the door it will have a big group with it.”
Matt thought for a moment and said, “I just wish we had a way to target them other than visually.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our sensors do not see them. We have to visually aim at them or use a visual color sensor to track them.”
“Why don’t you track them by their frequency?”
“What do you mean frequency?”
“The substance that makes up our hulls radiates a frequency. It is very, very, low but it is there.”
Matt jumped from his chair and thought, “Sprig, you need to hear this.’
“What.”
“Destiny tells me that the green substance radiates a frequency that falls in a very low range. Could we use that to track them with our weapons?”
“How low is it, Destiny?”
“About three hertz.”
“That’s even lower than the background of the explosion that started this universe.”
“This substance is a residue of a universe that died of old age. It couldn’t radiate anything higher.’
“Stand by.”
Matt and Destiny waited for twenty minutes and Sprig said, “I just measured the frequency of the attack ship here in the lab and you’re right. It does radiate a frequency that is strong enough to home in on. We can adjust our monitors and sensors to find it.”
“Can we make the changes in time?”
“I don’t know; probably not all of our weapons but enough to start the conflict and bring the others up to date as we move forward.”
“Get the megaships first then start loading the Searchers.”
“I agree. We’ll start now.”
“What is a Searcher, Matt?”
“We have twenty million small ships that are pretty powerful. They can destroy a planet with their beams but of course they will have no affect on the green substance.”
“Let me think about that, Matt. There should be a way to use them; I just need to think about it.”
“I’ll send you a copy of our main library so you can use it to see if there is anything we have missed. I think your children will find it enjoyable reading. You’ve already made a huge difference. Anything else would be icing on the cake.”
“What is a cake?”
“I’ll send you one if you can come up with a use of those beams.”
“Fair enough.”
The Nest Mother finished the data and found nothing to explain what was happening. She worried that the missing main ship was helping the advanced life form but then she dismissed the idea; ships were disappearing before she consumed that family. It was clear that someone or something was able to kill their ships. Would one family be enough? This time she was going to really focus on eliminating those crystal creatures once and for all. She shouldn’t have backed off before but they weren’t edible so it was wasted effort to harvest them. She paused and then changed her mind; there was no reason to waste time on them. She called another Supreme Male and said, “I may be sending you to follow up a harvest. Start preparing your family.”
“I will begin immediately, Nest Mother.”
Never in her species long history had a harvest ever been stopped. She was probably worrying about nothing… but…something just didn’t feel right. She sat in her chamber and worried. Would this harvest never start?”
“Destiny, are you sure you’re ok with our using one of your ships for target practice.”
“I’m sure, Matt. If it comes down to transportation issues, I think I can count on you to provide some ships for my use.”
“You know we will. We have some about three hundred miles in diameter that I think will meet your needs.”
“Then get on with it and we’ll watch and see what happens.”
Eyes was looking at Destiny and Destiny said, “What?”
“One of our children has developed an interest in engineering after reading the library given us and has timidly asked for permission to view the attack.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes, he has been studying the data from past harvests and what our protectors have sent us and has an insatiable curiosity.”
“Invite him up and let him watch.” Eyes turned back to his board. A young child ran into the command chamber and sat down and watched the display. “Who are you, child?”
“My name is Edison.”
“Where did you get that name?”
“One of the human’s ancient engineers had that name. I liked it.”
Destiny shrugged and turned to eyes, “Make sure we have our scanners at full power.”
“Already on it.”
“Then start the transport moving.” Destiny noticed that the child took an instrument and pointed it out of the ship toward the location of the transport. “What is that?”
“It’s something I put together in the lab.”
Matt said, “Launching the penetrator.”
Destiny watched as the penetrator shot out at the transport from more than seven thousand miles. It was near one third light speed when it arrived at the transport but missed the target.”
Sprig said, “We just can’t get a strong enough reading on that low power frequency.”
“Does that mean we have to be closer to hit them?”
“Probably.”
Edison looked at Destiny, “May I ask them a question, Father.”
Destiny looked at the child and said, “Matt, I have a child that has a question.”
“What is it?”
“Have you accounted for the shift in frequency that occurs at one third light speed?”
Sprig said, “What?”
“At that speed the frequency will shift higher because you’re moving faster into the sine wave. It might be shifted closer to a cosign pattern. With that shift the signal should be stronger.”
Sprig sat quiet for thirty seconds which was years for a humans mind. “No, we haven’t; standby just a moment while I make some adjustments on the second penetrator.” Three minutes passed and then Sprig said, “Launch the second penetrator.”
<
br /> Matt said, “Firing second penetrator.” The penetrator launched and again flew at the transport, turned slightly as it got close, and hit it dead center.”
Destiny looked at the child and said, “That was impressive. Is there anything else you would like to suggest?”
“I think I have found a way to teleport our green substance, Father.”
“Sprig.”
“Thank you, Destiny. We would have missed that.”
“That’s not why I’m calling; my child thinks he may have found a way to teleport the green substance.”
There was dead silence on the com. Finally Sprig said, “Do tell.”
“I’m going to send him to your ship. I’ll let him explain what he has developed.”
“Father, if you’ll just give me his coordinates, I can teleport to him with my device.”
Matt and Sprig heard the comment and Sprig asked, “Did you give him the teleport device to study?”
“No, I didn’t.” Destiny looked at Edison and asked, “How did you build a teleport device?”
“Once you know that it’s possible to teleport, the principles are pretty obvious, Father. I found the bulk of the information from a race we harvested fifty million years ago.”
Matt looked at Sprig on his communicator and said, “From the mouth of babes.”
Sprig stood stunned on the bridge of the Rossville. He knew the mental capacity needed to grasp those concepts and here was a child saying they were obvious. Are they further advanced mentally than we are?
“Destiny, does your species have this kind of mental capacity?”
“Sprig, since we have been free of the compulsions placed on us, we are changing. Our minds are actually clearing and thought is easier. Our telepathic range is going up daily. I’ve been told that my children are developing interests in a wide range of topics. I know that we can store tremendous amounts of information but we have never really correlated what we have stored. I think this child is an example of what we are becoming.”
“We may not be able to use what he knows before the invasion starts but if he is right, we won’t need a penetrator; we’ll just teleport the bombs directly into their ships.”
Edison looked at his father and said, “Why do that, just teleport them back to where they came from with a ten thousand penetrators on their hulls set to launch when they enter normal space.”