Annihilation 09: Dahlia's Deception

by Saxon Andrew

  “I see it. Record whatever happens and, Pare.”

  “Yes.”

  “I want you to also use my vision and record it as well.”

  “Recorders are running.” Dahlia and Sprigly focused on the wall display as Ping continued to look up. Pare said, “Planet arrival in three, two, one, NOW!” They watched the display and the ten ships remained in place with no indication anything out the ordinary had happened.

  Dahlia looked at Sprigly, “Were you sure about this?”

  Sprigly was shaking left and right, “It should have been hit. That is where the planet should have been. I don’t understand this.” Pare replayed the recording and the ten ships remained exactly as they were.

  Ping said, “The Planet did hit that ship.” Dahlia and Sprigly turned and stared at Ping. “Pare, play the recording of what I saw.”

  Sprigly and Dahlia turned back to the display and heard, “Three, two, one, NOW!” They focused on the ship that was in the path of the planet and saw it turn transparent. Only a hollow shell appeared on the display with the colors appearing to be washed out. Sprigly’s leaves turned brown. “We should leave.”

  Pare said, “Activating teleport systems.”

  Ping shouted, “Hold it right there.”

  Sprigly was shivering, “Ping, you don’t realize what we just witnessed. This is beyond dangerous.”

  “Calm down, my old friend. Tell me what about this has you so frightened?”

  “That ship went through the planet without any visible evidence of it happening. The only way we were able to see it was due to your vision. That means that planet can decide what the field around it will allow to pass and what to kill. Whoever is doing this is not located in the plain of this Creation. It must be outside the space we’re in.”

  Pare said, “Without your vision, we would not have known what happened. That would have caused us to go and investigate to see if we were mistaken about a planet existing there. I’m willing to guess that a live ship would not have passed through whatever field is surrounding that planet. I suspect we would have become another derelict floating in that planet’s orbit.”

  Dahlia shook her head, “So you believe they are a hostile species?”

  “No, I just think they don’t care enough to even notice.”

  Ping looked at Sprigly and saw his fear. He looked at Dahlia and saw she was ready to leave. He thought about what to do and after a moment said, “Pare, I want you to teleport in behind that planet and match its orbital speed. Don’t get near the field you measured; I want you to simply pace the planet as it moves in its orbit.”

  Sprigly’s leaves turned dark brown as Pare said, “Are you sure about this?” Ping looked at Dahlia and nodded.

  “Ping, I’m out of my element here; I don’t see what’s happening and I’m lost on what we should do.”

  Ping pulled Dahlia close and whispered, “You only need one piece of information to tell you what to do.” Dahlia leaned back and looked into Ping’s blue and green eyes. Ping smiled, “There are no accidents.”

  Dahlia continued to stare at Ping and then said, “Pare, take us to the planet.” Her eyes softened, “I forgot.”

  “Now you remember.” Dahlia nodded.

  • • •

  After following the planet for ten hours, Sprigly’s leaves began turning light brown and finally, dull green. He was immersed in scanning the space in front of the ship and managed to get small readings from the invisible field.

  Dahlia looked at Ping, “Why do you think nothing has happened?” Ping shrugged. Dahlia looked out of the forward viewport at empty space and said, “Usually, whenever I go and visit, I either activate a ringer or knock on the door.”

  Ping smiled and walked to the front of the bridge. He looked out of the viewport, and said, “I would like to communicate with you. Is there anything I should do to make that happen?”

  The three stared at the viewport and nothing changed. Suddenly, Pare said, “SOMETHING’S HAPPENING!” They looked ahead and saw a small square shaped area of space appear in front of them. There was bright white light coming out of the square and Pare announced, “That square is large enough for our ship to go through it.”

  Ping nodded at the viewport, “Then take us through.” The Searcher moved forward and passed through the opening; it closed behind them, leaving no clue it had ever existed.

  • • •

  The Five Leaders looked at each other on their communication devices. The Hedgon said, “I have been unable to find anything in my territory where those ships could have come from. I know there is still some lingering doubt about my innocence in the attacks made on you and I will allow any of you to come to my space and conduct an investigation.”

  The Rageon Ruler did not want the other three to scout the space next to his borders and he quickly said, “I believe you have convinced me of your innocence. Thank you for your openness but you really don’t need to do it.”

  The Chinga and Master were both disappointed that they didn’t immediately jump in and accept the Hedgon’s offer. Now they lost it when the Rageon rejected it. They would look guilty of taking advantage of an ally if they tried to do it now.

  The Drund spoke up, “The Five of us control the majority of the universe; however, there are huge areas that we have not yet visited. Could those ships have been sent by a civilization we have not encountered?”

  The Chinga said, “If they have watched us take control of other civilizations, this could be an attempt to delay us from moving into their space.”

  The Five looked at each other and thought about the observations. After a moment, the Huge Beast shook his huge head, “I don’t believe the ships are coming from the unexplored regions of our universe.”

  “How did you arrive at that conclusion?”

  The Beast looked at the Drund, “These attacks started soon after the ships from that other universe invaded. We know they are an advanced civilization and I would be more inclined to believe that this is a continuation of their earlier attack.”

  The Rageon replied, “No portal has been detected.”

  “That doesn’t mean they haven’t found a way to do it without being detected.”

  The group was silent as they pondered what the Beast suggested. After a moment the Beast said, “Why do you think they’re attacking our production planets instead of our capitals where we’re located?” No one said anything until the Chinga said, “Because they would know that even if they destroyed our ruling planet, we would still have enough ships to overwhelm and destroy them.”

  The Beast nodded, “So they’re trying to prevent us from adding to our fleets instead of going after us?”

  The Rageon leaned forward, “There’s no way they could get close enough to attack us.”

  The Beast sneered, “Look at your data before you say something that’s false. We could kill them before they could fire that beam long enough to destroy our planets…but…if they fired the beam at our residences…all of us would be killed. That beam would cause massive devastation wherever it hit.”

  The Rageon looked at the Beast with anger on his face, “When did you come to this realization?”

  “Just a moment ago; however, I am going to act on it as we speak. I’m ordering my Command Vessel to come and I’m going to conduct my Empire’s business from it until this issue is resolved.”

  The Four others looked at each other and the Rageon said, “We will continue this conversation after we’ve changed our location.”

  The Beast Master smiled a savage grin. That should tell the Rageon who was the most intelligent. The Elitist slug needed to be put in his place. He laughed. He had moved to his ship more than a week earlier.

  • • •

  Dean heard an alarm go off and he pulled up the feed from the probes located at the five governing planets of the Five. He watched the massive activity and shook his head. Victoria looked at him, “How could they have discovered we were planning to attack their main plane
ts?”

  “They probably just figured it out. However they did it, I’m calling off the attack. We should have acted sooner; now, we’ve lost the opportunity.”

  “Why, we should be able to get a shot off.”

  “We could if we’re willing to lose the pilots that make the attacks. However, their leaders will no longer be on their planets.” Victoria raised her eyebrows and Dean pulled in a view of a giant ship holding orbit directly above the Chinga Emperor’s palace. The huge ship had so many ships surrounding it that it was barely seen through their ranks. Victoria shook her head. Dean started issuing orders to stand down. He blew out a breath and looked at Victoria, “See if you can think of anything else we can do to set them back on their heels.”

  Victoria nodded and turned to her terminal. Tess came running in and Dean told her what had happened. She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, “Well, let’s find another way to go after them.”

  The alarms stated going off at high volume and Tess yelled over the noise, “What’s going on?”

  Dean smiled, “It appears the Five’s Leaders have pulled ships away from their production planets to defend them while they move to their ships. Our fleets are launching against the planets that have holes in their coverage.”

  Tess smiled, “One door closes; another door opens.” Tess looked at Dean, “How many?”

  “Fifty three thousand plus of their planets are being attacked as we speak.”

  “Let me know the details when it’s over. By the way, have you heard anything from Dahlia?”

  “No, have you?” Tess shook her head. “I’ll try to contact her after this is completed.”

  • • •

  The Five began receiving the alarms and this time all five of them lost planets. The Hedgon lost ten of the new planets they were building to construct new ships. Their rage was immediate. The Rageon contacted the others and said, “I am starting to agree with the Beast. We need to do something about this.”

  The Drund said, “I’ve not found a way to get a portal through to their space.”

  The Rageon looked off the screen at the incoming damage reports and yelled, “We will all get our scientists working on developing a portal. If any of us are successful, we will share that information with each other.”

  The other four nodded and then disappeared from the display.

  • • •

  Tag looked at Danielle, “It appears we made a mistake.”

  Danielle nodded, “I didn’t see attacking them would speed up their invasion.”

  “We need to complete this project.”

  “What does Jixie say?”

  “The barrier is not permeable and it has to be in order for us to do it without endangering the Realm.”

  Danielle stared at the display showing thousands of planets blowing up. It was not going to be enough in time to make any difference. “Tell her we don’t have much time left.”

  “She knows.”

  “WELL TELL HER AGAIN!”

  Tag took Danielle in his arms as she started weeping. “We can only do what we can do, Darling.” Danielle nodded slightly and felt her fear take her. “We may lose the Realm but we will stop this from ever happening again.”

  “That’s not good enough.”

  “I know.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The three on the Searcher saw a planet below them that was bathed in brilliant white light. They saw giant crystal buildings towering half a mile above the planet and the entire surface was almost too bright to look at. Ping shook his head slightly, “I think I’ve heard about this somewhere.”

  Suddenly, a triangular shaped, eight foot tall crystal structure appeared on the bridge and they heard in their thoughts, “It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a ship like this.”

  Sprigly felt a memory bubble up from his DNA. It was a memory of his ancestor named Sprig. He thought, “You’re the Reg.”

  “Yes, we are.”

  Ping fell into his command chair and Dahlia looked from the crystal to Ping, “What.. what…”

  “They saved my civilization from the Red Demons.”

  Dahlia frowned, “That was a while back.”

  Sprigly said, “It was more than eighteen thousand years ago.”

  “Like I said, it was a while back.”

  Ping looked at the Crystal Being, “We need your help again.”

  “What help do you require?”

  “We have to stop the five evil civilizations from killing intelligent civilizations here and prevent them from invading the Realm you defended thousands of years ago.”

  “We did not defend anyone.”

  “You provided the ships we needed to defend ourselves.”

  Ping and Dahlia looked at Sprigly and wondered what he knew. The Crystal glowed slightly brighter, “We gave them the ships to also defend us from the Demons. That is the only reason we made the gift to them.”

  “The Five are also a danger to you.”

  “No, they pose no danger to us.”

  Dahlia began to feel her anger grow, “Surely you know how evil those civilizations are?”

  The Crystal was silent and they saw him start to flash brighter. After a moment it said, “Why would you call them evil?”

  “THEY’RE KILLING MILLIONS OF CIVILIZATIONS AND TRILLIONS OF INTELLIGENT BEINGS!!”

  “How many of them have you killed?” Dahlia was stunned into silence.

  Ping put his hand on Dahlia’s arm and nodded to her. She sighed and leaned back in her chair. Ping looked at the Crystal, “How would you describe them?”

  “They are a life form doing what they deem necessary to survive.”

  “You must see that they are killing those that represent no danger to them.”

  “If you went and asked those civilizations, whom you view as enemies, how they perceive you; what would they say about you? I know that if you asked them if they were evil they would laugh at you. They don’t perceive themselves as being evil.”

  “How do they perceive themselves?”

  “They are eliminating threats to their existence.”

  “But most of those they kill do not represent a threat to them.”

  “We have been observing the many universes that exist and have seen a common thread over the long eons we’ve lived. Even on single planets that have not developed space travel, many of the groupings on them have viewed the others as enemies. We’ve watched, as more planets than you can count, have died in nuclear fire, as the groupings on them attacked each other with total disregard of what the end result of their actions would lead toward. We’ve seen civilizations that are peaceful change over time and attack their neighbors. Most of them have found little difficulty rationalizing a reason for their actions. We will not do anything that would cause a being to lose their life. We’ve lived by that belief and we’ve found peace in our existence.”

  Sprigly said, “How do you rationalize the thousands of dead ships killed by your planet?”

  “We didn’t kill them.”

  “The field around your planet did and you created that field.”

  The Crystal was quiet for a moment and said, “I needed to look at your minds and find what I need to explain the difference. I see that all of you are familiar with quicksand.” Ping looked at Dahlia and she nodded. Sprigly also leaned forward showing he knew as well. “If you are walking across a desert and suddenly find yourself being sucked waist deep into sand that is closing around you, do you accuse the sand of killing you?”

  “No, but it was the sand that tried to kill me.”

  “Could you have avoided the trap the sand represented?” The question was greeted by silence. “One need only carry a long pole and stab the ground in front of them to avoid being killed. Our creation is full of things that if you stumble in on them, they will kill you. A black hole, for example, in open space with no dust or stars around it will kill you faster than you imagine as it sucks you into its singularity. We built our field to mainta
in our privacy and ensure we would not be disturbed. The ships you see here ignored the warnings their instruments gave them and they attempted to cross our field. They, in effect, stumbled into quicksand.”

  “But they couldn’t see you.”

  “Did they see the many dead ships?” Ping slowly nodded, “They chose to ignore them and are victims of their choices. We will not kill any life form and will not intervene to prevent them from the consequences of their choices.”

  “If I begged you to give us a ship to use against our enemy, would you do it? Please remember that my people fought and died to defend you.”

  The Crystal was silent for more than eight minutes and the glow coming from it grew in intensity. Finally, the glow softened and it said, “You have found the only thing that we would consider in honoring your request. We do owe you for your prior actions. However, if I tell you that if I give you a ship, which is impregnable to your enemies, and, as a result of that gift, all of the people in your civilizations die. Would you still make your request?”

  Ping was subdued by the Crystal’s statement. He looked at it, “Can you tell me how that would happen?”

  “You would have to take that ship and duplicate it.” The Crystal paused and said, “Let me go about this another way. You currently have close to a hundred thousand ships to use against your enemy. If you could immediately convert all of those ships to match the one we give you, what impact would that have on the war you’re fighting?”

  Dahlia said, “It would be huge.”

  “If every one of those ships began killing one enemy ship every minute of every day, how long will it take for you to eventually destroy all of the ships they have right now at this moment?” Sprigly’s branches fell and the Crystal said, “Your species has always been good at calculations.”

  Ping said, “How long?”

  “Eighteen thousand years and that would not include the ships they build during the time you go out to kill their production facilities.”

  Dahlia said, “We could modify the millions of ships the Realm possesses.”

  “They would have to be modified in this Creation and the portals they use to come here would weaken the barrier causing an immediate attack by the Five you are fighting. The Realm would be destroyed before you could modify a thousand of them. Once their ships are loose in the Realm, you will have to pursue them through two different universes. They would still have the portals to escape to other universes and you would never completely eliminate them.