by Saxon Andrew
“No, she’ll be coming shortly.”
“That is what I’m talking about.”
“What’s bothering you?”
“I was just thinking that maybe we can save some of our people by having them board our battleships and scatter out into space. Maybe, just maybe, our ships won’t be detectable by whatever device the Gardners are going to launch.”
Ping pressed his wrist unit, “Dean.”
“Yes.”
“How many people would you be able to put on board a battleship.”
There was a pause and Dean said, “I’m going to assume you would want the brackets removed.”
“That’s correct.”
“The three landing bays would hold about twenty thousand each; however, they would be really pressed up against each other.”
“That’s almost sixty percent of the planet’s population.”
“How would you feed them?”
“We’ll worry about that after we see what’s coming.”
“I think we could load the Mites with food and fill every inch of space available.”
“Tell Tess what we’re thinking and see what she thinks.”
“I’ll get back to you.”
Ping looked at Dahlia, “Do you sense this is necessary?”
“I do; why do you ask?”
“I sense immense danger in doing it.”
“Look at the level if we don’t do it.”
Ping winced, “You’re right; we have to make this happen.”
“Do you know why, Ping?”
“I have no idea. I just know it has to be done.’
“I guess we’ll have an answer if Tess says no.”
“You know she won’t.”
“I just wish I understood what’s happening; I’m lost.”
Ping took her in his arms and held her until Dean called and said the ships were being emptied of brackets.
• • •
“Sprigly, I want you to come to our ship at the appropriate time.”
“Thank you for the offer; when do you think that’s going to happen?”
“It won’t be much longer. The Four are bringing thousands of Battleships to the planets that are manufacturing the portal projectors. Tess has decided that when the number of battleships above those planets are down to less than a hundred, those selected to escape on the Nemite Battleships will start boarding. They will only be taking what they’re wearing so it shouldn’t take long. They’ve practiced the process several times so they should be fine.”
“Where are they going?”
“Tess thinks they should scatter to all the areas not currently conquered by the Five.”
“What do you think, Ping?”
Ping sighed heavily, “No matter where they choose to run, I still get a dire sense of danger. Dahlia and I are out of our element and are more spectators than participants at this moment.”
“When is she due?”
“About three weeks.”
“So she could have the baby at any moment?”
Ping shrugged, “I guess; she says three weeks and somehow I think she’s right. At least I really hope she’s right.”
“Why?”
“I believe we have less than three weeks before everything goes to hell in a hand basket.”
“Perhaps I should move up to Pare now?”
“I think that would be a good idea.”
“Do you think the Gardners will act?”
“I honestly don’t know; they’re too busy to come save Victoria, so that tells me they’re having issues. Like I said, “I’m more of an observer now.”
Sprigly leaned forward, “I’ll see you on Pare,” and the display went dark. Ping knew all the Planter’s ships were on the planet preparing to take on supplies or population. He leaned back in the control room and watched the numerous displays showing the massive exodus from the planet.
Tess walked over and put her hand on Ping’s shoulder, “I don’t know if I’ve ever thanked you for staying here and helping my planet to survive.”
“You don’t need to thank me, Tess. You know why I did it.” Tess nodded, “Where’s Dean?”
“I ordered him to take Victoria to one of the Mites and get off the planet.”
“I imagine that didn’t sit well with him.”
Tess shrugged, “No, it didn’t; but he knows how important Victoria is and he didn’t fight me on it very long.” Tess looked at Ping, “Do you think it’ll be safer on the ships or on the planet?”
“Honestly, I don’t think it’ll be safe anywhere. But doing this is probably worth the effort; one never knows.”
“Do you think this so called Doomsday Device will be as effective as they say?”
“If the Gardners say it will kill everything in this universe, it will.” Ping looked at Tess, “Where are you going to be?”
“I’m staying here with the ghosts of my parents, husband, and daughter. I really have no need to leave.”
Ping nodded and stood up; he hugged Tess and said, “You deserve a good life; if anyone does, you do.”
“I’ll take what’s given to me, Ping.” Suddenly, alarms went off and Tess looked at the displays, “It appears the Four are starting to gather their fleets. You should take Dahlia and go.”
Ping hugged Tess again and thought, “Dahlia?”
“I’m already on board. You should come now.”
Ping looked at Tess and smiled, “You are the best of your people; I admire you so much more than you know.” Tess nodded and Ping disappeared.
• • •
He appeared on the bridge and saw Sprigly in a chair with a panel in front of him and Dahlia in the second command chair. She was getting so large. “What’s going on?”
“There are a million sites where the Four have sent their fleets. They’re lining up so they should be powering up the projectors shortly.”
“Have you seen anything else?”
“If you mean have the Gardners shown up with their device, no.”
Ping went over to Dahlia and knelt down in front of her and took her hands, “Are you ok?”
Dahlia nodded, “I’m fine. I know I should be scared but having you with me makes me believe everything is going to be alright.”
“Dahlia, I don’t know of anything else I can do.”
“You can be here with me, like you promised.”
“You know I’ll never leave you.”
“I believe that is the most important thing at this moment, my love.”
Ping looked up and saw millions of orange portals start glowing. It appeared the four were using their energy to power the projectors. He wondered why the Gardners had not arrived. Was all their sacrifice to save the Realm simply wasted effort?
Sprigly announced, “The ships are lifting off the planet.”
Ping looked at the planet and seeing more than two hundred thousand ships lifting was a site to remember. He looked at Dahlia and said, “Pare, teleport us away from here and out into empty space between two random galaxies.” Ping saw Dahlia looked at the display and knew what she was thinking. “Tess knows you love her; she wants you to be on a ship.”
“I should stay with her. She’s been alone since she lost her family.”
“No she hasn’t; you and Dean have been there with her helping her survive her grief. You’re with her now.”
Dahlia nodded and looked out the viewport at distant points of light. She knew each of those lights were a galaxy millions of light years away.
• • •
Danielle screamed, “They’re powering the portals! We’re too late!” Tag took her in his arms and held her close. Pixie and Jixie watched the display and knew they had failed to make the field operational. Sam and Ken could only stare at the hundreds of thousands of portals starting to glow on the ship’s display. Danielle said, “I guess no one is smart enough to make this work.”
Jixie looked at Danielle, “What did you just say?”
“I said no one
is smart enough to make this work.”
Jixie shook her head and looked up, “Senior, are you there?”
“Yes Child, what do you need?”
“We’re trying to make a psychic field permeable from the outside while holding anything inside it from escaping.”
“Open your mind and show me what you’ve done.” Jixie closed her eyes and heard a moment later, “Give me a little bit of time to think about this.”
Jixie fell into her command chair and shook her head. Danielle said, “What’s wrong?”
“A moment to the Senior could be years in our time. We’ve failed.”
“Failed at what?”
“Senior!”
“Open your mind to receive what I’ve seen. You were remarkably close to a solution.”
Jixie closed her eyes and Pixie entered her mother’s mind and saw what she was seeing. After ten seconds Jixie opened her eyes, “I should have seen this. It’s so simple.”
Pixie yelled, “Shut up and get to work, Mom!”
Pixie and Jixie rushed over the field emitter panel and began throwing switches at an incredible rate. The other four looked out of the viewport and saw the field start to have ripples roll across it. “Everyone go to their ships. Pixie, let’s go to Alex next.” Jixie and Pixie disappeared and Tag and Danielle teleported out a moment later. Sam looked at Ken, “I hope we can do this in time.”
Ken shook his head, “It’s going to be too close to call.” Ken teleported to his ship and Sam waited for Jixie to return. He looked out at the field and saw the ripples were now full blown waves rolling across it. By the time Jixie returned, the waves had stabilized into sharp peaks with gaps between them. Sam shook his head, “Jixie was right; they had missed that shape in their efforts.” A minute later, Jixie appeared and yelled, “Strap in Sam; this is going to be rough.” The blue field disappeared and the three ships teleported to a distant galaxy.
• • •
The three ships arrived outside the galaxy and Jixie said, “This must be done exactly; set your timers to one minute; power up the emitters at thirty seconds, turn on the vibration at full volume at fifteen seconds, and have the emitters activate the moment you enter normal space. Does anyone have any questions?”
Tag said, “How long will we wait before we make the move?”
“We have to wait until they are all captured.”
“Do we know how many aren’t present?”
“No, Alex will make a scan as soon as the field is activated and let us know. I really don’t think it will be long before any absentees show up.”
Pixie said, “Once the move is completed, everyone must exit that universe immediately after releasing the field and I do mean immediately.”
Jixie nodded, “Any more questions? No? Start the minute countdown starting righttttt….now!”
• • •
The three ships hung in empty space outside the giant galaxy and a minute later they all disappeared together and reappeared at the center of the galaxy surrounding a giant purple colored structure close to the galaxy’s core. The blue psychic field immediately activated and the structure disappeared inside it. Jixie yelled, “Alex?”
“Two thousand are not here.” Suddenly, bright flashes lit up the blue field. “Make that nine hundred.” The flashes appeared again and Alex said, “Ten are still…make that three…only one is still out. A bright flash hit close to Pixie’s ship and she yelled, “That’s the last one. Make the move!”
The blue field solidified and the peaks disappeared from its surface. The blue field covered and area more than ten light years across and something inside it was moving at an incredible velocity. Danielle yelled, “Count it down, Jixie!”
“On my mark, three, two, one, MARK!!”
The three giant blue psychic ships and the blue field between them disappeared.
Chapter Twenty-One
Captain Phillip Lavor had chosen to teleport his Planter Battleship to a galaxy that was young and developing new stars at a prodigious rate. He moved his ship close to the core of the young galaxy and hoped the dust and excited energies being emitted by the formation of billions of stars and the massive energies being spewed out by the massive black hole would mask his presence. He sat in his command chair and watched the process of creation taking place outside his view port. He hoped whatever was going to take place would happen quickly. He had 60,000 civilians packed on board and nowhere near enough supplies to feed them.
“Sir, I’m detecting some kind of aberrant reading on my scanners.”
“What kind of reading?”
“I’m not sure; I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Captain Lavor had fought his battleship in every major battle the Planters had entered. He had commanded his ship with extraordinary bravery and cunning. He had never made a mistake in battle, having always done the exact right thing to survive and destroy his enemy. He was one of the Planter’s best ship commanders.
If he would have just remembered that he wasn’t using his ship as a weapon but as a transport for the civilians on board, he wouldn’t have made his first mistake. However, his curiosity made him ask two questions. “How strong is the reading?”
“It’s halfway up the scale, Sir.”
““What area does it cover?”
“My scanners see it everywhere as far as they can scan.”
Phillip jumped up and shouted, “Teleport us out of here,” just as the ship was surrounded by a vast blue field. If he recognized his responsibility was to the civilians on board, he would have immediately teleported away. His first and only mistake was his last.
“MY BOARD IS LOCKED AND INOPERATIVE!!”
The Navigator yelled, “SIR, ALL OUR SYSTEMS ARE OFFLINE.”
A moment later, the blue field surrounding them disappeared. The Communications Officer jumped up from his chair and started backing away from the front view port, “WHAT IS THAT!?!” Everyone on the bridge turned and saw something that blew their mind. It was easily four hundred times larger than the half mile long Battleship and it was sitting less than a mile from the bow of their ship. It was flashing multicolored lights and everyone could see it was angry. Beyond the giant object, they could see thousands of others flashing around them. Captain Lavor had just enough time to reach for the communicator as his ship was hit by a giant white globe; in less than an instant; nothing remained to ever show that more than sixty thousand beings had been erased from existence.
• • •
Danielle saw normal space appear and heard Jixie yell, “RELEASE THE FIELD ON MY MARK AND GET OUT! THREE, TWO, ONE, MARK!!”
Danielle listened to the countdown and heard Alex say, “Danielle, a Planter’s Battleship is trapped inside the field.”
Danielle and Tag jerked their heads around to the wall monitor and saw the giant battleship dead in space. Just before they disappeared they saw a giant object flash up and stop close to the stricken ship. Danielle screamed as the Kosiev disappeared.
• • •
“This is not possible! How could they have a ship in this galaxy!?!”
Alex said, “You know what this means and how it affects what’s going to happen.”
Tag said, “Contact the Prince, Alex.” Ping appeared on his display. “Ping, we have a problem.”
Ping saw Thomas Gardner on his display and said, “What do you mean a problem?”
“We’ve just released the device and one of your battleships was at the site of the release. We chose a galaxy for the release that was uninhabited and never expected to have a starship anywhere near it.”
“What’s the problem?”
Danielle yelled, “You don’t understand! The creatures we released will focus on your ships and planet to the exclusion of everything else. One of your ships was the first thing they saw upon entering your universe and they will not stop until every ship and planet of your species is erased from the universe. The possibility of this happening is more than a billion to one that on
e of your ships would be the first one they encountered.”
Ping shook his head, “What are you trying to say! If we’re going to die anyway, why is there a problem?”
“Because they will have to take time to find all of your ships and then destroy your planet. By the time that’s done, the Four will be sending millions of ships into the Realm. Their portals will be active before our device can remove you.”
Ping knew that time had run out. His hope of survival was just a dream. He looked at Dahlia and knew he would never see their unborn daughter. Dahlia saw his sorrow and turned to the display. She pressed a button on her panel and said, “Attention all Planter Ships, you will return to our planet and enter orbit. You will turn off your weapons and not activate them unless you are directly ordered to do so. This is an order from the crown and you will teleport back immediately.” Dahlia turned back to the monitor, “If they can destroy us fast enough, perhaps they can stop the Four.”
Danielle shook her head, “I’m so sorry; I’m so sorry.”
Dahlia looked up and said, “Pare, that order includes us; take us back.”
• • •
They arrived and Tess appeared on the display, “What’s going on?”
“One of our battleships was seen by the device the Gardners released. It appears that before it goes after the Four, it will have to remove us from existence. If we’re going to die either way, we might as well get it done quickly enough for it to go after the Four before they invade the Realm.”
“Are you certain none of us would have escaped?”
“The Gardners are and that’s enough to convince me, Tess.”
“I love you, Dahlia.”
Dahlia nodded, “I know, Sis. I’ve always known.”
Sprigly said, “A hornet has just appeared.”
Ping and Dahlia turned and looked out of the view port and saw something amazing. Ping said, “Do you know what this is?”
“I do.”
“What is that thing, Sprigly?”
“Ken and Pixie used that creature to destroy the last five evil civilizations the Realm was going to have to face to survive. The five civilizations were so far advanced, the Realm really didn’t have much of a chance against them. That creature was created to be the ultimate doomsday being.”