by Saxon Andrew
Drey looked at Ian and said, “I don’t need Dee to tell me what’s happening.”
Ian stared at Drey and said, “M87 is being targeted.”
Violet slowly nodded her head, “How do we know they’re the only one being scouted?”
Drey shook his head, “We don’t.”
Ian looked at Dee and sat down. None of them were leaving before she opened her eyes.
Drey looked at Dee and knew this information changed things. He thought about it and said, “I’m almost certain that our new ships have not been seen by whoever placed that probe.”
Dee didn’t open her eyes but she said, “They haven’t.”
Everyone looked at her and she still had her eyes closed. Drey said, “Why not?”
“The biggest threat will be eliminated first. That is where most of the attention is placed.”
Violet said, “Are you Dee?”
“No, I’m a creation of hers.”
“A creation?”
“A tool would be a better description.”
“What have you determined?”
“She’ll tell you when the analysis is complete. I need to look around.”
Ian said, “Is there one of those probes in our galaxy?”
“Yes, it’s located above the Kilper Council’s planet.”
“Why is it there?”
“It appears to be intercepting any communications going to the Kilper Leadership.”
Doc said, “That means they saw the feed from our most recent battle.”
Ian nodded, “But they have not seen one of our new force fields.”
Violet said, “Do you have the coordinates?”
Dee started speaking and when she finished Ian said, “Moe, did you get that?”
“I did. It’s about a hundred thousand miles from the planet on the sun side.”
Drey said, “What are you thinking?”
“We can’t get at it in other space.”
Drey smiled, “We’ll just have to flush it out.”
Ian smiled, “We need to know if that is a good idea. Dee should be able to tell us once she comes back.” Drey nodded.
• • •
The Pental Ruler waved his pseudopods at the creature on his display, “You are failing in your responsibility! This is not acceptable!”
The lead Negotiator never changed color, “Chapter nine hundred, page 99, third paragraph from the bottom reads; only ships that represent no danger to a civilization may cross its borders. With the agreement recently made, the Green and Grey Civilizations are no longer a danger to those that are leaving to invade the other galaxy and are thus allowed to cross any borders unmolested by any civilizations covered by the agreement.”
“They made this agreement to scout our civilizations.”
“Did you accept the agreement?” The Ruler fumed; many of those that were sending ships for the invasion had backed off on the numbers being sent. The presence of the Green and Greys inside their borders worried them. “They will not be attacked.”
“Twenty Civilizations have backed out of the invasion just to keep them out of their borders. This was not the intent of the agreement.”
“You didn’t make it so you don’t really know what their intent was. They are conducting themselves to the letter of the law. Do you wish to void the agreement?”
The Ruler knew that if he did that, more than seven hundred civilizations would back out of their participation and he’d lose more ships than just those being reduced. He quivered in admiration of the subtlety of the Greens and Greys. He never saw this coming and knew they were collecting extremely valuable intelligence and would continue to do so for twenty years. He was going to have to void the agreement after the invasion. But first, he had to get the ships organized for the invasion.
The Negotiator saw his display go dark and was impressed with the box the Green Leaders had put the other civilizations in. Perhaps they wouldn’t be agreeing to other suggestions quite so quickly in the future. The Negotiator rolled back on his pad and relaxed. He immediately turned transparent and disappeared.
• • •
The giant red ship hung in space above a blue and green planet. On the surface occasional nuclear blasts erupted. The Ship’s Father watched and saw the inhabitants were resorting to desperation tactics. It would do them no good. His troops were systematically destroying the military and stunning everyone else. They would be picked up and processed later but first all opposition had to be eliminated.
“Father, I have a communication.”
He pressed his panel and saw one of the Senior Grandfathers, “Yes, Father.”
“We are close to finishing with this galaxy.”
“It has become difficult to find new sources.”
“We will have to move to another source soon and it has been decided to select a source large enough for us to remain for a long duration.”
“Are you leaning toward that giant ball shaped galaxy?”
“We have been reluctant to go there due to their armed civilizations but they are now involved in a war and their numbers may be reduced. That would make them the best choice.”
The Father knew that civilized planets had the largest populations. Those planets were hard to find but the Ball Galaxy had millions of them. “What is your desire?”
“We are going to start organizing our initial move to go there and you have been selected to lead one of the major groups.”
“Thank you for your confidence, Father.”
“Your instructions will arrive soon. Start getting your group organized.”
The screen went dark and the father realized he had not asked an important question. Who was fighting in the war? He pushed the thought aside and waited for the information to arrive. Once he had the opportunity to look at all the data, he wondered if they were going to the right galaxy. The Spiral Galaxy might need to be eliminated as a threat before the Ball Galaxy. He assumed the family would make the best decision. They were never wrong.
• • •
Dee opened her eyes and said, “We’re being watched.”
“We know.”
Dee looked at Drey, “How do you know that?”
“You told us while you were in la la land.” Dee looked confused and Violet said, “Apparently, that place you go to focus has a kind of intelligence that answers questions posed to it. You’re not hearing them, but your subconscious does answer our questions.” Violet hit the play button and Dee looked up at the main wall display and watched her being questioned.
“How does this happen?”
Ian said, “I thought Drey was an idiot when he suggested you are a step forward in human evolution. You are really not tremendously different from High Genetics. We are able to turn a problem over to our subconscious and have it work on it while we’re performing other tasks. We can actually watch the process if we choose. You take it to a whole new level. Evidently, your mind is able to see things throughout the universe and correlate the data into something understandable.”
Dee shook her head, “But I don’t see what’s happening. I only get a sense of it.”
“Even so, you are a giant leap forward.”
Dee looked away from the display as Violet turned it off, “There is a civilization that lives in giant ships that goes from galaxy to galaxy attacking every civilized planet.”
Ian’s brow furrowed, “Do you know why?”
“It’s their main source of food.”
Silence slammed down on them and after a long moment Drey said, “Why would they attack civilized planets. Couldn’t they gather protein from planets that had no intelligent life form?”
Dee said, “That process is not efficient enough to suit their needs.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
Ian said, “Drey, you need look no further than humanity’s history to know why.”
“I’m not sure what you’re saying.”
“How old is humanity?”
Drey
shrugged and said, “The estimate ranges from a million to two million years.”
“In the database taken from Earth with the colonist’s ships, scientists determined that in 8,000 BC, the entire human population only numbered five million and that’s after two million years on the planet. By the year one, it had increased to two hundred million. By 1350 the population was estimated to be 370 million. Five hundred years later the population hit one billion in 1804. Two hundred years later it was more than seven billion.”
“How do you know this?”
“I have all kinds of useless information running around in my head.”
Drey stared at Ian and Violet said, “There were eighty billion inhabitants on the planet Gary and Abbey destroyed.”
Ian slowly shook his head, “Why go to an uncivilized planet and chase animal herds all over it or a primitive civilization with less than ten million inhabitants on the entire planet, when you have billions all located in giant cities on advanced planets? It makes the harvesting much easier.”
Dee said, “They are targeting M87 but one of their probes followed the invasion fleet here. They now know about us.”
Drey leaned forward, “Are you saying they have more than one probe in M87.”
“I sense they have
more than a hundred there and they’ve been there centuries.”
Ian sighed, “That poses a problem.” Dee nodded. ‘They may worry that we would intervene if they invaded M87 now that we are in a conflict with them.”
Drey said, “I would remove us first before I took on that monster galaxy. We only have two civilizations to eliminate. M87 has thousands.” Drey thought a moment, “Ian, did we transmit a feed of the last battle to the First?”
“No, he watched several of the planets being attacked but the Admiral took most of the information back to him. Why do you ask?”
“If that probe is collecting information at the Kilper Capital, then it doesn’t know how many ships we have in our fleets.”
Dee closed her eyes a moment and said, “They don’t.”
Drey looked at Dee, “This is absolutely critical; do they have a probe in the Green or Grey Civilizations anywhere near their border?”
Dee closed her eyes and said, “Not at the moment.”
“When was the last time one was there?”
Dee closed her eyes and after ten minutes said, “It looks like ten years.”
Drey said, “Thank God.”
Ian looked confused, “Why?”
“If they had a probe there, they would have seen one of our new force fields in action. They would have also heard our conversations with them. They don’t know we’ve been talking with them.”
Dee said, “They don’t know.”
Ian thought a moment, “Does this change our plans?”
Drey nodded, “It does.”
“In what way.”
“Now we have to lose.”
Ian and Violet were shocked by the statement but Dee smiled and nodded. She looked at Drey and knew they were going to have to make a trip.
• • •
The Sovereign looked at the small green ship and said, “You’ve requested my presence.”
“We need you to deliver a message to the new leader of the invasion.”
“What is that?”
“Please tell him you intercepted one of our transmissions and inform him that we don’t have enough ships to prevent the destruction of our major planets. Tell him that our ships are being held out of the defense and will be sent to attack the civilizations taking part in the invasion.”
The Sovereign thought for a long moment and said, “Is this true?”
“The part about not using our ships to defend those planets is.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Those planets are uninhabited and have been for a number of years. We hope the invasion fleet will rush back and getting enough enthusiasm to return will be difficult.”
The Sovereign said, “I’ve seen the recordings. Those planets had a huge energy signature.”
“We left everything running.”
“This idea just might work.”
“That is our hope.”
“What if he asks to hear the transmission?”
“We’re about to send it so you should turn on your recording devices.”
The Sovereign laughed, “You are very sneaky.”
“You have no idea.”
“Send it.”
Dee picked up the paper and began reading. Each time she paused, Drey read from his sheet. It actually sounded like two ships communicating with each other. At the end Dee said, “Did you get it?”
“Yes and the part about sending the coordinates of the Invasion Leader’s home planet was a stroke of genius.”
“If you’ll do this, we will consider the debt paid and we will be back at ground zero in any future negotiations.”
“Consider it done.”
• • •
Ian sat with the First Councilor and explained what had been discovered. The First looked at the Admiral and saw him perplexed. “Do you have anything indicating the existence of that probe?”
“No.”
The First turned back to Ian, “Are you sure about this?”
“Yes, we are; I’ll share the data that came in from the scanner that picked up the transmission from M87 to another galaxy but in the interim, we know the probe is here.”
“How long has it been here?”
“It came in with the Invasion Fleet and remained behind. It followed the highest level of communications and arrived here.”
The Admiral said, “This planet does have the most communications of any other planet.”
The First pressed a button and said, “Have you been listening to this?”
The Hub said, “I have and I have analyzed all of the communications we’re sent since the invasion and none of them have revealed that the former Main Planets are not inhabited. There is also no way to know which planet we’ve been communicating with, so the probe shouldn’t know about all our other worlds.”
The Admiral said, “What are you planning to do?”
“We’re going to lose.”
“Is that so?”
“For the moment.”
The Admiral closed his eyes and smiled, “That sounds like a plan.”
The First looked at him and said, “You agree with this?”
The Admiral looked at Ian, “Have you delivered the message?”
“It’s being done as we speak.”
“Yes, First Councilor, I agree with this plan.”
Ian smiled, “You are like Dee.” The Admiral nodded. Ian turned and rushed out the door, “Explain it to the First, I have to get the fleets mobilized. I’ll send you your assignments.”
The Admiral nodded and the first said, “By all means, explain this to me.”
The Admiral did and the First’s expression changed from consternation to a smile. The First said, “What are we going to do with that probe?”
“We’re going to feed it what we want it to know.”
“We’re not going to destroy it?”
“Not now, that comes later.”
The First looked at the Admiral and said, “I’m out of my league here. Just tell me what you need me to do.”
“Send all the Councilors home on a fact finding mission to determine how our societies are getting along. Tell them to report with an in depth report in four months. I’ll jump the necessary number of ships away toward the main planets and have the Hub announce on an open frequency that the ships being sent to look for farming worlds should leave. That is when the Councilors will be cleared to lift off.”
The First shook his head, “That will reduce our communications eighty percent.”
The Admiral nodded, “And we can control any that are made during that period.”
“If you need anything else, let me know.”
“I will, First Councilor.”
• �
� •
Cole sat at his desk holding Harmony. She was asleep and Argel came in the door and saw him staring at his screen, “What are you doing?”
Cole was startled but didn’t wake the baby, “I had an idea and I needed to take a look at it.”
“It couldn’t wait until morning?”
Cole swiveled his chair around, “Did you see the recording of the planet that Ian exploded in M87?” Argel nodded. “Well it got me thinking; why are the Boson Beams so narrow?”
“If they were wider, the nuclear explosion would be much more massive. The shockwave could pose a danger to our ships.”
“What about with the new force field?”
Argel tilted her head and furrowed her brow, “I…really…don’t know.”
“What started me thinking about this was that the ship’s that exploded had almost all of their mass converted to energy; there wasn’t any debris to mention. What would a high energy shock wave do to our ships?”
Argel stared at him in confusion for a moment and then her eyes widened, “It would collect it in the Boson Collectors.”
“And the force field?”
“Could it take that large a blast, Cole?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
Argel rushed in and powered up her terminal, “How difficult would it be to expand the beam?”
“I’ve already looked at that. That’s not going to be a problem. The magnetic fields will just have to be modified inside a larger barrel.” Argel nodded and began keying in instructions. After ten minutes she said while she continued to type, “If it came down to it, a wider Boson Beam would remove the section of the shock wave coming at our ships.”
“I saw that thirty minutes ago. However, if we could collect Bosons from the shockwave, that would be a better outcome.”
Argel continued to type and said, “You have a head start; let’s see if what we find matches.”
“Hey, I’m typing with one hand.”
Argel smiled, “I’ll take her later. Try to keep up.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Pental Ruler stared at the new Green Sovereign, “You intercepted what?”
“I sent one of my ships to the edge of that spiral galaxy and it was able to intercept one of the alien’s communications. I thought about it and my Council advised me to share it with you.”