by Saxon Andrew
“Why is that?” Atlas asked.
“Because I’m not ready to assume my full power and, if it were known, I would be placed in a precarious situation.”
“Why is that?”
“Will you keep this conversation just between the two of us?”
“By that, I think you’re asking me to not reveal it to Tag and Danielle.”
“Or anyone else.”
“I will not allow any danger to the Gardners to…”
“I am not a danger to them, or anyone else here in the dark dimension,” the voice interrupted.
“Then why are you unwilling to reveal yourself to them?”
“Atlas, I honestly don’t have an answer to that question. I just know that when I think about revealing what’s happening to me, I sense great danger. I tried to discuss it with my parents and was paralyzed with fear that wouldn’t pass, until I gave up the plan. The same thing happens when I consider discussing it with Tag and Danielle.”
Atlas was silent for a long moment and then asked, “Then that begs the question, why are you having this conversation with me?”
“Atlas…I sometimes have visions that come true. One of them took place four-years ago and you were in it. I assumed it was only a dream at the time…but your arrival makes me realize it was a real vision; I saw you the moment you entered the Dark Dimension. I need you to do something for me and the only way to get it to happen is to contact you directly. I now know contacting you is the right thing to do because I’m not paralyzed with fear communicating with you.” Atlas was silent and Rose thought, “Will you help me?”
Atlas thought about it and then answered, “I’ve been struggling with coming here for a while. I tried to push the idea away but it kept coming back. I initially thought Tag and Danielle were the source of this nagging itch I couldn’t scratch but it appears you are the one that was tugging me to come here. I won’t help you without knowing what’s going on. I must be certain that you don’t represent a danger to the Gardners.”
“Atlas, I may be the only one that can save them.”
“Now I know you’re going to have to tell me everything.”
“Will you give me your solemn promise to not reveal what we discuss to anyone and I do mean anyone?”
“I will make that promise but I reserve the right to refuse to do what you want.”
Rose hesitated and then thought, “That’s fair.”
Atlas listened to her for more than hour and, at the end, said, “That’s rather frightening.”
“Tell me about it.”
“How old are you?”
“Almost fifteen-years old.”
“You really remind me of someone.”
“That’s because I am her.”
Atlas was stunned by her comment and finally replied, “I have to think about this. I’m going to go and look for the universe Tag and Danielle want me to find; I’ll decide on this by the time I return. May I assume you’ll know when that happens?”
“I knew you were here now; I guess I’ll be able to see you when you come back.” Rose suddenly felt the intelligent Silver Starship disappear from her senses. She fell back in her bed and pulled the cover over her head. She prayed that her vision was pure and that no evil would come from it. She really wasn’t certain she wanted Atlas to do what she wanted; she refused it before. But she had to make the effort.
• • •
Atlas found four-Black Warships leaving the Realm’s universe and followed them as they activated their universal drives. He thought about what he learned during his conversation with the young human female and struggled with what he would do.
His species had extracted their intellects from their bodies millions of years earlier and the Silver Ships they inhabited became the new hosts for their intellects. Over the millions of years, he had lived, he had never been confronted with anything like this situation.
His accidental discovery by Tag on Earth’s Moon thousands of years ago, when Tag was attempting to escape Earth’s Government, had led to so many important events, not the least of which were freeing the surviving members of his species from the Captors and defeating the Algeans. He loved the Gardners and considered them part of his family; keeping this information from them troubled him deeply…but he knew he couldn’t tell them. Rose was right about that.
The four-Black Ships jumped again and he focused on following them. He struggled with what he was going to do.
Chapter Four
Atlas listened to the transmissions between the four-Black-Ships, as they made multiple jumps to several universes. It was simple to determine which ship had the highest-ranking officer on board. He decided to stay with that vessel, as one black ship remained behind in each of the next three-universes they entered. Now, there was only one left to follow and it continued to make jumps into other universes. Finally, after five-days, the huge warship stopped and Atlas detected a powerful scanning field activate. He analyzed the field and determined that it would not detect the silver hull of his ship. The giant Black Warship scanned for ten-hours, then the scanner shut down, and the universal drive field reappeared. The Black Warship disappeared, as Atlas flashed in and read the coordinates of the universe it jumped away to. Atlas was surprised by the coordinates; the universe was more than a thousand-universes further out than the one he was currently in. He reset the universal coordinates and set the drive to take him a light year away from the coordinates the Black Ship would appear in that distant universe. He activated the drive and, an instant later, emerged outside a large planetary system. He immediately detected hundreds of Black Warships teleporting in on his location and he instantly jumped away using his dimensional drive.
He waited in a dimension that was dismally dark. He could only see two-distant galaxies and they were tiny compared to those in most universes. This dimension was even darker than the Demon’s Dark Dimension. After three-hours passed, he reset his coordinates and entered the universe he exited earlier, at another location, using the dimensional drive. He watched his scanner closely and saw that his entrance had not been detected. He turned his optical scanner toward the large planetary system and saw an inhabited planet close to the central star. It was glowing brightly and he began cautiously moving in to get a better look.
He took his time and kept his distance from the hundreds of thousands of Black Warships scattered around the system. His silver hull’s specially alloy did not reflect light or reflections from electronic scanners. For a ship to detect him, it would have to be extremely close and visually see him. He moved from side-to-side avoiding large formations of Black Warships, as he moved deeper into the system. He didn’t use his teleport system; they could detect it. Finally, he arrived at the closest planet to the inhabited planet. He moved directly over the desolate world and turned his optical scanner toward the brilliantly glowing planet in the distance. What he saw was shocking.
Atlas had seen many militarized planets in his long existence that were heavily defended…but none of them were close to what he was seeing on his scanner. The entire planet was surrounded by giant defense structures in orbit that were covered with hundreds of missile launch ports and giant blaster barrels that dwarfed the largest planetary blasters he had ever seen. The smallest satellite over the North Pole was more than a thousand-miles in diameter and the force fields around all of them were incredibly powerful. He moved the view closer and saw the gaps between the huge satellites were filled with hundreds of thousands of giant Black Warships that dwarfed the one he followed from the Realm’s Universe. The warships sent to collect raw-materials were less than one-third the size of the warships defending this planet.
Suddenly, a giant transport crossed his field of view and his computer system automatically locked his optical scanner on it. He watched, as it moved through the defenses above the planet, and it finally began moving into the planet’s atmosphere. It spiraled down to the surface and arrived directly above a giant building. He glanced at his computer screen
and saw the structure was more than thirty-miles long. He looked back at his monitor and was surprised to see that the roof over the building had completely opened under the transport in the brief time he looked away. He saw giant doors under the transport swing open as the contents inside it began falling into the building. In less than a minute, the roof closed and the transport lifted. It moved smoothly away and headed back toward orbit. Atlas remained focused on the building and moved the view around it until he saw the northern end appear on his monitor.
Something was moving out of the building. He zoomed the view in closer and saw large mobile transports were rolling out of the huge structure at high speed. He looked closer and saw that each of those transports had a completed hull of a giant black warship on it. The line of transports moved quickly toward another giant building twenty-miles away. Zooming the view out, he saw three giant buildings connected by the transportation lines. The other two-buildings had transports over them dropping their contents into their open roofs. He moved the view over to the third-building and saw completed warships were moving out of it toward a giant spaceport forty-miles away. The spaceport covered thousands of miles and was enclosed by a powerful force field. Black Warships covered the giant facility and more were arriving.
The speed those ships were being constructed boggled the imagination. He spoke to his panel, “Make a quick view of the planet and tell me if there are any more of those buildings on the surface.”
He waited as the view on the monitor swirled into a blur of images and, ten-minutes later, he heard, “I’ve only been able to optically scan this side of the planet. You will need to move around to the other side to get a complete count.”
“Just tell me how many are on this side.”
“There are twenty-thousand sets of those buildings on this side of the planet constructing warships. Some of them are blocked from my optical scanner by clouds but there are tracks leading toward the space port indicating the structures are present.”
Atlas was stunned again but then took notice of what the computer said, “Are there any other buildings on the planet that are different?”
“There are ten-thousand sets of buildings constructing the large transports. The tracks from them lead to another spaceport on the opposite side of the continent.”
Atlas tried to figure out what this meant. The economy of scale here made it clear that it was economically disastrous to devote the entire industrial output of a planet to the task of building warships and transports. The quality of life of the inhabitants had to suffer immensely from what he was witnessing. He thought for a moment and moved the view further out from the planet. He widened the view and saw thousands of giant transports moving toward the planet. This was unbelievable!
Suddenly, a giant black warship crossed his view and the optical system’s focus locked on it, as it moved out from the planet. The system zoomed out and a huge formation of warships moving through the planet’s defenses appeared, as they started forming up above the planet. He swept the view back to the planet and saw four more large formations moving from the planet’s surface toward orbit. Two of them were coming from the other side of the planet, which confirmed that the other side must look just like the one he was currently above. “What’s the total count of warships lifting into orbit.”
“More than a hundred-thousand,” the computer responded.
Atlas watched the five-groups move together and it was done at a speed he found amazing. Those crews were highly trained and every warship knew its designated place in the formation. He heard a beep and quickly looked at his drive system. The Black Warships were powering up their teleport drives and the coordinates they were jumping to appeared on his panel. He locked it in and jumped back to the dimension a moment after the giant formation disappeared. He studied the coordinates and saw they were located more than a million-light-years across the galaxy from the planet’s location. He decided to go and see what was going on. He ordered his drive unit, “Jump to the dimension and then jump half a light year from the coordinates we took from that fleet.”
Atlas appeared in a planetary system that was the twin of the one he left. He was shocked at what was on his monitor and wondered how many more times he was going to stunned by what was taking place in this universe. The space battle he saw was one of the largest he ever witnessed in his extremely long life. The last battle against the Demons was the only one larger, and the intensity of what he was witnessing was close to that historic fight. There were tens-of-thousands of pale Yellow Warships attacking an identical planet to the first one he scouted and they dwarfed the largest Black Warships. The Yellow Ships were heavily outnumbered but it became clear quickly that they were more advanced than the defenders. Hundreds of Black Warships were attacking each of the yellow ships, but the battle was far from being won by either side.
The gigantic defense satellites above the planet were the only thing preventing the planet’s destruction. They were firing their giant blasters at the Yellow Ships but the majority of their blasters were devoted to knocking out the hundreds-of-thousands of missiles being fired at the planet. Atlas zoomed in on the planet and saw that the orbital defenses weren’t entirely successful in taking out all the missiles; there were numerous areas on the planet’s surface that were burning out of control. But most of the surface was untouched and still the battle raged.
He jumped out to the dimension and ordered, “Replay what you’ve recorded.” The images began on the monitor in slow motion and he saw something that he didn’t notice before. “What is that flickering blue and green field filling the site of the battle and the space above the planet?”
“I’ve nothing in my data that matches it.”
“What purpose does it serve?”
“I am unable to determine its purpose. It does not appear to affect the Black Warships.” the computer answered.
Atlas watched Black Warships flying through the field with no visible effect on them. He watched the battle unfold in the recording and saw one of the giant Yellow Warship’s hulls suddenly explode. It turned and began moving out of the battle and he immediately jumped back in to the site of the battle. He quickly found the damaged Yellow Ship and moved in close enough to get a reading on its universal drive. The giant warship jumped away, when it cleared the battle, and he continued to record the massive fight; after ten minutes, he jumped back to the dimension.
“Run an analysis of what’s been recorded!”
“Working.”
While he waited, Atlas studied the battle and saw that the hundred-thousand Black Warships that jumped in from the first planet he scouted were making a huge difference. It was also clear that if a Black Ship was damaged, it didn’t flee. Most of the time it would deliberately suicide by crashing into one of the yellow ships. He began to realize that this battle was not unique. The organization of the defenders made it clear they had done this before; probably, many times. Atlas settled in and began looking at the Computer’s analysis as it appeared on his panel; this was pretty scary stuff.
• • •
The next day, Atlas jumped back in and saw the battle was over. The surviving Black Warships were blasting the derelicts of thousands of destroyed warships above the planet into vapor to clear the space around the planet to offer the defense satellites clear-fields of fire for their blasters. The fires on the planet were being fought by ground units as thousands of Black Warships were jumping in to replace the ones that were lost. He jumped back to the dimension and decided to go and take a good look at the coordinates he had taken from the damaged Yellow Warship. He was stunned that the coordinates were more than a million-universes from the Black Warships’ universe.
He activated the dimensional drive and arrived in open space in the universe of the Yellow Ships. What he found caused him to feel something he hadn’t felt for thousands of years, since the last fight with the Demons…fear. He sent the next three-weeks scouting the universe, until he finally jumped out. He knew the task wasn’
t completed; he was missing something important in the Black Universe. He jumped back to the Black Universe and scouted it for another two-weeks. His original feeling was confirmed; the war between the Yellow and Black Ships had been going on for a very, very, long time.
He had been gone much longer than he originally planned and knew he should get back and deliver his findings to Tag and Danielle. His indecision about the young human female had been resolved; there was only one decision he could make.
• • •
“Tag, Atlas is late. Do you think he’s all right?”
“We have no way of knowing, Danielle. However, if he didn’t survive the scouting, there’s probably no way one of our ships would either. I don’t sense he was harmed and we need to move forward with our plans to retake Ross.”
“But what if he comes back here looking for us?”
“I’m certain BC will let him know where we are. We need to get moving on our plans, Danielle!”
Danielle started nodding slowly and then activated her telepathy module, “Emperor Robbins, we’re planning to move to Ross tomorrow morning.”
James was still getting used to the new last name he acquired with the Throne, “I’ll notify the fleets here and have them move to the Defense Facility first thing in the morning.”
“Make sure all of them are fully provisioned. We may be gone a long time,” Danielle replied.
“That’s already been done, Danielle. Good-luck and stay safe.”
“Thank you, James. I’ll send slivers on a regular schedule to keep you informed on what’s happening.”
“Thank you.”
Tag listened to the conversation and thought, “BC, are the engineers and their families prepared to leave?”
“They’ve been notified and most them are moving to the transports as we speak; the others will arrive before launch time. I’m concerned that the Black Ships have removed a lot of the metals and building materials, when they attacked Ross.”
“I don’t think that will pose an issue,” Tag replied. “The Black Ships destroyed a lot of the largest city on the surface but were called away, when the DECs showed up. There are still large areas of Ross that have not been destroyed. Only a few of their transports arrived before they were forced to jump out. Besides, the natural resources on Ross have barely been used to build the cities; there’s plenty left on the planet. We’ll have to get the smelting factories restarted, which will pose the largest problem.”