by Saxon Andrew
“Jake, those ships coming in from the outer system will be here soon. If they arrive, we’re all in range of their weapons.”
“Where are the transports, Junior?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t care what you think, Admiral, get those ships moving immediately.”
“But, Your Majesty, we’ve had to remove the power to the weapon consoles to power the teleport fields to only take the colonists. There is a battle taking place that can hit those ships before they can teleport the colonists.”
Joe decided at that moment that Admiral Zergl was going to have to go. He just couldn’t make the tough decisions in a crisis. Joe keyed his com, “What does our probe say about the situation in the Keepers’ system?”
Edison responded, “The battle with the garrison is just outside the hills surrounding the colonies. The transports are tall enough to extend above those hills such that the Keepers can shoot off the tops of them before we can teleport the colonists.”
“What about the incoming Keepers Fleet?”
“They’ll arrive in less than an hour.”
Joe thought about what to do. “How long will it take to teleport the colonists?”
“At least fifteen minutes. The process is difficult because we have to leave those bracelets and connections behind.”
“Can we take smaller ships in to take the colonies?”
“It took us ten hours to get these working. There’s no way to move the screens or modify others.”
Joe thought a moment and then decided, “When the Keepers Fleet is twenty minutes out, teleport in and take the colonists.”
There was a momentary pause and Edison said, “I was hoping you would make that decision, Your Grace.”
“Admiral, notify our people at the Keepers’ planet what we are doing.”
Zergl started to protest but saw the Prince’s expression and ordered the message sent.
“Jake, the transports are coming in forty minutes. If we don’t knock out every Keepers’ beam platform here, they will disable the transports. The Keepers Fleet is an hour out.”
Jake looked at the Keepers still pouring out of the ground and knew there was no way to get them all. He continued to fight, but knew there was no hope.
“Jake, there is hope.”
“I don’t see any way to make this happen, Valerie.”
“That’s why you must come here at the last minute and let me touch you.”
“Why?”
“Remember what happened to the Keepers when your psychic shell was broken, it could happen again when your powers are released.”
Jake suddenly saw what she was saying, “That will only happen if you are truly my initiator.”
“Do you doubt that I am, Jake? Look in your heart; you must have felt something when I first touched you.”
Jake thought back to when Valerie had shook his hand on Cynthia’s ship and he did feel something. “But what if you’re not?”
“Then Junior takes us back to the Realm. However, this is the only chance we have to save your family.”
Jake fired six hornets at Keepers that were coming up on Cynthia’s right flank, and watched his auto cannon take out a beam platform that come out of the hole to his left. “Tell the transports to hold off. We have to wait until the fleet is just above planet to try this. The closer they are, the better the chance of success if the next psychic event is not as strong as the first.”
“I love you, Jake.”
“I love you, too.”
Joe punched his com, “Prince Gardner, your sister has asked that you delay the transports until after the fleet reaches the planet.”
“What? She must be out of her mind!”
Manny looked at Joe on his com and said, “Her exact words were, “I know you love me and this makes no sense to you, but you must do as I ask. I also want you to have 400,000 Searchers ready to teleport in if I call for them. Please do this for me, Joe.”
Joe felt his heart beat faster for fear of losing his sister. “Manny, what would you do?”
“I’d listen to her, Joe.”
Joe shook his head, then lifted his com, “Fleet Command, I have a Red Priority Order.”
Ethan made another pass at the Keepers’ front and blew their forces back four hundred yards. Just before he teleported into space, three beam platforms hit his left wing and disintegrated it. He arrived in space and saw the huge Keepers Fleet approaching. His stealth controls were destroyed right after his weapons console, so he used his teleport system to jump out of the system. He knew that only Jake, Cynthia, and eighteen Red Warriors were all that remained between the Keepers and the colony. He felt severe sadness at the death of Major Draygen. He had died when he landed among forty beam platforms, destroying them just before three platforms hit his armor. He prayed for the safety of those still fighting.
The Fleet Leader watched the battle taking place on the ground and knew he could not use his beams until he got a reading on the attacker’s mental frequency. The Collective had it but was not communicating directly with the fleet, so he was forced to take it from the inhabitants of the colony. “Let me know when you have the needed frequency.” He could not use the full force of the beam without that frequency, because it would kill all the Keepers that were currently fighting the invaders. “I have it, Fleet Director.” The 400,000 ships all saw the frequency and downloaded it to their main beam.
The huge fleet came to a stop and pointed their ships’ bows at the planet below.
“Jake, the fleet is arming their weapons.”
“I’m coming, Valerie.”
Valerie waited in the center of the gathered colonists and hoped her plan was not just wishful thinking. She felt in her heart that she had to be right, then there was Jake in front of her with his armor disappearing. He walked forward, lifted her in his arms, and kissed her. The blue flash that erupted from the couple blinded everyone.
The Keepers Fleet in orbit was hit with the psychic blast just when all the crews were tightly connected mentally sending their thoughts to their ship’s main beam. It killed every Keeper in the fleet and every Keeper on the planet. Junior looked at Jake and Valerie still holding the kiss and sent the message to Ethan, “Notify the Realm to send the Transports and Searchers now.”
Ethan hit his jump button, disappeared from the Keepers’ universe, and arrived at Fleet Headquarters, “Send the transports and Searchers now.”
Joe hit his com, “Launch your ships.”
The three transports disappeared and 800,000 Searchers jumped into the Keepers’ universe.
Chapter Twelve
The Collective was not connected to the Keepers fighting the invaders, but was receiving information from the Military Quadrant that had another contact. When the psychic blast hit, the contact died with the Keepers at the farm and the Military Quadrant that was in touch with the contact was blown apart. The rest of the Collective was stunned by the blast, but not disrupted. After a few minutes the Collective recovered and asked Values, which had remained separated from the Collective, “What happened at the farm?”
“I do not know. There is no one there to make connection.”
“What?!?”
“It appears all of our forces there are no longer able to communicate. I’ve considered sending another ship to investigate, but the quadrants that have those contacts have been temporarily disabled. I’m not sure if it would be wise to send another ship.”
The Collective now learned that it had become too complacent in allowing the Quadrants to run all the various aspects of the Keepers’ civilization. It directed its attention to six Keepers’ ships above the home planet and ordered them to the troublesome farm. It was going to take them six hours to get to the drive band.
Jake and Valerie finally separated and looked around. Suddenly a huge shadow covered them and they looked up to see the transport descending. “Looks like I was right, Jake.”
“Are you ever wrong?”
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p; “Not really; I did say you would find your initiator here on this planet. I just didn’t know it was me at the time.”
Jake smiled at her and shook his head. Then he heard Manny, “Why did you need all these Searchers? It looks like you’ve got everything under control.”
“Manny, there are 400,000 Keepers’ ships in orbit with their drives off. Junior has discovered that if you launch a high speed penetrator up their drives it will destroy the interior of those ships. We need to do that to reduce their ship count.”
“Stand by.” Manny keyed his com and issued instructions.
Jake watched in his mind as 400,000 Searchers jumped to the rear of the Keepers’ ships and fired a high speed penetrator in each of the three drive tubes.
“How do you know if it worked?”
Jake smiled, “Trust me on this one; it worked. There is another thing you must do quickly. How many ships can avoid detection by the Keepers’ ships in our universe?”
“All of our ships can avoid detection, however only fifty thousand Searchers have the covering to prevent their thoughts from being detected. Why do you ask?”
“Because I expect another, larger, fleet to come here shortly and they will discover how we killed these ships. We must kill those in the Realm before they are warned. The window to make that happen is short.”
“Maybe we can delay them finding out.”
“How can we do that?”
“Every ship has places on the hull where a cord can be attached for hull inspections in zero gravity. Our Searchers have cables strong enough to pull these ships out of orbit and accelerate them toward the star in this system. We have two Searchers for each ship so we should be able to get them moving at a very high velocity. They won’t find out anything if we remove the evidence.”
“That is a great idea, Manny! Get them moving.”
The eight hundred thousand Searchers were given instructions, and in less than an hour two small ships began pulling each Keepers’ ship out of orbit. It was good fortune that the colonies were on the day side of the planet, so they just had to be pulled directly away from the planet instead of around it. Jake and Valerie watched as the Keepers’ ships started moving slowly, but picked up speed rapidly. The Searchers drive systems were powered by red generators and the Keepers’ ships reached half light speed in less than ninety minutes. They were released six light minutes away from the star, and twelve minutes later impacted the star’s corona. They melted and disappeared. Even the brown hulls could not withstand the heat of a sun.
“Manny, we still have to move on those ships quickly. If they don’t know how we did it, they will still try to warn them.”
“We’ll get together when we arrive back in the Realm and decide what to do.”
Jake watched as the transport came down and hovered about two hundred yards above the gathered colonists. Jake heard Edison, “Tell them that they are about to be moved aboard ship. Since we have time, we will teleport the women first and move them to quarters where they can put on clothing we’ve brought for them. Tell any of the females that are holding a male child to please give the child to a male to hold; I would not like them to be injured if they fall.”
Jake gave the instructions to the colonists and watched as many of the women gave their male children to their mates. Valerie and Jake teleported outside the gathering and watched as a silver screen came down and all of the female colonists disappeared. Jake noticed that the ground was covered with thousands of bracelets and wires that were left behind. After fifteen minutes the males were teleported, and the transport began moving into orbit.
Jake sent a thought to Manny, “How is it going at the Glod and Cainth Colonies?”
“They went up in one trip; seems they aren’t as modest as we humans. Their transports have now achieved orbit and jumped back to the Realm.”
Jake had his arm around Valerie, and they watched the huge Stars Realm transport with the big SR on the tail rise higher. “Looks like they are going to be with the Seniors.”
“Seniors?”
“I’ll explain later, Val.”
“Will you please allow me to bring you on board now?”
Jake and Valerie laughed, “Give me a moment, Junior.”
Jake walked over to the center of the square and looked around. He lifted some bracelets and threw them aside. Valerie asked, “What are you doing?”
Jake moved to his left, leaned down, picked up something, and put it in his pocket. He looked up and said, “You can take us on board now.”
“I thought we’d never leave. Cynthia has been on me for the last hour to get you out of here. She still doesn’t feel safe.”
“It’s the other way around, Junior; the Keepers aren’t safe here. I’ve seen her fight; she’s really good.”
Jake and Valerie disappeared from the now empty farm.
Six Keepers’ ships came out of jump and started moving in-system. The Collective was tuned in to them and saw the fleet sent to the planet was not there. It watched the scan taken of the planet and also discovered that the inhabitants of the farm were missing as well.
The other Quadrants had worked together to pull Military back together, and it was starting to function groggily. It watched the results of the scan and actually felt anger over the loss of life. “How did this happen?”
The Collective ignored the still-damaged Quadrant and wondered the same thing. Where were the ships? Nothing could have destroyed the hull material, yet they were not there. The Quadrants turned their attention to the Military Quadrant and asked, “Why did we not have ships ready to respond to emergencies?”
Military took a moment to gather the answer, “We had the fleet we sent to that planet. I asked how many to send and you ordered them all. How could we have known more than those sent would be needed?”
The Collective pondered the response, “We should always have ships outside drive bands to go where we need them.”
“It will be done in the future but as you know, all of our ships are used to transport food and are usually in orbit above their assigned farms.”
“Let me know how you plan to handle this in the future.”
“I’ll start work on it now.”
“Start on it later; I want all of you to watch the scans of the ships entering the place of our losses.”
The Collective turned its attention to the Director of the six ships entering the system of the recent battle. The six ships arrived in orbit, parked directly above the former garrison, and launched twenty attack craft. They swarmed down to the atmosphere and scanned for life; none was detected. The Collective ordered, “Land and tell me what you find on the surface.”
Ten attack craft landed at the garrison and another ten landed at the site of the colonies. There were Keepers lying dead from the garrison all the way to the hills just outside the colonies. Most of those on the surface were killed, but those still underground looked like they had just fallen down dead. Keepers were hit with explosive projectiles, blown apart by close explosions, and some were burned beyond recognition by some kind of beam. The Collective and the Quadrants watched it in the minds of the warriors on the planet’s surface and saw the ferocity of the combat that had taken place. Some of the beam platforms were still smoking and the crews were scattered around it. Some of the Keepers lying dead on the ground did not suffer severe enough injuries to have died, but every Keeper on the planet had lost their life.
The Science Quadrant said, “I believe that whatever that blue wave was that disrupted Military must have killed all those on the planet and in our fleet. Here at its source it must have been enormous.”
“Do you have any idea what it was?”
Science went into its databanks and responded, “Yes, I do. We have systematically eliminated any life form that possessed any mental powers. Those that had it in high levels released that blue color upon their death. Either a super strong psychic died or released its powers.”
“What do you mean, released?”
“We have studies that show a number of those with mental powers are not able to use them unless they are released by another person with mental powers. It has been millions of years since we recorded this phenomenon, mainly because we have killed any that demonstrated these powers. But we know that the stronger the powers, the larger the blue wave that follows release.”
“Are you saying that an individual had its powers released here on this planet?”
“It is the only thing that accounts for what we’ve recorded.”
“Where did this individual originate? Certainly not in the farm population?”