by Saxon Andrew
The Director of the ships attempting to attack the strange ship looked at his scanner, “Where did that ship go? There is no way it could have jumped into null space fast enough to avoid us.”
“Tell that to that ship; it obviously didn’t know it was impossible. Notify the Collective.”
Jake held Valerie and forgot about wars, Keepers, ships, planets, and all of the other things bothering him. “I hate to interrupt you two, but I need to speak with Jake.”
Jake was jerked back to the present and thought, “Hello, Junior. Have you decided?”
“Yes, I have, Jake. I’ve spent the last two weeks in the Keepers’ universe scanning the worlds they’ve enslaved. They are a cancer on creation and must be removed. I’m your ship, Jake.”
Valerie looked at Jake with a furrowed brow and Jake shook his head, “We need to get you prepped for the conflict.”
“I know. I’m going to see Sprig in a moment, but first I want to show you what I’ve just recorded.” Junior played what he had seen at the Keepers’ ship facility. “Those things being installed on their hulls are beam projectors that will allow them to jump inside the jump limit. Fortunately, they are not composed of the hull material, so we should be able to burn them off if we can get close enough. Notice also that the ships that came after me jumped inside the jump limit and came out firing a beam much wider and longer than their previous weapon.”
Valerie and Jake were scared, “We can’t wait any longer; they are obviously preparing for invasion and we must try to slow them down.”
“Jake, send the Cainth against that planet. They are ready and are getting angry about the delay. They may be killed, but if they can knock out that planet and any others like it, it will buy the Realm some time.”
“Valerie, I’ll be back for your birthday.”
“Go, my love. The Realm needs you.”
“Junior, we need to go.”
“If you tell me I’m wasting time again, I’ll scream.” Jake disappeared from the map room and Valerie could still feel his embrace.
Mord and two hundred of his fellow survivors watched the Keepers’ ship facility. They tried to get a feel for the pattern of incoming and outgoing ships. He also passively scanned the planet and saw a huge population of Keepers on the surface. Fifteen of the construction planets had been targeted by the Cainth and two hundred ships had been assigned each facility. The Stars Realm had put them in Gamma ships and coated their heads with the thought-blocking material. Mord knew that unless he teleported in close enough to block out the light from distant stars that he was invisible to the Keepers.
He used a communication device that was on the same frequency as cosmic rays that permeated the universe, and not much stronger than those small bits of energy. “We will hit the hundred and fifty facilities above the planet with our main beams first. The remaining fifty ships will then hit the planet with their main beams. One should do the trick, but I want to make a point here. We believe that the coating on our ships should protect us for just a few moments so don’t waste time; fire and get out. We still can’t hurt those ships, but surprise is on our side. Any questions?”
Silence greeted him and he said, “This is for Brayent. Teleport in five sems from now.”
The two hundred ships counted it down and disappeared… then reappeared at the ship building planet. The hundred and fifty docks in obit were hit with the massive main beam of the Gamma ships and burned into slag. The Keepers’ ships targeted the small ships, but they were gone before they could tune their thoughts to their beams. Then the Keepers’ ships watched as the planet below them exploded into hundreds of pieces and blew away, taking the wreckage of the facilities with them. Where once a planet with more than twenty billion Keepers existed, only dust and burning chunks of the core remained. The other fourteen planets were carbon copies of the first planet’s destruction. More than half a trillion Keepers died in less than five seconds.
The Collective and Quadrants were analyzing the progress of modifying the fleet when suddenly they were stunned. The Collective felt a severe pain, then began receiving reports. Science immediately reported, “I have lost five percent of my stored data on shipbuilding.”
The Collective and all the Quadrants entered the minds of Keepers at the sites of the attacks and saw the destruction. The being was shocked beyond belief. The former planets were blown into small burning pieces flying away from the explosion of the planets’ cores. The Collective Intelligence could feel the loss of those billions, and also sensed their capability was diminished slightly.
“How many of their ships did we kill?” Military asked.
“None; they were gone before we could focus our beams.”
“How many attacked?”
“Two hundred.”
The Collective turned its attention to Statistics, “How many of those ships did we scan in their universe?”
“More than twenty million.”
“How many ships do we have in our inventory?”
“More than a hundred million.”
“How many are converted with the new upgrades?”
“Less than 200,000.”
“Science, how can we protect our planets from these attacks?”
“We need to look at this together.”
The Collective Intelligence combined and began analyzing the attacks. After ten minutes the Quadrants separated and Science said, “It appears that the ships must be just above a planet’s atmosphere to use that beam weapon. If we space our ships with thousand-mile separation ten miles above the atmosphere, we should be able to overlap our beams such that they could not attack.”
“How many ships would be needed to provide that coverage, and how many of our home worlds are there to defend?”
“It would take three hundred ships to cover a planet, and we have forty six thousand planets that have the majority of our population.”
Production interjected, “We don’t have enough ships to cover them all. We can only defend 35,000 planets. If we use our ships for this planetary coverage, there are millions of planets with our garrisons that would be left defenseless. It also begs the question of how we will feed ourselves if we can’t go and collect the food we need.”
“Are you saying we will lose this war?”
“I only state facts, you can see them as well as I can. We have no choice but to defend our home worlds; any other choice would lead to catastrophe.”
Military asked Science, “Why do you say that?”
“Because if they destroy more than sixty percent of our home worlds, we will cease to exist; the population necessary to give us existence will be too small. It will then become a war against our individual planets.”
The Collective thought about this and began to feel something foreign: fear. “What if we release all of our ships to attack their universe? Could we kill them fast enough to survive?”
“Our measurement of their beam’s strength was such that just one of their ships could have destroyed the planet. They fired fifty beams to make a point. They could kill us much faster than we could damage them. Remember, they have millions of those ships and we only have 46,000 home worlds.
Distribution asked, “Why do we have so few home worlds?”
Statistics answered, “Because when we decided to conquer our universe and use the vanquished to feed us, we no longer needed to expand and we could grow our populations to extreme levels. Our decisions have led to this current situation. Without the food we depend on from our farms, starvation is not far from our species.”
The Collective asked, “How do you feel about attacking that universe now? Values, what do you think about this situation?”
“It will not matter whether you attack or not. Our structure is an abomination to creation and cannot survive those that have followed the principles of life. You forget that you have already attacked that universe and killed their planets. Do you seriously expect them to say they’ll just forget your slaughter? Would you?”
Military began issuing the orders.
Sprig looked at the recording of the destruction of the Keepers’ ship building planets. Twig felt his unease and thought, “Would you have preferred those ships be completed and come here?”
“No, but did we have to destroy the planets?”
“Did they have to destroy our populations? You, more than anyone, should understand consequences to actions.”
Sprig sighed and thought, “I just wish there was another way.”
“Well, the recordings that just came in should make you feel better.”
“Why is that?”
“It appears the entire inventory of Keepers’ ships are being used to screen their home worlds. They can’t come here and protect them there. I suspect those attacks will end up saving more lives than were lost.”
Sprig’s leaves turned greener. “That is good news. What is our next step?”
“Since their fleets are being used to defend their planets, we are going to start liberating some of the populations they’ve enslaved.”
Sprig’s leaves turned bright green, “Now that is a lovely thought.”
Junior was parked over the garrison on the planet where he had found the beings that so impressed him with their gentle spirit. Jake sat on board and watched the scans, “Junior, what do you think will happen if we attack this garrison and free these cities?”
“They will no longer have to fear being eaten.”
“Do you not think the Keepers will know if some of their warriors are killed? What will be their response?”
Junior thought a moment, “They’ll come and harvest the entire planet.”
“That’s how I see it. If we free them, we’ll have to move them. I’m not sure the Realm can handle refugees from millions of planets.”
“So what do we do?”
“We find a way to destroy their ships.”
“How do we do that?”
“We find the ones with the most experience at facing this kind of conflict.”
“Who are you referring to, Jake?”
“The Gardners.”
“Jake, no one has any information on what happened to them after they served their thousand years of Ruling their domains. They’ve been missing for more than ten thousand years. Do you think any of them are still alive?”
“I know that Thomas and Danielle as well as Tommy and Cassandra had their life span extended by Atlas. It seems that all of them disappeared in a very short period of time, so I have to think it was a planned disappearance.”
Junior was silent.
“Junior, I’ve had a vision of the Keepers destroying planets in the Realm. What do you think the Gardners would have done if just one of them had a vision similar to mine?”
“They would have been compelled by their oaths to protect the Realm to prevent the Realm’s destruction. But how could they have planned to be here this far in the future?”
“I know they must still be alive, Junior, I just don’t know how to contact them.”
Junior was stunned, “Where are they?”
“I’m not sure, but I believe that your parents are with them wherever they went. Aladdin and Fly Girl disappeared at the same time as the Gardners.”
Junior didn’t know what to say. He and Jake sat silently looking at the scan of the beings being consumed on the planet below.
Finally Junior said, “We’ll work on finding the Gardners later. Today, if we save no one else, I want these cities saved now.”
“Why do you feel that way, Junior?”
“They deserve it, and observing them persuaded me to join this fight.”
“Then this is where we will start our efforts at saving this universe.”
“Admiral Busigleore, I am going to attack a garrison in the Keepers’ universe and I need you to plan the operation.”
Manny looked at Jake and said, “How would you go about making this happen? You are, after all, our resident expert at what to expect from those creatures.”
“I believe that the Keepers will send one of the ships that can jump directly to the planet, so this will have to be done in record time or the population will be wiped out. We need a diversion at one of their home worlds to force them to defend it, then do this while they are distracted.”
Manny thought and shrugged, “Normally we would just hit the garrison with a main beam but if we tried that, it would also heat the atmosphere such that the cities would be destroyed. They are located very close to the garrisons.”
“Do we have anything in our inventory that would just blow it up?”
“Yes we do, as a matter of fact.” Jake started to say something but Manny cut him off, “if you don’t mind dealing with the earthquakes that would follow its use.”
“So how do we do this, Manny?”
Manny smiled and said, “We have been working on our teleportation screen since the last rescue of the colonists. We will now teleport with an exclusion filter that leaves the bracelets and their connections behind. My engineers have taken some of the old defender class warships and have gutted them such that the bottom section is empty. Those ships are three hundred miles in diameter and the lower floor should hold the entire city and its occupants. We’ll do what’s called a snatch-and-grab, followed by a run.”
“What would that look like, Manny?”
“We’ll teleport three thousand Red Warriors in to surround the garrison, and once they open fire the ships will come in and teleport the entire city into its bay. We will then jump back to the Realm and teleport them down to a planet, which will be their new home.”
Junior asked, “Where are we going to find a planet willing to accept them?”
Jake smiled and said, “There are millions of them in the Algean’s galaxy just waiting to be colonized.”
Manny and Junior both were startled by the insight. “How will they be fed?” Junior asked.
Jake pointed to the screen, “Junior, all their crops and fields are around their city. You could take them with the city.”
Manny looked puzzled and said, “I’ll need to talk with a teleport expert about how far down we can teleport, but this sounds like a great idea.”
“Manny, I’ll talk with Sprig about this. Stand by for a few minutes.”
“Standing by.”
“Sprig, do you have a minute?”
“Hello, Jake; what do you need?”
“I’m looking at a way to repopulate your galaxy with refugees from the Keepers’ universe. I was wondering if that would be permissible to the Algeans?”
Sprig felt his soul turn over, “How are you going to make that happen?”
Twig felt Sprig’s sudden change and tuned in to the conversation.
“We want to make a quick grab of the cities on the Keepers’ farms and teleport the entire city and their crops. Once we have them in a transport, we’ll teleport them to one of the planets in your galaxy. We need to know if this is possible. Can we take the crops so that the cities can feed themselves?”
Sprig was almost overcome with emotion. Twig jumped in the conversation, “Yes ,you can! Just set the screen to a depth of eighteen inches and you should get all the plants including the roots. Just how big an area are you talking about?”
“Most cities are contained in an area with a diameter of thirty miles. Of course, we can’t take the water source with them, so we’ll need to find an area with available supplies of water.”
“How many cities are you moving initially?”
“There are five on the planet.”
“Are the inhabitants all of the same species or different?”
“This is a conquered planet, so they are all the same species”
Sprig found his voice, “There is a beautiful planet not far from
our home world which was the first planet we consumed. Plant life has overgrown most of it, but we will teleport it out to a depth of twenty four inches, and clear five tracts of the necessary size along the banks of the main river on the northern continent. We will assist these refugees in any manner we can to make them comfortable in their new home. You don’t know how much bringing life back to the worlds we killed means to my people.”