by Saxon Andrew
“I thought I saw a shadow.”
“There’s going to be nothing but shadow when this smoke gets thicker. Get moving.”
The warrior felt stupid. The shadow must have been smoke blowing away from the hot flames. He started running and rejoined the ranks of the fleeing Hedgon.
• • • • •
One of the great advantages the Zord possessed was that they were telepathic. The looked like an ancient dragon from Earth’s mythical past but they weren’t reptiles. Their communications were not done electronically and could not be detected. The Hedgon had erected huge force fields above their major ship building facilities that were produced by eight tall spires surrounding the city. If they placed a force field completely around the city, the temperature inside it would have been unbearable from the massive technological manufacturing plants. The sides were open to release the heat that rose to the force field. All of the city’s scanners were pointed above and to the sides of the giant city, which also played into a Zord advantage. Since the Zord could match the heat of their surroundings, the infrared scans wouldn’t detect them. And since they weren’t wearing anything metallic, they were invisible to the Hedgon scanners.
Vremel waited in the forest for nightfall and smiled. There was no moon and the area around the city was pitch black. The city was lit up like a giant amusement park but was dark a mile out from the edge of the force field. Vremel thought to his warriors, “Make sure your lower side is the same color as the force field. You have your assignments and your routes to enter the city. Get in and get out. Do not waste any time and avoid being seen.” The two thousand Zord flew high above the forest and allowed the cool air to lower their body temperatures and then they broke away into four groups with five hundred Zord in each. They flew out from the city and then turned and move toward it from four different directions. The force field was six hundred feet above the city and the Zord flew in at five hundred feet and turned toward their assigned targets. Vled and two other Zord were assigned the space port where thousands of completed warships were lined up in ranks to be moved off planet when their crews arrived. Most of them were already manned and were waiting for the new fleet commander to arrive and take them to the war being fought among the home worlds.
Vled glided in and landed next to the huge flag ship in the center of the long line of ships. He ejected a small device from his armor that was still inside his hide and pushed a green button on it. The button turned red and he lightly placed it on the hull of the giant ship. He ran forward and placed six more of the devices before he arrived at the outer edge of the ships. He waited and heard his two subordinates say they were clear. The sentries walking along the edge of the huge landing field looked out at the ships and didn’t see anything abnormal. Vled was less than fifty yards from them but his color shifting matched his background perfectly. Vled waited until they started walking away and he ran forward and extended his wings. This was the most dangerous time. He flapped his wings four times and rose above the ships quickly on the rising thermals from the factories located next to the field.
One of the sentries heard something and he lowered his blaster and listened. What was that noise? He looked out over the vast array of warships as Vled glided directly over his head. Vled banked left and the sentry turned and looked up…but didn’t see anything. There was a brief burst of air around him and he wondered how a breeze was possible. The other sentry saw him and yelled, “What’s wrong?’
“I heard something and felt a breeze.”
The other sentry laughed, “You heard the air in your head. Now get back to your patrol.”
The sentry looked around again and knew he had heard something. He swore it sounded just like the pet bird he kept at home when it flew around his house. He shook his head and went back to his duty.
• • • • •
The Zord were not able to completely avoid being seen. The changing angles as they flew in and out of the city allowed some of the Hedgon on the surface to see them for a brief moment; but no one that saw them knew what it could possibly be. Many rubbed their eyes and could no longer see the large shape they had viewed a moment before. Finally, someone called the Military’s Command post and reported seeing something flying around over the city. The first six calls were ignored but the seventh caused alarm in the night watch and they activated the alarm system. The force field slammed down around the city as the last Zord to leave was just outside the city when it activated. The force field slammed into the Zord cutting it in half. The fall of the back half of the Zord was witnessed by twenty Hedgon and the Military rushed to the site.
“What is that?”
The patrol commander could only shake his head and pushed a call through to headquarters. The Night Commander saw the carcass of the giant beast and was shocked at the size of the creature. He gathered his wits and sent out on the general frequency, “We’ve been infiltrated by some sort of large flying creature!.”
• • • • •
Vremel and the Zord were back in the forest and he felt sorrow for the Zord who had died. He could see the lights in the city were getting brighter and knew the military there were warned about his incursion into the city. He shook his head and knew it wouldn’t make any difference. A moment later the city went up in a series of small nuclear blasts that vaporized everything around them. The activation of the force field to cover the entire city held the blast inside it and doubled the intensity. “Teleport out, now.”
The two thousand Zord disappeared as the nuclear shock wave rushed out of the now failed force field at the speed of sound and burned the forest to the ground. The fleet in orbit overhead could only watch helplessly, unable to do anything about the massive destruction taking place on the surface. The mushroom cloud rose above the city and the nuclear materials stockpiled to fuel the warships added their material to the cloud. The planet reeled with the massive amount of radioactive material being blown high into the atmosphere and the planet was deemed unsafe for life a week later.
• • • • •
Six hundred of the Hedgon ship building planets were destroyed within twenty four hours. The Hedgon were hurt and their capacity to meet the attacks being made by the Realm was damaged beyond repair. They had made the fatal mistake of putting all of their eggs into a few heavily defended baskets. They would live or die with the ships they had in service. Their supply of new ships was blown away by the Zord.
Chapter Nineteen
Ping woke and looked quickly at the ships clock and saw he had slept for eighteen hours. He shook his head and looked at the status of the Black Transports and saw that only five or six hundred were still boarding troops and it appeared they were close to completion. He pulled up the most recent messages from Fleet and saw the success the Zord had against the Hedgon planets. That was great news but he knew the Hedgon still had millions of ships in their inventory. But at least it was a small victory against the massive tide they were facing.
He paged through the four hundred messages and saw that the Slegan were starting to take on ships individually. He smiled; their pilots were adapting and getting better. He looked at the star cluster again and decided it was safe to teleport in. He decided to arrive in the orbits of the outer planets to take a closer look at the inhabitants. He pressed the teleport button and an instant later appeared about ten AU’s from the planet. He looked at the largest city and was shocked at what he saw. The inhabitants appeared to be human. This just wasn’t possible. There’s no possible way humans could be in a different creation. He started shaking his head and teleported to the orbit of the closest moon to the planet and activated his ship’s scanners. “Computer, make a detailed scan of one of the inhabitants and tell me what you see.”
“The inhabitant scanned is human.”
“There must be some difference.”
“Their internal organs are identical and would indicate they have identical DNA to humans.”
Ping hit his communicator, “Sprigly!”
“What’s wrong, Ping?”
“I’ve just teleported in to a planet located in a star cluster the Black Ships recently invaded and scanned the local inhabitants; my computer says they are human.”
“That’s not possible. They may look similar but there’s no way they could be identical.”
“The computer scanned their internal organs and they are identical to mine.” Ping waited and after a moment said, “Sprigly?”
“Ping, that’s just not possible. There has to be something different.”
The computer interrupted the conversation and said, “The language being spoken by the inhabitants is based on an ancient language spoken on Earth before the jump drive was discovered. It was called English.”
Sprigly heard the comment and said, “Give me your coordinates. I’m coming.”
“You should wait.”
“Why?”
“I’ve just been surrounded by ten ships that launched from the polar ice cap. I’ll let you know what’s happening after I attempt to communicate with them.”
“Ping, this is just not possible.”
“I’ll let you know.”
Ping put the skull cap on, “Transfer their language to me.” He waited and felt the small electric shock that accompanied the transfer, “Do you have one of their communication frequencies?”
“I’ve activated it.”
Ping lifted his communicator and spoke.
• • • • •
Tess heard the alarm go off and ran from her quarters in the hole to the command center. Dean was issuing orders and she looked at the huge monitor on the wall. A small red ship was on it and it was close to the orbit of the moon, “What’s going on?”
Dean continued to push his controls without turning around and said, “It just appeared close to Lizzy.”
“What can you see?”
“It has a force field raised and I’m unable to scan through it.”
“Do we have any records of a ship like that one?”
“No, we don’t; the power of that field is off the scale. I’m launching ships to intercept it.”
“Why?”
“You know the relationship between weapon strength and force fields. That ship’s weapons could cause massive damage to the planet.”
Tess struggled with responding to the intruder and then said, “Do you think this might be a ship that is attacking the Five?”
“You know we’ve scouted every intelligent civilization in this galaxy and I can tell you it’s not from here. If it’s a scout looking for a target, we must stop it.”
“Launch the ships.”
Dahlia entered the control room and Tess looked at her and saw her nod. What surprised Tess was Dahlia didn’t appear to be nervous. Did she know something? They watched the interceptors arrive and take up positions surrounding the small ship. Then they heard…
• • • • •
“I am not an enemy of yours. I come here in peace and desire to communicate with you.”
Tess heard the voice speaking in her language and was shocked. She looked at Dean and nodded. “You have entered our space without permission.”
They heard the voice make a small chuckle, “Just how would one go about getting permission?”
Dahila laughed and Tess looked sharply at her. She lifted her microphone and said, “What do you wish to discuss?”
“My civilization is attacking five civilizations that are currently destroying intelligent life here. I saw they had invaded this star cluster and were withdrawing their forces to meet our attack. I also noticed that your planet was attacked but the Black Ships did not land their forces. I’m curious about how that happened.”
Dahlia said, “Then you are not from this universe.”
Tess looked sharply at Dahlia and the voice answered, “No, we come from another…Creation.”
“Why did you come here?”
“To stop the five civilizations from indiscriminately killing intelligent civilizations.”
“Why would that be an issue to you?”
“It’s wrong for them to do it. We follow a principle that we will defend those that cannot defend themselves against unwarranted aggression.”
“I find it difficult to believe that anyone is that altruistic.”
“You should get out more.” Dahlia couldn’t stop herself from laughing and she moved away from the monitor trying hard to stifle her laughter. “It’s good to see that one of you has a sense of humor.”
Tess shook her head and looked at Dean. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “How many are on your ship?”
“I’m alone.”
“Are you a scout looking to find our weaknesses?”
“Do you enjoy killing small animals?”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“So is your question. If I were, would I admit it? If I’m not, would you believe me?”
Tess turned and looked at Dahlia who was holding her ribs and shaking. Tess’ eyes narrowed and Dahlia said, “Meet with him; you know you’re going to do it. Quit wasting his time and yours.”
Tess shook her head and turned back to the control panel, “Do you see the largest city close to a vast forest?”
“I do.”
“There is a crashed air ship close to the edge of the forest that is five times larger than all the other wrecks around it.”
“I noticed that earlier.”
“Land your ship next to it. We’ll meet you there momentarily.”
The small red ship disappeared and reappeared next to the airliner. Tess and Dean’s mouths fell open and Dahlia abruptly stopped laughing. Dean heard the ships that surrounded the intruder start calling for directions and he told them to hold station above the planet. He turned to Tess and they suddenly knew that small ship was so far ahead of them technologically that they weren’t even in the game. Dahlia shook her head, “He could have forced us to communicate.”
Tess turned from the panel and moved toward the tube, “I see that. Order a skimmer to the exit.”
Dean stood, “I should go with you.”
“No, you make sure our warriors are prepared to act if they’re needed.” Tess went to the tube and disappeared.
Dean punched a button, “Daulten, I want a close up scan of that ship. I want to hear everything that’s said.”
“Activating scanner, Sir.” Dahlia moved up to the row of consoles and stared at the monitor with the small ship. What kind of creature was going to emerge?
• • • • •
Tess arrived at the surface and two warriors were waiting on her with a military skimmer. She frowned at the show of force but it was too late to order a civilian model. She boarded and the skimmer lifted above the trees and accelerated toward the forest’s edge. She arrived outside the small ship and it looked even smaller up close. A portal in the ship’s hull slid up and a being stepped out that was covered in a suit of armor that had a red glow. She saw it was basically shaped like her with two arms and two legs but she couldn’t see what it looked like. “Why are you wearing armor?”
“Why did you bring an armed ship and place three hundred warriors just inside the tree line?”
Tess jerked her head around at the commander still sitting in the skimmer with his hand on the mounted blaster. He shrugged, “Dean ordered it.”
She turned to the alien, “Could we do you any harm?”
“Not really.”
“Are you sure about that?”
The being walked away from his ship to an open area and said, “Take your best shot.”
Tess shook her head, “That won’t be necessary.” The being looked at her and the helmet it wore was clearly designed for a menacing purpose and gave the being an air of power. It was probably right about not being in danger. She turned to the commander, “Order all our warriors to leave and take the skimmer with them.”
“But, Your Highness…”
“Do it!” The officer listened to his communicator and Tess p
ressed her pendant, “Dean, these men report to me, not you. If you get in my way again, you will be sent back to the ranks. Is that clear?”
Dean shook his head, “Yes, Tess.” The warriors activated their armor and lifted out of the forest and moved away. The skimmer had left before Tess finished speaking. Ping watched them leave and looked up at the sky, “You know he is watching us on your ship’s scanner.”
Tess smiled, “He’s my brother. I’d do the same thing and I can accept that. I will not tolerate him interfering with me.”
The large being’s helmet nodded and then the armor disappeared. Tess was stunned into immobility and almost collapsed to the ground. Ping reached out a hand and held her arm preventing her from falling. “I was just as shocked when I saw you from space.”
Dean and Dahlia saw the man standing next to Tess and were shocked silent. Dahlia slowly fell into a chair with her mouth still open shaking her head. She knew that man’s face.
Tess felt the strength of the man’s grip and forced herself to focus, “Are you…are you…”
“Human?” Tess nodded. “I am and I see no possible way for you to exist here.”
Tess smiled, “Then we need to find out how it happened.”
Ping smiled with her, “I think that would be a good way to open our dialogue.”
Ping felt his wrist unit vibrate and said, “Not now.”
“I’ve got to know?”
Tess looked at Ping with a puzzled expression and he grinned, “One of my friends insists you can’t exist and he’s beside himself with curiosity.”
Tess tilted her head, “Can he help us figure this out?”
“If anyone in existence can, he’s the one that could.”
“How long will it take him to arrive?”
“About sixty seconds. He’s currently in a distant galaxy with his species fighting the Rageon.”