Annihilation - Tommy's Tale (Annihilation Series (Book Four))

by Saxon Andrew

  The Kosiev erupted into normal space and continued to fly at extreme speed. Wes watched his sensors and after two minutes said, “There are no enemy ships on my sensors.”

  Tommy looked at Cassandra and saw her nod. He focused and thought, “Slow down,” and after a minute the ship entered normal space where light looked normal. “Stop,” he thought and the Kosiev stopped and hung in space.

  “Rose, has the ship returned?”

  “No, it has not. Tommy, we need the teleporting process to start moving Earth’s population.”

  “Sprig, Twig, I need you to get your teleport device to Earth to begin moving population.”

  Sprig thought, “We will just step through a screen right here on the Kosiev and take a working model of the device. We do need to take a reading of the floor in the Kosievs’ library in order to return.”

  “Take your reading; we are not going to move for a while. Captain Dodd and I need to examine the readings we took in the Captor’s system so you should be able to come back here. We will try not to move while you are gone.”

  “Duke Gardner, you may go wherever you choose. Once we read the floor, you can be going faster than the speed of light and we will be able to teleport right to that spot.”

  Tommy and Cassandra were stunned. “Are you going to explain to us how this device works?”

  “Certainly, when we return.”

  Ensign Ahn said over the intercom, “One of the Algeans has returned from taking their readings. They just walked into a silver energy field and disappeared, Captain.”

  Tommy said, “Well, that certainly wasn’t wasted effort.”

  Gerald Nelson sat with the two adolescents in Wade McAllister’s lab going over the device that they had brought from the Kosiev. He was shaking his head and even Cade was confused about what the device did. “I don’t understand how this works. Can you possibly explain it in simpler terms?”

  Sprig gave the equivalent of a mental sigh and said, “The math is more complicated than I can express to you and unfortunately your computers are not at a level where they can process the equations in less than four hundred years. We had to take a huge risk to be able to see it visually in our minds; however, I will attempt to explain what it does and forego the science behind it.” Gerald and Wade nodded and Sprig continued, “You are aware that every place in the universe has a resonance that is unique. We currently use a screen surrounding a ship that resonates at the frequency of the place we want to jump. Once the screen resonates at that frequency, the ship goes out of normal space through null space and reemerges at the location of the frequency the screen had matched. Are we together so far?”

  Gerald said, “We understand that process.”

  Twig then said, “What we discovered was that it wasn’t necessary to match that frequency to go to the desired location.”

  The two scientists looked blank. Sprig then said, “We thought about instead of matching the frequency of the place you wanted to go, why not bring the place to you.”

  The two Algeans watched the two humans and gave them time to process the information. After several minutes Gerald said, “So you take the frequency of the place just as if you were there using a reader to see it and form a field with that exact frequency at that place.”

  “Exactly, and just like the frequency is not limited to light speed but exists in real time everywhere in the universe, once the field is established all you do is step through it and you’re there.”

  “But the field is at the location where the reading is being taken, not where you are,” Wade said with a furrowed brow.

  Twig said, “Of course, but once that field is made, it’s also everywhere else in the universe. It’s not just limited to the location of the frequency. Remember, the space that contains all of the universe’s location frequencies is smaller than the smallest atom. If it exists, it exists everywhere. So if the field is made somewhere other than the exact location, it still exists at the location of the frequency and everywhere else.”

  “So, even if you make the field in another galaxy, the field with the desired location will exist at the exact location you want to go,” Gerald said with wide eyes.

  The Algeans smiled mentally and Twig said, “Now you understand.”

  Gerald continued, “So you don’t need null space because you don’t go through it; you go directly to the location of the field frequency.”

  Cade looked at Gerald and said, “Do you understand this?”

  Gerald nodded and continued to talk with the Algeans, “This is an advance that is amazing. You can literally step through your front door on Ross and go right to Glod, or anywhere else in the universe.” Gerald looked at Wade and said, “This is revolutionary. Have the two of you thought about turning this field horizontal and transporting cities to another planet?”

  The Algeans looked puzzled for a moment and then they saw it, too. “No, we haven’t but you’re right. Create a big enough field and drop it over a city and it will go to another location.”

  The Algeans looked at each other and it was like a bomb went off mentally. Sprig said, “Why limit it to a city. If we can move a city, why not move a planet?”

  Cade looked at them and said, “Is that possible?”

  The Algeans were not answering; they had locked their limbs together and were thinking furiously. Neither Gerald nor Cade could break into their attention.

  The officers of the Kosiev were meeting in the Kosievs’ conference room after the escape from the Captors. Everyone was on edge expecting the Captors to jump in on them while they were away from their posts. Tommy and Cassandra entered the room and everyone jumped to attention. Tommy said, “At ease, and I do mean at ease. I can sense your nervousness but I can tell you that my sense of danger is telling me that they do not know where we are; that means that they did not get a reading on our ship. I’m forced to believe that if they did not get a reading of us when we came that close to their home world, then they probably can’t. However, they have demonstrated for me that once they see us, then their sensor systems can track us on whatever route we take to escape.” Tommy lowered the big display from the ceiling and said, “I’m going to replay the sensor records from our brush with the Captors and I want you to tell me what you see that might hold interest for us.” Tommy started the recording showing the huge planet surrounded by the construct that the red ships were parked on.

  Wes’ said, “Stop the recording.” Tommy froze the picture of the planet. Wes said, “I’ve examined this picture very closely since the attack and I’ve seen some things that I want you to see if I’m wrong in what my conclusions are.” Wes took a laser pointer and said, “I want you to notice that every cell on this construct has a ship on it. I am going to assume that the other side of the planet looks just like this side. That means there is no room for any ships unless a ship leaves the construct.”

  Everyone looked closely at the picture and finally Tommy said, “Ok, I agree. Does anyone else think differently?” No one disagreed.

  Wes continued, “Now before we leave this picture, look up here at the top right of the construct. Wes pressed a button and the section he was indicating grew larger. Look at this ship right here.” The pointer rested on a ship that was significantly larger than the other ships around it. “That ship is four thousand miles in diameter and has a deep purple band around its center. I believe that this is the queen of this colony if they really are like bees. It looks like this colony is full.” Wes then moved the pointer to the lower corner and the view grew larger. Then everyone saw it; in a small cell was a small ship with a purple band around the center. “I have scanned this picture with the computer and these are the only two ships in the picture with purple bands. If these creatures are like bees, there can only be one queen in a hive. One of these will have to leave and probably soon.”

  Everyone looked at the photo and felt the fear of what that meant. Wes then said, “I want you to pay close attention to what happened when the ships detec
ted us and left the planet. I’m going to play it at normal speed and then I’ll slow it down.” The recording started and the planet looked like it exploded with a red wave exploding upward. Wes said, “Now I’m going to slow it down to super slow motion. I want you to pay attention to the location of the two queens.” The recording began and once again the officers saw the giant red ships explode off the construct but now at slow motion they could see thousands of the red ships move over the top of the two queens and form a wall around them. At normal speed with millions of ships lifting it was not possible to see the move to protect the two queens. The recording ended as the Kosiev jumped away.

  Tommy took a deep breath and said, “I must agree with Wes; that is another queen on the construct and her small size seems to indicate she’s rather young. We need to take this into account as we make our plans. I think we also have determined that the Captors are looking at Earth’s solar system as a new nest. What do we now know after our first contact with these captors?”

  John Ortiz said, “We know we can survive their beams.”

  Janet Jackson said, “We are faster than they are.”

  James Roswell said, “We know we can kill them if we hit them with our ship.”

  Wes said, “We were only hit by one beam at a time. We don’t know if we will survive more than one. We are faster than they are in normal space but we could not escape them without using the adolescent’s device. We were traveling more than one thousand times the speed of light when we hit that ship. It’s hard to aim at a target at that speed. We don’t know what would happen at normal speed. We do not possess a weapon that would be effective against them.”

  Cassandra said, “We still don’t know enough.”

  Wes said, “I recorded one other thing.” Everyone looked at him, “I had my sensors set to look for one of those nerve centers that the adolescents talked about. My sensors showed one out about three hundred thousand miles from the planet. I took a quick picture before we left. Here it is.” A picture of a bright blue light with a huge red ship holding station more than five thousand miles away. “I believe that what we see here is the very thing the Adolescents described. This is where the Captors get their universal sensors. Notice that the Captor ship is away from the nerve center because of the heat. I’m not certain that we could have avoided them if they had access to that center.”

  Tommy said, “More good news.”

  Cassandra said, “There is something else. I have developed a feel for the Kosiev and I sense something that might be important.” Tommy looked at her and nodded to go ahead. “It is my understanding that when this skin was formed on the Kosiev that it was due to eight small black holes falling from the burned out reactors that were blown into the power cells by multiple anti-matter hits. I sense that inside the Kosievs’ skin that those black holes have formed into one black hole that is now larger than the one at the center of our galaxy.”

  Tommy said, “What are you saying?”

  Cassandra said, “It’s still growing and I sense that this black hole is made of negative matter. I don’t know how this works but I know what I sense is accurate. I believe that the Captors can’t hurt us with an energy beam but I don’t know what other weapons they have to use.”

  Tommy shook his head and said, “We need to find something to use against them. Rose has contacted me and she senses trouble for Earth and I’m getting the same sensation. We have to keep pressure on the Captors to keep them from swarming and buy some time to move our population. Ensign Ahn, did the adolescents show you how to use their device?”

  “Yes sir, they did.”

  “We have got to go back to their world and make another attack. Even if our weapons do not affect them, we must maintain their attention. I want you to set their device to teleport us in to their system then change the setting to bring us back to this place. I’m hoping that they can’t track us using our new device.”

  Cassandra said, “Prepare for jump in two hours. Reload the penetrators and plan to fire a full salvo from a range of 300 yards from the construct’s surface. We will then run through normal space and see if they can stop us; any questions? No; report to your posts.”

  Cassandra keyed her com and announced, “Battle stations, all hands to battle stations; we will be jumping back into the Captor’s system in two hours. Make sure your stations are ready.”

  The twelve hundred crew members of the Kosiev ran to their stations and began preparing for the jump. Tommy and Cassandra stayed in the conference room. “Cassie, my sense of danger to Earth has jumped tremendously. I want all of our penetrators targeted toward that new queen. I don’t expect us to break through their screens but we must make an effort.”

  “Tommy, surprise was on our side last time; I suspect they will be waiting for us.”

  Tommy shook his head and said, “Let us hope the Kosievs’ skin can handle the hits. I wish you were somewhere else, Cassie. I can’t bear the pain of losing you if we don’t make it.”

  “Tommy, I wouldn’t want to make it if you were not with me. We are exactly where we should be.” She stood and kissed him and left to prepare the ship.

  Tommy thought, “Atlas, if we don’t make it, don’t give up; we haven’t even tried to hit the matrix holding your brothers but I have not forgotten them.”

  “Perhaps it’s better that you haven’t tried. I suspect that if the Captors thought there was a relationship between your attacks and them, then they would destroy them all.”

  “You’re probably right, Atlas. Make sure you get the information from the adolescents if we are destroyed. I just wish we had some kind of weapon that would work against them. We’re totally defensive.”

  “I want to go with you, Tommy. However, it would not be wise to have all of us eliminated at one time. I will be waiting for you here and hoping for the best.”

  Tommy smiled and left the conference room for his post on the bridge.

  Two hours later Captain Dodd announced over the ships intercom, “I’ve given the target coordinates to all of our penetrator crews. I want all of our primary beams targeted on the same spot and fired immediately on emergence into normal space. Penetrators will also fire at the same moment. We will begin our run as soon as we see if our weapons have any effect on the target. Jump in 5,4,3,2,1, execute.”

  The Kosiev appeared in normal space so close to the Captor’s construct that it seemed it had landed on its surface. The Kosiev disappeared in a blinding flash of beams and penetrators leaving for the construct that seemed to hit instantaneously. Cassandra watched her display and saw all of the beams and penetrators stopped and exploded a hundred yards above the construct. Cassie thought angrily, “kill that queen!”

  Something left the skin of the Kosiev and hit the construct. A huge blast erupted and a huge section of the construct disintegrated leaving a gaping hole in the surface. Cassie was stunned but then she heard Wes shout, “Run, now.”

  Cassie hit the button on her console and the Kosiev sped away from the Captor’s planet. Tommy thought, “Move fast now.”

  The Kosiev hit light speed so fast that the Captors surrounding and firing at the ship once again did not record its exit on their sensors. The Kosiev was traveling at one thousand times the speed of light and the giant red ships were jumping into its projected path. Cassie thought. “We have to go faster!” The Kosiev leaped forward and went to five thousand times the speed of light.”

  Wes looking at his sensors said, “I don’t know what you did but we are now traveling at five thousand times the speed of light. My sensors cannot see anything at this speed.”

  Cassandra said, “I’m taking control.” She pressed a button on her console and closed her eyes. She could see everything around the ship. She saw where the red ships were jumping into normal space to cut them off and she turned the ship away from them. She saw a star directly in front of them and banked the ship away.

  Wes announced, “We are now traveling two light years every second and still accelerat
ing.”

  Tommy looked at Cassie and knew that he had not caused the jump in speed. He closed his eyes and linked his mind with Cassie and saw what she was doing. Cassie was flying the Kosiev like it had no mass. She made ninety degree turns instantly and even reversed the ship on its course so quickly that it defied the laws of physics. The Captors were unable to stay with the ship. Tommy keyed his com and said, “Ensign, Ahn, now would be a good time.”

  The Kosiev disappeared from normal space. Tommy thought to Cassie, “Slow us down. Just focus and think about slowing down.”

  Cassie was lost in the Kosiev and loving every moment of it. She was the ship and the ship was her. She heard Tommy but she didn’t want to stop. She finally focused on what he was saying and jerked her attention back into the present and forced herself to think, “Slow down, slowly, now.”

  Wes announced, “Ten light years per second, four, one, ten thousand times light speed, five thousand, one thousand, five hundred, fifty, one half light speed.”