Death of an Empire aotr-3

by Saxon Andrew

  “Where do you want to start?”

  Day smiled and pointed toward the giant blue star shining brightly in the outer edge, “That would be a good place. Most galaxies have less than ten blue giants in them and I’d like to take a look at that one before we get to work. It’s incredible.”

  Kreen smiled, “It’s unfortunate that those stars have the shortest life span. My scans indicate that it will go super nova in another hundred thousand years.”

  “Yes, but while they live they are something to behold.” Day smiled and said, “Let’s start our scans from that star.”

  “Maintain our stealth mode. We should also refrain from communicating.”

  “Why do you say that, Kreen?”

  “We don’t know if there are any telepathic species around that could hear our thoughts. If you need to communicate, do it over our armor’s circuits.”

  “Will do.” The Flyer disappeared.

  Day saw the giant star from a light year out and marveled at the monster. Kreen said over the circuit, “We should charge our armor while we’re here.”

  Day tore his attention from the star and set his armor to charge. He watched the meter inside his helmet and saw the needle swing swiftly up to the maximum setting. He turned off the receptors and saw that Kreen still had his wings extended to their full width. He shook his head and knew that the Zord had more than a hundred times his capacity in storage. He waited and expanded his scanner to the area around the blue giant. There were more than a hundred Class G-Stars within twenty light years of his location and he set his passive scanner to pick up any frequency in the small band width of electromagnetic pulses. If there was an advanced civilization in that volume of space, it would be giving off those frequencies. He immediately saw that one star was emanating a huge wave of those pulses.

  “Kreen, do you see those pulses?”

  “I do and there is another planet just beyond that one also showing signs of civilization.”

  “Well, it looks like it’s time to go to work. Let’s go look at the largest one first.”

  The Flyer arrived in a solar system that was filled with starships moving in and out of the system. The planet in the habitable zone of the star was clearly industrialized. Day looked at his readout and saw there were more than fifty thousand ships in the system and most of them were not armed, “Let’s go to the closest moon and take a look.”

  They teleported to the moon’s surface and looked up at the planet above them while they watched their scanners for any indication they had been detected. “Day, nothing in this system is moving our way. It appears our stealth mode works.”

  “Are you able to see the surface from here?”

  Kreen spread his wings and expanded his scanning field, “Yes, and it appears that this society doesn’t have any military structures within my view. This appears to be a peaceful civilization at first glance.”

  “I didn’t see any military ships in the system either. Let’s go to the next planet and take a look.”

  Kreen kept his wings spread as he turned around and said, “Wait a minute.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “There’s something in the outer system that is blocking light from the star behind it. I would have ordinarily missed it but that Blue Giant has a shadow in front of it.”

  Day looked at the giant star that was the size of a small moon and saw what Kreen was talking about. He focused his scanner and saw that something was blocking light from the star. “Whatever it is, it’s not visible in normal light.”

  “No, it’s hiding out there.”

  “Do you sense any scans?”

  “No, I don’t. It must be a ship of some kind that has stealth capability and is only scanning using passive sensors.”

  “Teleport us out of this system and come back in on a route where we would not be in line with any stars.”

  They made three teleports and arrived fifty miles below the object. Day couldn’t see what it was but knew it was big. It was blocking out a huge section of stars behind it and he used his computer to determine that it was about a mile in length. Kreen said, “I can hear the thoughts of the crew on that ship. It’s not from here and is scouting this system for conquest. I can see the board in front of their navigator when he looks at it and there are coordinates on the display. I would guess that is where this ship originated.” Kreen paused, “What do you want to do?”

  Day thought about it, “Ordinarily I’d wake them up with a beam but we’re here to gather information. Can you take us to the location of those coordinates?”

  “I think that’s the best choice. I’ll teleport us a light year from them.”

  “Can you see the beings in that ship?”

  “Yes, and they remind me of something.”

  “What?”

  “They do have two arms with hands but they appear to look very much like a wasp without wings.”

  “Can you see anything else?”

  “Yes, there is a weapons board with a rather large selection to choose from. This ship is heavily armed.”

  Day looked up at the huge ship, “If this is a scout, their main ships must be huge.”

  “We should go look.” Kreen teleported away.

  The Sensor said, “Something using a strange form of energy is close to us.”

  The Nest Master turned, “Where is it?”

  The Sensor stared at its display, “It’s no longer here.”

  “What was it?”

  The Sensor shook its triangular shaped head, “I have no idea. Nothing appeared on my monitor but my scanner reported energy.”

  “Could it be a malfunction?”

  “Nothing is on my panel now. I don’t know.”

  The Nest Master thought a moment, “If it happens again, notify me.”

  “I will.”

  Day and Kreen were above a planet that had been conquered by a strange looking species that looked very much like a wasp. It walked on four legs but had two arms with hands that had six fingers. It had the abdomen of a wasp extending beyond the four legs and a triangular shaped head. The eyes differed from a wasp in that they were set into the head in small indentations. Kreen had his wings extended and was feeding the scans into Day’s armor. They watched as the population was herded into camps all over the planet as large ships moved into the system. “I wonder what’s going to happen to those prisoners.”

  “I’m more curious about what those ships are coming to do, Kreen. This planet has been defeated and offers no resistance. Why bring in the extra ships?”

  “I have no idea but the planet put up quite a fight. Most of the larger cities are still burning to some extent but they were not been nuked from orbit. It looks like their fleet didn’t have much success against the invasion.”

  Day glanced out at the space surrounding the planet and saw the wreckage of ships scattered around the planet in high orbit, “No, it appears they didn’t.” Day accessed his computer and queried it about information on wasps and related insects. He downloaded it and immediately felt a sense of dread. “Kreen, take a look at this download.”

  Kreen took a look and said, “You don’t think that’s what they’re going to do?”

  Day looked at the huge incoming fleet, “Those ships are either bringing something here or are going to take something away. I don’t see those warriors on the surface collecting anything but the population. This may get ugly.”

  “I hope you’re wrong.”

  Day shook his head knowing whatever was going to happen was never good for a conquered planet. “It appears those creatures haven’t discovered a means of jumping inside the jump limit.”

  “You’re right. I’ve scanned their warships and they have a force field that’s as good as a Zeta. I’ll need to see one of their weapons fired before I can assess their strength. We can probably assume it’s pretty strong if the beam to force field relationship holds true.”

  “I was just thinking that as well. I’m glad we charged our armor; it
could get dicey if they discover us.”

  Kreen looked at his helmet’s display, “They are advanced in terms of the weapons on their ships but they are behind in terms of the finesse of their tools. Their drives are standard fare and their stealth is adequate to hide them from too close an inspection, but not that advanced. While I’m scanning the planet, you should keep your scanners on their ships. Let me know if you see one charging their weapons.”

  “Already on it, Kreen.”

  The fleet of ships arrived at the planet and thousands of small shuttles began dropping toward the planet. “Pick one and follow it down, Kreen.”

  Day saw one of the shuttles landing at a compound where hundreds of captives were being held. The shuttle landed and the guards surrounding the compound started moving the prisoners toward the shuttle. As the line walked slowly toward the shuttle the guards would fire a hand weapon at the ones in the entrance and stun them; the shuttle crew would then carry them into the shuttle. “What are they doing?”

  “I’m not sure, Day.”

  Suddenly they saw one of the wasp creatures run out of the shuttle, grab one of the captives and drag them out of line. Day and Kreen saw that the wasp’s abdomen was much larger than those herding the hostages. The wasp threw the captive to the ground, whipped its abdomen around, and penetrated its body with a large stinger. The captive struggled but then grew stiff and ceased moving. After ten seconds the wasp withdrew its stinger and its abdomen was back to normal size.

  The captives in line saw what happened and turned and fled in panic. The guards fired their weapons until all of them were on the ground. One of the wasps walked forward and hit the one that had stung the prisoner and it was clear it was angry that it had caused an orderly process to disintegrate into chaos. It was clearly saying something and the wasp it was addressing was cowering in front of the leader. The leader took a small container for its vest and sprayed a bright white X on the stung prisoner. The body was carried into the shuttle with the others being moved.

  Day said, “The population is going to be used to feed their eggs.”

  “What are they doing now?”

  The leader of the wasps looked over the bodies lying on the ground and began pointing at some of them. The guards came forward, picked them up, and carried them back into the buildings of the small city. Day watched and knew what they were doing, “They’re leaving some of them as a breed stock for future invasions.”

  Kreen saw Day had to be right, “This is just another form of Keeper. I wonder how extensive these creatures have become in this universe.”

  “I think we’ll know once we collect all the information we gather. However, that first planet we recorded stands no chance against them. They don’t even have a war fleet.”

  “We need to follow one of these ships when it jumps out, Day. We’re also running a risk staying in one place too long.”

  “Go ahead and teleport to the jump limit and we’ll wait for them there.”

  The Sensor worked his panel and just couldn’t localize the location of a strange energy signature. It scanned a wide area and tried to home in on the source but was frustrated in its efforts. He called the Nest Master over and he was also unable to find the source. Suddenly the reading turned to zero. “It’s gone.”

  “What was that?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen that pattern before and it seemed to just fill a huge area above the planet. Whatever caused it was small.”

  The Nest Master looked at the Sensor, “How do you know that?”

  “I could see the energy of our ships in orbit behind it.”

  “Can you estimate the size?”

  “My best guess is that it is one tenth the size of our drop ship.”

  “Are you sure there was something there? That’s too small to have been a ship.”

  The Sensor hesitated, “No, I’m not sure and that may have been why I couldn’t locate anything. This is something I can’t explain.”

  “Let me know if you see it again.”

  “I will.”

  Kreen watched the scans from the planet while they waited for a ship to arrive and noticed something, “Day, we may have a problem.”

  “What!”

  “I’m going to feed this to your display; I want you to watch the warship that was located about twenty miles to the west of our location.” Day watched as the ship slowly turned in orbit until its bow was pointed in their direction. “They are turning the ship so they can bring their main sensors toward us.”

  “Do you think they saw us?”

  “I don’t think they could see us but they must have detected something.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “If they saw us, they would have fired on us. Notice that the bow was turned toward us for ten minutes and they didn’t charge their weapons. We are giving them something but they can’t see us.”

  “What do you think it is, Kreen?”

  “Well, we can eliminate anything physical so it must be energy. Their scanners must be able to see our energy frequency.”

  Day thought about it and said, “Then their scanners must be better than the Invaders. You know how good our stealth mode is and it appears we’re not completely hidden. We need to tell Command about this.”

  “I’ll send a probe with what we’ve collected so far.”

  “I think that would be wise. Is there any way to hide our energy signature?”

  Kreen looked at his systems and said, “It must be a product of our stealth mode. I think the advancements in bending light around us must be causing it. We can go to a camouflage mode and not use the energy bending feature.”

  “Back to basics, huh.”

  “That’s how their stealth works. We’ll try it and if I see one of their ships start turning toward us, I’ll have our armor automatically teleport to another location.”

  Day thought about the suggestion, “Kreen, what would happen if we changed our armor’s surface to charge while we’re in stealth mode? Would it absorb the energy leaking around us?”

  Kreen was surprised by the suggestion. He never ceased to be amazed at Day’s insights. “Let’s try this; teleport ten miles away and I’ll set my armor to charge inside the stealth field. Tell me if you see a change.”

  Day teleported and said, “I can’t see you through a normal scan. Give it a try.”

  “Alright, I’ve gone to charging.”

  Day scanned the area with every possible scan his armor could make, “I don’t see anything. You are still fully cloaked.”

  “I’m turning off the charging.”

  Dray stared at his scanner and saw something, “It appears the color of the background has shifted ever so slightly to a different color. The area is growing fast.”

  “My charging is back on.”

  Day watched as the area was sucked into the position he knew Kreen was located.”

  “It’s really hard to see and if I weren’t looking for it I would have missed it. Your armor has pulled in the energy and there is no difference in background. You should launch another probe.”

  “It’s on the way. There’s a ship arriving at the jump limit. You should get back so we can follow.”

  Day teleported back to Kreen’s back and watched as the huge green and yellow ship approached. It crossed the jump limit and disappeared. Kreen entered the jump coordinates he had collected and teleported to a nearby location.

  Paul saw the first probe and downloaded its information. He assessed the capabilities of the wasps and prepared a download for his warriors. Just before he sent it the second probe arrived and he was glad he was delayed. The energy leakage represented a real danger to his Flyers. He included it into his download and sent it out to the warriors. He sent a copy to Jingos and had the probes jump to the Defense Facility to let them know about the problem with their armor.

  He paused and looked at his roster. Day East was proving to be a good Scout. Kreen was proving to be everything his Father was; Kree
j was known for his mental prowess. He made a note to look at future command for the two. Another probe arrived and he saw that the Wasps were not the real danger in this universe. He teleported to the Scout that had found a species that was extremely dangerous. Unlike the Wasps, they left no survivors.

  Chapter Ten

  “Cassie?”

  “Yes, Trey.”

  “How are you able to communicate with me when all the others had compulsions to prevent any contact?”

  “We are different from the others. You and I are the end product of a long evolutionary process that started with Tag and Danielle.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean and how do you know this?”

  ‘You’ve looked at how psychic skills develop their power over generations in those that carry it passively and have no access to them?”

  “Yes, I’ve seen how that works.”

  “You and I are direct descendants of Tag and Danielle. You are a direct male descendent from Tag and I am a direct female descendent of Danielle. Our lineage has been unbroken for almost twenty thousand years and the psychic power has been building over that vast time. We can’t touch each other until we are mature enough or we could cause tremendous damage to creation. Just as you are able to sense danger, I am able to see truth. What I’m telling you is true.

  ‘Like when Tommy and Cassandra caused the energy nexus to heat up by making contact too early.”

  “Yes, but much worse. We could also kill each other from the contact.”

  “Then my original question still remains, why are we not compelled to avoid contact?”

  “Because our minds will have to grow together for us to be ready; we need to be in contact to prepare ourselves. Haven’t you felt me watching you every day?”

  Trey smiled, “Yes I have and the feeling is what makes my day bearable. I still hurt from the loss of my parents.”