Annihilation: Book 05 - Searcher (35 page)

Leo shrugged, “That’s why we will want to plan to have them coming in toward the star; our optical sensors will see them that way.”

“Just how big is this penetrator,” Stem asked.

“It’s seven hundred feet long with the stone tree shard making up five hundred feet of its total length.”

Matt was stunned, “How many of those can this ship carry?”

“More than ten thousand, Your Grace.”

Melanie said, “How can you carry that many? This ship is big but it could never hold that many.”

“This ship has the black hole skin of the Alexander Kosiev. We could theoretically put millions inside that skin if we wanted.”

“I thought the Kosiev was the only ship with that type of skin,” Melanie said.

“No, the Realm converted most of the Megaships during the war with the Captors.” Leo looked at Stem, “Your parents developed the process that made that conversion possible.”

“With the help of Cassandra and Tommy Gardner,” Stem added.

“How fast can you fire these?”

“We haven’t field tested it but we think we can fire more than forty a second if we needed a spread of them. We also think that if we had to fire them at darkened targets they would turn and come back once they passed the target and saw the green color.”

Matt looked closely at the screen and then looked at Leo, “So this attack we’re planning will answer a number of questions about this new weapon?”

“That is what we are hoping. We are going to launch from behind our red screen so the transport should only have two seconds to see the incoming penetrator and react. I do not believe that a ship that big can react fast enough to avoid it.”

“Does this penetrator carry the Captor energy ball?”

“Yes it does and it is set to go off two seconds after impact. The case holding the iron tree marbles will open and blast the marbles out when the outside temperature drops two hundred degrees below their melting point. We estimate that should happen two minutes after the energy ball ignites.”

“We are assuming that the shard will penetrate the hull of that transport,” Stem thought.

Leo looked at Stem and said, “That green substance is a dichotomy of hardness. Nothing can penetrate it except items made from organic substances but it is very fragile when hit by an organic substance. I understand that the engineers actually fired a simple arrow made of wood through a ten foot section of it from the captured ship. The shard will be traveling at 140,000 miles per second at impact and it should penetrate the hull. Some of the engineers fear that it might go all the way through the ship but the bomb and marble package will automatically eject from the shard if a second impact is detected and remain inside the hull.”

“Matt, are you going to hide the planet like you planned,” Al inquired?

Melanie looked at Matt, “I believe the ship is actually going to the planet.”

“Why do you think that, Admiral,” Leo asked?

“You have to ask why a ship was sent here. I believe that they want a better reading of the planet to compare with their data. I noticed that the planet we substituted does not match the continents on the old planet at all. With the planet missing from the system they’re in now they might be starting to wonder if planets can be moved. That would lead to a second trip to take a much closer look.”

Matt stared at her and decided, “We will not hide the planet. If the ship stops at the jump limit and does not move toward it we will activate the screen to hide it. That will probably cause it to return to the fleet to report the disappearance which will bring the mother ship back. We’ll turn off the screen when the ship leaves so they will find the planet just as they left it when they return. At that point I believe their frustration will be quite high and they will go to another system to investigate and send a ship in for better scans. Either way, we should be able to get a ship here for our little soirée. Captain Kosiev, notify your crew of our plans and maybe we’ll get lucky and the ship will go straight to the planet. We need to hit them pretty quickly once they are inside the jump limit to give us enough time to pull off the attack, clean up the attack site, and move the transport before the ship is missed.”

“It’s an eight hour trip from the jump limit, Your Grace. I plan to hit it two hours inside the limit which will give us eighteen hours minimum to complete our plan. We are going to jump them out using the null space frequency so no star drive residue will remain. If you want, we have a room set up for you to relax and have something to eat until the action starts.”

“That would be fine, Captain.” Matt thought to Melanie, “We’ll only make them nervous if we stay on the bridge. Let’s move so they can work without the added pressure of us looking over their shoulders.”

Melanie noticed the Glod sensor officer relax when Matt agreed to leave, “That’s a great idea; besides, I’m hungry.”

Matt paused then thought, “Stem, you should go with us.”

“Why?”

“This crew is already nervous about the attack; we need to give them some room to do their jobs. It’s a human thing, Stem.”

Stem raised his branches and thought, “I understand; I’ve been through it myself.”

The three turned and followed a yeoman off the bridge.

Leo watched them go and took a deep breath. “Alright, crew, let’s get this set up and I’ll throw anyone that messes up their assignment out the airlock.” He noticed every one turn back to their boards and focus on the upcoming action. “This is a good crew,” he thought. “I can’t tell them now because it would go to their heads; perhaps afterward; if we’re successful.”

Stem watched Matt and Melanie eat like they were starved. He looked out of the view port and said, “We know what the Eight Legs are.”

Matt and Melanie stopped and looked at him, “What?”

“My father has looked through all the data he has stored and found a creature that matches up almost identically with the Eight Legs we killed in the last attack. The information actually came from your home planets history.”

Matt flinched, “What did he find?”

“Before your planet’s last major war there were eight leg creatures called spiders. They were not insects but were called arachnids. One of them had the same hour glass shape on its abdomen as the Eight Legs and they also had the bristles on their legs. That particular spider was called a black widow. It was classified as a latrodectus. The reason humans no longer recognize them is due to the long nuclear winter that followed that war and the release of a toxin by one of the nations that was supposed to kill humans but ended up being toxic to quite a few of your insect population. Spiders were particularly susceptible to the toxin and none survived. However, your old encyclopedias suggest that spiders predate the dinosaurs.”

Melanie looked at Stem, “Are you suggesting that these creatures came from Earth?”

“There are just too many similarities between the two. We know there was intelligent space faring civilizations that long ago. One needs to look no further than the Captors or the race you met called the Reg. If one of their ships visited your planet and a spider was taken away by their ships, then it would explain some common ancestry. The spider from your planet was very small and Eight Legs are huge by comparison but environment could account for the difference.”

“Do you know anything else about these spiders?”

“They were killers extraordinaire. They also possessed some of the strongest venom of all animals. The black widow used a neurotoxin just like the Eight Legs and the venoms are identical to each other. If an Eight Leg bites; someone will die. There is not an antidote strong enough to overcome the massive amount of poison injected. Its main property is to paralyze its victim for later consumption. Another interesting tidbit is that the female spiders actually ate their mates thus the name black widow.”

Matt sat back in his chair and thought for a moment, “Why do they go after intelligent life?”

“I’m going to take a wild guess here, Matt. Perhaps one of those ancient spiders bit an alien and absorbed the alien’s intelligence. It would take a peculiar type of being for that to happen but it would give the spider immediate mental capacity to begin directing its development. If this trait was then passed on to the spider’s offspring then they would actually start hunting beings with intelligence.”

“Which ultimately led them to where they are now; they are ultimate evil.”

“I hate to disagree with you on that point particularly in light of your loss; however, they do not kill everything in their attacks. They are actually acting like farmers by harvesting their crops and leaving life behind to develop for the next harvest. My race was much worse than they are because we killed everything on a planet and consumed it. In their own way they are probably offended by the planet we moved for them to find. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t try to eliminate them; they are responsible for more death than any species ever created. I believe that the only way to stop them is to kill them down to the last one.”

“Do you think they have more than just one invasion fleet?”

Stem did not respond for a few moments and then thought to them, “I have discussed this in detail with my parents. They suggest that there are possibly as many universes as there are stars in a galaxy. If there was only one fleet, how long would it take them to harvest that many universes and return?” Matt and Melanie looked shocked. “I suspect they have hundreds or even thousands of those fleets. That’s the bad news.”

Melanie looked at Stem and said, “Is there any good news?”

Stem leaned back showing his smile and thought, “They all have to come through the same door.”

Matt said, “There is that. We’re just going to have to learn how to make them avoid opening it.”

Matt thought a moment and then asked, “Stem, do we have the toxin that killed all the spiders on Earth.”

“That’s the other good news; we found the formula in an ancient text that came from some nation that was once called Switzerland. It was a small nation but according to what we’ve uncovered it was bent on world domination. It must have been very warlike in its day.”

“They all were during that time of human history, Stem.”

“Your home planet must have been a tough place to stay alive, Matt.”

“That’s why we’re so consumed with peace today, Stem.”

“Matt, the transport has arrived at the jump limit.”

“Thanks, Fly Girl.”

“I was going to tell him.”

“Oh shut up, Al. It doesn’t matter who tells him as long as he gets the information.”

There was silence and then Fly Girl said, “Oh so now you’re pouting.”

“No I’m not.”

Yes you are.”

The three stood and walked out of the room toward the bridge smiling and shaking their heads.

The Transport Commander came out of null space and started moving toward the planet eight hours away. He looked at his Sensor Male and said, “Do you detect anything out of the ordinary?”

“After all that has happened, First Fang, I no longer know how ordinary would look.”

The Commander raised two legs and said, “Let’s get this over with; go to full speed.” The hundred miles long transport accelerated toward the distant planet.

Matt, Melanie, and Stem entered the bridge just as the combat lights illuminated and the klaxon started blaring, “Battle stations, this is not a drill, battle stations.”

They heard Captain Kosiev order, “Lt. Sen-Gen, determine where we need to be to arrive in firing position two hours inside the jump limit from that ship.”

“Already plotted and coordinates entered, Sir.”

“Plot that point for teleportation in two hours.”

“Aye, aye, Sir.”

Stem thought, “Why are you waiting, Captain?”

“Angel Dodd’s ship cast a shadow which allowed her to be seen by the ship that boarded her. I am not going to get between the star and that ship and run the risk of them seeing my shadow.”

Matt looked at Melanie and could tell that she was just as impressed as he was by the Captain’s foresight.

Leo looked at his board and commed weapons, “Lt. Hummel, are the backup penetrators loaded.”

“Yes sir. One is set for one quarter less speed and the other set at one third.”

Stem looked at the captain and he said, “I know that the engineers think that the bomb will be left behind if the penetrator goes through the ship but I’m not taking any chances. If I don’t see a blast come out of the entry hole then I’m firing the second and third penetrators simultaneously. One should do the job if the first one blows through. If the first doesn’t make it through then it’s back to the drawing boards.”

Melanie thought to Matt, “His famous ancestor would be proud of him.”

“I have no doubt about that.”

Leo looked at Sen-gen, “Make sure you take into account the speed of that ship and we want a side shot at the biggest profile that ship offers us.”