Annihilation - Finding Keepers (Annihilation Series (Book Seven}) (22 page)

“I do not know. There is no one there to make connection.”

“What?!?”

“It appears all of our forces there are no longer able to communicate. I’ve considered sending another ship to investigate, but the quadrants that have those contacts have been temporarily disabled. I’m not sure if it would be wise to send another ship.”

The Collective now learned that it had become too complacent in allowing the Quadrants to run all the various aspects of the Keepers’ civilization. It directed its attention to six Keepers’ ships above the home planet and ordered them to the troublesome farm. It was going to take them six hours to get to the drive band.

Jake and Valerie finally separated and looked around. Suddenly a huge shadow covered them and they looked up to see the transport descending. “Looks like I was right, Jake.”

“Are you ever wrong?”

“Not really; I did say you would find your initiator here on this planet. I just didn’t know it was me at the time.”

Jake smiled at her and shook his head. Then he heard Manny, “Why did you need all these Searchers? It looks like you’ve got everything under control.”

“Manny, there are 400,000 Keepers’ ships in orbit with their drives off. Junior has discovered that if you launch a high speed penetrator up their drives it will destroy the interior of those ships. We need to do that to reduce their ship count.”

“Stand by.” Manny keyed his com and issued instructions.

Jake watched in his mind as 400,000 Searchers jumped to the rear of the Keepers’ ships and fired a high speed penetrator in each of the three drive tubes.

“How do you know if it worked?”

Jake smiled, “Trust me on this one; it worked. There is another thing you must do quickly. How many ships can avoid detection by the Keepers’ ships in our universe?”

“All of our ships can avoid detection, however only fifty thousand Searchers have the covering to prevent their thoughts from being detected. Why do you ask?”

“Because I expect another, larger, fleet to come here shortly and they will discover how we killed these ships. We must kill those in the Realm before they are warned. The window to make that happen is short.”

“Maybe we can delay them finding out.”

“How can we do that?”

“Every ship has places on the hull where a cord can be attached for hull inspections in zero gravity. Our Searchers have cables strong enough to pull these ships out of orbit and accelerate them toward the star in this system. We have two Searchers for each ship so we should be able to get them moving at a very high velocity. They won’t find out anything if we remove the evidence.”

“That is a great idea, Manny! Get them moving.”

The eight hundred thousand Searchers were given instructions, and in less than an hour two small ships began pulling each Keepers’ ship out of orbit. It was good fortune that the colonies were on the day side of the planet, so they just had to be pulled directly away from the planet instead of around it. Jake and Valerie watched as the Keepers’ ships started moving slowly, but picked up speed rapidly. The Searchers drive systems were powered by red generators and the Keepers’ ships reached half light speed in less than ninety minutes. They were released six light minutes away from the star, and twelve minutes later impacted the star’s corona. They melted and disappeared. Even the brown hulls could not withstand the heat of a sun.

“Manny, we still have to move on those ships quickly. If they don’t know how we did it, they will still try to warn them.”

“We’ll get together when we arrive back in the Realm and decide what to do.”

Jake watched as the transport came down and hovered about two hundred yards above the gathered colonists. Jake heard Edison, “Tell them that they are about to be moved aboard ship. Since we have time, we will teleport the women first and move them to quarters where they can put on clothing we’ve brought for them. Tell any of the females that are holding a male child to please give the child to a male to hold; I would not like them to be injured if they fall.”

Jake gave the instructions to the colonists and watched as many of the women gave their male children to their mates. Valerie and Jake teleported outside the gathering and watched as a silver screen came down and all of the female colonists disappeared. Jake noticed that the ground was covered with thousands of bracelets and wires that were left behind. After fifteen minutes the males were teleported, and the transport began moving into orbit.

Jake sent a thought to Manny, “How is it going at the Glod and Cainth Colonies?”

“They went up in one trip; seems they aren’t as modest as we humans. Their transports have now achieved orbit and jumped back to the Realm.”

Jake had his arm around Valerie, and they watched the huge Stars Realm transport with the big SR on the tail rise higher. “Looks like they are going to be with the Seniors.”

“Seniors?”

“I’ll explain later, Val.”

“Will you please allow me to bring you on board now?”

Jake and Valerie laughed, “Give me a moment, Junior.”

Jake walked over to the center of the square and looked around. He lifted some bracelets and threw them aside. Valerie asked, “What are you doing?”

Jake moved to his left, leaned down, picked up something, and put it in his pocket. He looked up and said, “You can take us on board now.”

“I thought we’d never leave. Cynthia has been on me for the last hour to get you out of here. She still doesn’t feel safe.”

“It’s the other way around, Junior; the Keepers aren’t safe here. I’ve seen her fight; she’s really good.”

Jake and Valerie disappeared from the now empty farm.

Six Keepers’ ships came out of jump and started moving in-system. The Collective was tuned in to them and saw the fleet sent to the planet was not there. It watched the scan taken of the planet and also discovered that the inhabitants of the farm were missing as well.

The other Quadrants had worked together to pull Military back together, and it was starting to function groggily. It watched the results of the scan and actually felt anger over the loss of life. “How did this happen?”

The Collective ignored the still-damaged Quadrant and wondered the same thing. Where were the ships? Nothing could have destroyed the hull material, yet they were not there. The Quadrants turned their attention to the Military Quadrant and asked, “Why did we not have ships ready to respond to emergencies?”

Military took a moment to gather the answer, “We had the fleet we sent to that planet. I asked how many to send and you ordered them all. How could we have known more than those sent would be needed?”

The Collective pondered the response, “We should always have ships outside drive bands to go where we need them.”

“It will be done in the future but as you know, all of our ships are used to transport food and are usually in orbit above their assigned farms.”

“Let me know how you plan to handle this in the future.”

“I’ll start work on it now.”

“Start on it later; I want all of you to watch the scans of the ships entering the place of our losses.”

The Collective turned its attention to the Director of the six ships entering the system of the recent battle. The six ships arrived in orbit, parked directly above the former garrison, and launched twenty attack craft. They swarmed down to the atmosphere and scanned for life; none was detected. The Collective ordered, “Land and tell me what you find on the surface.”

Ten attack craft landed at the garrison and another ten landed at the site of the colonies. There were Keepers lying dead from the garrison all the way to the hills just outside the colonies. Most of those on the surface were killed, but those still underground looked like they had just fallen down dead. Keepers were hit with explosive projectiles, blown apart by close explosions, and some were burned beyond recognition by some kind of beam. The Collective and the Quadrants watched it in the minds of the warriors on the planet’s surface and saw the ferocity of the combat that had taken place. Some of the beam platforms were still smoking and the crews were scattered around it. Some of the Keepers lying dead on the ground did not suffer severe enough injuries to have died, but every Keeper on the planet had lost their life.

The Science Quadrant said, “I believe that whatever that blue wave was that disrupted Military must have killed all those on the planet and in our fleet. Here at its source it must have been enormous.”

“Do you have any idea what it was?”

Science went into its databanks and responded, “Yes, I do. We have systematically eliminated any life form that possessed any mental powers. Those that had it in high levels released that blue color upon their death. Either a super strong psychic died or released its powers.”

“What do you mean, released?”

“We have studies that show a number of those with mental powers are not able to use them unless they are released by another person with mental powers. It has been millions of years since we recorded this phenomenon, mainly because we have killed any that demonstrated these powers. But we know that the stronger the powers, the larger the blue wave that follows release.”

“Are you saying that an individual had its powers released here on this planet?”

“It is the only thing that accounts for what we’ve recorded.”

“Where did this individual originate? Certainly not in the farm population?”

“It appears that they came after the ship was destroyed.” Science paused a moment and looked in the Military Quadrant and analyzed new data, “It also appears that the invaders are now able to hide their thoughts from our scanners.”

The Collective looked at Military’s data with Science and begrudgingly agreed. “You said that someone who also possessed mental powers would be needed to release this wave. None of our food could have possessed that kind of power.”

“You’re right. However, it was not one of the food that released this individual; we did it.”

The Collective looked again in Military’s information with Science and watched as the Warrior scanned and then touched one of the foods just before the first disruption hit. “How could we release this invader?”

“It was our combined connection with all of our Species that made it happen. The connection with trillions of us is extremely strong. The second blast was done by another invader that arrived when the combat started. They planned the final release just as our fleet arrived at the planet. It was that release that killed all of our warriors on and around the planet.”

Military asked, “Are we in danger of this wave being using against us?”

Science analyzed the data and responded, “Only if there is another individual with that magnitude of mental power and we are dumb enough to touch them. I don’t see how they could be released with anything but our combined mental connection. The being that was released here cannot cause that wave again.”

“Put that information into a form for all Quadrants to examine, and plan to discuss it next interval. Now; where is our fleet?” Silence greeted the question. “We can assume the crews were killed by that blue wave, but what happened to the ships?”

Science responded, “Perhaps we need to ask that question another way.”

“Such as?”

“If our crews were dead, we know no one could enter the ships from outside. That means they had to have been moved or disintegrated. The Question should be; what could destroy our ships?”

“Enough heat would do it,” Production answered. “We use high temperatures to mold the hulls.”

The Collective and all Quadrants looked at the star in the system. “Ship Director, make a detailed scan from the planet toward the system’s star.”

Two ships moved away from the planet and picked up speed as they broke out of orbit. “We have a reading of fuel across a wide band.”

“Fuel?”

“Yes. It’s very small, but is in a very wide band between the planet and the star.”

Science asked, “Is the fuel raw or burned?”

“Some of both.”

Military said, “They moved our ships into the star. They must have towed them.”

The Collective felt immediate nervousness, “How many ships did we send here?”

Military said, “We sent 400,000.”

“How long after the ships stopped reporting did we arrive in this system?”

“Six intervals.”

“Explain how our fleet could have been towed to the star and the ships used to move them could then get out of this system before we arrived? It’s ten intervals to the drive band from the planet, and they had to go another five intervals in-system to move our fleet. It also suggests that at least the number of our ships was used to move them. What does this tell us?”

Science answered, “They are not bound by the star drive limitation.”

The Collective and every Quadrant pondered that threat.