Annihilation - Finding Keepers (Annihilation Series (Book Seven}) (26 page)

“Yes, and they are troubling.”

“Do you agree with them?”

“I don’t want to believe them, but I know he’s right.”

“That makes this search even more important. Make sure you assign our best to the task.”

“I will. Do you think we can find it?”

“We won’t know until we try. It looks like we are becoming nomads again.”

Newton turned his head upside down and asked, “Have you discussed this with the Queen?”

“Yes, but only the part about leaving. She thinks it is a good delaying tactic. She is of the opinion that if a large number of our old ships are no longer at the old universal jump point they may think we are going to attack them again. It would again be a delaying tactic so they would not use as many of their ships to invade. They do appear to be paranoid about us.”

“We did destroy more than a hundred thousand of their planets in our first invasion.”

“True, but then they developed that thought weapon and ended our invasion. I really don’t know what our leaving will accomplish, but to stay is disaster. It also gives us the opportunity to search for the item Sprig needs. I’ve discussed this with Destiny and the Nest Mother and met initial resistance, but I left them alone and they eventually came to my point of view. They really love the Realm’s Leaders.”

“We all do. When do we leave, Edison?”

“We don’t Newton. We are staying to help our friends in the coming war. Einstein is also staying; I couldn’t convince him to leave if we weren’t going.”

Newton turned his head left smiling, “I was wondering how I was going to jump ship before you left.”

Edison smiled and put a front leg on Newton, “Don’t get too excited; we’re going to have armor designed for us that is coated with the thought-blocking substance. Not only is our family going back into ships, we’re also going back into armor.”

Newton shook his head, “That stuff always made me itch.”

“Tell me about it.”

Jake sat in the map room at Castle Gardner staring at the millions of galaxies on the wall. Robby sat across the table from him, leaning back in a chair looking at the map together. Jake knew his subconscious was not happy with the direction in which he was moving. Robby was not happy either. Jake knew in his heart that killing on the scale needed to protect the Realm was not something he felt good about. Gambia had made him tough, but it also taught him to love those around him who would have been ignored by most people. He learned to survive, but he never failed to help those in need whenever he could. This decision was deeply troubling. He looked over at Robby and asked, “Do you see another way?”

Robby just stared at the galaxies and shook his head.

Valerie walked in and said, “Who are talking to, Jake?”

Jake looked up at her and once again was struck by the beauty of the Star Realm’s Queen, “Myself, Valerie.”

Valerie came over and stood behind Jake and hugged him, “What’s troubling you?”

Jake shook his head, “You already know the answer to that question. I just wish there was another way.”

Jake had shared his vision with Valerie the week before and shocked her. She had first felt distress and then anger, “Are they that callow? Do these creatures have no redeeming qualities?”

Jake had then told her what the Realm had to do to survive, and she resisted until he showed her the vision again.

“Jake, I’ve had time to think about what you’re planning and I’ve come to terms with what we must do.”

Jake saw Robby turn his head toward Valerie.

“What do you mean?”

“Jake, you’re worried that we are going against all of the principles that our Realm stands for.”

Jake nodded.

“Let’s forget our universe and just look at the Keepers’ universe. There are millions of worlds enslaved and consumed by these creatures. What would the Realm’s response to this have been if we had just stumbled upon them? One principle we hold higher than any other is that the Realm will defend those that cannot defend themselves. Those poor planets represent no danger to the Keepers, but were conquered and enslaved anyway. Even if they agreed to stay home and never come back, could we turn our backs on the billions being eaten? Jake, we turned our back on the millions on Gambia that were being preyed on by the wealthy merchant class. If we had stepped in and stopped the suffering, Gambia would have been saved from the Keepers’ attack. We would have been able to teleport the population.”

“Yes, but then you would have to interfere with a sovereign planet.”

“So what! This universe knows the Realm’s principles. We should have done the right thing. By refusing to step in, a planet is now dead. There is always cause and effect and we bear some blame for Gambia’s destruction. Those unfortunate beings in the Keepers’ universe are like the poor of Gambia; they deserve to be saved. We may still lose this war, but we won’t lose because of our fear of doing the right thing.”

Jake saw Robby smile at him and disappear. He found equilibrium in his conscience. He looked at Valerie and said, “I am constantly amazed at your maturity for your age.”

“Jake, I’ve been in mental contact with the Realm’s most powerful psychics my entire life. My mental development happened at an accelerated rate. I hope you understand that, because I am not a little girl. I turn eighteen in a week, and I’m telling you right now that I am going to announce our marriage at the event.”

Jake stared at her in shock.

“Got nothing to say?”

Jake smiled, “Valerie Rose Gardner, will you do me the great honor of being my wife?”

Valerie smiled and jumped into Jake’s lap, “I thought you’d never ask.”

Jake felt his heart swell as he kissed his future bride.

Junior looked down on the Keepers’ farm as ten colonists were transported to be consumed. He had listened to the colony for two days and learned how gentle and peaceful the beings being eaten were. They lived with their impending deaths amid a sense of helplessness that made them heroic in Junior’s opinion. This was the tenth colony he had visited in the Keepers’ universe, and they were all similar. These enslaved races were not a danger to anyone, yet the Keepers kept them for consumption. “I’ve seen enough.”

He ran a quick scan of the galaxies around him and noticed a huge industrial signature in one. He teleported in to the galaxy and slowly approached a planet that had thousands of Keepers’ ships parked in orbit. He saw a Keepers’ ship being modified with bafflers to cover the drive ports. He also saw thousands of Keepers working on the ship’s exterior mounting devices to project a screen. He recorded the process and after two days determined that they were to be used to jump inside the jump limit. He recognized the process from early Realm developments and he knew that Jake was right; they were preparing to invade the Realm.

Suddenly ten Keepers’ ships jumped in around him. He smiled and teleported away before they could come out of their star drives. He saw that he was inside the jump limit and knew these ships had been modified. He also scanned the ships and recorded a beam the length and width of the ships fired at his former location. He then detected fifteen more star drives breaking into normal space around him, so he teleported out of the galaxy and back to the Stars Realm.

The Director of the ships attempting to attack the strange ship looked at his scanner, “Where did that ship go? There is no way it could have jumped into null space fast enough to avoid us.”

“Tell that to that ship; it obviously didn’t know it was impossible. Notify the Collective.”

Jake held Valerie and forgot about wars, Keepers, ships, planets, and all of the other things bothering him. “I hate to interrupt you two, but I need to speak with Jake.”

Jake was jerked back to the present and thought, “Hello, Junior. Have you decided?”

“Yes, I have, Jake. I’ve spent the last two weeks in the Keepers’ universe scanning the worlds they’ve enslaved. They are a cancer on creation and must be removed. I’m your ship, Jake.”

Valerie looked at Jake with a furrowed brow and Jake shook his head, “We need to get you prepped for the conflict.”

“I know. I’m going to see Sprig in a moment, but first I want to show you what I’ve just recorded.” Junior played what he had seen at the Keepers’ ship facility. “Those things being installed on their hulls are beam projectors that will allow them to jump inside the jump limit. Fortunately, they are not composed of the hull material, so we should be able to burn them off if we can get close enough. Notice also that the ships that came after me jumped inside the jump limit and came out firing a beam much wider and longer than their previous weapon.”

Valerie and Jake were scared, “We can’t wait any longer; they are obviously preparing for invasion and we must try to slow them down.”

“Jake, send the Cainth against that planet. They are ready and are getting angry about the delay. They may be killed, but if they can knock out that planet and any others like it, it will buy the Realm some time.”

“Valerie, I’ll be back for your birthday.”

“Go, my love. The Realm needs you.”

“Junior, we need to go.”

“If you tell me I’m wasting time again, I’ll scream.” Jake disappeared from the map room and Valerie could still feel his embrace.

Mord and two hundred of his fellow survivors watched the Keepers’ ship facility. They tried to get a feel for the pattern of incoming and outgoing ships. He also passively scanned the planet and saw a huge population of Keepers on the surface. Fifteen of the construction planets had been targeted by the Cainth and two hundred ships had been assigned each facility. The Stars Realm had put them in Gamma ships and coated their heads with the thought-blocking material. Mord knew that unless he teleported in close enough to block out the light from distant stars that he was invisible to the Keepers.

He used a communication device that was on the same frequency as cosmic rays that permeated the universe, and not much stronger than those small bits of energy. “We will hit the hundred and fifty facilities above the planet with our main beams first. The remaining fifty ships will then hit the planet with their main beams. One should do the trick, but I want to make a point here. We believe that the coating on our ships should protect us for just a few moments so don’t waste time; fire and get out. We still can’t hurt those ships, but surprise is on our side. Any questions?”

Silence greeted him and he said, “This is for Brayent. Teleport in five sems from now.”

The two hundred ships counted it down and disappeared… then reappeared at the ship building planet. The hundred and fifty docks in obit were hit with the massive main beam of the Gamma ships and burned into slag. The Keepers’ ships targeted the small ships, but they were gone before they could tune their thoughts to their beams. Then the Keepers’ ships watched as the planet below them exploded into hundreds of pieces and blew away, taking the wreckage of the facilities with them. Where once a planet with more than twenty billion Keepers existed, only dust and burning chunks of the core remained. The other fourteen planets were carbon copies of the first planet’s destruction. More than half a trillion Keepers died in less than five seconds.

The Collective and Quadrants were analyzing the progress of modifying the fleet when suddenly they were stunned. The Collective felt a severe pain, then began receiving reports. Science immediately reported, “I have lost five percent of my stored data on shipbuilding.”

The Collective and all the Quadrants entered the minds of Keepers at the sites of the attacks and saw the destruction. The being was shocked beyond belief. The former planets were blown into small burning pieces flying away from the explosion of the planets’ cores. The Collective Intelligence could feel the loss of those billions, and also sensed their capability was diminished slightly.

“How many of their ships did we kill?” Military asked.

“None; they were gone before we could focus our beams.”

“How many attacked?”

“Two hundred.”

The Collective turned its attention to Statistics, “How many of those ships did we scan in their universe?”

“More than twenty million.”

“How many ships do we have in our inventory?”

“More than a hundred million.”

“How many are converted with the new upgrades?”

“Less than 200,000.”

“Science, how can we protect our planets from these attacks?”

“We need to look at this together.”

The Collective Intelligence combined and began analyzing the attacks. After ten minutes the Quadrants separated and Science said, “It appears that the ships must be just above a planet’s atmosphere to use that beam weapon. If we space our ships with thousand-mile separation ten miles above the atmosphere, we should be able to overlap our beams such that they could not attack.”

“How many ships would be needed to provide that coverage, and how many of our home worlds are there to defend?”