Annihilation - Finding Keepers (Annihilation Series (Book Seven}) (28 page)

“What do you think would happen if they remained? The Keepers are now being forced to keep their fleet at their home planets to prevent their destruction; they can no longer just make shipments from the planets they’ve conquered. It doesn’t take a genius to see that they will just wipe out one of their planets and transport the entire population on one ship. I believe they are safer here than where they are now.”

Joe shrugged, “That’s why you’re Queen, Valerie; you’ve always been able to see the big picture.”

Valerie got up and hugged her brother, “Joe, be thankful you can’t see that picture. Some of it is gruesome and I just hope it doesn’t permanently damage my humanity.”

Joe smiled, “I know your heart, Valerie, and you will be fine.”

Valerie sat back down and said, “By the creator, I really hope so, Joe.”

Junior and Jake were waiting for the operation to remove the five cities. They were next to the closest moon looking down on the planet. They had remained silent for an hour and Junior broke the silence by announcing, “Five minutes until midnight.”

Jake stood up, stretched, then sat back down and continued to stare at the monitor. “Jake, how do you know my parents are with the Gardners?”

“They may not be, Junior, but it makes the most sense.”

“Why is that?”

Jake sighed and looked up from the monitor, “What if you had a vision of the Realm being attacked thousands of years in the future? You would know that the vision could not be changed; it was going to happen. So it’s not like you could go out and do anything at that moment. Now you’re faced with having to wait thousands of years before anything could be done to save the Realm. If it were me, I would dread the waiting with that hanging over my head for such a long period of time. They must have done something to reduce the waiting period.”

“Well, where are they? The attack has begun and they’re not here.”

“That’s where you come in, Junior. You are the key to finding them.”

Junior was stunned and started to respond, but Jake said, “Get ready, the attack is ten seconds away.”

It was a cool night, and Grimly sat on his front porch staring out at the fields surrounding the community. The full moon overhead gave a luminescence to the crops that made the perfect rows look like they had been combed into the dirt. His long black braid slipped behind his back as he leaned forward. He moved it back over his shoulder, hanging it on his chest.

He was only five feet tall and bipedal. His face was wide with large round yellow eyes, deep set above a narrow, sharp nose. His mouth had thin lips and was wide for so narrow a face. His skin was olive in color in contrast to the black hair that grew from his head down his back. His vision was extraordinary in both day and night light. He held a piece of twine in his four fingered hands, working it into a strong rope. He couldn’t sleep. He knew his time to be taken was drawing near, and he worried about the community that he had been given to lead. He wondered again why the God of his people had placed them into the hands of the demons that killed them. His people had never harmed another race, and the recited memories each night talked about the time his people had lived on many planets. He stopped twisting the strands of twine and wondered if the communities here were all that was left of his people.

He put the rope aside and looked up at the stars, which for some reason were no longer there. From horizon to horizon, all he saw was a black sky on a cloudless night. What was happening? Then he heard a giant explosion from the direction of the demon’s home. He looked back up and saw the sky turn silver and fall down on him and his community. He wondered if this was the end, then the silver sky engulfed him.

Mord looked down at the Keepers’ planet with the ships in orbit above it and checked his ship’s clock. He had sixty seconds before his eight ships attacked. He had learned the hard way that he could not get closer than a thousand miles from those ships. He had lost a hundred ships when they had attacked ten planets. The ships guarding the Keepers had rotated their beams out from their ranks, catching the Cainth pilots that had moved to within three hundred miles above the planet. The intensity of those beams had damaged the ships even though they were coated. Most of his pilots had been hit by fifty beams before they had a chance to teleport away and were blown into dust. Now his ships were twelve hundred miles above the Keepers Fleet. Even at that he could only remain for just a few moments. Without the thought coating on his ships he would be destroyed if he remained longer than three seconds.

He watched the clock and finally the time arrived. He fired one of his high powered needles into the planet’s surface. The Keepers’ beams did not affect the beam; a solid penetrator would have been disintegrated. The needle hit the surface and a huge explosion erupted from the ground. More than six hundred yards below the surface the needle vaporized everything in its path. On the Keepers’ planet, eight places were struck with the high-powered needles, killing hundreds of thousands of Keepers underground.

“Time to go,” and Mord teleported away.

The Collective felt the attack and immediately turned its attention to the site of the strikes. It sensed the lives that were lost. Military interrupted the Collective’s attention, “One of our farms is being attacked.”

“We’ll worry about that later; get some of our modified ships into that system immediately!”

Military found the ships and ordered them to jump to the Keepers’ home world.

The Director of the Keepers Fleet guarding the planet turned its thoughts to the Collective and said, “We briefly illuminated the eight ships that attacked the planet, but they jumped away.”

The Collective thought a moment and wondered why those ships had not pressed their attack. Then he decided that this attack must have been a diversion. “Get those ships to the farm that is being attacked. Get them moving now.”

The five hundred Red Warriors teleported from their fifty attack craft to the surface of the planet surrounding the Keepers’ garrison and opened fire on the facility. The fifty attack craft roared in with five ships in ten lines separated by less than a second. The surface of the compound began exploding as each craft launched eighty high speed penetrators into the surface and turned to follow the last line. The Red Warriors watched their sensors and fired hornets at anything that remotely looked like a Keepers’ weapon. For their part, the Keepers had no chance even to look above the surface to see what was happening. The first three levels of the garrison were blown away.

The five Defender ships teleported in less than five seconds after the first explosion and dropped to the surface of the planet above the five cities as fast as possible, taking into consideration the wind that would be caused by their drop through the atmosphere. Ten miles above the cities, the giant ships hit their teleporter just before the high winds arrived and moved all five cities into their landing bays. Caution was no longer needed, and the five giant ships teleported away. Commodore Glzck hit his com, “We’re clear.”

The five hundred Red Warriors hit their teleport dials and the fifty attack craft jumped away just as six hundred Keepers’ ships appeared above the planet. The Collective and Quadrants looked down on a planet that had been dramatically altered. The former five food communities were gone, with only bare soil remaining behind. The garrison was severely damaged and had been unable to record anything about what had taken place on the surface.

“How much time did this attack last?”

“Only one-thirtieth of an interval.”

The Collective Intelligence was stunned. If this kind of attack was to be stopped, they would have to be prepared to respond instantly. “Military, I want an initial plan about what to if this happens. We will come together in two intervals to analyze our response.” The Collective looked at the planet again and thought to the ships, “Move the survivors to another farm, and take their food stores to the main planet that was just attacked.”

The six hundred ships began launching craft to carry out their orders.

“That was close, Junior.”

“It certainly didn’t take them long to figure out that the other attack was a diversion.”

“We’re going to have to think about whether we want to risk another city.”

Junior thought a moment and said, “True, but let’s go check on those we moved.”

G
rimly found himself in a strange new environment. There was a huge river flowing off to the east that was not there yesterday. The sky had a different hue, the trees outside the city’s boundary were twice as tall, and the hills surrounding the city were no longer there. He saw most of the community had gathered in the central square and were looking out at the strange landscape. He raised his arm and saw that the bracelet he had been wearing his entire life was no longer on his arm.

Suddenly, the crowd heard a noise and saw a strange ship moving down into the middle of the square. Grimly yelled for everyone to move out from under it, and the crowd followed his instructions. A silver-colored square appeared under the ship as it hovered ten feet off the ground, and a strange-looking being stepped out of it. Immediately, another silver square appeared and two green creatures that looked like walking plants appeared. Silence covered the population.

The first being looked at him and everyone in the square heard in their minds, “Welcome to your new home. My name is Jake, and the two here with me are named Sprig and Twig. You have been moved from the planet you have been living on to this one to try and stop the Keepers from killing you.” The crowd was silent.

Jake looked off and saw that the occupants of the other four cities had witnessed the ship coming down and were now moving toward the central community. Jake looked at Grimly again and said, “I see that you are this community’s leader. I welcome you and your people to this planet. The Algeans have donated this planet for you to live on. I’ll let Sprig explain everything to you.”

Grimly just stared at the green being and said, “What have you done?”

Sprig could see that most of the city’s population was in a state of shock. He said, “You have been transported to another universe. We are at war with the creatures that were consuming you, and we have begun to try and save some of the planets that they have enslaved. You are the first we have chosen to move. This is a different universe and planet from where you have been living, but it is now yours to make of it what you choose.”

Grimly stared at Sprig and said, “You mean we’re free?”

Sprig leaned right, indicating a smile, and said, “Yes, you are.”

Grimly knelt down and took some dirt in his hand and slowly shook his head. He stood, looked out at the thousands surrounding him, and yelled, “Our Maker has answered our pleas! We have been rescued from the killers!” The crowd went wild and as members of the other four cities arrived, the celebration grew larger and louder. Jake walked over to Grimly with Sprig and said, “Why don’t you gather the leaders of your people and I will come back at sunset to answer any of your questions.”

Grimly hugged Jake, then Sprig, and answered, “Why not make it at sunrise? We have a lot to celebrate, and I have no idea about who the other cities leaders are.”

Jake smiled and looked at Sprig who said, “We will meet with you in the morning, and would you mind if some of us joined you in the celebration?”

Grimly smiled and said, “The more the better.” Then he ran over and started hugging everyone he could find. Immediately, thousands of Algeans began teleporting in, joining the happy crowd.

Jake teleported to Junior’s bridge and said, “Your cities appear to be quite happy about your choice.”

“Do tell?”

“Let us go and allow them this moment for celebration. The Algeans can take it from here.”

Junior hovered for a few moments, watching the revelry, and felt somehow complete. Jake saw Robby in the crowd dancing with one of the Algeans. “This is what we are here to do,” he thought.

Junior lifted into the atmosphere and jumped to Ross.

Lorg, one of the Cainth survivors from Brayent, watched his monitor and saw a huge amount of activity taking place around the Keepers’ planet he was viewing. He had landed two days earlier in stealth mode on an asteroid outside the planet’s fifth moon, set his sensors to passive, and started searching for a means of attack. After a day, he watched more than fifty thousand Keepers’ ships arrive and take station in high orbit around the planet. This was in addition to those that were in low orbit protecting the planet from surprise attack. “What’s going on?” He wondered.

He looked closely at the scans and saw that there were twenty objects being lifted from the planet’s surface into high orbit just below the outer band of ships. He moved the view in closer and saw that these objects were brown in color, and were made from the hull material used for the Keepers’ Fleet. They were about a mile in length and were slowly moving out of the atmosphere and maneuvered into orbit such that they were equally spaced around the middle of the planet. The objects were pyramidal in shape, and the base of each was pointed toward the planet with the point oriented away from the surface below.