Annihilation Series-Searching for a Hero (25 page)

Dahlia looked at them and said, “I’m going up to take a look around.” She turned around, walked into the tube, and disappeared, leaving her brother and sister stunned into silence.

• • • • •

Dahlia arrived at the surface and checked the scanner inside the tree’s trunk for any movement near the exit. She did a three hundred and sixty degree scan and activated the exit. She stepped out and took her blaster off her shoulder and used it to scan the area a hundred yards around her. She closed her eyes and confirmed the blaster’s scan. She lowered the barrel and walked into the woods. She arrived at a stream flowing quickly through the forest and sat down beside it. She lowered her hand into the water and felt how cool it was. The snow was melting north of the city and making its way to the ocean fifty miles away. She looked through a break in the foliage and saw the tallest buildings in the capital were still smoking from the blaster strikes.

Some of the smaller structures were also smoking from the invader’s blaster hits but all she could see was the dark sky above them. She leaned over and looked down in the stream and saw her reflection in a back eddy next to the stream’s bank. Her auburn colored hair was tied back in a ponytail and seemed to emit red flashes when the sun shined on it. Her face was perfectly formed and her cheek bones framed her green eyes in a delicate fashion that made her appear almost dainty. One look into her eyes would dispel that notion. There was directness in her gaze that many found intimidating. She had just turned twenty years old but felt like she was eighty. Her smile was beautiful but was seldom seen. The members of the planet’s Royal Family carried a heavy burden and Dahlia was content to be one of the ones that stayed in the shadows. The invasion had cast a bright light on her as she was forced to do things she would have ordinarily avoided. She shook her head and knew that Tess and Dean were finally on to her.

“Why have you been hiding your talents?”

Dahlia continued to stare at her reflection in the stream and sighed, “I’m not qualified to lead, Tess.”

“I’m starting to believe that you are the most qualified to do it.”

Dahlia turned around and indicated a place beside her. Tess sat down and Dahlia took off her military boots and put her feet in the cold water. Tess hesitated and then joined her. “Tess, I’ve not had near the control over my abilities that would qualify me to even attempt to use them. The stress of the Black Ship invasion had seemed to give me more control. Most of the time, I couldn’t use them when I tried.”

“And now?”

Dahlia shrugged, “They do appear to respond to me.” Tess stared at Dahlia and remained silent. “I cannot accept the leadership position.”

“Why not?”

Dahlia looked up at the sky and squinted at the bright sky above the trees, “I sense that my destiny doesn’t lie here.”

Tess looked up with her, “Are you saying it’s out there?”

Dahlia lowered her gaze to Tess, “I’m not sure. I don’t really know what I’m feeling. I just feel that I’m called to do something else. I can’t explain what that is but I know the feeling is real.”

“The people deserve the best we have to guide them, Dahlia.”

“They have that with you, Tess. You are the best of our family.”

“I’m no longer sure about that. I was going to launch the ships; it was you that stopped me.”

“You’re forgetting one thing.”

Tess’ brow furrowed, “What is that?”

“Just because someone possesses more talents doesn’t mean the people will follow them. They love you, Tess and will follow you into hell if you asked them. They trust you to make the important decisions.”

“They love you, too.”

“No they don’t; they don’t know me.”

“That’s your fault. You never gave them the chance.”

“My destiny is elsewhere. It’s important the people chose one they could love.”

Tess lowered her head, “I’m not sure I can continue doing this. I miss my family so much.”

Dahlia reached over and put her arms around Tess’ neck, “You have a planet of family members that you love and love you in return. Don’t reject them when you need them the most to help you with your loss. It’s continuing to lead them that will allow you to survive Kit and Tim’s deaths.”

Tess broke down into tears and wept her grief with soul wrenching sobs. She finally let her tight control slip and she felt the overwhelming loss of her husband and daughter. Dahlia held her tightly and wept with her. Tess had always been the strongest and she had to face her grief in order to survive.

• • • • •

Dean sat at a monitor in the hole and saw Tess break down with Dahlia. Thank God she was venting her pain and anguish. Dahlia would take care of her. Dahlia had always been in the background supporting her family when it was needed. Dean loved his sisters but he felt a connection to his twin sister that was stronger than any of the others. He knew her strength and her humility. If a member of the Royal Family had psychic talents, then Dahlia would be the perfect one to have them. He knew he was alive because of her guidance through the Invaders blasters and subsequent search. He was not fearful of what she was able to do. He continued to stare at the monitor until Tess gathered herself and wiped her tears. Tess was needed. A plan had to be developed for when the Invaders returned.

• • • • •

Ping sat in his ship on a planet circling a blue star. The giant star was a type O and would go nova in another four million years. The biggest and brightest stars lived the shortest. The planet was ten light years from the star cluster that the Black Ships had invaded and it offered a good place to view the civilizations in it. There were more than eight thousand civilized planets in the cluster and the Black Ships had invaded five thousand of them. He sat back in his chair and allowed his senses to roam. He watched the Black Transport arriving and taking the forces off the planets that had been invaded and jump them back to the home worlds of the Black Ships. He had to give them credit, the exodus was going off like clockwork. He remembered the comment he had overheard about the invasion of this star cluster and hadn’t paid attention to it. He now knew that even those comments that seemed to be nothing contained something of importance. He overheard it because he was supposed to hear it. He knew the one he was searching for was in that cluster. Or something was that would allow him to find them elsewhere. He concentrated, hoping he would possibly sense them, but nothing tickled his senses. He turned back to the five thousand worlds that had been attacked and he saw that all of them were located in the same general area in the center of the cluster. He saw something that caught his attention. One of the civilized planets in the center of the invasion did not have a transport sent to it. Was it not invaded? Why would they avoid that planet and attack all of those around it? He looked closer at the planet and saw cities that had been blasted from orbit. It had been invaded. Why wasn’t a transport going to that planet?

He entered the planet’s coordinates into his teleport system and leaned back in his chair. He’d go there after the transports departed. He turned on his fleet monitor and winced at the battles being fought across the universe by the Realm’s forces and the five civilizations that invaded the Realm. They are truly a black five. He thought a moment and decided that he would call them the Black Five from now on. He wondered what the Gardners were doing. He hadn’t been visited by them again but he knew they were planning something. He stood up and stretched. Mios was right about Eric Pederson. He was really making a difference in the fight. He shook his head, “Mios, I’m so sorry.” He pulled up a picture of Nicole looking over his shoulder at the beach. Her smile was dazzling and he missed her so much. “Don’t worry, my love. I understand why you did it.” He sat back down and closed his eyes. Sleep hit him instantly and, for the first time since Nicole died, his dreams weren’t nightmares.

• • • • •

Vremel issued his instructions and the two thousand Zord flying with him teleported to the surface of a Hedgon industrial planet. The Zord immediately absorbed their armor when they landed in the forest fifteen miles from a huge city and waited to see if they had been seen.

Vremel thought, “Vled, scatter into the forest and only use your color shifting to hide.”

“Yes, Great Leader.”

Vremel was in the top of a tall tree and he clung to the trunk, as he watched the distant city. He waited and then saw a line of armored vehicles leaving the city and roaring across the plain toward his location. He knew someone in the city must have detected something but wasn’t sure what it was. He lowered his body temperature to the ambient air around him and moved down the tree until he was in the heavy branches. He continued to grip the trunk to avoid sagging any of the branches with his weight. He knew the other Zord had also lowered their temperatures and were hidden above ground in the forest. He waited and kept his armor’s activate code in his mind in the event he was discovered.

• • • • •

The Hedgon Armor Commander stared at his scanner and felt like this was a waste of time. Three scanners had emitted a warning of something in the forest but immediately lost whatever they had detected. A warship in orbit had been immediately dispatched and ran multiple high intensity scans of the forest but had come up empty. The best scanners were on warships and if they didn’t detect anything, there probably wasn’t anything there. Still, the Prime Commander had ordered a physical search. “Has anyone detected anything metallic or electrical?” Silence greeted his question and he watched the forest grow closer by the second. They arrived at the forest’s edge and he yelled into his microphone, “Send in the warriors.”

Each armored vehicle opened and fifty warriors ran out of each of them and rushed into the forest with their blasters raised. Ten thousand would quickly advance while ten thousand covered their advance for thirty yards and then they would advance thirty yards past the first group. They continued the movement forward until they had moved more than a mile into the trees.

“One of the units has found something.”

“What is it?”

A loud explosion erupted from the trees and the Commander yelled, “WHAT’S GOING ON!?”

There was a long pause and the ground force leader said, “One of the warrior’s scanners detected a metallic source and he fired on it.”

“What was it?”

“It appears it was a small commercial transport that crashed some years ago.”

The Armor Commander shook his head and changed frequencies, “We’ve found a crashed transport in the forest on the line where the detection was made.”

“Were the electronics on it active?”

“One of my warriors hit it with a blaster but it appears it has been here for a long time.”

“I guess it’s possible that one of the electronic units on it decayed and shorted out causing an electronic discharge. Have you found anything else?”

“No, and our scanners are not reporting anything metallic or electrical.”

“Stand by.”

• • • • •

One of the huge Zord was clinging to the trunk of a tree that was burning from the blaster’s discharge. The flames were moving up the trunk and he would be forced to move quickly.

“Command has issued a recall.”

The Armor Commander announced the recall and the Hedgon Warriors turned and rushed out of the forest. They didn’t want to get caught in a forest fire if the flames spread.

The Zord watched the troops under his tree turn and rush back into the forest and he leaped from the trunk and flew to another tree fifty yards away. He made sure he stayed under the tree tops and blew on his long tail to try and cool it. He had lifted it above his head but it was a very close thing indeed that he wasn’t severely burned. One of the warriors on the ground saw a shadow pass quickly over him and he looked back and stared at the forest, “What are you doing, you want to die?”

“I thought I saw a shadow.”

“There’s going to be nothing but shadow when this smoke gets thicker. Get moving.”

The warrior felt stupid. The shadow must have been smoke blowing away from the hot flames. He started running and rejoined the ranks of the fleeing Hedgon.

• • • • •

One of the great advantages the Zord possessed was that they were telepathic. The looked like an ancient dragon from Earth’s mythical past but they weren’t reptiles. Their communications were not done electronically and could not be detected. The Hedgon had erected huge force fields above their major ship building facilities that were produced by eight tall spires surrounding the city. If they placed a force field completely around the city, the temperature inside it would have been unbearable from the massive technological manufacturing plants. The sides were open to release the heat that rose to the force field. All of the city’s scanners were pointed above and to the sides of the giant city, which also played into a Zord advantage. Since the Zord could match the heat of their surroundings, the infrared scans wouldn’t detect them. And since they weren’t wearing anything metallic, they were invisible to the Hedgon scanners.

Vremel waited in the forest for nightfall and smiled. There was no moon and the area around the city was pitch black. The city was lit up like a giant amusement park but was dark a mile out from the edge of the force field. Vremel thought to his warriors, “Make sure your lower side is the same color as the force field. You have your assignments and your routes to enter the city. Get in and get out. Do not waste any time and avoid being seen.” The two thousand Zord flew high above the forest and allowed the cool air to lower their body temperatures and then they broke away into four groups with five hundred Zord in each. They flew out from the city and then turned and move toward it from four different directions. The force field was six hundred feet above the city and the Zord flew in at five hundred feet and turned toward their assigned targets. Vled and two other Zord were assigned the space port where thousands of completed warships were lined up in ranks to be moved off planet when their crews arrived. Most of them were already manned and were waiting for the new fleet commander to arrive and take them to the war being fought among the home worlds.