Annihilation - Tommy's Tale (Annihilation Series (Book Four)) (36 page)

“We are moving now but it looks like the break in the mist extends a tremendous distance in front of us.”

“Just start moving; time doesn’t exist in here and distance is another thing that gets wacky.”

“We’re on our way.”

Cassandra continued to focus her thoughts toward Kosiev. She knew that if she stopped the mist would close in and she would lose him. She continued to focus and wondered how much time was passing back in normal space.

After what seemed like a month, Cassandra knew that her time was growing short. Kosiev was still too far away to be seen and she knew that she was going to grow too weary shortly to keep up the focus necessary to keep the mist parted. Then she had a thought, “I wonder if psychic skills still operate in here. She was able to move objects with her mind; could she do it here? She focused on Admiral Kosiev again and thought, “Move here now.” Suddenly, there he was along with the other seven crew members.

Kosiev smiled at her and said, “Whatever you did; you moved us here pretty quickly.”

“I wish I had done it sooner, Sir. I need each of you to come to me and grab my arms and push yourselves toward my hands.”

Kosiev looked at her arms that appeared to disappear into a solid cream colored wall. “Well, Ensign Orton, you go first.” A young sailor moved forward and started to move with his head toward the wall.

Cassandra said, “Go feet first. You’ll be coming out of the ceiling of a ship. There should be someone there to help you but I don’t want you to fall on your head.”

Cassandra had just entered the ceiling when a pair of feet emerged and a body began following the feet through the ceiling. The engineers moved the lift under the emerging body and helped the young sailor onto the lift’s floor. Immediately another set of feet emerged and everyone in the room felt tremendous excitement. Tag looked at the sailor that had just emerged and asked, “Who are you, son.”

“Ensign Orton, Sir, sensor officer SR Megaship Moscow.”

Everyone in the room felt a shiver as they looked at one of the Stars Realm’s historic heroes. Here was one of the sailors that had given their life to save the fleet at the Pydres planet. Six other sailors emerged from the ceiling and then the eighth came through and Tag saw his friend that he had mourned for years. Alexander Kosiev looked exactly as he did those twenty seven years ago when he attacked the frequency ships to save the trapped Stars Realm Fleet. Kosiev turned and saw Tag and reached forward and hugged him.

“I’ve missed you Alexander. I can’t tell you how good it is to see you.”

Kosiev smiled and said, “We have a lot to talk about. You look older than I do.” He then turned to Danielle and said, “It’s good to see you Your Majesty. I trust you’ve taken care of the Realm.”

Danielle rushed forward and hugged Kosiev and said, “I haven’t been queen for more than twelve years. My daughter Rose is Queen now.”

Rose walked up and smiled and said, “I’ve learned so much about you from our history books. It is a real delight to meet you.”

Kosiev and the other Moscow crew members were stunned. Then Twig and Sprig entered the bridge and Tommy said as he helped Cassandra onto the lift, “Admiral, this is Sprig and Twig. They are two Algean adolescents that are responsible for us finding you.”

Kosiev looked at the two plants with wide eyes and then said to Tag, “They don’t look anything like the Algeans I remember.”

Tag smiled and said, “That war is over. The Algeans are our allies now.”

Kosiev looked back at the two plants and said, “Do tell.”

Tag pointed at Tommy and said, “Alex, this is my son Tommy and his wife whom you’ve already met. They are leading us in our current fight against the Captors.”

Kosiev looked at Tag and said, “We’re in another war?”

Tag smiled ruefully and said, “Yes, and some of the ships we’re fighting are more than three thousand miles in diameter.”

Kosiev sat down and looked around the room. Then he said, “Will you take me to the library so I can see what I’ve missed. It feels like I’ve only been gone a few moments but obviously a lot has taken place. I hope I have a place in this new world.”

Twig said, “If you don’t mind Admiral, I can transfer all the history files directly to your Mind and help you organize them. It should only take two days and you’ll be completely up to date.”

Kosiev looked at the young Algean and then said to Tag, “Can she do that?”

“Absolutely, Alex; I think you will be amazed at the things we can do now.”

Sprig said, “Wait until he finds out that this ship bears his name along with the Fleet Academy.”

Kosiev looked at Tag and said, “Say it isn’t so.”

Tag started laughing and said, “Someone fetch us a bag of popcorn. Now it feels like home to me.”

Cassandra and Tommy watched Tag and they could tell that a huge weight had been removed as soon as Admiral Kosiev emerged from the ceiling. They looked at each other and Cassandra thought to Tommy, “I like him.”

“So do I, Cassie.”

Rose added, “That makes three of us. Now, let’s repair this ship and let the Realm know that its greatest hero is alive.”

Tag said, “First, Alex needs to make a call to another friend that misses him.” Kosiev looked at Tag with a furrowed brow and Tag said, “Fleet Admiral Len Mikado should get a call before anyone else.”

Kosiev smiled and said, “Fleet Admiral Mikado; by all means let’s contact him.”

Admiral Mikado was on board the Rising Sun when his communications office commed him, “Admiral, I have a fleet priority call for you that asks you to stop and make contact immediately.”

Mikado jumped from his command chair and said, “Send it to the conference room immediately.” Len left the bridge and went to the conference room and punched the comm., “Mikado here, go ahead with your call.”

The display on the com came on and a face he knew from the past said, “Admiral, I leave you in charge for a few moments and you have the Realm right back into another war. I expected better of you.”

Len stared at the screen with his mouth open for a long moment and said, “Is this someone’s idea of a sick joke.”

Kosiev looked at his former captain and said, “It’s no joke, Lin. I just got back and I wanted you to be one of the first to know. I’m proud of you and all you’ve accomplished. It’s good to see you again.”

Mikado stared at the screen and Kosiev could see the emotions welling up in his face. “Is it really you, sir?”

Kosiev smiled and said, “Yes it is. Tag has managed to find me in the skin of the old Moscow and bring me back home. I’ll give you the details later, but I’m back and for me no time has passed at all since the Moscow’s destruction.”

Mikado looked at the screen and said, “Thank the Creator; I’ve thought of you every day since we lost you. Please come see me as soon as you can. This is a gift greater than any I’ve ever received.”

Kosiev looked at Mikado and said, “I’ll do that, Lin. It’s good to see you.”

Tag came on the call and said, “Admiral, the Queen wishes to tell the Realm of Admiral Kosievs’ return but as soon as we can we’ll get together.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty. Thank you for finding my mentor.” The screen went dark and Mikado left the conference room and returned to the bridge. The crew immediately saw that something had happened and that the Admiral was in a high state of emotion. They all looked at him and he said to them, “Pass the word to the entire crew; Admiral Kosiev has been raised from the dead and is back among the living. By the Creator, he’s back.”

The crew looked at each other wondering if their commander had lost his mind but they announced the news over the general ship frequency. Every one of the crewmen on board had seen the destruction of the Moscow during their academy training and the entire ship was wondering about Mikado’s sanity until the announcement came in from Castle Gardner that the news was true; Kosiev was back. The entire Stars Realm was stunned but then the celebrations began. The Realm’s greatest hero was alive and in this time of fear, it brought a new sense of courage and belief that the Realm would prevail. Kosiev was back.

K
osiev sat in the library at Castle Gardner while Twig fed all of the history of the Stars Realm since the destruction of the Moscow into his mind. The previous three days had been a mad rush from celebration to celebration. Tgon-Gee, Admiral Mikado, and the Eldest of the Algeans had come to welcome him home. He acted in high spirits but he felt that time had passed him by and left him with nothing to do. The thought of these new ships and the race of Captors that the Realm was now fighting for survival left him hollow inside. He was used to being in the center of all the action and now he knew he was not going to be where he wanted to be. The Statue of him at the fleet academy and the outright adoration of everyone he encountered only served to make him feel like he should have just stayed dead. How could he possibly live up to the legend that had been built around him? “Oh, well, I’ve never met a legend before. At least my actions saved the fleet.” He then thought about Tag and how he now looked as old as he did. According to what he had been told, he had died more than twenty six years ago but Tag did not look twenty six years older. As he thought about it, Danielle didn’t either. “I’ll have to ask him about that.”

Then he leaned back on the couch and Twig entered his mind and began the transfer of information. He closed his eyes and felt the rush of new knowledge. He stayed like that for two days which only seemed like a couple of hours.

Twig began the transfer and sorted the information into his memory centers and organized it so that it would make it seem like he had lived all of the time that he had been gone. She also looked into his mind and got a full account of the war between the Realm and her race. She was amazed that the humans had worked to prevent the destruction of her species after all the worlds that the Algeans had destroyed and harvested. “I’ve got to share this with Sprig,” she thought and then focused on the transfer.

Kosiev opened his eyes and blinked. “Wow, a lot has happened,” he looked at Twig and said, “Thank you. It’s like I’ve been here living all of this history. Now I know what I’ve missed. I also noticed that you’ve given me a full understanding of the new ships, weapons, and teleportation devices.”

“Admiral, how can you be an asset if you don’t know how everything works? I suspect you will be put to work shortly.”

“I really hope so, Twig. At least I won’t be lost now in the details. How did you do this?”

“We’ve learned how to download information in tremendous quantities and organize it. This transfer was really rather simple and I think that if you focus on a problem you’ll find what you need to know in your mind now.”

Kosiev smiled and stood up, “It’s time to go to work. I’m truly glad we came to be friends with your species. I would have never guessed that we would become friends during the time of our conflict.”

“You have Queen Rose and Admiral Dorg to thank for that.”

Kosiev frowned and said, “I wish he were still alive. I grew to have a tremendous respect for that Cainth. We could use him now.”

Twig lifted her limbs indicating a smile and said, “We feel the same way about you, Admiral.”

Kosiev smiled and, “Thank you again; I hope I can meet your expectations. Do you know if Cade McAllister is still around?”

“Yes he is; he’s retired and living on Ross.”

“Will you give me his com number; I need to talk with him about an idea I have.”

Twig put the number in Kosievs’ mind and he left the library to make a call.

Five days later Tag, Danielle, Rose, Tommy, Cassandra, Tgon-Gee, Admirals Mikado, O’Donald, and recently promoted McAnn were in the map room of Castle Gardner discussing the upcoming battle with the Captors. Tommy said, “We have to attack within twelve weeks. The places in space that the Captors use to see the universe will be cooled enough for them to find us in sixteen weeks. We have to prevent them from seeing the planets of the Realm. We’re only going to have 150,000 ships to fight more than four million of the Captors and if you look at their world you’ll see that they are staged in multiple layers expecting us to come.”

Danielle looked at Tommy and said, “Why can’t you heat those nerve centers again?”

Cassandra shook her head and said, “Last time I entered one of those centers, I almost exploded the energy particle in it. If I had, it would have created at new universe with a big bang. I’ve gotten a better feel for what is happening in that particle and I don’t think that it will endanger our universe but I also sense that now is not the time for it to happen. I don’t know for certain what the consequences would be if it happened too soon.”

Admiral Mikado frowned and said, “How are we going to do this? Are we just going to jump in and start shooting or do you have another plan?”

Tommy looked at Cassandra and saw that she was letting him come up with the strategy for the battle but Tommy was just not certain if what he was planning would work. “If we just jump in and start shooting, we will be barraged by millions of those energy balls that can destroy our ships. We have to come up with a strategy that allows our ships to escape those barrages.”