Defending Earth-Discovery Means Death (33 page)

Two hours later, the First’s panel illuminated, “Why did you not send in all your fleets?”

“I think the recording answers that question, Great Leader.”

“How did you know they have that many ships to use against us?”

“I didn’t. This species is not the ones we came here looking to find.”

“No, it appears it isn’t.”

“I had to sacrifice two Fleets to get you and the other leaders to see it.”

“Upon your arrival, you will join the other Leaders on my planet.”

“Are you ordering us back?”

“I am. Start the exodus immediately.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader.” He looked at the Second, “Do not attempt to move into formations. Order all ships to leave for the Central Galaxies immediately.” The Second nodded and began speaking into his panel. The billions of Feeder Warships entered the void and fled away from the four clusters. The Purple Warships assigned to track their movements watched them run and plotted the course they were taking.

• • •

They watched the annihilation of the two Feeder Fleets and near the end Derek looked at Chase and said, “Now is the time to launch a missile at one of the Purple Ships. They won’t know who did it in this mad house.” Chase reached forward and pressed the white button. The view of the battle disappeared and the light ship emerged into open space. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WE HAVE TO LAUNCH A MISSILE AT THEM!”

Chase entered another light signature into his drive and looked at Derek, “Do you not think the Black Civilization records everything that happens?”

“But they won’t know who did it!”

“They’ll know the Feeders didn’t do it. Those ships have not attacked us and I’m not going to fire the first shot in the initial contact between our civilizations.”

“I’m ordering you to go back and launch!”

“Arrest me, Derek. I won’t do it.” Chase pressed the white button and the light ship disappeared and entered normal space outside Fleet Headquarter. Derek stared at Chase and sighed. “I’ll support you in refusing to do it. I just hope Fleet doesn’t arrest you for not carrying out your orders.”

“Commodore Desoto, please report to Admiral Mandel in Intelligence for debriefing.” Derek looked at Chase as he stood up and walked off the ship.

“Why didn’t you do it?”

“Speedy, it wasn’t the right thing to do.”

“That civilization represents a real threat to the Alliance.”

“That’s the question I had to answer before I could attack them.”

“What question is that?”

“Does any civilization with more advanced technology require us to eliminate them?” There was silence and Chase slouched in his command chair. “Does it?”

“I really don’t know how to answer that question.”

“I don’t either. Until I can, I won’t attack them.”

“Captain Race, please report to Fleet Intelligence for debriefing.”

Chase stood up and turned off his console, “See you later, Speedy. I hope.” Chase walked off the ship and saw the guard waiting for him at the entrance. That didn’t bode well.

“M
att, we’ve been ordered to report to the High Leader’s conference room.”

“What’s going on?”

“The probes we have operating outside Feeder Territory have begun receiving images of millions of Feeder Warships moving into their domains.”

Matt’s eyes went wide, “They’ve left the four clusters and have returned home.”

“Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know. I expect the High Leader will tell us. Let’s get moving.”

• • •

The room was full and Matt took some time to meet and greet the Admirals under his command. The volume was loud and he had to almost shout to be heard. “What’s going on, Sir?”

“I don’t know. We’ll all find out together.” A loud tone sounded and everyone turned and saw the Leaders of the Alliance entering the room. Matt looked at Eddy and nodded toward their chairs.

They took their seats as the Leaders sat down and a moment later, Rose entered the room. “Please keep your seats; we have a lot to discuss.” Matt saw the Alliance Leaders look around at each other and realized they didn’t know what was going on either. Rose activated the huge wall monitor and images of thousands of Feeder Warships appeared as they entered the galaxies of the Feeder’s Central Government. “What you see here is the fleets that were sent to the four clusters returning home. They are being organized and sent out to patrol the conquered galaxies. It appears the Feeder Leadership has begun to notice our efforts at removing them from their conquests.” The Leaders started mumbling among themselves and Rose stared at them. They grew silent and Rose said, “Eight of the ten fleets they sent out to search for us have returned.”

The Welken raised his arm. Rose looked at him and nodded. “What happened to the other two Fleets?”

Rose smiled, “They were annihilated by a civilization primarily located in one of the four clusters.” The Welken’s eyes widened and Rose nodded, “Yes, they lost two billion ships in a major battle with that civilization.”

The Welken didn’t raise his hand, “What do we know about that civilization?”

“Quite a bit actually. They’ve been using advanced technology for more than sixteen thousand years and their weapon technology is more advanced than our own. We’ve determined that they have at least four hundred million advanced warships but most of my staff believes their numbers could be much higher. I’m going to play an edited recording of the battle where the Feeder Fleets were destroyed. At the end, I will accept questions. Once I’ve answered them, I’ll tell you what our future plans will be.” Rose pointed her arm at the monitor and the room turned to watch the video. There were numerous gasps as the two Feeder Fleets began appearing. By the time the battle kicked off, the room was silent.

Eddy leaned over and whispered, “Matt, I had no idea that is what we’re up against.”

Matt nodded, “This does put it in perspective.”

Eddy elbowed him slightly, “Is that all you have to say about this?”

Matt sighed, “This video pretty much says everything Eddy.” She sighed and put her hand on her chin. Matt saw the engagement ring and smiled. Their wedding was about three months away.

When the video moved to the Black Civilization’s planetary system, the attendees were no longer frightened by the Feeders. This new civilization had all of their attention. The video finally ended and Rose stood up, “Questions?”

The Goran Leader thought so all could hear, “Do we know how our ships match up with those purple ships?”

“Not really. We do know that their ships do not give off a light signature to target our weapons.”

The Welken shook his head, “WHAT?! All of our weapon systems are designed to use light signatures to make them operate!”

“That’s true. We’re working on developing optical targeting systems as we speak. We’re going to have to go back to older technology if we have to take on those ships.”

“Who recorded this?”

Rose looked at the Myot Leader, “I had a light ship present to scout them.”

“Couldn’t that ship have fired on one of those ships and determined how we stand against them?”

“Yes, he could have but refused to do so.”

“For the creator’s sake why? Shouldn’t he have been ordered to do it?”

“He was ordered to do it but he refused to follow his orders.”

“I trust he’s been executed for his actions.”

“Actually, he is sitting with the other officers in the front row. I’ve awarded him the Golden Galaxy for his bravery and heroism in carrying out the finest traditions of the Alliance under extremely dangerous conditions.” The Myot shook his head and looked at the Welken Royal who was staring at Rose. Rose looked at him and smiled, “Do you have a question Your Majesty?”

The Welken stood and looked around at the other leaders. He turned to Rose, “We were wrong to order him to do it.”

Rose’s smile was huge, “Go on.”

The Royal looked around the room and blew out a slow breath, “Where does it stop?” The room was deathly silent and the Welken extended his arm and waved it across the room, “If we attack any civilization more advanced than we are; what does that communicate to all the civilizations that we’ve encountered in the Coma Cluster? Think about how many civilizations we’ve bumped up against in the Coma Cluster that aren’t as advanced as we are. We’d be telling them that they should attack us because we could be a threat to them.” The Welken turned to Rose, “I think we should only attack a civilization that is in the process of attacking us. Advanced technology does not make a civilization evil. We once existed in a state of continuous war to prevent any of us from getting the upper hand in technology. We should never go back to that again.”

The Royal sat down and Rose nodded, “That’s how our pilot saw it and thank God the crew of that scout did the right thing.”

“Who ordered him to do it?”

Rose smiled, “Our lead scientists. They would poke a Grondon with a sharp stick to see how it responded. They didn’t think it through. Are there any other questions?”

Matt stood up, “How does this impact our plans?”

Matt sat down and Rose stared at him, “Obviously, this changes everything. With the Feeder Fleets moving out into their conquered territory, removing them just became a task that we’re not ready to take on.”

Sam stood up, “Do we know if the Feeders are continuing their search for us in a different direction?”

“They are. And if they continue on their current path, they will enter our space in another year.” The room erupted in loud shouts and Rose waited it out. Finally, the noise abated and then turned into silence. She shrugged, “You saw how those Purple Ships annihilated the two Feeder Fleets. At this moment in time, our ships are far ahead of Feeder weapon technology and, within a year, we will have enough warships to take them on.” The Alliance Leaders stared at her and she saw they weren’t scared senseless. They saw the Feeders stopped in the battle with the Purple Ships and they now realized it could be done. Rose shook her head slightly and saw that the Alliance was now ready for what was coming. However…

She looked at Chase and nodded. He stood up and walked to the podium and looked out at the Alliance’s political and military leaders. “I’m the one that refused to fire on the Purple Ships. After Commodore Desoto and I returned, it was decided that we had to know what the Purple Civilization was going to do in the aftermath of their victory over the Feeders. I’m going to play some images of what we saw when we returned to their cluster.”

The monitor activated and the attendees saw images of hundreds of planets with countless purple warships above them. Chase started narrating what they were seeing, “Those ships are having huge containers of the particles used in their beams moved on board those warships.” The view moved in closer and they could see the shuttles moving the huge glowing containers on board ships in close orbit above one of the planets. Chace looked out at the gathering, “They are preparing for an invasion. One thing we learned about this civilization is that if you use any communication device near one of their vessels, they will be able to track the source and the one it is being directed toward. They know where the Feeder’s Central Galaxies are located. They are going to their territory to end the threat to their planets.”

“But the Feeder’s fled from their domain.”

Chase looked at the Johan Ruler, “Yes they did. But they attacked once and were defeated. They’ve demonstrated that they are a danger to the Purple Civilization and they are not going to give them time to rearm and develop new technology to attack them in the future.” Chase smiled, “Before we removed all our probes from the four clusters, we looked at many of the Purple Civilization’s Planets and many of them are located close to other civilizations. They co-exist in peace and do not war with each other. If we had fired on one of their ships and they came here and saw we possessed the weapon fired at them…they would not leave us behind to threaten them in the future. Quite frankly, we would do the same thing.”

Chase stepped away from the podium and all of the military leaders began applauding him. A moment later, the Alliance Leaders joined them. Race’s face was red and he nodded and bowed to the assembly before he took his chair. The applause died when Rose raised her arms. “Are there any other questions?”

Silva stood up, “So what’s the plan?”

Rose’s eyes twinkled, “The Death Feeders never learned the lesson that discovery means death if they’re seen by a more advanced aggressive civilization. In their long history, they’ve never encountered a real threat to them and they are about to face the consequences of their arrogance. I am recalling all of our ships out of Feeder Territory until this plays out.”

The Goran thought, “If they, by some miracle, eliminate the Feeders, what are we going to do with all these warships we’re building?”

Rose smiled, “We’re going to build more. It’s foolish to sit and wait for trouble to come to your door. We are not going back out to the Coma Cluster. We’ve deliberately avoided going out into the Supercluster our cluster is a part of because of our fear of the Feeders seeing us. We’ve limited our exploration to a small part of the Coma and Virgo Cluster, where all of our galaxies are located. Laniakea, the Supercluster we’re a tiny part of, is more than 500 million light years in diameter and has more than a hundred thousand galaxies in it. Some of those galaxies have more than a trillion stars.” Rose paused, “If we used all of our ships to just scout one of those giant galaxies, each of our ships would have to scout more than four thousand stars in that single galaxy to see if an advanced aggressive civilization was present.”

Rose looked out and shook her head, “Our scientists have determined statistically that there is a hundred percent probability there are more than a thousand more advanced civilizations than us in Laniakea. We must never forget that discovery means death if just one of them is an aggressive, conquering civilization like the Death Feeders. We are going to go and take a good look around to see if there is a danger there. We’ve not even scratched the surface of what we might be facing in the future. If we find evil and aggressive civilizations, we will attempt to build the forces we’ll need to confront them. If we run across aggressive civilizations that are not as advanced as us, we will attempt to get them to change their behavior. We will not go out as conquerors but as peacemakers. We’ll need every ship we can build for a very long time to make this happen. But first, we wait and see how this plays out in Feederland.” Rose paused and saw the attendees could see her vision and it mesmerized them. “If the Purple Ships remove the Feeders, we will wait and see if they go out and liberate the captured galaxies. If they don’t, we will complete that task before we send out our Peacekeepers.”