Probe Predators (9 page)

“Moe, he did crawl out of a hole.”

“Alright, I’ll exclude him. However, in order to issue a declaration of war, somebody from the Royal Team will have to give approval. You know they are pushing for us to stay out of other civilization’s issues. Victor is the poster child for isolationism. If you exclude him, you’ll just have to repeat everything that’s said to the entire council.”

“Alright! Have it your way.”

• • •

The Sovereign looked at the Gedna on his monitor and slouched forward, “Calling to gloat?”

“Not at all.”

“I guess I should have listened to you.”

“Pride and conceit are difficult partners to ignore.”

The Sovereign straightened up in anger and then slouched back in his chair, “You are, of course, right.”

“What made you possibly think you could defeat them? You have no idea what power their ships possess.”

“I really thought we could catch them off guard and hit their ships on the ground.”

“Do you seriously think your new penetrator would make it through their defenses?”

“I guess I did.”

“Well, there’s a price to pay for being wrong.”

“The agreement fell apart.”

“That’s not the price.”

“What do you mean?”

“I am currently moving populations off my planets to another galaxy far away from here.”

“Why would you do that?”

The Gedna reached forward and lifted a data cube and inserted it into his panel, “I have sources inside the Union that have my best interests in mind. They send me this and asked that I view it and destroy it. I can’t do as they ask and I’m sure I’ll not be trusted again. Your civilization and mine have been allies for thousands of years and I can’t just allow you to be blindsided by what’s coming.”

“What do you mean?”

“On this cube is a conversation between the surviving members of the Family that attacked us and a member of the Union. I think you’ll find it interesting. Your stupidity has caused us to lose an ally that we sorely need to survive. You deserve everything that is coming your way.”

The monitor went dark and the Sovereign saw a human sitting in front of a Family Leader. He listened and felt paralyzed to the point of passing out. He was so incredibly stupid, so stupid. His son rushed over but it was too late. The Sovereign died as the conversation on the monitor continued. The Sovereign’s son rewound the recording and fell to his knees. He called in the Royal Council and played the recording for them and two of them were taken away for medical care. A new word went out to M87, Thresher. The civilizations began launching probes from all points in the galaxy searching for Orange Ships.

• • •

The Gedna heard the news about the Sovereign’s death and knew it was the best thing that could happen. History had a way of repeating itself and he sent a message over a communicator before his ship lifted and jumped away from M87.

• • •

“Do you have the location of the Family’s probe?”

“I do.”

“You will go and watch for their arrival.”

“I’m going to need more than just my group.”

“And why is that, are you that inefficient?”

“The place where the message originated is just outside a galaxy more than five hundred thousand light years across.”

“What!?!”

“It is one of the largest galaxies we’ve ever seen. There’s no possible way to cover all the approaches with just my group.”

“The risk of discovery will go up with more ships.”

“We can’t have it both ways. What do we care if the civilizations in that galaxy detect us as long as the Family doesn’t know?”

“Take command of two other groups and take your positions. You may have to wait a while.”

“Do we have permission to go into the galaxy to gather stores?”

The giant red creature rubbed his head next to his right antenna with a pincer and said, “Only one at a time. Choose a planet inside the outer edge to avoid having your weapons seen by the Family. Collect what you need and gather enough for the other ships.”

The Group Claw didn’t like the extra work but knew the Major Claw was being generous, “I really hope the wait won’t be long; but one never knows.”

“I expect you to get out of there as soon as you detect the Family’s approach. If you scare them away, I’ll pull you apart myself.”

“I understand what needs to be done.”

Two hundred Orange Ships jumped away and scattered around M87. They assumed positions so that the entire galaxy was covered with overlapping scans tuned to the frequency of the Family’s Ships. Like a good predator that hides from its prey, the exterior lights and power were deactivated and they waited for what they hoped was coming.

• • •

A probe launched three months earlier had its electronic brain tickled by an object that suddenly appeared a light year away. It sensed the disturbance in null space and made a determination of the exact location of the object.

The probe was ancient but was one the Union gave to M87 two millennia earlier during the war with the Family. It was incredibly small and, upon entering null space, it shrunk to the size of a hydrogen nucleus. It turned off the null space field generator and popped into normal space without generating a field signature. A crew on a ship that tried that would have all been knocked unconscious. Machines didn’t have that issue.

The Union Probe did not scan the object; its passive receptors had already determined that it was an incredibly advanced star ship. Once that determination was made, its central processor moved to a subroutine and deactivated its active scanner. It arrived before the ship went dark and it recorded every frequency given off. It ran an infrared analysis and positron emission locator. It recorded the ship’s coordinates and after ten hours of in depth observations, it activated a null field under it and slowly sunk out of normal space. It jumped back to M87 and sent a data download.

• • •

The Newly chosen Sovereign shook his head as the representatives yelled at each other. The Mediator sat back and allowed them to scream and thought about what it was going to have for dinner that evening. It knew if he interrupted the arguments, they would only emerge later. They had to get the tension released to move forward. After two hours the assembly on the teleconference wound down. The Mediator said, “I am going to call on the most powerful civilizations first, and I would hope the rest of you will think before you choose to interrupt them. If forced, I will mute the channel and only allow one to speak. We’ll start with the Pental and move to the Greens afterwards.”

The Pental King said, “How do we know this is accurate? This could all be a fabrication to prevent us from getting that galaxy under our control. All of you know how dangerous they are. I’m sure they discovered our plans to invade when they sent that ship three weeks ago and came up with this hoax to give them time to prepare.”

The new Sovereign stared at the Pental King and thought about how funny it was that history repeated itself. It was the Pental that led the first invasion of the Union’s galaxy thousands of years earlier. “I’m going to assume that you saw the fleet report of chasing an intruder.” The Pental King nodded. “I’m also going to assume that the Mediator sent that report to the rest of you prior to this meeting.” He saw many indicate they had received it. “I’ve received a report from the Allowitz scientists whom I requested to investigate the recordings made during that pursuit.” Every civilization in the conference knew how good the Allowitz were.

The Pental King said, “Will you get to the point.”

“In good time, you pushed for this invasion and we foolishly listened to you.”

The King started to yell but the Mediator muted his communicator, “Screaming is over; you will have time for rebuttal afterwards. Do you understand?” The King leaned back in his chair with his appendages crossed. The Mediator said, “Sovereign, you may continue.”

“I’m sending the report to the Mediator and he can send it out to you in a moment. I must confess that I, like everyone else, thought the intruder was a Union Vessel. I suspected after the fact that it was; however, it didn’t come here to scout our forces. The Union discovered that the probes that were launched by the Family’s Leader during the final battle were going to move out from the edge of our galaxy and make a broadcast. The ship was here to record that broadcast.”

Lights immediately started illuminating on the panel and the Mediator listened offline to what was being said. He looked at the Sovereign, “Many of our Representatives are challenging that statement. They believe they were here to scout our forces. Will you please direct your next statements to that issue?”

“Mediator, do you have the exact coordinates in your databanks of where those probes were launched?”

The Mediator was surprised the Sovereign directed a question to him; that wasn’t done very often. “I do, stand by just a moment. I’ve sent them to all of you. The probes were launched from the Gongril Planetary system a little over two thousand years ago.”

“One more question Mediator; it took six hours for those probes to move close to the speed of light. How long would it have taken them to arrive at the edge of open space outside our galaxy if they took the shortest route?”

The Mediator didn’t like being questioned. He was always the questioner but he entered numbers on his console and looked up with his eyes narrowed to slits, “They would have arrived at the edge of our galaxy exactly three weeks ago.”

The conference was silent. Even the Pental King thought about the implications. The Sovereign said, “That intruder immediately turned and went to light speed when it entered normal space. If it was here to scout our forces, I don’t think it would have moved to leave our galaxy. It went to light speed to be able to move close to one of the Family’s Probes so it could record anything it transmitted. The Allowitz have confirmed that the entry point of that intruder was in the exact middle of the projected location of the probes. We, of course, immediately attacked and tried to destroy it, giving away just how good our defenses were.”

The Mediator said, “The Pental King has requested to ask a question.”

The Sovereign nodded and the King said, “Why didn’t they just ask to come and investigate?”

The Sovereign shook his head, “I was told by the Gedna before they packed up and left our galaxy…” The entire conference began shouting questions. They had not learned of the Grey Civilizations flight.

The Mediator rolled his eight eyes and muted the channel. After a moment he sent an incredibly loud vibration over the channel which silenced everyone. “Hold your comments until the Sovereign has completed his presentation.” The Mediator looked at the Sovereign, “I trust you know that you should address the Gedna leaving before moving forward.”

“The Gedna did not agree with our plans to invade a former ally. They felt it was dishonorable and treacherous behavior. I now feel certain that the Gedna told the Union Queen what we were doing.”

The Pental King sneered, “The traitor.” The Mediator lowered four eyes and the King pushed his lip slit together.

“Be thankful he did. We would not have the recording of the conversation with the Renegade Family without his intervention. The Union would have just allowed us to be sucker punched. However, the Gedna determined that what’s coming is going to be of a cataclysmic nature and he began moving his populations immediately. I suspect he started that process two thousand years ago when the probes were launched. The Gedna’s have always taken the long view on everything.”

The Sovereign paused and said, “The Gedna told me that one of the Union Royals discovered what the purpose of those probes was and was only able to guess about where they would broadcast. Now, given our plans to invade the Union, if they had requested permission to enter our borders to find those probes; what would have been our answer?” The question was met with silence. “You’ve already said they came here to scout our forces and that this whole story was a fabrication. You would have thought the same thing. I can tell you this; thousands of objects cleared the edge of our galaxy and exploded. The Union did what they had to do to make sure they knew what was going on.”

The Pental King said in a softer tone, “But we still have no way of knowing if that translation of the broadcast was true and the meeting with the Family Leader could have been staged. And this business about orange ships…”

The Mediator said, “I have an emergency request from the Allowitz Representative to speak.” The Sovereign nodded.

The Allowitz pressed several buttons and said, “Mediator, will you put this out to all of those participating in the conference.” The attendee’s saw the Mediator look at the image before he sent it and they all saw his shock. They looked at their displays and suddenly saw the image of a gigantic orange colored ship. “One of the probes I received from the Union just recorded this and transmitted it an hour ago. That ship is now powered down and is in open space outside our galaxy.”

The Sovereign saw the Pental’s shock. He looked at him and said, “When was the Union ever deceptive about anything? You’re ascribing our behaviors onto them.” The Sovereign pointed at the orange ship on his display, “That is the reason you have been incredibly short sighted and stupid. Your ignorance is beyond belief. You convinced us to attack the only ones that could possibly face that ship and win and now they’ll sit by and watch us die. I can’t say I blame them.”

The Mediator looked at the Pental King and said, “This is the second time you have made the same mistake that has endangered all of us. Your civilization will be banished from participating in any future conferences and you will only be allowed to listen to what is said. If it were in my province to gather our forces and remove your species from existence, I would order it now.” The Pental’s image on the display went dark and the entire conference applauded.

A
ngela sat at the head of the conference table in the Science Building and waited for the attendees to arrive. The first to walk in was Trip and his three new team members. Trip came over and bowed but she pulled him up and hugged him, “Your parents would be so proud.” Trip sighed and nodded, “Thank you, Your Majesty.”