The Fight for Creation: Book 02 - Scout Warrior (22 page)

“You’re right Elder. But we didn’t.”

“I’ve found my foundations of reality starting to solidify, Senior.”

“I have as well. I’m starting to see what was missing.”

There was a long pause and the Elder said, “Some things cannot be undone.”

The Senior nodded and said, “But they can be corrected.”

“That is not considered study.”

The Senior smiled, “And it’s no longer play. It’s not enough to standby and just observe what happens. That’s our mistake. You really don’t learn by just watching; you have to get your hands dirty and take part. Notify the people to connect.”

Millions of small ships began lifting off the planet and Jixie’s hatching was wrong. They were going out to play again and they weren’t coming back until the playground was repaired.

• • •

The transports were above the Swarm Planet and the massive Swarms around the nest could be seen from orbit. Jixie looked down at the planet and saw that most of the planet was little more than desert where the Swarm had devoured most of all the organic life on the surface. There wasn’t much left. Such a waste.

Sam said over the general frequency, “Our task is to remove the Swarm Warriors off the holding structure, so that a ship can come in and teleport it away. Trust your armor and simply try to live through this. The ten divisions will all teleport in together.” Teleport in ten seconds.”

Gon said to Dort, “I wish we could just use a giant vacuum clearer and just suck them into a bag.”

Dort looked at Gon and his eyes grew wide. He punched the general frequency and yelled, “STOP THE COUNTDOWN! STOP THE COUNTDOWN!”

Sam pushed his command frequency and said, “The countdown is on hold. Hold your positions.” He hit Dort’s frequency and said, “What are you doing?”

“Sam, we need to go back to the training field. I think I know how to do this without killing all of us.”

Sam linked with Dort and saw what he was thinking. He smiled and said, “All ships will teleport to our training planet and all warriors will teleport with their units down to the surface.” Sam punched another frequency and said, “Jason, you said the Swarm Warrior’s stinger is a form of energy, right?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Get the frequency of that energy and meet us at our training facility.”

Jixie looked at Sam and said, “What’s going on?”

Sam told her and as she thought about it her smile grew. By the time they teleported down to the facility it was back to normal. The first one she went to see was Pride and the three thousand Cats that were making the drop with them.

• • •

The Swarm Ruler watched her display and saw the ships that were overhead disappear. “Good; they knew they couldn’t win.” Two days later, the ships were back. Her display went dark and then the Realm Warriors hit the planet.

• • •

“Alright, let’s try this again. You know your assignments. Hit your markers and stay alive.”

“Sam.”

“Yes, Jixie.”

“There are eight communication links on the ground that need to be taken out before we drop. The other Swarm Planets shouldn’t know what we’re doing if this works.”

“Give the locations to Roy.”

The brightly glowing transport fired eight beams at the surface just before the million Life Warriors teleported to the planet.

• • •

Jason watched the display on board the Fourth Sword and waited to see if what they planned worked. He should have thought of it but missed it. The Warriors were teleporting in without their force fields. Their normally white armor was black. It was set on absorb and he would know in moments if it could do what he had programed into their data systems.

Three thousand Giant Cats teleported in and surrounded the holding structure. The million Life Warriors teleported in and formed a giant square surrounding the Cats. The Swarm Warriors dove at the intruders at more than six hundred miles an hour. The sky was dark with the number flying in.

The millions of the Swarm on the structure rushed out toward the Cats that had surrounded the structure they were defending and bared their stingers. They began hitting the giant animals and disappearing.

The ranks of Life Warriors began firing their blasters at the dark cloud rushing in on them and millions of the Swarm Warriors died, but most of them easily avoided the blaster beams and started hitting the Life Warrior ranks. The ones that made it through the blasters hit the Life Warriors and disappeared. The Swarm Warriors coming in behind the first wave couldn’t see what was happening in front of them.

The Cats began firing their main beams over the holding structure and any of the Swarm that tried to fly in from above was burned out of existence. The Cat’s ignored the Swarm coming at them from ground level. Millions hit them and disappeared.

Jixie stood beside Sam and was using her hand blaster to hit the incoming warriors. She realized that she could have protected herself and Sam. They were fast, but nowhere near fast enough to get through her beams. Sam watched her as he fired at the Swarm and was amazed. Her arms were moving too fast to see. None of the Swarm was getting close to their section of the front line. Suddenly, there were no more warriors flying around them. But they heard a sound from inside the nest start growing louder and Sam recognized it as millions of wings beginning to vibrate. “Pride, take out the nest!”

The three thousand Cats rushed in front of the giant nest and fired their main beams at it. More than twelve thousand hundred yard wide beams hit the giant grey nest next to the ground and moved up. The fire that erupted from inside it was massive and millions of the Swarm fell out of the burning structure with their wings on fire. The Cat’s beams hit them again and they flashed into ash. Sam hit his fleet frequency, “Get the ship down here and get these poor prisoners some relief.”

A giant transport moved down and extended a teleportation field around the holding structure and it disappeared. Sam looked at his command display and saw that not one Life Warrior had been injured. Sam went over to Dort’s unit and hugged him. “You saved us.”

“It was Gon that gave me the idea, Sam.”

“It was you that put it together in time. We owe you our lives.”

“Good, that means I don’t have to do any more of the new warrior training, right?”

Sam laughed, “You have a deal. Thank you, Dort.”

“I’m just happy to be here, Sam.”

Jason teleported down and said, “The holding structure has arrived at the hospital and the captives have been put to sleep. The antidote has been given and they should be waking up in twelve hours. The food shipments have arrived and they will be fed when they wake. What are we going to do with them?”

Sam shrugged, “Take them back to their planets and see if we can’t help them start over. Fleet tells me that most of the structures weren’t damaged when the Swarm took them. There’s more than twenty thousand planets to choose from so there will be plenty of living space for them. Most of them can go to just one planet if they choose but we’ll try to get the same species at the same place. The Bristone Realm support fleets will take responsibility for their care. We have nine more planets to take.”

Jason stared at Sam and said, “I never thanked you.”

“What for?”

“You were strong enough to resist Lyla and that allowed her to see herself. Thank you.”

Sam slowly shook his head, “Jason, I love someone else. It’s not that hard to say no when your heart belongs to someone else.”

Jason smiled, “It shouldn’t be, but most wouldn’t have been able to do it. Thank you. I’ll get the next planet set up. How many do you want to do today?”

Sam looked at the Life Warriors around him and one said, “I’m up for at least two more.”

Sam said, “We can probably do two a day. We need to make a deposit and that is going to take some time.”

Jason nodded, “You’re right. There’s no need to push it.”

Sam punched the command frequency and said, “Return to your ships; we’ll be teleporting in an hour.” Sam took Jixie’s hand and said, “That was nice shooting.”

“I’ve done better. I’m a little rusty.”

Sam shook his head and they disappeared. An hour later the million Life Warriors and Cats teleported out of their ships into open space and formed a giant square with a thousand lines of a thousand warriors. Sam said, “We will begin the ejection process in ten seconds.” The million Life Warriors turned toward the star that was close to them and when the countdown reached zero, their armor began ejecting the massive numbers of Swarm Warriors they had absorbed into their armor. Billions of the Swarm were ejected and began falling toward the star’s gravity. Their armor protected them from the star’s heat, but it wouldn’t be much longer before they would start to feel the temperature rise.

Jixie had suggested they be ejected far enough away to give them time to know what was coming and not be able to do anything about it. She said it seemed like the right thing to do.

Sam shook his head. Dort had saved them. Their armor was made to absorb energy. Once it was programmed to the frequency of the energy in the Swarm Warrior’s stinger, they were doomed to be sucked into the skin of the Life Warrior’s armor. At the end, every Life Warrior had turned up the absorption to maximum level and the remaining Swarm Warriors were sucked in. Now they were on a one way trip to the biggest blaster in the planetary system and their wings didn’t work in a vacuum. There would be no escape.

Jixie watched the Swarm start to pick up speed as the star’s gravity began pulling them. She smiled and knew they deserved it. Jixie looked back at the planet they had just left and saw something. She turned to Sam and said, “I’ll be back.”

“Where are you going?”

“One of them survived on the planet. It’s a female.”

Sam nodded and Jixie disappeared.

• • •

Jixie had her armor set to absorb as she walked up to the tree that stood by itself in bare sand. She thought about using her blaster to kill the Swarm Warrior, but she wondered why this warrior was more than a hundred miles from the location of the Swarm’s nest. She looked up and saw the female warrior sitting on a branch looking down at her. She thought, “What are you doing?”

“I’m sitting here looking at the destruction my people have done to this planet.”

Jixie looked out at the desert surrounding the tree and said, “What have you determined?”

“This is unforgivable. I’m glad you removed us. In time, perhaps the planet will recover.”

Jixie felt the warrior’s sorrow. Jixie remained silent and the warrior looked out at the desert, “We once lived in harmony with our surroundings. We only hatched enough children to maintain the balance of nature. We didn’t kill, we used plants to build our nests and feed our young. Then our rulers learned ambition and cruelty. This is an abomination.” The warrior flapped its wings and landed in front of Jixie. “It’s my turn to pay for what we’ve done.”

Jixie turned off her armor’s absorption, “Why didn’t you take part in the fight at the nest?”

“I’ve never taken part in destroying a planet.” The female looked up at the tree and pulled one of its leaves. She smelled it and said, “May I take this with me?”

“What if I let you live?”

The female shook her head, “You really shouldn’t do that. I’m expecting. My mate was killed not far from here defending me. I don’t have anything to live for.”

“You have your children.”

“You’ve seen what we’ve done. There can be no forgiveness for what we caused. The universe is safer without us in it.” Jixie suddenly heard the melody and the small creature in front of her looked up, “That’s really beautiful. I’ve never heard it before.”

“It was drowned out by those around you.” Jixie looked out at the desert surrounding the tree and said, “Do you think this planet can be saved?”

The female looked out at the desert that extended to the horizon, “I don’t know. It’s been badly hurt.”

Jixie bent down and looked the female in her two bulbous eyes and said, “You and your children owe it to this world to try and prevent it from dying. Will you do that?”

“I’m ready to die.”

“So is this planet. Is it worth saving?”

The female looked up at the tree and after a moment said, “It is.”

Jixie smiled, “And so are you. Have your children and teach them what you’ve learned. You can make up for what your people have done. Not very many are given that opportunity.”

The female looked at Jixie and said, “I’ll work to save this planet. I’ll think about what you’ve said only after I’ve done that.” The small flyer looked around and said, “Either we’ll both live or we’ll die together.”

“Do you still hear the music?”

“I do.”

“Never lose touch with it and you’ll find your way.” Jixie teleported and found that she had learned another lesson. The Creator was in touch with every life that loved life.

She arrived on the Four Swords and Sam said, “Did you handle it?”

“I did.”

Sam saw her expression and stared at her. Jixie said, “It takes a lot of oysters to find a pearl. But when you find it, it makes all the hard work worth it.”

• • •

The Senior looked at the lone female standing under the tree and listened to her cry. He knew what Jixie had seen. This one female was going to be worth everything her species had done. She was going to more than balance the scales. The female didn’t know it. She missed her mate and knew her children would be coming soon. It was those children that were going to change the future. He assigned six hatchings to watch the female and to make sure nothing happened to harm her or her children.

T
he final Swarm Planet was invaded and more than ten million Life Warriors arrived to complete the job. The millions of warriors were absorbed into the Life Warrior’s Armor and Jixie yelled, “Don’t burn the nest.”

Pride looked at Jixie and she said, “Absorb the warriors that emerge. Don’t burn the nest.”

Pride and the three thousand Cats joined the Life Warrior ranks and turned their armor’s absorption system to its maximum setting as the millions of Swarm Warriors rushed out of the giant nest, they were sucked into their armor. Some tried to turn away but couldn’t escape the armor’s pull. Jixie looked in the nest and saw there was one still there. She teleported in and had her blaster trained on the Queen. “Well what are you waiting on?”