The Pyramid Builders (24 page)

L’grae straightened up and saw his communications officer looking at him with wide eyes. He waved at the officer and said, “I was wondering the same thing about you. I have never seen a ship like yours, so I’m assuming you are not a Moet ship.”

Jillian was surprised, “No, we are not a Moet. However, we are not friends of the Alliance either.”

L’grae looked at his bridge crew and said, “Why not?”

“One of your ships showed up at our planet long ago to build a device to screen us from Moet attacks. We have learned that when the Alliance screens a planet, then the people of that world become little more than slaves to your leaders. We don’t choose to follow that path.”

“How could you know that?”

“We found one of your history books.”

L’grae slowly shook his head, “I can’t say I blame you. However, working for the Alliance might be better than destruction by the Moet.”

“They have already sent an asteroid to destroy my world. We are going to confront them soon and see if we can survive their attack.”

“Do you think you stand a chance against them?”

“Won’t know until we try, but I’d rather die free than a slave to the Alliance.”

L’grae thought about what he was hearing, then looked at his Communications Officer, “Pull up the video of the battle with the giant Moet ship.” He then said, “I’m going to send you a video of a battle we just had with one of their ships. We have never seen this class of ship before, and I think you need to know what you’re facing.” He looked at Communications and he nodded, “I’m sending it now.”

Jillian keyed the record button on her panel as the video started. Chris stopped what he was doing and came over and watched with Jillian, “Oh, my God. Is it that big?”

Chris saw the Alliance ships looked like small insects around the giant grey ship. They watched as the Alliance ships were blown out of existence. “It appears the Moet are stronger than we thought.”

L’grae heard the different voice and keyed his communicator, “We have managed to kill more than two hundred of their ships until this class of vessel showed up. We have nothing that will stand up against it. I lost my fleet to that one ship.”

“Why are you showing us this?”

“To try and get you to understand that none of us like the tyrants of the Alliance, but we endure it to survive. There isn’t much of a choice; slaves or dead.”

Jillian said, “There is always a choice. Why do the Moet attack you?”

L’grae was surprised by the question and he looked around his bridge for a response. Everyone just shrugged, “I really don’t know. They just always have as far back as we’ve recorded history.”

“I think I would ask them. There must be some reason. However, we will not just submit to either of you. Which brings me back to my original question; what are you doing out here?”

“The Alliance has a policy that any Fleet Commander that loses more than twenty ships will be executed along with the crew of his ship.”

Jillian and Chris were stunned, “And you were the Commander of that fleet that was destroyed?”

“Yes, I was. We can’t go home and we can’t go near Moet territory. We’re struggling with what to do. We’re going to have to find a habitable planet so we can replenish our stores or we’re going to die of starvation.”

Jillian looked at Chris and he said to the Alliance ship, “That is a difficult situation.”

“It’s an impossible situation.”

Chris thought a moment and then said, “I will give you the location of three habitable planets. Perhaps one of them will save you.”

“You know where three planets are located?!”

“No, but I’ll take some readings before we leave and I’ll give them to you.”

L’grae shook his head, “You can find them?”

“Yes. Give me another thirty minutes and I’ll send them to you.”

“What are you doing out here?”

Chris looked at Jillian and she nodded, “We intend to find a Jenze weapon to use in our defense.”

L’grae was stunned. Chris waited for a response and after two minutes he heard, “If you can do that, you might actually save yourself. Can we assist you?”

“No. I just can’t bring myself to trust anyone associated with the Alliance. We’ll do this alone.”

“What do you plan to do if you find this weapon?”

“Make sure we’re safe and perhaps go and see if some slaves wish to be freed.”

“You’ll take on the Alliance Leadership?”

“I don’t see it happening any other way. Neither the Moet nor the Alliance will tolerate an independent force. We probably won’t have a choice.”

“Then you must include us in your plans. We will help you anyway we can. I want to see my family again, and I’m sure the rest of my crew feels the same.”

Chris thought a moment and Jillian pressed the button, “Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll give you the location of those three planets and you go and provision your ship. Come back here and wait for us to return and we’ll take you with us.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“If we’re not back in thirty days, then we failed and we’re probably not coming back. Then you’re on your own.”

L’grae looked around and saw hope in his crew’s eyes, “We will wait until we run low on provisions again. You have given us the first ray of hope we’ve seen.”

“Fair enough, we’ll have the locations for you shortly.”

Chris went back to work and Jillian thought about what had just happened. After thirty minutes she turned to Chris, “What are the chances of us running into that ship?”

Chris looked for the frequency of oxygen/nitrogen planets and said, “I’ve thought about that. They’re astronomical. The chance of this happening is so far out of the range of possibility as to be more than a trillion to one. It makes me wonder.”

“Me, too.”

Chris shrugged, “What was the chance of you falling in love with someone who represented everything you detest in the male species?”

Jillian looked at him and started to smile, “Two trillion to one.”

Chris put the locations on his board and said, “Well, there you go. Just goes to show that stranger things have happened.” He hit his communicator and said, “I’ve actually pulled five locations for you to visit. I’m sending them now, and I wish you success in surviving. Thank you for sharing what you know about the Moet.”

L’grae said, “Travel safely and come back. We’ll be waiting.”

Chris oriented the Cheops and pushed the jump button. L’grae watched the ship disappear and hoped that it would come back. If they found a Jenze weapon, that could have huge ramifications on the balance of power. The Alliance would even forgive him if he brought it back with him. He turned to his navigator and said, “Take us to the first planet.”

The Navigator turned to his board, wondering how he could steal the Jenze weapon. Everyone on the bridge thought about the hero’s welcome if they could return home with it. L’grae was not alone in his thoughts.

The Cheops returned to normal space and Jillian saw the Milky Way spread across space in front of them. Chris looked at Jillian and said, “This is the last reading before we make the long jump.”

“How far are we from it?”

“Seventy five light years.”

“It’s so beautiful. The colors are pure and it looks like it’s alive. I’ve never seen the sky more beautiful than now. It’s stunning.”

Chris nodded, “And it holds so much danger.” Chris finished his reading and oriented the Cheops to the line they had to follow. He pressed the jump button and the Cheops dropped into Sierra space. Chris set the controls and looked out of the viewport. He froze. “Jillian, come look at this.”

“What?” Jillian came over and looked out the starboard side viewport and gasped, “What are those?”

“You know what they are and they are being used a lot.” Hundreds of thick trails disappeared into the distance. They went to the port side and saw the trails extending toward the Milky Way. “Someone from another galaxy is going to the Milky Way. It looks like a huge number of ships made those trails.”

“What do you think this means?”

Chris looked at her with an expression of dread, “Invasion.”

Jillian looked out at the trails and said, “We need to get back. Let’s get this done.”

Chris turned on the gravity emitter to erase their trail and jumped away.

Five days later a giant blue ship stopped where they had jumped away. It stayed there for ten hours and then left. The blue ship made the Moet Dreadnaught look tiny.

Jillian watched as the green space around them appeared to be unchanging. Chris joined her at the port, “There’s nothing out here in the space between galaxies to give any indication we’re moving. We are actually going beyond several of the closer galaxies to ours.”

“How long before we get there?”

“Another twenty minutes. I’m taking us out seventy million light years, then we’ll work our way back.”

“How will you know when you’ve reached the right time?”

“There won’t be any more dinosaurs walking around.” Chris took Jillian’s hand and led her to her chair. He sat down in his and looked at her, “Tell me about what Dolly was saying about you going back in time.”

“I need your device to make my invention work. If you can focus on an event, I can charge the Ninja’s fields with a time distortion screen that will send it through your screen back to the time you’re viewing.”

“How do you get back?”

“I fly back through your screen. It’s going to be very important that you keep that event in clear focus until I can get back.”

“Do you really think this will work?”

“I’m as certain about it as you were about your device.”

“Have you considered what would happen if you make a mistake?”

Jillian stared into his eyes and nodded.

“Jillian, I’m serious.”

“I have, but let’s wait and see what happened before we have this discussion.”

Chris stared at her, but nodded begrudgingly, “Fair enough. We need to get some rest before we arrive.”

Jillian smiled, “I love it when you rub my head.”

Chris laughed, “Good. Come on.” They walked off the bridge.

The Moet Watcher was observing the Dreadnaught destroy another Alliance Fleet. This time it destroyed more than two hundred ships. Now things were getting back to normal. He decided he could start to use the regular ships to handle some tasks that had gone unattended.

Suddenly an alarm went off at high volume. He turned his attention to his board and saw that one of his probes had been destroyed. He pulled up the last thing it had recorded and saw an asteroid bearing down on it at a very high velocity. He backed the video up and saw that the probe was programmed to track an asteroid targeted on the third planet. It only changed its view when it detected the asteroid a million miles out. The Watcher ran the video back and saw that the asteroid was still on track and due to strike in a revolution. Still plenty of time before it would need to be escorted in. It was odd that the probe was destroyed. The chances of that happening were too great to calculate. However, with the millions of them out there, it was bound to happen eventually. Ummmm, should I send a ship?

Another alarm went off and the Watcher saw a battle cruiser being attacked by Alliance Ships. He hit the board and five ships jumped away from their locations to assist. His feed from the battle cruiser ended abruptly, and he knew it had died. He looked back at the video from the destroyed probe and decided that he could check on it later when these attacks had been brought under control. The Earth was given a year of uninterrupted time to build a fleet. They were going to need it.

Dolly looked at her Mum and saw her stroking George’s long dirty hair. She was talking to him softly and George didn’t appear to be hearing anything she was saying. Dolly came forward and took George’s right hand and began cleaning out his fingernails. It was almost a hopeless task. There were long and hard and dirt had crusted into their surfaces. His hand just hung limp in her lap. She listened as her mother continued, “George, you need to come back to us. We need you to help save us. There is so much you can do to help us survive the coming attack. Think about it. You’ll be challenged every day.”

Dolly listened and saw that it wasn’t working. He was just too far gone. After another hour passed, her mother looked at her and shook her head. Dolly sighed and started to stand up, but had a thought. She looked at her mother and then said quietly, “George, we know how the Great Pyramid of Khufu was built.” George’s head seemed to twitch. Dolly looked at him and said, “The interesting thing about that is the Chief Builder is still alive and is working with us on the project. His name is Hemon. He was here last time I came to see you.”

Abagale Sierra looked at Dolly with a stunned expression, “That can’t be true.”

“It is, Mum. We know how it was done. We also know how Puma Punku was built.”

George continued to stare at the ground and they heard, “If that’s the case, it was done with the help of Aliens as I’ve suspected all along.”

Dolly’s mouth fell open and she said quickly, “You’re right. The one that led the building stole a gravity gun from them and we’re using it on our new warships.”

George raised his head and looked at Dolly with clear eyes, “Hi, Sis. Where ya been?”

Dolly grabbed George and hugged his neck, “No, where have you been?”

George shrugged, looked around, and smiled, “I’m not sure. But I must meet the Hemon fellow.”

“We need to clean you up first.”

George looked at his hands and saw his hair hanging around his shoulders, “How did this happen?”

“You’re the smart one. You tell us?”

“I must have focused too much on a math problem.”

“Did you find the answer?”

“Not yet.”

Abagale grabbed George by his beard and made him look her in the eyes, “Promise me you won’t go back to that problem. Promise me!!!”

George said, “All right, all right. Don’t get your lips bunched up. Besides, it sounds like there’s a lot more interesting things happening that I’ve missed.”

Dolly smiled, “You have no idea, George. Welcome back to the land of the living. Are you sure you can put that math problem away?”