Dahlia's Deception (The Annihilation Series) (12 page)

“Why would you do this?”

Danielle said, “I have a lot to tell you. Please hold your questions until I finish.” Ping looked at Dahlia and then nodded. Danielle began telling them about how they had manipulated the Cats into searching for a savior. When she told Ping that she had put the thought of going to the other Creation in his mind, she saw his immediate anger. She ignored it and continued with all that had been done. Finally she said, “And that brings you up to date.”

Ping and Dahlia stared at Danielle in silence. She sensed that they were defeated mentally. All their beliefs about their destiny were false. That’s when Tag said, “I thought you could see the truth.” Dahlia looked at him wondering what he was getting at. He looked at Ping, “I thought you said there are no accidents. Will the two of you start thinking; we need you to help us understand this.”

Dahlia stood up and went to the viewport and stared at her planet below them. After a moment she turned around; she smiled at the Gardners, “We weren’t the ones being manipulated.” Ping looked at her with confusion on his face. “It is you who have been the unwitting tools.”

Tag leaned forward, “Are you certain about that?”

“As your wife said earlier, come on, Tag. Ping is the only one that possessed a power that could kill their ships. Do you think it was an accident that happened? He came here and went directly to my planet after Nicole died. Was that just an accident? Some kind of power was released in us after we fell in love with each other. Was that just an accident?”

Danielle stood up, “What are you talking about?”

“When Ping kissed me the first time, some kind of green field rushed out of us.”

Danielle looked at Tag, “She’s right, we’ve been manipulated all along. We have to call off the project.”

Dahlia shook her head, “No you don’t.”

The Gardners looked at her in dismay, “What?”

“If you’re being manipulated by the forces around you, do you think your project is independent of that manipulation? I have to believe there is a reason for you to do it.”

“But it would destroy your planet.”

“If that’s part of the plan, so be it. I can accept dying to save Creation; I just can’t accept doing it at your whim. Danielle, you need to take a moment and think this through. Start with the acceptance that the two of you are part of a larger plan.”

Danielle sat down and lowered her eyes. Tag watched her and Ping saw his concern, “What’s wrong, Tag?”

“Using you as tools knowing you were going to die has taken a toll on her. I’ve felt it in her spirit and it’s slowly killing her.”

“What about you?”

Tag sighed, “I’m the warrior of our twosome. If you need to die for Creation to survive, I’ll do it and not look back.”

Dahlia smiled, “Ping is the same way.”

“I might look back with regret.”

“Just like when you killed that Black Fleet that killed Mios and Jody.”

Tag was amazed at the rage that flashed across Ping’s face. He smiled, “She’s right. You’re a lot like me.”

“He’s just like you.”

“No he’s not, he lacks experience.”

Ping touched his forehead, “Touché.”

Danielle raised her head, “She’s right, the project must go on.”

Tag saw Danielle’s mind and smiled, “You’ve found peace.”

“It wasn’t me that did the despicable, manipulative things I’ve done. I’ve been doing what has to be done and now I see it.” She turned to Dahlia, “The project will be released here. I pray you have a means of surviving it.”

Dahlia shrugged, “We’ll see when the time comes.” Dahlia walked forward and hugged Danielle and Tag. “Why did you do that?”

“You brought me Ping.”

Danielle smiled, “I remember so very, very long ago when Tag found me.” Tag came over and hugged her.

Ping said, “Tag, is there any way to reduce the time needed for the beam to destroy a planet?”

Tag thought for a moment, “Two ships won’t do it. The beam would take the same time for both of them to penetrate to the core. If there was some way to increase the power, that might shorten the time needed.”

“Sprigly told me that the Mite’s reactor is significantly more powerful than those on a Searcher.”

Tag looked up, “Alex?”

“The Mite’s reactor is double the power of a Searcher.”

Tag whistled, “Why would they ever make it that strong?”

“I suspect that the plan you’ve been talking about called for them to have it and made it take place.”

Ping said, “You’re Alexander Kosiev?”

“I am a duplicate of his central processors. The original died with Cassandra fighting the demons.”

Ping shook his head, “What do you think about what we’ve discussed?”

“I’ve witnessed Creation’s Forces operating for more than ten thousand years. All of you are being swept up in them at this time.”

“When did you see this, Alex?”

“From the beginning.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Danielle, I’m not wise enough to know when the appropriate time to intervene in what’s happening. If I had told you, I believe you would have done things differently. I’m a warship, not a philosopher. Besides, you never asked my opinion.”

Dahlia laughed, “And there was a reason for that, Alex. They would have done things differently. If they needed to ask, they would have.”

Tag smiled and shook Ping’s hand, “It’s good to know we’re working together. I’ll have the ships ferried here in a month.”

Dahlia looked at Ping, who said, “We’ll start training the pilots to fly them and start gathering the coordinates of the planets we’re going to hit.”

• • •

Dahlia and Ping appeared in the control room and Tess said, “Well?”

“They’re bringing us another seventy thousand Mites. We need to get the pilots trained.”

Dahlia looked at Ping, “It just dawned on me that we need to modify the new ships to fire the Searcher’s beam.”

Ping smiled, “That’s why they won’t get here for a month. They’ll be modified when they arrive.”

Dahlia smiled, “Are you starting to see the truth as well?”

“Hey, they’re going to be used to defend the King’s daughter. That’s a no brainer.” Ping looked around the control room for Dean and Victoria.

Tess said, “It was impossible to keep them here.” Dahlia laughed as Ping smiled and shook his head. Tess said, “Hey, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.”

Dahlia looked at Ping, “Perhaps they know something we should investigate.”

Ping smiled but Sprigly suddenly appeared in the control room and thought, “Let’s get this party started, I’ve missed seeing you old friend.” Dahlia and Ping rushed over and hugged the plant. “Hey, hey, be careful; I’ve just been trimmed.” Ping laughed out loud and in a moment fell to the floor laughing too hard to catch his breath. Sprigly fell to the floor with him and raised one of his branches and pointed at the ceiling, “The view is much better from here.” Dahlia had to finally help Ping get up.

• • •

A month later the Mites arrived and Tag contacted Sprigly, “I’ve collected all the information gathered during our invasion of this universe. One of your Elders has pulled all the coordinates of their production facilities out of the data and they are at the start of the download. The codes for all probes at the Five’s planets are also below the list of their production planets.”

“How many planets are there?”

“Several Million.”

“Oh, that’s all; well, it’s a place to start.”

“Danielle seems to think you might want to selectively target the planets you attack with the intent to cause some disharmony among the Five.”

“I’ll discuss it with Ping and Dahlia. Thanks and good luck. I appreciate all the time you gave me.”

“Maybe when this is over, if things turn out well, you might consider joining our crew and spend some time traveling with us.”

“THAT WOULD BE FABULOUS!!”

“Take care and watch out for our citizens here.”

“You know I will.”

• • •

Tess watched Dean enter the control room with a huge smile and take his seat at his terminal. Tess looked closer, “What is that on your wrist?”

Dean held up his arm, “Victoria had that plant…”

“His name is Sprigly.”

“Yeah, Sprigly, to build me a unit like Dahlia’s.”

“Is that so?”

Sprigly walked into the control room, “Good morning everyone. I hope all of you slept well.” He looked at Tess, “Your Highness, I hope you don’t think I’m being presumptuous, but I’ve built you a wrist unit to make traveling around your planet much easier.”

Tess’ smile was huge, “Not at all; will you teach me how to use it?”

“Absolutely, Dean can join us. I’ve scanned the planet for most locations you might be interested in and have downloaded them into your unit. You can organize them the way that’s easiest for you to use. I’ll also show you how to teleport to an area you’re scanning.”

Tess decided that the people of the Realm may not be the monsters she had expected them to be.. She turned her attention to Sprigly as he said, “This button turns on the speaker on the unit and you can just say where you want to go. The location will appear in the display and you simply press the blue button to go there.”

Dean watched Tess following Sprigly and saw her tension level had gone down. He hoped she would bear up under the incredible strain of defending her people. “Dean, you need to pay attention.”

“Oh yeah, right.”

S
prigly looked around the table and saw the tension level was high. He pressed a button on a small black box and five lists appeared on the giant wall screen. All but one of the lists extended off the page. “This is a list of the Five’s planets’ coordinates that build warships. Each of the Five has the coordinates in their territories listed under their name. There are over two million planets on this display. We need to decide which ones will be our initial targets.” Sprigly looked at Tess, “I’ve been told by Dean that the new pilots are trained and prepared to go on their first mission.”

Tess sat at the table tapping her right foot on the floor. Dean and Dahlia recognized the mannerism as an indicator of just how tightly wound Tess was at that moment. Ping said, “They’re as ready as any of our pilots. None of them have ever fought in a one-on-one space battle. Currently they just move in on their target, fire, and then teleport away. They can do that as long as their targets can’t detect or see them. The new pilots can do that as well as the old pilots.”

Sprigly nodded, “The process will be quite simple. Teleport in, find a clear path to the planet, fire their beam, get the hell out. How do you want to choose our first targets?”

Tess smiled, “Sprigly, before we start, I just want to say it pleases me to hear you say our instead of your.”

Sprigly leaned forward, “I’m in this with you, Tess. How do you want to go about selecting our targets?”

“We’ll start at the beginning. The first planets on the page will be our targets.”

The attendees thought about the idea and for a few moments there was silence. Victoria was sitting by Dean and she raised her hand. Sprigly smiled, “Victoria, feel free to speak out if you have something to offer.”

“I was just thinking that you might want to do it another way.”

Dahlia looked at the young woman, “I’m not sure where you’re going with this, Vicky.”

“Well, what would happen if, instead of attacking all of them, we only attacked the three strongest civilizations?”

Ping said, “Tell us what you see.”

Vicky shrugged, “If the three strongest were attacked and the two weakest were left completely alone, I suspect there might be some dissension within their ranks.”

Dahlia smiled, “I should have seen this.”

Vicky smiled, “I’m sure you would have in a few more moments.”

Tess looked at Dahlia, “Seen what?”

“Look at the display, the Hedgon only have a small number of construction planets.”

Vicky asked, “Why is that?”

“When your Realm sent their forces here, those giant creatures called Zord attacked the main ship building facilities of the Hedgon. Unlike the other four, the Hedgon had a small number of planets that were heavily defended building their ships; the Zord destroyed them. They are falling further and further behind the other four in the numbers of ships they have in their fleets.”

Ping nodded, “If they are not attacked, then the ones that are might believe that they are trying to even the odds.”

Tess turned to Vicky, “I can see why we would not attack them, why would you not attack another?”

Vicky shrugged, “I’ve watched court politics all my life and have seen various planets in the Realm attack each other. When the investigation was done to determine who was involved, there was always a planet that wasn’t attacked but was helping the aggressor. I think the strongest three will see the Hedgon being supported by…”

Dean said, “The Drund.”

“Yes the Drund; if they really believe the Hedgon are making the attacks and the Drund did not have any of their planets destroyed…”

Dahlia said, “They will believe they are working together against them.”

Ping stared at Vicky and Dahlia and shook his head, “Do you really thing they will attack the Hedgon and Drund without proof?”

Vicky smiled, “What color is the Searcher’s beam?”

Sprigly said, “Red.”

“And what color is the Hedgon Beams?”

Sprigly looked at his panel and started jiggling, “Red.”

Ping sat down, “How did you know that Vicky?”

“I have been studying the records of the Realm’s attack here since the recordings were sent to my father. I don’t know why…I just felt the need to do it.”

Ping looked at Dahlia and saw her nod. He knew this had to be part of the larger plan. Tess said, “If we could get them going after each other that would be a blessing.”

Vicky said, “I also have one more suggestion.” Tess nodded, “I’ve heard the conversation you had about how the difficulty of attacking their planets would go up after the initial attack.”

Tess nodded, “That’s our opinion.”

I’ve seen the Realm’s history and one of the things the Realm has done better than any other civilization is to maximize the effects of an initial attack.” Dahlia smiled; she knew where Vicky was going, “Instead of using your ships to attack just one planet, load the location of four in their teleport drives and attack all four, as quickly as possible, one after the other. I believe there will be massive confusion when the first planet is destroyed and, before they can develop a plan to stop our ships, the operation will be done.”