Dahlia's Deception (The Annihilation Series) (23 page)

Ping nodded, “Pare, I’m going to start looking at planets where these ships are in orbit. Please record what I see for later playback.”

“I have you on the recorder. Ping began looking out at the vast universe around and him and somehow, it seemed dark and dismal. There was a sense of foreboding that he couldn’t shake. Pare recorded all that he saw and knew that he was witnessing the face of evil. Twelve hours later, Ping said, “Take us back to the portal. I need to see how many more ships they have to send through.”

They teleported in a thousand miles from the portal and Pare used his optical scanner to focus in on the stream of Blue Warships rushing toward the portal. The long line disappeared in the distance and Ping said, “Follow that line to its starting point.”

The Searcher teleported five times before it arrived at a vast cloud of the large Blue Ships. The small warships began launching from each giant ship’s hull as it arrived and moved into formation. Space was filled with the giant Blue Harvesting Ships for as far as they could see and still they were coming. Pare said, “Each of those ships carry a thousand of the smaller warships in their hulls.”

Sprigly said, “They outnumber the Five’s ships by a huge margin.”

Ping nodded, “We need to go home.” Pare teleported back to the edge of the portal and waited for a good time to exit. Ping watched the ships going through the portal and said, “You can go anytime you want.” Sprigly turned quickly and looked at Ping. “They are no longer exiting the portal at different angles. The Beast’s Fleet is no longer at the entrance firing at them.”

Sprigly saw Ping was right. Pare went through the portal and saw the massive space battle had moved away from the portal and the Blue Ships had taken formation around it to prevent the Beasts from regaining control; the Searcher teleported away.

Sprigly looked at Ping, “What do you think?”

“You and I both saw why this portal is so big. Give Pare some time to organize our recordings and we should have a better idea of what’s going on.”

“Is the Realm in danger?”

“Everything is in danger, Sprigly.”

Sprigly stared at Ping and suddenly the wall display illuminated. “I’m starting the recordings.”

“Thanks, Pare.”

The first image he saw was one of the giant Blue Harvesters. Sprigly examined the image with his device and said, “It won’t go through.”

Ping nodded, “Yes it will. They’ll pull the wings and stabilizers into the hull. It will take some time, but it will barely squeeze through the portal.”

“It’s going to take them a lot of time to move ships like that here.”

“Which means those Harvesters will be vulnerable to attack as they’re slowly moving through the portal. They are going to have to eliminate all the local civilization’s warships before they start the process.” Ping looked at Sprigly, “Have you been able to estimate how many of those ships they have?”

The next image showed a cloud of the giant ships extending into the distance from the portal, “I suspect every portal they opened here has a similar number waiting to transit. I derived an answer but it’s meaningless. It’s really too large to believe.”

“Why do they need that many ships?”

Sprigly saw the display begin showing planet after planet with one of the giant ships in orbit. “There are trillions of planets in a universe that will support life. Even the huge number of ships they have is small in comparison.”

Ping sat in his chair and nodded, “They are destroyers of universes and once they finish here, their next stop will be the Realm.” Sprigly could only lean forward. Ping continued to watch the recording and had a thought, “They were going to the Realm first but came here instead.”

“How do you know that?”

Ping shrugged, “I’m not really certain how I know, but it makes sense in a way. They must have seen the Five invade the Realm’s universe and knew if they went there first, they could be interrupted by the Five’s invasion. They don’t want to take on the forces from both universes at the same time.”

Sprigly nodded, “I think you’re right.”

“Do you see something else?”

“They haven’t completely finished harvesting the Universe they’re in. That tells me they probably started invading here ahead of their normal schedule.”

Ping nodded slowly, “I wondered why they endured the losses they’ve taken at the portals. They really have no choice but to force their way in here.”

Sprigly leaned forward, “Come here or starve.”

Ping sighed, “It looks like this is going to be a fight to the death.”

“It at least buys the Realm time.”

“What happens when the Five see they’re going to lose?” Sprigly just stared at Ping. “The Five will attempt to escape and guess where they’ll go?”

“Their numbers to use against the Realm will be greatly reduced.”

“I suppose; but the death and destruction the Realm will endure will be beyond imagination. Both sides will be so weakened, the Blue Ships can just walk in and cleanup what’s left.”

“It does buy us some time. The Five had started working hard on a new portal to invade. This will slow them down.”

“Not much.” Ping paused, “I think that’s why they came here early. They want to exert heavy pressure on the Five to force them to flee to the Realm as quickly as possible. They could immediately invade the Realm and harvest two universes simultaneously. This is a great opportunity for them and they know it. The Five’s efforts to build a new portal will take on a new urgency for them.” Ping looked away from the display, “Pare, did you record my conversation with Sprigly?”

“I did.”

Ping activated his panel and saw Tag and Danielle appear, “I have a recording that will answer most of your questions. I’ll include a conversation that Sprigly and I just had and what we believe is going to happen.” Ping looked up, “Send it.”

Tag looked away from the display and saw the recording arrive on his panel, “What do you think we should do about what we’re planning?”

“You need to hurry up.”

“I think you’re right; thank you for this.”

“I suspect you could have gone there yourself but would have revealed too much if you did.”

Danielle nodded, “You’re right. We allowed you to face the danger instead of doing it ourselves. We didn’t want to reveal the Kosiev to them.”

“Don’t beat yourself up; I’m beginning to think you are more important than anything we can do here. The numbers we were facing prior to the Harvesters was more than we could handle; now the numbers are beyond overwhelming. Sending us was the best, and safest, way to gather intelligence. There are two enemies here that need to be stopped. I’m beginning to believe your project might be the only way to make that happen.”

Tag’s face showed his anxiety, “It appears the plan takes a lot of things into consideration. This new species is even nastier than the Five.”

“The Five are now down to four; the Rageon have dropped out of their plans and intend to live in peace with their neighbors. There is one thing for certain; there are no accidents. You have to remember that.”

“We’ll keep that in mind.”

The display went dark and Ping sighed, “Pare, you need to get us home; I have a wife that’s probably losing weight worrying about me and she doesn’t have a lot to lose.”

“She is beautiful. Let’s try to keep it that way.”

Ping smiled as the space around the Searcher disappeared and he had a thought flash through his mind; if there were no accidents, why did he have to go in the Searcher? He turned and looked at Sprigly, “Why did I feel we had to make this trip in the Searcher?” Sprigly leaned left and right indicating he didn’t know. “What connection is there between a ship built in the Realm and those Blue Ships?”

“I have no idea.”

“I FOUND IT!”

“Found what, Pare?”

“Sprigly said those creatures looked familiar. I decided to start looking through all the data I have on the Algean Civilization to see if anything related to those beings. I didn’t turn up anything. However, when you asked what connection the Searcher could have to those Blue Ships, I queried the Realm’s databank and found a hit.”

The wall display came on and they saw a body lying on a gurney. It was stretched out and facing straight up. The display split into two images and the new image next to the body was one of the ten beings they saw eating around the broken down harvester. Ping looked closely, “Can you give me a closer view of the being’s face at the harvester.” The image grew in size as Sprigly and Ping moved closer to the display to get a better view. Ping looked back and forth and shook his head, “Sprigly, they’re the same species. Pare where did you find that image?”

The image of the alien on the gurney changed as the view backed out, revealing the picture on the front page of a newspaper. The headline said in large letters, “Proof Aliens Exist.”

Pare said, “This was published by a newspaper called the National Enquirer. It was obviously one of the more reputable publications of that time. The article says that the government was hiding the information from their citizens. It appears a small Blue Ship crashed near a small town called Roswell, New Mexico in the 1950’s. The crash happened before Earth invented computers so there was nothing in any databanks about this. The government did convince most of the population that there were no aliens and the event was nothing more than a crashed weather balloon. I do find it interesting that almost immediately after that crash, computers were invented.

“Do you have anything else other than that document?”

“Not really. However, the image used by humans after that time to draw an alien was the basic shape of the creatures we observed near the harvester. Even cartoons used that shape.”

Sprigly looked at Ping, “They were scouting our universe thousands of years ago.”

Ping nodded and had a fleeting thought that the crash happened four hundred years after Dahlia’s ancestors arrived in their current universe. Ping’s eyes narrowed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Do you remember your thoughts when we found humans living in this universe?”

Sprigly nodded, “I was astounded.”

“What do you think those aliens would think about finding humans in both places? You know they scouted both universes before we found Dahlia’s planet.”

He had a sudden premonition, “PARE, GET US BACK TO THE PLANTERS!” The Searcher arrived in orbit above the planet and he pushed his communication panel. “ALL PLANTER SHIPS; RETURN TO THE PLANET IMMEDIATELY. I REPEAT, RETURN TO THE PLANET IMMEDIATELY!”

Dean appeared on his display as thousands of Mites teleported in, “What’s going on?”

“I believe we are going to be attacked momentarily and we need our ships here to defend the planet.”

“Why do you think we’re going to be attacked?”

“We are the only species in this universe that are like the humans in the Realm. I’ve got to believe that if those Blue Ships scouted here, they know about us and will come and investigate.”

Dean stared at Ping for a moment and lifted his communicator, “Launch all ships from the Northern Facility.” Ping couldn’t see them but he knew more than fifty thousand large Nemite Warships were moving above the planet. The fleet of Mites had grown to a hundred and fifty thousand and he prayed he was wrong. Dahlia appeared on board Pare and rushed to Ping and held him. “Thank God you made it back!” She tried to restrain her tears but was having great difficulty doing it.

Ping lifted his communicator and spoke on the general frequency, “If alien ships arrive here, do not wait for commands to attack. Your computers have everything the Realm has ever learned about space combat and depend on them to direct you to your targets. They will work together to maximize your effectiveness. Your goal is to kill anything that comes here and do it as quickly as possible.”

Dahlia looked up at Ping and he said, “I took the Searcher instead of a Mite.”

She thought for a moment and nodded, “You’re right. They’ll be coming here.”

Sprigly shook his head, “How are we going to be able to hold them off with our limited number of warships?”

“I wondered why we installed the Searcher’s beams on all of our ships. None of the major Battleships were going to be used to attack the Five’s production planets but we still installed the red beams on them. I believe it was done for this particular moment in time. I’ll know if I’m right shortly.”

“But our ships don’t have a force field.”

Ping smiled, “You can’t hit what you don’t see.”

• • •

Three hours later, a massive wave of Blue Ships appeared and began moving in toward the planet. The explosions in their ranks were immediate and ripped through the ranks of the Blue Ships that arrived first. Hundreds of thousands more jumped in and the wave of destruction moved through them at an unbelievable speed. More than a million Blue Ships were destroyed before they stopped appearing. The only Planter Ship that was lost was due to a collision with the hull of a blasted Blue Ship that exploded into its path. It didn’t have time to avoid the collision. It was the Realm’s beams that caused most of the destruction, although the green energy pulses also wreaked havoc to them.

Sprigly looked at Ping at the end of the battle, “It appears the Searchers will be able to face the Blue Ships.”

Ping shook his head “Only if enough of them survive the Five’s invasion. I’m sure the Blue Aliens know it and are attempting to force the Five into the Realm’s Universe.”

Sprigly was amazed at Ping’s ability to see things he was missing. Something was happening to him.

T
ag Looked across the Kosiev’s bridge at two sets of legs sticking out from under the panel that controlled the ships emitters. “I trust you heard Ping say we needed to hurry up.”

A female voice said, “Easy for him to say; he’s not having to do this.”

“Would you rather be in his place?”

“Oh heck no; but this isn’t a walk in the park either. Sam, hand me that spot welder.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?”

“You might go over and ask Pixie and Ken. I thing they’ve been complaining about the heavy lifting.”

Danielle slowly shook her head, “Don’t they know about gravity suppression?”