Dahlia's Deception (The Annihilation Series) (6 page)

Dahlia jerked her head up and looked at the wall speaker in shock. “What do you know!?!”

“You’ve been deceptive and he doesn’t deserve it. If you delay much longer, the pain will be more than either of you can bear.”

“YOU WILL NOT TELL HIM!!”

“The information each of you possess will stay with each of you. I cannot betray either of you to reveal your private thoughts to the other. You have nothing to worry about me revealing anything. However, if you ask, I will offer my opinion.”

“Are you certain about that, Pare?”

“It’s the only way we could coexist and you not feel that I have to be reprogrammed. I will not reveal your deception.”

Dahlia turned around, “It’s not time for it…yet.”

“Can you really live with what falls out of it if you wait much longer?”

“What do you think?” Pare was silent and Dahlia knew he didn’t know any more than she did.

• • •

Ping teleported out and arrived just outside the Rageon Flagship’s force field. He saw the Black Flagship forty miles away staying even with the fast moving line of scouts. Ping lifted his arm and pushed it toward the Black Scout Ship. A green flash instantly left his hand and hit the Black Scout instantly, blowing it into rubble. He teleported twenty miles above the line and waited to see what was going to happen. The first reaction from the Black Scouts was one of them rushing over and attempting to fire on the Rageon Commander’s Flagship. It was destroyed by two Rageon Scouts that flew over and moved between the Black attacker and the Rageon Commander. The Rageon Commander shouted over his communication channel that he had not fired on the Black Flagship but none of the Black Scouts heard him. It didn’t matter what his scouts heard; the Black Scouts attacked the Rageon ships they had been paired with and space was filled with a horrific dog fight. The Rageon Admiral jumped away just before five Black Scouts were able to fire on him.

Ping floated in space and watched the massive space battle between tens of thousands of equally matched ships. They refused to jump away to safety and the fight continued for hours. Ping finally saw enough and teleported back to his ship. Dahlia was waiting in the command chair and smiled, “It appears you’re pretty good at tipping dominoes.”

Ping smiled, “You just have to tip the critical one and the rest take care of themselves. I suspect this might occupy them for a while.” Ping looked away from the display, “Pare, take us back to the Planter’s Planet.”

The tiny ship disappeared leaving a raging battle at the edge of the star cluster.

• • •

The Beast Master looked at the Rageon Ruler on his display and snarled, “You will pay for this treachery!!”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

The huge beast roared and leaned in close to the display screen, “I’ll rip you apart myself.”

“If you could do it you’d already be here. You obviously haven’t really looked at the recording of the death of your Commander. Do that now and stop acting so stupid.”

The Beast Master was furious at the Rageon and his aloof manner but he forced himself to lean back from the display, “Of course I’ve viewed it; your ship fired on him and destroyed his ship.” The Beast felt his rage explode again, “You probably ordered it!”

The Rageon slowly shook his upper body at the stupidity of the Beast, “Will you turn off your hormones long enough to examine this?”

“I’LL EAT YOU ALIVE!!!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m holding my breath. Since when have any of my ships fired a green beam?” The Master’s expression went from rage to shock in an instant. “And where are the beams located on my scout vessels? And while you’re thinking about that, when has one scout’s beam ever killed another scout? You know it takes three or more to make that happen. That’s why we sent them. You’re dumber than I thought you were. A small bag of rocks is smarter than you are.”

The Master sat down on his throne and realized he had missed everything. He ignored the Rageon Ruler’s taunts and thought about what he said. The Rageon Scouts didn’t have a beam on top of their hulls. The Rageon beams were white in color and the scout’s beams were the weakest of all their ships; that’s why they were used to investigate.

“We were tricked.”

“And I thought you were too full of juice from your glands to think; yes we were and it really worked. You should see the recording I just made of you. Next time you act this dumb I’m going to replay it. How many of your scouts made it back?”

“Twenty.”

“I had fifteen and four of them were damaged enough to not be used again. Someone knew about our bad feelings and used it to initiate a fight between us. All they had to do was fire one beam and we were on each other in an instant. Your scouts refused to communicate with my ships. They tried to explain but your scouts turned off their communicators.”

The Beast shrugged, “My species is somewhat difficult to control. Do you think the one that did it is located in that Star Cluster?”

“I do hope you received constant updates from your Commander before the fight.” The Master nodded. “My Admiral tells me that they didn’t find a single planet that had ship building facilities or energy readings high enough that would indicate high levels of technology. Matter of fact, it appears those that may have once had them lost them to beams from space. I’m going to assume you did that when you invaded that cluster.”

“That would be a good assumption.”

“In my opinion, we should look elsewhere. What do you think?”

“I agree.”

“We still feel quite strongly about your invading the cluster again.”

“Until this issue with our ships being killed is cleared up, I will comply with our agreements. I have to confess that I feel rather stupid at the moment.”

“You should. And that’s fair enough. We’ll both work together on this until we find the ones responsible. I trust you will work with my forces to remove them at the appropriate time.”

The Beast revealed his teeth, “On that you can be sure.”

T
hree weeks passed and Ping went with Dahlia to the construction facilities under the planet’s northern pole. He walked with her through the facilities and saw the Planters were building formidable ships. However, he knew they were at a decided disadvantage. Only their world had nemite so they were limited to only one planet to build them. The Realm had an entire galaxy of Algean construction facilities to build their ships. The Planters would need thousands of years to come close to the number of warships used by just one of their enemies. “Dahlia, how many large battleships have you built?”

“We have fifty thousand. We’ve not used them to attack the Five, yet.”

His wrist unit vibrated and he pressed the speaker button, “Sir, a message had been sent through the portal that the King would like you to come and update him on the progress being made. Sprigly has also requested a meeting with you afterwards.”

“I need some time to gather the information he’ll want; I’ll let you know when I’ll be coming.”

“Yes Sir.”

Dahlia looked at Ping and he said, “I’ve been requested to make a presentation to the King. I need someone familiar with what you’re doing to assist me. Will you go with me to make it?” Dahlia nodded and Ping teleported to the control room to gather the most current information on the number of warships the Planters had in their inventory and how they were being used against the Five. He also asked Dean to download everything that had recently happened during the Scouts investigation. Dean watched Ping copy the information to a data cube and said, “What are you doing?”

“I’ve been requested to update the Realm’s King.”

“Tess has ordered me to go with you.” Ping looked up and saw Dean slightly smiling. “She wants my opinion about your Realm.”

Dahlia had teleported in and, as she walked forward, she heard the exchange, “Why would she want that?”

Dean’s smile vanished when he saw Dahlia behind him. He sighed and raised his shoulders and hands knowing what was coming, “She feels your perceptions might be…uhhhh…somewhat biased.”

Dahlia’s anger was instant, “Well, why doesn’t she just tell me herself?”

Tess stepped in the room and said, “Dean will go with you to this Realm. Are you challenging my authority to make the order, Princess Dare!?!”

Dahlia saw Tess’ expression and her anger wilted. “No, I am not.”

“Then shut up and carry out your duties. You appear to have difficulty doing that recently! I don’t know if your perceptions are colored by your relationship with the Realm’s Prince or not. Dean will be able to remove that particular worry from my list of more than a thousand. You got that!”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Tess turned and looked at Ping hoping he would say something. He shrugged and nodded. She stormed out of the control room. Dahlia looked at Dean and he shook his head slightly, “You’ve been pretty much doing as you please, Dahlia. She’s given you a lot of room to operate but you’ve really not shown her the respect she deserves. I think you’ve forgotten who she is.”

Dahlia sighed, “I know…you’re right.” She looked at Ping, “Excuse me a moment. I have to clear this up.” Ping nodded and Dahlia ran out of the room after Tess.

Ping looked at Dean, “What did you mean, ‘Her relationship with me’?”

Dean stared at Ping for a moment and then decided he had done nothing to deserve deceit, “Dahlia has never had a romantic relationship. She’s spent more time with you than any other male outside our family. Tess is concerned that she’s too young and might be too close to you to really see the truth about your Realm. Tess thinks she might not see it if you’re being deceptive.”

Ping looked at Dean like he had three heads, “Dean, I can assure you that she does not have feelings for me. She breaks my head all the time. You’ve seen it.”

“That can’t be used as a measure, Ping. She does that with me as well and I know she loves me. If you use that as a barometer, she’s head over heels over you.”

“Trust me; I would know if she had feelings for me. She barely tolerates me.”

“How?”

“How what?”

“How would you know? You’re not exactly living in the moment.”

Ping struggled for an answer and finally said, “I’d just know.”

Dean shrugged, “I can’t read Dahlia’s feelings any more than you can but I’m pretty certain she’s not being open with you about how she feels. She’s evasive with me about discussing it; that tells me something. How long before we shove off?”

“As soon as Dahlia comes back.”

“How long do you think we’ll be gone?”

“Three or four days; maybe a week at the longest.”

Dean stood, “I’ll go get my bag.” Ping nodded and thought about what Dean had said. He tried to find any clue that Dahlia cared about him and finally shook his head. The idea was ludicrous. He knew she wasn’t completely open with him but he wasn’t with her either. That would be like saying he had a thing for Dahlia; that was also ludicrous. He immediately remembered carrying her to the ship after she had lifted the crosses. He remembered how beautiful she was. He shook his head; the whole idea was ridiculous. He teleported to his room to move some things to Pare.

• • •

Pare moved out of orbit toward the hill where the portal was located and waited for the ships coming from the Realm’s universe to exit the passage. Ping, Dahlia, and Dean teleported on board and they saw a hundred mites come through the nemite entrance and head north toward the North Pole to be delivered to their pilots. They knew the small warships were going to be needed. They heard, “You’re clear to enter the portal.”

Dean watched the view port as the mite flew into the large opening cut into the side of the hill and saw the corridor they were flying through start to narrow. After two hundred yards, the corridor was only slightly wider than the ship he was on. He saw the air in front of them shimmering as they flew through it and entered another corridor that started to get wider. The mite exited the corridor into bright daylight and Dean was stunned by the view. The area around the corridor was covered with high tech facilities and the buildings around it were enormous. Dahlia leaned over, “A scientific community lives here next to the portal, studying it, and attempting to learn how to create another natural portal.”

Pare flew the ship higher and Dean’s mouth stayed open. The city they were approaching was too big to grasp in one view. He saw crystal spires that rose thousands of feet into the sky reflecting the sun’s light in a cascade of rainbow colors. The spires were surrounded by smaller buildings that he knew were higher than any structure on his planet, but they were dwarfed by the crystal spires they surrounded.

The ship rose above the tallest spires and Dean looked out into the distance and saw the tall spires continued without end over the horizon. The numbers of vehicles flying above the giant city numbered, in what must have been, millions. Dean looked at Dahlia and she smiled, “This is our home world, Dean. This is Earth.” Dahlia turned to Ping, “Do we have time to fly over the Isles?”

Ping nodded and Pare turned the ship and flew out over the ocean. He moved into the upper atmosphere and quickly descended toward another land mass across a vast ocean. Dean saw a large group of islands off the coast of the mainland. Dahlia looked at him and pointed at them through the view port, “That is where our forefathers left to build the colony they had to escape from. The portal we just transited is not far from where they landed their sailing vessels and built a colony. The portal is where they escaped to our world from an Indian attack. These islands were once the most powerful nation on Earth.”

“And now?”

“The planet is unified and one of the Realm’s most powerful planets. This is also where the first King and Queen of the Realm were born and ultimately founded the Realm.”

Dean looked down at the islands covered in huge cities and felt his history inside his bones. This is where his ancestors once lived. He tried to remain objective and aloof but just couldn’t do it. Dean looked through the view port, “Where does the King live?”

Dahlia smiled, “He lives on a planet named Ross. It was chosen by the first Royal Couple to be the capital of the Realm. It is still the capital more than twenty thousand years later. We’re going there momentarily.” Dean nodded and stared at the beautiful planet below him. There were more people on the islands below than on his entire planet. He began to feel small and insignificant. Dahlia put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. She experienced what he was feeling and she knew Ross was going to overwhelm him. Ping looked at her and she nodded. Ping took the controls and lifted the ship higher into the atmosphere. “Fleet Control, I request permission to teleport out.”