Pray for the Prey (18 page)

Kenny almost spit his salad out laughing and after a moment RV joined him. “I miss our time on the old Havana chasing Blue Giant ships. Now that was fun.”

RV sighed, “Yes it was. I guess I’m getting used to this position, but it’s not something I would want to do if given a choice.”

“We need you right where you are. By the way, you should try this salad.”

“No way; I’d be accused of being bulimic after it shot across the room and hit the back wall.” RV paused and said, “Why did you want to see me?”

“You’re up to something and I wanted to know what it is.”

RV mustered up an innocent expression and said, “Me…up to something…clutch the pearls, you must be mistaken.”

Kenny laughed again and said, “I know you and I know your expressions; you’re expecting something and I just want you to tell your old pal what you’re up to.”

RV sat there with a blank expression. Kenny watched him and said, “Now what are you doing?”

“I’m being enigmatic.”

“What?”

“Hey, haven’t you heard; I’m an enigma.”

Replace the en with a st and you’d be right.”

“Oh that’s just too cute.”

“Come on, RV; what’s going on?”

RV sighed and said, “I honestly can’t tell you and before you get upset, you should know I’ve not told anyone including Cyanna.”

Kenny stared at RV and narrowed his eyes, “But something is going on?”

“Yes, but if I reveal it, there could be catastrophic danger to all of us; just know that it is not something we can do anything about until it happens.”

“You’ve got it under control?”

“I do that by not doing anything about it.”

“OK, I’m going to have to trust you on this one. Will you tell me after it happens?”

“I will.”

“Good; now what are you having to eat?”

“I have to wait until your main course arrives so I won’t finish too quickly. I’ve been forced to cut back from six burgers to two.” Kenny started laughing and after a moment couldn’t catch his breath. “Hey, it was that or eat that rabbit food.”

Kenny continued to laugh and RV said, “She’ll know if I try to lie.” Kenny doubled over and tried to catch his breath. “I’m glad somebody finds this humorous.”

Kenny was finally able to get out, “You should eat…enigma greens.” He held his ribs his laughing hurt so much.

“Very funny; you’ll find some of them on the back wall.”

Kenny stuttered, “Stop…stop…you’re killing me.”

RV sighed and looked up at the waiter who brought out two one pound burgers with a huge pile of fries. “I’m going to starve to death.”

Kenny fell out of his chair and RV just let him lay there.

• • •

Cyanna sat in her command chair on the Havana and saw her panel illuminate a green LED. “Yes.”

“He only ate two.”

“Thanks, I owe you.”

“I also cut back on the fries.”

“Do you think he noticed?”

“Of course he noticed. He picked up the plate and felt its weight. He gave me a dirty look.”

“I really do owe you for this. He’s lost thirty pounds.”

“No you don’t. We all want the Admiral to be healthy.”

Cyanna ended the communication and smiled, “He’s actually lost fifty pounds. I just hope he’ll keep his promise.” She looked at the fleet outside her view port and marveled at how big it had grown. The entire galaxy was on a war footing and production was enormous. The volunteers were being trained on Dundee and there were twice as many crews as ships. That ratio was going to remain constant to allow the sailors leave time to visit their families. Entire crews would go on leave and be replaced by another crew. This allowed the fleet to conduct continuous fleet exercises and drills to keep them trained to a higher level of proficiency. Another good idea from RV.

She paused and wondered what he was up to. Something was going on and he wasn’t talking about it. She decided to wait for him to tell her. He had a reason for his secrecy and she was going to honor it. Still, she wondered what it was.

• • •

“Jillian, release the crew from general quarters.”

“Done.”

Chris extended the fields and watched as they collected light from M-87. An alarm sounded, “You hit the spot perfectly.”

“I saved these coordinates from the first visit. How do you want to do this from this point?”

“Dolly, are you able to see any star drives in this scan?”

“Yes, there are more than sixty million in the total scan.”

Chris and Jillian looked at each other shocked at the number. Chris said, “Are there any concentrations larger than the others?”

“Actually, fifty million are located in the area next to the left side of the core.”

“Focus our recorder on that area and see if you can get a close up.”

Jillian said, “The new computer makes this study so much easier that what we had to do before. The delay will ultimately save us a huge amount of time.”

“I know; let’s see what Dolly has found for us to see.”

Jillian leaned back in her chair and stared at the main wall display and a view of a planet appeared with a space battle of epic proportions taking place around it, “Oh my God!”

Chris stared at the tens of thousands of ships swarming around the planet and saw there were more than a hundred different types of starships engaged in the battle. The view moved further out and the display panel showed the number of ship types growing quickly. Chris said, “Dolly, how many fleets are involved in this?”

“My initial scan shows more than two hundred different fleets taking part in this scan.”

“How many ships?”

“Millions; it will take a while to complete the analysis.”

Chris stared at the display and then asked, “Have you been able to determine which ships are defending that planet?”

“I’ve made that determination by scanning the planet’s surface. However, the planet’s ships that are involved in that battle are not staying at the planet to defend it. They are fighting in the fleet action throughout that part of space. It appears that none of them are firing on the planet’s surface.”

“Just a moment; I’ve just recorded a planet being hit with a nuclear missile.”

The wall display changed and they saw a long grey ship fire a missile at a planet’s surface. The explosion was massive and a large city on the surface was vaporized. Suddenly, every ship in the massive battle turned on the long grey ships and attacked them wherever they were located. After an hour, no grey ship remained. At that point, the fleet continued the battle among themselves. However, the ships that were from the nuked planet moved out of the battle and returned to orbit their world. They were ignored by all the other ships as they jumped away as the warring ships continued the fighting.

“We need to see what happens with those ships at the planet that was attacked. Dolly, move us forward and keep that planet on the display.”

The view fast forwarded and after two days, the ships began leaving orbit and jumped away. “Dolly, see if you can determine where those ships went.”

“They’ve jumped to another planet closer to the core of the galaxy.”

The view changed and they watched as the fleet arrived at a planet with a thousand long grey ships in orbit. The grey ships moved out but were outnumbered a thousand to one. They were quickly dispatched and the invading fleet rained nuclear destruction down on the planet and destroyed it.

Dolly said, “It appears that attacking a planet is not allowed.”

Chris looked at Jillian and said, “It makes sense, in a way. We had the Geneva Conventions which outlawed the use of poison gas on Earth and after the war ended, the ones that violated that convention were punished. It appears that similar rules are in effect here.”

“But they leave here and destroy millions of worlds in other galaxies.”

“They aren’t covered by these conventions. That ship going to the Violet Civilization was probably investigating the destruction of their main planet. They made sure that no civilization in their galaxy did it. If they had found any survivors of Earth in our galaxy, they may have sent every civilization to kill the offender.”

Dolly said, “I suspect they wanted to know if the survivors represented a threat to them. Like you said, their conventions don’t apply to other galaxies. It’s a possible threat to all of them that they were looking for in the Milky Way.”

Chris thought a minute and said, “We really don’t know for sure what their reasons were, but this discovery must be used to determine our future actions against the Violet Civilization.” Chris looked at the display with the burning planet and turned to Jillian, “How far back are we from our current time?”

“Forty million years.”

Chris fell back in his command chair, “They’ve been fighting that long?”

“Chris, this battle with more than two hundred civilizations taking part must have begun much further back than this. This is the product of what we saw at sixty million years.”

“You’re right. This entire galaxy is dangerous.” Chris said, “We need to see how this fight ended. Let’s start jumping a million years forward with each jump and see what fell out of this conflict.”

“We should keep the crew at general quarters until we make sure we’re not seen.”

“I agree. Let’s study what we’ve collected and give the crew a break.”

“I prefer to do that study in Sierra Space so we can see if anything is approaching us. The crew will remain at battle stations in normal space.”

“Notify the Wing Commanders.”

Dolly sent the message and the pilots left their ships to take a deserved break.

• • •

Admiral Tom Browne heard the alarm go off on his board and received a feed from a probe located at the edge of M-49. More than two hundred thousand starships had appeared and were forming up just outside the galaxy. He hit the general quarter’s button and said, “Notify our fleet that we’ll be jumping in thirty seconds. Weapons are free if we are attacked, but hold formation until that happens.” The Communications officer nodded and issued the orders.

“Tom, what’s going on?”

“We have a large fleet that just jumped in to the edge of the galaxy, Sir. I’ve ordered the fleet out to confront them.”

RV looked at the Probe’s feed and said, “We will be joining you momentarily.”

“Yes Sir, I’m going in weapons free.”

“Do what you have to do.”

• • •

The thirty thousand main battleships jumped and emerged less than fifty miles from the alien ships that were finishing moving into attack formations. The two hundred thousand ships remained in place and stared at the huge white ships in front of them. Thirty seconds later, another thirty thousand White Ships joined the first group and they launched a giant wave of small attack ships that surrounded the invading fleet before they could move. One of the invading ships at the back of the formation fired on one of the small craft and was hit with a mini-striker that blew the ship into rubble. The two fleets remained in position neither making another move.

• • •

“Gloria, are you hearing their transmissions?”

“I am and should have enough to start communicating shortly.”

Cyanna listened to the computer and was thankful that the Jenze learning device had been incorporated into their central processors. The computer would send and receive any communications such that both parties would be able to understand each other.

“I’ve got enough, Sir.”

• • •

The Fleet Leader was ready to launch his invasion when suddenly thousands of giant White Ships appeared directly in front of his fleet. Before he could issue any orders a cloud of small craft erupted from the ships in front of him and thousands of more ships joined the first to arrive also sending out a swarm of those small ships. In less than a minute his fleet was surrounded. He watched one of his ships destroyed by one shot from one of the small craft and knew that he was in deep trouble. His communicator was overwhelmed with traffic asking what to do but he knew that all of his ships would be killed before they could escape. Then his assistant said, “Incoming communication from those ships.” Every ship in the invading fleet heard the incoming message and they grew silent.

“Welcome to our galaxy. Are you here to vacation or is there another reason for your arrival?”

The Fleet Leader heard the message and did a double take. What was going on? His assistant said, “They may be offering us a way to leave peacefully. We should take them up on it.”

“Uhh...we were coming to visit.”

“Oh, well you must not have received the rules for visitation.”

“What rules are those?”

“We welcome visitors but you cannot come here in a warship. Our citizens are justifiably nervous about armed starships entering their living space. We’ve been asked to find those that once invaded our galaxy and remove them from creation. You aren’t the one that did that, are you?”

“No, we would never do that.”

“That’s a good thing. I regret that I must send you home but if you’ll come back in unarmed ships, we’ll be glad for you to visit. I’m also sure you won’t mind if we follow you home to ensure your safe arrival. We couldn’t sleep if something happened to you on your return.”

The Fleet Leader understood the veiled message. If they ever returned, his home would see this fleet again. He looked at his assistant and he said, “There are thirty millions of those small craft surrounding us.”

The Fleet Leader was shocked at the number and he said, “You are welcome to come and insure our safety. I thank you for your consideration. I’ll send you our coordinates.”

“You don’t need to do that. We’ll be able to make that determination ourselves.”

The Fleet Leader’s fear doubled and he issued the orders to jump home. His fleet disappeared and found the huge fleet of White Ships waiting for his arrival. He heard, “Be safe and I do hope you will follow our rules.”

“We will.”

“That’s good. We really hate making anyone an example.”

The giant fleet disappeared and the Fleet Leader answered the incoming communications demanding to know what happened. It didn’t take long before the large ball galaxy was put under quarantine. It would not be visited again. The leaders just hoped they would not be visited as well.