Trapped in Time-Extinction (30 page)

Harmony walked through the corridors and the Regent saw members of his crew being carried off the ship. As they walked down the ramp, he saw hundreds of the strange beings rushing into his ship. He felt despair; his subjects were completely overwhelmed. His mate took his hand and fought back tears. She looked into his eyes and he knew what she was thinking. Soon, there would be none of his species remaining.

• • •

Andy saw Harmony leading the aliens’ Leaders through the gate and he pulled his camouflage uniform down and threw it to the side. He walked down the steps from the wall and met Harmony in front of the unconscious alien warriors. He hugged her tightly and said quietly in her ear, “You did a good job.”

“You can thank Mat as well. His team were really well trained to make it happen.”

Andy nodded and turned to the tall Alien, “I’m sorry we had to resort to this rather heavy handed treatment.” The Regent just stared at him. Andy pointed at the Regent’s subjects being placed along the wall, “However, you did try to kill all of us. I believe that before you would have a discussion with me, I’d have to force it on you.”

The Regent stared at Andy and said, “How are you able to speak my language?”

“Actually, my daughters have been listening to your thoughts for several months and have allowed me to learn it through them.” The Regent looked at the strange female with white hair standing next to him and saw an identical being walking toward them. Andy saw his surprise and smiled, “Yes, they are twins and they’re highly telepathic. We knew your plan to come here and trial your new thought weapon on us.”

Harmony thought to Andy, “Dad, They call themselves Talens.” The Regent looked at his Mate who was squeezing his hand in fear. Harmony looked at her and nodded to Mat, who released their child. He ran across the sand and wrapped his arms around his mother’s legs. “It is not our intention to harm you.”

The three aliens looked at Harmony and the female thought, “But we tried to kill you.”

Andy heard the exchange and nodded, “Yes you did. However, you justified it in your minds because we would die anyway when the comet hits in two days.”

The Regent’s eyes immediately narrowed in surprise, “You know about it?”

“We’ve known it was coming for almost three hundred years. However, before we start our conversation, I want all of you to be conscious so everyone can hear what I have to say.”

The Regent looked at his fallen subjects and Linnae said, “They should regain consciousness in two or three hours. Would you like something to eat?”

The young child’s head jerked around toward Linnae, “We have pods that we eat but I’m not sure if your anatomy can tolerate them, however, we have plenty if you want to try them.”

The Queen stepped forward and thought, “Show me what you have.”

Linnae took her to the large boiler and showed her the white grains. The Queen used the spoon to take a small portion out and she wiped it on the back of her hand. She waited and after a minute she said, “We can eat it. If it caused my skin to turn darker, it would be dangerous.”

Linnae smiled and filled a plate with pods and handed it to the young male. He ate it like he was starving. The Queen said, “We’ve been on short rations since…”

She paused and Linnae said, “Your planet was attacked.”

“How do you know about that?”

“My sister and I could hear the thoughts of your people as they were being killed.”

“But that’s more than ten thousand light years away!”

Linnae tilted her head, “I can’t really explain how we do it, but we heard it happen.”

• • •

Andy sat down on the sand and the Regent joined him as Harmony brought him a plate of food. He ate it slowly and shook his head, “This is good.” Andy nodded. The Regent looked at the Humans moving around and said, “There aren’t very many of you.”

Andy smiled, “Actually, there are more than a quarter of a million of us scattered to the north of here in caves we’ve dug into the mountains to ride out the comet strike.”

“How did you know it was coming?”

“I’ll tell you everything shortly. It’s important that all of you hear it together.”

The Regent nodded as he stood up and walked over to the pot to join his family. Andy watched him leave and Harmony sat down beside him. “He’s hard.”

“We are as well.”

“Not like him.”

“We haven’t seen our entire species attacked and killed.” Harmony stared at the Regent and after a moment nodded.

Three hours later, all the aliens were conscious and were sitting with their backs against the wall. There was about a thousand of them staring at their captors. Grandel was beyond rage and tried to think of a way to get the upper hand on these strange beings. The Regent walked over with his mate and sat down against the wall beside him, “You’re wasting your time.”

Grandel looked at him, “What?”

“You see eight hundred of them sitting in front of us with your blasters pointed at us. However, if you try to take them back, they won’t use them on us.”

“Then we should make the effort!”

“What you don’t see is the eight hundred invisible warriors sitting on the walls with their stunners pointed at you.” Grandel’s eyes narrowed and the Regent said, “They took control of my ship before we even knew they were on board. We are currently in their mercy and you will not do anything to provoke them.” Grandel stared in the Regent’s eyes and saw he was deadly serious. “You will also order your warriors to remain still or they will be executed.” Grandel looked down the line of his warriors and saw their nervousness. He looked back at the Regent and shook his head. The Regent said, “I don’t want to have to kill you but I will do it and replace you if you endanger us by acting foolishly.”

Grandel took a deep breath and after a moment stood up slowly, “All warriors will remain where they are. Do not take any action unless the Regent orders it. If you don’t follow this order, you will be executed. Do you understand?” The alien warriors all looked at each other and leaned back against the wall. They would wait until given the order to attack; they were willing to die to protect the Royal Family. Grandel sat down and stared at the strange beings sitting in front of him. He worried that his species was going to be extinct shortly.

• • •

Andy stood up and walked over in the middle of the long line of aliens reclining against the wall and looked at Linnae, “Will you sent my thoughts so everyone here can hear them?” Linnae nodded and Andy turned and sat down in the sand. “I would normally stand to speak to you but what I have to say is going to take a long time. So I hope you’ll forgive me for sitting down; I’m not doing it out of disrespect.”

The Regent said loudly, “What are you planning to do to us?”

Andy looked at him and smiled, “I intend to tell you about my community and at the end of my presentation, I will allow you to board your ship and leave, if you choose to do so.”

The Regent’s head began shaking, “But we tried to kill all of you.”

“We know that. However, we also knew that your new mind weapon would not affect us.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“I’m going to tell you, however; if I have to continuously stop to answer your questions, we’ll still be here when the comet hits. If you will just wait until I finish, I will answer all your questions.” The Regent stared at Andy and nodded.

Andy smiled and began, “My ancestors were brought here two hundred and seventy years ago by a civilization that is able to move through time. We named them the Time Takers.” Andy paused and saw the disbelief on all of the alien’s faces. He expected an interruption but the Regent kept his word and remained silent. “The Time Takers moved throughout my species history and captured many of us the moment before we were going to die. Our first leader was saved an instant before a giant carnivorous fish would kill him. All of those brought here were saved in similar dire experiences. They were all taken a moment before they were going to die. The Time Takers did this so that our future, and theirs, would not be changed by our removal. My species will not appear on this planet for another sixty plus million years.”

Andy paused and said, “I’m going to read the book our original leader wrote and allow you to hear what he said.” Andy took out the original Andy’s log and began reading. The aliens listened and their disbelief changed to a sincere curiosity about what they were hearing.

When he read the page about Andy meeting with one of the Time Takers, the Regent raised his hand, “I’m sorry, but are you saying your leader says that he was brought back here to remove an enemy of these Time Takers?”

Andy looked at the Regent and nodded, “We were brought back here to kill you.” The aliens were shocked at the statement. “My species is the only one the Time Takers found that could not be killed by your new thought weapon. It was Andy’s opinion that your species was killing every intelligent species in the universe and the Time Takers were the next ones you had targeted. Unfortunately for the Time Takers, they had blasted this planet and my species was shortly going to be extinct. They used their time travel to find out when your species developed this weapon and they decided to set a trap for you here. They knew you came to this planet to trial it and they placed us here to kill you. They knew that we would have had to become extremely aggressive in order to survive and they planned for us to kill you when you appeared. They gave us the uniforms to hide from you along with the red beam blasters that would go through your force field and kill everyone on board.”

“Why didn’t they just do it?”

“Because your new weapon would kill them from a greater distance than their weapons could reach you. They couldn’t take that risk.” Andy put the book down and looked at Linnae, “Can you take my memories and send it to them faster.”

Linnae looked at the Regent and smiled, “If all of you will close your eyes, I’ll give you the memories of my father, who is our current leader.”

The Regent looked at Andy and Linnae and said, “Before we do that. I have a question.”

Andy nodded, “Go ahead.”

“Why didn’t you kill us?”

Andy smiled, “Because we don’t like being manipulated. We won’t kill you because they want us to do it.”

The Regent stared at Andy and leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. The other aliens followed his lead and Linnae started the transfer from the day Andy was exiled. The human warriors listened to what was being transferred and their hearts and minds were given to Andy. The revelation of all that he had experienced and the way he processed everything made them stronger. The transfer took eight hours and at the end of it, Andy opened his eyes and stared at the Regent. The aliens were staring at Andy and he said, “I will answer your questions, now.”

The Regent stared at Andy for a long moment and said, “So you’ll allow us to board our ship and leave?” Andy nodded. The Regent stared at Andy and shook his head, “How can you expect me to believe something this outrageous?”

Andy’ brow furrowed, “What do you think will happen if you board your ship and leave?”

The Regent remained silent and Grandel said, “The Time Takers, if they truly do exist, will try again and again until we’re killed.”

Andy looked at Grandel and smiled, “You’re right. But before they try again, they’ll come here and kill every one of us.” Andy looked at the Regent, “They have all the time they need to place numerous communities here and, eventually, a group of humans will be here that will kill you when you arrive. The next ones that survive might be a community like the Destroyers. I suspect they will be the ones the Time Takers will assist if they’re forced to do this again. Then you’ll be gone and my species will be gone with the arrival of the comet. They won’t make the mistake again of sending anyone back that knows about it coming.”

The Regent looked at Grandel, “Do you actually believe this?”

“They do and there is evidence to support that belief.”

“What evidence? I find this story difficult to accept.”

Grandel shook his head, “Then explain to me how they knew we were coming at this exact moment and are prepared with advanced technology that they obviously didn’t develop here? Our scans showed no high technology plants or engineering on this planet. And why did your mind beam kill our attackers and have no effect on them. They also knew we were coming here to trial a new weapon. Taken together, I’m inclined to believe them. Time travel is not beyond comprehension; it’s just another form of technology.”

The Regent nodded slowly and looked back at Andy, “So just how do you intend to prevent our destruction?”

“First, I want to convince you the Time Takers exist. Secondly, we have to make it look like we actually did kill you.”

The aliens started looking at each other and the Regent smiled, “Just how are you going to do that?”

“My daughter tells me that you have a device that you can use to view things away from your ship. Is that true?”

The Navigator said loudly from the end of the long line of aliens, “We do have portable scanners that we can place and view what happens around it.”

Andy looked at him, “If you will bring one here, we will place it where it will view the sky above this location.”

The Regent said, “Why here?”

“Because the Time Takers knew that it would be our community that probably would be in control when you arrived. They observed us long enough to determine our ancestors were the strongest of those that were brought back. I suspect they’ll visit the Destroyer City and then come here. However, we need to make sure your scanner looks like it was blown off your ship and embedded in the top of the cliff. Will they be able to detect you using that device?”

The Regent looked at the Navigator who said, “We can watch the images passively with a reception antenna. There won’t be any direct connection.”

Andy nodded, “We also need something off your ship that is constructed from the same material as the hull.”

Grandel said, “Why?”

“We’re going to cut it up into small pieces and leave it scattered here. The larger the items are that you give us, the more likely they’ll believe your ship was actually destroyed by the comet after we killed you.”