by Saxon Andrew
Brez keyed his com, “Admiral Grace, my Warriors in the fourth largest city could use some help.”
“On our way, General.”
Brez looked at the poison that coated his armor from the close calls with death he had in the day’s fighting and thought, “Looks like I won’t be coming out of this outfit any time soon.” He looked at his display and said, “Let’s go to the fifth city, Juck. Things are still undecided there.”
“Right with you, Sir.”
Brez smiled and thought, “It’s good to have a Cainth teammate,” and then they disappeared.
And reappeared in the middle of a huge rush of spiders coming at them. They instantly teleported a hundred yards to the right and began firing their auto cannons into the side of the rushing mass of green creatures. A company of Red Warriors were the target of the mass and they were laying down a solid wall of iron ball projectiles in front of their line. The creatures were piling up in front of the warriors as they slowly gave ground as the mass continued to come at them. Brez continued to fire and keyed his com, “First and second companies teleport to my location now. An additional two hundred Red Warriors appeared around Brez and began engaging the tide of green spiders as they began to turn toward the new comers. The new arrivals continued to fire as the mass swarmed quickly at the two companies of warriors. “General, we have seen your tactical on our display and will fire on your order.”
Brez saw a megaship had ported in above his warriors and he keyed his com, “Teleport eight hundred yards to the rear in three seconds, Captain, fire.”
The Megaships unloaded a magazine of five hundred thousand iron balls directly into the mass of spiders below them just as the Red Warriors disappeared. Brez ordered, “Advance in odd numbered teams; even numbered will advance second.” Half of the warriors moved five yards forward, kneeled and fired their auto cannons non-stop. Two seconds later the other half moved through their ranks and did the same. The first group used their arm guns to hit any individual targets still moving and then moved five yards forward. Brez noticed that Juck had the area in front of his two auto cannons clear for more than a hundred yards. “General, we have another mass approaching from your rear. I am calling in two more ships for support but they will not arrive for two minutes. Try to keep this mass out in the open in the square around you.”
“Will do our best, Navy. Even number teams will continue to fire forward; Odd numbers turn and move fifty yards and prepare to hit the mass coming from our rear. Eighth and ninth companies, teleport to my coordinates and support one of the two groups.” Brez knew that he was leaving only nine thousand warriors in the town he had just left but felt that they were in better shape to handle what remained. “Juck come join me in the middle; we will support the side hardest hit.”
Juck stood and ran to Brez’s side and said, “It appears that the group coming at our rear is much larger than the one just hit by the Megaship.”
“Only momentarily, there are additional spiders moving in from the front joining the survivors. Let’s try to slow the ones down in the rear and then move to the front.”
Brez keyed his com, “All warriors, the Navy will arrive in a minute and fifty seconds. We have to make this mass of spiders stay in the square and that means we can’t jump out before they arrive or this mass will scatter. Set your systems to automatically teleport in one hundred seconds; we will fight until that time arrives or we will die holding this ground. If we can take out this mass then we will save millions of the local population. If they get inside our lines, draw swords and try to survive.”
“Here they come, Juck yelled over the link.” The warriors facing the rear began firing in unison and began hitting the spiders a hundred yards out as they rushed into the square from the surrounding buildings. Huge mounds of them began building which only slowed the ones jumping over them slightly.”
“The front mass has just arrived, General.”
“Hold out, Captain. Use your links to fire your cannons.”
The two hundred and fifty warriors in each group released their grips on their shoulder mounted auto cannons and allowed their armors computer to take over firing. They then pulled their long swords and waited as the mass moved closer and closer. The two lines of warriors began slowly giving ground until the two groups were literally back to back. Then the spiders hit their lines and the killing became up close. Brez swung his sword and cut off a spider’s head then turned and jammed the eight foot blade directly into the mouth of the spider leaping to bite him. He ripped the sword out and slashed at another spider leaping at the back of the warrior beside him and then ducked as a spider passed over his head and hit another warrior in the back taking him down to the pavement and biting through his armor. The spider died as another warrior cut it in half with a sword slash. Brez’s auto cannon turned and fired twenty rounds into a spider leaping at his head and then shot two more that had hit warriors beside him. The killing was happening almost faster than Brez could follow. Brez saw a four foot circle around Juck as the small Cainth walked through the green mass swinging the four swords faster than eyes could see. Suddenly, Brez was hit and fell to the ground with a spider thrusting its fangs at his neck. Then he found himself on the ground with the spider gone from his chest. He looked up and saw a solid curtain of iron balls falling out of the three megaships above the giant mass of swarming spiders. “Move in among the building around the square. Use your links for your locations.” Brez had verbally told his command link to cut off any escape routes from the square and the computer automatically assigned the surviving Red Warriors to their positions. Only a hundred and fifty warriors survived but they prevented any of the spiders that survived the rain of iron balls from escaping. Someone would tell him later that his group was responsible for killing more than a million invaders in that square; but for the moment Brez fought to keep the deaths of his brothers out of his mind.
“General, you are in the clear for the moment. We do not see any large number near your location.”
“Thanks, Navy. You’re making the difference.”
“We are needed near the housing district, General. Call us if you need us.”
“Will do, Captain.” Brez looked at his tactical display and saw that there was not any more large concentration of invaders in the city. There were still hundreds of thousands of individual spiders swarming around but the worse of the battle ended at the square. He keyed his com, “Colonel Ytds, come take command of this cleanup; download the links of this unit.”
“On my way, Sir.”
“Juck, are you still alive?”
“I’m really not sure, Sir. All I can see right now is a vision of a spider pasted to my face plate.”
Brez smiled, “Are you having fun yet?”
“My ancestors would kill each other for this kind of fun, Sir, where now?”
“Back to the government center.”
“I’m locked in on your signal, Sir.”
Brez appeared at the government building and found the leaders of the planet staring at their displays. The large leader of the group turned when they appeared and said, “We would all be dead but for your arrival. My planet owes you a debt we can never repay.”
“I need your armed forces to start helping us now.”
“What would you have us do?”
“I am going to teleport a shipment of hand weapons that will kill these creatures. I need your troops to take them and start eliminating any green creature on sight.”
The commander of the armed forces looked at Brez, “Thank you for saving my life. I will communicate with my units about the weapons.” He punched a button and handed Brez a disc. “If you will send the weapons to the sites listed in the numbers beside each site we will welcome the opportunity to join you.”
Brez scanned the disc with his armor’s scanner and sent the information to the weapons factory on Cross. “Teleporting now, Sir.”
“The weapons are arriving now at the sites you gave me. Tell your troops
to just aim and shoot. The guns operate very simply. Don’t waste the munitions. One shot will kill these creatures.”
The commander listened to his communication device and said, “They are being distributed now around the planet. We will be joining you immediately.”
“Thank you Commander.” Brez turned to the planet’s leader. “We will talk after we have control of the ground. We haven’t won yet but with your help I believe we will.”
“What if they send another ship?”
“We have destroyed all of their ships in our universe. This one just launched ships before we could hit it.”
“How many ships did they have in our universe?”
“There were more than two million of the big ships like the one floating in your outer system. Only three planets were actually invaded; we were able to stop the rest. I am truly sorry we weren’t able to prevent them landing here.”
Brez and Juck disappeared from the room. The planet’s leaders in the room looked at each other and then went and looked at the display showing the thirty thousand mile wide ship floating in space. They wondered how these beings were going to treat them after the conflict was over. The Leader looked at the group and said, “However they choose to treat us; it would not be anything like those green creatures planned. We should be thankful.”
“Matt.”
“Yes, Al.”
“General Brez’s division has been chewed up pretty badly on the planet they teleported in on; Fleet Command actually committed four divisions to the ground action and it is still raging. The local population has now joined the surviving Red Warriors and it looks like the tide has turned such that we should ultimately win.”
“How many casualties, Al?”
“More than forty five thousand, Matt, most of them in Brez’s Division; however the numbers dying have gone down tremendously in the last four hours.”
“What about the other two planets?”
“Fleet Command had two hours longer to organize their defense and each of them had four divisions teleport in. They were able to hit the majority of the incoming ships and had much fewer numbers to handle. Their actions are close to being completed.”
“Al, try to get recordings of the action from Brez’s division; I know that there will be recognition due to many of the warriors that fought there.”
“I have already downloaded the recordings from the megaships. I want you to watch one of the battles that Brez was actually involved in if you have a few moments.”
“Send it to me mentally, Al.”
Matt closed his eyes and watched as the five hundred Red Warriors faced the million plus invaders swarming in on them. After twenty minutes Matt opened his eyes.
“What are you thinking, Matt?”
“I’m ashamed of sitting here with you while our warriors are dying as they are bitten by that horde. Only a hundred and fifty lived, Al?”
“That’s right, Matt. They had to stay until the Megaships could arrive to hit them in the open. I’ve never witnessed such bravery, Matt.”
“None of them teleported out; they could have saved themselves but didn’t. I am proud to have them fighting for us, Al.”
The two of them sat in silence thinking about the courage of warriors that placed the good of others before their own lives.
Sprig stood on Destiny’s bridge watching one of the planets that had the new shield installed. The millions of invader ships were approaching the planet and Sprig commented, “We’ll know if this things works in about thirty seconds.”
They watched and then saw the ships stop more than two hundred miles above the planet and move no closer. “Looks good so far,” Eyes said.
“Give it a few more minutes.”
After fifteen minutes, the huge fleet of ships stayed two hundred miles above the planet’s surface. Destiny hit his communication board, “Cassandra, are you ready?”
“I am, Destiny. I have remained in mental contact with my ship but I still don’t know if it will just disable them. I’ll go in and target one of the transports and see if the Kosiev will do as I ask.”
“Let me know as soon as you find out.”
“I will.”
Cassandra felt the Kosiev vibrating at the prospect of battle. She closed her eyes and thought, “I know you can hear me. I know you are a warrior at heart but do you know that a warrior’s purpose is to save life by fighting. Those ships you see are soon going to be our friends if we can just stop them from fleeing. Will you help me?” The vibration continued, “You know I love you. I need you to help me make this happen. It will hurt me very much if we kill them.”
The vibration continued and Cassandra placed her weapon site on one of the transports above the planet. “Alex, you must help me make this happen.” The vibration rose in pitch and Cassandra closed her eyes and hit the firing button. A light shot out of the Kosiev and hit the transport. Tommy and Cassandra saw an eruption of red light from the hole that the shard caused when it penetrated the ship’s hull. Tommy stood and said, “Launch the probe.”
A small sensor probe left the Kosiev and entered the two hundred mile long transport through the hole caused by the shard. Cassandra watched her screen and still felt the Kosiev vibrating around her. The probe entered the interior of the ship and they saw millions of the spiders floating around the inside of the ship. “Do you see any iron tree balls,” Tommy asked his sensor officer?
The sensor officer turned on the probes scanner and stared at the readouts for twenty seconds, “No iron balls, Sir.”
Cassandra felt her heart jump with joy and the ships vibration rose in pitch. Cassandra thought, “You are the best ship ever created my lovely. Disable the rest of those ships and let’s go to the other planets.”
The Kosiev teleported in three hundred miles above the planet and began firing penetrators at all of the invader ships in orbit around the planet. The Kosiev teleported eight times as it moved around the planet hitting the millions of ships with appropriate sized penetrator for each ship until they were all drifting in orbit. “Destiny, we have disabled every ship at the first planet. We are moving on to the next planet and we’ll leave these in your care.”
Destiny heard the message and jumped up out of his chair and shouted his joy. Sprig watched the spider and felt his joy. Sprig hit his command com, “First group of eight million Searchers teleport into the first system and launch your teleport probes.”
Destiny and Sprig watched their display as the eight million Searchers teleported into the system. Each of the searchers approached a green ship and launched a probe through the hole made by the penetrating shard. Once inside the disabled ship the probe activated a silver teleport screen that then rotated a full circle and teleported every green creature inside the ship to the planet where Destiny’s family had found the abundance of sea life. Sprig looked at Destiny, “You know that we would not have been able to teleport them out except for the device that Edison provided?”
“Yes, I know. At least it works on the green matter. I wish it would work on objects as large as a ship but it appears that only small objects the size of individuals can be teleported. Maybe we’ll find a way to move bigger objects later.”
“Until that time, my adolescents are teleporting to each of those ships with a portable star drive and jumping them to the entry point. We’ll place a beacon on the mass to warn travelers of its existence.” “Have you tried to communicate with the ones we’ve teleported to the sea planet?”
“Yes, and they are not completely free of the compulsions yet. It will take about thirty more of the human’s days. Then I believe we will be able to start acclimating them to this new situation.”
“Destiny, I don’t think I ever asked how many families the Nest Mother has under her control.”
“More than fifteen thousand, Sprig, each of them with more than eight million main ships.”
“If we kill the Nest Mother will the compulsions end?”
“No, the Supreme Male of each f
amily must also be killed in order to completely remove the compulsions from the lines of communication within the families. Killing the Nest Mother will end the creation of any new families and that should be our immediate goal.”
“So it looks like war for the long term.”
“Or we can just stay in this universe and ignore them.”
“Could you do that and be at peace, Destiny?”
The spider sat on his chair and thought about all the civilizations he had destroyed. Now that he had come to know these friends he felt guilt at his previous actions. All he had known was killing for millions of years and now he finally had a taste of what peace was and he was so content with it. Then he sighed and said, “No. I can’t live knowing that my species may be killing other civilizations like yours that have the capacity to become such great friends to me and my children. I can’t just stay idle and not work to stop them. I do believe that it is the responsibility of those we have saved at the sea world and my family to stop them. We will need your support but my race should bear the brunt of the fighting.”
