by Saxon Andrew
• • •
“General, I have something very unusual here.”
Brad walked over and looked at the Lieutenant’s panel, “What do you have?”
“I’ve just received a compressed squeal message from somewhere.”
Brad stared at the frequency and shook his head, “Have we used that frequency before?”
The Lieutenant shrugged and Brad said, “Erase it.”
“Sir, let me go into the defense system database and see if we’ve ever used it before I do that.” Brad nodded and left the Lieutenant’s desk. An hour later his communicator beeped and he saw the Lieutenant on his wrist unit, “Sir, I had to go into Fleet’s top secret files but I found where that frequency was used.”
“Where?”
“It was assigned to a communicator given to a Madator by the name of Ringie during the initial drop of the Madators on a Grillen Production Facility.”
“Lieutenant, decode the message and get it to me immediately!”
“Yes Sir.”
“Oh, and Lieutenant.”
“Yes Sir.”
“You are promoted to Captain and will go to flight training to assume the command of one of the Union’s Warships. Good job.” Brad knew the Lieutenant had applied for positions on a Union Warship. He was one of his best operators.
“Thank you, Sir.” Lt. Coranado found the file to decipher the message and he contacted the General again. Brad rushed out of his office screaming over his communicator. Shane’s ship was ordered to battle stations as Admirals Hull and Arvolo started reading the communication on their terminals. Dat jumped his Rover to the Saturn and entered the ship’s landing bay at emergency speed. He exited his Rover and ran to the tubes; he arrived on the bridge to find Shane yelling. Shane saw him enter the bridge, “Sir, what is going on!?!”
“You’re going to attempt a rescue.” Shane’s expression showed his confusion and it changed to concern as Dat said, “You are going to pull a ship out of green space.”
“Sir, I don’t know if that’s possible.”
Dat shrugged, “You will make it possible!”
“Sir, you know that when two ship’s fields touch in Green Space, the smaller of them is shoved into normal space. It’s a classic engagement maneuver.”
“Find a way, Admiral.” Shane rolled his head and eyes. Shane stood up and moved to the Second Command Chair as Dat sat in the ship’s Command Chair. Dat entered coordinates into the jump drive and smiled at Shane, “You have to come up with a way.” He pressed the jump button and the Saturn disappeared from normal space.
Chapter Eighteen
The Saturn jumped to a location more than ten light years from the shuttle’s coordinates. Dat took the ship back into Green Space and flew the ship manually toward the target’s coordinates. After ten minutes, they saw the glow of the shuttle’s jump drive directly ahead. He stopped the ship and looked at Shane, “Well?”
“Give me a minute.”
“Come on, Admiral; you can do this.” Shane could only shake his head.
• • •
Ringie saw the object coming toward them in green space and she moved an arm to the jump drive. When it stopped and started moving slowly forward she said, “They heard us!”
Blacky watched the approaching ship and knew it was a Jukebox. “Why didn’t they use one of the ships that dropped us?”
Ringie blew out the air she had absorbed, “Blacky, you know those old ships would never escape a Servant Warship. I suspect whoever came in that ship knows it as well.”
“We could both enter normal space and we’ll land in the ship’s landing bay.”
Ringie rolled her head side to side, “Blacky, the Servants are going to be on us long before we could execute that maneuver. I’m sure they are watching for the location beacon and have ships ready to immediately jump. I’ve been thinking about how to get around it and I have to admit that I’ve come up empty. If the Servants see the Jukebox they’ll know the Union is involved in the drop on their planets. It would probably cause them to immediately attack the Union.”
“So what do we do?”
Ringie shrugged. Blacky tried not to laugh but he couldn’t prevent it. It was the first time Ringie had used the human expression. Ringie smiled, “It does say what you feel.”
“Yes, it does.”
“I guess we’ll have to see what the Union has come up with and follow their lead.” Blacky nodded and watched the huge ship move closer.
• • •
Dat saw the small ship outside the Saturn’s jump field, “Admiral?”
Shane blew out a breath and turned his chair around, “Timson.”
“Yes Sir.”
“Do we have a program to control the jump field emitters?”
“Yes Sir, but it’s not designed to control small changes.”
“Patch the program into my panel. I want control of the emitters located directly between us and that shuttle.”
“All of them, Sir?”
“All of them. Route them to the six paddles on my panel.”
Dat heard the exchange and said, “What are you doing?”
“Admiral Arvolo, I need you to be quiet.”
Dat stared at Shane and saw the tension on his face. He leaned back in his chair and watched the main display. Shane began moving the paddles and prayed the Madators on the shuttle could see what he was doing.
• • •
Ringie and Blacky watched the huge ship and saw the ship’s jump field next to their shuttle start moving away from them toward the hull of the giant ship. Blacky stared at the change, “What are they doing?” Ringie looked up through the shuttle’s viewport and saw the jump field on top and bottom of the Saturn start to move over and below their ship. She grabbed the jump controls and minimized the field until it was only six feet from their ship. She grabbed the thruster controls and slowly moved the shuttle toward the giant ship. “What are you doing?”
“Shut up!” Blacky watched the giant ship move closer and grabbed the back of the second chair. He crushed the head restraint and quickly released it. “I guess I’ll have to be careful whenever I hug someone in the future.”
Ringie continued to operate the thrusters staring at the huge ship and said, “I hope that doesn’t mean me.”
Blacky stared at her as she worked the controls and said, “No, it does not.” Ringie smiled and slowed their approach toward the giant Union Warship.
• • •
Shane was starting to sweat. Controlling the various emitters was starting to drain him. He used his fingers to lock the paddles in place and only made small adjustments as he concentrated on the shuttle while manipulating the emitters on the top and bottom of his ship. Dat looked up at the tactical display and saw the shuttle was being surrounded by what looked like a huge letter C. The open end of the C was slowly moving beyond the shuttle and closing. The shuttle was being slowly surrounded by the Saturn’s jump field. Shane held the paddles between his fingers and locked them down on the board. He stared at his panel’s display and shouted, “Timson, start the hull lights flashing a twenty second count down.”
The lights on the Saturn’s hull flashed twenty times…paused…and then flashed nineteen times. Shane prayed the Madators would understand. He began closing the open end of the C shaped field and the distance between the two open ends of the C began moving slowly toward each other.
“What are they doing?”
Blacky watched the lights and after a moment said, “It’s reducing one each time.”
Ringie nodded, “It’s a countdown.”
“For what?”
“They want me to shut down the jump drive.”
“What?”
“Their field will close beyond us at the end of the countdown.” Blacky nodded and Ringie said, “I’m shutting it down after ONE.”
“Why not zero?”
“Zero would not appear. The last number will be one.”
“I hope you’re right
.”
“Me, too, Blacky.”
• • •
Shane watched the countdown and prayed they were as smart as he hoped. He said, “Timson, get over here and put your hand on the emitter’s controllers that operate next to the space the shuttle is located. When I say ‘now’, press all of them.”
Shane watched the countdown and saw the C had closed until the gap remaining between the two legs was smaller than the eye could see. The countdown hit one and he yelled, “NOW!!!” Shane closed the legs of the C, closed his eyes, and braced for an expected impact. After a moment, he opened one eye and saw the shuttle inside the Saturn’s jump field. He watched the shuttle enter the landing bay and he collapsed back into his chair. He tried to wipe his brow but couldn’t raise his arms.
Dat jumped out of his command chair and patted Shane on the back, “Well done, Admiral. You have proven again that you are the best we have.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
Shane looked at Lt. Timson, “Plot a course for an O-class star. We’re going to skip to it and drop the shuttle into its corona.” Shane watched the Saturn moving rapidly toward the largest speck ahead of them in green space. The Saturn stopped and the shuttle was pushed out of the Saturn’s landing bay. The Saturn skipped away and the shuttle emerged into the outer corona of one of the hottest stars in the universe; it promptly melted before the location beacon could activate. Even the self-destruct module’s explosion was too dim to see in the giant star’s light. Shane looked over at Captain Cambell, who was sitting with the jump officer, and said, “You have the ship. Timson, please help me get up out of this chair and take me to my quarters.”
“Yes Sir.”
Candy watched Shane leave the bridge and shook her head. The Admiral had impressed her again. What he had just done should have been impossible. She was starting to think the ship and he were one creature. She looked at Timson’s replacement, “Plot us a course back to Earth.”
“Yes Sir.”
• • •
Dat arrived in the landing bay and saw Blacky and Ringie exiting the shuttle. He slowed down and walked toward them with some dignity and smiled, “It’s good to see you.”
Blacky placed an arm on Dat’s shoulder and said, “It was a close thing.”
Dat looked at Blacky’s arm and saw he had not given his customary hug. He looked at Blacky and the Madator smiled, “I have to be careful now.”
“So it worked?”
“It did.”
“Now what are you going to do?”
“I need you to take us home.”
Dat lifted his wrist unit and pulled up the bridge’s frequency, “Admiral Matthews.”
“Sir, the Admiral is in his quarters having his arms treated. I am currently in command. Would you like me to patch you through to him?”
“No, Captain Cambell; please set a course for the Madator Home World.”
“Yes Sir.”
Candy looked at the jump officer who had entered the coordinates for Earth and was prepared to initiate the jump, “Change the destination.”
The Navigator had heard the exchange and nodded. A moment later he announced over the ship’s loudspeakers, “Jump in one minute. Prepare for jump in one minute.”
• • •
Dat heard the announcement and said, “Admiral Hull has been frustrated. Your leaders have refused to launch the second wave.”
Blacky looked at Ringie and back to Dat, “We will launch two waves immediately after we get back home. They’ll be ready to go within a week.”
“Do you really want to send that many of your population away? It’s going to be difficult to get them back home if this war is drawn out.”
“They won’t be coming back, Dat. The planets they land on will become their new homes.”
Dat stared at Blacky and felt a wave of fear. “Blacky, you know we would never agree to freeing your species to spread out away from your planet. We’ve seen how dangerous you can be.”
“Dat, you are going to have to decide. Our existence is tied to your survival and that frightens us to no end. You are going to have to determine whether or not you can trust us to keep our pledge, given in honor, to always defend you against your enemies. We have no desire to go back into starships. Ruling others is not our calling and we’ve seen how it can lead to our destruction. We’ve learned that nothing can remove us from a planet we’ve landed on except destroying the planet. That was the only way you were able to defeat us and we won’t make that mistake again. There will always be some of my species on the planet you’ve given us that can go out and assemble the number you need for defense. I hope we’ve done enough for you to trust me on this.”
Dat stared at Blacky and lowered his head. He signed heavily and looked at the large Black Madator, “What happens twenty thousand years from now when the ones that made the promise to us are long gone?”
“Every member of my species that takes strength from us will have that promise melded into their DNA. My descendants in that far future may see a human for the very first time…and they will immediately recognize them as a friend and ally.”
“How many of your people are going to draw strength from you?”
“All of them. The ones that left in the first wave have already ingrained the promise into their memory. You, and your friends by association, will never be in danger from us.”
“But Blacky, who is going to provide the prey for you to be happy on your new planets?”
Blacky smiled, “We fully intend to preserve some Servants for our entertainment. We’ll probably have to implement some rules to make the hunt fun and to ensure they are not eradicated, but we will find what we need.
Dat stared at Blacky, “What happens if I say no?”
“Then we will abide by your decision and pray you are never defeated by an adversary.”
Dat knew if this was brought to the Union’s leadership, it wouldn’t be allowed to happen. He thought about his children and the gift they were to him and Gresha. He smiled and looked up, “We’ll just keep this to ourselves until the next two waves have launched, shall we.”
Ringie smiled and put her arm on Dat’s shoulder as well, “You are a gift to us from the universe. You have sealed our promise with your heart.”
• • •
Shane sat in his room rubbing his arms while he listened to the conversation between the Madators and Arvolo on his personal monitor. He had fought against the Masters in a Rover and had watched many of his friends die around him. He didn’t like what the Admiral had just agreed to do. The Madators were incredibly adaptive and more dangerous than any species he had ever encountered. He started to contact Admiral Hull and tell her what was going on…but he hesitated. He had seen the recording of the Servant that had killed the Grillen King. Yet these Madators had dropped on their worlds with nothing more than their natural ability to fight them. They had bought time for the Union to build up their defenses and now they were going to send more than half their population out to face the danger as well.
He thought about Arvolo. Shane felt he could match him in piloting skills…but what about tactical? It was Arvolo that had really led the Union’s defense in both of the wars it fought. Admiral Hull was the overall commander but she was lost without Arvolo. So the question boiled down to whether or not he trusted Arvolo with this huge decision. He knew he really didn’t know much about the Madators and he certainly didn’t have a personal relationship with one. The corner of his mouth went up as he remembered telling the Admiral to ‘Shut up!’ The Admiral had said nothing about it after the exercise was over. That told him the Admiral did not have an overinflated ego. He wondered if he would have ignored it if one of his junior officers had told him to be quiet. He decided he would have said something. That little thing made the difference. Arvolo was doing this without an ego. He was making a decision based on the circumstances alone. He turned off the display and continued to rub his hands. He would support Arvolo in this. At the very leas
t, more than half of the Madators would be in other distant galaxies. That should count for something.
• • •
The Saturn arrived at the Madator’s planet and Dat took Blacky and Ringie down to the surface in his Rover. “Take us to the southern continent on the east coast about halfway down.”
Stein said, “Do you want to arrive at the large white structure on the coast?”
Blacky’s head rolled completely around his body, “That’s exactly where we want to go.”
Dat stared at the building in the scanner display, “When did you build that?”
“It was the first thing we did.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a place we worship.”
Dat stared at the building and the Rover spiraled down to the planet’s surface and landed four hundred yards away. Blacky turned to Dat, “It’s going to get rather crowded here shortly. You may want to watch this from overhead.”
Dat nodded and Stein lifted to a thousand feet and hovered above the white building. Blacky and Ringie walked to the large building and looked out from the entrance at the huge plain in front of it. Blacky looked up and screamed a series of hoots and screams. The hoots were picked up by Madators flying overhead and their screams were incredibly loud. Stein said, “They’re screaming that one has returned with the Ultimate Prey.”
The Madators began screaming in at high speed, flying high above the structure. Loree said, “The Elder Leaders are arriving.”
Dat saw twenty black shapes flapping their wings and coming in fast from over the mountains. The twenty shot down to the white building and sat down in a semicircle directly in front of Blacky and Ringie. They bowed their heads. Dat stared at them as Stein said, “There are six gaps in their line. They appear to be waiting on others to arrive. Over the next two hours, four Madators came flying in from over the ocean next to the building and an hour after that one came in from the south and another from the north. The semicircle was complete. At that point, Blacky and Ringie sat down in front of the elders and lowered their heads to their lower body touching the floor of the entrance. The sky was now black with more than a million Madators flying overhead. Thousands flew by the Rover every second.
