Escape to Earth-Living Legends

by Saxon Andrew

  Omny looked at Michael, “This ship can withstand the Monster’s disruptors long enough to get down to the hull.”

  Michael smiled and looked at Luke, “Am I right, or what?” Luke handed Michael a twenty credit. Michael accepted it and looked at Omny, “You attacked that warship when it was stationary. Using that technique with a moving ship would be…”

  Omny said, “Impossible.”

  Michael nodded, “You showed us how to kill it. This is what we’ll use to do it.” Omny smiled and pulled Shelia under his arm. He looked at Michael, “Will I be given one?”

  Michael looked at Averel and she sighed out loud, “I know, I know, I need to keep my big mouth shut.”

  Omny looked at the Goran and Michael said, “We are going to have to build an entirely new class of warship and we won’t have large numbers before the Legends in the Pandora Cluster start receiving their ships. We are going to build them as quickly as possible and the first commander of the initial squadron will be a Commodore until we have enough to constitute a fleet.”

  Omny looked at Michael and nodded as he stared at the warship. Then Shelia elbowed him in the ribs and he looked at her. Then he remembered Averel had called him Commodore. He snapped his head around and saw Michael smiling, “I expect you to make your squadron something special Commodore.”

  “BUT…”

  “Who among us is better qualified to train the pilots that will be flying this ship? Your squadron will remain with Fifth Fleet until the numbers justify making it an independent fleet.”

  Omny slowly shook his head and Michael said, “You do have to make two decisions immediately. Omny stared at him and Michael said, “First, you have to select your Second-in-Command and second, what squadron will be used to learn how to fly these new ships.”

  Omny stared at Michael still in shock and Michael said, “These ships will require two pilots. The systems are designed so that one will have to fly and the other operate the weapon systems to prioritize targets.”

  Omny shook his head and said, “You need look no further than who is under my left arm for my Second.” Michael nodded and Averel handed him some papers. He handed Omny a stack and Shelia another, “I need both of you to sign these to make the promotions official.”

  Averel walked forward and handed each of them a pen, “Just sign the bottom line on the last page. Initial each page before it on the bottom right corner.”

  Shelia looked at Michael, “Does this mean we will be flying together?” Michael nodded and Shelia signed quickly. She elbowed Omny again and he began signing.

  Michael waited and then Omny handed him the forms and said, “I think Eighth Squadron had demonstrated their strength and determination by holding those heavy blasters at Present Arms for hours.” He looked at Katy, “If that meets with your approval, Sir.”

  Katy’s smile was huge and she knew the healing was complete, “I agree with your selection. They have something to prove to their new C.O.”

  Omny looked at Michael, “When do we start?”

  Michael looked at Budge, who said, “You will start simulator training at the conclusion of this meeting. I’ll send someone to pick up your pods so we can move your computers into your new ship.”

  Michael looked at Omny, “One more thing, Commodore; all of the new ships will be telepathic so they can link during combat. You’re going to have to work on perfecting using that system during your initial field training.” Omny smiled as the Admirals gathered around him and congratulated him.

  • • •

  Jay, Josey, and Jan walked over to Michael and he smiled, “Yes, we will be using the new ship and no, I’ve not decided who will be flying together. However, you will start working on the simulators after this meeting as well.”

  Josey smiled, “Will you be joining us in the training?”

  “No, I helped the twins design the training and I’ve already completed it. Do well!”

  Michael turned and went over to Audrey. Josey looked at them and raised her eyebrows. Jay said, “The Commander is not so easy to understand.”

  Josey nodded, “I thought that decision would be a no brainer.”

  She looked at Jan, who shrugged. Jay smiled, “Perhaps he wants to fly with a real pilot.” Both Josey and Jan punched him on the arm. Jay faked severe pain as the three laughed and ran toward the training center. Jan sprinted ahead of them and wondered why the Commander had not told them who would be with him. They arrived at the center and Josey and Jay bent over and grabbed their knees. Jay said, “I think I’m going to barf.” He looked at Jan who wasn’t even sweating, “How do you do that?”

  Jan smiled brightly, “Clean and cheerful living. You two ought to try it.”

  Josey fought for breath and shook her head, “I’d slap you if I could stand up!”

  Jan smiled, “I find it odd that you two overachievers are bent over just outside the door that has air conditioning inside it.”

  Jay started shaking his head, “I’ll hold her; you tickle her.”

  “Deal!”

  “On no!”

  Jan rushed in the door as Jay said, “Maybe a little later. I think we need to start running in the evenings.”

  “You think?” They finally caught their breath and went inside to find Jan sitting at a terminal with a pair of headphones on as three instructors were offering her their assistance. Josey looked at Jay, “Oh, she is so going to be tickled.”

  Jay nodded, “We’ll start with her feet and save the ribs for last.”

  Michael listened to them telepathically without violating their private thoughts. It was pretty clear which of the three overachievers was ‘The Overachiever. He thought about it and asked Averel to send him Jan’s personnel file. He received it immediately and he thought, “You must have had it already loaded for download?”

  “I knew it was just a matter of time. Enjoy!”

  Michael’s head went back and he wondered what she meant. He started reading and knew what she was saying.”

  • • •

  Hengel sat in the barrier in interstellar space outside the Legends’ planetary system that ordered the ships to be built in another galaxy and was getting frustrated. The Legends had obviously built a communications system that blocked telepathy. He wondered how that could happen. If they were using telepathy, he should be able to hear it. He thought about the issue and then said, “Computer, use your passive scanners to see if you can detect any electronic emissions originating at the Legends’ Planet.”

  “Working.”

  Hengel thought about why the Goran Scouts didn’t want their computers to be as advanced as the ones used by the humans. He reflected on the issue and finally decided that the Goran didn’t want another being having access to their thoughts. Privacy was impossible with a telepathic species and sitting alone in open space without another’s thoughts was sheer bliss. However, there were some decisions that should be examined in greater detail before making them. He thought about it more and then a thought entered his mind. The pilot of that Monster Ship that came here and left had a telepath on board. He ignited the thrusters and fled away from the planet at an incredible speed that only the barrier provided. He heard the computer say, “The barrier at our former location has just been disrupted.”

  “All Scouts, get out of this cluster! Flee immediately!” Hengel listened and heard the scouts questioning his order but two of them didn’t respond. Averel was going to kill him for this. Keeping tabs on the Legends just ended.

  The Computer announced, “There is a frequency in the void that originates at that planet. The communications are encrypted.”

  “Can you break the encryption?”

  “I am not advanced enough to do that.”

  “Send a copy of the transmission you intercepted to Averel and request her to see if Fleet Operations can break the encryption.”

  Hengel waited and thirty minutes later Averel said, “You were lucky! What possessed you to run?”

  “I don�
�t know. I just had a thought about that telepath that took the Monster to the Bullet Cluster and from the meeting you fed to me, I realized it was pretty adept. It had to be as good as we are. Once I saw that, I realized that my thoughts aren’t being blocked. If there was one of them, there could be more. I decided to run.”

  “That transmission you sent us gave Intelligence fits but they managed to decrypt it. The transmission was directing more than a hundred ships in on your location.”

  “Averel, two scouts didn’t respond.”

  “It appears they planned to attack all of you simultaneously. Hengel, where did that warning thought come from?”

  “If it wasn’t my own, I don’t know. I didn’t feel any outside presence. Why couldn’t it have been my own thought?”

  “The timing.”

  “I’m coming to Earth to pick up a Battle Pod with the Telepathy Module. I’m going to order all scouts to start wearing a thought blocker and use the ship’s computers to listen.”

  “I know where there are more than five hundred Battle Pods that are available.”

  “Where!?”

  “I’ll contact Admiral Greenwall under Michael’s signature and order her to make them available to you and the other scouts. Bring them to Earth and Budge will install the Telepathy Modules.”

  “You know I won’t be able to communicate with you if I’m wearing a thought blocker.”

  “You’re not getting out of it that easy. If I need you, I’ll send a thought to your new computer.”

  Hengel smiled, “You are so amazingly brilliant.”

  “Not enough to anticipate the attack on you and the other scouts. One of us should have seen it coming.”

  “Are you going to tell Michael?”

  “No, I’m going to contact someone that can help me understand what’s going on.”

  “Who is that?”

  “His father.”

  “Is it your thought to do that?”

  Averel paused and said, “Now you’re making me paranoid. I can see what you’re saying; perhaps I’ll have an answer after I speak with him.”

  • • •

  “What do you mean you only killed two of them!?”

  “The one that warned them away is incredibly slippery. It somehow determined he was in danger and ordered the others to flee. I’ve got that one’s pattern and I will kill it.”

  “You sound pretty certain about that?”

  “I can prevent it from hearing me. The same cannot be said about it. I will remove it from existence.”

  “When are the ships arriving?”

  “Be patient. It takes time to build a small planet.”

  “I do trust the next ones will be better than the one your brother had blown out from under him.”

  “The ships are being modified. The disrupter patterns have been changed and they are now able to fire at angles at any vessel stupid enough to try that maneuver again. That is why they’re being delayed. Those changes will take time to implement.”

  “If you’re successful, we will give you your own galaxy to rule.”

  “I look forward to it. What galaxy have you chosen?”

  “It’s a large spiral galaxy a long distance from here. It’s inhabited by thousands of intelligent civilizations.”

  “I’ll enjoy consuming them. The smarter the better.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Chris.”

  “Averel, you will not invade my privacy, is that clear! If you can’t do that, then leave!”

  Averel paused and then thought, “I’ve wondered why you isolated yourself. You’ve been hiding the existence of someone who is inserting thoughts into our minds.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Hengel was nearly killed by an ambush set up by a telepathic being in the Legends’ Cluster. He had a thought and managed to barely save himself and the other scouts. Two of them didn’t make it.” Chris was silent and Averel said, “I was going to take this to Michael and I suddenly had the thought to contact you instead. Is this a mistake?”

  “Averel, look in my mind at what I see and you tell me.”

  “But you said…”

  “Shut up and look. You know you are anyway you old busybody!”

  “Hey, I’m not old.” Averel looked at Chris’s mind and after a few moments she recoiled out of it. “Chris, this is…I don’t have the word for what it is.”

  “Somewhere between catastrophic and wonderful.”

  “You know that if my contacting you is not my own thought, we’re being listened to.”

  Chris sighed, “I know.” Allison walked up and Chris mouthed, Averel. Allison grabbed her neck.

  “So Allison knows about this, too?”

  “She does.”

  “Chris, help me understand this. What should I do?”

  “That’s just it, Averel, you can’t do anything. Think about what would happen if this got out. No one would make a move until they had a thought on what to do. They’d be frozen into immobility. Can you see that?”

  • • •

  Averel sighed mentally, “Yes and then who, or what, ever is doing this will have to make direct instructions.”

  “Or stop communicating with us.” Averel was silent and Chris said, “Averel, that’s why I’ve avoided you like the plague. I didn’t want you to have this information and not be able to hide it. You know, at the very least, Hengel will see it. I knew you wouldn’t just take my word and not pry open the cover of this box.”

  Averel sighed, “You’re right. Do you know if whoever is doing this has good intentions?”

  “It appears they’ve been good so far but that’s like falling off a fifty story building and falling twenty floors; you can honestly say, ‘So far; so good’.”

  “Chris, it’s strange you used a box metaphor.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Goran’s do have the ability to hide some thoughts from other telepaths. We mentally create a, for lack of a better term, box and place all the thoughts we don’t want known inside it. We’re extremely reluctant to do it because any telepath I communicate with would see that I was hiding something.”

  “Averel, you work in the most sensitive job in the Alliance. If anyone questions you about hiding something, simply say, ‘Duh, do you know where I work? There are some things I’m given direct orders to keep secret’.”

  Averel was silent and said, “Was that your thought, Chris?”

  “Now you see why I had to go into exile. You’ll start to question everything you do from now on.”

  “Chris, I can’t live that way.”

  “Yes you can.”

  “How?”

  “Hengel is alive and by all rights, he should be dead, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then thank whoever saved him and assume these things don’t happen normally. I wouldn’t be given a thought about a box and you wouldn’t be directed mentally to lock that information away. If you look at all that’s happened, they just don’t do it unless it’s absolutely critical.”

  “So Hengel is critical?”

  “It appears he is.”

  “Thanks, Chris. I’ll not reveal this to anyone. Especially anyone in a leadership position.”

  “You would freeze them if you did.”

  “Chris, I never told you this, but I love you. You are really special and I’ve never told either of you how wonderful the two of you are.”

  “Thanks, Averel. You already know how we feel about you.”

  “Would it be alright for me to contact you occasionally?”

  “Now that the cat is out of the box…there’s that metaphor again. Sure.”

  Averel ended the contact and immediately contacted Michael, “Have you decided who you’ll be flying with?”

  “No and don’t you look to see!”

  “Ooops, too late. I’ll keep the information hidden.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “If you give me a direct order to do it.”

>   “Then consider yourself ordered.”

  “Talk to you later.”

  • • •

  “Hengel.”

  “Yes, Love.”

  “There wasn’t anything to it.”

  “Why are you hiding something?”

  “I’ve been ordered to by Michael.”

  Hengel saw the last conversation Averel had with Michael and smiled, “I don’t want to know. I want it to be a surprise.”

  “It will be. Hurry back with your ship. I can use some alone time with you.”

  “I’ll hurry.”

  Suddenly, Averel felt a warm feeling permeate her body. She smiled and looked at the list of things that needed completion. Chris was right.

  • • •

  “Michael.”

  “Hello Audrey. What’s going on?”

  “You ordered me to send some scouts back to where that ship was destroyed and they waited until the ships sent from that galaxy to investigate left the scene.”

  “I don’t like your tone of voice. What did they find?”

  “There was a huge portion of the ship that wasn’t totally destroyed and they went inside it and took a look around.”

  “And?”

  “They found numerous pressurized boxes with dead bodies in them.”

  “What?”

  “The scout that found them used a bio-scanner on some of them and the readings were abnormal.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “We had enough dead bodies floating around inside it to compare to those in the containers. It appears that something killed those bodies inside the containers by removing every nerve tissue in their brains. Their bodies died from not having neural impulses being able to go from the brain to their vital organs. Everything just stopped working.”

  “How many containers were there?”

  “Two hundred.” Michael was silent and Audrey said, “Michael?”

  “Audrey, that ship wouldn’t transport dead bodies. You know how valuable space is on a warship.”

  “This ship had that space built specifically for those bodies.”

  “Then something consumed them during the voyage; that is the only possible answer.”