by Saxon Andrew
Dat nodded and looked at the five moaning cadets on the floor. He rubbed the side of his head; there was going to be a bruise, “Tell them someone handed me another victory.”
The cadet smiled, “I watched the recordings; no one handed you anything. Now you need to get out of here; these guys are poor losers.”
Dat nodded and stumbled out of the Bar. Senior Captain Hull watched the fight and smiled. It appeared Arvolo was good at handling superior odds. She waited until the six cadets were standing at the bar with bags of ice on their injuries. She heard Thomas say, “That was pretty dumb.”
“We had numbers on our side.”
“Read your history; that’s when the Arvolos are at their best.”
Kat smiled and admitted she had to agree with the cadet.
• • •
“There has been a violation.”
The fifty beings surrounding a large round table in a dark room stirred. “Give us what you’ve seen.” The fifty had the recording sent directly to their minds. “How did the intruder escape?”
“We initially thought the intruder was little more than a piece of an asteroid. However, it extended some kind of energy field that extended more than ten light minutes from its location. The readings of that field indicate that it is like nothing in our knowledge stores. It must have a way to see us approaching. It disappeared immediately before we arrived.”
“I notice the ship was quite small.”
It is; it’s actually smaller than most of our heavy transports used on our planets. Even our escape pods are larger.”
“Where did it go?”
“That is information we find troubling; it did not leave a trace for us to follow.” The Fifty were surprised at that bit of information. “Our scientists did an examination of the fields that it extended and, though they didn’t know what they were, determined that the power necessary to power those fields that distance without losing energy is greater than what our medium warship uses.”
“Are you saying that tiny ship is more powerful than our warships?”
“Unless it used all of its available power on that screen, it is.” The Fifty were silent again as they thought about the small ship. “There’s another thing.”
“What is that?”
“When the ship disappeared, the ships that arrived were scanned by a powerful field. Twenty ships jumped to the location of that scan and found nothing. Immediately after our ships left, the galactic probes heard a transmission that seemed to fill all of known space. The probability is high that whatever scanned our ships sent that transmission.”
“And you couldn’t find it?”
“No, we could not. However, we raised the sensitivity of our scanners and found millions of transmissions embedded inside the background noise being made on that frequency. The power of the initial transmission was higher because it was made closer to us. Evidently, that ship is from an advanced civilization located a great distance from us.”
“Are you able to determine what direction those transmissions are coming from?”
“No.”
“Put all ships on Condition Blue. If one of those ships is seen again, I want it destroyed or captured. Do not allow it to escape again.”
“What about the Scout Ships?”
“They will remain where they are until we determine the magnitude of this threat. I’m leaning toward the belief that one of our scouts caused this ship to come here.”
“No ships like this one were seen in the star groups we’ve scouted.”
“Are we able to see everything in a star group?”
“No, not everything.”
“Then hold the scout fleet until we learn more.”
“They will hold their position.”
• • •
Gresha looked up at the rapidly disappearing sun and walked faster toward her family’s quarters. The ground was muddy and she found it slow going up the hill. She was still a mile from her building. She glanced across the field next to the community toward the setting sun and saw a Master’s Shuttle. Her fear almost froze her. She looked at the sun and knew it was going to be close. The shuttle must have just landed and she knew that many in the community had not seen it arrive. She only saw it because she was close to the peak of the hill and could see over the buildings at the front edge of the community. The Masters were here and once the sun went down, no one would be safe from their attention.
She considered dropping the bag of food but knew her family needed it desperately. Her fear drove her forward and she finally made it to the top of the hill, just as the sun disappeared below the horizon. She started running and glanced over her shoulder and saw the port on the Master’s shuttle was now open. Terror gripped her heart and she ran out of control down the slope toward the door a hundred yards in front of her. She began to think she would make it to safety when she bumped into a large body and screamed; she knew her life was over, “Where are you going so fast, pretty girl? Slow down, I’ll take you into my quarters…for a small favor.” Gresha struggled in the large male’s arms but couldn’t break free. “Come on, you’ll enjoy it. No one has ever complain…”
The large male stopped mid word and the expression on his face underwent a sudden transformation. It changed from a wicked smile to a look of shock and then paralysis. Gresha managed to push away from the male and saw the black six inch thick cord of a Master’s arm wrapped around the male’s throat and a long, sharp, pointed tongue of a Master sticking through his chest where his heart had been eaten. Gresha struggled out of the dead male’s arms and sprinted twenty yards beyond the two still locked in death’s embrace and pounded on the door. It opened, she was dragged forcibly inside, and the door slammed just before the Master’s black arm gripped her. She remained on the floor with her eyes closed and heard the Master’s squeal of laughter outside. Her father looked at her in anger shaking his head, “Don’t do this again! You know about darkness!”
“The farmer refused to accept payment until the very last moment. He wanted to see me killed.”
Her mother just shook in terror, “If he can’t have you, he won’t allow anyone else to possess you.”
Gresha looked at her mother with a disgusted expression, “I’d rather have the Master’s embrace.”
Her father heard screams further up the street and said, “Do this again and you may get your wish.”
• • •
Dat looked at the faces of the Rovers on his display and said, “I’ve sent you what information I was able to collect before I was forced to run. Have all of you examined it?”
“Why did you run?”
“Have you examined the power of the beams used by those ships in the past?”
“The current beams aren’t as strong.”
Dat stared at Benjamin Durok and said, “They aren’t as strong because they’re much wider.”
“Exactly.”
“Do you know if they’re able to focus those beams into a smaller diameter?”
Ben stared at Dat on the display and after a long pause shook his head, “No, I don’t.”
Dat stared at the Rovers and said, “One thing you are all going to have to get out of your minds is that we are invincible. If we are, no harm done; but if those beams can be tightened, they will overwhelm our force fields; we cannot allow this species to make that discovery. It would embolden them to start a search for us and that is the last thing we want. We are here to find out how many warships they have, what capabilities they possess and how they operate politically. You will avoid direct combat unless it’s absolutely required for self-defense. If you fire on one of those ships I will dismiss you from this mission! Is that clear?” All of them nodded.
Jill watched Dat and saw he was different. He was more…mature. He was also making sense.
Dat looked at Captain Anders, “Captain, I’m assigning six Rovers to you and I’ll take the other four. We are going to spread out above this galaxy and run through it, dropping microprobes where
ver we see a large energy source or intelligent civilization. We will divide the galaxy into eleven equal quadrants and go through them at high speed behind our dark matter force fields. I wasn’t followed when I skipped out so I’m of the belief that those ships are unable to track us in the barrier. Captain, do not stop for any reason. Take your group through and drop the scanners.”
“Yes Sir.”
“Once we emerge on the other side, skip back to this location. The Microprobes will start sending their data to fleet and the main computers will start analyzing what we uncover and feed it back to us. Are there any questions?” No one spoke and Dat said, “I also want your ship’s scanners set to find any species that are similar physically to our own. You have your assignments. We’ll start our run in twenty minutes. I would suggest you find a path through the galaxy with the most type G stars on it.” Dat ended the connections and looked at his panel, “Loree, have you located a good route?”
“I’ve plotted all the G stars and I’ll drop a scanner programmed to jump to those not on our route. If they don’t find intelligent life they’ll jump to another star. Should I suggest this to the others?”
“No, they are going to have to learn to operate alone. I need to see how good they are. Fleet tells me they are holding off taking any action until we complete our investigation. I must see which Rovers in our group can think on their feet. This will tell me something about that issue.” Dat paused, “Loree, can you scan without being seen?”
“I’m going to extend a half inch antenna out of our field and record passively. I’ll go through what we collect and remove everything of no value.”
“Stein, I want this done quickly.”
“Speed is my middle name.”
Dat shook his head, “You told me it was stealthy last week.”
“I had it legally changed.”
Dat rolled his eyes, “Are all computers like the two of you?”
“You’ve contaminated us. I suspect all the others are just boring.”
Dat nodded and said, “Set the countdown and get moving.”
The small white ship oriented toward a section of the giant galaxy at the twelve o’clock position looking down at the giant black hole and after a few minutes, disappeared.
• • •
Jillian noted that Dat had assigned her to Captain Anders’ group and though she was somewhat disappointed, she knew it was a good decision; it prevented “issues” from happening. None of the others knew about their history and she wanted to keep it that way. She listened to her scan computer designate the G stars off their route for a microprobe and she checked the main computer for time remaining. “Jack, you may start the walk up the hill when the countdown ends.”
“Actually, we’ll be going down this hill, Jill.”
“Whatever.”
Bucket said, “She’s grouchy.”
“She’s ticked that Dat outranks her; her being the President’s daughter and all.”
“Will you two cut it out?”
“See? Grouchy.” Jill shook her head as the six white ships all disappeared simultaneously.
• • •
Jon Anders watched the galaxy move toward him at unimaginable speed and then his ship was moving through star systems at a rate that was impossible. He knew that only the advanced cybernetic computers could handle the tasks assigned to him and was thankful for them. He was pretty much a passenger.
He thought about Fleet putting Captain Arvolo in command. He wondered if it was because they didn’t trust him or they had a higher level of trust in Arvolo. He had looked up Arvolo’s bio on the way out and saw he had a remarkable record. He had found more than ten new planets that had opened trade with the Galactic Alliance and ended two wars between civilizations. He accomplished all of that and still stayed ahead of his scanning quota. So far his orders were all reasonable and sound. He decided that this was not the place for ego problems. It appeared Arvolo trusted him. That was a good thing. One thing that was remarkable in Arvolo’s records; he had won all four fleet trials during his years at the academy. He graduated with the highest pilot score in the Academy’s history. It appears he was just like his ancient ancestor. In another three hours the scan would be completed. He was really curious about what they were facing in this monster galaxy. Four hours later he learned it was monsters.
Chapter Two
Dat looked at his display, “Did you see anything important, Loree?”
“There was too much data; I’m going to have to leave it up to Fleet’s computers to sort it all out. There are millions of civilized planets and getting them sorted out in a reasonable time is impossible. Just getting a good record of them was next to impossible.”
Dat saw the other Rover’s begin arriving and waited for Fleet to organize their recordings. Captain Ander’s ship appeared, “Captain, did you find anything significant?”
“My computer got a recording of a black creature killing an inhabitant on one of the planets we scanned.”
“Send me a copy of that, please.”
“You should have it now.”
Dat looked at the picture and saw a black being that appeared to be made out of numerous thick black ropes. It had lifted the inhabitant off the ground and its beak had penetrated its chest. The inhabitant was fifty percent larger than the black creature so it must have been incredibly strong. Dat stared at the black creature and didn’t see any type of technology on it. It was bare.
“I also recorded some of those black creatures boarding a warship that was identical to the ones that attacked you.”
Dat jerked his attention away from the display, “Lt. Connor, please send me a copy of your recording.”
Dat saw it appear on his display and he placed the two pictures side-by-side. It was the same creatures. Dat said, “Stein, did you record any of their communications?”
“I did. And before you ask, I am working on translating their language.”
“How long before you complete that task?”
“It’s rather complicated. I should be close within twenty hours.”
“Send the results to my translator.”
Tim said, “I have a recording of a huge fleet of medium sized ships that are gathered close to the outer edge of the galaxy.”
“Show me!”
The picture arrived and Dat said, “Stein, analyze those ships and see if you can determine what they are designed to accomplish.”
“I can already tell you those ships are scouts.”
“How do you know?”
“There are more scanners on them than weapons. They also have a rather large communications module on top of them above their bridges. They’re scouts, Dat.”
“Tim, did you get a number on that fleet?”
“Ten million plus.”
Dat smirked at the answer, “Well, now we know what we’re up against. They are going to expand into other galaxies.” Dat stared at the ships and said, “I want all of us to take thirty minutes and examine what you’ve collected. We’ll get back together and share our findings once that’s done. We should also have the initial review in from fleet by then.”
• • •
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about?”
“We have detected multiple waves of energy passing through our galaxy.”
“What kind of energy?”
“We don’t know. The only thing we were able to see was dust and charged particles appeared to be moving off their normal positions. We have been unable to determine why that happened. The plates show changes in course for multiple objects.”
“Severe course changes?”
“No, they were slight but they were consistent along a single track.”
“Were you able to get a reading on how fast the wave moved?”
“We did but we think there’s an error in our scans.”
“Why?”
“The scanners determined that the wave was moving more than fifty thousand times the speed of light.”
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“That’s jump speed.”
“We know. Objects in normal space are incapable of moving faster than light. We are recalibrating our scanners and watching to see if it happens again.”
The Master stared at the data and it made absolutely no sense. He didn’t know that an advanced ship had been discovered. Scientists were not in the military communication channel so he had nothing to relate the strange readings to but normal phenomena. “Keep me informed.”
“We will.”
• • •
Fleet Admiral Hull entered President Connor’s office and came to attention. Leigh Ann Conner looked up, “At ease, Admiral. What’s going on?”
“We’ve received the scans from the Rovers at the Apex Galaxy and we found some disturbing information.”
Leigh Ann’s eyes narrowed and she indicated a chair, “What have you found?”
“It appears that one species has conquered all the other civilizations in that giant galaxy. There are millions of civilized planets but they are all at a primitive level of technology. It appears the dominant species does not allow high technology on any of the conquered planets.”
“That would prevent any planet from becoming a threat to them.”
Katherine sighed, “It also gives the dominant species a stable food supply.”
“What!”
“It appears the dominant species doesn’t carry any food stores on their ships. They go to the surface of a conquered planet and feed on the inhabitants when necessary. That causes two things to occur; first, populations are stable and growth is extremely slow and two; ships don’t have to assemble to replenish their stores. They can remain on station throughout the galaxy. It does appear that some sort of equilibrium has been established and the conquered planets are barely eking out an existence.”
“We need to know how that system functions.”
“I’m going to ask the Rovers there to investigate. There’s more, Sir.” Leigh looked at Kat and nodded for her to continue. “We found a fleet of more than ten million ships that are scouts. It appears the dominant species is planning an expansion outside their galaxy.”
