Annihilation - Finding Keepers (Annihilation Series (Book Seven})

by Saxon Andrew

  Jake looked at her and saw she had the most open face. He didn’t feel any danger from her. He was still amazed at how beautiful she was; he guessed she was about sixteen or seventeen years old. “Can’t you just look in my mind and see whatever you want?”

  “Possibly, but that might cause things to happen I would rather avoid. Besides, I want to get to know you. I’m amazed that we’ve finally found you, and I’m excited at the opportunity to actually get to talk with you.”

  Jake could see she was serious. He lowered his head, then decided. He told them about his childhood and how he had caused Robby’s death. He could not allow someone else to take the blame for his actions, and that’s why he went back to rescue Cynthia.

  Cynthia listened to Jake and forgot her nervousness. “How old are you, Jake?”

  Jake looked at her and said, “Nineteen.”

  Valerie actually broke into a beautiful smile, “Good! You’re not too old.”

  “‘Too old?’ For what?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing. We are going to have to do something about Gambia; it’ just not right how the population is treated. Why do you steal from the casinos?”

  The sudden shift in topic startled Jake. He looked Valerie in the eye and said, “I don’t.”

  Cynthia turned and said, “Oh yes you do! You did it tonight.”

  Jake shook his head and looked at both of them, “Tell me how I stole something tonight.”

  “You knew the machine was going to payout, and you tricked me into moving so you could win. You prevent others from winning, too.”

  Valerie tilted her head, “She does have a point, Jake.”

  Jake smiled, “No she doesn’t.” Cynthia started to stand up and Jake quickly said, “Sit down, please, and let me explain.”

  Valerie looked at Cynthia and nodded. Cynthia sat back down and leaned back.

  “Cynthia, if someone was giving away food and I jumped in front of you in line to get it, what law have I broken?”

  Cynthia thought a moment and said, “You probably didn’t break a law, but you were very discourteous.”

  “Is that against the law?”

  “Well, no, but food and money are different.”

  “How?”

  Cynthia struggled for a response and looked at Valerie, “Don’t look at me. I don’t see a difference. He tricked you, but there is no law against that.” Then she looked at Jake, “But there are laws against psychics using their powers to take money from casinos. You used your psychic ability to take the winnings from that machine.”

  “No there aren’t, Your Majesty.” Valerie furrowed her brow and Jake said quickly, “There are laws against psychics using their abilities to steal money from the casinos.”

  Valerie asked, “Now you have me confused. What’s the difference?”

  “If I used my powers in card games to see what cards were going to be played, then I would be stealing money that the casino might not lose under normal circumstances. I don’t do that. I only play gamers and I only take money the casino was going to give away to somebody. I do not influence the machine at all. I can just see the ones that are going to pay out. If I wasn’t there, someone else would walk away with the payout. Either way, the casino has lost nothing. They were going to give the money away anyway. I see nothing wrong with stepping up and taking what they are giving. Just like jumping in line to get food.”

  Cynthia piped up, “But you’re preventing others from winning.”

  Jake smiled, “Doesn’t anyone who plays a gamer that pays out prevent others from winning at that machine? As far as using my talents to win, doesn’t an experienced gambler have an edge over a novice? Should he not be allowed to play because he is more skilled? I do not influence the game in any way. I just make sure I’m in the food line when it’s being given away.”

  Valerie looked hard at Jake, “You’ve made a good point and you’re right; you are not taking money that the casino would keep. However, you have shown a very high level of downright discourteous behavior in doing what you did tonight.”

  Jake stared at the princess for a long moment, “Your Majesty, why don’t you come out of your castle for a couple of weeks and spend it in the ghettos on Gambia? See how long you live being courteous. After three weeks, when you’re starving to death and the stench of sewage and burning bodies overwhelms your senses, you might learn to forget your courteous behavior. Being courteous will get you killed. If you had a food line on Gambia, you would be killed by those swarming the line. When my parents starved to death, I never saw a Stars Realm Representative show up to show them courtesy. You learn to survive or you die. Courtesy is for those who can afford to give it.”

  Cynthia felt ashamed. She better understood this handsome young man now. Then she had a thought, “You keep touching something inside your shirt. What is that?”

  Jake looked at her and then looked hard at Valerie. As he unbuttoned his shirt and showed them a large gold coin on a chain he said, “I swore over Robby’s body that I would never steal again and risk getting killed. I promised to make my life count for something.”

  Valerie and Cynthia saw one of the gold coins, which he had stolen from the merchant that had led to Robby’s death, hanging around his neck.

  Valerie looked at Jake, “Could you have won at cards with your psychic skills?”

  Jake smiled, “Yes, but then that would be stealing wouldn’t it?”

  Valerie was one of the Realm’s most powerful psychics, and she could see and feel the inner strength of the man in front of her. He had been hardened by life on Gambia but still possessed a strict sense of right and wrong and, unbelievably, still possessed a good heart. She wanted him…but she knew she was not the one that was going to get him. It would be wasted effort to even try. Of all the things in her life so far, this was something she truly regretted. With all her psychic power, she knew he would never belong to her and there was nothing she could do about it.

  She could also see occasional blue flashes erupt from Jake and knew that time was growing short. She sighed and decided, “Jake, I’m going to tell you what a Red Flag is.”

  Chapter Three

  The small, white-colored ship broke into the new universe and immediately turned on its sensors. It was in deep space between galaxies and there was nothing closer than a hundred light years, which was exactly how the Searcher planned it.

  Dgran, a Crengren, was from an amphibious race and at first glance looked very much like an otter, without the whiskers, from ancient Earth. She looked at one of her displays on the arm of her chair and watched as millions of galaxies flashed by each second. She thought to her computer, “Have you seen anything interesting, Elef?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have.”

  Dgran looked up from the screen, “What is that?”

  “I am scanning millions of planets with only three to five communities on the entire planet’s surface, and the populations of those communities are identical.”

  “Elef, how can that possibly happen? It certainly can’t be an accident.”

  The ship’s computer paused and then said, “No, it’s not accidental. Something is causing this to happen. I think we need to go stealth surface now.”

  “Make it so. What has you so concerned?”

  “I’m not sensing any starships in this universe. For this many planets to possess that kind of structure, there has to be an outside agency making it happen and my sensors are not detecting any ships. That either means there are none or I am unable to detect them.”

  The small ship disappeared as its surface began bending light and energy around it. Dgran thought about reporting what she had discovered to Fleet Command, but she didn’t really feel she had enough to make a good report. Suddenly Elef announced, “I have picked up an ancient Stars Realm beacon. It is broadcasting in a galaxy not far from here.”

  “Do you have any records of the frequency?”

  “Standby.” A minute passed and then Elef said, “I had to go far
back into the Realm’s history to find it, but it was assigned to a large colony ship that was transporting colonists from Earth, Glod, and Cainth more than six thousand years ago. It seems the colonists were bored with the peace of the Realm and wanted to find newer, untamed worlds to colonize. They never reported back to the Realm after they jumped out of the Stars Realm’s universe. There were so many ships leaving during that period of the Realm’s history that it appears that no one actually tried to see if their colonizing effort was successful. Truth be told, we lost track of thousands of those old transports.”

  Dgran leaned back in her chair and asked, “How does the planet that signal is coming from compare to the others you’ve seen?”

  “There are three colonies, all with populations of 300,000. I’ve scanned them three times and the numbers have not changed except by ten or so new births.”

  Dgran looked at her screen, “We need to go and take a close look at what’s happening on that planet. I want to be cautious, so take it slow going in.”

  Elef powered up the jump engine, “I’m going to jump outside the solar system of that planet and move in using small jumps.”

  Dgran nodded, “That would be wise. I don’t want to reveal our teleportation ability in a new universe.”

  The Elef was one of the new generation Searcher vessels that possessed sensors, weapons, and jump systems that made all of the previous models obsolete. It was literally the most powerful ship ever built by the Stars Realm, and Dgran thought about just going openly to the planet and not worrying about anything stopping her scan. However, her ship had not been able to detect any ships and that worried her. “It never hurts to be cautious,” she thought as her ship moved slowly into the system. Three days later it arrived at the orbit of the closest moon to the planet.

  Dgran looked at her display as Elef fed data to it, “Elef, jump to the surface of the moon and power down all systems except for passive scans and stealth surface.” The small ship jumped, settled into a crater’s shadow, and powered down.

  “I see a ship above the planet, but it does not register on my scans.”

  Dgran thought, “Show me on my screen.” There was a brown ship about 2,800 feet long, cylindrical in shape, with a smooth hull keeping station above the planet directly above the three communities on the planet’s surface.

  Elef reported, “I also see that now the populations of the three communities are back at 300,000 each. I can still detect the new births I scanned earlier, but somehow the populations have been reduced to keep their totals at that level.”

  Dgran examined the ship on her screen and wondered just what was happening on the planet’s surface. She also wondered why her systems could not detect that ship on electronic scans. “Are you recording all of this?”

  “Absolutely, and I’m sending some passive stealth scanners to the planet’s surface.”

  Jake leaned back in his chair and smiled at Valerie, “I just don’t see how I merit all this attention. I know I have a little psychic ability but it’s not much. Both of you have a huge level of psychic skills; it is I that should be worried about you.”

  Valerie sighed and shook her head, “You don’t understand what you are. It’s not the psychic ability you have right now; it’s the ability that is locked up inside you that has us worried. Let me explain. How much do you know about the history of the Stars Realm?”

  Jake shrugged, “I guess I know the basics. The Realm was formed about twelve thousand years ago. The first king was an Algean named Sprig Gardner. He unified the Realm and brought about the peace and prosperity that has endured up to this time.”

  Valerie shook her head, “That’s what the history books say, but they are wrong. The Realm is actually two thousand years older than that, and Sprig was in fact the fifth ruler of the Realm.”

  Jake was surprised by her answer. He had made a point of studying the Realm’s history before he started going out into the Realm to make money in the casinos. He was sure that the history did not go back beyond the reign of Sprig. “None of the history I’ve seen says anything about other rulers.”

  “I know, and the Royal Family prefers that history not tell about those times. The Realm was in a constant state of war for survival during those early years, and it was a close thing indeed that the Realm survived. The Realm faced five foes during that period, and every one of them could have completely destroyed the Realm. The forces arrayed against the Realm were, in several instances, hundreds of millions of years more advanced technologically than the Realm’s military, and outnumbered the Realm’s Navy by millions of ships.”

  Cynthia sat down. She had also learned the Realm’s history from the same source as Jake. This was all new to her.

  Jake took another bite of his sandwich and said, “What does that have to do with me in this current situation?”

  Valerie looked Jake in the eyes and said, “The difference maker in all of those wars was a super psychic leader that led the Realm against the forces arrayed against it. Starting with Thomas and Danielle Gardner, followed by Rose and Tommy Gardner, Cassandra Dodd, yes Cynthia, you have the same last name, and finally Matthew and Melanie Gardner. Notice that all of these psychics had a common ancestry.”

  Cynthia interjected, “Well, that Algean was not part of their ancestry.”

  Valerie nodded, “That’s true. It was decided after the last conflict that only the chosen ruler of the Stars Realm would use the name Gardner. The Gardners decided that Sprig was needed to handle the tremendous details of ruling the Realm, and it was they who suggested only the ruler would use that last name. That is how it is still done and my last name is Gardner. I am a direct descendant of Rose and Chris Andrews. Rose was Thomas and Danielle’s daughter.”

  “So what are you saying? Are you insinuating that I am one of these Gardners?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if you are, since over 12,000 years the ancestry of the original Gardner family grows too much to be able to track all of their descendants. The point is that these super psychics never appeared unless the Realm was under attack by an overwhelming enemy. We have not had a super psychic since the last war against the Red Demons, which ended more than 13,000 years ago.”

  Cynthia put her drink on the table and said, “I thought the Royal Family has psychics that have tremendous psychic powers; as strong as any in history?”

  Valerie shrugged, “That’s true. Several of our stronger members have skills that are even more powerful that the last super psychic, Matthew Gardner. One of their skills is the ability to sense when danger is coming, and they are also given occasional glimpses into the future. We are all sensing that the Realm is in danger and the feeling has been growing for more than five years. One of us has also sensed that another super psychic is coming whose ability will be stronger than all of the previous rulers and that, whoever it is, they will be absolutely critical if the Realm is to survive the coming attack.” Valerie didn’t mention that she was chosen to be the next ruler of the Stars Realm because she was the strongest psychic in the Royal Family and it was her vision. She was young in years, but more experienced than others twice her age at using her talents.

  Jake just stared at Valerie. “And you think I might be that super psychic you’re expecting?”

  Valerie tilted her head to the left and sighed, “Jake, you are that psychic we’ve been looking to find. It maybe also be true that it is you that will cause the coming attack on the Realm.”

  Jake and Cynthia were both shocked by that statement.

  Dgran watched the feed coming from the planet and focused it on one of the colonies. Elef had reported six new births and Dgran wanted to know how the population was held to exactly 300,000. She watched, and as Elef brought the view in closer she noticed a small craft leaving a structure that was located forty miles outside the valley where the communities were located. It was skimming over the terrain at a high rate of speed.

  The view moved closer, and she could see six creatures that were basi
cally brown in color with four legs on a lower rounded section and an upper section that had two arms. The head was on a short stalk extending from the upper globular section, and looked triangular in shape with two saber shaped mandibles and numerous small white spikes on top that were constantly moving. The eyes were black on the side of the head and protruded out from the sides. The vessel was moving quickly and arrived outside the entrance to the colony, which was populated by human beings. The six creatures dismounted and walked into the entrance. One pointed a device and scanned the surrounding area. The view moved in closer and Dgran saw one, then two, and finally three humans walk to the six creatures and stand together in front of them.

  Elef said, “I want you to notice that each of those six humans have a bracelet on their left arm that is flashing an orange light.”