Annihilation: Book 05 - Searcher (42 page)

“Thank you, Destiny. That would help toward hiding what we can do.”

Eyes began moving and collected small ships on the surface and then moved up on one of the mother ships and began pushing it into a new trajectory. The huge ship picked up speed and then flew away from Destiny’s ship as it stopped to go and start the other ship on its trip to the star. Fifteen hours after the operation begun, there was no evidence that a battle had been fought.

The Supreme Male was working hard to get the family ready for the harvest and received a communication from his Sensor Male, “Supreme Male, I am unable to contact the ships sent to find the other family’s main ship.”

The Supreme Male immediately felt fear, “How long have you been trying?”

“Two dgsgs.”

The Supreme Male fought his fear and turned on his communicator, “Nest Mother, we have lost contact with our two ships.”

The Nest Mother felt her rage building but then felt it evaporate. Something was happening in that universe that was too far out of the ordinary. She knew the missing main ship could not defeat two main ships so there must be another agency causing ships to disappear. She wondered if the crystal creatures were causing it but the evidence gained before she had consumed the first family indicated that it wasn’t them. She now regretted consuming that first family. They would already be there harvesting except for her anger and impatience. She sighed and decided not to make that mistake again. She composed herself and said, “Send a ship through and make a quick scan and then have it return. Tell me what it sees.”

The Supreme Male took a quick breath and wondered why he was being spared. He immediately responded, “I will order it now.”

The Nest Mother thought about what was happening and began looking through the data from the previous harvests in that universe to see if there was anything that might be a clue s to what was going on. She inserted her two back legs into their receptacles, closed her eyes, and began looking at the information.

Destiny had moved to the planet and sent crews down to fly the transports to the planet where his children had been teleported. They came on board and Eyes began moving the ship out of the system. Suddenly he yelled, “Destiny, another main ship has appeared at the entry point.”

“Tell me what they’re doing.”

“They’re scanning.”

“Matt, another main ship has entered.”

“I can see them, Destiny. We have a screened probe there and I’m getting a feed from it. What do you think they’re doing?”

Destiny thought a moment and then said, “They’re looking for the two ships. I don’t think they will stay long. If it was a major investigation you would have more than one ship.”

“Let’s see if you’re right. If they’re leaving quickly, we couldn’t react fast enough to hit them.”

After an hour the huge ship disappeared back into the entry point. “Looks like you were right. What happens next?”

“I heard one of your officers use an expression, “It’s gonna be one big shing ding of a party”“. Next time a ship comes through the door it will have a big group with it.”

Matt thought for a moment and said, “I just wish we had a way to target them other than visually.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our sensors do not see them. We have to visually aim at them or use a visual color sensor to track them.”

“Why don’t you track them by their frequency?”

“What do you mean frequency?”

“The substance that makes up our hulls radiates a frequency. It is very, very, low but it is there.”

Matt jumped from his chair and thought, “Sprig, you need to hear this.’

“What.”

“Destiny tells me that the green substance radiates a frequency that falls in a very low range. Could we use that to track them with our weapons?”

“How low is it, Destiny?”

“About three hertz.”

“That’s even lower than the background of the explosion that started this universe.”

“This substance is a residue of a universe that died of old age. It couldn’t radiate anything higher.’

“Stand by.”

Matt and Destiny waited for twenty minutes and Sprig said, “I just measured the frequency of the attack ship here in the lab and you’re right. It does radiate a frequency that is strong enough to home in on. We can adjust our monitors and sensors to find it.”

“Can we make the changes in time?”

“I don’t know; probably not all of our weapons but enough to start the conflict and bring the others up to date as we move forward.”

“Get the megaships first then start loading the Searchers.”

“I agree. We’ll start now.”

“What is a Searcher, Matt?”

“We have twenty million small ships that are pretty powerful. They can destroy a planet with their beams but of course they will have no affect on the green substance.”

“Let me think about that, Matt. There should be a way to use them; I just need to think about it.”

“I’ll send you a copy of our main library so you can use it to see if there is anything we have missed. I think your children will find it enjoyable reading. You’ve already made a huge difference. Anything else would be icing on the cake.”

“What is a cake?”

“I’ll send you one if you can come up with a use of those beams.”

“Fair enough.”

The Nest Mother finished the data and found nothing to explain what was happening. She worried that the missing main ship was helping the advanced life form but then she dismissed the idea; ships were disappearing before she consumed that family. It was clear that someone or something was able to kill their ships. Would one family be enough? This time she was going to really focus on eliminating those crystal creatures once and for all. She shouldn’t have backed off before but they weren’t edible so it was wasted effort to harvest them. She paused and then changed her mind; there was no reason to waste time on them. She called another Supreme Male and said, “I may be sending you to follow up a harvest. Start preparing your family.”

“I will begin immediately, Nest Mother.”

Never in her species long history had a harvest ever been stopped. She was probably worrying about nothing….but…something just didn’t feel right. She sat in her chamber and worried. Would this harvest never start?”

“Destiny, are you sure you’re ok with our using one of your ships for target practice.”

“I’m sure, Matt. If it comes down to transportation issues, I think I can count on you to provide some ships for my use.”

“You know we will. We have some about three hundred miles in diameter that I think will meet your needs.”

“Then get on with it and we’ll watch and see what happens.”

Eyes was looking at Destiny and Destiny said, “What?”

“One of our children has developed an interest in engineering after reading the library given us and has timidly asked for permission to view the attack.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, he has been studying the data from past harvests and what our protectors have sent us and has an insatiable curiosity.”

“Invite him up and let him watch.” Eyes turned back to his board. A young child ran into the command chamber and sat down and watched the display. “Who are you, child?”

“My name is Edison.”

“Where did you get that name?”

“One of the human’s ancient engineers had that name. I liked it.”

Destiny shrugged and turned to eyes, “Make sure we have our scanners at full power.”

“Already on it.”

“Then start the transport moving.” Destiny noticed that the child took an instrument and pointed it out of the ship toward the location of the transport. “What is that?”

“It’s something I put together in the lab.”

Matt said, “Launching the penetrator.”

Destiny watched as the penetrator shot out at the transport from more than seven thousand miles. It was near one third light speed when it arrived at the transport but missed the target.”

Sprig said, “We just can’t get a strong enough reading on that low power frequency.”

“Does that mean we have to be closer to hit them?”

“Probably.”

Edison looked at Destiny, “May I ask them a question, Father.”

Destiny looked at the child and said, “Matt, I have a child that has a question.”

“What is it?”

“Have you accounted for the shift in frequency that occurs at one third light speed?”

Sprig said, “What?”

“At that speed the frequency will shift higher because you’re moving faster into the sine wave. It might be shifted closer to a cosign pattern. With that shift the signal should be stronger.”

Sprig sat quiet for thirty seconds which was years for a humans mind. “No, we haven’t; standby just a moment while I make some adjustments on the second penetrator.” Three minutes passed and then Sprig said, “Launch the second penetrator.”

Matt said, “Firing second penetrator.” The penetrator launched and again flew at the transport, turned slightly as it got close, and hit it dead center.”

Destiny looked at the child and said, “That was impressive. Is there anything else you would like to suggest?”

“I think I have found a way to teleport our green substance, Father.”

“Sprig.”

“Thank you, Destiny. We would have missed that.”

“That’s not why I’m calling; my child thinks he may have found a way to teleport the green substance.”

There was dead silence on the com. Finally Sprig said, “Do tell.”

“I’m going to send him to your ship. I’ll let him explain what he has developed.”

“Father, if you’ll just give me his coordinates, I can teleport to him with my device.”

Matt and Sprig heard the comment and Sprig asked, “Did you give him the teleport device to study?”

“No, I didn’t.” Destiny looked at Edison and asked, “How did you build a teleport device?”

“Once you know that it’s possible to teleport, the principles are pretty obvious, Father. I found the bulk of the information from a race we harvested fifty million years ago.”

Matt looked at Sprig on his communicator and said, “From the mouth of babes.”

Sprig stood stunned on the bridge of the Rossville. He knew the mental capacity needed to grasp those concepts and here was a child saying they were obvious. Are they further advanced mentally than we are?

“Destiny, does your species have this kind of mental capacity?”

“Sprig, since we have been free of the compulsions placed on us, we are changing. Our minds are actually clearing and thought is easier. Our telepathic range is going up daily. I’ve been told that my children are developing interests in a wide range of topics. I know that we can store tremendous amounts of information but we have never really correlated what we have stored. I think this child is an example of what we are becoming.”

“We may not be able to use what he knows before the invasion starts but if he is right, we won’t need a penetrator; we’ll just teleport the bombs directly into their ships.”

Edison looked at his father and said, “Why do that, just teleport them back to where they came from with a ten thousand penetrators on their hulls set to launch when they enter normal space.”

Even Sprig was shocked at that idea.

T
he Supreme Male looked at his communications board and saw that his family was ready for the harvest. He had contacted the Nest Mother and informed her of his time for departure and she had approved. He looked at his Sensor Male and said, “Begin sending the first wave through the entry point. Have them jump upon arrival and form a barrier to prevent interruption to our entry.”

“I am issuing orders now.”

“It’s starting, Matt; fifty main ships have just come through the entry point.”

“I see them, Destiny. We will track them with our new sensor board at fleet command. How long will it be before the first million come through?”

“It usually takes about four of your months. At that point the universe will be mapped for intelligent life forms and the remainder of the family will begin coming en mass with assigned destinations.”

“I’m struggling with whether or not to hit those ships if they move in on a planet but I’m not sure if it’s wise to do it before we are ready to take them on.”

“I would be surprised if they move on a planet during the initial phase of the invasion. The first wave knows their responsibility is to map targets and they will not go against their instructions. You have some time before you are forced to act.”

“I hope you’re right. We’re assigning a Searcher to each of the ships that come through in the first wave. They have a main ship penetrator if they have to use it but I don’t want to do anything that changes the invader’s normal entry protocols.”