Annihilation: Book 06 - Demon's Sacrifice (8 page)

Sen-Gen saw the giant ship below and ordered, “Fire the first penetrator package.”

The first three penetrators ignited and disappeared too fast to follow. The first struck the ship and disappeared followed by a huge explosion from the second. Sen-Gens computer notified him that the first penetrator had breached the hull into the interior. The second penetrator had ignited and burned a path to the outer hull. The third penetrator was a full second behind the first two penetrators and entered the hole in the hull with the two Searchers following immediately behind it. All four disappeared into the giant green ship.

The Nest Mother felt her ship shake violently. Just as she recovered she was thrown off her bed to the floor as a second violent shaking hit. “What’s happening?” She turned to go back to her command structure when a silver field formed above her and dropped down on her. Right after that another silver field appeared and the command chamber disappeared.

The communications Male saw the two lights appear and strike the ship from the opposite side of the explosions. “We have been hit on the side away from the explosions. Move to defend us.”

The Supreme Males felt fear for the Nest Mother and millions of their ships rushed around to the site of the strike. Edison had teleported to just above the green ship’s surface and waited. He knew the Searchers were going to have to travel 18,000 miles through the center of the huge vessel and it would take time. Ships began moving toward the site where the second penetrator had exited the ship and Edison notified the bridge. “We have thousands of Main Ships approaching the exit point.”

Sen-Gen ordered, “Extend the repulsion screen to eight thousand miles. Penetrator crews, prepare to commence firing on my order.”

Life and Grena followed the third penetrator into the giant ship until their computers told them they had arrived at the center of the ship, “Wild Man, grab the Mother and let’s get out of here.”

The computer searched for the chamber but couldn’t find it. Then, Grena’s ship located it and teleported the Nest Mother out.

Grena sent a thought, “I’ve got the Mother. Life, take the chamber.”

Life’s computer said, “I think I’ve found the chamber.”

“Take whatever you want; just get us moving.”

“Got it; on our way behind Grena.”

There weren’t any ships in the Nest Mother’s vessel but there were millions of warriors moving to block the exit of the two ships. They chewed their way into the channel and gathered to block the two escaping ships. “Grena, I hope that repulsion screen is all they cracked it up to be.”

“We’ll see in less than five seconds. There is a huge mass of Eight Legs trying to block the way.” Grena was accelerating and the mass of warriors in front of her braced for impact. She flew at them and grabbed the arms of her command chair just before she struck them. They still had nine thousand miles to the exit.

Outside the ship, Destiny watched for the two Searchers to emerge but saw nothing on his sensors. Suddenly he saw thousands of green warriors fly out of the exit point at tremendous velocity. He smiled and thought, “They’re on their way.”

The mass of warriors blocking the tube flew away so fast from the approaching ships that they didn’t have time to realize that their next stop was open space. Thousands of them were rushing away in front of the escaping ships like leaves in a hurricane.

Sen-Gen didn’t want to fire penetrators at the approaching ships and give away the technology used to kill their ships, but the mass attempting to push through the repulsion screen was growing by the second. He ordered, “Pick a target, prepare to fire.”

Edison watched the hole in the giant ship as hundreds of thousands of green armored warriors flew out of it into open space. Stem monitored the teleportation system and made sure it stayed within optimum parameters. Then the two Searchers emerged and Edison immediately teleported them inside. He then hit the main teleport key and the Stars End disappeared from the giant mass of green ships. Sen-gen nearly ordered her ship to fire on the mass of ships when she saw open space on the display screen. “Get us home, Edison.”

“Jumping now to the planet site.”

The Stars End jumped into the Stars Realm’s universe close to a planet that had abundant life. The Nest Mother was teleported to the planet’s surface and left there to try and figure out what had happened. The huge red ship then teleported to the Algeans laboratory and dropped off the command chamber for them to study. Einstein, Newton, Freud, and Edison began working on it immediately along with Stem, Petal, Sprig, and Twig. Destiny teleported back to his ship and wondered what the Nest Mother was thinking.

The Nest Mother had almost gone mad with fear when she suddenly appeared inside the small room. She stormed around the room sinking her fangs into anything she could bite and could not think coherently. After five minutes, she forced herself to calm down and think about what was happening. Fifteen minutes later she found herself out in the open on a strange world. The Nest Mother looked around and replayed the preceding twenty minutes. She felt her fear but marveled at how the being that had threatened her had actually made good on their threat. She looked around and thought, “Well, at least I won’t be sending my families anywhere from here.” She felt her hunger as she looked around and decided to eat a rather large four legged creature. She worried about her survival but reasoned that she could have been killed instead of captured so maybe she had some time before they decided what to do with her. “I might as well enjoy it.”

T
he Red being looked at his console and felt his anger rise. Then he heard, “Your project must be causing you problems to be this angry.”

“I wanted this particular tool because they are more vicious than our current tool. The current tool must be forced to kill even though they are gifted with a form that makes it easy. I also want this new tool to pass the compulsions genetically so they’re not dependent on machines. Unfortunately, they turn on each other when another life form is not available. These creatures were naturally territorial in their original environment and now I’m forcing them into close quarters. I gain one thing but another problem arises. This tool loves to kill and I have to build in restraints.”

“That may not be a bad thing.”

“I thought about that but there is time spent traveling to different universes and they cannot restrain themselves from attacking each other that long.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m not sure; I like their viciousness and don’t want to restrain it but it appears I might not have a choice. Do you have any suggestions?”

“Why not make them suffer severe pain whenever they touch; that should cut down on their attacks. If the pain is severe enough they will avoid contact unless the final compulsion is activated. You’ll also have to make them immune to that beam weapon you’ve given them.”

The being thought a moment, “That idea has merit. I think I’ll build the final compulsion to make them the tastiest meal they can eat but possibly cause them to burn if they touch each other without the compulsion. I’ll also enhance their territorial instinct so that when the time comes to remove them it will happen very quickly.”

“That’s almost funny. The last survivor will end up eating himself.”

The red being smiled, “You’re right; I really want to actually see that happen. I might make a sample and see if it works.” He thought a moment, “It will require them to wear armor most of the time to prevent damage to each other.”

“Just make sure they have the capability to rip through the armor when the time comes to remove this tool.”

“I’ll do it just as you’ve suggested.”

“Another benefit of this tool over the current is there is no time needed to digest what they’ve killed. They can leave one universe and go directly to another. Once they start killing it will be continuous.”

“Have you looked in on your current tool?”

“They are so boring; no, not recently. I’ve been too busy working on the new one. Besides, they won’t be around much longer. I might even let them be the first meal for my new creation and that problematic universe the second. However, these new tools will resolve those issues quickly. As soon as I rework the new structure into them, I’ll look in on the old ones.”

“Don’t waste your time. You should use it constructively and finish this project.”

“I know; if you think of anything else let me know.”

“You know I will.”

The Supreme Males were on a communication channel attempting to decide what to do. The Senior Male said, “I think we should hatch a new Nest Mother.”

“To what purpose? The command chamber is gone and without it the new Mother will be useless.”

“Then what would you suggest?”

“I believe that she has been taken to that universe that stopped our harvest. If they could come here and take her, that suggests that there is another way into it. I recommend that we scatter and scan our universe and find that other door.”

“I’ve never heard of two doors.”

“They are rare but they do exist. Otherwise, how did they come here? There must be another door.”

The Senior Male thought about the suggestion and decided, “We should at least eliminate it as a possibility. Recall all the families from harvesting and assign them a section to search. Let’s find a way into that problematic universe and destroy it.”

Another Supreme Male said, “Perhaps the universes closest to the target might have another doorway. Should we check those to see?”

“Yes, send ships to scan for another entrance. If they find one, come back and notify me immediately. If nothing shows up come back and help scan our universe. Are we agreed on this plan?”

Every Supreme Male voted yes and they began their search. They did not see the small, red screened, probe left behind. It listened in on their communications and once the ships began jumping out to begin searching, it jumped back to the Stars Realm and down loaded its information to Fleet Command, which passed it on to the Realm’s leadership.

Sprig looked at the code from the command chamber and ran the program through an independent system to avoid contaminating the main system. It would not be a good thing to have the compulsion program loose. Edison watched the program run and suddenly yelled, “Stop it right here.”

Sprig froze the data and then backed it up to the point where Edison shouted. He looked at the data stream and saw an odd line of symbols. “What are those, Edison?”

“Those are encrypted on my species electrical engrams. I think those are the compulsions.”

“That is a very short line of programming.”

“It would have to be, Sprig. It must be transferred easily and resist degradation over eons of time. This looks like a very compact virus that rides all the other programs.”

Sprig looked at the lines of the program and began to see a pattern, “It appears that the fiftieth line is where the main action is held.”

Einstein looked at the line and added, “It is the two hundredth line where the virus is inserted into organic substances.”

Sprig looked and did not see what he was referring. “How do you arrive at that?”

“The last six symbols on the third string match up with the frequency of our nervous system. I believe that this program was written strictly for my species. It won’t work on life forms that have a different frequency.”

Sprig looked closer and shook his main branches, “Whoever wrote this a genius at bioengineering.”

“I agree, but it allows an easy change. Most of the rest of this virus is designed to make the host resist any emotions that might be anything other than viciousness. The finer emotions of love, happiness, and friendship are held in check.”

“What do you mean easy to change, Newton?”

“All we need to do is change the frequency in it and then have it downloaded again into the host. It should overwrite the previous programming and replace it. Since the frequency will be different the new download will have no effect.”

Sprig thought about the suggestion, “What frequency would you use; we don’t want this program around to infect another species.”

“Just choose a frequency of an extinct life form. Do you have any DNA of a species that is extinct?”

“We have some from one of the planets that was harvested by your ship. That civilization is now dead, so it should only affect that now-extinct life form.”

Sprig saw the sudden sadness of the three small spiders. “Don’t blame yourselves for their death children; you were forced to do it. Perhaps this will lead to some good from that loss.”

“I know, Sprig, but we feel the terrible shame of what we’ve done.”

Sprig looked at the records in his main system and after several minutes looked up, “Here it is; this is the frequency of their brain engrams.”

Edison looked at the number and then began typing. The frequency was inserted into the virus and then downloaded into the leg receptacles. “Now we have to see if a certain angry Nest Mother will work with us.”