Annihilation - Finding Keepers (Annihilation Series (Book Seven}) (16 page)

Jackson nodded and said, “I think I need to speak with him before we set that up.”

Kathea nodded, “You should. I think you’ll like him.”

“We’ll see.”

“Cynthia, a ship is moving in from the jump limit.”

“I’ve wondered why they haven’t taken any of the population. It is now higher than the established level by more than fifty.”

“So you think they are coming to receive colonists?”

“Don’t you?”

“No, I don’t.”

Cynthia was quiet for a few moments, “If they’re not coming here for that, what do you think they’re doing?”

“I don’t know, but in every instance except provisioning for the invasion fleet, when the ships came to receive food the colonists were taken four days prior to the ships’ arrival. It must take some time to prepare them for shipment, and that time frame has remained constant in all of their arrivals. That ship will arrive in ten hours, and the Keepers have not taken any colonists since the invasion started.”

Cynthia sat and thought about what Junior had said. If they weren’t coming for food, why were they coming? She had a moment of fear that they had been detected, but that fear vanished when she remembered the three ships that had come when the Searcher had been discovered. If they were not detected and they were not coming for food, then what were they doing here? Then she knew, “They’re coming to set a trap, aren’t they?”

“That’s what I suspect. They must have seen races in their scan of the stars Realm that matched the races on this planet. I think they rightly suspect that if there are any other incursions into their domain that it will happen here.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Nothing but wait and see where they go. I suspect that we will have a neighbor on this moon shortly.”

“This is not good, Junior!”

“Tell me about it.”

The brown ship moved in-system, and ten hours later arrived at the moon. It changed course and moved toward the moon’s surface, landing on top of a crater wall less than six hundred yards from the Realm’s ship. Cynthia saw the ship settle with the bow facing toward the planet. She saw the drives of the Keepers ship directly above her at the top of the crater. “Hey, Junior, those drives don’t look brown to me.”

“I just noticed that myself. I wonder if they are surrounded by the brown material or something else.”

“How can we find out?”

Junior was silent for more than a minute, which Cynthia knew represented more than a year of thought by human standards, “I’m going to use a one-way teleport and send a microprobe inside one of them.”

“Junior, we’re really close to these creatures. That probe will use energy to move around. Are you sure this is a risk worth taking?”

“Well, if something was inside our ship’s drive tubes, would our scanners see it?”

Cynthia thought about that question, “I don’t know.”

“Where are our scanners set to scan?”

“Everything around the ship.”

“And they are located just under the hull of our ships looking out from that hull. If anything is behind the scanner, it won’t be seen.”

“What about internal scanners?”

“The will be in the walls of the ship looking inward. I don’t think you would have scanners looking in at the drives of a ship. We certainly don’t engineer our ships that way, and there are some constants in ship construction that transcend all ship builders. If the ship detects it then it would have to turn its bow toward us, and we could teleport away before that happened.”

“Or they could call in other ships to hit us like the first Searcher.”

“We still have the passive scanners on the other side of the moon to warn us. I think it’s worth the risk. This is information that could prove invaluable to the Realm.”

“Is there a possibility that they will detect the teleport screen?”

“I’ll orient the screen away from them. There will be nothing to scan on their side of the screen.”

Cynthia patted her feet on the floor, “How do I let you talk me into these things?”

Junior laughed over the speaker, “Because in your heart you are a warrior and actually live for the fight.”

“Just do it, Junior.”

The micro probe appeared in the drive tube of the Keepers’ ship and recorded the surrounding surfaces. It moved from one end to the other, then found what it was programmed to find. The fuel lines feeding the drives came through the brown wall at the front end of the drives. It attached itself to the wall and waited for the signal.

“Junior, how are we going to collect the probe’s information?”

“I’m going to take a small risk.”

“Uh oh.”

“That ship is close to where the Searcher was killed. There is a passive probe across the crater from them, and I am going to have it reflect light at the rear of their ship. The light will enter the drives and the probe will see the flash send its information is less than one millionth of a second. The power it will use is less that a hundredth of the light being reflected. I don’t think they will be able to see both on their scanners. The passive sensor will then melt. If they investigate the source of the light they will see a melted scanner. I hope they attribute it to the Searcher they killed.”

“Let’s get this over with.”

The passive probe oriented itself to the sunlight hitting the moon’s surface and flashed a brief light at the Keepers’ ship. The probe detected the light entering the drive tube and sent its information.

“Director, something has just hit our hull with reflected light.”

“Did you determine the source?”

“Yes, I’m zooming in on it now with our optical sensor.”

The Director looked at his display, saw the melted scanner, and asked, “How did that get here?”

“The ship we destroyed created this crater we’re on. I suspect it was blown out when it blew up.”

“Does it look worth retrieving?”

The Sensor Operator examined it, “No, it’s burned badly. The sun probably hit it at just the right angle to cause that reflection.’

The Director turned back to his console, “Keep me informed if anything else happens.”

Cynthia raised her shoulders and waited for the Keepers’ ship to lift, but it didn’t move. She lowered her shoulders and looked at her board, “The fuel line comes through the wall.”

“Yes, it does. If we detect that ship starting to power up we are going to fire a high powered penetrator into each of their three drive tubes and move away.”

“How much longer are we going to give Jake?”

“As long as it takes.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

Jake walked up the hill toward Jackson Grant’s quarters. Kathea had found him in the northern field and said Jackson wanted to speak with him. He was worried. He did not want to deceive the leader of this colony, but knew that was exactly what he was going to be forced to do. There was no possible way he could tell him the truth. He thought about what he was going to say, but then decided that the best course of action was to clear his mind and just go with the conversation. He saw Jackson rocking outside his quarters. As he approached Jackson said, “Take a load off your feet. Come sit down.”

Jake forced himself to relax, sat down in the rocker, and started rocking. Jackson looked out at the people working in the fields and didn’t say anything. Jake also looked out at the fields, rocked, and found peace in the rhythm of the chair.

“So you’re the Good Luck Man.”

Jake smiled, “I’m probably more mystified by that title than you are, Jackson.”

Jackson smiled and looked at Jake, “Why is that?”

“I woke up one morning and remembered my father telling my mother that I was a good luck baby. She told him that if I touched every woman like I touched her that they would all feel the good luck. He replied that if I touched them all then good luck would have to follow.” Jackson said nothing. “I don’t know if she meant that I was touching her in her heart or actually touching her, but I decided to see. I moved to my new quarters and started touching every female I could. I know you must think I’m crazy to try and touch every female.”

“I do. Why don’t you have a mate?”

That question surprised Jake. He answered honestly, “I haven’t found her yet.”

Jackson didn’t know what to think. Everyone had a mate by the time they were this young man’s age. Jackson’s expression said it all. Jake continued, “I don’t know why, Jackson, but I feel that if I touch the one for me I’ll know it immediately. I may be wrong, but I have to see.”

Jackson stared at Jake and knew he was telling the truth. He could tell when someone was not being honest, and he saw that Jake really believed what he said. “Well, we have to help you find her. Five days from now we are going to assemble the community and every female that has not touched you, will. You should have a mate and it is my responsibility to make sure everyone does. Do you really think this good luck thing has any truth to it?”

Jake shook his head, “I honestly don’t know, but so many have claimed that touching me brought them luck. I don’t know if my parents were a little crazy about me or if I just misunderstood what they were saying, but something is going on.”

Jackson felt better about the Good Luck Man. He wasn’t crazy as he suspected, but just giving in to a whim. Something was happening; the Keepers were staying away. That still had him bothered, but that had to be totally unrelated to this young man. It had been years since everyone in the community had gathered, and he actually looked forward to the assembly. “You can go back to work now.”

Jake smiled and said, “I really enjoy the view from your rocker; we have to do this again.”

“Anytime; just not during work hours.”

Jake smiled and left for the fields.

The Director of the Keepers invasion fleet was frustrated. Three weeks had passed and every planet the fleet investigated was empty of life. Something was going on that he could not fathom. He called the other ships’ Directors to conference and asked, “Is there anything else we can do to find these Green Creatures?”

“Perhaps they no longer exist, and these planets are where they once lived.”

“But all of the technology on those planets is still operating.”

“We must send a messenger back to the Collective and see what it would have us do.”

A Sensor Operator interjected, “I would like to propose an option.”

The Lead Director thought, “What is that?”

“I have scanned this universe and have found some planets that have the same species as the farm where we destroyed that strange ship. Maybe it is only the Green Creature planets that have no population. Perhaps we should go see a planet with one of those species that live on the farm where the ship was attempting to hide.”

The Director thought about that proposal and could hear the agreement from the other Ship Directors. So far the fleet had nothing to show for their actions. “Where is the planet with one of the species?”

“It is not that far, and the star drive barrier is only eight hours from the planet.”

“Prepare your ships; we will be jumping to this planet.”

“Valerie?”

“What is it, Joe?”

Joe was silent.

“What is it?”

“The Keepers Fleet has jumped from Webbering.”

“And?”

“The stealth probe read their jump track and they are not going to one of the Spider’s planets.”

“Where are they going?”

“Gambia.”

“Oh no, Joe! Is there anything we can do to save that planet?”

“No, Sis. The Searchers that have the protective coating are all assigned to the Spiders’ planets. The Keepers Fleet has already entered the jump limit at Gambia and will be at the planet is less than six hours. We are not equipped to undertake any kind of response quickly enough that would allow us to move even a small part of the population. The Keepers Fleet is close enough to see optically if we tried to teleport in and start moving the population; it would reveal to them how we are hiding our own populations if we tried. We can’t risk revealing what we’ve been doing.”

Valerie could see in her mind the vision she had years before. She had seen the massive killing but she did not recognize the planet where it was happening. Now she saw the rags the bulk of the population was wearing and the decrepit condition of the buildings. She closed her eyes and wished she could forget. It made sense that the Keepers would go to Gambia. Now, after the fact, it had to be Jake’s psychic self that brought them. This was another avenue to get Jake to the Keepers’ universe. The fact that Jake was already there would have no impact on the various paths that had been set in motion. She thought about Jake and worried.

“Director, the population reading is not changing as we move in-system.”