Annihilation - Finding Keepers (Annihilation Series (Book Seven}) (20 page)

“His coming here can get us all killed, Young Queen.”

“Do you call this living? Your species in the Realm live a hundred and fifty years; you are taken at around 35 years of age. You slave in the fields to feed yourself for the Keepers to consume. You are allowed no technology to spare you the hard labor. You are livestock here, but in the Realm Humans are admired and respected by all the trillions of citizens.”

“So what happens now?”

“We are not taking you to the Realm if we can move you.” The gathering started talking among themselves so Valerie switched to telepathy to communicate with them, “It’s not what you think.” Everyone heard her in their thoughts and even Jackson was surprised. “We have citizens in more than a thousand universes. I am not going to take the chance of taking you to the Realm where the Keepers Fleet might scan you and come to take vengeance. I am sending you to a planet of humans who will take care of you until this conflict is resolved. It is time to learn who you are and to know that humans do not give in to tyranny or slavery.”

A young woman stepped out of the crowd and said, “You came here to take Jake back to the Realm didn’t you?”

Valerie looked at the woman and marveled at how beautiful she was, “Yes, but he would not go without you. Our survival depends on Jake and his developing psychic abilities. I was hoping he would listen to reason and leave.”

Jackson shook his head, “You are at least being honest about it.”

Valerie looked around and saw the goodness of the people around her, “He forced me to make this attempt to move you. I could not understand why he was taking this risk with the trillions in the Realm at risk if something happened to him.” Valerie paused and then continued, “But now, after seeing you, I know the truth that he saw before I could grasp it. To turn away from the few to try and save the many is a wrong that only corrupts the values our Realm was founded upon.” She left her thought open so everyone could hear, “Junior, have you been listening to this?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“I will not leave without these people. Do you understand?”

The hundreds of thousands of humans waited for a response, “If it comes down to it; we will all die here together, my Queen. I will not abandon you.”

“Thank you for this gift, Junior.”

Jackson looked around, “Who is this Junior?”

“He’s the ship hovering here. He’s an intelligent, mechanical, life form that was made a citizen of the Realm more than thirteen thousand years ago. He was made my friend just a moment ago.”

The young woman looked at Valerie and said, “You love him, don’t you?”

“I now care about Junior very much.”

I wasn’t talking about him; you love Jake. You must be the one he was trying to find.”

Valerie stared at the young woman, “What prompted you to say that?”

“Because he is worthy of a Queen, and nothing less than love would have brought you here to share our fate.”

Valerie lowered her head, “You’ve got it all wrong; it is I that am not worthy of him.”

Jackson shook his head, “Not from where I stand. You were meant for each other.”

Valerie smiled, then walked up and kissed Jackson on the cheek. If a black man could blush, Jackson did.

Kathea walked up and hugged Valerie, “I, too, love our Good Luck Man. I know you’ll be happy together.”

Valerie was approached by many in the crowd to tell her of their good fortune caused by touching Jake. She listened and stored them in her heart. She kept hearing in the back of her mind, “I love you too, Valerie.” The explosions over the hills grew louder.

Cynthia teleported to the row of hills overlooking the Keepers’ garrison; she turned up the magnification in her helmet and saw Jake continuing to fire at the building and surrounding grounds, “Should I come and join in the fun?”

Jake disappeared briefly and reappeared a short distance above his last position. “No, Cynthia. The Keepers are starting to move some of their larger focused-beam platforms to the surface and I can’t protect you, dodge the beams, and fight effectively.”

“How are you doing against that weapon?”

“I’m dodging it. My new psychic skills allow me to sense it before they fire, and I can also see it coming slow enough to get out of the way. The problem is there are so many exits to that facility it’s just a matter of time until they fire a wide spread of those beams. I’ve managed to kill any beam platform that fires at me so far, but they’ve stopped firing for the last fifteen minutes so I believe they are marshalling their weapons to fire in unison.”

“Then you need to get out of here right now.”

“Not yet. I’m going to have to get down to ground level shortly but if I go now, those beams will be available to use against the colony. I want them to fire, which will allow me to target their larger beam platforms. I’m also sensing that the central intelligence of these creatures is starting to reform and get organized. Ships are going to be sent shortly.”

Suddenly Jake pressed the teleport button on his jaw, disappeared from the west end of the camp, and reappeared over the eastern boundary. Cynthia then saw hornets leave Jake’s armor at an incredible rate. Even with her view magnified, the small missiles left faster than her scanner could track. She knew the hornets were not designed to fly that fast. Jake was doing something that made them fly as fast as a high speed penetrator. The surface of the Keepers’ facility exploded like it was on fire.

“Are you ready?”

“Yes, I’ve set the coordinates of the beam and it will overlap the two on each side of my platform.”

“We will fire simultaneously in twenty degrons. Have your team start charging your weapon.”

The ten Keepers turned off their hearing and began sending their rhythmic thoughts toward the aperture feeding into the barrel of their platform. The firing officer watched as the intensity level rose to maximum, and waited as the countdown reached zero. He pressed the discharge button and felt the recoil of the beam as it left the facility at light speed. Immediately after the recoil, the three teams stationed at the central opening on the surface were hit by a hornet and all thirty Keepers in the three groups were blown into fragments. Of the hundred beams fired, all hundred platforms and the thousand Keepers manning them disappeared in huge explosions.

The Leader of the garrison was dumbfounded by the destruction being done by the single entity that was hovering over his vast complex. If one of his brothers fired at that creature, then that brother died. Everyone that had moved to the surface of the complex to take a shot had been killed. He continued to try and contact the Collective, but had no success. His teams had fired a three-square-mile pattern at the floating entity and had somehow missed. He was not going to order any more warriors back to the surface until the Collective gave him instructions. He continuously had attempted to contact the ship on the moon, but he sensed no one in the area where they were supposed to have landed. He could only assume that the ship had somehow been killed. He thought a moment and decided, “Well, if not killed, then out of contact like the Collective.” Another explosion rocked his chamber and he sent a thought to all of the surviving Keepers to stay away from the surface until further notice.

The Collective managed its first thought in three hours, “Are any of you here?” He heard nothing in response. It was still mentally groggy and processing data very slowly. It did, however, sense that it was slowly picking up speed. Then he heard, “I assume you did not want me to respond.”

The Collective was startled, “Values, how did you survive that hit?”

“You separated me from you. I only received a minor charge from whatever that thing was.”

“Obviously, whatever it was is an enemy. Help me get the other quadrants organized.”

“Which one do you want me to help first?”

“Military.”

“I will begin now.”

The Collective watched as the Values Quadrant started pulling the various pieces of the Military Quadrant together to allow them to reform. He was thankful that he had separated Values; recovery should speed up now that one of the Quadrants was functioning normally. As Military began to organize, the Collective felt the growing connections to all of the Keepers begin to function normally. Then he heard, “What happened?”

“We’ll discuss that later. Right now send some ships to that farm where the strange ship was killed.”

“I had a ship on the moon there.”

The Collective sent his senses to the farm planet and could only sense the population in the garrison. It saw that it was greatly reduced in size. There was no indication that the ship was there, “The ship is not responding. Get the ships that came back from the search to go there now!”

“All of them?”

“Yes, and send any others that are available.”

“The orders are going out.”

Admiral Zergl looked at his display and said, “Are you charged and ready?”

Major Draygen nodded, “We could always load more inventories into the skin, but that would take more time.”

“What you have will have to be enough; teleport to your ship and go assist the Queen. Make sure of her safety.”

Dragen hit his com, “Report to the landing bay and charge your weapons. We will be teleporting to the planet momentarily and assisting in the defense of the three colonies. Remember, we do not know if this coating will protect us or how long it will hold up to their beams. Do not allow yourself to be a stationary target. Teleport now.”

The fifty Red Warriors teleported into the Landing bay of the small attack ship and Captain Ethan Rucker hit his com, “Belt in; we’re jumping in twenty seconds.” Ethan charged the ship’s weapons and counted down the jump. The small ship disappeared in a purple flash.

The Collective sent a thought to the Garrison Leader, “What is happening?” The Leader thought about the last three hours and the Collective watched his thoughts. It sent its senses into the garrison and the Military Quadrant totaled the remaining inventory.

Military ordered, “Send all your survivors and attack. You have ninety thousand and you will have to overwhelm the forces facing you. Kill everyone in the three farms.”

“Jake?”

“Yes, Junior?”

“More than 400,000 ships have jumped in at the jump limit and are moving in-system. They will arrive in less than ten hours.”

“Junior, if the transports don’t arrive in time I want you to take Valerie and jump away.”

“I’ve promised her not to go without you. You must go with us or she will stay.”

“Junior, you must save her. She’s the Queen.”

“Yes, but you are our only hope of survival. I’ve doubted her, but now I believe she’s right. Either you go with us or we all die here.”

Jake didn’t want to live if he had to leave the colony to the Keepers, but he knew that he could not allow Valerie to die. “I’ll make the decision when there are no other options, Junior. Do not lose a lock on her; do you understand?”

“I won’t, Jake, but I also have you locked in on my board. Don’t block me, Jake.”

“Pray I won’t have to, Junior.”

Cynthia screamed into Jake’s com, “Massive forces leaving the building! I’m targeting the air units!”

Jake looked out at the garrison and saw thousands of Keepers’ vehicles and troops pouring out of the ground around the central building. He teleported to the ground next to Cynthia as thousands of beams ripped through the space he had just occupied. Jake watched everything go into slow motion, but saw so many black lines going out into the oncoming horde that he knew he could not hit them all. He released his armor and began teleporting away from the incoming beams and projectiles being fired at him. His armor took on a life of its own as wasps, hornets, beams, and auto cannon projectiles left in a solid wave of death. The front ranks of the oncoming Keepers were obliterated by Jake’s and Cynthia’s combined fire.

Cynthia thought to Jake, “I told you this was not good on Ross.”

Jake killed twelve Keepers’ aircraft as they approached the row of hills, “Yes, you did, but admit it; aren’t you having fun?”

Cynthia hit eight more circling around to the left, “Yes, but don’t tell anyone.”

Jake smiled, then felt his rage build. The Keepers were gaining ground, but they were dying by the thousands.

The Humans could hear the explosions moving closer and knew that a massive battle was happening just over the hills from their colony. Valerie thought, “Junior, what’s happening?”

“Jake and Cynthia are holding off more than eighty thousand Keepers.”

“Junior, you have to get them out of there.”

“I would if I could, but Jake is still blocking my efforts.”

“Junior, can you scan Jake and get a reading on the level of his psychic power.”

“Yes, but why do you want me to do that?”

“I want to make sure he has really been released.”