Infinity (4 page)

After all accusations were filed, the
suspects were officially accused and all the evidence revealed to the Hall. The
magistrate called for testimonies to be given by the defendants.

“You all saw and heard. My husband has
been secretly
surveilling me for the
past twenty years. Is anyone safe in this kingdom anymore?” Grumbled Dvora. “He
has never been a father to my daughters.”

The magistrate
was forced to intervene. “Madame, may I remind you that it is
you
and not the king who is on trial
here today? Do you have anything to say in your defence regarding the crime
against the king?”

She looked up
again. “Is it a crime to talk with your daughters? It is obvious who is the guilty
party here. The visual clearly shows it was
Wutsam Tsupy who added the poison to my
husband’s morning meal juice. He acted alone.”

The prosecutor interrupted her. “Madame,
the audial visual clearly reveals that you and your seven daughters were
conspiring to poison the king. The very poison that was found in the cup—is
the same exact poison you mentioned during your conspiring. I have no more
questions, Lord Magistrate.”

After calling the seven sisters, each one
testifying that they had no recollection of ever talking with their mother about
killing their father. They denied being involved in any conspiracy.

   
“I see what’s happening
here,” said the prosecuting counsellor to Dvora and her daughters. “You want
the food preparer to take all the blame. Well, let’s hear from him shall we?”

Wutsam Tsupy took the witness box and told
his story. He admitted to adding the poison, but insisted he didn’t know it was
poison. He told the magistrate that Dvora had told him to secretly add the
mixture; that it was a special herb that would give her husband strength. Dvora
denied that and publicly denounced Wutsam as a liar and killer.
  
The sisters all shouted at him too
and the Hall of Justice was in an uproar. The defence counsellor for Dvora and
her sisters called for a mistrial. The magistrate, however, was determined to
stick to the evidence. There was no jury as there had been in Earth cultures,
and on some other planets.

The magistrate had to make the final
decision based on facts and real evidence. The last one to testify was the king
himself; the one who had been the alleged victim.

   
His testimony against Dvora
and her daughters was strong; the magistrate could not deny that they were
guilty. The magistrate released Wutsam Tsupy, but because of his involvement,
and not having the food tested first as always, he was banished to another galaxy.
 
Dvora and her daughters were all found
guilty, as was the sorceress, who had been practicing her sorcery illegally.
She was banished to the utmost planet called
Ugoxuthia
at the farthest end of the Twelve Galaxies Cluster to
the
Kreapis Empire.
 
It was the most underdeveloped planet in
the Twelve Galaxies Cluster where criminals were often sent.
 
Since the Great Sorceress Caratrah
Shadowfire
’s crime was against the king, she was
sentenced to slavery in the Xetronium Mines. Xetronium was an ore that fuelled
all of the planets in the Twelve Galaxies Cluster kingdom. Mining it caused
dust-like spores to fill the air. The constant breathing in of the spores
caused infections inside the body that slowly destroyed a person’s health. It
was a virtual death sentence, as after working in the mines for ten years, the
lungs are eaten away by the Xetronium dust that is inhaled. The trip on the
prisoner transporter could take a year and a half. Finally the magistrate
handed down the severest sentence of them all to Dvora and her daughters, who
stood their ground in defiance. Dvora was deemed the main instigator of the
plot who influenced her daughters to turn rogue against their stepfather, and
so she was to be banished from the kingdom of the Twelve Galaxies Cluster and
sent to the
Yuhenia Star System. It was
considered the most heinous of all systems consisting of volcanic planets, icy
cold planets, and barbaric planets with races of vampire-like creatures that
were challenged in knowledge and only survived by their blood lust. Her
daughters were doomed to become the mistresses of the leaders of another star
system at the opposite end of the galaxies far away. The leaders watched the
borders for intruders. Many strange goings on occurred here. Mobsters flourished.
Crime was a daily way of life.

The
Xiattodians were brutal and slave drivers. The seven daughters would become
slaves on one of their planets to obey every whim and wish of the planet’s
leader, to do and obey without question whatever they told them to do under
pain of death by torture.

Daxu Korth, King of the Kingdom of Twelve
Galaxies Cluster, had a strong premonition. He knew this was not the last he
had seen of Devora and his stepdaughters.

Cruise’s armada
had passed the end of the Twelve Galaxies Cluster border and was entering the
Cymapucheia Nebula. The vessel that was with Arthos
when he entered the warp was traveling aside Cruise. They had been traveling
for almost an earth month when they came to a galaxy they did not know.

Trying
to navigate their way through it, Cruise’s communication officer picked up a
signal coming from one of the solar systems right in their path.
 
“Sir, it sounds like a distress signal
coming from that sector I’m mapping now.”

“Have
you any idea what the nature of that solar system is?” Cruise inquired.

Cruise’s
science officer Caleo offers his opinion. “I think, Sir, that this region is a
mining region. But it does not belong to our Twelve Galaxies Cluster.”

“If
it’s a mining region, the planets must have valuable ore so it may be a target
for pirates,” responds Cruise.

“You
may be right, Captain,” replies the Caleo. His mother was an Earthling but
father Southern, or “Zohdani” Quewythian.

“Is
there anyway to confirm if the messages are authentic or fake?” asks Cruise.

“Yes,
there is, Captain,” replies Caleo. Using Trinity’s Encoded Tele Biopsy Scanner

I
can send a tracer that picks up the heartbeats and pulse of the people sending
the message. It will also translate it into how high their adrenaline output is
and give a blood pressure reading too.”

“What
a day we live in, Caleo,” responds Cruise.

“I
can also get their breathing, if it’s normal or not.”

“Okay,
Caleo. Let’s do it.”

Caleo
scans the galaxy with the powerful device and picks up a location. “Based on the
Twelve Galaxies Cluster Space Coordinate Locator, the distress signal is coming
from a solar system we will now be able to view in 4 dimension at 20 million
pixels.”

The
lights on the Drive Deck are turned down lower as an image of the Twelve
Galaxies Cluster appear in relation to where the fleet is now and where the
distress signal is coming from.

“As
you can see, Captain, the distress signal is coming from here.” Caleo points to
a cluster of stars and by spreading the fingers of both hands magnifies the
cluster dividing it into star systems. Fortunately, the particular galaxy they
are viewing has only a few billion star systems, making it easier to spot where
the signal is coming from. Caleo spreads his fingers again and the problem area
is magnified even more.

“Now
we can see the planets of that solar system. As you can see there are three
suns in fairly close proximity to each other,” explains Caleo. “I feel that we
are receiving a signal from this particular planet here.” Caleo points to the
fourth planet from its suns in a system of seven planets. “The surface is
breathable, and the vegetation is much like the inhabited planets in the
kingdom.”

“What
about the signal, Caleo. Is it a genuine call for help?” asks Cruise. “Or is it
pirates trying to lure naive traveling vessels to their demise?”

“I’m
afraid the readings I’m receiving are quite genuine; very difficult or
impossible to fake, Captain. Should we send a tracer signal asking for a visual
of the situation down there?”

“That
will be Jera, the communications officer’s job.” Cruise turns to face Jera, who
has already started keying in the introduction on her console. Jera is the
daughter of Commodore Graven back on Cassiopeia and a full-blooded Northern
Quewythian. Having the curly raven black hair, her skin was a little bit
lighter that most Quewythians.

“Hailing
planet on Super Light Speed transmission,” says Jera. “Requesting a visual now,
Captain.”

“This
is going to take some time to get through and get our answer,” says Cruise.
“Engine room, this is the Captain. Prepare for Super Warp Drive five.
Glorainne, take us closer. Caleo, how far away are we from that planet?”

Caleo
checks the 3-D hologram again and zooms out until the course is plotted and
distance given. “According to these read outs, Captain, we’re approximately
twenty five million tectors away.”

“On
this vessel we will use the same units of measurements as Earth does,”
admonishes Cruise.

“Oh,
yes, I forgot, Sir, please forgive me. That would be equal to a million of
Earth’s light years.”

 
“In that case it’ll take us approximately
forty five cycles in Super Warp Drive 5 to get there. Glorainne, take us to
Planet X and lock into its orbit.” Cruise then informs the rest of the fleet of
the change and instructs them to continue on their original course until
further notice.

Cruise’s
vessel Infinity then leaves the formation of the one hundred-vessel fleet and
accelerates to Super Warp Drive. It passes through the stages until it reaches
Super Warp Drive 5. While in that state, they could not send or receive any
communications. Cruise said that the transmission Jera sent would take time to
get there. This was the first time they were using Super Warp Drive 5, which
was a thousand times faster than anything they had travelled in before. They
arrived even before the message Jera transmitted did.

Glorainne
locked Infinity into orbit around the planet they now knew was named Dekkonia.
It had been too far to pick it up before, but now that they were in orbit
around it, Jera was picking up audial visuals as well as a myriad of diverse
frequencies. It was then when Cruise realized that he needed to act.

Pirates
had forced their way into the mines and according to the transmissions they
were receiving, were forcing the miners to dig up the precious metal ores.
Pirates had commandeered the whole planet. Jera and Caleo also detected
fighting vessels on their way from two other planets. Obviously they were not even
equipped with Hyper Drive and were moving slow.

It
was then that Caleo, using the 4-D Hologram Image Procreator, detected six
pirate vessels on the other side of the planet also in orbit. He also detected
that they had no form of transport technology other than shuttles, which they
used to get to the surface.

“We
could blast them out of orbit and disintegrate them quicker than a bolt of
lightning,” said Garza Suthax, the chief tactical officer.

“We
could at that, but the pirates on the surface would probably take hostages,”
replied Cruise. “But we can jam their communications and throw force fields
around their vessels so that they can’t fire their weapons and can’t leave or
come back.”

“True,
Captain,” replied Garza. “Then the force fields will hold them until we decide
what to do after we rescue the people on the planet.”

“That’s
just what I was thinking, Garza,” replies Cruise.

Just
as Cruise had ordered, six Electromagnetic Block Domination Barrier Pods were
released. They consisted of small pods the size of a man’s head and went
undetected by the Cloak-Zenith Veils installed several decades before. They
went undetected as the camouflage launchers were activated when the pods were
teleported around the planet to where the six pirate ships were locked in
orbit. When Garza switched them on, they engulfed the six pirate vessels in
invisible impenetrable auras of Hyper Flonium energy, which is harmless to
life, but impossible to break or even scratch. The Electro Magnetic Impulse
they sent out was limited to whatever they had a hold of.

Unknown
to the pirates on board, their vessels were now cut off from their comrades on
the surface and no form of communication was possible. They had no control over
their vessels, so surprised as they were, could take no action; only sit there
and wait.

On
Cruise’s command, Glorainne maneuverers Infinity over to the other side of the
planet where the pirate vessels are in orbit after using the Cloak Zenith Veil
to render the vessel invisible. If the pirates had looked out of their portals
at a fully visible Infinity, they would have panicked and tried to use their
weapons against her. Their ammunition would have only rebounded off of the
invisible shield and destroyed their own vessels. Cruise was not so sure he
wanted to waste them all until he had a chance to talk to their commanders to
find out where they hail from, if there are more of them, and where their base
of operations is.

On
the surface the pirates that had commandeered the planet were still in
communication with each other, but none of them could contact their vessels.

“This
is a strange event,” grumbled Makuv, pirate leader of the ground assault, in
his native tongue.

His
second in command, Hujikom, checked his communicator. “We may be in the middle
of a sun storm. It might be interference from the solar winds. Remember,
Commander, this planet has three suns.”

“Our
bad fortune,” replied the Commander. “But we should be finished here soon and then
we will load all of the precious ore onto all of the spacecrafts and be on our
way. We were ordered to leave an army here to ensure the stability of our
efforts. This planet is now the property of The Subjugator.”

Although
the pirate ground crew could not communicate with their spacecrafts, that
didn’t stop Jera from tuning in to their frequency so that their conversations
could be heard by the whole crew and translated with the Universal Language
Decipher Unit.

“Why
Captain,” spoke up Jera, “These pirates are Ergaddi.”

“Cannibals,
when the occasion calls for it,” responded Cruise.

“Yes,
Captain,” says Caleo. “Only in formal arrangements, as a rare delicacy such as
weddings, and funerals. They’re not usually the partying kind.”

“Well,
I for one do not plan to be partying with them,” replies Cruise.

“May
I ask, Captain,” speaks up the First Officer Geyruk, “What is to be the next
course of action?”

Cruise
wipes his forehead and turns to his first officer. “I want you and Caleo to locate
every Ergaddi being on the planet. I want to know their exact coordinates.”

Infinity’s
Biological Organism Detector was activated and set to the Ergaddi race. The
Ergaddis had a bone structure that included oversized shoulders and long webbed
toes. That meant they were strong swimmers and somewhat frog-like.

Their
necks were very short and some almost had no necks. They had no hair whatsoever
on any part of their bodies. The pigmentation of their skin was yellow with
brown and green strokes and contours and their eyes were like the eyes of a
cat. The detector was set to the proper specifications in order to locate the
Ergaddi species.

“The
total number of Ergaddis is seven hundred and fifty two, Captain,” answered
Geyruk as he looks down at the device’s screen. “Looks like they are scattered
among all of the mines as guards to ensure they work hard.”

“Scan
their spacecrafts now,” said Cruise, still staring at the tiny indications of
Ergaddi presence on the planet. “I want to know how many of their crews are
still on board their crafts.”

Caleo
retrieves the data and Geyruk responds. “Out of all six spacecrafts, Captain,
fifty crew members on each one.”

“So
their total numbers are one thousand and fifty two,” responds Cruise. “The
fifty two are most likely commanding officers. Each one has a certain amount of
soldiers working under them. They probably already have a base set up
somewhere. Can you locate that?”

“Sorry,
Captain,” replies Caleo. “This is merely a biological detector. It doesn’t give
the ranks of the entities.”

“For
that,” says Garza, “We’ll have to activate the Radio Diagnostic Sensing
Analyser and lock it into their frequency. Then we’ll be able to see where they
have the largest concentration of emitting frequency waves.”

“Are
you sure that won’t give our position away?” asks Cruise.

“They’ll
know they’re being scanned, but will not be able to trace it,” replies Caleo,
“because we only need to send a signal for a few seconds, since we are using
Earth’s terms of measurements. To them it will look like their vessels are
still trying to communicate with them.”

The
commander of the Ergaddi pirates is notified that a communication signal had
been sent down to earth from space. “It must be our spacecraft attempting to
communicate.”

“How
much longer with this whole process take?” Demands the impatient commander.

“We
will be completely finished and ready for transport to the cargo vessels in
three miscils.”

That
conversation was enough for Tactical Officer Garza to locate the central base
of operations of the pirates. “We got it, Captain. Here are the coordinates.”

“Captain,”
speaks up Caleo, “according to the Biological Organism Detector, the base seems
to be located a great distance from the mines.”

Garza
turns towards Cruise. “That gives us a chance to wipe out all of their
leadership in one fell swoop, Captain. We may never have this chance again.”

“No,
I won’t do it that way, Garza,” replies Cruise. “We are not heartless mercenaries
who kill first and ask questions later. I, unlike many of the ruthless dynasties
that fill the limitless universe, believe in taking prisoners.”