The remaining Captor ships moved away from Jupiter and remained motionless. Tommy looked at Cassandra and then thought to Sprig, “We’re going to get crowded here very quickly. I know our friends out at Jupiter have just called for help.”
Twig said, “Not much longer.”
Tommy and Cassandra watched the ships at Jupiter. On Earth, Misty Nicole saw the destruction of Europa and felt her fear soar. This was beyond her imagination and she began communicating to the population what was happening and asking for their prayers. The planet did not have much longer before death arrived.”
The First Male received the message from the new nest. “The ship is here at the third planet from the sun. It just killed five of our warriors.”
“Move no closer until I arrive. First Mother, the ship that has attacked us is in the system of the new nest. It appears the third planet is technologically advanced enough for space flight. The ship has just killed five of our warriors. I am going to confront the ship and destroy that planet.”
“If you destroy that planet, will that ship come here and destroy our world?”
The First Male said, “I don’t know but we cannot allow them to go unpunished.”
“Then gather your warriors and make sure you have enough to complete the job. I forbid you to take part in the attack.”
The First Male said, “First Mother, I beg you for the right to lead the fight.”
“No, we have to have you if we must create another mother. Your request is denied.”
The First Male fought down his anger and said, “Yes, First Mother, it will be as you order.”
The first male called for a million warriors to follow him and jumped to the new nest.
Tommy watched as the million new red ships appeared around Jupiter. The ships then began flying toward Earth.”
Wes said, “Why aren’t they jumping here.”
Cassandra said, “All we’ve seen so far has been their beam weapons. I suspect they do not want to risk any more ships so they will use their standoff weapons.” The huge fleet arrived at the orbit of mars and stopped. Then a giant red ball of energy was launched at Earth. The red ball was traveling at three quarter light speed. Cassandra key her com, “Sprig, Twig, the Captors have fired an energy weapon that is traveling at the three quarters of light speed. It will be here in less than seven minutes. That is all the time you have remaining.”
Tommy looked at the incoming energy ball and said, “That ball is larger than Earth. Captain Dodd, is there any way to detonate that ball before it hits?”
Cassandra thought a moment and said, “We could launch all of our shuttles into its path.”
“Launch them now. I’ll explain why later.”
All fifty shuttles launched from the Kosiev under remote control and moved between Earth and the incoming energy ball. The ball was two minutes away and Wes started a countdown to impact. “Two minutes. One minute. Thirty seconds.”
Sprig looked at Twig and said, “Energize the emitters; prepare the device.”
“Fifteen seconds, ten seconds, nine, eight, seven, six..”
“Twig threw the switch on the device and a silver field appeared between the Kosiev and Earth. Earth moved into the field and disappeared.”
The energy ball lost the target it was locked on and only saw the shuttles in the zone. It struck the shuttles and a giant explosion rocked the Kosiev and blew it more than twenty thousand miles from the position it was holding. The Kosiev then flew away so fast toward the sun that the explosion had not started to settle and it was gone from the solar system. Where once a green and blue planet existed, now there was only a moon following a wobbling orbit where the planet had been.
The First Male watched the explosion and saw afterwards that the planet was gone. The strange ship was also missing. Something wasn’t right; there should have been more debris left behind from the Planet’s destruction. One of the Captor scientists heard his thought and said, “It is possible that the planet had huge stores of energy on it and combined with the energy missile it was enough to totally disintegrate the planet. It certainly isn’t there now.”
The First Male went to the site of the explosion and still didn’t feel comfortable with the findings. “Were we able to see anything behind the explosion of the energy missile?”
The Watcher that had accompanied the warriors said, “The missile was actually bigger than the planet. We were not able to see anything behind the blast and until we can get into a nexus, there is no way to see the details.”
The Scientist said, “It had to be disintegrated. It’s not here. Would you prefer to believe that these creatures moved the planet?”
The First Male snorted at the idea and said, “Of course not, but there just isn’t enough mass left to account for the planet’s destruction.” After a pause he said, “I must agree with you; I can’t see any other possibility. He scanned the system with his sensors and said, “There are outposts of the creatures on some of the moons and asteroids in this system. Warriors, clean them up.” The giant red ships scattered through the solar system and systematically destroyed everything with intelligent life on it. Five of Jupiter’s moons were blown apart and the pieces obliterated.
Rose sat in the throne room in Castle Gardner and watched the destruction of all the settlements left in Earth’s solar system. Then she saw the Giant ships moving toward Earth’s moon, “Tommy,” she thought.
“Yes, Rose.”
“The Captors are moving in on Earth’s moon. There’s more than 125, 000 people in the settlements there.”
Tommy ordered, “Stop the Kosiev and prepare to return to….,” then he stopped in mid sentence. “Rose, did you just feel that?”
Rose signed heavily and said, “Yes, I did.”
Suddenly Tag broke into their thoughts, “What are you two planning? Whatever it is, stop now!”
Rose thought to her father, “Dad, the Captors are moving in on Earth’s moon. If they destroy it more than 125,000 people will lose their lives.”
“What were you going to do about it?”
Tommy said, “I started issuing orders to return and possibly teleport the moon away. But then I felt what you must have felt, too.”
“If you do that Tommy, Earth will be destroyed.” Tag paused a moment and listened to his senses and then said, “It appears that the Captors did not see the Earth disappear. My sense tells me that Earth is safe for the near future. However, when I think about you going back to save the moon, my alarms go off full blast.”
“I know, Dad. Tommy and I both felt it, too. I just can’t bear to watch so many innocent people die.”
Then they all felt it; the moon was gone. Tommy felt anger and then hate for the race that so callously killed. Cassandra sitting on the bridge just below his chair could actually see the aura around Tommy roll, boil and turn in on itself. Cassandra’s heart grieved for the loss of life on the moon. More than two hundred of her former classmates were assigned there. She had watched the moon while Tommy was discussing what could be done without endangering the Earth. She listened to the Gardners and watched the moon in her mind as three Captors approached and hit it with their main beams. The resulting blast exploded it out from its center in all directions. The Captors then fired their beams at the largest pieces of the moon to erase the possibility of them ever being a danger to Jupiter. Once they were through, they turned and moved toward mars. The settlements there were blown out of existence but the planet was left intact. The Captors did not want huge pieces of the planet near their nest. Within three hours, more than 1,430,000 people were killed in the systematic extermination of all intelligent life in the system. Not once did the Captors attempt to communicate with the ones they were destroying and they ignored the pleas for mercy. Cassandra felt a harness in her heart for this cold blooded race of killers. Everyone on the bridge suddenly felt the Kosiev begin vibrating and then start shaking.
Tommy interrupted his conversation with Rose and his father and thought to Cassandra, “Are you alright?”
Cassandra came back into the moment and thought, “Yes. I just let them get to me.” The Kosiev quit vibrating and returned to normal. The bridge crew was sharing glances at each other. They had begun talking among themselves that the Captain could probably fight the ship alone. Even Wes sensed that Captain Dodd and the ship moved to the same heart beat. Unlike his fellow crewmen, Wes was thankful that the Captain and the ship
