the tumbling Cainth Pulse Ship and the resulting explosions ripped the ship apart and then shredded the pieces.
Tommy felt the Kosiev as it was thrown left and watched as Cassandra struggled to regain stability. “Get us out of here,” he yelled. “That blast wave will be on us in five seconds.” The blast wave was moving at the speed of light and was closing in on the remaining ships. Cassandra hit the teleport button and the four ships disappeared. Just before the ships disappeared Cassandra sent a thought into the black mass and exploded what remained. All of the remaining Captor ships in the system were blown out of existence as the blast wave engulfed everything within a twenty light minute radius and imploded it.
The reinforcing Captor ships arrived in the outer system just in time to see their fellow warriors totally obliterated by the blast. They jumped away before the blast arrived. The First Male and the warriors at the planet saw hundreds of thousands of empty berths on the construct. In their long hundreds of millions of year’s history, no Captor had ever died. Now they had lost a third of their population to a tiny number of tiny ships in a tiny measure of time. They were ruled by instinct but they were also intelligent beings that were starting to realize that there was a real possibility of defeat. They also were feeling the drive to swarm diminish. It would take hundreds of thousands of years to begin to replace the warriors that had been lost.
The First Male and First Mother were stunned at the loss of life in the attack. The First Male said, “Should we have tried to negotiate with those strangers?”
“What good would it do? If they come into our system we would attack; we have no choice. If they discover where we live, we would attack. Our instincts rule us and even though we know mentally that we’re placing ourselves in danger, we would still attack.”
“First Mother, is this new race superior to us? Every time we encounter them, warriors die.”
“The thing that gives us a fighting chance is that they are few in number. We still have four million warriors. However, we must find a way to protect ourselves from that black energy.”
The First Male said nothing but thought about all of the long time relationships that had ended in the blast of that black matter.
Tommy and Cassandra were sitting on the bridge of the Kosiev thinking about the blast wave they had just escaped. Tommy looked at Lt. Ortiz and asked, “Did you get a reading on the energy in that incoming blast wave?”
Lt. Ortiz looked at his screen and said, “The reading was off the scale. Quite frankly, the scale was made so high that it was never anticipated that any kind of energy reading would get half way up that scale.” Lt. Ortiz looked up and said, “Our hulls would not be penetrated but the severe pressure of the wave would have probably broken the structure of the ship just like the Clan Warrior.”
Tommy gave a heavy sigh and said, “There was no way to avoid the blast when that ship fired the energy ball and detonated it at such close range.”
“Tommy.”
“Yes, Rose.”
“Were you able to save the planet?”
“Yes, we did. We moved it to the system that Earth is in right now.”
“Have you thought about whether or not the Captors can track jump tracks from that system to the rest of the Stars Realm?”
Tommy looked at Cassandra and immediately ordered, “Attention all ships; we will be jumping back into the Crengren system in one minute. Be prepared to teleport out if there are Captor fleets present.”
Cassandra looked at him and nodded, “Weapons, load all magazines; be prepared to launch immediately upon entering normal space; jump in thirty seconds.”
“Rose, I don’t know if the tracks can be traced. We are jumping back in now and see if they are there. What prompted you to ask that question?”
“I have a sense of danger to the Realm and I’m not sure where it’s coming from.”
“Contact Dad and see if he can tell where it’s originating; he had a much better sense for that than we do.”
“He contacted me, Tommy. Something is going on but we can’t tell what it is.”
“I’ll contact you as soon as we arrive back in the Crengren system.”
Cassandra said, “Jumping in 3,2,1, execute.”
The four ships entered normal space in the outer system and saw that there were no Captor ships in the system. They also immediately saw that the system was dramatically changed. All of the inner planets were gone and the three planets in the outer system were in ruins. The closest was shattered into twelve huge pieces with millions of small asteroids fanning out from its former orbit. The crew of the Kosiev looked out on the ruined system and were awed by the magnitude of the blast that must have caused such catastrophic damage.
Cassandra gazed at the ruined system and knew that she had caused the event by exploding the dark matter. “It’s my fault; I caused this.”
Tommy saw her distress and said, “You had no choice; we could not leave any negative matter behind for them to study. One thing we now know though; the tactics of following such a huge amount of negative matter is not something we would do in a system that has value to us.”
Twig looked at them and said, “I suspect that if there were any tracks in this system they were wiped out by the blast.”
Tommy thought a moment and said, “Sprig, you need to find a system for the planet.”
“I already have fifteen selected.”
Tommy looked at the monitor with the destroyed system and then thought, “Rose, I just don’t see any way that the Captors could track anything from this system.”
Sprig stopped as he was about to leave the bridge and stopped. “I just heard what you said to Rose. What is the problem?”
“Rose and my father sense a danger to the Realm. We thought that the Captors might be able to follow jump tracks from here to the rest of the Realm.”
Sprig started shaking and said, “Captain Dodd, find us a nerve center, quickly.”
Cassandra looked puzzled and then comprehension showed, “Lt., jump us to a nerve center, now”
Ortiz looked at his board and entered a coordinate, “Jump in three seconds, 3,2,1, execute.”
The Koseiv broke into normal space and Sprig focused his device on the center. “The temperature is down. The Captors can read all they want. Cassandra, you’ve got to raise the temperature.”
Cassandra focused on the nerve center and saw the particle was no longer white hot but had cooled to red. She mentally entered the particle and felt it respond to her presence. The heat shot up instantly and roared past white to violet. She pulled out instantly and barely got out before the particle exploded. She held her head in her hands and said, “It’s getting close to time for the explosion. The particle is ready.”
Cassandra sat down in her command chair and held her head. Tommy came over and took her hands and shared her thoughts. “Just take it easy, darling. Deep breaths, just relax.”
“Tommy, whatever you did, that sense of danger ended abruptly,” Rose thought to him.
“We found what it was, Rose. However, we have about four months and then we will have to attack the Captors home world. We cannot close this avenue again without a dramatic energy event and I’m not certain what the end result would be. If we wait longer than that, the Captors will be able to see all the planets in the Realm.”
“Tommy, that means only half our ships will be converted,” Rose thought.
“Actually less than that; we can’t wait until the last moment to attack.”
“Have you developed a plan to win this war?”
“We had one but every contact with the Captors forces us to reevaluate. We should meet and discuss our best options, but first we have to find a new home system for Crengren. We’ve pretty much destroyed their home system.”
Rose closed her eyes and saw the system. “What did you do?”
“Well, we came here to party and had a blast. Rose, we had no idea we would cause this much damage. Like I said, we have to reevaluate our plan.”
“Contact me when you’re ready to meet. I’ll let everyone else know to be on standby.”
“Give me about seven days; we lost one of our ships in the last battle and we need to contact the next of
