“Did they find anything?”
“No, they report small pieces of armor but it’s probably from their collision.”
“Are you sure?”
The Sensor male looked at the reported scan from the attack craft and said, “The pieces are very small and appear to be scattered from their contact. There is nowhere near enough to account for even a fin much less a ship. It’s also located at the spot they collided. If it’s from the two missing ships, there’s not near enough. You know that the surface of those ships cannot be destroyed. If I had to decide I would lean toward it being from the collision.”
“I agree but I’m probably just looking for anything that would tell us what happened. Those ships have to be here but they’re not. This is not a disappearance we can ignore.”
“What are your orders?”
“Assign a section of this system for every ship to investigate. Stop this rushing around the system by all of our attack craft and let’s take this systematically. I want some transports sent to the planet and scan the remains to see if our ships are buried in it.”
“Do you think they hit the planet and caused the destruction?”
“They would have had to be moving at top speed but if that happened they might have found themselves buried in the planets core.”
“That theory begs the question as to why they were in such a hurry.”
The Ship’s Male thought a moment and then said, “Is it possible to hide a planet so that it wouldn’t be seen until you were on top of it?”
“That would suggest a very high level of technology, First Fang.”
“Perhaps, but it would explain why we did not see a planet on our initial scan. Our children were probably in a hurry to return to take part in our next harvest and were rushing just like they are now. They might still be alive but buried in the remains of the planet.”
“If that were the case, we should be able to hear them?”
“I suppose you’re right; do you have another idea about what happened to them?”
“No, First Fang; we will have to scan the remains closely to eliminate the possibility of what you suggest.”
“Please bring some order out of this chaos and issue the orders, Sensor Male.”
“I am going to recall all of the attack craft and send them out in small groups to their assigned areas. I’ve already given the transports their locations.”
The Ship’s Male turned on his communication device and moved to the bed where the probe entered his abdomen. The Supreme Male didn’t say anything; he just down loaded what the Ship’s Male had seen. After a long pause the Supreme Male said, “I think I agree with your Sensor Male about the few pieces. There is nothing that can damage our hulls except another vessel made from the same material hitting it. I am moving up the schedule for the full family’s arrival. You will remain in that system and find those missing ships.”
“Your orders will be obeyed.”
The Sensor Male did not look at the Ship’s Male and let him see his disappointment. He suspected that they were not going to find those ships and remaining in one location, particularly a lifeless location, was going to cause hunger among the children. He also worried about what existed in this universe that could cause the disappearances. He knew that his race was indestructible but something had happened. He turned back to his displays and tried to hide his fears.
The Ship’s Male also felt what the Sensor Male was thinking and feared that once again his ship was going to go hungry. “We have to find those ships.”
Stem, Sprig, Twig, Matt, and Melanie watched the feed from the probe. “What are they doing,” Melanie asked?
“They aren’t leaving. The transports are moving out into the system in an organized fashion. I suspect that the small craft are being recalled because they are literally out of control. I’ve counted five collisions and one of them was near the site of the attack.”
“They went right through that area and it appears that they aren’t acting any different,” Stem commented.
Matt thought a moment, “That collision near the site may have caused them to thing that any residual pieces were the result of that collision. If that’s the case, we may have bought some time.”
“Why are those transports moving so close to the planet,” Al asked? Everyone watched as the transports selected a large piece of the planets debris and stopped above it.
Melanie watched the display, “They’re looking for the ships in those pieces of the planet.”
Twig thought, “I think you’re right. They must think that the ships collided with the planet and caused its destruction.”
“If they believe that, then they suspect that someone can hide a planet.” Matt paused, “That must be what they’re thinking. They think their ships hit it because they didn’t see it. That means we are going to have to be careful when the full invasion starts. They’ll look back at their data from the last invasion and select those systems that should have a developed civilization; if they see no life; they’ll investigate closely.”
Melanie looked at Sprig, “I hope we learned enough from the attack to make it worth the risk.”
“We have learned a lot. We know that only the outer hull of their ships are made from the green substance; the interior is made from normal alloys and building materials.”
“Are you sure about that,” Matt asked?
“It stands to reason. The easiest ship to make using a hundred percent of the substance would be their smallest ships. If they aren’t built that way then the larger ships shouldn’t be either.”
“How does that help us?”
“I’m not sure, but I know that normal weapons will destroy the interior which will probably stop them. We also learned how they penetrate ships. They fire their lower deck into the surface of the ship and penetrate it so that they can enter through the resulting hole. It didn’t work on the iron tree coating and actually bounced them away. That deck must hit powerfully to bounce them as far as they moved.”
“What about the Red Warrior’s weapons,” Fly Girl inquired?
“Mixed results; the swords were very effective, especially when swung using the power of their armor. The guns fired right through them and didn’t slow them down fast enough. We recorded Team Leader Brez’s results when he fired the marbles slower and the results were better.” Sprig pushed a button and replayed the results of the slower velocity projectile.
Everyone watched and Matt asked, “Why is that Eight Leg moving in so many directions?”
Twig thought, “Evidently that marble is bouncing around inside the green armor it’s wearing.”
“Uh, I have a question,” Al thought.
“What is that, Al,” Twig responded?
“I thought there was a universal law that said that anything that moves and meets resistance will be slowed.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I just ran an analysis of that marble that hit that Eight Leg and after bouncing around inside it at least five times it left five times faster than the velocity it entered. Shouldn’t it have slowed down?”
Sprig said, “Show me what you’ve seen.” Al downloaded the analysis to Sprig’s display and the Plant’s limbs started to fall.”
Mat said, “Uh oh, are we going to crash again?”
Sprig looked up and said, “No, but I need to run an experiment.” He jumped up and ran from the room. Everyone followed and he entered his lab and pulled out a piece of the ships they had brought back and placed it on the floor. He opened another container and pulled out a stone tree marble and held it above the green substance and dropped it. It hit and bounced a foot. “This doesn’t make sense.” He spent the next two hours hitting the green metal with stone tree balls at various velocities but nothing happened remotely resembling what had happened to the Eight Leg.”
“Sprig, maybe some of the stone tree marbles were manufactured in a different manner from the others,” Melanie suggested.
Sprig hit his com and went directly to the weapons labs on Earth. William Rankduty came on the display and
