split in half and the crew was floating in space. The Red Warriors hit them with their hand weapons whenever one was in range killing them with the penetrating iron ball. One megaship had an attack craft hit its surface but the Red Warriors immediately teleported and hit it before it could use its penetrator. For the invaders, there was only death. After ten hours the last invader was killed.

Leo watched the battle from his display and decided that there was nothing else to do. He then ordered, “Teleport teams, go to your assignments.”

Two teams of ten engineers teleported to the surface of the two mother ships and positioned a device over the hole made by the penetrator. Once it was in place, the chief engineer hit the engage button and a teleport screen appeared inside the dead ship and expanded to the far hull thirty thousand miles away. The screen then rotated a hundred and eighty degrees teleporting everything inside the ship not made of the green material into the star at the systems center. It was only then that the iron balls stopped bouncing.

Destiny commed Matt, “It appears that your weapons are very effective. What are you going to do with the ships?”

“I don’t know. We can’t teleport them out of here so it looks like they will have to remain where they are.”

“If it would help, I can push them into a trajectory that will take them to the star in this system.”

Matt smiled and said, “I think that would be a great idea. Will they be able to see them there?”

“No, we’re good but not that good.’

“Then I would greatly appreciate it if you would do exactly that.”

“We’ll also push the smaller craft with them.”

“Thank you, Destiny. That would help toward hiding what we can do.”

Eyes began moving and collected small ships on the surface and then moved up on one of the mother ships and began pushing it into a new trajectory. The huge ship picked up speed and then flew away from Destiny’s ship as it stopped to go and start the other ship on its trip to the star. Fifteen hours after the operation begun, there was no evidence that a battle had been fought.

The Supreme Male was working hard to get the family ready for the harvest and received a communication from his Sensor Male, “Supreme Male, I am unable to contact the ships sent to find the other family’s main ship.”

The Supreme Male immediately felt fear, “How long have you been trying?”

“Two dgsgs.”

The Supreme Male fought his fear and turned on his communicator, “Nest Mother, we have lost contact with our two ships.”

The Nest Mother felt her rage building but then felt it evaporate. Something was happening in that universe that was too far out of the ordinary. She knew the missing main ship could not defeat two main ships so there must be another agency causing ships to disappear. She wondered if the crystal creatures were causing it but the evidence gained before she had consumed the first family indicated that it wasn’t them. She now regretted consuming that first family. They would already be there harvesting except for her anger and impatience. She sighed and decided not to make that mistake again. She composed herself and said, “Send a ship through and make a quick scan and then have it return. Tell me what it sees.”

The Supreme Male took a quick breath and wondered why he was being spared. He immediately responded, “I will order it now.”

The Nest Mother thought about what was happening and began looking through the data from the previous harvests in that universe to see if there was anything that might be a clue s to what was going on. She inserted her two back legs into their receptacles, closed her eyes, and began looking at the information.

Destiny had moved to the planet and sent crews down to fly the transports to the planet where his children had been teleported. They came on board and Eyes began moving the ship out of the system. Suddenly he yelled, “Destiny, another main ship has appeared at the entry point.”

“Tell me what they’re doing.”

“They’re scanning.”

“Matt, another main ship has entered.”

“I can see them, Destiny. We have a screened probe there and I’m getting a feed from it. What do you think they’re doing?”

Destiny thought a moment and then said, “They’re looking for the two ships. I don’t think they will stay long. If it was a major investigation you would have more than one ship.”

“Let’s see if you’re right. If they’re leaving quickly, we couldn’t react fast enough to hit them.”

After an hour the huge ship disappeared back into the entry point. “Looks like you were right. What happens next?”

“I heard one of your officers use an expression, “It’s gonna be one big shing ding of a party”“. Next time a ship comes through the door it will have a big group with it.”

Matt thought for a moment and said, “I just wish we had a way to target them other than visually.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our sensors do not see them. We have to visually aim at them or use a visual color sensor to track them.”

“Why don’t you track them by their frequency?”

“What do you mean frequency?”

“The substance that makes up our hulls radiates a frequency. It is very, very, low but it is there.”

Matt jumped from his chair and thought, “Sprig, you need to hear this.’

“What.”

“Destiny tells me that the green substance radiates a frequency that falls in a very low range. Could we use that to track them with our weapons?”

“How low is it, Destiny?”

“About three hertz.”

“That’s even lower than the background of the explosion that started this universe.”

“This substance is a residue of a universe that died of old age. It couldn’t radiate anything higher.’

“Stand by.”

Matt and Destiny waited for twenty minutes and Sprig said, “I just measured the frequency of the attack ship here in the lab and you’re right. It does radiate a frequency that is strong enough to home in on. We can adjust our monitors and sensors to find it.”

“Can we make the changes in time?”

“I don’t know; probably not all of our weapons but enough to start the conflict and bring the others up to date as we move forward.”

“Get the megaships first then start loading the Searchers.”

“I agree. We’ll start now.”

“What is a Searcher, Matt?”

“We have twenty million small ships that are pretty powerful. They can destroy a planet with their beams but of course they will have no affect on the green substance.”

“Let me think about that, Matt. There should be a way to use them; I just need to think about it.”

“I’ll send you a copy of our main library so you can use it to see if there is anything we have missed. I think your children will find it enjoyable reading. You’ve already made a huge difference. Anything else would be icing on the cake.”

“What is a cake?”

“I’ll send you one if you can come up with a use of those beams.”

“Fair enough.”

The Nest Mother finished the data and found nothing to explain what was happening. She worried that the missing main ship was helping the advanced life form but then she dismissed the idea; ships were disappearing before she consumed that family. It was clear that someone or something was able to kill their ships. Would one family be enough? This time she was going to really focus on eliminating those crystal creatures once and for all. She shouldn’t have backed off before but they weren’t edible so it was wasted effort to harvest them. She paused and then changed her mind; there was no reason to waste time on them. She called another Supreme Male and

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