not going to be easy.”
Matt watched the front wall of the ship and saw it changing color to a faint blue. The color moved slowly back until the inside walls were all the same light blue color. Melanie, released her board and fell back in her chair, “That was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. This ship is amazing; I couldn’t have done it without its help.”
Matt was looking at his display and there in front of them was the dark galaxy. He saw that most of the stars were extremely old and were dying. He tuned in his weapons panel and looked at Melanie. “Do you need some time to rest?”
“Give me just a few minutes. I want to set my board up to take a fast scan of the entire galaxy but not until after I back the rear of our ship into the border with dimensional space. I’m not going to risk them finding us. Only the nose will be in their space.”
If we have time, I’ll hold the ship at the border as long as possible but the warning from the Reg about a massive response concerns me. I’m holding our screen on the front at its lowest setting but I don’t want to be caught out in the open.” After ten minutes Melanie backed the small ship back into the border of dimensional space until only the part of the ship with the two chairs was still in normal space. “Be ready, I’m starting the scan in ten seconds.”
Matt looked into her mind and counted it down with her, “3..2..1..energize.”
The Red Demon watched his board as he searched for the missing universe. Suddenly his alarm went off and he was immediately moved to the command chair of his ship as it lifted off and jumped to his assigned coverage area. It looked at its sensors and could see the direction the scan had originated but could not determine where the scan was located. Millions of the orange ships were jumping out to the edge of the galaxy and running out from the galaxy’s outer edge. Nothing had been sensed entering the galaxy so it had to be outside the border.
“What’s happening?”
“Some agency is scanning our domain. They are in normal space, that much we know but we are unable to find its location. The direction is out toward the largest spiral arm.”
“Could this be the missing universe’s responsibility?”
“I doubt it. This scan is happening in normal space and we know that universe is not in normal space. This must be a different agency located in another universe. We are analyzing the scan now.”
The second being watched his board and wondered if this was another appearance of the blue ship but dared not mention it. If it was that ship, he knew it came from the missing universe but he could not think of a way to suggest that possibility without giving away what he knew. One thing he did know, if he found the blue ship he was going to stay away from it. His small ship had already demonstrated that it could be damaged.
“What are you doing?”
The second being jumped and said, “Looking for the source of those scans.”
“Well move out into the space outside our galaxy and start searching. I told you it had to be outside our galaxy.”
The second being set his board and cringed against the possibility of encountering the blue ship again.
“Oh my, ancestors,” Melanie said as millions of orange ships exploded out of the dark galaxy less than a second after she began her scan and started moving out from its border. Some of the ships were larger than the Captors and all were moving faster than light speed. The orange ships had arrived in a cone shape and had linked their screens as they moved outward. They looked like a giant bubble being blown up and Tag saw that nothing would be missed as that bubble expanded toward their location.
Matt watched the oncoming wave of ships and said, “Time to leave.”
Melanie backed the ship back into dimensional space and accelerated away from the dark galaxy’s location. Melanie had her eyes closed and Matt could tell she was concentrating but he also sensed something was wrong. He didn’t want to break her concentration so he looked at her thoughts and saw that she was monitoring the border to see if any of the Demons entered dimensional space. He determined that she was going to jump to another universe if any appeared. It was a long twenty minutes until they reached the blue barrier and Melanie flew into it at a high velocity. Matt watched the wall change color faster than he could track visually. Once inside the barrier, Melanie slumped over her console. Matt jumped up and grabbed her.
“I’m ok. I could sense the thoughts of those beings and I never want to do that again. They are evil personified.”
Matt held her tight and she passed out; Matt held her and jumped the ship to Ross where he waited in orbit and held Melanie in his arms. He kept seeing that mass of ships moving out toward them and wondered if the crystal ships were going to be enough against the massive force he had just witnessed.
In her crib below, AG sensed her parent’s return and began sending soothing thoughts to her mother and began erasing some of the evil that had entered Melanie’s neural pathways. Slowly and gently she destroyed the poison of the Red Demons; no one could survive that much exposure to the massive evil of their minds. Melanie sighed in her restlessness and then fell asleep. Matt saw what his daughter was doing and was awe struck at the power of their two year old. Melanie slept with tranquil dreams; only then did AG go to sleep.
Tag teleported to the ship and found Matt holding Melanie “Is she all right?”
“She is now, Tag. We won’t be going back.”
Tag looked at Matt and saw what they must have experienced. “Was it that bad?”
“Worse than you can ever imagine. We’ll share what we found in two days. I’m taking Melanie home.”
Tag nodded and the three of them disappeared from the crystal ship.
Two days later the leaders of the Stars Realm met in the map room. Sprig stood and thought to the group, “As most of you know, Matt and Melanie went to the home of the Red Demons and scanned their galaxy. We are here to see what they discovered and plan our strategy against their possible invasion. Matt, the floor is yours and Melanie’s.”
Matt stood and looked around the room at those in attendance; Cassandra, Tommy, Anglo, Jenny, Stem, Petal, Life, Grena, Destiny and his three children, General Brez, Twig, Tag, Danielle, Admiral Kosiev, Atlas and Diana who were present in orbit, and AG who was sitting in her mother’s lap. “I’m going to lead this presentation and Melanie will help remind me if I forget anything. The first thing I’m going to show you is what happened when we sent a scan into the dark galaxy. You will see it at normal speed and then I’m going to slow it down.” He pressed a button on his display and there was the dark galaxy. “Most of the stars in this galaxy are dying and some of them have degenerated into black holes, which trap light and prevent it from exiting. That’s why this galaxy is not the normal bright lights we see from most other galaxies. This galaxy is ancient and is probably where this race evolved. Now observe what happened when we sent a scan. We sent the scan at this moment.” The attendees saw a huge mass of orange ships explode out of the galaxy moving quickly toward the source of the video. It appeared that a huge tidal wave of ships moving faster than could be seen was screaming toward the camera. “It was at this point where we exited the dimension and flew as quickly as possible back to our universe. Now let’s slow it down.”
At extreme slow motion the wave of ships could be seen as they appeared at the edge of the galaxy and began moving out. Some of the ships were very small, about the size of a Searcher vessel, and some were gigantic, larger than five thousand miles. As they swept outward, everyone could see they were swarming back and forth in the gaps to make sure nothing escaped their notice. “That globe of expanding ships was moving faster than the speed of light and covered every inch of space as they expanded outward. They reacted to our scan less than a second after we sent it, and I must believe that they have a system of defense that automatically launches their ships if anything is detected. We do not possess anything that comes close to their response to a small scan. Those ships are what we will have to face if they discover our location. There is no possible invasion; they are coming. I think our scan may have slowed them but I’m uncertain how much. These Demons are evil and I don’t fully know the power of our crystal ships but nothing in our arsenal can harm them. Our only hope is to find the crews for the Reg’s ships and pray they can protect us.”
The room was quiet. Finally, Sprig stood and thought to the group, “Some of you will be in those ships protecting our Realm. My prayers are with you, and I hope your ships will be enough to prevent our destruction.” He looked at Matt and thought, “Should we send some of our population to other universes?”
Matt shook his head, “It’s not possible to move them through the psychic barrier the Reg has put in place. Only the ships they are providing can move through it and only one of them is operational. It could only move four or five at a time, and I suspect that if those beings penetrate the barrier and sense those in our universe, they will send their next tool scanning for any life forms that came from here. If the Reg lower the barrier to allow us to send
