“Thanks, Joe.” Valerie arrived on the Bridge of the Megaship Tgon-gee and went to her command chair to give Captain Misty Robbins her orders. The Captain thought a moment and said, “Your Majesty, moving out to open space presents a real danger to you.”
“Why is that?”
“We can’t detect their ships; however, they can see you. They could jump on top of us before we could see them if we’re in open space.”
Valerie saw she was right. “How would you do it, Captain?”
“I know a star system that went nova thousands of years ago and killed all life. The star’s gravity is huge and the jump limit is fifty hours out from the star. The system is located in a dense region of the galaxy where we should be able to see them coming when they block the light from the background stars. I have five other systems plotted just like this one if we need to jump away.”
“Pass those coordinates to Prince Gardner and inform him of your observations.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Valerie left the bridge, went to her private quarters, and commed Manny, “Was there any other information on the probe?”
“Yes. They included all their scans of Mr. Talant.”
“Com those to me immediately, Manny.”
Manny looked to the right of the display and said, “You have them now.”
“Thank you.” Valerie began playing the video of Jake and she laughed when all the women started lining up to touch him. “My, you are quite the ladies’ man, Jake.” Then she thought about him finding his lifelong love and she turned off the video. She sat there alone in the dark and thought about Jake.
The Keepers’ ship jumped into a universe and began scanning. It noticed that there were pockets of races using telepathy, but it was not concerned about them. It had the thought frequency of the Green Invaders and it continued to scan. The Director of the ship directed a thought to his sensor operator, “Do you see anything?”
“No, Director. I do not detect them or any of their ships.”
“Navigator, prepare to jump to the next universe.”
The ship disappeared in a purple flash to continue its search. This process was happening four hundred thousand times every ten minutes. It was only a matter of time until the Realm was found.
The Collective directed its attention to the Military Quadrant, “Any reports from the ships?”
“Not yet. We cannot communicate with them outside our universe, so we instructed them to search for thirty cycles and then return. If we find them during that time we will have all of our ships back to use against the enemy.”
“What about the ships that are just now starting their search?”
“Their return date is the same as the first wave.”
The Collective thought about the plan and decided that it was a good one. If the Green Invaders were found immediately there would be a thirty cycle delay, but that was good to analyze the data taken from the universe in which they were located. It turned its attention to the farms and getting the populations back to the optimum numbers.
Jake found a note next to his bed. “The creatures have begun their search for the Realm; those taken were to provision their ships. The ships did not detect us, so it appears the head covering works. We suspect huge numbers of ships are searching, and time is critical.”
“So move a little faster is what they are telling me,” Jake thought out loud. He had touched more than twenty thousand women but had not reached the halfway point of the total population. At least they were coming to him. Word had spread about the good luck man delivering water, and women were coming from other fields to touch him. He planned to move to the northern fields soon and start there.
Jake sat in front of his home in a rocker and thought about this fever to touch him by all the women. How could they believe that he actually brought them good luck? He thought about Valerie and remembered when he first met her. She told him to relax. She didn’t want any “EVENT” to happen. He thought about that for a few moments. She said that his blocked psychic energy would control events to insure that it was released. If it could cause things to happen in different universes, it could cause things to happen to make it seem he caused lucky things to take place. I wonder if that baby was born with a bad little toe to make sure his good luck status was reinforced. This thought troubled him deeply. He could still see the young girl holding her baby close as the Keepers craft left the colony. He had to find his integrator. Robby was standing next to him and Jake could tell he was sad. “You want me to find her, too.” Robby nodded and disappeared.
Jake knew at some level that Robby was a representation of his subconscious. He appeared whenever he was in a challenging situation to remind him of what his behaviors could cause. It certainly helped him to focus and do the right thing. He rocked and thought of Valerie. He hoped she was safe. These creatures showed no mercy.
Edison scanned the information from the probe Junior had launched and immediately felt fear. Junior was right; those creatures had to be looking for his species. He hit his com, “Get here as quick as you can!”
Einstein and Newton stepped out of a silver screen and entered Edison’s chamber, “What’s wrong?”
“The creatures are searching for us and Junior thinks they are using huge numbers of ships to search. They must plan to eliminate the only real enemy they’ve ever had attack them, and it’s just a matter of time until they find us.”
Newton and Einstein looked at Edison and lowered themselves to the floor, showing their apprehension. “What can we do?”
“I’m not sure, Newton. I do know that they can check an entire universe with their scanners. If one of their ships comes here they will immediately see all of the wrecked ships at the old universal jump point, and then see the planets where our species has settled. They will know we’re here.”
Einstein raised himself, “If they see all the wrecked ships, wouldn’t they surmise that we were destroyed?”
Edison thought for a moment, “Yes, they might, but then they will come to the determination that the ones who destroyed us are a larger danger than we were. What would you do if you were in their place?”
The two large spiders looked at each other and Newton said, “I would come in force to see if there was a danger here. I suspect they will also see billions of our children on thousands of planets. They could also decide that we simply junked the ships as being ineffective against them and we were developing new ones to do the job.”
“Can we hide from them?”
“How? Our thoughts would be seen by these creatures. We have no choice but to communicate telepathically. That Gamma ship had the best invisibility screens we possess and they saw right through it.”
Einstein lowered himself, then asked, “How many uninhabited planets have we located in our searches that have a suitable atmosphere and climate?”
Edison punched a key on his terminal and said, “More than two hundred thousand.”
“Send the coordinates of those planets to every member of our race. Have them downloaded to the bracelets and assign a hundred different planets to each of those we occupy. They have to come from the jump limit and we will teleport away before their ships can arrive in orbit. We also need to tell all of our planets to make sure they have fed; it’ll be awhile before food will be available. They will have to chase us to attack us.”
Newton looked at the list of planets and commented, “These planets are scattered in more than fifty thousand galaxies. It will be a long chase.”
Edison turned his head upside down, “I’m sure that they will eventually start leaving ships in orbit around those planets to prevent us from coming back to them.”
Einstein raised himself, “True, but until they make that determination it will buy us time to try and find a way to defeat their technology.”
“I don’t think there is anything that will defeat their ships.”
The other two spiders said nothing, but started transmitting planet coordinates to the leaders of their worlds.
The ship came out of its universal drive and the sensor operator began scanning, “Director. There are huge numbers of the green ships.”
“Show me.” The Director looked at the huge blip on the screen and ordered, “Jump to that location.”
