“Jake, I’m not leaving you.”
“Yes, you are. You are the Queen of the Realm and your place is keeping the Realm reassured that we are doing all we can to protect them. My place is finding the means to kill these creatures. We are only a thought away and you know I’ll come when I can.”
Valerie looked into Jake’s eyes and marveled at how he’d changed since the casino. She wanted desperately to stay with him, but knew he was right. “Junior, you’ll take care of him, right?”
“If he’ll allow it.”
“What about me?”
“Cynthia, I think you need to stay close to him.”
“Why? We brought him back safe!”
Jake smiled at the Searcher and said, “Now you know I’m going to be right in the middle of all the action. Do you want to be on the sidelines?”
Cynthia smiled and said, “Oh, well; I guess I’ll put up with you a little longer.”
Valerie smiled, “You two make a good team. Keep it up.”
Cynthia asked, “By the way, Valerie, where’s Admiral Zergl?”
“He’s been replaced by Manny.”
Cynthia’s expression turned into a huge smile, “Now we’ll get somewhere. What about Jake here; what’s his rank?”
“He is the Liaison for the Crown.”
Cynthia whistled. Jake looked at her and asked, “What does that mean?”
Cynthia smiled, “Very simply put, Mr. Talant, you actually outrank them all. You operate with the Authority of the Queen.”
Jake looked at Valerie and she nodded, “You are the difference maker; now go make a difference.”
Admiral Mord watched his fleet die around him. He banked his Alpha around one of the Keepers’ ships and fired his primary beam into the brown hull; it didn’t even show a flash. He jumped to the other side and launched twelve penetrators that hit the tail and just stopped and fell off. Nothing he tried had any effect. His original fleet had thirty thousand ships, which was now down to 3,200. He ordered his ships away from the huge fleet and gathered his forces outside the range of the Keepers’ main beams. “What are we going to do, Admiral?”
“We petition the Realm to join their forces and hope to take revenge on these creatures. Our planet is doomed and I see no sense in throwing away your lives against a force we cannot harm. I’ve already witnessed the death of most of my brave sailors. I desire to fly my ship into them, but it would only be suicide. You will stay here with me and watch our planet die and you will remember this moment the rest of your lives. I charge all of you to make them pay for what they’ve done this day.”
Mord watched the Keepers Fleet enter Brayent’s atmosphere and thought about the decision not to join the Realm when Brayent was first colonized. The new colony knew that it would be the power in this sparsely settled sector and wanted to be free to exercise its will over its neighbors. The Realm had issued them warnings several times, but the leaders made sure no Stars Realm planets or citizens were victims of their attacks. Mord shook his head, “If we had just joined we would have been able to teleport our population to safety. Now we pay the price for our arrogance.” The killing of the Brayent population began, and the Cainth Sailors watched with restrained rage.
Jake and Junior were parked outside the star drive limit watching as the Keepers moved toward the planet’s surface. “Jake, I need you not to use your telepathy when we are in proximity of a Keepers’ ship.”
“I can do that, Junior. It’s not using my mind to watch what’s happening that will cause me the most difficulty.”
“I’ll keep the screens active with a feed from our probe and my passive scanners. You should be able to view everything.”
Jake watched the death of Brayent and felt his anger grow. “Jake, a Keepers’ ship has just come out of star drive and is moving in-system.”
“That must be the ship coming to warn this fleet. I hope they don’t change their protocols.”
“Fleet Director, I have been sent here by the Collective to warn you about an enemy in this universe, however, I see you have already encountered the ships that are able to jump inside the Drive Band.”
The Fleet Director answered, “I was surprised by their ability to do that, but they were unable to harm my ships. We could have just ignored them, but we killed as many as came in range of our weapons.”
“Is it possible to take one of their ships back for us to examine?”
“Unfortunately, they would not stop fighting to the point where we could. If we go after those that survived, they will just jump away. Were you able to witness the battle?”
“Yes, I scanned it when I entered this universe and you’re right: these ships are no a danger to us. I’ll take the scan of this action back and report to the Collective as ordered. Please send me all that has happened so far.”
The Fleet Director linked minds with the messenger and sent the data. “I will deliver this. If anything happens that is out of the ordinary, send a ship back to report.”
“I will.”
The ship at the Star Drive Limit jumped out of the universe.
“Looks like they didn’t discover how we killed those ships.”
“Why do you say that, Jake?”
“The Fleet didn’t change what it was doing. I suspect they thought that it was my release that killed every Keeper. We’ll know shortly if they launch craft to collect stores from the surface.”
The Keepers Fleet was moving quickly forward when the Sensor Leader said, “There are thousands of craft fleeing in front of the fleet. They are in the air and flying faster than we are.
The Fleet Director looked at the scan and saw there was a huge cloud of aircraft a hundred miles in front of his ships. He thought a moment, then ordered, “
I want every odd numbered ship to accelerate ahead of our line and destroy those ships in front of us. Even number ships extend your beams to cover the space of the ships moving forward. We will slow down to make sure the beams stay at maximum efficiency until the ships return to our line.”
The Sensor Leader asked, “Do you not want to leave some of these creatures behind to later populate a farm?”
“No, they have fought too hard to stop us. They do not possess the right temperament to work a farm.”
“The ones in our home universe were domesticated.”
“And look what happened to our brothers there. No, we will eliminate them wherever we find them. Now that first planet would have made a good farm, and I regret disposing of them, but it’s too late now to change what happened.”
The Sensor Leader shrugged as 50,000 Keepers’ ships accelerated and closed on the fleeing craft in less than five seconds. As the beams hit the cloud of ships they began falling to the surface and exploding. Thousands scattered attempting to escape, but the Keepers overlapped their beams and there was nowhere to hide. Every ship crashed to the surface. The advanced Keepers’ ships stopped and waited for the rest of the fleet to join them, then they all moved forward.
Jake looked at the three thousand Brayent ships gathered in a group just outside the planet’s first moon and worried. “Junior, the Keepers may not launch their attack craft if the Brayent ships are still in system.”
“I was just thinking that, Jake, but how are we going to get them to move?”
“How far can you extend your jump screen? Is it possible to jump them all out of the system so I can communicate with them?”
Junior took a reading and said, “I’m sure I can make that happen. Stand by; I’ll jump in and take them.”
Mord was feeling rage and helplessness in equal measure. He was ready to order another attack but suddenly the planet disappeared and he found himself in empty space between galaxies. “What’s going on?” he asked his navigator.
“Communication coming in.”
“Put it on my console.”
“Please forgive me for taking you away from your planet, but we are going to attempt to attack that fleet and your presence may prevent us from using the only means of killing them.”
