Jake looked at Junior’s display as the brown ship emerged. He hoped that the Searchers were going to act before the ship could communicate with the stationary fleet.
The fifty thousand Searchers teleported in, hit their firing solutions, and immediately teleported to their second target.
“Fleet Director, I have a message from the Collective.”
“What is it?”
If the messenger had just said, “Turn on your drives now,” the fleet may have had ships survive. That short pause proved disastrous for the Keepers Fleet. These Searchers were locked on their targets and they did not miss. The blast from the fuel lines burned every Keeper in the fleet and the Messenger lost mental contact with every Keeper above the planet. It was only able to hear the ones on the planet collecting stores. It knew those small craft were not protected like the ships in orbit. It started to warn them, but then saw a red beam hit the city and burn everything down to the planet’s bedrock.
Jake watched the Keepers’ ship hang in space at the drive limit. It did not turn off its drives. Jake sighed in relief and commed Manny, “Admiral, teleport in enough Searchers to haul these ships to the star. That ship at the drive limit can’t do anything about it; it would take it seven hours to reach the planet.”
Manny looked at his display and nodded, “They’ll arrive momentarily.”
Six hundred thousand Searchers arrived three minutes later, hooked cables to the Keepers’ ships, and towed them on a path toward the sun. The Messenger stayed and watched as the fleet accelerated into the star’s gravity and were burned into nothingness.
Jake could hear the Keepers’ thought on the lone brown ship and he sent a message to it telepathically, “Tell your leader that if he sends any more ships into our home again, we will bring this war to his door and show him what his actions have done.”
“Do you seriously think you can stop us? We know how you killed our ships and we know how to prevent you from harming us in the future. You will pay for this.”
“Junior, were you armed with that cutting beam that is supposed to be able to penetrate their hull?”
“Yes, but it has not been trialed and we don’t know if it will work. It can only be extended thirty feet, which will not do major damage to a ship 2,800 feet long.”
“I would rather trial it with just one ship instead of a fleet. They can’t see you, so fly by and see if you can cut the rear stabilizer off. The main beam is in the nose, so just make sure you’re moving fast enough to get out of range quickly.”
“Jake, I don’t want to place you at risk; you’re too important.”
“Then fly faster, but we have to see if we have anything to offset their advantage. This is the only chance we have that is to our advantage, so just do it.”
Junior gave a sigh and said, “Buckle up; this should be interesting.”
Junior flew at the Keepers’ ship, extended the cutting beam to its full thirty foot length, and shot by the ship at one-fifth light speed. The rear fin was sheared.
The individual Keepers fired their beams at the rear of their ship but Junior was out of range before they could respond.
The Director of the Messenger felt a huge shock go through his ship, “What happened?”
The Sensor Leader said, “We are now missing one of our rear fins. I suggest we leave.”
“Initiate universal drive.”
Just before the brown ship jumped, the Director heard, “Don’t come back.”
Jake jumped back to the Cainth survivors and said, “I am sorry for your loss; we will enlist you in the Realm’s Navy and train you to use our ships. Are you ready to start that process?”
Mord felt savage joy at the Keepers Fleets destruction, “The sooner the better.”
“The coordinates are on your com. I’ll communicate with you later.”
Mord nodded at Jake and the survivors jumped away.
Chapter Thirteen
The messenger arrived and the Collective immediately made contact. “I did not arrive in time to warn the fleet. All of our ships were destroyed, and my ship was damaged by some sort of beam.”
The Collective and all Quadrants watched the fleet’s destruction and the burning of the craft on the planet. “One of the beings in the other universe sent a message that if you send another ship into their universe they will bring the war to our home.”
The Collective pondered what had happened and asked, “Does this change our plans?”
Technology answered, “We must modify our ships.”
“In what way?”
“We must find a way to prevent a weapon from entering our drives, and we need to change the beam configuration.”
Military asked, “What do you mean by beam configuration?”
“First, we need to put baffles on the drives that drop when the drives are turned off. There are times where we will need the ability to come to a stop and being forced to keep the drives on would not allow it. The baffles will be made from the hull material and will drop over the drive entrance. That will prevent our ships from being damaged by projectiles fired into the engines. The current beam configuration has the main beam in the nose of the ship. We need to have a field surrounding our ships with beams so that nothing can come near it from any direction.”
The Collective asked, “How do you envision this being done?”
“We will put accumulators in the walls of the ship and the crews will charge them when they are in a hostile environment. We will need to double the crew size, but there is more than enough room to make that happen.”
“What about the food stores?” Production asked.
“They will either take their stores from our inventory or from the planets they attack. I believe the latter is the more desired choice.”
“So you’re still thinking we should go through with this attack?”
“Absolutely! Do you think that universe is not a clear danger to us? If we can eliminate them our species will become the ultimate rulers of all universes. We will be safe for all eternity.”
“How do we overcome their jump advantage?”
Science replied, “I believe that I have an idea how their ships are able to make those jumps. I’ll need some time to study the data, but it involves putting a screen around our ships powered by a high powered generator. I’ll have a definitive answer in a quarter.”
The Collective paused, “So now we have to make another modification to our ships. How long is this going to take?”
The entity combined and studied the question. After an hour they separated, “Less than four quarters, but more than two.”
Production said, “That’s for half our ships; the others should be completed in two more quarters.”
Values listened to the others and knew that they were going forward with their plans. It began thinking of a way to save his species. There was nothing it could do yet.
“Are we in agreement to attack this universe?”
All the Quadrants voted yes. The trillions of individual Keepers on all the planets did not know they were going to war. They continued to work at their appointed tasks, feeling safe with the Collective’s decisions. Their tranquility was soon to be disrupted.
Jake sat in Junior and said, “You worry about turning the Cainth survivors loose in that universe?”
“I do, Jake, but I still see the death of all those people on Brayent. I worry that we are becoming our own enemy.”
“There is a major difference in our actions, Junior. We are fighting to prevent the destruction of our Realm. Those creatures will figure out shortly, if they haven’t already, that we are able to move populations. What do you
