anything on the next level that looks like a threat. I believe that every Keeper in the garrison tried to prevent us from getting here. Only fire at an identified threat. Everyone understand?”
They all nodded.
“Let’s go,” and the seven Red Warriors teleported to level twenty five.
The Collective saw that the fleet was not going to arrive before the enemy entered the last level of the garrison. It sensed each level die as that terrible creature killed faster than anything he had ever witnessed. Now there was no Keeper alive in the garrison for him to watch what was happening. He was hopeful the fleet would arrive in time to force the enemy to leave, but they were still a quarter interval away. He started to wish he had listened to the old Values Quadrant.
The seven warriors landed in a giant cavern that extended out into the distance. Jake turned and saw thousands of squares on the far wall and he teleported to them to see what they were. The other warriors arrived right behind him and felt immediate revulsion. Tens of thousands of clear boxes held one of the species that had been enslaved on this planet. Jake’s scanner showed they were all alive, but in some sort of suspended animation. There were no brain waves in the scans. This was how the Keepers stored their food. Jake just shook his head at the brutality of the Keepers.
“What are those Jake?”
Jake turned around and saw to the right of the storage containers a series of cutout holes in the wall extending from floor to ceiling as far as the eye could see. Jake read his scanner and saw that there were more than eight billion in just the left wall. He walked over, looked in one of the cutouts, and saw a round, brown and red, oval about four feet across. Eggs.
“Jake, the fleet will arrive in twelve minutes. You’ve got to get out of there.”
“Just a moment, Valerie. BC. Tell me you have one of the Captors’ energy balls in your storage.”
“What are those?”
“Junior, what about you?”
“No, I don’t Jake.”
“I do.”
Jake was stunned, “Ethan, what are you doing with a Captors’ energy ball?”
“I found one lying around the armory and decided to take it.”
“Teleport it down, now.”
A silver screen formed and a giant red ball appeared on the floor. “Everyone get out of here.”
“Not without you, Jake.”
“That’s an order, Cynthia.”
“So arrest me. We all go together.”
Jake turned the timer to sixty minutes and set the blast level to five hundred miles.
Valerie screamed, “Jake, come on!”
Jake threw the switch to start the countdown, looked at the warriors and yelled, “Get out of here!” All seven disappeared.
Just as Jake appeared on Junior’s bridge, the ship disappeared through a silver flash. Thousands of beams ripped through the space the three small ships had occupied one second earlier.
The navigator on the Fleet Director’s ship scanned the garrison and said, “The enemy has left a large round device in the lower chamber.”
The Collective heard the comment and ordered, “Get warriors down there and remove it.”
Thousands of landing craft screamed down to the surface and thousands of Keepers rushed into the first level. As they rushed into the sixth level, the bees in the first six levels activated.
The bee was a new type of wasp. It didn’t fly as fast as a wasp, but it carried the same sting. If it struck a Keeper, it would burn. The main difference between the two darts was the bee’s skin. Where the wasp was fast, the bee was stealthy. The bee was a leave-behind weapon. The bee would attach itself to a wall or ceiling and its skin would match the color of the surface where it landed. It would then turn off its power and wait. Once it detected movement it would remain dormant until a predetermined delay passed, then it would attack any target within range of its sensors. The seven Red Warriors had each ejected a bundle of five thousand bees on every level they passed.
Twenty thousand Keepers were rushing toward the lower chamber when 210,000 bees activated. The Fleet Director heard all of them die screaming in pain. He prepared to send more warriors into the facility but rejected the decision when an explosion ripped through the structure, blowing out into the ranks of the assembled fleet holding station just above the planet’s atmosphere.
The Keepers’ ships were not affected by the blast, but all of the landing craft on the surface were disintegrated and a five-hundred-mile-long crater was all that remained of the huge facility. Nothing was left of the egg chamber. The Collective knew that the loss of the chamber was catastrophic for the future survival of his species. It felt something new, anger and then rage.
Ales Jongo looked down on what remained of his home. Ulmerton was a ruined planet. The atmosphere had been disintegrated and the surface looked like a barren, burned desert. As he looked down on the previous location of the capital, he saw an explosion forty miles to the north where a small meteor had just hit. Without an atmosphere to burn them, even small meteorites would hit the surface. Jongo knew that the planet would look like the surface of the moon as time passed.
Ales knew he should be enraged, but he felt mixed emotions. His family was gone and his father was killed by the Keepers. He reflected and knew that his father’s death was a mixed blessing. He had never forgiven him for executing his older brother two years earlier. He loved Gilum and worshiped him. However, Gilum was infected with the same disease as his father, blind ambition, and had less patience than the Duke. He begged Gilum not to go through with his plans to kill his father, but Gilum refused to listen.
Gilum told him, “You must act like you hate me, Ales.”
“Why, you know I love you!”
Gilum reached out, tasseled Ales’s hair, and said, “If my plan fails and father even remotely thinks you knew about it and didn’t warn him…you know what he’ll do. You must tell everyone you hate me. Avoid me at meals and refuse to talk to me. I’m going to criticize you so others can see we are not friends. You must do this.”
Ales sighed and remembered following Gilum’s advice. His father even gave him the privilege of firing the blaster that killed his older brother. Before he pulled the firing lever, he saw Gilum look at him, nod, and smile. His loyalty confirmed the Duke proclaimed Ales Jongo as the new heir to the title. Ales would give everything away just to have Gilum back.
Ales also knew that he really couldn’t blame his father for what he did. He only protected himself against an enemy trying to kill him. He stared at the planet and both hated and missed his father in equal measure.
How did this happen? The other planets attacked by the Keepers were now moving around the universe, playing a deadly game of tag with the Keepers Fleets. Why was Ulmerton the only casualty? He also knew that as soon as the Keepers Fleets arrived in the Realm’s universe, all the Searchers on Ross teleported away before the planet was attacked. Why would they do that if they recommended that the Duke land his ships on his planets? There was also the issue of the failure of the teleport systems on the Duke’s fleet. Did the Keepers cause that?
He stared at the dead world and then thought, “Is is possible they detected me in the Ross system?” With that realization, it became clear that the Realm caused the destruction. He didn’t want to believe it, but it had to be true. He didn’t think the Queen would do it, but her brother or that uncle of hers would do it if they suspected the Duke had tried to kill the Royal Family. What to do now?
Ales decided that attacking the Realm during the current invasion was tantamount to suicide. If they can stop teleportation systems and make the frequency generators fail, there would be no place safe for him. No; he was going to wait. But first he was going to ensure his fleet enforced his rule on the Province’s planets. After he solidified his position, then the Realm would receive his undivided attention. Unlike his father and brother, he could be patient and strike at the right moment. He looked at the planet one more time before he teleported away, smiling. He possessed patience but like his family, he also knew the taste of raw ambition.
