Escape to Earth 3: Defending Holy Ground (9 page)

Kathy looked at Lukas and knew Chris had been communicating with him. She felt something and knew her time with Chris was growing shorter. Her tears stared and Stoney’s eyebrows came together, “What’s wrong, Darling?”

Kathy wiped her eyes with her sleeve and said, “Weddings always make me cry.” Stoney pulled her closer as Kathy’s tears continued to fall.

• • •

Lukas and Salud went back inside and Lukas saw Pat sitting in the booth where they had originally met. Salud saw him as well and they walked to the rear of the restaurant and sat down on the seat opposite him. Lukas looked at Pat, “Are you responsible for stopping so many from leaving?”

“I am.”

“Why?”

“When the invaders arrive here, what do you think will happen if there aren’t any humans on the planet?”

They stared at Pat and Salud said, “They’ll go after the Fellowship.” Pat nodded.

“But they won’t see any technology on Earth. For all appearances, Earth is primitive.”

“If they take a close look they’ll see all the food converters and guess that you are trying to hide them.”

“But…”

“Your best and brightest have left; those that are still here really want to stay. I’ve just given them the courage to do it.”

“Pat, there are billions still here.”

Pat turned to Salud, “I know and I really hate it. But, there must be this many to ensure the Invaders see your planet as my home. I need to know if you’re going to attempt to defend the planet once it’s discovered.”

“That idea came from you, didn’t it?”

Pat smiled at Lukas, “It did. I need you to do that to make sure they don’t go looking elsewhere.”

“Do you really think it needs to be done?”

“It’s what will convince them that you’re the ones that have been harassing them. If you don’t, they’ll start looking for where the ships that have decimated them came from. I also need you to leave the facilities on the moon and not destroy them.”

Lukas took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “We’ll do as you ask. I just hate this.”

“As do we all, Lukas. Your Admiral in Andromeda was wise to refuse the help from my species. You must stop them from getting a handhold in your new civilization there.”

“Why do you say that, Pat?”

“They are incredibly brilliant but they are worthless when it comes to working with others. The Fellowship is a good example of their stupidity. Let them think about what’s happened for a few millennia and they might learn from their mistakes.”

“We’ll keep our distance.”

“That’s good.”

Salud shook her head, “Pat, are you sure you need to die here?”

“We’ve discussed why Earth was chosen.”

“That’s not what I mean. Do you have to die?”

“It’s the only way to stop their push to find me. I can’t very well put your planet up for execution and not pay the price with it. It has to be done.”

Salud reached across the table and took Pat’s hand, “Thank you for helping us. Thank you for so many things.” Pat stared at her and smiled just before he disappeared. Lukas looked out at the restaurant and saw no one was moving. Pat had frozen time again. They stood up, took a step, and everything started moving again. Lukas looked at Salud, “I’m going to miss him.”

“Me too Lukas. Me too.”

They walked over to Joey and Lukas said, “You need to pack up and get things moving to Andromeda.”

“Lukas, I’ve got the responsibility of getting the blackouts to operate.”

“You need to turn that task over to the United Government. We need you to go to Andromeda and get the currency we’re going to use straightened out. We don’t have anyone as knowledgeable about economics as you and we need you there. You’ve done a great job so far on the blackouts but we need you more at the new planet.”

Joey stared at Lukas and shook his head, “There are others that are better.”

“Not anyone that can be trusted to do it without self-interest. It’s time to go, Joey!”

“I’ll work on the blackouts for another week and then I’ll go.”

“Fair enough.”

• • •

Chad and Julie walked over with Summer and Salud said, “She just gets more beautiful every time I see her.”

Chad smiled, “She takes after her mother.”

“She has your face.”

Chad stared at Julie, looked at Summer, and smiled, “It is shaped like mine but she really looks like you.”

Salud took Summer and bounced her in her arms, “Get over it, she looks like both of you.” Summer started laughing and Salud said, “You’ve got a real heartbreaker here.”

Chad smiled, “Not until she’s thirty.”

Julie punched him in the ribs, “I’m not thirty, yet.”

“She will be.”

Lukas laughed and lifted his orange juice, “Here’s to being a parent.”

Salud said, “Salud!” Everyone laughed and the party continued.

• • •

Jason looked at the tactical monitor and saw the fleets were still in orbit above the planet. He turned to Audrey, “Have the new probes been put out?”

“They have, Sir.”

Jason jerked at the honorific and smiled, “Order half the ships to take a break. Those that have family on the surface can take it there. However, I want half of them taking it on the moon.”

“Yes Sir.”

Samantha said behind him, “Is it wise to send that many, Sir?”

Jason thought, “Piper, you’ll know if an aggressor enters your territory, won’t you?”

“I will be notified if one does.”

Everyone on the bridge heard the exchange and Jason said, “We don’t know when we’ll run into problems later but, for the moment, we need to give the fleet a break. We’ll take a break when the Admiral returns.” Samantha nodded. Jason looked back at the tactical, “I want a thousand Pods to skip out beyond the probes and keep an eye out for any skip traces.” Audrey nodded and turned to her panel.

Kenny looked at Jason, “What happens if they see any?”

“We’ll recall the fleet and send a Group to see what they are. Make sure they understand not to fire on anything before reporting in.”

“Why, Sir?”

“Because it might be one of our neighbors making a call to say hello. Make sure we get a feed on anything on the tactical monitor before we take any action. If it’s a large number of skip traces, order the fleet into orbit and send all the Pods out to intercept it.”

Audrey looked at Jason, “Will we be going out with the Pods?”

“No! We’re not going to leave the planet vulnerable until we determine what we’re facing. I suspect we’ll be fine until the Admiral returns but let’s not take any chances.”

Audrey smiled, “Yes Sir.” Samantha saw the smile and frowned.

Jason sat back in the Command Chair and said, “Piper, you were telling me that your species evolved on a planet. When did you leave and start living in ships?”

“Our sun was close to going nova. It was approaching the time when a sun had fused all the hydrogen into helium and didn’t have much longer before it exploded. We knew for millennia that it was headed that way so we started working on moving our society into starships.”

“How long ago was that?”

“About a million years ago.”

The bridge crew was stunned. Samantha said, “Do you mean to say your species is a million years old?”

“No, of course not.”

Jason laughed, “You’re saying you’re much older than that.”

“Well, we’d have to be to evolve into our ships from being planet dwellers. We evolved on the planet for more than two million years before we began exploring space. It took another five hundred thousand years to eventually evolve into being a part of our ships. We had all left the planet before the sun eventually blew up.”

Audrey shook her head, “Do you miss living on a planet?”

“Yes and no. I personally miss the personal interaction with others but the freedom offered by being able to explore the universe is worth what we gave up.”

Kenny said, “There has been a lot of argument among scholars but the current theory is that our earliest ancestors were on our planet about a million years ago.”

“They were!”

The bridge grew silent and Jason said, “How would you know that, Piper?”

“I remember hearing about one of my species seeing them and telling everyone that intelligent life would eventually develop on your home world.”

Jason shook his head, “I’m constantly amazed by how old your species is. Did you ever visit the galaxy the invaders are coming from?”

“Yes, but the species in control there is not worth visiting. They’re really paranoid.”

Samantha shook her head, “How many of you are there?”

“Billions, but we’re scattered all over the universe exploring things that interest us.”

Jason smiled and continued talking with Piper until he left the bridge to get some sleep. Once he left the bridge, Audrey turned to Kenny and shook her head, “He has changed.”

Kenny nodded, “He is different.”

Samantha listened to them discussing the change and recognized it as well. He would have never given half the fleet R and R in the past. He would have insisted on being at their strongest in the event of an opportunity for battle. He actually sounded…interesting. She looked at Audrey and said, “I’m calling it a day. Wake me up if something happens.” Audrey nodded and Samantha went to her quarters. Maybe she and Jason would get up at the same time.

• • •

Piper looked at the crew’s thoughts and chuckled. It appeared Jason might find a mate. There were two very intelligent women interested in him. This was going to be fun to watch.

• • •

Loree watched the giant fleet arrive at M-84 and start moving into the galaxy. She looked at Lance, “What are they doing?”

“It appears they are waiting at the edge of the galaxy.”

Loree stared at the tactical monitor and Frank shook his head, “Why are they just waiting?”

Loree said over her shoulder, “They’re waiting to see if they’ve been seen by an advanced civilization. We made them believe we came from there. If there’s an advanced civilization in M-84, they’ll have probes out.”

Emily stared at the monitor and said, “You don’t think they’ll just go in and start looking around?”

Loree shook her head, “There’s billions of stars in that galaxy. That’s a big fleet but it’s nowhere large enough to scout every star. No, they’re going to have to depend on being found. If nothing shows up, I suspect they’ll just go home.”

They waited for two days and then Lance said, “Sir, I have a small fleet of warships entering normal space near the Invader Fleet.”

“Put it on the monitor.”

Loree watched the two thousand warships stop four thousand miles in front of the huge Invader fleet. Lance said, “I have activity on several frequencies.” Loree nodded. The Invader fleet suddenly fell on the small fleet and blew the ships into rubble. The giant fleet vanished from normal space and Loree said, “Follow them but keep a safe distance.”

The LaGrange entered the void and followed the skip trace the small fleet had made. Emily moved the ship out of the void three hundred thousand miles out from a habitable planet. The crew watched as the Invader Fleet moved in and began firing brilliant beams at the planet’s surface. The debris of destroyed ships hung in space above the planet. Within an hour, the entire planet was on fire. Loree shook her head, “That’s what is going to happen to Earth if they find it.” The planet was burning but the Invaders continued to fire. Loree sighed and looked at Emily, “Get us out of here. Take us back to M-87.”

Frank watched the destruction and shook his head, “Do you think they’ll attack other planets?”

“No, they’ve delivered a message.” The LaGrange entered the void and skipped away. Everyone kept seeing the images of a living planet being burned into ashes in their minds.

Lance looked up, “Sir, the London has reported the Invaders have started building another conduit.”

“Notify the fleet and have them wait for our arrival.”

“Yes Sir.”

• • •

Loree arrived and the new conduit was already extended more than two hundred thousand light years into the void. There were thousands of Invader Warships moving out into the void with it but none were protecting the conduit’s entrance outside the edge of M-87. She stared at the conduit and Frank said, “Sir?”

“We’ll wait.”

“Yes Sir.”

Loree heard the disappointment in Frank’s voice and she turned around, “I know they intend to deliver provisions through that conduit to their ships at the Milky Way. We need to allow them to get their hopes up before we dash them. If we hit them now, they’ll call in millions of ships to defend the next one. The longer we can delay hitting it, the more likely they’ll have to recall their ships. We’ll let them keep building it for a while. Move the fleet out beyond detection range.”

Lance nodded and began issuing orders.

• • •

The Supreme Supal looked at the spiral galaxy and waited to be attacked. After six days, he decided it wasn’t going to happen. He shook in his tub and growled. They weren’t going to give him a trace to follow. Whoever this species was, they were incredibly smart. He was going to have to find them the hard way. He said, “What’s the status on our provisions?”

“The passage is being constructed now.”

“How long do we have before we won’t have enough to make it back?”

“About four months, Supal.”

The Supal remained in its tub and knew his ships were at a critical stage. He thought about what to do and finally moved a limb out and pressed the general communicator, “We are going to start scouting this galaxy for the being we were sent here to find. You will be assigned stars to search and if you don’t find the energy of that being present, you will move to the next star you’re assigned. If any of you stop for anything other than search for that being, you will be executed. If you’re attacked, ignore it and move on to your next assignment. Fleet Supals will keep track of all the ships in their fleets and if any fail to report in, we will go to that ship’s last location to investigate. We don’t have long to do this so make sure you use your time wisely. We’ll issue the assignments momentarily and once you have yours, you may start your search.”

The Supreme Supal turned the communicator off and looked at his pilot, “You will follow those moving in the center.”