Pray for the Prey (13 page)

• • •

Tenah and the Baron had also been sent a feed of what happened at the Home Hive and now they saw the three ships were preparing to go to the Royal Family’s location. Tenah said, “Do you want to watch this?”

“I owe it to them to see it to the end.”

“What will your planets say about this?”

“I’ve already shared what the Royal Family did to the White Ship’s planet. They were shocked at the revelation and they know there will be a response to their betrayal.”

“How do you feel about this?”

The Baron remained silent for a long moment and then said, “I’m disappointed that the only way we could have discovered the benefit of working with other species was to have it forced on us. Now I see what we’ve been and I feel so much remorse at what we’ve done over our long history.” The Baron turned two of his eyestalks toward the display with Tenah on it and said, “If the White Ships don’t remove the ones responsible for making us what we’ve been then we would have to do it ourselves.” The Moet looked back at the display with the three ships on it and said, “They deserve what they’re getting and you and I both know it.”

“Have you thought about asking our friends to allow us to enter the fight with them?”

“I have, but you know that before they would ever allow us to do that we will have to earn their trust and that is going to take time.”

Tenah nodded and turned to his display showing the feed from the three ships that just jumped to the Moet’s Royal Family.

Chapter Nine

T
he High Master sat in her quarters having a meal while she questioned the Fleet Master and prince about their preparations to go back to their home worlds. “Is the fleet ready for departure?”

The Fleet Master pushed his two pods forward and said, “They are and out transports are ready with the warriors to land and punish the traitors.”

“Excellent! I want that Baron brought here for my personal attention.” She turned to the Prince and said, “What’s bothering you, son? You don’t appear to be happy with our success.”

The Prince said, “I don’t feel good about this deal we made with the Violet Civilization. You know their word is meaningless.”

“We’ll see about that. I’m sure they will like having an agent working for them in our galaxy. We just have to prove our value. If the Alliance gives us trouble, we’ll just notify them and the problem will be solved.” She continued to watch her son and saw that his mood didn’t change. “Say what you have to say. I won’t punish you for your thoughts on this glorious day.”

The prince paused and said, “What if we didn’t get all of those White Ships? We don’t know if they had ships at another location. We also don’t know if the Blue Ships will now honor their agreement and not invade.”

The High Master threw her eye stalks back and laughed, “The Violet Civilization would love to have the Blue Ships show up. That would prove our value to them and any remaining White Ships will never tie us to their planet’s destruction.”

The prince said, “How did they know we were evacuating? How did they know about our ancient history with the Jenze? They seem to know things and we don’t have a clue as to how they uncovered that information. I’m just not certain about what will come from this act we’ve done.”

The High Master’s display illuminated and she saw the Highest Watcher say, “Three of the White Battle Ships have appeared and are launching small ships. They are attacking our fleet.”

The High Master turned white so fast the prince and Fleet Master never saw her color change. The three looked at the display, watching the video being sent by the Watcher. The Prince knew that there would be no further lessons being taught to him by his mother. He glanced at her and saw she realized it as well.

• • •

The three Earth ships appeared above the Moet planet and moved in on the huge fleet of dreadnaughts and medium battleships. Right behind them a huge round ship arrived and more than ten thousand tiny vessels launched along with four thousand small ships. The three large battle ships moved into the Moet formations and hundreds of dreadnaughts began exploding. Right behind their advance, the tiny ships arrived and the destruction was beyond belief. Hundreds of Ship Masters contacted the Master and asked permission to escape, but were denied. “The Royal Family is on the planet; we cannot leave them.” The Moet ships were forced to stay and face what was happening. Their bravery was monumental, but also futile.

• • •

Arvolo watched Cyanna fight the Havana and decided that he was not needed in this attack. The Moet Ships were no match for the ships killing them. He watched as some of the dreadnaughts that were damaged but still flying were hit again. Beams and mini-strikers were as thick as drops in a heavy shower.

• • •

Kate Diamond banked her Needle around toward six dreadnaughts that were lining up to hit an attack craft will all of their beams. She hit the first three with a min-striker each and used her beam to cut the remaining three in half. She reversed course to finish off the ships that were hit with her beam but saw four other Needles finish the job. She blew past the dead ships and lined up two more dreadnaughts. She didn’t realize she had an expression of rage but she felt joy at killing the beings that had caused her brother’s death on Earth.

She exhausted her inventory of weapons and discovered something by accident. Her power for her main beam was down to three percent as the dreadnaught was powering up its drive field to escape. She felt her rage and stopping that ship from escaping consumed her. She screamed and flew her Needle directly at the dreadnaught, hitting it amidships. She had closed her eyes anticipating her death and was startled to discover she had flown her Needle through the huge ship and had emerged on the other side undamaged. Her force field was at full strength and prevented her small ship from being damaged. Six of her wing watched her hit the dreadnaught and they turned off their weapons and began ramming every ship they could find.

The tactic spread through the fleet and Arvolo watched the carnage taking place and said, “I want the pilot that started this ramming process brought to me when we arrive back at Dundee.”

Cyanna nodded and shook her head at the damage being done when the Needles blew through a dreadnaught. The passage of the small ship through the dreadnaught’s hulls set off all of their munitions and the resulting explosion left very little behind. After an hour there were no ships left to kill.

Arvolo looked at his display and saw the ships involved in the attack were hanging in space above the Moet planet waiting for orders. The transport arrived and signaled retrieval but none of the ships moved from orbit above the planet. The Transport Commander began issuing commands for his ships to return and Arvolo cut him off, “They will stay where they are. They will be allowed to witness what happens and I’ll not deny them that right.”

Commander Calhoun said, “You will wait until the mission is complete before you are retrieved.” He leaned back in his chair and waited with the thousands of ships above the Moet Planet.

Arvolo looked at George and said, “I believe you should take it from here, Sir. I know that’s how Dolly and Jeff would want it.”

George looked at Arvolo and then activated his communication panel.

• • •

The High Master, Fleet Master, and prince were all bright white in color. The main display in the High Master’s quarters illuminated as the Watcher fed the incoming transmission to her console. They saw a strange looking creature looking at them. It said in the language used by the Alliance, “I’m really tempted to just finish, this but I can’t resist the urge to show you what you’ve done.”

The Watcher sent a feed of the conversation to the other planets of Moet Colonists. They should hear what was being said.

“Before I do that, I’m going to share a few videos with you.”

The three Moet watched recordings of their conversation with the Violet Civilization, the scouting of Earth to see if it was destroyed, and finally the destruction of the Violet Civilization’s home planet. The High Master looked at the prince and he showed his disgust by looking at her without lowering a single eye stalk.

The High Master looked at the display and said, “Wait, can we discuss this?”

The creature on her video sneered at her, “You can talk all you want. I just wanted you to know this one thing; your attack has sealed your fate. Enjoy the next few moments; they will be your last.”

The three main battleships moved around the planet so they were equally spaced around the planet’s equator. George lifted a clear cover from a button on his console and nodded to RV. RV said over the fleet frequency, “Attention all ships, jump a hundred thousand miles away from the planet. We will be launching strikers momentarily.

George watched the Needles and attack craft disappear from above the planet and said, “Bob, Kenny, on three; one, two, three.”

The three ships fired three main strikers each into the planet. One would have destroyed all life; nine broke it into pieces that flew out into space from the explosion of the planet’s core. The Earth Fleet watched as the strikers were fired and saw the massive explosions from a hundred thousand miles away as the planet ceased to exist.

George put the cover back down on the button and stared at the destruction he had caused. He looked at Arvolo and RV said, “It doesn’t remove the pain.” George nodded and lowered his head. RV then said, “But it does leave you with a sense of satisfaction.”

George looked up and said, “You’re damned right. Is the present ready for delivery?”

“It is.”

“Would you be so kind as to deliver it?”

RV looked at Cyanna and she spoke into her com.

• • •

The Scanner Controller was staring at the blasted home hive and was still in shock. He finally looked at his panels and saw something on the bottom right display. He brought the view in closer and fell back in his chair. The derelict hull of a grey ship was hanging in space just outside the border of the Violet Civilization. He brought the view in closer and saw that it was the blasted hull of the ship that had come and given the coordinates of the planet they had destroyed. He scanned it closely and saw that every being on board was dead. Explosive decompression had killed them when the hull had been punctured in multiple places. He sent the view to the Fleet Controller and he said, “I guess we know where that White Ship was before it went to its planet.”

The Scanner Controller nodded and hoped there weren’t any more of them. One was far too many.

• • •

RV looked at Cyanna and said, “Sound retrieval.”

Cyanna issued the orders and wondered how RV was affected by what had happened. She knew she would soon know.

• • •

Captain Tom Browne sat in his command chair on the battleship Hong Kong as he fulfilled his duty of protective cover of the colonist’s landing on the planet’s surface. The huge ship was parked in orbit over the new colony named Europe and suddenly he heard alarms go off. He looked quickly at his Sensor Officer, “Sir, I have ten ships emerging into normal space just beyond the moon’s orbit.”

“Sound General Quarters.” The alarm klaxons began blaring and he reached over and turned the sound off in the bridge, “What can you determine about them?”

The Sensor Officer ran three scans and said, “They’re not warships, Sir. They appear to be commercial vessels.”

Tom reached over and silenced the alarm throughout the ship and noticed that the red lights had gone solid. He was impressed with the crew’s fast response and reminded himself to compliment them. He put on the translator and said, “Communications, have you picked up a frequency from them?”

“I have, Sir and they’re speaking in the language of the species we destroyed in this galaxy.”

“Put it on the speakers.”

“...are here to speak with you. We come in peace and only wish to communicate.” The message repeated itself over and over.

Tom said, “Open a channel.”

“Go ahead, Sir.”

“What is it you wish to talk about?”

“Thank goodness you didn’t attack us.”

“We don’t do that unless we’re threatened. We are at heart a peace loving civilization.”

“We are representatives of those worlds you saved from the Fatal Empire. You didn’t stay and allow us to thank you for freeing us and we’ve recently learned that you have settled planets in this part of our galaxy. We are concerned about your level of technology and wonder what your intentions are.”

Tom wished he had someone higher up to handle this but he decided to answer their questions, “We’re looking for uninhabited planets to colonize in a different galaxy than our own. Our civilization is under attack from another galaxy and we’re concerned about our species’ survival. The attackers recently destroyed our home world and we feel that we should not just be in one galaxy. We have no intentions of attacking other civilizations and will only use our ships against aggressive civilizations. We determined rather quickly that the Empire you’re referring to represented a danger to anyone they encountered. They attacked the first ship we sent here. We investigated and discovered that they have enslaved thousands of planets and were murdering innocent civilians. We made a decision that they had to be eliminated. We tried to do it such that no other civilization would be harmed in the process. After that, we left you to determine your own destiny. Does our settling here pose a problem for you?”

“No, it does not.”

“Then go in peace and we wish you success and good fortune.”

“Thank you. If we can do anything to repay you for you kindness, please let us know.”

“You owe us nothing. It was the right thing to do.”

Tom watched the ten ships jump away and smiled. The tone used by the being communicating was soothing and he sensed that it was a good creature.

He was forced to call for help when they showed up again a month later.

• • •

George looked at Captain Tom Browne on his display and said, “They want what?”

“They want us to agree to defend them if they are attacked by an invader from another galaxy and they will assist us in building the ships needed to make that happen.”