Planet Predators (8 page)

“What do you see?”

Aman sent the video and waited. “We’ve notified the President and his advisors; please keep us informed on what happens.”

“Will do.” Aman looked at his display and saw more than one and a half million of the large ships had come out of Sierra Space and began organizing into formations. They continued to appear over the next two hours.

Dolly and Jeff watched the feed from the small attack craft and looked up as Chris and Jillian ran into the room, “What’s going on?”

“We don’t know. Take a look at this.”

They looked at Dolly’s display and Jillian said, “They’re leaving our galaxy and giving up the search for us.”

Chris, Jeff, and Dolly looked at her with doubt on their faces. “It’s obvious; where is the bow of those ships oriented?” Everyone looked and saw the ships were pointed towards the distant Andromeda Galaxy. “They’re going home and I’m sure the ships are organizing into fleets so that an orderly withdrawal can be done.”

Dolly hit her board and Gretchen Logan appeared on her display, “Gretch, are the Moet still evacuating?”

“Yes Sir, they are.”

Dolly looked at the three and said, “They’re frightened of us and the Moet are scared silly of them. We may be given more time to prepare than we ever thought possible.”

Jeff pulled his gaze from the display, “What makes you think that?”

“We can see the Blue Giant Scouts because of Chris’ scanner being able to detect their frequency. The Moet can’t and so they won’t know they’re withdrawing from our galaxy. They’ll evacuate and wait for word that their worlds are being attacked. That gives us time with the Moet. The Blue Giants withdrawal is to build a better ship. That could take an extremely long time; especially if they have to build enough to invade a galaxy. We’re lucky.”

They heard over the speaker, “Something’s happening.”

Dolly flipped the display back to the feed of the Blue Giant Scouts and saw the formations closest to the distant Andromeda Galaxy were disappearing. It looked like a giant eraser moved from the front of the gigantic formations to the rear. In less than a minute they were all gone.

Jeff reached forward and pressed the blue button on Dolly’s console, “Lt. Forester, your relief will be sent momentarily. You’ve done a great job and we look forward to debriefing you when you arrive home.”

“Thank you, Sir. I look forward to going home.”

“Chris, take all of the ships we have available and go scan as much of the Galaxy as possible.”

“You think they may be trying to fool us and hope we drop our guard?”

“That’s exactly what I think. If they didn’t leave any ships behind, that tells me that those beings were once invaded and destroyed in their past.”

Everyone looked at Dolly and she said, “They remember it. They’re invading to protect themselves from future invasions and now that they’ve discovered an advanced civilization is here; they won’t risk any further losses that would weaken them in defending their galaxy. If they had never been invaded, they would still be looking. They would have no fear.”

Jeff shook his head, “You are so amazing.”

Dolly leaned over and kissed him on the cheek and said with mock sorrow, “I know. It’s hard to be me.”

Jillian laughed out loud as Jeff pulled Dolly over on his lap, “No it’s not,” and proceeded to give her a huge kiss.

Jeff broke the kiss and Dolly smiled, “Show me again.”

Chris and Jillian left to give the two some privacy and to start organizing the fleet to scan the galaxy for a Blue Giant frequency.

* * *

Two weeks later Chris called in, “Dolly, we’ve done a pretty thorough scan and we’ve not detected one Blue Giant frequency in Sierra Space since their fleet left.”

“Chris, I don’t want to take any chances. I want a ship left on duty in each of the four quadrants of our galaxy on constant scan. We’ll continue our protocols on keeping our solar system hidden.”

“We’ll be coming back to start training on our search for the Jenze. Are you planning anything else in their absence?”

“Yes, I am. We’re going to load the colony ships up with more materials and population to move to Dundee and we’re bringing Admiral Anders back to set up the construction facilities here on Earth to expand the numbers of new ships being built. You’re also going to be given one of the new ships to start your mission. It will have enough room for three Ninja Class ships on board so it should be able to hold a Jenze reactor if you’re able to recover one. We’ve selected two new crews for them and you should start your training on your new ships. You will take the crew that has the best performance in training.”

“What’s the new ship’s name?”

“Any ship you Captain will be named the Jukebox. Your old ship will be renamed the Time Keeper.”

“That’s an appropriate name for the ole girl. What do you know about our new ship?”

“It has six reactors. It is also voice controlled and has thrusters that allow you to flip the ship and turn 180 degrees instantly. We need to get you started on your search so instead of coming back to Earth, just go straight to Dundee.”

Jillian reached over and said over Chris’s shoulder, “I wish we had more planets working on this than just Dundee.”

“Two more have had the initial colonists land and are getting set up to start construction within six months. We worry about having all our eggs in just two baskets as well.”

* * *

Arvolo looked at Dr. Levin and wondered how much longer this class was going to take. The other five students were taking notes at a copious rate and he was fighting falling asleep. He leaned forward and put his head on his hand and fought to stay awake.

“Are we boring you, Captain Arvolo?”

Arvolo didn’t even take his head off his hand, “You’re coming close to talking me unconscious.”

The other five students turned and looked at the big Cuban shaking their heads. Dr. Levin’s eyes narrowed and he said, “So you think you know everything about this control board?”

Arvolo sat up straight and sighed, “The board is self-explanatory; everything has a description under the knob, pad, or switch. I do see that you could have done a better job of organizing it.”

Levin was angry, “Oh, is that so!”

“You have the thruster control on the upper right corner and the engine power in the lower left corner of the board. If you had them together a pilot could vector thrust and control the power delivery with one hand. You’ve made it a two hand operation. A pilot might find that he needs to set the drive for Sierra Space while attempting to avoid being fired on. Your board only allows me control evasive maneuvers because it is a two handed operation.”

Levin looked at the display on the wall showing the control board and saw that Arvolo was right. He looked back and said, “Is there anything else, Captain?”

“As a matter of fact there is. We discovered in our first fight with the Blue Giant Scouts that they would crowd Sierra Space and bump us back into normal space whenever we tried to escape. There ought to be a button that can be enabled on the drive that would automatically apply thrust when a ship enters Sierra Space. There was always a moment before they could bump me into normal space and that’s all we’d have needed to escape if thrust was applied automatically. I’m just saying.”

“Captain, do not look at your board.” Arvolo continued to stare at Levin. “Now put your left hand on the sensor control and your right hand on the weapons select lever.”

Arvolo reached forward and Levin came around and looked. “Your right hand is not on the weapons select lever.”

“No, because before I could select a weapon, I would have to push the weapon slave control that would transfer weapons to my board.”

Levin saw his hand on the slave pad and stared at Arvolo. “Captain, how long did it take you to memorize that board?”

Arvolo shrugged, “I don’t know, maybe three seconds.”

Dr. Levin pushed his com, “Dr. Morrison, I’m sending Captain Arvolo to your location to make some changes on the Ninja’s control board. Try to do it quickly so we can start flight training in four days.” Levin looked at Arvolo, “Captain, do you know where Dr. Morrison is located?”

“Yes Sir, I do.”

“Go tell him what you just suggested.”

“I think we should also have power to the engines controlled by a slide instead of a knob so we can use our palm instead of our fingers.”

“Tell Dr. Morrison.” Arvolo stood and left the classroom.

Isadore looked at her board and knew she didn’t know her board as well as Arvolo knew his. Well that just would not do; he was not going to do a better job than her. She knew there were fifty controls on her board and she stayed after class teaching herself how to find them blindfolded. She decided that she had made a mistake putting the Crazy Cuban into a category of egotistical bombasts that loved to hear himself talk. She was going to check out whether he was truthful about learning that board in three seconds and then she would know for sure.

Chapter Six

“C
hris.”

“Yeah.”

“I took another look at that Alliance disc and found a section of data on it that we haven’t seen before.”

“What did you find?”

“Do you remember that Moet planet with the strange symbol behind it that led us to looking at its history?”

“Sure; if I remember the symbol meant destroyed.”

“There was another symbol in the Alliance Map records that didn’t appear on any planet in the list.”

Chris turned from his Command Panel and looked at Jillian, “What did the symbol mean?”

“Basically it translates to avoid at all costs.”

Chris stared at Jillian and finally said, “You’re going somewhere with this.”

“That second section on the disc has a list of planets and every one of them is followed by that symbol. I suspect the Alliance didn’t want their coordinates anywhere near their normal lists. I found six of them with three of those symbols after the planet’s coordinates. It’s got to mean something really dangerous is located there.”

“Do you think they might be Jenze planets?”

“I can’t think of anything more dangerous than the Moet but the Jenze. The planets listed at Moet all have just one of those symbols after their coordinates.”

“Well, we don’t have any clue where to start looking so we might as well pick the best candidate of those six that would allow us the best view of the light that reflected millions of years ago.”

“You’re assuming the Jenze aren’t alive now.”

“You’re right. However, we need to take a look at the light before we go anywhere near those locations.”

Jillian stared at the six locations on her panel and turned to Chris, “We haven’t heard much out of the Alliance since we’ve been preoccupied with the Moet and Blue Giants. I wonder what they’re up to.”

Chris said, “Contact Dolly Garcia.”

Dolly appeared on the main display and smiled, “Hello all, what’s up?”

“Dolly, Jillian just asked me what the Alliance is up to these days. We haven’t run across any of their ships while we’ve been tracking the Blue Giants and I know they were extremely active when we first ventured out of our Solar System. With the bulk of the Moet heavy ships being evacuated, the Moets left behind will be easy prey for them. I guess I’m wondering if we want to do anything about it if they’re attacking the Moets now.”

Dolly took a deep breath and looked off the screen and shook her head. She turned back and said, “What would you want to do if they were?”

“Can you get George in on this conversation?”

“Sure, stand by.”

“What are you thinking, Chris?”

“I’m thinking about a nasty attitude and wondering if that is where I want to go.”

George’s face appeared on the display beside Dolly’s and he smiled, “So you think we should intervene?”

“Why do you say that?”

“If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have made the call to Dolly.”

“I need you to tell me what you meant by Humans having to develop a nasty attitude. Does that mean we watch planets attacked and destroyed while we celebrate the removal of a possible attacker?”

“Yes, it does. You know the Moet are one of our enemies and they will be coming back to attack us.”

“Are the ones left behind to be sacrificed our enemies as well?”

“A Moet is a Moet.”

“Then why don’t you just order the fleet to go and destroy those Moets?”

George stared at Chris and didn’t respond.

“George, did you hear me?”

“Chris, that’s not a fair question.”

“Yes it is, Dolly. We have ships that we know the Moet and the Alliance cannot stand up to in battle. Just have George order all the Attack Craft and Jukebox Class ships to go out and burn every Moet and Alliance Planet. Then we’ll have several trillion enemies eliminated. Isn’t that what a nasty attitude is all about?”

“I see where you’re going with this. If we allow them to be killed when we could prevent it, we have ethically killed them ourselves.”

“Why wait? If allowing it to happen is the same thing as doing it ourselves, just order our fleet to go and do it.”

George continued to stare at Chris and said, “What’s up your pants leg? Something is causing you to push this issue. What is it?”

“I remember that Alliance Ship Commander that went and nuked several innocent cities on a planet to gather stores for his ship. They did it with cold blooded efficiency and had no feelings or concerns for those they killed. If developing a nasty attitude means becoming like them, then we’ll all be Hitler when this is over and revel in the suffering we cause. When we run out of enemies, we’ll turn on each other. I don’t want to live that way.”

“That is the way the universe operates. You’re either prey or predator and I don’t choose to be prey.”

“George, is the rhino prey?”

“Well, only if the predator is stupid.”

“What would happen if a lion attacked a gazelle on the plain where a rhino lived?”

“I suspect that lion would have a close encounter with two thousand pounds of charging rhino.”

“Would the rhino attack a gazelle?”

“Where are you going with this? Of course the Rhino wouldn’t attack a gazelle; they aren’t a threat.”