Saxon Andrew: Death of an Empire

“The probe is launched.”

Timmy looked up from his command board, “How did you know to come here?”

“Timmy, Dani’s and my ability to sense danger is growing stronger. We saw this happening and knew the best decision was to come here.”

Greyson said, “I did get a reading on the force field being used by the missile. It appears to match the frequency of the force field it hits almost instantaneously. Maybe Alex can use this.”

Robby looked away from the display and thought a moment, “No, it won’t help. I suspect that the invaders will simply modify their force fields to use two different frequencies so that if one is read the other will stop the missile. At least that’s how I would counter it.”

“What if two don’t work?”

“Then they’ll use four and have them changed a thousand times a second, Timmy. We could do that and I’m certain they will as well.”

“Then why are we here?”

Dani looked at Robby and he nodded, “We’re sensing the Invaders will be delayed here. It gives us more time to develop our defense. At least that’s what we think is causing us to be here. We can’t think of another reason.”

Timmy stared at the huge battle at the planet and saw more Black Ships jumping in, “They are somewhat single minded, aren’t they?”

Robby nodded, “Yes, they are.”

The Black ships continued to come and more than three thousand had been destroyed. After two hours, Timmy sighed, “Should we go now?”

Dani furrowed her brow and said, “Not just yet.”

Robby looked at her, “Do you see something?”

“Something else,” Dani pointed at the display on the wall and said, “That!”

A black colored ship fifty percent larger than the other Black Ships appeared on the display and moved on the satellite. The first missile arrived and exploded on its force field. The satellite saw the explosion and launched a hundred missiles. They were all stopped by the new ship’s screen. The huge Black Ship moved closer to the huge orbiting structure and fired a massive orange beam into it. It exploded and fell toward the planet below. The ship then fired into the planet and the single beam blew away the atmosphere and cracked the planet. The fault line in the planet’s surface ran more than six thousand miles and the surface caught fire from the magma rushing up to the surface.”

Robby watched the devastation and said, “It appears I may have been wrong about them being delayed.”

Dani looked away from the display, “They have the next ships waiting for when they’re needed. Now we know why we needed to come see this. We have to develop a ship that is not just slightly stronger than their current ship but many times more powerful.” She looked at Timmy, “Let’s go home. I’ll send this recording to Alex as soon as we arrive.”

Timmy stared at the now dead planet as Greyson teleported away. Greyson realized that Grace may have been right. This enemy was something to fear.

“Carter, are you ready?”

Carter gave a start, “Give me about an hour; I’ll meet you on the ship.”

“We’ll be waiting.”

Jenna looked at Carter, “So, you’re off again.”

Carter kissed her and smiled, “I hate to go, especially with the baby on the way.”

“Oh quit worrying about us; we’ll be fine. Just stay in touch.”

“I will.” Carter went to the learning center and looked in the Military Database at the teleportation probes; fifty minutes later he teleported to the Algean’s ship after speaking with Alex.

Carter looked at the display and saw the orange planet, “I don’t see any difference.”

Seed turned from the scanner and replied, “Today is when the really virulent spores we released are going to activate.”

“I’m not sure what you mean by that?”

“The initial spores are created to delay thirty days before they activate. However, the spores that are released from the infected orange plants will not be delayed. They will attack anything that has that orange plant’s structure. Every time the spores kill an orange plant they will release billions of new spores. We should be able to see an effect shortly.”

Carter stared at the display but saw nothing different from the first visit. He used his armor’s scanner and looked at the surface and absently asked, “How long does it take one of those spores to kill an orange plant?”

“Less than thirty minutes. The new spores will be released in less than fifteen minutes from the moment the spore infects an orange plant.”

“Are we over the place where we dropped the packet?”

Weed shook with his laughter, “Of course. We aren’t so incompetent that we’d miss it.”

“I wasn’t being critical. It’s just that every place on the surface looks identical.”

Seed said from the command chair, “Notice the four tall mountains to the north?”

Carter widened his scan and said, “Those are mountains?”

“It doesn’t look like it from a scan but they are over twenty thousand feet high. The uniform orange color tends to hide them.”

Carter looked at them with an active scan and saw that she was right. He looked back at the plain and saw something. There was a patch of ground that wasn’t orange. “Do you see that?”

“Yes we do; and it’s growing.”

Carter watched and saw Weed was right. The small patch seemed to double in size in less than five minutes. As he watched over the next hour the patch grew from a hundred square yards to a hundred square miles. He backed his scan out and saw thousands of areas on the surface that were losing their orange color. He heard Weed say, “That storm really scattered the spores. We should get a major change in the next thirty minutes; that’s when the second generation of spores begins doing their work.”

Carter moved his scan to the ocean and saw the orange colored seas were not showing any change. He wondered about that but looked back at the original site. He saw hundreds of clear patches of land on the surface that had stopped growing. He checked his watch and waited thirty minutes. What he saw stunned him. The clear patches were expanding at a phenomenal rate. From orbit it looked like the orange surface was retreating before an advance of brown colored dirt. He looked closer and saw the orange plants were falling apart and dissolving. Nothing remained after that brown wave washed over them. He looked back at the oceans and saw the change there was even more dramatic. It was like giant ripples were leaving the center of clear patches of ocean and routing the orange waters before them.

Carter looked at Seed, “Did you think it was going to react this fast?”

Seed looked at Carter leaning back, “No! This is beyond anything we envisioned. That orange plant offers no resistance to our spores.” Seed looked back at the display, “At the current rate of expansion, the planet will be clear in less than two days.”

Carter looked at Seed and shook his head, “If these spores are on a starship, the addicted crew might be dead in less than an hour after the spores activate.”

“You’re probably right. We need to change the delay from thirty days to ninety days.”

“Why?”

“We must make sure the spores are spread around the Invader’s fleets and planets. This would give them a warning before they could be spread.”

“How long will it take to make the change?”

“About four months. We’ll start working on the change while we’re here.”

Carter looked down on a clear continent and knew that someone was going to be really angry at whoever caused this to happen to their drug supply. He needed to see Alex again and soon.

Weed, Seed and Carter looked down on a planet that had nineteen black ships in orbit around it. The Invaders had entered a new universe now that the strongest civilizations had been destroyed. Carter looked at Weed and said, “How do you want to handle this?”