Saxon Andrew - Searcher

The Supreme Male immediately felt fear, “How long have you been trying?”

“Two dgsgs.”

The Supreme Male fought his fear and turned on his communicator, “Nest Mother, we have lost contact with our two ships.”

The Nest Mother felt her rage building but then felt it evaporate. Something was happening in that universe that was too far out of the ordinary. She knew the missing main ship could not defeat two main ships so there must be another agency causing ships to disappear. She wondered if the crystal creatures were causing it but the evidence gained before she had consumed the first family indicated that it wasn’t them. She now regretted consuming that first family. They would already be there harvesting except for her anger and impatience. She sighed and decided not to make that mistake again. She composed herself and said, “Send a ship through and make a quick scan and then have it return. Tell me what it sees.”

The Supreme Male took a quick breath and wondered why he was being spared. He immediately responded, “I will order it now.”

The Nest Mother thought about what was happening and began looking through the data from the previous harvests in that universe to see if there was anything that might be a clue s to what was going on. She inserted her two back legs into their receptacles, closed her eyes, and began looking at the information.

Destiny had moved to the planet and sent crews down to fly the transports to the planet where his children had been teleported. They came on board and Eyes began moving the ship out of the system. Suddenly he yelled, “Destiny, another main ship has appeared at the entry point.”

“Tell me what they’re doing.”

“They’re scanning.”

“Matt, another main ship has entered.”

“I can see them, Destiny. We have a screened probe there and I’m getting a feed from it. What do you think they’re doing?”

Destiny thought a moment and then said, “They’re looking for the two ships. I don’t think they will stay long. If it was a major investigation you would have more than one ship.”

“Let’s see if you’re right. If they’re leaving quickly, we couldn’t react fast enough to hit them.”

After an hour the huge ship disappeared back into the entry point. “Looks like you were right. What happens next?”

“I heard one of your officers use an expression, “It’s gonna be one big shing ding of a party”“. Next time a ship comes through the door it will have a big group with it.”

Matt thought for a moment and said, “I just wish we had a way to target them other than visually.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our sensors do not see them. We have to visually aim at them or use a visual color sensor to track them.”

“Why don’t you track them by their frequency?”

“What do you mean frequency?”

“The substance that makes up our hulls radiates a frequency. It is very, very, low but it is there.”

Matt jumped from his chair and thought, “Sprig, you need to hear this.’

“What.”

“Destiny tells me that the green substance radiates a frequency that falls in a very low range. Could we use that to track them with our weapons?”

“How low is it, Destiny?”

“About three hertz.”

“That’s even lower than the background of the explosion that started this universe.”

“This substance is a residue of a universe that died of old age. It couldn’t radiate anything higher.’

“Stand by.”

Matt and Destiny waited for twenty minutes and Sprig said, “I just measured the frequency of the attack ship here in the lab and you’re right. It does radiate a frequency that is strong enough to home in on. We can adjust our monitors and sensors to find it.”

“Can we make the changes in time?”

“I don’t know; probably not all of our weapons but enough to start the conflict and bring the others up to date as we move forward.”

“Get the megaships first then start loading the Searchers.”

“I agree. We’ll start now.”

“What is a Searcher, Matt?”

“We have twenty million small ships that are pretty powerful. They can destroy a planet with their beams but of course they will have no affect on the green substance.”

“Let me think about that, Matt. There should be a way to use them; I just need to think about it.”

“I’ll send you a copy of our main library so you can use it to see if there is anything we have missed. I think your children will find it enjoyable reading. You’ve already made a huge difference. Anything else would be icing on the cake.”

“What is a cake?”

“I’ll send you one if you can come up with a use of those beams.”

“Fair enough.”

The Nest Mother finished the data and found nothing to explain what was happening. She worried that the missing main ship was helping the advanced life form but then she dismissed the idea; ships were disappearing before she consumed that family. It was clear that someone or something was able to kill their ships. Would one family be enough? This time she was going to really focus on eliminating those crystal creatures once and for all. She shouldn’t have backed off before but they weren’t edible so it was wasted effort to harvest them. She paused and then changed her mind; there was no reason to waste time on them. She called another Supreme Male and said, “I may be sending you to follow up a harvest. Start preparing your family.”

“I will begin immediately, Nest Mother.”

Never in her species long history had a harvest ever been stopped. She was probably worrying about nothing… but…something just didn’t feel right. She sat in her chamber and worried. Would this harvest never start?”

“Destiny, are you sure you’re ok with our using one of your ships for target practice.”

“I’m sure, Matt. If it comes down to transportation issues, I think I can count on you to provide some ships for my use.”

“You know we will. We have some about three hundred miles in diameter that I think will meet your needs.”

“Then get on with it and we’ll watch and see what happens.”

Eyes was looking at Destiny and Destiny said, “What?”

“One of our children has developed an interest in engineering after reading the library given us and has timidly asked for permission to view the attack.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, he has been studying the data from past harvests and what our protectors have sent us and has an insatiable curiosity.”

“Invite him up and let him watch.” Eyes turned back to his board. A young child ran into the command chamber and sat down and watched the display. “Who are you, child?”

“My name is Edison.”

“Where did you get that name?”

“One of the human’s ancient engineers had that name. I liked it.”

Destiny shrugged and turned to eyes, “Make sure we have our scanners at full power.”

“Already on it.”

“Then start the transport moving.” Destiny noticed that the child took an instrument and pointed it out of the ship toward the location of the transport. “What is that?”

“It’s something I put together in the lab.”

Matt said, “Launching the penetrator.”

Destiny watched as the penetrator shot out at the transport from more than seven thousand miles. It was near one third light speed when it arrived at the transport but missed the target.”

Sprig said, “We just can’t get a strong enough reading on that low power frequency.”

“Does that mean we have to be closer to hit them?”

“Probably.”

Edison looked at Destiny, “May I ask them a question, Father.”

Destiny looked at the child and said, “Matt, I have a child that has a question.”