Saxon Andrew - Greyson's revenge

All of the planet’s cities were abandoned and basic wood structures were built on the huge farms growing the plants. There was very little evidence of advanced technology on the planet. Their scans also revealed more than ten large cities had been hit with nuclear warheads.

“It looks like we have dimensional drug dealers.”

Toland said, “Watch this.”

One of the inhabitants picked one of the fruits and removed his breathing mask. It smelled the fruit and immediately fell off the ladder and tumbled to the ground where it spasmed so hard its arms and legs broke. Then the picker convulsed and its chest collapsed. An orange soldier walked up, pulled a gun, and shot the dead body incinerating it. The soldier then turned and shot the six workers that were picking fruit from that plant. It motioned for more workers to take the place of those killed.

“Niles, this is terrible.”

“You notice we have not been discovered. That means most of their ships are now in that other universe.”

“Niles, did you notice the color of the inhabitant that was burned.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m going to freeze the video.”

Niles watched as the picker that had breathed the fruit quit twitching. As the chest collapsed Toland froze the video. The formerly brown colored picker was now a bright orange color. “It appears the invaders are addicted as well as the population.”

“We need to collect one of those fruits.”

“Stand by. Get a vacuum container out of storage.”

Toland left the bridge and came back with a clear round container. Niles used the scanner to zoom in on one of the fruit from a tree well ahead of the harvesting efforts. He read the coordinates and entered them in his board. He read the coordinates of the container and enabled the board. He pressed the teleport pad and a bright orange fruit appeared in the container.

“Toland, teleport this to a probe along with all that we’ve recorded so far and send it out into deep space to return to the empire.”

Toland began pressing the keys to release a probe.

Niles leaned back and decided that they had done all they could to scout the Invaders. Now it was time to see how the Bristone would hold up under attack. He looked at Toland and hoped his friend survived the coming attack. Toland made the teleport and Niles smiled, “Are you ready?”

“I am. Let’s go do this.”

The Bristone broke back into the first universe and ejected the probe. They waited for what they knew was coming.

“Sire, that ship is back at the place they were first detected.”

“Go there immediately.” The commander felt his excitement. They were not getting away this time. He sent the message to five other support ships that surrounded the small ship eighty thousand light years away. No matter which way it tried to escape a ship should be able to follow it. He smiled as his ship broke into normal space and the small ship was still there.

“It doesn’t have a force field up.”

“Scan it.”

“Our scans are being stopped at that ships outer hull.”

The commander watched the small ship wondering why it didn’t flee. Then a brilliant white beam struck his force field and rocked the giant black ship.

“We’ve blown a hole in their force field that lasted two seconds. We did not hit the ship.”

Niles teleported away.

“What are you doing?”

Niles jumped and saw another ship emerge. He teleported again and said quickly, “Are you sure about the hole in their force field?”

“Yes, it was about ten feet in diameter.”

“We can’t trial our beam.”

“I thought that was why we’re here.”

“It is but think about this.” Niles teleported again as two giant ships emerged. “What will those creatures do if we hit them and destroy one of their ships?” Niles teleported again and barely missed being hit by one of Invader’s main Beams.

“They’ll strengthen them.”

“We didn’t think our Zeta Beam would penetrate. Now we know it will open a hole that we can send things through. We can’t show them our focused beam. If the Zeta Beam opened a hole, the new beam will blow through. We don’t need to trial it.”

Niles teleported again and Toland said, “I’m turning off the hull.”

Niles smiled at Toland and released the probe as he teleported away. The probe waited until the four ships that had emerged chased after the Bristone and then teleported to deep space and jumped back to the Empire.

“It appears the Black Ships are all jumping out after us.”

“Weaken the Zeta Beam and fire at one of the ships.”

The Commander was closing in on the small ship when a brilliant white beam struck his force field again and was stopped. The small ship disappeared and the Commander was right behind it. He watched as his Weapons Controller fired and hit the small ship with a main beam. The small ship exploded and blew small fragments out from the center of the explosion.

Eight hundred of the Giant Black Ships arrived and scanned the explosion. There was nothing large enough to gather for examination. The Fleet Commander said, “Do any of you have a record of this ship in your databanks?”

The Ship’s Commander looked at his Sensor Controller and he said, “Not really. There are a couple of ships in the last universe we were watching that resemble it very slightly.”

“Show me.”

The Commander looked at his display at an Ultraship and compared it to the ship he had just destroyed. Then he heard, “I have a ship that is similar in size and color in the universe I’ve been watching.”

The Commander looked at the Ultraship again and said, “It’s the wrong color, the engines are different, and the bridge is not in the same location. The lines of the hull are also different.”

“It is about the same size.”

“But that is all they have in common. It probably came from the other universe.”

The Fleet Commander ordered, “Go back and really take a look at that universe. Take four hundred ships with you. The rest of you spread out and take another look at this universe to make sure it didn’t come from here.”

The Ship’s Commander received his quadrant to search and motioned to his navigator. The Black Ship disappeared. The small fragments of the Bristone continued to travel away from the center of the ship’s destruction. The final micro probe waited and then teleported to deep space after all of the giant ships disappeared.

Vring, Bleath, Scotty, Julie, and Robby sat at the fire watching the flames dance in the center of the clearing. The Robbins had walked up to the fire to remember the two brave sailors that had died. Vring and Bleath flew in. They were listening to their thoughts and felt the need to join them. They all just stared at the fire in silence. Jingo and Grang walked up and sat down and watched the fire. Timmy and Virze arrived and joined the gathering. James Silvey and Carol walked up and sat down beside Timmy and Virze. The only sound was the wood crackling in the fire. Scotty looked up at the stars and said, “The first night I met Niles and Toland was right here at this fire. They volunteered to go take the Military Database from Daulun. I knew at that moment that they were good men. There were many nights both of them sat here and stared up at the stars. Vring tells me that they felt incredible remorse at all the worlds they had helped conquer for Daulun. This assignment was their attempt to start to balance their debt.”

Scotty paused and said, “They decided before they went on this assignment that they couldn’t risk coming back to our universe. If their jump track was recorded by the Invaders, then we would have been attacked immediately. They refused to take that risk. They also refused to reveal our most powerful weapon to defend themselves when they discovered it would weaken our ships if the Invaders strengthened their force fields to handle that beam. Because of their sacrifice, we now know what we need to do to prepare.” Scotty stood up and looked up at the stars, “We will honor them tomorrow….but tonight we will remember them in silence.” He sat back down and lowered his head and wept for the sacrifice he had asked of the two brave warriors. Julie put her arms around his shoulders and hugged him tight.