Annihilation: Book 06 - Demon's Sacrifice Read online

  “I’ll send the word out.”

  “Thanks, take us to the psychic ships; we’ll wait there for everyone to come.”

  “Tommy, we have been ordered to report to our psychic ship.”

  “I’m ready when you are.”

  “I’m worried about the Kosiev; it knows I’m going into battle without it. I can sense its unease.”

  “I’m sure it knows what’s happening. It just doesn’t want to lose you again. I really think this ship loves you almost as much as I do.”

  “Maybe more; it might not listen to reason like you would. I’ve powered it down and ordered it to wait for my return. I hope it listens.”

  “Me, too; I don’t want to see it hurt by the Demons; that orange energy could destroy it.”

  “I know. I’m sure it will stay.”

  Tommy and Cassandra teleported away from the Kosievs’ bridge to their new ship and left the bridge deactivated……..until a light came on in the sensor array. The array aligned itself to the edge of the universe where the psychic ships were gathered and remained locked on that region of space. The weapons console suddenly lit up and began running self tests on the ship’s systems. The Kosiev disappeared.

  “Citizens of the Stars Realm, our war with the Demons has begun today. We have fought off one of their ships but we know that their fleet will be coming soon. Please think about our brave warriors who are confronting the enemy and wish them success. We will keep you informed about what happens. If we lose, please make plans to try and hide from them. Use the teleport systems and do all you can to survive; we are doing all we can to protect you.”

  Matt sent a thought to the Reg, “Brother, can you tell me how the Demons will enter our universe?”

  “They will have to use all their ships at one location to break thru the psychic barrier we have made. That is where you will have to hold them off. If you can destroy enough of their ships, they will delay their entry until a later date. You must not let them break thru the corridor they attack.”

  “Are we strong enough to win?”

  “We don’t know; all of our visions stop at this moment in time. We believe that the future from this point forward is undetermined. It can go either way.”

  “Do you have any suggestions as to how we should meet them?”

  “No, you are the warriors.”

  “Thank you, Brother for helping us.”

  “It is something we had to do.”

  Chapter 13

  “Attention all Psychic Ships. We are going to organize into five groups of a hundred ships in each group. The command vessels for the groups will be as follows: the center will be commanded by Tommy and Cassandra Gardner; the right of Cassandra will be Rose and Chris Gardner; the left of Cassandra will be Thomas and Danielle Gardner; the left end of our formation will be Anglo and Jenny Gardner; Melanie and I will have the right end of our formation. The command ships will place themselves behind their hundred ships and move to support wherever needed. I want your fields extended to their maximum power and each ship will overlap their screens. If we lose a ship, then extend your screens to cover the gap. I know that the power will be reduced but we cannot allow breaks in our formation. Once your fields are extended, I will lock all of you into Melanie’s board and she will jump our formation to stay in front of the Demons. You do not need to focus on where we move; we will handle that for all of us. Are there any questions?”

  “Yes, how do Fly Girl and I move into our ship?”

  “I don’t know, Al. Perhaps if you just move next to it and make contact it might make the move for you.” Matt watched as Al and Fly Girl approached their ship and moved slowly forward and touched the ship’s hull.

  “We’re in; we’re teleporting our ships to a safe location.” The two Alpha ships disappeared.

  Matt thought privately to Al and Fly Girl, “Where is Junior?”

  “He’s with Stem and Petal’s seed. They are going to Atlas and Diana to start their training.”

  “I hope Atlas and Diana are up for the effort. Those two should be a handful.”

  “You have no idea; junior has already exhausted our libraries.”

  “How do the two of you like being in one ship?”

  “Matt, this is the greatest feeling I’ve ever had; I love being this close to Fly Girl.”

  “Me, too, Matt, this is wonderful.”

  “Take this time to familiarize yourself with your new ship.”

  “Already on it.”

  “Good, Al; I’ll see you after the battle.”

  “Count on it.”

  “Jenny, do you feel like I forced you into being with me?”

  “Oh, Anglo, don’t be ridiculous.”

  “No, I mean it. I pressured you a lot.”

  “Silly, I was already trying to figure out how to get your attention before anyone said anything. I couldn’t be happier.”

  “Thanks, Jenny; I love you.”

  “We have time before the Demons come; let’s make good use of it.”

  “Oh, Jenny, come here.”

  “Rose.”

  “Yes, Chris.”

  “I feel so unworthy of having you.”

  “Why, because I’ve been a queen?”

  “That’s part of it. You’re just so beautiful and your mind is extraordinary. I am so thankful you chose to be with me.”

  “Chris, that decision was made millions of years ago. You are what completes me and don’t sell yourself short; you are a powerful psychic generator.”

  “I’m still not sure what that is, Rose.”

  “I am able to use psychic abilities to a very high level; you understand that don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well you have more psychic power than I do. When we are linked, I can use your power to make my abilities more than ten thousand times stronger. You are the power that will make this ship deadly. You are probably more important than I am in the coming battle. Without you, I wouldn’t be strong enough alone to survive.”

  “Then we need each other, Love.”

  “More than you will ever know. I’ve needed you my whole life and I didn’t know it. Now my life is complete. No matter how this turns out, the time we’ve been together has been the best of my life.”

  “And mine, too.”

  “We just have to make sure we win. I want to enjoy this for a very long time.”

  Tag looked at his board and then said to Danielle, “We are practically one person now.”

  “Yes, Love, isn’t it great?”

  “Yes but there is something you must do during the upcoming battle.”

  Danielle could hear his concern, “What is that?”

  “Part of my talents revolves around being able to see places where we won’t be in the line of fire. When you see a dark shadow around us, you must move the ship into it. Time will also slow down and we’ll be moving much faster than the ships around us. I’ll be busy with the weapons and I have to depend on you to keep us safe. Can you do what I’m asking?”

  “Yes, I’ll make sure we move toward the psychic shadows you see. You just make sure you use your weapons effectively.”

  “I only have one weapon that is some kind of beam. I’m sure I’ll be able to target the enemy. You keep us moving.”

  “I will. I still look forward to retirement.”

  “Are our ships ready?”

  “Yes, they are.”

  “Is everyone prepared?”

  “Everyone but the one healing from the first contact.”

  “Why is he not here?”

  “He is still unconscious; evidently the blast did more damage to him than we thought. His skin has regenerated but evidently his brain was shocked severely by the blast. He is unable to fly any kind of ship.”

  “I was going to make him lead the attack. Losing a tool is unforgivable. Could we put him in a ship and push it at the barrier ahead of us?”

  “It would be a waste of a good ship and he’ll just get in the way.”
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  “Ummmmm, perhaps you’re right. He would probably just slow us down, the incompetent fool. When he wakes you should eliminate him; he’s your son.”

  “He is your grandson.”

  “Don’t remind me; he’s an embarrassment.”

  The Demon lay in his cocoon listening to the conversation. He was conscious but had disconnected the dial from the neural reader so no one could see. He was angry to the point where he almost came out and attacked his family. Then he calmed down; there was no such thing as family in his species. He thought about that as he remembered the feelings of the two in the blue ship that had nearly killed him. He saw that both of them would gladly give their lives for the other. Why would they do that? He decided to watch what happened and decide what to do after the battle was over. He knew his ship was no match for the blue ship and this was a battle he was happy to witness from the sidelines.

  “They’re coming.” All five hundred ships saw the huge fleet of orange ships moving toward them. There had to be millions of ships in that fleet and some of them were thousands of miles long. “Hold your formation; we must block their entrance; link with your partners now and go to full power.” The blue glow increased in brightness.”

  “Do you see it?”

  “Yes, I see it. It’s brighter than I have ever seen in my life span.”

  “Should we reconsider this attack?”

  “If we don’t attack now then this force can only grow stronger. It’s brighter than ever before but it is not a huge source. We are still stronger and larger. We will prevail.”

  “Should we try to break in and then attack?”

  “Send all the ships to different places along the barrier and breakthrough in multiple locations.”

  Matt watched as the huge fleet spread out and moved toward the blue barrier from millions of different locations, “Hold your formation. They won’t break through unless they gather all of their ships at one location; be patient.”

  “Grena, no matter what happens today, I am so thankful for you coming to me.”

  “It does not matter, Life; we will be together no matter what.”

  “This is a glorious way to protect our people.”

  “We are not breaking through the barrier. It seems that where we use high numbers of ships we get further through but we don’t have enough hitting it and we are thrown back.”

  “Use half the ships at two locations.”

  “Stay alert; they will combine their forces shortly at one of those two locations. We will move as soon as they declare their intention on which one they will attack with the entire fleet.”

  “Matt, do we start firing before they penetrate the field?”

  “I believe they will force a corridor through the field as wide as our formation. As they approach the final hundred miles of the field, we will begin firing. Use full power on your shots, hold nothing in reserve.”

  “We are still not getting through. We penetrate half way.”

  “Move all our ships to the first location and get all of our ships behind each other pushing those in front.”

  Matt watched as the ships on the right disappeared, “Go, Melanie.”

  The psychic ships appeared in front of the oncoming Demon fleet. The Demons were now moving quickly through the field and were approaching normal space. Matt watched and saw the orange ships move to within a hundred miles of their ships, “Weapons free, fire.”

  The five hundred blue ships had a twenty mile separation between them. The entire front of their thousand mile wide formation erupted in blue fire as each ship fired thousands of blue beams into the oncoming Demons. The front rank of the Demon ships exploded into gigantic explosions. Six hundred thousand orange ships were blown into nothingness but the huge mass continued to move inexorably forward.

  “We have lost thousands of ships!”

  “Yes, but we will soon be through. Keep pushing forward.”

  The Demon Fleet was now filling the thousand mile wide break in the blue field all the way back to the hundred thousand mile depth where it began. The Demon fleet was now only five miles from breaking through and then the front rank came through in the center and started firing at Cassandra and Tommy’s ships. Twenty blue ships exploded.

  “Move toward the center. Close the gaps,” Matt ordered as he began firing at Demon ships breaking out in front of his line.

  The front line looked like fire and ice as the orange and blue beams ripped into the two enemies facing each other. Another hundred thousand Demon ships were destroyed but a hundred more blue ships were destroyed with half of them being in Cassandra’s group. She saw that the Demons were bunching together to push through her weakened line. Life and Grena were killing orange ships faster than they could count and then a hundred orange beams hit their ship and it exploded. Stem and Pedal moved into the space between them and drove the advance back a mile but then their ship was hit by more than five hundred beams and blew up in a huge blue flash that destroyed every orange ship in front of them back to a distance of three miles.

  Matt and Melanie were firing as fast as possible and knew that if they couldn’t get support for the middle of the formation and that the line would be broken but there were too many attacking their line to leave. “It looks like we’ve failed, Darling.”

  “Melanie, I will love you forever.”

  Matt saw on his display more than a thousand orange ships drive toward Cassandra’s ship. “Matt, please take care of the Kosiev.”

  “I will, Cassandra.”

  Out of nowhere the Kosiev appeared and flew into Cassandra’s ship and absorbed it into its skin. Immediately more than twenty thousand blue beams erupted from its surface and killed every Demon ship in front of it. It stayed there killing everything that came near it. Matt thought about how it could possibly be using the psychic beams and then he understood, “Attention all ships, go into the Kosievs’ skin. Go quickly, go now!”

  Twenty blue ships dove into the Kosievs’ hull and disappeared. The blue beams coming out of the Kosiev multiplied fifty times. Hundreds of thousands of blue beams erupted and tore a devastating hole in the Demons front. Fifty more ships flew into the Kosiev and the entire hull of the Kosiev became one huge beam sweeping the Demon ships in the corridor. The remaining seventy nine psychic ships darted into the Kosiev and the beams now had the power to reach the entire width of the corridor and the front of the Demon fleet was blown out of existence. The Kosiev began moving forward killing every Demon ship in front and to the sides all the way to the barrier walls. The huge two mile long ship sparkled with a blue radiance that was blinding.

  “What is that ship? It is killing us!”

  “Fire on it!”

  “It does no good. The entire ship is one big beam; there are no gaps to fire through.”

  “Order all ships to run. We will have to fight this another time.”

  Matt watched the Demon ships turn and start to run toward the opening to escape the barrier. “Melanie, now is the time for Newton’s gift.”

  Melanie activated the field and placed it over the break in the blue field where the Demon fleet had entered. The Demon ships fleeing hit the barrier and were stopped.

  “What’s happening?”

  “There is some kind of field that prevents us from crossing.”

  “Jump away.”

  “We can’t inside this blue field. Our drives don’t operate.”

  The Elder Demons watched as the Kosiev moved forward. They had placed themselves at the rear of the Fleet to insure their safety but now they saw there was no safety to be found anywhere in the corridor. “Fire all our beams on that field in one location. Those on the front ram that ship.”

  “We have done it but to no effect.”

  Thousands of the orange ships turned and drove toward the approaching blue vessel and were destroyed. A five thousand mile wide orange ship roared in and the first red being knew he should have made his son tell what he knew. Now he understood the Elder’s fear and t
hen his ship exploded around him.

  The Eldest Demon watched that blue monster approaching. He screamed at the forces that the creative force had brought into existence to bring his species to an end. Then the blue ship was in front of him and he screamed one last time as his ship disintegrated in a violent explosion.

  There was silence as Matt watched the now empty space in the blue barrier. Then he saw Cassandra and Tommy’s ship emerge from the Kosievs’ outer skin, “I guess the Kosiev can take care of itself, Matt.”