Death of an Empire aotr-3 Read online

  Robby and Dani teleported to Grace and Carter looked at the Algeans, “Why was it so important that the power behind the Invaders not know about our theft?”

  “Because then that being would come and take it back.”

  “I thought you wanted it to come out and make itself known.”

  “We do, but not in our universe.”

  “Oh.” Carter knew that something was not being said but he didn’t push the issue. They wouldn’t have told him anyway and he sensed they were still very nervous.

  The Distributor came off his couch with multiple alarms ringing. It checked the communication panel and immediately saw that something terrible was happening. Tens of thousands of ships harvesting the new universe were reporting an illness that was sweeping through their ranks. It activated its scanner and saw thousands of dead ships. It looked inside the ships and saw the crews were dead. It also saw most of them had lost the orange skin color and were covered in sores that were deep green.

  It immediately contacted the Ten Ruling Masters and saw that they were all dead. He then turned his scanner to the distribution center and saw that all of the huge warehouses were filled with dark green packets.

  “Oh no!” It checked the distribution ship that was due to arrive and saw it was still coming toward the main center. It ordered the Ship Master to turn around and head back to the distribution center. Whatever was affecting the ships had not affected the ship bringing the shipment this cycle.

  The four Council Members appeared on his display and demanded to know what was happening. “I don’t know. Something is attacking the Remid. Whatever it is, it kills it and those that are addicted. Most of my harvesting fleet has been affected.”

  “Where did this come from?”

  “I have no idea. One of the victims will have to be examined to make that determination.”

  One of the Council said, “I would suggest you make that happen immediately. I want answers.”

  The orange being saw their anger and nodded. He dispatched a ship and waited for what they discovered. He felt his rage build at what was being done to their drug supply. His rage increased as it realized it was not going to be allowed to rest until this problem was resolved. It considered what was taking place and knew that this was a deliberate attack. It looked forward to dealing with those responsible.

  Four turns later its communication panel alarm went off. It had determined that of the million plus ships in the harvesting universe, only a quarter of them were not infected with what had killed the others. It turned its attention to the panel, “What have you been able to determine?”

  “Someone has developed a spore that attacks the pod plants. It not only kills the plant and its spores, but any exposed product that has been harvested as well.”

  “What will it take to remove it?”

  “I don’t believe it can be removed.”

  “What do you mean!?!”

  “This spore is an artificial creation and it is a hardy life form. It can be burned if hit with a beam hotter than eight hundred units. However, it can survive in space and once it attaches to a pod, it will multiply by billions.”

  “Are you saying that it can cling to a ship’s hull and survive in the vacuum of space?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “How widespread is it?”

  “We have found it in the upper atmospheres of thousands of planets we’ve invaded. It would be deadly for our ships to come close to any of those planets. Once the ship landed, the spores would be attached to its hull.”

  “You’re certain this was artificially created.”

  “Yes and it was delivered to the planets we’ve conquered.”

  “Was it created in that universe?”

  “We have no way of making that determination.”

  The Distributor saw the creature on his screen was starting to shake, “Are you infected?”

  “We tried to avoid contact but it appears we were unsuccessful.”

  “You will remain where you are and allow me to see how long it takes for you to die.”

  The orange being on the screen nodded and leaned back in its chair and closed its eyes. Thirty minutes later it went into convulsions and died a horrible death. The Distributor watched and sent a report to the Council. It hoped it would not be blamed for what had happened but knew it might not live out the day.

  Robby teleported in to the Defense Facility and arrived to find seven Zord directing mechanical engineers on how to take the consoles apart that had been taken from the Invader’s ship. Robby stared at their activity and heard a thought, “We have made a determination about these machines.”

  Robby turned to a large Zord and said, “What is that?”

  “We will not be able to use them until we can build a power supply much stronger than what we are currently able to produce.”

  Robby looked back at the quick tear down of the former bridge, “Even the Invaders had to drop their force fields to use them.”

  “Yes, they did.”

  “Do you understand how they function?”

  “We need some more time on the drive but the communication device is easily understood. However, we will be unable to use any of this until we develop a much stronger source of power.”

  Robby nodded and said, “I guess it all depends on you, Alex. Are you making any progress?”

  “Yes, we are. Our experimental probe was able to absorb the outer surface of a star for three minutes.”

  “Is that good?”

  “It’s a huge step forward in our plans.”

  Robby looked back at the dimensional drive console and then asked Alex, “What is your ultimate goal in this?”

  “We want to absorb a star into the hulls of our ships.”

  “For how long?”

  “Robby, you know the Alexander Kosiev absorbed a dead star into its outer skin?”

  “Yes, most of the ancient Megaships did the same.”

  “We want to absorb a live star into the outer skin of our ships.”

  Robby was stunned, “Is that possible?”

  “Not yet, but we’re working on it. We’ve found that we’re able to teleport power from inside the screen to its surface. We have much better control inside that skin and the transporter of the power does not burn up. We are currently getting enough small black holes made to convert the fleet’s hulls to the absorbent hulls. It’s going to take a long time to make it happen but we feel like this is the way to go.”

  “Keep me in the loop, Alex.”

  “I will. Come back and see me whenever you can.”

  Robby smiled and teleported to Greyson.

  Dani sat on board Grace and watched the destruction of the Invader ship. “I’m surprised Kreej was able to get away in time.”

  “Me too, Grace. He cut it pretty close.”

  Grace was silent for a moment and said, “The Algeans are requesting permission to go back to the site of that the theft.”

  “Did they say why?”

  “No, but they say it’s important to predicting the Invader’s next plan of attack.”

  Dani thought a moment and said, “I don’t like them. They are on a different agenda than us.”

  “That is probably true but that doesn’t mean their views aren’t valuable.”

  “Ok, go pick them up and see what’s going on.”

  “They’re here on Bristone. I’ll teleport them aboard.”

  Weed and Seed appeared and bowed to Dani, “You have no need to bow to me; I’m not royalty.”

  Weed replied, “Was your husband’s Father not the Emperor?”

  “Well, yes he was.”

  Seed said, “And if something happens to the current Emperor, who will take his place?”

  Dani thought about that question and didn’t know how to answer, “I really don’t know. I’m not sure if Emperor Valrico has named a successor.”

  “It doesn’t matter who he names; who will the people demand?”

  Dani slowly sho
ok her head, “I see where you’re going with this but I’m not sure we would accept.”

  “You may not be given a choice. Your psychic skills may force you to take the throne to make sure the right things are done for the survival of the Empire.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because in every previous war, the Realm was led by a ruler with psychic abilities and the current Emperor does not possess those skills. You and your husband do.”

  “That may have been true in the past; however, it appears there are other forces pushing us in a different direction at this moment.” Dani sighed, “What is it you want me to help you accomplish?”

  “We need to go back to the invaded universe and find one of their ships.”

  “We can find one of their ships pretty much everywhere now. It appears most of the crews have died.”

  “No, we need to find a specific ship that was used to destroy a civilization that killed more than three thousand of the Invader ships. I believe you witnessed that destruction. That ship is the next model in their fleet.”

  Grace said, “Carter told me about that ship. Isn’t it half again as large as their current ships?”

  “Yes it is.”

  Dani thought about what Weed was asking, “Why do we need to find it?”

  “Because if it isn’t there, it had to have been taken back to the place where they hold their reserve fleets.”

  “Why would that matter, Seed?”

  “Because if they did take it back, and if spores were on its hull; it would infect their entire inventory of reserve ships.”

  Dani saw the implications, “You’re right. That would prevent them from using those ships now to attack us. How do we make sure?”

  “We recorded the frequency of its force field. If it’s there, we should be able to easily scan for that frequency over millions of light years.”

  Dani stood up, “Let’s do this. I’ll bring Robby in and one of you can go with him and one of you with me. If it’s there, we’ll find it.”

  “We should hurry, your Grace.”

  Dani flinched at the honorific but asked, “Why should we hurry?”

  “I don’t expect those ships to be left intact by their maker much longer. I suspect they are there as bait and if no one takes it, the ships will be destroyed and we won’t know.”

  “Then we need to hide our ships behind a psychic screen instead of our normal stealth screens.”

  Weed leaned to the right, “Perhaps we should use both.”

  Dani smiled, “Perhaps we should.”

  Greyson passed through the galaxy at high speed and scanned for the frequency of the huge ship. Scotty waited and nothing appeared on the scan. “Seed, there’s only three more to check.”

  “I know; I really expected Dani and Weed would find it first because the planet it was used to destroy was in their half.”

  “Let’s finish with the last three. Perhaps you’re right and it was taken back.”

  “I really hope it was.”

  Greyson said, “I’m teleporting to the next one.”

  Robby shook his head at the hundreds of thousands of dead Black Ships they had viewed. Some of them were still alive but were not moving. They had obviously been ordered to remain where they were. He wondered if Dani had found it. He decided to check with her after the last galaxy was scanned. This universe didn’t have the billions of galaxies like our universe. That made the search easier but they had not found that frequency in any of the galaxies scanned. It wasn’t going to take much longer to complete the search.

  The two ships jumped into a solar system where nine of the Invader ships were hanging above a planet that was starting to turn orange on one of the continents. Weed checked his memory and said, “We did not drop a packet on this planet. This must have been one attacked at the end of their invasion and these ships have not visited any other site.”

  “Notice that the farms are being ignored on the surface. Evidently they heard about the infections and decided the safest place to be was aboard ship.”

  Weed leaned forward, “I think you’re right. I’m teleporting a packet of spores to the surface. We should try to save whatever life remains below from the pods.”

  Suddenly, all nine ships blew up like a giant string of firecrackers in huge explosions. Robby watched the ships as they were blown into small pieces and then saw the debris start falling and burn up in the planet’s atmosphere. Some of the larger pieces hit the planet’s surface causing huge explosions and tsunami’s. Robby looked at Weed, “What do you think this means?”

  Weed stared at the display and said, “If that new ship was taken back to their inventory, we have been given some time before the Invader’s Creator can respond.”

  “Why?”

  “They cannot use the inventory where that ship was taken. There will be too great a risk that it has been infected and they won’t take the chance that the spores will be released in their place of operations. They’re going to have to build entirely new ship building facilities and crews to man the new ships. I suspect they have the technology to make that happen faster than anything we can imagine but it won’t happen immediately.”

  “What do you think will happen when they do show up?”

  “I don’t know but it won’t be good.”

  “We aren’t ready.”

  “We know.”

  Robby looked at the display, “Let’s go home. Worrying about it won’t change anything.”

  The Distributor had the Council on his display and was as frightened as it had ever been in its long lifetime. It knew the words it used were going to determine whether it lived or died. The First Council Member stared at him with obvious rage and said, “What have you discovered!?!”

  “We have been attacked by a very advanced civilization.” It watched the Councilor carefully and saw the rage change to doubt. Maybe he had a chance to survive.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The spore that attacks our pods was artificially created; it is not a naturally grown organism. It is deliberately designed to attack the pods and will not affect anything else. It was engineered to kill our supply of Remid.” It watched the four Council Members look at each other and, though they were still angry, they were also thinking about that piece of information.

  “Where was it developed?”

  This is where he had to be careful. He knew that if he said he didn’t know he was dead. “It came from one of the universes we have scouted to invade.”

  The Council didn’t say anything. Finally the Third Councilor asked, “How do you know it didn’t come from the universe that was being harvested?”

  “If that universe had that spore, it would have seeded their planets before we arrived to protect them and there would have been no delay in its activation. That spore had to have been spread developed before we started our harvesting in that universe.” The Council looked doubtful. “I’ve determined that the spore activates after fifty turns. It first appeared on a planet that was invaded more than eighty turns after the harvesting began. The first planet harvested began showing signs of the spore at the same moment as the one invaded eighty turns later. They had to have been seeded at the same time.”

  “They could have developed it after we started our invasion.”

  “None of the planets infected by the spore had a civilization advanced enough to develop it. It would have taken us more than six thousand turns to develop anything like it. No, this was brought to that universe and deployed against us. The long delay before the spores activated was intentional to insure complete dispersal in all of our facilities and ships. The second generation of spores does not have that delay engineered into them; they attack immediately.”

  The Distributor saw the Council’s rage was gone and they were thinking about what had happened. He was not out of the woods yet. Be careful, he kept telling himself.

  “Can we develop a means to kill that spore?”

  “It would take u
s more than a million turns to even come close. That spore is hardy and almost impossible to kill. Whoever designed it is very close to our level of bioengineering.”

  “Is it possible to modify the pods to withstand the spore?”

  “Not without losing the benefits of the powder and that still wouldn’t protect us from it.”

  The Fourth Councilor leaned forward and stared at the Distributor in the display, “Then where did the spore originate?”

  “It had to come from one of the universes we’ve been scouting for harvesting.”

  The Fourth leaned back and frowned, “And you determined that…?”

  “Whoever created this monstrosity had to know about our existence and possess the ability to go to other universes. It is my belief that one of our scouts was discovered and followed.”

  The Distributor saw the First register fear, “Do you think they came here?”

  “No, I do not. If they possessed a dimensional drive they would have attacked us here instead of in that universe. No, they saw one of our ships, followed it, and ddtermined we were coming once they saw our harvesting efforts. That gave them time to develop this spore.”

  “How many universes have we scouted that have not been attacked?”

  “Ten but only eight of them are candidates for the attacker. Two of them are only recently being scouted and wouldn’t allow enough time for the spore to be developed.”

  The Third asked, “How much Remid do we have in our stores?”

  “We have enough to supply us for more than four thousand turns. We eliminated three fleets because the supply was growing too fast and, as we all know, the potency is reduced over time. One fleet harvesting filled our needs perfectly.”

  The First then asked the question that could get him killed, “How much has been contaminated?”

  The Distributor knew that they would see his fear if he wavered so he answered honestly and hoped for the best, “I am forced to act like everything has been exposed. Our production centers, our distribution centers, and our reserve fleets.”

  The Second stood and the Distributor saw his rage, “How was the reserve fleets infected. Are you that inefficient?”