The huge fleet came to a stop and pointed their ships’ bows at the planet below.
“Jake, the fleet is arming their weapons.”
“I’m coming, Valerie.”
Valerie waited in the center of the gathered colonists and hoped her plan was not just wishful thinking. She felt in her heart that she had to be right, then there was Jake in front of her with his armor disappearing. He walked forward, lifted her in his arms, and kissed her. The blue flash that erupted from the couple blinded everyone.
The Keepers Fleet in orbit was hit with the psychic blast just when all the crews were tightly connected mentally sending their thoughts to their ship’s main beam. It killed every Keeper in the fleet and every Keeper on the planet. Junior looked at Jake and Valerie still holding the kiss and sent the message to Ethan, “Notify the Realm to send the Transports and Searchers now.”
Ethan hit his jump button, disappeared from the Keepers’ universe, and arrived at Fleet Headquarters, “Send the transports and Searchers now.”
Joe hit his com, “Launch your ships.”
The three transports disappeared and 800,000 Searchers jumped into the Keepers’ universe.
Chapter Twelve
The Collective was not connected to the Keepers fighting the invaders, but was receiving information from the Military Quadrant that had another contact. When the psychic blast hit, the contact died with the Keepers at the farm and the Military Quadrant that was in touch with the contact was blown apart. The rest of the Collective was stunned by the blast, but not disrupted. After a few minutes the Collective recovered and asked Values, which had remained separated from the Collective, “What happened at the farm?”
“I do not know. There is no one there to make connection.”
“What?!?”
“It appears all of our forces there are no longer able to communicate. I’ve considered sending another ship to investigate, but the quadrants that have those contacts have been temporarily disabled. I’m not sure if it would be wise to send another ship.”
The Collective now learned that it had become too complacent in allowing the Quadrants to run all the various aspects of the Keepers’ civilization. It directed its attention to six Keepers’ ships above the home planet and ordered them to the troublesome farm. It was going to take them six hours to get to the drive band.
Jake and Valerie finally separated and looked around. Suddenly a huge shadow covered them and they looked up to see the transport descending. “Looks like I was right, Jake.”
“Are you ever wrong?”
“Not really; I did say you would find your initiator here on this planet. I just didn’t know it was me at the time.”
Jake smiled at her and shook his head. Then he heard Manny, “Why did you need all these Searchers? It looks like you’ve got everything under control.”
“Manny, there are 400,000 Keepers’ ships in orbit with their drives off. Junior has discovered that if you launch a high speed penetrator up their drives it will destroy the interior of those ships. We need to do that to reduce their ship count.”
“Stand by.” Manny keyed his com and issued instructions.
Jake watched in his mind as 400,000 Searchers jumped to the rear of the Keepers’ ships and fired a high speed penetrator in each of the three drive tubes.
“How do you know if it worked?”
Jake smiled, “Trust me on this one; it worked. There is another thing you must do quickly. How many ships can avoid detection by the Keepers’ ships in our universe?”
“All of our ships can avoid detection, however only fifty thousand Searchers have the covering to prevent their thoughts from being detected. Why do you ask?”
“Because I expect another, larger, fleet to come here shortly and they will discover how we killed these ships. We must kill those in the Realm before they are warned. The window to make that happen is short.”
“Maybe we can delay them finding out.”
“How can we do that?”
“Every ship has places on the hull where a cord can be attached for hull inspections in zero gravity. Our Searchers have cables strong enough to pull these ships out of orbit and accelerate them toward the star in this system. We have two Searchers for each ship so we should be able to get them moving at a very high velocity. They won’t find out anything if we remove the evidence.”
“That is a great idea, Manny! Get them moving.”
The eight hundred thousand Searchers were given instructions, and in less than an hour two small ships began pulling each Keepers’ ship out of orbit. It was good fortune that the colonies were on the day side of the planet, so they just had to be pulled directly away from the planet instead of around it. Jake and Valerie watched as the Keepers’ ships started moving slowly, but picked up speed rapidly. The Searchers drive systems were powered by red generators and the Keepers’ ships reached half light speed in less than ninety minutes. They were released six light minutes away from the star, and twelve minutes later impacted the star’s corona. They melted and disappeared. Even the brown hulls could not withstand the heat of a sun.
“Manny, we still have to move on those ships quickly. If they don’t know how we did it, they will still try to warn them.”
“We’ll get together when we arrive back in the Realm and decide what to do.”
Jake watched as the transport came down and hovered about two hundred yards above the gathered colonists. Jake heard Edison, “Tell them that they are about to be moved aboard ship. Since we have time, we will teleport the women first and move them to quarters where they can put on clothing we’ve brought for them. Tell any of the females that are holding a male child to please give the child to a male to hold; I would not like them to be injured if they fall.”
Jake gave the instructions to the colonists and watched as many of the women gave their male children to their mates. Valerie and Jake teleported outside the gathering and watched as a silver screen came down and all of the female colonists disappeared. Jake noticed that the ground was covered with thousands of bracelets and wires that were left behind. After fifteen minutes the males were teleported, and the transport began moving into orbit.
Jake sent a thought to Manny, “How is it going at the Glod and Cainth Colonies?”
“They went up in one trip; seems they aren’t as modest as we humans. Their transports have now achieved orbit and jumped back to the Realm.”
Jake had his arm around Valerie, and they watched the huge Stars Realm transport with the big SR on the tail rise higher. “Looks like they are going to be with the Seniors.”
“Seniors?”
“I’ll explain later, Val.”
“Will you please allow me to bring you on board now?”
Jake and Valerie laughed, “Give me a moment, Junior.”
Jake walked over to the center of the square and looked around. He lifted some bracelets and threw them aside. Valerie asked, “What are you doing?”
Jake moved to his left, leaned down, picked up something, and put it in his pocket. He looked up and said, “You can take us on board now.”
“I thought we’d never leave. Cynthia has been on me for the last hour to get you out of here. She still doesn’t feel safe.”
“It’s the other way around, Junior; the Keepers aren’t safe here. I’ve seen her fight; she’s really good.”
Jake and Valerie disappeared from the now empty farm.
Six Keepers’ ships came out of jump and started moving in-system. The Collective was tuned in to them and saw the fleet sent to the planet was not there. It watched the scan taken of the planet and also discovered that the inhabitants of the farm were missing as well.