Sunday, July 30, 2017

TO SAVE TEUTH part 5

Copyright (c) 2017 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.


By R. Peterson


Like a dark stain moving across the vast fabric of space time, the Swarm advanced. So great was the volume of dark-matter powering their enormous ship engines, light from a billion stars was bent temporarily inward, visually turning the telescopic images of thousands of galaxies into massive black holes. Forgotten for the moment were the millions of worlds in the midst of being ravaged and consumed. A subliminal message delivered without the constraints and laws of physics had spread throughout the universe.
It was not unusual for the egg-layer to be alone. After thousands of compliant workers had constructed the hive, Derhaka had leisurely eaten them. The Vabalas’s enormous matriarch always removed herself to a remote and secret location to lay her millions of planter-eggs; otherwise the insatiable appetite of the Swarm would consume their own future generations. These millions of eggs in turn would quickly hatch and mature to lay trillions more on un-ravaged but defenseless worlds carefully set aside for that purpose. The Swarm was not one mass migration but an endless series of waves each one hundreds of thousands of years apart.
Derhaka could inexplicably feel the end of her own wave approaching or some new threat perhaps this was the last laying … surely no more than a hundred more hatchings and a host of new royals would emerge. Each would then fight their sibling to the death to become godlike. The safety of this small hive had now been breached and she was furious. Her senses told her of an intruder and she began to search. Derhaka would have laughed, had she been capable of such a non-insectile emotion, if she had focused any one of her twenty six eyes on the by-form half-Porosities female creeping into her chamber. Such a tiny spark to ignite a firestorm.
The royal guards would arrive in minutes to fight to the death to protect the eggs from the hungry hordes that would follow. The eggs would eventually be consumed, so great were the numbers of Swarm responding, but the egg-layer would be saved from whatever danger threatened … for as long as this wave lasted.
The terrified crew of the Centurion orbiting an iridium gas cloud many light years from Aquaduna was hurtled into a cataclysm as a thousand Vabalas ships streaked past blocking all starlight, bending gravity and ignoring them completely. There was no time for the Swarm to destroy a pitifully insignificant vessel of little value … the royal egg-layer Queen Derhaka had called.

-------2-------

 Keeper, Jeff Bland and all those closest to the opening were blown backward tumbling end over end in clouds of debris and water vapor when the anti-mater charges detonated under the shelf entrance. ‘Let’s not do that again shall we?” Jeff groaned struggling into an upright position, thankful for the containment bubbles that had protected them from the worst of the horrific explosion.
“It worked,” Keeper said pointing toward the entrance where hundreds of house sized boulders had buried the advancing cigar ships. “But it looks like we sealed off our only way out!”
The Aquadunans searched through the wreckage looking for lost family members. Jeff watched as a mother and father joined tentacles with at least seven offspring forming a kind of circle. Soon other groups were joining, sometimes attaching all eight appendages until the cluster numbered more than a thousand. “This is the way Cephalopod societies communicate and exchange information. If one member is missing or is injured or harmed in any way the entire group knows it.” Keeper said.
After a few minutes the clusters began to break up and Gogt swam over. “How bad is it?” Keeper asked knowing there had to be fatalities.
“About a third of our species are dead or are missing,” Gogt said. “It could have been worse. If Garwon’s ships had not been stopped we would have all been suctioned to our doom.”
“I blame myself,” Keeper said. “I didn’t believe the Vabalas would share such advanced technology with a race of amphibians.”
“The Swarm is driven by hunger,” Gogt said. “They will do anything to satisfy their enormous appetites.”
A pulsing ring of light surrounded Keeper’s head and he tapped it with his finger. The light ring instantly became a hologram of Second Officer Squem, a gaseous life form who had been left in charge of the Centurion. The swirling cloud of vapor took the shape of a humanoid as it communicated. “We have tracked 1,243 Vabalas ships hurtling past us at close range,” Squem reported. “At least a hundred times that many are moving toward your location from this part of the universe.” The swirling vapor that formed his face transformed into a smile that looked like an exaggerated version of Jeff Bland’s infamous expression of sarcasm. “I don’t know what you guys did … but you made a bunch of warrior insects very mad!”
“A pile of rock is not going to keep the Swarm from getting to us,” Jeff waved his arms in the air.
“There is nothing we can do now except wait,” Keeper did not seem to be stressed.
“As long as the wait is not too long,” Gogt said. “Our species relies on ocean currents flowing through the shelf opening to supply nutrients and oxygen. With the entrance now blocked off, we’re like fish drowning in a pool of stagnant water.”
“How long?” Keeper asked him.
Gogt looked around at the clusters of Aquadunans several members already seemed to be in distress and were moving their gills at an accelerated pace. “I’d say no more than two hours,” he said, “then things are going to get very ugly!”
            “I don’t think we have to worry about that,” Jeff said. “The Swarm will be here in less than an hour and then none of us are going to have to worry about breathing!”
            “Actually, by my calculations the first wave of Vabalas should reach the surface of Aquaduna in roughly eighteen minutes and twenty-three seconds,” Squem reported.
            “Thank you!” Jeff sneered. “I think we all feel better now!”

-------3-------

            Leika listened intently to the rapid breathing of the young student; Yanadax who had once again taken humanoid form was obviously terrified. “Try to keep away from her if you can,” she whispered.
            “It’s not easy,” Yanadax gasped. “This place is like a maze with thousands of rooms filled with eggs; every passageway seems to lead to the Queen’s chamber!”
Leika closed her eyes and tried to remember everything she could about insects especially those who lived in colonies. “The queen is probably almost blind,” she said. “Her sole function is to lay eggs and direct the swarm from a dark and warm place. She seldom leaves the hive and probably relies on perception, instinct and telepathy rather than physical senses.”
            “You’re right about it being warm!” Yanadax said. “It feels like I’m inside some kind of womb. It must be a hundred degrees in here … with at least 60% humidity. The box that I keep my friends in is bulging … I think they want out!”
            “You brought the Ledos inside the hive with you!” Leika was almost shouting.
            “Sometimes they feel like my only friends!”
Leika noticed the orb shaped objects with spikes protruding from the outside had reached the ocean floor and were racing toward the base of the pyramid. Their searchlights swept the ruins of the Aquadunan city. “I think the Swarm has started to arrive and I need to find a place to hide! Will you be okay?”
Yanadax sounded out of breath. “I can’t talk now … she’s coming … and I can’t hold the box lid closed!”
Leika swam away from the base of the pyramid looking for a place to hide. She spied a partially collapsed tunnel that had once formed part of an underwater building. Seconds after she dropped into it the first ship arrived. Whoever was inside the vessel was feeling bloody, highly concentrated laser beams swept the area obviously searching for any life forms left in the ruins. A school of sickly sun-flower fish swam past and was instantly vaporized along with three skeletal looking crab like creatures and a group of battered Cetacea.
Suddenly from inside the pyramid there came the sound of singing. Yanadax said the Legos were happy where it was warm and from the way she described the inside of the hive they must have now thought they were in heaven. The voices grew louder and more plentiful as if the tiny creatures were doubling in number every second.
“Through countless ages long we search.
For mother’s warm embrace!
Through frozen planets want of sun.
To perpetuate our race.

At last this world we seek and find.
 We finally do arrive.
To make our home in ruins of
A torn Vabalas hive.”


The Swarm’s guard ships were now tearing down the outside of the pyramid. “Derhaka! Derhaka!” Stone blocks some weighing as much as five tons were flung in all directions along with piles of eggs. The singing of the Legos had now reached insane levels exceeding 200 decibels and rising beyond 20,000 Hz. Leika had both hands covering her ears when the last black was flung away and the Queen’s chamber lay exposed. Yanadax stood in the center of a large platform separated from the water by some kind of pressure field. The box that had held the Legos lay open at her feet. The monstrous Queen of the Vabalas loomed over her like a giant sized wasp trembling with unconstrained fury. Laser beams erupted from the Swarm ships and began to sweep toward the terrified girl. “Derhaka! Derhaka!” Only Yanadax’s close proximity to the matriarch kept her from being instantly vaporized. Suddenly the Queen stood erect the two sets of fronts legs becoming arms that spread outward. “No! She is mine!” the alien words seemed to explode inside Leika’s head and she fought to remain conscious.
From a massive insectile abdomen as large as a shuttlecraft a barbed stinger appeared more than ten meters long. Tapering to a needle sized point the spear-like projectile hovered in the air above Yanadax. A vile yellow liquid dripped from the stinger’s end.
Leika screamed a second after Yanadax did. There was a corresponding echo that seemed to rise in pitch and volume coming from the chamber and then Leika watched horrified as the Swarm’s Queen joyfully plunged the massive stinger through Yanadax’s chest and stomach and out the other side.

-------4-------

The Swarm ships were removing the rocks and debris that covered the shelf entrance. One of the cigar ships was now free and it began to fire on the Aquadunans huddled in one corner of the shelf. Keeper and Bland resolved that they would protect the one hundred students they were transporting at all costs. Two more of the cigar ships were almost uncovered. Keeper, Jeff and Gogt dodged one blast that vaporized hundreds of terrified Cephalopods. Jeff Bland tried to return fire with a laser as a wall behind him disintegrated but the hand held weapon had no effect on the enemy vessel.
“It’s no use,” Keeper said. “Gorwat must have also acquired shielding technology from the Swarm.”
The Aquadunans were being killed in mass all around them.
“So what do we do?’ Jeff always looked to Keeper for answers.
Ionized bolts of dark matter leaped from Keepers outstretched fingers and slammed into the front of the advancing cigar ships. For a moment the ship appeared to be knocked backward but then it advanced again seemingly without damage.
“We fight anyway,” Keeper told him.

-------5-------

Leika was barely aware that the sound coming from the hive was made by the Legos. The volume and frequency rose to such extreme levels she could no longer hear but the vibrations were beginning to shatter the rock structures in the ruined city. A stone wall rose from the ocean floor and then shattered into millions of fragments as a sound wave of earthquake purport ions swept outward in all directions. Leika instinctively dove into the muddy bottom of the trench she was in hoping the bubble she was encased in would offer some protection. Still the volume and the frequency of the Legos song increased even with both of her ears covered.
Leika was aware of the mud being blown from around her and with her eyes partially open she could see eggs begin to roll away from the massive piles inside the former hive. Suddenly the sound frequency spiraled upward far beyond humanoid hearing range and there was an eerie silence like the calm just before a lightning strike.
Then the explosion came, a monstrous detonation like a thousand eon cannons being fired inside a tiny glass ball. Bits of eggs shell turned to vapor spread outward like shrapnel and the Queen of the Swarm was sliced into a thousand pieces. And everywhere the Swarm’s ships were grinding to a stop.

-------6-------

Jeff Bland watched as the light beams flowing from Keeper’s fingers began to tear large pieces of metal off from the cigar ships. “I don’t believe it,” he gasped. “Garwon has lost his shields!” He once again pointed his own weapon and began to fire this time with more than satisfactory results. In a matter of minutes the cigar ships withdrew and were headed for the surface.
Squem once again made contact with Keeper. His holographic image appeared to be dancing. “It’s unbelievable!” he said. “Everywhere we look Swarm ships are floating dead in space. We just watched an entire fleet being pulled into the gravitational grip of a red giant star and igniting like a box of matches!”
“Do you think it’s safe to rescue us?” Keeper asked.
“The Centurion is on its way,” Squem said.

-------7-------

Keeper and First Officer Jeff Bland found Leika wandering through the ruins of the hive. The students now all safely aboard the Centurion insisted that they be allowed to perform a vigil for their fallen classmate. They gathered in a circle around the ruins of the hive and sang songs that probably meant more to them than they would have to Yanadax. “She was so young,” Leika moaned, “and she reminded me so much of myself!”
“No one lives one life forever,” Keeper told her. “Death must always come before life … and life before death.” He noticed a large crack in the floor showing non-hive levels beyond and sent a team down to recover the antidote that would restore Teuth from the buried lab.
“I know Yanadax is gone,” Leika said. “I was looking for some sign of the Legos. Unbelievable as it seems, I believe it was they who destroyed the Swarm. They seemed agitated at anyone who caused Yanadax any discomfort. Her death must have driven them over the edge.”
“In the closed structure of infinity,” Keeper said. “The smallest of things and the largest become the same. I’d say the Vabalas met their match in the smallest and most insignificant things in the universe!”
With the antidote that would save Teuth safely in their hands there was nothing more to do than to leave this watery world at one edge of the universe.

-------8-------

Within days, Teuth made a full recovery and was once more navigating the Centurion toward the Cationic Galaxy and the student’s Deep Space Exams. A handful of cadets crowded around Keeper. “Who can tell me how the first sixteen elements of dark matter were named, who named them, and why,” Keeper asked.
“Alvin Sullinger discovered the first sixteen elements of dark matter and named them after women!” A bright member of a reptilian species named Denz was the first to raise his hand. “He said he did it because no matter how much he studied them he was never sure how they were going to react!” Most of the class members giggled. A girl named Nora asked Keeper a question about how the fabric of space time was woven.

Leika left the control room and headed for the solitude of Biosphere 3. She rode a recreational platform to the middle of a hundred-mile wide ocean and stopped at a rocky island. It took almost two hours for her to climb to the top of a granite mountain without ropes or other gear. She sat on the edge of a cliff and watched the waves roll beneath her and the stars streak past above the clear overhead dome. The universe was an infinitely large place.
A cool breeze blew across her face and felt somehow soothing. The engineers who simulated Earth and Earth-like environments were fastidious about detail. She was beginning to accept that Yanadax was gone but she wondered what had become of the Legos. Keeper said they were believed by many to be magical … Leika wasn’t sure.
Suddenly it began to snow. Large flakes much larger than normal floated from the clear domed ceiling miles above her. Leika decided to climb down before the rock ledges became too slippery. Halfway to the bottom she took shelter in a small cave to rest. Damn those environmental engineers and their realism. A pool of water in one corner looked inviting, Leika was thirsty, but the water was already frozen. It was getting colder. Leika could already see her breath. She used a rock to break the ice and took a step back as a frozen mist seemed to rise from the water. Her breath began to melt the vapor and in the stillness of the cave she could hear tiny voices … happy voices … they appeared to be singing.

Onward and forever … to the end of time.
Nothing is lost … that you can’t find.
Where matter dark … arrives on beams.
And all new things … appear in dreams.

Onward and forever … we journey on.
Meeting again … that so lost gone.
Magic is knowledge … captured by few.
And love gives meaning … to all we do.

Leika was feeling warmer and she really didn’t mind the cold. In fact a smile broke across her face for the first time in weeks. She didn’t understand all the words the Legos were singing but she recognized a new voice among them. “I’m glad you’re with friends,” she whispered.

THE END ???



Sunday, July 23, 2017

TO SAVE TEUTH part 4

Copyright (c) 2017 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

 

By R. Peterson


Thirty-six hours remained before MÄ—nulis, the large moon orbiting Aquaduna 13, would be on the far side of the planet and the massive tides pulling the oceans eight miles into the atmosphere would return to normal. Until then, Keeper thought it was too dangerous for Yanadax to try to steal the iridium gas antidote from a Swarm hive that would save Teuth’s life. Leika had decided to accompany the young space cadet on the dangerous mission. “Putting those two together is like tossing two Laderian wildcats into a sleeping pod.” First Officer Jeff Bland told Keeper as they studied a layout of the underwater shelf where their crew of volunteers and the Aquadunans were hiding from Gorwat’s food gathering ships. “The fur is going to fly … and someone is bound to be hurt.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me if Leika and Yanadax eventually become inseparable,’ Keeper said as he made note of all the entrances to the area under the shelf.
“The queen of interstellar female domination and another rival?” Jeff laughed. He was studying a computer file of their enemies weapon capabilities. “Yanadax will be lucky if Leika doesn’t poke her eyes out with one of those spines she has instead of hair!”
“Great friendships - even the greatest love affairs, often start out with inordinate animosity,” Keeper told him.
“If that’s true, Leika and I are destined for a legendary romance that will be envied and talked about for a thousand years!” Jeff twisted his facial features into hopeless blissful exaggeration that quickly became devilish. “If we don’t dice each other up with combat lasers and destroy the entire universe first.”

Two Aquadunans, Gogt and Streng, swam into the chamber where Keeper, Bland and Dorg were working inside containment bubbles. “For millions of years we have ruled this ocean world,” Streng said, his eight tentacles spreading outward in all directions. “Our only problems seemed to be deciding how best to use the sea life around us with our available technology and what we should conserve. Little did we know that in less than a century the Swarm would arrive, dehydrate all plant and animal life-forms on the planet for their food supply and decide that cephalopods were an exotic dish destined for elite Vabalas cooking pots.” The large eyes in his bulbous head stared sadly at the chamber floor. “Compared to the Swarm we know almost nothing about warfare and can only flee from our enemies.”
            “We’re working on a defense system for your shelf,” Keeper said. “If the information I’ve received is correct most of your species is safely under these rock plates?”
            “Yes,” Streng said. “For millions of years these gardens under the stone plates have kept us from being yanked out of the oceans when MÄ—nulis passes over. Now they provide our only refuge from Garwon and those procuring food for the Swarm!”
            “We believe that when the tides retreat Garwon will try to vacuum you out from under the rock shelves with a specially constructed suction beams,” Jeff explained. “Because your light-emitting photon fish, the Å viesos, eat the metal his ships are made of, he dare not navigate his cigar ships under the rock ledges.”
            “Garwon’s suction beams will be very powerful,” Keeper added. “Everything but rock will be strained inside the open ends of his vessels.”
            “So we’re going to make sure he sucks up some very heavy rock first,” Jeff told them.
                “We have detected extremely dense dark and light matter elements under this entire area,” Keeper said. “If we can blast loose large chunks of this metallic rock from the ocean floor into the mouths of his ships when he begins the suction process we should be able to overload him and leave him helpless on the ocean floor.”
            “He’ll have to shut down his shields to remove the weight from the outside!”
            “That’s when we drive the Å viesos out from under the shelf and let our light-emitting friends feast on his disabled ships.”
            “Blasting that much rock off the ocean floor will require enormous concussive force!” Streng and Gogt’s  tentacles wavered over their ears; as though even thinking about the blast was painful.
            “Anti-matter particle rumblings deep under the ocean floor!” Jeff was ecstatic. “It’s the kind of massive amplification waves that would have made Jimi Hendrix an inter-galactic guitar God!”

-------2-------
Streng had allowed Keeper to move the cigar-shaped vessel designated as 419419 under the shelf so that Keeper’s crew would have a place to stay and he posted guards to keep the Å viesos photon fish from feasting on the metal. Leika went looking for Yanadax and found the young student in a remote and very cold storage area of the ship. “You don’t have to hide your tiny friends from me … I know what you’re doing!” Yanadax had been trying to hide the box in her travel bag and with a sigh she placed it on the frosty floor.  Leika felt surprised as her animosity toward Yanadax had dissipated, so hard her aversion to the Ledos strange singing.
            “I know I’m spending too much time with the Ledos,” Yanadax said. “But I feel wonderful when I’m with them … and they are an educational diversion.”
            “More like an obsession,” Leika told her.
            “I promised my cadet training supervisor that I’d place them in a DSU, but shrinking exotic life-forms this tiny to a manageable size seems a waste of time and I don’t want to lose them.” Yanadax looked  Leika hopefully. “I know you don’t like me … but you won’t tell on me will you?”
            “As the Organic Science Officer on this ship I should … but I won’t!” Leika smiled. “Keeper won’t miss a few microscopic life forms in his gumball-machine and I actually enjoy having someone around who creates more trouble than I do.”
Yanadax looked like she wanted to open the box. “Go ahead,” Leika said. “Let’s see what you’ve got!”
The wide-eyed student opened the box and a mist like frozen vapor billowed out. Tiny points of light rose into the air and sparkled like glitter. “It looks like your little friends are growing,” Leika said. “There are at least double the number than before!”
            “When they get warm they get happy and I guess they also breed!” Yanadax closed her eyes and smiled. “I think that has something to do with why they are only found in very cold areas … but I’m not sure.”
            “Is that singing I hear?” Leika turned her ears to listen. “Parts of it sound strangely familiar!”
            “Keeper says no small sound or thought is ever lost. The Ledos are so tiny they sift through the fabric of the universe like dust through a carpet. They are rebels without conviction and they ignore the laws and motions of all energy. They are thieves who steal and then hide beyond reason. Ideas and memories are cast like seeds throughout the galaxies to sprout in old worlds and in new times,” Yanadax said. “I’m not sure, but this sounds like an antiquated language from Officer Bland’s home planet.”
            Leika closed her eyes and concentrated on listening to the tiny vibrations. There were more Ledos singing now and the sounds were louder.  She could hear them and felt as if she were tumbling headlong into a dream. After a few moments the vibrations formed into the noise of an expectant crowd and a type of delicate rhyme of enchantment … being boldly delivered from an ancient wooden stage.  
            Thou speak’st aright
I am the merry wanderer of the night.
                I jest to Oberon and make him smile.
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile.

 Leika looked at readout of her translator. It said: 16th. Century/ Sun 3. “It appears your friends have visited Earth sometime in the past … or in the future,” Leika said. “When time no longer functions then it really doesn’t matter.” She allowed herself to smile. “In less than ten hours we’re off to retrieve the antidote for Teuth’s illness from a Swarm hive … it will be very dangerous I suggest you try to get some sleep.”
            “There were Ledos on Earth?” Yanadax gently brushed her hand in the air to move the tiny creatures back into the box.
            “Ledos are everywhere,” Leika said. “On Earth I think they were called fairies!”
Yanadax followed Leika to one of the napping chambers and after Leika placed her inside a pod and adjusted the temperature for sleeping she closed her eyes. Sounds were still coming from inside the box and she rubbed it gently with her fingers. Even a small amount of heat seemed to affect them. And when she held her breath and listened  … she could still hear the Ledos singing softly!

            Riding plodding beams of lore.
                Sand in thine eyes turn wink to snore.
Push and pull tug weary lid.
Through empty fields of seeing hid.
                To restful sleep … drag worried dreams.
                All is nothing what it seems.


-------3-------


With MÄ—nulis on the opposite side of Aquaduna 13 the tides returned to normal. Leika and Yanadax prepared to journey to the hive while Keeper and his crew prepared for another assault from Garwon’s forces. “Try not to get caught,” Jeff Bland ordered. “We’re gonna have enough problems force feeding those cigar-ships a bunch of rocks!”
“Thank you for reminding us,” Leika said, her voice dripping with venom. “What would we do without you?”
“We’ll be back soon with Teuth’s antidote!” Yanadax gave Jeff her brightest smile.
“Remember to watch where you’re going … and also watch your back!” Jeff told her as he watched Leika follow the young student out the ship’s decompression bay.
“You really like him don’t you?” Yanadax said as they moved through the undersea garden and passed through the shelf entrance.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Leika laughed. “The guy has the brains of an Alortian wine-slug and he has the manners of a Hobor goat!”
“But still,” Yanadax whispered. “He is kind of cute!”
Leika turned her head so Yanadax wouldn’t see her smile.

They passed through the ruins of a once great and thriving underwater city. All the buildings appeared to have been blasted into rubble. Deep craters made the streets appear as mountain ridges. Huge tangled clumps of wire looked almost like trees. Underwater vehicles of all types lay partially demolished among a clutter of broken pipes, scorched plant-life and broken rock. They passed a long landing pad that had once been used to launch clam ships from the ocean floor to the surface of the planet and then into space. Twisted metal and melted glass were all that remained of the advanced technology that had evolved from the sea. What had once been a park with light arrays, gardens and ornamental arches now was a blackened wasteland. Shadows of humanoid like figures had been burned into polished rock platforms by photon weapon strikes.
They passed a large transparent chamber broken in hundreds of places. “I  know what this is,” Yanadax said. “They have one on Mateusz 17. It was a dry room where children could learn to walk on land!”
Leika stopped to pick up a child’s slider, one of the footrests was charred and broken. “This must have been a very happy place … before the Swarm.”
            “Is there anyplace in the universe where you don’t have to fight to survive?”
            “I know of lots of places,” Leika said. “But no-one wants to live there.”

According to the time band on Leika’s arm they still had more than six hours to travel when a shadow loomed up ahead. She and Yanadax both looked up. The Swarm’s hive loomed like a mountain before them. It was shaped like a pyramid with each base side more than six miles wide. “I didn’t know it would be so huge,” Yanadax gasped. “Most of it must be above the ocean’s surface.”
            “It makes sense,” Leika said. “The Vabalas are creatures of the air. They only go underwater when they want something!”
Leika noticed Yanadax trembling as she followed behind her. She tried to keep a positive attitude but the shadow of the hive suddenly made the water feel cold and forbidding.

-------4-------

            “Here they come!” Jeff Bland shouted to Keeper and a group of Aquadunan fighters. A monitor showed a half dozen of Garwon’s cigar-ships as they cautiously approached the shelf opening. Sure enough, each of the vessels was equipped with massive hydro extraction turbines mounted on each side.
            “I had to place more anti-matter charges about a hundred yards past the shelf opening,” Jeff said. “We won’t be able to use the first ones.” He looked at a very nervous Streng. “A computer simulation showed a chance of a cave in. We have to somehow lure them in a little closer!”
            Keeper studied the long tubular ships as they lined up side by side. “I’m sure Garwon is inside one of those ships and if so perhaps we can use his greed to make him do something stupid.”
            “Where is Leika when we need her?” Jeff grumbled.
            “What does Garwon treasure more than anything else in the universe … besides Leika?” Keeper asked.
            “He’s a gluttonous slob,” Jeff said. “I’d say something like Imporvian eels fried in Plado butter.”
            “We don’t have any of that,’ Keeper said. “But we got something he can trade for it. I noticed a large deposit of Crorelliam crystals in the far corner of the shelf. Have the Aqualudans break some of the rocks into smaller pieces and make a trail going under the shelf.”

Jeff helped Gogt and some of the others spread the valuable crystals on the floor going under the shelf. “Here pig - pig - pig,” he called. “Here pig - pig - pig!”


-------5-------

            Yanadax changed herself into a creature that resembled a Karilian eel and then crawled into one of the small holes at the base of the hive. Leika stood guard outside and monitored her progress with a density meter. “Remember, you get into trouble there is no way I can come inside and help you,” Leika told her.
            “Just keep me going in the right direction,” Yanadax told her. “If the antidote is there I’ll come back with it!”
As Yanadax drew near the center of the hive, Leika’s monitor showed the presence of a very large chamber.  “Be very careful,” Leika warned her. “There’s something about this place that makes my skin crawl.”
            “There’s an odd smell and a kind of buzzing,” Yanadax said. “And there is some kind of light up ahead!”

-------6-------

            Keeper and Bland watched as the cigar ships approached the shelf entrance. “They’ve spotted the Crorelliam crystals now let’s see how greedy Garwon really is,” Jeff said. He held his breath as the ship picked up the first crystal and then moved forward. “So far so good!”
Suddenly all the ships stopped and engaged the extraction turbines. Jeff could feel everything under the shelf being swept toward the entrance.
            “Their turbines are a lot more powerful than we figured,” Keeper yelled. “He was trying to hold onto a rock wall while bits of stone tore loose and were being pulled away. “Detonate the anti-matter charges now!”  Jeff fought his way against the ever growing current to the blast consul and detonated all the secondary charges. Huge boulders tore loose from the floor and were sucking into Garwon’s ships. Instead of overloading the vehicles an instant later the stones were expelled with a tremendous force.
            “Garwon’s ships are far more capable than I figured,” Keeper said. “He must have borrowed technology from the Swarm.”
            “We can’t hold on much longer,” Jeff said. Everything under the shelf, including thousands of Aqualunans, was being dragged toward the cigar ships.
            “Detonate the first set of charges!” keeper ordered.
            “But that might bring down the ceiling!” Jeff was already reaching for the switch.
            “Hopefully it will,” Keeper said. “It’s our only chance!”

-------7-------


            It seemed like hours since Yanadax’s last communication. Leika kept trying to reach her. “I’m inside the chamber,” Yanadax’s voice sounded fuzzy and there was a slight echo. “There was some kind of gooey slime I had to crawl through.”
            “The lab with the antidote should be right below you.” Leika had the hive superimposed over a schematic of Streng’s former research facility.
            “Streng was wrong about the Swarm using this as a food supply control lab,” Yanadax said. “It’s like one huge storage area!”
            “Storing what?” Leika detected strange objects moving toward her at high speed.
            “Eggs!” Yanadax yelled. “This whole chamber is filled with about a billion eggs.”
            “Can you find a way to get into the lab just below you?” The objects streaming toward Leika looked like spiked orbs with millions of spikes on the outside. “You’ve got to hurry I think we’re in trouble.”
Yanadax’s horrified scream made Leika’s blood run cold. “The queen!” Yanadax sounded as if she were injured. “The Swarm’s queen knows I’m here!”


TO BE CONTINUED …

Sunday, July 16, 2017

TO SAVE TEUTH part 3

Copyright (c) 2017 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.


By R. Peterson

Vandens loomed like a massive burned-out firework at one edge of the universe. Keeper and the volunteer crew aboard the cigar-shaped cryonic ship streaked passed endless star systems within the E4 elliptical galaxy. All the outward planets had been charred into gaping-holed cinders by the destructive violence of the ever-advancing Swarm. So far there had been no contact with the advanced insect species. “Perhaps the Vabalas have dined and dashed,” First Officer Jeff Bland suggested, “taking a short nap before they consume another million worlds.”
“I purposely approached this galaxy from the back side,” Keeper said as he studied patterns created by colored streams of water vapor in one section of the alien control room. “Our hungry hosts are still here, and they are not finished eating. Would you like to listen?”
“Sound waves in space?” Jeff laughed. “I always believed it was impossible for particles of matter to vibrate inside a vacuum.”
“Space is not a vacuum,” Keeper said. “It is a fabric woven of dark energy that bends light, creates gravity and allows the universe to expand. There is movement in all matter even dark types … didn’t you ever jump on your bed as a child?”
“I slept in a tin-can trailer house with a low ceiling and an even lower stepmother named Tina,” Jeff said. “I would have banged my head … or she would have.”
You must learn to forgive yourself and others Junior Bill,” Keeper smiled. The way he pronounced the name sounded eerily like the fat, abusive slob who married Jeff’s father.
“Once you are able to detect dark matter,” Keeper continued. “A computer can transform any changes in its normal structure patterns into sound waves.”
Keeper handed Jeff a pair of headphones designed to fit an oversized amphibian head. “Why not just play the sound over the audio channels?” Jeff asked as he adjusted and put them on.
            “We have a hundred nervous crew members and twenty innocent students on board an alien cargo ship,” Keeper said. “And we’re going to a very dangerous place. Why give them nightmares before we arrive?”
When Bland motioned that he was ready to hear what the Swarm sounded like, his smile suddenly became open mouthed astonishment and then transformed into a look of terror as Keeper turned up the volume. Jeff ripped the headphones from his ears and flung them on the control room floor.
Keeper was quick to turn down the volume but a faint chewing sound mixed with humanoid screams coming from the headphones made Jeff’s blood run cold. “I’ve only heard something that hideous once in my life,” he gasped. “It was an audio recording the Nazis on Earth made inside of an experimental Birkenau death-chamber during one of their tests in 1939. Two hundred Polish men, women and children crowded into a tiny room took over an hour to die from corrosive Phosgene gas.”
“I wanted you to know what we’re getting into,” Keeper said. “The universe is filled with as much beauty as it is with ugliness; the important thing to remember is that there is balance in all things.”
Leika appeared and posed next to a sickened Jeff. “Like beauty and the beast!” She smiled, flashing emerald green eyes while wearing a new gown of Alurian spider-silk that shimmered with rainbow-colored diamonds.
“I’ve never seen you wear the same outfit twice,” Jeff stared. She was a gorgeous distraction. “It must cost ten thousand credits a month just to keep your wardrobe supplied. What do you do with the old ones?”
“Thirty thousand … and I burn them,” Leika sneered. “Once your slimy eyes have dripped on my garments … they are ruined forever.”
“Have you been in communication with the Centurion,” Keeper asked her.
“Yes,” Leika said. “The Aquadunans have all been unfrozen and are now swimming happily inside one of the oceans in Biosphere 3.”
“Has our guide Gogt been adapted to land yet?”
“We’re still working on it,” Leika said. “He hasn’t proven to be as compliant as Teuth and might have to remain submerged inside a water tube for some time.
Just then the door to the cargo hold opened and Gogt floated toward them inside a transparent tube filled with sea water. A group of shivering cadets dressed in warm Gordo fur trailed behind.
            “Wow! It’s cold in there,” a half-Porosities cadet named Yanadax shivered. “But we had to search all twelve storage areas for Ledos.” She took off her coat revealing a smock made from the same expensive and mildly hypnotic silk that Leika wore as she glanced shyly at the young man from Earth.
            “What are Ledos?” Jeff smiled at the female student.
            “Ledos are very tiny and very rare life-forms,” Keeper said noticing Leika’s sudden animosity and stepping between his two female crew members. “Many are so small that they resemble ice crystals when frozen. I’m afraid we don’t know too much about them. Legends say they have magical properties. Some scientists think they are dangerous.”
            “What would Ledos be doing onboard a vessel filled with seafood going to the Swarm?” Jeff asked.
            “Most water worlds are filled with very tiny life forms much like Earth’s plankton,” Keeper said. “Creatures from the same family as Ledos and sea-plants make up at least sixty percent of the Vabalas diet.”
            “Did you find any?” Jeff asked.
            “I think so,” Yanadax said. She lifted one arm high in the air and wiggled her fingers. The smile on her face was delightful. Tiny glimmering specks of white floated in the air like snowflakes. “They sing,” she said turning her gorgeous head to listen. “They begin to sing when they get warm.”
            “They are so small what good are they?” Dorg asked.
            “There is a point in infinity where the smallest of all things and the largest become exactly the same,” Keeper said.
            “Strange! I don’t hear a thing.” Jeff looked at Keeper and he shook his head. Only Leika appeared to be holding her ears. “That sound is the highest frequency I’ve ever heard,” she moaned.

-------2-------

The cigar shaped ship had no name. Keeper and Bland searched through the onboard computers and could only find a numerical designation. “419419 something about that number gives me the creeps,” Jeff said. “But at least it’s not 666.”
“I don’t understand you Earth people’s absurd fear of numbers,” Leika said. She thought for a moment. “If you could associate a number with my name what would it be?”
“Love potion number nine,” Keeper said.
“Ninety-six tears,” Jeff insisted.
“I don’t understand!” Leika was looking at both men strangely.
“You would have had to have been there,” Keeper told her.
419419 was leaving the burned- out solar systems and was beginning to fly past celestial bodies where vast amounts of water still covered the planet’s surface.  “Aquaduna 13 is just ahead,” Helmsman Dorg announced to the crew. A massive ocean world loomed before them with hundreds of cigar-shaped vessels plowing through deep green seas just under the surface. Each ship opened one end like a monstrous Baleen whale’s mouth and strained millions of fleeing life forms from the seawater.
            “We’re in luck,” Gogt said. “Garwon and his friends working for the Swarm won’t be able to finish loading all the remaining food supplies before MÄ—nulis rises.”
            “Who or what is MÄ—nulis?”
            “MÄ—nulis is an enormous moon that orbits Aquaduna 13.” Gogt said. “It passes very close to the ocean’s surface every seventy-two hours and creates massive tides that rise eight miles into the atmosphere.”
            “That sounds treacherous,” Jeff said. “How do Garwon’s ship’s ride out such a massive surge?”
            “They don’t,” Gogt said. “They return to space until the moon moves to the other side of the planet. All the transport vessels should be leaving for the safety of orbit shortly.”
Sure enough the cigar-shaped ships began to leave the water and fly back into space as a strange reflected light began to settle over the ship.
            “What about us?” Jeff said. “I don’t have my long-board and I don’t know if this giant Tiparillo can ride a wave eight miles high.”
            “We go under the water,” Gogt said.
            “Now?’ Dorg’s eyes were like tiny bright and nervous moons.
            “Also you have to spin,” Gogt told him.
            “Spin?” After seeing a nod from Keeper, Dorg had already directed the alien ship toward the surface of the water. All the hair on his arms, legs and canine tail were extended outward in excited anticipation.
            “Aquaduna’s moon generates a massive upward pull on the ocean water,” Gogt said. “The only way to move downward it is by spinning or rotating at very high speed thus converting rotational motion into linear motion. The 419419’s engines should supply the necessary torque and the curved heat-dispersing channels on the sides act like tiny threads.”
            “Then it’s like we’re turning this ship into a massive lag-bolt!” Keeper was intrigued.
A tremendous shock wave shook the ship when it plunged into the water. Jeff and most of the crew were knocked to the floor holding onto whatever they could grasp. The ship had already begun to spin and Jeff felt like he was on a wild carnival ride complete with the nausea. The only three people who didn’t seem affected by hurtling downward into the ocean appeared to be Keeper, Gogt and the Organic Science Officer. The ship’s captain had only a kind of flickering illumination where a person’s feet would have been and he appeared to float in the air while the ship spun around him. The cephalopod alien appeared stationary inside a tube filled with seawater and a giggling Leika appeared to be dancing. The space cadets were rolling around on the floor and bouncing off the walls. They all seemed to be laughing.
            “It appears to be working,” Dorg said watching the light arrays as he spun.  “We are moving toward the bottom of the ocean and we should be there in minutes.
            “Such an elementary concept,” Keeper mused. “But so effective! Converting rotational action into linear motion that moves against an opposing force!” They were so far under the surface of the water no light entered through the portholes.
            “We have another name for this on Earth.” Jeff was clinging to a support beam attempting to peer out a window and trying not to vomit.
            “What’s that?” Keeper still looked elated.
            “We’re screwed,” Jeff said.

-------3-------

Minutes later, the 419419 vessel reached the bottom of one of Aquaduna 13’s oceans. The tidal pull from the orbiting moon was pulling silt and mud off the ocean floor and it was too cloudy to see out even with the exterior lights on full magnitude. “What do we do now?” Keeper asked Gogt.
“We’ll look for the closest shelf,” Gogt said. “My people are used to these tides. During the moon’s pull most all sea life retreats under plates of bedrock undermined millions of years ago by water currents. I’m sure many had already sought refuge there when they discovered that agents for the Swarm were harvesting.”
“Sounds cozy,” Jeff said.
“It’s the closest thing we have to a home as you know it,” Gogt said. “Still I’m sure it will seem strange to creatures like yourselves.”
It was Leika’s turn to tutor the students and she gave a demonstration of getting what you want by manipulating others. She directed the cadet’s attention to one of the volunteers standing guard next to the ship’s transporter. “I’ll get his attention, then I’ll use mind control to make him give me something he values,” Leika began to hum and spin at the same time. The glimmering spines she had on the top of her head instead of hair spread outward like streamers from a maypole. The guard stared entranced. “Now for the fun part,” Leika told them. “I’ll have him give me his weapon and then grovel at my feat like a hungry Borgo hound.”
The guard stumbled toward Leika as if in a trance but just before he reached her Yanadx laughed and the guard was distracted and went reluctantly back to his post. He couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off the enchanting Porosities.
“Do you think ruining my demonstration is humorous?” Leika was furious.
“I’m sorry,” Yanadax said. “But the Ledos have formed themselves into a block with four wheels and they have been driving up and down my arm … it tickles!”
Leika was about to tell the student that the rare creatures would have to be kept in a special container when she suddenly covered her ears although only Yanadax seemed to hear the sound.
            “They knew you were going to put them away and they don’t want to go!” Yanadax called as Leika ran to another part of the ship.

-------4-------

The murky water finally cleared enough for Keeper and Gogt to find an opening beneath a shelf. They decided to leave the 419419 cigar ship behind and travel in containment bubbles so as not to alarm the creatures under the rock. The crew and the students moved through the large opening like a string of transparent pearls being pulled underwater by an invisible fishing line.
The space beneath the shelf was massive with thousands of schools of photon fish feeding just beneath the stone ceiling and sending light downward hundreds of yards above the ocean floor. A hundred square miles of ocean flora covered the space like an underwater forest complete with abundant life forms of every description. Brilliant colored flowers some as large as transport shuttles seemed to be illuminated from within. They were met by an astonished and somewhat frightened group of creatures who resembled both Teuth and Gogt.
“We detected your ship outside and thought that perhaps Garwon had figured out a way to force his way under the shelf and take us by surprise.” A creature who identified himself as Streng spoke the same language as Gogt and appeared to be very much relieved.
“We didn’t notice any defense mechanisms when we came in,” Keeper said. “What keeps the ships from moving inside?”
“The pull of the moon MÄ—nulis and the appetite of the Å viesos,” Streng said pointing to the photon fish swimming next to the ceiling. “They not only provide light to make our forests grow they also eat the same kind of metal that Gorwan’s ships are made of.”
“Surely with the high technology of the Swarm they could devise a way to pull you out. What keeps them from doing so?”
“We are small fish and the Vabalas are interested in much larger worlds!” Streng tried to joke but no one smiled. “The only reason the Swarm bother us is because Garwon and others offer to supply them with extra food in return for their own safety. The Vabalas are always multiplying and are always hungry.”
“We have an injured navigator aboard our own ship many light years from here,” Keeper told Streng. “He may be suffering from the effects of iridium gas radiation and we understand you might have a cure.”
“Our scientists discovered an antidote for IRD gas many years ago,” Streng told him. “And have adequate supplies in storage. Unfortunately when Garwon decided to harvest this planet the Vabalas left a small hive here as a sort of control lab to insure the food supply is up to their standards. The Swarm’s laboratory sits over an underwater steam vent in the same location as our own former facility.”
“Then your laboratory was destroyed and there is no way to get help for our navigator!” Jeff shook his head.
“The lab isn’t extinguished,” Streng said. “The Vabalas never destroy anything unless it’s a planet in the way of a large fleet. They build over it. To their way of thinking, energy is food and it must be conserved at all costs.”
“How far away is this hive?” Keeper asked.
“About ten hours travel time,” Gogt said. “But it’s useless to go there … we can’t get inside!”
“Why not?”
Gogt shook his head. “Swarm hives are made of some of the Vabalas’s strongest materials. Matter and antimatter strands woven together to create a kind of spongy dome-shaped shield that allows essential nutrients in but keeps unwanted visitors out.”
“You mentioned a sponge,” Keeper said. “How big are the holes in a swarm hive?”
“Small and interconnected at right angles, only a creature as thin and flexible as a Karilian eel would have a chance of getting inside, and then they would have to get the antidote away from the Vabalas guarding it. I’m sorry for your navigator,” Gogt said.
The space cadets all began to laugh and Keeper, Jeff and Leika all turned to see what the commotion was about. Yanadax had transformed herself into something long and thin and she looked like a snake swimming inside her containment bubble. “I may not be a full blooded Karilian eel, I’m half Porosities and I don’t have green fangs, but I did slip inside the cadet administration building on Mateusz 17 through an air-filter once to snatch a copy of the final exam test questions for reverse light transport systems!” Yanadax suddenly gasped. “Oops I promised I would never admit to that!”
“If that’s all you did in school, kid, you deserve a medal.” Jeff smiled.
“I’m sorry but you’re too young and this mission is too dangerous,” Keeper sighed.
“I’ll go with her to make sure she doesn’t get into trouble,” Leika offered.
“I thought I heard Keeper say no!” Jeff looked at Leika and then at the distraught ship’s captain.
“We don’t really have any choice,” Keeper moaned.

-------5-------

Yanadax wandered into one of the unused cargo areas of the alien vessel while Keeper, Gogt and First Officer Bland made plans for stealing the antidote …. She wanted to be alone, and she made sure she was. A look of anticipation stole across her face as she removed a tiny very cold box from a bag she was carrying and carefully opened it. What looked like a frosty mist billowed out and Yanadax held her breath. “No one knows I’ve kept you around,” she whispered. “No one but me can hear your song … well perhaps Leika but she doesn’t count ‘cause she don’t like it.” Yanadax closed her eyes and smiled as the Ledos began to sing.
“I was ordered to leave you behind, but I’ll never go anywhere without you,” she sighed.

TO BE CONTINUED …