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. Isnt 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 isnt 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, Youre 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 its there, we should be able to easily scan for that frequency over millions of light years.
Dani stood up, Lets do this. Ill bring Robby in and one of you can go with him and one of you with me. If its there, well find it.
We should hurry, your Grace.
Dani flinched at the honorific but asked, Why should we hurry?
I dont 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 wont 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, theres 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.
Lets finish with the last three. Perhaps youre right and it was taken back.
I really hope it was.
Greyson said, Im 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 didnt 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 wasnt 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 youre right. Im 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 planets atmosphere. Some of the larger pieces hit the planets surface causing huge explosions and tsunamis. 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 Invaders 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 wont take the chance that the spores will be released in their place of operations. Theyre 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 wont happen immediately.
What do you think will happen when they do show up?
I dont know but it wont be good.
We arent ready.
We know.
Robby looked at the display, Lets go home. Worrying about it wont 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 didnt know he was dead. It came from one of the universes we have scouted to invade.
The Council didnt say anything. Finally the Third Councilor asked, How do you know it didnt 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. Ive 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 Councils 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 us 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 wouldnt 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 weve 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.