“I’m as shocked as you are but what if you made a tool and went to try it out and found that you didn’t have time to fine tune it. What would you do?”
“Put it aside until I could repair it?”
“You can’t put a life form aside. They just destroyed it and will create another when they have time. Life has no meaning to them. If we can’t stop them, we will all die Matt. I can see it as clearly as I see you.”
“We need to show this to the Realm.”
“I know.”
The Realm received the announcement that in five days King Matthew Anglo Gardner was going to talk with the Realm about an urgent issue. The announcement was repeated every hour until the time for him to appear. By the time the King appeared on every display in the Realm, more than ninety nine percent of the Realm’s citizens were watching to see what was so urgent.
Matt looked out at the recorders, “Thank you for giving me this time to talk with you about a confrontation the Realm is going to have.” Everyone felt immediate apprehension; they all remembered the last invasion. “We are facing a crisis that has been coming for longer than there has been life in our universe. You all know about the Green Ships that invaded our universe bent on killing all intelligent life. We prevailed in that conflict but there is something you do not know about the outcome. The green creatures were deliberately created by an ancient race of beings to kill all life that possessed intelligence. They placed compulsions in them that forced them to harvest universes. They had no control over their actions. We discovered the compulsions and were able to remove them from billions of the species we call spiders and they assisted us in defeating the main invasion. Without their help, we could have lost the war. Their race is a peaceful and gentle one that was forced to become killers. They now peacefully co-exist with us in our universe. We have since discovered that the beings that created them have created another species even more deadly than the green creatures and that the spiders were to be their first target. When the creators of these new destroyers discovered that the spiders were missing, they decided that they did not have time to develop this new tool of destruction they had created. I am going to play a recording of what they did. This starts when their new creatures entered the old universe of the spiders.”
The recording began and ran for thirty minutes. The death of the final survivor was added to the end to show how it ended. A picture of the Red Demon was shown after the video stopped. The Realm saw the picture and started to feel fear and revulsion.
“This is how those beings appear. That race they created to replace the spiders had no choice but to kill each other because of compulsions put in them by the beings that are now looking for our universe. They had no regard for the billions that they killed. Our universe is currently hidden from them by a psychic barrier but they will eventually find us. A race that is the oldest in our universe is providing that barrier and is currently building ships for us to meet the coming demons and I have been charged to find the crews to use these ships in the defense of our universe.
I am at heart a Searcher. It is my calling and I must find the warriors to crew the ships that will be used to protect us. With that in mind, I also want to talk with you about the tremendous difficulty the Crown is having in providing the necessary support for our members. The sheer mass of decisions that must be made to keep the Realm functioning smoothly is becoming more that we can cope. We know that if something is not done to handle this problem the Realm will fall from the weight of its numbers. You know what I’m telling you is true. Unfortunately, humans are just not equipped to handle the necessary volume of decisions fast enough.
We know someone that can and the Realm needs him now. Melanie and I are abdicating our crowns and are stepping aside for Duke Sprig Gardner to replace me as King of the Stars Realm. His mate, Duchess Twig Gardner will become the Realm’s new Queen. My family will be available for his use any time he needs us however for the immediate future we will be focusing on protecting the Realm from its enemies.” Matt leaned forward, “An Algean can process more information is a minute than a Human could in twenty years. He is the only one capable of breaking the logjam of decisions that must be made. It is his active role against the Captors and the Eight Legs that allowed us to survive without having to totally destroy them. He embodies all that is right and good with our Realm and the Gardner Family trusts him with our lives. He is what will save us. I thank you for your time and I ask your support for the Realm’s new Royal Family.”
The Realm was in a somber mood. A Human Gardner was not going to be the Realm’s ruler. Then a recorded history was shown of all that Sprig had done during the war with the Captors and then with the Eight Legs, giving emphasis to the development of the teleportation device and duplication of the Kosievs’ hull. They learned of the risk he and Twig took to download each other and their near death as a result. They learned how he had teleported into Wes McAnn’s damaged ship risking his life to save the survivors just a moment before it was going to be destroyed by Captor energy balls. They learned of how the Realm’s ships and weapons had all been designed and built by the Algeans working for Sprig. The Realm also learned that there would probably not be a Realm except for the bravery and skills of the Algean. The cheers began soon after the history completed. They grew as the billions thought about how the Realm had to have him to handle the load of ruling the Realm. They finally could be heard outside Castle Gardner as millions of the Realm’s citizens teleported in to cheer their new King.
Sprig heard no cheers after the announcement and felt that perhaps the decision was a mistake. Twig sat with him in the map room, “They will come to like you, Dearest.”
“I’m not a Gardner.”
Twig wrapped him in her branches and pulled him tightly to her. They stood like that and lost track of time. Matt came in and said, “I think your citizens are demanding a viewing.”
Sprig and Twig separated, “What?”
“I said that if you don’t come out and see your citizens we might get an angry mob to storm the castle to see you.”
Then Sprig heard the crowd. He followed Matt up to the upper balcony and looked out at a sea of beings. There had to be millions gathered yelling his name. He looked out at them and raised his branches high. The ensuing roar from the crowd was deafening.
Matt leaned over and thought to him, “We have received more than fifty billion requests to come and greet the Realm’s newest King. We had to put a damper on any more teleporting to the field outside the castle. The Realm knows your importance, Sprig. Now help it survive.”
“I will, Matt. It is mine to protect and defend now.”
Twig came forward and held Sprig. When the crowd saw her, they roared even louder. “You always had it wrong, Love.”
Sprig looked at Twig, “What?”
“It was I who was not good enough to have you. I am so thankful you chose me.”
Sprig felt his love for her and pulled her tighter to him.
Chapter 9
Fifty more crystal lumps had appeared at the Reg’s outer system and Matt decided that the search for the chosen had to begin immediately. He contacted Fleet Command. “I need all of our Searchers to make a short trip to a coordinate I’m sending you. I want ten thousand of them to board a defender class vessel and go to those coordinates and follow the instructions of Aladdin upon arrival. Implement those instructions immediately. I will be having them do this periodically so have the Searchers save the coordinates of the ship that is used to transport them to speed the process.”