“They’re waiting on the Green Civilization to complete the updating of their fleets.”
“Notify Averel.”
Chris received the message from Fleet Operations and looked at Allison, “I need to make a trip.”
“Where?”
“I need to speak with a certain Green Commander.”
“Are you sure about this?”
“Of course not. But I suspect something that I need to confirm.”
Allison stood up and went to her command chair. She donned her armor and Chris’s eyes narrowed. “The Legends are telepathic.”
Chris sighed and activated his armor. “Alley, take us above M-87 and stay in the barrier. See if you can find the commander of the Green Civilization’s Fleets.”
“Do you want that particular commander?”
“Why do you ask?”
“He may not be alive now. You know the life expectancy of tool leaders.”
“Just find the current leaders and I’ll recognize the pattern of the one I spoke with.”
Gene said, “You actually want Alley to take us above M-87 where the Green Civilization is located?”
Chris nodded, “Sorry, you’re right, Gene.”
The Pod disappeared from Andromeda.
The Leader of the Audons sat at his desk and looked at the latest building reports. He heard in is mind, “I see you’ve made some interesting choices.” He froze and his eyes went wide.
The Fleet Leader jumped out of his chair, “WHAT’S WRONG?!”
The Audon Leader raised his arm and shook it. The Fleet Leader slowly sat back down. “You told me there is always a choice.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Why are you here?”
“I’m trying to determine if I need to finish what I started.”
“I really hope you don’t.”
“Tell me why I shouldn’t.”
“May I assume you’ve seen the new ships the Progen have built?”
“You may.”
“I’ve been ordered to update my fleets to match them. I’ve done all I can to delay that happening.”
“I can see that.”
“Once that is done, I’ll be ordered by the Legends to attack your galaxy.”
“And?”
“What choice do I have? Even with the updates, my ships will not stand up to the Legends’ fleets. They will start destroying my planets until I follow their orders.” The Fleet Admiral listened to the Leader speaking his thoughts and felt his fear start growing.
“What you say is true.”
“Then tell me what you would do in my place?”
“Will you do it?”
“We always have a choice.”
Chris laughed out loud, “Yes, we do. Continue delaying and refuse to join the Legends when they order an attack.”
“That’s the choice you would make.”
“Yes. I would refuse until they destroyed one planet, then I would comply.” The Audon Leader was silent and Chris said, “The civilization that attacked your planets has asked me to apologize for their actions. They admit they were heavy handed and made a mistake. You also have a choice on whether or not you will accept their apology.”
“Their apology is accepted. We brought that on ourselves.”
“You were ordered to do it.”
The Leader smiled, “There is always a choice.”
“You are wise. I’ll tell them.”
The Leader continued standing and no more thoughts entered his mind. He sat down and the Fleet Leader blew out a breath he had been holding, “What’s happening?”
The Leader looked at him, “I believe the Legends are going to be attacked.”
“Were you told that?”
“Not is so many words but the meaning behind them made it clear they are.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Speed up the construction of our ships but keep it hidden.”
“Why?”
“They may need our assistance. I want to be able to give it.” The Fleet Admiral nodded and wondered if his species was doomed.
Chris listened to the exchange and smiled. Add one to the list of Allies. Allison listened to the wall speaker as Alley converted the thoughts to electronic waves. “What about the Progen? Are you going to contact them?”
Chris shook his head, “No.”
“If you don’t, you’ll have to destroy them. Are you up to that?”
“To a point. They would become conquerors if the Legends were removed; they are aggressive by nature. They even tried to deceive the Legends about their capabilities so they could take on the Green Civilization as well as M-86.”
Allison sighed, “I just don’t want to see you suffer anymore.”
Chris smiled, “Suffering comes from wrong intentions. My intentions won’t be wrong in handling them.”
“Are you sure?”
“If I have to destroy every one of their planets, it will be due to their actions. I will not suffer from that decision. Destroying them may be a part of my Legacy the universe will cheer after all is said and done.”
Allison nodded as Chris took the ship back to Earth.
Eve watched her warriors training on the mock disruptors built in Australia. She watched them as the mock towers would spin at an impossible speed and fire a wide, bright light at them. They still weren’t fast enough. She shook her head and pressed a button, “Nudge, I need a change in the armor’s software.”
“What’s the problem?”
“There are so many disruptors that will have to be avoided that my warriors aren’t able to keep track of them.”
“They do have overlapping fields of fire.”
“Tell me something I don’t know?”
“But they can’t fire through each other.”
“What are you saying?”
“The safest place to be is next to a disruptor. Is that what you’re doing?”
“Not really.”
“There’s so many of them that your warriors can make their initial drop next to the base of one and then go at full speed to the next closest one.”
“What about the ground forces?”
“Are they going to fire at their ground disruptors? Anything powerful enough to penetrate the heavy armor’s force field will probably take out the disruptor as well. Anything less, your warriors can ignore.”
“What about the explosion the disruptors will make going up?”
“That’s what the barrier button is for.”
“I wish we could just run in the barrier to the next target.”
“You know they would run off the planet and into space if they tried.”
Eve sighed and Nudge said, “What I can do is add a subroutine to their scanner system to give them an overlay of the fields of fire from the disruptors around them. That would at least tell them where they would be in the most danger.”
“How long will it take you to write the program?”
“I’ll have it within a week and transmit it to their helmets.”
“Can you do it faster?”
“Hold on.” Eve waited and watched more of her warriors being hit by the wide lights. “Budge will take some time from his project and help me get it done. I’ll have it by tomorrow afternoon.”
“That’s great. I’m ending this exercise until you can send it.” Nudge disappeared from her display and she shook her head. Getting the barrier drive into the armor was a miracle and she had to credit the twins for making it happen. They were so…incredible. Especially Nudge. If this worked, she was going to take him out for a good meal. She smiled and wondered if she would take him out if it didn’t and decided she would.
Nudge stood up and stretched. He had a lot to do and it was for Eve. He smiled and remembered her face. He took a breath and turned to his computer.
Eve moved through the field of huge disruptor towers and saw the dark green field on her tactical monitor. She ran around the edges of the green-colored ground and moved in under another tower. She looked at her status square in the top of her visor and saw that she had lost a tenth of the warriors that had been knocked out of the previous exercise and more than fifty percent more towers were knocked out. She took out the disruptor tower and saw the ground around her turned green. She pressed her barrier button and saw four beams flash through the air above the ground she was standing in but she was in the barrier and wasn’t hit. She waited until the ground lost the green coloring and then she sprinted to the next tower.