Destiny looked at the plant and said, “You are the second voice I heard. I will keep my promise. Your willingness to protect my remaining family binds my future to yours. I will do all I can to protect you as well.”
“I hope so, Destiny, because we are going to ask some difficult questions.”
“You want to know how to kill our ships.”
Sprig was surprised. “You’re right.”
“Death was a diet I felt for just a short time and I must confess that it taught me a lot. You saved me from that meal and I will assist you any way I can. I can feel a change taking place in me and my children that is accelerating. My children are becoming individuals and thinking for themselves. They are developing talents that I never knew they possessed and I am amazed and pleased at what I see. I think the compulsions prevented us from being what we naturally are. I no longer desire a meal from intelligent beings and I can see my family is feeling the same.”
Sprig looked at the large eight legged creature with huge fangs and sensed a gentle soul. He could see the change as well. Matt appeared in front of them and stepped toward them.
“Hi Destiny, welcome to one of our work planets.”
“Hello, Matt; thank you for giving my family the means to possibly survive.”
“Destiny, did Sprig tell you why we brought you here?”
“Yes, you have some questions.”
“I do. The first question involves the thickness of your ships outer hull. We estimate that it is between thirty and forty of our miles thick. If you look at that building over there, it is about two miles away. Are we close in our estimate?”
Destiny turned and looked in the direction Matt was pointing and saw the burned out building. He converted the distance to his measurements and said, “You are remarkably close.” Sprig looked at Matt and nodded. Then Destiny said something that startled them both, “But that thickness only exists around the central part of the ship. The section close to the top and bottom is only ten of your miles thick.”
Sprig said, “Is that thick enough to support a structure that big?”
“Yes, especially with the bracing used in the central section. It is difficult to launch ships through a hull that thick. I think you have noticed that most of the launch ports are on the upper and lower part of my ship. There are racks that hold the transports and attack craft that rotate under the ports to launch our various types of ships.”
Sprig looked at Matt and said, “I’m going to take you to a lab.”
Destiny shrugged and said, “I’m all yours.”
Matt smiled as Sprig activated his teleport device. The three of them appeared beside one of the small attack craft that had been captured. Destiny flinched when he saw it and said, “I thought you had destroyed those ships.”
“No, we captured them and brought them here to study.”
“How did you get through the hull; my species thinks that our ships are impenetrable?”
Matt picked up a small gun and pointed it at the green ship and fired it. A small projectile hit the green ship and punctured its hull. Destiny watched the puncture and said, “We’re obviously wrong in that belief.”
“We have found two substances that can penetrate your green hulls. They are made from organic material. It seems your green substance is rather weak when hit by organic material.”
“I know that organic material will stop our small projectiles when nothing else will. I guess it would stand to reason that if there is a hard enough organic substance that it would also penetrate it in return.”
Sprig looked at Matt and Matt nodded. “Destiny, we are going to launch a sharpened shard made of this substance more than a hundred feet long traveling at three quarters light speed at your ships.”
“Then I suspect it will travel completely through my ship if you hit it at the lower or top sections. That is entirely too fast. It also wouldn’t do much damage if all you did was punch a hole that small.”
“Well, the shard will contain a bomb that will explode with a radius of five thousand miles larger than the diameter of your ship.”
“What kind of bomb?”
“An energy bomb with the heat of the core of a blue giant star,” Sprig said.
Destiny thought a moment and shrugged, “Then the ship will be immobilized. All of the control structures inside will be disintegrated. It won’t hurt the crew or ships still inside.”
“We have another device that will do that.”
Destiny looked at the two beings and pondered what they said. After a few moments he said, “If you have that technology, and I’m sure you do because that must be the way you killed our transport, then you might be able to survive the coming harvest.”
“How would you use these devices to survive, Destiny?”
“I would hit every ship of the main harvest that came through the universal door as soon as they appear and stop them at the door. If you can stop enough of them, they would block the entrance so that others could not follow them in to your universe. You would however have to kill quite a few of them to make that happen.”
“How many would you estimate would have to be hit?”
Destiny thought and did some mental calculations and finally said, “About a million.”
Matt said, “That’s all.”
Destiny smiled and said, “I think that was sarcasm but yes, about a million. You would have to hit them at the rate of about a thousand ships a second.”
Matt just looked at the spider and then sent a thought, “Cassandra, we have just learned that we will have to kill a thousand ships a second to block that entry to our universe. Is the Kosiev capable of doing that?”
“I won’t know that until the moment arrives, Matt.”
“I’ll get back to you.”
“Ok.”
“Tell me what we should do, Destiny?”
“Unfortunately, you will have to allow about a million ships through before the needed volume begins to arrive. Start hitting them about two diameters of my ship from the entry and then move toward the door. They will start hitting the ships in front of them and they must be hit immediately to prevent them from jumping away. That volume is necessary to stop them. If you can do that then the follow up ships won’t have enough mass to push through. There is a possibility that once a ship coming through the door is stopped inside the door then the door will collapse and will not be useable again. They will never be able to come here again but you will also be unable to go after them in your quest to destroy them all.”
“My prime responsibility is to protect the life of this universe. I will take that and worry about my quest afterwards,” Matt replied.
“Well, I understand. If you had a powerful enough generator you wouldn’t need the door but we have never found such a device in all of our harvests.”
“How powerful would it have to be?”
“It would have to have enough power to generate a beam strong enough to vaporize a planet the size of my ship.”
Matt looked at Sprig and Destiny saw Matt’s expression, “You already have it, don’t you?”
Matt smiled and said, “You are very observant and wise, my friend.”
“I am glad to be your friend, Matt. I will show you how to build what you need to travel from universe to universe if you do possess such a device.”
Sprig manipulated his device and a shiny object appeared at his feet. He took it and handed it to the spider. “Take this and place it on the floor of your command center in your ship. Stand on it and we will be able to teleport you directly from inside your ship. It won’t work if you wear the green armor but we will teleport you only where there is an atmosphere for your arrival.” He then handed a small device to Destiny and said, “This device will return you to that spot whenever you press the center button. I will teach you how to use it to come to us if you so desire.”