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  Life looked at Grena with pain in his eyes, “I have been asked to take command of the Searchers. Our ships are going to be modified for a different type of drive and we will be the force that takes on the new invaders. I will be away from here indefinitely training our Searchers to go to other universes. I love you with all my being, Grena; I always have. It is just not fair that we are always being separated by duty.”

  Grena smiled, “You still don’t know how I know about your promotion?”

  Life squinted, “How do you know?”

  “I have been asked to be your executive officer. It seems our leaders know quite a bit about those they select for leadership. They think, rightly I think, that I might be able to help you in your new duties.” She got up and went to the back of the boat and hugged Life tightly. The small boat suddenly turned and fell off the wind as Life let go of the tiller and embraced her. “I would not accept the position unless you still loved me. I could not bear to be near you and hurt from not being able to love you.”

  Life looked in her eyes and smiled, “This will be glorious. I am truly whole again. The war was fabulous but I missed you every moment.”

  The boat drifted for hours as they held each other. Life’s com beeped and he saw Sprig on it, “Yes, Your Grace?”

  Sprig saw Grena behind Life and said, “Am I interrupting you; I can com you later?”

  Life looked at Grena and she shook her head, “No, I am able to take your com.”

  “I need you to come to Castle Gardner’s Map Room as quickly as possible. Bring your staff with you.”

  “I only have one staff member, Your Majesty.”

  “I know; so you shouldn’t be delayed very long.”

  “We’ll be there in ten hours.”

  Sprig smiled, “See you then.”

  Grena looked at Life, “We can teleport to our ships and be there in less than fifteen minutes.”

  “I’ve given up too much time with you already. Today I’m going to make up for what I’ve lost.”

  Grena smiled brightly and pulled him down to her.

  Chapter 4

  The Supreme Male joined his family after millions of Eight Leg ships had jumped into the new universe to be harvested. It had been more than six million years since the last harvest and the scouts had discovered millions of planets with intelligent life. This was going to be a good meal for his children. There were still six million ships to jump in and go to their initial targets as the first four million set their star drives for their assigned planet. The Supreme Male looked at his sensor leader and asked, “Status?”

  “Our first arrivals will be arriving at their targets within six dxls. The remainder of our ships will be here in less than four dxls.”

  The Supreme Male leaned back on his pad and looked forward to the harvest.

  Six light hours away from the universal entry point a white furred being listened to the thoughts of the two eight legs and felt his excitement rise. His plotting board had every Eight Leg main ship plotted that had arrived in the universe and it was good news that all of their ships would arrive before any had actually landed on a planet; those planets were a meal best saved for later. It punched up its plotter and sent the updated information to those waiting in another universe. It wasn’t going to be long before his clan’s arrival. As the Eight Leg ships continued to jump in, the plotter tracked them and sent their coordinates to the waiting clan.

  Four hours later the sensor leader said, “All ships are here, Supreme Male and have received their assignments.”

  “Excellent, prepare to jump to our first meal.”

  The White Furred Creature heard their remarks and hit the communication panel, “They’re all here. Begin your attack.” The Supreme Male’s Ship was the target of the plotter and he jumped his five hundred mile long ship in to within six miles of the huge, thirty thousand mile wide, main ship and fired his ships’ main beam. A thousand mile wide hole was blown through the mother ship and exited the other side. The beam was targeted on the mother ships engines and communication panels and the huge green ship began drifting. The green substance of the mother ship’s hull was not immune to the energy being used and all of its drives were destroyed.

  “What was that?”

  “I don’t know, Supreme Male but our ship is disabled. We are unable to move or communicate.”

  The white ship flew into the huge hole blasted through the mother ship and stopped at the center of the huge green ship. Millions of white furred creatures began exiting holes in its surface and spread out attacking every Eight Leg they could find. The spiders viciously fought back but their fangs stopped on the skin under the fur of the white creatures. The talons and teeth of the attacking clan ripped through the Eight Legs’ armor exposing them to the vacuum of space and exploded them.

  The White Clan Warrior exited the white ship and immediately sensed huge numbers of the green Eight Legs floating directly ahead. It rubbed its feet talons and moved toward the huge floating mass and smiled as it began striking the Eight Legs with its talons. The eighteen inch retractable talons were made from a substance that nothing physical could resist and Eight Legs began exploding in their armor as the vacuum of space entered and pulverized them. This was wonderful. Three Eight Legs landed on the Warrior and bared their fangs to attack but could not penetrate its skin, which was made of the same substance as its talons. The white warrior just shrugged them off and ripped them to pieces. She saw three of her other clan members approaching and was angered to have her fun interrupted. She snarled at them but heard, “Don’t be ridiculous. There’s millions more here for all of us.”

  The clan warrior looked around and released her senses and saw her brother was right. “Come join in, I see a much larger mass of them behind the large ship our beam penetrated.”

  “We see it, too. Now quit wasting time talking and enjoy the moment.”

  The White Warrior flew toward a group of ten Eight Legs trying to escape and ripped them apart.

  The white creatures also carried hand guns that disintegrated every Eight Leg unfortunate enough to be hit by its white beam. Those beams killed large groups of Eight Legs that were attempting to mass to attack the boarders. Each of the White Clan killed thousands of the spiders floating in the weightless environment before they could respond. The spiders quickly determined that they could do nothing to protect themselves from these creatures and tried to escape to formulate a plan to handle these mysterious invaders, but the attackers sensed them wherever they tried to hide. The White Clan could sense any creature that possessed organized thought. Thousands of Eight Legs would attack a single white creature only to be disintegrated or ripped apart by teeth and talons. The white creatures easily maneuvered in the weightless environment by rubbing the claws of their feet and hands, which directed a propulsion beam. The substance of their claws absorbed energy and used it for movement. These creatures were designed to kill in the emptiness of space or the surface of a planet.

  They flew around the interior of the mother ship killing every Eight Leg on board before landing on the hulls of the thousands of ships parked inside the giant green ship. The ships could not escape because the machinery that operated the doors on the surface was disabled by the initial beam strike. The White Clan Warriors landed on the hulls of thousands of small ships and used their talons and guns to rip their way into the interior. The Eight legs inside were dismembered or disintegrated. After the small ships were destroyed, the huge white ship used its main beam to blow large holes in the hundred-mile-long transports, making it easy for the Clan’s Warriors to enter.

  The Supreme Male could hear millions of his children dying and could not grasp what was taking place. His interior sensors had been destroyed when the main beam had blown through his ship and the Sensor Leader could not determine what was happening. His time to develop a strategy to combat these creatures was short as the Plotter entered the bridge of the mother ship and smiled as it killed every Eight Leg it encountered in the
room. He saved the Supreme Male for last. As The Supreme Male backed into a corner he heard, “Your species is weak. Is this the best you can do?” The white creature back handed the Supreme Male into the back wall where he fell and jumped back up. “No wonder you’re being replaced.”

  The Supreme Male bared his fangs and rushed the advancing white creature that contemptuously slashed him in half with his talons and burned the remains with his hand gun. He looked around the bridge and turned to go back to his ship. He killed fifty Eight Legs on his way out and wondered how the rest of his Clan was faring.

  As the White Clan Leader flew back to his ship, he looked around and saw the killing continue around him and start to spread to the parked ships. He entered his control room and punched his control panel and heard, “Clan Leader, the first green ships that jumped into this universe launched their attack craft before we arrived. What is your order?”

  “Kill the Mother Ship and then follow the attack craft to the surface of the planet; you will then dispose of every Eight Leg and all other intelligent beings after you finish the green creatures on the surface. If they try to escape in their ships, use your ships’ main beam to destroy them.” He then hit his general communication button, “All ships that finish with the Mother Ships will go to their targeted planets and dispose of any intelligent life. Your next targets have been sent to your boards. Do not waste time. We’ll come back to eat the remains later.”

  Every Eight Leg Mother ship that had jumped into the new universe had a white ship assigned to it and they jumped in next to them and killed them. Every green ship and every green creature was dead in less than twelve hours. The white ships then jumped to planets that had not yet been attacked by the Eight Legs and began systematically destroying every civilization. The main population centers were hit by beams from ships above the planet and cities disappeared in a white inferno that burned down to the planet’s bedrock. Millions of white creatures flew down to the surface and used their senses to home in on any survivors that possessed organized thought. Unlike the creatures they were replacing, these beings enjoyed killing in large numbers callously using their guns to hit any concentration of inhabitants. Collecting information from those killed was not something they were programmed to do and the death of a planet’s population happened at an unbelievable pace.

  The killing released a blood lust in the White Clan and they reveled in the misery and suffering of those they attacked. Anyone struck by their claws slowly died if they weren’t killed immediately; the substance of their talons was poison to any other life form. A huge number of intelligent beings were slightly slashed so they would die slowly and be alive when the white creatures returned for their meal; like cats they wanted to play with their meal before consuming it. They were amazingly fast and could move faster than any other creature in existence; hitting these creatures with any kind of weapon was next to impossible. They sensed the weapon being aimed and moved faster than the defenders could target them. Their hardened skin was impenetrable to any projectile fired at them and beams didn’t even burn their fur. Where the Eight Legs killed planets in ten to eighteen hours, these creatures finished in less than five; they were extraordinary killers.

  Six weeks later the universe was empty of intelligent life. The savagery was beyond imagination and the Clan Leader wished for more; he was angry there was nothing left to kill. He looked at his board that had originally shown millions of intelligent planets and saw it empty. He thought a moment and then ordered, “Go back to the green mother ships and disintegrate them. I want nothing of them left behind. After you have completed that task, you may feed.”

  The fourteen million white ships jumped to their original targets and made short work of the mother ships. They then rushed to the planet below to sate their hunger. After ten hours, the Clan Leader saw a message on his board and felt immediate fear. “Stop eating and return to your ships. We have been ordered back to our world by our maker.”

  The billions of the White Clan stopped instantly and lifted off planet. Not one of them wanted to anger the Maker. They boarded their ships and shivered hoping the Maker wasn’t angry.

  “Very impressive.”

  “I thought you would like the demonstration.”

  “I notice you gave them the ability to jump directly to a planet.”

  “I just couldn’t justify the waste of time having to move in from the gravity belt. The old tool wasn’t given this technology because I enjoyed watching the fear of the planets being attacked.”

  “And now?”

  “It bores me.”

  “Destroying large populations was a nice touch. Is there enough left to feed them afterwards?”

  The Red Being smiled, “I made them eat the ones they killed but they survive on the energy their ships collect from the stars in the attacked system. They have no real need to eat but I thought it was the environmentally right thing to do to remove all the waste.”

  The first red being looked at the second with an expression that showed his disbelief, “Oh you are so sarcastic; environmentally right thing my crooked left leg. When have you ever worried about the environment?”

  The Red Being laughed out loud holding his sides, “You’re right, I only set it up for this one demonstration. I thought you would find it funny. The final product will just leave the dead behind. You caught me. Don’t you find it humorous?”

  The first red being laughed and said, “Yes, it was a nice touch; I also see you don’t have them collecting any information from those they kill.”

  “I originally added that so the tool would be able to develop whatever it needed to be effective over its millions of years use. I hate taking time on them. They never added anything to their weapons so it was a wasted effort.”

  “Why develop anything if you never lose? Do you think there might be anything they collected of interest to us?”

  “They killed almost every one they encountered. If those attacked had anything of use my tool wouldn’t have been successful.”

  The first thought a moment, “There was one instance.”

  “It’s being handled.”

  “I suppose you’re right. What now?”

  “I see no reason not to go ahead and make the necessary numbers to replace the current tool. It will take some time for me to make that happen and there is a little fine tuning left to finish. The means to remove them if necessary needs some work but I don’t see it taking much longer.”

  “What about those you just used?”

  “I have to bring them back to make the necessary numbers. I’m sure they won’t like it but what choice do they have. I’ll stun them so they won’t be a nuisance. I also need to manufacture their ships. Do you have any other concerns?”

  “No, but if I think of any I’ll let you know.”

  “You always do.”

  “Nest Mother, one of our families sent to harvest is not reporting.”

  The Nest Mother felt her fear, “Send ten ships to investigate. Report back immediately.”

  Ten Green Main Ships entered the targeted universe and did not detect any of the Main Ships that had come to harvest. “Sensor Leader, do you detect any of our ships?”

  “No, First Fang but there are grounded transports on numerous planets. I do not detect any life around them.”

  The Supreme Male looked at his display and decided, “We will take nine ships to one of the planets and investigate. Leave one here up against the entry point ready to jump instantly if anything appears.”

  “It will be as you order, First Fang.”

  The nine main ships jumped to a planet where hundreds of grounded transports were seen on the surface and moved in system. Eight hours later they arrived above the planet’s surface and saw the devastation. Cities were burned and billions of bodies were lying everywhere. They also saw millions of their warriors scattered around the ships they had used to land. Most had not moved very far from their landing site; whatever had killed them had done it extremely f
ast.

  “Send a transport down and see what happened.”

  The transport landed and saw the atrocity. Millions of their brothers were laying where they had been ripped to pieces. Some had holes burned through them that cooked the Eight Leg inside its armor. The Landing Leader was sickened, “First Fang.”

  “What have you found?”

  “Something has killed our brothers here. They have ripped through our green armor with some kind of sharp object and killed millions of our family. They also possess some kind of energy weapon that was not stopped by our armor. The local inhabitants are all killed in the same manner and they were killed in huge numbers by some kind of beam weapon. It looks like the cities were struck from above, so it is my guess that they were fired on from above the planet’s atmosphere.”

  The Supreme Male looked over at his Sensor Leader, “How many planets still have intelligent life?”

  The Sensor Leader looked at his board and said, “None.”

  “There were millions reported here.”

  “They no longer exist, First Fang. Someone has killed them all.”

  The Supreme Male knew there was no way this family could have done what they were witnessing. It had only been a short time since their harvest started and less than a quarter of this universe could have been collected in the time since their arrival. Someone else was killing intelligent life and it was also able to kill them.”

  “Recall the transport and tell the Transport Leader to download what he has collected as soon as he arrives on board. Prepare to leave immediately.”

  The Nest Mother looked at the collected information and knew real fear. She deduced that the first universe that had stopped her harvest did not do what she saw in the second. She knew that the being had not lied when he said that the missing Mother Ship was now a friend. She also thought that if the first universe had a universal drive to go to any universe without being limited to one door, then they would be coming here. It also didn’t make sense to threaten to kill her for killing intelligent life and then go out and do the same thing.