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  “What happens if we refuse?” replies Dvora.

  “We will destroy your space vessel. You and your daughters will become vagabonds on this planet. The other creatures will not help you. There is only the darkness to turn to; the creatures of darkness and I rule over them too. There is no other way off of this planet.”

  “Let’s giver her what she wants, Mother,” says the eldest sister Kyn. “and let’s leave this frightening place.” The other sisters quickly agree, being revolted and terrified at the awesome beings before them.

  While Dvora keeps glowering at Salocina, Ophelia and Yeralai sneak into the Bird of Prey and grab the urn Dvora put Caratrah’s remains in. They rush back outside holding it in the air. Ophelia tosses it with all the strength she can muster up. All eyes are on it as it sails over Dvora’s head, despite her attempt to grab it as it flies by her. The urn lands at the feet of Salocina.

  “No...no—,” Screeches Dvora. But it is too late. Salocina snatches up the urn and shape shifts into a mist that blows away with the wind. The rest of the beings surrounding the vessel turn and leave; some of them fast and some slow, all of them turning back several times to see Dvora and her daughters one more time.

  “Mother...mother,” says Kathara, “We must leave this place before they destroy our spaceship. We have to go now. Let us go.” The sisters help Dvora to her feet. She is not used to being so weak and is feeling more human than Quewythian.

  “It’s okay...it’s okay, my daughters,” she mumbles. “There are plenty of sorcerers and sorceresses in the universe.”

  Chapter 9: A New World

  Captain’s Chronicles: I, Cruise, and my soul mate Millennia have been traveling the universe together for more than two hundred of Earth’s years. Time has not affected us quite so much as we have been caught up in warps, wormholes, novae, and have also sling shot around stars. So far we have not yet entered any star systems that our physiology could not handle. Radiation, gamma rays, x-rays, and even radioactive space rock have no effect on us. Unfortunately I could not say the same of many of the crewmembers of Infinity and some of our other vessels. Many of our fellow space travellers have found that their bodies aged beyond being able to endure space travel anymore.

  When that happens, after Infinity had scanned the solar system for suitable worlds, we stop by a nearby planet and let them land. We let them keep a vessel for their own survival and future survival, and also for their posterity, since they all now had families. These colonists would also be part of our long string of communication bases we were setting up along the way to Earth.

  Infinity’s sensors could pick up the heartbeats and pulse, blood pressure and brain activity of any creature on any of the planets they were near, even before they got to a galaxy. She also read the biorhythm and scanned all records of personnel to find planets that were to their liking, but none of them were earth. None of the galaxies was the Milky Way.

  “Darling,” said Cruise to Millennia, “Infinity is evolving, even as we are.”

  “I wouldn’t have believed it if you hadn’t told me, my love,” replied Millennia, “but I see now also that she has actually grown.”

  “Amazingly, she is now five times the size of my native city on Cassiopeia,” Cruise returns the talk. “I’m programming Infinity to find us a world to make our new base of operations. We need to put her down, and the four remaining vessels. Infinity tells me we have crossed a quadrant of the universe. Do you know what that means?”

  “Yes, my sweet,” replies Millennia. “We are closer to our destination, and we need a place to call home.”

  “The crew has already procreated,” Cruise smiles and looks down at Millennia’s oversized abdomen. “So have we.”

  “This one is a girl, my love.” Millennia shifts her position. “I will call her Quadaina, spelled with a “Q” but pronounced like a “K”. Because she will be the first child born on Infinity after crossing a quadrant.”

  Infinity scans the present galaxy for a suitable world. She finds planets that are uninhabited and unsuitable for life. She also finds planets with life, but the life she discovered is so primitive and backwards that they consume each other. They would soon become extinct. Another planet has a civilization at war with each other. They are not a biological match for Cruise and his space family. All of the specifications had been programmed into Infinity. All the hopes and dreams of the crew, and now the new brood of offspring that had been born in space have been recorded and are being considered by Infinity as she endlessly scans.

  The laws of physics and all of the elements have to be the same as Cassiopeia and the Twelve Galaxies Cluster. All of the beauty and splendour has to be a reality. Terraforming did not exist anymore. It had been outlawed and was now obsolete. Planets that previously had not one iota of hope for every having life had been miraculously terraformed into magnificent havens. However, most of those planets turned out to have an unstable core. The trauma of the terraforming process was too great causing eruptions and eventual decimation of the planets’ surface.

  Of course Infinity was capable of producing the necessary elements and biological building blocks to transform a planet into a paradise. However, the ethical principles overweighed the practical.

  Terraforming only worked on a planet that already had life, or had it at one time and only ruins or traces were left. There were plenty of barren wasted planets that could never support life, even in a million years. The universe had already provided plenty of planets that needed no terraforming. They were far flung and it took some time to find them.

  Infinity’s ever evolving artificial intelligence had collected billions of yottabytes of data from their journeys through space. The technology she has captured in her data banks from races even superior to the Twelve Galaxies Cluster in such knowledge, but lacking in understanding was unfathomable. Infinity’s good intentions and energy could not be wasted on barbarous and desperate attempts to bring an old dead waste of a planet rock back to life again with no guarantee that the process would hold.

  The data banks in Infinity’s unlimited storage held enough knowledge about the physical conditions of Earth, “The Blue Planet”, that she could find such a world that would be perfect for giving a new start to the remaining crewmembers and their ever growing families, Cruise and Millennia, and also their fifty three offspring, not including the one to come. The population of Infinity was now three million two hundred thousand four hundred and sixty two. They needed to find a planet soon before Infinity figuratively split apart at the seams. Of course she didn’t have any seams.

  The days and nights were based on the biorhythm of Infinity’s population. From this Cruise learned that twenty four to twenty five time phases equalled one day. From the databases of Infinity, he also learned that because of the Earth’s shifting axis, the span of time for daylight from the sun was shorter in the colder seasons and gradually returned to longer times of light in the warmer seasons. That was the cycle. Earth had regular cycles of days, weeks, months and years. This knowledge and much more was obtained from Infinity’s database and taught in the schools and even universities that were on the vessel.

  They learned so much about Earth that everyone would surely feel at home when a planet with Earth’s specifications was finally found.

  “The decision has been made final, my dear,” said Cruise to Millennia. “Infinity has found a planet nearly the same as Earth. Only it is bigger, but the land mass is proportionately the same to the quantity of water. Climates are similar, vegetation is very similar, but also exotic forms of life exist there too.”

  “Yes, my love,” replied Millennia, looking at the new world on the viewing screen and “handling” it with the four-dimensional interactive computer holographic projector.

  “It’s not our final dream, dear,” says Cruise. “But still a dream come true. We may now be retracing the steps of our ancestors.”

  They had barely entered a new galaxy when Infinity’s alert had sounded and sh
e brought the whole galaxy on all screens on board. A four dimensional holographic image emerged. Infinity slipped into Super Hyper Warp Drive 5 and gradually, step-by-step, boosted speed until she was at Drive 25. They were still more than 10 million light years away from the only solar system in the galaxy that emitted the same type of gamma rays and radiation, as well as electromagnetic microwaves and plasma as Earth’s sun. Since Infinity kept maintaining and upgrading herself regularly, it was similar to the body reconstructing all of its cells over and over. She was now able to take the thrashing Drive 25 would give her. Travelling at 10,000 times the speed of light, they reached the New World in eight-hours, forty-five minutes and fifty eight seconds.

  Already programmed to slow down when the proper distance from the target solar system was achieved, Infinity slows down to normal hyper speed. The whole being of the vessel is disrupted and even some of the super Plexiglas dividers and doors are smashed as Infinity downshifts from Super Warp Drive 25 to Hyper drive. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the majority of the population was quite alarmed to say the least. Since it was the sleeping phase called “night” on Earth, many of Infinity’s inhabitants were rudely awakened by the sudden reduction of speed resulting in a “warp shake”.

  “What is going on?” Inquired Commodore Yerne Adno, who was voted in by the people. He was a half-blooded Quewythian born on Infinity eighty nine years before and became the voice of the people. “Everyone is frightened that something has gone wrong with your Infinity. More like ‘A Turn of Nutty’ to me.” Turn of nutty was an expression derived from the old Earth archives of a nut being turned by a wrench. The nut was also a term used to describe a mentally unstable person. “We have never seen any skies or felt the grass like on Earth beneath our feet and now you subject us to this.”

  Cruise and Millennia could not waste precious time arguing with politicians, so they had set up a chain of command system, which Cruise learned from Earth’s data of how they set up their armies.

  Cruise’s spokesperson, a female born on the vessel, the beautiful and intelligent Rhapsody Karjoy, was more than gracious and polite towards the rather ambitious politician. “Why, Commodore. Does a little ole’ Warp Shake send chills up and down your spine? What, are you afraid we might go spinning hopelessly into space?”

  “Don’t mock me, young one,” said the scowling man.

  “Why I’ll have you know,” whispered Rhapsody with widened eyes and a large smile, “We have reached the solar system of New Earth, and will be arriving at our target planet shortly.”

  Hearing those words, the commodore could do nothing else but fall to his knees and cry. “Please tell me your not kidding me. You usually kid me. Please don’t be kidding me now.”

  “You heard her right the first time, Commodore,” spoke a voice that sounded like the boom of a canon. It came from up top of the fifty stairs that Rhapsody had just descended after her briefing face to face with Cruise Liberty; Prince of the Twelve Galaxies Cluster. “Our Kingdom has just expanded and now spans fifty more galaxies where our brethren live and thrive. Let us mark this one as the fifty first.” He lifted his hand and right in front of the commodore’s face appeared the four dimensional image of the solar system containing Earth II. “This is where we are now, Commodore.” Cruise points to a spot at the edge of the solar system. “This solar system contains nine planets. Only one of them is inhabitable. This is where we will land in a very short time.”

  The Commodore is so overwhelmed that he speaks in a stammer. “I...I do not know what to say, your Lordship. In the eighty nine years I have been in existence on Infinity, this is the first time I have had the privilege to gaze upon your face.”

  “Yerne,” Addressed Cruise, which surprised the Commodore that the Prince of the Twelve Galaxies Cluster would address him by his first name, which further moved him. “I fought for your appointment. I hope you will choose to continue the post after we land on Earth II.”

  “Your Royal Highness,” replied the stunned ruler, “I am humbled and honoured that you would ask. Yes, I will be very happy to serve, if the Prince deems me worthy.”

  “Yerne, you are worthy and needed,” replied Cruise. “You are our firstborn son.”

  Chapter 10: Treachery Upon Treachery

  War was raging in The Twelve Galaxies Cluster. Koupiton Hoxenyth, the Liberating King of the kingdom, sent one hundred squadrons of destroyer vessels to the irregular galaxy of Terawasha to face the onslaught of The Subjugator and his forces, now numbering in the millions. Terawasha was a protogalaxy that had been taken over by The Subjugator six hundred of earth years before. Moving closer towards the Twelve Galaxies Cluster, The Subjugator eventually intended to conquer the kingdom and kill the Daxu Korth, Koupiton Hoxenyth and become its new ruler. He had established his new base of operations on Togaran. the fifth planet from the twin stars Futagor and Otomenoir.

  The elusive sovereign smokes one of his finest Panavian cigars, and sips Brandy from the Star System of Sengedia, one of his conquests. He turns from his picture window that gives him a panoramic view of his latest prize, The Triad Cities on the planet Liasith, leader of the Dynastic Alliance of Planets in the Terawasha Kotesha, or galaxy. “This brandy, Gutvry, is the finest I’ve ever tasted in all my eons.”

  “Thank you, Lord Subjugator,” Gutvry the butler replied.

  “It’s from the Wertuxian Galaxy. A planet I believe is named Condory, added the top general.”

  “And when did we conquer that galaxy?” The Subjugator looked with a long faced expression at his highest ranked officer, General Genjri Retroblade.

  “We haven’t conquered that one yet, Sir.”

  “Then why are you still here?” Subjugator’s eyes widened and his grimace was menacing enough to indicate to the general that he had better not be there for very much longer. In fact, now was the time to leave. And that also meant the general’s subordinates. “Now my darling,” smirks Subjugator, “We may have some time together after all before my next conquest begins. How are your daughters fairing?”

  “They’re adjusting very well to the changes, but I’m a little worried about my youngest two, Ophelia and Yeralai,” Replied Dvora. “I really hope they can make the change quickly.”

  “Well, my dear,” Answered Subjugator, “Things like this take time you know. When I found out it was you who stole that Bird of prey from those no good double-crossing Ergaddis, I wasted no time in sending a search squadron out for you. When they did find you, you were half dead.

  “I thank you again, my darling. That wretched orange sun had weakened me. We should have never landed on that horrible planet.” Dvora’s heavily made up eyelids shut halfway. Her green eyes slowly shift back and forth as she purses her lips that are painted with black lip paint. She wears a dark purple cloak with a high collar and green flowing dress. She then continues to stare out the window dreaming about the power she would now wield if she had only been in time to save the Great Sorceress.

  “Don’t be melancholy, my sweet,” Says Subjugator. “When this war is over you will reign supreme with me, and your daughters will be princesses. They will return to their planets as heroines and to their former glory as rulers”

  Dvora turns to her rescuer with disdain in her eyes. “They already are princesses of their own planet domains, and I am already a queen.”

  “Well, my dear, not according to the Interstellar news archives. We got them rather late, but I imagine you have not received clemency, am I right?” Dvora takes a deep breath and sighs. “Then you’re not a queen anymore, but after you marry me, you will be.”

  Dvora was expressionless. Marrying Subjugator was the last thing on her mind, but she was willing to do anything to take vengeance on Koupiton Hoxenyth; her ex.

  “And I just cannot wait to see the look on my brother’s face when he lies defeated beneath my boots and sees you and your daughters standing by my side. Me as the new Korth, and you as my new Reigus.” She shrugged and was revolted at the thought of b
eing his queen. She just wanted to be the queen without a king. She wanted to rule by herself without having to share power. She knew she had to play along with the brother of Daxu Korth, King and Lord of The Twelve Galaxies Cluster until she could escape.

  “I know it’s hard, sisters,” Kyn said to Ophelia and Yeralai. “But mother says we have to play along or it could mean our death; Mother’s too.”

  “Knowing now that The Subjugator is our father’s brother disgusts me,” replied Yeralai.

  “And I am completely sickened at the very thought of such a union taking place between our mother and that loathsome beast,” remarks Ophelia.

  “Watch your tongue,” cautions Kathara, looking around the room.

  “What are you looking for?” Scorns Sarita.

  “Anything that looks like it might be a camera recording our conversation. I don’t believe anything we say here is private,” replies Kathara in a whisper.

  “I miss our brother Cruise. He was never mean to me,” says Emedria. “He was always a good brother.”

  “You mean all those eons hasn’t quenched the crush you had on your step brother?” Comments Valenza.

  “Quiet, shut up. You’re going to get us all beheaded with your big mouth,” Kathara chides.

  Dvora and her daughters had indeed been rescued by Subjugator’s search squad and taken to him. It was then that he revealed to Dvora that he was actually Koupiton Hoxenyth’s brother. So bitter had been their parting that the Daxu Korth made it a violation of the law to speak the name of Hyukitron Hoxenyth. Dvora never knew the truth because their parting took place eons before Dvora became wife of the king and thus the queen. Anyone who spoke the name of Hyukitron would suffer the fate of being slowly eaten alive by the acidic parasite spores inside the Xetronium Mines.

  There was a young warrior transporter and trader visiting Togaran whose family had been taken captive and killed by Subjugator. They were half human. Some full-blooded humans still existed, but they were old. They found that mixing races gave them longer lives. Still they were half or partly human. The more generations that mixed, the longer the offspring lived.