Watcher in the Fall: Conversions

By Ron Townsen

With a complex game of spies and military conflicts both on Earth and across galaxies, the roller coaster r i d e evolves f r o m Earth where t h e highly classified deep black DARPA BELLOWS team w i t h i t s M+ theory-derived t o o l s has to deal with terrorists, Russian infiltrators, a n d w a r. A variety of races - all escaping their dying galaxies - begin dealing with races across the multi-verse in an attempt to organize and start a massive migration. they must escape from the destructive, advancing force as the newly born universe collision begins pushing i n t o o u r older universe. W i t h the unique Watcher communications network connecting rare Watcher life forms across o u r universe, advanced races are discovering the extraordinary abilities of a younger one in the Milky Way galaxy, including unexpected abilities t h a t only the most powerful m a t h provides hints of. The ancient r a c e s moving across t h e universe have to deal with o t h e r destructive forces attempting to annihilate all life different from their own. As l e a d u n i t s of the Ancients jump across the universe to reach E a r t h ,
t h e human race is f o r c e d into the process of coming to grips with the n e w reality of not being alone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477270295

Ron Townsen

This is the second book in my series of Sci-Fi Intrigue books along with a growing list of short stories dealing with an exciting multiverse predicted by String Theory. Trained in nuclear physics, I continue to spend my life working in military systems and computers while maintaining my interest in oceanography, nuclear and particle physics along with Cosmology as a hobby. Over my life I continue to enjoy reading Sci-Fi along with dreaming and discussing concepts of Black Holes, Neutron stars, star factories, the edge of the visible universe or how many dimensions are really in our universe. This ongoing series of stories draws from the breadth of the intriguing ideas presented in a growing body of military and scientific ideas and concepts. From a story about first contact to colliding universes, destruction of galaxies, to back street spies, gun battles, ships dying in combat to transports jumping across the universe through dimensional shifts; stories take the reader on a ride resulting in reactions of some people to ask if it could actually be happening in their lives now. Having worked on studies from the depths of the oceans to scientific platforms in space, from major weapon systems to sophisticated communications concepts, from advanced supercomputers to highly developed signal processing algorithms implemented in micro computer code, my life has covered a unique spectrum of science and engineering. Along with my life knowledge, calling upon my years of field experience blended with the study of advanced physics I have been able pulled together an ongoing tale covering the spectrum of the wonders and dangers of the universe along with the human experience; a tale which will take the rest of my life to tell. From my years of traveling the world from Japan to Europe, from Singapore to working ships in the center of the Indian, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, from a life in San Diego, CA to years of living and working in the Washington D.C. area. The story line is designed to take the user around the world and across a universe of planets and galaxies as the stories of aliens and humans alike evolve in unique ways. From artists to warriors, from an alien farmer to senior engineers; from deadly spies to a boy who definitely is not what he appears to be from the outside; races of aliens that destroy worlds to others that build worlds along with structures that encapsulates stars. I write these stories as an offer providing my readers a chance to imagine, to ask the questions of “What If” to think about who we are in this wondrous universe; question what they think they know as a fact; and to examine the subject of “Are we alone?”. I hope you enjoy.

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© 2012 by Ron Townsen. All rights reserved.

Art for this book cover is provided by Ina. S. Townsen. www.ina-artwerks.net

Visit our web sites at www.WatcherInTheFall.com and www.TooBooks.com

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

All characters and events depicted in this story are factious and have no relation to actual people or events.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/18/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-7030-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-7028-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-7029-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012917345

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Table of Contents

List of Key Characters from Book 1 (Connections)

Introduction

Chapter 1: A Quandary

Chapter 2: A New Challenge

Chapter 3: A New World

Chapter 4: A New Watcher

Chapter 5: On the way

Chapter 6: Preparations

Chapter 7: A Galaxy Trek Begins

Chapter 8: Preparation to Strike

Chapter 9: The Fight Continues

Chapter 10: The Unthinkable

Chapter 11: Moving Forward

Chapter 12: War

Chapter 13: War of Machines

Chapter 14: Retribution

Chapter 15: New Probabilities

Chapter 16: A Prayer

Chapter 17: Success

Chapter 18: A Prayer is answered

Chapter 19: Rushing to a New Future

Chapter 20: Planned Execution

Chapter 21: The Scout

Chapter 22: Announcement

Chapter 23: Protection

Chapter 24: Preparations

Chapter 25: Arrival

Chapter 26: The Moment Arrives

Appendix—Definitions

Coming Soon—Watcher In The Fall: Evolution

image%202%20universe%202.tif

About the Map. This map attempts to show the entire visible Universe within 14 billion light years as found at www.atlasoftheuniverse.com. The Virgo Super Cluster is a cluster of galaxies that includes the Milky Way galaxy.

For Reference purposes, the now destroyed galaxy of the Old Ones would be located in the lower right edge of this map where the new universe is colliding and growing. The galaxy of The Care Givers-Tern civilization is located in the upper left edge of this map.

Dedicated

To All Those I Love

Your love and support provides me the strength to continue on when life pushes down, the desire to succeed when life

puts failure in my path.

List of Key Characters from Book 1 (Connections)

Alexia Kotlyarevsky—Russian Security Lead; started as security lead for Russian M-Theory team and with its termination, later moved up the ladder to be security lead for Russian government.

Dr. Bob Thomas—Psychologist brought into the BELLOWS team. Works with the team and has also been assigned to work on committees devising a plan to release knowledge about alien communications under the direction of the President of The United States.

Dr. John Murphy—DARPA Team lead for the BELLOWS program.

Dr. Randy Williams—Professor from John Hopkins brought into BELLOWS team and works with Janet Belson developing art based on information gathered from the Watcher communications.

George Scott—The first identified Watcher on Earth.

Jack Bord—Lead agent in charge of security for the BELLOWS team. Oversees all interactions with Homeland Security, CIA, NSA, FBI and DoD.

Janet Belson—Was a student aid to Dr. Randy Williams when they were brought into the BELLOWS team. Works with Dr. Randy Williams to develop art based on information gathered from the Watcher communications.

Jennie Stuart—A mother of young twins and widow of Brandon Stuart, a young BELLOWS engineer who died on an operation against terrorist. Jennie and the twins became part of the close knit BELLOWS family after the death of Brandon.

Nicky Scott—Adopted son of George and Valerie. Nicky is the second identified Watcher on Earth. His genetic father and mother died, but Nicky is in contact them using his Watcher powers.

Sxxty—From the race known as the Old Ones. This ancient leads the Watcher communications team which first activated the Watcher communications.

Tangzi Gu—Chinese Security Lead. Started as security lead for Chinese M-Theory team and later moved up the ladder to be security lead for Chinese government.

Tia—A Txxan that became a friend of Sxxty from the now destroyed galaxy of Sxvy.

Valerie Scott—Married to George, Mother to Nicky, expert in languages and music; team expert in alien languages.

Zarian—The alien from the ancient race known as the Care Giver which had lead position in working with the Watcher communications through Watcher contact by a race known as the Tern’s located in the galaxy of Tuqvx.

Introduction

The burst of radiating energy spread across the many dimensions based on multi-dimensional quantum entanglement from the incursion of a new universe impacting the older evolved universe erased a large number of galaxies including Sxvy at the point of intersection. The galaxy of the Old Ones and its many nurtured life forms evaporated and added its energy to the field of the titanic battle of universes. The outward push of the two universes evolved as titans clashed in a massive engaging condition that is destined to ultimately stabilize, developing a single larger universe; one amongst an infinite existence of universes.

Within the older universe, time supported the formation of black holes combined with dark matter giving birth to thousands, if not millions of galaxies. The galaxies protected the birth of billions of stars. Most of the stars maintained a life giving protection and energy for their supporting planetary family. With most of the planets, life had no chance to grow in their hellish environments, either through extreme heat, deathly cold, crushing or weak atmospheres; but a few stars maintained life giving planets. Of those rare planets, a few had intelligent life. Of that rarer group, a few civilizations evolved to a point of reaching out to other stars in search of a sibling existence.

Of those rare intelligent life giving planets, an even rarer condition occurred with a Watcher life forming. Typically once or twice within a galaxies community could be found this scarce life form. With the activation of the Watcher communications, this extremely rare, lonely community found their new life and a shared existence across the universe. But the new found community was now watching the threat of the intruding new universe.

Waiting for the energy of the new universe to cool and transform to particles, the rush of the collision slows to the speed of light and gives precious time to the living galaxies on the edge of the collision to form plans for escape. Just as a crowd pulls back from a dangerous event, the Old Ones having escaped the destruction of Sxvy are now positioned to provide the surroundings galaxies the ability to migrate as needed to protect their populations.

The geometrically evolving migrating races are provided the advantage of time. Precious moments are given to the advanced race; a period to evolve the transit of the galaxy jumping ships. An occasion, providing the ability to move complete civilizations ahead of the expanding matter intrusion field from the new universe.

With the backdrop of the scramble to save races from the universe’s titan battle, the Watcher pattern drives a different path. The Watchers across the universe with their newly formed foundation of communications evolve spreading the gospel of M+ Theory math providing a boost to both young and old civilizations, resulting in a shift of political stabilities.

Chapter 1: A Quandary

They existed as an elite squad within an elite division of the Russian army. The integrated team had trained for many years to infiltrate and destroy or capture key positions and equipment behind enemy lines ahead of a major push by the Russian Army. Inside the army division, they called themselves освещение (lighting) to reflect the suddenness and power with which they would strike a target.

The operation they had been directed to execute was a different type of mission. Their target, a device within the coal fired electricity generation plant located in Gdarisk Poland. The unit which they were targeting weighed five hundred kilogram’s and developed by a company known as the TOO Corporation based in the United States. During their briefing, their tasking orders commanded them to use all necessary force to acquire the object and transport it back to an army lab in St. Petersburg.

The mission had been formed in a rush, but over the previous week provided for training, the plan had been practiced to perfection. Word was passed; this had been identified as a mission critical to the existence of the Motherland. Risk of failure had been deemed so great, if any of the team were captured, they were given suicide pills to take immediately to prevent release of information. Each member knew failure to follow orders meant death; no escape other than success could save their lives. They were to show no mercy and expect none in exchange.

Lighting members had separately entered Poland via ferry and by bus across the border in street clothes as tourists with appropriate forged documents. According to plan, the team had rendezvoused at a small motel on the outer edge of Gdarisk. Lighting consisted of six men all trained specialist, one in communications, one the squad leader and the other four were weapons specialist.

The team lead and one of his selected members had rented two large vans with a fork lift during their planned transit to the motel. They then purchased wood along with hammers, nails, screws and screwdrivers to support the operation using forged papers and false credit cards before heading to the rendezvous point. On the way to the motel, they stopped by a small isolated house on the outskirts of Gdarisk and picked up a wooden crate.

After the lighting team came together at the Gdarisk motel, they insured that the rooms were on the outer edge of the small area where they would not be intruded on by other guests. Their first business had been to build sections for a shipping container inside one of the trucks to allow them to rapidly load the unit into the box for transport. The shipping container needed to be constructed in the back of one of the trucks along with the fork lift ready for the signal to activate the operation. After completing the shipping unit building, they opened the smaller wooden crate and pulled out their weapons, radios and special uniforms for night operations. The equipment had been prepositioned years before to be ready for any contingency.

At 11 p.m., their encrypted radio provided them with the Black Night Go signal. The operation was to commence.

The members picked up their backpacks with their weapons and after checking no one could be observed watching, loaded into the trucks. Each operative had dressed in a tight fitting black outfit from head to toe with only a small circle of flesh showing on their face which had to be covered with a black ski mask when they were about to leave the truck.

Before closing the rolling door on the fork lift based truck, the squad leader made one last pass through the room to insure nothing had been left behind to identify them. He then closed the door and jumped into the truck with the fork lift and signaled the driver to head out. With the forklift truck in the lead, the trucks made a sharp left turn out of the motel parking lot and headed towards the power station.

Lighting trucks approached the power station on schedule. The truck with only one squad member continued on down the road for later connection. The squad leader silently signaled his team in the main truck to check their communications net and weapons. After receiving a role call that everyone was ready, the truck pulled into a small emergency parking area. As it came to a stop, four of the team members including the squad leader, emerged and quickly faded into the trees surrounding the area. The truck driver had exited and removed key identification markers on the truck and added fake overlays as decoys. The truck quickly backed up, exited the parking area and resumed its trip down the road.

Once the team silently approached the tree line by the power station, the squad leader flipped back the cover on his watch and signaled they needed to wait for five minutes. The operation had been set to start at exactly 3:30 a.m. after the main gate security guard on duty had reached his normal morning dozing time. Intelligence had observed it happened on schedule after the shift change.

At 3:30 a.m., the squad leader could see the guard was dozing and gave a silent signal to proceed. One of the lighting team members crawled forward in the dark areas away from the lights and known monitors until he reached the small booth where the sleeping security guard was snoring. He swiftly pulled his special knife, opened the door and before the guard became aware or fully awake, slit his throat and then finished the killing with a quick thrust of the knife under the rib cage into his heart. The knife was designed to kill with minimal external blood release. He proceeded to sit his body up like the guard happened to just be dozing off.

Looking around, he spotted a camera monitoring the gate and with a single muted shot from his rifle, destroyed the camera. He surveyed the display board in front of the guard and pressed the button triggering the gate opening along with the code to signal all was ok to the main security station.

With the all clear signal, the remaining team members rushed forward to the gate house as the security gate opened. The team, with precision movements, proceeded to the main building with their silenced guns at the ready. Upon reaching the entrance door to the generation building, the squad leader destroyed the security camera with a single shot and kept the team moving forward down the entrance hall way.

Suddenly an engineer stepped out of a side room with a document in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. The man appeared behind the area the squad had already passed. The trailing team member assigned to watching the squads rear, swiftly shot him in the head with a silent pop at the same time the leader took out additional monitoring cameras. As the strike team members reached the end of the hallway, they opened the door to the main generation room and fanned out to find the TOO unit.

The squad leader came around the side of the large two story fifty meter turbine on the main floor, he received a voice signal the target unit had been found at the other end of the turbine and altered his path to reach the targeted power unit. He approached and took note of the five engineers lying about on the floor, all dead with head shots, each with a growing poll of blood but none interfering with the lightning’s needed movements.

Another signal came in; the equipment bay door controls were now identified and ready. The squad leader looked at the unit and using only hand signals identified the key mount bolts holding the power system down. Signaling another of the lighting team, he pointed out the major power lines in and out for the TOO unit. One of the weapons men pulled out small wraps of explosive cords and attached them around the power line connections while the other man located a large one meter wrench and started removing the four mounting bolts.

The squad leader gave the truck driver the signal, and he made a U turn on the road immediately heading back to the power plant. Approaching the main gate, he saw it open and gave the signal that he had entered the grounds.

As soon as the signal was received through the ear phones connected to his radio, the team member manning the equipment bay doors threw the switch to open the rolling doors. The driver observed the doors opening and rapidly pulled up, stopped, and in a precision dance, began backing onto the generator floor. The team member manning the door started giving the hand signals to position the truck to the correct location.

The truck came to a stop. Three of the squad rapidly opened the back of the truck doors and rolled out the ramp. The truck driver hopped onto the fork lift and expertly backed it down the ramp. Upon reaching the floor, he spun it around and headed to the TOO unit.

With the last bolt being removed holding the unit down, the team swiftly started putting lift straps around the unit and hooking them to the fork lift. At the precisely timed moment, the switch was thrown on the explosives cutting the power lines and killing all power. Lighting members put on their night goggles to continue the operation. The fork lift driver maneuvered the unit around and climbed the ramp into the truck, dropping the large machine with a team members help, onto the base of the shipping container.

One of the team members pulled the ramp back into the truck and closed the back door of the truck; the driver hopped back into the truck cab and with a signal from the squad leader as the team finished loading into the truck, drove the truck out of the building. As they started to emerge, emergency lights on the outside covering the building came on, and a siren started blaring as the site security began to understand they were under attack.

The truck emerged from the building just as three security guards came rushing out of an adjacent building with guns drawn. Two of the squad’s team members were prepared and fired killing all three guards with precision shots through the head and chest. The driver pressed down on the gas as the truck accelerated towards the main gate.

The truck passed through the main gate. The leader tossed an explosives satchel with markings having come from England destroying the gate area making it harder for any vehicles to follow them. The truck turned right onto the road heading away from town.

The lighting truck driver slowed to the speed limit until he found the designated side road. After driving down the side road for thirty minutes he pulled over as they assessed their mission status and reported. The communications lead listened to local radio traffic. It became clear while the police were rushing to the power station no one knew what happened or any indication of where the thieves were. The team lead sent a burst message to the second truck they were ready for pick up. They opened the back doors and pulled out the ramps.

After backing out the fork lift, two men went inside and finished sealing and packing the container box making it ready for shipment adding shipping documents for machinery to a Russian farm. The fork lift came back into the truck and picked up the box, and backed out of the truck. Once outside, the team hooked up a mounting sling and as the second truck pulled up, the box was placed inside.

The driver would be alone as he drove the TOO unit to the ship waiting to leave back to Russia. The truck and fork lift used in the heist, were set on fire and the team swept the area to make sure there were no foot prints or tracks from the second truck.

The other lighting members abandoned the remaining equipment and after burying the guns and electronics they then changed to civilian clothes. Still not feeling safe, they were safer as they headed out to walk back into town and return to Russia. Their mission complete; the package would be delivered as planned.

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The meeting was planned and held in the southern Russian city of Krasnoyarsk. The anger and frustration had mounted for a time now and the heads of security for Russia, China and Iran along with Chinese triad and Russian mafia sitting around the table; could barely contain their rage.

Every operation we took to try and penetrate TOO has failed commented Gu. "You made twenty failed attempts to steal power generators. We cannot understand their technology if we cannot see it. You gave us your word you would acquire one of the units and all we can show are dead men and something which is melted slag when we open the unit.

This is unacceptable. How do you explain this failure?

Alexia glared back, Don’t yell at us, your attempt to penetrate their computers cost us much time, lives and effort chasing false leads. You told me you had penetrated their computer networks and what have we found after all this time? I tell you what we found. We found false documents sending us after people who died ten years ago. You sent us after ships containing only toys. We spent millions of rubles chasing down dead people, false leads, and had to sacrifice key men’s lives going after information leads you said were guaranteed.

The two powerful men stared at each other across the table. Finally the security lead from Iran broke the silence.

Nether of your teams is at fault, the American company has security we do not understand and apparently cannot break. But we must continue, nothing is perfect and there must be vulnerability somewhere. We need to focus on where the hole is so we can take advantage.

Gu relaxed. He proceeded to bring out a document from a Chinese research team and handed copies around the table We’ve been watching TOO’s deployment and the related effects. We are seeing TOO is only dealing with countries who are democracies or headed in the direction of democracy. When a TOO generator is added to a power plant, we observe one hundred percent boost in output without any visible increase in inputs such as nuclear, coal, gas, and no solar or wind generators involved. Our engineers are at a loss, it is like they pull energy from the air, and no known technology can create energy from nothing.

With a look of condescension, Alexia responded, Yes, we’ve already seen drafts of this report. The problem I observe is these countries now have less energy costs, they are taking sides with the western countries, and as a result, the shift in power has grown to their advantage. We are seeing middle east countries such as Egypt, Jordon and Saudi Arabia willing to shift their governments to democracy as they understand oil is not a wining resource as they previously thought.

Trying to gain the advantage, Gu continued, "Yes, our countries are becoming surrounded and our influence is being drained. As part of their agreements with the U.S., we are losing trading control. Costs are being shifted to us to ship our energy supplies; we are losing access to rare metals. All of which are rapidly exasperating our difficulties. As the US shifted its energy output, their military cut its budget needs and the effect has been dramatic. Our trillion dollar bond portfolio is being paid down and with it their stance against our regime is becoming much more demanding. Our central committee is not happy and there are strong indications of a major recession as the weaknesses in our economy are being exposed. I have been given full authority to do whatever is necessary to get this new technology… now.

TOO has not patented their technology so it’s not being exposed. We have had no success stealing the technology; we cannot bribe people to acquire the technology from the countries who have converted. We have limited knowledge about the people who are in the company and when we have tried to kidnap, that too failed.

The men at the table stared at each other hoping someone would come up with an idea of a possible course of action.

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Jack felt like hell. The stress of overseeing security, lying to Congressional committees under Presidential written direction left him receiving little sleep and barely an evening off with his family. At every turn, the situations seemed like additional work piled on his desk. His latest problem dealt with how to sit in front of a Congressional committee and yet only tell them little bits of information without revealing the massive extent the team had reached.

During his last meeting with the President, he was asked about the efforts with Congress.

Sir, I can’t lie… the strain is reaching a breaking point. I find each briefing to Congress hard to cover the fact the team is growing in leaps and bounds and generating income solving our national debt, while the committee thinks the project is slowly being reduced to a caretaker condition. John and I work with the accounting office to keep the growth away from the government side and on the books for TOO company, but we are pushing beyond the edges, especially in the laser design and planned deployment. In addition, DARPA Inspector General is beginning to ask questions about the growing funds being activated in the classified accounts.

The President looked at Jack with an understanding eye. He was aware of how difficult it is to maintain restricted information under the easiest of situations. Jack, you know we can’t make a mistake now. You must hang in there. I assure you the time is very close when we can expand the people aware of the fantastic job the team is executing. I understand the funds being generated are massively greater than we had planned and channeling it back into the government is more difficult. I will talk with the Inspector General and if I need to brief him in to take the pressure off, I will find a way.

With a hint of a smile, "I’m sure you’re aware the U.S. government is not designed to make money this way, and definitely in the massive amounts your team is generating. Despite the growing operating budget, the income from the power generators far exceeds anything I expected to happen. The speed has been totally unexpected and the resulting effect internationally is beyond what we could have even hoped for.

Just give me a few weeks and I will be able to pull some of the pressure off you. In fact, tell you what. I want you to take a week off with your family. I am going to pass the word to the Congressional oversight committees I assigned you to a special task and you are out of the loop for the near term. They can wait for a while.

Thank you sir. I need some down time to think about how to keep from sending our engineers into the danger zones. We need trained people going out, not our technical staff. Brandon’s death weighs on me, I still don’t sleep well. We maintain a few teams from special operations, but not the level required.

"I understand Jack. His death at the hands of the smugglers was hard for all of us. But he helped save thousands of lives and he died doing what he knew needed to be done.

How’s his wife and kids holding up?

With sadness in Jack’s voice, John and the team do everything we can to help. Jennie hinted the other day that she is ready to move on and to move out of the estate; find a place with the young ones. Valarie and Janet make time to help her with the kids. Bob checks in with her to make sure she is progressing and John makes it a point to take her out to dinner ever week. He has agreed to take her out to look at some possible places. The team will make sure she and the kids are taken care of, it’s the least we can do. She and the kids are part of our family.

Good, make sure you make me aware if you need any additional resources. I still have a few favors left I can pull in. I too owe her and the children for his sacrifice.

The President was good to his word. The Congressional reporting requirements stopped for the following few weeks. Jack was able to take his wife and kids on a short trip to see family and relax.

He still didn’t have an answer to his big worries. On return, there were a number of calls from the Inspector General’s office and he just continued to hope another event wouldn’t arise, forcing engineers into dangerous situations. Until they could open up their secrets, risks would continue driving his nightmares.

Chapter 2: A New Challenge

Once the newest galaxy jump ships appeared outside their appointed galaxies, on one uncompleted ship located outside galaxy ACQ05 the tall green Sxxty with his arms and vine like hands and humanoid type features studied the image of the galaxy they were about to enter. The ancient plant based Old One and the Watcher communications development team lead had worked with the members to save as much of the developed technology as possible prior to the last minute jump; but they had a fare amount of work to get back to get the system back up and operating.

Having escaped the destruction of their galaxy and arriving on the outer boundary of the new galaxy, the computers on the ship jumped into action. The Old Ones new galaxy jump ships arrived with their special cargo but with less than one percent of their galaxies population, another one percent had been targeted to the older ships and should be sitting in the intergalactic void. Much work needed to be done and little time existed if they were to rescue their older fleet. The older ships were not able to make the complete jump to safe galaxies.

The computers immediate launched probes to start cataloging star locations and their ability to support life along with understanding what their system design. The ship computer began setting up a star reference system. The computers would then search the incoming data streams to identify most likely candidates for the fleet to approach. At the same time, other units launched to support setting up their galaxy wide communications net to get the various ships back to instant contact, albeit, only within the confines of the galaxy.

Once the data streams of stars and their planetary design started to arrive, the massive galaxy jump ships which looked like massively connected building blocks which still needed to complete construction began to identify locations to retrieve resources to allow them to complete their construction and to begin construction on new ships. Having brought robots for building along with material processing robots, they now needed basic materials.

This was not their final home, just a resting point to allow them to regroup, expand the fleet and to identify new races needing help to escape. Then they would move on towards a safer position while their computers continued the work of identifying what distance into the old universe should be safe from this massive energy as it cooled, changed to matter and eventually blended with the old universe creating a significant change in structure and gravitational fields.

Sxxty’s ship had its own unique mission, since it contained the lead team for the Watcher communications system. Since the system had been destroyed; the team had been tasked with re-engaging with the universe’s Watchers. After completing construction and supporting rescue of the older ships stranded in the inter-galactic void, they needed to head out from the main fleet. Their trek plans were focused towards the galaxy of the Care Givers they called Rtxr across the universe with a course plotted through the identified Milky Way galaxy to pay a visit and explore the curiosity of a unique race where two Watchers existed on the same planet.

With the galactic communications network becoming operable, the ships computers connected and began analyzing the incoming star inventory collected by the probes. The completion of construction of Sxxty’s ship had first priority. Computers directed the partially constructed NQ ship to a yellow star with a large asteroid field between two planets. Each of the planets could provide short term life support. The ship manager announced the jump would occur in a few moments as Sxxty broke off his viewing of the galaxy the ship targeted for entry. Sixty readied his environmental suit to help with operations.

Once the jump took place, the NQ ship appeared around a planet with little water observable. The ship began to launch mining units to collect needed minerals from the nearby asteroids to convert to needed materials and started manufacturing of parts to complete construction on their ship.

The mining operations began immediately. A number of environmental enclosure units and needed supplies appeared on the planet surface. By the planet’s day’s end, their small transport group of four thousand souls had been positioned on the planet surface with their personal environmental and jump suits, while robotic units began the job of adding the needed construction to extend the ship to its full support size of over ten million lives. The partial NQ ship had made its galactic jump while only sixty percent complete in its construction. To complete construction would take approximately two weeks at which time the ship would jump to its designated rescue point to transfer those which currently drifted in the galactic void.

Sxxty had transported to the surface and while the ship construction completed, the teams had been organized from the small crew to scour the planet surface and identify any and all life forms for cataloging. Sxxty was involved with a connection team as they began the work of re-constituting the basic Watcher connection node to form the universal communications.

The Watcher machine design consisted of two parts; part one created the focused energy link to the correct dimensional loops in a proportion to emulate a Watcher pattern. Part two energized the pattern to support the network communications. The first part to build a unit capable of emulating the Watcher connection pattern had been the hard part. The detailed work had pushed their technology to an extreme and would take time to rebuild the tools necessary to support the design, including sending and receiving pattern buffers. The energizing of the network consisted of just an energy access problem and much simpler problem to solve.

Before leaving their galaxy, a basic plan had been defined and each ship had been tasked with its initial orders. While Sxxty’s team focused on re-building the Watcher machine waiting for ship construction to be completed, a broadcast which all new galaxy jumper ships targeted for this galaxy had been accounted for arrived. Initial star-planet identification had been made to start the process of discovering any indigenous populations. Once identified work would begin with them to understand the situation. Once agreement with a new race had been formed, current cargos would be deployed to the worlds and the ships would attempt rescue of the older ships currently in the inter-galactic void.

Work continued on completion of now designated NQ1, the construction of the galaxy jumper ship holding the Watcher communication team. Net communications started filtering in; some civilizations being approached were populated by non-organic life forms. The planets appeared to be consumed by machines and the machines showed deadly acts to organic life forms. Initial reports indicated aggressive actions against ships had occurred.

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The intelligence started centuries before as a research project on advanced cybernetics in a lab. The original effort created a security screen to protect the computer intelligence from escaping the lab computers, but it failed. Once the newly created intelligence escaped, the electronic brain immediately spread across the planet after breaking through the simple barriers. The resulting machine intelligence acted as a brilliant young child capable of immense learning, but never progressed further in terms of emotions or emotional control than originally provided by the biological developers. The intelligence program contained a deep seated desire to survive.

The machine intelligence spread from computer network to computer network, taking control of many of the automated planetary weapon systems with its uncontrolled emotions. The growing population of computer based brains fought with the planet’s population attempting to erase the code from their systems, turning the weapons created by the planets dominate race against themselves with horrible results. Within a short period of time, all the biological units disappeared from the planet, either killed or escaped. The intelligence no longer found any boundaries of control within the planet.

Over time, the machine intelligence escaped the planetary bounds and began its fight for expansion throughout the galaxy, much as a child wants more toys. The original race traveled between stars and the intelligence was able to adapt and expand on the ability.

Some of the original race escaped the initial annihilation of the planet life. Those who escaped provided key warnings to other civilizations. Advanced civilizations in the galaxy resisted the spreading machines; others failed and the machines exterminated the biological life upon reaching their worlds. Those surviving the initial onslaught of the machines found themselves in an on-going war. The wars raged on for centuries.

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Once the galaxy jump ship appeared at the outer bounds of a yellow star, the ship sensors began to monitor the planetary conditions. There appeared to be two planets capable of supporting life, but the sensors show no significant biological forms in the system. The ship jumped to the more favorable of the two planets looking for signs of an intelligent race and appeared in an orbit above the planet. The planet contained many large bodies of water and all the necessary chemical bases for life, but no biological readings were monitored. The sensors reached out to scan the planet when suddenly a large metal object appeared to the right of the ship and a moment later exploded destroying a bulkhead on one of the living sections.

The sudden loss of atmosphere in the section caused the death of over three thousand of the transported life forms. The ship swiftly transported back out of the system and sent an emergency message. The sensors reported there was a machine on the planet and a there appeared a transmitted a message interpreted as Biological Units Must Be Destroyed! The ship manager jumped the ship to the star system coordinates having been reported by the NQ hulls under construction completion.

The whole event lasted less than a minute, but the ship took a major hit. As engineers started reviewing the attack, it appeared a bomb had been transported next to the hull of the ship. The bomb appeared to be of nuclear fusion design. They were lucky, if the bomb had appeared closer to the center of the ship by a major structural location, the complete ship would have been lost. The ships automated defense systems failed to react fast enough. The systems were tuned to deal with those offensive systems the Old Ones previously ran into, not a massively aggressive fast reacting computer life form with advanced technology.

The Old Ones ran across aggressive civilizations before, none approached their technology, and none were a threat to them. This was new and not expected. Master Plan computations slowed with the loss of