All the ships were ready to depart from planet Life and King Mirov went personally to bid farewell to his fleet. Fizard was going to command the mission and supervised all the details of the operation.

"Let's eliminate Merko! I'll savor my revenge after all these years. Don't forget, Colonel, that I want the enemy dead or alive. If you bring him alive, I will be delighted to see his humiliation and execution. But if it's necessary to kill him, bring me his body. I want to make sure he's really dead," Mirov ordered.

"Your Majesty, I take with me the robots that are real killer machines. They will leave no stone unturned until our enemy is captured."

"It won't be easy to defeat Merko, despite all the self-confidence you have. I want to see results and not just fallacy. Now go and finish them off. Don't forget, infiltrate our spy before you even enter the planet. He'll have to do a thorough investigation into the routine of our enemy's family. Enter with only two ships in the planet's atmosphere, not to catch the attention of Earth governments. That should be enough to annihilate Merko. Leave three ships orbiting Jupiter, serving as support for the mission. If necessary, they'll come to you to assist you. Don't forget to launch our powerful viruses on Terran information systems. This way, their computers won't know about the presence of the ships. The invasion of the radars to neutralize them must precede your entry into the planet. The two ships that will enter the terrestrial space must penetrate the sea and search it until finding Merko's ship, Star Hunter. Destroy it and look for our man to kill him."

Mirov thought with a sly smile:

"If I can't destroy Merko on this mission and he returns to planet Life trying to attack me, I've already thought of a solution: I'll return to Earth's past and destroy his family or the people he loves the most there, even before he can return. I'll be waiting to see him on his knees begging for the lives of others."

The soldiers were lined up in front of King Mirov in the base's anchorage. They were waiting for the speech of encouragement that would be made:

"This is an important day for planet Life. You, brave soldiers, will be remembered for your courage. You must enter the Earth and bring Merko, the traitor, dead or alive, so that everyone remembers that I, Mirov, am the King, and all my enemies must be annihilated. Give your blood in this endeavor and know that whatever you do will be for the mother planet. Everyone will be rewarded on your return from the mission. Now go and fight with bravery!"

The military cheered the monarch's words and entered their attacking ships. The fleet went into deep space, and Mirov, with faithful Radof at his side, watched them until they were out of sight.

"You seem quite confident, master!" Radof said.

"I believe they won't fail. But if something goes wrong, I sent with them the spy, Dargan, to find out as much information as possible. Even if I have to go to planet Earth personally to kill Merko and all his descendants, I will. Nothing will take away the satisfaction of seeing my enemy at my feet, begging for your life. He'll pay for every minute I've been in prison."

As they talked, the ships headed for the intergalactic passage to the Milky Way galaxy. At an ultra-speed they entered the wormhole and within a few hours approached Jupiter. The five ships lined up in attack position near the Callisto Moon. Behind the giant planet, it would be difficult for them to be detected by terrestrial radars.

One of them took Fizard with six more military aliens and headed for planet Earth. The rest of the crew was made up of engineers, maintenance personnel, and those needed for the ship's general services.

***

As soon as Fizard arrived near Saturn, he sent the spy Dargan to the planet Earth by teleportation. He materialized in the Institute of Cosmology where Nicholas worked. Dargan was an excellent soldier. He materialized holding a handbag inside one of the bathrooms in the building where the Institute was located. There were no cameras there, because it was an intimate environment. It was night and the shift was over. He soon looked at himself in the mirror and saw his extraterrestrial forms.

As he looked in the mirror, he thought of a way to get into the database. He took a computer the size of the palm of his hand from his handbag and hacked the information systems. He took a vial in his handbag with a human DNA and turned into a man from Earth. He would choose someone who worked at the Institute to take their place after that. He then turned off all alarms and cameras remotely.

A holography rose from his portable device and showed the images of all the hardware he accessed. Guards roamed the corridors of the building and didn't even think there was an intruder inside the premises. Dargan sought out information on the people who worked at the Institute of Cosmology and chose through the hologram, someone who worked in the research section along with Nicholas, in whom he decided to transmute. He had to find among the staff somebody whom Nicholas would trust, who wouldn't bring Dargan trouble for being single and living alone. That is, who had no ties that could unmask him.

The target chosen was a newcomer from Germany and his file in the archive showed that he had no relatives in the United States. When this collaborator arrived to work, he would copy his DNA and neutralize him. The idea was to find out everything about Merko's family. His mission was to make a detailed report on the routine of all who could have some connection with Mirov's main enemy.

"Why did Fizard ask me to turn myself into a human being and spy on the life of Merko's family if he and his men are already arriving on the planet to kill him?"

What would be Mirov's plan? This was Dargan's doubt.

Early in the morning, the Institute staff was already arriving and Dargan was hiding in the German engineer's office studying his computer data.

Dargan reconnected the camera systems, accessing everything by holograms. He realized the arrival of the German with whom he would change his identity. He ran and got into the elevator that led the chosen one, Hans Rethins.

"Good morning!" Said the man in a German accent, as soon as he saw him.

The spy didn't respond and the engineer felt the man wasn't fond of chit-chat. Dargan let the elevator get to the 15th floor where the employee worked and avoided looking at him. As he stepped into the bathroom in his department, the intruder pulled a strand of his blond hair to use the DNA information.

"Are you crazy? You ripped off my hair..."

The engineer tried to defend himself from a new attack, turning the briefcase, hitting Dargan's face, thinking it was a robbery. The alien punched the German back in the chest, who fought well and defended himself, retaliating with a new blow to Dargan's stomach. After taking a deep breath, the intruder began to read the opponent's mind and knew what his next onslaughts were on him. He dodged them quickly, and to the astonishment of the engineer, he could no longer hit the rival who took advantage of that to strike several attacks on the German. At last, the blond man collapsed on the floor.

Dargan copied his forms and changed into his clothes. The extraterrestrial decided to spare his life. He grabbed a freezing gun that he carried in his backpack and left the human in suspended animation. He touched him and teleported himself to an empty warehouse in the basement of the building, a place that was inhabited for a long time:

"After I complete my mission, I'll come here to unfreeze you to return to your normal life."

During the time the spy was waiting for information on Nicholas, he checked the systems's data and video files to see what the behavior and attitudes of the German engineer he had cloned were like; his accent, walking and preferences. He couldn't fail in his mission.

Dargan looked at himself in the mirror and saw that he was now a strong six-foot-tall man, blond, green-eyed, and good-looking. As for engineering knowledge, he had plenty of it, because it was one of the requirements by which he was chosen to serve in this mission. He graduated in Space Engineering. He teleported back to the engineer's office and opened the door to the corridor. That's when he came face to face with the human he came to investigate.

"Hello, Hans! How are you?"

"I'm fine, Nicholas! It looks like today will be a great day." He said with the German accent.

"I hope so. Let's get to work..."

He narrowed his eyes and followed the young man's movement.

Nicholas entered his office. He organized things in his desk, pressed the button on his bracelet, and set off for Star Hunter spacecraft, where minutes later Merko appeared, ready for action.

The enemy worked near his room, not imagining that Nicholas had disappeared before his eyes.

Leaving Saturn, Fizard decided to invade the planet Earth with only one ship, for search and investigation. He gave the order to use an anti-radar shield, so that they wouldn't be detected by the terrestrial defense forces. He left another ship in readiness if urgent reinforcement was needed. But the target was only and exclusively Merko. A fight with the terrestrial military forces would only delay the plans, and a wrong step could endanger the whole story, causing unpredictable changes in the future.

The flying object approached planet Earth quickly. It was a huge craft with an aerodynamic that allowed it to travel more easily in space areas with or without gravity, in the presence of air or in the space vacuum. A perfect marvel of space engineering, coming from the future.

The ship positioned itself in the exosphere. Once they stabilized, the crew prepared the virus to infect the computers of the planet and prevent the detection of the alien presence by the radars, avoiding any kind of problems with humans.

Fizard then said to his chief officer in the command room:

"Have the computing specialist enter the computer systems of terrestrial governments and insert the virus. We'll begin the search for Merko's ship as soon as we approach the American continent."

"Yes, sir Commander. In a few minutes we'll be able to penetrate planetary defenses," the chief officer said.

Fizard took advantage of the invisibility mode and penetrated the Atlantic Ocean near the region where Merko used to hide when he entered planet Earth. To Merko's good fortune, Star Hunter ship remained hidden in the Pacific Ocean. Z8, the ship's master computer, had also connected the shield, following its commander's orders. With that, the battlecruiser was temporarily safe.

The Alpha-Omega team monitored the entire American East Coast, but with the systems invaded it was easy for the aliens to hide in the ocean.

***

Nicholas materialized inside the ship and began to help the captain. Z8 noticed the presence of the invading ship and immediately warned Merko:

"Commander, I'm identifying the presence of a spacecraft compatible with those on the planet Life in the Atlantic Ocean. Any order to execute?" It asked.

"Keep us in invisibility mode. Let the anti-radar protector shields at full power. We can't allow them to recognize our ship because they'll try to destroy it."

He felt it was time to fight. He turned to Nicholas and said:

"They're already among us. Send the coordinates to Zara's bracelet so she can find us. Quick, every minute can mean a lot. Nicholas, come on! Z8, activate all controls on the ship. Check out how the robot satellites are; place the enemy ship on our holographic screen. Nicholas, let's go to the weapons room to choose the best we have for defenses in land."

Merko knew that he would have to face the other ship with Star Hunter spacecraft, but he also imagined that the robots could be thrown to Earth and destroy everything they found ahead of them to hunt him. During the contact with Drako, he had been informed that King Mirov had ordered his engineers to build invincible robots with a sophisticated weapons system and the most advanced nanotechnology. They were called murderous robots. It would be a difficult battle.

"Mirov will be inconsequential to the point of destroying Earth and compromising the development of the human race and planet Life itself?" Merko thought for a moment.

Merko's ship left the Pacific Ocean and headed for the Arizona desert with the intent to take the enemy to an area with no inhabitants.

Upon arriving there, Merko ordered Z8 to deactivate the frequency of the protections that prevented detection by the spacecraft of its planet. He wanted to get their attention. It left the invisibility mode on only on the frequency that prevented the terrestrial radars from identifying them, thus attracting the attention of the enemies.

In Fizard's ship, the radars located the ship Star Hunter. The chief officer of the command bridge called the colonel:

"Sir, Captain Merko's ship has been located. Any orders?"

"That's great news! Activate an attack robot and send it behind them."

In Star Hunter, the ship's sirens sounded as it approached the desert landscape of the American West. Z8 warned:

"Sir, there's a robot in our mishap."

Merko finally made it to the Grand Canyon in the State of Arizona. The attack robot was chasing him, passing over the State of California. A terrifying image emerged on the ship's holographic screens. It was the mechanical monster that was getting closer and closer, and Nicholas felt a shiver of fear at the sight of how threatening it was. Its head looked like a closed helmet, with only two red lights corresponding to its eyes. Its legs were of square sections and continued in a strong and prominent waist. An iridium armor covered its shoulders and abdomen; there was a double metal cladding in an exit opening, from where it should launch its lethal rockets.

Its color was a metallic navy blue, which gleamed from contact with sunlight.

"Z8, scan the entire structure of the robot and check for any vulnerability. Activate the shields and prepare the weapons for combat. The battle is imminent!" Ordered Commander Merko.

Nicholas looked at Merko, worried about the next step. Now they had no more escape...

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