Wafner ripped the control interface from his head. The signal had been lost after the robot had been devoured by the black hole, but the emperor was more than sure that Sobek had gotten away with it. "Damn!" he roared. "How? How is it possible!?"

He couldn't believe it. He had calculated everything, examined every logical alternative. He had made his scientists build the supreme weapon of destruction, created and studied specifically to kill that bastard dinosaur. How could it have ended like this?

A black hole! A disgusting black hole! How could he imagine that? How could anyone guess that? The son of a bitch had kept his best attack under wraps so far!

He was furious to say the least. In anger, he punched the console. The delicate hardware broke, but so did his knuckles.

"Your Imperial Majesty!" one of his guards exclaimed. "Please calm down! You can't get hurt!"

"Shut up, idiot!" Wafner roared. "That bastard is still alive! Years of studying, years of selecting materials, designing weapons, studying his powers, and it was all USELESS!"

The emperor drew his pistol and fired several times at the console. Sparks and bits of metal flew in every direction throughout the room.

"Your Majesty, please stop!" the guard yelled again. "Doing so won't solve anything!"

Those words had a calming effect on Wafner. Yes, that idiot of his guard was right for once: getting angry wouldn't have helped. He had to stay clear.

His mind returned to reasoning correctly. Now that bastard knew his plan, and everything was in danger of ending badly; but maybe, he still had some time. He had only been able to admire the few seconds following the birth of the black hole, but he had noticed that the spinosaurus had itself had to fight against its gravity.

Everything in the universe was based on energy. Fighting with his robot, using different mutations and abilities, thinking with a cold and parallel mind on two different fronts, and finally resisting the attractive force of a black hole, were actions that would have required an enormous amount of energy. If Sobek had survived, too, he probably collapsed soon after escaping from the Moon. Even if it was the most efficient organism on the planet, not even its metabolism could handle such an effort. As a result, he probably still had a few hours left.

"We have to speed things up" Wafner said. "Contact General Carrion immediately and tell him to initiate Plan Alphaomega! Let everyone else concentrate on defending the Empire and the missile bases! Prepare to launch Operation Armageddon!"

Now, the only thing to do was to speed up the times, conquer the colony of Davis and then unleash the apocalypse on Eden. Even though Sobek was still alive, Wafner was confident he could inflict a deep wound on his opponents.

Once Davis's colony was conquered, his scientists would have plenty of time to study a new weapon capable of killing that spinosaurus. Or perhaps they could simply have built a teleportation device large enough to drag a chunk of the sun large enough to kill everything on the planet, even the toughest microorganisms, back to Eden.

Or maybe it wouldn't have been necessary. Perhaps, he could still eliminate his enemy. "Activate all spy satellites! Search him in the entire planet. We need to find that bastard now that he's vulnerable and nuke him!"

*********

"WHAT!? Can you repeat!?"

The Eden Union was in an uproar. The heads of state couldn't believe Al's words.

"Let me get this straight, ambassador Al" Queen Mackenzie exclaimed. "You are telling us that the cause of the strange phenomena that have occurred in the last hour was a legendary battle between lord Sobek and a robot commanded by emperor Wafner, and that to defeat him, lord Sobek would have created a black hole which then dissolved by burning half of the lunar surface? Not only that, but is the emperor now aiming to destroy the whole Eden?"

The allosaurus nodded. "I wish I couldn't believe it, but that's how it happened"

"Astronomers have confirmed that an inexplicable black hole has formed on the Moon" someone said. "But how did your pack leader generate such a monstrosity?"

"Who cares! Now is not the time to think about scientific details!" someone else yelled. "Where is lord Sobek now?"

"Right! He has to give us many explanations!"

"He is the only one who can confirm this story!"

Al shook his head. "At the moment we don't know. We can't know for sure, but we believe he passed out somewhere after returning to the planet..."

"Can't you contact him?"

"Not if he's not awake"

The heads of state began to shout incomprehensible things. The room soon descended into a deafening cacophony.

Suddenly Jocelyne rose from her seat. "SILENCE! This is not how we will avoid a disaster!" she yelled. "Ambassador Al, do you have any evidence of what you're saying? Or at least that the plan of the Empire is really what you have exposed us?"

The allosaurus shook his head. "Unfortunately no. But you'll agree with me, president Jersey, that it's the best version you have right now. What other reasons could the pack leader have for creating a black hole on the Moon?"

The heads of state nodded. Indeed, those words made sense. Even if you were to believe that Sobek was aiming to ignite all-out conflict between the Empire and the Eden Union, it wouldn't have made sense to do so. Sobek had many ways to provoke a war, and he certainly would never display such a formidable move in front of the world. And it was absurd to think that a black hole could suddenly create itself and then disappear at random. In fact, however absurd, the version proposed by Al was the most truthful at the time.

However, that wasn't enough. "Even so, if you have no proof yours remains a baseless claim. You are asking us to follow you to war without any reason" president Palma said. "This would not only go against the principles of our organization, but would put many lives at risk"

"I know" Al said. "I know I'm asking a lot. But all of you are aware of how much we are risking. This time, the survival of all of us is at stake. My people are already on the march and will end this war today one way or another, but with your support we can lessen the damage even further. We are all fighting for the same thing, to secure a future for our respective peoples. We'll go down there and fight; I know I can't force you and that it's a selfish request, but are you willing to help us?"

"As president Palma said, to do so we would have to go against the principles of our organization" queen Mackenzie retorted. "Even if the survival of all of us is at stake, we cannot go to war without concrete evidence of a threat against us. It is one of the fundamental principles of the Eden Union, which lord Sobek himself proposed. If we ignore it now, what's going to stop us from doing it in the future? It is the principle necessary to maintain peace in the world."

Despite the situation, Al agreed with the queen. After all, the principles of the Eden Union were created to ensure peace and unity; if they started ignoring them at the first hurdle, they would prove they were worthless. Even if the survival of the entire world was at stake, ignoring the fundamental principles of the organization would have been potentially no less harmful.

However, the allosaurus was not willing to give up: "But you have proof. You have my word"

The heads of state looked confused. The word of an ambassador certainly could not be called concrete proof. On the contrary, Jocelyne smiled: evidently, she had already understood everything. "Are you basically asking us to trust you?" she asked rhetorically.

Al thanked her mentally. "Gentlemen, when my pack leader helped you found this organization, our two peoples vowed to trust each other. So now I ask you: are you willing to trust me?"

This changed everything. Al's words were true: humans and animals had pledged trust to each other, and up until now the animals had kept their word by trusting humans completely. They had allowed them to study them, to work together, to know them as friends. Returning that trust would have been a must.

Considering the animal ambassador's word as concrete proof would have been a great way to demonstrate that trust. Just as a judge trusted witness statements, the Eden Union could also trust Al's statement, since the only eyewitness to the event on the Moon was Sobek and Al was currently representing Sobek.

The heads of state fully understood Al's intentions. In a flash, the people in the room started talking, weighing the pros and cons of doing so. But given that, at least according to the allosaurus' statements, the risk was total annihilation, there were not many against it.

"Ambassador Al, assuming we agreed to help you, what are you asking us to do?" Jocelyne asked while the others were still arguing. It was clear that she wanted to give Al a chance to convince more heads of state by exposing a well-crafted plan.

"Right now, our defense commander is setting up a perimeter around the Empire to repel any possible missiles" Al explained. "Meanwhile, our army, navy, and air force are initiating a massive attack... Many of our undercover agents are in the process of destroying all missile and military bases that we know of. We've also already alerted the Davis' colony to stand by for an attack. However, we fear that there are many more military bases that we are unaware of, so we would appreciate it if you would lend your resources to help us expedite operations, track down enemy weaponry, disrupt any attacks, and secure the population"

The plan was simple but extremely effective: eliminate every possible enemy weapon before he could use it. Timing was everything, and every second lost could be fatal. The heads of state understood this very well. "Let's put it to a vote!" president Palma exclaimed. "Who is in favor of providing support to our allies and friends to avoid a mass extinction event that will likely kill us all?"

Phrased this way, the question could only have one answer: in an instant, the entire room was in favor of going to war alongside the animals. Al smiled at the result. Apparently humans and dinosaurs would fight side by side once more.

"Since this is the decision, let's not waste time!" Jocelyne exclaimed, standing up. "Order every ship, plane, or soldier in the Empire's vicinity to render assistance to the dinosaurs! Contact our missile bases and tell them to get ready to strike back! Call RE/SYST immediately and tell them to lock down as many Imperial weapons as possible! Activate all the spy satellites, have the best specialists analyze the images they will capture, and if anything looks like a military base, report it to the dinosaurs or drop a bomb on it! And immediately evacuate all the most populated cities! Take the population to a safe area! We have to prepare for the worst case scenario!"

The heads of state nodded and immediately mobilized: Jocelyne's words made perfect sense, there was no reason to argue. Within seconds, any of them had grabbed their cell phone and was shouting orders to all of their collaborators.

Jocelyne did the same, calling Abe and ordering him to mobilize troops immediately. While she was still busy arguing, Al approached her: "Thank you, president Jersey. I'm not sure I would have been able to convince everyone so quickly without your help"

"You could have done it anyway" Jocelyne replied, then stared at the ceiling. "If we're still alive tomorrow, I swear I'll get drunk for the first time in my life, even if it costs my liver to explode"

**********

"An attack… here!?"

Liam thought he'd seen it all about her by now, but what Blue had just said beat anything she'd been through before.

"You understood well! I don't know how much time we have, but unless my comrades on Eden can stop the Imperials before they leave, they'll be at our door soon!" the velociraptor exclaimed, making everyone jump. "We must prepare, and immediately!"

Jillian sighed. That day had started so well: there was no trouble in sight, the sky was clear and everything in the base seemed to work perfectly. And now, within ten minutes everything had gone to hell: Blue had shown up in the middle of the colony yelling for them all to join her, and then she had started telling about a crazy plan by Emperor Wafner to destroy Eden and conquer the colony.

"How do we stop them?" Norm exclaimed. "We aren't warriors!"

"But we do" Petrie said, flapping his wings. "We are not many, but we are trained to fight"

"They are right about this. We have our own guards" Jillian said, taking the floor. "The problem is that we are only a few thousand, while the imperials will probably be tens if not hundreds of thousands"

"Then how do we do it, Captain?" Norm yelled.

"Can you please shut up!?" Jillian exclaimed. "We have an advantage"

The settlers fell silent again and stared at her intently. "Think about it: what do the imperials want from this planet? The colony!" Jillian explained. "They can't afford to damage it. This plays to our advantage. Besides, we know this place. We know how and where to set up defenses. And around us we have a planet that, although we are ahead of terraforming, is still very hostile. We just need to come up with a good plan"

"The captain is right" the triceratops said who had come with Blue.

Jillian looked at her inquiringly. "You are…?"

"Eema, chief builder of the animal people. They sent me here to help you with your defenses" the triceratops replied.

So this is really serious, Jillian thought. If the dinosaurs had even sent a big shot, then the situation really was on the verge of disaster. "Can you help us fortify the colony?"

"Yes. There are only a few spots inside the dome where large numbers of troops can be teleported, so we can take them by surprise" the triceratops answered. "But to do that, we will have to get to work immediately"

"We don't have much choice. We listen to you"

"Good. Here's what we're going to do..."