There was a pounding on the door, and Rochford said, “Professor, can you give us the short version? I don’t mind listening to you all day, but we’re supposed to be at a press conference in a couple of minutes, and those journalists aren’t going to be in a patient mood after the speech the Admiral just gave.”
“They launched an escape pod,” Belinsky said.
“What?”
“The Folk were centuries more advanced than we were, a race that had been spacefaring for thousands of years, not decades, like us. They knew how to fly between the stars with greater skill than we, and more importantly, they had crossed from one system to another without using wormholes. They did it the slow way. At tiny fractions of light-speed.”
“A sleeper ship,” Scott said. “They launched a sleeper ship!”
“One that was designed to circumnavigate the galaxy, before ultimately returning to its point of origin. The aliens are dependent on wormholes to travel the universe. I suppose they might have been theoretically able to follow them, but if the Folk had a sufficient head-start, they’d never have caught them.” Looking up at Scott, he said, “They’re scheduled to return to the outer limits of their wormhole network, perhaps a hundred light-years from Earth, in a little under four months.”
“Four months?” Rochford asked. “Come on, Professor, that coincidence is a little much, don’t you think? We get attacked…”
“No, I get it,” Scott said, eyes widening. “That’s why they attacked us. They might not have been able to follow them, but they’d have been able to plot their flight path, might even have been watching them for thousands of years. They return to the Folk’s old territory and find us there, they probably assumed that we were their old enemy, or some descendent of them. And we fell right into someone else’s war.”
“That’s my guess, Admiral.” He paused, then said, “If I’m right, then we’re in even greater hazard than we were before.”
“We beat them, Professor,” Rochford replied. “If they had more ships, we’d have seen them by now.”
“Not if they’re holding them in reserve to meet the Folk,” Scott said with a sigh. “Don’t forget that our technology is far behind theirs. They might not have considered us such a threat. My guess is that they’re watching, waiting for the Folk to return, when they can launch their next attack.”
“Precisely my fear,” Belinsky said. “I could be wrong, of course, quite easily. There’s every chance that I’m panicking over nothing. We don’t even know if the Folk completed their journey, or were destroyed or delayed somewhere en route. They might have returned ten thousand years ago, or still be a thousand years distant.” Tapping the tablet, he added, “All I know is what they wrote, and what their plan was. To return and reclaim their worlds from the enemy that had attempted to wipe out their race.”
“I’ll be damned,” Rochford said.
“We’re going to have to go out there,” Scott replied. “We’re going to have to find out for ourselves. We don’t dare just sit back and watch. I’d better speak to the President.”
Looking wryly at his friend, Rochford said, “That would be the same man whose defense policy you just comprehensively demolished? Do you really think he’ll listen?”
“He’ll listen,” Scott said. “I’ll find a way. Don’t ask me how, but when the Folk return to their old home, we’re going to be there to welcome them. With the flag of peace or the sword of war. A million years is a long time. Anything might have happened to them in the interim. One way or another, we’re going out again. We’ve got to. Or everything we just went though might have been for nothing.”
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The saga will continue in ‘Wildspace’, coming soon…
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