“Affirmative,” Julie replied. “I recommend we go here next, Captain,” she said, placing the tip of her finger directly on top of the bright area in the center of the picture. “Take us to the fourth spiral arm of celestial object PGC-2014206, please.”
“Excuse me?” he asked, a bit confused by the reference.
“Oh, we’ve long since exhausted our old methods of charting objects in the universe,” she pointed out, eager to expound on her staff’s accomplishments. “So we developed a new system that allows the computer to keep everything nice and organized for us. PGC-2014206 stands for ‘Pathfinder Galaxy Cluster number two million, fourteen thousand, two hundred and six’. That’s where we’ll find the source of those transmissions, probably sent over six thousand years ago by a culture which – at that time – had only limited technology. Our experts predict the people living there would have just discovered global communications like television and radio. As their technology improves and space travel becomes more normal they soon learn to put up orbiting geo-synchronous satellites and keep more and more of their wireless activity localized.”
“You’ve charted over two million objects already?” Kaufield gasped.
“Puh-leez Captain,” Julie said, shaking her head at him. “You’re the leader of this project… you know what our computers can do. PGC stands for Pathfinder Galaxy Cluster…” she repeated. “We’ve charted over two million known galaxies like our own Milky Way so far. We’re also attempting to document ideal stars and planets in each of them, the best prospects for containing fresh water and indigenous life… that really keeps the computer busy. Most of the galaxies in our catalogue are only partially mapped – our system is programmed to pick out key stars, nebulae, and other objects that assist us with navigation and record those first. By the time it’s done crunching all the numbers for our primary targets and ready for the secondary ones we’re generally ready to move the ship along and explore farther.”
“I know, I just said that so you could brag,” he said, keeping his expression deadpan so she couldn’t tell if he was fibbing or not. “Although we may have to make a few more trips through the universe before you can map everything, I take it.”
“I’d say we’ll need a few hundred thousand additional trips,” she said, correcting him with a pleased smile. “We’re traveling in one basic direction away from our Milky Way in an ever-expanding three dimensional sphere, remember? Plus you have to take into account that our ability to record and store information is limited to the speed of our computer systems, not to mention all the other little things like the stars that occasionally go super nova, crash into each other, and so on…”
“Fine, I admit it. Your work is very impressive, Dr. Markham,” Dennis said, a little too defensively for her taste. “If you’ll pass your target coordinates on to the Lab wing, I’ll leave orders with them to make the next transit in an hour or so.”
“I can tell that you’re impressed,” she shouted after him, watching his back as he turned and headed back toward the exit hatches. “Don’t you love a good mystery now and then, Captain?” She asked. “For instance, have those people who originally sent the transmissions that Glen received established a working, peaceful society or are they long dead? I myself simply cannot wait to find out!”
* * * * *
The first star system they passed by in the fourth spiral arm of PGC-2014206 revealed little new information – at first. It was simply a blue giant star that they were viewing extremely late in its short life span. Such stars were well-known for squandering their limited fuel at a phenomenally quick rate over the course of a few million years or so. It had no doubt blazed quite radiantly during that time, but now was slowly on its way toward evolving into a red giant. Soon after, it would quite probably disappear in the giant blast of a supernova.
“But why is it here, in one of the inner spiral arms?” Dr. Markham asked from the open Comm-link next to Dennis. He was back in his seat on the Command Dome, carefully monitoring the results of each of the three CAS transits the Pathfinder had properly executed in the past twenty minutes. They had carefully approached the galaxy, and… sensing no danger from either the Canary probes or their own motion sensors, gradually moved in toward the coordinates specified earlier that afternoon by Julie.
“Why shouldn’t it be?” Dennis replied. “It’s just one scattered amongst the billions of others in this galaxy, is it not?”
“You really need to start reading the background information I include along with my regular reports,” Julie decided. “This entire area is filled with blue and super-giant stars like the one on your overhead monitor, Captain. This star even has a series of asteroid belts orbiting it... a definite indication that it once had the ability to form planets. Blue giants generally start out as very bright stars, but they burn so brightly and quickly that they have an extremely short life span. They don’t usually live long enough to drift this far inward toward a Galaxy’s center. So finding a couple dozen of them in this area would be totally normal, but our discovery of 11,000 is a genuine mystery that I would like to make every effort to solve.”
“11,000?”
“That’s right,” she replied confidently. “And one of the four fading stars in this immediate location is the projected source of the transmissions that Glen received. Until we got here and found nothing I was pretty much convinced that it was this system.”
“So you’re saying that as recently as six thousand years ago there was a star system inhabited by living beings out there, at or within a few light years of this particular star.”
“Within ten light years, unquestionably,” she replied. “So I hope you can understand my puzzlement when we currently can’t find a star with normal enough emissions to support planets and biological life within a hundred and twelve light year radius.”
“What the hell happened between then and now?” Kaufield wondered out loud.
“Maybe it wasn’t biological life that was here,” Adam suggested warily from his station. “Maybe it was something completely new and never before encountered.”
“But this star and its neighbors looked like totally normal yellow stars from our previous position earlier this morning,” insisted Julie. “We were situated exactly 6,217 light years distant when I viewed this spiral arm through one of our telescopes and Glen picked up the old signals. So if you take into account that those transmissions and the light from the stars in this galaxy travel at the speed of light, that means we were viewing this area earlier today as it was 6,217 years ago.” She paused to let everyone think about that for a moment. “It’s why I was so sure the source of those radio and television signals would be here, and also why I was only expecting to find a cluster of 9,500 dimmed stars.”
Mary turned around in shock and stared at Kaufield. “So those asteroid belts out there…” she couldn’t bring herself to say the words and just gazed in astonishment at the picture of the star on the overhead monitors above them.
“Those asteroid belts are quite probably all that is left of the planets that used to orbit this star,” Dr. Markham said, finishing Mary’s statement for her. “And since we can now accurately project a timeline based on our previous position from this morning, at least 1,500 additional stars have been damaged somehow and lost most of their radiant energy within the past 6,217 years.”
“That means whatever the hell caused all this is still spreading,” Kaufield said, his own voice a little shaky. “About four stars per year are going dark. I would imagine the repeated shockwaves generated as each star suddenly transitions into a blue giant is also what destroys the orbiting planetary objects.”
“Agreed,” Julie said in reply. “Whether it’s some sort of natural phenomenon or a disaster caused by man-made technology remains to be seen, but something in the arm of this galaxy is most definitely destroying entire stars at a pretty steady rate.”
“Oh you can bet it will be some type of weapon that was made by people,” concluded Adam
pessimistically. “It’s a weapon made by angry people who are at war with each other. We haven’t found any natural phenomenon in all of our history that can move faster than light between stars. Four stars destroyed per year is a pretty damning indicator in my opinion.”
“It’s of even greater concern to me when you consider that the majority of stars in an average galaxy are already the uninhabitable, cooler red giants that are in the later stages of their most lengthy lifespan,” Julie commented. “Those stars are here all around us too but they haven’t been touched. It’s only the newer, cooler stars like our own back home that are progressively being destroyed.”
Kaufield swiveled in his chair. “Mary, I know we have language and linguistic communications specialists on board. Find them and have them begin reviewing those transmissions that Glen picked up. Julie thinks they’ve decayed pretty well over the years but you never know. Have them try and translate something that could be useful.”
She nodded and opened her own Comm-link while Dennis kept his open. “Julie, you said that the Pathfinder’s position earlier this morning allowed us to essentially ‘look backward’ in time over 6,000 years. If we plot a series of transits back outward in stages of… say… ten to twenty light years per trip, can you pinpoint one or more positions in this damaged area where the stars have most recently gone dark?”
“That would be a piece of cake,” she replied.
“Then let’s do that,” Kaufield ordered, a chill running up and down his spine.
What the devil was going on in this area of space?
* * * * *
It took them several days, but the Pathfinder continued to explore, pausing at each new location for an hour or so before the next transit in a pre-planned series was executed. Dr. Markham had their exact destinations plotted on a three dimensional image of the galaxy’s fourth spiral arm. They were moving in a gradual arc farther and farther away… with the computer updating the color coded image each they time they moved with stars that were no longer viewed from the observatory as dimmed.
Near the end of the second day they had a basic map plotted showing the exact course of the destruction. The most recent activity was all concentrated on the edge of the wasteland farthest from the inner side of the spiral arm. That placed it close to their initial entry point inside the spiral arm. However, it was not quite close enough for them to reasonably determine if anything might still be alive somewhere within the damaged area.
The Pathfinder’s specialists were unable to determine anything useful from the older communications that Glen’s team had recorded. They were simply too old, had traveled too far, and were basically identified as routine news and video clips. Without a way to enhance or repair the damaged parts of the transmissions – which had no doubt traveled through some very nasty nebulae and radiation clouds on their way out of the Galaxy – there was simply no way to identify more than an occasional phrase or two. They did promise that, given more time, they would be able to learn more about the ancient civilization, even if it wasn’t a perfect report.
On the morning of the third day, Kaufield and Julie chose a destination twelve standard light hours from one of the most recent stars to go quiet. This information, of course, was based on the current images they had taken on their first trip inside the damaged region of space, not the older view from outside. The Pathfinder executed a CAS transit back inside the fourth spiral arm, and shortly thereafter a pair of short-range shuttles lifted off from the hangar bay and PTP transited even closer into the Galaxy to see what they could discover.
“They’re going to find a lot of destruction that will sicken them,” Julie predicted. “The star we’re closest to use to have sixteen planets and at least eighty-two moons. Now we can find only this…” She swiveled the monitor at her work station toward Kaufield. “That’s what’s left of planet number five,” she said. He just stared for a moment at the remains of a planet that had been bombed into oblivion. There were huge, blackened craters scattered across most of its surface and even several large chunks that had been splintered and separated away from the main planetary body. The Captain looked upon it as a miracle that the remaining debris still held any kind of orbit at all, much less a normal, circular one.
“So Adam is right,” Kaufield said softly. “Somebody’s got themselves an interstellar war going on in there and they don’t give a damn as to who or what gets caught in the crossfire.”
“Adam is very insightful,” commented Julie. “And yes, he is right. There’s a huge war in progress within this galaxy, and it passed right through this area sometime within the last century. Yesterday, from seventy-two light years away, we were studying the contents of this planet’s atmosphere,” she said, pointing toward the image. “But since we have the technology to be here, right now, we can tell that it no longer has one – everything was boiled away into space after the planet suffered severe structural damage.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Was it the attack on the planet itself that blew away its atmosphere… or perhaps a mystery weapon that collapsed the sun’s nuclear furnace billions of years before its natural aging process would have? I couldn’t even begin to guess.” She said. “Not without a whole lot of additional information.”
“And the society that sent those transmissions we received…”
“A new civilization, probably on the verge of discovering space travel,” Julie commented. “One day they woke up and a war that they didn’t start and played no part in just rolled over on top of them and left everyone dead.”
“11,000 star systems destroyed? That’s unbelievable,” the Captain commented. “Someone’s been going toe to toe with each other using those kinds of weapons for…”
“…For almost forty-six thousand years,” she finished for him. “Whoever, or whatever they are, they’re hideous and they’re evil. They don’t care who or what gets in their way as long as they can capture or destroy resources a star system at a time. And when they’re not busy destroying whole stars and planets to prevent others from accessing their resources, they probably do their best to kill off enemies, too.”
“Just when I thought there couldn’t be anything more evil than the Brotherhood, we find this,” Kaufield said. “I was hoping that if we found another civilization out here, they might be able to help us or at least be somewhat sympathetic to our cause.” He sighed heavily. “Now you’re telling me we’ve found something even more deadly than the Brotherhood?” He sighed and exhaled slowly. “I won’t need to wear my diplomat hat here.”
“I wouldn’t recommend taking the Pathfinder in there,” she said simply.
“Not a chance,” said Dennis. “As soon as the shuttles return we’re heading very far away from this place. I’ll be glad to let them carry on with their business in this eternal hell that they’ve created for themselves.”
He was extremely relieved when he finally heard from Dashboard and Hopper. Sitting in the Command Dome waiting for something to happen had stretched on endlessly for what seemed like an eternity, so he practically leaped out of his chair when Mary received the first transmission.
“Shuttles one and three ready for docking, Pathfinder,” announced Dashboard. “We picked up a lot of wireless transmissions from at least three different sources, but we didn’t dare move in any closer,” he commented. “Your orders were to be wary, and I think you’ll agree with our decision once you get a look at the damage that’s been done to each and every planet that we surveyed.”
“Clear them for immediate landing,” Kaufield said to Mary. She nodded in response.
“Shuttles one and three, you are cleared for docking. Please use the forward… repeat forward docking bay to land.”
“Copy that,” Dashboard replied.
Dennis barely heard the routine communications traffic. He was busy watching the expression on Adam’s face as he read Julie’s summary report from their earlier discussion. The helmsman glanced up at the Captain in shock and Dennis nodded in silent agreement.
>
“This is unbelievable, Captain,” he said, absolutely stunned.
“I’m not releasing that kind of information to the rest of the crew just yet,” Dennis decided. “A delay regarding news of this magnitude would be best until we’re safely away.”
“I agree 100 percent,” said Adam, still stunned by the news.
He was still mentally reviewing their next potential destination possibilities when every alarm in the Command Dome sounded simultaneously. He immediately spun around in his seat, but whatever it was hadn’t yet been put up on the overhead monitors.
“I have a motion sensor contact, Captain. There’s another ship in the area,” Mary reported. “It’s at location 321 bearing 104… a really big ship. I’m adjusting one of the external cameras to put it up on the viewer.”
As she spoke, the overhead image flickered and focused on the darkened hull of the newcomer. The Captain almost had to squint to see it, since there were very few internal lights on the beast. It looked like a really large floating hunk of rectangular metal with gun ports situated everywhere. He couldn’t see any sign of other support vessels, but that certainly didn’t mean there weren’t any. The Pathfinder’s fighter squadron had limited stealth technology, so he was hesitant to rule out the strong possibility that these people might also possess it.
“They can track a ship through PTP transit,” Adam declared with disgust. “They followed our patrol right back to us.”
“Speaking of which, get those shuttles down,” Kaufield said to Mary. “We’re getting the hell out of here.” He tapped a series of keystrokes into the nearest Comm-link. “Glen, get the CAS Drive ready. Pick any emergency transit destination that’s more than 1,000 light years from this area.”
“Roger that, Captain,” was Glen’s quick reply.
“Of course they can track us. It makes perfect sense,” Kaufield said to Adam. “Those buggers have had over forty thousand years to perfect their technology and tactical strategy.” As they continued to watch, a small section of the enemy vessel slowly disengaged from the larger ship. It too was rectangular, and the front edge of it rotated toward the Pathfinder. Before anyone could even open their mouth to speak the smaller ship vanished in a sinister-looking scarlet PTP flash.
The Pathfinder Project Page 23