by Frank Carey
###
"So, this is the big secret," Agendor said as he walked up and hugged the members of his unit.
"Yep," Rutile said as she joined him in looking at a space ship sitting in the space station's launch bay. "Kinda big, don't you think? Especially for a crew of six."
The ship was fifty meters long by twelve wide with large engine pods aft, a normal cockpit forward, and a shit load of what looked like weapons amidships.
"Guns?" Agendor asked as he looked at structures which looked to be taken from a naval battleship.
"No, field emitters for the faster than light engines," Rutile explained. Rutile was a master engineer who knew everything there was to know about anything mechanical or electrical.
"When did we break the light barrier," Agendor asked.
"Two years ago," Sil, their gamma female and navigator, replied. "Remote testing is complete. Now, we try a live fire exercise with us as the target."
Agendor looked at her in shock. "Sil! Agendor, she's just kidding," Rutile said while taking his arm and leading him into the ship. "There is nothing to worry about," the alpha female said as she intertwined tails with her alpha male, transferring vast amounts of information from her brain to his in a matter of seconds.
"Interesting. So we head out to a target planet five light-years distant and stay there for a few days, taking samples and readings before returning. Total time out and back is about two weeks."
"A nice family vacation paid for by the Logash military complex," Malg, their beta male, said as he turned on the lights. All six of them had downloaded the training tapes for ship's operations.
"Who named her Minerva?" Agendor asked. He examined the commissioning plate mounted on the bulkhead.
"Some general named it after one of his grandmothers," Tessa, the beta female, said. "I think he was the head of the finance committee."
"It figures," Qui, their gamma male added. "They who have the power, name the ship."
"Copy that," Agendor noted. "Who's the Captain for this trip?"
Rutile raised her hand. "Last step before my third stripe," she said.
They all hugged her and congratulated her as was proper for a family unit.
She handed out assignments, then looked up at the chrono. "Stations, everyone. Begin preflight." Before taking their seats, each member intertwined tails with the other members of the family, exchanging information and emotions. By the time they were finished, each member could competently man any station on the ship, from dishwasher to captain. When the exchange was finished, they sat down and prepared the ship for flight.
When they finished, Rutile punched the transmit button on the arm of the command chair. "Station control, this is Minerva requesting launch clearance, over."
"Roger, Minerva. Clearance granted on a vector of 118 by 72 true. Have a good trip and see you in two weeks, over."
"Copy that, control. Have a great day. Minerva out."
The bay doors opened above them, revealing the stars.
"Malg, take us out. Sil, set course 118 by 72. Transition to FTL when we clear one-half light-second distance from Homeworld."
"Aye, Captain," Malg said as the ship lifted off the deck.
"Aye, Captain," Sil acknowledged. "Course laid in and on the board."
"Copy that. Agendor, status of ship?"
"All systems nominal. Space engines on standby. FTL on standby."
"Qui, status."
"Communications normal. Sensors show our flight path is clear. Computer is online and ready. We are go."
"Tessa, how are the computers doing?"
"Captain, the computers are humming and the network is five by five.
"Fan-outstanding-tastic. Malg, get this bus moving. We have samples to take and data to acquire."
"Aye, Captain. Firing main space engines."
All fifty meters of the Minerva left the confines of Homeworld space and headed out to the stars without accolade or fanfare, for that was the Logash way.
###
"Qui, you've got to take it easy," Agendor said as he worked the muscles of his unit mate's back. "Are you bucking for another stripe? If so, you can stop."
The crack of Qui's vertebrae snapping back into the place could be heard throughout the ship.
"What happened?" Rutile asked as she walked into the ship's sickbay.
"I'm sorry, mistress, I twisted when I should have bent."
"Here, let me," she said, taking over the manipulation.
"Ah," Qui said as his body went limp. "That did it."
"Good. Now, take a thirty-minute break before helping the others finish storing the last probe. Scoot!"
"Yes, Mistress Rutile," the young Logash said as he got off the exam bed and headed out the door.
"When is he going to stop calling me mistress? I'm his wife, dammit!"
"Give him time, darling. He's young, he's the newest member,” Agendor said. “He'll get used to it."
"Oh, did you talk to Delna?"
He nodded. "She's thrilled. You still OK with the idea?"
"Of course, I'm fine with it. This is the way of our people and has been since the first Logash dropped from the trees. We form units, then our children form units. It is how we roll."
He smiled as she bent down and kissed the top of his head. "Now, go help the others finish up while I start preflight."
"Yes, Captain!" he said with a final tail intertwine before heading out the door.
"Men!" Rutile muttered as she headed to the cockpit.
###
"Captain, checklist complete. We are ready for departure."
Rutile looked at the planet below through the forward windscreen. "Goodbye, planet 88123. Next time we will get personal. Sil, set return course. Malg, break orbit, then jump to FTL when we're clear of the gravity well."
"Aye, Captain. Course set and on the board."
"Aye, Captain. Breaking orbit."
The mighty ship broke orbit and headed out into space.
###
It was graveyard shift when the alarm went off, disturbing Agendor's read of "A Tale of Two Logash."
"What the hell? Computer, what's the problem?"
"Agendor, we are receiving an emergency message on the FTL communications channel," the computer informed him in its maddeningly flat voice. Someone at Space Central was going to get a stern letter about that voice. "Computer, what is the lead time for this message?"
"Three days."
"Buffer it, wake the crew, and get them up here."
"Yes, sir."
Alarms went off around the ship.
"What the hell is going on?" Rutile said as she led the rest of the unit.
"We're getting an emergency message on the FTL channel from Homeworld."
"That thing works? Really?" Qui asked while sitting down at the communications console. He flipped switches. "Damn, that's a lot of data. Message ready."
"Playback!" Rutile ordered.
"Playback, aye!" Qui said.
The view out the front window disappeared as a hologram appeared. It was Delna.
"Agendor, this is Delna. You are ordered to change course and avoid Homeworld at all costs. Proceed to one of the colony sites and await arrival of the colony ships. I repeat, do not approach Homeworld under any circumstance."
"What the hell?" Tessa whispered.
"Shortly after you left, we activated a bridge between this universe and another, proving the multi-universe theory. We contacted the inhabitants, the Alue, and began a dialog with them. With council approval, we enlarged the bridge to allow an exchange of emissaries. Instead of an ambassador, hundreds of shock troops and space craft entered our universe and began the slaughter of our people."
"Those unitless monsters," Agendor hissed.
"Agendor, we were able to launch your seed ships before the academy was destroyed. Your work has ensured the survival of the Logash genetic legacy. You are a true hero of the Logash race. Goodbye, my alpha. I shall see you all in the great b
eyond. Live well. Homeworld out."
No one spoke.
"Qui, you said there was a lot of data. How much?" Agendor asked as the others sat in shock. As Alpha male of the unit, he didn't have the luxury of dealing with his own grief.
"What? Data? Over a petaquad and it's compressed."
Rutile looked at Qui in shock. "That's the entire Logash global database."
"Malg, Sil, I want to drop into the system on a hyperbolic orbit around Homeworld," Rutile ordered. "Come in at thirty degrees above the ecliptic and exit the system at thirty degrees below. Give me a quarter light-second perigee and drop back into FTL the moment we clear Homeworld's gravity well."
"Rutile, you're not going to get that stripe if you disobey orders," Agendor noted calmly.
"I can always take up baking," she said.
"I do love your homemade bread. You heard the Captain, Agendor said. "Do you want to live forever?"
"Yes, sir!" the navigator and pilot said as their tails intertwined. "Set!"
"Initiate!" Rutile ordered as automatic safety straps locked them into their seats.
The Minerva dropped out of FTL like a flaming star as its navigational shields bled off energy in the form of visible light. "Qui!" Rutile yelled over the roar of the cooling system as it protected them from the energy backwash.
"Scanners at max. I am monitoring all frequencies. Viewer online."
The view out the windscreen disappeared as a hologram appeared showing a false color rendition of the incoming data. Thousands of red blobs appeared above a blue-green sphere.
"Qui, what are we seeing?"
"Blue-green is Homeworld. Red blobs are alien craft, the size of the blob is proportional to energy output. We are outmatched by even the smallest blob. I don't think they know we're a ship."
"Tessa, are we recording this," Agendor asked.
"Yes, sir. Recorders on full. Every scrap of data is going into crystal storage."
"Time to departure?" Rutile asked.
"Three minutes, mark!" Sil replied as the ship shook.
"What the hell was that?"
"We're taking weapons fire. Two bogeys have appeared to port and starboard," Qui announced.
"Evasive maneuvers!" Agendor ordered. "Blip the FTL!"
One of the maneuvers described in the ship's operations manual involved activating the FTL for microsecond intervals, which threw the ship into and out of FTL. Unfortunately, it was to be tested on the next trip.
"That did it," Qui yelled. "FTL system is showing stress."
"Computer suggests we let the drive rest for a few days," Tessa reported.
"Right. And maybe I'll give it a back rub in the meantime," Rutile growled.
"Homeworld to Minerva, do you read? This is Delna, over."
"Delna, this is Minerva. What is happening down there?"
"What's happening? Why the hell are you even here? You were ordered to leave and never come back."
"We pressed the wrong button. You know how it is with a new piece of equipment. Where are you? We can come down and..."
"Under no freaking circumstance are you to enter atmo. The Alue met more resistance than they bargained for, so they launched a bioweapon. We'll all be dead by the end of the day. I have initiated a core overload. You have two minutes to get out of here or you will die with us. Now, go. Delna out."
The crew looked at Qui. "She's right. The generators at the planet's core are building to an overload. Readings suggest an explosion large enough to take out the inner moon will occur in a little over a minute. Captain, bogeys inbound from ahead. I count twenty."
"Malg, FTL now!"
"Captain! Without a course, we'll..." Sil yelled.
"No time; no choice," Rutile said. She realized this may be the last command she ever gave, but give it she must. "Initiate."
Malg activated the FTL drive just as the screen filled with alien ships. This was the last view of their home they would ever see.
CHAPTER SIX
"Our FTL engines burnt out shortly after dropping out of normal space. We found ourselves drifting without a clue as to our position. Rutile ordered us into the life pods after disconnecting the pod ejection systems," Agendor explained.
"I hoped the energy remaining in the FTL buffers could keep the emergency beacon running longer, so staying with the ship seemed like the thing to do," Rutile continued.
Agendor looked over at the chrono. "Damn, I lost track of time. I hope I didn't interfere with..." He looked at Ciara and saw her claws and fangs retracting while her eyes returned to normal.
"Nope, I got a great read on all of you. We definitely have a problem."
"What did you see?" Ashley asked as she rubbed Rutile's arm.
"Yeah, what did you find in my brand-spanking new noggin?" Ruby said with a half-smile.
"You, young lady," Ciara said to the Alue, "have two sets of conflicting memories. The conscious one, the one we've all been told about the war and the insurgents, conflicts with the one contained in the fragments you retain from your encounters with Platinum and Malaki. Those fragments agree completely with the story Agendor just told, the one shared by his family."
"So, what does it all mean?" Ashley asked.
"It means that we've had spies watching us for two million years. We've been lied to, and our enemy's technology is far more advanced than ours."
"And they have no qualms about committing genocide," Rutile added.
"Yes, that especially worries me. It takes a special kind of monster to do that. The fact that they used biowarfare against your people opens up a whole new can of worms. While the seven of you were busy, I set some things into motion. First, I need your permission and help to access the Minerva's data banks. We need to know what Delna was up to. I realize the data is property of the Logash, but..."
"You have our permission, Rutile said while Agendor nodded agreement. “ Tessa and Qui can help you retrieve it."
"Thank you. We'll only make copies while keeping the originals safe. You have my word. Next, and this may sound odd, but we need to find Homeworld. I want to send one of our ultra-speed probes out there to see if we can find any trace of the weapon they used against your people."
Agendor and the others intertwined tails. "Sil and Malg will help you with that. Sil has an eye for the stars," Rutile replied.
"Good. Two down, two to go. Harmon is down in Tombs 36A, examining the remains of an alien ship that crashed on Earth over two hundred years ago. Ruby will be joining him, but I think one of you should join them."
Rutile looked at Agendor. "Don't look at me. I'm a biologist," he said.
"Look, let me make this clear," Ciara said. "Ruby was instrumental in saving the League from Vapin and Kerus, two Alue that went on a bat shit crazy killing spree. I trust her with my life and the lives of several billion League citizens. Now, if any of you or your family want to sit this out, then by all means, take a seat in one of the Cube's fine lounges, and we'll call you when the fireworks are over. Otherwise, drop the freakin attitude and get with the program."
Rutile stood up and looked down at the shorter Venlanten. "Well, if you put it that way, I guess I'm your girl. I would be happy to help. Can Ashley tag along?"
"Of course."
Agendor chuckled, but stopped when he saw the look the two ladies gave him.
Ciara turned her gaze back to the tall Logash. "Excellent. One final task. Agendor, can you help Tannith Aymar, Harmon's sister and Ventos Prime's top historian, and Nebulon with a search of the League and Crystal databases? They're looking for any reference to the ships you saw."
"Not a problem."
"Fantastic. Now, follow me to my office where escorts are waiting to show you where to go. Meanwhile, I have to feed my plant-things."
"Plant-things?" Qui asked.
"Yeah, motile, semi-sapient plants with animal-like characteristics," Losira explained.
"One of them even breaths fire," Ruby added.
"I think they're cute," Ashle
y said. The rest of the Logash said nothing as they tried to conjure up an image of a cute, fire-breathing plant.
###
After a stop to change into coveralls, Ruby, Ashley, and Rutile made their way to Tomb 36A using the Cube's internal transport system. Since the Cube was so large, a series of transport cars were used to carry passengers and cargo throughout the station. These cars acted like elevators in three dimensions, riding a system of tracks embedded in the walls and cable tunnels. "This is nice," Rutile said. "We had nothing like this at the Homeworld Space Station.
"It's a relatively new addition," Ruby explained. "Once the station exceeded one cubic mile in volume, it was decided some kind of transport was required, so they came up with this."
"So, Ruby, what's this thing you've got going on with Chasm?" Rutile asked.
"I'm his companion. I was to keep him safe and sane during his mission to ecoform a planet. Things went sideways when two of my kind destroyed our home, Crystal, then tried to destroy Ventos Prime."
"Great. The elves probably reminded them of us." Rutile leaned back against the wall of the car. She looked over at Ashley. "What's your story? Chasm and an elf-human hybrid are really your parents?"
Ashley nodded. "Dad is a genetically engineered life form and Mom is partially genetically engineered. They bonded and had us several months later."
"Us?"
"I have an identical twin brother named Grayson."
"I know brother, but what's a twin?"
"One zygote, two children, in this case a boy and a girl," Ruby explained. "Don't Logash have identical twins?"
"Not that I ever heard of. We've got brothers and sisters, but they're always as different as different can be. Any multiple births result from multiple eggs fertilized by different sperm. It's always one zygote, one child. Ashley, your brother looks like you?"
"Identical. We also twin-link--tail intertwine without the tail."
"Damn. I really want to meet your brother."
"It gets better. Her mother is part of a quad--one zygote, four children.
"Agendor will have to meet all of your family. He lives for this sort of thing."
"Sure. I don't know when Grayson is due back, but Mom and Uncle Torren are due to dock in the next day or two. She's has her own ship crewed by elflings. She'd love to meet you."