Lieutenant Adams, her coms officer, interrupted before they could discuss anything further about the alien ship. “Admiral, we’re being hailed by them.”
Halsey straightened her uniform blouse as she stood up. “Patch them through with video and audio,” she replied.
A moment later, she was talking with them. The Altairians didn’t share a video link with her, but their audio came through clearly, in English. Thanks to the information Commander Reynolds had shared with them, they had integrated the English language into their translator.
The Altairians asked if Admiral Halsey and any of her officers would like to speak with them in person on their ship. “We breathe a similar atmosphere,” said their spokesperson. “If you meet on our vessel, we’ll provide you with a medical device that will allow you to breathe our atmosphere without harming your human bodies.”
Halsey had to think about that for a moment. This was an incredibly precarious situation. If she went over to their ship and something happened, she wouldn’t be able to order her minimal fleet to respond. The GW hadn’t returned with additional reinforcements yet. If this ship decided to attack them, she didn’t have a prayer. Then again, if they had wanted to attack them, they probably would have already.
Before she agreed to go over to their ship, she ordered one of the frigates in her fleet back to Sol to take all this information about the Altairians and the info the Franklin had gathered to Space Command HQ, Admiral Hunt and his fleet. She had to make sure they knew what might be coming if this didn’t work out.
Finally, Halsey turned to her XO. “Captain Johnson, you have the ship. You are temporarily in command of the fleet in case something happens. Inform Chief Riggs to join me.”
A few minutes later, Admiral Halsey and Master Chief Riggs stood in the location where the Altairians told them to stand on their bridge. Halsey took a deep breath and then announced, “We’re ready.”
Some twinkling lights started swirling around them. Halsey saw the people on the bridge look on with surprise, and then they were gone. The next thing she saw was a sterile-looking white room coming into focus. Then the twinkling lights stopped, and she was on a foreign ship.
Halsey didn’t move right away. She stood there for a moment, trying to get her bearings. Looking to her right, she saw four figures standing there, observing her.
The Altairians were a lot less menacing in appearance than the Zodarks. For one, they were about five and a half feet tall, so relatively short in the eyes of humans. The aliens seemed somewhat similar to a human in that they had two arms and two legs, only their hands appeared to have six fingers and a thumb. Their skin was pure white and looked tough, almost like leather. The hair on their heads was thin-looking, cut short, and pure white. Other than their heads, the rest of their body didn’t appear to have any hair. What unnerved Halsey a bit was their eyes. They were cobalt black with no discernible pupils, and they didn’t have eyelids, so they never blinked. It was kind of odd, and unnerving if she stared at them too long.
Turning to face them, Halsey announced, “Hello, my name is Vice Admiral Abigail Halsey. I am the commanding officer for all human forces and operations in this sector. Who are you?”
Chief Riggs looked nervously at her but kept his mouth shut. He was here to observe and offer her counsel, not speak unless asked to.
“Hello, Abigail. Abigail, I may call you?” one of the aliens asked.
Halsey nodded. “Yes, that is my first name. Halsey is my surname or family name, and Vice Admiral is my rank,” she clarified.
The smallish alien only nodded. “Thank you for that brief explanation. That is what our protocol program confirmed for us. My name is Handolly. I am the protocol officer for this ship. Standing next to me is Pandolly. He is the captain of this ship. The two other individuals are medical technicians. With your permission, we would like to give you these breathing devices to use during our talk. The oxygen levels on our ship are about twenty percent less than your body needs. If you take a breath every few minutes from these devices, they will help your body handle the decreased oxygen level on our ship.”
The two other aliens walked cautiously to the humans and handed them what looked like two inhalers, then explained how to use them. After Halsey used it the first time, she felt the difference; it was like she had been on top of a mountain and suddenly traveled down to sea level.
“Abigail, please take a seat over here,” one of them requested, and she and Chief Riggs joined the group of four Altairians at the table.
The protocol officer, Handolly, spoke first. “Abigail, to you, I must confess something. Our race, the Altairians, have known about your species for many thousands of years. We know about your home world, Earth, and your solar system—although we had thought that the last of the Earth humans had perished in a planetwide extinction event. We have been quietly monitoring human evolutionary development and scientific discoveries for some time. However, when one of your Earther ships appeared in the system UAAU-C, we decided it was time for us to meet and introduce ourselves formally.”
Abigail had to fight back the urge to look surprised or angry. She wanted to keep her face as passive as she could. But this acknowledgment by this alien creature had caught her off guard.
Before she could say something, the protocol officer continued, “Our species has made it a point of principle to allow other species to self-govern, evolve and advance on their own without interference on our part. We are very different from the Zodarks and the Orbots, which are their patrons. Both of these species look to conquer and subjugate other species as they grow their empire to serve their expansionist goals.”
Halsey took a hit from the inhaler before she interjected, “Hold up a second, Handolly. You’re saying the Zodarks are a lesser species or client race of another race in some grand galactic scheme?”
The Altairian didn’t speak right away. Instead, it typed away on a keyboard that appeared on the table in front of him. A second later, a holographic image appeared over the center of the table between them. It then populated with data and images of this other species that caused Abigail and even Chief Riggs to gasp a bit.
The Altairians then changed the image to show the vastness of space and the numerous galaxies within it. Handolly explained, “Abigail, it might be easier for me to explain our interactions with humans and a little history of the galaxy from the beginning. The universe, as you can imagine, is a vast place with more than two hundred billion galaxies. There are thousands of species that occupy tens of thousands of habitable planets across the vastness of space. Habitable planets, however, are still scarce, which means they are often fought over to see who will retain control. I should also explain that while there are thousands of species in the universe, only a small percentage of them could be considered sentient. An even smaller percentage are spacefaring races.”
Admiral Halsey and Chief Riggs both took a hit from their inhalers as they continued to absorb the information the Altairians were throwing at them. Halsey thought if she hadn’t received those brain implants more than a decade ago, most of it probably would have gone over her head. As it was, her brain was wired to use a higher percentage of her potential cognitive power. This meant she was grasping much more than she otherwise would have.
Handolly continued to explain. “Your planet, Abigail, resides in what you call the Milky Way Galaxy. Our home world also resides in the same galaxy, though our planet is more than two thousand light-years from Earth. Each galaxy has some spacefaring races that fight for control of both their own galaxy and the habitable planets in it. Some races have consolidated their galaxies, and those races now wage war on other galaxies to control them as well.
“In our galaxy, we Altairians have been fighting a race called the Orbots. They are an advanced species that consist of creatures who are part biological and part machine. Their client race or proxy is the Zodarks, though they have several other client races that serve them as well.”
An image
of what the Orbots looked like appeared on the holograph floating in the center of the table. They were an ugly race. They had a mechanical body that consisted of four spiderlike legs and two arms with hands. The Orbots stood six feet in height, nearly half the size of the Zodarks. Half of their face looked like it was biological, while the other half looked mechanical. They looked like a mad scientist had put them together.
Handolly saw their facial expressions when he showed them what the Orbots looked like. “The Orbots are a uniquely dangerous race. They weren’t always like this. There was a time when our two species actually got along. Several thousand years ago, they began to experiment with cybernetics and created a cyborg caste of warriors to fight for them. We are not sure what happened, but something caused this cyborg caste to overthrow their creators, and they turned their species into what they are now. This was when they became Orbots. I believe the term Orbots in our language translates to cyborgs in your language.”
God, I hope that doesn’t happen to us with the C100s, Halsey thought. She was personally not in favor of developing combat Synths after what had happened in the last Great War, but this was something that was still above her paygrade.
Handolly paused for a second, seemingly evaluating her body language, and then he continued. “Because they are half-machine, half-biological, they now believe they are the master race of the universe and therefore should be the only race. They maintain non-Orbot allies, like the Zodarks and others, but that is largely to use them as foot soldiers to fight their wars. They provide them with some technology and assistance to help them win wars or battles, but they also make sure to keep them dependent on them. This ensures their client species never become strong enough to challenge them. We Altairians believe that one day, the Orbots will force even their client species to assimilate into their collective hive—”
Halsey interrupted, “If they have essentially become cyborgs or half biologicals, do they still breed to grow their numbers, or is that only done through forced assimilation?”
“The Orbots still maintain a caste of society that is fully biological, used only for breeding. At a certain age, the adult biologicals are turned into the creatures you see before you. Being machines, they can share and grow their knowledge base as a collective. What one Orbots thinks or knows, the collective knows. It is how they can pass down thousands of years of knowledge and information. It’s also what makes them so dangerous—”
“I’m sorry, how is any of this even possible?” Halsey pressed. “I mean, why would the Zodarks go along with something like this and not just turn on the Orbots?” She struggled to wrap her head around this whole thing.
Pandolly, the ship captain, answered. “Admiral, the Orbots are an advanced race like us. Tens of thousands of years old. The Orbots and we Altairians have been spacefaring people for thousands of years. Our two species have been able to invent incredible technologies and travel the stars. Still, the one thing neither of our species has been able to overcome is death. Some of us may die in battle, some from an accident, but many of us will, at some point, die of old age.
“The age-old question is what happens after we die. Some species believe in a deity, a god that created life and death. I am not going to have a philosophical debate on whether there is or is not a god; what I will tell you is it was this search for a god that ultimately led to the Orbots becoming what they now are. They believed they could transcend their physical bodies by becoming cyborgs.
“However, even though the vast majority of their bodies are now mechanical, their brains are still biological. It was this biology that led them to create what we now call the Hive. This is where their collective shared knowledge and identities reside. By creating this Hive, they believe they have now transcended their biological limits and become deities themselves. This is what makes them so dangerous, and why we Altairians have been fighting against them now for thousands of years—to prevent them from doing this to the rest of the galaxy.”
Chief Riggs broke into the conversation. “Pandolly, if the Orbots believe they have ascended to some higher state of being, what is the purpose of their alliance with the Zodarks or any other species? Why do they need them? Can’t they just produce a mechanical army of Orbots to fight for them?”
Pandolly raised both hands, in what seemed to be the equivalent of a nod. “Ian, as Handolly explained earlier, space is a vast place. There are literally millions of systems with planets in each of them. The Orbots use their allies to help them expand their empire.
“Before the Orbots discovered the Zodarks eight thousand years ago, there was another species called the Rindulu. They controlled more than fifty star systems at one time. They fought with the Orbots for many hundreds of years. They realized the Orbots were just using them and that, one day, they would be assimilated into their collective Hive, just like the other species they had helped the Orbots subjugate. By the time the Rindulu rebelled against the Orbots, it was too late. They had become too dependent on the Orbots’ technology, and the Orbots were able to control their technology and use it against them. Whether the Zodarks want to acknowledge this or not, it will eventually happen to them.”
Halsey interjected, “Pandolly, is it possible the Zodarks have found a way not to be controlled by the Orbots like the Rindulu?”
Handolly and Pandolly looked at each other before returning their gaze back to Abigail. “It is possible. Anything is possible,” Pandolly replied. “What I think more likely is that the Orbots are content in allowing the Zodarks to build up their own fiefdom in the stars and will at some point swoop in to snatch it from them.”
“Pandolly, why haven’t we encountered the Orbots during any of our battles with the Zodarks?” Abigail asked.
This time, Handolly answered the question. “Abigail, even the Orbots have physical limits with their part-mechanical, part-biological bodies. This is where the Zodarks come into play. The Zodarks are ‘their muscle,’ as you would say in your language. They have passed down considerable technology to them, but not so much that the Zodarks could hope to challenge them. The Zodarks, in return, are allowed a large swath of space to call their own. Still, they report to the Orbots and support their military campaigns.”
After taking a hit from the inhaler, Abigail held up a hand to pause again. “Handolly, this is some incredible information you’ve shared with us. But how do we humans fit into this equation? Why are there humans on other planets?”
Handolly didn’t say anything right away. Instead, he typed something on a digital keyboard that suddenly appeared in front of him. Moments later, the lights in the room dimmed, and a holographic image of Earth or a planet similar to Earth floated in the center of the table.
The Altairian explained, “I told you earlier that our people have known about humans for some time. What I want to show you right now is how and why there are humans on other worlds than just Earth, and how that came to be.
“This is an image of your home world, Earth, twelve thousand years ago. Your world was an incredible biosphere of living creatures and humans, encased in a protective water sphere. The fact is, we discovered your planet by a complete accident. We had a ship in a nearby system monitoring a large comet that was traveling through several star systems.
“A star had gone supernova, and when that happened, it expelled a lot of material in all directions. One of the planets in that system that had been destroyed was a large ice planet. When it broke up, it formed multiple ice comets that struck out in all directions. One of the comets struck one of our colonies and destroyed it. It was a small colony—a new one we had recently established, so we did not have any early warning or defensive systems in place. In the aftermath of its destruction, we sought to monitor and, if need be, intercept these comets before they could destroy any other worlds.”
Handolly paused a moment. Halsey couldn’t read his facial expressions, so it was hard to tell what was going through his mind. “Habitable planets are rare in the galaxy, Abigail,” he
said. “Even if we cannot colonize them, they almost always have some form of life developing on them. We Altairians consider ourselves to be one of the elder races in the galaxy as we have been a spacefaring species now for tens of thousands of years. As such, we believe it is our responsibility to protect as many habitable planets as possible so new life can be cultivated on them.
“When we saw the comet was on a trajectory that would impact Earth, we tried multiple times to destroy it. We succeeded in destroying a large part of it, but there was an ice core we could not eliminate, even with our advanced technologies. When all of our attempts to save your planet failed, we identified two planets that could support and sustain your species.”
“We dispatched ships to your planet to evacuate your people and transported the humans we could save to these two planets. As the comet neared Earth, we abandoned the remaining humans. When the comet hit, it broke through the water barrier that had encompassed Earth, causing all the water to rush onto the planet, and impacted in an area you now call Russia. I believe your religious people now call it the Great Flood and relate it to a religious person called Noah in your Christian Bible. When the flood happened, it absorbed all the dust from the comet’s impact that would have wiped your species out. The catastrophic event also killed off all your dinosaurs due to the floodwaters and the massive atmospheric pressure difference the absence of the water sphere had created on the planet.
“Your species, Abigail, was the most resilient of them all. Humans were somehow able to adapt to the atmospheric change and survived, although the lifespan of your species dropped significantly. Your bodies were used to the higher levels of oxygen, which allowed you to live longer lives. Considering your species was supposed to have been wiped out, it is amazing any of you survived.” As Handolly spoke, the holographic image floating in front of them told its own story, a visual version of what he was describing.
Chief Riggs spoke up again. “So, the Altairians moved a small number of humans to two new planets. How did the Zodarks acquire humans, and why are there humans on so many other planets? How did that happen?”
Into the Battle Page 29