“Wow,” Benny said to himself, shaking his head. “Star Rain, would you have an estimation of a failure rate of the alien ships?”
“The construction of the aliens ships is so basic in its nature,” Star Rain said, “the failure rate is very low. Estimated at less than one-hundredth of a percent.”
Gina felt suddenly very thankful for that, since once an alien ship found a planet, it was not used again. The aliens were not able to continue to reuse old ships, they only knew how to build new ones.
“Star Rain, since the start of the alien expansion,” Benny said, “taking into account the increased numbers of alien ships as time went on the best you can, would you give a general, and I understand rough, estimate of the number of alien ships that have malfunctioned.”
“The number,” Star Rain said, “using every guideline we know to this point about alien ships, would be approximately two-hundred-million alien-ship failures.”
Gina just shook her head. Nothing about this battle ever seemed to work out in small numbers. But she still wasn’t sure where Benny was going with this line of questions, so she kept quiet.
“Star Rain,” Benny said, “I am assuming many of those failures would be in the lifting from a planet’s gravity well, other failures would be in trying to land on a new planet. Am I correct in assuming such a thing?”
“Yes,” Star Rain said. “Almost all failures would occur on the alien ship’s attempt at landing on a destination planet.”
“Over the entire time of alien expansion, would you estimate how many alien-ship failures would cause them to miss the galaxy they were aiming at, as the alien ship did that was found near the Milky Way?”
“Under one-hundred thousand,” Star Rain said.
Gina felt her stomach twist up into a knot. Now she understood exactly what Benny was trying to find out. The dead alien ship that had been reported today would have been one of those ships.
“How likely would it be for one of those ships,” Benny asked Star Rain, “with navigation malfunction, to safely land on a planet in another galaxy?”
“Extremely unlikely,” Star Rain said.
“But still possible?”
“Yes,” Star Rain said.
“Shit,” Gina said softly.
“I’m going to need to see this on the big display,” Benny said, squeezing Gina’s hand and standing.
Gina stood with him.
Behind them the command center just functioned in its normal soft talk among a few of the crew.
“Star Rain,” Benny said, “please show an image of the known universe within a twenty-thousand-year standard trans-tunnel drive diameter from the alien expansion start as the center. Please figure in the years since the start of that expansion.”
A massive cloud of white dots filled the air above Gina. Each dot was a galaxy.
Behind her all movement and talking of the command crew stopped.
“All it would take would be one ship,” Benny said softly.
Gina stared at the massive cloud of a billion galaxies. She needed to ask yet another question.
“Star Rain, would it be possible to narrow down likely alien infestation areas from what we know of the alien expansion patterns from each galaxy? If so, please show us those.”
Huge amounts of the vast cloud of galaxies vanished, leaving what looked like spokes of a wheel radiating from this area of space.
Twenty spokes, twenty major paths likely taken by malfunctioning alien ships.
“Is it likely that a malfunctioning alien ship found a new planet along one of those paths?” Benny asked.
“No, not likely,” Star Rain said. “Thirty decimal places below one percent chance.”
“But possible?” Gina asked.
“Yes,” Star Rain said.
Behind Gina she could tell a few of the command crew had picked up on the problem by soft swear words or a slight gasp.
“Ahh, the fun just continues,” Benny said, shaking his head.
All Gina could do was stare at the millions of possible galaxies in the star cloud in front of her that might already be infected with aliens.
She didn’t consider any of this fun.
SEVENTEEN
BENNY KNEW WHAT they had to do after his little question and answer session with Star Rain. They needed, without delay, to send out small fleets of ships along those spoke lines, spread out enough and with the new long-range sensors, to look for alien ships that had missed and were out there.
And those ships along the way needed to pop every empty space bubble they came across to make sure no alien ship was lurking like a bad bomb in one of them.
Given enough time and enough firepower and a lot of luck, Benny believed the aliens could be contained and then destroyed in this area of space.
But if one alien ship got out, found a new planet to infest, and was spreading out there somewhere, that infestation needed to be found and stopped.
He presented his thinking to the other five chairmen on the same afternoon. All agreed with him. And left it to him and Gina to pick the form of the fleets and the head of each fleet.
Benny figured each fleet could consist of one military mother ship capable of holding five hundred of the ten-man Sharks.
With the Sharks spread out, they could scan a vast amount of space along the likely trails of alien ships. And there would be enough ships to rotate back into the mother ship regularly.
Gina really liked that plan and so did the other chairmen.
The alien ships would take thirty thousand years to travel a certain distance, but with the new trans-tunnel drive, the small military fleet could make the same journey in less than a year.
So Benny and Gina figured they only needed five fleets and could get the job mostly done in less than ten years.
Even Ray and Tacita thought the idea worth the ships and the time.
So only one month after Benny came up with the idea, he and Gina wished Chairman June of the military mother ship Deep Cycle good hunting.
The other five fleets left over the next three months.
And except for the weekly reports all the chairmen got, Benny thought nothing much more about those small fleets for the next eleven months. The fleets had found and destroyed a number of stray ships under power, and found no infestations at all along the way.
And they had popped thousands and thousands of the empty-space bubbles without finding a ship either.
But eleven months and six days after Deep Cycle left, Benny and Gina got an emergency message from Chairman June.
Chairman Constance June was a bright-eyed woman with long red hair, white skin with freckles, and a biting sense of humor that Benny liked.
Benny and Gina sat in their command chair and told Star Rain to keep the communication private for the moment.
Chairman June’s face appeared and Benny was shocked. The woman seemed to have not slept in a very long time from the looks of her eyes and her hair had come loose from how she normally tied it back from her face.
“Chairman,” Gina said, “what happened?”
“We found an infestation,” Chairman June said. “At this point it’s held to about fifty galaxies as far as we can tell.”
Benny just shook his head. Exactly what he had been afraid of.
Exactly.
“Oh, no,” Gina said. Then she said, “Chairman, please send all your data to Star Rain now.”
Chairman June turned and nodded.
A moment later Star Rain said, “I have received the data.”
“Is the infestation containable?” Benny asked Star Rain.
“It is,” Star Rain said.
“Containing is not the issue,” Chairman June said. “Take a look at this.”
Replacing Chairman June’s face an image appeared.
The image was of an alien ship powering through deep space between galaxies. Then another ship with a slightly saucer shape and what almost looked like a tail, like a sting-ray in an ocean, came in from the
side and with one shot destroyed the alien ship.
If Benny hadn’t been firmly held with the form-fitting command chair, he would have gone over backwards.
“What the hell was that?” Benny asked.
“Another group fighting the alien infestation,” Chairman June said.
“Humans?” Gina asked.
Chairman June shook her head.
Benny could see the Chairman was almost in shock. “They have a slight humanoid shape, large heads, no nose or ears, large eyes, and are very short and thin.”
A moment later a picture of the new alien appeared on the screen.
Chairman June had been correct. Huge head, large round eyes, triangle-shaped head.
Benny didn’t find them repulsive as he had some aliens found over the millions of years by Seeder scout ships. Nothing at all like the rat-like aliens they were fighting.
“Not possible,” Gina said. “Those are called the Grays on my home planet.”
“Mine as well,” Chairman June said.
And suddenly Benny realized where he had seen images of these aliens. On television, back on Earth, before the Event destroyed most everything. They had supposedly visited Earth or something like that. He had never paid much attention to that sort of stuff.
Now he wished he had.
Who knew he was going to need it?
EIGHTEEN
GINA FORCED HERSELF to take a deep breath and think.
What they had discovered wasn’t possible by all Seeder records, yet it was happening. The Grays were seemingly fighting an infestation of the aliens.
“Do the Grays know you are there?”
Chairman June shook her head. “We have remained shielded and all Sharks have pulled back inside.”
“Good thinking,” Benny said. “What kind of capability do the Gray ships have?”
“They have standard trans-tunnel drive is all, but they seemed to be able to pinpoint alien ships, so they must have decent scanners,” Captain June said. “They are using the same strategy we are using in letting the aliens have a galaxy once infested, but destroying any alien ship that leaves the galaxy.”
Gina was glad to hear that at least.
“Could you tell the size of their fleet?” Benny asked.
“A half-million ships approximately,” Chairman June said. “And more seem to be coming from the direction on the other side of this alien infestation.”
“Do they seem to be winning against the aliens?” Gina asked.
“Our calculations show that they are not,” Chairman June said.
“Star Rain?” Benny asked. “From the data sent to you, are the Grays winning against the alien infestation?”
Chairman June is correct,” Star Rain said. “The Grays stand a zero percent chance against the alien infestation.”
“Yet we can defeat it?” Gina asked.
“We can,” Star Rain said.
Gina glanced at Benny who looked at her and nodded.
“Chairman June,” Gina said. “Please hold your position and continue to feed Star Rain information as you get it.”
Chairman June nodded.
“We will be back to you shortly,” Benny said.
Chairman June’s face vanished to be replaced with an image of the new alien infestation. Compared to what they were fighting here, it was very small.
“Star Rain,” Gina said, “please contact Star Mist and Star Fall and ask for an emergency meeting.”
“Also invite Chairman Ray and Tacita,” Benny said.
Benny and Gina both stood.
“They have agreed,” Star Rain said a moment later.
“I need to find something out before this meeting,” Benny said to Gina.
Benny turned to the thirty friends that was their command crew. He had come to know and respect and trust all of them.
“Honest show of hands,” Benny said, “how many of you on your home worlds heard of aliens called the Grays with big heads and big eyes?”
About three quarters of the command crew raised their hands and then looked at the others around them, surprised.
Benny just shook his head. “There is something very fishy going on. What smells like fish, looks like fish, and tastes like fish, must be fish.”
Gina just shook her head. “Want to bet it’s just another part of history no one bothered to tell us about.”
“No damn bet,” Benny said.
NINETEEN
BENNY WAS GETTING damn tired of not being told things and being fed history in bits and pieces like a kid who didn’t really need to know things. That just made running a massive war like this dangerous.
If the Grays were spotted on so many human planets in so many different galaxies, it was clear there was much more to their presence here than met the eye.
When Benny and Gina arrived in the conference room, Angie and Gage were already in their chairs, as were Ray and Tacita. Carrie and Matt were just pulling out their chairs.
“So we got a fun report from Chairman June of the Deep Cycle,” Benny said as he and Gina sat down. “Seems they found an alien infestation.”
Benny decided he wanted to see what kind of reaction he was going to get from Ray and Tacita.
“Oh, shit,” Gage said, sitting forward.
“What we were worried about,” Gina said, nodding. “Spread to about fifty galaxies and Star Rain tells us we can contain it from the data Chairman June sent us.”
“Good,” Ray said, nodding.
Benny watched as everyone nodded, clearly surprised at the news, but relieved at the fact that the outbreak could be contained.
“But we have one interesting problem,” Gina said.
Benny laughed, pretending he wasn’t really annoyed. “Interesting describes it. Seems the outbreak is already being fought by the Grays.”
Tacita actually jerked and Ray sat back, clearly shocked. In fact, for as old as those two were, that statement rocked them more than Benny had seen them rocked before.
“Grays?” Gage said.
“Are you talking about the mythical aliens that supposedly visited our Earth?” Angie asked. “The ones with the big heads, big eyes, and little tiny bodies?”
“One and the same,” Benny said, nodding.
“We polled our command crew and three quarters of them, from many different galaxies, had heard rumors of the Grays.”
“What the hell?” Matt asked, turning to look at Ray and Tacita.
“Now what haven’t you told us?” Gage asked.
“I’m sick and tired of being kept in the dark all the time,” Angie said, staring at Ray and Tacita.
Benny wasn’t surprised at the anger. He was feeling it as well.
Ray and Tacita just sat there, shaking their heads. Both of them were a long way from their eyes.
Finally Ray sort of took a deep breath and looked at Tacita. “A fleet of them must have followed The Creators and The Exterminators.”
Tacita nodded. “It would be the only explanation.”
“How many ships do they have in the fight?” Ray asked.
“Estimated at about a half million with more coming from the other side of the infestation,” Benny said.
That wouldn’t be a group just following them,” Ray said, clearly puzzled. “This must be closer to their home space.”
Benny didn’t much like the sound of that at all.
“Ships like saucers with tails?” Tacita asked.
“Yes,” Benny said. Then he said simply, “We’re all just sitting here waiting for an explanation and why we were never told of these aliens? We were always told there were no other galaxy-spanning race but humans out here.”
Ray looked at Tacita and she shrugged.
“We had a treaty with the Grays,” Ray said, turning to face the six angry chairmen. “We would wipe their presence from our history, tell no one of their existence, and they would help us in our seeding of galaxies.”
Benny glanced at Gina who just sat there clearly still angry
.
“Back up to the start,” Benny said. “But first, are you telling me that chairmen of mother ships don’t even know about the Grays?”
“There are less than one hundred Seeders in all the known universe that know of their existence,” Tacita said.
“It has been the best kept secret in all of humanities history,” Ray said.
“Seems that secret has sort of hit the bright light of day now,” Gage said.
Ray and Tacita said nothing.
“So why the big secret about this treaty?” Angie asked.
“Because it was the Grays that rescued us on the very first Earth from destroying ourselves,” Tacita said softly.
Benny sat back so hard, the chair rocked.
“They helped us to survive,” Ray said, “but then made us promise we would never help another alien race. It seems they looked on us as a mistake.”
Benny wanted to say, You mean like the aliens we are fighting are a mistake. But he didn’t.
TWENTY
THE SILENCE IN the conference room felt like a thick cloud that made it hard to breathe. Gina pushed back from the table some and just forced herself to breathe.
Then she broke the silence with a question. “How much older are the Grays than humanity?”
“No one knows,” Ray said. “They did not originate in our original galaxy, we do know that. They were only coming through when we were emerging from the original Earth.”
“They may look slightly humanoid,” Tacita said, “but they are a silica-based life form. They live in dry regions of Earth-like planets and underground in vast caverns, completely hidden from the world above them. Too much water is actually deadly to them.”
“So that’s why so many human cultures have seen them?” Angie asked.
Ray nodded. “When we first started terraforming planets, we worked with them to make sure, as best we could, that each planet was suitable for both human and Gray life.”
“They didn’t need that much space,” Tacita said. “Just enough to house a few of what they call their hives.”
“They have been expanding with humanities expansion?” Gage asked.
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