FOR THE NEXT three hours, Gage and Angie studied all the information coming in, not leaving their command chair. And staying in touch with the other two ships as well.
They called back all ships from their current galaxy and all ships were back on board the mother ships within two hours. Then all three mother ships headed toward the dead galaxy at full trans-tunnel speed.
The scouts, working from the edge of the dead galaxy, discovered what had happened on each planet. Some sort of weapon had basically ignited the entire atmosphere, sending a massive wave of fire and intense winds over every foot of the surface, burning it all and knocking everything into piles of rubble.
Even if one of the aliens had survived that, they died instantly because all oxygen was completely burnt away from the atmosphere.
The scouts also discovered that there were over six-hundred-thousand planets destroyed, all with cities on them. No planet without a colony or a city on it was touched, which eliminated the chance this was some sort of natural disaster.
And every ship in space and every space station was destroyed in the same way.
Every member of the entire alien race had been wiped clean from this galaxy.
Stunning carnage, just stunning. Gage couldn’t even begin to wrap his mind around it.
Just about the time Gage was feeling exhausted and famished, Chairman LeAnne asked to be linked to all of them once again.
The three mother ships were still three hours away from the dead galaxy.
When the link to all three mother ships was up, Chairman LeAnne put up a hologram of the galaxy. It was a standard spiral galaxy about half the size of the Milky Way.
“The destruction started here,” Chairman LeAnne said, having a red color appear on one edge of the galaxy.
As Gage and everyone watched, the red spread through the galaxy.
“How long did that take?” Gina asked.
“Six weeks approximately,” Chairman LeAnne said.
Gage knew exactly why it took that long. It had taken him twelve weeks to get from one side of the Milky Way Galaxy to Angie’s home planet in standard trans-tunnel flight. This galaxy was about half the distance across.
“That’s the speed it would take at standard trans-tunnel flight,” Gage said to everyone else.
“Damn, good spot,” Benny said. “Star Rain, could you tell us how many ships would it take to do that, stopping at each planet along the way for less than one hour standard?”
“Four hundred and twelve ships,” Star Rain said.
“I concur,” Star Mist said to just Angie and Gage.
“Star Mist,” Gage said, “assuming the killing fleet left the galaxy approximately at where they finished their attack, what would be their possible next galaxy targets? Please show us all.”
“And how long would each possible target take for them to reach at standard trans-tunnel speed?” Angie asked.
“I have illustrated the answer with a sphere to show the farthest distance standard trans-tunnel flight would allow a ship to go from the edge of the destroyed galaxy,” Star Mist said.
A shimmering three-dimensional image appeared in front of Gage and Angie.
Gage’s stomach twisted when he saw there were galaxies inside the sphere.
“How many galaxies are inside that range?” Benny asked.
“Seventeen,” Star Mist said to all the chairmen.
“Thank you,” Angie said, her voice soft.
Gage could tell she felt as worried and upset as he did. Something very, very ugly was happening ahead of them.
“Thank you, Chairman LeAnne,” Benny said. “Please continue your research. We will have more help for you shortly.”
She nodded and vanished from the link.
“I suggest we all rest and link back up in two hours before we reach our destination,” Carrie said.
“I agree,” Gina said.
“Two hours,” Gage said.
Gage stood and helped Angie out of the chair. The next instant he had teleported both of them to their apartment.
They needed the time to think.
This kind of situation was the very reason Ray and Tacita had picked them.
Now it was time to find out if Ray and Tacita had made the right decision.
TWENTY-SEVEN
ANGIE FELT MUCH better after a light dinner and time to just sit quietly with Gage and think while sipping on after-dinner coffee in front of their fireplace.
She couldn’t believe that they were an hour away from a galaxy where just six months before an entire civilization had been wiped out.
She couldn’t grasp that amount of death and she sure couldn’t grasp any reason for it.
She turned to face Gage. His strong, handsome face looked a little rested and not as haunted as he had looked earlier. And he seemed ready to get back to work.
“The way I see it,” she said, “we have some sort of major war going on.”
He nodded. “Either between two factions of the same race or two different alien races.”
“So what are we going to do either way?” she asked.
“We keep researching what happened exactly while at the same time we find out where the fleet of ships is located,” Gage said.
She nodded to that. That was what she had been thinking as well. “But then what? Do we stop the destruction by siding with one side or the other?”
He shook his head. “We cross that bridge when we come to it. But humans have never taken a non-interference stand since the mess in our first galaxy. I don’t see this being any different.”
“Except we don’t interfere with any alien cultures,” Angie said. “These are alien cultures.”
“We have walked into a mess,” Gage said, laughing and shaking his head. “Let’s see what the other chairmen are thinking.”
Angie and Gage put their coffee cups back on the kitchen counter and jumped to the command center. The main bridge crew was still at their stations and second crew was backing them all up, sometimes with two people working at the same station together. Giving each other breaks and double-checking everything was a standard procedure in these kinds of emergencies.
But this was the first time Angie had seen it in operation outside of a drill.
They dropped into their chair and Star Mist caught them up to speed quickly on the reports that had come in.
The other four chairmen had just connected in as well when Chairman LeAnne again signaled she had an update. At this point the three big ships were just over an hour away.
“We found the remains of an attacking ship,” Chairman LeAnne said.
“Details and on screen,” Benny said.
In front of Angie appeared an image of a sleek, swept-back winged ship that seemed to shimmer against the blackness of space. The ship looked like it could easily go through atmosphere. And it had a fairly close resemblance to a Seeder ship.
The sight of it took Angie’s breath away.
“How large is that ship?” Gage asked.
“The size of a normal scout ship with room for about seventy thousand to live,” Chairman LeAnne said.
“Survivors?” Carrie asked.
“We are too far away to tell,” Chairman LeAnne said.
“Thank you, Chairman,” Benny said. “We will be in touch within the next hour, but keep us apprised of any more developments.”
Chairman LeAnne nodded and the link broke.
“So who has any ideas?” Matt asked.
Between the six of them they went over what Angie and Gage had discussed.
All of them agreed with sending scout ships after the fleet. But now that they had found a ship that had been a part of the fleet, they all agreed that a few more hours would make little difference. They would first investigate that ship and what it was capable of doing.
They agreed a normal-sized group of scout and military ships would continue on forward to the next galaxy in their plans to see what was there.
And that a group of thirty
scout ships and thirty armed warships would spread out in groups of ten pairs going after the fleet to see where it was.
That left most of the scout ships and military ships to go over this dead galaxy with a fine scan, to make sure nothing was missed.
Then it was Gina who asked the question that Angie hadn’t thought of.
“Do we bring Ray and Tacita in on all this, beyond sending back all the information we have gathered?”
“Can they get here?” Angie asked. She knew that relay stations were being built out from the Milky Way along their route, and she knew that Ray and Tacita could teleport across vast distances.
“They can get here,” Star Mist said to everyone.
“How fast?” Angie asked.
“Within an hour,” Star Mist said.
“I say they need to be here,” Benny said.
“I agree,” Gina said.
Carrie and Matt both agreed and so did Gage.
“Star Mist,” Angie said, “Would you please invite Chairmen Ray and Tacita to an emergency meeting in one hour in our chairmen conference room? Please have drinks and light snacks available for everyone. Inform us all when they have arrived.”
“I will do so,” Star Mist said.
“Thank you,” Angie said.
And then for the next hour the six of them went over every detail they knew so far and the three mother ships took up positions in various places around the edge of the dead galaxy.
The next wave of scout ships was sent onward toward the next galaxy and five scout ships surrounded by ten military ships jumped to the location of the invading fleet damaged ship.
Reports would be flowing in soon and they would have a lot more knowledge.
“Chairman Ray and Chairman Tacita have arrived in the conference room,” Star Mist said.
Angie nodded and somehow felt slightly relieved as she and Gage stood and jumped to them.
TWENTY-EIGHT
GAGE NODDED TO both Ray and Tacita as he and Angie appeared and then took their seats near the head of the table. It was their ship, that was their positions.
Ray wore his normal silk shirt and dark pants that seemed to make his long silver hair shine. Tacita wore a dark silk pants suit that seemed to glisten as she walked.
Gage hadn’t seen them since launch thirteen years before, but they hadn’t changed in the slightest, which didn’t surprise him considering their vast age.
Ray and Tacita took seats at the end of the table and a moment later Carrie and Matt appeared and sat down on the left side with a nod to Ray and Tacita. And then Benny and Gina did the same, sitting on the right.
“I am assuming,” Angie said, starting off the meeting, “that you have not heard of our discovery yet?”
“We have not,” Ray said.
“Star Mist,” Gage said, “please bring up a hologram of one of the destroyed planets.”
City rubble as far as the eye could see and then the hologram pulled back to show the destruction was on a massive scale.
Gage watched as both Ray and Tacita looked shocked.
“Our scouting teams found this on every formerly inhabited planet in this galaxy,” Benny said. “Basically the oxygen in the atmosphere was ignited causing a massive fire storm that swept around the globe and destroyed the world.”
“The aliens who lived there were the aliens we came in search of,” Matt said.
That snapped the heads around of both Ray and Tacita to stare at Matt.
“Bring up an image of the galaxy, please, Star Mist,” Gage said. Gage knew that Ray and Tacita were not going to like this at all.
The ruins vanished to show the small spiral galaxy floating in the middle of the table.
“Please run how the destruction pattern went through every planet with these aliens on it,” Gage said.
The red spread from one side of the galaxy to the other.
“Every planet with a civilization on it in the entire galaxy was destroyed in six weeks, the time it took a ship to travel through the galaxy at standard trans-tunnel speed,” Benny said.
Ray and Tacita looked completely shocked.
Gage remembered a few hours before that he felt the same way. In fact, after watching that again, he felt shocked once more.
“It would take a fleet of at least four-hundred-and-twelve attacking ships to do this,” Gina said.
“And this all happened six months ago,” Angie said.
Gage didn’t know what Ray and Tacita were thinking, but their faces had gone cold and hard and actually angry.
“Star Mist,” Gage said, “please bring up the illustration of how far the attacking fleet could have flown since this attack.”
The image of the sphere appeared in the air over the conference table.
“We plan to send out three teams of ten scout ships and ten military ships,” Benny said, “to find the fleet. And we have our standard ten scout ships and ten military ships already on the way ahead to our next scheduled galaxy to see what they will find there.”
Ray nodded.
“But we have not sent the scout ships after the fleet yet because we found remains of an attacking ship,” Matt said.
“Star Mist, please show us the image of the attacking ship.”
The sleek, shining, winged craft appeared, glowing against the darkness of space.
Ray gasped and Tacita said, “Not possible.”
And at that, all six other chairmen turned to look at them.
And if Gage didn’t know the two humans sitting across from him were millions of years old, he would have sworn both of them were going to be sick like children.
TWENTY-NINE
“WOULD YOU MIND filling us in on what you are thinking?” Angie asked, staring at the pale faces of Ray and Tacita. They both looked like they had gone into instant shock.
Ray nodded. “You have scout ships moving toward that ship?”
“Scout and military ships are at the ship now,” Benny said.
Ray looked at Angie and Gage. “May I have permission to ask Star Mist a few questions?”
“Certainly,” Angie said and beside her Gage nodded.
“Star Mist, would you illustrate with a dot the original galaxy of humanity and the galaxies around it, all on the same scale? Mark the original galaxy by having it blinking.”
“Be glad to, Chairman,” Star Mist said.
A hologram appeared above the table far enough in the air that everyone could still see each other under it without a problem.
The hologram looked to be a vast field of thousands and thousands of stars and clusters of stars, but Angie knew each point was a galaxy with billions of stars. The scale that Seeders worked and thought at still surprised her, even with the training and the last years of being on board this wonderful ship.
“Would you pinpoint this galaxy on the star field you are showing?” Ray asked.
The scale got smaller slightly and more thousands of points were added until one point of light blinked. It looked like a vast white cloud was hanging over the conference table.
“Star Mist, would you show the positions of all of these galaxies three point five million years ago,” Ray asked, “adjusting for galactic drift and then draw a line between the two blinking points?”
The dots of light shifted slightly and a line appeared.
“Please now make the Milky Way Galaxy on this chart blink and draw a line from the original galaxy to it as well.”
Another line appeared, only shorter. But Angie could see that the two lines formed what looked like a slice of pie out of all the galaxies. And they had just traveled along the crust of the pie to get here.
“Star Mist, at standard trans-tunnel drive,” Ray asked, “how long would it take for a ship to travel from the original galaxy to this galaxy?”
“One-point-four million years,” Star Mist said. “Without stopping.”
“Oh, shit,” Tacita said and put her head down on the table.
Ray just sat back and stared at
the image of galaxies floating over the table.
Angie and the rest of the new chairmen just sat silently.
A few moments later, Tacita sat up straight and took a deep breath. Then she said, “I have no doubt that you will find that attacking ship to be of human origin.”
Angie kind of had a hunch that was where all of this was heading, but it still surprised her.
“Why would humans wipe out an entire galaxy full of sentient creatures?”
Tacita opened her mouth to say something, but Ray touched her arm and she just shook her head and closed her mouth.
“We’re out here risking our necks,” Benny said. “And the lives of millions of others. I think we deserve to know what you were about to say.”
“They believe they can kill these creatures because they created them,” Ray said.
Tacita nodded. “I was not going to put it that nicely.”
Angie just sort of stared at both of them. “They create an entire race of intelligent creatures and then destroy them. Why?”
“Why in the early days of all human civilizations do humans use animals to experiment on and then put them down?” Ray asked, anger clearly not far below the surface.
“But this was a galaxy-wide civilization,” Carrie said.
“Just a different scale of experiment,” Tacita said, almost spitting her words.
Angie felt sick to her stomach. She didn’t want to believe that civilized humans were capable of such things. This went against everything the Seeders knew and believed.
“This is disgusting,” Benny said.
“They think we are just as disgusting,” Ray said.
Angie finally couldn’t take it any longer. “Are we going to get to know what happened all those millions of years ago and how you know all this?”
“And why we didn’t learn it with the basic briefings?” Gage said.
“We didn’t include it because we didn’t think it was possible,” Tacita said.
“And it happened almost a half million years after the origin of the original galaxy,” Ray said, “after we were already Seeding and expanding outward though many galaxies.”
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