We were led into a conference room after going through a huge maze of corridors. There were seats around a round table and a screen over at the other end of the room. It was a typical conference room. "Take your seats and make yourselves comfortable." Said Schrotanic. "We're waiting for our head, Montwik, to come and brief you about everything." He continued.
We had to wait for another half an hour for Montwik to come. "Rithvik, coming late isn't a habit confined to humans huh?" Leo asked, sarcastically. Schrotanic acted as if he hadn't heard this comment. Finally, Montwik walked in and Schrotanic did a military salute. Montwik looked at us like he expected us to do the same, but we just sat there, not moving a muscle. Respect doesn't come naturally to humans, I guess. Montwik walked over to the front of the room and looked at each and every one of us in the eye. Not a word came out of his mouth. The room was silent except for the blow of the air conditioning unit.
"So, tell me about your mission. From the beginning." Montwik spoke, at last, looking at me, probably knowing I was the captain and in charge of my crew. I stood up, a tiny bit of hope fluttering inside me. I had hope that this guy right here would show some empathy and more hopefully some sympathy and help us by convincing the higher powers that we were not worth the fight and to let us go. Well, it was a far shot, but these were desperate times where hope was the only thing which kept us going.
"Sir." I started. "We come from the planet Earth, which was a habitable planet until about a hundred years ago. But then war and pollution wrecked havoc on our planet, throwing normal life out of gear. Just when we thought that the worst was over, the sun's core started to become unstable. This caused the sun to spew out harmful solar flares which immediately fried all our electrical equipment and our satellites on the surface. We were forced to take shelter in underground shelters which eventually turned into underground cities. But then we made another shocking discovery. We found that we only had a limited time left before the core of our sun would collapse upon itself, producing a phenomenon which would represent a supernova which would destroy our planet completely. We set out to revive our space programs and sent out satellites which kept scouring the universe for planets which could sustain life to save ourselves from extinction. We finally found this planet, which we call Planet G, and we sent out a ship to confirm our finding but we lost contact with it soon after it entered the time warp. The same happened to two more ships before us but we then realised, from the message from the last ship that we were dealing with aliens. We set out with weapons, hoping to take you on but something went really wrong with our time warp and we ended up in the uncharted territories of the universe. We were then sucked into the wormhole and we ended up right where we were supposed to be. Sir, if you could please leave us, we will go back to where we came from and would never come back." I said.
"Answer what is asked. Nothing more." Montwik interrupted me. He walked around the table once and went back to his original place. "Did you seriously think that you could come here in two small ships and take out an entire army who happen to be playing on home turf?" He asked me. "Desperate times give rise to desperate measures, sir." I replied. Montwik looked at me and smiled. "I agree with you, Captain. These are desperate times indeed." He replied. "So Captain, you mentioned that your sun had become unstable. Care to explain to us why?" Montwik asked me, his forehead wrinkling. I looked over my crew. I knew exactly what he was asking about. Project Solaris. I then looked at Reneesh who shot me a glance of warning. He obviously didn't want me to tell about the Project, at least not in front of the crew. That would make them lose trust in us? I didn't know. I decided to play it safe. "It was due to some natural incident we don't know about. And sir, I am an astronaut, not a scientist. When the scientists said the flares were caused due to the instability in the core of the sun, I took their word for it." I said. "You sure?" He interrupted again. "Ummm.. Yes." I replied, looking at Reneesh again. Montwik took a deep breath in. "Well crew, here's your captain, lying to you." He said. All the crew looked at me. And I looked down at the ground. "What are you talking about? Do you mean to say that you know what happened to our sun more than we do ourselves? With all due respect sir, stop bullshitting us." Leo started.
"Leo, stop." Reneesh ordered.
Leo looked at Reneesh. "He just called Rithvik a liar and you want me to shut up? You better stand up and fight this guy, Reneesh." Leo said. "Leo, he is right. We do know why the sun started becoming unstable, and no the answer is not natural circumstances. Project Solaris was a quadrillion dollar program funded by some of the erstwhile richest countries of the Earth. The idea was to harness the energy released by the sun, by creating a chain of energy harnessing equipment which would orbit the sun, forming a complete circle around it. This energy was to be beamed back to Earth where it would be distributed. All the equipment was set in place and the system came online. But almost instantaneously, the harnessed energy, instead of being beamed to Earth, was sent crashing into the core of the sun before the people back on Earth could pull the plug. The governments decided to keep all of this highly confidential and went to far lengths to protect this secret. We wish we had let you know about this sooner, but we were under strict instructions not to tell anyone about this." Renesh said. All my crew mates were staring at the both of us. "How did the both of you get to know about it?" Souvik asked. "We had a friend who knew it through his father about the mission. Both of them were not heard of again. Rumour has it that the government was willing to kill people to keep the information contained." I replied.
"Well, I think we've heard enough." Montwik interrupted. "I think it is pretty obvious now. Your own Captains have lied to you. They have kept information which you deserved to know away from you, and did not tell you until they had no other choice. You government killed people in the hundreds to keep this program under the rugs. This is the kind of species you are. You don't deserve to survive. We chose to end your species and start over." Montwik replied.
"What do you mean start over? Who are you to decide who lives and who dies?" Leo asked. "Oh, do you really want to know who we are?" Montwik asked, his smile returning to his face. "Yes, and I want to know where this false sense of authority you feel right now originated from." Leo replied. "Well, I've been waiting for this day for so long. Well, for the other species, I did not break the news myself, my boss did it himself, but I've been waiting for this opportunity." Montwik said. "What are you even talking about?" Leo asked, puzzled.
"Well, Leo. We are your creators." Montwik replied.
***
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Mission Orion: The Travel through Time
Science Fiction[HIGHEST RANK: #1 IN SCIENCE FICTION] The world is ravaged by a nuclear war. Borders were redrawn, powers had shifted. But the worst was yet to come. The sun was soon becoming a supernova, wiping out the planets. There was no other option left but...
