Star Fields

Chapter No. 186. Revival.

Chapter No. 186. Revival.

It ain't over until it's over!

The next morning when we were in our assigned stations on the command deck, I told Judy to take us out to the galaxy in the Virgo cluster where she had detected a signal from her twin sister, Jane.

"That's NGC 4388, a spiral galaxy approximately 58 million light years from Earth," Molly said.

"Why didn't we detect her signal before now?" I asked.

"Her frequency is not in the current range that ours is," she replied. "It might be because she's part of a collective that's shielded."

"Shielded?"

"Yeah, like we shield ours to avoid being detected."

"Sounds like we're involved in a digital war," I said.

"Pretty much."

It only required a few minutes to arrive at that galaxy using spin drive. Judy positioned us above the galaxy so that Molly could employ her virtual mirror telescope system to find habitable planets.

After an hour, she had discovered some candidates. "I have three possibilities, but my choice is for a G5 class dwarf star with no companion star. It has five gas giants with only two inner rocky planets."

"Take us there, Judy."

We were within a billion kilometers of the planet after an hour at maximum warp.

"I'm not detecting any threats," Marie said. "There is no sign of any vessels approaching our position."

"Take us to within a million kilometers, Judy. Remain at full cloak."

After we arrived at that position, Margaret had a report. "The second rocky planet is 1.5 times larger than Earth and it has an atmosphere that has close to ten percent oxygen. The rest is mostly nitrogen."

"The planet is mostly oceans," Molly said. "I'm not surprised because the gas giants obviously kicked a lot of ice laden asteroids into the inner system to bombard the two remaining rocky planets with plenty of water."

"Is there any land mass on this planet?" I asked.

"Yes, but it's mostly small islands scattered around the equator, which is tilted about thirty degrees to the ecliptic."

"I'm not detecting any signs of structures or anything that would constitute intelligent life on any of those islands," Margaret said."

"I'm not detecting any radio signals," Alicia said.

"If Jane is here, she must be hiding," I said.

"If she is, it's underwater," Molly said.

"Put us in orbit, Judy."

We entered orbit at four hundred kilometers and began a more thorough search using X-ray and infrared scans.

After several minutes, Molly had something. "I've detected a rather large object underwater near the largest island. It's saucer shaped, about five thousand meters in diameter."

"What's it made of?"

"It's metallic, a mix of titanium and vanadium, and other assorted elements."

"That's definitely not natural. Could androids be in that object?"

"It's possible," Molly said.

I looked at Alexa. "I guess it's up to us to find out what's going on."

She replied with a frown.

We teleported to inside the saucer shaped object. We were in a chamber that appeared to be a command center. Several androids were seated around at stations. One of those androids looked exactly like Judy.