Chapter No.21 Mistake
You learn by doing, sometimes the hard way.
"Well," I said. "We're ready to head on out to see if we could find the mother of the human species. Take us out to the Cygnus Epsilon system, Judy."
Our ship quickly accelerated out of Earth orbit and shot away to quickly reach half the speed of light. We didn't feel any of it thanks to the gravity control system, an essential system that relies upon the manipulation of graviton particles.
After a few minutes, Judy turned to me. "We are ready to go to warp, Jason."
I swallowed hard. "Do it."
In a flash, the ship felt as if we were being spun around like a top even though we weren't. I looked at the warp number and gulped. It was over 17.5, a number that was beyond what was considered theoretically possible.
I looked over at Molly. "Holy shit!"
She just smiled, a satisfied smile at that. I don't blame her. Her work was the epitome of advanced physics, an achievement that put her up with the great thinkers like Einstein, Hawking, and Sharma.
"At this warp, we'll be there in twenty minutes," I said, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
"I don't really know if this system is home to an intelligent species," she said. "The rocky planet in the habitable zone is slightly larger than Earth and it has a sizable atmosphere, but I'm not sure how much oxygen it contains."
"It doesn't matter. If we don't find anything, we'll just go on to another system."
We came out of warp a million kilometers away from the habitable planet. Judy slowed us down to about a quarter of light.
Molly frowned. "There are two vessels attacking the planet. They resemble the Scath alien ships."
"Shit!" I turned to Judy. Take us in while cloaked. Go to Red Alert. Prepare the Gamma Ray blasters for action."
"Yes, Jason."
Madison, the android who operates the weapons, rushed onto the command deck and took her position.
"When we are within range, take us out of cloak and fire on those ships," I told Judy.
"Yes, Jason."
Molly sighed. "I didn't expect a battle. I can't imagine why they're attacking this planet."
"Who knows, but we sure as hell have the duty to stop them from destroying an entire species."
Our ship came out of cloak and Madison began blasting the attacking ships with intensely focused gamma ray blasts. They literally ripped the enemy ships open as if they were oysters.
One of the ships turned and engaged us, but Madison tore it up, causing it to explode. We barely escaped the debris, but we took a few very hard plasma hits, causing our ship to vibrate like a tuning fork.
Judy and Madison wasted no time in finishing off the enemy vessels.
We entered orbit and everything returned to normal, but Molly and I were still trying to calm our nerves.
"That was intense," I said in a calm but still edgy voice.
Molly was more interested in trying to determine how much damage the Scath aliens had inflicted on the planet. "There are some very ugly scars on the main metropolis," she said. "Fortunately, they're not a total destruction."
"Good thing we arrived when we did," I said. "I wonder what these aliens will think about what we did."
"We don't even know if they realize we're here."
I turned to Judy. "Launch some insect probes and send them down to that city."
"They're on the way, Jason."
After several minutes, we began to see the video and audio feeds from the insect probes.
"These aliens look like furry cartoon creatures," I said. "They don't look all that large."
"They're about one and a quarter meters in height. I'm not sure if they have genders. They all look the same."
"They're all over the damaged areas," I said. "I assume that they're searching for survivors."
"They do have what appears to be flying machines," Molly said. "I'm not sure if they could come up to our altitude."
We allowed the universal translator to work out a translation of their spoken language. There was nothing in their conversations that indicated that they were violent or dangerous.
We remained in orbit without cloaking for few days before the next incident.
"I'm detecting a small vessel climbing up into our orbit," Molly said.
"Go to Yellow Alert," I said. "I don't think they have the capability to cause us any damage, but I don't want to take any chances."
Judy gave me a nod.
"The small vessel is slowly approaching us. I assume it's trying to match our orbital velocity."
"I wonder if they're trying to communicate with us."
"I'm not detecting any transmissions," Molly said. "I'm not detecting any weapons on that vessel."
"Their planet's atmosphere is very close to Earth's," I said. "Maybe we could pull them into our shuttle bay."
I turned to Judy. "Open the shuttle bay door. Let's see what they do."
We watched the vessel slowly move closer and enter the shuttle bay.
"Close the bay door and pressure it. Let's go find out what they want."
Molly and I went to the shuttle bay with four androids carrying weapons. We stood near the vessel and waited. I held a universal translator rod in my right hand.
After several minutes, a hatch to the shuttle-like vessel swung up and three aliens exited. They swiveled their heads around as if afraid, but it was difficult to tell what constituted that emotion in an alien species.
They were bipedal and had two paws with three bear-like fingers. They were totally covered with a brown fur that seemed to be coarse in some parts of their body and smooth in others, such as their faces and hands.
They had two front-facing eyes that resembled those of a cat. Their mouth structures were lipless and seemed to be in a constant frown. They had teddy bear ears and bellies. Their feet were like pods with three toes. This species would make an anthropologist excited by how comical their characteristics were.
Welcome to our vessel," I said into the universal translator. It came out as weird pops, clicks and hisses.
"We thank you for saving us from total destruction," One of them said.
I couldn't tell if it was a male or female, assuming that they had two sexes. "We are sorry that we did not arrive sooner."
"Why did you come here?" the alien asked.
"We are searching for members of our species. Almost all life on our planet was destroyed by a large rock from space. We wish to repopulate our planet with individuals that were taken by another species for food."
"We have not seen any species like yours," the alien said. "Did the ones who attacked us take your people?"
"No," I said. "We have encountered them recently, but they are not the ones that have taken our people for food. Have you encountered them before this?"
"No," the alien replied. "We do not know why they attacked us."
That bothered me. It meant that the Scath were attacking habitable planets for no reason other than to annihilate intelligent species. This means that if we don't find humans soon, we might not ever find them.
"We will leave now," the alien said before he and his companions entered their shuttle-like craft.
The androids, Molly and I left the shuttle bay.
"I am detecting an explosive device, Jason," I heard Judy's voice say.
"Oh shit!" I exclaimed. "They're going to detonate a device in their shuttle craft!" I turned to Marcia, one of the androids that was with us. "Open the shuttle bay without depressurizing it."
The instant the shuttle bay door opened, the air inside the bay wanted desperately to escape, and the pressure differential blew the alien shuttlecraft out of the bay. Fortunately, magnetic clamps lock all of our shuttles down to the floor so that they stayed put.
"Close the bay door," I ordered. "Activate maximum shielding."
The alien craft exploded much more violently than I had expected. It imparted a annoying ringing effect to our ship.
"Why would they want to blow up our ship?" Molly asked, her eyes still large with excitement.
"That's a good question. I think that they know more about the Scath than they let on."
"I am detecting weapon launches from the surface," Judy's voice said.
"Move us out of here at maximum velocity," I ordered.
I slumped in my chair. "I don't understand why they're attacking their savior, but I'm not about to wait around to find out."
"Where are we going to go now?" Molly asked.
"I think we'll try that rocky planet orbiting a M-class dwarf that you thought might be habitable."
Molly nodded, but I'm not sure she was as enthusiastic as she once was about searching for intelligent aliens. To tell the truth, I wasn't either.