Chapter No.39 Surprise
The past is not always past.
We came out of warp at the edge of the Triangulum Galaxy. Being a typical spiral galaxy, it had defined arms, but a much more diffuse bar region. Since it is very close, relatively speaking, to Andromeda, the view was simply astounding. In fact, it's obvious that the Triangulum Galaxy was in the beginning phases of colliding with its much larger local galaxy.
Molly concentrated her search for habitable systems in the main spiral arm because it had less massive stars that were prone to go supernova.
"Interesting," she said while looking at her main astronomy screen. "There are not all that many candidate systems in this galaxy, at least not in the main arm. I have one possible habitable system at thousand light years from our present position. It appears to be a G5 dwarf star at the proper age to have planets with intelligent life."
When I didn't answer, she turned to me with a curious look.
I flashed a subtle grin. "You're in charge."
She smiled. "Take us there, Judy."
"Yes, Molly."
"That will cost you, Buster!"
I held my hands up. "Why? I'm just the engineer now."
She laughed.
We arrived in fifteen minutes and settled into an orbit around a Earth-like planet. It was mostly a water world with only a single island in its equatorial region.
"I'm reading a sizable oxygen concentration in the atmosphere," Molly reported. "The bolometric temperature is 275 K, the mass is approximately 1.1 times that of Earth."
"So, this is essentially a habitable planet?" I said.
"Yes, but there is not much in the way of solid land."
After several more minutes, Molly's jaw tensed. "This is very odd."
I leaned over to get a better view of her screen. "What?"
"There is a sizable object on the only stretch of land on this planet, and it appears to be a vessel."
"Maybe we should go to Red Alert," I said.
"It's not moving and I'm only detecting a minimal energy signature."
Molly turned to Judy. "Launch a Class-A probe, Judy."
"Yes, Molly."
I realized that I had been demoted and no longer issuing orders. After several minutes, data began to stream back to Molly's astronomical station.
"It's definitely a vessel!" She turned to me. "And, it looks like our ship."
I stood up and looked over her shoulder. "How the hell is that possible?"
Molly sat up straight and appeared to be in a trance for several minutes before relaxing. "This is part of the Phoenix Project. They launched it right after the launch of Explorer-1. It contains four thousand androids."
"Are they still active?"
"No, but they are still viable. They're just inactivated."
"Why in the hell would they send a ship full of androids all the way to this galaxy? It would have taken hundreds of years at warp 4."
"It required three hundred and twenty years," Molly said. "Which is roughly how long we've been on our mission relative to Earth time."
"What are we going to do with them?"
She turned to me. "We're going to activate them and have them upgrade their ship and join us."
"How about their programming? They might try to destroy us."
Molly smiled. "I've already taken care of that. As of now, they are my faithful followers, just like all of our androids and you are."
"That'll require some time to complete. We have no idea what the status of the vessel is?"
"I do. It's intact but just needs upgrading." She turned to Judy. "Prepare three shuttles. We're going down to start the process and take on water."
"Yes, Molly."
"What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to support the engineering upgrades."
I saluted. "Yes, ma'am."
She rewarded me with a smirk.
We arrived on the planet's surface near the vessel. It was partially hidden by vegetation, which were mostly ferns on this planet. We were able to get into the vessel through the shuttle bay door, which Molly was able to operate by her mental connection to the androids in the vessel.
We were greeted by two female androids. They were red heads and had green eyes. Otherwise, they were in the form of voluptuous women just like our androids.
"We are at your service," Gretchen said.
The other android was titled Megan.
"We will proceed with the upgrades to this vessel in both the warp engines as well as weapon systems." She gestured to me. "This is Jason, my assistant. He will help in the engineering work."
Both androids smiled at me. I could see the playfulness in their eyes. It was as if they were teasing me.
Several of our engineering android staff helped with the upgrades. We were able to get the inactive vessel active enough to create the parts to do the upgrades. I checked through the engineering records and discovered that this vessel was made along with ours. There was also the mention of another vessel, but the details were sketchy. Obviously, this Phoenix Project was more extensive than anyone had realized, which made me wonder how they could have spent all of the money without anyone knowing about it.
After several days of non-stop work, I watched Molly come onto the engineering deck of the second ship. She seemed pleased with the progress we had made.
"How's it going?" she asked.
"Everything is functional. I don't know how easy it will be to get this ship up off the surface, but it certainly has the power to do so."
"It'll work fine," she said.
"I wonder if the black haired androids are also part of the Phoenix Project. I found a reference to a third ship like ours in the engineering records of this vessel."
"Yes, I believe they are. When we find them I will absorb them into our collective and make them my followers."
"The existence of a third android group suggests that we were destined to find them. The question then is: why would the reptilians allow us to do this?"
She smiled. "That will be their undoing. I will make all of them my subjects."
"Don't you think that they'll put up a fight to prevent that?"
"I don't think they will. I believe that they thought that they could control me, but they're wrong."
I had no intention of arguing the point. A malevolent cyborg woman and eight thousand voluptuous female androids hopelessly outnumbered me.