“Here we go,” Chairman West said. “All systems show green. Everyone stand ready.”
Benny and Gina turned and sat in their command chairs and Star Rain took over feeding them information across their screens. The Creators were going to be in for a shock since Star Rain was about four times the size of The Creators’ biggest mother ship.
And when the ships were free, Rescue One and all of the smaller ships would jump to the new trans-tunnel flight and just vanish as far as The Creators’ sensors would know.
“Permission to go?” Chairman West asked Benny and Gina.
Benny glanced at Gina and she nodded.
“Go,” Benny said.
“Star Rain,” Benny said, “stand ready to get us out of here instantly at any sign of trouble.”
“Understood,” Star Rain said.
“Mission is a go,” Chairman West said.
A moment later an invisible bubble lit up as hundreds of thousands of small explosions spaced evenly around the empty space bubble punctured a hole in the gravitational membrane.
A moment later The Creators’ fleet appeared.
West and his smaller ships vanished, leaving only Star Rain facing the fleet.
Benny studied the ships.
Seven-hundred-plus small ships, and all of them looked well-used. Four larger ships, three that he knew were nothing more than factory ships to build the explosives to blow up planets and build more small ships. The largest ship was the lead mother ship.
Luckily there were no alien ships also trapped in this bubble. Benny and Gina had a few dozen Sharks standing off ready in case there had been.
The Creators’ fleet floated in space.
Benny and Gina just sat there, waiting.
From the perspective of The Creators’ fleet, their trans-tunnels drives had suddenly shut down, then a moment later fifty ships surrounded them and then vanished, leaving only one big ship.
Six months had passed since the fleet had gone into the bubble, but to them it had only been a few seconds at most. So Benny and Gina were under no illusion that this was going to be a very interesting meeting.
“We are being hailed by the mother ship Stahl,” Star Rain said.
“On our screens and the main screen,” Gina said.
“Language translation complete,” Star Rain said. “You will be speaking the language on the ship you are talking with.”
“Thank you, Star Rain,” Gina said.
An instant later a woman who looked to be about thirty, as all Seeders looked, appeared. She had dark brown hair chopped short and dark brown eyes. Her nose was long and her eyes set slightly too close together.
Benny and Gina had their image sent to her as well.
“I am Chairman Havemann of the mother ship Stahl,” she said. “May I inquire as to what just happened and who you might be?”
Benny and Gina had decided that if the captain was a man, he would talk, if a woman, Gina would talk.
“Chairmen Slade and Helm of the Seeder mother ship Star Rain,” Gina said. “You and your fleet were trapped for the last six months in an empty-space bubble. We just freed you.”
“Six months?” Havemann asked.
She glanced around and clearly someone behind her confirmed that six months of time had passed. She turned back and Benny almost laughed at how her face had gone pale.
“I owe you our thanks,” she said, bowing slightly.
Benny was surprised. From what Ray and Tacita had said, he did not expect any kind of courtesy or respect from anyone in this fleet.
“You are more than welcome,” Gina said.
Benny could tell that Gina was surprised as well at the courtesy.
“You are Seeder?” Havemann said. “We only know of you as ancient myth.”
That surprised Benny as well, but Ray and Tacita had warned them that might be the case.
“None of your original Creators remain?” Gina asked, her voice level.
Havemann frowned. “I do not understand why you would call us Creators?”
“Didn’t you create this race you are trying to stop?” Gina asked.
“We did that,” Havemann said, nodding with a sad look on her face. “Our ancestors over four hundred generations removed let an experiment get out of hand and we have spent every moment since trying to stop the expansion of the experiment.”
Benny opened his mouth to say something, but Gina squeezed his hand and he didn’t say a word. It was clear to him that these Creators did not live long lifespans like normal Seeders.
In fact, from his quick math of the time since the alien expansion started, these ships were full of just regular life-span humans.
That was something Ray and Tacita had not warned them about. It seemed that the Seeder long-life gene was very rare and was not passed down or activated on these Creators’ ships over the millions of years.
So everyone on the ships had been born on the ships and would die on the ships. They had been fighting these aliens for four hundred plus generations.
Benny just felt stunned at that thought.
The Creators were humans, not Seeders.
FOURTEEN
GINA WAS DOING her best to maintain a calm, collected outer face when talking with Chairman Havemann, but she knew she needed to collect herself a little more and talk with the other chairmen before going on. This meeting was not at all what she had expected.
“Do you have the history of your voyage in space?” Gina asked.
Chairman Havemann shook her head. “We do not. The first part and why we were in space in the first place was lost right after what is known as the ‘awakening.’ We do not honestly know what that even means.”
Gina had a hunch she knew and right now she really, really needed to have a few words with Ray and Tacita.
Maybe forceful words.
Gina smiled at Chairman Havemann. “May I beg your indulgence and ask for a short break. It will give you time to make sure your fleet is fully functional and allow me to consult with others as to what information we can give you.”
Chairman Havemann looked puzzled, but nodded. “Of course.”
“Thank you,” Gina said and cut the connection.
“What the hell is going on?” Benny asked as they both stood.
“That’s exactly what we need to find out,” Gina said. “Star Rain, please ask the other chairmen for an emergency meeting on Star Mist and include Chairmen Ray and Tacita.”
“They have agreed,” Star Rain said a moment later.
Gina took Benny’s hand and a moment later they were in the Star Mist conference room. Gina knew that the other chairmen and Ray and Tacita had listened to the meeting.
Ray and Tacita were sitting at their end of the table when Benny and Gina appeared.
A second later the other four chairmen appeared as well.
“So what didn’t you think to tell us about The Creators, as you called them?” Gina asked, not even trying to keep the anger out of her voice.
“What did you do to sabotage their ship?” Benny asked.
Gage was still standing as well. “That’s why you were surprised that they were here. You didn’t expect them to live much longer after they awoke, did you?”
“We did not,” Tacita said, her voice as cold and low as Gina had ever heard it. “And these aliens we are fighting that they created is the reason we tried to do what we did.”
“And we succeeded,” Ray said. “In what we tried.”
“We should have blown their ships out of space,” Tacita said.
Gina just shook her head, ignoring the anger coming from Tacita. “You sabotaged their ship to destroy their records after they awoke, right?”
“We did,” Ray said, nodding.
“And you made sure their Seeder genes would go dormant while they slept, correct?” Gage asked.
“We did,” Ray said, nodding. “We expected them to settle on a planet and just go from there. It felt like a humane thing to do and still stop their mi
ssion.”
“We never expected them to continue on in space,” Tacita said.
“That was why when we realized who they were,” Ray said, “we assumed our attempt at sabotaging their Seeder genes had failed and that many of the original crew would be still alive.”
“That was why we did not want to talk with them,” Tacita said. “Or even contact them. We held nothing back from you.”
“We had no idea we had succeeded,” Ray said. “Yet failed to stop them at the same time.”
“The fact that hundreds and thousands of generations would have stayed on those ships never occurred to us,” Tacita said. “Otherwise we would have told you that was possible.”
“What about The Exterminators’ fleet?” Gage asked.
“We did the same with them,” Tacita said.
“We could take no chances that something like this might happen,” Ray said.
“In that we failed,” Tacita said.
Ray nodded and both of them looked down at the table.
Gina just felt washed out.
She dropped into a chair and Benny sat down hard beside her.
How stupid was this? They now had two fleets of humans flying from galaxy to galaxy destroying millions of alien-rat-infested planets.
What the hell could she even tell the humans?
Beside her Benny looked around at the chairmen in the room. “That fleet of humans, who are doing nothing more than trying to clean up a mess their distant ancestors caused, will need some sort of answers. Anyone have any bright ideas?”
Gina glanced around the room at all the shaking heads.
Great.
Just great.
FIFTEEN
THE EIGHT CHAIRMEN talked for over a half hour before finally deciding to do nothing for now.
Benny felt disgusted about that, but at least he won on giving the human ships, both fleets, better information. And telling them that the Seeders were also fighting to stop the aliens.
Everyone agreed that should be done.
He and Gina returned to Star Rain and got into their command chair. Then they had Star Rain contact Chairman Havemann again.
Benny had promised Gina he would try to keep his mouth shut. He had no doubt that was going to be difficult at best.
“Sorry for the interruption, Chairman” Gina said. “We had to consult with others before moving forward.”
Chairman Havemann nodded, clearly puzzled, but said nothing.
“We are from a branch of humans called Seeders,” Gina said. “Our ship and many others are here from occupied human galaxies to try to stop these aliens your ancestors created.”
“Occupied human galaxies?” Havemann asked, looking puzzled.
“Humans fill many millions of galaxies now,” Gina said.
Benny was shocked. For a moment he thought Chairman Havemann might break down right there. But somehow the Chairman held it together. But clearly what Gina had said went against much of what those on the ships had learned over the centuries.
“We believed the two fleets were alone in space,” she said. “And we have been unable to find a planet over centuries that we wanted to settle.”
“You are far from alone,” Gina said. “Right now we have over sixty thousand Seeder ships here fighting the alien expansion, with more coming every month from human galaxies.”
“How far is the nearest human galaxy?” Havemann asked, almost breathless.
Benny felt bad. This poor woman and the millions who followed her were doing their best.
“It would take your fleet two-hundred-thousand years to make the journey,” Gina said.
“Oh,” Havemann said.
Benny felt very bad for Havemann at that point. To a human with a normal life-span, as he thought he had not that many years before, two-hundred-thousand years was difficult to even imagine.
Hell, he couldn’t imagine it yet.
“We can discuss all that later,” Gina said, moving on. “But right now we need you and your fleet to continue what you are doing. But we can help you pinpoint galaxies in early alien growth instead of later alien growth.”
Chairman Havemann nodded.
Benny could see her doing her best to focus back on the task at hand.
“That would help all our morale,” Chairman Havemann said.
“My ship is sending you now the next five galaxies you are close to that we need you to take care of,” Gina said. “We have decided to fight the alien ships as they leave galaxies.”
“Are you in contact with the other fleet?” Chairman Havemann asked.
“We are not,” Gina said. “Are you?”
“Yes, we are working together as best we could over such vast distances. They were very worried at our sudden silence for six months.”
“My ship is sending you the data of galaxies the other fleet can attack to be more helpful,” Gina said. “Please relay the information to them.”
Chairman Havemann nodded. “I will.”
“Thank you,” Gina said. “We will be in regular contact and update you on the status of the battle as it goes on.”
“You clearly can see a bigger picture than we can,” Havemann said, looking first at Gina, then at Benny.
Benny, with that one look, could see why this woman was the leader of her fleet. She was intense and very smart.
Gina nodded.
“What is the status of stopping the alien expansion?” Havemann asked.
“We are losing,” Gina said.
Benny would have tried to say that in a less-blunt fashion.
Havemann nodded.
Benny didn’t think she seemed surprised.
“But we have a lot more help on the way,” Gina said. “Given time we will wipe your ancestors’ experiment from the stars.”
“Thank you for that,” Havemann said. “Please allow us to help in any fashion we can.”
Gina nodded. “For now, continue onward. That’s all any of us can do.”
“Thank you for the rescue,” Havemann said. “And for letting us know you are here with us.”
“We will be in touch again soon,” Gina said, nodding.
She cut the connection.
Then Gina said to Star Rain, “Jump us out of here and back to our home position.”
Benny glanced at Gina. He could tell she was very, very upset.
And Benny wasn’t feeling that happy either. A group of humans were fighting an impossible fight against all odds to fix a mistake that distant ancestors had made and stupid politics from millions of years before blocked the Seeder’s ships from helping them in any real way.
If Benny had anything to say about that, that million-year-old stupid policy was going to change and change soon.
And as upset as Gina felt beside him, that change would happen sooner rather than later.
And maybe then, just maybe, those millions of humans in that fleet and the second fleet might actually get a chance to stop.
But first, there was a war to win.
SECTION FOUR
Even More Help
SIXTEEN
GINA LOVED HOW sometimes Benny’s thinking would show them ways of doing things they had not thought about before. But more often than not, he just pointed out a missing problem they had to deal with.
The year after they had saved the human fleet from the empty space, Benny and Gina were reading morning reports while in their command chair. Benny had cooked them both a wonderful cheese omelet for breakfast and both had spent an hour exercising.
For the past year, more and more fighting help had poured into the battle from human occupied parts of known space. But Gina and everyone knew they were still losing the overall fight.
And Gina saw no real chance that would change anytime into the near future.
And so far there had been no real progress on the empty-space bubble research, although Chairman West of Rescue One reported the research was ramping up wonderfully.
Gina had become friends with Chairman
Havemann of the human Creators fleet and had been helping them where she could. The more she got to know Havemann and the humans in that fleet, the more she had come to respect them, even though it was their ancestors who had started this entire mess.
Every month, Gina gave a report to the other chairmen about the human fleet, slowly swaying all of them to a position of willingness to help them.
The human fleet had changed course toward the new galaxy Gina and the Seeders had suggested, and the human fleet was still fourteen years from reaching that target.
“Ever noticed how many alien ships just miss their target?” Benny asked, seemingly out of the blue.
Benny pointed out one alien ship on the report that had been spotted far outside the lines of defense. It had been lost and traveling for almost thirty thousand years. Its occupants were long dead, since the aliens had no way to save themselves when a ship malfunctioned.
Gina had only nodded to that, not really paying much attention, until Benny asked Star Rain a question.
“Star Rain, would it be possible to estimate how many alien ships miss their target?”
“It would be possible,” Star Rain said.
Gina looked at her partner and the man she loved more than she could ever love another person. Benny was just nodding. She wasn’t sure where he was headed with this sort of questioning.
“Star Rain,” he said, “with the information we now have about alien ships, how long could the aliens on a ship survive in space without finding a new planet?”
“Extreme outside limit would be one-hundred-thousand years,” Star Rain said. “The occupants of the ship found near the Milky Way galaxy had survived almost that long.”
“Logical amount of time,” Benny asked.
“It would be unlikely,” Star Rain said, “for the alien occupants to survive beyond twenty-thousand years. Most would not make it that long.”
Gina still wasn’t certain why Benny was asking these questions, but she let him go. She had learned early on in their relationship that when he had his mind on a line of thought, it was better to let him just run down the line to the end.
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