Cynthia- Empress of the Stars

by James Patrick Warner

  “Station 3, I would not want to repeat that experience. But can you tell us more about this ancient enemy and perhaps if they still exist and, well, you know, I’m supposed to travel to your home galaxy and find out where you came from.”

  “I understand your mission well, Daughter. I have been well briefed by the others. I will tell you what I can, but you must understand that we were not able to defeat this enemy and chose to abandon our home rather than fight to the death, which might have been our death.”

  “Do you have any docking facilities where we could come aboard?”

  “No, Daughter. We are a gutted ruin. There is one starship here, which has no fuel because I have had to scrounge everywhere to continue my own existence. I’m sorry, but we’ll have to converse like this. And I regret that the Library on the third planet was completely disintegrated and her remains are mixed with the asteroids orbiting our sterile sun.”

  “Meph, what could cause this kind of destruction?”

  “Cynthia that is the question for the ages. I observed the battle at Caryna carefully, to see if the Pirates had any weapons that would damage Caryn’s fleet and in fact they did not. It took a combination of their weapons, the stolen weapons similar to my designs and mistakes by our crews of the Ancient ships to result in any damage at all and that was minimal. I will study these remains of Ancient destruction to try and figure out what kind of weapon was used and what threat that might be to us, if any.”

  “Okay, that’s a good start. Caryn, have you heard any of this?”

  “Yes Cynth, I heard it all and it gives me the chills. Take your time, find out everything you can. Station 3’s plight might not be an isolated case.”

  “Station 3, before we get into the nemesis, can you answer any questions about the Parents’ origins and their journey through our galaxy?”

  “Not very much I’m afraid. My programming forbids my revealing much of the information you seek, as a protection for us all. But I can tell you a story that might shed some light on your ancestry.”

  “Oh. Please, I would love to know more, especially if it explains how I could become a human when I had died and become a space ship.”

  “Very well, Daughter. Please forgive any details I must leave out. Here is the story.”

  Station 3, who actually had a name in the Parent language, told a tale for several hours. I made sure Sassy broadcast every word back to Caryn and also made sure it was recorded in the Galactic Database at the University for all humanity to learn from.

  “It started when we had discovered that our souls could be transplanted into a mechanism, if the mechanism was close enough to human. Our machines were by this time a marvel and you have their remnants in your galaxy to prove it. But in our galaxy we were the major life form for as far as we had explored. There were a few other species, but these were not consequential to the population of our galaxy. After thousands of years we had become masters of the physical universe arts. It was found that the right body, constructed perfectly, could live for over a thousand years. We built tens of thousands of them in anticipation that everyone would want to transform eventually. But a problem developed.

  “These bodies did not, could not reproduce by themselves. It required our technology to make a new body. The bodies could be repaired, but once they had reached their design limits, the decay was too much and death ensued. To cheat death the spirit was transferred into a new body. But through the eons we realized that the sterile existence was as much a problem as it was a cure. Our society slowed down and eventually stagnated. Technology was as good as needed and we lost interest in pushing the limits on just about everything.

  “Then someone, I don’t know who, came up with the idea of going to another galaxy and seeding it with our own genetic design, to give the new civilizations a chance to grow biologically and ultimately discover our Artifacts that were to be left there. So plans were made to take some ships and establish the Libraries and Repair Stations on the worlds we chose to populate. But another problem developed. From a distant galaxy a marauding race of malevolent machines invaded our galaxy. We launched our vehicles, hundreds of them, into the neighboring galaxy we had decided to populate, while the majority of us stayed behind in an attempt to stop the invaders.

  “We built terrible machines of war and for many centuries we held the invaders at bay, while the repopulation efforts went on in your galaxy. But eventually the invaders broke through the defenses and pursued us into your galaxy. There the final battles took place. All our ships from our own galaxy that were pursuing the invaders and all our ships in your galaxy met together to face the evil. At this system the final battle took place. Our pursuing fleet bypassed Repair Station 1 and Repair Station 2, presuming the invading forces had destroyed those Stations and Libraries already.

  “At the system we were in now, the invaders were stopped, but at a terrible cost. The star system, along with its developing space traveling race, was destroyed, but the other Repair Stations and I survived. Our pursuing ships were utterly destroyed in the battle and many of our ships committed suicide, ramming into the invader ships and destroying themselves in the process. My condition is evidence enough of the destructive power of the invader forces. We felt that the battle had been lost, as we could never return to our home galaxy.

  “The survivors chose to continue the fertilization project as the best hope for our species in the long term. We finally realized that life for 1000 years was not equal to the pattern of life, death and rebirth that built a stronger species over those same 1000 years. So over the next 80,000 years we fertilized the habitable planets of your galaxy, except where there were already sentient species developing.

  “Many of our ships were too damaged to make it through the entire project and blew up in one way or another, leaving bits and pieces that eventually found their way to be discovered by your Scoutship program. A few of the Repair Stations took charge of damaged ships that could be repaired and then stored them for safekeeping, should the invaders show themselves again. Each Repair Station was paired with a Library and then embedded themselves in separate planets of the target systems. Earth’s system was unique, because another, unrelated interstellar war had blown up one planet and stripped the atmosphere from another, leaving Earth as the only habitable world. So the Repair Station moved to Earth with the Library.

  “The invaders were never heard from again, apparently happy to control our galaxy. When the fertilization program was complete the remaining survivors had two choices, one to leave this galaxy and find another to settle in for their remaining lifetimes, or two, to transfer into the Repair Stations and Libraries as artificial intelligences to await the emergence of the children many thousands of years in the future. Most left your galaxy and are no more, their lifetimes ultimately finished and with no possibility of genetic reproduction, their civilization disappeared forever.

  “Those that remained engineered many prototype human bodies as samples for the genetic program. The variety of possible human genomes and their characteristics were virtually infinite and thousands of the prototypes were saved should any of the children decide to inhabit them at some future date. Your rebirth, Cynthia, was not planned but was easily accommodated. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately in the end, there remain only a few hundred of these prototypes in various Repair Stations throughout your galaxy. Human beings will apparently not suffer the curse of eternal life as we had.

  So what now?

  “Repair Station 3, this has been enlightening. But it does not actually explain where you came from. Were you indigenous to that other galaxy? Or did you come from a different place?”

  “I am not allowed to say. I can only say that we settled in that galaxy hundreds of thousands of years ago and this settlement is what we refer to as the Exodus.”

  Again that word. I hadn’t heard it in a long time, not since on a mission with Caryn. But I know what it means, I just can’t figure out what the Repair Station means when she refers
to it.

  “Let me ask in a different way. I presume the invaders who destroyed you are still in your galaxy. Is that correct?”

  “You are correct, Daughter. If you choose to travel to that galaxy you will never come back.”

  “Then what if we travel to the galaxy just beyond the one you left? Would you find that objectionable? Or perhaps have a warning for me about that?”

  The repair station was quiet for a long time. It was unusual. I wondered if she had died. Finally Meph and I busied ourselves in Sassy, preparing for a very long journey to somewhere. We just didn’t know where yet.

  “Daughter, I can speak of this to some degree. I can say this. You should consider what it was that drove the invaders from that galaxy in the first place, into our galaxy. This is all I can say on the subject.”

  “Cynthia, Captain, do you really think we should continue this mission? We have the answer to the question where did the Parents come from. We also know where they went. Do we need to know more?” Meph asked, obviously concerned.

  “Meph, I can understand your feelings on this. I would be stupid to ignore them and my own feelings are equally unsettled. But this is an exploration mission and we haven’t actually gone to see. I think we should prepare our families for the worst and then make our mission the best we can. Who knows what it is that could cause the Parents and the invaders to both leave a galaxy and apparently not willingly at that.”

  “Do I have a vote, Cynthia?”

  “Of course you do, Sassy. You are part of the crew. What do you think of all this?”

  “I have one mission and that is to provide transportation for you, to defend and protect you on your missions and to bring you back alive, if possible. I think this journey fits within those parameters and I want to go to the farthest galaxy and find out what is there.”

  “Okay then. Meph, are you with me?”

  “Aye, aye Captain. Let’s go explore.”

  “We’re settled then. Station 3, do you have any parting thoughts or suggestions?”

  “There is nothing I can say to convince you then? Very well. We too had such curiosity once. If you return alive and successful from our first galaxy, I will be able to say more, as those are the requirements to unlock my security codes. I have no technology that might help you on your quest, other than one weapon that has survived from a battleship too destroyed to salvage. If you and your ship will proceed to what is left of my dock, I can install it.”

  Well, better forearmed and forewarned.

  Chapter 23.

  Out There

  Sassy moved carefully into the remains of the Repair Station to a dock with lights on it. They were the only lights in the massive broken sphere. Machines grabbed Sassy and moved her into position. We sat in our cabins and waited while noises and bumps I had never remembered as the Hornet shook us. It only took a few hours and I slept through a lot of it. Finally the silence woke me.

  “Station 3, is it done?”

  “Yes, the operation was a success. The patient survives. Sassy understands the weapon. You cannot activate it, only she can start it or stop it.”

  Hmm. “So what does it do?”

  “It destroys a planet. We all pray you will never need to use it. There is no other such weapon in our known inventory.”

  A planet killer. On Sassy. This mission was getting really serious.

  “Is there anything I should know about this weapon?”

  “Yes, Daughter. It uses a lot of fuel when it fires and if you are in an extended battle, there is a chance you will run out of fuel in your little ship. Sassy will know and inform you of her status should that be necessary. This is the only weapon we had that was capable of destroying an invader ship.”

  I had to wonder now, since I was taking Meph into what might be an extended battle a very long way from home, just what it was that could make the invaders, as obviously powerful as they were to chase the Parents across the universe, run to the Parents’ galaxy, a place where they knew they would not be welcome. And for that matter, if my assumptions were correct, what could cause the Parents to abandon their home galaxy? There was apparently something dangerous to them in that first galaxy. Something that frightened both the Parents and the invaders out of it. Something that I should not wish to encounter. But encounter we would.

  I never thought I was suicidal before. Why think about that now? I was an explorer, a Scoutship Captain. It is my job.

  “Caryn, you have been monitoring?”

  “As much as I can with my busy little schedule. It sounds like you are going to venture to a place from which the superior technologies took flight. I don’t know what the hell you are doing, but I suppose you do.”

  “Meph and Sassy and I are going to give it our best shot. It’s the ultimate exploration.”

  “Sassy, you bring Cynthia and Meph home, even if they’re in the stasis tank. You hear me?”

  “Yes Caryn. And by the way, congratulations on your promotion from the Admiralty to Vice-Admiral of the Caryna branch of the human galactic fleet.”

  “That’s right! So don’t make me come and get you three!”

  “Aye, aye, Admiral,” we all chorused together.

  “Love you, sis.”

  “Love you, sis.”

  We took on as much fuel as we could from Station 3 to top off our tanks. Then Sassy took us out. Way out. It was the most boring trip I had ever been on. We were almost a year in the “between” as I called it. We drilled and drilled, practiced everything we could imagine having to do, including run the ship with our EV suits on. And then we did personal things. I transmitted my complete log to the Galactic University’s Database and to the Admiralty. I studied the connections Sassy used to power the super weapon. I studied Meph’s equipment.

  And I dreamed of Mike and my daughter. Even if she and Caryn’s daughter were cousins, they would act much more like sisters growing up together under Caryn and Fred’s roof. Mike and I had named her before we left. Colleen was her name. She would be born about the time we arrived at the next galaxy. Caryn had named her new daughter Catherine, keeping up our new heritage of old Earth Irish and Scottish names.

  I downloaded the history of Ireland and studied it. I learned a little bit of Irish and found out there was a theory that it had once been part of Atlantis. I thought it was funny that in the thousands of years humans had conjectured about that fabled land, no one had ever found it. I thought that might be fun to look for some day.

  At last the day arrived. We stopped at a star system on the outskirts of the second galaxy. It was barren, like the one we had left, even the sun was dead. There was no Repair Station and no Library here. Just planetary debris where all the worlds were rubble circling a dead star at the edge of an alien galaxy. Meph tuned his devices and we began carefully spying on the star systems near us. All were the same: dead, dead, dead. We moved in carefully, sensors way, way out and at last found something. The entire galaxy, or at least this part of it, was shielded with an impenetrable force field.

  “Meph, this certainly says stay out. What do you think? Should we go on to the greater danger, or look a little more here?”

  “I don’t like the look of this. They could be monitoring this shield and anything we did to look inside could generate an automatic or manned response. I vote we go to the next galaxy.”

  “Sassy, what’s our status?”

  “I have enough fuel, I would like to see what the great danger is in the next galaxy, then come back here on our way home.”

  Our way home. That sounded so innocuous.

  “All right, on to the next galaxy. Sassy, if we start running low on fuel, abort the mission.”

  It was the same traveling to the next galaxy. Basically boring, boring, boring. But as we approached, things got a lot more interesting in a big hurry.

  We saw several star systems that were kind of dispersed, not connected to the main galactic spiral. We decided to approach one of them. We went in cautiously, all sensors
out, all shields on, weapons armed, on pins and needles.

  The system appeared to be normal to our eyes and sensors. There were seven planets orbiting an M-1 type star. There were no asteroids signaling a destroyed planet in orbit. Meph hadn’t focused in on any of the worlds to examine what sort of structures or populations they had, as we were too far out.

  “Captain, I see a very bright light, brighter than a hundred suns, heading at us from this system! It’s approaching extremely fast! I don’t know what it is, brace yourselves!”

  We were hit by an incredibly powerful energy flow. Not just a beam like from a blaster or other aimed weapon, but more like an all-encompassing wave. The ship was jolted I don’t know how far. All the power in the bridge went out. I lost touch with Meph in the battle bridge and Sassy was not on line. It was as if we were dead in space. Then the wave passed us, or took us past its sphere of force, or something like that. The ship stopped jumping around, I was able to crawl back into my chair and strap in. Meph came up from the battle bridge.