3.17.
Yunono didn’t particularly feel guilty for the fact that she had ordered the xenocide of two species that were older than mankind by a factor of ten. Nor did she feel guilty of the decision to blast sixteen more back into the stone age. It was necessary. They possessed the TDM, the Temporal Dissolution Matrix.
The two that she had ordered eliminated in a pre-emptive strike had even shown the will to use it in the past, having targeted a human world that they believed would give them a tactical advantage. She considered it a colossal mistake of her predecessors that the retaliation hadn’t been the dissolution of their own homeworld to eliminate their blight from the light of the universe.
The others hadn’t actually used the doomsdsay weapon in the past, but they possessed it, had strained relations with humans in general, and had expressed a moderate degree of support for the elimination of humans from the universe under hypothetical conditions.
That was too much of a risk. She chose to eliminate it.
A small alert shook through her examination of the politics of the universe, and she blinked when she realized that she had been in a zen-like mode of investigation and decision making for ninety-five hours without sleeping. She frowned. The system would have flagged any decisions she had made after it had determined that she was ignoring her mandatory rest periods for later review.
Which meant that they weren’t being carried out at present.
She sighed in frustration and pulled up the alert.
It was such a small thing. A contact request by a member of Earth’s military to one of her captives. But it also put out a request for her latest recorded location, and that was a problem. The records had been altered, but Sarah had been aboard a Toormonda, and any search for her would include reasonable targets for a Toormonda to examine.
Including the Swarm Generator hidden within the forming proto-star where they were currently residing.
She sighed. It would be difficult to move the Generator, but since the Toormonda had appeared it had only been a matter of time before someone came looking for it. She’d initiated preparations already and now that the countdown had begun, there was no point in putting them off any longer.
She reached out with a muscle that wasn’t am muscle and instructed her subordinates to begin executing the move. As an after thought, she engaged the plan she had put in place to dispose of their captives.
~~~~~~
Sarah was playing the handball/basketball Yonohoan sport when their ship abruptly signaled that they were about to be boarded. The passengers spent a moment recovering from the surprise – they weren’t expecting another roll-call for more than twelve hours – but quickly formed up in the common room next to the airlock and waited for their jailer to arrive.
It was the same soldier as always. A bald-woman with crimson eyes and a mole beneath her left eye. She did not hide her face, but examined each of the captives in turn.
“There has been an update in your situation. Your ship remains under military lockout, but you are being released. Your ship will transport you to a nearby location before the lockout will be lifted. When it is lifted, you will not attempt to return to the location in which it was placed under lockout. You will not share the details of what you believe you may have discovered. You will not send others to this location, or they will be destroyed. The primary reason you were not destroyed is because it would have drawn further attention to this location. Do not underestimate our resolve,” the woman said sternly.
Sarah swallowed. The teenagers and Dornodo all showed various signs of anxiety at her words as well.
“When you are released, you are not to speak of your captivity except to say that you disturbed a Rosantean training exercise and were held hostage. You are to claim ignorance as to the purpose of your release. If you disobey these instructions, there will be no consequences except for the knowledge that you have betrayed mankind.”
The woman paused for a moment, then turned to Sarah and Dornodo, who were holding their hands.
“Congratulations on your Tuunka Powan,” she said, and then she left the ship.
The children all began chattering nervously as they discussed the news. A few moments passed, and with a hum, the Toormonda entered the hyperatomic plane.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
They were underway.
Four days later, Dornodo regained control of the ship. Sarah stood next to him in the primary control room as he examined the star charts. Immediately after the military lockout had ended the Toormonda’s systems had requested an update from the Totola government, and the results were surprising in the information that they provided.
Hostile zones, friendly zones, neutral zones. Among them, the closest friendly zone was a region previously marked as empty.
“We are a long ways from planet Totola. Further than I was expecting, based on where we started. But we are only a few hours away from Earth,” he commented. “In order to return the children to their homes, it might be faster to seek assistance from your government.”
“Okay,” Sarah agreed. “Let’s go to Earth. We can get married and apply for you to get citizenship while we’re there.”
“Of course,” he said, holding the hand that he’d put a ring on not so long ago. “Marriage sounds fun. I am looking forward to enjoying this Earth custom.”
~~~~~~
Captain Moon received permission to begin her search. She was just about to execute the first jump to take her into the location where the Toormonda had last been reported when an abrupt status change sent her subordinates, both humans and Yukopan, scurrying about in a panic.
A ship had appeared near Saturn. It dropped out of the Hyperatomic plane with a whisper, it’s drives extremely quiet. But not silent, and the military grade sensors had picked it up before it finished materializing.
The IFF did not come back as either friend or foe. Because it didn’t have an IFF. Not one issued or compatible with Earth’s versions of the technology at least. It did have the Yonohoan equivalent of the procedure, and the Yukopan vessel swiftly made a connection to the ship’s computer.
The alert was lessened when the ship’s model was confirmed. It was a Toormonda. Captain Moon reached out and used her military clearance to access the ship’s passenger list. She breathed a sigh of relief.
Sarah was on board.
Then she began to grow suspicious. First of all, how had the Toormonda know where Earth was? And second, what were the odds that it would appear just as she was about to go looking for it?
~~~~~~
Sarah sat quietly in the space station in orbit around Mars. She had been interrogated thoroughly but fairly. She wasn’t suspected of any wrongdoing, after all, she just had important intelligence to share with the Earth officials.
She had told the total, complete, and unabridged truth. She had utterly ignored the instructions to lie. Because fuck them, that’s why. They expected her to cooperate after all they had put her through?
She might not remember the brain-scry explicitly, but three times a week she awoke shaking with cold sweats without knowing why. No, she knew why. She didn’t remember the trauma, but her body still did.
Dornodo would wake up with her, wrap her in his muscular arms, and they would usually go back to sleep right after.
Usually.
The fact that she was pregnant was also of significant news, and she’d undergone a thorough medical examination. Both a traditional earth exam with a sonogram as well as one utilizing the Yonohoan medical scanners.
It was too early to tell the sex of the baby, but it was healthy for its gestational age.
She was looking forward to finding out if she was having a son or a daughter.
She was also looking forward to inviting everyone to attend her marriage to the love of her life.
Including Diego, whom she had sent a message apologizing for the difficulty she had caused him in the past and thanking him for his role in identifying and treating her illness.
~~~~~~
Three days passed since the Toormonda had arrived. Captain Moon reviewed her orders. She nodded, and then she began issuing her own orders to her crew. The Earthling officers and the Yukopans both.
They left sol-system and journeyed to the last known location of the Toormonda before it had suddenly appeared next to the sun.
They were searching for a proto-star.
And damned the consequences if what they found wasn’t friendly.