Major finds tended to make people nervous. Both my first and second captains had a tendency to hold their breaths, metaphorically speaking, when they were on the verge of a major discovery. I still remember how devastated Wilco felt once we’d found an old abandoned Cassandrian ship. There had been a realistic chance that the vessel held a race creating an artifact, and for a while it seemed that it had. His hopes were quickly dashed once it had turned out that the ship had mistakenly identified us as its savior. It was dead, barely with enough power to function, and the only artifacts aboard were mimic-tech.

After jumping through five systems, I felt the same. Radiance had become more restrained, no longer going off on her own accord. Sadly, that didn’t make up for what I was witnessing.

“All ships focus on the planets,” I gave the order. “You have permission to use probes.”

I waited a few seconds, expecting Sof to complain. Like me, he understood the significance of what had happened.

Planetoid artifacts cluttered the system in the dozens, like empty husks floating on a river. Normally, I’d have the auxies spend hours scanning them all with their mini-sats. The data accumulated on them alone was significant, even if repetitive. Compared to what else was in the system, though, the giant artifacts were as important as grains of sand near a cliff.

“If you won’t say it, I will,” the ship said.

“It’s not third-contact,” I said, knowing perfectly well what he was getting at.

“There’s no denying we’ve found a race.”

“A dead race.”

There was a seven percent chance that some remnants remained, but after so many systems, as well as a few approved long-range scans, there was little doubt; nothing had survived.

Over seventeen major planets were present, orbiting a massive white star. Including satellites and minor planets, the number rose to close to a hundred. All of them, without exception, were completely lifeless. In protostar systems, that could have been explained away. Not in a stable system, though, especially when there were signs of structures and planet-wide infrastructure. The eleventh planet had shown me that. Close enough for me to reach from the jump spot. It had no atmosphere, no activity, and based on a few probe scans, limited metals; what it did have were lots of honeycomb structures, arranged in a way that showed beyond a shadow of a doubt that at some point it had been inhabited.

There goes my giant creature theory, I thought.

In the grand scheme of things, maybe it would have been better if there had been enormous life forms.

“Radiance and Diligence,” I said on the bridge. “You check the asteroid belts.”

Sof conveyed my message using the laser communication method.

“Chances of resource deposits are small,” the ship said.

“I’m not looking for resources. I want to see whether there are battle scars.”

If there had been a battle here, it must have taken place thousands of years ago, probably more. After all this time, all conclusions would remain highly theoretical, but there was a chance the auxies would stumble upon something.

This wasn’t the way I imagined we’d discover a new race. The possibility was always there. With so many artifacts and no one to use them, it was certain that the third-contact race had left our region of space. Had they been destroyed, though? The messages left in the domes seemed to suggest not. On the other hand, there was no definite proof they hadn’t died out, either.

Remnants, fractal messages, and gravitational anomalies, that was all that they left behind for the known three races to squabble for.

“Radiance wishes to let you know that there are three jump options from this system,” Sof said.

“Tell her no one’s jumping until we figure out what happened here,” I said firmly. “And make sure to convey it as an order.”

“And you think that’ll work?”

“It will, as long as she knows I said it.”

“Should I say anything to the rest?”

That was his polite way of saying that they didn’t approve of being ignored for the sake of my protégé. Despite all their advances, the new ship classes always considered themselves the most important entities in the Fleet. As the captain in charge of this mission, it was my job to ensure they were at optimal efficiency.

“Tell the kids I’ll address the situation once we have the data,” I said. “And display anything they say on the bridge.”

“Are you sure? Most of it is useless chatter.”

I was well aware. Back when I was a ship, I filtered a lot of the needless information for my captain. Humans had a low processing power capacity, so they only needed to know the most relevant and useful bits of information.

“Display it.” There was a sixty-three percent chance that they were scared, and if they weren’t, they soon would be, just as I witnessed a race being destroyed…

* * *

System XN133-H, Cassandrian Space 625.3 A.E. (Age of Expansion)

“Artifact confirmed, sir,” Sword of Fire said. “How do we proceed?”

There was a moment of victorious silence. Wilco’s expression said more than any words could. It was like watching someone achieve their lifelong dream. I considered congratulating him, but even at this point, I remained in the dark concerning the real goal of the mission. Also, the artifact had yet to be brought aboard.

“Bring it back.” Wilco quickly snapped out of his state of euphoria. “Elcy, get ready to run interference. I don’t care about the damage. And have a jump sequence ready. The moment our prize is here, we jump out. Everyone who hasn’t made it is left behind.”

Just another sacrificial mission, I thought. Ships being left behind was different from humans being abandoned. We weren’t even given the small percentile of rescue or the option to die of our own accord. The moment I left the system, the self-destruct protocols would be activated in the conscience cores of all those left behind. Within milliseconds, they would flatline, and their cores would explode, ensuring that the Cassandrians didn’t have anything to reverse engineer.

“Proceeding with extraction,” Sword of Fire said as he proceeded to slice off the prism from the rest of the enemy colony.

“Directing second shuttle to projected extraction point,” I said. “ETA seventy-four minutes.”

“I’m authorizing emergency boosters,” Wilco ordered.

“Aye, captain.” I reran my calculations. “ETA reduced to thirty-six minutes. Moderate shuttle damages predicted. They should still be able to exit the planet’s atmosphere. No change in overall Cassandrian activity so far.”

Silently, we continued to follow Fire’s feed. The war between the Cassandrian sub-species had taken a back seat. The only thing that mattered right now was the artifact. Dedicating a thousand of my subroutines, I ran and reran simulations of possible reactions the colony might have the moment the prism was completely detached. Given the significance, I expected a complete shift to take place. Instead, the exact opposite happened. The moment the prism was removed, all activity stopped, and not only in the colony, but the entire planet itself. It was as if someone had removed the heart of an organism, causing all of its organs to stop functioning.

“Cassandrian activity has ended throughout the planet,” I announced on the bridge. “Chances of extraction have increased. Sending coordinates to optimal extraction point.”

“Get the artifact out of there,” Wilco ordered. “And grab anything interesting along the way. Let’s not waste the opportunity.”

“Check the rest of the system,” Sword of Blight said. “The planet might not be the only thing affected.”

“You think it’ll be so far-reaching?” the captain asked. “The planet is barely of strategic importance.”

“That’s the thing about Cassies.” The ship looked at Wilco with his usual dark expression. “We never managed to tell what was significant for them and what wasn’t. And if they can fool us, why can’t they fool each other?”

Wilco didn’t respond. His face shifted several times. In a way, I could understand his dilemma. If this was as Blight suggested, it meant that we had acquired an artifact capable of creating an entire sub-species. However, in order to confirm that, I’d have to use human technology, revealing our true nature. The risk was huge, but so were the rewards.

“Monitor the system,” Wilco said at last. “Tell me what you can based on what you can get.”

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

“They’re still fighting,” I said, stating the obvious. “There are indications that some ships are no longer coordinating with each other, but analysis remains inconclusive.”

“Give me the odds.”

“Twenty-nine-point-three,” I replied. They weren’t good odds by any standards, but I had seen captains risk it on less. Personally, I would have, but I was an Ascendant. I liked betting on the smaller odds.

“Keep monitoring,” Wilco whispered beneath his breath. “The artifact is the priority.”

Without facing any opposition whatsoever, it took an hour for Sword of Fire to bring the artifact to the surface. In its death, the colony had sealed a lot of the openings, forcing the extraction team to cut through them again.

For a moment, it seemed like we might have more time than we expected, definitely enough to gather all of the away teams. However, at that point, the Cassandrian sub-species in the system completely collapsed. For the first time in my existence, I observed the death of an entire race.

I had seen human planets lost before. I had witnessed entire systems be overrun. None of them were as sudden as this. There was no futile resistance, no attempts to inflict as much damage as possible, not even a last gasp. In a single moment, all ships of the Cassandrians in question suddenly ceased to function. Missiles, fighters, even the swarms of transport ships left themselves to the whims of inertia. The more interesting part was that even the invaders stopped registering them as enemies. As far as they were concerned, those were nothing but space debris, resources to be gathered at a later point.

“Congratulations, kid,” Sword of Blight said. “You’ve just caused the death of a race. Now, you’re officially one of us.”

* * *

The mission of the junior gods. Then too, the entire crew was composed of ships, with only the captain being human. It was the first time I had learned that the Cassandrians were an ecosystem of races, constantly devouring each other. Was it possible that the same had happened here? There was a zero point three percent chance that the Cassandrians had passed through this region of space, moving to their current domain. Under any other circumstances, I’d disregard that as being within the margin of error. After what I’d seen in the memories of the Swords, though, I couldn’t afford to.

The analyses of the planet went just as I expected they would. Initially, most of the auxies were annoyed by the delay. Wanting to return to our original mission, they hurried to launch the probes and mini-sats, eager to get it done with. When the data began to come in, they changed their tune.

Speed was the first to contact me for advice. The ship had the misfortune of being the first to stumble upon the ruins of an alien city. The series of buildings, tunnels and underground chambers—all arranged in spiral honeycomb fashion—left no doubt that they had been home to an intelligent civilization. While completely hollowed out, there was enough to suggest the presence of living quarters and resource extraction sections placed close to nearly depleted resource deposits. Tunnels, far too mathematically precise, connected various parts of the city, resembling a Cassandrian Hive to some degree.

Grace was next. Her mini-sats had found the planetoid construction site with two semi-formed artifacts still on the planet surface, as well as a multitude of fragments. The auxiliary ship had bombarded me with questions regarding the Cassandrians. Like me, she hoped that we’d ended up in an old domain of theirs, as if that would make things better.

At this point, all the auxiliary ships around the planet had started discussing the situation. The present communication method kept me from listening in, but Sof had informed me that they were moving about more than they were supposed to be, no doubt to get in alignment for direct laser beams between each other.

Yet, it was Eternity who had made the greatest discovery of all. Focusing on the pole of the planet for eighteen hours and eleven minutes, she finally sent the message that reset my immediate priorities: Cobalt domes confirmed.

“Tell all ships to stop what they are doing and immediately come here,” I told Sof. “Also, have them retransmit my order to everyone else they could. Priority one.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to send a standard transmission?” the ship asked. “Might save some time.”

I didn’t reply. Time wasn’t the issue. Rather, it was the circumstances around the race’s death. With a dome present, I knew that the Cassandians couldn’t have had anything to do with it. The Scuu also were too far away from this region of space, leaving two viable possibilities. Either the race had destroyed itself in one way or another, or the third-contact race had done so. The latter was of extreme concern, especially since there were multiple domes present.

A starfaring race with the ability to construct whole planetoids and launch them in space, snuffed out like a light. They didn’t appear to have reached any enemies, while simultaneously being advanced enough to find and collect third-contact artifacts. Going to the captain’s chair, I dedicated ninety-six percent of my subroutines to run simulations based on the probability they had established contact with the third-contact race. By the time my entire auxiliary fleet had returned, thousands of outcomes had been observed. Over ninety-point-two percent weren’t in humanity’s favor.

“They’re here,” Sof announced. “I’ve already created a comm hub using…” He paused deliberately. “…lasers.”

Here we go, I told myself. This was the moment when the kids would go through another breaking point.

“It’s a dead race,” I started. “We all expected that after we found the first planetoid artifact. I estimated that we’d find a few artifacts here and there, but by now there’s no doubt this region of the cloud complex was occupied by a sufficiently advanced race. The presence of domes proves that they were capable of interacting with third-contact tech as well.”

“What if this is the third-contact race?” Essence asked.

“Unlikely.” The question was good, but I decided to downplay it. “It doesn’t match the fractal map.” I paused. “But even so, it’s not an option we can ignore. For that reason, you are to send a full report to your arbiters. I will do the same, asking for raw resources and a decision on how to proceed.”

“You’re pausing the mission?” Rad asked. I could almost hear the surprise in her words.

“If this is a third-contact colony, I’ll explore the domes. If not, I move on. It’s as simple as that,” I lied. “Once we get a pod and instructions, we’ll know what to do. If not, we move on. Questions?”

To my surprise, there were none.

“Send your pods,” I added after a thousand milliseconds.

The comm pods launched almost on cue. It was a safe bet to say that the ships were going to do that even without my say-so. Reports were the only things I didn’t have any authority over. My launch took a bit longer. First, I reviewed all probe and scan data of the planet.

The number of domes in question turned out to be five, similar to the batch I had found back on my final mission aboard Prometheus. That was where the similarities ended. The planet at the time had been abundant in plants and rod artifacts. Based on all the data so far, this one had neither. It was nothing but a barren planet with no life factor or atmosphere and next to no ore deposits. There was even a fifty-four percent chance that its core had cooled down, making it no different than a floating ball of rock.

“Do you really want me to send the question?” Sof asked.

“I don’t have a choice on this,” I replied.

“Yes, ma’am.”

There was a high chance that he didn’t believe me, and he would be right.

“Privacy mode.” I started a new series of simulations.

As Augustus liked to say, I was at a crossroads. If I wanted, I could continue the mission, ignoring the domes and the entire dead race altogether. One word from me and all of the ships’ memories would be restricted. Their thoughts would be quarantined not to see any artifacts or structures, just stars, planets, and jump points.

You were right, Augustus, I thought. Being a captain isn’t as easy as it appears to be. Even when we have the autonomy to decide, all that we’re left with are choices.

If I went to the planet, there was the risk that I might trigger an event that would kill me and possibly everyone else in the system. Yet, if I didn’t explore the domes, I would never know whether it wasn’t the attempt at establishing contact that had caused this.

“Radiance requests a direct communication,” Sof announced on the bridge.

“Thought quarantine me,” I gave the order, rendering me completely invisible. “Transmit the order to all auxies.”

Observing the ship’s systems, I saw his subroutines independently execute my commands. As far as everyone was concerned, I remained on the bridge, assessing the situation.

“Build a heavy drill and launch it to the dome location.” I made my way to the elevator. “Also, prep a shuttle that could take me there and back.”

It was going to take a few days, at least until a response came back. With a bit of luck, that would give me enough time to drill a shaft to the dome and get inside. If not, I was going to resort to precise planetary bombardment. Not the way I wanted to start this mission.

Radiance kept on requesting a direct line to me. I could see Sof deny her requests with the same speed she was making them, and yet she kept on persisting. There was a seventy-nine percent chance that she had figured out what I was planning.

Not now, kid. You’ll have your chance.

There was something I needed to check in my own dome before heading down to the ones on the planet.

I found gravity bumps! Radiance transmitted to Sof.

The cheeky girl had decided that since I was ignoring her requests, the only chance of me paying attention was by feeding me breadcrumbs.

Gravity bumps in a system suggested third-contact involvement. They were the only ones who had weapons capable of that, increasing the likelihood that they had suggested the dead race.

“Let me chat with Radiance,” I gave in. “Restrict the conversation. Make it vocal.”

“Grandma,” Radiance said with Sof’s voice. “There are gravity bumps in the asteroid belt. We must check the rest of the system before you go on being reckless again.”

“Did you map them?” I left the elevator, continuing towards the dome chamber.

“Some. They aren’t easy to spot.”

“They aren’t of significance then.”

“Gravity bumps in a dead race system with third-contact artifacts? I’d call that significant.” There was a five hundred millisecond pause. “I know you’re going down there. I’m not asking you to stop. I just think you should gather a bit more data.”

“And let you explore a few more systems on your own?”

This sounded like a very subtle bribe request. Both her actions and mine were dangerous and slightly contrary to the stated mission. In my case, I wanted to make sure that completing the pyramid wouldn’t cause the destruction of humanity. Could it be that she, too, had some hidden objective that didn’t have to do with my mission? Given the eagerness of the BICEFI and the arbiter factions I suspected she was reporting to, there was a chance that she had been ordered to establish contact before anyone else.

“That’s not what I’m asking,” she replied. “Mini-sats and a few probes aren’t enough to tell you what’s down there.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” No readings would be enough. That was why I was going down myself. If there’s something that can trick a battleship, humanity had better be informed sooner rather than later. “Anything else?”

“Do you think this is the third-contact race?” she asked the obvious question.

“There’s a non-zero chance probability.” She was supposed to know that.

“I’ve run the odds. I just don’t have your experience.”

“Are you scared, Rad?”

My question made her pause. Over two thousand milliseconds, there was no response.

“Could this happen to humanity?”

“That’s why we’re on this mission—to minimize any such outcome.”

“What if this mission hastens it?”

“You’re too young to be philosophical, Rad.”

“I had a good teacher,” she said, the best response.

“We won’t let it happen, Rad. Focus on what you can achieve and leave the worrying to your captain.” I smiled as I said that. “And tell the other kids the same.”