"We're sure this is the only thing in this system?" Carrie asked the Principality that had found our new destination.

"Yes, ma'am," he answered. "I don't know how they did it, or why they did it, but that's the only object in this system. Orders?"

"Gather the greater fleet and approach as one," I said. "Once we're all lined up and pretty, we'll either hammer it to nothing, or we'll start sending teams to investigate."

"Yessir, Demigod," he said with a salute before the line was cut.

"This is strange," I muttered, half to myself. "Who goes to the effort and trouble of doing this?"

"A highly advanced race of aliens with the means of creating entire genetic lines from microorganisms?" Carrie suggested.

"I guess you're right about that," I said. "Just wish we'd had more warning than what the search parties found that there was a planet hidden in this system."

"It was either a hidden planet or something like the Death Star," she said.

"What's a 'death star?'" I heard Benjamin whisper to Micheal.

"Let's move into position and see what's waiting for us," I said.

As Micheal and Benjamin guided the Phoenix into position, I observed the tablet I held that showed a view of the planet that shouldn't have been in this system and studied where our quarry had seemingly fled to.

The world was lush with a semi-tropical appearence in all the plant life. Tempratures were largely estimated to be in the eighty to one hundred ten degrees Fahrenheit range with storms and rain showers occuring regularly and a wide variety of animals moving through the nearly unbroken rainforest that covered the two continents that took up exactly fifty-five percent of the world's surface. The only breaks in the forested continents were the two massive cities that were bustling with activity and showed Rif'nay'fex architecture.

"Seems almost like paradise down there," Carrie said as I continued to look at my tablet, not noticing her peering over my shoulder. "Why do you think that they have two cities and two continents?"

"Could be any number of reasons," I said. "One's for military and religious use, the other's for civilians. One's for one planet, the other's for the other planet. We can go round and round, talking in circles and coming up with all sorts of reasons and ideas, but until we get down there and see for ourselves, we don't know."

"That's true I guess," she said. "Mike, are you finding any Scourge lifesigns?"

"None," he answered. "Doesn't seem that there's even a trace of Scourge on the planet. I am getting some weird readings from the planet though."

"Let me guess," I spoke up. "It's perfectly sphereical, the center of it is almost hollow, the oceans aren't as deep as we would expect, there's no tectonic plates, or all the animal varieties, while keeping each other in check, match with animal species found naturally on other planets. How'd I do?"

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"Right on all counts, sir," he said. "Did you read that from your tablet's feed?"

"No," I said. "This whole planet seems too perfect, and artificial for it to be anything natural. I think it's safe for us to assume that this planet was put here by the Rif'nay'fex for somewhere that they could disappear to and hide. Maybe it can even move to other star systems like a big slow ship."

"That's ridiculous," Micheal said. "The sheer energy requirements would need a star to act as the power souce, and the gravity fields from something that big would pull everything in and destroy it. Not to mention that when they left the proximity to the stars they get to, they'd be in perpetual darkness and all the plantlife would die, taking everything else with it."

"Scan for shield emitters," I told him. "If I'm right, there are going to be some sort of shield emitters that will activate and they'll use them as a source of light for the plants while mimicing a day/night cycle. They'll also be strong enough to survive an impact from an asteroid, comet, or other bit of space debris."

"Why do you say that?" Binjamin asked as he began to refine his scans.

"Because it's what I would do if I wanted a moving planet for my people to fall back to," I told them both. "The plants act as a source of life support, they scrub out harmful gases and replace them with safe ones. The animals act as a food or fertilizer source, need something to keep everyone fed, and fresh is always better than vacuum sealed and frozen. And the sheer room that a planet offers is more freeing than the confines of starships in regards to population numbers. The Wardens had issues with some races after they were forced to flee their planets to escape the Scourge, some needed exact conditions that occur naturally and they couldn't recreate them well-enough that the race in question was able to reproduce. That lead to more than a few races being resigned to a slow extinction at the hands of time. Having the same amount of space as a planet is great for keeping populations growing."

"And having shields that can keep space debris from slamming into the planet will make sure that the planet isn't disfigured or destroyed by well-placed asteroids," Micheal said.

"Precisely," I nodded.

"I hate having to tell you that you're right," Benjamin sighed as his scans came back. "Marking shield emitter locations."

As he spoke, my tablet's image update with a mass of yellow dots that showed each shield emmiter was approximately one hundred miles apart from the others.

"Be prepared to hammer certain parts of the planet's shields so that we can pop it and destroy a few emitters to punch a hole down to the surface," I told them, while relaying the data and those orders to the gathering fleet. "They likely know that we're here already too, so we're going to need to be prepared for them to try and squish us between the planet and their ships. Assuming that they'll have enough to mount more than minor attack."

"What do we do when we see their ships?" Carrie asked.

"Leave the planet alone and destroy them to the last," I ordered. "The last thing we need is for them to escape and find allies or grow into a force that can hurt us. We're ending this here, as soon as possible."

"Should we try to scan for engines or something on the planet?" Micheal asked.

"Do it," I told him. "If we can make an effort to remove those then we'll be able to make sure they don't escape."

"While you're doing that, I need to talk to you Rickshaw," Carrie said grabbing my arm and pulling me out of my chair and off the bridge.

"What's up?" I asked her as we entered the corridor.

"Not here," she said leading me toward the elevator. "This is something that I want answered in private and I think you'll agree about that."

"Not even a hint?" I asked as she pressed the button for my office.

"Nope," she said. "And if you need a hint then I really want to talk about this."