“It appears that this particular harvester has quite the travel history,” Mai said. “From the data we managed to pull, we found at least a dozen unique locations. I can’t tell what or where they are, as they use a croatoan system of identification, but one thing that is clear is that most of those locations are from planets in our solar system.”
“We were hoping you could help us decode the identification system,” Mike said to Layla. While she worked at the farm with Gregor, she had picked up a good amount of the croatoan language and writing. “But that can wait, for now. Let’s watch a movie.”
Mike finished connecting the drive and the screen. Using his custom-made operating system, he entered a series of commands that would decode and play the film clips he and Mai had taken off the drive earlier.
“Sorry we don’t have any popcorn,” Mai said as she switched off the lights and joined the others, sitting on a free stool. Mike finished his setup and sat beside Mai as the first video clip played.
It was from the external camera situated on the front of the harvester. Mike and Mai hadn’t yet been able to transpose the audio tracks, so in silence they watched a trembling image as the harvester ploughed through a dirt track.
At first, it would be easy to think it was taken on Earth, but as the video continued to play, Mike watched Layla and Maria lean closer to the screen and their eyes widen as they saw it for the first time: three moons in the sky. In a triangular pattern, they dominated the horizon.
Each moon was a different size; the one closest to the planet had clear markings on it.
“A base of some kind,” Mai added.
“We zoomed in and noticed a regularity to the shapes. It seems like some large infrastructure was built there. Given the scale and shape, they resemble the design cues of the farm facilities, making us believe that that particular moon is host to a considerable croatoan infrastructure.”
The two women nodded and remained silent as they continued to watch the footage.
From the edge of the frame, shadows shifted at the line of large alien vegetation. Almost prehistoric-looking palms stood what must have been hundreds of feet tall. Their trunks sprouted numerous spiked woody branches. The shadows continued to shift as the camera began to pan the horizon, finally coming to a stop on the left side of the frame.
It zoomed in and held steady, the harvester apparently having stopped. From within the tall, alien trees, a group of five figures exited.
Maria and Layla gasped.
The figures, at Mike’s estimation, stood approximately twenty feet tall. Although bipedal, they hunched over and used their massively muscled upper limbs to propel them forward, not unlike a great ape.
Their heads were triangular and heavily scaled. In the blue atmosphere of the planet the aliens’ scales and body fur appeared to be purple with gray accents. As a group they stopped just outside the edge of the trees and lifted their strange heads into the sky. They trembled and raised their arms.
“I think they’re howling or something similar,” Mai said. “We’re working on the audio track encoding and will confirm at a later date.”
“It’s… incredible,” Maria said.
“Truly,” Layla replied. “It’s not like it’s surprising; the croatoans have done the same on our planet, and we’ve come to terms with them being aliens to us, but to see another world, another species… that’s just… I’m lost for words.”
“You weren’t the only one,” Mike said. “It took me a good few minutes to compose my thoughts.”
“The most amazing thing, though, is that this is just one location of many. We don’t know where it is yet, but it seems we’re not unique in our treatment by the croatoans; they’ve done this to hundreds of other planets,” Mai said.
“Also worth noting,” Mike added, “is how close to Earth this place is. It seems that the croatoans have identified a criteria not just for their harvesting, but also planets that support life, with an atmosphere not too dissimilar to Earth’s.”
“So you’re saying the croatoans have done the very thing we’ve been trying for so long?” Layla added.
“Yup,” Mai said. “But this is just the start. We’ve got a lot of video to filter through, but we’ll compile the most interesting footage and put in a drive with a portable player for you to take back to Charlie and Denver in case any of it will help them prepare for their mission.”
As the footage turned to black, Mike switched off the system and leaned against the workbench to face Maria and Layla. He recognized the look of wonder and fear in their eyes. It was quite the experience to see proof of a new alien world, let alone a species. Sure, it wasn’t especially new after the croatoans rose up, but it confirmed something humankind has searched for hundreds of years for: that there are many Earth-like planets out there populated by intelligent species.
And like those species, they had one thing in common.
The damned croatoans.
Destroying their gate world wouldn’t just keep Earth safe, but if that’s what the bastards use to travel throughout the galaxy to other planets, then perhaps they could help keep other species safe from their voracious root appetite.
“So,” Maria said, clearly anxious about something, “about this mission. We didn’t quite tell you everything.”
“Oh?” Mike said, crossing his arms across his chest. “What else is there?”
Maria hesitated, unable to find the words. Layla stepped in, placing her hand on the younger woman’s shoulder as if to absolve her of the guilt. “Basically, we need you and Mai. They have a ship in Unity, but it’s damaged. When they first rose up and joined the fight, they were cut off just before the ice age after suffering huge losses to their engineers and leaders. The remaining aliens worked with the humans and thus settled Unity. Over time as they lost people during the ice age, they also lost the knowledge of their ship.”
“I don’t like where this is going,” Mai said.
“Go on,” Mike said.
Taking a breath, Layla continued. “When the pods landed, they captured the council members from the mother ship: only one survived. One they call Hagellan. Quite the head honcho, by all accounts. Now, he knows what’s wrong with the ship and how to fly it and engage the jump engine back to the gate world, but…”
“But he needs someone to get the parts necessary and help fix it?” Mike finished for her, clearly seeing where this was going.
“Yes,” Maria said. “But that’s not quite all.”
Mai rolled her eyes, losing her patience. “Just get on with it, girl. What is it you want from us?”
Maria seemed to shrink away from Mai’s tone. Despite her age, Mai could be quiet fierce, not that she meant it personally; she just wasn’t one for wasting time. People of his and Mai’s age didn’t have the time to waste with nonsense.
“It’s Charlie,” Maria said. “He’s agreed to the mission, but he doesn’t trust them and wants a backup plan. He wants you to build him another bomb in case they try anything once they’re airborne.”
Mike looked to his wife. It was like looking in a mirror sometimes. Her eyes glinted and a smile stretched on her lips. At the same time, they said, “Count us in.”
“And as it happens, we had already started on another,” Mai said. “We like contingencies.”
“We can have it ready within a few days,” Mike said.
“They sent us to bring you back to them tonight,” Layla said. “Hagellan wants to speak with you personally to help get the engineering team set up and to brief you on the parts he needs from the wreckage of the others ships.”
“It’s okay,” Mai said before Mike could protest. “You go with them, love, and I’ll stay behind to finish the bomb. Our time is short; it makes sense for us to use it as best we can.”