Chapter No.15 New Horizon

Never judge an alien by its face.

Molly chose a planet that was a good thousand light years further than the suspected reptilian breeding planet. It was an Earth like planet in a G-4 and M-3 binary star system that was listed on the alien list of intelligent life planets as a human-like, level-four intelligent species on their scale of ten. It meant that they had developed some technology but not yet had ventured into space, which meant that we wouldn't have to put up with space vessels trying to intercept us.

It only took a few hours to get there, thanks to Molly's new warp design, and we quickly settled into orbit around a planet that wasn't all that different from Earth. The only distinction was that it was mostly a water world. Over 85% of its surface was ocean, but there were many island chains that formed by volcanic activity. It meant that the planet had a molten iron rotating core that produced a protective magnetic field.

"Maintain cloaking," I ordered.

"Yes, Jason."

"I'm surprised that this planet is so stable in a binary system," I said.

"It's probably because the companion star is just a small red dwarf. It only perturbs this planet's orbit a little. What's amazing is that life evolved on this planet when it's mostly covered by water. These island chains probably didn't show up until late in this planet's evolution when volcanic activity progressed enough."

"Maybe the evolution on this planet was interfered with," I said.

She gave me a confused expression. "By whom?"

"Maybe these reptilian aliens are more ancient than we thought. Maybe they helped the development of the intelligent species that they have on their list because it became advantageous for their procurement of food."

"I find it hard to believe that they didn't have enough food sources on their own planet," she retorted.

"Maybe they did . . . once, but they might have depleted that source and had to go elsewhere to feed their population."

"I'm not detecting any radio signals from the planet," Molly said. "I wonder if they use some other means of communication."

"Maybe they use optical means."

"We should be able to detect something like that if we scan in distinct wavelengths. I'll start a sweep now."

After several minutes, she had a result. "You're right. They're using lasers to beam between repeaters on poles."

I looked at her scan and it displayed the beams as tiny red lines. "That's interesting. Now all we have to do is try to tap into those beams."

"I think I can do that by using the phase change frequencies in the beams," she said.

Several minutes later, she was able to produce an image. It flickered at first, but with a few adjustments, she was able to get it to stabilize and move in real time.

"Those aliens are not what I expected," I said. "Except for their very round faces, they appear very much like humans."

"They have two arms and two legs," Molly said. "That means that they evolved from something that resembled a simian-like creature."

"Their skin appears to be very pink," I noted.

"I'm not sure about the color scale on this video feed. It could be off."

"We can send down robotic insect probes to check it out," I said. I turned to Judy, but she beat me to it.

"They are already on the way, Jason."

This made me think that the androids were able to read my mind. It would be possible if my mind is linked to theirs.

Suddenly, the optical transmission acquired sound.

"They sound as if they're making whistling sounds."

"That must be how they speak," Molly said. "I'll start running the transmission through the universal translator."

"I hope it works. We might have to communicate with them. Hopefully, they're not aggressive."

"I think we'll know about that once we observe them long enough."

The robotic insects began sending back video feed from the surface. The alien specie's cities appeared to be fairly advanced. Several gleaming high-rise buildings were clustered around what appeared to be parks where aliens were walking and sitting on what appeared to be benches. Their transportation system consisted of flying vehicles that whizzed around at various altitudes at breakneck speeds without colliding. It was pretty much what you would expect for a more advanced civilization of human-like aliens.

The aliens were dressed in identical outfits that covered most of their flesh. The females appeared to have breasts but were otherwise identical to males. This suggested that they evolved from mammalian creatures, which is not too surprising. It appears that evolution eventually finds the best path to intelligence, much as it did for the Homo sapiens species. Of course, that assumes that the evolutions occurred on similar planets.

"They don't appear to be violent," Molly said.

"So far, we haven't seen evidence for that, but you never know."

"Are we going down there?" she asked.

"Yes. We'll go down to take on water. Maybe they'll see us or maybe not. We'll see."

"Oh, I forgot to tell you," Molly said, sounding apologetic. "This system has another habitable planet."

Both of my eyebrows shot up. "Really?"

"Yes. It's orbiting the main star about 30.5 million kilometers further away than this planet."

"Isn't that rather unusual that there are two habitable planets around one star of a binary pair?"

"Not really! Although multiple habitable planets tend to orbit red dwarfs."

"That's interesting in that this is a binary system with the companion star being a red dwarf."

"It's unusual but not impossible."

I decided not to argue with her about her expertise, but I suddenly got an idea. "I wonder if that planet could be one of the reptilian alien's breeding farms."

"It could be," she said. "It has a radius of 5100 kilometers, a bolometric temperature of 210 K, and an atmosphere that's not unlike this planet's; although, it has less oxygen."

"That doesn't sound too promising."

She looked over at me. "Not really. If the atmospheric pressure is high enough, less oxygen would still constitute a breathable situation."

I tapped a finger to my lips. "Okay, maybe we should go check it out before we go down to this planet. If it does have humans on it, it would provide us with what we need to repopulate Earth."

"I agree," she said.

I turned to Judy. "Recall the insect probes and plot a course to the second planet. Remain in cloak."

"Yes, Jason."

After the insect probes were retrieved, we left orbit and quickly traveled to the second habitable planet. We were there in less than an hour.

This planet looked much different than the first planet. It had much less water and its polar regions were much larger. The atmosphere was not as clear because of more persistent clouds.

"I'll have to use X-Ray scans to see what's on the surface," Molly said.

"I wonder why it's so cloudy. There is not that much in the way of oceans."

"I suspect that it has more volcanic venting than normal," she said. "The infrared scans are showing several hot spots."

"It doesn't look promising," I said, sounding disappointed.

"Wait!" she exclaimed. "I've detected a large group of structures at the equatorial region of the largest continent."

I jumped up to look over her shoulder at the displayed image. "That looks very interesting. Try scanning for life forms."

After several minutes, the displayed image showed several signs of life.

"Wow!" I exclaimed. "I believe we hit the jackpot."

"We have no idea what sort of life forms these are," she reminded me. "This planet's pulsating magnetic field is interfering with my scans."

"Yes, I realize that, but we'll have to go down and check it out." I turned to Judy. "We'll need a fighter with a half dozen troops and a battle droid."

"They will be ready, Jason."

"Are you expecting trouble?" Molly asked, her face twisted with concern.

"If this is a breeding farm, there may be reptilian aliens there. I don't want to take any chances."

That seemed to satisfy her, but I could see the doubt in her eyes.

The flight down to the surface was quick. The fighter craft is designed for attacking ground targets and anything in space. It was intended for swift deployment in a battle zone.

Molly and I wore battle armor, essentially metal reinforced polymer suits designed to deflect both energy weapons and rail gun projectiles. The androids wore the same armor. The battle droid didn't need armor. It was essentially an armored robot bristling with weapons.

When we dismounted from the fighter, we stepped onto a truly alien looking world. The trees had thick black leaves and most of the spindly-looking brush was black. I assumed that it had evolved this way to soak up what little star radiation penetrated the cloudy atmosphere.

The structures appeared to be made from some sort of metallic material. They were dull gray in color, reflecting very little light.

We rushed up to what appeared to be an opening, but there seemed to be no means to gain entry. Alice stepped up and stared at the entrance and then placed her hand on it.

The door slid open. We braced for a confrontation but encountered none. We entered and found several unclothed individuals cowering in fright near a back wall. They were definitely not human.

"Those are aliens from the first planet," Molly said.

"I'm not surprised. This is where the reptilians keep their food because it's close to their home planet and the aliens from the first planet have no idea that their abductees are being stored here because they don't have space flight technology."

"What are we going to do with them?" Molly asked.

"We must return them to their planet," I replied. "Although, not in this condition." I turned to Alice. "Is there some way we could clothe them?"

"We could search the other structures," Alice replied. "There might be clothing in them."

"Yes, that's a good idea." I pointed to Janice and Valery. "Stay here and guard these aliens. We're going to search the other structures."

They nodded.

When we gained entrance to the second building we were attacked by a robotic device that looked like a large lizard and moved on four legs. It shot at us with plasma balls, but we avoided them and our battle droid blew it to shreds.

"Stay vigilant," I said. "There could be more of those things."

"This is where they store the meat," Molly said, using her hand to wipe a clear spot off of a transparent door covering to a giant locker that contained carcasses.

I made a disgusted face. "We'll not mess with that." Let's check out the other structures."

We came upon something even more disgusting. It was the chamber where robotic butchering machines were doing their disgusting deeds. Our battle droid took care of them, preventing the deaths of six aliens.

I was angry. "I don't believe those bastards! They don't have the fortitude to do their own food processing."

"Apparently, this is how they could be operating around the galaxy, or at least this part of the galaxy," Molly said.

"I see some cloth over there," I said, pointing to a corner of the chamber. "They must be using that to gather up the parts of them they don't want." I turned to Alice. "Could that be used to clothe these aliens?"

"Yes, Jason. We will use our cutters to fashion clothing for them."

What I witnessed next made me swallow hard. Alice, Ellen, Patricia and Felicity made sharp cutting blades pop out of slits that appeared in their forearm flesh. The cutting blades were still attached to them, and they used them to cut up the cloth into what appeared to be robe-like garments.

I turned to Molly. "They never cease to amaze."

She gave me a smirk.

I wondered what other surprises they had hidden.

We collected forty-six aliens, both male and female and returned them to our vessel in the fighter. The androids activated more of their members to help care for them until we returned them to their planet.

When I returned to the ship, I went to engineering to make a request.

"I would like to have the historic learning file No. 10225 translated into the alien language with the dimension notations reduced to their dimension scale. Then I would like it recorded on a data disc."

Queen didn't even blink. "We will do that, Jason."

I smiled. "Thank you."

Now, I had my ace in the hole.