Part 5 Caverns in the Sky.

Synopsis: Jason and Molly have worked out their differences about who should be in control. It turns out that they both must cooperate. They now have three renovated and updated ships and many more androids. Their main problem is that they still don't know where the Scath are coming from. Finding their base in the Milky Way galaxy is a priority. They also must ensure that the humans on Earth stay safe from outside attacks.

Chapter No.45 Chase the devils

I joined Molly on the command deck and found her engrossed in her virtual mirror telescope, which allowed her to see planets around stars that were up to a thousand light years away.

"Find anything interesting?"

She didn't look back at me. "No, not yet."

"You know something," I said as I sat in my engineering station chair. "I think this nonsense about some raider species in the far side of the galaxy is bogus."

"Maybe it's a way to get us to clean out any remaining Scath aliens from our galaxy."

"You might be right," I said.

"I am detecting a large number of vessels on intercept," Judy said.

"Speak of the devil," Molly said sarcastically.

"Go to Red Alert!" I shouted.

Madison came onto the deck and assumed her weapon station's duty. I looked at the tactical display and saw that there were at least fifty Scath vessels approaching.

I decided to use a concerted attack. "We'll split up with the Red android vessel attacking from the left, the Black android vessel attacking from the right, and we'll attack from the middle."

The Scath didn't split up. They remained on a course directly at us. This was a big mistake because the Red androids and Black androids tore into their ranks and blasted big holes into their formation. We met them head on and began systematically destroying their ships while avoiding their fire by bobbing and jerking around.

The battle was furious but we soon had the advantage and began to clean up the remaining Scath ships at will. When it was done, we were alone among a humongous debris field.

"I suppose this was what the reptilians expected," I said.

"They knew about it and never warned us," Molly said.

"Oh well, it doesn't matter. We have the power to destroy them."

"That really doesn't make sense," Molly said. "Why do they keep attacking us when they know they can't win?"

"They must be suicidal."

She pointed at me. "Or, there's something going on here we don't understand."

"That's possible," I said. "If only there were a way to discover the reason. They don't communicate with us or show any signs of a compromise. Hell, we still don't know where they're coming from."

"Maybe they are from this side of the galaxy," she said.

"That's possible, but it doesn't explain why they went to Andromeda."

Molly sighed. "I suppose I should keep looking for habitable planets."

I nodded. I knew that this process of trying to locate the Scath home system would be time consuming, but we had all the time in the world, or in this case, the universe.

Later that evening after supper, we settled down to enjoying a glass of wine and listening to Alice, Ellen, Melisa, Gloria and Elizabeth playing chamber music, namely some Mozart Concertos.

"I've been thinking more about this Scath situation," I said. "I've done a comparison of the picture of the reptilian and the image of the Scath individuals that Fist gave us, and there are a number of similarities."

Molly gave me a confused look. "Are you inferring that they are the same?"

"Not the same, but two variations of the same species."

She huffed. "If that's the case it would imply that they're fighting a war that has been going on for a long time."

I wagged a finger at her. "Exactly. I suspect that sometime in their history there was a political fraction and the Scath broke away and became the rebels in a protracted civil war. We just happened to fall into it by accident, or it could have been part of the Phoenix Project to attack the reptilians on behalf of the Scath."

She sighed. "In other words, we've been on the wrong side all along."

"Yes, but there is not much we can do about it now. What I don't understand is why the Scath are attacking other intelligent species, ones that don't have space capability."

"Maybe the Scath perceive them as being aligned with the reptilians."

"Yes," I replied. "Maybe the teddy bear species had made an agreement with the reptilians and that's why they were attacked."

"And, they must have known that we were aligned with the reptilians, and that's why they continue to attack us."

"That's the trouble with going out into space and making contact," I said. "We really don't know what's going on."

"Maybe we should go back and tell Fist that we don't want to belong to his coalition."

"If we do that, then we will become the enemy because he'll assume that we made some pact with the Scath."

She frowned. "I hate politics!"

"I'm with you on that. I think it's best that we play dumb and just continue searching for real humans."

She held up her glass. "I'll drink to that."

I smiled as I contacted my glass with hers. "I'll second that emotion."

She giggled.

Suddenly, Judy's face appeared on a large virtual screen above us. "I have detected an anomaly. I am unable to determine its essence."

"We'll be right up," I said.

Molly and I rushed to the command deck, and what we saw was very disturbing.