The Inner Ring (gxg)

Chapter 24

"Damn, when you said you had something to show me, I didn't know it was this cool!" Lena exclaimed.

"This wasn't even what we were going to show you!" Pepper said excitedly.

"This is amazing! How do we rewind?" Vanessa cried.

Pepper picked up the tablet, and pressed one of the buttons, which seemed to make it skip to the next scene. The button next to it backed up the scene though, and they returned to the video of the multiple spaceships. They watched it a dozen times, trying to see if there were any other clues that they could glean from it.

"So where is the second ship?" Vanessa wondered.

"Maybe it got away," Lena hoped.

"It couldn't have gone to Earth, right?" Pepper wondered.

"Well, not unless all the cute little foxes on our planet are aliens in disguise," Lena said with a chuckle.

The three shared a look, each trying to think if that possibility could be realistic.

"No way," Vanessa finally stated. "The whole fox hunt thing in England would have never happened if the foxes could fight back with the weapons we found."

"Then maybe they went to another planet," Pepper suggested.

"Maybe. But if it were damaged, it could have gone down on Uranus, and we'd never know." Lena pointed out.

"Shit. That actually makes sense based on what we've seen," Vanessa agreed.

"I was really hoping for a working spaceship too," Lena moped.

"Well then, you're in luck!" Pepper smirked. "Because that is what we were actually going to tell you, the big ship has power, at least to the bridge anyway. We were hoping you could help us figure out what some of the stuff up there does."

"Holy shit! Seriously?"

"Yeah, but don't tell anyone!" Vanessa admonished.

"Okay, I'm in. But I get to go to the bridge too, right?"

"Absolutely! We had wanted you there when we accidentally turned on the lights yesterday," Pepper smiled.

"Well, I have to drive a sled, but I'm just a ferry for guns at this point, so I can just park it and let them load it up and then I can take it back when we're done," Lena shrugged happily.

"Oh, and we need to grab a bunch more of these laser pointers. I bet each one is different, and it will give whoever is on the bridge something to do. I'm betting Xavier is going crazy up there not being able to do much else," Vanessa suggested.

"Well, then let's go. We need to show this toy off!" Lena exclaimed.

When they met on the bridge with the rest of the team, there was a lot of wonder as the holograph was shown. Even Anton praised Pepper with a wry look. Evidently, he hadn't realized how much information might be contained in their seemingly simple find over in the alien bunks. The most excitement came at the prospect of a second large ship, though there was worry as well, in case there was a group of living aliens that might not want them around the remains of their ancestors.

Pepper showed everyone what they had discovered with the controls, and soon everyone had their own tablet and several of the laser pointers to examine. Each of the pointers had different images, they seemed to be handed down within each family, but had similarities as well. There were always moments where it looked as though the ancestors were explaining something to whoever was watching, there was usually a song or dance, and all of them ended shortly after a view of the ships awaiting them.