Unity

Chapter 23

"You had better start explaining yourself," I demanded. I was sitting in a small conference room that was attached to the bridge, and across from me sat Dr. Thompson. "What did you do to my ship, and how were you able to translate the Tuleeririan language so quickly?"

Dr. Thompson sighed and asked, "How long until you are needed on the bridge?"

"About a half hour," I answered.

"I guess I had better give you the short version." Dr. Thompson paused for a moment, and then continued. "Everything you know is a lie." I was about to say something when he cut me off. "Give me a minute to explain. Not everything is a lie, but anything linked to the genesis of mankind, the Unity, or Galactum is. Galactum was not discovered as a raw substance. The mining company that is credited for finding it discovered it by accident. They came across a spaceship, buried deep in the moon. Deep in the bowels of the ship was a hoard of refined Galactum. There were also crates full of records preserved on metallic disks. It took several years and the brightest minds on the planet to translate the data. The data disks told of an ancient race, probably the first intelligent species to roam the galaxy. This ship was theirs. They were once a peaceful race, but war had been forced upon them. They had an advanced system to track time that still works today. We figure that this war had been going on for over a thousand earth years."

"This race finally developed some kind of secret weapon that should have turned the tides of battle in their favor, but the discovery came too late. They were unable to produce the weapon fast enough to stop the inevitable. Instead of revealing their secret to their enemy, they kept it hidden. They sent ships to all corners of the galaxy as seed ships. This would allow their race to survive. These data disks were to be hidden on each planet to teach them their history, as well as the secret weapon to destroy their ancient enemy."

"Is there a way to tell how long ago this happened?" I asked.

"We figure it was in the ballpark of two to five million years ago," he replied. I was stunned. The fact that the ship hidden in the moon survived that long was incredible.

"Is there any more information regarding the enemy?" I asked. I had a suspicion that the Zrynt and this ancient enemy were one and the same.

"There is," he replied. "This was one of the more recent translations. The ancients gave them a name, but we have not been able to translate it. From their records, this enemy desired to be the only intelligent species to roam the galaxies. They would roam through a galaxy, destroying any civilization capable of space travel. Once they had eradicated all advanced civilizations, they would leave. They were described as a fierce race who loved war and violence. That is probably why they would leave, to allow species time to rebuild so they could destroy them again."

Dr. Thompson paused so I could try to take it all in. "So, what you are saying is that we are descendants of that ancient race." He nodded his head. "That explains the similarities between us and the Tuleeriri. Dr. Thompson, I need you to keep the truth of our genesis a secret. Something of this magnitude could cause an uproar, and right now we need all the stability we can get." I took a deep breath before continuing. "What is the secret weapon then?"

He smiled and held out his arms. "We are sitting in it," he explained with a smile.

"Their secret weapon is the Unity?" I asked.

"More or less, but some of the disks were damaged, and our translation of their record is incomplete." He replied. "We planned on adding new discoveries as 'upgrades' as we came across them in the records."

"That is what you have been doing with the engines," I said.

"That is correct," he said. "The 'upgrade' as we were calling it was a second engine, capable of interstellar travel. Your next mission was going to be to test it, but seeing how we are here and alive, it obviously works. We were still calibrating it when the Unity came under attack. Normally traveling would be almost instantaneous and only slightly uncomfortable. The lack of calibration also contributed to the massive toll it took on our power cores."