Unity

Chapter 25

I walked away from the holotable and stretched. Shahae and I had been pouring over a map of the galaxy sent from the planet Narrisal. Our communications officers had been working hard to improve communications between the Unity and the Tuleeriri and we could now have live video feeds and send files back and forth. We had spent three hours cross checking constellations and nebulae to the map the Tuleeriri provided, and we could safely dismiss much of the galaxy, as we had Earth's general location, but locating a single star among hundreds of millions seemed impossible. I knew I was being impatient, but I knew we had to get home as soon as possible.

"I think we are getting close," Shahae called out.

I walked back to the table and asked, "What did you find?"

She looked up at me and said, "We have two possible matches on star clusters that make up your constellations. One or two more and we should be able to triangulate your home planet." I looked at the map, and two constellations were lit up. They looked like Taurus and Gemini. A minute later and two more illuminated, then the map then started to zoom in around a cluster of stars. It singled out a start and zoomed in closer and closer. The data on the map looked like it was a match. The layout of the solar system was a match as well. I couldn't believe it, we had done it.

"Which planet is yours?" asked Shahae.

"The third planet is. I thought it would have been obvious."

She looked at me questioningly. "Why would it be obvious? From what our information says that planet is a desolate wasteland and always has been."

"Well, your information has to be wrong. Earth has had life for millions of years. You don't even have our moon on this map." I said, pointing to the area where the moon should have been.

"Well, we have never traveled that part of the galaxy. It has all been mapped by probe eons ago, so our data could be wrong," she admitted.

"The good news is that we found it," I replied with a smile. "It's on the other side of the galaxy, but that shouldn't matter too much."

"It might matter more than you think," Shahae said delicately. She had a worried expression. She brought up one of the displays and typed in a command. The map zoomed back out. There were two points illuminated. "This over here is Earth '' she said, pointing to the area we had just been looking at. "This is Narrisal." She pointed to the other bright spot. She pushed a button and a red shroud engulfed three quarters of the galaxy. Earth was no longer visible. "This red represents space controlled by the Zrynt."

I suddenly felt light headed. I staggered to my chair and sat down. Just when things were starting to get good, they came crashing back down. Earth was surrounded by Zrynt forces and they didn't even know it. What's worse, I wasn't sure we would be able to make it back without alerting the Zrynt to Earth's location. Shahae walked over and put her hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry," she said softly.

Her touch broke me from my stupor, and I thought for a moment before speaking, "The way I see it, they either haven't noticed us, or didn't think us worth their time."

"Both are valid points," Shahae conceded. "It is likely they inspected your planet before you had achieved space flight, and therefore were not considered a threat. Historically, most advanced civilizations have formed near the galactic core, due to the abundance of raw materials. This would mean your planet would be less likely to be explored and is even less likely to be a threat."

"Looks like I have two options," I thought out loud, "I can either return and we'll try to hold out against the Zrynt by ourselves if discovered, or I can offer my assistance in ridding the galaxy of this blight." I paused for a moment. "Now that I've said it out loud, the choice seems obvious." I reflected on my decision for several minutes before continuing, "I will make the announcement today. We'll have to figure out a way to warn my people on Earth about the danger they're in. We can only hope that Earth will remain undiscovered until we can reclaim that part of the galaxy."