Realized I hadn’t asked a question that I should have back when we first got dragged into this trip. “You know, for a ship as advanced as this one, why don’t we have cloaking?”
“We do,” Brian said. He hit some buttons. “And I’ve engaged it. It’s top-of-the-line, too. We hide our heat signature, ambient noise, and an array of other things I know you don’t want me to list. The only time they’ll see us is if they accidentally hit us.”
“Better late than never. Just sayin’. So, will the rockets miss us now?”
“Yes, because I think they’re not actually firing at us,” Walker said. “I’m tracking the trajectory and I’m pretty sure they’re firing at the blue planet, but the rockets are being sent over, versus through, the asteroid belt.”
“Meaning, cloaked or not, we’re still in the way,” Tim said. “Let’s get out of the way. Unless we can’t move for some reason.”
“No, we have full power,” Brian said, as the ship took a sharp right turn and I remembered there was a harness with my name on it. “We just needed to be sure we weren’t going to slam into one of the many dwarf planets, moons, or stray asteroids.”
“Is that the excuse for the cloaking, too, Bri?”
“No. We haven’t needed it until now, and I haven’t been active, really, until now.”
“Those sound like my kind of excuses, so I’ll buy them.” Got to said harness and got strapped in just in time, before we had to zoom upward. “Guys, seriously, I want Lilith to disengage. If we take a hit, the ship has shields but she doesn’t.”
“Agreed,” Jeff said. “Tim?”
“I agree as well.”
Felt Lilith retract. She sparkled near me. “Thank you. That was . . . taxing. The blue planet is not returning fire.”
“Anything else you can tell us? I mean, if you’re allowed to.”
“I am not actually a part of what you call the Superconsciousness Society. I’m more of a . . . let me find the term that you’ll understand . . . got it. Free agent. I’m a free agent.”
“I’m gonna take a mo to enjoy this fact. I’m sure the joy will be gone soon, but for now, yahoo!”
“The system is at war,” Lilith shared. “The red planet feels that those on the blue planet have wronged them in some terrible way. The reasons for this are lost to time, but the belief is still there.”
“Just like any good religion,” Chuckie said.
“Yes.” Lilith paused, presumably because we’d moved to safety and were able to watch the rocket land.
“Those look like mushroom clouds,” Tito said.
“Fantastic. We only have one Moon Suit.” Me and you, together again? I asked Lilith in my mind.
Yes, regardless of what plans get made.
“They might not be nuclear,” Chuckie said. “They came from far enough away that the impact alone could create what we just saw.”
“Nice of Ixtha to mention a solar system war,” Reader said, sarcasm knob at eight and rising.
“Well, she did tell me she was looking for the Warrior Queen. I guess we should have taken that leap.”
“Possibly before we took this one,” Brian said.
“Bri, seriously, stop being a Donald Downer. We’re here now, we’re going to handle things.” Somehow. “Jerry, are you getting any kind of chatter?”
“None. And considering that one planet is attacking the other, there should be some.”
“Maybe we’re not on the right channel,” Joe suggested.
“I’m scanning the entire solar space,” Jerry replied. “There is zero chatter. You can feel free to try to do better.”
“I would, but that’s Kitty’s job,” Joe said. “And I wouldn’t want to overstep.”
“The blue planet has no external communications,” Lilith said. “They’ve been destroyed. The red planet knows we’re here—they did see us before we cloaked—and have gone to silent running.”
“Or playing possum,” I suggested.
“Possibly more than you realize,” Lilith replied. “The blue planet has no clear idea why the red planet hates them. That world is filled with fear. The red world is filled with rage. There are other emotions, but those are the predominant ones.”
“Jeff . . .”
“I have my blocks up, baby, stop worrying. Not my first war zone. And the other empaths on board have their blocks up, too, kids included. I’ve had the kids keeping their blocks up since we got things sort of under control at the start of this adventure.”
“No more projectiles are being fired,” Randy said. “Chip and I are both scanning and I see nothing leaving either planet.”
“Correct,” Walker said. “So, no idea if we should hail and make ourselves officially known, or try to sneak down to one of the many choices.”
My music changed to “Round and Round” by Aerosmith. Considered what Algar was trying to tell me. “Maybe we should cruise the system first. Just in case.”
“Good idea,” Grentix said. “There could be life on the dwarf planets and moons.”
“There is not,” Lilith said in a way that made me pretty sure she knew why there was no life, too. “But we should indeed look.”
We did the fast cruise around thing that would have made the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo astronauts green with envy.
“This system is strange,” Brian said as we completed our first circle around and were starting our second. “The dwarf planets are scattered far from the sun, and you’d think at least some of them would be closer to it. And it makes no sense that they’d still have moons—you’d think the moons would get pulled into the red planet’s gravity.”
“This system was traveling through the galaxy,” Chuckie said. “The planets are huge, the sun huger. Maybe its gravitational pull stole the dwarfs from other systems.”
“We need to take a closer look at the smaller objects,” Walker said, voice tight. “Because I don’t think we’re seeing what we think we’re seeing.”
We flew closer and Walker and Randy did whatever they did in order to put objects onto our viewing screen and magnify them.
“You know, I realize that most celestial objects aren’t truly round like a ball or a marble, like the pictures in textbooks,” Tito said slowly, “but these don’t look like moons so much as . . .”
“Shrapnel,” Wruck said. “These aren’t dwarf planets or moons. They’re debris.”
“Correct,” Lilith said. “This system used to have more planets, none of which were dwarf planets, and no moons. The asteroid belt consists of the remains of the smaller planets in the system. The debris outside of the red planet’s orbit is from the larger planets.”
“Nice of you to share,” Jeff said, keeping his sarcasm knob only at around three.
“Despite how it seems to you, accessing entire planets to find information takes time,” Lilith replied. “And you all determined this without me anyway. I’m along to help, not do it all for you.”
“We did,” Jeff admitted. “And you’re right.”
“It’s as if a billion souls cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced,” Tim said.
“I feel something terrible has happened.” Hey, Ixtha kind of considered me Obi-Wan; this dialogue was fitting.
“Let’s not head for that small moon, then,” Reader added.
“Is now the time, you guys?” Brian asked.
“It’s always the time, Bri. And that’s no moon.”