“Yes… that is the same one that fired on us before!” he said aloud.
“I suspect they have been there all along, Captain Tow. It was well cloaked.”
Tow still felt uncomfortable being called captain. A position he’d risen to by default—not because he’d earned it. Looking at the viewscape, he felt the familiar churning in his stomach as sour bile rose, burning the back of his throat. What he was feeling now was beyond fear—beyond anger—beyond hatred; only the natural instinct to survive remained, transcending all other emotions and propelling him forward.
“Now, six hundred and eighty-five million clicks,” the AI updated, its bucolic tone grating, as usual, on Tow’s nerves.
He chewed on the inside of his cheek, while continuing to stare at the viewscape display, and briefly wondered what the captain would do in the same situation but then thought better of it. Doing things the way the captain once did could very well get him where the captain was—dead.
“Now, six hundred and sixty-five million clicks,” the AI orb said.
“Do you know how annoying that is, AI?” Tow asked.
The AI orb then descended several feet, not responding.
“We have only a matter of hours, if even that, Captain Tow. The enemy’s vessels are closing in on us fast.”
“I know, I know, just tell me where the closest Class-A analogous sister planet is.”
The AI went silent, checking.
As far as Tow knew, all worlds within the universe had a certain number of analogous sister planets. It only made sense. Out of the trillions of heavenly bodies encompassing the cosmos, there were only a select few matching a Class-A’s pre-defined criteria, including such specifics as atmospheric conditions—a correlation of nitrogen and oxygen. While nitrogen needed to be between 75% and 80% of the total atmosphere, oxygen needed to be between 20% and 24%. The remaining percentage mainly consisted of argon. The size and weight of a sister world directly corresponded to its gravitational properties. Then there was the amount of water available—ice formations, lakes, and oceans. Finally, the planet’s indigenous life forms, where the aggregate, similar-planet numbers dropped through the floor. A Class-A sister planet would not include gargantuan prehistoric beasts, running around looking for their next meal. Nor flesh-eating microbes that either lurked in dark crevices, or under rocks. No, a Class-A sister planet would be very similar to home—Mahli—where the Pashier civilization once flourished. A Class-A sister planet would have on it a species with a similar genome, not too dissimilar to their own.
Startled, Tow watched the AI orb unaccountably zip across to the far side of the bridge. Another annoying tendency of the autonomous bot, on a growing list. “We are relatively close to a Class-A world.”
“That is good… how close?”
“Approximately six billion clicks.”
Unconsciously, Tow rubbed his aching leg again. “Can we make it… before we are overtaken?”
“The answer is indeterminable, at present. I would say the odds are not in our favor, Captain Tow, unfortunately.”
Tow began to scroll through the volumes of information provided by the AI orb. Slowly, then more rapidly, he began to shake his head. “No… no… no… that one is not Class-A!” Exasperated, he made the universal what were you thinking gesture—his shoulders raised, his palms up. “Look! There’s nothing more than war-mongering savages running around in that world. I mean, sure, they’ve progressed beyond loincloths and rubbing sticks together to light a fire… but—”
The AI interrupted his tirade: “It’s either that world, or travel another twenty-seven billion clicks to the next Class-A world.”
“How long would that take?”
“It does not matter how long that would take. Both you and the ship would be destroyed long before then.”
Tow noticed the AI had gotten progressively more snarky over recent weeks and idly wondered if one of the crew’s now-deceased tech-heads had pre-programmed its alteration. Perhaps, as a parting gift to those who’d endured? Though Tow had been the first officer, not one of the tech heads, everyone—at least to a minimal degree—was somewhat adept doing another’s job. When there was time, he’d look into the ship’s systems coding.
“Set the course. I also want you to enrich the sampian-flux mixture entering the pre-burn manifold. No more than three percent should do it.” He was grasping, he knew, but they needed to get some serious distance between themselves and those three relentless Howsh pursuers, even if it was short-lived. When they’d left Mahli, three years ago, there were fourteen vessels in the armada. But over the years, they’d been picked off, one by one, by their enemy—the Howsh. Now only one ship remained—the Evermore.
On approach, Tow stared at the bright-blue planet as it grew in size outside the forward observation window. His breath caught in his chest—his eyes suddenly brimmed with tears. How? It was Mahli! But then, as oceans began forming, the contours of continents more defined, he realized this blue planet was indeed a different world. That Mahli would no longer look anything like this, thanks to the dispersion of organic genocide. Genocide instigated by the Howsh. No… the oceans back home were no longer blue; the continents nothing more than dingy-brown wind-blown wastelands.
The alien turned to look at the viewscape display then to the many ancillary console indicators just beneath it—especially those that provided long-range scan results. Their pursuers had been evaded, at least for now. The AI had done an admiral job. But for how long? Long enough to make needed repairs? He didn’t know. Tow felt, more than saw, the AI drone’s presence.
Tow assessed the blue world’s demography: where the planet’s population centers were located; where military facilities were situated; and where technology, what there was of it, seemed to exist minimally. He instructed the AI orb to tap into their worldwide communications. Into their rudimentary, spider-like, network.
The orb followed the curvature of the bulkhead—then slowed to a stop. “There is an Amazon region—what is referred to as South America. Almost completely uninhabited,” the orb said.
Tow studied the environmental data. “Looks… muggy. Hot. Place will be filled with insects, and I hate insects!” A series of popping noises erupted from his donifer glands.
“What about there?” Tow asked, leaning in toward the display. “It is called… Woodbury, in what is called North America. The Tennessee region… it seems fairly desolate. The population of local savages is close to three thousand and is spread across a wide area.” He sat back. “We’ll go there. Find a place to land… as hidden a location as possible. Make sure it’s where we’ll go unnoticed by the locals. Maybe there,” Tow said, zooming in and turning to an area with a mixture of towering trees, distant mountain peaks, and open prairie lands.
It was late evening when the Evermore descended out from a moonless, star-filled sky. Nearly soundless, the wedge-shaped vessel skirted the tall treetops.
Tow, gazing downward through the forward observation window, had resumed manual control of the ship. He pointed. “Over there. Looks like there’s some open terrain among those surrounding trees.” What had the AI referred to them as—coniferous plant life? Within the genus Pintos, commonly referred to as pine trees.