Chapter 6

The time finally came to transfer people from the earth to the completed Mothership. It took over a week to get everyone up there. JT and Jenny, Charlie’s oldest daughter, were married and decided to stay at the property in Texas. Freddy gave the couple a communication device that would reach Charlie anywhere in the Milky Way galaxy, almost instantly. They agreed to check in with the rest of the family every week. Charlie made it very clear that if they missed a check in, and he couldn’t get them when he called back, he would return via mothership or a Saucer. Freddy told them the farthest system from earth could take as much as a month to get back.

The big question was where to go, there are nine more Wolfen generational ships out there killing off civilizations at a rate of one per every five to six earth years. They could go after them one at a time, have Freddy do the same thing he had done with our own Mothership’s AI. Or they could visit those civilizations populated by aliens that were closest to our own species that the Wolfen had attacked. The third alternative was to visit star systems close to earth, maybe explore Alpha Centauri, a binary star system that has at least one planet in the habitable zone.

The question of where to go was discussed by using the mind com, and put to a vote. The majority wanted to combine going to the civilization most like our own species, like the builders of some of our ships, and while going and coming stop and explore promising star systems along the way.

Freddy told everyone about the civilization that had built these spaceships, the Mulana. The Wolfen had attacked them five hundred twenty three years ago. They had left the system shortly after so he had no idea how many of its inhabitants had survived. Humans were actually a very close match biologically, the same size, bipedal, two arms, hands had three fingers rather than five. Their heads were slightly bigger, and their reproductive system was the same. They had three breasts instead of two and they were slightly purple in pigmentation. They normally produced two or three babies at a time. It was very possible that they had rebuilt quickly with the help of two planets they had colonized several years before the attack. Their star System was over a thousand light years away, they could go directly there in two weeks, or visit some places on the way and take a month or years as long as they wanted.

The first stop was Alpha Centauri, only four light years away, it was a relatively short trip. As Freddy explained it, the ship had the ability to fold space making jumps of up to ten light years each. A two hour minimum wait was required between jumps, not only to recharge the system, but also for the living organisms on board to recover. Feelings of nausea and spatial disorientation were the most common complaints, some never felt any discomfort at all.

Forty eight hours after leaving the Sol system the Mothership arrived in the area outside the gravity well of Proxima Centauri in orbit around this Red Dwarf star were three planets labeled “A”, “B”, and “C”. Planet “B” was in the Habitable Zone, or The Goldilocks Zone, where liquid water may be available. Where there is liquid water there is a possibility of life. However the star was one eighth the size of earth’s sun and emitted much less light, there were no polar ice caps, there was no moon to help churn a molten inner core. Being much closer in orbit to it’s star it received four hundred times the radiation from its star compared to Sol. With no molten core it didn’t have the protection of a magnetosphere and therefore it had no atmosphere, the solar winds having stripped any it may have had long ago.

They didn’t stay long, a few hours, Freddy had detected a nebula six light years in the direction they needed to go. During the seventy two hours of transit the inhabitants of the Mothership became more accustomed to the way of travel, more relaxed. As a result more people took advantage of the amenities offered on board the ship. Hiking trails were popular, softball and baseball teams were formed, schedules were developed, and posted. But by far the most popular pastime was the microgravity sex venues. Group Gropes were popular, completions started seeing who could form the biggest chain of players having sex with at least two other people at a time. Then someone came up with the idea of making complex shapes for Groping. Making complex molecular chains or DNA sequences out of people making love to each other, or downright dirty fucking became the rage. Bungee cords and harnesses to attach them to each other became highly sought after and the replicators were kept busy making both. One group took the lead with over two hundred people forming a molecule of polyethylene. Couples wore different colored crotch less suits, black for carbon, and red for hydrogen. The visual presentation was stunning. Charlie was heard to remark that he would have understood Chemistry much better with living illustrations such as these.

The Nebula was fascinating, new stars were coalescing from the gasses, a process that takes thousands of years of accretion to form a protostar then millions of years to grow into a main sequence star. It was beautiful and timeless, stars born here would live for five hundred million years before beginning to decline.

They left the nebula and were about to leave the Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy and travel across interstellar space to a star in the Perseus Arm of the galaxy. A vast distance that would take over a month to transit.

Two thirds of the nearly five thousand people on board the new generational ship were women! Over half of them were pregnant before reaching the other arm of the galaxy. A desire to start to repopulate the human race swept through the ship. This marked the beginning of an Age of Enlightenment as far as procreation goes. All pregnant women were revered, married or not, it simply didn’t matter! The pregnant women were growing the human population in the galaxy. If not for them the species homo sapien would disappear from the Universe. Another thing that happened is that women chose the fathers based on factors and attributes they wanted in their child, instead of athletes, with big hairy chests and IQ’s around 120. They looked for scientists and smart people. Not to say looks were completely out of their criteria, a scientist who was six feet three, blue eyes and blonde hair, got laid more often than the five foot tall nerd. But the point was that the nerd was getting laid! Jealousy seemed to be a thing of the past, men were shared freely. Very few women married after becoming pregnant.

They arrived at the border of the Perseus Arm thirty three days after beginning, it took five more days to get to the planetary system that contained the homeworld of the Mulana race. It would take ten days of impulse engine, sublight travel to reach the planet. Two days into the journey klaxon sounds marked an attack on the ship. No one knew what to do, even if they knew what the sound represented. One thing they knew for sure was that the Mulana race was alive and well!

Sue began broadcasting on all relevant frequencies that we had come in peace, that we had defeated the Wolfen and appropriated their ship. She repeated that several times before they responded and asked for proof. She sent them videos of humans playing sports, singing, and other activities. She also sent pictures of the Wolfen bodies drifting away from the ship, another showed them providing a light show on Earth.

They invited a delegation to meet with them on a moon of one of the two gas giant planets in their system. The delegation was made up of Charlie, the Commanding officer of the Space Defense Force, General Amy Matlin, her Aide De Camp Captain Reggie Thomas, and several women, one of which was visibly pregnant.

The moon was large and had an atmosphere. We landed at the coordinates they had given us, it was next to a frozen lake that the AI said was made of ammonia. No one was there to meet them. They sat waiting for thirty minutes before a vehicle came out of a camouflaged tunnel in the hill a hundred yards away. It didn’t have any wheels or tracks, it used some kind of anti-gravity propulsion system. Something we could bargain for, perhaps.

Four beings exited the vehicle and walked up the ramp of the saucer that we had arrived in. They were bundled up and were wearing environmental suits. One of them ran tests on the atmosphere inside our saucer. Finding it suitable to sustain their lives they removed their garments. Slowly their bodies were revealed wearing a uniform of silver. Their skin was purple, their hair was darker than the skin. A female had three breasts, the third nestled between the other two. Both the male and female’s chest were wider than a human chest. They were bipedal, with two arms, their hands had three fingers on each hand. Their heads were slightly larger than a normal human’s, nose, eyes and mouths were proportionally bigger, but very similar to our own. They varied in height, pretty much the same as humans. Charlie was the tallest being in the room at six feet three inches tall.

“Please, make yourselves comfortable, sit and order anything you like from the replicator, it still contains all of the foods programmed into it from five hundred years ago.” Charlie told them using a universal translator they had found and replicated, to speak in their language.

“Thank you! Our tastes have remained essentially unchanged since then. I think we will all have a cup of grog. Though what you are drinking smells good to me, what is it, if I may ask!”

“Most of us are drinking coffee, a couple of the girls are drinking hot chocolate. Would you like to try some? AI, are these drinks compatible with the Mulana’ physiology?”

“Yes, Charlie! They can drink it, though the hot chocolate may give them a buzz, like beer does in humans.”

“We will save the chocolate for later, I would like to try your coffee though!”

The alien tried the coffee and absolutely loved it! Soon all of them were trying it with the same result.

“It is a custom on our planet, the planet we call Earth, that friends talk over a cup of coffee. We hope that as this meeting progresses that we will all be friends at its conclusion. Our AI will supply you with all the coffee recipes, including candy, ice cream and other things that have a coffee flavor.”

“My name is Charles Bishop, I’m the leader of this group of surviving humans. But please call me Charlie!” Charlie introduced everyone else.

The leader of the Mulana stood and introduced himself, then his companions.

“My name is Mutilfi Joegaripta, please call me Muti, I am the representative of the ruling council! We are here to find out what you want, why have you come? We also would like to know how your race defeated the Long Nosed Ones?

“Muti, we came to find out if your species had survived, we are very happy to find that you have! Our planet was attacked and they decimated our world’s population, eight billion of our people died from their satellite attack. A very small percentage of our world’s population were in protected places, like caves, metal shipping containers, engine rooms on iron ships that travel our oceans, and refrigerators which keep food cold. As to defeating them, a small ship landed and a Wolfen, named for a large earth carnivore with a similar long nose, came out of the ship and killed the man I was meeting. Before it could kill more people I shot it in the head with a projectile weapon. I the took procession of the small ship, the Artificial Intelligence that was on the ship helped me and a few days later we boarded their generational ship to rescue seventy six females who were going to be their dinners that night, I had taken the dead Wolfen’s weapon and replaced the human hair in the chamber with Wolfen hair. Now it would only disintegrate Wolfen. After stealing a troopship and heading back to the surface of our planet, the ship’s AI opened all of the hatches in the ship and spaced them. The big ship was remodeled for our species and here we are!”

“We are very similar in body shape, do you know if we are genetically compatible?”

“Freddie, our AI, says that we are! That we could produce hybrid babies!”

“Thank the Great Spirit you have arrived, you may be able to save us from extinction! A virus has made all of the males on our planet, as well as the moon and another planet sterile.

“Don’t you have Med-beds?

“What are Med-beds?”

“You get in them and it scans your body and fixes it!”

“Charlie, these beds were developed by another civilization, the ones that built the generational ships!” Freddie said directly into his brain.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing!”

“Muti, come into our ship, I’ll show you!”

Charlie showed the alien the bed and had him lay down in it. The lid closed and the scan light swept slowly down his body. Freddy listed the problems found,

“The Patient has a gallbladder problem, both kidneys contain calcium stones, his testicals are sterile, his brain has a developing cancerous tumour, his left knee has three tendons that are torn and contain scar tissue. Shall I repair these problems? Repair will take approximately two hours.”

“Yes, Freddy, please repair these problems! Also please begin replicating at least a thousand Med-beds and large replicators for planet wide distribution.”

“Replication will take seventy three hours of your time. We will need to get more replicator source material, carbon, iron, beryllium, aluminum, copper, and gold before the order can be completed!”

“We’ll tell Muti when he comes out of the bed!”

“Charlie, I have found deposits of all of the base elements we need on a moon circling the sixth planet. I will send my robot mining ship and they will gather the material and be back before we run out. Is that alright?”

“Yes Freddy, good thinking, please send it out!”

Two hours later the lid to the Med-bed opened and a smiling Muti sat up. “I feel great! My knee doesn’t hurt, my head doesn’t hurt, and I feel like I can run one hundred kilometers!”

“Muti, did you know you had a cancerous tumour in your brain?”

“No! I did?”

“Yes, you did! Every thing has been repaired, your gallbladder, the tendons in your knee, and your sterility. Now the question is, do we fix the rest of the males on your planet, or would you like to be the only male on your planet capable of procreation?”

Muti, seriously thought about it, Charlie had meant it as a joke! But Muti didn’t think very long and replied, “Everyone needs to be fixed, please! Though it is tempting, what would you do!”

“I would be tempted too! But you can only do so much fucking, and when you don’t have the emotional component, that would be all it is! I would do the same as you, maybe after six months and near death!”

Muti laughed, a good long split your sides and falling down kind of laugh! It was good to see that perhaps humor and laughter was common in the Universe! After he recovered Charlie told him,

“I have ordered one thousand each of the Med-beds and the Replicators that are large enough to replicate them. This way your people can distribute them around the planets you populate and have the replicator produce more and more of them until everyone is cured of their sterility. Then you will have to decide if you want to put the medical profession out of business or continue to operate the Med-beds! You have the same problem with the replicators, do you want to put the manufacturers out of business, and have thousands of workers out of a job or not and have the replicators make more replicators. They are both difficult decisions to make! Please give me the coordinates of where you want them delivered.”

Looking very thoughtful, Muti pulled himself out of his contemplation of the problems, and gave him the delivery coordinates.

“One other thing, if Freddy detects that the units are not being distributed and fully used on every one they will be turned off until the reason is determined, if it is due to a select few wanting to monopolize the gene pool, they will be prosecuted under our laws. Make sure everyone understands this! One last thing, if you don’t want to repair everything wrong with a person, the unit can be told only to fix the sterility issue. The replicators can also be locked to only produce the Med-beds.