Chapter 4

I learned a lot from Dr. Femna and her staff of nurses while they conducted their tests on me. One of the main things I learned that I wanted to know about the most, their ship. Dr. Femna said that the ship is a deep space exploration class ship. They are armed to the teeth with twenty laser banks, eight proton canons, ten missile tubes, twenty five fighters, and the strongest shield they could place into the ship. Femna said that they were not always armed; they used to just have a few fighters, some lasers, and their shields to protect them. However, about a hundred or so years ago her people ran into the Salwan near the end of a 50 year mission just like the one that they are currently on. The vessel was totally destroyed by the Salwan. The Doc said that the Salwan are very xenophobic. And after the ship was destroyed they searched out where the ship had come from and systematically started to kill everyone they came across. She said it was horrible what they did. They had picked the wreckage of the exploration ship clean of any information they could find. They found their navigation log, and from that they found the two pre-space races that the exploration ship had made first contact with, and totally annihilated them.

"It was horrible, guest Alex. All my people could do was watch what happened to them through the probes that were left behind by the exploration ship." Femna started to cry at the remembrance of the atrocity that occurred that day.

"I was on a patrol ship on the outer edge of our territory finishing my internship to become a full fledged Doctor."

Femna explained to me that her people have a process where they are able to implant any known knowledge directly into the brain. For her to become a doctor she had to intern for 10 years on different ships so she would have a full grasp of the knowledge that was implanted in her brain.

"Congratulation Doctor Femna, you have just completed your required stint as an intern and are now a full fledged Doctor."

"Thank you Doctor Valsa and thank you Captain Sala for letting me finish the last of my required internship on your Ship."

"Ah... no thanks are needed Femna."

"Thank you anyway Captain."

The Captain was interrupted before she could say anything else by a message from the bridge.

"Captain we are receiving an emergency distress call from a probe."

"Put it up on the main screen now ensign."

"Yes Captain"

Through the speakers a mechanical voice started the distress call.

"Pre-space civilization under attack in quadrant 227. Commencing feed now."

"The screen lit up. And what we saw was horrible."

"Captain there are three cruiser class ships in orbit of the planet. They are releasing fighters, and are now bombarding the planet with their main laser canons Ma'am."

"Set a course for quadrant 227 right now."

"Yes Ma'am."

"What is are ETA pilot."

"Our ETA is 30 cycles Ma'am."

"We won't make it in time if that's the best we can do."

"I'm sorry Ma'am but that estimation is if we press our engines to the max and hold them as long as they can withstand it Captain."

"We just had to watch the whole planet die in front of our eyes, Guest Alex. It took them about thirteen cycles to do it. But that was not all. Just after the probe reported that it could not detect any life signs on the planet. We received another distress call from another probe."

"Captain we are receiving another Distress call."

"On screen now!"

"Yes Ma'am."

"We heard the same type of mechanical voice through the speakers."

"Pre-space civilization under attack in quadrant 223. Commencing Feed now."

The screen lit up again and we saw the same exact thing happen to this race as the last one.

"Change course immediately. To quadrant 223 now."

"Yes Ma'am. Changing course now, new ETA 15 cycles Ma'am."

"When we arrived, it was too late. They were just leaving the system. We gave chase but they reached their jump point, and we lost them when they jumped out of the system."

Doctor Femna and the few of her staff that remember the incident were quiet for a while in remembrance of the two fallen races. I was as well. And I thanked God that it was Trilan that found Earth, and not the Salwan.

After that it was a short while before I was helping the researchers decipher all the information that they were gathering from my people.