Shepherd Moon, Book 2: Homeworld   by Roberta J. Cabot

Chapter Eight Far, far away, at the edge of known space, an EarthForce expedition makes the incredible, unbelievable discovery that could rock modern Federation life to its foundations: apparently, the Earthers' magical Phase-Wave technology wasn't infinite nor universal, which puts into question a lot of the assumptions that Federation science had made about what the universe was, and how it works. Also, beyond the boundary of Phase-Wave, the same expedition finds a weird new planetary system, which included three planets which were in what Earthers called the "Goldilocks zone" of the system - the area of space around a star that had just the right conditions for life to flourish. There were two problems with these planets: the three went around their star in the same precise orbit. And they were all frozen. And they shouldn't have been frozen. And then, on the one they called Terra Dracones, they find an ancient structure under the ice that contained Earther and Elyran statues.

---

 

Chapter Eight: Timeline Chicxulub

 
Care Package

On the planet that the Earthers had named "Terra Dracones," the EarthForce expedition made up of the crews of the Fifth Fleet EarthForce warships Mikasa and Earthship II, continued to explore it and its sister planets that Earth had named Tau and Omega.

These three planets of the system they've called Ultima Thule circled their primary on the exact same orbit, and remained equidistant from each other - something that current astrophysics say is impossible, or at least highly improbable. Also, another troubling issue was that all three planets were ice-locked. They shouldn't have been, especially because they were in the Goldilocks zone. And given the composition of the three planets, tectonic and other geological effects that should have been induced by their yellow primary they've called Thule, as well as other things like their rotation and the effect of other bodies in the system (distant though they may be) should have made the internals of all three planets active and therefore given them active magnetic fields as well as triggered thermal variances. In short, these planets should not have been ice-locked, and should have been vibrant worlds full of life.

Because they didn't know what was causing this, the explorers did their best not to let their presence on the three planets affect their equilibrium lest they trigger or unbalance something, so the crew went to the extent of wearing insulated suits to minimize heat dissipating into the surrounding ice and changing the temperature of the areas where they have been exploring.

So far so good, though - the temperature increases they've caused were extremely negligible - around 0.01 of a degree Fahrenheit within a ten-meter area, which dissipated into space as soon as it was night-time.

Although, for all their exploring, all they discovered were the fossilized remains of some small creatures that curiously resembled certain Earther and Elyran insects. Further analysis could perhaps show what these insects were exactly, but with the theory of Panspermia, they could very well be, or be very similar to, Earther and Elyran lifeforms. But that had to wait when they had the equipment for it.

But that's about it. All the data that they gathered, and the tests they did with all the samples they got showed that the three planets were totally inert - no life at all, not even any hibernating or deep-frozen bacteria or viruses, even in the fossils: all three planets were totally lifeless balls of rock covered in ice, and although they weren't lifeless now, as shown by the fossils, sometime in their past, they did have life.

Using time-dating protocols on the fossils they found, Esteban and her people were able to ascertain that whatever happened to cause them to be ice-locked and, presumably cause all life on all three planets to die off, happened at the same time on all three planets - specifically, about sixty-six million years ago - which would have made it about half a million years before the start of the Galactic Federation of Planets, give or take three or four hundred thousand years (that was the error threshhold of their dating protocols).

But aside from that, there was nothing of note on all three planets. Captain Esteban of Earthship II, sent this exact frustrated message back, when Mikasa went to the Phase-Wave boundary to send and receive updates and information.

But then they discovered the spherical structure on Terra Dracones, and its... unusual contents.

Now they had something to explore.

However, everyone had to wait to continue exploring that sphere for now. Right now, they were to take delivery of a "care package" from Earth.

- - - - -

"So," Captain Esteban said to her bridge crew, "has our package from home arrived yet?"

Presently, they were orbiting Terra Dracones, as instructed, while Mikasa was orbiting Tau, and a bunch of their Cobra and Mud Turtles were parked in orbit around Omega.

"Not yet, sir," her comms officer said. "Oh, wait, we are now getting a long range message from incoming ships - they are about a day away.

"Ahh! Right on time. Acknowledge the message, and say 'welcome to Terra Dracones.'"

"Aye, sir. Coding now."

"Thanks... Oh, god, I miss Phase-Wave..."

 
Earth Calling

In a few weeks' time, they had reassembled the Seren station components that were shipped to them via EarthForce's entire Fourth and Fifth Fleets. They could have gone commercial and had them shipped by commercial cargo carriers - there already were cargo companies with FTL cargo fleets ready - but the Secretary-General nixed that idea. That meant it was EarthForce who got the dirty end of the stick.

It was just as well, since this also meant there were a lot of skilled EarthForce people with enough skilled hands to undertake the reassembly quickly.

What took longer to set up, actually, were the Telcontari-designed solar collectors. But they were able to get that done, as well. So in a period of a little over two weeks, they were back in touch with Earth, with almost the same efficiency of Phase-Wave (except there was about a fifteen-minute delay).

The way it worked was that communications intended for Earth or anyone in the Federation was relayed by the Seren station orbiting the planet to one of the other Seren stations orbiting the other two planets (whichever was in the best position), and then relay it to another Seren station outside of the clutter of the Ultima Thule system, tethered to a modified Type Two cruiser whose main job was to keep that Seren station parked at that point in space as stable a manner as possible, and to provide sufficient power to its Seren station (the cruiser could continue this role for five years or so before it needed to be refueled or, most likely, replaced by another cruiser - after all, it would be like the cruiser was constantly running and traveling in FTL for five years. That kind of wear and tear would be hard on any ship).

This station would then relay the communications to yet another Seren station similarly powered and tethered, and parked within the Phase-Wave-active part of space. From there, the communications would be conventionally broadcast to their recipients via Phase-Wave. And any messages meant for Ultima Thule would be sent in the same way, except in reverse.

It was lucky that all five of the Solar System's old Seren stations weren't destroyed or given away (actually, there were no takers - that was because what everyone really wanted was Phase-Wave).

But after the revelation that Phase-Wave was limited, plus the discovery of the technology they called "the curtain of light," the Earthers were again expanding upon Seren technology, just in case they needed it. And they began this by re-commissioning Earth's old stations for use in Ultima Thule.

In fact, the five Seren stations that were "appropriated" for this had been upgraded and improved with new wormhole technology that was developed over the ten years since the stations were last used. The upshot of it all was that a one-way message from Terra Dracones, Omega or Tau would "only" take about fourteen or fifteen minutes to get to the outermost Seren station, and vice versa.

- - - - -

After everything was set up and ticking over, and the ships that brought the Seren stations had departed, they tested the system by first sending messages to and from the three planets. It took less than two minutes to send and receive messages from any of the three planets. They then sent messages to the other two Seren stations. And when they knew that everything on their end was 100% functional, Captain Esteban's comms officer nodded to her.

"Relay to Earth is now ready, Captain," the officer said.

Esteban nodded. "EarthForce Central, this is Captain Esteban of Earthship II," she said into the officer's comm pickup. "Come in." But no reply came back. Esteban sighed and sent another message.

"Hello, hello - EarthForce Central, this is Captain Esteban of Earthship II, on test Seren relay broadcast from the Ultima Thule system. Please come in."

Her comms officer cleared his throat. "Ummm, sir?"

"What is it, Lieutenant?"

"Remember, sir, this is a Seren relay, not Phase-Wave."

"Oh... Sorry," she said sheepishly. "I forgot. How long again?"

"About half an hour for a round-trip message."

Esteban nodded. "In that case, I'm going to have a bite. Page me after twenty minutes."

"Aye, sir."

Esteban sighed as she stepped off the bridge. "Damn, I miss Phase-Wave," she muttered.

In less than twenty minutes, though, she was back and, like everyone else, her attention was glued to the overhead speakers, waiting for a reply.

Pretty soon, though, the static cleared and they heard a familiar voice.

"Hello, Earthship II, hello, Earthship II," Princess Mia said. "This is Earth calling..."

And everyone onboard Earthship II and Mikasa broke into applause and cheers.

 
Here They Come

It had been weeks since the Seren stations were activated, and things went more smoothly though not quite normally. But everyone adjusted pretty quickly to the delayed responses from the outside. They were just thankful that it didn't take days anymore, requiring the Mikasa or Earthship II to go to the edge of the Phase-Wave boundary just to send out reports.

In any case, things went apace, and by the time the Shepherd Moon was supposed to arrive, Earthship II and the Mikasa had mapped most of the system, including the asteroids and other flotsam that the new system seemed to have more than most other systems. They had also completed a level-1 study and analysis of all ten planets of the system, with great emphasis poured on the three sister planets Tau, Omega and Terra Dracones.

The layers of ice made it difficult to study the three, but using radar, sonar, lidar and other non-Phase-Wave technologies, they did a fair job of mapping them.

The names that the IAU approved for the system and her planets were pretty conventional, using Greek and Roman names from mythology, and, after a while, everyone got used to them. But as expected, over time, they started using more conventional sounding and shorter versions.

For example, everyone was now informally calling the system "Ultima" instead of "Ultima Thule," since the star was already "Thule;" the pet name for the first planet, "Tethys, was now "Tiny;" and Terra Dracones was now called "Dracones" or "Draconis." All unofficially, of course.

Princess Mia, as did Queen Tasha and Duchess Sahsha, knew this, and everything else Captain Esteban, and Captain Nobunaga of the Mikasa had been sending in their reports - something that Esteban, Nobunaga and their explorers appreciated.

Eventually, the Shepherd pulled up beside Earthship II, and the Admiral's gig, plus dozens of other shuttles coming from the other ships that came with the Shepherd (not all of them Earther ships), started for Earthship II.

"Captain, we have visitors coming," the ship's detection officer said. "No advance comms, I'm afraid."

"I can see that, lieutenant," Esteban said. "Probably a gimmick of the duchess. Among the three, she's the one who likes doing things like this. How many shuttles?"

"All in all, sir, twenty-four."

"Damn. Get me the landing bay."

After a moment, someone responded. "Main landing bay. This is the duty officer, Corporal Jansen."

"Good morning, Corporal Jansen, this is the captain."

"Sir! What can I do for you, sir?"

"Jansen, twenty-four shuttles are about to descend on us, some of them alien. Do we have space to accommodate all of them?"

Jansen was surprised that the captain herself called. And she wanted him to figure this out. And by her tone, she wanted him to figure it now.

Jansen flipped on the main plot computer's feed, and saw the incoming vessels. Using ship recognition tables, he figured out the size and requirements of each, and the amount of space in the bay needed in total.

Actually, after a few seconds of mental calculations, he figured out that there was enough space to accommodate all of them, though barely. But knowing what was probably going to happen, they were going to need more space. Lots more.

"Sir?" he said into the terminal.

"Yes, Corporal?"

"Would it be possible to conduct a flight-worthiness test on our cobras?" the young soldier asked.

Esteban paused. In a moment, she figured out what the corporal wanted.

"Of course, dear. Which ones?"

"All of them, Captain. Squadrons one through eight. That'll leave squadron nine, just in case we need shuttles."

"Of course. But the incoming shuttles are minutes away..."

"I understand, sir. Recommend we use evacuation protocol alpha."

Esteban looked at the image of the young soldier on her screen.

"Evacuation? Are you sure? Regulations say emergency evacuation is only to be executed as a last resort..."

The corporal shrugged nervously.

"Ahhh. Of course," she said. The corporal was right - there was no choice. She turned to one of the bridge crew. "Lieutenant, make what the corporal said happen."

"Aye, sir."

In seconds, a klaxon sounded through the main bay. "All cobra squadrons one through eight are away!" the bridge speaker announced via the ship's PA. "Cobra squadrons one though eight are away! Evacuation Protocol Alpha in effect. Flight crews to your cobras! Flight crews to your cobras! Cobras away!"

As with most Fifth Fleet crews, Earthship's crew was well practiced and drilled. In under a minute, the entire crew complement of the bay had taken shelter, and Earthship II started spinning on its long axis. Once the ship was spinning with sufficient speed, the bay's atmosphere was evacuated and the entire bottom of the bay swung open like enormous bomb-bay doors of some enormous World War 2 bomber from Earth's Twentieth Century. It was something that was only done in an extreme emergency.

As soon as the doors were fully open, Cobra shuttles fell away and vacated the bay, radiating out from Earthship II in all directions, like glowing blue fireflies. As soon as they were at a safe distance, they started making for a point about a thousand kilometers away from Earthship II, as per evacuation protocols. If Mia were around, she would have applauded at the quickness and preciseness of it.

The cobra crews were a little confused as to why they had to do this, however.

"What's this, Ethel," Squadron One's lead shuttle pilot said to his copilot. "Earthship II seems fine. Why the evacuation? And there's no one here." He gestured at their empty cargo area. "Who are we evacuating?"

"I don't understand it either, boss," Ethel replied. "We're just following orders, after all."

"I think I know, skipper," one of the other cobra pilots said over the radio. "Look at your screen. See the shuttles approaching Earthship II? There must be more than twenty of them. And half of them aren't from Earth."

Squadron One's lead pilot looked. "Ahhh," he said, finally understanding the situation. "I guess the captain needed the space in a hurry. Okay, team. let's follow orders and form up at the coordinates mandated by evacuation protocols."

"Aye."

 
Mirror, Mirror...

"This is the first time for me to see Earthship II," Tasha said as she looked through the front window of the Admiral's barge. They were minutes away from the Earth cruiser. "She's beautiful."

"Yes, it is," Mia said, her arm around Tasha's shoulders. "But I think Shepherd looks better."

Tasha giggled. "Of course, she is."

Sahsha pointed. "Look!" From their vantage point, they could see little pinpoints of blue light, like stars, moving away from Earthship II. It somewhat had the effect of a 21-gun salute or something like that, presumably in honor of their arrival.

"Cobra shuttles!" Tasha exclaimed. "Beautiful."

- - - - -

Mia's little fleet was made up of twelve capital ships - the Shepherd Moon, the Yamato Squadron made up of the three relatively-small, K-One clipper-class ships Yamato, Musashi and Shinano, the Elyran Flagship Talon and her sister ship Blazing Star II, and one ship each from Dixx, Arachnia, Telcontar, Star-453, and Daemon.

Mia and her people, which included Dr. MacIntyre's specially-chosen interns, had come to supplement Estaban's explorers in investigating that spherical structure on Draconis, and help establish a working colony. The first big step, of course, was to see if they can trigger the three planets' world engines and start melting the ice.

The cyborgs of Star-453 and the Telcontari had ideas about that, but they agreed that the best and easiest solution was putting enormous solar mirrors into orbit around all three planets, and directing solar energy onto the planets' night side, and gradually raising the surface temperature that way, allowing the planets natural rotation to distribute the energy evenly.

With the introduction of an increasing thermal level, this might kick off enough geologic activity and start something - maybe even switch on the three planets' magnetic fields, and make the internal heat generation self-perpetuating. Granted their solution might take hundreds of years to activate the planetary engines (maybe even thousands), at least they would melt most of their ice in less than a year and provide the planets with a breathable atmosphere. And, with that, it would allow them to start colonizing activities down on the ground.

But even that would take about a year. So while that was happening, they planned to up temporary orbiting habitats. To that end, the New United Nations of Earth donated a couple of dozen of their so-called "legacy ships" for use as temporary living platforms: "legacy ships" are what EarthForce calls Earth's old pre-FTL spacecraft. After all, these ships had only been quietly rusting away, in a manner of speaking, neglected and unused.

Most of them were parked on the surface of Luna, waiting for the day they would find purpose again, even if just for spare parts. So becoming orbiting habitats around Earth's latest colony planets was surely a better destiny for these aging battlewagons.

The three largest cargo companies - Lloyd, the Orient Overspace Container Line and The Maersk Group - already had interstellar cargo fleets. So they had been contracted to tow thirty of the larger legacy ships from Luna to Ultima Thule. In fact, they were now more than three-fourths into their trip, and in a few weeks or so, there would be at least ten ships in permanent orbit around Tau, Omega and Draconis each.

But all of that was in the future. For now, Captain Esteban was preoccupied with her incoming visitors.

She hurriedly ordered as many of her command crew, and as many of the landing bay crew into dress blues, and she and her people rushed down to the bay.

Esteban had her people form up in a ragged line, two deep, some of them still tucking in shirts and fixing their belt and sashes, and waited while all twenty-four shuttles to arrive.

After the last shuttle cruised in (a large one from the ship from Star-453), the doors swung closed, the bay sealed and flushed with a neutral gas and then evacuated again. Afterwards, a mixture of standard Earther atmosphere was then piped in.

Life detectors indicated that everything was all ready, and Esteban and her people stepped into the bay and formed up.

Their visitors arrived, but not in any formal way, although all of them were in formal attire. Princess Mia, in her Admiral's dress uniform, flanked by Queen Tasha and Duchess Sahsha approached. Around them were luminaries from the Federation, like the First Ambassador of Arachnia, Fleet Admiral Dax, and several others. And around them was the queen's royal guard.

Sylvia Esteban was unfamiliar with royal protocol so she made her best guess. She bowed to the queen, shook the hand of the duchess, and saluted the admiral.

Mia smiled. "Well done, Captain," Mia said to the captain after returning her salute.

"Sir?"

"Took me a while to learn all that royal stuff myself, too, but you're doing okay."

"Indeed," the queen said sotto voce, and Sahsha winked.

Esteban sighed in relief. "May I introduce my command crew?" She turned to her people and introduced them. The last in line was someone she wasn't familiar with, though. But given the single stripe on his shoulder...

"And this, Admiral, is Corporal Jansen, the man who made it possible for your flight to fit in my tiny little landing bay."

Mia grinned delightedly. "Sorry about that, Captain. Blame the duchess - it was one of her last-minute bright ideas, and we didn't have time to let you know..." Mia turned to Sahsha, who cleared her throat in embarrassment, turned and looked the other way while whistling nonchalantly.

Mia reached out and shook the young corporal's hand.

"Quick thinking, Corporal," Mia said. "You are to be congratulated."

"Uhhh, thank you, princess," the corporal said through his nervousness, "Oh! I mean, Admiral! Thank you, Admiral! Sir!"

Mia chuckled, and lightly socked him on the shoulder. "At ease, son. You're fine"

- - - - -

After the short little ceremony was completed, the crew got themselves sorted out, and the Ultima Thule Expedition started work.

One of McIntyre's kids, Ivan Oligov, joined Captains Esteban and Nobunaga, along with Tasha and many of the Ultima Thule leaders, and barricaded themselves in Earthship's largest conference room as they started planning a comprehensive communications plan on how to properly communicate the information that the Ultima Thule expedition had been gathering to the rest of the Federation. Their team was joined by several representatives from EarthForce's ATAC, and the Elyran Royal Bureau of Information.

McIntyre's two Telcontari interns, Miao-Miao and Shu-Shu, or "Meow" and "Shoo" as they preferred to be called, started working with the Telcontari contingent and commenced assembling the first of three enormous solar mirrors, while Elmonte "Elmo" Oliviera, started inventorying the sample seedlings and other biologicals that they would use to seed the three planets once the ice had melted away and there was an atmosphere. But everyone knew this might take time, so Sahsha worked closely with the crews of the Yamato Squadron to prepare for the arrival of the legacy ships.

As for the Arachnian "Eighth Terran Studies Student," and the Earther, Marjorie Beatrice Quinn (i.e. Via and Trixie), they joined Mia, the First Ambassador and several others down on the surface of Draconis to continue studying the mysterious sphere and its mysterious contents.

- - - - -

Starting with the planet they called Tau, Meow, Shoo and their Telcontari engineers switched on one of their ginormous mirrors in orbit, and started Tau's slow global meltdown. It started with the upper layers of ice, of course, and pretty soon, in a matter of days, Tau had started sporting a decent layer of Nitrogen, Oxygen and CO2 gases (as well as other gases). From afar, the planet had started to look like a big cotton-candy stick, with lots of smokey layers of gas. And soon, the lower parts, which were mostly water ice, started melting already.

Meow and Shoo reported to the Admiral and the other expedition leaders saying they were months ahead of schedule. They did not anticipate this would happen so quickly. At the moment, the water ice had started to break up as well, and much of it was now slushy ice water with lots of gigantic floating icebergs grinding against each other and stirring up the silt and other particles at the surface crust of the planet.

It was pretty stormy on Tau right now, with lots of lightning and gigantic storms, hurricanes and hundred-mile-an-hour winds whipping around the planet, but this should stabilize eventually, and maybe in a month they'll start seeing the first islands rising out from under the ice.

Meow, Shoo and the Telcontaris were very perplexed as to why this was so quick to happen. It wasn't as if it wasn't a welcome development, but it shouldn't happen, at least not this early. Mia asked what their recommendation was for their next step.

"My Lady," Shoo began, "We are so far ahead of schedule that I do not know. I suppose all we can do is to assemble the next mirror and start thawing one of the other planets?"

Mia nodded. "Which would you suggest?"

"Maybe Terra Dracones?"

Mia shook her head. I think not yet. Why not start with Omega?"

"Yes, My Lady. We will commence immediately."

And, in short order, they also had the other mirror working, and had started thawing out Tau's near-duplicate, Omega, and, following the pattern of Tau, Omega's ice-locked status started to change to something more normal, just like Tau.

In less than a month, the two planets started showing an Elyran-like or maybe more of an Earth-like biosphere, though their surfaces were still too cold and far too stormy for any surface expeditions. Still, Elmo's team were able to get high-atmospheric samples and readings, and he delivered his verdict in their next meeting.

"My Lady," Elmo began, "it is all that we expected. Tau and Omega are ripe for seeding, once they've stabilized that is."

"When will that start happening, Shoo," Mia asked as she looked to her Telcontari team.

"My Lady," Shoo began, "the weather conditions on Tau have started to normalize, and there are recognizable Telcontari-like weather patterns emerging. We believe that discernable weather systems will start developing. We have seen several land masses already sticking out of the Taureean oceans, and more and more of them are starting to emerge. If what Earthship's and Mikasa's reports are saying are correct, we can expect fifty percent of Tau's surface to be made up of land, and the rest oceans. And based on the rate the ice is melting, almost all of the expected landmasses should be discernable within the month. As for Omega, it is showing the same pattern as Tau, though it is, of course, a little delayed. Per Earthship's and Mikasa's data, we can expect a four-to-six balance between landmasses and oceans."

"Good. What are the next steps?"

"My Lady," Elmo said, "I think we should send for our biologicals already. Also, the Copernicus Shipyards have also said the three bio-injectors are already completed. Perhaps we can have those shipped now as well?"

Mia nodded, and gestured to Ben. With Ben on the case, she knew it would be taken care of within the day.

"What else?"

"I suppose, My Lady," Meow said, "we can start on Draconis next?"

Mia looked to Via and Trixie.

The two shrugged at each other.

"I guess we have to cross this bridge sometime," Trixie said. "We have done all that we can from the outside of the sphere. We literally have nothing else we can learn. And..."

"Do you think if we start melting the ice, it'll damage the sphere?"

"I don't know, My Lady. I don't think so - from all that we know, the sphere is pretty much indestructible. But who can tell? But, like I said, My Lady, we have to cross this bridge sometime. Now may be as good a time as any..."

"Via," she turned to the young Arachnian. "What do you think?"

Via gestured in polite deference. "My Lady," she said via her translator-voder, "I completely agree with Ms. Quinn. This is the next logical step. It boots nothing if we avoid taking the step."

"Very well." She turned to Shoo and Meow. "Start assembling the next mirror."

The conference room's intercom buzzed.

Ben pressed the button. "Yes, bridge?"

"Relaying a message, Doctor."

"Please proceed. Lieutenant."

"Dr. Areeyah..." one of the officers from the lone Deamon ship began (the Daemons, along with some of the other ships, were currently assigned to monitor the conditions on Tau).

"That's Tevann-Areeyah," Ben corrected the officer mildly, "but that's not important. What can we do for you, officer?"

They waited the prerequisite one minute as Ben's message was whipped to them via Seren.

"I apologize, Doctor. We're getting some weird readings from Tau."

Ben looked to Mia, and she nodded.

"I see," Ben said. "Please send your telemetry, so we can see here."

"Yes sir. Sending the transmission signal now."

So, though they knew that the signal was delayed by about a minute, it was better than nothing.

And what it was was that they were detecting several tiny tremors in the equatorial area, and in the main landmass, they could detect some small landslides - nothing major - just some shifting of the topsoil.

"What is it, Shoo," Mia asked. "What's happening?"

The two little Telcontari were looking at each other, jaws agape.

"My Lady," Meow began tentatively, "it's tectonic activity. Very, very mild, but..."

And everyone knew what this meant - Tau's planetary engine had been "switched on." Everyone in the room cheered and clapped each other on the back. Somehow word got out, and everyone, even those on the other ships, started to cheer as well.

But Mia, Shoo and Meow shared a worried look. "How is that possible," Shoo whispered to Meow. "Something's gone wrong..."

And then they got similar reports from the Arachnian ship, which was part of the group monitoring Omega. "Even Omega," Shoo said. The two went to Mia.

"My Lady," Meow said. "I... I don't know how this can be possible."

"I agree with you, my dear," Mia said. "Something we don't know about or understand has started."

And then they got similar reports from Earthship II. Seems, even Draconis' planetary engine had been switched on as well.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Meow whispered to Shoo.

"I've got the same feeling, too, my dears," Mia whispered to them as well.

to be continued...

 

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