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“Ox, Whoever damn it, you can’t win this battle!” cried Sleaze, captain of the Glock, twenty seconds after blasting the side of the Magnum with laser energy. The shot had done no damage, having been absorbed by the shield, but there were plenty more shots where that one had come from.

“No,” Ox admitted. “I certainly cannot, particularly since we will not be returning fire or making any evasive maneuvers.”

“Don’t make me destroy your ship!” Sleaze’s voice was nearly pleading now.

“I’m not making you do anything, Sleaze,” he told her. “You and your crew have been given an order, an order to destroy a Fleet warship that is presenting no threat to you or yours and has proclaimed it will present no threat to any other humanned Fleet asset. You have just told me that you believe that order makes sense. If that is truly the case, then go ahead and do what you came here for. You have us locked in. Five or six blasts with the primary array should serve to take down our shield and allow you to rip open our hull like a package of cracker spread. You won’t even have to worry about making rescue efforts for the survivors. This close to a main sequence stellar object, anyone who manages to make it out of the hull and into open space will be flash fried in less than a minute.”

In the medical clinic, Taz and Gath—both of whom were watching the live bridge feed hologram—looked at each other, fright on their faces. “He certainly has a way of putting things into perspective, doesn’t he?” Gath asked.

“Yeah,” Taz said slowly. “He’s not known for mincing words.”

“Ox, I don’t want to do that,” Sleaze’s voice said. “Whatever stunt you’re trying to pull here, it isn’t worth your lives. Surrender now and let us take you back to TNB. Maybe when this is all said and done and a federal judge has ruled on the appropriateness of this concluding resolution slag, you and your crew can get acquittals for your actions.”

“Or maybe,” said Ox, “when this is all said and done, you and your crew will be tried for murder if you destroy a non-resisting vessel that is simply trying to put a stop to an illegal order for genocide of a people. Have you thought about that angle, Sleaze?”

There was silence on the comm channel for a few seconds. Finally, Sleaze’s voice, much quieter, with a hint of doubt in it, returned. “I cannot believe that we would be charged or even disciplined for carrying out a legitimately issued order to engage a Fleet warship that has been stolen by a mutinous crew—even if the concluding resolution is ultimately ruled an illegal order.”

“Really now?” asked Ox. “Maybe we should examine all the facts here one by one. Fact number one: Far Space command is currently engaging in an elaborate scheme to prevent any communications or personnel from leaving the Sol System. That in and of itself is a patently illegal act under the military charter and the constitution we live and operate under. Do you disagree with that statement, Sleaze?”

“No,” she said with a sigh. “I do not.”

“Fact number two: the reason Far Space Command is attempting to suppress information out of the system is because they want the concluding resolution—the sterilization of all native humans on Earth—to reach a point of no return before outside influence can put a stop to it. Do you disagree with that statement, Sleaze?”

“No. I do not.”

“Fact number three: There is a large, rapidly growing collection of Fleet personnel like myself who believe the concluding resolution is not just illegal, but a crime against humanity, something that our very doctrine commands us to resist with every fiber of our being. Do you agree with that statement as well?”

“I do,” Sleaze said, her voice extremely quiet now.

“Fact four: My crew and I have appropriated this warship for the purpose of getting information about the concluding resolution out of the Sol system so the matter might be ruled upon before it can reach the point of no return. We have declared this to be our intention. We have declared that we will not fire upon any humanned Fleet asset, even if we are attacked first. Do you agree with that statement?”

“Yes,” Sleaze said.

“All we are trying to do, Sleaze, is get information on what is happening out of Sol and into civilized space. At that point, we will surrender ourselves and this vessel and submit to courts martial where we will answer for our actions and accept whatever verdict is rendered. Now that is not a fact at this time because it has not happened yet, but I ask you now if you believe I am sincere in this statement?”

“Yes, Ox,” Sleaze told him. “I believe you are sincere.”

Ox nodded, smiling a little. “So, this is the situation as I see it, Sleaze. We’re appealing to your common sense and the common sense of your crew. Do you honestly think an order to engage us—to destroy a Fleet warship and kill twenty-nine human beings who wear the Fleet uniform—is an appropriate response to the offense we have committed? Or is it perhaps a desperate, illegal order for the purpose of continuing to contain news of the concluding resolution inside the Sol system?”

Silence on the comm channel. One hundred seconds went by without a word being spoken. Finally, Ox spoke up. “Glock, did you receive my last transmission?”

“We received it, Ox,” Sleaze’s voice said. “Stand by one. We’re talking things over.”

“Standing by,” Ox said.

Another two hundred seconds went by. The silence was broken this time by Giggles at the detection terminal.

“Con, detection!”

“Go ahead, detection,” Ox said.

“The Glock has powered down its forward laser array!”

A collective sigh issued, not just on the bridge, but throughout the entirety of the ship.

“Well, that is certainly an encouraging sign,” Ox said. “Thanks, Giggles.”

“Happy to report it,” he said, wiping a sheen of sweat from his forehead.

The comm link came alive again. “Magnum, this is Glock,” said Sleaze.

“Go ahead, Glock,” Ox replied.

“We have determined over here that our order for use of lethal force against your vessel is an inappropriate one under the circumstances known to us. We will not fire upon you.”

Ox could not contain the grin on his face at these words. “And we believe over here that you have made a common sense oriented decision,” he said.

“Time, and the inevitable court martial, will tell,” Sleaze said. “Though we will not fire upon you, I would like to remind you that you are, in fact, in violation of military law regarding the operation of a vessel of war outside of legal command authority and I order you, as mission commander, to immediately surrender your vessel and your crew so we may return you to Triad Naval Base for legal processing.”

“I’m afraid we’re not going to do that, Sleaze,” Ox said, playing along.

“Very well,” Sleaze said. “I will note your refusal in my log and it will be one more offense for which you will eventually have to answer.”

“Understood,” Ox said.

“Good,” Sleaze said. “Now then, since you are not going to obey my lawful order and since we have determined there is no lawful way for me to enforce my order, there does not seem to be any further reason for us to remain out here. I guess we’ll get ourselves turned around and start heading back in.”

“Sounds like a slagger-tork, Sleaze. And for what its worth ... thank you. You made the right decision.”

“Yeah, I think we did,” she said. “Whoever be with you, Ox. Take care of your crew.”

With that, the communications link with Glock was shut down. Detection reported two minutes later that the vessel was firing maneuvering thrusters, realigning itself for a burn back toward Earth. Its weapons remained powered down. Two minutes after that, the Glock fired its main engines and streaked away at 2Gs.

When it was well out of laser fire range, Ox activated the intercom system. “All hands,” he said, his voice echoing throughout the ship. “Secure from general quarters. I repeat, secure from general quarters. Condition normal throughout the ship.”

Fears No Darkness and Catches No Fish were looking at the viewscreen nervously. They were in the wardroom, sitting at the chairs around the table where, in normal times, meals were eaten by command staff. The primary viewscreen at the front of the room showed nothing but a mass of yellow-orange as the Magnum plunged into the corona of Sol.

“This hole in the sun,” Fears No Darkness enquired, “it is always there, correct?”

“It always has been before,” Gath assured him.

“And your navigation computers,” the quarterback said. “They know its location, right?”

“Right at the barycenter of Jupiter and Sol,” Gath said. “That’s the common center of gravity that both masses orbit around in relation to each other. It’s a big target. All circuit points are six hundred and twelve point three-one-four kilometers in diameter.”

“All are exactly the same size?” asked Catches No Fish.

“All that have been mapped so far are the exact same diameter down to the nanometer,” Gath said. “It’s one of the primary reasons why people believe they’re engineered by intelligence instead of naturally occurring phenomena.”

“I can see how one would conclude that,” Catches No Fish said thoughtfully.

The ship began to bump and rattle as it plunged deeper into the corona. On the viewscreen, the yellow became darker, denser.

“We are actually touching the sun,” Fears No Darkness said in terrified awe.

“Yep,” Gath agreed. “Hopefully the shielding holds up.”

Before the two warriors even had a change to ponder the horrible possibility of a shield failure, they entered the circuit point and the yellow of the corona disappeared. The view was now the reddish brown of Proxima Centauri some eighteen thousand kilometers below. There were a few more groans and creaks from the hull as the gravity of the new star grabbed hold of them and pulled them into its grip.

“We did it,” Gath said, smiling. “We’re out of the Sol system.”

“Unbelievable,” whispered Fears No Darkness. “How far did we just travel?”

“A little over four light years,” Gath said. “Four Earth light years, that is. About thirty-eight trillion kilometers.”

“That is an unimaginable distance,” Fears No Darkness said. “And we traveled it in less than a second.”

“You gotta love those circuit points,” Gath said. “However they got there.”

The quarterback was shaking his head in wonder. “I must admit that part of me did not really believe the holes in the sun actually existed. The ancient tales tell us that it was a deception used to rid the planet of excess population—that you invented the tale of a hole in the sun and were actually just hurling people into the sun to get rid of them.”

“And you believed that?” Gath asked, amused.

“Most of me did not,” he said. “Otherwise I would have never agreed to this trip. There was a small part of me, however ... that part wondered. These holes in the sun are such fantastic, unbelievable things, after all.”

“They do make one wonder about the origins of the universe, don’t they?” said Catches No Fish.

“That they do,” Gath agreed. “Our entire worship of Whoever is based on the unexplainable nature of the circuit points. Before their discovery and our subsequent inability to understand them, my people worshiped Laura Whiting, the human who fomented the Martian revolution that broke us free from Earth and set us on our own path. Once we found out the universe might actually be engineered, however, Laura got reduced back to a mere historical figure.”

“Do you believe that there is or was a Whoever?” Fears No Darkness asked him.

“I think it is within the realm of possibility,” Gath said, “but I also think everything might just be a natural occurrence as well.”

“So, you think both might be true?” Catches No Fish asked, confused. “How is that possible?”

“It’s not,” Gath said. “That’s my way of saying I don’t know. And unlike many people, if I don’t know, I cannot commit one way or the other.”

“An interesting point of view,” Fears No Darkness said.

Gath shrugged. “The argument for Whoever is compelling,” he said. “The circuit points are present at every barycenter of large objects over one point six times ten to the twenty-sixth kilograms of mass when the barycenter in question exists in a navigable location. This has been proven to be universally true everywhere we’ve gone in our explorations. There is no known natural reason under currently understood laws of physics why the circuit points should exist at those locations. Each circuit point is the exact same size irrespective of the mass of the bodies that create the barycenter locations. No one knows how the circuit points actually work other than they are stable wormholes. No one knows how they remain stable or how they move with the barycenters that mark their entrances.”

“That is all very compelling,” Fears No Darkness said.

“It is,” Gath agreed, “but just because something is unexplained and unexplainable, does not actually prove an intelligent design and engineering behind it. It just means we don’t know. The common DNA coding is like that as well.”

“Common DNA coding?” asked Fears No Darkness.

“You told me back at the Clearing of the Elders that you are familiar with the concept of DNA?” Gath said. “That it serves as a template for how living things are built and operate.”

“We know of its existence,” the quarterback replied. “We do not know what you mean by coding, however.”

“Well...” Gath said, trying to find a way to explain the concept in easy to digest terms, “part of the structure of DNA are the nucleobases. There are four of them: adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine. The way they are combined together is the DNA code that is basically the language the DNA uses to tell each cell how to construct itself and make protein, which is how living beings are put together. If DNA is the engineering document that tells how to build, the DNA coding is the language the document is written in. Understand?”

“As you know, we have no writing or documents,” said Fears No Darkness, “but I understand what you are saying. It as if the DNA is Catches No Fish’s instructions to his child how to clean a fish, and the coding is the words he uses to explain to procedure.”

“Exactly!” Gath said, impressed again at the warrior’s grasp of information. “And you could even say that the four nucleobases are the letters that make up the words that are used. Now the interesting thing here is that all life on planet Earth above the level of a bacterium uses the same four nucleobases in its DNA. Everything from a tree to a flying insect to a human being to the moss that grows on a rock. Adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine are how the DNA tells the cells how to build and work, even though there are different nucleobases and methods of combining them that could theoretically perform the same function just as well. Now this was not thought to be all that big of a deal when everyone still lived on Earth and we had no extraterrestrial life to study. But then we found microbes and lichens on Mars and discovered it used the same DNA coding as we did. Multicellular organisms were then found on the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, and it too shared the same DNA coding. Again, it was an interesting discovery but not mind shattering. After all, it was possible that all life within the Sol system shared a common ancestor way back when and was distributed at random by impact events.

“But then we found the circuit points and started exploring outside of the Sol system. We found complex life everywhere, on virtually every planet or moon where liquid water could be found in a stable environment—everything from single celled organisms to sea animals that make the whales of Earth look like minnows in comparison. All of that life that we’ve discovered so far, in every system that humans have traveled to—some as far as a thousand light years from Earth—uses the same four nucleobases for its DNA coding. That fact is a little harder to pass off as just random.”

The two warriors nodded wisely. “That does seem a rather fantastic coincidence if there are indeed others of these nucleobases which can perform the same function.,” Fears No Darkness said.

“And that is the logic those who believe in Whoever use,” Gath said. “And then there is the matter of sentient life.”

“Sentient life?” asked Catches No Fish.

“Sentient,” said Gath. “It means intelligent life, but not just smart and able to figure things out. After all, there are birds here on earth that are pretty smart and know how to use tools—I’ve seen them myself on a few of my deployment missions—but that is not sentience. Sentience means the ability not just to use tools but to pass on knowledge to others, to improve upon it, to cooperate in group form for the betterment of all, to constantly evolve as a species and store the collective memories and experience, to engineer and build things and to improve upon those designs from generation to generation. To do all these things, not just a few of them. In other words, to be like a human.”

“I understand,” said Catches No Fish.

Gath nodded. “In all of our exploration since the discovery of the circuit points, we have found no other life that that even begins to approach the most loosely interpreted definition of sentient. And that is not just present life I’m talking about. We have found no evidence of past sentient life on any of the planets and moons we’ve explored—no ruins of cities or towns, no signs of organized agriculture, no monuments or statues, no straight lines of any kind.”

“Straight lines?” asked Fears No Darkness.

“Straight lines are one of those concepts that people use to explain sentience,” Gath told him. “Only sentient beings build or construct or plan things with perfectly straight lines. This room, for instance. The pipes on the ceiling are straight, as are the walls and the doorways. Buildings on the surface are constructed with straight lines. Your huts, though I’ve never seen them, are undoubtedly engineered and constructed with a variety of straight lines, correct?”

Fears No Darkness pondered this for a few seconds and then nodded. “Correct,” he said.

“Nature does not typically utilize straight lines, nor does non-sentient life. Planets, for instance, are spherical due to laws of physics. Bird nests, even those of the tool using birds, are constructed in circular patterns. Only sentient intelligence with a grasp of actual principals of engineering realize the usefulness and practicality of straight lines.”

“I see,” Fears No Darkness said slowly. “And the only straight lines you have found in the universe were made by human hands?”

“So far,” Gath said. “But the non-discovery of sentience goes even beyond the straight lines and the lack thereof in both past and present on the worlds we’ve physically explored, it extends outwards quite beyond that.”

“Explain,” said Fears No Darkness.

Gath explained. “In addition to the places we’ve physically explored, we also listen. We have electronic instruments that can listen to every conceivable electromagnetic frequency on the spectrum and computers that can analyze those frequencies for signs of intelligent manipulation for the purpose of carrying information in a coherent fashion. We’ve used those instruments to probe from everywhere we have been, to listen for any signs of intelligence in this entire galaxy and even in surrounding galaxies. We have found nothing. No signs whatsoever that any intelligent race is or was out there and is using those frequencies for communication.”

“So ... the suggestion is that we are alone in the universe as a sentient species?” asked Catches No Fish.

“At least in the universe that we can observe in the timeline that we can observe it,” Gath said. “This too falls into the argument for a Whoever.”

“How so?” asked Fears No Darkness.

“Well, its not so black and white an issue as the DNA coding or the circuit points, but the argument goes something like this. Whoever created only one race of sentient beings: Us. The goal of Whoever is to see how far we can go as a species, how much of the galaxy we can colonize. Perhaps we might even colonize other galaxies as well. After all, there are bound to be circuit points at the barycenters of many of the supermassive stars and the supermassive black hole that lies at the center of the galaxy. Could that be the circuit point to the next galaxy? There are many who suspect it might be.”

“Do you believe this?” asked Catches No Fish.

“That one is a little harder for me to get behind,” Gath said. “It presumes too much about what Whoever’s plan is. Unlike with the circuit points and the DNA, there is no real data to support the presumption of what Whoever might be thinking or had thunk, as the case may be. There could very easily be another, natural explanation for why we have detected no other sentient life.”

“Such as the thought that sentience is just a rare development in the evolutionary progress of life?” suggested Fears No Darkness.

“Correct,” Gath said. “It seems apparent that making the leap from a smart animal to a sentient one is a big leap that is very hard to make. Everything would have to be correct for a species to make it that far. They would have to have the ability to make and use complex tools—which means opposable thumbs or some reasonable semblance of that concept combined with a large brain and the resources to mine iron and forge it into steel. To do all that they would have to develop not just language, but mathematics as well. They would have to have the discipline, or perhaps the incredible luck, to make it past the industrialization and nuclear age without destroying themselves. It could very well be that there are dozens, even thousands of sentient species out there on planets we have not explored, but they just haven’t reached the stage where they can broadcast signals we could detect. There could be a complex society like the ancient Roman empire two systems over from the last system we’ve physically explored and we would never know they were there because they haven’t started using the electromagnetic spectrum to convey information from place to place.”

“So, you’re saying,” said Catches No Fish, “that no only must they develop sentience, but they must maintain it long enough to develop advanced communications technology.”

“Exactly,” said Gath with a nod. “Like I said, I can’t even commit to believing in Whoever because there is just not enough evidence to fully convince me of His or Hers (or Their) existence and there is ample evidence in favor. Going the next step and trying to commit to what He or She (or They) have in mind is simply too much of a stretch.”

The two warriors nodded, both of them showing a measure of respect for his beliefs, or lack thereof, on their faces. On the screen, Proxima Centauri continued to pass below them. The countdown timer on the upper part of the display showed a little more than thirty-six minutes before the next circuit jump—the one to First Cross Beta.

“What happens after we pass the next hole in next sun?” asked Fears No Darkness.

“We’ll start an acceleration cycle again,” Gath said. “The jump at First Cross Prime requires some travel time. You’re going to want to head back to your quarters and take your Phent-D soon.”

Fears No Darkness nodded, a sour expression on his face. “I do not enjoy that medicine, or the artificial sleep it induces.”

Gath nodded sympathetically. “Not many do,” he said.

“It is a pity that Captain Ox does not allow ganja aboard his vessel.”

“Yes,” agreed Catches No Fish. “With ganja it would be much more enjoyable to ponder these discussions of Whoever and His or Her (or Their) plans.”

Gath, who had spent more than one stoned night of his life pondering those very things, could not agree more. “It is indeed a pity,” he assured them.

On the bridge of Magnum, all were tense as the timer ticked down below thirty seconds to the First Cross B circuit point. The Proxima portion of their trip was routine and involved nothing more than completing two hundred and forty degrees of an orbit around the small star. Once they entered the Alpha Centauri system proper, however, they would be in a regularly traveled region—a backwater in the great scheme of interstellar travel to be sure, but not an abandoned, desolate one by any means—that was home to a moderately sized Fleet base. They would have to check in with local Fleet traffic control. It was here where they would determine if the ultra-whites of Sol had sent out an emergency communications probe reporting the mutiny before Taz destroyed the probe station. Even if they had not—the possibility that was considered the most likely—there was the matter of Magnum‘s “orders”, which had been neatly and painstakingly forged by Ox and Phlegm. Would they be scrutinized? On the surface they looked official and proper, but if anyone—anyone at all, from an admiral to a controller to a curious transcription technician—looked even a millimeter beneath that surface, they were going to discover the forgery without even trying.

Ox had not ordered general quarters for the jump. This was not because he was an optimist but because if the emergency communication had been sent and First Cross Prime’s naval contingent knew Magnum had been stolen and was coming through, then there was nothing to be done anyway. A ring of warships—ninety-nines, destroyers, perhaps even a dreadnought or two (there were three Oxnard class dreadnoughts stationed at FCPNB) would be ringing the circuit point and they would be captured easily. The mission to spread the word of what was happening in Sol would reach a premature and anticlimactic conclusion.

The final ten seconds ticked away. Proxima Centauri disappeared and was replaced by the glowing yellow fire of Alpha Centauri B some sixty thousand kilometers below. Gravity began to tug furiously at the vessel, which was traveling considerably less than orbital velocity currently. The creaks and groans of expanding and wrenching hull material began to sound. The computer, pre-programmed and ready for the situation, immediately fired the main engines, imparting them with 2Gs of thrust while the maneuvering jets positioned them to the proper attitude.

“Good engine burn,” reported Vool at the engineering station. “Maneuvering thrusters are firing in sequence as well.”

“Con copies,” said Ox.

“Course is on the line,” reported Tull at the helm station. “We’re burning at 2Gs, responding to the program as initiated.”

“I copy that, Chief,” Ox told her. “Navigation?”

“Our course is to the First Cross Prime circuit point with arrival scheduled at zero-two-zero-nine tomorrow at a velocity of zero point zero five C.,” reported Stell.

“Very good,” Ox said. “And now for the real questions. Detection? We seeing anything?”

“I’m still getting some stellar interference, Ox,” said Giggles, “but so far I’m not seeing anything close to us. There’s what appears to be a ninety-nine at bearing two-four, mark one-seven-nine, velocity zero point zero zero three relative, shielding minimal, range two point two-one AUs. That’s the only thing I see moving right now.”

Ox, along with everyone else on the bridge, breathed a small sigh of relief. There was no ring of warships to greet them. That was good news indeed. “All right,” he said. “Manny, we’ll keep this as routine as possible. As soon as we’re clear of the stellar interference, transmit a routine check-in with First Cross Prime STC and attach a copy of our ratslag orders on it. We don’t directly talk to them unless they talk to us.”

“Aye, Captain,” Manny replied.

The engines continued to burn, pushing them above orbital velocity and then above escape velocity. Magnum pulled away from the main sequence star and finally cleared the worst of the stellar interference, though it was still far too close to drop its shielding level down. Detection was able to confirm the first impression. There were no ships waiting for them. The HSF Smith was the only vessel currently moving about in detection range and it was on what appeared to be a routine patrol path, its shielding and engine output at routine levels.

“Con, comm,” said Manny. “I’m sending off our check-in now. It’ll take thirty-three minutes to reach the base at current distance.”

“Sounds good, comm,” Ox told her. He looked up at the ceiling. “Hey, Gath and/or Taz, you all watching us on the feed? If you are, comm in, please.”

A minute went by and then Gath’s voice sounded. “This is Gath, Ox. Yeah, we’re watching. What’s up?”

It did not occur to Ox to ask why it had taken so long for one of them to answer his request. The speculation that they might have been naked in one of the clinic beds after engaging in a full-on game of hide the missile just prior to the jump certainly never entered the conscious part of his mind. “You can see we seem to be stable at the moment.”

“Yes,” said Gath, his voice a little strange sounding—but then Gath was a groundie and they were strange people. “I ... that is we see that.”