The Bridge Book IV: Epilogue Into the Shadows of the Stars by euhal allen	Table of Contents Part 2 appears in this issue.
Chapter 1: The Dark Future part 3 of 3

* * *

The great fleet having been built and there now being enough space for all and some extra for future use, the pace of life slowed down considerably for the people. Soon the Skeltz, a people who had always been the physically active ones of their race, found themselves bored with the small number of duties that they now had to perform.

Knowing that the situation could continue on for some time, since no one knew when their new home world would be found, tempers grew short as boredom set in. The leaders found themselves having to break up arguments and settle problems that, earlier, would not even have been worth fighting over.

There was not enough work for the people and the one workable solution was one no one dared suggest: stasis. That was out, for, should a bad situation come upon them they might need every hand, and recovery from stasis was a tedious and drawn-out process that would occupy crew members needed for defense. No, more work was needed to be found and found quickly.

The Board of Magistrates looked at the options and stewed over them until even their tempers became shorter and shorter and their meetings unpleasant. Finally they did the thing that they only liked a little less than stasis. They broke the fleet into two main units, with a third unit in reserve for backup and communication.

Each of the two main units would survey a section of the stars in a certain area parallel to the second unit. The third unit would keep themselves in between the others and in communication with both. Then, should either section find itself in a situation that they could not handle, either of the other units could be called on for help.

Doing this forced each ship to use greater numbers of crew for watch in three duty shifts. With the constant battle-training drills that were now instituted, the boredom of the recent past was soon forgotten or, if remembered, remembered fondly.

* * *

Me’Avi sat in her office and sobbed. Everyone, it seemed had left her and how was she, the holder of the office High Speaker of the Joint Assembly and Chair of the Executive Council, to be a leader of the Galaxy when everyone had deserted her?

“It is a very difficult position that you have been put in, isn’t it?” said a voice from the door to her office.

Looking up, Me’Avi saw a young Qwell female standing and smiling at her.

“It is hell itself,” Me’Avi answered. “The very ones that could have helped me are dead or gone. I have an office that is too big for me and I have everyone’s expectation that I shall be able to make the new government work. No one has even let me grieve for my husband let alone prepare to be the mother of his child.

“Instead I have been drafted into this office to continue to do as I have always done, be a servant to the people. A people who have no care for the hurt and pain I carry.”

“Ka’Tia said you would need a friend. She asked me to be that friend. I am Joeya the granddaughter of Jonkil da Laich. I am also his Remembrancer. If I can help you it would be a thing of great honor. I can also communicate to the Family Heads for you.”

“Joeya! Ka’Tia has mentioned you. I am named after your grandfather’s mother.”

“Yes, I know. Being the Remembrancer of my grandfather I also, am the bearer of her memories, because she died from an accident and there was no one to skip to. She was alive when you were born. She was honored that your mother would name you after her. Had she lived, she would have mentored you.

“She did not live, and now that honor falls on me, one who is many years your junior. I do not know if I can do it.”

“Mentor. How do you mean mentor?”

“She would have taught you the ways of our people, had you wished it, and given you tools that you can use to seek solutions to problems that you face.”

“Oh, you mean the Qwom-Sor Manuals?”

“Yes, those contain many things that can be used, but my great grandmother had other tools that were not of the Qwom-Sor. She would have taught you them. She was a Personalist, you know. She could motivate people to do things they did not know they wanted to.

“She always said that she wished she had gained the talents through her studies that your grandmother had naturally.”

“My grandmother has deserted me!”

“No, Me’Avi, she has gone off to give you a chance to stand on your own. So, grow up.”

* * *

There was a star cluster ahead, and long-range sensors detected evidence that indicated the possibility of several inhabitable planets. They also gave proof of spacefaring races on or near most of them. Only two planets seemed free for the taking, and two main groups split off to check them simultaneously.

The third group, with two of the great ships carrying the young and old, took up station in a secluded and worthless system and monitored their exploration fleets. It was well that they did, for it was not long before they sought shelter among the asteroids and cover for their smaller ships.

The first group had not even come close to its target system when it was attacked with such ferocity that they lost half their ships in the very beginning of battle. They would have lost more, but a quick-witted captain sounded an all-out retreat for just before his ship disappeared in fire and ashes.

Racing towards the second group for some safety in numbers, they broadcast the whole affair on a non-directional broadcast to make sure the hidden group got it all and yet not disclose their existence. Soon, they were within the area of the second group only to find, when they dropped out of hyperspace, that they, too, were being pummeled unmercifully by the same enemy that had attacked them.

Ordering immediate transfer into hyperspace, the remains of the two fleets headed in the direction most opposite of the hidden fleet and did their best to evade their new enemies. Only after many hours in hyper-flight did they dare to drop into normal space to take readings as to where they actually were, and to broadcast their position to their hidden brothers. It was their last broadcast because their waiting enemies soon turned their ships into unusable wreckage.

* * *

The remaining fleet went into shock. All of their brothers in the other two fleets were gone. Their ships had been no match for this new enemy and they had been pulverized. In the remaining fleet were two of the great ships and forty-seven of the auxiliary ships. Of those ships’ crews there were just a minimum number of crew members that were not children or old people not fit to fight.

Knowing that this new enemy would be looking for them, they used only the minimal energy to separate each of the two great ships into their asteroid-camouflaged parts and took aboard those auxiliary ships that could be stuffed into their great holds. The other ships were sent, on as low a power as possible, to hide on one of the rocky worlds in the system. Then all the ships went into passive mode and waited to see what their new enemy would do.

They did not have to wait long. The enemy, having detected a power usage in the system, was soon there in force. Slowly they flew through the system, seeking any evidence of remnants of their recently defeated foe.

The hidden people watched their passive receptors and tried to guess how long they would have before their enemy would find them and send them to the same hell as they had sent their brothers in the other two fleets.

Then, when they were sure that they had only moments left, fourteen of their auxiliary ships flashed out of hiding and headed in the direction of their already destroyed fleets. Nine of them made it into hyperspace, followed by the terrible fleet of the enemy.

Everyone knew that those ships would never come back and thought of the bravery of their brothers. But, the remembrance ceremonies would have to wait while the people settled down to making their ships more secure and harder to find by deterring any energy from escaping and giving a clue of their presence. Then those old ones who could still do some work were assigned tasks. Those who could not work were sent back into stasis.

It was time to regroup and begin the process of educating the children in their ways and their science. Those small ships in the holds became classrooms in spaceflight with simulated flights being run day after day for the pupils. Even the recent battles with their invincible enemy were replayed repeatedly in hopes of finding ways to counteract the movements and weapons of that enemy.

Small, shielded, low-powered mining sites were started to replenish the raw material needed by the remnants of the once-powerful fleet. From that material, low-powered, shielded spy buoys were manufactured and camouflaged as rocks. They were flung through hyperspace to the system of the enemy.

Soon it was discovered that the enemy, while having tremendous resources and advanced science, had not discovered the art of low-powered hyperspace communication, and the buoys were able to send information back to the Skeltz base without being detected. Because of that they were able to shut everything down whenever any of the enemy’s ships were scheduled to check their system again.

They also discovered that the enemy did not know of Doors and might be defeated, as they had once been, by that technology. But, it was a long way from just knowing of Doors to having them, and that research was begun in real earnest, even though they had few clues as to the actual direction they had to use in that research.

In their enemy they began to recognize the likeness of their own past and, at first, they were tempted to admire them for their successes. But that changed. Now that they were on the receiving end of the rulers of the food chain and had to hide just to survive, their circumstances became an irritant to them. Within a short time they began to hate this new enemy far greater than they had hated the brothers that had “betrayed” them.

Then came a new threat to their existence. Two, long, needle-like black ships, not hiding their power use and not like the enemy ships, came wandering into their system and exploring the planets at their leisure. The spy buoys indicated that the Skeltz’ enemy had detected the newcomers, and a fleet would be arriving in the shortest possible time.

Not daring to warn the visiting ships, they shut systems down to the barest minimum and waited. The battle was soon in the making; the fleet of enemy ships burst into the system and began their attack.

Missiles and energy beams were everywhere around the new ships, it seemed and soon they disappeared in great flashes of destruction, only to drop out of hyperspace in a different part of the system. The enemy fleet, turning to attack them again, found that they were not where they had been just seconds ago, but dropping out of hyperspace in still another part of the system.

The enemy began to form a globe around the black ships and set up an exclusion field that would thwart any attempts of the black ships to pass into hyperspace again. Then they, again, sent the missiles and energy bolts towards the two ships in such a fury that there was no way for them to possibly survive the onslaught. But they did. They simply went into a local hyperspace, one contained in the exclusion field, and reappeared after the missiles and energy bolts, not finding them, passed on to other targets. The enemy fleet lost thirty-seven ships from the unaccustomed “friendly fire,” and found themselves having to retreat to their home system to lick their wounds.

The Skeltz, watching this, could not believe their sensors. The two black ships were still out there checking out the system at their leisure, unharmed, soon joined by dozens of other such ships, a great fleet of deadly black needles.

The spy buoys were soon sending information from the returned and defeated fleet. A bigger fleet was being assembled and, when the tactics of the black ships had been analyzed, that fleet was going to come back and destroy the perpetrators of their newborn shame.

It was with a sigh of relief for the Skeltz that the two ships, their curiosity now evidently satiated, headed off in a new direction to explore some other system new to them.

Still, there was the unwelcome fact that now the Skeltz had become aware of a second race of galactic travelers that, by their handling of the enemy fleet, were obviously a danger to them and their existence. It was a humbling experience.

To be continued...

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Copyright © 2005 by euhal allen