Chapter 128. About to land on the parliament planet
They walked down a short hallway to a room filled with dozens of computer consoles. Not only are these consoles mounted on the wall, there are also groups of terminals in the center of the room. Cindy's were standing everywhere, working or talking in low voices. Among them are not only the humanoid Cindy, but also three plant-shaped Cindy. As Noah learned before, they are plant Cindy.
“All the data is compiled and analyzed here,” Otis explains the obvious. "But only plant Cindy works with us." It almost sounded apologetic. "Other Sindy races are investigating separately. And in the best case, they will tell us what they find in more vague terms." He shrugged, seeming resigned to this.
"So what have you learned so far?" Noah wondered.
"As I said, not much," Otis replied. "A matter-antimatter reaction occurred. But we don't yet know where the antimatter came from. And unfortunately, this reaction leaves almost no traceable traces." He seemed to be despairing. Noah understands. Otis had spent several days researching it, but had made no progress. Still, it's too early to give up.
"This is the data from our sensors." Jeffrey said, handing the hardware containing the stored data to Otis. "Additional clues may be provided."
Otis took the hardware. "We can only hope so. Thank you very much." He handed the hardware to one of his colleagues. "Erluo, my colleague, will explain and show you in detail everything we found and the conclusions we drew from it." He nodded to Jeffrey.
Jeffrey nodded slightly, and then walked to one of the computer terminals with Cindy.
"We want to investigate the scene ourselves, too," Noah said, hoping he didn't sound like a supplicant.
"Of course," Otis nodded. "You can. But you must understand that you will be getting an escort. Some representatives of my clan are somewhat suspicious of the Federation." He tried to express himself in the most diplomatic way possible.
Noah still understood him. Based on everything he'd heard, he figured the Crawling Cindy and Insect Cindy wouldn't be happy about the Federation's arrival. Among his people, Otis certainly had it tough. And as their only ally among the Sindi, Noah didn't want to weaken his position further. "I have no objection to having an escort," so he replied. "As long as we can investigate everything we think is important."
"That won't be a problem," Otis assured hastily. Maybe a little too impatient. "I hope you can find some clues. You are my last hope."
"What do you mean?" Noah asked with a frown.
Otis sighed. "We've investigated everything using every method we know. But we can't find any clues as to the source of the antimatter. Maybe your instruments work differently and you can find some clues. If not, then we may never Will know what it is.”
Otis's serious words made Noah increasingly worried that this mission might not end well. If Otis's fears come true, this won't be a good basis for a future together. Due to these events, the distrust between each other will become too great, and both sides will definitely suspect that the other has something to do with it. These are not encouraging prospects.
Carol turned expectantly as the bridge's turbine elevator opened. Not long ago, Noah and Jeffrey returned from Otis's ship, and they were expected to appear on the bridge at any moment. Of course, she was interested in what the Admiral had to report. After all, the Sindi had more time to investigate than the Republic crew did, and they should know better.
Sure enough, two popular guys emerged from the turbolift. They all had nervous looks on their faces, especially Noah. And Jeffrey's face is, as usual, an elusive face, and only when you know him well enough do you know what to focus on.
The Vulcan walked straight to his station and immediately began processing the data. There's a lot of data to analyze, as the Republic's sensors collect more data, though not much new information. Before Noah and Jeffrey returned, the Sindi ships also transmitted data that Otis and his team could use. Jeffrey wanted to do his own analysis. Maybe he has a different perspective and can see things that the Sindi miss. This is at least a small hope.
On the other hand, Noah walked towards Carol and stood next to the command chair. However, he said nothing and seemed to be deep in thought. So Carol stood up and looked at him questioningly. His eyes returned to her, and he knew she wanted to know what was going on. After all, this could affect the safety of the ship, and as commander, she had to know. He knew this very well, after all he had commanded a ship himself.
He shook his head slowly. "Otis showed us his data, but they were of little value," he reported to her in a low voice. The crew is not supposed to know this for a while. "They don't actually know much, as he said." He paused, looking blankly into the distance. "However, we could go down to that planet and investigate for ourselves. But I don't know how much new information we would find after being there for such a long time. I now think that it might be difficult to figure it out. Maybe we are on What we have to think about in the next few days is what should we do if we never know what happened." When he saw her worried expression, he immediately reassured: "But it's too early now .We should focus on the investigation.”
"Then I won't worry about it for now," Carol said with a frown, but she couldn't hide the fact that she was very concerned about the whole thing.
"And I'll make a list of the instruments we need for our investigation," Noah ignored her words. "I want to get down to that planet as soon as possible. Lest we might be banned by then."
"Don't you believe Otis?" Carol was a little surprised. Previously, Noah seemed to have no prejudice against the Sindi people.
"Trust Otis. But not Creeping Cindy. Nor his influence, obviously not as big as I thought." He shrugged. "I'll be in the main conference room," he said, then turned and headed for the elevator. But before he could reach the elevator, Ingmar reported a message.
"Captain, we have received a message from Earth. From Starfleet Headquarters." Ingmar turned so that his superiors could see him. "This message is for you and General Noah."
Noah looked at Carol in surprise. He hadn't expected Starfleet to be so quick to ask for an update on the incident. This was also not agreed upon beforehand. After all, they had just arrived here a few hours ago. What do they hope to know so early on?
"Transfer the call to my office," Carol ordered. She then nodded to Noah and motioned for him to follow her. Together they walked into the captain's ready room. Carol turned on the screen on her desk and adjusted it so Noah could see it.
General Isaac's face appeared on the screen. He seemed to be alone in the office, which surprised Noah a little. He had expected a group of generals to show up together. And Isaac seemed to be just asking politely about the progress of the current mission.
"We arrived here about four hours ago and established initial contact with the Sindi. We exchanged data and are analyzing it," Noah answered briefly. He didn't want to cloud Starfleet's judgment with speculation when he didn't know more. He knew this might cause some generals to overreact.
Isaac accepted the explanation with a curt nod, then changed the subject. "There is another issue you should be aware of that you may want to discuss with the Sindi. This concerns the Demon Flamers."
Noah and Carol glanced at each other. Their experiences with the Demon Flamers were still fresh in their minds, and as time went on, they did not become pleasant. What happens to those creatures now?
General Isaac continued: "We have discovered a suspicious open area at the outer outpost near the Demon Flame Territory, which has been going on for more than two weeks. There is no longer any signal in that area, replaced by a sudden appearance The obvious background noise is only now slowly fading. In addition, we have intercepted transmissions from some smaller races who have conflicting opinions about the whereabouts of the Demon Flame People. Clearly, there is reason to believe that this nation has disappeared." The argument is understandably unconvincing. After all, how could a nation suddenly disappear? "We have sent the Lexington to investigate. They will investigate to see if the Demon Flamers may have any conspiracy. We cannot cause a new conflict in this area. Especially we cannot allow the Demon Flamers to make an unexpected attack. .If there is a threat, we must be ready."
Noah nodded in understanding. "Perhaps when we came into contact with the Demon Yan people, we left the leaders there with the federal threat to the Demon Yan people. Now they may be planning to launch a preventive strike to nip the problem in the bud."
"That view is shared here," Isaac replied.
"That's just pure speculation, though," Noah immediately added. He did not want his statement to be misconstrued as a judgment. We must not add fuel to the fire of some overzealous generals. "Maybe the Demon Flamers just retreated temporarily to avoid encountering us again, although I don't think they would shy away from conflict. Or they were busy elsewhere in their territory and had to gather their troops. There are many explanations."
"So we dispatched the Lexington to investigate," Isaac said. "We'll see what Captain Ollie reports to us. For now we'll just have to be patient and wait."
"What does this have to do with the Sindy tribe?" Carol wanted to know. She doesn't quite understand the connection yet.
"There are two reasons. First, the territory of Demonic Flame is near the space area claimed by the Sindi tribe," Isaac explained. "So the Sindi may know something. And under our new cooperative framework, you may be able to convince them to share this information with us."
Carol nodded. It sounded reasonable, though she wasn't sure how high the new level of trust would be, and whether the Sindi would actually be willing to share such information with the Federation. "Is there a second reason?" she asked.
"The second reason is that, according to your report, Demon Yan has a ruling class that is worshiped as a god. It is said that in the mine you met one of the gods, a Sindi insect Cindy. This explains Cindy even more The clan may know something."
Noah frowned. This must be the good intentions of those in charge of Starfleet. But the insect Cindy is not among the most open-minded species. If they were connected to the Demon Flame, they probably wouldn't admit it. Especially not to humans. But maybe Otis knows something. "We'll see what we can do," Noah said noncommittally. He never wanted to jeopardize the success of the mission by pressing the Sindi too eagerly, although he knew that other information would be equally important to the Federation.
"I know you will do whatever is necessary," Isaac replied vaguely. He did not say whether he was aware of Noah's plight.
"Please be sure to keep me updated on the progress," Noah requested. "If I'm going to deal with the Sindi, I have to keep up to date with the situation." This was the excuse he used. In fact, he was more interested in it on a personal level. After his experience with the Demon Flame Man, he just wanted to know what was going on over there.
"I will," Isaac promised. "I wish you success." Then the communication ended and the Starfleet logo appeared on the screen for a few seconds before turning off.
Carol looked at Noah. Now another worrying conflict has emerged. As if their task here wasn't complicated enough. But as the saying goes: misfortunes never come singly.
"This complicates our task," Carol finally said.
"Yeah, it's definitely not easy," Noah agreed. "But Isaac has a point. If something happened to the Demon Flame, the Cindy should know. At least the insect Cindy should know. Do you remember the eared mouse? The demon who helped us when we escaped from the mine. Inflammation?"
"I remember you talking about it, but I haven't seen him myself." Earrat did not board the Republic at that time, but stayed in the mines with other escapees, and eventually joined Captain Razor's pirate team.
"That's right," Noah nodded. "I had a chance to chat with him a little bit at the time. He told me that their god instructs the Demon Flames to take every move. The Demon Flames never act on their own, but act according to the instructions of their creators. And these creators are Xin Insect Cindy of the Di tribe. This in turn means that whatever actions Demon Yan takes now are under the orders of Insect Cindy."
"That doesn't sound reassuring, considering that Cindy the Insect and Cindy the Crawler have twice led attempts to destroy the Earth in the past," added Carol.
Noah tilted his head and sighed. "We have no control over this right now. But we can try to get some information from here. We might be able to make a pretty significant contribution that way. I'll bring this up in my next meeting with Otis. But for now we should Keep going as planned. We have to carry out surveys on the planet and this cannot be postponed. As time goes by, we will get less and less data there," he expressed his concerns.
Carol nodded and stood up. "Okay, let's get on with our work, Admiral."
"Are there any results from the Republic data?" Otis asked as he summoned some scientists for a brief meeting. He wanted to know the latest situation before accompanying humans to the planet.
They were silent for a moment, then looked at each other, waiting for who would speak first. Finally, one of the older scientists spoke. "No, there are no results. The data does not provide any new discoveries, nor does it answer the questions behind the incident. However," he hesitated, and then continued with Otis's encouragement: "The Republic's sensors also collected We're here with the same data, just two weeks later. It's almost impossible for our sensors to do that. Maybe their investigation in the field will be able to provide new information that will help us solve the problem."
Otis was impressed. Cindy didn't have such a high-resolution sensor. This must be wonderful conditions for scientific research. This way, they can explore things Cindy didn't know about before. He was excited about the idea. However, he realized that this technological advancement offered Cindy little advantage. Because the weapons technology and defense potential of the two races are roughly equivalent. In terms of drive technology, with Cindy's hyperspace jump technology, they are far ahead of the Federation. Cindy's ship can travel through space quickly, much faster than Starfleet ships. This is a real advantage.
"Okay," Otis said at last. "Then we'll see what humans can find." He wasn't really sure what he wanted to happen. He hoped that humans would succeed and gain new information. Or they fail, which will prove that their advantage in this area isn't that great.
Otis shook his head to rid himself of these thoughts and turned around. "The field team should meet in the teleporter room. We're going to that planet," he told the captain.
"The team will be ready in ten minutes," came the immediate reply.
Otis nodded. This gave him enough time to quickly tidy things up. He silently left the bridge and returned to his quarters. He had to hurry because he definitely didn't want to be late. So he finally showed up in the teleportation room on time. Like the entire spacecraft, this room was also very small. Together with his three companions, he had already filled the entire room.
After distributing and storing the equipment they wanted to bring, they stood on the transmission platform. Luckily there were only four of them, because the teleporter could only scan so many at once. Seconds later, they emerged onto the planet, blinded by bright sunlight that took Otis some time to adjust. Then he noticed three of Cindy's guards approaching them. They were armed, but they did not want to threaten Otis and his companions, but targeted the humans who were about to appear.
The leading Creeping Cindy, a particularly vicious man, nodded, signaling to Otis that the humans could appear.
