Chapter 138. The Revenge of the Eared Mouse
Ingmar frowned because he had no idea what Carol was planning to do and wasn't enthusiastic about the risk, but he immediately followed the order. "Connection successful," he finally reported.
Captain Alik's figure appeared on the screen again. Mir had apparently survived the battle with the Sindi and returned to the edge of communications range to observe further developments. What a blessing for Carol.
"Captain," he greeted friendly, not showing surprise at the renewed contact. "Is there anything I can do for you?"
"There's something you can check for us," Carol began to plead. "We know that the Lexington was assigned to conduct a survey of the Demon Flame due to anomalies in sensor data there. Can you ask Starfleet for an update on this situation?"
Alik looked surprised. He definitely wasn't expecting this question. After all, the Republic seemed to him to have entirely different problems. Carol suddenly became interested in the demon flames, and he believed she had her reasons. "I can tell you this directly. Just two days ago, we received news about this from headquarters. The Demon Flame was destroyed for some reason. Our experts are still studying it, but it seems that all alien outposts All were destroyed, including the home planet. We still don’t know whether there are survivors or how many survivors there are.”
Carol felt a sense of relief, although it seemed inappropriate after the news she had just heard of millions of deaths. But she couldn't control it. This dispassionate information helped them properly evaluate Reiser's report.
"Thank you very much, Captain. You've helped us a lot. We'll get back to you," she said briefly.
"May I ask, how does this relate to us?" he wondered, slightly confused.
"I'll explain it to you later. I don't have time now," Carol rejected him. Then she motioned to Ingmar to break the connection.
When Alik disappeared from the screen, Carol turned to Jeffrey again. Her expression was visibly filled with new hope. "This corroborates Reiser's statement."
"At least that's confirmed in his statement," Jeffrey added immediately.
Carol hesitated, then nodded. "That's right. But we're going to have a hard time gathering more facts about it."
Jeffrey said nothing, but nodded in agreement, which pleased Carol.
"Okay," she sighed. "Then let's see how the Sindi react. Mr. Ingmar, call the Sindi."
Carol walked into the temporary parliament hall with a slightly uneasy feeling. The Sindi chose this location close to the explosion site and set up some tables. This place is far less elegant and solemn than the real parliament hall, but that's not the point.
Carol contacted the Sindi and described the situation to them. But it was more difficult than she expected. The Sindi they connected to communicate were similar to humans and were very emotional. For the Republic's crew to successfully breach the blockade was almost a crime for them. This is an insult to the Sindi people. Carol had to do her best to calm him down so that he wouldn't disturb the others. It was a very delicate situation, but they managed to get through it. They were then transferred to Cindy the Water Tribe because Otis refused to talk to them. Since the Water Tribe has control here, this transfer is reasonable.
They managed to make it clear to the Water Tribe Cindy that they had no hostility and would not use the successful communication blockade with the Cindy people to carry out a conspiracy against the Cindy people. After completing this work of persuasion, Carol wants to make a case against federal involvement in the assassination and reveal the true culprit. However, Aqua Cindy didn't want to listen. He asked them to tell it in front of all the Sindi. Then he arranged the meeting. Judging from the time they spent preparing, it was clear the Sindi were interested in hearing what the humans had to say.
After setting up a time for their appearance in front of Parliament, she contacted Reiser. She thought it would be better if he appeared before Parliament with her. He may not be the most trustworthy person, but he can tell everything he knows straight away. After all, she only heard her own words from other people.
So, now they stood here, facing the Sindi. This is the same room where Noah was brought before the Council after his arrest. The seating arrangement is the same.
A parliamentary page directed them to the empty side of the table and took their seats. On the opposite side, a scene of Water Man is shown.
"Thank you for the invitation," Carol said, turning to the group and sitting down.
Shan Mo nodded slightly, but no one else responded.
Carol also didn't know if she should start, or if the Cindy had any rules about starting a session. So she waited a while.
Then, the computer translated Lingyu's song. "let's start."
Carol finally thanked God for breaking the silence and stood up. She looked briefly at everyone present, and then an idea suddenly came to her mind. Before she started, she needed to clarify a question.
"First of all, I want to know if Noah is okay and I want to see him," she said firmly. Although it was not important for her further actions, since she could not interrupt the conversation here even if he was no longer alive, she just wanted to be sure. This is an opportunity.
"Of course..." Crawling Centipede Yu was about to speak, but was interrupted by Lingyu.
"Of course. The prisoner will be taken immediately to the council chambers. Please begin."
Carol swallowed, grateful for her simple victory, and nodded. She didn't know if Aqua Cindy would do this, but for some unexplainable reason, she believed him. Maybe it was just his appearance that gave her that feeling.
"I would like to update you on some new discoveries we have made as we continue to investigate the incident. We have found the culprit and his motives," she began.
"Of course, you already did that. With forged documents," Cindy the Creeper sneered.
Carol gave him a brief, expressionless glance before continuing. "First of all, I would like to point out some inconsistencies in your accusations against us. The first is the location where the teleportation container was found. According to you, it was four hundred meters from the center of the explosion. How was the antimatter transported from one place to another? ? Did anyone bother to move this unstable element? It's possible. But for what reason? What benefit does it have to the suspect? If such a big risk is taken, there must be huge benefits. But in reality, the benefit would be greater if the teleportation vessel was included in the explosion. This would destroy the evidence."
"Unless someone wants to keep the evidence," Shan Mo responded calmly. "Show your opponent who the attacker is."
"It's possible," Carol readily admits. "But if so, wouldn't it be simpler to use a confession? In this case, it would be almost impossible to move antimatter in the conditions of this basement. This element is too unstable. Even a single escaped atom would Reacts with surrounding matter, triggering an unstoppable chain reaction. Therefore, in turn, only one possibility remains, that is, empty containers were placed there, and possibly for the purpose of allowing them to be discovered. Perhaps to set A false clue." Before any objection could arise, she continued. "I admit, there's no evidence for that. It's just a possibility, like your theory. But in our opinion, it's the most likely scenario."
Representatives of various races present remained silent and seemed to simply listen to her words. Only Cindy the Crawling grumbled dissatisfiedly on behalf of Centipede Fool. "If all your arguments are this kind of vague guessing and speculation, you're wasting your time here."
"It'll be more fun next time," she assured him dryly. Then she turned to the group again. "Before the communication blockade was lifted, we had the opportunity to talk to Starfleet. They immediately conducted an investigation and found that the fleet had indeed lost six teleportation containers." On the side where Carol was, a distinct intake of breath could be heard, Shan Mo and Otis sat there. Carol continued unwaveringly. "However, Starfleet also has evidence that these containers are empty. Although I must admit that such evidence can of course be faked." She said directly to Crawling Cindy, "This is Captain Razor." She pointed at the pirate . "He learned that the six stolen containers had been sold to Creeping Cindy two weeks earlier."
"That's a lie!" Centiyu stood up immediately. "I won't hear any more."
He was ready to leave, but the Water Man Lingyu spoke again. "We will listen to our guests. We will make a judgment after listening to everything." There was a firm meaning in the words translated by the computer, which made Centiyu reluctantly return to his seat. He muttered something unclear, then slowly and consciously sat back down.
Carol waited a moment until silence fell again, then continued. "Now let's talk about the motivation for this action. What motivation does the Federation have for conducting such an attack? Is it to terminate negotiations? Then our diplomats can just leave."
"Perhaps you don't want to risk an obvious and unexplained outage?" the Insect Cindy rep speculated. "Especially when the other four powers are watching. That pushes us towards other powers."
Carol gave a sarcastic smile. "We don't even know if you would have done it. Or maybe you've already done it. Maybe you offered negotiations to all the powers, or even negotiated them. Assassinations of one of our own will obviously not lead to anything meaningful. Result. Unfortunately, I can't think of another motive. One big enough to have resulted in the death of one of our own diplomats. Senior diplomats, including the Vice President of the Confederacy. Someone we cannot easily replace." She paused briefly. "We believe that every life is precious. They are so precious and we will do whatever we can to protect them. No one among us would trade life for it. Such a deal would never succeed. And, it's not about life. Ethnicity is completely irrelevant. Therefore, such an assassination is completely incomprehensible to us."
She looked again at each of the Sindi present, but it was difficult to read their gazes. They are so different that even when faced with the same emotion, their expressions don't look the same.
Just as Carol was about to continue speaking, the door next to the screen opened and two guards brought Noah in. She felt a rush of relief when she saw him walking in alone and generally unhurt. Although she had been trying not to think about his fate, she hadn't been entirely successful. She had worried that he would be permanently damaged anyway, if he hadn't already paid for it with his life.
But aside from some obvious scratches on his face, he seemed fine. He gave her a slight nod to indicate that everything was fine and asked her to continue without paying attention to him.
"I mentioned before that we know who the real killer is," Carol continued. "Okay, I have to say more. More than a year ago, we encountered a race called Demon Flame." She looked around, trying to gauge their reactions, but their expressions were still unreadable. "We learned from the mouth of a demon flame that this race worships the insect Cindy as a god and creator. Apparently, Cindy intervened in the evolution of the demon flames, making them what they are now. Or rather, It's the way it used to be. Because it looks like the Demon Flame is no more. I don't know how an entire race could suddenly disappear. Especially when we get the news that not only the Demon Flame's homeworld was destroyed, but all the alien outposts as well. Gone. It took quite a bit of logistics and technical support to happen so quickly and unnoticed. Anyway, that was the motivation for attacking the meeting. Because not all Demon Flames fell victim to genocide. At least one survivor."
"That's impossible," the insect representative Cindy replied, deepening Carol's suspicion that Cindy had a hand in the Demon Flame Extinction.
"But it is true. When our crew was captured by the Demon Flame, we were able to escape with the help of a Demon Flame named Earrat. He was also the one who provided us with information about this racial minority. However, he did not Unwilling to betray his race to the Federation. Therefore, he joined the pirate team led by Captain Razor." She looked at the burly man and turned the topic to him.
Lei Ze began to say in a low voice: "Ear Mouse is an excellent warrior. He has excellent tactical awareness and plays an important role in our team. Then, when we heard the first report that the Demon Flame was eliminated He was furious. Before we could calm him down, he destroyed the entire cargo bay. He kept yelling that Cindy would pay. Then, three weeks ago, we docked at a space base to get more information. Rat simply said he was leaving the ship and wreaking vengeance on Cindy. Although we all agreed that one man had no chance against an entire race, he was unwilling to listen to our advice and we let him go. A few days ago, we Found out our entire stockpile of antimatter had been stolen. Ten kilograms in total." He was upset at such a loss, but it seemed appropriate to admit it under the circumstances.
"Why is your stolen antimatter related to your Demon Flame crew?" Shan Mo wanted to know. "If the demonic flames left much earlier than the antimatter, then it seems far-fetched to connect the two events."
Razer grudgingly recounts the holographic field that prevented them from detecting the theft early, emphasizing that the holographic technology was so advanced that it prevented them from detecting it early. "I have never seen anything like this. This technology must have been brought by the Ear Mouse from the Demon Flame, because I don't know which race has been so advanced in this field."
"However, we are still not sure that this demonic flame stole the antimatter. There may be others." Plant Cindy Shanmo still insisted on her point of view. He ran his fingers through his white beard, radiating absolute calm. Still, his opinion didn't waver.
"No," Razer responded firmly. "There is other evidence." He slowly took out a data chip from his pocket. He didn't want to do something alarming that would attract anyone's attention. Even so, however, the two guards approached, eyeing him suspiciously. Razor briefly showed them the data chip, then held it up for everyone to see. "This is the Earrat's account of the incident. Perhaps we will now have a chance to view the recording he made before leaving the ship." He looked around encouragingly, but no one made a move to take the data chip. Razor gritted his teeth and noticed this. "Are you afraid of knowing the truth?" he asked defiantly, directed at their hosts.
"We will check this message." Aquatic Cindy Lingyu decided.
One of the guards approached, took the data chip, then walked to the wall and connected the data chip to Cindy's system. As he did so, Carol looked over to Otis. This humanoid Cindy seems to have not spoken a word yet. This surprised her. She had been expecting him to take her side, or at least offer some support. Instead, he just sat there with his arms crossed over his chest, just watching. Like he was just an observer. Although he is very focused, very focused.
"We can play the record now," the guard said, waiting for confirmation.
Shan Mo nodded to his companion, and the scene changed. The aquatic Cindyling has disappeared from the screen, replaced by the face of a gray crawling Cindy. What is completely incongruous is that it has two large compound eyes, and the white eyes stand out against the skin. It has no nose, but a mouth with many sharp teeth. It's obvious from its appearance that it is a predator.
Carol knew this was the Earrat, the demonic flame who helped the Republic crew escape from the slave mines. She knew because Razer told her. She wouldn't recognize him personally. But she only met him once, in a video message. It was like seeing different individuals in Demon Flame's face, it was a mystery to her. To her, all demonic flames looked the same.
"This message is for Captain Razor," the Earmouse began in a low, rough voice. "If you see this, I'm probably dead. Because I will avenge my race. My race was betrayed and destroyed by those gods.
As you know, Cindy the Insect is worshiped as a deity by my race. They made us who we are today. We owe our existence to them, even though they only created us for their own purposes. Yet now they are killing all members of our race for no reason. I know. Even though you said there is no evidence yet. but I know. Only God could perform such an act. I don't know how it happened, but they did it. They will pay for it. I will kill them with antimatter. Give them a hard blow that they won't be able to recover from for a long time. This will be my legacy to Cindy. They will pay the price for Demon Flame's genocide. "
Then the message ended abruptly. No goodbyes, no specifics on how he planned to hit Cindy. Just a hateful message that only talks about revenge. So, the eared mouse stared at the last frame on the screen and looked down from the screen accusingly. Although because of his heterogeneous physiological structure, whether this can be called "Wang" is also a question.
