Mike showed us a layout of the star system. It consisted of twelve major planets and a Kuiper-type belt of minor planets, with an Oort-type cloud. The sixth planet was located at about two-and-a-third astronomical units from its star, which was slightly hotter than our sun, Sol. Planet six was about one and a half times the size of Earth and was blue and green. The planet's surface was approximately forty percent water. Entire green continents stretched across the planet, and there were arid regions between the equator and the poles. The poles of the planet were ice-covered landmasses very similar to Antarctica on Earth. The most interesting fact was that there seemed to be very little detectable technology or habitation. There were no orbiting satellites that could be seen or obvious civilizations located anywhere.
'Where are the people and the buildings?' Al asked.
'Just a moment,' Mike said. 'There, I have adjusted the sensors to remove the cloaking effect from the images.' Then the image filled with satellites, spaceships, factory facilities in orbit, and a hustling and bustling environment.
'You mean they cloaked their entire planet?' Tabitha was awestruck.
'Yes, and several hundred thousand kilometers around it,' Mike answered.
'I think we're gonna need a bigger boat.' Anson whistled.
'And a shitload more missiles!' 'Becca added.
'All right, everybody relax,' Tabitha warned us. 'What did we expect to see, a lean-to and a couple of toy rockets? We knew this would be tough and that these aliens had been here much longer than the human race has been around. We knew they would be much further along than us. And that we would be outgunned.'
'Outgunned is an understatement to say the least.' Anson whistled and nodded his head again.
'Mike, open a channel to the aliens if you can.' Tabitha sat back in her chair and sighed. She fiddled with her curl. The scar it had once covered was gone now but the habit had not gone away.
'The channel is open, Tabitha.'
'Thanks, Mike.' She took a deep breath and grabbed the arms of her chair tightly. 'Greetings to the inhabitants of this star system. We come from the planet Earth roughly two hundred light years away. We come in peace. We are in a vessel that previously belonged to members of your species. The occupants of this vessel were capturing members of our species and torturing and murdering them. We hope this was merely a misunderstanding between our species and would like to know why your species has been visiting our world and taking our people against their will. Please respond.'
We all gripped our chairs tighter. In fact, I was beginning to think I would have to use the nanomachines to get the seat material dislodged from my anal sphincter. Then a high-pitched and almost childlike voice came back to us—in English.
'Earthlings, you must not lower your warp bubble and you must immediately return to Earth!'
Tabitha's face reddened a bit. 'We have no intention of lowering our bubble, but we are not returning to Earth without answers and without a guarantee that you will cease and desist all hostilities against our race, our planet, and our solar system!' she replied in her voice of command.
There was a long silence this time that lasted more than a minute or so. Tabitha was about to repeat her response when the aliens answered. All eighteen of the ships flanking us pulled in to an extremely close formation and then our warp bubble was caught in a larger bubble.
'Very well, Earthlings. You will make no attempts to escape our confinement bubble and show no hostilities. We will take you to the Regency Caste and they will respond to your request. Please, be patient and be warned that your technology is not sufficient to escape our confinement bubble.' Then the stars blinked out and we were at extreme warp velocity.
'Mike, what's going on?' I yelled.
'The Grays have us in their control and are using a large quantum fluctuation engine to carry us at very high velocities. To where, I do not know. I have never heard of this Regency Caste. However, it does suggest something along the lines of the queen bee.'
'How fast are we traveling?' Anson asked.
'Approximately two point three light years per minute,' Mike said.
We all did some quick multiplication in our heads.
'Holy shit! That's something like a million times the speed of light,' Tabitha gulped.
'One point two one seven million times faster than light,' Tatiana said.
'Yeah, at this speed we could travel completely across the galaxy in about a month!' Anne Marie interjected.
'Well, shit fire! We better hope they give us a ride home!' Anson said in his best Southern redneck drawl.
A day and a half later and about five thousand light years from Earth, we finally came to a stop around a bright blue star with a large accretion disk filling its system.
'Hey, this is a new star system. No planets have even formed yet,' Jim pointed out.
'Yeah, Jim. But look at that!' Al pointed at the screen about two astronomical units out from the star.
There was a ring that completely encircled the star. The ring must have been taller than Jupiter at its narrowest point. At the tallest point it was probably fifteen Jupiters high both above and below the ecliptic plane of the accretion disk. The system was very busy with vessels going and coming, and mammoth chunks of preplanetary materials being pushed and pulled around by some sort of invisible motivating systems.
'What the hell is going on here?' Tabitha asked. 'Anybody have a clue?'
'This must be Gray headquarters or the Palace or the White House or some equivalent,' Sara said.
'I realize that, but what are they building?' Tabitha said.
