Memoirs of Kitty Siam Ch. 33

It was clear to both Sima and I that something terrible had happened here and whatever it was, it was not a naturally occurring event. It was upon this realization that I deployed and charged the plasma cannons.

I kept the ship on manual control and put us into a low orbit around Udon after making sure that our orbit would keep us well out of the path of any orbiting debris. I kept the tactical scanners busy searching for threats while Sheba monitored all available frequencies for any friendly or hostile communications. Sima left the flight deck and went to the ship's science module to begin a detailed scan of the planet to search for signs of life and to try to determine what had happened. We both had agreed that we should try to determine who or what did this before we entered Udon's atmosphere.

Sima buzzed me from the science lab and began sending me data that she had collected from the planet below. As we made our first orbit of the planet the monitor before me changed to show a detailed visual scan of the planet below. The three main cities that I knew on Udon were now gone and were replaced with huge craters at least twice as big as the cities that used to occupy the same space.

The next data to come in from Sima was a detailed scan of the planet's atmosphere. The particulate readings taken indicated that there was enough particulate matter in the air that sunlight would not be reaching the surface of the planet any time soon. There were all sorts of trace elements present in the atmosphere along with several highly toxic radioactive isotopes. It was clear from these scans that what ever had happened did not happen by accident, nor was it a natural occurrence as it was easy to see that the three main cities had been targeted. The only thing that the incoming data did not tell us was why.

There was no need to subject our ship to the risk of entering the atmosphere. The shields would hold against the debris, but there was nothing to be gained by going down to the planet. It was obvious that Osaka Eugenics and the city that it was located in had been obliterated from space. Sima transferred control of the equipment in the science module to the co-pilot's console and rejoined me on the flight deck. Sima, Sheba and I compared notes on what we had found. We came to the conclusion that Udon had been attacked but we could not determine by who or when, though I had a feeling that the, "when" was around the day that my shuttle had left the planet. We could not determine any sort of weapons signatures as either the weapon type was unknown to us or too much time had passed and the resonance traces had dissipated beyond the detection limits of our scanners.

While Sheba and Sima were continuing to send scan data to the center console, I made a quick scan of the ship's systems and came to the conclusion that our cloak time was coming up on its limit and soon we would have to shut it down. We were also quite low on our HE3 reserves and that would have to be replenished very soon. With that said I diverted the power that was being sent to the cloak and used the additional power to reinforce our shields. With that out of the way I set a course toward the star that Udon circled then activated our main engines to break orbit. Within a few seconds we were on route to the center of this system.

We continued our scans of Udon and the surrounding space but we could not glean any more information than we already had. Once we were away from Udon it finally hit me that most everyone that I knew on that planet had probably died in the attack. Gone were my friends, professors, and the staff that I had come to know. My only hope was that perhaps others had made it off the planet in shuttles the way that I had.

On our way to the center of the system, Sima and I continued our discussion on what our next step should be. I was holding out for a trip to Earth as perhaps the Osaka Eugenics office there would have a backup of my medical records. Sima was insisting that we needed to conduct some official business and determine why the portal on the fourth planet was sending an, Out of Order" signal.

As we neared Udon's star I adjusted the ship's shield harmonics to block out the star's radiation and heat. I deployed the internally stored collectors and began the process of replenishing our HE3 supply. It took us several orbits of the sun to take our tanks up to the full mark. Once we were full I stowed the collectors but remained in orbit as we went back to our discussion on where to go next.

Sima would not budge and pulled rank, so I reluctantly agreed that Mars was our next stop with a follow on trip to Earth. I had to concede to Sima that when we reached Earth we would have to determine what had happened to the two portals that Earth was supposed to have. To tell the truth, I was a bit curious as to where these portals were and what had happened to them as well, but my first goal on Earth was to find out what sort of DNA was used in my construction, and exactly where it came from.