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mark,
stretching from icecap to icecap at both poles.  And most interesting of all,
the large structures rising out of the atmosphere and into space.  There were
twelve of those objects scattered equidistant across the world, eight of them
rising from land, the rest from the oceans.
    We still
don’t know what they are , she thought, her attention captured by the
magnificent objects that were over ten kilometers in diameter at the base and
almost five hundred kilometers high.  And we haven’t had a chance to ask
these people about them.
    A blinking dot
appeared rising up from the east of the largest continent, and Albright zoomed
in her take to see a shuttle similar to the one their new friends had come up
in.  There were differences, but the tech level looked to be similar, which
made sense, since these creatures occupied the same planet.
    “We warned them
not to attempt contact,” said the Leader of the Tsarzorians over the holo he
was on.  “They were told what would happen if they tried.”
    “What are you
talking about?” asked Albright, looking at the alien leader in alarm.  “What do
you intend to do?”
    The holo went
off, the contact with the Leader of Tsarzor broken before she could get an
answer, and she found herself looking at the leader of the Astronauts.  “What
will he do?”
    “The situation
with Honish is, tense,” said the alien, making what looked like a shrug of his
tentacle attachments to his torso.  “We have been in conflict with them for
decades, fighting through proxies.  And sometimes more directly.”
    “Perhaps we
could help you to resolve your differences,” suggested the Captain.  Because
you’ve got enough trouble coming your way without fighting each other.
    “They are,
different than us.  They look different, and do not do things the way we do,”
said Nastra, her head moving in a circular motion that the Captain took as a
negative.  “And they worship a false God, and commit atrocities in the name of
that deity.”
    Sounds a lot
like our own history when we were at this tech level.  Except the ones who
committed atrocities in our timeline were much more primitive than the Western
nations.
    “We have more
launches, ma’am,” came the call from her tactical officer over the com.  “Two.”
    “More shuttles?”
    “No, ma’am.  Not
unless they have inertial compensators that we don’t know about.   Those things
are lifting at over thirty gravities, and they’re launching from an aquatic
vessel.”
    “Contena is
willing to start a war,” said Nastra in a soft voice, really too low to hear,
but picked up by the translation program and amplified.
    “What are those
things?” asked the Captain, slapping a hand on the table to catch the attention
of the two aliens.  “Are they targeting that shuttle?”
    “Those are
interceptor missiles,” said Lamsat, looking down at the table, then up into the
eyes of Albright.  “They are made to knock down missiles that are targeting our
ships, but can hit very high altitude targets as well.”
    “Tactical,” called
out the Captain.  “Target those missiles.  Take them out.”
    Everyone watched
the holo with high levels of anxiety, even if the reasons were different.  The
cruiser was at action stations, with its light amp rings fully charged, each
ring’s multiple emitters drawing power from their crystal matrix battery packs,
which tapped into the matter/antimatter reactors to recharge as they were
drained.  Laser A took aim at one missile, the B ring the second, and it only
took one shot from each to spread the missiles into clouds of plasma in the
upper atmosphere.
    “I want one of
our assault shuttles out right now to escort that shuttle to us,” ordered the
Captain over the com.
    “Do you want us
to take out those launching platforms, ma’am?” asked the Tac Officer.
    Albright looked
up to see expressions on the faces of the two Klassekians that looked like
panic.  “Those are manned vessels, I