“No, Captain,” answered Marante, his First Officer. “All communications with Nisor II stopped three hours after the discovery of the alien mechanism.”
Kalin squirmed in the captain’s chair, his stare anxiously fixed on the forty-by-sixty-foot, three-dimensional wall screen. The blue and green planet was perfect for sustaining human life, so where were the colonists? Who or what could take out five hundred people and leave nothing behind? he thought. He recalled the mission to Cetion 4, the remote planet near the galactic axis. An uncomfortable feeling rose up within him. Are these creatures also invisible? Undetectable by scans? He hoped not. The Uly creatures had slaughtered ten men, setting their bodies on fire with just a touch. He and Marante had barely made it out alive. “Are there any signs of a battle?”
Marante waved his hand through a three-dimensional hologram emitting from a yellow recessed orb.
“No, sir,” he replied, his clipped accent smooth and eloquent. “All their ships are intact. There are no bodily remains. I cannot detect any traces of Ondor-human blood. Whatever attacked them wiped them out completely.”
Kalin ran his fingers through his thick black hair. It was happening again. Something inside telling him not to teleport to the surface, but what choice did he have? The continuous Ancis signal had stopped three days ago, a sure sign of an enemy attack. The Federation was concerned.
“Inform Baskka and Muab we’re going down,” he said.
Marante swiveled in his seat. Although considered handsome by Chaslean-human standards, his boney, angular frame wrapped in a skin-tight black tunic and pants, and his oversized round head made him look like a popsicle. Taking up most of his face were almond-shaped eyes that pointed inward to a coin-sized nose, which at present was white and slightly larger than usual.
“Perhaps a probe would be more suitable?” said Marante. “We could monitor its findings from here.”
Marante was a scientist at heart and frowned on dangerous assignments. However, in over four hundred years, he had never let fear stop him from going on the missions Kalin accepted from the Galactic Federation. Of course, being on the Quasar, the largest and most advanced ship in the fifteen explored galaxies, helped.
“No,” Kalin replied. “I’m not going to rely on a probe to find out what happened to them. Let’s go.” He turned to the Chaslean helmsman. “Tolba, monitor us and ready the teleport in case of trouble.”