//------------------------------// // Chapter XI - Growth of Knowledge // Story: Book 1 - Prisoner and Savior // by Midnight_Lights //------------------------------// For the rest of the day until dinnertime, Twilight and Xul spent their time in the observatory, mostly researching Equus as best as they could. Twilight would point to things and then Xul would translate and explain what they were and what they meant. "The lines show territories of the different groups, do you understand?" Xul said when Twilight pointed at the different lines separating the UFF, Mandor, and Sectanium territories. Twilight nodded, then she zoomed the map in on her planet, marked with a bright green dot. Twilight had taught Xul how to say "read" in her language, so she could ask her to read things. "Read," she said. "Equus. It has the conditions for life to form, but no one has visited the planet since before the founding of the Sectanium. The planet is unique because it is at the center of its solar system, and has a smaller sun and even smaller moon revolving around it. Many highly reflective asteroids surround it. Little research has been done to figure out why this has happened." Xul turned back to Twilight when she was done reading. "...How?" Twilight asked, using one of the words Xul knew. "How what? How is your planet at the center?" "Yes," Twilight replied. "It doesn't say how, but from your planet, things would look the same as they do from any other planet, such as Earth, where I'm from. The reflective steroids would mimic extra stars, and since your sun and moon are very close to the planet, they would look the same. However, It is strange that such complex lifeforms managed to survive when the sun is much smaller than normal." "Wait," Twilight said. She wanted to ask about what stars normally are, and if their leaders, or whoever they put in charge of moving the sun, would have to move their planet instead, which seemed much harder to do. What kind of magic are these creatures capable of? she wondered. Twilight couldn't vocalize exactly what she wanted to say, so she tried to point to the sun revolving around the picture of her solar system, but Xul must have thought that she was pointing to the stars. "As I've said, your stars are just like ours, only some of them will be much brighter, because of the asteroids. Some of them may even form constellations because of their location, you know what a constellation is, correct?" Xul asked. "Yes," "Okay, good. You might share some constellations with Earth, but only those facing in the right direction, do you know of the Ursa Major?" Xul asked, as she pulled up a picture of a group of stars. "Oh, but the star on the right wouldn't be visible from your sport, and this one would be farther to the left" Ursa what?! Twilight thought. What does she mean?! Do they have Ursa's too? That'd be strange! That constellation doesn't even look like it, but if they have Ursa's on...on Earth, then I guess they do look like stars. "Uh, are you okay, Twilight? Are you following me with this?" Xul asked, and Twilight nodded. She decided that she would have to ask Xul or another creature about the constellations after the translator is ready. . . . "The closest UFF military port would be that one," Chmone said, pointing to a planet on the map. It was located on the edge of UFF territory, but just far enough inside to not be a battlefield...yet. "Although, one of the aliens assigned for engine repair and upkeep said that we needed more fuel soon, so we will need to make a stop at one of those fuel stations run by Mandors. We should get Xul and some of the other imprisoned Mandors to pretend to be on their side, assuming that they are actually on our side, I haven't asked them aside from Xul. Even so, Xul might just turn us over, she said she was on our side but she might just be a Hunter, Peacemaker, or part of some other small group. "That could work," Zeck replied. "But we will need to make a compartment to hide in so that if the Mandors decide to search the ship, they don't find us. I bet the Sectanium have ordered them to double down on security now that they've lost an extremely powerful tool." "I agree. We should alert the UFF military port that we are coming so they will know if something goes wrong." Chmone turned to address an alien working on the translator, the alien was an Anta, who was of Chmone's race, but he had a different skin color. "You. Get ready for us to send a message to MPort 35." "Yes, sir," The alien replied, jumping to another computer. "Ready. Three, two, one, recording." "This is Captain Zeck Stone and Co-pilot Chmone..." Zeck trailed off, he didn't know Chmone's last name. "F," Chmone said. "And co-pilot Chmone F. speaking. We have just escaped Terram and have brought with us many other previously captured aliens, including one that you may take interest in. This alien, Twilight, as she calls herself, is very powerful, and I believe that she and her kind could help us a lot if we allied with her people. We wish to meet with the owner of your military port, but our stolen ship is low on fuel, so we are going to make a stop at one of the nearby Mandor-run stations first. I believe that the security code was F-ANT, but all of us have been imprisoned for a while, so we do not know if it has changed. Thank you," Zeck then nodded at the alien running the computer, who then sent it to the port. "Now we wait," Chmone said. . . . An hour later, a reply came in. "Thank you for letting us know of your whereabouts, and we are glad that you have all safely escaped Terram. We will prepare for your arrival. We have heard of your escape from one of our spies, who has also noticed that a Sectanian ship has been spotted heading in your direction, and it appears to have come from Terram. We believe that it may be following so, you will want to hurry along, as it is only a few lightyears behind you, and is traveling at a high speed." Well darn. Zeck thought when the message was over. Now we'll run out of fuel even faster. I wonder if I could get Twilight to teleport us there? No, she probably isn't that powerful, if she had even a fraction of that level of power we'd likely be overtaken by her already. While Zeck pondered different options to be more fuel-efficient, an alien came up from behind him. "The translator is ready, sir,"