Chapter Three

Two dwarf yellow stars in tandem, nineteen planets including eight gas giants, eight asteroid belts, and a bean shaped Oort cloud. One-hundred-sixteen light years beyond the border of the Rim Worlds, 143 LY beyond the nearest Civilized System. According to the Historical Astrogation Society the system had never even been surveyed.

The recent change in jumpspace currents had turned the eight year travel into one that only took six weeks. Delminta had leveraged her fortune, in money and favors, to lay her hands on a survey ship and the rights to survey and exploit the system.

Only it had been visited before.

Nearly a hundred million years ago.

On the three worlds that still had geological movement and continental drift, all the evidence was gone. It was the other worlds that bore mute testimony to what had happened.

The Precursor War.

Which meant two things: any easily extracted minerals would be gone.

Worse, is that it was too close to the Great Gulf, where the Precursor War between two ancient civilizations had wiped out life across the galactic arm spur.

Some even said that the Precursor war is why the arm was a 'spur', that the very suns had been extinguished. Not that Captain Delminta believed that kind of mumbo-jumbo nonsense.

She smoothed some fur as she watched the probe crest the horizon. Hers were a tree-dwelling people, mammalian, with soft fur, delicate ears, large eyes, and strong grips. Her natural instincts for geometry made her a good captain, and made her crew highly skilled even in nul-grav.

She took another drink of stim and curled her toes, cracking the joints.

It was at that moment the alarms for one of her probe networks went off, startling her. She jumped, throwing her heated stim-juice all over the back of her navigator, who woke up from his nap screeching. He smacked the communications officer, who woke up, snarled, and kicked the science officer.

Who promptly kicked Delminta in the shin, just like the little brat of a cousin had done when they were children. By the time the bridge was settled down, the geosynchronous satellite survey net over the tiny gas planet was screaming a promixity alert so bad in made Delminta roll her ears and smack her baby sister, the communications officer, with her Command Stick.

"What is its problem?" Delminta barked at her baby sister.

Heemina bit Delminta's foot then turned back to her instruments. "There's something big out there. It's moving toward us. It's real close. Like, in orbit around this gas planet close."

Delminta suddenly thought of all the stories of Precursor death machines lurking out in the darkness ready to swoop down and destroy any colonists who dared get too close the Long Night when establishing their colonies.

"Can you give me a look at it?" She asked her aunt, narrowly managing to turn her head so her aunt poked her cheek instead of her eye.

"I'll give you a look of something," Her aunt said. Then turned back to the instrument panel. "It's talking too."

Delminta knew her family didn't mean any of it. It was just, on the survey ship for so long, they were unable to take out their aggression in any other method so everyone had resorted to pinches, pokes, slaps, bites, and kicks. "Coming in... now..." Aunt Beeta said, then mumbled about how back in her day...

When the main viewer lit up everyone screamed and fought one another to flee the bridge. Delminta caught a nasty elbow to the eye when her nephew kneed her in the groin and her baby brother elbowed her out of the way.

After a few minutes it was decided that since this was all Delminta's idea and she was captain, she could go back onto the bridge.

So they promptly shoved her onto the bridge and shut the door.

Delminta stared in shock at the screen.

It was huge and looked like the tiny little scavengers in the warm seas of her home world. A bell like top with a multitude of tentacles hanging down. It was lit up, blue light outlining it and filling it with bright spots appearing and disappearing of pink, green, red, and orange.

"Hello? Hello? Are you guys in there?" a feminine voice asked.

Delminta stared in shock.

"Hey, can you hear me?" One tendril lifted up and tapped the side of the bell. "Stupid Gentrix Industries com-nerves. Shoulda got a warranty."

Delminta swallowed and looked up at the blast door window. She could see three of her cousins, her left hand brood mother, and an aunt looking at her through the window. Her left hand brood mother waved at her to get it on.

"Yeh-yes, I can hear you," Delminta said.

The whole thing rippled with color and several of the long tendrils, which the ship estimated to be hundreds miles long and miles thick, trembled as if in pleasure.

"Oh, wow. Hot pipe, baby. I thought I'd gone deaf," The feminine voice said. "Sandy Tamalin, nice to meet you."

One of the tendrils started to extend then jerked back when Delminta screamed.

"Oh, sorry, not used to this yet. Wow, how embarrassing. So, who are you?" The last was said in a steady even tone, the slightly silly almost younger sibling sounding tone vanishing.

"Captain Delminta, of the Swift Grass Clan, of the Singing Spires Forest, of Hamaroosa," Delminta said.

"Wow, that sound neat. Hey, anyway, is this yours?" The voice asked. The tentacles pointed at the gas planet. "Um, it's a planetoid."

"Yeah, well, I'm kinda hungry. I mean, do you like live there of something? My nerves can't detect any like, structures or life forms in there, and it is made up of helium, hydrogen, delicious delicious methane and a lot of H20. I mean, do you mind?" The voice had gone from somewhat mature to childish wheedling.

"You want to... eat... the gas planet?" Delminta asked.

"Psst, let her. It's a gas planet. Nobody cares," several of her aunts whispered at her over the communicator.

"I'm hungry. It was a long trip. Nobody told me how hard it was to swim through hyperspace when I bought the hyperglands, the pumpsacs, and the squirter," the feminine voice said. "I'm just on my way to the Tri-Quasar Cluster. A bunch of us are getting together and gonna make the electron clouds around the quasars sing."

"Sure. Um... go ahead," Delminta said.

"Thanks, Spanky, you're the best. Mmm, helium..." the tentacles dropped down and the voice went silent.

"Is it going to eat us?" Beeta asked through the crack at the door.

"No. She, I think it's a she, is just eating from the gas giant," Delminta said.

"Ask where it's from so we can avoid it," Her right hand brood mother said.

"Um, San-Dee?" Delminta said.

"Yeah?" The feminine voice came back.

"Where are you from?" Delminta asked.

"Oh. Yeah. How rude. You told me. Well, I guess, I'm from the City of Chicago, Sol System," Sandy answered. "Oooh, hydrocarbon pocket! Delicious delicious hydrocarbons. Umm, I'm a Solarian."

"Oh," Delminta said, looking at the huge jellyfish. It's color was brightening.

"Well, Delminta of the Sunny Spires Ponderosa, it was nice to meet you, but I'm kinda late," Sandy suddenly said. Delminta noticed the voice was refreshed and the tentacles were retracting into the bottom of the bell.

"Wait!" Delminta cried out. She flinched as the bell tilted toward her little ship.

"Yeah?" The voice definitely sounded like a little girl's and Delminta wondered how much of it was the ship's computer trying to make it so the massive creature wasn't so panic inducing.

"Um, out of politeness, we show each other how we look," Delminta said.

"Oh, is that why you let me see you. You're so cute. Kind of like a sugar glider and a kitty and squirrel all mixed together! My friends are going to love hearing about you," The jellyfish said.

"And you?" Delminta asked.

"Oh, this is me. It's custom. Daddy bought it for me. I'm a registered bio-synth now, but that's OK," the voice said. "Welp, okay, bye!"

There was a weird eye watering flash and Delminta thought for a second that it looked like the giant jellyfish suddenly inverted.

As soon as the jellyfish vanished her family rushed in, kicking, biting, pinching, all fighting to get at their controls and try to get instrumentation on the creature that had just vanished.

Personally, Delminta was wondering if maybe she could sell the data to the Unified Exploratory Council and come out even. ------------------- The Unified Exploratory Council purchased Delminta's logs, the recordings causing furious debate among the Council. Normally nobody would believe a crew as flighty as a crew of Hamaroosans that they'd encountered a sentient jellyfish that fed off of gas planets.

But this was the third, maybe even the fourth, Sol sentient species that had been discovered.

Leading the Exploratory Council one question...

...what exactly was "Sol" ----------------- DADDDDDDDY!

Look at these squirrels! I want to be one of those when I come home! Pleasepleasepleaseplease! I'll be back in five years. I wanna be a squirrel! I'll take really good care of this body so it gets a good tradein! I never get to be anything cute! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEEEEEEEASE!

I love you, daddy!

Sandy