Chapter 34: Rumors
"Voice activation?" I repeated looking at Jun Li with my eyebrows raised. "Yes, I would like to initiate voice activation."
"Understood," said a voice inside my helmet. It sounded female but had a definite accent, almost to the point that it sounded like it was mispronouncing some of its words. I wondered if she was speaking English, or if she was speaking Saaja while something else was translating it. "Commencing voice activation. What language would you like for written communication and or verbal communication?"
"English?" I said, but it came out more as a question.
"I’m sorry, English is not one of the languages available for download. Please select again," came the voice, causing me to pause. If English wasn’t one of the available languages, how could I read the English words and hear her speaking it?
"What language are we currently using?" I asked confused.
"The current language for both spoken and written communications is Ethawainian," said the voice.
"What is Ethawainian?" I asked looking at Jun Li. He looked just as confused as I felt and shook his head, indicating that he didn’t know either.
"Ethawainian is the official language of the Ethawain species. They are believed to have been the primary species in this section of the Galaxy. They seeded multiple planets and each planet that was under their control has Ethawainian as a base to their language."
"And what does it mean to be seeded?" I continued to ask, coming to the realization that Earth was a lot more... involved... with aliens than humans had initially thought.
"To be seeded implies to begin terraforming a planet for humanoid life."
"And what would this terraforming look like?"
"A massive event that would wipe out any undesirable, hostile, or otherwise dangers forms of life," replied my mask, as if she didn’t just completely rewrite human history as I knew it.
"And what would count as a massive event?" I asked, dreading the answer.
"Most would be in the form of an impact from space debris, mostly in the forms of asteroids or meteor showers, however, viruses and blocking out the planet’s ability to access heat and light from their closest sun would also have been considered."
So, from what I was understanding... and I will fully admit that as smart as I was, this was just a little outside of my realm of understanding; Earth was ’seeded’ by a race of aliens that wiped out the dinosaurs, set up the Ozone as a way of protecting the ’desirable’ species left, and left some aspect of themselves in the terms of RH negative.
In other words, every human on Earth was a descendant of aliens in some form or other from outer space.
Huh, learned something new every day.
"Okay, then please install voice activation in the Ethawainian language," I said sounding so much more composed than I actually was.
"Understood, initiating Ethawainian voice activation. Time to completion: 1-hour local time."
At least one aspect of my life would become easier in an hour. Once I could verbally control my armor, I would no longer have to worry about how long it took in order to activate my weapons in dangerous situations.
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"This ship has no Saalistaja technology on it," reported Cruz’uts as he deactivated his cloaking device. Looking at his wrist unit, he scrolled through the list of Sisalik ships currently registered in Z Galaxy and realized that none of them were the ones they were looking for.
"Do you think that they would keep the technology to a single ship or spread it out over multiple ones?" asked Tha’juen through their helmet’s communication system.
"It would be the most logical decision to spread the technology over several ships," replied Vraev’ox his voice coming through loud and clear in Cruz’uts’ helmet. "It would provide the most strength to the Sisalik species as a whole."
"But what if they took the weapons and technology not to strength the Sisalik species as a whole, but rather to strengthen a particular ship?" asked Au’dtair. He was the only one in the fighter craft trying to find more leads to go on. However, going through all the records of Sisalik ships within the area of sector B0092016, there were still over 800 ships within that cycle that could have possibly stolen the technology.
"What if they weren’t even stealing the technology for themselves? There are several species that would love to get their hands on our technology. How do we know that one of them didn’t pay the Sisalik to get it?" continued Tha’juen.
"If we go through all of the ’what if’s’, we might as well be chasing after vasfuggony," growled Vraev’ox clearly frustrated. Although he was praying that this hunt would take a while, this was not what he had in mind. It was like looking for a single drop of rain in the ocean.
The other four hunters grunted in agreement. Vasfuggony were a small creature found throughout most of the known worlds, especially where garbage or refuse was just thrown away. They were a plentiful species, extremely hard to kill due to their speed and ability to hide, but they had no defense capabilities nor enough meat to make hunting them worthwhile.
There could be millions of different situations that resulted in their technology being stolen, but the only thing that they knew for sure was that it was a Sisalik ship. What kind was completely unknown. All they could do was go through each and every one to determine if it was the one responsible or not.
"I have heard rumors from a few galaxies over that the Sisalik had installed forbidden AI systems in a few of their battleships," said Ye’tab slowly. This was the first time that he had interjected himself within the conversation, preferring instead to remain silent. "They have since turned on their owners and have insisted on adopting a pet. The Alliance has agreed to let them live on the basis that their pets are the only ones allowed on the ships and they fight on behalf of the Alliance."
Ye’tab was an unusual hunter in that he preferred to hunt for information rather than creatures. He still had an impressive kill room and was considered to be a desirable mate to their females, but many did not know his true passion.
"What series was that?" asked Vraev’ox confused, but he knew better than to question any information from Ye’tab.
"I believe that it was their top-of-the-line battleships, the L series," replied the other male.
