"Have you figured out how they found Regal?" Ann asked and then coughed. She was sickly now, too weak to speak in anything other than a whisper. She had curled up into a ball a few moments after completing the translations. It was as if that final act had drained her of all her strength. She was fighting but it was a battle she was going to lose.

"We think one of their probes found it. They have millions of them out there looking for us, not surprised it found one of our allies."

"They will find Earth, just a matter of when." Ann said. She pointed to her computer screen, "I've translated everything and wrote it out. I was hoping maybe it could help you guys understand their language."

"It'll help, the more information we have the better we'll be. I want you to forget all that and rest."

"We both know the minute I close my eyes they won't open again. I'm not too far gone now, only a few hours maybe."

"Maybe," Captain Cook said and grabbed her hand. "Thank you for all your help. Just knowing we have Handler's on our side will do wonder for moral."

"I wish I could have helped more."

"No, you did fine."

She nodded her head. "Maybe some rest will be nice, thank you for the wonderful week. I'm a very lucky clone." Ann closed her eyes and her shallow breathing slowed.

Captain Cook sat there until the breathing stopped. Ann was at rest now, Captain Cook had no idea what that would mean for a clone but she wept for her soul anyway.

Juliet walked down the corridor of the Arwen deep in thought. The issue of how the Handler's created the wormholes had always bothered her. She never actively pursued the issue until a few weeks ago when she got a message from the Professor. They did their best to keep in touch but after the divorce was final. His messages were less about how he felt and more a reminder of all they had been through. In that letter he reminded her how he had saved her from the Handlers after she had fallen through a wormhole and arrived at an isolated destination. She could never be sure if he did that to be vindictive or if he was trying something that only the Professor could understand. But, it did get to her thinking about that experience.

One of the things that was well established was the Beta Wormhole space has liquid like properties to it. She remembers it flowing over her skin, pushing her along to the next destination. She never tried to open her eyes or to breath but she was sure whatever the Beta dimension was to the human mind and body it felt liquid. Some thought it was just a matter of perspective but she never believed that. What if that universe was like an ocean, would the wormholes simply be tributaries to that ocean?

"Arwen, fire up the hologram room I want to check some stuff out."

"Is this something I can help you with?"

"I don't think I could do it without you. In fact, I'd like you to meet me in your avatar form. It's been a while since we've brainstormed something face to face."

The Arwen's reply was almost jovial sounding. "I look forward to that!"

Juliet smiled. Captain Cook never really understood Arwen's nature but Juliet did. She craved human interaction. Human's love to interact with other beings, be it humans, animals or other highly social aliens. The reward for that interaction was humans, animals or aliens who wanted to interact back. Building a program that not only wanted to be with humans but actually craved the contact made the human more willing to accept that program as real.

The form of Arwen's avatar faded into existence. Given she was a holographic image projected by a computer she shouldn't have looked any different each time she appeared but Arwen had decided to age herself from the teenager she looked like when she first appeared to a more mature looking woman. She wore a grey business suit with white slacks, he dark hair had been pulled back into a very neat and tight bun. "What are we going to work on?"

"The nature of the Beta Wormholes. We hardly know anything about them and I'd like to try work through a thought experiment I've been pondering for a few months now."

"Would you like me to recite what we do know about that?"

"I'm well-read but I might have missed something so go ahead."

"The first Beta wormhole was encountered at the planet known as The Water planet. The Arwen, me I guess, passed through it and arrived at the Dyson sphere were we first encountered the Handler's. You and Professor Ricter, while off on a walk, found another wormhole inside the station and walked through to find yourself at yet another Dyson Sphere. You and the Professor made several more jumps into wormhole beta space before being separated. The Professor was plucked out of it by the Alien Cabal while you were dropped off somewhere else. Eventually the Professor and his friends found you and took you back."

"I was in that place for three days, nearly died. Sorry, just a bad memory. What do we know about the science of Wormhole beta space?"

"Not much since we can't actually create a wormhole like that. However, it's speculated the space is another dimension where the speed of light is faster than it is here. It's been suggested, by Professor Ricter, that it's another universe that we can't perceive, which is why everything looks silver, it's simply our minds trying to comprehend what it is seeing. He suspects that the universe is very small compared to ours."

"Do we know how the Handler's form the wormholes?"

"There are machines that we've observed that hold wormholes open. We've seen them form on the battlefield and in space."

"But we've never seen them open them from our end. It's always from Wormhole beta space, is that correct?"

"Of the fifteen hundred known instances yes, we have never seen them open it from this end."

"That's what bothers me," Juliet said. "Why?"

"There are some papers-"

"I read them," Juliet said. "We need to think outside the box. Arwen, can you show me all the known Dyson spheres?"

The room darkened and, one by one, small white dots floated over her head. "The white are the spheres."

She looked at it all and tried to soak it in. Was there a pattern to it all? Was it simply a large connect the dots puzzle no one had figured out yet? "Arwen, can you pinpoint the Water planet that captured the Arwen?"

A green dot appeared and blinked. "Good, now can you pinpoint the Dyson that we found?"

Another dot blinked. "How far away are they?"

"About one thousand four hundred twenty three light-years."

"And how long did it take us to get there?"

"Six months, two weeks, three days."

She tried to do the math in her head to figure out how fast they were going but the number was too large. "So we were moving really fast then."

"My instruments told me we never made it faster than 99.9% the speed of light."

"That's because that's how high your sensors could go, no one thought we'd go that fast much less faster than light. Do you still have the sensor recordings from that flight?"

"Yes," Arwen answered.

"Good, can you compose a simulation to visually show me the flow of Wormhole Beta space as your sensors saw it?"

Within a few minutes an image of the Arwen appeared. Around it flowed the silver color of the Beta wormhole universe. Juliet watched as it did so. It was like watching a submarine move under the water and it was just as impossible to tell exactly how the water was flowing. "Can you show me the flow of the universe as the Arwen moved through it?"

Small lines appeared around the Arwen, curving from bow to the stern as it flowed over the smooth surface of the ship. "Great, now speed it up, I want to the entire journey in about fifteen minutes."

She watched, carefully studying the flow of the universe. Her eyes tired but she dared not move them for fear she would miss something important. After five minutes she finally saw something change, the lines which had flowed over the Arwen in a straight line were now curving around it. The flow had changed.

"Ah ha!" Juliet yelled. "Arwen, pause the simulation and show me the image of the Sphere locations."

"Did you see something important?"

"I think so, and it goes with my theory. But, I need to know for sure."

The image she requested appeared and she carefully studied it. "Arwen, can you center the image then place a line right down the middle?"

She did as she was told and a broad white line bisected the sphere locations. "Great, now from that line I want you to draw branches out to the spheres."

A pattern had started to develop. "Show me the Water planet we found and the sphere where we ended up."

The two requests blinked as before and Juliet was able to see how they were connected. The Arwen would have traveled down one branch into the main stream, then out into another branch which had taken them to the Dyson Sphere in the Pleiades. Seeing it now all made sense to Juliet.

"Arwen, save this simulation. I'm going to need some time to figure out how I'm going to explain this to the Captain."

"Maybe if you explain it to me I can help. I can see what you're seeing but I don't know how it can help."

"Okay," Juliet took a deep breath to organize her thoughts. "Wormhole Beta space flows like a river, that's the middle line. The Spheres branch off from that main river and create access points for them to use. I'm sure if we pinpoint Regal and Ulliam we'll find they are easily branched off as well. If this is a river then there has to be a source, some place where we can enter Wormhole beta space, the first place it was breached. I'm thinking, if we can close that wormhole then the rest will collapse and, if we can do that we can win this war once and for all."

Chapter forty-four.

The Arwen and her fleet waited near a remote sun for the space station to appear. They had been waiting for three days forcing Captain Cook to consider the worst, the station had been attacked and destroyed. She hoped that wasn't the reason but in this new era of war it was always a possibility.

She sat at her command chair reading over the report she would give the Grand Admiral. In it she simply resigned. There would be no hard feelings, no bad press, and she could easily go on a speaking tour to drum up more support and recruits. She would miss the Arwen but they would give her over to another Captain, someone who could treat the ship's personality with respect.

Juliet would be her choice for the job. She was young and had a lot to learn but she had proven herself to the Captain many times. Plus, her relationship with the Arwen could not be understated. They acted well as a team and that could save everyone's lives.

"Captain," Juliet said from her station. "I'm detecting Wormhole Alpha activity. I believe it's the station."

"It's about time," Captain Cook replied. "Alert the other ships, let's get ourselves together for the scanners."

The wormhole grew from a small point of light into a spotlight so bright it was hard to look at. The center opened into a darkness while the outer edge continued to grow. As soon as it was large enough several dozen tugs moved through pulling the space station. It was the largest thing the Corps has ever build. Ships of all sizes, including the Gyssyc battleships, would have to pass through its center in order to be scanned. It had no engines and relied on a small fleet of tugs to guild it into position.

Once it was through it powered up. Thousands of lights came on all at once leaving the impression of another star field being born. The tugs continued to move the station into position as the wormhole collapsed behind them.

"Captain, Grand Admiral Park would like to talk to you," Commander Monrow said.

"Well, that didn't take long. I'll take it in my office."

"He says he wants to see you in person."

Marjorie suppressed a smile. Even if he was going to yell at her, even she was going to resign it was still going to be nice to see him again. "Fine, get a shuttle ready. Commander, I assume you can take care of the guiding the Arwen in for inspection?"

"I sure can. Good luck, Captain. I hope to see you onboard the Arwen after this is over."

Captain Cook decided to fly the shuttle herself. If this was going to be the last time she was in space as a Captain she wanted it to at least be fun. It's been years since she flew a shuttle on her own and found it was easy to remember what she needed to do. "Like riding a bike." As old as the saying was she still found it to be true.

As she flew toward the station she saw her fleet lining up for inspection. It seemed silly to go through so much trouble but if they made even one mistake it would be the end of the Earth. At least that's what they originally thought, after the battle at Regal she wasn't so sure anymore.

The destruction of Ulliam shocked everyone to their core. Billions of lives lost in a matter of minutes, an entire culture destroyed, wiped out without mercy by and enemy they didn't understand. It was a sobering realization that prompted the largest buildup of the military in human history. Her fleet, as impressive as it was, was only a small part of the entire Corps fleet.

"Arwen shuttle, you are cleared to land in docking bay 7A."

"Thank you control, setting the course now. I'll just sit back and let the shuttle land itself."

"Roger that, welcome aboard."

She did just as she said and leaned back letting the station's computer guide her into the open docking bay. Even as she approached she was able to see a small group of people waiting. She wondered how that was going to work. They would have to lower the force field for her to land. Where those people crazy, or just stupid?

As she got closer she could see the shimmer from the force field as it refracted the light from the docking bay. She braced herself, wondering if she was being stupid for not trying to gain control of the shuttle before it crashed into it. The computer shut down her force field. She jumped to the controls to take over but it was too late. All she heard was a soft wussh noise as the shuttle passed through a nearly invisible membrane. She found herself looking out the window into the docking bay. In front of the large group of people was Grand Admiral Lee Park. He looked up with a satisfied smile on his face.

The shuttle landed without incident and the Captain walked to the back door as it opened. The smile was still on Grand Admiral Park's face when she walked down the ramp and up to him. She gave him a professional salute which he returned. "Permission to come aboard, Admiral."

"Granted," he replied. "So, do you like our new force field?"

"Very nice. Does this mean you don't have to lower your shields to fire missiles?"

"One of the advantages, yes. We determine what comes through and what doesn't. We still don't know how to bring a ship in without lowering its force field but we'll figure that out soon enough."

"Good to know," she replied. "Shall we head to your office? I have a feeling we have a lot to talk about. My resig-"

He stopped her by holding his finger to his lips and saying, "shhhh, I'm going to have to pretend I didn't get that message because you are not going to resign."

"I think after what happened at Regal-"

"Shhhh," he said and motioned her to follow him. "Not out in the open. Let's have some semblance of security, okay?"

Curious she followed him out of the hanger and into a private elevator. He said nothing to her and simply stood there with his hands behind his back, rocking his feet back and forth. He even started to whistle a bit, breaking the silence. "My office is kind of far from the hanger, but we'll be there shortly."

"I'm surprised you can get anywhere quickly on this station."

"You really can't," he said. The movement of the elevator shifted from moving up to moving to the right. "Ah, almost there. When we get into my office I'll tell Hal to not record what we're saying."

"Hal? Your computer's name is Hal? As in Hal 9000? The computer that killed its crew?"

"This is a space station, which makes it a Clarke class ship. So, we need to name the computer after one of his creations. Hal 9000 seemed to be a good pick so, I picked it."

"But Hal was the bad guy. We normally try not to name our ships after the bad guys."

"Was he?" Lee asked as the door opened. His spacious office was dark until they walked in. The room's lights slowly came up. "He was simply following orders and to him killing the crew was an ends to justify the means."

"I'm sure the family of the crew would disagree."

He walked behind his desk and motioned for Marjorie to sit down. "So, what is this resignation all about?"