Free Extinction by Jay Korza

“they” were—wanted skilled operators. Didn’t they realize
that a spoon was just as useful as a fork or knife in the hands of a skilled
soldier? Without a fuss, he resigned himself to eating dinner, or lunch, or
maybe it was even breakfast. Who knew what time it was? He decided that the
food pointed towards lunch but no matter; he was hungry, so who cared what time
it was?
    After he had finished, Surgeon led Seth
to an issuing room where Seth was measured and given a black uniform that of
course matched everyone else’s. Together, the two soldiers, now identically
clad in black, walked down the corridor to what seemed to be a conference room.
Seth entered first at the ushering of Surgeon and was amazed by what he saw.
    The room was filled with holo-emitters
for information displays and tactical readouts. A large wooden conference table
filled the center of the room and reflected light from the displays on its
shiny smooth surface. Surgeon motioned Seth to a seat and took one himself next
to Seth.
    “You have been ‘kidnapped,’ as you put
it, by your own government for a very important reason. We are facing one of
our most deadly adversaries in our entire history and we don’t even know who it
is.”
    “What are you talking about? We haven’t
made contact with any new species in more than thirty years.”
    Surgeon gave him a look that seemed to
say, “If you’ll just shut the hell up, I’ll tell you.” This made Seth sink a little
in his seat as he allowed the briefing to continue.
    “Five years ago, we found an artifact on
07-0198 that turned out to be a star chart. This chart held maps to the
outermost regions of our galaxy, parts that even now we would be decades from
exploring if we hadn’t found the maps. The technology of this artifact seems to
be more advanced than our current technology and it is estimated to be close to
a thousand years old.
    “After excavating the entire site,
several more advanced artifacts were found, most of which we still don’t have a
clue as to what they do. We have determined that whoever these items belonged
to, they weren’t the nicest neighbors on the block. After almost a year of
cataloging and research of the artifacts, the archeologists discovered that
they had similar properties to many other items found on dozens of known
worlds. The artifacts are similar in nature but different enough not to be
noticed right away as coming from the same makers.          “The society seemed
to be a warring species bent on conquering everyone they encountered. The
evidence we’ve found points to the fact that they were good at it”, he added.
    “How come it’s been kept so quiet?
Usually the Earth Interstellar Expansion Department brags about everything they
find.” Seth was getting impatient.
    “As I said, they were an advanced species
and the dig sites indicated that they hadn’t died out but rather lost interest
in this sector of space. No gravesites, homes, or anything to indicate that
they died out at those colonies. It seems as though they just up and decided to
leave and took almost everything with them. We don’t know who they were or
where they went.
    “Then some of the scientists decided to
power up a machine that they thought was just an information terminal. It
turned out to be something else, something they shouldn’t have touched. Before
they realized what they had done, it was too late. It sent out a signal of
unknown content to an unknown destination.
    “After more evidence was discovered
eight months ago, we’re now pretty sure that it was a distress beacon. It looks
as though this species had an adversary who didn’t like them very much. Their weaponry
is much more advanced than ours and operates differently, so it was difficult to
tell at first that a battle had been fought at that outpost. A few remains were
found in an underground vault that seemed to be a stronghold or shelter of some
kind. Many of the corpses had major trauma to their