Part 28 - Ignorance Is Bliss (II)

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McAfree tapped Marceaux's shoulder repeatedly and said "tap tap tap tap". In doing so shooed him away from his own console. She made a little contented noise as she stole Marceaux's chair. Once settled, she began speed-reading the logs before running a bunch of her own scans.

"When was the last communication with the planet?" asked Dr. Kang.

"Still under an hour, unless another member of the crew was contacted by someone even more recently," said the Captain.

"Interesting. What do the sensors say, McAfree?" asked Dr. Kang.

"Complete ecological collapse," she said, still typing on the console "Textbook nuclear armageddon. Civilizations used to kill themselves this way a lot during the first galactic dark age. This one's pretty fresh for that though."

"Is there any way you can think of taking a normal, untouched world and doing that to it in less than an hour?" asked the Captain.

"I could make it a foregone conclusion in that time, but nobody could finish the job that fast," said Dr. Kang "It's much harder than people make it sound."

"Our navigational instruments must be miscalibrated then," said the Captain "Because those signals could not have come from that planet."

"I could have told you that," mumbled Marceaux.

"How certain are you that the signals came from the planet?" asked Dr. Kang "There is far too much garbage in orbit to really give a proper scan. Our equipment could be working properly and something in this vicinity could be responsible for broadcasting the signal."

"You're saying the signals could have been prerecorded?" said Captain Littlecrow "Impossible. I had entire conversations. It couldn't have been a recording."

"If that's the definition of 'impossible' we're working with, then it's also impossible to just travel to a wrong planet," said Dr. Kang "Do you have any idea how big of a coincidence it would have to be for us to arrive at a different planet than our intended destination? I doubt there is a problem with navigation."

"So what could have caused a nuclear apocalypse on a perfect Earth-type planet in the time it took us to get here..." said Mitzner.

"McAfree take some long range scans looking for anything close enough to have interacted with Zethes in the recent past. We're going to need to launch a probe swarm to get any kind of read on that halo of trash surrounding the planet. If I was going to hide a world destroying nuclear weapon that's where I'd do it."

"If," sneered McAfree, who had already begun the scans while Marceaux watched her jealously.

Littlecrow wasn't in the mood to fight with the Doctor on proprieties.

"Figure out what's going on here," she said "Use whatever equipment and personnel you need."

"I always do!" said Dr. Kang, in a rare moment of cheer.

"You're always asking me for more leeway," continued the Captain "It's time to prove you still warrant it."

"Hey, so-" began McAfree, but Marceaux wasn't going to let her steal his moment.

"We're being hailed, Captain," he interrupted "It's a Zethite signal."

"Put it on the main screen immediately," Littlecrow shouted, pointing at the screen as she raced back to her command throne "And trace the signal's origin!"

McAfree rolled her eyes at the implication she wasn't already tracing the origin.

Professor Myron appeared on the main viewing screen. His look of personal satisfaction quickly melted away to confusion.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, looking around at the concerned faces "Is this a bad time?"

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