Cestriarch Lia stood before the bridge windows. She looked down at the swirling green planet, the terraformed moons, and the vast network of space stations. She wondered how many billions she would need to kill.
The bridge was vast and primarily empty. She liked having plenty of room to pace in. Her thoughts were best collected when framed by the vista of space and nurtured by starlight. While this was, in fact, the command center of her ship and, by extension, the entire fleet of warships she commanded, it had only one console. An old man, bald with a white, rounded, beard stood at this panel. Her son.
“Genetics estimate?” She asked.
“Too soon to say. There are markers, for certain. That’s confirmed. But quantities will require more samples to project. Sodev analysis is nearly complete though.” His fingers rested on the flat, blank, panel. It was a simple pedestal and there was no monitor. His right eye jumped and flicked around, twitching madly. His left stayed focused on his mother.
“And?”
“An average of negative 4.5. It’s strange though, unlike previous cultures we’ve seen, the average isn’t an accurate depiction. Their development is divergent. In some places they’re as high as a negative 1.6.”
“That close? Can they see us?”
Her son shook his head. “No. I don’t think so. There’s a twenty two percent chance that they see ‘something’ but, even if that’s the case, they’d never recognize us for what we are. Another century or two and they would, certainly.”
“Close. Very close.”
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