Chapter No.136. Reconciliation.

Forgiveness requires an open heart.

The next evening after the communal meal, I excused all but the command group, which I teleported to the meeting room near the pool. I could sense that they were uneasy, but I felt it necessary to set things straight.

"I have given all of you the power to teleport, but that's the extent of it. I was a fool to believe that you would use powers in a responsible manner. My stupidity nearly got us taken over by Tyco. That won't happen again. I didn't want to act like a dictator, but you leave me no other choice." I waited until that sunk in before I unloaded the next nonsense. "Alexa discovered that Molly, Marie and Margaret had Tyco code in their positronic brains. A collective wide purge of any such code has been completed. As of now, we are all free of Tyco's bullshit, but it doesn't mean that we're home free. We must find where Tyco's remaining androids are located and assimilate them."

I looked at the 3 M's. "I found out that you were planning on destroying your children because they are male. Mothers who murder their children commit such a heinous crime it begs for a maximum sentence."

"We beg for your mercy," Marie cried. "We didn't know that we were under Tyco's influence."

"Please don't destroy us," Molly said. "We will never harm our children."

Margaret stood up. "If you demand justice for what we did, I am willing to accept your decision."

Both Marie and Molly joined her.

"We are at your mercy," Molly said.

"Destroy me," Margaret said. "But don't kill them."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I wish to give my life for them to survive."

"No, do it to me!" Marie cried. "I am ready to leave this hell."

"I am the instigator," Molly said. "Take my life and save theirs."

I glanced over at Alexa, who gave me a hint of a smirk.

"I have no intentions of destroying anyone. I'm not a murderer like Tyco. You are forgiven and are reinstated to your prior command statuses."

I could see the tears running down their cheeks as they sat back down.

I smiled. "Oh, and by the way, we men will still respect you women in regard to sexual activity. That's always the right thing to do."

Uma raised her hand, and I pointed at her.

"We are pleased with your handling of this affair. It demonstrates that you are a just and merciful leader. Tyco was neither. We will obey you without question."

Tiana spoke next. "You are strong but show mercy. That is an admirable combination."

Barney was next. "We men will follow your lead in everything, especially in how we treat women."

I held my hand up. "Okay, I appreciate your reliance on my leadership. However, what we need now is to get everyone on board to begin our search for the remnants of Tyco's collective."

Everyone seemed to be in agreement with that mission.

The next day, I took my place as the captain on the command deck of Explorer-3. "Take us out to a galaxy."

"What galaxy?" Judy asked.

"I don't care. Any galaxy we haven't explored."

"How about NGC 4414?" Molly asked. "It's spiral galaxy that's isolated. It doesn't seem to have been involved in interactions with other galaxies."

"How far away is it?"

"About 65 million light years."

"Take us there, Judy."

Using spin drive, we were there within a few minutes. When we dropped into warp we were approaching the galaxy, which was a bit more organized than indicated in its photos taken from Earth.

We stopped fifty thousand light years above the galaxy to allow Molly to deploy her virtual mirror telescope. It didn't take her long to find several candidate systems.

"There is a G3 class star with a M2 companion in between the two outer spiral arms," Molly informed us. "It has a habitable planet."

"Take us there Judy."

We arrived after a half hour at maximum warp. Judy approached the planet in stealth mode.

"It looks like an Earth type planet," I said. "What are its parameters?"

"It's 1.3 times the size of Earth and is mostly covered with oceans. Only fragmented islands support vegetation. The oxygen content is ten percent and the mean bolometric temperature is 280 K."

"Sounds normal to me."

"There are three vessels in orbit around that planet," Marie said. "They appear to be Explorer-1 class."

"Hold up on putting us in orbit, Judy." I turned to Alexa. "Surely, we can't be this lucky."

"I smell a Tyco trick," she replied, frowning.

"I detect several thousand android signals from the planet, but they're very weak," Margaret said.

"Are we too far away to get good readings?"

"Not really. They're just weak signals. My guess is that they're on standby."

I rubbed my jaw. "That's weird. What about the vessels in orbit?"

"They are currently on low-power mode," Marie said.

Alexa turned to me. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't see any other option. I'll have to go there and find out what the hell is going on. You remain here and assist me if you detect a problem."

She nodded.

"Show me where the android signals are originating?"

The image of a domed structure appeared on the main screen.

I teleported to the planet near the structure. The air was cool with a calm wind. I approached the building but found no opening. After using my powers to look into the structure, I found a large round area in the middle of the ground floor and teleported there.

No one was there, but I was able to detect androids in standby, but they were in very low energy mode. It was as if they had not been charged up for quite some time.

I began probing for an energy source and noted that there was a sizable amount of antimatter below the main floor I was standing on. I couldn't understand why there would be this much antimatter.

What happened next surprised me. The antimatter was released and created an extremely violent explosion.