This second segment of the chapter focuses on the small ship slipping through the planetary defenses. Who are they, and what do they want? Remember that this is just one thread in the Möbius effect, which always cycles through eternal completion.

And yet again, battle wages. Hundreds of Varthan battleships arrive at the Ha’ajik defense perimeter. A strategic equilibrium of Ha’ajik interceptors greets them. The Varthans serve weapons fire. A balance of weapons fire returns a volley. Like most other battles, this is a stalemate turned into a bloodfest that will end with very few survivors on either side.

During another of what seems like an endless barrage of broadside attacks, a small, unmarked, alien ship approaches the planet. Cloaked by the distraction of battle, perimeter scans fail to locate the vessel until it nears the planetary forcefield. Lifescans reveal a crew complement of three, one of which seems frail. Due to damage in the Ha’ajik planetary sensors, no more can be known of the inhabitants. None responds to hails. As is routine with any alien vessel, perimeter security dispatches several border ships to rendezvous. Extra care must be taken in this instance since anyone could be inside the vessel: friend, foe, or neither. Communication and sensors may be damaged from stray shots of battle, so the seeming ignorance of hails may not be of mal intent. The border ships briefly adjust their shield frequencies and pass through the forcefield. At the moment passage commences, the mysterious vessel’s thrusters fire, and it passes through the forcefield in the opposite direction. No one outside the Djeha’ajik has been able to successfully accomplish this feat!

Ever since the forcefield’s inception early in the war, the Djeha’ajik have used a seeded random number generator, based on a fractal algorithm, derived from the peculiar shape of a popular tea leaf. The complexity of this code is augmented with the fact that the seed number changes on a variable interval related to the standard deviation of sampled tree ring widths on the northern continent for the season. This complex random number generator resides in every Ha’ajik ship to resonate with the forcefield. For passage through the forcefield, this vessel has been equipped with algorithms that have never been released to another species. The Djeha’ajik have always made sure of this. They never leave their own vessels intact when losing in battle. Somehow, the code was cracked.

Inside the vessel sit three Varthans. Two are young adults: a male and a female. The third is a frail, old man. They all remain silent, in both voice and body language. It is as if the elderly pilot knows the mission plan so well that communication needs not to commence.