"Well, the system could be set up with one color for the alien ship, and then another color for unknowns, and then a third for enemies," Lena surmised.

"Fine, but hear me out," Pepper continued. "If the big ship is blue, that confirms they're not the same race as the fox aliens from this ship, right?"

"Right," Vanessa confirmed, as Lena nodded along.

"But the odds of that ship being damaged, and not the enemy is slim, right? Unless there are two races attacked by a third, which is a stretch."

"Oh shit," Vanessa sighed, realizing where Pepper was going.

"So that means, that for whatever reason, this computer thinks that our ship is the same as the enemy one over there," Pepper stated. "They were fighting humans."

"That can't be right, can it?" Lena wondered.

"Well, not humans from Earth, but the system obviously recognizing them as the same."

"That is going to be a shit show when Earth hears that theory," Lena chortled. "Let's go call the press!"

"We may not want to mention this to people, not until we explore the other ship," Vanessa suggested cautiously.

"That is a good idea. We could be wrong after all, and if we get people worked up over nothing it could lead to a lot of unnecessary stress," Pepper agreed.

"And violence, knowing how people react to unexpected news," Vanessa said with a snort of laughter.

"I'm fine with that," Lena nodded.

"So, what do these other controls do?" Vanessa asked, pointing to the other buttons on the radar display."

"Well, if they're like the tablets, the one on the left is like a rewind, and the one on the right is a forward," Pepper suggested.

"Let's see if it can tell us where it came from then," Lena said, pressing the left button. As she did, the screen blanked, then another press and the blue line disappeared. "Well, that makes no sense."

"It does," Pepper commented. "It was probably in standby mode for a long time, so it wasn't collecting data when we were approaching with our ship. It most likely will only show things from when the ship was active."

"So, it might show the battle?" Vanessa offered.

"Well, a small digital version, but it just might." Pepper agreed with a shrug.

"I'm going to rewind a bit then, and let it play, see how it looks," Lena stated. "Maybe it will make some sense to us." She kept pressing the button until the big blue planet was gone, and then let it play.

The display showed the large triangle, surrounded by a swarm of smaller triangles, approaching Uranus from outside the solar system. They entered the orbit, and then the large blue ship appeared. It was no longer a circle, but more of a lollipop shape, slipping onto their scopes from behind the largest moon, Ariel. It came in from behind the little fleet, and the size of it was more than triple the large diamond ship. As soon as it appeared the triangles started to slow. The display didn't show any weapons firing, but it seemed obvious that the larger ship was disabling the ships of the foxes. The holes must have been appearing in the ships at that point.

It was a classic ambush. Hiding the large ship behind a moon, then attacking from the rear before the enemy could react.

And then everything changed.

Two more of the large diamonds appeared, and the lead one merged with the blue lollipop, right where the stem met the top. The blue ship split in two, while the diamond seemed to just disappear. The blue circle was thrust beyond the little fleet by the force of the impact, and remained stationary where it stopped, the longer base was hurled downward toward the planet, where it disappeared into the blue globe, no doubt destroyed. The remaining black crystal stayed for only a moment, before speeding away out of the solar system, but not back the way it had come. All three of the women found themselves holding their breath at what they had watched.

"Holy fuck!" Lena exclaimed. "That was intense."

Pepper studied the holograph. It was still running though nothing was moving. Evidently the radar finally powered off because the display went gray once more. But just before it did, it looked as though a tiny blue dot had separated from the blue ball. She reached over and rewound a single click and watched again. As before, she saw the same thing, but it was so tiny she couldn't tell if it was real, or her mind was playing tricks on her.

"There were three large ships, not two," Vanessa said in wonder. "And they didn't stay here after the battle."

"They might have wanted to before the battle, but I doubt they felt safe here afterwards." Pepper suggested.

"Hell, no they wouldn't. That one blue ship wiped them all out until they crashed into it. That is a heavy price to pay," Lena stated solemnly. "If there were more of those blue ships, it would have been really bad."

"Lena, how far can you rewind that, will it go back to the planet they started at?" Vanessa asked.

"Shit, maybe!" Lena hurriedly pressed the rewind button and didn't stop until well after the blue planet was out of sight. The same little fleet was on the screens in the same formation for quite a while, and Pepper was worried that her finger might get sore with all the pressing Lena was doing. But before long, the ships were rewound to a new system, with a new planet that had three smaller moons. The ships went into an orbit there and stayed for several clicks.

"That looks like home to me," Vanessa nodded.

"Do you have any idea where that is?" Pepper inquired.

"Well, we never saw the sun, but I bet we could find out easy enough with the right calculations," Lena said confidently.

"Based on the other holograms, we know the sun was yellow, and it probably isn't too far. That would help narrow it down," Vanessa reminded them.

"True, I forgot about the sun in the other videos," Lena admitted. "If I was making a bet, I'd say Tau Ceti, but there are certainly others it could be."

"We can't keep this a secret," Pepper moaned. "I really liked having this place to ourselves."

"I know, but this is way too important." Vanessa pointed out. "And it gives us so much information."

"They'll have enough guns to load for one more day, and then we'll tell them," Lena suggested.

"Yeah, we knew we were going to share the information sooner or later, so that is as good a time as any," Pepper grumbled.

"You should also bring Emily, she'd be the best one to figure out which sun that planet is from," Lena added.

"Can you do the zoom out?" Vanessa asked, while the focus was on the alien planet. "Maybe we can get more information about which system it is."

Lena reached over and zoomed out a bit. Almost instantly a small dust belt appeared beyond the planet, and then a smaller planet in towards the sun. Two more clicks of the dial and another planet appeared, just beyond the dust belt, with a single moon.

It was surrounded by blue dots.

"Well, that explains why they're at war," Pepper softly exclaimed. "The foxes must be trying to find a new home, trying to escape the other planet's inhabitants."

"Those blue ships have already been here, what would stop them from taking over Earth?" Vanessa asked, her voice tinged with fear.

"Nothing," Lena commented. "They could take us over any time they wanted. There wouldn't be a damned thing we could do about it."

"Wait a minute," Pepper interjected. "These ships have been here for a long time, hundreds or thousands of years. There is no reason that either race couldn't have come back to salvage equipment, collect remains, or even attack Earth. But it never happened. They might not be able to get back here."

"I hope you're right," Vanessa commented. "I think humanity has enough issues on Earth to think about fighting an interstellar war."

"And yet we want to move beyond Earth, even though we can't even get along on a single rock," Pepper muttered bitterly.

"Well, I'm sure nothing can go wrong with that, right?" Scoffed Lena.