"What else did your scientists find at the site of the device?" I didn't want to ask, but I needed confirmation.
"Other than this device, tattered clothes… a few ancient implements which are so eaten up, we can't identify it…" Senator Zhuyin replied while keeping her eye on Rong and she signalled a staff to check on him.
I noticed the glazed over look in Rong's eyes while the tears ran down his cheeks as he stared ahead into the air around.
The little light show by the device triggered the old Nuwan's memories.
The staff shone a torch into his eyes with a frown and shook Rong gently. "Your Grand Excellency?"
Rong stirred from that lost look and blinked his eyes before a staff offered him a cloth to clean his face.
"Apologies… that brought… back… nightmares," he heaved his chest a few times and straightened his back.
"Your Grand Excellency, as your physician, I must insist you returning—"
"OH SHUSH YOU," Rong cussed in one breath at him before coughing and spluttering.
He still possessed some fire in him.
Rong turned to me and asked, "How do you… even deal… with this? You… fought… while we… didn't."
I shrugged. "I don't know, but life needs to go on."
"True…," he muttered.
The memories still sent shivers up my back.
To see an entire planetary system go up in dust so fast, and defenceless against the onslaught of a superior enemy, horrified the retreating Nuwans who came.
Back then, a much younger Rong also heard the suicidal war slogans of my fleet against the enemy, despite Amatsubune's last signal of its successful escape. 'Never surrender, never retreat' was the main chant which echoed out of our transmitters.
No matter how I recalled repeatedly transmitting orders to pull out, no one under my command followed the orders. All of them seemed so bent on fighting a seemingly invincible enemy, even though Amatsubune sent the last message to announce the successful escape.
The choice of my battalion, to ignore my orders and choose death over life, always bothered me.
Our combined weaponry couldn't even blow up a planet easily, but the shadowy enemy easily swept through the entire planetary system, our system's defences and our fleet battalions, devouring them with gusto.
If the Nuwan reinforcements and I lingered around, instead of jumping into hyperspace in time, the ensuing impact of an imploding planetary system would have blasted our ships into our next lives.
Even from afar, at the edge of another planetary system, we could see the bright demise of the Kamuy system for a long while.
Over the few hundred galactic cycles of wandering in the galaxy and contemplating over that horrendous event, something still didn't feel right about the incident.
Rumours across the galactic quadrant mostly stated a natural cosmic catastrophe destroyed the Kamuy system. But the Nuwans and I knew better.
The odd bleeps on our radars, the sounds of strange voices intercepted by our transmitters, and even patterned energy discharges from within the shadows suggested strongly that ships, not the cosmos, caused the catastrophe.
Why us?
My species bothered no one unless they entered our territory.
And now, why the Inti too? Did we trigger something?
"Why did you ask about his burial site?" Senator Zhuyin interrupted the silent moment of remembrance between Rong and me, while gesturing to her staff with her outstretched hand.
I broke away from the gaze in Rong's eyes and replied, "Need to confirm something first."
A staff brought a Nuwan visual recorder, a small palm sized egg shaped device, to her.
Senator Zhuyin tapped the recorder, which projected the images of the burial site and information tied to the environment.
The images showed a drained swamp, probably discovered during construction of a new city.
The Nuwans bred quickly, unlike the Kamuy and their construction industry boomed because of their growing population's constant demand for housing.
Even Senator Zhuyin is one of his few hundred great grandchildren. Last time I saw old Rong three hundred galactic cycles ago, he was bragging about a hundred great grand children to tease me for having no descendants.
That's how the Nuwan Imperium, through sheer size, became one of the big four consortiums in the quadrant with no need to negotiate some crappy union membership with other species.
One image caught my eye - the actual burial site demarcated by lasers. A tumulus mound, made up of rocks, an ancient practice of off planet burial. Ancient Kamuy used to build one during their lives, so if they were dying, they used the mound as housing to wait for their death.
Another image appeared, showing the interior of the mound with the fading yet badly scrawled stellar map inscribed on the walls, and the carving of a sign which signified the dead as a single occupant.
The drawing scrawls also showed a rough childlike sketch of a fleet moving and the darkness surrounding them. Ancient Kamuy would add pictures of significant events happening in their lives.
This survivor must have felt alone as I did.
Pointless to ask how he died. Bones turned to dust after one or two hundred galactic cycle, depending on soil composition.
"Based on the device and all of this information here, I can give you probable good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?" I asked as the murmurs and whispers grew amongst the Nuwans.
"Bad news first."
"From all you've shown me, this Kamuy survivor probably left us a warning message," I broke the bad news as requested.
Why else would he leave a recording of his own ancient fleet's destruction at the hands of the shadowy devourers or even etch the scene on the walls of his burial mound?
He wanted someone to know. Alas, the Nuwans came far too late to occupy this planet.
The entire room fell silent at the revelation.
"The probable good news?" Senator Zhuyin asked.
I continued, "In his recording, he mentioned something about going through bright clouds for escape. So how old is this device?"
Senator Zhuyin turned around to another staff who promptly replied, "Estimated age around five or six millennia ago, before the first Nuwan fleet took over the planetary system."
"Then how did he end up on our capital planet? If the bright clouds refer to the emission type of nebulas like Tengshe here, the Capital planetary system only has one small one just outside of the boundary," Senator Zhuyin asked.
I wasn't sure if she directed the question to me or her staff.
The staff stammered, "I-I don't know, t-the topic is u-under research—"
"Not asking you," Senator Zhuyin retorted.
The Kamuy wore ancient clothing, reminiscent of the old images shown on our learning tablets in my bygone childhood history lessons. All Kamuy learned about our extensive history, starting from our first space venture in Amanogawa.
They also taught us a few ancient scripts and words to communicate with strangers to discern whether they were Kamuy, Nuwan or other species.
That's how the Nuwan archaeologists probably figured out that this ancient relic of a device belonged to my species.
Traditions still stuck around like a bad immortal superglue which can never breakdown.
During the deceased survivor's time, the Nuwan Capital Planetary system would differ in its spatial boundary make up from the current system.
Nebula clouds can break up after hundreds or thousands of galactic cycles ago, depending on the stellar wind. For all we know, the Capital planetary system's small nebula cloud could have been much bigger.
"The more important question is what the Capital planetary system was like, based on the age of the device," I advised Senator Zhuyin, who leaned back in her armchair, deep in thought.
A difficult and expensive task for her since the Nuwans discovered the system three millennia ago, but not impossible. It's a problem for the Nuwan senate to decide on if the effort is worth the expense.
The Inti system, like the Kamuy system, had no nebula clouds near their boundaries. Asteroid belts surrounded both planetary systems.
"The Tengshe system and a few others in Nuwan territory may be your safe haven to protect yourselves from whatever that hit the Inti and us. But that's my guess," I added, to whet her appetite for useful information.
I smelled the power hungry ambition seeping through the pores of Senator Zhuyin. The Nuwans never realised we knew how to differentiate between the chemical changes in their pheromones.
Subdued as she looked, her pheromones betrayed her innate aggression by pouring out in droves.
Old Rong had achieved the pinnacle of political power as the Imperium Chancellor, but she is a senator, still battling up the ranks.
While Senator Zhuyin discussed my advice with her staff, I snuck one long look at Rong's frail body, ignoring the lines of reports about his deteriorating physical health displayed by the optical implant in my eye.
He snoozed off half way, peacefully sleeping like a baby. Soon that sleep of his will be permanent.
The time had arrived to leave a parting gift on this Imperator ship - one which the Nuwans will never find out about.