Light in the Dark Chapter 1 First Contact
Light in the Dark - Chapter 0 - Prologue
Sn'onver Habitat Cylinder, Petani Orbital Rung Cterin, Iwrin System March 3rd, 2254
It had been two years since the stars had changed above all the worlds that made up Local Space. All systems in a forty light years radius around the geometric center point between Sol, Iwrin (or 61 Virginis) and Jeratir (or Beta Hyri).
The entire cluster of stars had been taken from one place and put somewhere else, by whatever had happened. Cosmologists and physicists were still trying to understand what had happened. Some said it was some sort of Inversion from Heim-Feynman Space, others said that it was some advanced alien species that had transferred the cluster to build some sort of galactic mega structure. Very Douglas Addams that one, though he had Earth destroyed, not relocated...
It had taken about three months before we had any idea where we were. Three months of every observatory in all inhabited systems to survey the changed why to map the new and changed stars.
Only to discover that the Cluster had been displaced by about 550 light years towards the galactic rim from the position we had been in prior. And not only that, we had been turned around by 180 degrees, meaning that Jeratir was now closer to the galactic rim than Iwrin, while Sol was more spinwards than ε Eridani while Proxima was further spinwards than Sol.
It had been strange to see the strange, changed sky from Clifton Hall, my manor house near Nottingham. To see the Milky Way tilted in a different way in the sky, while those well known constellations were all gone, replaced by unfamiliar ones. It was deeply disturbing, though, like many, I was slowly learning to live with it. It wasn't all that different to see a different sky while in another solar system.
But... I was standing on Earth, at my home, when I stared into this different sky. At least some of the old companions, the old stars, were still visible, especially the brightest ones, Sirius, Alpha Centauri, Arcturus, Vega, Altair...
The whole situation had left people on edge. It was as if everyone, not just humans on Earth, but Quetzal, Tiaunt, Ormiold... everyone was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
In a way, the Incident that did happen near Cterin two months ago was almost anticlimactic. A strange vessel had appeared high above the system's ecliptic, released two smaller parasites that had then burned towards Cterin and, a single day out from Cterin, proclaimed themselves to be pirates. In English, with at least one human name being used.
If that hadn't kicked over an ant hill, Petan certainly had. The old, heavily traumatised war ship had not left orbit around Cterin for the last thousand years and was suddenly up and burning on an intercept course towards those two pirate vessels. And then destroyed them.
The last time he had left orbit, he had somehow found out that the United Sects, a theocratic government around the gas giant Seuwak, had tried to replicate the Plague that had killed off Cterin more than two thousand years earlier, to potentially use a biological weapon. And Petan had just destroyed the station where the research had been going, sparking off a massive system wide war that had almost destroyed the United Sects.
To the Quetzal that lived in the Iwrin system, it hadn't just political implications, but religious ones, seeing that Petan had somehow ended up as the almost universally revered mad god of the dead.
And, seeing that the invaders had been humans, as the Guardian Dead of the Petani had discovered, they had demanded answers of the UN. Which was unable to provide those answers. Nobody had known where those humans had come from. The vessels certainly had not been in any of the registries. And the vessel that had brought those two pirate vessels to Iwrin had disappeared again two days later.
News had travelled to Jeratir, of course, and sparked off a minor crisis there as well. Only the God Emperor of Jerat, who only actually controlled a sixth of the planet Jerat, had managed to keep things calm. Being an institution of the planet for over two thousand years had that effect.
In the end, though, the Petani Guardian Dead had found something that made them call for a big conference, to be held on the Sn'onver Habitat Cylinder, the first ever built habitat of the Petani Orbital Rung.
Which was why I was here. Partially as representative of His Majesties Government, partially as observer, partially because, apparently, being involved in two 'first contact scenarios' was enough to get me into the door with this kind of thing. Well, I was going to do my best.
I also believed that I had, through some backdoor deals, been requested to come. Being one of the eminent figures in the solar system for both philosophy and psychology with more than a hundred fifty years of experience will do that.
The tension in the air was palpable as I stepped out of the large vertical transporter that had brought me down from the hub transit point of the Habitat Cylinder into one of the concourses of the Governmental center of the Petani Orbital Rung.
Of course I was not alone as I walked out into the open air and looked up, towards the central spoke and the landscape high above. I was surrounded by mostly Quetzal, most of them with the white feathers and red eyes of the Petani, with a few humans, some Tiaunt, Ormiold and two of the large mobile tanks that contained Titanian heptapods, who presented about a fifth of the population of Sol.
As I looked back down and then around on the concourse, I noticed a pair of all too familiar shapes, a man and a woman, just outside the arrival area and walked over to them, my claws clicking on the floor tiles.
"Okay, which of you two do I have to thank for dragging me out here," I asked as I walked up to them.
"A good day to you too," the man answered. He was dressed in a formal dress uniform of the Royal Navy that had not been used for at least a hundred years, with the rank of an Admiral of the Fleet.
Next to him, the woman was dressed in a civilian pants dress that would not be out of place in the business environment of a corporate suite.
"Hello, Sir Adam," the woman said, with a touch of sarcasm as she used the 'Sir'.
I gave Maria Ngo, UN ambassador to the Petani and the Iwrinai Cooperation, sort of a UN for the Iwrin system, a light bow. She was also the second wife of the man, Admiral (retired) Charles Mountbatten, 4th Earl of Mountbatten (retired) and First Sea Lord (retired).
"So," I said and looked up to my two friends. "What are you two up to? And why am I here?"
"You have first contact experience," Maria noted.
I gave the best equivalent of a snort I could with my upgraded syrinx like voice box.
"Yeah, right. If you can say stumbling over the hiding spot of the Quetzal and Ormiold on Lipperta and then taking part in the Iwrin Expedition can be called 'first contact experience'."
In both situations I had flown at the seat of my non existing pants. At Lipperta, the small settlement experiment I had financed had not expected to stumble over tens of thousands of cryo pods filled with Quetzal and Ormiold, nor the AI that had looked over them and was corrupted by Earth pop culture. And here, fifty years ago? We had not expected to find that not only had those Quetzal that had remained in the system survived, but actually thrived, even if they had only recently reached the population number they had had before the war against the Onouch'l Automatons, about fifteen billion. Which was about the same size of population at Sol and Jeratir.
"And the pirates are one hundred percent human," Charles added. "We figure that you might be of help there as well."
"Right..." I made with a roll of my eyes. "I'm sure they need a philosopher to make sense of it all."
There was a bit of silence at my response.
"Okay..." I continued and looked around. "Why exactly is everyone here so on edge? You could cut the tension here with a knife."
Charles and Maria looked at each other.
"Petan is still silent," Maria said. "He had not transmitted anything since that transmission after the interception. He isn't even transmitting to Cterin's surface."
I blinked and took a step back. I had taken a keep interest at Petan for multiple reasons. For one he was an artificial intelligence that had been active for over three thousand years. And he was suffering from an extremely strong case of PTSD that had been left untreated for about as long. That he was seen as a mad god complicated matters.
As far as I was aware, there had only been a hand full of times when he had been silent. And the longest time of that, had been about three Earth weeks. If he was still silent not, that made over eight, almost nine weeks.
No wonder everyone was on edge. It was not good if the three thousand year old AI warship with PTSD suddenly broke his established patterns.
"That... is bad," I said.
"You tell me," Maria responded. "I've been walking on eggs for the past few weeks, and I feel that something might break soon."
I took a deep breath and nodded.
"Okay," I said and looked around. "But I think we should find a place that is more private for you to fill me in."
We did chat a bit about different things, as we made our way towards the set of structures that had been set aside as the UN Embassy to the Petanai and the Iwrinai Cooperation.
"Hmmm..." Maria said about half the way there. "I just got an IM from Elder Guardian Ardeth. They would like to meet us at the Embassy."
I tilted my head and looked at her with one eye.
"Did they say why?" I wondered.
I had met and even worked with Elder Guardian Ardeth during the last few times I had been in the Iwrin System. Especially during the first UN and Jeratir excursion to this system fifty years ago. They had turned into something of a friend and they had a great interest in cultures outside of the Iwrin system. As far as I knew they had been the Quetzal equivalent of an anthropologist before their death, so it was not too strange.
As a philosopher and psychologist, we had a lot of conversations about human cultures and psychology.
"It seems that they have been given the permission to give us a briefing ahead of the conference."
I nodded at that and Charles shook his head.
"Interesting that they intend to put us into the loop now, after two months of stone walling and having a security around everything that would have made Cold War intelligence agencies green with envy."
"It is as if they had something to hide..." Maria noted drily, which made Charles snort.
I gave the two of them a look.
"Let's see where this will be going, okay? I'm pretty sure that the Petanai Governing Council will have had their reasons."
We eventually entered the UN Embassy, with security doing their routine scans of me and my companions. Maria gave me a ping with the location of the meeting room that had been set side for us and the Elder Guardian, who apparently had already arrived.
"Omnious," I noted as we walked up to the rooms' doors.
Maria opened the door and we entered. Elder Guardian Ardeth was curled up near the end of the room, their avatar shell clearly robotic, like many others of the Guardian Dead that I had met over the years. The shell was surprisingly detailed in design, mimicking everything about the Quetzal body and shape, but in various coloured metals, with ballistic cloth working as a replacement for the feathers on their bodies.
It was in stark contrast to the way we did things in Sol, where the majority of digital life, be they human uploads or AIs of human or Titanian origin, preferred more lifelike and realistic avatar bodies. Like me, Maria and Charles.
"Elder Guardian Ardeth," Maria greeted the Quetzal upload, who rose up to give us a bow.
"Embassador Ngo," they greeted Maria, before continuing. "Admiral Mountbatten, Professor Prometheus."
Charles raised an eyebrow as he walked up to a chair and sat down.
"Very formal today, Elder Guardian," he noted.
"I feel that it fits the occasion, Admiral," Ardeth noted. "I have been asked by the Governing Council to brief you about the incident. And I believe that you would like to sit down, because the information and its implications are going to be... serious."
"Very ominous," I said and hopped onto one of the chairs and turned around, trying to find a comfortable sitting position, grumbling that the seat was not made for someone with a tail in mind.
Sometimes I question my decision not to go with a human body instead of an Ormiold, or rather deinonychus like avatar. But by now, wearing anything but this type of body was giving me a severe case of dysmorphia.
Maria selected her own seat and leaned out over the meeting room table, looking towards Ardeth.
"Very well then," she said and we all looked towards the Elder Guardian. "Fill us in."
Ardeth nodded and took control over the volumetric projector built into the table, displaying an image of two vessels, one somewhat spherical with thrusters on one end, and the other being a much more aerodynamic shape that reminded me a bit of the space shuttles of old. Another display showed a cylindrical vessel with a large solar sail like structure coming from its back, billowing out from the pressure of the solar wind.
"Two months ago," they began, "this vessel appeared approximately five AU above the solar north pole, carrying the other two vessels. We did not notice for several days, as we rarely scan the space above and below the ecliptic, since not much happens there."
So far, so good and what everyone already knew.
"We have been able to confirm that the carrier vessel was not equipped with a Translation Generator to enter the Everchanging Black."
The Translation Generator was the Quetzal name for the Heim-Feynman Event Generator that allowed a spacecraft to enter Heim-Feynman space and use it to travel at FTL speeds.
"We also later found that the appearance of this vessel created gravitational waves, very weak ones that were just above the noise threshold of our gravitational wave detectors. So, we concluded that this vessel used a different form of faster-than-light travel, which apparently is called a 'jump drive' or 'Kearney-Fuchida Drive'."
"Those are human names," Charles noted.
Ardeth nodded.
"Yes," they said." I will come to that."
"About six days after arrival, the two smaller vessels were well into a braking burn from a least-time trajectory towards Cterin. Their drives appear to be much more efficient than even the drives we use, let alone those of Solai or Jeratai."
Solai was the word Quetzal used to describe both humans and Titanians. It meant, roughly translated, 'People of Sol', while Jeratai of course meant 'People of Jerat'. And of course Ardeth got a little dig in at being more technologically advanced than both we or the Jeratai.
It made me roll my eyes.
"We only detected them, when they started to broadcast over radio, rather than the laser com systems we or you are using. The broadcast involved a lot of threats and warnings, which we later confirmed to have been made in ignorance. This caused Petan to react before any of the Guardian Dead, including me, could even come to a conclusion about those broadcasts."
"Especially since those broadcasts were made in English, using an accent that we have not been able to identify. But considering what we found, that might not be surprising."
That made Charles snort and I got a short IM from him.
'I hate briefings, they always take so long to get to the point.'
I had to concur with Charles. But then again, Ardeth was building up to something with their explanation that I felt was important enough to give us this deeper background. And I was sure that we would get even more in-depth files later on.
"Petan did almost redline their own drives on a direct intercept course, while we tried to make contact with the incoming vessels. We only got further threats from them, including several ones that told us to 'quit lying'."
"Petan did engage from extreme range with their laser armaments, which got no response from the incoming vessels, aside from manoeuvering to avoid the laser pulses. We did not see any laser counter measures or counter fire. We have been able to confirm that even Petan's weapons have five times the range of the attackers."
Charles whistled and I nodded. Petan was a three thousand year old hull and had not seen any upgrades to any of their systems in that time. And even the laser cores of Earth space craft were more powerful than those of Petan by about ten percent. Modern Quetzal systems were even more powerful than that. But not as much as three thousand years of development should have implied and we were rapidly catching up with the Quetzal.
"However," Ardeth noted. "What the attackers lacked in counter measures and range, they have made up in armour. The spherical vessels had less armour than their aerodynamic one and it was able to take the incoming fire from half of Petan's armament four times as long as any vessel of similar size that is in service with any of the Iwrinai space forces."
"That is a lot," Charles noted.
"It is indeed. Samples of the armour are currently undergoing testing and investigation, but we can already say that the armour is very ablative and able to spread out the damage done to it over a large area than the actual weapon impact. That includes kinetic, explosive and laser damage. It should be possible to recreate it eventually."
Ardeth paused for a moment and a video opened, showing the spherical vessel suddenly exploding. Or at least half of it.
"There also appears to be a difference in the design of their reactor systems, as there was an explosive blow-out after Petan finally penetrated this vessel's armour and hit the reactor by chance after going through some of the structure. We have currently no idea why or how it came to a blow-out this catastrophic as the penetration of the reactor casing should just have led to a collapse of containment and a rapid cooling of the plasma."
The Elder Guardian shook their head.
"There have been suggestions that it was a fission reactor, but we didn't find any fissionable materials in the wreckage, so they did have the same sort of fusion reactor as the other vessel."
"Petan then directed their fire at the second vessel, which was finally in range to return fire, using a form of particle beam, lasers and missiles. The particle beam was surprisingly high powered and focused, more so than similar weapons we have developed, though we are sure that they would be less useful against vessels with a Solai Shrivatsa System."
That system was a sort of electromagnetic shield that was derived from 'mini magnetosphere' systems that protected space craft from ionising radiation coming from space. And which was useful against particle weapons, some projectile weapons and missiles. If flooded with plasma, it would even weaken lasers. And the Quetzal had never thought about using it, with the Jeratai only investigating it after hearing about the system from us over radio, a century before they finally made it to Sol.
"After the second vessel was heavily damaged and taken out of the fight, Petan stopped firing, after receiving some minor damage in return, from largely inaccurate fire, likely due to the damage the second vessel had sustained already. Petan continued on, before eventually settling back into orbit around Cterin. Guardian space craft eventually caught up with the wreckage and we were able to rescue the surviving crew, about 35 humans, all of them injured, some light some heavily."
"So the attackers were humans," Maria noted and leaned back, massaging the bridge of her nose. "This is going to go up like a nuke in the General Assembly."
Ardeth remained silent for a while, before shaking their head, a set of data appearing on the volumetric display.
"Maybe, maybe not," they said. "Because we were able to access their computer systems, which are at the same time less and more advanced than the computer systems were known from you Solai. For one they are optical systems, rather than graphene systems. Larger and bulkier, but more powerful per volume. Any smaller computing devices we found were still using silicon."
The data resolved into a form of star map.
"Anyway, accessing those systems allowed us to view their navigational data and date-time information, which in turn allowed us to come to a conclusion about these humans. And about the event two years ago. What is called the 'Walker Cluster' has likely been translated into a different universe."
They paused and I looked at the star map, suddenly feeling cold as I noted the date.
"As you humans would say... 'We are not in Kansas anymore.'"
The date from two months ago was reading January 3023 and we appear to have been placed close to entities called 'Taurian Concordate', 'Magistracy of Canopus' and 'Aurigan Coalition'. A bit further away were the 'Federated Suns' and the 'Capellan Confederation'.
It took a while for me to realise all the complications that just got thrown at us. The size of the star map alone and the number of systems marked as 'inhabited'. Those numbered into the thousands across five major star nations and a number of smaller ones. And in the centre of it all...
Sol.
Terra.
Earth...
Even for me, it took almost a minute to see all the implications. And I was running multiple threads of thought at the same time. It made me breathe harder as a result, as the additional threads all needed additional computing power and with that came more power draw and more heat production.
It took Maria and Charles longer than it took me. But then again, they were the emulation of a human brain in a different computing substrate, rather than a straight up ASI like me.
"Bloody Hell..." was Charles' reaction when he had run through at least some of those implications, which only got a nod from his wife.
"This will be complicated," I said and closed my eyes for a moment. "I think this is one of those cases when we all have to work together or we'll hang separately."
Maria nodded at me as well.
"Yes, looking at the size of those star nations alone means that they could roll over us with ease, should they turn out to be belligerent."
We looked at Ardeth, who nodded in turn, a gesture they used to make us humans more comfortable.
"That is our belief as well, especially since this is merely a star map with limited data on the inhabited worlds in question. Though we did notice a distinct lack of space habitats or inhabited moons. In many cases the inhabited world appears to be terrestrial world."
That is something that struck me as strange. There was so much space in a single solar system, so many materials that could be exploited and these people here were just taking the terrestrial planets?
Habitats were so easy to build and turn into living spaces perfectly adapted for humans...
"Well, what about the survivors?" Maria asked after a few moments.
"They are what appears to be of the genus homo sapiens sapiens. There are some differences, but those appear to be mostly random mutations that are to be expected within a large population."
"So, no generic engineering?"
"Not that we can detect in these humans. The largest genetic difference we found is within their mitochondrial DNA, but if we take the year that we found, 3023, into account, that is normal evolutionary change."
Which was surprising, to say the least. Everyone had at least some sort of genetic engineering. Mostly to get rid of inherited risk factors for, say, lung cancer or heart attack, or inherited genetic diseases.
Between actual generic engineering and modification of gene expression, the definition of 'baseline homo sapiens sapiens' had changed over the decades. Not to mention that many biologists were already thinking about placing spacers into a related biological subspecies, considering the amount of genetic engineering and eugenetic modifications that had been done to themselves to make them more suitable for life in space during the 'Time of Insulation'.
"So absolute baseline," Charles noted and got a nod from Ardeth.
"Yes, and they appear to be new to the idea of sentient non-human life. They showed various reactions to our appearance, from fear and panic, over paranoia, to elation. Though the elation seems to be more related to their treatment by their 'captain', James Roberts. The only ones that did appear to be elated and even ecstatic about our appearance were all female."
They paused for a moment and pinged me to give me access to the relevant files. Videos and transcripts from the questioning the Guardians had done.
"We would like you to question those survivors and supply us with a psychological assessment, Sir Adam."
I did not answer immediately, as I pulled several threads into taking a look at the interviews and the transcripts.
The more I looked at those files, the worse I felt. A dread that I hadn't felt in decades rose up in me and I breathed in deeper, partially to shed more waste heat and partially to try and calm down myself.
I didn't suppress the emotions of growing distress as I kept looking at those files and especially at those of James Roberts.
"Adam? Are you okay?" I heard Maria ask, before I stopped taking in the data and turned off all external data feeds to my consciousness. It took about three minutes to calm myself down sufficiently to be able to engage my external sensors again.
"Remember, remember, the 5th of November," I muttered. "The Gunpowder Treason and Easton Plot..."
I took a deep breath as Maria and Charles looked at me with worried expressions, as I looked at Ardeth.
"I am sorry," I said and I had to say that even to myself I was not sounding like I was okay. "But I can't. I would be too biased to give you an objective psychological profile."
The Elder Guardian looked at me in return.
"May I ask why?"
"James Roberts," I said in answer, "reminds me too much of Roger Easton. With an added dose of misogyny."
"Mein Gott..." Maria said under her breath and Charles let go of a particularly vile curse.
They both of course knew of the Easton Plot of November 5th, 2143, when a deranged, sociopathic and extremely charismatic cult leader had tried to overthrow the UK government with surplus weapons from the Chinese Civil War. He had killed the Princess of Wales, her husband and two of her children with loitering ammunition, shelled Parliament with a pair of worse t wear tanks and had invaded Downing Street with a squad of his cultists and killed half the cabinet.
I had been unfortunate enough to be present at Number 10, as the Prime Minister had asked me for my thoughts on an upcoming legislation concerning AIs.
I had seen Easton close up and personal. And it had been like I was looking into a black mirror, because if things had gone differently in my life, I could have been Easton, only successful. I even have had a cult of one and a half million, rather than the barley thousand people Easton had.
I could have taken over the UK and maybe the world.
And that had scared me. It still scared me.
To make matters worse, His Majesty's Government had thought it would be a good idea to ask me for a psychological profile of Easton. At the time, I thought it to be a bad idea, but I had done it anyway, noting my bias in my paper work.
It had seen Easton put into prison for the rest of his life. And when he had been found a year later, hanged in his cell, no one had asked what had happened.
Needless to say, ever since then, effigies of Easton had joined those of Guy Fawkes on bonfire night...
Ardeth seemed to query a search and then nodded, their body posture showing understanding.
"I see," they said," I'm sorry."
I sighed.
"It was over a century ago, you'd think that I'd be over it by now."
Ardeth bowed their head and made a few gestures for Petan.
"Some trauma remains with us for a long time, and sometimes it remains for millennia."
They were about to say something else, before they looked up, a sort of smile on their face.
"Petan speaks again," they said. "The God of the Dead had resumed their transmissions to the surface of the home world."
Which meant that Petan was begging the dead for forgiveness again.
The sort of smile turned into alarm the next moment and Ardeth seemed to freeze for a few moments.
"And we have a new visitor," they noted. "An unknown ship had appeared above the south pole of our sun. It is different from the one that brought the invaders."
Zenith Jump Point Unknown System March 3rd, 3023
"Well," his Uncle Robert, or Dick, said and looked at his grandmother, "I do have a little bit of a theory, but I will only tell you when we have taken a look at the next system."
There was a grunt coming from his grandmother, who stared at the holographic navigation display like it had insulted her, her family and her nation, personally and with lots of invective.
With the press of a button, the hologram disappeared and she looked up at Uncle Dick.
"Sometimes, I wonder why you didn't study something more practical."
Dick grinned broadly.
"To then somehow still end up in the family business? No thank you, I'm perfectly happy with astronomy and astrophysics. Besides, there are no mysterious deaths involved looking at the stars."
His grandmother made another grumbling noise.
"Any idea what could have happened?"
"Not yet, but I talked to Captain Wilbert. He said that his engineer had to do a recalibration of the jump drive. Nothing major, just doing it ahead of time. It seems to have something to do with hyperspace."
He had to snicker at that.
"So a negative space wedgie?" he asked and got a stern look from his grandmother, while Dick guffawed.
"As good as a description as any," Dick said. "Does lack a certain scientific panache though. I'd call it Hyperspace Inversion myself when I get around to write a paper."
Whatever it was had led to entire stars disappearing, replacing them with new ones.
His grandmother had only learned of something strange going on when the new colony she had helped fund suddenly had stopped communicating about two years ago, as the scheduled jump ship had not shown up.
Of course in this place it could be pirates that had taken over the colony, or mercs from the Canopians or the Capellans. The situation in the Aurigan Reach hadn't yet happened and they had not tried to expand in this direction anyway.
At first they had thought that the jump ship had just missed the time table, but eventually, his grandmother had gotten worried, especially with some of the other investors knocking at her door to do something. It had taken some times to get together supplies for the colony to help them if they needed it, a mercenary company in good standing, Lenard's Rangers and a Jumpship, the Invader class Wanderlust of Captain Wilbert.
Then Uncle Dick had come in after hearing about it, and after hearing some rumours that talked about strange happenings in the region.
And, with himself out of school and preparing to go to the École Militaire on Taurus, his grandmother has asked him to come with her 'to get some real life experience in space and maybe the family business'. Which was certainly going to help him to get into the SASF after his time at the École Militaire.
So, they had arrived where the colony should have been. Only for the G1V star to have been replaced by a M2V flare star, as Uncle Dick had called it, with half a dozen scorched rocks orbiting it. Then Uncle Dick had discovered that the stars in one direction were all wrong to what they should be.
They in turn made them do a few short jumps, into systems that should not be where they were. And the lack of systems that should be there.
Which now led them to jump into a system with a G7V star.
"We will jump in five minutes," the voice of Captain Wilbert echoed through the jumpship. "Everyone to their places."
He looked up and at his grandmother, who gave Uncle Dick a light glare.
"Don't worry," Uncle Dick said. "We'll look for the systems planets first and if they are what I think they might be, I will tell you."
They go to their places and he was glad that he didn't suffer from TDS.
He had just strapped himself in as the countdown came over the intercom and he looked out of the nearest port hole. It was always fun to see the stars change ever so slightly.
"Jump."
For a moment he thought he could see a strange bird shape standing in front of him, surrounded by a strange always changing blackness, before he blinked dizzily.
"Jump complete," were the first words coming from the intercom before it was followed by an alarm.
"Proximity alarm!" he heard the voice of the pilot. "Something is close to us."
"What?" came the voice of Captain Wilbert and he turned to look towards the hatch that led to the bridge.
"We are being hailed, Captain."
He undid the straps holding him down and saw his uncle and grandmother do the same, before floating over to the hatch.
"Unknown vessel, this is Guardian Space Force vessel Delchaough," a voice said in English, using an accent he could not place. "Deactivate all weapon and other offensive systems and identify yourself and state the reason for your arrival."
Captain Wilbert looked at his grandmother and his uncle, who were looking at each other in turn.
"Tell them..." Uncle Dick began and was interrupted by his grandmother.
"Tell them that we are just passing through. We do not want to make any problems."
That got a strange look from Captain Wilbert.
"Ah, skipper?" the sensor operator said into the short silence. "We are surrounded by about a hundred ships... Half of them larger than the Wanderlust..."
"What?" he heard several people say at the same time, as the strange voice repeated their request for identification.
There was another short silence, before the Captain floated towards the radio station and picked up the microphone.
"Ahm... Dela... Delcho... Delchaough, this is the Taurian Jumpship Wanderlust. We are just passing through?"
The last part sounded like a question and his grandmother facepalmed.
"Understood, Wanderlust. Prepare to receive boarders for an inspection."
Another silence followed which was broken by an 'Ah fuck' from someone.
His grandmother frowned and reached for a nearby handset, calling Major Lenard on the Dropship Mallard.
"Major Lenard? You better come up with a few of your people, we are about to be boarded by an inspection party."
That was followed by a short exchange, before the three of them, as well as Captain Wilbert and his XO made their way towards a shuttle port.
Five minutes later the airlock of the port opened, allowing them to see the borders.
Zarantha, Richard and Edward Calderon had expected many things, but four feathered snakes with four arms, equipped with vacuum armour and weapons, were not among those things.
Edward could not help but continue to stare at the mechanical, four armed snake hanging in the galley of the Wanderlust, trying to decide what it was. It was strangely life like in its design and had a very strong resemblance to the other four armed snakes that were currently inspecting just about every single cubic meter of the Wanderlust and the drop ships Mallard, Samantha and Vandenburg.
Where the living snakes had actual feathers, the robotic snakes had white strops of cloth, contrasting with the segmented metal body. The way the metal shimmered, Edward thought that it could be anodised titanium.
The mechanical snake itself was looking at his grandmother Zarantha, his uncle Richard, Captain Wilbert and Major Lenard. It had its coils curled around one of the legs of a table that hung from one of the bulkheads to keep itself steady, one hand pressing down on a stack of papers. It had a questioning look on its metallic face, the segments of it formed in such a way that it did look almost organic.
"If you are a relief operation to a settlement," the snake said," then why are you armed like this? Why do you have armed vehicles and..."
It looked towards Major Lenard.
"What appears to be a mercenary company in your employ?"
Edward didn't know exactly why, but he had expected the voice of the snake to use hissing syllables or its English to have some sort of accent, but there was no accent at all. Its English was perfect and precise, almost like some of his old English teachers.
"Because," his grandmother said, appearing to be cool and collected," we expected that the settlement in question had been under attack by pirates and needed additional defence."
"This area of space is lousy with pirates," Major Lenard added.
"Usually at least," Edward heard Lenard mutter under his space. "Not aliens..."
There was a moment of silence as the snake looked at them.
"So it seems," it said with a rather human looking nod. "We did have the... displeasure of a band of pirates, 'Robert's Raiders', attempting to attack Cterin."
His grandmother, Wilbert and Lenard winced at hearing that.
"How bad was it?"
The snake regarded them for a moment.
"Their vessels have been destroyed and we have taken James Roberts and the remaining survivors into custody. We are currently trying to decide what to do with them, considering that all they did was scorch a few armour panels of the hull of the only vessels that engaged them."
There were blinks all around and his grandmother and Lenard looked at each other for a moment.
"I think..." she said after a while. "I would like to negotiate the release of Roberts and his crew into Taurian custody. He does have quite a long list of crimes against the Concordat that he has to answer for."
The snake nodded again.
"I will notify my superiors about that."
There was another moment of silence.
"So far the inventory of your vessels matches with these lists. I believe that we can release you shortly, if there are no discrepancies from this point on."
There was something that might be a smile on the snake's face.
"We will overlook the two stills and the small caches of human narcotics we have found. I have been alive once and I know how these things happen on all vessels, civilian or military."
"What do you mean 'alive once'?" Uncle Dick asked, while Edward himself blinked. Was this snake a zombie or something? A robot zombie?
"Ah yes," the snake said and nodded," we Petanai consider an uploaded mind to be merely a collection of memories held together by habits and reactions. It might be a full mind, but an upload does not have a soul, as that has passed on into the hands of Petan when we die."
It looked at the ceiling for a moment.
"I have lived a long life with a loving family and work that I liked. But when I got incurable cancer, I decided that I would sacrifice myself. To have my mind uploaded to serve our Mad God Petan. For my soul to be set free, while my mind would protect the living.
"I have faithfully served Petan for a thousand of your years now and I have yet to regret the decision that I made."
He could hear someone swallow.
"Mad God..." he heard Wilbert mutter, which got a sad chuckle from the snake.
"Yes, but nod mad in the sense you might think of when you hear it first. Petan is mad with grief, mad with regret. He had to see how the Onouch’l Automata deployed the Plague on Cterin and watched as our homeworld died slowly. He had to uphold the quarantine and destroy hundreds of craft that tried to reach orbit over two of your years, while listening to the pleases and cries for help from every single craft."
Edward swallowed and looked away from the snake and towards his grandmother, who had turned pale.
"I don't think that there is anyone who would not turn mad with grief and regret."
Suddenly there was the crackle of radio in the room and a voice whispered from the unknown radio channel.
"I am sorry. I am sorry. Please forgive me. Please forgive me for what I had to do."
The voice rang through the room, obviously translated from whatever language was spoken, but Edward couldn't help but shudder at the emotions in that voice.
"Every moment for the past three thousand years," the snake said, "he has asked for forgiveness. And everyone in this system can hear it over radio."
Before anyone could respond to that, one of the Wanderlust's crewmen looked into the galley.
"Ahm, boss, there is a big ship that has just appeared close by. It's too small to be a jump ship..."
The snake nodded.
"That would be the Pascal's Wager," it said. "I am surprised that they arrived so early. I did not expect them to arrive so soon."
It looked at his grandmother.
"I hope you do not mind meeting with the UN Ambassador. I believe that it would be better for you to talk to fellow humans."
Edward has watched from a bulkhead viewport if the Wanderlust as the second ship had moved in, closer towards the jump ship. The shuttle that had brought the feathered snakes and the robotic snake, he had learned they called themselves Quetzal and more specifically the Petanai, had undocked, leaving the inspection crew on board. The large new ship, which seemed to be larger than the Vandenberg, a Union Class dropship, moved in carefully, extending a long docking tube to connect to the airlock.
As he looked over the greyish hull plating of the shit, he could see numerous turreted weapons and the massive name printed on the side, Pascal's Wager. There was smaller text printed below the name, reading Bristol. Was that the place the ship was registered maybe?
In the background he had heard the communication between the ship and the Wanderlust, which sounded professional, with the person on the other end having an accent he could not place.
A light shock ran through the jump ship as the docking completed and was confirmed.
"Ed," his uncle Dick said and he pulled himself away from the view port. He nodded and followed his uncle and grandmother to the air lock, which just switched to green as they arrived.
As it opened, he could see a woman and a man floating in the micro gravity, holding onto nearby hand holds inside the airlock.
The woman was wearing a pants dress that was very business like and her features were mostly Asian. The man on the other hand was wearing a black uniform with rank insignia that reminded him of insignia he had seen in history books.
Was that man an Admiral?
The woman floated out of the airlock first and looked around, before looking at his grandmother.
"Maria Ngo," the woman said and held out a hand towards his grandmother, her English accented in a way that reminded him of the Lyrans he had heard. "Ambassador of the United Nations to the Iwrinai Cooperation."
The name Ngo did sound a little familiar, especially with the German/Lyran connection. Oh yes, he had heard his father and grandmother talk about some of the companies his family was involved with of buying tools from Ngo Industries, but he doubted and relation. There had been a David Ngo in his high school class.
The woman pointed at the man, who introduced himself, by pulling off the hat he was wearing.
"Admiral Charles Mountbatten, 4th Earl of Mountbatten," he said, his voice strong and deep. "And the proud husband of this lovely lady."
Before his grandmother could reply and introduce herself, his uncle and himself another voice piped up from behind them and a red and orange feathered body pushed itself between the top of the airlock and the two humans.
"Professor Adam Prometheus," the body introduced itself and made Edward stare. "Advisor to Ambassador Ngo."
The body, apparently Professor Prometheus, was decidedly not human and reminded Edward a little of the lizard-birds he had seen on New Vandenberg. Only this one had a pair of dangerous looking claws on his feet. Aside from his red and orange plumage, he only wore what appeared to be a shoulder bag slung around his body.
His grandmother managed to keep herself from gaping, something Edward failed at.
"Zarantha Calderon," she said and held out her hand towards Ambassador Ngo. "Head of this expedition and, I think Plenipotentiary for the Taurian Concordat."
She pointed at Uncle Dick and Edward.
"My son Richard and my grandson Edward."
Followed by Captain Wilbert and Major Lenard.
"Marshal Wilberg, the captain-owner of the Wanderlust and Major Terrance Lenard head of my security detachment and owner of the Mallard and Lenard's Rangers."
The Admiral looked at Lenard with a raised eyebrow.
"Mercenaries?" he asked, which got a nod from Lenard. "Why do you need protection from mercenaries? Especially with those mecha of theirs?"
The word 'mecha' stuck Edward as strange, but maybe that was what these people called mechs.
"The Periphery is a dangerous place," his grandmother responded. "But with the attack of James Roberts, I think you know that. We were on our way to relieve a new settlement that we believed to have been attacked by him or other pirates. But..."
"We found that the system that should have been a G1V star was replaced by a M2V flare star with a dozen scorched rocks orbiting it, instead of seven planets, with one of them habitable," his uncle noted and then looked into the general direction of the star of this system. "And I believe that this system is the system of 61 Virginis?"
"That is what we call this system," Admiral Mountbatten confirmed with a nod. "Though the Quetzal call is Iwrin."
His uncle nodded and then had a smile on his face.
"And about 28 or so light years rim wards would be Sol, with Terra."
That made Edward and his grandmother look at him, looking into his now grinning face. From the corner of his eyes, he could see Ambassador Ngo get a thoughtful look on her face, while the Admiral nodded.
"Terra," the bird-like Professor said with some disgust. "That is what holier-than-though humano-centric idiots call Earth, thinking that it's the center of the universe."
"Adam, please," the Ambassador said and rolled her eyes. "Not here."
"You know I'm right..."
"Adam..." The Admiral said and lightly kicked the Professor in the side with a shoe.
"Oi!"
The Ambassador shook her head.
"I think we should not discuss these things in the air lock."
Zenith Jump Point Cterin, Iwrin System March 3rd, 2254/3023
Edward licked his lips as helf up the 'tablet' he had been given and turned it around. It looked almost like a noteputer, but it was thin and lacked the small keyboard his own noteputer had. It only had three buttons along one edge, with a small connector on another edge. Instead, the tablet's display filled the entire front, and he no matter how close he held it to his eyes, he couldn't make out any of the pixels.
One of the crew members of the Pascal's Wager had given him the tablet and told him to sit down in one of the chairs along the bulkhead of the ships command center, with a 'local space map' app open on the tablet.
Which was why he was turning it around in front of his face, trying to find out just why this clearly two dimensional display was showing him an equally clearly three dimensional image.
But this was just par for the course of today, he thought to himself. First they had jumped into an unknown system, been accosted by honest to God real actual aliens, had to deal with what later turned out to be an alien mind 'uploaded' into a robotic body, and then met with the 'local' humans. Only for them to turn out to come from a version of Terra that called itself 'Earth' and whose home system had not just one, or ten, but 641 freaking sovereign nations in it, 214 of them on Earth, 4 on Mars and 189 habitats of various sizes in space. And finally...
Their solar system was home to another four alien species who had evolved from a common ancestor and had another 234 independent nations of which about three were isolationists of one form or another.
What was a print magazine sized computer with a, impossible 3D display in addition to that.
He looked back on the screen of the tablet, which showed the ID of the Pascal's Wager in the center, with a small icon. Not far away from the ship was the Wanderlust. Edward had already discovered that he could move the screen by touching the screen, turning and zooming in and out by just making some simple movements. It was intuitive really.
Out of curiosity he tapped the icon of the Wanderlust, and a small info image appeared over it.
Wanderlust Invader class Jumpship Mass: 152,000 metric tonnes Length: 505 meters Ship ID: TC-NVB-9338-31-INV Distance: 1413 km
He wasn't really surprised to see the ID of the Wanderlust. She was registered in the Taurian Concordat on New Vandenberg. He had not expected them to be that far away already, though.
Next he tapped another ship, close to the Wanderlust, one of the Quetzal ships.
Ingqueo ig Tanbryn (Memories of Tanbryn) Estbany class Cruiser Mass: 86,127 metric tonnes Length: 315 meters Ship ID: 5FEDC547-1450-4A88B9B7-2E81489-D20E3 Distance: 1355 km More Details >
So the system provided translations and he had no idea about what to make of the ships ID.
He looked up and around at the bustle of the command center, his grandmother and his uncle were standing next to Ambassador Ngo and Admiral Mountbatton, while, the dinosaur?, Adam Prometheus talked to one of the crew members on the bridge.
Adam, as he insisted to be called, had offered to get them to Cterin and the Petanai Orbital Rung, whatever that was, to allow them to directly talk to not just Quetzal and other human diplomats, but also diplomats from the Titanian Heptapods and the Tiaunt. Whoever those were.
Edward expected to be under way for a few days, but for some reason, the Pascal's Wager had stopped, relative to everything else around. Were they waiting for something?
"We've been given clearance for in-system transfer," one of the crew members called out and the man Adam was talking to nodded, likely the captain.
"All crew personnel to transfer stations," she ordered. "How long?"
There was a pause before someone answered.
"Spooling up the HFEG now. We'll be ready in five minutes."
The captain nodded again.
"Good," she responded and turned back to talk to Adam.
Edward looked the events around him for a few moments and looked down. He let the tablet float in the air in front of himself and grabbed the straps of the safety harness, buckling himself in, wondering why they needed to wait five minutes to start accelerating to Cterin. Did they need to charge their drives?
He shrugged and grabbed the tablet again. This time he tapped on the icon of the Pascal's Wager.
Pascal's Wager Type 25 Class Frigate (civilian version) Mass: 34,033 metric tonnes Length: 214 meters Ship ID: IMO 2785133380 More Details >
This was the second time he noticed the 'More Details' tag. Underline and in blue. Just out of curiosity, he tapped it.
Pascal's Wager Register: Southampton FTL capable: Yes Armed: Yes Atmospheric capable: Yes
Edward blinked. This ship was FTL capable? Surely they meant that it was equipped with whatever they used to dock with jumpships.
"Transfer in one minute," a voice called out. "All personnel to transfer stations. We are transfering into Heim-Feynman Space in one minute."
That made Edward look up. Heim-Feynman Space? What?
Nearby, he saw his grandmother and uncle sit down themselves, expertly closing their own safety harnesses, while the Ambassador and Admiral were sitting next to them.
"What is Heim Feynman Space?" he heard his uncle ask, puzzlement in his voice.
"That is hard to explain," the Admiral said. "The boffins call it an 8 dimensional Minkowski Space out universe is embedded into. We use it for faster then light travel."
"So... hyperspace," his grandmother said.
"I guess," the Admiral said. "I never quite understood that kind of stuff. I've always been a blue navy man. I went into the Royal Navy before we had a space navy and I retired before we had FTL."
Edward blinked and before he could think of something, someone started a verbal count down. At the same time, the hull of the ship seems to vibrate slightly and he could hear a low hum.
"3... 2.. And... Transfer."
The hum disappeared and Edward blinked as he looked across the command center he thought he looked into the face of a woman dressed in black. He blinked and she was gone.
"Standby for Transfer back into Einstein Space Time," the voice continued. "Transfer in 15..."
The vibration and the hum build up again.
"3... 2... And... Transfer."
The vibration and hum disappeared again and Edward felt a little queasy from whatever had just happened.
"Prepare for 1 standard Earth gravity acceleration," the voice continued.
"Was that..."
The Admiral nodded.
"We just made an FTL transfer deeper into the system," he said. "We should be at the L2 Lagrange Point of Cterin."
"Beginning acceleration. Turnabout in two hours."
Edward felt himself being pushed into his seat and took a deep breath. These people had an FTL drive that fit into a ship the side of a dropship. One they could use to jump into the interior of a system.
The implications of that alone were staggering. That meant that a dropship with one of these FTL drives could jump from system to system without a jumpship, making trade easier and perhaps faster.
On the other hand such a dropship wopuld be as hard to intercept as any pirate band using a pirate point and attacking a defenseless planet. How can you intercept a ship like this, let alone several of them, when they appeared like this and burned for a planet?
Edward swallowed, trying to imagine his fathers reaction to this technology. He just hoped that his grandmother could keep her father and the war hawks from declaring war on the spot against these people.
Rome Earth, Sol System March 4th, 2254/3023
This close to the Vatican, Rome was busy. Especially on a nice Spring day like this. The tourists were out in force.
Erin sat in a street coffee, a coffee in front of them, as they watched the streets with an air of peace and calm around them. Watching people from all around the world and the entire solar system, some even from outside doing the tourist thing.
They saw a few spacers taking animatedly, their clothes simple, their skin dark, but their hair and beards luxuriously fashioned. Some Quetzal and Tiaunt were moving through the street, following a tourist guide, pointing out this and that, as they prepared to walk towards the Vatican itself.
Erin loved days like these, just being another face in the crowd, after a fashion. What was another unusually shaped person in the bustle of a great old city like Rome? Aside from their shape, that of a 190 cm tall anthropomorphic crow, dressed in just cargo shorts, a t-shirt and an open dress shirt, there was little that set them apart from any other mind inhabiting an avatar body. Hardly worth a second glance.
Erin liked to be just ignored like that, seen as yet another random person.
But it was not meant to be. Not when they were waiting for someone. Two humans walked up to his table, one a black man in just the usual black clothing of a diocesan priest with a clerical collar, the other a Filipino woman in a simple dress and a face that would make her vanish into any crowd.
They sat down at Erin's table and they gave them a nod as the black man flagged down one of the waiters and ordered a pair of espressos.
"Good to see you, Alistair," Erin said, their voice a clear tenor, addressing the black man .
"And nice to see you, Erin," Alistair responded. "You know Maria Torres."
A smile played around the base of Erin's black beak and they nodded.
"Of course I do," they said. "I hope the issue with Valdez resolved itself after I looked into it."
Torres chuckled.
"Let's just say that after your trouble shooting, the trouble with him remains shot."
The three chuckled at that and Erin nodded, while the espressos arrived.
"What can I do for the Society of Jesus?" Erin asked, and then looked at Torres. "And the UNOIA. Must be pretty important that you asked me to come around so fast."
"Well, it was mostly the idea of His Holyness," Alistair said. "He was pretty disturbed by the news coming from Iwrin, with the 'First Contact' with a pirate force. One can call it that. And you know how he is when it comes to anything that might involve a Case Columbus."
Erin hummed and leaned back in their seat, nodding.
The Pope had, before he had followed the call of the Church, studied sociology and prepared to write his doctorate on an analysis of the 'Case Columbus', a concept from sociology and anthropology that was popularised outside of sociological circles by First Contact with the Titanians, and the Tiaunt and Ineryn.
It was named after Columbus, due to the prevalence of information and research done on the post Columbus era of colonisation, when European powers not only militarily and politically, but also culturally took over the Americas, either destroying or 'mutilating' native cultures.
The concept described the case of the interaction between two cultures that may lead to the 'stronger' culture replacing the 'weaker' culture either in full or in part, whether it may be intentional or unintentional. It came into a more public consciousness, as fears that Titanian or Tiaunt cultures could 'undermine' or replace human cultures surfaced.
So far, such fears were unfounded, but Erin had seen the same data that His Holyness has seen and could understand any fears.
"I can see why, we are taking about human cultures that are older than the United States and may or may not be able to seep into our cultural landscape."
"Indeed," Torres said. "It is also the fear within UNESCO circles."
Erin looked between Alistair and Torres for a few moments.
"I am guessing that you want me to do something."
The two looked at each other and Alistair chuckled.
"You know me too well, Erin," he said to which Erin gave a snort.
"Alistair, we've been in the Seminary together and I dragged your drunk ass back too many times to count. Of course I know you."
That got a snicker from Torres and a mock hurt look from Alistair.
"That's been over 80 years ago."
"So?"
Alistair rolled his eyes to the smirks from both Erin and Torres.
"Anyway," he continued. "His Holiness asked the Society of Jesus to put together a team to take a look into the situation."
"Which was when we got involved," Torres noted. "The UN Secretariat thought it would be a good idea for both of our organisations to join forces."
Erin nodded. Obviously the United Nations Office for Information Analysis, pretty much the UN's own intelligence agency, was going to collect information about this situation.
"We will be providing most of the manpower for this project and taking over most of the logistics, information gathering and some of the data analysis," Torres continued. "Where your people will help."
"Indeed," Alistair nodded. "We will be having Fathers Mika Nysen and Andreas Winkler."
With that Alistair shot Erin a pair of files, containing a general biography of the two Jesuits. Both were interesting, to say the least. Especially Father Nysen made Erin blink.
"I wasn't aware that we had an Ormiold as member of our order," Erin said after a moment.
"You might have known if you were in Rome more often."
Erin ignored that, and reading the file more closely understood why Nysen was considered to be the foremost expert on the Case Columbus. The Ormiold had lived it, as a third generation Ormiold hatched on Earth.
Winkler on the other hand was...
"Why exactly do we need a computer security specialist?" Erin asked. "Am I not good enough? Is the UNOIA people not good enough?"
Alistair sighed.
"You cannot do everything all at once Erin. Especially since we expect you and your team to go into this Inner Sphere for a while. And two pairs of eyes, or several pairs of eyes for that matter, see more than just one. Besides, His Holiness expects you to give him a report on the state of the Church in this Inner Sphere, should it even exist there."
"The UN will give you the Hammarskjöld for that, a Type 29 light battlecuiser," Torres added. "She should be enough for a multi year mission."
Erin sighed.
"Who exactly chose me for this mission?" they wondered.
"His Holiness."
"Of course he did," Erin said. "Cardinal Erin is his trouble shooter after all. I get to shoot what troubles him..."
En Route to Nadir Point ε Eridani System March 4th, 2254/3023
The lights flickered and Captain Ariana Walters cursed as a number of red warnings flashed over her field of view, followed by the illusion of gravity from acceleration disappearing. The dull roar of the six fusion thrusters had disappeared along with the acceleration.
Walters had to fight to keep her composure and not curse out loud. Curse Ingalls Space LLC, curse General Atomics, curse the United States Armed Forces, and especially curse the US Space Force for settling the Davenport Free State, and by extension herself, with the Pentacost. This ship was cursed with gremlins in the reactor control systems.
Just with her luck and that of everyone else, they had chosen to show themselves today.
"Please tell me that you can get a hold on this quickly," she said without preamble, as she opened a direct com channel to her head of engineering.
"With all due respect, Captain," the acerbic and not at all respectful voice of Lieutenant Commander Vincent de Santos not quite growled. "We are on it."
Before Walters could say more, de Santos had already cut the connection.
Okay, fair. He knew his stuff and he had been in the guts of the Pentacosts reactor control systems more times then he, or she for the matter, would have liked.
Around he, the command crew was issuing their own orders to their respective sections, as Walters glared at the virtual display floating in front of her face.
"Addams," she called out. "Why aren't the parasites launched?"
The Flight Operations Controller, Lieutenant Moira Addams, groaned and Walters could hear a dull thud of a hand striking a console.
"Because the reactor control system took out the hangar bay doors when it went."
Walters closed her eyes and bit her tongue.
Just great. Pentacost was out here, just a few million kilometers away from the space above ε Eridani's south pole, where an unknown contact had just appeared three hours ago, with three smaller contacts breaking away and burning towards Pentacost, loudly proclaiming to be the 'Appian Marauders' and that they had 'come for loot'.
Of course, Walters had tried to talk to them, but their 'Captain Blood', had just laughed and told them that he and his men would destroy them and then take everything down on the planet.
That Pentacost was out here in the first place was due to the tentative agreement the Davenport Free State had with the Rostov Republic and New Omsk, the two other settlements on Eyeball. The were independent on paper, but the reality was that their autocratic governments were deep in the pockets of the Kremlin on Earth. Russian puppets through and through.
That was part of the reason the United States had given Davenport a carrier cruiser in the first place, as a 'deterrent against potential military operations'.
But the the news coming from Iwrin, with the pirate ships suddenly appearing there, everyone remembered that ε Eridani was rather close to Iwrin and to the imaginary border of the 'Walker Cluster'. So the three governments had come to the tentative agreement to send their ships out on patrol. It was Pentacosts time to go to the south pole region, while the destroyers of the other two nations went to the north pole region.
That they were stuck taking the slow route was thanks to ε Eridani being in a solar maximum and the transfer points at Eyeball were so small that they were pretty much unusable right now.
And now...
This.
The reactor control system had failed. Again. And Pentacost was stuck on its superconductive battery bank. Which was almost useless in a fight. Sure, they could still use the VLS and the kinetics. But their main armament was the laser core. And the parasites.
29 Assault Craft and 8 Interceptor Craft were now stuck in the hangar bays.
"Have you," Walters began, only to be interrupted by Addams.
"My people are on it. But we don't yet know what went with the reactor controls."
Walter pulled up the sensory display, showing the three smaller spacecraft boosting towards them, their mother ship floating above the south pole of ε Eridani, with what appeared to be a large solar sail spread out behind its hull.
For a moment, Walters wondered why they were using that sail, before her eyes went to the three contacts moving steadily closer. She wondered what sort of contacts those were, likely some sort of Landing Craft, though the largest was close to the lightest Frigate types in mass, with about 8.6 ktonnes ktonnes, while the two others were 5.6 ktonnes and 3.6 ktonnes respectively.
She continued to watch as the three contacts slowly moved closer into the engagement envelope of her stand off missiles.
"Dinkley," she called out. "Please tell me that the gremlins didn't take out the VLS."
There was an uncomfortable silence, as Lieutenant Mike Dinkley didn't answer.
Walters closed her eyes and bit her tongue again.
"I..." Dinkley finally answered. "I can give you VLS One, Two and Six. And VLS Eight and Nine."
That was at least something. At least half the VLS were still up. But she didn't need to be told what was in those VLS cells. Only Five and Six had stand off missiles with nuclear warheads. And of those only six were Cabasa warheads. The rest were kinetics and scattershot warheads.
"I want solutions for two kinetic and scattershot standoffs for each contact," she ordered. "And get the birds into the black the moment our friends cross into our engagement envelope."
"Aye, ma'am."
She felt the glance of her XO, Lieutenant-Commander Damian Yamamoto, in her back.
"Are you sure about that," she heard him ask over a private channel. "Not going to give them a shot across the bow? Maybe with a nuke?"
"I think we both saw what 'Captain Blood'," she returned on the same private channel, her voice dripping with sarcasm on the name, "intends to do when he reaches Eyeball. And we both know how our Russian friends will react."
"We still have the Assaults and Interceptors on Mavis Station."
"Those missiles will be intercepted before they read those contacts. I want to see how good their anti-missile defences are before I'm willing to sacrifice a Cabasa."
There was a short pause.
"Good point."
The three contacts crossed the engagement envelopes of Pentacost and there were several dull sounds ringing through the superstructure, as twelve stand-off missiles were thrown into space by their electromagnetic launchers.
On the display, the firing solutions showed themselves as dotted lines ad the missiles entered their boost phase, accelerating with first fifty Earth gravities for just a few seconds, before the solid motor of their first stage burned out and the fusion sustainer engine of the second stage fired and dropped them to ten gravities.
Curiously, there were no traces coming from the three contacts.
"Maybe they don't have any stand-offs?" Dinkley wondered out loud as they continued on, without firing any long range missiles of their own. "I mean, if they are pirates..."
"We would be so lucky," someone muttered almost inaudibly.
Time passed tensely as Walters looked to the display, her eyes following the missile traces.
The missiles crossed the engagement envelope of counter-missiles and there were no launches coming from the contacts. The tension ratcheted up.
"We are getting a message from the lead contact."
Walters said nothing and simply opened the message. There was no return channel and she had the misfortune to look into the face of 'Captain Blood'. The man might have been handsome, once, but now his face was covered in scars, and he tried to grow a patchwork of a beard. On top of that, he had coloured his hair, or what was left of it, in a deep red colour, obviously the 'blood'.
"If ya tink ya kin make me panic wif some party tricks like dat, tink again," the man said with a horrible fake accent that was a mix of Irish and Scottish, his face a grimace of anger. "I will..."
Walters closed the message and sighed. Party tricks? Who the hell would call stand-offs a party trick?
On the screen, the missiles entered the contacts suggested laser envelope and nothing happened. The sustainer stages went into their programmed evasion patterns to foul laser point defence, but no beam of coherent light stabbed at them.
"What the fuck is going on?" Dinkley wondered out loud, giving voice to what Walters was thinking herself. "They should have..."
The missiles crossed the laser envelope and entered into the kinetic envelope, but still nothing. The sustainer stages of the missiles burned out and their third stages went into terminal guidance, the gyrations of their evasion patterns intensifying.
Only by the time the missiles crossed the hundred kilometers mark, their targets began to attempt their own evasion maneuvers. And still no point defence fire.
Shortly afterwards the missiles made contact. Two self forging kinetic impactors of twenty tonnes and the fragmented remains of a pre-stressed ten tonne slugs of tungsten made contact with the hulls of each contact.
The smallest contact, almost immediately began to drift, with the largest contact lost half its acceleration. The middle contact continued on, but spiralled out of control.
There was a shocked silence in the command center of Pentacost.
"Did we just..."
Before anyone could respond to that question a call rang out.
"New contact appeared at a thousand kilometers from the mother ship," the voice said and paused. "Shit... 300 ktonnes. That has to be a battle ship."
Walters turned to Dinkley.
"Get me a kinetic and scattershot on the original contacts. And get me a solution on the BB."
Moments later six more dull sounds rung through the hull as the new missiles fired. And Walters prayed that she wouldn't have to engage the BB as well.
"How the hell can pirates have a fucking BB?"
Walters helplessly shrugged her shoulders, before turning to look at the visuals they were getting from the new contact. It was massive and it, too carried external parasites, two spherical vessels that looked small next to their mother ship. And this con tact was much more mobile as it turned around and began to move towards the pirate mother ship.
"This of Captain Ariana Walters of the Davenport Self Defense Force Vessel Pentacost", Walters said, opening a channel to the new contact, trying to gauge the newcomers intentions. "We are currently under attack by pirate forces, so please state your intentions."
The wait for a response felt longer than it actually was.
A video image opened up in front of Walters, and immediately was different to what they had seen from 'Captain Blood'. The man on the video feed was clean shaven, with a clean uniform, in a clean room. And he looked rather massive, all things considered, with a build of solid muscle.
"This is Commander Adrian Bedford of the Bright Star," the man said, his voice a rich baritone. "We come in peace and if you wish, we will help you with these... pirates..."