<Post Warp: 2 months>
“Are we ready?” asked Takuya.
The Yamato had just spent the past day accelerating up to the velocity at which the FTL jump would be possible without the magnetic rail to assist, the blue planet was still visible but was rapidly receding away. The Yamato was one of the few ships in the Terran or the Martian fleets capable of doing so, and still it was a time consuming task.
“We’ve got the reactor shut down and all of the systems are at their minimum power levels, if we make it through this jump without any issues I’m going to recommend that it be made procedure to do this until we determine why power levels spiked,” said Megan.
“Roger that, Helm prepare for the jump,” said Takuya, he switched on the shipboard PA, “All hands brace for FTL transit.”
Takuya himself settled further back into what served as the command chair, it was rarely used due to the usual weightlessness within the Yamato but during acceleration it was critical.
“Five seconds to jump,” said the Helmsman.
Takuya glanced at the screens showing the outside feed of the ship, he had looked back through the logs after they had first crossed through FTL but all that it had shown was static, despite the things he had seen during the transit, whatever happened when you crossed FTL it could not be recorded by current instruments.
The antimatter and strange matter charges were jettisoned, and the explosion from the two meeting formed directly in front of the Yamato, Takuya felt the ship violently jerk beneath him and once again the fantastic images flooded his vision, the only thing that he could compare it to was looking out at the ocean, vast and beautiful but deadly all the same.
The event of FTL ended as quickly as it began and the ship shuddered as they were thrown back into normal space, “Report,” said Takuya keying the comm relay to the engineering compartment.
“No issues, we still had that power spike but we were ready for it,” said Megan.
“Alright, Helm?” asked Takuya.
The Helmsman was staring at his instruments, and then his shoulders sagged and he let out a sigh of relief, “We came in within the orbit of Venus, were in Sol!” he said.
The man flipped on something at his station and the speakers on the bridge began to play the familiar beacon signal of Earth, a steady beep that signified the military command was still active and operating. Something that had been implemented during the war in case of any other communication blackout, the beacon transmitted on an ultralow frequency that would permeate space for light years, the only reason they hadn’t heard the signal in Enduri was that the beacon had only been up for five years.
“Good, take us to Mars, and transmit the false reports on the maneuvers we performed,” Said Takuya.
“Command is going to want to know how we passed Earth without them spotting us.”
“That was the point of the maneuver, tell them the operators are getting lax now that we have peace,” said Takuya as he unstrapped himself from the seat and watched as the ship rotated around him.
The Helmsman chuckled but didn’t say anything else. Takuya nodded and leaving the bridge made his way through the spine of the ship towards his quarters, the last few days had afforded him very little sleep and he was exhausted, ecstatic about everything that they had found but exhausted.
Lincoln glanced up at the General and then back down at the report that he had placed on her makeshift desk, “What’s this?”
“The Yamato made it back to Sol, they found some interesting candidates for colonization,” said the General.
Lincoln picked up the report and quickly paged through it to the engineering reports on how the FTL drive had operated.
The General frowned, “You’re not even going to look at the colonization candidates?” he asked.
“I’m not a climatologist, and I know nothing more than common knowledge about colonization efforts. I do know how to optimize the FTL calculations based on more data points. So that is what I am going to do, once that is done I’ll look at what will hopefully be the future planetary homes of humanity,” she said.
“Moons, they are moons,” said the General.
Lincoln nodded and continued to page through the data giving it a cursory once over, and then paused looking at one of the engineers reports.
The last part of the analysis that had been written by Ben Williams, “This is disturbing,” she said.
“Those last few pages? It seems a little dire, and it was the assistant engineer of the Yamato that wrote it, I think it’s a little premature to jump to conclusions,” said the General.
Lincoln scoffed, “He’s an assistant engineer with enough experience to be the chief engineer of an entire fleet, the crew of the Yamato is one of the most tight nit ships in the fleet, most of the crew is entirely overqualified for their positions. Ben would not make and report this analysis unless he was sure.”
The General frowned, “Then you think he’s right? The FTL is causing matter to degrade in some manner?”
Lincoln shrugged, “We won’t know until we have a larger sample size, if we analyze the hull of the Longboat IV we might be able to make a determination of the effects,” said Lincoln.
“And if FTL does effect matter in some way?” asked the General.
“We learn to deal with it, either limit the number of FTL jumps an individual or ship makes or find a way to shield against the effects. When nuclear weapons were first used the scientists that created them had no idea what radiation was, and these days we can easily manage it,” Said Lincoln, “Whatever the effects are we can learn to manage them, assuming that they exist.”
“I wish I had your confidence,” said the General as he glared down at the mathematician.
“Ultimately it doesn’t change anything, even if it is only safe or moderately dangerous to perform a single jump humanity can still expand far beyond the Solar System,” said Lincoln.
The General sighed but nodded in agreement, “Fine, we’ll come back to this latter, how are the repairs to the accelerator going?”
Lincoln stood up and walked around her desk to the accelerator hallway she stepped out into it and the General rolling his eyes followed her out into it, Lincoln started to walk down the length of the tunnel, which in its entirety was several kilometers long.
“We’re getting there, the engineers you sent are crazy as hell though, this will be the most ghetto accelerator in history, but we’ll have it working again in a week,” said Lincoln.
The General looked at one of the repairs that had been done to the machine, a patch of metal welded to the side of one of the magnetic coils that worked to accelerate particles up to nearly the speed of light. It was rough and bulky compared to the smooth metallic shell of the original construction.
“Worst case scenario?” asked the General.
“Another CERN incident,” said Lincoln.
“You say that like the CERN incident was a small thing,” said the General.
“Well we’re in the middle of nowhere, what’s it matter?” asked Lincoln.
The General paused and slowly shook his head, “You know I think I’m starting to understand why there’s not much of a difference between genius and insane.”
Lincoln smiled, “Well history usually gets to decide, we’ll see which I am once we’re at the end.”
<Post Warp: 2 months 20 days>
[Charles] was staring out of the window at the small blue world below, they were orbiting the planet at [42,164 Km] stationed over one of the larger continents where the concentration of military power was. He could see the multitude of crude space stations and assemblies that were in orbit, and the different sized ships that were slowly orbiting the planet, more disturbingly he could see the scars in the surface of the planet from bombardment.
[Sam] was in the process of piecing and translating the data that they were capturing from the transmissions that the two major planets in the systems were broadcasting. From what she had been able to discern the two planets had been at war, and had only been at peace for at most [a year].
In that time they had managed to surpass the technological progress of the Empire and build something that many scientists had thought was impossible, if they were left to their own devices they might quickly match and surpass the knowledge of the Empire.
That was not something that could be allowed, and considering their status as a Class C species induction into the Empire was out of the question, such genetic impurity would never be tolerated.
The door chime to his quarters rang, “Come in,” said [Charles] as he turned away from the window.
[Sam] stepped into the room and quickly saluted, [Charles] waved his hand dismissing the formality.
“I’ve found something interesting,” she said.
“That’s all that you’ve been finding for the past few days [Sam] I need you to be a little more specific,” said [Charles] as he relaxed back into his seat.
“They don’t know anything about gravity reflection. This Class C species has no technologies anywhere along the lines of it,” said [Sam].
[Charles] blinked surprised, gravity reflection technology was one of the more important aspects of modern space flight, it created the artificial gravity that allowed ship occupants to operate in space, and it protected them from any sudden accelerations, without it space flight of any duration was impossible.
“Are you sure?” asked [Charles] slowly, even the other species that had been inducted into the Empire, the class B species for example had discovered gravity reflection and manipulation by the time the Empire had accepted them.
“it’s not just that sir, a lot of the technology that they use is different from all other development cycles we’ve seen, including our own. They are equal to us in some fields and woefully behind in others, it’s like their technological progress was stunted and malformed at an early age,” said [Sam].
[Charles] considered it, “Class C species usually destroy themselves when they discover atomics, perhaps this species never discovered them?” said [Charles].
[Sam] shook her head, “there is more than enough residual radiation in the atmosphere to show that they did, not to mention historical evidence from what I can glean out of their records,” said [Sam].
“No something drastically changed their development, and whatever it was makes some of their,” [Sam] hesitated.
“Continue,” said [Charles].
“Are we off record sir?” asked [Sam] as she nervously swallowed.
“If we need to be, I’d rather not have your analysis conform to rhetoric if you don’t think it’s appropriate. Just don’t voice anything of it beyond these walls,” said [Charles].
[Sam] nodded and continued, “whatever it was that caused them to deviate has granted them military technology in several fields that is comparable to our own, specifically in kinetic warfare. Have you seen the scars on the planet’s surface?” asked [Sam].
[Charles] nodded, “Yes, I assumed it was from orbital bombardment.”
“Those strikes were kinetic warheads, they were launched from the other inhabited planet,” said [Sam].
[Charles] sat up straighter in his chair, “really?” He asked.
“Yes, here I was able to convert one of the formats they use for media displays,” Sam gestured at the table and a hologram quickly materialized and flattened out into a display showing a badly distorted image.
The picture moved and showed one of the many orbital rails around the planet far below launching what looked like a metallic rod off into space presumably towards its target on the opposite planet.
[Charles] shook his head in amazement, “It’s an incredibly brutal method of war. A single error in the calculations and you could hit a civilian populated area,” said [Charles].
“From what I could tell sir, they did. Both sides hit civilian populations with these weapons, deliberately.”
[Charles] was for a moment stunned, it was not unheard of for an Empire detachment to fire on civilian populations, but doing so meant the disgrace of any involved for governments to deliberately do so was unimaginable.
“The species population did not protest the targeting of the innocent?” asked [Charles].
“No sir, this species is mad enough that they have something close to a hive mentality, once stirred up they all wish to fight with very little exception. They are perhaps one of the most violent Class C species we have ever encountered.”
“It’s amazing that they haven’t destroyed themselves yet,” said [Charles].
Sam nodded in agreement, “They almost have several times over, from what history I’ve managed to sort through in some instances it has come down to a single individual whom stopped the destruction of their species, however mad they may be as a whole the individuals of the species can at least be rational,” Said [Sam].
She paused and looked out the window at the planet far below, “They are a paradox, and they can be insanely evil one moment and then compassionate the next, they are not something that can be predicted, if we ever deal with them that must be remembered.”
Ben sighed and leaned back in his chair letting his arms float out in front of him he relaxed, since they had made it back to the station they had been doing nothing but run analysis on the FTL drive and send data to Dr. Lincoln.
He was wiped out and despite the nano-machines in his system he felt his bones aching, the price of working for extended periods of time in zero-g.
“Ben!”
Startled Ben opened his eyes, “What?” he growled.
“What the hell are you doing?” asked Megan.
“I’m relaxing, is that not allowed?” he asked.
Megan picked up the nearest tool available and chucked it Ben who lazily dodged to the side used to her aggressiveness by this point to not be concerned.
The tool bounced off the back wall and hit him squarely in the back, Ben doubled over in pain and yelped, “Fuck!” he shouted.
Megan smirked, “Fine your relaxing smartass, we don’t have time to relax. Dr. Lincoln wants us to look at the frame of the ship being built, the Ark,” said Megan.
Ben perked up at that, “They’ve already started building it? Where?” he asked.
“Right here on the Station, in one of the illegal shipyards. Apparently the Doctor knows someone in the Martian crime syndicates,” said Megan.
Ben whistled, “That’s some friend though to build an entire ship like that in secret, how big is it going to be? What kind of power plant?” asked Ben.
Megan shrugged, “no idea I just got a message from the Captain telling us to go to the lower docks and that someone on the Station would meet us and then guide us the rest of the way.”
Ben unhooked his feet from his chair and flipping around launched himself off of the wall shooting towards the airlock of the Yamato, “Well let’s go! Like you said this is no time to relax!” said Ben.
“Oy!” said Megan.
Ben twisted around and reaching into her Belt Megan tossed Ben a pistol, he deftly caught it and stared at it for a moment, then looked back at Megan.
“What’s this for?” he asked.
“It’s the lower levels of the Station, we look like Terran’s, so we need to change,” said Megan gesturing at her own jumpsuit that was stained with mechanical fluids and burns from different accidents.
“Oh,” Ben looked down at the gun and then tucked bounced back to his cot to grab some of his off duty clothes, “I thought it was illegal to have guns on the Station,” said Ben.
Megan rolled her eyes, “It is Ben.”
“Oh.”
Megan rolled her eyes and started to change her clothes as well, “We’re already in a conspiracy involving the illegal production of antimatter. I doubt that the small weapons charge would compare.”
“Right.”
Ben looked back at the thug as he slowly floated past, the boy glared at him for a moment before turning and continuing down the corridor. It turns out that even on another planet in zero-g that impoverished areas all turn out the same, broken down and dark with shady characters the only ones willing to move about the streets. The only thing that was missing compared to the more impoverished areas of Earth was the trash. In zero-g no one was throwing things away, all it would do was float back up to annoy you latter so it was clean.
“Do you see our contact?” asked Megan.
“No, and I have no idea what he should look like, so why are you asking me?” said Ben.
“Well I don’t know what he looks like!” said Megan.
Ben was about to turn around and argue with her but a small girl floated down in front of them, her hair like a halo around her head it spread out in every direction.
“You are the engineers from the Yamato?” asked the girl.
Ben hesitated looking at the child, “yes?” he said unsure what exactly to say.
“Follow me, Mrs. Janus is anxious to show you the progress we have made,” said the girl.
Megan blinked, “Janus? The same woman that runs the Bar?” she asked.
The girl nodded, “yes.”
Touching the floor the girl launched herself back off shooting up into what was the ceiling a moment ago slipping into what looked like an abandoned access hatch. Ben and Megan glanced at one another and with significantly less grace than the girl kicked off from the floor following her.
Like the white rabbit they followed her through an array of passages and corridors, and each time they would only catch a glimpse of her as she floated through the air, the grace at which she moved in the lack of gravity showed that she was a true child of space, her feet had never touched ground and even with nano-machines stopping bone degradation she most probably never would, as miraculous as the machines were they had limits.
“Any idea where she’s taking us?” asked Ben.
“The shipyard,” said Megan.
“Yeah and we have no idea where that is, so for all we know this is a trap to kill some Terran’s,” said Ben.
“I doubt they need to go to that much trouble, I’m sure they could just shoot us in broad daylight and be done with it,” said Megan.
“Well that’s reassuring,” said Ben as they exited another hatch and floated out into a wide open area, the frame of a massive ship was floating in the middle of the space, a ship that was at the least two times larger than the Yamato if not more.
Ben and Megan unable to stop themselves glanced back to see that their guide had hooked her hand around the last hatch and was watching as they soared across the space, towards the framework.
Ben grabbed the frame as they passed and Megan grabbed onto him, Ben winced as her hands dug into his leg but didn’t say anything his gaze locked on the construction in front of him.
Most of the work was being done at the opposite end of the ship, at their arrival a group had broken off from it though and made their way towards them cold jets firing, chief among them was the large form of Janus.
“Welcome!” said Janus her voice booming across the space.
The little girl that had been guiding them shot past and hooked herself onto Janus, standing on the woman’s shoulder as they drifted towards the Yamato engineers.
“So what do you think?” asked Janus, spreading her arms out wide at the framework of the ship.
Megan looked around, “I think this is insane, how the hell did you build this much? Even if you started work the day after FTL flight you shouldn’t be this far along,” She said.
Janus smiled and nodded, “True but let’s just say that this frame has been sitting around for a long time, don’t you recognize the shape?”
“It’s a carrier!” Said Ben.
Janus nodded, “At the start of the war before the magnetic rails were put into use Mars was going to launch carriers, the government only ever completed the construction of one ship though and she was destroyed during the last battle above Mars,” said Janus.
“How did you get the frame of the other?” asked Megan.
“I know some people, and according to all records the frame was scrapped. I couldn’t do anything with it though, too big for any recreational use and other business ventures,” Janus couched, “so when Dr. Lincoln asked for an Ark, well it was perfect,” said Janus.
Ben nodded in amazement, “I guess it is.”
Megan looked at Janus and then back at the little girl, “How did Dr. Lincoln convince you to build her a ship?”
“She didn’t.”
The girl on her shoulder jumped back up and flipped through the air, retreating towards the back of the ship.
“Who’s that?” asked Ben watching the little girl as she drifted away.
“One of the better individuals I employ,” said Janus.
“Child labor?” asked Megan reproachfully.
“Nepotism,” said Janus coolly.
“Ah,” said Megan.
“Can we look at the ship now?” asked Ben interrupting the two women.
They both turned to him the situation diffused.
“Sure, I’ll have my engineers give you the tour,” said Janus.
Ares took a breath and looked out at the planet below him.
“You know I think I’ve changed my mind. Can we have someone else do this?” he asked.
Red chuckled, “to late hotshot!” He jerked the control stick around and suddenly the Earth and stars were rapidly trading positions until in a moment both of them were a blur.
Ares felt his stomach rebelling but he quickly quelled the feeling.
“Can you warn me next time?” asked Ares.
“I could, but I won’t,” said Red.
Had the suit he was in not been so constrictive Ares would have made a gesture at the man.
“We’re about to test a multimillion dollar piece of equipment and your pilot and test pilot are making jokes?” asked the pale military oversight observer, it looked like the spinning was effecting him more than Ares.
“They are professional when they need to be,” said James.
“This is not the time?” asked the observer.
James chuckled, “Getting thrown out of a drop ship at higher than orbital speeds is not something I would expect to affect Ares,” said James.
“What would affect him?” asked the observer now curious.
“Asking a woman on a date, that would terrify him,” said James.
“Well screw you too,” growled Ares.
The light above the bay went green, and James smiled.
“We’re over the drop!” said Red from the cockpit.
“See you!” Said James, and he hit the airlock release, with a small thump the back half of the bay depressurized and the Martian test pilot was blown out into space going nearly forty five kilometers per second, unlocked from his harness, there was a brief moment where James was sure he saw that rude hand gesture before he was whipped out of sight.
Ares was still spinning but concentrating on the instruments in front of him he looked at his trajectory, everything was lined up and in the green. He would be out of communication contact with anyone on the ground or in space due to the extreme atmospheric interference that was going to form when he hit the soup that was the Earth’s atmosphere. Still he could feel the gaze of half a dozen military satellites and a few civilian ones watching his decent.
The suit he was in was the newest variant of Martian mech’s and it was designed for the fastest of atmospheric entries, the ablative shielding on the suit would protect him coming in at any entry vector but he would fall like a brick in the air, and he had no way to control his decent once he punched through the upper atmosphere.
He was at the mercy of physics, and she was not the kindest soul.
Ares felt the slight bump as he started to slow, it was imperceptible at first but the pressure quickly built and watching the readouts in front of him Ares could see the external temperature of the suit quickly rising.
Ares’ spin began to slow and his vision was consumed by fire, it was disturbing to think that the only thing protecting him from the massive amount of friction was only a few inches of material in some places and that should even the smallest tear from he was done for, the extreme heat would cook him in a second.
Firing the jets on the side of the suit Ares began to spin himself back up to speed, if he wasn’t rotating quickly enough the heat wouldn’t be properly distributed, and it was one of the major drawbacks to the new suit designs. The ones that had been in use during the war had been a disposable heatshield an individual would ride into the atmosphere, lighting themselves up to radar detection and the like when they did so. After entering the atmosphere and slowing to terminal velocity the shield was dumped.
This suit did not have that luxury, and like the tech that had gone into the FTL ship it was a collaborative effort between Earth and Mars.
The world now a blur around him Ares focused on the navigational display, he was almost through the deceleration portion of his decent. Ares felt himself grinning, he had only gotten to do this once in the war, and that had been a terrifying experience, then again it had been his second mission and he had spent the better part of a day inside a shell launched from Mars before he hit the Earth’s atmosphere.
With this new suit he could actually feel the air around him as hot as it was.
The radio in his ear cracked, “You alive?” asked James.
“I’m alive you asshole, next time we test something I’m pushing you out first, and without a spacesuit if I can manage it,” threatened Ares.
“You can try, I’ll just space you again,” said James chuckling through the line.
Ares rolled his eyes and looked out through the visor, he had just fallen past 40,000 feet
An alarm blared inside of the helmet, “The parachute casing has fused, I’m going to backups,” said Ares.
“Roger that, going to backups,” said James his voice suddenly serious.
Ares hit the release on his chest but nothing happened, a second alarm blared inside of his helmet, “That chute is fused as well, I’m going to try and force them open,” said Ares.
“You’re at 35,000 feet!” said James.
“I’ll make it!” said Ares, reaching into the side pocket of his suit he pulled his faithful knife from its sheath, thankful for the gloves insulating him from it because it was still faintly glowing from the heat.
Shoving the knife into the front of the mech suit James tried to lever the jammed emergency chute open, to no avail.
“we’re getting telemetry back, we have a fix on your position,” said James.
“James, take the stick!” said Red.
“What the hell are you doing?” asked James, through the radio Ares heard them switching around in the cockpit.
“Get us as near as you can to the Drone control satellites,”
Ares heard the communication line open and the entire base team that was listening into the mission, “Control I need access to the drones in the drop area.” Said Red,
“Why?” asked someone at control.
“Just do it!” ordered James.
“We’ve got three in the area, two camera drones and one high altitude communication relay drone, which do you want?” asked control.
“The communication relay drone, slave it to the controls I have,” said Red.
Ares glanced down at the rapidly approaching water below, “Red what are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m saving your life, can you eject?” asked Red.
“I think so, but I’d prefer to stay with the parachutes,” said Ares, “I’m at 25,000 feet”
“I have your position, when I say I want you to eject,” said Red.
Ares blinked and then glanced back up at the sky imagining he could see the ship that the insane pilot was in.
“What are you doing?” asked James breaking into the conversation.
“Catch,” said Red.
“Catch?! That’s your brilliant idea!” Shouted Ares as he continued to plummet.
“You have a better one?” asked Red.
“No, still doesn’t make your idea a good one!” said Ares.
Glancing to the side he could see a small black speck approaching, it rapidly grew and a gigantic multibladed drone drew level with him.
“Hell no!” said Ares.
“When I say!” said Red.
“Wait! Let me try something keep the thing still!” said Ares, and streamlining himself out Ares dove past the drone, angling it so that his chest hit one of the larger blades, the suit was designed to take high caliber impacts and come out unscathed, hopefully the parachute compartments were not as strong.
The blades ripped into the casing of the parachutes and Ares spread his arms back out, “Here we go!” he shouted and tried the backup chute again, this time the hatch popped and the orange chute deployed.
Ares was jerked up into the air, “It worked!” he shouted, the drone above him went spiraling to the side, trying to compensate for the loss of its rotor.
“500 feet!” said Red.
Ares glanced down, and prepared for the impact, with the parachute around his chest he had no way to soften the blow, the emergency chute was purely designed to make sure he lived, not that he would come out unscathed.
“This is going to hurt,” said Ares.
It did.