9 Years, 11 Months, 25 Days After Eridani Landing
Chront
Megan let out a low whistle as she stepped into the hanger that contained the remains of the Canada. The security personnel who could be spared from the Russia, moved in to join the Seninon troops who were standing guard outside the building.
“He got the main systems working, and that’s what he had to work with?” asked Megan.
Stagg glanced back at her, tearing her eyes from what had once been the main display of her ship which had been propped up in one corner of the room with a hastily constructed scaffolding. Wires trailed from it to the several workstations that had also been appropriated from the ship as well where officers were analyzing the data. Additional wires and connections trailed into the ruined frame of the ship, half of her lights on at low illumination.
“You wouldn’t have been able to bring this thing back to life?” asked James from his seat at a large table that looked like it had been quickly cleared to accommodate the collection of individuals around it.
Megan tapped a metal foot to the concrete and smirked, “Sure I could have. No one else should have been able to though.” She shrugged, “The kid’s smarter than I gave him credit for.”
Klyn’s ears twitched beneath the band strapped over them which was helping to muffle the squeaking only he could hear from one of the other occupants at the table. “I though Humans were Humble.” He asked as he turned to glare at the Human next to him. Edie crossed her arms over her chest and glared back at him, her eyebrow rising as he continued to speak, “Create a new form of FTL, we threw some antimatter into the void and hit it with electromagnetic fields to punch through reality. No big deal.”
Edie rolled her eyes and slapped his shoulder. “I’m that humble, not all Humans are.”
Alpha moved the body that was sitting in the center of the table to look at her, “Is that statement not a contradiction?” he asked.
“It is.” Growled James as he moved his eyes from Edie and back to the dozen data tablets in front of him on the table that he and the other bodies of Alpha were examining.
Megan sat down next to Klyn and picked up one of the alien computers in front of him. Klyn’s ears moved beneath the band nearly poking out, otherwise he didn’t react.
Ignoring the Imperial writing which she still had difficult with Megan examined the orbital imagery. From high orbit the island Nation of Paken looked small, half of the nations was developed, the rest of it jungle with small settlements popping up in the jungle.
The roads or lines connecting the smaller outposts were barely visible from orbit, and in some cases looked absent. The foliage hiding the activity taking place within it from even the most advanced sensors.
Megan pursed her lips, the humorous mood falling away. “Any leads?”
James sighed not looking up from the data he was examining. “No.”
“What about the Seninon?” asked Megan.
Stagg turned away from the large screen and quickly walked across the hanger to the table, her face stony she ignored the last chair continuing to stand. “They are still dealing with the power disruptions caused by the, virus for lack of a better word. The power systems and utilities of their nations are not as robust as our own. The power is still fluctuating in many areas, riots have started in several cities. The timing of the Russia’s arrival, with this event,” Stagg shrugged. “Some of the more excitable Seninon believe we are attacking.”
Megan grimaced, “Lovely.”
Stagg nodded, “Quite. Bitus, King Henswick, and President Renil have all communicated their willingness to provide resources for the search once things have calmed down. Bitus has also apologized for this taking place within a location he has promised was safe.”
Edie rubbed at her face and let out a low groan. “I hate to say this, but are we sure this isn’t a ruse of some sort by the Seninon? The engineer was aiding with their technological uplift, but you weren’t providing anything like weapons, were you? Perhaps one of the nation’s wants to jump forwards with that?”
Stagg was shaking her head before Edie finished speaking, “I don’t get that feeling, Bitus’s forces were able to capture some of the attackers. They are an extremist group, one that has become more outspoken as the three Nations move towards the formalization of their peace treaty.” Stagg turned to look at one of the windows where the alien sunlight was streaming into the Hanger. “Bitus and the other leaders are politician’s, but they’ve so far been as truthful as they come. Unless we get proof of duplicity there is no use questioning that it really was this extremist group.”
“Are you sure it can be that easily discounted?” asked Klyn. “These people were locked in a nuclear cold war scenario. If one gain’s a significant advantage, say a hundred-year technology jump in only a few months?”
“The Seninon have been far more reasonable then Humanity was in the same situation. The fact they didn’t immediately fire their nuclear weapons at us when we first met is a testament to that. The governments are not involved.” Said Stagg.
“Whoever kidnapped him fit’s a terrorist profile in any case, it’s just plain stupid to nab him if you want to quickly develop a weapons program. You’d be better off grabbing a competing nations nuclear expert.” Said Megan.
Stagg raised an eyebrow, “Why’s that? Derrick could build a nuke in his sleep, one with a yield triple the best on this planet.”
Megan snorted and looked around at others around the table, “There’s a reason the kid had Seninon scientists working with him on the fabricator and the other technological integrations. Any engineer on a Human ship could build a nuke. Hell, the enlisted officers on both sides of the Earth-Mars war could.”
Megan held her link up in the air. “With Human technology, the basic components for nukes are easy to get and string together.”
The Humans and aliens at the table all blinked, Megan let out a frustrated sigh. “The Seninon are barely past vacuum tubes! Derrick needed the Seninon engineers to help him translate the knowledge we have, into something usable within their own means. I’m not confident I could build a bomb with the Seninon tech, even if I wanted to! The gap is simply too far between our technologies for me or Derrick to understand all of it at a glance.”
Alpha moved across the table to look at Megan, his legs clacking on the metal audible in the hanger barely audible over the hum of the power systems.
“Then the extremists want the knowledge of enhanced nuclear weapons? Theory that can be applied with the aid of a Seninon scientist?”
Megan shrugged, “Possibly. These are extremists though, you don’t think they would go for antimatter straight off the bat?”
Stagg snorted, “It took us nearly a decade to do that on Bellona!”
“Do extremists make sense on this planet?”
Stagg opened her mouth to say something, then snapped it closed. Groaning she rubbed at her eyes and lowered herself down into the chair. “They make about as much sense as Human ones.”
“Which is about as much sense as the Vakurian ones.” Supplied Edie.
Klyn ears twitched again, the ear on the left slipping out of the band holding it down. “It’s nice to learn that the constants are the worst things about everyone.” He grunted as he reached up and tucked the ear back down.
James leaned forwards, “Hypothesizing about why they took him isn’t productive until we have more data. We’ve got the Valiant and the Russia constantly scanning the jungle, that must be where he is. All we have to do is wait until we’re lucky and listen for any signal’s he might be able to send.”
He shuffled the data pads in front of him, “I want to send people out to search for him, but that’s only going to cause more problems. The cruel thing is, we can’t focus all our resources on this. We must continue forwards with the Seninon negotiations.”
“Where do you think Daniels is?” asked Megan.
“Still can’t believe that guy’s in politics.” Muttered Edie.
The table fell silent, Alpha’s body that was on the table slowly picked up a half-eaten cracker that had been left out. Barely audible munching filled the room for several minutes, interrupted by the sounds of the wind and far off ocean outside the walls.
“Engineer Megan, the computer virus?” asked Alpha from the body perched on James’s shoulder.
Megan grunted snapping herself from the trance that had fallen over everyone and tapped her Link, sending a preliminary report to everyone at the table. “I pulled data from Derrick’s Link and the Russia’s systems for the most part. He didn’t document the data translation routines he wrote for the Seninon data, so I’ve not been able to look through any of what they experienced. I’ll guess our logs are more revealing in any case.”
“Arik wrote those protocols, not Derrick.” Said Stagg as she straightened up in her chair and started reading through the report Megan had provided.
Megan winced, “Sorry.” She paused for a moment collecting her thoughts. “This wasn’t so much a virus, as it was an exploit. It had to have originated from Derrick’s Link, the attack lines up with his kidnapping and he’s the only one who could have a program like this.”
“Derrick did this?” asked James his eyebrows shooting up.
Megan nodded, “It was his credential that were used to interface with the Russia, and every other attack vector was simply brute forced. The Seninon computer systems are advanced enough that we can talk with them, but primitive enough they have essentially zero security. What they do have a Link can brute force in no time.”
Megan tapped her Link, “Not that this virus had to do that. Dozens of the encryption key’s the Seninon were using were already in Arik’s logs. She cracked them when the Canada was debating about making contact if I’ve read them correctly.”
Stagg groaned, “So the two of them were making this virus?”
Megan hesitated, “This is a WMD digital construct. If they had released this back in Sol, it could have destroyed cities. If the Seninon were ten years more advanced, they would have been destroyed! I don’t know why the hell they would have been making this, or why Derrick didn’t have it locked behind encryption and triple authentication for activation! This was like, carrying around a kilo of antimatter with only a Link powering it’s magnetic bottle.”
Edie leaned forwards, “Could it have been a weapon against they Empire they were building?”
“Perhaps, but we don’t know nearly enough about their computer systems, and like I said it was a credential exploit on the Russia and Canada systems. The Valiant was attacked, but that was like the brute force the Seninon suffered. It didn’t succeed there too much. Even if it was for the Empire, why the hair trigger?”
“Was it like the virus that cause your accident, the one that infected Bellona, and the Russia?” asked James.
Megan winced and put a hand on her leg where metal met flesh. “Not even remotely. That was a scalpel for fine remote control, this was a bomb. Not to mention the coding style is distinctly Arik’s with a few additions I’m assuming are Derrick’s. I saw enough of her style when she was bouncing around in the Fort systems to identify it.”
Stagg pursed her lips, reaching into a pocket on her leg she extracted a standard compute unit and set it down on the table. “Unless.” She shook her head and trailed off.
“Unless what?” asked Megan curious.
Stagg shrugged, “Derrick was adamant that Arik was still alive in some fashion, he insisted on scanning any damaged compute units that we recovered before formatting them for reuse.” Stagg tapped the cube, “He’s young. Arik was young. Losing her, he’s not had any time to deal with it.” she paused and shook her head, “It was less cruel to acquiesce to his demand to scan the units before reformatting them.”
Megan held up her hand, Stagg glanced at her and quickly tossed the unit across the table. Megan missed the catch and winced as the hard cube of metal and circuitry hit her chest. Grabbing it before it fell to the floor Megan set her Link down on it.
Stagg continued to speak, “Her simply, winking out of existence during the anti-matter jump. Derrick’s been accessing the restricted files on antimatter physics in his spare time. What little he has. I get a ping every time he accesses the files related to it. He was at the very least looking for the reason it happened.”
James sighed, “You’ve been letting him do this?”
Stagg glanced at the other Captain, “It’s not healthy, but with the stress he’s been under? Keeping the Canada together, serving as my unofficial second after Young’s death? Working with the Ace, dealing with the heat issues, the Seninon?” Stagg rubbed at her eyes, “Everyone’s been stressed simply serving on the Canada. He and Arik doubly so.”
Megan set the compute unit down, “He didn’t make any headway with the analysis of the antimatter jump calculations I take it?”
“Not that he reported no.”
Megan sighed, “I’ve been considering them as well, given that I keep seeing my Husband with every jump. I haven’t made any more headway understanding them than I did when I first saw them.”
Both of Klyn’s ears flicked out of his headband at her words, he and Edie looked at one another.
“You see your husband?” asked Edie concern lacing her voice.
“I’ve heard the descriptions of the antimatter travel, but it was lights and other things. Not people.” Said Klyn.
“Everyone reports something different, the Tanuin hear songs and symphonies more than anything else. The effects are purely psychological. Computers can’t record anything during the jumps, and the hallucinations don’t persist past the jump.” Said James.
Megan nodded in agreement, “When the, image of Ben gives me something only he knew. His encryption password for example, I’ll investigate the source of the hallucinations. Until then? That’s all they are products of our own minds trying to understand whatever the hell we’re flying through the annihilate the lightspeed limit.”
Klyn’s ears went straight up and he quickly raised a hand absentmindedly flattening them back down. “Interesting.”
James nodded, “If we had any time to investigate we would have, but resources were more focused on function rather than research on Bellona.”
Klyn raised a hand in surrender, “I’m not criticizing, still it’s an odd phenomenon.”
“It’s annoying as hell.” Muttered Megan.
Stagg and James glanced at her but remained silent. Stagg stood back up and glanced back over at the hastily set up main viewer. “Megan, dedicate everything you have available to searching for Derrick and then start looking through his research notes that he shared with the Seninon. Try and find the reason for this. James, I’m assuming the Russia will remain in geo-stationary to assist?”
“It will.” Affirmed the other Captain.
“The Valiant will be assisting as well, I don’t think our optics are as good as yours, but we didn’t lose anything during the virus. We can fill in gaps along with the Senion’s data.” Said Edie.
Stagg bowed her head and turned to walk back to the technicians looking over the data at the improvised controls. Watching her turn, Megan saw her mask slip for a half second a massive wave of exhaustion and stress evident on her face for an instant.
Megan shook her head and turned back to her Link. That mask was the same one that most Humans had been wearing since leaving Sol.
9 Years, 11 Months, 29 Days After Eridani Landing
Chront
Shoved down onto the concrete of the room Derrick winced as his knees impacted the hard surface and a small rock stabbed up into his skin. Hands bound behind his back Derrick quickly leaned back to avoid falling flat on his face.
“Lights!” barked Hernal.
Derrick heard several heavy Seninon switches being thrown from somewhere to the side. Harsh humming filament based lights snapped on and Derrick shut his eyes at the bright light. Adjusting to the sudden illumination Derrick slowly looked around the room, and let out a low whistle.
Hundreds of pieces of debris that Derrick recognized as Imperial technology were carefully organized into rows going all the way to the back of the large room. Looking around at the technology Derrick quickly identified most of it as something that had been sheered off when the ships had entered the atmosphere of the planet.
Most of it was charred, and what had survived wasn’t very extraordinary. A few computers, weapon’s capacitors, several low powered shield emitters.
Looking around, Derrick’s eyes zeroed in on one small pile in the corner of the room. A single compute module and what looked a piece of the Canada’s armor along with a large twist of fiber optics and wire.
Derrick glanced back at Hernal. “Impressive junk collection.”
Hernal ignored the remark and stepped forwards putting his hands on one of the warped hull sections from an Imperial ship.
“It’s all that we were able to get ahold of. The cleanup that you Humans have been organizing in conjunction with the, governments.” Hernal spat the last word, “Is through. It was easier to get ahold of those red skinned idiots then it was to get ahold of their technology.”
Hernal pulled out a Comm and the Imperial pistol he had on his belt. “We’ve got a fair number of these, but that’s all.”
Derrick smiled, “We were working off the rough impact estimates that my assistant ran during the battle. We’ve been finding the wrecks mostly where she predicted. A few sites were lacking though,” Derrick slowly looked around the room. “Unless you’ve got other rooms of junk I’d guess that a few other Seninon had the same idea as you.”
Hernal shrugged, “I’m not surprised. Although the Human technology is worth significantly more on the market if it makes you feel any better. The Imperial technology,”
“looks like it’s been mashed together by an overexcited child?” said Derrick interrupting him.
Hernal’s lips twitched, “That was the consensus from the men I had look at it. A few of them were rather intelligent, and not all of them conscripted to help our cause.”
Derrick closed his eyes and leaned back onto his feet kneeling despite the rock that was still digging into his knee. “What do you want from me?”
Hernal stepped forwards and put his hand on top of Derrick’s head, Derrick opened one eye and looked up at him.
“Are Human’s religious?”
Derrick blinked, “Somewhat. I know Stagg’s Muslim, some are Christians, a few of the Eastern religions have a few dozen practitioners on Bellona. We lost a lot of them when Earth was attacked, most of the Martians weren’t spiritual but the faiths have been making a resurgence on Bellona.”
Hernal frowned, “What about you?”
Derrick narrowed his eyes, “Never really had time to consider it. I had my parents ripped away from me when I was a kid, and I’ve been learning to fight assholes out among the stars ever since, while making sure I didn’t freeze to death on the icy ball Humans get to live on now. I haven’t had time to sit around and ponder theology.”
Hernal chuckled, “That’s what I thought. The governments are still slowly releasing the historical information you gave them about Humanity, but it was evident even without those documents you’re your people have lost their faith.”
Derrick closed his eyes again and sighed, “Fine, we’ve lost our faith. You have faith, are you going to try and convert me or is this a speech about moral superiority and the consequences of my lacking faith?”
Hernal pushed at Derrick’s hair forcing him to bend his head towards the ground behind him, “You mock because you don’t understand.”
Derrick twisted his head out of the man’s grip and straightened up “I mock because like I told you earlier, Humans have had people exactly like you. Men who warp the spirituality of others to suit their own agendas. We’ve seen it, hundreds, thousands of times.”
Derrick twisted his knees around and finding his balance stood.
“I’m not making you a bomb, I’m not giving you anything you want. You’re far better off just killing me now because I’m going to make your life a living hell.”
Hernal tilted his head to the side and his eyes flattened almost completely vertical. Putting a hand on Derrick’s shoulder he laughed.
“Oh, you don’t know how many people I’ve heard that from. The red skins were weak, they told me everything I wanted to know after a little violence,”
The grip on Derrick’s shoulder tightened, Derrick’s eyes widened as he was dragged down and the Seninon slammed his knee into his gut. Derrick collapsed to the ground as his chest constricted the breath knocked out of him. Not even opening his mouth to breath Derrick looked up at the Seninon.
Hernal chuckled, “Would you believe me if I said that got some of them to talk? How these Dorvakian managed to destroy your planet I don’t know. Your people must have truly deserved it to be conquered by the sniveling things.” Hernal leaned down and grinned, “Humans are not weak, I’ll give you that. To have survived everything you have.”
Hernal slammed a foot down on Derrick’s chest. Derrick groaned and tried to curl up on himself.
“You’re also stubborn. That’s what you Humans are. You should have died back on your world; the Empire should have killed you all. They wouldn’t have had a reason to attack us, it’s your Human stubbornness that put my people in danger.”
Hernal grabbed Derrick’s head again and dragged him up to glare at him. Derrick stared back setting his face in stone ignoring the pain in his scalp.
“I’m not building you a bomb.” Repeated Derrick.
“Fine, no bomb. You want to build me something to destroy the Empire?”
Derrick tired to laugh, but only managed a weak cough. “Humans have been trying to think up a way of doing that for ten years. All of us who are left, beating me to a pulp isn’t going to make me shout Eureka.”
Releasing his hair Hernal stepped back and pulled out a second Com. He began to slowly tap at it, Derrick taking in his first deep breath since the first assault slowly sat up. Grimacing and still short on breath Derrick shakily stood.
Hernal said nothing. Derrick glanced at the debris behind the man, briefly considering the possibility of impaling him on the metal. Looking back at the entrance of the room Derrick raised an eyebrow at the disheveled guard who was keeping a very close eye on him, his hands holding a weapon that looked like an ancient model of the guns Humans used.
“This.” Hernal held the Com out, showing Derrick the screen.
Derrick looked at it and frowned, “I’m an engineer, that looks biological.”
The image that Hernal had shoved in his face showed a DNA strand with various strings of Imperial text floating around it.
“This, is what destroyed your world.”
Derrick’s eyes widened, and he leaned closer to the screen trying to read the text on the screen. “You managed to get it out of some Imperials?”
Hernal moved the screen away and pocked the device, “One of the older ones. I killed a few of his own crew in front of him to try and get him to unlock this little thing. Didn’t budge, after a week without food he gave me the codes to unlock this thing.”
Derrick stepped back from Hernal, his back hitting a piece of rough metal from a section of hull from an imperial ship.
“The way the red skin described it, this weapon can be tailored to almost any particular species and it will wipe it out with extreme prejudice.” Hernal smiled and stepped towards Derrick, “Your people were faithless, but you can atone. Help me reproduce this, all who are unfaithful on this planet can be purged and then we can turn this on the Empire themselves.”
Derrick blinked and slowly lowered his head, the cavernous room was silent for several minutes. Hernal’s eyes remained focused on Derrick.
Derrick laughed once, his eyes still on the concrete floor. “You’re a racist religious terrorist, living in a secret bunker, somewhere in the jungle.” Derrick shook his head again, “I can’t believe this.”
Hernal’s face hardened and he jerked a hand forwards, pushing Derrick back onto the wreckage. The Human engineer grimaced as the metal and wire cut into his skin but ignored it to continue glaring at the crazed alien.
“Engineer, I don’t do the biological stuff. Even if I could, I wouldn’t in a million years help you develop a biological weapon! We’ve used them, they are never a good idea! Children keeling over in the streets, all because some fanatic decided they weren’t worthy of living. Not to mention the weapons are always turned back on those who made them.” Derrick ruefully smiled, “exactly like what you’re trying to do now.”
“This is the weapon that the Empire used to destroy your own planet, your own people. You don’t think they deserve the same?” asked Hernal as he stepped right up to Derrick, his face only a few inches away from him.
Derrick closed his eyes and took in a breath, “We’re going to kill the Empire, I can guarantee that.”
Derrick opened his eyes, “We don’t need to resort to weapons as crude as biological. We’re building weapons to blow their planet’s apart.”
Hernal’s eyes widened slightly, taking advantage of the man’s surprise Derrick slammed his head forwards into his face. Hernal let out a shout and stumbled back, his hands shooting up to his broken nose.
The guards at the entrance of the room let out shouts of protest Hernal raised a hand, making them pause.
Derrick stepped forwards pulling the metal out of his back, “We’re prepared to destroy stars, annihilate stars, and rip reality apart to take our pound of flesh from the Empire. So, forgive me if I don’t see a two-bit little fuck of a terrorist as insignificant.”
Hernal flicked his hand at the ground splashing his blood onto the concrete. Clenching his fists, Hernal blurred forwards, the wild haymaker hitting him on the side of the head. Derrick fell to the concrete dazed.
“Here’s hoping you can hold out for longer than a day.” Growled Hernal.
Derrick tuned out the universe as the blows started to rain down, focusing all his concentration on the small piece of technology he had pried off the wreck he was holding in his hand.