<Eridani Landing: 9 years 3 months 8 days>
“OK let’s try that, go ahead,” said Ben as he stepped away from Alpha his personal link on the table next to the creature.
Alpha tentatively moved forward to the microphone, he hadn’t really liked the thing since the feedback burst several hours ago that blasted ultrasonic noise through the room. The Squeaks no doubt had far better hearing then a human so it was understandable.
Alpha let out a squeaky growl, and the link took in the sound feeding it directly into the main computer for the lab trying to create a translation matrix.
“Grat mu thaerin!” was the emphatic sound that blasted out of the speakers of the lab.
Ben frowned and turned back to the linguist manning the computer terminal.
“You got the translations working yes or no?”
“I’ve got it! I’m still making adjustments. Give me a moment!” growled the man as he continued to type away at his console.
Ben turned back to Alpha and waited for the link to chirp signaling that it had received the update. Ben had been helping out as much as he could to build the translation program, but he wasn’t much of a linguist. Instead he had tried building small harnesses for Alpha to wear that would hold the microphone and translator when they miniaturized the links, but Alpha and the rest of the Squeaks had outright refused to wear them.
The link beeped.
“Alright try again,” said Ben prompting the little alien.
“Friends!” said Alpha his voice filtering through the translator at a higher pitch then was normal for a human but considering the Squeaks communicated at the higher frequencies had to be rather low for him.
“More, try more words,” said Ben encouraging the creature.
“No Fight, peace. Want peace! Fight the enemy together!” Said Alpha as he hopped up and down on the table apparently overjoyed to be able to communicate.
Ben nodded, “Alright now we’re getting somewhere, can you clean up the syntax?” asked Ben turning back to the linguist.
The technician shook his head, “No, from what the translator is spitting out it looks like they don’t have much of a syntax structure to begin with. They just spout words that represent something, no niceties in the language to make it sound better.”
“This is fine for now, is it translating back for you?” asked Ben leaning forward to the microphone in front of the console.
“Not need, understand Human speech. Simple. Writing simple,” said Alpha.
Ben smiled, “alright that makes things easier. Uh, thanks for saving me and Megan in the shuttle.”
“You save me! Hungry, so hungry! No food grows! No food for all of Tanuin on planet.”
“Give me a moment, you call yourselves the Tanuin, as in that’s your species name like we are Human’s?” Said Ben as he gestured between himself and the technician.
“Yes. All of us are the Tanuin,” said Alpha and all of the small creatures in the room hopped up and down in sync with one another.
“Alright, how many Tanuin are on this planet?” asked Ben.
“One hundred and three,” said Alpha.
Ben frowned and looked back at the linguist, “That can’t be right.”
The linguist shrugged, “its right, numbers are one of the easiest things to translate.”
“Uh, their were a lot more than one hundred and three Tanuin on the ice.”
Alpha cocked his head to the side for a moment, “Wrong, only 70 on ice. Tanuin are not one body, but of one mind. Understand this is strange for Human. It is strange to think of having only one body for Tanuin, yet we are still friend’s yes?”
“Most definitely, yes!” said Ben nodding his head.
“Negotiation for shelter, sustenance. We are starving.”
“Uh, that’s not something I can promise without talking to the Council. In fact, we should probably tell them we got the translation program working.”
Ben paused for a moment considering everything.
“Can you talk with the council?” he asked.
“You follow hierarchal command structure? Council leader?”
“They are a small group who make all of the large decisions.”
“Not individual ruler like Dorvakian Empire?”
Ben blinked, “Dorvakian Empire?”
“The people who attacked you, the ones who drove us both from our home worlds.”
“You know about the aliens who attacked us?” asked Ben.
Alpha’s head tilted to the side slightly the large eyes narrowing by a fraction.
“We do.”
“Now the Council is really going to want to talk to you.”
Looking out at the Bunker and the crew of the Singer in front of him [Charles] could feel that this was to be the final push. Both sides knew it, since the destruction of the Dancer [Charles] had moved all of the Singer’s resources and personnel to the surface leaving the ship in orbit above the red planet with only a skeleton crew. He was going to crush the Humans now, and retrieve the FTL technology. He was already disgraced, but he would not return home empty handed.
Shuttles were hovering in the air, their weapons mounts holding devices that had never been intended for use in an atmosphere. They would burn out after only just a few shots, but [Charles] didn’t care. They were going to take the Bunker no matter the costs.
“All personnel report ready,” said Tom.
[Charles] took in a breath and looked down at the alien compound, really just a mound of dirt on the surface. Still that mound of dirt was the source of his constant disgrace for nearly a [year] now. It was time for this to end.
“All stations proceed in [five seconds],” said [Charles].
The plain was deadly silent for only another five seconds, and even inside his helmet [Charles] couldn’t even feel the unnatural wind of the planet’s surface. It felt as if he were drifting in space.
The shuttles fired first.
Arcs of plasma energy roared out from the small craft eating into the small hillock. The top layers of the reinforced bunker disintegrated in an instant, built to take kinetic strikes the upper layers of the base were designed to simply absorb energy and dissipate it.
Kinetic strikes are quick however, the continuous gouts of plasma were overtaxing those designs baking everything down the next few floors of the base with waves of heat and energy. [Charles] smiled as the mound went flat and then convex under the barrage. They had torn the door off, now all they had to do was flush them out.
It would take several minutes for the ground to cool before [Charles] could order the men forwards, the ground had to cool. They had no need for surprise though, the Humans those whom were still alive at any rate would be running down further into their sanctuary like vermin retreating from the light of day.
“How long until we can go forward?” asked [Charles].
“About [twenty minutes] even then we’ll be at the maximum heat tolerance limits for the suits. The old combat gear isn’t built for that much heat, the [Singer] was never outfitted for ground invasion.”
[Charles] nodded, “The Empire hasn’t needed to attack a Class C species on the surface of a world in nearly [300 years] not since the debacle on Pulchra.”
[Tom] nodded, “It’s not efficient at all. The method used to take out the cradle world will no doubt become the standard. We didn’t even damage their infrastructure, if not for the nuclear attack they performed on it the planet would have already had many of the necessary utilities. I can’t imagine that even a Class C species managed to mess up making roads.”
[Charles] chuckled and shook his head, “You would be surprised.”
An alarm went off and [Tom] looked down at his display and frowned, “Sir something is-,”
[Tom] collapsed forward onto the console in front of him, for a moment [Charles] thought he had feinted. A loud retort followed by a dozen more rang out loud through the thin atmosphere.
Men and woman all around [Charles] collapsed. The crew that he had sworn to protect and lead was dying all around him.
Whipping around [Charles] looked back towards the bunker to see massive and exaggerated Human forms rising up through the molten slag that had been the top of the base. Long thin barreled guns in their hands the Humans continued to fire. Their snipers were accurate even as they battled the gravity of the planet and clawed up to the surface through the melted remains of their defenses around them.
“Shielding units forward!” bellowed [Charles] through the com.
The Humans were insane! Sending men out onto a field with no way to shield or defend themselves from fire. They were going to die in moments!
“All squads forward open fire!” shouted [Charles].
The crew of the Singer was composed of Class A Citizens. Men and woman who had gone through the most rigorous training regimen that the Empire had ever developed, but they had only ever conquered the pitiful and misguided races from on high in the Singer. They had the training, but suddenly faced with the realities of a very bloody skirmish they hesitated for a fraction of a second to long.
[Charles] watched in horror as the armored monstrosities moved impossibly quickly across the open red ground separating the bunker they had been hiding in and the Singer crew ready to annihilate them. Before the men carrying the portable shield generators could make it to the front lines the Humans were there, the long barreled guns replaced with short stocky weapons that cycled at a frightening rate. They were so close now that accuracy was hardly an issue.
“Fire! Open Fire!” shouted [Charles] even as the front lines of the Singer’s crew crumpled and folded beneath the onslaught.
Lancing beams of energy shot towards the armored humans punching cleanly through the armor and in many cases continuing forward unimpeded. The armor they had was not built for energy based weapons, but rather kinetics.
Instead of collapsing as soon as they were shot the Humans only seemed to grow more enraged.
[Charles] watched in horror as one Human simply picked up a man and barely straining tore him in half.
[Charles] hoped it was the mechanical suit that allowed the Human to do that. Holding the remains of the unfortunate man the Human ran forwards, another bolt of energy hit him in the head, and the helmet disintegrated. The Human pitched forward onto the dirt, now a lifeless.
Only to a moment later explode, taking another dozen crew with him.
[Charles] swore, the Humans were barbarians! Rigging their own men with explosive charges to go off when they died!
“Get them before they can get to close!” Shouted [Charles] as he picked up his rifle and nesting it to his shoulder looked through the sights.
It had been a long time since he had actually had to use one, only back during the rebellions had he been in fights anything like this. No, rampaging deranged Class B citizens were no match for the utter brutality of the Humans.
Even as dozens of the armored monsters died before they could make it to the now rather diminished front lines the Humans continued to pour forth from the Bunker.
“They’re making a last stand,” breathed [Charles]. A shiver ran down his spine, something was wrong here. Something was very wrong.
General Yan was the only one present in the chamber, much to Ben’s initial relief and confusion.
“Where are the other councilors?”
General Yan got up from his seat and stepping down from the podium came to stand in front of Ben a rueful smile on his face.
“I have been given unilateral jurisdiction over the alien situation, with expectations to report back to the rest of the council on any decisions I make.”
Ben groaned realizing what was going on.
“You’re the fall guy. They’re setting you up before anything has even happened.” General Yan nodded, “They are.”
“You’re OK with it?”
“No, but it’s better than letting Daniels and Henson convince the rest of the council that these guys are a threat.”
“Not threat!” said Alpha. The other Squeaks behind him jumped up and down as if to emphasize his point.
General Yan only looked mildly surprised when the alien spoke, “Got the translator working?”
Ben nodded, “They’re actually speaking English already for the most part. Just at frequencies far too high for us to hear, and much faster than how you or I would talk.”
General Yan nodded and reaching back around to the podium dragged a chair off of the stage and set it down in front of him.
“Very well. Do you represent your species in making decisions regarding our alliance, if that was what the sharing of food on the ice was about?” asked Yan.
Alpha crawled up onto the chair, perched on the back of it he was almost as tall as the General. Despite the precariousness of his perch on the back of the chair he appeared completely at ease.
“I do,” said Alpha.
“Do you have a name? Something to address you by? I am Yan.”
The General put a hand to his chest.
“I have a name, but it does not translate. The name also applies to the rest of me, an alien concept for humans. I will accept any title given.”
“We’ve been calling you Alpha.”
“The first, is that translation correct?” asked Alpha.
“Yes.”
“Tanuin do not have a hierarchy of command. I am not the first nor am I the last,” said Alpha.
“You were the first Tanuin we met, that’s why you got the name,” said Ben.
Alpha snapped his front grippers together.
“I understand.”
General Yan turned to look at the other Squeaks, “Do we need to name them as well?” he asked.
Ben chuckled, “You just did.”
Yan blinked, “What?”
The other Alpha Avatars all jumped up and down again rushing to join him on the chair which groaned under their weight.
“All entities you see make up what Alpha,” said the mouthpiece of the small collective.
It took Yan a moment to process that, “You’re not telepathic are you?” he asked. Ben now broke laughing, “They communicate ultrasonically General.”
Yan looked over at his subordinate but Yan ignored the glare.
“Alright, so all of the Tanuin are like this, one mind in a dozen or so bodies?” “Yes. I am small, the largest is however only thirty separate bodies.”
“Alright, that’s going to take some getting used to. Moving on from that though, what is it you want out of an alliance?”
Alpha cocked his head to the side slightly, “Food. Shelter. We lost much technology when we crashed on Bellona many cycles ago. We hibernate. Save Energy. Scavenge what little grows. Not able to grow.”
Both Yan and Ben were listening intently now, “You had ships?” asked Yan.
“We explored the Stars, long ago. Wanted to meet new creatures, learn new things. Make peace. Instead made war. Dorvakian Empire called us monsters, a pestilence. They kill destroy all of Tanuin. We are last ones. Lost much knowledge and technology, could not recover. Slept beneath the ice.”
It took Yan several moments to process everything, “Dorvakian Empire?”
“The aliens that drove you from your world, did the same to us long ago,” said Alpha.
Yan looked up at Ben, “The enemy of my enemy,” he trailed off.
Ben smiled, “Is my friend. Although I think we were friends before figuring that out.”
Yan slowly nodded and looked back at Alpha, “All you want for the moment is food, shelter?”
“Yes.”
“I think we can help you then, but what about the long term? Where do you see this alliance going?” asked Yan.
Alpha paused, all of the Squeaks did.
“Revenge.”
The tone of the voice was deeper, angry for a moment. A conviction behind it that Yan had heard in his own voice and that of every Human on Bellona.
“Good,” Said Yan.
“Come on, you can do it!” said the overly peppy physical therapist.
“I know that, will you please just shut up?” asked Megan.
The woman frowned but didn’t say anything, instead continuing to motion Megan to try and walk forwards, she was used to dealing with the irritable patients.
Megan holding onto the bars continued forward. Were it not for the reduced gravity on Bellona she would not have been at this stage in recovery already. Today was the first day with the cybernetic legs, one attached below the knee and one above it to the anchor points of her bones that had been installed during the man surgeries she had gone through.
Encouraged by nano-machines that little black pegs sticking out of her stumps were as strong connected to her as bones were, giving the cybernetics an attachment point.
The cybernetics were also hooked up to what was left of her nerves some of the artificial connections going up as far as her brain for guidance. But no matter how precise the doctors were they couldn’t line up all of the nerves to match exactly with the muscles they had once controlled, so the command from her brain that might have rotated her left ankle was now making the right cybernetic leg move forward.
Relearning and re-teaching the brain was a difficult process, but already she was able to shamble along at a snail’s pace stomping her feet flat on the ground with each step. Now sorting out the rest of the motor neuron connections was simple, repetition and physical therapy until her legs fell off again.
Making it to the end of the rail Megan turned around and began the long stomp back towards the other side of the room and paused, there was an odd tingling in her legs. Holding still for a moment not sure what the feeling was Megan looked down at them.
“You alright?” asked the physical therapist ready to be yelled at again by the irate woman.
“I think so.”
Megan stepped away from the rail, and walked at a normal gait across the floor.
“Whoa!” said the therapist.
Megan nodded in agreement, she suddenly had complete command of the limbs.
“How are you doing that?” asked the therapist.
Megan shook her head, “I have no idea.”
Curious Megan collected herself and leapt forwards, her legs let out a mechanical twang and realizing to late that she hadn’t thought the action completely through Megan impacted the wall nearly ten feet away at a running pace.
“Ow!”
The therapist recovering from her shock more quickly than Megan could from running into a wall quickly came to the woman’s side.
“How did you do that? People with artificial limbs can’t do the superhuman stuff until six months or so with them!”
Megan shook her head, “I can just feel it, like I’m in control.”
The door to the therapy room opened, and Ben with all of Alpha stepped into the room.
Alpha let out a happy squeak and darted across the floor. The therapist let out a squeak of her own and backed away from the advancing hoard of small very excited and very fast creatures.
“Hello!” came a high pitched oddly toned voice, from Ben.
Megan looked up at him and Ben held out his link, “We got the translations working for the most part. Still figuring out exactly what form factor we want to give to the Tanuin though so for now it’s here.”
Ben put the link down on the table in the room.
Megan turned back to Alpha, or rather the single part of Alpha that had been the main speaker up to this point. Although if she understood what Ben had said all of the Squeaks in the room at the moment were Alpha.
“How are you guys doing?” asked Megan.
“Negotiations proceeding. Not hungry. Hoping brothers will feel the same way soon,” said Alpha.
Megan smiled, “That’s good.”
“Speaking of good though, how are you doing? I thought you wouldn’t be standing on your own for another week or so,” said Ben.
Megan shrugged and the therapist coughed, both engineers and alien turned to the woman.
“She’s showing remarkable improvements and healing. So much so that I’m going to need to take her back to the lab for further testing. I think something might be too sensitive in the neural interfaces. She’s acting like she a gymnast.”
Megan groaned, “Come on I’m fine!”
“You need to be healthy, listen to medic!” said Alpha.
Megan turned to frown at the small creature, “I feel fine Alpha really.”
“You are still hurt, I can smell blood and death on you still. Although like your mate the scent is mixed with many other signals.”
Megan frowned, “Our scents are different?” she asked.
Alpha’s eyes narrowed, “Yes, mixed up as if half present or an old scent. It is odd.”
Megan and Ben looked at one another for a moment, before Megan gasped and pitched forwards.
Alpha’s many parts all squeaked in alarm and darted out of the say as she collapsed back down onto the ground.
“Holy mother!” Megan gasped and clutched at her leg.
Both Ben and the therapist were on the ground next to her in moments, Alpha started emitting a startled screech which the translator did not seem to be able to make any sense of although the meaning was rather plain.
“Megan!”
The therapist had already palmed the emergency button on her link, and Ben moving down looked at Megan’s legs. For a moment he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. A thin layer of blood was covering them as well as some sort of translucent material.
Leaning closer Ben recognized the material as skin, which was going all the way up to where her flesh was still alive above the implants. It looked as if her skin had suddenly just grown over the mechanical limbs encasing them in it along with a thin layer of blood and blood vessels.
“What the fuck?” he breathed.
The Canada dropped out of the tachyon based FTL near the edge of the system, for several moments Arik thought that they were under attack judging by the amount of data traffic that was being funneled in their direction.
As soon as they exited the ship wide alarm sounded once and then died.
“Report!” barked Stag
It took Arik several seconds to marshal herself and the data resources available to her. She put her image up on the main monitor.
“Short range light based communication, so much of it that for a moment I thought we were under digital attack,” said Arik.
“But we are not?” confirmed Stagg.
“No, we are simply being treated to the standard greeting of a trading facility. Ads, I’m getting millions of ads. Anyone want to enlarge some aspect of their anatomy?”
There were several badly concealed guffaws from members of the bridge crew and Stagg rolled her eyes but didn’t comment on it.
“Are you able to filter out the information, get us anything actually pertinent?”
“I can, the advertisements are restricted to several channel bandwidths. I have tapped into what I believe is a general information network. It includes directions for standard landing and trading protocols, as well as a list of locally enforced laws and regulations. Technically this world is under the prevue of the Empire, but there is very little presence so it appears that elements of the local crime syndicates enforce the laws.”
Stagg nodded, “So a world that is almost entirely black market then when it comes to commerce. I take it then it mostly Class B aliens by the Empire’s standard?”
“Yes.”
Arik brought up a chart of the system, showing the location of the Canada near the beacon as well as the planet and small indicators for the many ships in the system.
“Many ships are broadcasting beacons, identifying them. A fair number are dormant however, but from those broadcast I would estimate that there are at least one hundred and twenty different Class B species here on the planet.”
Arik displayed a list of all of the species next to the ship names.
“We will blend in rather well, our only oddity might be ship design. As far as I can ascertain all of the aliens are using some sort of modified plasma drive system. Our vacuum drive propulsion might be difficult to explain if discovered.”
“Anything we can do to blend in?” asked Young looking up from the report that he was reading.
“Venting radiation in small amounts from the engine compartments and engine sections to match an alien engine signature would camouflage us at distance. A visual inspection would however be quick to show that our engine design is foreign.”
Stagg hit the intercom for the engineering section, “Derick, we need to vent radiation from the engines. Arik’s sending you the exact frequency can you do it?”
“Sure, we’re going to need to shore up shielding or increase nano-machine injections for everyone on board if we’re going to do it for any amount of time. I’d recommend the injections, the only stuff we’ve got to block radiation at the moment is carbon composite lattice, and I’d rather save that for hull repairs.”
“The crew would need double the standard dosage,” said Arik.
“We can do that, prescribe the dosage. Derick start the modifications.”
“Aye!”
Turning away from his console Derick looked up at Diana.
“I get to play with radiation! You want to help?” he asked.
Diana looking down from where she was floating in the corner of the room munching on a meal bar and reading from her link shook her head, “You can have fun killing yourself, I’m still playing translator so I get to go with the surface party.”
“Yeah, in a few hours. Come on when is playing with radiation not fun?”
“You have a staff.”
“Who are all working on the tachyon drive that things got more kinks in it then you would believe.”
“Fine. You ow me though,” said Diana as she shoved the rest of the bar into her mouth and pushed off of the wall to drift down next to Derick.
Arik’s image appeared on the screen in front of her case, which was right next to the two.
“I’d appreciate it if you would install another radiation sensor on my case, I should be protected more than anyone else but I am sitting right next to the reactor.”
“Sure,” said Diana.
Arik nodded and her image disappeared.
“You want to know more about Humanity?” asked [Charles].
“Yes, what little I can dig up about C1764 is redacted or classified. I can’t even get an image of one of them” said [Vann].
He and the disgraced Captain were alone in his office of the Retreat, a small bottle of some sort of whiskey sitting in between them. [Vann] felt a little bad about manipulating the man’s addiction to wheedle answers out of him but the promise of the bottle seemed to have been enough to loosen the man’s tongue.
“They’re ruthless, smart, and determined. We destroyed their home world and they will destroy your entire Empire. It’s that simple.”
“They are Class C,” said [Vann] scoffing.
[Charles] looked at the Emperor for a moment.
“Do you not know?” he asked.
“Do I not know what?” asked [Vann] now annoyed.
“Nothing, I won’t convince you. I’m warning you what is coming Emperor, the Humans and your own Consul both represent dangers. My mission was never completed though, so [Marcus] and the scientists he has working for him only know that the antimatter FTL drive is possible not how to do it. As for the Humans we might be lucky and never see them again in our lifetimes,” Said [Charles].
The old Captain smiled, “Probably for the best if [Marcus] doesn’t figure out that antimatter FTL in our lifetimes either. Our Empire hardly needs the power to expand further.”
[Vann] looked at the man for a moment and grabbed the bottle slipping it back into his desk.
[Charles] chuckled, “Well alright then.”