Diana, Jikse
One week later
“No. For the hundredth time, we can’t go back!” growled Diana.
“So we’re just supposed to stay out here for the rest of our lives?” asked [Orin].
The three of them were inside one of the many abandoned skyscrapers on the edge of the inhabited parts of the city.
Since the botched trade, Diana had been attempting to get her two class B companions to try and understand what was happening. There was a fairly large disconnect in understanding, though. Despite their criminal status within their own society, it hardly amounted to more than common thievery, armed robbery, and somewhat organized rackets.
They had no concept of actual organized crime. They were smart enough to not report their illegal gains to the Empire on their equivalent of taxes, but neither could they launder money. They had no concept of hostile takeovers. Disputes between groups of criminals was something to be resolved through discussion, and perhaps payment.
A full scale gang war was a completely ‘alien’ concept to them. Being killed in cold blood, or having ordinance planted at their shop to detonate when they returned, was something that they couldn’t even conceive of.
“We kill Him and take over whatever network he has in place, that’s the only play,” Diana explained again as she leaned back into the crumbling wall.
“Explain it again,” [Orin] said quietly. “And why you think he’s class C.”
Diana groaned.
“I’m fairly certain that only a class C would be as brutally calculating as He is. On top of that, if what you’ve told me is true, he completely supplanted the criminal network that was in place here. He’s crushed any other attempts at restoration, and he’s draining resources away.”
Diana raised a hand to her neck and touched the still-burning puncture marks from the attack. The injury had not been serious enough to warrant dipping into the meager supplies of nano-machines they still had from the case, but she was tempted.
“None of that means he’s a class C. I get that you faked that to freak him out, but if he really is class C, then we need to report it to the authorities!”
Diana stared at [Orin] for a moment, weighing her options.
“I am class C.”
“I know you said that, but you can’t be,” she replied.
Diana raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”
[Orin] frowned. “Why not? You’re not dead, for one thing. You’re too smart, and you’re not constantly trying to kill me. If you were class C, you’d have killed us by now.” She gestured at herself and then over at [Hal] who was busily staring at his Comm, doing something on it.
“Is that what class C species do?” she asked.
“Of course! How do you not know this? Class C’s always destroy themselves before they get even close to the technology that is needed to make FTL. Heck, most of them blow themselves up with atomics.”
“They do, don’t they,” mumbled Diana as she considered how close Humans’ had come several times to the use of atomics.
“If he were class C, there is no way he would be this good at stuff.” She paused and seemed to be considering something. “He could be class A, though.”
It was Diana’s turn to be surprised. “What makes you think that?” she asked.
“Well, he could be a disgraced politician or maybe a military leader on the run. Think about it, only class A citizens are allowed to serve in the higher echelons of the government and the military. They are the type of people who would know how to run an organization! Especially one that can completely dominate anything that class B’s develop!”
Diana opened her mouth to say something about that level of self-deprecation, but decided against arguing, instead choosing to see what else she might say.
“So if he was class A, that would be why he kept his helmet on?” asked Diana.
[Orin] nodded. “Yeah!”
“What about the blood? It was green.”
“That wasn’t blood. No species in the Empire has green blood. It had to be coolant or something from those advanced armor suits that they were using. Something that, as a disgraced class A, He has access to!”
Diana nodded along with [Orin’s] explanation.
Convincing them that class C’s were the ones actually fighting here would be difficult considering how much they didn’t even want to consider it. Still, she had been thinking.
This planet was a dump. A sad little crumbling city on the outskirts of the Empire’s control. To even say it was under Empire control was somewhat laughable. From the scant history she had been able to dig up on the alien networks, they had simply eliminated some small contingent of class C’s that had survived a nuclear war and set about eliminating radiation from the atmosphere.
With so many other planets to develop, the Empire had simply claimed this one for future use. At the moment they were content to simply let the remnants of the class C species rot away. Eventually, in another five hundred years or so, they would begin developing it as they continued to expand and the planet became part of the core rather than the fringe. It was a pattern they had repeated through their history half a dozen times now.
The Empire thought in the long term, more so than Earth ever had. Mars had been on the cusp of terraforming operations when the war had started, and hadn’t even had a chance to begin implementing them. It would have been a project of at least four generations though. The longest project in modern human history.
Not that it would happen now, thought Diana bitterly.
“I’m going to go and get food. You two stay here, alright?” asked Diana as she stood up and stretched.
“Food?” asked [Hal], looking over at the neat stack of food and the jerry-rigged stasis unit Diana had prepared in the corner of the decrepit building. It had enough in it to last them at least another week.
“Yes,” Diana growled as she stood, making it clear it was not open for discussion and hopping into the transport that was parked on the sturdiest looking section of the floor. Starting the vehicle, Diana punched the accelerator and shot out of the building, immediately diving towards the ground.
Even the transports had inertial dampening properties, and Diana grumbled at their lack of feedback. Her stomach gave a half-hearted jump as she dove, but that was more out of the height than the actual drop.
Reaching the destroyed street, Diana parked and got out.
She had chosen this building because it was in the section of the city that was, to her eyes, the most intact. From the surface it looked just as burned out and destroyed as the rest of it, perhaps even more so given the large craters in most of the buildings.
That told her one thing, though; this was where the final battles had gone down. If her guess was right about the origin of the species she had fought, this would be the best place to get information on them.
Picking another random direction, Diana walked through the abandoned city looking for anything that was left, anything that had survived the brutal onslaught of the Empire. She had seen several entrances that doubtlessly led to underground train tunnels, but being trapped underground in failing tunnels was not on her agenda so she remained on the ground level.
Most everything had been picked clean. Electronic components had been stripped from any of the alien technology that remained hundreds of years ago. She saw the plastic and metal casings of some objects strewn about, but had no way of knowing if they were pertinent.
No, Diana was looking for something else.
Books.
They would hold little to no value to scavengers, and she doubted that the Empire could have managed to destroy all of them even if they tried to.
The only difficulty was finding them – and that was if the aliens even had books. They had to have had some form of media storage before computer technology, but for all she knew the moment they had discovered how to electronically store data, they could have abandoned the physical mediums completely.
Humanity preferred digital media, but to this day – even on Bellona – printed books. There was something about them that called to the Human spirit. She was hoping that the class C’s of this planet shared that much with Humanity… along with being driven from their world.
Picking along the street, Diana peered into several more of the decaying structures. One place that had large chairs inside of it caught her attention. Looking at it for a moment, as well as the many large pieces of metal hung on the walls, Diana decided it was a barber of some sort.
Walking across the street, her feet crunching on broken glass and rotting city, Diana stepped into the salon and looked around. She prodded one chair; it squeaked, and a plume of dust rose up from it. Wincing and holding her breath while it settled, Diana ventured forwards.
It was definitely a barber, salon, or whatever they were called. She had never been one for hair presentation, preferring to keep her own cut short and out of the way. Indeed, with the necessity to wear helmets constantly and be prepared for space based combat, most Humans kept their hair short.
Looking around, Diana spotted a set of drawers. On top of it were the rotting remains of several liquids and rusted equipment. Pulling on the handle, Diana grunted as it stubbornly didn’t open.
Shaking her head, she raised an elbow and brought it down on the top of the cabinet. The entire cabinet shattered and fell apart in a heap. The smell of something rotten wafted up, but Diana ignored it, looking down at the contents. A bemused smile on her face, Diana carefully leaned down and picked up a small booklet.
Holding it delicately, Diana felt the material. It was a thin plastic of some sort. She felt some of it cracking as she held it.
Pulling out her own Link, Diana switched the camera on and quickly flipped through the alien book even as it disintegrated in her hands. It was a pop-magazine, full of garish colors and small blocks of text and dominated by pictures.
Reaching the back of the booklet, she carefully placed it back down in the mess.
The cover was dominated by the face of an alien female. With long, black flowing hair that cascaded down her shoulders and pale skin, she could have passed for Human.
The ears, though, they weren’t Human. Long and almost catlike, they stuck out from the sides of her head through her hair.
Diana closed her eyes and chuckled.
She had been hoping for an alien textbook, possibly one on biology with illustrations. Something that would be actually useful.
All she had managed to find was the weekly celebrity rag.
Shaking her head, Diana slowly sat down in the filth and felt her laugh begin to devolve into something slightly more crazed. She was alone on an alien planet, and the people she felt the closest to were the aliens who were trying to kill her. The aliens who, like Humanity, were only fighting to try and regain their home world.
Still, she would kill them.
For the class C’s, it was simple – survival of the fittest. To not fight, to not take everything from Him and wrench control of the city away, would be an insult.
Standing up, Diana looked around the ruined studio. She had to find more. Another magazine, another book. Anything that gave her an edge. She had to make sure this alien wasn’t an alien to her at least. She would remain unknown to him, though, and she was hoping that element would be enough. It would be all she had to play.
9 Years, 4 Months, 20 Days After Eridani Landing
Bellona Colony
Ben leaned over the engineer sitting on the floor to look at the console on the floor in front of him.
“Anything?” asked Ben.
The young programmer, who still had several Tanuin perched on his shoulder, looked up, annoyed. The Tanuin on his shoulders also gave indignant squeaks.
“Yern and I will tell you when we have something.”
Ben raised his hands up slightly. “I’m just asking.”
The young man rolled his eyes and gestured at the computer console. “Since we implemented the parallel virus yesterday, we’ve gained access to about 40% of the original virus’s domain. We’ll know when the newest command is issued, but we’ve got a 60% chance that we miss where the commands are entered from.”
He leaned back into the wall of the nest.
“At the moment, Yern and I are trying to help it spread, but doing that without being caught by the automatic security, as well as not tipping off whoever is in control of this thing that we are messing with it is proving difficult.”
“It is working though?”
“It is. I will tell you when I have something.” Growled the younger programmer.
The Tanuin on his shoulder, Yern turned to fix his eyes on Ben.
Staring at the alien for a moment Ben turned and slowly walked away leaving the two to their work.
“It seems humans can be consumed by work as well.” Said Night.
Ben sighed and nodded, “We can be, have you not seen my wife?” he asked.
Night said nothing about that, he was not as easy to talk with as Alpha.
“Has he turned back up?” asked Ben.
“No. we will inform you when he does.” Said Night sounding calm.
“At any point are you going to tell me what he was doing?”
“I was ordered to do so in the event of his passing or I believed that it was critical. We have not yet reached that point.” Said Night.
Ben ground his teeth together, but remained outwardly calm. “At what point will his missing be critical?”
The younger Tanuin looked over at Ben for a moment, “When I have no other option but to tell you. Alpha trusted you because he had too, but if I am right then it is because of humans he is now missing.”
Ben’s eyes widened and he opened his mouth to ask Night exactly what he meant when his Link crackled on.
“Ben! Government administration building now!” said Megan her voice filtering through the communication device without him even answering it, something the two of them had set up for emergencies.
“What?” asked Ben.
“Alpha’s turned up! It’s not good!”
Ben swore and looked around the nest. The few human engineers who were still present and had not returned to the Russia were frozen along with most of the Tanuin.
“Damn it, Night!”
The younger member of the species crawled up onto Ben, two of his bodies settling on each shoulder while the other three settled for handing onto the back of his MCP suit.
“Ready.” Said the Tanuin in his ear.
Ben took off, breaking into a hurried but stead jog. He blew past the security perimeter that was still present around the Nest and into the depths of the colony. The guards half-heartedly raised their weapons as he passed, but none fired or tried to apprehend him. Sometimes being the chosen liaison between the humans and the aliens of the colony had its perks.
Dodging the other groups of people and vehicles in the underground network of tunnels and access paths Ben moved quickly across the width of the colony.
Night bounced up and down on both of his shoulders, grippers readjusting every so often to ensure that he remained attached but otherwise he didn’t complain as they moved.
As he moved across the colony, other groups of people fell in line with him. Additional security, and medical personnel. Above him Ben swore he could hear the movement of vehicles on the surface of the moon as they shot through the colony.
Whatever had happened was apparently more than Alpha simply popping out of a vent. ‘
Again ignoring the security personnel whom were at the entrance to the government building Ben shot into the complex.
“Where are you?” asked Megan her voice issuing form the Link again.
“I’m here.” Said Ben trailing off as he stepped into the main atrium of the administration building past the security.
A circle of people had already formed, in the center of the room lay several Tanuin bodies. Glancing up Ben saw that the access hatch in the ceiling far above was open, like the creature had simply fallen out of it.
Night let out a screech and leapt off of bens’ shoulder and streaking through the legs of the startled humans around the bodies let out several more shrill squeaks and whistles. Ben and everyone else in the room winced as the pitch went higher than anything human ears were designed to handle.
Megan slid over to stand next to him and lowered her Link.
“What happened?” asked Ben.
“We don’t know, he just fell out of the vent when I was walking past.”
“When you were walking past?” asked Ben turning to his wife.
She nodded, “I was talking to an aide about the latest estimates on the Russia and the both of us heard something and he literally just fell out. Ben, one of his bodies is missing.”
Ben startled looked over at the bodies, Alpha was as far as he was aware composed of five or so separate bodies. The Tanuin fluctuated in form from four to six as he knew them. He had not however heard of any Tanuin losing a body.
“I want people going through the entire ventilation system of the building, to look for him.” Growled Ben as he turned to issue to orders to whichever military grunts were near.
Instead he was greeted by the carefully blank features of Councillor Daniels.
“What is going on?” asked the councillor as he carefully craned his neck around to look at what was in the heart of the crowd.
“Something happened to Alpha.” Growled Megan, and looking at the man for a half moment carefully pushed past him leaving Ben and the legislator to stare at one another.
“I was under the impression he had gone missing.” Said Daniels.
“He did go missing, this is him turning up.” Said ben.
Night let out another trilling screech and Ben winced. Glancing over he saw that the many bodies of Night had converged on one of Alphas and were doing something.
“Sorry, give me a second.”
Going back over to the aliens Ben leaned down.
“Is he going to be OK?”
Night whirled around to look at Ben for a moment and his many eyes hardened.
“He is missing a part of himself. For a Tanuin to recover form this is rare, and never are they unscathed. It would be like a brain injury of severe proportions if compared to a human.”
“Great, will he be able to tell us what happened to him?” asked Ben.
“If he awakes.” Growled Night.
“Can we move him?” asked Megan as she leaned down to look at the many small bodies that were twitching slightly on the ground.
“He needs to go back to the nest.”
Curiosity, Human dwellings always odd.
Half logical, half form confusing. Alpha continued through the innards of the administration building curiously navigating the ducts used to deliver recycled atmosphere and temperature modulated air throughout the facility.
The access were far too small for even human children to comfortably navigate but to Alpha the small ducts were almost comfortable. They reminded him of the nest and the constructions of the Tanuin. Straight forwards, simple junctions, full of right angles and grid based layouts.
It was a mantra to construction that humans seemed to rarely use, instead preferring long bending hallways and oddly shaped buildings. Still for them it seemed to work.
Pausing Alpha peered out through one of the vents to see where he was. Their were no markings inside the substructure of the human buildings. Something that for at least the structures around the nest various Tanuin had gone about rectifying, placing markers and signs pointing towards important locale.
Still, this was not a place he was technically supposed to be, as alien as lies were to him and the rest of his race Alpha understood subterfuge. It was a tactic that many Tanuin had employed when at war with the Empire, as brief as that had been.
Alpha hoped a similar path of events would not play out here.
Moving through the complex and carefully making his way to the appropriate office of the suspected official Alpha collected himself thinking.
Humans were predictable, Ben and Megan especially, when presented with similar stimuli. A single human or indeed a group of them were easy to predict when presented with a situation that did not activate their reflexive behaviors.
A large group of humans were predictable, and almost seemed to operate under an amount of group consciousness not unlike the Tanuin. They obviously did not communicate, and it was something that he was still trying to wrap his head around.
Still as Night had described it, Humanity at the very least had common goals. They had throughout their history had moments where humans although bitter and divided had banded together for a common purpose on mass.
Wars were a common example, but their expansion to the neighboring planet Mars was another example. The entire species had worked towards achieving it despite the adversity still present within the politics of their planet at the time.
A single human, startled and presented with an entirely new scenario would be unpredictable however. This was especially evident with their young.
The one which had wondered into their nest not long ago, had been enthralled and interested in the Tanuin. Not scared, but curious and somewhat hazy on the fact that the Tanuin were intelligent creatures and not toys.
Other small young humans had screamed in terror and shied away from Tanuin upon contact. It was then only through prompting by older Humans that the young would then learn to tolerate them.
Alpha had no idea what an individual human might do if he was caught inside their secure facilities of governance, and he did not want to find out.
Carefully removing one vent Alpha glanced around and seeing no humans dropped down into the office of the offending human. Hitting the metal floor he remained still for a moment, he was still unsure how sensitive human ears were, but considering a Tanuin anywhere in the building would have heard him drop to the floor and no alarms were triggered his assumption that humans were mostly deaf were strengthened.
Carefully crawling along the floor he moved towards the work station of the human politician and crawled up the side of it.
Human computer systems were similar to those of the Tanuin, and he had not doubt that attempting to break into the computer on the desk would occupy more time then he had.
Instead Alpha opened the drawers and investigated the desk and surrounding are looking for anything of use.
Humans preferred to keep things digital, but it was a double edged sword as Ben-Megan had described it. The most illicit things were kept analog as digital was so easily and remotely breached.
Using all of his bodies one remaining in the vent system to keep watch and to listen to the rest of the complex Alpha carefully searched.
The drawers contained many of the long writing instruments humans used, as well as an assortment of food wrappers, and other innocuous options. One drawer on the desk was locked, but more curiously on the drawer above it was a small collecting of what appeared to be a biological material pounded flat.
Paper as humans has described it was what they had used before computer technology had been invented.
Looking at if for a moment Alpha struggled to decipher the meaning of the words, he could with some difficulty understand the purpose behind human words displayed on a screen, where all of the writing was neat and uniform. These symbols however bore little resemblance to those symbols.
Taking more time then what was probably appropriate given the situation Alpha deciphered only some of the words, none of which offered him anything. They did not appear to be part of the same language that Ben and Megan had been teaching.
Night had said that humanity had multiple languages.
Scratching his legs in frustration Alpha carefully removed the paper from the underside of the desk.
Some other human would have to translate the material for him.
Carefully closing the drawers and retreating with the illicit material Alpha almost didn’t notice it at first, the sound of approaching human footsteps was so deep and loud he had assumed it was machinery.
Hurrying now Alpha’s many bodies moved quickly back towards the vent.
The human footsteps were getting closer.
Panicking now Alpha disregarded all need to remain silent or stealthy and his multiple bodes moved towards the vent. Crawling up the smooth human walls was difficult even in the best of times though.
The door opened and the nearest body to the door froze, it was the part of Alpha holding the slip of paper and was only half way up the wall.
The human made a guttural noise and quickening his pace strode across the room.
Alpha let out a startled squeak and tried to finish crawling up the wall, all but the body carrying the information had made it up to the vent.
The human grabbed him, and said something.
Alpha didn’t care to translate at the moment and thrashed in the hands of the human letting out startled squeaks and growls fighting in vain against the much larger creature.
The Human made the laughing noise and grabbing the paper in his manipulator placed another hand around the head of the body in his grasp.
Alpha all of Alpha froze as the sensory data from that part of him eclipsed everything else. The hand around his head, dulling sound and light.
With a sickening crack that every other part of him heard the Human twisted his hand violently to the side.
Alpha broke, his mind fractured. Losing a part of himself Alpha ran.
The parts of him inside the vent panicked, and all broke off running back through the vent system.
Early memories, ideas, a segment of his mind cleanly removed never to be accessed again Alpha stumbled broken through the human structure, consumed by only the thought of running and hiding.
Canada, Crokin System
“You know suddenly I think this is a bad idea.” Said Derrick as he once again checked the engineering consoles of the compartment.
“Well it’s a little late.” Grumbled Arik from her avatar on the console next to him.
The Canada was drifting near one of the more well-traveled tachyon beacons on the edge of Empire space. Already five different vessels had dropped out of FTL and continued on into the system, one that was in the Empire database named Crokin, which had a single inhabited planet that was so temperate that it was apparently one of the many breadbasket planets used by the Empire.
So far only private transports and cargo ships had traveled past.
If the Canada was going to steal the tachyon communication protocols from the first Empire ship that they encountered.
The plan was for that process to be done without detection, but in preparation the ship had been on battle alert for the entire day. Meaning everyone was inside of the combat EVA suits. Which were not designed to be worn inside an atmosphere for any length of time. Most people had their gloves off so they could easily manipulate consoles, and the emergency seals around the wrist and shoulder would seal if the atmosphere dropped.
The exposed skin would be one giant hickey, but so long as you go the gloves on quickly enough you would live.
“I’m aware of that.” Grumbled Derrick.
His job was to aide Arik when she hacked into whatever government ship showed up next, she would be operating at speeds far beyond his own capabilities though. Which was a good thing, considering in all the information they had sifted through it didn’t look as if the empire had ever developed anything close to an AI.
In theory Arik would be able to easily break into their communication systems and obtain the codes. Their military and financial data was protected though so it would be difficult to get into those systems mostly due to the encrypted layers. A communication system by its very nature had to have components that operated on open channels though to transmit codes so both sides could start trading encrypted data packets.
That was the opening, and a small one at that.
“Another ship is dropping out!” said Arik her voice reverberating through the ship.
The beacons automatically warned of incoming vessels, but never identified them. Ostensibly in the case that a vessel had yet to move out of the large exit vector.
The many sensors and cameras of the Canada focused in on the exit vector and watched.
The ship flashed into existence and drifted for a moment the engines venting gas out into space.
“An Imperial trade ship, the IFF its broadcasting identifies it as the Scribe V.” said Arik.
“A target?” asked Stagg.
“A target” confirmed Arik.
“What are her armaments?” asked Stagg her voice drifting through the communication line.
Their was a pause as whomever was at the tactical console on the bridge waited for the computers to identify the weapons.
“The best guess is that it has roughly one eighth the power of the Imperial ship we fought previously.” Said the man.
“We could hang in combat for a significant amount of time. If at all possible I would not recommend activating the Ace. its heat outlie is large.” Said Arik.
“However if everything goes to plan we’ll not need to fight. Arik, you have a go. Get the codes.”
Arik let out a small giggle and dramatically flashed the lights of the Canada killing several lights and consoles on the bridge, which flickered back on a moment later.
“Really?” asked Derick.
Arik said nothing, she was taking ques for her behavior from hundreds of years of AI in movies. Despite the fact she could operate the entire ship and takeover everything in it without so much as flickering a single light or triggering any alert she felt it was necessary to advertise her abilities.
“I have access to the non-encrypted components, I’m attempting to elevate my authority.” Said Arik.
Derrick nodded and glanced back at the readout for the core where she was contained in the back of engineering. The largest problem beyond detection would be Arik pushing the interface that connected what was left of her brain and upper spinal column past tolerance levels.
The disconnect would be too much for her to tolerate, and would at the very least cause some amount of brain damage.
“Derrick? How’s she doing?” asked Stagg from the bridge.
“It’s been literally ten seconds. Give her a moment.”
Stagg muttered something but it didn’t go through the communication channel.
“I have access to low level secured systems. I beginning to access the communication equipment.” Said Arik.
The alarms inside the ship began to sound, Derick glanced over at the bridge feed and swore.
Three more imperial ships had dropped out next to the relay.
“The ships are demanding that we transmit valid credentials.” Said Arik still calm.
_”Analysis!” _Barked Stagg.
“Warships identified as a protection detail, comparable firepower to the Imperial!” said the analyst on the bridge.
“We’re scrubbed! Prepare to jump the ship!” said Stagg.
“Arik disengage.” Said Derrick.
“I do this too quickly and they will detect my access. Give me a moment.” Grumbled Arik.
“Damn it, Captain we have to wait a moment! I’m holding the engines ready for a tachyon jump!” said Derrick as he pushed away from the console where Arik was working and over towards the engines.
“Ten seconds.” Said Arik.
She paused, “I have the codes.”
Derrick turned to her, “You were ordered to disengage!”
“Too late, I’m retreating now!” said Arik.
“The enemy ships are opening communication channels. Demanding to know why we are linked to their computer systems!” said an analyst on the bridge.
“Arik!”
“I have disengaged.”
“We’re ready to jump Captain!” said Derrick.
The Canada accelerated, and moving shot towards the Imperial ships. The FTL system activated and they flashed away in a stream of red and blue light.
Two of the large ships turned, and flashed away as well. Leaving a newly minted imperial Captain and confused hauler Captain in their wake.