9 Years, 5 Months, 21 Days After Eridani Landing
Bellona Colony
Pushing off of the wall Ben paused and slowly looked in at the observation room that was a part of the dry dock for the Russia.
This was now the second time had needed to storm the incomplete ship; It was his hope that it was the ship expelling all of her bad luck before she even launched.
“Anything?” asked Jean as she kept her position.
“No, not even the bomb defusal guys.”
“Does that mean this is a setup?” asked Tom.
Ben shook his head, “No just means they’re not crazy enough to pull the maneuver we did. I’m betting they’re still fighting their way through the docks to try and get up here.”
“Oh.”
“Oh.” Repeated Ben.
“Well nothing for it, who wants to take point?”
The three younger humans looked at one another and then at Ben.
“You’re not taking point?” asked Jean.
“I could, but if I get shot who’s going to defuse the nuke? I’m assuming you haven’t had that training yet,” said Ben as he smiled looking at them.
“Uh, no. I can tell you what an optimal yield is for a given situation if you want,” said Hal.
Ben rolled his eyes “Why am I not surprised.”
“I’ll take point,” said Tom as he drifted forwards ahead of Ben.
Ben nodded and tossed his Link to him. “that’s got all of the emergency command codes for the Russia.”
“Why you giving it to me?” asked Tom as he grabbed at the device.
“I can input them all manually if I need too, now let’s go!”
Ben pointed out at the Russia.
Tom blanched for only a second, quickly stowing the Link he glanced back at the others.
“On a count of four follow my lead after each landing, everyone cover missing angles and anyone who’s in flight. We’re heading for the midship airlock of the Russia. Understand?”
“Yes!” said everyone else, and Ben had to keep himself from smiling. It was nice to see how quickly they had snapped into military readiness. They were young and hadn’t yet developed the ability too know one another’s thoughts in an instant and be able to act, but they were getting there.
In a few years they would hardly have to talk to one another to carry out a mission.
Tom turned and diving into the observation chamber raised his weapon as he drifted through it towards the lip of the one open door that led out into the main hanger where the Russia was.
Nothing happened, and the only sound was the blaring of the emergency evacuation alarm in the background.
Tom turned and flipping himself around in the zero-g environment moved so he was now on the outside surface of the door, his feet were hooked around a bar holding him in place as he swung his gun around the large space that the unfinished ship occupied looking for enemies.
Jean followed next on the count of four, drifting up to land where Tom had been only a moment before. Landing she looked around her gun raised.
Tom bending at the knees and building up the needed force to move across the large airgap jumped and began to drift through the air towards the Russia.
Jean flipped up and took his place, raising her gun to scan the large open space looking for anything that might be a threat for them as they moved.
Tom landed on the airlock and raised his gun.
Jean pushed off from the wall and towards the ship, Hal swung up from where he had already landed and took her place.
Ben shook his head and pushing off of the wall followed them in the same succession to the ship, and into it. Using the Link Tom had opened both airlocks and secured the first section of the ship.
“There’s no one?” asked Tom as he kept his gun pointed down the aft of the main corridor and Hal kept his own pointed forwards.
Ben slowly nodded, “Meaning whoever armed the nuke is confident it won’t be disarmed.”
Jean glanced back at Ben, “You were the engineer for the Yamato, the Ark, and you designed this entire ship class. Are you saying you might not be able to disable a nuke?”
Ben cracked his fingers, “Yep. Meaning we might all die. Let’s make sure we don’t take the Fort with us.”
“Meaning?” asked Hal.
“Meaning time for a maiden voyage, you’ve got the command codes go!” Said Ben as he pointed forwards.
The three blinked and paled.
“What?” said Tom.
“I gave you the command codes, get the ship out of the dry-dock and on a trajectory away from Bellona, that way if the nuke does go off we don’t lose the Fort, then throw yourselves in an escape pod and get away from the ship. Got it?”
“What about you sir?” asked Jean.
“We need the communication logs, so I’m going to stay until the last possible second to try and get those. If I can’t disable the nuke of course.”
“We’re not leaving,” began Hal.
Ben raised a hand.
“Yes you are, I’ve got less than two years left in me anyway. You three have got a few decades at least, you’ve got better ways to spend them than dying because of some stupid hacker. Once the ships away you Evac.”
Tom looked at the other two.
“Yes sir.”
“Good, now go!” Ben pointed at the forward section.
The three scrambled launched themselves forwards towards the main control center of the ship which was only a compartment ahead.
Ben turned and grabbing at the handholds of the wall launched himself down towards the aft cargo section which was where heavy ordinance was being stored before it was moved into the armorer sections which were not yet finished.
Drifting into the cargo bay Ben paused and swore.
The nuke was in the center of the room, strung up on several wires. No large display was present, no counter, only a small computer panel that was displaying a signal strength indicator. No doubt if the signal dropped out the nuclear device would detonate.
Drifting towards it Ben slowly examined the warhead it was attached too, the device had completely bypassed all of the internal control systems for the nuclear device and was directly connected to the detonation and fission elements.
The Mark VI generation warheads were two stage nuclear weapons, an ancient design but no less effective. The main advancements in the devices were compactness, the entire warhead and it’s fission material was barely larger than a loaf of bread yet packed enough punch to destroy the entire Fort and send out a damaging EM pulse towards the planet below.
“Just great,” growled Ben.
9 Years, 5 Months, 23 Days After Eridani Landing
The Canada
“Everyone ready?” asked Stagg as she slid into the pilot chair of the shuttle.
“I don’t think I could ever honestly answer yes,” muttered Derrick.
Stagg smiled slightly, “neither can I.”
Arik’s image appeared on the screen in front of Derrick and the engineer frowned. Her clothes were gone, and her skin had been replaced by a pulsating green pattern of waves that made her look like some sort of undulating sea creature given human form.
“What’s with the new look?” asked Derrick.
“I’ve modified my appearance to more closely match one of the few examples of a benevolent AI that is present within their fiction.”
“So we’re not going to tell them you’re still human at heart?”
“I would think not; better they believe that we can create truly sentient AI.”
Derrick nodded in agreement and leaning forwards openly leered at the screen examining her, “So they took the same route as humanity? If you’re going to have AI, make it look hot?”
Arik glared at him, and flicking her wrist quickly tightened the restraints of Derrick’s seat slamming his helmeted head back into his seat with enough force to momentarily daze him.
“He still conscious?” asked Stagg glancing over at him.
“He is, and Captain. While you’re on the surface I’ll be paying attention to all of your requests, and I’ll be.” Arik paused, “more subservient than usual? I guess would be the phrasing, they have enough fiction to rightly fear what a true AI could do.”
“So we’re going to pretend I have some sort of control over you?” asked Stagg dryly.
“I think it would be for the best, as much as it might grate on my nerves.” said Arik her voice level.
Stagg coolly stared back at the nearest camera.
Arik held her gaze for a moment before breaking it and turning away her image disappearing.
“Still have some control it seems even when you’re not acting.”
“I think we’re just giving her reasons to take over the universe at some point in the future,” muttered Derrick as recovering he leaned forwards and quickly plugged in the coordinates and vectors for the decent to the surface of the planet.
“They have name for the planet?” asked Derrick pausing as he looked over the trajectory.
Arik’s image appeared again, “They do, although the translation would make things difficult.”
“As in hard to say?” asked Stagg.
“The planet literally translated is ‘Earth’ or ‘dirt’ if you wanted to be specific.”
Stagg was silent for a beat, “What is it in their language then? No translation.”
“Chront.”
“Chront it is then,” said Stagg.
“We are ready to depart; I would suggest that we move with some haste. The Empire patrol vessel is not far enough out of the system yet to not have picked up on all of the transmissions from the surface. Which have been going haywire to say the least. How the Empire will react to our contacting C1803 I cannot predict.”
“What’s the predominate theory for our visit on Chront?” asked Stagg.
“That first contact will either result in our being friends or their destruction. They are overestimating the amount of power we have however, their current models of physics state that FTL travel would be more difficult than stellar engineering.”
“Well they’re not wrong, Tachyon FTL is cheating the system, and antimatter FTL just breaks physics and makes the universe cry,” said Derrick as he quickly went over the disengage procedure for the shuttle.
With a small thunk the ship detached from the Canada. Thrusters fired pushing it further away before twisting in space the engines pointing towards prograde they fired slowing them.
Stagg glanced at the trajectory and raised an eyebrow, “A little steep on that decent. Flare for the dramatic much?”
Derrick grinned, “Figured a little ablative burn off for dramatic effect would be worth it.”
Slowly they fell away from the Canada and towards the surface.
The ship was silent as they fell. No one was completely sure what should be said, or if they were supposed to talk at all.
Arik had reported that the total population for the planet was close to ten billion. They were at war with one another, but it was not a war of extermination. It was a war where at least where some effort was made to not shed the blood of children or bystanders. Not that every side managed to hold up those ideals, but it was attempted.
Now they were going to tell them that at some point in the very near future aliens, other aliens with far greater technology were going to attack and wipe them out for the simple reason of who they were.
The shuttle rattled, and glancing over at the engineer Stagg couldn’t help but think he was enjoying himself a little too much. They were pushing the ablative tolerance towards it’s limit.
“We’re being broadcasted, and I’m going into signal blackout.”
Arik put a small grainy image up on one of the displays, before her connection dropped out. Small alien text was scrawling along the bottom, other than that the shuttle dominated the view. Zoomed in and shaky the vessel was still on fire even as the shaking stopped inside of it and everything began to calm. The image shook and cut out several times, the compensation algorithms unable to deal with the amount of plasma around the outside of the shuttle as it dove though the atmosphere.
The camera tracking them tried to zoom in even further, but grainy and already at its limit the ship was an indistinct blob.
The shuttle dropped slightly and then the only sound was a low whistling as it fell.
“Alright, we’re out of space. Now we can actually fly!” said Derrick as he activated the flight surfaces and controls which moving out of their protective sheaths for space flight activated turning the brick that was the shuttle into a flying brick.
“We’ve got company!” said Arik.
Derrick glanced down at his radar and smiled the cross section was something he had only ever seen in simulation. A small jet propelled atmospheric only aircraft, “You got their IFF signals?”
“I have all of their military protocols, they’re broadcasting friendly but are instructing us to not deviate from the current flight path towards the island.”
Continuing to dive Derrick glanced at the monitor showing the outside camera feed. The alien aircraft looked remarkably similar to the first generations of fighter jet’s that had been developed on Earth. Which was no great surprise given that similar aerodynamics and gravities were at play.
“You know now I’m regretting the fact we don’t have windows,” said Stagg as she looked out of the monitor as the jet’s pulled up beside them matching the dive but keeping a respectful distance.
Just visible inside of it was the pilot underneath a large clear canopy that was far more exposed than anything that had been used in Earth’s history.
“There are other ways of saying hello though, everyone in the back hold on!” shouted Derrick and taking the controls he carefully raised one side of the shuttle at the aircraft on the port side.
After a pause the aircraft repeated the gesture.
“See friendly wave.”
Stagg said nothing as she frowned.
“I haven’t thought of what I should say first.”
Derrick glanced over at her, “What?”
“I haven’t thought of what I should do or say first. Do I go up and shake hands, say hello we come in peace?”
Looking down at her hand the Captain raised it and quickly made a fist.
“That’s up to you, I get to play host too little miss advanced AI.”
“You know you’re out of communication blackout right? I can hear you,” growled Arik.
“I know.”
The shuttle slowly turned and dove towards the surface of the island which was plainly visible now.
“When you described it as an Island I thought it would be small.” Said Derrick as he looked out at it.
The Island was even at 18,000 meters spreading out towards the horizon. Instead of a large landing strip and perhaps a few small buildings the island was a city, one that rivaled the largest of Earth’s cities in scale.
Derrick had seen pictures of those cities, but had never seen something so large in scale before. His upbringing on Mars and Bellona had acclimated him to space travel and war, but cities were something of a myth to him. A place where millions lived in structures stretching up towards the sky. Lights were constant, and every single person was working to further their own agenda.
Bellona as large as it was and the remnants of humanity was small in comparison, tiny almost. It was mostly underground and despite the number of humans remaining it was a focused coherent whole, working towards the singular goal of destroying the Empire and reclaiming the Sol system.
“It’s the one place that everyone who practices the pseudo-Greek religion resides, they are economically independent from both the Hern and the Pon nations so have managed to maintain growth even throughout the war.”
“Good for them,” said Derrick as he stared out at the city as they fell towards it.
The shuttle continued down, several of the aircraft pulled ahead and in front of them absorbing them into a formation as they slowly turned towards a landing strip that was clearly marked as a large transportation hub given the number of runways and lights present on it, as well as what had to be roads and the train transportation analog of C1803.
“You want to do a classic landing or a full on VTOL?” asked Derrick as they moved down towards the landing strip.
“VTOL, land us right in front of that group of vehicles at the end of the runway.” Said Stagg as she zoomed in one of the monitors on the large group of official looking vehicles and emergency responders.
“Red and green?” asked Derrick as he looked at the flashing lights, “they able to see a different color spectrum?”
“From what I can understand no, it’s simply a preference,” said Arik.
The jet’s around them dove towards the tarmac, the lead jet dove towards the runway landing on it first apparently demonstrating what was wanted.
“Follow the jet, and hover above the ground until he stops.” Said Stagg as she watched it.
“Aye.”
Slowing to a crawl and only a few meters above the surface Derrick glanced up watching as their escort contingent slowing to their minimal speed for only a moment all in sequence once again accelerated and pulled away back up into the air.
Following the jet in front of them to the end of the runway slowing at the same pace the shuttle hovered at the end for a moment, before slowly lowering itself to the ground belly touching the tarmac with only slight bump.
For a moment Derrick, Stagg, and Arik were silent.
“Here it goes I guess,” said Stagg.
“Figured out what you’re going to say?” asked Derrick.
Slowly shaking her head Stagg undid the straps holding her in place and stood. Reaching up she slowly took off her helmet and set it down in her seat.
Walking back through the cargo bay of the shuttle and passing the squad that were strapped into their own seats she went to the main cargo door and took in a calming breath.
“Arik, slow open will you?” she asked.
“Aye.”
The outer ramp door disengaged and the atmospheric purge activated, popping the back hatch of the vessel open with a small puff of gas into the atmosphere.
Arik slowly lowered the ramp, giving the C1803’s the first view of a human.
Stagg looked down the ramp, three people were stranding at the end of it. All three had a deeper shade of reddish skin than what had been shown in the hologram, and the lines of red were nearly black they were so dark running across their skin. The eye’s like a snake’s in structure were expressing more emotion than something reptilian.
The man in the front of the group, dressed in ceremonial looking dark green robes was the least imposing of the three, and looked to be the youngest if human age approximations held any weight.
To his right was a man in what looked very much like an Earth suit, except the cloth going down to the knees in length and without the tie. Around his neck was a simple silver necklace holding a small pendant of some kind. His hair, short and grey gave him a haggard expression that matched the lines in his red face.
The woman on the central man’s left was in a dress that was adorned with flecks of gold material, and reaching to her knees like the mans attire. The dress hung from her shoulders barely betraying what her body was like beneath it, in fact the man in suit showed more definition.
Stagg looked at all of them in quick succession and slowly, deliberately raised her hand. Resisting the urge to divide her fingers between the ring and middle finger she gave them a small wave.
“Hello.”
Her voice echoed across the tarmac without any need for amplification.
The central figure stepped forwards, and repeating her gesture raised his hand as well.
“Renichi.”
Slowly the man lowered his hand until it was parallel from the ground and held out like a human handshake.
Stagg slowly continuing down the ramp hesitated for only a moment as she stepped onto the tarmac. Several lights flashed as she did so, but everyone present ignored them.
Lowering her hand Stagg reached out and placed her hand in the mans, tightening her grip as she did so.
The man’s grip tightened and a small humanlike smile spread across his lips.
Stagg smiled as well.
The crowd erupted in cheers.
Inside the shuttle as it was practically assaulted by the noise Derrick shook his head, “Hello?”
“I didn’t see you coming up with any better suggestions,” said Arik.
“The immortal words of first contact remembered by a species of billions for thousands of years to come. ‘Hello.'”
Derrick broke down into a fit of small stressed laughter.