9 Years, 5 Months, 23 Days After Eridani Landing
Chront – C1803 Home world
Stagg looked across the table at the aliens, the squad that had accompanied her down to the surface were without any obvious weapons, having handed them over to the alien’s military forces. Standing in their more advanced armor helmets only opened and not removed they formed an impressive image against the many armed soldiers standing around the perimeter of the room.
If things did get messy the modern Human armor would protect from anything less than an artillery strike. They could go fist to gun with the aliens and win. Stagg was hoping that wouldn’t be the case however.
Like most negotiation tables on Earth, the one that Stagg was sitting at now was circular. The intent of the design was however defeated by the fact that all of the C1803’s were sitting on one side leaving her alone on the other.
The building was a hanger of some sort, and had been hastily converted to serve as the site for the first contact talks. The media and reporters, or at least that was what Stagg assumed they were had been locked out of the building leaving only the government and military officials, if the stern looks and crisp attire was anything to go by.
A small contingent of people who were dressed in robes were also present, although they wore the same expressions as those in the humanlike, but much longer suits.
In one corner a nervous younger looking C1803 was directing a massive camera recording everything since Stagg and the world leaders had stepped into the building.
“Derrick,”
Derrick stepped forwards, “Yes?”
“Roll out the display, let them get the fascination out of their system before we start.”
Derrick nodded, and reaching up removed his helmet placing it down on the table next to Stagg’s. The alien’s all looked up at that and the rustling of paper and low murmurs quickly died as Derrick reached around and from the small pack on his suit extracted the display material. Quickly unfolding the thin clear material Derrick looked around and slowly placed it on the table, quickly moving to spread it out.
Pushing some of it that had not yet been unfolded over to the other side of the table, one alien aide slowly stepped forwards and put a hand over the material looking at Derrick for guidance.
Derrick slowly nodded and smiled, trying to give as many positive signals as possible.
The aide glancing back at his superiors hesitantly took the material and helped to finish spreading it across the table. The leader in the robes calmly lifted his small notepad that was in front of him up as the woman and older man who were presumably the other leaders lifted the many files and folders they had placed down.
Spread out across the table Derrick nodded, and once again moving slowly he extracted his Link.
“Ready?” asked Derrick.
“I’m ready to play universal translator. You know I’m having to brute force most of this right? I’m using something like 30% of the computers at the moment.”
Derrick ignored her and placed the Link down on the surface.
Arik flashed the screen covering the entire table once, and adjusting to the dimensions of it quickly modified her avatar placing it on the surface next to Stagg, looking across the table at the aliens.
The leaders all flinched away from the table as it switched on, but after several moments seeing nothing else had happened focused their attention on Arik. Display technology was not an alien technology to them, this was simply much more advanced.
“I will be translating for these talks, please do forgive any inaccuracies in translation I am reasonably confident in 95% of my approximations,” her voice, issuing from the display mat was English when directed towards the human, and the alien language on the other side of the table. Listening you could hear both as the sounds echoed around the room.
The man in the center with the robes blinked.
“You know our language?” he asked.
Stagg smiled and looked at the man, “Arik can learn quickly. She had no previous knowledge of it until perhaps a day ago.”
“Oh,” the man in the center leaned back.
The suited man leaned forwards, “Why are you here?” his voice almost furious even through the quick translation.
Stagg smiled thinly at the man, “I think names are appropriate first, I am Captain Katherine Stagg of the Human Space Battleship Canada.”
She looked across the table.
The suited man grunted but leaning forwards spoke first, “I am King Henswick I speak for the people of Certus.”
Stagg nodded and turned to the woman next, sensing that the younger man in the middle was willing to wait.
The woman scowled for only a moment apparently disliking the order of the introductions but quickly recovered.
“I am President Renil of the Fidelin United Nations.”
Stagg again nodded and turned to the man in the center.
“I am Bitus. I represent the people of this island, Paken.” His voice remained more level than the other two too either side of him.
“Now that the formalities are out of the way I will deliver my message. I wish I had more time to establish a more peaceful repertoire and relations, but I come bearing a warning. Your people, all of the people on this planet are the next in line to be targeted for extermination by a species which controls hundreds of star systems. The will not negotiate, and they will not care for politics. You are to them a genetic aberration from what they see as pure, and for that you are less than sentient and deserving of death. At some point very soon they will arrive in orbit with their ships, and rain fire down on every city before moving to the ground with overwhelming numbers and technological advantage to destroy every last member of your species.”
Arik’s translation continued for several moments after Stagg finished speaking, and when her voice died the room was deathly silent.
Henswick very slowly stood up, “Is that a threat?”
Stagg looked over at him, “No, it is a fact.”
Renil glanced at her counterpart and stood as well, “forgive me but that does very much sound like a threat! You come into orbit above our world, and now you threaten us?”
Stagg smiled slightly at that, “I and my crew are the survivors of an encounter with this ‘Empire’ as they call themselves. My species was inhabiting two planets in our solar system when the decided we were unfit to continue existing. We are perhaps 300 years ahead of you in technology, and we stood no chance.”
Stagg gestured down at the display and images of Earth and Mars quickly sprang up at the prompting.
The leaders glanced down, staring at them. The images showed Earth and Mars, both half in day and night. Just visible on the image was the large Station on Mars, lights trailing up it into the sky the city far below it small compared to anything on Earth, but still far larger than Bellona.
“My people, after fighting a war against ourselves were working together to further what we thought was possible. So we turned our attention once more towards the stars and tested a technology we had always thought of as impossible.”
An image of the Longboat IV appeared, quickly followed by an image of it jumping through the first poorly constructed strange matter anti-matter reaction.
“Faster Than Light propulsion, of a kind unknown to the Empire. They detected it’s use, and wanting the technology for themselves laid waste to my planet, my civilization.”
Images of New York city flashed onto the screen, showing the exact moment when the Empire biological weapon had hit.
The alien world leaders watched as the same horror played out again and again. Humans who had been going about their lives on Earth falling down in horror as their skin was at first consumed, falling to the ground mothers clutched at children trying in vain to protect them. As the skin was eaten away people literally spilled out onto the streets and the ground, before the weapon still continuing on its task consumed and burned anything human leaving behind only ash.
Stagg kept her eyes locked on the world leaders, she had seen the images far too many times. Yet she was not immune to what they showed. Much to her relief, the naked violence at least cracked the visages of control on each leader’s face, they were not without compassion at least.
One or two of the people in the room turned away from the display loosing whatever had been their last meal.
“That is what humanity suffered, only those who were in space or on our other world had any chance of survival, and even that was limited.”
The image shifted to ships in orbit above earth, the fleet’s being destroyed by the single sinuous Empire vessel. Beams of energy carving through the human vessels with ease, before the camera feed cut out.
The last images were of the battle above Mars, and of the Station being flung off into deep space, the Yamato performing a suicide jump into the alien ship. The images cut as the Ark performed her jump.
“My species numbers at 500,000 people, that is all we have left. This Empire killed 15.2 billion of my kind. We are not on their side,” growled Stagg letting real anger bleed into her words.
The three world leaders looked at one another and then back at the final images.
Bitus leaned forwards, “Forgive me, but you truly did nothing to provoke this kind of attack? Even our most heinous atrocities pale in comparison to this kind of wholesale slaughter, saying that another sentient species is capable of this kind of violence is,” he paused for a moment, “disturbing.”
“We did not even know that intelligent alien life existed until they attacked and decimated our world.”
Bitus nodded and leaned back into his seat, “So you come to our world to inform us we are going to die?” asked Bitus as he closed his eyes.
Renil snorted, a sound incongruous with her otherwise poised appearance, “I do not care if they are from the stars the Fidelin people will not fall. We are prepared for biological, chemical, and nuclear missile attacks! We have nothing to fear from these aliens.”
Stagg looked at the woman, “Alright.”
Bitus shook his head very slowly but turned instead to Henswick, “and you? Do you feel so confident as well?”
Henswick hesitated, “We are prepared for war at any moment as well, but if what I have seen is true,” he gestured at the display.
“Then we have a fight on our hands, assuming this is all true of course.”
Bitus turned back to Stagg, “You have informed us of the threat, but why have you done this?”
Stagg tapped her hand on the tabled for a few moments, “My species has often envisioned reaching out towards the stars, and although our world has almost constantly been mired in war we had always hoped to find peace beyond it. We envisioned meeting aliens far stranger than ourselves, with art, culture and society we could learn from. We wanted to meet the strange, and explore the new and unique. That has not been the case, instead what I left of my race resides in an alien star system struggling to survive. So, I would at least like to try and warn you to what will be coming so you could avoid this fate. I also have a small request.”
Renil jumped forwards at that, “A request?”
Stagg looked back at the woman as coolly as she could.
“My ship and crew represent the first foray into Empire space since we retreated into an unknown system nearly ten years ago to recover from the near genocide of my people. We have the most advanced weapons and technology, some of it build specifically to combat the Empire. Because of that however most of it is experimental and thus unstable.”
Stagg turned to look at Derrick and the engineer swallowed nervously but stepped forwards, “One system is essentially a very precisely tuned magnetic field generator, which prevents the Empire ships from raising their energy-plasma based defenses through which none of our weapons can penetrate. With this defense down even your own weapons would be able to wreak significant damage on an Empire vessel.”
Derrick gestured at the table and a crude schematic of the Ace appeared.
“The device is essentially a complex electromagnet, and not even that complex to build. It is my hope that you will be able to construct additional units which we can then place in orbit and use as a means to help defend your planet from the Empire.”
Renil let a cruel grin spread across her lips, which allowed the humans to for the first time see that the C1803’s had far more canine teeth than a human would have.
“And if we refuse to do this?” she asked.
Stagg looked across the table.
“We would hope that you would acquiesce to taking possession of a beacon we have, a flight recorder that details all discoveries about the Empire we have made and give it to our people should they ever find you. We will then attempt to head off the Empire ships as they travel towards your world with the intent to destroy you, and most likely be destroyed.”
Renil seemed taken aback at that.
Bitus steepled his fingers, and Derrick noticed for the first time that they had four, three fingers and a thumb.
“You are going to try and stop this from happening even if we do not help you?” he asked.
Stagg nodded, “We are. My ship is designed to combat the Empire specifically, but still it is only a prototype and is only a single ship. Our ability to disable their shields is our only advantage, weapons technology, energy generation, ship size and maneuverability, we are outclassed in nearly every other category.”
“Why though?” asked Bitus.
Stagg grimaced, “I and my crew watched our own home world be destroyed. We cannot sit by and watch as another planet is destroyed. We have little chance of success even with your assistance, we do not now when the Empire will attack. Given that we have warned you they might accelerate their plans, or delay them. The lives of my crew are worth giving the ten billion on your world another day if we can.”
Henswick leaned forwards, “this beacon you would leave with us, would it contain information about your ships and weapons technology?”
Stagg turned to slowly glower at the man, “It would, but the information would be heavily encrypted and protected by our AI.”
Stagg gestured down at Arik, who glanced back up at her unsure where this was going.
“She would retain control of the data to ensure it is not misused, your nations are already on the brink of war. I came here to save your planet, not destroy it. If our ship is destroyed, and you are able to advance to a stage where you can be trusted with the data inside the beacon she will give it to you.” Said Stagg.
Bitus glanced down at Arik, “She is truly an AI?”
Arik moved across the table until she was in front of the three, “I am, but I am still human. We know from our own history that even if the three of you pledge to never use this data, our weapons and technology against one another someone will eventually gain access to it for nefarious purposes.”
“You do not consider this magnetic disruptor one such technology?” asked Bitus looking up from Arik.
Derrick shrugged, “The designs will give you a few insights into other fields of technology, but they are themselves simple. The truly complex part of the device is the computer code which runs it, something that took even our most talented engineers and our AI years to develop. No computer on your world would be able to run it and will not be able to do so for at least a century.”
Bitus picked up his pen and wrote something on his pad.
“Very well. I think we have many things to discuss, Captain what is your intention towards informing our people of what you have just told us? If your earlier transmissions are any indication, you could broadcast this information to our entire planet with ease.”
“I’ll give your governments time to formulate how you will tell your people, I am aware of the panic that could be incited by this information. I will stress however that if you do not inform your people and demand we leave, we will make a broadcast pleading for you to put your differences aside and prepare for the real threat.”
Renil stood up, “You would subvert our authority?”
“I would to try and save you, Earth was once divided and at war like you are. You must look back on your own history and think those old wars were stupid. This one now, between members of the same species? When the Empire wants to exterminate you is purely idiotic!”
“That does not give you the right!” Renil shouted.
“I have the right to save as many lives as I can President! If I wanted to I could use my single, inferior ship compared to the Empire to force you to work with your enemies, and force you to give us what we need to defend your world. My single ship could in a day decimate every city on this planet, but I refuse to do so. I came here to save lives!”
Stagg sighed and leaned back into her seat as she wearily continued, “As a sign of goodwill I am going to share with you parts of my planet’s history and culture.”
Stagg gestured at one of the squad members behind her who stepping forwards placed a Link in front of each of the world leaders.
“We don’t have the ability to print anything, and your computer systems are archaic in comparison to our own. I wouldn’t recommend trying to disassemble the devices, they will self-destruct and the data inside of them will be lost if you do so.”
Bitus was the first to pick up the Link, looking over the device he put on a wry smile.
“All of your worlds history and culture can fit in this? Even our best estimations of a computer capacity are not anywhere near this small.”
“Not all of it a significant portion though, enough to keep scholars occupied for lifetimes.”
The other two took their Link’s without further comment.
“They also serve as communication devices,” said Stagg.
Derrick pointed at the screen as he picked up his own Link. Arik blinked away from the surface, furthering the illusion that she wasn’t actually able to connect directly to it.
“This contains the schematics your engineers might need to build more of the devices like we requested.”
“Thank you,” said Bitus.
Derrick glanced down hearing the sound now in his earpiece and not from the display on the table.
“While we discuss this, is there anything my nation might be able to provide?” asked Bitus.
Stagg glanced back at the squad and Derrick.
“We would all very much like to see the ocean, a forest. We have been in space for months, and Humanities current refuge in the stars offers very little in the way of wildlife or warmth. Some of our children are growing up not even knowing the sounds of the wind, only the sound of artificial atmospheric recyclers.”
The words were coming from Stagg’s helmet now.
Bitus slowly nodded absorbing the words and turned back around gesturing at a woman in robes similar to his own, “My aide will accommodate any of your requests, with the help of my comrades as well it seems.” Said Bitus a small smile on his face as the aides for Henswick and Renil stepped forwards as well.
“We’ll leave you to discuss matter’s then,” Stagg turned away from the table, and the woman in the robes looking only slightly nervous pointed towards the exit to the hanger which led back out onto the tarmac where the shuttle was waiting.
Stagg and Derrick dropped into step behind her and the squad took up the rear.
At the entrance the men were given back their weapons, which the C1803 soldiers had been superstitiously looking over for the entire meeting but had done nothing with.
Stepping back out Stagg winced as the lights from hundreds of camera’s flashed and a throng of people behind a barricade almost surged forward through the military personnel keeping them at bay.
“You know it’s comforting that at least the media is crazy on any world,” said Derrick as he looked over at the media a smile on his face.
Stagg snorted, “And you’re not just enjoying the attention?”
Derrick smiled and opened his mouth to say something else, when a small crack rang out through the air.
Stag stumbled backwards, something having impacted the armor on her chest.
Derrick standing next to her fell to the side, blood pouring from an injury on his head.
“Shuttle now!” shouted Stagg as the crowds began to scream, the military personnel moved in towards someone hidden in them, and she donned her helmet sealing it.
Grabbing Derrick’s feet, and waiting for only a half moment for someone else to grab his arms Stagg jogged towards the Shuttle which was only a few meters away.
“Derrick!” the voice of Arik shouted form every device around them, including those of the C1803’s
“Derrick!” repeated Arik, this time her voice echoing through every device on the planet, her image splayed across every transmission for a half second as she forced her program into every avenue of data input to try and see what was happening on the surface of the alien world.
Stumbling up into the shuttle Stagg unceremoniously dropped Derrick down onto the deck plates. The squad with guns raised and retreating all quickly followed and hit the hatch seal, effectively cutting them off from the alien world.
“Arik all security measure on full, no more aggressive action!” shouted Stagg even as she reached into her vest pocket and grabbing a medical gauze pad slapped it onto Derrick’s head.
“Scanner!” Shouted Stagg.
A squad member who had already ripped off his helmet had the device in his hand, and leaning down carefully passed it over Derrick’s head.
“No blood – brain layer breech, he’s cleared for nano-mahcines!” he said after a moment.
Stagg stabbed the needle into the young engineer’s neck.
Everyone waited with baited breath for a moment, before the man with the scanner breathed a sigh of relief.
“Stabilizing.”
Stagg looked down absentmindedly as the wound slowly began to knit itself together. Glancing down at her own armor she could see the place where the shot had glanced off of her armor. No doubt enough to the kinetic energy had been bled off their, and the bullet had then bounced off of Derrick’s skull.
“Ranmin, juinil arnt youvan ka?”
Stagg blinked and looked up, the person who had helped haul the engineer into the shuttle was the aide for Bitus, her green robes were stained darker with the color of Derrick’s blood.
“Shit,” muttered Stagg as she glanced at the closed shuttle hatch.
9 Years, 5 Months, 21 Days After Eridani Landing
Bellona Colony
Ben taking a breath looked at the internals of the nuclear device for another moment before drifting over to the Comm panel quickly entered his wife’s contact channel.
“Ben? You make it up there?” came her quick question.
“I did, commandeered some recruits from Red and James. They get to fly the Russia out while I disarm the nuke.”
“Only two of the engine clusters are functioning.”
“Oh, well they’re going to have to redline them to get us moving then. More work for us to fix.”
“Yay! Assuming you don’t blow yourself up.”
Ben smiled, “I’m assuming that yeah. You know, thinking positive.”
“Good idea, now you called me why? I’m helping Night get into the gun controls.”
“I need you to look up the specs on the Mark VI warhead, at lease tell me if it’s like the Terran Mark IV’s in terms of firing assembly,” said Ben as he poked around the casing of the explosive carefully avoiding touching any of the wires that led to its new firing computer.
The communication line was silent for several moments as Megan looked through the data, and he heard swearing on the other end of the line.
_”Unless you’ve got three hours, which I doubt you’re better going after the firing computer to disarm it instead of disassembly. We built these things to be thrice redundant, and detonate even if only two thirds of the explosives in each redundant pack go off to cause the nuclear detonation.” _
Ben swore and looked at the modified computer panel hanging on the front of the device.
“I’m betting the computer panel will be set to go off it I tamper with it or the anchors holding it to the walls.”
Ben frowned and looked around the room, and through the small gaps that were going to be covered by the outer hull as soon as that was complete.
“Alright, scratch that then.”
Ben hit the Comm panel again, “Kid’s we really need to get this thing moving!” shouted Ben.
“We’re working on it!” said Tom through the communication channel.
“Well hurry it up, don’t be afraid to break things! I’m about to do a lot worse!”
Ben heard the Fusion plant kick itself into an emergency start routine and the small cracks from breakers inside the ship were thrown more delicate or incomplete circuits being flipped.
“Well this will be one hell of a load test,” muttered Ben.
“What are you thinking?” asked Megan.
“They’ve anchored the bomb to the compartment, but with the ships skeleton exposed and no hull plating I’m bettering I can detach the entire compartment from the ship along her impact sheer points.”
“That might actually work.”
Ben frowned, “You’re not calling me crazy, now I’m not so sure I like this plan.”
“No, it’s crazy but I can’t think of anything better.”
Ben smiled now and looking around spotted the plasma torch and welding supplies.
Picking it up Ben pushed off of the nearest wall and towards the first sheer point which was still exposed. The design of human ships was still geared towards kinetic weapons attacks, and as such noncritical sections of the ship were designed to be torn away form the core if impacted hard enough. It was feature that was only utilized once most of the outer hull had been compromised as the sections were sealed inside of that, but it allowed for last ditch kinetic absorption. The breaking of the sheer points would lessen the kinetic energy translated to the rest of the ship when a section was hit and separated from the ship.
“Kids! We need to evacuate the air from this compartment before you blast us through the doors!” shouted Ben as he flicked the plasma torch on.
“Right, stop calling us kids!” Shouted Jean.
Ben smiled and shaking his head attacked the first sheer point.
Jean frowned and turned back to Tom and Hal who were at the other control panels of the half-finished ships bridge.
“Either of you know how to do that?”
Hal thought for a moment, “I think so.”
Reaching over into one of the tool chests strapped to the floor Hal pulled out two long fuel tanks and looking around saw a mass of trash inside a bag. Grabbing the trash and shoving the two fuel tanks into it Hal quickly exited the bridge and opening a small personnel airlock just outside of it, pushed the bag out.
“What are you doing?” asked Tom as he poked his head out of the bridge just in time to see Hal raise his weapon and fire through the airlock.
A loud explosion sounded rocking the ship.
Alarms within the large dry-dock sounded and Hal smiled.
“Emergency decompress, you know for fires. If someone’s not around to stop the cycle all of the air will be gone in three minutes.”
“It’s disturbing how well you know that.”
Hal shrugged.
Moving back into the bridge and checking their helmets Tom hesitantly settled into the pilot’s seat again.
Jean glanced over at him from the power control station, and Hal looking up from the engineering console.
“How did I end up here again? An hour ago I was asleep,” muttered Tom as he tried to sort out everything in front of him.
“Compulsory military training,” said Jean a smile in her voice.
Made a strangled growl like noise, “I know how to fly shuttles, but this is an HSB! She doesn’t even have all of the sensors to tell me what’s going on with her engines or which way we’re pointing!”
“We need to go that way,” said Hal pointing forwards.
Tom threw him a glare, but said nothing as he cycled the engines trying to figure out which clusters were even working.
“That one!” said Jean both as the ship moved slightly and the power usage statistics in front of her spiked.
“Right, so engine clusters 3 and 7 are working. The computers aren’t up for running asymmetric thrust vectors without their sensors working, meaning I get to do it, yay!”
The Comm channel crackled, “Hey kids know how I said we just need to get away from the Fort? Well I need us to be on a trajectory at for Big Blue, I’ve got something we need to drop off.”
Tom swore.
“So even Ben can’t disable the nuke?” asked Jean.
“Sounds like it,” said Hal.
Tom ignored them and tried the engines again, the ship violently shook but didn’t move.
“I said break things! I’m ordering you to wreck this ship if you need too, get us moving!” barked Ben through the Comm channel.
“I’m diverting emergency power to the engine’s you should have 125% of normal output. Hal,”
“I’m already ramping up the coolant system, I can tell you there is a huge leak somewhere though we’re losing pressure like crazy. It’s now or never,” said Hal.
“Now or never,” muttered Tom as he with a shake of his head redlined the engines.
The HSB Russia shook, and with a screech of metal unheard in the near vacuum of the dry-dock area lurched forwards. Communication and diagnostic lines snapped, the line that the engineers used to move back and forth to the ship stretched pulling off a piece of hull.
The hull plates that had been installed a weak ago around the mooring points on the hull squealed and held, pulling the mooring arm from the Fort dry-dock along. Several more metallic plates bent as pressure’s increased.
Like every other HSB class ship, and like her namesake the Russia was steadfast and hardy. More damage was done to the dock than to the incomplete ship as she slowly drifted forwards.
“That’s the spirit!”
“You know; I think he’s insane.” Said Tom as he looked up at the monitor in front of him and the main dry-dock doors they were very quickly moving towards.
“Him? You’re the one who wanted to fly the thing!” said Jean.
Tom turned around to argue, just as the Russia hit the doors.