Tertiary Complex
8 Years 2 months 4 days after Eridani Landing
“I’m the commander of this base.” Said Edie speaking into the alien communicator that the aliens had provided.
“Edie? Correct?” asked Maunt over the radio channel.
“Commander Edie, and your name is?”
“Captain Maunt, we have a mutual problem Commander.”
“We do, and I’m going to ask that unless you are absolutely sure you can jump to FTL without being noticed by the patrol vessel you don’t. We have hidden from cursory scans and general investigations from other patrols in the past but then they have had no reason to focus on us before.”
_ “I’m not willing to condemn you but our vessel alone will attract their attention. Attempting to move to another orbit will again only attract attention. I have no intention of drawing them to you but should that occur and they manage to call in reinforcements I will not sacrifice my ship and crew to keep you hidden.”_
“I wouldn’t ask that of you in any case. You have yours to protect, and I have mine.”
“I’m open to suggestions for courses of action that might allow us both to remain undetected.”
“As am I.” said Edie looking up around the cargo bay at the assembly of aliens and humans, warriors and civilians. “Anyone?”
Allen looked around the group, “Can’t we fire at them? You’ve been modifying the Cannon to punch through the shield technology they use.”
Chang shook his head, “That’s theoretical, and they’d have to be within a few thousand kilometers for us to get an effective shot. The Cannon was designed to attack terrestrial targets or large orbital structures. You can detect the gun firing throughout the entire system, and that information propagates at light speed! The projectile isn’t even going a tenth of that. If the ship’s not within a few thousand kilometers, they can simply move out of the way without much effort.”
“Ah,” said Allen, “Didn’t think of that.”
“Can you transport objects through your FTL envelope?” asked Dr. Leon stepping forward towards the Vakurians.
“What?” asked Drienil her ears going up curious about what the human was suggesting.
“With the antimatter FTL jump that the Ark employed, only one ship needed the FTL drive systems it created the spatial rupture, and then the rest of the fleet was able to travel through it. Could you do that with your method of FTL? We would fire the projectile, and you transport it and its kinetic energy faster than the muzzle flash of the cannon to the patrol ship?” asked the Dr. Leon.
Drienil frowned considering his proposal for a moment, ignoring the absolute absurdity of it.
“No.” she said slowly, “The Tachyon fields extend only half meter or so from the hull, and in any case even with a tachyon beacon our exit vector from FTL is in no way accurate enough to aim a weapon at something as small as a patrol vessel. To say nothing of the danger of attempting to match speeds with your kinetic weapon projectile.”
Dr. Leon nodded, already absorbing the information and trying to think of something else.
“We draw them in, and then fire the weapon.” Said Chang.
Klyn nodded in agreement, “Lure them into a trap. The Valiant could easily destroy the patrol vessel even without your assistance. We would not however be able to do so quickly; they would be able to transmit a distress call.”
“What’s the response time?” asked Chang.
“Hours.”
“And if we can destroy them before they send that?”
“Patrol vessels make regular contact with the Empire only every four days days or so.”
“So that only buys us time before another investigating ship comes to the system looking to the missing ship,” grumbled Chang.
Klyn’s ears wobbled in agreement, “Yes. I’m looking at surviving this encounter at the moment however.”
“Would you be willing to evacuate?” asked Maunt over the communicator he had been listening along with the bridge crew of the Valiant.
Edie looked around at the other humans in the room.
“I would prefer not to, your species as understanding as you have been is still alien. Not to mention that along with the Moon their might be other human strongholds left in the Sol system. I hesitate to abandon them.”
Edie paused and sighed, “I am not refusing the offer, but it is not my preferred action.”
“Agreed, I would suggest that we should attempt to hide, how to accomplish that I am not sure.”
“The reactor, how well can you shield against gamma radiation?” asked Peter.
“We can block significant amounts we sometimes need to salvage broken irradiated reactor components and casings. Why?” asked Drienil.
“We’ve kept our reactor output at a minimal during every patrol, we’re facing away form them at the moment but eventually they’ll move into our cone of emissions or we’ll rotate into it. Point is if we’re suddenly outputting an extremely high amount of ionizing gamma radiation,”
“It’ll look like a reactor breech,” said Drienil, “Or at least a fission reactor breech, why would you have a fission reactor though?”
Peter grimaced, “We have both setups. Fission and Fusion, for common use we rely on the fusion reactor. The gun was designed to run for as long as possible without fuel replenishment however, Phobos is so small that we only had so much secure storage space for hydrogen. The fission reactor allows us to switch to higher energy density fuel.”
Drienil nodded, “Clever, most ships can replenish hydrogen stores easily enough via interstellar medium and gas giants. A base that was designed to be self sustaining however, it is an ingenious solution. If somewhat dangerous considering the fact you must shield for radiation from external and internal elements.”
Peter grinned, “I’ve had fun sitting on to of several hundred kilograms of fissile material.”
Klyn let out a small chuckle, “Ranlin, you have understated how insane humans are.”
“As crazy as they might be, they have a way of convincing you they are not.”
“Which only reinforces the fact they are insane.”
The humans were all looking at the two small smiled tugging at their lips. Peter cleared his throat and continued.
“We can replicate the signature of a breached reactor easily enough. We’ve seen a few of the Martian fission reactors fail over the years, all your ship has to do is sit on top of the reactor.”
“The heat of our vessel will look like the reactor which combined with the radioactive output will hopefully drown us from the scans. Optical scans will be the only avenue of detection.” Said Klyn.
“And I doubt they will be eager to get very close!” said Peter.
The two looked at one another for a moment and then turned to Edie.
Her eyebrows were up and she was looking between the two, “Did you catch all of that Captain?” she asked.
“I did, and my specialists are arguing over the details already.”
Edie smiled, “I’m sure mine will as well. At the moment this appears to be the most prudent course of action, agreed?”
“Agreed, I’ll begin to maneuver my vessel towards your base to mask ourselves.”
“I need to modify the reactor.” Said Peter.
“We’ll need to shore up radiation shielding as well, the base was built on the premise that a fission reactor failure would be worst case scenario and evacuation would be needed.” Mused Dr. Leon.
Allen perked up at that, “That I know how to do! How much radiation exposure are we talking about, and what materials do you have on hand?”
Edie held up a hand, “One moment. There are I’m guessing hundreds of things to sort out.”
“Thousands,” deadpanned Chang.
“The most critical thing at the moment is the Valiant lowering her orbit and landing on top of the reactor so she can hide. To do that we need liaisons from both parties in two locations to smooth any misunderstandings over and speed things up,” said Edie ignoring Chang.
Klyn and Chang looked at one another, “I’m good going up to their ship,” said Chang.
“I would like to go up as well,” said Dr. Leon.
“I can stay here and coordinate with the Valiant,” said Ranlin.
“Would you be fine here alone?” asked Drienil.
Ranlin glanced at her friend and then back towards Allen and the other humans.
“I think I’ll be fine.”
Drienil’s ears slowly moved in a circle as she stared at the younger woman for a moment.
“Have fun. Do make sure you get your work done though.”
Ranlin’s face went slightly green as she blushed but otherwise she said nothing.
“Is this acceptable?” asked Edie turning to the communicator.
“It is, although we do need to hurry.”
Edie waved her hand at Chang and Dr. Leon, “Go!”
The two men, scientist and solider paused for only a moment before stepping up onto the ramp leading to the alien ship.
Dr. Leon pitched forwards as he entered the cabin hitting the metal with a resounding crash. Chang stumbled and collapsed down to a knee.
“We didn’t turn the gravity down,” muttered Klyn.
Drienil rushed up the ramp, “Are you alright?”
Chang gasping stood up straight and rolled his shoulders, “Yeah, we’ve been in almost zero-g for a decade. As much damage as the nano-machines can mitigate it’s still a shock. Give me a minute.”
The man pitched forwards onto the deck again and groaned as he hit now flat on his stomach.
“Or you know a few minutes.”
“Will they be able to recover?” asked Drienil turning to Edie.
She hopped up into the air looking into the shuttle’s compartment. Both men were breathing and already Chang was trying to get to his feet again.
“They will be. We’ve got no time to be nice about this in any case.”
“True.” Stepping over them men she moved towards the cockpit.
Klyn stepped up into the ship, “I thought humans were supposed to be tough.” He said leaning down next to Chang.
“Fuck you.”
“I’m guessing the word that didn’t translate was profanity?”
“Ugh.” Muttered Chang.
Klyn looked back down the ramp at Ranlin and reaching into his vest drew out a small handgun.
Peter tensed and moved in front of Edie, an action to protect his commanding officer and friend rather than actually thinking she would need protection.
Klyn glanced at him but said nothing his eyes snapping back to Ranlin.
“Nothing I can say will convince you otherwise?” he asked.
Ranlin glanced at Allen and then back at Klyn. The other humans in the room were unable to pick up on the meaning of the words beyond the immediate context.
“No,” muttered Ranlin.
“Will you take a gun at least?”
Ranlin considered him for a moment, “No. If I need one then I’ve been entirely wrong about humans and we’re in trouble. In any case I’m not sure I would be able to match one in a fight.”
Klyn sighed and his ears drooped.
“Fine. You had better take care of her!” he shouted turning to look at the Human Commander.
“She’ll be well accommodated, save for perhaps good meals. We have little food on hand.”
Reaching under a seat Klyn grabbed a bag and kicked it down the ramp, “We were going to have a proper meal together to broker peace; Ranlin’s suggestion, it’s apparently a tradition we both have. If you don’t like the food she can at least eat well.”
Klyn hit the ramp control for the shuttle and it slowly began to close.
Ranlin muttered something under her breath,
“Want to explain that?” asked Allen.
“He’s being Klyn.”
Edie glanced over at the alien woman, the implications hanging their were obvious enough. Allen and Peter looked at one another both a little confused by the exchange.
“Peter, undo the straps. You two,” Edie looked at Allen and Ranlin.
“Let’s get to work.”
“We have some amount of spare shielding in storage, but not a large amount this base was hewn from the asteroid, and filled in.”
“You don’t happen to know the rating of the foam used to fill in the void between the pressure vessel compartments and the rock do you?” asked Allen as he tapped at the side of the corridor.
Edie frowned, “No, I’m having Dr. Mal retrieve the specifications from computer memory. Does the foam really matter?”
“Kind of, at least with Terran designed components the foam depending on what type was used can offer 10% to perhaps 12% radiation exposure reduction rates.”
“Best to assume higher, the Martian’s had to shield against radiation exposure in everything even ground based dwellings on the surface.”
Allen nodded, “True enough but if we’re going to be sitting next to a gamma source to mask ourselves from scanners I doubt we want to plan our exposure rates on guesswork.”
“No, I would hope not.” Said Edie in agreement.
Allen turned and looked at the commander of the Phobos Cannon, “I’m offering suggestions, this is about the only thing I actually know how to do. During the war I helped remodel some of the Lunar bases. That was for kinetic strikes mostly though, not radiation.”
“Why not radiation?” asked Ranlin curious.
Edie glanced back at the alien, “Humans don’t like to use radiation as a weapon. We barely used nuclear weapons during the war, and antimatter weapons were only ever a deterrent. The war between Earth and Mars as violent as it was, could have been far worse. Both sides endeavoured to attack only military targets. Radiation cannot be wielded so precisely.”
“The Rules of War?” asked Ranlin remembering something she had seen in the Lover’s shuttle database.
“Precisely.”
“It is a strange idea, to limit yourselves in a conflict. I would think that no matter the cost one side would want to win.”
Allen looked over at her, “We needed them, else we would have destroyed ourselves long ago. People have violated the rules, even nations have done so on occasion.”
“And the penalty for doing so?” asked Ranlin.
“Is severe. A member of both the Martian and Terran forces was expected to flat out refuse an order which would have had them commit such acts. No matter who gave it.”
Ranlin looked at Edie, “You expect your soldiers to disobey?”
“If I asked them to commit an atrocity, yes. Your species doesn’t have a similar code?”
Ranlin’s ears moved up and down slowly, “No, not to say that soldiers have not disobeyed before. The punishment however for doing so is,” she swallowed, “Severe.”
Allen and Edie glanced at one another.
“The Vakurian destroyed their world in nuclear warfare before the aliens ever showed up, from what I gathered the nations that instigated the attacks against one another were brutal and racist. They had been at war for hundreds if not thousands of years,” muttered Allen.
Edie’s eyes went up at that and she turned to look at the diminutive alien in a new light. Ranlin for her part met the female commanders gaze, trying hard not to let herself flinch away from it.
“Well that’s reassuring on some level I suppose.”
Ranlin’s eyes went wide, “What?”
“You can fight at least, and if your species had the will to employ nuclear weapons in an all out assault you are in some ways more ruthless than Humanity.”
Ranlin’s ears swung around in distress as the two humans looked at her, “I fail to see how that’s a good thing.”
“We’re going to need ruthlessness if we’re going to destroy the aliens.”
Ranlin’s mouth fell open as both humans continued to drift down through the corridor, it took both of them a moment to notice that she had stopped.
Hooking a hand around a bar inlaid on the wall Edie casually cancelled her forward momentum and whipping around turned to face Ranlin. Allen did the same although with significantly less grace, more accustomed to the gravity of the moon than Phobos which was almost zero.
“You want to destroy the Empire?” she asked.
The two humans looked at one another, “Why wouldn’t we?” asked Allen.
It took Ranlin a moment to martial her thoughts into a coherent argument.
“I suppose you should want to destroy them, but Commander Edie you stated it as if it were fact that you would be able to destroy them.”
Edie shrugged, “we might do it in a hundred years or a thousand, but the attack on Humanity was a unifying focus for us. Like the early days of colonization of Mars it is a goal that the entirety of humanity is invested in. If that consists of only those few who are left in the Sol system or hopefully the full might of those who managed to escape with the Ark fleet, it is a goal and dream we will not let go of. Humanity has a way of brining to fruition that which we want. Just ten years ago FTL technology and aliens were nothing but scribbled equations and fiction. Now? They’re reality and part of our daily life.”
Ranlin’s ears slowly moved as she absorbed the explanation. “That is a unique view point.”
“That’s a human view point.”
Ranlin slowly nodded, “I suppose so. Still it is odd. No one within the fleet has even considered the possibility that we might defeat the Empire. They hold hundreds if not thousands of systems, their technology is decades ahead of anything we can conceive, and they consider us to be animals deserving of slaughter.”
“So they think they can’t lose?” asked Edie.
“How could they lose?”
“Well that’s a relief then, that confidence leaves them vulnerable.” Edie sighed, “Still this isn’t exactly important at the moment. If we’re going to have any chance at beating them we need to survive this encounter.”
Ranlin glanced up as another human drifted out of the doorway further down the hall, a male in attire similar to that of Dr. Leon.
“You’re insane!” he said glaring at Edie.
Ranlin’s eyes went wide as the man pushed off of the wall and shot down towards them, his body going parallel to the floor as he moved. It seemed as if all the humans on the base were adept at maneuvering in the almost weightless environment.
“We bring an alien into the base that’s exuding some unknown pheromone, we’re going to have their ship landing right on top of us and you want to pump gamma radiation out of the fission reactor!?”
“This is Dr. Mal,” said Edie ignoring the man’s rant and introducing him to the other two.
Ranlin held a hand out to the man, “Hello!” she said without the translator which introduced an accent that made even the single word of the human language almost more lyrical than it had any right to be.
Dr. Mal glared at her for only a half moment, and tried not to stare at her ears which moved back and forth in what could only be interpreted as apprehension. The effect was disarming even to the irate scientist.
“Uh, hello.” Dr. Mal put his hand out and shook Ranlin’s.
“What part of the plan is insane besides the entirety of it?” asked Edie.
Dr. Mal turned back around to the commander, and shaking his head to regain his train of thought pulled out his Link and held it up. The image displayed on it was familiar to everyone but Ranlin, although she was quickly able to ascertain that it was a reactor of some sort based on the circular design.
“We can’t make the reactor look like its been breached and it’s pumping out radiation without actually breaching the reactor and having it actually pump out radiation.”
Edie pursed her lips, “So no funneling of the radiation up and out?”
“We can channel it somewhat with shielding materials but that’s not going to do much.”
“Depending on what you have maybe a 60% reduction, assuming that the rock of Phobos and the tunnel cuts into it are similar to Earth’s moon structures and that the Martian radiation shielding material is comparable.”
Dr. Mal glanced over at Allen, “Uh, yes about that. The calculations I ran only had it up to about 50% reductions.”
“You got to now how to finesse the shielding, but if we’re going to be dealing with gamma radiation theirs only so much we can do. Everyone’s going to have to double up on nano-machines,” said Allen.
“You have experience with this?” asked Dr. Mal.
Allen grinned, “On the practical side. I let people far smarter than me figure out the exact amount of shielding needed for areas. Here though? I’m assuming I don’t have a budget and you don’t care how pretty the shielding looks?” asked Allen turning to Edie.
“No, not particularly.”
Allen clapped his hands together, “Right. I need anyone who’s got welding experience and I’ll need access to all of the shielding and water reserves you have.”
“Dr. Mal; you want to show our contractor what he has to work with?” asked Edie.
“Sure.”
“When will we need to breach the reactor and start spitting out radiation?” asked Edie.
Dr. Mal frowned and glanced back down at his Link, “If we want Phobos to look like this breech happened a while ago and assuming the patrol vessel follows earlier patterns of investigating Earth first before moving here fourteen hours.”
Allen groaned, “This is going to be a hack job then. Let’s go!” he said grabbing the scientist and using strength that was normal for a 1/8 th gravitational environment but not the near weightlessness of Phobos tossed the scientist down the corridor.
Edie raised an eyebrow at his eagerness but said nothing.
Allen paused as Dr. Mal straightened himself out and turned back to look at Ranlin, “Will you be OK with the Commander?”
Ranlin nodded, “I’ll be fine,” the absolute last thing she wanted at the moment was for him to leave her. As things stood she was fighting her own urges, wanting nothing more than to drag Allen into a compartment and not leave for several days, the awkwardness of the gravity be damned.
Still her own urges were at the moment inconsequential.
“You sure?” asked Edie.
“I’m sure.”
Ranlin’s communicator chirped at that moment, and reaching down she answered.
“Ranlin? The aliens are on board.” Said Maunt over the communication channel.
“Understood, they’ve begun preparation down here to deal with the amount of radiation that the reactor will be outputting.”
“Preparation? How intense is this radiation going to be?” asked Maunt concerned.
“The humans have nothing close to shielding technology, their weapons and tactics are built to deflect kinetic strikes. Their radiation shielding is done through object density and distance from the source of exposure as far as I can tell.”
“Yet they are willing to breach a reactor? They will be experiencing an even greater amount of radiation than we will, from what the human scientist has explained the reactor even after we come down towards the surface of the moon will be underneath several hundred meters of rock.”
“They do not seem overly concerned, Allen is working on improving the radiation shielding they have in place. I believe he is happy to be doing something that requires his expertise.”
“Good for him, I’ll contact you again when we’re ready to bring the Valiant down and moor her to the asteroid.”
Ranlin shut the communicator off and turned back to Edie.
The human commander was looking at her eyebrow raised.
It took Ranlin a moment to realize that the translation program had not been running, “Oh, your crew has made it to the Valiant. The ship is preparing to descend onto the asteroid.”
“It’s not going to be difficult is it?”
“She cannot land on planets, but we do occasionally attach ships to asteroid to harvest minerals. Your moon is perhaps slightly larger than usual but not by much. It will not be that difficult.”
“Good.” Edie shook her head several more times and glanced down the corridor.
“Is something wrong?”
“We might as well get this over with,”
“Get what over with?”
“Introducing the majority of this bases personnel who happen to be scientists to their very first friendly alien.”
Ranlin’s mouth went wide and her ears straight out to the sides for a moment before drooping slightly.
“Oh.”
“Oh.” Repeated Ranlin.
“I’m going to give them ten minutes to get over it. Can you stand to be a lab specimen for that long?” asked Edie.
“Uh, sure I guess.”
Edie gestured down the hall and pulling herself forwards shot ahead of Ranlin and once again killing most of her velocity by grabbing a handhold slammed her feet into what looked like the wall from Ranlin’s perspective outside a compartment with a heavy looking door.
“Everyone behave!” shouted Edie into the compartment.
Their were muffled shouts and a scrambling of activity, Ranlin’s ears twitched as she listened to it.
“The first person to rush her will get shot in the ass!” shouted Edie, and reaching down to her hip she patted her gun holster.
“I’m a gentleman!” shouted a male voice in the room.
Ranlin slowly drifted forwards and glancing at Edie once more peaked into the room.
She froze and felt her ears perk up as she looked at the humans. Up to this point Ranlin had encountered only military personnel and a few scientists. All of whom had looked for the most part similar, lean with pale complexations with differences in their faces and hair colors and lengths which although strange had not been particularly alien.
Getting over the absence of the ears on their head and the lack of complex pheromones they could have been Vakurian. The Humans in front of her now though, were alien.
Several humans were fat; it was an attribute that she has seen in the Empire but never up close. Vakurian were cursed with a horribly inefficient digestive system and never had the ability to accumulate much energy in the form of fat like humans and other species of the Empire.
The variation in height was also much more apparent, as well as the ages and differing hair and skin colors of the species. Several Human’s were so different that Ranlin would have thought them separate species.
Looking at them Ranlin’s gaze froze as one Human woman in particular caught Ranlin’s her attention. Consumed by curiosity she drifted into the compartment towards her.
“Wow!” whispered Ranlin.
The Humans seeing that one of their party was under a particular amount of scrutiny glanced at one another but restraining themselves kept still, almost everyone watching as Ranlin’s ears moved back and forth in fast circles.
The woman had black skin, something that in the Empire would have been an attribute several class B species shared. What caught Ranlin’s attention however was the woman’s hair. It looked almost as if it were composed of tiny springs and it stuck out in every direction, like it was an extension of the woman’s skull.
“I saw pictures of this kind of hair, in the data we retrieved.”
The woman glanced up, “My hair is what your interested in?” she asked.
Ranlin nodded, “Sorry, oh you thought it was your skin right? Humans were segregated between skin colors at one-point right? My species did the same but with hair, it’s still important to some. I’ve never seen any alien with this type of hair though.” Said Ranlin looking closer at the human woman.
“You were segregated, because of your hair?” asked the woman slowly.
“We were divided as a people because of it. The conflicts that brought about our demise were instigated because of it.” Ranlin palmed her own shoulder length hair causing it to drift around in the low gravity and partially obscure her ears.
“Many of my people still only look for mates with the same color.”
The majority of the scientists and personnel were looking between the alien and the woman now.
“Sorry! I’m Ranlin!” She put her hand out.
“Molly,” said the woman shaking her hand.
“Can I touch it?” asked Ranlin still holding the woman’s hand her gaze locked on the strange alien hair.
She smiled, looking bemused, “If I can touch your ears.”
“Deal,” hand shooting up Ranlin carefully touched the hair and pushed on it, feeling it spring back slightly, “Cool,” she muttered repeating what she heard the Human lover say on several occasions.
With an equal amount of care the woman reached up and carefully felt Ranlin’s ear. She couldn’t resist having it twitch at the contact but otherwise Ranlin kept still.
“Ditto,” breathed Molly.
“Meaning?”
“It’s a human word meaning to repeat what you said. In this case, ‘cool’.” Explained Molly as she lowered her hand.
“Oh.”
An alarm buzzed behind Ranlin and her ears twitched back at the sound and she turned for the first time noticing the massive array of flat displays and computer stations that took up the majority of the room.
“Proximity warning, from the Valiant,” said Edie as she shut the sound down.
“You’ve got eight more minutes, then it’s back to work chop-chop!” said Edie as she glanced down at her Link.
The Humans surged forwards practically shouting questions and Ranlin’s ears went back in distress, which only caused them to ask more questions.
Edie watched the display smiling. It was a reassuring sight, their were aliens that were trying to kill off what remained of Humanity. Aliens had laid siege to Mars, destroyed their fleets, and decimated Earth. Yet the first thing that Humans did when they met aliens was marvel at the fact they had cat ears. It was juvenile, and reassuring at the same time.
“Heaven forbid we ever find aliens with green skin.” Muttered Edie.
Ranlin’s ears twitched at that, “Species B314 has green skin, why would meeting them be a bad thing?” she asked already trying to escape the Human scientists who were fawning over her.
Edie closed her eyes and pinched at her nose It was going to be a long day, only 48 hours before she would have given almost anything for something interesting to happen.