“There's a little more to it than that.”
“Quite. And there always is. But it doesn't need to be overthought.”
Nina frowned. “Wonderful. Being lectured by my AI.”
“I guess you should have left me in research and development,” IVIN retorted.
“I was more thinking of installing a mute button.”
“Silencing me won't change the facts.”
They wouldn't, and Nina realized it. But their path was set. As soon as they had the proper information they'd be headed out into the Central Expanse to find answers.
But who knew what they'd find there, or who would follow them?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The breakthrough came a few days later, much to Lauren's surprise. She thought it would take a month to decode the chip, maybe even more, but fortune smiled upon them.
“So that's how they managed to decode it so quickly,” Nina summarized. “They found a way to activate the device instead of passively scanning it for knowledge. And it worked.”
“That's unusual,” Lauren said. At this point even relatively intact Ulic artifacts were effectively dead.
“Yes, but thankfully our researchers have been working on the problem for a while. They've figured out how to re-power the devices, and that allowed us to turn it on. Once that happened it was a relatively simple matter to recover all the data, then decode it.”
“And this is a new technology?”
“It's been in the pipeline for a while, though it's still somewhat experimental. They weren't sure it was going to work on something like this data chip, but nothing ventured nothing gained. And they still would have been able to recover the data the old-fashioned way if this failed. This just made it a lot faster.”
“I see.”
Nina slid a datapad across the table to her. “So here's a compilation of all the information we managed to gather. We're going to keep this under lock and key, especially after the last few incidents.”
“Have we confirmed that it was Eon Path?”
Nina shrugged. “We haven't, but the groups that would have the resources and the guts to try that are a very short list. And they're the only ones that would have a real reason to do it.”
The events of that night still lingered in her mind. Lauren remembered lying awake in bed after locking both sets of doors, unable and unwilling to sleep. Even after the danger had passed she couldn't close her eyes without seeing Professor Hallas lying in the dirt on Caleth, a single shot through his heart. Would that be her in the future? Would she be cursed to suffer the same fate, dying because of a fanatic?
“Anyhow,” Nina said, “all of the data is on here. Of particular interest to us is a star chart. We've narrowed it down and determined that it covers a wide area, including the entirety of the Central Expanse. It has data on all the planets that existed in the area, but beyond that is out of my area of expertise. Can you tell me anything about what we're seeing?”
“Is there anything about a planet or a location called Kohri?” she asked, picking up the datapad.
“No, and that's one of the first things we searched for. Maybe the translation was wrong, or maybe we're not looking for the right thing. But there's a lot of information to look through, and it would help if we could draw on your knowledge.”
“There must be others who are familiar with the Ulics.”
“There are. But you heard my father. He's more focused on practical applications of Ulic technology, so our expertise is more geared toward applied knowledge and engineering. I'm more interested in history and culture, because that's what's going to lead us to what we want.”
Lauren cycled through the map. “I don't see anything that I really recognize. Though all maps I've looked at have been really fragmented. This chart alone is quite the find.”
“Yes, one of our bits of top-secret knowledge. In time we'll pass this along to the proper authorities, but for now Skare Interstellar will try to reap some benefits from it.”
Something caught her attention, a word and a location on the map that didn't have a proper translation. She zoomed in closer.
“What's this?” Lauren muttered to herself.
“Find something?”
She thought she recognized the Ulic symbols, but after viewing so many different artifacts and documents they all jumbled together in her head. Lauren couldn't recall what they meant.
“Do you have access to any of the scholarly databases?” she asked. “I think I need to look something up, and it might be obscure.”
“Of course,” Nina said. “We have access to them all. If you think you can find something from them I'll get you an access terminal right away.”
“That would be great, thank you.”
“So you have something?”
Lauren nodded. “I think so. I recognize some of the symbols that aren't being translated. They were in some other documents. But not in the codex.”
“Could it be something that wasn't a part of their original language?”
“It could be. It might be slang or an idiom. It could be code. But whatever it is, I don't think this is a mistake. I've seen this before. I know it.”
And Lauren wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery.
IT TOOK her several hours of searching and multiple cups of coffee, but Lauren finally found what she was looking for. There it was, clear as day, the same symbols as the ones on the star chart.
The only trouble was that she didn't know the purpose of the original document. Was it something important, or was it just a shuttle ticket from one planet to another? That was always the trouble with excavating a long-dead civilization. It was often difficult to tell the difference between the spectacular and the mundane. Something that looked like a rare marvel might be a mere household item.
Humanity had been in this galaxy for hundreds of years, yet they still knew very little about the advanced species that once dwelt among these stars. Their appearance, much of their culture and way of life, even their origin remained a mystery. Lauren was merely one in a long like of scholars seeking to unravel the mysteries of the Ulic civilization, and there would be generations upon generations that came after her for the same purpose.
She didn't think that they'd be able to discover all the secrets of the Ulics either. There were still large gaps in humanity's earliest days, even after centuries of close study. Scientists and scholars back on Earth continued to search for answers, but some things would simply be lost to the mists of time.
And even if they were still out there waiting to be discovered, those looking for answers still needed to discover them and interpret them correctly. Their understanding of the Ulic language remained incomplete, and that gap was going to be her greatest obstacle. She needed to figure out what these symbols meant, but that could take days, weeks, even months.
But that was the challenge and the reason that scholars existed. To find obscure knowledge, to interpret it so that everyone could understand it, that was their task and their calling. Lauren reached for a notepad and a pen.
“WISH WE HAD LONGER to wait,” Bradley said as the Starlight's access doors opened. “Barely in port for two weeks and we're going to have to go out into the frontier again.”
“Not just the frontier,” Cheryl reminded her. “The Central Expanse.”
Kei shrugged. “Is there really that much of a difference since the war ended? It's not like we're going to be running into any militaries out there that would stop us.”
“You never know when someone wants to throw their weight around.”
He shrugged again and advanced down the hallway to the medical bay. The Central Expanse had a bad reputation stemming from the Interstellar War, but as far as he was concerned it was mostly in the past.
The region was barren, with only three planets and a huge number of desolate asteroids, planetoids and other debris. Even those were lacking in mineral value, making the region completely worthless when it came to resources.
&nbs
p; But the Central Expanse also bisected a large portion of the galaxy, providing a buffer zone between the various political entities on each side. When it came to war the barren rocks provided to be of immense strategic value. Instead of having to go around the region, which would take many weeks or even months, ships could fly straight through the Central Expanse and attack their enemies on the other side in a matter of days, or a few weeks.
Everyone realized that fact, and so the region became one of the most hotly-contested areas in known space. Huge fleets battled over pitifully-small rocks, trying to take and hold them. Vast supply stations and bases were built in the gravity wells of some of the larger planetoids, allowing their owners to sustain their operations and bring a variety of forces to bear. Strategic raids from long-range bombers operating on the fringe of the Central Expanse weren't uncommon.
Kei remembered hearing the news on Tyran of supply convoys being jumped well inside friendly territory. At certain points the loss of supply shipping had been untenable, and it forced the Tyran Navy to go on the offensive. Kei had been part of that operation, though he hadn't seen combat.
Even in the aftermath of the war, with decreased budgets and a reduced appetite for conflict, everyone wanted to stake their claim to the region. It meant holding isolated, desolate outposts, even if it was only with a small team of troops. A single squad of ten marines in a tiny station orbiting a planetoid could be enough to stake a claim somewhere.
Skare Interstellar had gained immense profit from the situation, since they had they supply ships to move across the region. In fact, a freighter would often travel to several different locations on the same voyage, many of which were nominally enemies with each other.
Kei stepped into the medical bay and began opening up the cabinets, making a mental note of everything present. If they were going out into the frontier everything needed to be well-stocked and in working order. The maintenance and supply crews would do the work for them, but Nina still wanted them to check up on things. It would be their home for the next few months, and their lives on the line if they ran out of something or if a part broke.
Besides, it gave them something to do for the moment, and Kei was beginning to get tired of waiting. He wanted to be done with it all, to go out into the void and search for what awaited them. But going out with no plan and no clear path forward would only invite disaster, and so he would have to wait.
That didn't mean he had to like it, though.
Kei opened up another drawer and began counting.
“So, what you do think about this?” Cheryl asked over the radio.
“What do we think of what?” Bradley said.
“You mean possibly going out into the Central Expanse to look for Ulic artifacts?” Kei asked.
“Yep, that's the one. Though there's a little more to it than that.”
He frowned. “I'm not seeing much that's different about it from our normal line of work. We go out there, try to find something and then pick it up, put it in the hold and bring it back to Goethe Prime for further study.”
“I meant the part where you're getting jumped by a company of terrorists on the ground, and the part where I have to deal with three warships trying to blast us into dust.”
“Oh, that. Is that really anything special? We've dealt with people that have wanted to kill us in the past,” Bradley said.
“Not to this extent.”
“Speak for yourself. I had to spend a week dodging an entire battalion on Senra Seya.”
“Oh, you have one of those stories too?” Kei said dryly.
“Yeah, yeah. Pilots always get clean sheets, decent food and the pretty uniforms. Let it all out,” Cheryl said.
“Well, I wasn't going to go there,” Bradley said, “but since you did...”
Kei laughed. “I was technically part of the navy, so I guess I can't complain much about that. Even though a lot of my time was spent planet-side.”
“Seriously though, what do you think?”
“What do I think about dealing with Eon Path?” Kei asked. “Well, I don't think that it's going to be good. I just have that feeling. Even if everything seems to be going smoothly right now, they're sending a lot at us. Something's bound to happen that's not in our favor, and I'd say we're due for it.”
“That's an interesting way to look at things.”
“I just have that feeling.”
“But saying we're due for it isn't right either,” Bradley said. “It's not like these things come in regular patterns that we can predict.”
“No, but the more times that they try something, the more times they have to succeed. And it really only has to work once for them.”
“Do you think they're actually going to be able to do anything?” Cheryl asked. “I know that they're powerful for a non-government organization, but even their resources might not be enough to deal with us. We handled them pretty well.”
“Maybe we did last time, but that was mostly in space. We don't have the numbers to hold off the forces they'll try to bring to bear on us on the ground.”
“How are they going to get them there? Remember that we're probably not going to even be on a planet,” Bradley said.
“And if they're bringing them by ship then that gives us the perfect opportunity to blast them while they're still in space,” Cheryl said. “I'll bet that IVIN will appreciate that.”
“You would be correct,” the AI's voice said over the intercom. “I'm not very kind to people that have tried to blow me up.”
“Don't blame you there.”
Kei finished going through the drawer and moved on to the next one.
“Mark my words, this is going to be trouble,” he said. “They want something we have, and they're not going to stop until they get it.”
Why they wanted it was anyone's guess at this point.
THREE DAYS PASSED with minimal progress. Lauren continued to search the data for answers, but the pieces came together slowly. With the help of a data-sifter AI she had narrowed down the possible meanings of the symbols and had a good idea about what they meant, but that was only half of the problem.
None of the words seemed to make sense. They were placed in what seemed to be a random order, completely different from anything she had seen before. Lauren tried to decipher their meaning or find a pattern. The data didn't seem to be corrupted, but what else could it mean?
“Computer,” she said, “scan the data again. Identify any similarities with other documents pertaining to Ulic technology.”
“Scanning,” the AI said. Lauren waited a few minutes, though she wasn't enthusiastic. She had already tried this multiple times and came up empty in each instance.
As expected, this time was no different.
“Scan completed. Zero matches.”
She sighed. What was she missing? Or was this just a dead end, and she had no way to figure out what was going on? If so, this was an inauspicious start to her career.
Lauren wondered what Professor Hallas would have done under these circumstances. She wished he could still offer her guidance, but Eon Path had robbed him of the rest of his life. The thought made her clench her fists. The terrorists had taken everything from him, and she couldn't even continue his work as her own small measure of revenge. What was she missing?
She thought back to the lessons he had taught her over the years. Attention to detail, lateral thinking, use of multiple sources to verify information, keeping an open mind, remembering theories…
Lateral thinking. Something clicked in her mind.
“Computer, scan the data again. Identify any similarities with other documents that pertain to Ulic poetry and literature.”
“Scanning.”
That might be it. That might be the difference she was seeing. Could this not be an academic piece, but a poem? That would explain why the structure was so different from anything she had seen before. It might not even be grammatically correct, but neither was much of human literature.
; And right now any guess was worth a shot.
“Scan complete. Three matches.”
Lauren tried to remain calm, though her heart was pounding and her mind racing.
“Send copies of the documents to my datapad,” she ordered.
This might be it. This might be the breakthrough she needed.
“SO IT'S A POEM?” Nina asked.
“It's written like one. But I think it's based in a lot of fact.”
Nina intertwined her fingers and leaned her elbows on the table. “Can you be sure of that?”
“No. But at this point we don't have much to go on. Pretty much everything on the data chip is new territory for us. I can't find any scholarly documents in the databases that match the symbols or the structure of the writing. But it matches the structure of several poems.”
“So what makes you think that this is anything more than a poem?”
“It is a poem. But I think it refers to something greater,” Lauren said. “There's mention of three spots on the star map, and the last one corresponds to this spot here. But there's also an interesting passage that caught my attention.”
“For what reason?”
“I'm not completely sure what its referring to, but a rough translation states that this location is where the gate comes into being, and out of it comes the sword that splits the heavens.”
“That's… not quite what I was expecting.”
“No, neither was I. But when I compared it to a few other documents based in scholarly knowledge, it seems to indicate that there's something out there. Possibly technology, but it could also be something else.”
“Do you have any clues as to what it might be?”
Lauren shook her head. “I don't. But I believe that something is there.”
“I'm inclined to believe that too. And it's something that Eon Path wants as well. But do they know?”
“Do they know what?”
“Do they know about what you're saying? The part with the gate, and the sword that splits the heavens. Is that what they're looking for? Do they know that?”
Eon Gate (The Eon Pentalogy Book 1) Page 12