by Aer-ki Jyr
13 hours later the three of them were boarding a dropship with their standard one duffle each containing clothes and a few personal items, but this time they’d been instructed to take extra clothing. That had been odd, for Star Force always had enough to go around no matter what planet they were on and that little request worried Sarah more than it did Jenn.
When they got onboard the ship they suddenly realized why, seeing that the crew of the cargo ship were mostly Kiritas and the same prefab habitat buildings were set up in the massive bays like they’d ridden in to get here from Earth, but this trip was going to take far longer as they realized their destination was not a single system over. Rather, they were being taken all the way across Star Force territory to the Rim Region where Director Davis had been busy expanding the empire into newly acquired areas when the invasion began.
He hadn’t returned as far as Sarah knew, and Brad had said he probably wouldn’t. The highest ranking Monarch wasn’t one to go to the battlefront, but rather to call the shots from behind the scenes and keep producing as many warships and supplies as possible to supply the trailblazers, for they were the ones going to be leading this war. Davis might have been the one to create Star Force long ago, but he wasn’t the military mastermind that the Archons were.
But organizing evacuations was right in his sweetspot, so the fact that they were being hauled all the way out there reassured Sarah more than anything. Had they been moved to another system nearby it would have been an improvement, but it also would have suggested that they would have to keep getting bumped over and over again as the war progressed and the V’kit’no’sat hit more systems. That would put them in a growing disadvantage as the evacuation population grew and grew until they’d no longer have enough ships to move everyone out.
But if they started moving some of them all the way to the end of the line that would ease that burden, and after talking with a lot of other people onboard the cargo ship it was the mutual consensus that Davis, or whatever Monarch was calling the shots for their ship, was playing the long game here by getting them fully away from the fighting to where they could reintegrate into the empire rather than being perpetual guests.
It took weeks to get out of the Human Core Region and through Bsidd territory, then even more time to get to what was known as Grid Point Stargate. Sarah had seen pictures of it before, but when they actually arrived and saw it displayed in all its glory very few onboard the cargo ship could keep from being wide eyed.
The system they arrived at was empty save for a few defense stations and patrols, but the cargo ship had made a very slow jump away from it to a point nearby that had its own gravity field equivalent to that of a planet…but it wasn’t a planet. The cargo ship braked its momentum against the gravity field produced from the mass of the Grid Point itself, and that fact blew Sarah’s mind away.
It wasn’t a sphere, but rather a thick column that had two large discs on either end and pointed the same direction…away from the nearby star system and off into deep space.
And each of those discs were over 11,000 miles in diameter, with the entire construct measuring over 30,000 miles long.
“How did anyone ever build that?” Jenn asked as they watched a vid screen from inside their temporary quarters, for they wouldn’t be getting off here, merely passing through.
“A little each day for a very long time,” Brad said, marveling at it as well, “but this isn’t Star Force’s work. We acquired it from The Nexus.”
“I know, but how in the world did they build it?” she asked, referencing the much larger civilization rimward of Star Force territory whom they were loose allies with. Not enough for them to come help fight the V’kit’no’sat, but enough to have integrated a portion of their economies and travel lanes. In fact, some of the members of The Nexus had left and joined Star Force, which is what had given Davis the new Rim Region to begin with. That exchange had left relations a bit frosty, but apparently not too much because the Star Force Director had managed to negotiate the transfer of one of their Grid Points all the way out here to more fully link Star Force territory with The Nexus.
That was where this giant space station had come from, taken from a Nexus member race and transported out here the slow way, but now that it was set up and linked in it provided a rapid transit ‘highway’ out to Grid Point Annsa, which was now also Star Force property and had come with the annexation of the H’kar, whose territory marked the inner border of the new Star Force Rim Region.
Grid Point Annsa then linked to others, with the line traveling out of Star Force territory and into the huge network of magnetic drive slingshots that connected The Nexus civilization. Years of travel by gravity drive hopping from one system to another were reduced down to months or even weeks in some cases, binding the huge alliance together and now giving them access to Star Force territory, with the flow of commerce apparently not having been affected by the invasion of Earth, for the ‘smaller’ space stations surrounding the construct were cities in and of themselves, making this location essentially its own system with a population in the hundreds of billions.
Their cargo ship had to wait in line for more than a week before a carrier ship was available, then the 24 mile long cargo ship flew inside the 278 mile long carrier and docked along with many other vessels, all of whom had to pay hefty fees for the lift, but it was still more economical than traveling the slow way and generated a huge amount of revenue for the Grid Point, but since Star Force owned this particular carrier their ships got to ride for free, though they still had to be booked.
When the carrier was full of evacuation ships, a few civilian ones, and a pair of Albos warships, it moved over in front of one of the giant discs and aligned itself perfectly inside the massive magnetic field the construct produced even as another ship shot in to an insanely fast deceleration against the other disc, braking against its field the same way the outgoing carrier was about to propel itself using the magnetic drives the craft were built with.
Stars also produced magnetic fields, which offered far more pushing power than gravity fields, but stars had fields that were constantly in flux and should you try an interstellar jump on them you’d end up careening off course and being doomed to drift through the galaxy until you ran out of supplies or luck had it for you to come within proximity of another star and manage to snag hold of it. Given the vastness of space that probability was low, meaning that no one in their right mind would try a mag jump off a star, thus the technology wasn’t used.
But the Grid Point constructs created stable magnetic fields, allowing them to be used for jumps and why special carrier ships had to be built with the mag drives that allowed their outgoing carrier to accelerate so fast that the Grid Point disappeared in the blink of an eye…then they were coasting through space far faster than even most black hole gravity jumps would allow and heading across the vastness of Star Force territory towards the H’kar and the Rim Region, somewhere in which they’d be making a new home.
9
March 19, 3606
Uyit System (Rim Region)
Orrpwer (Tolsoi capitol)
Sarah and Jenn were in their shared quarters when a comm prompt sounded. It was a small tone that left a blinking light in the corner of the vid screen so they’d find it later if they weren’t there at the time. Sarah got up off her stool and touched the light, bringing up the text messages to read, for both she and Jenn had received what looked like duplicate notices from Star Force.
“What is it?”
“Moving again,” Sarah said with a frown, for they’d assumed this was the end of the line and had mentally started to adjust to living here with the planet full of monkeys…or at least that’s what the Tolsoi looked like to her. They were a more recent addition to Star Force and native to the Rim Region, having had a huge civilization of their own that had since been incorporated into the empire by their choice, unlike several others that had been misbehaving and got absorbed rather than annihilated when Star Forc
e intervened and kicked their asses.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jenn said, bolting up out of her chair and over to the vid screen.
“Wait, it says this one is special. Undisclosed location.”
“Meaning what?”
“It says we’re welcome to stay on Tolsoi or we can join a select group of evacuees and travel to a planet off the Star Force maps. One the V’kit’no’sat also don’t know exists,” Sarah read with an eyebrow rising at the next caveat, “but it’ll be a one way trip, because they can’t have people coming back and spreading word about where it is.”
Jenn bit her lip as she and her sister locked eyes.
“That’s about as safe as we can get,” Sarah finally floated. “They can’t kill us if they can’t find us.”
“Yeah. That does sound pretty good, but if they’re worried about the V’kit’no’sat getting to us all the way out here that doesn’t given me a lot of confidence.”
“If we go it’ll probably open up more room here for other people from the warzone.”
“Makes sense. Does it say how many people can go?”
Sarah scanned through the short message again. “Nope.”
“I wonder if Brad got an invite.”
“We came in together, so probably. It says we have two months to decide, so no rush.”
“I wonder where this planet is. Probably further rimward. It’s gotta be built already or they wouldn’t be taking people, right?”
“I would think so. If it’s a work in progress they wouldn’t want us. They’d want construction people.”
“What do you think?” Jenn asked.
“If Brad’s going, then yeah. Let’s disappear and start over.”
“Even if it’s a little rough?”
“Star Force builds fast.”
“Yeah we do. But now I’m worried they won’t ask Brad to go.”
“Why?”
“If they’re getting people without combat skills out first.”
“Hmmn,” Sarah said, thinking that over. “I don’t know. Let’s find out.”
“He’s probably training right now.”
“We can interrupt him for this.”
“You interrupt him, I’ll watch,” Jenn said, half joking.
“Ok I will,” she said, walking out of their quarters.
Jenn cringed, then reluctantly followed her. Brad had told her that Commandos really hated being interrupted during training.
They found him in one of the nearby gymnasiums, but rather than running or calisthenics drills, Brad was in a sparring match with a Tolsoi and both were using long swords held at the midsection. They didn’t have any cutting edges to them, just rounded sticks more or less, by the two were going at it at a speed Jenn had never seen Brad move before. The Tolsoi stood shorter than the Human, coming up to about his shoulders, but he was bouncing around so much it was hard to tell as they crossed swords and occasionally threw in a shoulder or knee ram, knocking each other around as the monkey-like race proved to have greater agility…and especially jumping power.
Several times the girls saw him somersault over top of Brad’s head, but after he’d done it several times the Human caught him midair with a sword strike that batted the Tolsoi down to the ground with a chest hit.
But Brad didn’t stop there, he immediately attacked him again as his opponent tried to roll away, but a couple more hits pinned him down enough for a heavy Human foot to land on his fury tail.
The Tolsoi shrieked, but couldn’t move from his pinned position as Brad’s rounded sword tip came down and hovered over his head…then he stepped off his tail and the two got some space, apparently with their sparring match concluded as many more Tolsoi were looking at the pair from around the ring.
Brad noticed the girls in the distance, for there were very few Humans in here, and waved them over. Jenn poked Sarah in the back of the ribs so she’d walk first, then followed half hiding behind her all the way up to the former Commando.
“Would you like a try at me?” he scoffed, looking at Sarah.
“Ah, no. That’s not a good idea.”
“How about two on one?” Brad said deadpan, though Jenn could tell he was actually joking.
“You mad?”
“No,” he told her, waving Jenn out from behind Sarah. “I just got finished instructed Vardolon on how he needs to keep his tail tucked when he’s on the ground. It helps them with balance on their feet, but if someone can get a hold of it they’re in a bad position, which is why their combat armor has the option of locking it down.”
“We lose agility that way,” the Tolsoi said with a peculiar accent, but still recognizable English that was the Star Force standard language that all races in the empire learned, save for the few that didn’t have the necessary vocal chords to speak it, though they had mechanical translation devices to overcome that disadvantage. “We need to move with our tails free.”
“Then you have to learn to protect them,” Brad insisted.
“So the Archons have told us, but there are few Humans out here to train with and no Tolsoi would grab another’s tail so callously. It hurts too much.”
“Better I lightly hurt you so you can learn before someone less caring really yanks on it.”
“Remind me to thank you after the pain subsides,” the monkey-like fighter said, with Brad’s hand lightly pushing him away with a brush of the shoulders.
“You’re welcome in advance. Now, before I find my next victim, what did you two need?”
“We got a message about another evacuation,” Sarah said plainly. “We wanted to know if you did.”
“Not that I’m aware. An evacuation to where? I thought this was the end of the line.”
“It just arrived by comm,” Jenn explained. “We both got it at the same time and it’s a request more than an order. It says we’ll be taken to an unmapped planet but won’t be able to come back.”
“A planet not on the Star Force maps,” Sarah corrected. “So the Dinosaurs won’t know where to look.”
“Interesting,” Brad said with a frown. “A one way trip?”
“Seems like it. We’ve got a couple months to decide, but we wanted to run it by you. If you’re not going we’re not.”
“You said the message just came in?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll check when I get back, but that’s pretty much a no brainer. If the Archons have a planet off the grid for evacuees to get to, that’s where you need to go.”
“We?” Jenn asked, not liking his wording there.
“Depends whether or not I got the invite.”
“We’re not going without you.”
“I’ll be back in two hours. Can we hold this discussion until then?”
“Yeah,” Sarah said with a casual wave of her hand. “Get back to your sparring. Jenn was impressed.”
Jenn gave her an annoyed look, but didn’t disagree.
“Alright, clear the ring. Who’s next?” Brad asked, turning his attention back to the Tolsoi.
The one he’d just been fighting with passed his sword to the next to go, then whispered the words, “Keep your tail tucked.”
Sarah and Jenn backed up enough to give them room, then watched for a few more minutes that ended up turning into the full two hours. They’d never seen Brad spar like this and were thoroughly intrigued all the way up until they finally finished, with him getting knocked down a few times at the end due to fatigue, but it was clear that he was far better suited to this than the Tolsoi.
“You’re drenched,” Jenn said, keeping a few feet away from his sweat soaked clothes.
“So I am. You impressed yet?” he asked Sarah, who smiled with a little blush showing.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Come on. I’ll get cleaned up and we can get something to eat, then we can discuss whatever this is going to be.”
An hour later they were sitting in the cafeteria on a 4-person table with one chair left empty as they talked. Brad had also received
the invite, for which Jenn was very relieved. They speculated as to where they were going and who would be there, but ultimately they had no information nor did anyone else they discussed the matter with over the next two months. After that they had another 3 week wait until their ship arrived and was declared, with them realizing that they were going to be transported on one of the Galactica-class starships that could hold over 140 million people each.
There was only one in orbit and it had just arrived two days ago, with dropships heading up to it immediately as they began the long loading process a few dozen people at a time in most cases, though some larger transports were also being used that could take several hundred, but getting the ship full wasn’t something that would happen overnight. The fact that there wasn’t any unloading suggested that the last occupants had stayed at the mystery planet, possibly having been taken from elsewhere because this was the first time anyone had seen a Galactica in orbit as far as they could determine by talking with others and perusing the communal information boards.
The starship dwarfed everything else in orbit, even the giant Sentinel-class defense platforms that had caused the V’kit’no’sat so much damage when they’d attacked Sol…save for the fact that the Mach’nel’s superweapon had eventually destroyed most of them due to its greater range. If their regular ships showed up all the way out here the Sentinels were going to be hard for them take down, for they were just as big as the V’kit’no’sat ships, only without internal living space. They were drones as well, with no one onboard and controlled remotely, making them pound for pound more deadly and a major obstacle to be removed by any invading enemy…and Star Force had many out here, just none as powerful as the Dinosaurs.
When the trio got to the boarding area they had to wait for several hours before they got to check-in, which was a wide area with multiple terminals that led to the dropships a few hundred meters in the distance that were constantly landing, loading, and taking off again in rapid succession in order to fill the giant starship as fast as possible.