Long before the rise of the Union, almost 12,000 years ago, before the first appearance of the Y'All, when the Ult were still the most aggressive and savage civilization in this part of the galaxy, before the Saran started their civil war that led to them being split into the Saran and Pan Saran empires, a Saresii ship landed on this planet to refuel and discovered on a desert valley of the only continent, the 500m-tall statue of a stylized humanoid figure. The figure was bare of any details, it had two stretched-out arms and stood on straight legs spread apart. The head of the figure was a perfect circle with five equal-sized segments dividing it like a pie. All were made of a semitransparent material.
The statue stood in a hexagonal frame upon a raised platform. The material was wholly made of appeared to be metal, but it defied all scanning and all analysis methods and was indestructible – all efforts to take a sample were unsuccessful.
The planet itself was unremarkable at first, but after closer examination, it turned out that this world had no orbital tilt and circled around a yellow sun in a perfectly spherical orbit. Even the sun, at first observation just another common-as-dust yellow main sequence star, turned out to be an enigma. It was among the oldest stars and should have burned out long ago, turned into a brown dwarf perhaps, but it had not even turned into a red giant. Yellow stars were young stars; this sun defied all commonly accepted solar physics. No solar flares, no sunspots. It was a perfect, stable star.
This fact was of another significance associated to the statue. Eight thousand meters behind the statue was a mountain range, and one of the rugged mountains had a hole in it. Twice a day the sun would perfectly align with that hole and send a beam of sunlight aimed exactly at the color-segmented circle. A circle of colored light appeared on the smooth metal surface before the statue.
There was nothing else, no inscriptions. The ruins found after an excavation around the alien monument turned out to be from a much less-advanced civilization that had set up a city around that statue a few million years ago and had vanished or died out.
The Y'All came, and the planet and the discovery was more or less forgotten in the galaxy-wide turmoil, but it was not forgotten completely. A religious sect formed with members of all spacefaring civilizations; the Church of the Golden Whispering Spirit of the Universe exists even today. It was much more prominent than the First Son’s Church of Darkness, but still far below the numbers or significance of the 2,000 major religious movements.
Union scholars claimed to have been able to analyze the material and the Kermac were certain it was of UNI origin. The planet was in free space and by treaty, none of the Big Four could claim the planet as theirs. It was declared a site of worship and accessible to all.
Each of the Big Four maintained small permanent research sites on the planet, but big digs were, by the same treaty, only allowed if all four participated and agreed. That was something that would never happen.
A town had sprung up not far from the alien monument and near the crumbled ruins. It was home mostly to souvenir dealers, small hotels and temples of several sects and churches, most prominently, of course, the Church of the Golden Whispering Spirit.
Pilgrims would don golden flowing robes, flock to the statue and then bathe naked in the circle of light when it occurred. Believers claimed curative and healing effects, mind opening and spiritual experiences, yet to this day there was not a single scientifically backed case that would verify these claims.
The trip to this world was fairly safe, despite the fact it was free space and pirate-infested. Civilian travel agencies paid protection fees and used civilian armed convoys. Of course, once in a while a ship of pilgrims was attacked and seized by pirates anyway, but the syndicates raking in the protection fees made sure it did not happen too often and punished the freelancers.
The First Son of Darkness did not make the trip very often, despite the fact that he had excellent connections to the Worm and to some of the pirates and the Syndicate of this sector of space. He did not bathe in the light like the fools of the Golden Spirit. It would have been ridiculous anyway, he, the Son of Darkness, bathing in light.
There was not much in terms of public transportation here on Netlor. A red throat Shiss operated a taxi service consisting of a dozen arti-grav floaters from the local spaceport to the ruins and the statue. He did not want to draw any attention to where he was going, so he walked. The climate of the planet and the weather never changed, thanks to its perfect orbit and zero declination and it was always hot and dry. He knew little of the rest of the world or if it had any indigenous life forms, such details were not important. Thankfully the distance to his destination was only three clicks. He could have levitated himself or even teleported there, but that could have been noticed. There always were Kermac and Saresii around. Netlor was not only a destination for pilgrims, but it was in free space and unlike Sin 4 or many of the others, quite orderly and peaceful. The rogue and crime element was not tolerated by the syndicates and the temples. Nestor also was a place of many clandestine meetings. When spies were exchanged, when the Big Four had something to discuss that did not reach the official channels, they came here. That also meant that there were agents of pretty much everyone around keeping an eye on each other. He had agents of his own here.
The town did not have an actual name. It was synonym with the planet. The buildings were made of shipping containers; local rock and dirt, there were even quite a few tents. He reached his destination, three boulders. A concrete roof had been poured over it and the gaps between the rocks had been closed with bricks and mortar. He knocked at the syntho-wood door.
Not waiting for an answer, he opened the unlocked door and went inside. There, on a simple table, sat an old man, mostly but not entirely human from what he could see.
"I came to see the catacombs."
The old man wore a faded, rough-looking poncho and dust-colored, simple fabric pants. He had human proportions, but his pupils were slit like those of a Shiss and his exposed skin had a fine snakeskin texture. "Go then, Larthop. Go and talk to the dead." The old man had used his old Saresii name. A name he did not even think about anymore. He did not wonder how the old man knew, he had been sitting here just like that, the first time the expelled Saresii had come, over 90 years ago and he had said the same thing.
The First Son of Darkness, who once long ago answered to the name Larthop, placed a few Rad shield-coated polo coins onto the table and the old man pulled on a rope next to him, opening a trap door and revealing a flight of stairs leading down. Weak orange light from candle burning lanterns illuminated the hole. Larthop raised the hem of his gold-colored cloak, not to stumble on those steep and narrow steps, and descended.
***
Here I was treated like a part of the crew. Aboard the Hyperion the only difference between enlisted personnel and officers was more or less only the rank pin on your collar. Captain Zezz treated and acted the same around the lowest First Class Starman as he did around his bridge officers. He told jokes with them, participated in games and onboard sporting events. The ship used only one mess hall. Officers and enlisted ate in the same place. There wasn't even a specific seating order. Even the Captain sat down wherever there was space and not at a separate Captain's table. I also noted the fierce pride and love every crewmember expressed about Zezz and their Hyperion. Men went out of their way to make him proud. One day I noticed two First Class Starmen scrubbing an already clean-looking corridor and I asked them what they did to be punished that way. They looked at me like I was insane and one of them explained to me that nothing but a spotless corridor would do, it's how the Captain would like it, and they went on with great effort.
I did not have much free time. When I was not on duty, I was studying books or using the simulator, but every now and then I did have a few hours of leisure time. I used the excellent swimming pool facilities of the ship or used an unoccupied gym to practice my swordplay. A Petharian Sergeant who belonged to the ship’s Marine contingent, whose name wa
s Throok, often sparred with me and instructed me in the ancient fighting technique of his four-armed society. They used swords that looked very much like oversized dinner knives, with long handles and bean-shaped, serrated and incredibly sharp blades. Gripping the long handles to maximize the fulcrum effect on the blade, Petharian warriors used two at the same time. It was complicated and very stylized. Every attack had a name and a number and it was not unusual to go through all of the 3,000 attack and 4,000 defense moves in a single training session. I could, of course, only handle one blade as I missed the second arm pair, but the weapon was heavy and I barely felt my arms when we were done. He spoke little and told me next to nothing about his kind or his family, but he kept on showing up for training and patiently showing me their moves.
A security officer from Earth and master of a Terran martial art called Kung Fu dazzled us with spectacular fighting moves. Almost like an aerial dance, he too taught a class and I wished the day had more hours so I could train with him more intensively.
The Hyperion did routine duty and most of it appeared to be boring, but I enjoyed every moment and there was not a minute of time truly to get bored. Zezz did run regular drills and the time it took for a ship to get ready for battle was diligently recorded. Fleet standard for a battleship was four minutes and nine seconds. That was not much time for a ship and a crew of that size to go from All Green to All Red. From Zezz I learned there was an unofficial contest between all captains of the Fleet to beat these times and captains would often exchange and compare the times for bragging rights.
The Hyperion's best time was two minutes and 16 seconds. Zezz said that this was acceptable and put the Hyperion near the champion time of two minutes and one second, recorded aboard the USS Shetland.
We had just finished such a drill and my battle posting was the OPS station on the bridge. The alarm had caught me 20 decks down, in a swimming pool. Thanks to auto-dressers that automatically switched to emergency mode during an alert, and a complicated inter-ship transport allocation program, I made it in two minutes and 12 seconds and the XO reported an overall ship readiness time of two minutes and 14, a new ship record. Zezz was pleased.
He addressed the crew and promised a party to be held in one of the big cargo holds. He didn't finish his address as the sensor operator interrupted him. "Sir, eight Shiss Mehgar Class cruisers under full shields and weapons appearing on the scanner horizon."
Reports came in moments later from a colony within our patrol area that had been attacked with high casualties and damage.
The situation seemed clear and straightforward. Shiss raiders had crossed the line and attacked a Union colony. They had taken a chance and went much deeper into Union space, most likely because the colonies and outposts near the border were better defended. Now the eight ships had hightailed it back to Shiss territory. It was unfortunate for them to run into the sensor bubble of a Union battleship.
Eight Shiss cruisers, even the feared Mehgar Class, were no real match for a Union battleship and they knew it, changed course and tried to outrun us. Six months ago it would have worked, but the Hyperion had new and faster engines and was catching up. The standard procedure was to hail and ask them to surrender, so it came as a surprise to me as Zezz ordered his new Translocator Sniper Cannons to take aim and take them out. Sniper Translocators were the latest and newest weapon development of the Union. These cannons could only fire very small loads, siphoned twice the energy of the big batteries, but they had 10 times the range of any previous TLC. Translocators had one major flaw; they could not be fired while the ship was in quasi-space. With normal TLCs it was possible for an enemy who travelled FTL to escape. The usual procedure for intercepting was to launch Wolfcrafts or Loki Torpedoes and engage the enemy with energy weapons to force them to drop out of quasi-space and then engage with the main batteries as soon as they were in range. The tactical officer had to have his firing solutions ready and fire the Snipers the very microsecond we dropped, or the enemy would be so far out of range we would never catch them.
The Plutonian was as good as Zezz said he would be, and six micro loads detonated inside the fleeing ships’ engine rooms. Even a very small antimatter explosion inside the engines was devastating. Two of the Mehgar lost their quasi-space bubble instantaneously and both ships were instantly converted into pure energy. The others managed to drop controlled into real space. Zezz still did not hail the ships but ordered his tactical officer to continue. "Take out their command decks. Leave me one or two for boarding and pound the rest to ashes." Zezz got up and yelled, "Mr. Olafson, I am going to join the boarding party. Care to tag along?"
This was highly unusual, a captain joining Marines boarding an enemy ship, but it was more than that. It was against the rules as far as I knew. "Yes Sir."
He waited for me until another officer showed up to take my duty station. I never found it easy to keep up with the fast lizard, but now it was almost impossible. I had to run, really run, to keep up. There was no chance and no breath to ask him questions. Decks 14 and 15 were Marine country and they all waited for him, all already wearing Destroyer Suits, with deep space packs. The Captain didn't even slow down as he jumped into an auto-dresser. I had to look around for another one, but one of the Marines grabbed me and more or less stuffed me into another unit. Moments later I stomped out wearing the heaviest, most advanced individual armor developed by Union Tech. We all looked alike and were only identifiable by tactical symbols superimposed over the others inside my helmet. All suits were currently colored dull white and would change colors, adapting to their surroundings as soon as we went into battle mode, except Zezz. His suit was deep purple, just as his throat, and on his upper right shoulder was the logo of the Union Marine Corps, but below it the number 33.
He stood there for a moment, listening to something. Then his voice came over the suit comm. "Eighty T clicks away there are two Shiss raiders. Engines and defenses crippled but filled with the cowardly red throats that raided that colony. If you manage to capture a few green throats alive for questioning it would be a success, and the official reason for this boarding action. I would not be disappointed if none survives. Give them no quarter!"
His Marines cheered in a throaty, rough manner. He gave the final seal check order and then the airlock opened and, like a swarm of angry snapper fish, 200 Marines, 100 Cerberus robots, the Captain and I left the Hyperion, the pulse engine on my back humming at top output. Eighty thousand kilometers through deep space was nothing I wanted to do, but I had little choice and thankfully the suit was in swarm mode and followed the lead, so I had little to do. The swarm split into two groups. This was not something a Union Fleet Officer needed to know or do. Boarding action was for Marines! I wondered what happened to the usually so laid-back and easy-going Captain Zezz. Was it the fact we attacked other Shiss? His own kind?
We split into smaller groups of 20, each led by a Marine Sergeant, except mine. I was in the same group as the Captain and he had taken the lead command. The Shiss ship was a 600m unit and like all Shiss ships, based on the shape of an egg. The dull end was the aft section and had the engine pods. Of the original six pods, it had only four left and they were mostly twisted shapes of scrap metal.
As my boots made contact with the ship's hull, its size came into perspective and it looked huge. It was an awesome sight, and frightening at the same time. The descending Marines and robots looked like insects. Now I noticed the turret not far from where I had come down. It was a weapon turret and it was firing! I only knew because the dual gun muzzles kept glowing in a fast pace. There was no way I could see the energy bolts with the unaided eye, but that cannon was aimed at Marines still on the approach. Why I had been missed I could not say, but I was close. The firepower an individual had at his disposal when wearing a fully-equipped Destroyer suit was incredible. I flew across the smooth surface and my augmented suit hands bent the left barrel like butter. The suit automatically extended vibrating monofilament claws from the tips of the suit�
��s hands and with it, I tore a hole into the armor of the gun turret and released a dozen pellet grenades into the breach. As I jumped back the suit activated the boot thrusters, not a second too early. The grenades exploded and lifted the turret out of its socket.
Someone I didn't know said, "Well done, soldier."
My group entered through that breach and into the ship itself. The Shiss fought nail and tooth, able to go toe-to-toe with a Nul, but as famous as their fighting skills were, their technology was inferior to Union Tech, and it became apparent that they needed concentrated fire of several weapons to collapse Union shields and then still there was the tough armor to penetrate. Boarding was a messy, chaotic business. My suit Computronic tried to keep my HUD and communications as uncluttered as possible, but still there was the overall wireframe display of the enemy ship's deck layout, green and red signals, energy readouts, scanner results and squad orders. The Marines and robots worked like a well-oiled machine and more or less ignored me. I was an added asset, almost like an observer, but I fought myself down the smoke-filled corridors. The Shiss barricaded every junction and resisted to the last. In all this, I wondered why we did this. There was no need, the ship was crippled and the Shiss could go nowhere. Why did no one offer them to surrender?
It was over after what seemed hours of constant fighting; checking the time I realized we had boarded the ship only 57 minutes ago. We had reached the alternative command deck of the ship. Its main command deck and bridge had been destroyed by a TL load. Captain Zezz had fought like an unleashed demon, using his boarding chain sword more than his blasters. He held a struggling Shiss officer with his upper arm pair while he used his lower arm pair to systematically rip pieces of the armor the other wore.
Union Techs swarmed the command center moments later and began to attach equipment to the alien ship’s consoles.
Eric Olafson Series Boxed Set: Books 1 - 7 Page 10