They couldn’t fail. They had to win this. Or spend the next three decades or so in cryostasis on a long voyage home, a home that could be overrun by dragons once they arrived.
“What does she want?” Foster asked, having remembered Chevallier was still on the line.
“She’s requesting that you meet her at the manor,” EVE said.
“At the manor? Why?”
“Not to be picked up, that’s for damn sure,” Williams said drily.
“Guess they found something about Boyd and where he went to,” Foster said, making her way out. “This better be good. Dom, you got—”
“I’m going with you,” he said. “EVE, get Saressea to take command.”
She left the bridge and hastily climbed down the ladder from the catwalk overhanging the cargo bay. Williams followed her. “Dom, I got this, hold down the bridge.”
Williams came to stand next to her as she waited for the entry ramp to lower, paving the way for her to make the trek across the snow into the manor ahead. The corner of her eye caught Williams holstering a pistol.
“My dreams have made me a more cautious person,” he said.
“Jesus, Dom, relax. I’m sure there’s a reason for this.”
“Like what?”
“Maybe she wants to show us why the dragons are here before us?” The ramp lowered, Foster stormed out with Williams at her side. “Chevallier and her team been here all day, maybe they saw something?”
There was no stopping him, and she wasn’t sure how to approach it without pulling rank on him. Since their arrival in this century, Williams experienced behavior that was out of character, so to speak. She wanted to blame it on the PTSD that mysteriously clouded his thoughts, though the problem was probably much deeper than that, when factoring in the Draconian memory wipe.
The two kept their movement swift, and their eyes forward at the manor they strode toward. The urgency in their walk, and the looming fear of death made them forget about the arctic temperatures around them.
Chevallier, Maxwell, and LeBoeuf stood at the front of the manor, fully equipped with their rifles in hand. Foster thought it was because of the dragons, however, they were too busy waging war against defenseless Hashmedai city dwellers off in the east, while Hashmedai warriors discovered melee weapons were useless versus diving wyverns spitting plasma.
“Chevallier, what’s up?” Foster said, as the duo stopped in front of them. “Please tell me y’all got some good news.”
Chevallier gave her the news.
She and her two psionic EDF team members aimed their rifles at Foster.
“Captain Rebecca Foster,” Chevallier said. “I’m here to place you under arrest, for treason.” Chevallier gestured to the rampaging wyverns in the city. “You’re an agent of the Draconians; you brought them into this system. Surrender now.”
“Hey, Dom, you still got that gun?”
“Yes, Becca.” Williams’ pistol took aim at the EDF trio. “Yes, I do.”
Foster’s sensed three or four fingers inching for the triggers to their respective weapons. “Drop it, Commander, we’re not here for you!”
“You first!”
“Keep pointing that shit at me and that will change!”
“Those dragons are here by accident!” Foster jumped in. “We had no idea this would happen!”
“I have my orders, Captain!”
“Chevallier, don’t be stupid, if there’s an agent anywhere it’s the person that gave those orders.”
The standoff had no end in sight. Both sides refusing to yield, both forgetting they were, at one point, on the same side.
“Drop it now and get on the ground!”
“Dom . . . on second thoughts . . .”
“Becca, don’t order me to stand down,” the targeting scanner on Williams pistol locked on Chevallier’s head. “Because I won’t if the agents are on their end.”
“Get on the fucking ground, right now!”
“Don’t get yourself killed for me, Dom.”
“Don’t get yourself killed because Chevallier has new friends to play with.”
“You got five seconds.”
“Dom, seriously, put the fucking gun away!”
The countdown to chaos began.
“Five.”
“Really hope Tolukei is watching.” Foster looked behind, hoping for him to teleport in.
He didn’t. Of course not, this was a Hashmedai colony.
“Four.”
“Really could use his support now!”
“Three.”
“Hey, ther’, b’y!”
Miles appeared over the snowy hills waving his hand like the friendly Canadian he was. He was dressed in his exosuit and had his rifle in hand. He must have followed behind a minute or so after the two left.
“Two.”
“Go back to the Kepler, Marine!” LeBoeuf shouted, aiming her rifle at him. “This is EDF business!”
Miles didn’t like that. “I gonna make it my business, girl.” He also didn’t like being told what to do.
As a result, a fifth firearm joined the Mexican standoff.
“One.”
The next seconds went by so fast, she didn’t know that guns went off and people around her she considered to be trusted, crew, friends, and comrades in arms got shot. Shields flicked on and off, plumes of snow sprung up from the ground thanks to missed bullets. The jump jets on Miles’ gear sent him huddling into the fray, the blue burst of light from Maxwell’s psionic powers sent him jump porting about to evade getting shot one moment, then return fire the next.
It was about thirty or forty seconds into the confrontation when Foster realized Williams wasn’t standing. He was lying in crimson-soaked snow, he didn’t have shields, and if Foster didn’t duck quickly, she’d end up like him. A telekinetic pull yanked Foster into the grip of LeBoeuf. She had no idea what became of Miles, his body wasn’t seen laying in the snow, though Maxwell returning up a hill in the distance with a grin, suggested he put down the Marine.
Her eyes began to moisten the longer she looked at Williams and his blood-soaked uniform, unmoving. The tears were held back, no more crying was something she promised herself last summer, and she intended to stay on that path.
“LeBoeuf, can you get us to the Johannes Kepler?” Chevallier asked her.
Foster was released from LeBoeuf’s telekinetic grip, allowing the cybernetic warlock to attempt a wide teleportation. It wasn’t likely to work, last time Foster checked only Tolukei and Nereid were allowed to use psionic powers aboard the Kepler. Still, Chevallier’s comment was clear. EDF was planning to take the Kepler next. Foster swiftly keyed in a text message with her wrist terminal, while her hands remained unbound by the pair of handcuffs Chevallier prepared to slap around her wrists.
“Ah, shit,” Maxwell said, pointing.
The Johannes Kepler lifted off in the distance, shrinking in size and vanishing into the skies. Foster made a conceded smile; her message was loud and clear. Chevallier forced her up from the solid snow and ice to her feet and cuffed her
LeBoeuf’s psionic energy glow faded, her teeth gritted. “I can’t get a teleportation lock; the mind shield is blocking me.”
“Even if you could, don’t bother,” Chevallier said. “They’d be expecting us now. Someone got a message off. Foster is our primary objective, taking the Kepler was secondary.”
“Fleet transport is inbound,” Maxwell said.
“Understood. LeBoeuf, get us aboard that transport now.”
LeBoeuf nodded and returned to her teleportation stance and trance, charging her elaborate implants with psionic light. The rotating holographic bracelets around her wrist spun, and her soft brown hair flicked about in the winds generated by the escaping psionic waves from her body.
“I didn’t want this to happen,” Chevallier said to Foster, while staring at Williams’ body. “He was a decent man.”
“Then why did you shoot him?” Foster said. “He didn’t have shields
like you guys!”
“I . . . I don’t know, it was just natural.”
“Natural to shoot rather than wait for the not one, but two fucking psionics you had to act and disable him?”
“He shouldn’t have pointed that at me! Hell, that fucking Marine shouldn’t have stuck his nose in an EDF operation.”
Foster shook her head at Chevallier. She didn’t recognize the woman that handcuffed her. “The hell is wrong with you? You were never like this.”
“You should spend more time reading my service history,” Chevallier said. “There was a reason they sent me to Sirius.”
“Yeah, you’re a sadistic bitch—”
The butt of Chevallier’s rifle crashed into Foster’s face.
Everything went dark in an instant.
UNE Transport
Leaving Taxah orbit, Uelcovis system
October 17, 2118, 01:13 SST (Sol Standard Time)
Foster woke up on a transport that had long departed from Taxah. Her hands remained cuffed, unlike her legs which were left unbound. LeBoeuf and Maxwell were up front in the cockpit, Chevallier sat across from Foster in the rear cabin. Her rifle rose the moment she realized Foster was awake.
“Rise and shine, dragon princess,” Chevallier snickered at her.
The windows of the transport displayed a number of UNE warships moving past. They had been split into two groups, one entering orbit around Taxah, and the other was going someplace else in the system, someplace far from the battle between the Imperial forces and the Draconians. That someplace was also the destination of the transport.
“Where are we going?” Foster asked.
“There’s someone that wants to have a chat with you.” Chevallier sat back smirking, keeping her rifle’s barrel aimed at Foster’s chest. “Before we take you to prison.”
47 Pierce
Space Bridge interior
Derelict Space Bridge, Morutrin system
October 16, 2118, 23:27 SST (Sol Standard Time)
Travis Pierce glanced at the lines of words written in the Hashmedai language on the screen ahead of him through his EVA suit’s helmet. It took him two minutes to refresh his memory on how to read their language, and another minute to thank himself for taking the time to review the basics of reading their language during the downtime the Kepler had during its voyage to the Kapteyn’s Star system.
Alesyna’s body appeared from a burst of blue teleporting light into the command center of the space bridge. Her psionic barrier kept her body safe from the harshness of space that continued to make the interior of the station inhospitable.
She floated next to the breach that sent a number of EISS operatives to their space graves. “Judging by this massive hole, spent projectiles, and bodies,” Alesyna said in the Hashmedai language, while Pierce listened in. “I’d say all our enemies have been defeated. Why do you need me?”
“We’re going after the fleet. This space bridge will bring us to the battle,” Peiun replied.
“Us versus them?” she said, facing her captain. “They have enough fire power to obliterate us.”
“They do,” he said. “They’re also not expecting us to follow; we’ll have to use that to our advantage.”
“Or at the very least assist in the evacuation of the system,” Pierce added, speaking in their tongue. “We still lack the psionics needed to operate this, however. And the nearest Imperial ships with psionics aren’t here yet.”
Peiun smirked, facing Chloe and Alesyna. “We got two psionics right here.”
“Two . . .” Alesyna groaned. “Space bridges require at least twenty, if the dead human ones floating above us are of any indication.”
“Not necessarily,” Peiun said. “The more powerful a psionic is the fewer you need to operate a bridge.”
Alesyna added up the facts while giving Chloe a long stare. “Add in the unique powers of human psionics, and the fact we only need to make one smaller ship equipped with MRF jump, and . . .”
“You think you two can do this, Alesyna?”
“On second thoughts, I believe so.”
“Excellent, I shall bring extra EVA suits for you two.”
“Those will only interfere with our abilities.”
“Look at those human psionics,” Peiun said, pointing to their floating bodies. “The jump drained their powers; they lost the ability to keep their psionic barriers active and died in the exposure.”
“My barrier will be fine.”
“And what of Chloe?”
She smiled at Chloe, who didn’t understand a word of the Hashmedai language. “I shall extend it to protect us both.”
“You can’t use your mind to send the Rezeki’s Rage through the bridge, then have enough power left to extend a barrier to protect yourself and Chloe,” Peiun said. “Perhaps if you were an Archmage, I would agree, but you’re not—”
Alesyna’s glare into Peiun’s eyes silenced him. Pierce would have done the same had he been in his position. The jet-black hair and captivating dress wired with electronics she wore made Alesyna look like a cybernetic witch. And if she was an Archmage, then you could add living, breathing asteroid mass driver to that list.
Peiun grimaced. “Are you one?”
“Return to the Rezeki’s Rage, Captain, and jettison all our cargo, it would help further reduce the mass of the ship.”
“You didn’t answer my question, Alesyna.”
“We’re wasting time.”
“Agreed,” Pierce said, returning to the computer screen. “I managed to get the backup navigation data restored to the space bridge. It’s an old and outdated chart of the stars, but I should be able update it.”
“Excellent,” Peiun said, taking his leave with Penelope. “We will be returning to the Rezeki’s Rage, let us know when you’ll be ready.”
The two left while Chloe and Alesyna secured vacant psionic pods for themselves, plugging their minds into them, and becoming one with the space bridge. Pierce faced them excitedly. “Go on, say it,” he said in English to Chloe.
“Say what?”
“Everyone has been pestering me about my PhD and my inability to answer questions I’m not qualified for. I’m an astrophysicist, I can help find the exact location of the Uelcovis system and input the coordinates into the space bridge.” Chloe didn’t get the joke. Pierce sulked internally. “My PhD finally has a use.”
“I don’t think any one of us pestered you about your PhD.”
“Well the others did.”
“We’re not those people.”
“I was just ecstatic that I can help for once—”
“Can you get this working or not?”
A rapid one-eighty floating spin put his hands and face back in front of the computer. “I’m on it.”
He brought up a screen which showed a map of the galaxy, it was missing labels for which stars were which. The first step was ensuring the computers knew of the place of origin. Rebuilding the database was going to be tougher than he thought.
“The captain reports he and the Maraschino girl have made it back to the Rezeki’s Rage,” Alesyna to him.
“Understood, tell them to hold tight, this might take a while longer than I thought.”
“How long?”
“Well, it’s all gone, star maps and all. I’ll have to rebuild the database using system backups and go from there.”
“Fine, reload them then configure the computers to send the Rezeki’s Rage to the Uelcovis system,” she said. “Let us know when we are to merge our minds with the bridge to power it.”
“It’s not that simple! The backups are as old as this space bridge.”
“We are traveling to an Imperial colony that was in existence long before this space bridge was built, its location should still be in the backups.”
“But not its exact location,” he said. “The universe is expanding constantly, taking the galaxies with it. In addition to that, all stars in the galaxy orbit around the galactic center, and all planets
within those star systems orbit their stars. Nothing truly remains in a fixed spot. If we use the backup data now, we’ll be sending the Rezeki’s Rage into a region of space where the Uelcovis system used to be, not where it is now.”
“What are you two yapping about?” Chloe cut in with words from the English language.
“I was just explaining why this is going to take a bit longer than we’d like,” he said to her.
“Whatever,” Chloe said, as she strapped herself into the pod. “Just don’t forget to account for stellar drift so you don’t send us to where the Uelcovis system was years ago.”
“That’s . . . exactly what I was trying to say.”
“That minute or so speech you gave her in Hashmedai?” Chloe said. “Sounded like you were rambling on and wasting time.”
Pierce went to work, and the rush and urgency of their situation sent his mind into the zone. The first order of business was rebuilding the database. The Rezeki’s Rage wasn’t going to help, as its star charts were generalized maps of the galaxy. They did not account for the exact location in the universe where things were, just where they should be in basic terms.
He needed to first establish how old the backup files for the space bridge were. The Morutrin system space bridge was built around the of Hashmedai Empire’s failed attempt to take over the system, a system that was once claimed by the old Linl republic. The Linl republic was in existence when Marduk controlled Sirius, in fact it was the Linl explorers that ventured to Sirius that ended up breeding with humans from Babylon and the last of the Lyonria. Therefore, the space bridge was at least three to four thousand years old, as with the star map on the screen.
He updated the database and accounted for at least three thousand plus years of stellar drift. The position of the galaxy and stars within it changed to match the new numbers entered. With the map updated, the space bridge was able to establish its correct location in the universe, being the edge of the Morutrin system. That was the easy part, the hard one was about to come.
There were no labels that identified which star system was which. There was an estimated two hundred and fifty billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, and only one of them was the Uelcovis system. Without a label pointing to the exact location of the star, it could take him a couple of years, maybe a century or two to find it by choosing random stars from the map and hoping for the best.
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