by Randal Sloan
It would be considered a special perk for most soldiers. Somehow, Jarra didn’t think the Master Sergeant would see it that way.
Luckily, she would be out of his reach for at least a few weeks.
Master Sergeant Gibbons was quite upset as he made his way to his quarters. This was more than just an assignment to him. He loved his Princess and would do anything to serve her and protect her. He hadn’t done that very well in the last mission and he was determined to keep her safe from now on. If she would just stop putting herself in such dangerous positions, that wouldn’t be quite so difficult.
He thought about going over her head. He could send a message directly to the Emperor and get him to change their orders. When the Emperor had assigned him and his team to her protection detail, he’d explicitly told the Master Sergeant any time it became necessary for her safety, Robert was to contact him directly and he would override her orders to ensure she was protected. Her uncle knew as well as he did her potential to get into trouble.
Unfortunately, Robert knew this wasn’t the time to challenge her on the assignment. It would potentially damage his relationship with her and it wasn’t worth risking it when he wasn’t sure the Emperor would agree with him. Not on this mission — her logic made perfect sense, despite the fact something told him it wouldn’t go exactly like she had planned.
No, someday he was sure he would have to use his trump card, but he would save it for when he really needed it. As many times as she put herself in danger, that might well be quite soon, and he would need to be there when it happened — at a time when he and his men could make a real difference.
That still didn’t mean he was happy about her orders. Marines weren’t supposed to take that kind of time off — they needed to be ready whenever needed. As he entered his quarters an idea came to him. He slammed his hand against the wall in excitement. He wouldn’t be able to change the assignment, but he knew just what he was going to do. His Marines could use a little polishing, after all, and it would give a little extra incentive to the ones rehabbing.
Tapping into his implants, he sent a ping to Jackson. “Jackson, I’ve got a job for you. We’re being sent on an undercover assignment on New Earth. I want you to put together a little package for us. Set it up for delivery prior to our arrival. I’m sending you the info.”
Jackson quickly replied, “You got it, Sarge. It’ll be done tonight.”
“Good. Get the boys together first watch in the morning. We’ve got to talk about our assignment.”
As the Sergeant’s most trusted team member, Corporal Jackson had learned long ago to do whatever the Sarge asked and ASAP. He pulled up the info sent on his implants, displaying it on the wall in his quarters.
He gave a low whistle, his eyes nearly bugging out. That was quite a package — lots of toys for the squadron to play with! The Sarge didn’t do anything by the halves. He gave a smile; with the command codes the Sarge had given him, no one would argue with what he asked for. Well, not for long.
This wouldn’t take long at all and he still could get to the card game the boys had planned. Lots of vulnerable young officers with more money than sense here in the Capital.
Like taking candy from a baby.
Jason was thrilled to be doing his part to help his love as he performed the role of XO on their small ship. Some of his counterparts would probably have considered it a demotion, even if the position was on the ship captained by the Crown Princess. He would never have felt that way, but it didn’t matter anyway — he was more than a little prejudiced toward her. He also knew just how special she was.
He was glad that her father had accepted him. In fact, the Ambassador had treated Jason as if he were family, which he guessed he was now, even if they hadn’t officially announced their engagement. Still, he was glad that was so. He would never have wanted her to feel like she had to choose between him and her father.
As XO, it was Jason’s duty to make sure all their provisions and hardware were in order, including some of the speciality items, like the Marine armor Jarra had insisted they all be issued. After their last mission, it made sense. She wanted her team safe. Compared to her special Marine Reconnaissance Armor, theirs was much more basic, but it would do the job intended, protecting the wearer against the many dangers they might face. Something told him they were going to need it sooner and not later, so he made it a priority.
All that had taken time, including arranging a time for each member of the crew to be scanned for the automated fitting process to be completed, but he’d pulled it off. He’d been so busy, he’d almost forgotten to make sure the order for her specialty coffee made it through, but luckily he remembered. It was a good thing, because that was the only thing she asked about. It got him a smile, which made it worth it all.
Jason still couldn’t believe it all. Here he was with the girl of his dreams and still able to do his duty for the Empire with honor and alacrity. Still, he worried about their new mission, for he greatly feared his love would once more be in grave danger. He would do anything in his power to make that danger less, if only he could do so.
Nevertheless, Jason understood duty as well as his love did.
For the first leg of the journey, it was decided Katarina would follow Amfiltrite for the voyage through the edge of the galactic core and back out the other side in the transition to the galactic arm that was the home of the Borjon. The Borjon worlds, or nests as referred to by the Borjon, were clustered around the home nest of Borjon about a third of the way up from the galactic center. That was one of the reasons the Borjon were so confused by the human way of referring to each world as its own entity. To the Borjon, they were all part of the main Borjon nest, just separate dwellings.
Borjon did have its own concept of a Rim District and it was there that they were headed when they left the home world of Borjon to carry out the second part of their mission. However, first they had to reach Borjon and that was going to be enough of a challenge in and of itself. The section of the galactic core that they were to pass through was rather volatile and even more so up at the “fast” level as the Borjon called the human designated theta level.
To accommodate this, they’d established a link between the two ships, with Kaeden going back aboard the Borjon ship to act as the pilot. He would lead them through the more difficult sections of their travel through the area around the core. Most amazingly, despite the distance, the entire trip would take less than two days travel.
Jarra opened a com to the Amfiltrite. “Take me to your leader,” she told a confused Kaeden, who nevertheless led them out of the Beta Albion system.
“I always wanted to say that,” Jarra whispered to Jason who at least had the decency to smile. Hey, it could have been funny.
Galen was glad to be back on the navigation boards, even if he was following the Amfiltrite through their links. The early part of the journey was easy, but he knew it would get more exciting as they followed their intended journey through the edge of the core region. This was another one of his dreams, although after the last high adventure in hyperspace he was not quite so willing to brag about it.
The difficulty of navigating this close to the core was the reason it had taken the humans so long to discover the aliens in the other arms of the galaxy. Early forms of hyperspace technology couldn’t handle the stress of the hyperspace currents near the core, currents made worse by the radiation and gravitational forces generated by the stars and the supermassive black hole that made up the galactic core. He had to give credit to those early explorers who had braved their way through when the technology had finally improved enough to give them a fighting chance. They had no idea what they would find, but they had gone there anyway.
Even now when the Galactic Empire had more advanced hyperspace technology and shield abilities, only certain paths were passible in and out of the region and those varied in their distance and level of difficulty. It was much the same in fast hyperspace, if not more so, although at least Ka
tarina was well equipped to handle it.
With the fast ship hyper technology, they perhaps could attempt to penetrate to areas around the core that had been off-limits before, but that was not the objective of their current voyage. Of course, Galen knew that they still couldn’t make it all the way to the true core, to the area near the supermassive black hole that formed the center of the galaxy. It would probably be centuries before humans developed the technology to do that. He wondered what they would find when they did.
Galen firmly believed that with their new technology, they finally had the ability to enter the Octarian space, space that had been blocked by what humans called hyperspace mines that generated interference at the lower hyperspace levels. Of course, that didn’t mean it was advisable to do so. They had so far only experienced the more benign weapons of the Octarians, weapons that merely disabled a ship when they ventured too close. To enter without permission would be insane. Who knew what other weapons they possessed that were not so benign?
In recognition of Galen’s abilities, Kaeden had chosen one of the shorter, but slightly more difficult paths through the core. In fact, as he recognized as part of his training, something told Kaeden to pick the particular path they were using, although he mentioned it to no one. He might not have even remotely the psychic abilities of his Master, but he knew when it was important to follow such premonitions. That premonition had been screaming loudly in his head.
Even with the links, Galen had to keep his head in the game, so he concentrated more intently when they entered the area with the strongest hyperspace flows they’d seen so far. Despite their new technology, it didn’t mean his job was easy. Navigating so near the core was challenging enough and this area was the worst so far — so challenging that for a little while Galen didn’t have time to think about anything else. But he persevered and he knew that by the time they exited into Borjon space, he would have a good handle on it and could navigate the return to their home arm alone if necessary. Of course, he probably would have chosen a somewhat easier path if he was doing the navigating alone.
The most amazing thing of all was that their journey so far was just under half a day and he expected the remainder of the journey to take even less time. Previously, their journey would have taken over a week to this point, with another week’s travel remaining. Galen had a pretty good idea of how uncomfortable that must have been to the humans aboard such small diplomatic ships that had made the trip in the past. Besides being the first human fast ship to make this journey, as far as he knew they were the first armed human ship allowed access this far into Borjon territory.
Galen was so preoccupied, he was surprised when Jarra called for a halt, bringing both ships to a sudden stop.
Gabo was working his scanner boards pretty hard, despite the fact that they were basically just following the Borjon monk’s ship Amfiltrite. But this area of space was rather new to the humans and they hadn’t scanned it before with scanners as powerful as those possessed by Katarina, so he was making a concerted effort to gather as much data as possible. Afterwards, it could be studied in depth by Imperial scientists, who would never know how the information was obtained.
It was a lot to look at but mostly it was just analyzing all the hyperspace flows and crazy radiation levels in this area of space. All of that changed when he received a hard ping from something out near the edge of his sensors. What in the galaxy was that?
Gabo didn’t have long to decide. Despite the fact that they had slowed considerably from the furious pace the Katarina’s fast hyperdrives could deliver in more open hyperspace, they were still going extremely fast relative to the real universe. That meant the object would drop off his sensors in a matter of seconds.
Gabo quickly determined that the contact was real and not some kind of sensor ghost. Still, it could be something of non-vital importance and wouldn’t be worth the time for them to investigate, especially as that would call for them and the Amfiltrite to come to a complete stop. I think I’d better leave that decision to the boss.
“Hard contact off the port!” he sent by implant to Jarra. “It may be nothing but I recommend we stop to investigate.”
Jarra didn’t hesitate when she glanced at his plot. “I agree,” she replied, punching the control on her panel designed for exactly the purpose of bringing both ships to a complete stop.
“Sara,” she told her friend who was also the ship’s communication specialist, speaking the command aloud for the entire ship’s benefit. “Send a message to Amfiltrite that we are stopping to investigate an observed object, along with Gabo’s sensor logs for the anomaly.”
“Galen, find us a course to get in closer,” she said, again speaking aloud.
“Working on it,” he replied. “That region of space isn’t exactly tame.” As he looked at it in more detail, he realized that was quite an understatement.
“It’s going to take me a few moments,” Galen finally admitted as his first attempts to find a passage failed.
The Amfiltrite came up to join them so that Katarina could take the lead role in the link. “Permission to come aboard,” Kaeden sent. “I possible help be.”
Jarra gave him a smile. She knew exactly what he really wanted, not that she could blame him. “Permission granted.”
It didn’t take him long. Galen still hadn’t finish plotting his course when Kaeden joined them on the bridge of the Katarina.
“That’s the quickest ship-to-ship transfer I’ve ever seen,” Jason commented, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Unfortunately for him, the effect was lost on Kaeden.
“My people in past did fly,” Kaeden said by way of explanation. “Ship tube no gravity, so fly.”
Amy tried to explain. “Jason was being sarcastic,” she said, “a human thing. We all know you’re really here to be close to the action.”
Finally understanding, Kaeden nodded. “Always much action close to the One.”
Galen interrupted their discussion. He’d finally come up with a workable way in, one that didn’t lead to a dead end. He displayed it on the ship’s main 3D VR view. It was a rather contorted course. “This is the best I can do. I recommend we proceed at a slow speed. We don’t want to run into any surprises.”
“Make it so,” Jarra replied.
The Katarina inched toward the unknown object while Gabo worked furiously at his sensors. It seemed to be obscured much more than what he would have expected it to be just due to the intense energy fields surrounding it. He could have sworn that somehow it was blocking most of his sensors so that he could not get a clear view of it. It wasn’t until they were much, much closer that he was finally able to stabilize their view.
What appeared in their viewscreen shocked everyone.
Chapter 5
Forerunner
“Is that what I think it is?” Jarra finally asked, her own shock as high level as the rest. The Amfiltrite had come to a stop off to their side.
“Sensors indicate that it is definitely a Forerunner object,” Gabo responded, his voice just a little shaky. In all their explorations of the galaxy, the Galactic Empire had never found a single intact Forerunner station or anything approaching this object in size. As far as they knew, the Borjon race hadn’t discovered anything as significant as what they were seeing either. However they’d left the galaxy, the Forerunners had somehow been able to leave almost no footprints behind to be found. Nothing like what they saw in front of them now.
Beside them, Kaeden seemed to be every bit as excited as the rest of them. “Ní raibh a leithéid orm riamh,” he said, forgetting for a moment and slipping into his native language.
“Never before have I seen such,” Amy translated for the crew. Even then Kaeden was so stunned he didn’t recognized his error.
“Everyone spend a few minutes reviewing your data. I’m calling a meeting in the galley to discuss our investigation of the object,” Jarra told her team, her voice controlled despite the fact she felt much the same about their discovery.
“Before we meet, I’m going to compose and encrypt a high priority message to my uncle, letting him know of the situation, just in case something goes wrong.”
No one was late for the meeting. Despite their apprehension of the possible dangers, the excitement level was extremely high.
Jarra didn’t waste any time getting them started. She was just as excited as the rest of them. “Before we get into the details of our plan, I’ve asked Gabo to summarize what we know about the Forerunners, just to make sure we’re all on the same page.”
Gabo smiled. “As some of you know, as a student the study of the Forerunners was one of my areas of specialization. For this overview, I’m going to stick as much as possible to what is known to be fact. Except as relevant to our discussion, I will mostly attempt to ignore the speculation and theories regarding the how and why the Forerunners left the galaxy, nor will I venture into speculation of how they accomplished leaving so few traces behind.
“The first Forerunner discoveries were made about a century ago as our ships first ventured out onto the Rim. Most scientists believe the Forerunners were aware of our very early developing civilization, and for reasons of their own, chose not to contact us, and in fact, avoided our space. That is the most likely explanation for the lack of even a hint of the Forerunners being discovered prior to mankind's venture out to the Rim worlds.
“When I say artifacts, I’m talking about small pieces, most of which we believe to be their art. Personally, my theory is that they just couldn’t bring themselves to destroy those works and so left them behind. Other than that, we found evidence of what’s left of their infrastructure on a few planets out on the Rim. The few buildings found housed their art, so we believe they are the equivalent of our museums. No other buildings, which is still something of a mystery.