The Prophecy of the End – Chapter 57

Chapter 57 – From Proxima to Sol

Amanda’s hand froze as she began to pop another grape in her mouth – one of the many joys of being back in Human Civilization was fresh, non-reconstituted fruits. The taste was the same of course, but the texture never survived the storage process without being altered. Her quickboard chimed again and she sighed, popping the treat into her mouth as she rreached over and punched the answer button. Alex’s face popped up in the corner, and she glanced up at him. “What’s going on Al?”

“Thought I’d let you know. We’re going to be leaving Nexus tomorrow. It’s a day earlier than we planned, but the council let me know they’ll need more time to discuss what they want to do regarding the Avekin and there’s not much left for us to do here. We’ve resupplied, got new gear, orders are in for the things we couldn’t pick up ready-made. So barring any unexpected issues popping up, we’re going to head out early.”

Amanda leaned back for a moment, eyes glancing upward as she went over the various tasks that had to be completed. As Terrafault’s representative on the ship many of the clerical tasks weren’t officially in her wheelhouse, but Alex often asked her to double check on many of them to ensure he wasn’t missing anything. She couldn’t come up with anything other than routine correspondence that could just as easily be done from Sol via couriers, so she just nodded. “I can’t think of a good reason not to.”

“Thanks. One more thing though that’s been on my mind.” Alex’s tone was somehow off. He sounded almost guarded. “After this is all said and done, I don’t think I’m going to be in the business of surveying asteroid fields anymore. Maybe one or two times for the Avekin while they set up their own survey corps, but not long term.”

“That’s not entirely surprising.” Amanda said offhandedly. It was no news to anyone that the Surveys were just a means to an end – the end of course being the ability to get out and explore outside the bounds of Nexus. “So what did you plan on next?”

“I’m not sure. Working with the Avekin, like I said, at least for a bit. But the thing is that won’t necessarily be done for Terrafault.” Alex said, and studied Amanda’s image on the screen closely. “What you were saying about bringing Trix onto the crew and all kinda stuck out. If I’m not doing runs for TF anymore, then is all that necessary? For that matter, if I’m not doing runs for TF anymore then is a representative of them necessary?”

Amanda looked down in surprise at the board. She had been a more or less permanent resident on the ship for years now, along with the rest of the crew. To suddenly be talking about being unnecessary – “Alex, are you trying to kick me off the ship?”

“Not directly, no. I’m fine with you staying onboard. Just between us I kinda like having you around when you’re not trying to micromanage everything I do.” Alex flashed her a smile, then shook his head. “But you’re a rep of the company. If I’m not working for the company anymore, then won’t they want to reassign you elsewhere?”

Amanda froze as she realized what he was saying. “Oh, I see what you’re getting at. But Terrafault will by necessity have to be involved in everything going on out in the Perseus Arm. It was one of our contractors – you – that made the discovery out there. The company, through me, negotiated with the Avekin and the survey markers you left in JR692 are technically ours that we’re simply passing ownership on. I’m sure the company will still need my presence out there.”

Alex shrugged on the video feed. “Makes sense. And you know you’re welcome on the arcadia. I just assumed they’ll probably want to establish a permanent presence out there. Which means moving you off the ship onto a station or ground-side offices.”

“Alex, for someone who doesn’t want me off the ship it feels like you’re hinting at wanting me off.” Amanda’s voice grew stern, and Alex immediately held up his hands.

“Whoah, that ain’t it. What I’m getting at isn’t that you’re not welcome here. What I’m getting at is that when we get back to Kiveyt, this won’t be a Terrafault mission. The Arcadia won’t be a Terrafault ship. I’m fine with you sticking around, but the company…”

Amanda winced as she realized what he was 'getting at'. It was unreasonable for a company to assign a representative to a ship that was no longer doing their missions. Looking at it from the side, Amanda could see how her complacency on the ship had masked that, and was kicking herself now that it was pointed out.

“No, now I’m seeing what you meant. And you’ve got a point. One I hadn’t even considered until just now.”

Alex studied her – the surprise and realization seemed to be legit. “It’s not really a huge deal, but I’m curious. When I visited my… the PSS ceo, he mentioned you were an exec. Then you came out to corral me and watch me out in the ass end of nowhere. As far as career aspirations that seems like going backwards. Won’t this be a good idea for you moving forward?”

Amanda smiled wryly and shrugged. “Execs are expected to have a certain level of field work. Helps make sure that the higher ups don’t lose track of what the rest of the company is doing. 'The most accurate means of determining the situation is with your own two eyes' is our head's motto.”

“Still, ten years aboard a remote ship seems like a waste compared to putting your skills to work growing the company.”

“They’ve stated three times they were going to reassign me.” Amanda said, and Alex’s eyes widened in surprise. “Each time you managed to do something that caused them to reconsider. The first was discovery of that massive field in PT181. The second was the Guylevo mission and the, ah, diplomatic repercussions afterwards. And we’re in the middle of number three right now.”

“They were going to reassign you?” Alex asked. “I’m not standing in the way of your ascension up the ladder, am I?”

“Yes, and no. They were going to reassign me – but they found your contributions to be too valuable and quite frankly nobody else wants to be your rep.” Amanda said, deciding against trying to sugar coat it. “Your reputation with the other potential reps isn’t high. But you and I have a history of working well together and the company decided to capitalize on that.”

Alex grinned at that, and leaned slightly further back from the camera. “Not my fault they can’t deal with my adventurous style. Either way, though, I don’t see my future being alongside the company much longer. Maybe on a case-by-case basis or something, but not like before. I felt it was only right to make sure you knew that.”

“I appreciate the consideration.” Amanda meant that honestly – usually Alex’s view of corporate politics or bureaucracy tended towards complete disdain. It wouldn’t have been unusual for him to just spontaneously announce ‘I quit’ and immediately fly to the nearest station to dump all the astrology equipment onboard out onto the nearest pad. “Of course we still have quite a ways to go so I won’t start packing my bags just yet – at the very least I’m sure that the company will want me present in Kiveyt while you are, and until we can get a local presence in orbit or ground-side established I’m sure we can come to a compromise.”

Alex nodded thoughtfully. “That makes sense. Don’t mention it to anyone else, but I’m not really eager to see you go.”

“Well, there are definitely parts of the job I won’t miss.” Amanda made a severe look. But quickly enough it softened into a slight smile. “But there are some I will. And while I still think you were reckless and stupid to take the risks back in Perseus that you did… I can’t quite deny that you did a good job.”

Alex was silent for a moment as he thought about it, before he shrugged nonchalantly. “Y’know, that means a lot coming from you. Thanks. Anyway, I won’t keep you any longer.”

“Thanks, Al.” Amanda pressed the disconnect button on the corner of the image and sat there in thought for several minutes before she picked up the quickboard and shoved it into a desk drawer. She reached under her console and pressed her finger against a small, smooth plate of metal and another drawer with a nearly-identical quickboard slid open – though this board was noticeably thicker.

Transmissions from Nexus Station could be routed using a secure local line to the Nexus TF office, making them more secure. Transmissions from the Arcadia itself were trickier. Normally she’d rely upon the FTL comm, which transmitted instantly from point A to B without possibility of intercept, but said comm was back on Kiveyt six thousand light years away. This overengineered piece of tech relied on more standard n-space transmission – either via radio, or by hand-delivered storage mediums. To ensure security it relied on older quantum cryptography and a synchronized one-time cipher chip.

The whole rigamarole was silly, and despite the many, many, many times that it had been drilled into her that these steps were done not simply for secrecy’s sake but for safety’s sake she was slightly tempted to forego it and just use a standard comms channel. That impulse was restrained by the knowledge she’d face an extreme chewing out and quite possibly more severe forms of censure.

Her fingers flew over the board as she rapidly typed on the touch interface the message to be sent to TF headquarters.

“Status update on Asset WTS by Cleopatra. Completion of primary mission of Asset has resulted in loss of motivation to continue engaging in service. Reporting desire to leave service to engage with overseas administration. Assessment by Cleopatra is that asset continues to retain value for ongoing primary mission.”

She paused as she typed. Having to be so circumspect in her phrasing was irritating and just the right way to phrase this next part was difficult. For one-way communication not using the FTL comm the rule was ‘Always assume the possibility of a leak and ensure that minimal possible information gets exposed’.

“Unsure if alternative artifice would suffice to ensure continued service. Onboarding asset continues to be risky. Losing asset would degrade mission performance moderately. Will report in for update in Cairo.”

She read over the message twice, adjusting wording here and there to try to obfuscate the meaning a bit more without making it indecipherable when it reached its destination. What an enormous hassle. And yet, despite all the irritation and annoyance this produced she still found herself slightly hesitating before she hit the ‘Send’ key.

Ah, well. She thought to herself. Considering the reason all of this is being done is to avoid being murdered outright? Probably still worth it.

—–

Trix gazed at the strange image on the screen in front of her. A 2-D representation of 3D space was already tricky enough when that space was mostly a void – but D-Space is the opposite of a void. Whereas N-Space is relatively empty between stars and systems, D-Space is filled with everpresent highly charged particles that necessitate constant shielding. In that respect it was almost fluidic in a way – the particles were always shifting, swirling, moving around. And those particles were affected by gravity – the only force capable of directly interacting between N-Space and D-Space.

“So as you can see, we have two choices to travel to Sol.” Par said as the image slowly turned and a slice broke away. “The local gravity from the three stars increases the local d-space density that forces us to move significantly slower through the local space. In order to move at higher speeds without overwhelming the fore particle shields we need to first move to a section of d-space with a much, much lower particle density. That allows for the higher transition speeds that we used when traveling to Perseus.”

“So the straight line means plowing slowly through a dense particle field at a lower speed, or taking a massive detour around to be able to reach our destination at a higher speed.” Trix immediately grasped the implications.

“Precisely. Sol also lies in an unfortunate stellar location. A six-thousand-light-year long gravitational eddy spinning off from a stellar singularity lies near Sol. That eddy causes little to no problems in N-Space but increases particle density within D-Space. Meaning that to avoid the increased density and allow us to move at speeds roughly approximate to those available on our journey to Perseus, we would have to travel a significant ways PAST Sol, then loop around into the thinner region. Observe.”

Par projected a short blue line between the two systems, Proxima and Sol. Then a much, much, much longer red line arced ‘up’ out of Proxima, past the horseshoe-shaped dense region created by the grav eddy, only to turn around and approach sol from the rear – a total trip that was five times the distance.

“For decades while we improved the efficiency of our particle shielding this was the optimal route to Proxima.” Par intoned, and Trix made a face. “Between our slower drives in general and the less efficient shielding, the typical travel time between the two systems was around eight days. Now we have improvements in both shielding and drive speeds, and the options available to us have increased. The optimal route now is the one mentioned – a mere three and a half days. So to answer your question while we can travel roughly eight-and-a-half light years per hour in D-Space it takes days to reach sol due to its unique stellar location and circumstances.”

“I see.” Trix crossed her arms in front of her. “And now I’m starting to see why you’re so interested in the Bunter’s FTL drives.”

“We don’t know how they’re affected by gravity or other stellar masses.” Alex watched the demonstration from his command chair, and decided to chime in. “We’ve learned a lot from the FTL comms system, but one consequence of learning a lot about it is exposing how much more we need to learn. The idea of being able to instantly ‘jump’ from Sol to Proxima in seconds is more than just tempting.”

“Dealing with gravity between systems is also the reason why Kiveyt and Farscope being a mere 26 light years apart still takes a week.” Par went on. “The area around Farscope had a significant amount of particle clumps we had to move more carefully around. They posed no serious threat to the ship but they were unusual and an investigative request has already been filed to determine their nature with the Proximan Society of Interstellar Phenomenon.”

“Assuming the Tanjeeri let them.” Trix added. Amanda had yet to update the crew as to the state of Farscope, and thus far was the only one onboard who knew what had actually happened out there.

“I’m sure they won’t send in survey craft without some protection. You heard what they sent with the diplomatic detail they dispatched. Fucking DREADNOUGHTS.” Alex shook his head at that, still almost unable to believe the council when they told him.

“What’s so special about them anyways?” Sophie interjected. “I mean it’s an intimidating name and all. Fear nothing. But why do they fear nothing?”

“Chiefly because they’re built to be the biggest, strongest, most ridiculously overpowered weapons of war we’ve ever made.” Alex responded with a crazed grin. “In the list of warships we created, the Dreadnoughts are at the very, very top. The best of the best. Sol and Proxima only have a handful each because they’re massive, difficult to construct, and expensive as hell. I couldn’t tell you how many each side has because the military always likes to keep the exact details to themselves, but they’re a force to be reckoned with.”

“They sound impressive. Although without any frame of reference it’s difficult to imagine.” Sophie leaned over her console, propping her elbows on it. A bad habit she’d developed after seeing the humans do the same thing.

“Par, pull up the ship classification sheet.” Alex prompted, and the density map of local D-Space vanished from the display. “Okay, so here’s the general breakdown of our ships. On the low end, are fighters. Kinda like those ones you guys had in Farscope.” The image zoomed in on a strange looking stubby craft that looked almost like an arrowhead.

“Is it okay to be telling us this?” Trix looked up at the image, and Alex shrugged.

“I’m not going into specifics here. All the info I have is the public info on the Terrapedia so this is just a very, very broad overview.” Alex gestured forward. “Fighters are basically hit-and-run craft that can’t travel in d-space. They’re easy to make in droves though, and they only have two crew each. The next step up from them, is corvettes.”

The screen zoomed out on the fighter, and zoomed over to a larger ship – this one more cylindrical than the tapered-off fighter design. “Corvettes are the smallest FTL ships in the military. They’re roughly the size of the Arcadia, but built for war – meaning they could absolutely obliterate this ship. The specifics of their weapons aren’t listed on the ‘pedia so I don’t know any exact details there, but my strategy would be to ‘run like hell’ if confronted by an aggressive one.”

The corvette zoomed out, and a much larger ship appeared. This one was more blocky, with two engine struts jutting behind it and a bristling array of something-or-other appearing on the sides and tops. “After the Corvette is the Destroyer. According to what I’m reading, it’s mostly used for picket duties. Meaning they get posted individually or in small amounts around systems to keep an eye out for enemies, send out an alert if someone does show up and harass the enemy until help arrives.”

“The next level up are cruisers.” The blocky ship was replaced by a much larger, sleeker, more refined shape. The blocky panels were replaced with smooth curves and rounded instrumentation ports. “Cruisers are kind of the jack-of-all-trades ships. Some are heavily recon specialized with sensors so advanced they’d make Amanda need a change of pants. Others are defensive specialized to whittle down incoming fire whenever bigass armadas duke it out. They’re also the most maneuverable ships we have. According to this, there’s six individual classes of cruiser alone.”

The cruiser slid over and a huge elongated ship replaced it. It wasn’t sleek like the cruiser – this one had a bulky, powerful look to it. The front of the ship had two elongated rails protruding from it and a dozen circular ports next to each rail. “Then there’s the battleship. Two massive primary rail cannons, a couple dozen missile tubes, incredibly thick armor. ‘Ccording to the article here, they sit back in the middle of a fleet and blast back and forth. Fire out a shitload of missiles, dump tonnes and tonnes of high-velocity metal into space in the direction of the enemy. That kind of thing.”

“Those cannons are goddamn massive. How does anything survive a shot from those?” Trix’s eyes were wide as she stared at the image.

Par clicked his digital tongue. “That’s simple. Don’t be there when it arrives. Fleet combat is normally done at the tens-to-hundreds of thousands of kilometers apart. Railcannon shots move fast but can’t turn. So you can either knock it off course – even a fraction of a degree of course adjustment can mean a miss at a hundred thousand clicks – or you can just move your ship slightly and watch it fly past.”

Alex nodded again at that. “Honestly the encounters we had with the Tanjeeri were kind of atypical because they were close range. You remember when we were fleeing – if they didn’t keep micro-jumping up close to us their shots would have been cake to dodge.”

Trix sighed, and leaned back slightly in her chair. “Yeah, I remember. So how many ships after the battleship is the dreadnought?”

“Two. Right above the battleship in size is the carrier – which is huge because it holds a shitload of fighters. They can’t enter d-space on their own, so the carrier ferries them around.” Alex brought up an image of the carrier – elongated and fat with rows and rows of launch bays along either side.

“But why bother with fighters at all when you have ships a hundred times their size?” Sophie frowned as she tried to envision the role that fighters would have in combat. On the station they were useful because they were small and merchant ships were unarmed, so even a weak combat unit was vulnerable to them. But this huge ‘carrier’ made it sound like they were used in actual military battles.

“For one, they’re small as hell and that makes them hard to track. Second, they can each independently move and maneuver and respond to any situation that occurs. Third, there’s an advantage in numbers. Remember when you were shooting down the incoming Tanjeeri missiles while we transited to D-Space? That was two dozen dumb-fire missiles that fired in straight lines. A military ship would have had a dedicated computer system to handle defensive fire in those situations, with a human backup. It could think a hundred times faster than you or me. But imagine those were missiles that could dodge and turn, so they couldn’t be shot down as easily. And imagine that there were a hundred of them instead of a couple dozen. And imagine that before impact each of them would separate into twenty-four individual warheads that would each approach from an independent vector.”

“They’d get in each other’s way and explode.” Sophie immediately said, and Alex folded his arms at that.

“Most likely, sure. But the defensive fire computer would be absolutely overwhelmed with incoming fire. And even if it wasn't, there are only so many point-defense options on the ship. Then there’s defense – assuming the same computer system dealing with a hundred incoming missiles now has access to a hundred defensive fighters? Each fighter can be assigned a single missile to destroy. The fighters can engage the missiles before the swarm separates and destroy them by any means possible. And if a fighter is destroyed in the process, only two crew is lost. The carrier that they’re with and guarding has over a thousand times as many crew on board.”

Sophie closed her eyes. “That math is awful. But I can see it. If the sacrifice of two people can save thousands…”

Alex stood up and walked over to put his hand on hers. “I know what you’re thinking. But I don’t think the Tanjeeri would have ever settled on one or two instead of the station. They didn’t even TRY to communicate or negotiate.”

They stood there for a moment, gazing at each other until Trix cleared her throat. “And the dreadnought?”

Alex didn’t bother returning to his command chair as Par advanced the presentation. “Bigger than a battleship, with thicker armor.” The screen adjusted for size – it was twice as large as the carrier before it. “I don’t know exactly what kind of guns it has, only that it has a lot of them. There’s no concrete details in the Terrapedia about its armament, displacement, defenses, or even crew complement. All I know for sure is that Sol made one first, and just the threat from it was enough to cause Proxima to completely abandon two picket stations until they got one of their own up and running.”

“But if you don’t know what it can do, how do you know it’s so impressive?” Sophie pointed out.

Alex reluctantly removed his hand, and hopped back up into the command console. The image of the dreadnought zoomed out slightly, and a small figure appeared next to it. “That’s the comparison of the Arcadia to a dreadnought. If we used every single weapon at our disposal against one, I don’t know if we could even breach its outer armor. And inside of that armor is countless walls, bulkheads, doors, shields, cable runs, and everything else between our shots and its main reactor. In comparison, our railcannon was able to breach not just the outer armor but the interior and reactor of the Tanjeeri ships.”

Sophie stared at the comparison image then tilted her head as she considered the implications. “So a dreadnought would absolutely obliterate the Tanjeeri then?”

“That’s the million dollar question right there.” Alex gestured to Trix. “Thanks to our pilot we didn’t find out first-hand just what those huge-ass missiles could do. The one that hit the Skees trading ship tore straight through it, but that thing had zero armor – it was basically paper. So depending on what warhead they put into their missiles they could pack a hell of a punch and we wouldn’t know. Plus, I don’t know how many ship classes the Tanjeeri have. We’ve seen three in total – and they were all pretty small. If I had to compare, most of them seemed to be around the equivalent of corvettes.”

“If you’ll remember though – our strategy against the Tanjeeri is basically the same as our strategy against corvettes. Run like hell. The Arcadia isn’t a warship, it isn’t designed to fight. I armed this ship not to try to win in combat, but to scare off anyone who tried to start shit with us. Before we arrived in Perseus, the gatling cannon had been fired twice when it wasn’t being tested or used out of boredom – and both times it ended up scaring off the other person.”

“You were attacked?” Sophie looked up in alarm. “By who?”

“Jumped by a mining ship.” The door to the bridge opened, and Josh walked in while Alex was explaining. “One of Terrafault’s competitors got upset that we reached a field before they did. They had an industrial mining laser that could cut this ship in half, and threatened to use it. The railcannon convinced them not to try.”

Josh took his seat on Alex’s right, opposite where Sophie was seated and sighed tiredly. “Sorry about the delay. The sterilization’s done. Ji’s sequestered for twenty-four. Should be safe to be around by the time we gate out.”

“I hope the concert was worth it.” Alex commented. Calling it a ‘concert’ was a bit of a misnomer, the band was playing to a huge amount of people but they were crowded into a relatively small area. No seating room and everyone was shoulder-to-shoulder. That, or perhaps the young woman he’d accompanied to her apartment afterward, was the most likely source of the infection that he’d returned with just before leaving Nexus.

Luckily Min had spotted the inflamed bumps on his arm before he’d interacted with any of the other crew members. Staphylococcus Praenovis was a mutated variant of a much, much older bacteria but it hadn’t interacted well with the blood and tissue samples from the Avekin. Luckily it was easily treated, but with the unknowns of whether or not that treatment could be safely used on Trix and Sophie nobody had wanted to take the risk.

“According to him, the concert wasn’t. The evening was.” Josh kicked up his feet and leaned as far back as his duty chair would allow. “But the hallways, stairs, and all other common areas have been fully and entirely disinfected so there’s no more concern about exposure.”

“Ugh. I can smell it from here.” Trix grimaced in displeasure.

“You’re smelling it on me. Had to be safe. Better an unpleasant smell than finding out what a highly infectious mutated bacteria does to you.” Josh retorted. “What’d I miss here?”

“We were just speculating about the dreadnoughts sent to Perseus.” Sophie commented. “Trying to determine how they’d fare against the Tanjeeri there.”

“I’m not willing to make any guesses until we know what kind of warheads they were firing at us. They blew up real nice when Sophie nailed ‘em with the railgun, but I don’t know if that was the payload or the propulsion doing it.” Alex added.

“Par, what’s your evaluation?” Josh asked, and a soft hum filled the air briefly.

“Entirely inconclusive. We lack entirely too many details about the composition and capabilities of the warheads. We also lack concrete details of the composition and thickness of dreadnought armor as well as its point defense capabilities. To this end, speculation as to the capabilities of the Tanjeeri versus a hardened military target cannot be evaluated with any reasonable amount of accuracy.”

“Meaning there’s little point in speculating because there’s an endless range of possibilities.” Alex sighed, and shook his head. “Well then, given that the rest of the ship is now safe from the aftereffects of Ji’s enjoyable evening I’m going to retire to my cabin for a bit of R&R.”

Alex stood up and Sophie immediately joined him as the pair walked off the bridge. Alex could hear Trix behind him wondering, “I wonder just what they got up to that was so enjoyable?” before the bridge door closed and they took a few steps down the hall into the Captain’s Cabin.

As the door closed behind them, Alex gave Sophie a pointed look. “You DO realize what your niece hasn’t – the nature of that little rendezvous Ji had?”

“I’ve been around other races significantly more than she has.” Sophie assured him. “While your people are more casual and open about it than the Bunters or Cetari, it’s not unheard of for either of them.”

Alex thought about that – the idea of two of those weird, slug-like aliens having a one-night-stand was odd and discomforting. A bit hypocritical of him to think considering he was dating and sleeping (platonically) with an alien but her physiology was so much less foreign to him than theirs were. “What about the Fwenth?”

“They’re… different.” Sophie responded, before crouching down low to stretch out her legs. She’d been sitting at the console too long and the console was designed for a shorter species than hers. “I don’t think they even have the concept of acceptance. They group together to procreate in their gardens and then separate afterwards. I don’t even pretend to understand it.”

“That’s fair. Par mentioned it before, but… yeah.” Alex shook his head and threw himself down on the bed. Normally he’d have preferred his comfortable recliner, but that was a one-person seat and lately every opportunity together was spent close against his girlfriend. “Want to watch more navy stuff?”

“Yes, but not right now. I’m feeling restless. I want to get some exercise in. Let’s hit the rec room for a bit?”

Exercise and fitness wasn’t among Alex’s top priorities. Sure – he had no plans to become obese despite the fact that technology could avert the worst side effects – but exercise was still more of a chore than a hobby or entertainment. Sophie clearly saw it as more of a routine. He slowly dragged himself up off the bed. “Alright, alright… lead the way.”

—–

“Ten seconds to Emergence.” Trix called out, and Alex nodded along before he froze.

It was Trix’s sixth time at the helm when exiting D-Space. The maneuver was routine, literally just ‘fly in a straight line’ so nothing difficult or out of the ordinary. So what was it that triggered him to suddenly pause?

“Hang on.” Alex glanced up at the master plot, then back at his pilot. The realization dawned on him. “You said that in English!”

Hearing familiar English words as spoken with an unusual Avekin accent had completely caught him flat footed. Thanks to the omnipresent translation options he had placed linguistic adaptation as an extremely low priority, but obviously Trix had different priorities than he did.

“Of course I did.” Trix responded, this time in her native tongue. “Me and Aunt Sophie are the only ones who don’t speak it in this section of the galaxy. It makes sense I’d be learning.”

Alex’s head immediately whipped over to Sophie, who gave him a beatific smile. “Pleasant weather is today.” She immediately said in English.

Alex was caught entirely off-guard by this, and his mind raced. The translation function of the Visors was seamless and over the past months Alex had grown incredibly comfortable hearing the strange warbling-whistling dialect of the Avekin. He barely even noticed it, though he still couldn’t quite grasp it. Sophie had been trying gamely to teach him at least an understanding but the wider range of their vocal chords combined with his less sensitive hearing meant that he could not grasp many of the nuances of their speech. While he could speak it indirectly using the breath mask, she had complained that it sounded too unnatural so he rarely used it anymore.

Now, however, a creeping sense of guilt started crawling up his spine as he realized his girlfriend had been worker harder at learning his language than she had at hers. He rapidly punched in a code on his command console, and pulled up a quick phrase in Avekin he hoped he could pronounce. “Uh… Jec reya Sophie rojur…ii?”

Sophie winced at the pronunciation. “Enough, enough, this wasn’t a contest. Your phrasing is absolutely abysmal.”

“Sorry. I just felt bad that you’ve learned more of my language than I have of yours.” Alex sighed unhappily and slumped down in the chair. “When did you even learn it? We’ve been together non-stop since the stop in at Legionary Arms.”

“Par installed a learning program on our visors.” Sophie explained. “Instead of just a single translation for everything you say, I see a double – a translation and the original english. The grammar is bizarre and your weird words that sound the same but mean different things in different context makes it a nightmare to learn but I’m getting there.”

“Well, shit. I should have been helping out more.” Alex sat back up straighter and gave Sophie a bright smile. “It’d be more enjoyable if we worked on it together, right? Maybe I can help a bit with those nightmare words…”

“Uhhhh… Captain?”

“Yeah, Trix?” Alex’s eyes didn’t even glance away from Sophie as he responded.

“If you two are done flirting,” a heavily digitized voice sounded from overhead as Ma’et cut into the conversation. “Maybe you’d like to pay attention to the fact that we’re currently surrounded?”

Alex’s gaze immediately jumped to the master plot. The computer had diligently been monitoring all instrumentation and updating the plot while he’d been focused on linguistics. He studied the screen and shrugged. “It’s not like our arrival here was unexpected or a surprise. And we are carrying a diplomatic mission from Kiveyt, so maybe they’re here to escort us?”

“Two light and four heavy cruisers is a hell of an escort.” Ma’et responded. “Plus EM readings are showing their plants are running a LOT hotter than what they’d need for just propulsion.”

Alex felt a small shiver of terror in the back of his mind at that. The amount of firepower out there was enough to wipe out the arcadia many, many times over. “Maybe it’s a show of force to impress our guests?”

“Not the best impression in my opinion.” Trix muttered, then glanced over her shoulder. “So what do we do?”

“We continue on this heading but decelerate at one gravity until we reach, say… one-hundred-thousand kph. Par, open up comm lines?”

The musical tones of the AI’s voice sounded out immediately. “Communication has been established with the local beacon and I’ve broadcast our in-system arrival code. Broadcasts to the ships nearby have been acknowledged but… status change. They’re requesting we reduce velocity to zero.”

Alex shot a worried glance over at Sophie. “Trix, decelt at five gravities until we hit zero. Par, did they say why we’re supposed to stop?”

“No. Only to reduce velocity to zero.”

Alex drummed his fingers on the armrest of the command chair as he tried to think of what was going on. He didn’t have any outstanding warrants for his arrest here in Sol. Josh did, but six cruisers was an INCREDIBLE overreaction to an army deserter. Plus the Sol Ambassador on Nexus had promised they’d be able to negotiate a fine in lieu of imprisonment for the desertion charge. So what the hell were the Sollies playing at here?

“Incoming message from the local Terrafault offices. Text only. ‘Local political situation unstable. Cooperate with armed forces.’”

“Unstable situation my ass.” Alex lightly bit the inside of his lip. “We can’t run, we can’t fight, like I’m not going to cooperate. There isn’t any other choice.”

“Captain, there’s a shuttle launching from one of the cruisers.” Ma’et suddenly informed him, and he watched the blip appear next to one of the larger circles on the master plot.

“I see it. Trix, go ahead with full deceleration to zero-velocity. It looks like I guess we’re going to have some guests here shortly. Kind of a rude way to say hello but…”

A ‘dead stop’ in space was somewhat of a misnomer. All objects in space are moving in some degree – but the general consensus amongst spacefarers was that when in a system, ‘dead stop’ was relative to the local star. It took nearly eight minutes to do so and the entire time Alex’s anxiety increased.

“Message from the shuttle. They’ve identified themselves as a UNS marine boarding craft. They’re messaging us to hold for docking.”

“Fucking hell, what is going on here?” Alex suddenly yelled, causing Sophie and Trix to jump in surprise. “Fine. Par, guide them to the shuttle docking ring. Give them remote operation of it. I don’t want them cutting a fucking hole in the ship if they think we aren’t ‘cooperative’ enough. Everyone else, I have no goddamn clue what they want so Josh, Trix, you two are confined to the bridge until they actually start talking to us.”

It wasn’t long before the entire ship shuddered and jolted slightly as the shuttle came into contact with it. The marine’s boarding shuttle dwarfed his own, very nearly being the size of the Arcadia itself, and Alex passed the nervous minutes trying to speculate how many marines exactly it carried. As he felt the two ships come into contact, however, he stood up and walked over to the door leading to the bridge. He wanted to try to head them off before they could apprehend Josh. Sophie stood up and followed, standing immediately behind and to his right.

He could hear heavy footsteps in the corridor and coming up the stairs from the hangar bay below. He could see the dull grey of composite steel as he realized the marines were in full combat armor. Not a sight he’d expected. The lead marine stopped ten feet from Alex. They were unarmed, but that meant little – in that armor they could snap any bone in his body nearly effortlessly and shrug off all but the heaviest weapons onboard.

“Are you Captain Sherman?” The voice from the foremost Marine was distorted behind their mask and Alex couldn’t tell if they were male or female from that.

“Yes. I’m Captain Sherman of the ISC Arcadia. I’m here on a diplomatic mission carrying the official Ambassador of the Avekin species to Sol to engage in peaceful introductions and talks.” Alex replied. His hands were sweating but he tried to project confidence in his voice.

The marine stepped forward, closing the gap between them to only a few feet. “Captain Sherman, you are hereby under arrest under the authority of the United Sol Navy for crimes against Sol and all of Humanity. Please surrender peacefully and come with me, sir.”

—–