Ascension_Age Of Expansion_A Kurtherian Gambit Series

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  Something to break the monotony had to happen eventually, though. Things never stayed static for too long.

  “Captain? We’re being hailed by The Corona. Should I patch it to your holocomm?”

  Yanked out of his thoughts, Grouthe glanced at the communications officer and nodded once, just briefly dipping his chin towards his chest. “Patch it through.”

  He opened his wrist holo.

  “This is Captain Grouthe of The Hierophant,” he greeted blandly. “Has someone finally decided to tell us what we’re actually doing, General?”

  Boys sighed slowly. “Grouthe, all of us are getting antsy. I do not need the attitude. It’s not going to help matters.”

  Grouthe cleared his throat. “My apologies, General,” he offered. “How can I help you?”

  “As you suspect, we finally have our orders,” Boys confirmed. “We’re to hold our course. Considering that, we likely have a day and a half at most before we’re within range of the invading fleet.”

  Grouthe’s eyebrows rose, regardless of the fact that Boys wasn’t actually present to see it. “Not quite the decision I was expecting,” he acknowledged easily enough. “I was under the impression the Senate was beginning to waver on the choice to send us out here.”

  Boys paused for a moment before he replied carefully, “Apparently there’s something of an emergency back home.” He didn’t sound entirely satisfied with that statement. “I’m not sure of the specifics, but whatever it is, it evidently has everyone spooked enough that no one in the Senate balked at the idea of martial law.”

  Grouthe whistled, low and impressed. “Sounds like things have gotten exciting since we all left home. I’m almost sad to miss it.”

  “Yes, well,” Boys sighed, dismissive and distant, “I’m sure they’ll keep us in the loop.” He didn’t agree with Grouthe’s attitude, that much was clear, but he was too professional to directly bring his personal feelings up. A sad, sorry stick in the mud, but Grouthe supposed that meant he was ideal for his job.

  “Is there anything else, sir?” Grouthe wondered, once again beginning to pace across the bridge, back and forth like a metronome.

  “That will be all,” Boys replied, and he simply hung up. Grouthe closed his holo, unbothered by the abrupt dismissal.

  “Steady on, boys,” he reported to the rest of the bridge crew after a few moments, pausing his pacing as he said it only for a second before he resumed his repetitive meandering. His words were light, as if he was simply reporting on the weather. “We haven’t seen the last of all of this, and it seems everyone’s hit some turbulence back home.”

  At last, he returned to his seat at the center of the bridge. “This should all be interesting by the end,” he mused, more to himself than to anyone else on the bridge. “More than I expected it to be, at any rate.” The rest of the bridge crew seemed to pay him only a token amount of attention. They were accustomed to him thinking out loud.

  “Any special orders?” the pilot asked after a moment, as the navigators worked on adjusting the course.

  Grouthe needed to think for only a second before he turned his attention to the communications officer. “Let the crew in the main battery know that they should keep the cannon warmed up.”

  “Do you think we’ll be needing it?” the communications officer asked carefully, even as he was already putting the message together to send it.

  “I suppose we’ll know soon enough, won’t we?” was all Grouthe said in reply.

  News Broadcast, Belladonne Square, Estaria

  The manual camera, compared to a holocamera, was unwieldy. Positively minuscule compared to a lot of antiques, but enormous and cumbersome compared to the holocameras that had become so popular. It was so much easier to be a crew of one when no one needed to actually carry the camera. The movements weren’t nearly as smooth as with a holocamera, as the cameraman panned in after the anchor.

  The cameraman made no complaint, though, and the anchor was as professional as ever.

  “Here we are in Belladonne Square,” she reported, gesturing behind her. “Usually bright enough to be mistaken for daylight even in the middle of the night, now only those businesses with the foresight to have physical backups for their screens are still advertising. For businesses that had holo-tech signs, it’s as if they’ve become invisible.”

  She sidestepped in a half-circle, her cameraman following her movements, until a physical screen was behind her, set up at a post office. “Even more pressing than that,” she carried on, gesturing to the screen with one hand, “the holo network blackouts have become so widespread that the Senate has declared a state of emergency.”

  The screen was just an endlessly scrolling message about said state of emergency.

  “While just a few years ago it was common for holo-tech to be just an accent piece in a house, by now it’s so ubiquitous that entire households have gone dark,” she explained, calm and to the point. “While wristholos, holoscreens, and holoconsoles are just the most obvious sources, it’s no longer uncommon for every interface in a household or business to be a holo-interface.”

  Her tone took on a note of urgency as she added, “If you know of any friends, family, or neighbors who have gone dark because of the holo network blackout, we all urge you to extend a hand and offer whatever help you can. In the meantime, all of us here at IQ News will keep you updated on any changes with the network and the spread of the blackout. This has been Mercy Hazrad of IQ News.”

  The screen cut to the scrolling emergency banner that had been visible on the post office’s screen after that.

  Back in Belladonne Square, as the cameraman lowered the camera, Mercy dragged a hand through her hair. “Not sure how much good we’re doing when a solid forty percent of the population has gone dark,” she grumbled, pinching the bridge of her nose between two fingers.

  “At least we’re letting people know they’ll need to lend a helping hand,” her cameraman replied, checking over the camera absentmindedly.

  Mercy wiped her hand down her face, carefully avoiding smudging her eye makeup. “There is that,” she conceded, before she steeled herself and straightened back up. She started walking at a purposeful pace, her heels clicking against the sidewalk. “Come on. We need to get back to the car and get moving. We’re IQ’s only team that’s actually qualified for manual camerawork, and we need to hit two more locations tonight.”

  Base Conference Room, Gaitune-67

  Maya’s brows furrowed together in concern as the broadcast cut to the emergency message. Paige glanced over her shoulder, pausing in the middle of organizing a cabinet of datapads. The need to have organized hardcopies of everything had been made very apparent recently.

  “Something wrong?” Paige asked, setting a datapad down on top of the cabinet and turning around to lean against the back of Maya’s seat.

  Maya flapped a hand at the broadcast. “More reports of Estaria going dark,” she stated simply. “No one really seems to know what to do about it.”

  “Wonderful timing,” Paige grumbled, sagging more heavily against the back of Maya’s chair, until it creaked. “First the media sends everyone into a panic, now people don’t even have access to that.”

  “Convenient timing, don’t you think?” Maya wondered, craning her neck just enough to look back at Paige. “I mean, these can’t be isolated events. They have to be related to each other. They have to be.”

  Paige hummed thoughtfully for a moment, rocking back and forth on her heels and rocking Maya’s chair in turn. “It does seem pretty unlikely,” she agreed slowly.

  Maya sighed and offered an unenthusiastic nod in agreement. “It would be easier if they’re related, though,” she grumbled. “Deal with one problem and the other one goes away, too. Like magic.”

  “When is anything ever that easy?” Paige asked wryly, finally tumbling herself down into the chair beside Maya’s. “If something doesn’t require a twelve-step plan at minimum, I am automatically suspicious.”
<
br />   Maya elbowed her in the shoulder, sending their chairs very slowly wheeling away from each other. “Don’t jinx it,” she scolded. There was no real ire behind her words or the scowl on her face.

  It didn’t take long for the mood to grow somber once again.

  They returned to working in silence, until finally Maya slumped back in her chair and slid down in it until she was nearly under the table. “This sucks,” she decided eloquently, using her feet to turn her chair around so she didn’t need to see the emergency message anymore. Neither of them wanted to actually turn the news off in case something changed.

  Paige snorted lightly and glanced up at Maya briefly before turning her attention back to her holoscreen. They still had analysis to get through if they were going to find a solution…

  Just then the rest of the team started arriving.

  “We’re going to have to pick this up after the team meeting,” Paige called over to Maya finally. Maya nodded and packed up the screens she had spread out everywhere, and started explaining to Brock what they’d discovered thus far.

  “Sounds like you’ll be staying here when we go off to stop an all-out space battle,” he mused. “I don’t know which of us has it worse off…”

  Base Conference Room, Gaitune-67

  Molly rubbed one eye as she tried to focus on the holoscreen in front of her.

  It’s just not clear what’s happening. I’m still trying to collate the data. It seems that there are sporadic blackouts all over Spire.

  Is it isolated to Spire?

  It’s too early to tell. I’m monitoring all kinds of channels to see if anyone else is reporting it elsewhere on the planet.

  Okay. Keep running diagnostics. There have got to be answers somewhere.

  Molly sat back in her chair, allowing her eyes a moment to defocus and rest.

  Man, I could murder a mocha now.

  Before Oz had the chance to protest about what it would do to their system, the door to the conference room slid open and heavy boots entered the room behind her. “Hey, I got here as soon as I could.”

  Molly turned to see Joel come in and take a place at the conference room table a couple of seats down from her. “Thanks for coming so quickly. I’m guessing you were asleep?” she ventured, sympathetically.

  “Yeah just, I think… But what about you? Have you even been to bed yet?”

  She shook her head, absently, already moving her thoughts to the next thing. “No… not yet.”

  Joel gave her a sympathetic look. Before he was able to carry on with that line of questioning or even make sure that she was okay, she had moved back into mission-mode.

  “It looks like the holo network is going dark in places,” she explained. With a tap on a holoscreen she brought up a screen on the main projector in the center of the table. It was a heat map with patches here and there which had gone dark. “What you’re looking at is Oz’s best guess at where we’ve lost network. The red areas are places where he is yet to gather enough data to be able to say one way or another. The black areas are where we have confirmed reports of the holo network being down.”

  Joel leaned forward, his arms on the table. “And how do we know that these places are down if there is no holo connectivity? People can’t just report it in, can they?”

  Molly smiled and wagged finger at him playfully. “Clearly we didn’t make you operations lead for nothing,” she teased. “You’re right though. Oz has managed to ping those areas and has confirmed the network is just… down.”

  Joel rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Do we know why?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Think it’s got anything to do with the Northern Clan?”

  “Almost certainly. And the timing couldn’t be worse.”

  “How so?”

  “Well best-case scenario it’s designed to stop people from voting.”

  “And we haven’t seen that in history before,” he chuffed sarcastically. “And worst case?”

  Oz inserted himself into the conversation over the conference room intercom. “There is an 89% probability that Ekks will use this to declare martial law.”

  Molly glanced at Joel grimly. “We’ve seen before in other cultures in other situations. It’s well documented. Especially with the kind of power and economic imbalance that they have on Estaria now. I think 89% is pitching low.”

  Joel was already looking tired and disheveled having been unceremoniously raised from his slumber. But as Molly explained the severity of the situation to him, he visibly paled even more.

  “But isn’t he still under your thrall? Ekks, I mean.”

  Molly rolled her lips. “He should be. I wish I could tell you definitively yes… Joel I’m...scared.”

  Joel started to move towards her to put his arm around her.

  Just then, the door whooshed open again, and this time Paige appeared, pulling their attention. Her face was taught with tension. “Bad news, folks. Looks like Ekks is becoming immune to whatever it is you’ve been doing to him… or the instructions weren’t specific enough.”

  She paused briefly to take a breath. “He’s just declared martial law.”

  Molly’s head fell into her hands. “Fuck!”

  Joel took a moment to react, slamming his fist on the table in frustration. A second later it was as if his frustration had transformed into determination. He sprang to his feet. “Well, what are we waiting for? We need to get back down there and change his mind. Oz, prepare a pod.”

  He looked to Molly, to see her still hiding her face in her hands. Slowly she raised her eyes, dropping her hands to the table. “Hang on, let’s think this through for a moment. I’m not sure but I’ve got a very strong feeling that his first act will be to cancel the vote. In which case no matter what we do down there, we don’t have a say in what happens next.”

  “In which case,” Oz piped up over the intercom, “those ships are going to engage the first opportunity they have.”

  Molly glanced at Joel and then Paige. “He’s right. Oz? How far out are the Estarian ships from the Zhyn blockade?”

  “Less than twenty-four hours,” Oz reported.

  Molly turned back to Joel decisively. “Well then there isn’t time for talk. We’ve got to get out there and turn them back. Before they pick a fight with the Zhyn, and therefore the Federation.”

  “Ok—I’ll make the arrangements,” Joel confirmed, barely taking even a fraction of a second to jump on board with her plan. “Oz—alert all personnel as to what is happening. Have them meet back here in the base conference room in forty minutes. Tell them to start getting mission-ready.”

  “Acknowledged,” Oz responded over the intercom.

  Joel hurried out of the conference room, the sound of his boots rapidly disappearing down the corridor. Paige glanced at Molly. “Anything I can do right now?”

  Molly thought for a moment and then pulled up her holoscreen and pointed to the map that was already on the main projector. “I need to attend to a few things, but if you could work with Oz and try and figure out what’s going on and what is causing this, that would be massively helpful.”

  Paige sat down enthusiastically. “No problem, boss! I’m all over it.”

  Molly smiled at her friend and touched her on her forearm. “I don’t know how any of us would survive without you.”

  Paige grinned playfully. “Well for a start you’d have to order your own pizza, and goodness knows what kind of cocktail crap you’d be drinking.”

  Molly chuckled as she stood up. “You know, you’re absolutely right.” And with that she waved and then hurried out of the door to attend to the myriad of things she needed to do to get them space-bourne.

  Paige pulled up her holo. “Maya? You wanna help me with some investigating that could save the whole of Estaria?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Base Conference Room, Gaitune-67

  Maya pulled her lips to one side. “No. It just doesn’t make sense. If it were a power failure, then we would
be able to trace it to a source. A power node that was down. These patterns just don’t match the power grid nodes.”

  Paige shook her head in agreement. “But if it were a virus, it would have a point of origin too, wouldn’t it? Oz, what do you think?”

  “I agree with both points,” he explained. “But I have to say, what if we were to look at it in terms of under what circumstances would most things be true. For example, under what conditions would a virus not have a single point of origin?”

  Maya tugged subconsciously at her hair as she contemplated the question. “Well for a start if the virus were introduced at a number of network nodes simultaneously.”

  Paige’s eyes brightened. “Yes! That’s true. Or if the virus was set to activate at various nodes at the same time.” She paused. “But surely there’s nothing to say that it had to be physically or manually introduced, right? It could have been deployed from a single point and then, kinda… hatched at the nodes?”

  Maya nodded. “Yeah. I’ve seen viruses do that.”

  “That’s a good point,” Oz confirmed. “But it would take time for a virus to deploy in that way.”

  “True,” Maya agreed. “How long for this one, Oz? If we can get a time scale on it, maybe we can narrow some variables down.”

  “Difficult to tell at this point,” Oz confessed. “I’m struggling to see the big picture because I’m having to download data in chunks. I don’t have a real-time view of the whole network.”

  Maya cocked her head. “Why is that?”

  “Well when we first came here, it was just the nature of the technology that we had access to and a way at keeping us isolated and safe from prying eyes and authorities.”

  “And now?”

  “Well,” Oz continued sheepishly, “we’re still dependent on that setup. I can’t access the network continually. I have a service that I can download data from periodically, and even though it’s a lot of data and even though the servers are preprogrammed to gather what is useful, it’s still limited.”