Olympus (Rise of the Empire Book 1)

by Ivan Kal

  “Pleasure. Lead the way. I believe you have already waited long enough for me to get here,” Tomas said.

  “True that. If you would follow me, Director,” Marcus said as he started walking down the hallway.

  “I must thank you in the name of everyone here for trusting us enough to bring us in on this project, Director,” Maria said as they walked.

  “There is no need, Miss Nunez, every person involved in this project is here because they are the best,” Tomas replied.

  “Well, I believe that gratitude is appropriate anyways. The chance to work on something so monumental that could change the world is really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

  “You are welcome, then. I hope that you will give this project your best.”

  “Certainly, sir, never doubt.”

  They went past two security checkpoints before finally arriving at the big hangar that held the spaceship. It was on a level below them, and they approached the railing to take a better look. The ship looked unlike anything he had seen before. It was yellowish in color, glistening as if a fresh coat of paint had just been applied, and there was no damage to its hull that would indicate the reason for its location on the bottom of the ocean. The ship wasn’t as big as Tomas had thought it would be—perhaps a hundred meters in length and forty across at its widest point, with about fifteen in height. Basically not much bigger than the Eagle-class transport. It was sleek, with its back being the widest and the highest where the engines were situated. The hull then dropped at a low angle towards the bow that ended in a sharp point. It looked vaguely like a talon.

  “It’s impressive,” Tomas said after a moment.

  “Yes it is. We still can’t figure out what type of alloy the hull is made of. We know that it is stronger than anything we have, though not by as much as we expected. But it does have some other qualities like being highly resistant to heat, and no sensory equipment we have can penetrate inside. Even with the door opened, it seems like it’s giving some kind of a dampening field, though we don’t know if it is being generated from a device inside or if it is coming from the hull itself. And when the door opened, the inside of the ship was filled with new air while the old one was released outside, the composition of which was the same as ours,” Marcus said.

  Tomas looked at the ship for another moment and then turned to Elias.

  “Go to security and form a five-man team. Take someone who understands computers and someone who is well versed in languages. We’ll go inside when you are ready.” Being a part of Olympus security wasn’t only about knowing how to use a weapon and fight. Every one of them was required to be knowledgeable in at least two other areas, ranging from history to advanced physics. And with people now living at least a hundred and fifty years and having their work age extended to very near its end, it meant that very few of Olympus’s security officers were younger than forty. Elias walked off with a short nod. Tomas then turned to Marcus.

  “Professor Hyeon and I will be coming inside with the security team. I want you to remain here and monitor the situation. If you see any sign that the ship is powering up or anything else that seems dangerous, you are to seal off this facility and call the security forces to deal with the situation. Contact Theo Nuros at Nephthys headquarters; he is familiar with the situation and has forces ready to deploy to this location.”

  Professor Hyeon looked at him with surprise. Tomas gathered that she’d thought he wouldn’t include her because of her earlier remarks, but Tomas knew that she was the best chance they had of understanding anything inside of the ship. She would also be the one to lead the efforts of uncovering this new technology. And he would never put his own grievances before progress, though there weren’t any in this case. Tomas appreciated her honesty.

  “Of course, Director. But could you tell us, if everything goes well, when will the rest of the team be allowed inside?” Marcus asked. His eagerness was obvious, and some might even say that he had more right to go in than Tomas. But Tomas was the head of the organization that found the ship, and he felt entitled to do what he wanted once in a while. And he had no intention of keeping the ship only for himself, at least not in the long run.

  “As soon as the security team inside verifies that everything is safe, you and the rest of the team will have full access. You will work under Professor Hyeon’s supervision and guidance, and she will later report to me. I won’t involve myself overmuch on your territory, this is your show. I just want to be here for the opening credits,” Tomas said with a smile. He saw Professor Hyeon’s eyes widen again as he said that she would have the run of the place.

  “Very well, sir, I will inform my staff immediately,” Marcus said, and then left back through the hallway they came through.

  Tomas glanced at Professor Hyeon and noticed her suspicious glare.

  “So, would you like a job?”

  She stared at him for a moment before answering.

  “I’m guessing that you wanted me to lead this project from the start and that the consulting part was just to get me hooked.”

  “I have wanted you as a part of Olympus for a long time,” Tomas said. She thought about his words for a few moments before finally responding.

  “You know that I can’t refuse this offer—not just because I want to work on this project, but because there isn’t anyone else on the planet that I could trust it with.”

  “Just like there isn’t anyone else on the planet I could trust it with, other than you,” Tomas said seriously.

  She looked hard into his eyes, trying to see whether he was truthful or if he was just flattering her. Realizing that he was truthful, her hard stare softened a bit before she responded.

  “I love my job, I love teaching. I used to believe that there was nothing that would make me abandon the responsibility I feel toward those kids. But now I see that I was wrong.”

  Her dedication to her students was one of the reasons why Tomas had wanted her in the first place; he had planned to play on that dedication in his new offer to her prior to the discovery.

  “You don’t need to abandon teaching forever; Olympus has plans to open new schools. You could teach there when you are free from the project. And if you accept my offer, you will be given a very high position in Olympus, one that will give you access to things that haven’t yet been released to the public. Things that I believe will convince you that you’ve made the right decision.”

  “What position would I be given?” she asked in a businesslike tone.

  “Are you familiar with Olympus operational structure?”

  “You use a tier-based system, I believe.”

  “Yes, our personnel are divided into five tiers. These tiers are universal across all divisions. Basically meaning that all personnel of the same tier are the same rank no matter what area they are employed in. There are separate rankings within a single tier so that in emergencies it would be known who is in charge.”

  “So what job would I be given if I accept?” she asked.

  “Elias is the head of security; he has many sector chiefs beneath him that take care of day-to-day stuff. But he is in charge of it all. There are four other sectors that have no permanent heads. I was hoping that you would accept the job of the head of Research and Development.”

  Hyeon looked at him with mouth agape for a few moments, visibly shocked, before she responded.

  “You would put me in the leadership position of Olympus? I haven’t even worked for Olympus before!”

  “Extensive background checks are done before any such decision is made. I have been looking for the potential heads for Olympus for decades. And I was lucky when I found Elias. And then I found you, though you kept turning my offers down. But I was convinced that I would change your mind eventually. This project came at just the right moment for me to use it for this purpose. I knew that I only had to show you the kind of work we do here to change your mind.”

  Tomas stopped for a moment, looked the startled professor in the e
ye, and said softly, “Seo-yun, I know that you are the right person for the job. I have known for the past twenty years. You are brilliant, and you have a mind that needs to push its boundaries, reach for new, unimaginable things. You are very much like Elias and me, and that is the kind of people that I want working—no, not working, living for Olympus. Because we are a family, and we always seek to better ourselves. Together, we can accomplish anything we want, and if you accept, you will learn about things you can’t even conceive of yet,” he finished and waited for her response.

  He knew by the look in her eyes that he had her with that speech. Because deep down, she was the same as him; she had the same need he had, to advance those around them. Tomas accomplished that by using Olympus as his proxy, while she guided young minds in the hope of widening their horizons.

  “You know, you are not at all the person I believed you were,” she said after a moment of thought. “You are driven, more than I am, and I can see why you accomplished all that you did. I’ll accept the offer.”

  “Great, welcome aboard, Professor,” he said with a grin.

  “You may call me Seo-yun. If we are going to work closely together, we might as well drop the honorifics.”

  “Welcome, then, Seo-yun.” Tomas offered his hand and she shook it.

  “I still believe that you have megalomaniacal tendencies, but I would need to observe you for an extended period in order to be sure,” she added with a smirk.

  At her words, his grin quickly turned to full-blown laughter that echoed throughout the chamber, which prompted people around them to look in their direction. When Elias returned with the rest of the security team in full light assault armor, Tomas was still laughing. Elias approached with his helmet beneath his left arm, his N20 assault rifle slung over his right shoulder. He glanced at Tomas and then turned to Seo-yun.

  “Did you break him?” he asked in a deadpan voice.

  “I believe that I must have, either that or my previous diagnosis was dead right and this is his way of celebrating success,” Seo-yun answered in the same deadpan voice, which only served to throw Tomas in another fit of laughter. He laughed so much that he needed to reach out and grab the nearby wall for support or risk falling down.

  Elias watched his boss for a few seconds before returning to his conversation with Seo-yun.

  “I’m guessing that means you accepted the job?”

  “Yes, though now I wonder what exactly I’ve let myself get drawn into.”

  “Don’t worry, you will learn to ignore these kind of moments. Welcome aboard, by the way,” he said, shaking her hand.

  “Thanks. And you mean this kind of thing is a regular occurrence?”

  “It has been known to happen from time to time.”

  While they were chatting as if they were lifetime colleagues, Tomas managed to get himself under control. He quickly righted himself, straightened his clothing, and turned his eyes to Elias and Seo-yun.

  “I haven’t had such a good laugh in decades; it seems that your employment has already paid off.” Tomas looked around to the other employees in the hangar, all of whom looked away when they saw him looking their way. He knew that word would spread about his outburst, and that a new rumor about him would start circulating. Tomas didn’t care about them and let them go wild; usually the rumors died down on their own. If only his employees knew how close most of them were to the truth.

  Chapter Four

  “Is your team ready?” Tomas asked.

  “Yes, this is Laura, our computer expert; Greg, who is studying dead languages; Mel, our demolition expert; and Johan, engineering expert,” Elias said, indicating each person in turn. All of them had their helmets on so their faces were hidden. They looked impressive and menacing in their dark blue-black armor combat suits, which were covered in light alloy plates in critical areas: chest, thighs, back, shins, and forearms. The helmet was a full faceplate, made of tinted, unbreakable glass.

  “Alright, how are we doing this?” Tomas asked.

  “Laura and I will take point, Greg and Mel will be in the rear with Johan, you and the professor in the center. You don’t touch anything until we secure the room we are in. Any sign of trouble, Greg and Mel will escort you out while the rest cover your retreat,” Elias said. He and Tomas had spoken briefly about the operation before; the explanation was mostly for Seo-yun’s benefit.

  “Very well, let’s go.”

  “Wait,” Seo-yun said. “We aren’t going to put on armor like them?”

  Elias looked at her. “There is no point; light armor won’t save you if you run into trouble when you don’t know how to move in it, and you aren’t trained in the use of heavy armor. We will cover you, and if we run into something that we can’t deal with, then we are all already dead. But there is no need for worry; if there was someone inside, they would have already gotten out. At most, we will need to deal with automated defenses, but even that is unlikely, and our armor is only a precaution,” Elias finished, and then put his helmet on.

  Tomas saw that Seo-yun wasn’t all that much reassured by Elias’s words. He took her by the shoulders and turned her around to face him.

  “It will be fine; Elias and his team know what they are doing.” He tried to make his words as convincing as he could.

  Seo-yun looked him in the eyes. He could see something there but wasn’t able to identify it before she shook herself and her usual confident persona reappeared. She nodded gravely, and they turned and went down the stairs to the level of the ship’s entrance.

  Elias and Laura entered first disappearing inside the ship. A few seconds later, lights inside turned on. Eerie blue light shone on the two figures inside, Elias and Laura, who had lowered to their knees and were scanning the interior with their scopes. The rest of the team moved quickly to the entrance and took positions. A moment later, Elias turned his helms speakers on and yelled, “Clear!”

  Tomas and Seo-yun moved carefully inside while the rest of the team advanced towards the doorway that led further inside. Once they entered, they could see that they were in some kind of a hangar. The room was 15 meters wide from wall to wall and maybe 20 meters deep, with the ceiling being around 5 meters high. The room was mostly empty save for a few strange-looking crates piled on the right side.

  Elias approached Tomas and Seo-yun, his face hidden behind his faceplate. “The light seems to be automated; it turned on when we entered a few meters inside. As we thought, there doesn’t seem to be anyone home. The lights suggest that the ship has enough power, I doubt that the lights would have turned on if it was low on power. We can stay here for a few minutes or continue inside if you want to look around Tomas.” Elias said while looking at him.

  Tomas turned to Seo-yun. “What do you think Seo-yun? Should we stay or continue?” He asked.

  Seo-yun looked around and shook her head. “I think we should continue. There doesn’t seem to be much here. And the next team can look through this room more closely later. Unless there is something you want to look at?” she said to Tomas.

  “No, those crates might warrant a closer look, but nothing that can’t wait.”

  They continued making their way inside, now moving in the formation with Tomas and Seo-yun in the center. As they entered the doorway from the hangar to the next corridor, the lights again turned on, with the same eerie blue spreading over the metallic walls. The light intensity was low, like the light was covered with a blanket.

  “The lighting might suggest that whoever used this ship had delicate eyesight,” Seo-yun said.

  Tomas nodded. That had occurred to him as well. The corridor wasn’t long, a few meters at the most, with four doors on the left and right walls, two on one side and two on the other. The doors were closed and didn’t open when they came close; there was a panel of some kind beside each door, but apparently it wasn’t under power. The ceiling was around two and a half meters tall, judging by the gap between the top of Elias’s head and the ceiling, since he was the tallest in their p
arty at two meters and ten centimeters. The doors themselves were about two meters high, so that Elias needed to lower his head when he went through. They continued down the corridor to the next doorway. The hallway was at an angle upwards, and then turned by 360 degrees so that they rose above the hangar and the corridor they were previously in.

  The purpose of the next chamber they entered was clear immediately: it was the ship’s control center. The team quickly moved through the room and cleared it. It was shaped as a half sphere, so that the center of the room was in fact the center of the sphere. The round walls had no devices or instruments on them they were smooth and made of a different kind of material than the metallic walls in the corridors or the hangar. The room was around seven meters across. In the center, there were two small chairs with no handholds and some kind of consoles. The chairs were turned towards the back of the ship, which seemed odd at first before it dawned on Tomas that they probably didn’t need to see the outside to pilot the ship. And if they did, the vision of the outside was most likely generated on the consoles. There were two more consoles, one on either side of the center ones, with some kind of plate placed on the floor further inside the room.

  “Well, this seems a bit—”

  “Anticlimactic,” Tomas finished for Seo-yun.

  “Yes…”

  Tomas approached the middle console, the one with two chairs. He looked down and saw a series of levers on the edges on the right and left side, with the middle being smooth and of a strange light silver color.