by Aer-ki Jyr
Paul slipped behind the small ‘desk’ and powered up the holographic interface, finding a list of items being the last thing that whoever had worked this console had been viewing 100,000 years ago.
He pushed it aside and brought up the main menu, then dove into the specialized files for this location…which were many. In fact, it seemed like there were twice the amount of menu items available as there had been on the upper tiers of the pyramid. Jason immediately noticed that too.
“Race specific data?”
“Or more compartmentalization,” Paul suggested, bringing up the information on this particular dome. “Communications hub?”
“Look there,” Jason said, pointing at the schematic. “Another force field to keep the water out.”
“It’s not out, though.”
Jason snapped his fingers as he caught on. “Air pressure. It keeps the water from making it too dense in here. Either for us or this is the pressure they prefer to breathe at. A lot of their worlds are higher gravity, so it would make sense that this is the norm for them.”
“Here we go, Dino email,” Paul’s face scrunched up as he started to read one of them. “Love letters?”
“Really?”
“No,” Paul said deadpan.
Jason punched him in the shoulder, thoroughly had.
“It’s an information request to the Oso’lon asking for updated reports on the Rit’ko’sor rebellion, specifically which clans were involved,” Paul said, reading further. “It looks like they were concerned that the fighting could find its way out here and wanted to verify whether or not their Raptors were kin to the traitorous sects or not. Apparently their knowledge of the Rit’ko’sor social structure was limited, because there’s an addendum to the original message asking for a structural overview so they could better make use of the original data they’d been given.”
“Never took the time to get to know their underlings?”
“Sounds that way,” Paul agreed.
“I’m surprised we even have access to their messages.”
“I…think that’s because the Zen’zat transmitted it for them. There’s a list of what look like official emails rather than personal ones.”
“Personal assistants?”
“Pretty much…and they never logged out.”
Jason made a ‘tisk, tisk’ sound. “You can get fired for that sort of thing.”
“I think running for your life from a hoard of angry Raptors might make for a legitimate excuse.”
“The V’kit’no’sat strike me as more of a ‘zero tolerance policy’ sort of group,” Jason said sarcastically. “Besides, do you really think they got down here? Unless they go for a swim there’s not much fighting they could do, and it’d be a tight fit for them in the tunnels.”
“More likely they got called up top to fight and just left their workstations where they were.”
“Well then, that’s not abandoning their post, it’s following orders. Perfectly acceptable workplace behavior when the bosses are getting their asses kicked.”
“Still hard to believe they pulled it off.”
“The warship helped, I’d imagine.”
“True,” Paul admitted. “But the little ones taking out all the others…they couldn’t have seen that coming.”
“The element of surprise is highly underrated.”
Shifting aside the communications data Paul went back to the main menu and brought up a schematic of the underwater levels…something that hadn’t been available in detail up top.
“It is one big room,” Jason said, studying the new hologram. “With subdivisions.”
“Different races, different billets,” Paul said, locating their position on the map. “We’re in a Sess’nat dome.”
“Sess’nat?”
“Sort of a shell-less turtle, shiny scales.”
Jason frowned, then his memories realigned. “Right,” he said, getting confused with so many new races being added to their list.
“I remember because they have four subgroups,” Paul said with a smile that Jason couldn’t place.
“I didn’t take that close of a look,” he admitted.
“Greg decided to nickname them the Leonardos, Michelangelos, Donatellos, and Rafaels.”
Jason burst out laughing.
Paul pointed to a different section on the underwater map when he managed to clear the smile off his face. “Garas’tox section is here. I say we hit that then head back up. It’ll take us weeks to search through everything down here.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Jason said, heading back to the airlock. Paul powered down the console and followed him.
“Donatellos,” Jason whispered when they pushed their way back through the atmospheric field and resumed their exploratory run.
“I know,” Paul said, snickering. “Wish I’d thought of it first.”
10
July 19, 2112
Paul unshouldered his duffle bag and handed it to a Star Force tech as a gentle shower of snowflakes fell on the rooftop landing pad of the foodstuff factory. The man hurried off to tuck it into the waiting Mantis’s cargo compartments as Greg and Jason waited with the unofficial fleet commander for the other Archon leaving Antarctica.
They weren’t the first to go. Four others had already left even as the first construction crews began arriving to build a new sanctum within the pyramid itself. Others were scheduled to leave later in the week, and still others were staying around on an indefinite basis. The long term plan was to keep at least one of the trailblazers on site at all times with a handful of other Archons to assist with the secure access research while the others would rotate in and out as they chose.
None of them wanted to go…the pyramid was like a giant amusement park for them to explore and with the various training chambers they’d discovered there were challenges galore for them to sink their teeth into, but Paul and a few of the others were needed back in the field sooner rather than later, with Davis having been the first of them to leave.
“If and when they can get a working prototype we’re going to need more numbers,” Greg pointed out, carrying on a running conversation they’d been having the past few days.
Paul nodded. “They say it won’t be anytime soon, but I’m already making plans. Our best bet is Epsilon Eridani, if we can confirm the clear routes in through the dust cloud.”
“No Ross 248?” Jason asked, giving the Earth classification of the nearest star system with a habitable planet according to the pyramid’s databanks.
“Not for the big push, no,” Paul said, seeing Morgan coming up out of the factory to join him on the flight back to Atlantis. “Too cold, plus Eridani has multiple habitable planets in addition to Corneria. The extra distance and restricted approach vectors may be a headache, but it’s our best option for significant expansion.”
“Are we bypassing the others then?” Greg asked.
“No, no. We’re grabbing up everything we can get, but we’re not going to go full bore to colonize an ice cube,” Paul said as Morgan handed her duffle off to the waiting tech and joined the group.
“Did I hear you say Corneria?” she asked with a devious smile.
“Yes you did,” Paul said, holding a steady gaze.
“It already has a name, you know.”
“It has a catalog number,” Paul corrected her. “Besides, no reason we have to let the V’kit’no’sat name everything. 50 light years out and their survey ends, so we’ll have to be naming those anyway.”
“Getting a bit ahead of ourselves,” Morgan pointed out.
“Doesn’t hurt to plan ahead,” Greg said, coming to Paul’s defense.
“We haven’t finished colonizing this star system yet,” Morgan reminded him. “And we have no way of getting to another one.”
“That’s what we were discussing,” Jason said. “We found some additional schematics that should help the techs with the gravity drives. Sort of an ‘Idiots guide to star travel’ that the Ter’nat had in
their racial files.”
“Given to them?” Morgan asked.
“Looks like it,” Paul answered. “It’s old data, but was probably given to them at some point so they could start constructing their own ships.”
“I thought Cora said all their ship production was done at other races’ shipyards?”
“Not quite true…all Ter’nat shipyards are paired with others, for oversight purposes, but they have to build their own tech.”
“I stand corrected then. How long do you think it’ll take to get a functional prototype?”
“Decades, minimum,” Paul said with a mixture of anticipation and regret. “Even the basics are still over our heads, but we have something to gear our research towards now. If and when that day comes we need to have a plan already in place, which is what we were discussing.”
“Sure you don’t want to stay?”
“Can’t,” Paul said, grinding out the word. “Got a fleet to run, training to do, Acolytes to catch.”
“Ha, good luck,” Morgan said, slapping him on the shoulder as she walked off towards the Mantis. “It’s cold out here. I’ll give you some pointers on the trip back.”
Paul rolled his eyes as she walked off, but didn’t follow her. “One other thing, Ryan and I did some more digging. Turns out the swimmers sent a deactivation signal to the pyramid as they were leaving, ordering it to power down. That’s why everything was off when Davis originally found it.”
“Not everything,” Greg pointed out.
“I meant via sleep mode, not a power off.”
“Well that answers that question,” Jason said, referring to one of the last bits of the mystery surrounding Humanity’s origins on Earth. “Has Lens reported back yet?”
“Not yet,” Greg said, having kept in contact with the Archon responsible for their underwater operations. After discovering that the swimmers had infrastructure underneath the ocean that the Rit’ko’sor couldn’t get at, he’d been the first to head back to Atlantis in order to start an expedition to find, secure, and reclaim those locations for Star Force use. “They can’t travel that fast, so it’ll take at least another week.”
“Don’t suppose any of those super-squirters are still operational?”
“We know the ones to the mainland were knocked out, but the rest might be salvageable. Lens wants them, but wasn’t going to hop right in. He was concerned about bashing his ships against the sidewalls during transit and wasn’t sure how they avoided the problem.”
“He’ll want to set up his own network if they can get the bugs worked out, I assume?” Paul asked.
“If he can, it’ll expand our underwater colonies exponentially.”
“Paul, let’s go!” Morgan yelled from the back of the open Mantis.
Paul waved distractedly at her, but kept his focus on Greg and Jason. “How’s he set for Europa?”
“Game as always, but they’re having some trouble adapting to the cold,” Greg told him. “He thinks it’ll be another few years before we can transition to manned vessels.”
Paul nodded as another Mantis, this one a heavy model, slowed to a hover over a nearby landing pad and slowly dropped down to the surface. In the distance he could see several others approaching through the snow, carrying more of the construction supplies for the new sanctum…which also meant his Mantis needed to clear the pad.
“Better get going,” Jason suggested.
“I’ll get that personnel manifest to you by the end of the week,” Greg promised.
“I’ll hold you to that,” Paul said, backpedaling towards the boarding ramp. He threw his fellow Archons a two-fingered salute then jogged up the ramp and into the personnel compartment where Morgan and three support personnel were waiting.
“You are way too chatty,” she chided him as he sat down next to her. She handed him a datapad as the boarding ramp closed and the pilot lifted the small Mantis off the pad and accelerated away from the factory and back towards Atlantis.
Paul grabbed the pad and activated the external feeds, watching a heavy Mantis take their pad and begin to offload supplies and personnel before the snow obscured the camera view.
“You’ll be back again,” Morgan promised.
“Not for a while. I’m heading back to Venus and it looks like things are going to be accelerating from this point on. I’m going to have to leave the playground to the rest of you.”
“Not me. I’ve got work to do too.”
“Gotta keep pushing the limits so the rest of us can’t catch up?”
“Always. I’m still camping out at the main sanctum, but I’m trying to train an Archon strike force using only the second gen. I’ve got 53 going through preliminary drills. Hopefully at the end I’ll have three or four I can work with.”
“Strike force?”
“They need the help, and I was feeling generous. I’m basically trying to replicate one of our teams using my experience in place of the ingenuity they don’t have.”
“53, huh?”
“And?”
“They volunteer?”
“Yeesss,” she said with a strained voice.
“Oh, I’d love to watch that,” Paul said, cracking a smile. “They have no idea what they’re in for.”
“I’m starting them off slow. The point is to teach them, not break them…yet.”
“You’re all heart, Morgan.”
“Kurt and Will are doing the same thing,” she protested.
“Ah ha! That explains it. Gotta be number one and have the best team.”
“You’d be doing the same if you weren’t stuck off planet,” Morgan pointed out.
Paul considered that. “True. Is it just the three of you?”
“For now, but we’re getting so many new Archons that we don’t have enough field assignments for them and they don’t know what to do with themselves.”
“Train,” Paul said pithily.
“We would, but they’re not us. They need a competitive focus, so we’re going to start developing one.”
“Competitions?” Paul asked, his curiosity involuntarily spiking anytime that subject came up.
“Right now it’s experimental, to see if we can get them up to where we used to be before we all split up, but the theory is to split apart into ‘clans’ and battle it out to keep each other sharp.”
“Clans?”
“A la Battletech,” Morgan explained.
“Just hand to hand?”
Morgan hesitated. “I hadn’t thought about extending it further, but there’s no reason we couldn’t include pilots…and of course the mechs. Huh, I had a better idea than I thought.”
“Naval too.”
Morgan smiled. “Want a piece of the action?”
“I think we all will if this is going where I think it is.”
“A little side project in our spare time?”
“100 teams?”
“One for each of us…oh, I think I like that. Annual competitions? No, that’s too often. We can have team to team matchups periodically, but getting everyone together at the same time would be problematic. We can station each team out of the sanctums, which will keep people on hand in case of emergencies.”
“I can put one together on Venus easy enough. Think I’ll grab some volunteers on my way back there.”
“Alright, Khan Paul, let’s set this up formal like.”
“I think I liked Admiral better,” he said, blanking his datapad so he could begin filling it with notes as his head likewise filled with ideas. Competition had always been an essential part of their training, yet it had been lacking in any formal format since they’d graduated from their basic training. “Hand to hand, flying, naval, and mechs?”
“Lens will want aquatics too.”
“Not exactly my area of expertise,” Paul said, adding the fifth category.
“Which will force us to adapt,” Morgan said gleefully.
Paul smiled. “Point. We’re going to need more simulators in the sanctums, and predeter
mined challenges for the hand to hand…”
From there on the two Archons went on a nonstop planning binge for the entire trip back to Atlantis, then spent another three hours together setting up the logistics of their first ‘Clans,’ with Paul choosing the name Saber and Morgan electing to tag her already existing group Clan Ninja Monkey.
Paul bust out laughing when she told him that, but after a stiff forearm to the chest and a moment to think about it he admitted it was a good choice, even if it was a bit humorous. Then again, his Clan Saber moniker might also elicit some laughs when they saw that their symbol was going to be three crossed lightsaber blades.
He knew that those two names, as well as a host of other things they’d incorporated into their plans were going to spark a friendly, but intense internal war between the trailblazers…and he was eager to get a head start on the rest of them.
When Morgan and him finally split up Paul didn’t hop the first flight back to Venus, instead he headed across the ocean floor to their main sanctum that held more than 5,000 Archons in various stages of training. Given that Morgan had already chosen her core group, but had done so on the basis of a strike team, that meant the best flyers, mech pilots, naval commanders, and the limited aquatics specialists were as of yet unclaimed.
Grinning from ear to ear Paul started sorting through their rosters, selecting the ones he wanted. The naval officers were easy to choose, given that he’d trained them all…but to be fair he didn’t snag all the top talent, picking two he knew were among the best then selecting a few younger Archons that showed good potential, giving him 5 there.
Then he went and selected 8 pilots, choosing them based on their attitudes as much as their training scores. A few had field experience, which was a plus, but he was more interested in choosing individuals that would fit into this overall plan for Clan Saber. With those he wanted added to his roster he went through the much harder task of choosing aquatics specialists.
Lens had the best ones working with him in the field, so there weren’t many stationed in the sanctum for Paul to scoop up and take back with him to Venus before the others had a chance to object, so he had to pick through what limited scores were available. Only 58 individuals even had an aquatics ranking, so Paul picked two of them and was looking for a third when an epiphany struck him.
