The Corrupted Star

by Martin HC

  “Haydn, where's Tiralyn?” Jill asked him

  “Back on the ship, she can get confrontational at times, well you've seen what I mean. Anyway she'll come if I shout, always does.”

  “Well, if she's not here, then I'm going with you.”

  The statement sounded like it was directed at Haydn, but Brice was under no illusion it was meant for him, as her eyes locked onto his while stating her demand.

  “Jill, I don't think that'll be allowed.”

  “I'll be going with you Damon whether they allow it or not, I don't trust this mob, however nice a face they're wearing and if they try anything, anything,” she emphasised, staring and leaning towards Brice. “Then they may actually get to see my bad side this time.”

  She at no point looked away from Brice, her eyes bore into his, almost challenging him to refuse.

  “We'll have to relay through a path of shuttles to reach the flagship, this system isn't the best for navigation, I'm no doubt certain that's why you chose it,” Brice spoke tearing his eyes away from her stare.

  “Yes, it is,” Haydn answered uncertainly, taking advantage of the over-estimated assumption.

  “I can't see it being an issue having Jill accompany you, she will of course have to leave her arsenal of death behind.”

  “I'll leave my knives here,” she agreed after a moment of thought, it was no issue to her really. If it came down to it, the security on the battleship would have more than enough weapons for her to choose from.

  “If that's all the demands...”

  “It is.”

  “Agreed, before we make our way over to the flagship though, I was wondering if you could fill me in on a small issue of late?” Brice asked.

  “What's that?”

  “Jill here, believes the hunter fleet we met at the Grinder station isn't Ferren, based on something you said.”

  “Oh, those guys, yeah they're not Ferren, genetically anyway, according to Tira that is. We were on board their main ship once.”

  “Their flagship?”

  “I didn't see any flags, but yes.”

  “Then who are they?”

  “Mixed from the fringes, as you call it, but the officers were mostly Mergence and a little Sciesin.”

  “Can you prove this?”

  “I can't, Tira's the one that told me, she scanned them and knows all about genetics.”

  “I see, now If I may ask, how did you get up here without a single one of my guards seeing you?”

  “Some seen me... but they're all dead now.”

  Everyone tensed, Brice moved his hand towards his side-arm by his leg, Brenn drew his own weapon quietly in answer to the intelligence colonel's movements, Jill slowly began to step in front of Haydn and Damon backed away.

  An Adults Discussion

  “But they're dead now... dead now, really, how have you survived this long?”

  “Oh come on Tira, it was a joke and you shouldn't be here, they'll ask how you got here... and don't laugh Jill. You didn't need to tell her what I said.”

  “Sometimes your stupidity becomes too difficult to measure,” Tira told him sternly. “And you said nothing about coming over onto a battleship, did you really think I would leave you alone here, you've even dragged Jill and Damon along with you.”

  “She demanded to come along, and you better not start going off on anyone.”

  “I'll be fine so long as they don't try anything and if they do, then they'd best be prepared to deal with me,” with that last piece of information, she left them.

  They were sat at a large round desk, the room was generally circular in construction with various flat areas. The walls where flat boasted images of Mergence capital ships, different kinds of all sizes. Haydn got up and slowly walked around the room looking at each picture he passed.

  About halfway around, there was a gentle knock at the door, followed by a second of silence, and a second knock.

  “Should... should we answer it?”

  Damon and Jill shrugged in answer, Tiralyn gave no response.

  “Is it OK to enter?” the voice of Brice could be heard from the other side.

  “Yes, it's your spaceship.” Haydn shouted back conversationally.

  “OK good, small question first, our security systems in the area stopped working. I have an extremely upset head of security here along with a number of men, would you know why all the cameras around here have stopped working?”

  “That was Tira, she decided to join us, she's camera shy.”

  “Very good, I'm opening the door now,” Brice finished, with the door swishing aside.

  He looked into the room, and as promised the newcomer to the meeting sat at the table beside Jill.

  Stepping tentatively into the room Brice muttered something back out the door. Bodies of people could be heard shuffling away, but a few remained.

  “I'll need to know now if you intend to invite anyone else, I can't have people showing up as and when they please, certainly not after the Fleet Admiral has arrived.”

  “There's no one else coming,” Damon answered him.

  “May I ask how you got in here, dear?”

  “I used a jump bridge.”

  “What's a jump bridge?”

  “A jump bridge is a trans-dimensional...”

  “It's a transporter.”

  “It's not a transporter, Haydn.”

  “Not this again, she's already explained, it's not a transporter,” Damon cut in.

  “Well, it kind of transports, so it's a transporter,” Jill said conversationally.

  “Of course you'll take his side, I wonder why?” Damon asked no-one sarcastically.

  “It's a transporter,” Haydn repeated, a little more loudly now.

  “What's that supposed to mean?” Jill asked Damon.

  “It's not a transporter, Haydn,” Tiralyn told everyone. “And he means, Jill. That you want to sleep with Haydn.”

  Jill's eyes widened.

  “That's not something I need to hear, girl.” Damon coughed out.

  “No I don't, I never said that,” Jill croaked out.

  “You're lying.”

  “What? How... stay out of my head witch girl.”

  The room fell into a huffy and awkward silence. Brice unwilling to ask another question at this point waited quietly for the Fleet Admiral to arrive, after she did and introduced herself she sat beside Brice on the other side of the table, three more fleet and four security officers accompanied her.

  “Have I missed something?”

  “No,” Jill answered.

  “Then why is he the only one that seems very happy right now?” Y'Riell asked, indicating to Haydn.

  “Oh for crying out loud, never mind,” Jill answered.

  “It's nothing ma'am, I'll explain later.” Brice said after clearing his throat.

  “OK then... so where to begin,” Y'Riell spoke.

  “Probably at how one sided this meeting just got,” Haydn answered.

  “Try to understand, we don't yet know who you are, or what you're fully capable of, therefore security is to be expected, but please don't feel threatened, and welcome on board.”

  “Thank you, it's a nice spaceship.”

  “Flagship,” Y'Riell corrected.

  “I've not seen any flags.”

  “Haydn, a flagship is what they call the main ship in any fleet,” Jill quietly whispered, “it's got nothing to do with actual flags.”

  “Right, well, you wanted to meet me, so I guess the first question is on you.”

  “Very well, I'll just come out with it. You have so far shown your control of technologies we don't have, advanced technologies. You have broken into and hacked a high level server site on one of our fleet resupply stations, and wherever you go trouble also follows,” she laid out. “My question is, do you represent a hostile front to our people?”

  Haydn looked bewildered, many groups of people had chased him and Tira throughout the years they'd been together, this was th
e first time he'd ever sat down with them to ask why. He'd always assumed it was greed but now he understood, fear had driven them more.

  “No, me and Tira are in no way hostile, and we represent no front. We're alone here, the only people we know are in this room.”

  “Then why hack and destroy a server site in the Borei system? Why does the Ophelia now have an antimatter drive that you built?” she asked him. “Technology only owned by the Mergence.”

  “You think we took your technology? We didn't, and we never hacked or destroyed your servers.”

  “We did hack their servers,” Tiralyn told the room.

  “Wait what, we did, don't tell me we broke them too?”

  “Yes, we did. It was an accident though. We became frustrated at finding nothing of use on them, and so pushed a little too hard.”

  “Pushed a little too hard...” came his astounded reply. “Well, I have to apologise Admiral, it turns out my accomplice here has been resorting to acts of vandalism of late.”

  “You admit to hacking and stealing our technology,” Brice put in, surprised by the open confession.

  “No, as she said, she hacked and found nothing of interest to her, so she had a fit and broke it.”

  “How can you explain the antimatter core then?”

  “We built that in deep space, no ship yards, just us, could you do the same?”

  “No, if it is how you describe.”

  “It is, so lets for the time being assume you're not the only ones with this technology.”

  Y'Riell didn't like hearing this, she had in fact considered it, and it wouldn't take them any place good.

  “What then were you looking for?”

  “Knowledge on the Darkspace,” Tiralyn spoke.

  “What kind of knowledge? Is that why you took the weapon from the cartel?”

  “Yes, Tira analysed it and its materials match some of her own.”

  “What happened to the weapon?”

  “I had to destroy it to analyse it.”

  “How can we believe that, how can we trust that you don't have it?”

  “I have three more secondary weapons like it but more powerful, I had no need to keep it.”

  There was no answer to her reply, Haydn could almost see the disbelief start to form in their eyes, the doubt, so he added to her words.

  “She doesn't lie, she never has,” he told them, then pushing their questioning elsewhere he continued. “We're picking up a signal too, which she also recognises and so we want to investigate it. We think the key to us getting back home lies in there.”

  “You can't go there, you have no idea the terror that hides in there, what it did long ago.”

  “We've been told about the Fall,” he answered her. “And you have nothing to worry about, we know about the ships they use too, we've seen them, we've been there before.”

  “You've been in the Darkspace? You've seen their ships?”

  “Yes, briefly. We didn't know it at the time, and it didn't end too well for us admittedly. We almost got killed but we ran, they tried to follow but couldn't, we were too fast.”

  “We still can't allow this, what if you were to bring them back out with you. You want information, very well, here's some information. Despite most records being destroyed, corrupted or lost, we do know seventy eight billion people died when they hit the Desians,” she went silent for a few seconds before continuing. “The first systems they hit were industrious, the habited planets were powerfully defended and they were all annihilated. It wasn't just the defences that were destroyed, it was everything, even the planets themselves were broken apart. The enemy used an SOS comms network to track and locate more populated systems, killing everything they came across. An empire immense in size collapsed as a result, and now you would go back in there, possibly drawing them out again.”

  “I understand why you fear it so much, I really do but they won't follow us back, they can't,” his tone was confident. “Besides, I'm not certain I can stop her from taking us there, something exists inside that region of space and it calls to her.”

  “To who?”

  “To her,” Haydn answered, nodding at Tiralyn. “Try to understand, I see your fear and so does she, but we have to go back.”

  The face of Brice had turned to stone, there was no reading the man's expression, but Y'Riell's eyes had an intensity about them that spoke of an almost untamed fear, and Haydn was certain she would erupt, that they would be fighting their way out, although when she spoke her voice was calm, controlled.

  “The stealth technology you use, is it clever enough to fool them? The monsters inside that region of space?”

  “Yes,” Tiralyn answered her.

  Y'Riell believed the pair to be far more dangerous than they appeared. They wielded technologies far beyond Mergence understanding and she was confident that every word they spoke was the truth.

  “And if I were to try and stop you? If we were to use force to keep you here then what would happen?”

  “You would not be successful,” Tiralyn answered her.

  She noticed no change in tone, no veiled threat or attempt to intimidate. It was a statement of truth and one the fleet admiral believed.

  “Mr Osthorpe, Colonel Brice here has informed me of your arrangement, one which I want to uphold but am truly struggling to justify. I assume you would resist any attempt we make to take the Ophelia, so I wanted to make you an offer.”

  “An offer?” Damon asked, startled by the sudden focus of attention on him.

  “Yes, I want you to work for us, Brice here believes you will be a valuable asset, and you of course get to keep your ship's upgrades.”

  “Work for the Mergence, you have to be kidding. We're the fringe filth, don't your type jail our type for just breathing?” Jill asked.

  “We would delete your existence from our archives of course, please understand, tensions between the Mergence and Ferren's have been building for decades now, we are facing war and need to know what is happening in the fringes.”

  “Why would we ever become involved in your war?” Jill asked her.

  “A full scale conflict of this magnitude would drag everyone into it, the fringe territories will become a no man's land and its people ruined no matter where they are. I'm offering you the chance to be on our side, to offer our support, our resources.”

  Tiralyn leaned in now, muttering into Haydn's ear and interrupting the meeting. Y'Riell noticed on his face it wasn't good news.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “Do you know the Ferrens are here?”

  “Where?” Y'Riell demanded to know, sitting bolt upright.

  “Just inside the atmosphere of the gas giant, I didn't pick them up at first, they used the system's natural jamming and the gas giant to cleverly mask their approach, curious.”

  “What?”

  “I'm receiving a massive directed transmission burst from them, I can confirm it is a Ferren hunter fleet. I'm receiving data specs, ship types, counts, crew manifests, weapons types, defences, tactics and more.”

  An officer stood and left the room, he didn't ask for permission, just got up and hurried out.

  “The gas giant,” a second officer cut in, “that would put us inside weapons range.”

  A third officer raised a hand to his ear before speaking, “ma'am, we're also receiving the transmission burst, but our scanners aren't powerful enough to pick anything up through the interference.”

  “What is this? Is this a trick?”

  “I can assure you, it is not.”

  “Tiralyn can you give targeting information to this ship?”

  “Yes, transmitting now.”

  After a few seconds, the third officer spoke out again, repeating the words being spoken through his earpiece.

  “Our computers have been hacked, our targeting and plotting has been hijacked, we're seeing a fleet in the gas giant's atmosphere ma'am, there's also a single ship in the middle of our formations behind the Ophelia.�
��

  “Oh, don't shoot at that one, that's ours,” Haydn cut in.

  “Have you infiltrated our computers?”

  “Yes, it was the fastest way, I assure you they're out there.”