The Corrupted Star

by Martin HC

  “You're welcome, sir,” Jill answered, turning and walking back round behind Haydn. “He called me ma'am, I'm a respectable ma'am, now,” she whispered to him. Jill has yet to master the art of whispering quietly.

  “May I ask where you got this?” the sir asked.

  “One of your people left it in our docking bay.”

  “Good to know, I'll see it gets back to its rightful owner.”

  “Please don't be too harsh, or at least don't make his eyes bleed,” Haydn said, with genuine worry.

  “Oh don't worry sir, I'm fleet, he's a boarding marine, I can't punish him but I'll get this to his chain of command.”

  The room fell quiet, Y'Riell took advantage of this break in the conversation to drastically change the topic back on point.

  “We would like to ask if you are willing to share you're knowledge or perhaps technology with us?”

  “Why would we agree to that, we've seen nothing so far that tells us you can be trusted?”

  “Yes, I can understand any hesitancy you might have, our last parting was not as agreeable as we all would have wanted.”

  “That's not why we're hesitant.”

  “Then why else would you be?”

  “Because a fake hunter fleet, commanded by Mergence and Sciesin officers ran into the centre of Darkspace, started a fight with the enemy then brought them back into Mergence space, not before though, and this is the kicker too so pay attention here, intentionally firing off satellites... into... Ferren... space.”

  “So it's true, until now we couldn't know if they were successful.”

  “Well they were and a drone followed, a single drone.”

  “A drone?” asked Hilden.

  “Yes, your enemy are drones, automated to patrol and defend the Darkspace region.”

  “Please, take it from me, we knew nothing of this plan, it goes against every moral value we have,” Y'Riell told the room.

  “Maybe, it still stands though, a joint Mergence and Sciesin mission was mounted with an aim to draw out these drones into Ferren controlled space, this could have ended in genocide of the Ferren people if they were successful,” Tira said.

  “There's nothing we can say or do to defend this, I'd only been made aware of the plan's existence minutes before we were ourselves attacked, by one of those ships,” she said answering his accusation. “Everyone in this meeting now, has been with me since the beginning.”

  Haydn looked around the table, he counted eleven faces, including Y'Riell and Hilden's.

  “The Ferren's also knew the location of our last meet, information I only told yourselves.”

  “You suggest we have a spy?” asked a dark haired female.

  “I don't know, but we should vet the room just in case.”

  “How could we possibly begin to do that?”

  “Easy, yes or no answer, are you a spy?” he asked the female who looked to the Admiral, who nodded in return.

  “No,” she stated confidently and aggressively, he looked to the next.

  “You?”

  “No,” the next.

  “You?”

  “No.”

  “She's lying,” Tiralyn told the table.

  The female jerked back at the accusation of lying and looked directly at the Admiral.

  “Admiral, this is ridiculous, these people are lying to you, I mean their stunts almost got you killed.”

  “Did you know about the Darkspace mission?” the Admiral asked her officer.

  “Admiral, you can't surel...”

  “Answer the question,” Y'Riell ordered loudly, stunning the woman into silence.

  “No.”

  “She lied,” Tira told the room once more.

  She didn't answer now, she didn't move at first, then looked around at them all one by one before her gaze finally settled back on Haydn. The spy lifted her arms over the desk as she opened her mouth to speak but didn't get the chance, two silvery streaks hit her square in the face and flashed through, only to be stopped by the wall. Her head dropped back, eyes wide and unmoving as a small object rolled out of her hand and onto the table top.

  “Thank you, Jill,” Haydn said without turning to look at her, holding a second half eaten biscuit, he didn't dare take his eyes away from the device. “I genuinely didn't expect to find a spy in the room, can someone please tell me what that is?”

  “It's a grenade, strong enough to kill us all.”

  “Really Jill, thanks,” he turned and looked at her this time, she smiled and he turned back to the next.

  “Are you a spy?”

  Everyone else cleared the test and they recessed for an hour, mainly to clear the body and make certain the room wasn't hiding anymore secrets.

  The marine was reunited with his weapon in the end, his eyes didn't bleed but his nose did, his troop corporal didn't like the troop sergeant's verbal hammering and chest poke, after receiving the troop commander's disappointedly stern complaint, following the company commander's upset remarks about troop discipline, as a result of the battalion sergeant major's shake of the head. Fortunately, the battalion sergeant major was a good man, he didn't let the battalion commander know, no-one wanted a huffy battalion commander at the head of the officers mess table, especially not during afternoon toast and tea.

  “So what do you need from us?” Haydn asked, once the meeting had restarted.

  “Information,” she answered. “Beginning with what you know of those up there.”

  “What the seed and shell ships?”

  “We're not calling them that,” Y'Riell said, shaking her head.

  “But we found them, that's good names.”

  “Haydn, those are awful names,” Jill said from behind him, taking Y'Riell's side.

  “So what do you suggest then?”

  “Well, that one called itself a guardian and the others are quite dark, even without the stealth they look like shadows.”

  “We can't call them guardians and shadows, that's even worse than what I said,” Haydn said, his chest now covered in biscuit crumbs.

  “I like it,” Y'Riell said looking to an aid. “Re-designate target types, Guardians and Shadows, update all databases.”

  “Wait shouldn't we take a little more time to decide,” Haydn rushed out.

  “Too late, it's done,” Y'Riell answered back sharply.

  Jill finally came to the table, and sat looking at Haydn with her gloating smile. He crossed his arms and hunched his shoulders in response, much like any child would.

  “Tira will tell you everything you need to know,” Haydn told them, seemingly getting over losing the naming contest to Jill, then looked at the admiral. “But first, I was hoping to discuss something with you, well two things.”

  “The first being?”

  “Where are all the aliens? These two think people wiped them out, is that what happened?”

  An odd question to be sure, but she was no longer surprised at the randomness of her guest and besides, she did love history. Trying to source the exact point of humanities rise to the stars was a large and widely debated field amongst the scholars. Y'Riell herself studied in this field during her time at the academy, mainly out of interest. Sadly for her though, more necessary fields took up her time the more she progressed through her career, leaving her eventually to give up on it.

  “It's a widely believed conclusion and it makes sense, all we've ever found are more humans and there's no record of when humans first made it into space, nothing to indicate where we all started from,” Y'Riell explained, taking her time. “We've discovered pre space flight human populated planets, suggesting they evolved on these planets, but after in depth studies we found that they didn't. It was more like the planets were terraformed, seeded with human life and an eco system designed to support it was built.”

  “Then what?”

  “Well, then they were left to develop, the one thing that is consistent across every planet though, is that the pull of gravity and the average temperatur
e ranges are remarkably similar.”

  “So someone wiped out alien life, found planets that were the same, terraformed them then put humans on them?”

  “Essentially yes, but with one twist.”

  “Which is?”

  “Statistically there shouldn't be that many planets matching these exact conditions so close to each other, indicating that most were put or moved there.”

  “Someone moved planets, who could have done that?”

  “If only we could find an answer to that question,” Y'Riell told him, pondering on the thought. “Now, what was the second thing?”

  The Enemy Within

  “You're certain they can be trusted?” Brice asked.

  “They saved us, saved my own life,” she answered him. “It's my own people that I have to be wary of, we drew those things out.”

  “And you say they made you younger?”

  “Yes, by fifteen years.”

  “That's unbelievable.”

  “Yes, and I'm not even certain if I should be grateful at the gesture, or if I should feel... violated in some way.”

  “Top brass will likely command us to take this technology, they're already itching at the chance, looking for any reason or way to capture them.”

  “Which is why I've not reported it, we need them as an ally.”

  They watched the holo display, it ran on repeat, showing the moment Tira tore her ship out of slipspace, creating a wave of light that blinded the camera feeds for a short period.

  “The tactical advantage an ability like that could bring to our side would be astounding. That entry should have ripped them apart, it would have left us scattered over light years of space if we'd have attempted it.”

  Brice was glad to be back, his quiet questions were being noticed now by the wrong people, who started asking questions of their own, a friend had gotten a message to him in secret, telling him he wasn't safe and suggesting for him to disappear. So he did, travelling to Y'Riell's location after sending a message informing of his situation, very few knew where he was, and only one person that did which was not onboard the flagship he now stood on.

  “Have you had anyone look at the communications device they installed?”

  “No, they warned me that if we were to open it the entire thing would disintegrate and turn to dust.”

  “Passive scans? Material scans?”

  “We've tried that but we can't get a read on the material, nothing will penetrate it either.”

  “At least this one's built into your office, plenty of room to move,” He said, nodding his head in approval.

  She didn't know what he meant, he'd never discussed the actual size of the cupboard on the Ophelia which held the similar device, so she ignored the remark and said nothing.

  “And they can link to your computers, using the terminal?”

  “Only a few, or so they told me, they managed to install it without anyone knowing, imagine my surprise when I came into my office to find it here.”

  “They warned you they wanted to install it though?”

  “Yes, it was the only reason I didn't have the entire deck evacuated, I had assumed to see someone doing it, or at least an explanation of how it works.”

  “Well, it's a single display with a red button under it, like the one on the Ophelia, I should imagine you press it, and they answer.”

  “Yes Colonel, this I figured out on my own.”

  He took the dryness in her reply as cause to change the subject, “so our enemy are drones?”

  “Not just drones, the larger ones have artificial intelligence and call themselves guardians, they appear to control the smaller ones, the shadows.”

  “At least eliminating the spy in the ranks has helped, medical reports told us her DNA has been restructured, they can't tell what she was originally and there's no typical markers relating to any of the three nations genetics.”

  “So it could be any one of the three nations, elements of all three nations are trying to start a war it seems.”

  “No longer trying, they've succeeded, those satellites appeared in a Ferren core system,” Brice told her solemnly. “The system's spacial industrial and orbital complexes were devastated, eventually they got support to the system and destroyed the drone, taking heavy losses in the process.”

  “And our own government is citing the attack on our own fleet as an act of war,” Y'Riell confirmed, before looking at Brice again. “The Ferrens can't possibly know who sent the satellites.”

  “They found debris, components, confirmed it as ours and of course they're not accepting the old stolen equipment routine,” he answered. “They've as good as declared it, we're going to war.”

  “And those in our government, those who conspired to use the Darkspace ships to attack the Ferrens?”

  “I have a fair idea of who they are, but we can't move against them.”

  “They brought them out on our heads, it was our ships and our people that died.”

  “That may be, but we can't take them down. The war will keep them where they are, the high admiralty won't risk destabilising our own government right now. Besides the evidence would be ripped apart in courts and anything conclusive would take decades to process.”

  She couldn't believe the situation they were in, not only had elements of her own government conspired to start a war, but they used the Darkspace in their plans, only for it to come back and bite them. She watched her people die, witnessed them throwing themselves into the inevitable clutch of death just to fend off one single ship.

  “So we let them walk, they start a war and we let them walk.”

  “If the highest fleet authority won't act then yes, they walk.”

  She would not allow those guilty to walk, she now had at her command, three full fleets. Y'Riell had conferred with the other Admirals already, informed them of the truth behind the Darkspace ships and watched as their faces contorted in anger.

  Her mission now, was to rally more to her side while waiting for the correct opportunity, and until Brice was certain of those involved. It would have to be quick, decisive, and above all in this time of crisis she must ensure it would not weaken them.

  Fortunately, Captain Hoult had been found and silently taken into custody, she was reported as MIA but was secretly being held in detention, it would remain as such until Y'Riell could find the right time for her confessions.

  “No, they will not simply get to walk, they will be taken down, if high command won't act then we will, for now we wait and listen, until the time is right.”

  “Good to hear, ma'am.”

  All three fleets had arrived, reinforcing the border substantially. Y'Riell left two on patrol while the third was on the move with her and the remnants of the seventh fleet. Greater authority meant less justifying beforehand and more reporting afterwards, she would use this to her utmost advantage.

  My Enemy's Enemy

  As they entered the room Serena sat in a corner, and Feissa was draped lazily across Damon's command chair, her right leg thrown casually over the side. She wore a short blue dress, leaving both her bronzed and perfectly shaped legs viewable by the now present audience, stopping just short of too far up.

  One hand flicked through a holo tablet which she held comfortably with the other as she turned to look at them, her eyes and head tracking the three as they walked cautiously around the chair she'd dumped herself on. She made eye contact first with Jill, then Tira and finally Haydn, who's eyes had been caught by her more fleshy features, without skipping a beat she smiled and spoke.

  “I'm so glad you could make it, I was honestly beginning to believe you'd abandoned us,” the blonde haired beauty told them all, her voice lifting Haydn's attention up to a more polite level.

  “We would never abandon our friends,” Jill answered her, deep aggression rumbled in the background of her tone. “Where's Damon, Arlan and... and the new guy?”

  “The new guy?”

  “Yes we have a new guy on board,
I haven't actually met him.”

  “Kas,” Serena reminded her

  “Yes Kas, that's it, where's Damon, Arlan and Kas?”

  “They're unharmed and being held on my ship, temporarily, they will be returned here to pilot this ship before we get underway,” she answered, her eyes falling on Haydn's again, who's own eyes had fallen elsewhere for a second time, she smiled. “They'll be happy you've arrived, I trust the Darkspace issue went well, Haydn?”