The two that Amara had introduced, Merana and Teleya, were a researcher and a team leader respectively. They were to take Carbon from the impromptu surgical suite over to where the Xenotechnology teams worked on analysis and replication, and then assist her with anything that she needed.
“It was very unexpected, but I am glad that the Empress requested the Integration project be moved onto the Sword of the Morning Light. The accommodations are much nicer, and the equipment is newer. Some of the things we requisitioned years ago were actually brought in!” Merana was in his forties, gray fur starting to turn silver, and he was extremely talkative. He had started perhaps two steps from where they were introduced and did not let up, speaking at a breakneck pace, hands gesturing with every word, eyes never staying put even when in a corridor that had nothing of note to look at. “Deep layer scanners that were made in the decade. Actual new printers! I do not know if it is too much to ask, but if you were to mention to the Empress that we appreciate these new laboratories...”
“Merana.” There was just a hint of reproach in Teleya’s voice. She was the exact opposite, so far. The definition of reserved, which fit with the crown of silver fur encroaching between her antennae. After a very brief introduction, she had remained silent until Merana had started asking favors of Carbon.
“Do not mistake my intent.” He shushed Teleya with a wave of his hand, but he seemed to pick up what she was driving at with that single word and deflected to a slightly different tack. “I have always enjoyed this assignment, it is fascinating to see what the other species in the universe are up to. But the previous labs were... Those fields were poorly tilled. The integration of the Human ship into the station’s systems was unorthodox but understandable, given how much material we acquire from them. A Proximax cargo hauler. Room for thousands of their standardized containers. Yes, it was quite old, but there were some phenomenal systems on board. The engines were astonishing. Not as efficient as the systems we put on our haulers, of course, but the configuration allowed for an utterly unreasonable energy throughput for sublight acceleration.”
‘Utterly unreasonable’ described about 75% of Human ship design, by her estimation. “I am sorry, did you say thousands of containers?” Carbon inquired as they passed back into the common area, the seating all cleared out now. She had seen plenty of the ships the Confederation had now, including one of the truly massive Trailblazer which also held thousands of their standardized containers.
“Five thousand, if my memory serves. It was an ugly ship, a great brick of protective panels. While the storage area was not pressurized, it did have several inspection gantries that allowed us to access individual containers. We put it to use as a very orderly warehouse. I do miss that.” He added far more than he had to, and he was very pleased to do so. “Doubled the habitable space on the station, as well.”
That was strange. While she was previously aware of the existence of the Xenotechnology Research unit, the fact they had a space station, with a massive Human made cargo ship integrated into it was news to her. It hadn’t really ever been a high visibility sort of thing, of course. The idea the Tsla’o Empire was scrabbling around looking to see what they could abscond with from the other races was not in line with how they viewed themselves. “That is impressive, you must have had much to store if a warehouse that large was called for. Where was it all coming from?”
Teleya took the lead, directing them back into a warren of hallways.
“Oh, we only had about a thousand containers in it, and they were not particularly full. We have a crew using a Human ship, the Serenity, to visit the edges of Human space to trade for scrap or salvage. Humans will part with a surprising array of things when they are operating out at the very edges of their frontiers. That is how I first came to work here, counterfeiting Human manufactured colloids for their construction printers as a trade item. It was an interesting little job - if you presented a product that was too good, it was suspicious to them. They thought it was either recently stolen and ‘hot’ or it was a police operation to catch thieves, and they’d dump it and leave without finishing the transaction. So we roughed the bags up a little bit, tossed them around the floor and kicked them down stairs. Drained a few as though they’d been used briefly - that was my idea - and damaged the cryptoseal enough to render it useless on about two-thirds of the units.” He laughed as they turned down another hallway. “Made them all actually look stolen. They were fully functional, of course. We had a reputation to make.”
“Fascinating.” A little worrisome, too. That was a lot of interacting with Humans, and not the ones that were supported by the Confederation, apparently. That idea in and of itself did not bother her, but... where had they gotten those ships? Had the Empire been doing business with Human pirates? Or just pioneers out past their own borders who didn’t have much interest in exactly who they were doing business with? “These dealings have been equitable?”
“I assume as much. The terms had to be agreed upon by both parties, and the Serenity was a light freighter, no offensive capability to speak of. That’s why it was shadowed by a cloaked frigate.” He stopped speaking for a moment, pointing at the door Teleya was unlocking. “Ah, here we are.”
Teleya opened the door and stepped back to allow them inside. Carbon found the work area to be a bit sparse. Lots of workstations, some obviously claimed by the amount of personalization present. Jackets hung over the backs of chairs, small plants, holos and printed pictures alike. Two conference rooms with big holographic tables in the back wall, and a couple of matter printers - looked like Ke-330 variants, based on the printhead. Not exactly the newest gear, but well maintained.
“I will show you to an available workstation. If you would get the Princess the documentation regarding the PINs, Merana?” She delegated, pointing Carbon to an obviously unused desk.
“Of course.” Merana bowed out of the conversation, literally, and bustled off to retrieve the data.
“Everything is held off network?” Carbon inquired while inspecting the clean white desktop. She had started to reach for the sensor pad to log in when she realized she was still holding Alex’s shirt. Hadn’t even thought to put it down, just absently rolled it up in her hands while Merana had talked. Carbon crammed it into one of the big tool pockets in her work pants, secure in the knowledge that would be the exact thing Alex would do. Several embedded holographic displays hummed to life as she pressed her now free hand to the sensor, logging herself in at that particular site.
“Most of our data is available upon the lab’s internal network, which is classified at Stone level access. Anything at Silver security clearance or above is available from the Index workstation, and is borrowed on station-locked, time-limited codex.” She paused, glancing over at Carbon. “Forgive me - I saw that you had Obsidian clearance and have just assumed you’re familiar with these protocols.”
“As luck would have it, I am familiar.” Carbon hadn’t used them often, though it had come up a few times when performing maintenance on some of the more cutting edge systems on the Kshanev. The codex was a physical storage device, usually fairly large to make them difficult to steal. Station-locked just meant the codex could only be decrypted at a pre-specified workstation, and time-limited was simply a countdown to when the codex would automatically delete its contents.
She didn’t even notice she had slipped a Human idiom into the conversation.
“Ah, of course.” Teleya gave her a stilted little bow, very subtly standing up a bit straighter as Merana returned bearing the codex.
He held it out to Carbon in both hands. Each codex was a specialized computer, and one of the long-standing traditions around their use was that those computers would be contained in something that made it hard to physically access or to steal. Initially they had just made rectangular cases that were too large to conceal, but as matter printing had become more prevalent, so had customized cases. The Military Academy had units shaped like the spear and star from their sigil. The Kshanev used a model of its Macron gun, which had been particularly ironic when trying to troubleshoot that very same system.
This one appeared to be a dark stone obelisk, about the length of her forearm, and heavy like it was actual stone. The edges and letters carved into it were crisp, as though it had just been hewn. She recognized it right off the bat, of course, it was a miniature version of the obelisk that had stood at the river port in old Ama’o - the first city. She ran her thumb down one of the inscriptions, the letters on this side filled with gold. May the winds favor your sails, traveler.
All of that was gone, now.
Carbon set it down on the desk and took a seat. The clean white desktop bowed and shifted, the obelisk sinking partway into it. She fiddled with the left screen, relegating the index of the files within to a narrow strip out of the way. Not that there was very much in there, literally seven files. “All right. Get me up to speed, what should I be looking at first?”
“All but the last of these are items we had not been able to identify until the scans from the Prince came in. They obviously went together, but we were unsure of the use case. They were all found on a single salvage ship. The first four files pertain to the PIN fragments we found on board. Scans kept throwing traces of metamaterials until one of the sweepers located those fragments stuck in the gap between a wall panel and the floor in the head.” Teleya had taken over as the verbose one, pointing out several files on the screen as she spoke.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Carbon opened the first file, the very first picture was piece of metal no longer than a fingertip, caked in dried blood and hair. Notation on the edge of the image informed her that it had been taken on the Serenity, about three years ago. “This is not the same Serenity Merana was talking about, is it? And is that... Human?”
“No. Serenity is their most common ship name. Something like ten percent of privately owned Human craft are named that. Understandable, in a way. There is so much space where there is nothing.” She was lost in thought before she cleared her throat and continued. “That is Human, yes. All the samples found onboard were from the same person. If I recall, there were only genetic traces from one Human on board, and only one appeared on the internal logs. We were concerned that it was evidence of a crime until it became clear from those logs that the previous owner seemed to have some neurological problems and was doing quite a bit of surgical work on himself.”
“That sounds horrible.” The PIN had been thoroughly documented as it was cleaned and run through multiple scanners, the entire thing mapped down to the atom, which was good because the rotating keyways seemed to depend on microns-thick wafers of high lubricity insulator to facilitate movement while isolating electrical impulses. Likely printed in place, given how delicate the entire thing was despite the use of exotic materials. A simple design, made with the most advanced tools and material.
She did not dare dwell on the fact that some lone Human sailor at the edge of their space had equipment to access the same sort of implant Alex had, and certainly not the more immediate worry that the implant could have had a role in pushing him to such extremes as performing surgery upon himself.
“Yes, it gets... We need not discuss the finer details of it.” She shivered and exhaled softly. “The next three are more pieces of other, similar PINs. The first and fourth appear to have been broken, while the second and third are clearly cut. The fifth file is a piece of the adapter between the PIN and driver unit, and the sixth is what we believe to be a portion of the driver unit. The final file is the scan of the Prince’s hardware.”
Carbon skipped directly to the driver unit. The needle seemed straightforward at the moment. They had large portions of it. The driver, on the other hand, was still a few loose design ideas for her. The first pictures of it really made her want to discuss the finer details of what they had found on that ship - it had been cylindrical at one point, but only a partially melted wedge remained, bearing distinct plasma cutter marks. It appeared it was the end that held the PIN, as well, which was good - that could be directly copied with no conjecture.
The chunk reminded her of an old milling machine spindle surrounded by multiple layers made of paired stators and rotors. The scans proved her supposition out, and it was a bit of a relief - most of it should be very easy to reverse engineer as well. The wiring might need a little guess work, but computer rendering should allow her to get that sussed out without having to run a print. “All right, I think we should be able to get this done quickly. Which one of you would be best working on recreating the PIN and adapter unit? I will take the driver.”
Merana piped up. “I have specialized in reconstruction for nearly a decade. Unless Teleya would prefer that task?”
“No, your work is excellent.” She deferred, gesturing towards the Index workstation to indicate he should get to it.
They watched him go, Carbon swiveling her chair around to face Teleya. “I do not think the hardware side of this will be particularly difficult. That said, do we have any of the software that was used with this?”
“Ah. Yes, but no.” Her ears lowered, an annoyed hiss escaping her teeth. “There was data related to the operation of the machine, and possibly the programs used to run it still installed on the Serenity. As it was a very new ship at the time the entire thing and all files on board were seized by Imperial Intelligence.”
“I know a few people who work in the Intelligence community.” Carbon did not specify how she knew them, because historically people did not want to know details about anything to do with Intel.
“As do I. Sadly, the most I have been able to get from them is that all the data onboard was shipped out to Electronic Warfare. I do not know anyone within that division, and having a mere Gold clearance does not sway much over there.” It sounded like she was inclined to continue not knowing anyone within Electronic Warfare, a hint of venom in her tone as she talked about them. “I put in the appeal two days ago, it has still not even been reviewed.”
“I suspect they will be more accommodating to my requests. If that fails, they will kneel at the throne when the Empress calls.” Carbon didn’t really have the ability to toss the Empress’ authority around like that, but Alex had been convincing with his fears about potentially compromising the security of the ship. The Empress would take that seriously, and having one part of the military building fortifications around their domains would just delay confirmation one way or the other.
“I suspect that will expedite things.” She bowed again, deeper this time. While Teleya did not specifically ask for this data as a favor, she clearly considered Carbon using her influence to get it as fulfillment of one.
“If you will excuse me... I will make some calls. Are the conference rooms available?” She was sure they would be. It was just the three of them in the workshop at the moment, but Carbon would prefer a little bit of privacy given what was lingering at the forefront of her mind right now.
“They are yours as long as you desire.”
Carbon stood and offered Teleya the seat. “If you could get started on extrapolating the build on this, I would appreciate the help.”
“Of course, Princess.” She bowed, again.
Carbon took her leave, walking back to the closer conference room. She stole a glance at Merana’s workspace, already deep into pulling the fragments together into a whole. Excellent work ethic on him.
She closed the door behind her and turned the windows into the work area opaque before walking down to the end of the conference table with the holo emitter. Carbon slumped into a chair and sighed, leaning in to rest her elbows on the table and cradle her head in her hands. She allowed herself to feel miserable for a moment.
Was any of this worth it? What even was it, at this point? She enjoyed Alex’s company, certainly, and would absolutely call the feelings she had for him ‘love’ without hesitation. But the idea of being entwined hadn’t truly crossed her mind since she’d put aside that unreasonable fantasy back on the Kshlav’o. Now that was just an offering to get her to let The Empress back in. She hadn’t settled on if that had tainted the entire concept or not.
Even if it had, Alex’s earnest intent might be enough to purify that for her.
Worse was that Alex, her beloved, was forced into this untenable position. What if he was being used as a conduit for some sort of spy program by his own government? She wasn’t familiar with the fine print, but it would violate their treaties. It was a violation of the Confederation’s own citizen, as well. All while being the Empress’ leverage to make their people more accepting of the help. To prove they were trustworthy. Not the sort that would do things like... this.
Her mind raced, working over a thousand threads of what she would do to be free of these constraints. To have a life that was just hers, and perhaps just his. Every one of them felt like an unreasonable fantasy now.
Carbon sighed again and shut it all off. Crammed it back in the hole. The turn of phrase from Alex brought a brief, sad smile to her face. It had initially felt improper, not serious enough for the workings of the mind. It had grown on her, more and more it felt entirely accurate.
She smoothed her fur out a bit and pulled the sleeves of her jacket down to appear a little more professional. Carbon stood and patted Alex’s shirt for moral support before slotting her communicator into the holo display, and set it up for an encrypted call before dialing Admiral Olan. His direct number.
It took a few minutes for each end of the call to negotiate and set up encryption that reached the minimum for Obsidian clearance. While it was the second highest level of security, the real reason she turned it all the way up was that those calls had a tendency to get answered in short order. She waited. The connection was live, but his end was locked down until he was in an appropriately secure area.
“Princess Sorenson.” Olan’s head appeared on the holo, looking both wizened and perpetually aggrieved. He was actually pleasant, his face was just like that while relaxed.
“Admiral. I am here with the Xenotechnology team, and I have a request for data from the Electronic Warfare division of Imperial Intelligence that needs to be expedited.” He had the authority over several divisions, Electronic Warfare included. “Team Leader Teleya put in a request two days ago. It concerns files from a Human ship they acquired about three years ago, the Serenity, which was taken by Intel. We need that immediately, as it now pertains to an investigation into potential security breaches on The Sword of the Morning Light.”
There was absolutely no reaction to this information save for a single, brief nod. “Consider it done, an Index will be brought over as soon as it is filled. Is there anything else?”
“Yes. This is a personal request, and why I have chosen Obsidian.” She inhaled, lifting her chin a little like the Empress did when she wanted to appear a bit more impressive. Difficult to do through a hologram, but she wanted it imparted that this in particular was to be kept at Obsidian levels. “I require a copy of the interior security logs for the same ship. This is related to the investigation, but more sensitive. Gene-locked, with a time limit of ten hours of review should be enough.”
That got his attention, antennae shifting up slightly. While that was subtle, it was there, and that was notable for Olan. “Of course. Do you need them delivered at the same time?”
Did she? “No, but I would appreciate it being done within the day. Have it delivered to my quarters, my Zeshen can take possession of it there. That is all, Admiral.” Carbon would take one potentially horrifying discovery at a time right now.
“Your will be done, Princess.” He closed his eyes and bowed, and ended the call.
The fears she had crammed into the hole scrabbled against the door that she imagined held them in place. If the machines - those abominations that Alex had allowed his government to saddle him with - were going to destroy him, she had to know. She had to be ahead of it, whatever psychosis had been inflicted upon that lone sailor would not befall him.
She would see to it.