Crush walked along the deck of the Reaper, Admiral Grim's flagship destroyer. She relished the sensation of walking under the open void above, nothing but nothing between her and nothing. Things had gone extremely well since her promotion and she was on her way to give the Admiral some good news. Robots, especially those of the Ramshackle Collective, believed in nothing if not luck, and hers had been nothing but good as of late. Of course, one often had to make one’s own luck. She knocked on the cabin door.
"Enter," called out a voice that sounded like a rusty saber being pulled from a scabbard.
She opened the door to find Admiral Grim sitting at his desk, looking over maps and schematics.
"Crush,” said Grim, sparing her only a brief glance before asking, “what do you have for me?"
"Sir, we tracked down that downed Republic fighter."
"Excellent. Do we have him in custody or is he dead?"
"Neither, sir, but-"
"Disappointing," he cut her off without even looking up from his papers. Her circuits raged with indignation but she held her peace. She had noticed Splatter's head still decorating Grim's desk.
"We think they may have stumbled upon the tomb, sir. They entered a cave near the crash site and have yet to come out. If we send a squad now we could likely take the discovery out from under them. We believe the journal entry we discovered on Kirakna is the only existing evidence of the location, and the Republic only found the pit by accident. They likely don't know what they have."
At this, Grim looked up.
"Send two squads immediately," he commanded. Crush nodded and went to organize the assault.
***
Down on the surface, Raivyn stood at the door of the pit, impatiently waiting for Dekken, a Raki male and the Blue Griffon Fleet’s Chief Engineering Officer, and the two members of his engineering team to do something. Dekken’s crustaceous mouthparts worked furiously as he considered his options. They had taken their sweet time unloading equipment from their ATUC and Raivyn was getting worried about the others. They hadn’t answered when she knocked on the blast door.
The EM shield sealing the door had been knocked out a few moments ago, though no one was quite sure why, and they were trying a hydraulic pry bar for a third time.
With a grinding scream, the door finally gave way, and Raivyn heard shots being fired from inside. Undeterred, the engineering team opened the door fully, leaving the equipment as a prop. Sunlight flooded the tunnel and D'Jarric stumbled out carrying Reclan, followed swiftly by Vanbrook, still firing over his shoulder. Blinded by the sudden daylight, the frogs croaked angrily, retreating back into the darkness.
"Reclan!" shouted Raivyn. The Dromean’s right foot was a bloody mess. Doc Manford rushed in to examine the wound.
“Hey, girl. How you holding up?” asked the medic. Reclan just groaned, still fading in and out of consciousness.
“Everyone back up!” exclaimed the medic. “I’m gonna need space, and one assistant.”
Vanbrook dropped to his knees immediately. “Tell me what you need.”
Everyone else cleared out of the way, the engineering crew leaving their equipment where it lay.
Ten minutes later, Vanbrook came out of the pit entrance to request a stretcher, only to see D’Jarric and Raivyn already hurrying over with one. He ran back with them and they loaded her onto the stretcher and up into the Talon Squad’s ATUC.
“What do you think, Doc?” asked Raivyn.
The robot sighed. “She’s gonna lose the leg, I think. It’s too far gone. We need to get her to the fully equipped hospital on the Ferryman."
BOOM!
The engineering team’s ATUC exploded as a Ramshackle Collective craft flew from the woodline into the open. D’Jarric fired the most powerful bolt he could muster, targeting the cannon that had fired on the ATUC. With the metal of the cannon heated and weakened, Raivyn bent it into an unusable shape with her telekinetics. Twenty Ramshackle soldiers poured out of the vehicle, all armed to the teeth and firing as they went. Everyone ran for the cover offered by the ATUCs. A Republic engineer took a bullet to the chest and went down. D’Jarric picked up the lifeless body and carried it to the ATUC as gently as he could.
“We better get these guys out of here, not to mention Reclan,” said Vanbrook.
“Doc, sit with Reclan,” directed Raivyn, stealing a worried glance at the Dromean’s injured foot. “One of you engineers, get up front, everyone else get in the back. Van and DJ, you’re holding on for dear life. GO!”
Everyone scrambled, firing on the enemy as they loaded into the ATUC. Seeing their prey fleeing, a few of the Ramshackle soldiers jumped in their craft to pursue.
D'Jarric's blasts and Doc's rifle took out a few of those on foot, but the craft was gaining on them. A small, matt-black object rose and shot out of the back of the ATUC, flying towards the enemy craft. The drone flew directly underneath the vehicle and exploded. The Ramshackle craft flew into the air, flipping over and landing on the roof with a satisfying crunch.
Everyone turned to look at Reclan, who was sitting up, tablet in hand.
"That'll teach 'em," she said before collapsing backwards. Doc caught her head and gently laid it down.
Raivyn reached for the radio.
"Mayday, mayday, this is Talon Squad! Come in, Wingspan!"
"Ta–n Com–ny, this -s Win–pan, wha-'s the emer–ncy?" Captain Hunt’s voice came in, but it was nearly unintelligible due to static.
"You're breaking up, Wingspan. We got our people out but our position at the pit was compromised, we were attacked by the Ramshackle Collective. We lost a member of the engineering team and one of our squad members is badly injured. We are retreating to our original base camp."
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
"Ca-ght mo-t of tha-, Talon. Are you b-ing purs-ed?"
"No, we're clear and away."
"Ok-y. Get yo-r injur– sq–dmate up to the F–ryman via the engi–eer's ship."
"Understood."
Ending the call with the Wingspan, Raivyn focused on getting back to the base camp as quickly and smoothly as possible.
The engineer team’s ship was a clunky, older vessel, but it was tuned to perfection. The two remaining engineers normally would have been amped up to show off their ship, but losing their co-worker and friend made the ordeal of loading Reclan onto the ship a solemn one.
“I’m sorry for your loss today, Dekken,” Raivyn said to the lead engineer. The grizzled crustacean looked at his boots.
“Treken was one of the best of us,” he replied.
“He’s got a brood of eggs back home and a wife who’s about to get the worst news of her life. I’m sure you’re no stranger to that kind of loss.”
“No,” replied Raivyn, “but it hurts every time.”
Dekken nodded.
“Alright,” Raivyn announced as she walked over to D’Jarric and Vanbrook, “Doc is going with Reclan. We’re going to rest a while. This base is about to get a lot more crowded now that we’ve got a campaign going against the Collective.”
“I’ll report to the Wingspan on what we found in the pit,” said D’Jarric, giving Vanbrook a slap on the shoulder.
“I don’t need nearly the amount of rest you material folks do”
Vanbrook didn’t need to hear anything more. As worried as he was about Reclan, he had been up and fighting since the Ramshackle Collective’s first assault. He slept soundly.
***
Reclan woke up three days later in the hospital wing of the Ferryman. She had slept through the decontamination protocols and a series of operations, waking to find Doc Manford reading a book at her bedside.
“Well, there she is,” said Doc. Reclan looked over and gave him a weak smile.
“Listen. I’ve got some tough news,” he started.
“They took my foot, huh?”
“You guessed it. I- I tried to fix you up the best I could.”
Reclan sat in a stony silence.
Doc nodded and went to get a nurse to let them know their patient was awake. However, the nurse made a call as soon as he was notified and the Admiral himself was soon in Reclan’s room.
“Sir,” said Reclan when he entered, giving him a surprised salute.
“Reclan. Good to see you awake. I hate to bother you during your recovery, but your discoveries in the pit are incredibly important. I’m afraid I need your account of events immediately.”
Reclan dutifully recounted the adventure in the pit. When she talked about the papers, Jasken nodded. They’d already been taken from her satchel, and Jasken had experts coming to study them as quickly as possible.
“Thank you, Reclan. We’ll discuss your future plans shortly.”
It was the closest he came to mentioning the missing foot. Reclan frowned after Jasken left the room. There were some reptilians that could regrow lost limbs; unfortunately Dromeans weren’t one of them. She grabbed her tablet and started tapping furiously.
***
Jasken took his shuttle back to the Wingspan and headed for one of the conference rooms. Folder in hand, he walked in to find the two Talpidarian experts already there, the swiftness of their arrival meaning they had spared no expense on the ripmed jumps they took to get there from Griffonia.
The first expert was an older female, spectacles perched on her muzzle, clawed hands furiously drawing diagrams on the room’s monitor, as though she couldn’t stand the thought of anyone seeing her and not immediately thinking, now that lady is a professor!
Which of course made the young male fumbling with equipment a student or intern of some kind. He had an eager, honest face and gave Jasken a nervous smile as he entered the room.
“Professor Chim, I presume?” the professor turned to him sternly, miffed at being interrupted. She then smiled graciously when she saw it was Jasken.
“Admiral Jasken! Yes. I am Professor Chim, ancient Talpidarian expert, specializing in the early Expansion Era. We are getting ready for the lecture,” she said.
“Oh, please don’t call it that. We prefer ‘briefing’ in the Navy. We certainly prefer ‘brief.’”
It was a rare joke from Jasken, and it was met with a confused, mildly offended glare. This is what he got for trying to make civilians welcome on his ship.
“I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting your assistant yet,” he said, nodding to the young male.
“Grikchum, sir,” he replied, “I’m studying the late Astralbian Empire period and the professor was kind enough to bring me along for this presentation. Thank you for having us.”
Jasken smiled and nodded at the youth.
Suddenly, Chim’s eyes grew wide.
“Jasken,” she asked in an almost panicked voice, “is that it!?”
She pointed to the folder he held. Jasken handed it to her. She opened it to see the notebook left by the long-dead Talpidarian. Grikchum peered over her shoulder.
“This… this is amazing. Of course we studied the transcriptions on our way out here, but to hold these in our hands, magnificent!”
The rest of the officers filtered into the room for the briefing. Once everyone was seated, the lights dimmed over them. Only the podium and screen were lit, with Grikchum off to the side in the shadows. Chim took a deep breath in and began her lecture.
“As you know, it was the Astralbians who first developed interstellar, faster than light travel,” she began. Jasken remained poised and attentive outwardly but groaned inwardly. She really was going to start from the beginning.
“They started with star trees, which rocket into space via organic fuel upon reaching maturity, seeking worlds suited to growing the next generation. The biophysics of star trees, their fuel production and ability to survive launch, space travel and reentry is fascinating in its own right but outside of both my expertise and this lecture’s scope.”
An audible groan rose from the room at the word “lecture”, and Jasken turned to level a glare at his officers.
“Utilizing their psychic abilities and an innate understanding of breeding desirable traits, Astralbian scientists, called tree priests, managed to develop faster than light travel,” continued the professor.
“They used this ability to conquer occupied worlds, forging the Astralbian Interstellar Empire. But this did not last forever. Humans discretely studied the photon-based, organic drives that powered star trees. They realized that the core of the biotechnology was based around a single, unnaturally massive photon being quantum-entangled to the entire tree. When the photon moved, it moved at the speed of light, multiplied by the factor by which the photon was more massive than a natural photon. For example, a “massive photon” with a mass four times that of a natural photon moved four times the speed of light.
“Humans soon developed a mechanical equivalent, the relative photonic mass and entanglement drive system, known as RPMEDS or, colloquially, ripmed drives, which is of course redundant, as the “D” already stands for “drive” in ripmed.
“This technology would eventually bring an end to the Alstralbian Empire’s dominion of the galaxy. ”
“Professor,” interjected Jasken, “we are all very curious how this ties into our findings on Hittania.” Chim blinked, unused to being interrupted.
“I will arrive there shortly,” she said brusquely. She continued.
“One of the first to defy the Empire and explore on their own was Shrump the Mad, a Talpidarian explorer. He famously claimed to have found a region he called the Cornucopian Cluster, a grouping of star systems that were densely populated by livable planets and incredibly resource dense.
“However, Shrump, as his moniker implies, went mad, claiming to have made contact with aether beasts and similar wild delusions. The literature largely blames this on the effects of traveling alone through the void for well over a decade.
“In fact, he never disclosed the location of the Cornucopian Cluster. His last transmission was a rant, claiming that no one could know its location, and that he would dedicate his life to defending the information as a hermit. No one knew where he went or what happened to him. Until now.”
She held up the aged papers retrieved from the pit.
“My friends, we have found Shrump the Mad. We will soon find the Cornucopian Cluster.”