2.7.
While the Yonohoan ambassadors took their own medicine to render themselves unconscious and drive their brains into a low activity phase during the translation between Yonohoan space and Sol system, the earthlings were given a choice. They could either select the same medicine that they had always used, or the Yonohoan method.
The Yonohoans had been questioned about whether or not their stasis technology could protect them through transit. It seems, however, that the anti-entropic field that they used for stasis would have literally explosive effects when exposed to the energies used in the tunnel drive.
As he was placing his own IV, Ander’s questioned his decision to use the tradition method. He wasn’t the only one; the other officer had selected to trust in the earth medicine that had gotten them this far, but Anders didn’t trust her to place his IV. So he was forced to do it himself.
When everything and everyone was finally in place, and he was the final one awake aboard the Seeker , he started the timer, powering up the Tunnel Drive, then pressed the button which would administer the medicine.
Anders watched the timer as the world began to blue, and abruptly he was unconscious.
~~~~~
Eodar frowned. He hadn’t left the cockpit for days, but although he saw a pattern to the data that he had pulled from the Earthling’s Toormonda, he couldn’t quite see its center. He had been jumping around in the general area for days now, looking for signs of a darkworld.
But of course, the very nature of darkworlds was that they were hard to find. The military had only come to Totola looking for water. They hadn’t expected to find the tribes of the Yonohoan people, let alone their oppressors the Topoka.
He briefly wondered about the source of humans on Earth. Who had made them, as the Topoka had made Eodar’s ancestors? Who were their enemies, and how might he convince them to join the swarm?
He frowned as his sensors picked up something. Fluctuations in subspace? Who would try to travel through that cursed dimension when everyone knew that it killed your brain?
Still, he had no better leads, and they were going into the search area. Perhaps they were destined for Earth, and he could follow them to his objectives.
As he calculated the strange signals tragectory through the folds of the universe, he tried again to put his recent memory into order.
Everything since coming out of stasis aboard the enemy vessel was more or less coherent. How he had arrived there, in armor which was not only not locked out or limited for training purposes but more powerful and versatile the model he had been trained for. It fit him perfectly, literally folding into his skin and becoming a natural part of his body.
It would be a shame to discard it, but his orders were infiltration. He could always replicate the suit now that his internal nanite generators had the pattern uploaded to them, but he’d have to acquire the mass somehow.
Once he had calculated the trajectory of the object traveling through subspace, Eodar kicked in the FTL, skimming along in the hyperatomic plane.
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He slid out in the middle of an asteroid field. He hadn’t been aiming for the asteroid field, he had simply aimed close enough to the green zone of the star to get a quick idea of whether or not this star would have an inhabitable planet before jumping to the next.
He pulled up the scanners, and they quickly fed him the information he had been searching for.
Third planet from the star. A blue jewel in the night sky; beautiful. The land was covered in lush green and, surprisingly to Eodar, lights on the darkside signaling the presence of cities.
Was this another Topoka world? He frowned, wondering whether the blue-green devels were present in numbers here as well. He chewed his lip, remembering the day that they dragged his grandfather away from where he had fallen. They had returned days later with an infant, as though they could replace the wisdom of a clan elder with the burden of another mouth to feed.
Eodar scanned the system and found a number of space assets giving off various bands of radio and microwave radiation. He began searching for meaning in the patterns of the signals, as he once searched for meaning in the Rocktala.
He frowned, remembering the trouble that had caused him recently. He had only been tuning in to the command channel as a joke; he hadn’t understood what the officers were saying so there was not real breech. But when it had been discovered that he understood how to unlock the Rockata so that it broadcast all messages instead of only the ones sent to the trainees, he had been pulled from training for seven days.
Rather than being punished, however, he was questioned relentlessly on how he had done it. He was surprised to find that his superiors were troubled by the revelations that the Rocktala messages could be hijacked. Eodar had thought that it was obvious that they were insecure; the patterns behind the few security measures which could be in placed were only three or four variables. Once you had the basic patterns down – and Eodar was very good with patterns – then it was just a matter of teaching the machine how to recognize and decode the message.
Explaining had been difficult. He only understood the basic commands he was issued in High Command; he relied on the translation matrix for all finer details in his lessons from the officers. The officers had been frustrated to learn how woefully inadequate their translation program was for his native language, but they had patiently encouraged him to explain how he had unlocked his Rocktala to them each time. How he could unlock any Rocktala given a few minutes and a chance to observe its emissions.
He hadn’t understood why it was such a big deal. He was a scout. He was supposed to spy on the enemy. Was not spying on their communications part of his duty?
He arrived before the massive object that traveled through subspace. He noted that it was large, spherical, and ugly. He kept an eye on it, watching it for emissions.
Sure enough, moments after it had arrived, radiowaves emerged from it. Eodar played with the waves, letting their pattern tickle his mind as he searched for patterns in them. He saw them in almost no time and played the message as sound.
“ This is an automated recording from the Seeker of New Discoveries. We are returning home ahead of schedule. Our science mission was successful. Repeat, science objectives were met. Crew will awaken in approximately eight minutes. Request debrief and diplomatic liaisons for all spacefaring nations of earth. We found something out there that you’re not going to believe.”
Eodar nodded. He recognized none of the words except for one. He bumped the ship’s computer with his attack programs, forcing it to put the words through its translation matrix, and he smiled with pleasure.
He had located earth, which was naturally the first step of his mission.
The next was infiltration.
But he was in no hurry. A proper infiltration would take weeks of preparation. He would stay where he was and observe for a while yet. Eventually the time would come to make his move. In the mean time, the black little fighter craft would remain utterly silent among the debris that failed to form a planet during the foundation of this solar system billions of years ago.