The system wasn’t overly significant, although it couldn’t be said to be useless, either. Statistically, the same could be said about over fifty-seven percent of all existing systems on the front. Too expensive and dangerous to colonize, too important to ignore, they tended to cause headaches for strategists and ship simulations alike. The system where Sev lived was one such system. With one planet suitable for life and little else, it was seen as a backwater rural system—a place where retired military personnel could settle down to adjust to civilian life. At some point in the future, this system could become the same, provided humanity managed to push the Cassies further into their territory.
I offered to give Sof the geo maps of dome planets I’d been to. The ship, naturally, refused. He already had the data and had launched his mini-sat swarms to the appropriate geosynchronous orbits. The technology he was using was far more advanced than anything I’d seen so far. The optical parts of the circuits were basic, but there were cobalt components as well.
Reverse-engineered third contact tech, Sof said the instant I requested access to the mini-sat blueprints. Considerably faster and more efficient than the things you’re used to.
“I’m sure,” I whispered. A few glances quickly reminded me that voicing ship talk wasn’t appreciated on the bridge.
“When will the scan be ready?” the XO asked.
“For the entire planet?” Sof asked with enhanced amusement. “A while. There’s a high chance that we find what we need a lot sooner. Best-case scenario, I’ll have confirmation in thirty-one minutes.”
“Let me know when that changes.”
I continued focusing on the Fleet reports. All subroutines of my auxiliary core were dedicated to going through the vast amount of data and running simulations of what could endanger our mission. So far, we weren’t in much of a risk. The front conflict had spilled away from us, focusing on another cluster of star systems. In terms of overall front position, the situation was worse. There was a ninety-two percent chance that the Fleet would lose a large section of the front and have to move back to the buffer zone. Command was trying to prevent that by creating secondary lines of defense, but I doubted those would make any difference. The attempted breaches also hadn’t panned out, resulting in sixteen hundred and eleven confirmed destroyed battleships. Depending on the number of ground troops within them, that would result in human losses in the tens of millions.
The realization sent flickers of pain throughout my body. If I were allowed to go through the Fleet’s databases, the first thing I’d do was to check whether this was the result of a classified dark op, battlefield arrogance, or bureaucratic incompetence. The way things were entangled, it was probably all three.
“Permission to send probes, XO,” I said.
The man turned around, darting me a suspicious look.
“There have been instances of artifacts located within trees and other plants. Additionally, it might be a good idea to check for spores in case—”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve read your file.” The XO waved his hand. “Get on with it, but no mess-ups this time.”
“Yes, sir.” I nodded, not that I was the one who had caused the mess-ups in the past. Everyone who’d read my file knew that. That honor fell to the Med Core scientist Ondalov or—to be even more specific— his haste to prove results at any cost and the agora within him. As a result, an entire research station had been infested with dormant Cassandrians. An entire planet had almost been lost. Thankfully, the “mishap” had increased humanity’s understanding, preventing similar instances on other planets. As far as I was aware, preemptive operations had been done in several hundred colonies, all of them successful.
I could see why people were concerned that this didn’t occur here. As long as I had traces of agora within my body, I remained a threat to the ship.
How many probes can you drop? I asked the ship.
How many do you need? Sof countered.
Ten thousand, I replied without a millisecond of hesitation. If he was going to continue with this sort of attitude, I wasn’t going to shy away from asserting my authority.
The lack of response told me that he’d gotten the message. My relation to the captain aside, I was classified as a human bridge officer, and all my sanction orders were to be strictly followed.
Anything the matter, Sof? I pressed on.
I can make three hundred, he replied. Where do you want them?
That was a good start.
Disperse them in clusters of ten to areas with the most plant life. Trees are a priority. Once we analyze the feeds, we’ll continue from there.
As you wish, he said with a virtual sigh. I’ll keep an eye for cobalt presence and fractal patterns.
And clustering anomalies, I added. Plants sometimes use the rods as a source of energy.
Noted, he said reluctantly.
It took four hours for the first video feeds to reach me. By the time the first probes had reached the planet, all alpha sites had been scanned in orbit. The results were as inconclusive as the system itself: confirmed traces of cobalt, though not in large enough concentrations to confirm the presence of artifacts. Sof had gone into running complex simulations to determine the next batch of likely locations. If there were artifacts on the planet, they weren’t following the distribution I was familiar with.
The plants were quite normal, if considerably shorter than the ones I was used to. They produced enough oxygen to make the planet hostile to the Cassies, though Sof had found the presence of gasses that would be harmful for humans as well. At first glance, there wasn’t anything strange about the leaves, either. They were perfectly normal: their veins didn’t follow any repeatable pattern, fractal or other. After the first few hundred inspections, it was starting to look like there wouldn’t be any third-contact artifacts.
Another two hours later, the captain walked in.
“Any news?” she asked, making her way to her seat.
“Nope.” The XO stood up. “Just enough cobalt to keep us from moving on.”
“Don’t you love that? Shift change. I have the bridge. Get some rest,” she told the XO. “I’ll keep an eye on things.”
“If we don’t find anything in the next six hours, chances are there’s nothing to be found,” Sof said on the bridge.
“How are the odds?”
“Less than twenty percent,” the ship said. He was being overly generous. By my own calculations, we stood less than a eight percent chance of finding what we were looking for, the chance decreasing every minute. “The ensign and I have divided the work between us. I’m going on with planetary scans while she’s examining plant clusters, searching for anomalies.”
“Found any?” Quinn turned my direction.
“Twenty-nine so far, ma’am,” I quickly replied. “None of them related to anything third-contact, though.”
“Very funny.” She frowned. “Cassie activity?”
“Not a threat for the moment, ma’am. They’re moving in the opposite direction. The ship building is causing problems in that area of the front. I estimate there’s a ninety-seven percent chance that we lost that section and are being forced to move the front back into the buffer zone.”
“Won’t be the first time.” Quinn took her seat. “Anyway, it’s their problem to worry about. Give me some feeds.”
Image feeds covered all bridge walls, displaying planetary simulations and probe feeds. Unlike my previous captains, Quinn was the type to have a broad view of everything. My first two captains were the sort to focus specifically on the task at hand, while keeping an eye on the larger picture. On the front, I would prefer their approach. Here, it remained to be seen.
“I’ve located a potential deposit.” Sof sent me a map location along with the corresponding readings. The deposit was small, no larger than a rod. The shape was completely unfamiliar, but it would be arrogant to think I’d seen them all.
The find changed the ship’s search pattern. Going by the clustering theory, he focused on nearby areas, probably hoping that a trail of cobalt breadcrumbs would emerge, leading to the dome itself. I did the complete opposite, taking on some of the areas that he’d abandoned. It was a good cooperative approach, although when it came to planets, even two search grids left a lot of blank spots.
In the meantime, the captain and the few remaining bridge officers kept on following our progress. Every now and again, they’d focus on something on their terminal screens—as if they were capable of spotting something two conscience cores had missed. I’d seen it many times before—human’s innate belief that they would be the one to find the key to a vital situation, and the dissatisfaction when they didn’t.
Your crew doesn’t seem used to this, I told Sof diplomatically.
I told you, they don’t usually dig them up. We’re used to speed and efficiency. Having to waste time scanning and searching is something better suited for research ships, or the new exploration class.
That’s what classes are for.
In truth, I’d only heard rumors about the class in question. Reviewing my memories, I found the mention: it was a small paragraph in the advanced military R&D feed. Hidden among the thousands of daily innovations, it was mentioned that a new scout and exploration class was being developed for use in the near future. Design details, as usual, were missing.
Finding is the easy part, I said. It’s the digging out that will be tricky.
I expected some sarcastic retort on Sof’s part, but the ship didn’t respond. After a hundred milliseconds, I stopped waiting and focused on the scans.
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Ignoring the lethal conditions on the surface, the planet had some rather picturesque areas. Large pools of water were largely lacking, but there seemed to be a developed underground river network, which the plants had taken advantage of, filling in the empty areas.
One thing’s for certain, I transmitted. There were third-contact artifacts here at one point. The question is whether they were taken already or not.
Why are you so sure?
I was about to say that so far I hadn’t found traces of animals, which was a strong indication of third contact activity in the past. Before I could, though, one of the probe feeds found the proof I had been searching for—a fractal design on a tree leaf. Immediately, I directed several more probes to confirm my findings. The results were positive. Among the thousands of trees combed so far, I had managed to find one that wasn’t supposed to be there.
Sof, do a scan here. I sent him the coordinates of the tree in question, along with all respective feed addresses.
The ship redirected a swarm of mini-sats in the appropriate direction. He also displayed my findings on the front bridge wall. It didn’t take long for the captain and the other officers to notice.
“You found it?” Quinn stood up from her chair, taking a few steps forward.
“Still waiting for confirmation, ma’am,” I said. “Will be another seventy minutes before we know for sure.”
“The probes have detected cobalt presence in the area, although in small quantities,” Sof was quick to explain. “Due to this and other discoveries, the chances have increased to two or three.”
Again, with the overly optimistic odds, I thought.
All we’d done was find evidence that further scanning was needed. Personally, I agreed with them. It was very likely that something was down there. I would very much have liked to see the original report that had determined the planet had a dome. It was doubtful that I would. It was no longer a point of authorization, but uncertainty. Whoever had come to the conclusion had used non-conventional means.
“I would recommend an expedition to the surface to look into the matter, captain,” I said.
“You’re not going down there, Elcy.” Quinn’s tone hardened. “Not yet.”
“It would improve the odds, ma’am.”
“I’m not letting anyone leave the ship until we’ve learned everything we can!”
The silence could be cut with a knife. This wasn’t the first time a captain had shouted at me; it wasn’t even the first time a family member had. Having it done by her, though, was new. During her teenage years, Quinn would often yell at her parents, yet she had rarely raised her voice to me.
* * *
Tauciu System, Resha Colony — 685.07 A.E. (Age of Exploration)
“You keep taking his side!” Quinn yelled.
The reason for her anger was trivial—her brother getting to have the first piece of chocolate out of the box. He hadn’t eaten all of them; he hadn’t even eaten more than one, but apparently that had been enough to upset Quinn to the point that she had thrown the whole box on the floor. That, however, had caused Sev to be angry. Not that he had any particular reason to be: neither he nor his wife particularly liked this type of sweet. The only reason he had bought them was to make his children happy, and ironically, that had ended up being the least peaceful event in weeks. It just went to show that when it went to humans, nothing was ever clear.
“He promised me I’d have a taste first!” Quinn crossed her arms.
“Quiet! First, you’ll apologize to your mother for what you’ve done, then you’ll go to your room and—”
Before he could finish, Quinn stormed off. That sort of approach never worked. I’d have thought that everyone knew that by now, and still they acted in the same way, regardless. I took a large plate from the kitchen and went to the living room. Chocolates were all on the floor. I didn’t see the appeal, although Sev, too, had loved sweets as a child.
“Where did I go wrong?” he sighed as I started picking up the sweets and placing them on the plate. “The more I pamper her, the worse she gets.”
“You don’t pamper your children,” I corrected. “You’re nice to them.”
“Whatever I’m doing, it isn’t working. I knew I should have been stricter.”
“I was never strict towards you.”
“Elcy…” He raised his hands. His face was red with anger. “I need a drink.” He stormed off to the room above. His wife didn’t like him drinking, which is why Sev had a few bottles—“for emergencies”, as he put it—stashed in a cabinet on the upper floor. There was a high chance that he’d have one glass too many, and that would lead to a less peaceful conversation during dinner.
I gathered the chocolates, making sure they were the correct number, then threw them in the garbage container. After that, I went outside as well.
It wasn’t difficult to tell where Quinn had gone. Even with human eyes, my observation capabilities were far better than the average person. I made my way into the nearby forest. This time, she had run a bit further than usual. There was no doubt she was upset about something, and it wasn’t the chocolates.
After ten minutes, I found her sitting on the stump of a fallen tree. Experience had shown that things were better if I let her break the silence, so I made my way next to her, stopping a few steps away. For several seconds, no one said anything. Quinn continued to wave a small branch about, giving me a hidden glance every now and again. Knowing her, she wouldn’t be able to keep that for long. And I was right.
“Didn’t take you long to find me,” she said, at last.
“You didn’t make it particularly difficult,” I said. “It’s quite a nice day as well.”
“Yeah, you love to spend time outside,” she scoffed, like only a teenager could. “Didn’t you have nature in space?”
I tilted my head, waiting for her to realize what she had just said.
“It’s not fair. They always take his side.” She looked down. “I wish I could go somewhere else. Somewhere away from everyone.”
“There was a time when Sev used to say that.”
“And what happened?” Curiosity made her look at me.
“He left, but then he came back. And he got married.”
Quinn snorted.
“I won’t get married. And when I go, I’m not coming back. I can’t wait to get old enough to get out of this place. At least then I’ll be far from them. Can’t you take me to space?”
“I’m not a ship anymore.”
“But you can still go there, right?”
“No,” I lied.
The circumstances around my retirement had granted me certain privileges; one of them was military transport. I had taken advantage of it a few times to visit Cass back when she was alive. In theory, I could request to go anywhere in human space, but I had chosen not to do that, not while Sev needed taking care of.
“Figures.” Quinn sat up from the stump. “That would have been too easy.”
“Why do you want to leave your parents?”
“Why don’t you? You’ve seen how they fight, how they shout at each other. Just because my brother has learned to block it out doesn’t mean I have to.”
“Space is not a nice place, Quinn. People die there.”
“At least they won’t be there.”
“Maybe, but neither will I.”
* * *
Looking back, that must have been the time she had made her decision to leave. Joining the Fleet had only been a convenient excuse. Even if the war movement hadn’t appeared, she would still have found a way to get away.
“Understood, ma’am,” I said. “Sticking to observation and analysis until we have further information.”
Quinn nodded.
Give me direct control of all probes, I told Sof.
Hundreds of connections linked to my core. From here on I could command them directly, not rely on Sof obeying my requests. Following a reverse spiral pattern with two ends, I analyzed the plants. There were many, but by the time the mini-sats moved into position, I was able to find eight other trees with fractal leaves. All of them were marked, and after Sof’s deep scan, solid cobalt objects were found in the roots of all of them. This was more than enough proof to merit extraction; sadly, the captain still refused to send an away team. Instead, Sof was ordered to construct a new set of probes to do the job.
Meanwhile, scanning continued and I was ordered back to my quarters. Not long after, a series of chimes sounded—an indication that someone had come to see me.
“Enter,” I said, amused at Sof’s taste in notification sounds.
The door slid aside, revealing Ynna.
“Hi,” she said, not daring to cross the threshold. “I was… We were given one-hour personal time. Want to join us for a drink?”
“I thought that wasn’t allowed during missions.” After our previous conversation, I didn’t think she would approach me again. Clearly, I was wrong.
“Sof regulates all drinks and rations to make sure we don’t get into trouble.”
It was an interesting concept I wished I had been allowed to do. Then again, back when I was an active battleship, Augustus would smuggle a lot of things aboard, mostly cigars and alcohol. He wasn’t the only one, either. Command and HQ closed their eyes when it came to food and substance regulations on the front. It was an open secret that, without them, the number of human casualties would have been far greater.
“Sure.” I glanced at my uniforms. As of yet, I hadn’t been assigned any casual ship clothes, which saved me the time of changing into them. “Mess hall?” I asked.
“Junior officer’s lounge.” She smiled. “I’ll show you.”
I knew when I was assigned to Sof that I’d be the only ensign aboard. Even so, I didn’t expect there to be so few lieutenants. Overall, there were a total of five. When she took me to the lounge, only two were waiting for us, seated at a small table separate from all the rest.
“Here we are,” she said. “The junior officer’s lounge.”
“We call it that because technically we’re not supposed to be here,” a bulky man said. “Willows, third engineer,” he introduced himself. According to his file, he was an engineering prodigy, although that wasn’t enough to land him more than the third engineering position aboard the ship.
“Karn Japal,” the final lieutenant at the table introduced herself. “Navigations.”
“Ensign Light Seeker,” I said to follow the etiquette, not that I expected anyone to not know who I was.
“So, how do you find the Sof?” Willows asked. “It’s not often that we get guests. Especially someone like you.”
I was curious what he meant by that. Was he referring to me being an unretired battleship, the captain’s grandmother, or a third-contact expert that had performed missions on both fronts?
“I’m sure everyone started as an ensign at one point,” I said in an attempt to keep the conversation from getting awkward.
“That’s not what I meant. In all my time here, I’ve never seen the captain shout at anyone. Not like she did today.”
“It wasn’t my intention to overstep my authority. I’ll be more mindful next time.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have asked Quinn to jump to the planet directly. I knew it was the right decision, but clearly it hadn’t been right for her.
“But you believe we’re on the right planet?”
“So far, it seems that way. We still need physical proof, but I’m ninety-seven percent certain that we’re on a third contact planet.”
“Don’t mind him.” Ynna said, giving a delicate sign to one of the waiters. “He used to work for Salvage, so he always gets excited when we transport new tech.”
“Oh?” I tilted my head. That detail wasn’t present on his personnel file.
“Consulted,” the man corrected. “I used to consult Salvage. Now I’m consulting here.”
That suggested he hadn’t been given top level clearance back when he was with the Salvage Authorities.
“Is this the first time you’d be extracting a dome?” Provided we find one, I added mentally.
“We’ve watched several be extracted,” Lieutenant Japal joined in the conversation. “Usually someone else does the work. No idea how it’ll be this time around.”
“The process is pretty simple. Once the dome is detected, a ground team is sent to establish contact. Usually that’s me, since I’m also needed to inspect the inside of the dome. A drilling team is sent to drill access to the artifact and clear its surface. If there are no unexpected surprises, everything above the dome is removed, and it’s prepared for shuttle transport. After that, you should be more familiar than me. I’ve never seen a handoff.”
“What do you mean, inspect the inside?” Willows asked.
He reminded me too much of the research team aboard the Prometheus.
“How many scientists will be involved in this?”
The lieutenants looked at each other.
“Other than you, no one,” the man said. “We do basic checks, but that’s it. We don’t mess with the artifacts, just move them from place to place. Others do the research.”
“You don’t examine the artifacts? At all?”
“We’d love to, but no,” Ynna said.
That, I found very hard to believe.