Even with Allison’s new command she still had to attend school. Her great deeds had caused a rift between her and the other students. The other teenagers just didn’t know how to deal with her. Things had been fine, if slightly uncomfortable, right up until she had given her speech about Mary. At that point she was a girl apart. After her grandfather’s death she used this distance to focus on her special research project. High school being high school the rumor mill was rife with misinformation about the League fleet in orbit. Pictures of the ship Allison had retrieved were being shared online already. No one knew what it was, or where it came from. Allison wasn’t confirming anything herself. Nor was anyone approaching her about it, no one approached her anymore unless they knew her personally.
Allison was tapping her stylus back and forth between the index and middle finger of her right hand while doing her best to try and focus on her math lesson. Truly her mind was on the red ship she’d rescued from the gas giant’s orbit and the fleet she now had at her disposal. She wanted nothing more than to unleash all the fire power at her disposal on the Sal’nash but she had no targets unless she could track their FTL signatures. Part of her wanted them to attack, was daring them to attack now.
She wanted more firepower, an edge against the Sal’nash. Nothing the League had was on par with Alliance tech. As she pondered a solution she started to sketch on her school tablet. It was a star chart she’d glimpsed in Bit’s memory. Her origin system. A temporally shielded Synthlin base with super tech from a hundred thousand years ago. The tech that frightened even Aryni. There would be dozens of fighters that the Athena class Alliance fighters were based on. Each with their own AI. Each armed to the teeth with particle cannons. Each completely immune to interference from the Sal’nash. Tech the likes of which hadn’t been seen until Maria had duplicated it for the System’s Alliance.
Allison heard her name being called and her golden eyes shifted towards their instructor. He was asking for the solution to a differential equation. Advanced math and something most high school students struggled with. For Allison it was simple. She was no genius, but they were an important component of fourth dimensional wormhole plots, only she had to use geodesic equations as well. She absently wrote the answer down while still pondering her next moves against the Sal’nash and flicked it to the board. Their instructor looked almost annoyed that she’d gotten the answer so quickly. Satisfied she was actually paying attention, he moved on.
Math ended, Allison wordlessly stood up and hugged her tablet to her chest. She started towards her next class while her mind was still racing with the possibilities of her new ship and the fleet she commanded. Aryna slipped her hand over Allison’s shoulder.
“Sister, are you alright? You seem… more distracted than usual.”
Allison looked at her with something akin to a deer in the headlights look.
“I’m fine.”
Aryna narrowed her eyes.
“You may be able to cloud your thoughts from me, but your body language is speaking volumes. What is the matter?”
Allison shook her head.
“Nothing. I’m just thinking about things.”
Aryna glanced upwards.
“The fleet.”
Allison shrugged.
“It is a lot of responsibility. I wasn’t expecting it. It doesn’t matter. Just don’t worry about it.”
Aryna frowned and released Allison’s shoulder as they reached their next class. The rest of the day went the same way. Allison barely spoke to Tyler. He wasn’t speaking to her either. She could barely contain her excitement to get to the Rylak, the science ship she’d requested. Everything hinged on figuring out how to track the Sal’nash. Bit met her on the school’s football field she was in her armor for this ride. As soon as she’d made her deal, she’d decided her uniform would be the armor. She was her own boss, so had no one to tell her what to wear.
She wasted no time making her way to the stellar cartography lab. When she arrived, she was disappointed to see it was empty except for a cute fluffy white rabbit-cat thing in a side office, it had an adorable uniform on. Allison assumed it was Lead Researcher Hathor’s pet. She had heard nothing about the woman. She called out.
“Hello? Lead Researcher?”
She heard a response from the side office.
“What do you want?”
Allison quickly moved to the office and looked inside and saw no one, besides the Lead Researcher’s pet. She realized her mistake when the ‘pet’ looked directly at the teenager with its two ice blue eyes.
“Who are you and what do you want?”
Allison blushed.
“Uh, Battlelord Allison Wanjala and I’m here for help with an Astrometrics problem?”
Lead Researcher Hathor looked Allison up and down.
“The Battlelord is a human? Odd. This problem had better be important. I have real research I am working on.”
Allison blinked. This was the first time an officer in the League’s military had treated her with anything but instant respect. If she had feathers, they’d be ruffled. She shook it off and decided to put her ego in check. There were times and places to assert dominance. She’d learned from her attempts to gather data that science types were not it.
“I am trying to figure out a way to track the Sal’nash through FTL. I’d say, saving billions of lives is important, I hope you would too.”
Hathor jumped off of the stool she’d been sitting on to look at her screens and moved around to Allison. The furry white alien was two feet tall at the most. She looked up at Allison.
“A warrior is trying to do science? Amusing. I suppose you included everything in the overly large data bundle I received on arrival in this system?”
Allison nodded. Hathor motioned to a screen that covered an entire wall of the lab. Allison’s virtual whiteboard appeared on it. The System’s Alliance basic was being translated into Silwrathi. Hathor’s ears perked up as her eyes scanned the screen. She started tapping through her tablet and glanced up at Allison.
“You did this on your own?”
Allison nodded.
“Yes, I’m not very good at this sort of thing… I need to set up a transfer so we can get System’s Alliance Stellar Cartography data. Sorry, I didn’t have time, it was a school day.”
Hathor reached into a pocket and pulled out the most adorable pair of reading glasses Allison had ever seen and placed them on her nose. Hathor looked at Allison over the rims.
“School?”
Allison blushed.
“I’m in high school… uh… trinary school… I think you’d call it.”
Hathor blinked.
“You aren’t an adult human?”
Allison blushed and nodded. The furry alien shook her head.
“Even more impressive you could pull all of this together. What do the migration patterns of the Space Manatees have to do with the Sal’nash?”
Allison tapped around her HUD and interfaced with the Lab’s computer. She started flipping through the data on Qual’sa FTL drives and flicked a report towards the large screen.
“The Sal’nash use organic technology, Qual’sa ships are organic and used Space Manatee DNA to develop their FTL drive. My hypothesis is that Sal’nash hives utilize the same method. There is only one way for hyperdrives to work, I figured there are only limited ways organic FTL travel could work. Space Manatees are the only known organism that can travel faster than light.”
Hathor smiled? Allison thought it was a smile.
“Excellent start, you used hypothesis and instead of theory. You have no evidence yet. Many non-scientists make that mistake. I suppose I can work with you.”
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Allison wasn’t sure if she should feel complimented or insulted. Hathor continued.
“Let me familiarize myself with your data, you said you were going to request more? Perhaps take care of that while I do my review.”
“Alright. I’ll see if I can get it.”
Allison walked off and tapped the command on her AR HUD to pull up Bit on comms.
“Hey Bit, open a channel to Aunt Maria. I need some data.”
Bit responded quickly.
“She has answered, patching her through.”
Maria’s image appeared on Allison’s AR HUD. The young looking vampire appeared surprised to see Allison.
“Allison, what do you need?”
Allison blushed.
“I can’t just call my Aunt Maria to say hi?”
Maria raised an eyebrow.
“You are still angry with me, so you would not be calling unless you needed something.”
Allison’s cheeks became even more red.
“I need all the stellar cartography data we have for Andromeda. It’s for my science fair project…”
Maria shook her head.
“I know what you are really researching so I will make it happen. Do you need anything else?”
Allison bit her lower lip and stopped midstride when she noticed she was passing the ship’s mess hall. She looked back at Maria’s image.
“I need a ship with a wormhole projector. One we can use to make unmapped jumps. The fleet is useless if we cannot reach planets under attack at a moment’s notice.”
Maria nodded.
“I agree. The Ark Royal is there, and you have worked with the captain and crew before. I will place it under your command.”
Allison tried not to make a face.
“I’m not sure the captain will appreciate that.”
Maria frowned.
“Janet Seng is one of our best captains. She will follow your orders. She is also the most experienced captain we have with the Sal’nash. The rest are still recovering from the battle at Ratoa. She is who you get. Take it or leave it.”
Allison nodded.
“I’m sorry, I just didn’t want to make things awkward.”
“I understand. Allison, I want you to know, everything we did, we did because we love you and are worried about you.”
Allison sighed.
“I just need time, Aunt Maria. I have to go, it’s getting near the end of the evening meal on the ship, I’d like to get something before they close up.”
Maria nodded.
“Good Luck, Allison, we are here if you need us.”
Allison rushed into the mess after the call disconnected and sat down to eat a gathering of her LSR favorites. She used a physical tablet to plot the wormhole jump to the Synthlin’s temporally shielded base while she ate supper. She was going to send the Ark Royal and some of the LSR fleet to pick up the tanks, transport ships and starfighters, they didn’t need her for a very simple salvage operation. She heard her name and rank called over the ship’s internal comm systems. She was being asked to report to the bridge. She dumped the remnants of her dinner and headed towards the bridge. The captain was a Synthlin. That didn’t surprise her, the Silwrath weren’t known for their scientists. She realized the Synthlin identified as female when she spoke.
“Battlelord, we’ve started receiving a massive amount of scientific data from the System’s Alliance, do you know anything about that?”
Allison smiled.
“Yes, please direct it to Lead Researcher Hathor. It is a special project she is working on for me.”
The captain nodded slowly.
“Very well.”
Allison rubbed the back of her neck.
“I was wondering if you could provide me with a xeno-tech specialist and team for another project. Also, I need you to help with the recovery of some vehicles we’re going to need.”
The captain stood up.
“Of course, Battlelord, I am glad to see you have an appreciation for the usefulness of a science ship, many warriors do not.”
Allison blushed.
“I am no scientist. I know what I am, that is why I asked the Grand Eminence for a science ship. I’ll need the xeno-tech specialist and team and a xeno-archeologist if you have one to go to the alien ship I recovered. The preliminary results from the autopsy on the body I shipped over here show that their DNA has commonalities with the Sal’nash, the chitin is almost a hundred percent match. I might not be a scientist but after a hundred thousand years I’d say that is no coincidence considering there should have been substantial genetic drift. That means the secrets we need to fight them might be on that ship, locked away in the computer and genetics of the organic components. There will be another team over there figuring out how to use it in combat.”
The Sythlin had her exosuit’s hand under its chin, her other under the elbow and nodded along.
“And the salvage team?”
Allison bit her lower lip.
“There were some… temporal anomalies, these caused a shift in the timeline… so instead of the Qual’sa civil war a hundred thousand years ago, the Silwrath were wiping out all populations from the urm future. It’s complicated. Anyway, the Synthlin in the alternate timeline were much more warlike than you are now and built some very advanced weapon systems. There is a temporally shielded base, I pulled the location from my AI’s memory. We’re going to recover them and use them to fight the Sal’nash. Let’s face it the System’s Alliance has a technological advantage that makes the Sal’nash… not so much of a threat but they can counter it. This tech they cannot counter, and our tech is based on it. If that makes any sense. There are hover tanks, fighters, combat shuttles… more powerful exosuits, my mother claimed salvage rights with her wife so… my biological mother so the planet and its contents are mine by LSR and System’s Alliance Law, I’m going to exert those rights.”
The captain nodded.
“Bold of you to send a Synthlin crewed ship for such a mission.”
Allison blushed.
“I honestly didn’t think your people would be interested in it, there is nothing… peaceful about this tech. You… there were bio-mechanical nano-tech weapons of mass destruction… that would mutate their targets. You’re not who they were. I am more concerned I might cause you duress by sending you, but you’re the science ship I have, and I doubt anyone besides myself and Synthlin can fully understand your language. I’m not sure how its still there, mission log says mom blew it up but… we have warning buoys in orbit that are still seeing it. I think she might have changed things or something. Anyway… sorry but we need it for the fight to come. There might be something of use to you in the central computer… the medical bay…”
The captain bowed her exosuit’s head.
“I see. We will be fine, we are professionals.”
Allison nodded.
“Thank you, I’d like to put you in command of the salvage operation, so you can… be sensitive to the fallen Synthlin. If that is alright?”
The captain bowed her head once again.
“You understand our ways more than I would have expected, Battlelord. We will recover these weapons for you. I’ll send a team over to your future flagship immediately.”
Allison bowed to the captain and left the bridge. She’d barely reached the transit tube before she was contacted by the Ark Royal’s commanding officer. She answered the incoming comm signal the captain seemed… neutral in expression. Probably so she didn’t let her annoyance show. The captain spoke first.
“I am told you are the fleet commander for a special task force. Could you come by and brief my command staff on our mission?”
Allison bit her lower lip. She was getting tired, but she supposed she could put something together quickly.
“I will head over on Bit right away, ma’am.”
Captain Seng raised an eyebrow.
“Of course, ma’am. I’ll have a landing bay prepared for you.”
Allison ended the communications and swore under her breath. She was so used to calling the captain Ma’am she’d just said it out of habit. She headed over to the Ark Royal and within ten minutes of her conversation with the Ark Royal’s commanding officer she was standing in the captain’s briefing room looking at a room that was filled with six officers, all of whom would have outranked her just a couple of days ago. She swept the Synthlin planet’s location and images on the main holo-display.
“I’m just going to start by saying, I know this is weird for everyone, including me. I respect you all as my elders and for your ranks. I didn’t request the Ark Royal, in fact I asked for another ship, but the President insisted. I know we’ve had our differences in methods…”
Captain Seng smiled.
“Battlelord, I think I speak for my entire crew when I say we’re happy to be part of the fleet that is going to take the fight to the Sal’nash. If the Board, President and League of Sentient Races High Council think you’re the right person to lead that fight, then who are we to disagree. What do you need?”
Allison breathed a sigh of relief. She envied the Captain’s ease in this socially awkward situation. Allison pointed at the holo display.
“Our first step is to give our fighter squadrons and ground forces a fighting chance. To this end, we’re going back to AG-TS-06 S to retrieve the hardware on the surface. There are a dozen Athena-class starfighter equivalents that will be immune to the Sal’nash signal. Along with six armored space transports and an entire armored battalion worth of hover tanks with particle beam main guns, they are also immune to the Sal’nash signal. Once you and the fleet I’m sending retrieve them we will put together a special team consisting of our best men and women, from the fleet to pilot them. I’m putting the Rylak in command of this retrieval mission, you’ll report to her captain and follow her lead on this, it’s a Synthlin planet, and we need to be respectful of their beliefs.”
The command staff of the Ark Royal all nodded in agreement.
“I’ve included calculations for a non-beacon blind wormhole jump. I’m not sure if the debris will be there but the last time we had someone in the system there were ships that had a weird anti-cloaking material dispersed around them, and the only way to remove it was to replace the liquid metal shell on the scouts fighter. So do not get near the wreckage if it’s still there.”
Commander Holiday, an attractive black-haired woman who was wearing pilot wings on her chest looked up at the holo-display and zoomed into the fighters.
“How do we decide who uses them?”
Allison stood up.
“We hold a competition. Best of the best gets put in those seats. It’s not just about skill, it’s about dealing with the AI’s they each have. I say for us we focus on ATFS graduates. That’s just my suggestion though, you’re the wing commander, you know your pilots better than me, I trust your judgement. They wouldn’t be here if they weren’t the best. We’ll need instructors, I’ll be one of them since I’m experienced with this class of fighter, we’ll still need others.”
Commander Holiday nodded.
“Sounds good, Battlelord.”
Allison swiped her hand over her wrist and the main holo-display turned off.
“That’s it, head out as soon as you can, the sooner we get our hands on the tech, the sooner we can get our people familiar with it. I am sorry, I still have school so… I may not be in constant contact, in my absence Eminence Gattor will be my second in command, Captain Seng, I would be honored if you would be his back up.”
Captain Seng nodded.
“You’re in charge.”
Allison nodded.
“I’m sending the Rylak, Yoltar, Boltig and Ark Royal. If there is an encounter with hostile forces, Captain Seng, you will be in command of the response. Do what you need to retrieve the tech. Any questions?”
The command staff all shook their heads. Allison smiled.
“Thanks, I look forward to seeing what you come back with.”