Shanti Muira Raven of Fa'enni was tall. You could easily mistake her for a human woman from afar. But when you got closer, details started to show off. Pointy ears like the elf from classic human tales. Wings of the fairy from classic human tales. Unprecedented beauty like a princess in human tales once again checked the box. Her long silk golden blond hair almost touched the floor. What was in point with the human myths was the fact her race could use mana- the magic as humans call it and extensively research and push the boundaries of understanding of it for humans and Fa'enni as well. It's not exactly the top secret project but Fa'enni wants to keep it quite secret for the time being. Later, well... Most probably Humans will weaponize it. Like everything humans touch. Not by any malicious intent but just because they are like this. She heard on numerous occasions 'how badass it would be to cast fireballs' from respectable human scientists and to her surprise (but not a big one) from Fa'enni scientists as well.
What was a bit different from the tales were her eyes. Without any whites with just a delicate black circle marking her iris and pupil in the centre. Deep blue like the clearest sapphire with swirls of golden glitter that sometimes looked like the stars over the night sky and sometimes that glitter disappeared altogether, depending on her mood. Also, her skin was not exactly the same as tales claimed, the colour was mostly fine but also depending on her mood the very fine dots of light danced on her skin and around her like glittering dust hung in the air.
She was wearing a long white laced dress with elements made from gold. It wasn't decoration however but parts of a high-tech, state of art gravity regulation unit. What also wasn't right with the tales was the fact that Fa'enni were born on the paradise world far, far away from Earth. To be precise two thousand four hundred sixty-four light-years away in the galaxy's core direction. And to this day some Fa'enni scientists are trying to explain how their race could be so similar to fairies and elves from human mythology.
What once again was far from any fantasy setting was the fact that she stood on the reinforced floor of Terran Commonwealth Fleet modified Valiant class dreadnought named Guardian. The monstrous battleship with firepower so immense that it few times exceeded the firepower of a few Galactic Federation species' entire navies. The 2km long (by now Fa'enni abandoned the Federation unit system and enthusiastically adopted the Terran metric system) with internal hangar bay, dropships, two fighter wings, and a small drone assembly line. Its shields were so absurdly powerful that she wondered why in the name of the Stars, Humans thought it would be a good idea to make its armour so thick and dense that it can withstand a direct hit from the 500kt nuclear warhead. And it was fast. That ship was able to traverse space at 35% of light speed in normal space and its hardware and AI compensated for any relativity distortions. That ship was fast in the FTL as well- it travelled in hyperspace in 150 factor, 150 times faster than light. Before she properly met humans over 10 years ago "the fastest ship in Galaxy" was an Ioitian military interceptor that was achieving 3% of Light Speed in normal space. And the fastest ship in hyperspace was a Lorian light cruiser that achieved 100 factor.
'Humans...' she thought allowing her mind to roam aimlessly.
And no it wasn't "the one-of-a-kind" battleship that would be the flagship of any Navy. Oh no... Humanity had entire forge worlds that could build thousands of such dreadnoughts if needed. It was replicable for Humans in the same manner as Fa'enni would replace a used battery. "No big deal" - that was all she heard from the logistic officer who brought them a new one when Fa'enni's nascent navy accidentally crashed one Valiant class Dreadnought at 1% Light Speed into planetoid during a live fire exercise. If not for the sturdiness of the construction and the fact that humanity made the Valiant class to be able to ram things, it would be a disaster. Only two casualties on board and countless injuries. Two out of the 1500 souls onboard. The dreadnought however was scrapped. And it wasn't even humanity's biggest ship. Oh no- once again.
According to Admiral MacArthur Valiant class dreadnought is a "standard issue" heavy ship. Oh, Stars...
There was also an issue of support crafts. In her life, she saw many ships used by senators and their shuttles which were usually variations of military dropships. Then Shanti saw the Terran Marine Corp dropship a few times when she played tag in the main hangar and was fascinated by it. How much firepower did humans consider enough for a combat transport ship? That was the question that started haunting her so she checked. Single Thunderbird have the exactly same firepower as the entire Fa'enni navy before the Xherstla invasion.
And then a dropship lands and marines are popping out of it. Or tanks. Or tanks and marines. Or combat mechs and various drones multiplying deployed firepower into absurd. When you deal with humans too much your scale of things starts to be off. No. Back. Your common sense with tears jumps out of your mental window and you take it as a totally normal fact using a dreadnought as your diplomatic ship. And fact you have on board an army big enough to conquer any planet that does not belong to the Commonwealth.
Plantes!
That is also a thing worth commenting on. While it was quite normal for various races to colonize many planets, no race colonized as many planets as Humanity did. 10 years ago it was cursed Xherstla Hegemony that had the biggest territories. Their Hegemony consisted of the 215 inhabited worlds.
With a satisfied smile, she thought how now Xherstla's "dominion" looks like and it always made her day better. Humans reduced it to a single planet. All their technology was destroyed and their race effectively reverted to the stone age. Powerful automated space stations were built in their origin system to make sure that nothing that Xherstla ever made will fly higher than 10km above the ground. Xherstla are teaching their children why their species will be forever bound to a single planet and why space is closed for them.
She smiled with the most beautiful smile you can see. To think she only asked Humans to make sure Xherstla will never hurt any other race ever again. They could simply exterminate Xherstla. No one would stop them. Not that any Federation race actually could stop Humans but no one liked Xherstla. However, Humans are cruel in their mercy and she would never think of such excellent punishment for that trash of a race.
Every night when they look at the night sky, they will not see their moon again. It was destroyed and its pieces in the next few thousand years or so will form rings around the planet. At its place was put Atla class combat planetoid refitted to serve as the automated containment control. AI named Dagger took control and responsibility to keep watch over the Xherstla. A net of smaller stations was stretched across the entire system that was out of limit for any traffic. All that might and no single life sign outside the planet besides very, very rare technicians visits. Anyone who would enter that system was swiftly intercepted by drones and had to explain to Dagger "the fuck you are doing here?". The list of volunteers for such an experience was unsurprisingly empty. And if anyone would try to fight Atla class planetoid.... pfff...
Her imagination finally hit a dead end. She was not able to imagine herself what something that was effectively as big as the Earth's Moon was capable of. Her dreadnought could park inside the Atla class planetoid. As matter of fact, Guardian was docked inside the Fleet Carrier should someone bother with the official designation of the planetoid as well as the other nine dreadnoughts with their escorts.
Why dreadnoughts needed an escort was another mystery of Humanity for her. She found once in the database "the space combat manual" and since then she had more questions than answers. But apparently, dreadnoughts should operate in the task forces composed of various classes of ships and fighters assisted by drones.
She smiled. Humans. And how can you not love them?
But back to the topic. When Fa'enni made their first contact with humanity they thought Humans have a single planet on the fringes. They were wrong. By that time Humanity had over 350 planets, moons, and grand space station habitats. Now she knows that the Terran Commonwealth have claims to well over 2300 systems and it's only growing. Out of these 2300 systems, 100 belong to Fa'enni. 90 systems deep inside human-controlled space. All of them have their defences so strong that her dreadnought would be vaporized in minutes if mistaken as an enemy target. And that was standard for any Commonwealth-controlled star system. Fa'enni have no clue what to do with so many systems but they have them and were absolutely happy. Overpopulation wasn't the problem anymore. Eleven years ago they had ten systems in which usually only one planet per system was populated. And that amount was a little below the galactic average. However, it wasn't particularly surprising when you know more about the Fa'enni physiology.
They originate from the paradise world with serene weather conditions, no seismic activity in recorded history, and lavish greenery that was always abundant in food, fauna consisted mostly of herbivores, clean rivers, and air. They never had to compete with other species on their homeworld. The Fa'enni home system is now considered an untouchable fortress by the rest of Galaxian and sector command by Humans (so even they considered it heavily defended). Her cradle world has low gravity just about 1/4th what humans consider their standard. And that was one of the reasons why every single Fa'enni onboard TC Fleet ships constantly wore personal gravity regulation units- called often antigravs or have been augmented by human implants and body modifications. Most of the time artificial gravity was set to Fa'enni standard (1/4th of what the Humans considered standard). In the case of a combat alarm, the gravity was instantly increased in seconds. Under 1g most of Fe'anni would faint or even die with the hit of the sudden gravitational spike so the Human and Fa'enni scientists were in final tests of a new type of implant that will allow her kin to live without such fears and without the need of considered even by the human standards extensive body augmentation which she had installed.
Right now she was ten times faster than a 'regular' Fa'enni, her reflexes were closer to the snakes from the human homeworld and she was faster than anything she thought possible. Her bones were reinforced with complicated carbon-titan-alloy made in a high gravity process with some atomic manipulation making her bones as durable as hulls of most what the Fa'enni considered space grade ship materials before meeting humans a second time. Her muscles, tendons, and even skin were augmented as well. She could lift without any effort three times her own weight.
Impressive until you realized a Fa'enni weight is on average 30kg. Lifting 90kg for humans was considered normal even long before age of implants. For the rest of the Galaxy, that's impressive. The list of her augmentation was very long making remembering it all impossible. But she had a neural link directly to her dreadnought (or any human-made technology with neural links) making remembering anything thing of the past since she have instant access to any database she needed. Shanti even had her personal data storage implanted into her body.
One of the body modifications however was mandatorily installed in any Fa'enni and there was no Fa'enni that didn't want it. The life-extending implants and technology that were reverting ageing processes. The life expectancy of the Fa'enni skyrocketed. On average they lived only 40-42 year's but now their life was extended almost as long as humans. At age of 35 Earth years her youth was extended so much she felt immortal. Fa'enni are now expected to live at least 400 years.
Shanti wore her ati-grav, not because of fear of being crushed by ship gravity. She wore it so she could fly using her wings. She could fly without decreasing local gravity but it was a hassle so she locally almost nullified it. Reduced to 5% of her new norm gravity was no longer an issue so now she loved racing through the seemingly endless corridors of her modified Dreadnought or playing tag in the hangar. Guardian was crewed by a mixed Human and Fa'enni crew. So it was normal to see here and then Fa'enni flies from place to place through many corridors or access shafts to many decks or facilities across the ship.
She was slowly heading toward the lab section. Humans, despite being the apex predators of the entire galaxy, could hardly be called barbaric brutes. On the contrary. Humanity became the apex predators exactly because they pushed themselves not only physically but also intellectually. Humans were in the top ten most intelligent known species in the galaxy just a few places behind Fa'enni. According to Humans, the ranking tells volumes about how stupid some races can be. By their reasoning, if some humans are capable of "unchallenged stupidity and almost endless capability for stupid shit" they are "now officially afraid" of what the really stupid races can do. It took some time to explain to humans that "stupid shit" is mostly the realm of a more intelligent species.
However, when the Fa'enni researchers were exposed to said "stupid shit" they weren't ready for it. A mix of high intellect, curiosity, resilience, and in the Galaxian's standards no self-preservence instincts resulted in the records that in turn amazed and terrified Fa'enni scientists.
Once again- humans.
And to some capacity, they should have predicted what will happen when you mix Humans and Fe'anni children during the education period. It should be controllable to some degree. However, something happened that was not even considered possible this far. No two species in the entire Galaxy could crossbreed. Period. But somehow the Humans and the Fa'enni could. She suspected that the mana have something to do with this. When their species were bonded ten years ago it changed some things in both species. And she personally was involved in discovering this fact.
Stolen story; please report.
When nine years ago she introduced her fiance to her parents they were at first happy since they gave up on her find husband ever. She dedicated herself as one of the very few Fa'enni officials and became the ambassador and senator in the Galactic Federation Senate. Since Fa'enni never needed any form of government they gravitated naturally towards something that can be only described as a democratic monarchy. When someone naive wants to represent Fa'enni they democratically make him or her do it for the rest of said person's life. After all of her work in the Senate and despite all her protests against it, the Fa'enni decided it was all thanks to her their race was saved by Humans. Her people basically made her Queen of Fa'enni and since no one wanted to vote to create any form of government she was stuck as Queen.
Her parents gave up that she will ever find anyone crazy enough to marry the Queen and have to help her with all work required now. Then one day she came home with her fiance in tow to casually introduce him.
That was the first shock.
The second one was even bigger.
Her fiance was a human and soldier. Terran Commonwealth Marine Corps back then captain Konrad Raven shocked her parents. He was the son of a renowned noble family that gave many excellent commanders and diplomats throughout ages for the humanity. He was 2.1m tall and so handsome that most of her female friends envied her. After the initial shock, Shanti's parents swiftly agreed to the marriage. They reasoned who would protect their daughter better than the human warrior? No one. So they only wanted to know how they met.
She met him during the worst times her race had ever faced. He was commanding the Ambassador Ravens guards team during the fateful day when Humans entered the Galactic Federation stage so hard that metaphorical doors are spinning to this day. Konrad was the youngest son of Ambassador Richard Raven. Shanti was so afraid back then that she even thought all of it was some wishful dream or a hallucination and when she woke up her race will be already doomed. She sat on the pauldron of Konrad's power armour out of fear he could crush her by accident or mistake. Later when she has wept and cried for all the Fa'enni that died, for so long time, maybe she was crying for days or maybe weeks? But he was always there for her. Days back then were filled with unofficial and official meetings. But after days always came long dark nights when she was waking up from nightmares with screams and tears, the nightmares in which bloodthirsty Xhrestla chased or killed her but he always stood guard at the entrance to her room and was always there for her. To comfort her, to assure her that Humans will never again leave Fa'enni. That he will never leave her. She liked him for his sincerity, compassion, and seemingly endless patience. At first, she didn't want to leave his side out of fear some Xhrestla might hurt her. Later she caught herself multiple times on thinking about him. When the reality of her own feelings finally caught with her she was hit hard. Shanti would never expect a such mighty and fearless warrior to fall in love with so a pathetic and weak Fa'enni like herself.
She learned later by accident when she overheard the two marines joking how their captain fatally fell for Fa'enni senator and how he was "out of her league" whatever that meant. But her heart raced. That must have been the work of the mana but she didn't cared or minded. She did all in her power to confront him and hoped the marines told truth because in other case in her embarrassment she will melt through the hull of Humanity Ambition- Ambassador Raven's personal ship. Thanks to the Stars above marines told truth and they started dating. When it was clear that the Terran Commonwealth Senat recognized her as Fa'enni's leader and it was apparent that she will be granted more appropriate bodyguards she realized that Konrad will have to leave with his father. So she asked if that wouldn't be a problem if he could stay with her due to the nature of their relationship. When she clarified that they are in love for a long time as Humans say 'all hell broke loose'. The Terran High Command took Konrad and grilled him for at least a few eternities as she thought but in reality that was only 48 hours. When they finally released him he was pale and red in turn as well as permanently attached as her guardian.
The Terran High Command reasoned that a simple captain can't be the security head of what effectively was all government of the Fa'enni so he was promoted. And since he had to prove himself he was sent to deal with the few last pockets of Xhrestla resistance. Konrad needed just a few days to purge all Xhrestla forces with not only minimal involvement but also with almost no casualties so his promotion was secured. As the General of the Terran Army, he was given command over the brand new 515th army assigned as instructors and defenders of Fe'anni. It was a little intimidating that the Terran Senat decided that the entire army is needed as her protection.
So with the 515th army, she also had been given the brand new 230th Fleet under command of Admiral Robert MacArthur that was composed of one Defiant class combat planetoid, five Atla class combat planetoids, forty Valiant class dreadnoughts, and twenty Venus class Carriers, with escort ships- that meant over five hundred battleships ranging from destroyers to heavy cruisers.
And about eight years ago her parents had another shock. She and her husband informed them they will be grandparents. Humans and Fa'enni could conceive a healthy child.
And this brought her to this day. The very reason why she was heading to the lab section. Her firstborn son was involved in a series of pranks he made with his friends. Johan MacArthur- the Admiral's son, Luna Fiora the daughter of the head of the mana division, and Anna Crestfield daughter of the head scientist. Thuel Raven, Johan MacArthur, Luna Fiora, and Anna Crestfield with the tendency of both species for as Humans call it "the random stupid shit" sometimes looked more like the harbingers of chaos than good kids they were.
And if Linatti decided that she is needed down there they had to do something or spectacular or finally, their pranks crossed Linattis red line. Queen Shanti Muira Raven was almost sure it was the latter. When she entered the classroom her husband as well as the parents of the other kids already was there. 'Great' she thought resigned. You know that their prank was epic if the five most important people in her entourage, including herself, are called by the teacher.
Linatti was like herself a Fa'enni and one of the most talented teachers Shanti knows. She looked at her pupil's parents and she laughed.
"I'm very sorry Lady Shanti and Honorable General and Admiral. I also want to apologize to our head scientists of mana and general science as well." she started with a smile. Parents looked like they ran away from the executioner's axe.
"I asked you all here because we are almost done with the material that your children were obliged to learn. They all excel with the history of Fa'enni as well as the history of Humanity. Their science marks, common knowledge, and all other fields are way over-expected. I can't be more proud of them even if I wanted to and you all have all the reasons to be proud of them."
Relief of all parents was almost visible. And they were proud of their children. "But I wanted them to inform you all about the discovery they made. And if I may say it's tremendous for an eight-year-olds."
Four children stood up proudly and started explaining their parents their discovery. Anna and Luna started: "With help of Guardian we started listening to old radio transmissions" Guardian was the name of the battleship as well as its AI "and after many hours we were able to filter out statics and picked some fragments of what we believed signs of the regular radio transmissions. And since Miss Linatti forbade Guardian to help us too much we dug through the library and found data on how long ago humanity was looking for intelligent life by using the radio signals."
Shanti blinked a few times. When she was eight she was taught how to weave mana for easier flight and how to interpret a farsight vision. Not about such complicated things. But teaching with the use of implants leads to this. Humans had long ago stopped teaching with books or held to shallow education programs of old times. Since all knowledge was always available thanks to the neural connection there was no point in teaching children to remember everything. Teachers now simply teach how to look for any information children needed, and how to distinguish true information from false one and pushed children for creativity and exploration. Shanti snapped back to reality.
Johan and Thuel were halfway through their part of the presentation: "...and thanks to this wave characteristics we finally were able to identify that unknown radio signal. It was sent from the ancient human Voyager 1 probe!" proudly finished Thuel. All gathered were impressed. Johan added: "We checked a couple of times with Guardian- Voyager should be long dead. Its speed was limited by technology and its power reserves should be depleted. So we petition to you Queen and to you Father for permission to send drones for recovery of Voyager 1 for later study and for bringing it back to Earth. It was the first man-made object that left the home system 2341 years ago!"
Children rightfully were proud of themselves and happy to find a such precious artifact. She nodded with approval but was a little surprised by the looks that her husband and admiral have been giving to others and her. But when they applauded children it all was normal and she had to excuse herself. Shanti noticed that Konrad and Robert left as well but before she could say anything Admiral told her.
"Quick to my office" and her husband added: "Robert I put a gag order on this matter. Until we finish investigating its top secret. I don't even send a word to Terra."
"Good call" said the admiral. They walked in silence all the way to the admiral's office and she flew behind them in awkward silence. She had no clue why they wanted to keep the children discovery as some military-grade secret. Guardian was docked inside Wrath- the flagship of 230th Fleet and after exiting Guardian they entered a tram that traversed the immense Wrath's body. They anchored in the deep space for three weeks so first-year Fa'enni cadets can finish their exercises on smaller escort ships in space and Shanti wanted to see this personally. When they entered the admiral's office Robert sat in his chair, Konrad heavily sat on the sofa and she decided that an antigrav chair will be best for today. Besides she loved human antigrav chairs since they could float almost under the roof of a room. She started.
"So now when we are protected by as I believe by at least 10 antispy systems may you both enlighten me on what's going on?" Robert quickly responded: "It's about Voyagers. What are they you know from the databases or you can check anytime. It's hard to tell what I mean but..."
Admiral wasn't sure how to describe what he wanted to say. Konrad said: "In my case, I have a hunch. Something is absolutely not right. More than this. Everything in me screams that this is a trap" Shanti was surprised as she checked the data about probes: "What do you both mean?"
"Guardian? Can you triangulate the position of the object that was identified as the Voyager 1?" the admiral asked.
A deep soothing male voice sounded right in their minds. AI was talking directly to their brains via neural links. "It's 3.6 light years to the Galactic South" Konrad nodded and asked again. "Guardian how far we are from the Earth itself?"
Guardian replied immediately and she understood they are asking "the right" questions for her sake. Guardian responded: "We are right now 231 LY away from Commonwealth borders and 2197 LY away from the Earth."
She nodded but she still doesn't understand where they are heading. Konrad slowly started: "Shanti, the Voyagers were primitive sublight probes. The speed they achieved was more like crawling. Okay. We sent them a long time ago about 2500 years ago, correct me if I'm wrong."
Guardian AI always takes such remarks literally so he has to clarify: "Humanity have sent this probe 2657 years ago General."
"Thank you, Guardian. If I'm correct this probe shouldn't leave the Oort Cloud yet. Our scientists back then estimated that Voyagers will need about 18000 years to travel one light year away from the Earth. And we are 1460 LY away! How? It can't be Voyager."
Shanti tried to understand the problem but she didn't know why could this could be that big of a problem. The data was incorrect, maybe it was a simple mistake but it wasn't such a big deal after all. With a little sigh, Robert ordered. "Guardian. Override command by authority of the Terran Fleet Admiral Robert Alan MacArthur. Order class Alpha. One nine seven alpha alpha one."
"Alpha class order protocol online. Awaiting the order."
"Begin deep scan of your data cores, sensors, and communication arrays. Estimate the chance that children really could have found Voyager if scans will show your data, inputs, and output are correct."
"Order received. Admiral full scan will take about 30 minutes." Konrad was grim. "I really hope you are right Robert and they just managed to prank Linatti as well as cheat somehow Guardian."
"If that's a prank im gonna make them all regret it once they join the academy. I'll make Gustav and Wang not only their instructors but I'll make sure they will be too busy for any more pranks." Said Robert.
Shanti was lost. She was quickly filtering all the data. But why they are so alerted? 30 minutes passed in silence. Guardian's voice startled her: "All systems nominal Admiral. The chances of the detected object being a Voyager 1 probe are near zero. All gathered data indicate it indeed is the Voyager thus children's conclusions are correct. However, all scientific data and knowledge are contrary to empiric data."
Silence in the room and the surprised gazes of both fathers were too much for her. Shanti started laughing with a melodic and beautiful laugh. They both looked at her surprised.
"What is so funny Queen?" Admiral asked first. Konrad just nodded in agreement. He didn't find this funny at all.
"Oh stop you both. You are paranoid! Looks like someone pranked our pranksters. Guardian?"
"Yes, my Lady?"
"Estimate chances that received Voyager class probe signals are emulated by higher-tech devices than the technology of probe itself."
"Theory very probable. Chances are close to 90%"
"Do you see you both? Someone created the signal emulator, most probably used a Chameleon class drone and send it there wherever it currently is and ordered it to travel in sublight while transmitting the Voyager signal toward the fleet position."
Robert and Konrad looked at themselves. Konrad sighed and asked: "Overseer. Tell me if any Chameleons or Decivers drones are missing or were sent on any mission" Another AI voice this time female was "heard": "No general. The drones in question are still docked and on stand by. No missions are scheduled for them".
"Ummm... " Shanti's face turned red a bit. She thought she solved the problem.
"Thank you, Overseer. We can't just sit and guess what's going on. I suppose we should investigate."
"Agree Konrad. Wrath! Prepare five Fox drones and ten Eagles. Their order is the investigation, observation, and visual confirmation of the object identified as Voyager 1. All observations must be made in active and passive camouflage. No direct contact with the object is allowed. Send them immediately." Wrath was the AI of the flagship of the 230th Fleet. The voice of the grizzled veteran with harsh tones like ager yet very pleasant to hear sounded in their minds: "Afirmitive Admiral. Drones received instructions. Sending them... now. Drones en route to the area for a search and identification mission on board a hyperspace assist vessel. Estimated mission time is 48 hours."