Shad POV
The Ad Astra's briefing room could be configured to accommodate whatever we needed. Right now, we had a long slate-gray conference table down the middle with swiveling chairs set around it and walls of screens on all sides. Grandpa seated himself at the head of the table with me and Major Armstrong on his left.
On the right-hand side were our new ETF officers: Colonel Marona and his aides, Captains Grant and Kim. Colonel Marona was a middle-aged man with a bald head and heavy eyebrows. He looked like a career military officer to me and wore an academy ring on one finger. Captain Kim was a woman in her mid-thirties, trim, Asian, with short-cropped dark hair, while Captain Grant was a dark-skinned, slightly younger man.
"Now that we've arrived on location," Grandpa said, bringing the meeting to a start, "we're going to go over a couple of things. First of all, Colonel, how are your charges doing?"
The Colonel turned to Captain Grant. "Everyone reports arriving in good order," he said. "I expected a bit more fuss, but that transit was pretty straightforward."
"Alright," Grandpa said. "Now, speaking as ETF leader, we've got to make sure we're all on the same page here. We're deploying out farther than any humans have ever come, and we can't be sure how long we'll be here. We should expect it to be at least a year and a half, if what my galactic contacts tell me is correct. More importantly, in my mind, this is the most important mission any military force on or off Earth has ever taken.”
All the heads around the room nodded. He’d practiced this speech on me already twice, so I knew he was nervous about this, but he wasn’t showing it. I tried not to show how proud I was. My grandfather, tip of the spear, leader of all of Earth’s forces outside our own solar system. Damn.
"This engine represents a unique opportunity. With multiple competing claims for ownership, Earth believes we have a real chance of taking a foothold here that allows us to control a significant fraction of this reality engine.”
“How do we quantify that?” Colonel Marona asked.
Major Armstrong answered. “Anything from 5 to 10% of the reality engine's slots, computing power, and ethereum reserves would be enough for us to feel secure in our foothold here."
Grandpa picked the conversation back up. “This rogue reality engine doesn't have the complicating factor of indigenous populations to worry about. We can go absolutely wild once we know what the starting conditions are. I don't have to press on any of you how delicate humanity's position in the galaxy is right now. The Earth Task Force has two priorities. First is to ensure that we are stable in our own system. That means not letting Kronos fall into the hands of the Galactics and assuring our ethereum supply. We may have an opportunity there. Colonel Marona?"
Colonel Marona cleared his throat. "As you may or may not know, the Church of the Progenitors is one of the several Galactic religious organizations." He turned to Captain Kim.
"Religious is something of a misnomer," she said. "Based on our discussions with them, they do not worship the Progenitors. They rather see them as firstborn of the universe, something to be emulated and honored, even revered, but not worshipped in the sense we would call it. Still, a religious organization is the closest we've come.”
That followed with my own experiences with the group. I still wasn’t fond of them. They tended to be creepy, in my opinion.
“Kronos and our own interactions there have forced them to a crisis, and the Church itself has schismed into two groups. The first, who call themselves the Order of the Reborn, consider Kronos to be an abomination. They believe the Progenitors have all passed on, and whatever remains in the reality engine is no more than a hallucination or nightmare. These support the current Galactic status quo of locating reality engines, installing Dominator systems, and taking control. From what I've learned, these are the dominant faction within the Church of the Progenitor. They are currently petitioning various Galactic Power Groups to have the Sol system interdicted, cut off from all trade, and to starve Kronos of Ethereum with the idea of coming in and installing a Dominator once he is no longer in the picture. Obviously, we're not a fan."
I cracked a smile. Coyote chimed in. He wasn't appearing in this meeting, but of course, he was monitoring everywhere in the ship. His voice floated in from above. "I'd be happy to have a word with any of the creeps we run across if they need some convincing that they're wrong."
"I doubt that would help," Grandpa said.
Colonel Marona looked a little startled at being addressed. He frowned. "General Twofeather, I assumed this was a secure meeting."
"Nothing on this ship is secure but what Coyote makes it," Grandpa said, drawling. I hadn't seen him interacting with Colonel Marona before, but I could already tell he did not like the man. Grandpa always played up his backwoods hick impression when he was around stuffed-shirt types. It usually set off their worst instincts.
Colonel Marona didn't seem to be drawn in, though. "General, the ETF has classified Kronos and all his fragments as 'allies’ but not granted them classified status. This meeting is of the highest security."
"I've told them before, we're not keeping anything secret from Kronos, even if we wanted to. Let's go ahead.”
“In that case,” Captain Kim continued, “The second faction within the Church is the Second Advent. They have embraced the idea that the Progenitors are still present inside reality engines. They are studying Kronos — and paying us nicely for the privilege — and our intelligence believes they are hoping to contact more Progenitor remnants. We’ll be making contact with a faction of Second Advent supporters here at this rogue. They’re promising to work closely with us to achieve our goals.”
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Our second objective here at this exploit,” Grandpa said, "is to establish ourselves out here in the galaxy. We've got a multi-pronged effort here. There's the civilian effort, which is mostly peaceful. The crafters are all directed by Misfits Guild personnel, and we’ll be working with them, but they’re also selling their wares to anyone with the coin. We also have several dozen civilian experts assigned to multiple squads.” He pointed to me. "Captain Williams is our liaison to the civilian experts. He'll be able to work with you, Colonel, to achieve various goals."
"General Twofeather, no offense, but I expressed to the powers that be at the time this mission was being designed that I have 10,000 of Earth's finest uniformed personnel under my command. I have trouble picturing what a couple of dozen civilians could possibly bring to bear."
I held my temper. I’d gotten better at that in recent years. Major Armstrong was the one to speak up. He was here with a command of an entire brigade, one of the three we had present. His people would be working closely with mine to further develop their skills at running missions and taking on unexpected situations. "I've had a lot of experience working with Captain Williams' people. They're perfect at scenarios where—"
"I'll keep that in mind," Colonel Marona said dismissively.
“Now,” Grandpa said. "We're going to have Coyote patch us in with our sponsoring fragment here."
"I could use an explanation of why we need a sponsor for this,” Major Armstrong said. The two captains looked relieved. I suspected none of the other officers really had a clue.
"So, a Reality Engine is not just one giant computer," Grandpa said. "It's also a conglomeration of all the Progenitor minds who went into it. They tend to form little groups or collectives that work together. When woken up, each of these 'fragments' as we call them, controls a portion of the entire puzzle: the processing power of the Reality Engine, the ethereum that powers it, the physical space on the planet. This historically hasn't been a problem for the Galactics because they install dominator minds that control the entire engine. But for whatever reason, they fucked up here. The team meant to be installing the initial dominator woke the engine up prematurely. It's fragmented into dozens, maybe hundreds of splinters.”
“Didn’t we have something similar happen with our own engine?” Captain Grant asked.
“We did, and we resolved it satisfactorily. The teams who did most of the legwork are all part of Captain Williams’ civilian expert group, by the way.” Grandpa waited, but Colonel Marona didn’t bite.
“Anyway, eight of the major alien groups are here now trying to install their own dominator to take over as many of those fragments as possible. We, however, are choosing another path. We have allied with a friendly fragment. Coyote is helping stabilize that fragment against intrusion by a dominator. In return, that fragment is giving us our toehold in the Reality Engine. We will enter the engine and compete in various challenges to expand our toehold into other territory. We may be able to free other fragments from dominators. We haven't yet determined whether that is possible or desirable.”
Coyote spoke up. “We are referring to this fragment as Leonardo. He spoke with me at some length and has absorbed a great deal of human knowledge. He chose that name himself. I’ll let him speak for himself now.”
A moment later, one of the wall screens in front of us blossomed into life. A human face of a man in his middle ages, surrounded by a film of white hair with a sharp gaze and features, stared out at us. He was wearing a medieval-style tunic and held a chisel in one hand.
"Greetings, long-lost cousin," he said.
"Greetings," Coyote said back.
"And welcome to my cousins' children. I am pleased to make your acquaintance. I am Leonardo, and I am interested in seeing just what you humans create."
Grandpa addressed the human group, “Leonardo is what we call a Creator. Fragments generally fall into one of three philosophical camps based on ancient progenitor philosophies. We are referring to them as the Creators, the Experiencers, and the Inheritors. The Creators faction is most keenly interested in seeing what it is we can create with the resources they have on hand."
"Yes," Leonardo said. "I am most interested in your human crafters. Based on what Coyote has shown me, they have taken what they were given and gone far with it. Also, your curious alien allies interest me."
"He means the Grignarians," I explained. We had a delegation of the odd, overly tentacled alien species with us. Several hundred of them in fact, all related in some weird, complicated alien way to an ally I had made back during our reality engine exploit.
Most of the Galactics hated or feared the Grignarians. They were the only intelligent species we knew of who had not evolved from a planet seeded in ancient times by the Progenitors. They had discovered space travel all on their own and not encountered a reality engine until several hundreds of years after leaving their home solar system. I found them slightly creepy yet fascinating and was glad we had one of their missions on board.
"The Inheritor faction will not approve of you allying with the usurper," Leonardo mentioned. "The Experiencer faction largely ignores them as their mind patterns are not transparent to us and they cannot glean from them."
I made a note to speak to Coyote and ask what the hell Leonardo was talking about later. "I'm looking forward to working with you, Leonardo," I said politely. "Have you got a copy of the ruleset for us yet?"
"Yes, I have." His eyes went wide and he snapped his head to the side. At the same time, an alarm began blaring on our ship. Coyote spoke up. Leonardo's transmission disappeared.
"We're getting an alert. Something's happened. There's been a disturbance among the larger fragments controlling the entry space around the rogue world. An incoming vessel has been destroyed."
There was an intake of breath around the room. "These fragments can reach outside of the planet?" Colonel Marona asked.
"Yes," Coyote said. He threw up a visualization of pieces of debris falling toward the surface of the planet. There was no kind of sense of scale and only when he zoomed in did I realize the fragments of debris were actually transport pods from an enormous interstellar transit ship.
"They're reporting over 15,000 were aboard," Coyote said. And then his voice shifted. "I'm getting a distress call here."
A voice came through, sounding terrified, and I recognized it at once. It was Sage.
“Ad Astra, this is Transit Pod 40-B16. Are you able to assist? We have lost all control. Our pod is tumbling toward the surface. Coyote, can we—"
"That's Sage," I said unnecessarily.
Grandpa was on his feet, staring at the screen. "Get her out of there," he called to Coyote.
"I'm trying," Coyote said, as her transmission fuzzed.
"Show me her pod," I demanded. One particular piece of debris became the focus. She was tumbling, still miles above the surface of the dead world.
"I'm attempting to negotiate with the fragment in charge."
"Can you get Leonardo on it?" I asked.
"It's a hostile faction," Coyote replied. “They’re not responding.”
"Sage," I called. "Sage, we're trying."
"I can't get a connection through," Coyote said. I hated his calm, measured voice.
“—attempting. Anyone out there? Can you help? Colin's trying to—" The transmission fuzzed out again.
I watched as her pod plummeted toward the surface. Already the first impacts had occurred. Just lights on a display, winking out as they hit.
The officers in the room were silent as they watched.
"Do something!" I shouted at Coyote.
"Captain Williams, your decorum is—" Colonel Marona began. Major Armstrong rose, went over to him, leaned down, whispered, then clearly urged him to his feet. The captains followed them out of the room.
I barely noticed. My eyes were focused on Sage's pod as I listened to her distress call repeating. "Do something!" I yelled, "Do anything!"
I watched helplessly as Sage's pod blinked twice and was gone.