After the first briefing, Manon received a notification. She was to report to the Terrarch. She sighed, then began making her way to the temporary office that the Terrarch had occupied. Upon entering the room, she found her looking over her desk, examining some papers again.
“Sit,” she said brusquely, not bothering to look up from the page. A moment later, she closed her right eye, the left becoming far and distant. She sat like that for a while. Manon knew that she was using her palantírs to observe something. The what of it was completely unknown to her, but she began to get a suspicion of it when the Terrach said, “Keep me updated, Gwiiin.”
One of the most important endeavors that humanity was currently undertaking was the rebirth of their oceans. Centuries ago, humanity in its foolishness had killed their oceans. Their death sent the world into its most brutal of wars. Over half of the population had died in the ensuing conflicts as humanity desperately sought to find a way forward. Without the oceans, the world simply could not support the population anymore. There wouldn’t be enough oxygen, enough food. It was in this conflict that the First Terrarch created ATHENA, the abomination of mankind. She used it to demonstrate how depraved everyone had become. She provided the lens into humanity’s dark core for everyone to see and used it to unite mankind for the first time, forging a new society, the Terran Federation. The First Terrarch was the reason that humanity was finally able to find their way to the stars. In the three hundred years since, the oceans had remained dead and inert.
Humanity had tried to bring them back, of course. But when dealing with an ecological collapse of that scale, you need a starting point. When a food chain becomes damaged, it takes significant effort to repair it. When it is destroyed entirely?
Humanity had been able to make them habitable again. They removed the pollution, the trash, the contaminants that their blindness had thrust upon it. They cultured their atmosphere back to a temperature that wouldn’t ruin efforts, but they didn’t have a baseline for restoration. What few surviving members of species that humanity had under lock and key in their aquariums was not nearly enough diversity. If they used those to attempt it, the resulting inbreeding would be catastrophic. The Second Terrarch had found another way.
Her message delivered, she opened her eye and leveled both of them on Manon.
“You haven’t contacted Chalk.”
Manon met the Terrarch’s intense gaze with one of her own. It was true, she hadn’t contacted Dr. Chalk yet, hadn’t even thought about doing so.
“I’ll give you a few more days to get settled, but I want your palantírs installed sooner rather than later, Manon.” Her face softened a bit. Despite this, it was still etched with the lines that her burden had already started to force into her. When Manon had first met Boer, she was just starting as an Ambassador, a personal appointment by the First Terrarch. She hadn’t known what to make of her at the time. Sure, she had been young, terribly so, but there was a time when the same thing could have been leveled at herself. After that, she hadn’t had much interaction with her. Fletcher had regular communications during the Xen’wa-Terran conflict, but that had been resolved. During the course of the conflict, Boer had distinguished herself to the first Terrarch. Shortly after, the First Terrarch had announced that she was stepping down and that Boer was to be her replacement. Manon knew that humanity had placed a great expectation on Boer. Would she live up to the impossible mantle that her predecessor had forged or would she falter?
Looking at her as she was now, Manon knew that she would serve the role admirably. She had the same intensity that her predecessor had. The same powerful eyes that seemed like they could force your soul bare to be weighed and judged. In under two months from assuming the role of Ambassador, Boer had secured not only a treaty with the Xen’wa, once a great antagonist to the Terran Federation, but had also managed a treaty with the Thlassians. Her impression on them was so great that they had even gone as far as asking the Terrans, whose tongues were unable to pronounce their actual name, to rebrand them as Corinth, the once forgotten ally of the ancient city of Sparta.
Since then, one of their elite, a young Corinithian by the name of Gwiiin, had been overseeing efforts on Earth to try and acclimate the Corinthian food chains into something that could survive on Earth. Currently, the efforts were going slow. Corinth was a water world. The overall salinity of their oceans was much lower due to the lack of terrestrial erosion. The only major source of salts for them came from the sea floor. What species they did already have acclimated to the salinity found on Earth were evolved to survive at the depths, something that, while was beneficial as a starting point, wouldn’t help terribly much in the overall effort. But they were trying. For the first time in centuries, humanity had a chance at finally restoring the pains of the past.
“Understood, Terrarch.” The Terrarch’s eyes switched from being things of power to one’s of compassion.
“How are you settling in?” she asked. “Need anything?”
Manon shook her head. “No, ma’am. Quarters are as expected.” The Terrarch’s eyes swept over her, taking in the bandage that she still had wrapped over her hand.
“If that changes, let me know.” The Terrarch stood up, and began heading towards the door. “Walk with me.”
As the Terrarch stepped from the room, Manon stepped into lockstep behind her, following her as she traveled through the halls of the station. “I plan on departing from the station within the next few days, Manon. If anything comes up, any complication, you need to inform me immediately. The Scretta aren’t the only concern in the galaxy. Since the council collapsed, there are many people that are trying to figure out what the new world order should be. I intend for it to be one that actually benefits everyone, not some parasitic structure like it was before. What was your impression of the crew?”
Manon thought for a moment, recalling their interactions in the room. She had walked in, been introduced by one of the officers, then gone over some of her recommendations for the meeting. The two Corinithians had been a mystery to her, their aquatic forms were far too strange for her to have a solid impression of them yet. They would be remotely providing tech support anyways, so its not like it mattered overly much that they weren’t at the meeting in person. Manon didn’t know what that would even look like. Would they mount a tank in the corner of the room so the large Corinithians could attend? Manon thought not. They’d also have to restructure the station to house them. For the time being, it was best for remote access. Less complexity.
The Terrans hadn’t left a great impression. There was both a man a woman, both fairly early in their careers. The woman had taken her in, observed her. Her eyes had lingered on Manon’s arm, before flicking back to the Officer as they introduced her. Manon wasn’t ready to make a judgment on her. Her actions had been too quick and focused to feel one way or the other. The man, however, had only offered a single glance to her before mentally dismissing her entirely. Further, throughout the briefing, his nature spoke of a cocky assuredness that pissed Manon off. She knew she would have to address it sooner rather than later. That type of mentality only leads to issues down the line.
The most curious part of the entire interaction had been with the two Xen’wa. When she had been introduced, they had both stiffened and shared a motion with each other. After that, they spent the entire time focused solely on her. Wherever she walked, the Xen’wa followed her with their heads, their torsos motionless. Manon had found that focus unnerving.
Manon relayed all of this to the Terrarch as they walked. She listened silently.
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“It’s a cultural thing, the Xen’wa,” She said simply when Manon finished.
“Cultural thing?” Manon asked.
“Your name, Manon Fletcher. Admiral Fletcher is held in high regard among the Xen’wa. The man who outplayed Commander Sasa. It’s a thing of weight to them, that you are his mate, the mother of his child.”
Manon furrowed her brow. “I don’t like that they define their respect in terms of my husband.”
The Terrarch shook her head. “It's more complex than that. They don’t respect you just because of your relationship to Fletcher, per say. In Xen’wa culture, males propose upwards to someone that they feel worth of. They have a loose caste system. It's easier to advance based on merit than you might expect, but there are stratums nonetheless. Fletcher is held in high regard. Him marrying you signals to the Xen’wa that you should be held equally in respect because to them, it signifies that you are just as respectable as he. As I said, complex.”
Manon did know if she agreed with that. The Destiny died under her watch. She had distracted Fletcher at a critical moment, and it led to the complete destruction of the ship. She became unfocused as she continued to walk, thinking about all the death that had ensued. She had gone several steps before she realized that the Terrarch had stopped, not noticing, Manon had walked past her. She turned and looked at the Terrarch. An intense gaze returned hers. She felt it peel her apart, layer by layer, leaving her exposed and vulnerable.
“Recall that they have a hereditary Queen.” The Terrarch continued to look into her soul as though she were searching for something. Manon doubted she would find whatever it was she was looking for. The Terrarch finally blinked and resumed walking, quickly catching up to where she stood and walking past. Manon could only blink as she tried to rebuild herself after that forceful gaze.
The Terrarch didn’t wait for her. When Manon was finally ready, she had to hurry her step in order to catch up. Eventually, the two came to a hangar door, code locked to deny errant entry. The Terrarch quickly punched in the code and the door hissed open. Again she turned and gazed deep into Manon’s soul. It had started to unnerve her, this constant quest of the Terrarch. It had started to conjure a sense of shame in her, though she didn’t know why.
“Just so you are aware, everything in this hangar is considered restricted information.” The Terrarch didn’t wait for a reply. She simply turned and stepped inside.
When Manon followed, a great black void dominated her view, like the very essence of space had been dropped off in the center of the hangar. She recognized the overall outline from the briefing documents, the UF Iakttaker. It was a simple design, built for stealth and range, nothing more. The sharp angles and slopes of the vessel were designed to bounce off any signals, though Manon couldn’t see them. The entire thing had been painted so darkly black that Manon had lost the ability to see the edges. From where she stood, it looked like a great black outline looming in the middle of the hangar, completely flat.
“I assume that’s the new stealth system?” she asked.
“Be sure not to touch it. It is horribly fragile,” The Terrarch replied. Manon started walking around it. It was unnerving how it seemed to just be a black void that changed the shape of its outer edge, like it was something that would suck her in and consume her.
“No engines?” she queried.
“Its equipped with four rip drives, Spartoi Class. It's why we elected to include Doru.”
“Impressive. I can’t even make out the Defense Orbs on the hull.”
“They deploy via an internal hangar.”
After completing her circuit of the vessel, Manon estimated the entire thing to be approximately twice the size of her apartment. It would be cramped, terribly cramped in there. However, if everything went off without a hitch, the mission itself would only take a few days. Chain some jumps, pop into each of the Screttan systems, do some covert scans, then pop back out. It didn’t need longevity, it needed range. Four rip drives assured it.
“Still, I don’t like the idea of not having sublight.”
“It was a trade off. Either the stealth tech or engines. I meant it when I said that it was fragile. Even the change of inertia can damage it. The entire thing is a skin of carbon nano-tubes, arrayed in a lattice that guarantees a 99.992% capture rate for most signals. The only thing that you really have to look out for is sonic, but space being what it is…” The Terrarch’s voice trailed off, noticing that Manon’s gaze had turned to the other ship that was in the hangar.
Manon could only think that it was a thing of beauty. Whereas most Terran designs tended to be terribly blocky things, pure utilitarian constructions designed to be produced quickly, the ship before her forced the eye. It had two large swooped portions at the front that almost came together into a point. A pair of swept wings graced the size.
“Is this meant for atmosphere?” she inquired, walking over to it. When she ran a hand down the edge of it, she was surprised to find it rough to the touch. When she swiped it the other way, it was perfectly smooth. Leaning in close, she saw that the entire skin of the craft was peppered by tiny ridges, almost shaped like canine teeth.
“Both, actually.” The Terrarch stepped up. “It's something of a pet project I’ve been working on when I had the time.” Manon looked up at her, surprised. “I’ve been fascinated by space since I was a little girl. I would often doodle designs in between treatments.” Manon continued walking around the ship. It was small, barely 14 meters. She took in where the thrusters were and their quantity.
“Looks maneuverable.”
“Highly.”
“Why is it just sitting here?”
“Can’t find a pilot that can handle it.”
Manon turned to her, an inquisitive look on her face.
“It can pull up to 10G regularly. Not to mention, the whole thing requires too much monitoring. I had hoped the Xen’wa would be able, but it's beyond them as well. It simply needs too high of a reaction speed to adequately pilot it.”
“A Spartoi probably could.”
A grim look came over the Terrarch’s face. “Yeah, probably.”
Manon understood. The Terrarch wouldn’t have a Spartoi touch this ship. She didn’t make it for that path.
The Spartoi were the core component of ATHENA. In order to have it actually have the means to enact its battleplans, it needed agents. That’s where the HE came in its name, Human Enhanced. Part of ATHENA was the volunteers who gave up everything to be the weapons of humanity. They would have their bodies heavily modified to a point where they were unrecognizable. Their consciousness would then be melded with ATHENA. Functionally, they ceased to exist as a person. Through the process, large chunks of their nervous system would be replaced by electrical wirings that interfaced directly with their brain. This increased their responsiveness from the human standard to the limit of electrical signals, a massive improvement. Those signals alone would cause someone to go insane, hence the additional direct cerebral integration into ATHENA.
Manon shuddered at the thought. When she looked at the Terrarch, she could see a dark and distant look that she herself was all too familiar with. The Terrarch was the only person currently alive who had used ATHENA. Despite the power that it represented, it was a horrible thing, capable of destroying hundreds of thousands of lives in minutes. Just activating came at a cost of hundreds. Most of the Spartoi did not survive the reanimation procedures, their brains turned to complete mush by their long dormancy. No, she could understand why the Terrarch wouldn’t want to use to the Spartoi to pilot her ship. They were monstrous, but the evil of their corruption was precisely the darkness that humanity needed to see to finally quell their violence and unite as one.
When the Terrarch had used them, she had changed. Manon had first met her when she assumed the position of Ambassador. At the time, she had been a bright, young thing, eager to serve the First Terrarch. Even then, Manon had seen the beginnings of what she would become. Within thirty minutes, her first meeting, she had started to chart the course that humanity would take in the stars. When she activated ATHENA, all that youth had fallen away. In a moment of crisis, the destruction of the TSS Destiny’s Spear, she had assumed humanity’s greatest burden. She was no longer quite so bright, but had gained authority in trade.
Manon ran her hand down the side of the ship once more. “Shame, she’s beautiful.” When Manon looked back up at the Terrarch, she was once again unfolding Manon’s layers with her eyes.