Almost two years had already passed since he left the Barcelona star-port with the Espurna.
Ryoshi already had a nice size, and since they were in jump space she was very active hunting bugs.
He was in the leisure room planning the next system, named Kirno’on. The first scans showed two planets in the goldilocks zone so there was a chance for an oxygen-based colony, there were also a couple gas giants that could be useful as well.
He finished configuring the beacon and setting up the 3d printer to print all the exploration drones. Since he still had a few more days of travelling time he decided he would do some reading about the drow-like race, twice had encountered them now and he had heard of them and studied the basics but with about a hundred races in the Empire it was difficult to deeply explain them all.
They called themselves Drewell and their planet - the 4th of a yellow starred system - was called Hooljanrya, which was the name of an old goddess for them, similar to our Mother Gaia but more rooted in their civilization and culture.
The planet has 70% of Earth’s gravity and is a bit bigger than Earth with a diameter of almost 16500 km, is also 90% water and has a ring around it. The two biggest pieces of landmass are continuously covered by clouds so they didn’t receive much light from their star, still the land was covered in plants dark green and purple.
The planet is considered a category 4 (out of 5) Hurricane world because of the amount of activity they have all year long, with tornadoes and hurricanes roaming the planet throughout the whole year. Doesn’t have many predators around and still the ecosystem is perfectly balanced. A completely different picture from that of Earth.
They are a vegetarian race carbon based, mammalian in origin and their civilization is about 20 thousand years old.
They joined the Empire around five hundred years ago and theirs was a proper joining as they are a peaceful race unlike humans. The Empire found their satellites and sent an envoy; they willingly joined the Empire and contributed with their technologies of collecting the weather energy.
He was looking now at those impressive constructions in the middle of their ocean. Mobile stations that would go to whenever a hurricane was and would follow it, absorbing and storing its energy. One of those things had already been built on Earth and human scientists were fascinated by it and how it worked.
He spent the rest of his day looking at videos of their planet, so alien in their colours and so weirdly familiar at the same time.
So the days passed and he arrived at the Kirno’on system.
As always, he was sitting on the bridge with Ryoshi on his lap when they arrived, the screens lost the blur and Ryoshi jumped off.
He started his procedure. Launch the beacon and link it, download and update everything needed, launch the exploration drones with their prepared routes and start travelling to the nearest planet for a deep scan.
Every now and then he liked to just stay on the bridge chair and watch the universe in front of him while the ship was travelling, now was one of these moments.
He was just lost in thought looking at the blackness of the system and the stars beyond when he heard a soft ‘miaou’, he adapted his posture and Ryoshi jumped over, curling on his lap and purring.
He started caressing the purring ball of fur, which produced stronger purrs, and kept thinking about how he had what he worked so hard for. His own ship, - the cat was a nice addition which he didn’t thought of or planned for - being the first from the Empire to visit, scan a system, and adding it to the Empire by placing the beacon there, and then discovering any special things the system might have.
There were thousands of hundreds of explorers but there were millions of systems to be explored and an order to be followed.
Sometimes they would just go to a system that had been deeply scanned to ensure the colonization process could begin or to help jump-start it by providing a potent 3d printer and access to all Empire schematics plus any material from the system.
‘Oh, you need 300m2 solar panels, don’t you? Sure! Just give me a minute to collect and process the materials and I’ll put it on the 3d printer that I just installed in LX (whichever Lagrange point was closer)’
The ability of the explorer’s ships and the explorers themselves to help develop a world was something that they were also known and loved for. With their explorer drones they would’ve already scanned the whole system and found what asteroids hold the best materials. They could jump by the asteroid, collect and process it in a matter of a few hours.
They specialized in quick drone production because sometimes you just had a few seconds to set a drone to record something magnificent, while you’re out of that magnificently destructive shock-wave.
But that same quick production could be and more often than not was, be used to quickly construct a massive 3d print that could print almost any technology owned by the empire.
The joke around was that a few explorer ships could set up a whole starship shipyard if they so desired, but there was a lot of truth in that if you included the capital explorer ships, not small ones like the Espurna.
And that was precisely why he was in a complicated situation right now, because there was a ship coming towards him that was not emitting an Empire ID and the design was not on the database either and looked like it needed help since it was venting something, probably oxygen, they probably were renegades.
The Empire would let people not happy with it leave, they would help them find a system where they could go and would even help them go there, after that the system would be marked as Renegade and would be closed to any and all transit.
But this system was definitely not marked as Renegade. If they had been part of the Empire apart from willing he was obligated to help them out, but being renegades they didn’t deserve his help, also all that could be a ruse to make him lower his guard.
“Friday, how are their weapons? shields?” - he asked pensively
“Weapons are currently offline and from what I see I would detect the heat if they’re switched on. I have no estimation on shields, I detect a vague electromagnetic field but that wouldn’t stop anything we throw at them” - the AI dutifully answered
“Please prepare a stealth drone with enhanced scanners and launch it to scan our surroundings the moment is ready.” - he ordered - “and now, please, open channels” - he said to the ship, and a profound beep sounded.
“Hi, I’m citizen XEA-6889475861, explorer full-grade, who are you and can I be of assistance?” - he asked the people on the screen.
They were definitely humans, seemed a family of 8, all cramped in something that could only be classified as a spaceship if you looked at man-made ships from the 21st century.
“Please help! We.. We thought we could make it, you know” - an old man was talking, looked tired with a dishevelled look and messy grey hair, his clothes wet with sweat - “the planet wasn’t aggressive and had a good climate but the work was hard and then the tornadoes came and half of us died. Then we started working on the ship and something terrible happened preparing the fuel. It's only us now, we don’t want to go back! Please let us come to the Empire!” - the old man finished, the ship still approaching.
“Sir, I need you first to stop the ship and then at least one of your IDs if I am to speak with you” - he responded. After a few seconds it was clear they didn’t have or wouldn’t give that information, because their faces went quite fast from surprise when he asked to anger a few seconds later.
“Friday, please notify a 4031.95 is on route at our location” - he said using sub-voice.
“LOOK SIR! Mr. Explorer!” - the old man started shouting - “Why do you need any IDs or proof of anything before you help another person out? Isn’t that the Christian thing to do?” - the old man finished, the ship still approaching.
“For fuck sake” - he thought - “Fucking religious people… Christians he said? Which ones were those?” - he lamented to himself.
“Look, Sir” - he told the old man - “I’m an explorer full-grade from the Empire, I am not obligated but morally required to offer help when facing some being in danger. But I already identified myself and you haven’t, if you ask for help the least you could do is to have at least some manners. And please stop approaching or I’ll be forced to start defensive manoeuvrers” - he finished. How much time did he gain with that? He was clearly nervous and hoped it didn’t show.
“Boss, the stealth bot has already detected five more ships with previous stealth technology trying to flank us” - said Friday by the internal comm. the ship had stopped approaching though.
“Look boy, all we need is a 3D printer of yours with some schematics so we can have the colony running again, from what I know of you explorers it shouldn’t even be that hard” - said the old man.
“i’m sorry sir but you still haven’t identified yourself” - he said - “and you didn’t come alone either so maybe your friends can say hello.” - he finished
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Those ships appeared some distance from him, a few hundred kilometres, enough to launch a salvo that might imperil a normal ship, but this was a Kirkugger.
“Friday, all power to shields please” - he said, again in sub-voice.
“Ok boy, you have ten seconds to tell me you are starting to fabricate that printer or we will put some holes in you” - said the old man - “I think we can give you a beating avoiding any critical parts” - he finished.
“Knock yourself out, how long ago did you renegade from the Empire?” - he said defiantly
Before the ten second count had finished a barrage of missiles, lasers, torpedoes and gunnery started to land in the exterior shields.
The thing about the Kirkuggers shields was that they enveloped the ship. The shield wasn’t a sphere around the ship as it would be on bigger military ships but something akin a second skin, mixed with the biological part it could regenerate its batteries with the energy created from the impact, the longer you hit the longer it would stand, only a huge destructive hit capable of emptying the whole shield would damage the ship.
After half an hour or so had passed with the ship completely covered by explosions and impacts, the attacking ships decided to stop.
“Dammit boy, what is that thing made of?” - said the old man through the comm channel.
Then, all of a sudden and without any warning, a massive ship appeared, the Excelsior. An Empire class ship 15km long, made of and mainly crewed by humans, with a triangle design that was an obvious rendering to the Star Wars Imperial destroyers.
“This is General Miller from the Excelsior” - video and voice burst in the comm channels - “The Empire recognizes this as a renegade system, we will take the explorer with us and mark the system as independent to avoid any future confusions. Please allow the beacon as it is.” - he affirmed and closed the communication without even awaiting response.
Then all the screens went blurry and the Espurna started moving towards it.
“I’m being ordered to go there, boss. I’m sorry, I can’t seem to cancel the order” - said the AI
“It’s ok Friday, I was expecting that much. Damage report?” - he said
“Our shield capacity is at 175%, I’ve derived that energy to the system that should kill the parasites, there are more than I expected.” - answered the ship back
“Yeah I’ve seen Ryoshi dealing with them a lot lately, can you run an analysis of how many do you both kill and where? I’m thinking there might be a nest or something.” - he said, while the ship was slowly moving towards the massive Excelsior.
The renegade ships didn’t even answer back, they just jumped in-system without even saying good-bye.
After a few minutes the Espurna docked inside the Excelsior and he was told to stay in his ship for a while since they were going to jump.
He could remember the dizziness from jumping on the Exxavian and had a quite clear memory of how it was on the Espurna, way weaker. Now, this ship was huge compared to both and the dizziness he got on the jump made him run to the bathroom to puke.
“Boss, a squad is coming this way, I think they came to pick you up.” - informed the ship
So he went and changed his clothes for something more respectable. There was the full dress uniform, a version of a military full dress but with the Explorer guild motif, yeah he’d choose that one.
He left the Espurna and 4 people with military combat clothes were waiting for him.
“Sergeant Little here to pick you up sir” - one of them saluted and informed him, the other three were ogling the Kirkugger, there weren’t many around and so far they were exclusive for explorers.
“Damn fine ship you have sir if you don’t mind me saying. We were looking at the barrage you received and she doesn’t even have a speck of dust” - one of them said, still looking at the Espurna.
“Yeah, these Kirkuggers are amazing aren’t they!” - he responded - “Thank you guys for coming so fast, by the way”
“You can tell that to the captain sir, he’ll appreciate it” - the first one who spoke said
They walked him towards the bridge, two in front and two in the back. He thought it was weird, wasn’t sure if he was treated as a hostage or as a VIP and wasn’t comfortable with any.
They arrived at a huge double sided steel door with a panel on the left. One of the military escorts put his hand on the panel and the door opened.
“And this is the bridge, you’ll find the captain sitting in the middle. We’ll wait here to pick you up when you finish” - said the Sergeant
And he was not joking. The bridge had definitely been inspired by Star trek. Captain chair in the middle surrounded by all the stations and bridge crew. With a lot of open space and touch-panels everywhere.
The captain was a big guy, probably 1’90m and with the body of a bull; brown hair cut with the standard military buzz. He walked towards him offering the right hand in the typical human salute. - “Captain Miller, a pleasure.”
“Explorer full-grade Jordi Roig, the pleasure is mine” - he said while shaking his hand - “and let me thank you sir for your quickly appearance, I wasn’t sure how long would I have had to stall them”
“Oh that? Yes we’re testing the new improvements in the jump engine. We were quite close when we received your alert and I’ve always wanted to scare off some renegades.” - said the captain - “Bloody idiots won’t admit how better we are with the Empire”
“I must say though” - he said while looking at the bridge - “I didn’t knew the Empire had this type of ship, I find the mixed style interesting to say the least” - he finished
The captain then showed a full grin. “Do you like it? Is the first time the Empire has let us humans do the whole design and construction of this type of ship. Their engineers were going crazy with our requests so they just said ‘do it yourselves!’ and so we did. Also we all here are fans of either Star Trek or Star Wars so everyone is loving it” - the captain said, and a bunch of giggles could be heard around the bridge. - “A Galactic Empire must have Imperial Destroyers!” - the captain exclaimed, which produced some laughs.
“Come with me, we’re going to be in transit for a while and I would like some company” - the captain said and started walking towards a room at the left side of the bridge, the Captain Quarters.
The room was spacious and dim-lit, with a couple of chairs and a coffee table, had a mini-bar with some bottles and glasses that looked expensive.
“Would you like something to drink?” - the captain said while pouring a drink for himself.
“No thanks, I’m ok” - he answered
“I haven’t been honest with you Jordi” - the captain continued - “the thing is, yes we were testing the new jump improvements, but we were also on our way to you anyway. This was a happy coincidence” - the captain finished while looking at him.
He sat down on one of the chairs, looked at the floor for a couple seconds and then back at him.
“I know you are not aware of this but your father is ill. And I know you don’t know about it because he and I are quite close friends and he told me.” - the captain explained
All of a sudden everything clicked, his mom looking tired, his dad not appearing in the videos.
“But… this is the Empire!” - he exclaimed - “They can cure cancer! What the fuck does my father have?”
“That’s the thing, they’re not sure what it is or where he got it. He is currently isolated in a hospital station, that’s where we’re going right now. I figured you would like to see him and I can manage his anger afterwards just fine” - said the captain.
“I’ll take that drink now if you don’t mind. Do you have Rum?” - he asked
“Oh! I have something better than that. Have you ever tried Drewell Ale? It has a nice punch.” - the captain said while opening a jade coloured bottle, then proceeded to pour a glass and gave it to him.
The smell was sweet, with a scent of something like honey. The taste was even sweeter but it went down the throat like a river of lava, burning him, so he started coughing.
“Yeah, the first time is always like that” - laughed the captain
A few seconds later the burn feeling was gone and was replaced by a cold sensation.
“It’s weird isn’t it? How it goes from fucking hell to damn freezing?” - said the captain, obviously having fun
But the sweetness lingered in his mouth, it was a nice drink, he took another sip.
“So, my father has been sick for a while now, and they have no idea what the heck is going on” - he said, continuing the previous conversation.
“Yeah, he called me kind of panicking before you went visiting. He already had the first tests and didn’t want to infect you. With both our credentials we managed to speed up your mom’s tests and she was ok, we figured if she wasn’t infected of whatever that is you wouldn’t be either” - the captain explained
“But now” - the captain continued - “I don’t know boy, I was a kid when the Empire came so I’ve grown up with their medical miracles, and they’re stuck. They have him on one of those healing tanks now.” - the captain said looking at him, his face torn with sadness.
“You understand why I’m telling this in private, I am the Captain of an Empire class ship. I cannot show this to the crew” - he said with a sad smile - “And I know some of them are aware, but we all have our roles to play”
“So, what now?” - he asked
“The jump will last for about three days. Then we will dock at the hospital station, and you can visit him. Remember, this is a military ship so communications are online even when in jump, feel free to contact the explorer guild but I already sent them a notice. I thought about assigning you quarters but I think you might feel more comfortable staying in your ship.” - was the captain explanation
“Yes, I would prefer staying in the Espurna if you don’t mind. I haven’t let Ryoshi alone and I would worry.” - he answered
“Ryoshi? Sorry you lost me there” - said the captain
Then he explained about the Kirkugger, the parasites and the cat. The captain was looking at him with shining eyes.
“You have a cat. You mean to tell me there’s an actual cat on the ship, right now.” - the captain said excitedly.
“If you want I can introduce you two.” - he answered smiling
The Captain stood up with a “What are we waiting for then?” and left the room and then the bridge. The four person squadron was still waiting in the bridge entrance, they saluted the captain but he was striding fast towards the Espurna. He was hurrying to catch up and the squadron followed them both.
A few passages and minutes passed and they arrived at the hangar where the Espurna was.
“That is a beautiful small ship indeed” - the captain said admiring it. Its metallic silver colour with the green lines against the dark of the hangar.
They both entered the ship and the orange lights started to lit.
“Hi boss, I see you’ve brought a guest. Pleased to meet you, I’m Friday, the AI of this ship” - said the ship
“Hi Friday, this is Captain Miller, the one that basically kidnapped you. Be nice, ok?” - he answered
“Nice to meet you as well, Friday” - the captain said smiling, looking sideways at him
He was about to ask where Ryoshi was when he saw him in the middle of the passage, grabbed to the wall, and smelling it.
“She’s hunting now I think.” - he said to the captain while pointing at the cat.
Then she jumped from the wall and came to him, purring. She circled his legs with the tail up and twisting around them, then proceeded to carefully smell the captain. They were both quiet, barely breathing. She looked at them both, made a loud “meow” and started walking fast towards the leisure room.
So they followed. The captain looked at everything in the small ship with a critical eye. They sat on the couch and Ryoshi jumped with them. The captain offered a hand, which Ryoshi first smelled, then buried her head on it and started purring loudly. The captain's smile was now a huge grin.
“I can see why you like this ship boy. I didn’t know about the Kirkuggers but this is a nice design, especially for someone travelling alone.” - said the captain.
They spent the rest of the day there, chatting, playing with Ryoshi, and sharing anecdotes. At some point the data-pad of the captain beeped and he apologized and left.
He decided to record a video for his psychologist and send the small report about the Kirno’on system. He was aware the status would’ve been already changed, military ships had priority on a lot of things, but he needed to do his part nonetheless.
Two more days until they get to the hospital station, two more days.