Chronicles of Sol: The Fall

Reynolds shifted in his seat after the Valorian units had stood down. He had not planned to destroy their local flag vessel, but they had refused all prior hails. Not only that, but his weapons hadn’t been doing much against their shields. That torpedo wasn’t even set to maximum yield when he fired it. It had been intended to cripple them, not destroy them. At least the effect had gotten their attention. He made a mental note that Valorian hull construction was far more fragile than he had thought. Although he figured it would be best to make an investigation before he made conclusions.

He sighed, and then gave the order, “Open a channel.”

An older woman soon appeared on the screen. He noted her expression. This wasn’t going to be easy. “I’m captain Reynolds of the EFS Coto. I’m afraid this incident could have been avoided if you had been a little less trigger happy, and answered our hails.”

“You attacked our ship! We detected the weapons fire, how else were we supposed to respond!” replied the angry Valorian.

“The wreckage in the area would likely disagree with you, and have you actually spoken to the crew of your disabled cruiser?”

“No, but it was...”

He hit the mute for a moment. Great, a bunch of morons were in charge here. He unmuted it after a while when she seemed to not be spitting venom. “I see in that case, I suggest you speak to the crew of that cruiser, and we can resume this discussion later when cooler heads can prevail.”

He signaled for the channel to be closed, and the alien face vanished from his screen. He glanced down at the helm. “Move us off, 20,000 kilometers. I leave the direction to your discretion.”

“Aye, sir. Moving us off.”

As the ship moved off, giving the Valorians some space. He stood, and headed down towards operations. It was time to update the Enterprise on their status.

The commander slipped into her damaged shuttle bay. The air shield shimmered in the distance. It flickered a bit, but the air was staying in the bay. She hoped the thing would continue to hold. It didn’t help that the bay doors had a hole in them, but this bay was the only bay that was in a remotely usable state. The other shuttlebay was in utter ruins.

She glanced out to the stars, and watched the familiar form of a light shuttle as it angled for final approach into the bay. Onboard was an engineering team, and the captain of one of the other ships out there. A captain she needed to have words with. Especially after being forced to watch that tragedy that had occurred so recently. A senseless loss that never should have been, and clearly could have been avoided.

The shuttle seemed to take far too long to land. When it finally did however the engineering team were first off the shuttle lugging with them boxes full of spare parts and equipment. The minutes seemed to tick off before the captain of the other ship showed herself. The moment the commander spotted the other woman she felt a headache coming on. It was one of the three sisters of the Laretta clan. They were rather insufferable at the best of times, and often left her wondering how they got commands in the first place.

The other woman spotted her quickly, and rushed over. She beamed, “Bow down before me for I have rescued you!”

She gave the insufferable larger woman a look, as she glared up at her. The fact that she was so short irked her, especially when dealing with these three sisters. “YOU!? Rescue me!? As if.”

She sputtered, “What? I’ve clearly rescued you. My eloquence even drove off those strange aliens.”

Maybe it would have been better if the pirates had finished her off. “You moron! They haven’t even left. I think they just moved off cause dealing with you is so so...”

“I would have thought you would be more grateful!” interrupted the utter moron.

“Grateful!? Why would I be? Are utterly blind? No wait don’t answer that. Of course you are blind. If you hadn’t noticed by the other wrecks around, that ship just protected us from pirates, and you MORONS decided to attack them. If you three hadn’t done that...”

She trailed off, as the older and taller woman’s eyes widened. “What do you mean protected you!?”

“Those aliens weren’t attacking us. They were helping us! If you morons had taken a moment to assess the situation or better yet paid attention to us signaling you to stop, you wouldn’t have lost a ship!”

“You’re joking right!? We detected plenty of weapons fire.”

“Yes, and there are five now six destroyed ships floating out there. One of those is my kill from a week ago, when I first sent out the distress call. The remaining were all kills from the alien cruiser you unjustly attacked.”

Her eyes went super wide, and she rushed off. The commander sighed, as she felt her head throbbing. It was always a pain dealing with those sisters. As tragic as that ship being lost with all hands was, the aliens might have done her a favor. Now she only had two of them to deal with. As she left the bay, she idly had to wonder how the insufferable woman could behave like that after one of her own had died. Of course it was possible that ship wasn’t commanded by one of the Larreta sisters. She doubted that, since those three had always operated as a pack. Although now that she thought about it, they weren’t without their own internal divisions.

Then again, she sometimes fought with her own sister. Reia was a lot of fun at times, but she could also be infuriating at other moments. It had been awhile since she had last spoken with her sister now that she thought about it. Maybe she should contact her. Given the state of her ship she would soon have plenty of time to talk with her younger sister. Not that anyone would have guess since she happens to be so much shorter than Reia. It was infuriating, but she often ended up being mistaken for a little girl. Not because she looked young per say but largely due to how small she was. Not that her clan genes helped her out much, they largely helped her stay young looking. A fact that hadn’t helped her wth dating, but it wasn’t her fault that she could pass for a young girl so easily. She put that aside, as she walked down the corridor and tried to ignore her lingering throbbing headache.

Countryman pressed a button, and leaned back. He had been busy the last few hours, and now the computer was saving, and logging all the reports he had reviewed. A process that would take seconds, but also meant he was done with his office duties. For a moment or two he just enjoyed the chair, as he drifted over what he had to do for the day. There was the usual rounds on the lower decks, but he hadn’t planned to do that for a couple of hours. In fact he had finished all of the reports a full two hours earlier than he had expected. A fact that left him with a bit of free time. Well he did have a few projects sitting on the back burner. Perhaps he could spend some time doing those?

There was that space combat simulator he had been working on. Although it had ended up sidelined. Hmm, as he recalled he’d finished the engine some time ago. That still left him quite a lot of things to do. The idea had been to create a very realistic space combat game that put the player in command of a single ship. The game would randomly generate a mission, and parameters including opponents based on the root library files, but it would also have a number of pre-generated missions, and a campaign of his own design. The game would have a number of difficulty levels from trivial to impossible, and when he said impossible he meant it. The highest difficulty was meant to be an unwinnable scenario. Although creating one that could challenge him that way might prove difficult. His enhanced mind could think far faster than the average human. So while he wasn’t necessarily smarter his cybernetically enhanced mind did enjoy certain advantages in combat.

He reached for his console, and tapped a few keys opening up his private files. The entire library was encrypted, but it only took him a moment to unlock it with his passcodes. Seconds later he was encrypting his projects library. Nothing unusual there, he was used to working with multiple layers of encryption and security. His old job had required a lot of it afterall. Just the dangers that came with the territory afterall. A territory he was glad he no longer had to deal with. Being the Captain of the Enterprise, and commander of a three-ship task force was often comparatively simpler to his previous tasks. Even if it was somewhat different.

Pushing the past aside, he browsed through his various project files. Some of them long closed. He had another library of files with projects that had been submitted to him by others for review as well, but that was not the library he was looking through. All of his project files employed alpha-numerical codes. There was a certain amount of meaning to those codes, but not many would be able to decode them. He scrolled through the long list of codes. Spotting a few old projects that might interest Ruri, and marked the files to be copied to a stick. It was not long before he found the item he was looking for. Although he could have navigated straight to the item in question, as he had its code memorized.

Pulling up the project in question titled XCS-4132184-2187-517-A. There was still lot of work to do, and with a bit of thought, Countryman started work. He wasn’t ready for a combat model quite yet, so instead, he started work on ship models. A complex procedure especially for him, but made far easier by his ability to directly interface with computers. Within seconds a model began to take shape, soon resolving itself into the form of an older sublight destroyer.

Before he could really get into finishing his model, however, there was a ding at the door. Countryman looked up, and after a moment urged the unexpected party to enter. He blinked when he noted who it was. She had never once come to his office before. So this might prove interesting. The woman didn’t have a weapon on her so that was a good sign, but he would have been alerted if she was making any moves. Long before she got here. Still he did have to wonder what her angle was.

“Something I can do for you? Short of tossing myself out an airlock that is.”

She frowned, “As much as that would do everyone a favor, that isn’t why I am here. I think we both know I never would have made it to the door if that was why I here.”

“True, you wouldn’t have. So what is on your mind?”

She sighed, “Greyman has been looking into the engine failure searching for signs of sabotage. Something I certainly hope isn’t the case, but...”

“You were wondering if I may have heard something about plans to sabotage a core crystal?”

“Something along those lines, yes. We both know that you have an extensive intelligence network on this ship. God only knows how you managed that, but you always seem to be at least one step ahead of me. Makes me wonder if there is anything that happens aboard without you knowing about it.”

“Ah, yes. Well, you don’t get to be my age without learning the game and learning it well. If it makes you feel better, no I didn’t hear anything about sabotage. At least not anything involving a primary system. Anything else?”

She nodded, “Yes one more thing. During my own checking, I came across mention of something called Project Daffodil know anything about it?”

Countryman frowned, “Daffodil? People still remember that? I haven’t heard that name in nearly eighty years.”

“So you do know what it is about,” she said.

“Of course I do. I helped shut that project down, and good riddance as well.” then he sighed, “Since you are asking, it was an experiment in cybernetic mind control techniques. Real shady shit, and not sanctioned either. The project never quite worked out, but it did reveal a few of the dangers revolving around cybernetic brain implants. I sincerely hope that whoever mentioned that to you isn’t planning to revive that kind of research.”

Her expression shifted her eyes wide, and looking as if she swallowed something horrible. “...You're joking right?”

Countryman sighed, “I wish I was. I wish I was, but unfortunately, some people are monsters. The kind that would perform unsanctioned experiments like that.”

Countryman wasn’t entirely happy to be reminded of that experiment. It was one that never should have taken place in the first place. He still felt sorry for some of the victims. People, some of them even children that never really recovered from what was done to them. That incident was also why brain implants were the most heavily regulated of all cybernetic implant types. There were especially strict rules for both the implantation and removal of those implants. Removal was especially important given what was learned after they had extracted the malfunctioning Daffodil implants. In some cases it was found removing them caused more harm than leaving them would have caused. Many of the victims ended up needing implants just so that they could function after that.

His guest frowned, “Why do I get the feeling that there is something you’re not telling me about this?”

“Be glad I’m not telling you everything. Project Daffodil was a tragedy, an utter travesty that never should have been allowed to take place, and trust me ignorance on that monstrosity is best.”

She nodded, “I see. In that case, I think I have a few heads to crack.”

“Good luck with that!” replied Countryman. Feeling a little weird about the fact that he meant that. That was one thing he didn’t want to see surface again. Not to mention he was more than happy to let Williams take care of the dirty work on that one. In the meantime, he figured he would recheck the ship’s library security profiles.