Benjamin Gold

Location: Interdimensional Space

“This is it, people. Look alive.” Ben took a deep breath along with the rest of Argo’s bridge occupants.

Aiko was at the helm with a three hundred and sixty degree dome of navigational information flashing around her. Jacobi was on the communications station, which she’d qualified at during the transit. If their exit went terribly wrong, if this was a trap, or anything other than a perfect transition occurred, it was her job to send a QE burst back to New Washington. The Commonwealth capitol was more than ten thousand lights years away. Argo was the first human space craft to sail farther than three thousand light years from Earth, and it would likely be the only to pass the five and ten thousand mark for quite a while. They were only able to do it because of the QE beacon they were honing in on, and as far as Ben knew, the Hegemony hadn’t provided any other beacon codes. He knew they would come with time as trade and diplomacy spread. The Intergalactic relations doctor in him was extremely excited for the upcoming decades.

“Helm?” Ben knew requesting constant updates showed his nervousness, but he couldn’t help himself. They were about to emerge blindly into a solar system belonging to a race that was probably settling other worlds when humans were first learning about fire.

“Transition in three minutes, Sir.” The PO3 couldn’t quite keep the bite out of her voice.

“SRRT is locked and loaded if we run into any trouble.” Jacobi was in scales instead of her V4. Since the V4 wouldn’t fit on the bridge she didn’t have much of a choice.

A few of the higher-ranking diplomats looked wide-eyed at Jacobi’s statement, but the Minister of Commerce waved them down. So far, she’d been an professional and courteous woman. She’d even admonished one her own staff for the small fight that had broken out during the early part of their transit. That told Ben a lot about her since most senior civilian civil servants tended to look down on the military unless they had multiple golden stripes on their CMUs. The offended, and bruised, diplomat wanted his pound of flesh and the Minister had told him diplomatically to shove it.

Ben had thought back then, and hoped her tact would translate into positive conversations with aliens. Of course, this was all predicated on them thinking like humans, which was never a good assumption to make.

“Commander Gold, I’m getting weird…” Amber, the ship’s new AI began before going silent.

“Shit, skipper…” Aiko swiped data over to the command holo-tank in front of him so he could see what she was seeing.

The data streaming across the screen didn’t make sense. Beyond that, it wasn’t possible. It was essentially a proximity alert in the interdimensional space used for portaling. There was no consensus on what to call this space, but things like warp space, hyperspace, ID-Space, and the portal zone were some of the frontrunners.

“What’s happening, Commander?” The Minister had her usual neutral expression plastered on her face, but the slight widening of her eyes showed Ben she was wondering if they were going to get to negotiate at all.

“I…” Ben started.

“Neural handshake established,” Amber interrupted and new data began to scroll across his screen.

Ben read it and breathed a tentative sigh of relief. There were two new contacts on his holo-tank that were showing a friendly green now. They were small crafts, fighters if he had to wager a guess, and they’d taken up flanking positions about five hundred meters on either side of Argo. Amber was identifying them as agents of the Hegemony’s equivalent of the Diplomatic Security Service. Their mission was to ensure the human diplomats got to the conference safely. They’d uploaded course headings for when they reached their exit portal and would accompany them until they touched down.

Ben’s relief was only momentary until his strategic mind kicked in. Not only were the Hegemony fighters able to contact them while portaling in interdimensional space, but they were able to locate them, and if someone could find and see you then they could just as easily shoot you.

Ben wondered if the Hegemony would be able to interdict human ships that traveled in an Alcubierre Bubble, and made a mental note to discuss it with people a lot smarter than him.

The Minister, Jacobi, and Aiko were clearly just as shaken as Ben, but they kept their cool for several minutes until the static-look of interdimensional space receded to normal space.

“Oh my God.” Ben wasn’t particularly religious, but his holo-tank lit up like a Christmas tree on crack. “Amber, how many contacts am I looking at?”

“I am reading three hundred and fifty-nine thousand two hundred and three friendly contacts within our one minute light bubble.” The AI replied calmly.

Argo’s silicon brain might be taking it in stride, but Ben was dealing with information overload as more ships than he’d ever seen in the entire Solar System were suddenly within one light minute of his ship.

Ben kept his mouth from dropping when a few registered in the hundred-million ton range. He seriously hoped those were cargo ships or else any military engagement with the Hegemony would be short and not so sweet for humanity.

Through all of the traffic, Aiko followed the course provided by the fighters that exited the portal right beside them. They helped form a bubble around Argo as the gunboat continued into the heart of the system. Ben expected the traffic to be worse around the portaling points and get better the closer they got to their destination. He was right, but not by much. By the time they reached The Golden City of Luck, Happiness, Prosperity, and Servitude, Ben had counted over a million vessels traversing the system.

Ben doubted the Commonwealth had that many ships at all…and then there was the city itself. he wondered as they pulled into the most weirdly-lavished, over-the-top dockyard Ben would ever see.

***

Mark “Coop” Cooper

Location: The Golden City of Luck, Happiness, Prosperity, and Servitude, Hegemony of Peace and Tranquility of Sapient Beings

{Stand down.} The command came over their IORs. All communication that wasn’t done in-person was to be done over the IORs. The techies weren’t confident TACCOM and STRATENET would keep the more-advanced Hegemony out of their coms chatter, so they wanted to use the only Hegemony-level tech the SRRT was equipped with.

Coop was sure the people making the suggestion didn’t know how firmly their heads were shoved up their asses. If they just listened, he could have told them from firsthand experience that the Hegemony could crack their TACCOM and STRATNET encryption. Also, he didn’t think it made sense for them to rely on IORs solely either. After all, it was Hegemony tech and if someone knew of a way to get around it then it would be the Hegemony.

He felt gravitas was lent to his opinion when Argo went on high alert while still portaling to their destination. If the Hegemony could locate and interact with a ship in whatever quasi-space this was then they sure as shit could get hack into someone’s IOR. The only question was if the recipient would know what was happening.

All of this made Coop feel extra warm and fuzzy that they shot a little poop nugget into his bloodstream and put him in a coma so it could fester in his brain like a little parasite. he admonished himself.

When the command came down from the LT, who’d only just recently undergone the IOR procedure, the SRRT didn’t relax. They were in an alien star system, over ten thousand lightyears from home, and surrounded by threats they could identify, or even quantify. Some of the diplomats waiting in the bay were excited about reports of high-level traffic in the system. They were talking mostly about the trade implications, but Coop didn’t see it that way.

From the rumblings he was hearing there was a whole lot of shit in this system.

“Ok, listen up.” The SGM cut off his thoughts. “Everyone knows their jobs: Bravo close, Alpha far, stay buttoned up at all times, and call out if anything jumps out as suspicious. We’re forty-five minutes out. The ET’s have their own security accompanying us, but we’re in charge of our people. Understood?”

“Yes, Sergeant Major.”

“Good. Let’s make a good impression on our alien hosts, and maybe we’ll be invited back.” The SGM wasn’t looking for laughter and he didn’t get any.

There was only one problem.

He felt Argo settle into its final destination just as he finished disembarking his LACS.

“One small step for mankind and all that stuff,” Eve stated as she started pushing her grav-sled toward the hatch.

Coop shrugged and grinned. “Yeah, let’s try not to fall on our collective face.”