Chapter 17: Reinforcements

The Hope Project was Mankind’s first and last real bid for megastructural engineering. It was an attempt to construct a ringworld in the Hope system that started in 2236. According to the estimations of Mankind’s economic expansion and demographic growth made by the Solar Commonwealth’s scientists, the project was scheduled to end in the first half of the 28th Century.

The first stage of the project was the deployment of a network of automated production facilities dedicated to the construction of orbital solar collectors. The result of three decades of this process was the creation of the Kardashev Network - a rather basic version of the Dyson Swarm, a massive source of cheap energy that was then used for the star lifting - a process of extracting massive amounts of resources directly from the system’s star.

The Hope system was overlooked by the transhumans during the Day of Sorrow. As a result, the majority of the Commonwealth’s surviving warship construction facilities were moved to Hope, as the star lifting and the Kardashev Network meant no dependence on external resources, which together with the entire complex being constructed in the innermost part of the system guaranteed total invulnerability from the ATIS drones attacks.

The transhumans attempted its destruction twice. Their first attack (in 2270) ended in disaster, as the Kardashev Network was weaponized by the defenders as an improvised Dyson Laser, massacring the combined fleets of the Virtual Consensus and the Dominion of the Pure. The second attack (in 2274) was successful, but it was too late to save the collapsing Transhuman Alliance.

Encyclopedia Galactica

Book 2, page 234

***

EGS Echo, Command Deck

14:23 21.06.2610 STT

Commander Lena Drathari

Unfortunately for the Galaxy, the only existing type of FTL communication was a courier ship flying between star systems. This made long-distance intersystem communication a major pain. It was restricted to the speed of light. And while light was fast, it wasn’t enough when it came to such distances.

The ‘relief’ fleet appeared in the system five hours and twenty-seven minutes before the light carrying their image arrived at the Echo, now hooked up to the orbital shipyard on a geostationary orbit above the capital city of Texia-III. The message dispatched from its flagship was recorded four hours and fifty-seven minutes before it reached the Echo. The reply would take a bit over five hours to reach the recent arrivals.

This didn’t encourage a protracted talk. In a way, the long-distance communications resembled hand-written letters. The key distinction was that they were video recordings now.

“This is Rear Admiral Hao Yunqi of the Explorers’ Guild.” The man in the recording was an Asian. Older and much more wrinkled than Captain Keller, he was almost entirely bald. A nanopaint tattoo of a coiled serpent covered the left half of his face, the jaws of the creature closing in on his eye. “We’ve received your call for help and arrived as fast as possible. Please, state the nature of the emergency, and the support that you request.”

“That was... concise.” Commander Drathari commented. She expected something more. As far as she knew, the message was a borderline insult according to the Guild’s custom.

“Yes, indeed. Because we hate each other to the bone.” Captain replied. Lena spent a while thinking if there was anyone within the subsector that didn’t hate Keller. Save for the Administrative Council of the Protectorate of Texia. “All right, time to answer that walking Yakuza stereotype. Eva, do the honors.”

“All right. Live in 3, 2, 1… go!” Eva answered, giving Captain time to position himself in front of the camera.

“This is Captain Alexander Keller.” Everyone knew who he was, but it was nice to see Keller acting according to the rules of conduct for once. “During our routine travel from Carmotia to Texia, we encountered the Pristine Jewel. The Tavian Republic’s merchant ship, which had perished in Hyperspace ten months ago.”

Lena sighed. Explaining what the ship was to Hao Yunqi was the equivalent of talking to him using toddler talk. The Captain just couldn’t help himself, apparently.

“We’ve boarded the ship, however, we were repulsed by the manifestation of NIGHTMARE TURQUOISE.” Captain went on, utilizing one of the Guild’s cryptonyms. Nightmare meant an extradimensional, while Turquoise stated its type. Lena had learned part of this system. Part because she was privy to the knowledge of about thirty-two percent of it. The rest was, thus far, confidential.

“The investigation of the ship led to the discovery of signs of a third party’s presence.” The Captain said something technically correct, yet also not really. “We believe that an unknown size detachment of TERROR CYAN is operating within the Subsector 46 Beta.” TERROR meant a threat of human origin, CYAN meant that it was the Truthseekers.

“We request your assistance in the routine Search & Destroy operation through the Yellow Zone of the subsector.” Captain continued. “We’re sending the data secured on the Pristine Jewel together with the proposed patrol route and a report about the damages and casualties suffered in the incident in the attachment to this message.”

She could only hope that Innocent made the reports sound convincing.

***

EGS Echo, Crew Deck

08:25 23.06.2610 STT

Cadet Christopher Hall

The trap was sprung the moment Kivanna entered the quarters, returning from her eight hour long shift as a pilot. The overlay mod changed the way the living room looked to her. Then the singing started.

“Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you…”

Christopher had already gotten used to how relatively similar the 27th Century was to his own times - in a way, it was similar enough for any deviation to feel really out of place. He was strangely relieved that some simple things stayed the same. Such as, apparently, birthday celebrations.

Once the singing part ended, the party proper started. Every member of the Recovery Team Eight was present. Christopher somehow managed to get even Rukh to attend, though the man-wolf was content standing by the wall and emanating a DON’T APPROACH ME aura. The pink and glitter party cap on his head added by the overlay slightly ruined the impression.

After a while, the party stabilized. Tendrik closed in on the table full of snacks. The girls (namely Tiriel and Nekia) sat around the still slightly shocked yet apparently overjoyed Kivanna. Rukh stayed in the corner. Ryan and Christopher stood in a distance, waiting for Tiriel to finish casting her magic on Kivanna, and the time for the presents to come.

“You know…” Ryan suddenly spoke. He was close enough for it to be audible. There was music, however calm. Christopher might have been less than four meters away from the girl couch, but it was enough to not hear their whispers. “I’m starting to think Rukh isn’t really hostile, just super socially awkward. To the point of not knowing how to interact with us.”

Christopher looked at the wolfman. The wolfman looked at Christopher and blew into a party blower that he produced out of nowhere. They kept staring at each other (the party blower slowly receding) until Rukh turned his gaze away and continued standing there, motionless.

“Yes.” Christopher replied. “It really seems so. Numenians don’t really get to train their social skills a lot. Beyond the simple ‘GIVE VALUABLES AND WOMEN OR I STAB’.” Whoever decided that the world needed a completely new political ideology and decided that anarchodarwinism had to fill that slot deserved to be shot. In the guts. So it would hurt longer. Alternatively, being sent to Lith Athalia’s lab as the man’s personal lab rat until eventual death would work as well.

“True.” Ryan decided to get better acquainted with a mug of ale. That’s when Kivanna started crying. The associated facial expression left no doubts as to the fact that these tears were ones of happiness. “Well, should I say that I’m surprised or should I be honest?”

“Eh, I don’t really feel comfortable even thinking about this.” Christopher replied. “Reading through details about the countries in this subsector was such a rollercoaster of disappointment and trauma. Plesja should be bombed into oblivion, together with Numena. Can you believe that until four weeks ago I actually thought that Triana was the subsector’s bad guys?” Ryan chuckled.

“It’s those black armors and genetic purity talks, right?” He shook his head. “Seriously, they should stop with that Nazi cosplay, they aren’t even in the same faction as the Reich. It’s like they can’t decide whether they want to be a fascist autocracy or a nazi totalitarian regime. I totally hate them, but if the Numenian Council or the Divine Directorate started winning the war for control of the subsector, I’d volunteer to join the army and did my absolute best to have the Republic conquer the entire subsector.”

Tiriel tried to hug Kivanna reassuringly, but got more than she wanted as the smaller girl hugged back. Then Nekia joined the fun. Now the entire girl couch was some terrifying amalgam of flesh that Christopher almost couldn’t tell parts of.

“Cute.” Christopher commented. “She really went through some horrible things, didn’t she?”

“Kivanna? Oh, yes.” Ryan nodded. “Plesja is striving to become the Galaxy’s capital of rape. I don’t think they can beat the Discord, but it doesn’t stop them from trying. If anything, I’m shocked that she can somehow function merely half a year after getting out of that hell. Modern psychotherapy does wonders, apparently.”

“This is that one part of the future that I super hate.” Christopher replied. “There are countries out there that are so ridiculously evil and wrong that it would be hilarious if it wasn’t so horrible.” Ryan nodded, but Christopher continued.

“Four countries. Plesja which went so deep into socialism that it added women into the list of communally owned goods.” Even thinking about it hurt. “Numena, which went so deep into social darwinism that it keeps its own planet in a state of perpetual civil war between psychopathic warlords just to periodically take the most fearless and crazy warriors into space. Triana, peak racism with a genetic hierarchy built despite the entire society being from the identical genetic stock, so they are racist despite the lack of races. And Techtria, where your societal standing depends on how much you cosplay emotionless and rational machines and the percentage of visible cyborgization. Give me back my dreams of a happy and wonderful future!”

‘Well, yeah.” Ryan shrugged. “Subsectors are pretty much graveyards of failed ideologies. All of them are populated by direct protectorates of the Confederation of Mankind, which protects them from being invaded and set straight by the sector powers. As a result, a substantial part of them was colonized by political radicals from the sectors that could go all out in their craziness with such protection. The majority of such terminally stupid regimes in the sectors got bombed and invaded by these slightly less dysfunctional during the Unification Wars. So subsectors are what passes for the Confederation of Mankind’s bad neighbourhood.”.

Close to two hundred fifty million people lived in this ‘bad neighbourhood’. This changed Christopher’s disgust into something bordering on existential horror. Especially as the number of explored and settled subsectors approached one and a half thousand.

“Actually, we’re all from such godforsaken parts of the Galaxy, you noticed that?” Ryan added. Christopher wasn’t sure what he meant. “Nekia, Rukh, Tendrik, Kivanna, Patches and me are from subsectors. Tiriel’s from the Inner Verge Oversector which was in the past what the subsectors are now. The entire area got settled during the closing days of the Solar Commonwealth, when it was exiling every extremist group it could find into the Frontier. And you are from Earth, which… Well, it’s not a good idea to mention that you’re from there without mentioning what year you are from.”

A bunch of young misfits against the Galaxy. The angels seemed to have read a lot of young adult novels.

The couch was untangled. The coast was clear. It was time for the presents.

***

EGS Echo, Cargo Deck

04:26 24.06.2610 STT

Cadet Christopher Hall

Christopher ran like a maniac towards the edge before leaping off it. The distance was scary and normally impossible, but he was in a position to cheat. The telekinesis pushed him forward, having him reach the destination. Although he didn’t reach the top of it, instead hitting the side with his full bodyweight and velocity.

He started falling, but he once again used the telekinesis, both to push himself up and to attach his fingers to the wall. He tried to climb up, but his mental strength collapsed before he did that.

He fell off, and into the bottomless chasm beneath him - but then he suddenly froze in the air. When he looked up at the stone ledge, he saw his teacher standing on its bottom surface, upside down.

The teacher was a bulky man. Very bulky. Superhumanly bulky. In fact, Christopher’s first opinion of him could be summed up as ‘Superman that went to the gym too much’. There was also a cassock, though one that was at risk of tearing with every flex of the muscles.

“Reassuring If Slightly Incorrect Statement: You were close this time.” The teacher said in a robotic voice from under his strangely chosen UI overlay. “Do you wish to try again?”

Christopher was totally shocked when Captain Keller introduced him to the ship’s chaplain - who turned out to be an alien robot. One of the berserks that recently almost wiped out all life in this corner of the Galaxy. If Innocent’s sense of humour was endemic to his species, Christopher was ready to believe that the berserks’ omnicidal crusade was just them trying to mercy kill everyone to spare them from being exposed to the berserk’s jokes.

“Please, no.” Christopher was fully ready to beg at this point. “Enough of the obstacle course, I’m drained.”

The second of the Captain’s surprises for Christopher was the fact that Innocent was a telekinetic. Supreme-class, apparently. Or at least that’s how the Captain introduced him. There was a small chance that Christopher had misheard; it was hard to hear Keller’s words when the Captain was busy flying around the room.

Innocent took the weirdest way imaginable to prove his power. It really drove the ‘everyone aboard this ship insane save for myself but I’m not so sure about the last one anymore’ nail home.

Naturally, the only answer to his question of ‘how exactly can a robot wield telekinesis’ was ‘it’s classified’.

The obstacle course was Innocent’s idea for telekinesis training. The priest took over an entire storage area in the Cargo Deck, and reassembled the containers to form a ‘perfect environment for training’. The rest was just some really creative approach to the graphic overlays. Personal computers allowed some crazy things.

He was still in a storage area of the Echo. However what he saw around himself was some really mountainous alien world, filled with ruined temple-like structures. It felt like something transplanted the South American natives into Tibet.

The chasms felt really real. Enough for him to have to conquer the fear of heights when he was starting this training.

Last but not least, there was Innocent. Under a strange overlay. Currently busy flexing his muscles.

“Saddened Answer: Very well.” The Aztec Tibet around him vanished, replaced by a boringly standard cargo hall. The bottomless chasm changed into the floor, merely two meters underneath the floating Christopher. After a few seconds he landed on it.

Innocent was still standing upside down. And still flexing. Christopher wanted to go home.

“Sadistic Remark: Twenty minute break.” Innocent returned to the normal position and landed on the floor in front of Christopher. “Then you’re back on the obstacle course.”

Christopher didn’t give Innocent time to change his mind. Instead he drove straight for his treasure - a bunch of sandwiches and a vacuum flask with tea. Made by Tiriel, naturally, as Christopher was utterly unable to survive on his own.

“Denigrating Statement: Incorrigible hedonist.” Innocent relocated himself next to Christopher. “You could at least try to chew them.”

“Sorry, no can do.” They were simply too good. He had no idea what sort of elven magic she was using in her cooking, but it was certainly the whitest magic of them all.

A few weeks ago he wouldn’t believe that he would ever speak like that to an officer. But it was really hard to be on guard with Innocent of all people. He was trying to be serious at the beginning, having what the Captain said about the Church in mind. His resolve on that field faded away after a few days of training.

Christopher quickly satiated his hunger - and ran out of sandwiches. Then, while sipping the tea, he could ask Innocent a few questions while looking at least remotely like a cultured man.

“A Curious Question: You seem to be asking a lot of questions about modern politics.” Innocent took that very moment to hijack the conversation. His ability to do that was astounding. “May I ask why?”

“Oh, well, how should I put it…” It wasn’t an easy thing to answer. “I’m just sort of… uhm… I think I’m going to spend a while in the future. It's been a few months already, and I don’t even know what I’m here for. So I guess I’m just looking for some… err… sense of belonging?” He ended that in a very bad note. But he himself wasn’t sure what it was about.

“Answer: Understandable.” The machine nodded. “The quest for the sense of belonging and the political tribalism are crucial elements of sapience.” Innocent leaned towards him, and added in a voice less loud, perhaps his version of a confidential whisper.. “Question: Do you want to talk about our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ?”

“Uhm. No.” Christopher was certain about that. “Res Publica Christiana isn't my cup of tea, sorry. Thus far it seems that I’m more of an Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy man. Angels seem to be into democracy, apparently.” He froze a second after saying this. It was one of the subjects that he wanted to avoid talking about with Innocent. But now he blurbed it accidentally.

“Gentle Suggestion: This is something to be said at the end of your journey, rather than at the beginning.” Innocent seemed to not mind his political allegiances. Nor the semi-religious (and probably heretical) statement.

“Still, I might be outdated by local standards,, but I'm really into the separation of Church and state.” He decided to clarify. “And that’s not really a thing in the RPC.”

“Reply: Separation of Church and state?” Innocent leaned his head sideways a bit, still staring at Christopher. “So you believe that if, taking an example from your times, a person died during the botched exorcisms, the people in charge of it should not be investigated by the local police, and it should be left for the Church to decide the punishment?”

“Well, yeah? Totally a police job.” He wasn’t sure where this was going.

“Follow Up Question: Then why do you call it ‘separation’, when it’s in fact submission of one side to the other?” Christopher was about to answer it, but then he found out that he wasn’t sure what he should be saying. “Clarification: From your point of view, the RPC is upholding the rule of ‘separation of Church and state’. It simply reversed the vector of submission.”

Christopher sighed. He remembered what it was about.

“Uhm, Father?” It was much easier to refer to Innocent that way with the overlay on. “I think I did mention something about not being interested in getting converted, right?”

“Answer: Yes.” Innocent admitted to remembering that part. “However, I elected to ignore it. The rest is just me being subtle about it, to avoid irritating you enough to sever contact with me.” Christopher sighed again. It was going to be a painful day.

“Joyous Information: The time’s up.” Innocent added. “Time for pain.”

Really painful day.

***

EGS Echo, Crew Deck

04:26 26.06.2610 STT

Cadet Christopher Hall

The ship felt like a prison overflowing with captives. Neither Christopher nor any of his subordinates had the slightest idea why the captain suddenly reversed his recruitment policy. All they knew was that recruits filled the corridors and halls of the Echo. Most of them had a much too idealized view of the Explorer’s Guild and its business.

Finding a place for them was one thing. Their presence was a logistics nightmare with which Christopher had no experience, though he suspected that at least some people from the quartermaster’s office went bald. Then, however, the issue of training came.

The Captain ordered accelerated training regimens. It was so bad, that after close to three months in the Explorer’s Guild Christopher became a teacher. Well, at least an assistant teacher; he was helping Chief Tiaa oversee large groups of trainees. He still didn’t feel ready for this.

The ship flew again, but with a much smaller acceleration. It was supposed to help the recruits deal with the spacesickness without causing a pandaemonium aboard the Echo. If the amount of people prowling the ship while looking like they were sucked dry by a vampire was any indication, it worked so-so at best.

Tendrik, Tiriel and Christopher were busy eating dinner together. Of course, it was slightly awkward. The elf and the transhuman had gotten into an argument earlier, so Christopher felt like he was having two dinners at once, each of them with one person. That’s when the announcement happened.

The UI displayed a warning that a priority message arrived. When he activated it, he was greeted by a recording of Captain Keller facing the camera. The backdrop was what looked like a fairly stereotypic starship bridge.

“Welcome, my dear minions.” Captain said. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything important, but I have a rather crucial announcement. Within six hours the Echo will join the Guild’s task force under the direct command of Rear Admiral Hao Yunqi. The exact composition of the task force will be sent in a separate message after this announcement.”

Tendrik and Tiriel froze, both of them apparently watching the same message as Christopher.

“You might be curious as to why this is happening.” Captain paused for a while. “Well, during the incident on the Pristine Jewel we have found circumstantial evidence suggesting that the ship was boobytraped by no other group than the Truthseekers Corporation. Since it’s the first time the majority of you heard of its existence, the file describing exactly what the Corporation is will be sent in a separate message after this announcement.”

Christopher wondered how censored the file would be. The text probably resembled barcode more than anything. Describing the Corporation in detail was a perfect way of lowering morale. Especially the recruits. For someone from such an unimportant backwater with an extremely outdated technology the Truthseekers had to sound like some sort of Cthulhu Incorporated.

“Since the Corporation is an organization that is treated by the Confederation pretty much like Discord is, we will proceed with a joint search & destroy operation in order to round up their forces in the subsector.” Captain continued. “This however means that for the next few months we’ll be operating as a part of the task force.” He added, leaving Christopher to wonder why he was mentioning that again.

“For those who aren’t aware of it…” Keller continued. “... during the flight in the Realspace, movement between ships of the task force is permitted. The timetable of the shuttle flights between the warships will be announced soon. Consider this a perfect moment to learn something about different cultures of the Confederation, taste foreign cuisine, VR games and so on.”

This sounded nice to Christopher. Though it depended on what sort of countries spawned the new arrivals. If his recent reading about the current politics were any indication, most of them were no good.

Someone off-screen handed the Captain a pile of papers, a strangely outdated way of sending someone a message.

“Well, it’s not fine and dandy, though.” Captain said, papers in his hand. “Due to, let’s say, the subpar character for some of the task force members… ok, pretty much all of them, I received an official letter that I’m going to read now. It was signed by Commander Lena Drathari, Lieutenant Commander Innocent, Lieutenant Commander Athalia, Lieutenant Commander Taim, Lieutenant Commander Mendez, Lieutenant Commander Khariz, Colonel Nowak, Chief Petty Officer Sistonen…” He paused for a second. ”Well, all officers and the Chief Petty Officer.”

I’m not going to like it, am I?

“Due to generally bad conduct allowed and even enforced aboard the other ships…” the Captain said, this time obviously quoting the letter. “... we feel forced to inform that anyone that leaves the Echo to visit the other ships will be treated as a deserter and summarily executed on return, his body stuffed and displayed on the hanger deck in order to discourage further violations of common dece…” the Captain paused finally, though his last few words were said with a tone suggesting that it was the first time he got to read the letter and he wasn’t happy about the contents.

The Captain looked sideways, into someone beyond the camera scope.

“Ok, so who let Innocent write this?” The answer was intelligible. Captain sighed and looked back at the camera.

“Jokes aside, the other guys are assholes.” He added. “And you are forbidden from leaving the ship. I can’t exactly forbid them from visiting the ship, but I strongly insist on you being as unwelcoming towards them as possible. Without physical violence. Unless it’s necessary, but even then you should leave that to the officers. Have a nice day.”