Chapter 037: Mourning

Despite their incredible resistance to damage, capital ships are unable to survive more than a few hits from the weapons typically installed on them. Because of that, a large-scale engagement between capital ships will cause a truly cataclysmic amount of casualties.

One of the greatest examples is the first engagement of the Battle of Hope, fought between Admiral Hernandez’ Second Fleet of the Solar Commonwealth and the Northern Offensive Fleet of the Hiver Ascendancy. The only chance of a Commonwealth victory was to stop the transhumans from merging their forces. To achieve that, Admiral Hernandez pretended to go for a missile skirmish, and instead charged the Hivers directly, hoping to engage them in short distance.

The Second Fleet was annihilated within twenty-seven minutes of battle, with fifty-seven battleships and twice as many smaller ships destroyed with all hands on deck (resulting in a total death toll of about three hundred fifty thousand). The Hivers fleet was heavily damaged and lost the majority of its escorts, resulting in its total annihilation during the bombing run of combined starfighter wings of the Reserve Fleet, First Fleet and Fourth Fleet (with close to one hundred capital ships destroyed, and the death toll of about six hundred thousand).

This means that during a single engagement (slightly above one hour in length) more than one and half billion tonnes of composites and circuits were turned into scrap, while close to one million mariners died. Few countries today can sustain their economies and war support after a bloodbath of this scale, resulting in the majority of modern capital ships engagements including merely up to ten battleships.

Encyclopedia Galactica

Book 9, Page 758

***

EGS Echo, Command Deck

12:11 26.07.2610 STT

Commander Lena Drathari

“Announcement: I have managed to crack the data we’ve recovered.” Innocent announced once they all assembled. “This is also enough to decipher what I believe to be the original Seekers’ plan.”

They were all there. Colonel Nowak, on a break from attending funerals of her soldiers. Keller, who hadn’t left his room for the whole day after the battle. Mendez, who acted perfectly as always, but seemed to be just as crestfallen as he. Lena, who was trying to keep the ship floating until Keller got through the mess.

Athalia was there, too. He was furious. Not with her, for a change. There were gossips going around that he tried to summarily execute the Texian officer in charge of the convoy, but instead came to blows with Nowak over it.

Not like she tried to save the officer who messed up to the point of seventy-five people dying, despite not having to. It was a fight over who was going to have the pleasure of doing the deed.

A horrible mistake that cost them one third of the assault team. The exhumans weren’t hidden all that well. The end result of accelerated training courses. She didn’t even know if Keller intervened or if the officer was executed - the result was kept under wraps even from her, for morale’s sake.

Morale was approaching the rock bottom. Another bloody battle. Still no resolution in sight. Perhaps now?

“Introduction: the Seekers found something in the subsector. Right next to our current position.” Innocent continued. He was feeling just as down as everyone else, though outside of the meeting he redoubled his efforts to keep everyone happy. Too many funerals, most of which he was conducting. “An access point to a completely new jumpgate network.”

That was a shocking revelation, indeed. Mankind craved that technology. There was no better chance of reunification than the ability to just place an exotech jumpgate in every settled system. Instant travel to every corner of the Galaxy. Instant end of logistical problems with warfare. Instant end of problems with governance over large territories. Instant end of risk of pirates and other miscreants preying on your hyperspace traffic.

Of course, the faction that was going to capture such a thing for itself was almost guaranteed to win the Long War.

Thus far Mankind knew of four networks. One malfunctioned long ago, leading to nothing but a new source of exotechs. The second was the source of the Discord’s power - its inhabitants could manufacture new ones that they were then using as backdoors into Human Space. The third one was - she had learned of that recently - formerly used by the berserks during the Machine War, but remnants of it were later on reactivated and occupied by the Truthseekers.

The fourth and final one - the U-Gate network - connected every sector in Human Space with the Unity Sector. The capital of the Confederation of Mankind. It was the closest that Mankind came to securing that technology - but they lacked the ability to replicate the gates. Besides, it had numerous flaws regarding its usage, making Unity a useful common ground but not exactly useful as a capital of a centralized empire.

“Explanation: They found a way to access it.” Innocent continued. “They sent an expedition to the other side. Found a treasure trove of technologies far above us on the Wall of Reason. Very far above us. Their archeologists estimated that the alien species behind the gate network went extinct around one millenia ago. Most of their technology remains intact.”

Lena almost gasped. It was… it was unbelievable. It was the type of discovery that could spell the end of the Long War even without replication of the jumpgates.

“Shocking Revelation: The last report indicates an encounter with indigineous population.” Innocent dropped another bomb, this time a nuclear one. “The contact with the task force and the forward base on the other side of the gate was terminated after this announcement. All attempts to send ships and drones to the other side after that ended with failure. Nothing returned.”

“Where are we in that?” Lena asked. She felt comfortable enough in this group to speak, even on such a day and about such a subject. “Why did they guide us here?”

“It’s simple.” Athalia shook his head. “They know of Keller’s little monster family. Why would they keep sending people and equipment to apparent death and destruction? Why not pick up a guy they know that is incredibly good at his work and has even better subordinates, have him ‘follow your trail’ on his own, and then push him into exploring the other side of the network for yourself?”

“Continuation: And then, once the guy returns triumphantly, use your little spy aboard his ship to transfer all the contents of their databases about the things they discovered and the technologies they recovered to you… before blowing the whole ship into shreds. Either by having the spy use backdoors that it had months to place in the systems from its administratorial position to blow up the reactor, or by waiting around the jumpgate exit with one or more battleships.” Innocent joined the talk. “Smart. Deceptive. Executed almost perfectly. They lose very little if they fail. Typical for Seekers.”

They planned to lose Hao - but they had probably already made a replacement for him, one much more loyal. They planned to lose the Echelon base - but it was all part of the plan, and they made sure to keep a very small garrison there. They didn’t plan to lose their smaller fleet in the Lyria system - and they wouldn’t lose it, if the plan didn’t change.

All of that while arming and equipping Keller with everything he needed to run an errand for them, including a small army of vehicles for ground operations - Lena was certain that if they were given time to ransack the Echelon base, they would have found replacement ones to fill their ranks on that field. And perhaps a few hundred not-yet indoctrinated clones to fill up their ranks. But the Discord forces interrupted that.

And all of that without him noticing that he is guided and equipped by the very group he was trying to defeat.

“But then Christopher arrived, they trashed the plan and were forced to improvise, thus committing mistakes.” Lena finished. It made perfect sense now. “We were playing right into their hands before his arrival messed them up, weren’t we?” Nobody answered her verbally, but the Captain and Athalia nodded.

“So, what’s the plan?” Athalia asked, looking at Keller. It was the first time the medic had seen him like that. To Lena’s surprise, he looked both surprised and scared. He had actually tried to cheer up the Captain earlier. Were the two of them friends?

“I don’t think we have a lot of options right now.” Keller replied. “The pursuing fleet is here. The Discord fleet is joining the hunt. As much as I would love to see them fight it out, I know that isn’t going to happen. The Seekers are faster, and so they will just follow at a distance. Discord’s fleet might not catch up to us, but we have nowhere to run. They are between us and what passes as the local ‘civilization’.”

“I honestly see only one option.” Lena admitted. The Captain looked at her questioningly. “Fly through the jumpgate. Hope that the other side recognizes that we aren’t of the same group as our predecessors and turns out friendly or at least neutral, especially as Seekers attempts to guide us through the jumpgate suggest that they expect this to happen. Then we should just hope that we can find some potent exotech to even the odds.”

“Won’t they just follow us there?” Keller asked, but he seemed to like the idea.

“How?” Lena asked. He was obviously still out of whack. “Discord fleets don't have the data they need to traverse the gate while we do have it, am I correct?” Innocent nodded. He hadn’t mentioned that, and it was a bit of a prerequisite for the plan to work. Thankfully, her assumption was right. “But once they notice the jumpgate, they will do their utmost to keep the Seekers out. They know just how incredibly valuable a working jumpgate is. Both sides are going to call in reinforcements. This is going to be a regular war between them, weakening them both. With the speed of interstellar warfare, we are going to buy several months. A year or two if it will be a stalemate.” Keller woke up from the stupor a bit.

“This makes sense.” He admitted. “I don’t think we have an awful lot of alternatives, so I believe this might be just the best idea.” The Alexander Keller she met after arriving on the Echo didn’t pick tactical options on the basis of which one was the least bad. “What do you say?” He also didn’t ask other officers for their opinions on the future strategy. He listened if they dropped an idea, but he didn’t delegate the decision making to them like that.

“I hate to admit that, but I’m with the transhuman here.” Athalia announced. “Discord and the Seekers will destroy us eventually. What’s on the other side might or might not destroy us. I say it’s a gamble we need to take.” Innocent agreed with a scarce nod. Colonel Nowak followed suit in a while.

“Wonderful.” Keller nodded. “I’m going to make an announcement later. Eva, set course for the jumpgate location. We’re going to go through the personnel decisions right now. Innocent, call Tiaa inside.”

***

EGS Echo, Crew Deck

12:27 26.07.2610 STT

Cadet Christopher Hall

He returned to the quarters in the middle of his shift, after receiving a rather special - and unwelcome - job from Tiaa. When he entered the team’s living room, he was greeted by a most unexpected sight.

It was Tiriel. In much more casual clothes - just a simple green dress, ending right above her knees. She was also busy getting herself drunk with some vicious looking fluid, though didn’t seem to have gotten particularly far with that process.

Not her, too.

“Tiriel.” He said. She turned her head immediately. Her face was slightly flushed, but that seemed to be all the results she managed thus far.

“Christopher.” She sighed. “I made sure to check that there will be nobody in the quarters, but I did not expect you to come here on duty. Or… did your shift end earlier?” He was wearing the uniform, so it had to be one of the two.

He came closer to her, considering the idea of stealing the bottle away from her before she drinks more and starts being seriously drunk. Drunk Tiriel was not something Christopher ever wanted to see.

“Still on duty, but I’m not in a hurry.” He would have preferred to not receive that order. Tiaa seemed to have understood that much at least. “So if you need someone to talk with, I’m all ears.” He probably needed it more than her.

“Oh, trying to cheer me up?” Tiriel tried to give him one of her impish smiles, but it faded quickly. “Acting like a proper leader, huh. Well, fine. I guess getting drunk alone does not fit a noble.” Christopher wasn’t sure if getting drunk at all fit the type of noble that Tiriel was, but he decided to not bring that up.

He sat beside her on the couch. “Just in case: I’m not taking part in the drinking.” He said, tapping his finger on his bodysuit. “This thing detects alcohol, so if I start getting it in my system, Tiaa will find out. But I can talk. So, what’s happening?” She looked at him questioningly. “You don’t normally try to anesthetize yourself like that.”

“I think you know it well enough.” She shrugged. “There is only one real reason for members of this team being sad recently, isn’t it?” She was right. She was right in most cases.

“Yes, I noticed.” Christopher looked away. It was painful to him the most. He wasn’t sure if he wouldn’t just break if he actually had to choose someone to be left behind. Rukh’s decision saved him from changing into an even worse mess of a person. “Ryan and Tendrik are acting more asocial than Rukh d-did.” He stuttered slightly at the end. Holding emotions at bay wasn't easy.

“I think we just did not understand the part about making sacrifices.” Tiriel said, staring in the air without focusing on anything in particular. “For as long as it was the people we never knew that were dying, it just felt like we were exempt from the risk of death. It was scary, it was painful, but it did not feel close to home enough. Now it is one of us that died, and we were forced to get through that.”

“Still an amateur psychologist, huh.” Christopher commented. “You’re right, though. As always.”

“I am right?” She looked at him with an ironic smile. “My parents are right. Innocent is right. I am just parroting what their lessons told me.”

She looked really… vulnerable. Broken, almost. Christopher had no idea what struck her so deep. He hadn’t seen her spending a lot of time with Rukh, save for combat training. And even then they were treating each other perfectly neutrally.

“You are obviously in need for someone to talk your worries away with.” He said. “And I can try to help. Hopefully I won’t break mid-talk. So, what happened? What EXACTLY happened? Don’t treat me like a heartless bastard for saying that, but you are reacting to his death like I’d honestly expect you to react to Nekia or Kivanna dying.”

She did give him a painful look. He just wasn’t sure who was supposed to be the recipient of pain.

“That does sound rather heartless.” She finally admitted. “But I understand what you tried to convey.”

He knew she would. She always did.

“As to why I am hit so badly... “ Tiriel sighed while staring at the bottle. “I have spent my entire life doing my best to be a noble, both in name and in nature. I did my best to be someone that other people could rely on and look up to. I did not do that because others expected me to be like that, it is because I wholeheartedly believed in it and wanted to be like that. Now someone I was supposed to look after has died, and I could not do a thing about it. That alone is very bad, but in the heat of the moment I tried to take his place. Back then it made perfect sense, but after the emotions left me I understood what I tried to do. And I am terrified.” She looked in front of her, emotionlessly, for a few seconds before continuing. “I think I am not as good of a noble as I thought.”

“Listen, I’m not very good at pep talk. Lack of experience and so on. But I’ll try my best. Mostly by borrowing wisdom from various video games and fantasy books.” Christopher replied. She gave him a rather sad smile. “If you aren't a good noble, then I am afraid that there are no good nobles out there. So don’t be too hard on yourself. And about that heroic sacrifice thing - I think that having second thoughts is just perfectly normal if you ended up not doing it.”

“Maybe.” She wasn’t persuaded. He wasn't surprised. “You cannot make self-sacrifice mandatory without robbing it of what makes it a great feat of character, so technically what happened says more good about Rukh than bad about me, but…” Christopher decided to interrupt her.

“Tiriel, this is a mildly military organization running business, not martyrdom olympics.” His stern tone caught her off guard. She stared at him, with surprise written on her face. “You did your best, Rukh did his best. We all did our best. It wasn’t enough. Things like that happen.” He tried his best to keep looking stern and serious. “When it truly mattered, you were ready to throw your life out for the team. That’s the important part.”

He didn’t persuade her. But he gave her a push. Hopefully it was going to be enough. If Tiriel broke under the strain… none of the Recovery Team Eight folks qualified as a soldier, at least ever since Rukh died. Tiriel with her two or three years of mandatory military service (in peacetime) was the closest to that. Besides, without Tiriel neither Nekia nor Kivanna would be truly useful as members. Especially the latter.

“You know, actually I see a lot of similarities between you two.” He wasn’t sure if it was going to be helpful, but he decided to mention it. ”I read his character file. I don’t think his privacy matters anymore, and I just wanted to know more about him now that he has given his life for us.”

“Similarities?” She didn’t chastise him for the privacy breach, so she seemed to have agreed with his reasoning.

“It appears that Captain Keller had to pay quite a bit for him to join the crew.” Christopher said. “Rukh had picked up several orphans on Numena, and looked after them despite the world being the social darwinist hellhole that it is. He agreed to leave the world only if Keller made sure every single one of them would leave the world and actually get something resembling a normal childhood.”

He wasn’t sure about that. He couldn’t be without having Rukh around to ask him questions. But it was possible that Rukh was pathologically unable to not try to help other people. Christopher would have joked about Rukh being a wolf in more than some elements of anatomy, to the point of having to build a pack with whatever people surrounded him.

Rukh had to hate Numena - the world built on the principle of absolute individualism and exploitation of those weaker than you - much more than he showed.

It sounded cheesy and melodramatic, so he didn’t share his observations with Tiriel. But she seemed to reach similar conclusions.

“Huh. So I guess I have someone to look up to as well.” She raised the glass. “That one is to Rukh, the proof that noblesouls can get born even in the worst of the worlds out there.” She drank it down in a much less dignified manner than usual. The alcohol seemed to be slowly getting to her.

Christopher didn’t join the toast, mostly because it was over quickly. He didn’t have time to conjure some non-alcoholic drinks. But he supported it wholeheartedly.

“And how are you holding up?” She asked him.

Horribly like you wouldn’t believe.

“Well, I’m still alive.” He replied, putting up a small smile. “That’s good enough for now. Keller wants to give me a promotion, can you believe it?” He said, quickly changing the subject.

“Really?” She looked at him, surprised. “So you are going to be an Ensign now?” He chuckled bitterly.

“No idea. Keller seemed to be sure that it would cheer me up.” He had no idea what was happening to the Captain, but he looked like a complete wreck of a man. It was probably the most radical change of all the changes he saw during his tenure in the Guild. “Innocent was there and interrupted him before I exploded. Told him, in gentler words, to get lost. Keller looked like he had no idea what was happening. Innocent ended up having a talk with me about not thinking about the promotion as a form of repayment for Rukh’s life, but as a reward for doing a great job thus far and excelling in the training. He gave me time to think it through, and promised that if I refuse a promotion it won’t be mentioned in my character file.”

Apparently refusing promotion was harmful to a career. After all, if you thought that something was wrong with you and you didn’t deserve getting higher, it typically meant that something WAS wrong with you. Christopher wasn’t sure if he needed to make a career in the Guild, but if the offer to return to his old times was a lie, having a stable source of income in the far future made sense.

“I see.” Tiriel was deep in thoughts for a while. “You know, I think you deserve that.”

She was back in her supportive mood. He still decided to use his telekinesis to drift the bottle away from her reach.

***

Tiriel eventually gave up on the fight, as neither her attempts to climb up to the bottle that was floating under the ceiling nor her physical attacks on Christopher led anywhere. She retreated to her quarters after saying very un-elfy and very un-noble words towards him, though with her face looking significantly less sad than she was when he entered the quarters for the first time.

Since she was out of the picture, he could proceed with his mission. He called in the small robot with a crate that he earlier left out on the corridor - he wanted to make sure that nobody was inside before he moved it in, which led to him running into Tiriel.

It looked like a cleaner robot that was made to be square rather than circular in shape, and was carrying one of the standard container crates that he got to see so often aboard the ship.

Now that he was sure that there were no further interruptions, he had it follow him into the corridor with the quarters. Tiriel didn’t come out, thankfully.

He used his credentials as an officer and entered Rukh’s quarters.

It was about as austere as he imagined it to be. The bed was a mess, and there was an unfinished meal on the desk. Plus a small collection of knives. Small, but large enough to make Christopher consider that Rukh was collecting them.

He exchanged the bedclothes for the one he brought in. Then he put the knives into the crate.

Was Tiaa out of her mind to order him to clean Rukh’s quarters? Was there nobody else to do that? And all of that because they were talks of them receiving a new member. Nothing certain for now, but… Christopher still didn’t tell anyone else.

It was too soon. Whether Tiriel found out through the mysterious girl gossips network (Christopher suspected that it actually was faster than light, regardless of everyone being adamant that it’s impossible) was anyone’s guess.

The knives made him focus his attention on them for a while. Only once they were in the crate he noticed the two framed pictures on Rukh’s desk. On one of them was Rukh, surrounded by six smaller wolfmen. The smallest of them was pretty much a toddler, carried in the arms of another one.

He didn’t need a doctorate to figure out who that was. Rukh’s family, now orphaned for the second time.

The second picture was much more familiar. It was the picture that the Recovery Team Eight took after taking down a GoI boss together. The one that Rukh had to be almost restrained to be a part of.

Christopher had enough.

For two days he had been pretending. Pretending that he was still in one piece. Pretending that he didn’t break.

Like Tiriel, he was trying to play the role. Like her, he was trying to be the person that others could look up to. But unlike her, he had no experience on that field. He never achieved anything of note. He was always a failure. He did his best, because that was the only way for him to return to his times. And then, because things started getting dangerous, because he was afraid of failure.

Now it finally happened. Sure, it wasn’t the failure caused by him. He couldn’t do anything else in the circumstances. But it made him realize painfully how little he could do. How easy it was to die. He was just a random young man, not a hero.

He didn’t even know how much longer his mission was going to be. How many times he was going to have to risk his life. How many friends were going to die. Was he even going to survive until the end?

Christopher sat at the edge of the bed and cried. Two days of pretending to be someone he wasn’t was too much. He couldn’t bottle the emotions anymore.

Christopher wasn't sure how long he was there. He was woken up when someone suddenly hugged him. He raised his head, only to almost hit the visitor’s jaw. This startled her enough to make a step back and freeze there. Like a deer, caught in a car light in the middle of the night.

Nekia. He must have forgotten to lock the door when he entered. A clear sign of how distraught he was.

“Oh, sorry that I didn’t notice!” He quickly tried to wipe off the tears. “I had a bit of a… rough moment. Could you please not tell anyone that…” She hugged him again. He was much taller than her, but was sitting on the edge of the bed so her size was just correct to wrap her arms around his head. He could feel her chin resting on the top of his head.

“It’s ok.” She said. Her voice was trembling slightly. She was clearly embarrassed, probably doubly so because it was him. Her love interest. “It’s ok.” She repeated.

He would have cried, if he didn’t run out of tears a while earlier. Instead he hugged her back.

“I’m sorry.” He said again. “I shouldn’t show such a face to people, I know.” They kept hugging for a while. He needed it.

“Don’t worry.” She pulled back a bit, just to look at him. “Felie is… sometimes harsh. I lost some people I knew. It still hurts but…” She paused for a few seconds, not knowing what to say. “I can handle it. You in the meantime… uhm…” She paused for a few more seconds. “Uhm, do you want to watch a movie later? Something to cheer you up.” She finished, suddenly going very, very red.

Christopher concluded that she was absolutely horrible in that. But genuine in her horribleness.

“I’m still in work, I need to finish this off.” He smiled at her meekly. “But thanks.” He could see her mood drop. “We can talk about watching a film together later on.” Her suddenly visible enthusiasm did wonders for his mood. For now.