CHAPTER 2 - DETOUR

DATE POINT: DECEMBER 7th, 6 A.U. (AFTER UNIFICATION)

LOCATION: SOL SYSTEM, ABOARD THE UTRN SPECIAL DELIVERY, EARTH ORBIT

LIEUTENANT PAUL KARST

Paul was sore and miserable after the last few punishing days traveling and sleeping in their acceleration couches. For the moment, they were content to decelerate in greater comfort as they radiated their excess heat away in the upper atmosphere as they maintained a stable orbit.

"Earth STC has given us the green light to descend. Ready to take her down on your orders." Jesse reported in.

"Perfect, have you got a fix on a good landing zone?" Paul asked.

"Aye, sir. There's a clearing that's just a klick and a half from her IFF transponder." She replied.

"Excellent, take us down then." Paul ordered.

"Whose IFF are we talking about? I thought we were heading to some black site before heading off to see the ship." Henry interjected.

“You're working with the intelligence community now, Henry, you are going to have to get used to a certain amount of secrecy and release of information on a need to know basis. We are going to a NAUDF black site called S21, from where we will catch a ride to another black site called S33. There you will meet your new crew and will get to tour your new ship. Before that, we need to pick up an old associate of mine who has also been assigned to the mission. We have a fix on her IFF implant that will be able to get us close enough to hike in and link up. She's on leave right now, soaking in her old favorite pastime while she still can. It will be a long time before we come back to Earth.” Paul said.

“Oh, and what pastime would that be?” Henry asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Hunting,” Paul said with a predatory smile.

“All right everyone, click yourselves in. I'm taking us down now.” The speakers behind their heads crackled. All around them, the crew began to strap in and get ready before finally they felt the momentum shift. The forward camera feeds blacked out as the ship activated its Null barrier system to ease final re-entry.

Twin tiny holes were torn in the baryonic barrier of spacetime, allowing a constant flow of liquid, negative mass, dark energy called null matter to enter the third dimension. The flow of Null matter from the first tear then splashed around and coated over the shape of their ship, hovering just centimeters away from the hull, until it coalesced back together to return to the higher dimensions from which it was summoned through the second hole torn in spacetime positioned somewhat behind the craft. As null matter had negative mass, it possessed an infinite repulsive effect against normal baryonic matter, allowing a near perfect defense against incoming ordnance of all kinds by simply redirecting everything away from the surface of the barrier like a rock skipping off a pond.

Within the atmosphere, it had the effect of creating a friction-less descent, eliminating the need for expensive thermal tiles for re-entry. The barrier-wrapped ship glided through the outer atmosphere as it decelerated hard on final approach with a TK field formed above and behind the craft which pulled against the force of Earth's gravity. Once enough speed had been bled off, they dropped their barrier and settled in for an hour long flight to the heart of North America’s sickly northern forests. Eventually, the ship came perfectly to a hover before setting itself down gently in a clearing on its landing gear.

Paul unclasped his harness and the screen in front of his acceleration couch lifted itself away so he could pull himself out. With Henry on his heels, they caught a ride down to the lower level of the ship to raid the arms locker. Paul pulled out a plate carrier with an inbuilt hydration pack along with several electrolyte rich refill pouches and ration bars which he stuffed into a backpack with his rebreather mask. Henry stood a few meters away leaning against the wall with his arms folded.

“You might want to pack yourself one of these kits too, you know.” Paul said as he clipped a holster to his belt and grabbed spare mags for his pistol and the rifle he was about to grab.

“Expecting to run into an xeno patrol or something there bud?” O’Toole mocked.

“Don’t be silly, I'm loading for bear, or for something much worse; my sister.” Paul said as he worked. Henry simply continued to stare at him with barely disguised contempt.

"What the hell kind of family reunion are you planning?"

“Mock all you want, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Regardless, here on Earth when you are hiking you need to stay hydrated, and you need something to eat to keep your energy up. Also doesn’t hurt being capable of taking a bear down if need be. With the loss of game animals since the post-invasion biosphere collapse, they have been getting desperate, willing to attack even humans for food. When was the last time you were in real nature, anyway, flyboy?” Paul asked with a cocky smirk.

“You sound like you are compensating for something there bro. I’ll take a plate carrier if just for the drinking pouch and I’ll pack some provisions, hell I’ll even take a sidearm. But I will be damned if I am going to lug a rifle and extra mags through all this too.”

"Suit yourself, you ready to get some actual exercise, flyboy?"

Henry grabbed his pack of provisions and shot him a look before they walked down the gangplank. This was going to be fun, Paul thought, smiling as he walked into the bright sun. Mountains surrounded them and a valley lay far below them. The forest seemed to finally be recovering somewhat now that the worst of the dust and contamination from the mass orbital bombardments during first contact had begun to work themselves out of the atmosphere. It was heartening to see signs that the biosphere was slowly beginning to recover, even if just in patches.

“I remember what this looked like before the war, you know. My grandpa used to take us fishing out here. Not this valley specifically, but this part of the country. The new generation coming up now, this is all they are ever going to know, you know? Our grand kids are going to be the ones that might live to see this green and beautiful again, if they're lucky. Who knows how long it will be before the animal populations rebound.” Henry said, looking pensive.

“Extinction’s a bitch. Not that species weren’t dropping like flies before the bombardments, but seeing how things are now? Yeah, it really puts things in perspective how damn lucky we are to still even be alive on this rock. Have you ever thought about what it would be like it we had a second chance?” Paul asked, pivoting the conversation.

“How do you mean?” Henry asked as he clambered over a log that had fallen over the old game trail they were following.

“I mean, we know everything we do right now, but we have a brand new beautiful pristine world to start over on, say as a colony world.” Paul replied.

Henry scoffed. “Get real, even at screamer acceleration, you are still bounded to the speed of light. Unless you have an FTL drive you are hiding in that pack, a colony is a pipe dream at worst, a one way trip that will never benefit Earth at best.”

“Alright, fair point, but lets say you put the FTL concern to the side, and didn’t dodge the question like an asshole, have you ever thought about what that would be like?”

“It would be one hell of a huge responsibility. You would presumably be able to bring some basics along with you, but you'd never be able to pack anywhere near enough to have anything even close to a modern standard of living. All technology would have to be imported, but saying you had some kind of solution for that, it could be done most easily by initially reverting back to subsistence farming and then rapidly and aggressively industrializing.” Henry stopped to drink from his hydration pouch before continuing.

“Of course, we would have to plan in a short phase of greenhouse gas emissions, but we could plan infrastructure from the beginning to be ready to convert to LFTR power as soon as we could raise the technology levels enough to get there. Hell, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory had a working LFTR prototype during the cold war, so it wouldn’t take long to bootstrap our tech levels high enough to get there. We could even kick start the process by cannibalizing one of the reactor cores from the ship that brought us there. Once that heat is being reliably generated, converting it to electricity requires shockingly little tech infrastructure. It wouldn’t take that long to get a pretty comfortable life going, really. So long as we could keep its existence and location a secret from them.”

Paul smiled, for the first time seeing the real Henry coming through in the animated way he spoke. He would do nicely, with the right nudging.

"That would ruin everything, wouldn't it? How would you keep your new hypothetical colony safe?" Paul replied. He truly was on the right track, much more than he realized.

"No shit, if we ever do get to colonize worlds, keeping them secret and hidden will be a major challenge. We'd probably have to ban high powered radio, dig deep bunkers and underground military bases like on Earth. Mandatory military service would be a given, make sure everyone knows how to fight before we move them off into vocational training. None of this matters without FTL anyway, why do you ask?" Henry replied.

"Just curious to see your thinking on the matter, see what your instincts are like. No big reason other than passing the time with an interesting thought experiment." Paul said evasively. Henry looked at him questioningly.

"Does this have something to do with Project Exodus? What aren't you telling me?" Henry asked.

"Always with the questions, Captain. You will find out everything you need to know about Project Exodus when we reach S21, and when you get cleared fully to take over command of your new ship."

"Fine, be that way." Henry replied with a roll of his eyes.

They trekked through the forest for hours as the sun sank lower in the sky. Most of the rest of the hike passed in uneasy silence, broken mostly by necessary communication or some limited sniping back and forth. Behind them, a branch snapped, and Paul unslung his rifle in a smooth motion and brought his optic up to search for movement as he found cover behind a tree. Henry took cover behind a tree close to him and had his sidearm out at low ready.

“See anything?” Henry asked.

“Nothing, let’s keep moving.” Paul released his breath, turned back around and started walking again. He heard a yelp and a thump, and when he turned around to look for Henry, the man was gone. Shit.

Paul felt outwards with his mass senses, one of the extra benefits of being a natural telekinetic, and sensed nothing anomalous in range.

"Where the fuck did Henry go?" Paul muttered under his breath. He then knelt down and checked the spot Henry had been moments before. He could see the boot prints clear as day up to where he had stopped. They stopped there, though one spot looked disturbed, like he had been dragged away, but that stopped less than half a meter away. It was almost like he was.... Dammit.

He felt something tingling at the edge of his perception to one side, drawing his attention, before the sudden arrival of a large mass forced him to pivot his head off to the other side as he turned and raised his rifle just a bit too late. Paul found himself staring right into the muzzle of a bolt action rifle held by one very angry looking young woman covered head to toe with mud and branches in a field-made camouflage getup.

“Too slow. Drop the mag, rack the charging handle. You always announce yourself for miles around, you know that? Not like I couldn’t miss the racket that all the fleeing birds made when you touched down.” She said in a dangerous tone. “Why are you here early? This wasn't our deal.”

“How about you put that rifle down, huh? Let’s actually both set them down nice and easy at the same time now, you won. Where's Henry?” Paul said, sweating just a little, knowing how unpredictable Ariana could be. He hated it when she got the drop on him. She would be gloating over this for weeks.

She laughed. "He's relaxing back at my camp just over the ridge, he was all too happy to sit back quietly and let me ambush you. He's probably watching us now through my binoculars laughing at you. Now answer me, why are you here early?"

"All right, all right. Henry insisted that we return to Earth at a screamer pace rather than one gee. Take it up with him."

"I don't believe you, you always have your finger on the scale. The truth. Now."

Paul sighed. "Fine, I may have manipulated the conversation a bit and withheld information. I'm sorry. We're behind schedule as it is, and I thought it would be funny to see you make Henry squirm. Since you've clearly ruined that, now, the fun is gone in it."

"Liar. You're only sorry you got caught. This trip was a bust anyway. There's nothing out here. I should have gone further north." Ariana slung her rifle and beckoned for Paul to follow. "Lets, go, this way." She raised a hand over their heads and formed a telekinetic field just strong enough to overpower the local gravitational field, lifting them off the ground. She then raised the intensity and threw the field slightly forward, causing them to fall into it and launch into a short flight over to her camp. Henry was sitting there smirking on a log with a set of binoculars in one hand at rest over his knee.

"You were right, that didn't take long at all." Henry mocked.

"Yeah yeah, get over yourself. I told you she was good." Paul replied.

"More than good if you ask me. You'll be a real asset to the team it seems." Henry said.

"Well, thank you, Henry. It's so nice to have a gentleman like yourself say so."

"Kill me now, please. Let's just get back to the ship." Paul said before turning to Henry. “Have you ever flown with a telekinetic before?” Paul asked. "Other than that short hop like your abduction back there, I mean a real long distance flight."

“Wait, you're both telekinetics? That's awesome. I've flown in a TK field before many times onboard ships, but that right there was my first experience with a human generated field. It's not exactly a common power, even nowadays with the truth being out there.” Henry said.

“We both are pretty powerful, it runs in the family. I score slightly higher in flight aptitude than her, but she can beat me in raw short-burst telekinetic power.” Paul said before continuing. “Flight in a gravity well is most efficiently performed via a series of parabolic hops with the next one timed at the apex of the prior curve to conserve the most momentum possible. It will feel a bit like being on a roller coaster in midair. The thing is it will not be a pleasant experience without one of these.” Paul said, pulling his rebreather mask and face shield out of his bag.

“Good thing you packed one for me, right?” Henry said with an expectant look.

“Unfortunately, I only had room for one in my bag, you really should have paid attention to what I packed.” Paul said, trying to hide his glee. Henry’s eyes narrowed as he snatched the mask from Paul’s hands with a clear dare to take it back before he sealed it around his face.

“Ooooh are you just gonna let him take that from you bro?” Ariana poked at Paul with a delighted grin. “You know, I think I have some swimmer’s goggles for you in my pack over here, since you never know who will forget them.” She said, her tone dripping with joy.

True to her word, she had a second pair of face shield style goggles for him, while Paul seethed at getting one-upped again, this time by the smug captain. He reminded himself that he was better than this, which helped him take control once more over his frustrated mind.

"Get close to me, and hold onto your lunch!" Paul said.

Paul took a deep breath, raised his hand above his head, focused energy into his Neural Pineal Carbonic Structure and then into the foci in his palm. The two field generating structures worked together to create a telekinetic field around them, abruptly lifting everyone off the ground. He then fed more power into the effect and they shot up into the sky.

As soon as he felt the momentum shift at the top of the curve, Paul accelerated them once again into another arc allowing them to efficiently cross the vast landscape. After several more hops, he landed them gently in front of the Special Delivery before Ariana landed smoothly on her feet and then helped Henry up before they walked together up the now lowered gangplank into the ship. Paul stayed behind a moment to gather himself, ignoring the burning sensation in his forehead from the strain. Shaking it off, he joined them in the ship and hit the button to raise the gangplank.

“The shower is mine, boys. You can clean off that hard body of yours later, handsome.” Ariana said to Henry with a predatory smile.

Wait, is she actually into him now, or is she just messing with our heads? Now he had another puzzle to unravel, which was just like her.

“Hey, your sister, is she available?” Henry managed to take his eyes off her retreating form long enough to ask him the most brain-dead question in history. Paul opened his eyes and looked at the poor fool with barely disguised contempt.

“She's just testing you. I highly recommend you stow that thinking, Captain. She's gonna be nothing but trouble for you if you try, you just need to trust me on this.”

“Because you have proven yourself to be such a trustworthy fellow already, huh?” Henry said with a smile as he slapped Paul on the back, hard. “I'm a big boy, I can take care of myself just fine. I'll remember that you are sensitive about the topic in the future, how’s that sound? It doesn't matter much anyway, I'm not really looking right now. Especially not for someone technically still within my chain of command.” Henry replied, shrugging it off.

“Good thinking. Just to be clear, I'm not sensitive about it. It doesn’t matter to me if she chews you up and spits you out. Just don’t blame me for the fallout of your bad decisions when they're there looming on the horizon, if you do decide to pursue her.” Paul said as he put the last of his gear back away in the arms lockers and stowed anything that could become a flying parts hazard. He then rode the lift and climbed into his acceleration couch, bone tired after a long hike followed by the taxing flight back. He broke out an energy dense ration bar, knowing all too well he would feel better once he got some glucose back in his system and a power nap.

“Jesse, get us under way please. Wake me when we are approaching S21.” Paul said in a direct comm to his pilot.

“Aye boss, liftoff in 60 seconds.” It was time to catch what little shut eye he could before they arrived.