@HokumJens smiled at Fanny as she reassured him that he would not have to worry about Susann, his wife.
She's right, because Susann is not on this ship anyway, the vice-admiral thought,
but how does she know Susann's name? Did she somehow get access to the fleet records while she was away? I'll have to ask the surveillance department about it later. He was about to reply to Fanny's comment about the Khaganate when the enviroment around his changed once again. Without warning, both Jens and Fanny had been transported to an unknown world through unknown means, but presumably by Fanny herself. The vice-admiral looked around to become slightly more familiar with his new surroundings. He could see the sand and dunes of a desert stretching as far as the eye can see, but right in front of him he saw a large crashed spaceship. The vice-admiral saw some sort of humanoid creature standing on top of the wreckage. He could see that the android was dressed in combat gear, and remembered that he didn't have any weapons with him. Fanny started talking and the vice-admiral listened carefully. He knew that he brought her to this strange world for more than just to show it, and he was certain that whatever she was about to say would change the Khaganate's fate forever.
Jens' surroundings changed once again as Fanny brought them back to one of the many canteens of the KSS
Yurt. Fanny had told him to drink the beer. The vice-admiral didn't really like beer, especially not beer that came from an unknown source and wasn't even on the menu in Khaganate canteens, but he also knew that he was in no position to refuse.
Does she want that the Khaganate takes that planet like she insists that I drink the beer? At least we'll get a reward from it. He eyed the food hungrily. He hadn't eaten since the moment that the Khaganate made their disastrous misjump. Like Fanny had said earlier, it was not the food he was used to, but the synthetic food in front of him was no different from real, cooked food. He picked up a grilled cheese sandwich, and ate it. He drank some of the beer. With hindsight, he wasn't that hungry after all, and he had to make sure to not drink too much beer in case Fanny would try to poison him for whatever reason. "Alright then. I will be going now, Miss May, I have a lot of work to do, as you will undoubtedly know, so farewell, and do not worry, I am sure that my Khan will accept your gracious gift." With that the vice-admiral stood up and walked towards the
Yurt's hangar bay. Like all of the Khaganate ships in the fleet, each Ger-class vessel had its own hangar bay filled with spaceships for intra-fleet transport. Jens would have to take one of the rail-elevators, elevators that could move both vertically and horizontally. Five minutes later, he was at the hangar bay. During the short journey he had already contacted the
Genghis and a ship was waiting for him in the hangar.
The transport shuttle took off, went through the hangar shielding and flew towards the
Genghis. Ten minutes later, Vice-admiral Jens Knaggs was back on the bridge.
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Captain Soun anxiously sat in the captain's chair. Both the cylinders and the sphere had not taken any further actions. The Khaganate fleet ships had all set a course away from the cylindrical objects, and were slowly flying away from them. From the scannings terminal there came a voice saying: "Subspace and gravitic scans succesfull captain, we can see where their previously invisble structures are."
"Navigator, what's the wormhole drive status?" The captain asked.
"It's currently charging. All components are operational. Spacetime folder is already folding spacetime slightly to allow the mass compressor to work properly. I can see some slight disruption in spacetime, presumably caused by the gravity of the hundreds of thousands of objects in the system, but it should not be any problem." The navigator replied.
"Stop the process. We cannot take any risks with this, especially after what we've been through. We will instead wait for the Khan."
The navigator pressed a few buttons on the terminal in front of them and safely shut down the wormhole-generation process. It was at that exact moment when one of the doors to the rest of the ship opened, and Vice-admiral Jens Knaggs entered. The bridge crew stood up and saluted. "Captain," the vice-admiral said, "what's the situation?"
"We are in an unknown system. Three cylindrical and one spherical objects are surrounding the fleet. We already tried to generate a wormhole, but I thought it was a better idea to wait for the admiral."
"Then we will wait."
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The Kurultai hall was completely silent. All of the seats, except two, of the large table were filled up. The table itself was made out of wood coming from a genetically modified version of the
Tilia Mongolica tree, and was so old that it was made during the time the Khaganate made its first steps into space. On one end of the rectangular hall there was the giant metal door that served as entrance to the massive room, while on the other side of the hall there was a screen that covered almost the entire wall. Normally this screen was used for presentations, showing off maps and military information and the like, but on that day the only thing shown on the screen were the portraits of two generals, who were deemed MIA after the Khaganate mis-jumped. Between the screen and the Kurultai table there stood Yuri Lanist, Khan of the Lanist Khaganate. Several cameras were pointed at him, reminding the Khan of the fact that this was going to be broadcasted live to the entire fleet. Normally, something like this would be publicly broadcasted to the entire Khaganate, but the fact that the fleet was now in a different universe made that difficult.
The Khan moved closer to the lectern with microphones on it and placed his hands on both sides of the rostrum, leaning on it. Whatever he was going to say now could possibly shake the Khaganate to its core. He stood up straight, moved slightly away from the microphone to clear his throat, and then began speaking.
"Citizens of the Khaganate, this is your Khan speaking. As you undoubtedly know by now, whether you've heard it from your ship's captain, or from one of the scientists aboard your designated vessel, or from military high command itself, we have arrived in a different universe. This, due to the size of our fleet, has happened several times now, as you probably also know. These transitions however, do not come without a cost, and I want to dedicate this day to all of the people we've lost during our mis-jump. In particular, The Khaganate has lost two of its most brilliant generals, General Katie Anderson, and General Arman Nurzhan."
The Khan paused for a bit, and then continued.
"After graduating from the Khaganate Military Academy on Mars, General Katie Anderson experienced a meteoric rise through the ranks of the Khaganate Army, reaching the rank of General in only seven years, while it had taken others much more time to do so. She was always a lot more cheerful and talkative than some of her colleagues, and was always optimistic, even when the odds where stacked against her. She was a truly great general, and the Khaganate will miss her dearly."
"General Arman Nurzhan had always been a staunch, unyielding man. I don't think I've ever seen him smile to be honest. Like General Anderson, he was a brilliant general. Arman specialized in fortifications and defence, which is somewhat strange considering the fact that the Khaganate Army is mostly based on mobile warfare, like the Mongol Empire was in ancient times, but whatever we were fighting, it always worked out in the end as nothing could get through the frontline trenches and forts he built."
"Me, and the Khaganate as well, will miss them extremely, since they were vital to the Khaganate army. But regardless, we must look towards our future. A new age has begun for the Khaganate Great Expansion Fleet, and we must use every opportunity to survive. Thank you for listening."
The Khan then exited the room through a door near the screen. The cameras cut out, and all of the Kurultai members began leaving the room. Both the fleet admiral and the Khan started going towards the bridge, meeting up in one of the rail-elevators on their way to the
Genghis' bridge. "Good speech," the admiral said, "but I can't shake the feeling that we'd need those generals in the future."
"Me too, my friend, me too."
As both men entered the bridge, the bridge crew saluted once again, like they had done previously when the vice-admiral entered. Jens Knaggs was observing the main viewscreen, and turned around upon hearing two people enter the room. "Admiral, and my Khan, we need to talk about something," the vice-admiral said upon seeing who they were.
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The two generals had been waiting for quite some time, and with each minute that passed General Anderson was getting more impatient. Eventually, she stood up, walked towards one of the corners of the room, and directly spoke to the camera. "Alright, this has gone on long enough. I demand to see someone and an explanation right now."
"Katie, are you going insane already? It has been only 15 minutes and you're already talking to the walls."
"Shut up Arman, you're becoming your old self again. You know that I don't want to stay here any longer and I know you don't really want to either."
This ended their conversation abruptly. Surprisingly, Katie's wish was granted but not quite the way she wanted and expected, as another fifteen minutes later two people dressed in lab coats, with protective gear on their faces to keep any presumed micro-organisms out. Each of them had suitcases with them, filled with several different tools. "Greetings. We are here to perform a medical examination. After we are done there will come some other people who want to ask you some questions. After that you can go." Both medical personnel quickly went to work. They took blood, skin and hair samples from both Arman and Katie, and even scanned both of them with a strange device. Then, as quickly as they had come, the two doctors had left, presumably to examine the samples they took in a laboratory.
"So, General Nurzhan, how did you end up here?"
"Same as you, Katie, I was told to go to this room to be quarantined, don't you remember?"
"Not like that, dumb-ass. I meant how did you end up being a general. How were you raised, what was your home planet like? You're not very good at this are you? Fine then, I will start first."
Katie continued: "I was born on the ringworld known as New-Dadu, one of the ringworlds in the Four-Ringworlds-system. My father was actually the governor of that ringworld, as his father had been before him. My mother was a relatively unknown xenobiologist. Because I was the daughter of governor, nothing was beyond my reach due to my father's power and wealth, but as I grew older it all started to become boring. I wanted to see the universe, and other civilizations, so I joined the military academy of the Khaganate Army. After becoming an officer I eventually earned the rank of general. So that is how I became who I am today. Now it's your turn."
General Nurzhan opened his mouth to say something, but before Arman could speak, however, the doors opened once again, and a man and a woman, both dressed in protective clothing like the last two visitors, entered the room. "Hello, we are here to ask you some questions about where you exactly were. First of all, what are your names?"
"I am General Katie Anderson," Katie replied, "and that there is General Arman Nurzham. We were both trapped on a planet because of the mis-jump. The ship we were on crashed."
"How long were you stuck on that planet? We observed that time moves faster on the planet you were on. It was obviously a world in the same system where we arrived, seeing that you are here now."
"Three years. After that time, I managed to reunite with Arman, although we initially did not know who we were. Memory loss, I suppose."
"Alright, you can go now. We have determined that you are really you from the medical examination, and our results indicate that you do not carry any pathogens unknown to us. However, do expect someone to pay you a visit later for more questioning."
The two people left, leaving the door open. Katie stoop up immediately and nearly sprinted to the door, while Arman followed in her wake.
"Katie, where are you going?"
"I am going to visit my parents."
