@HokumFanny's words sent James into a slight panic. She had said something to him without even opening her mouth! That had to be clear signs that she was anomalous. And she said something about him being her 'beloved?' He did not really understand what that was about, but he didn't care, as he was facing bigger problems. He contacted the rest of his team, carefully making sure his speaker was not turned on. He knew it probably didn't matter. Judging from her words, the entity had somehow sensed his reaction to the small incident earlier, so it was safe to assume that she could hear what he was going to say as well. "Team, I just heard a voice that did not come from the vice-admiral, any of you, or the other humanoid entities currently in containment in this area. It was the same voice as Fanny May. Have any of you also heard such a voice?"
Most team members just said "Negative, PA-1." While others gave a simple 'No' as answer. James continued talking "Operation Command, this is PA-1. I just received a telepathic message from the entity currently in the containment cell I am stationed in. Message was “I know that feeling, my beloved.” Please add 'telepathic abilities' to description."
"PA-1, this is Operation Command," he heard back "we are editing the file at the moment. Class changed from human to Humanoid Anomalous Entity. Classification moved from Alpha to Beta. Threat level remains unchanged at the moment, due to further lack of evidence of additional anomalous abilities."
"PA-1, Subject just dissapeared from the view of our surveillance equipment. Thermal and other sensors are not picking up anything either. Please confirm subject is still there." James heard after Fanny had said something and then leaned back in her seat.
"I can confirm that subject is still here. At the moment, she is talking about something. From its display I can see that the external microphone on my helmet is still registering sound. Are the room's surveillance microphones able to hear anything?"
"Positive, PA-1. Please be notified that we are considering changing subject classification to Gamma due to revealing new abilities. You are allowed to let her out of containment unless she shows hostile behaviour."
"Understood. We will be on the lookout for more anomalous activity." James readied his weapon again in case the subject decided to become hostile.
Jens, meanwhile, had been listening intently at what Fanny was saying. The vice-admiral had been ignorant of all the commotion around Fanny, as he was currently sitting in a room with her talking, rather than watching her through a monitor. After hearing about her talking how there was going to be a problem with the wormhole drives, he knew that he was going to relay this information somehow, if his commander didn't already know it by now. "Alright," Jens said "Thank you for the information. If you have anymore questions, please ask them, otherwise you are free to move around the ship, but please make sure you stay out of trouble. And do not worry, we will try everything in our power to make sure the inhabitants of the planet below do not advance earlier than they should."
In the hangar, several repairmen had been standing around the Jezebel, unsure what to do. They could not repair it because they had received explicit orders not to do so, but they couldn't just leave it standing around either, because it could very well be dangerous. Then, it simply dissapeared. Several of the engineers simply shrugged and walked away, but one of them managed to call whoever was in charge of the operation, informing them that the small ship belonging to Fanny had dissapeared. Whoever he was calling with noted it down. It seemed that the ship had anomalous properties as well.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________The Khan and some of the scientists were debating what to do about these ships, when one of the monitors in the primary bridge suddenly turned on. All heads turned towards the screen as a disembodied voice was talking about how a spatial anomaly was messing up subspace. The admiral quietly gave an order to turn on the subspace scanners, and the disembodied voice was proven correct. Then, a person actually appeared where the chair they were watching was, and they saw her turn towards them. She said something about protecting the people of the planet below them from knowledge. The Khan thought about it a bit for a moment, thinking what to do. "Alright, we are leaving. Admiral, give the order to start the wormhole jump. We should listen to warnings of people who can randomly hack our screens."
The fleet lined up for the wormhole jump, and the wormhole generators were charging, getting ready to make a jump.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Katie Anderson turned around, looking at the man standing near her. She recognized him immediately, as the memories she had built up over the past three years suddenly gave way to ones that were older. Suddenly, she remembered her childhood, military career and her rivalry with the white-haired general, Arman Nurzhan. She also remembered how they ended up on this planet after the Lanist Khaganate's Great Expansion Fleet had tried to jump too far with a fleet that is too big.
"Arman, is that really you?" She spoke softly, as if she was somehow afraid to invoke the general's wrath. She remembered the source of their friction being the fact that they were in the same position, as well as, according to her, that Arman was always an asshole to everything and everyone.
"Yes. It is I, Arman Nurzhan." The stranger said as he removed the hood that was covering his head, revealing his white hair and beard. "And you, Katie Anderson, are a traitor." He got rid of his cloak completely, and it moved a few meters away from him as it glided on the wind. He drew his two-handed sword, placing his other hand on the hilt as well, getting ready to strike. "Now, Katie Anderson, former general of the Lanist Khaganate, former member of the Kurultai. Are you ready to face the Khan's justice and pay for your crimes?"
"Oh shut up you idiot!" She responded "We both know that that's not true. While you were out on the eastern border and I was sitting at home, general Teo screwed us all over by using the landship he was now in command of to punch a hole through the southern border front, allowing the Ubrax army to pour in. But if you are not even going to let me explain it, I guess we will have to do it the hard way." Katie then drew her own sword, a short one-handed one made out of titanium alloyed with steel, and got into a fighting stance.
Unlike his usual, more guarded approach, Arman charged forward, readying his sword, and swinging it fiercely in Katie's direction from the right. Her hair moved wildly in the wind as she dodged his strike. She jumped to his unguarded left, attempting to stab him at weak point with her short sword, but he parried the blow. Katie had no intent of actually killing or harming him. She only wanted to disarm the general, so she could actually prove that she hadn't actually done anything wrong. She would not be able to fight at such a rate much longer though, she knew. Ironically, to win from the general, she had to think like Arman. While dodging Arman's furious strikes, Katie looked at and analyzed her surroundings. They were standing on the thin crater rim, which was 2-3 meters at its widest point, which as she could see was tens of meters away. Arman had driven her away from the wide part so she could not maneuver that easily. They were instead standing on a very narrow part which was 1 meter wide at most, and was mostly made out of small rocks and gravel due to erosion. She knew exactly what she had to do. As Arman charged at her again, ready to put an end to it, she saw a particularly round stone, and kicked it at him. It rolled over the small path, arriving exactly where Katie wanted it, namely right beneath Arman's feet. The general stumbled over the rolling stone, and Katie ran towards him, kicking his right leg, making him losing his balance further. Arman fell, and Katie put the tip of her blade on his throat.
"Yield, and allow me to explain myself." She said to him, calmly. Arman responded by angrily yelling at her, telling her to kill him. "Finish me!" He said. "Do it!. You defeated me when I called you a traitor. Now finish it off!" Katie was slightly shocked by his suicidal stupidity, but chose not to kill him." "Stop it!" she yelled back. "I will tell you why you're wrong. Besides, if I kill you, who else can I constantly compete with?"
"After I accidentally got the only landship of the planet we were on, Leviathan Alpha, stuck and nearly destroyed, I stepped down as general for a time to atone for my mistake. You know this, because I am sure you were present at the Kurultai where the Khan decided to share it with you all. That means you must also know that the man who replaced me was general Teo Escamilla. Meanwhile, I sat at home for a time, trying to figure out the weakest point in the fortresses lining the southern border. Then, I was nearly killed by an assassin that someone had sent to kill me. I then worked together with the Omega Order for a few months to find out who tried to have me killed that night. It turns out it was none other than general Teo. We went to the Kurultai to accuse him of treason, but by then it was already too late. Leviathan Alpha had been repaired, and the general had used it to destroy a part of the southern front, allowing the Ubrax troops to pour in while you were stuck in the east trying to fortify our border against the alien threat that had nearly destroyed the landship several months earlier. So now you know that general Teo was the traitor, and not me. Why else would the Khan allow me to be on the
Tsol in the first place?"
Katie removed her sword and put it back in its sheath. For a moment, it seemed as if general Nurzhan was going to get his own weapon back and attack her, but he stood up, and simply said "I am sorry for doubting you, Katie." "Good," she responded "You need me anyway if we're going to try to get off this rock."
The first day that they had arrived at the wreckage, they simply rested. It had been a long journey for Katie and Arman, so they needed all the energy they could muster for the next few days. The following days, they explored the wreckage. Some of the transport elevators were still operational, and they used it to great effect to explore the rest of the wreck. Katie had found the escape pods, while Arman found the cargo hold, filled with useful materials, tools and other equipment they could use to build something. That night, after they had both eaten some of the rations that they had found in one of the ship's kitchens, Katie took Arman to the
Tsol's bridge. The ship's reactor was still operational, protected from the forces of the crash by thick walls and blast doors, and miraculously they got the ship's computer systems online. Arman hooked up one of the laptops from the former crew that he found laying around, and they soon were able to access the entire ship's databanks and information logs.
"Alright Katie, here's the plan. It seems that the Khaganate fleet is currently in orbit around this planet. I am not sure why, but I cannot contact them, so there must be something going on. What we need to do is build a ship that can launch us to space and intercept the fleet."
"I have already checked the few hangar bays this ship has, but all ships either fled or got destroyed. It seems that building something out of the escape pods is our only choice. A few pods put together, maybe made more aerodynamic or with some added thrusters, should do the trick."
"Alright then, let's get to work."
And so, the great work began. They worked day and night, gathering supplies, calculating orbits and trajectories, and putting the machine together. They hunted for food, and, in absence of better entertainment, they talked to eachother like normal people instead of their usual bickering. Working together to escape the planet had made them friends, from rivals. In the end, they put together a sturdy vessel capable of reaching the Khaganate's main fleet. Powered by a small fusion generator, and propelled by plasma thrusters, it had room for 2 people. It could even seperate into 2 escape pods with communication, food and water. It had taken weeks to build, but it was surely worth it.
It was the day of the launch. Arman had calculated the trajectory they'd have to take and found out that that particular day was the best one. Both of them had eaten a meal that was reserved for the generals that they were, a lot better than the basic rations the soldiers and civilians got. "Katie, I saw something that may or may not be extremely important. When I was in one of the science labs, I looked at a monitor, and it was clearly displaying some sort of gravitational anomaly around the planet. I think that this ship is somehow causing it. We will have to destroy it, otherwise we cannot get away. When we are ready to launch, I am going to overload the reactor, destroying the ship and the surrounding area"
"But Arman," Katie responded, "That is too dangerous. You could die."
"I know what I am doing and I am fully aware of the risks. If it is needed, I will sacrifice myself so you can get away. If I die, I want you to tell the Khan exactly how I died. Now, let's get ready to go shall we?"
They put on the space-suits that they had reserved for launch day. They were older versions of the more advanced suits of power armour the Khaganate was using now, light enough to cost minimal fuel for the small spacecraft that they had built. The Khaganate fleet neared the location where the ship's trajectory and the fleet's orbit would meet. Katie entered the spacecraft and began doing the pre-flight checks. Arman ran to the ship's bridge, starting the reactor overload sequence. The ship's countdown started. Katie realized Arman was not aboard yet, but there was nothing she could do.
10.
9.
8.
7.
6.
Arman climbed up the ladder incredibly quickly, opened and closed the door, and quickly sat in his seat.
5.
4.
3.
2.
1.
"Liftoff," the computer said, and the thrusters ignited. Katie and Arman were pressed into their seats because of the massive g-forces from the spacecraft as it started flying through the atmosphere. When they reached the stratosphere, the massive spacecraft beneath them exploded, just as Arman had planned. The explosion would be seen from several miles away, but when some of the creatures of the planet below came to investigate, they would find nothing that they could use.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Meanwhile, in space, the Khaganate's Great Expansion Fleet was lined up for a wormhole jump to the system with the habitable planet where they would settle. The wormhole drive began generating a wormhole. In a minute, the wormhole opened. Subspace scanners and advanced navigation systems had plotted a route that would be mostly free of the mess that the spatial anomaly had made in subspace. The fleet slowly started going in.
In the
Atlas, the captain was notified of a massive explosion on the planet beneath them, and the subsequent dissapearance of the gravitational anomaly that had covered it. Then, the scanners of the stratocruiser picked up a small signal coming from a tiny spacecraft that was currently flying through the upper atmosphere. It was cut off because the
Atlas had entered a wormhole. The captain knew what they had to do. Without saying a word to the rest of the fleet, he gave the order.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Finally, the small spacecraft reached outer space. Arman started to look out the window, wondering where the fleet was, he heard Katie softly sobbing in the background. The fleet was gone. He checked the small screen they had in the cockpit. It was completely, utterly gone. He realized they must've jumped away while they were launching and had been unable to contact the fleet. The two would die completely alone, cut off from the rest of the Khaganate fleet. It took some time before it hit him, but he did not break under the realization what would happen. He held Katie, trying to calm her down. There was no point to it, really, it would not change their inevitable fate. They looked at eachother. Tears streamed down Katie's face while Arman's face remained stern and unchanged.
Then, in front of the small cockpit, space itself opened. A brilliant display of colours distracted both of them as they looked out the window. The
Atlas had arrived. With only the unique wormhole generator that it had at its disposal, it opened another wormhole as it flew towards the small pod. The hangar bay on its side opened as one of the enormous cannons on its hull turned towards the icy northern part of the planet. The captain had planned to heed Fanny's warning. The cannon fired one shot. It curved towards the planet, influenced by its gravity. It tore through the atmosphere, looking like a shooting star to the denizens of the world and landed exactly where it was planned: the other Khaganate shipwreck. The explosion was massive, and the shipwreck was completely vaporized, and only a crater remained. The recoil of the gun steered the ship in the right direction, and the small two-man pod went through the hangar bay's force field and landed on its floor.
The
Atlas entered the wormhole it had made and rejoined the rest of the fleet.
