Chapter 06: Drs. Kim and Tsukishima fulfil their obligation to the ISAF in the civil war of the Jezebel system - part 2

Lauren flopped down on the stiff mattress which at the moment felt more comfortable than her bed at home. Ashley lay face down on the top bunk, content. Lauren sat up.

“It seems we only get one desk in this room,” she said looking around.

“That’s fine, you can have it all to yourself, I’m just going to stay up here until we get there,” said Ashley.

“Oh hey, we’re already moving,” said Lauren looking out the window at the receding spaceport, a white wall save for spots of brown made up of tightly clustered groups of scorch marks from the maneuvering thrusters of countless ships.

“Really?” Ashley clambered down and pressed her face against the window, “wow, we’re really in space now. You realize how lucky we are? We can go anywhere we want to, whenever, for free!”

“Then why are we going to the Jezebel system? Take me to Altaria where they make faerie-bean bahulu,” said Lauren, turning away from the window, “Seriously though, I am excited to get my hands dirty with this ancient radar system. I’ve only gotten to interact with first wave ruins on Mendovica and my home planet.” She sat down on her bed, “tell me more about your homeplanet and growing up, you have an older sister, Ti...na?”

“Close. Tima,” said Ashley, “it’s nothing special, I have a younger brother, Tashi, and an older brother, Arman. And then Tima is the eldest of us.”

“Did you all get along?” asked Lauren. “I’m an only child myself,” she added.

“Well enough,” said Ashley, “this might not surprise you, but aside from the brief period when Tashi was born to when he had his growth spurt, I have always been the shortest in my family, which my brothers always reminded me of by putting stuff, like the remote or my toothbrush, out of my reach.” She paused, “a lot like Jethro does now that I think about it. However, Tima is the tallest of us, around your height, and she would always look out for me until she went to university.”

“That must have been annoying,” said Lauren.

“Yeah, it was also what motivated me to keep practicing my wielding,” said Ashley, “I am the most wielding adept of my family. The only other one in my family that can wield is my mother who could electric wield.”

“Whoa, what was that like?”

“Well she was very quick to zap us if she caught us misbehaving.”

“Wait what?”

“It wasn’t dangerous. Her zaps were on the level of a really good static discharge. On really dry days, my brothers would arm themselves with balloons and fuzzy sweaters to zap her back and before you know it the whole family would be zapping each other.”

“Sounds like fun,” said Lauren, “what does everyone in your family do for a living?”

“Well Tima is one of the designated scholars in our family and is now a physicist working on warp drives at the Kairexa branch of Cosmitech Advanced Research. Arman is an engineer and Tashi is finishing up college.”

“What about your parents?”

“Also engineers,” said Ashley, “they met because they worked at the same firm actually. They had to work late often so we got watched by the neighbors quite a bit”

From talking to other youmen friends, Lauren knew that in youmen families, both of the parents generally worked full time after returning from parental leave. Older family members or neighbors would watch over their children. In times of significant population growth, a large babysitter economy developed as youmen community organizers made adjustments to the community budget to prepare for the need for childcare. However Lauren wasn’t sure whether this semi-communal approach to parenting contributed to the youmen’s sense of camaraderie or was a result of it.

“A lot of engineers in your family,” observed Lauren.

“A lot of engineers on Kairexa,” corrected Ashley, “Kairexa is the main industrial producer of the Youmen United Systems. To that end, being an engineer is the norm, during introductions, people usually just say what type of engineering they do for a living.”

The intercom interrupted Ashley’s story, “all personnel prepare for warp jump.”

“Does that mean we have to do something?” said Lauren.

“Not really,” said Ashley, for whom it was not her first time hitching a ride on a military vessel, “keep your hands inside the craft at all times?”

Lauren laughed and looked out the window. As if a black curtain had been swept across the window, the station, Daiterra, and the stars disappeared.

“We must be in warp space now,” she thought. She remembered asking Neil one time how interstellar travel worked but he said that it wasn’t his area of focus and that all he knew was the simplified explanation offered in secondary school science class, that, ‘certain frequencies of kinetic and electric wielding are used to move the ship into warp space where there was nothing to collide with, except, theoretically, other ships,’ and then the ship was popped back into normal space with kinetic and electric wielding again after travelling a distance. Perhaps because of the unsatisfactory explanation, Lauren found a certain mystical quality to space travel.

“I never get tired of the jump into warp space,” said Lauren. She turned to Ashley, “so what did you do as a kid?”

“I explored a lot of ruins,” said Ashley, “the suburb we grew up in was pretty close to the old city of the capital, Rodira, just a train ride away. See, the really cool thing about the old city is that it was established well before the Kairexa system had a dyson sphere. But Kairexa has lots of valleys that are aligned with the planet’s rotation so you get really strong winds through them. And it was these winds that made energy very cheap which in turn spurred industrial development since they didn’t have to buy fuel as was common back then.”

Lauren was listening intently, Youmen history was uncharted territory for her and everything Ashley said was a revelation for her.

“Do you want to see a picture?” asked Ashley.

“Yes,” said Lauren immediately.

Ashley flicked through her phone and then gave it to Lauren. On the screen was an broad wooded valley, an array of wind turbines of differing heights were staggered throughout the flat middle part of the valley. “Wow, so what was your favorite building?” asked Lauren.

“Easy,” said Ashley, “at the center of the old city is this tower, called the Tree, with a central chamber with a driveshaft in it. But you see, this central chamber goes below ground, and it just keeps going. The elevators were off limits to guests but the stairs weren’t. Multiple times I’ve tried to reach the bottom of the chamber. I trained for it, I brought food, I did everything I could do except spend more than a day climbing. I never reached the bottom of the chamber. Found a lot of cool branch rooms though. I think my parents still have all the maps I drew.”

“What is at the bottom of it?” asked Lauren.

“A subterranean river rich in dissolved limestone. The Tree’s purpose was to pump up that water for the factories to process and extract minerals from,” said Ashley.

“I want to see that,” said Lauren.

“Come to Kairexa and I’ll take you there,” said Ashley.

“School was pretty standard, I went to University of Kairexa, Rodira for undergrad and majored in Human Antiquity Era History,” she continued, “the whole time my mom tried to get me to switch to engineering, usually by sending me articles about how hard it is to get a job studying history or how good engineers have it on Kairexa. Then I graduated and went to University of Daiterra, Sanmachi to continue my studies and branch out to the technical parts of what we now do.”

“How about that?” said Lauren, “I also went to UD Sanmachi for Human Antiquity Era History.”

“Wait a minute,” said Ashley, “what year did you take Human History 221?”

“Uh, Winter of 12015,” said Lauren, “were you the TA for that class?”

“I was,” said Ashley.

“Ahhh,” said Lauren immediately followed by Ashley.

“No way,” said Ashley, “how did I not realize that sooner?”

“It was a big class that year,” said Lauren.

“Oh! You’re right it was awful! UDS was hosting the overflow for that class from the three other universities in its consortium,” said Ashley, putting her head in her hands, “did you end up TA’ing that class too?”

“Yeah, I did,” said Lauren, “fortunately UDS wasn’t hosting that year, Sanmachi Institute of Anthropology was.”

A knock came from the door. “You cadets okay in there?” said Atid.

“Yeah, don’t mind us,” shouted Ashley.

“Alright, just came by to see if you wanted to get dinner in the mess hall before it closes,” said Atid.

Like much of the interior of the ship, the mess hall was plain and unadorned save for a few colored stripes on the grey walls that served to guide people to different parts of the labyrinthine vessel. Lauren guessed that they were eating late by the ship’s standards since she, Ashley, and Atid were the only people in the mess hall. Even the kitchen crew had been replaced by a lone Jordie in a chef’s apron. Having collectively decided to wait to talk about their mission tomorrow at the military briefing, the three Archival Officers took the opportunity to learn more about each other after eating.

“When I went to Daiterra for grad school, the Daiterra Immigration Plan was still relatively new,” explained Atid, “but not so new that the buzz about the Welcoming City had died down, which I admit played a bigger role in my grad school decisions than it should have.”

“Did you always know you wanted to join the KC?” asked Lauren.

“No,” said Atid, “I came to that decision when I was in college. I had originally planned on just staying with the Knowledge Corps for the standard term but getting citizenship through the Immigration Plan sort of pushed me to opt for long term employment with the KC.”

“Have you had any missions before this one?” asked Ashley.

“Many,” said Atid, “a lot of them were for the Fringe Cereal Reformations which involved most of the Hondur Cluster for the better part of the year of 12002.”

“Interesting name,” remarked Ashley.

“Yeah, untreated systemic flaws in the planetary governments in the Hondur galactic area eventually led to those systems coming up very short on their exports of staple grains,” said Atid, “unfortunately that is what it took for the Board of Administrators to finally do something about it. In some ways this is a follow up to those missions. I’ll admit I didn’t do everything I could to fix things up back then because I didn’t want to be too heavy-handed with my interference.”

“I have confidence in you,” said Lauren.

“Oh, I’m not worried,” said Atid.

“And I’m tired,” said Ashley, “I think it’s time to turn in for today.”

“Agreed,” said Atid, stretching.

Lauren reclined in the bottom bunk as she set about changing her clock settings with her phone.

“Let’s see,” she said to herself, “change local time for the following devices: phone, watch, computer, and glasses. Set time to: HF-JZBL-1. It is currently 24:49?”

“Hey Ashley?” she called to the top bunk.

“Yeah?” replied Ashley.

“How many hours are in a day on the Jezebel planet?”

“Twenty-six.”

“Oh, no.”

“What is it?”

“I have a hard time travelling to planets with longer day cycles,” said Lauren, plugging in her phone and swallowing a space sleep aid pill, “I sure hope we can figure this out and go back home in a few days before my sleep schedule is completely gone.” She pulled up some supplementary mission material on a smart sheet to read before going to sleep.

* * *

Lauren woke up still clutching a smart sheet. She saw Ashley sitting at the desk reading from her laptop.

Ashley noticed that Lauren was up, “rise and shine, sleepy head,” she said.

Lauren tried to stretch but hit her hand on the bunk above, “what does that even mean? we can’t even see any stars in warp space.”

The intercom in their room cracked, “attention all personnel, prepare for warp space exit.”

The ship rumbled from the rough exit from warp space. The conditions were so unfavorable that the shaking would have caused Lauren’s laptop to fall off the desk had Ashley not put her hand on it. Simultaneously, stars reappeared in the window in one sudden swoop as if the nebulous curtain of darkness on the window had been yanked back violently. The starscape felt familiar to Lauren, being more sparse and dispersed than the one she saw on Daiterra and was more reminiscent of summer nights on Plei.

“Well, if you hadn’t already woken up, I’m sure you would be up by now,” said Ashley, pushing Lauren’s laptop away from the edge of the desk.

The intercom turned on, “Standby for communications reestablishment.”

A prolonged string of notifications came from Lauren’s and Ashley’s devices.

Lauren skimmed through her emails, “Jethro’s doubles team won the Archival Officer tennis tournament.”

“That’s surprising,” said Ashley while she tried to find that email.

“Why, is he not very good?” said Lauren.

“Not so much that as that he won when he was on a team,” said Ashley. Lauren suppressed a laugh.

Ashley and Lauren wandered around the bridge area. They weren’t allowed on the bridge itself, but from the hallway adjacent to it they could see out of the large sweeping windows. From here they could look towards the galactic barycenter and see most of the combined galaxies, brilliant against the inky void that surrounded them. The light of all those stars illuminated the exterior of the frigate enough to cause the turrets to cast long shadows on its surface.

The crew on the bridge started to talk: “establishing comms link with the Temerity.” “Communication link established.”

“They’re quite close.”

“Yeah, we were way off the mark this time.”

Ashley leaned over to Lauren, “look at that, the cruiser is here.”

Lauren looked where Ashley was pointing, she had just realized that there was a ship-shaped gap in the stars when the lights on the cruiser came on. The cruiser was much larger and more heavily armed than the frigate Ashley and Lauren were on, even at its distance it loomed over them.

Atid walked by them with his laptop tucked under his arm, “great to see you’re already here. C’mon the meeting room is this way.”

Atid stood at the front of the room setting up his laptop, three commissioned officers filed in and took their seats. A notification popped up in the corner of Lauren’s glasses, Lauren tapped her temple and the ghostly images of five other COs filled the other seats of the meeting room. Text stating the name, rank, and title of each person floated above their respective heads. Lauren preferred to keep some transparency in her AR settings so that she could discern between what was projected and what was real.

“Are we all set up?” asked Atid, clapping his hands together.

One of the projected officers, of the robotics division, raised his thumb, “we’re good to go, just speak a little louder.”

“Okay, conflict HF 7150 CW 1700, aka the Jezebel system civil war of 12019 is pretty small as far as planet-wide conflicts go due to very little of the surface being suitable for habitation.”

A military officer, orbital support division, raised his hand, “how are the land masses distributed?”

“I was getting to that,” said Atid, a globe appeared hovering and rotating in the middle of the table, Atid continued, “as you can see there are two main continents. The smaller continent is the primary as it was settled first. The larger continent is sparsely populated and the site of resin harvesting.”

One of the officers, from the reconnaissance division, whispered into the ear of the orbital support officer. Atid continued, “The population of the Jezebel planet was around 390 million as of the last census. The planet is split up into 149 semi-autonomous regions each with a quaternary level government that reports to the planetary government. There are three types of regions characterized by their primary activity: the agricultural regions, the forestry regions, and the metropolitan regions. All of the forestry regions are on the secondary continent where resin trees have been found to grow best. Now—”

“Is it possible to skip ahead a bit?” asked the officer from the engineer corps.

Atid turned around, “no, this is important. Now, the primary continent is home to the agricultural and metropolitan regions as well as the capital. In most of the agricultural and forestry regions, nearly all the land is owned by a small group of people, in the agricultural regions, that group is usually the same group that governs the region resulting in a pseudo-feudal system with leaders often running unopposed. Now for the participants of this conflict.”

The officers started taking notes in their little notebooks.

“There are three parties in this conflict: the separatists, the loyalists, and the neutral regions,” said Atid. Lauren was following his notes and saw that he posted a comment next to the mention of the neutral regions that said “aka the smart ones” and stifled a laugh.

“The separatist party formed three years ago from an alliance of the leaders of the agricultural regions, most likely in response to the Jezebel system attaining the problematic ‘middle status’ of planetary development,” said Atid.

“What do you mean by middle status?” asked the officer from the engineer corps.

“The goal of Intersyst is to see that all systems eventually become developed systems,” said Atid, “to that end, developing systems receive funds from Intersyst to develop the system’s infrastructure and economy. These funds come primarily from developed systems which pay more taxes to Intersyst. As a system’s development index increases, they receive less funds and pay more taxes. At the low end, there is a net inflow of funds and at the high end there is a net outflow of funds. Developed systems pay up because they want access to Intersyst’s trading network which makes it easy to acquire resources from developing systems. In the middle area of development, the amount of funds going in and out is mostly balanced. In the past, the middle area of development erred on the side of injecting value into the system but about a decade ago, the middle area was enlarged and errs on having a net outflow of funds as part of a logistics system overhaul enacted by Primary Parliament. So the separatist party’s platform was that Intersyst wants to keep systems in the middle status to rob them of their resources. On top of that you also have species based rhetoric claiming that youmen secretly control Intersyst with the aim of disenfranchising the other systems, hence why this reinforcement battalion is almost entirely human.”

Some of the officers nodded, their suspicions confirmed.

“In all likelihood, the separatist party’s plan would be to secede from Intersyst and trade exclusively with the Human Federation.”

“They can do that?” asked one of the officers, from air support. Atid nodded.

“A year and a half ago, the separatist party succeeded in bringing the question of secession to a popular vote which failed to reach the necessary supermajority. At this point, financial and shipping records show an increase in military buildup which was billed as ‘fringe system emergency preparedness,’” said Atid.

The commander of one of the infantry forces rolled their eyes. Atid looked at one of the projected officers near him and nodded. The officer, intelligence coordinator, stood up, “With that history lesson done, I will now go over the strategic aspects of this conflict.”

The coordinator advanced the slide, “two months ago, the newly formed Separatist Coalition launched a coordinated attack with forces originating in the agricultural regions, moving through with little resistance—”

“Excuse me,” said the infantry commander, “can you explain why there was little resistance?”

“Ah, I should have made this more clear,” said the presenting officer, pushing up her glasses, “despite the failed popular referendum, the separatist party had become extremely popular within the agricultural regions, due to several media campaigns that had been running for a couple of years. By the time of the conflict, many denizens of the agricultural regions were enlisted in their regional armies. Unfortunately, as an artifact from more violent days, planetary law gives each region the ability to maintain its own security forces, the tertiary level government has no part in defense matters.”

One of the officers put her hand over her eyes, “ridiculous,” she said.

“During the armament period, both agricultural and metropolitan regions bolstered their forces. The forestry regions, meanwhile, remained stoutly neutral, re-allocating their preexisting military resources in preparation for any overseas invasion. The problem began once the two sides stopped playing friendly. That problem being that the agricultural regions surround the metropolitan regions, thus the agricultural regions could transfer supplies and personnel between each other without entering a metropolitan region whereas the same couldn’t be said for the metropolitan regions.”

“Where were the separatists getting their weapons from?” asked the reconnaissance officer, “surely they didn’t get it from the metro regions.”

“Of course,” said Atid, jumping in, “records suggest that a large amount of smuggling was taking place. A hypothesis which is lent credence by several sightings of unscheduled atmospheric reentries.”

The intelligence coordinator continued, “anyways, without the ability to assist each other, the metropolitan regions were captured one by one. Only the capital region remains loyal to intersyst, thanks in part to the fact that the agricultural regions that surround it are not run by their land owners and were largely loyalist. They have since largely evacuated the two cities that still have a connection to the safer capital. Jumping to the present day, we’re surrounded on all sides by the enemy or the ocean. However, intelligence suggests that there is a central command center that is coordinating the Separatist Coalition forces and housing the core leadership. Despite having orbital superiority, satellites have revealed nothing. Time is not on our side, the capital has resorted to importing food, and as you know, drawn out conflicts are not the style of ISAF. Central command has approved the allocation of three more battalions like this one if we can’t gain control of the situation by the end of this month and have authorized the use of orbital laser and kinetic bombardment if we can’t make something happen by the end of four months. Hopefully it won’t come to that. Especially if our little field experts hit gold sometime soon,” she directed her gaze at Ashley and Lauren. All the other officers looked at them, having wondered why the two were in the meeting in the first place. Ashley and Lauren smiled and waved.

“That is all,” said the presenting officer.

The lights came back to full brightness, Lauren stretched, “great, can’t wait to get there. When do we touchdown?”

4: Investigations

Arrival

Shortly after the meeting, both ships made another jump, arriving at the Jezebel system. The planet was a green marble with its cold oceans roughly matching the verdant continents for area. Lauren finished cramming her clothes back in her suitcase while Ashley scanned the room for any forgotten items.

The intercom turned on: “all passengers report to the bridge area.”

Ashley, Lauren, and Atid stood outside the bridge watching as the crew prepared for landing.

The captain of the other ship could be heard through the bridge radio, “Jezebel orbital command, this is Captain Broadhurst of the Temerity representing the second reinforcement battalion for the conflict in the Human Federation #7150, civil war type #1700. Requesting landing permission for the frigate Martensite and 6 shuttlecraft. Also requesting landing permission 30 hours later with the same 6 shuttlecraft. Over”

A different voice came through the radio, “Temerity, you are approved for landing of seven craft immediately and for landing of six craft in 30 hours. Land at Euban spaceport latitude 19.883434, longitude -3.730490. Approach with 52.39 degree inclination. Prepare for deorbiting burn in T minus 4 minutes 30 seconds. Over.”

Ashley and Lauren walked away from the bridge to talk to Atid.

“Why do we need to come to the bridge for landing?” asked Lauren standing next to him while Ashley sat down.

“If something goes wrong, the bridge is one of the last places to be depressurized,” said Atid, “if you can show that you pass the Astratum physical exam, I suppose you don’t have to come up here.”

“Oh, that’s just holding your breath, ri—” Lauren almost fell down as everything in the frigate lurched at the flaring of the frigate’s engines to full power, the sudden acceleration being subdued moments later by the kinetic wielding machines embedded in the floors.

“You should probably sit down,” said Atid.

The three Archival officers sat in the passenger area as they watched flames engulf the outside of the craft accompanied by the blue flickering of the shield. None of the Astratum vessels, with the exception of the corvette, are remotely aerodynamically shaped, instead relying on their shields to protect them during reentry and make moving around in-atmosphere easier.

After a while the flickering outside subsided revealing a vast patchwork of green and golden fields. Lauren pressed her face against the window to get a better look. She saw what she guessed must be a spaceport: a large slab of concrete adjacent to several large buildings and a great big satellite dish. She saw some of the shuttlecraft had already landed in a different area. A whirring felt throughout the frigate indicated that it had extended its landing legs. The ship pivoted as it landed in the middle of a large painted rectangle. A mobile dock crawled up to the side of the frigate, until it was close enough for its large yellow clamps to grasp onto the spaceship’s side.

A blast of cold air greeted the Archival Officers as the airlock doors opened.

“So we’re supposed to meet up with the field research team?” asked Lauren, shouting over the wind and din of the frigate’s engines, both of which surrounded the exposed top walkway of the mobile dock. Below, containers and pallets were being unloaded via electromagnetic rails.

“Of the 45th Intersyst Army, yes,” said Atid, cranking up the heat setting on his regulator vest.

The three AOs stood in the small boarding room of the mobile dock and watched the soldiers file past them and down the stairs. Outside, the floodlights surrounding the old spaceport turned on to supplement the light from the setting sun. Two men in uniform walked up to them, one of them had a standard issue rifle slung behind his shoulder.

“You must be the Archival Officers Susan requested, I am Chief Warrant Officer 5 Stoyan Kataria,” said the one without the rifle, “I am the lead of the 45th Army technical research team.” He shook hands with each of them while the other soldier crossed his arms.

“Dr. Atid Bledsoe, from the Delphi Group,” said Atid.

“Dr. Lauren Kim, from the Historical Technologies Group,” said Lauren.

“And I’m Dr. Ashley Tsukishima, also from the Historical Technologies Group,” said Ashley, standing on her toes while she shook Stoyan’s hand.

“Pleasure to meet you all,” said Stoyan, “oh, and this is Staff Sergeant Cole Jansons. He has been assigned to watch over you all if you go on any excursions.” The soldier with the gun lifted one hand to do a quick wave.

Outside the mobile dock, soldiers were getting into transports and pallets were being loaded into trucks. Tanks and aircraft, with wings folded, were being wheeled away from the unloading ramp at the front of the frigate. The Archival Officers followed Cole and Stoyan to a van. Cole hopped into the driver’s seat and stowed his rifle while Stoyan took the front passenger seat. The AOs put their suitcases into the back and took their seats.

“Take us to central headquarters,” said Stoyan to Cole. Cole drove around the lined up transports and through the main gates of the spaceport.

“Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever been driven by another person before,” said Ashley.

Cole looked at them through the rearview mirror, “personnel carriers are always people driven, the army doesn’t trust machines enough to let them carry people around.”

“But self-driving cars are proven to make less mistakes than people,” replied Ashley.

“Yeah, but you never know when a machine is going to make a mistake, it’s much more obvious with a person,” said Cole, overtaking a transport.

“Ah well—” began Ashley.

“And, if you think a person is going to be making mistakes, you just switch them out with another person, can’t do that with a machine,” said Cole, ending the conversation.

It was a long ride to the capital city of Euban which was made longer by the two security checkpoints they had to go through before entering the city proper. By the time they arrived at the defense headquarters, it was dark outside and the streets were crowded with people making their commute home, Lauren was feeling motion-sick, and Ashley had fallen asleep on her shoulder.

“Alright,” said Stoyan once they had parked, “we’ll show you where the research room is and then we’ll let you turn in for the night.”

The five of them went into the large, rectangular frustum-shaped building which was the local ISAF headquarters of the Jezebel system, the three AOs pulling their suitcases behind them. On their way in Lauren saw six large robots. Enforcer robots have largely the same design as their civilian counterparts, Peacekeepers, being larger, displaying more deadly weaponry, and having larger wheels at the ends of their legs. Lauren liked them even less, the ones back at the Citadel now seemed like puppies. Two of the robots turned their main cameras onto her.

“Yeesh!” said Lauren. Instinctively, she stepped back, bumping into Ashley who was still drowsy.

Falling, Ashley cried out and put out her free hand, freezing her fall at an improbable angle. She put her foot out, regained her balance, and looked around.

“I’m so sorry!” said Lauren, “I got weirded out by these robots and—”

“It’s all good,” said Ashley, picking up her suitcase.

“One of them’s a wielder? Dammit!” said Cole, readjusting his rifle, “add that to the list of liabilities.”

Lauren shot a dirty look at Cole.

“What?” said Cole defensively, “I don’t trust wielders. Unless they’re battle wielders. Wielders can attract a lot of attention unintentionally.”

Once they were all past the security booth, Cole snapped a sharp salute to Stoyan. The warrant officer returned it, Cole turned on his heel, and walked away.

By Lauren’s reckoning, Stoyan had brought them close to the center of the building, but she couldn’t tell for lack of windows.

Stoyan stopped at one of the doors, “try pinging with your badge, it should be working now.”

Atid pushed the PING button on his badge and a click could be heard from the door, they all went in.

Lauren found herself in what seemed like a large conference room. A long table dominated the center of the room. At either end of the room was a projector screen; one of them was off but the other was displaying a map that she didn’t recognize. Various books, papers, bottles, and coffee cups were strewn across one half of the table. The trash cans at the corners of the room were filled with empty to-go containers. A computer tower with a post-it note that read “server” sat in one of the corners in place of a trash can. A woman in the same uniform as Stoyan’s was pacing around near the blank projector.

“Wow, sure took you long enough!” she exclaimed upon seeing them.

“Today was a red day, so we had to go through two checkpoints,” said Stoyan, “plus there was a lot of traffic due to the reinforcements arriving.”

The woman’s expressions softened, “oh, right! I forgot about that.” She turned to the Archival Officers and opened her arms, “welcome! I am Chief Warrant Officer 5 Susan Gu. I am lead of the 45th army research team. I was originally a field historical researcher, so we should get along pretty well. I am the one who dragged you all the way out here, and for that I am sorry.” She let her hands fall to her sides. “But this nut has proved to be too hard for us to crack. And we need what’s inside this nut to put a clean end to this pointless conflict.”

“No need to apologize for bringing us out here,” said Lauren, “I am Dr. Lauren Kim, I actually grew up on a fringe system like this one.” She shook Susan’s hand.

“Very nice! Nice to meet you,” said Susan.

“I am Dr. Ashley Tsukishima,” said Ashley, shaking hands with Susan.

“Nice to meet you too,” said Susan. She turned to Atid, “and you must be Atid of the Delphi group. I never thought I’d be meeting one of you guys. I’ve read all of your group’s books. Don’t take this the wrong way but I wasn’t expecting a Purian”

Atid rubbed the back of his head, “well sometimes it takes an outsider’s perspective to really understand how things look. You need to look at a house from the inside and the outside before you buy it”

Susan looked around the room, “so, welcome to your new home for the next week or two. Sorry about the mess, the folks from Waverton U. do not clean up after themselves, they sit on that half of the room, as you might have guessed.”

Susan noticed Ashley yawning despite the Archival Officer’s attempts to stifle it.

“Yes, it is getting late, coming up on 2500 in fact. Last thing before I let Yanny take you to your lodgings, be at the front entrance hall of this building by 0800 tomorrow, sharp. We’re going to go on a little field trip into the countryside to the one special radar facility building that we know to be within our controlled territory so you see this nut that we’ve been trying to crack.”

“Do I have to be there too?” asked Atid.

“I guess not, you just come to this room by 1100 when the university folk show up,” said Susan. “Good? Alright buddy, back to you,” Susan patted Stoyan on the back and left the room.

Lauren sat on the bed of her dimly lit hotel room. She was reading some of the tourist brochures she picked up in the hotel lobby by the light of the nightstand. From the occasional typo and watermarked image, she guessed that the Jezebel system didn’t get many tourists. It didn’t matter either way, Lauren was able to get a list of the most popular local websites, including the dominant search engine. She planned to use them to try to get more information about the planet’s history, tidbits too small to be shared outside the system. Lauren had also finished unpacking all of her special equipment from her flight case that was waiting for her when she arrived at her room, transferring some of it into her hard case along with bills of the local currency that she received from Stoyan. Outside, the occasional car drove by, each time briefly shining its lights at the drawn blinds.

Lauren thought about how the next day would be the first time she would be in a new type of dangerous situation. That wasn’t to say that Lauren hadn’t been in dangerous situations before, she had been on dark streets late at night alone and had gotten lost deep underground in some ruins back on Plei before; just to say that she would be facing a new type of danger. Lauren wasn’t sure how to feel about it though, the most danger she had been in before was probably when she got lost in the industrial quarter of Mendovica’s capital in the middle of the night, but she didn’t remember being too scared then and she got out of it alright. Lauren imagined that this new danger would be greater than that but she had no sense of scale for how much more dangerous. She thought about her conversation with Neil and about how worried he was and, if she was being honest with herself, that scared her the most.

Field trip

Lauren chased her shadow on the way from the hotel to the defense headquarters, the sun was just then rising over the horizon. Lauren had to replace her stylish messenger bag with the reinforced ceramic plated briefcase for this mission, and she was not used to the new weight and dimensions. Several times, she switched which side she carried it on to mitigate the effects of the weight and thin strap, having not had the time to set up the complicated backpack configuration of straps. She waited behind a crowd of early morning commuters at the crosswalk leading to the defense headquarters. She was going to be at least 5 minutes late at this rate. Lauren thought about how unusually crowded Euban was, much more so than the capital on Plei. The light changed green.

“Oh you’re all still here,” Lauren said to Ashley upon entering the main hall. Among the various soldiers, robots, and commissioned officers, Stoyan and Cole were there along with about half a dozen warrant officers chattering amongst themselves.

“You’re fine,” said Ashley, “Sue hasn’t even shown up.”

“Sorry I’m late!” Susan emerged from the elevators followed by a soldier wheeling a cart. “We’re going to be taking Sigma dropships to the artifact site and they are very loud onboard.Take a helmet from this cart. Yes they will fit over your glasses, no they won’t fit over your headphones, besides you won’t be allowed to listen to music anyways. What else? Oh, the helmets are radio linked to each other so that you can all talk during the ride. Also take a coat, we’re gonna be in the tundra.”

Ashley found a small helmet, “moment of truth,” she squeezed the helmet over her now short hair then turned towards Lauren, “hey, it fits. Also I’ve noticed that everyone here is way taller than me because of the low gravity and I’m not a fan of it.”

Two Sigma dropships were idling on the roof of the defense headquarters, their quad-turbofans creating a resonant din. However, with the helmet on, Lauren heard them as a muffled roar in the background of Susan’s authoritative voice:

“Cole, put yourself and two of your boys in dropship 2 with the Archivists and three of the WO’s. Yanny and I will take ship 1, naturally, with the other warrant officers and the other three of Cole’s squad.”

Lauren and Ashley strapped themselves in next to the warrant officers, directly across from Cole who was sitting with his arms crossed and chin on his chest. The roar of the dropship engines intensified. Lauren looked through the slowly closing rear door at the ground falling away, the sight of which made her giddy.

About an hour into their flight, Ashley and Lauren had resorted to playing word games.

“Artifact,” said Lauren, at length.

“Artificer,” said Ashley, quickly.

“Artificial.”

“Artist.”

“Artistry.”

“Artisan.”

“Artificer.”

“Artificer was already said,” said Ashley.

“Shoot, you win again,” said Lauren, “you’re too good at this.”

“If you think I’m good, wait till you play against Morgan,” said Ashley, “she introduced the game to us, I reckon you could beat Miguel and Jethro though.”

Lauren heard Cole scoffing at their conversation.

“What is your problem?” said Lauren.

“What is my problem, you say?” retorted the sergeant, “you guys are my problem. KC officers, if you can even call them officers, have no common sense. But they think they know everything because they’ve read a bunch of books from the safety of their armchairs. And they don’t understand what real danger is until they’ve been shot at, and at that point it’s too late. They are a burden to a squad. I say that you guys should be classified as civilians, but ISAF ‘needs’ you on the front lines and also wants to keep you guys at their beck and call. Do you know why I’ve been assigned to be your babysitter?”

Cole’s two subordinates exchanged a knowing glance.

“This isn’t my first rodeo,” continued Cole, now leaning forward, “I was part of a squad watching over some Scientific Officers, the SO’s were trying to install a new spy module or something they made into an enemy base we infiltrated. They managed to do it, honestly I don’t doubt their expertise, but when we were making our escape, one of the SO’s took a wrong turn, blew our cover, and put the enemies hot on our tail. Half of our squad got wiped out and only one Scientific Officer survived because I did some fancy footwork to rescue him. Apparently you get a promotion if you save a KCO.”

Cole signalled the end of his monologue by sitting back and crossing his arms.

“FIrst off, we’re sorry that you had to go through that,” said Ashley, “and you’re right, we probably don’t understand what real danger is because we’ve been sheltered as far as members of ISAF are concerned.”

“Typical diplomatic response,” said Cole.

“Look, we need you to protect us as made clear by the things you said,” said Lauren, “if there is anything we can do to make that easier for you, let us know. I don’t want to die.”

Appeased, if only somewhat, Cole unfolded his arms and lowered his shoulders, “then listen, at all moments in which either of you are with me outside of ISAF controlled territory, you will unconditionally do what I say to the letter. Do that and we have a shot at getting out of here unscathed.”

“Yes sir sarge,” said Lauren.

“That’s weird, don’t ever say that again,” said Cole.

Susan’s hyped up voice broke in over the radio, “you kids better be ready ‘cause we’ve reached the site.”

The Sigma craft touched down on the top of an isolated, broad plateau. At the center of it was an otherwise featureless concrete building crowned with an array of antennae and dishes. Two Alpha fighter craft streaked across the sky.

“Looks like Sue called in some hawks to watch over us,” said Cole, “she’s pulling all the stops in terms of safety this time.”

Fourteen flashlight beams danced across the interior of the dimly lit hallway. Eight army field researchers, two Archival Officers, and four soldiers ventured into the interior of the abandoned building while the other two soldiers stayed outside with the dropships with their pilots. Faded markings added a weak touch of color to the otherwise gray walls, crunching came from their boots as they walked over a thick blanket of sand accumulated over the course of centuries. A steady humming permeated the air, seemingly coming from all directions.

“Watch the hole,” said Susan, pointing to a chasm on their right.

Lauren was struggling to contain herself, this was the first time she was exploring a completely new set of ruins. Granted, as a kid she explored the ruins in the backwoods but those didn’t feel exotic. The ruins on Mendovica were exotic but were also thoroughly explored by other archaeologists and students so they didn’t give her the excitement of the unknown that she was feeling right now. Her flashlight beam combed over the interior of the hallway, Lauren’s eyes registering every detail. She tried to translate every bit of faded text she saw on the walls and every sound from the humming to the clank of a sheet of weathered metal underfoot took precedent over the conversation happening around her.

“What do you think of this place?” asked Ashley, also surveying the ancient interior.

“I just can’t get over how close we are to the previously known but currently lost right now,” said Lauren. She looked further ahead and saw two red disks light up in the darkness. Red laser dots played across the torsos of the party. Susan pointed her flashlight at the red disks to reveal a pair of Enforcer robots, just disturbed from their watchful slumber.

“Good to see our two watch dogs are still here,” said Susan patting the leg of one of the Enforcers, “now shoo, shoo, we need this space.”

The two robots slowly planted their feet on the ground, and picked themselves up. They trudged away further down the hall and planted themselves down in a huff as if annoyed by being forced to relocate. The soldiers that followed them in took up positions at the two junctions at the end of the corridor not covered by the robots. Two of the warrant officers placed the battery chest near a mound covered by a tarp and plugged several cables into it. One of the warrant officers went around turning on the work lights that were positioned nearby.

“Indah, Giannis, remove the tarp,” said Stoyan, “Claire, check the connections. Hatim and Nia, initialize the access point once Claire’s done.”

Indah and Giannis set about removing and then folding the tarp that was attached to the wall and covering the right half of the hallway while Claire pulled out a stepladder that was hiding under the tarp. Hatim and Nia unpacked a laptop and several black boxes from the cases they had been carrying. The tarp revealed a square hole in the wall near the ceiling that was about a square meter in size. A thick bundle of cables spilled out of it, some of which led to a small metal stand. Claire set up the stepladder near the hole in the wall and climbed it to inspect each label on the cables, checking items off on a clipboard. She gave the thumbs up to Hatim and Nia who then set up their boxes and laptop on the metal stand.

“Hey Linas,” said Susan to the only officer not doing anything, “how about you give our friends the rundown of this place?”

“Sure thing boss,” said Linas, he turned to Ashley and Lauren, “we are at what we believe to be a control station. All the data collected from the actual radar complexes further west were funneled here. We’ve identified several viewing rooms—”

“Wait hold on, this isn’t an actual radar station?” asked Lauren.

“This? Oh no, the radar system is based on over the horizon radar from pre-colonization times. The actual radar systems are huge, picture two massive walls of antennae spaced kilometers apart, that’s what allows them to bounce signals across the planet’s ionosphere or something to detect things on the other coast of the primary continent,” said Linas, “all the antennae and dishes on top of this building are just for communicating with other buildings, including the sensor array on the secondary continent. Now—”

“Hey! What’s going on over there?” shouted Susan. Four of the warrant officers were huddled around the laptop clamoring amongst themselves and occasionally with Claire who was seated on the stepladder.

“Aren’t we supposed to not be able to get in?” said Giannis.

“Yeah, but we’re supposed to be able to get to the login screen,” said Nia who was actually in control of the laptop

“Tell Claire to check the cables again,” said Indah.

“They’re fine, I’ve already checked them twice,” said Claire.

“That wouldn’t be the problem anyways,” said Hatim.

Stoyan walked over, “well officers, what can we do about it?”

“We could try power cycling all of the equipment but that will take a while,” said Nia.

“Wait!” said Lauren, rummaging through her hard case, “can I give something a try?”

“That depends, what do you need?” said Stoyan wary of Lauren’s intentions.

“I just need a cable that plugs into the network,” said Lauren pulling out a small box with about thirty cables coming out one of its ends.

“Well. We only have one cable which we are sure connects to this building’s network and I’d rather our team use that so that we can get in and show you what’s going on. You can certainly use one of the other cables—”

“Give the cable to her,” said Susan, looking intently at Lauren, “let’s see how good the Knowledge Corps really are. No pressure Lauren.”

Lauren and Ashley walked up to the metal stand which Nia cleared. Claire undid some cables and handed Lauren the original cable from the building itself. “Have fun with that,” said Claire.

“Is that a Benji?” said Ashley pointing at the box Lauren was holding, trying not to laugh, “as in the toy?”

“Yes it is,” said Lauren smiling, “and just because it’s used more by hobbyists and their children doesn’t diminish its capacity as a competent signal processor,” said Lauren, comparing the faded and weathered cable with each of the Benji’s cables.

“Okay, true,” said Ashley, “but tell me, did you make this in undergrad? I know you had access to better stuff in grad school.”

“I did, and honestly this is the best stuff you could get on Plei,” said Lauren, finding the correct socket and gently pushing the weathered cable in, “I made it to interface with the ruins around home. When I found out it worked on the ruins in Mendovica, I decided that it was a keeper. So let’s see if it works here,” she plugged the other end of the Benji into her laptop.

Five different LEDs embedded in the 3-D printed case flashed erratically, stopped, then all lit up and stayed on. Lauren brought up the command line and opened a connection to the Benji. She was greeted by the following prompt:

ENTER USERNAME

“Ok, I’m connected to the network,” said Lauren. She plugged in Jethro’s micro computer and pulled up his manual and followed the procedure to “force access” as the manual put it. Lauren hit enter and about a thousand lines of verbose output text blew through the terminal window while the tiny fan in the micro computer emitted a high pitched whine.

LAST FAILED LOGIN: 3170-10-11 UNI; 2994/14/14 25:49 LOCAL FROM 8329:23:4000:F339:B03D:E95:8A8D:0B1F (MAINTENANCE TERMINAL 18)

FAILED LOGIN ATTEMPTS SINCE LAST SUCCESSFUL LOGIN: 99

LAST LOGIN: 2570-01-30 UNI; 2509/02/30 13:00:09 FROM 0385:23:4000:A399:A90A:F01:3AA4:0932 (OBSERVATION ROOM 01)

Ashley and Lauren looked at the output, surprised that everything worked on the first try.

“Oh.”

“Oh.”

“Are you in?” asked Susan, her hands on Lauren’s shoulders.

“I think so?” said Lauren slowly.

“Try entering whoami,” said Ashley, “that was a pretty popular command around the end of the first wave of colonization which is around when the last login was if they are using the calendar I think they are using.

“Hold on,” said Lauren, “I need to change my keyboard to LF-2.” Lauren bounced around the options menu looking for the keyboard settings.

“What’s LF-2?” asked Claire, leaning a little bit from her perch in the ladder to get a better look at Lauren’s screen.

“Lingua Franca 2,” said Ashley, “it’s considered the second “universal” human language which was used throughout the first wave of colonization.”

Lauren found the keyboard settings page and activated LF-2, she watched the keys relabel themselves, some of the keys went blank being unneeded.

Lauren entered the command, taking time between keystrokes to double check that she was translating correctly, “yes, we are logged in as Lt. Jules Thompson of the Planetary Air Command.” Lauren tabbed over to note the details of the account they were logged into.

Susan took a step back and put one hand over her eyes and cackled. Stoyan walked away with his hands on his head. Susan’s cackle turned into outright laughter.

“Aaauughhh!” Stoyan shook his fists in the air. The other warrant officers watched their two superiors.

“What did I tell you Yanny?” said Susan, wiping tears from her eyes, “these guys are good. Although I have to say I didn’t think they were going to be this good.”

Stoyan quickly walked to Lauren and Ashley, “how did you do that? What did you use?”

“A decryption routine written by one of our colleagues,” said Lauren, “unfortunately he didn’t come with us.”

“What?” said Stoyan, exasperated, “we used all of the most advanced decryption methods available to us, some of which are exclusive to ISAF.”

“Hmmm,” Lauren looked at the keyboard as she tried to think of what the reason for their success would be.

“That’s the problem,” said Ashley, “the software paradigms of the first wave of colonization were in practically a different world than what we have today. Honestly, the more advanced you go, the less likely you will be to get in.”

‘Hah! How about that?” said Susan, “looks like you can’t just put some experts on history and some experts on technology together and expect them to figure out an old computer. I’ve said this before, the army research team has blindspots in its knowledge, that’s what the KC is for.”

“We would have figured it out eventually,” grumbled Stoyan.

“Alright, enough talk,” said Susan, “let’s see this surveillance network.”

“Right,” said Lauren. She turned to Ashley, “do you know how to launch the GUI? I think it will be faster to find the relevant program that way.”

“Oh yeah,” said Ashley, “try startx.”

The keyboard clacked under Lauren’s fingers, “no that didn’t work.”

“starty”

Lauren looked at Ashley doubtfully.

“No really, it’s a command too,” said Ashley.

The keyboard clacked a bit and the command line was replaced by a white screen with a single textbox in the middle, the cursor blinking.

“Oh it’s one of these GUIs,” said Ashley, somewhat disappointed, “okay, so the way it works is you enter what submenu you want to go to next by typing the first few letters of a word related to that submenu. Try typing list all.”

“Okay… whoa 4000+ items found,” said Lauren, “I’m going to try surveillance… 0 items found,” Lauren mashed the backspace key, “great.”

Linas had been watching Ashley and Lauren working for a while and now spoke up, “hey Giannis, didn’t we see the actual name of this system a while back?”

Giannis got up from his seat on the power unit, “yeah, it was Po something,” he walked over to the group around Lauren’s computer. “Can you type in Po?”

Two clacks came from the keyboard.

Giannis’s eyes scanned through the list of entries, “scroll down a bit… yeah, there it is, Potesta System v29.”

Lauren opened the application, a loading bar appeared over a map of the planet, slowly filling up. Stoyan and Susan leaned in closer, watching the screen. The bar jumped from halfway to full, disappeared, and was replaced by a dialogue window bearing the message:

ERROR: ACCESS KEY EXPIRED (246400 DAYS)

Susan threw up her arms, “great! What do we do now? Ahhhh,” she closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, “don’t answer Stoyan, just do it.”

Susan walked away from the group, kicking a piece of debris. It flew down the hallway and clanged as it bounced off the leg of one of the Enforcer robots at the end of the hall.

Stoyan stood up straight and put his hands behind his back, “Lauren, share the login credentials with Nia then log out and remove your computer from the stand so Nia and Hatim can put our hardware back in place. Claire, take the other warrant officers to set up the satellite link. We’re going to continue our investigations remotely since General Albritton doesn’t like us hanging out here.”

“Were you recording your session?” Ashley asked Lauren.

“Yeah, we can review it on the ride back,” said Lauren, sending an email to Nia, logging out, unplugging her Benji, and handing the cable to Nia.

“You can wait by the Sigma craft while we get this set up,” said Stoyan to Lauren and Ashley.

Lauren and Ashley stood near the edge of the plateau shivering. Below, the tundra stretched to the horizon. Small bushes, plants, and rocks coated the bottom of what was once a vast primordial ocean with the two officers standing at its shore. The wind blew rudely into their faces as it strove against the sheer face of the plateau. Above, the contrails left by the two circling alpha fighter craft went across the grain of the clouds which were drawn out into thin wispy strands by the wind. Lauren and Ashley withdrew from the ledge to rejoin the others near the entrance to the ancient building. Some warrant officers were hammering stakes into the ground to secure the satellite dish, the pinging of hammer striking metal echoed through the desolate landscape. By the parked Sigma craft, two soldiers scanned the horizon while the rest relaxed in the dropships. Being unnaturally flat, there was nowhere to sit on the plateau other than a large, empty crate on which Susan was sitting with her elbows resting on her knees, staring at the ground deep in thought. Lauren and Ashley quietly seated themselves next to her.

“It’s a fine mess we’re in,” said Susan as soon as they sat down, “I had promised the general results by the end of this week or at least a plan of action, but right now I have no idea what to do next. I had been entirely focused on getting into the system and doing it was so hard that I never imagined that there would be something after it. I mean, we don’t even know if any ‘access keys’ even exist anymore or where to find them. Do you think you can forge the access keys or get around that gate?”

“We don’t know,” said Ashley, “we’d need to get familiar with the system first.”

“Right, of course,” said Susan, “you guys only got here yesterday.’ She slapped her knee and got up. “We’ll figure something out. I’ve worked with General Albritton for a number of years now and am proud to say that our relationship has been a strict transfer of results. I don’t intend to break that trend especially this time when the entire plan for victory hinges on our team succeeding.”