“Breathe in, pause, slowly release,” Jacob said as he monitored the soldier’s efforts aboard the Abyss Pearl.
Figuring out the correct rhythm was actually harder than explaining the meditation steps, but it was an important first step to prepare their minds for merging. Thankfully, eiraxin biology was similar to humans. Scarily so.
Had eiraxins seeded Earth long ago with their genetics? That seemed rather implausible. Human history could be traced back for tens of thousands of years, maybe longer. The Concord Imperium was old, but they weren’t that old. The eiraxins were spacefaring before they joined forces with the t’uk and lau to create the Imperium, but their sphere of influence had been small.
Jacob couldn’t discount the possibility that the eiraxins had scouted local space and found Earth millennia ago. The ship that the US had recovered in Arizona was proof that someone from Concord had visited Earth. They had dated the wreck around a thousand years old.
Jacob didn’t know if that was true or not. He didn’t have the sort of scientific equipment needed to measure how old something was. What he had seen was the metallurgical analysis of the recovered material compared to the stuff recovered from the transport Franky had crashed.
That alone showed that the single-occupant craft shared a similar material consistency as the transport, and Jacob knew the transport was much older than Melody. So a thousand years old might not be much of a stretch.
“Breathe in, release, hold.” Jacob moved to the second breathing rhythm.
Before he let that part of his mind wander again, he quickly looked over the soldiers, including General Roberts, who had joined in the training. Some were handling the breathing exercises better than others.
Just wait till they get to the quiet meditation.
They didn’t lack focus. If anything, they had too much. Meditation, at least the meditation required to prepare their minds for merging, required them to empty their minds of all thoughts. They couldn’t just skip the hard part like Jacob and the others had.
Seeing the soldiers all get into the new rhythm, Jacob continued his previous train of thought.
When Jacob had learned about that other spaceship, he had dug through all of the research that the US had done on it, which had been extensive. Their main theory was that the craft was a crashed fighter.
There were a few glaring inconsistencies that even the scientists had picked up on that put that theory into question. The biggest was that the craft appeared to be unarmed.
A few of the older reports from the fifties and sixties suggested the small vessel could project energy directly from its hull, making weapons obsolete. Jacob knew that wasn’t true, but he could see why they might think that the case.
If not a military vessel, then what?
Jacob didn’t know. Maybe a small shuttle or unarmed scout? What was clear is that the ship didn’t get to Earth all by itself. The energy of a phase coil could have dispersed after such a long time, but some of the exotic elements used in their creation would have remained near the crash site or at least inside the ship. Since the scientists had not found anything like that outside of the material composition of the hull, it was safe to say the ship never had an FTL drive.
That might explain why there was no sign of the pilot. A second ship could have come down and retrieved them. That didn’t really explain why they were there in the first place, but Jacob left that mystery for now. Barry was pinging him.
He left an avatar in control of his drone and popped back to his apartment. “Yes?”
“I wanted to let you know that I’ve proceeded with the plan.”
Jacob sighed and plopped on the couch. “You really think Xing’che and her people are the key to figuring out your little mystery?”
“I don’t know if I would really call it a mystery anymore,” Barry replied, taking a seat in the recliner that appeared only a moment ago. “It’s pretty clear that the t’uk betrayed the Concord Imperium to bring about its destruction. I’m curious what their goals are?”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“And I’m more concerned with how this affects us now.”
“That too,” Barry admitted. “Judicator Ghrroaqq says that there have been quite a few rumors surrounding the t’uk, going back generations. Ships vanishing, supplies going missing under their watch, etc., etc. Most of those rumors have tapered off in recent decades as the t’uk have moved toward becoming a pillar of Astryx society.”
Jacob rubbed his face in frustration. “I really wish we didn’t have to rely on that asshole. How can you work with him?”
“I leave any emotional calculation out of the decision and just think of him like any other resource. Same with Adjunct Xing’che and Commander Zyn’vak.”
“Is that his name?” Jacob asked.
Barry nodded in confirmation.
“I still think you’re crazy for trusting her.”
“Who said I trusted her?” Barry said with a slight smile. “Xing’che is a manipulator, that’s clear as day. The fact that she cares for her people is also crystal clear. As long as we protect her people, she won’t turn against us.”
“For your sake, I hope you’re right,” Jacob replied. “Now that this plan you cooked up with the Judicator is in motion, what’s next?”
“Pardon the fishing analogy, but I think it’s fitting. We set the hook and tossed it in. Now, all we have to do is wait for a nibble and reel in the catch.”
“Keep me in the loop. I should be back at the station in another week. Are the devices and storage ready?”
“Yes. The neural scanners and data storage are prepared. Since they won’t require their entire consciousness to be loaded into storage as we did, their constructs should take up significantly less space. I erred on the side of caution and produced enough data cubes to house every single soldier’s full mind.”
Jacob nodded. “I would say that’s overkill, but we have four examples of where it’s not. Anything Else? I know I’ve been rather absent lately.”
“You’ll be glad to know that the station is now fully shielded.”
“What?” Jacob said in astonishment. “That should have taken years.”
“Using your approach, perhaps,” Barry said without malice, “but I spoke with one of the first merchants to arrive and managed to make a deal with them. They would bring a station scale shield generator, and we would sell them power cores at a twenty percent discount for a year. I don’t think I’ve seen someone shake hands so fast in my life.”
Jacob tilted his head in confusion and did the math. “That ship should still be travelling to its destination. How did it get a shield generator to us so quickly?”
“They reached out to a contact of theirs, who just so happened to have a unit from a decommissioned station. They were more than happy to finally get rid of it. Especially after what the merchant bought it for.”
“And that just worked?” Jacob asked in surprise.
“Not quite,” Barry admitted. “Station-sized shield generators aren’t like ship generators. They are massive for one thing. The one we received was easily a hundred meters long. Normally, they are attached to the outside of a station, much like what you were doing with the small ones, but after looking over the station’s schematics, we found a spot where we could cut through the station’s hull to insert the generator, protecting it from being targeted directly, while also avoiding damaging anything that is currently in use.”
Jacob winced at that. “What did you have to damage?”
“One of the transport tunnels. Thankfully, there is a bypass in that area, so people can still use the tram, once it’s up and running again.”
Jacob had known about the tram since shortly after arriving, but similar to the maintenance drones, those had been cannibalized by the station to keep other systems operational during its centuries of neglect.
“I guess that solves one issue,” he replied. “What are you doing with all the small shield generators I installed?”
“I would say leave them, since layered shields can’t hurt, but they are really quite poor compared to the generator aboard the Abyss Pearl. Since we have a schematic of that ship’s generators, I plan on slowly replacing them with the much better ones.”
“I’ll probably be quite busy integrating the people I’m bringing with, so the choice is yours.”
Jacob had turned over most of the station’s day-to-day operations to Barry, making him the Manager of Station Operations, while he and Katherine had decided to go after Franky on Earth. After the pair had helped him survive his encounter with Judicator Ghrroaqq, Jacob felt that he could trust him with that much responsibility. The fact that Barry seemed more annoyed by the additional responsibility also helped him feel good about the choice.
He offered the same option to Katherine, but she declined the offer. Technically, she had said “Fuck no!” Apparently, she had no real interest in the station unless it applied to firing its weapons. Jacob couldn’t just let her mope around, though. When the refugees arrived, he saw that as the perfect opportunity to get her involved before she drove herself mad.
Speaking of. “How is Katherine doing?”
“Good as far as I can tell,” Barry said. “You could always ask her if you’re curious.”
“Eh, maybe after I return. She seemed pretty unhappy after finishing whatever task she came with me to do.”
“I’ll keep that in mind if I interact with her,” Barry replied. “What about Franky?”
“A work in progress,” Jacob confirmed. “A lot of his memories are missing, either lost in the crash or damaged beyond repair. He’s still functional, if you can call it that. Until I patch some holes, he’s going to continue crashing and looping randomly. Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to realize that’s happening. I’ve talked with him a bit after getting the data cubes hooked back up. He recalls the crash, but nothing leading up to it or us. The further back his memories go, the fuzzier they get.”
“And you’re certain he isn’t just lying again?”
“Not entirely,” Jacob admitted. “I’ve checked the data integrity of each cube before reinstalling it; however, there is definitely degradation, even on the ones that weren’t damaged during the crash. I’m almost certain that the Franky we knew no longer exists.”
“What a disturbing thought,” Barry muttered.
Jacob had to agree.