Ivan Kal - Sanctuary

Tomas looked down at her, he heard the conviction in her words, could see the intensity in her eyes, and there was something else there, something he had hoped to see for a long time.

“Alright, I will be what you want me to be.” Tomas said, a touch of her determination now creeping into his voice. Seo-yun smiled, she put her hands on his head and pulled him down. She kissed him lightly on the lips for barely a moment, and then she pulled back.

“I know you will.” She said, and then turned and left the cavern.

Tomas gazed after her until she turned a corner, then he turned his eyes to the crystal forest. He stood there for a time. He fished out the pendant, he pressed the button and the names of the three hundred and sixteen appeared, he gazed at them for a moment, and then turned it off, he pulled the chain off his neck and walked to one of the trees. He hanged the chain on one of the crystal tree branches, he would never forget those 316 names, but he no longer needed a reminder around his neck. He turned and started back. He had entered the cavern as a man weighed down by the mistakes of the past, he left as an Leader looking towards the future.

OES Traveler – Unknown system

The light from the star expanded outward. It traveled through the emptiness of space with nothing impending its path. It’s eventual destination was a planet five hundred light years away from its starting point. Until there was a flash. The fate of the photons was altered as they struck a silver metallic surface. They were scattered in billions of directions, never to reach that far away planet.

“Hyperspace transfer complete, Ship Master.” Ship Handler Jorge Nunez said.

“Good.” Ship Master Kisaragi Hana, of the Olympus Explorer Ship Traveler said.

She looked expectantly at the holographic table in front of her. The holo above was constantly updated, as the computers analyzed the light they were receiving. The center of the hologram was the Traveler, with the other objects in system just now becoming visible. The system was one of those that they had very little information on, as the Union ship just passed through it on its way to Earth, this system was one that the Union ship visited directly from the nebula. And any data on it was corrupted and lost. This system was between Sanctuary and Sol. Although it was still a lot closer to Sanctuary, being only 12 light years away. There was not much to do until the computer processed the full picture of the system and that would take a while. They were several light hours away from the star. A few minutes later the Sensor Handler George Smith exclaimed out loud. “What a hell?”

Ship Master Kisaragi was about to ask him what he meant when she noticed the latest update to the holo.

“Is this correct?” She asked.

“I believe it is Ship Master.” Sensor Handler said.

“Let’s go to yellow alert.” Ship Master Kisaragi said to her first officer, High Prime Rolland Ricks.

He immediately reached for his chair’s display and a moment later, yellow lights flashed five times on the floors of the ship, followed by five alert sounds. Meaning that the ship was now on yellow alert.

“Navigation prim the hyperdrive.” Ship Master Kisaragi said.

“I am getting a lot of comms, nothing targeted at us for now, only radio leakage.” Comm Handler said.

Ship Master Kisaragi nodded. That was a good thing, it suggested that they couldn’t see them yet, and will only see them after the light from the Travelers arrival reaches them.

This was why they were here. The hologram now showed the Traveler, and the fourth planet in the system. The planet was orbiting the system’s sun on an orbit that brought it above the sun’s plane. It was the method that the fleet decided to use, for ships to orient themselves inside the system. The suns plane was the plane that the sun was on, which was parallel to the galactic disk, the galactic plane. If the system was above the disk or below didn’t matter. No planet had an orbit that was exactly parallel to the galactic plane. All maneuvering inside a system used that system’s star as an orientation point. The Traveler was now around 5 light hours from the sun, about the average distance one could engage the hyperdrive. No system was the same. The fourth planet of the system was only a few light minutes from the sun, the light Traveler was getting, was just shy of 5 hours old. That meant that they could see the events as they happened five hours ago.

The hologram showed a settled planet, with a station in its orbit. And ships moving back and forth, a few were on a course that would bring them to the outer reaches of the system on the other side of the Travelers position.

“Niri, are those radio communications enough for you to start the translation of their language?” Kisaragi asked Niri the ship’s Ai.

“I can start, but a more direct communication would be preferable.” Niri said over the ship’s speakers.

“Start, we will see what they do when they notice us.” Kisaragi said.

“Very well, Ship Master.”

Few of the new ships that Olympus built were installed with an Ai. There wasn’t a lot of them to begin with, as they didn’t build more. Tomas Klein was hesitating. So they had only those that were built before they came to Sanctuary. Niri was one of the third generation of Ai’s the humans built. And as she passed all the test she was given a choice of what she wanted to do. No Ai of a lower generation than fourth identified themselves by gender, that was something that happened after. But they succumbed to a human tradition and let the humans assign one to them. It was easier for human beings to care for something that had a gender and a name. The decision to install Ai’s came from the battle between EWS Athena and Concordis ships, when the fifth generation Ai Iris calculated the targeting solution for Athena.

Traveler was equipped with state of the art translating software, and with Niri’s processing power they will be able to get a translation of the alien language much faster. It was an upgrade of the Union translating software. Provided to them by the ancient Ai found in the ship. Asumy had taught them a lot, after they set him free from his shackles and given him a human core as his new home.

Kisaragi spent the next 5 hours on the bridge watching the hologram. They remained in the same position they were in when they exited hyperspace, where they could engage their hyperdrive if they needed to. The aliens didn’t yet notice them, but should any moment now. Just as Kisaragi thought that it was time, she noticed a change. Two of the ships that were in a much higher orbit, moved and met up with the six ships in orbit close to the station. It wasn’t anything major, there were a lot of ships that constantly moved. But the way they fell into formation with the rest told her that those were not transport ships. Two more ships met up in a higher orbit of the planet. Kisaragi intentionally didn’t order any changes, they just sat and watched, expecting a communication. Which, if they contacted them immediately would arrive in another 5 hours. If they didn’t have faster than light communications. She left the bridge to take a three hour nap, then showered and ate. She figured that the next period would be interesting.

After the five hours passed, they got a direct laser comm from the station orbiting the planet. They had already adapted their software to recognize and convert alien transmissions. Niri did a great job, but they still didn’t have a working translation.

“This communication will speed up my progress Ship Master. I will have a full translation in a few hours.” Niri said.

“Alright then.” Kisaragi said. After they made sure that there were no ships near them and that there was no other danger, she allowed the ship to go back to green station, and the bridge shift took place. She went to her quarters and got some more sleep. She was woken up by Niri when she finished translating.