The Relay 314 Incident
Chapter 1: Lies
Men rise. Men fall. That is the truth of life, you can't go one minute without a reminder of your mortality. There are some who choose to fight it but this leads them down a path none should walk. There are some who accept it but this leads them down a path of despair.
The questions that are always asked in their last moments are always "Was it worth it?" or "Could I have done this differently?" these questions flowed through Elias's mind as the shot ripped through his chest, breaking his sternum open like it was made of glass, tearing his heart and lungs like they were soft paper and snipping his spine like it was a frayed piece of string. His body died in those moments but his mind lived on for a few precious seconds as the events of the past week flooded his mind, bringing with them a strong sense of regret.
"Elias?" the voice was muffled "Wake up you lazy git!" Elias felt a whack on the side of his arm.
"What?" he asked, his voice muffled by the soft, soft pillow.
"We're on." said Richard putting on his vest. Elias looked up to get his bearings, the room wobbled as his eyes adjusted to the artificial light of the ship, they produced no sound but he could feel the hum of the energy flow through them which gave the ship a sterile feel.
"How far out?" Elias asked as he tried to un-bury his head from his pillow, he was unsuccessful.
"We have two hours to before we get there and ten minutes to scan from orbit" Richard answered while buckling his boots, the clipping sound was annoying.
"Ten minute scan? Is this just a pass over?" a 'pass over' was a military term which basically meant to stop at a planet, scan for anything obvious and leave as quickly as possible. This only gives you the basic data such as size, density and atmosphere, while this did not yield important information such as metals but an in-depth scans took time and time costs fuel so the Alliance left that to the mining colonies to figure out.
"This is a fast drop, two teams of three. First drop will be a scout team consisting of Sergeant Merhadee and Corporals Blake and Tammy. The second team will be dropped in forty-five minutes after initial deployment, which consists of me, you and led up by Sergeant Roman." Elias had come dangerously close to falling back to sleep again but managed to lazily roll out of his bunk and onto his feet.
"Why two teams?" Elias asked as he tried to adjust his ID discs that had gotten tangled while he slept, the N4 symbol featured predominately on the back. His tags read; Elias John Everest with the serial number 174-45-8926, his blood type which was O RHD Negative and his religion which was Atheist. In reality Elias didn't know what he believed so he decided that he believed in nothing.
"We received a distress signal about two hours ago and were going to go see what the fuss is about."
The ships walls were a depressing sight, nothing but grey steel for miles in any direction broken up by the occasional orange safety warning. Elias missed the green of Sepulchre Prime, he missed his home. Sure there were many green planets in the Galaxy, and Elias had seen over a dozen in his 3 years of service, but none had that orange tinge in the air from the type K, Sub-giant sun that's so close to the planet you could almost touch it, none of them had that smell of copper on the wind from the metal rich soil and most notably none of them has his dad there. What Elias wouldn't give to go home for just a moment and hug his dad.
"What was in the signal?" asked Elias folding up his bunk and saying goodbye to his soft, soft pillow and putting thoughts of home out of his mind with a violent shake.
"You'll be briefed when we get to the bridge." answered Sergeant Roman as he stepped over casually. "Just know that the Major will be there so it must be something big. So get dressed we have ten minutes to get to the bridge and I would like to avoid any unpleasantness." Sergeant Roman headed of towards the bulkhead door but stopped and turned around as he reached it. "And guys?" Elias and Richard lifted their heads to face him. "We'll be suiting up so wear some comfortable pants." and on that note he left with a grin on his face.
"Does he really think he's funny?" asked Richard shaking his head slowly.
"Come on, let's go before tries again." joked Elias as he made his way to the bulkhead only to turn back because he forgot his left boot.
"Twat..." chuckled Richard who was waiting at the bulkhead for Elias.
They arrived at the bridge six minutes later dressed in their under shirts and trousers, Roman was waiting next to the door for them, leaning on it with crossed arms. "You ready?" he asked raising his head from the floor. You could see the dust mark where he was kicking the floor while he was waiting, Roman wasn't exactly a patient man so if you were late he would let you know and he wouldn't be quiet about it.
"Wouldn't be here otherwise." answered Richard with a cocky smile to which Roman replied with a frown.
"Let's go then." Roman used his shoulders to push himself off the wall and he entered the bridge followed by Richard and Elias walking with their backs straight and shoulders level like they had been taught.
The bridge was practically empty at this time of artificial night. Only the pilots, navigators and the Major were there. They approached the Major who was stood around the holo-table going through files on his PDA. "Major Harrow." stated Roman as they stood to attention and saluted.
Major Harrow looked up from his PDA with a blank look on his face, almost like he wasn't actually there. "At ease." he grumbled, obviously tired.
Major Harrow wasn't an old man but wasn't young either, he was promoted through valour rather than experience, you could see in his cold blue eyes that he had seen more than one man should in one lifetime. A man of his rank should be aboard a warship instead of an exploration frigate, he must have been put here because didn't want to fight any more or he angered the wrong person, either way, this type of position wasn't suitable for a man of his rank.
His hair was brown or black, you couldn't tell because he was practically bald and the scar on his eye was a more drawing feature. A ship crashed a few hundred meters near where his squad was stationed back when the governments of earth still fought each other, and some debris was flung into his face scaring him from the right side of his nose to the left side of his eye, the scar wasn't overtly grotesque but it was noticeable.
"We just have to wait for the second…." the other group entered the bridge at a brisk walking pace, fully aware of the fact that they were late.
"What took you so long?" asked Roman, aggressively.
"Blake over here couldn't find his bloody boot." answered Tammy shoving him through the door.
"I'm guessing he found it?" joked Richard donning his trademark grin that made him look like the Joker.
"Only after mine found his arse." answered Merhadee with a chuckle, Merhadee was a Sergeant like Roman but she wasn't stuck up about it, a fair and firm lady, she was respected by her peers and her superiors alike. Something Roman could only dream of. "Major Harrow." stated Merhadee with a salute changing her light tone for a serious one.
"At ease." He commanded annoyed at the fact that he has to keep saying it. "Round the table." ordered the Major disposing with the pleasantries. They all waltzed over to a round table that appears to be made of glass with a camera in the centre that lit up on approach. "Mission log 13, Major Harrow reporting a search and possible rescue op on the..." Harrow checks the date on his PDA. "...21st of March 2157. The responding units are: Alright, introduce your soldiers Roman." commanded Major Harrow. The introduction was for the mission dossier which had to be recorded before every mission, protocols like this were tiring and arduous but necessary when it came to the cost of military funds.
Roman cleared his throat. "Major." he acknowledges with a nod. "These are Corporals Alex Richard and Elias Everest. Sir." they saluted. Richard's salute was lazy with his elbow pointing down rather than out.
"Pleasure." said the Major. "And Merhadee?" he gestured with his hand.
She stood at attention. "These are Corporals Arron Blake and Tabatha Cartwright."
"Tabby for short." stated Tabatha. Major Harrow gazed at Tabatha with an unimpressed look. "Uhh, Sir!" Major Harrow returned his gaze to the table followed by a heavy sigh.
"Watson, can you load up the signal."
"Momentarily." answered the ships AI. The sips AI was modelled after the character from the Sherlock Holmes books, they would've had the Sherlock model, but the Kilimanjaro beat them to it.
"You've been gathered here to investigate this signal." informed Harrow as he closed the recording. "Play." the signal was in a video format but it was corrupted with all that was coming through being static broken up by the occasional word. "…found somet…ndergroun…arkable…investi…" Roman took a step back folding his arms. "That's not much to go on sir."
"Wait for it." requested Major Harrow holding up his hand. "...eed help…thing afte…" each word was muffled by energy weapon fire. "…outnumbered…hey seem to…unli…anything we….een before…OOK OU…" the video was cut off by the sound of an explosion. "Shit…" exasperated Elias as he leaned onto the table. "You sure this is a job for us sir? I mean this looks like a job for a warship rather than a frigate." he asked.
The Major nodded in agreement. "I passed it up the chain and they told me that this has to be dealt with now before they sent me this." the Major tapped the PDA and passed the file to the holo-table but hovered over the play button. "Before I show you this you must know that night-fall is now in effect, any information contained in this file is classified top-secret and any of you were to divulge even a shred of this data, it will lead to your incarceration and possible execution. Do you understand?"
Richard leaned on the holo-table, the plastic polymer frame felt cold on his skin. "Hold up, I thought the death penalty is illegal across all Alliance planets?"
This was true, when the Alliance became the first galactic power back in 2149 CE they abolished the death penalty due to population issues on smaller planets, opting instead for exile over death as those people could still have children which could come home. Incarceration was also a rare punishment as the cost to keep a prisoner these days was almost the same as a new fighter.
"This data is above top secret, as it stands only less than two hundred people know the contents of this file, after us it'll be two hundred and seven."
Roman gestured towards the pilots. "What about them?" the Major tapped on the holo-table twice.
"Watson. Bring down the partition; password entry will follow via manual input." Major Harrow brought up the keypad and typed in his password, the rest couldn't see what he was doing as it was only visible from his point of view but Elias counted 34 taps which was a long password to remember.
"Night-fall partition activated. Welcome Major Jake Harrow." responded a female VI. The floor around the table split apart and created a wall around them all with the holo-table being the only source of light in the blackness.
"Didn't know the ship could do that." commented Blake as he tapped the wall a few times.
"What this is, is a vacuum created by separating the two walls of the flooring that were just brought up by venting the centre into space which, combined with the standard signal blocking tech, should stop all signals, human or electronic, from entering or leaving, this is 100% secure. Well 99.9% secure at least."
"What's so important that we needed to practically vent ourselves into space?" asked Elias slightly agitated. Elias hated the fact that he was separated from space by a single panel, he hated space in general and would rather be somewhere with a natural atmosphere. Somewhere where he wouldn't freeze to death in an instant if his eyes didn't pop out first, people have told his that it is almost instantaneous but that didn't really help. Major Harrow slid his finger across the holo-table and tapped three times in varying locations to which the table responded with a beep.
"Night-fall protocol is in effect. File 87251.6 cleared for viewing. Please state your names and ranks." requested the VI, the voice was soothing as opposed to Watson's uppity tone.
"Major Jake Harrow, initiating the authorised view of sensitive materials." the VI took a few seconds to respond.
"Confirmed." All present must state name and rank."
"Sergeant Renwald Roman."
"Renwald?" chuckled Richard. Roman glared at him again gritting his teeth.
"Confirmed."
Merhadee cleared her throat. "Sergeant India Merhadee." the AI took a while to respond.
"Sergeant India Merhady is an unrecognised name please try again."
Merhadee shook her head and sighed. "Bloody fucking machines." she muttered under her breath "Sergeant India Mer…had…ee." she said slower this time round.
"Confirmed." Richard chuckled quietly but was cut off when Merhadee thumped him. "Ow...sorry."
"Corporal Arron Blake." came the next name.
"Confirmed."
"Corporal Tabatha Cartwright." the VI had to think about that one.
"Confirmed."
Elias leaned forward, the holo-table illuminating his face. "Corporal Elias Everest."
"Confirmed."
"Corporal Alex Richard." the computer beeped in response. "What did I do?"
"Alex Richard is deemed untrustworthy from reports and is denied access, any and all information given to this person must be from an override command."
"Fucking what?" questioned Richard his smile disappearing. Major Harrow leaned forward breathing a frustrated sigh.
"Fucking hell Alex what did you do to warrant that?" demanded Harrow.
"I may have...uhh...accidentally crashed a shuttle into a military stronghold back on earth..." Richard rubbed the back of his neck.
"You are a major dickhead, do you know that?" added Elias.
"Major Dick Head is not a registered System Alliance member, please try again." responded the VI which was too much for Richard, he released a loud guffaw which would have descended into a full on laugh if Meradee didn't elbow him in the stomach.
"Ow...you're so violent..." he wheezed.
"Override lock on Alex Richard, priority access 104. Authority Major Jake Harrow, end naming input." Major Harrow shot a death stare at Richard who was trying to catch his breath.
"Confirmed. File 87251.6 will now be displayed." the screen flickered up from the table so all could see. It showed an old man with balding white hair and a freckled face in what appeared to be a red cave.
"This is researcher Pierre Molique on planet...489745, dubbed Gamma 5 or as I like to call it 'too fucking hot'. There is so much to talk about so I won't waste time." the researcher looked away as if someone was talking to him. "Anyway…" he picked up the camera and walked over to the other side of the room talking while he did so. "The artefact that was found isn't from a life that existed solely on this planet but another space faring species, with these artefacts turning up on several planets. Even Earth." the researcher stopped and turned the camera towards the Artefact and to the surprise of the group it appeared to be active, pulsating a level purple and blue light and was in the shape of a giant deep red box. It was somehow very transfixing.
"As you can see this artefact is quite active despite its advanced age, we don't know the exact age because we don't want to damage it with invasive test but initial tests of this…uh…let's call it a temple, puts it over 15 thousand years old but the device seems to be even older than that though, making it the oldest one we've found so far. As most people know by now that the 'Protheans' existed 50 thousand years ago and vanished but I don't believe that they were the only race around at the time. Judging by the design it doesn't look Prothean, in fact it looks…wrong…some...how..."
The researcher started to day dream again but shook himself out of it before returning to the camera. "The device seems to lower the concentration of people around it somehow, we can't detect any signals but there is something coming out of this that we can't see, only feel. The energy this gives off though is astronomical, nearly ten-times more than even our largest dreadnaught the SSV Kilimanjaro. If we could harness this energy, we could power a ship for centuries, hell you could supply an entire planet for a hundred years. The researcher looked at the device as if he was in deep thought. "Oh...uh, End recording."
Alex was about to speak but the recoding carried on. "Head Scientist Doctor Shoester here and we've made a discovery beyond anything we have ever seen!" Shoester had an American accent as opposed to Milique's French dialect. "We've found out what the device was powering, and it turns out to be some sort of archive or at least some machinery hidden under the 'temple' which is centuries ahead of anything we have ever seen. Though similar to the Prothean archive on Mars, the data here seems to be focused on what seems to be a religious purge of some sorts. These archives also differ from Mars with the interface there is no keyboard or voice input but when you touch the cylinders your mind is flooded with images that hurt to recall but you can see them in the corner of your eye, it's positively fascinating but also quite maddening. The Protheans must have had some telepathic ability. This is an astounding find!"
The recording stopped for a few seconds before starting up again. "This just gets better and better! It appears we aren't the first ones here, our researchers have discovered bodies of an unknown origin in deeper sections of the temple. At first we thought we were seeing remains of Protheans but these bodies appear to be 1 thousand years old which is remarkable, these are not natives to the planet either, their equipment seems to be similar to ours in the way they use Prothean tech but their understanding is better than ours by a significant margin. Their bodies appear to be bi pedal like us with what appears to be a metal skeleton, or at least partially whether this is through evolution or self-implicated is unknown but what they do have is a lot of weapons, and bullet holes to match. It appears that there was battle here but only one set of bodies so either they fought each other or they were wiped out by a superior group it's impossible to know for sure after the state of decay these weapons have gone through. What we can take from this though is both exciting and disturbing. There is now a very high probability that there are actual aliens floating around out here alive, unless they too have vanished in the space of a thousand years which is unlikely. I can't wait for tomorrow!" the recording finally ended, the room was filled with a silence so quiet you could hear the hair growing on their heads.
"Wow…" said Richard, unable to find his words which was a first.
"That scientist was the one who sent the signal. The nearest warship is days away so we've been tasked to find the artefact and the scientists and bring them aboard the ship, if the artefact can't be moved we have orders to wait here for reinforcements 'no matter what' is that understood?" informed Harrow.
"I'm sorry, but is no one going to address what we just saw?" asked Elias with a pale look on his face.
"What is there to talk about?" said Major Harrow answering a question with a question.
"Well I don't know, let's start with the fact that there 'may' be life other than us floating around with weapons like ours and this is the first anyone hears about it. And not only that, but these artefacts have turned up on Earth and less than a hundred people know about this! How and why?"
"The how is a bullet and the why is above our paygrade." answered the Major.
"Our paygrade?" asked Blake raising an eyebrow at Harrow.
"Yes! It's above mine as well. The only reason why we know is because we have to." Elias turned his head away grunting as he did so. "Look, do you think I like being in the dark as well?" asked Harrow defensively.
Sergeant Roman swiped his hand across the table in a lazy but thoughtful manner. "And what happens after we're finished here? I'm pretty sure a secret like this will be left with us for long, especially major dickhead over there. And then what? We'll be dead."
The Major nodded and pressed the eject button and entered the number seven onto the holo-table. "We have insurance." he said as a set of old fashioned data drives were ejected from the holo-table that were akin to the old USB drives used in the twenty-first century. "Here is seven copies of that file one for each of us, when you get the chance, make copies of these copies and copies of those copies and keep them hidden and tell only trustworthy people where they are but no matter what, don't tell each other. I will make sure that the brass knows that we are intent to keep living after this mission or their secret will become less secret." the atmosphere of the room got tense, they were not only committing treason they were trying to bribe the army they chose to live and die for just so they could live and not die, for a secret that could change how people viewed the galaxy. Their ideals thrown out of the airlock when put to the test. Elias would feel ashamed but he didn't care anymore, today he learned that the people he put his faith in to keep people safe has lied to them about something like this for no visible reason.
There may be life out there. His mind was thrown back to a quote he heard from school. "Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying." From Arthur C. Clarke, this never sank in until now.
He reached out his hand with a slight tremble and took the drive before the partition was dropped. They all looked at each other, each with a deadly secret in their hands. They nodded and headed towards the armament deck.