Chapter 2

Dropship SLS Reliant

Nadir Jump Point

Star System Designate Omega 101

25 August 2785

The sixty nine meter spheroid dropship slowly drifted away relative to its parent carrier. The Reliant's Captain had given the order to undock from its collar, and it was slowly orienting itself for an in-system burn that would take it towards the alien construct. Theresa was strapped into the acceleration couch/commander's chair on the circular Bridge of her tiny ship, watching her crew do their pre-departure checklists with a gimlet eye. There would no screw-ups, slip ups or mistakes on this mission.

Her eyes drifted to the main holotank that showed a flat screen view of the slowly shrinking McKenna's Pride. Theresa always felt positively tiny, next to the Pride's monolithic bulk but it was a comforting presence, like a warm fuzzy blanket or a mother's arms. God help anyone who messed with her.

"Check lists complete, Captain, all systems go," Commander Jimmy Haynes, the Reliant's XO, reported from his own couch. "Launch window in one minute."

"Thank you, Commander. Did you tuck in our guests nice and tight?"

Jimmy grinned toothily, "Yes, ma'am."

Theresa laughed but then pinched her nose in weariness. She'd been studying the old Alliance Extra-terrestrial Intelligence Contact (ETIC ) Protocols non-stop since she had been given them and she still had three quarters of it to go. It was just so much theory and waffle that she had decided to just get her ship underway and study the rest on the four day journey there. If that wasn't enough there were the four 'experts' she had been assigned.

A mathematician to figure out the alien number system, a physicist to figure out their science, a biologist to determine on what basis the alien's body ticked or any danger they posed on that level to a human, and finally a psychologist to get into their heads and determine their motivations. That was the theory. The practice was entirely different.

There were very few dependants in the Task Force, as the General wanted as few of them as possible in the line of fire. So they had been temporarily transferred to other ships in the main Fleet. The only civilians in Omega 101 at present were those that had been forced to go with the mutineering ships, and they had not been happy about it, especially when the bastards had gone so low as to use them as shields and hostages when the writing of their defeat had been on the wall. It had been a messy and bloody business freeing them. Their mathematician, Michal Mays, was currently minus a right arm. It had been lost when a Marine had used a Mauser pulse laser rifle to hit the mutineer holding Mays as a shield.

Mays had been patched up and was currently awaiting surgery for a replacement cybernetic arm, which would eventually be replaced with a biological one. The Reliant, as an Intruder class, had well appointed medical facilities and the Reliant's Doc Ezekiel would even do the surgery en route, who was incidentally the assigned biology expert as well.

Their physicist on the other hand was…Theresa had no other words for it…an arrogant stuck up bitch who had one those condescending faces that you just wanted to slap, preferably punch. Lieutenant Jolene Mercer's parents had been Canopians, who had expected her to go into the family business. You only needed one look at Mercer's lithe, toned body to know what that business was; a pleasure circus. She on the other hand wanted to be a scientist, but of course, her parents would hear none of that. So she had taken the first dropship heading out of Canopus to enroll in the SLDF to pay her way to her Doctorate. This was what her personnel jacket said, anyway. What it didn't say was that in her opinion, if you didn't have at least a Degree in some sort of hard science, then you were not worth her time or attention at all. Theresa honestly didn't know how 'Doctor Mercer' had made it through the academy, let alone another ten years of service and research at the General Mechanics facility on Mars. The implication was there that she had done 'favors' for her superior officers, but something like that would've eventually come out…rumors like that were notorious, and it would take only one superior officer who didn't brook stuff that like for it all to come tumbling out of the closet.

Rounding off the ETIC Team was Doctor Randall Ingram. Theresa felt her heart go out to the poor man. He had bags under his eyes and looked positively haggard with an unshaven face and long scraggly hair. He was the only qualified psychologist currently in the Task Force and had been counseling civilians who had lost family members to the mutiny.

"We're in the window, Captain."

"Initiate."

The Reliant's Movem XL Fusion Torch drive system whined into life before she felt her g-suit and accell couch inflating and cushioning as the engines went into maximum rated thrust of three gravities. The spheroid ship began streaking away from the Nadir point, riding on a long trail of plasma thrust. Theresa suddenly weighed the equivalent of a hundred and eighty six kilograms, and like everyone else on the Reliant, she wasn't enjoying it. Such was the life of a naval combat officer in the Star League though. Thankfully, they only had to endure a minute of this before they would throttle back to one gravity of acceleration, then life for the humans on the ship would be as Mother Nature intended, with gravity pulling you down at nine point nine eight meters per second.

She let out a deep sigh of relief as the elephant that had been sitting on her vanished, her couch maneuvered itself into a more conventional position, perpendicular to the floor and she unstrapped herself before undoing her g-suit with another sigh of relief. Around her the crew was doing the same and stowing the suits in their proper designated places in a compartment within the couch.

"All right people, we're underway, I want all of you to study your respective parts of the ETIC protocols, until you're reciting it in your sleep. Understood?"

A chorus of "Yes, Captain," answered her.

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Flag Admiral's Quarters

SLS McKenna's Pride

Star System Designate Omega 101

27 August 2785

"Aaron, my friend, how are things in the Fleet?"

The face of General Aaron DeChavilier snorted on the screen. "In two words, incredulous and antsy."

Aleksandr frowned in confusion, "I can understand the former, but antsy?"

"They won't put it in an official request or report, but I can tell you that quite a few Captains and their crews want to see the construct with their own eyes. I even had one rather enthusiastic Captain who was about fifteen minutes away from jumping to you. I reprimanded him, but then he sent me a whole collection of classical science fiction literature, and suggested I pass it on to you. So that you, and I quote 'Knew the potential clusterfuck an alien contact could be.'"

Aleksandr chuckled. "Send it. It'll sure be a change from my usual bedtime reading."

Aaron tried to look casual but failed miserably. "So…have you guys got any new information on that monstrosity?"

He now laughed fully. "Admit it Aaron, you're just as eager to get your ass over here."

"Hence why Captain Wendenburg only got a reprimand, now don't keep me in suspense over here."

Aleksandr's smile faded, "I'm worried about whoever built this thing, Aaron. It's just been sitting there, no reaction to our presence at all. They either don't care about us or there's no one there and what we're looking at is a working artifact. Then there's the fact that it's Null Sig hasn't wavered one erg since our arrival."

"What? Where is all its heat going?"

Aleksandr shrugged. "Everyone is scratching their heads on that, we only have theories. The most frightening and likely explanation is that it's somehow either shunting the heat into Hyperspace and it's coming out somewhere else."

"Then that glowing blue orb…"

"No, that's not a continuous Hyperspace event," he shook his head, "our spectral analyzers read that as an energized solid mass of an element that our computers can't identify. We're not sure what its function is, current best guess, power source of some kind. We'll know more when Reliant arrives for a closer look."

"Damn, do you think we could try doing that Hyperspace heat trick? I mean, imagine if we just target any nearby planet with a warship's HPG and dump our waste heat through it…"

"It's a nice idea, but not something I'm going to try until I see a hundred successful experiments without…weird or catastrophic results. Hyperspace is not something to idly trifle with, my friend."

Aaron shuddered. "Indeed, Alek. Are you going to try to board it?"

"Only after exhausting other options at generating a response via radio."

"Well, good luck over there, Alek." Aaron sighed wistfully. "Anyway, how's Katyusha?"

"Worried as a mother should be and rather angry at me."

"You know you deserve it. Really Alek? Making Andrey pull the trigger on the Mauser at the executions?"

Aleksandr winced. "It was the only way for me to see if he had truly encouraged support for the mutiny. I looked into his eyes as he pulled the trigger."

"And given that I didn't see his name on the list of executed mutineers, I gather he passed your test."

"He did, and it makes me wonder who actually sent those messages from his terminal."

"So one of the mutineers either wanted to frame him to strike at you personally or someone else knew of the mutiny beforehand and saw it as an opportunity to discredit or even kill him."

Aleksandr slammed his fist down onto his desk in anger at the mere thought. "My friend, I truly appreciate your cunning mind, but there are times I don't like it."

"It's the most likely scenario, Alek. If it happens to be painful to hear, so be it. It's better than walking around ignorant that someone is trying to harm Andrey and might succeed the next time."

"Well does your mind have any idea as to the identity of this fiend?"

"Who has access to his terminal? If it was done by anyone remotely competent they haven't left any tracks in the ship's computer or in his quarters. Then the only choice is to get it from the horse's mouth, speak to Andrey or have Katyusha do it."

The thought of his wife questioning Andrey over this was unacceptable. Besides he knew what her answer would be to his request. Aleksandr wished he could spit on the grave of the Usurper again. It was that bastard Amaris who had taken his opportunity to raise Andrey away from him; he had been raised on the run and in hiding on Terra, during its occupation by Republic forces. Andrey had even fought the Usurper's troops as a member of a local resistance cell in Moscow when he was fifteen. Now he was nineteen and part of the Exodus Fleet, serving as a rookie soldier and training to be a Mechwarrior.

"Well, it seems I have a son I need to reconnect with, thanks for the talk, Aaron."

"It's what I'm here for, Alek. Try not to start a war with the little green men."

Aleksandr opened his mouth to retort, but Aaron cut the connection with a smirk before he could.

"Smart ass."

SLS Reliant

Star System Designate Omega 101

28 August 2785

The Reliant finished her deceleration burn just under a light second from contact with the alien construct. They had already started broadcasting the designated 'Hello' that was in the ITEC protocol, suitably updated of course, at a light month out. It was essentially a machine language based program that sent math and pictures that any space-faring alien civilization should be able to figure out. So far there had been no response at all on any frequency of the electromagnetic spectrum. There was still a slim hope that it would happen once communication could occur in real-time.

Theresa looked to her Com officer, "Anything, Antoinette?"

"Non," the Senior Lieutenant shook her head, keeping a finger on the small earbud that allowed her to listen to void outside directly. "Not a peep. It's just sitting there, still in full Null Sig."

"Anything new we can spot from this close, Jimmy?"

The XO was staring into the screens of his station rather intently. "I think so."

The holotank flared to life and showed the construct but zoomed in to focus on the perpendicular arms. Set in deep grooves, were what distinctly looked like rows of 'windows' lit in odd on and off patterns. There were more lit transparent dots on the other end in similar grooves.

"So it's possible they're in there."

"Yes, just seemingly uninterested in us at all. I mean we've been knocking on the door rather loudly. Also, take a look at this…" The holotank zoomed out and bright yellow pixels blossomed all around the construct in a dense halo. "That is space dust and other particulates that have been pulled in by the gravitational attraction of the construct."

"So? It's rather big."

Jimmy shook his head. "There's too much of it given its apparent mass. Even if that thing is made of a super-dense heavy element, which would be extremely difficult to forge and work with, it doesn't explain the volume of particulate mass we're seeing. This means that its gravitational field is…well, it doesn't make sense…its extremely strong, too strong. In fact, we're getting slowly pulled towards it."

Theresa frowned in worry, "Okay, intercept course, one gravity of acceleration only. Keep knocking."

Reliant orientated itself around with thrusters to aim its nose towards the construct, the drives flared to life again. Theresa felt gravity return, pushing her back into her seat, but her eyes were fixed on the real-time image of the construct, readying herself to snap out orders the instant it did anything other than sit there contently. After fifteen minutes of nothing, she relaxed slightly and sat back.

"We're on course, turnover in seventy five minutes," Jimmy reported.

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Firing Range 3

SLS McKenna's Pride

Star System Designate Omega 101

28 August 2785

Aleksandr entered the specially reinforced section meant to allow any Infantry division the Pride was carrying to keep their skills up to par. He had chosen the Eleventh to accompany the Task Force, and they had done a good job thus far. Oh, he could've chosen a Royal Infantry division, like the forty fourth, but it was perhaps long past time to lose that 'Royal' appellation. There was no more Cameron Dynasty.

He couldn't hear the deep thump of the Gauss rifles, thanks to the active sound cancellation earplugs, but he feel the resonance in his lungs of each shot an infantryman fired. Then there was the odd soldier with a Mauser 960 Laser Rifle. There was no report from these weapons, in fact, the only way you could tell something was happening at all, was merely looking at the targets as large holes were melted in them. He walked past the standard firing range, and moved onto the simulation range. It was a large area that could project a hologram of any target the range master wished, and it would move realistically. You could only use a simulated Mauser rifle here and it would merely fire a pointing laser, which the computer would register.

He watched as a tall, well built young man in full green army battle dress and armor held one such Mauser and rushed between simulated cover, whilst firing his laser at faceless opponents. Aleksandr could tell immediately that the soldier was anticipating his opponents. In the heat of the moment, he was firing the laser as if he was still holding a kinetic weapon. A soldier had to develop two sets of marksmanship in the SLDF, even a Mechwarrior had to do it, if his Mech had a mix of energy and kinetic weapons. A slug had travel time, a laser or particle beam was instantaneous.

The Sergeant and the rest of the platoon watching the exercise was so far unaware of Aleksandr's presence, as the area was darkened, but he felt the stirrings of fatherly pride at the soldier's fluidity and clear experience on display. He had learned well in the Moscow resistance. Less than four minutes later it was over, and a ghostly holographic score of sixty two percent appeared.

"Damn it!" the soldier ripped off his helmet and nearly slammed the Mauser into the deck from frustration.

"Private Kerensky!" snapped the Sergeant as the lights came on and the holograms vanished. "That is the property of the SLDF. That is your weapon in this battlefield. Simulated or not. You will respect it! Is that understood?"

Aleksandr was gratified to see that Andrey immediately snapped to attention. "Sir, yes sir! I apologize!"

The Sergeant nodded in acceptance. "Fall in!" Andrey hurried to join the platoon standing in line formation. "Who here can tell me what, Private Kerensky's problem is with a Mauser?" A soldier raised his hand. "Corporal?"

"Private Kerensky is fighting his own instinct and experience, Sir."

The Sergeant finally noticed Aleksandr standing to one side. "Exactly, Corporal. Private Kerensky lived through the hell-hole of Republic conquered Terra. He had to fight with whatever was on hand. He did not have the luxury to pick and choose his weapon. Private Kerensky, what was your weapon?"

"An old caseless AK, Sergeant."

"You fought Amaris' dogs with that? Hell, Private, I think you just graduated a level in bad ass in my book but I'm afraid we have to cut our session short, today. Platoon, attention!"

Aleksandr took that as his cue and walked into the line of sight of the men. Salutes came without needing any prompting from the Sergeant, which he returned. He nodded to the Sergeant.

"Thank you, Sergeant. The Eleventh has performed superbly thus far and whatever befalls us here, I'm sure that will only continue."

The men and a few women gave a 'Hoo-aah' of approval at the sentiment. Aleksandr smiled, "Now, a father wants to talk to his son, get."

"You heard the General, Platoon, dismissed," bellowed the Sergeant.

It was barely a few moments later that he relatively alone on the simulation range with his son. Andrey was still standing at attention. Aleksandr sighed, as a father and son relationship, it was terribly new, he had after all only met the boy for the first time a few months after the Liberation of Terra, and then came the frenetic preparation for the Exodus. Then the constant struggle to keep the Fleet together. Aleksandr wondered if he could count the number of hours he had spent with his estranged son on his hands.

"At ease, Andrey." The nineteen year old relaxed his shoulders and clasped his hands behind his back. "How have you been?"

"I've been…doing well…father. Sergeant Takashima is a harsh but fair NCO. He's also somewhat more patient than he should be."

Aleksandr nodded. "He understands that unlike a raw recruit, you have to unlearn some behaviors and instincts. It's not just because of your family name."

Andrey shrugged. "I still think he cuts me too much slack. He might even be doing it sub-consciously."

He didn't think his son would appreciate any further help from him on the matter, so he changed subjects,"Have you found a Mech you can live with yet?"

Andrey's eyes lit with a bit of excitement, losing the cool edge that had been in them. "I think so. That Altas II that Nicky likes is just too much of a slow poke for me. I, on the hand prefer the Exterminator."

Aleksandr felt his eyebrows shoot up at that little revelation. An Exterminator Battlemech was made for one purpose, killing the other enemy's commanders and destroying other command infrastructure, like mobile HQs and field bases. It did this by using an advanced Null Sig that would let it penetrate enemy lines undetected if the pilot did his job correctly. It probably also said something about his own experiences in Moscow.

"I've never asked you this, because it's…too painful to contemplate. How many…?"

Andrey suddenly got a look that had no right to be in a nineteen year old's eyes. "Nineteen, mostly NCOs, a few officers, even got a Captain that liked massacring a few civilians every day. He'd sit on top of the Republic HQ and use his modified Sniper Gauss. Pow, pow, pow. Only he got a bit too predictable. I took him out with an antique 30.06 hunting rifle from another rooftop, had to wait a whole day for that shot."

"I've always faced an enemy on the battlefield," Aleksandr sighed. "That kind of asymmetric guerilla warfare has never really been my cup of tea, though it has its uses."

A somewhat awkward silence settled on them. Aleksandr wanted nothing more than to say that he loved this person in front of him, but he couldn't. He was father, not dad. This young man was a stranger. He had to constantly push down stupid feelings of jealously when he saw the depths of Katyusha's relationship with Andrey. He vowed that he would do all in his power to change that.

"I just want to apologize to you."

Andrey seemed to shrink on himself and shook his head. "I was stupid and naïve, father."

Aleksandr raised an eyebrow at that. "You were not responsible, and I forced you…"

"Father," Andrey interrupted softly, "we're still relative strangers to one another. There was no way you could be certain about me in this aspect. I think the Exodus is the lesser of horrible choices. Of course it pains us to lose Terra, the Hegemony, to lose unity, but…the House Lords are probably at war with one another right now, fighting over the throne…we would've been caught in the middle surrounded on all sides, still exhausted from fighting Amaris and the Republic. We would've lost and Royal tech would have assuredly fallen into their hands."

"It…relieves me to hear you say that," Aleksandr took a deep breath. "I'll ask you this straight. Do you know who sent the seditious messages?"

Andrey closed his eyes. "I was stupid and naïve, father. Not anymore. All I'll answer is…my fingers did the sending, but I was tricked. You don't want to know who did the tricking. No good will come from it."

He had to mightily resist the urge to snap. Andrey was nineteen. What judge could he be of the greater good? But he had to start the relationship somewhere. "I'll accept that. I'll trust you to fight your own battles, and to come to me when you know you can't handle it alone. Whoever manipulated you, they'll try again. You're my son, and it is my duty to protect you as well."

"And I'll remind you of these words father, when that day comes."

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SLS Reliant

Star System Designate Omega 101

28 August 2785

The dropship now held station at five hundred kilometers from surface contact with the construct.

Theresa sighed, "Anything?"

Antoinette shook her head.

"This is getting really old."

"Seems like no one's home," Jimmy commented.

"They left the lights on then," she leant her arm on the edge of her chair, propping her head up with her fist. "Form follows function, so what is this thing's function?"

"Space station," suggested her weapon officer, Ren Juan.

"Usually you'd want a space station near a resource or planet," Theresa pointed out, "you'd also want to give your people a chance for shore leave. There's also the fact that we've yet to identify any hull access point. It's one solid piece as far as we can tell."

"So they really don't want visitors, they're content in there…or they were trapped in there…prisoners?" Jimmy hypothesized.

"It's a bit big and elaborate for that," Theresa shrugged, "we have no real way to judge a truly alien society, on what they would and wouldn't do. The thing does an aesthetic that you can appreciate though."

"Hmmm. Now that I look at it, what about a gun?" Ren Juan suggested, gesturing her finger towards the holotank and then demonstrating with her hands. "There's a gap between the arms to load a projectile and pass it through a magnetic field between them. Then there's that glowing area, which might be the energy source, the rotating rings are the emitters for a containment field. It's a Rail Gun."

"If that's the case, it's the Mother of All Guns," Jimmy opinioned. "Though it'd be a bitch to load a slug like that, and it doesn't look like the people inside can do it. There's nothing like an ammo feed mechanism. You'd have to actually steer one in with an attached engine."

"I think we're also forgetting that unnatural gravitational field," Theresa pointed out. "Could it be using gravity instead of electromagnetism?"

"True artificial gravity manipulation, Captain?" Ren Juan questioned incredulously. "That's like a sci-fi dream."

"We're dealing with aliens here Ren," Theresa glared significantly at her Weps, making air quotes to emphasize her point. "That is or was also a dream, I remind you. It could be some property of that unknown element between the rings."

"Wonder if that element is even found in nature? Or if it was synthesized," Jimmy mused.

"Well, our science has never discovered it, that we know of."

"It'd be so like the Hegemony to cover that up, if that was the case," Ren snorted.

"Hey, it might not have been that simple," Theresa shook her head. "Think about what true control of gravity would mean. If such a tech suppression happened, then the megacorps are just as likely to be culprits. It'd revolutionize aerospace and FTL, making quite a few systems obsolete; grav decks, long range drop ship engines, since now your jumpship can put itself directly orbit of a planet…no need for jump points anymore."

"Not to mention it makes mounting a defense extremely difficult if you enemy can just appear overhead with no warning," Jimmy pointed out. "Hey, to carry point further, if this thing is gigantic Rail gun…what's it's target? What was it meant to destroy?"

"Something this size?" Ren turned to her station making a few calculations. "Given a slug that can fit between the arms made of a nickel-iron, assuming we're talking about electromagnetics doing the pulling, this thing can conservatively render planets uninhabitable, or on the upper end of the scale, crack them into a mess of asteroids."

"Well, there's an asteroid belt in this system, and perhaps that was its weapon test."

"Build this monster just to take out one planet?" Ren shook her head. "It doesn't make sense. We're missing something."

"We're missing a lot of answers," Theresa shook her head, "and the only place we can get them is right there."

Jimmy looked apprehensive, "We're gonna board it, Captain? The fact that there are no access points are pretty much a 'stay out' sign if I ever saw one."

"I know," she nodded. "Even if we can't get in, we need samples of the hull, perhaps even see if we can't get some of that new element, there's must be some residue of it somewhere near the rings."

"If they're in there, I don't think they're going to appreciate us crawling all over their hull."

"We've given every opportunity for a response that's in the ITEC protocols. I think we're looking at an artifact."

"I hope you're right, Captain."

"So am I."

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Alien Construct

Star System Designate Omega 101

28 August 2785

Theresa doubled checked her suit's systems on the gauntlet interface on her arm. The SLDF Armored Vacuum Suit was a bright white like the ancient pressure suits of the twentieth century. It was much more comfortable and easier to move around in, thanks to the fact that it didn't use air pressure to keep your body together, but rather the suit itself exerted that pressure. This allowed the life support and control systems to consist of a much smaller backpack, barely thirty centimeters in length. The rugged soles of the boots could be magnetized and in the event of a non-ferrous surface, the small maneuvering jets stippled all over would keep her from shooting herself off into space with a step. This would luckily not be as easy as it would be on a normal space station, due to that weird gravity field. The only thing she hated about the suits was the fact, that as a woman, she had to place a special clay under her breasts to stop that area of her body from rather unpleasantly deforming to fill the natural voids created by the suit.

She looked at the others who would join her in the spacewalk. Two were the rather ominous forms of men from the Blackhearts Special Ops division in their vacuum rated Nighthawk Power Armor. One with a Mauser 960 and the other with a Gauss Rifle. Then there was the Deputy of the Reliant's Chief Engineer Kita Takuma, in his own bulkier conforming spacesuit with a larger backpack with compartments to store all a manner of vacuum rated tools. Then there was the ITEC team.

Jimmy's voice intruded into her helmet. "Captain, I really think you should've stayed on board."

"Captain's prerogative and the first rule of command, never order anyone to do something you haven't done yourself."

"You think we're gonna be doing this again in the future, Captain?"

"Call it a gut feeling, but yeah." She turned to her fellows. "All in the green?" They nodded, but she double checked Dr Ingram's suit just to be sure. She walked over to the controls and depressurized the airlock. Another push of a button and the thick exterior door opened to reveal the surface of the Alien construct looking like a flat metal horizon to their eyes. The size of the thing took on a whole new meaning when it was only a few meters away.

"All right boys and girls, our suit time is ticking, let's make the most of it."

Theresa stepped to the edge of the hatch and using a very light push from the upper edge of the airlock began a leisurely drift to the surface. Her heart was in her throat and she could hear her breathing resound within the helmet…and then her feet hit solid unyielding surface and her magnetized boots clamped down successfully.

"Jimmy, send a message to General Kerensky. We have set foot on the Alien Construct."

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