A New Space Age.
President Santiago watched as his unexpected guest sat opposite him in his office while the remote camera drones gently flew around the room. The two men were not alone. Standing next to him like a sentinel was his Vice President. Although Santiago doubted strongly their guest was not going to attack them, the doors were two armed guards, and seated around the desk were a handful of senators, officials, and Space-Fleet officers.
The man's name was Benjamin Avery. He was apparently the inventor of a form of teleportation or something along those lines that was more powerful than anything held up in current theories. He had given his name and a quick explanation to the expedition commander sent to establish the colony before he had given the Space-Fleet crews a rundown on what he had constructed.
When Space-Fleet and the Senate realised what Avery could do they had instantly put him on board a ship, and sent him back to Earth for questioning. Some within the Senate, for reasons which made little in the way of common sense for Santiago, wanted to arrest the man, or at least detain him so they could understand how the technology he'd created worked.
But Santiago had quickly overruled them and he had arranged for the scientist's safe passage to Earth. It worried him so many people would go that far, to those lengths…
He understood many wanted the gap between them and the Minbari shortened just as he knew only too well how many people wanted a rematch against the Minbari. Santiago didn't particularly want a war since it would not bring back their loved ones, but he agreed they needed to become stronger to prevent another potential war of genocide from happening again.
Warp drive and the Underspace had saved humanity; without them, the human race was vulnerable from an attack from space and considering the stories they were getting from monitoring Narn communications, it was more and more important for Earth to rebuild and become an interstellar power.
The Narn were in the process of building up their military. They were sending probes and mining squads deeper into space and they were constructing ever larger numbers of warships. War was coming, and considering how close the annexed systems were to Earth itself the importance of getting as many people out into the galaxy and away from the potential wars to come could not be underestimated. More and more programs for constructing weapons and finding ways of defending the planets were being activated, or the ones that existed already were receiving more funds and minds to bring it all out.
But ever since the Earth-Minbari war had ended, Elizabeth Levy who had managed to retain her hold on power before, during and after the Minbari occupation and had risen to become a brilliant leader, had ordered the creation of any kind of technology capable of making the human race almost invincible.
Warp drive was one of those technologies.
But there were others.
There was even a plan for the construction of an android army, and other machines for the defence of the human race. A more radical scientist had considered the possibilities of a cybernetic exoskeleton equipped with powerful weapons and defences to protect the human operator and essentially make a human army more invincible, and it had been put into effect under Santiago's predecessor.
Elizabeth Levy The prototypes had been finished and were currently being tested, but it would be a long time before they were put on any front line war. There was a plan to have them put into action soon, but Santiago had no idea what that plan was. Santiago wasn't entirely sure what to think about the cyborg battle suit program.
On the one hand, he thought it was taking warfare in an extreme direction, especially when he learnt a large amount of the work since Earth still lacked some of the technologies needed to make the battle suits work seamlessly with the human body, but unfortunately, scientists and surgeons had to amputate and remove limbs and replace them with cybernetic counterparts. It was gruesome, and Santiago hated it, but he could not stop it since the Weapons division would not allow it, and there were many soldiers who'd been crippled by the Minbari who would want nothing more than to settle the score.
But Avery's work…
"Tell us more about yourself, Mr Avery," Santiago said. "What is that device you were found with?" The president added.
Avery looked down at his hands and thought about how to give the simplest reply to 4 generations of work. He and his family had known that they'd received this kind of scrutiny from the off, but they hadn't expected to suddenly work in this darker world. "The story of the capsule goes back a long way. My great-grandfather had never liked the way we just accepted jump gate technology from the Centauri, with all the benefits and the issues that go with it. He found the idea of alternate dimensions fascinating, but he was angry we would never potentially discover a means of travelling to another galaxy within our generation. So he began experiments to see if we could somehow modify jump gate technology and make it capable of travel between systems without beacons, without the possibility of getting lost… just use some kind of method of using hyperspace to get from place to place and make travel instantaneous."
"So he started work on the capsule technology and it's been perfected ever since?" Santiago clarified.
"To a point, yes. He took a good long look at the jump gate technology, and he studied it. My grandfather was an astrophysicist, Mr President, but one of his specialities was quantum mechanics. While he spent years studying the jump gates, he eventually realised that we didn't have the scientific knowledge or the means to twist jump gates the way he wished."
"So what did he do?" Santiago turned to Clark, who'd just spoken.
Avery sighed. "He didn't give up. My great grandfather was not the type of scientist who gave up. He believed every problem had a solution, it was just a case of finding one, or even two. He eventually concluded if we couldn't travel faster-than-light in our reality, then we would have to focus on doing it in a parallel universe."
"What?!" Santiago closed his eyes at Clark's disbelief; even after everything they had discovered within the last twenty years, he had trouble believing in stuff like that.
Avery ignored the interruption. "The technology of the capsule is straightforward enough; instead of jumping into hyperspace, the capsule accesses a reality where teleportation is commonplace." There was more to it than that, but of course, Avery had no real desire to let them know. These people in the President's office embodied the environment of Earth right about now, and while he liked the fact Earth was moving on he did not want them knowing too much. "There's a scientific theory called the many-worlds theory, where there are parallel universes with slightly different conditions. The capsule my family constructed has proven beyond all doubt there are realities out there where faster-than-light travel is commonplace, because of how the laws of that reality have evolved."
"And your grandfather developed this technology?"
"That's right."
"Why didn't he come forward? Why the secrecy?"
Avery sighed. "It took my great-grandfather 15 years to successfully experiment and perfect the technology to the level he felt it needed to be."
"Just 15 years? Again, why the secrecy?"
"Just 15 years. You have to bear in mind that thanks to the Centauri, it had become relatively easy for the work to begin, but he needed to iron out the quantum variables and work on his theories. As for why the secrecy….," Avery looked down at his hands. "Someone came close to killing him and destroying his work."
"Why would somebody do that?" Santiago raised a hand to silence anyone from speaking over him.
Avery shook his head. "I haven't got a clue. The story has been passed down through the family, and it's part of the reason why we have never told anyone about the work we're doing. My great-grandfather took a recording showing us what happened, and believe me it's frightening. The guy who tried to commit the deed was ranting about how my great-grandfather going "against the path of Order and Obedience," and it was blind luck he was able to get out of the lab with his papers. But ever since that day, we've been working on the capsule bit by bit."
"What happened to this would-be assassin?" Clark asked.
"My great-grandfather was forced to kill him. It's something that haunted him for years. He tried to reason with the assassin but nothing worked. He even tried to learn more about what he meant about the path of Order and Obedience, but the assassin refused to bite. In the end, the assassin tried to plant some kind of bomb while he tied my great-grandfather up after getting the better of him."
"It obviously didn't work if your capsule succeeded," one of the Space-fleet officers pointed out.
"No," Avery agreed grimly. "My great-granddad found a way out, and he threw the bomb at the assassin."
"Just like that?" Clark's voice was ringed with scepticism, something Avery did not hesitate to call him out on.
"Just like that," Avery repeated sharply, deciding he didn't like Clark that much. "After that, well, understandably he kept his work quiet and he passed it on to later generations. We've been keeping it quiet ever since."
Santiago wasn't sure what to make of the story. It sounded plausible, yes, he would give it that, but why would anyone do something like this? The trail had likely gone cold for any kind of investigation, but could there be something there, somewhere? "Didn't your family try to find out more about the assassin?"
"Several times. Don't think for one moment that it didn't occur to us to find out more. My great-grandfather searched the man. He found no ID on him. He even broke into a police station and hacked the system to find out if he was known, but there wasn't anything."
"He hacked the system?" Clark repeated.
"How else was he meant to find out the details? He even hired several separate private investigators and gave them enough details about the assassin, but there was nothing. It was as if the man had never existed, he had just appeared out of nowhere, like a ghost. When my great-grandad's investigations went nowhere, he eventually gave up. But he kept vigilant and he always made sure to keep his work divided so if anyone did try to destroy it, he would have a backup copy."
"It must have been tough, going through all that secrecy," Santiago commented. "I can't imagine or understand how your family coped."
"We almost didn't," Avery thought about the trials his family had gone through. Privately he knew his great grandfather could have revealed this more advanced form of faster-than-light travel which was effortlessly superior to hyperspace or even warp travel long ago, had whoever had tried to interfere hadn't.
At the time his great-grandfather had planned on revealing the first designs to the world and let humanity use it all and refine it as time passed. But after the attack, his great-grandfather had changed his views. He had passed on the responsibility of refining the technology and the science to the next generation.
For years they had worked on the technology as modern science moved on, and they simply adapted the transmat to accommodate the new technology.
None of it had been easy, of course - on the one hand, they'd needed to miniaturise it all and make it more energy-efficient, faster, build in safeguards to prevent tampering. The list went on and on.
"Please, tell us more about the technology."
"Sure, what do you want to know?"
"How fast can this transmat go?" Santiago sat back and let Avery answer the questions from the Space Fleet officials.
"There's no limit. My family have been testing the technology for decades, and we've managed to send off probes to other points in the galaxy which IPX reached over a period of months, rather than seconds. Our first distance experiment was a test that would send a probe straight to one of the asteroids outside our system. It got there in a second, stayed on the asteroid for an hour taking pictures and analysis of radiation, and then it jumped to Mars in a second before making a return to Earth. Other experiments were just as simple since we sent the probes from one colonised planet after another, and then used those early tests as a template to go even further out," Avery replied.
"Have you made new tests?" Clark asked.
Avery was silent for a few moments as he tried to think of the best way to respond to that question. "One or two. I learnt about the capsule from my dad after the occupation. He died following several vicious beatings at the hands of the Minbari warriors," Avery clenched his fists at the memory of his father's shattered body, all at the hands of those filthy animals who claimed they were enlightened, civilised, "and he told me about the capsule. I've been going over it ever since. And now I'm giving it to Earth. There's a huge amount we can do with this technology. No more starships, although I can't see there being anything wrong with some ships being built so we don't put all our eggs into one basket. We can just send out capsules and use them to land on planets, survey them quickly, and send colonists to them if they're habitable."
The Space Fleet officials shared a look. All of them had been IPX and Earthforce people in the past before the occupation made them form just one organisation, but none of them was stupid. It took time, even with warp drive and Underspace it took time for them to travel through from one system to another. Avery's points were compelling, especially now they could jump from one system to the next without the need for space ships.
That was the most attractive thing about this.
If they had a teleportation device that would allow them to travel from one system to the next, from one galaxy to the next, it would make other forms of FTL travel obsolete, including warp technology.
One of the Space Fleet officials had that in mind when she leaned forwards. "Mr Avery, you said your family had created this transmat technology to allow rapid travel. How do you see it being used with our current methods?"
"I've been thinking about that for some time, to be honest," Avery admitted. "While the teleportation technology of the transmat operates under a different principle to the warp drive, and is much faster and more efficient, I originally thought we should abandon research into warp drive even if it helped us."
"You said 'originally.' What changed?"
"I saw new maps of the Underspace. New scientific discoveries made because of warp technology. We would never have gained that knowledge without experimentation. Look at how we see space travel right now; we are not reliant on just one form of star travel; even as we speak, there are ongoing programs aimed at devising more FTL technologies. Why? Because we almost lost our freedom when the Minbari took hyperspace from us. I think we should have ships or something like that which not only travel with transmat but with warp technology, with up to date maps of Underspace compiled in its databanks," Avery explained.
X
Talon struggled to get comfortable in the seat of his fighter as he travelled on his patrol to the newly annexed system of the Narn Regime. The new technology acquired from the wreckage of Minbari war cruisers had swiftly made its way into the production lines of the fighters, but Talon didn't like the new design. It was shaped like a typical heavy fighter, but its rudimentary gravimetric engines fluctuated continuously and it had strange effects on Talon's body and made him feel sick as he felt partly weightless one moment before he felt the effects of the artificial gravity.
The new fighters had only just made their way out into the field, but they were still being experimented on. Talon still could not work out why the Minbari would be so effortlessly stupid to just leave their technology lying around. It was asking for trouble, and the Narn Regime was merely one of the first races to plunder the technology left behind following their war with the humans. Talon sighed silently as he thought about the war which had nearly wiped out an entire species, to say nothing of how similar the Minbari occupation of the human's homeworld was similar to that of the Centauri occupation of Narn.
Talon was distracted from his thoughts when suddenly the instruments detected something. Leaning forwards, the Narn pilot frowned thoughtfully as he studied them before his eyes widened. Something was in front of him, and it becoming clearer with every second. He looked up, and his eyes widened.
A shape was appearing in the empty black void of space. The effect was rather like one of those 'magic' drawing books where a pencil rubbed against an apparently blank page produces a picture.
However, this was no illusion.
In front of him, a strangely shaped ship loomed over his small fighter. The sensor array of his fighter detected an energy spike, and with reflexes born out of fighting the trench warfare that was the war of liberation on his world, Talon transmitted an enhanced tachyon pulse as he tried to outfly the alien ship. But it didn't work, and as his cockpit exploded all around him, the Narn's last thoughts were for his family.