Darkest before Dawn
by Warringer
Chapter One
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Michael Storski looked down upon the gray swirly marble that was Earth. It was hard to believe that it once had been a a green, blue, white and brown marble. Now the planet looked so much like a sphere made of granite, the thick clouds from the War and the Impact still hovering in the upper atmosphere of the planet.
Storski hadn't been born on Earth, rather he was one of the second generation Mars born. For him Mars was home. The endless red desserts that were even colder than the snowy lands of Earth. When he first had been on Earth, the white stuff covering everything had been something of a shock. To think that water would freeze solid and fall down to the surface and not just sublimate in the atmosphere had been a little problematic.
He looked to the side at Xian Wai, a good friend of his who came from Earth. He came from the area known as Hong Kong before the War, but he didn't look that much different from many other humans of this time and day. He had the same pale skin color, red eyes and white hair. Back before the War, he, and the rest of humanity, would have been called 'Albinos'.
Another side effect from the radioactivity, like the psionic abilities of about half of the human population. Others were the immunity to most forms of radiation, including Neutron radiation, or metal poisonings. Not to mention that mankind had a lower body temperature and were able to survive much lower temperatures than before the War. Hell, Storski could go out onto Mars just with a unheated skin suit.
He looked back at Earth. The population had risen to two billion down there, thanks to the cloning and other reproductive technologies introduced by the Senatrol Monoliths. Like Mars had gone from a few hundred colonists to well over a hundred million people living in caves below the surface in the last hundred years, ever since the launch of Pioneer. Or the large populations in the Asteroid Belt, the Jovian moons or Titan.
The Council had launched a massive compain to populate the solar system after the successful first mission of Pioneer to ensure the survival of humanity. Storski was one of those many who stood behind the Council on this one. Survival was one of the largest traits in the minds of humanity since the War and the Impact.
Storski sighed and shook his head. And now the Council thought that it was time to leave the solar system and spread humanity through the stars, making sure mankind would survive even of something destroyed the whole solar system. And he was the commander of the first ship that would leave the solar system, Pathfinder.
Pathfinder was a different design to Pioneer or the other vessels of the early years after Pioneers initial mission. She wasn't of the spheric shape, but more shaped like a mixture of a spearhead of ancient times and the lifting bodies used as shuttles these days. With a length of two kilometers it was larger than anything previously build by humanity.
Even through it was meant to be a peaceful exploration vessel, she was armed to the teeth with a wide array of weapons. Mankind may have made bad experiences with war and the War, the Council still wanted to make survival sure of Pathfinders survival with everything they had, even if it meant adding weapons to a space ship.
"Okay," Starski said," Its time to go."
Wai nodded.
"Yeah, the Council wants the launch in two hours. We should make ourselves presentable."
Starski chuckled a little. There wasn't something like a uniform in the Space Fleet. Just a single patch that was worn on the left chest and had everything needed to identify your rank and position on it. Presentable just meant that they would get some fresh clothes before heading to the commissioning ceremony.
"Lets go than."
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Space bend and twisted as a glowing white speck of light appeared right next to the large moon of Kotok, a system held by the Narn. The speck of light glowed brighter and for a short moment it was brighter than the planets sun. Than the speck of light transformed into the massive form of Pathfinder in a time that wasn't measurable.
The massive light gray hull of the ship shimmered in the light of the sun, showing of the sleek and flowing lines to everyone looking.
The sudden appearance of the large vessel, through unknown means, let the Narn patrols near the planet go into a state of near panic. No one had ever seen such a ship and no one knew how they had appeared. A number of heavy warships activated their drives and pushed towards the massive vessel with several gravos, weapons ready to shoot at the ship should it turn out to be a Centauri vessel.
On the bridge of Pathfinder Starski looked at the various status displays surrounding him. Next to him Wai looked at his screens.
"We lost about an hour," Wai said, speaking about one of the side effects of the Fold Drive," But nothing we can't compensate."
"Anything for an update of the 'loose list'?"
"Not enough, we need to make a few more jumps for that."
The Fold Drive was a jump drive that dematerialized the ship and rematerialized it at the target, but each jump needed time to traverse the distance between the originating and the target point in space. During the dematerialized phase, there was no time going on for the folded ship and its crew, so they lost the amount of time, the jump needed to be completed.
"Multiple contacts," the tactical officer said," Unknown configuration. Propulsion seems to be a form of ion drive. Energy production based on fusion reactors. No gravitic fields or other forms of force fields. EM signatures locked and saved."
Starski nodded and changed one of his screens to show an optical image of the ships in question.
The vessels were massive angular ships with a dark brown color and red stripes painted over the hull.
"Weapons?" he asked fearing the worst for a moment.
"Nothing our sensors can see, through we got a few EM signatures close to the bow and the wings."
Starski nodded.
"Okay, run the First Contact program on every radio frequency."
With that a complicated math based sequence started, something that had been created to communicate with an alien race.