SYSTEM: EDEN’S END

  DATE: 2404

  “Is there anything you can do?” Krieger asked over the comm.

  The Asgardian and BSE fleets had pulled back after the destruction of Skarn. While no lives were lost in that attack, that didn’t mean they were winning. Krieger’s plan to keep the enemy’s breakaway fleets occupied to hopefully stall the advance of the Shican armada had worked, for a time.

  Unfortunately, the Grand Commander was a much more aggressive leader.

  “I’m working on it,” Alexander replied, “but the ships are still a week away from completion. Can you stall the enemy a bit longer?”

  “I don’t know,” the man admitted. “We know they are heading toward Ulfrheim and should arrive in a few hours. We aren’t going to be able to beat them there, but we should arrive in time to slow them down.”

  Alexander nodded and turned to Katalynn, who was still giving him a funny look. She had been made aware of his transition by Krieger and the data packets, but this was the first chance he had to speak with her in person since returning, due to her fleet being on comm blackout.

  “Is there something on my face?” he asked, trying to break the tension.

  It worked, but instead of taking it as the joke he intended, her face soured at the flippant question. “This is no time for jokes, Jarl Kane.”

  He nodded slightly. It had been so long since interacting with her that he had forgotten how she was. “My apologies, but you looked disturbed by my appearance, and I figured it was better to get that issue out of the way before proceeding.”

  She actually paused for a moment before nodding in return. “Perhaps you are correct. I find this new version of you disturbing.”

  That statement caught Alexander off guard. “May I ask why?”

  “Because it’s not real. Much like the Loki Order, you wear a mask.”

  He didn’t much like being compared to the Order, so he decided to correct her. “That is not true. While I can change my form if needed, I don’t ever plan on doing so. What you see is who I am, not some persona I’m putting on to trick people.”

  “We shall see. I will let your actions prove the merits of that statement,” she eventually replied.

  Trust but verify, he understood.

  “How is the evacuation of Ulfrheim going?” Alexander asked, changing the subject.

  “Slow,” she admitted. “Ulfrheim has a far larger population compared to Skarn. We are also short on transport vessels, since most were used to evacuate Skarn, and those vessels have not reached their destination yet. It doesn’t help that the system’s Jarl, Jarl Brynja Thaldis, was killed by Harlow’s fleet either. Jarl Stenvarr was a good replacement for Thaldis, but he is young and inexperienced. His fleet is also the smallest of all the Jarls, mostly due to the destruction of the capital and orbital infrastructure at Shalheim by Harlow. With the Loss of Skarn, Ulfrheim is the last of Stenvarr’s holdings that remain untouched. I would very much like to ensure the planet’s survival, as that would make Stenvarr a steadfast ally to my cause, but I can’t in good conscience risk the fleet to do so.”

  Even during war, politics reared its ugly head.

  “What if I could reduce the risk?” Alexander asked.

  “If you have a solution, I’m all ears.”

  Alexander laid out his plan. It boiled down to converting a portion of the plates aboard each ship into zero-G plates. With so many plates being useless now that the Collective was actively disabling them, they should be able to find enough to use for his plans.

  “Will that even work?” Krieger asked. “I know your new friends recorded the data on the BSE fleet’s gravity plating before we departed, but how will he do that for the Asgardian ships?”

  “Rush said it was possible, but he will need to work with your engineers to design and build a device onboard that can record the plate’s information. Once that’s done, we can move on to fixing the other plates. Your people will also need to add some minor modifications to the zero-G plates so they are in the most optimal spots on the ship.”

  Katalynn sat back in her chair and pondered Alexander’s plan. Then she shook her head. “While I think the idea has merit, we don’t have enough time to implement it before the Shican arrive. I need my engineers focused on their duties. We will do what we can, but the moment the enemy appears, we will be abandoning this system.”

  Alexander wanted to argue his case, but Katalynn logged off the call.

  He cursed. “Krieger, can you convince her to change her mind? If we hold out a bit longer, that’s more people we can save.”

  Krieger’s jaw tensed before replying. “I don’t think I could, nor should I try.”

  “What! Why?”

  “Katalynn is right, Alex. Even if your changes would ensure the enemy couldn’t trap us in a gravity field, we are vastly outnumbered. Katalynn’s fleet is larger than the BSE one by nearly three times, but most of those are frigates and older destroyers. Less than a quarter of her ships have the upgraded energized armor. Even if her entire fleet had it, she would not be able to hold up for long against the Shican armada’s main force.”

  “But people are going to die,” he argued.

  “This is war, Alex. People are going to die no matter what we do. We will do our best to reduce those losses, but until something drastically changes, or the enemy pulls back, hit and run tactics and evacuations are the best we can do.”

  Alexander knew Krieger was right, but it didn’t make him feel any better about it.

  “Do what you can, please.”

  Krieger nodded and ended the call, leaving Alexander to stare at the wall behind the holo screen.

  He didn’t sulk for long. While they had declined to implement his plan, Krieger was right about one thing: something had to change, or the enemy was going to continue decimating planets.

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  His comm pinged, and when he read the message from Lucas, he smiled for the first time since the meeting began. The prototype Nova drive was ready for testing. If everything went well, he might just have an answer to Krieger’s problem.

  ***

  “I really wish you had put this thing on a piloted craft,” Branston grumbled as he looked over the drive. “It feels almost wrong to have it tested by a computer—no offense intended,” he quickly added.

  Alexander chuckled. “None taken. And I totally get what you’re saying, but this thing is so experimental that anything could happen. We aren’t even risking testing it in the system. It will be jumping to interstellar space for the first few short tests. Once we know it won’t cause some unseen disaster, we’ll go from there.”

  “Fair enough,” Branston sighed, “but I still get the first flight test when you install it on a piloted craft.”

  “Obviously,” Alexander replied.

  The man nodded happily at that. “Everything seems to be in order on the ship. Should we return to the Stingray?”

  Alexander nodded, and soon the pair was strapped into the flight seats aboard the gunship.

  “I’m surprised Lucas didn’t demand to come along,” Branston laughed as he checked the ship’s flight controls.

  “He did, but when I told him the second seat was already occupied, he eventually relented.”

  Branston turned to him and frowned. “Not that I don’t enjoy flying you around, Alex, but why didn’t you just operate the Stingray? I know you have more than enough qualifications to do so.”

  “Everything I say from here until the end of the trip is beyond top-secret, are we clear?”

  Branston’s face turned serious before he nodded.

  “I trust Lucas, but he tends to get overly excited about some things and likes to discuss them amongst his people, who all have top-secret clearance. Most of the time, that’s fine, but there is a project we are going to visit, one that needs to stay completely secret. I am the only person who knows about this project and its location, and now you will as well. All flight data from the Stingray and Shark will be modified to protect that location. You are not to mention our true objective or what you see in the recordings.”

  “Are you sure you should even be taking me then?”

  “I had to fill the seat, or Lucas would not have stopped asking. I’m sorry for having to burden you with this information, but I trust you.”

  “I—Thank you for trusting me. Can I ask what’s out there?”

  “Hopefully, something that will end the war,” Alexander replied quietly.

  Shortly after their little chat, both ships jumped out of Unokane and headed to the first of the testing sites.

  A series of small comm-satellites were left near the test vessel, while the Stingray moved to a point a light hour away.

  Once everything was in place, Alexander called Lucas. “We’re ready for the initial test.”

  “I still think I should have come along,” the man grumbled as he sent the command to the vessel to initiate the drive.

  “I know, but you’ll get your chance when the first crewed ship is outfitted with the Nova drive.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Test sequence sent, and the ship is showing green lights across the board. It should be transit—and it's done. That was faster than we predicted.”

  Alexander had been monitoring the fist-sized satellites near the jump point, so he got to watch the whole thing happen in real time. It looked like a rope of energy unspooled from the front of the corvette, and with it, space. The only other indication of it working was the same shivering violet vortex that the gates had. Unlike the gates, the energy of the drive yanked the vessel forward as soon as it was activated. It plunged into the portal only a fraction of a second after it fully opened, and the portal snapped closed a fraction of a second after it fully passed into the spinning disk of energy.

  “Is it supposed to do that?” Branston asked. “Looks like a bit too close of a shave if you ask me.”

  It certainly did appear that there was no room for error. “Yes. It’s using the same emitters that a warp field uses. The drive creates the initial connection, and as the vessel approaches the portal, the modified emitters exert greater force to open it. If the emitters failed, you might have a problem, but you would have to be inside the portal for any damage to occur. Otherwise, the portal would just snap closed before the ship entered. It’s one of the concessions I had to make to reduce the power requirements to a reasonable degree. It’s perfectly safe, though.”

  Branston didn’t look convinced.

  Alexander didn’t blame the man. If he had access to a more powerful reactor, the acceleration problem would have been significantly reduced. Not enough to avoid using the pods for people, but enough to reduce the stress on the ship as they passed through.

  Speaking of stress, Lucas chimed in with the ship data. “We have a few yellow indicators coming from the ship, Alex, but it seems to be at the correct coordinates. We did lose visual and long-range sensors for some reason.”

  “I’ll check it out,” Alexander responded before giving Branston a nod to jump to the ship.

  Branston didn’t comment, but he did nod minutely in understanding.

  The rest of the short-range tests went fine, but for some odd reason, Alexander wasn’t able to fix the sensor issues, much to the annoyance of Lucas and the teams back on Eden’s End.

  “Are you sure you want to continue without fixing the issues that are popping up?” Lucas asked for the fifth time. “First, the sensors and now the comm node aboard the ship are offline. Seems like a power coupling issue.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Alexander replied. “All of the short-range tests went off without a hitch.”

  Lucas scratched his head and shrugged. “It’s your call, but I would have brought it back for inspection before continuing.”

  “Look at it this way,” Alexander chuckled. “If it fails, you can say I told you so.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” Lucas chuckled in return.

  If there had been any actual issues, Alexander would have certainly returned to port to make repairs, but the ‘issues’ were only in the software that reported back to Eden’s End. The Stingray was receiving full telemetry and visuals from the corvette and still had an active comm connection.

  “Initiating the next jump test.”

  Unlike the sub-light-minute tests, the portal for the four-light-year test took more than a second to form. It was also far more energy efficient than the short jumps. He forwarded that data to Lucas, while the other data was scrubbed as the ship launched itself through the portal.

  The Stingray didn’t follow, but it was receiving visual data through the comm. Branston did a good job of hiding his shock.

  The vessel had come out less than a light-second from the construction yard Alexander had built. It wasn’t nearly as large as the yard orbiting Eden’s End, but it was large enough to see even before the corvette’s sensors zoomed in at his command.

  There were over a dozen vessels under construction, most far from completion. It was not easy getting materials out to a secret station.

  Alexander could see Branston was burning to ask a question, but he gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head, and the man sighed quietly and looked away. Everything looked to be on track, and he forwarded his updated schematics through the corvette’s comm connection. Once the data was sent, the ship jumped away.

  “Oh, hey, the sensors and comm are back online!” Lucas said happily.

  Alexander relaxed internally. He hated having to lie about the problem and what he was doing. “Hmm, must have been something knocked loose during the transits. How is the rest of the ship faring?”

  “The stress gauges are still showing yellow, but some systems are starting to edge toward orange. I don’t think the vessel has many more jumps in it.”

  They always knew that was going to happen. The Shark was a stripped-down variant, without weapons or the energized armor.

  “It only needs to survive two more,” Alexander replied.

  They had planned on slowly pushing the drive’s jump range, but if it was going to fail, they needed to see what its true limits were. First up was the sixty-light-year test. Technically, it was fifty-six light-years from the vessel’s current location, but close enough.

  The drive spooled up, and the portal took nearly a minute to form before the ship was pulled through.

  They had done it. The Shark was now orbiting the outskirts of the unnamed system, having crossed a distance greater than the expanse of the entire STO in one jump.

  “Can we name it Lund’s Star?” Lucas asked.

  Alexander couldn’t think of a better name to honor the woman who made it all possible.

  There were no habitable planets in the lonely system, so it wouldn’t draw anyone to it, but that fit Lund’s personality perfectly. It also fit his purposes. The name might draw questions once the star charts were updated, but nobody was going to fly forty light-years for a small red dwarf star, a tiny rocky planet, and a few asteroids. The lack of a gas giant was not exactly ideal for his gravity bomb needs, but he would figure something out.

  As always, thanks for reading! And thanks for the support! If you enjoy the story, please rate it and comment below!

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