Chapter 681 681 Search Plan
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Once the group gathering broke up, Max returned to his office as planned but called for Nico to join him so that they could plan their course of action in advance.
"So, what are we starting with? I've got news from home. The rest of the planets have been verified clear of human habitation, so the Reaver Council has cleared us to cleanse them and terraform them for future use. The other ships can do that from orbit without risking anything, so it's being taken care of as we speak.
Or it will be taken care of as soon as they finish what they're working on.
I can't find the source of the transmission that the Envoys are concerned about, though. It looks like it's a portable transmitter, and it's turned off right now." She informed him as soon as she entered the room.
"That's good. I'm sure the captains will appreciate the extra share of the reward for being the ones to cleanse the planets. What we need is a way off this ship to search for the source of the Klem infestation while the Android Army takes care of everything here.
But we need it to look like at least I am still here leading the troops so that nobody gets the idea that we might be able to track the path of the infestation back to its source."
"I can make an Android that will pose as you. But someone would have to be putting in the orders on your behalf." Nico suggested.
"Major Miller. He's aboard Terminus, and he's got the experience to lead a battle. If we have him pose as me and issue the orders on my behalf while we're gone, the Android can go about my daily routine. We will just cancel all public meetings and have them remain in my offices, with some public appearances for the show.
We can tell the Envoys and hold meetings by holographic projection while we're away. They will just have to all be moved to secure locations and not end in public appearances."
Nico tapped a rhythm on the table while she considered the possibilities.
"We can have it take the public transit from your quarters to the secure meeting floor. That way, anyone who is searching for you will see you moving around, but you'll still be unavailable to most people, the same as you are now.
Everyone knows that you're too busy for even more meetings, so they report to their managers, and the managers send reports to you but know not to bother you directly unless it's extremely urgent. It's their job to take care of their department, and you're more of the CEO who guides policy and doesn't micromanage."
That sounded about right. He responded to messages about the ship's operations twice daily most of the time, and everyone was used to that schedule, so he could do it from anywhere. It was only an exceptional circumstance that would require a personal meeting with him unless it was a ranking politician, and he had to do it himself.
"Alright, we will get ahold of Miller and get him up to speed on what we're planning here on the surface. The tactics will be familiar to him, and he can improvise as he goes. With the Klem mostly gathered around cities, the first part of the operation will be easy anyhow, as long as the cities aren't breached." Max agreed.
Max sent out the message, and Miller responded right away, eager to have something more to do than supervise the training of his soldiers. The troops that would be leading the units this time would be from Absolution, so the Mecha Pilots aboard Terminus were simply on standby mode and unlikely to need to do anything in the near future since the ship wasn't scheduled to depart from its docking bay in the world ship for over a month after the week-long break from the Academy ended.
It didn't take him long to get to the office, where Nico had everything pulled up on a data table and a hologram, so he could see exactly what they were planning.
"This place is pretty luxurious. You know, I used to think that the Senior Officers' apartments aboard Terminus were nice, but this is something else, and it's just your office." The former Major laughed.
"You have no idea. There's a full spa through those doors, staffed by androids, as well as a sauna, various herbal baths, including a simulated natural hot spring, a private gym, a running track, virtual reality pods, a Mecha trainer, and a relaxation room, in case you didn't want to go all the way back to your apartment after your shift." Max joked.
"Seriously?"
Nico nodded. "Everything that a commander could need is right here, including a separate power supply, in case of attack or power outage aboard the ship. It serves much like an isolated safe room for Command Staff. There are actually four apartments here, but none of them are in use since it's not far from our actual apartment here on the World Ship."
"If that's the case, I don't mind hanging out here for a while. How long will you be gone?" Miller agreed.
"One week. Whatever we find, we will come back in one week before the battle on the surface is over. If we're not here to make public announcements at that time, it will become clear to whoever is sending messages to an outside force that something is off, so we can't miss it.
We will be heading out right away since there are a number of corporate shuttles departing Absolution this afternoon, headed for the core world's region. We will just join them through the portal and then make our secondary jumps from there." Max informed him.
"That works. But what will you even take for a ship?" Miller asked.
"Fear not. I have prepared for that. Generation 5 of the Morphable Hull is ready now, and I have it ready for our journey. Just a few more things to load, and we can go. It's much larger than the previous versions, so it can pose as a pleasure yacht or small military vessel instead of a shuttle, but it shares the same shape-changing outer hull design." Nico explained.
"What needs to be loaded? I can get someone on it." Miller suggested.
"Cleansing Light and Shattered Pride."
Chapter 682 682 Up To Speed
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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Major Miller smiled when he heard the names of their personal Mecha. "So, I take it you'll be loading them yourselves then. Who else knows that this operation is happening? I need to know who else I can work with while you're gone."
pαndα---noνɐ1,сoМ "We will inform Admiral Penner before we go. She makes most of the ship-wide announcements anyhow, and it wouldn't be right to leave her out of the loop. She can be a bit intense, but she's trustworthy." Max informed him.
"I believe that. That woman is a bit scary, but she's definitely trustworthy. With the two of us aware, we should be able to manage the crews for a week. Should I set up a scheduled time for daily meetings with the Envoys? That way, you know when they'll need to meet with you?" Miller asked.
"I have their favourite drinks programmed as a single item in the replicator. Envoy beverage platter is the title on the entry. You can bring them here in the mornings and let them work in peace since this area of the ship isn't accessible to the public. They can come after breakfast and stay the morning. Nobody would question it since I've been spending half the day in meetings with them already." Max agreed.
"That works. If you want to inform them, we can just work their actual meeting with you into the schedule. Where will you be relaying your messages through?" Miller asked.
Nico smiled at him. "Rae 5 Moon Base. I'm in contact with them daily, anyhow, since I collaborate with Uncle Lu on so many projects. Adding the data stream from our ship to the daily link with the Research Department will be completely undetectable unless they manage to crack our encryption, which shouldn't be a concern now that we've updated it with the help of the Hunters."
"How did you manage that? The Hunters are supposed to be hard to get anything out of, according to the Alliance sorts I've been talking to." Miller asked.
"We have a special connection. I actually traded it for the killing blow rights to three Behemoths of different patterns, though." Nico smirked.
"So that's how it is. You were hunting with them, and it helped the hunt, so they made it easy on you." Miller realized.
"Exactly. It's a lot like working with the Canis. They are much kinder when you're willing to participate in activities that they are interested in." Nico agreed.
"Speaking of that, we are expecting our first little Canis in not too long. One of the men that joined our team has gotten his girlfriend from the Cruise Ship hospitality department pregnant, and according to the doctors, it's all going well. I was talking to him at the pub the other night." Miller informed them.
"We will have to set up something special for the day. Book the happy couple a nice celebration dinner for whenever they choose or something, and get them moved early into a family suite, if they haven't already applied." Max suggested.
"They've already applied, and the paperwork is processing. We just had to make sure that they were actually together and not just a casual hookup that would be a disaster living together." Miller chuckled.
There were more than a few of those on any large ship, so it was a valid concern. Moving them in together as soon as you heard the news could be a disaster in the making. Max recalled one from when he was a child, and the Kepler Terminus bureaucracy had sent a celebratory message and the paperwork for application to move into a family residence to a man who already had a wife and kids.
His mistress had put him on the birth certificate, and given the age gap, the bureaucrats had assumed that it was the child of his son. They didn't know that his son was already living with his boyfriend in the family home, and the resulting fight had been the talk of the neighbourhood for weeks.
"Well, we can call Terminus a proper Colony Ship then. You can't be a real colony ship without the children of the staff living on board, after all. When are you planning to add to them?" Max asked with a wink for his former logistics officer.
"Not that soon. I'm not a family sort of person, but you know." Miller shrugged.
"Fair enough. We will head out right away if you don't need to grab anything from Terminus before you lock yourself in here and pretend to be me for a week?" Max asked.
"No, I'm good. I can make whatever I like in here since I'm using your energy allocation." Miller laughed, then leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands behind his head.
Max could sense that the man didn't actually have any big desires and knew he wouldn't have anywhere to put them anyhow, so the threat of using up Max's allocation was no real threat, even if Max didn't have basically unlimited use of the ship's resources.
Max sent out an explanation of the situation to Admiral Penner so that she would be up on the situation, as well as Admiral Drake, so he would know that Major Miller was aboard Absolution for the week since the officer was so involved in the ship's logistics.
It wasn't, strictly speaking, his responsibility, but he couldn't stop himself from at least reviewing the logistics reports from the ship.
Once they confirmed that they understood and wouldn't do anything to give away the fact that Miller was covering for Max, Nico issued an order to the Androids to load up the two custom Mecha into the ship they were taking and remotely reconfigured the hull design to replicate a generic Alliance Corporate Yacht.
There were over sixty of them aboard Terminus right now, all very similar in hull design and docked in many different spots all around the ship. They also left on a regular basis, going back and forth to larger ships or returning to their home planets now that they were in Alliance territory and the vessels could make it home in a matter of days without using a Portal.
"Be safe, and let us know if things get dangerous here. We can portal, so we can be back in under a minute during an emergency. It would actually be faster than having us go to our Mecha from our offices here aboard Absolution, so don't worry about the scouting mission. Just call us if there is a threat to our security." Nico informed the interim Commander.
"Understood. I know you're always up for a good battle, so I won't let you down."
Chapter 683 683 Stowaway
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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Nico led Max to the hangar next to where Cleansing Light was usually stored and stepped in front of the scanner to unlock the door. There was no keypad, and no retinal scanner, so this room could only be accessed by someone who could hack it without a keyboard or touchscreen.
It was a nice touch, and the interior of the room was even more impressive than he had expected. It was a construction bay, and every surface was lined with Terraforming Devices to create a full 3D array out of the bay. That way, they could create nearly any object inside this space in a matter of hours, including this ship, which currently looked like a large government research ship with a cargo storage bay at the back.
It was just as plain and inconspicuous as any other design they could have picked, but it would also remain that way as they travelled since research ships could be found in every corner of the Universe, looking into random things for no apparent reason except a study that had been commissioned Galaxies away by someone who likely didn't even know that the spot the ship was in existed before they began the project.
"Hop in, and we can get going. I've got us on the schedule to depart in five minutes as a Government Vessel with the Callsign IX42." Nico informed him.
That would make the ship an Innu-built experimental design and would greatly decrease the number of people willing to ask questions about their presence.
Not because of some super-secret classification or out of respect but simply because it was virtually impossible to get an Innu to stop talking about their newest project once you asked them about it. Many Alliance species were very conscious about being rude to others, and it left them learning random facts about Innu developments for hours at a time before the researcher realized that the target of their lesson actually had other things to do.
[IX42, you are clear to depart. The Portal will be closing in two minutes.] Admiral Penner informed them on behalf of the Envoy vessel that had opened this Portal to bring other Government vessels through.
[Copy that, Admiral. Departing now.]
Nico guided the ship out of the bay while Max looked over the specifications on the computer terminal, so he would know what they had to work with should the ship come under threat while they were searching for traces of the origin of the Klem infestation.
The Portal closed behind them, and Nico moved the ship to a smooth sublight speed exit from the busy port region around the planet they had arrived beside, preparing the ship to go to Warp speed.
A strong sense of amusement, like a wordless giggle, startled Max enough that he looked around to see what was going on. There shouldn't be anyone else in his mental range, and he could hear Nico's thoughts as she prepared the ship for its journey.
"We have a stowaway." He whispered to her before she could engage the Warp drive.
"Hmm, so we do. Give me a moment, and I will deal with it." She agreed and removed the plasma pistol from her waistband.
Nico headed for the upper floor of the ship, where the crew quarters were, and Max sensed panic a second later, then fear and nothing. She must have found and dealt with their stowaway.
But when she came down the stairs with a smile on her face, she wasn't alone. There was an Innu child in her hand, passed out from terror.
"She hacked the door and was exploring the ship when we entered. It's actually impressive. Even most adult Innu wouldn't be able to get that door open in under four hours. She took under a minute before the code reset." Nico informed him.
"So, whose child have we stolen?" Max asked.
"Annabelle of the Research and Development department. If I recall correctly, she is on shift right now. This is Annabelle Junior, who should be in school. I suspect that if we check the records, there will be a masterfully altered transmission excusing her for a sick day." Nico replied.
"Well, we can't just keep her." Max reminded the little cyborg.
"We can't go back and return her either. It would be entirely too suspicious." Nico countered.
That left him with a conundrum. He had Nico and a tiny Nico, who also enjoyed hacking security locks and ending up in places she wasn't supposed to be, aboard the ship for a critical mission. It was too far to open a precision Portal without a main portal open, and if they lingered any longer in the shipping lanes, they would become a nuisance.
"Inform her mother that the little one is in trouble but safe, and inform the school that she is on extended sick leave." He decided.
eαglesnovel`c,om "Sounds good. Done and done. I will strap her in here. Watch her once she wakes up, the seatbelt is computer locked, and she will have to hack it to get out of the chair. I think you'll be impressed with her skills if she isn't too frightened to try to run." Nico laughed as she locked the child into a security chair, intended for combat situations when the gravity control might go offline.
Nico took the ship to warp and left the system, headed for a nearby nebula, where it would make sense for a Research Vessel to be studying some sort of phenomenon. From there, they would wait a while to see if they were being followed and then Portal away closer to their destination.
They wouldn't go directly there but to one of the spots where they suspected that the Klem might have originated, an asteroid field a half dozen stars away from the first infested planet. From there, they would try to trace any signs of the Klem's passing, as well as any ship signatures in the region, and see what they could come up with.
If the same ship appeared at more than one possible location, it would be a solid clue, and if they had time, they would try to trace its route and see where all it had gone, hoping to find another clue.
Chapter 684 684 Homework
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Their tiny stowaway woke up from her shock-induced nap a few minutes after they went to Warp and immediately panicked, flailing about in her seat, attempting to escape, before realizing that Nico had locked her in with an electronic lock and not a physical latch.
She noticed Max before she tried to pick the lock, though, and began to apologize immediately.
"Commander Keres. I'm really sorry, I am. I just heard that there was a new ship design in the bay, and everyone was busy today on other projects, and there shouldn't have been anyone here, and I didn't know that you were coming to inspect it." She blurted out in one extended breath.
"Inspect it? We're halfway across the Alliance Galaxies right now on a research mission. Don't worry, we told your mother that we have you in custody, so she won't worry that you've gone missing for the next week." He informed the little girl, who promptly passed out again.
"You're good at that. She knows to fear me, but you only needed a few words to overload her brain." Nico laughed.
"It could take some time to tell the whole story if I'm going to tell it one sentence at a time." Max sighed.
This time, the girl was up much more quickly but too frightened to move.
Max smiled at her. "I was serious about the Research Mission, you know. We don't have time to drop you back off at Absolution, so we will keep you with us for the week. I'm sure Nico needs a research assistant."
"Is this a reward? Or is it a punishment? I'm not sure how to respond to that statement." Annabelle answered.
"Both. Welcome to our happy fun trip. Where we go search for signs of the origins of the Klem infestations within the Alliance." Nico informed her.
"So, not new technology?" she asked hopefully.
"Nope. Nothing new here except the ship, and you've already started to explore that. Instead, you will get to spend many hours analyzing data on Warp signatures and organic protein samples that may belong to the Klem or might just be random bits left on the surface of asteroids by centuries-old shipwrecks."
The little one was definitely not happy about that, but there wasn't anything she could do to escape her punishment. Nico could have locked her up in a cell since breaking into a secure hangar in a secure area of the ship was actually a rather serious crime. Data Analysis might be mental torture for a hyperactive Innu child, but it was better than solitary confinement.
Well, most of the time. If this were a ship without provisions for Innu, she could still access the ship's computer while in isolation, but the cells that she had passed by were completely isolated by an alloy that blocked her mental senses and cut her off from the technology around her.
[You're not really going to rely on a middle schooler to analyze data are you?] Max asked Nico silently.
[Of course not. But I am going to grade her homework when she finishes and then make her redo all the parts that she got wrong.]
That was just evil, knowing how much the small girl hated sitting in a chair and analyzing data, but it was an effective punishment. After this incident, she would think long and hard about doing anything that would lead to a situation where she might be caught doing something wrong by Nico again.
"Alright, I will let you out of your chair, and you can come here and look over our course. We're about ten minutes away from our first stop. What can you tell me about it?" Nico asked.
"Um, asteroid field, primarily iron-based, high carbon content, unattached to any solar system. It appears to have been partially mined in the early days before Replicator usage was widespread?" Annabelle answered.
eaglesnovɐ1,сoМ "Not too bad. We are in the sensor range now. Would you like to analyze from a data tablet or a console station?" Nico asked.
"TABLET. Sorry, I would like a tablet. Please, Lead Researcher Nico," the girl begged.
"Here you go. The first hundred points of analysis are on your tablet. Inform me when you are done, and I will check your work."
Max took a seat at one of the stations and started checking for Warp signatures in the area. Further out, there were quite a few, but this close to the Asteroid field, there were barely any at all, as it was too close for the default safety settings on the freighters which frequented the region.
Other than their own, Max only found a half dozen other signatures, none of them particularly recent, but the furthest back that he could trace them with the sensors on this ship was three months.
That was more than enough to go back to when the ship would have had to be here to set the Klem pods in motion, so he recorded everything that he could find and then sent a mining probe out into the field as cover for their presence.
It wasn't looking for ore composition, which would be the expected search for a company looking to reduce their energy consumption by removing molecular fusion from the creation of their Iron parts, but for specific organic compounds which the Klem pods would leave behind when they touched a solid surface.
Nico was doing a similar search for other compounds and energy signatures using the ship's sensors, and the cockpit of the ship fell into a comfortable silence, broken only by the occasional sobbing of Annabelle as she looked over the number of questions she had completed and mentally calculated the number remaining and the time it would take her at the current rate to complete this one assignment.
"You're thinking too hard. Just work through the questions and ignore the clock. In fact, it's best if you just turn off the clock on your tablet since Nico isn't going to let you stop until you're done. You're not at school, so there will be no saved by the bell, and Nico only needs to eat once a month, so you'll have to rely on my meal schedule to get yourself a break." Max informed her.
"Not even snacks? I'm not sure I can survive without snacks. I'm on a strict hourly snacking schedule." She pleaded.
"You know I can read your mind, right? I know exactly when you usually eat and even what you usually eat." Max reminded her.
"Gah, it's like being stuck in a room with Professor Pile and an Illithid. I can't get away with anything."
Nico laughed at her assessment. Professor Pile was an Innu and had exceptional skills, just like young Annabelle. No form of digital cheating escaped her notice. If you added an Illithid to that, you couldn't even think about it without getting caught.
"You can count this as a life lesson then. But you are going to learn so much this week. Think of how far ahead of your classmates you are going to be in organic chemistry by the time we return." Max reminded her.
"I'm in the seventh grade. We don't start organic chemistry for three more years." the girl reminded him.
"Then you're three whole years ahead. Who knows, maybe we'll extend our mission, and you can get ahead on other subjects as well." Nico suggested with a wink at Max.
"Please, Miss Nico, not more homework. I already said I'm sorry."
Chapter 685 685 Analysis
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It only took Nico a few minutes to analyze all of the relevant data and send Max a report on all of the possible locations that a direct route from this location would have taken the ships in the region and how far they could have made it, had they maintained the speeds that they were travelling at.
It all seemed relatively mundane at first, but then one of the ships caught his attention. The Warp Signature itself wasn't anything special, just a Warp 6 freighter, which was quite common in the region. It was the path that Nico had plotted that caught his attention.
According to the traces left behind, it came out of the Asteroid Field at less than warp speed and departed on a path that would take it into the star of an uninhabited system.
There was no logical reason to set that course. It would only lead to inefficient routing to wherever they were really going. But very few captains would willingly take a freighter through an Asteroid Field.
"Do you think it's a hidden base here in the Asteroid Field for smugglers? Or do you think it was a vessel dump into the star?" Max asked Nico now that she had finished her part of the analysis.
"That's unclear. I think we might be missing a portal signature. The problem is that either the ship arrived here through the portal well before it departed, or there is a portal technology that we can't properly detect.
Given the maneuverability of the average freighter, I don't think it navigated the asteroid field at all, so I'm currently searching and cross-referencing possible ways that a freighter could have arrived here without leaving a Warp signature."
Max looked over at Annabelle to make sure that she was still working on her assignment and saw the little Innu mouthing curse words at an algorithm that would give her the route that one of the ships in the region had taken, based only on the warp signature fluctuations.
For most species, that was way beyond her grade level, but the Innu had a way with technology, and Nico had given her the equations that she would need. She just had to apply them correctly.
Satisfied that the girl was taking her punishment seriously, Max began to check the asteroid field for signs of travel. Many power systems would leave some sort of path, either ionized radiation, expelled plasma, or lingering magnetic fields where the iron asteroids had been affected by their energy shielding.
What he was hoping for was something that would lead into the region and give them a clue to work with.
There wasn't much to go on, though. None of the signatures of passing vessels were recent, so if something had come out of the field and waited a while before moving on, the signs could have decayed past what they could detect.
"Miss Nico, I think I have it," Annabelle called out and held out her data tablet over an hour later while Max was finishing his search for hidden routes through the asteroids.
Nico took the tablet from her and tapped across the screen a half dozen times with a smile on her face.
"Alright, these are the lessons for the parts that you got wrong. Review them and then complete the incorrect questions again. I will mark them again when you've finished."
Max smiled at the desperation in the girl's look and the longing thoughts of running through the ship to explore every nook and cranny while eating cookies. It would be a while before she got to her snack and even longer before she could explore since it was still fairly early in the morning, but it wouldn't be too long before lunch.
"What do you think Nico? We're definitely still missing something." Max sighed.
eαglesnᴏνel "I think we should follow that freighter. It might not be related to our Klem infestation, but the timeframe is close, and the path is suspicious. I think it might have cruised here at less than warp and let inertia carry it along the path until whatever it was doing was complete. It might be a very normal smuggler, but those are good to know too."
She had a point. They were Reavers. If they caught up with some of the grey market smugglers and merchants, they could make some good connections to move human-designed goods.
"You have a point. We should have lunch before we go. Annabelle should be finished with her worksheet by the time we finish eating." He agreed.
"That's got to be a sentient rights violation. You can't just eat right in front of people like that, can you? Not while they're doing homework." She pleaded.
"I guess you should have gotten the questions right the first time." Nico teased, but when she returned from the replicator, she had three plates with her.
"You can put the work on hold and eat. Even prisoners get their scheduled meals, so a mischievous Innu who is in a lot of trouble when they get back to her mother will too." Max stage whispered as Nico put the plates down.
"You're enjoying torturing me. I'm certain of it. No wonder they say humans are scary." Annabelle pouted.
She wasn't wrong. Her presence made this research mission much more interesting. If it were just him and Nico, they would be so immersed in their work that they would only speak a few words an hour, but with Annabelle here, they had an excuse to do other things and wouldn't get so lost in their own little worlds.
Once the meal was finished, they set off at a moderate pace, as anything over Warp 10 would make it harder for their sensor processors to keep up with the incoming data and properly follow the path of the ship that they were following.
It was a cold trail, months old, so they weren't going to catch up to anything. They just wanted to know where it went and see if it ended up somewhere else that was on their list of suspected locations for launches of Klem Pods.
Chapter 686 686 Intercepted
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With a good meal in them to help focus, the trio and their disguised ship followed the path of the freighter halfway to the system, where they expected the warp signature to end before it abruptly vanished.
"Check the region. Let's see what we can find." Max ordered and entered a sub-light speed course that would take them in a large circle around the point where the signature disappeared.
They had just begun their loop when the sensors detected four incoming vessels from a nearby star system. It was well off the course of the freighter that they were following, but it was likely that they were waiting for anyone following this course.
[Unknown Vessel, power down your drives and lower your shields. Resistance to our boarding effort will lead to unnecessary casualties.] The closest incoming ship informed them while the others kept their distance.
[Understood. However, the casualties will be on your side. This vessel is under the protection of the Terminus Trading Company. I recommend that you stand down.] Max replied.
The incoming ship glided to a stop beside them, almost close enough that their shields touched and close enough that Max could read the minds of the people on board.
eαglesnovel`c,om "So, we have ourselves some curious humans who ended up where they shouldn't be?" Someone was asking.
"Make them go away. If they have found the path of the data probe, then the Government is onto our activities. The Humans must be working with them on something big if they're popping up all over the Alliance, and only an idiot would believe that it was to eliminate some alien infestation in the middle of the core worlds." Another member replied.
"Do you think that we could cut a deal with them? I heard that Humans are mercenaries in nature, like the Hunters. They might take a bribe to look the other way about our curiosity." The first thought stream replied.
"Too much of a risk. If the Government finds the cloning facilities, they will find out how many of our people have infiltrated their departments. The humans might let it slide for all we know, but the Government won't stand for mind-swapped clones impersonating their workers."
Max turned to Nico. "I think that it's possible that we've found our moles. That was not where I expected the path to lead, but they are talking about mind-swapped clones in government positions."
Nico's gaze was blank as Max was speaking, and he suspected that she was attempting to hack the nearby vessel through their communications system, so he just waited for her to respond.
"They are moles, but not the right ones. They're talking about the local planetary branch of the Central Government. They have been making clones and putting cultists in them in order to implement a pleasure cult as the national Government of this region.
The Reavers might actually get along well with these guys, but I don't think that the Envoys would look favourably upon us cutting a deal with an insurgent cult."
Max looked over the data that Nico had gathered and chuckled to himself. Their grand dreams of a "Pleasure Cult" were milder than an average day at the Broken Blaster. They were trying to overthrow the Government to implement something that the humans would deem borderline family-friendly.
"Do you think that we should tell them? I feel like we should tell them." Nico suggested.
"Go for it."
[Alliance Vessel, this is Subcommander Tarith Nico of the Terminus Trading Company. We have hacked your ship's logs and computer system, and we find your plans for changes to the culture of your home planet to be quite intriguing. I am sending over a file now. It is a six-hour security video feed from the most popular of the employee taverns aboard our mothership.] Nico informed them.
[You did what? How dare you! Our ship's computer isn't some toy for you to play with.] A voice from the other ship stammered.
It was the voice that seemed to be questioning the one in command, so likely the First Officer under the Captain of the vessel, though their thoughts hadn't referred to each other by rank yet, and Max wasn't close enough to do a deep investigation of their minds.
Their vessel began to power up its weapon systems, and Nico smiled.
[I recommend that you don't try to shoot at us. We are not that friendly.] She reminded them, and Max saw a sudden power draw increase appear among the data on his screen as the weapons systems of his vessel came online.
Max listened as their thoughts turned panicked as their ship detected the weapons signatures and then began to blare an imminent disaster warning as the antimatter torpedoes were armed and detected by their computer. They immediately powered down their weapons.
[Our apologies Subcommander, we misunderstood.] The voice with the stutter replied in a hurry before Nico could shoot at them.
[Take a moment to look over the video compilation that I sent you. It should help you understand something about human culture so that we can continue this conversation in a more productive manner.] She informed them in her favourite seductive lilt voice setting.
There was a half-hour impasse while they watched the video, and Max tried to resist his urge to laugh. Nico had no such reservations and was making video clips from their security cameras for her personal records.
[Subcommander, is this real? Do humans really live like that? And how did you convince the other species to go along with it? We recognize the Innu, and they are known to be quite liberal, but I am not familiar with most of the others.] the voice of the Commander of the other vessel asked.
[Most of the ones that you are seeing are Valkia, Giants, Myceloids, and Hunters. At the fourteen-minute mark, there is a short clip of a Dryad doing body shots of fruit juice. They all voluntarily chose the amenities of the vessel that they enjoyed, and we didn't deliberately influence their behaviour in any way.] Nico informed him.
There was a pause while Max could see that they were looking up the species that she had mentioned, and Max realized that this was one of the incurious species, but they were evolving and gaining curiosity that was leading a portion of their population to desire a different lifestyle than the daily ritual routines that their local Government had prescribed for citizens for over a millennium.
It was an incredible milestone to have observed firsthand. Their actions might be seen as insurgency or rebellion against the planetary Government, but they were a direct result of an evolution of the thought processes of the species. Using clones to spread their altered thought patterns among the Government was definitely an unexpected way of introducing a new genetic alteration to a species, though.
He saved everything that he could, including the data that Nico had gathered from their computers and their medical records so that he could show it to the Giant later. He loved things like this, and it was a very rare occasion that such a notable evolutionary change happened.
[We have some questions for you about a group of alien embryos that may have been deliberately jettisoned in this region. It isn't clear if the action was intentional or accidental, as the embryos might have been smuggled from their home system for unauthorized research purposes.
Now that we're on less hostile terms, do you have time to join us aboard our vessel for a conversation?] Nico asked.
[Do you have substances known as alcohol and pie aboard your vessel? We have yet to sample them, and their production is not authorized in our system.]
Chapter 687 687 New Things For Guests
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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[We have a wide variety of human and Alliance specialties available in our Replicator systems, feel free to ask for any items you wish to sample.] Max agreed.
[We will send a shuttle to you forthwith.]
Max actually had to think for a moment to recall that the word meant immediately. It was strangely stiff and formal, but it didn't seem to be a translation issue, as their thoughts were in the Alliance Common language, indicating that it was their primary language. Perhaps that was a trait of the incurious species?
If they weren't curious by nature, it would make sense that once a particular phrase or way of speaking made its way into their culture that it would remain there nearly indefinitely.
His analysis might not be perfectly accurate, but Max was confident that it wasn't too far off.
It was under a minute before the screen in front of him flashed the notification that the nearby vessel was retreating and that one of the others had sent out a shuttle. Max took a last look at their thoughts as the ship moved out of his range and realized that while they were the leaders of the strike force, they were not the leaders of the negotiation force, who would come from the other ship and get the first chance to try the human delicacies.
eαglesnᴏνel It wasn't a fact that they were happy about, but their nature insisted that protocol be followed, and they couldn't resist.
They had gained a level of curiosity that allowed them to desire new things, but they hadn't evolved to the point that they could completely deny their upbringing and genetic imperatives. In short, they weren't quite a curious species yet, but they were well on their way, and the next generation might be all the way there.
That would inevitably lead the planet's government to determine that they were dangerously out of control, as many before them had called free-spirited generations that didn't want to follow the dogma of generations before them, even among the human species.
The shuttle arrived at the side airlock of the transformed ship, and Max got up to go greet them at the door. They weren't exactly enemies, as they were still Alliance citizens, and they hadn't actually attacked, only threatened to. They also hadn't rebelled yet, as far as he knew, though maybe by their species' standards, they had, with this whole hiding out in the middle of nowhere thing.
There was simply too much he didn't know about their species, and there wasn't time to read it all.
Then he remembered he could copy a System Function from another Kepler pilot, and he had Nico right here.
[System Function Copied: Nico]
Max quickly flipped through the ship's computer and pulled up all records of the Blarg. It was surprisingly sparse, as they only called one planet home and had no notable inventions of their own that were still in active use. They were originally not the only species on their homeworld and were the servant class to another species, which invented a great variety of Warp Technology but were eventually exterminated after annoying the Valkia.
It was so long ago that the Blarg no longer had records of it, and nobody cared enough about them to come to visit them, so routine business trips to nearby systems and an occasional worker exchange were the extent of their interaction with other Alliance worlds.
They were short and pudgy creatures, genetically manipulated to be able to survive for long periods of time without food or water, as their original overlords found it inconvenient to feed them daily when they were on a work detail. But that was about all that the records had to show.
The whole process of assimilating the records took under a second, and Max realized just how big of a cheat Nico was working with when it came time to do paperwork. He could do his whole day's report analysis in under a minute every morning by using her skill since it effectively merged her mind with the device she was manipulating, and he let a small portion of her mind process data at the maximum rate that the computer was capable of.
He was definitely keeping this skill active unless he had a very good reason to use something else in the first slot of his copied skills.
"Welcome, representatives of the Blarg. I am Commander Keres Max, and this is Subcommmander Tarith Nico of the Terminus Trading Company. As we explained earlier, we are looking for the source of potentially illegally dumped hazardous biomatter that can survive in the vacuum of space." Max greeted the diminutive crew with a smile.
"My name is Jarl. I will be the speaking representative today. Is it human custom for one or more persons to speak during meetings?" The man at the front of the group asked.
"Both of us are authorized to speak on behalf of our vessel and Company today. Please follow me to the meeting room, and I will prepare the refreshments that your other vessel's crew inquired about."
The excitement in all their minds to try something new was almost as overwhelming as the Innu after a coffee break. This would be their first step into the world of the curious species, and they would try things that none of their species had ever experienced before.
"According to the records on your species, your cuisine tends toward tart flavours, so I have prepared an arrangement of pies in individual serving sizes. Starting at the left, we have a strawberry rhubarb pie, then a green apple flavour, followed by lemon meringue, pumpkin, blueberry and finally, a key lime pie.
If you start at the left and work to the right, you should find more familiar flavours first and then more exotic ones toward the finish." Max explained while Nico poured out shots of Reaver Rum for them all and replicated a tray of sour juices that the Alliance records indicated this species was fond of.
If they were going to introduce new things, they couldn't overwhelm their guests with completely unfamiliar flavours.
"The Rum has a habit of causing a burning sensation in the mouth and throat of some species, but we have determined that it is not highly toxic to yours, though it is still an intoxicant. The juice will help with the sensation should you find it unpleasant." Nico explained as she set the drinks down.
Her eagerness to see a species try Rum for the first time was nearly as intense as their desire to try new things for the first time. This might not be part of their mission, but at least it wasn't boring.
Chapter 688 688 Incurious Is Annoying As Well
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eαglesnᴏνel
What an interesting beverage. I don't believe that I have seen a portion size of this volume before." One of the representatives commented before tilting his head back and downing the shot of Rum.
He immediately began to cough and wheeze, then took a sip of the juice to soothe his throat.
"I see now. It's burning that isn't burning. The juice does help. The sensation that it gives is unusual as well. It is a bit like my brain has gone foggy, and the world is a bit more vague than usual."
"That is the effect of the alcohol. It gets stronger with increased consumption, and your species has had no time to develop a tolerance for it, so be mindful of your portion sizes." Nico warned them.
The leader of the group actually made a physical note of it on a piece of paper once she finished speaking. They were definitely taking this meeting much more seriously than either Max or Nico were. "In that case, I will try the food known as Pie before my senses are dulled.
Annabelle quietly snuck into the large open space that served as the meeting room and headed for the Replicator, with the thought of sneaking a round of pies on her mind. She could just hit the replicate last item button and be on her way before anyone noticed.
At least, that was what she thought before she remembered that Max could read her mind.
He looked up at her with a smirk on his face, and she held up her homework tablet for him to check. They were all correct this time, so she had finished her work for the moment.
"Alright, grab a round of pies for your snack and go sit in the kitchen to eat them. I will let you off easy today." He agreed, and the little Innu grabbed her snack as quickly as physically possible so that he couldn't change his mind.
"Your child is adorable. I must say, though, I would have expected a different appearance." The leader of the Blarg contingent commented, then sighed with happiness as he took the first bite of strawberry rhubarb pie.
"She's not our biological child, of course. We just borrowed her for an educational trip away from home for the week. I take it the pastry is to your liking?" Nico replied.
"Oh, very much so. We don't have anything like this on our replicator menus. We have many sweet food products, but the way that this has been combined is divine. I knew that coming to speak to a curious species would be the right call once it was established that you were not enemies."
A member of their group with a pin that said "Analyst" spoke up next, and Max could tell that it was actually a scheduled event. Once the leader had spoken and expressed goodwill to the hosts, it was his turn to speak, according to their custom.
"We received the data from you about the hazardous biomatter, and I have run the scans through our system's logs. Our ships haven't seen anything, but the patrol fleet from the planet did make a note of it. These are the coordinates where they found the biomass moving through empty space. They didn't interfere, as it was not on a collision course for any of our assets, but the logs are detailed enough that they recorded the biological signature."
Max resisted the urge to facepalm at that comment. They had seen an unidentified alien biomass that could survive in space, made a note of its trajectory, and then didn't tell anyone until now. Presumably, that was because nobody had asked them directly about it before, and they hadn't been curious about where it was going, where it came from or what exactly it was that could survive the void.
"What does your Company specialize in, Commander?" The leader of the Blarg group asked once he got through with the last of the pie samples in front of him.
"We have a variety of patents actually, some minor, like tools and furniture, others more intricate, like this ship and all the systems aboard it, as well as a Terraforming Array that can reconstruct a planet in a much more cost-efficient manner than previous models on the market," Max explained.
"When you say all systems, does that include the weapons systems aboard this vessel? For a pleasure yacht, it is quite well-armed and shielded." The leader asked.
"Don't be fooled by appearances. It is designed to mimic a corporate or pleasure yacht, but it is actually a research vessel for missions which would become more difficult if the researchers attracted undue attention." Nico told him with a smile.
"So it is designed for researching potentially dangerous or hostile situations? We have vessels like that as well, but we had never thought to make them look like regular vessels. They are optimized for function, not for a stealthy form."
Max nodded. "That is understandable. Most species do not disguise their research vessels, but our missions often involve researching other sentient species, so an unobtrusive presence goes a long way to ensuring that we don't bias the data samples by our presence."
Nico's thoughts showed her amusement at that statement, and even Annabelle, who was eating in the next room, was hiding her amusement at the level of doublespeak involved in his comment.
It was completely lost on their guests, though, and Max would be happy to have this meeting ended so that they could get going again and search for more spots where the Klem pods might have originated.
"Were there any other suspicious vessels in the region over the past few months? I will admit that when you approached us here, my first thought was that you were bandits or Pirates and intending to rob us." Max asked.
"There were three. Two were investigated and determined to be mundane freighters of unusual origin designs, and one was a pleasure yacht. Wait, never mind, the last one on the list is you."
"If I can get the data on the trajectories and designations of the freighters, it would be of immense help in our investigation, as they might have come into contact with the source of the issue." Max requested.
"Of course, I will have it sent over immediately. If that concludes our business, I will file a formal request to have the food known as Pie added to our replicators in the near future. The Rum appears to be a bit too extreme for our species, as one standardized serving has caused intoxication among the crew members." The leader noted.
"It has been a pleasure meeting you. I am certain that there won't be any issues on our end getting the replicator data for Pie added to your systems."
Chapter 689 689 Chasing Leads
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Annabelle watched the sensors as the Blarg ships retreated to the moon, where they had been hiding before this incident, with a big smile on her face.
"That was so cool. You guys totally just met a new alien species and got them drunk, and taught them the joys of eating pastries. Even on a dangerous mission to find the traces of the Klem, you still get to have more fun than the rest of us." She cheered while Max started to plot the course to their next destination.
"It's not all fun and games. If we hadn't managed to get a deal worked out with those people, there would have been a space battle. I'm sure even your hyperactive little mind knows that would be a bad thing." Nico reminded her.
"But this is a custom ship made by Lead Researcher herself for your own private use. How could a bunch of low-class nobodies damage it?" the little Innu asked, brushing off all concerns about the dangers of space battles.
eαglesnᴏνel Her thoughts at that moment let Max know precisely why she had broken in here. She had a severe case of hero worship and had found out that Nico had made herself a new ship, so she simply had to be the very first one to see it.
The fact that she had actually managed to break in was mostly down to her own ingenuity but partially because Nico had removed most of the security measures around the hangar because they were leaving right away.
Annabelle didn't even realize that if Nico had intended to lock down the ship, she didn't stand a chance to get in, so Max would have to do something to remind her of that fact before they got back to Absolution, where her inflated sense of skill might get her into a whole lot more trouble.
He wouldn't want to lead an otherwise good kid and promising researcher down the path of a life of crime just because he didn't warn her adequately about the misuse of her powers.
"The course is ready whenever we are," Max informed Nico, who was going over the data that they had collected from the Blarg ship while she waited for him to decide their next target.
"On it. Let's see, what sort of assignment do we have for our favourite research assistant? Oh, I have a great one. There are sixteen adjustments to our course during this next warp-speed journey. I want you to identify all of the adjustments made and the reasons why they were made." Nico decided.
Annabelle frowned. Finding the course adjustments was easy. She could get that from the computer in seconds, but as to why, that would be much harder. She didn't actually know much about warp travel, as it had only been a passing curiosity before she met Nico a few days ago and had learned about some of the amazing things that the Lead Researcher had accomplished with her mom's team and kept quiet about.
"Might I recommend a book for you? This is the introduction to celestial navigation textbook from the human Academy systems. It is age appropriate for you, and it is the very first textbook that we receive if we are going to take on the role of a ship's navigator. It is also essential to all warp technicians and ship design engineers, though they learn it a bit later." Max offered and transferred the digital book to her data tablet.
She stared at the book description in horror for a moment, then her smile turned to a devious smirk as she recalled seeing a learning device stored in the cubby beside the couches in the sitting room.
Max pretended not to notice since she was off to study so that she could answer the questions properly. Reading the actual book wasn't part of the assignment. She was only learning the basics of warp travel, and she could do that with memory transfer and a few Virtual Reality practice sessions. It would also keep her silent and still for a few minutes while her mind was busy in the simulation, trying to determine why they had made specific course corrections.
What she didn't know yet was that the assignment was a logic trap. One of the course corrections was only to confuse anyone that was following them since it would take them past a planet with an atmospheric phenomenon that looked like fireworks.
If she could get the questions correct, she could see them in the morning with her own eyes. Max assumed that would be the case, as she had been doing quite well up to this point, so he prepared a plan to stop there for a while and wait to see if anyone was following them along their route.
It didn't seem likely that anyone had managed to determine whether they were aboard the disguised ship or even that this ship wasn't part of the regular traffic, but you could never be too careful.
Once they were safely underway again, Max started looking into the data that Nico was sending him, using her skill to analyze it much faster than would normally be possible for the human mind. It really did seem to be confirmed that there were a group of Klem pods released somewhere near here and a chance that they might have been sent toward the first of the infested planets, but they still didn't have any data on where the path actually started, or how they ended up here.
What they did have was a confirmed sighting of them that they would need to analyze since it was possible that they might have been headed to one of the other planets as well.
The warp trail of the ship they followed to this point had simply vanished, but it didn't match with the ones that had come out to meet them, and it wasn't even in the same design, nor was it the same as any of the other ship signatures in the region, so Max could only hope that the trail picked up again somewhere else, or that a clue as to what happened to the ship with the fragmented warp trail could be found.
Occasionally missing content, please report errors in time.
Chapter 690 690 Possible Disguise
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Nico was analyzing the data from the Blarg computers when she suddenly had an epiphany. "I know what happened to the ship that we were following. It started at another ship and ended at a dead-end, but it wasn't the only ship in the region at either point. It seemed like the most logical choice, given its size and designation, but I don't think it was a freighter at all.
From what I can tell, I think we were tricked into chasing a probe with a false warp signature. One of the other ships sent it out and picked it up in order to hide their tracks. That's not a technology that most species have, so it's possible that they can disguise the warp signature of their ship as well.
They won't be able to alter the actual warp signature, but they might be able to overlay it with something else to make it look like a different ship of the same pattern."
That was an incredible breakthrough but a very annoying twist to this search. If they could disguise their trail, he would not only have to track them. He would have to do it while searching for the smallest traces of the true signature in every ship's trail that they passed.
Nico was more excited about the possibilities for infiltration than their actual mission at this point, and her surface thoughts were all about how to modify that ability for her own use by layering a false secondary field signature on their own warp field so that they could appear to be a completely different ship every time they went to warp.
It would be useful for Absolution as well. It left a huge trail through space for anyone with the technology to follow. But if this plan of Nico's worked out right, then she might be able to make it decay more quickly or appear to be a fleet of smaller ships heading in the same direction.
The human militaries already did that without the subterfuge by having their fleets fly so close together that the Warp signatures blended into one, but even having hundreds of Cutters fly around Absolution might not be enough to completely disguise its trail, and the incoming signature was so large that they wouldn't fool anyone as to what they were during an attack.
Max checked up on Annabelle quickly and saw that she was focused on learning a lot of the smaller details about warp navigation and the effects of gravitational fields and debris on Warp Fields.
It was part of the answer that she was looking for since Max had adjusted the course to avoid a shipping lane at one point, and he was slightly impressed that she had realized that much already, even with the efficiency of the learning device.
"I think she will make an excellent researcher when she grows up. Maybe we should feed her more varied information for the week and give her a solid base for her early experiments?" Nico suggested when she saw that Max was looking at the little Innu, who appeared to be asleep in a soft recliner.
"That's certainly an option. We could have her moved to a more specialized course of studies when we return as well. I see that she's taking a general education course aboard Absolution right now." Max agreed.
"Should we put trade and technical schools on the new floor of the ship that we're modifying for amphibious species?"
Max thought about that for a few seconds. The floor was mostly for the Innu and the tourists who would love a bit of time off on a tropical island, but people would live there as well, and it was the size of a large country, so there would need to be quite a variety of facilities. Having them specialize in high-tech would make sense.
Every region needed general education, but you only needed to put specialized courses in a few regions if you were willing to relocate students or bus them in, as would be the logical solution for many students aboard Terminus.
They would be seven hours until the next stop at the planet with the unique atmospheric phenomenon, so Max created a blanket and tucked Annabelle in on the recliner while she studied. Hopefully, she would get the hint since the stop was input into her device on a timer. But if she didn't, she could always wake him up.
She might be good at hacking, but she wasn't going to get past Nico's security codes to alter anything in the ship's course, so having a good rest while they had spare time wouldn't cause them any problems.
Max settled into the soft padding of the mattress and was nearly instantly out cold. It was designed perfectly for his preferences, and he was so deeply asleep that he didn't even notice that both Nico and Annabelle joined him for the evening.
He did notice that he wasn't alone when he woke up, though.
The next thing that caught his attention was a notice on his wrist device from Nico. [She's afraid of the dark, and the ship lights turned off automatically when we were all asleep.]
That explained it. She must have woken Nico up or alerted her if the cyborg was still busy with whatever she had been studying for the evening. Nico didn't sleep much anymore, as she only needed enough to rest her mind, and a few periods of REM sleep were enough to satisfy that requirement. So, as a result, she was up at all hours of the day and night if there was something to keep her interested.
eαglesnᴏνel He carefully transferred Annabelle onto Nico and climbed out of bed to get breakfast and Coffee ready. Six hours wasn't quite enough sleep in a bed that comfortable, but they were near their destination, and he wanted to be fed and ready when they arrived.
The planet itself was interesting enough to study for weeks, but they would only stay here half a day to make notes and hold the daily meetings with the Envoys back aboard Absolution. That would give them a chance to make sure that the message to Annabelle's mother had been received as well and get some second opinions on everything that they had seen yesterday.
It was going to be another full day, but somehow this little ship seemed to be much more relaxed than either Terminus or Absolution. It might just be the absence of anyone who could bother him or the fact that there were only two other minds in his range, but it was more relaxing than any other vacation he had ever been on.