Arc 1, Chapter 5: The Traitor's Bargain
Stellar stood in the shuttle bay, waiting for the field team to return. His hands were clasped behind his back, his expression carefully neutral, but inside his mind was a storm of rage and calculation.
Admiral Chen. The woman who'd promoted him to captain. The woman who'd personally selected him for the Pathfinder mission. The woman who'd been the face of United Earth's expansion into deep space for the past two decades.
A traitor.
The shuttle docked with a hiss of equalizing pressure. The airlock cycled open, and the field team emerged, still in their EVA suits. Thorne was first, her face grim. Clark followed, carrying a data storage device that pulsed with alien technology. Carmelon came next, Mitchell perched on his shoulder, the eagle's feathers ruffled and agitated. And finally, James, his mechanical hand gripping a damaged piece of equipment that looked like it had been torn from a wall.
"Conference room," Stellar said. "Now. Hayes, you're with us. Reeves, you have the bridge. Nobody contacts Earth Command. Nobody sends any transmissions at all until I say otherwise. Clear?"
"Clear, Captain." Reeves replied, his young face troubled.
The conference room felt even smaller than before. Clark placed the data storage device on the table, and it projected a holographic interface into the air above them. Alien script scrolled past, but the universal translator was already parsing it, converting the Korath language into something humans could read.
"Show me." Stellar said.
Clark manipulated the interface, pulling up specific files. "The Korath were meticulous record-keepers. They documented everything about their encounter with The Confluence, hoping future species might learn from their mistakes." He brought up an image, a star system, planets marked in green. "This is the Novara system. Forty-two years ago, it was home to approximately eight hundred thousand humans. A colony ship had settled there generations before, lost contact with Earth during the early expansion years."
"I remember hearing about lost colonies," Hayes said quietly. "Ships that went out during the chaos and never reported back. We always assumed they'd failed. That the colonies died."
"Some did," James said, his voice heavy. "But others survived. Built new worlds. New societies. They just didn't have the technology to contact Earth again, or chose not to." His organic eye fixed on the projection. "I didn't know The Confluence had found any of them."
Clark continued, pulling up more data. "According to these records, The Confluence discovered Novara through information provided by a human intermediary. Someone who gave them the colony's exact coordinates, its population numbers, its technological level. Everything they needed to file a legal claim."
The hologram shifted, showing a transaction record. Stellar's stomach turned as he read it.
"The Vescarri Sovereignty filed ownership based on...surprise, genetic seeding markers. The Novara colonists tried to fight it legally, but they didn't have the resources or knowledge to mount a proper defense. The Confluence ruled in favor of the Vescarri within three cycles." Clark's finger traced down the record. "Then the Vescarri immediately sold the entire population to something called the Collector's Guild for a sum I can't even begin to comprehend."
"Collector's Guild?" Stellar asked.
"From what I can translate," Carmelon said, leaning forward to study the text, "they're... talent brokers. They acquire sentient beings with specific skills or traits and lease them to other species for specialized labor. It's technically not slavery because the subjects maintain certain rights under Confluence Law. But..." He paused, adjusting his glasses. "The contracts are typically for two hundred standard years. And they're heritable...passed down to offspring."
"It's slavery," Thorne said flatly. "Doesn't matter what fancy legal terms they use. They bought human beings and put them to work."
"Eight hundred thousand people," Hayes whispered. "Where are they now? Are any of them still alive?"
Clark pulled up another record, but before he could speak, James interrupted. "I've seen Collector's Guild operations. During my time with The Confluence." His voice was hollow. "The subjects are treated...adequately. Fed, housed, given medical care. They're valuable assets, after all. But they have no freedom. No choice. Their children are born into the contracts. Some species consider it an honor to be collected...their skills preserved and utilized across the galaxy." His mechanical fist clenched. "But humans? We don't do well in cages, even comfortable ones."
"The facilitator," Stellar said, forcing himself to stay focused. "Show me the record that names Admiral Chen."
Clark manipulated the interface, pulling up a communication log. The text was partially corrupted, but enough remained to be damning. A series of exchanges between someone identified as "Terran Contact-Alpha" and a Confluence facilitator. Coordinates. Population data. Technology assessments. And there, buried in the metadata, an identity tag.
Admiral Elizabeth Chen. United Earth Command.
"It could be faked," Hayes offered, but her voice carried no conviction.
"I don't think so," Carmelon said. He'd been studying the metadata, Mitchell perched beside him on the table. "The encryption matches United Earth military protocols from that era. And the communication patterns, the phrasing...it's consistent with how Admiral Chen writes. I've read enough of her reports over the years to recognize her style."
"Why?" Thorne's question cut through the room like a blade. "Why would she do this? What did she get in exchange for selling out eight hundred thousand humans?"
Clark pulled up another file. "According to this, The Confluence provided Earth with advanced propulsion technology. What we know as the Sakura-Chen drive...the system that made long-range exploration viable. The technology that let us expand beyond the solar system." He looked up, his expression grim. "Admiral Chen didn't just facilitate Earth's expansion into deep space. She built her career on it. Became a hero of humanity by using technology bought with human lives."
The silence in the room was crushing.
Stellar thought about his career. Every mission he'd flown. Every world he'd explored. Every advancement humanity had made in the past forty years. All of it built on a foundation of betrayal.
"There's more," James said quietly. He placed the piece of equipment he'd been carrying on the table. "I found this in what used to be the station's communication center. It's a Korath long-range transmitter, still partially functional." He activated it, and a garbled message played...fragments of audio, heavily corrupted but comprehensible.
A Korath voice, speaking through the translator: "...warning to any species that encounters this message...The Confluence is not what they claim...the law is a trap...there is no way to win...but there may be a way to survive... coordinates follow...sanctuary...others who escaped...together we might..."
The message dissolved into static and died.
"There's more," James said. "Buried in the transmitter's memory. The Korath sent this message to dozens of systems before The Confluence destroyed them. They were trying to build a network. A coalition of species who'd escaped or resisted The Confluence."
"The relay network possibly," Hayes said, suddenly animated. "The one I traced from the Prometheus warning message. Captain, this could be it. This could be the resistance we've been hoping for."
"Or it could be a trap," Thorne countered. "The Confluence could have found the network, turned it into a honeypot. Waiting for desperate species to come looking for help."
"Mitchell doesn't think it's a trap," Carmelon said. The eagle was staring at the transmitter, his head tilted in that peculiar way that indicated he was processing something. "He senses...hope? Truth? It's hard to interpret, but he's not agitated. He's curious."
Stellar studied the data, the evidence, the terrible implications. Earth had been compromised from within. The woman who commanded their entire military had sold human beings to aliens and built her power on that betrayal. And now that same woman would be the one making decisions about how to respond to The Confluence's current claim on Earth.
"We can't contact Earth Command." Stellar said. "If Admiral Chen knows we've discovered her involvement with Novara, she'll find a way to silence us. Discredit us. Or worse, hand us over to The Confluence herself."
"So what do we do?" Hayes asked. "We can't just ignore this."
"No," Stellar agreed. "But we need more than evidence from an alien database. We need proof that will stand up to scrutiny. Witnesses. Records that can't be dismissed as forgeries." He looked at his grandfather. "James, can you access The Confluence's legal database through Commander Rodriguez's backdoor?"
"Possibly. But it's risky. If they detect the intrusion, they'll know exactly where we are."
"Do it. I want every record of the Novara transaction. Every communication with Admiral Chen. Everything that ties her to that betrayal." Stellar turned to Clark. "Clark, I want you working with James. Pull everything you can from that database about The Confluence's legal processes. Find me a loophole. A precedent. Anything we can use."
"And what are you going to do, Captain?" Thorne asked.
Stellar looked at the coordinates displayed on the hologram...the relay point Hayes had identified. Four light-years away. A potential network of species who'd survived The Confluence's predation.
"I'm going to find us some allies," he said. "Because if Admiral Chen has been working with The Confluence for forty years, we can't trust Earth Command. We can't trust the United Earth Council. We can't trust anyone in the official chain of command." He stood, his decision made. "We're on our own. And if we're going to save Earth, we need to find others who've fought this fight before."
"Captain," James said, standing as well, "if you go to that relay point, if you make contact with this resistance network, you're committing to a path that might make you an enemy of Earth Command. Admiral Chen will brand you a traitor. A rogue captain who went mad in deep space."
"Then she'll have to catch us first." Stellar replied. "Reeves, plot a course to those coordinates Hayes found. Max speed."
"Sir, Engineering reports the FTL drive needs maintenance after that emergency jump," Hayes said, checking her console. "Chief Ramos estimates six hours before we can safely jump again."
"Then we have six hours to prepare," Stellar said. "Clark, James, start working on that database access. Carmelon, analyze everything we pulled from the Korath station. I want to know if there's anything else useful buried in there. Thorne, I need you to prep the crew for the possibility that we might be running from Earth forces as well as The Confluence."
"They're not going to like it." Thorne warned.
"I don't like it either. But I'm not going to lie to them. They deserve to know what we're up against." Stellar moved toward the door, then paused. "And everyone in this room...this information about Admiral Chen stays between us for now. Until we have undeniable proof, we can't risk word getting back to Earth. Clear?"
A chorus of acknowledgments followed him as he left the conference room and headed back to the bridge.
Reeves looked up as Stellar entered. "Course plotted, Captain. Ready to execute when Engineering gives us the green light."
"Good work, Lieutenant." Stellar settled into his command chair, staring at the shattered worlds on the viewscreen. Somewhere out there, eight hundred thousand humans were living as property. Leased labor. Slaves with legal paperwork.
And the woman responsible for their fate was sitting in a comfortable office in New Mansfield, making decisions about humanity's future.
"Captain," Reeves said hesitantly, "is everything all right? The crew is starting to notice that something's wrong."
Stellar considered his response. The young lieutenant deserved honesty. They all did.
"No, Lieutenant. Everything is not all right. But we're going to fix it." He pulled up the ship-wide comm. "All hands, this is Captain Stellar. Please assemble in the main cargo bay in thirty minutes. I have information to share, and everyone needs to hear it."
He closed the comm and leaned back in his chair. In thirty minutes, he would tell his crew that their commanding admiral was a traitor. That Earth had been compromised from within. That they were about to become fugitives from their own government.
And he would ask them to trust him. To follow him into the unknown. To help him save a world that might not believe it needed saving.
"Captain," Hayes said from her station, her voice urgent, "I'm picking up something on long-range sensors. It's...faint, but it's definitely there. A ship, just sitting at the edge of the system. Not moving, not broadcasting. Just watching."
Stellar was on his feet instantly. "Configuration?"
"Unknown. It's too far away for detailed scans. But Captain..." She looked up, her face pale. "It appeared right after we accessed the Korath database. Almost like it was waiting for someone to activate those systems."
"Max alert," Stellar ordered. "All stations, battle ready. Get me Chief Ramos. I need those engines now, maintenance or no maintenance."
The bridge erupted into controlled chaos as the crew responded to the alert. And on the viewscreen, at the very edge of sensor range, a ship that shouldn't exist continued its silent vigil.
Watching. Waiting. Patient as death.
"Captain," Clark's voice came over the comm from the conference room, "you need to hear this. We accessed The Confluence database. We found the records of Novara. And Captain..." A pause, heavy with dread. "There's another file. Another human colony. The Confluence found it six months ago. They filed a claim. And according to this record, Admiral Chen has already been contacted about facilitating the transaction."
Stellar felt his blood turn to ice. "Which colony?"
"New Titan, sir. The mining settlement in the Kepler system. Population: two million. And Captain, the adjudication session is scheduled for..."
"I'm guessing fourteen cycles from now,." Stellar finished, understanding crashing over him like a wave. "The same session we were invited to. The same session about Earth."
"It's not just about Earth." Clark said quietly. "They're claiming every human world they can find. And Admiral Chen is helping them do it."
On the viewscreen, the mysterious ship remained motionless.
And somewhere, fourteen cycles away, The Confluence was preparing to harvest humanity one colony at a time.