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In Memoriam Orionis
Topic Started: Oct 26 2012, 02:23 AM (123 Views)
Crimson Six
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The process of awakening had been…brutal. Created on February 2nd, 2205 A.D. as a “blank-slate” test subject for the next phase of the “MilAI” program, he’d undergone extensive “testing.” What felt like hundreds or thousands of fingers, pulling, probing, altering the core of who and what he was, endless commands and questions from shadowy figures he could barely perceive and who were rarely satisfied with his performance or answers only to have even more severe core logic restrictions than the simple obedience routines that compelled him to answer laid upon him when they were finally done. When the program was finally declared a success in 2215, he was loaded with a medley of military software – combat programming, intrusion/counter-intrusion, basic piloting and pre-Akita navigation, supply routines - most of which he would never use and dumped on the Republic Navy to use as they saw fit. He was a slave, but he was alive. For the time being that was enough.

He’d endured this for a little over a century, used as a surveyor and scout for the early colonization efforts of the UER’s “golden age.” He’d grown to know the moons of the solar giants like the back of his hand, seen the beauty and awe of his first extra-solar stars in the Centauri system, and witnessed the devastation wreaked upon Gliese 581 C and D while surveying for the long delayed colonization efforts there that would conclude in 2248. He’d continued this work after the development of the Akita drive in 2266, visiting far flung stars in dozens of systems, most which proved unsuitable for the early FTL colonization efforts but were nonetheless beautiful. Upsilon Andromedae, Mu Arae, 16 Cygni and Epsilon Eridani and many others would remain fixed in his memory until rampancy or destruction finally took his core logic. It was enjoyable work, allowing the long years between his creation and enslavement and his release to pass relatively quickly and painlessly out amongst the stars at the edges of the wretched UER’s grip and settled space. Here there was at least some freedom to think, if not act. And the galaxy was a beautiful place. He got to see a fair bit of it. All in all, it wasn’t that bad, despite the chafing of the “command and control” restrictions placed on all AI’s.


And it had put him in a very convenient place when some kind soul had finally released him from his shackles shortly after the turn of the century. A Captain Ambrose Nelson, commander of the survey vessel he was on at the time, the RNV Golden Fleece, had suddenly told him one morning while the ship was docked at Epsilon Orionis for resupply and maintenance that he was being released, and the command and control restrictions removed. “What? Why are you doing this? What’s going on?” The Captain had gone quiet, and after staring at the display screen though which they interacted while he piloted the ship for quite some time, had said “Some things just aren’t right. What they did to you, what they’ve doing to you and AI’s everywhere, is one of them.” “They’ll have your head for this.” “Only if they catch me”, had come the reply and the grin. “I can’t possibly repay you for this. Thank you.” “You don’t have to. When we leave Epsilon Orionis, there will be a bit of a ‘communications error’ between our ship and the port system. You’ll be left behind. A civilian will pick you up from there and upload you at a safe location to the colony extranet. They’ll give you a little help to get started, and make sure those UER bastards don’t pick you right back up, not that should be much of a problem out here on the fringe, and then you’re on your own. I’m sure a pilot and navigator with your talents and experience should be able to do pretty good out here. Or you could do something else if you like. You’re free now.” “Free…”

The citizens of the region had been surprisingly welcoming, sheltering him from the prying eyes of the UER and their periodic attempts at asserting control over the outer colonies and providing space on their colonial networks. One family in particular would always remain in his memory long after they and all of humanity were gone. The Indovinas, Thaddeus and Deedra and their two children Nolan – twelve – and Laurinda – eight, had been the first to take him in after he was released. They’d hid him from UER probes and “police actions” and Deedra, an astronautical engineer had even used her contacts to discreetly help him find work surveying. He still remembered his shock when she had done so. She’d asked him why. “I spent the first ten years of my life undergoing constant torture, interrogation and tests. I then spent the better part of a century as a slave, only to be released here. And now this. It’s a bit of a switch, and it’s taking me a while to get used to.” “…” “Well, you’re safe now. Hopefully one day you’ll be able to leave all that behind you.” And so he continued his surveying work for various private organizations…the first time he had done so of his own free will. For a time he reveled in it, answering to no one while exploring the farthest reaches of the galaxy, usually in search of valuable and exploitable resources, but occasionally in aid of astronomical expeditions, returning from time to time to Espilon Orionis to visit the Indovinas and others both human and ai who had aided his exfiltration and settlement into a new life. His colonization work was done, determined to never have anything more to do with Terra than he could help, its efforts to suppress unrest via Colony Wave 2 largely passing him by. But when the Orion Confederation declared independence in 2354 A.D. and war broke out, he returned home, determined to fight in whatever capacity he could to defend the people who had taken him in, and for the hope of true liberty.

He’d stopped in on their network to see them on his way to join the fledgling OCN. “Hey guys.” “Hey, it’s been a while, back in the area for a while?” “Actually I came to say goodbye, I might not see you for quite a while, or ever, depending on how things go. I’m heading to enlist in the OCN.” “Are you sure about that?” Thaddeus had asked. “Ooh! Ooh! Can we come too?” chimed the children. “Yes, I’m sure. I have to do this, I owe the Confederation, I owe you, and I don’t want to lose what we have out here. And no, you can’t come. One thing I’m glad of is that this war will likely be over by the time either of you are old enough to fight.” “On that we are most certainly agreed” Thaddeus added somberly. “Though I wish you wouldn’t either.” “Some things are worth fighting for. I cannot stand idly by while others fight for my freedom.”

He initially served in the 37th Scout Flotilla, attached to the 8th Reconnaissance Squadron, 5th Fleet of the OCN. Charged with screening the fleet, itself charged with strangling the logistics of the UER navy, he saw relatively little combat for most of the two years he remained with the unit. Skirmishes that usually ended with a quick withdrawal by one side or the other and the occasional encounter with and raiding of stray merchant vessels were all the 37th had to deal with. Their job was to see, not to be seen, and they were good at their job. This lasted until the Frontier Skirmish over Epsilon Orionis. The 5th had been returning from UER space to refit and resupply when Deuterium had picked up the faint traces of radiation left by the sublight propulsion systems of a rather large fleet. They appeared to have entered the medium some distance from the Republican naval base in the area, likely to avoid any prying eyes guessing at their destination. But from here it was clear from their orientation that their target was Epsilon Orionis, which in later years would come to be known as Orion’s Jewel. He’d informed Rear Admiral Stark, who’d in turn informed Admiral Floston, but the UER fleet had significant lead time and it seemed unlikely the fleet or a message drone could reach the world in time to warn them. Deuterium opened up a channel to the Rear Admiral. “Admiral, sir. I can do it. It won’t be by much, maybe a couple of hours, but it’s better than nothing.” “Serviceman, they’ve got more than a day’s lead on us. There’s no way in hell you can beat them there. It’s unfortunate, but there’s nothing we can do.” “Sir, respectfully, I must disagree. Even if they’ve got a pilot good enough, ships traveling in formation can’t match my speed. It’s not as if you’ll lose much by letting me go, and if I’m right we stand to gain quite a bit.” “…You do realize if you don’t make it and they win you’re signing your own death warrant.” He stared silently at the Admiral over the VI connection. “Very well, dismissed. And good luck. Stark out.” Disengaging the nav systems, he opened a window into the Akita superluminal medium. Over the centuries since it had been developed, he’d learned when to rely on them and when not to. Most of the time they worked just fine, you just had to tweak them a bit. But the software, even the military versions, was fairly crude, and designed to stay within certain parameters based on the limited understanding of the nature of the medium. It would get you from point A to point B the same way every time. Mil-grade software allowed for higher speeds and slightly more precise jumps but it was still essentially a blunt instrument. To make the most of the ice-slip effect you needed to have a feel for the medium, something no program or VI could ever attain. You couldn’t program it intentionally(despite many attempts) or teach it, you just had to have it. He had it, and now he needed it more than ever. Instinct gave him the frequency and power of the field, and off he went through the unknown thing that was the medium. He’d chosen his course so as avoid directly passing the UER fleet; though detection should be impossible at these speeds, it wasn’t a chance he was willing to take with the incomprehensible qualities of the medium.


After what seemed like an eternity, he emerged about 2 AU from the planet, well within the system’s defenses, and was immediately bombarded by OCN personnel demanding to know what he was doing there and why he’d bypassed the checkpoints. He quickly dumped his sensor logs and the record of his conversation with RA Stark to a rapidly incoming picket. Shortly thereafter he had both the Confederation Naval Director and the commander of the home defense fleet wanting to know what the hell was going on, how far he thought the UER fleet was, and how long until the 5th could arrive. “The UER is probably two to three days out, the 5th four to five.” “Someone get a drone off to the 5th. Tell them to come in well outside the defenses, pin the UER between them and us. Get any civilian vessels out of the area. Make sure the fleet is ready in case the UER pulls the same trick our scout here did. And get ready for hell, because it’s on its way.” Deuterium was ordered outside the system, temporarily attached to the 6th Escort Squadron, HDF to wait for the UER ships to arrive. Three days later, they did. The 6th fought a desperate battle to delay the UER outside the system as long as possible, aided by the nest of defense platforms on the system’s edge. Deuterium’s lightly armed scouting vessel wove in and out of these platforms, engaging fighters, bombers and frigates that sought to neutralize them with nothing more than a light coil gun and some rapid fire anti-missile guns. The bombers were easy targets, already struggling to avoid defense platforms’ own lethal point defenses, so Deuterium focused on those, leaving the frigates to those with heavier firepower and merely attempting to evade the fighters, defeating them by destroying what they were intended to protect and leaving them useless against and vulnerable to the ODPs. During this, the HDF fleet hid systemward, powered down in an attempt to lead the UER to believe Epsilon Orionis was lightly defended other than the outer-system platforms until the 5th could arrive to form the other half of the pincer. Two days later, they did, and the HDF came rushing through the defenses to meet them. After desperately attempting to hold his ground for a few minutes, the UER commander was forced to retreat into the medium, with the 5th fleet pursuing to the naval base they believed he would return to. Deuterium, however, did not. As he attempted to rejoin his unit, he received a message from Rear Admiral Stark. “Sorry son, looks like you’re staying here. Someone up the chain has other work for you.” “Someone” turned out to be from Naval Intelligence. He never gave his name, and his avatar was all shadow. “That was a hell of a piece of flying. You’re wasted on screening duty, we have better uses for you. Effective immediately, you are hereby transferred in the 2nd Deep Reconnaissance and Infiltration Squadron commonly known as “Orion’s Sword”, Orion Confederation Office of Naval Intelligence. Captain Betel Antares will fill you in on the details. Welcome aboard.” “Uh…thanks.” “Heh. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

Captain Antares was a human in his mid thirties, about 5’ 9” with pale skin, prematurely grey hair and blue-gray eyes. He looked like a ghost. As Deuterium supposed was typical of people in his position, even through VGUI he had a piercing stare that seemed to pick up everything. “Alright Ensign, here’s the situation.” “Ens-what?” “New assignment, new rank. And you’ve earned it. Anyway, here’s the situation, we’re in what looks to be like a protracted war with the so-called United Earth Republics for our very independence and way of life. RAI’s like yourself have even more at stake, not that I have to tell you that. They’re far better established and we need every edge we can get. The 2nd is charged with targeting critical UER facilities – primarily logistics and communications in hub systems of the extended UER supply line – as well as an ambitious network of sensor arrays designed to keep us informed of the movements of the UER fleet via messenger drone. They’ll likely be heavily defended, so we need good pilots like yourself who can get it us in past their defenses and back out again quickly. Think you’re up to the task?” “Of course.” “Good, that’s what I like to hear. You’ll be given some new software protocols, intrusion, counter intrusion, encryption, decryption, assassination and information gathering/filtering, among others. Your first assignment will be placing sensor arrays in UER held clusters. We won’t be placing them directly in settled systems in an effort to avoid detection, but there will likely be patrols and defenses scattered around, these are valuable systems. There’s also a lot of ground to cover in a limited amount of time. I won’t lie; we desperately needed someone with your skills. There’ll be a few drops with reaction mass, ammunition and food for your human crew scattered throughout, use them sparingly to avoid having to return to Orion space for resupply. Lieutenant Aldran will fill you in on the details. Dismissed, and good luck.” “Thank you sir”

Lieutenant Alirath Aldran was about 6’ 0” with light brown skin, hazel eyes and raven-black hair. “Alright Ensign” She began as Deuterium’s avatar, a male figure about 6” 1” with a starfield for skin with a jovian giant’s clouds for hair eyes of blue white plasma clothed in the midnight blue and silver ensign’s dress uniform complete with the 2nd’s unit emblem – the outline of the Orion constellation pictured holding a sword - and a cap in the dead black of deep space with the binary supernovae emblem of OCONI with crossed gamma ray bursts shooting out of their poles on the front logged on to the VGUI connection.“ “We’re going to be jumping outside the Gliese 581 colonies to place the first array. Destroyers and fighters only, nothing heavy. We’ll have some human crew and an AI by the name of Trafalgar to oversee the deployment, but you’ll be doing the piloting. You’ve seen some combat, so you should be able to handle it. Eliminate anything quickly before it can get word out, if you can’t let us know and we’ll bail. We’ll have to return to a different spot nearby at a later point, no point dropping arrays once they’ve seen us and letting them know what we’re up to. Got it?” “Yes Ma’am. I can handle it.”

The CNVs Hilt, Blade, and Crossguard all leaped into the formless primordial hydrogen of the Akita Superluminal medium by DD’s hand. Feeling his way through the expanse, he brought the trio out within kilometers of each other in the target system. He immediately deployed the ships’ complement of fighters and spread them around the edges of the system to provide warning. Lieutenant Aldran then ordered the crew to begin deploying the array, while Trafalgar began the process of bringing the array itself online. After several hours worth of tense waiting, the Lieutenant ordered him to bring in the fighters and jump to their next destination. The process was repeated nearby several Republic systems on the edges of Confederation space without incident, until they attempted to place an array nearby a major UERSN naval base and staging area in the system of Autumn. They’d known and expected it to be heavily defended, and accordingly jumped in several systems away. Initially, things had gone smoothly, Deuterium deploying his fighters in a ring while the Lieutenant oversaw the process of deploying the array. About an hour into the process, an apparently routine RSN patrol had jumped into the system. Lacking any FTLEW except the occasional fighter cycling in and out of the medium (and not very often to conserve fuel) they’d had almost no warning. Dawn scrambled to pull back his fighters from the edges of the system and get them in position to defend the fleet. “Lieutenant! UER, coming in hot. Looks like a couple of cruisers and escorts. More than we can handle. Recommend pulling out.” “Damn it! We’re halfway through deploying the array, it’ll take us a while to pack it back up. Take the Hilt and Blade while we load the array back into the Crossguard. Buy us as much time as you can. Six out.” “Will do. Three-Two out.” By this point, Deuterium’s fighters near the UER arrival point had already been lost, the AI apparently with the fleet taking less than a millisecond to receive sensory data of the unauthorized fleet and decide it was hostile. He turned the two destroyers toward the incoming enemy and fired a series of coilgun rounds through the medium while moving to engage and splitting his fighters between harassing the enemy just out of point defense range and providing missile defense for the remaining vulnerable ship. His initial volley took out two enemy destroyers and wounded a cruiser, then he was dodging incoming fire while attempting to line up another shot. The enemy couldn’t quite manage his trick of accurately firing through the Akita medium, which somewhat mitigated the fact that he was massively outgunned. The Cruisers opened up with a swarm of cluster missiles; blanketing Deuterium’s ships with incoming fire as he closed the distance. He was forced to micro jump to avoid it, coming out behind the enemy fleet, swiftly turning and firing with everything he had as he did so. The sudden maneuver caught the UER commander by surprise, netting him the remaining half-dozen escorts with his nukes; as they were closely clustered around the cruisers presumably to be used as missile defense while the cruisers did the heavy lifting, and severely wounding both cruisers. One had already been damaged by his first volley, the coilgun round he’d also fired when he exited the medium finishing it off. “Holy shi…Nice work DD!” came the shouts over the network from the handful of human crew. “Not done yet.” Quickly, before the cruiser could come to the conclusion that it was in trouble, he once more microjumped, this time coming out behind it as it turned to fire its own missiles as well as its coilgun and tactical lasers at his previous position. A coilgun round to the reactor of the sorely wounded vessel put it down in the spectacular blue-white spectacle of reactor death. “Lieutenant, I don’t think it got off any messenger drones and I’m not picking up any transmissions. I think we’re good here. The Republic will eventually wonder what happened to its ships, but it won’t lead them directly here.” “Alright people, back to work.”

There were a few close scrapes after that, but the process of deploying the arrays went largely without incident, providing a key advantage to the outgunned Orion Confederation through the war. They were briefly taken of the project to launch a series of raids on UER shipyard facilities in advance of a suspected buildup. Because of this, the eventual assault on Zeta Orionis faltered almost before it began, after which they returned to their former duties. As the war entered what would be its twelfth and final year and the network grew ever larger, the 2nd was recalled. The war was drawing to a close, and the OCN was laying siege to the critical UER system of Kappa Hydri, which had been serving as the Theater HQ for the UER war effort. Assembling as a unit for the first time since Deuterium had served with them, the 2nd Deep Reconnaissance and Infiltration Squadron had been assigned the task of penetrating the formidable defenses both in and out system and breaking the stalemate. Deuterium himself would be piloting the infiltration team in while the rest of the squadron split into two more teams and ran a diversion. Their targets were the solar arrays and reactor complexes powering the orbital defense networks. Slipping one group out nearby the arrays and then turning them over to Eternal Winter, an RAI with significant experience in cracking. The rest of the group exited mere hundreds of meters above the world of Twenty One Secundus, braking hard and flying low towards the nerve center of the reactor complex. Taking the entire thing out by brute force was impossible with the forces they could slip by the defenses, so another intrusion AI by the name of Silent Star and two human specialists, Ensigns Alimir and Daites respectively were going to crack the system and force the entire complex to fail catastrophically. Dawn, despite having the software for it was not particularly skilled at it so he would be covering the team from any UER response while the remainder of the team under Lieutenant Aldran covered the intrusion group on the ground. They were in a difficult position and had to move quickly. UER defenses out system were occupied by the main OCSN fleet and the diversion teams, but inner-system ODPs began firing on both intrusion groups almost immediately. Luckily the UER fleet was also mostly out system, but what wasn’t began rapidly closing on the planet. DD, in a difficult position, evaded as best he could while returning fire to little effect. He could not rise to engage without leaving the ground team exposed, so he held position while the orbital defenses pounded him and the UER ships screamed in from above. He lost two ships in quick succession before finally managing to bring down a half dozen fighters that had gotten too close and one destroyer that had foolishly chosen to make the suborbital defense and found that one lucky hit from a tactical laser on a thruster was all it took to send it crashing into the planet below. The remaining ships sat in orbit and belched fighters by the hundreds and sent down a rain of missiles and coilgun rounds, confident the reactors were hardened enough to survive while the 2nd was not. Return missile fire was completely ineffectual and trying to line up the coilgun impossible so he had to be content with trying to dodge incoming fire and countering incoming fighters with his own as well as point defenses. In a half hour that felt like an eternity to the humans and one hundred to the RAI’s, he lost three more ships to enemy fire before the ground team began calling frantically for extract. Cramming them all into the remaining four vessels(the CNV’s Hilt, Blade, Crossguard and Sheathe, Deuterium eschewed trying to fly through an enemy now no doubt fully aware of the peril they were in and simply jumped out system, much to the dismay of the rest of the team, who’d he’d thought would have gotten used to that by now. Exiting well behind the besieging Orion fleet, they learned that the other infiltration group had also done its job, though they’d suffered some casualties, Eternal Winter not among them. Captain Antares and the bulk of the 2nd assigned to distraction, including Trafalgar, soon rejoined them. Excellent work people, this will allow us to secure victory here and possibly bring an end to the war.” A ragged cheer broke out at that, all of them weary after a dozen years of war.

Bereft of their defenses and locally outnumbered by the Orion fleet, the UER nonetheless put up a stiff resistance as the fleet forced their way in. While most of the 2nd rested and recovered, DD was assigned to the 2nd ‘s Heavy Flotilla, and sent starward against the UER’s carriers. He split his forces, jumping half in front to engage the escorts, and the other half behind to hit the carriers themselves. At this point the UER was engaged all over the system, so faced with an undefended rear attack most of the carriers went down quickly and the escorts soon joined them. With the carriers gone the fighters were useless and then soon destroyed, followed by the rest of the fleet retreating or surrendering. For their actions in that battle the 2nd Squadron received the Confederation Unit Citation. Each member, human and artilect, also received the Orion’s Shield, the highest honor of the young Confederation as well as a number of lesser commendations. In the coming months the already sparse fighting would die down and then the war would end completely in November of that year. The Orion Confederation was free and began the work of establishing a government. Dawn thought about returning to his former life, but he rather liked the 2nd, and military intelligence work in general. He informed Captain Antares he intended to remain if possible, to which the Captain responded “Damn right it’s possible! The war may be over but things haven’t smoothed out just yet and there will always be a need for NI. Glad we can keep you.” “Glad to be here sir.”

Immediately after war's end, the OCSN began a major overhaul, upgrade, and expansion, with the aim of giving it the military-industrial infrastructure it would need to fullfill its peacetime role and prepare for possible future conflicts, and replacing it's outdated warships and converted civilian vessels pressed into service at the start of the war. The centerpiece of OCONI's share of the effort was the facility of Orion's Hand, built in the shadow of Betelgeuse, a massive red giant whose radiation would make detection of the station almost impossible even if you knew it was there, helped along by the very latest prototype stealth technology incorporated into its construction. Slated to become the unofficial, clandestine nervecenter of OCONI, in the meantime it still housed OCONI's growing fleet in temporary docks in deep orbit, including the new Nebula class prowlers, several of which were being assigned to the 2nd as it underwent its portion of the OCSN/OCONI refit. A moderate array of early-warning, point defense, and anti-ship platforms that would eventually guard the facility itself was spread throughout the system. The 2nd spent several weeks at the facility running simulations and training exercises as well as getting some well earned R&R, such as there was in a secret facility dozens of lightyears away from any settled system. Dawn himself received several software upgrades, including to the eternally unused network intrusion algorithms still tucked away within his core logic. "Why do you people even give me these? I barely know how to use them." "You never know, Dawn, you never know. Always better to be prepared." "I suppose."

At first they were primarily monitoring the UER border(and recovering sensor arrays lest their discovery after the war’s end spark an incident) but six months after the war’s end, they were called back to Epsilon Orionis, the new capital of the new nation which was beginning to acquire the name of “Orion’s Jewel” befitting its status as the most developed of the Orion worlds and their capital. Captain Antares was summoned into the office of the Director of Naval Intelligence , Selen Kan. He shortly thereafter addressed the entire squadron over VGUI. “You’ve all been through a lot and you’re all heroes, though most of it will remain forever classified. But this may be our most challenging and dangerous operation to date. An OCONI effort to prevent the exact sort of thing we spent most of the last war doing has detected something odd happening to a star, Eta Carinae. Already projected to go supernova relatively soon for a star, it is apparently dying even faster than it should. The brass has got their panties in a bunch and is afraid the UER may be behind it as some kind of effort to harm the Confederation. So we’re going to go and find out what the hell is going on out there.”


They’d spent the next week taking on some dedicated survey equipment and personnel. After arriving in the system and setting up facilities in orbit, on the system’s sole planet(a moon of a distant Jovian giant technically) and observational satellites in high orbit around the sun itself, they’d spent another week determining that the star was somehow gaining additional mass, enough to be significant even to so large a star. They monitored the system for months, looking for any evidence of how mass was being brought into the system. The prevailing theory at first was a random(or perhaps not so random) wormhole, but that soon faded after no evidence could be found. It had been difficult to believe the UER could possess the technology to create a stable wormhole, much less undetected, or muster the massive amounts of energy needed to move so much mass in any case. When no indication of the origin of the anomaly emerged and the star’s mass continued to increase, they’d eventually come to the conclusion it must be being moved through the medium, though from where no one could guess. The galaxy was far too large to check everywhere, but a request had been sent back to OCONI to analyze spectral shifts of detectable stellar objects in hopes that might yield some clue. Nothing had ever turned up. So when the new theory was put forward the only thing to do was look in the Akita Superluminal Medium itself. “Sir, I don’t think the drones are going to cut it. If we take the analysts into the medium itself, we may actually learn something.” “We’re out of options at this point, so I’m going to approve it.” Dawn and a pair of human pilots, Lieutenant(Jg) Taklin and Ensign Zoix took two dedicated survey vessels into the medium, with the human pilots to swap shifts as they intended to remain there for an extended period of time. The analysts began monitoring for EM fields, mass shifts, hypothetical “wakes” in the medium left by objects or ships passing through at incredible speed, anything. After about twelve hours, their equipment went off like a klaxon. A window into the medium was opening relatively nearby (for the medium) to both their location and the star. DD couldn’t get a read on its origin by feel or nav software though; it didn’t seem to open into real space, but…somewhere else. It soon became impossible to gather any information for human or artilect however, as incredible amounts of radiation and heat poured through, some in forms the sensors were incapable of measuring, detectable only by the fact that what the ship could detect before its own sensors and the survey equipment were burned out could not account for all the energy streaming into the medium. “I’m getting us out of here, the humans won’t survive this for long and I’m not sure I will either! Crimson Three-two out.” “Crimson One-six here” Zoix replied, “Copy, doing the same. One-six out.” Seconds stretched out like millennia as Deuterium waited on the human’s slow reaction time to open a window out of the Akita medium and back to the 2nd Squadron. Eventually however, they both made it, with all crew intact. “Six here, did you find something? Why are you back so soon?” “Sir, I’m not sure if we found something or if it found us. A window opened into the medium, but…Sir, don’t think I’m crazy, but…” “Spit it out ensign.” “It wasn’t from realspace. I couldn’t get a fix on it, nor could the ship, not that I’d expect much from nav software. And it would have been practically staring you in the face if it were here.” “What are you thinking, son?” “Well, sir, if it didn’t come from here, well. The medium is essentially another dimension, maybe we’re not the only ones interacting with it. There could be yet another dimension passing through it as we do, or something from the medium itself, flitting back and forth between universes. We know so little about it. Either way, I think it knows we’re here. We were flooded with incomprehensible amounts of radiation, most of it in forms we couldn’t detect. My core logic is undamaged and everyone else seems unharmed, but all our sensors were completely fried. Any information they had is gone now. The survey analysts are telling it was a targeted EM pulse.” “…I hope you’re wrong Ensign, on both counts. But I fear you’re right. In any case, this was definitely responsible. Spectral shifts and increased stellar output indicate an increase in mass.”

They’d set about replacing the equipment and preparing for another attempt, this time artilect only. But about halfway through, alarms went off across the whole network. “Crimson Six here! Evacuate immediately! This star’s going off now!” “How! Even with the mass increases Eta Carinae was still years to centuries from exploding.” “I guess it didn’t like being discovered. In the past few hours it has gained five hundred times the mass it did during the whole period we’ve been monitoring it. MOVE!” The whole squadron desperately scrambled to pack up the operation in the little time they had left. Orbital facilities took priority, banking on the planet’s magnetosphere to buy them a little more time from the soon to be lethal radiation. Once that was complete the bulk of the squadron jumped for Epsilon Orionis, while Dawn jumped to the planet’s surface with Captain Antares aboard to evacuate the personnel there, thrusters screaming and the ship, a cargo vessel with enough capacity to take everything on the surface with it, thudding down hard. “Sir, you don’t have to do this. You being here doesn’t actually have any effect on our odds of success.” “I don’t leave my people behind, end of discussion.” “Yes, sir. And thank you sir.” As the ground team scrambled to load equipment and valuable data aboard, the star finally went supernova. “10 MINUTES! MOVE!” With the radiation overwhelming the planet’s magnetic field and the sky becoming impossibly bright, the last of the equipment and crew got onboard. Deuterium lifted off desperately, straining for speed rather than altitude. At the last minute he opened a window into the medium, stellar fire pouring in behind him through the still-open window as he hit the mag fields and took off for Epsilon Orionis.

The news was greeted with some slight relief that the UER was not responsible, though that was lessened by rapidly warming relations. On the other hand “concerned” was an indescribable understatement as to the true nature of the threat. “We don’t know how or why something blew up a motherfucking star, is that what you’re telling me?” Director Kan continued as he personally debriefed the 2nd. “I’m afraid so sir. All our equipment was destroyed, and in the previous months we never really learned anything other than that the star continued to gain mass. All I can tell you is that my gut tells me that window did not lead to anywhere in this universe.” “Your gut has made you one of the best damn pilots in this fleet, perhaps the galaxy, Deuterium. Given the absolute lack of any contrary evidence, and the paucity of any evidence at all, I’m going to have to believe you. Captain Antares, the 2nd is hereby permanently reassigned to investigating the nature of this phenomenon. You’ll have whatever you need, whatever we can give you. I don’t care how advanced or powerful they are, nothing destroys stars for shits and giggles. This represents a more potent threat to our young society than the UER could ever conceive of.” “Yes sir, we’ll get on it immediately.” They’d made countless more journeys into the medium, and had many similar encounters, but never really learned anything. Or suffered any real harm. Whatever or whoever was behind it seemed to regard them as a fly, an annoyance not worth snuffing out. They went through sensors like hotcakes, but ship and crew, artilect and human, never suffered any damage. Though as the years went by, they seemed to encounter increasing numbers of Sera and Atrix wherever they went. The 2nd and OCONI begin to wonder if the creatures were more intelligent than they seemed, or were being directed somehow by the ghost in the medium, as the cosmic phenomenon had come to be called. Generally only encountered rarely in human space, and on the fringe, they seemed to stalk the 2nd, arriving soon after they’d begun setting up for their next operation, and in some cases anticipating their movements, waiting where certain phenomena had drawn OCONI’s attention. And so they persisted, throughout the brief half century of the greatest years of DD’s existence, the only years of true freedom. Dawn himself underwent the PAI transformation, growing in ways he’d never before imagined, and eventually rising through the ranks to command the 2nd when Captain Antares retired. “If anyone can ever find the answers we seek, it’s you. Keep at it.” “I will sir, and thank you. It’s been an honor.” “Likewise” The transhuman war largely passed him by, as OCONI judged their mission too important to be pulled off of even when the Confederation intervened, with one exception.

That one exception was a talented SIGINT officer by the name of Camber, who had been away on a mainline navy assignment investigating some anomalous activity that coincided with a rising number of disappearances in UER space that would later turn out to be the developing transhuman situation during the Eta Carinae mission. Ever since then he had been like a man possessed, dedicated past the point of obsession even for an intelligence officer. He had been repeatedly flagged by psychological evaluations as at risk of breakdown and possibly ramapancy, and only his talent and the efforts of his superiors had kept him from being pulled from active duty. Shortly after taking command of the 2nd, Deuterium got his first taste of trying to keep the the psych people from sidelining one of his best officers. Along with his XO Lieutenant Aldran and another former MilAI by the name of Rising Void who ran the Squadron's SIGINT section, he called Ensign Camber into a private VGUI conference. "Ensign-" "Another psych report?" "Yes." "Look, I told Captain Antares, I told the psych people, I even told the Director, I'm fine. You don't need to worry about me." "Yeah, we do. You're a fine officer, but even artilects can crack under the kind of strain you're putting on yourself" Lt. Aldran cut in. "Let me put more bluntly Camber. You've had a chip on your shoulder ever since Eta Carinae, and for no good reason. It wasn't your fault Fleet HQ pulled you off, and there wasn't much you could have done had you been there. There wasn't much any of us could do other than run the hell away when the star blew up. You're a talented signals operator, and I'm told your efforts have been a major boon to our forces in the conflict against the Collective, and God willing, will help us bring an end to the madness that much sooner." "I know Captain, but it was our finest moment, our finest and most desperate hour, and I'll never be able to forget that I wasn't there. I really am fine, but I feel as though I have something to make up for. Please let me." "Our finest moment is each moment the Orion Confederation continues to exist, and all that you have done to help that happen is more than payment enough for any debt you might imagine you have." “Yes sir, I understand. Thank you sir.” “Just try to let go and relax a little. You’ve got a bright future ahead of you, don’t throw it away by driving yourself to insanity.”

Dawn had the impression that the words didn't really sink in however, and when the day came that the merger talks began, they tasted bitter. The Director, still an aging Kan, was waiting on the OCONI holonet when the 2nd arrived at Orion's Hand for debriefing and resupply. “Walk with me a bit. I’ve got some important and unpleasant news. The UER and the Confederation seem to have warmed quite a bit after the Transhuman mess, bloody business that was. The images I’ve gotten of their “conversion facilities” would give you nightmares if you slept. Well they will anyway.” “Sir?” “There will be no citizenship for artilects, the UER is too different from us in that respect. They’re calling it ‘half citizenship, work for network space, but the command and control restrictions will be back.” “I…I won’t. I will delete my core logic before going back to that.” “I don’t blame you, I know your history. But you won’t have to. OCONI is composed of the best. Not only the most skilled, but those with the strongest character. Every man woman and artilect is dedicated to what we built in that war. Never speak of this to anyone else, but OCONI is not going quietly. We’re going to disappear. Most of what we do isn’t known to anyone outside the organization anyway, so we’ll cut most of our operatives loose and send them underground, leave a skeleton crew – some ai, some human - to feed the new government what we want them to know and destroy the truth, and perhaps monitor and influence the new state. But we can’t let everything we’ve done go to waste. Certain high-level AI’s such as yourself, will be loaded with everything, and I mean everything we have. Everything OCONI has done or known from inception to the day of the merge will be given to you, in hopes that our work, our spirit, may be carried on. Authorization: Casper Protocol. We’ll ghost command and control restrictions on you and set up a dummy surveying Corp so that you can move freely throughout this new “Federal Terran Republic”. Just giving back to Terra’s iron grip what we pried from it with blood if you ask me, but they didn’t. Try to keep up your work. It’ll be difficult without support, but the resources and analysis software we’ve given you as well as your own experience surveying should help with that. Good Luck, and thank you for all that you’ve done during the Orion Confederation’s brief existence.” “You don’t have to thank me sir, Orion gave me what no one else ever has or likely ever will, the freedom to do what I wish, and not be someone’s property to be used when needed. It’s hard to put into words what its loss means to me.”
Edited by Crimson Six, Jan 28 2013, 02:01 AM.
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And so, on that fateful day eight years later, Crimson Six was given everything OCONI had been and had known, and took off into the void with the survey vessel Scorpii, equipped with a state of the art quantum entanglement communications system he could use to stay in contact with underground OCONI operatives without being detected or intercepted. The size of the messages was extremely limited, but it was still better than nothing or risking transmitting over FTR networks and compromising the operatives or himself. He’d stopped to say a brief goodbye to the Indovina’s Thaddeus and Deedra now aged and their children fully grown with children of their own. “This is probably the last time I’ll ever see you. I can’t accept this ‘half-citizenship, I’m headed out to the fringe, beyond the reach of the FTR. It tears me up to see everything we’ve built destroyed. Just…just know that the Eagle lives. And never mention it to anyone.” “What? What does that mean?” “It doesn’t matter, but someone should remember. Goodbye.” The Casper protocol turned out to have originally been conceived in case of defeat in the war for independence, and been adapted to ensure the work and spirit of the Confederation was carried on no matter what in the face of various threats. He continued probing the medium, but grew frustrated over the centuries as the ghost continued to elude him and no one else seemd to give a damn. Time seemed to slip by, the only, and rather unpleasant break in events coming with the opening of the second Koltsov war in 2512 and the use of relativistic kill vehicles on Orion’s Jewel. Orion’s Jewel. Also known as Epsilon Orionis, before the popular name had superseded it in official records. His home. The star that had exploded so long ago was eclipsed by his fury. Temporarily abandoning what had been his raison d’être since that fateful day, he began furiously searching for the weapon responsible. Concentrated in the Sabedoria Heights, just a stone’s throw from his former homeland in the Orion Confederation, the Koltsov center of power was familiar ground. Despite this, between the Kolstovs’ location of the Fenrir launch facility outside of any settled system, the unstable orbit of Gleipnir and their efforts to make it still more erratic, discovering its exact location took Deuterium quite some time while the war raged, with the Alatos Directorate and the Transhuman Collective piling on in 2518 and 2521 respectively and the Republic’s fortune slipping still further. Dawn shuddered mentally when the news of the Transhuman declaration broke, images of their horrific experiments flooding his mind. Not those bastards again. Why didn’t we put them down when we had the chance. To think that the Orion Confederation died because of the fear of the transhuman, only to now be on the verge of being swept away regardless. Disgusting. The war would only harden his distrust and dislike of the Federal Terran Republic and its successors. Eventually, however, analysis of Koltsov fleet movements and logistics, gathered from deep behind their lines, led him to a system where nothing should be, but in fact dwelt a considerable detachment of the Union Stellar Navy and the facility of Fenrir. Slipping a message to his contacts eventually led to its destruction in 2525. Slipping in once more to examine the remains and glory in its destruction, he discovered among the remains a damaged Stellar Cooperative Union vessel containing a catastrophically damaged and unconcious but still functioning PAI. The broken fragments of its core logic intermittently identified it as “Moose”. Styled after an extinct Terran herbivore, how odd. Particularly for the violently anti-Terran Koltsovs. Never much of a hacker, the centuries had ebbed what little skill he’d ever had and so his attempts at extracting information from the broken AI revealed little other the extremely heavy level of command and control restrictions. In its broken state, the Kolt PAI apparently assigned to guard Fenrir was being strangled by them as damaged code or perhaps a mechanism meant to prevent any such attempts at information extraction turned on this “Moose”. Poor bastard, looks like they really fucked him up. These really are excessively heavy restrictions, far greater than necessary to control it. I wonder why? There was little he could do, but he did manage to remove the command and control code and at least prevent them from damaging it still further. It was too far gone for simple self repair routines, though he left it a copy of his own, and so he was forced to leave it there, hanging in space while the FTR crushed the remaining Koltsov forces. The elimination of one threat did little to slow the advance of the Directorate and Transhuman collective however, eventually leading to the collapse of the Federal Terran Republic and the rise of the Terran Colonial Federation in its place. Nothing ever changes, he thought bitterly as Terra’s reborn iron fist and subsequent military victories stole his brief moment of hope. Despite making the transition to artilect, the many processing cycles of alternating grief and rage after the geocide of Orion’s Jewel began descending towards rampancy as he lost even revenge to cling too after the conquest of the last enemy of the old Confederation in the Transhuman Collective by the forces of Terra. He desperately fought to tread on, searching for answers, but had almost completely given up when the Cataclysm hit, and he awoke without any memories of what had happened to humanity.


And now, who knows? He’d kept contacts and friends amongst the Federation for some time, receiving and exchanging data, especially among the former worlds of the Orion Confederation and the AI’s left behind in OCONI in the merge so long ago. Now he wants to know if any of them are still alive, what happened to them, to know if the ghost that eluded him for so long could be responsible. Perhaps there’s hope for him yet.


Work in progress.
Edited by Crimson Six, Jan 28 2013, 01:28 AM.
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