Chương 157: Nova Wars - Chapter 128

We thought we knew what we were getting into when we decided to declare the Confederacy our enemy. We were wrong. - Dra. Falten history class Commodore Navelu'uee had served the Dra. Falten Empire all of her life. A fervent believer in the Empress's divinity and the Emperor's holiness, she came from a long line of military officers stretching back over five thousand years. She could trace her genetic lineage to a time when the Dra. Falten fought with swords and pikes.

Her family had been part of the military expedition to explore the strange object that had been discovered by telescopes. An object orbiting one of the outer gas giants. An object that had turned out to be an ancient space ship, completely computerized, completely unmanned, that had suffered electronic death. Her family crest had a red background, signifying that her family had faced down the screaming shades that had almost destroyed the Dra. Falten at one point. She had served faithfully her entire life.

Which made it so that she drew the runes from the number 50 on the table in front of her, staring at the number as she ate. Commodore Navelu'uee followed her family lineage, had entered military school at seven years of age, had entered the military at thirteen as a fully grown adult. Her family lineage extended back to before space flight, all of it faithful service to the Holy Duology and the Dra. Falten people.... die at fifty...

slithered through her brain as she ate without looking at the food, without tasting it. She felt adrift, for the first time in her life. The other Dra. Falten had been taken off of the ship, leaving her alone, surrounded by creatures of myth and legend. Myths and legends that all agreed that the creatures were some of the most lethal and dangerous creatures the universe had ever spawned.

Part of her wanted to stay in her room, take meals only in her room, but she knew the Empress would see her lack of conviction, her lack of faith, and judge her harshly. Cowardice begets cowardice. She had left her room, following the line projected on the eyepiece of the headpiece that the Mad Lemurs of Terra had provided. Now she sat in the big dining area, surrounded by the Mad Lemurs of Terra, all of whom were eating.

Some were holding conversations with others, some seemed to finish eating, relax, and have a smoke stick. Still others had desserts and then yawned, stretched, and left. Commodore Nav understood. There were multiple shifts required to keep a starship in operation. Some of the lemurs were going on duty, others were on their meal break, others were going off duty. She had to admit, the fact that the lemurs worked in eight hour cycles made them highly effective.

An eight hour sleep period, followed by a meal, followed by eight hours, then another meal, then eight hours with a meal in there. Or was it four hour cycles? She drew another set of runes for fifty and stared at them. By the time I return from this my mother will be dead, she thought. Her mother was an accomplished starship captain who had commanded flotillas, who now set space navy policy. Who would die of a congenital heart defect built into her very DNA.

A defect that Commander Nav had possessed until the Mad Lemurs of Terra had cured her with a simple injection. A defect that innumerable medical checks during her career had never picked up. Which meant that not only did MEDCOM know about it. They hid it. She jerked back when a lemur sat down across from her.

"So, you're the Dra. Falten hostage," the lemur said in their heavy accent.

"Yesss," she drew out the last letters.

"I was told to find you. You have your implant turned off," the lemur said.

"Oh," she reached up and tapped her temple. The lemur's ID popped up. Technical Sergeant Treston. She had six messages from the ship's operating system as well as three messages from the technical sergeant in front of her. She looked them over. The ones from the operating system were reminders to keep her implant and her eyepiece on at all times. The ones from TS Treston were requests for her location. Without showing any expression she messaged back to TS Treston that she was in Dining Area 07-246-9-L.

; She saw Treston blink twice then give her one of those closed lip 'smiles' to denote amusement. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Well, now it's official I found you," Treston said.

"Yes," Nav replied, looking back down at her food. fifty years...

"The Lord Captain thought you might want to be present," Treston said.

"For what?" Nav asked, not looking up from her food.

"Most hostages coming in, or something like that," Treston said. Nav glanced up at the strange tone. The lemur's pale skin, almost alabaster, was pinked by what Nav's implant assured her was excitement and the eyes were bright, almost glittering.

"Apparently the Detainee is bringing in more people." Nav wanted to roll her eyes at the mention of the Detainee. A near omnipotent figure with such heavy religious overtones that supposedly could rival even the Empress? Please. But what she had heard from her fellow Dra. Falten before they had been whisked away by that very same Detinee. What Nav herself had seen from the "Guardians of the Path of the Traveler".

"When?" Nav asked, staring back at her food.

"We probably have five, maybe ten minutes if we hurry after you finish eating," Treston said. Nav reached out and tapped the hard surface of the table, bringing up the context menu. Two more taps and the plate, glasses, food and drink all dissolved.

"I am ready," Nav said. The lemur was obviously excited and although Nav knew that whatever was going to involve the Detainee would probably be exciting and matter, she couldn't shake the heavy feeling that seemed to smother anything beyond......... fifty. One of the doors they passed had runes that her eyepiece translated as fifty, bringing her thinking about it even as she followed. It had been almost a week, three days since the other Dra. Falten had left, and she still couldn't get it out of her head.

"MAKE WAY!" The lemur stopped suddenly and Nav kept walking, sunk into misery and thinking about the number fifty over and over, her mental voice getting a little higher and a little shriller each time. The lemur reached out and grabbed her uniform, yanking her back suddenly so hard that her feet left the ground. She slammed into the lemur's chest and the lemur wrapped one arm around her, crushing her close. A work party dragging a heavy cable as thick as Nav's torso hustled by.

The lemur kept her crushed close to him. She could feel his body heat through his uniform, like he was a furnace on a cold winter night. She could feel his heart thudding in his chest. Feel the strength in his arms and frame, his muscles heavy and dense beneath his uniform. The party went by and Technical Sergeant Treston held onto her for a slight moment before letting her go. She was aware she was blushing, her whiskers trembling.

"Almost got run over, Commodore," Treston said.

"Whatever you're thinking about, might want to ponder it later," he gave a sudden grin.

"I'll get you a pondering orb from supply later." Nav just bobbed her head, nodding. There was a clink in her ear.

"Yes?" she asked, following Treston as he moved down the corridor.

"Medcom here," a voice said.

"I'm reading a spike in your vitals and neurochemicals. Is everything all right?"

"Yes, yes. Everything is fine. I'm fine. Thanks for asking," Nav mumbled before hanging up. She reached up and turned off her earpiece, her eyepiece, and her implant. She hurried after TS Treston, staying with the male lemur, who led Nav through the massive ship until they reached an open flight bay. A strange hexagonal chamber had been built in the middle of the bay. Computers surrounded it, but large ones.

Nav could see the cover was off of one and instead of the block of molecular circuitry she was positive she was seeing metal over silicon chips. The sight of the Detainee sitting in a chair, cigarette held between her teeth, tapping on a physical keyboard with one finger, made Nav's guts clench. Nav sat next to Treston, staring at the Detainee as she kept working.

Looking at the screens around her, cathode ray tube monitors, and pecking at the keyboard with one finger or moving a pointing device with clicking switches at the front. After a moment, she turned to Treston.

"Can I sit in front of you?" she asked. Treston nodded.

"Sure. Are you all right? Medcom keeps telling me that your biometrics keep spiking."

"I am nervous," Nav said. She moved in front of Treston.

"Can you run your fingers through the fur between my ears? It will help keep me calm." Treston nodded, his face going strangely expressionless and still.

"Of course." Nav watched, feeling her anxiety start to ebb as the lemurs strong fingers started combing through her fur, from the top of her skull, along the top of it, between her ears, then down her neck to her collar. The fingertips were warm, almost hot. She reminded herself that the lemur's body temperature was 37 degrees scientific notation, which was over a third of the temperature to boil water. While her own temperature was 36 degrees at core, she had fur which kept a lot of her heat inside.

The Detainee stood up, lighting a new cigarette.

"Should work. The Q and Z coordinates we're sitting at are tough to reconcile with the system," the Detainee said. She reached down and tapped one key.

"Here we go." The lights dimmed as the Detainee moved over to the door. She opened it and went inside. The door closed and a loud humming sound made Commodore Navelu'uee wince. Angela Angus Kusumoto jumped up from her workspace, pointing at the screens that had just gone live.

"GET PARANOID SHOTS RIGHT NOW!" she yelled as she hustled forward. She could see the system going live. Process calls and node calls to Terra. The mat-trans was going active and going active hard. She stared at the screen as numbers streamed by. Some of the nodes locking were completely unfamiliar addresses. The paranoid camera operators were taking photos as fast as the exposed film whirred free of the casing. Three jumps.

From a completely anomalous address to one that Angela could tell was on Terra but she'd never seen before, then a third to an address she'd seen the system use. Then it ran in reverse. The system then went through shutdown. This time she caught it. The mat-trans was being ordered from Terra. From that middle address she'd never seen before.

"Tell me you got that," Angela said. The paranoid camera operators nodded. Commodore Navelu'uee looked up as the door clacked and slowly opened. Mist poured out. There was a clacking sound, multiple clacking sounds overlapping one another.

"Settle them down," the Detainee's voice said.

"They are excited. It was an interesting trip," another woman's voice stated. Navelu'uee thought the voice sounded kind.

"They like you," a male lemur's voice said.

"Fine, they can go first," the Detainee said. From out of the mist skipped two strange four legged creatures with horns on their heads. Afterwards came a tall, lanky Terran wearing what looked like furs with a spear in one hand and a fruit in the other.

"Dancer, Jumper, settle down," the man laughed. He looked around.

"Ah, the Sons of Tyr." He moved to the side as another male Terran exited the doorway. This one was massive, so wide he had to turn at the shoulders. He looked young to Navelu'uee, his blond hair cut severely short like all of the other Terrans Navelu'uee had met. Another male Terran, this one scowling, with brown skin and black hair. It moved off to the side, standing slightly behind the large blonde. Then a female Terran with the same dark skin, pulling a pipe from a pocket on her robe-like clothing.

Finally, the Detainee. She looked around and Navelu'uee saw the Detainee's eyes stop on the Lord Knight in charge of the ship.

"Now we can go. I have what we need."