Chương 2: Nova Wars - Chapter One

At 1. 33 meters, Hetmwit was a Pagrik of unremarkable size, with brown colored fur that blended in with others of his kind in an unremarkable way. His eyes were wide and brown, showing neither advanced intelligence or abject stupidity. His ears, at the back of his head and lifted slightly, were neither too droopy nor too stiff. His legs and arms were neither too muscular nor too slender. He was unremarkable in word or deed. Which made it always amusing to him that he had been conscripted.

In initial training, he neither excelled nor failed. He was one of the faceless masses that passes through military entry training, with an unimpressive job even to his fellow conscripts. His first posting was neither hardship nor luxury, no different than a civilian job with a dress code and mandatory fitness regulations. He was so unimpressive that twice his superiors forgot about him. Once, he had been left off of the training schedule for nearly two months. He showed up anyway, but nobody really took notice.

The second time, his commander was unsure who the change of duty station orders were for and his immediate supervisors were convinced it was a paperwork mistake until Hetmwit overheard them speaking and informed them that he was the one in question. To which, his supervisors answered: Which unit are you in? Even to his roommates he was forgettable. More than once, while he was present, his roommates were asked "What happened to that one troop that was your roommate" and hard the response "No clue.

Guess he got orders." Being of middling ability and mind, he was not offended, just merely accepted that he was nobody of any importance. Which fitted him just fine. He had seen that those who were unimportant and poorly skilled and trained, with substandard intellect, never prevailed and were often tossed aside. Those who stood out due to high skills, intellect, or whatever, often found themselves put in dangerous situations, with unrealistic expectations.

Planning, Hetmwit decided he would stay in the military of the Olipnat Concordiant until he reaching about the middle term of service for retirement. Not the bare minimum, the benefits, to his reasoning, were not justified for that amount of time. The maximum seemed, to Hetmwit, as if he would be too old to enjoy all the perks and bonuses.

His job, robotic systems maintenance and service, was important enough that he was always needed, but not so urgent and vitally necessary that he was requested for things that might be too dangerous. Hetmwit had no desire to be too important. That was for important people. He did not envy the power armor pilots, the warmek pilots, the infantry, the armored vehicle crews. He did not hold in disdain those who just did paperwork or did the small jobs that kept the military running and functioning.

He just maintained and repaired the robotic servitors and systems, ate his meals, did standard correspondence courses, took care of his physical fitness, and spent time with his fellow troops, even if they did forget who he was quite often. When his orders came through moving him from a planet-side station on a perfectly unremarkable planet among the thousand plus systems of the Olipnat Concordiant he was not worried. He looked up the duty station.

An unremarkable ship in the middle tonnage range with an unimpressive pedigree. It had been in battles, but without any notable distinction or any distinctive fleet actions. A quick check of records available to someone of his middling security clearance showed that the ship suffered very few casualties, even in war. Hetmwit nodded. This was nothing new.

Just one more unremarkable posting that would allow him to mark off five unremarkable years on the calendar, which would push him over the middle of his planned time of service. [The Universe Giggled at That] Of course, his certifications needed re-certified by certified certification accredited certifiers.

After all, it took three times for him to be able to file the proper paperwork, since the first time the clerk promptly forgot what the paperwork was for and erased it, the second time the system tossed back that there was no such service member. The third time got him an almost immediate school date, since one of the more unremarkable schools, that churned out faceless trainees, had just had several openings appear due to a minor funding increase on a minor spending bill that had almost gone unnoticed.

Although no party or celebration was had when it came time for him to leave, nor did he receive an award, certificate, or other sign of appreciation, the fact that the shippers remembered to come get his personal effects to move them to his next duty station was gratifying. His time in school was uneventful. He neither failed to perform or overperformed. Several members of his class set test records and other such things and were awarded and lauded for their skill, intelligence, and innovativeness.

To Hetmwit, those beings were welcome to such things. There was some confusion about how he could have served nearly thirteen years, 'Olipnat Standard' in the Olipnat Concordiant Military without gathering a single award beyond ones that the computer systems awarded automatically for time in service and/or time in grade or for attending certain schools or meeting basic qualification standards. With a shrug, Hetmwit found those who were curious lost interest between one breath and the next. Which was fine with him.

The trip to the unremarkable system housing a generic standard military space station was uneventful. The space station looked just like every other space station, after all the Olipnat Concordiant considered their mastery of standardization to be their greatest strength. The ship looked like every other middle-tonnage ship. Neither a dedicated ship of the line nor a support ship, it was a blend of both, designed to perform a myriad of tasks, just none of them exceptionally well.

Most of his fellow troops were welcomed by their leadership. Everyone left and Hetmwit found himself standing in the space station's welcome area for nearly an hour before an overstressed private ran up, panting, to see if it had been a paperwork error that there was twenty-three incoming troops or if someone had been left behind. Hetmwit was asked if he knew of anyone who came in on the recent shuttle that was military. As he stood there in dress uniform, which was the only authorized uniform for travel.

With his paperwork in one hand and his duty satchel in the other.

"Yes," Hetmwit stated.

"Great! Where are they? Do you know where they went?" the private asked, looking around the bay.

"Yes. It is me," Hetmwit said. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! The private stared at him with some suspicion. Hetmwit handed the private his orders. The private looked at them, blinked several times, then looked up. Hetmwit was already holding out his identification smartcard. The private looked between the smartcard, the paperwork, and Hetmwit's face several times.

"Oh. Guess it is you," the private said. Hetmwit was used to this experience so he just nodded. The private led him to the briefing. The officer at the front of the room asked the private if he had found the missing trooper. The private turned around and waved in Hetmwit's general direction, saying that Hetmwit was 'over there somewhere.'

Keeping his mouth shut, Hetmwit sat down and listened to the briefing where they tried to make a boring multi-function multi-role multi-objective starship sound exciting and the duty station sound like the most important duty station since the Jeskek Nebula Chokepoint Station. The ship was equipped with multi-role in and out of atmosphere aerospace strikers, multi-use dropships and drop-pods, multi-use missile systems, close, medium, and long range weaponry.

It had highly trained marines that were proficient in a multitude of roles. It was capable of operating independently as well as part of a task force. Everyone around him seemed excited at being aboard a ship like that, and even more excited that it had just undergone refit. During the briefing, Hetmwit just listened. He had learned long ago that any question he would think up, someone more clever than him would think up before he could and ask it.

Then came assignment of sleeping stations, duty stations, and onboard gear. Hetmwit found himself tucked in an odd stateroom down by the main robotics fabrication and repair station. Obviously intended for an officer, it was too near some type of critical machinery that Hetmwit had no idea about, so the room had a soft hum all the time. It didn't bother Hetmwit.

He had a room to himself that was actually spacious enough that the desk, wardrobe, bed, table, and chair didn't fold into the wall but instead was just bolted to the floor. He even had a shelf for datapads and paperwork! And his own private bathroom, complete with a sonic fresher station and an actual lit mirror. Funny thing was, the door didn't have a label and an oddity of the ship architecture made it so that the door was nearly hidden, the button to open it half-hidden behind a pipe.

Still, Hetmwit didn't mind. He simply did his job at a steady pace, without any surprises, failures, or triumphs. More than a few times he heard some of his fellow machinists and robotic maintenance and repair specialists wonder just how some of the robots were being repaired. Once while he was even working on the robot.

[The Universe Smirked at That] There was even the incident where the mess chief and the atmospherics chief were sure that there was an error in the system or a stowaway, since there was missing mass. After three full accountability formations and two shipwide searches, they just gave up. It had been something that Hetmwit had learned in his adolescence, not to try to speak up and tell them that their count was off because of him. It was always denied and lightly mocked, then everyone forgot.

A more inspired or motivated being might have taken advantage of their status, in Hetmwit's position, to run criminal scams, but Hetmwit was a basically decent sort. He routinely passed by opportunities to enrich himself at the expense of others or by breaking the law. He avoided get-rich-quick schemes. He was simply content. After a few months, during which he made friends as best as he was able for a person that others often forgot about while he was speaking to them, the ship was assigned its mission.

A long range scouting mission, further up the galactic arm, further toward the middle of the galactic arm, away from the galactic core. The ship, which had the impressive name of The Star of Jurakak, the Olipnat Concordiant's primary shipyard, would be jumping from star system to star system. There, they would do an initial exploration scan on the system, take on mass from the gas giants and/or refine what they needed from comets and asteroids, then move on. A solitary mission! Everyone was excited.

Hetmwit knew it would be uneventful, just like his entire life. [The Universe Snickered at That] Sixteen star systems and thirty-two weeks later, Hetmwit found himself drinking with several of the Marines and a few other military members. The alcohol was mid-grade, run off of a hidden distiller behind the officer's backs, but it did the job.

Excitement had turned to boredom and Hetmwit sat and listened as the Marines complained that nothing was going to happen and his fellow military members complained that nothing would happen. After a few hours of drinking and politely listening, Hetmwit was buzzed and made his apologies before leaving and heading for his room. He carefully undressed, folded his off-duty uniform up and put it in his laundry bag at the end of his bed, and hit the fresher.

When he came out, rubbing his fur with his vestigal claws, he got in bed and went to sleep. Confident that the next day would be like every other day. When he woke up he blinked in confusion. Something was off. The lights came on with a simple verbal command. He got up and looked around his room. Everything was in place. The lights seemed a little dim, but that wasn't it. It wasn't until he was dressed that he realized what it was. The hum was gone. Curious, he went out into the hallway.

Starships are never completely silent. There's always the sound of a pump, the banging of equipment, the noise of voices and movement. The hallways are always clean and scrubbed, brightly lit. The lights were dim.

"Hello?" Hetmwit called out. No answer. He moved over to the nearest intercom and pressed the button. Not the red or yellow one. The green one for normal calls. After a few tries he moved to pressing the yellow one. Then the red one. No answer. Not even the computer or the virtual intelligence. His room was near both the standard enlisted shipboard troops and the highly trained Marines. He shrugged and tried the Marines first. Their bay was empty. Their rooms were empty. Their gear was there.

Clothing folded up neatly. Boots highly shined. Hats hung up. Beds made to mathematical precision. His calls went unanswered. Both voice and with the intercom. He moved from the Marines to the shipboard troops. He found the same. Frowning, he made his way to what everyone called 'officer country' and checked in those rooms. Everything was ready for inspection. Everything folded, put away, stacked, racked, and packed. The ship was still silent. He checked his place of duty. It was empty. Just the robots.

Shrugging, he looked at the duty roster. He was two hours early for work, but he didn't see anyone else working, so he logged in and worked, slowly clearing the task list. Twice he went to the mess, but nobody was there. The automat worked and he got his meals, even though half the time the machines didn't deduct the cost from his separate rations budget. After some time, Hetmwit decided that perhaps he should check other places. Damage Control Center. Empty. Troop bays. Empty. Gunnery Positions. Empty.

Flight Bays. Empty. The ships were there, the lean and lethal strikers, the clunky and square dropships. But nobody else was. Here and there robots were working, doing maintenance. But the ship was strangely silent. Eventually, he made his way to the bridge. Even though he wasn't authorized to be on the bridge, the doors opened after the third try, the limited computer system error checking determining that perhaps it was a maintenance check and opening the door despite not seeing anyone there.

The bridge was empty. The consoles and counters perfectly clean. The monitors were dark, the consoles silent and unpowered. The forward screens and holotanks were unpowered. A slight smile on his face, Hetmwit sat down in the Captain's Throne and looked around. The effect was lost without any witnesses, so he got back up, unable to think of anything snazzy to say. After a bit he walked to the main computer operations center.

The doors opened after a few presses on the button and he moved inside one of the most secure areas on any starship. It was empty. The computer server racks were all dark. The robots slumped or stilled. To Hetmwit, that explained why he wasn't getting any more tasks and why the robots, which had initially been doing maintenance and other tasks, now just sat in their charging cradles. He wandered over to the primary breaker box and opened it. The main circuit breakers were in the off position.

Lights were lit warning that the primary power plants were offline but the backup systems were engaged. Hetmwit left the room and went over to the publications office. Concordiant regulations insisted that every technical manual also be present in hard copy in case of computer failure. He looked around and found the maintenance manuals for the ship's computer core. He stopped by the tool room, the door opening silently, and got the tools listed in the manual.

It took him less than an hour of reading the manual as he worked before he managed to bring the ship's computer systems online in emergency mode.

"Computer," Hetmwit said.

"Ready," the computer system replied. The tone was flat and robotic, all of the personality overlays offline due to the emergency mode.

"Where is everyone?" he asked. There was silence for a moment. Then he got his answer.

"Sole crewmember present in primary computer core housing chamber." [The Universe Busted Up Laughing]