First Contact

Chapter 817: Ultimis Diebus Hominum

Know when to walk away, know when to run. - Maxim #3, Junker's Code

Know when to hold the cargo, know when to dump it. - Maxim #7, Junker's Code

Never count your money till the deal is done. - Maxim #9, Junker's Code

Breket breathed a sigh of relief as the reports came back all clear.

They'd inspected the ship top to bottom after they'd left the Tomb Worlds, while they were in the upper bands of jumpspace. Then they'd dropped into one of the Dead Worlds that had been geeked during the Terran-Council-Precursor Conflict of the early years of the Big C3.

The worlds were silent except for a few automated beacons pleading for someone to save people who were long dead or gone.

There had been two worlds inside the Universal Green Zone. Both, according to the astrogation database, had been lush worlds, largely Lank-formed, with populations in the tens of billions.

One was nothing more than a highly toxic atmosphere full of volcanic cinders, where winds in the hundreds of miles an hour swept over burning landscapes. In four places a PAWM could be seen on the surface, the hull shattered, with the naked eye.

The other looked lush and fertile.

It was a deathtrap of heavy metals, toxic pathogens and spores, and ruins. There were two massive "Big Slobbery Mo" in orbit around the planet, their shells cracked and shattered, frozen ichor and tissue around them, their tentacles and cilia unmoving and dead. The Dwellerspawn 'brain corals' had all been eliminated.

All that was left was killer life.

Junkers and salvage rats like Breket and his crew had been in the system before. It was one of the early systems lost, even though the Terran war machine had put up one hell of a fight.

They'd gotten the majority of the population out, the population that had remained when they'd crashed through The Wall.

Sure, it was less than 10% of the population.

But Breket could admire that a Terran Task Force, unprepared for what they had found, had managed to lift a billion people off of the planet.

The other fifty-two billion Unified Civilized Species had died on the three settled planets.

Still, it made for a good 'dead stop' to hit up after any particularly iffy salvage mission.

The Terran Confederate Navy had left behind an automated refueling, refit, and repair station sometime during the Big C3, and even though the DS had died during the Terran Xenocide Event, it still worked.

It just didn't ask for ID.

Which meant an enterprising junker or salvager could swing by, transmit the fake ID everyone passed around (which was also spraypainted on the hull of the ARR station), and get refueling and whatever else they needed done.

Before that, though, Breket had ordered another sweep of the ship.

Then he had hooked into the GalNet node the Terran Navy had dropped and looked up data on phasic shades. He'd found the detector specs for the model of nanoforge his ship packed and ran off a couple dozen.

Another sweep. Then put in the detectors in sections of the ship nobody really went to.

Then installing an internal sensor system that would detect 'drifting phasic energy wisps' that were often the only warning any being got before a dead Terran jumped through the wall and murdered someone.

It was slightly disturbing that killing strengthened the phasic shade somehow. The psychic manifestation of the murdered being's agony added to the phasic shade's power.

And both he and his crew had seen that the system they'd dropped Max in had been full of phasic shades and worse.

Now, the system was reporting all clear, with 'rage imprint' and 'wrath imprint' and 'enragement imprint' levels in the room Max had been staying in below threshold range.

Which brought out the sigh of relief.

"We're clear," Breket said. He got up and moved over to the wall, opening a box and pulling out an old handset. He lifted it up and pressed the "ALLCOM" button in the box, the physical switch clicking.

"All hands, all hands, stand down from Phasic Sweep Status. We're clear. Secure from General Quarters, repeat, secure from General Quarters! All hands are to stand down from General Quarters, return to normal duties and/or receive their next orders from their Department Heads. The time on deck is zero-nine-fifteen; All Department Heads will muster with the Captain in the Captain's Ready Room at eleven hundred hours," he stated. He hit the button and there was the strange whistle.

He hung up the handset and closed the box.

It still seemed a little weird to have things set up that way, but it made sense in an odd way. There was no way to accidentally use the ship-wide commo system that overrode every other com system.

It was also hard wired. Literal copper wire and relays.

Breket moved back to his chair and sat down, relaxing.

"Set course for..." he started to say.

"STATUS CHANGE!" Helgret'tik called out from her position at the scanner console, her voice tight with stress. "Jumpspace and Hellspace energy detected."

Breket slapped the button and the five point harness slid over him, tightening almost painful. "Sound General Quarters!"

Breket's XO moved over to the box, opening the box to reveal the handset. He heaved a deep breath before picking it up. "All hand, all hands, move to General Quarters. All Department Heads, make standard checks. We have unknown contacts with Hellspace energy signatures."

"Talk to me," Breket said.

"Portal opened and closed rapidly. Less than two seconds. Faint jumpspace energy signature, mixed in with Hellspace," Helgret'tik said, her voice clipped. "Very faint signature."

"Go to active scanning," Breket ordered.

"Running scans," Helgret'tik said.

"Guns, get ready," Breket ordered. "Load the pods and the cannons, charge the graser and plasma systems," he added. "Hold off on pumping out the atmosphere until we get all clear from all stations."

"Brookcarrier and podling deck sealed," Pretkwik said. "Broodcarrier stress at green."

Breket nodded.

"Scans coming back," Helgret'tik said. "Got a faint Hellspace traces. Tracking," her voice got soft. "Tracking... tracking... portal was two kilometers wide, one kilometer high, two hundred meters deep. No data on source."

Breket nodded.

"Wait, I've got a ship. One ship," Helgret'tik said. "No power reading. Ship's in the super-carrier class or Orion Class for a trading vessel."

"Any transponder?" Breket asked.

Helgret'tik shook her head. "No. Dead hulk. Not getting much data back, there's a weird echo in..."

"Incoming data," Treglet said from the communications station. "Incoming signal. It's weak. Clearing now."

Breket nodded. "Let's hear it."

There was thick static, a weird warble, then it came through.

"Yorktown, do you read? I have you on visual... and are in shuttle range. Do you read?... " came over the com in a crackling whisper.

"Find out who the Yorktown is," Breket said.

"Searching, GalNet node is still connected," Easy jump-3238, the ship's DS said.

"Ping them, see if you can wake them up," Breket ordered.

"Pinging now," Treglet said.

Helgret'tik was still bent over her console, looking down into the armaplas 2.5D viewscreen. "Getting weird readings," she said softly. "Launching drones."

"Like what?" Breket asked.

"Not sure," Helgret'tik said. "Going to try drone triangulation, see if I can get better readings."

"GalNet node is a mess. Rising interference," Jump said.

Breket started getting that feeling.

"Yorktown, I have visual, do you read? Yorktown, can you respond? Yorktown, signal if you read and cannot transmit..." the crackling voice continued.

"Vessel is still tumbling. No energy sources. No lights. Definitely military, but heavily damaged," Helgret'tik said. "Onscreen."

The main central holotank went live and Jump turned to look from the side holotank.

The ship was a massive one, but bore mute testimony of a fierce battle in the past. The armor was cratered and warped, holes were driven into the superstructure in more than one place. It packed nearly forty engines, but over half were nothing more than twisted wreckage. The flight bays were open to space and more than a few were nothing more than craters or outcroppings of twisted metal wrenched away from the hull by an outgoing explosion.

"That's weird," Helgret'tik said.

"What?" Breket asked. He reached into his shirt and pulled out a key on a chain.

"Just... this thing looks weird," she said.

"Yorktown, I have you on visual. Fire flares or countermeasures to signal that you are receiving me. Yorktown, I have you on..." the voice continued.

Breket was feeling that feeling stronger as he inserted the key into the lock on his chair, twisting it and flipping up the transparent cover.

Jump was frowning. "That's a Confed Naval vessel. Pretty new one, too," she said.

"Getting data back from drones now," Helgret'tik said.

Treglet suddenly jerked straight up. "GET US OU..." he started.

Breket slapped the big red button that said "DO NOT PRESS" at the same time as the XO, the navigator Grektik and the astrogator Revelk grabbed their keys. Breket turned and kicked the disconnect button, shutting down all the holotanks but the one Jump was in.

For a second, just a split second, Breket thought he saw something in the tank where the wreck was being displayed.

There was a gut-wrenching twist to the ship as it suddenly translated to jumpspace on an emergency heading. There was a hiss that went silent as the atmosphere was pumped out and the lights went dim red. Battle stations sounded out in a sharp whistle.

The ship was thrumming as pushed through the higher bands, heading on a random course.

"Talk to me," Breket said.

Treglet turned in his chair. "Captain, whatever that was, that shit wasn't right," he said. When Breket made a motion to continue he kept talking. "The drone feed came back and I just ran a standard communications check. That's when I saw it."

"Saw what?" Breket asked. He trusted Treglet, the Telkan Communication's Officer had good instincts.

"That signal, it wasn't coming from the wreck," Treglet said. He paused. "According to the drones, it was coming from us."

Breket frowned. "Are you sure?"

Treglet nodded. "It was recorded by the drone's systems, then roughly a tenth of a second later we received it, but according to the drones, we were the transmitter."

Jump tapped the edge of the holotank with a 'knocking on glass' sound effect. "Got the data on Yorktown," she said.

Everyone turned and looked.

"There are multiple vessels with that name. Right now, there are three known to be in action. One is with Confederate Space Force, taking part in Operation Iron Piglet. One is with the Confederate Space Navy, it's in orbit around Council-4, the other, well, the other is known to be part of the Dead Fleet," she said. She tossed up the vessels profiles and 3D wireframes. "As you can tell, none of that is what we saw."

"All right, then what did we see?" Breket asked.

"This one," Jump said. She tossed up one that was obviously the vessel that had come tumbling out of a jumpspace portal. "The Confederate Naval Vessel Yorktown was declared Lost With All Hands almost eleven years ago, in the Wushtavven-Elwesh system in one of the first major battles against the Precursor Autonomous War Machines in the Council Systems," she shook her head. "By the time the dust settled, reclamation teams couldn't find it along its last known course, heading, and velocity. It was assumed the PAWM had recovered it for intelligence purposes."

"Yet, there it was," Breket said.

Jump nodded. "More than that, it's been sighted five times so far, at least five times that were reported. There's three other unconfirmed sightings, mainly picked up by surveillance or warning beacons," she said. "All of it in different systems. The last one was a confirmed sighting, almost a hundred and twenty light years from where we saw it. Its last known speed, heading, and course, it should have moved coreward."

Grektik put up his hand and Breket nodded at him. "Captain, the fact it came out of a jumpspace portal is weird enough. When you exit jumpspace you just drop down, no portal opens."

Helgret'tik nodded. "Plus, there was definite Hellspace energy readings mixed in. Not much, more like vapor trails, but I definitely was picking them up."

Breket sighed and looked at the XO. "Run a phasic sweep again," he ordered. The XO nodded. He looked back at Jump. "OK, what about the unconfirmed."

"That's just it. The ships that reported contact with the Yorktown reported they were matching spin and velocity with it, then nothing. Those ships have never shown up again," Jump said. Breket felt the fur down his spine try to raise up. "Two of the ones that had confirmed contact, they sent boarding crews on it, thinking they'd made a big score. One, the crew reported they were under heavy attack, the other reported it was dead, empty, no sign of life or crew. Both times, the Yorktown just vanished."

"Jumpspace translation?" Breket asked.

Jump shook her head. "No. No energy signature, it was just there one minute and gone the next."

"So a ship, measuring in the terratonnes, just vanishes?" Grektik asked.

Jump nodded. "Yeah. Lots of people claim its a bunch of bullshit, but the Junker's Guild has a "Do Not Board/Dock" tag on the Yorktown."

Breket thought a moment. "When we get to a GalNet node, check the paranormal boards. Affix streams of our encounter, full data streams. Report it to the Junker's Guild and the Confederate Armed Services," he said. "Put the data in a secure database, purge the data afterwards," he looked at the central holotank. "Run a phasic check on that thing, I thought I saw something right before we jumped."

Grektik nodded, standing up and lifting up the phasic scanner from his belt. He triggered it and the two sensor wands on the side deployed. He ran it over the holotank and the wands lifted slightly, the first three LED's lighting up as the device made a high pitched purring sound.

"Yeah, phasic contamination. Not much, just a little," Grektik said. He moved over and ran the wand over Treglet's station. The wands lifted slightly more and two more LED's lit up. "Got registerable levels here."

Treglet cursed and jumped out of his chair, moving away from the station.

"I'll get a team up here. We'll pull both and run them through the grinders," Pretkwik said.

"No," Breket said, shaking his head.

"Boss?" Pretkwik said.

"Air lock it," he said. He pointed at the phasic scanner. "Anything more than three dots, rip it out and airlock it. We'll stop by a gas giant and get some mass and forge it up. I don't want any of that stuff on my ship."

Pretkwik nodded.

"It's been a weird war," Breket said softly.

-----

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

The Yorktown got spotted again.

CONFED needs to put an alert out for everyone to avoid that Dutchman.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

That's another one.

That's not good.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

Well, I've got bad news too.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

Might as well toss it out there.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

We're running low on warsteel. Converting Mark One to Mark Five has only a 70% reclamation rate.

With Mars and Mercury gone, we're relying on the warsteel capable creation engines and nanoforges, but some are starting to cool off and go dark.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

What about the kid?

He's got a volcano of the stuff.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

We're rebuilding entire fleets of ships, millions of tanks.

We're in the middle of a war, and the number one armor resource is suddenly threatened.

The kid's volcano can only do so much.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

We're still building infrastructure to mine it.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

Estimations aren't good.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

How bad?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

Without Mars and Mercury, much less Urectum, being out of play, total resource extraction is down by 83%. We've lost over 42% of the warsteel capable creation engines, 28% of the nanoforges.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

So, we're going to be back to battlesteel?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

At current projections, yes. Estimations say that within two years the Telkan Forge will be the only place that warsteel is naturally occurring.

Additionally, the Telkan War Forges won't fully come online for another five years.

Till then, with the forges and the anvils cooling off, we'll lose our warsteel fabrication abilities in the next eight months.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

AKLTAK SOARING WORLDS

Is there anything that can stop it?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

Not unless you can pull about a million angry Terrans out of your nest.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

What about the Martial Orders? Or the Idiots?

Can they help?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

Maybe.

I'm not sure.

The thing is, warsteel will be a hot property in about eleven months.

No new warsteel will be able to be manufactured until the kid's forges come online.

Even then, well, the warsteel has to be rage infused at the time of manufacture, which means unless it's already imbued, it's worthless once it hardens.

Infused warsteel is already starting to pop up on the grey markets.

The Junker's Guild and the Salvager's Guild are putting high priority on warsteel claims.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Um, that's not good.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

No, it isn't.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

I don't get it.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

There's a lot of warsteel out there. Hell, there's even a couple of foundries out there.

A dozen, maybe a score, of forge worlds too. Not as extensive as Mars or Mercury. Nothing like Urectum, no, but still, there is some forge worlds out there.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Where?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Here.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

In the Tomb Worlds.

In the Crypt Systems.

In the Necropolis Zone.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Aren't those the Terran Systems?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Were, kid.

Were.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Now people are going to go in to try to salvage warsteel from them.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

Digital Omnimessiah protect them.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---