[Just A Little Further] - Chapter 12

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The round struck my shoulder with a noisy spack, but I didn't even stagger. Was it meant to be a warning, or was I just that well armored?

The Aviens clearly expected for the shot to do more than it did as well. They looked at me fearfully and with their feathered arm shaking, fired again. Two more spack noises on my chest. It scratched my glossy deep blue armor - ugh, I'm going to have to polish it again - but nothing more.

All these thoughts happened in slow motion; I was curiously detached from the attack. What my body actually did while I was thinking about the scratches on my armor was to reach behind my back, swing my submachine gun out, flip it to full auto and unload back at my assailant.

The braying roar of the submachine gun was deafening in the docking area. "Get inside!" I shouted as screams were heard all around. It had happened so fast that I don't think the team realized that I had been shot, but they all took my suppressive fire as an indication that something was wrong.

After three seconds or so, the weapon was empty. I peered out into the smoke and luckily had missed the Aviens having ducked down as soon as I started to fire. I wasn't aiming at anyone, I just wanted them to stop shooting at me. As my active noise cancelling retreated, I heard screams in the distance and an unknown alarm was hooting. Pivoting on the balls of my feet I ran into the umbilical, slapping the close button behind me.

Inside Far Reach, the airlock door slammed shut and we nervously waited for it to cycle. Even if the atmosphere was breathable, we didn't want to expose our environment to theirs. I looked around, everyone was differing levels of confused, worried, and frightened. "Are you all right?" I asked.

Captain Q'ari spoke. “Y-Yes, we're fine. They were aiming at you clearly."

"Good thing you have that fucking Space Marine armor,” Omar said, his smile just this side of manic. "Looks like you only got scratched."

"Ugh, I know. It's going to be a pain to polish out." Omar laughed too hard at the bad joke. He was very worried.

Q'ari looked at the damage, touching it with her finger. There really wasn’t anything to it. "It really is just a scratch. What did they shoot you with?"

I shook my head. "I don't know. Some kind of small pistol. Once they fired, the training took over and I just unloaded the sub to give suppressing fire so everyone could escape. I didn't think to stop and ask them what caliber of pistol they were using."

Fer'resi looked anxious and said, "Did you...kill them?"

"No, fortunately. They ducked, and I wasn't aiming to kill; I just wanted everyone to keep their heads down while you escaped."

Looking relieved, Fer'resi took out the translator. "At least we have this." He went to put it towards his head "Maybe we can final--"

"sᴛᴏᴘ!" I nearly shouted. Shit, I used the Voice too.

He froze. Only his eyes flicked up to meet mine.

"They were very interested in having me wear that before we left. Suspiciously so. Don't activate it, don't wear it, don't even look at it until I can run a scan on it. I bet it's infected with something nasty."

Still unmoving, Fer’resi’s fur began to flutter as he trembled. Oh dammit. He’s still ‘stopped.’ “Uh, ʏᴏᴜ ᴍᴀʏ ᴍᴏᴠᴇ.”

Fer'resi jerked his hand back as if he had been shocked. "Um... you should take it Melody" and gingerly handed the translator to me.

I set it down and started to step out of my suit. Ugh, I was unreasonably annoyed that they had scratched it in three places. I caught myself and decided to take it as a good thing, since I wasn't worrying about anyone getting shot or being shot at instead.

Suit off, I took the translator with me and went up to my station on the Command Deck. Under my station I keep a sandboxed copy of my suite - that is, one not connected to Far Reach - and I looked around on the translator for some kind of data port. There, on the bottom? Looked like there were two ports. One might be power, one might be data. With a sigh, I got out my probes and start signaling the ports. I might not know what the signal means, but if I get any signal, that's a good sign.

There. The second port. The first looked like it's power only. I took out a label maker and marked the ports for next time. I got out some impression putty and jam it into the port. Pulling it out slowly, now I had a model of what the connection cable should look like. I scan it with my pad and had a 3d model of the port. I touch my wrist and called for Omar. "Hey Omar, got a part I need you to print, you got a minute?"

"Sure, I'll be right up."

Omar came up and sees me on the Command Deck alone. "What are you doing up here Melody? Captain said to get some rest."

"I'll have you know problem solving is soothing." I laughed. "Here. This is a 3d model of the kind of plug the data port on the translator is expecting. Can you print one up quick, looks like it's also got twenty pins, make sure it has a cable that can accommodate that. Leave my end bare, I'll just use a prototyping board to connect it to my sandbox."

"Sure thing Melody, I'll get that worked up for you in like thirty minutes."

"Thanks Omar."

While I waited, I went down to the kitchenette and got a coffee. Kieran was sitting there reading a book. "Oh hey "Holy One" he said, laughing."

Groan. "Kieran, you know damn well I'm the least Holy thing here."

"Eh, I bet it's a tie between you and Um'reli."

"Regardless, I'm not Holy at all. This is worse than everyone calling me Lieutenant!" I got my coffee and motion at the chair next to Kieran to sit. He shrugged, put a bookmark in his book and shuffled over. As I take a sip of coffee he asked. "So, how is it?"

"How is what?"

"Knowing every language? Fer'resi said that not only do you speak the Gate Builder language, but you just understand every language spoke to you?"

"It's odd. If I concentrate, I can tell that we're not speaking Colonic, but if I'm distracted, or thinking about something else, I don't realize it."

"So you didn't notice that I've been speaking Farsi to you"

I stopped. "No... I didn't. Why do you know Farsi?"

He laughed. "Before we emigrated to Parvati my family was originally from a country on Earth called Iran. It's been more than four hundred years since we left Earth, but some of us think it's important to know the old ways. I'm impressed though, you're following along and answering like it's no big deal."

"What do you hear when I speak?"

"You know-" He stopped and frowned. "I'm not actually sure. When you speak I understand, but what you're saying just flows off me. I don't know how I feel about that."

"It's pretty weird, isn't it?"

He laughed. "Melody, weird doesn't even begin to describe it."

We chatted a little longer - Kieran said he could use the practice - and then Captain Q'ari announced a meeting to discuss next steps.

I stood. "Come on Kieran. Let's go see what kind of mess I made."

"I'm sure it's not all that bad, but I agree. Let's go."

As we got to the dining room and sat down, I notice that Fer'resi and Mitchel had set out snacks and coffee and tea. I forgot that we were the only ones who got two lunches, everyone else was probably hungry. Taking another cup of coffee I sat down.

Me, Kieran, Omar, Fer'resi and Captain Q'ari were here already and we waited for everyone else to come in. Snacks were had but the tone was subdued until the Captain stood up.

"Everyone." She looked around. "I do not believe this station-" She looked at me.

"It's called "Reach of the Might of Vzzx" I said.

"Thank you, Melody - is safe. I am ordering that nobody leave Far Reach unless I give explicit permission. Something is going on here and I don't want us to get in the middle of it. Melody, please tell us what you've learned."

Huh. She didn't call me Lieutenant again.

I leaned forward and faced everyone. Might as well start with the big one. "Okay, they think that humans are the builders of the Gates and possibly their stations too."

Everyone blinked. Omar cut in. "Wait, it gets better.”

I nodded. "Yeah, so the language that I learned how to speak with the nano machines? It's a Holy Tongue" I try to pronounce the proper noun. "It's like I'm talking to them in a religious language. Everyone can understand me, but everyone reacts oddly when I speak to them in it. I don’t actually know if I’m speaking a language that they understand or that somehow I’m just understood.”

"Not only do they think Humans built the Gates but they think that because of the language or the way you're speaking to them they think that you specifically are a Builder and are Holy?" Ava Williams said. She worked with Mei'la in the power core and specialized on the other systems like Gravity. The non-reactor systems, basically.

I nodded "As near as I can tell, yes."

"You should see the statue they have out front of their administration building." Omar added. He really sounded excited about it. I kind of wish he was a bit more worried and a bit less all for my newfound divinity. “It's a dead ringer for a human woman in a pressure suit, and she's making some grand gesture pointing down their promenade."

"Oh, that's the other thing." I said before Omar can go on about the statue. "They said they had a population of ten million. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re lying about numbers either.”

"Ten Million? Kieran shook his head. "Impossible. Where would they get their food? From other systems? There's no planet here."

"They can't go into other systems. They all thought the Warp Gates were disabled until we came through. They told us that they have a planetoid left by the Builders that was hollowed out and has soil and an artificial sun and they grow food there."

Kieran looked incredulous. "I mean, it's possible sure. But... Call me skeptical. I don't think so."

Selem looked pained. She was clearly annoyed at these tangents. Before she said anything, I tried to bring things back. "The other thing is that there seems to be two different sapient species who are in charge. The Aviens and the Mariens. The Aviens are like this bird looking people- " Fer'resi puts an image up on the screen when I say that. Looks like he was surreptitiously taking photos. "- and the Mariens are like... octopus people?" Fer'resi puts up an image of them. He then added on images of all the different sapient species we saw. "I don't know if there are any others, but that's all I saw while we were walking to and from the Administration offices." He said, sheepishly.

Captain Q'ari nodded, "Well done Fer'resi. That was smart work."

"Thanks Fer'resi,” I agreed. “It looked like the Aviens and the Mariens at the very least do not like each other. I would not at all be surprised if they were jockying for position. I think it’s safe to assume that what ever happened at that other location - which was called Wilds of Besmara by the way - caused someone here to lock the Gate. Someone locked the Gate on this side to keep something out, or someone locked the Gate on the other side to protect the people here. Either way, we opened the Gate and I don't know if it was locked behind us."

“I didn’t even know you could lock the Gate.” Selem said. “I wonder if we’ve ever done it with ours.”

“I do not think so,” Fer’resi said. “I don’t recall ever reading about that.”

Mitchel - the other chef with Fer'resi - leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. "So they think you're a God, we might have opened up the Gate to something that obliterated a whole system, and the people here seem to be squaring up for a fight?”

"That's the long and short of it, yes." I said.

"Shit. We don't do things by half measures, do we." He said with a sad chuckle. "So, what do we do, Captain?"

Selem ran her hand over her ear absentmindedly. "I don't know." She stopped, "No, I do know. The smart thing to do is blow our connection to the umbilical, and leave. Go to the next address, go home, whatever. If we stay, we're going to get even more involved in this-“ She gestured, “-mess. But, if we do that we're going to contribute to possibly making a real hard time for the millions of people who live here." She looked out at us. "We're only a small team and one Starjumper kitted out for exploration. What do you think we should do?"

Far Reach was the first to reply, "I'd like to help them, if we can. Look, if things get hot, I have a hunch we can take them on easily. Melody's pressure suit was scratched when she was shot, that was it. I could print everyone armored pressure suits like hers, if needed. It would only take a couple days to get it done. Based on the weapon she was shot with, I have a hunch that if any of the starships docked around us can fire back, we can destroy them without even going to WEP. We utterly outmatch them. They can't hurt us."

Captain Q'ari sat up a little. "That is a good point Far Reach, Thank you for the perspective. If we're working hard to not accidentally massacre them, it's not like they can really cause us harm unless we get complacent or are tricked. But what do we do? Pick a side? That doesn't sound right to me. Defeat them both? Then we're in charge of the lives of millions onboard and as good as we are, I don't think the 12 of us can or want to run a station even if we did know what we were doing.”

We sat there deliberating our next steps for a few more minutes before Far Reach spoke up. "Uh, everyone? There's a group of people at our umbilical."

"The same people we were talking to before?" Selem said.

"No. These people look-“ Far Reach struggled to find words. "More fanatical?"

Oh no.

"Can you show us please?" I asked, dreading the answer.

On our pads and the main screen Far Reach showed us a group of all different people. The Aviens, the Mariens, the insect people, the ones we saw in pressure suits and at least two more that I hadn’t even seen yet. They were swaying and moving together. Far Reach activated her external mics and we could hear that they were-

“Is that singing?" Omar said.

Far Reach agreed. "Yes, they're singing."