FSE

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The voyage to the Aeteri homeworld of Kaara was, for the most part, pretty uneventful. Sam had dedicated every moment of his free time to studying the technologies that made the Gladius work, and it was truly intriguing stuff. He barely slept too, which made adjusting to the 28-hour cycle that they used a little more difficult. But as they neared their destination, he found himself thinking of what his future would hold. If he was honest with himself, he was nervous as hell about what was likely awaiting him. Riani had assured him that it would be a relatively painless experience, even if it would take him a while to get used to his new body, but the doubts were eating away at him regardless.

As he sat in his quarters, a myriad of technical documents in front of him, with a small holographic projection of an Ilfemyoo beside it, he allowed his mind to wander. Feo had told him precious little about their destination, save that it was the home planet of the Aeteri. He knew that it was cold and snowy, and that the Aeteri lived underground, but that was it. In his mind's eye, he imagined vast, ice-covered wastes, a cold wind howling across open plains of snow, and above it all, thick, grey clouds.

He was startled out of his thoughts by a soft knocking on the door. He called out for them to enter as he closed down the terminal, before turning to face Feo as she walked around the corner.

“Hey, we're about to exit to Kaara," she began, adjusting her jacket a little, “You wanna join us? It's a pretty spectacular sight, especially for the first time!"

Sam smiled and nodded, grabbing his jacket from the bed, “Sure thing," he responded, quickly putting it on and following her to the bridge. As they entered, it was already abuzz with activity. Every station was manned, with a few others gathered around talking with the bridge crew.

Feo glanced at the viewscreen ahead of them, covered in vectors and scrolling numbers, before looking at Lt Ashter at the sensors console, “How long until we reach our exit coordinates?" she asked.

“Two minutes, Captain," he replied, tapping at his console.

She nodded and strode around to her chair and sitting down, “Alright, Jinser, bring our tunnelling systems back online. Milian, get ready to induce the core on my command," she instructed, before activating the ship-wide intercom again, “All hands, we will be making our egress from the Verge in approximately one and a half minutes. Prep your stations for interdimensional breach."

Sam sat down beside her and watched out the viewscreen, while Feo continued giving orders, “Jinser, spin down our main drive and activate our impulse engines, we're close enough now."

The soft humming that had permeated the Gladius slowly started fading away, replaced by the high-pitched whine of the impulse engines.

“Alright, Milian, begin inducing the core! Jinser, activate tunnelling systems and target them to the exit coordinates!" she ordered, while Sam watched in rapt fascination.

A glowing vortex had once again opened in space, and before he could do much more than blink, they were out into normal space again.

“Jump complete, we're out," Milian called out from her console, to which Feo nodded.

“I'm transmitting our IFF and our authentication codes," Feo said as she brought up her displays, “Cut impulse engines to half and bring us into orbit."

The new person manning the communications station, a salt-and-pepper Serani, spoke up, “Captain, we've got a positive confirmation of our codes. Our entry beacon has been lit," he said.

Feo nodded and called out, “Lock onto the beacon and take us down, Ensign," she instructed.

The Gladius started to descend, gliding gracefully across the sky, eventually breaking through the thick cloud cover and revealing a vast, snowy plain. Feo glanced over at Sam, who was staring in awe at the serene stillness of the windswept ice beneath them.

Jinser spoke up from the front of the bridge, “Captain, we're above the beacon now," he said.

She smirked a little at Sam, “Alright, prepare systems for impact and get ready to dive on my mark!"

He suddenly glanced at Feo, worried, “Wait, what?"

She ignored him, “Mark!" she yelled.

Suddenly the horizon in front of them flipped, before the ground swallowed up their whole view. They were now hurtling straight down through the atmosphere and picking up speed with every passing second. The ice was rushing up to meet them at a phenomenal speed. Sam stared at Feo, terrified; given everything she had done to survive, she surely wasn't about to consign them all to oblivion… Right?

The Gladius started shaking as they plunged faster and faster towards the planet

“We're through the upper atmosphere, shields down to 80%," Milian called out as the shaking started to subside.

Feo transferred their approach vector to the viewscreen, showing their course and the patch of ice they were aiming for in a dark red to contrast to the field of white that was rapidly approaching. She glanced over at Sam, who was frantically looking around, trying to work out why everyone was so calm about their impending deaths.

“Comm, verify one last time our codes are clear?" she called out.

The salt-and-pepper canine manning the station replied, “Verified, Captain. We're clear to proceed."

Feo nodded, “Helm, take our impulse engines offline and go to atmospheric thrusters," she instructed.

The loud whine of the impulse engines died away, replaced by the rushing of the wind outside.

Jinser called out from the helm, “Contact in ten seconds!"

Sam screwed up his eyes and clung to his chair tightly.

“Five. Four. Three. Two. One!"

The force of the impact threw Sam from his chair and sent him sprawling to the floor. But much to his surprise, he was still alive! He slowly opened his eyes and raised his gaze to the viewscreen to see swirling, ice-blue water, bubbling still from the sudden impact. As he climbed back to his feet and saw Feo smirking at him, he couldn't help but glare at her, “I don't suppose you could have told me, huh?" he asked.

Feo shrugged a little in response, “I didn't think to," she said, but at his withering stare, she relented, “I should have. Sorry, Sam…"

Sam sighed, “Are you gunna keep doing it?" he asked, frowning a little at her.

She rolled her eyes in response, “Am I gunna keep you in the dark about something that might seem life-threatening? No."

Sam grumbled a little under his breath and slumped back to his seat, while Feo turned her attention back to the viewscreen, “Okay, Ensign Vara, open up a comm channel to command."

After a few moments, the face of a tawny Aeteri with grey stripes across his muzzle appeared in front of them, “URI Gladius, we have you on our sensors. Please proceed to docking bay Saro-Five."

Ensign Jinser called out from the helm, “Copy that, bay Saro-Five. We are en-route."

The Aeteri glanced to his side for a moment, before turning his attention back to them, “Captain Asilion, I have been advised that High Admiral Hiebova wishes to speak to you immediately. He will be waiting at the bay to escort you."

Feo groaned softly, “Okay… Tell him we'll be ready," she replied.

The channel was closed as Feo wearily glanced at Sam, “Come on then, he'll want to see you too," she said as she walked past him.

He blinked in mild surprise, before jumping to his feet and following her.

Once the Gladius had arrived at the bay, magnetic clamps similar to those that were used to recover it attached to the hull to secure it in place. The airlocks on both side of the ship opened to long narrow passageways, leading to the central dock structure. As Feo and Sam approached it, Sam couldn't help but stare in awe at the expansive dock. There were easily a dozen entrances similar to the one he and Feo just walked out of, and if he thought there were an incredible number of people back on the Haali, even just this dock put it to shame. It was a busy throng of activity, with hundreds, if not close to thousands of people rushing around.

But standing in the lounge area of their dock were three Aeteri, and judging from their uniforms and demeanour, they were definitely not people to trifle with. Once they had gotten near them, Feo snapped to a salute, which the three returned in kind.

“Captain Asilion, we're glad to see that you returned safely," the lead Aeteri said gruffly. Sam studied him closely as he continued talking; his fur was a deep, silky black, with the tufts of fluff in his ears grey. His uniform, while similar to Sam's own, had a number of insignia on the shoulders.

Feo nodded in reply and dropped her paw, “Thank you, sir," she responded, “It was close, I'll admit. If the Haali hadn't arrived when she did, then it's very likely that we wouldn't be here."

She paused for a moment, before turning to Sam beside her, “Sam, this is High Admiral Triscelom Hiebova, he's the leader of the Aeteri military."

At Sam's nod of understanding, she turned back to face Hiebova, “And this, sir, is the Terran that rescued me. Twice over, I should add."

He nodded and sighed, “I won't lie, Captain, you've left me in a difficult position. Half the council want you disbarred from further military service as a result of this, while the rest are content with listening to what you have to say before deciding."

Feo groaned quietly, “That bad, sir?"

He gave her a slight smile, “Well, you did interfere with a non-spacefaring civilisation, had a direct encounter with Sabre multiple times, and revealed yourself to hostile infantry, I think it was twice, according to your report? And to top it off, you brought a Terran with you…"

There was a brief silence between them, before he smiled reassuringly at her, “But at the end of the day, I've had no reason to distrust you. You've done what you had to do to protect your crew, and I admire that. The fact that you were on a council-sanctioned mission when you were ambushed shouldn't count against you. And you've had no reason to regret bringing Sam, was it, with you?"

Feo shook her head, “None whatsoever, sir. He's been nothing short of exemplary, and Raalic has grown quite fond of him."

He raised an eyebrow at her, “Are you sure it's he that has grown quite fond of him?" he asked.

Feo blinked in surprise for a moment, before stammering, “I don't know what you mean! I'm just trying to make good on my debts is all!" she hurriedly said.

He chuckled quietly, something that Sam had really not expected from the gruff admiral, “Feo, I've known you since the beginning of the war; you were one of the finest scouts and squad leaders I've ever had the pleasure of commanding. But I know you better than that!"

He paused for a moment, before continuing, “Anyway, the council are awaiting your report. I assume Sam is coming with us?"

Feo nodded, “Yes sir. I wanted to be able to show them how useful he can be to us, and I was planning on proposing a DGR for him."

He nodded for a moment, before turning tail and walking off. Feo beckoned to Sam to follow her. The two other Aeteri took up positions behind Sam as they began walking through the dock at a brisk pace. Sam still got the occasional glance or two, but with how busy the dock seemed to be, no-one seemed to really notice them.

Sam expected more elevators, like the ones on the Haali, but was pleasantly surprised when, as they reached the entrance to their level of the docks, they found a bustling tram station. Even Feo seemed surprised by the sheer number of people around, and she was about to query it with Hiebova when he started speaking again.

“The URI Yanda is scheduled to launch today, and understandably, that's caused quite the stir," he explained, “It's been a long, long time since a ship that large has left dock."

Feo turned to Sam as they walked, “It's a more combat focused ship that's in the same weight class as a carrier. Before the war, a similar design was used for the Drone Motherships we had, but we've lost some of our technology in the almost two millennia since the war began, and the AI tech behind the drones was one of them. We're trying to build up our military presence before returning to the galactic community… There's a lot of worry that we might get attacked, so we want to have the ability to defend ourselves."

Sam thought for a moment as they made their way onto one of the relatively empty return trams, before speaking up, “How much was lost? Do you know?" he queried.

Feo sighed, “A lot of our research on AI theory for starters. Advanced ship designs too. Anything that required the Sarek'pa to help function is next to useless to us as well, which was a lot of our infrastructure and more manual-labour intensive stuff. They kept our exonet operational, presumably for the information stored within it and the ability to transfer information across space, so we were able to recover a bit from hacking in, but we had to be very careful not to be spotted by our former workforce."

As the tram moved off, Sam turned his attention to the scenery outside the tunnel through which they were travelling. From what he could tell, the entire dock complex was built off of a sheer, craggy rock face. Shoals of fish unlike anything he had ever seen meandered their way around the tunnel, while the shadows of much larger fish were seen in the distance. As he peered over the side of the tram, he saw that they weren't that far from the seafloor, with huge rocky spires jutting up like teeth from the floor, with plumes of roiling black smoke pouring out of them. Soon, this was all cut to black as their tunnel passed into the rock cliff face. The darkness intermittently cut to light as they passed glowing beacons wired directly into the tunnel.

The journey took them several minutes to complete, but before long, the tunnel opened up to another station. It looked for all intents and purposes identical to the previous one, but was far less densely populated. The five of them soon left the tram and walked down wide, open corridors hewn from the rock. Every now and then, Feo would point out some interesting fact about the place, from the architecture, to when it was carved into being, to a multitude of other things.

After close to ten minutes of walking, Sam's feet were starting to hurt a little, since his new boots didn't quite fit properly enough for an extended march. But his pains were forgotten as they arrived at their destination, a large set of heavy, hydraulic powered doors. As they cracked open in the middle and receded into their respective wall, the group stepped inside and approached the fifteen Aeteri sitting cross-legged on cushion-like seats arranged in a rough semicircle. Sam stared a little, there seemed to be a great variation on size and height. There were a few that almost towered over their companions, while others were various shades of colours Sam didn't even think possible; blues and greens, and hell, he even saw a black one with a fringe of shockingly purple hair.

The doors closed behind them with the hiss of hydraulics, leaving the room illuminated by its soft, dim lighting. The two soldiers at the tail end of their company remained by the doors as Hiebova, Feo and Sam approached the group. They had been chatting among themselves, but at their approach it died down quickly.

“This is the Council of Elders," Feo whispered to Sam, “Frankly, I've been around far longer than any of them, but I'm military, so I'm ineligible to hold a position on it. If and when I retire, I would be able, but only for a set term…"

The Aeteri at the centre of the semicircle, a white furred fox with black mottling across his nose and ears, stood up, “Welcome back, Captain Asilion," he said warmly, extending his outstretched arms in greeting, as if giving a long-distance hug, “I admit, we were worried when we learned that you had come under fire from Sabre, but we are glad to see that you are alright."

Feo inclined her head towards him, “Thank you, Elder Ahri," she replied, “But more importantly, the data that I was able to recover remained intact too."

“What's more important is your apparent lack of discretion when it comes to military operations, Captain!" called out a dark green and grey Aeteri from somewhere on Feo's right, a sentiment that seemed to be echoed among quite a few of them.

Feo growled a little and turned to face the offending Aeteri, “If we had it your way, Elder Ranfa, we would never have dared ventured back into space," she retorted.

The offending Aeteri glared at her, before falling quiet once more.

Feo smirked softly and turned back to the assembly at large, “During the course of our mission, we travelled to the Feren system, the site of our most distant colony. It was crawling with Sabre forces, but we were able to infiltrate and examine some of the remnants of the war. Specifically, I was able to locate and hack into a Sarek'pa unit that was disabled before the war and download a copy of its AI code."

She brought up her holographic displays, before enlarging them so that everyone could see. Sam blinked and turned to face it; there were rows upon rows of scrolling symbols, completely incomprehensible to him.

“As we all know, in order to protect from tampering or a dissemination of the code, the scientists who designed the Sarek'pa AI wrote it in a completely novel language as to stymie deciphering attempts," Feo continued, “As such, we only know what the basic blocks of code do, not the actual text, as such knowledge has been lost to the aeons…"

Feo let it scroll for a moment, before resuming, “This is a copy of a Sarek'pa AI after the war began, which was recovered by scouts during the conflict of Ulasen Three, while our people were still in stasis."

She brought up a second screen, scrolling at the same place and at the same rate as the first, but there were differences in the code, as shown by red boxes connecting the original and the altered version.

“And these are its command protocols," she said, scrolling back all the way to the top.

Here, it seemed like the complete opposite of before, with red almost everywhere, and only small gaps of unaltered symbols.

“I believe that the Sarek'pa were sabotaged," Feo said quietly, but it was easily able to be heard; the room had fallen so still, one could hear a pin drop, “Their AI shows clear signs of tampering; it's likely that a virus infiltrated their systems and corrupted their core protocols. It's the only explanation for such a radical change in their programming. Normal system corruption doesn't do this! It was an act of genocide!"

Everyone remained silent. Even Hiebova next to her looked shocked beyond words; it had been widely accepted before now that they hadn't been careful enough with the Sarek'pa's programming, and that was the cause of their assault upon their masters.

Eventually, Elder Ahri broke the silence, “How… How likely is it that you are wrong, Captain?" he asked.

Feo sighed quietly, “Less than point one percent, Elder. We snagged its quantum brain before we escaped, you can do your own tests on it to verify the results.

A soft murmur spread throughout the Council, before Elder Ahri quietened everyone, “Very well, thank you Captain for your diligence. Now, onto the next matter at hand: your actions during this operation…"

He paused for a moment, before continuing, “Now, as you admitted in your report, you encountered Sabre agents face to face on two occasions, correct?"

Feo nodded, “Yes, sir," she replied, offering no explanation for herself, to which Sam looked at her in confusion.

“You interfered with a non-spacefaring civilisation?"

“Yes, sir,"

“And you brought a Terran back with you?"

“Yes, sir,"

Another ripple of murmuring spread through the Council, which Ahri quietened with a wave of his snow-white paw, “Do you have anything to say for yourself, Captain?" he asked.

Feo gazed up at Ahri, while the rest of the Council stared firmly at her, “I have no defence for my actions but this," she said, casting her eyes across the rest of the Aeteri, “Everything I have done, has been to ensure the safety of my crew. Contact with Terra was limited to strictly monitoring their data net for any mention of us, of which there was none. And as you likely also read in my report, Sam here saved my life twice over. With Sabre likely hunting him too, I wasn't going to let him go strolling back into the wilderness to get killed!"

She glared a little at Ranfa as her gaze fell on him, before continuing on, “He has already proven to be a valuable asset to my crew. He is eager to learn and help out however he can, and he's shown himself to be a promising engineer, if my Chief has anything to say about it."

One of the other Aeteri, a grey vixen with teal stripes across her muzzle, spoke up, “So what do you think we should do?" she asked Feo.

Ranfa scowled down at Feo as he nodded in response, “I agree with Elder Marxilana, just what do you plan to do? Surely you don't intend to have a Terran just strolling around?"

Feo rolled her eyes, “No, Elder. I propose that Sam here undergoes a DGR to disguise the fact that he's Terran. Followed by an immediate inclusion into my crew to gain firsthand experience."

A spattering of affirmative mutters came from at least half of the council, while some of the others still looked concerned.

“And what about you, Captain?" Ahri asked quietly, “What do you think your punishment for violating our laws the way you did should be?"

Feo bowed her head and knelt down on the cold, metal floor, “That, I leave in the Council's hands."

They all glanced at one another briefly, before Ahri stood up, “Very well, Captain. We will deliberate. In the interim, you will be restricted to your quarters. Is that understood?"

Feo stood up and saluted, “Yes, sir," she said.

He nodded at her, “You are dismissed, Captain."

She turned around and cast a reassuring smile at Hiebova, before beckoning for Sam to follow her and leaving the council chambers.