caraig: (Technology and Culture)
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"Korroloka, red eight daycimal niner two seven, blue negative trey daycimal fower tray seven, green...."

"Ops, lidar. Negative on bogy seven fower, it's a rock. Spectroscopy says carbo-silicate...."

"Atention all hands, attention all ships. Puyan DAMCON drill in seven minutes..."

"Admiral, the Directorate is on the thread."

Jess Khain looked up over to her aide, then nodded. "I'll take it." Duprei nodded, and switched the call over to the admiral.

Khain straightened herself in her seat, placing the helmet in her lap in a more comfortable position as the screen in front of her flickered into blue-tinted light. "Ser Director, what can I do for you?"

The scratchy voice over the thread matched the corpulent figure on the screen quite well, Khain thought. The Director of the Spaceforces was supposedly well-versed in managing the spaceborne militia of Windhaven. Khain had found, however, that the repeated failures to enter what had been called the Blackserpent Nebula Exclusion Zone had made the Director -- in fact the entire Rostrum -- start to act irrationally.

"Ah, Admiral! Telemetry shows that you're almost at the target system."

She winced, and wished her expression would carry over the video feed. "Yes, Ser Director. In ten minutes our scouts will make the cisluminal shift. The rest of the fleet will emerge half an hour later if they signal all's clear."

"Scouts? Admiral, I thought you were instructed to go in as a show of our full force."

You sack of useless grey matter.... "Ser Director, this is standard Spaceforces operating procedure...." She let her voice trail off expectantly.

"Yes... yes, of course, Admiral. Please forgive me, the strain of this... crisis... has thrown out many of the conceptions we had of our stellar neighborhood. I repeat, you have full the full authority and confidence of the Rostrum backing you."

All right, maybe you aren't that useless after all. "Thank you, Ser Director. That's a great relief. Is the telemetry thread stable?"

"I've been assured that it is excellent and satisfactory. We've backup threads running from the transluminal probes pacing your fleet."

"Good to hear. At least you'll know what happens."

The Director paused; she thought he looked at the screen concernedly. "You don't sound confident, Admiral."

"To be honest, Ser Director... I'm not. Something turned the Yojimbo into cryoplasma. Something else threw a piece of quagma three Planck-lengths in diameter through the Nightingale's engine block. I'm worried about what we're going to encounter here."

For a moment, the Director seemed -- to Khain -- almost human. "I know, Admiral. We've been under enormous pressure to not only show that we can't be pushed around like this but also what happened to those ships. The Directorate of Sciences is still trying to find all they can about them. Unfortunately, you know all that we do."

"A civilization inhabiting a nebula that the local nations swear has been there for ten thousand years, back in paleohistory. It sounds fantastic...."

"That was our assessment, as well. Sciences feels it is just the latest in a long string of civilizations in the Blackserpent Nebula."

"...But what if they're right?"

The Director was silent for a very long moment. "I do not know how to answer that, Admiral."

"Admiral!" her aide, as steady and calm as ever, still had a note in his voice. "Five minutes to scouts' shift."

On the screen, the Director was animated again. "I won't monopolize your time, Admiral. Godspeed, and good luck."

"Thank you, Ser Director." We'll need it. She began to put on her suit's helmet, no longer paying attention to the thread. "Plot, Flag. Signal all ships action stations."

"All ships signal ready, Admiral. Scouts are beginning pre-shift sequence."

The flag bridge of the Navarone, cramped, snug, trimmed down to the absolute minimum, was no less oppressive to Khaine when she sealed her suit. Nor did it get any better when the atmosphere was pumped out, to minimize the effects of explosive decompression, leaving them cocooned in their suits within the silent vacuum.

Everyone else in the fleet is going through this, she thought. Even the damn ship's mascots. Misery should love company, but it sure doesn't help. The brief flippant thought made her smile a little, before her aide reported that the scouts were shifting.

"Now we see what's waiting for us." Now we see if it was worth tugging the tiger's tail.

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May 2016

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