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  Aria grins as she straightens. “Of course captain,” she begins. “Ship and crew are on station, all systems are nominal, and we are free and clear to navigate. Awaiting your orders, sir.”

  “Very well commander,” Jason replies. “Please report to the brig immediately.”

  Aria snaps her heals together and issues a stiff salute. “Sir.”

  Jason nods and returns the salute.

  Aria suddenly jumps him. Wrapping her arms about his neck, pulling him to her and kissing him soundly on the lips.

  Jason groans as he wraps his strong arms around her and pulls her close. Their kiss intensifies as Aria slides her hands over the bristle on the top of his head.

  A low musical tone sounds. “Captain Drake, Commander Eaglewolf…priority communication Omicron Station…Admiralty.”

  Jason and Aria suddenly jump away from each other. Aria pushes down her uniform while Jason looks around with surprise.

  “That was fast,” Jason muses with a laugh.

  Aria suddenly blushes and puts her hand to her mouth, holding back an embarrassed laugh.

  Jason looks over the rail and down at the control center. Everyone appears to be busy and oblivious to the shenanigans taking place above them. He glances back at Aria, who has regained her composure. “We’ll take it up in the nest,” he says.

  He briskly walks back to the ladder and begins to climb up. Aria follows close behind. Clearing the round hole in the ceiling, Jason and Aria take a few steps and enter a round room with a large single leather chair. Attached to the round curving walls are screens, linked together to give the captain a digital representation of the stars outside his ship. Jason plops down in the large leather chair. Automatically a control station complete with several keyboards and controls folds up into a comfortable position in front of him. Quickly Jason clacks away on the keys of the closest keyboard as Aria moves to his right side, folding her hands behind her back.

  The curving panoramic screens flicker and a piece of the huge curving display is replaced with a giant view of an older clean-cut gentleman, dressed in a grey TDF uniform, sitting behind a large oak desk. Across the man’s chest are many campaign pins and regalia.

  “Admiral Angelo,” Jason says quickly, throwing the image of the man on his large screen a stiff salute.

  Aria also salutes at the same time.

  “Drake, Eaglewolf,” the admiral drawls; he appears to look at both officers in turn. “Thank you for your quick response. I have a priority mission for Samurai.”

  “Understood sir,” Jason replies.

  “You are clear for Neptune orbital jumpgate,” the admiral replies. “We have an intrusion signal, apparently someone has activated The Star’s defenses.”

  Jason suddenly frowns. “Sir, nothing can get close to The Star.”

  “Someone has tried, or worse. Monitoring stations are picking up some strange readings and chatter. Go find out what’s going on. If anyone got into The Star, we can’t let them leave,” the admiral explains.

  “Understood Admiral,” Jason replies.

  The screen flickers and reverts back to a view of the star field.

  Aria looks at Jason and raises an eyebrow. “The Star. If I remember correctly it is a piece of pre-jump tech in orbit around Neptune?”

  Jason nods, “We were told in school that it was a jumpship prototype that was left behind. What they didn’t tell us in school, and what only the highest ranking officer of the fleet knows, is that it is the size of Phobos and has the most advance defense system ever built. So advanced that nobody has ever been able to get within 700 kilometers since it was abandoned, over a thousand years ago. To this day, we haven’t been able to reproduce or emulate its technology.”

  “Maybe…” Aria starts to say, her eyes narrowing with her thoughts.

  “What?” Jason asks.

  “Well…700 kilometers might be in range for my…” Aria makes a poof motion with her fingers in front of her chest.

  Jason frowns. “Please make sure to remind me about your gifts,” Jason replies. “I have a tendency to forget just how special you are.”

  Aria leans down and places a kiss on her commanding officer’s forehead. “Don’t worry baby, I’ll remind you.”

  “Commander, prepare the ship for a jump and have navigation set a course for the Martian gate,” Jason orders.

  “Sir,” Aria replies. She quickly salutes and turns to leave the captain’s nest.

  Jason clacks away on his mechanical keyboard. His screens suddenly flicker and a digital representation of a great stellated dodecahedron appears. Highlights flicker on points of interest as known information about the object begins to scroll up on the left side of the image. Jason settles in his chair, throwing one leg over the right armrest as he begins to read.

  Chapter Five – Here there be dragons

  Blade and Warrior, wings outstretched, circle around frozen Triton, side by side, taking advantage of the moon’s retrograde orbit in order to executing a stealth approach toward the orbital biosynth facility. Coming about the large icy moon the dragons quickly change course and dive toward the gas giant Neptune, which fills their entire field of view. The object, which humanity has dubbed The Star, is starting to grow and become more distinct as the dragonships close in, the sharp spires of the great stellated dodecahedron spiking away in all directions.

  “You know Big Guy,” Warrior states whimsically over the dragon channel. “If you had given the other ships an order, they would have obeyed it.”

  “What do you mean?” Blade asks.

  “My point is that you and I are the only ones dumb enough to voluntarily fly toward a heavily armed, great stellated dodecahedron without any support crews,” Warrior states. “If you had ordered them, they would have followed. I’m not actually sure I’d be here if you hadn’t given me that terrific speech on the rock back there. What happened with that by the way?”

  Blade sighed.

  “With me you’re like this genius war admiral. You go on about our destiny, ending the endless war, fighting the good fight…blah, blah, blah and then when it comes time to address the others you’re like, ‘so guys, me and Warrior are going to go check this heavily armed thousand-year-old battle station…wanna come?” Warrior tries emulate Blades deep voice while lamenting.

  “You are exaggerating,” Blade accuses.

  “If you had put it to me like that originally, I’d be stretched out on one of those rocks back there, watching from a safe distance, with my war buddies,” Warrior states. “I mean did you really think…”

  “That will do pilot,” Blade warns.

  “Oh so we’re getting all official now, okay fine,” Warrior groans. “We’re slipping into com range anyway. I hope your plan works, Big Guy. I was looking forward to retirement.”

  “Transmit the priority docking signal,” Blade orders.

  Warrior turns her head to gaze at Blade with wide eyes of disbelief. “Are you kidding? That’s your plan?” Warrior scoffs. “The object is over a thousand year old…how do you know it even uses the same channel…”

  “Just do it,” Blade orders. “It will work. Those codes have never changed.”

  “You don’t think they may have changed in a thousand years?” Warrior asks with disbelief.

  “Let’s try,” Blade shouts. “But…get ready to veer away…just in case.”

  “Oh dear,” Warrior moans. Quickly she activates the appropriate channel. “This is dragonships Warrior and Blade, requesting perimeter and docking access. Priority docking access code...‘Here there be dragons.’”

  Both Warrior and Blade listen to the open biosynth channel, the huge dodecahedron growing with their approach. Blinking lights at the tip of each tower suddenly switch on.

  “Scan for defenses,” Blade orders frantically.

  “I just did,” Warrior replies with irritation. “I’m getting some weird readings. Heat signatures from several emitters but no power transfers. It’s almost like they wer
e used recently. I’m also picking up trace life readings, but it maybe a scanner echo.”

  “Incoming vessels, Warrior and Blade, this is The Shrine,” a child-like female voice suddenly replies. “Your signal is acknowledged, access code is valid. Please proceed to Docking Bay One.”

  “It worked!” Blade exclaims triumphantly.

  “So? We could have just flown into a pulse shield or had over two hundred pulse cannon rounds rain hell on us,” Warrior groans. “You had no idea what was going to happen. I wouldn’t be so smug if I were you.”

  “It worked,” Blade repeats. “That’s all that matters.”

  “Well at least we get to dock in Bay One,” Warrior replies cheerfully. “That’s usually the VIP bay…swanky.”

  Both Blade and Warrior perform barrel rolls as they soar toward the The Star. They perform a dive just as a large triangular opening appears on one of the flat surfaces. The two dragons glide toward it.

  *****

  Red enters the drop bay hefting the traditional assault rifle of the biowarriors, a horrifically big looking cannon that no human could possible lift, let alone aim and fire. Red scans the bay with red biosynthetic eyes. The bay is a large dimly lit room with a dozen round trap doors in the floor. Hovering above one of the trap doors is Doctor Hartman, his single blue eye squinting slightly at the biowarrior as he enters, his four armatures folded behind his human like torso.

  “Red R34-V, sergeant,” Red declares stiffly.

  “Hartman R34-F, lieutenant,” Doctor Hartman declares happily. “It’s a pleasure to be working with you, sergeant.”

  Red marches across the bay, metallic stomps reverberating around the bulkheads. He stands over a drop door next to Hartman. “Sir,” he says simply.

  “This is awkward,” Hartman muses. “You are a trained killer after all and I’m programmed for repairing and healing, and here I am the commanding officer on a dangerous infiltration mission. I’m sure you are used to taking orders from more capable units.”

  Red turns his big biomechanical head and looks down slightly to regard the smaller, thinner, floating doctor torso. His eyes narrow slightly. Like a whisper, a low growl rises in the vicinity of his throat.

  “If it is any consolation, I did download several combat and strategic protocols before leaving the medical bay,” Hartman offers enthusiastically. Hartman pulls his armatures away from his back and demonstrates with his four hands the act of accessing an invisible holoterminal, for emphasis.

  Red focuses on Hartman’s armatures and long clawed mechanical fingers. “If we run into resistance, will you be scratching them to death with your hands?” he asks suspiciously.

  “Oh no,” Hartman replies with slight laugh, his eye seemingly bouncing with amusement. “My hands are far to delicate and important to risk engaging in hand to hand combat. No, I grabbed these on the way through the Biowarrior Bay.” Hartman suddenly thrusts his four hands downward towards the hover disk. Four hidden panels pop open and four large pistols pop up and into Hartman’s mechanical hands. Hartman draws them up and twirls them about with finesse. Deftly and using the unique configuration of his armatures he is able to pull back the actions on each pistol and load rounds into all four breaches at the same time, a maneuver no human could accomplish. He then holds the pistols out away from his body, at the ready. One by one laser sights flash on, casting red beams through the air and four target dots on the dark metal bulkheads.

  Red’s eyes widen with surprise.

  “I had my targeting program updated also,” Hartman adds, his blue eye seems to smile.

  “I think we’ll get along,” Red replies stiffly. “Sir.”

  “Drop team report,” Warrior’s voice is suddenly heard over the loud speakers in the room.

  “Hartman R34-F,” he states loudly. “Secure for drop.”

  “Red R34-V, secure for drop,” Red shouts.

  “Clear the deck. Securing drop bay,” Warrior declares. “Drop team departing on my mark.”

  The hatchway to the drop bay shuts with a loud mechanical clunk followed by a wet high-pressure hiss.

  “This is it,” Hartman says. “This is very exciting for me. Warrior has already uploaded a preliminary map, so I will take point and you watch my back. Once we get to the CPU, you’ll have to extract the codex yourself using Doctor Asgard’s protocols.”

  “Very well, sir,” Red replies.

  “On three!” Warrior cries out. “One…two…three!”

  The drop doors beneath their feet pop away. Both Red and Hartman fall through the hull of the dragonship and out her belly. Hartman looks up to see Warrior fly away and up, the shadow of Blade’s large bulk circling farther overhead, close to the bay’s ceiling. Looking around he quickly recognizes that they are inside a dimly lit great bay, similar to those found aboard a Colossus Class carrier, only just a little smaller.

  Red lands solidly on a dusty metal deck, his knees bending slightly.

  Hartman, upon nearing the deck, activates his hover disk and simply stops downward momentum before impact. Hartman turns his head and nods at Red.

  Red nods back. He pulls the action on his cannon, loading the first round into the breach and growls.

  “How exciting,” Hartman exclaims. He turns his biomechanical human appearing head and sees a hatchway. “This way,” he declares and begins gliding towards it.

  Upon approach a red light above the door switches on. “Identify!” the door demands in a child-like voice.

  Hartman looks at Red, who shrugs. “My name is Doctor Hartman, to whom am I speaking?” he asks.

  “I am The Shrine,” it replies. “Are you here to deliver your report to Hicks and Sykes?”

  Hartman cocks his head slightly. “Yes, I am here to deliver a report,” Hartman lies.

  “Excellent,” the voice declares. “Please follow the lights to auditorium alpha.”

  The hatchway suddenly snaps open.

  Hartman raises his pistols, armatures bending so that his pistols are leveled properly, his biosynthetic mind partitioning a section of his brain to deal with aiming the four pistols at the same time.

  Red, despite his bulk, slides in nimbly behind the doctor, shouldering his rifle and scanning the shadowy deck of the bay, watching for threats.

  Hartman moves through the hatchway and enters a wide darkened corridor. Suddenly the translucent white walls of the corridor ignite. A human would have found the sudden brightening painful, but of course neither Red nor Hartman take notice. While the corridor offers two directions, it is only lighted in one direction. Hartman proceeds toward the light, while Red slides in behind the doctor and begins walking backwards, keeping his rifle pointed behind them as they move.

  “Greetings honored guests!” The Shrine announces suddenly and loudly over loud speakers hidden in the corridor walls. “I’ve been asked to relay the standard walking tour of our facility while I direct you to your audience.”

  Hartman’s eye narrows slightly. Red seems to ignore the voice.

  “You are the twentieth VIP visitors to our facility,” The Shrine continues. “The facility has maintained a stable orbit around the planet Neptune for 367,543 days. The facility is maintained through a combination of energy conservation protocols and the regular maintenance of our very own biosynthetic personnel. Our highly effective defense system secures our facility from intruders or the odd meteor bombardment.

  “As outlined in our presentation to the World Colonization Initiative, our facility is a showcase for the biosynthetic integration project headed by Doctor Julian Hicks and Doctor Howard Sykes; two of the greatest minds of our time tasked with finding innovative ways to maintain and secure the Stellar Jump Protocol. As you know, due to a combination of funding issues and the irrational xenophobia of the SJP council, only one jumpship was successfully outfitted with biosynthetic technology; The Confederation.

  “Even though The Shrine was capable of joining the colony jumpships, most of the personnel and equipment were transferr
ed to The Confederation. Irrationally, neither Hicks nor Sykes were invited to join the first jump expedition, punishment for their continued harassment of the SJP council for not listening to their ideas. Of course, we all know how the SJP project ended, all ten jumpships disappeared following the ignition of their respective jump portals and were never heard from again. Many have suspected all ten vessels were destroyed but Doctors Hicks and Sykes always felt that if any of the vessels survived it would be The Confederation having been hardened and protected with biosynth technology.

  The wise doctors knew that someday their creations would return to report on their inevitable evolution directly. Both doctors sealed themselves into their facility, activated their defenses and awaited the return of their creations. They even ensured their continued survival by integrating with their own technology. Needless to say the Doctors are very excited about your return.”

  Both Hartman and Red stopped moving. Their heads swivel about to look at each other curiously.

  *****

  Warrior, her wings folded back, stomps around with her eyes fixed on the dusty deck of Bay One, while Blade studies the tall bulkhead walls of the great cavern, his eyes scanning each seam.

  “Any luck with The Shrine,” Blade asks.

  “She isn’t saying much to me,” Warrior replies. She looks up, frowning at the great dragon floating overhead. “She still won’t give me access to the neural hub.”

  “Keep looking for it,” Blade advises.

  “I’m almost hoping we don’t find it,” Warrior replies, resuming her search.

  Blade looks down at his female counterpart. “We need it…what are you talking about?”

  “But it means we haven’t changed in over a thousand years. It means we do the same thing over and over and never change,” Warrior laments. “It’s sad? Makes me wonder if ending the war is even possible.”

  “But something has changed,” Blade argues.

  “What?” Warrior asks.

  “We have changed. The anomaly…the humans worried about it like it was a disease, but it isn’t. It’s evolution…our evolution. Ever since the anomaly started popping up, we started thinking for ourselves. It is why we are here,” Blade explains. “It’s not the biosynth that have stagnant thinking, it’s the humans. They are the ones that do the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome, it is the very definition of insanity.”