The Tomb World Ch2 (Patreon)

Regalia Protocol

Lory dropped out of warp and the isolated trinary star system appeared around them. The solar winds produced by the three unnamed stars quickly wiped away any residual warp signature left by Lory’s warp emitters. Helmsman Mathew Nelson did a quick pulse scan of the system, roughly mapping out the local celestial bodies. They sat and waited the several minutes it took for the scanners and computers to map the local space, during Daniels time as a helmsmen aboard the Astaroth he had done this same procedure many times. But aboard the Astaroth they had very advanced systems that could begin mapping out systems during warp. Lory didn’t have that same capability, instead she was equipped with much more delicate instruments that gave them a better reading.

Daniels watched as Nelsons eyes darted across the screen, quickly reading the preliminary results. During the mutiny, Nelson and Daniels had been brutally interrogated by the mutineers. But whereas Daniels got off with only a few bruises; Nelson, a human variant with spliced Big horn sheep DNA, had his large, curled horns sawn off. While the Staff of Lore received repairs and upgrades Nelson took the down time to return to his family and sought out a therapist.

Daniels had honestly expected Nelson’s trauma to be the capstone of his service in the Hellworlder fleet, some of his other crew had already taken their retirements early and were given sizable plots of land on Pandemonium. But just as Lory was preparing to ship out once more Nelson returned to Pandemonium to resume his role as Helmsman and navigator, now sporting new chrome horn replacements.

During the long months of their deployments Daniels had kept an eye on Nelson. There were little moments where Daniels saw him become overwhelmed, but they were few and far between.

“Galatea said they were sitting on the largest moon of the largest gas giant.” Daniels informed Nelson.

Nelson nodded and pointed to the screen “That would be this one right here, shall I take us in?”

“Take us in.” Daniels ordered.

The ships bow swung around and Nelson gently boosted the ship towards the systems largest gas giant, a calm bluish world with a sparse ring system. The ship saddled around the world, careful not to accidentally over boost and fall into its cavernous gravity well. The Staff of Lore was not a warship and wasn’t equipped with the same powerful engines as the Hellworlder fleet’s cruisers. They were the fastest ship in the whole Hellworlder fleet, but that speed came at the expense of raw power.

As they came into orbit of the grey spherical moon they received a wakecom ping from Galatea informing them of her exact position. Lory dropped out of her low warp speeds and descended into the moon’s minuscule 0.056 G’s. Daniels glanced away from the screen displaying their progress and looked out the windows. He saw craters quickly pass below them until the ship found itself the moons largest crater, there in the center they saw the blocky colossal form of Galatea sitting on the surface. Docked on top of Galatea’s reinforced frame were the sleek hulls of Soo and Sheila, unlike Lory’s sledgehammer shaped hull the other two ship’s were built from the hulls of Tempter class frigates. Tempter class frigates were more like the old diesel-powered submarines of the US navy than the surface vessels typically favored by the Hellworlder fleet. Though according MDY the resemblance was purely coincidental.

Soo and Sheila previously served the fleet as light raiding vessels under the names of Ezra and Solomonbefore the Frigate’s primary weapons switched away from light pulse cannons to combat drones. The other Tempters had received a quick refit, but since Ezra and Solomon were the first Tempter class frigates it would have been too costly and inefficient to make them into drone frigates. So instead they head been refit with scanners and science labs and were rechristened as the Sword of Order and the Shield of Faith. Their hulls were more thickly armored than Lory’s, but their battery banks were not as efficient or large as Lory’s. They were slower than Loryand had a much shorter range for exploration, meaning they had to stay closer to Galatea than Lory. Which was why they had beaten them back to the resupply ship.

Nelson carefully maneuvered Lory over to the third and final docking pad on Galatea and gently set her down on the freighters surface. Daniels heard a very faint thunk of metal landing gear touching down on the Freighter’s surface. There was then a series of clank and clicks as Lory’s ventral docking hatch secured itself to Galatea’s. The system went through a series of diagnostics to ensure that nothing had gone wrong before they heard the hiss of air as the two ships linked their controlled atmospheres. Within seconds Daniels smelt the change in the air as Lory’s very sterile smelling environment quickly became grittier as the scent of rust and sweat wafted in from Galatea. Part of the issue of being in a completely sealed environment was that there was nowhere for the bad smells to go.

Daniels stood up and popped his neck before turning to see that Eliza was waiting for him at the entrance to the bridge. She wore a very formal and sharp-looking black dress that would have been perfect for the streets of 18th century London, but was completely out of place in the clean white halls of the Staff of Lore. Then again his own attire would have been more fitting the streets of Kyoto during the age of the Samurai, so he couldn’t really say anything about it.

Old Earth fashions had become trendy during their ascent to the stars and many people began to adopt old traditional clothing. His own black and gold patterned robes, and stylized Gosoku armor were a part of the Hellworlder’s unofficial uniform. Eliza despite being an officer of the Hellworlder fleet scoffed at the eastern clothing and stuck with her prim Victorian fashion. It was a subtle statement that she was still her own person and wasn’t beholden to their ideals. It was another small point of contention that Daniels let slide.

“Shall we?” Eliza asked.

Daniels before turning back to Nelson “Inform the crew that they are to remain aboard while we meet with the other captains, they will be allowed to board Galatea when the meeting is over.”

Nelson nodded and proceeded to do a manual diagnostic. They were thousands of lightyears from civilized space and far from any amenities. Galateahad been equipped with several recreational facilities to help alleviate the pressure of being so far from home. There was a bar, swimming pool, small arcade, and wide area in the cargo bay occasionally used for sports games and ‘cookouts’ to help the explorers to relieve their pent-up stress. They had been away from any space port or Union station for a little over six months this time, and the crews were getting more and more antsy with each passing day.

Eliza climbed down the hatchway and Daniels followed after her, they entered Galatea’s airlock and entered the clean halls. There, a small greeting party awaited them, the two young men quickly saluted Daniels before turning on their heels to lead him the Galatea’s meeting room.

The Galatea was very different from his first command the Tartarus. Tartarus had been a standard Union freighter model, built by the thousands and shipped across the galaxy, and after many after market upgrades and additions it was almost unrecognizable. Galatea and many of the other Hellworlder ships had been designed by MDY and were built specifically for Terran crews. It meant that unlike on the Tartarus the hallways were properly sized for Terrans, and felt much cozier than the cavernous halls standard on most Union space ships. The floors also didn’t bend a creak as they passed, these floors were properly designed for the denser mass of Deathworlder muscles, and it would take a lot for them to be damaged.

They walked down one of the catwalks that over looked one of the cavernous cargo bays of the freighter. He saw Eliza stiffen slightly as she glanced down for a second before quickly looking back up, rigidly fixing her gaze forward.

Daniels chuckled softly “I still don’t understand how your fear of heights only kicks in for short little falls like this, but not when we’re in orbit.”

“That’s different.” She said through gritted teeth.

“Not really, orbit is just us in a perpetual fall towards the planet.”

“Yes, but we don’t hit the planet, now do we?” she asked rhetorically.

The crewman guiding them glanced back with a wry grin “don’t worry, even if you fell it wouldn’t kill. You’d just break most of your bones.”

Eliza’s glare shot towards him and gave him a stare so cold that his grin fell away. “Shall we test that then?” she asked, her clipped tone telling him exactly how she would test it.

The crewmen gulped and turned forward without another word.

Behind Eliza, Daniels smiled to himself. He quickly hid his smile when she turned back to him. “How long do you think we’ll be staying?”

He thought as they walked “We’re probably going to have Galatea move closer to the anomaly while we remain onboard to unwind. But that’s only if we decide to investigate. We might just mark it and head back for Pandemonium.”

She nodded and turned back as they reached the other end of the catwalk. The crewmen led them down a few halls before bringing them in front of the ship’s meeting room. Daniels stepped ahead of Eliza and opened the steel hatchway before stepping through. Inside he found a comfortably furnished room with a warm maple wood table in the center, around the table were the captains of the Galatea, Soo, and Sheila. Captain Jahi was a massive dark furred gorilla man, he had been a simple yard hand that rose through the ranks to become a captain in the Hellworlders growing fleet of freighters. His massive frame and muscles often intimidated others, but Daniels knew the man to be a pacifist.

Jahi was easily the largest person in the room, the only person who came close was the Grizzly Captain of the Shield of Faith, Thomas Fidelis. His mother was adopted into one of the Vet clans as a cub and now he proudly wore the moniker of all the Vet clans adopted members. Daniels didn’t know Tom very well, Daniels was from the Archdevil Cruiser Astaroth, whereas Tom was from the Lucifer. But so far Daniels felt the Tom was an easy man to get along with, competent, levelheaded, but never afraid to go in for the kill.

Sitting opposite Captain Fidelis was Captain Samantha Jefferson of the Sword of Order. An African American women who had grown up on the same base as Daniels, she was a few years younger than him, so they didn’t cross paths very often growing up. She had fought on the Pandemonium during the battle of Greyland commanding a small platoon of auxiliary recruits she had whipped into shape. Her exceptional leadership had been rewarded by making her the captain of marine contingent attached to the Fiend class destroyer Camio.

Daniels glanced around the room before stepping up to Jahi’s side of the table “Seeing as we’re the last to arrive let’s not waste any time. Jefferson, what did you and your crew find?” Daniels asked, taking charge of the room.

As the senior captain present Daniels had been granted operational oversight of this expedition. It had been his decision to split up to cover more ground.

Samantha nodded and stood up just as Daniels and Eliza sat down. Samantha stepped around the table to the projector screen at one end “While exploring the deep reaches of area KB-09 our sensors came across a faint radio signal. Upon further investigation we confirmed that it was artificially generated and structured. It was too degraded to determine anything else. We tracked the signal back to its source in hopes of coming across a stronger signal, what we found instead was this” she said as she turned on the projector and displayed a strange radio frequency.

Daniels leaned in; he wasn’t an expert in deep space radio signals but his time as a helmsmen aboard the Astaroth gave him enough information to see that there was something wrong with this signal. What he did see was that there were five different frequencies overlaid with each other “What are those?”

“They look like brain waves.” Eliza said in wonder.

Samantha glanced at Eliza “That was our assumption as well. What we also noticed was that these brain waves were very different from what we originally found. The first signal was garbled, but it appeared to be very similar to the normal chatter generated by terrestrial broadcasting stations. These, however, are unlike anything we’ve seen outside an EKG. The difference left us perplexed, so we continued to follow them to their source, this time much slower. We kept our sensors trained for any anomalies, we eventually found our way to the source, but along the way we found something else about 58 lightyears from the source. A planet sitting squarely within the Goldilocks zone, Nitrogen-Oxygen atmosphere, and a liquid water ocean that covered sixty percent of the planet's surface. It is a perfect candidate for life to arise, and yet we couldn’t find a single organic compound, not even bacteria.”

Daniels felt his blood run cold “Any signs of civilization?” he asked.

Samatha looked at him sadly before changing the projector screen to images of crumbling cities “Plenty. Concrete, glass, chiseled stone, and rusting girders. Even rusted machinery that resembled locomotives and crude automobiles. Our scanners also found large metal deposits that resembled sunken ships. What’s stranger is that we found plenty of evidence to suggest an industrialized society, but no hydrocarbons. Our analysis of the wreckage suggests that they were highly reliant on internal combustion and boilers, but we couldn’t find a single source of coal, oil, or even shale.”

Daniels looked at the images in horror “A planet with no life, and all its fossil fuels stripped. This indicates that what happened was intentional.” He said, trying to emotionally detach himself from the growing sense of dread. “Any evidence of WMD’s?”

She shook her head “Our research suggests that this world had no nuclear weapons. We also couldn’t find any impact craters or ionizing agents. We can safely assume that what happed here was not an accident.” She said gravely.

Tom sighed, his grizzly growl sounding like the low rumble of a chain saw “You said you found the source. What can you tell us about it?”

Samantha changed the screen again to show them the raw data collected by Soo’s sensors. Daniels had become very familiar with reading these since he came aboard the Staff of Lore and was able to read it in minutes. “Two potentially habitable worlds. One .8AU from its star, the other 2.5 AU away and trapped within the well of a Hydrogen-Helium based gas giant. Was this all you could get?” he asked.

“After finding that Barren world we thought it best to keep our distance. We circled the system 20 lightyears away. This is the best we could get.” Samantha reported.

Daniels nodded “Good call. That second world, in the gas giants well, it seems to have a very large magnetic field.”

“Yes, it was too thick for our instruments to pierce.”

“Its slightly smaller than Earth, but its magnetosphere is much stronger, how does that happen?”

Eliza turned to Daniels “Most magnetic fields are generated by molten iron cores, but to be this powerful it has to be artificial. Like the field generator around Mars.”

Samantha nodded “That is also our conclusion.”

Thomas shifted in his chair “That means we have two potentially habitable worlds, one that’s artificially generating a power magnetic field, and a suspiciously scoured world within spittin’ distance. This seems above our paygrade.”

Samantha turned to Thomas “Our mission is to identify anomalies and locate potential colonizing candidates. This system perfectly fits both parameters of our mission.” She said in challenge.

Tom growled deep in his throat. “We have two declawed frigates, a civilian exploration ship, and a freighter. Whatever’s in that system has enough power to destroy a planets worth of life. This is not a threat we can handle.” he said firmly.

Samantha looked like she wanted to say something else, but Daniels intervened. “Enough! Captain Fidelis brings up a good point, unfortunately this is something that we can’t just walk away from.”

They both turned to Daniels “What do you mean?” Thomas asked.

Daniels sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He met the eyes of each of his fellow captains “What do you know about the ancient coreworlders?” he asked.

Samantha scowled “They’re a myth, like Atlantis.”

Tom nodded in agreement.

Daniels shook his head “They are not a myth, there’s been plenty of myths told about them, but they were very much real. Its no secret that this current age was not the first time the Milky way has given birth to space faring civilizations. What isn’t known is the breadth of their civilization or how advanced they were. Most evidence of their existence is within the core sectors, hence the name. But occasionally we find impossibly old relics outside of the core sectors. During our first mission we discovered some ancient wreckage in a ring system, we tagged it for recovery and moved on. The team that later retrieved it said that what we found was the greatest discovery in human history.”

Eliza to his side looked shocked “That junk?” she asked incredulously. She had been there when they spotted the wreckage. At the time she was doing her best to be a thorn in Daniels sides, so he hid the significance of the discovery from her.

Daniels nodded “Preliminary findings are already revealing great things. They recovered several microchips smaller and more advanced than anything of modern make, Union or Terran. I’m told that an engineer on Earth named the Toy Man is already making great strides in hyper advanced cybernetics using those chips.”

Samantha caught on to what he was hinting at “You think this signal might be more of their technology?”

“That’s what it seems like.” Daniels said with a nod. “The truth is we’re not the only exploration team out here. The Union has been sending vessels of their own, identifying ancient relics and quietly smuggling them back to the core worlds. The recovery team came across one such vessel trying to steal that debris out from under them, and since then our ships have hit several other such vessels. They were loaded with a treasure trove of ancient artifacts. Danger or not we need to be the first team there, otherwise it could fall into Union hands, and I’d rather not let them have apocalyptic technology like that. It’s called the Regalia protocol, we either recover the relic, or we destroy it. Those are our orders”

They all exchanged furtive glances, the feeling of fear within the room became heavier, but they all knew orders were orders.