Homebound

by Retsamoreh

(1) Homebound Rebooted: The Captain

Author's Note:

The following is the first of two reboot chapters that were never posted, which would've seen a general reset to the story. Combined, it's over 60 pages and 30k words. For what it's worth, enjoy.

The plaques on almost every desk I own read "Captain Amber." I didn't keep a plaque in my quarters, though; I knew who I was. I was tired, naked, and drunk Jackson Amber.

Nothing drives me to drinking faster than the threat of the worst sound in the universe: someone knocking on my door to tell me something horrible had happened and needed my attention. What were the use of state-of the art, hull-plated doors if they could be penetrated by mundane individuals and their incessant knocking?

I've heard it all, too. Uncategorized bugs from the Gateway systems scuttling through the walls of a ruined research station on the outskirts of known space and teetering on the edge of a black hole. I routinely sit through crushing silence during debriefings where the only interruption is a name being ticked off the mission roster. Men under my command. The displeasure of a madman screaming in my ear with a gun pressed against the other side comes to my mind when I think of sounds I don't like. If it's happened, it's happened to me.

Nothing is worse than the knocking, though. You are in charge, it says to me. Everything is in your hands and, quite frankly, if things go bonkers, it's on you, the knocking screams at me.

Someone knocked on my door on the third day of the suicide mission.

Worse, my hangover hadn't faded.

"Captain, it's urgent," my second-in-command said, or yelled since there was a blast door in the way.

I sat up, the back of my hand indented across my face, and rolled over on my bed to look at a mission clock hologram on my bedside table. Unlike normal clocks, this one counted down. The time of knocking, which meant the mission's next phase started, happened at zero. He'd knocked two minutes late.

"I kno-" I gagged, the words stuck in an unused throat. Coughing, I turned to the door and slid my legs off the bed, pushing an empty bottle to the floor. Vol 11 Empirium Whiskey from a shipment a poor smuggler died for in order to get to rich snobs halfway across the galaxy something exotic. I'd intervened and snagged a bottle for myself two months ago, out on the rim of the Han Wavel system. I might've also been the one to kill him. He resisted arrest.

"I'll be right there." My knees locked and my arms felt like punching bags, but I made my way to the uniform jacket hung on the wall like a museum display. Whatever tornado flew about the room avoided it in a miracle of drunken luck. I threw it and the rest of the uniform on, checking myself in a mirror which, if I wanted to, would turn translucent and reveal the void beyond. The gold pin set against my left breast, a diamond with a set of wings, annoyed me with a five-degree offset. I fixed it.

"It's time, sir. We need you in the briefing room."

"Give me a moment," I barked. I grabbed my gear: a holstered officer's pistol and my wrist-bound datapad, and slid them into place with hurried, jerky motions. Then I moved for the door, the holster clicking into place on my belt the moment it opened.

Artzian Boyo, the only other man who knew what the mission entailed, had stuck with me like glue throughout the ordeal. He performed the training regimens and recruited the crew from academies across the sector. In my opinion, he deserved his name on the mission commander tab in the report instead of mine. Whatever promotion or medal he'd get, he'd earned.

His slicked-back hair and gleaming uniform shone in the light, and his arm whipped up in salute the instant he saw me. A team of highly skilled scientists could, if asked, spend many hours on the subject and confirm it was the most perfect salute ever performed, and he repeated that salute every time I saw him.

"Commander," I said, nodding. "At ease, Art. We're not in public."

He lowered his arms behind his back. "Protocol, sir. That AI is recording everything not in your room or the bathroom stalls, you know."

I stepped through the door, and the glaring ceiling lights, intermixed with the blue power lines running along the bright grey walls, assaulted my eyes. "I know," I said, walking straight to a wall panel with one hand covering my face from the light. "I designed the AI and built the ship. TACT?"

"Tactical Advisor And Command Terminal, At Your Service," a monotone voice bled out from hidden speakers. It had a kind of lilt to its words that felt like it was starting a new sentence with every word. Immediately following the declaration, TACT's avatar, a mushroom-dome atop a cone, projected from the panel. Like all AI, I designed it to be recognizable, but not humanoid. AI laws were tricky.

"TACT, sir? Funny."

"A military is only as good as its acronyms, Commander Boyo." I chuckled, nodding at the flawless execution of one of the newest AI models I'd helped design. "How's the ship, TACT?"

"Running At Fifty Percent Of Full Capability, Sir. Notably, Advanced Navigation, Weapons, Shields, And Advanced AI Capabilities Are Offline. I Am Currently In Observation And Autopilot Mode."

"Prep 'em, and warm up the nav-systems. Also, please give a brief report on the demeanor of the Commander during the voyage so far." I smirked back at Art, whose smile never faltered for a moment.

"Yes, Sir. Commander Boyo Is An Exceptional Wing Officer And Should Be Commended For His Adherence To Proto-"

"Thanks. Make sure to put that in the report to the College." I chuckled, turning back to Art. "You're fine. I'm just the face of the mission, and the Admirals know it."

His shoulders drooped, and he let a full breath of air patter past his lips like a horse. "That's easy for you to say. You're the one who's safe no matter what happens, being a veteran and an ex-admiral. My career's on this mission."

I shrugged, and patted his shoulder. "You're fine. Now let's go reveal the big surprise of the year to the crew. I love that part of highly-classified missions."

One corner of his mouth tilted upward, and he nodded. "They're just cadets, you know. When I read the briefing six months ago, I was surprised you wanted them."

We started off down the empty hallway. Through the steady, bone-massaging thrum of the engines, new hums emerged. Systems came out of hibernation one by one. The air still smelled of sanitation chemicals and lights were still a smidgen too bright. At the middle of the ship, we came to the three-pronged stairs that gave way to the meat of the vessel, and I heard the steady mechanical whine of the gigantic turret over our heads spinning around. The weapons were working, at least.

I sighed. "I don't, but there's several reasons there's cadets on this important of a mission. The first and foremost is in case we need, ah, meatshields. Fodder."

He didn't blink at the brunt, almost offensive term. "I figured."

"The second is morale. Our men are bred elite, Art, but every once and a while they need reminding that even the lowest of our ranks can complete impossible missions. A bunch of greenies coming out of a mission like this reminds them what they're capable of."

It was his turn to sigh. "We could definitely use the morale after almost losing to the Empirium. Six months of peace means nothing when you're training for the next war."

"And now, it's time for the show. Got the briefing room ready?"

"The show's all yours," he said with a tone dry as sand. "Just remember. They don't know the true nature of the mission. I know I wouldn't be happy if I met you like this, legend or not."

I pursed my lips, and we walked into the meeting room side-by-side. The walls were a blank sheet of grey, lacking the blue lines that ran along the rest of the ship. At a moment's notice, they could be switched from grey to black. It helped with holo-presentations.

Sitting at attention were the Homebound's crew: the seven cadets of such highly specialized backgrounds they could pass for veterans in any other spacefaring military. They'd trained for around five months for this moment, unaware of the true mission ahead. Art told them they were essential members of the operation. He lied on my behalf.

Recognizing their faces and forgetting their names, I sat down at the elongated hexagon-shaped glass meeting table. All in all, we'd wrapped up a variety of species in our scheme. Only two of them were like me and Art, human variants, or human-v's - a member of a species not human, but close enough to one another that making up a million different names became daunting. The rest were all different aliens I could list off like the fingers on my hand. I just didn't care.

I narrowed my eyes and flattened my palms on the glass. They collectively widened theirs.

"Captain Amber?" one of the human-v's asked. I nodded, slowly.

"It's time you learn just why you're here," I announced, straightening up. "The only thing you know are the many, many training sims we put you though and the fact that we left port in the Omega system. We are effectively out of Wing territory."

"Ship's been in warp for days now," one of them said, holding one hand out, palm-up, in exasperation. "I'm fine with the secrecy, but we'd have to be halfway across the galactic arm by now."

I shook my head. "The Homebound is currently heading toward a remote location - even by galactic scale - directly galactic-south of the Orion Spur. Anyway, I should give you a formal welcome to the Homebound, even if you've been in her for days." I hit a button on the master panel in front of me, jutting up slightly from the rest of the table. Lasers whirred to life for the first time, twisting and turning into position in the table's middle. They wove into being a to-scale, perfect hologram of the ship, just over a hundred meters long from hangar-to-nose reduced to half a meter.

"You are aboard the E.S.S. Homebound Kaiden-mark-196. The only one of its kind in the galaxy. Image doesn't show it, but you all saw the FP-Ring we're attached to when you came aboard." I pressed another button, and an oval-like ring of bulky, box-like construction wrapped its way around the miniature ship.

One of the cadets raised his hand, and I let him speak. "Sir, FP-Rings are for one-time, long range missions. Meant to give another source of fuel and power to the...." He swallowed, eyes flitting between the other cadets. "I, um… how long exactly is this mission going to take?"

I looked at him. "You are?"

"Cadet Roland, sir. I run the main cannons and am trained in small-arms combat and some close-combat melee."

Nodding, I leaned forward and answered, "I know. I read the report on you that the commander sent me. The length of the mission is undeterminable. I hope you said goodbye to your families. Not in an 'I'm going to die, I love you' way, just a- nevermind."

He and a few of the cadets sat back in their chairs, eyes widening. "You can't be serious."

I sat back and nodded again, this time slowly so he could understand it. Another one of the cadets, a female engineer, spoke up. "Okay, but where exactly are we going?"

"That's classified," Art scooted forward in his seat and put his hands on the table. "Even I don't know that. Can I show them the briefing, sir?"

"Go ahead. S'long as I get to narrate in my spooky voice," I said, smirking. He pressed a button and the lights seemed to reverse, plunging the room into darkness - even the walls changed. The hologram of the ship disintegrated, the stray particles reforming into a floating, spinning, 3D starmap of the area around Omega.

"Right after the war with the Empirium," I began, leaning forward and sticking a finger into the mess of blue stars and nebulas. "Omega, here, detected a burst of anomalous energy by some lucky positioning of a sensor. It lasted for exactly one point sixty-zero-nine seconds before blipping away. Just long enough to trip an alarm and get the military involved."

"What was it?" I asked them, seeing their concentrated faces through the dim blue light. "The readings were strong for that one and a half second. The scientists on Starbase Omega mapped it out and learned nothing. The readings were chaotic, random, senseless, but they think it was an explosion or series of explosions."

"Wait," one of the cadets interrupted, shaking her head. "We're going on a top secret, highly important mission for an explosion? Couldn't it have just been some idiot crashing into dead-space debris at near-light speeds? The hell is-" I held my gaze against hers, and raised one hand in a bid for silence. She abided.

"The explosion was the size of the average heliosphere around a small star," I shot back, loud enough to draw the attention of the entire room. Art stared at me, bug-eyed. The woman next to Roland gasped, her hand shooting to her mouth.

"A whole solar system," the commander breathed, plopping back into his chair.

I pressed the button, and a small, elongated, flattened sphere faded into the map a foot from any system. Smack dab in the middle of dead space. "A bomb the size of an entire solar system, they thought. That's why the military got involved. We created Operation Star Death and made it our goal to get to the location. Within a week, the first probe arrived. Commander?"

Art pressed the button on his side, and the starmap warped into a holovideo. In the background, the voices of a few scientists mumbled in anticipation. The probe, a man-sized tubular object, shot through space.

"LAS 12-9 is exiting the jump," an old voice said. A moment later, the probe's surroundings snapped into the familiar starmap, this time projected as a 2D sphere interior. "We're a light-hour away from the edge of the anomaly, as predicted."

"Sir, something's wrong. I think the forward optical scanner is malfunctioning." The probe's view swiveled to the front. Within a moment, the entirety of the stars and nebulas stopped, as if they were erased.

"Negative, control. Probe is reporting green on everything."

"Explain that, then?"

I cut the feed off with a flick of the hand, sending the holovid fizzing into nothing. Taking a deep breath, I looked at the wide, enamored eyes of the crew. "After some time," I started, switching back to the hologram of the starmap, oval and all, and continued, "they determined that it was, in fact… a physical object."

"That's impossible," the engineer woman blurted out, leaning forward. "There's not enough solid mass in the galaxy to coat a space that big, and no energy source big enough to hold up a shield."

"What about psychic energy?" Roland asked.

"No," I answered, shaking my head. "On all accounts. It's not solid matter or any known energy. That's what the probe found out, at least, before they sent it in on a contact trajectory."

The cadets sat up straight, a few whispering to each other. I let them, for a few seconds, but interrupted with a cough. "The recording is classified, but all you need to know is that the probe made it through whatever material the anomaly is made of. Thus, we hope, so will the ship."

Roland chuckled, and laid back in his seat. "Sweet."

"Not sweet," the outspoken engineer said. "Sir, do we have any idea what's beyond the anomaly, er, barrier, or whatever it is?"

I shook my head and pressed a button. The hologram dissipated into a million tiny dots, and the room's lights switched on and brightened - slow enough to not blind us, as designed. "That is the reason for your high variety of training and the versatile nature of the Homebound. The facts suggest it is a barrier hiding the existence of a hitherto unknown solar system. It could be anything, so we are prepared for anything."

"Question," the engineer asked, raising her hand in a mockingly fast way. She didn't wait for me to give permission. "What if it's a marauder? Or a massive, instant-death fleet of dreadnoughts?"

Taking another deep breath, I bobbed my head, eyes trained on the ground. "A hard question to answer." I stood up, looking at the harried group of cadets. "But it does have one. No matter what's behind that anomaly wall, we're going to face it. It is, without a doubt, a suicide mission."

That last bit didn't seem to help. A couple of the crew shrunk back, glancing at the others with a strained face. I went on, unabashed. "That's just it, though. The College is quick to label any obviously dangerous mission a suicidal one. I myself have been on over twenty so-called 'suicide missions' and, as you can see, I'm still here."

I wrapped my hands behind my back, and puffed out my chest. Chin high, I went on, "There will be danger, but the key to overcoming it is in you. Whole armies can be held back by brave enough men, and you will be no exception. Take heart, for the best of the Wing is with you in spirit. We may go into the darkness, the unknown, but we go without fear. In a few minutes, the ship will arrive at the edge of the anomaly. TACT will give you specific pre-entry assignments. Carry them out well, because there's no going back." I snapped into a salute. "Good luck. I will be on the bridge in five."

One by one, the cadets marched out of the room. A few did so with grim, strained eyes, but others took my advice and steeled themselves, returning my salute on the way out. I held myself to be an honest man, and I hadn't lied. The mission, fraught with unknown variables, appeared more dangerous than it might've been. I had low hopes only because it spared me the disappointment.

"I think you did good, Captain," Artzian said, pushing a few of the chairs back into place. The room still reeked of sanitizer, and stung my eyes. "Though you might've unintentionally revealed a disciplinary issue I must've missed. I'll take care of it. Hey, TACT, you up to full capability yet?"

"Yes, Commander Boyo. I Am Successfully Operating At A Hundred Percent. The Homebound Is Operating At Ninety-Nine Percent," the overhead voice answered.

"Awesome, good job. I'll be up on the bridge in a moment. Captain, you coming?" The commander moved for the door, uniform gleaming in the glaring light.

"I wouldn't miss it, Art." Smiling, I patted him on the shoulder before he left, strutting down the hallway like he owned the ship. I turned to the panel, and TACT appeared, as if he knew what I was thinking. "TACT."

"Yes, Sir?"

"How, uh… how's the coordinates and mission material datapacket you received last night?"

"Stored And Awaiting Your Inspection, Sir."

"Excellent. Any of the crewmembers try peeking into your core?"

"No, Sir. Crew Behavior Is Within Range Of Protocol Toleration Levels."

I nodded, satisfied, and moved to leave. The door opened, but I stopped. "One more thing, you don't need to call me 'sir' all the time. It's annoying, frankly."

"Understood, Sir. I Would Like To Remind You That I Am Designated 'TACT', Not 'Frankly.'"

Spinning on my heel, I scowled, muttering, "I hate AIs. Bloody useful things, though." I kept my head up, my back arched, and my arms behind me. The bridge, and the mission, awaited.

~=V=~

The Homebound jolted. My muscles tensed, absorbing the gravitational shove that even the inertial dampeners couldn't stop. I gripped the armrests of the captain's chair, sliding forward an inch.

"Clean warp entry. No trail. No leak," the pilot, Evo, droned. "We are nearing zero velocity."

"Scanners're done with optical star-vectors. We're at the place, alright," another one said from his post. It was the draxian who interrupted me earlier.

My eyes looked over the bridge. It was big for the ship's size, but for good reason. Less crew meant more control was needed. Slave-circuits ran through the ship to the bridge consoles, where the crew could control nearly everything. In a pinch, TACT could even compensate for a crew for a little while.

The command chair, which could function as a pilot's if I felt adventurous, sat in the middle, on a raised peninsula with two short stairs on either side. Behind it were two more panels, and to the sides, two more. The depression in the bridge held panels on all sides, with the navigator and pilot directly in front of me.

Art turned from his position in the navigator's console. "Should I bring the shutters up, Captain?"

"Not yet. I want system double-checks from everyone. TACT, I want you to triple check. Pilot, disengage FP-Rings and maneuver two hundred meters toward the anomaly."

He spun back around, nodding. I clicked a button on the chair arm's side, summoning a series of flat holopanels depicting, in data form, the entire ship and some of the surrounding area. The ship jerked again, but this time with a mechanical rumble.

"FP-Rings disengaged," the pilot said in a thick accent. "There is fuel and power enough for return trip home, er, if we make it, I mean."

"We will," I said, shuffling the panels with a few waves of the hand. "Right now, focus on the mission. How's our two crewmembers in engineering?"

"They're reporting full fuel levels and power up the wazoo, Captain," the man at the comms panel said, grinning. "Everything else is green enough to be a plant."

I rolled my eyes, but continued pouring over the data. They weren't lying; TACT confirmed all the reports and that said, without a doubt, we were as prepared a ship could be. I pushed the panels aside and looked to the scanner console. "Sync up the anomaly's signature with the pilot, please. I want to know the live distance between us."

"Feed is up," the pilot said a moment later, nodding. "We are two kilometers out."

"Alright," I muttered, leaning forward and placing a hand to my chin. "Open the shutters."

"Lifting the veil," Art said, eyes glued to the bridge window even as one arm moved to open it.

A mechanical whirring sang through the ship's hull, and a metric ton of armor casing rose up from in front of the window. Under normal circumstances, a camera feed projected the image of the outside world, but a special occasion warranted the naked eye.

It swung open, and all breath seeped out of my lungs in a slow, dying rasp.

"W-what the hell?" one of the crew sputtered, among a few stronger curses from a few weaker crewmembers. "It's real?"

"I knew to expect it, but still. Are we looking at the right thing? It lifted, right?" Art asked, turning back to me. "It's just… black. There's nothing."

A few of the crew looked to me too, so I forced my mouth closed. "It's the anomaly."

"It's massive," Art breathed.

"It's the size of a solar system. It's way bigger than massive." I let the seconds tick by, and without fail, every member of the crew halted, still to the bone. "If we pitched a bit, you could see where it ends. But we can't deviate. Bring up the shutters. TACT will have the velocity calculations for you, pilot."

"Already have them," the pilot said, jerking into motion. The blackness disappeared, and it pressed the figurative play button on the paused bridge scene. Cadets scurried from console to console, passing data and locking down systems for the inevitable unknown to strike, whatever it would be. "Breaching velocity is good. Twenty seconds."

I blinked, the color falling from my face to the pit of my stomach. "Twenty? It should be a full minute."

"Ship says t- er, ten," the pilot replied, turning to look back at me.

Sitting up, I barked, "Reverse, now. Do it!" The visual representation on the bridge screen showed blackness still, but it was blackness we were approaching at extremely fast speeds.

"Engines are not responding!" the pilot cried, hands blurring across the controls. "There is no response to bridge!"

"Brace!" I shouted, gripping the armrests. Black light swept the bridge, my eyes watered, and we dove in.

~=V=~

"Diagnostics!" Individual syllables fell out my mouth in lumpy, over-enunciated piles, slang I'd forgotten intermixed. "Where the sodding hell is my report? Sound off, the Commander first, you pillocks."

Artzian heaved a bit of broken fluorescent light off his console, and I heard the tear of his uniform when it caught on the debris. "Sir," he panted, cracking a salute that left a bloody print on his forehead. "We've lost navigation. Er, for the moment. And there's glass all over me."

"Weapons are offline," a cadet said. Metal strained against metal, and we all perked our ears to the ceiling. "That sounds bad."

"Shields are offline and hull integrity is unknown, but I think we just got rustled, not bustled," the woman next to him said. "And by that I mean we're fine, and not dead."

"Engineering is reporting power conduit failure to several systems due to simultaneous power overload. Safeties kicked in on everything, that's why it's all down," the communications controller said, his feet planted flat on the ground and eyes firmly locked to the blue screen. "I think it stopped."

"Sir, kinetics spiking-" The ship screamed, slamming me into my seat and scattering the bridge. Artzian flew backward, tilting sideways, and landed atop Roland. A couple managed to grab onto a railing or their armrests, but jolted nonetheless.

"I need scans and visual," I barked, sucking in air like a drowning fish. "What in the blazes is going on?"

"We're just getting scanners online, but I'd hazard that we're… probably in orbit." Art said, pushing himself up. He paused to reach down and lift Roland by the arm, then jogged back to his newly cleared terminal. "That, or a black hole. Or in orbit of a black hole."

"Reroute power to engines and scanners."

"Done, scanning in a hundred kilometer radius," Art called back. "Ah, hey, sir. Good news. It's not a black hole. It's a moon."

"That's a planet, Art," one of the crew blurted out from beside his terminal. It was a red-skinned draxian who I'd seen asking help from other crewmembers to get cans from the top shelf in the ship galley. Dusty rose burned crimson on his chiseled face, marred by a couple of glass cuts.

I turned to look at him and did my best impression of myself. "Care to repeat that?"

His lips pursed, and he let the words marinate on his tongue before serving them. "That is a planet, sir. I'd recognize it. A small one, at least."

"He's correct," Artzian said, ignoring my rising temper and his insubordination. "It's a dwarf planet. I think… two moons, maybe? I'm just pinging it right now; no visual."

"Fair enough. How's the power situation going?"

"They're replacing a couple of burnt fuses and cycling to the reserve generator for a bit. All systems should be green," the communications officer said, one hand brushing at his bloody face. "In a few moments, at least."

I nodded, bringing up my own datafeed with a wave of my hand. Individual systems on the ship sputtered to life, and the red emergency lights faded into a static, dull-blue that got in your nose and made you cough - maybe that was just the smoke the fans didn't catch. The AI light blinked green, and the warm, stoic voice of over-enunciated-ness greeted me.

"TACT Online. Emergency Detected. Orders?"

I held my hand to my mouth, sliding my index finger across my upper lip. My gaze dragged across the screen until I saw what I wanted. "TACT? Can you take the ship and pitch us ninety degrees bridge-south? Then give me visual."

Art looked up from his console, both eyebrows touching one another. I could see a question form, then fall away. The woosh-silence-woosh of the "autopilot" sang throughout the bridge. The thrusters pushed, then pulled an equal amount. One of my lips curled upward.

Then the big screen flickered to life. Below us, or rather, in front of us sat the entirety of the galaxy. The galactic arm swirled out, cloudy wisps scattered across the stars. It wasn't right.

"That's not how the galaxy looked when we left," I said. Several of the far-off blue and green nebulae I noted before we hit the anomaly weren't there, and the gaseous arms of the galaxy itself snaked in different directions, as if we'd been turned around. "TACT, open up the database and look through our starmaps. Find out where we are."

"Attempting To Triangulate Vessel Location."

"Good on 'ya." I looked to Boyo. "Commander, check the long-range scans for any ships. If we haven't been noticed, you and anyone else with injuries need to get to the medbay immediately."

"Sir." He saluted, and another red print of his hand's side stayed on his forehead.

The feed on my holopanel jittered with a steady flow of information. Scans detected a small body near us, and we were in its equally small gravity well. Not enough to pull us to our demise, I realized. We'd crash if left to our devices in the next three days.

I kept my eyes on the section of my holopanel dedicated to the scanners. Specifically, on the tabs for planet type, heat, and signs of life. A louder alert would sound in the case of ships. The sector of space finished. Two moons orbited the planet we were near. A couple of minor dwarfs out in the distance. The scanners expanded. Somewhere above me, a platform rose above the ship, spinning at a hundred revolutions per second in effort to grab every detail of everywhere.

It had two tasks, to use a 3D star-chart in our memory banks and compare it to star formations around the ship. Theoretically, the device would use recognized constellations and triangulate our approximate position. A last-ditch effort employed by explorers or those unfortunate enough to force a quick-jump into unknown space, it was inefficient and inaccurate on a pinpoint scale. For judging what solar system we were in, it'd work perfect. The second task was mapping out the system itself.

I checked off the planets as they were discovered, one by one, in order of whatever came between us and a distant yellow sun. A dot, indistinguishable from most stars to the naked eye. Then, the program organized them from outermost to innermost. Then, it scanned them further, and went from detecting bodies to studying them, finding water, gasses, even general surface formations.

I watched. Gas giant. Gas giant. Inhospitable rocks added themselves to the list in the millions at a halfway mark between us and the star, so an asteroid field could be counted on. Small, good size for life and within the green zone. Nothing. Barren, and a pitiful magnetosphere that left the surface irradiated.

I let the scanner pause on the tiny reddish planet, doing a deep-scan. It was the best candidate for a base so far. I wondered if TACT would return with location data before I finished, or if he'd draw a blank like I'd done at first. Something, I suspected, was spooky, and I got a gut feeling that the Homebound was not inside the bubble, but somewhere else. It could be a natural phenomena; a wormhole of sorts might have sprouted in dead space, and I longed for the possibility that it'd be a new breed.

I scrolled through a detailed, ten-page long analysis of the barren planet before sighing. No sign of energy. No sign of artifice on the surface. If someone built a secret base there, they did good, but then why the big secret bubble anomaly hiding them? There were still undiscovered solar systems out there, I guessed, but if the anomaly was something they turned on, then it drew our attention instead of keeping it away.

The scanners switched to the next planet and my mouth fell open. Good magnetosphere. Breathable atmosphere. Judging from the size and intensity of the sun, it sat in a habitable zone. I leaned forward into my chair, closing the distance between my face and the panel down to inches.

The pilot, Evo, looked at me from his chair. He'd been left alone, since he'd avoided one of the lights blowing and buckled into his seat before we impacted the anomaly. "Sir?" he asked in his nearly-too-thick accent, quirking an eyebrow. "I should burn retrograde to avoid crash, yes? Sir?"

I swallowed. "Yeah, sure," I muttered without thinking. I forced the scanner to continue on the third planet to the star. Continents. Water. Lots of water. Green, so either there was some funky colored dirt or plant life, and I knew which I'd bet on.

"Sir." Another voice in my ear, but this time from my neglected earpiece. I ignored it, and kept looking at the scanner. It labeled the planet as a habitable, and the most important tab changed from a grey "Unknown" to a bright-green "Terran".

"Sir, My Discretion Protocol Requires You To Be Informed Of This Latest-"

"What?" I snapped, jerking back into my seat so the back of my head slapped against the cushion. Evo turned to look at me, and turned around just as quickly when he saw my grimace.

"I Found This To Be Unexpected, Given The Parameters Of The Mission, But I Have Calculated Our Position Down to Ninety-Nine Point Nine Eight Certainty," the AI's dull voice chirped into my ear, like a bag of gravel. I looked back to the scanner, which continued its search for proof of more advanced life.

"We hit a goldmine on this one, TACT," I said, a bubbling feeling rising into my chest. My left eye twitched, and I leaned back into the tan cushions of the command chair. "I thought this mission'd be a bust for a second. Wait, I might beat you on this one. Let me think a few seconds." I turned my mind toward any solar systems I know that might fit the system's "landmarks" and layout, and drew up a few contenders. There weren't a lot of habitable systems that weren't covered in cities or spaceports, which meant it'd be an independent system. I sat there, Art and the emergency team returning to the bridge not warranting even a nod of recognition, one hand tapping the side of my chair until a series of three letters replaced the generic word "star" on the top of the tab. Sol.

Someone placed a plastic bottle in one of my hands hanging over the edge of the armrest. It slipped through and fell to the ground. The bubble in my chest popped, and I felt like a bottle of carbonated fizzy someone just finished giving a nice, rigorous shake.

"Sorry, sir. Thought you'd need a drink," Art said, picking the bottle of water up with a bandaged hand. He stood up and looked at me. My eyes drifted over to him, but I only saw the letters. "Something wrong?" he asked, tilting his head.

"Commander Boyo," I whispered after a long ten seconds. "I am commandeering this vessel and this mission."

A burst of air hissed from his lips in a strangled chuckle. One of the corners of his mouth slid upward in a wry, unsure smile. "Sir, technically, you are both captain and mission lead."

"Meet me in the briefing room in five minutes," I said, ignoring him. I stood up, the holopanel dissipating in my wake. "TACT, what were the, uh, reasons for point-oh-two uncertainty in that calculation?"

"Incredulity."

I sucked a breath in. Sounded right to me.

"I… need to get something from my room. TACT, figure out a stealth course to the third planet in the system. Help Evo out with it if you need to. Put us in high orbit." I let loose a quick, breathless, singular laugh, and leaned down to turn the holopanel off. My eyes grazed the surface, and I saw, added in the notes section, a new blurb on the most sought after location in the universe.

Surface dwellings detected.

I grinned a grin from ear to ear, hit the button, and sprinted to my room.

~=V=~

Humans had a home, once. I learned about it at the age of twenty-two along with the rest of the galaxy. A single ancient ship sitting in orbit of a dead planet told us everything.

Until that point, we tinkered with the recurring "Derelicts," as we playfully called the hulks. We dove in, tore up the floorboards and looted what working tech we could find. It's how most spacefaring species left their planet in the first place; by finding a single one, even a fighter, a sufficiently advanced people could unlock the stars. Some were faster, and lucky enough to have a ship on their planet itself. Others waited until their bravest explorers found a wreckage on the opposite side of a tidally-locked moon.

We didn't know the whole story for a long time. Each ship's data storage unit, a room that held a billion libraries, were all damaged beyond repair. Some say purposefully. Sometimes, though, someone found a few bits of data. Songs. Poems. Blueprints. We glued history together and what we found invigorated us.

Humanity: a race older than any in known space, or at least the galaxy. They, the first of their kind, left their planet without the aid of an older civilization like we had. They bore the brunt of innovation and technological advancement. Driven by whatever mad spirit of longing, they wandered the stars and mapped them to minute detail.

They settled, too. Bred like draxian beetles with twice the hardiness. Those who didn't explore, built. The only thing rarer than a Derelict ship was a Derelict city, but the few we found were none like anything we'd imagined. Teleportation, genetics, jump drives, wormhole control. They did it all, and if it didn't work the first time, they tried again ad infinitum.

So fast the humanity dove into the galaxy, they plotted a course from one end to the other in two thousand years. A piece of cake, with the hybrid tech we scavenged from them, but they didn't have that pleasure. They searched the hard way: slowly, but with purpose. They looked for life in every corner of the universe, and put it wherever there was none.

Few records we decrypted from various Derelicts told what happened next, but whenever they did, they wrote it in cynicism. "We settled," one said, as if it described the gap between exploration and destruction with two words. Others were not so kind, and described the young human explorers as naive children playing with the tools of gods.

The entire civilization died within a hundred days.

In its wake laid branches of the pure core species. Humans who adapted so severely to their environment, or changed themselves on purpose, that they were near human, but not. The Variants. I, and over half the galaxy belonged to this group of subspecies. Breeds, they were called.

Five months before I turned twenty-three, a group of explorers announced they'd found the last Derelict. From it, we gleaned all of these things and more; it'd been the most in-tact ship ever found. We learned of a few names for recognizable systems. Orion. Sirius. We learned of their religions and customs. We learned, for the first time, of the human homeworld. Earth. Dirt. Ground. Foundation. We had a name.
We knew it was the last Derelict - not the last to be found, of course - the closest to our time as any had ever been. News organizations flocked to the site in numbers that rivaled the researchers. We grasped for anything the ship might have told us.
To the dismay of all, the data within the hundred days fall did not exist. The mystery of humanity's impossible death eluded us, but three words.
"Return to Sol."
It commanded, and we obeyed.

~=V=~

Our shuttle left the hangar within thirty minutes of our entry into high orbit of the planet. I kept my eyes trained on the hologram emitted from my wrist datapad, but my ears stayed open.
I wondered why I could still breathe. Art knew - I'd told him - and if the shaky exit from the hangar indicated anything, he'd suffered from the same ailment. Excitement. Blood running hot with fervor, not fever.
In a few minutes, the ship, a unique model I called the Fate, would touch the ground of the most sacred land in history.

"The beginning of every mission is always the weirdest," one of the crew said next to me, her pale, oval face turned toward a kid with red freckles still all over his cheeks. It was Roland, from earlier, and the woman speaking I knew to be Lilian, the engineer. For the past ten minutes he'd been sitting there, leg jittering on the floor and eyes darting about. "You're getting that feeling too."

"Yeah." He chest rose from a deep breath. Fingers tightening around a newly quick-fabbed rifle, he brought the weapon to his chest, then exhaled.

She chuckled. "That sort of… acidic feeling in your stomach. Like you've been drinking too much of the fizzy, 'cept you can't burp. And it's cold, too." She leaned back into her chair. Roland let out a burst of air in what might've been a laugh if he didn't sound like he was choking on something.

The Fate shuddered, and the already dim overhead lights flickered. For a split second, I worried that Art lost his cool in the cockpit. "We're entering atmosphere. Dampening now," a voice said from the intercom box. The shudder subsided to a slow, steady rumbling vibration.

Lilian looked from the shaking ceiling back to Roland. "Try not to twitch out there. That feeling doesn't control you - you control it. You're not afraid." She pointed at him. "You're ready. That's your body telling you it knows what's coming, so it's giving you extra energy and a bit of a mental push to survive. Latch onto those feelings and control them."

"Cease, Lilian. You'll just make him more nervous," another woman said, this time from the far end of the craft, nearest to the closed, dark grey door separating us from the ship's nose and Art. In the lighting, shadows covered most of her, but I could still get glimpses of her thin build and slender, inhumanly long neck. Teryn. One of the species humanity generated that didn't fall under the Variant label, and recognizable as one of the few that resembled a gantoran cat.

A white box, emblazoned with a blue "x" inside a circle sat at her side. Medical supplies. I hadn't been formally introduced to her, but I'd heard Art call her Aran. For now, she was just the Doctor.
"Ignore her," the Lilian said, brushing off invisible dust from her uniform jacket and avoiding eye contact with the alien. "If you didn't have what it took, you wouldn't be on this mission, Roland. We were specially chosen and trained for this."

"We don't know what's down there."

"Well it can't be that bad if if the Captain is bringing down two softies like us and only one real soldier. I don't know what missions you've been on, but medics and engineers normally don't outnumber the walking guns." Lillian huffed, licking her lips.

"We don't know the planet or even the system. We do know that the Captain has gone awfully quiet since the ship's AI started feeding him data on it." The doctor flickered her pointed, animalistic ears at the mention of me. "His heart is beating fifty percent faster than is average for his kind."

Roland slammed the butt of his gun against the deck. "Enough! I'm nervous, yeah, but shut it. This isn't my first mission, okay? I've, like, shot people before." He pursed his lips, still shaking.

I stifled a snort at the teryn's apt perception and kept listening. She was only half-right. The Homebound, in high orbit, continued sending me data on the planet below. Air composition and pressure. Atmospheric gasses. Surface data, too, such as forestation and likely population centers. Anything it hadn't noticed before. I read over the important stuff before we'd even geared up for the drop. Going blind into a mission was a fool's errand.

To that end, I didn't tell anyone but the pilot, Commander Boyo, what was going on until I was sure we weren't being targeted by something dangerous like planetary defenses. Earth, researchers warned, would be a goldmine, and well defended if it were in one piece. And we weren't dead yet. I wish I'd taken a picture of his face in the briefing room when I told him where we were.

Wait, I realized, TACT's programming included recording everything on the ship. Hah.

"We know, but," Lilian started, shaking her head, ponytail bobbing the whole time, "but think of it this way. This is the moment we've all trained for. I just sort of expected to be on a spaceship when it happened, not on the planet."

"I don't know what you expected, but nothing makes sense," the doctor replied, frowning. "A medic, an engineer, and a guard. That isn't the usual retinue. Not what the Commander trained us was usual, anyway. It is, however, varied. I wager that either this mission is going to require a lot of complicated maneuvering, or nobody know what to expect." She sighed, crossing her arms over her chest. "The lack of an in-depth briefing shows that, more than anything."

I let a low chuckle escape my lips, flicking off the blue screen splashing data in front of my face. "Very astute of you, Doctor." I looked at her, grinning wide the moment she dropped her arms in shock. "You want a medal?"

"I-I just made a logical observation."

"Yup. I went to smart-people school too, so I can make logicals out my rear-end." I coughed, and pretended not to hear a snorting laugh from Roland. "Next time, please be more careful about what you say in front of a commanding officer. I'm a soldier's soldier, but not everybody is."

"Yes sir," she muttered, looking down. I rolled my eyes and brought up my wrist-mounted datapad.

"Commander Boyo, ETA to LZ?"

"Five. Skies are clear."

Nodding, I looked back to my squad and measured my next words like a thrifty merchant with his coin. "Best time to brief you, then. The good doctor was correct. I do not fully know what to expect down there, which is why I have you three accompanying me." Lie. My skills outclassed all of theirs, bar the teryn's medical expertise. I did, however, need grunts to do heavy lifting.

"The planet below is inhabited, by a TT4-class population, from what our scanners imply. It also suggested TT3-class, so they are likely in a transitionary phase." Truth. They were either going to welcome us with swords and spears, or rifles and cannons of the black powder variety.

"The planet itself is the third planet in a yellow star system, perfectly within the habitable zone and perfectly fitting the archaic description of 'terran'-like." Truth, or at least a half-lie. The teryn's ears perked up and the lot stared at me with wide eyes.

"In four minutes, we will be setting foot on planet Earth."

"Holy shit," Roland said instantly. Lilian whistled, and Aran leaned back on her seat, eyes unblinking.

"We're steadying out. There's two settlements near us. Small one - looks like a village, and some sort of big thing. Castle or temple," Art said through the comms. "They're the only places for miles in either direction. Forests to the south, mountains to the north, plains and farmland between."

I pursed my lips. I'd picked a general area to land at. First contacts were, by most, considered a dead art. I'd been on two, myself, and led one personally. Both ended with casualties, but I'd learned much. Like how to avoid tripping when the landing ramp didn't extend all the way to the ground.

I decided, and clicked down on my headset with one finger. "Castle or temple, so let's flip a tungsten coin and see whether we meet a ruler today, or insult a freaking sun god by landing on holy ground."

"On it. Heads or tails?" The Fate pitched downward and rolled to the side, altering the course to point toward the city. "And I've got to say… from up here, it looks impressive. Built into the side of a mountain. They're geniuses in architecture, at least."

"Or idiots," I added, then looked back to the crew. "So, yes. I don't know what to expect, but I do want you all to be on your best behavior. We're not here to start a fight, so don't be twitchy. Expect the usual slew of first contact problems."
They gave me blank stares, and Aran rolled her eyes. Right, I'd be the only veteran for this mission.

"Language barrier. Different customs. Technology disparity. These people, if they're the humans who hid themselves and their entire solar system a millennia ago, aren't the ones we'd expect. They probably lost the old technology just as the rest of the galaxy did. Above all, let me do the talking. Lilian, let's get another readout of our gear."

The engineer nodded, and she unbuckled her seat, standing up and walking to the end of the shuttle. The Fate looked like a T that ate too much and exercised too little, with its largest compartment, meant for cargo, at the rear. She produced a crate and opened it.

"Breathers, full EPA suits for each of us plus one, check." Environmental Protection Armor. The standard combat suit for Wing members, with vacuum sealing and room for all sorts of modular gadgets. She went for the box holding said modules.

"Heat radar package, check. Long-range comms package, check. A couple of spare battery packs. Food. Camping gear. Just… survival supplies, I guess. Check, check, check."

"Make sure you open up all the crates," I called back.

"Sir, if I may ask, why are we rushing first contact?" Aran asked. "Why not send in a few probes? I'm not an expert, but that seems like the safest bet. And… this is Earth, so maybe safe is a better choice."

"Aw man, it's Earth," Roland whispered, staring at the ceiling with glossy eyes.
I shrugged. "We don't have the ship power to spend. Going through the anomaly took a lot out of her, so we can't sit around in the Homebound watching through the sensors for a week."
Something big and metal hit the floor in the back, accompanied by a sharp yelp. "Why the hell do we need a mini-Fabber?" Lilian screamed.

"How much time do we have?" Aran tilted her head. "I'd imagine getting ourselves stranded isn't on the mission agenda."

"Probably a day at most, if we want to get through the anomaly and back to Omega, but," I said, waggling a gloved finger in the air. "I planned for a long mission. The FP rings sitting outside the anomaly give us under a week to do what we need. If things work out well, we'll gather a larger force and come back here to either set up an official embassy or establish a foothold."

"The FP rings were a good idea. You really think the natives will be hostile?"

"I'm prepared for anything."

She looked at me, eyes narrowed to slits, then turned her head to face the floor. "This won't be a repeat of Draxis Ferys, right? Expansion-era politics never sat well with me."

I shook my head. "Draxis Ferys wasn't Earth."

"If I may speak frankly, sir… what happens if they're not hostile, but refuse to join?"

I met her eyes. "I don't know. They won't last a week as a self-declared Independent System. Every two-bit empire's wish-list starts with 'Earth' at the top."

Lilian peered around the corner, holding up a small light-blue box. "Sir, with all due respect, why do none of these things have labels?"

"That's lotion, put it back." I pointed to the box, and waved her away. She just raised her eyebrows.

"Lotion."

"For my complexion. My species get sunburnt easy." I rolled my eyes. "Just make sure you put it back in the same place." I stood up to grab it from her, but the ship shuddered, juking to the left in a jerky half-roll, dipping down at an acute angle.
I sprawled forward, grabbing one of the handles on the wall. Lilian gripped the corner, but the box fell out of her hand, and she slipped backward, slamming into the opposite wall and falling to her back.

"What the sodding hell kind of evasives was that?" I shouted, my free hand snapping to my commset.

"Something almost hit us!" the Commander called through the intercom system. "I broke through the cloud cover, since, uh, shoot. It's a bit cloudy out. Dang!" The ship swung to the other side this time, but at least I'd already grabbed onto something. Lilian tossed a noodle-like arm to the side and grabbed onto one of the straps keeping the crates locked down. "Birds, I think. Really big birds."

"What?"

"They swarmed the ship once I broke through the clouds. Fast little buggers, can't get - agh." The ship swung to the left again and I held on tighter, my legs dancing around for purchase on the diamond plate floor. "Oh. Sir. visual contact with the LZ, I'm going to need you up here."

"That's going to be a problem if you keep up with this."

"Right, sorry. I'll try to level out, but we're on the descent. I don't want to hit any birds."
I lurched forward, grabbing onto the edge of the seats on either side. I took a step forward, and grabbed the next seat, and hobbled my way down the aisle in that fashion. Roland continued to sit still, one leg jittering up-and-down, while holding onto his bulky rifle. Aran dug her nails into the armrests, staring straight ahead.

"Why not?" I asked, hitting the button leading to the cockpit. The doors slid open, and I walked through. It looked like a one-seater from the outside, with the pilot sitting in an angular protrusion just before the craft's nose tapered off into a wedge-shaped tip. While there were windows, the craft blocked them with armor by default, and projected an image of the outside to the interior holoscreens. I sat in a small chair behind and to the side of the cockpit, leaning over to get a long look at our landing zone.

"Don't want to ruin the paintjob," he said, a wry grin crossing his face. "Anyway, heck of a temple, heck of a castle."

I looked on, and blinked at the white structure before me. The comment about architectural genius felt apt from the get-go. The temple, or castle, jutted out of the side of a towering mountain like a spiny, bone-white growth. Towers jutted into the sky, topped with gold domes or conical spires. The towers were each connected to one another by archways, and at the base of the building, several disks jutted out from the mountain, and water drained off their sides. Each building shone in the sun, painted either gold, white, or a deep purple. I blinked again.

"Look, there," I said, reaching over his shoulder to point at a larger building at the base, then two a few of the towers. "Those look like parapets. Gold, purple everywhere. Palace, by the looks of it."

"Great," Art drawled, "royalty." He pulled the stick up, leveling out so I could see the structure eye-to-eye. "I hope we don't have to bow or anything stupid like that."

"That's odd, coming from you," I remarked, pointing again to a part of the castle. "Swing around here. I think there's a garden - yes, good." The Fate turned at an angle and arced around the palace, giving me a view of a long stretch of gardens behind it, along with what looked like a maze constructed out of plants. Near the edge closest to the castle, I spotted a large, empty circle. "Land there." From a distance, I also noticed a few shapes moving around the grounds, but we were too high up for me to see them clearly.

"I'm fine with saluting superior officers, but it doesn't sit well with me, bowing to foreign royalty," he said, pushing us closer to the point where I could not longer see the city, just the mountain in front of us. "You might want to hold onto something."

"Least you know where your loyalties are," I said, grabbing a handle sticking out of the wall. I gave him a lopsided grin, and felt the urge to laugh rising the closer we got to the ground. "Let's do this. One more page for the history books."

"I just." He stopped, grit his teeth, and lowered the ship, one hand reaching down to engage landing struts. The ship brushed up against the ground and landed with a dull metallic thok followed by the hiss of the hydraulic struts. "Hate royalty," he finished saying, letting out a long sigh. "Equalizing pressure. Might want to yawn."

The dropship's walls hissed, and within a minute my ears started to pop. Earth had less air pressure compared to the Homebound and, by association, the world it'd been built on. Not a big change, but I flinched when my sinuses felt it..
Art continued hitting buttons on his holopanel. "Pressure's good. Engines off in three… two… one. Green across the board, Captain. Fate's on standby." He twirled his seat to face me, stood up, and saluted. I just held my head in one hand and watched.

"Great."

"Sir?"

"Just…" I shrugged, and stood up. "It's great. Just felt underwhelming, is all."

"Would you prefer I crash it into the castle, sir?"

"That'd be quite an entrance, but nah." I waved him down, and walked to the doorway. "And at-ease. Let's get to walking on the surface of Earth."

"I'd enjoy that, sir." He smiled, and waited for me to walk into the main cabin before following. Aran and Roland both stood up, saluting, then followed behind. I stopped at the archway between the cabin and cargo storage, where Lilian sat on the ground, hair disheveled.

The engineer looked up at me, one hand moving a clumped strand of brown hair behind her ear. "Gee, I hope we didn't hit anything."

Art snorted. "With my piloting skills? We're fine."

"Get up, fix your hair, and get ready," I said, walking past and pushing an overturned crate back up, sliding the lid open to reveal a few bits of key gear. They were the suit attachments she listed out, but I went for what laid underneath them.

Commander Boyo followed behind me, and held out a hand for Lilian. "Sorry," he said, "I didn't know you weren't buckled in, and didn't have time for warning."

"It's okay," she replied, one arm reaching back and grabbing at her hair, fingers sliding through it until they rested on a circular band. "Didn't hit my head that hard. No blood. I just hate having to do my hair up."

"Never fell apart during training," Aran said, arms crossed, one hand holding onto her medical kit.

Shaking his head, Art walked around Lilian. "Here. I'll do it. We need to be quick." With two quick motions, he grabbed the band in one hand, and gathered her hair in the other.

"How'd you learn that?" Aran asked, eyebrows raised.

"Sis used to wear her hair the same way." The band snapped, finalizing the wardrobe repair, and Art smiled. "You're good, ensign."

Meanwhile, I pulled out one of the tubular devices from the bottom of the crate. In stamped-on white print, the word Valkyrie wrapped around one end. On the bottom, straps connected to the side in a loop, where my arm would slide through. Bulky squares jutted out along the sides, leading to one long rectangle, only a thin glass line breaking the grey metal sheen, and beneath the glass pulsed neon blue.

I shoved my arm in, but stopped short of tightening the straps. The Valkyrie, referred to as the VALK by most spacefaring people, secured my immediate wellbeing. I didn't know what to expect, be it danger or not. If the people out there were human, and knew of it, they'd expect trouble. People only wore VALKs when they fought. A culmination of Derelict technology, the VALK stood the only bit of human tech the galaxy ever succeeded in reverse-engineering, and it'd been responsible for some of our greatest technological achievements. Advanced scanners. Artificial intellects. Teleportation.

It made sure you never died. Settings could be changed, of course, but the core concept, written in stone, said that the moment before you should die, the VALK made sure you didn't by teleporting you to a safe location. This meant one of the VALK Point coordinates you plugged into it - a small touchscreen hidden under a flap on one side - that you were allowed to travel to. Corporations had one hell of a time selling VALK point coordinates to the wealthy. Pay a monthly fee, and whenever you got in trouble, just hit a button and you had your own panic room with security guards, emergency medics, and all sorts of amenities.

Militaries bought VALKs more than weapons. The energy costs of large battles outweighed running a city for several years. War changed.

I strapped it on, clicking a few bits into place where they attached to my sleeve. I didn't know why I waited until then.

"Art, take the communications set," I ordered, turning around to look at my team. I stepped aside, letting Art pass. I looked back to the guard of the group, who I noticed, instead of the grey-spruce uniform his fellow ensigns wore, sported an EPA suit, sans full-head visor. "Roland, kinetics pack. Aran, heat sensor. Lilian, spiker rig." They saluted in turn, and tore into the crate to gear up, grabbing a VALK and one of the packs. I took out my own, and plugged it in behind my wrist-mounted datapad. It synced with my comms set, and a woman's relaxed, pleasant voice drifted into my ears.

"This prototype field AI is currently undergoing personality development. TACT and all variants are a product of Kaiden Technologies and intended for military use only." Her voice vanished, replaced by the steady hum of the pack starting up, fans on the sides ejecting excess heat the sinks couldn't handle.

I grinned as a monotone voice fizzled into being. The difference between this one and the shipboard AI was minimal, only a few weeks between activation, but his voice already lacked the pre-genned feel . "Miniature Tactical Advice Contributor online. How may I help?"

"Hey, Emtac," I said, checking over myself to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be. Officer's pistol strapped to my leg, check. Vibrosword retracted and strapped to other leg, check. My datapad worked fine, my clothes were fitted, my boots strapped down, and my diamond-wings pip shone even in the dim yellow light of the cargo bay.

I watched the others put on their various devices and double-check their gear. "How was your nap?" I asked the AI, keeping an eye on the crew.

"Glad to be back, sir. What's the mission today?"

"Shouldn't be much. Right now we're on Earth."

"That's new. Recommendation: remember to take pictures."

"Will do. I give you permission to hook up to Art's comms set and communicate with the Homebound's TACT. Share mission data so you're up to speed with this. Then hook into the nearby radar pack and spiker rig, and the Fate dropship."

"I can do everything except the dropship, sir. I don't have enough power to manage so many things at once, at least for long."

"Ah, mhm," I sighed, nodding. Art finished hooking up his communications array, which sat on his shoulder with a thin antennae sticking out the top. "Just stick to the other orders, then. When the doors open, I'll need a steady stream of information on things I might miss. Delicate work."

"On it," Emtac said.

I stepped forward, and opened the crate containing the extra EPA suits. Nestled to the side were a couple of metal bands, padded with cushions on the inner ring. They looped in an odd shape, and the back sported a big metal box. I picked up four in one hand and one in the other, and offered the large amount to the group. "Emergency visors. Wear them."

"Going with the spooky route, eh?" Art said, flashing me a grin and salute. He took one, and slipped it on over his head, where it rested around his neck like a well-fitted collar.

"Why?" Aran asked, taking her own. She'd attached the medical kit to her backside, where four clips on her uniform kept it held like a backpack.

"Like he said, 'cause it's spooky. Mystery factor."

"Seems like a delicate situation to be spooky in," Lilian said.

"Whatever you say, sir," Aran muttered, slipping it around her own neck and clicking it into place. It looked big on her, but the alien clicked a few buttons on the interior and forced it into a more comfortable thinner shape. The others followed suite.

Roland didn't hesitate to activate his, and a black, bulbous visor fizzled into place around his head, the front face jutting out a bit to provide extra headroom. Hard-light shields, like holograms, had myriad uses. Emergency safety gear for unfortunate ship crews were one.

"Five hour's power," I said, clicking mine on. The interior lit up a soft blue, and I blinked to adjust my eyes to the change. The EV's weren't perfect, but they were cost, power, and time efficient. They looked cool too.

"Emtac, how's things?"

"The Fate is surrounded by multiple signatures."

"Great. What?"

"They're in formation. Probable they are soldiers."

"Okay. Can you whip up a HUD with a heat sensor radar for our visors? Usual color scheme."

"On it, sir." Before speakers finished crackling, a light flicked on in the helmet, and a hologram plastered itself against the visor. Circular, centered on Aran, since she had the sensor package. Grey "unknowns" sat outside the Fate, most in squads, I observed. Defensive formation, with the largest group positioned at the rear door, ten meters away.

"Welcoming committee confirmed." I turned around to look at the others. Art stood next to me, while Roland kept himself between the both of us and to the back. The last two moved themselves behind Roland, parallel to one another and us two at the front. Poor form in almost every possible squad scenario, but I'd ordered it because I wanted to be the first person off.

"Emtac, quickly contact the Fate and lower the ramp, and give me a ten second countdown.

The little box on my arm whirred louder. "Ten seconds, sir." The Fate groaned into movement, locks and pressure seals unhooking. A door slid upward behind us, sealing the cargo bay off from the rest of the shuttle. Pressure hissed and hydraulics pumped, and a singular, resounding metal clack told me the ramp would fall.

"One step for the history books," Art said beside me without looking over. We all looked at the ramp. The metal, diamond-plated slab jerked, the motors rumbled, and it lowered. Sunlight crept through the growing opening.

I straightened out, locking my knees, and one hand rested on my sidearm. All I could hear over the comms were the others' heavy breathing. The ramp hit the ground, the motors stopped, and my mouth pursed into a straight line.

Standing in front of us were two horse-things, and surrounding the Fate were about twenty smaller ones. They didn't move, but the smaller ones tensed, one looking toward a white horse-thing, raising what looked like an eyebrow.

"Damn, first contact's a bitch. We landed in a pasture or something," Art said, shattering the silence. "I can go find us another landing point, sir." My second started to turn around, but I stuck out an arm to stop him.

"Maybe they're being slow to respond?" Roland asked.

"Shut up," I ordered. "Don't be stupid. This is them."

"This is insane. You're insane. What the heck?" Lilian breathed.

"Silent, ensign," Art barked, looking back to the group of four beings standing ten meters away, between two white statues, raised on pedestals, of other horse-things in various one-legged poses. "Sir, you sure?"

"He has a point, look at what's on them," Aran interrupted, and I had noticed the instant the ramp extended what she meant. The shorter, blue horse wore some kind of black garment around her neck, and a small black crown around some sort of pointed protrusion at her forehead. The taller of the two, the white one, wore a similar neck-thing, but gold. I fought for the word and found torc to be the name. Unmistakably, she wore a crown.

"You were right about the royalty thing, Commander Boyo," I muttered. "Whether these are living beings or not, that depends."
"Robots, serious?"

"I've seen stranger things mimic life out in the Mechanicus systems." With no small heaping of caution, I raised my right hand, fingers splayed in every direction. "Though the guards all look the same. They might be mechs. Or just well-bred."

"You sure this is Earth?" Art asked. I didn't answer, but took five steps forward, halfway across the ramp, and raised my other arm. Roland and Art followed behind, but the last two stayed in the shadow of the Fate's bay.

"Let me do the talking," I ordered, and took the rest of the trip forward, placing my boots on soft, chartreuse colored grass.

"Ten tungstens he tries to talk to an animal," Lilian said, nudging Aran gently.

"Keep quiet, you two," Art snapped.

I kept my eyes trained on the two horses-in-charge, who similarly kept their eyes on me. If they were smart, they'd already guessed I was the team leader, if only by the number of stars under my Wing pip, let alone the obvious.

With the same unthreatening slowness, I moved both hands behind my head, and lifted a panel on the helmet, and hit the disengage button once. The black visor around my head filled with holes, and they all grew until they rid my vision of the visor. Neat trick, but they only fully retracted if I pressed it twice in succession. Once changed the transparency. Getting stabbed in the face by one of the primitive spears the guards held didn't suit my fancy.

"Hello," I said, my voice filtering out of the helmet now that I'd ended the noise cancellation, aided by speakers at the front of the device.

The two supposed royals didn't budge, but the guards next to them flinched back an inch. My voice, I realized, sounded a tad mechanical and hollow - artificial -from the speakers.

Before I could continue, the white horse opened its mouth, and a short, lilting whinny came out. I resisted the urge to step back. I wouldn't hear the end of it if official records stated the first man to rediscover Earth tried to make first contact with a beast of burden. But her eyes, and I'd have bet my life the white one was female, held a twinkling intelligence that looked over me with purpose. I pressed on.

"I am Captain Amber of the Wing, an intragalactic peace keeping organization." I enunciated each word. I didn't really choose my next words carefully. "Are you even intelligent?"

"This is so weird," Aran said through the comms, but I forced myself to focus on the task at hand.

The white one looked down to blue, taking her eyes off me for a split second, and made a series of whinnying sounds. The words, if they were speaking in some beastial tongue, flowed together like a song. A weird, horsey song.

Blue looked at me, and the tips of its mouth curled upward in a strange, alien grin. Alien by my standards meant really, really weird, too. I went to the bar with aliens. They were cool people.

And then its horn glowed, and a white light formed at the tip.

"Weapon," Roland yelled, and started raising his rifle. Art jerked his arm out and grabbed the end of it, swinging it back down and hissing.

"Don't fire, you idiot," Art yelled. Four of the nearest guards went into action stances, pointing spears in my direction, as if they would hurt mission-class uniforms that weren't half as comfortable or cuttable as civilian wear.

"Hold fire, hold fire," I barked, looking back to the squad. Only Roland drew his weapon, but both the ensigns in the back retreated to either side, hands resting on their own sidearms. "Are you trying to start a war or something?"

"It looked like it was gonna shoot!" Roland pleaded, returning the rifle to a downward position, but he didn't move his finger from its place hovering above the trigger. "It's not my fault. I'm sorry!"

A new voice interrupted. "Greetings," it said, and I turned back to face the horses. White's mouth moved, and it seemed to match the whinnying motion it'd used earlier, but instead I heard Galactic Basic. Her voice, much as I'd assumed, ran like warm milk, like a mother talking to a child. And all she'd said was one word.

I nodded, half unsure if what I'd heard was right. "Hello," I repeated in an even tone, the words catching in my throat.

White nodded back, and then looked to the guards, who returned their spears to the upright position, though they gave us wary glances. "I," she said, pausing to look at me, "am Princess Celestia of Equestria."

"And I am Princess Luna," Blue said quickly, almost interrupting the first princess. "Also of Equestria."

I nodded again at them both as they introduced themselves, and gave a soft smile. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I am Captain Amber of the Wing, an intragalactic peacekeeping organization."

Princess Celestia tilted her head, and the other took one step back, the other leg half-raised in the air by a couple of centimeters. "Intragalactic," she said, her face betraying no emotion but a dash of curiosity. "As in you are outsiders to this world."

"By a big margin," I replied in turn, calculating their reactions. They didn't know of advanced spacefaring civilizations, or didn't have one of their own, but didn't seem surprised by much. Brilliant politicians, or just wise. "This is a previously unexplored world. We were conducting a routine exploration mission when we detected your planet." I shrugged, and smiled a smidgen wider. "We're here to establish diplomatic relations, if you'd welcome us, of course."

"Of course," Princess Celestia said, turning to, if I understood right, her sister. "Princess Luna, please prepare the staff for visitors. I will stay here and lead them to the greeting room."

Luna raised an eyebrow, and pointed a blue-silver tipped hoof to the glowing thing on her head. "What of the translation spell, sister?"

Celestia chuckled. "Good point. I will prepare the staff, then."

Then she vanished. With an audible popping sound and a short flash from her own pointy head thing. Horn, I guessed.

"Just our luck we land on a planet with psychics for leaders," Art hissed behind me. I didn't say anything, but narrowed my eyes to slits. "The only thing worse than royals are psychics."

Looking to Princess Luna, I voiced the complaint I knew Art was secretly begging me to. "Spell? You are magic users?"

The princess looked to me, narrowing her own eyes. "Yes? Does this surprise you?"

I shook my head. "No. The rest of the galaxy has a few like you, but we call them psychics. I assume you're currently manipulating everyone around us into understanding one another's language."

"Correct. This translation spell requires some concentration, and I know of a more permanent one, but I have not had to use it in some time," she replied, a smirk crossing her face. "I am not, however, manipulating your minds, just your perception."

Translation: we could all be dying with spears in our chest and we wouldn't know, if she wanted that. Perhaps the only person in the team who hated psychics more than Art was me. I spent years of study perfecting a basic regimen of mental-blocking to teach officers how to avoid leaking information to mental-based psychics. Having my perception altered so easily removed any wonder I felt over being on Earth and boiled the acid in my stomach.

"I appreciate your honesty," I deadpanned, forcing whatever numbing hatred I automatically felt for the royal back into the pit of my belly. "You were to take me to the palace, I suppose?"

She nodded. "It is customary for dignitaries to greet one another personally. My sister handles most of them, but if I left, the language barrier would once more prevent us from communicating." She lifted a hoof and pointed it to the spires of the palace behind us. "Canterlot Castle lay there. Guards, you may disperse. I will take our guests to the palace." Looking back to me, her eyes trailed off to my crew. "And where are my manners? Who are your crew, Captain?"

I waved Art and the others forward, and they broke formation to stand beside me, though Roland still sat in the back. "This is my second in command, Commander Boyo. The others are inconsequential."

Both of her eyebrows shot up. "For such a small crew, I would imagine they would be more important."

"I didn't see you introducing your own guards."

She looked between me and the other ensigns, black visors still concealing their identity. "This is true," she finally said, returning to me. "But I wish to know our new guests."

Before I could retort, Art's visor dissipated in the same way mine had, and he stepped aside, one hand raised to showcase the others. They followed suit, revealing their own faces. "I apologize, your highness," he said, glancing to me and winking. I closed my mouth.

"This is Ensign Lilian." He pointed to the engineer, who gave a small wave. "Our engineer and tech expert." He moved to Roland. "Ensign Roland is our guard, similar to your own."

The teryn's appearance made Luna take a sharp breath. "And this is Ensign Aran, our doctor."

"You have other races in your group?" Luna asked, a curious lilt seeping into her voice. She stepped closer, eying Aran. "I apologize if that question offends you, I am merely curious on your stance."

"The Wing has one of the most varied member lists in regards to species. We house a total of around four hundred unique species and races within our halls," I said, stepping in for Roland. "Aran here is one of the more common species in our ranks, teryn. Believe it or not, the rest of us are also not of the same species. Similar, but not the same."

Luna's smile widened. "So many? How interesting. I hope we learn much about one another. Come, we shall go to the palace."

She led us, two guards staying off to the side where they weren't noticeable but still present, behind a hedge or standing between two statues. Luna didn't say much after that, and I clicked off the open mic, waiting for Art and the others to match.

When we were all separated from the outside world, I looked to Art. "Thanks for the save back there. I hate diplomacy."

Art grinned. "That's why they made me your second, sir. You're a fighter and a tactician, and I, uh. Well I don't like bragging, but I'm pretty good at talking."

"Leading, too."

His smile faltered. "Yeah. If you want, I can handle the talking from now on. I'm guessing you intend to have them sign an agreement."

"I can give the intro and you can finalize it."

"You sure?"

"I like giving the intro. Besides, if I let my second handle everything, I either look lazy or weak."

He shrugged. "Good point, I guess. I can map out a treaty if you give me some of the ones we used in the expansion era. Hopefully they'll be easy to talk to about it. I don't think the College of Admirals will like a planet of psychics, though, if those two aren't the only ones."

"They'll just deal with it, then. Rest of the galaxy hears about it, though? Won't matter that it's Earth. The whole place will become a target." I shook my head and frowned. "If it's a species trait, like with the rulagge in the Taratellus Arm, they might Break the Rules." I finished the last three words with emphasis.

"So then the goal is to keep this place a secret for as long as we can."

"Correct. also… don't tell them about Earth or humans."

"Got it, boss. Anything else?"

"Make sure Aran gets her ten tungstens."

Aran chuckled, and I looked back. Lilian's face turned red, and she growled. "She didn't accept the bet anyways."

Roland sped up, and looked at me. He still held the rifle, but only by the underside and with his fingertips; the rectangular gun hanging off his side by the straps bumped into his legs with every step. "Sir?" he asked. "What are we gonna do about the mind-magic? I ain't good with psychic stuff."

I looked at the back of the princess' head. The light on her horn hadn't gone out, and the pit in my stomach widened at the thought that, even now, she could be reading me. With my eyes still trained on the back of her skull, where the strange, astral-like mane connected, I sharpened my mind and sent out a single thought.

Hello.

She didn't turn around, stop, or anything to denote surprise. "She isn't reading us, or is just really good. I'll have a talk with her, though. She needs to know we have cultural rules."

"You want me to handle it?" Art asked.

I shook my head. "I've got experience with psychics. You don't. I'll need to send the Fate up to the Homebound to do it, though. I'll need to get something."

"Got it, and - sir, Luna," he said, and I turned my attention back to the princess. She looked at me, quizzically.

"You may ask to speak privately if you wish, Captain," she said, her mouth quirking up in a grin. "Though I am curious as to how you do so in such close proximity. Do those strange force-fields on your helmet block sound?"

I blinked, one hand reaching up to switch channels. "That's correct, actually. Good eye. I apologize for the secrecy, Princess Luna. We don't make first contact that often, and we didn't expect it here."

"The last species we contacted was around three years ago," Art quipped. "Went rather swimmingly, if I remember. They sent me and Captain Turin to this backwater world on the edge of Mechanicus space. Nice place. Fantastic sunsets since it orbited a binary system. Most boring part was sitting around reading probe readings, though. Weeks of it."

"Like I said, we don't make it often."

Luna tilted her head at me. "You have observed us for weeks, Captain?"

I didn't answer for a second, thinking of an excuse. For once, the truth seemed plausible. "Not this time. On the journey here, our ship suffered a power malfunction and I had to make the choice of landing here and meeting you, or turning around and passing up an opportunity." I winked, and smiled at her. "I have a feeling I made the right choice, Princess."

"Ah, I see. So your vessel will be stranded here until your people come looking for you? You seem very calm, considering."

"Nah," I said, chuckling. "We just had to nix the probing part of it, though, so we made a guess and landed here. I'm not sure exactly how long we'll stay, but I hope to return someday."

"Thus far you are a pleasant enough being, and I hope you enjoy your visit, however brief." Princess Luna looked forward, and I saw her eyes steel themselves. We neared the towering palace doors. "Though I assume we both know you are here for business reasons as well. Establishing official relations will take some time."

"I expected nothing less. We're willing to work together on this if you are, Princess." I opened my arms in a wide sweep. "After all, the Wing has always been about peaceful resolutions. Patience comes with peace."

"There is also the matter of your… alien nature," she continued, peering at us with narrow eyes. "Despite the many species in Equestria itself, our ponies are often superstitious and resentful toward non-ponies. Until it is seen fit, I doubt my sister will release the truth of your visit."

"It's okay." I said, and paused, my mouth hanging open. "Wait, did you say ponies?"