Can't Take the Stars From Us

The sliding metallic doors opened with a swoosh, revealing our band of recently chosen captains. The lot of them still wore the same garments they had before with the exception of pistols within their holsters, all of which was strapped on various parts of their frame.

“We’re seriously going to do this?”

Hood looked fixedly at the shipyard in front of him with a cold demeanor. “Yes Sato, as much as mind-blowing as it sounds to all of us, we’re going to build ourselves starships.”

“My name’s Edwin,” he snarled.

Hood shrugged and walked on, leaving the disgruntled man to fume. Edwin murmured a curse under his breath as the rest of the captains slipped by him, their mouths agape at the sight in front of them.

Metallic cargo boxes of various shape and sizes were scattered all over the place, their contents inside waiting to be discovered. Large shipping containers stacked upon on one another and forming long and windy mazes. To top it all off, there stood massive gantry cranes all ready to be used in assisting the construction of starships.

“What the fuck is all this?” Grey said as he hopped up onto one of the containers. “Do you think there’s any guns in here? I hope so! Let’s see mor﹘”

“Grey, cut it out,” Seal said simply. Making his way over to the container and looking around briefly, he picked up a crowbar and jammed it into the thin opening. After a couple minutes and a red face, Seal put the tool down and noticed there was a latch.

Flipping it with a simple click, the entire container hissed as a seal was released, and easily rolled open. As the container opened it revealed its secrets to all in attendance. Tightly packed into the metal space were numerous canisters that steadily hummed.

“They look like fusion coils from Halo,” Kain said suddenly. Agreement was shared in a mumbled fashion amongst everyone.

“Templar, right?” Seal said with a small smile. “Help me carry one of those things down, will you?” Kain nodded and moved to join the more aquatic member of the captain circle. “Edwin!” Seal shouted as he began to heft one of the canisters. “Go do something useful!”

“Like what?!” he shouted back. Before Seal could reply however, Kain stumbled and nearly dropped the canister, and they began to bicker.

Someone grabbed Edwin and began to pull him along without his consent, and he shoved them back. “You hit like a girl,” said a deep voice from behind him. “Good thing that you sound like one, too.”

“Shut up, Two-D.” The disgruntled captain began to walk off, but hesitated as Edd grabbed his shoulder. Breathing in and back out again, he turned to face his fellow. “Yeah?”

“I saw something I wanna check out, but I’m no good with computers. I need you to help me out.” Edd then turned and began to walk off, not giving Edwin a chance to counter.

Walking up besides the muscular man, Edwin noticed he was in dire need of a shower. “When was the last time you washed, man?” 2D looked down at him with a mixture of surprise and humour.

“I was working on restoring something when we got brought here. I smell like shit because I was cramped up beneath a tank chassis with a blowtorch getting me hot and sweaty.” Edwin grunted and tried to forget the picture in his mind, deciding not to bring it up again.

They arrived at the aforementioned computer and Edwin sat down, gulping slightly and preparing himself. “What do you want me to do, Two-D? I’m not exactly a wizard with computers myself.”

“Just push something,” the man behind him said.

“Push what though?”

Edd sighed and pushed one of the buttons on the machine’s surface. “Anything,” he said with a sigh. Suddenly a siren rang out across the entire yard as orange lights began to flash and machinery started up.

“Sato!” Hood bellowed from across the platform. “What the hell are you doing?!”

“Oh shit, he’s real mad now,” Edwin said with a mixture of fear and hilarity. Snickering slightly, he turned to 2D. “How are you going to turn it off?”

“Uh... like this,” he said as he pressed another button. All the lights went out save the warning lights. “Shit, no, okay this one.” In the darkness the sound of a loud crash could be heard. “Fuck, um, maybe...” The lights switched back on to reveal a very angry Hood and a fully functional drydock.

He cracked his knuckles and stared 2D down. “You’re lucky you did something useful. Start moving the canisters before I backhand your sorry ass.” Edd saluted the man and clacked his heels together.

“Aye, sir,” he said before walking off.

Hood pushed Edwin out of his seat and flexed his hands. “Not too shabby... looks like an overview terminal for the shipyard.” Scanning his eyes over the numerous keys with alien glyphs and looking over his shoulder, he was surprised to see someone new.

He went back to work. “Captain Taylor, I’m surprised to see you up here. I thought you’d be helping Edd with the manual labour. You two seemed close at the meeting.” Pressing down on a couple more keys, Hood was rewarded with a schematic planning menu.

“That faggot brought it upon himself,” Joe said with a straight face. “Maybe if he didn’t act like a fucking retard he’d have first pick at ship parts.”

Turning back to face the rather peculiar captain, Hood got a good look at him for the first time. He was a rather tall and lanky ginger man with fairly pale skin. “What are you implying?” the seated man inquired.

“I’d like you to build my ship first,” he said simply. “Or rather, I’d like you to allow me to design and build my ship first.” He grinned. “I have good reasons behind this, y’know.”

“Oh?” Hood crossed his arms and looked on at the other captains, all of whom were moving the canisters with fairly good care. “Let’s hear them then.”

Walking over and sitting down besides his superior, Joe pointed over at the shipyard. “We’re only on the opening platform. Far over there is a large crevice, I’d imagine, that helps facilitate ship construction. There’s bound to be plenty of supplies around.”

“Go on,” the man at the terminal said.

“Better still, I don’t want anything too complicated. I spoke with everyone else and they’ve all got fairly complex ideas for their ships. Worse still, even if smaller ones are faster to build, fine tuning them will take much much longer.” Hood nodded in agreement. “I just want a big ship that fires missiles.”

Hood stopped nodding and whistled. “How big do you want it?” Joe spread his arms out but his joke didn’t seem to go over well. “No, seriously, what kind of size are we talking about here?”

“About a kilometre I’d say.” The lanky ginger man tugged at his jeans slightly. “Feels kind of weird being on some space station. I wish I’d brought my nexus.”

“About a kilo— your nexus?” Hood sighed and stood up from the computer. “Fine, design the ship and then punch it in. It doesn’t look to be too hard honestly. We’ll load the canisters in by hand until we find a better method.”

Joe nodded and sat down, getting to work.

“Cheers,” he said.

“You built this?” Tux said with mild amazement as he stared down at the massive vessel. “You built this without me?” This time he spoke with mild annoyment.

Red straightened his glasses and pointed an accusator finger at Hood. “You didn’t even tell us the shipyard was working! I should have had my team down there the moment we realized it was functional.”

“Your team?” Hood said with air quotes following suit. “It doesn’t matter, anyway, you two. Novo is already gathering some men together to form a skeleton crew.” He looked down at the ship. “If you want to blame anyone, blame Sato and Two-D. They’re the ones who turned the console on.”

Tux crossed his arms. “You’re the one who figured out how to use it.”

“Yes, but I’m not the one who designed the ship.” Looking down from the planning room and towards the shipyard, Hood shrugged. “The guy who made this ship seems to intend it only for support duties. It’s made to fire missiles and that’s about it.”

Walking away from the window and over towards one of the consoles in the room, Red began to flick through numerous files. “I’ve had my like-minded helpers wire the computer down in the shipyard to this one.” He looked over at Tux. “From now on, all production will be handled here and unless authorised by us three, it won’t go ahead.”

“That sounds like a perfectly sound idea to me,” Tux said with a slight sniff. “Still, this ship will be a good way to see what is and isn’t a good idea.”

“It’s airtight.” Hood checked his tablet for a few moments before the silence in the room prompted him to continue. “The shipyard seems to handle most of the fine details by itself, such as pressurization, nitrogen-oxygen systems, circuitry, etcetera.”

“Really now? I’m surprised,” straight shirt and glasses looked over the console before him. “I’d love to see if it could be used as a general purpose fabricator. But downscaling the process would take a long time.”

Tux tapped away on his tablet and allowed the conversation to flow for a short while, his attention focused on the production facilities rather than whatever debate was going on. “I’d like to have a mobile shipyard,” he said flatly.

Wake up at what would be considered 7am UTC, eat breakfast in the mess hall and discuss the disturbing lack of dreams. At 9am, get dressed and ready for training. 10am-5pm consists of training, whether it’s piloting, strategy, marksmanship, or physical training. 6pm is shower time, with 7-10pm being freetime. 11pm is lights out.

This had been the routine for the past three months.

At first everyone had complained about the fact that it was too hardcore, and how it really wasn’t that big of a deal or even a necessity. But once rank had been established and Novo had armed his security detail, everyone fell in line.

Eventually though people got used to it. Whether it was Grey telling everyone how he’d had it worse in the navy, or 2D rattling on about his chally, somehow everyone got used to pseudo military life. Then again—with them being the only example of humanity in the universe—it wasn’t pseudo at all.

Even if the constant encouragement and mockery hadn’t been taking place, it’s likely everyone would have slipped into a routine regardless. The bigger news was how nobody was dreaming. At first it had been assumed as a result of stress of some kind, but as time went on, everyone realized it was something else.

Ship building had been continuing at a steady pace, with fine-tuning and the organization of security details being sorted out on a ship-by-ship basis. Those who hadn’t been selected as captains became crew, and the more exemplary captains became leaders. Of course, only time would tell if they were capable or not.

One of the interesting aspects of the shipbuilding process was all the readily available components. Most interestingly is that some had outlandish descriptions or intended purposes, and one such device was a psi-array. Everyone theorised that it was a super-computer that piggybacked off your brain, but when someone was plugged in, they just fell unconscious. That was the first and last time anyone dreamed for those three months.

Red and his merry band of researchers, meanwhile, were already at work cracking the secrets that the Wripeks had left behind. They had previously gathered everyone who spoke multiple languages and attempted to translate the alien language, with minor success. After trial and error, however, they found their own version of the rosetta stone.

Buried beneath the immense library of knowledge was a text with a garbage title and numerous corruptions—but at its core, an irreplaceable insight into the alien language itself. Having been translated into both English and another language, the text helped further the understanding of the Wripek’s glyphs. Enough so that their computers became significantly less difficult to use.

Training began to set in after about a month. Everyone saluted a superior upon sight, kept their clothes relatively clean, and knew how to handle themselves. If everyone hadn’t already been united, the training would have done it for them.

Not everyone agreed with the ordeal, though. Some pockets of resistance cropped up here and there. And when talking wasn’t enough, security dealt with them. Everyone was walking a fine line. The base began to feel cramped and the pure air became stale.

When the time came to move out, nobody wanted to stay behind.

“This is Captain Gerald aboard the HMS Leviathan. I have alongside me the Haida, USS Yorktown, and the Saint’s Pride.” Sitting amongst his finery with an exquisite brandy in hand, Gerald smiled to himself. “We are combat ready.”

The hail came in in an orderly fashion. “Roger that, eh.” Pat sat back in her chair at watched as her deckhands went about their business. “This is Commodore Pat, eh. My part of the fleet will be jumping for darkspace, eh.”

“Roger that, Pat,” 2D called over the line. “Me and mine will make to jump three minutes after you and provide support.” Rolling his shoulders and looking at the photo he’d luckily had in his wallet, Edd looked over his frigate’s controls once more. He was both the captain and pilot of this ship. “I doubt the Envoy will give us much trouble.”

The commanding woman known as Pat used her tablet to examine the status of her ship’s bulkheads. “You never know, eh!” she said over the comms. “Could be worse than Red said, eh.”

“I wouldn’t doubt the egghea﹘”

“I hate to interrupt,” Tux said flatly, “but the Industrious is going to make ready for the Hayca System's outer asteroid belt the moment both defense fleets are away.” Even with his ship’s engines online, the dull clanging of machinery was still present in Tux’s ship.

The first detachment of the Defense Fleet jumped and left 2D and his motley crew of accompanying ships in wait. “I’ll jump in with you, as planned, Commodore,” Novogorske said over the line. “If we run into nothing, great... If not, then the backup has a few more operable guns.”

“And you’ll be buying us in the Exploration Fleet time to do what we do best.” Hood was sat with his fingers tapping away anxiously. “I’m just concerned about these FTL drives of ours.”

Red interjected, “Like I’ve told you numerous times, the testing had no side effects. While not perfect, these drives are a fantastic place to start out in the grand scheme of things.”

“Are all the security chiefs aboard? I feel like we should have asked that sooner.” Captain Merchant was sat idly twiddling his thumbs as the Exploration Fleet waited for the go ahead.

“Don’t worry, I crunched the numbers for the Defense Fleet,” Novogorske replied.

“Everyone beneath me has their chief aboard. Don’t worry, man.” 2D flipped a couple switches in his ship and prepared to jump. “Anyhow, I’ll see you later guys. If you find anything interesting, be sure to let us know.” There was a few scant seconds as the second half of the Defense Fleet began to move forward—albeit faster than the former half—and then they disappeared from sensors.

Silence reigned over the fleet for a few more moments, before Tux chimed in again. “To my knowledge, all security chiefs for the Support Fleet are aboard on their respective ships.”

“I’ve just sent a roll call out, so I’ll get back to you on the Exploratio﹘ No, nevermind, they’re all aboard here, too.” John pulled his tablet up and started checking through their mission objectives again.

“Okay, thanks sir.” With that, Captain Merchant closed the channel.

Red looked up at the projection aboard his vessel and grimaced. “The real question we should be asking ourselves is if we copied all the data properly before we left.”

“Didn’t you take the archives from the base directly and put them in your own ship?” Edwin asked with a mild tone of annoyance. “No idea what you’re complaining about.”

“Sato, if we lose that information we’re going to be at a serious disadvantage from the get-go.” Red caught himself jittering and stopped.

Edwin just snickered, which was audible over the channel. “Oh yeah? Why don’t we start asking if we got all the cargo. Or, better yet, how is the bomb timer doing?”

“Both of you, that’s enough,” Hood said with a sigh. Just as he began to speak again, the Industrious jumped away, leaving the Exploration Fleet alone. “We’ve got a mission to do. We’re military now. Pack up your personal issues and get along, for God’s sake, because we’re going into the unknown.”

“It’s our job now.”