Planck’s Quantum Hole, Copernicus Caldera,

Einstein, Deep Periphery,

14^th March 3068

 

Frank spun around to his left, his slung rifle sweeping around and rising up instinctively to his shoulder, the stock pressed against his cheek, the sighting scope placed right in front of his eyes, ready to shoot at any hostile enemies. He pivoted on his left leg, his right leg swinging around and forward as he went into a half-squat to steady his own aim and to present a smaller target profile. His instructors back at the OMTC would have been proud.

Problem was, there was nothing to shoot at in the room, but the flashing kaleidoscope of lights was definitely a sign of some importance. Frank held his aim for several long seconds, before he led the others back into the room, clutching their weapons warily.

Almost without warning, a large panel suddenly slid open. The spooked warriors pointed all their guns at the new opening, which turned out to be nothing than a flat piece of illuminated floor with a bright rainbow-colored field suffusing through the air directly above it.

Don’t panic, don’t panic, Frank reminded himself as he tried to calm his heartbeat down, thumping painfully against the armored vest he was wearing. He looked closely at the field, trying to discern its purpose.

“Teleportation field, or portal, or gateway, or whatever you want to call it,” Lorik said as he walked over, shoving aside Bryan as he came up to the strange area. “The research notes mentioned that the aliens had some form of advanced transportation device that could curve local space-time in such a way that it allows practical teleportation. Doesn’t work well for interstellar distances due to the energy cost in bending larger areas though. Anyway, there was a portable version they uncovered, and their notes described the field. I think this is one such device.” The huge man shrugged. “I guess somebody wants us to go somewhere. We’re being led by the nose.”

“So, who wants to go first? I mean, what’s the problem?” Kily asked as he started walking to the field, only to be pulled back by a concerned Lorik.

“Not so fast. For all we know, it might lead to a granite wall. You wouldn’t like being stuck in stone somewhere, with rock material interspersed throughout your body, would you? I can assure you it’s not fun.” Lorik paid no heed to Kily’s look of indignation.

“It feels like an ambush to me.” Descartin commented as he examined the field. “Let us get the others first, then consider whether to follow up this lead.”

Frank agreed wholeheartedly with the suggestion, and Bryan was sent back to the main hub area to guide the others to the room. It was not long before almost the entire expedition force was inside the spacious room, all of them staring at the field and trying to decide if they had the courage to step into the unknown.

Meanwhile, Frank kept a close eye on Kily, as the young warrior seemed to have lost the confidence he had several days ago, and was again projecting an air of desperation, of wanting to do anything. Frank reckoned that the last battle was probably the reason for Kily’s regained nervousness. Frank was also worried that Kily would do something rash that might give them cause to regret.

“Why don’t we try sending a transmitter through first? Maybe it could still transit from… wherever it ends up.” Frank suggested.

“Good idea.” Lorik waved at Yoshino. “Yoshino, give me your transmitter.” As the samurai turned clan warrior removed his transmitter headset, Lorik and Frank went around cautioning everyone not to shoot unless absolutely necessary.

Yoshino handed his transmitter over to Lorik, who tinkered around with it for a while.

“What are you doing?” Frank queried.

“Fixing it up so that a signal will be sent continuously. You don’t really expect to have someone from the other side speak into the device, quineg?”

“Eh, neg, I don’t.” Frank felt rather foolish for asking such a question.

It took only a few more minutes for Lorik to get the transmitter ready, while Pascal Thome and Denilson set up a dedicated receiver on a communications set.

Lorik did not waste any more time, as he confirmed the setups before sliding the transmitter into the field. There was no brilliant flash, no dematerialization, no gradual fading of the item. One moment it was there, the next it was gone.

“Anything?” Lorik asked Pascal, who was watching both the comms set display and the teleportation field.

“Nope, nada. Nothing.” Pascal emphasized on the last word to show his frustration.

“Let’s get on with this, okay?” Kily suddenly burst out. “All this sneaking and snooping around! Just for once, why can’t we go ahead and do without overanalyzing things to death? We’ve bad guys all over the place, and you guys are still worrying about this… this warp portal!” Kily had gotten the term completely wrong, but that was the least of Frank’s problems right now. He started to walk towards Kily.

“I can’t take this waiting around anymore! I don’t care what you guys think, I’m going through!” With that, the young warrior dashed towards the teleportation field.

“Calm down! Kily!” Frank tried to step and stop Kily, but the other man had built up too much momentum, and he just plowed into Frank like a rugby player, who fell backwards and pushed the people behind him into the portal as well. The whole mass of people lost their collective balance, and Frank saw an irate Lorik shouting vehemently at Kily as they entered the shimmering field.

And then they were gone.

 

“What were you thinking?” Lorik demanded of Kily as the others looked around, seeking a way out of the huge chamber they had found themselves in. “Did you ever stop and consider what might have happened? We could have ended up in a lava lake for all you know!” He flung his hands up, exasperated.

“Well, we did survive the trip.” Kily said sheepishly.

“Argh!” Lorik almost lost it then, and it was all the other warriors could do to drag the huge elemental away to look at the various devices and consoles around the room before any permanent bodily harm was inflicted on poor Kily Gonzalez.

Deserk did not feel things were that bad, and Kily was right in one respect. They were wasting too much time thinking and talking, and not enough doing.

They had found the transmitter in perfect condition almost immediately on their arrival, in one of the alcoves they had appeared in. No luck getting through to the others though, either using the transmitter or even their own communicators.

As he looked around, Deserk felt that at least this new area seemed to hold out some better prospects than the previous rooms they had searched. There were even more gadgets and items around, as well as a lot more of the teleportation alcoves. The center of the room was occupied by a gigantic computer-like machine, with various screens and displays arrayed around it. Ian Dorlacen had hazarded a guess that it was a central command and control hub for the previous occupants of the base. The seats arrayed around the central structure further served to illustrate his point.

The central machine stretched up to a very tall ceiling, which Deserk estimated to be about two hundred meters high. He was struck by sheer size of the base, which not even the clans could have achieved.

There weren’t that many of them stuck in the place, displaced by Kily’s reckless action. Frank Meronac, himself, Descartin Winters, Yoshino Ihara, Lorik, Patrice, Kily, Ian Dorlacen, Viola Bauer and Pascal Thome looked high and low, trying to find a way out.

“Greetings.” The word came out of nowhere, as Deserk jumped in fright, his gyrojet rifle swinging every which way as he tried to figure out its origin. He looked around, and saw the others doing the same, spooked by the sudden voice.

It spoke again. “Do not be alarmed. I am the digital sentience in charge of this base. My last instructions were to assist anyone who has managed to gain entry.”

This time, Deserk could make out that the flat dull tone it used was also unmistakably female. He glanced at Frank, who whispered to him, “Digital sentience means it’s a self-aware computer, I think. The wizards at NAIS have been trying to get one for ages, but no luck so far. Now let me or Lorik handle this.”

“How did you manage to learn our language?” Lorik asked.

“From the psi transmission. One of the reasons for requiring such a complicated method of entry was to enable me to have a certain amount of information required for communication. I deduced the rest by observation of your speech here.”

“What do you want from us?” Frank asked.

“I was instructed by my creators to impart to you the responsibility and importance of this base.”

“Then who were these creators you speak of? Where are they now?”

“They were several advanced species that decided to pool their resources and science for the sake of progress. The closest approximation in your language to their name would be the Qlictorio Alliance. They were destroyed to the last by the enemy a long time ago.”

“The enemy? Would that have anything to do with the black machines outside?”

“Yes. The black drones were left by the Dark Army to attempt to claim possession of this base, which contains all the acquired lore and knowledge of the Qlictorio, garnered over thousands of years of civilization.”

“And when were they destroyed?” Ian spoke up.

“By your standards of time, about half a million years ago.” Deserk’s eyes nearly bugged out, as he tried to comprehend the time scales they were dealing with.

“Wait a minute. You said the drones were left by the Dark Army. So where are they now?”

“I do not know. Our hyperspace scanners only detected their departure from this galaxy.”

Deserk could see the others gulping as they swallowed the implications of that statement.

“So, uh, they might still be around, somewhere, right?” Frank asked.

“Affirmative. In fact, the AI in charge of the drones has just sent a transmission out of this system to its masters.”

This is getting better by the minute, Deserk thought sarcastically. “In other words, there might be a whole bunch of aliens which have already wiped out several species heading our way now.”

“Yes, but I have no idea where they are, which makes it highly likely that you will have the time to prepare for their arrival.”

That’s very reassuring, Deserk had no doubt the Inner Sphere would have been as glad if the Dragoons had revealed the imminent clan invasion back in 3049. Yeah, right.

“So what do we do now?” Somebody shouted out.

“You can access the information you will need from the consoles. The full assets of the base, including me, are at your disposal. I have already applied your Intergalactic System of Units to the database, so that it will make sense to your scientists.”

“So what we know, you know as well?”

“Yes. But there are still some details that might not match up to what you know. You will have to reprogram the data yourself.” The displaced voice then fell silent.

The mercs looked blankly at one another for several seconds before Frank took charge and sent them checking up on various aspects of the base using the consoles, which were now usable and had comprehensible English words on their screens. They looked at the history, technology, enemy specifications, inventory of the base, looking for information.

The displays they worked on were marvels of technology. They could be activated by touching the screen, or where a hologram was projected, the user could even point to a spot on the hologram to access a particular section of data or to zoom in on a picture.

Deserk found himself assigned to check up the star map of the surrounding space. He took one look at the overall map, presented to him in holographic form, cluttered in 3D with literally thousands of stars, without any reference as to the relative positions of the alien worlds and the present worlds of humanity, and quickly shut off the hologram.

He figured the AI had not managed to glean the information from the psi transmission, probably because all the volunteers were techs, not warriors who have to learn every detail of the Inner Sphere map for their exams.

So how to reconcile the two together? Deserk tried to rummage through his brain for ideas.

As he did so, he could not help but remember what his sibko instructor had told him during warrior training, after he had blown up the laboratory during a basic chemistry class.

“You better become a warrior, or a technician. If you ever become a scientist, ahhh…” That sound alone was more eloquent than words could ever be.

Well, he had to think like a scientist now, and it was not as hopeless as he had thought it would be. Deserk punched up an query on whether the aliens had anything in space able to act as detectors, of any sort, since the AI had mentioned sensors. He was gratified to find out that indeed they had hyperspace trackers set up on Einstein itself, which was able to detect hyperspace movement up to a quarter of length of the galaxy!

Now there was a snag. Did their hyperspace trackers detect K-F jumps as well? Were the two FTL processes even similar? Well, at least there was somebody he could ask.

He shouted, “Lorik, some help here!” The elemental walked over.

Deserk quickly explained the situation, and Lorik gave him a surprising answer.

“From I’ve seen so far, FTL travel is accomplished by transition to different planes, which are often higher in energy.” Lorik started, “The transition from normal space, or from lower plane to higher plane, takes a lot of energy, and energy is also required to keep matter moving through the dimension as well. Imagine the planes as a series of concentric rings with different diameters.”

“Different dimensional levels afford different FTL speeds. Now take the analogy of the concentric rings, and imagine going over each of the rings in exactly the same amount of time. Now which ring would give you the fastest speed?”

Deserk answered, “The ring with the widest diameter.”

“Correct. The first few bands consists of FTL speeds from 1 to 2 times the speed of light. In stark contrast, the KF drive jump, which shoots the jumpship right across multiple plane boundaries in one shot to the plane where the speed is 63 million times the speed of light, is much more powerful! However, our storage systems are not up to the task of storing the energy required for traveling more than 15 seconds, but that is enough to traverse 30 LY. Experimental vessels like the Manassas were adapted for greater and more efficient energy production and storage systems, which allowed them to travel up to 40 LY. Oh, one drawback I have found mentioned in the alien database mentions that using the higher bands is the physical and mental stress that is inflicted on living beings, yet another manifestation of psi energy. I think, and Frank concurs, that this is the root cause for TDS. Most people have no problem with short terms of exposure, but extended effects are severe. Here’s one more detail. Gravity creates mass shadows in the other planes, and these can be dangerous. Only matter is affected, however, and not energy waves. This is why HPG transmissions can be sent from heavy masses like planets.”

“Skip all that nonsense. The answer to my question?” Deserk was getting tired of the lengthy lecture.

“K-F jump drives are almost the same as the ones the aliens use, and the process is identical! I have no doubt that the detectors would be able to pick up K-F track signatures.”

Lorik added just before he went back to his own work, “Actually, I only just found out about this myself. So don’t be too dismayed.”

An idea came to Deserk. He glanced at his screen, and asked for all the hyperspace tracks detected by the machines, interposed with the alien worlds. The map appeared again, but this time he could see a definite large mass of lines spinward of Einstein. The alien homeworlds were about a thousand LY rimward and anti-spinward of Einstein, approximately at the 8 o’clock position when taking Einstein as the center.

The large mass of lines was almost certainly made by the numerous KF jumps of humanity, and the huge central blot could only be the Inner Sphere. Deserk could not help but notice that there were quite a few lines, lone tracks leading out from the central blot and from another smaller mass of lines about where the clan worlds are, leading out to beyond the detector’s range.

In order to narrow down the stars connected by the lines to inhabited ones, Deserk limited the search down to stars that have had at least two hundred 30 or less light year jumps either to or from another system, as non-inhabited stars might have been the used as non-standard jump points for pirates and other military actions. The mass of lines was reduced greatly, and Deserk could already start to make out certain key worlds.

He started out from the fringe, using the bases captured by the clans in the Periphery during the first wave of the initial invasion as his first markers. Slowly he worked his way down, identifying the worlds in the Draconis Combine first. As the target state of the Nova Cats during the invasion, he had to learn and memorize the positions of all possible strike targets, which includes all the worlds under the Dragon banner. It was the same in the Dragoons, as House Kurita had been perceived as high probability opponents on Outreach before Jaime Wolf made his peace with Theodore Kurita.

The Draconis Rift served as a helpful landmark, and Deserk soon had Pesht and Luthien pegged down. He worked downwards along the Dieron Military District to Dieron itself.

From Dieron, Deserk identified Terra, and used that as the central coordinate origin zero-zero for the vertical and horizontal axis. Having memorized the location coordinates of Luthien and Outreach relative to Terra, he soon got the entire grid up according to standard Star League and Comstar cartographic standards.

From the grid, it wasn’t difficult to see that the alien worlds were quite far away from humanity. They were grouped into a loose cluster of about forty worlds, the furthest of which was a whooping 3000 LY from Einstein.

Deserk decided to look around some more. He had basically accomplished his task of integrating the alien star map with their own, because Frank had suggested the idea of exploring the alien worlds and looking for survivors after this was over. Now to look around for interesting details.

He zoomed out from the close view of the alien worlds to a view of the entire area, and there were two blots of lines that immediately aroused his interest. One was situated two hundred LY spinward of the Kerensky Cluster, while another was situated a thousand LY spinward and rimward from the Taurian Concordat. These were supposed to be non-colonized areas.

More alien worlds? Deserk pondered the possibilities. He decided to remove the restriction of at least a hundred jumps.

The resulting map showed that the two new areas were linked to other human worlds, which quite preludes the chances of being alien worlds. Deserk frowned, because not even Wolfnet knew of these worlds.

He decided to zoom in and run through the jumps year by year, starting from the present time. He begun with the upper cluster of four worlds.

The upper mass of four worlds joined by the lines showed a steady link to the clan worlds, stopping only when Deserk went before 2805. As he went forward in time again, going by months, the first track leading to the new clump of worlds originated from Strana Mechty in May 2805.

More interesting was a jump track from the worlds every five years since 2805 to just outside the Outworlds Alliance.

A split away faction, Deserk guessed. Maybe even the long rumored Dark Caste homeworlds. In any case, he put that aside, and decided to check up on the other group of worlds.

Using the same method, he traced the jump movements from the stars there. He watched, perplexed as the mass of lines seemed to progress from a clump to two pincers, and then back to a smaller clump. No jump contact was made with any other worlds, not even the small Fiefdom of Randis that was its closest neighbor.

The pincers didn’t make any sense, because colonization techniques often favored slow and steady expansion by pushing a front, rather than two pincers that seemed more and more to Deserk like flanking movements of an army.

An army then, but attacking what? And by who? He traced back in time, trying to find a year with a link to the Inner Sphere.

He found one link in March 2870, leading to and from a world somewhere near the border between the Capellan Confederation and the old Federated Suns. That sparked some alarm bells in his head.

Wasn’t there a unit called Clinton’s Cutthroats who disappeared from Fed Suns employ during that time? It was a frequent tale mentioned on holovids, documentaries, and merc circles. Wolfnet had even kept a file on it because of suspected links to the Not-Named Clan.

The Not-Named Clan! The very thought and the implications of it struck him like a thunderbolt. He felt a chill go through his entire body.

No, it can’t be. By the Great Father, I can’t believe it. Deserk feverishly ran the dates backwards, tracing the lines from the lower clump of worlds. One long trail led to the Free Worlds League, where he assumed was where the Cutthroats had started their mercenary service.

Another track was traced from the Draconis Combine in 2825, on the worlds of Trondheim, Svelvik, Jarret, and Richmond. When Clan Nova Cat had been attacking the Draconis Combine, they had heard stories of the Minnesota Tribe, which Clan, Comstar, and Wolfnet analysts had pegged as possible Clan Wolverine survivors.

No doubt about it in Deserk’s mind now. He traced the jumps from the Combine worlds to the clan homeworlds, to Circe in 2823, a year infamous in the memories of clansmen for the betrayal of Kerensky by the Not-Named Clan.

He sat down in his seat, shocked by his find. He sat there for a full minute, ingesting the results. We came here to discover new technology left behind by the Star League, but so much has happened. The black mechs, the alien technology, evidence of alien life, and now, even the location of the Not-Named Clan. How much more is hidden on this world of secrets?

Deserk got up from his seat, trying to control his shaking legs as he looked for Descartin Winters and Frank Meronac.

“Is there anything you need?” Descartin looked up as Deserk approached him.

Deserk was surprised he was able to remain calm as he spoke, “Aff. You should look at this. Frank, you come along as well. I want your perspective on this.”

It did not take long for Deserk to show them his findings. He watched Descartin closely, afraid of the fanaticism common to most clansmen. Des stood calmly as he reviewed the data though, and Deserk could even see a slight smile on his face when the location of the Wolverines were revealed. Frank, not being a clansman, could not comprehend the magnitude of their discovery.

“So what’s the big deal?” Frank asked. Deserk realized that as a spheroid, Frank had no idea of the significance of the discovery.

Descartin answered, “The big deal is that once the clans get a whiff of this, they will be on the Wolverines in no time. The Kentares Massacre would be nothing compared to the bloodshed sparked if the clans ever found out about the Wolverines.”

Deserk was puzzled by Des’ answer. “Uh, but I was expecting a somewhat more…”

“Violent reaction from me?” Des finished the sentence for him. “Neg, but I am not the brainwashed warrior typical of our kind. Like you, I have seen too much, felt too much, to accept things at face value.”

He continued nonchalantly, “Did you know that one of the Cloud Cobra Cloisters possessed hidden records of the Wolverine affair, as well as the events which led to their Annihilation? The Dharma cloister, to be exact. I have gone through the records concerning this, and the ecKhan has even told me of the tyranny of Nicholas Kerensky during that time.”

Deserk was flabbergasted to hear of Des speak so dismissively of the founder of the clans. Even after his time in the Dragoons, he still held a certain reverence for the Founder.

“I can’t believe I’m hearing these from you.” Deserk muttered.

“Nicholas was a tyrant. No doubt about it. No point in denying the past, quiaff? Anyway, I do not believe in seeking the destruction of the Wolverines either. Should they pay for the crimes of their ancestors? If so, then everyone of us, every lord of the Inner Sphere, every soldier who has an ancestor who has done an inglorious deed should be killed. But obviously, I do not see anyone, not even the Falcons, calling for the head of the Kuritas just because Jinjiro decided to slaughter millions on Kentares on a whim. So why are we being selective here?”

“You might be magnanimous enough to let this slide, but the others…”

“Oh shit!” Frank exclaimed. “We were so caught up in this that we’ve forgotten about the others!” He prepared to go through the portal that led back to the room they had came from, now marked out by a paper sign plastered by Kily over the alien symbols etched beside the portal. Kily had the unenviable task of mapping out the room and its many portals in English, assigned to him as light punishment.

Frank was stopped by a firm hand on his shoulder. He turned around to see Descartin gripping him.

“Not so fast,” the clanner said. “We have to remove the evidence of the Wolverines first. Imagine what would happen if the Falcons caught wind of this.”

Frank nodded his understanding, and they quickly set about installing protocols to prevent the jump tracks or the Wolverine worlds from being shown on the screen unless a certain pass-phrase was given, which only Frank, Descartin, and Deserk knew. Frank chose one phrase, which he was sure nobody would ever think of, "Colorless red ideas snore lazily".

The other group of worlds near the Kerensky cluster was also given the same treatment. Des was of the opinion that cooler heads should check it out first before making a decision whether to reveal the data to the clans. Deserk and Frank agreed easily.

Ten minutes later, they gathered to bring in the others. Frank got a short synopsis from each member of the party first, to vet the info and prevent any sensitive data like the Wolverine issue from being revealed. Thankfully, there were none that needed to be held secret.

But there was plenty to get excited about. The base contained manufacturing facilities, as well as a large stockpile of weapons and machines. More importantly for them right now, was a transit system in the planetary crust which could enable them to shift their forces rapidly to almost any point in the planet. Exit/entry points were located all over the world, and Frank was already forming a plan in his mind to retrieve the other merc commands.

“So who goes back first?” an excited Kily asked.

“Certainly not you.” Lorik grunted. “And not me. I would be easily hit if some fool decides to start shooting. We need someone who doesn’t look too threatening.”

“So…” Frank trailed off as he realized what Lorik meant. “Not me again!”

Lorik grabbed Frank, and gave him a very strong push towards the portal. “Aff, you again.”

“I’ll get you for this…” Frank yelped as he stumbled into the portal.

 

It took a bit of fast talking, and some hard convincing before they got everybody into the central hub area. The other room where Daniela and the others were waiting in was actually supposed to be the military command center.

The central hub area could only be accessed by the teleporters located throughout the base. The teleporters themselves could be set to particular destinations, but the central hub area was physically inaccessible. In other words, there weren’t any corridors or passageways to it.

The reason for that was more incredible than the mercs could ever imagine. The central hub area was located in what Lorik called a ‘tesseract’, a volume of artificial space. Frank’s mind boggled at the level of technology required to achieve this.

There was even machines that could allow them to do what Lorik termed ‘matter editation’. Frank had a simpler name for it, “The Philosopher’s Stone”.

There was so much data and information that Frank almost felt like drowning in them. There were advanced anti-tumor agents, automatic soil nitrogen fixers that would increase the yield of agricultural products by at least a hundred percent, energy storage methods that are far more efficient than their present ones, and even artificial gravity generators that could affect the gravity of an entire planet!

But none of that was helpful to them, right now.

The leaders scheduled a strategy session in two hours time, while the warriors tried to grab some rest as the technicians tried to fix up their mechs as best as they could. The collection and processing of data from the alien base was left in the hands of the dropship crews, under the watchful supervision of Lorik.

Frank, acting on his authority as overall commander, gave orders for the techs to concentrate on repairing Bryan’s recon lance first, as well as the lighter and faster clan omnimechs, most importantly a Koshi and a Dragonfly. The recon lance of the Arch Lancers were also given priority.

He then plopped down and slept on a makeshift cushion some considerate soul had laid out in the reception area near where the Star League party had been betrayed, which was serving as a de facto lounge and rest area. There simply wasn’t any more personnel available to locate and set up proper barracks. Even the infantry had been roped in to help with the repairs, or with mapping out the entire base and plastering directional signs so that people won’t get lost. The reception area was packed with sleeping warriors, who all knew that they would be going back into the breech very soon.

 

“One thing bothers me, Des,” Deserk said as he prepared to take a quick nap beside a bunch of already snoring mercs from the Arch Lancers.

“What?” Descartin was also preparing to go to sleep, using his backpack as a makeshift pillow.

“Remember the, uh, strange thing we saw on the starmap?” Deserk was careful not to mention the Not-Named clan, lest a Falcon overheard him.

“Aff.”

“Well, there was a pincer movement by, uh, the colonists, right? Don’t you think that seemed like the movements of an invading army?”

“You have a point. But what were they attacking?”

They stared at each other for a few long seconds as they chewed on the information.

“Let’s hope we live through this long enough to find out.” Deserk concluded.