EVE®: Templar One (6 page)

“Wilco.”

More gunshots sounded in the distance.

Someone once said that pride was the mask of one’s faults,
Vlad thought.

The insects were eating around the Valklear Special Forces patch.

Well, here’s my ugly face for all to see.

7

GENESIS REGION—SANCTUM CONSTELLATION

THE YULAI SYSTEM—INNER CIRCLE TRIBUNAL STATION

SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CONCORD ASSEMBLY

The mercurial figures of CONCORD’s Inner Circle gathered under conditions that hardly seemed adequate for all the power at their fingertips.
Gone were the days when they met in ostentatious settings surrounded by absurdly lavish comforts.
The “new” meeting location was supposed to be temporary, and its appearance and function remained just as haphazard as when it was hastily assembled three years earlier.

The Empyrean War began with the near-total destruction of their previous meeting place—a station once thought indestructible—and like so many others who lived through those historic events, these leaders would never be the same.

No one spoke as the members took their seats.
The only sound was the whir of electronic motors as probes descended from fragile gantries and inserted into the neuro-interface sockets in their skulls.

“Tashin, what do you have?”
Inner Circle Director Irhes Angireh demanded.

“The evidence you were looking for,” he answered, though his mouth didn’t move.
A blur of volumetric projections depicting personnel dossiers, security footage from research facilities, and classified incident files began taking shape before the circular arrangement of seats.
“We have confirmation that all four nations are directly funding or researching immortal soldier technology.”

“Even the Caldari?”
Irhes asked.
“I thought Heth wasn’t interested.”

“He said he doesn’t
believe
in the program,” Tashin corrected.
“But he’s still funding corporations who do.”

“Which ones?”
Irhes asked.

“Wiyrkomi and Sukuuvestaa,” Tashin answered.
“Heth is playing them against each other.
Neither has made any real progress.”

“So who’s winning this race?”
Irhes asked.

“The Amarrians,” Esoutte Denaert hissed.
“They’ll have prototypes ready in a year, maybe two at most.”

“Heth is bluffing,” Tashin commented.
“Who
wouldn’t
want the tech?
No one wants to admit the urgency, but it’s plainly obvious.”

“Here’s urgency for you,” Esoutte said.
Lists of soldiers—millions of them—were streaming before her.
They were compiled KIA lists from several national armies.
“Most never made it to a battlefield before they died.”

“We’ve said it a thousand times,” Irhes said.
“Why rush down this path even faster by bringing immortality to soldiers?
It doesn’t make sense—”

“No,
you’ve
said it a thousand times,” Tashin scoffed, annoyed at the Director’s outburst.
“It makes perfect sense.
Look at the casualty figures.
War is ugly business.
It isn’t our place to judge how nations wage it, so long as the means doesn’t interfere with
our
charter.”

“This is about cost,” Esoutte said, as schematics of human soldiers, with and without cybernetic augmentations, flickered through the air.
“The Caldari are the best at fielding armies quickly.
Every citizen is trained and can be brought to fighting shape in a matter of weeks, but it’s still hugely expensive.”

More figures displayed the development cost per soldier, including arms, augmentation, conditioning, and training.
Tashin was about to begin a lengthy presentation.

“The other nations don’t have the luxury of mandatory conscription, so their costs are even higher—”

“What does this have to do with anything?”
Irhes exclaimed.

Tashin, though immobilized at the neck, managed to twitch.

“I’m merely pointing out that there’s good reason for them to be developing immortal technology, and that it’s probably not the evil superpower excuse you’re looking for as grounds to interfere.”

Irhes would hear none of it.

“What about the human cost?”
she demanded.
“Did you even think about what could happen if empyrean technology was passed on to soldiers?
Of the power it would give the nation that owned it?
Have you completely forgotten what our mandate is?”

The imagery became a mottle of red—a conditioned response that Tashin, like the other members of the Inner Circle, had trained himself to perform as a means of masking what he was really thinking.
Instead of revealing his anger toward the Speaker for belittling him, Tashin willed himself to display the CONCORD Mandate in rather sarcastic fashion across the room:

To protect the right of civilizations to grow and prosper;

To preserve the surviving sovereignties of the Dark Ages;

To serve justice to those immortals who abuse the privilege of everlasting life;

To safeguard the mortals of worlds from dangers which originate in space;

To prevent empyrean technology from causing the destruction of humanity.

“Brilliant,” Irhes sneered.
“But do you understand what that actually means?”

“Perfectly,” Tashin said.
“And I still maintain that the evolution of empyrean technology is
inevitable,
and you’re naïve to suggest it can be prevented.”

“I’m with Irhes on this,” Tatoh Okkamon interjected.
“Immortal soldiers have one purpose, and the consequences of abuse are unthinkable.
I support any measures presented to put a stop to it.”

“Now just wait a moment,” Esoutte pleaded.
“We can’t interfere with the sovereign rights of nations to defend themselves!”

“We can where it concerns the governance of immortals,” Irhes growled.

“Immortal soldiers would absolve the living from ever having to wage war,” Tashin said.
“It’s the ultimate deterrent.”

“Which is precisely why we have to stop it from developing in the first place,” Irhes demanded.
“Whoever wins this race can wage
any
war
perpetually.
That is a nightmare scenario, and I’m astonished it even needs to be stated.”

“I agree we should stop the tech from developing,” Tatoh said.
“The question is
how.
The moment the assembly nations even suspect we’re opposed to it, they’ll accelerate their research programs—or worse, transfer them to the outer regions.”

“Then our jurisdiction must expand,” Irhes told them.

The images projected by the other members abruptly dropped as the implications of her statement took hold.
Mordu’s Legion, the Intaki Syndicate, the Khanid Kingdom, and several other sovereignties that operated well outside the boundaries of the four primary empires appeared.

“You’re not serious,” the astounded Tashin said.
“You can’t enforce this.
They’ll kill you for trying.”

“Where is this obsession coming from?”
Esoutte asked.
“This almost seems personal.”

The sound of the Director’s voice was loudest over the area where Tashin and Esoutte were sitting.

“There’s nothing personal in recognizing that we’re at a crossroads in history,” she thundered.
“We’ve seen what empyreans are capable of.
If it wasn’t for us, we might have lost every mortal in existence.
This is exactly why CONCORD was created in the first place
.
It’s
our
responsibility to make sure that never happens!”

“Irhes,” Tashin said somberly.
“I know their power grew faster than any of us imagined.
I was in Yulai when the Elders attacked.
I was scared for my life.
But this isn’t the answer.”

“I disagree,” Tatoh said.
“We have to try.
The threat is real; the mandate is clear.”

Tara Rushi had yet to speak, though it was clear from the projections floating above her that she was weighing both arguments carefully.
All matters trivial and historic were decided in CONCORD by a simple majority vote, and she had become the tiebreaker in this crucial moment.

“
If
we were to proceed,” Tashin asked, “how do you propose we put a stop to it?”

“We use THANATOS,” Irhes said confidently.

“Three of them are already searching for the Broker,” Tatoh said.

“We’ll create a fourth.
One for this explicit purpose.
To do whatever is necessary to convince the empires to cease their efforts, and if necessary, sabotage their research outright.”

Tara finally spoke.

“The Joves would have never allowed this,” she said.

“The Joves are dead.”
Irhes scowled.

“I see,” Tara said.
“Then I shall abstain but give my vote to you, Speaker.
Since you seem to know what’s best for us all.”

PART II

ABSENTIA

8

>>CONCORD/DED Datastack 13A0B: “Preliminary Report: The Apocrypha Event”

>>Owner: AI Construct Argos-1

>>For Inner Circle, Select Members of the DED and CONCORD

>>EYES ONLY

>>Summary

On 10 March, YC 111, ten star systems in the New Eden cluster were struck by a previously unrecorded stellar event called a “mass sequence CME anomaly.”
The cataclysm killed over 190 million people, the bulk of whom resided in the underground cities of Seyllin I.
The events appear to have been caused by the detonation of separate stockpiles of isogen-5, which is a highly volatile, naturally occurring mineral found only in the proximity of Class-O stars.
Immediately following these explosions, concentrated waves of plasma emanating from the local sun dissipated throughout affected systems along a focused magnetic field, obliterating everything in their paths.

Although each system affected by the catastrophe was host to a Class-O star, there is no obvious pattern to their locations.
However, each system was struck by identical events simultaneously, despite their physical separation by many light-years.

Shortly after the event took place, numerous spacetime topological point-defects, or “wormholes” as they are more commonly called, began appearing throughout New Eden, also with random frequency and distribution.
To this point, the only naturally occurring wormhole in the entire cluster was the EVE Gate, which collapsed thousands of years ago.
These new defects, literally tears in the fabric of spacetime, were found to be stable enough to allow the passage of starships.
Despite warnings that the egress point of these defects was unknown and that their stability was likely temporary, many empyreans began traveling through.

All ships entering these defects were transported to uncharted regions of space outside the New Eden cluster.
The nearest recognizable objects to onboard navigation systems were quasars, the oldest and most distant celestial objects in the known universe.
If not for fluid router technology, these ships would have been completely isolated from “known space” and lost.

Wormhole space, or “w-space,” as it soon came to be known, was also permeated with defects, all of which were unstable.
As of now, there are hundreds of recorded instances in which wormholes have collapsed behind passing ships.
Remarkably, most of these ships were able to navigate back to New Eden space by scanning down and then entering other defects.
Although their destinations were unknown, enough traversals eventually led back to random reentry points in the New Eden cluster.

As detailed later in this report, the odds of these newly discovered defects all coincidentally pointing back to the New Eden cluster is extremely small.

>>The Sleeper Civilization

Pilots entering w-space have reported encounters with the automated defenses of an ancient and presumably extinct race of humans known as the Sleepers.
While they are believed to be of Jove descent, very little is known about them.
What is known, however, is that they were extremely advanced, having mastered all present “foundation” spacefaring and biomedical technologies thousands of years ago.
But discovery of their reach across the universe—specifically, their consistent appearance in w-space systems—was completely unprecedented.

The “Apocrypha Event,” as this series of anomalies has been called, had the immediate political effect of temporarily distracting the empires from the Empyrean War.
Despite the risks, capsuleers began migrating to w-space for two primary reasons: to harvest valuable resources for sale and consumption in New Eden, and to recover Sleeper technology.

The first Sleeper artifact returned to New Eden possessed unique properties never before observed in applied-materials science.
It was manufactured from fullerene-based polymorphic alloys capable of being adapted instantaneously to almost any engineering application.
For example, two separate samples of the alloy—each of which has the same tensile strength as tritanium construction alloy—could be fused into one seamless sample by applying uniform high-voltage current through both specimens.
Reversing the charge and the magnetic polarity of the sample breaks it into the original components.

Overnight, demand for this new technology spawned a multibillion-credit industry for Sleeper salvage, which in turn supported the emergence of a new class of warships called “strategic cruisers.”
To clarify, ships are built to fill specific roles in naval warfare.
In classical starship engineering, hulls are designed around core subsystems, such as weapons, propulsion, and power plant.
Under this traditional methodology, the ship can perform only one role effectively.
But those constructed using polymorphic alloys can be adapted to fill dozens of roles, since major subsystems can be swapped without compromising hull integrity.

CONCORD has privately warned governments against using the technology because it is not fully understood.
For example, we are unable to determine how these alloys are created.
All attempts to synthesize them have failed.
Yet every strategic cruiser that has ever been built is using material salvaged directly from Sleeper artifacts.
One retrieved sample suggests that the fullerene alloy was conceived for computing purposes, not structural engineering.
Without understanding its origins or application, we are either underutilizing a potent new technology, at best, or exposing ourselves to unimaginable risks, at worst.

By and large, the empires have heeded our warning.
The capsuleers, however, have not.
Their interest in Sleeper tech continues unabated, and for the time being, ungoverned.

>>Mass Sequence CME Anomaly

All stars eject plasma during the main sequence stage of their life spans over ranges, durations, and frequencies that vary with the age and type of star.
Such “stellar flares” produce a stream of supercharged particles called “proton storms,” the speed of which is determined by the strength of the flare event itself.
Storm speeds approaching the speed of light are rare among Class-G and smaller stars, although the spin rate of the star can create stronger magnetic fields and, thus, more powerful events.
But they are fairly common in Class-M stars and higher.

Stellar flares produce radiation across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, ranging from radio waves to gamma rays.
The most powerful ones produce coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, where actual stellar material is cast off from the star and hurled into space.
In the case of a Class-G star, the average mass and speed of ejected material is 1.6 × 10
15
g at 500 km/s.
A CME usually begins with a preacceleration phase in an intense magnetic field above the star’s surface, typically along the equator but also above “sunspots,” whose appearance varies with the star’s natural cycle.
Plasma accretes and then enters a postacceleration phase as trapped particles are accelerated quickly along closed magnetic field lines.
Upon reaching critical volume and speeds, the plasma overwhelms the field and escapes into space.
For a Class-G star, the typical force released by this event is the equivalent of a billion megaton nuclear bombs.

>>The Seyllin Star

The Seyllin system is host to a potent but otherwise unremarkable Class-O star, whose solar weather activity was monitored by a network of Federation satellites collectively known as “Cassandra.”
At approximately 1100 hours local on 10 March, YC 111, the last telemetry received from this network revealed several anomalies:

• that a drastic and unexpected shift in magnetic activity in the solar atmosphere had occurred;

• that this field shift was oriented in the same plane and direction as the planet Seyllin I;

• that an abnormally large solar prominence, or preacceleration CME event, filled this field almost instantly;

• that a separate, powerful gamma-ray burst was detected away from the star but inside the orbit of Seyllin I and along the same plane as both the planet and the solar prominence.

Less than ten minutes after Cassandra went off-line, the side of Seyllin I facing the sun was struck by the largest proton storm ever recorded.
A megadose of gamma and X-rays destroyed installations as deep as thirty meters below the surface, flash-ionizing the air supply and igniting every surface within.
Although the night side of the planet was somewhat shielded and thus spared the full brunt of the blast, the storm was still powerful enough to destroy the electrical grids supplying the underground cities of Loadcore and Southern Cross.
If Seyllin I had an atmosphere to start with, it would have been vaporized entirely or blasted away into space.

Several hours later, the ejected coronal mass—traveling at speeds approaching one-quarter the speed of light and estimated to be orders of magnitude more massive than an average Class-G event—slammed into the planet with enough force to break it apart, completely reshaping the world into molten rock and metal.
The colonists who survived the initial radiation blast perished in the cataclysm that followed.
Survivors who were evacuated from the system before the CME arrived suffered disfiguring burns and the immediate onset of aggressive forms of cancer.
Of the millions who were killed, the vast majority were Federation citizens.

In all, ten New Eden star systems—each with Class-O or Class-B blue stars—were struck with stellar anomalies identical to what occurred at Seyllin, all at the same time.
Of the systems where solar weather data was recoverable, each one recorded identical anomalies: an unspeakably powerful magnetic shift and accelerated CME event with the local sun, along with the simultaneous, isolated detonation of concentrated gamma radiation from a location between the system’s innermost planet and the sun itself.

Of these affected systems, T-IPZ provided us with the most clues as to the cause.

>>T-IPZ and the Terrans

System T-IPZ was classified as a vital point of interest in the eyes-only investigation of Empress Jamyl’s “Xerah Effect” superweapon, named after the city above which the weapon was used with devastating effect against a Minmatar Elder navy task force.
T-IPZ was under THANATOS surveillance at the time of the Apocrypha Event and reported identical solar anomalies before disappearing: Like Seyllin I, the innermost planet of T-IPZ was destroyed, and a gamma burst was traced back toward the vicinity of an ancient Terran station orbiting the same planet.

The station, whose origins predate the closure of the EVE Gate by 14,000 years, was a location where an extremely rare and volatile mineral known as isogen-5 was stockpiled.
This mineral exists only in the presence of blue-star systems, and loses its volatile properties when removed from its original locale.
Isogen-5 possesses unique gravitonic properties whose behavior is not understood; its scarcity and hostile native environment make it difficult to study.

It is not known why the Terrans were stockpiling the material.
Before its destruction, THANATOS discovered that drones manufactured autonomously within the station possessed the technology to move the material from its source to the station; conventional ships cannot even approach it.
Later, it was discovered that the same technology that protects these drones is used in the Xerah Effect weapon housing, which requires the mineral as a primer to fire.

But most importantly, THANATOS observed that the low-orbit area where the weapon was fired remains symptomatic of dark-matter collisions observable just outside the event horizon of black holes; cross-brane gravitonic distortions in normal timespace still resonate at both this site and the former site of the Terran station obliterated during the Apocrypha Event.

Subsequent THANATOS units confirmed that all ten Apocrypha locations contain the same postevent trace residue of an isogen-5 detonation, all of which were presumably large enough to cause the immense gamma bursts recorded at each site.

>>Argos-1 Conclusion

Given these observable events, we summarize our findings as follows: