Chapter 638: Galactic Common
After six minutes they were detaching from the station and Jace had a projected route up on screen. "They are suggesting we take the trade route again. Citing a bunch of jargon at me that sounds like some inane rules or something." West declared from her position. "They are also insisting on an armed escort."
"We have several fighter craft fluttering about attempting to do penetrating scans." Valkyrie declared with a chuckle from her position. "While a pair of caravel class sized ships are moving to positions to ’escort’ us."
"We are moving to a few minutes from the station before jumping." Jace declared and signaled to West to pass on the message. "Keep blocking those scans Valkyrie."
"This is kind of fun. Is this how you always deal with curious bystanders? Or is something you specifically do to politicians?" Valkyrie asked with a cackle of excitement as one of the fighter craft bounced harmlessly off the Lance of Thanatos’ shielding.
"Over-curious bystanders and politicians." Jace nodded. The shielding was pinging again as another fighter scrapped against it. Despite him setting it so it would not do damage to physical craft at the moment. If they did prolonged runs like that, they would be destroyed. "Make sure you are recording what they are doing."
"I am." Valkyrie agreed quickly.
"They are yelling at me now." West called out. "Do you want to hear it?"
"No." Jace chuckled. "Make sure anyone in the vicinity can hear it. I assume they are complaining and it will be good entertainment at least."
"Demoralization." Shilla pointed out from her spot in the Captain’s chair.
They slowly moved away from the station. There was a slight flare on the shielding as one of the caravel sized patrol ships from the station bounced off the shielding. Jace frowned as he looked to West and then Valkyrie.
"They are sending out an emergency notice. The Apple of Edo is disabled. Now the station head is demanding we stop." West announced.
"Valkyrie?" Jace asked, looking over his shoulder at the woman.
"I am scanning the Apple of Edo." Valkyrie declared through her laughter. "I am reading superficial damage. Their reactor is disabled but life support and other emergency systems are operating. They are just adrift."
"Then we ignore them. One more minute before we jump." Jace declared as he built up the warp and wave rider engines. The hum was inaudible as Jace’s console started beeping. Alerting Jace to a message from Gorund. Informing him that the engines were operating at max capacity and a bunch of questions regarding overclocking the warp drive and asking how it was not being strained.
"So we are going straight to the Underworld System?" Shilla asked. "No stops?"
"No stops." Jace shook his head. "You can send a message to your clan from the Underworld System." He had no issue with them reaching out to their own people. But the best way to go about that would be to communicate through the Cerberus Unit since they should have stayed in contact with the others.
If they tried contacting their people through other routes, there is a chance they would get wrapped up in some political minefield. Of all of them, Crystal was the only one desperate to get in contact with his people and had no idea where they were. The rest of the team knew vaguely where their people were located.
The Crystoph Federation completely collapsed but the fragments and refugees disappeared. Including Crystal’s remaining family. They had seemingly disappeared. According to Salem they had gone into hiding since many of the nations blamed the Crystoph Federation for the spread of the plague.
"Departing in three... two... one..." The screen morphed and changed as they slipped into the space between spaces. The timer revealed that they would be traveling for a few minutes. Which was good considering they were traveling more than halfway across the galaxy.
"Woah!" Valkyrie chuckled. "Scans are coming in droves. We are passing a number of gravitational analogies, stray planetoids not in a system, some anomaly that just has a number label, and a number of electronic devices floating in space." She turned her screen to the central hologram to show them.
"We are traveling not along typical routes so it makes sense. Especially since when we used to travel through these areas of space our scanners could not operate while we were in FTL or Warp." Jace began explaining. "Unfortunealty I cannot explain more than that. It is not my area of expertise."
"Completely exploring our galaxy will be not just feasible. I imagine it will provide the explorer with a substantial advantage." Shilla pointed out. "With our current setup which is just a bunch of refugee movements trying to escape the invaders. Most of which are slaughtering people by the dozen."
"We will probably hand over the entire galactic map once we check everything ourselves." Jace explained. "As it stands we will have to tell them about the gateway-"
BEEP!
Valkyrie’s station loudly beeped. Causing all of them to turn to her. "We are coming up on several unknown spacecraft. They are not using any known indicators; it is just outside of the system."
"Looks like that is the edge of the Underworld System." Jace hummed.
"We are getting automated alerts in unknown languages and a translated one." West explained. "It sounds a bit like those other human galactic languages. I studied them for a bit so I have heard them before."
"You said there is one in Spectre galactic common." Jace asked. He was talking about the now galactic wide common language. Each region and some planets even had their own languages. But the galaxy as a whole had a base language that was established immediately after the galactic government was founded. One of the many important bits of information they learned.
The galactic common language was just an iteration of the Grand Hexarian Empire’s language. Which was why it was picked. Apparently the decision was not popular among non-human species. But the population difference played a big part in the decision making process.
"There is." West nodded. "You want me to play it so you can hear?"
"Yeah," Jace nodded, "let’s see what they say as we pass by." There was no issue with passing the enemy ships.
"This is an automated alert. This system is blockaded until further notice. Any attempt to enter the system will be met with extreme violence. All ships and people trespassing will be captured-Kzztt..." The male voice suddenly stopped and Jace looked over at West. Who just shrugged in confusion before nodding at Valkyrie.
"Looks like someone destroyed the satellite transmitting the message along with several of the enemy space craft. I am reading them as friendly space craft." Valkyrie explained.
Before Jace could say anything more they were exiting warp a fair distance from the sun. The moment they did, West jumped in her seat. "We are receiving a live communication request."
"Put it in the center of the room." Jace told her as he adjusted course to where a massive structure was stationed near the largest planet in the system which was actually about three times the size of earth and likely had a greater gravitational pull.
A blue hologram otter appeared. "Jace! Finally!" The otter fluttered and flipped in the air. "Now we can really get started. I just sent you docking coordinates. I think it is time you kicked back a bit."
"What about these foreign galactic countries that are blockading you?" Jace asked with a raised eyebrow as he maneuvered the Lance of Thanatos to the location that Solisa told him to go to.
"Oh we have just been buying time. Now that you are back we will get a wealth of new designs and ideas and start sending out attack craft. We already confirmed that those drone fighter craft you held back on are enough to liberate the surrounding systems and free up our own. Was there anything else?" Solisa asked in unhidden excitement.
"Yeah," Jace sighed. "Plenty. But I would like to rest first. Where is Cho and-"
"Your many other kids?" Solisa asked. "Most of them are with their mothers. Vana is watching over the others whose mothers are either too busy or nonexistent. She has been out of active duty since she was severely injured last year."
Jace frowned and shook his head. "Full record and debrief. Try to reach out to the other’s respective people and see if we can establish a network. We are slaughtering the foreign galaxy’s soldiers and sending them packing or wiping them out. As soon as we dock, isolate information about gateways. That information is not to be disclosed until later."
"Gateways?" Solisa asked. Her hologram blinked in confusion.
"Don’t worry about it." Jace told her. "We all need full medical check ups and records made. Where is Hielo?"
"She is currently aboard the gravitational shielding station. It is still inactive and lacking parts. But she has made a lab in the facility. She is ecstatic to talk to you. She somehow knew you were back in the galaxy before I even knew. How is that?" Solisa asked in confusion, but Jace left her question unanswered.
