Into the Black

(Conference Room, Dinar Station Military Research and Development Center, Interstellar Space)

The research into new military technology based on recent events elsewhere in the galaxy was proceeding nicely, according to all the reports. Indeed, the reports of how smoothly the testing was going were generating concern in the higher echelons of power. Those in the military knew that when things were going too smoothly, there was always something about to go terribly wrong. Which was why Major Maerol Zumrora was tasked to pay a visit to the primary research station, and get a full accounting of the progress the researchers had made.

Dinar Station was one of the most secure facilities in the Confederacy, but the majority of its security came through obscurity. Yes, there were minefields that would object strenuously to anyone trying to approach the station without authorization, but that was only the third layer of defense. A place guarded only by a static minefield could never be called truly secure, after all.

The first layer of defense was, of course the station’s position. Located one light day directly ‘up’ relative to the galactic ecliptic from Dimiya’s star, it was as out of the way as you could possibly imagine, while still being close enough that logistics were not too much of a concern. In fact, the six-hour transit time was almost entirely a series of short hops to confuse any potential spies and throw off trails.

The second layer of defense lay in the base’s composition. Namely, it was a rogue planetoid with a nickel-iron makeup, with a radius of just three hundred miles. It had been discovered and scanned thousands of years ago, and discounted because the cost of mining the metals was not worth the expense. Even pirates didn’t bother with making a base there, as it was far too close to Dimiya and the naval forces there to make it a good base of operations.

Over the centuries, the planetoid had simply been forgotten about. Of course, anyone who did a basic net search would find links to the information about how useless the planetoid was come up immediately. Just as the Confederacy wanted them to. After all, why go and investigate a rogue planetoid that doesn’t have any value, when there were much more interesting things out there, right?

Landing at Dinar Station was simple enough. Naturally, Zumrora had the appropriate codes and clearances to slip through the minefield, and approach the asteroid complex. From the outside, his sensors saw no signs of a base being present. However, he had been given an approach vector, and followed it, even as it looked to be taking him into a solid rock wall.

His shuttle passed through the holographic illusion, and the security screens that not only kept the air in, but also sterilized anything they came in contact with, just in case. There would be more sterilization fields he’d need to go through, before getting into the base proper. The entire research base was sanitized and cleaned as much as possible, with the entire research area actually being held to clean-room standards, so they could eliminate any risk of contamination spoiling the experiments.

As his private shuttle set down in the hangar bay, everything looked to be in order. Of course, there was only so much one could glean from a camera’s view of the hangar, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anything for the trained eye to uncover. The crew moved quickly, and efficiently, and the hangar itself was in perfect order, with the other shuttles in the bay all in position and ready to fly, with no lines or leads to worry about. And there were no piles of boxes, as he’d seen in other places. Clearly, the crew was well-trained, and well-motivated.

It took seventy-seven minutes to get through the sterilization fields and health checks, to ensure that he wasn’t bringing any disease or contaminant onto the station. The military part of his mind also noted that those sterilization fields could easily be turned up to lethal levels, with a single adjustment of the controls. Not that he expected it to be an issue, but, well, the fact that the facility could be set to vaporize anyone or anything attempting to flee was mildly concerning. Almost as concerning as the fact that the facility had done a complete DNA workup on him, ‘just in case’. As a military man, he did not like hearing those words.

Still, that was not his concern. Not yet. For now, he needed to meet with the facility administrator, and get the overview of how the different projects were running. The mission first, and other concerns as he had time for them.

“Ah, Major. What an unexpected, and inconvenient, surprise.” Doctor Iefyr Presrel, said as he entered the rat-faced knelfi official’s office. “You do realize that this little visit risks putting us behind target on several projects, don’t you? Why, if you had come even an hour sooner, you might have ruined one of the key experiments for Project Gathar, setting the whole thing back months!”

Zumrora was used to academics who were so lost in their own little worlds that the only thing that mattered to them was their research. Unfortunately, those types tended to be either the very smart, or the very stupid. The smart ones became some of the premier scientists in the Confederacy. The stupid ones usually became Senators.

“Yes, well, the Confederate Joint Military Command believed that now would be a perfect time to do an audit of all critical projects. The reports you’ve been submitting from this facility have all been clear and concise, and quite similar. Unfortunately, that’s made that has made several members of the command staff, those with combat experience, mostly, concerned. They wished to send an independent observer, just so that, when they eventually have to make reports to the Senate Select Committee, there is no confusion about the extent of your work.”

“Hmph! As if any of you stone throwing savages would be able avoid being confused about my work, even if I explained it to you fully. But at least you military types are willing to accept that it works because smarter people told you it does, unlike those imbeciles who only think about what they can do to buy their next reelection. Do you know how much progress we could have made in the last thousand years, if we allowed the scientists to run things according to logical necessities, rather than letting politicians muck about ruining everything?”

Zumrora bit his tongue, and just let the doctor continue his rant. Brilliant minds often chafed at having any kind of controls or limitations put upon them, especially by anyone they considered their inferior, which was pretty much anyone without as many degrees as they had. Unfortunately, as had been proven multiple times, if you let the scientists have a completely free hand, then they would go and do something stupid, or dangerous, like attempting to mine a black hole for hypermaterials, and they wouldn’t stop researching that until they either succeeded, or fell into the black hole themselves (whether by accident or not).

And that was just the ones who were pure academics. When you mixed in a political or social agenda? Things could get very scary, very quickly. Every race had stories of very intelligent people doing very nasty things in the name of science because nobody stopped them. The Y’darth Crisis started, after all, because of a scientist who wanted to forcibly ‘improve’ the local population of ‘undesirables’ with augmentations, and made pirates and slavers look like paragons of morality and ethics in comparison.

“That as it may be, Doctor,” he said, as the researcher finally reached the end of his rant, “The realities of the situation are not entirely what we would hope, for any of us. Now, I understand that it may be inconvenient, but I do have a job to do, and it is important if Joint Command is going to be able to keep the Select Committee signing off on the expenses required to keep this base operational and the projects running. The last thing either of us want is having to bring it to the full Senate, where everything will be spoken of in public, yes?”

When the doctor did not immediately give his wholehearted approval, he continued, “Because then, if we have to go to the full Senate, this base, and the projects it has been involved with, will all become a matter of public record. The laws require it. And then you wouldn’t just have a lone auditor to deal with. You’d have reporters coming here, and they would not care about your research schedule in the slightest. So, please, let me do my job, so I can keep that from happening.”

The doctor gave an involuntary shudder at the idea of that particular nightmare descending upon his perfect little kingdom of scientific discovery. Reporters were inconvenient at the best of times. At their worst? Well, they could be more destructive than one of Black Star’s Starbolts. Plus, it was a universal constant that they were always more annoying and less intelligent than they thought they were, and were often more spoiled than even the genius researchers.

When he spoke again, Doctor Presrel’s tone was more conciliatory. “Fine! Fine, we will do your audit, then. What do you need, so I can get you out of my way faster, and keep those damned parasites away from my station?”

Zumrora nodded to himself. That trick almost always worked. The few times it didn’t, that meant that there was a bigger problem in play, one that needed a professional troubleshooter to put holes in it, so it didn’t become a problem.

“Well, we are doing a full audit, so we might as well start with Project Datoris. The tests at Tyhad went well, I recall. Even with active jamming in effect, the transmissions still went through, without any problems. What is the project’s current status?”

“Yes, well, you’ll be happy to know that we’ve increased the available bandwidth for communications to the point where text files can be transmitted in real time. We have also ensured that new nodes can be added to the network, and ensured that nodes can both broadcast to the network, and do private transmissions. The potential for fleet actions is obvious.”

Zumrora noded. “Yes, the reports had mentioned as much. But what about expanding the network? How has that portion of the project gone?”

“Unfortunately, that work is slow. The technological components of the system can easily be mass-produced. Unfortunately, it is the biological components that are problematic, and slowing production. While we can take the biological component from a living host and insert it into the prepared box in the matter of an hour or so, we have yet to find a way to completely replace the original biological component, and attempts to synthesize an artificial replacement have proven fruitless, so far.”

“You said you haven’t been able to ‘completely’ replace the biological component. Have you been able to partially reduce the needed components, at least?”

“Oh, yes. Through a mix of gene and chemical treatments, we have been able to take sections of one of the biological components, clone the tissue, and graft them onto similar, locally-sourced components. However, this grafting process takes time, and can only be performed on components that have fully matured. And, before you ask, quick-grown cloned tissue is nonviable for this. Unfortunately, without the experiential differences created by the donor’s life prior to surgery, the nodes fail to form correctly.”

“So, instead of hunting the rarer, and more difficult to obtain, resource, we can take them from any member of the populace that has reached maturity? Will there be any degradation in signal?”

“Oh, no. Well, not when using the proper mix of chemicals and materials, at the proper time. We can take a donor, perform the initial surgeries and treatments, and, three months later, the component will be ready for harvest and implantation in the machine.”

“So, three months for each unit to be produced?”

“Yes. Though, we are hoping that further refinement of the process can reduce that timeframe. One of my team is working on a pre-seeding a subject, to see if we can grow the necessary components in the wild, and then harvest as needed. If it works, then, a year or four down the line, you could set things up for industrial production of the nodes.”

The idea of producing the nodes industrially was disquieting, to say the least. He’d witnessed the harvesting process once, and, to be frank, he would gladly never think about ever again. But he had his duty. Even if it was distasteful at times.

“Yes, well, tell me about Project Xydar.”