Chapter Two Arturo #2
“Quieter?” Jorgen suggested.
“Someone who knows when to keep their mouth shut. I could bring T-Stall or Catnip.” They were the oldest and most experienced members of the flight, having graduated from cadet training a few years before the rest of our team.
“It’s your call,” Jorgen said, “but I think you should take Sadie. She’s been underutilized, and she might surprise you.”
Specific assignments for my team members were customarily up to my discretion. Jorgen wouldn’t force my hand, but a suggestion from our most senior officer couldn’t be easily ignored. “I’ll think about it,” I said.
“Good.” Jorgen picked up the printout, frowning at the bite Boomslug had taken out of it.
“Really?” he said softly to the slug.
“Boom,” Boomslug said.
Jorgen handed me what remained of the papers. “This has all the information from our stolen intelligence. The people of Blightfall speak several languages, and English is among them. You shouldn’t have to do much talking, but you’ll be able to communicate as necessary to keep the diplomats secure.”
“Any idea why they call it Blightfall?” I said. “It sounds ominous.”
“Ominous,” Boomslug agreed.
“Yes,” Jorgen said, waving his hand at the holoprojector to zoom in on a section of the planet.
“A large part of the planet has been taken over by an invasive tree species.” A waypoint marked the location of the human city at the north end of a large continent, and I could indeed see that much of the continent was covered in a massive forest bisected by a river.
“The original spores were transported by a group of humans who’d been traveling planet to planet before the Second Human War, looking for exploitable resources.
Apparently the nutrients in the soil and the atmosphere were ideal for the proliferation of the trees, which destroyed the existing ecosystem. ”
“Great,” I said. More parts of the galaxy ruined by invading humans.
That was what all the human wars had been fought over: our ancestors’ desire to conquer the galaxy, and the intergalactic efforts of aliens to stop them.
Sometimes I felt like we were teenagers leaving home for the first time, only to discover that our great-grandparents had robbed and murdered their way across the galaxy, soiling our family name.
It didn’t make the Superiority’s oppression okay, but it did make it easier to understand.
“I also wanted to talk to you about hyperjumps,” Jorgen said. “The new regulations are a little different from what you’re used to, and will change your command structure slightly.”
“We can’t hyperjump anymore without filing for permission first,” I said, “so as not to anger the delvers.” We definitely didn’t want to do that—the delvers were godlike artificial intelligences that lived in the nowhere.
The nowhere was somehow connected to all parts of our dimension at once, so a cytonic could enter and bounce back out anywhere in the galaxy.
But doing so annoyed the delvers, and sometimes provoked them to attack us, so we now had regulations to ensure that our frequency of hyperjumps stayed below delver-accepted levels.
“Do we even need to file an application if we’re in a remote part of the galaxy?
Shouldn’t we be far enough away from other cytonics that it won’t be a problem? ”
“It doesn’t matter how many powers are being used in your area,” Jorgen said. “The delvers are in the center of a dimension that transcends space-time. They experience all hyperjumps through their realm cumulatively.”
That…was unfortunate. “So we’re not allowed to hyperjump if we can’t file paperwork to request one?” If we couldn’t jump to the planet itself, that might not be much of an issue, but I’d prefer to have an escape route if things went south.
“You can,” Jorgen said. “Your hyperslugs can request their jumps by communicating with Bob, who will be their official commanding officer for this mission.” He indicated the purple-and-orange taynix beside Boomslug.
“Bob!” the taynix chirped. He arched his back, and his spines flopped over the front of his head like bangs.
“That commslug is Naga’s commanding officer,” I repeated. “He decides when we can hyperjump.”
“Bob will communicate with the delvers to secure permission to hyperjump,” Jorgen clarified.
“The hyperslugs can jump by themselves anytime they want, because they have the means to camouflage themselves in the nowhere and avoid bothering the delvers. But if they want to hyperjump with passengers, they need to consult with Bob, and Bob will put in a request to the delvers.”
“What about Alanik?” I asked. While the taynix had only one cytonic power each, full cytonics like Jorgen and Alanik had access to all cytonic powers, including the ability to hyperjump, though Jorgen hadn’t quite mastered it yet.
“Alanik also answers to Bob,” Jorgen said.
Stars, I bet she would love that.
“The delay between your request and permission to jump depends on galactic traffic,” Jorgen said. “Sometimes you might get permission within a few minutes, but it may take up to thirty, and you can’t teleport until you receive it.”
“What if lives are in danger?”
Jorgen’s expression grew grim. “The hyperjump treaty is between the taynix and the delvers,” he said. “The taynix have agreed that protecting our realm from the destruction of the delvers is more important than the life of any individual person.”
“Individual person!” Bob agreed from the corner of the desk.
“If a cytonic breaks the treaty and hyperjumps without permission,” Jorgen said, “they’ll have to answer to the alliance.
We haven’t finalized the consequences for such a breach, but they could face isolation and lose the use of their powers.
So for now, please make sure the members of your flight follow the rules. ”
We shared a look across the desk. Jorgen knew as well as I did that I couldn’t control what Alanik did with her powers, even when she was technically under my command, so I hoped she bought into the importance of this alliance.
Personally, I felt a lot less safe jetting around the galaxy knowing I couldn’t pull my people out in a hurry if I needed to.
“The taynix research department has been working on some resources that might prove useful to you,” Jorgen said. “Your flight is invited to a send-off dinner tonight, where you can meet the teams who will accompany you.”
I’d heard about those dinners, though I hadn’t attended one yet. Now that we weren’t being summoned by sirens to fight at all hours of the day and night, the DDF was trying something new to improve morale.
“FM plans to attend,” Jorgen said, “and she’ll show you those resources herself.”
FM used to be a member of our flight, though now she managed the DDF’s diplomatic corps. “Why is FM showing off slug research?” I asked. “Doesn’t she have other things to do?”
Jorgen smiled. “She’s very excited about this one.”
Fair enough. I stared at the image of the planet on the holoprojector.
The mission sounded simple enough, but there were a lot of unknowns.
A lot could go wrong. That was why Jorgen was sending us—his old team, the people he trusted to get the job done even when he couldn’t predict every skill or resource that would be needed.
“We won’t let you down,” I said.
I intended to make good on that promise.