Chapter 7 :

Earth, 3rd of March 2119.

United Nations Space Fleet Command, Special Operations.

Time, 03:13

Commander Elysium Knight

Commander Elysium Knight woke to the sound of loud banging on his door.

He grunted as he swung his legs out. He glanced at the time. 3:13 in the morning.

Again, the sound of banging at the door.

"What!" he asked loudly.

"Commander, sir. You're needed in UNSF SpecOps Command."

"Okay, give me five minutes."

He got up, went to his washbasin and doused his face. He dried it with his towel then suited up.

The door to his quaters opened revealing the Commander to the worried officer outside. His rank was not actually Commander, it was Colonel, but from the two decades of experience, knowlege, five of those in command of the Regiment he earned himself the nickname Commander. It stuck. The 14 medals lined the breast of his blue uniform, every single award avaliable to be won by the UNSF Army, exept one, the Prisonner of War medal.

Possibly one of the most renown and ruthless commanders in the UNSF, it was said he knew no fear. He was a famed and feared veteran.

The officer swallowed and saluted.

"Sir, the Admiral called..."

He was cut off abruptly, "Thraile?"

"Yes sir. He wants to deploy a Task Group, and he wanted to speak to you too, sir."

"Brander my old friend, what do you want this time?" he muttered to himself as he marched briskly down the corridor to the Command Centre.

The door slid open as he approached, allowing him to step inside. He stepped over to the comms screen.

"Admiral, how are you?" he asked.

"Elysium. I heard you're back early from your mission."

"Deployment was cut short."

"Why?" asked the Admiral.

"We competed the mission."

"You beat a fort full of rebels in a third the time that was planned?"

"Who dares wins, my friend." he laughed, "Why are you calling me?"

"Lost contact with an exploration ship."

"That's none of my buisness, why you calling?"

"We don't just lose contact with ships like that. It's unheard of. And they dissapeared in a system with multiple habitable planets."

Elysium laughed, "You think it might be aliens."

Thraile answered quietly, "That's exactly what I think it is."

"Why?"

"Look, ships don't just go silent. We had contact for a couple of seconds after they arrived, then they simply... stopped transmitting. If it was natural jamming, we would still have static. If the ship was destroyed, we would have had some warning in the form of radio interference and panicked distress calls. Also, the ship's AI would be broadcasting an SOS message. This can only really be a sentient species."

"Okay..." he said patiently, "So why are you calling me."

"I need you to take your battalion with them."

"Why? Why not just send the army."

"Two reasons. One, I can't deploy a large military force without proper reasons. Two, if they are prisonners, which they may not be, but if we don't hear from them soon, we have to assume they are prisonners, or they are dead. And I'd rather hope they are alive. Also, I don't trust a conventionnal force to free them."

"Two valid reasons... anything else."

"Well with current knowlege I can easily come up with a third. You're off for the next two weeks anyway. What else are you gonna do?"

"Visit Earth, check out what's changed. See some places..."

"Come on Elysium, I know you better than that."

The Commander's face broke into a grin, "Yes you do. Of course I'm in old friend. Wouldn't miss beating up some alien sons o' bitches for the world."

"Exellent. Good luck. Rendez-vouz at hangar bay 03."

"Copy that."

Thraile turned to go, but stopped halfway and said, "Oh, and I'm sending an investigator with you."

"An investigator? Like, a detective? Why?" asked Elysium confused.

"Because it's a mystery what happened to that ship. You never know, they might actually be useful."

Elysium let out a harsh bark of laughter, "As if." then cut the feed.

He left the command centre, heading towards his soldiers's barracks.

Bravo Company.

His Company. The second of the three battalions of british Special Air Services, the SAS. One of the most elite fighting force avaliable to UNSF Command. Each company comprised four platoons of four squads. Each squad housing two sections of six soldiers.

Their motto : Who Dares Wins.

Elysium Knight strode through the corridors outside the barracks, up to his battalion's sleeping quaters. He could hear them. The slow rumble of their heavy breathing. He paused, listening. Then barged inside.

"Wake up, wake up, rise and shine!" he yelled, banging on the door.

At once, a hundred and ninety two soldiers lept out of bed and aligned themselves in front of their bunks.

"Good morning, Sir!" they shouted back in unison.

"A good morning indeed." he watched them for a moment before saying, "At ease."

The soldiers relaxed, then remained motionless.

"Okay, pack your things, we're being deployed. Uncharted space."

"Sir, Yes Sir!" came the chorus of an answer.

"Okay, go to Hangar 03. I'm expecting you in 10 minutes."

"Sir, Yes Sir!"

Exactly ten minutes later, Elysium was standing before one hundred and ninety-two dressed soldiers, each bearing a forty kilo backpack filled with everything they could need.

The Admiral showed up a little while afterwards.

"Elysium, good to see you again."

"And you, Brander."

Thraile turned to the soldiers, each one was impeccable and inscrutable.

"I see you've kept your battalion sharp."

Elysium laughed, "I haven't given them time for anything else. Isn't that right?"

"Sir, Yes Sir!" came the deafening reply.

"Any other forces coming?" Asked Elysium.

"You know what I said about not being able to deploy a large military force without good reason?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Well, I staked my honor that I would need them." said the Admiral.

Elysium gave a stunned half smile. He wondered quietly to himself what the Admiral's standing would grant him as a force.

That very moment is when the great hangar doors opened to reveal a fully armed force of military personnel. Complete with Tanks, APCs and Artillery.

The sound was deafening, as the tracks of the tanks clanged and the boots of the men thumped against the metal floor.

"Hmm", thought Thraile, "This is one quater of the force granted to me."

Elysium emmitted a low whistle.

There must have been 5000 soldiers, over a dozen tanks, three dozen APCs and half a dozen artillery pieces.

"What did they give you?" asked Elysium, "A coupla divisions?"

"No, a pair of brigades, and some combined arms platoons." answered Thraile, "They gave me two Regiments of standard Infantry, one of Motorized Infantry, another one of Mechanized Infantry, one Armored Company and an Artillery Company." he paused a moment, "Oh, and a pair of Marine companies." he added as an afterthought.

"Marines heh?" muttered Elysium.

United Nations Space Marines were some of the most Elite fighting units, and the main contenders for conventionnal special forces. They wern't perhaps the equals of the SAS in many regards. The SAS could operate with more independance, but they were perhaps more deadly in many other situations, mainly boarding.

The specialty of the Space Marines, as they were known to the civs, is that they were trained to fight in armored exoskeletons, Battle Armor. This protected them from much incoming fire, as it also multiplied their strength and endurance. But it made them obscenely loud, both because of the armor, and because they were proud of it. They also insited on calling fellow marines, 'brother'.

Their armor had many systems designed to assist them, magnetic boots, jump packs, RCS thrusters and targetting computers. To even qualify was to be one of the best soldiers who fought for the UNSF.

"Any other suprises?" continued Elysium.

"None that I can think of."

"Exellent. Shall we board."

"Yes, your battalion is in that transport, the Black Prince," he pointed to an access port, "I believe the detective is already on board. If you need me, I'll be on the Adjudicator's bridge."

"I'll get everyone on board. See you on the other side."

The Admiral departed.

"Alright soldiers!" he yelled.

Every man and woman stood to attention as one.

"About, Face!"

Each one turned 90°, facing the transport.

"Forward, March!"

The Company began to march towards the Black Prince, slowly reducing in width so they would all fit into the boarding tube.

As Elysium caught sight of Thraile walking into the distance, he got an afterthought, and ran to catch up with him.

"Admiral!"

The Admiral turned about, his brows furrowed in confusion.

"Yes, Commander Knight."

"How are we going to get there on time. It took the New Horizon over five months to get there, and it's state of the art."

"Ah, I think you would have to ask Rob that question."

"Rob? Is he coming?"

Thraile laughed.

"Yes, I guess I forgot to tell you. You know what I think cut off the New Horizon..."

"Yeah, aliens."

"He wouldn't miss the chance to study their technology should we get our hands on some." explained the Admiral.

"Ah... I see."

"Actually he should be with his brother right now." the navy man said nonchalantly.

"His brother..." thought Elysium, then realised what the Admiral had done.

"No..."

"Yes." he said smiling.

"Why him?" begged the commander.

"Because he was the only one who would come."

Elysium swore explosively.

"And you put him on my ship."

"Of course, I wouldn't miss the chance to help two old friends get back together."

Elysium sneered at him. Typical. Detective Inspector Barnaby Davidson. Brother to Chief Experimental Engineer Robert Davidson.

Elysium tossed his hands into the air.

"Oh well. I'd better get going. See you there, and thanks for nothing."

"Good luck to you too."

Elysium slowly walked up behind his troops and followed them into the Black Prince. Inside, he saw everyone begin to go to their seats, but two people, who wern't in the SAS, stood by talking to each other. He unfortunatly recognised both of them, Robert and Barnaby Davidson. Robert was small and rather weedy. A rather non-assuming man, in his late 20s. He had brown hair, and was clean shaven. His brother was more different to him than most others. Strong, tall, healthy and unbelievebly attractive. The only thing he had in common with his brother was his hair color. He also had a glorious mustash. He mentally braced himself. He wanted to just walk passed them, but the Admiral said he'd find answers with Robert, so he walked up, a fake smile on his lips.

"Oh, hey, look who it is." said Barnaby in his rather ridiculously enthusiastic and posh british accent.

"Oh, hey Elysium, how are you?" followed Robert haltingly, in his rather timid, ordinary voice.

"Nothing out of the ordinary." he adressed Rob, "Thraile said I'd find answers with you."

"Oh, you mean how we're going to EX-5429 so quickly."

"Yes. Also, how quickly?"

"About six hours." interrupted Barnaby.

Elysium shot him a death stare. He fell silent. His mustash drooped slightly.

"How so?" demanded Elysium.

"I took upon Dr Heinrich's design for the Relativity Cannon, and... well... you could say I improved it."

"Again, how so?"

"Well I took his algorithms for bending space-time, and found that mostly he was only bending space. So I took some of Dr Feelgood's equations on time and... well... spliced them."

"So... what happens now?"

"Well... when you execute a Heinrich maneuver, you would normally travel long distances at extreme speeds, but now time outside the jump slows down. But not only that, I discovered a technical way of exploiting relativity that means I can speed up time for the people inside the ships too. So we're gone from realspace for a few hours, and it feels like a few hours for us as well. So you know how the Relativity Cannon decreases the time of interplanetary travel by a factor of 243,5 million?"

"No."

"Well this will shorten the journey by another factor of 720. Give or take a few minutes. So what we can do in a year, we can now do in half a day."

"And why haven't we been using this method before?"

"Ah, two reasons. Firstly, I just came up with it a month ago, and the tests are now conclusive, it's probably safe."

"Probably?" asked Barnaby, worried.

"Yes, well... 99.8% chance it won't annihilate the universe."

"I like those odds!" exclaimed Elysium, clapping his hands together. Most of the time, his superiors said his ops had a 30 to 40% chance of success, this was reasurring. Barnaby was less convinced.

"Yes, and secondly, I don't think we can initiate more than one jump at a time in the universe. I'm not sure, with this messing with time, if two jumps are launched it could cause one to enter an alternate dimension, or simply wipe out reality."

"Ah. So not for everyday use."

"Absolutly, we will only use this method for emergencies."

"So, like, I'll only have to do this once..." asked Barnaby, visibly worried.

"The odds are, yes." answered Robert.

"Ok, good..." trailed off the Inspector.

There was an awkward silence.

"I completely forgot." exclaimed Elysium, slapping his forehead. "How is Janet? How was your honeymoon?"

"Oh, Janet's fine. She's happy, I think. She's staying here, keeping an eye on tests. You know... while I'm gone..."

"She got the position of Chief Engineer 2nd Class then?"

"Yes."

"And the honeymoon?" he queried.

"We went to the Coastal City on Paradis."

"That's the French paradise planet, isn't it? Did you enjoy the beaches?"

"No, we didn't go to the beaches. We spent a few days visiting the Institute of Nuclear Research."

"Oh," Elysium was a little stunned by that announcement, "That's cool too."

There was a short silence.

"How's... whoever it is you're dating again, Barnaby."

"Imogen? The Admiral says she's been kidnapped by Aliens."

"Oh."

Another awkward silence.

"Well," said Elysium, "It's been nice catching up with you Rob." he turned to Barnaby, "And you I guess." then he took his leave.

Behind him, he heard Robert mutter something that might have been "You too", but he wasn't sure. Then Barnaby's heavy footsteps leading to their seats.

A few minutes later, the sound of Admiral Thraile's voice filled the comm channels.

"Alright men and women of the UNSF. We are about to embark on a potentially dangerous mission. I suggest you stay sharp. We will be using the new experimental transport system, called by our Chief Engineer in Experimental Science as the Einstein Jump. We will be departing shortly, so make sure your equippent is properly secure. We will Jump in approximatly 2 hours. Admiral Thraile out."

Elysium checked all his men were properly secure in their seats, then entered his own, beside the chief engineer.

The ships lurched as they left the starport, taking their biological cargo to the new wormhole torn through space-time. Elysium felt the few minutes of weightlessness before the ship's artificial gravity rings were brought up to speed. Unlike the normal Jumps, this wormhole didn't show what the other side looked like, but instead was pure white, pulsating with blue streaks of lightning.

Beside him, Elysium could hear Robert muttering to himself.

"Einstein-Rosen bridge... White caused by temporal displacement, elevated energy discharges cause electric arcs..."

And slowly, as one, the ships slipped into the terrifying pool of light. It was so blinding, every ship had it's shutters dropped. As the Black Prince slipped into the orb, Elysium watched as lights flickered, static filled the air, making everyone's hair stand on end. A very uncomfortable experience.

Then, darkness.

He couldn't hear anything.

He couldn't see anything.

What was happening?!!!