Space Frontier

Chapter 1

Lorian space station orbiting earth

A figure was standing looking out at space from a glass window, onboard the space station Lorain, orbiting earth.

The endless space outside stretched for an infinite distance, a black canvas spotted with shining stars lighting up that desolate place.

The tall, muscular man in his 60s standing in navy uniform gave a loud sigh hearing footsteps approaching down the corridor behind him.

He knew who those footsteps belonged to and what they meant because this part of the station had been locked down for this abrupt meeting.

"Their dream might be real, but they are pushing it forwards with too much cut red tape, the proper checks haven't been done, and they are leaving success too much up to chance."

The general mumbled this quietly to himself, knowing that the mission can end in massive failure at worst and great success at best, but without enough controls and simulations, this mission was at the moment closer to collapse than anything else, but he also knew why they were rushing it.

The footsteps could be heard more clearly as they came closer and soon stopped a couple of meters behind him.

"Conrad, my old friend, its time" came a boisterous voice.

He turned his head and peered behind himself, seeing an average looking man in a pristine suit, with a smirk on his face, his old friend but also the president of the human alliance.

Beside him were two bodyguards wearing sleek black power armor.

The man gave a signal, and the guards turned around with a curt nod and walked away.

"Black ops soldiers, are we maybe not a bit paranoid now," he asked with a raised brow,

The smirk instantly disappeared from the president face and got replaced with a scowl.

"We're this close," he said holding up his index finger and thumb close together, while at the same time leaning in closer to him "to launching the ships to the criterium constellation, and in this crucial time we can't risk me dying, if I'm eliminated its possible congress will vote to repurpose this mission and its ships to the frontlines, we can't allow that to happen."

Conrad nodded his head, accepting this, he knew this mission had gotten a lot of critiques.

They were currently fighting an enemy, called the heradian empire, this race had suppressed countless alien races and was using them in their constant war effort, in their quest to conquer the entire universe, they were paranoid bastards so they wouldn't allow any other race to rise and challenge them.

Humans, we're just the latest species they had met resistance from, and while we had been holding our borders so far, they were starting to break through, their access to an almost endless amount of soldiers and resources had been pressing the humans to divert enormous resources and manpower to holding our borders, but at the moment it was just a matter of time before we fell.

Thus this plan was put into motion to build new outposts and space stations further away from their current territory in hopes of evacuating and move somewhere with more resources but most importantly, a place to hide and buy more time to build new technology, and getting more soldiers through experimental cloning efforts.

The thing that threatened this project the most at the moment we're old politicians sitting in their luxurious and safe homes far from the war, believing we were winning despite the facts, they wanted to use the ships for this mission to strengthen the frontlines and keeping the enemy away longer.

They were afraid, and both of them knew it.

The problem was the drive was experimental still, and it all hinged on a single ship pulling the rest of the fleet through the dimensions the journey accessed and traveled through, one failure, and they would be stranded.

Conrad turned his head to the side, and he got a faraway look, while he said

 "We need more time."

Richard also got the same look while he said "I know, but we don't have it,"

The president straightened and said with a hard edge to his words, " General Smithson of the human alliance, you are to launch in 12 hours and secure us a place to fall back to, that's an order do you understand."

Smithson instantly straightened his back, and his eyes returned to normal while giving a salute.

"Sir, yes, sir."

Richard returned the salute and walked away.

Chapter 2

Launch day

Edmond Barnes was standing on the bridge of the carrier ship Saturn, looking at all the people milling around him preparing for launch. He was here as an officer at the moment and not a captain because his battleship was docked on the Saturn, and would be used as a launch platform if needed.on the deck were many other captains and the general in charge of the mission.

He watched as everything was being finished and knew they would leave soon.

He had been appointed for this mission because he had experience in scouting and warfare, and he was one of the few of the chief captains who were on the bridge while others were spread out on other carriers and onboard the other ships.

There were risks in this, but he still smiled; the thrill of exploring the unknown was calling to him.

They were going to use an experimental engine to get them to their destination faster.

It was all very dangerous, but they didn't have another choice, the scientists in the briefing meeting had explained the engine, and according to them it worked perfectly in simulations and lab tests, but the problem was they hadn't tested it on a large scale.

The anti-matter engines would power the dimensional splicer engine, generating enough power to instantaneously reach their destination by jumping between parallel universes for brief, microseconds to plot a map to the goal, and when they reached their destination, the "anchor" would pull them back to their own.

Well or something like that, he had kind of zoned out a bit after the first 45 minutes.

He had thought back on his time growing up instead, and how this would probably be the last time he saw the earth. It had been right he grew up in sector 4, his family hadn't had a lot of money growing up, but they had still been able to afford an apartment in new york, the streets hadn't been safe, but because of the war, most of the resources went to the war or the rich.

His father had died in the war, so it had only been his mother and sister.

He hated the empire for daring to attack mankind and taking his father from him, so he had joined the military when he turned 16, he had started as a munitions loader, checking; thus no issues were detected in the system, however, because of most things being automated he hadn't needed to do a lot except resetting the system then something happened.

He had climbed from there through the years until he 12 years later became a captain.

Now he was 33 and was the captain of the USS Titan, a massive destroyer built for defense and exploration, this multi-role ship had heavy weaponry meant for a ship to ship warfare, with limited space to surface weaponry. This ship was used for scouting new planets and being the command relay for ground troops launched from the orbit of the earth.

He awoke from his daydreaming by a voice sounding over the ship's intercom system.

"2 minutes until launch, do finale checks, and prepare for departure."

Well guess its time he thought to himself, he looked for a final time on the viewscreen showing earth in all its glory he had a wry smile on his lips as he thought of never seeing it again. This mission had over 20 billion people going with the ships, everything from soldiers to farmers and enginers. This was to ensure the human race survived in case…. Well the border collapsing sooner than calculated.

He stood straighter watching the timer reach zero, the engines of the ship went to full throttle and pushed the ship forward, the fleet with its thousands of ships started moving forward in unison, approaching the launch zone.

General Rothborne turned around and started speaking loudly over the intercom system as well to the others; this caused all the personnel not controlling the ship to stand at attention and salute.

Royhborne smiled before putting on a straight face. "As you may all now, we are falling back and creating a new safe space for humanity to turn to when our front falls, this is unfortunately not an 'if' but an 'then'" he paused and looked at something on the viewscreen before continuing "so we will be that safe harbor, for the rest of humanity to turn to in this growing storm, many of you have lost someone, and even after that loss you stand straight and does your duty for mankind, we will need more of that willpower to get through this, but we will, so thank you for your service and see you on the other side."

He saluted everyone and turned around before saying in an authoritative voice, "order the lead ship to bring us to our destination."

The techs sent instructions over to the lead ship, telling them to initiate their engines.

Aaaaafter a couple of seconds, there was a blue light enveloping the whoöle fleet, and the lead ship disappeared like a blue streak, bringing the whole fleet with it.

In the space where once a mighty fleet stood a ship uncloaked, and inside two individuals could be seen talking.

"Has the suicide bomber been instructed of what to do?" asked a big hairy creature

"Yes sir," another furry being answered, " we managed to get 1 of our infiltrators on board the lead ship; they will have detonated as soon as the engines initiated."

"good, if our scientists are right, when the lead ship is destroyed, the backlash will evaporate the entire fleet."

" yes, the humans will be no more problem, tell the hidden council to start the attack on earth."

"Right away, sir."

Deep laughter was heard on the ship before it disappeared from the human territory, leaving nothing but space behind as the only witness to the fall of earth.

Chapter 3

Honey im...home?

It all happened in an instant first they were in one place the next everything just changed, alarms went off everywhere, and a red light was blinking accompanied by the computer sending out updates while it continuously tried to auto-correct their course.

"Warning lead ship has been destroyed"

"Auto correcting course."

"Recalculating, anchor lost."

"Recalculating"

..

...

….

.

.,,,

"Target found syncing fleet to the new entry point."

Everything was shaking and, then there was a massive crack sound, and everything lurched before smoothing out.

"Destination reached , returning control"

People were picking themselves up from the ground looking at the viewscreen seeing they had

returned to ordinary space, and the fleet was in one piece. Edmond got his breathing under

control, and started to shout out orders to those under his command.

" marine captain Novikov, gather the officers from our ship and be ready for deployment, I think

the general wants to speak with the highest-ranking soldiers to get the situation under control.

Novikov nodded but before he could leave a blue screen plopped up in front of everyone, at first

looking like static but quickly becoming clearer.

Edmund looked at the blue screen thingy and was prepared to ignore it when suddenly text

started to appear on it.

"Foreign entities detected"

"Scanning…. Scanning complete, the information found"

"Race detected as humans"

"Errortechnology and culture doesn't match database"

"Error"

"...."

"..."

".."

"..."

"Error"

"Further scan needed"

"Scanning"

"Scanning"

"Memories extracted and checked"

"Exception found"

"Reason detected"

"Initiating initiation"

"Scanning entity known as Edmund"

"Scan complete"

"Assigning stats"

"Toxins detected, cleansing"

Edmund collapsed on the floor as it felt as his whole body was on fire, he couldn't move from

the pain coursing through him, he heard screaming coming from all around him he even thought

he heard himself scream but it seemed muffled and far away in some way.

And suddenly it just stopped, he blinked slowly as he looked for answers from the only place he

could think to look for them.

"cleansing complete"

"Assigning affinity"

" compensating forlack of system, bonus stats assigned"

"Initiation complete"

Edmund just lay on the floor, not understanding anything, he had new knowledge and felt

younger and more healthy, he felt new strength in his body as he got up, he knew the basic

controls how to navigate the interface and understood the basics of the "system" but he had no

idea how he knew.

"Status," he said

"Humans Welcome to the system, because of your unique situation, you have been integrated to the

system and given some starting perks to compensate forjoining late, you will still start from level1, and

beside bonus starting stats and starter crate generated by the system, you willreceive no further help

and will have to struggle like the rest of the denizens of this universe. That is all. life, grow and improve"

Staus

Name: Edmund BarnesRace: human

Affinity: fire

Health 100%

Mana 100%

Stamina 100%

Strength 10 (+5)

Constitution 10 (+5)

Endurance 10 (+5)

Dexterity 10 (+5)

Intelligence 10 (+5)

Wisdome 10 (+5)

Luck 10(+5)

Titles: dimension breaker

Edmund was sitting in a meeting with the general and other top officers, it had been 20 minutes

since the' initiation' and people had panicked over all of the ships, but fortunately, nothing more

had happened since, and it seamed as the system was done, they managed to regain order and

control. Many people had begun opening their "starter crates" they had received, it seemed to

be some sort of leather armor and daggers, it had also contained some red and blue liquids in

glass bottles that had instantly been confiscated, the armor they had been allowed to keep but

weapons and strange liquids no matter how crude could not be allowed to be in peoples hands

in a situation like this, the liquids there a mystery, they were being analyzed as of this time, but

nothing substantial could be found out about the liquids yet, the most strange of all this, was

how the crates just materialized out of nowhere.

The sensors couldn't detect anything, one second they weren't there, the next they were.

"This so-called system can we trust it?" one officer said while looking around the table.A scientist that had been invited answered in a hurried tone "yes, yes from what my team have

seen so far, both from the memories imparted and scans done around and inside the ships"

General Rochford said in a hard voice "man, calm down you will get to go back to your research

soon, just take a deep breath and calm down"

The scientist took a deep breath while nodding his head and continued more slowly "yes

general I apologize, it's just from all we can find it seams as this "system" seems to be some

sort of natural law in this dimension, and yes we are in a parallel universe when the ship blew

up, the computers spit us out in a random dimension to avoid the rest of the fleet blowing up

form the backlash, and…. We can't go back because we, first of all, don't have the lead ship,

and secondly don't know there our own dimension is relative to this one"

"Fine," Rochford said while pinching the bridge of his nose, he continued after a second "if you

can't get us back, I also want to know if we can do anything against this system, along with

various things we confiscated among the starter crates, we also found some flat disk, I have

been told that when you touch them another of those blue windows pop up, asking and I quote

to pick a starter skill and that you then get a set of options, what can you tell us of this?"

The scientist who if he didn't remember wrongly was called doctor Samson or something like

that, scratched the back of his neck while he answered a bit awkwardly "eh, I was only in the lab

for a couple of minutes but from what I heard some people had actually picked something

before we had time to confiscate the tags, it seams and I'm as I said not really sure about the

specifics but it seems they were given knowledge and…"

One of the commanders stood up truly making his chair slide back "have they been quarantined,

are they a threat to the rest of the population?" the commander had said this in a rush and were

boring a hole in the head of the scientist that shied back, the others in the room all had worried

looks on their faces not being aware of this even the general looked troubled.

"W-w well they have been contained and are being questioned, it seems to only have given

them, knowledge, not changed them in any way, they also are able to make use of these

so-called skills, being able to do things that seem almost like magic, like summoning water and

running really fast"

The commander glanced at the general after this waiting for his input, Edmund was wondering

how any of this was possible, the general looked thoughtful for a moment before nodding his

head.

" I heard of these incidents, and while they make me wonder how it is possible I can accept that

they in some weird way are, we are in another dimension after all the laws might be different

here" he looked at the commander with a hard look "and commander Johnsson contain your

outbursts please, and let the doctor speak, we need order and a plan here, but I understand

your concern however we have the situation under control at the moment"Commander Johnston nodded his head and sat down "I'm sorry sir, it's just this is all very

stressful"

The general nodded his head "I know, but we will get through this, ok, good, now the system

itself what about it"

The doctor looked around the table while thinking for a moment "its, well it's hard to understand

but in the simplest terms we can't touch it from what the knowledge we were given and what we

have observed, it's like trying to fight gravity, sure on a smaller scale it's possible maybe but

compared to its true scale on a whole universe it's not worth even trying,its similar here we

might and I mean might be able to tap into it on a small scale with research and time but, the

defense with the system and gravity, the system seams sentient and can most likely push back

and squash us like ants, just look at what it did in the initiation, it took down every individual in

our entire fleet, so I don't recommend that course of action, but it's up to you general"

The general thought for a moment before shaking his head "leave it be, for now, captain Barnes

you will lead a mission to the nearest planet with your ship and crew, we have discovered with

scanners it contains life, and it seems intelligent, so you will scout this planet and if you deem it

advisable will begin diplomatic endeavors with them" the general steepled his fingers before

continuing with a sigh" however if they are hostile you have permission to use lethal force, we

need a foothold in this universe and this planet is closest so, do what is necessary, you will also

receive one of those skill tokens, they seem to contain useful skills as they apparently are

called"

Edmund nodded his head " understood"

The general nodded as well, and the meeting continued, and later came to a close now with a

plan, Edmund had already had his ship prepared so he made his way to it and prepared to visit

the planet and uncover its secrets, he had a grim look on his face but he knew that they needed

this so he still went knowing he would give mankind a place in this place.

Opening the airlock to his ship he put on his game face and stepping onboard, prepared for

departure.