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Reunion: Chapter 4

Two pilots sat in the cramped confines of the cockpit of a Spitzer Stealth Reconnaissance Jumper and watched as the black emptiness of space go by at an incredible speed.

"Damn General Corrin." A pilot with blonde hair and olive skin grumbled as he looked over the ship readings for the fourth time. The Spitzer was a small craft to keep its signature low, that meant no sleeping quarters, no lounge area, the ship was just a cockpit, some sensors and two engines on a jumpdrive. It had one purpose, spying.

"You need to calm down." The other pilot, a brunette woman who had her heir cropped right to the bottom of her ears, said while she laid her head back against the hard carbon fiber head rest of her seat.

The other pilot didn't calm down, he merely began to vent his frustrations on his surroundings, starting with the small lunch he was allowed to bring. The mission they were sent on was a reconnaissance mission. They were to scout out the coordinates the Prime Minister had provided them. General Corrin was being cautious since he didn't want to storm into the system with an entire fleet if nothing was there.

"We were supposed to have another entire week of leave." The blonde pilot complained while chewing the ham sandwich that was falling apart in his white knuckled fists. "I had plans."

"What did you expect when you joined the Navy?" The brunette asked rhetorically. "The military doesn't care about your plans, only about their own plans."

"They still have obligations." The man stuffed the sandwich back into the bag. He wasn't that hungry anymore. "We do our part of the deal and they do theirs. I signed a god damn contract that promises a certain amount of leave after each deployment." He knew that arguing was pointless since he was already on the mission, but he just felt like arguing.

"I'm sure you'll get any leave you lost back once this is done."

"Sure." The man rolled his eyes. "After this next deployment."

"Just shut up." The ship's jumpdrive indicated that they were about to decelerate. "This mission is a short one anyways. One day of scanning and that's it."

"Yeah whatever." The man shrugged and went to his controls.

The blackness outside of the cockpit was beginning to show white streaks of the stars now that they were slowing down enough for light to become visible.

"We're now under power of conventional engines." The woman called out. The ship had come out of the jump at the far edge of the system and was automatically going into a controlled orbit around the nearest large body. In this case, it was an asteroid that was several kilometers across.

"Bringing sensors up now." The man said in one long breath. He was still annoyed, but now that the actual mission had begun, the thoughts of his complaints drifted to the back of his mind where they would day until later. He turned on the visual scanners first and then a radio receiver. There was a transmitter, but to avoid detection, the use of the transmitter was only sanctioned during emergencies. "I'm not picking up anything, fly us closer to the center of the system."

The woman nodded and gave the engines some power to break out of its orbit and set a course to get closer to the sun. The ship jerked a bit, pushing the two pilots into their seats as the sleek black ship accelerated away from the asteroid. The only way they could be detected was if they sent out a radio message or were visually spotted, but the black armor of the ship made that nearly impossible when it was set up against the blackness of space.

"I'm getting something." The man said as he stared hard at the many monitors that surrounded him.

"Is it actually something or just stray radio signals from out of the system." The woman asked without looking over.

"I'm not sure. Just keep your current course...." He paused and turned a dial on the radio receiver that was starting to chirp and beep as a slowly stronger signal was being picked up. "It's definitely from somewhere close by."

Curious, the woman looked at a few of the screens on her side of the cockpit to see what he was talking about. Both sides of the cockpit had both controls for maneuvering the ship and doing surveillance in case there was a long mission that require pilots to take shifts since there wasn't enough room to get up and move around. "It is close. What do you think it is?"

"I don't know." The man shook his head. He wasn't expecting anything other than a few stray signals from supernovas that were passing through. "But protocol does dictate that we investigate."

"Ok." She reached over to her controls to make sure their course was still steady. "Just let me know if we need to bug out."

"Will do. I'm going to see if I can't boost the reception a bit." He continued to tweak with the radio. The signal began to get stronger as time went by until words began to come through.

"Yeah. I suppose that burst we saw was probably nothing. Maybe it has to do something with all of the strange shit going on planet side?"

"Possibly. Just keep me posted if you see anything else. Over and out."

"It's English." The man ran his hands through his hair in shock.

"We need to report this now. I think they caught a whiff of the jumpdrive as we came in."

"Yeah. I want to try to get some scans. The signal is coming from one of the planets."

"Make it quick. I'm going to being plotting a jump course."

"Alright." The man returned to his instruments and focused them on a planet that was showing tons of activity, more than he would have ever thought possible. The entire planet was sparsely populated with most of the signals coming from a central location on where there seemed to be a city. Though that wasn't what was getting his attention out of all of it, there was a few signals that the ship's computer actually recognized. AI signals.

"Did you even take the time to get you ego out of your ass?" Prime Minister Wallace flinched at the yelling man, glad that this was just a video conference. It didn't take long for the rest of the party to learn that he had given General Corrin coordinates form the old AI navigation computer and they weren't happy that he didn't consult them first. The party leader, Norman Woods, had taken the time to set up a meeting as soon as he found out so he could share his dissatisfaction. "You can't just go off and do these things all by yourself."

"I understand that you're mad." Not the best thing to say and Woods enormous ten meter face that was being projected onto the white wash walls of Wallace's office twitched. Wallace regretted it as soon as he said it, he was stating the obvious since this was the first time he had been able to speak in the last twenty minutes. Not wanting to let Woods continue his raged rant, he quickly continued. "But, you need to understand that there is very little risk of anything happening."

"Little risk?" Woods scoffed. "You don't take risks if there is no bloody reason to!" He shouted the last few words to get his point across and Wallace was thinking about simply making a run out of the room. Anything was better than staying and being yelled at like this. The walls were supposed to be soundproof, but his amplified voice was absolutely pounding the man.

"Yes." Wallace hesitantly said. He was sitting only half way in his chair, letting his massive desk hide as much as him as possible without being obvious. "But, think of the PR that would be gained from..."

"From what?" Woods interrupted. "From finding the remains of a civilization that was wiped out god knows how long ago. We don't need PR, we control the government and there is no reason to do what you've already done. I want whatever come from this mess to be taken care of silently. Do you understand?"

"Yes sir." Even though no one was around to see what had happened, Wallace felt entirely ridiculed. He was supposed to be the Prime Minister, the leader of humanity, not some child to be yelled at. He would show Woods that he was entirely capable. He would need to if he wanted to be put up for reelection.

"Good." Woods finally calmed down to talk normally. The redness and sweaty sheen on his face was evident on the super high resolution image. "Now I want regular updates and hopefully this all settles itself out." Without another word, Woods cut off the communication and the wall his face had just dominated went back to its normal white color.

Wallace blinked several times. After staring at the man for so long, he would see the aging Latin man's face in inverse colors on the inside of his eyelids. He had never seen the man so livid before and had wondered several times during the meeting if Woods would simply fall over dead from a heart attack from all of the excitement. It wouldn't be a bad thing, but it wouldn't be good either. It would be one less person in the party now seemed to dislike him gone which was good. The bad was the unknown of what would happen if he did die. There were plans set up for a change in leadership, but it was well known that nearly every change in leadership was followed by a power struggle, each one had the potential to tear the Sol Dominion down. It was a wonder how a party made on the ideals of greedy and power hungry old people lasted so long and so well. The only way to get back on Woods' good side was to make sure everything went smoothly. There could be no screw-ups.

"AI?" General Corrin looked at the two pilots who sat across from him and had gone through so much trouble to get to him. They had insisted to see the General personally despite what protocol said. They almost didn't get the chance to speak with Corrin in person since he was due to a meeting with his command staff in several minutes. He decided to see them due to their unusual state. They weren't supposed to be back for an entire day and instead had blasted into the Sol system ahead of schedule way over regulation speeds. Now they were in his office, looking blustered and poorly rested.

"Yes sir." The man who's uniform was in the worst shape of the two with deep and dark pit stains nodded too many times to look right, his sweaty and greasy hair flopped up and down. "And don't asked if we're sure, we checked."

"Triple checked." The woman who was only slightly more presentable added. "The system has active AI signals that match the one's we have in the military databases. The AI's that messed up years all those years ago."

It was what General Corrin had always wanted and the thought of finally having a legitimate reason for his obsession excited him, but he kept up his professional appearance since he was in front of two of his subordinates. Just because they barged in with dirty uniforms and in need of a long shower didn't mean he could go off and jump about because he was elated. He had an image to uphold while in the presence of others.

General Corrin propped up his elbows on the table and leaned forward. "This requires action. I want you two to get some rest. You've done an excellent job and will be rewarded." He gave off a quick salute to dismiss the two who saluted back and slowly got up and left. Now that they had delivered their message, the fatigue hit them hard. Neither planned to get cleaned up, they headed straight for their bunks.

General Corrin on the other hand had plans to make. The meeting that he was going to be fashionably late to was going to get interesting. It wasn't every day you got to plan an invasion of an entire star system.