Eric Olafson, Neo Viking Vol. 02

He came down the line and activated medals on the ribbon display of each cadet. As he reached me, he said. "Mr. Olafson. In view of your heroic actions and service to the Fleet and the Union, I have the privilege to decorate you with the Iron Star. Your quick action prevented much tragedy congratulations Cadet Olafson. Well done."

All of them then saluted us and we were allowed to stand at ease. The PSI Corps officer also shook my hand. "I am the face behind the voice you had in your head earlier on. You are incredibly quick, your thought to action threshold is remarkable, and it is usually the hall mark of species and individuals raised in a martially oriented society."

"I am from Nilfeheim, Sir."

"I heard you say that before. I never heard of Nilfeheim, is it a Union planet?"

"Yes it is, Sir. It is in the old Xunx Region. Long ago they called us Neo Vikings and..."

"Ah of course, I think I have heard that term before. Well my colleague was actually already onto Wade. He was called away to help with the interrogation of the captured Nogoll. It was my fault not to act on his report and do something about it. I suggested to the Elder that it was a planned demonstration and he thankfully announced it that way as well. I personally owe you one and this is why I wanted you to know what happened."

He shook my hand, congratulated me and returned to the others. The Commander said before he left." The Kilroy will be here in four hours and the Destroyer Mess sergeant was informed to serve you a special dinner as a little thank you from us."

They left and I sat back down, remembering I was quite hungry, especially after only sampling that weird fishy salad. Two-Three kept looking down on his chest." I got three now! My life deciding family will be so proud."

"I am still fascinated about the things you told about your home star. I really would like to take that Virtu experience one day, and hopefully with you so you can explain it all to me!"

He leaned forward in his chair." This would make me very proud Eric. If we find time and the opportunity and perhaps you can visit me and my parent unit as well on Bright Station."

"I would love to do that."

"I bet Ninio and the other two will be disappointed missing getting their medals."

"I am sure they will get them, but should they not be back by now?"

"I don't think it is an hour yet. They might have found a Yokuta restaurant or something." Then he said. "You know the Iron Star is the sixteenth highest award the Fleet gives! I am glad you got it for smacking Wade."

"I should have reported him right away you know."

"It turned out well and four hours wait time means this energy being is going for some shut eye."

"You don't have any eyes."

"I like the expression never the less and I can see you, but you are right not with eyes. Besides if I would say I disengage my ability to receive and interpret reflected photons into visual data would not make much sense to you."

"I might just do the same and disengage mine for a while."

The mission was over, and it did not end me being in a situation I didn't want to be in. The bad guys were caught, the bigot was in the brig and we were all soon on our way back to the academy and basic training. Just before I closed my eyes to take a nap, I wondered why Ninio and the others weren't back, unlike Two Three I was certain over an hour had passed.

------------------------

Interlude 24:Distant Events, Several weeks ago

Deep space, minus 270 degrees Celsius, the stars were sparsely seeded in this region of space and these suns were generally very old stars. This near vacuum had not been disturbed, since this universe began. An observer would have seen the sudden glimmering disturbance and then it was there!

Out here was no light to reflect of an object but this shimmering gray thing with bright light behind tiny space ports brought its own light.

It was shaped like a wedge and on its wide end it had four big box like extensions. If that observer could read it would see the bold lettering on its side: USS Ivanhoe. Right next to the name a blue field with red and white horizontal stripes forming the logo of the United Stars of the galaxy. The beautiful sleek looking visitor to this place in time and space paused for a moment. Sensor beams whispered and reached out from the object, tasting, sensing and probing. Collecting vast amounts of data, then it accelerated again, stretching as if elastic for the fraction of an eyeblink and then it was gone again.

--""--

Captain Flowar Saxa brushed over his dull bluish bald head as he always did when everything seemed alright and nothing was out of the ordinary and yet, somewhere deep inside he had the feeling there was something the sensors had not picked up or somehow over looked. Something that might pose a potential danger to his crew and ship.

Saxa was a Plato, and one of a handful of this species living as free beings within the Union. He was so far the first andonly Plato Union captain. To the Kermac, the Plato were the lowest class of slaves, only good for the most primitive labor. No Plato from where they originated. The Kermac reproduced them in factory like breeding facilities, there where billions of Plato serving on virtually every Galactic Council planet, ship and installation. The Kermac sold them like a commodity to other species as laborers and cheap workers. Plato Nan taakte meant lowest useful life form in Kermac.

Plato were strong and tough and had legendary endurance, needed little sleep and could tolerate temperatures on both ends of the scale most other humanoid life forms could not.

He had been sold as Slave merchandise when he was still young, but the slave trader made a mistake. He tried a short cut through union space and was caught. He became a Union citizen and ever since had only one goal in life, repay this glorious nation with his unwavering dedicated service. He knew that the Kermac reign was steadily declining and the day of freedom for his brethren and educate them how wonderful freedom and liberty was no longer a distant fantasy. H ehoped it would happen in his life time.

His ship was based on the same hull as the Galantor Class Super Cruiser. 1400 meters long, 400 meters wide and 600 meters deep at its base tapering to a chisel bow of only 20 meters. It was not as heavily armed as a Galantor Class, but had the same armor and shielding and his ship had much greater range. It also was equipped with a wider array of sensors and had a much larger science department. His mission was deep space exploration.

The Ivanhoe and other ships like her were seeking to expand the Unions knowledge about the this mostly unexplored sector of the M-0 galaxy.

And the Ivanhoe would be the first ship to reach the Palomar 12 globular cluster 64,000 light years away from the Galactic rim, no Union ship had ever ventured this far into unknown space of the Coreward sector.

He got up from his command chair and walked over to the OPS station and asked the Klack Lieutenant." Nn'tik anything on the boards?" The Klack was a reliable, dependable officer and he would of course report anything anyway, but Saxa could not shake this feeling.

"No Sir, all boards show green and I have nothing on the scanners. We are almost done with the deployment of Sensor Relay buoy 27."

The Ivanhoe had placed 26 SRB's since they left Union space. Each of these sophisticated robotic devices would not only allow them to be in zero delay communication with Fleet Command, but monitored space with automated sensors, allowing both his crew and analysts back home to monitor the space they had already passed through. Officially their mission was the same as all the thousands of explorer ship, to expand the knowledge horizon and to make contact with other civilizations and was part of the Galactic Survey project. The goal of this project was to completely survey the M-0 galaxy. The projected completion of this project was in 13,200.

His XO, a Pan Saran complete with polished brass chest armor, knew his Captain well and said. "Maybe we should take a longer break here and send out two P5-Specters to recon the space ahead. It is the last star system on our course and from what it looks like it has planets and two are in the green zone."

"Yes Marcus, good idea and while you at it sound alert condition yellow."

No one on the bridge questioned his decision to raise alert conditions to elevated status despite the fact nothing seemed to warrant it. Many of them served with Captain Saxa for more than five years and more than regular combat units, explorers were often long ways from known space and regular base visits and that usually bonded crews like tight knit families. The Crew was not nervous or concerned but they knew if Saxa's guts acted up, there usually was a reason and they trusted their captains feelings more than the best sensors.

His Chief Science officer, a Wurgus and one of the few not being a solar or planet engineer, waved his captain over. "Sir, I went over the sensor recordings with a Terran fine tooth comb and I did find faint traces of exotic Hadron particles, all in a linear pattern towards that Star system ahead. Now these patterns are decaying and they are at least a month or so old, but Hadron particle spurs are often associated with Kermac T- engines, their equivalent to our Isah Drive."

"I was just thinking about these bald headed bastards. Hail the Specters and tell them to be extra careful and high tail out of there as fast possible if they think there is danger."

Marcus the XO sat down. "That system would be almost 60,000 light years from Kermac Prime. Could not another species use a similar propulsion system?"

The Wurgus rotated his onion shaped eyes. "Of course, the Dai for example use similar engines, but it's the dispersion pattern that made me think of the Kermac first."

--""--

Olnatar of the Siucra

Olnatar was a Siucra. His kind was the latest successor of the oldest and the very first thrall species of the Kermac. When the Kermac left so long ago they gave the that Thrall one task only, protect Koken.

Koken meant Origin in the old Kerma language. This was the holy planet of the worshiped masters.

Olnatar had never set foot on Koken; he would never dare to defile such a holy place with his unworthy presence. No Kermac had been seen in 453 cycles, but he had been blessed beyond believe as he was allowed to see four Kermac ships pass in the far distance and his ships received the holy codes. He was certain his scanner and sensor data was altered by the Kermac Gods on purpose, how else could it been explained that the worshipped Masters travelled in ships that did not appear all that sophisticated? According to the legends of the long vanished first servants, the Masters had left Koken a very long time ago and their real technology must have been beyond the grasp of comprehension. This is why they fooled the sensors of lesser beings to appear traveling in ships appearing to be barely more sophisticated than the Siucra.

Olnatar knew all the songs and all the passages of the holy texts and knew why the Kermac had left their place of origin. The Spirit of the Universe itself called its most precious children to a better place.

The Siucra never revealed themselves to the Kermac. The Worshipful Masters would contact them if there was something they wanted done. It was not proper for a servant to address his master without being asked to do so.

His species was the latest to take on the mantle of protectors of Koken. A task they inherited from the incompetent Mataneei. The Mataneei sucumbed to the Siucra and perished. The Kermac affected fate and fortunes of reality itself to gurantee Siucra victories, for no other species was worthy of such a holy command. The Siucra showed their unwavering adherence to this task ever since It was not just a task, but the very core of Siucra existence and culture.

The Siucra guarded this region of space with unwavering zeal and sterilized it of other life that could potentially insult the Kermac by their presence.

Only recently, the peaceful Tinkehel ascending on their own proudly flying their first deep space mission were crushed by the Siucra.

Olnatar was one of the ship leaders that orbital bombed the Tinkehel world; they had the audacity to be on a direct course to Koken.

The Siucra commander hung from his gripping tail in a relaxed position, when the alarm gas flooded his quarters with the scent of potential danger. The System raised the bar he was hanging on through a short pipe and transported him directly into the command cave. One of his sub ordinates waved his clawed legs at him in the prescribed gesture of obedience. "Initiator, a space ship of unknown origin has just appeared at the very horizon of our space feelers. It is so big, our mass detector operator thought it was a very fast wanderer of some sort, but it emits energies and has slowed down. Therefore it must be a ship. Not even the Y'All had something that big!"

"Send message to the combined force and alert every combat unit! We will not fail in our holy task!"

Olnatar made the hanging bar rotate twenty five degrees and faced another of his crew. "You who interpret knowledge. What do you make of this?"

Uncomt was the scholastic advisor and the smallest of the eight Siucra hanging in a circular pattern around the central Command bar. His leathery skin was more wrinkled as that of the others as his time of study to prepare him was much longer than those of the others looked with one of his big eyes at a visualizer and with the other at his Commander. "Facilitator, we do not have enough feeler knowledge to make a precise evaluation, but it is an artificial construct. Not a hollowed out asteroid generation ship like the Magulon used, the one we destroyed seventy cycles ago. It appears to have a dense metal alloy that deflects or inhibits most of our feeler rays. Only space mass displacement and external energy can be measured. It is..." The Knowledge interpreter stopped speaking and almost fell of his tail bar, recovered and croaked." Whoever they are they know we are here. We were just hit with energy magnitude 77 feeler rays. I can conclude it is a very advanced species."

USS IVANHOE

The Pan Saran XO shook his head. "I don't know how you do it Sir, but your gut is better than our sensors, especially since you have no known psionic talents."

Both the Plato and the Pan Saran stood before the main viewer and looked at the close up visual scanner image of the foreign vessel. Both P5-Specter recon craft were under adaptive cloak and both pilots reported that the vessel of unknown origin had not scanned or detected them yet. The science officer a pretty Saresii true woman came over, a small data ball projection floating next to her. "It looks like Tech level seven. Sir, Six hundred meters bow to stern, a crew of 900 carbon based life forms. Neuro patterns not on file. Technology somewhat similar to Kermac, but distinctively different. No Trans Dim or Para Dim Tech detected, but they do use a neat Quasi Space Communication system that I would like to analyze more closely. It looks like the most sophisticated Comm technology we ever encountered, that is not Union tech."

The Tactical officer, a human reported without turning from his readouts. Unknown vessel has certainly detected us and raised shields and activated weapons. That alien ship has some serious fire power. I am detecting twelve FTL Line cannons, and one weapon that look like nothing I ever seen before. It does not relate to any of the other tech. It is clearly of a higher tech level than the rest."

The Captain returned to his seat. "Comm, inform Fleet command about this new contact. Science I want you to work on the scanner data of that strange weapon. Dedicate a Com channel to Arsenal III and work with the Xeno Techs there. Tactical they raised shield so we do the same. Standby on all weapons, but leave the turrets inside."

The crew responded like a well maintained piece of machinery. The Plato always felt pride at moments like this.

"Sir I am detecting more than 400 enemy contacts coming in fast centering on our location. All of the same configuration as the first enemy contact. They all have their weapons and shields active."

"We are here to establish contact. Begin standard first Contact procedures and hail them!"

The Computronic started to transmit the most basic binary code sequences on all know channels and after contact was established on one of them, more complicated mathematical problems were exchanged. From there the Computronic send a mathematical expression of basic language references. It turned out the Aliens spoke form of Kerm and with Kermac dialects of file it took little time to establish two way communications.

Olnatar was impressed by the size of the alien ship but now that most of the fleet was on its way, even it could be rendered to scrap. They had encountered technologically more advanced species before, but none of them could withstand the Holy fire they inherited from the Matanee. The Ones worthy of worship have left behind a huge cache of these weapons ... Over the millennia the Siucra had learned how to install them in their ships. While they still knew little about the principle behind the weapon. No enemy had ever been encountered that could withstand it.

"The intruder into prohibited space is attempting to plead for mercy, Great Initiator." His Distance Speaker said.

"Let me see the faces and if they leave their ship with us, we shall be merciful."

The visualizer blinked and what he saw made his nostril curl a being stared at him, standing like a lord in black clothing.

He did not crawl on the floor like it should have and wore the offensive shade! "How dare you standing! This space has been once graced by the very presence of the most exalted Kermac! How dare you be clothed! How dare you wear black the unholy shade! Anyone begging for mercy must crawl and be naked! You will hand over that ship now! Then submit so you can be exterminated for your insolence!"

"I am Captain Flowar Saxa of the USS Ivanhoe and we are of the United Stars of the Galaxy. We are on a peaceful mission of exploration. Am I to understand you are a Galactic Council species?"

"Now you speak! Without my permission and you are still standing! You will die now!" He made the sign and his Weapons operator placed both his feet on the firing contact plates." The Holy fire weapon rocked the ship and drained power!

Captain Saxa almost fell, the Ivanhoe rocked hard, but the Ships Computronic reacted faster than any living being could and used a tractor field to pull him back into the Command Chair and the safety restrains snaked around him.

"Shields down to 30 percent. Forward shield generator damaged. Secondary system on line! Light casualties on deck nine." The XO barked.

"Reverse engines! Go to heading 45.34.12. Weapons authorized! Launch both Loki tubes at these Kermac worshiping bastards!"

The Ivanhoe shuddered again. A second enemy ship had taken them under fire from a distance beyond their Translocator cannon range.

"Primary shields down. Secondary shields buckling. We have hull damage starboard aft. Damage control procedures in progress!"

SIUCRA

Olnatar could not believe his eyes. The other ship was still there after it was hit by two charges of Holy fire Cannons.

As if hit by an enormous hammer, his ship rocked and shook. Sparks from over loading circuits showered from visualizers and he could smell the putrid smell of fire!

"Energy Buffer Bubbles were unable to deflect enemy smart weapon effect. Heavy damage to engine and hull"

"We will not fail!" He screamed. "Unleash the Holy Fire!"

"The weapon is at twenty percent at best!"