Jaunemus, as Lilac told everyone it was called, is more oblong than Earth’s
moon, Luna. It is made up of different elements in different ratios, and is
believed to have formed via co-accretion, which is to say that it coalesced
at roughly the same time as Verdemus, using a shared accretion disk at the
dawn of this star system’s creation. This is relatively rare in the galaxy
as most co-accretion events will happen for icy or gas giants, but not as
easily for terrestrials. Luna, for instance, was formed due to an impact
event instead. Due to its less spheroidal shape, its high centrifugal forces
from rapid spin, and its significantly shorter distance to its host planet,
the surface gravity of Jaunemus is extremely varied. All in all, however, an
object will never be greater than seventy-five percent as heavy as it would
be on Luna, which is already 16.6% its weight on Earth. Once the Kamala Khan
scanned the entire surface of the planet, the Verdemusians agreed that the
logical next step was to scan the Jaunemus too. It quickly found an anomaly.
The sensors could detect no energy readings, but it picked up on a spot that
was sitting at exactly the same gravity of Earth. That would be impossible
naturally. The camera didn’t see any visible signs of human intervention,
but there has to be something here, likely hidden below the regolith.
Eagan is maintaining his duties in the hock building, watching Ilias Tamm,
having taken over for Lilac, who has better things to do with her life now.
She and everyone else are landing the Kamala Khan now for a new mission, to
investigate the Jaunemusian gravity anomaly. Belahkay will remain on the
shuttle in case something happens. The rest have each put on the armor
modules and helmets of their Integrated Multipurpose Suits to begin the
search. “You good?” Lilac asks him.
He holds up the a-okay sign. “Yes, but I should be asking you that.”
Lilac returns the sign, and swings it around to get the group’s response.
One might assume that Spirit would have become Tinaya’s second in command,
but she didn’t want the job. “Okay. We go out two at a time, since that’s
the maximum number of people who can fit in the airlock. I’ll go first with
Niobe. Spirit and Totle will be next.”
“I’ll go first,” Tinaya insists. Without bothering to wait for a response,
she phase-shifts right through the hull of the shuttle, and gently drifts
down to the ground. She holds the a-okay sign back up so others can see her
through the window. Then she begins to walk around on her own.
Following their airlock procedures, the rest of them follow suit, though on
their own vectors. It’s not particularly organized, but this is a search
party, on the hunt for something unnatural, like a trapdoor, or even just a
small sensor array.
“Naya, where are you? Where did you go?” Spirit questions.
Tinaya turns around. “I’m right here!” She starts to wave her arm.
“Can’t see you.”
“I’m waving!”
“No. You’re not.” Spirit starts to point. “One, two, three...four, including
myself.”
Tinaya points to her own self. “Five.”
“Tinaya! What are you talking about? Are you invisible?”
“I don’t think so.” She was looking down as she was walking, but now she
looks up as she’s turning around again, away from the group. Before her is a
large structure, obviously built from the same stuff that the moon is made
of. It’s several stories high. There is no way they would have missed this.
She is invisible, as is whatever this place is. Niobe is even further along
than her. She’s closer to the structure. “Niobe, you don’t see the building
in front of you? You’re about to run into it.”
Niobe stops. “I am? I don’t see a thing.”
“Walk forward slowly,” Tinaya suggests. “Hold out your hand, and feel for
it.”
Niobe does this. Her hand ends up passing right through the building, and
then the rest of her.
“Are you inside of a building?” Tinaya asks.
“No. I’m...it’s...there’s nothing here.”
“It’s your glass,” Lilac guesses. “You walked through a dimensional barrier,
and didn’t even realize it. Anyone else who tries is just going to miss it
entirely.”
“Okay. I’ll investigate, and report back.”
“No, you won’t,” Lilac argues.
“Yes. I will. I’m in charge.”
“You may as well be on another planet,” Lilac goes on. “We can’t help you.
Come back out, and we’ll have Belahkay build a magic door for us.”
“On it,” Belahkay agrees.
“I can’t get hurt, I’m made of glass,” Tinaya jokes ironically.
“Don’t do it,” Spirit says.
“Come stop me. I’m already through the wall.” She’s standing in a dimly lit
hallway now. There appears to be a dead end to her right, so she shrugs, and
heads for the left. As she walks, she reports to the group what she’s
seeing, as boring and nondescript as it is. Walls standing on the floor,
holding up the ceiling. There’s nothing interesting here, until there is.
She finds herself in what looks like a giant’s library, except inside of
storing books on the shelves, it’s artificial gestation pods. Thousands and
thousands of gestation pods. It looks like that one scene in The Matrix.
“Are they occupied?” Belahkay asks.
“Hold on, let me get closer.” Tinaya approaches the nearest stack, and looks
through the view window. “It’s...it’s Omega Strong.”
“Really.” Spirit says, not sounding much like a question.
“This one is Omega too. And also this one. They’re all Omega.”
“Maybe they’re not really Omega,” Niobe offers. “Maybe they’re Anglos, from
Project Stargate.”
“Does it matter which?” Aristotle questions.
“Yes, it does,” Niobe contends.
“I found a terminal. I’ll research what’s going on here.” Tinaya steps over
to it, and starts browsing. None of these systems is secure. As secretive as
these operations are obviously meant to be, you would think that someone
would at least password protect it, even if it’s not quantum encrypted. “I
found the main systems,” she says. “Life support...now on. Dimensional
veil...off.” As she’s looking through more of the data, which mostly
includes health and quality tracking information for each of the Omega
clones, her friends walk through the front door, and meet up with her. By
the time they arrive, the atmospheric generators have finished making this
chamber breathable.
They remove their helmets. “Find anything else?” Spirit asks.
“Yeah, I was just about to talk to the little virtual assistant.” She
presses the button, and says, “bloop,” at the same time.
An Omega hologram appears next to her. He sizes her up, as well as the
group. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Neither are you,” Tinaya points out.
“Yes, I am,” Hol!Omega volleys.
Tinaya breathes deeply. “Report.”
“I don’t know your security clearance,” Hol!Omega replies.
“Clearance Level Crystal,” she replies, phasing her hand through the nearest
pod, then pulling it back out again.
“Interesting. I still can’t tell you anything,” Hol!Omega says
apologetically.
“Okay.” Tinaya claps her hands. “Belahkay, prepare the warhead. We’re
blowing this place to smithereens.”
“No, don’t do that,” Hol!Omega begs. “Fine, I’ll tell you. Just stop
threatening violence. Jesus.” He throws up a second hologram, this one
showing the Anatol Klugman, which is waiting in its hangar under the surface
of Verdemus. “After years of debate, the council of Extremus finally decided
to build a warship to deal with the threat of the True Extremists, who have
been discovered to be the descendants of a time travel event that seeded
life in a region of the galaxy known as the Goldilocks Corridor. Here, they
have built what is now known to be the oldest self-sustaining civilization
in this reality of the universe. At first, we believed them to be
isolationists, who were only on-board Extremus to divert the ship to a new
vector, away from their dozens of worlds. We have since learned that an
ever-growing faction of purists are building an army with the intention of
destroying Earth, and the rest of the stellar neighborhood. To our
knowledge, they currently intend to leave Extremus alone, but that’s
obviously not good enough for us. We can’t just sit by and watch our
brethren die in a holocaust.
“My original self, Saxon Parker attempted to broker a peace treaty, but he
was ultimately killed for his efforts, along with a number of my Anglo
brothers, who were originally put in place to operate the Project Stargate
colonization ships. Since the Anglos are not equipped to fight a war, they
have returned to their responsibilities. It is up to us to put a stop to the
Ex Wars.”
“I thought that it was called The Bears War,” Tinaya points out.
Hol!Omega frowns. “If someone called it that, they’re either an Exin
themselves, or heard it from an Exin spy. It is their term for it.”
Tinaya looks over at Spirit, who begins to seethe. “Thank you for telling me
that. Now I know who in the Bridger section cannot be trusted.”
Tinaya is choosing to trust that Spirit is being honest about that, and
isn’t the Exin spy that they should be worried about. She nods. “Go on,
Omega.”
“The Anatol Klugman was designed for an army of clones.” Hol!Omega looks
down at a line of pods. “My clones. As you know, I was created as any other
Anglo, but I renounced my calling, and struck out on my own. Saxon took my
place, and his reward for this was a horrific and painful death at the hands
of an enemy who knows no honor. I vowed to donate myself to the cause in the
most literal and profound sense. I will pilot the AK to the Goldilocks
Corridor, and wage war with them to keep them away from Earth. The way I see
it, it’s the least I could do.”
“The Klugman,” Belahkay begins, using Tinaya’s helmet’s speaker to stay in
the conversation, “it doesn’t have a reframe engine. Why waste the time
moving at only relativistic speeds?”
“A number of reasons,” Hol!Omega responds. I wanted to maximize the real
estate in the ship so that more Omega soldiers could fit. Secondly, a
reframe engine poses a safety risk. It’s honestly a wonder the one on
Extremus wasn’t damaged by the micrometeorite strike that took out our
engineering section decades ago. It’s a very delicate piece of machinery,
which requires constant maintenance at scale. This need would be
disadvantageous during a battle when every fighter counts. Lastly, a reframe
engine is unnecessary to accomplish our goals. Using data from the future,
we know when the Exin army will launch their assault on the stellar
neighborhood. Before they do this, their soldiers will be scattered on
various worlds populated by innocents. We wish to contain the theatre of war
to their staging planet, and they will only be at that location during a
relatively short window.”
“You speak as if you are Omega Proper. Are you not but a copied version of
him, while the original remains on the Extremus?” Spirit asks him.
“I am the uploaded consciousness of the original Omega...not a copy. There
is no other on the ship at the moment. As I’ve said, I have dedicated myself
to this. No mission matters if this one is not seen through.”
Spirit closes her eyes respectfully, and nods once.
“Your plan,” Aristotle begins to say. “It will fail.”
“I’m sorry?” Hol!Omega questions.
“I know the campaign of which you speak,” Aristotle goes on. “The Exin army
overwhelms your ship in days, and moves on to their goal with barely a
second thought.”
“How is that possible?” Tinaya asks him. You’re only from about eighty years
in the future. It will take much longer for the Klugman to arrive, and begin
this campaign.”
Aristotle stands fast, and says nothing for a moment. Everyone waits for his
answer. “I was not always in the time period where Team Matic found me. I do
not speak of it for the dangers of intervening in the timeline, but I
believe that I can stand by no longer. Omega, your warship will fall, and
your clones will be annihilated. I urge you to reconsider your strategy.”
“What would you have us do?” Hol!Omega asks him.
Aristotle breathes deeply. “Your choice to protect innocent lives by
localizing the battlegrounds is a noble one, but by allowing your enemy to
concentrate its forces, you also allow them to maintain their home field
advantage while limiting your own access to resources. They will be
exhausted in the midst of a bombardment of fighters that you cannot hope to
stave off. You may be underestimating their ground weapons.”
“I didn’t think that they would have any ground weapons,” Hol!Omega admits.
“They never planned on fighting so close to home.”
“They are more prepared than you realize. They have been planning a
defensive for millennia, fearing the wrath that the stellar neighborhood may
descend upon them one day. That’s why they’re so pissy and violent,”
Aristotle explains. “A more effective approach would be to pick them off
where they live, while they are off-guard and not expecting hostilities. But
I understand that you would never do this—I would not either—so I instead
suggest taking your resources with you. I can aid in this effort, and will
agree to do so.”
“What do you mean?” Hol!Omega asks.
Tinaya is very worried, especially since Aristotle just rather casually
suggested putting civilians at risk. They still don’t know how old he is,
and they have clearly not heard everything he has been up to. “Yeah, what do
you mean?”
Aristotle hesitates to answer again. But he does. Boy, does he? “They have a
staging planet…so take one of your own with you.”
