Chapter 2

There are few things, even in a galaxy of wonders, to match the view of Found from a descending orbit. Hornet Abernathy had heard this her entire life, from her birth in the Orion arm, to her taking up an academic scholarship on Arlenlaylen, but to have it so conclusively proved was still a shock. She had her face glued to the window display as the shuttle that took her from the E-liner to the planet’s surface for the entire twenty minute deorbit, and she did her very best to not blink.

Found.

The heart of the Starship Corps.

Found.

The world that was, arguably, the birth of the Galactic Concordant itself.

Found.

The name itself was either a derivative of the ancient Terran world for Foundry – or possibly for Foundling – or alternatively, it was the derivative of an equally ancient Triskar word for Place of Sensuality or Family Acquired Through Deeds.

The legends had it that Found had been a prize jewel at the apex of the three centuries of slowboat warfare between the Triskar Triumvirate and the pre-Concordant Terran governance of the United Nations. The two powers had fought it out, year by stuttering year, using ships that skimmed close to the speed of light using powerful ramscoops and plentiful interstellar hydrogen, with the goal being to be the first to claim the habitable worlds that were found by the dozens on the spinward boarder of the two burgeoning interstellar states.

Found had been the most promising and the most distant of those colony grabs – and thus, a war goal for both powers. The fighting had actually been quite sporadic and almost bloodless due to the mathematics of interstellar warfare with Euclidean Drives. Any interstellar fleet could be detected years, maybe even decades, before it arrived at their invasion target and defenses could be fined tuned for their absolute destruction. So, while the holodramas and VR recreations focused almost entirely on the scant few famous battles from that era – the Battle of Nguyen’s Gap, or the Three Day Siege – the majority of the ‘war’ had been a string of ramscoop races.

The person to colonize first got the world, no questions asked.

This sharp edged competition had led, at last, to Triskar and Terran colony ship arriving at Found at nearly the exact same time, leading to the most tragic and pointless of all the battles of all the war. The two ships, armed with little better than scrap-built contact nukes made by refining local asteroid mined radioisotopes and communication lasers upgunned into killing beams, had fought one another in orbit above a pristine world. Their wreckage had come down within a few kilometers of one another, and both ships had contained a single survivor: A Terran enby and one of the three then-popular types of Triskarian females.

Here, legends diverged. In one, the two scrap-built a transmitter, salvaged cryopods, and waited watch on watch, shifting in and out of coldsleep until their messages got a return signal, growing accord and peace between one another bit by bit until they served as de facto ambassadors between their peoples.

In others, they were screwing by day three.

It transpired that, without the impersonal barrier of light speed and the nigh instant killing fury of a starship battle ... Terrans and Triskars were nearly identical as galactic species went. Yes, Triskar’s had red skin and barbed tails that contained a paralytic toxin, but Terran urine was roughly as dangerous to a Triskar’s glandular system and significantly easier to deploy in personal combat than the easily avoided tail-barb. The similarities continued right down to their governments both being scrap-built emergency placeholders that emerged from their worlds Unification Events. On Terra, a nuclear war and runaway carbon emissions had forced the United Nations to take charge. On Trisk, it had been a virus that had killed one in five Triskarians.

With accord reached and Found’s second colonization wave creating a unified colony, the Triskarian and Terran people had created a concord. The first alliance between disparate species in the entire wartorn galaxy. Following dead on from that were breakthroughs facilitated by shared neurosciences which themselves ushered in the first general artificial intelligences, which themselves led to the Pantheon.

The Concord grew, species by species in their representative body, god by god in their computer infrastructure, until they had swept through the entire habitable ring of the galaxy and truly could be called the Galactic Concordant.

With nearly eight thousand years of history like that...

Was it any wonder that Found was a marvel beyond imagining?

Found was not a megalopolis world like Arlenlaylen. If anything, she had less urbanization and towning than Terra had during her twelfth century, let alone her hundred and twenty first. Rather, the management of Found had focused upon creating a wonder that could be visible from space if you knew what to look for, but invisble to anyone coming to the world without prior knowledge.

Or, at least, invisible until they landed.

Found had been Gaiaformed. The oceans were crystal blue, the forests shimmering green and red and gold, the deserts bountiful sweeps of russet sands, the polar ice caps hearty and pale white. By looking close and carefully, Hornet could see the subtle but inarguable intelligence at work – forests did not simply grow, they interfaced with neighbor ecologies in ways that normal environments shaped by blind evolution simply would not.

The most obvious hint, though?

The clouds.

The clouds moved with fractal perfection, interlocking and sliding across the landscape with clear intent, rather than random chaotic patterns. As the shuttle hit the atmosphere and activated her a-grav to shunt away their speed, Hornet could see a cloud pattern ahead of them part and create a massive triple banded bullseye circle, which they shot through without even causing a ripple in the other clouds. Through the window, as they soared over fields of green grass and scattered forests, she could see people enjoying their days as tiny specs on the ground, surrounded by the iridescent haze of their helper swarms.

When the shuttle at last put down, landing on specially genengineered moss and grass that absorbed what little kinetic energy it still had with a soft whump, Hornet was practically buzzing with excitement. She stood as the people at the front of the shuttle started to exit – and she had almost gotten all the way down the aisle before she remembered she had forgotten her suitcase. She hurried back, squeezing past annoyed Terrans and aliens, got her case, then was out and down the gangplank and onto Found’s surface.

The air smelled rich and moist, with artful gusts of wind wicking the chemical smell of the shuttle’s rocket up and away from her and the rest of the passengers. She grunted a little bit as she went from the shuttle’s a-grav bubble to the surface actual gravity (which was a full .4 G higher than her home for the past few years) and sagged with the weight of her suitcase ... only to then feel the weight lighten. She looked down and saw that, unobtrusively, a sleek deer-like creature had moved between her luggage and the ground and was now standing cheerfully under it, its huge, quadform eyes blinking clockwise up at her.

“Wow...” she whispered and then blinked as several butterflies flew overhead and dropped a large fruit into her hand. Unpeeling the fruit, she found it smelled delicious, and tasted even better – and had enough water content in it that she had to catch at the juice that dribbled down her chin. Before she had even wiped, another butterfly came down and dropped a leaf in her hand that had the texture and softness of a silken handkerchief.

Hornet wasn’t sure if she was impressed or terrified. She decided to settle on surreal? Was surreal a feeling she could be feeling? She shook her head and made sure to sync her comnet with the local net infrastructure. It took a few extra seconds as the hardtech in her head worked to understand the biotech emissions coming from the wifi trees that grew in every forest and biome of the planet. Once it had clicked, though, she immediately got a ping.

[[COMSCHOOL: Welcome to Found, Miss Abernathy. A representative will be meeting you shortly.]]

Hornet squared her shoulders as the other arrivals fanned out, not seeming to be particularly concerned about the world around them. Which, made sense. It was said that you could walk from pole to pole, buck naked, and not even get a sunburn on Found. She looked up at the sun and shaded her eyes – and before she had even put her hand over her face entirely, a butterfly had flown between her and the sun and began to lazily beat its transparent wings, creating a shield between her eyes and the sun that kept the worst of the radiation out of her actual iris. She dropped her hand from her forehead, then started to bob her head left and right – to see just how clever the butterfly was.

It started to jink wildly left and right – and she laughed as she saw that if she did move her head fast enough, she could get sunglare right into her eyes. “Ow!” Hornet said, rubbing at her eye with her palm. Okay, cool, she thought. A sufficiently hard working dumbass can still get themselves killed on a Gaia planet.

“You’d be shocked how many people actually try that, first time arriving,” a cheerful, female voice spoke behind her.

Hornet turned and almost dropped dead from mortification right then and there.

She had done a lot of things she had never expected to do in the past week – shag a teacher, get accepted into the Starship Corps, travel halfway around the galaxy after dropping out of college – but she had never, in her life, thought she would ever do something this boneheaded infront of ... a...

An actual.

Living.

Breathing.

Starship.

The ship was female – as befitted the voice – but slender and knifelike, with a nearly flat chest and narrow hips. Her hull was a seamless blue, save for a few rectangular gold and black markings on her hips and shoulders and along her belly, where a tiny divot marked her belly button. Her nipples were sky blue next to her dark blue hull, and her sex was a dainty, pert slit between her thighs, just barely visible as she stood there, hips cocked, hands crossed over her chest, huge grin on her features. She had ten kill marks, all along her left arm, and her christening was tucked onto her right shoulder in compact, beautiful Concordant designation script.

She was the CNS Sting In The Tail, and she had just seen Hornet try and blind herself on purpose.

“A-Ah!” Hornet said, clapping her hands over her mouth, then dropping them to her side, then trying to come to attention. “Sorry! I mean, I ... just ... the responsiveness, I wanted-” She jerked her thumb at the butterflies that still flitted around her.

Sting laughed and held out her hand. “Relax,” she said, her voice sounding just like starships did in the vids and games. It wasn’t quite a human tonality. Instead, it had a faintly robotic reverberation – and as her hand unfolded, Hornet could see the faint seams that marked her finger joints and the barely perceptible circles on her fingers and knuckles that concealed her energy weapons and micro-munition ports. Remembering the amount of gigajouls a Starship could throw around at any time did nothing to help relax Hornet as she took the offered hand with trepidation. “We don’t bite.”

“We?” Hornet asked, then mentally kicked herself.

Sting chuckled. “You know, I’ve met hundreds of recruits over the years, and almost all of them say the same thing.” She grinned. “Want to meet them?”

Hornet nodded. “If they want to! I mean, yes! I, er, that is, if it’s okay?”

Sting laughed, then gestured – and Hornet immediately accepted the signal request that pinged into her comnet. Shimmering to life around her appeared several other figures. One of them was a Fourarm (sending a tingling rush of erotic memory along Hornet’s spine), one was Terran, one was a Trisk, and the last of them was a Jelosta. Each of them had the faint blue-white aura that AR gave to anyone who was purely digital, without any physical instantiation. Sting gestured to them in that order. “This is my navigation’s officer, Browen, my coms officer Trevor, my tactical and engineering officer C’sokra, and my science officer, Thinks Deeply Upon the Drafting Winds of Change.”

“Greetings,” the Jelosta said, wriggling their tentacles as they bobbed in the air.

“Wow,” Hornet said, then offered her hand to the hovering Jelosta, before dropping it. Even with the blue aura, her brain had said there were people floating before her. Which, well, it was technically true: All of Sting’s bridge crew were digitized and running on the same computer-core that ran her own consciousness, located somewhere in the Starship’s body

“She’s a polite one at least,” C’skora said, her tail lashing behind her as she looked Hornet over.

“Ignore C’skora,” Sting said, patting the Trisk woman on her shoulder – something that she could do thanks to the fact that C’skora’s entire mind and digital body was simulated by her computers. “Welcome to Found and the academy, Miss Abernathy. Or can I call you Hornet?”

“Or Nettie, Nettie is fine too!” Hornet said, nodding.

“Well, Nettie,” Sting said, as her bridge crew winked out, one by one. “The Starship Corps operates from Found – the training is done down here, in various VR pods we have set up near the generator sumps, and your rooming is anywhere you want.” She gestured around herself. “Public transport does require a bit of practice, but once you get used to it, you can get anywhere on the planet in about twenty four hours.” She started to walk and Hornet hurried to keep up with her. They moved into shaded trees, which Sting walked through as if she was an immortal goddess, careless of any dangers.

The fact that anyone could do that on Found didn’t make it less impressive, for Hornet. Since, well, she knew intellectually that the entire planet was designed for her comfort and she still walked through it like she was worried about getting stung, or bitten, or set upon by wolves or their nearest equivalent. She kept her hand on her suitcase, the little deer creature keeping gamely up with her, seeming as unbothered as a stone by the rain.

“If you need something even faster, the orbital satellites have shuttles,” Sting said, gesturing up. The orbital structures were large enough and bright enough that even during the day, they made a glittering, utterly mundane ring-scape across the sky. “Training is ... easier and harder than you might think.”

Hornet nodded. “Can I ask questions or ... I mean, there’s not a lot about it on the ‘net.”

“You can’t,” Sting said, grinning at her slightly. “The secrecy is for a reason – pretty much anyone can make a Starship with a printer, some hacking, and a lot of P2K. But the process it takes to train a ship, let alone get a bridge crew up and running? That’s not so easy.” She shook her head. “Keeping that secret and, thus, a bottleneck means that we cut down on the number of rogue ships we have to slag.”

Hornet nodded again. “Got it!” Her stomach clenched itself into knots with nervous tension. “Then I just won’t worry about it!” she lied, worrying immensely.

Sting laughed, as they emerged out into the green fields. Wind susurrated through the grass like music and in the distance, Hornet could see the other passengers. Many of them were riding mounts that looked like larger versions of her deer creature, and some were simply walking among small clouds of helper butterflies.

“If you have any questions or concerns, here’s my com,” Sting said, holding out a piece of paper that she had manifested from her industrial facilities. It was still warm as Hornet took it into her hands. She folded it in half with a nervous twist of her fingers, then said.

“So, uh ... how many other students are on planet?”

“There are twelve other prospectives – three on another continent, the other nine are nearby,” Sting said. “Need a ride?”

“No, no, I can figure it out!” Hornet said, wanting to sound impressive and like she wasn’t terrified out of her wits.

Sting took her hand and shook it again. “Good luck, Hornet. And remember!” She drifted backwards, a bubble of a-grav snapping to life around her and lifting her upwards with utter ease, making her drift like a vid’s caped superhero. “You wouldn’t be here if we didn’t think you could hack it.” She gave a little finger gun to Hornet, then shot off into the air, streaking up into orbit and away in a single, unbroken line of acceleration.

Hornet shook her head slowly.

“Okay!” she said. “Lets go and meet the other prospective.” She clapped her hands together. “I just ... need ... a ... EEP!” She squeaked as she felt something huge and wet bump against her neck. Spinning, she saw that a wolf-like creature the size of a small horse was nosing at her. She screamed and jerked away – then clenched her hands and closed her eyes. No, Hornet ... you’re being a dumbass, this is a Gaia planet, this is your mount! She thought as she forced herself to calm, then opened her eyes. The huge wolf was looking at her expectantly. She forced herself to mechanically reach out and pet his head.

His fur was shockingly soft and silky. He also didn’t bite her entire arm off. These two facts made Hornet relax and she stepped a bit closer, smiling a bit. “Well, okay,” she said, softly, her hand caressing his jaw, then reaching back to scratch his ears. “This ... isn’t so bad. So, you’re going to let me mount you and ride you, huh?”

The wolf whuffed out a warm breath against her face and then said, in perfectly understandable Concordant: “I mean, we haven’t even gone on a first date yet, but sure, you’re cute.”

He didn’t know who he was.

All he knew, as he laid in the alien’s boat, was this.

RA = 12h 51.4m | RA = 17h 45.6m,

DEC = +27⁰ 07’ (2000.0), Dec = -28⁰ 56’ (2000.0).

INC: 63⁰

Timecode: 1.44112e+17 Seconds Prior

The only problem was that he had no idea what any of that meant. The numbers, the strange notations, the letters, and the sense that they were completely and all-consuming in their importance. He closed his eyes and tried to cast his mind back to a time before the numbers, the letters, the symbols. He groped for meaning. For ... for anything he could hold onto. Anything at all.

Nothing.

Just a yawning sense of loss.

Then...

Words.

The words were from the alien. He opened his eyes and took another look at her as she smiled down at him. Her teeth were sharp, like a razor, and part of him knew that he should have been afraid. But he wasn’t. Her skin was the gray and white sleekness of a ... shark. Shark? How had he known what a shark was when he didn’t even knew what he was, who he was. But he followed that thought. She had the gills of a shark, the fins of a shark, but they had been shaped into muscular arms, ended in strong fingers. She had no tail – an obscure part of his mind thought well, I know some people are going to be pissed about that – and her clothing was clearly the kind of stuff people would wear if they expected to spend a lot of their time above the water, not under it.