Chapter 2: Shadow Fall

Discovery, Contact, Escape

All too soon the R&R was over. The Perseus was pronounced space worthy and the trials were found to have had absolutely no detrimental affects on the ships systems, or on structural integrity. Commodore Manx stood on the bridge with Juno and Alica and gave the orders to proceed to minimum safe distance to allow engagement of slip drive.

Juno had last night received confirmation from Admiral Golan, that the fleet had arrived on station just outside maximum sensor range of the Antelia System, the closest of the new colonies and the system which gave its name to the whole sector of space which had recently gone silent, and were at full battle alert and awaiting the arrival of the Perseus.

Once on location, Manx turned to the duty comm. tech and asked, "Lieutenant, open the ship wide channel please."

"Channel open Commodore," came the reply.

"Thank you. Okay people, we're about to join the fleet a little earlier than scheduled. The fleet are currently at full battle alert and on station outside Antelia. Once we arrive, Lord Juno will brief the fleet regarding the circumstances around this change of orders. We should have no fear of going to battle alert, as we have already proven that we can handle everything on this ship. As I said at the start of these trials, you are the best of the best the fleet has to offer and now we get to show them in person. So, all hands battle alert, engineering, bring slip engines online, helm, get fleet co-ordinates from navigation and get us there yesterday. Manx out."

With the closing statement, status reports started coming in from all points of the bridge, "Battle alert confirmed, all stations report ready." "Slip engines online and awaiting co-ordinates." "Fleet location locked, opening Slip portal. Slip engaged"

As the helm officer reported the last, the crew experienced the now familiar twinge associated with Slip transition and then, "Slip complete, Antelia sector confirmed."

"Good work people. Sensors where's the fleet."

"Fleet 50 clicks, mark 3 Commodore."

"Commodore, we're being hailed," stated the comm. tech. " It's Admiral Golan on the Pride."

"Transfer to my screen lieutenant. Perseus command privacy please." At the Commodore's request, a sound-dampening field appeared around the command dais, making the conversation there only audible to Manx, Juno and Alica. Once the field was in place, Manx asked for the hail to be responded to.

"Manx you old reprobate, haven't they retired your ass yet?"

"Not yet Golan, and watch your tongue you scallywag. Despite the uniform, I still outrank you. What idiot gave you command of the Pride anyway?"

"You did, and don't you forget it. Now, before we get to the serious stuff, is that beauty as good as she looks?"

"Better. We took your Pride's record book, ripped it to shreds, then completely re-wrote it, we can out gun, out run, see farther and with greater detail than any current fleet front liner, and that's with a skeleton crew and before we even mention the Slip capabilities. We've already gained Imperial approval, and if the current investigation turns out to be a false alarm, then fleet re-fit will begin within the year, without the stupid 1 for 10 policy."

"Thank the gods, we're being stretched thin as it is. If we lost any more ships, we'd be hard pressed to secure even the core systems, never mind the colonies."

"Exactly the argument the Emperor presented to the council, when he used Imperial veto to remove the 1 for 10 rule."

"Brilliant, it's about time that the council were told to but out of military affairs, they seem to forget that they are mainly a civilian body. Now, as to the current situation, do you know any more than the Protocol activation alert, or what we're looking for out here?"

"For that Golan, I'll pass you over to Lord Juno here."

"Good day Admiral, it's been a while now since our last meeting, needless to say, everything that you are about to here is classified, I will be addressing the fleet after this discussion giving them what they need to know to get through this, however, you will need to know why we are doing what we are doing in order to follow my lead explicitly. As far as the fleet are concerned, I am a ship designer and minor member of the Imperial family and as such have no military standing in order to give orders. You need to know that anything coming from Manx, comes directly from me, and is to be followed without question. As far as the fleet know all orders are coming to you from fleet command, they don't need to know whom exactly in fleet they are coming from. Now from our previous meetings you probably realise that I know more than I should, and by now suspect that I am an ISS agent, correct?"

"Well now you've got me extremely intrigued. You're correct in assuming that I suspected you as ISS, but never as a lowly agent, maybe something like supervisor, or regional director, but now I suspect something more?"

"Correct Admiral, now, what I'm about to tell you is known only to 5 people in the empire, and your security clearance has now been raised to allow you to know this. Madman protocol was authorised on my authority as director of IIS. After analysing data received from Deep Space Alpha, and running full diagnostic tests to eliminate any possibility of sensor malfunction, I began a data search for any unusual reports from my agents over the past year.

In the past few months, a worrying trend has begun to develop on the outlying colonies. Normally the reports would not receive much credence for quite a while, until they reached my office, as no-one would notice any correlation between them until that point, and no doubt, by that time, it would be too late for us to do anything."

"OK, I can understand that. If the disturbances were spread out over a wide enough area, no one would notice a problem until they looked at the overall picture. And the only reason we spotted it now was due to a hunch?"

"Yes Admiral, a hunch, I've found over the years that I have yet to be steered wrong by a hunch. That's the reason I activated the protocol."

"OK I'll accept that, my old teacher always told me to listen to my instincts and act on hunches. And he was right, instinct and hunches have saved my life and that of my ship, many times over the years. Now if it isn't out with my new security clearance, what did you discover, what are your conclusions and finally what is our objective out here?"

"No Admiral, to do your job out here, you need to know exactly what's going on and what we suspect, so here is the full report I sent to the emperor and Fleet Admiral Artemia.

Background

Over the last 200 years, the civilian oversight committee has gained more influence and power than their initial charter supplied them.

Using that influence they have successfully lobbied for huge reductions in military expenditure and have gotten that infuriating 1 for 10 policy ratified

Lobbied the Imperial Congress to allow expansion into new sectors of the galaxy, citing overcrowding on core planets

They have successfully lobbied that there is no need for a military presence on the new colonies as we have been at peace now for over 300 years

Now as a result of this meddling, we have a host of colonies with no ground based military presence or sensor stations, a fleet which you have already correctly pointed out is barely adequate to patrol these new sectors effectively, and more and more people taking up residence on unprotected planets.

Now my analysis indicates, an alarming increase in civil unrest on these colonies over the last 6 months. People are disappearing and high-level government officials are dying off throughout the sectors in an alarming spate of "accidents". Now it would appear that these unfortunate officials are those who were in charge of investigating the disappearances and they have been replaced in office by people who are either extremely incompetent or intentionally blocking progress of the investigations. Now these sectors have gone silent and a new deep space sensor array has detected dimensional distortions on a section of the array which has never returned a response in the last 20,000 years, and which the COC has been trying to have removed from all sensor systems on all ships and planets, citing the cost of maintenance and repair of a redundant system which never does anything.

After analysis of all available data I came to the following conclusions, although I must stress that they are all based on flimsy circumstantial evidence, but they just feel right to me

We are at war and have been on the losing side for the past 200 years

The COC has either been bought or blackmailed into supporting our enemies position and have been systematically weakening our ability to respond to a threat

The recent disappearances and deaths have been the initial sortie into those systems to aid conquest

The fact that those systems are now silent means that we are too late

I took these findings and conclusions to the Emperor and Artemia who both agreed with me, and took the following steps.

All members of the COC are currently subject to arrest and investigation, all core systems are on Imperial alert to supplement battle alert of all fleet installations. Taking into account the COC reluctance for the sensor systems, I have instigated a full diagnostic test on all ground based sensor arrays, and Perseus is currently running a scan on the ships of the fleet in this sector, and he will run the same scan on any ship he encounters.

As for what we are doing out here, we are here to ascertain the truth one-way or the other as to the current status of our silent colonies.

The fleet will stay just outside maximum sensor range of a colony system whilst Perseus uses his greater range and sensitivity to scan these systems.

If there are any anomalous readings, the Helios will use Slip to do a full stealth recon of the system to determine the nature of the readings. If the enemy is still within system, the fleet will use Perseus' slip portal to arrive in system and engage. If as I suspect, we are too late, the fleet will proceed to the next system, leaving Perseus and Helios to investigate what remains, and we will Slip to join you at the next rendezvous.

Any questions?"

Juno stopped to a stunned silence from Alica, Manx and Golan. It took a few moments for all of the details of his clinical report to sink in before comprehension dawned and he could see the questions being formulated by all 3 participants. Manx was the first to gather his wits and he responded with, "Hell son, I knew there was more to you than your public image, but THIS? You're the 3^rd most important man in the empire, beneath the emperor. If I had any inkling of this, there would have been no way this ship, no matter how powerful he may be, would have left dock without a full complement, but, as I didn't, and we aren't then we will cope with what we have. After your report though, I must admit to not just a little fear. I have no doubt that your analysis of the situation is correct, and to think that they have been working behind the scenes for so long to destabilise the military, speaks of extreme patience and long term planning. If this is the start of their conquest, you can count on them greatly outnumbering the fleet, and more than likely know our exact placement and vulnerabilities. I fear we may be in big trouble out here."

Before Juno could respond, Golan spoke up, "I completely agree with the Commodore my lord. Little things that I have observed over the last century or so now make complete sense in the light of your analysis. I don't think that you will find one officer in the fleet that will not agree with your conclusions, as they continuously complain about the irrational interference of the COC in military affairs. What I want to question though is your diagnostic request for the sensors. Surely you don't suspect sabotage from fleet officers?"

"No," replied Juno, "this scan is purely precautionary, the sensor array is located within a highly restricted are of any ship, and even routine maintenance is carried out by highly trusted personnel. I don't expect to find any problems with either the ship borne arrays or the planet side ones, however I had an extremely strong hunch that they need to be looked at, so I instigated the diagnostic sweep. If anything is found to be wrong, it may give us an inkling as to their next targets."

Alica, who had been silent throughout the discussion so far, suddenly gasped, "System updates."

To which Juno replied, "Huh??"

Alica apologised for her outburst, but then animatedly explained the reason behind it. She explained that during every ships 5-year maintenance check-up, the governing AI was taken off-line for a period whilst maintenance was carried out on its vital architecture. During this off-line period, it was a given that any major improvements or updates in programming would be implemented at this time. Now as this programming was implemented whilst the core AI was off-line, then it would become part of the standard OS when the AI is re-activated. Now if a patch was included at this time, which filtered the sensor returns, then the core AI would treat it as normal, which it certainly wouldn't if it was received during routine monthly updates when it was active. Now every ship in the fleet has been in for its check-up in the last few years, and if, as you suspect, the time has come for the conquest, then this is most likely when these patches could have been installed."

"So," asked Juno, "rather than have Perseus initiate a scan of the actual sensor array, we need to scan the core programming of each AI to look for sabotaged programming?"

"Correct," replied Alica, "and it shouldn't take as long as the sensor scan, as the rogue programming, if it is there, is likely to be located in either the subroutines which interpret the responses from the sensor array, or those which feed this data to the sensor station on the bridge. You will also need to alert your Grandfather, as this type of sabotage is likely to be used on planet side arrays also, and may indeed be much easier to perpetrate as it is decidedly easier to bypass the planetary AI due to the amount of systems under its care. That is the main reason I have been lobbying to get all planetary AI replaced with SOCI, but the COC keep trying to shoot the motion down, citing unnecessary public expenditure, although it would come out of Imperial funds."

"Okay, that sounds like the kind of weakening stunt I've come to expect from them over the years. I better get Perseus started on a new scan, and send off a message to the emperor advising what to look for. Now if that's everything, Admiral, I'll keep you informed as to the findings regarding the fleet sensors, until then, please advise the fleet that I will brief them in 2 hours time. Juno out."

At that, the link to Admiral Golan on the Pride was cut and Juno turned to Alica and Manx and stated, "Right, for the next hour or so, I'll be in conference with Admiral Artemia and the emperor. Alica, I need you to get Perseus started on the scan, beginning with the Pride, you know better than anyone, what he should be looking for, where to find it, and if anything is found, how to neutralise, remove or work around it. Manx, I need you to get together with your strategy team, and work out an insertion plan to minimise risk in the event that our sensors detect shadow presence in system." With that, Juno released had Perseus release the sound dampening field and the three split up to carry out their various tasks.

Juno's conference with the emperor and Admiral Artemia was probably the easiest of the 3 tasks to carry out, as all he had to do was report current status of the investigation and receive reports from their end. It did however provide some more evidence that the current situation was as serious as they suspected. Investigation of the COC was proving difficult, as it would appear that the most high profile members had disappeared and quite a few of the other members were turning up dead. Juno ended the conference after advising that either himself or Alica would be in touch once enough scans had been completed on a portion of the fleet ships to allow a defence against the suspected sabotage to be programmed, uploaded and tested.

Alica left the meeting deep in thought, in order to carry out the investigation she needed a certain amount of information, obviously she needed a clean copy of the code required for correct sensor operation and she also needed to make sure that the helm AI which controlled Perseus' navigation and sensor systems was clean, as there would be no benefit in checking the rest of the fleet if the one advantage they had, i.e. the increased range of Perseus' sensors, was neutralised by the same rogue programming. So far the only sensors known to report correctly were those on Deep Space Alpha. Luckily, thanks to the Madman Protocol, Alica had full access to the schematics and programming code for those sensors, as they were now stored in Helios' databanks after the stop at Out System 0, so, for the next 20 minutes, Alica spent time with Perseus, poring over programming code and sensor schematics. Once satisfied that the Perseus sensor suite was clean, she worked with him to generate a comparator to check the sensors of the rest of the ships in the fleet and then she let him loose on the Pride.

5 minutes later, Perseus reported his findings to Alica; he reported that although the AI architecture was clear of any anomalies, there was an anomalous section of code in the sensor analysis module. Looking at the clock and finding that she still had time before she needed to report her findings to Juno, Alica asked Perseus to display the code on her console.

Analysis of the code indicated that although it was rather sloppily written and would be easy to remove and neutralise, it was extremely effective at what it was written to do which in essence was to ignore all responses from the required section of the array, unless the sensors were in diagnostic mode, this way, the sabotage would not be discovered and the Shadows would never be detected. With the aid of Perseus, Alica created a model of the sensor systems with the rogue programming, and a second model with the rogue programming removed and replaced with her fix. In order to test the fix, she fed the data from the Deep Space Alpha array into both models and satisfyingly the fix model returned the same responses, whereas the sabotaged model ignored the sensor alerts.

Alica collated all of her findings and her fix in order to fully brief Juno on current status. Juno accepted the findings and advised her to brief the emperor and Admiral Artemia and to have Perseus update Astor with the search parameters and the required fix. At the end of the brief conference call, Alica received congratulations from the emperor for her quick work, and received imperial authorisation to begin search and repair operations on the rest of the battle group, and also any fleet vessel they may encounter.

Manx had probably the hardest of the assigned tasks to carry out; he had to plan a stealth incursion into an unknown situation, against an unknown enemy with unknown capabilities. Rather than be daunted with the scale of the task in front of him, he was looking forward to it, after all, this was the type of task he was renowned for during his active tenure in the fleet, and one of the things which led to his rapid rise through the ranks, was his success rate with those plans, and also, with this being a hand picked crew of volunteers, he had available to him, some of the best strategists he had worked with in his 600 year fleet career.

Gathering his group in the "war-room", actually Perseus' rather impressive fleet CnC centre, he briefed them on the current state of play and the findings and suspicions of Imperial Intelligence regarding the source of the current troubles. Once the group recovered from the shock the announcement generated, they immediately got down to business. Garnering information from Perseus and Helios regarding the capabilities of both ships and the current composition of the fleet battle group they had just joined, they began to do what they did best — plan.

2 hours later, they had formulated a range of plans dependant upon Perseus' sensor scans of the system:

A plan for stealth insertion of Helios into the outer system, if scans detected multiple hits in the inner system

A plan for stealth insertion of Helios into the inner system if scans determined concentrated contacts in only one area

A plan for emergency slip of the battle group into the system if Shadow fleet is detected still within system, and a backup plan to allow Helios to escape the system if said fleet is determined to be too large for the battle group to engage

A plan to allow the battle group to rendezvous with the remainder of the Antelia Sector fleet, and proceed at maximum plus-light speed to Hentares, the next system core ward from Antelia, a journey which would give the specialists aboard Perseus one week to investigate the Antelia system, should Helios' investigation prove that they were indeed too late to assist the colonists.

As time was fast approaching for Juno to address the battle group, Manx thanked his staff for their efforts over the past couple of hours and proceeded to the bridge to prepare for the upcoming manoeuvres.

On the bridge, Juno stood on the command dais and said "Perseus, open fleet wide comms. Initiate Imperial override of all internal comms so that everyone can hear me. Authorisation Juno-Omega-Delta-9-2-5."

"Override initiated my lord," came the reply "fleet wide comm. channel open."

Juno took a breath and mentally reviewed his last conversation with the emperor and Admiral Artemia, then began the most important speech of his life.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the Fleet, as you have been advised by your commanders, my name is Lord Juno Cald Imperia, and I am here today with the blessings of Fleet High Admiral Artemia Cald Imperia and Emperor Jonas, to inform you that the war games scheduled as a final field test before Perseus takes up active status, are no longer a game. The current state of Battle Alert comes in response to a recently discovered, severe threat to Imperial security. A short time ago, a top secret, experimental deep space sensor array detected a large mass of unidentified objects in this region of space. Normally, this would be no cause for alarm as we are always detecting interstellar cometary debris, however, this mass was detected on a section of the sensor sweep, which has not returned a response in 20,000 years. Scout ships sent to investigate this mass reported nothing on sensors, before they stopped transmitting. Shortly after this, the colonies stopped transmitting. Combined with other disturbing reports, the emperor authorised a full-scale investigation by IIS to try and get to the bottom of this situation. The outcome of this investigation has led the emperor to declare the empire at war. The investigation has shown that the COC, either through greed, blackmail or outright subversion, has systematically stripped the empire of its ability to effectively defend the core systems, never mind the new colonies they so enthusiastically voted for, but vetoed any attempts to garrison troops or even place ground based sensor systems on these worlds. Now the reticence of the COC to provide these sensor stations and the inability of the scout ships to detect the unknown fleet, led to an investigation of the sensor arrays themselves, no discrepancies were discovered until someone thought to look at the programming code which interprets the sensor readings. It has since been discovered that the sensor systems on fleet ships have been programmed to ignore responses from this section of the array, which effectively leaves us blind to this threat. Perseus is at this moment, working with all of the ships in this battle group to eradicate the rogue programming and reset the original code. Once all ships have reported ready, Perseus will initiate a scan of the nearby Antelia system using the extended range of his sensors. Dependant upon the results of this scan, the Helios will use her Slip and stealth abilities to penetrate the system for a closer investigation. If enemy presence is detected, the Perseus will use his Slip engines to generate a short-range portal large enough to transport the entire battle group into the system, where we will engage the enemy forces. If we are too late and the enemy has already decimated the colony, then the battle group will immediately leave at full plus-light speed to rendezvous with the rest of the Antelia sector fleet and proceed to Hentares. This detour is necessary as the rest of the fleet will require your repaired sensors if they are to stand any chance against the enemy fleet. We know this enemy ladies and gentlemen, our ancestors had a name for them and our parents used that name to get us to behave as children. May the Heavens protect us and may whatever gods you believe in grant us mercy, for the Shadows have returned from hell. Captains, Commanders, for the duration of this emergency, Commodore Manx has been reinstated to full System Admiral rank and will have full command of all fleet activities in this sector, report ship readiness to Perseus CnC once Perseus has repaired your sensor array. Juno out."