Rise of the Empire 1: Olympus (4 page)

“I told you that sometimes people we hire are given a tier from the start, and that extensive background checks are done before any such decision is made, I have been looking for the potential heads
for Olympus for decades, I was lucky when I found Elias, and then I found you, though you kept turning my offers down, but I was convinced that I would change your mind eventually, this project came at just the right moment for me to use it for this purpose, I knew that I only had to show you the kind of work we do here to change your mind.” Tomas stopped for a moment, looked the startled Professor in the eye and said softly.

“Seo-yun, I know that you are the right p
erson for the job, I have known for the past twenty years, you are brilliant, and have a mind that needs to push its boundaries, reach for new unimaginable things. You are very much like Elias and me, and that are the kind of people that I want working, no, not working, living for Olympus, because we are a family, and we always seek to better ourselves. Together we can accomplish anything we want, and if you accept you will learn about things you can’t even conceive of yet.” He finished, and waited for her response.

He knew by the look in her eyes that he had her with that speech, because deep down she was the same as him, she had the same need he had, to advance those around them, Tomas accomplished that by using Olympus as his proxy, she guided young minds in hope of widening their horizons.

“You know, you are not at all the person I believed you were.” She said after a moment of thought. “You are driven, more than I am, and I can see why you accomplished all that you did. I’ll accept the offer.”

“Great, welcome aboard
Professor.” He said with a grin.

“You may call me Seo-yun, if we are going to work closely together we might as well drop the honorifics.”

“Welcome then Seo-yun.” Tomas offered his hand and she shook it.

“Though, I still believe that you have megalomaniac tendencies, but
I would need to observe you for an extended period in order to be sure.” She added with a smirk.

At her words his grin quickly turned to full blown laughter that echoed throughout the chamber, which prompted people around them to look in their direction. When
Elias returned with the rest of security team in full light assault armor Tomas was still laughing. Elias approached with his helmet beneath his left arm his N20 assault rifle slung over his right shoulder, he glanced at Tomas and then turned to Seo-yun.

“
Did you break him?” He asked in a deadpan voice

“I believe that I must have, either that or my previous diagnosis was dead right, and this is his way of celebrating success.” Seo-yun answered in the same deadpan voice which only served to throw Tomas in another fit of laughter where he needed to reach out and grab the nearby wall for support or risk falling down.

Elias watched his boss for a few seconds before returning to his conversation with Seo-yun

“I’m guessing that means you accepted the job?”

“Yes, though now I wonder what exactly did I let myself be drawn into?”

“Don’t worry you will learn to ignore th
ese kind of moments, welcome aboard by the way.” He said shaking her hand.

“Thanks, and you mean this kind of thing is a regular occurrence?”

“It has been known to happen from time to time.”

While they were chatting as if they were lifetime colleagues Tomas managed to get himself under control, he quickly righted himse
lf straightened his clothing and turned his eyes to Elias and Seo-yun.

“I haven’t had such a good laugh in
decades; it seems that your employment has already paid off.” Tomas looked around to the other employees in the hangar, all of which turned their heads away when they saw him looking their way, he knew that word would spread about his outburst, and that a new rumor about him would start circulating, Tomas didn’t care about them and let them go wild, usually the rumors died down on their own, if only his employees knew how close most of them were to the truth.

Chapter Four

“Is your team ready?” Tomas asked.

“Yes, this is Laura our computer expert, Greg who is studying dead languages, Mel our demolition expert
, and Johan engineering expert.” Elias said indicating each person in turn, all of them had their helmets on so their faces were hidden. They looked impressive and menacing in their dark blue-black light armor, combat suit which was covered in light alloy plates on critical areas, chest, thighs, back, shins and forearms. Helmet was a full faceplate, made of unbreakable tinted glass.

“Alright, how are we doing this?” Tomas asked.

“Laura and I will take point, Greg and Mel will be in the rear, with Johan, you and the Professor in the center. You don’t touch anything until we secure the room we are in. Any sign of trouble Greg and Mel will escort you out while we cover your retreat.” Elias said. He and Elias had spoken briefly about the operation before; the explanation was mostly for Seo-yun’s benefit.

“Very well, let’s go.”

“Wait.” Seo-yun said “We aren’t going to put armor like them?” She asked.

Elias look at her “There is no point, light armor won’t save you
if you run into trouble when you don’t know how to move in it, and you aren’t trained in the use of heavy armor, we will cover you, and if we run into something that we can’t deal with then we are all already dead. But there is no need for worry, if there was someone inside they would have already gotten out, at most we will need to deal with automated defenses but even that is unlikely, and armor is only a precaution.” Elias finished and then put his helmet on.

Tomas saw that Seo-yun wasn’t all that much reassured with Elias’s
words, he took her by the shoulders and turned her around to face him.

“It will be fine; Elias and his team know what they are doing.” He tried to make his words as convincing as he could
.

Seo-yun look him in the eyes, he could see something there but wasn’t able to identify it before she shook herself and her usual confident self-reappeared, she nodded gravely and they turned and went down the stairs to the level of the ships entrance.

Elias and Laura entered first disappearing inside the ship, a few seconds’ later lights inside turned on, eerie blue light shone on the two figures inside, Elias and Laura who had lowered to their knees and were scanning the interior with their scopes, The rest of the team moved quickly to the entrance and took positions a moment later Elias turned his helms speakers on and yelled. “Clear!”

Tomas and Seo-yun moved carefully inside while the rest of the team moved further inside toward
s the doorway that lead further inside. Once they entered they could see that they were inside a kind of a hangar, the room was 15 meters wide from wall to wall and maybe 20 meters deep, with the ceiling being around 5 meter high. The room was mostly empty save for a few strange looking crates pilled on the right side.

Elias approached them his face hidden behind his faceplate
. “The lights seem to be automated, they turned on when we entered a few meters inside. As we thought there doesn’t seem to be anyone home. We can stay here for a few minutes or continue inside.”

Seo-yun looked around and shook her head “I think we should continue, there doesn’t seem to be much here, and the
next team can look through this room more closely later. Unless there is something you want to look at?” She said to Tomas.

“
No, those crates might warrant a closer look but nothing that can’t wait.”

They continued making their way inside, as they entered the doorway from hangar to the next corridor the lights again turned on, with the same eerie blue washing over the metallic walls, the light intensity was low, like the light was covered with a blanket.

“The lighting might suggest that whoever used this ship had delicate eyesight.” Seo-yun said.

Tomas nodded
, that had occurred to him as well. The corridor wasn’t long, a few meters at the most, with four doors on the left and right wall, two on one side and two on the other opposite each other. The doors were closed and didn’t open when they came close, there was a panel of some kind beside each door but apparently it wasn’t under power. The celling was around two and a half meters tall perhaps judging by the gap between the top of Elias’s head and the celling, since he was the tallest in their party at two meters and ten centimeters, the doors themselves were about two meters high, so that Elias needed to lower his head when he went through. They continued down the corridor to the next doorway, the hallway was at an angle upwards which then turned by 360° so that they rose above the hangar and the corridor they were previously in. The purpose of next chamber they entered was clear immediately it was the ships control center. The team quickly moved thought the room and cleared it. It was shaped as a half sphere, so that the center of the room was in fact the center of the sphere, the round walls had no devices or instruments on them, they were smooth and made of a different kind of material than the metallic walls in the corridors or the hangar, the room was around 7 meters across, in the center there were two small chairs, with no handholds, and some kind of consoles, the chairs were turned towards the back of the ship, which seemed odd at first, before it dawned to Tomas that they probably didn’t need to see the outside to pilot the ship, and if they did the vision of the outside was most likely generated on the consoles, there were two more consoles one to the left and one to the right of the center ones, with some kind of plate placed on the floor further inside the room behind the center consoles.

“Well this seems a bit-”

“Anticlimactic” Tomas finished for Seo-yun

“Yes…”

Tomas approached the middle console the one with two chairs, he looked down and saw a series of levers on the edges on the right and left side, with the middle being smooth and of a strange light silver color.

“The ship is obviously under power, yet these consoles show no sign of being active.” Seo-yun said.

Laura approached with her helmet removed; she had close cropped black hair and was Caucasian with maybe just a bit of Asian ancestry thrown in. She peered down. “There doesn’t seem to be an on switch, maybe the ship doesn’t have enough power, or maybe it was damaged, we don’t know why it was at the bottom of the ocean.”

“Perhaps, though if it could remain under power for thousands of years I don’t see why the consoles wouldn’t be active unless someone turned them off. As for them being damaged, I think there would be more of a physical evidence to indicate that.” Seo-yun said.

“Or we just don’t know how to turn them on.” Tomas added.

“Or that.” Seo-yun agreed.

Tomas sighed, and looked around the room for a moment looking for anything that stands out. “Well, this is a bit of a disappointment, there is nothing here that seems extraordinary, seems a bit too familiar, it all looks like something human hands could build.”

“
Actually, this vessel has been built by Loraru as were most other vessels of the Union.”

Tomas whipped
his head around to the source of the voice, the rest of the team readied their rifles on the source of the voice, while Seo-yun jumped back a step. It spoke in English, and though it sounded human it was definitely not, it was too perfectly spoken, too monotonous, it was wrong. The source of the voice stood motionless on the floorplate further down in the room, its eyes were staring straight into his. It had four arms two on each side and two legs, it was shorter than an average human, around meter and half in height, though it was wider in the shoulders by at least half as much as an average human, it was dressed in yellowish clothing that hanged loosely on its body, it had six eyes arranged in three row of two placed at an angle with the bottom pair being the closest together and the top pair the furthest from each other, making a V shape, two vertical slits bellow the eyes were most likely nostrils, and bellow that a single horizontal line the mouth, it didn’t have any lips, its head had a vaguely triangular shape with the bottom being narrow and the top of the head wide, it didn’t have hair on its body that Tomas could see, and the top of its head ended in six rigid spikes, curving upwards. Its skin was a sickly gray color. The top arms were crossed at its chest with the bottom ones positioned loosely at its side dropping to its knees.

“
Tomas, Seo-yun, move back slowly.” Elias said while moving slowly forward, his rifle aim at the being.

“There is no need for that I assure you, I mean you no harm, not that I could harm you even if I wanted. And I would appreciate it if you would lower your weapons, I do not know if they would damage anything if fired but I would rather not risk it.”
The being said.

“Elias, wait.” Tomas said and slowly stepped forward and spoke to
the being “Ah, my name is-”

“Tomas, yes I overheard the one in front of you, Elias, address you as such,
I don’t know the designations of the rest, as you never addressed them within the ship or its immediate surroundings.”

“Well it’s only appropriate that you introduce yourself as well then, what is your name.” Tomas asked.

“A cultural convention? Very well, my designation is Autonomous Survey Unit Mark 77321, used in searcher class scout ships, tasked with aiding the crew in analyzing raw data.”

For a moment no one said anything, then Seo-yun broke the silence “You are a
machine?”

“
That statement is correct even though it is wrong, I am an interface, thing you see before you is just a representation.” It said in its monotone voice, Tomas noticed that it mistook Seo-yun’s question for a statement, meaning that it didn’t have a perfect understanding of their language.

Seo-yun moved around the console and stepped onto the plate reaching her hand through the being before anyone thought to stop her.

“A hologram, remarkable.” She said still moving her hand through the being, or rather a hologram of the being.

“
Seo-yun, please step back behind me.” Elias said trying to aim his rifle at the hologram while not aiming at Seo-yun.

She looked back at him surprised, seeing how he and the rest of the team were trying to keep his aim true while she moved “Oh, you can lower your guns, this is just light, a hologram
, he isn’t really here, see.” She said while repeatedly moving her hand in and out of the hologram.

“Elias, she is right. Bullets won’t do anything to it.” Tomas said.

They stood in the same positions for a couple of seconds, and then they lowered their rifles and moved about the room taking other positions, standing at the ready. They communicated through their helmets inner comm line.

“Is there anyone else
aboard this ship other than us?” Tomas asked.

“No.”

“May I assume then that it was you who opened the ships door, and sent the signal that led to the recovery of this ship?” Tomas asked.

“Correct.”

“Why did you wait for months before opening the door, if you could have done so at any time, or why didn’t you contact us when we found the ship?” Elias asked suspiciously.

“Time was required for the workable translation of your language
, which was impaired by the fact that you rarely spoke it in the vicinity of the vessel and further more by the internal damage to the ships many sensors, and contact before now was impossible for the same reason, the only thing I was able to do was redirect a signal I received.”

“You are saying that the ship was damaged by landing.” Laura said.

“Incorrect, landing inquired no damage to the ships systems. Damage I was referring to occurred due to lack of maintenance for approximately seven thousand cycles.”

“Why didn’t you then open the door earlier?” Seo-yun asked moving of the floor plate.

“My programing forbids me from executing any action that may cause harm to the ship or its crew, without explicit order from the crew, or a Union member of sufficient rank.”

Tomas looked around the room at the rest of the team and saw them do the same. He cleared his throat and asked
. “And what is the Union?”

Elias turned sharply towards Tomas while his body grew rigid, he tightened the grip on his rifle and turned back at the hologram when it started to speak.

“The Union, created sixteen thousand cycles ago, it is a union of fifty four races, led by six founding races and eighteen other member races.”

They looked at each other again trying to comprehend this information, a few moments ago they learned that they weren’t alone in the universe, and now they learned that not only were they not alone
, but there was an entire Union of races out there. Seo-yun turned back towards the hologram. “You said that your programing doesn’t allow you to act other than on orders by the crew or a Union official, yet you contacted our submarine, and you opened the door for us, why?”

“My
scans of your physiology couldn’t be compared to the Union races database as that part of my core matrix has been corrupted, I concluded that there was a 0.05% chance that your race was a new member of the Union, and as 30% of my matrix has been corrupted, I accepted the probability that your race was new member of the Union acceptable, and more preferable than engaging the self-destruct protocol. Was I wrong?” It ended in the same monotone voice it used before.