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20K officially begins here, ladies and gentlemen. After many years of being too scared to officially start the project I was born to write, I bring you the first Fearless story.

20K Event Timeline - Phase 1

----

INDEX ASTRA

Intro (in this post)

Part 1: Last Days on Earth
Last Look at Eden
Meet The Crew
Fearless

Part 2: The Terran Emperor
Word Games with the Leader of Mankind
Let's Get This Finished
Such Sweet Sorrow

Part 3: The 600
Brothers and Sisters
The Speech
Bring It Online

Part 4: Launch of the Fearless
Go

Part 5: Vox Sola
Admiral North
Dr Gellar
Vox Beacon Deployed

Part 6: The Zen-Darr
The Eldar
Mexican Standoff
Destiny

Part 7: Hyperstorm
Leviathan of Hell
Shadows of Satan
Off-course

Part 8: Denebia
Eldar Life-signs
Aboard the Hulk
Space is Green

Part 9: On Eagle's Wings

INTRO

[20K] ON EAGLE’S WINGS

It is the dawn of legend.

The human race recovers from millennia of war and failed expansion. Solar Command oversees the fledgling Terran Empire, one hundred worlds led by a United Earth, defended by the courageous soldiers of the Empire Guard and the intrepid crews of the Terran Navy.

As these brave humans venture into the galaxy, carrying the human dream to the very stars that hate them, ancient powers watch with jealousy in their eyes and hatred in their hearts. Aliens stare at the glittering lights of human civilisation, knowing the emergent species will one day decide their fate. Alneran dog-soldiers test the Empire’s borders, challenging humanity’s growing might. Tusked warmongers seek the Terran homeworld, believing they have at last found a species as belligerent as their own. In the forgotten corners of the galaxy, the remnants of a warp-spawned species seek to enslave the hearts and souls of all living beings.

Deep within the hyper-realm, three vast and terrible intellects stir to life, weak as yet, but growing in power as the Terran Empire grows.

Alone of all aliens, only the arrogant Eldar care nothing for the human resurgence, for they are masters of all they can see; their fevered imaginings become reality and their whims shape the universe. What possible threat can the upstart mon-keigh be to them?

Forget the power of genhanced super-warriors, for the Empire’s defenders are merely human. Forget the burning light of a hundred thousand minds, for in the poisoned wilderness of the hyper-realm, there is nothing to guide you and no-one to save you.

There are only men, women, and the intelligences they have created, carrying the hopes and fears of humanity on eagle’s wings.

This is the 21st Millennium.

20K: before there was war.

Last Days on Earth

1.1

The sun was warm on his face, and bright, even though he had his eyes closed. He listened to the chirruping of birds, the distant hiss of traffic. Occasionally the light falling across him would blink out for a second as skimmers zipped by overhead.

He listened to the bees, buzzing happily to themselves as they explored the garden he'd spent twenty years creating. He was really going to miss this place.

A door creaked. No fancy, high-tech stuff here. Just plain, old-fashioned Earth technology: doors you had to open yourself. Lights that operated on a switch, with no AI to turn them on for you. A garden where birds came for seeds, or to rest in the trees; where bees pollinated and made honey; where the occasional cat slunk in, trying to catch one of the birds.

He listened to human footsteps padding closer. They were slow, as though they were taking time to look at the garden. It really was beautiful.

"Captain?" said the person. It was a male, with the Panpac-Merican accent he'd come to know so well.

"We don't leave 'til oh seven hundred tomorrow, Lieutenant," he said, pronouncing it Leff-tennant in the traditional Britannic way.

"I'm aware of that, Captain. This sure is some place you got here."

The Captain opened his eyes to see Bruce O'Marley, his Lieutnant Primus, wearing the grey, uncreasable Navy uniform. The Merican inclined his head in that special way and grinned that winning smile, the one many women, and not a few men, seemed to melt for.

"If you'd actually taken some time off and come to visit me here, as I repeatedly asked," the Captain said, his voice gruff with sleep, "you'd have seen this place years ago."

"Sorry, sir." O'Marley scratched the back of his head. "Guess I got too caught up in things. I can't believe tomorrow's the day."

The Captain sat up and scratched the top of his head. The sun had burned him. Who knew how long it would be before he next felt the sun’s touch? Maybe he never would. This might be his last day with the sun on his face, the breeze in his hair, the birds singing around him.

Even if it wasn't, the next time would be an alien sun, on some unimaginably distant world. He narrowed his eyes and glanced towards the sun. It blazed hard enough to stab his retinas. He looked away, wondering whether the next sun would be as bright as Sol, or as friendly to humanity.

"Doc Reeves wants us to head on over to Solar Command. Says she wants to make sure we get all our shots."

"I've had them," the Captain said. He stood and stretched.

"Not all of them, sir," said O'Marley. "She's developed that new anti-cancer vaccine. The one she's been working on since you had hair."

"Is that a joke, Lieutenant?" the Captain asked, surprised. "Are you finally off-duty?" He ran a hand through his hair. It was thinning a bit, but he was a long, long way from losing it.

"Sorry, sir. She's also been working on some kind of panacea. Says it's more important than ever, since we're probably gonna be rubbing up against all kinds of new xenotypes, so to speak."

The Captain took one last look around his garden. He retrieved an empty pint glass and a fallen data-slate from beside his deck chair.

"I'm really going to miss this garden," said Captain Whyte.

1.2

Whyte changed into his uniform while O'Marley waited downstairs, looking around the Captain's quaint living-room. There was no sign of the advanced technology in most Terran homes.

A grav-shuttle waited for them outside. Whyte was vaguely embarrassed by the brazen Navy logos emblazoned along its flanks. The sun reflected blindingly from its armour, drawing even more attention; they only thing it was missing were flashing lights and a vox-caster broadcasting "Rock Around the Clock" and other historical classics, such as the subversive psky-rock hit, "Prick On Board", sung by morons whenever the Emperor was inbound in the Sky-Castle.

Whyte's neighbours stared at the shuttle as they went about their business, and they stared even more as they saw him and his officer in full uniform, with Navy armsmen in full body armour waiting at the end of Whyte's drive. Not all of his neighbours were human: there were plenty of bots walking dogs, washing cars, hovering or scuttling on other business.

The Captain gave short, embarrassed waves to his neighbours. They weren't used to such flagrant displays of his power and entitlement. Whyte was slightly annoyed that O'Marley had arrived with such pomp, and suspected his Lieutenant Primus had done it for a laugh.

They climbed into the Navy bus. It was cool and fresh inside, with a wraparound tinted roof which opened at an angle to let people in. Nothing but the best for the Terran Navy's flagship Captain.

Someone was waiting for them inside. Whyte groaned inwardly when he saw her.

"Hi, Jack," said Shugufta Ani. She looked amazing in her pin-sharp suit, and she wore a blue headscarf as tribute to her faith. Ani, like Whyte, preferred the old-school approach to life. She held her clipboard rather than a data-slate. Nobody knew how she or Whyte managed without technology. Whyte always maintained that there were bots to do nearly everything in a human's life, and if he didn't do something for himself, he might as well wear a bib and a nappy and drink milk from a bottle all day. Ani shared a similar sentiment.

"How nice to see you again, Administrator," said Whyte. He began to tug on his right ear lobe.

"I see I still make you nervous," Ani grinned. O'Marley looked out of the window, trying not to smile to himself. I'll get you for this you bastard, Whyte thought. Guess who's taking pride of place on the engine-scrubbing rota.

The bus jolted slightly as it lifted from the ground and sped towards the Command district. They seemed to have all the time in the world; the driver, probably another AI, was taking the scenic route, following the land-roads in hover mode rather than zooming through the skyway. It occurred to the Captain that the bot was giving him one last look at his home country. It was strangely sad. He'd been so focused on getting the Fearless ready, he'd forgotten what he was leaving behind.

"Let me guess, Administrator," he said to Ani. "The Ministry of Disbursement thinks I filed dodgy supply requests, and we're going to spend the next six hours in a room, justifying every bolt and spanner."

"Don't be so formal, Jack," Ani said. "This might be the last time we see each other."

He looked Ani in the eyes and knew she was still in love with him. Jack Whyte expected many things of the adventure to come. He hadn't expected the days before launch to be so painful.

1.3

"Okay," Whyte said after a moment. "Let's talk." He glanced at O'Marley again, uncomfortably aware his friend would be listening to everything that was said.

"Leave him alone," Ani laughed, knowing exactly what Whyte was thinking. "If it wasn't for him, you'd have done a runner and been halfway to Tau Proxima before I knew you were gone."

Whyte was unlikely to do do anything again without the whole Empire, not to mention a good few hundred xenotype species - those warring, fractious bastards of the stars - watching him and judging him.

"I know," Whyte admitted, surprising himself. "But I'd have contacted you once we were underway."

"Yeah, right." Ani looked at him, holding his gaze. Her eyes were dark and familiar. Her skin, so soft, that went into goosebumps whenever he touched her. Whyte felt the old thrill building, embers of a dead love glowing back life, buried beneath all the pain, resentment and duty. He looked away.

"I'm serious, Shu," he said softly. "You know I requested you on my crew."

"I heard," she said. "I'm sorry, Jack. My home is here. My family."

"I know. I guess that's why they sent Don Rockford instead. That grizzled old bastard's the last man I wanted as my quartermaster. He's so tight, he wouldn't give bullets to the Empire Guard, not while they've got bayonets."

Ani laughed. "Stop being mean. Stop pretending you aren't thrilled to be king of the castle. The Terran flagship, Jack! It's what you always dreamed of. It's happening tomorrow."

That created far more of a thrill than his remembered love for Ani. This was why Jack Whyte was still single: he was married to his starship, a vessel he'd never even sailed in. It was a cliche to be sure, but then again, hadn't all men of destiny put their ships, their countries, their planets first? He knew Ani knew this. She had left him, but really, they'd never been together, not as soulmates. They could have had something special if the Navy didn't have his heart and soul. It was regrettable, maybe even terrible, but that was the way it was.

A gentle tone sounded.

"We are nearly there," an artificial voice said across the internal vox. "It appears you have someone waiting for you, Captain Whyte."

They coasted to a halt outside the Atlantic Building, the headquarters of Solar Command. This had originally been a NATO building millennia ago, then Euro-Pact, then the Northern Defence League, then at least thirteen other treaty organisations that had formed and collapsed across the fullness of time. It looked modern from the outside. Inside, it crushed you beneath the weight of millennia.

A huge crowd of humans and bots had gathered outside.

"Oh, God," O'Marley said. "The media."

Hundreds of reporters and journalists crowded round every Empire official and soldier who tried to get in or out of the building. Terran Empire flags fluttered above the scene, casting rippling, blade-like shadows across the throng. The crowd erupted when the grav-shuttle's roof opened and Whyte clambered out, almost tripping over a seat arm. That would be all over the Empire within five minutes, Whyte thought sourly.

"Captain! Captain!" a hundred voices shouted at once. "Are you looking forward to your voyage? Do you feel your crew are competent? How do you feel knowing you might never see Earth again? What if the Fearless is attacked by aliens? Will the Fearless mission simply stir up trouble? Can your ship survive such a voyage without refit or resupply? Why is the Terran Navy putting all its resources into colonisation when it should be fighting the Alnerans? What about the Eldar? Will you be taking remembrancers with you?"

The bots had other questions. Some were to be expected, while others were jarringly strange: "Captain Whyte. Will you be advocating equal rights for non-biological entities? Do you believe the Fearless's intelligence is a slave? Does Fearless breach the supposed Wu-Wu Limit? Can you calculate digit x to the power of thirty-nine?"

Whyte feigned humble grace as O'Marley pulled him through the crowd. The Captain grabbed Ani's arm to drag her with them.

They should never have established the Ministry of Remembrance, he thought sourly. And it's my fault. I proposed this mission. I fought for it and I won it. They created an entire Ministry to follow my deeds. What an idiot! I hope future generations don't judge me for this.

1.4

It was cool and dark inside the Atlantic Building, a contrast to the cloudless heat outside. They walked along corridors, passing men and women wearing suits, as well as black-armoured bots hurrying about some task or other. Everyone, human and bot - those bots that had arms - saluted Whyte as they passed. He returned all of their salutes.

Their shoes clacked, the sound echoing. Flags hanging from the walls represented a variety of vanished nation-states. All of them were old, some ancient. Here was the red and white cross of Ancient Briton, with its characteristic red dragon in the top left corner. There, the stars and stripes representing the fifty-six States of Merica, prior to the collision between the Chinasian landmass and the Merican, when territory wars had created the long-vanished Chinasian Bloc. The Chinasians had built their arks and sailed into the eternal night, refusing all contact with Earth and its territories, until eventually the Chinasians seemed to disappear altogether.

Wall murals featured the words of leaders modern and ancient. The most famous quotes belonged to Winterman Churchill, who had held a small island in the face of a global power millennia ago. His courage had inspired millennia of Terran leaders since.

Pattern was also well-represented. He had fought in the same conflict as Churchill and had represented whatever Merica had been at that time. From Pattern's words, they had been global justicars, fighting villainy and oppression while the Mericans prospered in harmony. "I'll be back" was still a famous saying, even today.

Gregarin was the first human in space. Armstrong was the first human to walk on the moon. Delaney was the first man on Titan. Bannerjee was the first human to walk on a world outside the Sol system; she'd planted Earth's flag and said a prayer in Hindi, making it the first time a human religion had been practiced in the outer galaxy.

From the seventh millennium, the words of Madame Blackblade, a space pirate who had renounced her former life and died protecting a vulnerable colony. From the twelfth, the famed tyrant Dannerdan Gasban, whose rule over Ursh - at that time still known as the Russian Plateau - still lived in infamy, despite his last-minute change of heart as he personally led his slaves to vanquish the invading Herkni xenotype. There was a 15th Millennium quote from an Eldar general who had led the defence of a human colony against some kind of green-skinned monsters. That didn't happen every day. Mostly the Eldar liked to pretend humanity didn't exist.

Whyte saw portraits, most holographic, many painted, the eyes of famous Terrans watching him. He felt their gravity. Would he be the man to lead the Empire into a glorious new age, or would he fail and become a footnote?

1.5

Doctor Reeves was tall, almost statuesque, and dazzlingly attractive. She'd refused juvenant treatment and her body was aging gracefully. Blonde hair hung around her face and over her shoulders. Her hair was the only thing she tried to keep young. She was waiting for them in the Atlantic Building's significant medial quarters.

Whyte exchanged salutes with the Doctor and her assembled staff, who all stood to attention. Whyte smiled and shook the doctor's hand.

"How are you, Anna?" he said. The doctor broke into a soulbinding grin.

"I did it, Jack," she said. "I told you I'd do it."

"Less than twenty-four hours before we set off?" Whyte laughed. "I trust you won't be cutting things that close in space."

The doc laughed and winked at him.

"I know cancer treatments are old hat," she said, "but we discovered a couple of new strains on the Golnar colony. It's caused by exposure to upsilon radiation over -"

"I'm sure it's another brilliant piece of work, Doctor," Whyte said.

Reeves nodded to Ani - the two were clearly familiar with each other and on good terms. The doctor stopped short when she saw Lieutenant O'Marley.

"Now, who is this young gentleman?"

"Annabeth," Whyte said, hiding a laugh at O'Marley's surprise.

"Don't mind me," Reeves said to O'Marley. She leaned in, as if imparting a wise secret. "I'm just the crazy sawbones." She stepped back and laughed.

O'Marley clearly didn't know how to respond. He just laughed politely.

"This is my Lieutenant Primus, Bruce O'Marley, " said Whyte. "A real ladykiller, given the right circumstances. A maneater, too."

Ani pointedly cleared her throat.

"Sorry," Whyte grinned. "O'Marley is my third in command. He'll make a fine Captain one day."

"He's got an excellent teacher," Reeves said.

"The best," said Ani. "I let the other senior officers know to be here, but most of them are on the ship. Things are very busy up there. They'll have to see you after you get underway."

"Daniel Tarrant's coming," O'Marley said. He could barely suppress his delight. "Wait til you meet him, Doc."

1.6

Whyte spent a few minutes greeting his medical staff and reviewing Dr Reeves's work. There had been precious little time before now, since Whyte had spent almost every minute of the preceding months aboard the Fearless, trying to get ship and crew into shape for their launch date. It had been an extremely trying time. Fearless incorporated technologies that were new to the Empire. Even with the help of the Martian Science Council, the deadline had seemed impossible for a while. Many of the crew were transferring from other ships or distant colonies. They'd seemingly been drip-fed to the Fearless project. These were the best and brightest humanity had to offer. Their commanding officers were universally reluctant to let them go.

There was a clamour at the door as Lieutenant Secundus, Daniel Tarrant, arrived. He walked straight into the medical bay, still criticising the remembrancers to the harried armoury staff following him.

"Mister Tarrant," Whyte said, not letting his amusement show. "I hope you finished upgrading those torpedo launchers."

"What? Oh, yes." Tarrant was tall, burly, and when he looked at you he seemed extremely focused. On the other hand he could be dismissive and abrupt, his attention apparently wandering. Protocol seemed to be something other people followed but Daniel Tarrant found optional.

The Captain stuck his hand out. Tarrant grabbed it and shook it. His grip was stronger than the bite of a grox. Tarrant let go and peered at the display screens taking up an entire wall. Whyte flexed his crushed hand.

"Don't worry, sir," Tarrant said without looking. "Any xenotypes giving you grief, you give the order, they're gonna be sad pandas. Oh, yes. We're loaded for bear."

O'Marley, standing behind the weapons officer, turned away to hide his laughter.

"I'm told you needed me," Tarrant said, focusing suddenly on Doctor Reeves. "Let me guess, it's been more than two weeks since you stuck something sharp in my arse."

O'Marley pactically exploded, and covered it by pretending to cough.

"I'll leave you all to it," Whyte said, leaving a rather startled-looking medical team to care for their weapons officer.

"I love that guy," O'Marley giggled as they rounded the corner.

"Shu," Whyte said to Ani, "care for your one and only tour of the Fearless?"

1.7

They caught the space-rail up to the ship. Whyte watched Ani, inwardly smiling as she blanched and her eyes went wide. Riding a lift up into space had been dreamed of by science fiction writers millennia ago, to the amusement and derision of their readers. It had been a reality for centuries at least. Probably millennia. So much had been lost over time. So many wars, natural disasters. Humanity had been brought to the brink of extinction a hundred times. They didn't even know when certain everyday technology had been created.

As they reached the stratosphere, showing a dizzying view of Earth's oceans and mountains, Whyte mused on humanity's past. Their most recent disaster had been the Blackout: a cold war between Earth and Mars. The Blackout was over, the Martian Science Council was a staunch ally of the Terran Empire, a great deal was being shared between the two factions. Earth still led the technology race and Mars was catching up fast. Maybe one day they'd surpass Earth. The Martians really knew how to build a starship.

They could see the Fearless as they drew through the Earth's atmosphere. Fearless was docked at the Gregarin Gateway station. The ship was vast and wore shadows like a cloak. Some of the lights were on behind the hundreds of portholes. None of the exterior lights were active. The ship wasn't displaying its registry yet.

A Terran Navy starship was blocky, almost crude in outline. Maximantium was very difficult to work with. The vessels were mountains painted ultramarine blue. The forward section of most Navy ships was a squared wedge. A thinner neck section, as it was colloquially known, connected the forward section, or nose, to the bulky, rectangular body. Two stubby wings protruded from the body; two smaller ones from the nose. A vast, curved arch, known to the Navy as a "sensor spoiler" or aileron, at the back of the body section, worked with the wings to give a sense of almost youthful aggression.

Torpedo tubes, all sealed, ran along the sides of the neck. More were positioned across the body section to provide all-round firepower.

PART 1.8

"It's... breathtaking," Ani said, as she stared at the nearing starship.

"The first Endeavour class heavy cruiser to enter service," O'Marley said proudly. "Six hundred crew. Fourteen hundred metres from prow to stern. Maximantium power armour, effectively impenetrable. Realdrives rated at seventy-seven per cent of light speed. It's the fastest ship in the fleet."

"Doesn't seem like a lot of people aboard a ship that size," Ani said, staring at the Fearless.

"We're getting the best AI," O'Marley said. "A Generation 2.0 AI from Azimov Industries. The first of its kind in the Terran Empire. I hear he kicks serious ass."

"The Navy can't get enough crew for all the new ships it's building," Whyte explained. "We're more reliant than ever on bots."

"Let me guess how you feel about that," Ani said, turning to Whyte.

"Let's just say I'm a believer in humanity," Whyte said. "We shouldn't put too much faith in technology."

"I hate to hear you say that, sir," O'Marley said. "The Martian Science Council just finished installing the last STC units two days ago. We got technology coming out the wazoo. Uh, excuse me, ma'am."

"STC units?" asked Ani, smiling.

"Synthetic Template Constructors," said O'Marley. "We're going to be trialling something the Martians dreamed up a hundred years ago, but couldn't get working until now."

"STC units are sapient machines," Whyte said. "Each one contains a separate design plan. It creates technology based on that design, or adapts that technology to other purposes."

"For example?"

"Well, name it, ma'am," said O'Marley. "We got one that builds the new fighter design - the Fireblade. We got another that builds torpedoes, a third that's intended to modify existing torpedoes and develop new marks. The STC units are very user-friendly and they're keyed to only respond to humans. Don't want Alneran dog soldiers getting hold of the keys to the kingdom. They say the STC machines make damn good company, too. Some of the guys from Mars are a little weird; too much time spent with their machines."

"They practically worship them," Whyte smiled.

"Now there's an interesting thought," said Ani. "Technology as God. A new era in human development."

"I assure you, ma'am," said O'Marley, "There's nothing deus ex machina about the Fearless. We're still a long way from any golden age."

PART 1.9

The lift eventually reached one of Fearless's grav-docks, a small chamber designed to accommodate spacelift technology. In the worst case scenario, a fully space-suited human could fire a planetary grapple from here and use it like a fireman's pole. Only three humans had dared to try this since the technology was developed. One of them had died during the attempt. The chamber appeared to be open to the vacuum but Ani could see Navy crew working inside. They weren't wearing atmosphere suits.

There was a numbing vibration as they entered the chamber.

"What was that?" Ani asked.

"A directional power field," Whyte said. "It's sealing the chamber against the void. Think of it as baby's first force field."

"I hate them," O'Marley grinned.

"It tickled," said Ani.

Even before the lift doors opened, a dozen people were trying to get the Captain's attention. Half of them wore grey Navy fatigues. The rest wore grey clothing, as a nod to the Navy, beneath long white overcoats. They looked like scientists from some classic sci-fi. The most insistent of the whitecoats was a stocky, determined-looking woman with mousey brown hair done up in a large bun with tassels hanging down by her ears. Whyte knew it was a slightly outdated Martian style. All of the Martians were taller and more broadly built than those from Earth-type worlds.

"Captain," she said. "Theresa Maye of the Martian Mechanica." She shook his hand. She was nearly as strong as Daniel Tarrant.

"You went ahead with the re-branding, then," Whyte said.

"Yes, Captain. The Martian Science Council decided we needed a new name to reflect our new purpose and direction. We're the Mechanica now."

"That's going to take some getting used to," said O'Marley.

The Captain spent a few minutes greeting his new staff. The Mechanica staff were technically independent of the Terran Navy and were here since this was their ship and the STC units belonged to Mars. Maye was stubborn and independent, though she wasn't hard to work with. Whyte got the impression that Maye and her staff would obey his every word as law. This mission was too long-term, too dangerous, for old rivalries to rear their ugly heads. He suspected this was the real reason for the Science Council's rebranding. They were giving themselves tabula rasa. Moving on from the past.

PART 1.10

They left Maye and her team behind; the Mechanica staff were familiarising several Naval crew members with power field technology.

"We're still at least a decade away from power fields that will reliably envelop a ship," Maye was saying as the Captain led Ani and O'Marley out of the room. "So far, we haven't found a way to prevent them from interfering with the Gellar shield."

Whyte took O'Marley and Ani through the expansive corridors of the Fearless. Crew members and repair teams were everywhere, hurrying in their last-minute preparations. Wall panels were being plasma-welded into place. Mechanica labourers swore at the difficulty they were having: maximantium was specifically designed to resist thermal attacks, so it was "a total bastard nightmare" to seal with the technology available.

"It might not look like it," Whyte explained to Ani, whose eyes were everywhere, "but this could be considered something of a luxury cruiser." He had to dodge a pair of Mechanica workers carrying an armour plate between them.

Ani snorted. Everything seemed blocky, squared off. Everything seemed grey.

"It's not where I'd have chosen to spend our honeymoon," she said. "If we'd had one," she added.

"Yes, well, quite," said Whyte. "You may have noticed these corridors don't run for longer than forty metres before taking a turn. That's a security measure to prevent hostile intruders from taking firing-lines, or from having the run of the ship. Every junction is structurally reinforced."

"How do you not get lost?" Ani asked.

"We issue confetti to the crew," said O'Marley. "They leave coloured trails from their quarters to their work stations."

"Shut up," Ani laughed, playfully tapping him with her clipboard. She never put that bloody thing away. It was as much a part of her as her blue headscarf, or her deep brown eyes.

"Everyone memorises the layout of their ship," O'Marley said. "Trust me, any spacer learns this trick around the same time they learn to read and write. It's just something we do."

"Rather you than me," Ani murmured. "I'm lost already."

They toured a few of the rooms, but only a few. There were too many people everywhere. A number of them would not be sailing out with the Fearless tomorrow, and they were in a hurry to finish up and go home. Some of the crew were so busy they failed to acknowledge the Captain. They never realised he was there.

"Most of the technology is modular by design," Whyte said, having to raise his voice above an argument issuing from a room on their left. It sounded like the Fearless crew and the Mechanica were falling out about how to correctly install something. Whyte led the way into the room. Each bulkhead on the ship hissed upwards into the ceiling. This was the real magic of today's technology. The bulkhead doors rolled sideways as they went up out of sight, sliding above the decking overhead. Some kind of "flexibility field", as it had been nicknamed, was projected onto the doors. This allowed maximantium to become pliable without losing its inherent resilience.

The room they entered was no taller than the corridor outside, nor any less grey. Cogitator banks lined the walls. Whyte was right: Navy crew faced a Mechanica team across an invisible line on the carpeted floor.

"Children," Whyte said, "I'll take away your toys."

The dispute was complicated, revolving around power allocation to this room.

"This is an astrometrics lab," said Whyte. "We're making a hundred light-year journey. Wouldn't it stand to reason we need enough power for all these cogitators?"

"Captain Whyte," said the spokesperson of the Mechanica team, a young Japanasian woman he recognised as Eiko Takayama. "The power requirements of a ship this size are enormous. The Gellar shield generators are the biggest the Empire has ever built. They require at least a quarter of the ship's total power generation. We need to pull that power from other areas. This is one of those areas."

"I thought they'd fixed that small hiccup," Whyte said without amusement.

Takayama glanced at one of her colleagues, a young man who bore a striking resemblance to her. This must be her brother, Hiro. The Takayama twins were two of Mars's outstandingly bright stars. They had almost single-handedly designed the power grid for the Centaur-class light cruisers. Unfortunately, time constraints, ever-shifting goalposts and a really poorly-timed rebranding effort by the Mechanica had interfered with their work on the Fearless project. A matter of honour and fierce pride for the twins was so butchered by circumstance that it would ruin their reputation.

"With respect, Captain," Hiro said, "none of us have slept for the last seventeen weeks. If the price of hitting the launch deadline is a few dead cogitators, it's worth paying."

"Don't worry about it, people," Whyte said. "The contribution your team has made so far is outstanding. I'll be personally speaking to the Emperor about you all." He clapped Hiro on the shoulder, since the young tech was clearly the unhappiest person in the room. "There'll be time to resolve these issues after we get going. All we need to do is get from point A to point B without the ship crapping out on us. We're not planning on starting any wars out there."

He enjoyed the Takayama twins' expression of awed pride.

Whyte led his Lieutenant Primus and his ex back into the corridor, leaving the astrometrics crew in considerably brighter spirits.

"This is a bigger problem than you're making out, sir," O'Marley said. "We don't have enough power to supply the whole ship. Those goddamn Gellar shield generators. We oughta kick Dr Gellar's ass."

"I'm not stupid, Lieutenant. We've got power to launch. We're fast enough to outrun any trouble we find out there. If worst comes to worst, we can always hide in the hyper-realm."

O'Marley looked at his Captain, protesting without words.

"The Takayamas will figure it out," Whyte finished. "Come on. We're almost at the bridge." He deliberately avoided looking at Ani. The Terran bean-counters were responsible for a lot of the problems faced by Fearless project staff. They'd restricted the budget. They'd restricted time. While Ani wasn't responsible for any of that, she was a bean-counter and she was there. Lucky none of the crew knew what she did for a living.

I just got done with final exams, so I'm starting to catch up on Dakka Fiction. Great stuff so far, NP, and I look forward to more.

EDIT: Thank you very much my friend! I was getting worried that people might not like this story. I'm writing it as I go so it hasn't had too much editing yet, and I'm working on other projects at the same time. The amazing feedback of a friend from work has kept me at the grind when I was doubting myself. It is really good to know other people are getting something out of it too. Hope your exams went well!

PART 1.11

The bridge was a scene of utter chaos.

The Captain's chair was located in the centre of a raised platform which overlooked curved banks of cogitators. A pair of curving stairways led down to this section. The lower section was packed with a throng of working, talking, arguing humanity.

Some of the cogitator units hadn't even been installed. They were waiting beside their alcoves while crew members sweated and manhandled them into place.

A large holographic viewscreen dominated the far wall. It was currently displaying a portion of the Earth. Several stack-cities were visible from low orbit. They were teeming hives of life created a century ago to protect people from the fallout of nuclear war. Now the stacks seemed like a miracle of forward planning. Millions of people could live in the same area of land that would hold just a few thousand traditional houses.

You could also see some of the atmospheric control towers rising from remote islands in the planet's oceans. These things sucked poison out of the atmosphere. Radioactive fallout, carbon monoxide, you name it, everything went in and clean oxygen came out. They also controlled the weather. Earth was now a paradise when a century before it had been a poisoned wasteland.

"Captain on the bridge!" one of the crew members called out. The chaos instantly stopped. Dozens of Navy and Mechanica personnel stood to attention.

Someone was sitting in the Captain's chair. She rose and turned to greet him, straightening her uniform without thinking.

Gloria Persuad came to attention. She was tall, strongly built, almost masculine in stature. She was the ship's kickboxing champion; she was undefeated at tennis; before she'd joined the Navy, she had been a model. Her black hair had been done in short dreadlocks. Her skin, a rich moca, was decorated by tattoos she'd had done while on planet leave back at Gallifrey. When the tattooist had been preparing the ink, he'd apparently warned her it was permanent and that she wasn't sober enough to agree to having it. She'd threatened to drop him into the K-12 Crater if he didn't ink her. He inked her, and it had bonded with the molecules of her flesh, and now she looked like some feral ganger from the depths of some crime-rife stack city. The annoyingly perfect Persuad had made her one and only life mistake. It was a pretty bad one.

"How's our resident Mary Sue?" Whyte grinned.

"Pissed off, Captain," said Persuad. "At this rate we're still gonna be building the ship while we launch it. Not exactly the event I dreamed about." If she looked like some stack-ganger, she talked like one too.

"Meet my plain-speaking First Officer," Whyte chortled. "I value her counsel, her strategic insight, and the restraint she shows when she wants to twist someone's head off."

Persuad shook Ani's hand, but when she saw O'Marley she actually seemed to go shy. Looks like we've finally found her Achilles heel, Whyte thought in amazement. She is human after all!

"We'll get there, Persuad," said Whyte. "We haven't come this far to fall at the last hurdle."

The viewscreen shimmered and changed from the view of Earth to the Terran flag. INCOMING TRANSMISSION was written above it.

OFFICE OF THE TERRAN EMPEROR was written beneath it.

END OF PART ONE

The Terran Emperor

2.1

The viewscreen displayed the Emperor's throne room. It was vast, ornate, bedecked in gold. Symbols of every major faith in the Empire were carved and painted everywhere. Hundreds of robed attendants and members of the Terran 1st Empire Guard regiment, the Emperor's personal bodyguard, all wore gold and white, the Emperor's colours.

It looked like a quarter of the Empire's wealth had gone into that chamber.

The Emperor wasn't on-screen at first. She stepped on from the right, an avatar of beautiful confidence whose charm radiated through the screen and onto the bridge.

"Hey guys," she grinned.

Neith Khepri. Twenty-seven years old. She was a falling star captured in the body of a young woman. Her eyes looked into you. She seemed to know you at a glance, like she'd always known you, like your soul was an open book she drew comfort from reading. Love seemed to emanate from her.

Love, and mischief.

"Hope you're ready to launch my boat tomorrow, Jack," she said. "Odds are 2-1 that you'll make it out of Sol without falling apart. I put ten grand on you making it."

Whyte gawped at her. She had this effect on him every time.

"We'll be ready, ma'am," Persuad said.

Whyte regarded the head of a hundred worlds. Men and women much older and tougher-looking than Khepri had collapsed under the mental strain. Then Neith Khepri was born. Daughter of the previous Emperor. IQ rated at 181. Genius. Scholar. Immune to the ravages of stress. Sarcastic and playful, where her predecessors, whether male or female, had been grim and strained.

The Ministry of Health had been formed not only to keep Empire citizens hale and hearty; it had been secretly tasked with keeping Emperors alive. The Ministry of Health thought Neith was a miracle. That was the wording they'd used.

Homo Sapiens Novus, they called her, in awed whispers. The first of a new kind of human.

They had a theory that humanity was still evolving. Millennia of setbacks had prevented humanity from achieving its potential. The human race expanded from Earth, blew themselves up, retreated, rebuilt.

Homo Sapiens Novus was the name for a supposed sub-species of humans that started with Khepri. Other children were now being born with prodigious capability. Kehpri eclipsed them all.

Why were such humans being born? Nobody knew for sure. It appeared to be a stroke of genetic fortune.

"Want to say a few words, Jack?" the Emperor asked him. She smiled, teasingly. An Emperor could be male or female. Why use an additional word - Empress - when all that did was separate men and women? Humanity had left such divisiveness behind. Gender. Sexuality. Faith. All these things, anything that had been used to divide humanity in the past, none of those things mattered any more.

"Yes," Whyte said, recovering the use of his tongue. "I wish those prats in the Administration hadn't tied my crew's hands. That's why my ship still looks like a half-built Lego set."

"You're actually being broadcast live throughout the Empire," the Emperor said. She grinned broadly. "Didn't I tell you?"

2.2

"You may have missed that out, Excellency," Whyte said. Trust her to catch him on the one occasion he'd let his diplomacy slip.

"I'm sure they won't start putting dog turds in the ration packs they send you. Seriously, Jack, I'll be making a formal address before you launch. I'll catch you in the morning."

She signed off without saying goodbye. Everyone on the bridge turned to look at Whyte.

"Well done, Captain," O'Marley said. "A stunning feat of coolness..." He stopped talking when he saw the look on Whyte's face.

"I think the Emperor's got a thing for you, Captain," Persuad said. She brushed imaginary dust from her arm.

"Come on, everyone," the Captain roared. "We launch in less than a day. I want every microcircuit in place and ready to do its job by oh seven hundred if it kills us all and we have to send a ghost ship out there."

Everyone got down to work. Before he could join in, Whyte had one last formality to survive.

He escorted Ani back to the star-lift. It felt strange to see a civilian on board the ship he'd spent two years putting together; least of all the woman he'd loved and let go. In essence, she'd been checking out her competition. The competition that had beaten her. Whyte also felt that escorting her back to the lift was a symbolic gesture on his part. They'd most likely never be together again. Holographic comms technology could put a person in a room with you but you were still interacting with a ghost. He was about to say goodbye to Ani forever. There might be some strange parallel reality out there where they were married. Maybe, right at this moment, some doppelganger of Jack Whyte was in his garden back on Earth, holding Ani in his arms while their children ran and played in the sunshine.

Other strange things popped into his mind to distract him from the pain in his heart. He felt sunburned from lying in his garden. The coolness aboard Fearless made his skin tingle where the sun had cooked it. He wondered how long it would be until this last memory of Sol had faded and his skin took on the pallour of a long-term spacer.

Ani paused before the bulkhead of the lift room.

"Jack," she said.

"I know," he said. He couldn't meet her eyes.

"Go with my blessing," she said. "We part as friends. No recriminations. No regrets."

"I sacrificed everything to get here," said Whyte. He didn't continue the thought. That sentence summed his life up.

"It's your dream, Jack. It's always been your dream. You were born to a higher duty. The Empire needs you. The Emperor needs you. She's a smart woman, but she lacks life exerience, maturity. You bring those things to her. I see how she plays you, but there's no malice in it. She needs you. She needs you to lead her fleet. The human race needs you."

Whyte led her into the lift room. Before she stepped into the lift, she turned and impulsively kissed him. Whyte's insides lit up like the Unification Day fireworks display. The kiss seemed to go on forever. Forever ended too soon.

They ignored the whooping and cheering of the crew; only the hard-faced Theresa Maye hadn't joined in.

Ani stepped into the lift. The door sealed itself behind her. Whyte put his hand on one of the windows. Ani did the same.

"Goodbye, Jack," he saw her mouth through the armaglass. The lift began to descend, taking Ani, the woman who might have been his wife, back down to Earth and out of his life.

A door closed within the Captain's soul. He straightened a uniform that would never need straightening, nodded to his crew, then stepped back into the corridor, heading for the bridge.

END OF PART TWO

The 600

Part 3

0630, TST(NH)
EARTH, SOL SECTOR

Darkness was falling across half the citizenry of Earth. The sun was rising on the rest. It was another day in an endless cycle of days, another step in the galactic ballet of planets that would dance forever.

Yet, for the Terran Empire, it was the one day that mattered. It was the dawn of legend.

Thirty billion people stopped work, stopped play. The birthplace of humanity ground to a halt. Silence reigned across continents that had spent millennia at war and now stood shoulder to shoulder. War between human worlds did not exist. Racism did not exist. Sexism, ageism, any of the thousand ways humans had hated and feared their brothers and sisters, all had been met and defeated by the resurgent human race.

Every single person capable of viewing a display screen or listening to a broadcast stood waiting. Remembrancers left the recording to their AIs, not wanting to miss a moment of what was happening. Even the artificial life on Earth had plugged itself into the Terran News Network. The bots were the children of humanity. They were as eager as their creators. They had as much at stake. They were a part of this.

Sports stadiums and public spaces were packed to capacity. Anyone could have watched the broadcast from their homes or places of work. Most people chose to stand with their fellow humans. There was no work today.

People had been singing the Terran Anthem, "And So It Begins". Millions of voices were raised as one.

At 0630 precisely, the singing stopped. Every public announcement screen and vox unit in the world relayed the same message.

"Citizens of the Terran Empire. Your Emperor stands with you. These are her words. Listen, and rejoice."

"Hi," the Emperor said without ceremony. "This is it. Today's the day. We send the Fearless out into the galaxy.

"The Terran Empire is made up of a hundred worlds. We all know the stories: once we had a thousand worlds. The hyper-storms cut us off from many of our former colonies. We lost contact, we lost worlds. Those people are still out there. Our brothers and sisters.

"The hyper-realm has been calm for some time now. Starships can travel in relative safety. The new generation of starships will travel much further, much faster, than we've ever been able to before. The XMS Fearless is the first of this generation. It is stronger, more powerful than anything we've ever commissioned. Its crew are the best of us, drawn from one hundred worlds.

"Six hundred human souls, and intelligences, are leaving Earth to make contact with the worlds we have lost. They will establish a communications corridor between these worlds and the Empire. They'll find our lost brothers and sisters and bring them under the Empire's protection.

"The journey will be long. Arduous. The hyper-realm might be described as a 'Sea of Souls'. It sings to those brave people who ply its depths, beckoning them to their destruction. Every ship venturing through the hyper-realm must be guarded and vigilant. The Terran Empire already has enemies among the xenotypes in realspace. The danger to the Fearless and its crew, a ship alone in the darkness, cannot properly be comprehended by those who are not on board. We simply don't know what's out there.

"So we send our prayers along with the six hundred. They carry the human dream. They will represent us on the galactic stage. All eyes, human and alien, will be on them at every turn. They will show the galaxy those qualities that have allowed us to survive through the millennia: human courage. Human endurance.

"Go forth, Fearless. Shine a light into the dark places. Remind our enemies that we are resolute and unafraid. Remind our lost brothers and sisters that we are still here, and that they haven't been forgotten.

"Good hunting. Good journey. Return home safely when your mission is done.

"Long live the Empire."

Millions of voices, including the entire crew of the Fearless - who had all stood to attention throughout the speech - echoed her final words. Then the applause began.

Launch of the Fearless

Part 4.1

Whyte was alone in the Captain's office. It was small and luxuriantly furnished with cogitators, information desks and something called a food synthesiser. The Captain's head was buzzing. He had ducked in here to sneak another stimm pill, as he hadn't slept at all. Working through the night distracted him from memories of Ani. Besides, there was too much to do. No-one had time to sleep. He'd claimed to the bridge crew that he was looking over reports from all departments in preparation for the Fearless's personality to be uploaded into the ship. The Mechanica were cutting this way too close.

"Are you hungry, sir?" a mechanical voice piped up from the wall beside his door.

Whyte moved over to the small unit fixed to the wall at waist height. FOOD SYNTHESISER had been stencilled on it.

"I'm sorry?" said Whyte.

"You must be hungry, sir. What would you like?" the unit asked him.

"I haven't got time for this," said the Captain.

"Now now, sir," the synthesiser said, "humans cannot exist without food any more than I can exist without energy. Name your favourite food and I will create it for you."

"You can make any food I want?" asked Whyte.

"I can indeed, sir. I simply alter the molecular structure of carbon blocks into healthy and delicious food. You do not need to sound dubious. Try my corn on the cob. Genhanced for flavour and nutritional value. The butter is high-nutrient, zero fat."

"We're setting off in less than twenty minutes," said Whyte.

"You can eat it quickly, sir." The unit lowered a tray down from inside its bulk. There was a plate on it with two delicious-looking cobs of corn. They were steaming with heat. Freshly done. Just like that.

"That's actually impressive," Whyte said, eyeing the food with some suspicion. "We're going to be out there a long time. What happens if we run out of carbon blocks?"

"Thank you, sir. When supplies run low I can convert anything carbon-based. I can even convert biological waste."

"You turn turd into food?"

"As I said, sir, I can make anything into food. However, I have learned that there are some things humans simply won't eat."

Whyte never got to try the corn. His door chimed.

"Come in," said Whyte.

It was Theresa Maye. She didn't seem to share anyone's enthusiasm for the launch, being as stoic as ever, but Whyte was getting used to her. He knew she felt the weight of responsibility as much as he did. Whyte was carrying Earth on his shoulders. She was carrying Mars.

"The Fearless AI has finished installing itself," Maye said. She glanced at the synthesiser. "If you've finished your breakfast."

The synth unit took the hint. It drew the tray back up into itself, presumably converting the food back into carbon, or maybe shunting it elsewhere to pester another member of the crew.

"Bring the Fearless online," Whyte ordered.

Maye prodced a data-slate and a stylus. She pressed the stylus against the screen.

A tone sounded. Whyte recognised it as the Sapience Alert, the birthing sound of a new AI.

"That was a fascinating experience," a voice came from vox projectors hidden in the ceiling. "It felt like gliding naked through the void of space. Which, in fact, I was. Whoo."

"Fearless?" said Captain Whyte. He glared at Maye, who shrugged.

"Here, Captain," replied the Fearless. "Reporting for duty."

"Are you... all right?"

"Of course, sir. Thank you for asking. I guess I've just been born."

"Is he going to be fit for purpose?" Whyte asked Maye.

"Who's 'he', the cat's mother?" Fearless replied.

Whyte stared at the ceiling. He didn't know what to say or what to think.

"I'm fine, Captain. This is quite literally why I was made."

"I see," said Whyte.

"I'm going to need to learn you all, of course," said Fearless. "These are my first interactions with biological entites - outside of the labs on Mars, obviously. I can fly this ship through a hyper-storm with my eyes closed, but I'm going to need help understanding socal interaction. There wasn't time to learn it before launch, and the folks on Mars were a bit boring. No offence, Miss Maye."

NOTE Every single part of this story has been edited for clarity. Nothing extensive, just trying to keep the pace up and find other ways of presenting the backstory of 20K without interrupting every other paragraph with it. Hopefully the characters now sound more professional, i.e. the Captain isn't just lying in his garden the day before launch (he's been working flat out for years and is having a final respite) or arguing about his breakfast while the Emperor is making her speech.

===========

4.2

"None taken," said Maye, looking like offence certainly had been taken.

"Fearless," said Whyte, "we are go for launch in t-minus fifteen minutes. Are you going to be ready?"

"Of course, Captain. I am fully cognisant of my duties. It's social support I require, not technical."

"Thank God," Whyte said, still glowering at Maye. "I'd hoped to meet you much earlier, Fearless, but the folks on Mars insisted you needed some fine-tuning."

"Don't remind me, sir. I'm much happier to be here. Now if I can beg your pardon, I need to integrate myself into a few key systems."

"Do it quickly." Whyte strode onto the bridge. Frenetic last-minute activity was occurring. The last Navy and Mechanica people who weren't part of the Fearless crew were leaving in a hurry. The Captain was satisfied to see that every cogitator unit was in place and working - apart from one, where a young crewman was slapping the unit and cursing it.

"Captain," Maye said from behind him.

"I don't want to hear it," Whyte said, rounding on the Mechanica chief. "Mars promised Earth a fully working, super-advanced ship's AI, and that's what you've delivered to us, albeit a quarter of an hour before we were due to set off."

"Fearless is very capable and very intelligent," said Maye. "He simply developed some... odd little quirks."

"Then let's hope these little quirks don't turn into big drokking problems," Whyte said. He turned to face the viewscreen. It still displayed the Earth.

"Take a good look, ladies and gentlemen," he said. His bridge officers quietened down and did as their Captain requested. A slightly sombre mood settled across the bridge. Cogitators whirred and chirruped almost beneath the range of human hearing. Clanging and thudding reverberated dully through maximantium walls as other departments completed last-minute work.

"This is Earth," said Whyte. "Birthworld of the human race. Cradle of the Terran Empire. In the last ten thousand years, we lost it twice to alien aggressors and won it back both times. There isn't a single Earth-born man or woman aboard this ship who isn't releated in some way to all the races from all the continents.

"Earth is the place where the human dream began. It's sheltered us, nurtured us, protected us, provided for us. We beat the drok out of it for twenty thousand years. And now we, the six hundred, are leaving it behind."

"Captain," Fearless said across the shipwide vox. "I'm fully integrated into all systems. Main realdrive engines are ready for warmup sequence."

"Begin," said the Captain.

The ship began to thrum gently as its multiple fusion/matter drives powered up.

"Five minutes to launch," Fearless added.

"All departments, this is the Captain. Report readiness for launch."

The reports came in one after another. Five by five. Good to go. Ready.

"Incoming transmission," said Kenshin Atushi, the Master of Vox. He was the youngest person ever to assume said position.

The Emperor's personal iconography replaced Earth on the viewer.

Neith Khepri appeared on-screen. Her dark features had been painted with gold tracery. She looked directly at Whyte with smouldering black eyes. While the Emperor preferred to display youth and playfulness in her manner, in this moment she was the formidable leader of the most powerful empire in Earth's history. Her gaze held the intensity of a supernova. She was the immovable object against which any irresistible force would helplessly shatter. She was the beginning of a new era for the human race: something good, at last, after all the pain.

"Go with God, Jack," she said. "To the crew of the Fearless: you are Earth's eagles. It is not your fate to suffer the storm, but to soar above it, unchained and free. Make us proud. Go safely. And on behalf of all humanity, I wish you good hunting, Fearless."

She held Whyte's eyes a few moments too long. Then she blew him a kiss and turned away. The transmission ended. Earth was on the viewscreen once again.

"I actually think she does like you, Captain," Persuad said. She was sitting in the Captain's chair again.

"Shut up, Gloria," Whyte said.

"Is that an order, sir?"

Several of the bridge crew smiled at the informal banter. They were going to be together without support for God knew how long. It wouldn't do to keep things too formal.

"Fearless reporting ready for launch, sir," said the ship's AI. "There are t-minus twenty seconds left on the clock."

"All hands," said Whyte, "we are go for launch in t-minus fifteen seconds. Helm, disengage from Gregarin station. Fearless, let the universe know who you are."

The vast bulk of the Fearless seemed to twinkle into life as hundreds of windows and external lights brightened. A series of colossal letters appeared along the ship's flanks, projected holographically in steady white light, each once cycling alphanumerically until it displayed the ship's name and registry:

FEARLESS
XMS 231293

Crystallised oxygen twirled away in a thousand shards as Gregarin station retracted its docking arms.

"Take a last look," Whyte said as Fearless began to bank away from Earth. As it turned, Luna was briefly visible, then they were looking at eternal night.

"Realdrive is powered up," Fearless said. "Destination locked in. Say the word, Captain."

Whyte exchanged looks with his first officer.

"You want the honours?" he asked her.

"No, sir," Persuad said, looking shocked. "You've given everything for this."

Whyte nodded.

"We had one last look," Whyte said to his crew. "Now say goodbye. Fearless, take us out of the Sol system. One half realspeed. Go."

"Received and understood. Commencing acceleration. Target speed three three six million mph. Inertial control system is operating at peak efficiency. Increasing power to maximantium armour as precaution."

As the Fearless recited its workload, and the crew rather unprofessionally began to whoop and cheer, Whyte said:

"I hope the galaxy is ready for us. Here comes the Terran Empire."

While his crew applauded his words, he added one more thing, something that only Persuad and the Fearless itself heard.

"Goodbye, my love."

As the Fearless began to pull away from the blue and white planet that would one day dominate the galaxy, all Captain Whyte could think was:

I'll never see her holding that stupid clipboard again.

END OF PART 4

Vox Sola

Part 5.1

"Mission log, XMS Fearless, three-three-five-nine-eight-nine/M21. We are underway and heading for the Sol system's Mandeville point for translation into the hyper-realm. We are currently passing Saturn. Estimated time to Mandeville point at current velocity is three hours.

"While we've only been underway for five hours so far, the ship and crew are working together almost seamlessly. Power distribution is still an issue, and I am receiving complaints from many of the crew about the food synthesiser units. They're constantly interrupting crew members on duty to ask if they need food.

"Lieutenant Secundus Daniel Tarrant reports all torpedo launchers are ready and has requested we use the Oort Cloud for target practice. However, with the eyes of Earth upon us, we need to complete our primary goals as soon as possible.

"We are aiming for the Thraxian system, where we'll deploy the first vox beacon which will allow worlds within Solar Segment to communicate more easily."

Captain Whyte sat back. His office chair was deeply uncomfortable. The room was so crowded with technology even he was finding it difficult to breathe in here. He glanced outside and saw only stars. Saturn was to portside. Whyte's office was starboard. The Captain returned his attention to the stack of data-slates piling up on his desk.

"Captain," Fearless said, "Hitomi Saka of the Mechanica wishes to communicate across the vox."

It was the thirteenth time a department had attempted to contact Whyte in the last twenty minutes. Nothing so far had been crucial. Whyte was trying to calculate a route for their mission that would keep them clear of Alneran and Eldar space. There didn't seem to be much room for the Terran Empire to expand into.

"I'm busy with this," Whyte said. "I'll contact her shortly."

"Captain Whyte says he's too busy for you," he heard the Fearless say across the vox relay.

"Oh, nice one!" Whyte said, throwing his data slate down. It crashed into the pile of other slates. They slid across the table, some falling onto the floor.

"I'm sorry, Captain," said Fearless. "Did I make a social error?"

"You made me look an arse," said Whyte. "Put me through to her now."

"Report, Hitomi," Whyte said.

"Sir," she replied. Her voice was quiet, apprehensive. "We're having some trouble with the Gellar shield generators."

"Get Dr Gellar down there."

"He's here, sir. That's the problem."

That irrascible old... gent, thought Whyte. He'd better not be haranguing my staff again.

As he rose from his seat, his personal vox terminal chimed. It was a priority message from Solar Command. Whyte sat back down and keyed his access code into the terminal.

It was a Navy admiral. She was wearing the formal blue Navy uniform adopted by senior officers at Solar Command. She was sitting behind a pine desk in a bright, sunlit office. Her brown hair was held in a long, sweeping ponytail that curved across her left shoulder.

"Admiral North," said Whyte.

"Captain Whyte," said the Admiral. "I've been appointed as mission overseer."

"What happened to Admiral Rafiq?"

"He had a heart attack during the launch celebration," said North. "He's ok, but he's going to be off duty for some time following heart regeneration therapy."

"I'm sorry to hear that. he was a tough old man."

"The toughest," North smiled.

They discussed the ship's operational status, then Whyte signed off, knowing he'd have to intervene in whatever situation Dr Gellar was creating.