Elite: Danger Star

[The Golden Knight]

The Sequel to "The Path to Elite"

CHAPTER 1

A humble month had passed since sealing the deal that'd earn an Elite badge. Jason Blaze (known by his Pilots' Federation handle of "Commander Golden-Knight") had been previously outfitted with the best ship and shielding money can buy...along with a slew of nuclear weapons, enough so that nobody - man or demon - would attempt to lift a finger against him. And in between that time and now, he's literally been from one end of the galaxy to the other, and back again. Hardly any more than a dozen could claim the same level of feats on display, and he had been getting the boring parts out of the way so now he could focus on the fun stuff.

Parked at the Abraham Lincoln station orbiting around Earth, there had been a small garage dedicated to the hero of this story. His trusty Cobra, Freedom's Beginning, hasn't seen the same amount of action it did in the first few days of the pilot's activation. But that's because he's gotten more specialized ships for combat and exploration...even for trucking to fill an obligatory rating bar. A Type-9 had been used for that trucking, a vanilla Diamondback Explorer made the galactic run edge-to-edge in 48 hours, and his Fer-De-Lance doubled as his secret weapon against the forces of terror.

He was brushing off the space dust left on his Fer-De-Lance. Even though it had been sitting in the station hanger for a while, flying through seemingly empty space almost covered his ship in a fine, snowy powder the community had been calling "space dust"...when there had been a holographic phonecall, dragging the pilot's attention out of whatever stupor captured his sleep-deprived imagination.

"Ah, Commander Golden-Knight. For all you've done, hardly anyone speaks of your name." The image on the other side of that communique showed a pitch-black coat and pants, thick gray hair and beard, with eyes like coal. Dark and edgy, which for most would send off some yellow-flags in the back of the subconscious, except in the frontiers of space, nobody really cared about "fashion" in the conventional sense. This wouldn't be the first "mysterious stranger", yet Golden-Knight's gut feeling could sense a strong ping, like this person could transmit a metaphysical sense of POWER...and that sensation crossed whatever dimensions allowed for holographic transit. And judging by the seriousness in the stranger's face, the feeling was mutual.

"I'd say I'm too busy, but we both know I'd be lying. So get it out, and stop wasting my time."

"We need not just any Elite pilot, but an Explorer of the highest caliber. That would be YOU, Commander Golden-Knight...or should I say, Jason Blaze." Commander Golden-Knight chuckled and squirmed from the sound of his name spouted back at him.

"We need you to investigate a rumored Thargoid base...put those heavy weapons to work. If you find anything, exterminate! If nothing, either way, bring all the data you find in the target solar system."

"Sure," the enthusiastic Golden-Knight answered, "Just point the way."

"That's the only problem, Golden-Knight. We don't know where exactly it is. That is WHY we need an Explorer of the HIGHEST CALIBER! AND one with the guns ready to clear out a nest of alien filth! A lot of explorers are outright pacifists, and the best fighters are too busy picking on each other to go after a job like this. That's why we need YOU!"

The stranger hawked up a deep phlegm ball and hurled it into a napkin slightly off-screen. Golden-Knight had asked, "If you were any more vague, I'd be starting to wonder if this were about Raxxla."

Both of them shared a chuckle at the absurdity of that prospect. "No, this isn't about Raxxla, neither planet nor...HUMAN." The character said that last line with an exaggerated wink, as if well aware of the virginity of the protagonist, and the reputation for using Raxxla as a metaphor. "The system we are looking for is said to be a Wolf-Rayet star, simply codenamed 'DANGER STAR'."

There had been a musical flair, to punctuate the adventure and the intensity affiliated with this. Golden-Knight muttered, "Danger star? Sure Wolf-Rayets can get hot, but is it really THAT bad to LITERALLY call it DANGER star?!"

"But wait, there's more. The Wolf-Rayet is merely the anchor point that'll put you into the system, the Danger Star itself. It's got company, too, and not just any possible Thargoids. More than any binary star imaginable, it's clumped by White Dwarves, all huddled together making it seemingly IMPOSSIBLE to escape before the ship gets toasted."

Golden-Knight shrugged and started slowly resuming his mundane chores, while murmuring, "So what? Why would this not have already been visited by a thousand OTHER pilots?"

"It's simply not on the galactic map, that's why! Trust me, if it were that easy to plug in a course and head off, you'd be right. And don't even get started on those broken outer systems like you'd find the underhanded pirates using. Their databases are all cruddy anyway. The one I found on YOU, for example, shows you as still HARMLESS!" Both of them laughed heartily at the thought.

"Still though," Golden-Knight argued with all the mental faculties he could concentrate, "If it's so hard to find, how AM I supposed to pinpoint it?"

"Planets without stars...the missing link. With nothing in the in-between, there are many riddles surrounding this. But I will tell you right now, you won't have to go all the way to the very edges of the galaxy. IF Danger Star is in fact some kind of Thargoid base, it stands to reason it would be near the Witch Head Nebula, or any other places where they have been known to roam. That would be the obvious first place to start looking for clues."

"Well, that's more helpful than most of these Raxxla nutjobs. At least you've given me a LEAD...y'know, something I can use to get started!"

"I'm not sure how Thargoids will react to nuclear fire, dear Golden-Knight. Those hearts have a reputation for ignoring all conventional arms, but the sacred flame is the most extreme opposite from conventional. God forbid it prompts them to use some weird alien-level nukes on us. Get some sleep, then head out as soon as you can."

"With great enthusiasm. Semper Bellum."

The transmission ended, leaving the highlights in written form within the Fer-De-Lance's messaging window. So begins the next great adventure...

 

[Hanerib]

"Well, that's more helpful than most of these Raxxla nutjobs. At least you've given me a LEAD...y'know, something I can use to get started!"

Mind you, very clear instructions have been given. If not enough celestial horses are given to the sons of Dyēus, the Sun won't be carried across the sky anymore. Remember, an invisible dark Sun needs to be carried back to the beginning place at night time. Can you imagine the gravitational anomaly caused to the Skywheel by the Sun not being carried around? Stars and spokes of the wheel would crash into it, tearing a horrible black hole. Also give some barley and Lavian brandy for a good harvest season.

Spoiler

 

[The Golden Knight]

Mind you, very clear instructions have been given. If not enough celestial horses are given to the sons of Dyēus, the Sun won't be carried across the sky anymore. Remember, an invisible dark Sun needs to be carried back to the beginning place at night time. Can you imagine the gravitational anomaly caused to the Skywheel by the Sun not being carried around? Stars and spokes of the wheel would crash into it, tearing a horrible black hole. Also give some barley and Lavian brandy for a good harvest season.

Spoiler

So, you're saying Raxxla is somehow doable, by some reference to a story I'm not familiar with, from ancient times...when that description would more accurately call into question how a star system like this could even exist.
(If that were the case, it's like a binary star, only taken to a ridiculous extreme.)

Nah, I'm still confused. That's also assuming this isn't all just being facetious. But hey, at least there are more people in this thread than myself, so...it's a start. Next chapter should be in a couple of days, if all goes well.

 

[The Golden Knight]

CHAPTER 2

The next day, Commander Golden-Knight set out through The Bubble, not just combing the Witch Head Nebula, but asking around for advice or insight onto the possibility of a "Danger Star". Nothing but blanks...most of which were too busy rushing to pay their Federation bills, or scouring the empty blackness of space looking for some very specific components on many Engineers' shopping lists. The bulk of such fellow pilot Commanders didn't even acknowledge the existence of Commander Golden-Knight, not even a polite "o7" that had been customary in the culture of the Pilots Federation.

On the way, one stop had to be the popular hangout of GCRV 1568. Once there, Golden-Knight asked around for any hints on "Danger Star". The consensus had been either genuinely clueless, or stupidly attempting to joke around. Either way, this did not please him.

After a lot of asking around, Danger Star had been rumored to be "Legitimately dangerous for the most daring explorers, and a sadistic trap for anyone else caught unprepared." Some time later, after consulting the engineers, all records show that there has not been any star documented as "Danger Star", on any official records. All avenues seemed exhausted at this point, until an unnamed agent made contact with the eager young pilot through private messaging:

"You do NOT want to go there."

"What? WHY NOT?! What do you know about Danger Star?"

"Because there is space out there that does not appear on the maps. You go there, you basically fall off the grid. Make sense?"

"Is that like a criminal hideout of sorts?"

"Not exactly. Close, but no. It has to do with Rogue Planets."

"Those are just a myth...right?"

"Not by the official word, no."

"So then why don't they show up on the galactic map?"

"Beats me...but I have a way that'll make them pop up."

"Let me guess, you want something from me."

"Just some intact Thargoid Hearts, to prove you're up to the challenge."

"And you asking for something so dangerous implies you're serious. Alright, I'll see what I can do."

The hunt didn't take long, with well-documented Thargoid nests in The Bubble. Some had even gone after megastructures near Farseer. Sadly, no nukes could be used in the proximity of human constructs. That meant no helping Farseer, and instead going off to the nebula. There had been a hundred alien signals, all within a handful of jumps that could be made. So, Commander Golden-Knight made his way into the thick of those signals, dropping out of supercruise, and with armed nuclear missiles, he blasted the aliens to nonexistence!

The biggest alien ships - which was hard to tell with weird cryptic names like "Cyclops" and "Medusa" - did survive an initial nuking, even if in a woefully crippled state. Another launch of nukes, and even the scariest aliens were toast. Downside, however, was that it left nothing to salvage...not even if he remembered to bring the correct corrosive-resistant cargo holds. With a reluctant groan, he had to go back to base and rearrange the component loadout of his favorite fighting ship.

About an hour or so later, he came back, muttering, "Alright, round two." So clearly, no nukes could be used, or else the hearts would incinerate to nothing. Yet, now with a truly enhanced ship, the actual battle with more tried-and-true alien killing guns had become a test of patience. Thargoid swarms billowed out of the big motherships, especially as they had the time to deploy without getting obliterated by decisive nuclear power.

The battling took upwards of three whole hours, running out of ammo time and again, trying to synthesize ammo for contingency reserves, all while the shields had to hold against particular damage types that there were no known resistances for. But, in the end, even with a handful of dramatic mistakes made, such a chore had finally been accomplished, captured, and delivered to the strange contact.

"There. Happy? Now what do you know about Danger Star?"

"You'll need to go to Rogue Planets, and testbeds that the most secretive of agents don't want you to visit. Only way there is to hack the highest authorities in the Federation."

"Man. And I already gave them my whole life's savings to arm myself. Even if that WERE an option, this might be the ONLY access that can't be outright bought."

"I've already updated your firmware, you should be able to see the secret worlds now." As Commander Golden-Knight went to refresh his galactic map, he saw the Bubble became measurably more cluttered. Rogue Planets had cropped up as close a 100 lightyears from Earth!

"I see them. Time to get started the actual search."

"Be careful, for Rogue Planets are a closely-guarded secret. If you find any beacons or data sites around them, I hope you know how to tunnel into a database, because what we're about to do can get both of us unpersoned if we're found out."

 

[The Golden Knight]

CHAPTER 3

Once at the nearest "Rogue Planet", the one 100 lightyears from Earth, it definitely matched the description of a planet without a star. Distant stars glowed and glared, in all their rainbow colors, but with no light source in the immediate vicinity gave a seemingly existential darkness to this lonely planet. The planet itself was just a gas giant, swirling around with a purple hue that, given the darkness, could've been mistaken for a black dot of nothingness.

This particular "Rogue Planet" had proven fruitless, but with at least a hundred left to visit, the stubborn explorer had just barely gotten started.

The mysterious contact cut off all ties to Commander Golden-Knight, as if deliberately trying to distance itself from him...like wanting nothing to do with this estranged pilot. These planets, after careful analysis from the surface scanner "probes", had been as humdrum as any ordinary ice bodies or metal rich planets. Without any heat source, it'd be impossible for any of them to harbor life...at least that's what you'd think.

Then came a single Earth-Like world out in the void. Something about it had encased itself in a seethrough dome, to entrap any artificially generated heat on the surface. The planet had a funny name, like "ALPHA SITE 3.09". No way to reach the planet surface meant that any signs of activity would need to be somewhere in orbit...with luck. The surface scanner went to work probing the atmosphere of this strange planet, which provided the information as soon as the probes shattered against the unnatural bubble encasing this lonely world.

A quick analysis of the right-hand data panel inside the ship showed...undefined readings. All of Golden-Knight's rankings, his profile picture...all cleared. And from out of Witchspace spawned in radar contacts that showed up as hallow boxes. Those weren't ordinary pilots - they were fellow members of the Pilots Federation - other "CMDRs" like himself! And as he watched those boxes turn to hostile triangles, he just said to himself,

"This is NOT GOOD!"

Twelve of these pilots came down around him, initiating interdiction. All twelve of them had been ranked Elite, with the decals of the highest awards. While getting pulled out of Witchspace, he started the 15 second countdown to emergency cloaking - something that the more judgemental pilots refer to as "SOLO MODE". Now Commander Golden-Knight WAS still carrying his mythical payload of nuclear warheads, but even still, he had no intention of dying to a squadron of Elites.

Ten seconds, interdiction finished.

Five seconds, watching the menu circle spin out of existence, while hearing "Shields Offline."

The sounds of bullets clanging against his reinforced hull almost gave a sense of deja' vu, like this wouldn't be the first time he'd have to enact a forced eject. The difference this time, though, judging by his wiped account, is that it'd be safe to assume these Elite pilots would be taking no prisoners.

Timer hit zero, and Commander Golden-Knight threw himself into the big button. A few seconds of loading later, and everything started going dark. When he tried to reboot his systems in "SOLO MODE" (or as the proprietary branding worded it, "Safely Organized Stealth Mode"), a few suspenseful seconds beat past as he watched the orange hologram of his ship spin around. What made this so hard to bear was whether or not he'd even get to return at all, or if he were stuck in a vacuum with dwindling emergency air supply.

The lights turned back on, and his right-hand dashboard still showed blank readings. The planet he had been overlooking seemed to have disappeared, and he was left in a system of a Rogue Planet...but with no planet. With nothing else to go on, he went back to the galaxy map...which somehow still worked. The system he found himself at, and more specifically the space coordinates he logged in for that system, came up blank, like it had no longer existed.

That's when it sunk in: he saw something he was not supposed to be allowed to see!

When he attempted to scan and probe the undefined system he found himself drifting in, stating "Orbital Plane Established. Bodies: 0."

He burst out loud, "ZERO?!"

All his past messages in his inbox had been conspicuously deleted, and the chat channel said it was "INVALID". He started to worry, because this must've been what it feels like to be a ghost. The records were clearly being erased, and all the nothingness affirmed the notion that he was supposed to cease existing. Despite that, he defiantly got away with his life, and so long as Commander Golden-Knight still breathes in and out, this mysterious faction hadn't yet won.

"Par Kra'ta."

He let loose with some VERY MEAN words, before turning his attention back to the galactic map. On a lark, he typed in "DANGER STAR", and lo and behold, his entire system crashed!

COVAS announced, "ERROR CODE: SCARLET CORVETTE!"

"Something something hacking tunneling...NOTHING on that particular code!"

In order to get back in some form of working status, he needed to route through to the impression that his home system was in COLONIA, and then he had to make a dummy handle, for a fresh new Pilots Federation license. Commander Golden-Knight was still alive, but until he could defeat these mysteries, his mask was now Commander Sven Rickshaw XV.

Transferring whatever data he could from the NULL sector INVALID, he tried to retrace the steps for finding the hostile Earth-Like Planet. It took some rearranging of core system files, but he DID dig up the old Rogue Planet detector, which had saved a metric tonne of headaches. One refresh later, and the Earth-Like Planet had made itself visible...plus with the added protection of "Safely Organized Stealth Mode". Now, God willing, Commander Golden-Knight could scrutinize the world unmolested.

Going so close to the planet that it dropped him out of Supercruise had even more strange effects. Random parts and pieces had been flung around arbitrarily like the whole orbit had been some kind of giant junkyard. Some of those could be scanned, the same way that salvage sites may have ship beacons to be processed for data finds. Difference here, one of those also included an unmarked tourist beacon.

The tourist beacon gave other readings, and information on how many beacons in all there were...but more rather, it did list "DANGER STAR" as a star category all onto itself.

"NOW we're getting somewhere!"

 

[The Golden Knight]

CHAPTER 4

The hunt went on, and after probing the Federation databanks from the rise in ranks along "The Path to Elite", Commander Golden-Knight scoured every source of classified information a top-level officer could...effectively flexing "Yankee White" clearance level regarding inquiries into "DANGER STAR" as well as other heroes and heroines reported "Missing in Action". Alessia was among the MIA category, last seen months ago according to the logs.

But more importantly, he had to investigate what a "SCARLET CORVETTE" means for his ship systems. After much digging around and asking the community, even the old-timer gray-beards scratched their heads, and he had to issue statements to the very manufacturer of his ship. All they told him was a weaselly runaround about "Consumer-end tampering will void your warranty," a string of corporate jargon that translates to "We can't help you, since it's not OUR fault your systems failed."

The wisest and deepest of Golden-Knight's "inside contacts" deliberately refused to answer, one or two actually saying directly and plainly "I am sworn to secrecy." The simple fact that he's been digging so deep that the highest of the brass refuse to answer means he's getting close to finding something meant as a secret. And somehow, whatever this meant was that, in short, "DANGER STAR" was BEYOND a "Yankee White" clearance level!

The last thing that happened before "SCARLET CORVETTE" was Commander Golden-Knight activating "The Panic Button", a feature all ships have equipped in the event of facing overwhelming and inevitable annihilation. Think of it as a pocket-dimension, or a Witchspace hole you can pull out of a pocket. It sucks the ship in, so that from the pursuer's point of view, it's as if the target MAGICALLY VANISHES INTO NONEXISTENCE! From the user's point of view, everything goes as dark as nonexistence, as if staring at a glimpse into the Heat Death of the Universe, and the ship's systems all shut down until reactivated once "the coast is clear" in a matter of two or three minutes. Emergency oxygen gets used during this period, since everything gets shut down until the ship comes back to normal space. And once the ship reappears in normal space, the coast is clear and for this specific example, Commander Golden-Knight floated in absolute isolation in the millions of lightyears constituting the void. The cockiest ace pilots disapprove of its use, but Commander Golden-Knight was the type to take every edge he's allowed to, especially when it's life-or-death.

Also there were no Thargoids spotted at the time of the incident, so "Hyperdiction" can be scratched off the possible causes - especially since "Hyperdiction" results in a soiling experience of the lulling "Witchspace" going flaky and the ship twirling around inside what was built like a narrow and straight tunnel. If humans ever got a means of emulating "Hyperdicting", Commander Golden-Knight hoped to himself that it'd mean making the Thargoids afraid of HIM.

Perhaps he'll get his chance to make THEM soil their alien equivalents to underwear. But first, the mystery of "SCARLET CORVETTE" glared creepily at his subconscious.

The only hypothesis he had was the obvious correlation that the off-the-market modifications which picked up on the "Rogue Planets" played a direct role in the error message. And with the sudden strike team intending to erase every trace of Commander Golden-Knight, he was on the right track to digging up those secrets...secrets that the "true inner circle" want to keep out of meddling hands and the general public. "SCARLET CORVETTE" was just another hurdle along that path to the answers his whole quest revolved around. And at the same time, that's when it hit him: it could've been another clue!

Desyncronizing his Pilots Federation accounts on top of all that was surely going to cause multiple layers of digital confusion. Even with that being the only alternative to complete "unpersoning", now there were two handles pointing to the same human pilot. But by arriving in restricted space, and resetting the off-the-market tools, a mismatch ensued between his actual location and the locations on the map. "Exceptions" in the code cropped up through this, and that would also explain why he fell off the Galactic Map!

He found himself in space that wasn't supposed to exist by official accounts...yet still DID physically exist! And when unofficial mechanisms to circumvent that had shut down, because of "The Panic Button" turning everything off, errors ensued. That error was called "SCARLET CORVETTE".

Assuming that hypothesis was even partially correct, that would mean reactivating his circumvention programs would again broadcast him as a target...even though that may have been the only way to get him back to charted solar systems. More rather, the fact that this special error code existed meant that the original developers had considered the possibility of a similar form of system crash, even planning for it to potentially happen. This implication spun more meta than any of the previous conspiracies thus far.

So, Commander Golden-Knight reactivated the Rogue Planet Expansion just for that one trip, and made a single jump to an anarchy system...population zero, with a name that was just a random string of letters and numbers, a thousand lightyears from Sol. The tunnel through Witchspace behaved normally, and with the startling BOOM sound that happens every time a ship exits into the sector, headlong towards a star, Golden-Knight shut off the expansion unit. And he took a few more normal jumps just to try and mess around with his path...and more importantly, indicate that no more stalkers would be sniffing his metaphysical scent.

The path proved clear, after a dozen jumps, so he went back to Sol...and Mars, specifically. Commander Golden-Knight activated a direct channel to President Hudson, inquiring about these experiences. And right then and there, he found out WHY a "Yankee White" clearance was no good. Even the President HIMSELF was as clueless as HE was. Now remember, previously Commander Golden-Knight gave President Hudson a debit card, which is how he's got such high connections. It was "Cash 4 Rep" taken to the ultimate extreme.

Hudson also seemed PEESED! "You broke our deal!" The stern scowl and the pointing finger, just like the poster from the Powerplay screen, aimed at Commander Golden-Knight, and this was because the debit card handed over had been completely wiped...right as Golden-Knight has become "unpersoned". The young pilot explained his side of the story, showing no intention of slighting the President of the Federation...and that he too had been wronged by dark forces who sought to snuff him out of history and memory. "I have become, practically speaking, a ghost. And once we can restore my name and my account, I swear the money will be good once again. So long as I live and breathe, not all is lost. I came looking for help with answers, and since you're as confused as I am, that means we're both in the dark about a bigger web of shenanigans."

"What kind of 'shenanigans' are we talking about?" The crossed arms and body language of the President showed an uneasiness and tension...not just from being steaming mad over losing carte blanche, but that his secret weapon has fallen into a snag.

"I can't say it has to do with 'YOU-KNOW-WHAT'...but I won't address that directly because that is outside the scope of my investigation. I am specifically concerned about Danger Star."

"Danger WHAT? There's no such thing. It's not even possible without a black hole or worse!"

"I've seen living aliens up close, and technology indistinguishable from magic. To think a clump of white stars orbiting a Wolf-Rayat is inconceivable would be a form of psychological denial. Danger Star is not on any vanilla version of the Galactic Map, so the trouble started when I got to digging in the unreliable slew of third-party extensions. Most of them are flaky at best, but this particular one revealed and confirmed what we thought to be a myth: Rogue Planets, or a planet without a star. Then one of those was Earth-Like, which absolutely goes as an example of 'technology indistinguishable from magic', and that's when the strike force came to try and erase me. I say TRY because I am clearly still HERE, and I'm not a hologram, or decoy, or a literal ghost...just figuratively a ghost. Even seeing as how all the reach of the Federation is unable to attempt answering this mystery, all you need to log in your archives, Mister President, is that the mystery DOES exist...and that with having seen Rogue Planets up close, some say there IS such a thing as Danger Star."

President Hudson went silent for a good long minute or two, closing his eyes and getting into deep thought, just letting all these revelations sink in, and more to the point, how to act about it on behalf of the entire Federation. When all patience fizzled out, Commander Golden-Knight said, "PLEASE tell me there's a way to find out."

"Not off the top of my head, but I will do what I can to fix this, for both our benefits. Some of the Engineers specialize in alien machinations, so I'd say that's the first point of contact."

"Alright, that's where I'm headed - "

"WAIT! I need to tell you something...just between the two of us. See me in-person, on Starship One. Come alone."

One transition later, aboard the President's flagship, Commander Golden-Knight had been escorted shoulder-to-shoulder by burly Marines, until he was physically face-to-face with President Hudson. He silently shooed the two guards off, who stomped out with metal footsteps clanging in a rhythm until the doors shut behind them.

President Hudson went on to explain, "If what I think is right, you're going to need every edge you can. There will be an Odyssey coming, also a good opportunity for Space Marines, and...more importantly, our most secretive arms of government force. Before you go any further, we can use your ghost status to full effect, since the description of what you've been through on your search reeks of Black Ops. To that end, you will disappear for a couple of months, as you undergo 'Super Training'. From this moment to next week, get some rest and say goodbye to any friends or personal affairs you might have. Because starting one week from now, you will report to the most secret-of-the-secret skunkwork lab in star system FREE-ABX 1029 Planet A-2-A. That is where you will find the Federation's Department of Future Tech, our evolution from the roots of the United States' Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency."

Golden-Knight interrupted: "HOLD ON...you mean to tell me the whole point of this secret meeting right now is that...you're signing me up for SPACE DARPA?!"

"Correct, and more specifically, the legacy of Project Hero...now code-named the Elite Superhuman Warriors, obviously the improved model to the famous United States Super Soldiers. You should know of their history well, being related to their very first...the ORIGINAL Golden Knight." President Hudson almost chuckled as he said, "You'll be following in the footsteps of the very 'Winner of WWIII' by the time you get out there and conquer Danger Star...if it's not a hoax. Hoax or no, your mission is to uproot the force that has wronged you and invalidated the debit card. You do that, and I'll let you walk away a free man, with you keeping all the benefits and enhancements I'm about to bestow upon you. But your freedom rests on my carte-blanche. For that's the important detail I could only tell you when we're alone: you are going to become a Super Soldier, and a Black Beret."

 

[The Golden Knight]

CHAPTER 5

Some months later, and Commander Golden-Knight woke to the sounds of alarms and flashing red lights all around. It felt like mere moments ago he had been dreaming of dating a tentative girlfriend of an unspecified ethnicity, but the nearby computer screens reported such "REM Activity" actually happened no sooner than 2 Earth months before this abrupt awakening. His Spec-Ops metal plate armor hadn't been ready yet, since the red alert came early, forcing the Federation's hand and calling ALL hands on deck! On that note, he was fortunate that the waking didn't happen when surgeons still had his scalp open to implant tiny circuitboards deep into the cerebellum. Still, normal armor and energy rifle would do, only to be shocked by a screeching broadcast -

"IT'S THE THARGOIDS!"

How the aliens learned of the existence of such a "Blacksite" gave multiple layers of concern that could not be addressed in the urgency of battle, but clearly, this would be his first time seeing the so-called "bugs" up close and personal. Without much time to adapt, he leaped for the guns on the table, and when he leaped, he LEAPED! Not being used to the midway and half-finished upgrades came as a shock, but it took only a couple minutes of intuitive practice before he regained control of his own motor functions...definitely a vastly easier task than learning how to fly FA-OFF.

"All hands, we are scuttling the site! Repeat, we are scuttling the site!"

The command made a great deal of sense, since the faction couldn't let their secrets be proven by anyone outside - be they Human or Thargoid. But that also meant getting any additional "Super Soldiers" out would be top priority...specifically including the protagonist of this story. On the flip side, ground combat had a poetic rhyming as the xenos proven immune to human guns much like how they were when encountered in space. Basically, at this stage, there would be no point in attempting to battle them head-on. So again, all logic pointed towards running from the fight.

Running down the hallways all basked in crimson red light, with no room for any color besides RED, grunts of both species lined up, and with Golden-Knight's first up-close encounter, he desperately threw stun grenades, just trying to get ANY kind of edge he could on the otherwise invulnerable assailant. After the deafening bursts and the high-pitched ringing in his ears faded, he could hear the angry howling of enemy monstrosities, plus one lone Marine saying out loud, "Commander! What a relief to see you on your feet!"

Bullets squished against their creepy scaly hides, which rippled like water...settled back to a state of calm like the waves of water running out of most of its kinetic energy, as well. For those who weren't immediately disemboweled right in front of the brave security's eyes, Commander Golden-Knight diverted the enemy towards himself, using his heightened athleticism and reflexes to continuously dodge lightspeed projectiles long enough so more vulnerable employees had a chance to scurry off into their life pods.

"No more than ONE ELITE PER POD," the order rang out over the same speaker system. High Command obviously didn't want to risk putting all their metaphorical eggs in one basket. Explosions rang out as the caustic missiles of Thargoid Scouts and Hydra Interceptors ate through swaths of the bulkhead, dissolving entire segments into nothing but opening out to the deadly vacuum of space. The air sucked out hard, though heavy metal armor (with some help of emergency magnetism) prevented the less expendable officers from jettisoning off to certain death. That said, the one Marine next to Commander Golden-Knight ended up as one of the expendable ones. The young Commander panicked and did all he could to reach out, but all effort had been for naught. All he could do was watch the helpless soul get whisked away, flailing and clutching at the neck in a sign of asphyxiation.

With time running out and the station melting away - both from alien acids and from sheer self-destruction - Commander Golden-Knight needed to go to the nearest escape pod. As he ducked through the metal opening, he simply said out loud, "Is this one taken?"

The pilot at the far end of the pod called out, "Does it matter? It's now or never."

And since no other words needed to be said, he flung himself in, shutting the door behind him, and the pod detached with a dramatic puff of thruster fire.

And with a great HUZZAH moment, reinforcements had arrived. The distress beacon triggered a community call-to-arms slightly before the awakening, and a team of a hundred Elite pilots of the Anti-Xeno Initiative heard the call. They came to do their best to not only purge the attackers, but collect survivors (as well as the abundance of dead bodies littering the void). Good thing those rescuers didn't come sooner, or else they might've had a chance to dig up scraps of data packets which would've clued them into the "true purpose" of this otherwise out-of-the-way facility. All that mattered was that NOW, Commander Golden-Knight could breathe a little.

First words Commander Golden-Knight spoke once he confirmed an emergency communication line to Mars: "Mister President, tell me I'm not the ONLY asset to have survived."

Long silence followed, the sort of length that made the young Commander worry that either his message failed to be delivered...or worse, the receiving end had chosen to deliberately sever all ties to him.
After that nail-biting pause, President Hudson responded:
"No. I'd say about half made it out."

"And the OTHER half?"

"Let's just say the aliens are smarter than they look, for they captured them ALIVE! It's like they KNEW they weren't dealing with ordinary rabble."

"HMPH! I suspect a mole. A couple new friends of mine told hearsay about sympathizers down in Witch Head Nebula over the Fall of 3306."

"Leave that to the Intelligence Agency. YOUR job is more clean-cut. The aliens will be siphoning information from the captured Elites, so not only are you to RESCUE them, but return in kind. I mean we'll siphon information from THEM! And before you worry about politics, DON'T! The Alliance and, to a lesser extent, the Empire have grown to focus on a more mutual enemy. I refuse to downplay such a crisis, as our society learns from the mistakes of our ancestors."

"But what about Danger Star?"

"That's EXACTLY why I'm sending you on this particular job!"

 

[The Golden Knight]

CHAPTER 6

Those words created a jolt of excitement and anticipation as he went to refit his Federal Corvette "Hero Leader" for the job of anti-xeno operations. And a very specific kind of limpet controller had been needed specifically for busting prisoners out of the hold. Time was of the essence, so there had been no spare break to go plunging into "Guardian Ruins" looking for any additional edge for this encounter...specifically thinking about Shield Boosters and Caustic-Resistant Hull Reinforcement. A Decontamination Limpet would be required as well, to compensate for the lack of those particular resistances. A cargo hold of about 100 limpets should be enough. That would not only keep the ship clean of burning acid, but could scoop up a whole platoon of pilot prisoners. Finally, a scientific research limpet mechanism would be needed specifically to "interrogate the Thargoids". As for guns, two Anti-Xeno autocannon turrets for the Scouts and 3 Guardian Gauss Guns for the Interceptors, with engineered beams to compensate for heat build-up. Some shields had to be sacrificed for the required scanning equipment in order to reveal the infamous "Thargoid Hearts".

The connection to Danger Star had been that this site involved a humongous cluster of Non-Human Signal Sources, with a particularly large heat signature emitting from a seemingly random high metal planet surface. The atmosphere had been filled with sulfur and oceans had been made of lava. The exact location of "Danger Star" still remained a cloaked mystery, but this level of fortification gave reason to suspect an all-out assault and probing operation would put the heroes on the right track.

All systems checked out, and Admiral Golden-Knight had been cleared to launch from the Abraham Lincoln that floated directly above what used to be called "North America". The wheels for the landing pad lift rolled through the routine, scooping the ship up to the station's core, and after detaching the clamps, he was free to angle the nose of his ship at the mailslot and boost clear on out.

A handful of Witchspace jumps later, and he arrived at the signal. The system had been named one of those random procedurally generated types, with loads of random letters and numbers splattered together. But, with that said, the distance was only a couple hundred lightyears from Sol. The scary implication here was that the Thargoids had begun preparations for a full-scale alien doomsday invasion against the Cradle of Humanity!

While en route to the planet, his Corvette had been interdicted by a wing of 4 Thargoid Cyclops vessels. Once the spinning stopped and the supercruise broke down into normal space, he hissed through clenched teeth as he found himself outnumbered 4 to 1. Before he could even get all the curse words (let alone the ridiculously more controversial "mean words") out of his system, they volleyed EMP bursts at his ship, leaving it dead in the water. The muffled sounds of swarm attacks hammered at the lifeless hull, and his brain reflexively realized there would be only one mechanism that could save him:

"The Panic Button!"

While waiting for the 20 second countdown to spiral around (because Thargoid tech is SO advanced, they can even hinder such a metaphysical feature as "The Panic Button", since conventional forces demand a 15 second countdown), sweat ran down his face while "Hero Leader" melted like a plastic toy in a pre-heated oven. All he could say out loud was, "Well, no plan survives contact with the enemy." This kind of helpless emergency is EXACTLY what "The Panic Button" was designed for, to give a desperate and last-ditch save against one-sided adversaries.

Blip, back into literal blackness he found himself, staring at a giant rotating holographic representation of a Federal Corvette. When the systems rebooted after the shunned yet desperate tactic, Hull read at 5% with modules well below 60% integrity. Good news, he was alone, and sprayed a decontamination limpet to stop the acid burn before the passive damage-over-time liquidated the entire hull and leaving him with only his helmet and oxygen tank while in the thick of the enemy front-lines. Once the imminent life-threatening danger had passed, and he had a chance to breathe until his heart-rate rested at "normal levels", he narrated, "Back to the drawing board."

A very quick "research" by seeking out the public documents from expert xeno-hunters had suggested a very cold ship would skip segments of the Interceptor battles. And, cranking that to 11 as is typical Golden-Knight fashion, he went for one particular request to Aegis: "I need the spaceship equivalent of a SUBMARINE! The Corvette is DEFINITELY NOT the ideal choice against Thargoids."

The think-tank in the Sol system scribbled some expedited blueprints, putting this at top priority given the urgency of the mission and the stakes of Sol in the balance. After grabbing a LITERAL submarine and gutting it, Aegis went to inserting space-worthy components like the basics for flight (power core, FSD, Life Support, etc.) and began looking more closely at how conventional "Silent Running" functions. In the Admiral's description, "It's basically like your ship is 'holding its breath' during Silent Running." This had become the inspiration for the Aegis Project "Unterstarboot"; the code-name for the ship ITSELF was "Shark", following the sea-creature theme of the tourist vessels combined with the carnivorous intentions of this model. Since it was an actual submarine, the tower mast in the middle had been slightly streamlined, which created the look of a fin...just like how pop-culture would depict the fin circling around to denote a shark attack had been imminent. More work had been needed than simply the "Low-Emissions Engineered Power Plant" and "Clean Tuning Thrusters", with the obvious first start painting it in reflective coatings to project the all-surrounding starlight for visual camouflage.

Time had been ticking away, with employees working around the clock 24/7, and only minimal breaks to eat and "changing shifts" for rotating human resources. Hardening the vessel for passive EMP resistance had been the most obvious concern, but while working on the wiring and internalizing cyclical heat mechanisms (since the aim was to maximize the efficiency of "Silent Running"), that's when the biggest eureka moment had struck. In short, "Silent Running" for this would NOT deactivate shields! Truly an exception to the rule, but when working with alien machinations that go beyond all human understanding - even within 3306 standards - the only limits seemed to be the imagination, and whatever "balancing" physics had demanded.

The design finished, and construction complete, there now existed a vessel made SPECIFICALLY for Anti-Xeno combat (while all the while incidentally filling a particularly capable role for "Smuggling" if it hypothetically fell "into the wrong hands"). For a Medium-sized vessel, the hull levels rated closer to a Small-sized vessel and the shields more fitting for a tiny fighter. All that said and done, the "Shark" had been ready for its maiden voyage, back to the Thargoid Base. As the "Shark" drifted for the mail slot, Admiral Golden-Knight boomed, "Take 2, ACTION!" He fired the boosters, same verse as the first, and took his monster-sized torpedo through Witchspace for a rematch.

Back at the same volcanic planet, the test run had indicated passive heat levels at 5%, which had been unprecedented. Even his coldest builds for a Diamondback Explorer would only reach as low as the teens according to the heat gauge near the 3D sensor yoke. Maybe someone beforehand could reach a THEORETICAL level of 10%, to which this exceeded all such known records. No doubt gimbals would have a tricky time locking on to such a cold hull, and quite consistently. There were 4 slots for weapons: 2 Guardian Gauss Guns, 1 Anti-Xeno Autocannon turret, and 1 engineered beam to further compensate the high heat of Gauss Guns.

No interdiction occurred en route to the planetary base, making Admiral Golden-Knight wonder if the ship also had an incidental effect on supercruise detection as well. Normally, supercruise parameters were ABSOLUTELY CONSTANT, no matter what kind of ship you were flying! Orbiting a star, for example, would ALWAYS hard-cap the ship's speed to 1/3 the Speed of Light (unless it were a supergiant, for strange reasons). He had only barely enough room for 50 Limpets, so given the army his scanners picked up on, he'd better use them wisely.

He had not lost sight of his two main goals: rescue the Human pilots, and "interrogate" the Thargoid aliens. Once he entered the thick atmosphere, the COVAS warned not only of the planet's heat, but caustic elements in the air as well. Such acidity seemed to be temperate by Thargoid standards, and knowing how Ammonia acted as their solvent, a sulfuric world almost made for the equivalent to Humans seeking a Water world (or even an ICE world in desperate pioneering circumstances): not the first choice, but in a stretch can be artificially suited for habitation. In fact, once exiting glide and hovering only 2 kilometers from the surface, the alien base almost seemed like it had been functionally the equivalent to the human "Settlements" on otherwise barren rocks floating around.

At the base itself, swarms of Scouts buzzed about like drones, and instantly attempted Kill-On-Sight protocols, but their shots kept missing the sleek hull as it scooted in the open air from Flight Assist OFF. The handling and cornering, combined with the spectacle akin to ice-skating, had bamboozled the Thargoid lock-on systems, which is exactly why such an otherwise flimsy hull had been accepted as " a fair tradeoff". The one turret got to work on it, which took a great deal of time being only one gun, but fast-forward an hour, and the Scouts all died with a pop. Though not before also launching the research limpets into them. 10 spent, 40 left, and the information had been trivial. But, a glint into the hive-mind culture could be gleaned, and more specifically telling how such Scouts are completely expendable.

Then the "Shark" went TO the base, and found a wing of Hydras parked there. No way he could kill them outright, so thankfully, that was not the aim here. This was a mission for rescue and intel, NOT nuking from orbit. Exterminatus would have to come another day.

So, with "Silent Running" on, rather than unleashing Gauss Guns at the Hydras, he only probed with the limpets. They buzzed a growling tone that'd make all but the most hardcore of legends brown their collective sets of underwear. But, he had faith that the super-cold design would thwart their attempts the same way that a fly can easily dart out of the way from the angry Human with the flyswatter. Those Hydra still fired off their swarms and caustic missiles, each shot half the size of the "Shark". But with slipping all around and immense maneuverability, some of those missed by an actual mile. All this dodging and legwork had the express need to "buy time" for the various limpets to penetrate the alien base and (after passengers were aboard) scrape into the Hydras for the information.

All seemed to be going fine, until a battery of lasers came from the sky, depleting the shields on the "Shark". Seemed as though SOME Humans legitimately sympathized with the Thargoids (or they were brainwashed; the distinction could not be made at this time nor did it matter). With a squint, Admiral Golden-Knight could confirm with his Grade-A Eyeballs that the ship striking was a Sidewinder, painted a solid orange. And outplaying THAT would be much trickier than the Hydras, even WITH "Silent Running" on his side.

Another 30 limpets and half an hour had been needed before every survivor climbed aboard. Cheers and tears spread throughout the compartments where these civilians and independent pilots had been crammed together in a scraped-together "economy class cabin". The cargo hold also filled up with escape pods, so not all of the survivors were "aboard" per-se. Next had been to probe the Hydras.

Half of the remaining probes got shot down by the Sidewinder, but Golden-Knight used that confusion to deactivate "Silent Running", releasing the heat that at this point climbed to 95%, and unloaded the auto-cannon and tried firing the Gauss Guns and beam at it. The gimballed Beam had been the only weapon to consistently hit the Sidewinder, which deployed chaff and heatsinks of its own. Despite all countermeasures, the duel kept them all busy while the Hydras rammed into the "Shark", and unintentionally thrust themselves into the interrogation Limpet probes.

Data poured in and COVAS alerted, "Anomalous Data Flood Detected." Admiral Golden-Knight, down to 50% hull and shields barely back online, just shouted from excess energy, "LET'S GET OUTTA HERE!"

All power to engines and secondary to systems, the Frame Shift Drive spun up for a low-wake to breach the atmosphere. That only took about 2 or 5 seconds, but the Sidewinder had been determined, zapping a strange form of EMP that made all the lights start to experience brownout. Even still, a deep gasp echoed through the icy cockpit as COVAS called out:

"4"
"3"
"2"
"1"
"ENGAGE!"
FWOOSH!

Admiral Golden-Knight screamed an enthusiastic "WOO" as the cabin rang out with thunderous applause and euphoric cheers. In celebration, the song he put on had been a heavy metal rendition of the iconic chorus from Beethoven's "Ode to Joy". Even while the music was playing, and he entered high-wake to Witchspace, one Hyperdiction twirled the whole ship around. The joy turned to terror and panic, and the ship had been brought to normal space by a lone Cyclops. Admiral Golden-Knight opened up the ship's menu, flicking the plastic cover from "The Panic Button", and he just said, "I don't have the patience for this."

Blip.

One reboot with the spinning hologram of the "Shark" later, and the ship came back to normal space. Jumping back to Sol from that point on had proven uneventful. And upon arrival at Mars High, it had almost been a celebration waiting in anticipation once the "Mission Accomplished" word spread around Aegis, who then trumpeted it to the halls of Federal Congress. The prototype worked, the Thargoids gave a wealth of insight from their equivalent to "high-ranking officers" (being Hydras), and those captured had been saved.

It took a great deal of time for the best-of-the-best to decode the Thargoid data, but Cannonn held a reputation for cracking puzzles in a matter of minutes, or hours at the most. Barely any time at all passed, spent by Admiral Golden-Knight journalling the adventure into a diary, and then he had been summoned to a holographic briefing room with President Zachery Hudson. "Welcome back. You are a hero, but your work is not yet done. Yet, I wanted to see you in telepresence because of one detail."

The site Golden-Knight had been to was merely A Forward Operating Base for the Thargoid terror. But, with the alien brains probed and "interrogated" plus the captured pilots brought back to Mars, the single most important message had been spoken:

"We Found It."