Shattered Stars

Proposition

"Here, we have the bridge," Nylis announced, pointing a claw at the closed entrance. She continued to walk backward, letting the soldiers see the door. "It is located at the center of the ship to reduce the risk of officers getting assassinated by a stray space-pebble."

I shook my head again. A few of the soldiers gave courteous chuckles to what must have been Nylis' fifth bad joke of the tour. She had asked me to take up the rear of the pack, just in case someone tried to sneak away. Everyone had stayed in line so far.

Across the atrium, Skylar trailed behind a different group of Marines. Each time I tried to catch his eye, he would look the other way. He also refused my attempts to contact him through our implants.

The tour of the ship was uneventful. The Marines were assigned guest rooms, two per room. Then, the next lander full of soldiers docked, and the next, and the next. For six straight hours, we greeted the new soldiers and patrolled the ship tour with them. By the end I wasn't physically tired, but the thought of shaking one more dirty Marine hand would've made my head explode.

I was allowed a brief nap before an announcement called everyone to the bottom level.

Kyrom, Neval, and Nylis were already there, waiting patiently as the soldiers flowed out of their rooms and down the spiral staircases. Kyrom was unreadable as always, Neval had worry written on his face, and Nylis struggled to keep her eyelids open after walking the ship so many times

I sat next to Neval, trading greetings with him. "How many soldiers did we recruit?"

"Three thousand," he mumbled. "Do not worry about the numbers; they will not matter."

I was about to ask why we weren't using the briefing room from before, but as more soldiers got into their assigned rows, it became clear that the briefing room wasn't big enough. When everyone settled, my interface gave me a warning: Everyone was armed with a handgun.

Skylar sat on the other side of Kyrom from me. His arms were crossed in front of his chest and he held his head up high with a frown. He still rejected my contact request.

Colonel Latrobe stood at the front of the congregation. "We are ready to hear what you have to say, Captain."

<- Voice And Biometric Analysis ->

<- High Level Of Distrust Detected: 60% ->

My eyes darted around the atrium. I remained as still as possible to avoid further suspicion from the Colonel. Had anyone else seen this warning?

"Very well," Kyrom said, his voice booming from artificial amplification. He turned to face the wall behind us, and it lit up with an image of the Milky Way. "I will first lay out the travel plan. We have traced the location of the other mouth of the wormhole."

The image zoomed in, highlighting the position of the sun, then drawing a line between it and an arbitrary location halfway across the galaxy.

"It is located on the other side of our galaxy, over fifty thousand lightyears away," Kyrom stated, looking back over the crowd. "Under normal circumstances, we would be traveling for an Earth-year before we arrived. Fortunately, upon recognizing this our engineers have retrofitted this ship with the extra components needed to arrive in a timely manner. Our trip should last no longer than five Earth-days."

A few soldiers in the back whispered to each other after that last sentence.

<- Distrust: 65% ->

"Now, I will discuss a couple of recommended upgrades we offer," Kyrom said. "The first will significantly enhance your mental capabilities: the neural implant."