Novu Sol

Chapter 5

Ares Centios
The Buffer Zone
NSW Lunar Eclipse

Rear Admiral Ares Centios nodded in greeting to his flag lieutenant as he passed the man, sitting down in his place on the flag bridge, sipping a cup of delicious coffee. His steward always made it just right, warm, sweet and a touch of heavy cream.

He had to admit it provided a good distraction from his job, as much of it as there was. Being the newest flag officer out here at the Buffer Zone, he was put in charge of the small fleet which followed around the repair ship as it serviced the special beacons which marked the edge of the Zone.

The beacons were pretty much old tech now, but the process for making them had always interested him. You couldn't really talk to ships in hyperspace from normal space. Half the reason was that you had to hit a receiver with enough strength to get the message through to the ship in FTL, next you had no way to know where the ship was, for the most part. Most ships these days stayed on predictable straight-line paths between stars, but being able to enter hyper at any angle or anywhere not in a certain range of a celestial body which could hinder it with gravity meant the math to guess the location was next to impossible unless you planned it down to the last centimeter.

You didn't need that for a blanket scream message though. With powerful transmitters, regular service and plentiful power, the beacons could blanket the general area, both normal and hyper, with the warning of what this was, why you shouldn't be here, and what will happen to you if you cross this area. A restricted area, the AI will attempt to murder humanity, so we will destroy you if you continue past these beacons. The sensors which generated breech reports were even more expensive and hard to tune. Being able to sense a ship in FTL might be a godsend, but the power needed to pin down where it was was astronomical. Even Novu Sol couldn't afford that luxury anywhere but here at the Buffer Zone.

Centios sat back, studying the data he had on hand, a large, ungainly repair ship docked beside the massive array they were beside that was bigger than even his ship, giving off a powerful energy signature, and his own small fleet of warships, headed by the new Event-class battlecruisers. Had he not been a Novu Sol ship, his communication system would be swamped by the endlessly repeated warnings, however whenever a ship came out here, they were given codes which muted the message in their own systems and allowed them to move about freely without generated breech reports at the central Buffer Zone station.

He looked around the command deck, his crew hard at work even with the uneventful duty. He could see in the younger officers and enlisted some tension, they stole glances around, tense postures and nervous expressions, but every Novu Sol officer comes out here at least once in their career to see what it was like unless they get dishonorably discharged before then. He had been here before and nothing ever happened, not any more. People use to be curious, pirates or thrillseekers thinking they could 'run the gauntlet,' but Novu Sol had enforced their policies ruthlessly, anyone caught was to be arrested, ship destroyed and the nation reprimanded. If they didn't yield to warship's command to stop, they were completely and utterly destroyed.

Centios eyes then rested on the beacon in the visual display. No one wanted to be the one to open the cage anyways. What if the AI got out of Old Sol? Even now, he felt a knot in his guts at the thought of getting a breech report coming out the zone rather than going in. The AI that's infested Old Sol star system were practically trapped, no hyperdrives to use, they could do sublight journeys but that would take so long they wouldn't even be halfway to the Buffer Zone. Still, those AI had always been extremely aggressive during past scouting missions to Old Sol, there was no doubt that if they got their hands on a ship that they would launch an attack on humanity as soon as possible.

It was why they were here, holding the line against the AI that couldn't reach them.

Centios sighed then signed off on another report. He wondered what it would like to not have to do this anymore, to stand a vigilant watch which had only been disturbed by the people they protected, not the ones they guarded against. He pulled up the old data from the last scouting mission, over 100 years ago, reading the brief report and sensor data with a frown. Advanced AI warships all moving around, smaller AI scouts making an aggressive beeline for Novu Sol's scout, the far distant world of Old Sol still circling the star. Compared to the report before that, there were ever more ships than last time. They were multiplying, and seemed to form an impressive battle fleet that would give any Novu Sol war fleet pause.