Coeus?

“

Ask too many questions and you might get more answers than you want.

”

-A wise man's idea

***Kaus Borealis, Asteroid Habitat***

***Gideon***

Who would have suspected that the weird alien is the one who asks for our intervention? Ayo doesn't seem like the overly caring type to me. I suspect that he is able to space someone if it grants him the knowledge he seeks. And if he can match it with his strange behavioural code.

Ed raises a hand to deny the question. “Why should we risk ourselves?”

“Aha! So that means that you can do something.” Ayo leans closer. “You should help the Forlorn because it's the morally right choice?”

“That's up to interpretation.” Bertram, our diplomat intervenes. “First and foremost we've a responsibility to our own people. We can't change the universe and it would be foolish to grant every request just because we're asked.”

Ayo wriggles with his strange, stick-like arms. Obviously he dislikes our point of view. But Bertram is right. One who plays the saviour of all may end up as a legend in the end. Legends have the undesirable attribute of being dead and in the process of being forgotten.

The Zeen decides to try another approach. “And what if you get something out of it? Like our power generation? You want it, am I right?”

That may be so, but are we really in a hurry to get it? We've thought about various way to defend Sol. I shake my head. “There is no need to push for this technology. We can wait. Sooner or later we'll get it. Either by figuring it out ourselves, by trading with you or with someone else. It's just a question of time.” Apparently we just have to go to the centre and there we will find lots of trading partners.

“Then how about my help? If I write a beneficial report about your species it'll have a huge impact on the society of civilised races. It'll boost your reputation.” Ayo offers.

“Does he have that much authority?” Ed asks.

“Do we want to be in the centre of attention?” I ask.

Maybe? From what I gathered Ayo is a Zeen contact agent. Originally he was supposed to study the Forlorn, but when we appeared he forced them to add him to their contact team. The Forlorn weren't able to refuse him because the Zeen are influential and standing outside Forlorn law.

They are one of the oldest and most powerful known races. It might be nice to have a good word from them should we ever decide to meet this so called society of civilised races.

Just by talking we've already given away a lot. I even was against the idea of trading blood samples with them. But how else are you supposed to know if being in the same room with them is a good idea? It's highly unlikely that any sane person would step even close to something from a completely different ecosystem to play guinea pig.

One may never know if their common cold is the black death to us or vice versa. I've to propose much stricter regulations on this matter to the SDF.

“If you give us the technology and put in a good word with the society, we might be able to present the deal to our elders without having violated our duties.” Bertram proposes.

“Your elders? That's your government?” Ayo tilts his head. “But that takes too long.”

“Our government is formed by fast deciders. You don't have to worry. Actually they've already made up their minds on various circumstances. We got a lot of room to navigate.”

One of the Forlorn steps in to stop Ayo. “But we can't give them that technology. Who knows what they might be able to do with it!”

The Zeen turns to the one who's upset with the deal. “You can't give them the tech, but I can. This is a deal between the Zeen and the Mages, not between the Forlorn and the Mages. I am just accelerating what would happen anyway. The zero point generators are common knowledge amongst the civilised races.”

The upset Forlorn doesn't give up. “But they aren't even members of the society.”

Ayo rummages through his belt pouch and retrieves a blue, cylindrical crystal from it. “I've no doubt that they'll be accepted. Their technology alone is an entry card to the society. Their membership will be granted even if they don't share their tech and simply provide black boxes for FTL-communication.”

“Why are you doing this? And why do you have educational information crystals with you?” The Forlorn who is known as Ilin asks Ayo.

“Because I am a contact agent? And I know that your people have an issue with asking for help when they need it. And I dislike genocide. And I dislike the Drazi.” Ayo hands the crystal to Bertram, who hands it to me.

I take it and study the thing. It's obviously an optical storage device. On Earth exist similar technologies. Of course this wouldn't do with a quantum computer. Much too slow. Maybe Earth would have taken a similar way as the aliens? Maybe they'll develop these zero point generators in future if we leave them alone?

It seems like our magic caused us to develop our technology in a completely different direction than everyone else.

But doesn't that also mean that the mage's way of seeing the universe is unique?

I focus a thin beam of light on my fingertip by using a basic light spell. Then I read the information on the blue crystal and task a cold and mechanical part of my mind to copy the information to a safe part of the quantum network. We don't want to catch a virus, do we?

When I am done I hand the crystal back to Ayo. “Thanks.”

The Zeen just looks at me like I am a marvel. “Did you just copy the entire information on the crystal to your network?”

“Of course?” I ask. “So to formulate a plan on what we can do to stop that fleet. Where is your so called home fleet stationed? We'll transport it to stop the Drazi.”

Ilian listens up. “You will do what?”

“We'll go to where your fleet is stationed, then we'll take your ships to a place where you can intercept the Drazi. Preferably in an empty system where they are fuelling up before making the final trip to your worlds.” I reply a little annoyed. It's not like I am really annoyed, but forging plans with slow thinkers like the Forlorn is tiring.

The Forlorn who seems to be involved with military questions admits his stupidity. “I don't get it.”

“Just tell us where that damn fleet of yours is stationed.” I sigh.

Ayo is the only one who stays up to the task. “It's the home fleet, so it would be wise to assume that it's at their homeworld. Which is Antares.” The military Forlorn confirms it.

I start giving orders over the fleet network. All our ships have to get as close as possible to reduce the necessary size of the teleportation sphere. Since the Coeus and the Forlorn ship are docked to the asteroid habitat they'll form up around us and the hidden battle station.

“All right. It'll take us about a day to go to Antares. There we'll pick up your fleet and go to intercept the Drazi. I think it should be possible to get them two systems further down their route.” I enhance another unnamed star. “It's possible for them to change course, but so far they are taking the fastest route. The system has a big gas giant with an asteroid ring. It's not only the perfect spot for them to refuel before they attack your worlds, it's also a good chance for us to set up a trap.”

I continue explaining the plan until the fleet finally executes the first transition. I want our ships to stay out of the fight as much as possible. The first problem is that our shields don't stand a chance against their lasers and I want to avoid scratching our new hulls.

The second problem is that I don't want to show the Forlorn our new weapons and tactics. They may yet turn out to be enemies. It's not like we were idle during the recent month.

Our people were very busy in playing mind games and thinking up ways to deal with a fleet of those juggernauts on our own. First, we are in the process of mining every gas giant around sol with stealthed nuclear rocket launchers.

The Drazi may have excellent missile defence, but there is a lot of debris around a world. A small satellite with nothing more than a cloaking field and an engine may be able to sneak close enough to overload their defences by launching dozens of missiles simultaneously.

It's not like using the IMs to create those mines costs us much. There is always enough material in a system to set up a basic industrial node. The only pain in the ass is that we have to provide enough energy to the IMs to get the operation going.

The entire process takes much too long if the IMs have to rely on solar energy until they are able to set up their own fusion plant. A single one of the little buggers may not consume much energy, but thousands of them most seriously do.

So since a fusion reactor is a little complicated to create we either have to carry a whole reactor to the site, or the ship which is setting up the operation has to stay on-site until a second fusion reactor is up and running.

Currently we are working with that option. It's far from perfect if you think about the fact that the ship could be moving to the next system in the meantime.

We also had to think about ways to fight the enemies with our ships in case that denying them to refuel isn't enough. Unfortunately there was no idea on how we can reliably protect ourselves. Magic has the annoying quirk that it can't get around certain physical laws. If you want to block a certain amount of energy you have to put the same amount against it.

There are ways to play around this law to a certain extent, like diverting or dispersing the energy instead of completely blocking it. But the energy in the laser beams of our enemies is several scales above the energy output of our ships. It's like trying to block a club in full swing with a dagger. So defence is out of the question for the time being.

What we have though, is the disruptor technology. It was banned by the elders because of its great potential to be used as a weapon. Though in face of the new threat it was allowed to be deployed on SDF ships.

The small disruptor hand-weapon which I got my hands on a long time ago was just a very rudimentary way to use disruptor tech. The spell which is responsible for the weapon is called disrupt and weakens or outright inverts atomic bonds. It's an energy manipulation spell and therefore belongs to the fire magic branch. The result of its use are disconnected atoms.

The spell normally affects a limited space, but the assassins hand-weapon focused the affected volume into a thin beam.

We didn't go for fancy with our military application and created an emitter which projects a disruptor field up to three light seconds away from our ships. The problem isn't energy, but focus.

So to use the disruptor we still have to get awfully close to our enemies. Another troublesome point is that we can't be entirely sure if it will work, or if their shields can defend them.

The Drazi and Forlorn shields are awfully powerful magnetic fields which protect the ship in much the same way as a planet's magnetic field protects it from the solar wind.

Since a disruptor field is a part of altered space time it shouldn't be concerned by a magnetic field. It belongs to the same category as gravity magic since it alters the rules of physics.

We also had ideas to use teleportation as a weapon, but we put that one on ice. Teleportation is a two edged sword and hard to aim. Even if we manage to use it to teleport a part of the enemy ship away, the part which we took would appear right next to our ship.

The maths of teleportation magic makes it hard to teleport two far away points. The needed energy levels rise exponentially. Maybe we can turn teleportation into a weapon later on, but right now it seems as dangerous to us as it is for the enemy.

As for me, I don't want something potentially explosive right next to my ship.

I return my attention to the group when I realize that the aliens around us are very flustered about something. Some are sticking a few dozen metres away like caged pets to the glassed walls, they are eyeing the stars.

Others are chatting vehemently with their communication devices and Ayo is obviously trying to pick up my girlfriend.

“But that's impossible! We just skipped over several dozen light-years!” The Zeen interrogates Cyla.

“We already explained that we can travel faster than you.” Cyla answers, trying not to get too close to the alien. “We know a method to transfer ourselves instantly from one point in space to another one. It's perfectly safe, you don't have to worry.”

I ignore them and step closer to Ed, then I touch his hand. ~Was there any sign that they saw the platform?~

~It didn't seem like it.~ Ed answers and I nod, letting go of his hand. If we are extraordinarily lucky we might be able to hide the weapon platform from them.

.