Chapter Four
The flagship of the Galaxy Police Force's armada was a massive super structure that looked more like a space port or a colony than an actual ship. It was made up of four diamond shaped structures each nearly two kilometers long and a kilometer wide and deep. The four diamonds connected to a spherical command center that was about a half a kilometer in diameter to make a four pointed star. It was armed with every known weapon and a few that remain unknown. Everything from laser cannons, rockets, rail guns, solid shell rounds to plasma cannons. All ranging in size from small anti-air and space craft guns to massive orbital bombardment cannons that could reduce a major landmass to a parking lot in minutes. Its defenses were just as impressive with a variety of different particle and deflector shields for both solid shell and energy weapons along with missile defense lasers and interception missiles. In addition to its unbreakable defense it was unheard of for the flagship to travel alone, and it was almost always under the guard of at least one fighter squadron. In all the ship was an invincible power that brought fear and death to the enemies of the GPF where ever it went.
It was in this massive flagship that the Grand Commander of the GPF, Grand Commander Alex Shaw III, found himself spending all of his time in recent years. The galaxy as a whole was not as supportive of the GPF as many, including Shaw, thought they should be. The people wanted to rule themselves, they all wanted democracy. The idea use to make Shaw laugh before so many attempts on his life forced him to take permanent residence here. Shaw was in his mid fifties with peppered gray hair that gave him a distinguished look to match well with his stern military appearance. In Shaw's eyes the common man was a fool plane and simple. They all spoke out about how slavery was wrong and how they needed equality and a voice in the galaxy. These were ideals nothing more. They were childish and useless. Take away slavery and whole planets will starve, economies will crash and he would have to deal with the chaos that would come within months. No, in Shaw's opinion the galaxy needed stability not to try to change and please whatever wild idea's the common man came up with. And since he was in control of the galaxy it would be as he saw fit.
Shaw's father built the flagship during the days of his rule and named it "The Righteous Hand" as a symbol of power that would keep the idea of revolution just that, an idea. One that was never spoken upon and never acted upon. It only took the complete destruction of one moon colony for everyone to get the point that. After that Shaw's father considered his project a success. However, unlike his father, Shaw believed that he understood that for all the good The Righteous Hand did for the GPF it made just as many problems. Balance, as Shaw understood it, was the way of the universe. So the symbol of the Righteous Hand told the people that the GPF was too big for open rebellion to succeed and too big for small acts of rebellion to fail.
In truth the random small pockets of rebellion were not even bothersome enough to warrant Shaw's attention individually, and certainly weren't enough to mobilize the Righteous Hand. These were things like; police stations being bombed repeatedly or being over run; supply shipments being stolen or destroyed, or really any of the countless other acts aimed at weakening the local GPF. They weren't just individual problems though, and each one fed the fire. It didn't matter if the rebels responsible were caught or not. If they were found and then dealt with they became martyrs. If they got away then they became the silent, faceless hero's of the common man. Each of these hero's, each martyrs, and every act that they committed became legions, and all of which added more fuel to the fire.
It was this problem that Shaw had come up with "Project Yeagher" to solve in his younger years. The ultimate warrior able to deploy instantly, without support, and destroy whatever enemies of the GPF. To become the phantom, the demon in the night to drive fear back into the hearts of the common man. It was only after the project had begun and Shaw had taken his father's place at the head of the galaxy that Shaw realized the subject was a perfect solution for many of the other problems that the GPF had as well.
Unfortunately the base charged with maintaining and training the project, went black twelve hours ago. Shaw already had assumed the worst, but he was now waiting on the formal brief from the recon team that was dispatched. Of course it wouldn't actually be the recon team that would give Shaw the brief. No, he doubted that anyone on the recon team had the clearance to make into "the dome", the name given to the sphere at the center of the Righteous Hand, let alone the "inner circle" the name given to the core of the dome that was reserved for individuals with the highest level of clearance. That meant that other than the photos, video and typed reports all of the information that he'd get would be second hand at best. He hated that aspect of his position more than anything else. He knew that he would have questions that a more junior office wouldn't think to ask, and after a twelve hour mission getting a hold of the recon team would be a brand new mission in and of itself. This was the reason that Shaw had spent so much time looking for his second in command and was pleased with the man he'd found to do the job.
His door chimed and Shaw readied himself behind his desk, made sure that his uniform was straight and opened his office door.
Commander Jack Mustove was as battle hardened as he was confident and Shaw was pleased when he saw him walk through the door. Off duty and out of uniform Shaw and Mustove were close friend who would often play cards, drink and do all the other things that senior officers do together, but this meeting was about business. Shaw knew his friend well enough to know not to expect anything but the up most professionalism from him in uniform. It was one of the many things that Shaw respected about the man.
"Commander Jack Mustove reporting as ordered Sir!" Mustove said, as he stopped the prescribed ten paces in front of the Grand Commander's desk. Then almost the same instant as he stopped he rendered a crisp salute.
Shaw stood and returned the salute. "Good evening Commander. Your report on the base if you please." He said. Shaw himself had never been one for the strict formalities that the GPF had come to use over the years but even if he didn't like it he saw its purpose and respected it. Still he was far more concerned with the status of the lunar base and more so with the status of the project itself.
"Yes Sir. Mustove said, pulling a small projector from his pocket and walking forward to Shaw's desk. The gravity of the situation was horrible and Mustove took a deep breath before turning the projector on. The projector came to life and the image of the lunar base as seen from the moon's orbit appeared in the space above Shaw's desk. Shaw gasped and Mustove gave him a moment to take it all in before he began. The image that was hovering above Shaw's desk looked as though someone had drawn an eight pointed star over a quarter of the surface of the moon itself. The reality was far worse. "As you can see Sir there's only one possible explanation at this point." Mustove said, changing to a closer picture. In this one Shaw could make out the deep gouges in the moon's surface that seemed to go on for miles and were too deep to see the bottom of. "The general consensus is that Project Yeagher had a soul explosion during his normal night training. As you can see there's not much hope of finding any leftovers from the base it self. In addition what you can't see is that because of the quick change in mass the moon's gravitational pull shifted and has lost 45% of its atmosphere. It's now not able to support human life on its own. The recon team wasn't ready to do an extended airless opp. So I've arranged for another team to do a full ground comb over but I doubt that they'll find anything more substantial than building material." Mustove let loose a sigh as Shaw flipped through the images of the ruined base. "In addition to the base we've lost all of the Masters. All of them are presumed dead."
Shaw turned off the projector and passed it back to Mustove. "So," he began, talking not so much to Mustove as he was himself. "We know how effective the soul explosion is now. I suppose the next logical step would be to make them slightly more stable and docile to avoid this type of incident from happening again."
Normally Mustove wouldn't
have spoken out, but this was not just some regular day. "Sir, with all due respect Project Yeagher is a failure. On top of that with the base destroyed and the Masters dead the idea of restarting the project is outrageous." They had lost so much gained nothing. He felt it was his duty to try to make his friend and fellow officer see reason.
Shaw waved away his concern as though it was nothing. "The project isn't a failure, we just need to modify it, add a few more controls. That's all."
"But the base and the Masters." Mustove began, trying to point out the heavy and irreplaceable losses from the first attempt.
Again Shaw gave a dismissive wave. "There are other bases for research and development that could be used. We can use the training data from the first subject along with live trainers in place of the Masters." Shaw said. This was all coming back together nicely he thought to himself. This was where he and Mustove differed. Even though Project Yeagher was strictly geared towards military applications in its heart it was, and even in its current stage it was, a scientific experiment. There were bound to be a few bumps along the path to the ultimate power, but they were so close. They couldn't give up now.
Shaw continued on lost in thought for a moment and Mustove regarded his friend with a look of confused fear that a more aware man would've noticed. He had never known Shaw to be an emotional or even compassionate person, but this was something else entirely. He had just received the report on one of the worst training accidents in history, nearly ten-thousand soldiers and personnel were unaccounted for, no doubt dead, over 2.3 billion credits in property damage and of course there was the whole part where they had just made a planet uninhabitable and possibly disrupted its orbit. After hearing all of this Shaw didn't even flinch. No his reaction was much worse, Mustove thought to himself. He couldn't believe that Shaw wanted to start the whole damn thing over again.
"Although" Shaw began, interrupting Mustove's troubled thoughts. "With the Masters dead the real problem lies with testing and practicing their skills." He paused and although Mustove wanted to say something, he knew better than to speak out again. He had made his opinion known and anything more would be insubordination. "I think we should have more than one subject for this next round." Shaw continued.
Mustove couldn't even bring himself to speak without shouting, so he simply nodded. He force himself to calm down so that he could speak when Shaw didn't respond "If there's nothing else Sir then I really should head back to my quarters." he said. He had no desire to be a part of this any more than he had to, and he certainly didn't want to be around for the brain storming.
"No that will be all." Shaw said, straightening his uniform jacket and shifting in his chair. "Thank you for your report Commander. You are dismissed." Shaw watched as Mustove bowed and took his leave. Then he went back to planning the future of his pet project. He liked the idea of having more than one subject this go around but two wouldn't work. They would become more powerful and skilled then their trainers, match each others strength, and eventually plateau. Then he started thinking about if there were three subjects and he loved the idea. He could even create three different AI's, each favoring a different Master and have one assigned to each subject. It was perfect he thought and so he sent out the order to restart Project Yeagher.