Chapter 149: Chapter 14: The Falling Star
The theory of gravity is and has been a simple proposition since the beginning, and the addition of relativity in the early modern age accounted for the influences of the super heavy and the super fast. Then, further addition and adjustments to the system of understanding of celestial body movements in the early post-modern age rounded everything out.
And now, sitting atop the achievements of all that come before, Caliditas stared as the models that she is running finally matches up with what she know.
This is the time when the smaller of the suns, Olympus B, the smaller of the twin suns of the Olympus system have consistently deviated from it's expected orbits beyond the standard fluctuations of the suns. Ironically, this is not how science is done. Modelling is often done after data collection and the verification happens after that. In Caliditas's case, the modelling is done first, and it matches up with the behavior of the smaller sun, barring some minor adjustments.
After all, all Caliditas told Brakagi to do is to shove it gently away, but Brakagi could have shifted his release slightly. It doesn't matter though, as at the end of the day, they have accomplished what they set out to do.
Now, she is going to present such data to the research board, which will lead to the other researchers also being prompted to repeat her work.
The publication itself will obviously not be in time for the coming disaster, but she could at least 'leak out the information and her methods'.
'I had questions with your work, Caliditas.' The review board at the research station stated plainly, 'but the case you made here is solid. Share your data with the other groups and they will perform verification. We will let you know the review results later.'
That is done then. Caliditas accepted the decision and went back to her lap. Knowing ahead of time what will happen, as she had only presented part of her model, it's time to get the word out.
This is only the first few days of significant deviation, so it makes sense that not many research stations have caught onto it just yet. The ones that are going to be affected the most by this change would be those in observatory and monitoring stations. Caliditas had a few contacts in them from the past, so she quickly got into contact with them.
'I will look into it.' Her contact responded before hastily hanging up, 'I am sorry, but I am busy at the moment.'
Caliditas repeated the same action, but after she received yet another few nonchalant responses, she realized something.
She had few credibility, and nobody gives a shit what she saw. Nobody gives a shit about her results, or her modelling, and when they heard about that it is from her, who had already developed a bit of a...dare she say it, reputation in the field when it comes to funding and research ideas, their first instincts would be to write her off.
This is how tainted Rocky science has become...just like the Rocky politics. Human capitalism didn't disappear as expected in the post scarcity society, instead they evolved into new ugly forms and infiltrated the cultures of the other two species. Just like the beginnings of human sciences in the ancient times, it was pure, curious and fun. Not governed by politics, reputation or fallacies. At least that's what Caliditas believes happened.
'Ok...we will look into it.' After yet another half-assed response, Caliditas knew that her time here is done. The word is out, and sooner or later the world is going to find out what has happened and what is about to happen. All she needed to do now is to give things a gentle push in the right direction.
Opening up her personal interface, Caliditas made sure that everything is fit into a nice singular package of information and dropped it quietly on the Olympus Solar research platform. When it is up there on the open source platform, it is for all to see and test, though from then on Caliditas will no longer be the sole owner of such information. It now belonged to the platform.
Just like what the research station would have done regardless. It would end up being the station's research, not hers.
'Guess that's just how things are.' Caliditas said, looking down at the set up of her lab, 'never like this lab anyway.' In reality, she did like the lab and the way she has set everything up, though now she has a new favorite. Deep down, right now, she just wanted to find her way back to Brakagi...she wanted to be surrounded by his smooth voice, beautiful fur and held on by his firm grasp.
Swallowing hard and trying to suppress her rampaging thirst, Caliditas stumbled towards the shuttle bay, 'wait for me, Brakagi....come here baby....hehehe...'
Uploading the files named 'The Falling Star: a model of Olympus B's altered orbit', Caliditas has finally left it all behind.
As Caliditas began to make her way back to the Rocky home world, Cellica has just began to leave for the GBI headquarters again.
Initially, she was going to enjoy a whole week or two on Athena 3 with her friends before going to a tourist planet somewhere in the middle outer systems away from Olympus Prime before boarding a shuttle from there towards the headquarters. However, there was an emergency summon that compelled all agents that are away and inactive on missions from the headquarters to return if possible.
'The headquarter was...attacked?' Cellica murmured as Rydel slid a plate of potato wedges towards her while Valerie is chopping away at the rest of the vegetables.
'What?' Rydel turned around and asked, 'the GBI headquarters?'
'There were two Rocky intruders and they attacked the headquarters and took away some sensitive files.' Cellica explained, her expression a mixture of worry and confusion.
'That is the headquarters though.' Valerie commented as she thrown the plate full of finely diced vegetables towards Rydel who caught it with one hand, 'that's like charging headfirst into Absolute Academy just to steal a text book.'
'That will be the case if the textbook is actually a treasure map.' Cellica said, shaking her head, 'there are no further details given, but I suppose it won't be that good back there. I'd better get back as soon as I can.'
'This is a SHITSHOW.'
The chief at the GBI said, as the single biggest meeting in a long time gathered everyone of significance within the Bureu together to review what has happened. The chief is General Kuviar, a white haired dark skinned human said loudly as an opening statement. He was a prominent member of the space force in charge of tearing down the biggest pirate gang and forcing them away into the wild regions not too long ago, and the soldier part of him remained with him until this day, so pardon the foul language. Always a man of war and conflict, he has found himself dealing with enemies in the dark nowadays all the time.
Everything is good, until a pair of Rockies with superpowers came marching up on his ass.
General Kuviar and the decision making committee formed the highest decision making party within the GBI, and the two are reciprocal in their power dynamic as a control mechanism to prevent any single person calling all the shots. Beneath that are all of the regional and unit directors, which overlook various units of a given category, and beneath that are unit leaders, with Cellica being one of them as the newly appointed unit leader for the investigation unit into Absolute Being.
So far, the knowledge of artifacts is not made publicly known to anyone outside of Cellica's unit, as she puts it out as a 'speculation' for the source of Absolute Being's motive and power. Of course, reality is something like that....not that close but not that far either.
'You missed out on a quite show when you were gone.' Cellica's unit director Officer Sundera, another female in the agency with a taste for specific hair colors, now a bright purple, said towards Cellica while giving her a wink. Her now purple eyebrow jumped up and down like a dragon as she spoke, 'it was a breach like no other.'
'Officer Sundera, care to share your insights?' General Kuviar said, overhearing the tiny chit chat.
'No Sir.' Officer Sundera said, turning around and looking at the chief seriously, 'I await your presentation anxiously.'
'Shut ya mouth.' General Kuviar said with an angry look, 'Or I will bleach your hair green while you are asleep.'
Despite Sundera's mischievous meeting behavior from time to time, it is undeniable that she is also the single most capable unit leaders that he has got at the moment. When things come to shove, she is one of the first people he turned to, which is why he assigned the task of investigating the event at the orbital ring to her unit, which is then assigned partly to Cellica's unit beneath her.
'Sorry Sir.' Officer Sundera apologized nonchalantly, and General Kuviar growled underneath his breath before finally starting the presentation.
'The recall order given out towards unit leaders and agents back to base was to investigate the break in that we experienced a week ago.' General Kuviar snapped his finger and projected up and out a hologram of both photos of Brakagi and Jozzor and a still image of the two of them exiting from the hanger, 'it was a break in? A heist? A robbery? Care to explain, director Marx?'
'Yes.....yes Sir!' Director Marx, often a shyer character is now put on the spot as a literal light is focused towards him, bathing him in the burning glares of all that is in the room, 'there was an document retrieval request for the Rocky government intervention mission we performed about a year ago, and the submitted request was legit.'
'Was it?!' The general growled loudly and startled director Marx who had to wipe off the sweat on his forehead before continuing.
'The data manager retrieved the data and was attacked by a Rocky suddenly in the hall way. The physical copy of the data is taken, and the Rocky escaped.'
'Well, let's see that escape, ladies and gentlemen.' General Kuviar said, tapping his finger in the direction of Director Jack, the security chief of the GBI, who's headstrong in maintaining the position that the standard protocols were what failed them in this scenario, rather than his decision making or management skills,.
'A virus was inputted into the system to disrupt the monitoring system throughout the entire headquarter, but we were still able to retroactive rebuild the distorted footage.' Director Jack said, bringing up a hologram of Jozzor attacking the archivist, taking the poor old lady down in a single strike before activating his artifacts and sling-shoting away from the scene. His figure appeared stretched out like a rubber band before he disappeared into the air.
Then, an edited footage cut towards the camera from within the hanger bay as Jozzor appeared in front of Brakagi before they both disappearing.
Then, the footage was cut again, and it showed the signal of a ship exiting the system.
'Now, this isn't cinema magic. This is exactly what happened in real time.' General Kuviar said as the various officers and unit directors looked at each other all with a confused look, 'That phenomena appeared to only have come from Jozzor. However, Brakagi also appeared to have his own sets of abilities. Commander One?'
The unit leader for the elite kill squad that Brakagi fought stepped forward, and held an unlit cigarette in between his fingers. He pushed his sunglasses backwards, which serves more as a fashion statement nowadays than have any functional value, and explained, 'Brakagi's seemingly able to disable or destroy things both in close range combat and from a distance.'
As he is speaking, Director Jack is also playing over the edited version of Brakagi's attacks on the holograms.
'Shit.' Cellica said underneath her breath. There is no mistake here. Everybody that knows knows. Only artifacts can grant such powers as far as they know, and from the effectiveness and speed of activation of such powers, there is no way that those are the works of pseudo-artifacts. Neither of the powers are known to Cellica so far, but seeing Brakagi's shining ring only confirmed it.
'This is a brand new threat, and one that we are only starting to prepare for.' General Kuviar said, turning his head towards Cellica's corner, 'that was the mission of Officer Sundera's unit, correct?'
'Yes Sir.' Officer Sundera replied, 'Officer Cellica referred to these items of extraordinary power as artifacts, and it is certainly likely that the same kind of items are used in the events that occurred on the orbital ring in the capital area not too long ago.'
'Care to elaborate?' General Kuviar asked, looking over towards Cellica now, 'and why call it artifact? Did someone make it?'
Clearing her throat slightly, Cellica voiced up all the things she has prepared for this meeting, 'The artifact is merely a place holder name, Sir. There is no evidence of the artifact's origin and even mechanisms. All we know so far is that it allowed for seeming violation of known physics, though there are limits in the application of power. This is evident in how both Brakagi and Jozzor limited their use of the artifacts to certain scales and certain frequencies.'
'Second that.' Commander One budged it, 'Brakagi was able to take out Two by surprise, but it is certainly possible to work around that power.'
'I am not worried about what they can do in a fight.' General Kuviar said firmly, 'I am worried about what it can do to a galaxy of people that knows no such things. I am worried about what Brakagi is going to do with his new found power and the files he took away. Whatever things I am all of you should be worried about, should be what is keeping you awake at night. Refresh the network in the Rocky systems, investigate rumors and information about artifacts, and that group you mentioned....Something something...'
'Absolute Being, Sir.' Cellica said.
'That.' General Kuviar snapped his fingers hard, 'whether this group is with them, we need to figure out.'
'It is highly unlikely.' Cellica said, 'we have tracked down the headquarters of the Absolute Being to be in the Grey Wolve's territory before, meaning they will be highly unlikely to work with non-humans.'
'Good start, now we need proof.' General Kuviar acknowledged, 'more detailed work will be assigned to you in due time. Now...get the fuck back to work!'
'Yes, Sir!' The various officers said, before they all disconnected from the conference rooms.
'I don't suppose anything have changed ever since the start of your break?' Officer Sundera and Cellica looked at each other's holograms in a private conference room only between the two of them.
'I hope not....I hope not.' Cellica looked down at the scrambled notes on her notepads and thought about the joining of Alrith, the enhancements both herself and the rest of the bearers are retraining through and the fact that Rydel lost an arm all happened in a short amount of time not too long ago, 'I hope things won't change, but it will only get crazier from now on...'
'Take one of the stress tabs if you need to.' Officer Sundera suggested, 'it is a pretty good temporary solution for managing that thing.'
'Yeah maybe....' Whatever compounds that Cellica is taking will only get broken down and metabolized by the nanodrones flowing all throughout her body. So in a way, the nanotechnology enhancements is actually bring her body back into a simpler state of being, self-sustaining, auto-regulated and self-sufficient.
Returning to her very own unit, Cellica prepared to debrief all of the things mentioned and assigned roles for each of the members in her team to go through. Officer Sundera's in charge of the intelligence on the artifacts branch now, but she won't be the only unit working on this, and all of the gathered information will be shared across all of the units working on the same tasks.
Cellica's specific focus is on Absolute Being, but she isn't sure that they will exactly be the ones involved directly in the upcoming crisis.
Or will they?
That day, she went to bed with a giant question mark about hers and the galaxy's future. She quickly sent an encrypted brief about what has happened in the GBI back to Ol on Athena 3 before jumping onto the bed. She rolled around restlessly for a long time before finally giving in and reaching for the draw next to her bed. A small container filled to the brim with tiny tablets was what she was looking for.
Being absolutely annoyed at herself, she gave in and slipped a pill down her throat. The effects are transient at best, but it will be what she needed to fall asleep.
'The Star Falls! Shocking study published by Rocky researchers!'
'The Star Falls!'
The star falls. The star falls? Cellica opened her eyes the next day to the sound of the news. The news hologram next to her bed is turned on, and the anchor of the galactic morning news is repeating this phrase. She must have knocked it on in her restless sleep, which also explains why she woke up feeling like shit.
But what the hell does it mean?
The star falls?
Cellica rubbed her eyes as she yawned and rolled to the side. The hologram tilted 90 degrees to match the orientation of Cellica's face, and she finally had time to read the captions to the headline.
'Olympus B has been predicted to enter into an escape orbit, as it deviated strangely from the expected movement as predicted by a Rocky astrophysicist Caliditas. Reportedly, she left the post after publishing the results online and is now nowhere to be found. However, other expert challenged the notion of this model, stating the current trajectory of the Olympus B is still within a reasonable ranges of error, and no action is to be taken.'
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