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Paths to a Legacy Ch.03 -En-

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Chapter 03: « First Steps to a Legacy »

When I woke up, I could look at the vague silhouette of a grey hound. I frowned and a second later, I finally recognized the savior of my previous day.
« - Bill?
- So, you’re playing the venomian gun-lottery again with me?
- Stop it already! You know I wouldn’t have asked something like that to any other pilot…
- Don’t flatter me like that.
- So, what are you doing here?
- My squad is being supplied and we’ll have some analysis of the recordings of the attack of your ship.
- I see.
- Actually, I’ve also come to get some news of you. You’re alright?
- I guess, yeah… I just nearly finished frozen in space.
- Let me give you a tip. When you meet the Death and she only crosses your path, smile at her and then go back walking.
- I’ll try thanks.
We discussed until the arrival of a message through my intercom. My presence was required in the hangar that I did left some hours ago. We crossed my room. In front of the external bay, we could admire the soft bluish aura which surrounded Corneria as usual. “You’re quite lucky to have such a personal transport! » He was right; it seemed evident that my suitcase couldn’t go out of its fortress without being under the threat of a stealing attempt. The Positron would certainly return orbiting around Fortuna after my departure… I reached the case under the board of my kitchen and one more time, a single touch on it was enough to make the handle appear. Its smoothness was likeable as ever, the weight well balanced. At the hangar, I met Sgt. Lens.
“ - ‘Seems we’ll have the same crew on board!
- Yep.
- Welcome back on my ship then, Lt.
- Thanks.” Then, continuing the yesterday’s joke, I added « The dwarf is going to deliver its gift-box…” He caught the link and laughed before jumping in the cockpit of a star fighter. It took me a while to understand that we wouldn’t travel in an LHS again.
“- Huh… Lens? You don’t expect me to board on this, right?
- And why couldn’t I? She’s a double-seat. She’s made for it.
- But I… I never boarded in such a thing!
- Everything needs a first time… Come in!”
I finally climbed the boarding ladder, fitted my suitcase under the seat and fasted the belts on me. It was more comfortable than expected. But I suddenly thought about being separated from the space only by a thin layer of glass.
“- I thought that some special stuff would be needed for the space flight, doesn’t it?
- It would be the case for fourth generation class fighters, not for the one of this ship. You’re safe in this cockpit Lt.”
The check-up of the various flight instruments began. From time to another, Lens would ask me to read some screens or to setup things with the keyboards. Finally, we were ready and we got the takeoff clearance from the Intel of the deck. Lens dashed the throttle pad as he roared “Hold it tight, Lt.!” At that moment, I was completely pressed against my seat thanks to the acceleration of the fighter. I’d never been used to travelling at that kind of speed so seeing the surroundings twisted like that made my head spin. Fortunately, we got out of the hangar in a couple of seconds and the view of space, more static, allowed me to calm my optic nerves down. “Ha ha! I definitely love this job!” Lens seemed to be like a fish in the water as he headed to Corneria in a so agile star fighter. The trip was quite short. As we were entering the upper atmosphere of the blue planet, I could less and less distinguish the Positron behind me. She was changing her trajectory in order to jump back to Fortuna and carrying on our projects… well, their projects actually. I felt a little isolated. Like when I left Katina, I thought that I was leaving an important place to me. Suddenly, the shininess around us increased. We were going through the first cornerian cloud masses. The inertial cancellers of the ship were better designed that the ones of the LHC of yesterday, so that we travelled at a higher speed without being too much shaken. We pierced the woolen bubble and I saw two cornerian air fighters getting in formation position, right behind us.

“- Red-36 Squadra Leader, Unknown Ship, we’ve got a traffic authorization for that timeframe. Please transmit your identification pattern.
- And why not working back on your IFF scan protocols instead, dudes?
- Lens?
- Dearin! You’ve got to be kidding, being such a burden like that!
- And you, for how long have you been a fighter pilot?
- Learn to read your authorization logs, it’s a convoy work.”
Their talks were far from being interesting for me, close to a mix of technical terms and “misfriendalities”.
“- Excuse me Sirs, but could we get back to our initial issue for a moment?
- You’re right Lt. I’m getting hot for nothing anyway… Check your main screen, an identification frame should appear. Enter your usual pass, security level 4 or higher.”

I saw it being drawn in front of me as expected. I had to urge my memories to spell correctly a password of that security level though, considering the fact that my usual security range was not as high. The interface granted my entry and turned green after a couple of seconds.
“ Alright, you are granted for transit! Have a nice flight… Lieutenant Leisereïev.” The fighters disappeared at once in the cloud layer above us at the approximate distance of hundred kilometers from the base. “What a bunch of useless dudes! They haven’t improved since the time when we were at the Academy…” The fighter flew for about a quarter before our arrival in the landing prep zone of the base which some parts were the cornerian annexes of the Positron. Lens made the ship land with a smooth trajectory and jumped from his seat when the glass bay opened. “So, that wasn’t this terrific Lt., was it?” I was too busy with getting my suitcase back from a wall of wires under my seat to answer. And to be honest, I would have looked like a small brat if I answered that I enjoyed it, for sure…

The aerial space was quite crowded, something rare in the surroundings of the Positron or at our fortunian base. Lens had to quickly takeoff again to free the track. While a technician was supplying his ship, he barely had the time to wish me good luck for my mission. I warmly thanked him, and just felt a little angry when my whipped my legs with his greyhound tail… again! I turned myself and then stand in front of a familiar face, the one of a brighter and elder colleague, Professor Higgins Stoner.
He taught me my first notions of mechanics during my raving scholar childhood. Later, this old feline was moved at the head of the ballistics department of the katinian military academy where I began to attend to superior studies. So I did owed him a fair part of my knowledge in this domain too.
“- Welcome back at Base “Deika”, Max.
- Thanks, Professor.” Even if our relationship wasn’t a prof’/pupil anymore, I never stopped to call him by his rank of Professor, something that annoyed him enough to make him ask me to correct it.
“- It shall be Higgins for you; we have gone beyond this step already for long.
- So you would accept to be called by your first name by a dead person?
- I’m not aware of those kinds of administrative tricks.”
Yes, I also got from him my awfully deep rooted manner to build “over-lengthing” nominal groups… He was as old as he looked like. So he used one of his grand-pa’s mimics to tell me that he chose not to insist. Then, he asked me to follow him.
“- Shall I work with you on my project?
- What project?
- Oh, sorry, I thought you were…
- I was just told that you would come and I thought that it would be nice to meet you and have a coffee, don’t you think?
- Indeed Professor. I just wondered whether you were aware of the thing.
- You still work for Furaynir, don’t you?
- Yep.
- So it’s normal. He doesn’t like me enough to forget his procedures and his security levels with me.” Now that I remembered, I’d never seen them talking to each other with another tone than the formal professional one.
“- And you Son, can you?
- Well… Let’s say that even him couldn’t find a letter far enough in the known alphabetic to describe the proper level. I’m sorry, Professor.” He looked disappointed, but I also remembered that he was never involved in a military project so that he never had to deal with those kinds of secrecy issues. We reached the common mess of the base. It was a grand white room filled with chairs and tables. Some screens, stream casting information were hung to the sides of the columns gridding the space. It was nearly empty, something which was usual at this hour of the day, according to Professor Stoner. “Oh my, this makes me remember that time goes ever faster than wished… I’ve got to go. We’ll share a coffee at our next meet, will us Max?” I answered that I was to stay there for some times, so that we surely would have many occurrences to do so. He turned and headed away in the corridors. As I turned too, I saw a brown bubble lying on an isolated table. Two cat ears were pointing at its two sides. Their shape and color made me recognize their owner at once. I approached my mouth next to one of the hearing appendices and whispered a light “Still lazing, Ayna?” The later literally jumped on her chair and passed so close of my head that my glasses jumped as well. “Err… Excuse me Doctor! It was just a small…” Her face came just next to mine. Thanks to the abundant mass of keratin on my head, my glasses didn’t fall but got caught in my hair. The young cat, still in front of me looked like she needed some more time to identify me.
“- Max, is that you?
- And indeed not you service chief, yeah…” Meanwhile, I was dedicated in getting my glasses back on my nose.
“- I’m so sorry, Max!
- No big deal, I should recover.” She blushed, but as I looked at her messy haircut and her still vague way of glancing, I thought that it would also had been like that because of her brutal awakening.
“- You’re busy as always…
- Stop it, it’s been at least two days since I didn’t shut an eye to rest!
- Is there an epidemic disease over the base?
- I wouldn’t know but I’m so longing for the day after tomorrow. I’ll finally have a break.”
Ayna is an acquaintance that I’ve met here, at Deika. She’s a young student in medicine integrated within the hospital complex of the base. We both joined the military scholar path at the same time and since we were both quite young in comparison of the level of our respective courses. Our regular meetings in the corridors allowed us to become close friends. She always had a dual-pace character -some would add “like me”-, warm and friendly with her close relatives, distant and hard as nails with the unknowns. I think I’ll ever remember her face the first time we met after the public announce of my “disappearance”, it was unforgettable! Anyway, we like to share some moments when our schedules allow us, something rare since my affectation aboard the Positron.
“- So, what’s up, Doc’? (I don’t know why, I can’t stop to imagine this sentence in cartoons…)
- Work, studies, work and… ah yeah: studies! And you?
- Likewise, kind of, but I should kill you if I tell you more.
- Don’t even think about that!”
We discussed of this and that for a long moment. It’s strange but, even when we firstly met, I could never find out that I was five years older that her just by chatting. Maybe we were just two young pupils getting along in their little sandbox, maybe even now…
Suddenly, Ayna glanced on her watch and jumped again, dropping her coffee mug as she did that!
“- Crap! Kirol will just kill me again!
- Oh sorry Ayna! Did I make you be late?
- Well, more than if I just slept alone.
- I’ll not worsen your case then; I’ll take care of your mug.
- Really? Thanks Max!”

As she stood up, she tried to tidy her haircut, turned to face me, added “Your suitcase looks really cool! Next time, you’ll tell me where you bought it…” and then turned again to leave the place at a fast pace. This made me smile, since my suitcase wouldn’t to be found in a market and also because she hadn’t changed a bit. As much twice left-handed and daydreaming as ever during her duty time, perpetually under the threat of the wrath of her chief, the dreadful Dr. Kirol, and suddenly calm and handsome when she leaves her lab coat. In both cases, her little excesses, flirting with some caricatured situations for times to others would turn her into an attaching character of TV series to anyone.
Before going to my own lab too, I finished my coffee, swept the remaining one of Ayna and handled my suitcase. The trip was long, because of the distance between the mess and my office but also of the overcrowding population filling the alleys. I had to apologize many times for having hit the legs of some colleagues with my suitcase or to wait for a whole group of them to leave a crossroad in order to pass it. It took me half an hour to reach the great hangar where the Ballistics Department dwelled. For obvious reasons of security, this latter had been placed the further of the closest structure, the better, something like five hundred meters. It never prevented us from leading some experiences which could have made the whole base vanish though… As I remembered an occurrence of that kind of situation, some years ago when I was working for Pr. Andross, a displeasing tickle made my right arm itches. My personal identification device shook in my pocket, which meant that the access to the building had been unlocked. The inner atmosphere definitely was… empty. As I highlighted to Bill at our last meeting, ballistics had turned into an old-fashioned domain for the cornerians. Only a few scientists still engaged on that way, so that the last several passionate ones shared an old but wide workspace. We were barely fifty when I lastly left my lab, and I guessed that we would be even less now. Fortunately, this fact never made us cancel our projects, especially one of them which shall launch back our budget and effectives…
My office was placed in the backwards of the main hangar, in a transversal alley which stuck to the perimeter of the structure. It was quite spacey, and even more since the departure of the colleague which worked next to me. As for the main one, it’s thanks to my personal ID that the door of my lab got unlocked. Automatically, my P.Comp switched on. A pop-up notified me that it had correctly been synchronized with my other P.Comp in my Positron office. A big logo of the 83th SIDE appeared and some icons and shortcuts followed. That wasn’t very professional, but I firstly connected to the Lylanet to check my e-mails. Nothing more the spams on my personal one. Unlike this latter, my work-mail had received two important messages. One of Bill, and another one of Captain Furaynir. Both asked whether I was well arrived, to be careful and babbles and so on… Furaynir was quite insistent on that point. He wrote that the analysis of the recordings of the attack showed that our enemies had a perfect knowledge of our flight plan, according to the accuracy of their maneuvers! Several times, he demanded me to stay the more quiet possible and not to trust in anyone. This reminded me of the talks I had with Bill before the attack. What would have taken them, treating me like a spy like that?
Anyway, I closed my navigator and opened the project management software. I had to enter the codename of the project, the security level, the timeframe of its beginning and the first initialization log entries. Then, I picked up the data crystal in my pocket and plugged it to the P.Comp to load the data within. Therefore a long reading session began. First of all, the preliminary archaeological reports. Nothing very interesting except a vague description of the suitcase I could see myself anyway and another one of the room where it used to lay. Unlike them, the reports of experiences on the previous Cornerus artifacts turned to be heart-catching! I learned that a dozen of them had been found, with half of identified as possible weapons. Something which didn’t surprise me was to find the name of Captain Furaynir as author of lots of them. Unfortunately, all their conclusions seemed to end the same way, with the big and red written “Failure”! The most important part to me surely was the ones dealing with the cornerus containers security. They were described as completely impenetrable and setup in order to make each unauthorized access to its contents an inevitable way to destroy it. So, the only remaining of these experiences were some burned parts of weird-looking rifles. Nothing concrete anyway… This job was to be hard just to begin. I put my head back on the chair, closed my eyes and inspired deeply. I surely would have to pass it through the hi-precision scanner of the base if I still wanted to have a chance to learn a bit more about this damn suitcase. Suddenly, the integrated intercom of my P.Comp blinked. Someone had just rang at the main door for entrance. A series of parasites harmfully sounded before I could recognize the word “Hannigan” so twisted that I firstly thought that it had been pronounced by the vocal synthesizer of my P.Comp. Ah yeah, I completely forgot that I had to meet the Shadamar after I arrived. I enabled the mic put on my desk and said “It’s the office at the end of the building, where the light is.” and hoped that that Hannigan would understand the message better than I did. I wasn’t waiting for him much. Shadamar or not, he was a Spec. Ops. anyway. Only God knows what his colleagues took from their secret files and told him about me… Well, I turned my attention back on my screen. What I read next was useful enough to launch me on some tracks for the analysis of tomorrow. According to the guesses of the various authors of the reports, finding someone compatible with the cornerus identification device should be the key of the whole thing. I remembered what Furaynir said to me. He thought that Shadamars would be genetically closer from the Corneruses than us. This was a guess only, but I thought that it is something easily checkable when the one approaching would arrive. And then, someone knocked at the door. I stood up while telling him to enter. So the metal door moved aside to let me discover the shape still kept vague by the darkness of the corridor!

Chapter 03: First Steps to a Legacy ENDS
In progress, Paths to Legacy, Chapter 04: « Hannigan »
As always, the translation may not be perfect, so if you spot any mistakes of flaws within the text, please notify me with a note or a PM on my forum or by mail at my new adress: psygonis@44thwindsword.com


This chapter is the first articulation of the story, in the next chapter, Max shall finally meet THE other main character, the mysterious Hannigan! ;)
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