War Fleet: Resistance

weapon? Is it a bomb?”
“It has enough energy packed inside it to destroy a solar system.”
Olsen felt his stomach drop. He glanced around. For once, the emotionless face of his XO was a welcome sight. It gave him something unremarkable to focus on. “That’s impossible.”
Rob, who thought the statement was for him, nodded slightly. “Certainly outside any known weapons research that I’m privy to.”
Oort waited patiently for Olsen to turn slowly back to the viewscreen. “You saw the levels of radiation it was emitting, did you not?” he said. “If launched with a sufficiently shielded warhead into a star, it will cause a supernova. In your language, should you have chosen to name it similarly to ourselves, you might have called it a spatial detonator.”
Olsen felt a chill run down his spine at Oort’s calm explanation of such utterly incomprehensible destruction. Entire civilizations could be lost. Eons of history wiped out in the blink of an eye.
Olsen needed to get in touch with the Admiralty ASAP. He cleared his dry throat. “You still didn’t tell me what the hell this spatial detonator is doing in the galaxy.”
“It was created by a long-gone civilization, which ended up annihilating themselves through use of the weapon. After we’d discovered what happened, we decided to distribute these spatial detonators throughout the universe, so no one civilization could obtain an obscene amount and use it to obliterate another civilization. We’re neutral, watching the conflicts of the universe with interest. And when one weapon is found, we’re always sure to intervene.”
“I see,” Captain Olsen said. “And do you approve of the Arstan taking the weapon?”
“I cannot pass judgment without knowing their intentions.”
“Question is, how did they know it was here in the first place?”
“I do not know the answer to that question,” the Tauian replied, and his whole skin changed color to dark blue.
“Then that’s what we need to find out. That, and how we can get the weapon back. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and talk to my superiors.”
“I wish you the best in your endeavor,” the Tauian replied, and before Olsen could say anything else, he cut off the channel. The display returned to the standard view of space, and Olsen saw the ship quickly cloak from view.
He stood up, ordered a junior to get him a coffee, and told him where to deliver it.
“Rob,” Olsen said before he left the room, “meet me in the vid-con room in five minutes. We have a crucial meeting with the fleet admiral.”
“I’ll see you there, Captain,” the cyborg replied.

12
Olsen hated walking with mag-boots. It was okay when you were young, but he was well over fifty, and the extra strength it took to lift his feet off the ground wasn’t great on the joints. His officers had told him that he wasn’t doing it right. The boots came with a belt and a dial on each hip, for adjusting the strength of the magnets, but Olsen had never managed to master the coordination required to turn the dials up and down at the right times.
Thus, he appreciated rooms like the vid-con that had artificial gravity and weren’t too big. It was situated bang in the center of the ship, right away from the bridge, so Olsen could still communicate with the Admiralty if he was below decks and CIC was overtaken by hostiles.
Rob was already waiting in the meeting room when Olsen arrived. Unlike Olsen, the cyborg didn’t have problems using mag-boots. In fact, rumor had it he was the fastest crew member on the ship, with mag-boot usage being integrated into his programming. One day, Olsen planned to organize a race between Rob and the Marines to test this theory out.
Rob saluted Olsen, and he returned the salute. Then he sat down at the circular table and keyed a code into the touchpad to call Fleet Admiral Liz Brownstone over the quantum-spin network necessary for superluminal communication. A screen hung overhead at the far end of the room. Brownstone’s face came up on this. Nowadays, whenever Olsen called, so long as it was within office hours, Brownstone would be there. It was as if she had nothing to do but twiddle her thumbs all day, although Olsen did have a suspicion that the senators had employed her in Admiralty Station as a paper pusher and nothing more. She was slightly younger than Olsen — in her early fifties — yet she had as many wrinkles, and her eyes looked equally worn.
“Captain Olsen,” she said. “To what can I attribute this pleasure? I haven’t heard from you since…”
“It’s been three months, ma’am,” Olsen replied. “And now, I have vital news. I trust Rob has already filled you in on a lot of it.”
Brownstone looked annoyed. She didn’t like being rushed, but Olsen didn’t like small talk. Not if what the alien had told him was correct.
“Actually, there seem to be quite a few holes in what he’s sent me. I would think your cyborg is in dire need of some maintenance. So please, help fill in the gaps.”
Brownstone listened as Olsen reported all that had happened. The only detail he missed was how he’d wanted to scarper—blamelessly, in his opinion, since he hadn’t then ascertained how dangerous the object was. Rob had mentioned that Brownstone knew a lot of this already. But when Olsen started to talk about the Arstan Fleet, the placid expression on Brownstone’s face changed to one of extreme concern.
“How did the Arstans know of such a weapon?” she said. “And why on earth didn’t you relay the first-contact situation to me so I could have chosen an appropriate ambassador?”
“For the first question, I haven’t a clue,” Olsen said. “As for the second, we didn’t have time to set up the comms before the Arstans appeared.”
“You could have directly contacted the Admiralty AI for their opinion. That’s what they’re there for, to make decisions for you at any time, and you seem reluctant to use them. Once you