The Martial Unity

With the return of Runark, EsoQuest Solutions rapidly prepared for its next operation, of which the most important matter was the target.

”I’m confident that this is it, guys.”

Around a round table in the newly constructed office of the EsoQuest Solutions, Ria sat with her fellow party mates, sharing several documents with them. The environment was pleasant. The air had a fresh smell to it, characteristic of brand-new buildings, while the decor was simple and reserved, designed to be practical rather than extravagant. Near the door leading to the office was, of course, Sage Sayfeel, ensuring that nobody was spying on them.

While the privacy measures that they had undertaken were extremely stringent, it didn’t hurt to have a stealth-oriented Transcendent Candidate also add another layer of information security.

Atop the table were numerous holo-documents, along with numerous projections featuring the images of several exoplanets.

”In the past few months, I’ve spent my senses trying to locate the closest exoplanets based on feel and some makeshift parallax methods,” Ria said in a serious tone of voice. ”And then cross-referencing my sensations with a star map, I managed to identify the star systems where the five closest infected worlds are likely to be.”

Converting sensations into distinct locations on a star map was harder and harder the further and further away they were. Ria had to shift her locations drastically and verify how the sensations changed with a change in her location to essentially triangulate where her targets were.

It was the same principle that astronomers used to identify the distance of stars long before the Era of Expansion, and even the Age of Unfolding. But the difference was that Ria didn’t have an objective measure but rather subjective sensations.

And unlike with Planet X-167, which the Esoterist had claimed, these infected worlds weren’t within human civilization, making them much harder to pinpoint because of their distance.

This meant that pinpointing the star system was time-consuming and required traveling from one end of the solar system to the other back and forth with a star map, trying to figure out exactly where the source of the more intense sensations was coming from.

Her results had led her to at least five candidates that were close enough to human civilization.

These were the low-hanging fruit.

”And you’re certain that each of these five has infected worlds?” Sternon asked with a serious expression as his translucent eyes swept the holograms of the star systems.

They were different from each other. Some of them were filled with asteroids, while others were relatively empty. Some of the others had multiple planets, none of which stood out as especially unusual.

There was nothing about them that suggested they were infected, unlike with Planet Amadeus III, which had a gravitational anomaly that was associated with infected worlds.

”Yes,” Ria replied with a certain tone of voice. ”I think there’s a high probability that each of these star systems has an infected world. And I propose that we start with this one.”

She pointed to a solar system with one large sun at the center.

[67-52-22 System]

The name was odd, but most star systems outside human civilization were simply labeled with coordinates relative to Gaia and an axis between it and the center of the Milky Way.

This was unusual by the standards of the Local Bubble that human civilization was in, a thousand light-year sphere filled with smaller and dimmer stars. The characteristics of the Local Bubble were such that they had lower matter and energy than the average part of the Orion Star Strand.

In fact, exo-anthropologists suspected that one of the reasons that no alien civilization had ever visited Gaia was simply because the Local Bubble was very unattractive. Similar to how not every island on Gaia had been swarmed with pioneers and settlers, some patches of the world were extremely unattractive and were ignored in favor of other parts.

With roughly fifty percent of the Milky Way uninhabited and unconquered based on estimates from the laminars, there was always more fertile land to set a flag upon than to settle for a low-density, low-value star sector.

This had ultimately benefited human civilization, allowing it to develop uninterrupted and unharmed, barring the alien virus and a brief encounter with specimens of other advanced civilizations who were too far away to send reinforcements.

The presence of a bright blue sun was certainly unusual and different from most of the star systems that she had visited, but she was more confident of the presence of an infected world in 67-52-22 than in any other star system because it was relatively isolated from other star systems around it, reducing any margin of error to negligible levels.

”It also only has one planet in it,” she remarked, pulling up the hologram projection, projecting a starkly pink planet in the air. ”And I’m very confident that this world is infected.”

The four of them squinted their eyes as they tried to spot any kind of anomalies within the infected planet.

”That pinkness…” Runark couldn’t help but murmur.

”It’s hydrogen and helium,” Misha remarked as she pulled publicly available data on the spectrographical analyses conducted on the planet. ”The planet has a very thick and dense atmosphere that is quite opaque and does not allow light to pass through it very easily. Not to mention, it has high gravity, which will make this that much more challenging. Scanning the planet with the Stellarch’s quantum entropy sensory apparatus will take time, undoubtedly.”

Ria nodded. ”But I’m more certain that this system has an infected world and that this is that infected world than I am compared to any other star system. Our first operation should be an estimate that we are very confident about. Plus, it’s closer to human civilization than some of the other five I brought, so.”

Ria shrugged.

”Worth a try, as far as I’m concerned. What do you guys think?”

”If Ria says we should, then I’m all for it,” Runark declared confidently.