ISENAN SYSTEM – GALLENTE SPACE
FEDERAL INTELLIGENCE OFFICE TESTING FACILITIES

 Dozens of workers scurried around the floating O-ring shaped apparatus, hurredly triple-checking their assigned systems, verifying everything was ready to go. Every calculation had to be exact to avoid cataclysmic failure. 

Dr. Jesse Pervect stood shock still, his arms wrapped around himself, a nervous habit he had developed in childhood, and watched all the various sensor screens, mentally ticking off successful algorithms and settings. His team of Quantum physicists and astrophysicists had been assigned with the task of stabilizing a wormhole, a feat similar in theory to that of creating a jump gate. Jesse had worked on the construction of many gates, the manipulation of artificial gravity, light and magnetism while balancing the right distribution of matter versus energy and monitoring the topology of space/time almost second nature to him. Billions of exacting calculations all processed by cutting edge artifical intelligence units, monitored by well paid engineers, stargates were one of the greatest accomplishments in recent New Eden history.

Creating artifical temporal distortions was one thing; manipulating unstable naturally occuring phenomenom was quite something different.

For months they had been working around the clock at this project, and Jesse was excited that it had final come to this stage of testing. If they could stabilize one of these “Sleeper” wormholes, the Gallente Federation would have steady access to some of the greatest technological discoveries ever seen! It was terribly exciting, and Jesse was thrilled to be leading this scientific team.

His counterpart didn’t share the same enthusiasm about the project. Genus had been around the universe too long to believe that when given the chance, the absolute worst would always happen. He had worked in private security, served in the military, contracted as a merc, and countless other thankless brutal jobs over the years, but it had served him well; he finally was in a position of power in his life. 

To him, this project reeked of stupidity, trying to stabilize a wormhole with enemies of still unknown capacity; it was foolish. The Sleepers were too much of a risk in their own space; who knew what they would do in normal space? He had kept abreast of expeditions digging deeper and deeper into wormhole space; some as far as “Class 7”. “Class 9” was the deepest and most deadly type of wormhole space, though he hadn’t heard of anyone who had gone in that deep and survived.

Sure, it would be profitable beyond imagination if the government pulled it off, but when had he ever believed in government? It was a power grab, plain and simple. The Federation needed an edge in the war desperately, and desperation often made for reckless decisions. 

He looked at the display screen to his left at the small holographic image of Dr. Pervect; the man was obnoxious and carried a foul body odour Genus was convinced Pervect wasn’t even aware of. Genus had his fleet positioned and ready for the worst. 

“We’re ready here, Pervect.” He said, the doctor nodding. 

Dr. Pervect scurried about, doing last minute checks, then finally called his highest level research assistant to his side. “DNA imprint on my mark.” he said, both he and his assitant readying their thumbs on the countdown timer.

“Mark.”

They both pressed their thumbs gently on the synchronized starting panels, the system verifying success and beginning the two minute timer.

A gentle hum started throughout the O-Ring as it two slightly smaller O shaped rings, hinged on the static outer structure, began building up speed, rotating around each other rapidly. Eventually they would hit critical momentum, and then be infused with heavy matter to create the desired distortion field. With some AI assisted manual adjustments, they should be able to project a large enough field to envelope the wormhole and stabilize it indefinitely through the creation of perpetual energy.

90 seconds showed on the timer as everyone nervously awaited their potential triumph, and potential failure.

60 seconds and the main O-Ring began to vibrate, the inner rings moving too fast for the human eye to follow.

30 seconds and they had achieved optimal speed. Dr. Pervect began injecting heavy matter into the equation, the AI assisting to exacting measurements and flow.

15 seconds and blue energy could be seen from the center of the O-Ring, growing in circumference as expected.

0 seconds and everyone held their breath, waiting.

Dr. Pervect checked all systems once more; success. They had created self sustaining energy. The O-ring could run indefinitely. He continued running diagnostics against the wormhole anomaly, and signalled Genus to proceed with his portion of the experiment.

Genus moved a portion of his fleet into position, keeping some of his dreadnoughts in seige mode on this side of the wormhole as a safety precaution.

Slowly, some eight Gallente made, Dominix class battleships entered the wormhole. Of all his research, remote repping Domis seemed to have been the most effective agains the Sleepers to date, not that they were planning on engaging any today.

As the battleships disappeared into wormhole space, Genus checked his readings of the wormhole. It’s mass remained constant; it wasn’t collapsing. The damn fool doctor had done it. 

He shook his head in disbelief and checked the readings again. No change; stable wormhole. Unfreakingreal, he thought to himself.

“2IC, what’s your status?” Genus commed his commander inside the wormhole. Typically, the Sleepers were passive, hence their name, only coming to “life” to defend their territories, and defend them viciously. He wasn’t too worried about the squad of battleships he had sent in.

There was no response. He checked the signal and tried again.

“2IC, I need your status, now.” Genus growled into the comm. When on response was forthcoming, he commed Dr. Pervect. “Pervect, I’m not getting a response from my team. Is the O-ring generating some type of interference to our systems?” he asked.

“If it was, would you be talking to me now?” Dr. Pervect replied smugly. Genus hated that little bastard; he hated all brainiacs really. In the natural order, he would eat little shits like that for breakfast, not that he ate shit at all, it was just a metaphor, albeit a piss poor one.

He urged his own ship towards the anomaly, not wanting to break the dreads out of seige mode just yet. He felt confident enough that taking a peek wasn’t a reckless risk. Slowly, he approached the wormhole, when he saw the first ship coming through from the other side.

A sleek, dark Sleeper battleship emerged, opening fire immediately. 

“Evasive pattern Echo 2!” Genus barked, his ship’s crew sending the vessel into a slow roll away from the Sleeper ship. “All portside weapons batteries, open fire!” 

Genus grabbed hold of something as the Sleeper ship sideswiped his ship, bumping in uncontrollably out of the way.

“Dreadnoughts 1 – 6, tear that thing apart!” Genus screamed, the consequences of losing this engagement railing through his mind. He did NOT want to be the man written in history as responsible for unleashing the Sleepers into normal space. No way in hell.

“Pervect! Shut the O-ring down! Abort!” he yelled through the comm with the scientist.

Jesee and his teams were a flurry of activity, adrenaline and fear pumping through them all. They were not fighters, they were men and women of science and knowledge; this was not their forte. 

He gave orders to his people which were quickly followed, but the system readouts weren’t matching up to what he expected; the O-ring wouldn’t deactivate. 

He hollered for his assistant, and they thumbed their DNA ID into the emergency override and shutdown panel. No response. The O-ring was self-sustaining and would not be shut down. Genus was going to love this, Jesse thought to himself.

“Well doctor,” Genus said without a hint of emotion, “I’m sorry to hear that, truly. But I have my orders. In anticipation of this type of failure, I’ve been ordered to destroy the O-ring.” Genus said, another explosion shaking his ship. He could see Dr. Pervect go pale, even through the holographic image.

“But my people…” Dr. Pervect stammered. To his credit, the first words out of his mouth weren’t about his own mortality; the smug little man had finally gained a bit of respect from Genus.

“Again, I’m truly sorry doctor. Genus out.” He switched off the comm.

The Sleeper ship was slowly holding its own against his ships, but Genus knew he could tip the scales in his favour.

“Dreads 7 – 12, target and destroy that O-ring!” he shouted into fleet comms.

Within moments, the O-ring exploded brilliantly, propelling debris in all directions. The Sleeper ship was closest to the O-ring, receiving the brunt of its accelerated shrapnel in its hull.

“All ships, fire!” Genus screamed.

The Sleeper ship finally fell, the wormhole soon collapsing behind it. It was over.

—

Genus stood before his employers.

“After reviewing your report on Incident D44-978C-002, we concur with your recommendation. While the tempation of reward is quite high, the risk of unleashing the Sleepers into known space is too risky a price for the Federation to ever pay.

As such, all research to date on this project will be sealed permanently, and it will be entered into the records that no such research will be legally allowed again under penalty of death within the Federation.

We thank you for your service above and beyond what was expected, and have thusly deposited a significant bonus into your account. That is all.”