They had been informed that the submission had to be verified, but it would take 3 months before they could get a response. Humans had set up a substantive communication infrastructure with 12 communication stations sitting in orbit in a parallel plane to the solar system. Each of these stations had a quantum entanglement communication that linked to the other 11 stations. Quantum entanglement communication (QEC) stations were expensive and had very limited bandwidth. Each bit of information required a pair of entangled particles and a device capable of reading and modifying the pair.
A message could be sent to one of these stations which then instantly pass it to the station closest to the destination which sent the message to the destination. These systems allowed for messages to be delivered mars in a short time frame but it would still take considerable processing time.
The twins had decided not to wait for verification and to head for Mars straight away. They had finished their courses in the NGSS pod and were no longer having their growth accelerated as the system was only designed to accelerate growth to the apparent age of 10.
The twins were in the process of being lectured to by Zero. "Remember, I can't come with you as the council has deemed humans a race of potential and all higher races must not interfere. remember there is to be no use of field manipulation once you leave this ship. I haven't informed anyone of your existence and if you manipulate the fields the council detectors will locate you."
The Watcher sighed 'they don't realise it yet, but this is probably the last time we will see each other in the near future. I hope they can integrate into society.'
Over the last year and a half, the boys had developed both their battle suit and their personal ship. They still had to follow Zero's rule and use only technology that the humans had access to.
Their ship the Aethon had significant upgrades over standard merge ships. The Aethon was powered by a large antimatter reactor instead of the standard fusion reactor. It was also surrounded by a plasma shield, like the one they used in the battle suit.
The twins had used the knowledge gained from studying the voice of the universe to create an alloy using current known elements that reduced the effect of the mass and gravity field. The new alloy allowed for the ship to be lighter and to reduce the effects of inertia on the pilot meaning the pilot could still be conscious.
They had also increased the efficiency of their constant acceleration engine. In total, they had created a ship that was capable of safely travelling at 20 percent the speed of light. Currently, the best ships humans had created could only travel 7 percent the speed of light and had to be careful with acceleration as to not endanger the merge pilot even within their pods. The boys were ready and keen to start on their adventure to mars.
As the Aethon was following the standard trade paths, it was causing distress throughout the upper echelons of various human factions. Each faction had spies and sensors throughout the solar systems and had been continuously sending back information on the unknown object via their emergency QEC devices.
Each faction believed it was an advanced prototype that had escaped from a research facility of another faction. Earth believed it was Martian, the Martians thinking It was the lunar faction, etc. The ones that needed to decide were the Martians. Tracking its path, it was clear the object was heading towards mars.
The Martian military had scrambled its military merge ships. The ships formed a blockade in the outer orbit of mars.
General Alexander was currently in his office on the Mars orbital station in deep thought. 'These scans don't make sense, it looks to be a Martian design, but it is moving far quicker than anything I've seen. Even the black projects from other factions don't have anything that comes close to this. Its trajectory suggests it came from the deep Kuiper belt, maybe there is a secret base hidden there'
Back onboard the Aethon, Infy was keeping track of all the sensors when he noticed the blockade.
"We have a problem there is a lot of ships on our current course"
Null was confused. "Why? Do you think they are there to welcome us? But how did they know we were coming"
"I don't know but we are currently going 0.17c (c =speed of light) and even if we start the deacceleration now, we won't be able to stop" Infy replied.
The twins had decided to start the deacceleration and plot a path beyond the blockade.
The Martians had not seen anything that resembled the Aethon, they had seriously miscalculated its stopping capabilities. They had sent messages to the ship requesting that it stop and submit to being towed to the orbital base. They could see that it was slowing down but would still be going at a significant speed once it reached the blockade.
"Sir, we just a reply from the unknown ship it says 'cannot stop, please move' " said the communication officer. General Alexander was faced with a hard decision. 'if we let it go and it is hostile we won't be able to stop it and we don't know its military capabilities. Sorry, whoever is on board but I can't risk the settlements'. "Send out a new message, tell the unknown ship it must increase its deacceleration or we will open fire" commanded the general.
Null and Infy had just received the new communication. "I don't understand why are they threatening us? Infy, can we increase the rate?"
"No, we are already pushing the limits as it is. The flight plan was designed to stop in lower mars orbit. The only way would be to use the fields which we can't do?"
"Remember Zero told us not to harm anyone. We will just have to try to avoid getting hit" replied Null.
As the unknown ship approached the blockade the General gave the order to open fire and to set out the carbon nanotube nets. The General watched on, hoping that the ship didn't take too much damage so that they could study it. Unexpectedly the rail guns and the net had no effect and the ship blasted straight past the blockade. "Sir, reports from the blockade. They say the ship had some form of active shielding and rail slug were repelled and it broke the net like it wasn't there."
"Activate the orbital defence systems. Target the unknown ship we can't let it get closer" ordered the General. "Sir, it appears the ship is slowing down and has sent another message. 'Please stop, we are stopping. We have come to participate in the YSC'' said the communication officer.
Alexander was grappling with what he just heard 'what? they are children? How many are aboard'. "Place the defence systems on standby. If they stop in time escort them to dock.
The Aethon was escorted to the orbital base and was surrounded by Martian soldiers. Null had just disembarked from the merge pod when he was rushed by a group of soldiers.
"pputtt yooeru hanndns "shouted one of the soldiers.
"Infy, I don't know what he is saying". It was at this moment that Null realised they had never talked to another human. They had always used neural-based or text-based communication that had been translated by Zeros computer systems. Null tried to speak, and he had another realisation. He didn't know how to speak. It wasn't just not knowing how, but he physically couldn't speak.
Null started to panic, and his panic was resonating with Infy, they shared a soul which resulted in them also sharing the same emotions. When one of the soldiers grabbed onto Null arm all the training from the system suddenly kicked in.
The scene in the dock turned into pure pandemonium. Null and Infy along with their suit were more than a match for the soldiers surrounding them. Using their extra speed, they were able to dash to the nearest soldier and with a solid kick broke his leg at the thigh. They enabled their tower shield and turned on their non-lethal stun glove.
This was a new addition to the suit that was suggested by Zero. Infy quickly plotted the best path for Null to use to minimise the risk. Null zipped along the path using his tower shield to block and the stun glove to knock out the soldiers. It was going well until he met the fifth soldier. No matter what Null did, he couldn't hit the soldier.
Null didn't know it yet, but he was fighting with one of the trainers who created the super-soldier system he was raised with. 'This is not right, he moves like he has completed our super-soldier program but I know all of the students. Sorry kid this will hurt'. John then quickly used his superior experience and skills to knock Null out cold.
Infy realising they were at a disadvantage, followed the protocol Zero and the twins had set up. He was linked with both the ship and the suit. He put both of them into lockdown mode. Lockdown mode wrapped the Aethon in its shielding while also electrifying the outer hull. While the suit self-destructed with canisters of strategically placed acid were released ruining the suit while the antimatter rector collapsed on itself.