The fleet carrying five Paladins and a whole bunch of reinforcements for the war on the frontlines had gotten stranded!
A lot of personnel back in Sol had jumped into a panic as they tried to make sense of what was happening.
"How?"
"Why?"
These two questions were on the tip of the tongues of everyone in the know. As far as humanity knew, it was impossible to attack a ship that was in the middle of a jump. This was because the ship itself did not travel in the same plane as the rest of the things humanity knew.
Although the field of jump drives was still vastly understudied, from what humanity had learnt through their amazing copying abilities, and raw intellect, it was impossible to interfere with a ship in the middle of a jump through direct means. The only feasible ways was for a ship to encounter a gravity well that forced it to drop out of jump drive, or for spies to sabotage the ship from the inside.
After making these deductions, the only thing that they could come up with was that the most likely probability would be that spies had somehow infiltrated the fleet that had been sent to the frontline.
Yes, spies!
Although humanity portrayed a united front against the Xenon to the public, the truth was that there were many factions and interest groups fighting and scuffling behind the scenes. One of the more deadlier and radical groups was the Xenonia Movement!
The Xenonia Movement was an immensely large organization of both humans and Xenon that believed that their two races should merge, as that would be the ultimate path to grow stronger. When the two races merged, then it would be possible for them to reach greater heights amongst the stars!
This radical organization was met with a lot of resistance, and eventually managed to slip away when they were under threat of annihilation. From that moment onwards, a background war has been fought between humanity's military and the military force of the Xenonia Movement.
Perhaps the Xenonia Movement had slipped some sleeper agents into the crew of the ships that had been sent on the mission, but it was still too convenient. How did they know the exact ships that were being sent out to the frontlines? This question brought up more questions. Were there other sleeper agents that had not been discovered over the years?
These thoughts and more were haunting the minds of the many people in the know. One of the people that was most invested in the missing fleet was none other than Professor Stewart. He had nearly gone mental after he heard that Moses was missing. Even now, he refused to work on any of his projects because he was too busy thinking of what had gone wrong.
Knock knock.
A solid knock sounded against the door of Stewart's office, drawing him out of his thoughts. With a push of a button, the door slid open, revealing Admiral Gustavo and another middle aged man.
"Admiral, to what do I owe this pleasure?" Stewart asked. The Gustavo before him was in the form of a projection, while the other man was actually there.
"How are you doing, Professor?" The man in the projection asked. Gustavo was friends with Stewart, even if they did not get along on every decision. He knew about the connection between Stewart and Moses, so he called to check up on Stewart. The old scientist had blocked off all calls outside his office, so Gustavo had to call someone else and get that person to come over to Stewart.
"How do you think I am doing? My boy is missing!" Stewart said with an annoyed tone. He shook his head and turned to the projected screen in front of him. It was showing probabilities of the various anomalies that the fleet might have encountered in travel. But deep down, Stewart knew that this was all for nothing.
"Calm down, Stewart. We are all trying our best to reach them. We have sent out probes in the same route as the fleet. If they are alright, we will find them. At the very least, we may find signs of battle." Gustavo said firmly.
Stewart huffed. "Whatever. Leave me, I have work to do." He waved his hands and started ignoring Gustavo. The old admiral simply sighed and passed some instructions to the other man before disconnecting the call.
"Have a good day, Professor." The man said and left the room.
When the man left, Stewart simply sighed again. He knew there was nothing he could do. Especially not from here. He turned his gaze to the screen once more and his eyes settled on one of the calculated probabilities.
"What if they..." He wondered.