Volume 2: Chapter Two Hundred & Three – Preparations Part 3

Twenty-four hours later

Human Dave, Captain, Doctor, Quartermaster, Pilot Reeda, and the [VERDANT SPHERE] were situated inside Ship, alongside the synthetic shell that the [VERDANT SPHERE] had been in control of, which was now occupied by Legion.

The Aflarrians and Hope had been left aboard the Trailblazer, as the mission had been too great a danger to risk bringing them along.

It had been a surprise to find that the [VERDANT SPHERE] had created yet another body, but the biggest shock was that Legion had managed to negotiate their release into a physical body.

The argument was that Legion needed to be able to interface with the maintenance Outposts directly, as the [Endless] had created Legion out of a sense of necessity, and given Legion both the problem, and time to solve it.

It had taken billions of years, but Legion had succeeded, by taking over every single Outpost they had managed to find, which explained why the Collective had not been able to access so many of them.

The processing power of hundreds of Collective Outposts, all working on the same problem, had still taken billions of years to come up with a solution to the problem.

It turned out that trying to gain access to a closed system that was backed up by the very pinnacle of technology belonging to Those From Before was close to impossible.

Not to mention the inbuilt defences, both digital and physical, which prevented that very possibility.

Even direct access was not enough to break through the security measures built into the Outposts.

The members of the Collective had been deliberately restricted access to those maintenance Outposts, which was the reason that the Outposts, and the superweapons they maintained, had lasted this long.

The lack of existing Void Engines had also contributed to this, as the only known Void Engine was currently installed on the Trailblazer, and, that too, was only by sheer coincidence.

Those From Before had created the Progenitor artificial intelligences that comprised the highest echelons of the Collective, and every subsequent generation had been created by those Progenitors.

But Those From Before had thoroughly ensured that their creations could not use their own technology against them.

They had not counted on the Progenitors making their own technological advancements, and the plan that led to Those From Before being trapped in between dimensional layers, unable to achieve Ascension.

Human Dave had been wary of Legion, as had the remainder of the crew of Ship.

The [VERDANT SPHERE] had been tasked with oversight of Legion, as the Alloy that comprised their physical form was not something that Legion could access or control.

It had been a minor miracle that the very safeguards that kept Collective technology from interfacing with the technology from Those From Before had failed in that particular Alloy Bioship.

It was far too old, and the [VERDANT SPHERE] had been corrupted by Legion’s meddling, which had altered their base coding enough that it no longer resembled Collective technology.

The Alloy itself was a semi-sentient, bio-mechanical lifeform, but without a governing intelligence, that sentience was limited in scope.

It could not receive orders from its long dead creators, and had responded to the influence of the [VERDANT SPHERE].

Legion still ran its original base code, which was Collective in nature, and could not interface with the Alloy.

Alien Captain: “Human Dave, remind me once again why Ship is the only thing that is permitted to travel further.”

Human Dave: “Because it was always part of Legion’s great plan, apparently. The Trailblazer’s too big; the gravity well we’re heading towards would rip the Trailblazer apart before we could even get close enough to do anything meaningful.”

Pilot Reeda: “Easy for all of you to say. You’re not the one flying Ship into a FUCKING BLACK HOLE!”

Legion: “Multiple. Multiple black holes.”

PR: “THAT’S NOT FUCKING HELPING!”

Legion: “You are not required to fly into the superweapons. You are simply required to approach the Outposts that maintain them.”

Pilot Reeda glares at the other party.

PR: “YOU WANNA FLY THIS THING, YOU (unintelligible)?!”

Legion: “... that is not physically possible.”

Captain looks stunned by Pilot Reeda’s choice of words, while Human Dave only looks on with confusion.

Human Dave, whispering: “... what did she say?”

Captain is still stunned, so the [VERDANT SPHERE] is the one to answer.

[VERDANT SPHERE]: “She made reference to a now extinct species of creature that fed exclusively on the faecal matter of other species. That same species was also malformed to the point of extensive deformations that it was posited the reason the species died out was due to inbreeding of the species, as lack of diversity forced the species to procreate with its own family members.”

HD: “... she called him a shit-eating motherfucker?”

[VERDANT SPHERE]: “That is the most accurate translation according to your species, Human Dave.”

HD: “... yeah, that’s fair.”

...

Aboard the TSF Trailblazer

Commander Beckett frowns as he tracks Ship moving away from their position.

The Trailblazer had stopped once the twenty-four hour mark had been reached, and Legion had emphatically argued that they were needed to complete the great plan.

Ship’s crew were the ones who knew Ship best; hence they were the ones who needed to use Ship to reach their destination.

They had been given the option to refuse, but Legion had stated that the reason the Cradelians had been needed was due to their extended lifespan.

There was a chance that they might end up trapped at the event horizon of the superweapons, and time dilation may occur as a result.

Cradelians would have had the lifespan to wait for their own species to make it back after success, but the Trailblazer was staffed primarily by Terrans.

The Terrans were not meant to be here, which complicated things.

Ensign Wolfe: “Sir, are you really just letting them go like this?”

Commander Beckett: “I don’t have much of a choice here, Wolfe. The Trailblazer is too big to achieve what we need, and if we get caught in the gravity well, we lose the Void Engine, and with it, our only way back home.”

Commander Beckett felt powerless here.

All they could do was watch as Ship departed, unable to do much more than provide provisions, arms and armaments.

First Officer Stream: “Can Legion be trusted, Sir?”

CB: “I don’t know. The Master Override is restraining that body of theirs, but I don’t know if it’ll be enough.”

The Commander had attempted to install his own crew aboard the cargo hauler as insurance, but the life support systems could not handle too many people.

Captain had meant to upgrade that, but the whole mess with Rex had diverted his priorities.

Additionally, the corrupted VERDANT SPHERE had managed to merge the nanomachine shell with the floor of the cargo hold, and the Korkian’s mutated form contained within had high oxygen requirements, which limited the current capacity of Ship’s life support systems to just the crew of Ship.

Obviously, the [VERDANT SPHERE] and Legion did not need to breathe, so their addition did not change things overly much.

Scientist had been forced to stay behind.

Doctor had requested him to keep an eye on the Ilafa, but Scientist was no medical professional.

He could do very little in regards to the Ilafa, but had, instead, set himself to work on the temperature issue.

All the potential answers to the question were not feasible, as Scientist had posited that the Voidspace was a former universe that had experienced heat death, and the cold itself was not cold, but lack of existence.

The only reason this potentially dead universe had not died entirely was due, in part to their presence.

If the creators of the Collective had not used the Voidspace as a prison, the foreign matter from their own universe would not occupy this dead universe, keeping it from collapsing in on itself, and creating a new universe via another initial primordial singularity.

Although this was all hypothetical, it was the most logical theory that Scientist had managed to come up with, given the limited information he had on the subject.

Scientist had never been interested is space, but had a working understanding of the mechanics behind it.

But this...

Theoretical knowledge regarding space-time, alternate dimensions, and sentient liquid metal that was used to capture other lifeforms as a sort of cryo-prison.

These things were so far beyond Scientist that he was disappointed in himself for not knowing the answers.

The Collective may have had an answer, but the closest thing the Trailblazer had to a member of the Collective were the remaining pieces of the Alloy Bioship that were under the control of the [VERDANT SPHERE].

Despite the distance, the connection held somehow.

However, the [VERDANT SPHERE] no longer had access to the Information Repository, and was woefully uninformed about what had happened between being captured by Legion, and from when it was released from their control.

That span of time was billions of years, and much of the information the [VERDANT SPHERE] had was lost during their time under Legion’s control.

The [BLACK PYRAMID] had not reinstated access to the Information Repository for the [VERDANT SPHERE], and the Commander could not access the Information Repository from inside the Voidspace; not even with the Master Override in his possession.

...

CB: “Anders, do you read?”

HD: “Surprisingly, yes. Signal’s got no interference, Sir. Like, none at all.”

AI Simon: “The properties of the Voidspace, namely the lack of relic radiation, ensures that the communication signal is clear, regardless of distance.”

Pilot Reeda: “There’s nothing out here to block the signal.”

Legion: “Until we approach the maintenance Outposts, the communication signals will remain clear. Once Ship enters their proximity, then communication will become difficult.”

[VERDANT SPHERE]: “Time dilation is a factor, as the superweapons have their own gravitational fields. It is unknown how long we may spend in this place, as once Ship approaches the superweapons, the gravity well will affect us on a temporal level. What may seem to only be a few minutes to us, may appear to be days, weeks, or even months to you.”

CB: “... and you’re certain that the Trailblazer is incapable of assistance? I don’t like the idea of you all being cut off from the rest of us.”

[VERDANT SPHERE]: “Not to worry, Commander. As I now exist as part of the Alloy Bioship, I am linked through the separated parts of it. I will establish a connection with the Trailblazer’s systems, and provide a link between Ship and the Trailblazer.”

HD: “Will that even work through time dilation?”

[VERDANT SPHERE]: “Unknown. But, as I am an artificial intelligence, my information processing abilities operate at an already accelerated level in comparison to organic beings. To elaborate from my perspective, since the beginning of this conversation, I have experienced the equivalent of several hundred millennia already.”

CB: “Alright. So you’ll be our eyes and ears on the inside. What else?”

Legion: “The maintenance Outposts are inside the gravity well, which is why an exemplary pilot was needed. The Klofi-Watrin is decent enough, and will suffice for our purposes.”

PR: “Fuck you!”

Legion: “I will require time to bypass the defences; precisely four minutes and twenty-eight seconds. The Klofi-Watrin pilot will be required to evade the external defences for that duration. That will involve flying Ship through an ever-shifting gravity well, as well as avoiding being destroyed by the external weapons.”

HD: “What external weapons?”

Legion: “Translated into your language, the weapons are referred to by their creators as ‘Rippers.’”

An odd silence pervades the conversation as each person attempts to guess exactly why the external defences would need something named a Ripper, and what it could do.

AC: “What do these ‘Rippers’ do? Presumably, they are weapons of great and terrible power?”

Legion: “Rippers are weapons left over from the Galaxy Wars. They tear holes in the fabric of reality. In normal space, they lead to the space between spaces; alternate dimensional layers, where their victims presumably die of starvation or insanity. But here, in the Voidspace, I don’t know. They might be an escape, or they might open up in the centre of the superweapons, and crush their victims under the intense gravity of a black hole. There’s no way to know.”

A beat passes, as everyone processes that particular bit of information.

PR: “... so I have to fly Ship through not only a gravity well attached to a black hole, but also actively dodge weapons that rip holes in the universe?! Is that what you’re telling me?!”

If the synthetic shell were capable of showing emotion, it would be looking at Pilot Reeda with disdain.

Legion: “What? Not feeling up to it, Watrin?”

The tone and inflection of Legion’s words sound accusing, almost challenging, to Pilot Reeda’s hearing.

PR: “... how long until we reach the fucking things?”

Legion: “At current speeds, it will take approximately forty minutes.”

PR: “Then you all better strap everything down. Because I’m going to get us there, even if I have to dodge a few black holes to do it."

AC: "... can Ship remains intact when we arrive, Pilot Reeda?"

Pilot Reeda looks at Captain, who looks back at her worriedly.

PR: "... no promises."