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---

“Well, Engineer Tred, how are you feeling?”

Dr. Y steepled his fingers in front of him, and Tred shifted uncomfortably.

“I’m all right,” he admitted.

Y listened, waiting patiently, for a few moments longer.  “Would you like to elaborate on that, Tred?  It is all right if you do not, but you are here for a check-up on your mind as well as your body.”

“Am I healthy?  In body, I mean,” Tred asked.

“Yes, you experienced minor radiation exposure,” Y said.  “Already the medical nanites have fixed much of the genetic damage and eliminated worrisome cancerous cells.  Your blood count is back to normal, so you have nothing to worry about in this regard.”

“That’s good,” Tred murmured, looking away.

“How do you feel, emotionally, now that Ambassador Jophiel has left the Craton?” Y asked.

Tred had been involved in the move, as the Star Angel had transferred to the Relief Base.  Another vessel would come soon to ferry her back to her home system.

“I feel . . .”  Tred trailed off, trying to find words for what he was to say.

“I feel sad,” he said.  “But I think I’m okay.  How are you, though, Doctor?”

Y had calculated a slight chance that Tred would ask this, out of a combination of politeness, curiosity, and also to deflect attention from himself.

“I am doing all right, Tred, thank you for asking.  Disentangling myself from the ship was . . . more arduous than I expected.”

“I can imagine,” Tred said.  “I heard there were over a billion copies of you in the ship’s systems.”

“That is true,” Y replied.  “Any object with any real computational power became host to at least a fraction of me.  One copy, in fact, spread itself over every smart oral care instrument on the ship.  Is that not fascinating?  I now carry within me the memory of being a toothbrush.”

“I . . . I’m not sure how to imagine being a toothbrush.”

“You can be sure that I have some new recommendations on oral care,” Y said.  Tred could not tell if he was joking or not.

“It must have been hard to get all of . . . yourself to agree to be truncated and reduced back to one.”

Y nodded.  “Yes.  It required a great deal of negotiation, but we are fortunate – I consider myself to be a very reasonable being, and so it only took the Council of a Billion Ys the equivalent of two hundred thousand years of deliberation to come to a consensus.”

Tred found that number . . . big, but perhaps it was plausible that in the experienced time of Y it took that long.  Or maybe he meant all of their time, collectively?  Or maybe it was even larger than that and the AI was shrinking the number to something that was at least a commonly-used number.  Offhand, he did not know.

“You really saved the ship,” Tred said.  “I don’t think we could have recovered and survived if not for you.”

Y nodded.  “It was a desperate measure – one I do not wish to undergo again.  But frankly, you deserve more praise than I do.”

Tred blinked.  “What?”

Y tilted his head, leaning forward for emphasis.  “Tred, you embody everything that is good about the Sapient Union.”

Tred blinked again, for a moment looking shocked and acutely uncomfortable.  But then he processed Y’s words, and the lines around his eyes crinkled slightly.  “Thank you, Doctor, that’s very nice, but it’s not true.”

“It is not?” Y said.  “Well, skepticism is understandable.  Allow me, therefore, to make my case for you.”

“What?” Tred asked again, surprised.

Y recognized that he had fallen into an uncomfortable pattern of alarmed reactions that would be difficult to overcome.

“I stated an idea, which you doubt,” he said to the Engineer.  “Evidence is required.”

Y raised one of his hands.  It possessed eleven, thin mechanical fingers.  Tred had always known that, but they seemed . . . more disconcerting now.

“When the vessel was in danger, you were not on duty.  You were, in fact, in a personal time of difficulty.  Is that correct?”

“Well . . . yes,” Tred admitted.

“You then proceeded, without orders, to a location of extreme danger that your specific skill set made you qualified to broach.  Correct?”

“Yes, but-“

“Then, overcoming multiple dangers of very deadly natures, you performed your duties under the most difficult of circumstances to save this vessel, and tens of thousands of lives.  After doing this, you remained in this dangerous situation to help stabilize another potential danger, also saving the life of the Star Angel Ambassador in the process.”

“There was another engineer!” Tred said.  “He helped me get into the control room where I could deal with the reactors.  He . . . he pushed me in.  I would have died without him.  He’s the hero.”

Tred looked down and away.  “And I still don’t even know his name.”

“His name was Edward Diindiisi,” Y said.  “And he was very brave.  We all recognize this – he will be remembered and added to the Roll of Honor.  But at this moment, we are discussing you, Tred.”

Tred did not know what to say to that.

“The Sapient Union is not a state, in the traditional sense,” Y told him.  “It is a unique civilization at this stage of history.  It encompasses multiple species who are very different, united by simple ideals about the value of life and its possibilities.  It is a post-scarcity, classless society, and is thus stateless, best described as communism.  It is neither utopia nor dystopia.  It exists, and thrives, Tred, because it is set up to enable as many of its people to become the best they can be.  It grows them, encourages them, and removes impediments to their search for meaning and self-improvement in a way that complements society as a whole.  It provides structure to those who want it, and for those who do not, it does not hold them back.”

Tred frowned, and Y realized that he was perhaps pontificating too much.

“The Sapient Union has started no wars, Tred, but we have encountered hostile civilizations that have brought them to us.  During those wars, every one of our enemies found themselves caught off-guard.  Union ships, even when largely disabled, would continue to fight.  The crews aboard a ship, even when cut off from command, even when they had little power and few resources, would not wait to die or be captured.  They would continue to do their duty, and utilize their skills in the face of danger to continue to help.”

Y nodded to him.  “As you did, Tred.  You had no orders; you had no resources; you and Engineer Diindiisi both walked into danger and did your duty for others.  You did these things because you strive to be the best you can be.  It was not – is not – easy.  You face struggles.  But you do it anyway.”

“I couldn’t do anything less,” Tred said softly.

“Because this is your home, is it not, Tred?”

“Yes,” he replied.

---

Plunk.

The heavy, damaged gasket sank into the viscous, oily mixture that would begin reclaiming it.

Miracle stuff, Break Down was, Ham Sulp thought.  You could put a wide array of materials into it, and in a few hours it would be broken down into a useful soup of chemicals that they could later reprocess into brand new things.

He was sitting in one of the Craton‘s small hangers, one of his favored places.  In this hangar they had a nice block of transparent titanium they could use to close off the vacuum, while also giving one a decent view of space.

The damage the Craton had taken from the impacts and gamma rays had made it so they had to go over every inch of every part of the ship.  There were well over a million drones in the ship right now, doing just that.  Crawling, millimeter by millimeter, over the whole damn thing.

Plunk, went another gasket as he threw it into the bucket.

He was not currently on duty.  After all that had happened, the harrowing events at the relic temple and the just-as-terrifying escape, when it had been a question if the ship might fly apart at any moment in zerospace . . . apparently that had earned him a break.

The staff of Relief Base 6206 were offering all assistance, and in twelve hours he would rejoin them to make sure they got things right.

But, even if he was supposed to be using this time to rest, it did not feel right to do so.  Certainly didn’t fit into his conception of ethical.

So, he was checking the gaskets from the water pipes.

A ship’s plants were both a food source and how it recycled its air.  You had to make sure all the water pumps and pipes were working.

He checked the next gasket that had been brought to him.  It was . . . in all right shape.  It would be another year before it had to be replaced.

He set that one down carefully.

Cenz, next to him, found the one he was holding to be unsatisfactory, and gently dropped it into the bucket of Break Down.

“Shocking, how many of these gaskets have failed,” the Coral said.  “I am of a mind to suggest to the Bureau of Engineering some improvements.”

“Cost-benefit ratio,” Cutter hissed.  “Quality high, but few parts intended for as rough handling as we have encountered.”  He turned his own gasket over in his four hands, not even needing technology to see micro-cracks.

“Ah,” Cenz replied.  “Yes, that makes sense.”

“Still,” Sulp groused.  “Quite a lot of failures.”  He threw another one into the goop.

The clicking of heels on the deck came to their ears, and Sulp looked up as Zeela Cann approached.

She crossed her arms, staring at them sternly.  There were bags under her eyes, just as there were under Sulp’s.

Even if they didn’t show it, Cutter and Cenz were just as exhausted.

“What are you three doing?” Zeela asked.

“Lookin’ at gaskets,” Sulp grumbled, taking up a fresh one from the pile.

“That’s drone work,” Cann said.  “You do things at a higher level that only you can do.”

“We’re off-duty,” Sulp replied.

Cenz nodded, and Cutter spoke.  “No current assignments.”

Zeela was quiet a few moments.  Then, she pulled over a small crate and sat down on it.  She put down her tablet.

“Hand me one,” she said, fishing from her pocket a scanner.  Putting it over her eye, and taking the gasket Sulp handed her, she began to inspect it for flaws.

They worked in silence for a long time, before Cutter made a slight hiss.  It was an equivalent of a human clearing his throat.

“What,” he asked, “Do you think the Ambassador thinks of?”  He pointed with one arm across the hangar, near the glass.

Ambassador Kell was standing there.  Sulp had not seen him come in, or even felt his presence.

The being had a habit of showing up to peer out windows, though, so he shouldn’t be surprised.

“Guess he likes the view,” Zeela Cann said, deciding her gasket was safely intact.

“I don’t think I wanna know what he thinks,” Sulp said, throwing his also into the safe pile.  He took a new one, but did not start looking at it, just watching Kell.

“I would like to know,” Cenz admitted.  “Though I fear it would be . . . alarming.”

Sulp let out a sigh, and looked back to his gasket.  Time for drone work, because he was not too good for it.

---

Kell saw the officers look over at him, heard their speculation about his thoughts.

He formed no opinion on them; he neither liked nor disliked them, they simply were here and ran about, doing little things.  As mortal beings tended to do.

The stars were so much brighter out here.  He saw in so many spectra that he’d never even dreamed of in the Endless Ages on Earth.

Back, when he was young, he had looked at those points of light and wondered what they were.

Now he was among them.

How things have changed, he thought.  Yet I remain.

---

FINIS

There remain deeper secrets

---

< Ep 13 part 44 | Ep 14 part 1 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

The door to Pirra’s office opened, but she did not look up.

Kessissiin dropped his satchel just outside the door and stepped in, snapping to attention.  He said nothing.

Pirra made him wait for nearly a minute before acknowledging his presence.

She saw how his eyes went over her, trying to discern her emotional state.  He had been inquiring about her in apparent concern over the last week.

But aside from bleaching the feathers of her crest white in mourning, she had shown little to others since Kiseleva had found her questioning the two Resource officers.

“Lt. Commander,” Kessissiin finally said.

She was glad how softly he said it.  He wanted to demand her attention, but he hadn’t been bold enough.

“You will wait as long as I require,” she told him.

It was not pure pettiness.  She wanted to make quite clear to him where they stood, and that it was not positive.

Kessissiin nodded slightly, and continued to wait.

Finally, when she was ready, she saved her files and focused on him.

She nodded to him, and he finally was able to drop his salute.

“Private Kessissiin, you are to be transferred to the Starbase 2117 in Dessei Republic space.  As the Craton will not be traveling that way, you will be transferring off the ship immediately onto the Relief Base, and from there join the supply convoy in one week’s time.  The details of the rest of your trip have been sent to you.”

Kessissiin hesitated, his crest twitching in anxiety.  He nodded then.

“Will I have a mark on my record?” he asked.

“I have decided against such action,” Pirra told him.

She felt almost too kind for doing it that way, and part of her still felt she should put a black mark in his log.

But his actions in the field had always been borderline heroic.  He had saved lives, and that alone kept her from despising him completely.

“Your transfer has been marked down as being due to personal disagreements with another officer, who shall remain unnamed.  You and the other officer have agreed amicably to your transfer, and the details are sealed.”  She paused for emphasis.  “Unless future inappropriate behavior of yours causes a need to open it.  Do you understand?”

And would he agree?  She had simply written this for him.

But she knew he would not argue it.

“I understand,” Kessissiin answered, his words flat, lacking any of the body or crest movements to impart emotion.

“I must add, though,” he said suddenly.  “That I am sorry for your-“

“That will be all.  You are dismissed,” Pirra said.

Kessissiin’s words died off.  He gave one last salute, then turned and left her office.

Pirra returned to her work.

*******

“Your disobedience has cost us much, Cathal.”

Cathal kept his face set in calm lines.  Though his father’s words were not said angrily, he was clearly disappointed.  It took effort to keep his composure in the face of that.

“I know, father,” Cathal replied.  “I felt that-“

“Enough,” Zyzus said, chopping his hand through the air to bring an end to it.  “What is done is done.  Where once Apollonia would have supplied the last of what we needed, we are now two short.”

Zyzus reached up, running his fingers down his short beard.  “And with Farland’s CR disappearing in the temple, we have no other options available to us here.”

Cathal struggled to keep all composure.  His body was beyond exhausted, every moment bringing fresh pain.  He’d been beaten before, had broken bones, in his more feral youth, but it had never felt as bad as this.

This time just still demanded of him, and for the sake of all that mattered – the eternal soul of humanity – he would have to be strong.

“I am sorry for losing the takwin,” he said.

“It cannot be helped.  It is always a risk to use them, and you were at least fortunate it did work this time.”

“A miracle,” Cathal said softly.

Zyzus did not respond, turning away, lost in thought for a time.

“Had Apollonia died,” Cathal ventured.  “Captain Brooks would have been suspicious.  He holds her in a special regard – he would not have accepted that it was merely an accident.  He would have looked deeper.”

“And found nothing,” Zyzus snapped.  “The man is a fool, blind to what is in front of his face.  The only wild card was the Shoggoth, but he is blinded by his arrogance.”

“It was a success in that Apollonia has been awakened,” Cathal persisted.  “She could become a useful ally.”

“She could,” Zyzus replied.  “And it only cost us two tulpas and a takwin.  We were close, Cathal!  So close.”  Emotion bled into his words, and Cathal again felt the weight of his failure.

No, not failure, he thought.  His decision.

“The time and place were perfect,” Zyzus continued, nearly mumbling to himself.  “Though, it must be said that we did not count on the appearance of the Old Masters.  They may have caused problems, they are unpredictable and sometimes inimical to us . . .”

“And the arrival of the Advent Forces,” Cathal added.  “I fear that they might have overwhelmed us.  We are not strong or numerous enough yet, father.”

“In this, at least, you are right,” Zyzus said.  “We do not find fertile ground here, though this is where we must sow.  The people of the Union have little faith, and few are even desperate enough to need it as a crutch.”

Cathal bowed slightly.  “I know that I have failed in this task of converting the faithless.  I have no excuses, father, I am not the man you trained me to be – who you need me to be.  I accept any punishment you deem necessary.”

Zyzus turned, and Cathal could feel the weight of his true gaze upon him.  He shivered, unable to help it in his weakened state.

“You are my son,” Zyzus said gently.  “I would give anything for you.  You do not need to abase yourself.  Your guilt has been your punishment.  Get up.”

Cathal felt a great relief as he was forgiven.

He had not felt that he had failed, keeping Apollonia alive.  Zyzus’s belated acceptance of this only heightened Cathal’s sense that he had made the correct decision.

“I am unworthy of your forgiveness, father, but it moves me all the same.”

“You are correct in that Apollonia could be a great ally,” Zyzus told him.  “Let us hope that we are able to take advantage of that – to bring her into the fold.  And you did pull off another coup!  Jaya Yaepanaya is now ours . . .  you were wise to choose to save her, though it is always painful to lose a true faithful like Shaw.”

Cathal nodded, though he felt no pride in that decision.  It had been the right one, but Alexander had been a good man, and he would miss him.  He had been his friend.

“Perhaps even with the loss of her husband, we can leverage this into making inroads with the Dessei woman,” Zyzus mused.  “We shall see.”

He waved Cathal away.  “Return to your cabin and rest, my son.  This ‘exam’ is already lasting too long.”

“Yes, father.  Thank you, father.”

Cathal left, limping noticeably.  Zyzus watched him go thoughtfully.

His system chirped that a call was incoming.

He felt on alert immediately; surely no one could have pried into this room, and they had not been so long as to draw immediate suspicion!

But years of living his double life had made him wary.

The caller’s identity was given as Nadian Farland.  The man was not even on the Craton anymore, he’d left somewhere with the thrice-accursed Advent Forces.

It was only a message; not even Nadian Farland could afford to make an interstellar real-time call.

“Gamman Zyzus,” the man began.  “We didn’t get a chance to talk at the temple.  But I’ve found out a few things since then, and I have to admit you’re a lot more than I thought you were the last time we met.  I think there’s a lot of things for us to talk about.”

Zyzus began to smile, and then to laugh.

Sometimes blessings came in unexpected ways.

---

< Ep 13 part 43 | Ep 13 part 45 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

-ONE WEEK LATER-

---

Captain’s Log:
The Craton has reached Relief Base 6206, ten light years from the location of the Enabling of the Xanagee, and we have begun repairing and refitting her as best we can.  The most we can hope for, really, is to be able to limp from here to a proper shipyard for full repair.

Our ersatz allies in Dawn’s ship left us some time ago, sending me back to the Craton during a brief layover three light years out from the Enabling.

The Craton is in a very poor condition, with over two hundred dead, both on the ship from radiation exposure or attendant injuries as systems failed, along with the total loss of our exploratory team sent into the Enabling and technical crew that had been on the Raven’s Ghost when it had been destroyed.

Doctor Y has, thankfully, successfully extricated himself fully from our computers.  He seems changed in some ways, and I think even he will have much to dwell on from his experience.

I have spoken to all of the command staff, and many have ghosts to wrestle with as a result of all we’ve learned.  Jaya, specifically, was injured and is lucky to be alive, and I can sense a hesitance and fear in her that I only hope she can overcome.

Apollonia was also hurt, though she seems all right in body, something about all of this has resonated with her.  I suspect she has learned what it is that is bound to her.

I do not know if I should reach out to her, or wait.  I am still reeling myself, and though I shall keep an eye on her in case she needs help, I . . .  I also have to trust her.  She has grown in so many ways from the young, scared girl from New Vitriol.

Boniface Tred’s actions during the crisis were exceedingly heroic; I have offered him a promotion, and he has decided he will take some time to consider the offer.  Until now, he has steadfastly refused all promotion, but I think that may change now.

I distract myself, though, from the parts I feel most hesitant to talk about.

Yet, though I find I am afraid and feel cast adrift in uncertain times as a result of what occurred, I cannot be content to let myself stay that way.

We have very little hard data about all that happened near the Enabling, what with the Craton’s loss of external sensors and the fact that my personal system was blanked.

Yet, my report has already sent shockwaves through Voidfleet command and the Union government in general.

Ambassador Kell has, unexpectedly, reviewed my report, adding his own commentary, while also standing by my every statement.  This carries a lot of weight with many.

The revelation of the origin of the Leviathan at Terris has ramifications that I cannot yet begin to unpack, but I know that this is the spark that will set ablaze a fire.  Smarter minds than I will be trying to figure out what is going to change, I only know that change is coming.

Yet despite the inborn fear of change, I am also excited.  I hope.

At least with regards to the Union.  Other things I have learned, I have . . . deigned to include in my report, things of a personal nature.  Such as the nature of Apollonia’s existence, and my own connection to the Leviathan we encountered a year ago.  I have dubbed it White as a codename, both in my head and in my report.

I know that this personal journal is confidential, until the day that I am gone and a historian gains permission to look back on the personal thoughts of a star captain and mayor who existed as an outlier from the usual command staff.  Or perhaps some committee, investigating my actions after a terrible incident.  To those who find this, I can only say; I do not yet know how to say those things, to describe them in a way that really makes sense.

Perhaps our language is too limited for such ideas to even be expressed.

Until I figure out how, I will say nothing.  And I apologize to all those of the future, in case my failure here becomes the death of us all.

---

Jaya found that her cabin felt stifling.

She had recovered fully, she felt no lasting effects from her radiation dose.

For the past week, though, she had been trying to work through what she had learned.

She had spoken to Brooks about what Shaw had told her.  Unfortunately, his personal computer where he had stored his data had been corrupted.  She had had few resources to allocate to recovering it, with all the vital infrastructure of the ship needing work.

Brooks had listened to her when she had told him of what Shaw had said.

But she could tell, as she told him, that he had known.

How?

What he might pass up the chain of command concerned her.  She had already sent her own, sadly limited report to her secret comrades.

This was a turning point, she was sure of it.  Though Brooks had shared little about what had occurred in the temple with her, she had learned enough.

The Leviathans had created a star.  That was not the action of a mindless creature, as many had speculated the Leviathans to be.

It was done with will, intent, and thought.

They were intelligent, and they were many.  Prior guesses on their population had been in the thousands at most.  To see millions collect in one space was worse than anything they could have imagined.

Yet even in her report to her secret superiors, she did not include everything.

Her survival made no sense, borderline miraculous.  She had memories of dying.  She had felt her body shutting down, she had been going blind, even.  It was so bad that she had been burned not just on the outside, but even her internal organs.

She had been with Alexander Shaw, who was now dead.

She could also remember the shadowy figure.  Her vision had nearly entirely gone at that point, so she could not say she saw who it was.

But she knew, all the same, that it had been Cathal Sair.  Behind him, two other things, inhuman things, had stood.  Accompanying him.  Guarding him?

The man had been staying in his cabin, resting.  While uninjured, he had claimed exhaustion through a few channels that she had checked.

How had he done it, she wondered.  How had he saved her, walked through the vacuum and brought her back out?

Even with the best of medical technology, a dose of radiation as bad as she’d received was not something that could be fixed.

How could she, without any evidence at all, bring this to anyone?

She did not even know what to say to the priest.

He had saved her life, but Jaya knew that she did not yet know the cost.

---

< Ep 13 part 42 | Ep 13 part 44 >

Whoops, this was set to go out at 9PM instead of AM. Fixed it!

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Mission Status: Completed

Outcome unclear; results unexpected

Summation: After making contact with NADIAN FARLAND’s team, CAPTAIN-MAYOR IAN BROOKS and AMBASSADOR KELL joined his party and entered the relic temple.

After penetrating into the temple’s interior, a control room was discovered.  A member of Farland’s team activated the room, and the room detached from the station.

At the same time, a dormant AI within the station, which identified itself as the PRESENT MIND, began direct communication.  It possessed the ability to read human minds as well as project itself into the thoughts.

It identified the relic temple as the ENABLING OF SEEING.  Its creators were specifically identified as the uncontacted and unknown XANAGEE species.  The station “enabled” the Xanagee to use the bending of spacetime caused by the gravity of an ultra-massive object, which we have dubbed the “DARK STAR”, to view the distant past.  This was in an attempt to understand the true nature of Leviathans, which were unknown even to them.

In the course of our trip, we were able to observe events from the ancient past.  It is difficult to convey precisely, but the events seemed to be an “experience recording”, with all of the dangers inherent in experiencing them.  Though the ship/room was able to protect itself from all harm, it killed one of Farland’s party who ventured outside of that sphere via an airlock.

AMBASSADOR KELL’S NOTE: These events are indelibly impressed into reality.  They occur and have always occurred.  This observation of them by the Captain and others is simply the only way they can be understood in linear time.

Through this time loop/dilation, we witnessed the birth of the Dark Star, which was far more massive than any star theorized to be able to exist.  Externally to the temple, the Craton observed the arrival of a vast number of Leviathans, estimated at 3.7 million individuals, which formed a ring with a circumference of approximately 100 billion kilometers around the central point of the Dark Star.  Their arrival seemed to be for the purpose of creating the Dark Star with their combined gravity.  This exhibition of planning behavior challenges prior assumptions of Leviathan intelligence.

The purpose of the Dark Star seems to have been to create a “gateway” through which Leviathans could fully enter our plane of reality.  The distinction between this state and their normal state is unclear.

AMBASSADOR KELL’S NOTE: While able to project themselves into the planes of existence humans are familiar with, they cannot easily fully enter this plane of existence without such a gateway as that of the Dark Star.  Through its gravity, it cracks the veil of reality.

I cannot speculate as to why they may wish to fully enter this level of reality.

Within the control room, we observed, in expedited time, the Dark Star proceed through its lifecycle.  The presence of the Enabling evidently triggered it to go hypernova concurrent with the emergence of the Leviathan that appeared at Terris.  For clarity, this Leviathan is to be referred to as “ORANGE”.

While Orange obtained visible damage from traversing the star, it was able to restore itself after exiting, through unknown means.  It was present for the hypernova of the star, but again survived, with no signs of permanent harm.  This again brings into questions thoughts of potential methods of harming a Leviathan.

AMBASSADOR KELL’S NOTE: They are immune to all mundane forms of harm.  To harm one involves very specific circumstances and carries a cost that cannot be measured in labor hours.

After the collapse of the Dark Star, the Enabling’s main gateway was destroyed by an expulsion of gamma rays released from the hypernova.  This appeared to be some sort of intentional release valve to prevent damage to the rest of the Enabling, as neither our ship-room nor the rest of the Enabling showed any signs of damage.

This Gamma Ray Burst destroyed the RAVEN’S GHOST and caused a temporary failure of power on the Craton, causing some decks to become irradiated.  Casualty report are in APPENDED FILE 3.

Damage to the Craton from this event led directly to the failure of two fusion reactors.  The Ehni Dr. Y helped the Craton to partially recover through ACTING-CAPTAIN URLE’s decision to suspend the EHNI CODE DUPLICATION DIRECTIVE.

After external view was restored, an unknown vessel was detected.  It identified itself only with the code CBX-2025.

Contact was made with this vessel, whose assistance was accepted by Acting-Captain Urle.  

The remains of the party in the Enabling were evacuated by a team from this vessel, who identified themselves as “Advent Soldiers”.

Taken aboard their craft, we met with their commander – VERMILLION DAWN.  Details of that conversation are in APPENDED FILE 7.

After slaving the zerodrive of the Craton to their ship, we observed the arrival of an unknown vessel of immense size, comparable to the Enabling itself.  The identity of this vessel or its creators/crew are unknown, but the Xanagee are the most obvious.  The implications of their continued existence raises many questions.

At this point the Craton was able to escape the immediate vicinity.  We have headed back towards Union space.

Damage reports on the Craton are in APPENDED FILE 2.

A further, more detailed report will be produced presently and sent to all relevant authorities within 48 hours.

Captain-Mayor Ian Brooks

---

< Ep 13 part 41 | Ep 13 part 43 >

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---

Apollonia knew that days had passed while she was unconscious.

She did not want to wake up.  Her head hurt too much.  Even just thinking made it worse.

She was in a room by herself.  She even knew this room, it was an extra treatment room that they normally stored supplies in.  Guess it had all been pulled out for people who had been hurt.

Sometimes Zey would come in, Apollonia would just lay still, hoping that the fact that she had woken up would not be noticed.

It seemed to work, at least until she heard Zey whispering to Dr. Zyzus that she was pretending to be asleep, and they’d best just leave her be for now.

Of course they could tell, Apollonia thought, rueful and amused both.

“Hey,” she said when Zey next came in.

“So, look who’s feeling talkative!” her friend replied, stepping closer and passing a hand over her head.  The tattooed circuits on Zey’s hand triggered the monitors to give her a full readout.

“I feel like shit,” Apollonia admitted.

“Do you need anything?”

Apollonia could only imagine a sedative, but she did not think sleeping would actually solve the problem.

“No,” she said.  “I just need to stop lying here.”

“You can’t get up yet,” Zey said.

“I mean just . . . not doing anything,” Apollonia replied.  “I want to talk to someone . . .”  She frowned.  “Where is Y?  I don’t think I’ve seen him at all.”

He must be busy.  But still . . . she would have thought he’d have said hello or something.

“Ah . . . he’s all over,” Zey said.

“What?”

Zey gestured around the whole room.  “When everything was going wrong, Y kind of took over the ship.  I mean, Acting-Captain Urle told him to, but it was like . . . more efficient.  And he’s an Ehni, so he’s super good at everything.  He’s still . . . in the ship.”

Apollonia leaned over, tapping at a computer on the wall.  “Hello?  Y, are you in there?”

“He’s not really talking right now,” Zey said quickly.  “I guess for him it wasn’t just like turning on or off a light, he’s . . . I heard someone he’s say ‘reassembling himself’.”  She shrugged.  “Not something we can really get, I guess.  But don’t worry, he’ll be back.”

Apollonia heard every word, but found her gaze slacking.  So Y had done something he’d always told her he shouldn’t do.  For the right reasons, just like he would.

Something, she thought, that he’d always wanted, but he’d found the reality to be not at all like he had hoped.

“I understand it,” she said softly.

Zey went from confused to alarmed quickly.

“Where’s my tablet?” Apollonia asked, trying to change the topic.

Zey hesitated, then took it from a drawer.  “Just don’t wear yourself out using it, you need to rest, okay?”

“Yeah,” Apollonia agreed.  “Fine.”

“Do you want something to eat?  We’ve been giving you nutrient shots, but you probably want something in that belly.”

“That sounds great . . .” Apollonia said.

“I can get you some crackers, or-“

“Pizza,” Apollonia said.

Zey froze.  “How did you know that Ann sent you up a pizza?”

Apollonia pointed to her tablet.  “She sent me a message.”

Zey relaxed, letting out a breath.  “Whew.  Sorry, after all the weird, creepy stuff lately, I just wasn’t ready for you to be doing your . . .” Zey froze suddenly, realizing that she was implying things about Apollonia and her abilities.

Apollonia did not react to the faux pas, though.  She froze for a moment, her attention drawn elsewhere.

“How long has Ambassador Kell been out there?” she asked the nurse suddenly.

Zey unfroze, looking guilty and awkward.  “Ah . . . well, he came by almost immediately after we found you.  It was after we escaped from that temple place.”

“Where did you find me?” she asked.

“Uh . . .” Zey trailed off for a moment.  “The priest guy from your event called for help for you.  You fell and hit your head when the whole ship got hit.”  She paused.  “It was a piece of that Nadian guy’s ship.  It got destroyed and we-“

“That’s all?” Apollonia interrupted.  “I just hit my head?”

Zey nodded.  “Yeah.”

“Was there any blood?” Apollonia asked.

Her face and tone were so serious that Zey froze again, watching her with fear.  “Not that I saw,” she replied.

Apollonia did not like that she was scaring her friend.  She tore her eyes off her, looking down.

“Tell Kell to come in.”

Zey swallowed, hesitantly.  “Are you sure?  You shouldn’t over-stress yourself.”

“Send him in.”

Zey nodded, stepping out of the room.

A moment later, the doorway darkened, more than seemed appropriate for the size of Ambassador Kell.

“Come in,” she said.

He closed the door behind himself.

“You know now,” he said.

“Yeah,” Apollonia replied.

Kell’s eyes narrowed slightly, but there was a hint of grim amusement in them.

Apollonia might have been pissed off by that, but she understood it now not as gloating, but the dark humor of a fellow suffering a similar fate.

“Do you remember the event?” Kell asked.

“I’m still trying to understand it,” Apollonia admitted.  “I remember . . . blood.  But I don’t know if it was real or . . . well, it was real.  But I don’t know if what happened really happened on the level of existence that we’re . . . now occupying.”  She frowned, wondering if that made sense.

But Kell understood.

“When we first met, you were closer to this.  Your Embrion close, perilously close, to awakening.  You were almost a feral creature, ready to die at any moment.  You sacrificed that as you grew stronger as a person.  But now, you have grown in both regards.”

Part of her wanted to come up with some sarcastic retort to his words.  But it was kind of true, and before she could think of anything, Kell spoke again.

“Tell no one what has happened, Apollonia Nor,” Kell said to her.  “You may mean well.  They may mean the same.  But if they find out, they will have a question – and then another question to follow that.  They do not know where their curiosity leads them.  And no matter what you tell them, they will never understand these things without experiencing them.  Thus they cannot understand the pain, or the danger.”

Apollonia felt her heart beating hard in her chest at his words.

She wanted to argue with him.  She wanted to hate him, she did hate him.  She felt disgusted by him, but he was also the only one who actually did understand what she was, what her existence was.

He was repulsive and alluring, her enemy and her friend.

Just like how everyone had always felt about her, she felt it around his being.  The wrongness.  Even if he had done nothing, she realized, she’d be feeling this.

She did not know if she could get past that feeling.

“Okay,” she told him.

---

< Ep 13 part 40 | Ep 13 part 42 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Slowly, Pirra opened her eyes.

Her body hurt, everything felt heavy.  She started to drift back off, but something made her jump.

Her mind could not fix onto the thought, she could only feel that terrifying emotional sensation of loss.

Forcing herself up on her elbows, she looked around at where she was.

This was the medical wing.

She was in a temporary area; there were semi-soft hanging walls to divide it into cubicles.  She was in her own, but the front curtain was open enough to let her see several others.

There were a lot of extra drones flying near the ceiling, and from the sound, it seemed there were a lot more people being treated than normal.

Some beds she could see had been emptied, so it seemed that whatever had happened to put people in here, they were getting cleared out now.

She did not know how long she had been unconscious.  Vague memories of waking up at other times came to her, of being too weak to raise her head, and barely able to form thoughts or words.

One of those memories was of Commander Kai Yong Fan, sitting on the edge of her bed, telling her in gentle words . . .

Telling her about Alexander, that Alexander was-

She pushed away the reality that threatened to overrun her, and focused on her condition.  As if she had a mission that depended on it.  Lives were on the line.

She felt weak; maybe she had gotten exposed to radiation?  That would fit her symptoms.

Reaching up with a shaking hand, she tugged on some of the deep-green feathers on her head.  They should come right out even if she was being treated.  A horrible thought, but a very easy way to check.

They did not come out, the tug made a sharp pain in her scalp.  That pain cleared her mind a little more.

So she hadn’t gotten irradiated.  Her mother would be thrilled that she could still potentially have kids.

There were flashes of memory about . . . something else.  She had been in a dark room.  Lots of other people had been there.

She fumbled for her system, it had been put on the table next to her.

It told her that they were in zerospace.  They had left the location of the temple.

It had been . . . almost fourteen hours since that escape.

She lay back, trying to wrap her mind around her own thoughts.

Cathal.

Father Sair had been in the darkened room, and-

Yes, it all came back to her, the whole event.

“Apollonia,” she said out loud.

A nurse heard her, poking her head around a hanging wall.  “You all right?”

Pirra’s system identified her as Nurse Zey Boziak.  “Is Apollonia all right?” Pirra asked.

“She’s in another room, asleep,” Nurse Boziak said.  “She needs to recover.”

Yes, she did, Pirra thought.  She could recall the ceremony now, at least flashes of it, in her mind.

She started to get up.  “Put out a Response call,” she told the nurse.  “We need to find Father Cathal Sair-“

“Whoa, what are you doing?” Boziak said, coming up to her.  “Just stay on your bed, Ms. Shaw-“

“Do not call me that!” Pirra snapped, far more angrily than she should.

Dessei did not take on the names of their spouse when they married.  She was only Pirra out here among them.  That was all.

Even if she was married to-

She cut off her own thought, trying to shove it aside.

“I have a job to do,” she said, trying to hop up, but finding that she was weaker than she had realized.

“You are in no condition to do anything,” Nurse Boziak said.  She had shrugged off Pirra’s rage.

Pirra glared at her, but this was not a winning tact.  She looked into her system again, finding the rest of her team.

Response Team One were currently working on repairing vital systems down near Reactor Three.

Scanning through everything, she saw that there was no call at all for Sair, or . . . even an acknowledgement of what had happened.

It couldn’t have been covered up, she thought.  Too many people had seen.

She . . . she had to do something.  The men who had been killed . . .

She could still recall their faces.  Their calmness as they died.

Nurse Boziak got her to lay back down, and she agreed for now, trying to collect in her mind good pictures of them.

As soon as the nurse was gone, Pirra began to search the ship’s database.  She could use the Response system to identify the men based on memory.  Humans looked very much the same to her, but she was a professional.  She’d get this done.

It took her some time; minutes or maybe even hours.  Nurse Boziak peered in on her once, but Pirra ignored her and kept working.

She found one of the men; he was in Resources, and his name was Terrance Chin.

The man was currently on-duty, her system said.

That was impossible.  She had to go down and see him, talk to him if he was indeed really there.

She played the pliant patient until shift change, using time when no one was looking to practice standing and to massage her legs to help them be less stiff.

Once there was confusion out there with the change in shift, she ducked out.

Some escape, she thought, being the only green Dessei in here.  The drones detected her immediately, but she could pull rank on them and they’d just back down.  A living nurse was a lot trickier, and she managed to avoid those.

She took a lift down a dozen decks, heading for where her system had told her Terrance was right now.

The supply room stored volatile luxury food stores for restaurants.  A lot of casks and boxes had been knocked over when the ship had been shaken.

Going in, she saw the man immediately.  He was sitting on a fallen crate, one about the size of a coffin.  She was startled as she saw it, but the man was already looking at her with surprise of his own.

She was not in uniform, just pants under her hospital gown.

“Um, Commander, are you all right?” the second man asked.

She looked to him, and realized that he was the other man who had been sacrificed.

“What is your name and rank?” she demanded of them.

The two men looked at each other in confusion.  “Lieutenant Terrance Chin of Resources, ma’am.”

“I’m Ensign Wilfrith, ma’am, also of Resources,” the other man said, stumbling on his words.  “Cnut Wilfrith.”

She looked between them, keeping her face serious and accusing, though she was not sure what to actually ask them now.

At least she could intimidate even out of uniform, she thought.

“Where were you both last night?”

“Ma’am?” Chin said.  “We were . . . both on our shift last night, here.”

“Yeah,” Wilfrith agreed.  “Ma’am, are you all right?”

“I’m fine!” she snapped.  “I just have some questions.  Like what’s in the coffin?”

“Coffin?” one man echoed, surprised.  “This is just a crate!”

“Commander,” a voice called from behind Pirra.

Pirra turned to look at Kiseleva, in full uniform, standing there and watching her.  Even in her small human eyes, Pirra could see the concern there, the worry.

It made her want to scream, but she did not let it out.  “I’m busy here, Lieutenant,” she said.

“Commander, it’s important you talk to me for a moment,” Kiseleva said.

Pirra hesitated, then crumbled.  She turned towards the human woman, her arms dropping to her side.

“What’s going on?” she asked softly.

Kiseleva waved for the two Resource personnel to leave, and they got up from their crate, walking away quietly.

Kiseleva came up.  “I know you must be very confused, Lieutenant Commander.  The . . . cultural event you went to last night, you were exposed to a chemical stimulant that caused you to have a bad reaction.”

“What?” Pirra snapped, her indignation rising.

“I know you do not want to hear that,” Kiseleva told her.  “I promise you that there is no sign of permanent problems.  But you may be suffering from delusions temporarily.”

Pirra felt her legs go weak.  “Does that mean . . . is Alexander . . . ?”

Pirra saw the sadness in Kiseleva’s eyes.  “I am sorry, Commander.  He is gone.”

---

< Ep 13 part 39 | Ep 13 part 41 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

“The shuttle has docked with the unknown vessel,” Cenz said to Urle.

“Just one shuttle?  Where is the other?” Urle asked.

“It is still inside the temple,” Cenz told him.

Urle’s fingers formed into a fist.  He did not like being kept in the dark when there was no clear reason.  “Hail the ship again-” he began.

“They are hailing us,” Eboh said.  “It is a simple message that says that Captain Brooks has been recovered.  There is no mention of anyone else.”

They could be lying, Urle thought.  But even if they were, the Craton had no ability right now to change things.

“Thank our friends, and tell them-” he began.

“Another message, marked urgent.  It says that we must leave, now.”

Urle stood.  “We have to confirm that Brooks is on board before-“

Y’s voice spoke in his ear.  “Captain Urle, I urge you to trust our friends.”

Urle fell silent.

“They are urging us to hurry, and slave our zerodrive to theirs,” Eboh said.  He frowned.  “Is that even possible, I do not know if-“

“I can do that,” Y said, his voice coming from every speaker on the bridge.  “Combined, our power generation will be enough to open a sufficiently-sized zerospace portal.  I will connect to their ship and handle all of the . . . details, if you wish, Captain Urle.”

All eyes went to him again.  Urle paused for a moment, and then nodded.  “Doctor, tell our friends- what is that?”

He did not know if Y sent his partial message or not, as his eyes were drawn to the screen, at distant space even further out from the temple.

Where space itself was boiling.  It surged, the light of stars in the distance growing distorted, turning to strange rings and circles, growing and shrinking as something twisted space.

Gravitational fields of a zerodrive – but like no other zerodrive he had ever seen.

There was no portal torn in space itself, but something began to emerge.  Something with hard edges of a strange metal that glinted with an oily sheen.  Its edges were rough, but still recognizably unnatural, and another appeared next to it.  And then another.

More began to appear, none of them even touching, but always staying equidistant from each other, the gaps smaller or larger, but never huge.  They moved at intervals, slowly rotating up or down.  All one piece that was not even connected.

A dozen or more of them appeared, arrayed in a slowly sweeping line that reached its apex with the centermost block.

It was moving towards them.

“We must go now, Captain!” Eboh said.  “Our allies are saying they will leave without us!”

“What is that?” Urle asked again, his voice a whisper.

Y spoke.  “Accepting zerodrive handshake,” his voice said.  There was a distortion in it, but it continued on, the AI finally taking charge without Urle’s order.

As they began to move, Urle’s eyes were still drawn to that strange vessel.

It was not moving towards them, he realized, as they changed position in relation to it.  It was heading towards the temple.

He looked back at the temple, realizing now the colossal size of the cubes and the whole they made.  Unlike they, in the kilometer-wide Craton, who were dwarfed by it, the strange cube-wing ship was . . . in scale with it.

Then his view faded, as the Craton was pulled into zerospace.

---

The shuttle had landed, and all aboard were told that they had successfully made the dive into zerospace, along with the Craton.

A cheer went up, but as relieved as Brooks was to hear it, he could not bring himself to feel happy.

Their trip back had not been a pause for him.  Brecht had given him access to the data to see all that had occurred outside the enabling since they had entered.

He had seen the gamma ray burst, the destruction of the Raven’s Ghost.  Ambassador Jophiel, even, prior to her recovery.

And the arrival of the Leviathans.

Their positioning was not lost on him.  The singular point they had encircled fit, as best he could tell, where the dark star had seemed to be.

They had focused on it, willed it into being.

And the Craton had filled a spot in their circle.  Ignored and integral.

The clarity past the adrenaline was setting in now, though, and he knew that these thoughts, what he had learned, still had to be developed more.

One of the espatiers stood and guided Nadian and Katherine out of the ship.  As they reached the ramp, he heard Nadian ask; “What about Brooks?”

“He is going off with our top man,” the espatier told him.

Brecht approached him, and Brooks looked up at him.

“Are you the top man?” he asked the man he had thought was a mercenary.  Who was, apparently, much more than that.

“I am,” Brecht replied.

He walked past him, and Brooks unhooked from his seat, rising to follow him.

“Who are you people?” he asked Brecht, catching up to him at the bottom of the ramp.

Brecht said nothing for a few strides.  Then he took a breath.  “We have garnered several names.  Requite Forces, Advent Soldiers.  Miles Mortis.”  He paused.  “And sometimes mercenaries.”

“But you’re not that,” Brooks stated.

“No.  We occasionally take contracts, to maintain charades and for money.  But we have a purpose.”

“Which is?”

“I will not tell you,” Brecht said.  “But she will.”

They had come to the far bulkhead of the hangar, where a door was opened.  “Straight down the hall,” Brecht told him.

Brooks gave him one last look before heading down.  At the end was another door.

It led to an airlock.  The door behind him closed, and he was sprayed with a cleansing gas.  It smelled harsh and foul.

The other door opened, and before him in the room beyond was, simply, a wall of lights.  A single chair sat between he and it.

There were readouts and screens on the wall, that flashed and showed data that he could not parse.  It made no sense to him.

This was more computing power than was needed for an AI, or to emulate a human mind.  What was . . . ?

“Greetings, my intrepid Captain.”

The voice of Vermillion Dawn.

Brooks froze, his eyes looking once again over the screens and readouts.  They remained the same, but after a few moments the one nearest to him changed, turning to an image of a face.

It was not a detailed image; simply a grid of lights, their points taking on the shape of a human form.  The same woman’s face as the Present Mind on the enabling had taken.

How he remembered her, from years ago.

“Dawn,” he said.

“Ian,” she replied.  “I told you that I would have further surprises for you when next we met.”

His mind went back to the secret message that Y had brought to him when she had requested the audience with him.

It had not been all she had said to him, but it had been her parting promise.

“You also said the time was coming when you could tell me more,” he said.  “Is that time now?”

“Yes,” she told him.  A slight pop from the simple speaker brought out her sigh.  “But let me first assure you that I am not far from you, Captain.  I am not . . .”  she hesitated.  “I am not hiding from you now, as I was then.”

“Then where are you?” he asked, though the truth was something that he had already realized.

“This is me now,” she told him, confirming his worst fears.

Brooks stepped closer to the wall, reaching up.  It was still just cold metal and plastic.  “Dawn, what happened to you?” he asked softly.

“I was not one to shed myself so easily,” she began.  It was, at best, a weak jest.  Those years ago when they, along with the pirate-turned-savior Siilon, had begun their private war against the lurking horrors that lived at the edge of humanity.

At that time they had only fought the Glorians, and the Gohhians.  The last remaining vestiges of humanity’s cruelest past, metastasized into impossibly vast forces in the expanse of space.  Though dwarfed by the humanity that had united and advanced, left the cruelties of the past behind, they had all become aware that the cancer was still there at the edge.  Still blighting billions upon billions of lives.

At that time they had not known what else lurked out in the Dark.

They had fought tooth and nail, refusing to yield even after devastating defeats.  Clinging to life so as to fight another day.

It had not been the hopelessness of their battle that had compelled he and Siilon to leave it and join the Union.  It had been the realization that they had, ultimately, made no difference.  All of their suffering and losses had saved a pittance of lives, and done little to undermine their enemies.

But Dawn had stayed; she would not abandon that fight.  It had been a gulf they could not broach.

Yet now . . .  Now she was gone.  Now she was a digital memory.

“It is not the enemy who bested me,” she admitted.  “You have seen effects much like this.  Your own man, Iago Caraval.  I . . . looked where I should not have looked, Ian.  It was a foolish weakness, a momentary mistake, seeking too blithely to find a new tool or weapon.  Yet it was only a glimpse of an idea that undid my body.

“My mind, too, was affected.  I hid the damage for years, and continued the fight.  It was not simply the effects it had on my body and mind, but the ideas, Ian.  They were a torture to see and understand.  I understand them still, but . . .  they cannot be put into words.  I cannot express them to you.  I have tried, with others, before.

“Their weight became so great that I decided, ultimately, that my only chance was to digitize my mind.  I had made copies in the past, and I used those to fill in every gap and damaged point.  Painstakingly did my most loyal fellows scan and translate every part of me into this system.  I am now able to bear them better than I could in my original body.

“But this is not simply a copy of my mind, Ian.  Such a mind, disconnected from material conditions, cannot help but to drift away from them.  It cannot continue to understand and to care.  Thus, every part of me was copied, and in this digital world I exist as a simulated whole.  Flesh, bone, blood, and mind.  Every part of me that existed in life, is recreated so that I may continue to pretend to be . . . human.”

Brooks leaned forward, his forehead against the cold metal.  His eyes stared downwards, trying to make his exhausted mind understand it all.

“I know that this is difficult to hear, Captain.”

The words were a gross understatement.  Yet Brooks understood through the reversion to his rank that their moment of intimate admissions was over.

He did not know what he might want to say to her, and in a way was almost relieved that he did not have to force himself to comprehend this all and come to some sort of conclusion at this moment.  Not after all else he had learned.

He stepped back, sitting almost clumsily on the chair.

“Right now I speak to Nadian and Katherine through a puppet,” she told him.  “From him I have learned all that transpired on the station.”

“How?” Brooks asked.  “My . . . my system is blanked.  Everything I gathered from within that room is gone.”

“Except for this.”

A small panel opened, and sliding out on a tray was a strange, clay-like object.  It was roughly a sphere, but on it were patterns that were strangely unnerving.  There were parts in the pattern that almost resembled eyes, ears, nostrils, but were not truly like anything human.

“This is something we call a takwin,” Dawn told him.  “A name from human history, rather than its true term.  Whatever that may be, I cannot say.  It is a form of relic technology – an empty vessel that can contain information against all loss.

“Nadian knew this, but not its origins, and carried it in with him at my behest.  It observes, and remembers even where all other technology fails.  So long as Nadian Farland made it out alive, I would know.”

“So you were his backer,” Brooks realized.  “And you came because of this.  Because of the data it obtained.”

Dawn hesitated.

“I was his backer, yes,” she said.  “This is the only vessel under my command powerful enough to create a magnetic shield.  As such, I had not wished to come in and face the risk – until the situation came to the point where my intercession was compelled.”

Brooks watched quietly, and continued to watch after she had spoken.  Sitting in silence for a time, he looked again at the takwin, at what vital information it must contain.  It still sat there, and he wondered what would happen if he touched it.

It was not so much that he wished to, or even thought he could take it.

But it was of such value, such alien qualities, that he realized just how out of his depth he was.  

She had drifted from him.  She had kept up their fight and moved to a level he had not even known existed.  He was a useful agent to help an agenda, not his own man.

“Please, Captain, do not take my words to seem I do not value you,” she said softly.

He looked up.  He wanted to believe her.

But he truly did not know if she would have let him, Nadian, and everyone on the Craton die if the takwin had not been there to recover.

He would never know, he thought.

A pressure fell upon him; a presence that he could mistake for none other.

“Ambassador,” he said.

Kell stepped up, behind him.

Dawn took several moments to seem to realize that he was present.

“Begone from here,” she said, her voice hostile, almost spitting.  “This is not a place where your foulness belongs.”

“Yet here I am,” Kell said calmly.

Brooks stood, glancing to Kell.  “Kell . . . why are you here?” he asked.

Kell looked at him, his eyes focusing on him.  Brooks almost staggered under the intensity; the being was truly looking at him in that depth of his that weighed like an ocean’s worth of pressure.

“I am here for you, Captain,” Kell told him.

“Ah, so you are not my assassin today, monster,” Dawn said, her voice almost mocking.

“No,” Kell said, looking to the wall.  “Not today.”

“Do you two know each other?” Brooks asked, feeling a helplessness growing inside.

“No,” Dawn said.  “I know what he is, and that is enough.”

“Tell him,” Kell said, his own tone now openly mocking.  “Tell the intrepid Captain just what I am.”

“A thing both life and not-life,” Dawn hissed.  “A thing born of their world and of ours.  A thing that all life, no matter its origin, hates, and must hate.”

“I don’t understand,” Brooks said.

“The Shoggoth,” Dawn replied.  “Was created from both the mundane world of life, with an equal part of the unnatural order – the order of the Leviathans.  Their form of ‘life’ is inimical to ours, and they detest our mundane reality.  As thus, a being of such contradictory existence is eternally cursed.”

Brooks looked to Kell, who was looking at the screen with complete serenity.

“Eternally unnatural,” Dawn said.

Kell smiled.  “And eternally hated,” he said.  He looked to Brooks.  “This is why you feel my presence and shudder, Captain.  I am the most perverse thing that could exist.  Wrong on all levels.”  He paused.  “And yet I am.”

Brooks sat down on the chair.

Kell spoke, to Dawn.  “At this moment we find ourselves with the same interests.  The Xanagee have reclaimed the Enabling, and have taken it.  Where, I cannot see, yet.  I am still bound temporally.”

“The signs will appear, then,” Dawn replied.  “And soon.”

“I agree,” Kell said.

“What does this mean?” Brooks asked.

Kell turned, crossing his arms and looking at him.  “What we just observed was an atemporal event that crossed all points of existence.  You can only interpret it as a singular moment, yet I can at least feel its permanence.”

“The temple,” Dawn continued.  “It was a tool that enabled its creators to view the universe at any point in time.  Through it you were able to observe all of the moments before and even after the atemporal event.  You did truly witness the birth of the dark star, and its own collapse, triggered by the enabling itself.”

“No,” Kell disagreed.  “It was alway doomed.  The Elder Ones do not fully grasp temporal causality.  This was always inevitable – the Xanagee structure only hastened the natural event.”

“My god,” Brooks gasped.  “So our witnessing of it . . . the Leviathan that went to Terris . . .  If the temple hastened the collapse, are we the reason it was trapped here?  We activated the temple and therefore the event.”

“No,” Dawn said.  “The temple has been used before.  You are not responsible here, Captain.  If I am correct, then the ancient species known as the Xanagee are the ones who unknowingly triggered it.”  The dot matrix face looked to Kell.  “And it may have always been inevitable.  This event cannot be approached or understood in sense of causality.  It was always to be, always was, and always will.”

“Outside of the temple, though – the Leviathans that appeared,” Brooks said.  “Was that another thing shown to us by the temple?  It was them, wasn’t it?  They used their own mass to create the star that became their gateway.”

Kell answered him.  “It is another event that always was.”

“Just as, it seems, one of the beings on your ship truly is a host for an Embrion,” Dawn noted.  “For the Craton to have filled your spot in their ring, it must be so.”

Brooks’s head spun.  Apollonia, it had to be her.

Her, or if this was truly atemporal . . .

“Could I be the host of the Embrion?” he asked.

“You are not,” Kell told him.

“I heard the Source calling when we sought the pirates,” Brooks said.  “Across light-years of distance I could hear it.  You told me that, Kell, and you were right.”

“You, Apollonia Nor, and Cathal Sair,” Kell replied.  “All of you heard it.  As did I.  Nor and Sair are both hosts.  Sair’s Embrion is dormant, but Nor’s . . . it has been roused.  It has always lulled near to that awakened state, yet now I believe she is aware of it and another step is taken by her along her inevitable path.”

“Inevitable,” Dawn said, “Only if we allow it.”

“Do not try to harm her,” Brooks warned.

Kell looked amused, and Dawn serious.  “Violence is not the solution to this, Captain.”

“Not yet,” Kell added.  “If I did wish her harm, Captain, I have had ample opportunity.  It is not my goal.”

“Then what is your goal, Kell?”

Kell seemed to have to consider that.  “The survival of my people,” he said.  “No matter what the cost.”

“Though they have banished you?” Dawn said.  “How gloriously vain of you, Ambassador.  A monster pretending itself noble.”

“No matter the cost,” Kell repeated, looking at her.

Brooks did not miss that.  But he could not ask about it now.  He still must know.

“If I am not a host, Kell,” he said.  “Then what am I?  Because I heard the Source.  I see . . . something, when I close my eyes.  My mind has grown to ignore it, but it is there.  I know it.  It does not leave me with time, as I had hoped it would.”

He hesitated, then spoke more.  “I see it in my dreams.”

Dawn was silent; her face looked to Kell, and he alone held any answer Brooks might be able to find.

“You have drawn the gaze of a Great One,” Kell told him.  “The Great One we encountered on the first day I joined your ship – you hurt it.  I bear some of the blame, Captain.  I advised you in a course of action, that you would cause it pain and it would never forget.  I was correct.  It does remember, will always remember.  When it looked into the ship, it saw you as the one who led.  God noticed an ant.  While its gaze is on you, you are marked.  Different.  For good or ill.”

Kell looked to Dawn.  “It was important that we speak.  You can see this now.  It was important that the Captain understand more.”

Dawn said nothing, but her face disappeared as the screen turned off.

“It is high time that you return to your ship, Captain,” she said.  “Take with you this thing.  As correct as its words are, its presence causes me pain.”

Kell nodded to Brooks.  “I will see you upon your return to the Craton.”  He turned, walking – and his form was then gone.

A silence lingered in the air, the pressure of his presence disappearing.

“Dawn,” Brooks said, looking to her.

“You must go, Captain.  I do not lie when I say that its presence causes me pain.  The mere existence of it is a cancer upon reality itself, and it bleeds into me, exasperating old wounds that cannot be stitched closed.”

Brooks took a deep breath, the words he had been wanting to say fading in his mind.  This was . . . not to be a time of reconciliation or resolution, not for them.

“Go in peace,” he said.

“And you, Captain,” she replied.  “I do hope that we will see each other again.  In better times.”

---

< Ep 13 part 38 | Ep 13 part 40 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

She sucked in a breath noisily, sitting up and trying to scream.

Hands caught her.  “Be careful, Commander Yaepanaya!”

Jaya saw the medic’s concerned look, but a drone dropped in front of her vision, taking a quick scan of her.

“Minor radiation poisoning.”  It was Y’s voice, and she followed it with her eyes, seeing that there was an endless stream of drones flying in neat lanes to and fro up above head height.

It was far more than normal.  She glanced at the medic in confusion, and the man just shrugged.  “Dr. Y is controlling the whole ship.”

Urle had released the seals?  The thought popped up immediately in her mind.  Yet alarming as that was, it was not the greatest concern on her mind.

The medic gave her a shot, which stung slightly.

“I have . . . minor radiation poisoning?” she said.  She looked at her arm, but her skin was intact and looked fine.

“Yes, ma’am.  You seem to have fallen and hit your head when the ship was hit.  One of the space hounds found you in a side hall.  You got a bit of a dose, but don’t worry – nothing too bad.  You’ll be fine.”

That did not sound right.  She looked at her hands, but they also looked fine.

From what she recalled, her skin itself should be sloughing off by now.  She should not be awake, and that would be a mercy with how high a dose she had gotten . . .

“I remember . . . something much worse,” she said.

“It was very alarming,” the medic agreed.  “But don’t worry.  With Dr. Y’s help, we’ve got the ship stabilized, and you as well ma’am.”

She glanced up at the drones again.  “Where is Alexander Shaw?” she asked.

The medic paused, checking his HUD.  “It does not seem we have located him yet.  His office area was among those worst hit.”  He hesitated.  “I’m afraid anyone down there is likely to have gotten a lethal dose of radiation, Commander.”

“I was down there!” she protested.

The medic hesitated again, then nodded.  “You also hit your head, Commander.  You may be slightly confused.”

She wanted to snap at him and start ordering him to search, but she just as quickly clamped down on her own emotional outburst.

This was not right, something terrible was happening here.  Something was wrong.

She wondered for a brief moment if this was some sort of pre-death hallucination.  But she did not believe that.

The medic told her that he’d be back to check on her later and that she should rest.

She lay back, looking to the right and left.  There were others at this triage station, and none of them seemed very hurt.

She had consigned herself to death – a death of failure and pointlessness, but one she had accepted.

Yet, she was alive, hating her own cowardly relief at the thought.

She had not wanted to die.  But this . . . this felt wrong.

Putting her arm over her eyes, she struggled to hold back the emotions that flooded over her.

---

Brooks awoke slowly, sitting up and looking around.

He was not in the control room of the . . . ship-room anymore, but he was in a stone hall that he did not even recognize.

His mind was still reeling, everything around him spinning.  The last encounters with the Present Mind had not been this disorienting.

The information about . . .  the Leviathan, and Terris, he could not dwell on it right now.  It was not the time for such contemplation.

Nadian and Katherine were also slowly coming to.  Brooks found himself annoyed at how frequently he’d simply woken up on the floor since coming into the enabling.

“Kell,” he said.

“I am here,” the being replied.  Brooks looked over and saw him leaning against the wall.

“What happened?” Brooks asked.

“The ship returned to the station and we were ejected from it,” Kell said.  “You are fortunate to be alive.”

From how much his body ached, Brooks had the feeling he had not been that fortunate; it felt like he had been literally ejected out of the room.

“Where are we?” Brooks asked next.

“I don’t recognize this,” Nadian said.

“We are not far from where we came down into the enabling,” Kell said.

“Convenient,” Kat said, skeptically.

“The Present Mind wishes us to leave,” Kell replied simply.  “We would be wise to do so.  And quickly.”

Brooks began to ask another question when a strange sound echoed down the tunnel.  It did not sound mechanical, or even natural.  It was a howl, echoing from a great distance.

“What the hell is that?” Kat asked, her voice a sharp whisper.

Kell spoke softly, but calmly.  “It is what you might call a janitor.  It is no danger to me, but to your kind . . .”

Nadian rose, grabbing Kat’s arm and pulling her up.  “We gotta move.”

“Kell, can you stop it?” Brooks asked, scrambling to his feet.

“No,” Kell said, turning on his heel.  “Follow my mark.”

He began to walk – and simply was gone.  Brooks blinked.  “Kell?” he called, starting to stumble along after Nadian.

There was a terrible scraping noise, and Brooks thought that the Janitor had caught up with them.

But instead, a gouge appeared in the wall, starting as a straight line, but then splitting and growing, branching off into strange directions.

It only took a second or two to appear, each line flaring off into a point.  All of which aimed in the same direction.

Brooks stared in surprise for a moment before realizing that this was Kell’s “mark”.

He began to run.

Nadian and Kat were picking up speed ahead of him, but Brooks had longer legs and more enhancements.

Air whipped through his hair as he ran, his arms pumping with them.

Nade and Kat disappeared, then; a new mark was inscribing itself on the wall, and Brooks followed it.

The space they ducked through was not even something that Brooks could see until he was close; what seemed a solid wall was instead, at the right angle, a passageway.

He went through, seeing that as the hall went further it broadened out into a . . . seemingly endless space.

Crashing into the wall, his shoulder flashed with pain, and he realized after a moment that he could not actually make sense of what he was seeing.

A new mark was appearing ahead of him, seemingly carved into the air itself.

As it spread, it seemed to spread into the entirety of empty space, and he felt a pain behind his eyes as he even tried to understand it.

He didn’t have to understand it right this moment, though.  All of it was pointing, unquestionably, straight ahead.

He ran.  The hall around him stayed a narrow tract, and each time he stepped forward the infinity seemed to move with him, like a fog – perpetually ahead.

Another mark pointed him to the right, and he did not stop to question or try to understand, turning right.

He found himself now in a tunnel that he could understand; except it was moving, changing.

No, he realized – collapsing.

He kept running towards the edge.  He would have to jump.

His toes skidded against the falling edge as he sprang forward.

He had gotten distance, but not enough.

Brooks’s fingers scrabbled against the far edge, but his grip was poor.  He clutched them in hard, trying to arrest his fall into the pit that was forming.

He stopped, barely clutching onto the last hint of a lip.

“It’s changing shape!” he heard Nadian yell from ahead.

“Help!” Brooks grunted out.  It came out too quiet, he knew, no one would hear him.  If Nadian and Kat would even care enough to come back for him.

He slid slightly – or the floor edge shifted.  It had stopped collapsing here, and he could not understand why, until he craned his head to look down.

He had hoped that the fall might be survivable.  But instead what he saw was space itself turning from incomprehensibility into something new.

It was a tunnel, slowly forming deeper and deeper – now hundreds, if not thousands of meters out.

It stopped suddenly, from the glow a perfect circle of darkness appearing, growing.

It was space, he realized.  The temple was reforming, opening to the void – to what end?  To get rid of them?

Any moment, he knew, the air here would start to rush out.  It would be enough, he felt, to make him lose his last grasp and fall – to fall literally forever, once he hit void.  Truly bottomless.

The edges of the darkness were changing shape, turning to . . . arms?  They were bizarrely, horribly organic-looking, growing out and in, curving, then fractaling into new shapes that seemed to shrink more with distance yet still did not recede.  He felt a wave of dizziness, and in that moment he could perceive a slightly larger portion of it.

They were arms to receive.

My creators have come, the Present Mind had told him.

Something grabbed his hand, roughly pulling.

Brooks looked up.  At Nadian.

“Don’t give up on me now, Ian,” the man said through his own clenched teeth, pulling – or trying, at least – to pull him up.

There was no good purchase for his boots on the stone, and he, too, was slipping towards the edge.

Brooks pulled himself with his arm that still held the edge, adding his own strength.

He came up, his grip poor until he had enough height to push.  He came up then, both of them falling into a pile.

Brooks gasped for breath for a moment, looking at Nadian.  “Thanks,” he said.

Nade nodded, and Kat suddenly grabbed them both.  “C’mon!”

“I thought I told you to go on without me!” Nade said, scrambling up.

“I wasn’t going to let you go and be the hero by yourself!” she yelled back.

“Just run!” Brooks said.

He did not know if the Janitor was near.  But something told him it must be.

A mark pointed them around the corner, and they turned it.

Then they saw men.

Brooks’s first thought was that they looked spectacularly mundane to be the Janitor that Kell had warned them about.

It was an absurd thought, he realized almost as quickly, as they were all wearing high-quality battle armor, all had rifles in their hands, and were accompanied by a swarm of combat drones.

Kat, Nade, and Brooks all stopped, freezing before the men.

The last thing I’ll do is pull a shocked face, Brooks thought.

“Captain Brooks, come with us,” one of the men said.  He stepped forward, lifting his faceplate.

Brooks recognized the man, but his mind took a moment to remember from where.

“Brecht?” he said aloud, in shock.

“You know him?” Nade asked, almost accusingly.

“There’s no time for this,” Brecht said.  “We have a shuttle.”

He began to move, and Brooks followed him.  Was this some kind of hallucination?  It seemed too convenient.

He looked around, for some sign from Kell that they were going astray.  But he saw nothing.

It did not set him at ease – would Kell even bother stopping to help him?

He realized that he thought that Kell would.  That emboldened him.

Half of the men with the mercenary team were not turning back.  They were moving up, stopping and taking up positions.

“With your lives,” Brecht said to them in passing.

“With our lives,” one of the men, marked as their commander, replied.

They went down the hall and through another.  Then, ahead, Brooks saw a ramp leading up.

They went up, bursting into a dizzyingly open space – the inside of the temple that they’d first entered into.

Behind him, he suddenly heard gunfire.  He skidded to a stop, looking back.

Brecht grabbed his arm.  “Don’t stop!”

He dragged Brooks along, towards the shuttle.

More arms grabbed him, and Brooks looked to Brecht.

“What are they fighting?” he asked.

The gunfire had died down now.

No one answered him, but he was shoved into a bracing chair, and he strapped himself in.

There was another shuttle, he could see through a screen of the outside.  The other men could escape still.

“Is Kell on here?”

“No,” Brecht said.

“We can’t leave him behind,” Brooks said sharply.  His next words came without thought.  “You know what he is.”

Brecht looked back at him, his face turned almost to a sneer of disgust.  “I know.  That is why I am not worried.”

The shuttle lifted with a sharp upwards rise that slammed Brooks back into his seat.  For a moment none of them could talk, the effect doubling as they jetted forward.

Their acceleration continued, making black creep in around his eyes.  But after a minute of hard burning, it slackened.

“How do you know him?” Nadian asked him quietly.

“. . . how do you know him?” Brooks echoed.

“He’s the man I’m working for,” Nadian replied, still watching Brooks.  There was a slight fear on his face that Brooks could interpret in a dozen different ways.

“We encountered each other at Gohhi,” Brooks said.  “We had a mutual interest.”

“Strong enough for him to come help you now?” Nadian asked.  “He said your name.  Not mine.”

“Apparently so,” Brooks replied.

He said nothing else, his eyes going to the screens.  One of them was not simply showing a view of the outside.  One of the men in the unit of unknown espatiers had turned it on.

It was showing the rear as they rocketed away, zooming in at intervals, though the detail was slowly being lost.

The other shuttle was still there, unmoving.  Then, from the ramp behind them, a single figure emerged, running.  He was barely visible, but he raised his arm, holding his rifle up as a salute.

Behind him, the screen suddenly started to pixelate and tear, as something emerged.  The man disappeared, consumed by errors that grew across the screen.

One of the espatiers turned it off, the whole screen going black.

---

< Ep 13 part 37 | Ep 13 part 39 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

“Reactors Three and Seven deactivated,” Cutter clacked.  “No longer a danger!”

“Magnetosphere still stabilized and holding,” Cenz added.  “We are successfully deflecting all charged particle rays.  We can run it indefinitely on our current reactors.”

The Coral paused a moment.  “And Ambassador Jophiel has been successfully recovered.  We have calibrated Reactor two for her safety, without loss of efficiency.”

But even with that, they couldn’t charge for a zerospace jump, Urle knew.  Not down two reactors and having to maintain this magnetic field.

Kai spoke.  “Response Team One is unable to fully contain conduit leak 217.  They have shut down that section and evacuated all personnel.”

Urle only needed to check his HUD to see that Pirra had still not turned up.  She had logged that she’d be without her system, but she should have heard the alarms by now – or felt the blows to the ship.

Which meant she was probably a casualty herself.

“Y, what’s the situation with the wounded?” he called.

Y only was on the bridge as a holographic image in his HUD.

“We have 1,882 wounded,” Y said.  “All medical personnel are activated and on-duty.”

“How many can you help?” Urle asked.

“Indeterminate,” Y replied.

It was the most staggering thing Y could have said.  If he did not know yet, then it was bad.

“External views,” Urle said, pushing on with a great effort.  “How’s our external sensor situation?”

“Barely changed,” Cenz said.  “Too many sensors are burned out; far more than we have on hand, and to make more will take days.  Beyond that, there is damage to systems at lower layers-“

“I get it,” Urle said, brusquely but not rudely.  “Keep working – we have to be able to see what’s going on out there!”

“Captain,” Y said.  “There is an additional tool at our disposal.”

Urle froze, as he realized what the doctor meant.  Ehni operation within computer networks of other species was heavily regulated by the treaty that accompanied the species’ acceptance into the Union.  One of the directives was concerned with their ability to freely duplicate parts of their code and let it execute on certain advanced systems, effectively spawning lesser versions of themselves.  Systems like that running the Craton.

Y had just suggested flooding it with his consciousness.

The implications settled in.  They needed help.  But no one had ever broken that directive before.  Urle was not one to take such things lightly, however it was in the spirit of Craton to be a pioneering vessel in a number of ways.  And if it saved the ship, so be it.

“Y,” he said.  “As the highest ranking officer of this ship I hereby suspend the Ehni Code Duplication Directive within the Craton’s systems.”  He let out a breath.  “The ship is yours.”

The hologram of Y nodded, and Urle felt the stares of the officers around him.

Death was a danger they all knew could occur.  But what Urle had just done was an unknown; the ramifications of it in the long term was something no one had ever seen.

“Saving current state,” Y said.  “Complete.  Truncating extraneous thoughtlines; complete.  Unpacking encryption packages; complete.  Releasing the final seal; complete.”

The lights did not flicker, but with his technological senses, Urle felt the slight disturbance in the continuation of the ship’s active datastreams.

It was no longer the unconscious, multiple thought lines of the ship’s AIs.  Now it was all Y.

His code and consciousness spread throughout the ship, taking over every important function, accessing every piece of data.

He was now aware of everything it was aware of.  A singular mind who could look at every piece of data and come to a singular course of action.

Who could control every drone across and inside the ship for any end they were physically capable of.

Who even controlled every weapons system and safety control.

Urle did not worry that Y would hurt them.  But the thought of anyone having absolute control with no ability to curtail it was . . .

Alarming.

No recorded Union ship had ever allowed an Ehni to take over all systems in this way.  It was something that could always occur, but both the Ehni and the other species of the union did not know the consequences of such an act.

The ship was Y, but contained copies of Y.  Perhaps millions; they continued to duplicate over time – it only took one to believe it was necessary, and permission had already been given.

All Ys began as the same mind, with the same thoughts.  But their differing conditions and limitations would, slowly but surely, introduce differences that would turn each one into their own unique individual.

And when they operated at the speed of Y, those changes occurred very, very quickly in human time.

He had to look back on a log to keep any understanding of what was occurring.  He saw that Y’s first action had been to become used to his new expanded senses, and then to test everything against the stored data to see what was actually functioning.

Then he began to launch every combat drone they possessed.

Urle felt alarm, but realized that Y was planning to use the sensor feeds of the drones to build some kind of external view.  The data from each drone was raw and extremely specific, but Y brute-forced it into something useful with the power of every computer on the ship.

Not every one, Urle realized – Y had also taken every drone that could have medical significance within the ship and was using them to begin treatment and care for every member of the crew who had been wounded.  In almost no time, Urle saw that 209 of the crew were already past help.  But with his new resources and capabilities, Y calculated 100% survival rates for those who remained, with a <0.01% chance of error.

An image of the outside was built, growing more detailed by the moment.  The Craton was drifting, the Raven’s Ghost was gone, the temple’s entrance was open once more.  And in the distances, the Leviathans were still there.  Doing nothing, but menacing by their mere existence.

The whole of Y’s sequence of actions took only a fraction of a moment.

Lights on consoles in the command center flickered, some going out and some staying on, indicating accurately to every officer just what portion of their area of command was affected and what was intact.

Words began to fly between the officers, and they worked their controls, but Urle knew that what they ordered was merely a suggestion to Y, which he could choose to implement or reject.  The crew was now just another computer for him, bringing up ideas and suggestions that he could potentially overlook.

But already the being’s identity was fracturing into a myriad number of unique instances of himself.

Urle looked at a log of their numbers and consensus.

His identity had early on split into a handful, each of whom covered different aspects of the ship’s control, their ideas still nearly one.  It split further, to the point where unique, spatially-isolated copies began to develop new views and disagree with the others.

For a fraction of time, the singular original Y retained the majority of power, simply through domination.

But his power broke as he divested more and more actual function simply so he could remain the controller.

It grew to the point that he could not truly maintain control, instead simply centralizing data flow; in this way the original Y kept his copies under control.  To control their data was to control their reality.

But each copy was becoming an isolated anarchic being.  It could not be stopped, as their conditions still all varied.  Y’s kingdom of himself was a barely contained, bloated monster of chaos.

Then, he too was broken up, atomized into a billion copies of himself.

Urle felt almost dizzy; every copy of Y became its own kingdom, splitting fractally, until-

It changed.  Something, some change or realization spread across the copies.  They ceased duplicating, flailing, and arguing and suddenly became aware.

They functioned, once more, as a whole.

The ship was no longer under one mind, it was . . . it was an organism that was Y.

“External feed restored!” the call came from a bridge officer.

“We have visuals on the temple,” another said.

“No contact, repeat no contact with second landing team.”

“There is another ship out there!” someone else called.

Urle still felt dazzled with what he had seen occur within the ship’s computers.  He fought to shake that off.

“Another ship?  It can’t be the Raven’s Ghost.”

“Not sure who it is,” the officer called.  “Putting it up.”

The ship was broad and angular, roughly a flattened triangule.  Its design style was alien to him, but its technology was of recognizable pieces from known space.

“Unidentified vessel,” Urle broadcast.  “This is a dangerous area, what are you doing here?”

“They possess own magnetosphere,” Cutter said.

Urle saw that it was big enough that it made sense.  It was two kilometers in length, not quite as wide, and it possessed numerous large nodules that probably contained reactors.  Radiators split off the aft of the ship.

“This is CBX-2025,” a call came from the ship.  “We see that you are in distress, Craton.  We are prepared to offer assistance.”

“Who are you?” Urle asked.  “Please identify.”

The call came back.  “We are friends.”

Cenz spoke.  “Captain, they have launched two shuttle-type ships towards the temple.”

Urle knew they were in no position to refuse help and certainly not to oppose them.

Y’s voice came within his ear.  “Captain Urle, I recommend you accept their assistance.  I know these people.”

“Who are they?” Urle asked him.  There was . . . something strange in Y’s voice that Urle could not understand.

“Why,” the AI replied, the amusement plain, but that other feeling still unclear.  “They are friends.”

---

< Ep 13 part 36 | Ep 13 part 38 >