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---

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 >

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

---

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 >

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

---

Tred had gotten some of the terminals functioning.

Most had been dark when he came in here, but they were hardy engineering lines, part of the larger power system of the ship itself.

They were meant mostly for the computers of each section to be able to communicate with each other.

But engineers being engineers, they had also put in a method for human communication: a message board.

He saw posts from power engineers all over the ship, talking about what they saw where they were.

Tred posted his situation.  He got replies immediately from others, confirming that all signs of reactor breach had disappeared.

But the power system was still in flux, and they did not yet know why.

“Does anyone have eyes on Reactor Seven?” he asked.

No one did.

Why would that reactor be cut off from the others?  It implied something was going wrong, but he did not know what.

It was the nearest reactor to him, but he did not know if he could get there.  He had to get out of here – there was enough ambient radiation that it was a bad idea to just wait for rescue.  He’d have a dangerous dose in less than an hour at this rate.

The most direct path to Reactor Seven was blocked.  He couldn’t even get there right now.  He could go deeper in, up, then out, but he did not know where it was safe.  If it was disconnected from the grid itself, then there was bad damage around it.

He got a notification; he was getting a signal, but it was strange.

His first thought was that it was alien; coming from that horrible alien megastructure, maybe.  But it wasn’t strong enough to be that.

Yet it had a complex pattern, it wasn’t just junk from some broken equipment, which would have been his second guess.

“Convert to sound,” he said.  His system blatted at him that it had no systems for parsing the data.

His heart suddenly raced.  “Use StarAngelDecoder,” he ordered.

Words played in his ear.

“Tred?  Tred, I don’t know if you can hear me . . . it’s Jophiel.  Something’s wrong, Tred, please hear me . . .”

“Jophiel?” he returned.  He did not know if his message could possibly reach her; he was just broadcasting a radio signal over the open.

“Tred!” she cried, her signal getting stronger.  “You can hear me!”

“I can receive your signal,” he said.

Her people spoke in radio waves, he recalled.  Of course, she was just . . . yelling, and he was getting the signal.

But he shouldn’t be able to get it.  The fusion reactor’s shielding should be blocking her.  Which meant that it was damaged!

“Jophiel, what are you seeing?” he asked.  “You said something was wrong.”

“Yes, there’s something wrong with the reactor here.  It started turning off, but there’s still a problem.  I don’t know what it is, but it feels . . . wrong.  I’m worried.”

“Are you in danger?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied.  “Maybe.  But I’m worried about the rest of your ship.  I can’t see or hear anything out there.  What’s going on?”

“A lot of stuff,” he told her.  “Just try to hang on, okay?  I’m going to try and figure out how to help you.”

“Okay, Tred.  Thank you . . .”

He got onto the board again, messaging the other engineers.  While he waited for a reply, he looked again at the ship’s power data.  It continued to fluctuate . . . perhaps Reactor Seven still had some connection to the power grid and it was largely the communication lines that were cut?

It had spun down, but it would still have a lot of residual heat.  If it was not containing it well, it could spill out super-heated plasma that could cause massive damage.

But . . . he could eject it.  It would not just be a plasma venting, but an ejection of the whole reactor.  It was a messy thing to do, but . . .

He looked at the message board.  Answers to him were all over the place.  He hadn’t really explained it all well enough.

There might not be time.  He didn’t know how long the reactor might last before it started leaking.

“Jophiel?” he called.

“Yes?”

“I have to get your reactor out of the ship,” he told her.  “It’s . . . going to put you outside.”

She was quiet a moment.  Then; “Okay.”

“You can survive in empty space for awhile, right?”  He thought that had been said in briefings.  Yes, it had!  He knew it.  But right now his mind was racing too hard to feel sure of anything.

“I can,” she told him.  “But not forever.”

He did not know if he was sending Jophiel to her death or not.  The uncertainty somehow made it worse.

“I’ll do everything I can to get you back inside a reactor soon,” he told her.  He hesitated.  “Do you trust me?”

“I do trust you, Tred.”

He let out a deep breath, and pressed the button to eject the reactor.

*******

Jaya wished she could have a painkiller, but at this point her entire vascular system was breaking down.

Her breaths came in short gasps, struggling to fill lungs that were filling with fluids.

The lights in the closet were turned high, but she could barely see anything.  That she could see at all was only due to enhancements; natural eyes would be blind by now.  A natural body would simply be dead.

Was this even a blessing, she wondered?

“Alexander,” she whispered through cracked lips.  No sound came out.

Was the man alive still?  It mattered that he live.  But she could not make herself move anymore.

She felt the door open; she was touching the wall, she realized.  She had not been aware of it.

Someone loomed over her.

Her eyes opened wider, trying to see them, and show that she still lived.

“Help him . . .” she mouthed, hoping they understood.

The person was not wearing a spacesuit.  She saw their hair, it floated in the lack of gravity.

Had atmosphere been restored?

It was likely a man, but she could not focus and see more than that.

The man’s head shifted, looking to Alexander.  There was an air of decision about him.

He reached out, and took her arm, pulling her with him.  Pain lanced through her at the touch.

“No,” she mouthed.  It had to be Alexander!  Her death had to be worth something, and it was his life that mattered now.

But the man did not hear her, and moved her out of the closet.

There was nothing that could be done to save her.  This much damage to her entire body could not be healed.  There was nothing left of her to salvage.  That this meant that Alexander could not be saved either did not even occur to her in her current state.

She became suddenly and startlingly aware that there were two other presences.  She felt more than saw them, and once she looked, she could make out their forms.  For a moment, she thought it must be a team of Response officers.

But no.  Those were not Response.

She found herself trying to look, but her vision was blurring more.  Fading, she realized, as death took hold.

In the dimming of life, their shape was not human, not any species she knew.  It was not like life.

Two beings, who simply watched, and waited.

She looked again to the one who was pulling her.  But she could not even move her lips now; she had faded too far.  Thoughts themselves became something she could not form, and darkness took her.

---

< Ep 13 part 34 | Ep 13 part 36 >

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

---

“What the hell did we just see?” Kat asked, her voice barely a whisper in the darkened room.

The lights had dimmed, flickering.  Something seemed to be wrong with their vessel.

“We just saw . . . how the Leviathan at Terris came to be here,” Brooks said slowly.  His mind raced, trying to understand the implications of all he had just witnessed.

No one had known what happened to the Leviathan after it plunged into the Terris sun.  Many had presumed it dead, some alien act of madness like its attack had seemed.

The Voidfleet and Sapient Union government as a whole could not accept that.  Without proof of its death, they had to accept the possibility that it could come back out.

The system remained a cursed place, and the memories of the horrors were a wound that would not close.

Even if no one truly believed it could have survived.  What could not only plunge into a star but then survive staying there?

It was long dead.  Still a threat in death, for what it signified about the dangers of their universe.

But not alive.

Now, Brooks had seen it come out of a star a million times more intense, and be unperturbed.  It had survived that star going hypernova.

It was still alive in the sun at Terris.

“When the gate collapsed,” Kell said.  “It became trapped in our universe.”

“Did it kill the star?” Brooks asked.

“No,” Kell said.  “The star would inevitably die.  But it was tipped into an early death – by this observatory.”

“Are you saying we caused this?” Nadian asked.

The room around Brooks was suddenly white.

He turned in place, looking for the Present Mind.

“Tell me what I just saw,” he called out.  “Why did you show me this?”

It was in front of him then, startlingly close, and he had to crane his neck up to look at its featureless, armored face.

“You and your people, the most overriding question that lingers in them is why the Terris event occurred.  Now you see.”

“The star – the gate – collapsed.  It became trapped in our universe,” Brooks said slowly.  He wanted confirmation.

“Yes,” the Present Mind told him.

“But why Terris?  Why did it attack us?”

The Present Mind was silent for a time.  “Its reasoning is beyond me.  The system you call Terris was, perhaps, just in its way.”

“You’re saying that by sheer goddamn chance it attacked an inhabited star system?” he demanded.

“It did not attack your system, Captain.  It only passed through on its path to the star.  I can tell you with certainty that it was not even aware of your presence.”

“Bullshit!” Brooks spat.  “It killed millions of us!  It engaged our fleets and broke their backs!  Do you know how many-“

“You betray your own, tiny, bias.  You believe the Terris event calculated; but do you even know if the Great One went to other star systems before that one?”

Brooks fell silent.  Then; “Show me that, then.”

“Your singular desire does not sway me,” the Present Mind replied.  “This event, what I have shown you, was due to the overriding question in the heads of every one of you who has come within the enabling bounds.  Even those outside, I can hear the question echoing.  Thus, I have shown you.”

Brooks felt his knees start to buckle, and he dropped down.

“So all of it, all of the suffering and misery at Terris, it was just . . . random?  An accident, as this Leviathan blundered towards another star?  Hoping to find a way back to where it came from?”

“Yes,” the Present Mind told him.

Brooks felt broken.  One of the most defining events of galactic history . . . and there was no deeper meaning?

“Are they even intelligent?” he asked.  “Or do they always act this irrationally?  Are they even aware of what we do, that we exist?”

“Intelligent – yes.  In their own way.  I cannot say for certain, but my creators observed moments of intelligence, even brilliance.  But the Great Ones operate in their own system of logic, and in their own way and in their own time.”

“Was it able to use the star in the Terris system to escape?” he asked.

Let it be gone, he thought.  Please let it be gone.

“I do not know,” the Present Mind replied.  “It may simply be in the core of the Terris star, deciding what to do next.”

Brooks struggled to think of what to ask next.  He opened his mouth to speak – he did not even know what he might ask – when the Present Mind shifted, turning away from him.

“My attention diverts elsewhere.  My creators have come.”

*******

Apollonia’s mind felt different than it ever had before.  Even the scant few times when she had gotten a contact high off drugs, it had not been like this.

Her mind felt expansive, widened to a point where she could entertain more than one thought at once, multiple – endless.  She felt/heard herself talking to herself in a million of her own voices and wanted to scream, to pull back in and curl into a ball as the cacophony threatened to overwhelm her.  A sensation of falling that she could not stop until it peaked, and she knew she should be feeling nauseated, except she had no physical body, she could not see or feel or be her body.

Finally she could take no more, and she screamed.

She felt like she screamed for an eternity, but it did no good.

Little by little, though, she began to comprehend herself.  She did not narrow it down to only a few thoughts, but she could . . . focus on one, even while the others ran.

No, that was not it, she realized, her thoughts growing exponentially.  She thought all of these things at once.

She saw the Craton; not simply the room from the table she had laid down upon.

The altar, she corrected herself.  She was the apex of the movement of the higher balances that even their tiny bodies bound to lower dimensions disturbed.  The disturbances of the higher balances tipped into her now, largely from the two whose lives had just been extinguished, trading one set of chemical reactions, life, for another, decay.  Also the energies of those present, their horror and terror and frustration.  She picked out individuals in the crowd.  Their pain was overwhelming, and she felt a new exponential growth of thoughts of her own sorrow and sadness at their pain, even anger and self-hate.

She could not stop what Cathal had done, but she saw that the formations in their minds were already countered by motions above that would tip their states into new ways.

They would not remember this.  It was a subtle and clever manipulation of the eddies and currents from above, she thought, but recognized as well that this was new to her.

And ephemeral.  Her consciousness had been enhanced to this, but . . . only for a time.

Would she remember any of it?  She could not view her own mind as she did theirs.

It had to be.  Cathal – Cathal the traitor, Cathal the friend, Cathal the bringer of revelation.

This was what it must have been like for the ancient prophets to touch God, she thought in a remote line of thought.

To touch hell, another thought.

Outside of the room, she could see every room, every surface of the Craton.  It was badly damaged; the streams of radiation had damaged thinking crystals and disturbed lines of power and people, poisoning and wounding both ship and crew.

She did not know if it could be saved; for all she saw, she did not understand it, from these endless angles even their simple geometries seemed to make no sense.

Outside of the ship, a tiny distance away to her mind’s eye, were the Others Like Her.

No, not like Her.  They were Great Ones, and she was only a Beginning One, a bud of a tree that became aware enough to dream of the day it would bask in the sun.

Oh, but now she saw, her consciousness spreading even further out; she saw how their shapes and balance were bringing together the material to create the great star.  Not Now, but Then, they were only seeing Then along with Now, because that was the shape that this section of space had been twisted into for this ‘moment’, thanks to the temple.

The Great Ones cooperated, altering the reality to conform to their plans.

Where the balance of their power came to rest, the levels of reality were driven together, a doorway – a highway that allowed the free flow from higher to lesser levels and back.  Through it, even she could return to exist on just the mundane levels.

Was that her out?  But no, not yet.  The thought now of returning to that tiny, stunted shape was terrifying.  Like the thought of cutting off one’s own body.

She looked in all ways, all directions up and down and all the other endless types, to find something.

There; a small intrusion that stabbed like a knife through layers.  It damaged nothing, but its crudeness and ugliness were immediately apparent.  It could be ignored, but it mattered to her for some reason.

She saw within and without the temple.  Inside were tiny, tiny shapes – beings she knew.  One was vastly larger than the others, though she still dwarfed it.

Kell.  Or rather, the thing that played Kell.  It gazed at her, and for the first time she could truly see all of his horror.

A disgusting tear in the layers that should not be.  Created by the hubris of tiny beings who thought themselves great; it insulted her in infinity and the finite through being neither.

But her mind looked past that as well, and she saw the others.

A single tiny presence that she knew.  She could not even remember what its name was, only that it mattered in some way, and she did not want it gone, as its balance was tipping it.

The Present Mind of the temple abased itself before her, and she ordered it; return those beings.

The Present Mind obeyed.  The little vessel that was part of the station, that had been sent forth in time and space to answer a burning question suddenly turned – moving back towards the temple.

“Why do you obey?” a thought of hers asked.

“You Speak with Its Voice,” she was told.

Of course, she could see that.  She and it – it?

What was it?

She was she.  Herself.

Apollonia Nor.  A meaningless cluster of sounds that she had made up to rid herself of her birth name, at least partially.  Yet still holding to the last sound, a thread of the past she could not bring herself to abandon.

She and It were separate!

They were not one being, but they were . . . fused.  The Embrion, the Beginning One, longing for a full definition and balance that could not exist until it was birthed into the lowest levels of reality.  Through her, somehow connected to her by sheer chance at birth, its grasping presence holding desperately to hers.  Both parasite and savior, all of the times that it had felt her fear, when she’d been in danger, and it . . .

It had acted, lashing out like a baby to swat at the sources of pain.

Becoming more and more aware, more powerful, and more precise with time.

Her mind collapsed back into herself, into a single thread.

The after effects of it all were too much, though.  Memories of infinity lingered, and her conscious mind, too, stopped functioning.

---

< Ep 13 part 33 | Ep 13 part 35 >

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

---

Jaya found herself slipping in and out of consciousness.

She could see a steady pulsing alarm light.  It was a radiation warning alarm, telling all crew to evacuate this section of the ship.

These are working offices, she thought.  There would be thousands of people here.

She had acute radiation syndrome, she knew that.  She felt nauseated, confused.  Her vision  faded out at the edges, and what she could see was dim.

She could not hear the alarms in the room beyond, but there should be a sound.  Her uniform had popped its hood over her head.  Between the two, she knew that must mean that the hull had also been breached.  She was in a vacuum.

Her back touched something, and it hurt.  Her reaction was to spin to face it, but her body moved slowly, barely listening to her.

It was the ceiling; she had drifted into it.

So the gravity was out as well . . . or . . . something like that.  Her mind was not working right, and it made it hard to think.  Another symptom of the radiation.

She didn’t know how much; but it must have been a massive dose.

Something else drifted into her field of vision.

It was Alexander.

Her memory of where this was and why she’d been down here came flooding back.

Alexander was unconscious, looking in even worse shape than she was.

His uniform had also sealed over his head, though she thought she could see damage to it in places.  It was hard to tell.

Straining herself, she reached for him, taking his arm.  It hurt her skin to even touch him, even with gloves on her hands.

Ah, right – she was probably burned over her entire body.  Even inside.

The pain made her cry out, but she grit her teeth together, turning it to a sound of anger.  She tightened her grip on Alexander’s arm.

Every room had fortified areas for an emergency.  Beds could be space capsules, but the security closets provided more protection against radiation.

Flailing her foot until she found a surface, she kicked off, dragging Alexander with her.  Somewhere . . . somewhere was the closet.

There it was.  She saw the door, trimmed in yellow for emergency.  It was flashing in the darkness to draw attention to it.

Whoever had thought of that detail should get an award.  She would have had a much harder time finding it with her dying vision otherwise.

The door opened, and she saw that some boxes had been stored in here.  Bad form, Alexander.  She’d write him up later over that.  These were supposed to stay empty.

But there was still space.  She went in, dragging Alexander in after.

The door closed.

“Medical assistance has been summoned,” a computer voice said in her ear.

“Tell them . . .” she croaked.  “Tell them to save Shaw first.”  Her voice was a rasp.  But it was Alexander who had all of this knowledge that was vital right now.

Radiation exposure like this.  This was how her brother had died.  Walking into it like it was nothing, to save his ship.

She could not even say she had done that.  She just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The radiation alert flashes suddenly changed; they were flashing out a new pattern, one that sounded even more urgent.

She knew what it meant, but her hazy mind had trouble thinking of what.

Oh, she realized.  It meant a fusion reactor breach.

The reality of that sunk into her slowly.

---

The wailing alarms panicked Tred more than the blow that had shivered the entire ship.

A lot of big things could have caused that blow that were bad, but not catastrophically bad.  A missile impact that burst outside the armor, a slow-moving asteroid or something.  Not good, but the Craton would survive those.

But a fusion reactor breach was something that could rip apart even the Craton.

He had read hundreds of reports on such occurrences.  Fusion reactors were a well-understood technology, rendered as safe as was possible.  But when you harnessed that much power, there was always danger.

His system had incomplete information on what was even happening, even on the emergency channels.  He saw the information growing, getting more thorough, as reports came in from the automatic systems.

He paused as the original source of the problem was reported; a burst of gamma rays that had come out of the temple megastructure.  The estimates on the power of the burst varied by orders of magnitude; which meant they knew nothing.

But any gamma ray burst on any of these levels of power was an astronomical-scale event.  A star or something like that, dying!

There was no star nearby.  He scanned over the data a couple times before he could accept it.

Well, it had been a gamma ray burst, he could only think.  He moved on.

The burst hadn’t hit them; at those energy levels they’d just all be dead instantly if it had.  No warning or even a moment of pain.  But it had been near enough that it had played absolute havoc with the ship’s systems – and its magnetosphere.  That had weakened, and charged particles from the Van Allen belt around them had seeped in.

The magnetosphere was back up, but thousands of people in the ship would have gotten radiation exposure far above safe levels.

The next part was what caused him to rise in his seat.  The stream of particles had hit Reactor Three.  The magnetic fields within the reactor itself, that held in check the fusion reaction there, was destabilized.

People in the restaurant around him were screaming, the staff trying to move them to one of the safety bunkers.

He got up and ran for the elevators.  He had to get down there.

Some elevators were shut down, others packed with people.  But Tred knew every route to engineering, for every reactor.  He took ramps, running until he was out of breath, and then walking until he could run again.

He came to an area where the gravity was off, and he turned on his magnetic boots and tromped on.  Security airlocks accepted his credentials and let him through, and past one of them was vacuum.

He did not have a space suit, but he had his uniform on, and it was an ersatz spacesuit.  He triggered that mode, and his suit hood popped out and over his face, sealing itself at the neck.

Taking an air tank from a panel, he connected it to his suit and went on.

The lights were out here, and further down the hall he found Response Team One, evacuating civilians and fighting to contain two leaking cooling conduits.

This was physical damage, he saw.  Something, some piece of junk, had hit the ship.  Or something on the ship had exploded.

He had to get to Reactor Three before it blew.

Pirra was not here, she was the Response Officer he knew the best.  He only saw Kiseleva, her second in command.

When the woman saw him, she waved furiously for him to go back.  He shook his head.

“I have to get to the reactor!” he yelled.

He didn’t really need to yell over the radio, but his words had the effect.  Kiseleva made a chopping motion toward one hall.  That way, it seemed, was clear enough.

He ran down there.

His suit screamed out radiation warnings; he could see nothing, but he found cold routes past those hotspots, going deeper.  Yes, something had definitely hit the ship, and as he opened one door, he stumbled back.

It was a piece of another ship, embedded into the Craton.  It had penetrated hundreds of meters to be this far in, and that meant that dozens of decks had been vented to vacuum.

It was a piece of hull.  He could see on it part of a logo, too scorched to be made out.  But there were a couple of letters; EN’S GH.

The Raven’s Ghost had been destroyed, he realized.

Probably, he thought, her own reactor had breached and ripped her apart.  Then her remains had crashed into the Craton.

There were still flames from oxygen leaks, and a gap that vented down into space.  Thousands of cables and pieces of deck jutted out in the gap, any one of which could rip his suit – or him.

But he had to get across here.  The reactor room was on the other side.

Someone slammed into the wall behind him, shaking it.  He turned and saw another engineer.  He did not know the man, but he looked just as terrified.

“We gotta get across!” the man called over radio.

Tred nodded.  “We can run and jump it.”

The man hesitated, then nodded.  Tred knew it wasn’t hard, not in microgravity.  But it was terrifying.

He jumped, thinking about how frightening and dangerous and stupid this was after he pushed off.

His radio did not broadcast his scream.

But he made it, and moments later the other engineer did the same.

The door to the reactor room had sealed; radiation warnings were going off, but Tred’s personal detector showed nothing.

“I think it’s safe inside now,” he said.  “Relatively, at least.”

They forced the door open, and went in.

Everyone in here was dead or dying already.

The amount of rads that flooded through here would have knocked them out instantly, Tred told himself.  It was better that way.

The Reactor was in a bad way, though.  The first layer of magnetic buffer fields had already failed, and had been incinerated.  The second was about to fail and the third was already flickering.

“We have to get the core plasma out of the ship!” he yelled.  The other engineer nodded.

“Through that door!” he yelled, pointing.  The door was shut.

They pushed off, going over, when the second field failed.  There was a flash of light, and something exploded as the second field generators were incinerated; backup equipment breaking down, already damaged and unable to shunt off the heat properly.

Red-hot pieces of metal flew over, and Tred saw a turbine rip free, spinning itself apart.  A shower of pieces was being thrown off, shifting as the piece tumbled, and in moments it would riddle them-

They hit the door, and in a moment of miracle, it opened automatically.

The other engineer gave him a shove in, and then hit the emergency door shut button.

Tred realized too late what he was doing, but he barely even got it in time; the heavy door shielded Tred, but already the debris was flying their way.

A few pieces flew in before the door was fully closed.  The rest hit the door, the outer wall, and the other engineer.

Tred screamed again as he saw red coat the window on the door.

That man had just died, he realized, frozen in place.

It couldn’t be in vain.

He turned, looking for the emergency shunt controls.  It was a large lever on the wall, and he put in his security code.  The computer did not even respond, it was not working here.  Nothing was working.

Except, hopefully, the manual lever.  It was normally kept under heavy cover, locked and even disconnected from the system.  But those precautions were connected mechanically to the rest of the systems in a way that meant, when things got damaged, it automatically came out and was ready to use.

It was not easy to turn.  Normally two were supposed to do it.  He would just have to do his best.

Grabbing the lever, he wrestled with it, turning it slowly.

He heard a loud metal thunk.  Then the warning klaxons changed again, and something huge rumbled.

The reactor core was venting, he realized.

He had just saved the ship.

---

< Ep 13 part 32 | Ep 13 part 34 >