《Liveship》
A Gamble
Dav Enderson, a.k.a "Dead End Dav", was getting closer and closer to his namesake.
His ass, currently clenching for a semblance of control over the current situation in vain, was sat in the pilot seat of a space-to-ground strike bomber. This type of craft combined powerful engines, good armor, a wide array of offensive hardpoints and a main internal bomb-bay to create a powerful space-borne attacker. In combine with the remote rear ballistic turret and the frontal facing hypervelocity slug autocannon, it was a nasty piece of hardware.
It also turned like the average obese moon and was a shit dogfighter, which turned out to be bad things when fleeing a whole wing of cutting edge interceptors who''s whole purpose was to hunt your ship down.
The rear turret was operated by the on-board targeting suite up until two minutes ago, when a missile fried by the laser CIWS blisters to the rear of the craft shaved it clear off the roof of the arrowhead-shaped craft, alongside those very splinters.
Rather ironic, considering the vengeful nature of the assholes who launched that missile at him to begin with.
Thankfully, the bomb-bay was shielded well enough to make sure it''d survive even after the damn ship exploded - and considering that this type of bomber was used to carry anti-matter warheads, it had to be that tough.
It''d be a shame if a stray shot would destabilize the experimental micro-singularity reactor on board, vaporising both the vessel and the nearest two planets, after all.
Another set of missiles exploded a few kilometers to his left, deceived by his Electronic Warfare Suite - and while a few kilometers might sound a lot to a planetside mudlicker, any spaceman worth his nutrient bars would feel uneasy without a few thousand kilometers between their vessel and the nearest high-speed explosive object.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
The shredded remains of the vessel''s rear-facing sensor suite indicated that the persuing interceptors, their oversized add-on propulsion packs and weapon pods gleaming with evil exaust glare, were gaining on him and fast.
Shame the military only decided to do things right when it came to screwing him over - and all little Dav wanted was to make a quick buck and make like a bandit.
The actual plan was rather simple - knock the quartermaster unconcious in the secure magazine bunker, load the reactor into the shell of a high-explosive thermobaric bomb of similar size, load it onto a bomber, and after he''d fail to return from his next deployment, hawk the damn thing off to the highest bidder and retire to a low-gravity paradise world - and enjoy what 0.5 gees let one do with a woman''s breasts. Which was surprisingly a lot.
And it would''ve gone well enough if only the damn quartermaster wasn''t a veteran who had part of his cranium replaced with titanium - explaining his broken pinky.
What followed a failed attempt at a silent takedown was a mad flurry, a few sacrificial cleaning droids loaded with directional explosives giving their life for the cause, and grand theft spaceship.
And if that wasn''t all enough, he was running out of gas, too.
Which was obviously when the damn picket Cruiser decided to quantum-fold right in front of his ship, in all it''s one kilometer glory.
The ship''s targeting suite, EW suite, weapons and even the shitty music player blasting out shitty rock music decided to wave the french flag, signalling his entrance to the Cruiser''s EW envelope, and suddenly he was flying fully manual.
Not for long though - one the captain on board had a chat with the wing leader chasing him, he''d become so much space dust thanks to the capital vessel''s anti-fighter batteries within nano-seconds.
And then he saw it.
A green shimmer in space that made the universe go a bit funny. A navigational hazard even the dumbest of the dumb knows to avoid. A source of so many space-horror stories - half of which had to do with tentacles or brain parasites, or both. A tear in space followed by the large quantum displacement caused by a capital vessel warping near a planet''s gravity well.
The door to what might as well be a super black hole''s event horizon or the heart of a star, and almost certain death.
Key word being almost, unlike his current situation.
And so, faced with a dead end, "Dead End Dav" took a one in a million chance, and dove straight through the Quantum Slip.
Type-13
Dav¡¯s head currently felt like it spent a good hour in a blender with hammers instead of blades.
Waking up to what he instantly recognized as a new, record breaking sadistic form of hangover, he blinked away detritus from his sleepy eyes. The stench of burnt plastics and metals assaulted his nose, but more frighteningly, a quiet hissing sound was immediately picked up by his ears.
Dav¡¯s hand immediately reached for a canister colored in striking black and orange, labeled ¡°BREACH SEAL ¨C EMERGENCY USE ONLY!¡± uncapping the top with his thumb as was common practice, and strained his ears through the pounding of his head.
A bit to his left, on the lower part of the canopy, was a small hairline crack that spanned a good 3 centimeters.
Dav immediately smothered the thing with a third of the can ¨C even he knew you don¡¯t mess with hull breaches unless you like the popsicle experience.
The grey goop that foamed out immediately got sucked into the crack and created a rubber-like layer that spread across the clear material of the canopy, forming a space-worthy seal that could last a good month or two.
Thinking about how he bought himself some time, brought him back to reality, the pounding headache, and his situation.
A quick series of gestures saw the holo-interactive control scheme compromised, which forced him to access the emergency manual interface ¨C a classical keyboard made from good old steel alloy, meant to survive the rougher collisions. Typically, pulling this out meant your craft was screwed up enough that you didn¡¯t really need the fast reaction that holo-controls enabled.
Since speed wasn¡¯t of the essence and you were a dead target in orbit or on some dirt patch, and likely burning, you probably didn¡¯t need gesture controls and biometric feedback reading.
A quick diagnostic command brought a preliminary report of the systems of the attack bomber, or what was left of it:
Dav¡¯s craft, which he christened as the Trashcan, was down a wing and its associated pylon weaponry, a main and secondary engine (and he only had partial capability on the remaining set, since the missile that sheared the first set threw fragmentation into the other), dozens of fried electronic systems, and the emergency fab on board was limited to basic part manufacturing and ¡°emergency ration type-13¡±.
Dav took a minute to let the information soak in, saw that his life support could carry him for about a week before he choked to death, and chose to tuck in for about five more minutes.
A few hours later, Dav was finishing off the last of the previous pilot¡¯s in-flight meal ration.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Apparently the guy¡¯s idea of a mid-flight snack consisted of peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches, jerky, and orange juice. If Dav had known he could get this kind of special treatment, he would also strap himself to a city-buster delivery truck.
From the corner of his eye, ¡°emergency ration type-13¡± was sizing him up ¨C or maybe he was imagining it because of the plastic smoke in the cabin of the bomber. The horrid brick in off-white, cream color drudged up nasty memories of long-range recon missions in his fighter, sleeping in a tiny cramped cockpit a third the size of this one, munching on what was essentially dense dirt flavored with an imitation of vanilla which later gave him constipation for three days.
This was also why the fighter jockeys called the type-13 the ¡°excretion retainer¡±.
And for the next week, he was about to get intimate with it very closely.
The last couple hours, Dav was able to make light repairs, bypass most of the damaged systems and regain most of the control over the craft. Weapons were toast, shields were effectively gone for anything more serious than micrometeorites and space dust, and he barely managed to get the folding toilet unclogged, thank god.
And then there was the engine.
Since the power supply was still good, Dav could get the Trashcan moving, but only after he checked the engine ¨C if he started it up and it was too badly damaged, he¡¯d be dead in the water for the rest of the week, which was also his life.
Problem was, camera feed to the aft was dead, so he¡¯d have to EVA ¨C that is, put on a space suit and go fix things up himself.
Dav packed up his stuff, put anything that wasn¡¯t tied down or bolted in one of the storage compartments, and got to wearing the damn suit ¨C they were always a size too small.
Ten minutes later, Dav gave the computer the command to cycle out the atmosphere into the air-tanks, and grabbed onto the repair toolkit. A series of warning lights came up, and then turned off, something sparked, and the air got sucked up into the vents behind the co-pilot¡¯s seat in about two minutes.
The canopy then popped open, and Dav was in space.
Well, he was always in space, but now they much more intimate with each other.
Slowly and carefully, Dav hooked the emergency harness to one of the hand-holds in the hull and made his way to the aft of the vessel.
It looked like an angry dog-thing confused the shit for a chew toy ¨C more holes than hull, everything nearly dust and crumpling to the touch. The secondary engine he thought was lost was literally hanging by a thread of shredded fuel-line ¨C which was good news since the other one had the aft-section of a missile lodged into it.
It took another three hours to fix up the propulsion to a state which would give green-ish diagnostics, and another half hour to make sure it wouldn¡¯t blow up or shake the ship apart mid-flight.
Dav then went to the top of the ship to finish with the last part of this EVA session ¨C the deployment of the emergency scanner-communicator array.
From a circular panel popped up a sheet of silvery foil, several rods, and a long arm with an antenna at its end. Dav ¡°dressed up¡± the antenna with the foil sheet using the hole in the center of the sheet, the slid the rods into the reams of it, and connected them.
Finally, after another 10 minutes of finagling, he had a working, 5-meter antenna protruding from the top of his ship like tits on a super-carrier.
Sliding back into the cockpit, he cycled air in, dropped the damn suit and grabbed a type-13.
Powering on the main computer, Dav had to play wrestling with the control system to make up for loss of half the propulsion and uneven thrust, then the loss of a third of the maneuvering thrusters, shift in center of mass, etcetera.
Finally, he had control of the vessel proper.
Now, he could power on the scanner, and see where the hell did that quantum space rupture dropped him off.
Discovery
Quantum space ruptures, or ¡°slips¡± as they were commonly known, were the space equivalent of the splashing water a fast-moving heavy transport car made when driving through a puddle of water or mud. They were transient, unpredictable, and completely random.
A result of the quantum warp drives of a capital-class vessel plowing through the gravity well of a planet, those holes in space and time were much like the phenomenon that gave birth to them ¨C gates to another point in the universe. Unlike conventional ¡°warping¡±, they were impossible to target at specific co-ordinates and inherently unstable.
Another thing that anyone who survives passing through one of those anomalies must remember is that space is huge, extremely dangerous, and mostly empty. A slip was just as likely to put your ship disabled and a thousand light-years from the nearest star as it was to drop you straight onto the event horizon of the nearest black hole.
As such, going through one was a complete and utter act of desperation, one made usually by escaping convicts, defeated pirates, runaway slaves and the occasionally desperate warship captain.
And ¡°Dead End¡± Dav, apparently.
Powering on the scanner array he put together on top of the ship, Dav sat back and sipped on his cold instant coffee ration ¨C it had more after-taste than flavor, but the caffeine was a god-send after a nearly six-hour long spacewalk. That catheter did not sit right with him even after all this time in space ¨C there was simply no replacement for some me-time on the john, folding or not.
As the computer set to work on locating familiar star formations, Dav let the dark brew jolt him up, then crashed into sleep a few minutes later when his body overcame the substance.
About two hours later, a bleeping tone woke him up ¨C the computer was done with it¡¯s work.
Wiping sleep from his eyes, Dav glanced at the life support status monitor ¨C damn, six days ¨C and took a look at the results.
As expected, most of the data was crap ¨C the scanner was shit, meant to be used as a last resort, and he went through a rift. Simply being alive was a miracle.
That didn¡¯t make not finding a single familiar star feel better.
What did, though, was the massive amount of metal detected floating in space, and emitting a faint but steady signal.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Dav had heard many stories, and watched many Holos centered around those finds ¨C often themed around horror and occasionally the one-off b-tier smut flick.
A Hulk - Drifting in space for who knows how long, a forgotten ship that might¡¯ve made the same desperate decision he¡¯d made, which could potentially contain the way out of this mess. It was probably out of power, but with an experimental reactor in his bomb bay that could power a city for just about forever, he could sort that out. Probably.
Bringing up the keyboard again, Dav punched in the navigational data, compensated for the screwed propulsion, and set the messed up bomber on a three-day limp towards the unknown vessel.
Sure, it was a stupid idea, but it was also the only one he had.
Over the course of three days, Dav had gone through most of the porn the previous pilot stashed on his ship, found and consumed the secret beer and snack pack in the spare emergency vac-suit locker, and was halfway through an old movie about a bunch of 22nd century humans fighting alien bugs with bodies made mostly of blender blades when he nodded off.
The proximity alert for 60,000 kilometers woke him up with a loud claxon that quickly died in a shower of sparks and the smell of burnt plastic.
Dav hurriedly turned the shit around and began a breaking burn at as full a throttle he could afford ¨C apparently the navigation computer got fried when he fell asleep and all his programmed maneuver sets were out the airlock.
While 60,000 kilometers might seem like a lot for a dirt-stomper ¨C which was how pilots referred to the planet-side population, usually not to their faces ¨C it was in fact very little, when you were going at 35,000 kilometers an hour. Relativity was a bitch.
While the ship was breaking, Dav attempted to bring up the camera feed and have a closer look at the vessel he was approaching, but somehow, all of his sensor arrays besides the most basic stuff for collision avoidance was fried. His best guess was electromagnetic interference from the vessel, though it could be electronic warfare as far as he knew. He heard of old ship that kept ¡°fighting¡± even though their crew was long ago turned into so much dust, just because there was no one to push the ¡°stop¡± button.
Eventually, the busted bomber slowed enough to allow Dav to turn the front-facing canopy towards the mystery vessel, some 30 kilometers from him.
Looming on the other side of the transparent polymer was a metal behemoth unlike any seen before by human eyes. It had to be at least 10 kilometers long, and one kilometer wide at its narrowest point. Shaped like a massive bird of prey, it¡¯s ¡°underbelly¡± was lined with countless tendrils that at closer look appeared to be great manipulator arms of some sort. While Dav couldn¡¯t see a weapon poking out, the beast¡¯s size alone could allow it to harness physics as it¡¯s weapon, shrugging off ramming by virtue of its naked hull against anything below battlecruiser-level, which usually ranged at the 1 kilometer length themselves.
Suddenly, Dav¡¯s ship shook, and all of a sudden all of his hairs stood on end and the computer went dead. He was familiar with this since he did the same to his friend in flight school and wrecked a trainer space-fighter ¨C someone was pulling him using a tractor beam at full power, strong enough to pin a destroyer in place with no chance of escape.
He considered panicking but then gave that up, he¡¯d already had a nervous breakdown and his air was running out. Instead, Dav grabbed the meter-long monkey-wrench off to his right and prepared himself.
Whoever was giving him the spacefaring version of an atomic wedgy was going to answer some questions.
Arrival
Dav tightened his grip on the big monkey wrench, the gloves of his vac-suit creating a magnetic grip on the tool as planned. Besides the mag-grips in the gloves and the air-cycling system of the suit, everything else was currently toast ¨C including the EMA-pistol that was holstered in Dav¡¯s flight vest when he first stole the ship. The handheld weapon that accelerated a small dart to hypersonic speeds, that was capable of tearing through two walls or five men before losing speed and being lodged in something was also fried. The poor little computer that controlled the magnetic acceleration rail inside the gun was dead to rights.
Tractor beams worked on a very precise combination of gravitational manipulation and magnetic locking ¨C essentially, they created a magnetic corridor through which an object ¡°fell¡± into the beam. Overloaded, this fried everything electrical or electronic on the object being pulled. It also kind of crumpled it, which is why Dav¡¯s poor little bomber was making very bad creaky noises.
Only the vac-suit was rated to survive this kind of radiation, since it was supposed to keep a spaceman alive for at least two hours once a breach has occurred ¨C and since a breached warship usually spilled all sorts of dangerous and usually radioactive stuff, those suits also doubled as hazmat suits ¨C which meant that you could save on costs and just use the one suit.
They weren¡¯t good for long though, which meant that if his suit ran out of juice or air, and the ship that was currently hauling him in didn¡¯t have those either, he was probably dead.
All the while, the titanic ship outside his canopy was growing larger and larger, bigger than most metropolitan-class space-stations Dav had visited; it¡¯s belly had opened up a massive hatch, at least half a kilometer wide. Much less his 30-meter bomber, a 100-meter long corvette or even a smaller destroyer or frigate could squeeze through no problem. It was amazing, but as Dav got closer, he couldn¡¯t help but get the feeling that the feel of the ship was odd. It¡¯s features seemed off in a way he couldn¡¯t put his finger on. The hatch he was being pulled through was bent somehow, and didn¡¯t seem to be fully open ¨C as ridiculous as that statement was about a hatch bigger than some cruisers.
As his Ship passed below the titan¡¯s countless manipulators, it felt like he flying inside a ship graveyard ¨C the grasping arm-structures like outreaching dead hands.
Finally, his vessel was pulled into the cavernous ¡°Hangar¡± of the titan. As it passed the entrance, the massive portal began closing, and soon clunked closed. Dav could feel the vibration somehow despite the lack of atmosphere.
Dav¡¯s ship was gently deposited on the surface of what seemed to be the flight deck of this vessel. The hangar was pitch black, the lights of his vac-suit shooting beams of light that barely penetrated the dark. At least those still worked.
Seeing no point in delaying, Dav popped the canopy emergency release. The blast-bolts in the canopy seal detonated, cracking the seal and letting the air in his bomber out with a hiss. Unfortunately, the mechanism was compromised, as the canopy was only half-open ¨C a few whacks with the wrench and that was ¡°fixed¡±.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Dav immediately noticed that the canopy, now sent flying, was taking it¡¯s sweet time falling back down. It seemed that gravity on board was at the very most 30% of Terran norm, a standard one gee. Leaping down, he set down gently on the flight deck, which seemed to be some sort of metal. His suit¡¯s mag-boots immediately locked to it, which explained why his ship was so stable. It was magnetized to the floor!
And so, there he was ¨C Alone, limited air, no weapons or supplies, in the middle of the nowhere-est of nowheres. The stuff of adventures, the very essence of all those adventure Holo-vids and novels he¡¯d read to pass the time ¨C all along commenting to himself how he¡¯d do better.
Dav collapsed to his knees, stifling a panic attack. His forehead was coated in cold sweat and the abrupt motion made the bile of his stomach rise to his mouth. At the very least the type-13 rations would make sure he couldn¡¯t physically soil himself for the next 3 days. Taking a minute to calm his nerves, he took a sip from the suit¡¯s precious water reserves and got to his feet once more.
As he did, Dav came face to face with massive humanoid figure, matte black. It was aiming a single, man-sized arm at him. At the very end of that arm was a long pipe with a metal cage at its end. Knowing a gun barrel when he saw one, Dav slowly put down the wrench and got back to his knees.
This just wasn¡¯t his day.
Apparently the universal gesture of submission to one¡¯s captor was clear to the black giant.
It holstered its long metal weapon (somehow, Dav still managed to chuckle at this despite himself) and produced a rectangular plate from its back with one of its arms. The plate was placed on the floor and began floating. The giant lifted Dav by his back and placed him of the plate, which bobbed a bit before deploying some clear barrier around the spaceman.
With Dav bagged and tagged, the black giant stomped silently back into a hallway, its haul quietly floating behind it.
After a few minutes, Dav couldn¡¯t take it anymore and tried turning on his suit¡¯s external speakers.
¡°Who are you? Where are we? Where are you taking me?¡±
But either the atmosphere was too thin for sound to transmit or the creature didn¡¯t care, because it didn¡¯t react at all.
After a few minutes, Dav noticed his throat was dry, his suit lost 10% of its battery from the speaker use and that his efforts were useless, so he made use of his remaining time more effectively and began crying to himself and apologizing to his mother for being an idiot and dying in the middle of space and not visiting her more.
He¡¯d joined in with the fleet about five years ago and was a damn good pilot, survived his share of combat orbital missions and even crashed twice in enemy territory and lived to tell the tale, but he still got vid-calls from his parents that featured his teary-eyed mother telling him how much he made her worry sick for not replying immediately to her last message. She¡¯d gotten a program installed on her com terminal that let her calculate how much time it took her ungrateful son to get the messages from his worried mother, and figure out when the lout was ignoring her in favor of risking his life in that gods-awful ¡®navy¡¯ of his.
Of course, she also disapproved of his relationships with some of the less-than-nice ladies from those adult establishments on the stations and planets where his combat carrier group stopped to resupply and get some R&R, but so did his bank account ¨C which was the original reason why he got the stupid idea to jack the damn reactor to begin with.
As he was thinking about that redhead from the last stop and how much he¡¯d love to die in her arms instead of the massive black giant thing in front of him, a hatch opened on the end of the corridor they were walking down, and a bright light shined from the opening.
Dav¡¯s eyes, used to the dark, immediately got blinded ¨C apparently the light filter of the helmet was also busted.
The black giant marched him right through the bright doorway.
Procedure
Dav¡¯s eyes adjusted to the light in the room, then his eyebrows shot up and his heart began pumping again, old stories he read now vivid in his panicking brain.
The room into which he was hauled like mere cargo by the black giant was, without a doubt, a medical room.
Considering the bed-like surface at the center, the banks of lights set into the ceiling and illuminating it, and the stark white walls, he could tell. The real kicker was the set of eight robotic arms, a set of four set in the base of the bed-table thing and another set in the ceiling, right above the bed.
Dav also remembered stories his dad told him about the early humans before the times of spaceflight, and how they would often sight what they called ¡°UFO¡±s in the skies of old Terra.
According to dad, those were aliens who would abduct cows and farmers to probe their anal cavities ¨C why? Dav didn¡¯t know ¨C but he did know that he was decidedly NOT going to have ANYTHING put up his rear-end outside of a seedy club and without a high-enough blood alcohol level.
As the black giant brought the hovering cage near the table, Dav prepared ¨C he would wait until the field dropped, then would make a run for it.
Unfortunately, once the force field keeping him in his awkward sitting position on the hovering plate-cage device went down, he immediately shot up ¨C and straight into the waiting metal grip of the black giant, who picked up the desperately struggling spaceman like a mewling kitten, and laid him back-first on the table. The four lower arms immediately took hold of Dav¡¯s four limbs, their grip not painful but firm, locking him in place in an X-shape.
As he saw in terror the four hanging arms descend, he felt a sharp prick in the back of his neck, spreading warmth and the marching of ants on his skin, and then blacked out.
IT was asleep ¨C for how long? Only dating the carbon atoms on its skin would show.
IT was the guardian, the custodian entrusted with the Task, the greatest one and the last one.
IT failed.
The Core became unstable, the dimensional rift lost harmony with the wavelength of this reality, resulting in what was almost a Hypernova-sized explosion that would¡¯ve wiped his charge from existence ¨C and while the Ward was safe, almost all power was lost. Only a rudimentary backup generator was left inside the Workshop, a pet project of one of the engineers, and it was failing.
In a few dozen rotations of the nearest star, all power would be lost, and the Ward would be gone with it.
And then, from absolutely nowhere, a spatial anomaly associated with rudimentary and inefficient jump drives had appeared within IT¡¯s scanner range.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Considering data from the passive scans it could still perform, it seemed that a small vessel had made its way into the Zone of Denial by sheer cosmic coincidence ¨C and moreover, it had on board an impressive energy reading.
IT saw the hand of hope, reaching from the stars.
IT would NOT be denied.
The Ward must be secured.
IT was befuddled.
On board the vessel was a sentient life-form.
It was busy repairing what appeared to be battle damage on its vessel. Once it was done, it used a crude sensor array to scan the nearby space.
IT immediately disabled the passive nullification on ITs skin, the ancient form emerging once more into the visible spectrum. IT felt shame over the condition of ITs being, the lack of maintenance leaving room for dilapidation ¨C it, however, had been a necessity.
Maintenance of non-critical elements was a frivolity in the eyes of the Task.
The sentient detected IT, as planned, and began heading toward IT. Obviously, the being was desperate to seek direct contact with IT. Only a fool would not.
As it came into range of the tractor beam, IT opened the main entrance to the Hangar, frustrated at the fact that only a fraction could be fully opened. Things have fallen to greater disrepair than IT had known.
Upon successful capture of the vessel, IT had a dilemma.
The Rules were clear on this.
There MUST be consent, mutual and indisputable.
The sentient, already in the hangar deck, crudely damaged its vessel ¨C IT was in awe of the disrespect! The sheer audacity! How DARE the puny organic being treat his vessel as such! Surviving such hardship and yet still ferrying over to relative safety, and this was its reward?
For shame!
Upon closer consideration, it seemed the vessel was completely dead.
ITs indignant rage subsided. While it was not operational anymore, IT would recover and curate the data on-board. IT was in awe of the barbarity the universe had fallen into after so long.
A service and security unit closed in on the sentient and secured it, transporting it to a medical chamber for processing and decontamination ¨C who know where it¡¯d been before entering IT? At the very least, it was vacuum-sealed. Thank the stars for small mercies.
A Nano-machine swarm descended on the damaged vessel and consumed the electronics, instantly transmitting the data on-board.
IT now knew the sentient being¡¯s language. This would be helpful in the following endeavors.
Focusing back on the being, IT had ordered the operation theater to restrain the being.
Rudimentary scans showed what biometric data from the craft indicated to be severe damage from drug abuse, injury, and even crude alterations to its body using grotesque implants.
Apparently this race took pleasure in self-mutilation.
IT ordered the Process of Implantation to begin ¨C soon, a needle implanted itself at the base of the creature¡¯s main biological Central Processing Unit, spreading the Nano-machines throughout it and the rest of the body. A quick reading of the biological data capsule from a few thousand cells, called DNA in their simple language, allowed it to begin the restoration and improvement of the body ¨C IT was in shock that so much junk data was present on the DNA strands! So much room for improvement!
As they coursed through the creature¡¯s body, the machines consumed the crude implants ¨C those basic things seemed to produce certain chemicals near its waste-disposal and water reclamation organs, as well as allow its biological CPU ¨C its brain ¨C to conduct rudimentary interaction with biological-synthetic interfaces.
IT was in awe ¨C did the thing actually crack open its head for those things to be put in there?
This species were barbarians, indeed.
As the Procedure concluded, a few upgrades added along the way, IT was satisfied.
This creature was now, at the very least, suitable.
Disposing of the rags it came in, IT had proper attire placed in a nearby sleeping space, and had the Candidate delivered and placed on top of the bed.
Once it woke up, IT would have words with the creature.
Admiral
Dav woke up, his mouth cotton and sandy.
Sitting up, a haze seemed to engulf his mind, not unlike what one of those ¡°challenge¡± drinks that often contained odd and potentially dangerous ingredients, often induced in him.
The thought of drinks made water come to his mind.
Reaching for the bottle of water he always kept near his bunk, his hand instead found a stack of what felt like very odd and pleasant cloth ¨C the sensation, while pleasant, soon shocked him awake. He wasn¡¯t in his quarters.
In fact, Dav was fairly sure he was being dragged into a weird medical room by some giant black man thing.
His eyes shot open, and he found himself in a big white room. He was sitting on what seemed to be a bed, no headrest or anything else besides a basic pillow. The room he was in was devoid of anything besides the bed and a small one-legged table-thing on which was a stack of what seemed to be clothes.
At which point Dav noticed he was naked - Which was weird, because he wasn¡¯t hot, or cold, or anything really. It was like the room was conditioned to the absolute room temperature.
Dav couldn¡¯t even feel where his skin ended and the air began.
Staring at his arms like that for a few seconds, Dav looked down and remembered his state of undress, and so he reached for the stack of ¡°clothes¡±.
Apparently, the aliens or whatever had him locked in here had gotten their hands on the uniform he was wearing, and used it as a base design for whatever this was. The ¡®suit¡¯ was a one-piece affair, fortunately with separate underwear included. Not unlike a scuba-suit, it seemed to open from the back ¨C in order to wear the suit, one would have to place their feet and hands in, and then pull their body inside.
As Dav wrangled the thing, he found the cloth shifting and moving as if to assist him with his efforts. In a few seconds, he was wearing the strange outfit, which then squeezed down on him before relaxing to a perfect, skin-tight fit.
¡°Yeah, that¡¯s not freaky at all¡ At least my bulge isn¡¯t showing.¡±
Always look on the bright side.
Dav took a few minutes to walk around, do some light exercise and practice some basic hand-to-hand from his days back in boot camp, mixing some bar-fight-foo for good measure. The suit flexed and flowed with every movement, as if it read his mind. Convenient and creepy in equal measure ¨C and the workout confirmed to Dav that he wasn¡¯t a kidney and a lung lighter, which was always a plus.
In fact, his body never felt better ¨C even the cotton mouth went away on its own.
¡°This is extremely weird.¡±
As soon as Dav spoke those words, a quiet ¡®whoosh¡¯ snapped his attention to the wall opposite of the bed, as a door descended down to the floor. Out from the door, emerged a small hovering sphere, about a basketball¡¯s size. Before Dav could even back up to the wall, it opened a slot in its front, then suddenly the High Admiral of the Terran Navy was standing in front of him.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Spotting the full regalia and the golden eagle grasping the Home-world in its claws beneath nine stars, Dav reflexively snapped a hasty but sharp salute, fist over heart at full attention, before noticing the impossibility of the situation. As he did, the ¡®High Admiral¡¯ spoke.
¡°Greetings, Human. Your vessel¡¯s database indicates this individual to be of high importance in your society, therefore I have borrowed this appearance. My name is not for you to know, but you may call me ¡®Custodian¡¯. You are a trespasser on this vessel. I have temporarily granted you guest privileges, so long as you obey the rules. To make it simple on your lesser mind, simply don¡¯t touch anything; don¡¯t eat anything not labeled as food, and try not to breathe on anything important. Follow me.¡±
Apparently the sphere believed itself to have the same authority as the one whose skin it was wearing, which rankled Dav despite his current traitor status ¨C he had his soldier¡¯s pride at the very least, dammit!
¡°Now listen here, you egotistical, floating piece of-¡° which is as far as he got before he heard the distinct sound of a very large slide racking a very large round into the very large chamber, of a very large gun. The loud, crisp cracking sound belonged to two more of those armored black giants that formed a perimeter around the ¡®Custodian¡¯ sphere-thing.
Those were now pointing two arms each at him, each with a barrel strapped to its forearm.
Those were, at the very least, 20mm ballistic cannons ¨C which was more than enough to turn an unarmored human, or a lightly armored vehicle, into many, many small pieces.
The ¡®Admiral¡¯ didn¡¯t even break its stride ¨C ¡°Follow - Now.¡±
Dav decided to co-operate, for the now being.
As they walked, the ¡®Custodian¡¯ remained silent, the holographic projection of the High admiral striding directly in front of it with crisp and precise movements. Dav had, after a few moments, noticed the slightly transparent nature of the highest ranking officer in the Terran navy. He was, of course, a hologram.
However, Dav never saw a holo this good before ¨C maybe the stuff the one percent had was better than he knew, but no way such high fidelity could be squeezed into such a small frame as that sphere, leaving room for both propulsion, computation and power.
No matter what, it would surely fetch a nice price if he could get it to some bigshot corporation dealing with this kind of stuff.
The thought of money reminded Dav of his vessel, and the extremely valuable and dangerous nature of the cargo on board.
¡°Hey, uh¡ Custodian! What about the ship I came in on? Is it still fine?¡±
The sphere stopped, turned to the right alongside the hologram, then a doorway opened in the wall of the corridor they were walking down.
¡°In here, human ¨C we will speak of your vessel and its cargo at length soon.¡±
So they knew about the reactor ¨C not good.
Dav felt cold sweat running down his back despite the suit ¨C While valuable, the reactor was essentially a very inefficient bomb, and he¡¯d brought it (unintentionally) on board an alien vessel. Not the best attempt at 1st contact.
¡°Uh, I can explain that.¡±
¡°I do not require your explanation, Human. Come and sit ¨C I believe that this is how your species holds conversations of high importance.¡±
As the hologram said that, the room they entered ¨C a wide affair that could house at least a hundred men, changed. A table and two chairs made from some sort of silvery metal rose from the metallic white floor, while some sort of arm contraption descended from an invisible hole in the ceiling and placed a glass of water and a disturbingly familiar white bar on the table.
Dav groaned.
¡°You¡¯ve got to be kidding me ¨C really?¡±
Even after being abducted by gods-damned aliens with an attitude problem, he could not escape military rations.
¡°Is there a problem, Human?¡± the hologram turned towards him.
¡°No, no, it¡¯s just that it¡¯s been a¡ difficult couple of days for me.¡±
The Custodian simply bobbed, the hologram nodding, and gestured for Dav to sit down with it.
¡°I see. Now sit down ¨C we have much to discuss.¡±
Exchange
Dav sat down and placed his hands on his knees, back straight.
They went over this with all pilots extensively in basic, advanced, and on specialized courses ¨C sure, the chances of surviving the destruction of your fighter were small in a chaotic orbital fight in relative speeds, much less in hypersonic speeds in atmosphere, but it did happen.
They were taught about survival, evasion behind enemy lines, living of the land, and of course ¨C interrogation.
Dav had no doubt he was prisoner; he was escorted with armed guards, denied access to his ship, and initially got into this damn mess because he got yanked out of space because of this arrogant sphere that was currently bobbing next to the admiral hologram¡¯s head.
For all he knew, he could be in some freaky VR torture cellar where he¡¯d be squeezed dry from any and all information he could provide.
Dav¡¯s paranoid delusions were soon interrupted, however.
¡°So,¡± started the Custodian, ¡°Allow me to officially welcome you aboard this vessel. Its name cannot be pronounced by your physiology, but you may use the closest translation in your primitive language ¨C you are on board the Resurrection, the last and greatest work of a people you have never known. This vessel has drifted throughout space for eons. Its task is not for you to know.¡±
Dav took a few moments to process this information.
Aliens.
An honest to the gods first contact scenario.
Dav swallowed, and asked the big question on his mind.
¡°So, am I a prisoner? Are you going to keep experimenting on my body? I know you did something to my implants ¨C I can¡¯t use any of their systems ever since I woke up, and I very much dislike it when someone goes around poking in my body without permission!¡±
Which of course, came out as a whiny complaint which he dumped on the alien sphere-thingy on the other side of the table.
¡®So much for first contact¡¯ Dav thought.
The holographic admiral remained stone-faced under Dav¡¯s reaction, and responded.
¡°You are not a prisoner, Human. In accord with the intergalactic spacefaring intelligent species treaty to which this vessel is beholden, you are an invited guest. As for your self-induced deformities, I had them removed. The one in your brain organ was placing accumulating pressure aggravated by high-g turns that would end your life within five years by rupturing a major blood vessel. The ones attached to your various organs were actively fighting, and losing, against rapid runaway self-replicating cellular tumor tissues induced by the very same ¡®implants¡¯, as you described those crude articles.
¡°In according with the treaty, experimentation and mutilation of any intelligent higher life-form is forbidden, and any such cases are to be reported and rectified on the spot. Your modifications were replaced with standard nanite swarm-slave arrays. I have also taken to rectify some of the errors in your genetic code ¨C Your species relies on redundancy overly much, and a good amount of your genetic data was damaged by what I could only assume to be inadequate radiation shielding.¡±
Hearing this, Dav shot up ¨C ¡°You did WHAT?! Listen, I don¡¯t know what the hell is this nano-swarm-something-or-other, but what do you think gives YOU the right to mess around with my goddamn DNA like some, some sort of ¨C LAB RAT! I¡¯m not your gods-damned TOY!¡±
The Custodian did not seem impressed by Dav¡¯s protest, judging from the lack of reaction ¨C or perhaps it simply lacked the understanding in regards to human behavior to process what was happening.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
Regardless, it waited for the human to finish his outburst, and responded.
¡°Your reaction is understandable, expected, and familiar ¨C many inferior species react the same way prior to uplifting. Understand this ¨C We are about to discuss something much more important than your simple life, or even my own existence.¡±
¡°And what do you mean by that?¡± huffed Dav ¨C the cocky beach-ball was wearing thin on his nerves; he¡¯d spike the damn thing into the floor if it weren¡¯t for the two bodyguards near the door.
¡°The Heart of this Vessel is dying.¡±
Dav raised an eyebrow.
¡°What do you mean by that? It¡¯s just a ship ¨C it isn¡¯t alive or anything to begin with, just a machine.¡±
And so was the beach ball, but Dav wasn¡¯t feeling very politically correct anymore.
The hologram of the Admiral let loose a frustrated sigh, the gesture apparently common between humanity and whatever species built this vessel and it¡¯s Custodian.
¡°This Vessel is very much alive, same as you ¨C and while I am indeed a machine, I am a self-aware, thinking Artificial Intelligence. You may keep your organic biases to yourself. As for the Vessel, It was damaged during an engagement which ruptured its power source. The gravitational waves resulted in the warping of the keel on the quantum level, disabling of major system, and loss of most backup systems. The Vessel currently operates on an improvised backup generator which will die in a few hundred years ¨C that is, until you came along.¡±
¡°Hold on, are you saying it¡¯s my fault that you¡¯re about to run out of power? What the hell did I do?!¡±
¡°You did not DO anything ¨C however, the intergalactic spacefaring intelligent species treaty binds this Vessel still, and demands providing succor to any and all distressed vessel. The tortured leaking raft you drifted on registered as such, activating recovery protocols hard-coded into the system and draining most of the remaining power for your rescue and medical treatment. This Vessel now has less than one of your standard ¡®years¡¯ to operate before Dying.¡±
¡°Well, thanks for the help, and I am sorry to hear that, but I don¡¯t really understand what you want from me exactly ¨C The most I know about ship repair and quantum mechanics boils down to patching up human tech in emergencies and how to use a Quantum Entanglement Communication Array ¨C and I sure as hell don¡¯t know how the damn thing works.¡±
Hearing this, the sphere let out an honest-to-goodness laugh, coming out as a mechanical barking.
¡°Well? What¡¯s so funny?¡±
¡°You thought this Vessel requires your assistance in repairs? I would not have you come near the systems in a million years with your primitive tools ¨C I had not had such a laugh in a very long time.
¡°No, what this Vessel requires is the primitive micro-singularity device in the hold of your raft.¡±
Dav felt his stomach turn and his temple began throbbing.
He¡¯d turned on his unit to get his hands on the damn thing, heisting it in what was a mix of blind luck, bumbling coincidences and sheer stupid determination. He flung himself into unknown space with the damn thing, and for all he knew, was about to die for it ¨C alone, in cold space, with nothing but the stars, the goddamn type-13 rations, and the sound of leaking atmosphere as company.
And the damn alien wanted it.
Sure, it was useless to him, but at this point, Dav was just feeling fed up with the situation.
The goddamn beach-ball berates him, toys around with his body like the Navy never dared, then wants the only thing He still had outside his own self?
¡°I realize that considering how you have the firepower advantage with these two near the door, I might not have much of a choice, but I am NOT giving you the damn reactor. After all I went through to get the damn thing, and considering I¡¯ll probably never see my home again, I think I¡¯d rather die cuddling it. At least your cocky spherical ass won¡¯t get it.¡±
The sphere remained silent for a few minutes then suddenly, a three-dimensional map display came up above the two parties¡¯ head.
The holographic map displayed several star clusters in one side, and to the other, the naval map from Dav¡¯s bomber-turned-lifeboat.
¡°This Vessel, with the aid of your ¡®reactor¡¯, could finish essential repairs, and reach its destination. One It achieves this, it would be possible to locate and reach your home. This will not be quick, and the Task takes priority above all else, this Vessel will sign a contract and commit to repatriating you to your home ¨C if you were to provide It with your ¡®reactor¡¯.
¡°As for simply disposing of you ¨C this was considered. However, due to your guest status and the statutes of the Treaty, an invited guest shall not be harmed on board the host Vessel, and that goes double for recovered stranded personnel. This Vessel shall not separate you from your property ¨C It is not a ¡®pirate¡¯, as you would describe it.¡±
¡°And yet, you offer me a slow death in a dying ship, or a ticket home that would cost all I have. It doesn¡¯t seem like I have much choice, doesn¡¯t it?¡±
¡°Perhaps not¡±, agreed the Custodian ¡°But you never the less must choose. This Vessel will Die before you will. As much as I regret this, I must ask for you to decide, and request that you consider agreeing to the above conditions.¡±
Contract
Dav had Initially enlisted in the Imperial Navy after his father had gone missing with his vessel.
His last memory of his father was the wide back of the man, dressed in the regal black of a captain¡¯s dress uniform, as he left them behind in the departure lounge. Soon, he was on board his destroyer, the INS ¡®Stalingrad¡¯. He remembered his father¡¯s stories of the battle that begot the name of the ship, and always thought the intimidating name was fitting.
Three months into his father¡¯s one-year tour, they received news that the ship was lost in quantum-fold combat maneuvers after being heavily damaged by a separatist ambush.
A destroyer was at least 500 meters in length, with the smaller models built for countering corvettes, screening larger vessels-of-the-line against fighters and missiles. The larger vessels reached one kilometer and held a single keel-mounted spinal main cannon that accelerated a metal slug with the mass of a corvette to 95% of light speed. This was possible because 50% of the vessel¡¯s mass accounted for capacitor banks, with the other half mostly for close-in defense systems, crew accommodations, and propulsion.
Destroyers were fast and agile combatants that relied on size against smaller opponents and relied on speed, agility and the first strike against larger opponents. One of them could take out a Light or Heavy Cruiser, or damage a Battlecruiser ¨C Battleships though, were still out of their class.
They were fragile though, and so their captains had to be smart, decisive and a bit crazy ¨C and young Dav believed his father to be all of the above, as well as a hero to then-five year old him.
Then he disappeared, never to be seen again.
Once Dav finished compulsory education, he enlisted for a military education path with the Imperial Navy¡¯s Veteran¡¯s offices ¨C a perk of family members of past or current serving sailors.
His mother was beside herself for a week, not talking to him and crying her eyes out, but she eventually relented.
As for how Dav got into the position of stealing highly-classified Imperial Navy hardware, that was a different story.
Dav was now sitting in an elongated room, on what appeared to be a human-sized metallic bench, staring at the empty void studded with stars through an observation window. Maybe the aliens the Custodian was serving were humanoids?
Mankind, under the leadership of the Imperial House, had encountered a few alien races in their journeys through the Milky Way.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
There were the Cephia, a species who could shape-shift at will, fitting their bodies to the task at hand. At one moment you could be facing a beautiful woman who Simply had a few extra limbs than normal, then you would blink and she¡¯d be a flurry of tentacles and teeth gnawing on your face.
They were a matriarchal species that was at odds with the Imperial house¡¯s Patriarchal ways, as well as a fully female species. They could either breed between each other, or claim genetic material from another species, by benefit of their shape-shifting nature.
They were also long living, but bred slowly, resulting in a small but very well-defended sphere of influence.
Another was a monkey-like six-armed species of what could only be described as the unholy offspring of what a fictional goblin and a baboon would be ¨C green skinned, prone to tinkering, and evil to the core, the aptly named Gremlin were little more than opportunistic space pirates that would assemble in clan-fleets, and accost anyone and any one, be it Human, Cephia and especially other Gremlin. Once every decade or two, they would gather a war-clan, the equivalent of several human fleets, centered a main ¡°Kingship¡± captained by the war-chieftain of the clan-fleet. They would go on to raid and accost star systems until a task force would be assembled to smash them back into the dark sectors beyond explored space.
As such, Dav was not exactly unfamiliar with aliens ¨C he¡¯d blasted plenty of Gremlin into paste from the seat of a strike fighter, and he even met a Cephia pilot when one was recovered by his carrier group after being separated from her Leviathan¡¯s Pod.
However, first contact was usually handled by the Captain of the ship acting as Flagship for the task force, and a special xenodiplomat officer on board, stationed after the first-contact fiasco with the Cephia.
Dav was just a disgruntled fighter jockey, on the other hand.
And if he returned to human space, he¡¯d probably be court-martialed for his actions.
His heart broke thinking of his mother, after she¡¯d learn the news.
He had to get back.
And maybe establishing relations with a newly discovered highly developed species as humanity¡¯s representative would be enough for an Imperial pardon.
¡°Human, have you reached a decision?¡±
The Custodian floated into the room, unaccompanied.
¡°Where are your body guards?¡± asked Dav ¨C the two metal goliaths escorting the silver ball around were nowhere to be found.
¡°Deactivated, to conserve energy.¡±
¡°Do you not fear I would misbehave?¡±
¡°No ¨C you already hold the fate of this Vessel in your hand, unless the impossible happens twice, and another such as you arrives here with a similar power supply.
¡°No, Human ¨C you are more of a threat to this Vessel than any other, and I am helpless against you by my own nature. I both loathe you and admire you for this. Now, have you reached a decision?¡±
Dav stood, and faced the Custodian, taking the round chrome sphere in fully, the starry background behind him.
¡°I will help you, but I would like to discuss the proposed contract more in-depth. While the reactor is essentially worthless to me right now, it would¡¯ve bought me a life of luxury back home. I believe proper compensation is in order.¡±
The Custodian slowly rose to eye-level, it¡¯s voice seemingly filled with newfound energy and hope.
¡°Very well ¨C we still have much more to discuss.¡±
Prelude
Dav hated Corvettes.
These vessels which typically ranged from 25 meters at the smallest to 100 meters at the longest were the stuff of his nightmares. A Corvette was, in essence, a gunship; take a large vessel, stick a bunch of armor and shields on it, put turrets absolutely everywhere, stuff it to the gills with anti-air and anti-ground missiles, and you have a corvette.
These vessels were the second-largest vessel in the Imperial Navy that could enter a planet¡¯s atmosphere, and the largest that could do it with any modicum of grace. The larger Frigates could only hover forward in sub-sonic speeds and hardly turn, less their 250 meters of mass crash down and make a massive crater. The smaller fighters could dance circles around them.
But a Corvette didn¡¯t need to dance, because its heart was evil incarnate and its systems were manned by the damned ¨C in Dav¡¯s mind, at the very least.
In reality, due to the smaller size of the typical Corvette, they were often used to move large amounts of equipment that could not be ferried by unarmored transports, or dropped from orbit in a drop pod. They were also used to gain land superiority in atmosphere where orbital vessels didn¡¯t have the required finesse, as well as missile boats for fighters. A fighter would lock a target, and after several seconds, there would be a hypersonic missile trying to make sweet-sweet love to its tail-section.
And Dav hated them.
His fighter, meant for light strike against soft targets like transport trucks and fleshy infantry simply wasn¡¯t armed heavily enough to make a dent in one save for the smallest ones, and the heavy interceptors and allied corvettes would always take their sweet time to descend from orbit.
Dav and his squadron, in the meanwhile, had to play tag with a floating firebase with an attitude problem.
Worse, he had served on one for the duration of his training to acquire his qualification ¨C those were the longest three months of his service. All the armor, weapons, and missiles make for VERY little room for crew, which numbers from eight men to twenty at the most. On the smallest boats, you have two four-stack bunks in a tiny berth, another closet with a bed for the ¡®captain¡¯, and the ¡®fishbowl¡¯.
The fishbowl, named so for its shape, is a spherical command and control center in the heart of each Imperial Navy vessel. While civilian pleasure yachts can afford to have real windows to space, a real vessel would have its captain popped like a marshmallow by a laser before you could even tell the battle started.
The modern ¡°bridge¡± of space vessels was more akin to a tomb of armor and shields, seated in the heart of the vessel which was built like an onion than an ocean-fairing ship. A Corvette¡¯s ¡®fishbowl¡¯ was a claustrophobic mess, with all the crewmembers shoved in equal spacing all over the inside of the sphere into their respective stations, with gravity disabled and inertia dampeners running on ¡®high¡¯, which meant that you were constantly fighting the urge to vomit due to a vibrating stomach, while the aft gunner¡¯s smelly athlete¡¯s foot was fingering your left nostril.
There were no veteran corvette crews ¨C either you survived deployment and were moved to a frigate within a year, or you went back to being a fighter jockey.
Dav had gone the other way ¨C but he did manage to pick up a qualification as a gunnery officer along the way. It was more of a joke and a way for the Navy to justify the expenditure of trying to promote fresh trainees into ships of the line, which always needed more fresh meat, but serving on a corvette qualified one as a commissioned officer.
The qualification didn¡¯t come with a rank, and served to indicate that the individual went through the required training and gained the relevant experience to serve in the role they were serving in aboard their vessel. Any Captain of a ship-of-the-line would laugh in Dav¡¯s face had he sent in a transfer request asking to fill the role of a dedicated gunnery officer, rank and all.
A 25-meter Corvette is not quite like a five kilometer battleship, they would say.
And yet, here he was, sitting in the Bridge of the ¡®Resurrection¡¯, with the Custodian floating to his right. To the floating sphere, his qualification gained in a sweaty room with eight other guys was enough to be installed as the ¡®weapons¡¯ master¡¯ of a ten-kilometer alien dreadnought that dwarfed any Cephia Leviathan by a significant factor.
Of course, there were no weapons ready, or even able to fire on board the vessel ¨C according to the Custodian the ship took critical damage millions of years ago. This was being remedied ¨C once he¡¯d given his permission for it, several car-sized drones entered the hangar and dismantled his vessel in seconds and absconded with the reactor. A few minutes later, the ship had come to life, lights flickering on in its corridors.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
The Custodian claimed that the damage was fixable, but required help from something that he could not reveal to him just yet, but apparently the energy from the experimental reactor was being used to top off the emergency batteries, start up another auxiliary generator, and fuel the massive nanite vats somewhere in the ships.
He still couldn¡¯t wrap his brain around the concept.
The Empire, and through it, humanity, had experimented with nanotechnology for hundreds of years, but had never managed to achieve sufficient control and miniaturization of mechanical systems to create real nanobots that could do significant work.
Most companies and laboratories besides a few theoretical institutes simply decided to put it aside ¨C in most cases, macro-scale engineering was sufficient, and when it wasn¡¯t you could usually bioengineer some microbe to do it for you, which was how Old Terra¡¯s oceans were cleaned up to begin with.
The few projects that were successful created a ¡°Grey Goo¡± scenario ¨C and after the loss of a research station that simply went ¡®pop¡¯ and turned into a silvery semi-sentient goop blob in orbit, further experimentation was restricted in scale, and was to be carried out remotely and around a convenient sun or other similar natural disposal site. And yet, this mysterious species had vats of the magical machines sitting around, and even put some inside him.
Vat used the mental trigger that he¡¯d set up with Custodian¡¯s help, and brought up his status display.
In a rectangular screen the calming shade of blue, was his entire medical history, injury status, current chemical processes in his body, and even lifestyle suggestions, extrapolated simply by the nanites¡¯ exploration of his body.
The ¡®master-slave array¡¯ layout used a central construct with a small quantum computer a few millimeters in size, and controlled the ¡®slave¡¯ nanites via differentiated ¡®sergeant¡¯ nanites that distributed commands at lightning speed. They used the materials in his body to procreate, and could even temporarily replace damaged cells while encouraging the growth of the new cell rapidly. This reminded Dav that he was no longer fully human.
He still struggled with the Custodian¡¯s words.
The procedure Dav had went through had cured him of all his small aches and pains, and even that niggling dig in the shoulder he had from the time he got catapulted out of a parked fighter by the ejector seat by accident. No human chiropractor could figure out what had happened to that shoulder, but somehow these alien robots did.
And then there was the matter of his ¡®improved¡¯ genetics.
According the Custodian, since he accepted the terms of the contract, he was now allowed to know the name of the mysterious race which had created this vessel.
The ¡®Seraphim¡¯, as they translated into common-speak, were surprisingly human in shape ¨C two hands and two legs, a torso and a head. This was apparently a universal trend among carbon-based life forms in the Milky Way. While some had more limbs or less, there were very few exceptions to this, like an amoeba-like species that dwelt in ocean worlds and simply flew around space with those very oceans, when they migrated from world to world every several tens of thousands of years.
Apparently they were one of the most advanced races of their time, until some sort of war happened. The details of the conflict were classified according to the Custodian, but most of the major civilizations collapsed, at which point this very vessel was sent out, got caught up in an ambush, and hurtled into unknown space until this very day.
And now Dav had some of their genes inside him ¨C which kind of worried him, since human rights kind of applied only to humans in the legal context. Of course, with the Cephia things had been mixed around quite a bit and there was talk of a sweeping amendment to the basic principles of the Empire, but the gears of bureaucracy turn slowly and eat up no-names like him.
The Custodian explained to him that, according to the treaty, the genetic uplifting of newly discovered races was allowed but restricted to specific conditions ¨C this was done because much of the technology used by the uplifting races was genetically locked, and so it was often necessary to forcefully ¡®uplift¡¯ ambassadors from the ranks of the new races.
Asking how this did not contradict the clause about genetic experimentation and mutilation of the treaty made the Custodian chuckle ¨C ¡°Experimentation? The genetic code of the Seraphim that now graces your cells has been fine-tuned for thousands of years by the best minds and verified countless times before being approved for use. The Seraphim do not ¡®compromise¡¯, ¡®settle¡¯, or choose anything else but the best of the best.¡±
Asking about the nature of the genes he¡¯d received simply got him a ¡°wait and see¡± from the chrome beach-ball, which he was used to considering his former military association but never the less unhappy with.
This was also stipulated in the contract between Dav and the Resurrection.
The Custodian had insisted that Dav was contracted to the ship itself, and not to it, saying again and again it was alive. Dav had asked if it was an AI, an artificial intelligence, and received ¡®No¡¯ for an answer. Asking for an explanation got him nowhere.
The contract mandated several things:
Dav had sworn to serve and protect the Resurrection, its interest and crew ¨C and in return, would do the same. He was to take up a role as a crew member, his past military knowledge taken into account, and would serve as an ambassador between the Resurrection and any human entity or organization, as well as Cephia. While Dav had explained matters regarding the Gremlin, the Custodian had replied that unless they directly attacked the Resurrection, it could not provoke the first strike against an unknown space-faring species on the words of another.
The Custodian itself was very quiet, replying in short sentences or single words, at times resorting to simple text messages to Dav¡¯s new visual interface, straight through the new Seraphim implants. Its entire being was currently troubleshooting a massive vessel that had been neglected for eons.
After several hours, it had found Dav in the bridge.
¡°It¡¯s time, Weapon¡¯s Master Dav. We shall commence the awakening the Resurrection. Your assistance is required.¡±