Song of the Void

”If you expect the universe to make sense and be consistent, you’re in for a disappointment. Even more so if you expect people within to act in logical ways, but I think that’s more generally accepted. It’s perhaps because the actions of people are so illogical that we hope that at least the universe itself would make sense, and for the most part it does. If you were to make bets for things to work in ways that followed the laws of the universe and in a consistent manner, you'd be right most of the time. I'd even go as far as to say that you'd be right 95% of the time. It's that last 5% that gives us so much trouble, because those occasional inconsistencies often have far-reaching consequences. And then there is just blind luck and pure coincidence, both of which make things even more complicated."

- High Ambassador of the Mrrroww

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"Master, we've reached the point where we can take temporary control of all the enemy ships and static defenses," Nox announced, rousing Selendil from her meditation.

“How temporary are we talking about?” Selendil asked, as the answer might determine a lot about their next step.

“It’s hard to say for certain. It depends on how the Dawn Collective’s AIs decide to fight us, and how hard they will try to resist. If they focus on getting just a few of their ships free instead of fighting on all fronts, we’re talking about maybe ten hours. If they try to fight us on a wider front and with less intense effort, we’re talking about anything between a few days to weeks.” Haven replied on Nox’s behalf. Haven was in charge of this part of the project, so his estimates were more accurate.

“That should be enough even if they decide to be smart. You said their ships and static defenses. I assume that means their ground forces will still be operational?” She noted something that Nox’s earlier words implied.

“That’s correct. There are simply too many small units to effectively take over without being noticed. The facility is also likely to be fairly heavily defended. Their planetary forces might also have systems that can fire into space. We tried to be thorough in our search, but we can’t be certain, as they can be powered down and the surface is simply covered with too many systems to be sure.” Nox was quiet for a moment. “The defenders within the facility might not be a threat to you, but the others might be at risk. I doubt the enemy would do anything too crazy to risk the station, but it’s hard to be sure with AIs that can restore themselves from a backup.”

“Yet, I doubt they are all willing to stay behind.” She gave a small sigh. “Give the signal and once everyone is in position, disable the synthetics. Then jump us to the facility.”

A short warning klaxon sounded inside the ship. Nox had used the sound at the request of the other crew members as they all knew what it meant and knew to act accordingly. There was no great rush of action as they had all been expecting this and were ready and raring to go. Everyone had reached their positions within a few minutes and the entire Dawn Collective fleet suddenly went dark. The Enduring Symphony made a short phase jump to reach the facility and faced no resistance.

Selendil had already signaled that those interested in risking their lives by boarding the facility were welcome to join her in the hangar. The only exceptions were Amaterasu and Lilly who had to stay on the ship. Unsurprisingly, the usual suspects had already arrived when Selendil teleported into the hangar. They were on the Dhar shuttles that Selendil had repaired, or wearing the mech suits she had lent them.

“Alright, pay attention!” Selendil raised her voice to have everyone get serious for a moment, albeit unnecessarily. They were all looking at her in eager expectation already. “I will teleport into the facility first and clear us a landing zone. You are then free to follow. Nox will give you a safe navigation path to follow. Don’t take crazy risks and stay alert. The enemy still has defenses inside the facility, and we are working on a timer, albeit a relatively lax one. Nox will keep us updated. Haven and Nox will also both monitor the camera feeds from your suits for the things I’m looking for, but do contact me if anything odd or troublesome comes up. Move out, and happy hunting!”

With a small flash, Selendil vanished and appeared beside the ship wearing nothing but simple battle attire designed to accommodate her movements and focus her abilities. Her mech would not be practical inside the facility even at its smallest size and she didn't need a suit to survive in the vacuum. With another teleport, she appeared inside the hangar they had chosen as a landing site. It seemed the enemy had also done a tactical analysis in the short time that had passed and the hangar was filled with enemy droids that were fully mechanical, as well as some androids that also had parts that imitated biological tissue.

The enemy opened fire as the brief flash from her teleport had drawn their attention, on purpose as she could suppress the flash, and all their fire was deflected away by her psionic shield. With a wave of her tails, all of the hundreds of enemies were rendered to scrap as millions of tiny threads of psionic energy sliced into them. This was not the most effective technique she possessed but it was one of her favorites for a reason. It was neat, effective, and didn’t cause much in the way of collateral damage, unlike some of her more explosive abilities.

‘The landing zone is clear.’ She sent a mental communication that Nox relayed to the others. ‘Take note that the facility seems to be depressurized, but it has gravity.’ They had been prepared for the possibility of neither system being operational, so gravity being activated made things easier. At the same time, her threads of power traveled down the various passages and destroyed any enemies they came into contact with.

She knew the others would be smart enough to not wander off on their own and would move as large groups. That would help them deal with any opposition she missed. They also had several skilled psions along, and the enemies had very little defense against their powers. Nox and Haven had located the experimental psi disruptors and they were not anywhere close to this facility, probably because they interfered with the facility's operation. As she was aware of the usual layout of these kinds of facilities, she picked the direction most likely to lead towards the area where the facility would store everything it produced.

She had not moved very far along the dark corridors when Nox sent a message. “The ground forces and the building crews of the megaproject are starting to make moves. The ground crews are planning something as they seem to be moving out some heavy equipment. If I were to make a guess, they are pulling out weapons that might be able to fire at us from the surface. I doubt it will be very effective, but I thought I’d let you know.”

“Hmm, move the ship in a position where every time their shots miss, those shots will hit the megaproject instead. And then have them miss a few times to drive the point home. I’d say using the facility would work too, but I don’t want the facility fired upon while we’re on it.” Selendil considered for a moment. “They might decide to fire on the facility anyway if they get desperate enough, so be prepared to defend the facility. You have my permission to fire on the ground targets if that happens.”

“Acknowledged. Incidentally, the enemy is so far trying the wide approach to freeing themselves from our control, so take your time.” Nox added.

“Good. That will make things easier.” Selendil stated with a satisfied nod. It always reduced the chance of mistakes cropping up if you were not pressed for time. The response from the enemy was expected and the correct one in most situations. This simply wasn’t one of those situations.

“Is there no lighting in this facility?” Came a complaint over the comms, from one of Xiaoli’s men by the sounds of it. “I hate fighting in the dark.”

“The enemy is filled with synthetics that don’t like to rely on sight. Of course the lighting would be disabled, idiot.” Came the expected reply from Xiaoli.

“What are the walls and floor made of?” Nochehuatl asked as well. It seems the Coatl science officer had decided to join on their little trip. “I can’t recognize the material. It’s not any metal I know of, and it’s not exactly any sort of plastic polymer either. It’s much too hard for that. It’s different from the material used in the auxiliary arms of the Enduring Symphony, but also somewhat similar.”

“It’s a synthetic compound material made from a combination of material similar to your graphene and a crystal that grows in certain galaxies. It’s actually similar in nature to what you would call biological in that it can actually be grown, though not quite in the sense that you grow plants or biological lifeforms. It can be grown when it’s still in an active state by injecting it with large amounts of energy. It’s much more pliable in that state. Once the energy flow is cut, the material enters an inert state and hardens.” Haven gave a brief explanation. “It’s a rather common building material where we didn’t need to maximize the defensive capabilities against weapons or psionics.”

While the others were still chattering, Selendil reached her destination. The large secure doors were still closed and there were signs of concerted efforts to get through them. It seemed some of the security features had held over the years. The materials used for the walls and the doors might not have been the sturdiest the Dhar had ever developed, but that didn’t mean it would yield to anything less than concentrated bombardment from a very determined warship. Or a psion with expertise in getting through such materials. The Dawn collective didn’t have psions and didn’t want to risk the facility with bombardment to just open a few doors so the contents should be safe.

She knew that Nox could open the door, but she also knew the AI would not be happy to do so. This was the domain of the dead VI, and it would be impolite of Nox to enter these systems deep enough to operate secure doors. It was one of the weird quirks of etiquette among the Dhar AI. That was also the reason why Haven had to get Nox’s permission to come along on their ship. Even with that etiquette in place, Nox would do it if Selendil asked, but she decided to spare the AI from the digital faux pas this time.

Four large and glowing psionic blades materialized in front of her and pierced into the door. With a small twist, they made a circular motion and a large hole was created in the door. The large storehouse on the other side was neatly divided into sections. Every section held a certain type of good the facility could produce. As the facility was not given any specific orders before the plague took the Dhar, it ended up producing a bit of everything it could and had the materials for. Endless rows of various materials and containers lay stacked along the storage room that was much larger inside than its dimensions outside would allow it to be. Some of the contents would be the type that could not survive the long years, but most of it was still usable.

‘I think we’ve solved any material troubles for the time being.’ Selendil commented silently. The warehouse had everything from construction materials and heavy machinery to nanites ranging from industrial to medical grade. The facility was not a specialized one that could make the nanites the most powerful psions like the Keepers used in their bodies, but these nanites were good enough for everyone else. They sure as hell beat everything her crew members had access to. Khaemwasest would be especially excited, which meant that the perverted doctor would try to make another pass at her. Maybe she shouldn’t inform him until tomorrow….

“It seems this facility was the major industrial center of this galaxy at some point. I have a feeling other facilities delivered their goods here as well. Some of these look ancient enough to predate the plague.” Nox commented. It was not uncommon for one facility to be designated as the hub for all materials in every galaxy. This place seemed to be it.

‘Well, let’s grab everything and move on. We can sort through them later on. Even if some of it doesn’t function anymore, we can always recycle them as raw materials for our fabricators. Have the storage rooms on the ship prepared while I warp everything on board.’ Selendil decided reasonably. The fabricators could create almost everything, but it was much faster if they didn’t have to create everything from scratch. Turning a pile of metal into a torpedo was much faster than using a bunch of hydrogen as the building blocks.

With a flash, the contents of the room started disappearing. Selendil could've warped everything at once, but the storage facilities on board the ship would need to be extended to house all this. The storage capacity of the ship could become nigh infinite, but it was not kept at maximum capacity all the time. For one, the spatial extension required a small trickle of energy, and for another, there was no point in having a storage space the size of a small city if it was holding only a bit of content.

‘I don’t think we found what we came for though.’ Selendil mused silently, not expecting any reply. To her surprise, she did get one in a way.

“Uh, Selendil. I think we might have a need for you. I think we might have located the main power core of the station, but there’s a door in the way that we can’t get through. Even Xiaoli tried but her threads barely even scratched the door.” Moonshadow’s voice came over the comms.

“The power core?” Selendil asked a little surprised. Why would they start with that when there were so many more interesting places to explore?

“Yes, well, you did mention that you were looking for things to help start the main power of the Enduring Symphony, so we thought this would be a good place to get started.” Moonshadow replied.

‘I think I failed to explain to them that the cores of facilities like these are not the same as those on warships like ours.’ Selendil thought with some amusement.

“You might as well check it out. We might find something useful.” Nox pointed out.

Selendil happened to agree, so with a thought she teleported to the location of Moonshadow and it seemed almost everyone else that had come aboard. “Did you face resistance?” She asked as she arrived.

The fact that she wasn’t wearing any protection inside the depressurized station made some of them a bit nervous, but they would get over it. “We ran into some droids on the way, but had no trouble taking care of them. It seems your threads did a good job. We saw the remains on the way.” Xiaoli replied.

Selendil was just about to make another hole in the door but realized that it might be unwise. "Nox, can you check that the other side of the door is safe? It would be quite disappointing if the room was flooded with radiation."

“The room is relatively safe.” Nox replied after a second or two. “The core has leaked a bit of radiation, but the leak is small and it happened fairly recently, so it hasn’t had the opportunity to really become a problem just yet.”

Having been reassured, Selendil waved her hand and the psionic blades made a return. “I would keep your distance if I were you. There’s a bit of radiation near the core. Not enough to be a real problem, but I wouldn’t take any chances unless you have to.”

Despite her warning, nearly everyone went through the hole she had created, mainly because they wanted to see another type of power core created by the Dhar in operation. Selendil gave the floating orb rotating at the center of the core a cursory glance and walked around the large circular room. Her attention was drawn to the area where the dangerous materials were stored. Some of the things created by the facility needed to be radiation shielded and some of the spare parts used in the maintenance of the facility were too dangerous to leave lying around.

The containment chamber that housed these materials was there for a reason and she didn’t want to just cut it open, so she simply teleported past the door. There were some defenses in place against others with similar abilities, but they didn’t apply to Dhar. To be more exact, she knew how to get around them, though she noted those defenses were no longer operational anyway. The chamber was almost as full as the warehouse had been, which surprised Selendil. Even if this facility was the central gathering point for such things, there usually wasn’t such a large number of dangerous materials. In fact, she had expected the place to be empty.

“Master, I think we found something!” Nox suddenly exclaimed and gave Selendil instructions towards the back of the chamber. There they found three large transparent cube-shaped containers. Two held a small amount of some dark liquid, while one of them was softly glowing. One could see at a glance that it seemed the softly glowing cube somehow managed the brightness of the contents as the glow looked a lot less bright than it should have.

"Why are these here?" Selendil asked in shock. The glowing cube was exactly the type of seed they used in the main cores of warships, although one that had been used before and later removed and placed in suspended animation. The two others were materials that had been refined almost to the point of being ready to use as new cores. "This galaxy doesn't have the capacity to make these, and I don't think it had any shipyards either."

“I’m not sure, but the fact is that they are here. That’s all we need to know in my opinion.” Nox replied.

“That’s not good enough for me. This is too odd to be just a coincidence. We need to find out what’s going on.” Selendil argued. She was happy to find them as well, but she didn’t trust coincidence like this. When something seemed too good to be true, it usually was. “Let’s take everything we can use. Also, get into what’s left of the station VI’s data. I want to know if you can find anything about these.”