Song of the Void

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”Any ideas? I don’t care if it’s just a guess at this point.” Selendil wanted some answers and she wanted them now. The white ships had gotten her attention.

"The ships are gone, so either they traveled somewhere or they were destroyed," Xiaoli suggested carefully. It was important to start from the basics and work your way up.

“The energy buildup did not have the characteristics of a reactor overload, and there’s no debris.” Nox reported. “So unless we’re looking at some kind of new phasing technology or the strangest self-destruct we’ve ever seen, the ships were not destroyed. Aside from the one we shot down that is.”

“Start recovering the debris from that ship for analysis," Selendil commanded immediately. She had forgotten the ship they had destroyed.

"Already on it," Amaterasu announced from her station.

“The energy readings Nox gave me do not read as something that is connected with phase space. In fact, we can’t detect any spatial disturbances at all. I can’t detect any radiation we usually see in connection with phase jumps either, other than the bit that was released by the rift our weapon created. I don’t think we’re dealing with something that concerns the standard method of travel. We’re dealing with something entirely new.” Nochehuatl analyzed.

“Is it just me, or does this have a similar ring to it as warp travel?” Moonshadow asked. There were similarities, although they were not the same.

“It’s not warp travel though.” Nox also argued. “Warping leaves behind certain traces that I could detect. Those traces would disappear over time, but I would be able to tell if they warped right in front of us. The traces are not significant, but if you know what you’re looking for, you can be pretty sure.”

“Something that achieves similar results then?” Lilly suggested and they all looked towards Selendil.

Selendil was quiet for a while as she consulted the scientists whose knowledge she was storing. "It's too early to make judgments. I can't deny the possibility though. The Dhar were advanced but it would be the height of hubris to say we knew everything. They may have developed something we never even considered, just because we didn’t have to.” She finally said.

“Do we have survivors from the battle?” Moonshadow suggested. “Scan for escape pods.”

"I can't detect any for now," Amaterasu stated. "It seems we arrived when the battle was still relatively early and it seems the ships on both sides specialize in being able to take a certain amount of punishment. Some of the black ships had taken damage but they were still operational. The only destroyed ship was the one we shot down, and their main reactor didn’t exactly react well when subjected to an unstable phase rift. That ship went up in a way that doesn’t leave much hope for survivors.”

“Fighters?” Xiaoli asked. She assumed the hasty retreat might have left some behind.

“The black ships evacuated all their fighters even though they left in a hurry. The fighters of the white ships disappeared via the same method as the larger ships.” Nochehuatl reported.

"That's odd," Selendil said suddenly. "Even assuming their larger ships are capable of some sort of travel we are unfamiliar with, how did they pack a drive like that into the fighters? I’ve had to personally warp the shuttles we’ve been using.”

“Maybe the large ships can somehow extend their capability to the fighters?” Xiaoli suggested. “In fact, that seems like the only explanation.”

“I have a tactical analysis that might shed a bit of light on that.” Nox interjected.

“Go ahead.” Selendil prompted a little impatiently.

“Their technology seems to revolve around energy generation. Their ships were essentially just enormous power cores given some battle capabilities. The power core took more than half of their ship in fact. Because of this, their weapons and shields take advantage of their considerable energy production ability. I suspect most of their weapons will be either direct energy weapons or at least those that benefit greatly from abundant energy. Their shields were also stronger than we expected, mostly thanks to their ample power supply. Yet even with that, the output of their cores spiked noticeably before they disappeared. I suspect that whatever happened requires vast quantities of energy, and the small ships are not able to generate enough by themselves. Thus the larger vessels have been developed with the idea of taking along smaller ones even while they are deployed. They are sort of motherships that take care of travel. I’m not even sure that the smaller ships took part in the jump or whatever that was. It could’ve been done just by the largest vessel.” Nox speculated. They all realized it was complete guesswork, but it sounded feasible at least.

“The first pieces of debris are being brought in. Incidentally, we’ve recovered some charred bodies as well. We can’t tell much yet, and I doubt we’ll get too many details from the remains, but I can already tell one thing.” Nochehuatl announced. “The crew of that ship was made up of more than one race. The two first corpses are completely different in size and shape.”

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A complete analysis of the debris would take a while but they had some initial results fairly soon, though those results just mostly confirmed what they already knew. The materials used were high quality and of a technological level above even the Mrrroww. The ship really was designed with power generation and distribution in mind, as they found channels used to distribute vast quantities of energy all over the remains of the ship. They also discovered the remains of at least five species among the debris. It was hard to give an exact number as the corpses were so damaged. Some of the bodies could have been separate species or members of a single species that had a large variance in the biology between its members. Even after running tests on what remained of their DNA, they couldn’t say for sure, as the variance in the DNA was still enough to count as a new species, but it was still less than the difference between a Human from the Tetrarchy, and a genetically engineered member of the Illum.

They did make a discovery while scanning through the system where the battle had taken place in. The system was less empty than they had first assumed. More specifically, they found an abandoned base near the battle. The base was barely more than a supply base, but it did explain the location of the battle. It seemed the base had been cleared in a hurry, and the databases had been wiped only partially. Nox was scraping together some sort of language files from the fragments, but for now, they had not found any really useful information.

Most of what they had managed to decipher were logistics reports one would expect to find at a supply base. It also seemed there was some sort of war going on as they found vague references to it, but they didn’t even know who the participants were. It just seemed like there was an implicit assumption that anyone reading the documents would know what they were talking about. The situation was eerily similar to the one with the Cortoids. When they had arrived at the galaxy that the Cortoids inhabited, they had found an abandoned base with vague texts as well, and things had not turned out great. The similarity of the situation wasn’t as odd as one would assume though, as both times they had arrived on the very fringes of the galaxy, in an area that was not likely to see much development.

“So it seems that we’ll have to find some civilization again to figure out more, despite how badly it went last time. The question is, which way do we go? On one side we have the white ships that have multiple races and use an unknown method of travel. Assuming that was a method of travel, which we still haven’t fully determined by the way. On the opposite side, we have the black ships that we don’t really know anything about, aside from the fact that they use phase travel.” Amaterasu analyzed.

“The group with more races are more likely to have varied ship styles, so we would fit in better, but we can’t really tell if we’ll be revealed the moment we come out of phase space. On the other hand, the other party might be a monoculture with just one ship type. The white side could have just one cohesive style as well if they’re all under a single government and navy, so the odds are kind of iffy either way.” Nochehuatl pointed out, rambling a bit.

“I say we go where the white ships went to.” Moonshadow announced. “We came into conflict with them, but that’s because they attacked us first instead of trying to negotiate. That said, we did drop in on them in the middle of a battle and fired on their fighters, even if it was in self-defense. It would be better if we could resolve that problem before things get out of hand entirely. We don’t actually want to start a war, and they are the ones with the technology we’re interested in.”

“That’s all good and fine, except we don’t know where the white ships vanished, remember?” Xiaoli said with a bit of snark.

“That’s not too difficult to figure out.” Moonshadow said. “Just go the opposite way from where the black ships went. We’ll hit something eventually.”

“A bit of a crude method, but it could work," Xiaoli admitted grudgingly.

“Just, could you let me handle this Selendil? The last time this happened, we ended up dropping a bunch of Shinzen Queens on an unsuspecting galaxy." Moonshadow asked. "I'd rather not end up in a war with a second galaxy if we can help it. These people haven’t really done any crimes against the Dhar either. So maybe we could keep this one from turning into another galaxy-spanning war?”

"You're really lacking in ambition." Selendil joked. "The Dhar were almost always at war with at least a handful of galaxies. Besides, you were handling it the last time as well. Look how well that turned out.”

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"'Just go the opposite direction' she said," Xiaoli said in a sarcastic voice. "'We'll hit something eventually' she said."

“Hey, we did hit something.” Moonshadow said a little defensively. They had arrived at a nearby system that seemed to have been turned into a graveyard of ships. Most of them were the black vessels, and there were hundreds of the wrecks, but there were some of the white ships as well. They were fewer in number, but they had still suffered losses.

“I’m detecting the remains of a phase space inhibitor. The inhibitor has been disabled, but it’s still relatively in one piece. Well, five pieces actually, but you get the point.” Nox had returned to a more relaxed tone already.

They had traveled along a natural phase lane before arriving in the system. “So this was a choke point of sorts, similar to the one the Mrrroww tried to use against the Shinzen. Or a trap. But by which side?” Xiaoli asked a rather important question.

"Well, the black side seems to have gotten their asses handed to them. Assuming they have asses." Lilly suggested.

“That might not be an accurate measure.” Ka’eo pointed out. He was guarding the door to the bridge for some reason that no one could quite figure out. They all assumed it was out of habit. It’s not like anyone would attack the bridge, and if anyone did, the people on the bridge were more than capable of defending themselves. “When we’re hunting large and dangerous predators, we sometimes consider the hunt a success even if we lose many of our number in exchange for the life of one predator. That’s because we aren’t hunting for food. We’re hunting to save more lives in the future.”

"I think I get your point," Xiaoli said with a nod of agreement. "This is still a pretty bad ratio though. The losses of the black ships are almost ten to one.”

"Well, the white ships were winning in the previous battle despite being down on numbers. It wasn't a ratio like this, but it seemed like they were winning rather decisively." Amaterasu speculated. "Their ships are also much larger, so the working out a fair rate of exchange is quite difficult. However, the presence of the inhibitor does imply that the trap was laid against the black ships. Unless the white ships also use phase travel regularly.”

“The white ships had also advanced in the direction we came from.” Nochehuatl pointed out.

“That might or might not mean anything. The border between them might be relatively fluid. I’m not saying we shouldn’t consider it, but it’s not really something we can use as a reliable basis.” Amaterasu dismissed the idea.

“Any luck in finding an intact database we can use?” Selendil asked the science officer working together with Nox.

“No, though that doesn’t shock me. It’s relatively common to make sure such databases are recovered even in our galaxy. The winners of this fight likely did the same.” Nochehuatl replied. “I’ll keep trying but I’m not hopeful. I did find something else though. The cores of the destroyed white ships have also been recovered, but some of the ships had taken too much damage for full a recovery. From the remains of their cores left behind, I can estimate that they are using some sort of matter-antimatter reactor, though I suspect that’s not the whole story. Nox has detected several places where the white ships seem to be using psionically enhanced technology, so I would not be surprised if their cores were the same.”

“What about the black ships?” Selendil noted that Nochehuatl had only referred to the white ships.

“We focused on the white ships at first because they seem more advanced and there’s less remaining of their ships, so the analysis of the black ships is still in the early stages. So far we've seen slight traces of psionic tampering, but not to the extent that we can see on the white ships. A quick estimate places them somewhere around the tech level of the Mrrroww, though with some notable differences.” Nochehuatl confirmed her suspicion.

Suddenly the sound of someone clearing their throat sounded from the doorway to the bridge. Ka’eo had placed his hand in front of Miyo to stop her from entering fully. “Is this a bad time?” Miyo asked.

"It's not the best of times, but it could've been worse," Amaterasu asked, assuming the young woman was here for her. "What brings you here?"

“Well. We had scheduled a time for another round of questions with Selendil. She did not show at the appointed time. Now, I realize that we’re busy with the new galaxy and the meeting was scheduled some time ago, so I’m not surprised she had other things to do. I merely wanted to confirm if it’s happening today, or if we need to push it back to some other day?” Miyo explained.

The impulsive way in which Selendil did things and the way the situations developed seemingly almost at random made scheduling difficult. Yet many people on board benefitted from schedules, and Miyo was one of the people that just wanted to make things work for everyone. "This might not be the best time," Amaterasu said carefully. They had other concerns at the moment after all.

“On the contrary. I think now is a perfect time.” Moonshadow disputed Amaterasu’s words immediately. “We don’t need to make any immediate decisions as we analyze the debris. You might not have a lot of time for questions, but it might be a welcome break.” She didn’t mention that she also thought it might be best for Selendil to get her mind off the new and undiscovered technology. Maybe they would be able to avoid other problems like with the Cortoids if Selendil had more time to think and settle her thoughts. Reminiscing on the past was a good way to do that.

Selendil was a bit amused by the difference between Moonshadow and Amaterasu. Amaterasu was more task-oriented, while Moonshadow seemed to be more worried about her mentality. She wasn't sure if she appreciated being treated like something that would rampage at the drop of a hat though. She had rampaged just once! And even that one time resulted in a simple and tiny galaxy-spanning war. No big deal. Still, there was something that neither of them had mentioned. “While I think the timing could be better, I believe promises should be kept, even if I am a bit late to it. Now is as good a time as any we’ll have in the short term I suppose.”

Amaterasu was less pleased by the situation. She didn't mind opposing views being voiced on the bridge. She thought it was essential in fact, as that was what a bridge crew was for. They had to be able to present differing views. However, she was displeased in the way Moonshadow had done it. It had not been offered as an alternative opinion. Moonshadow had rather blatantly implied that she was wrong and that her opinion could be ignored. That in itself was impolite, to say the least, though not the extent of it. Amaterasu recognized she could be wrong, and she was glad when it was pointed out. But Moonshadow had done it quite bluntly as if directly challenging her authority in the face of the rest of the officers. There were better ways of doing such things.

She doubted that the Mrrroww had done it for the explicit purpose of challenging her. It was likely just the way the High Ambassador was used to dealing with others, as she was usually the highest or at least the second-highest ranked person in the room. She was used to her words carrying weight. This wasn’t the first time Moonshadow had done it though, and Amaterasu doubted that as a diplomat she would be unaware of the implications. At some point, the two of them would need to have a discussion before these sorts of things became a real issue. Selendil largely ignored such byplays because she was the undisputed leader on the ship. However, Amaterasu’s position was less obvious. Selendil had put Amaterasu in her current position, but she had done it mostly as a matter of convenience and the order of arrival. Even Ka’aukai might have a word to say if this matter really became a problem.

Amaterasu knew this one incident wasn’t really a big one and was feeling a bit like she was making a big deal out of something small, but it was just one example among several. As much as she and Moonshadow had become friendly over time, they still felt a bit like rivals at times too. And she didn’t feel like handing over her position to someone else.