Starship Engineer

Chapter 127

One-Nine-Seven-Six looked at his screen again. It was another blip in the adjacent galaxy. The being, a humanoid male by current choice in his appearance, moved to other screens. Seven-Nine-One-Seven had his vessel in that universe. Why had it not responded to the blip? The ripple in subspace must have reached its vessel. Yet he didn’t even send a report to let Central know he was investigating. He moved to another screen and found Seven-Nine-One-Seven had not reported in a very long time.

One-Nine-Secen-Six reported the lack of response by Seven-Nine-One-Seven to the Central Control over seventy galaxies away. The Central Control immediately responded. He was to go and investigate the adjacent galaxy and report back on the fate of Seven-Nine-One-Seven. After that, he was directed to investigate the subspace disturbance. Nine-Nine-One-Seven was being directed to take over his duty in this galaxy.

He started to run the calculations and pull his Purge ships from the planet below. The race that once occupied the planet had discovered secrets that could not be learned. He and his fellows were created to deal with this, to monitor the universe. His massive planet-sized vessel started to rumble as it powered up. Some of his fellows liked to take species into their vessel as curiosities and relieve their boredom. He did not see the purpose in keeping a zoo of eradicated species. He preferred completely purging a species. That way, they couldn’t rise again and threaten the order of the universe. That is why they were created, to protect the universe from upstart races delving into technology that they could not safely handle.

He looked at his chronometer; traveling between galaxies took time. The emptiness was not always empty either. He would go into hibernation for this voyage, though. When he emerged in the new galaxy, he would find his missing fellow and then deal with the race that was causing the disturbance. His tendril ships had all been retrieved. He slipped his vessel into the highest band of subspace, and the planet below was shattered into a multitude of pieces—leaving a trail of debris that was millions of kilometers long. The star at the center of the system was spun and disrupted, instantly becoming a pulsar.

The Malevolents, the beings the Sylvan feared, were returning to the galaxy.

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We were ordered to orbit a moon around a rocky planet for three days while they decided if they would allow us to approach the Glyth homeworld. It was understandable, as we had essentially bypassed their sensor net completely. They would probably press us for the technology even if they let us trade. From our interactions with members of the Alliance to date, the Glyth were definitely the most interested in assimilating new technology. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were secretly experimenting with AI behind the other race’s backs.

Unfortunately, Julie had nothing to hack into to help us find out our fate. Our scanners showed us the Alliance maintained an integrated fleet, and the Glyth maintained a private one. They worked together in defense of the system, but the Gylth ships remained closer to the inhabited planet. The planet that was the Glyth homeworld was a beautiful piece of engineering. Needle-like buildings created porcupine-like cities that were surrounded by lush green forests.

They allowed us to refuel and resupply while we waited. They were still determining if they would allow us to trade at a station. The Gaians, not remaining on board, were left to seek employment in one of the Glyth cities. Apparently, the Alliance had laws that required races within the Alliance to provide employment to other races. From my understanding, I was surprised since the human colony was not part of the Alliance, from my understanding. They were just permitted to establish a colony and trade within the Alliance. I had a sense that there was something more going on than Senator Alfonzo had revealed to me.

We were finally allowed to dock at a station orbiting the planet on our third day in the system. It was also their opportunity to scan our ship thoroughly. They were going to be disappointed as we were certain their scans were not going to be able to penetrate our hull, no matter how powerful they were. I gave them samples of the hull to show them their futility. I had already given up samples of the layered hull back at the Ringworld system. Without a molecular printer, which required an AI to function, I had doubts they could produce the layered material.

After we docked, Damian still wanted about a week for maintenance on the FTL system. He was in new territory, maintaining the subspace drive that consumed phased fuel. The Squirrel physicists were trying to help but just caused Damian more headaches as they wanted to run diagnostics more than help with the maintenance.

I limited the crew’s shore leave on the station and had Abby keep a dozen Marines in suits the entire time we were docked. The Glyth were constantly contacting the ship requesting a technology exchange. They were unwilling to give up anything I valued, but we did have minor transactions. The most significant exchange was the luxury meal fabricator that Gabby had repaired, and then, we converted to make a slightly better-tasting algae meal bar. In return, we were given a wide array of the Alliance’s digital library. It contained multiple Alliance races’ history, philosophy, stories, and vid shows.

It had been a win-win for me. I removed the massive piece of mostly useless equipment, making space for another small lab. I also got a lot of data for Julie to analyze. I tasked her to figure out the mindset of all the races in the Alliance—their motivations, political leanings, and societal norms. I tasked two steward bots with converting the data to Julie’s core storage.

As the days ticked forward, Damian kept finding more and more issues that needed to be addressed. The maintenance kept drawing out. He was essentially writing the book for phased fuel and the new emitters for traveling in the higher bands—and through all his complaints, he loved it. I assisted him in the process, and I kept putting off the requests by the physicists to move the experiments further forward. They wanted to explore the feasibility of traveling the higher bands.

I refused further experimentation. We needed to confirm the safety of the current emitters and fuel. Besides, we were already transitioning the Union shuttle to prepare for my brother’s and others’ extraction. The increased maintenance and unknowns from using the phased fuel and traveling the higher bands were enough for them to study and perfect before going forward.

It took two weeks in port for Damian to feel comfortable to try the FTL engines again. Our long stay and maintenance were believable as we had transitioned so far inside the system, which should have caused numerous strains on our systems. Well, it should have destroyed the Void Phoenix, or at the very least, killed the entire crew.

With Julie’s database additions, Julie also could delve into the laws of the Alliance and find why they didn’t seem to have much in the way of espionage. The criminal act of espionage on another Alliance member or free trader resulted in the forfeiture of significant assets and rippled further politicly with sanctions.

I think we were fortunate that they didn’t have more modern computer systems that Julie could have hacked. They would have seized the Void Phoneix if she had been discovered while hacking their systems. And the entire crew would have been doing manual labor for a decade. These strict inter-Alliance laws were what held the union together.

Julie had also warned us about going to the planet’s surface even if we wanted to see the marvels of the needle-like superstructures that extended over three kilometers into the sky. Local law superseded Alliance law on planets whose population consummated more than 87.5% of the total populace. And for an origin homeworld like this planet, that just needed to be 50.1% of the total population. The planetary Glyth laws were obscure and easily manipulated, so I ruled no one could travel to the planet.

We did use our sensors to render the planet’s surface and create a VR environment to explore. It gave a very interesting picture of the needle spires. They went just as deep below the surface as above—a mirror image. We got a pretty good picture of their construction methods with the library transfer.

The crew spent their leisure time in port. They rotated to the station for R&R and to experience other cultures. Our shipboard manufacturing proceeded, and we completed 24 Black Widow Spider bots. Gabby even had her first model bot for the Pyruk. She was having trouble getting the spindle-like legs strong enough to be used effectively in combat. Gabby thought that the bot had to be useful if she was recreating the Pyvuk.

Her design concept was to deliver the bots in space to an enemy hull and then have the bots swarm to weapon emplacements and destroy them with a self-destruct. They couldn’t be used inside a ship since they were over four meters in height. Her problems stemmed from the weakness of the limbs, and she did not want to change the bot’s cosmetic nature by doubling its thickness.

I spent half a day giving her suggestions, which she irritably shot down one at a time. Finally, she liked my segmented idea. The legs could be made out of small interlocking segments of the alien hull material. Being in segments would allow the bots to cushion their own impact on a hull, making delivery easier. The legs could curl up on themselves for storage as well. These bots would be one-use bots, so they just needed to survive long enough to land, get to their target, and detonate their payload. The Squirrel were working on designing a stealth torpedo for Gabby to deliver eight of these creations to a capital ship target. Gabby had also come up with a name for the bot, Kamikaze Tick.

Elias had worked endlessly to figure out the new physics of the subspace drive in his navigation calculations. He was still upset that his calculations had been so far off and nearly killed the crew. Elvis, the AI responsible for interpreting the alien sensor data, volunteered that it was his fault for providing faulty data in the original calculations. Elias still blamed himself. The problem was there was too much fluctuation in the new subspace field the new emitters created. The solution they came up with was using the alien sensors in subspace to continuously reorient the navigation data. The scans would give just enough feedback to give us our position in the cosmos.

Elias wanted to make a 17-day subspace trip with the new drive to reach a tiny outpost manned by the Alliance called Lost Sheep. Well, that was what the translator program called the colony. His philosophy was to go big and test out the drive and his new navigational equations. The route would be a direct route instead of following the curvature of the galaxy’s spiral arm. So not only were we making a massive jump, but we were saving time by cutting the curve.

It took Elias two weeks in port and getting Damian on his side to convince him to make the jump. My issue was that we would be in an area of dead space. If the drives failed and we were forced out of subspace, no nearby star systems would exist. Nero came into the conversation, and we were going to stockpile spare emitters and parts for the subspace drive. This jump, if successful, would mean we would be one jump away from catching up to the Union exodus fleet. I think that is what overrode safety-first mentality—the chance of getting this pursuit over sooner rather than later.

I had the crew prepare for the journey as if we were going on a 180-day journey. I viewed it as some healthy paranoia for provisions, life support, and fuel. I even approached the unwilling passengers and gave them the option to get off there. After I explained the danger to the old Union personnel who didn’t meet the screening to become part of our crew, they eagerly joined the Gaians. Well, maybe I over-explained the dangers, as having fewer people meant fewer resources. The Tirani Marines, who got sick during long durations in subspace, almost decided to join them, but Mozzie had also overheard me talking to one of the inconvenient passengers. It took me two hours to explain to Mozzie in private that I was trying to scare the passengers off the ship on purpose.

Elias was the most excited person on the bridge when we departed the station. I had put the safety of the crew in his hands. He was extremely confident. As we made our way out to the outer system, I had Celeste in my lap on the bridge. Amos was milling around Zoe’s pilot seat. The Glyth ships were shadowing us as we approached their sensor net. They were beyond curious as we constantly picked up sensors rolling off the Void Phoenix’s hull. I smiled to myself as the vector we were on was taking us into deep space with no reasonable destination on the vector. When we entered subspace on this vector, it would look like we planned to make a dozen hops in subspace. We had probably taken on enough supplies to do just that.

We transitioned into subspace while watching live video of the bridge of one of the Glyth cruisers shadowing us. Although we did not have audio, the body language of the feathered aliens made it clear they were in disbelief at our chosen path. The legend of the Void Phoenix would ripple through the Alliance.

It took two hours before all stations went to standby mode. It looked like, at least for the start of this voyage, we had no major issues.