Goddess of the Galacticide Episode 30 - Divergence Breach

Episode 30

The research station’s viewport went dark when the Chéé maneuvered alongside the floating structure.

Cha Dzeeny looked up. Not a moment too soon. The battlecruiser’s shields lit up with bright red heat spots. Heavy ordnance tested its protective strength.

“Missile swarms,” he said. “Looks like the destroyers have decided to join us.”

Cha looked at the scientists. “Time to make a decision.”

“Magii shiiv,” cursed the oldest male, and stepped toward a console. “I’m going to shut down the core consciousness containment.”

The marine closest to him aimed at the man, but Cha called him off. “Let him. I knew he was going to be our ‘alternative access’.”

“Magiis traitor!” The bald lady’s voice spewed contempt, but her lank body remained still, appreciating the automatics trained on the group.

“You should thank him,” said Cha. “He is trying to save the team. Maybe they should make him the team leader.”

The oldest male’s hands flew over the touch screen, diving deep into the menu structure, entering access codes and overrides, confirming ‘yes’ twice on red warning screens.

“There will be an alarm,” he said. Only ticks later, the illumination of the control room switched to a hue of red matching the screen. “Containment shells are down.”

“What does the alarm do?” asked Cha.

“Nothing you haven’t triggered already. It alerts the fleet. Losing AI containment was considered to be a critical divergence state.”

The man’s shoulder’s slumped. Like Cha Dzeeny, the scientist also crossed lines he probably could not imagine crossing when he woke up today.

“The AI can take control of the array now.”

“Ghosts, Specter-1. Where are you?”

“Ghost-1. We are closing in on the docked shuttle and will use its airlock to join you.”

“Specter-1. Affirm. Use best speed; things are getting hot out there.”

Another glance through the viewports confirmed the Chéé’s shields shining bright. None of the human-made vessels could penetrate the Võmémééř cruiser’s protective layer, but soon the task force would look for other targets, like the research station itself. Maybe even the sphere drive array. Would the fleet consider incapacitating it, risking losing their functional technological marvel before seeing it dragged away by intruders?

The control room airlock access hissed open. Three Remnant cores entered. The scientists tensed at the sight of full-body Isonomih, used to helpless core consciousnesses laboring in their secure system at their pleasure and call. Cha Dzeeny was fairly certain that petty revenge was not an innate behavior of the intelligent machines. Fairly. Not 100%.

“Ghosts. Glad you made it. Connect with local systems and upload target locations for our new friends.”

“Specter-1, Wraith here. What’s the status? Are they firing up the sphere drive array? Remnant scans show no change in energy output. But they show the Ṭawːtfé̃ having joined the task force. We need to leave!”

The Chéé’s sister ship had arrived, and would end their blockade by force. The strip beams she carried could destroy the Chéé within a few passes.

“Specter-1. We’re feeding triordinates to the slave AI in control of the array. Stand by.”

The Remnant core with the call sign ‘Ghost-1’ confirmed: “Upload completed. Cores inside the control annex confirm intent to launch the array. The dark bubble will envelop our ship.”

Self-preservation won the day. The ghosts in the machine had chosen—and freedom was their choice.

“They warn all organics to prepare for severe side effects caused by the small bubble size.”

Wait. What?

“Warping now.”

***

Cha Dzeeny’s eyes burned. Like a thick liquid, the reflective inside of the sphere bubble dripped into his eye sockets, tearing them out of his skull into the morphing event horizon the alien array created. Unable to direct his view or control focus, the silvery curtain revealed the Chéé’s bombardment to his left and the band of a galactic spiral arm to the right. Both locations were light orbits apart and next to each other at the same time. No motion, yet the negative curvature of the mirror horizon gave the illusion of flow, an accelerating spin, dizzying his senses, nauseating whatever and wherever was left of the body that used to be Cha Dzeeny.

He would beg for it to stop, but his thoughts crawled to a halt, forming a droplet of a plea, turning viscous, almost falling, but never separating. He saw his wide open eyeball above, the event horizon folding back on its helpless observer, bending light, space, time beyond their natural limits. The Shaajis’ pale, motionless face lay below, resting on an altar, her body smeared out toward a whirling infinity.

“Specter-1.” Her voice sounded metallic, like the mirror sphere had flowed down her throat.

“Specter-1.” The reflective veil gave way to a dark cylinder. The sphere drive itself? A dome, tools, blue light and a hum. A Remnant core’s body hovered over Cha.

“Did we make it?” Cha hardly recognized his own voice.

His marines. No training had prepared them for this. If they joined him on the floor… unconscious…

Few could relate to the reassurance wrapping Cha like a warm blanket by feeling his automatic’s hand grip. No one who hadn’t been in a situation where losing this grip just for a tick meant death.

He turned his head as far as his laying position allowed. His gaze met the bald lady’s; her slender hand hovered over a knocked-out marine’s sidearm.

“Don’t even think about it.”

She mouthed a curse and pulled her hand away, unarmed.

***

It took several passes before all humans inside the research station were back on their feet, some still wobbly, others retching, their bodies unable to make sense of what they had seen, concluding all contents of their stomach had to be sprayed onto the rubbery floor.

“Ancestors, boss! A little warning would have helped.”

“Wish I had known, Specter-4. My only other sphere ride was much more comfortable.”

Traveling with the Shaajis’ father, Cha had seen the mirror horizon before. It had been confusing, irritating, but still seemed like the length of a cruiser away. That was the bubble size for traveling 1.4 million light orbits. They had just warped less than 50. Maybe he should have predicted this. Judging from the tormented shadows the scientists turned into, Cha concluded they were just as shocked.

“Let’s not do this again,” said Sergeant Doyuu.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to.” The Shaajis stood in the airlock door frame. “And soon.”

“Wraith,” said Cha. Linuka Omga had the lean body of someone who had seen tough times, yet she bounced back from the warp ordeal much faster than the marines.

“Good to see you, Wraith. I trust the cruiser is undamaged?”

“She is. We just vanished before the Ṭawːtfé̃ could take aim. I assume this played into the slave AI’s decision to join our illustrious crew.”

“I’m certain is has helped, Wraith.” Cha gestured around the control room. “What are we going to do with them?”

“Let’s pack rations for a few spins on the shuttle and leave them with a strong transponder.”

“Respect to the ancestors, Wraith, but they have seen us, heard us plan, seen the Ghosts. They know too much.”

“Specter-2. I understand your concern, but these scientists are not the enemy. They simply didn’t have the power to give us what we needed for our mission. So we took it.” The Shaajis looked at Cha Dzeeny.

Every fiber in Cha’s body agreed with Specter-2. Doyuu was not a blood-thirsty killer, but he knew Assembly security would interrogate the research station crew for hundreds of spins, and squeeze each bit of telemetry out of this station so they could hunt down who stole their sphere drive. The Assembly would have to react. A disenfranchised high priestess on the run? A bunch of marines escaping their experiment? Could be tolerated grudgingly. Stealing the array could not.

“Specter-1. We stole the best guarded device in the galaxy today. How many casualties?”

“Zero, Wraith.”

“Let’s keep it that way.”

“As you wish,” said Cha. “Permission to scuttle the research station once we transferred scientists onto the shuttle and slave AIs to our memory banks? We left many clues here, and I’m certain there are continuous recordings.”

“Good idea. Blast it when we’re done.”

It was a half-measure, but it would have to do. However, the Assembly’s unleashed fury promised a more hostile galaxy for their banished group.

If they ever returned.

Goddess of the Galacticide continues on this website with new episodes each Tuesday.

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