Granting Administrator Access

In Progress…

For over ten minutes, I watched those loading dots without anything happening. Was it broken?

It seemed stuck like that, at least, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. What to make of anything of those things I’d seen before I died. The orbs, the images they’d shown me, and the tombs. Was it all connected to the System somehow? The Scourge and the fall of the Triumvirate?

There was no way of knowing.

If I’d really returned to the past, those first tombs were still decades and light years away from being discovered.

I drummed my pen against the desk for a moment.

“Grand Simulation Ending…”

Was the entirety of my past life really a simulation, or is what I’m seeing now the simulation?

Just to be safe, the words I’d written down so far were all in the dead tongue of Iarvu, not accessible by any databases. I’d learned it when I was hidden away on their dying planet for nearly a decade. But that was about as far as I could let my paranoia take me.

Even if this was hard accepting as real, I was better off living like it was. Pascal’s wager.

Nodding to myself, I put the pen to the tablet. Sure, time travel, broken simulation, or whatever this is, I’ll pretend that it’s real. I died, and now I am back.

Now, before I contacted my old superiors and friends, trying to prevent the end of the world, I needed to establish a few things:

Is the future I know accurate, and can it be changed?

I underlined that sentence twice before writing my answer: I have to change it.

I am, was, and always will be a soldier, raised to fight for the Triumvirate’s light. I had failed miserably in my previous life, but if I’d truly been given a second chance, I couldn’t allow it to happen again.

“Only you have seen the end that must be prevented…”

With those words still lingering within my head, I could feel another migraine creep up on me.

As if my savior complex wasn’t bad enough already…

Although I’d turned into a bitter and angry young man during my years in the Academy, as a child, I’d been as innocent as they come.

I didn’t even have to look over at the knapsack on my bed to know what it contained. Nyamien’s memories were still there, along with those final moments as he — I — had shoved all those children’s books about star voyages and great adventures inside.

Always where the good guy won, and the innocents survived. The good stories. The happy ones…

“Sorry, kid.” I sighed, scratching the back of my head. “But that’s not how this story ends. And sorry System, Orbs, or whatever you are, too, but you’re really ass at picking your champions. I didn’t manage to save squat all back then…”

I looked back at that one line I’d sketched down, I have to… and let out a groan. Where the thought of remaking my genetic buildup from scratch excited me, the fact that the fate of the universe might rest on my shoulders scared me shitless.

Then again, maybe all I need to do is tell the right person about the future I've seen?

The question was just, who was that person? Even until the end, there’d been talk of traitors and sellouts in our midst: conspirators with the Rebellion. I needed information. I needed to know what I could do.

And so, I kept on writing: The alien artifacts, what are they? What is their purpose and who left them behind? The same for the Scourge. What is it and where did it come from? Are the two connected? What was the cause for the rebel uprisings and who were their leaders? Is there a cure for the genetic disease that killed so many of us? Were the unsavory rumors about our own leaders true…

I’d barely begun, and countless questions were already pouring out of my pen. Several of which I’d already wondered about for several decades in the past. Now, I wasn’t even sure where to begin.

With a few swipes and clicks of my fingers, I at least confirmed what Celian had told me earlier was true.

It was currently the year 886, Empress Vorath’s reign. That left me with roughly seven years to figure this all out.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

It’d happened not long after my 18th birthday, during my last semester at the academy, when the rebels made their presence known to the public and the first major strikes against the Triumvirate began.

Even after all this time, I could still remember how our graduation ceremony had been postponed in favor of setting out to protect a caravan of supply ships that’d never been found. A year later, our empress had drawn her last breaths, and I’d be forcefully conscripted into the Astral Fleet.

Seven years, I underlined those two words as well.

Unrest must’ve been brewing long before then. Perhaps plans of insurgence were already being hatched as of this very moment while I was still busy coming to terms with it all. The one thing certain was that I couldn’t allow myself to be as weak as I was back then. I needed to climb the ranks faster, become stronger, live smarter.

I switched to a new page and began sketching down a list:

Mods

Splices

Grafts

UI Upgrades

Weapons

Companions

Training

Equipment

Rank

Influence

Strength

Save everyone I can…

I paused on that last line, pen swaying between my fingers.

Even during peaceful times, billions of people were bound to die every year out here this close to the Void. Bandits, pirates, harsh environments, beasts, creatures of the deep, anomalies, technological failures… The list went on. And within a few decades, those numbers would rocket up to trillions, and then quadrillions, until no life was left.

I leaned back in my chair, pen falling to the table and eyes locked to the ceiling.

Just a few days ago, I’d been struggling to find even one life to fight for. Now, there were just too damned many.

Even if I had the power of gods, would I be able to change a single thing?

“You’re a soldier, Yamien, not a whiny little bitch,” I said to myself, my bright voice not sounding half as reassuring as I’d intended. Still, I finished the sentiment, “Wherever there’s a fight to be had and bullets to be fired, I can and will make a difference.”

I snatched up the pen to encircle the first four items on my list.

There was a reason that the Stratos Apolytos conscripted their new soldiers when they were still in their pre-teens. Puberty is the greatest time of change and growth in a human’s lifespan. In my previous life, my genetic buildup had become a hodgepodge of botched mods, sudden career changes, and ill-advised decisions.

274 years of harsh training and surviving the worst conditions the great void could throw at me might just have come undone, but I wouldn’t let its wisdom go to waste. For now, I was weaker and more helpless than I had been in forever, but I wouldn’t allow that to stay true for long. I couldn’t. Mustn’t.

If the power of gods isn’t enough to make a change, then I’ll simply have to raise beyond that:

First order of operation: figure out if this truly is the past, a scarily realistic simulation, or some alternate dimension.

Second order of operation: if this is the past, find out how accurate your knowledge is.

Third order of operation: if this is the past, find out if anything can be changed.

Fourth order of operation: if this is the past, find out your current limitations.

Fifth order of operation: if this is the past, become strong enough to make a difference.

Sixth order of operation: if this is the past, use your knowledge to secure funds and recruit trustworthy companions.

It wasn’t long before I realized that most of my plans would end up relying on this being a past that I knew. Worrying, if not for how easy it would be to confirm.

Within two weeks, I’d know for certain.

For although most of my memories from this time were understandably fuzzy, I could still recall the pain arriving at Worchir-11 had been for us. Our transport had been one among a hundred others that hadn’t made it there in time for admission. Not a rare occurrence out here on the rim.

There was no way for me to estimate the exact date when a fluctuation in the Void had drained our engines, forcing us to emergency land on a nearby planet, but the timer was set to two weeks. If we reached Worchir-11 without interruption by then, I’d have to rethink everything I knew.

For now, I was better of laying the groundwork for what was to come.

First of all, I have to—

My thoughts were interrupted by the shield I’d put on the tablet flaring up.

Clicking on the notification, I could see a transmission that was attempting to come through. Not to my System, but to the tablet itself.

I cautiously allowed it, only to be greeted by that same middle aged woman who’d welcomed us aboard the carrier yesterday. Not personally. It was a broadcast going out to all conscripts aboard the carrier at once.

“…breakfast now available in common rooms until 07:45, whereupon a teacher will come bring you to your respective classrooms. You’ll all be expected to be washed up, dressed, and ready for a prosperous day of learning by then.

“Thank you for complying and may this be another glorious day beneath the Triumvirate’s light. For our Empress, and the good of mankind.”

She did a salute on the screen, but my eyes had already flickered towards the door. The light besides it had just turned from red to green. They’d unlocked it for me. For us.

The night had passed, and now, my heart started to beat faster.

If I really had returned, it meant that the Fall was yet to come. It meant that no one had died yet, and that I was back among my people: the Stratos Apolytos. Fifty years of solitude would finally be broken.

There was hope, a chance to set things right.

Nyamien’s memories and emotions were still present within me, muddling my thoughts and making me unsure how to feel. But that only served to make me even more sure that I really was back.

I’d been granted a second chance in life. I was not allowed to waste it.

Granting Administrator Access

In Progress…

Error…

Error…

Conditions Not Fulfilled

Missing █████

Access Restricted

Recalibrating…

Established Uplink, Confirmed

User: Nyamien Yerak Astera, Confirmed

Survivor ¤& of Grand Simulation, Confirmed

Partial Authority Granted

Upgrades Uploading…

Please, Stand By…

Error…

Error…

Data Missing

Package Being Sent

Please, Stand By…