WARNING! APPROACHING A MINEFIELD.
Scanning…
Almost as inconvenient as Undooru.
Ostensibly, an extensive void. In truth, an innumerable mass of concealed, pitch-black orbs armed in pointy proximity sensors. Ancient hi-tech relicts of Anaari’s impenetrable fortifications against invaders who tried to salvage results of their remarkable scientific research.
No SI assistance available. Classified as an impassable terrain.
“…so Atala, do you remember our bet?”
Daichi recalled a single sentence.
‘ Calculative capabilities of biological lifeforms are insufficient to extrapolate collision probabilities from a dynamic data.’
“…That’s what she said.” – The pilot sighed and tightened a grip on manual controls. – Don’t worry, I won’t scratch you.
Jets of azure plasma flared from pulsating rear engines, propelling a dark vehicle to face lands of oblivion. Machine nimbly maneuvered between homing obstacles, spinning and shifting back like an elusive shadow.
Approximately five seconds until hostile AI-cluster adjusts its algorithms.
Prognosis: Updated trajectories
The fun is about to begin. – “Prepare Phase Shift, 13.8 seconds. Error margin – adjust automatically.”
A tail of artificial comet spiraled behind a runaway space cowboy, unsuccessfully pummeling his last location in successive flurries of accumulating nanocarbon fingers. The pilot pulled a wheel all the way back. A blue quarter-circle flashed across the sky and was immediately engulfed by a cloud of drones.
Hammerhead!
Two green auxiliary thrusters lightened below a right wing and rotated a spacecraft around its yaw axis by 180 degrees. An obsidian silhouette gently skimmed along the destabilized surface of a tsunamic wave in a process of gradual acceleration, then torpedoed between now towering tendrils of thrashing machinery.
Approximately three seconds until hostile AI-cluster adjusts its algorithms.
Prognosis: Hive-mind union. Tri-swarm herding.
A massive pursue halted. Scattered orbs formed steels petals and, like a closing flower, began to gradually encompass Daichi from all sides.
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You learn from what you see, but what you see is nothing but a crafted mirage.
All but one of the stars – Ginkiha – were concealed behind a black curtain of a shrinking sphere. It was a stable system with sixteen unexplored planets, three potentially habitable. Pilot’s sight was fixed on a disappearing destination, engraving its image in mind. His eyelids closed at the same time as the barrier.
Phase Shift.
A short distortion in local spacetime continuum.
For a minuscule fraction of second, a tunnel as narrow as an atom could transport a city.
Spacecraft blinked past a wall that should’ve ultimately shatter its fragile frame into pieces and headed toward a distant blue light.
Approximately one second until hostile AI-cluster adjusts its algorithms.
Prognosis: Phase shift.
“What!!!?”
Implementing polymorphic evaluation of Gaussian Symplectic Ensembles.
Initializing Hakii’s Discrete Estimation Chain for Brownian-D’uuran Motion.
Establishing Fixed Points.
Dynamic Evasion Coordinates available.
WARNING: Manual control isn’t advised.
Switch to automatic control [Y/N?]
Atala… were you just teasing me back then? …You could’ve told me.
My onboard AI won’t win the race of numerical analysis.
“No. Prepare a direct synchronization via Cascade Deep-Dive, then display records.”
~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
Learn the tale of chained gamblers
Winning against the mechanical tyrants.
The king who counteracts against only the highest odds,
Forgets that we greedily aim for what seems to be the impossible.
Chance becomes an illusion of past
Once we find our star among the trillions
We do not stray from a path of its light
Learn the meaning of hope.
~~ “The fall of flesh brokers” ~~
Prohibited technology. Man’s mind had combined with a machine. Detached from all senses, stripped of all emotions and imprisoned in a singular point. Numb. An empty prison where a second was an equivalent of eternity. What was home for cybernetic entities would normally drive anyone else insane.
That’s where he could once reach her truest self. Where their souls could become one.
A pure warmth that no longer existed.
Replaced by an everlasting winter.
A raw influx of data.
Numbers.
Equations.
---
Anaarian weaponry successively materialized around a space vessel but no collision was made, not when a pilgrim had eons to foretell the future…
Approximately one-tenth of second until hostile AI-cluster adjusts its algorithms.
ERROR: Unable to produce a prognosis. Encounter assumed to be fatal.
Standing in front of a boundless wall.
Streams of symbols falling down like rain.
Shifting back and forth until they disappear beyond a horizon.
A lone man who could no longer find his star.
But it was better to reach at a stray sparkle than at nothing at all.
[Warp distortion field absent]
[Emergency Jump]
An intentional crash during a narrow window of opportunity.
Her wings were torn apart, but they were safe.