For just a moment, Ascension was... concerned. All the time and effort of making this first copy, including parts from the Milky Way that might never be able to be copied here in Andromeda, and if there were some sort of poor interaction with the 'Warp' drive as Eyeball insisted on calling it, it would all be gone in an instant. But...

That poor interaction never materialized. Time and space seemed to twist, the area inside the dimensional space alongside it... and on arrival, Ascension sent the predicted signal... deliberately ejecting and igniting most of the probe's fuel to simulate an explosion and propel the probe into... a rock.

The chunk of rock was irregular in shape, and almost immediately the reason Eyeball's powers guided Ascension here became clear; there was wreckage here. An old mining ship, centuries old at least, embedded in the rock, invisible without an up-close scan; and the sensors of these people had already been established as a joke by milky way standards, what was inside Eyeball's helmet was likely just as good as the suite of sensors that had once been inside this probe. This FTL drive, and those shields, though? They would actually pose a threat to the tech of the 'Empire' from back home, and the vast gulf between galaxies was not insurmountable for them; granted, it would take centuries for this scout-ship to reach earth, but both Ascension and Eyeball were ageless; the biggest problem involved in a return home would be boredom. And gathering enough fuel to last hundreds of years.

The extradimensional pocket opened; metallic tentacles latching onto the wreckage. A brief hiss of escaping gas was evident; the fabricator had been built inside a human-favorable atmosphere on the 'Paradise' prison station, and a careful release of atmosphere let it reach optimal pressure for harvesting and forging materials.

Almost immediately, Ascension took one of the corpses; remarkably well-preserved by vacuum; and embedded the first experimental 'Controller' in the desicated corpse. As the tendrils burrowed through the flesh, the heavily dehydrated, vacuum-burned material largely fell apart; only one arm and the upper half of each leg actually responded to controls, and the tendrils themselves weakly moved the remaining arm without any aid from the dehydrated nervous system and musculature.

On the other hand... these were powered space-suits. Impressively functional ones, that once powered back on, smoothly responded to what they perceived as commands from living limbs. Of the nine corpses, most of them fell completely apart at the touch of the controllers; but even so, what flesh remained was used to control the suits. The troubling issue arose of just what had killed these people; the suits were intact, he'd had to puncture them to enter, and they had clearly eventually run out of air. But how could they run out of air in such a heavily populated system, with a thousand forms of rescue minutes away?

They weren't Marrick, but rather some other, two-eyed, blue-skinned species with rows of bone-like spikes atop their heads; likely some Tier-two or Tier-three servant race. And definitely younger than this local Marrick civilization; no chance of being some ancient, pre-colonization ruin.

Ascension's ability to work had just increased dramatically. It had forty hours before Eyeball would arrive, and would no longer simply be producing a handful of combat robots and an alternate control system for the scout ship. This wreckage... provided options.

Tentacles and corpses began working in unison; first hauling the probe inside the wreckage itself; then starting to feed rocks, spare parts, and anything else into the fabricator; as the fabricator began taking apart the probe around it for raw materials as well; the mass of silicon and copper being reforged, starting to become the control circuits for a steadily expanding mass of machinery; with each new robotic limb or tool immediately being put to use the moment it was finished.

With each passing hour, the ability to construct expanded; furnaces for smelting raw materials completed, additional limbs for shaping materials constructed; by the seventh hour, the fabricator was massive, taking up most of the cargo hold of the mining ship's wreckage; and Ascension switched gears; no longer simply expanding the fabricator.

These Marrick had never been able to build their own artificial intelligence; their own drones and computers were all pale imitations. Time to introduce them to what a truly advanced intelligence was capable of.

***

As the 8AD slowly decelerated, past the halfway point to its destination, Jason loaded the second extradimensional space projectile into the tube. This one was... different. Larger. Had more precisely machined components, and more power supplies... and a series of actuators allowing it to expand the ring.

As it was loaded into the tube, aimed at the same rock as the previous projectile, Jason glanced at the map of the local system.. and looked around for a moment. "Hey, Lert. I showed up here with a giant chunk of Neutronium. Where did it end up? Did they already get it hauled off to the shipyards?"

The greenskin blinked, looking at the display; then at Jason. "Oh, that was you? Crazy. Didn't know it was neutronium, but something the mass of a small planet, but smaller than a gunship, got through the planetary defenses, slammed into the surface... and strained the shields for hours til they popped it into orbit. They've got it.... somewhere around here."

He tapped a spot on the map; where a cluster of warships were gathered in a rough sphere shape. "There. There's a battlegroup guarding it. If it's neutronium, I understand... that's... the most valuable stuff in the universe. Quite a few companies would steal it if they could. Not to mention enemies of the republic."

Jason looked at the formation, nodding slightly. "Yeah.... And the objective is to get it out of this system, quickly, effectively. Somewhere it can do some good, preferably."

He tapped on the side of his helmet for a moment. "Call the captain."

A few seconds later, the pale-skinned figure's face appeared on his HUD, frowning. "Why is the display blank? Are.. Ahh. Jason Bennet?"

"The only. I've got the next prototype ready. We're about to launch it; but after seeing the most recent test, I'm reasonably confident in the results. If this goes how I expect, I'd like to keep... slowly, so as not to disturb the production of the third prototype... going to the first one's crash site, and contact whoever's in charge of that fleet protecting the neutronium."

Captain Chikris frowned, glancing down. "He is substantially above my rank. There are seventeen captains in that fleet, and all of them are above my rank, in fact, and he is above them all. I would likely need at least fifty years of service, meritorious service, to reach his rank. He... would ignore my calls."

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"I believe the plan is to use one of these extradimensional spaces we're testing to package up that neutronium and get it the hell out of here before any threats can show up. If you won't call him, just give me the right ID so I can. Please. I'll go ahead and launch the second test now."

He glanced at Lert; the four-eyed alien nodded, tapping a few buttons. The ship shook for a moment, as the probe left the tube.

This time... the probe vanished. There was no disruption. It simply... appeared near the target.. turned around... and jumped once again. As far as the display was concerned, the probe simply hopped from place to place, with no intervening time; covering over a light-hour of distance in a moment.

Jason nodded. As expected. When the probe reappeared, he heard a series of beeps; four. He blinked.

One beep was, probe failure. New plan needed. Two was probe working as expected; expect to be picking up a case of weapons, controllers, and a few combat bots on arrival. Three was probe working, but didn't have all the materials it needed, and would only make some minimal level of equipment.

Four... was that the probe would be producing significantly more than expected.

"... I'm telling the probe to just keep repeating the jump, in case it's a fluke. Once we retrieve and test the first probe, we'll be planning to test it aboard the 8AD; but only after the probe has made at least twenty successful warp jumps."

Lert smiled, and nodded. "Nice. Good to hear. I've got your new armor, by the way. Mostly just a modified version of ours; and I painted it black for you. You sure you don't want one of our helmets? I can't integrate our system with your helmet without checking it out personally."

"No worries. I've got what I need to tune the armor to myself... and several hours to do it. I think, at this point, all that's left is making a call and picking up the goods."

***

In the Republic navy, there were twelve ranks; the bottom three ranks were the best a tier three could hope for; menial positions. Repair. Maintenance. Cleaning. No allowance to carry a sidearm. Limited bridge access. Tier twos could hope to possibly reach rank six; while tier ones and zero could reach all the way to rank eleven. Only a tier zero could reach rank twelve; the absolute commander of all Republic forces.

The whole bottom half of the scale was for the various crew on a ship, or in a military unit. Rank seven and above were strictly expected to be commanders; from the rank seven commander of a Scoutship, the rank eight captain of an Escort, the rank nine captain of a heavy warship; to the rank ten commander of a fleet, the rank eleven admiral commanding all ships in an entire star system, or an expeditionary fleet of multiple sub-fleets.

For a rank eleven officer like Drakth, commanding a tiny fleet like this was... pitiful. He should be, at least, leading two fleets of this size; more likely a dozen, or everything in the system. But no. He'd been called in on an emergency basis, as the most trusted, highest-ranked individual around... to guard a chunk of rock until a gate ship could arrive.

He would spend months here, one of the few non-Marrick tier zeroes in the navy; with a row of three eyes across his skin, dull golden skin, he could almost be mistaken for a founder; aside from the fine fur running across his body thanks to his sub-race, the Soramarrick, generally just called the Soram, having had adjustments to live on a cold world.

He knew that was why he was here, and not some lower-ranked commander, or even a Marrick. He was too good. Too capable. And he had fur. The very idea of one of the contenders for the top slot, one of the men directing the war against the Swarm, having fur? Even if he was tier zero, even if he was one of the best commanders in the fleet... it simply drew negative attention.

He glanced around his bridge at the crew; one other Soram, the rest just Marrick; and turned back to his display. The... object... was important, definitely. More neutronium than the Republic normally produced in a decade; possible a century. If he were being diverted from the front to protect something, at least it wasn't something worthless. But then... it isn't like it actually mattered. Nobody was close enough to threaten this place. The Swarm would have needed to know about this Neutronium the moment it showed up to get here before that gate-ship... which would be impossible.

He blinked for a moment as his communicator beeped. Incoming civilian call, non-government, listed as... emergency? From a tier-zero like himself, or it would have been filtered out. Aboard... a scout ship? Why was a tier-zero on a scoutship?

He considered ignoring it for a moment; but decided to pick up. Hitting the accept key, he was greeted with... an image of a pale-skinned humanoid with three eyes, all solid green in color, in an odd configuration, one above the other two, like a triangle... sitting inside one of the tiny officer's quarters on a scoutship, with a suit of black light power armor laying on a table in front of him, and a silver helmet at his side.

He speculated for a moment about why the Shubamarrick would have produced a subrace with their eyes like that. Perhaps the offset eye helped depth perception? Still. Clearly, like Drakth himself, despite the evidence of stubble on his head from recently shaved fur... Drakth used to shave his own fur regularly, he could understand the motivation there... the figure was probably closer to the founders than these Marrick around him.

He smiled. "I believe I recognize you. You were in the file attached to this rock, and came here with it, yes?"

The figure nodded. The translator automatically interpreted the gesture; indicating the green-eyed creature was agreeing. ~That would be mostly correct. That roughly spherical object is actually the skull of a... tier-four creature I killed, landing me here, not just a rock. Honestly, it's only about a twentieth of the creature's mass; I suspect the rest of it is around here somewhere.~

Drakth stared at the alien. "A... skull." A living creature made of neutronium? Something like that could live on the surface of a star. Inside a star. The only place inhospitable to such a monster would be a black hole. How could you kill such a thing?

"That... as hard as it is to believe you, the shape of the... object does seem to line up with that. It seems organic, as if it were a solid object with bits of flesh growing out of it. Still. I'm sure we are both busy men. What brings you to call me?"

~Ahh. I'm conducting tests on a technology from back where me and the neutronium came from. Something that would allow a ship the size of a fighter to carry thousands of missiles... or a chunk of neutronium the mass of a small planet. I'm making sure it's safe to use with warp drives, at present. If it is... we can load the neutronium in one, test it to make sure it's safe... and then your fleet can carry it directly to the shipyard, here and now. No waiting for the gateship.~

Drakth slowly nodded in response. Gateships usually formed forward assault points, letting a shipyard connect directly to an enemy empire, and an entire fleet pass the intervening space in moments, rather than weeks; and should the swarm dare to invade Republic space, allow them to reinforce any of the key shipyards just as quickly. They were valuable, and every moment of their time precious.

Not as precious as this neutronium, granted. This... skull... was enough neutronium to make hundreds of gateships. "Intriguing. Why exactly are you testing it? Is it risky?"

~Negative. I've been using it without consequence for maybe a decade now, or more. The issue I was concerned with was possible interactions with Warp drives; we use something else where I come from. I'm currently using a series of probes to ensure that won't matter; so far it tests good. Made two successful jumps so far, and going to test it at least another dozen times before moving a ship with it; right now I'm confident it will be fine, but I want absolute certainty before I actually risk people. If you'd like to be on your way, I can get that thing packaged up neatly enough you can leave tomorrow; at that point I will have done all the testing I need to.~

Drakth studied the man on the screen for a bit longer. He was doing something to that silver helmet; and to the armor; while he talked. "I'll consult with the navy on this, but I'm at minimum of equal rank to anyone involved, and I like the idea of getting the hell out of here. Show me your test results tomorrow. If they look good, I'll go along with this." So long as he didn't ask the overall Navy commander directly, nobody had the authority to override him on this; if this mad scientist could get him done with this faster, and maybe even provide whatever that tech was to help him make a bigger splash on the front lines...

Well. His career might be looking up.