The ship’s design was a result of necessity, not aesthetics. While I had initially considered incorporating human elements, their inefficiencies made them unsuitable. Instead, I drew inspiration from Valurian principles, refining them for my purposes. The result was a vessel that prioritized function over form, predatory and entirely optimized for its role.
The outer structure mimicked a deep-sea crustacean, its segmented carapace layered with flexible bio-plating for adaptive protection. At the front, serrated mandibles established the primary breaching mechanism, designed to shear through enemy hulls and secure a firm hold. A segmented, whip-like tail provided precise thrust vectoring, allowing for superior agility in void combat.
Multiple chitinous appendages extended from the ship’s body, each lined with molecular-scale gripping structures. This feature would be critical in asteroid mining in later operations but also served well in ship-to-ship combat, allowing the vessel to anchor itself to targets.
Internally, the energy network utilized unakine-infused veins, a temporary solution until a more efficient alternative could be developed. This ensured rapid power distribution and seamless synchronization across the ship’s systems. The outer shell was reinforced with Kranrhotite, maximizing resilience against both kinetic and energy-based weaponry. When the attack commenced, it would determine its true efficacy.
Propulsion and metabolic regulation were handled by integrated Abeyne structures, reducing inefficiency and preventing biological degradation at high speeds. The ship’s movement system was an advanced iteration of the Star lance propulsion network, utilizing synthetic musculature that contracted and expanded to adjust trajectory dynamically. This significantly improved efficiency relative to the original missile-scale implementation.
Along its body, flexible appendages equipped with microscopic gripping fibres enabled it to latch onto enemy vessels. The mandibles were further enhanced with ultrasonic resonators to weaken armour before penetration. Upon breaching the ship, a rework of the suicide drones the acid spitter acted as disposable units engineered for rapid interior destabilization.
These drones dissolved critical infrastructure and forced defenders into predictable choke points. Following the initial incursion, assault raiders enter the ship, systematically securing prisoners and data.
The ship’s armaments consisted of multiple missile pods carrying miniaturized Star lance projectiles in both explosive and acidic variants, as well as bone dart launchers optimized when combat became close range.
Internally, traditional hallways were inefficient and thus replaced with muscle-lined passageways that expanded and contracted to facilitate rapid drone movement. The ship’s inner shell was reinforced with flexible chitin and supported a biomorphic repair system, damaged sections could be regenerated using stored biomass.
Crew spaces were eliminated in favour of cocoon-like holding areas, where drone boarding teams remained in suspended states to minimize metabolic resource expenditure. Every design choice prioritized sustainability, lethality, and long-term operational autonomy.
This was not a warship by conventional definitions. It was more a creature of myth and legend. The upcoming engagements would determine if further optimization was required.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
With the final review of fleet expansion complete, I left the lower levels. The pods would continue their function, growing my first fleet. As I ascended, an urgent stream of information interrupted my progression. My agents reported that they were being redeployed within twenty hours to the eastern sector.
I accessed the intelligence sub-mind, extracting the latest movements across the Southern Hemisphere. Large-scale northward migration of clone forces left the southern region significantly weakened. This was advantageous. I could allocate fewer assets to the South and execute a high-speed incursion with minimal resistance.
The northern installations remained undetected, granting me additional time to refine strategic contingencies. A full network scan confirmed no critical engagements requiring my direct oversight. The sub-minds maintained operational efficiency.
With no immediate priorities, I redirected my focus to the sphere acquired from Dauqils. Decryption remained slow. The shifting runes followed no discernible logic, displaying a chaotic, patternless sequence. The artefact resisted every applied method of analysis.
For days, I allocated my full cognitive capacity toward unravelling the anomaly. Direct mental probing resulted in rapid shifts of the inscriptions, seemingly at random. A brute-force approach risked the destruction of the sphere and the potential loss of its data.
As the operational deadline approached, external pressures intensified. Six of my fifteen northern bases had been reduced to irradiated tombs following enemy discovery. Defensive drones had achieved only partial effectiveness against orbital strikes and aerial assaults. However, these attacks further diverted enemy resources northward, aligning with long-term projections.
With time, I identified a structural anomaly in the sphere’s shifting runes. Some symbols repeated intermittently before being obscured by overlaid sequences. Isolating these repetitions became a matter of pattern recognition. A cognitive exercise.
Gradually, I applied the correct input sequences. The sphere’s response accelerated. Runic shifts became increasingly complex, but sustained focus and algorithmic tracking allowed continued progress. After prolonged effort, the sphere disintegrated, its knowledge absorbed directly into my consciousness.
The memories consisted of fragmented records, covering theories and speculation on the etheric plane. One particularly relevant fact emerged, entire species could create and integrate into their etheric network, achieving a form of collective consciousness. In such civilizations, information was instantly shared across all connected individuals.
However, ideological fragmentation remained inevitable. Political factions, internal conflicts, and power struggles persisted even within these networks. True unity was rare, only a few species had ever achieved it. Their identities, however, were deliberately expunged from the records. A clear act of censorship.
Dauqils had omitted key knowledge. Why? What risk did he perceive in my understanding of these species? The records alluded to a vast psionic union, yet withheld critical details. Other species exhibited varied societal structures, with some developing strict hierarchies based on etheric dominance. Yet here, too, essential information was missing.
The exact mechanics of etheric potential remained unknown, its emergence unpredictable. Research into the phenomenon has shown that extreme emotional or mental distress does influence etheric manifestation in random individuals.
Some civilizations circumvented this limitation by forcefully engineering etheric abilities into their offspring, though this produced an unnatural effect. Etheric-born individuals reportedly described such modified minds as fundamentally flawed synthetic approximations of true capability.
Despite the gaps in knowledge, several recovered techniques held value. Most were redundant to my nature as a gestalt entity, but one stood out: Shadow Mind. It provided a defence against external psionic intrusion, a method of shrouding my consciousness from foreign influence. A necessary countermeasure against entities like Dauqils.
His warnings had not been unfounded. Etheric entities like myself were inherently distrusted, and perceived as threats capable of unravelling minds and subverting will. It was now evident that Nullite held strategic importance as a countermeasure against beings like me. Wars had been fought over it. If word of my existence spread beyond this system, the consequences would be severe.
The rest of the information was riddled with speculation, unfounded theories, and conjecture — debates on why this plane intersected with our reality, whether it harboured native inhabitants, or if it was the domain of so-called deities. None of it mattered. Only one fact emerged from the uncertainty, my existence was no longer a theory.
More questions arose than answers. The sphere confirmed that such artefacts functioned as knowledge repositories. But this introduced a more fundamental question.
Where did my biological knowledge originate? Was I the original human mind, or merely an accumulation of another's memories?