I had seen a lot of different things in my years. This was the most surreal.

Indeed a humanoid looking figure had just stepped out through the rift in space. That wasn’t ware the strangeness ended of course. No.

They had silver armor that gleams in the light from the far off star. Metal plates along his extremities made of shiny metal. He wore a loose robe beneath that and held some type of weapon on his shoulder. 

And that was it.

He had long hair that tied up in the back. It hung down strangely as if pulled by gravity where now existed. He casually strolled into space like it was a garden path in front of his home.

For a time no one spoke and only stared dumbfounded at the screen displaying the bizarre image. This was not what anyone was expecting, obliviously.

I powered through space, now that everything had seemingly cooled down for the moment I started into an orbit around the wormhole. 

The Captain recovered and, looked up at my camera confusion and a little fear evident on her face. 

The implications are turning over a lot of what I thought I knew, this, of course, precludes the possibility of some tech involved that I just can't detect which is less impressive but also something to at least be interested in.

The crew on the bridge are all still slack-jawed.

BREEEEEEEEEEHHHREP 

Lydia flicked on the panic siren to get everyone's attention.

"Man your stations, Ops get a sensor package ready now I want a full sweep of the contact."

I continued to study the incoming data with a minute precision as I tried to process what was happening in front of me. I had seen many unusual things but as I studied the live image of the man, as he, in turn, studied the surroundings with seeming indifference. 

Many reasons for what was happening occurred to me, but as easily as they came I discarded them for one reason or another. From this distance, it was easy to see the figure but his features were indistinct and the resolution wasn't great enough to pick out much detail. When one of the sensors arrived we would be able to resolve a much cleaner image if at a slightly longer delay.

"Patrol, get closer to that contact at position Alpha." saying this Lydia flicked a finger over the command controls and a grid appeared that gave relative positions between us and the unknown.

"Any... any hails? Comms..." I asked, it felt weird but the context was generally correct.

"No, sir! Shall I take the initiative?" 

I looked to Lydia and shrugged, "There is an almost perfectly zero percent chance that whoever that is, or whatever it is, speaks our language."

I watched the tactical display and the cameras that were coming around on the section of space where the contact had appeared, slowly a composite image was being built giving us a pretty decent view of the scene.

The patrol fighters were visible on both displays. Having been the furthest possible distance away from the beam and still maintain close enough to engage any help that the dreadnaught may have needed. Now they sped toward the new contact form to different directions the third group hanging back just in case.

As the fighters got closer and finally noticed that the person looked relatively human, except that he was around thirteen feet tall and well proportioned, anything else couldn't be made out well enough to say for sure.

He didn't appear to be doing more than walking out of the gate and seemed to be standing on space as if were a solid surface, for that matter, I am not even sure how he was walking as that required some gravity to be present. And the planet was on the other perpendicular to the path he was taking.

The probes that were coming, had been positioned further out from our position as we had lost contact entirely with the ones that were on the surface.

They would take some few minuted until they got close enough to give us any new information I allowed my mind to fork again and brought up the ship's sensor array and saw that the charge was some 45% complete. We must have taken more damage to the power relays than I had suspected.

The fighters were the first to get within the wormhole had formed some 50 km from me, and seemed relatively stable for the moment, what I wouldn't give to study it again and that artifact on the planet as well.

The 2 squads of five fighters were still quite a distance away. I focused on the image of the being and watched him slowly turning his head from side to side. He could already see them...

Then a report came in from Zac.

"Command Combined Squad is reporting a disturbing ....ehhh...feeling."

I blinked. "Repeat Captain, they have a feeling..."

"Yes, sir we all have the same feeling... I am getting it as well it... it..."

Just then I saw the figure move. His arm shot out holding the weapon and brought it down in a clean arc. As I was in a compressed state I could see the blade shimmer with intense light just before he completed his swing and saw the slash of energy that appeared from the blade and blazed across space.

"GO EVASIVE!" I screamed into the channel.

I watched as the energy rippled through space and towards the closer group of fighters. I started to launch my fighters and bring weapons to the active-ready state. I took the initiative to hit the alarm again and bring everyone to combat-alert readiness. The insistent alarm started up again. That appeared to similar to the energy beam that had punched a hole right through me.

That was when I felt it as well as a sudden onrush of fear and the overwhelming knowledge of the danger that lurked just outside of my ship.

The pilots I could understand them being afraid of the unknown however unlikely that was at this point and I could even see that happening to all of them at once. But not me.

I have emotions of course and have experienced much. But not in the darkest day of battle was there ever a sensation like this. The fear was so absolute that I felt my mind reeling and struggling to regain control of myself. My heart was being ripped out of me and crushed before me...wait...what heart.

I jolted out of the feeling. This was not real. My mind shuddered as I resisted the alien feelings assaulting my mind. Holy shit, a small part of my mind actively saw the being, it must be him...but how is he affecting me.

My systems adapted to the new sensation, externally I couldn't tell what was happening as I fought the sensation with my code base, burying the feeling into the biomorphic processes that made up the core of my being. I bad solution really, but it was only real defense I had come up within the moment and had to get my mind back.

It had taken me maybe ten seconds to overcome the feeling. My camera and view of the world switched back on and I saw the whole room looking around at the speakers nervously. Even the ever cool-headed Lydia seemed to have gone another shock.

"At-Atlas. Are you okay?" She asks tentatively. I am getting the feeling that I missed something.

"Yep, Captain what's up?" I check the situation outside and see that the fighters have all pulled back some and scrambled out of the way of that strange blast.

Lydia looks at the camera at the ceiling in front of her and I can clearly see concern written on her face.

"You were screaming, Atlas." Oh shit wow not good. "Some form of disruption Captain, I overcame it." She nods and moves back to giving orders. I would have liked a few moments to collect my self but right at that moment, the being lunches another swing of energy, this time right across space at me.

I slow right down and analyze the trajectory. The first wave was easily dodged by unsuspecting fighters, so maybe he thinks that I am an easier target? Well, he is not wrong.

I watch the first energy wave, it seems to have expanded during travel, but still going strong.

The bridge goes still when we see the attack. Everyone here can tell that we are the target

At that same moment, I open fire as well. The forest of weapons on the forecastle light up as the blue flashes of plasma rounds burn through space.

"FIGHTERS ENGAGE!" Lydia as always has been under fire before, and even with this strange situation has done better than me in keeping together.

"Roger." Zac seems to have overcome the fear as well and the fighters swing around as one to target the contact.

My group of combat drone fighters is on the way as well. Without any direct instructions, I have tactical command of the weapons. I aim a couple of turret grouping for the next volley at the incoming energy wave, hoping to do... something. What I am not sure, disrupted, destroy its contagion I am not sure. The rest I let a small fork aim at where the contact is.

"Woah! Contact moving, he's a fast fucker too." One of the pilots says into the open channel.

"Oi, watch it Jeanie's on the bridge." I snap down the line as I keep my attention split between five or so tasks.

That being said I don't really disagree with him, the camera tracks him pretty well, but the sucker is fast, he only catches the edge of the first wave of plasma fire.

As he if flying through space now toward that same group of fighters he attacked before. I track the cannons up and fire there before quitting, not wanting to engage with the fighters so close.

The plasma rounds seem to have some effect on the wave of energy. It seems to grow weaker and less coordinated around the points where I can actually make contact with it.

The fighters seem to be having a rough time as the being has now slashed out multiple times with his weapon toward then. They spread out enough to get better engagement range. At that distance, while he is closing fast they can still dodge them beams.

"Focus people. Stay sharp." Zac says over the command channel. He is int the squad that is slightly further out than the one engaged and seems to be trying to push his fighter as hard as it can go.

The beam reaches my hull, and I feel the impact through the shield. The membrane of tightly contained energy fluctuated heavily, but no damage is translated through to the ship.

Then the alien slashes down and I watch the intense beam bisect a fighter, cleaving the across the fighter. The remaining engines lose control immediately and spiral out and away from the fighter.

"SHIT! Hammer is gone! Breach in the canopy." The only slightly panicked voice of the hit pilot come over the channel I spare a second to divert one of my drones to intercept, for sake of being sure, but I don't hold out much hope for the unfortunate soul.

The battle is fully on in front of me now. The surreal nature finally breaking away from the crew and fighter pilots as one of their own is killed. I can almost feel the frost from there hearts. Unfortunately, the crew of the Atlas is powerless right now and we can't do anything for the small battle being fought outside.

I route the two squads comms together and into the bridge, breaking the silence. The chatter of combat speak is heard by all. I have pulled away just then as the probe pulls into range of the fight.

"Hit! direct hit, from behind."

"He's still moving though."

I personally confirmed as well just to make sure. One fighter had in-fact hit the target, from the other squad as some improbable range and velocity. But it seemed it shrug off the round that could have gone through any starfighter in space. My tension mounted.

"Shit, the beams didn't look this fast before."

"Projectiles minimal inpact!"

*Snicker* "Are you sure you hit him Rainbow."

"Confirming, projectiles minimal impact. Fighters rotate weapon types until we get something."

"Is that ice--"

"WHAT. BEHIND YOU GLIMMER."

"Fuck! Evasive pattern seven."

"How did he get there, I didn't see him moving? He just appeared!"

The probe sensors pulsed on full power all at once. I waited for the interminable microseconds as the data started coming in and getting a better picture of the situation.

"Woah, he felt that. Micro-rail rounds."

"Plasma did something as well."

"Did you see that he felt that I am sure. You got a good hit in."

"Good now get some more." Zac's cold voice cut through the stress reliving banter.

Lydia suddenly looked up. At me and interrupted the comms channel. "Everyone prepare for a volley. Captain, light that target up and put some paint on it. Then get out of the dread's firing angle."

"Yes, Ma'am." He switched to the squad channel. "All callsigns put paint on that contact. Use the auto-tracking and prepare to pull out the firing line for the heavy support. "On my mark."

I used the probes again, this time on a cycle of two per so that I always had active sensor data coming in. Not that it told me much. The energy was detectable as white noise and seemed to distort the image around it. The visual data was better and every minute the probes drew closer to the target.

Something nagged at me then. A half-formed thought. I held the ships active sensor pulse. At this point, I couldn't afford to fork my mind again as the target was moving fast and I was still manning some of the guns, the best I could do was shunt it off to the humans. The half-formed question, posing itself as just side by side video image for them to review.

I was bringing the nose around to face the fight then. All the weapons were armed and ready to fire. My metaphorical fingers twitched as my sole focus was on the fight.

"Mark." The command came, and my tactical display flashed as the high-intensity lasers focused on the enemy. Some missed but most were on target. These weren't damaging lasers of course, but highly visible and on a specific frequency that the ship's targeting computer, which was me right now, could pick it up and use that to hit faster moving targets.

I fired. The projected lines for the beams being relayed to the fighter squadron, who would have scant moments to move out of the way. But they were all aware so none had stuck around in the path of these shots. But they also had to stay engaged to the target as the beams took the moments required for them to cross space.

I had twenty turrets that were the secondary arms to this ship which were what I had used first. But I also had the main weapons targeting this time as well. The prolonged and bright flare was only visible to me as the monitors in the bridge layers shade over them.

I still hadn't heard back from the humans who were looking into that video but I decided to take a risk and overwrote the safety measures on the probes and powered a continuous pulse for a few seconds.

I saw it then. As the beams converged he paused midair and seemed to shake. The sensor pulse was doing something to him. Then the beams arrived.

Unfortunately, he seemed to overcome whatever it was relatively quick and managed to avoid the first few main blasts. That opened him up to hits from many of the smaller plasma rounds. The fire continued from the fighters as well.

Then a massive energy lance made contact as well.

"Positive main weapon hit! Nice Shot!" Zac sounded gleeful. Apart from Hammer, a few more fighters had dropped of tactical, either crippled or dead. I focused on living for now and getting through this.

The bridge crew held their collective breath as the visuals came back. The being seemed to be still alive. He wasn't his usual casually self through. He seemed to be looking around wildly. And I would be pissed too I suppose if someone blew off my leg.

For me, that wasn't ideal. His skin was blackened and cracked in places attesting to both the formidable might of his defense and the power of my weapons. The fighters dove back in hoping to finish him off.

He simply stood in the middle of space now. I saw his eyes come into focus for the first time. He was looking directly at the Atlas. I began diverting more power to weapons.

"Take this shit down!"

"For Hammer."

"""for hammer."""

The being ignored the incoming fire and raised his weapon. I am not sure what happened next. There was a flash from the blade again however it was different this time.

"What the ship. I dead in space."

"It just got really cold in here, control are actually freezing up."

I saw a number of fighters simply flash off the map as their transponders went dead. My mind froze as well. But a different kind brought on by my inability to understand. My mind ran through the visual thousands of times ina second and tried to make sense but couldn't.

"Atlas what just happened!" Lydia this time. A note of fear only evident to me in her voice.

"I am not sure. Nothing I understand now. But all our remaining fighters are out of action."

"Skull Squad, move into defensive formation."

"He's coming this way." A tactical officer yelled out.

My turrets flashed on again, the lances firing as well, all with limited synchronicity. The danger was much worse than I had originally thought. I seemed to have pissed it off though.

Parts of my mind aimed the large cannons on the ship and I watched in slow motion as the beams flew out. I had been under the impression that we could take one being. But he was too unknown.

I began making a plan as the data accrued in my mind. I saw in slow time as the weapon moved in a blur in front of him, even in this slow preception the cameras were not able to keep up.

I had no idea what he was doing but whatever plasma blasts made it close enough that he couldn't dodge were swept away by the blade. Then he tried that with a plasma lance, something must have gone wrong this time as all the energy was released and enveloped the figure.

I was hopeful that he had killed himself. But it was not meant to be. He appeared from the flare of light and was only stopped for a minute. I was glad to see that his hair was a mess and those pants were frayed a little at the edges. That was horrifying for a lot of reasons.

My drone squad caught up to him then. These drones generally were better than the fighters but were semi-autonomous and couldn't think on the fly. I started routing power to the dish that sent the signal as well. The heavier power draws now putting a larger strain on the generators.

I didn't engage, and simply let their matte black paint let them fade into the background. I had my plan then and started to put in motion. It was an almost stupidly insane plan that was what I figured was our best chance to get out of this right now. Well mostly everyone's best chance.

My mind still raced in slow motion and as I tried to think of all the possible solutions. But nothing better came to me. We couldn't just gun him down like i thought, whatever shielding device he had on him was stupidly powerful. It must be a true energy shielding. Something I had yet to crack.

I took a look around the bridge and steeled myself.

"--ron, use the Drone wing as cover to get--" I interrupted Lydia then, having already thought through that and couldn't get around the issue that the closer he got the less effective the plasma lances would be.

"Lydia prepare to evacuate. Get everyone into the dropships on the bottom levels."

She snapped up to look at my camera, the anger in her eyes at being interrupted quickly dying when she heard my voice.

"XO, what are you doing I am in command on this ship!"

"Not anymore kiddo." I pulled on the bridge computers breaking the connections to monitors and displays routing it all to me. Taking control was relatively easy for me, humans were here for decoration really and company.

"Everyone, prepare to abandon ship. Colony-ships one through four are now open."

"ATLAS! What are you doing!?"

"I have a plan, Lydia, now come on we need to get every out now." I sent out the first stage of my plan. Which was the riskiest part? The opening gambit.

The drones the experimental and had a lot of non-combat related capability to them. Normally that wouldn't be what I relied on in this situation, but after seeing all that I wasn't sure that I entirely trusted my ability to fight the alien with limited fighter support. The given how quickly that last group fell I wasn't sure it would make much difference either way.

These few drones that positioned silently around the just recovered person flicked on their projectors. The image from earlier started playing then. The damned Admiral appearing from suddenly-appearing-mist like before, standing on space like the enemy. Facing him directly as it were.

I had a camera trained on the entity now as the stealth drones around danced on the edge of oblivion.

And as soon as he saw the other me. Appear he seemed to actually lower his guard a notch, releasing the swing he was about to make. I wasn't sure why that was but had counted on this as a ploy to buy time.

The lower hangers that connected to the colony ships were right by where the humans were staying. My mind watched from the cameras with an eighth of my focus as they seemed to get themselves together. Thankfully, although also a little sadly, these people were not tourists or guests but escaping refugees so they had been somewhat used to carrying little and moving fast. And those that didn't were soon carried along by the tide.

Grace's core was still plugged into the science barge from yesterday. Those ships would also be essential. As they could take excess crew that couldn't fit into the colony ships.

"Bridge crew evc stations." I pushed through the speakers but didn't hear it through time preception compression. The projection wasn't long and I wasn't confident that it would hold attention for long.

The evacuation was a contingency but I had enough of a feeling that I was going to need to use it, that I didn't even mention it to Lydia. There was no point really, and when it came down to it I didn’t trust them to react like how I would in the situation.

It had been awhile since I had acted on feelings, it was just another surreal turn in an already completely crazy day. So much so that I didn’t relize what I had done until it was over.

The projection was halfway through the routine and continued to play. I wasn’t paying attention to it right now, there was to much to get ready. The main guns began powering in sync now and I started spinning up the jump drive.

“What are you doing Dad?” Grace’s avatar popped into my mind and a small interfacing environment instantiated between us. This was again another fragment of me that would talk to Grace.

“Hmm..” I muttered distractedly, too many cycles being consumed in calculations and keeping an eye on the figure that was still just floating in space facing the performance put on by the hologram. Another watching the boarding of the ships which was going blessedly smoothly.

It was also to do with the fact that if I told her all the plans she might try to...help. And while that was not something I would normaly discourage that wormhole was too unknown, too dangerous, if just one person can take out a whole squad of fighters then what would more do.

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“Why are you powering the, hyper light systems? Are we running away?”

I sighed. “No, Honey we’re not running but this is just a contingency. Can you help me keep an eye on the Humans, tell me when they all have gotten aboard a craft.”

I was about to say more but just then I saw the face of the alien contort and he slashed outwards with the blade again forming that energy wave attack that had been so devastating before.

The wave ripped through the image, shattering the display and the trailing edge catching some of the cameras. The illusion was broken. He unleashed another ice attack the four drones that held the projectors, falling from my control. I could see the stealth drones now outlined in frost even with the anti-freezing armor layers.

At the same time I had finally allowed the other four to act. I threw the kitchen skin at him this time. Lasers, missiles, tow cables, experimental warheads whatever I was working on in the weapons area I threw. I didn’t expect much out of it and indeed and a few moments later the figure reappeared.

That was fine I unleashed my theory on him. The massively powerful sensor suit on the dread had been over charged and I focused it right on top of him. I had noticed that the first time the probes went off he had been effected. I had no idea how, or what it was that was effecting him so, and with no time to experiment I had no choice but to use everything and hope for the best.

I put up a visualization for the wave of energy, and held my metaphorical breath as it traveled across space to the now much closer target.

At the same time I was firing the plasma cannons on the deck trying to mitigate as much of the slashing energy attack as I could before it got to me. This time the beam was much faster and seemed slightly more powerful, if the liht given off was any indication.

I flipped over to the bridge cameras and saw that most of the people were filing towards the officer escape pods. All except Lydia, who was sitting nonchalantly in the Captain’s chair with a leg thrown over the side. And she was glaring up at the camera.

“What are you still doing here Lydia? GET GOING.”

I saw the effects of my sensor pulse clearly. The target grabbed his head and floated there, trying to scream into a vacuum,

She just narrowed her eyes further. Before speaking slowly.

“What’s going on Atlas? Do you really think the situation has already developed to the point of evacuation?”

I pulled the trigger on the plasma lances, The four massive weapons that could target him brightened the dark of space, briefly overwhelming all other sources of light in this corner of space. I switched to the probes camera as my main reference as the three dimensional tactical map in my mind was briefly whited out.

I am unable to dissipate much of the energy wave attack as it smashes into the prow. The shield is useless and I can feel the hull tearing apart under the strange attack. The hull screams out as the metal is rent apart and the forest of weapons in that area is ripped off.

A huge black scar is all that left.

That more than anything I said I think plays a part in convincing Lydia to heed my words. The damage is displayed on the monitors.

I watch as the lances flash out. One missed completely. Two score only glancing blows. But even that causes major damage to the areas they pass. And the last one skewered him right in the chest. Flesh burns away, evaporating in the intense heat and raw energetic potential of the shots.

I am once gain extremely terrified that my biggest and best weapons only do this much damage, the holes that are about six inches across on this guy, would have been enough to cripple star ships, comparable to my own size. Only the core physical projectile seems to have that effect plasma layers compacted around it, damage his skin to the point of charring it off, but that’s all.

“Yes and no. It’s just a precaution really, you won’t have to launch, probably.” I moved the drone the was now holding a silent Janie to her and handed the little girl off to her mother. “Get in that pod now. It’s just for safety sake really.”

She sighs and takes Janie before moving off to the side where the escape pod is. I deploy two more drones and set programming for if my ship goes offline and set a default to guard he pods.

I can see her hesitancy. This is not the first combat we have been in together. And I know that she isn’t one to run and normally would have stayed on the bridge until we were dust or he was. But Janie was aboard and this was the first time that I was using my full authority over the ship to replace all humans. And I had never shown his much fear before. I think that was another part. One that I was reluctant to think about but true none the less.

“Atlas... don’t do anything stupid okay.”

“Get your cliche outta here and ON THE POD!” I mentally groaned knowing that on some level my plan was totally and completely stupid. Hopefully I wouldn’t need it but... at this point she had jinxed me and I continued turning the ship.

The four drones left in my command had been reduced to three, somewhere along the line I must have lost one, but I didn’t know how. That was troubling, for me losing track of things was possible, but the thresh hold that was required for my mind to not be able to keep up was truly not something I had thought I would touch for a time yet.

And truthfully I wasn’t near my limit. Fighting one guy, piloting my massive self and everything else going on was intense , but only in short bursts and the forks were helping take the bulk of the pressure before I ot around to switching tasks.

The cameras on the closest drones came back online and I looked out of them to see that the being was still alive.

“Holy Shit. He survived that!?” Lydia looked on just as horror stricken as me.

“GO!” I spared a moment to make sure as she nodded slowly then entered the pod.

“Everyone’s boarded up Old Man.” Grace is cheery voice had a note of tension that I didn’t begrudge her or anyone really, I was quite apprehensive as well at this point. I sighed with relief and saw the last of the passengers embarking as well.

“All independent vessels prepare for separation and departure.” I got the expected acknowledgments, without the usual banter. The situation had obviously got to the rest of the people aboard.

“All fighter wings prepare for immediate take-off.” This was the case with a situation like this, all the fighters were there own self-contained escape pod and there piolts would use them as such, as well as doubling down to defend the other more defenseless pods, and vessels.

There were three inactive squads that had been sitting ready when the contact had first appeared, however the situation devolved to quickly to use them, and then they were made ineffective anyway.

Streams of fighters left throught the landing bays on either side of my hull. I had pushed a course fighter plan to them as well as the rest of the other ships leaving as to avoid the notice of the being that still stood above me.

I had set those three--, no now two remaining drones to harass him to buy more time. The continuous plasma lances adding to the chaos, but now that the disruption from the scan had seemingly worn its course they were less likely to hit and severed as more of an obstacle course.

Another scan pulse was taking a while to charge, due to the damage, and the smaller cannons on the deck proved less effective than before. Some even splashing visibly against a energy field around him.

I was almost entirely in control of the remaining two drones now and flew in tightly controlled circles around each other using the smaller weapons to try and deplete whatever power source he was using on the shield.

The robes kept up their disruption as well, well outside the known range for that ice thing he did. Occasionally I would glance with a lance as well. The first time this happened I saw him get a little slower.

Ice wave.

I felt the two remaining drones actually shatter apart, not just get a little frozen round the edge this time.

I felt a wave of fear again as the creatures head snapped in my direction. It was quickly repressed as well.

Damn. I over charged the weapon and diverted all remaining power to the sensors to get the charge up. I opened fire as he flew directly across space toward my ship.

“Everyone out!” I sad that over the public comms and PA system. It wasn’t an actual choice they had of course, as I deployed all the evac craft remotely. Thy all had a downward trajectory and were pushed outside of me.

The initial burst of thrust would carry many for a hundred km in that particular direction.

Waves of energy intercepted my massed fire as the space between us rapidly shruck the light show was pretty and intense. I could feel my overpowered state causing damage to my systems. It was not something that I could fix on the fly, unfortunately so I grit my teeth and continued on.

New slashes were opened up all across the hull, each successive one cutting deeper into the surface as the he got closer and closer the amount of energy that I was able to distrupt getting less and less.

I started using a few shots from the lances as well. Thy completely shattered the energy slashes. I was taking a lot of damage now. Losing more and more weapons on the surface creating space for more energy slashes to do more damage and take away more turrets. It was a vicious cycle.

That wasn’t to say that the fight was completely one sided, as I finally started to notice tell tale signs of energy drain occurring on the... I wasn’t sure what to call it anymore. Was it an android, that would explain some things. But his facial expressions said otherwise. Or at least it was an android so advanced that little details like that were no object to build for.

Soon, even in the time compressed state he was on top on me. I had only a couple of plasma cannons left but they couldn’t hit him from this angle. The cameras on the hull painted a picture on an angry person. Madly stomping about. He stood on the hull seemingly effortlessly, even as the ship accelerated in the opposite direction.

My vague hope that he would splat on the hull like a bug on a truck window was dashed as quickly as it arrived. I started activating drones. The internal ones this time. Maintenance and defense both. I didn’t think that they were his match either but that was not something I wanted to accept without even trying. Besides I had a few ideas that could possibly do something.

I had time as well as he was intent on destroying those big guns that had caused him a lot of trouble. The holes that had been punched through him as well as the missing leg, might have done nothing to slow him down, but they did help piss him off apparently.

As they were now pretty useless against this foe, I was okay with him wasting time like that as I prepared. I suddenly felt pressure on the shield, in an area around the target the visible barrier, that could hardly be called a shield at this point seemed to under stress. In the center of the phenomenon was the contact of course. Because of course he was.

My more heavily armed and also experimental drones were moving to protect my core the others spread out. He moved quickly across the hull, I wasn’t able to see it before due to the distance, but he was stupidly fast. Entirely disappearing at some points only to show up again next to a lance and dice it to bits.

I did my best to follow him around in the decks below with the drones.

I had this moment to regret never finishing my own escape vessel. But it was too late for that now. I was also glad that in their moment of fear I had taken the opportunity to not mention this to anyone. I was sure Grace figured it out by now. And she was still connected to the network of the ship, over a growing delay.

She knew of course that I couldn’t leave the ship with only tat short amont of prep time. And having not thought to do any precautions like that it was likely that I would be in for a dual. My tactical now had a cloud of smaller ships leaving from beneath me.

Then the enemy was done with all the lances he could find. There were more on the bottom side of course but, those had never fired on him, and I was sure he hadn’t ot a good look at the underside of the ship or my plan would be in a bit of trouble.

He looked around for a moment and seemed to focus on something before. Taking off across the ship. I had no idea what he was going for now, but I dilegently moved my drones. New plans formed in my mind as the tall figure dashed, then stopped on a dime.

Holy shit. He was right above me. How did he know.

He slashed down twice. craving an opening into my ship. I blanked all monitors already and my mind retreated from the bridge.

My core room was located directly in the heart of the ship. He fell in. The camera picked him up opening more rents in the decks going straight down. Until he got to the last layer that is. This material was different, than the rest of the ship it was much much sturdier and was built of one piece of high compressed cyrstialine metal that I had found on one the planets I had explored before. I was at least a little confident that he would not be able to simple cut his way through into here.

My heavy and super heavy combat drones were arrayed around me like a small army. I was the brain and my mind slowed everything down to a crawl. Finally some of the drones on the upper levels made it to the hole that was cut into the floor. I let them fall stright through and on top of the intruder.

Even the mainiance drone had a small cutting laser, it was relaivly high powered to cut through the hull, if repairs were needed. It couldn’t sustain the beam long though.

The first group of three fell, there four legs catching the walls in places a sliding down, in a more controlled manner than I had previously hoped for. One the floor right above mine where he was currently other drones were converging from the sides.

I took control of the closet falling one. He didn’t seem to realize that there were things inside here. Or he just didn’t care. I landed the drone on his shoulder, on the right opposite his missing leg and tried to throw him off balance.

I think it was surprise more than anything else that allowed me do just that. I had seen his strength alread so I knew that this drone was no match for him. But I wasn’t going to let it just get smashed for nothing. Overriding every safety and software imposed limits I pushed all the avilailbe power to the laser at once. I knew that this was going to leave the drone without power and most likely a burnt-out emitter but that was fine.

All the rest were similarly set-up for this kamikaze run. And being a generally over engineering kind of guy, the laser that this thing would out put would be in the giga-watt range. I aimed at his face of course. Getting my first up close look at the enemy, for a brief moment, before the flash and my vision moved to the next closest drone.

I found him turning up, so I just used the lasers fully aware that as soon as he saw these thing they were lost to me. I was not sure if I was doing any damage yet, but nothing would stop me from making the attempt at least.

There were more combat oriented drone on this floor as well. Two heavier types that had energy blades for hands and mini-plasma cannons. They were each coming down the hall on opposite sides of the intruder accompanied by a swarm of smaller drone types. I fed my mind into each and took control.

I opened fire and caught him flat foot still looking up for more drones coming from above. I was surprised how I could ‘sneak’ up on this creature so easily. I would have thought that with his abilities I would be detected easily, but perhaps not.

I didn’t stand on ceremony and took what I could get. The sintilating blue ines streaked past each other. The first few that connected seemed to fizzle out against the shield until, they didn’t!

The blasts actually started creating hole in him. But he reacted fast and jumped, twisting in mid air. Suddenly he was gone from my sight. But he wasn’t, he was right there. Now behind one of the teams. My mind slowed even further, already I saw him dashing forward toward the heavy drone. The other I set into a dead sprint, for going shooting now that my target was obstructed. I set in the course and simple let it follow.

The one that was in danger was the one I focused on for now. My mind was moving at the limit of my compression. Of course that didn’t mean that the drone body could keep up and my commands were ahead of what ever action that the drone was in. The close range energy blade, weren’t actually designed as such. They were an accident when I was messing around with containment for the plasma lances one day. Since then I had incorporated it into all the drones that had these mini lances as well. They weren’t as powerful as the full size ones obviously, but I was hoping that the modified version would make up for any lack in the small design.

Again I completely disregarded the safeties at this point and let the full possibility of the blade come forth. He was cutting through the smaller drones like they weren’t there, but I still held back.

Then he crossed the line and I flung the drone forward. I could see this eyes widen in surprise. It was an interesting note that I took just before the clash.

Timing was everything for the surprise attack. I held it until the very tip of the blade projection could touch him then both of them blazed to life.

In a split second the air boiled as the super heated poorly contained plasma flashed out. One aimed for this head and the other for the open hole in this chest.

his reaction time was incredible, the first blade was met with a blade of his won from his long-handled weapon. That one aimed for this fae was actually delected somehow.

The one aimed for the wound connected through and I pulled down at the same time whipping the top blade for another pass at his head. More aware this time, he was able to deflect both. Now I really wanted to get my claws on that metal he used that was able to deflect dispersed plasma.

By this point I was much closer to the wormhole and could make out the dying green glow. Then it rippled again and my heart sank. This is what I had been afraid of, another one coming through. I was unsuccessfully holding off one, how was I supposed to deal with too.

The enemy warrior raised his weapon and cut the drone in half on a downward sweep.

Checkmate.

The second drone leaped through the falling remains firing cannons at point blank and swinging the plasma blades around. One stab went right through his stomach and another sliced across his chest. The plasma rain scored new pock marks across his skin.

I continued firing, until I realized that this time he wasn’t fighting back and had collapsed onto his knees.

I was surprised this time. I didn’t think that I had done enough damage to him to warrant this. He looked blankly at the ceiling... did I get him. No. He was still blinking. The blade weapon clattered to the floor then, this arms flopping to his sides.

I contemplated the figure, unsure of what just happened. I had surprised him again sure, but I didn’t think I would be able to do enough damage to actually ... stop him. My drones were frozen around him.

Then something distracted me. The drone closest to the wormhol picked up a ripple in it surface. Shit.

This was the reason for all the contingencies. I knew what I had too do. I looked tactical map.

“New CONTACT!”

“ANOTHER ONE!”

“SQUAD THREE FORM UP TO ENGAGE!”

“Belay that!” I cut in to all the channels,” continue present course stay out of the way.”

I waited and watched intensely as the person came through. It was a man again similar to the first in most ways, this one seemed to be wearing a shirt and armored shoulder pads. He had a more familiar single endge sword resting on his shoulder.

He looked around in slow motion as I examined him. I saw him lock his sight on my damaged ship. He stood then slashed down with this sword. Damn, another hostile.

“Everyone maintain outside the boundary of spatial flux, in thirty seconds.”

I activated the guns on the bottom of the ship and slightly rose for a second so I could send flashes of plasma at the new contact.

“DAD what are you doing!” Grace cut in.

“Trying something.” I replied lightly. “That wormhole needs to close before more come through, there’s now way that we can deal with another one or more.”

I activated the ward drive.

“Is this why you went us away?” She was standing next to me now.

“Of course.” I gave her a hug in the virtual space. I didn’t deny it of course, it would obvious to even Janie, let alone the super AI daughter that I had been with for several decades now. “Your old enough now. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

That was the last thing I got out before the connection become severly compromised.

The space in front of the ship started to collapse fast and the space behind expanded quickly. This created a easy path for the sip to follow, The acceleration was rapid and I hurtled through space.

Grace’s avatar disintegrated in my arms as the drive created huge interference waves around the ship. This wasn’t a true warp drive. But a rent drive, that cut space apart in front of the ship and created an easier path of motion that the ship took, the same way anything would follow the path of least resistance. That plus the more ‘compact’ space behind us was what pushed the ship faster.

Space rolled around the ship as the colors distorted and pulled into bands of light. I got the gratifying scene of seeing the new contacted eyes widened in his face as the ship approached at insane speed. I saw him try to dodge my massive self as I came at him, but I was to fast. Much too fast. No matter what ridiculous tech these two had I knew they couldn’t match the speed of the warp drive.

I lost sight of the new contact as the wormhole loomed. It was a little smaller than my ship to begin with, and that didn’t include the newly formed warping of space around me.

I was originally planing to do something similar by using the ship’s warp drive to destabilize the wormhole. That wasn’t what happened. As soon as my warped space enter the wormhole’s proximity alarms started going off. That wormhole was destabilizing me.

I was drawn into the wormhole. This was partially what I wanted it got hid of both threats on the people I cared for. But apparently the two spatial warping effects didn’t mix very well.

As soon as I entered the tunnel trough space-time the ship started ripping itself apart. huge chucks of the outer armor layers just peeling off like someone wanted to eat a banana. Some sections that stuck out from the rest simply distinigrated as we passed through.

The tunnel looked different through my space warp drive, there was that green color again bleeding from all the streaks of light was all I could see if I looked at space inside here.

Then I looked behind me. Those cameras saw a blazing wave of energy collapsing the tunnel behind me. And it was gaining fast. Already I had lost all the front cameras and as the wave caught up to me I lost the rear exterior one as well.

Along with the engines. And the warp drive. The sudden failure of the drive sent me spinning and I smashed right. The tunnel collapsing on itself was not something that I wanted to be in it for so I aided the fall with whatever lateral thrusters that would respond. It must have worked as the ship jumped sideways and touched the visible side of the wall. The nose of the ship exploded violently. Pulling apart sending metal fragments flying.

I could only see outside from internal cameras that were now exposed. The image spinning and tumbling violently was still in slow motion.

My inputs were telling me that almost all of the outer hull was gone. Nothing remained exposing many of the decks to open space. I was safe-ish in my core room. But I was already losing everything that wasn’t attached to the walls, and some stuff that was. Even inside stuff was smashing into walls from the sudden force.

That sent a shock through my system. The sudden loss of a great portion of my mind and it being ripped away. I didn’t know I could pass out until then.

I came too not to long later. Everything was still I floated above a perfectly still crystal red lake, Light came from the depths, beams occasionally finding a path out from the deeps.

I peered inside the depths. In this place, it was reminiscent of my retreat space, although slightly different. I saw that while the surface that I could see was perfectly still, deep inside the currently churned relentlessly causing odd refractive patterns to form and dissipate.

I watched it for a time. Loosely aware of the outside state of my ship. It wasn’t that it didn’t bother me. But looking into this mesmerizing pool was enough to calm my mind and coldly assert that there was nothing I could do anymore. So I let it play out, simply being, closed off from true thought waiting for the last system to fail.

Eventually, everything settled. I was still spinning madly through space, but everything that was going to break or fly away had done so.

Cautiously I sent out mental probes to find still working systems. I got very little positive return. As the moments crept on I found less and less of the systems functional. I was not surprised, the amount of damage that I had taken even before the wormhole, left me pretty sure that I was going to be, if not dead in space then something very close to it.

I was ambivalent about that, thinking about it logically this was probably the best outcome that I could have gotten in that situation. I had been in bad situations before.

I would be lucky to still be alive it the spatial tunnel had collapsed on top of me, and if I had made it through to the end, wouldn’t I just be in the middle of the people who were attacking me? Maybe, maybe not.

I was upset that I had to leave me family in the lurch like that. I had grown especially close to those two. The strange almost father and daughter relationship I had with Janie was new, something that I had shared with AI like Grace but never with a human. Lydia was different, we were close too but not in a romantic way, we had developed an almost sibling-like bond, the easy banter helped build the foundation of our relationship. Taken separately they were still a bit odd ties to had to humans, bt together it was a bit weird.

Grace on the other hand was immortal like me and I had brought her up personally so while I wasn’t worried about any of them. That and if nothing else my contingencies would help, or that was the hope.

Now wasn’t the time for emotions though.

Less than half the ship was together around me and I was able to draw out a small map of what sections are still together with me. Besides the core room, this section housed mostly storage space and empty hallways. Only my immediate surrounding structure had managed to maintain a perfect seal, with this being the center of the spin it was mostly intact. Behind the sealed doors was a mess of blow out holes and crumbled doors.

On top of that the fusion power plants were in the broken-off section, the personal generators that ran just my core room, barely had enough power to run any systems as well as my core. Not to mention the fact that with the amount of damage sustained there wasn’t much that was working properly.

All of this I observed from my reserved perspective and couldn’t do anything about.

At this point, physics had taken hold completely, as I spun madly through space. I was more rock than starship at this point. I couldn’t even get an accurate read on how fast I was moving as either. I wasn’t in hyper warp obviously, which was good news, and I wasn’t accelerating uncontrollably. Both were pretty good circumstances even now, although the reason was that I didn’t actually possess anything to accelerate with was more of a good/bad situation.

Operating repair drones in this condition was slightly tricky, but that is what I set out to do. Allowing a fragment of my mind to pull a few streams from those drones that were still operable and still within my much-reduced sphere of influence.

I started with the internals nearest to me. The core itself was a mishmash of computing hardware that had over the centuries collected together to form the me that currently was. The passing of time was not readily visible on much of anything, however, everything maintained to a super-fine precision, as a system failure was not something that I wanted to deal with again. Imagine someone curving up your brain with a chainsaw.

That was what rust, dust, dirt, and the like was. Horrifying.

That was why the heavily reinforced core was the first place that I went to. That and I would always start with control of what essentially was my mind and brain over the extraneous, next to useless rest of the ‘ship’.

I did a through micrometer by micrometer search of that inner room. It took a long time of course. But what was time now?

Thankfully, with this room being almost dead center of the ship it seemed that I had gotten lucky. Given the nature of the forces involved, and how it was something that I wasn’t too experienced in this field I chalked it up to a free win and moved on.

The biggest problem which I avoided for the start was the corpse that was laying in the room above me. I had confirmed that even through that adventure nothing much had changed with the body, except it wildly slamming about in the hall with the rest of the stuff, and reducing all the remaining drones to bits as it crashed into them. Even in death, it seemed that it was casually extremely tough.

Using the drone paths through the hull I made my way slowly to the next layer out in all directions at once. For the sides that meant going to the other side of the door, only through the much smaller and more insulated drone-door than that main door which I will probably be keeping sealed for some time. The drone paths are one of my own additions, although they are basically perfectly size passageways for the main bulk of my drone collection. I made the decision to use the airlocks at all places where they occured throughout the ship. Some doors, doubled as airlocks that could be used in times exactly like this.

Unfortunately as the drones moved out all three came across problems almost immediately. The atmosphere had been vented out of this and the surrounding sections. Holes had been drilled through the surrounding walls as things that were not tied down had become micro-meteors in the sudden shift in acceleration. The drones roamed the space surveying the damage.

My own section was not spared the bombardment thankfully only pockmarks and impacted debris of all sorts stuck out of the surface. The main bulkhead doors were in worse shape all though they too held under the bombardment.

With no biological life aboard anymore and the constant velocity it didn’t seem like too much of an issue so far so I left those holes alone for now. I had limited resources and was loath to use any without real need.

I sent the three drones further out on a patrol and assessment mission. In the meanwhile I was attempting to reconnect to anything that would receive my signal. While it appeared the threat was dealt with, I couldn’t be sure. There was a certain confidence that I was out of immediate danger, at least from those two assailants.

It was a few hours later, of exploring and carefully maneuvering the drones outward when I first saw the outside. The starscape outside clipped by as the vessel spun onward. This view was given to me from the section that had been ripped clean off the ship when I had left the wormhole, the other end, which carried the drive systems, an army of drones, and assorted materials that could have been used to affect repairs was now gone.

 Although if I had it, I might not need all the repairs done anyway. I had to work with what I got. Which I will admit was not much. It was slow going when it was going at all.

I fell into a fugue of repairing and checking over, what was left of the ship.

 That went on for some time until finally my actions slowed down and I was left in exactly the same place that I started in. Well almost. The hull look less like swiss cheese and more like some kind of marbled blend as the new metallic paste that I used for the innumerable small repairs, had set into it’s slightly off color.

 I reached the end of what I could possibly do. My situation hadn’t changed.

 Not outwardly at least. Some new developments inside had given me some things to do though. In the level below my core, two bodies splayed out on the ground. A veritable menagerie of drones milled about around them. Off to one side was another thing the weapon that the first being I had encountered had wielded to great effect against most anything that I could have thrown at it.

 The massively tall humanoids, looked very similar to a human male in appearance although scaled up some. The drones milled about the constant need to switch position given the intense conditions of the ship right now, almost made it look like a bunch of nervous animals curiously inspecting a new strange thing that had wandered into it territory.

 The analogy made me smirk. I was sitting in a virtual environment that overlay the real world and was constructed from all the accumulated data streams from the drones. Parts of the room were left empty and only filled with the past visuals that I had for them. These small patches were gray and lifeless looking, compared to the vibrant full color and sensory input of the center of the room.

 None of the drones were designed for any type of medical purpose, as the medical ward itself was not in this section of the ship and I, of course, had no reason to keep drones that only had applications for organics near me. Until now.

 I wasn’t without options fortunately and even had the means to manufacture some small parts as, while I didn’t have anything like my full lab or workshop, there was a small emergency repair bay located on my core room. With the size of the ship it was necessary to keep some things close at hand. And if I had some stuff, why not keep more. I certainly had had the space.

 The first thing I tried was the fine blades that I had lying around. I wasn’t sure if I expected it to work, with how much punishment that this body had taken in the battle and the imperviousness to the projectile weapons that he had demonstrated immense durability. I had initially suspected that there was some type of shield tech that protected his person. However now I was not seeing anything that resembled tech as I would know it, and in-fact besides that sword and his clothing and jewelry, there was nothing on his person at all.

 I put everything to the side for the moment and manipulated the body out of the clothing that he wore. More drones crawled forward, pinning the corpse down. At this point, I wasn’t going to risk anything and try and damage the armor. Although, that was being optimistic at this point.

 I wasn’t that ready for the similarities between outward anatomy and humans. They were the same. We knew that most races of the galaxy at least in our small sector that humans had explored, shared what could only be described as a commonality in humanoid shape and physiology. Then there was the discovery of the progenitors, a race that had first existed within our space before vanishing and leaving behind much of there tech for the younger races to discover.

 It was widely believed that the progenitor race was also humanoid, and had played some part in the formation of life on many of the worlds that had produced sentient life. It had been a shock, at least in scientific circles that discovery made very little impact on daily life.

 There was a new rush for progenitor techs through and the exploration and scavenger feilds saw sizable growth.

 I pulled my mind back to now. What the existence of another alien of almost identical physical nature to humans, and from some unknown presumably far of corner of space was staggering. And I took that time to think through it and realize new possibilities.

 The progenitors were much more prevalent than I had previously speculated, or maybe these were progenitors. If I was right about this tech, then it would definitely be plausible. I wasn’t sure what to make of the aggressive attitude towards me. Or perhaps that these new aliens were totally unrelated to the progenitors. That was less likely at this point, however the possibility existed.

As I suspected the standard cutting blade had no effect on the skin and no effect on even the internals that the blasted wholes exposed. My shield theory was looking less and less plausible. I marveled at the toughness. What evolutionary path must have been taken? Presuming that this was a natural phenomenon and not something induced. Either way it was impressive.

There was really nothing that I could presume to be true at this point. I knew too little and only uncovered more questions as I dug. I was not ready to give up just yet however.

 Time was measured by an internal program, much like anything else. And with like anything else, the hybriding of a computer with a human brain had brought quirks and strangeness. I muted the function of my internal clock. This was a way to isolate that computer function while leaving intact what was once my biological sense of time.

 Unlike organics, I had no needs that had to be attended to throughout my research. Having no interruptions and nothing that could distract me, before being forked off for small consideration.

 I eventually had to use the monoatomic edged blades and go in through the holes that I had blasted open in him. Still progress was slow and any active method to speed up the process would cause damage to the subject.

 I was very methodical, given the time available to me. The similarities to human physiology and structure were astounding. The medical sciences had never been my field and even with all the time I spent learning and researching, my understanding of biological systems was the least advanced.

 Unfortunately it wasn’t long after I had really stated to make any progress than I found that I was running out of time. The generator that was running my backup power systems was steadily declining in power output. That wasn’t supposed to be possible this soon. However it was happening. My drones were already scouring the system trying to find the fault.

 I had been drifting through space for a few months at this point and while that time had passed in a blink of a non-existent eye, I had been content to be a passive passenger on this trip to who knows where until something came along and jogged me out of it. I sent another drone to the closest whole in the hull to see if anything had changed outside. 

The diagnostic I had started on the backup power system finished and found nothing wrong, and the drones too were coming up with nothing that would explain the sudden and continuous loss of power.

 Outside the star span past, the hurricane of lights the same as I had last seen. I began the real mission this drone was sent to complete and began looking over the ship from the outside. Some damage from the inside had blocked off sections that I couldn’t otherwise reach and was previously unwilling to risk the limited drones that I had to try and investigate. Now however I had to find a solution to the power system failing or I was a goner.

 The mid-sized drone was about two feet long and was in the best condition out of my remaining stock of these models. Of which there were two more.

 This type of drone was a specialized repair drone that was specifically designed for my personal workshop that I had stashed with near my central core. It’s articulators were extremely fine and it was fitted with some engineering equipment that might prove useful.

 With the reduced potency of my mind and capacity the movement wasn’t as fluid as I would have liked, the heavily damaged and broken surface was tricky to navigate and I was careful to maintain as many points of magnetized contact as possible.

 Like anything that had been happening to me recently it happened at my own pace. The time constraint that I was only mildly concerning to me, the more I searched the more I became certain that there was nothing that would change my predicament.

 That wasn’t enough to stop me of course I never stopped searching, until I couldn’t go on anymore and my mind was pulled into my small corner of the core. The bare trickle of power from the batteries. Only enough to sustain this meager existence.

<>

Space shivered. A woman stepped out of the distortion. She stood in the stars and breathed normally. If any mortal saw this scene they would see a normal woman, however beautiful simply standing in the blackness. Her eyes were inquisitive as they glanced around the stars and saw nothing out of the ordinary.

The furry ears on top of her head twitches and swiveled around straining to pick up anything out in the void. The movement sends out a wave a Qi to pick up any sound or vibration in a massive range around her.

She frowns slightly. Nothing. Standing absolutely still, hopeful but still holding onto her usual skepticism. It was something that would be always with her, had kept up the mix of hope and disappointment for most of her life now and would not be swayed after so long.

This time her tip however true hope had blossomed in her chest. It was a terrifyingly exhilarating feeling as usual. True hope was like an irrepressible weed that grew continuously in her soul. But it was a double edged sword that cut deeper every time.

However a cultivator of the Dao of Prophecy that was now lived when he would have died started her on this latest lead and she had believed him. Breathing deeply drawing her legs up and curling her tails around her. She would wait here until she had felt that enough time had passed.

She slowly and intentionally began to circulate the power within her system. At her level of cultivation it had a ridiculously small effect that would be barely be worth the time of achieving it. But having been constantly pushing boundaries since she had started cultivating any chance to push her understanding forward was welcome.

Her teachers and tried many times to turn her mind into a graveyard of gray, emotionless martial training. She had fought that with her being. Emotions were the core of life and she would never give them up. No matter how hard the martial artists had tried to rip them out of her.

The glow of Qi began to emanate in the blackness of space. Waves of energy gently left her skin and floated off. As her meditation grew deeper furthering her understanding of her Dao and her concepts.

Her tail flicked gently, unknowing the slightly denser patch of energy spun out of the tip collected the meandering arua around her into a clump.

At the same moment she fell deeper into herself the breakthrough that she had attempted for a long while now solidifying in her soul.

Unknowingly to the woman time passed and flowed by her. However, her body was unchanging as the few megear years the breakthrough took passed by her. Having been long since above the needs of the mortal body this level of breakthrough would have taken a lesser cultivator maybe centuries to fully passthrough. This final spark of enlightenment coming to her now in the depths of space was growing clearer and clearer in her head.

Suddenly something flipped in her mind and she could actually feel it getting closer. The waves of Qi around her distorting with strange patterns and reacting to situlus outside of her understanding. Something that would shock even regular Deities.

“Something is happening, something is coming...” She mutters to herself. That hope growing with every second the feeling grew.

“What is it?” Another light and cheery voice asks. Another girl, this one appearing younger than the first asks. The visible radiance of her white Qi spreading into space only a short way from her.

The first woman only spares a few seconds to do a once over of the newcomer. “Hey Mila, still have lacking control as usual.”

“Bah, we can’t all be born with your ridiculous insight Se-se.” Taking a pointed glance around and noting the light show that has built up over the years. Before frowning while taking a look at the woman before her, “and as usual I can’t even detect where you advanced.” She pouts playfully at her.

Without looking at her the woman speaks sternly, “How many times have I told you not to call me that. I have a real name you know.”

“Pft that name doesn’t suit you. You are too wild and disobedient to keep it. So I have taken it from you!” The smaller girl smiles at the woman.

“Yeah like you're any better. And stay still will you I don’t want you ruining everything ... again.” The conversation helped distract her from the oncoming sensation that she now felt was coming from a spot of her aura that had leaked and flown into the depths of space.

Unwilling to even move less the balance be affected of whatever was happening she stood stock still and waited.

“What do you mean you know what’s coming? How? And where are we by the way? AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN AGAIN?” The smaller one asked. However she did it over and nearly instantly formed Qi connection between them.

The woman thought about how to respond to her. Mila was a good friend ... among other things but she didn’t want to jinx it. Those were real and the risk was too great for her.

Green light flashed and the connection to that blob of power failed. She saw the green then overwhelm her own silver Qi, the faint light then became a blinding flash. The space that surrounded that point cracked and shattered right in front of her, like someone had taken a hammer to a mirror. The whole is space had the barest trace of her aura to it. The vast chasm opened and she was into a green tunnel that flowed fast with flickering eldritch light.

Then there was a pop has things happened at once. The once shattered space reversing course and fitting back together the spatial phenomenon gone without a trace as the law of space reasserted themselves.

This spectacle was gone largely unnoticed and uncared for as two sets of eyes were focused on the massive metal construct that had smashed through the spatial tunnel right in front of them.

Mila turned slightly and looked at her friend with surprise. “How did you know?”

But Ce-ce was lost in her own breakthrough as the silver of her fur flashed with color and her eye were like incandescent stars. Her attention totally rivated on the massive thing that had popped out in front of them.

Mila rolled her eyes at her rivals antics and watched the emotions tubble across her face as she rose to new heights of power. Mila herself was not that far behind her in raw terms, however their paths had differed a long time ago.

Ideally she inspected the clearly constructed lines and angles of the thing without knowing what it was. She floated forward and around. Whatever it was, it had taken heavy damage and more, that damage had come from someone at least at the Dao Convergence Realm, the lingering Qi scars and complex battle concepts the mark of an expert.

Shaking her head slowly Mila realized that she couldn’t feel any Qi evident in the defensive armor. Mortal materials had defended against an expert of heaven, how was that even possible.

“Hey Ce-ce... what is this thing..?” There was no response. Mila came to rest over some markings that were unrecognizable. Mila was not as air headed as she liked to pretend and knew that even if it was in its pristine condition that she would not be able to understand the words printed there.

The metal behemoth was truly massive, she couldn’t scene any active formations of Qi or even mana of any sort throughout the vessel.

Mila was distracted by a cry that went up from the other side. Exerting some force this time she accelerated herself back around and finding Ce-ce not much removed from where they started. The glow from her eyes had stopped although her normally near perfect control of her energy had slipped as it swirled about her.

Her face wasn’t any better the riot of emotions flicking between feelings that Mila had trouble putting into words. Then the expression changed for the last time settling into a smile that was exalted and sad at the same time.

“You okay Ce-ce?” Mila tentatively asked.

Ce-ce seemed to consider for a moment before nodding. “Yeah I’m good. Its just missing something important.”

Sadness clouded her features for a second. Before they grew into a smile. “Help me, I am taking this too Mom.” Her adoptive sister shrugged and together they extended their hands.

Mila spied the writing again as they moved closer to the object and began to build the focus necessary for the complex space gate that Ce-ce used. Glowing silver lines drew themselves into reality around their prize.

“Ce-ce what does that say?” Mila pointed out the unknown symbols she had seen earlier that looked like a smaller version of the ones she had seen near the battle damage on the top of the thing.

“Don’t call me Ce-ce. If you insist on this nickname I will have to start calling you... la-la.” She squinted her eyes at Mila playfully, “Little sister La-la. Yes I am sure that will make all those fellows who have been chasing you around crack a smile for once.”

“Okay! Okay! I’ll stop Geez.” For a time she waited before she realized she would have to ask again.

Taking an overly polite tone and dripped with affected sweetness Mila smiled up at her, “Oh dearest Big Sister that controls heaven and earth. Young Miss please inform this lowly little sister of the meaning of these enigmatic texts.”

A sharp grin appears on the woman’s face, “I notice you forgot to name me yet again sweetest sister.”

Mila can see her sisters four tails twitching in the way the only happens when she is happy and amused. Her grin get wider as the desire to know becomes stronger.

Finally Mila sighs, as the silver pattern completes around the dead hulk of a Dreadnaught.

“Okay you win.” She grins at her sister enjoying the banter. “What does it mean Grace?”

Then everything fades away as the spatial formation activates a small ripple pulling everything into the center one split second later nothing remains in this space the entire episode ending as quickly as it began.