Doctor-Professor Kuledge permitted a small sonic charge to gather at the end of his prisms excitedly. He’d been taking a huge risk allowing himself to be uprooted for the Spindafor Unification’s project, but based on the huge return already, Wilkins #4 was coming along quite nicely.
The great specimen chamber below the ship was a decent purchase. He had suggested that they put his spirit recording into a re-engineered body this time. The system did not permit a single entity to exist in any more than one place at a time, but human-colony rifts were vastly more rewarding than almost any other kind, and Wilkins had been the only human they had been able to preserve from the human’s idiot attempts to cryogenically preserve their species.
Some species could be easily preserved cryogenically, but humans were not one of them. Their bodies were made of water, a substance that universally lent itself to crystalline formation and dispersion when frozen, even if you froze them almost instantly. Long-term preservation was utterly impossible unless you used something like a temporal preservation field because even random cosmic rays would turn their cryogenically stored brains into slush within only a few years.
Fortunately, the Spindafor had managed to get to that world, Earth, right on time to see seven stations parked around its gas giant filled with frozen corpses. It was only a matter of decompressing them so they could be searched, and the governor’s own scrounging talents to find one frozen corpse that still could be revived, or at least had enough of a spirit still attached that it could be respawned.
The rest, since they were dead and the local species was restricted, had immediately been recovered to cover the expedition’s costs. The stations, themselves, had been unrecoverable because they were considered part of the protected sector’s inheritance, but a set of frozen corpses that were clearly worthless and disposed of were fair game even by system standards. One species’ trash was another species’ bio-organic treasure trove, and the ‘garbage’ had been extremely profitable.
But that was three attempts ago. The first two attempts at restoring Wilkins had simply and violently ruptured their specimen containment, killing themselves instantly in the vacuum since the Spindafor hadn’t realized that a life support unit was mandatory. Humans were demons able to survive the worst of hell-worlds… who would even think they were vulnerable to zero pressure, normal temperatures, and a lack of specific gasses? Fortunately, respawning from a preserved copy was far cheaper than a full resurrection, if still somewhat expensive.
The last one had simply sat glaring at itself, its poorly-designed body with missing parts, shivering in what he now knew was extreme cold, and refused to move or attempt to communicate meaningfully until the doctor finally was forced to recycle it. Its behavior baffled even the brilliant Kuledge.
The idea of giving it a re-engineered body, basically a stabilized and defaulted genetic copy, seemed to have worked out amazingly well, despite neutral attributes and traits. They weren’t able to control or define its gifts, since that sort of thing firmly stepped over the system’s prohibitions against genetically engineered slaves, but this new body seemed to have calmed it down a lot, especially with the ego suppression that was permitted for law enforcement.
It had done what they expected after it had been appropriately motivated, and run through a rift successfully, without the rebelliousness or apathy of its prior copies. It had been a risk, but its first run-through plus the bio-recovery efforts of the derelict stations had already paid back all of their investment, including the doctor-professor’s fees. The local rifts for this species were an absolute treasure trove of resources, and the legends of humans as the ultimate rift-runners were proving out quite profitably.
Unfortunately for them, the Spindafor were not… bright. Vegetarian aquatics from a Boron-cloaked world, they’d barely puzzled out the ability to leave the low-pressure moon that they existed on when they had encountered the system. Like almost every species, Spindafor were almost entirely nonviolent. Not to the point of some species, who would rather suicide than even consider the concept of committing violence, but they had used technology to starve out their predators long before they had ever reached for ‘the big bright’.
By contrast, and the reason they had hired a brilliant thinker like Kuledge, his people were EXTREMELY violent, within their capabilities. As immobile crystals, fed by the light of their blue dwarf, any other crystal that dared impinge on their territory was an existential threat to their own life and ability to photosynthesize. When crystals spawned from spores, they spawned in the millions. The survivors had to learn to use sonic waves to shatter all of their competition, and their offspring, and destroy them if they wanted to survive in their own territory.
Predators had been exterminated millennia before the first Crysmal had grown large enough to gain sapience, and their only true enemy now was themselves or aliens. They had gained a place for themselves in the Galactic Consortium through their ever-increasing brilliance and effective immortality, allowing them to create incredible technology, especially once they had gained access to the system and their own special spiritual affinity, dynamism. Most Galactic Consortium vessels had at least one Crysmal on board for their problem-solving and audiokinetic abilities, and like most consortium species, they were considered peaceful because they had little reason to compete with other consortium species for resources.
An old thinker like him had murdered trillions of his kin, his offspring, and competing crystals. Then again, once the few elder crystals had learned to communicate and figured out a way to achieve space flight and colonize other low-gravity worlds, the system had quickly been adopted by their species as a form of nonviolent communication. Sonics were both their salvation and their ultimate weapon, sending echoing waves from seniors to communicate ideas and scientific theories, until eventually, they were able to use sonic pressure, audiokinesis, as a method of manipulating materials themselves and creating custom-grown crystalline starships.
But against the more energetic races, especially those capable of self-locomotion, the crystals needed to employ other techniques. Doctor-Professor Kuledge himself had discovered the method of growing hyperspace-responsive crystals for warp drives, almost half of a galactic year ago… The third, protected planet here would have to rotate around its star twenty-two hundred times to match a single galactic year.
He watched as the creature nodded into its cell, spending a few moments just relaxing against the wall to recover from its complex ordeal. The intelligence of these humans was staggering. By default, they seldom lived more than a hundred of their planetary years, and cooperated well, despite their willingness and more importantly, their ability to commit violence against nearly anything including their own kind. That was why the planet was locked down with protected status the moment they had gained the ability to transit from their own world, before their species and more importantly, their randomly violent tendencies could start to contaminate the galaxy at large.
Fortunately, they were rendered safe for the time being, but every core species knew that the moment any of the human worlds were able to start transiting, they would immediately dominate the entire galactic cluster. It had happened before, their species was both incredibly dangerous and innately productive, and within the professor’s lifetime they had dominated the galaxy and seeded many of its worlds, and only their racial decision to ascend had freed the galaxy from their aggressive control of the system that they had created, the system that now, almost every life-form depended upon.
One human outside of the protected zone could be monitored and controlled. It was almost ironic that he was using the same kind of monster that had once controlled the galaxy with an iron fist as his personal fetch quester, an irony that made his core cluster ring in amusement.
Based on its sheer productivity, if this Wilkins was a creature that was capable of keeping its own agreements, Kuledge’s share of the Unity’s awards would make him impossibly wealthy over the next century or so, wealthy enough to buy a planetoid to seed with his offspring, at least. The first rift clear alone was staggering, bringing in as much as hundreds of runs of the unity’s resource rifts in mere hours.
Technically, this entire fleet could be destroyed for violating protection orders, especially for using a soulstone to capture a human and allowing a human to exit the protected worlds. He was still filled with amusement at the idea that galactic laws could apply to a member of his species. They had done their due diligence since this particular world was nearly 200 light years away from the system where they had retrieved the human’s soul core. Most human systems were very similar, with yellow suns, around fourteen Klax-standard gravities, and oxygen-water atmospheres.
The chill had been a ploy to make the creature feel like it truly depended on the largess of the Unity and Kuledge, and it seemed to be working brilliantly so far. Even if it somehow escaped, the local human world would be incredibly inhospitable, infested with chaos rifts and creatures that barely counted as human.
Of course, everything in a protected system was also protected, but the human system’s rifts were not even monitored… why would they be? If anyone was unbalanced enough to delve them, their punishment would be instant by the rift itself. It would be like outlawing suicide.
That made this the perfect crime.
***
So, I had 4 points to spend, but I didn’t want to dump them all in one place. At least not all in a single attribute. I guess I sort of understood that. I just wish I understood HOW the numbers worked in affinities.
Anthony Michael Wilkins (Base Human)
Classes: Returner (3)
Energy Credits: 350
Free traits: 4
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
Chimera (physical affinity): 2
Melee Training (novice)
Bushwack (amateur)
Durability (novice)
Imagination (mental affinity): 3
Survival (novice)
Empathy (novice)
Undefined (spiritual affinity): 2
Evolutions and Adaptations:
Re-engineered
Resist Mutation
Big game hunter
Scotsman
Recycler
I had gotten a point of body and fitness, from ‘working out’. From what I remember, going from ‘fit and muscular’ to ‘gigantically swole’ was a hell of a harder trip than from ‘couch potato’ to ‘fit’, as long as you had the willpower to get started.
Increasing your mental reaction speed was a much tougher prospect, but that tends to happen primarily in action, and from training. There was no one else here to train with, But… at least I still had my fire enhancer. It had been in my hand when I left, and I guess I got to keep it.
The old tutorial fart had strongly recommended getting some kind of AI assistant thing. SI? I didn’t know what the difference was, but it might be able to get me onto a decent track. It was pretty expensive, but I kinda needed a little information. I opened up the ‘energy credit’ list on my transtator and threw up the list.
“Good job on clearing the dungeon!” the governor said in that synthetic voice.
“I didn’t clear it.” I grumbled, “I only cleared two rooms.”
“You only cleared the first two rooms? You didn’t get to the final conflict? But we cleared an enormous amount of ejected resources. Why didn’t you proceed more deeply?” The doctor asked.
I sighed, “Because as far as I could tell, the next area was packed with hundreds of skeletons.”
“What are skeletons?”
“Those things that the beaten-up spacesuits were wrapped around? Those were animated. Walking dead. Necromantic constructs. Now you hear the tale of John, he’s just bones with the skin all gone.”
“You defeated all of those constructs? Including the Ghuls?”
“Yeah. So I decided to come back and regroup. Maybe buy some grenades or a better weapon than a bayonet.” I was scanning over the list of personal SI upgrades. The most basic was 250 credits, but if the tutorial guy was right, it was worth it. I had 350, but I had no idea what better weapons would cost. I was pretty happy with the armor right now, but I wasn’t a bomb tech… and these undead skeleton dudes didn’t seem to be using guns.
I decided to go ahead and get the basic package, plus the ‘upgrade assistant’ for 25 credits.
“What are you doing now?”
“Buying a PSA like the tutorial man suggested.” I said, pushing the ‘purchase and deliver’ button in the air.
“No! Stop! You are not config…”
My head was splitting, and I couldn’t hear anything. The only thing I could see was the transtator window in front of me, this time the text was red.
Caution! You have purchased and downloaded an option that requires a data encryption upgrade. Your brain is currently taking damage from unchanneled communications transmissions. Would you like to purchase a storage and data encryption upgrade for 1 free point and 25 energy credits?
“Yes!” I hollered. Anything to stop the pounding!
The pain settled out, and I heard an actual voice inside my head. It was tinny, like the governor’s synthesized voice, but comprehensible.
Hello. I am your Personal Synthetic Intelligence class 1 digital Assistant. Would you like to give me a name?”
“Jesus H. Christ.” I moaned, clutching my head. That hurt like hell!
Very well, you may now refer to me as Jesus H. Christ. A cursory peruse of your personal history, however, implies that those who frequently speak with Jesus Christ are often considered mentally unstable by other humans.
“No, I wasn’t calling you, whatever you are, Jesus Christ, I was using that as an expression. You can be called… uhh…. Jessie. That fucking hurt.”
Very well, I will respond to Jessie. Your default transtator is not configured to interface with your neural network. It is a good thing you purchased a data encryption upgrade. You took 9 points of neural damage. Your brainstem was taking raw, unfiltered data from your transtator which was causing damage to your nervous system.
“Ugh. You suck. Why didn’t the tutorial warn me?”
The tutorial only had minor information on your transtator. Apparently, a transtator is being used to circumvent your species' protected status, which prohibits direct neural system interface. This is illegal, would you like me to inform the system administrators?
“I don’t know. What would happen to me?”
According to your neural data, you are re-engineered, most likely by using a soul gem, which violates system guidelines, although not local majority policy. Most likely, your soul would be released for rebirth.
“I would die?”
No, you already died. Your re-engineered body, however, would likely be disposed of in accordance with galactic policy.
“Then no. To me, that’s the same thing as dying.”
I can see how you would feel that way. Your current construct is not wholly bound to your spirit form. You can be retrieved with necromantic essence or be bound into a soul gem.
“Is there a way to get around that? I mean, to keep my body?”
Of course. I could help set that up immediately, but unfortunately, your species is considered protected for genetic reclamation reasons. I can see your confusion. The system has policies that it does not violate, such as the status of protected worlds, but the local galactic majority also has instituted system policies. Human worlds that have not achieved tech level 6 are not permitted to access the system directly, vote on galactic policy, or leave their preserves as system users.
“That…. What does that mean?”
That means that you can only use the system via a Transtator or a node, instead of a direct neural link. That also means that directly noding into local rifts is prohibited. If you wish to retain your current re-engineered body, your transtator would have no choice but to immediately node transport you to the closest human world.
“Earth?”
No, there is no record of protected worlds accessible. The closest human-inhabited protected world is unknown. You would lose access to your transtator, but could still get into contact with the system via nodes or an assistant like me.
“But you said there are humans there.”
Yes, but since it is a protected world, there is very little information available. They might not be base humans, or there might be base humans, but they might be in the minority.
“But there still might be humans!”
Very well, I have contacted a system administrator.
“What? I wasn’t done…”
***
Doctor-Professor Kuledge watched the human as it disappeared. Well, ‘watch’ was a euphemism for the combination of sonar, electrical field stimulator, and visible-light reflector that he used to monitor the monster.
On the downside, they were going to have to run. It looked like the human had, for some insane reason, contacted a system administrator. It was most likely dead, its re-engineered body vaporized instantly. He regretted not warning the creature about that possibility if it attempted to use its energy credits unwisely by purchasing something too high of a tech level for the current system, or through buying high-sorcery ingredients or a synthetic assistant.
On the plus side, the creature, during its incredibly short lifespan, had just placed the entire expedition in the green. Especially once they could cash in its survival habitat and the ‘Fire Enhancer’ and gear it had left behind. Hundreds, literally hundreds of energy credits, plus the thousands they had collected by disposing of its resources.
They had full system rights to the loot, even though it came from a human rift. The 400 credits they had spent soul capturing its essence and giving it a succession of cheap, disposable re-engineered bodies was more than repaid. He sent a signal to the governor.
“We need to head out quickly,” Kuledge stated, as their ship, a huge, 12-foot-long corsair that was perched delicately on top of the gigantic habitation module that the creature had used, started warming itself for warp transit. “The system knows we are here. I’d call this job a success. We should be able to afford at least 3 more ships to keep raiding the Accolar trading lines.”
Some people called them Pirates, but Kuledge preferred to think of himself as an opportunist… and this little side trip had earned more cred than years of preying on those idiot birds had ever offered. If you were too terrified of the minor hazards of space travel to even pilot your own ships, you had to be prepared when a more courageous species proved willing to regularly raid your synthetic intelligence-controlled drones.
Piloted vessels never got raided, most species could not even conceive of direct violence, which was why the Spindafor Unification was much better off serving the Crysmal, who WERE capable of mentally contemplating violence, if not particularly capable of performing it physically.
“Yes, Captain.” The ‘governor’ offered. Not that the Spindafor unification had anything like a ruler. Hive minds were like that. But when dealing with individuals, such fictions had value. “We will be primed to exit the system in 12 cents.”
Kuledge noted with pleasure the disgusting human's habitat folding itself as the system reclaimed it. Humans were powerful. It could have probably singlehandedly smashed the ship if it were able to survive in a vacuum like those space suits it turned over would have permitted. “Very well, set maximum speed course for Jettioahn. I have someone I can afford to eliminate now.”
The governor shuddered at the reminder that in the end, Doctor-Professor Kuledge, the commander of their small pirate fleet, was a killer.