Chapter 27
Tetra
Tetra sat at her control panel, monitoring the fleet's status. She found herself in a position of authority due to her councilwoman status, something she never looked forward to. No matter how powerful your fleet A.I. was, you still had to approve any deviation and were notified of every question or problem that arose.
One such notification arrived towards the end of the awakening of this cycle's warrior cast. Ruby, as the fleet A.I., started calling herself, appeared before her and handed over a protocol-driven report on abnormal Vren behavior in a simulation's final awakening. She dismissed the report for later examination, when another arrived for the same simulation, and another, and another. She was up to eight such notifications when her interest peaked.
Tetra ordered Ruby to show her all the feeds for the aforementioned awakening. She watched as a larger-than-average human male was lowered into the tank, and Ruby highlighted the disorientation when entering the fluid. After dismissing that as nothing, she continued to watch the man settle at the bottom, waiting for him to enter the Vrens trance. After a full minute of this human defying the norm, she was indeed fascinated by him.
All the intrigue she had was instantaneously overshadowed by the complete shock she felt when she saw all the Vren huddle behind the man, and the largest and most lethal-looking Vren she had ever seen swam down into the man's line of sight. To her knowledge, no Vren born had ever deviated from the accepted norm in such a fashion in all the history of the empire. She knew of a dozen researchers that would sell their own mother to get a chance to study the creature.
Before she had the chance to give an order to the A.I., it had already activated a capture protocol and was pushing the mechanical limits of the machinery as hard as she possibly could without risking harm to the Vren or the man in the tank. To Tetra's eyes, it appeared as if Ruby was acting on behalf of the man... named Ryker. An odd turn of events, but now was not the time or the place.
The arm shot down into the tank but was too slow to catch the Vren before... the man lunged forward and grabbed it with his mouth. She couldn’t believe it. She thought he was being attacked, but then he did that. Everything seemed to be settled since he had eaten the specimen and he now was deemed untouchable by anyone or anything outside of the Pyramid according to imperial law.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Then the man was in obvious pain and started to vomit blood. Her shock at seeing another anomaly during his awakening could not be overstated. She immediately queried Ruby for all the information she had on the situation when she began acting bizarrely. In the next moment, everything on her monitor went blank. She pulled up her auxiliary telemetry and discovered that Ruby had pooled almost all of her processing power into a single problem and left the fleet offline.
Her mind started racing, and she knew that Ryker had just handed her a rare opportunity that she had to capitalize on. She rushed towards the corridor and shouted at her second in command to take control of the bridge while she investigated personally.
She pushed her legs as fast and as hard as they would go towards the emergency stairwell that led down into the research decks. After leaping down five flights of stairs, she burst through the Vren holding room that she knew could only be accessed by herself and Ruby. There in the center of the room was a massive tank that held thousands of Vren.
It was now or never; finally, she had her chance to awaken and escape the clutches of Viltrix and his vile empire. Failure was not an option.
With her mind made up, she climbed the tank and jumped in. She fought the feeling that she was drowning and swam to the bottom where she let her body settle as she slipped effortlessly into the trance that accompanied the song of the Vren. Seconds into the trance, she was approached by a gorgeous specimen, and she accepted it gladly. As she ended the Vren, she was caught off guard on just how sweet it tasted… She recalled hearing a researcher comment on how they had absurdly high blood glucose levels.
After swallowing, she felt a spike of anxiety creep into her thoughts, and she hoped beyond all hope that she would survive this and avenge all those that had died to Viltrix’s machinations. Cycle after cycle, she was forced to choose, and so she did. Untold billions of deaths were on her hands, and she would get justice for them or die trying.
The heat she had been expecting arrived, and the pain followed right on its heels. She gritted her teeth and bared the pain as long as she could before letting out a silent cry of agony. This is when it would happen if her body rejected the Vren. Either she was going to explode or fully awaken and have a chance to change the galaxy. As she felt the telltale shift inside and saw the corners of her vision start to go dim, she smiled and thought to herself, “I should thank that human one day... Ryker was it?... a strong name… I hope he makes it.”