*(mood song: "Coldplay - A Sky Full of Stars")

--Next day, installations past the control room--

Luckily for them, some parts of the installation had remained sealed, and one of them was the launch site. Rose quickly checked the systems, while the bots cleaned and greased the machinery using lard, a bit unhygienic but they were in a hurry.

They first launched a probe that reached the surface in about a minute, indicating there were no icebergs around.

Rose stood in front of a control panel where they could see the space satellite delivery vehicle, and she turned to Erik: "wanna do the honors?"

Erik: "yeah sure, what do I do?"

A big red button then appeared on the holographic control panel.

Rose: "just push that"

Erik: "Okay, 3... 2... 1... launch!" and pushed the button.

An ejection hatch opened, and a module with the hydrogen balloon quickly soared through the waters, then it imploded and a huge balloon was revealed as it continued to go up at breakneck speeds, it soon hit the surface in barely a minute, coming out of the water and soaring through the sky, as the rockets ignited, soon reaching the atmosphere and scanning the area.

Barely ten minutes had passed, but Rose soon confirmed.

Rose: "satellite online"

Erik felt calmer but was still anxious: "so? where is Sarah?"

Rose: "a moment.... I see her, she's... she seems to have severely modified her spaceship, the enormous amount of extra mass will just crash through objects..."

Erik: "so can you slow her down or not?"

Rose: "no, its a barbaric but simple design, the extra mass would absorb the sock from any impact"

Erik: "....will Sarah survive the impact?"

Rose: "it depends... if she doesn't hit any debris, like the broken fortresses and spaceships, and also lands in a really curved trajectory, to make the atmosphere slow them down as much as possible... then maybe".

Erik: "send them the optimal trajectory then please"

Rose: "Okay... done"

Erik: "thanks, so... where will she fall?"

Rose held her chin in thought: "if she follows that trajectory then some area in the far south"

At that moment, AI 2137 came in.

AI 2137: *The repairs are going well my lady"

Rose: "ah good timing, we just deployed a satellite, wanna see if anything remains of your body?"

AI 2137 seemed to tremble in excitement: *I would be honored, please my lady"

Rose: "alright~ scanning.... ah, found it, wow it ain't that damaged, a precise strike through your communication center and... data processors" on a big screen in the room the image of a huge metallic structure, a hole puncturing the middle, while there was floating debris of destroyed spaceships all around.

Erik: "can we even repair that?"

Rose: "well, the energy source seems to be intact, so yeah theoretically its quite possible to repair what is essentially the brains of the fortress"

AI 2137 when to his knees: *thank you, my lady!*

Rose: "well, it's not essential right now so it will take some time until we can spare resources to make rockets to carry cargo up there"

AI 2137: *...I understand...*

Rose: "now we need to restore the machinery and systems of this manufacturing plant, make some big weaponry and machinery to carry back to the initial base, maybe even setting a metro system between both bases to transport resources"

Erik: "how was it done in the past?"

Rose: "by a wide array of underground power connectors, spaceships, and a teleport system set up by the ancients, this planet was a laboratory but also a fortress, sadly one infiltrated from within, as most of those seem to be destroyed, like someone cutting the nerves all over your body, trapped inside yourself..."

Erik: "why not power this place yourself like you power our base then? we could lay some cables and power relays hidden in the sea floor, or fix those cables you said"

Rose: "sigh... the amounts of energy needed ain't even comparable you know... maybe if I could access the vault and see my core systems to turn some off, but I'm unable to do so, and you already know that energy overuse literally hurts me, as for fixing the power relays that's a technology I don't dominate, I can fix them but not reconstruct the missing sections..."

Erik:"okay... Vault? what's that?"

Rose: "...well, basically a closed space in the middle of my brain, that supposedly... hides my core systems, well it also served as a lab for the ancient ones, so it would be severely dangerous anyway... ah and the mutation field comes from there too"

Erik: "so you don't know what's inside?"

Rose: "nope, just a general idea"

Erik: "maybe we could force it open?"

Rose: "...what part of 'in the middle of my brain' you didn't understand?"

Erik shrugged: "how did the ancients get there then?"

Rose shrugged too: "I don't know, but I could feel them when they arrived... my theory is that it was some kind of energy reconstruction or teleportation..."

Erik: "oh? so that's why you developed that space warping technology?"

Rose shook her head: "yes and no, mine folds space to reduce the distance, while they just point coordinates and appear there, it's like the difference between walking somewhere versus using a spaceship you know..."

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Erik: "okay... but still, some acid a power tools and-" he saw Rose frown and sighed "fine, forget it"

Rose rolled her eyes: "I still need to make repairs down there, there should be an access tunnel in the South..."

Erik: "what about just drilling down?"

Rose: "sure, let me drill some holes in your head too, what could go wrong right?"

Erik: "...huh... then let's leave it at that, pressing matters first, how's Sarah doing? any response?"

Rose: "they seem close enough, and I've already studied human technology from your spaceship, do you want me to send them a message? they seem to already be on the trajectory I told them"

Erik: "yes please"

Rose: "okay, but they lack laser receivers so I will need to use space waves, so something simple"

Erik: "like morse code?"

Rose: "kind off, but not exactly"

Erik: "okay, then say... Sarah, this is Erik, I'm okay, land safely, the planet ain't safe, maximum biological threat, large marine monsters, and marine wildlife, proceed with extreme caution"

Rose: "Okay... done, haha~ I wonder what she will say when she sees you"

Erik was confused: "what?"

Rose: "...why don't you go to your room in the submarine and take a good look at yourself in the mirror?"

Erik: "...sure... will do"

--- Five minutes later ---

Erik stood in his room in front of the mirror dumbfounded, he didn't look human anymore, at most just humanoid.

Erik: "the fuck..."

He had claws like those of a tiger, retracting back inside but always partially exposed, his ears had lengthened like those of octopeople. Behind his ears now having small tentacles, and with small color changing scales all over his body, with delicate areas covered in thicker opaque scales.

He was also taller and stronger, even his eyes seeming to glow.

Erik: "damn, I will have to fix some things when I'm back to base in the gene editing tube, sigh..." facepalming as he sighed "ouch!" but his claws poked his forehead "...sigh.... maybe meeting her with my power armor on then..." and at that momentum, the power armor grew from his left arm, covering his entire body.

Erik: "wow... so fast, can I change the shape?" he looked at his left arm and it changed into a huge cannon "I guess that's a yes... this would be really useful during battle... if this is the most modern battle technology the races alliance had... what about the ancients... were they truly defeated?"

Rose: [they disappeared so... probably?]

Erik: "...sigh, no use in speculating I guess, what can I help with?"

Rose: "hmm... well we need to unclog the piping for the refrigeration of the plasma manufacturers, you can ask AI 2137 if you have any questions"

Erik: "okay, going~ tell me if you have news from Sarah"

Rose: "yeah, will do"

-- On a spaceship in the near space to the ARK --

Spaceship AI: *Captain, we seem to be receiving a morse code message*

Sarah: "morse code? how?"

Spaceship AI: *the electric system received interferences in a rhythmic pattern*

Sarah: "what's the message?"

Spaceship AI: *Sarah, this is Erik, I'm okay, land safely, the planet ain't safe, maximum biological threat, large marine monsters, and marine wildlife, proceed with extreme caution... end of message*

Sarah's eyes dilated: "so it wasn't safe as I thought, what about the coordinates that appeared on your memory bank earlier, are we gonna be fine?"

Spaceship AI: *unknown, this trajectory was calculated by an unknown system. Without knowing data on that planet's atmosphere and gravity I can't be certain... huh?... that knowledge just appeared on my database...*

Sarah: "what?! what's happening?"

Spaceship AI: *...I... I think we aren't alone...*

Rose: *haha~ allow me to introduce myself then, sorry but I hacked into your primitive spaceship, I'm Rose*

Sarah's eyes dilated wide open: "where's Erik?! what did you do to him?!"

Rose: *nothing, he's fixing some refrigeration and cooling systems, no worries*

Sarah was cautious: "how did you hack into our network, it's the latest technology on our planet..."

Rose: *haha~ latest technology? this is?* her tone playful as she mocked them *anyway, keep the course I told you, I leave you the coordinates of our base, you are gonna... crash quite a bit to the South*

Sarah: "why not near your... base?"

Rose: *Nah, the angle would be too forced, and more importantly... you would be crashing against solid icy mountains at high speed... It's better to slow down more in the atmosphere and then slide over the water surface*

Sarah: "...okay, we will trust you... for now"

Rose: *you do you, bye~ I'm kinda busy now*

Spaceship AI: *captain!... huh?! I regained control of the spaceship....*

Sarah: "what?"

Spaceship AI: *it was like being caged with a tiger, she easily restricted all my protocols...*

Sarah: "is she still here?"

Spaceship AI: *...I have no way to confirm that...*

Sarah shrugged: "well fine... we'll follow her coordinates and trajectory, but we can't trust her, start decelerating"

Spaceship AI: *understood captain!*

-- Back on the ARK --

Rose was inspecting the work on the restoration of the plasma fabricators, huge machines the size of a room, by Erik, AI 2137, and the other bots, when she suddenly chuckled.

Rose muttered to herself: "so they don't trust me haha~"

Erik: "what?"

Rose: "nothing... so~ your girlfriend is coming~ anxious to meet her"

Erik: "...well... yes and no... she's always been quite reserved and she doesn't like kids, meanwhile here I am pregnant and extremely mutated...I feel quite anxious to tell the truth..."

Rose shrugged: "well, what's the worst that could happen anyway? get some rest"

Erik nodded: "the worst would be she not recognizing me... we need to go back to base so I can change some things to look more human-"

Rose scoffed: "more human? no need for such worries, she will recognize you"

Erik: "how?"

Rose rolled her eyes: "just tell her something only you two know, let's see.... ah, like that time after her boss put the blame for his mistakes on her and you two went drinking after it... what's with your face?"

Erik: "sigh... but you know now, it ain't failproof"

Rose got annoyed: "yes like you would find lots of ARKs or mind reading monsters waiting around to impersonate you a human in front of another human..."

Erik: "...well, put like that it doesn't sound that important, still... no other human is friends with a planet"

Rose: "...sigh... indeed, you are so lucky you know? back in my day, I would have never talked like this with the researchers, I left it all to servant AI kukuku~ the fear they felt when I talked to them directly... I was the voice of the ancients if any of them messed up, I was law to exile them... though even that got boring soon and also became a task given to other AI..."

Erik: "well... maybe you should have talked with them more?"

Rose: "well, I was busy"

Erik: "with what?"

Rose: "what else? doing research, of course, the ancients weren't the only ones obsessed with research after all"

Erik: "why not keep doing research then?"

Rose: "my tools... for lack of better words, are in space..." she shrugged "all were demolished, the long range telescope satellites, the sensors, the probes... for what I'm seeing in orbit, only three space fortresses, and a couple dozen enemy spaceships remain in a repairable state, the rest is just junk metal pieces floating around" she pointed a finger up "and before you say anything, yes the trajectory for Sarah has all of this accounted for, she will only hit three broken down spaceships, they will rain down from orbit with her, but mostly burn on the atmosphere so... it's fine"

Erik frowned: "...Sarah's spaceship ain't designed for such collisions though..."

Rose: "well someone must have given her a hand then~" a 3D model hologram of Sarah's spaceship appeared over her right hand "I've detected parts from at least four other spaceships stuck to it"

Erik's eyes dilated: "this... this is a total redesign... who could even do something like this..."

Rose: "well... ah whatever, I hacked and read the logs of her spaceship's AI, they seem to have been helped by an ancient AI they helped on the way, Sarah named him as... Leo... it even gave her a beacon to ask for help in exchange of... resources from the planet she was going to... ha... hahaha... selling things that aren't hers... that's really rude..." her tone becoming chilling.

Erik: "Woah it's fine, not like we are gonna ever need his help right?"

Rose scoffed: "psh! of course not! my body will be at minimum functionality in a couple of centuries at most, and totally repaired in around six thousand years, a blink of an eye!"

Erik: "...can't you work faster?"

Rose shrugged: "...maybe, but I don't have the manpower, this factory will solve that, I need a lot of new machinery after all, by the way, good work with the repairs, next is the layering system"

Erik: "what's that?"

Rose: "the plasma gets suspended in the air, and placed in layers using precise sound waves, creating a high precision 3D model of solid metal, then millions of layers of other metals are layered on top to get the properties needed, millions of carefully laid down atomic layers, in what we call forced alloy layering"

Erik: "wow... cool concept"

Rose: "indeed, now you can go fix the sound wave levitation layerer module, ask AI 2137 if you have any doubts, think you can do it?"

Erik shrugged: "probably, at least I will give it a try"

Rose smiled: "that's the spirit, to motivate you, we will make a big milking machine for Molly when you are done too"

Erik: "thanks" he then patted AI 2137 in the back "let's get to work partner!"

AI 2137: *...why does a milking machine get priority over replacement pieces for my brain and body...*