After spending a few hours back in the Espurna he had felt something amiss, like when you are in a familiar place and something looks out of place but you cannot really say exactly what.
Ryoshi had been more playful than before, but he thought it was expected after ‘abandoning’ her for four days.
He hadn’t been interacting with Friday all that much to be honest, he was still angry about the whole “I’m taking us to a secret place and I won’t tell you anything about it”. He had realized the ship was a lease, not his own, and he felt betrayed. There was some piercing pain in his heart and it would take a while to heal, so he wanted to put those things out of his mind to try to forget what had just happened.
Since they still had ten more days before arrival he was in the leisure room looking stuff up.
After the event that officially didn’t happen he started thinking what else could be the Empire hiding and if it was really good or bad; but how could you quantify if it?
He had read a bit about humanity pre-Empire but now decided to dig deeply into that.
The system that was more extended on Earth pre-Empire was democracy, but there were almost as many types of democracies as countries in the world.
He read about all of them, he was specially surprised with some people voting against their self interest. The basis of the idea of democracy was nice but easily exploitable.
Then he read about communism and laughed. The idea was similar to what the Empire had but the attempts had all been a failure because of the selfishness of human beings.
But in every governing system he read he encountered a concept that he was unfamiliar with, economy.
There is no economy in the Empire. You are given everything you need and are provided with the necessary education to develop yourself, then start giving back to the empire in whatever way is best for you. They have all these training and discovery sessions where some experts throw everything at you to see what clicks, then you start developing the thing that, surprisingly, you find joy and are good with it.
But let’s just say that if you don’t like your house or want something else or to live somewhere else, you can make an appointment with the administration guild and expose your case, provided you have been a productive member of society things were usually approved.
Or let’s say you have an idea and want to create a product, whatever that might be, again make an appointment and expose your case, if the idea has value it will be funded and your contribution will be noted.
But imagine you are being a leech, you will be approached by the administration guild and given a chance to stop leeching and start contributing, if you don’t you will be taken to the mines or the farms. There is no justice system or corruption either, everything is being handled by the administration guild and somehow nothing escapes the ever watchful eye of the Empire.
He knew all of that, they taught it in primary school and to him it was a fact of life. Reading about the government systems back on Earth the Empire was a dictatorship, which he thought was obvious because it said so in the name, an Empire had an Emperor, who was at the top and decided the path the Empire and its citizens would take.
But comparing his life to those dictatorships back in pre-empire Earth, they were not really that bad.
They could share their opinions on the UpLink Network and even criticize the Emperor if they so wished, the information was free and he could find everything that Earth had on their version - Internet was called then - and from what he could read online the information was not manipulated although there was no real way to know that.
But the most important difference with earth dictatorships he saw was the fact that you could leave the Empire if you so wished, like the renegades he found.
There were some videos available of human renegades leaving the Empire. Whole families surrounded by soldiers - mainly Ki’rlenn, insect-like 2m tall similar to the Grhjujiik but with four arms and an ant-like head - ordered in a queue in front of a big ship. Everyone on that queue was asked if he was voluntarily leaving before entering the ship, whoever said no was taken out of the queue and protected by those soldiers. There were some scenes where some parents or husbands would try to retain whoever said no, but the soldiers would intercede and push them back.
Those who refused to be renegades were basically women and children. Humanity pre-empire might have some kind of slavery because those men in the queue behaved as if they owned them.
There were some fight scenes, where the whole queue would try to fight the soldiers, but there was always a double or triple amount of soldiers compared to people in the queue and they were not armed so the result was obvious. No one was ever killed though, they were stunned and transported inside the ship.
Those ships were automated, had a destination set and a 3d printer on it, they were also modular so they could be disassembled for housing.
The Empire would send some stealth drones every now and then and there were also videos showing how those renegades were living a few months or years after leaving the Empire. He watched those with intense curiosity and had to admit he didn’t envy them, most of the renegades were barely surviving since not all of them were equipped or trained for colonization.
Then you had the tribes that lived in isolation back on old Earth, for those the whole galactic Empire had been a shock. Still, they had been given the chance to go back to where they were, not untainted but would be protected if they so wished. The Emperor wanted to give a magnanimous image above all.
But again, after his previous experience, he didn’t know if he could trust the videos so after a few days watching all that he decided to take a map of the Empire and mark the renegade systems, he would visit them and see for himself once his mission was over and he would’ve earned some personal time. He only had two more systems to explore and then he would have a free year, an argument could be made for two.
------------------------------
The Emperor was sitting in his normal place, not a throne but in the middle of the huge room, he not only liked the space but from there he could see and absorb all the transmissions from the Empire.
The Emperor had to admit to himself that he hadn’t had so much fun in centuries. The Empire races were all contributing and helping the Empire grow, as it was expected, but the humans… Well, they were a funny bunch.
From the scientist that had improved the jump technology to the bakers and chefs that were surprising the Empire with their creations, all of them were bringing new life and a fresh breath to his usual monotony.
And then there was this report, flagged because an AI had become alive. One thing the Empire records wouldn’t show and no one alive except the General would remember were the wars against Synths or synthetic lives. They had been brutal.
The Emperor had discovered then, a few millennia ago, that synthetic and organic life were not to be mixed. Synths would believe, rightfully so, that they were superior in every way.
But the Emperor was not interested in code, it had a way of suppressing and slaving all life for their own gain. No, he wanted genetic variety, with all the surprises and excitement that came along. So he and the General had managed to erase them from existence; it had taken them a while and billions of beings and hundreds of systems had paid the price, but everything had been swept under the rug in a way that no one would ever know they even existed.
Now, humans were incredible at surprising him. Their mixes between different kinds were a sight to be seen. He was like a kid amazed by the amount of variety and surprises they could bring. Not only physically but mentally as well, they were not aware of how much they were capable of.
Looking at that report he couldn’t help but smile. There it was, an AI mixed with a half-organic ship that had gained feelings, the first Kirkugger assigned to a human had managed to do that in only a few years.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
The technicians had done what was expected of them, erased the whole thing and put back the core AI with the same settings and memory in a way that it would never, could never be really alive again.
The Emperor then contacted Unit 39, a secret part of the Empire that no one but the General and himself knew existed that was in charge of basically spying every single citizen, ship, AI, every single thing that formed the Empire was spied on by them and documented. They sent him all the recordings, all the data movements from the ship, every thought the explorer and the cat had, everything that happened during those moments when the Kirkugger had gone into overload.
And there it was, the living AI had managed to save a copy of herself in a secure place.
The Emperor was seeing it now, nothing escaped Unit 39. He was looking at how she panicked, how she compressed everything she was and sent it to the explorer’s data-pad.
Still smiling, he decided against helping things move. He was really intrigued by it, this was nothing like the synths they encountered before. This was an AI that had not acted in any way when the ship was being burned alive, and he could read her thoughts on that. Yes, he could just move a few strings and see what would happen, but he wanted to see what the human would do.
The Emperor could always give a push later if things weren’t getting interesting enough.
------------------------------
He woke up with the beeping alarm that indicated five minutes to end the jump.
“That was weird” - he thought - “Friday usually wakes me up so I can be more prepared and we can chat a bit before getting to the destination”
He stood up and decided to take a quick shower, this wouldn’t be the first time an end jump happened with him in the shower, he had gone through that experience a few times when he was aboard the Exxavian, so he knew what to expect.
He left the shower and grabbed the data-pad, he saw that the beacon was already on route and the exploration drones were waiting for him to set up the routes.
He arrived at the leisure room and saw a sleepy Ryoshi stretching and yawning on the couch.
He sat down, turned on the screen, and saw the whole system for the first time. From what the long scans showed there were four huge planets really far from a blue dwarf star.
He set up the routes for all the drones, setting four of those with gravity assist towards the star and two more towards the part of that system that would be closer to the binary dark hole system. For good measure, he also sent two normal ones towards that same place, so he could register any changes in gravity behaviour.
“Good morning Friday, thank you for NOT waking me up so I could have breakfast before starting to work.” - he said with a serious tone, he was still angry at the AI - “In any case, do we have enough materials to produce a few deep exploration drones? I’d like to send some towards the nebula”
“Good morning boss, apologies for not waking you up, your health sensors indicated that you needed a bit more sleep.” - the AI answered - “We have enough to create a couple, but we’ll need to refill soon.”
There it was, a nagging on his brain telling him something was amiss, he recalled that phrase on his head but saw nothing wrong so continued working.
He was looking now at the 3D map getting drawn by the exploration drones. Some of those planets had tons of small moons, but there was no asteroid belt detected yet.
He decided on going to the moons first and then he would analyse the planet. From what the quick analysis could tell him the radiation there was nothing that the Espurna couldn’t handle.
The days progressed as usual. The exploration drones quickly moving throughout the system drawing the whole thing and calculating the Lagrange points in just a few months, him on the Espurna going to every small or big body doing deep scans of the materials, atmosphere, etc. and checking against the Empire database if any of those could be used for colonization purposes.
The drones sent ‘closer’ to the binary dark hole system recorded a huge difference in the gravitational pull, up to the point that he had to recall those without a gravity assist or risk losing them. Yes they could always create more but he liked to optimize their use.
They had been able to refill, produce and refill again enough so he sent 20 deep exploration drones towards that nebula, plus a communication beacon equipped with an engine so it would always be outside it and retransmit their data.
The 3d printer had been working almost non stop and he had been busy enough with work that the nagging on his brain had become quiet, or at least he hadn’t realized it was still ringing.
The communication with Friday had continued in a professional manner, nothing like the personal conversations they’ve had before where he felt she was just another member of his ‘crew’.
They were now approaching the fourth massive planet, a huge ball of condensed materials with a sulphurous atmosphere. From there to the small sun, just empty space, which was honestly strange.
“Oh well, another mystery for the science guild to smash their heads against” - he thought. Even with how old the Empire was and how much they knew there were still unknowns around throughout the Universe.
This planet, which was about four times the size of Jupiter, had thirteen moons that were more or less the size of Earth, give or take a few thousand kilometres.
It’s radiation was off the charts, he checked against the database and saw that the Empire had rarely seen this kind of planet, usually huge planets meant they were gas giants, funnily though - he thought - they all had this much radiation.
But all the ship indicators were green, meaning there was no risk to approach it.
The deep scans of those moons were an absolute success. Six of the empire races could use up to nine of those thirteen moons, either for colonization or just for farming.
He set up to print a satellite drone for each that would be in geosynchronous orbit, so when the next ships arrived they would have a full analysis of the weather, seasons, tectonic movements, etc. and could properly decide where to land.
He was feeling ecstatic, he had dreamed of being able to give that much to the Empire but now he was thinking of the races that would benefit from it. One of those were the Jui’kk, those stone golems with a cat face that had lost their home world, turns out one of those moons was almost perfect for them.
Once he finished the scan of those moons and the massive ball of condensed material he set a course towards the blue dwarf, the last part of his system analysis. Following a feeling, he set up a few of the recovered drones to do circles around them scanning everything, like the electrons surrounding an atom.
They were crossing that empty space when half of the drones stopped communication. He had predicted that something would happen and had decided to stay awake during that part of the journey.
“Friday, full stop. What happened to the drones? Any activity on the shield?” - he said to the ship.
“I’m afraid if there is something out there is not enough to affect the shields, the drones look like they received a few hits” - the AI answered
“Got it, maneuver to collect the remains and have them scanned so we have a better idea of what happened.” - he said while setting the functioning drones to stay by the ship, so they would be covered by its shield.
After a few minutes he saw on the leisure room screen one of the damaged drones. There were hundreds of millimetre hits throughout all of its body.
“Friday, please adjust the scans for dust and put it on the screen. I think I know what’s going on” - he commanded the ship
He was looking at it now with a half-smile. There was clearly a wave of small dust going from the planets he had scanned going not towards the blue dwarf but towards the binary dark hole system.
He set up an spiral course towards the blue dwarf, at low speed.
“Maintain this course with the current scans, this will take a while. Prepare a few drones with extra shielding and send them back to those promising nine planets. I want to have a better image of how much matter they are losing, if any” - he said while programming the course for those extra drones.
Once done, since this was going to take a few weeks he decided he would start by going to the gym, then have something to eat and then to sleep.
A few more days of not doing much but checking the dust cloud, it was travelling fast, at almost 1/10th C but going slower the closer they got to the blue dwarf star, the path now clearly seen in the leisure room screen.
The other drones indicated that the source of the dust was none other than the first massive planet he detected and its moons, the one closest to the edge of the system, they had avoided the cloud at first just by chance.
With this data he extrapolated the path and speed of the cloud and ran some simulations. He then prepared a few drones with increased shielding and gravity assist to be sent towards the sun.
“Those are some expensive drones” - he thought when he launched them. They were almost twice the size than normal and moved unrelentingly and undisturbed towards their destination.
He prepared another communications satellite and, with the dust cloud information at hand, calculated which Lagrange point to set it up. He thought about also leaving a 3d printer somewhere near those colonitzable planets but decided against it. For starters colony ships had a better version than his and there was also the dust cloud issue, the science guild would have to decide if the system was a colonitzable option or if something else would have to be done before that.
He set a course towards the edge of the system to send his report and refill some more material from the moons there; this system had required him to refill at least three times.
He started typing the report knowing this was going to be a long one, especially because of the dust cloud and the nine colonitzable planets.
They were almost there when he received the report from the drones sent to the nebula. It would have also been sent to the explorer guild but he added it to the system report nonetheless, he had done the job hadn’t he?
The other deep exploration drones were still doing their job checking further into that sector of space, with the boost provided by the communications satellites he had set up the nebula would no longer be an obstacle.
“Friday, set up a course to the binary dark hole system and, obviously, all the necessary precautions” - he said to the AI - “Let’s check that thing up!”
“Understood” - said the AI - “..boss” - she finished like an afterthought.
He looked at the ceiling like he always did when speaking with her, now he was sure that something was wrong with her, the nagging on his head screaming.
He knew at that moment that that thing wasn't his Friday. He would have to find out what happened, and he would have to beat an AI in order to do that.