The Espurna was flying throughout the structure as fast as she could, which wasn’t much due to the limited space and sharp turns. On one of the screens Jordi could see the 3d map of it with a few dots indicating both them and the other three ships inside it, all following the main tunnel, the only one wide enough for the kirkuggers to navigate.
The ones coming up were in line, the second one leaving a few hundred meters between them in case something happened; there were just a couple points on the whole structure where you could fit two kirkuggers side by side, and the Espurna was racing to arrive at the farthest one before the ships coming up.
They would then wait for those ships to pass them and continue after.
The Xhona was a good distance behind them, so much so that they would have to wait in two different junction points.
All ships continued with their defined paths, moving throughout the structure.
The Espurna reached the second-to-last junction point and stopped.
“If we continue we’ll meet them before the last junction point”- said Friday, and put the ship as close to the walls as possible so the upcoming ships had enough space to maneuver.
They didn’t have to wait long though, and when they passed the Espurna they both did a full roll as if they were saluting them. The Espurna did a roll as a response and continued its movement downwards.
During their trip down they had received instructions to not be by the door, they had already planned the boarding and he was to wait in the bridge.
They reached the silo a few minutes after and locked on the door. Jordi opened the Espurna’s door from the bridge and looked from the cameras as the new rescues came inside.
A crowd of blobs started coming in, there were dozens of them and they were boarding the ship as fast as they could move, and Jordi was surprised how very fast it was.
After about five dozen boarded, almost completely filling the ship so it looked like a sea of blobs, a couple ki’rlenn jumped in and closed the doors.
“That’s it, let’s go!” - one of them exclaimed, and the Espurna disengaged from the door and started the trip up.
By then the Xhona had already arrived and was waiting close to a wall, so it moved to occupy the space where the Espurna was before. An image appeared on one of the smallest screens on the bridge, it was Khurikk wishing them good travels.
—
As they were moving up, Friday grumbled something intelligible and Jordi looked at the screen showing the map of the structure and the planet.
The sexist kirkugger they met on the leisure planet had jumped the queue and was on its way down.
“What the fuck?! What is he doing?” - exclaimed Jordi.
“All present kirkuggers are female and he thinks we’re a bother. Jeeyze is hearing this animal as clear as day and so am I.” - explained Friday - “All the other AIs are confused, should I let them know?”
“No Friday. We are under strict instructions as to not discover the true reality of our ships to anyone, that includes your fellow AIs” - said Jordi patiently - “But please send all the data, including that kirkugger colorful language, to Xe’nia. I’m sure she would like to know why a ship is not obeying its orders”
“That I can do, preparing the package” - said Friday with a smile in her voice.
“And now, I have a feeling he won’t give us space. Calculate trajectory and speed so we meet each other precisely at one of the junction points, even if we have to slow a bit” - Jordi continued - “I’m pretty sure he won’t wait to let us pass”
Friday grumbled some more but Jordi could see the velocity being adjusted for that eventuality.
—
As they were going up they received an answer from Xe’nia, it was a short message just saying “This fucker. Don’t worry, I’ll handle it”, Jordi couldn’t help but smile.
They passed each other at one of the junction points just as Friday had calculated and, as expected, they had to dodge him because he didn’t give them much space. A cascade of insults could be heard from the speaker systems which made the current passengers look up in surprise.
“Nothing to worry about! All perfectly normal” - Jordi shouted from the bridge. - “Friday, be careful please, sometimes your thoughts come out from the speaker system” - he whispered.
“I.. wasn’t aware. Looking at my logs I see that it happened a few times before. Apologies” - showed as a message on one of the screens.
On another screen Jordi saw the Xhona had done as the Espurna and had waited on another junction point for the idiot to pass and was continuing its trip up. The other kirkugger coming down was being more respectful and was actually waiting now in one of the first points to let them both pass.
It was then when alarms started to beep. The event they had feared had started.
It started with a massive earthquake hitting the northern part of the structure, but it only caused it to shake a bit.
On the 3d map that displayed the planet and the tectonic plates it showed how the two up north were crashing against each other, with one crushing the other.
Then, since one of the edges of the plate was rising the other started to fall, making even more violent earthquakes and sending violent shock-waves.
All the ships inside the structure stopped their trip and started adjusting their position.
On their displays it showed how the structure was indeed sturdy enough and the violence surrounding them was only moving it a bit, but there were no parts being bent or crushed.
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The Espurna continued its advance slowly, Friday frantically running the numbers of everything around them and adjusting both direction and speed so they wouldn’t hit a wall. The Xhona was trying that as well but all it could do was not bounce all over the place; now advancing some and now moving a bit backwards.
The Rayte - that was the name of the male kirkugger’s ship - was advancing but bouncing on the walls and still hadn’t reached the silo. It looked like the pilot and the ship were fighting each other.
“Shall we offer assistance?” - said Jordi looking at the poor ship struggling downwards.
“I don’t see how we can. I’m pretty busy here at the moment” - answered Friday.
“Well, from the looks of it seems like the animal underneath is not letting the AI take control. I know of an AI that can give orders to others, just because she can lie if she wants to. Couldn’t you send that ship’s AI instructions to forcibly commandeer the ship?” - inquired Jordi.
There was a pause, longer than what Friday usually took to provide an answer.
“That would’ve been dangerous because anyone looking at the logs would’ve seen that I interacted with that AI and sent those commands. BUT I’ve sent your recommendation to Xe’nia and she has higher clearance. It's just going to take a bit to get there.” - replied Friday.
Jordi couldn’t help but smile at how Friday was learning to navigate those situations, finding the space between what she should be doing as a normal AI and what she wanted to do as an awakened one.
Even with the distances between the structure and the gas planet where the fleet was located, it would take only about a couple minutes to see a response. During that time the Espurna and the Xhona struggled to advance through the structure, as it was continuously moving back and forth due to the surrounding earthquakes.
Jordi was awestruck by the structure’s material sturdiness. He was ready to believe that even if the planet exploded, the structure would remain as it is.
They kept advancing but it felt more like they were running an obstacle race on a field that was moving around in three dimensions.
Jordi was looking at the screens on the bridge and felt useless, Friday and the Espurna were doing all the work. Now moving forward, now stopping and moving towards a side a bit then back, now forward again; and doing all that while the inertial dampeners were compensating.
A quick look on the cameras throughout the Espurna showed him that the guests were calm, the inertial dampeners were doing a good job and no one felt how much the ship was shaking and moving sideways.
Outside the structure, the earthquakes and the movements of the terrain were like waves hitting a breakwater. Under it, the scans detected a flow of material, and the structure was slowly falling towards it.
The minutes passed and he now saw the Rayte had stopped its irregular movements and was about to land near the silo.
A message appeared on a screen.
“Thanks for providing us with that information. It looks like that kirkugger will have to visit a black site that definitely doesn’t exist. Keep up the good work and be careful, the current scans show the situation has taken a turn for the worst '' - it wasn’t signed but that had to come from Xe’nia.
Then, Jordi had a crazy idea.
“Friday, how much processing power can you spare?” - he asked.
“It depends, I should have about ten or fifteen available if the situation doesn’t change much” - was her response - “Why? What do you have in mind”
“The structure is sturdy as heck and they must have some kind of atmosphere and climate controls there in that silo or they wouldn’t be waiting there. What if we freed it, hitting precisely in the surrounding points, and took it to space?” - he explained. - “Once there, we can use the same tactic they used with those massive ships, with some kirkuggers shielding the silo from the radiation and a queue of others just loading”
“The terrain is already a mess and is making it really difficult to navigate the structure. I can see that clearly from your movements. Outside the terrain and the planet’s gravity, we won’t need to even navigate it, we can just fly straight to the silo” - he finished.
“Not a bad idea but I don’t have the structure details or know how many kirkuggers are available. I estimate it would take about a hundred of us using our tractor beam at full to pull this thing out. I’m sending the plan to Xe’nia” - Friday answered.
A few minutes later and they were finally free of the structure and on a path to leave the planet, the Xhona left almost a minute later.
Leaving the planet they didn’t see any other kirkugger coming in but their long scans indicated a fleet of a hundred and fifty kirkuggers burning hard on their route towards the planet.
“I’m going to guess they liked your idea” - said Friday and at that moment a message appeared on a screen.
“We were just discussing possibilities when we received your message, funny as it is, there was someone else who had that same idea minutes before your message reached us. Please wait here for them, we’ll be needing everyone’s firepower to free the structure from the surrounding terrain. Once it’s free, come back to us, the others will handle the rest. Good hunting.”
“The Xhona has also received those instructions and we’re coordinating with the other present kirkuggers which zones to shoot.” - Friday informed him. - “We must wait for those inside to leave though, they should leave before the others arrive”
Jordi had no idea how many beings were still inside there but to move all of this to save them spoke volumes of how much the Emperor cared.
“And how is Jeeyze? I’m worried about the radiation to be honest” - he asked.
“She thanks you for caring but says she’s a big girl and can handle worse than this. But to be honest she has somehow blocked my readings of her pain receptors so I’d say she is clenching her teeth figuratively speaking and doing her best to hold on” - Friday said with a worried tone in her voice.
Jordi knew there was nothing he could say here. The ship would hold, he was sure of it, and then she would probably need the equivalent of a healing pod. He hoped that gas giant was as good for them as they said.
Then he decided to inform his guests about why they were waiting and what they were going to do, if only because they would find out later anyway so it was better to let them know than to have them worrying without reason.
—
The two kirkuggers inside finally exited the structure and arrived at orbit, where they were informed of the current plans and proceeded to take positions since the Espurna, the Xhona and the other two had already made the necessary calculations for the shooting. Now they were just waiting for the fleet to arrive, which they did just a few minutes later.
A hundred and fifty six kirkuggers took their positions and started firing around and under the structure. Each shot a perfect and precise one.
They would shoot and move a few meters then shoot again. The four in orbit had already calculated the terrain displacement, the structure movements after each impact and more.
A couple minutes after they had started shooting they saw the structure tumbling, that was the call for the tractor beams to start doing their job and for those ships carrying guests to go back to the gas planet.
Jordi deployed a small drone armed with a camera so he could follow the extraction while leaving. Then he received a private message from the Xhona with some drone details so he could connect to it; they had done the same.
To see those kirkuggers pulling that massive structure out of the planet and then creating a small net to protect it from the radiation, it was breathtaking.
They continued the trip outwards and Jordi kept watching the scene when he saw the long scans showing another fifty ships coming in.
The Espurna though was going quite fast and every now and then he would notice a small shake, Friday informing him by text on a screen that it didn’t come from external maneuvers but from Jeeyze, she probably was hurting more than she would share.
But that meant that the Xhona was in the same situation, so Jordi sent yet another secure message to Xe’nia to let her know that they would need some rest and healing before continuing with the mission.
Since they were closer now the answer came quickly, “Don’t worry, we got you.”
Jordi checked the status of the intervention and he saw that they were also pulling it outwards, towards the gas giant.
They were trying to recover the whole thing while rescuing the beings inside.
“Interesting, and didn’t think about that option” - Jordi said.
“Probably because that’s punishing to the tractor beams, all of those ships will need a few days in maintenance for sure” - mentioned Friday.
Now all he could do was try to enjoy the intervention surrounding the structure.