High Admiral Kirkland was stone faced as he watched the fleets arriving. The galaxy had decided on a show of force that should hopefully dissuade the Yil’kaa from trying anything foolish, but knowing the yil’kaa, it was quite unlikely that this would work. Still, they had to try.
“Any change?” He asked, and the long range sensor officer shook her head.
“Negative admiral, Yil’kaa still on an intercept course for the Warden of Eternity. We have a stealth probe en route, it’ll self-destruct on your order.” She said, to which he nodded, relaying this information silently to the other captains and admirals around him. This was a major cluster fuck, and he almost wished that Intra had just stayed missing and undetected. But she hadn’t, and so here he was, ready to assist her as well as he could without violating any sort of peace negotiations.
“Keep me apprised, commander.”
“Aye aye.”
He turned his attention elsewhere, and sat down in his chair, bringing up the specs for the Warden of Eternity. She was a beast of a ship all by herself, the first of three prototypes to be assembled and put into active service. She was by far the largest one of her sister ships, the one controlled by the H.I. Flux had been a destroyer, and the other controlled by H.I. Oracle a missile cruiser. Both of them had been labeled as KIA and given posthumous honors once it was discovered they’d once been actual living people.
Course, by now there were ships far larger than Intra and the Warden of Eternity, some still controlled by H.I.s that had requested they not be moved into smaller bodies of a more humanoid nature. For example the H.I. Horus controlled the very dreadnought he currently sat on. One of the older H.I.s, Horus was technically the same rank as Kirkland, but only when he was required to take command if Kirkland and his XO were rendered incapable of further operation, whether through relieving them of duty, grievous injury, or death.
“STATUS CHANGE!” The commander said, and Kirkland perked up, looking her way. “Yil’kaa fleets have converged upon the Warden of Eternity and… my god… they planet cracked her. Or tried to, her signal is still going strong, the probe registers weapons fire and a charging jump drive.” She said, which was both a relief to hear and also only made things more complicated. Intra’s first directive was self-preservation, and that meant firing upon an enemy that meant to kill her. It was expected of her really, and for that they couldn’t fault her.
“Sir! The probe is detecting life signs aboard the Warden of Eternity… Non-human life signs.”
“Yil’kaa?”
“Negative, unknown species. Significant amounts of H.I. biomass is present in their DNA however… No idea if they were created by Intra or not, but she’s got a few million of them aboard.”
He groaned softly, rubbing his eyes with one hand. So she wasn’t just protecting herself, but protecting another species as well. Wonderful. He turned his attention inwards, getting Horus’s attention.
“Admiral.” Came the deep, baritone and yet regal voice of the H.I. through his neural link.
“Have you or any of the other H.I.s toyed with the idea of creating life through any means before?” He asked,.
“No sir, not that I am aware of. However, the possibility is quite high that with sufficient damage and something akin to a ‘leakage’, one of our bodies could influence the evolution of a species if said leakages were incorporated into the DNA of a species. I hypothesize that this is what happened over the course of Intra’s long exile. I doubt it was intentional. What little I know of her, she is not the sort to play god.”
Kirkland mulled this over, then sighed and nodded, closing the line and turning his attention back to the happenings.
“Sir! The Warden of Eternity has just made the translation to FTL, and the current projected trajectory will have her within Alliance space within a few days.” The commander stated, which was a relief to hear, but Intra had a lot of explaining to do, as well as some catching up.
“Concentrate the fleets closest to her arrival point around it, I want the yil’kaa to think twice about trying to pursue her into our territory.” The comms officer nodded, sending the orders down the line while Kirkland turned to his XO.
“I need to step away and get some sleep. If anything happens, wake me.” He said, the man who sat beside him nodding and rising with a salute that Kirkland returned.
As the High Admiral left the bridge, he shook his head, hoping that the galaxy would settle down soon, he was so close to retirement.
⫷⟪∞⟫⫸
A lone figure sat within a dark room, staring at the screen of their computer with a frown. So the rumors were true, Intra and the Warden of Eternity had returned, and stirred up the Yil’kaa as well. This could pose a problem for their plans, and that just wouldn’t do. The figure turned, looking at another who sat nearby, the soft glow of a cigarette the only light that illuminated their hidden features.
“The prototype lives. We should act quickly.” They said, and the hidden figure nodded.
“I know exactly who to call. She won’t get in the way.”
⫷⟪∞⟫⫸
I stared out at the streaking stars, my eyes wide as were everyone else's. It was something we’d never experienced before, so we were mesmerized by the view we were experiencing. It was like the sky had been reflected on the surface of water, and there was nothing but a thick band of pure darkness that made up the horizon. The colors were indescribable, all manner of hues we didn’t even have names for were streaming past us, and like an arrow through the air we shot forwards to places unknown. Intra had stopped talking, but I knew she was still alive, I could tell that much based upon our unique connection. She was just resting, and I felt she’d earned it. My gaze shifted from the view and onto my parents, and I took my father’s hand in my own, which pulled him from his enraptured state.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Come, we should rest a while. I do not know how long we’ll be here, so we should rest and then prepare for a long journey.” I say, and he just nods dumbly. The others who heard me seemed to snap out of their dumbstruck poses and turned to follow me. I must have seemed like such an otherworldly being back then, something greater than I had once been. Nowadays, I am just me, just Ula, and that’s the only way I want to be seen.
Through the halls I led the leaders of my people, the chieftains and priests, and led them to their rooms that Intra had set aside for them all. I left them to explore on their own, and presented a stately room to my parents, one I had been informed had been the former Captain’s, not that I knew what a captain was really, not yet at least. I left my parents in the room, once I was certain they had settled down to sleep, and went wandering the ship, seeing all the places I have never once been able to explore, either thanks to damage or simply because I hadn’t been allowed to at the time.
I saw a room where the great weapons that Intra used were loaded with their magic power, her drones bustling about and repairing any that had been damaged, or loading them with more magic. They seemed to give me a respectful berth now, rather than simply brushing dangerously close. Perhaps I had been elevated to some sort of position of respect within their simple minds.
I watched as my people slowly filtered through the halls, so many of us crammed into such a large space. So many people I had never seen before, from different tribes and beliefs, united under the chance that they might live another day. Several times I saw fights between rival tribes nearly break out, but Intra’s drones, or the Children of the Divine One as my people called them, would step in before any violence would actually come to pass, their deep voices enough to intimidate the would-be fighters into submission.
I led a few groups to the eating areas, where more drones prepared fresh meals for my people, meals of alien origin but were still clearly edible, even though my people looked at them skeptically. But when I took several bites of something called ‘steak’ and didn’t immediately die a painful death, they began to devour their own meals with abandon. Many had been hungry during the exodus, they’d not been able to gather enough food to properly feed them all so this was the first real meals they’d gotten in days or even a month.
I left them to their feasting, and went to Intra’s core, settling myself down against the dome that housed her. It was dim right now, but briefly brightened, as though she was acknowledging my presence. I smiled at this, feeling a warmth against my back and so I leaned back, closing my eyes and fell asleep right then and there, the racing beat of my heart slowing as the excitement of the day finally passed.
⫷⟪∞⟫⫸
While I slept I had my systems alter the hologram projectors to produce color beyond just blue. I know that wouldn’t stop the people now wandering my halls from treating me any differently, but I felt it would be a personal improvement. Besides, I’d never really liked the way I looked when projecting myself. So a change was desperately needed. Part of my consciousness noted the natives now roaming my halls, and I closed off sensitive areas, keeping them from them. The only one I would allow into those places was Ula, and even she would have limited access until she knew enough to not touch anything that’d blow us all up.
She was smart, but not that smart, not yet.
I felt her leaning against my housing and even in my sleep I smiled softly, pressing a small portion of my being against where she lay, providing her with some warmth. Together we slumbered, dreaming of wildly different things. But when I woke at last, I turned my attention towards important things. I first checked the long range sensors, noting that the Yil’kaa were in pursuit still, but a good distance behind us. They couldn’t catch up, even if they pushed their engines and drives, but they would drop out of FTL mere minutes after I did. Long enough for me to be ready for a fight, but not long enough to put more distance between us.
My sensors swept to my fore, and I noted an ever increasing number of what I thought could be friendly contacts coming into sensor range, and I ran their hull configurations as quickly as I could. They’d changed considerably, but I could still note influences from the Silvar, Orla, Wre’Ev and the Terrans in their construction. Eventually the first transponder signals reached my sensors and I breathed a sigh of relief as I registered that many of the signals were from Alliance ships, which meant that the war had probably gone in our favor.
I pushed the sensors aside for now and now looked inward, focusing on the people that had sheltered within. Many needed medical attention, and I sent drones to see to their needs. Most were malnourished and I tended to that as well, but they seemed to have found the mess halls all on their own, so my involvement was minimal.
I noticed one of the priests was awake, and I needed to have a bit of chat with someone that presumably knew their history, or what passed for their history at least. So I appeared before them, in full color splendor.
“Please do not be alarmed, I have come for a friendly talk.” I say, raising my hands as the priest jumped in shock. “I was hoping to talk to you about your people, namely where they first started and how your civilization came to be.”
The priest stared at me, their eyes lingering on my rather literal golden hair and the gold markings on my skin. They also seemed a bit fascinated by my style of clothing, which had distinctly Roman influences and was pure white with red accents. It took him a moment to register my request and swallowed, nodding. So I produced a chair for myself and sat, hands folded over my virtual lap and a smile on my face.
He recounted, in a most dramatic fashion I might add, how his people had suddenly became aware of themselves a full thousand winters beneath the water, how their bodies had changed quickly thanks to the strange substance they called the ‘godsblood’ they had been consuming, and how they had slowly crawled out onto the shores of what would eventually become their home.
Beneath the waves they’d been even more primitive than they were, almost feral, but the introduction of my biomass and my ‘godsblood’ had triggered something in their minds to give them a more comprehensive awareness of their existence. It had also altered their physiology enough to allow them to survive on land, otherwise by now they’d probably still be purely aquatic in nature. If they had been left alone, had I not reawakened then perhaps they might have reached the same heights as humanity did within their own evolutionary time frame. I doubt they would have reached humanity's current level though, by then the Yil’kaa would have detected them, investigated and probably purged them and by extension me as well.
A grim thought indeed.
I let him speak for as long as he wished, only asking questions when there was something that seemed unclear, and when he was done I was aware four hours had passed. I thanked him for his assistance, and was relieved to know that my influence on their evolution had only resulted in true sentience of this species. Truly my involvement had minimal effects upon their early development…
I’m so going to get court-martialed for this.