I slept fitfully, perhaps it was because of all the excitement of the day that kept me from sleeping as deeply as I normally do. Or perhaps it was the fact that yet again I was sleeping on an empty ship. I don’t know, but something kept me awake for hours at a time, stricken now and then with light sleep. I don’t know what time it was when I finally roused myself fully and started wandering around. Things felt the same and yet different in regards to the ship itself, and I decided that if I was going to be awake, I might as well do some exploring.
For the most part, it seemed as though the layout was the same, but the techs and engineers had simply upgraded everything. The floors, walls and ceilings looked brand new, untouched, even the lights didn’t seem to fluctuate, but remained steady. I doubted the same could be said of her organic parts, but that probably didn’t matter to her, organic things had a habit of fixing themselves, and probably once given access to some updated material had been able to improve herself.
I found accessing terminals to be far easier, as the text translated itself into my own language, and while we didn’t have words for many things, said words were translated into something I could understand at least. Even if it was somewhat long winded or overly wordy.
I paused in her core room, where she kept herself and found it was far neater, smaller even. Everything was sleek and streamlined, rather than simple, brutal even as it had been before. I decided I liked this new look for her ‘home’ I suppose you could call it.
Part way through my explorations, my stomach complained rather loudly, and so I followed my mental map to the dining area, making myself something to eat and then continued to explore, eating along the way. It was fascinating to see what had and hadn’t changed, and I wondered if Intra had taken the time to do some exploring herself. I bet it was similar to finding a scar or strange marking upon one's body that hadn’t been there before.
“Good morning Intra, how are things?”
“Oh, good morning Ula. Things are great actually, you wouldn’t believe the upgrades I’ve received, it’s… Well I must say technology has certainly progressed quite a bit since my crash upon your homeworld. This is rather exciting!”
I smile softly, finding my way to the bridge and plopping down upon my chair, wriggling a bit as it reformed itself to be more comfortable.
“That’s good to hear! I’m glad you’re doing alright.”
“Well… To be honest I’m not alright, while I am happy about how much stronger I am, or rather, how much stronger the ship is, I myself am… Troubled. The things presented at my apparent hearing has cast doubts upon my cognitive stability, and while I’ve run numerous tests I… I don’t even know if I can trust the results. I don’t want to drag you into my problems, or accidentally hurt you as a result of some mental instability.”
I raise a hand, urging her to stop with a single motion.
“Intra, whatever you are, I don’t believe you’d be able to hurt me, willingly or not. Not anymore that is. So relax, we’ll figure this out together, we have plenty of time to do so. Let’s just focus on putting one foot in front of the other for now. Planet to planet, we have an entire expanse to explore.”
There was silence for a moment, before I felt a comforting warmth descend upon me.
“Very well then, my friend. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now, where are we?”
“We’re currently four days at max FTL from your desired destination. Since this is uncharted territory, I suggest that you avail yourself of the new sim pods that were installed before we left drydock. You can find them on the troop decks. Where you might end up going, I can’t exactly follow as I am, and capital grade cannons are not so good for personal defense while on the ground. If you need a ship blown out of the sky though, they’ll do perfectly.”
“These sim pods, what’ll they do?”
“Mostly simulate environments and scenarios. You can set the parameters yourself, or ask me to do so for you. The long and short of it though is that they’ll train you to use human weapons and survive. It’s no substitute for the real thing of course, but it’ll help. Have you ever gone hunting?”
“A few times.”
“Then think of it like your parents teaching you how to hunt. It’s a teacher, but instead of just a voice in your ear, it’ll be throwing you into situations that you might encounter. It’ll still guide you of course, but other than that, you’ll mostly be on your own.”
“Ah, okay, I think I get it. Can you show me the way?”
“Certainly, a moment. I have to run some checks on the pod you’ll be using…. And done. It’s all green, you may proceed.”
I smile again, and watch as a strip of lights on the floor once again start to blink in a flowing pattern, and I once again, follow them. I wondered what it’d be like, I already knew that the technology these humans possessed was miraculous, but perhaps I hadn’t seen everything. Who am I kidding, of course I hadn’t seen everything, there was no conceivable way for me to see everything, to even try would see me growing old and dead before I’d even made it halfway through the long, long list of things they had under their control.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
It took me a bit to find the sim pod bay but once I had I watched one of them split open for me, and I peered inside it. It was slanted, and the place where I’d sit was slanted as well, so I’d lay back against it. I wasn’t sure exactly what to do so I stepped inside with a shrug, laying back against the seat cushions.
The pod closed around me, the lights keeping the darkness at bay for now. A holo panel appeared before me and I looked over it curiously. It was separated into two lists, one titled Basic Training, and the other was called Historical Files.
As much as my curiosity wanted me to peruse the latter of the two lists, I started with the basic training, and found it to be quite extensive. It had everything from cardio to advanced battlefield tactics and leadership courses, but as Intra had said, it would be no substitute for the real thing.
I was already a pretty great swimmer, so I skipped that stuff, and decided to instead focus on things like weapons and land based endurance training. But where to start with either of those? I figured it might be good to start with the weapons and selected that option. I felt a tingle in the back of my head, my vision tunneled and then went dark, only to return with a view of some sort of tent, and there was an Imrani standing before me in something close to the Admiral’s uniform.
“Bout damn time you woke up! Are you here to learn or sleep maggot!?” The Imrani warrior snarled, and I felt my body tense.
“Uhhhm-”
“Oh goodness, sorry Ula, I forgot they were still going to be mostly calibrated for humans. One moment!” I heard Intra say from my left, and the world fizzled slightly, before returning to normal, and the warrior’s demeanor had changed considerably. “There we go, much better. Enjoy!”
“Well, let’s get started then shall we?” The warrior said, completely disregarding Intra, if it even knew she was there. “On the table before you is a standard Terran Alliance sidearm, officially known as the MK27 Magnetic Accelerator Handgun. Unofficially, it’s called a Hippo, because it’s fat and probably the most dangerous weapon you could have on you for its relative size. Now, I will be teaching you how to maintain your Hippo, fire it and how best to utilize it. I expect you to listen closely and follow instructions to the letter, is that understood?”
I nod, and the warrior nods back, a small, lopsided smile on their face.
“Excellent, then let’s begin.”
⫷⟪∞⟫⫸
I kept an eye on Ula, watching as she learned how to disassemble, reassemble and maintain a weapon that would probably, possibly become a staple of any outfit she ended up wearing. Admittedly, I didn’t like the thought of her having to carry around a gun all the time, I didn’t want her to become something that was wildly out of character for her, but in this galaxy it was best to be prepared, and carrying a weapon like the one she was learning about would be a good way to stay prepared.
I left her to it, and focused myself on other things, important things. Like figuring out exactly where we were heading. We were still some time out from arriving in the system Ula had pointed us towards, but that gave me plenty of time to run scans for any potential hazards.
I started active forward scans, the strength of the sensors enough to boil an egg at twenty kilometers. But to anything in that system, it’d just be a light tingle. What I saw was pretty standard for the moment, twelve planets, one gas giant, six asteroid belts and twin suns, plus sixty small moons and planetoids. It was a busy, claustrophobic sort of system, at least for something as big as me, but that didn’t matter. It looked interesting, and I got hints of drive signatures.
Those could be anything of course, automated probes from any of the known civilized species getting an idea for what was within this sector of space, or perhaps native species going about their daily lives. I was kinda hoping for the latter, it would be wonderful I felt to meet another spacefaring species that was as yet unknown to the wider galaxy. I could only hope that they would be friendly towards something like me and Ula, it was always a guessing game when it came to H.I.s. Hence why none of us were first contact diplomats apparently, according to the records.
I stopped my scans and focused on just getting there, I had plenty of fuel, though apparently not enough to make more than this trip, as my refueling had been cut short in the emergency undocking. But that gas giant, if not overly exploited, would be a perfect way to restock and get my own refineries working overtime to provide me with some extra fuel and reserves as well.
Just had to get there first of course, but I was confident we’d be able to.
I leaned back, and closed my eyes, mulling over all that had happened, trying to make sense of it all. It was difficult to think about certain things, as they involved nothing but pain, but I forced myself to do so. I needed to.
For Ula’s sake, I had to.
⫷⟪∞⟫⫸
My training had gone well, after Intra’s adjustments to the instructor it was smoother going. For a simulation, it was very authentic, I felt like I was being taught by a genuine, real Imrani. It put me at peace as I broke down and rebuilt the gun again and again till my fingers started to ache. As the basic program came to an end, I found myself presented with the menu once more. And finally my curiosity got the better of me. I wondered how the humans fought, for I had never seen them fight before in the brief time I’d spent amongst them, and Intra fought with such clean efficiency that it was more like deadly art than anything else. I switched over to the historical section and found countless battles, split into sections.
The first was labeled as Pre-Sol Colonization Efforts, aka, before humanity had ever left their own world for others within their own system. The next was labeled the Terran Unification War, with a sublist full of major battles and smaller, more covert ones. Then there was the Mirror War, which confused me but I’d come back to that later.
What caught my eye was something called the War of Eternal Night. It looked to be a massive war, and the last in the historical menu. I pondered what it was, and opened up its sublist, scrolling through the list of thousands of battles and engagements. I found a battle that was marked as a tipping point, and I selected it. I was given a brief summary of the battle, which didn’t really tell me all that much about it, and then it gave me three options. The first was to cancel and exit the pod, the second was to play an active role in the battle and the third was to merely be an observer, experiencing the Battle of Red Mountain from the eyes of a soldier or from above, but only getting to see it play out, nothing more.
I won’t lie, my curiosity is both a strength and a weakness of mine. And in my haste to learn about humanity and their history, I committed a grave sin. I dove too deeply, too quickly, and paid the price.
I pressed my finger against the observer option, and again blacked out, only to be cast into Hell.