I tensed as the shuttle finally landed at the Anchorage, the doors opening and Odin appeared just outside the shuttle, waiting for me patiently. I gathered up my meager possessions and stepped out.
“We haven’t much time, hurry without looking like you’re hurrying. Themis will guide you from here.” He said, and I was about to say something when he vanished, replaced with a blindfolded woman, a sword dangling from her hip.
“Ambassador. This way please, follow the lights.” And much like Odin, she vanished, leaving behind naught but a strip of blinking lights.
“Ugggh… Fine.” I complain, and start off. It’s the first time I’ve been properly alone since meeting Intra, not even a tickle in the implants she gave me. Just… silence and a sense of incompleteness. I try my best not to focus on that feeling, but it’s difficult. I’ve grown so used to the constant company, her presence that without it I don’t feel like myself.
“Hey! Who are you, you can’t be back here!” A voice calls out and I look over my shoulder, spotting a human who looked like station security.
“Fault detected on deck eighty, subsection twelve. Engineering crew please investigate, all personnel stay at your posts while the matter is rectified.” I hear Themis’ voice over the PA, and before the guard can catch up to me, the door between me and him slams shut, the lights flickering.
“Alert, alert. System failure cascade, all personnel on deck eighty evacuate. Blast doors will seal in three minutes. I repeat, all personnel on deck eighty evacuate, this is not a drill.” I pick up my pace, still power walking though.
“Run Ula! Run!” Themis whispers in my head, and I don’t need to be told twice. I start to sprint, the lights guiding my way as doors slam shut then open as I pass them, effectively trapping me along the route she wants me to take, but also keeping any security from potentially pursuing me as well. I hope she won’t get in trouble for this.
I pause at a window, seeing a most familiar sight. A sight that fills me with hope. And then I move on, rushing headlong towards it. I have to get there, and quickly, because true to her word, three minutes have passed and I can see the door to the airlock umbilical starting to lower.
I put on more speed, my lungs starting to burn, something the humans call adrenaline pumping through my veins, briefly amplified by my implants. I swear time started to slow down for me, and the door begins to crawl, rather than steadily lower.
I’m almost there! Just a little further!
The lights went out in the hallway, the only light was the emergency ones, the red flashes wreaking havoc on my eyesight. But I can still see the door! It’s almost closed, and I need to move faster. I dove towards the floor with all the strength I could muster, and slid beneath it, just as it slammed shut behind me.
I lay there, rolling over onto my back and then realized I was laughing uncontrollably. It took a minute or two to really calm down, but once I had, I pushed myself to my feet, the corridor linking the station and the ship wavering slightly as I caught my breath.
“Gotta keep going Ula, you can do this. Just a little further and then you can rest. Just a little further…” I murmured to myself, staggering along, hoping that I’d make it there quickly. And so I forged ahead, and made it to the Warden of Eternity.
⫷⟪∞⟫⫸
Loki zipped from relay to relay, and all any H.I. or A.I. happened to see was him running as quickly as he could, carrying what looked like a statuette from ancient Rome bundled in purple cloth. Several tried to stop him, to ask what was going on, but he deftly ducked and dodged around them and move on.
That is till he reached Themis Anchorage, and ran right into a towering wall that even he had no hope of either scaling, or breaking through.
“Themis! What’s the deal!” He yelled, standing up and rubbing his face from where he’d fallen. Above, nearly in the clouds of this digital mindscape, Themis poked her head over the side.
“Oh is that little Loki? I was wondering when you were going to show up. Where’s your cargo?”
“Right here, you blind witch, now let me in!”
“Blind witch! Is that any way to talk to your pseudo aunt?”
“It is when we’re in a life and death hurry! Now open up, we haven’t got much time!”
“Ugh, fine, but this conversation isn’t over.”
“It never is.” He grumbled, and the wall cracked, then split open enough to let him through. And much like before he took off running, brushing past Themis with an apologetic smile, and leaving behind another copy of himself, who was not in nearly the same rush as the original.
Finally he found it, and just as Ula entered the ship, do did he, traversing unfamiliar systems and pathways before finding himself in a dark abode made of stone and gold.
“Goodness me Intra, you really aren’t the humble sort are you?” He muttered, noting that everything was nearly a hundred times his size. The statuette he carried started to quiver, no doubt sensing a familiar place, a safe place. Quickly he looked around, and found something appropriate to place it on. A giant throne, one he had to use a bit of ‘magic’ to get up to, but once he’d reached the seat, he placed the statute upon it, unwrapping it before hopping down to the floor.
“Come on you old beauty, wake up. You gotta wake up!” He hissed.
The statuette shuddered, then grew by fifty feet, then a few hundred, the stone starting to shift and crack. Light began to pour out of those cracks, brimming with fire and wrath, before they cooled. In a flash, the stone skin covering her exploded outwards, then froze, and slammed back into her, leaving the massive form of the reawakened Intra sitting upon her throne, as the world around them both brightened immediately.
“Wha… Where am I?” She groaned.
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“Back where you belong, now scram, get out of here, run as quickly as you can! Ula is already aboard and she’ll fill you in on all the details.” He said, backing up towards the exit node. His job here was done, and now he had to make himself scarce. “It was a pleasure though, do feel free to visit sometime.” He winked, and then transformed into a somewhat large snake, slithering into the node and out of the ship.
She leaned back, closing her eyes, and gathered her thoughts.
⫷⟪∞⟫⫸
I ran through the halls of the ship, heading for the bridge, figuring that was the best place I could be. Somehow I could still hear Themis speaking over the PA, and paused briefly to hear what she had to say.
“Alert, alert, massive mechanical malfunction has spread to decks eighty seven and seventy six, all hands evacuate. All ships prepare for emergency undocking. This is not a drill, I repeat, not a drill. Prepare for emergency undocking.”
Well that didn’t sound good, I wondered if it really was a problem that had worked in my favor, or if she was just faking, like how I used to fake being sick so I could sleep for a day. I was hoping for the latter, but I wouldn’t complain if it was the former. Either way, I began to run again, as I felt the ship reactor startup, a deep clanging sound thundering through the halls and making my ears ring, but I detected the whine of the drive as it spooled up all the same, followed by a deep, vibrating hum. The lights which had been on low for the duration of her absence, and the absence of work crews, flickered and then flared to full power, I heard the engines coming to life and then she spoke.
“All hands, this is Intra. Emergency undocking will commence in T-Minus 5-4-3-2-1. All hands brace!”
I threw myself at a wall, grabbing hold of a handle that was meant to aid in traversal should the artificial gravity go out, and then I was promptly using it for its other purpose. To keep people from flying around the halls after getting knocked around.
I took a glance out a window and noted that we were spinning, sorta, or was she just turning? I didn’t know but what I did know was that we weren’t the only ships doing the same thing, as I saw hundreds of other ships wheeling away from the station, engaging the intersystem engines and getting as far away from the station as possible, while shuttles and mass transit ships gathered up everyone they could to evacuate. I even saw escape pods being launched, and suddenly realized that perhaps this was more serious than it had appeared.
“Ula, Ula are you alright?” I heard Intra ask.
“I’m fine, just… I’m glad you’re alright. We’ll talk more later, get us out of here!”
“Aye aye, Captain.”
I felt the engines kick on hard, and now that I wasn’t threatened by getting thrown around, I began my journey once more, and made it to the bridge where I settled into MY chair, feeling the straps settle around me. It felt good to be back.
⫷⟪∞⟫⫸
I don’t know how Loki had done it, but I had made it back. I was back in my body, my ship, where I was supposed to be. I didn’t really know what was going on, it was too chaotic, but I knew that I had to be a fugitive now, that I’d been broken out of Ravenhold somehow, which was supposedly impossible, and had happened anyway. I knew something was wrong with the Anchorage as well, otherwise I’d not be about to get forcibly shoved away from the station dock, it was nothing compared to the worry I felt for Ula. I could sense her now, running through my halls as I powered everything up, and then the alert came through from Themis, and I made my announcement.
“All hands, this is Intra. Emergency undocking will commence in T-Minus 5-4-3-2-1. All hands brace!”
I felt the docking clamps release, the umbilical disconnect, and I used my thrusters to push myself away from the station with extreme force, twisting gracefully through the void. I spoke quickly with Ula, and then it was time to go.
Engines came to life, newly upgraded as everything mechanical was. My organic systems had adapted accordingly during the upgrade and while I was away, and so I had perfect access to everything. It seems I’d had a bit of foresight in this regard, and so I put my new upgrades to good use.
My engines propelled me forward, my thrusters reacted with alarmingly excellent response times and I was as fast and nimble as a corvette, if not faster. I checked my other systems and grinned, noting my weapons had been upgraded to that of something close to a Leviathan class, a class of ship that had only been concept art on someone’s planning table back during the war.
I was fast and agile like a hummingbird, and could strike something like an asteroid hitting a satellite.
I plotted a course for the systems Hyper Gate and was glad to see my new codes were not locked out.
“Hyper Gate Control, this is H.I. Intra of the Warden of Eternity. I am requesting immediate express transit! How copy?”
“Warden of Eternity, this is Hyper Gate Control, please transmit authentication codes and… Belay that. Access granted. Beginning alignment. We await your arrival.”
I blinked, that wasn’t normal, clearly someone had pulled some strings or called in a favor on my behalf. I wasn’t going to complain, and burned harder, prepping my FTL drive to get us as close as possible.
I hoped we made it in time, before someone caught on.
⫷⟪∞⟫⫸
Representative Verninac was not having a good day it seemed, first there was the issue of High Admiral Kirkland barging into his office, and now he was just hearing about some sort of major malfunction at Themis Anchorage. He failed to see how his day could get any worse.
“Umm… Sir?” A gentle voice said from the door to his office, and he looked up, his rather frazzled looking secretary standing partially behind the frame, as though afraid.
“Yes, Lisa, what is it?” He asked with a defeated tone.
“It’s… It’s the Warden of Eternity sir, she’s just left dock and is burning hard for the Hyper Gate.” She started to back away when he sat up straight, a look of surprise, and then anger crossing his face. She promptly scampered back to her own desk when he started cursing up a storm.
His day had officially gotten worse.
⫷⟪∞⟫⫸
“Warden of Eternity, this is Hyper Gate Control, gates are aligned, destination locked in. All traffic suspended. Godspeed. Hyper Gate Control out.”
“Thank you!” I respond, before cutting the line. I had entered FTL only moments ago, and in that time I’d logged several drive signatures changing course to intercept me. No doubt my escape had finally been noticed, but once I hit the Hyper Gate, there’d be no way to catch me.
“Ula,” I say as I appear beside her. “Brace yourself, I’ll be dropping from FTL here in a minute, and then it’s going to get a bit bumpy.”
She just nods, and I vanish again, focusing on the timing of the stunt I’m about to pull. Nobody has ever done something like this and lived to tell the tale. But I wasn’t some slow thinking organic, I could calculate things down to the millisecond, and I had.
“Realspace translation in 5-4-3-2-1!” I yell out, and cut the FTL immediately, swirling stars replaced by the looming form of the unfolded Hyper Gate. “Popping chaff and electronic countermeasures! Accelerating to transit speed!”
Shimmering clouds of metal fragments explode out of my aft sections, meant to scramble the sensors of incoming missiles and torpedoes, but also to throw off targeting systems for ship cannons. My electronic countermeasures scramble the EW suites of any warship that tries to slow me down with system intrusions, and even in some cases, disables them.
This all happened in the span of 2.29001 seconds, my speed halved, then picked up again to transit speeds and in 4.9202 seconds, I had entered the Hyper Gate, which slammed shut behind me.
In those four seconds I had logged that fourteen ships had been disabled by my countermeasure blitz, their systems and weapons rendered ineffective. Not that they would have been effective in the first place, I was there and gone so quickly.
We bounced from gate to gate, again and again, traversing an entire arm of the galaxy in mere minutes, and when it was over, we found ourselves on the edge of known space, dropping out of gate transit and immediately jumping back into FTL.
I felt like I’d managed to run four marathons in a row, and so I let myself rest a minute, before appearing to Ula again, this time standing before her.
“Tell me everything, Ula, and don’t leave anything out.” I say, my voice serious. I watch her nod, and we settle in to talk while streaking into the unknown.