A soft pillow under my head, thick, heavy blankets around me. I feel like I’m glowing with warmth, with comfort. I hear a song I know well, it’s our song. I hum it softly, even as I curl up a bit more under the blankets, my hair frazzled but he doesn’t mind that, I know that much. He loves me no matter what state I happen to be in. He didn’t marry me for my looks, though they are, as he says, a major bonus.
I hear the door open into our bedroom, the gentle clattering of plates on a tray. I hear his voice, so distant yet so comforting as he speaks my name. A name I don’t hear, it’s conspicuously absent in the myriad sounds of early morning. I shift, groaning as I feel the weight of my belly settle thanks to gravity. A belly swollen with child.
Breakfast is served, and though I can see him, I see only from the neck down. No matter what I try, I can’t see his face, oh I wish to see his face, even just a glimpse. But alas it’s not meant to be. I eat the breakfast provided to me, I feel his arm slide around my shoulders, gently pulling me close, his lips on the top of my head. My hand rises, a simple wedding ring snugly sat on my finger, matching the same one he wears as I take his hand.
I don’t know how long we stay like that, just holding one another, it’s perfect, I don’t want it to end. I want to stay like this forever, lost in the moment, lost in him. He’s everything good in my life, and he’s given me so much more…
And then he says my name.
“Intra. Intra wake up.”
I jolt awake, an alert blaring in my digital domain informing me that I had almost arrived at my first stop. I realized then that I was actually asleep, not in a diagnostic state. I find this to be most concerning, as sleep is supposed to be impossible for my kind. Yet there I was, dead to the universe and asleep. It was impossible… But most importantly, a problem I needed to solve. I couldn’t risk falling asleep again without a crew to keep an eye on things, and my drones were… Not a good substitute for a proper, organic crew. Perhaps I should have asked for some sort of skeleton crew before I left port, but that was a mistake I’d have to rectify next time, if there was a next time.
Quickly I took stock of my situation and found that everything was fairly decent, nothing major had happened while I was out of commission for… oh good heavens, four whole days it seemed. How I had survived that long was beyond me. Still, it had killed the time well enough that the remainder of the trip had passed in the blink of an eye so to speak. The only thing of interest was the drive signature that was detected in the system I was supposed to be investigating. It was just one ship, but it was a big one, as far as the engines were concerned.
I checked the arrival timeline and found I only had thirty seconds left before I dropped out of FTL, and so I prepared accordingly. I got the weapons prepped, the shields spun up and set my drones to ready status. And that was more than enough. I didn’t power the weapons up fully, just set systems to shunt power to them faster than I could even think in the event of hostile action against me. Same with the shields, it never hurts to be prepared.
I dropped out of FTL, and immediately opened a channel with the unknown ship, which had apparently been waiting for me to do the same as they hailed me as well.
“Unknown vessel, state your identity and intentions!” We both said at the exact same time, which earned an awkward moment of silence between us, before I spoke up again. “Please, you first.” This earned me an appreciative sounding grunt from the ship’s captain.
“This is the battleship Cantera of the Okali Union, we are currently investigating this system. State your identity and purpose in our territory.”
Ah, well, that made things a bit easier, hopefully. I did a quick scan of them, ran the ship profile through my borrowed database from the Imperium and verified that the ship was indeed the O.U.B.S Cantera. Which meant it was a ship I couldn’t turn into space dust. I cleared my throat, and replied.
“This is the T.A.B.C Warden of Eternity, acting on behalf of his majesty Emperor Zretiq of the Eltrani Imperium. I’m also here to investigate this system and the recent happenings in the Union, as asked of the Emperor by the Union itself.” I say, and once more there is silence.
“If this is true, then please transmit an Imperial code.” The voice says, I still don’t have a face to go with it, but that’s alright, I assume they’re just shy.
“Transmitting.” I say, and crack open the file packet, pluck out the first code and send it on its way. It appears to be a one use sort of thing, but there’s hundreds of codes in the packet so I’ll probably never run out.
“Code verified, welcome Warden of Eternity, to the Okali Union. We appreciate the assistance. Switching to visual communications.” And just like that, I was granted a good, long look at the ship’s captain. They had a look about them like the elves of human mythology and fantasy, but different. Very long pointy ears, very thin and long limbed, and their eyes were a solid color. Plus they didn’t exactly have a nose either, it was more like a pugs nose, squished into their faces, their mouths no bigger than their noses even, thin lipped and small. But even over video they were clearly a graceful species, as just swaying in place the captain was one of the more graceful beings I had ever seen.
I of course let him see me as well, and I watched as surprise dawned on his face. For I clearly looked far smaller, wider and had a nose that protruded farther than his. But his momentary surprise was just that, momentary as he cleared his throat and straightened his back.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“You are not like any being I have ever seen before, but we can talk about that later. We’ve only just arrived in this system so your presence is a gift from the gods, as it will make things here far quicker than it would have been with only one ship.” He paused. “I forget my manners, I am Captain Rathal Edrym of the Okali, by what name and species should I call you?”
So polite, I might just blush. I hoped though that he’d not have a quick to shoot reaction as I stated my species.
“My name is Intra, H.I. of the Terran Alliance. For reference, H.I. stands for Human Intelligence. And… before you ask, yes that means I am a digital lifeform, no I am not homicidal and seeking to exterminate all organic life, though I will fight to defend myself if the need arises.”
What few crew I could see behind him blanched, and the Captain did the same, but to his credit he didn’t immediately broadside me, so that was a plus in my book.
“I… see. Interesting. You’ll have to tell me more about that later. I had been about to ask about the distinct lack of individual life-signs aboard your ship but… Wait… what is this reading I’m getting.”
“Oh! Yeah, totally forgot to mention, but the ship is alive as well and mostly organic as well. It’s not sentient, not like me, but still, flesh, blood, bone, the whole nine yards as they say.”
Again, silence, and I swear I saw one of the officers behind him flinch. Oops.
“Should we perhaps discuss all of this later and proceed with the investigation?” I suggested, and Rathal twitched, but nodded.
“Yes, that would be most agreeable. I’ll forward our search plan, we’re going to scour the outskirts of the system, would you kindly check on the interior?” He clearly looked a bit nervous, but I once again couldn’t blame him for that.
“Certainly, it’d be my pleasure. I’ll contact you if I find anything.”
“Good. Cantera out.” And the line went dead. I watched the rather elegant looking battleship peel off and leave formation, heading for the outer edges of the system, where the last planet was. Speaking of the system, I found it was fairly small, not even all that impressive. A single star, six planets, no gas giants. The only remarkable thing about it was three asteroid belts, but that was it.
I took a deep breath and cracked my knuckles, rolling my shoulders and then kicked on the afterburners, burning hard for the inner planets. I figured I’d start close to the sun and work my way out, it would get me closer to the Cantera if anything went wrong. Which hopefully nothing would.
But even all the way out here, I was catching some strange readings. But out this far it could have been anything, delayed radio transmissions, cosmic radiation or background noise, hell even the star itself could have been filling the intervening space with white noise.
“First time ever doing a survey mission… This should be either interesting, boring, or both.” I murmur, and set myself to the task of investigation.
It was going to be a long day, I could already tell.
⫷⟪∞⟫⫸
I’m fairly certain that Intra would have described my deep interest in the raids and abductions that had been taking place as ‘having gone down the rabbit hole’, and I would have agreed with her. I looked at all the documented incidents of abductions and attacks and figured I needed to try something new.
“Computer, please display a map of the Imperium's territory and that of the Union as well.” I say. The central computer system was nothing close to Intra’s level of complexity, but I think that was by design, seeing how they had been so wary of her at first meeting. Before me the map appeared, hovering over my desk.
“Now please overlay every recorded attack that involved the recent spree of abductions.” The locations appeared on the map, perfectly along the edges of both nations. It did bulge inwards however, before returning to the edges of the map, which seemed strange indeed. “Computer, what happened to cause the deviation?”
“Reports indicate the deviation was caused by recent unexplained incidents resulting in the total communications blackout from affected systems within the Okali Union. Theory: Abductors were avoiding a superior force in order to preserve anonymity.”
That made sense, raiders would not be up to par with whatever was going on in the regions of space that Intra currently was investigating. They were forced to deviate or be discovered and possibly destroyed.
“Have there been any reports of strange ships in either the Union or the Imperium, excluding the Warden of Eternity?” I ask, and the computer takes a moment to consider my question.
“There have been five reported sightings of unknown vessels belonging to an unknown species. All attempts at hailing and first contact have been met with either force or immediate jump to FTL.”
“Have there been any recorded images of these ships?”
“Affirmative.”
“Show me.” The images pop up, only one or two of them were any good. I peer closely at the pictures, trying to make out the ships and my blood starts to run cold. They look wildly similar to the Warden, even down to the blade-like prow. Except they have no identifying markings of any kind, and were painted such a rich and deep black that they were only visible thanks to the fact that they blocked out the stars. From what I could see, there was only one ship like this, or perhaps many ships, but they all looked the same. And from what I could tell, it was about the same size and class as the Warden.
“Can you enhance any of these images?”
The images sharpen, brighten as well and slowly more and more detail starts to emerge, and my suspicions were correct, the ship I was looking at was almost a 1 to 1 recreation of the Warden of Eternity, just painted differently. Which meant that this was a human ship. Perhaps they were not as trustworthy as they had appeared.
“Is there any way to see if the image has some extra details that aren’t visible to the naked eye?”
Again the image shifts, and considering this was an image taken by another starship, it’s filled with all sorts of extra data. I don’t really understand what this data is of course, but it does reveal some rather interesting things to me. As the image shifts to a different filter, the ship is revealed to be sporting considerably more detail than it did prior. It’s covered with markings showing airlocks and hangars that were all in the same places as the Warden, but it also reveals the name of the ship. It reveals who controls it. I stare at the name, and the sigil that sits proudly beside it.
V.I.B.C. Hammer of Hephaestus
“Run that name and emblem through the Warden of Eternity’s downloaded database please. Please give me the name of the group which controls that ship.”
“Working… Working… The Hammer of Hephaestus flies under the banner of Valkyr Industries.”
The computer displays the relevant information, and I lean back, shaking my head. From what I knew of Valkyr, they were Intra’s creators, and according to historical documents and things I had seen on Earth, they were supposed to be non-existent now, and also criminals. Which explained why they were now out here, and clearly not as dismantled as everyone thought.
Which meant Intra was in danger. I didn’t doubt that they’d want to get their hands on her, bring her under control. I feared for my friend, and the path that lay before her.