Nyx gave us a three count. Then nothing and a short moment later the whole asteroid shook. As the bridge walls were ‘transparent’ we got a show. First it looked like the cave was collapsing but then a part of the asteroid seemed to slide off. Not like being blown out into space. It just separated and drifted.

“Okay people, let’s get this show on the road. Den, you know your piloting drill better than anybody here. So I won’t even pretend that I could tell you what to do. Just take us out and make sure not to scratch the paint.”

Tense chuckles around the bridge at my attempt of a joke.

“Aye Captain!”

He hit some virtual buttons on his screens and then the hum and vibration of the engine took on a different quality. Kinda higher pitched if I had to give it a name. But it wasn’t really something that you could hear or feel. No clue how to describe it. Maybe it was imagination, maybe it was the fact that I thought that is what should happen.

“Asami, everything looking good down there?"

“Reactor shows green and the engines are looking good across the board.”

The ship lifted off the ground and Den aligned it with the newly created tunnel. Once we were in line with it he started easing us forward. Everything was incredibly smooth. And while it might have been just because of the tight confines, it seemed that we were actually moving quite fast.

“How fast are we going?”

“Three meters per second.”

“What’s that in terms normal people speak?”

“I don’t understand captain.”

Our pilot sounded confused but did not turn my way. Instead he kept monitoring his equipment and making adjustments to the course of the ship. Before I could make a bigger ass out of myself I got a direct message from Irene who occupied the fourth station on the bridge but didn’t have anything to do since there was no big course to plot.

“Malcolm, stop confusing the locals. Everybody here uses meters per second or c whichever is more convenient. The calculation for kilometers per hour from meters per second is times 3.6. 3 meters per second is a little shy of 11 kilometers per hour.”

I also switched to direct to answer her.

“Thank you. Parking lot speed. Is it just me or does it seem a lot faster?”

“It does. But remember, we are trying to squeeze something big through a tight hole.”

I jerked my head over to her and could see the sparkle in her eyes and could hear the shit eating grin in her voice. I chuckled and shook my head.

“Unbelievable.” I mumbled.

“You are too tense. I fear I have to get you laid.”

“Nic… Irene, let the crazy die down a little and I will be more relaxed!”

“Hmhm, we shall see! I know how you get.”

“Remind me, why did I want you on my crew again? You sure you don’t want to be the ship counselor?”

“Oh, I can pull double duty. Or maybe triple and be the morale officer too!?” There was that grin in her voice again.

“Whatever. No blushing for me today.” I also grinned.

Yeah, leave it to her to break the tension a little. I felt myself relax more in my chair and watch as we cleared the asteroid. Suddenly we were surrounded by space and all the stars.

Opisthos got to work immediately and with the help of Nyx marked all the entities we were aware of in this system. And there were a lot of them. Ishi’s fleet was marked with green triangles. Then the incoming ships and some of the miners and transport ships in the system that were within sensor range were tagged with yellow triangles and finally Belt Station was marked as a blue square.

By focusing on any of the icons on the surrounding virtual screens, I could bring up all available information on them. It was crazy. All the other ships I had been on so far didn’t have the sensor suite to pick up this much detail. On top of that, they had been metal boxes in comparison. The fact that everything was laid out on the walls in this kind of panoramic view really made a huge difference. Everything was in view and you could react so much quicker.

“Opisthos? Can you mark the ships heading for us in red and put a timer underneath that shows time until arrival?”

“No problem.”

He hit a few keys and the iconography changed so the six ships coming from the inner system and five from the outer system were displayed with red triangles.

“Can we get a read on the ship sizes or weapons yet?”

“Ship sizes are clearly identifiable but we don’t see anything on weapons yet.” the temporary sensor officer answered.

“Our sensors should be able to get a preliminary read on weapons around the two hour mark captain.” Nyx chimed in.

“Unless they actually fire something off at this distance. Then we would know directly, correct?” the Grey added and asked.

“That is correct Opisthos.” Nyx sounded pleased that Opisthos had made the effort to familiarize himself with the systems to that degree.

“Then all we can do is wait, right? Den, can you set up a random position pattern so in case they shoot something kinetic at the fleet, we are not in the position they were expecting up to be in.”

“Already done. We are in a holding pattern, alternating our position every thirty seconds.”

“Fair enough, like I said, I know that you have more experience with this than I do. Everybody, is there anything else going on right now?”

The answer was a universal no. So I handed the bridge over to Irene and asked her to alert me in two hours when we would be able to get a better read on the incoming ships. It would also give them time to see the second cruiser and react. So I hoped that in two hours from now they had veered off the current course and we would be past the current crisis. In the meantime I had to learn more about the ship, Nyx - the AI, not the ship and the mission.

Since there was no office for the captain - ready room? - I decided to go to the galley where I should be the only person with the current crew. Little did I know that someone else had decided to use the same space for her own reading-up.

“Hello number one!”

“Oh, hey Malcolm! Was just using the down time to get some more knowledge about the ship and everything.”

“Yeah, same reason I am here. Plus I want to check the food before we open the galley up to everybody. The food stores show 84% but that must be several thousand years old. And I am not certain how well it keeps, Nyx’s assurances aside.”

“Probably a good idea. Will you also grab me something?”

“Sure, let me figure out how it works.”

I stepped to the wall that Nyx indicated via my HUD. It looked a little like the automated food processors that were common by now. They took off about twenty years ago and by now you could find them in nearly every apartment.

“Normally you would connect with your neural link and select the food captain. But there is a HUD screen option for crew or visitors that have no wireless n-link connectivity.”

She highlighted a button, which I pressed and then something like a restaurant menu was populated in a projected screen. Since I could not read the menu itself I went by the pictures. After narrowing down my selection, I asked Nyx for advice and she simply highlighted two items and told me these had been favorites of her previous crew.

It took a few seconds, then the hatch at the bottom of the machine slid open and there were two hot packages of food there. They looked a little like tv trays that carried the food.

I took them back to the table and poked holes into the plastic. The delicious smell that wafted off the tray had my mouth watering. There were two rusk-like things in one of the indentions, another was filled with what looked like some vegetable mash and the third held something that looked like shredded meat in some kind of sauce.

“Nyx, what is all of this?”

“Like I said, that was one of the food options preferred by my previous crew.”

“I know, but what is it?”

“It is a liquid macro nutrient mix prepared to resemble a meal common for Seekers.”

“Nevermind. Not sure what I was asking for anyway.” I gave up. Not sure if I just couldn’t ask for what I wanted to know or if there were layers that Nyx just didn’t get.

“This is good. Not hot enough for my taste but good.” Nirazera commented after taking a bite.

I did the same. The flavors were delicious. I could echo the same as she had done, a little hotter would be nicer but that might just be a habit. The whole meal reminded me a little of mediterranian cuisine. There was this little shop around the corner from my place. Hole in the wall really. And I haven’t been there in a while. Maybe make it a point to go there at some point.

“Yes, definitely the best meal I have had on board a spaceship.” I agreed with the Grelic to which she nodded.

After that we dived into the mission and had Nyx explain the whole thing to us. Plus some history as well. What I got from all of that was… interesting.

The Seekers were the dominant race of another Galaxy at some point in the distant past. And we are talking way distant, like more than ten thousand years ago. That galaxy was similar to this one with lots of different species. Some were working together, some against each other… you know, people. Anyway, the Seekers were basically the ones that brought the whole galaxy together because they were the first that developed faster than light travel which they then spread to advanced enough species and brought the universe together.

After some time there was a species that had shown up which they called Shadows. Or at least my translator called it shadows, no clue what they are called in the Seeker language. They started to take over worlds by ‘possessing’ people and manipulating and coercing their way. Bit by bit they spread. When the Seekers became aware of that, they sought dialogue. But shortly after, the first people in their own governmental structures were taken over.

This led to war with these Shadows but since they did the whole possessing thing, it turned into some kind of ugly civil war and left a lot of devastation behind. In the end the Seekers developed the jump gate technology. They sent out ships to build a jump bridge from their galaxy to ours.

When the bridge was complete, they took their decimated species, loaded them up in ships and then made the journey here. In transit they were sabotaged and in the end, only a little over 25k of their people made it here. However, what they did manage was destroy the gate building technology and research and take the few people who could put this together to this side of the bridge.

Then they found a planet similar to their original home planet and named it “Ge”. There they settled and built a floating city in the ocean because the planet was not uninhabited. But since the natives were so primitive, they knew that they would have a lot of time to develop and then leave the planet again before influencing the natives too much.

In the end they established themselves in this universe and did the same that they did in theirs. But this time not with FTL drives but by using the gate building ships. They discovered systems and species and built gates in these systems so that when these cultures were advanced enough, they would be able to use the systems and make contact on their own.

And so their influence spread across this galaxy. And then the Shadows came once more. This time the Seekers had placed watchers on the remnants of the bridge and while it was unlikely that the bridge would ever be repaired, they did not want to take chances.

“Sounds like they were right.” I interrupted Nyx.

“Yes captain. Although they did not expect it, the remaining people under the influence of the Shadows had managed to re-develop this technology.”

“No surprise there. As they say, once it’s out there it’s impossible to put the genie back into the bottle.”

Nirazera nodded to that, then waved to both shut me up and urge Nyx to go on.

In the end the Seekers here started fighting the same war again. Although this time they managed to contain the Shadows at the bridge and they never technically made it into this universe. But because the number of Seekers was so small and got lower and lower due to the war and the containment protocols in place, they could not manage on their own.

So they took a semi intelligent species of insects with a hive mentality and elevated them through bio-engineering. And finally tasked them with a mission: Develop, grow stronger and defend the bridge at all costs.

At the same time they disassembled all gates around planet Ge with fully automated ships. Now there is no connection between the planet and the rest of the universe for twenty lightyears in any direction.

At the same time they created a new type of ship. Hope class cruisers with a personality matrix. These cruisers were tasked with a mission: Explore the galaxy, find technology or magic or whatever you can to beat back the shadow.

“And that is the mission we will be picking up.” Nyx finished her story.

“That is a lot of history.” Nirazera said.

The food was long finished and I had some thoughts and very pointed questions that I wanted to ask Nyx. But I wanted to hold off until after the current RD crisis was dealt with and I was alone with her.

“Cap to the bridge! Urgently!” Irene’s voice came over the com.