Chapter 024: Discovery

Liberator was the last of the genetic warlords. Unlike the others, he rose to prominence after the War of Purity, in the era of the Commonwealth’s decline. Rather than using cloning and accelerated growth to create his supersoldiers, Liberator was a pioneer in the field of biological augmentations of pre-existing human beings. What’s more, soon after he started his insurgency, he and his army joined forces with the Semann Government, becoming a part of the last attempt to overthrow the Commonwealth’s autocratic government and reinstitute democracy.

Liberator turned out to be a gifted tactician and strategist, which soon led to a long string of rebel victories. What’s more, he also proved to be a deadly combatant on his own during the Nightmare War, when a sudden assault of the forces of the Discord on the Core Worlds forced all the sides of the Third Succession War to join their forces. It was Liberator who personally led the assault on the Sorrowful Night, the flagship of the Discord’s Nightmare Fleet, during which he slew the first and last Hegemon of Discord in single combat.

He died during the Battle of Alpha Centauri, a decisive rebel defeat that saw President Villaneuva defeat both the Semann Government and the Provisional Governing Council. However, there is a legend that he faked his death and will return in Mankind's darkest hour. Due to his body being found and almost 300 years passing since the battle, this is highly unlikely.

Encyclopedia Galactica

Book 9, Page 656

***

EGS Echo, Command Deck

13:47 10.07.2610 STT

Cadet Christopher Hall

Christopher expected the bridge to be secure. For some burly marine to ask them why they came and refuse them access, though relaying their message to Tendrik so he could pick up the lunchbox. Instead, they were welcomed with an absolute lack of any physical security. They walked onto the bridge unmolested by questions.

The bridge was … bridge-y. The Captain’s seat in the back, overlooking the entire room. A massive screen under the ceiling in the middle. Lots of seats with computer terminals in front of them. Most of them were arrayed in groups of four - one large behind and then three in front of it, arranged into a semi-circle and placed slightly beneath the level of the large seat. Since they were placed in front of the captain’s seat, this made the entire room be built like a stairway, with the captain’s seat at the uppermost level of it.

The Captain was there, nesting in his seat overlooking the bridge. He was drinking something from a cup which seemed to resemble an alien skull. He nodded towards Christopher when the three of them entered the bridge.

Other than the captain, the bridge was almost empty. Where fifty people could work, Christopher saw five. He noticed Tendrik, sitting in front of one of the semi-circle terminals which Christopher’s overlay identified as a tactical officer’s seat.

Innocent was standing next to him. Both of them observing something invisible to Christopher.

“All right, time to say hello. And do what we came here for.” Nekia nodded. Kivanna did so, too.

The fact Kivanna played along did make Christopher feel slightly relieved. He wasn’t sure if he wasn’t making things worse (even if in good faith) during this trip.

The three of them approached the tactical officer’s seat. Christopher’s greeting was met with no response, save for a sudden chuckle coming from the direction of the captain’s seat. However, when his eyes followed the sound, they found the Captain’s eyes dead serious and fixed on the main screen.

Goodness gracious, can’t he at least PRETEND he is an adult?

Once they got closer to Tendrik, everything changed. A UI overlay was installed on their implants and activated. Earlier they saw two people looking into nothingness and surrounded by some computer terminals. But with the UI they saw those same people surrounded by a non-transparent (and round) wall of data. It didn’t matter which direction they looked; they saw computer screens displaying things they couldn’t understand.

Tendrik and Innocent went into some sort of full-isolation mode and forgot to leave the walls transparent. They also most likely switched off all sounds coming from the outside. Which explains both their apparent lack of awareness of our presence AND the Captain’s chuckle. Are they all conspiring to make this trip more awkward?!

“Uhm, Tendrik?” Christopher said. Since he was inside the ‘dome’, this time the duo heard his voice. Both of the people in front of them turned their heads towards them.

“Chris! What brings you here?” Tendrik said, admitting to not noticing the lack of sandwiches. Christopher felt sorry for Tiriel's reaction when she found out. “Nekia and Kivanna too? What’s the occasion?” He quickly added, as the two girls accompanying Chris entered the dome too and paused, surprised by the change in scenery.

“You forgot your sandwiches. Tiriel sent me with them to save you from starvation.” Christopher replied. Tendrik made an O face.

“I didn’t even notice! Thank you!” Christopher handed him the lunchbox. “Yay. So, uhm, I think some introductions are in order. They are…”

“Interruption: I know.” The priest answered with a robotic voice. “Cadet Christopher Hall. Enlisted 3rd Class Nekia Sistonen. Enlisted 3rd Class Kivanna Elsafir. Welcome to the Echo’s bridge.” The priest nodded slightly.

“Yes.” Tendrik confirmed and continued. “And that’s Lieutenant Commander Innocent, tactical officer, chaplain, and psychologist of the Echo.” Christopher nodded. They knew each other.

It was one of the very few things he wasn’t allowed to share with his teammates. They all knew he was being trained in telekinesis, but they didn’t know that Innocent was his teacher. He really couldn’t wait until the day when he would be allowed to describe it all in detail.

“Subtle Hint: Tendrik, this lecture can wait.” Innocent turned towards the cyborg. “And your friends seem to be very interested in how the bridge looks. If you’ll need me for something, I’m at my seat, trying to continue my crusade against the heathen paperwork.”

***

EGS Echo, Command Deck

13:49 10.07.2610 STT

Commander Lena Drathari

The first person to notice her arrival was Captain Keller. She barely entered the bridge when he waved towards her.

“Lena! How nice to see you!” She was still torn apart when it came to him. He was a genius on the battlefield which he proved during their battle against Rear Admiral Hao. But he was so much of an extrovert that he made everything awkward. “And you’re back in your old body, great!”

“Yes, I got my doll fixed.” She could only thank Rethan that she took no less than four spare cybernetic brains. They were too complicated to be made aboard the Echo. The Captain of course had to put one bullet right between her eyes. “The chief engineer and his sidekicks were extremely helpful.”

She stood next to him, and spent a while looking over the bridge. That’s when she saw something strange.

“Uhm, are we letting crew mates off-duty lounge around the bridge?” She asked him. One of Innocent’s assistants was showing something she couldn’t see from her seat to two humans and a catgirl in civilian clothes.

“Well, it’s not a real problem.” The Captain responded. “We have all the buttons locked biometrically, so even if they tried, they can’t activate the Echo's self-destruction protocol. I think you should go say hello. Especially to that slightly puzzled man who is the head of the Recovery Team Eight.”

“Oh, famous Cadet Hall?” Captain Keller’s interest in micromanagement never ceased to amaze her. Officers rarely were interested enough in regular crew members to recognize them at will. Unless the crew members screwed something up, leaving them to petty officers was normal.

She could barely remember cases of captains personally knowing petty officers - especially new onboard - from the navy, as most of them were content with using chief petty officers as their enforcers. The one case she was certain about was because one captain had an affair with a rather young petty officer. Which didn’t end nicely for anyone involved.

He, instead, knew all of them. And not only by name. Not only Cadet Hall. She once saw him run into some engineer only to suddenly flood her with questions about the result of her recent raid in a VR game.

“Yep, in the flesh.” He nodded. “He is learning things quickly and has results. Who knows, he might become the Guild’s youngest ship captain quite soon?” Not exactly possible. She knew of several cases of ships getting inherited despite the captain’s children being toddlers. But she understood what he meant. “On an unrelated note, aren’t you off-duty too? I thought you were sleeping.”

“Hilarious.” She made sure that her tone left no doubts whether she meant that for real. “I’m a Virtual transhuman. I need no sleep. While you, inferior fleshbags, waste time on sleep, I’m busy min-maxing my true self. You think I got to level 124 in GoI by sleeping?”

The Captain responded with a loud chuckle. “Oh, yes.” He said once he calmed down. “You were so serious about the discipline and so on that, I almost forgot what nerds all Virtuals are. You’re pretty much spending every spare second in VR games.”

“What a common misconception.” Lena responded. “I am what you consider ‘my character’ in the Gates of Infinity. I spend most of my time in the game, I live most of my life there. Lena Drathari, level 124 moonborn paladin of Rethan, God of Order, at your service.” She made an official bow. “I’m just occasionally uploading myself into a doll to run a boring, recurring quest about being an executive officer on a weird spaceship.”

The Captain grinned. “Yes, as I said, nerds. All of you.” She made a resolve to PK him to death if she ever saw him log into the GoI. “So, why are you here? Outside of your shift?”

She was asking herself the same question. Not being on duty offered her a certain degree of leeway in behaviour, which she planned to take full advantage of. She wasn’t expecting serious behaviour from Keller to begin with, so that wasn’t a problem.

“A raid boss killed me.” She replied bitterly. “And to Hundred Hells with him! If I can figure out which of the resident programming jackasses added ‘Ahriman, the Forgotten’ boss to the local GoI server I’ll… do something. It will be a creative and horrible something.” He laughed again. ”I decided to cool my head a bit. Read some reports, and so on.”

“Ah, yes.” The Captain replied. She knew what would happen, but she could do nothing about it. “Just like a neeeerd would.” She sighed, asking Rethan to spare her from this little test of character. She really wanted to mutiny. “Seriously, you have to be the only person I know to wander to their workplace and read reports to kill time. So, back to Cadet Hall, do you want to meet him or not?”

***

EGS Echo, Command Deck

13:51 10.07.2610 STT

Cadet Christopher Hall

“And that’s… well, we call those ‘spatial sensors’, but it’s just space sonar.” Tendrik pointed towards another screen. “Works only in Hyperspace, because it behaves like a liquid. An alien liquid. Honestly, that’s more like a detector of waves which other objects in the Hyperspace might be causing.”

“Uhm, that’s… nice.” Christopher replied. It was at this moment that Innocent had enough.

“Regretful Statement: Tendrik.” The cyborg looked towards the tactical officer. “When I said ‘your friends are interested in how the bridge looks’ I meant the entire bridge. Not an unexpected and long lecture on how our sensors work.”

“Oooo…” Tendrik once again made an O face, obviously shocked and surprised. “Oh. Damn it. My bad. I always get SOO excited with that, the technology aboard the Echo is just SO wonderful!”

“Tired Statement: We noticed.” Innocent was audibly sarcastic, even with a robotic voice. “Besides, I need you to divert attention from me. Commander Drathari is talking with Captain Keller. She was just slain in the Gates of Infinity by an unexpected boss. One I tailored precisely for her skillset, making him undefeatable when she tried to solo it. Go trigger the ship’s self-destruction or something before she comes here to ask questions.”

Is that something an OFFICER should say? And be doing? And what the hell is Gates of Infinity? I will ask Tendrik later. If anyone from my team knows anything, that’s probably hi…

A loud ‘ding’ sound reverberated through the tactical area. Tendrik and Innocent turned their attention towards the monitor cyborg earlier described as spatial sensors.

“Is that…” Tendrik said but was interrupted.

“Interruption: Yes. A potential contact on the spatial sensors.” The screen suddenly enlarged several times. “It’s behind us and is following us at the edge of the range of our sensors… IF that’s actual contact. What’s the proper course of action right now?” The question was directed at Tendrik.

“We… decelerate to see more details? Or to see if it will decelerate too and keep tailing us?” Tendrik answered.

“Proud Answer: Correct.” Innocent replied. “Tendrik, switch off the isolation mode. I need to speak with the Captain.”

“Uhm, should we still be here?” Christopher asked.

“Answer: Yes, it’s not a problem. Just be ready to cover your ears when I tell you.” Wait, what? “Captain Keller, we have a potential contact tailing us. Requesting permission for deceleration.” When Captain Keller responded with a nod, Innocent turned towards them once again.

“Warning Statement: Cover your ears.” They did as he ordered, though without having the tiniest idea of what he was plotting. “Tendrik, deceleration alert, please.”

What came from the speakers was no deceleration alert. Instead, they were greeted by what sounded like a metal version of some old Christian religious song. Christopher’s UI identified the song as Magnificat, believed by most scholars to be the oldest known Marian hymn. In this case, the song was in Latin, though this wasn’t something that their translator implants (and the ability to speak all languages) struggled with.

While the music played in the background, Innocent was busy playing an invisible guitar. The volume was set to max, making the concert rather deafening.

They are insane. Everyone on board is insane. Including the ship’s psychologist, which explains most of it.

After ten seconds the music was suddenly switched off.

“INNOCENT!!!” The voice was recognizable. Captain Keller. And he was furious. “WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT MESSING WITH THE ALERTS?!”

Innocent responded with a recording of Captain’s voice. “Only if it’s really funny, Innocent!” For a second Christopher thought the Captain would have someone throw Innocent through the nearest airlock. But Keller controlled himself.

“I invalidate all cases when I said that! Decelerate and check out the contact. We will join you in a second.” The exchange felt strangely hostile in tone. From Keller’s side it was obvious, from Innocent’s side it required some knowledge of the tactical officer.

“Request: Tendrik, please confirm that all crew members left the areas of the ship that aren’t acceleration-proof.” After a few seconds, Tendrik nodded. “Request: Helmsman, decelerate. 5g.” A petty officer - one of the few people on the bridge - nodded and started pushing some buttons on his terminal.

“Informative Statement: Contact confirmed.” Innocent said after a while. “Frigate-size, of unknown configuration and class. Contact is faint but with signs of wave vibration. High possibility of it being a ghost. Tendrik, run it through the database of ships that disappeared in the Hyperspace.”

Ghost? Should I ask that question? They look busy.

“Informative Statement: Ghosts are ships that were lost more to Hyperspace than the average lost ship.” Innocent explained the issue on his own. “They are not fully material and are better described as areas of high density of Hyperspace that resemble ships in form. Unless they are still retaining elements of their material form, they can’t use weapons, so they are not a threat, and there is nothing to board. This ship seems to ‘vibrate’ when hyperspatial waves hit it, indicating that it’s not fully solid. Hence my suspicions. Tendrik?”

“Nothing on the list.” Tendrik responded, his brow furrowed. “Weird, it takes a while for a ship to turn into a ghost. The list of spotted ghost ships we have should be up to date.” Christopher silently begged whoever was ready to listen to him for it to not be another brush with death.

“Hmmm: Hmmm.” Innocent said, making Christopher sigh internally. “Enlarge the screen, put in the middle of it, and give it some waves.” Soon the blurry outline of a ship started being more and more detailed.

“Summary: An unarmed frigate.” Innocent commented. “Probably someone’s personal yacht. Design is very old, and predates the War of Purity, but the ship is still at least 50% solid matter instead of ghost structure. I believe it’s some museum piece, or another antique. Some of them are still flying around. If it was lost centuries ago, it would be much more dissolved. Rather useless to us. Everything aboard has the consistency of rubber, if not tar, and is psychoactive enough to cause mental disorders by gazing at it too long. Tendrik, add it to the Echo’s databa…”

A loud noise of something small falling on the ground startled all of them. When he searched for the source, Christopher discovered that Captain Keller had tried to sneak up on them together with someone looking like a draenei but with different shaped horns on her head. The fact that she was wearing chainmail (and had a two-handed sword sheathed on her back) was something that Christopher resolved to not comment on.

The Captain’s cup was lying on the floor in the middle of a puddle of some orange-ish liquid. The Captain didn’t seem to notice it, as he was staring at the outline of the ship on the tactical officer’s screen. With his face almost pale.

It was the first time that any member of the Recovery Team Eight had seen the Captain this shocked. Judging from the blue-skinned female’s face, this extended to at least some officers.

The captain suddenly shook his head, with his eyes closed during the vigorous shaking. When he opened them again, he looked almost normal.

“Oh my, it resembles a ship that once almost destroyed a passenger vessel on which I was a part of the crew.” He picked up the cup which was still in one piece. “I overreacted, it seems. Looks like that trauma runs deep, haha.” The Captain didn’t even try to make it look like genuine laughter. “Did you find any match in the database, Innocent?”

“Brief Answer: No.” Innocent was staring at the Captain, much less talkative than he used to be. Or, at least Christopher assumed, the robot priest was staring at the Captain, mostly due to Innocent’s head being turned towards the Captain’s general direction.

“I see. That’s weird.” Captain made a thoughtful face. “Well, you seem to have everything under control. I’ll be going then. Since you are already here, could you finish this shift for me? I need to go check something.” He added, this time towards the blue woman.

“O...kay?” She was as startled as everyone else. The Captain replied with a nod, and then he scurried away. “All right, what in the Old Heaven was that?”

“Surprised Statement: I do not know.“ The woman gave the robot a look of disbelief. “Contrary to popular opinions, my awareness of Captain Keller’s secrets is, at best, limited. I’ll try to analyze what we know about the frigate we detected. In the meantime, Commander, focus on leading the bridge shift.” She nodded.

“Keep the post for a few minutes, I’ll change to my work clothes and return here real quick.” Then she left.

“Relieved Statement: At least she’ll have other things to do than asking questions I do not want to answer.” Innocent turned towards Christopher and the two girls. “I apologize for the situation, things got a bit out of hand.”

“Oh, no, it’s not a problem.” Christopher answered quickly. He had a feeling they just saw something they shouldn’t have, but at least it didn’t look like someone was planning to silence them because of it. “So, uhm, are we free to go?”

“Uhm, can I at least show you the rest of the bridge? It’ll be quick, I promise.” Tendrik gave them puppy eyes. Christopher glanced at Nekia and Kivanna. Nekia nodded fervently. Kivanna reluctantly.

“Final Word: Great. I’ll be here, if you need me for anything. Fighting my unending crusade against the heathen paperwork.”

***

EGS Echo, Command Deck

14:12 10.07.2610 STT

Cadet Christopher Hall

Christopher waited for a while. He decided the moment was right, when Tendrik was showing them the damage control station.

“Tendrik, I have a quick question.” The cyborg turned towards him. “So, what are the Gates of Infinity?” It sounded like a VR MMORPG game… which gave him a bit of an idea. But he had to confirm something. He somehow hadn’t run into it during his earlier experiments with VR.

“An interstellar AR MMORPG.” Tendrik answered. “AR for Artificial Reality. A branch of high realism VR originally designed by the Virtuals. You get to make exactly one character per AR, but all ARs have some degree of connection between themselves on that field. It’s interstellar in scale, so wherever you go, you get to see something new for as long as there is a human population. Virtuals pretty much live in these worlds, but normies like us can play it too.”

“Uhm, how do you make interstellar VR games without FTL communications?” Christopher replied.

If I discover that they HAVE FTL communications but are using it only to play games I’ll be… less shocked than I should, honestly.

“Oh no no, not like that.” Tendrik answered. “Most of the inhabited world and lots of ships are connected to GoI. All you need to do is get a general blueprint of your ship, or the data about geography, geology, biology and architecture of your world. The game will use it automatically, creating a new part of the setting. Then you have some people design dungeons and other instances, and the Class-One AIs in the local server decide if they are balanced. If it’s ok, they get added to the world. The entire thing is made to resemble a fantasy multiverse, with worlds being planes of existence and ships being ancient machines prowling through the nothingness between them and carrying people from one dimension to another.”

Christopher unpacked what he just heard.

“So, let me sum it up.” He began his reply. “You make yourself a character, and you ‘play it’ in a VR game with a world map the size of your planet, filled with dungeons and other locations with enemies to defeat and goodies to pillage. And if you travel around the Galaxy, your character travels with you and you can have it ‘visit’ the GoI equivalents of the worlds you visit?” Tendrik nodded.

Wow. That adds a new level to the map size of sandbox games. Aren’t there like tens of thousands of inhabited worlds out there? And how did I miss it during my initial inquiry into the field of VR games?

“You’re playing the game, too?” Christopher asked the important question.

Tendrik nodded. “Yeah. Human techmaturgist, level 17.” Some things never changed. Even in a fantasy world, Tendrik had to tinker with technology. “I’m on a break from it. There is a dungeon on the Engineering Deck that has things I need, but it’s too much of a pain to break in solo. I tried. It was painful.”

Christopher looked at Nekia and Kivanna. They figured out what he meant. They shook their heads. Nekia, however, looked interested in what the transhuman was saying. Christopher’s plans were solidifying in his head. But he had to talk with Tiriel and Ryan first.

He had so many things to talk about with so many people. He wasn’t even sure where to start.

Things got slightly more interesting when he received a message from Innocent. The robot wanted to meet soon. This much wasn’t surprising - Christopher expected another telekinesis training soon, probably together with an extensive review of everything he did with his powers aboard the Echo.

But the priest wanted to meet as soon as possible. Which was an unexpected change, as for some he had no time to meet Christopher earlier. Then again, who had time for anything in the aftermath of the battle?

So many important things, so little time.