Microstory 2441: Power Crystal Factory (PCF)

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Not to be confused with scifi examples of power crystals, or examples in fantasy where crystals have magical properties. Disclaimer over. For the most part, ships and orbiting stations in the system fleet are manufactured in outer space. The only reason we ever did it on Earth was because we were not capable of space manufacturing in the early days. Once we built up some infrastructure, and bolstered the industry overall, we were able to free ourselves from the gravity well. We still needed ways to actually get up to these vessels, but that was easy after everything. There doesn’t seem to be a name for the host star, or the star system as a whole, so we’ll just call it a Castlebourne thing. They build their ships on a secret moon base, which is easier for them to take off from. I caught a peek from a telescope once, and saw the mass driver that they use for launching. That’s all I know about that, and the crystal regulators. Every ship, no matter how big or small, or what powers it, or what it’s used for, has a need to distribute its power. Our ancestors used to use various technologies, like adapters, to control the flow of electrical power. These were crude by today’s standards, but the principle remains vital to the safe and efficient operation of a moving vehicle. Crystals have a variety of uses in this regard. I won’t bore you with the details, but some of them serve as conditioners, which maintain the smooth transference of power, where it’s needed. It makes sure that everything, no matter how remote, is powered at all times. But sometimes it’s too much power, so you also need crystal capacitors, which can buffer the power temporarily, and release it more gradually. If it’s buffered too much, then they can also redistribute it safely, if only to a waste heat ventilation system. Crystals are also used as nodes, redirecting or splitting the power when powering multiple independent systems at once. I say all this so you understand why this dome has to exist. So now you know why the crystals themselves are important, but that doesn’t explain why they need to be manufactured here, instead of the moon, where nearly everything else is made. It has to do with gravity. Crystals aren’t made, they’re grown. They start small, and build themselves from there, almost like a plant. For some types, this process requires 1G surface gravity, or close to it. There’s some evidence that Castlebourne’s slightly lower gravity is beneficial to the process, but they’ve not completed enough studies on this phenomenon, and there are a lot of other variables to account for. What we do know is that Castlebourne-grown power crystals are at least as good as any others. You may be asking, why don’t you just grow them in a cylindrical habitat? And I’ll tell you, that’s not real gravity. It’s only simulating gravity. For everyday living, if the spin is programmed correctly, everything feels normal. But crystals are more finicky. They also need to be still, and they can tell when they’re in motion, which is presently the only way to fake gravity. So for now, they’re grown on the surface of a full-sized planet. That’s what we do here in this dome, and we do it well. Most of this is automated, as one would expect, but I still have an important job to do here. They still like to have humans inspect the merchandise. If you ever ride in a ship that uses my power crystals, you can rest, assured that it’s been created using the highest of standards, and you’re safe. At least from crystals. Any other components, I don’t know...that’s not my department.

The Sixth Key: Kick Rocks (Part II)

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Clavia helps Echo learn how to use his parents’ guns. They’re energy weapons, which means they’ll be able to fire indefinitely as long as he doesn’t fire too much, and they have a source of charge, like the sun. Something called radio waves would charge it too, but there aren’t any of those around here. He doesn’t become an expert marksman in only a few short hours, but at least he has the basics down. Point and shoot, that much was immediately apparent, but the safety and handling was a little less intuitive.

According to the sensors on board the shuttle, as fed into Echo’s new suit, a ship appeared out of nowhere, and began to orbit the planet. It scanned the surface in some way, but hasn’t done anything else since. Clavia taught him how to set up an alarm to wake him when anything changes, so he can go to bed, and get some rest. The next morning, he checks the sensors to find that the alarm hasn’t failed. The orbiting ship up there still isn’t doing anything. They’ve not fired any weapons at the tree, or come down in a shuttle of their own, or anything. What are they waiting for?

“My mind is clouded,” Clavia explains. “I cannot see detail. I can sense that people are walking around inside the vessel, but I can’t tell what they’re doing. Unfortunately, I need to focus my strength on other pursuits.”

“I understand.” He doesn’t, but she should do whatever she needs to. “Do you think they know that we’re here?”

“It depends on how sophisticated their sensors are, and on the nature of the planet we’re on. This appears to be a lush garden centered on a desert. If the rest of the world is just as barren, this will stick out like a sore thumb. But it may be one of many oases, in which case they would need to pick up on you as an individual. I also don’t know whether your suit and shuttle are sufficiently shielded, or what.”

Echo nods, and decides to go back to practicing. The great thing about guns like these is that he can shoot blanks as much as he wants while barely dipping into the power reserves. Indeed, while the sun is shining, solar power will keep it running even if he never stops squeezing the trigger for the duration of daylight hours. He’s not doing any damage, as he’s just sending beams of light towards the rocks and the flowers, but it gives him a good idea of what it will be like if he ever has to do it for real.

Either as a coincidence, or because the visitors detected his weapons fire, they finally send a landing party in a shuttle. They don’t land too close to the garden, which is respectful of them, or maybe it’s also a coincidence. Echo doesn’t walk over to greet them halfway. He just stands under the Clavia tree, holding one of the guns at what Clavia called high ready. The second one is leaning against the trunk. He has extra cartridges attached to his hips too, but it doesn’t look like he’ll be needing them. One of these things would be able to take out the entire crew of the shuttle. It appears to only be four people, though obviously there are more still up on the ship. Clavia doesn’t know what kind of weaponry they have, up there, or down here. The four who are walking towards them now don’t appear to be armed at all.

“Can they hear you, or is your voice in my head?” he mutters out of the corner of his mouth.

“They can hear me if I want them too, and not if I don’t.”

“Let me do the talking. They may not know that you can talk, and I would like to keep that as an advantage until we have no choice.”

“Agreed,” Clavia says.

“Hello, kind soldier,” the leader guy says once they’re within earshot of each other. He’s keeping a safe distance, showing a healthy fear of Echo’s gun. The other three strangers are scattered next to and behind him. “My name is Klavis Zakan Scrivenor. Who do I have the pleasure of speaking to today?”

“Klavis?” Echo echoes.

“No relation,” Clavia replies simply.

“It’s my rank?” Zakan answers like it’s a question. “I command a single flotilla of ships...four to be exact.”

“What is your business here?” Echo asks.

Zakan is confused. “Um, do you have a name too?”

“Oh.” Echo feels like he’s just lost the upperhand, especially since he just said oh. He should have just been steadfast, and refused to answer. But now it’s too late, he has to just go ahead and respond appropriately. “Echo Cloudbearer.”

“Do you own this world, Echo Cloudbearer?”

“I do.” I mean, he might as well. There doesn’t seem to be anyone else to claim the title, and if making such a claim grants him the legal powers to protect this tree, then he’s comfortable making it.

“What is it called?”

This is where it gets tricky. His parents could never agree on a name for it. They kept coming up with new ideas before Echo was even born, but eventually narrowed it down to Supercloud or Echo. About half the time, they would joke that their son was named after the planet, and the other half, that the planet was named after their son. He never knew which was true, or if Supercloud was the superior choice anyway. “Echo”.

“Hm,” Zakan says. “I like it. We are representatives of the Temporal Energy Management Project of Relative Associated Logistics. Basically, we’re in charge of making sure that there’s enough temporal energy to go around, and that no one is abusing the power that they have, or exploiting the substructure of the universe to their own gain, or to the destruction of reality.”

“I don’t know what any of that means,” Echo admits.

“Well, we’re relative, because the power is not evenly distributed, which some people believe sounds unfair—though, it isn’t—and it’s associated, because every time someone is allotted power, it has an impact on everyone else. That’s why it needs to be managed. It’s—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, defining it isn’t going to help me understand it. It sounds like you just really wanted your acronym to spell out TEMPORAL.”

Zakan just clears his throat.

“Why are you here? I keep to myself. I don’t have any power.”

Zakan gestures to Clavia. “That tree behind you would seem to contradict your words.”

Echo decides to play dumb. “This is just a tree. It can’t contradict anything. It can’t even walk.”

Zakan smiles and sighs. He looks around the vast empty flatlands surrounding them. “We detected the energy spike that was prompted by some kind of temporal event right at this location. I don’t know if it teleported here, or if it was here all along, and suddenly absorbed a whole lot of power, but my guess is that you were around to see whatever it was. After all, you’re standing in front of it right now. You were up there when we showed up. You must think it’s meaningful too. If you thought you needed to protect your garden as a whole, you’d be standing right here.” He points to his feet where the grass of the garden gives way to the dirt of the desert.

Okay, maybe he needs to switch tactics. “Does it matter? If it’s here, it’s mine. And since this is all mine, so are you. So you four have two choices. You can fly back up to your little ship, and tell your captain to leave, or you can stay here and do my bidding. The atterberries are about ready to be harvested.”

“What did you say?”

“The atterberries,” Echo repeated. “Those pink things over there. You could pick them, or you could leave. You have no jurisdiction on this world, though. My word is law. My word is the only law.”

“What’s—what’s this stuff here?” He slid the sole of his shoe along a rock.

“That’s amanda moss. It’s not edible. I use it for...other things.” Wiping.

“And that?”

“It’s, uh, vearden hay. I use it as a ground cover. Why all the sudden interest in my garden? I thought you only cared about some tree.”

“Just curious.” Zakan steps forward. “What do you call this creature warming itself on this boulder?”

Echo can’t see from this far away, but he knows what the man’s talking about. “It’s probably a clemens newt.”

“One last thing, this one here?”

“A savi tree.”

Zakan exchanges a look with his people. “Which reality is your family from?”

“Um, this one?”

“No, I mean originally.”

“I have no clue where you’re going with this.”

“I don’t recognize that kind of gun. Do you?” he asks the woman standing at his flank.

She shakes her head quietly.

“My guess is Parallel or Fifth Division,” Zakan goes on cryptically, “but the main sequence had some nice stuff before they were copied here.”

“Can I help you?” Echo interrupts the internal conversation they’re having down there. He’s done playing nice. He wants them gone. He doesn’t want to have to hurt anyone to do it, but he will if they give him no choice.

“I’m afraid we can’t leave until we run our tests. We need to know what sort of impact this tree is having on the rest of the galaxy. It’s for the safety of everyone in the universe.”

Echo tenses up. “Get closer.”

Zakan himself doesn’t move, but his people reach their arms out to magically materialize their own guns. “We don’t need to get very close.”

“That’s enough!” It’s Clavia’s voice, but there’s something a little different about it. It sounds like it’s coming from a specific location, instead of just around him in general. Someone appears from behind the tree. It’s the dead woman who he buried here. She lives. It wasn’t just a magical seed, but it had something to do with who was holding it.

“Who are you?” Zakan asks.

“Who you seek, in humanoid form.”

Zakan holds his hand up by his shoulder. The other three lower their guns in response. Two of them make them disappear again, but his lieutenant keeps hers. “You are the tree.”

“We are,” she replies. “You may call us Clavia.”

“We’ll have to confirm that,” Zakan insists.

“Do that, and only that,” Clavia replies. “Do more, and you’ll regret it.”

Now Zakan lifts his other hand, and shakes it twice towards the hill. The now unarmed pair of visitors cross the boundary of the garden, and walk up to Clavia. She holds her own hand towards to stop Echo from reacting further when he tenses up again. The strangers begin to run their tests. They hover little devices over Clavia’s human body, and over the tree. They look at the little screens to interpret the readings, whatever they may be. Echo wouldn’t know the first thing about what they’re looking for, but Clavia seems calm, so he’s just gonna follow her lead.

One of the testers nods over at Zakan. “It’s her. She’s the tree.”

“Okay. Pack it up, kids. We’re leaving.”

“Wait,” Echo says. “Not that I’m complaining, but what just happened? What did you do? What did you discover? Why is it making you leave?”

“The source of the temporal energy is sentient,” Zakan begins to explain. “It’s natural and unregulated. As you said, we have no jurisdiction. It would be like me telling you that you’re not allowed to use that moss to wipe your ass. That’s someone else’s department.”

“Well...” Echo paused. “Thank you and goodbye.”

“You’ll be filing a report, though, won’t you?” Clavia guesses as most of the team is walking back towards their shuttle.

“I have no choice,” Zakan says apologetically.

“So the right department might show up too,” Echo calculates.

“Undoubtedly,” Zakan confirms. “She’s an interesting find.”

The shuttle takes off. About fifteen minutes later, the ship breaks orbit, and flies away into the black. Echo’s shuttle’s sensors stop picking any signals, and the world falls silent once more.

“You’re a person,” he points out.

“It’s complicated.”

Echo smiles. “I don’t have anything else going on. Tell me your story.”

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Microstory 2344: Vacuus, April 2, 2179

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Dear Condor,

That all sounds very dangerous. I’m glad that you’re inside fulltime now. I’ve only ever lived in three places, and never go outside. I grew up on the ship while it was on its way all the way out here, and a little when it was first in orbit around Vacuus. I was eighteen when we arrived, and after some initial surveys, I was part of the first group to drop down to the planet. And I really mean that. We took something called a dropship down to the surface. We lived there for almost two years before they had built enough of the residential base for us to move in there. Back then, we couldn’t launch any ships back into orbit, because it takes too much fuel to do it the traditional way, and the necessary infrastructure for more advanced methods took time to engineer. Now we have something called a launch loop, which—if you don’t know—is like a giant-ass roller coaster that allows us to get into space without expending too much energy, or requiring as much tensile strength as a space elevator would. They’re thinking about building the latter at some point, but it’s going to take a lot more effort and time. Anyway, until we started to be able to travel back and forth relatively cheaply, there were two separate populations. Those who never dropped down to Vacuus lived up there, and had their own kids. We stayed in contact with each other, though, since it was the only place we could talk to which had no significant time delay. I’ve never been back in person, however, while most people I know have gone back at least once. It’s really just little kids who have no had the opportunity yet. My friend who lives up there now has been asking me to take the launch loop into orbit for a visit, and I want to do that, but I also don’t. So much can go wrong. I cannot believe that I used to live on a ship. How did I end up so soft and cowardly? How did you do it? How are you so brave? You don’t have to answer that. This is just my neuroses getting in the way of my goals. I already go to counseling to get this stuff figured out.

Not yet living my best life,

Corinthia

Microstory 2338: Vacuus, February 17, 2179

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Dear Condor,

I’m writing to you to let you know that I’m back online, and also that your father did finally send me a letter. I responded to it yesterday, so you probably already know everything by the time you receive this anyway. I don’t really think that I should say anything more; about what he said, or about what I said. I kind of want you two to have your own conversation without me being involved. That’s why I think I’m gonna cut this short. There’s nothing for me to report on this end. The stray Valkyrie blocked our signal for a week, then flew away. The rest of the Valkyries are still orbiting on their usual path. I suppose I shouldn’t say usual as changing course is sort of their whole thing. But we’re safe from them...for now. There’s a slight chance that they will veer off of the predicted orbit, and come at us all at once with a vengeance, but the astronomers are hopeful that this will not happen. I just wanted to warn you that it’s not impossible that any message could be our last. I’ll continue to respond with the non-automated read receipts, and only won’t if it becomes impossible.

Bored again,

Corinthia

Microstory 2335: Vacuus, January 31, 2179

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Dear Condor,

Father has not yet written to me. It’s fine, I’m not disappointed. I don’t know him at all, so I can’t know what I should expect out of him. I just wanted to give you an update before it happens that I’m going to be out of communication range again. It won’t be too long, but it’s out of my hands. You see, when researchers first discovered Vacuus, they thought to send probes here before they sent people. Unfortunately, they lost contact with these probes, and were never able to gather much information about the planet. They obviously decided to just send a manned-mission without enough information, and that’s because the ship they were using was self-sustaining. If, for some reason, it wasn’t possible to reach or land on the surface, it wasn’t like a death sentence. We could have been living on it this whole time. It’s still orbiting us right now, and people regularly go back and forth. I could have gotten a job up there instead. In fact, I told you that I’m the only one doing what I do, but that’s not technically true. Someone is up there right now, using their own instruments to track nearby cosmic events. They just don’t do it for the same reasons, and have other responsibilities. It’s not for safety, they’re mostly studying the effects of deep space survival as it pertains to remoteness from the host star. I kind of forget about them, because we don’t really interact. Anyway, that’s not really important. The point is that, once we arrived here, we discovered why communication with the probes stopped working. It’s because of a periodic meteoroid shower called the Valkyries, which causes a blackout. These meteoroids are very close to one another, and interconnected via weak, yet still impactfully disruptive, electromagnetic fields. It has to do with the ferromagnetic composition of them, and the occasional electrostatic charge that builds up when they scrape against one another. This can last for years, but it’s a relatively rare event, and has only happened twice since Earth sent the probes. What’s not all that rare is when one of these meteors becomes dislodged from the shower, and we end up between it and all its friends. If we’re in the right position, it’s pretty as it’s streaking across the sky, but it’s problematic too. We don’t always know when it’s going to happen, and we don’t always know when it’s going to affect us, but it too knocks out signal transmission, though for a much shorter period of time. Our astronomers have devoted most of their careers to studying these phenomena. At first they thought that the shower was falling apart, but they now believe that the stray meteoroids eventually find their way back to the shower. Earth is aware that this is going to happen, and have upgraded their protocols to account for it. So if you send a message, it will end up being stored in a nearby buffer until the relay station receives word that signal transmission has been restored. I’m sorry to spring this on you so last minute, but if you reply, I doubt that I’ll receive you for a while. Please let your father know as well, thanks.

Hopefully not for long,

Corinthia

Microstory 2314: Vacuus, August 14, 2178

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Dear Condor,

I hope this letter finds you well. My name is Corinthia Sloane. No, the fact that we share a surname is not a coincidence. I spent so much time crafting this message, because I didn’t want to shock you, but there is simply no delicate way to phrase it, and no best position in the paragraph to place it, except perhaps not in the first or last sentence. The truth is that you are my long-lost twin. Our parents separated us at birth. I am not certain of precisely why they did this. Perhaps you could ask our father. Tell him hello for me, or screw you, depending on what his explanation is. From what I could gather, they did it as some kind of experiment on nature versus nurture. Again, I’m not entirely sure how they thought this would be an interesting comparison. I’m a girl, born and raised, and I was told that you were at least born a boy, so we’re obviously not identical. What exactly were they testing for, and how did they account for the inherent differences in our physiology? Did they report back to each other regularly? Sadly, I am no longer able to ask our mother further questions. She confessed to me the truth on her deathbed, and has since passed on to whatever hell is somehow worse than this place. To clarify, I live on Vacuus. If you’ve never heard of it. It’s a distant planet in the solar system, taking nearly 42,000 years to orbit the barycenter! I’ve seen photos of the sky from your world, and am so jealous. From here, the sun does not appear as a dominating disc, illuminating all the lands, but a single point of light in the distance. It’s barely distinguishable from the other stars on the firmament. The surface of this planet is uninhabitable, as you would guess. It was the last one that humanity ever discovered, and it took them a very long time to figure out how. It is a cold, heartless place, where we live in stale, recycled air. It’s a wonder that we’ve survived this long, but it could all go up in an instant with a single breach in the walls. I’m exaggerating, but it is pretty dangerous and stressful here. I don’t know what your life is like, but for now, I would count myself lucky if I were you, that you were not chosen as the astronaut baby. I hope this news does not distress you too much. I only found out about you yesterday, and reached out as soon as I was able to sneak into the server room to mine for your contact information. If you are not my twin brother, Condor, please forward this message to him, or at least reply back that I have the wrong address. If you are Condor, please return as quickly as possible as I eagerly await your response. This far out, it takes light about a week to travel back and forth.

Excited to hear from you,

Corinthia Sloane

Extremus: Year 78

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Tinaya and Aristotle are wearing their Integrated Multipurpose Suits. He’s been transporting himself, and sometimes his mother, to other celestial objects in the solar system, which is a power that his own father did not even have. Maqsud Al-Amin was a long-range teleporter. He could jump from one star system to another, but very imprecisely, and he couldn’t jump to different parts of the planet that he had landed on, or to neighboring orbitals. Aristotle, it seems, is much more powerful than his dad was in a lot of ways, but he still has his limitations. Some teleporters can, for instance, make a jump to the other side of a locked door, but that’s impossible for him. In fact, he has to be outside in order for it to work properly. He once blew the ceiling and roof off of a building when he was overcome with emotion, and uncontrollably transported himself and everyone else in the room light years away. That’s his main issue. He has very little control over it, and Lilac believes this to be a psychological problem. This means that he can learn to move past it.

Aristotle’s dream of sending everyone on Verdemus back to Extremus is loftier than it might sound. It’s certainly far enough away, but precision is non-negotiable in this case. Since the ship is currently traveling at maximum reframe speed, there is no close; only right on target. Even if they were to be all wearing suits, it could prove fatal. Perhaps they end up in the path of the ship, or halfway through a bulkhead. They can’t afford to—pardon the pun—jump hastily into this endeavor. Aristotle believes that he’s ready, but Tinaya isn’t so sure. He’s been spending a lot of time making his jumps, and coming right back, and so far, he hasn’t experienced any issues. He even went to a meteor in the next solar system over, and managed to return unscathed. And that’s all well and good, but she needs to see it for herself first. There are too many variables here, so unless Aristotle can be a lot more specific about what he’s done in his past to practice this power, he’s only going to work on her timeline. He still won’t even tell them exactly how old he is, or what he was doing before he finally found Niobe in the Goldilocks Corridor. That could be the key to solving everything.

One other major problem with Trotting, as it’s called, is the time issue. Teleportation is inherently time travel. In a vacuum, light moves at a constant speed. Temporal manipulators regularly break this speed, whether the result is that they end up backwards or forwards in time, or not. The reason a light year is called that is because that is the distance a photon of light will travel in the span of a year. So when one looks up at a star, they are not seeing it as it is in the moment, but as it was in the past. The light that is hitting their eyes first left its point of origin exactly as long ago as the distance to that origin in light years. When a Trotter pinpoints a destination in the stars, he can choose to tie himself to the original photons, or to the new ones. If a star is, say, five light years away, he can go five years backwards in time, or he can land there only moments later from when he started. But this is not a simple intuitive trick. Maqsud evidently took years to learn to master this skill. Sure, he was a free spirit with no roots keeping him from leaving, so he wasn’t deliberately trying to figure out how to do anything perfectly, but it still isn’t a simple matter. Aristotle is a long way off from achieving this as well, and even longer from proving it to Tinaya.

Today, they’re leaving their friends behind, and going on a test run. According to data that they managed to pull from a galactic mapping program called Project Topdown, there is a star within Aristotle’s range that hosts a planet with a possible breathable atmosphere. Even if the readings aren’t accurate, it’s certainly a terrestrial world. For now, Aristotle either has to see where he’s going, or know where he’s going, based on other information. In this case, he has both, because they specifically chose it for its relative proximity to their current location. It’s not in the direction of Extremus, but it’s not in the direction of the Goldilocks Corridor either, and that’s important right now, because they have no interest in running into any trouble. Again, this is just a test. Tinaya wants to see what he’s made of, and if he fails, only their own lives are in danger. Everyone else will be able to live on, even if they die of old age of Verdemus.

“Are you ready?” he asks.

“I am.”

“Am I ready?” he pushes, realizing what she means by that.

Tinaya looks over at Lilac, who nods, confident in her son’s ability. She’s already given her approval for this mission. He’s an adult now, but he still relies on her. Tinaya thinks it over for a moment. “Okay, you have a go.”

“We have a go,” he corrects. For the most part, starting in a body of water makes it easier to activate the power, but he’s been practicing without this crutch, because if he can manage without, then he can definitely manage with. He spreads his arms out before him to welcome the light from his destination star, kept in focus by the heads-up display on his helmet. “Yalla.”

They fly into the air, and then out of the air. They soar out of the Verdemusian solar system, and past dozens of stars. Their visors turn opaque as the doppler glow attempts to blind them. There’s no turning back now. He saw where he wanted to go, but now he can’t see anything, so he has either succeeded, or already failed. Either way, they’re going somewhere. A couple minutes pass, which is highly concerning. The target star is only 78 light years away, and it shouldn’t take this long to get there. Then again, they’ve not had too much time to calculate travel time for his other jumps. They don’t have a lot of data and experience yet, and neither Aristotle nor Lilac is a notable mathematician. Finally, the glow recedes, and they see the star coming at them. There’s something wrong here, though. This far out in the galaxy, it should be uninhabited. But they’re headed for what looks like a ship. Shit, the Exin Empire must have spread farther than they realized. They’re going to be landing in enemy territory, and there is nothing they can do about it.

They crash through a giant glass window, fall through the cylindrical habitat that they’ve found themselves in, and splash into what’s either a lake or a pool. No chlorine, it’s probably a lake. A crowd forms around them as robots begin to repair the damage from above. A few people hop into the water, and help them out. They ask if the two of them are okay, but they’re not surprised to see them, nor upset. That’s a good sign. Maybe not all Exins are bad. Some of them look like they’re using communication devices, probably to contact the authorities.

One of them steps forward. “Get them towels, and escort them to guest quarters.” He looks upon Tinaya and Aristotle. “There will be showers there. I’m sure that Team Keshida will want to speak with you soon, so do not waste time.”

“Of course,” Tinaya answers before Aristotle can question what the man just said to them. This is not a good place to be. Well, it’s fine, but it could be dangerous. They don’t even know what year it is.

They follow their escorts to the train, which transports them down to the far end of the cylinder. After their showers, they find new clothes waiting for them on the bed, and a note on the smartmirror that their suits have been taken in for service. When they open the door to leave, lights guide them down the hallway where they find an airlock. A small pod flies them thousands of kilometers away, to a different cylinder. When the hatch opens, none other than Captain Kestral McBride, and Lieutenant Ishida Caldwell are waiting for them. These are two of the most famous people in Extremusian history. Everyone knows Team Matic, and they’ve learned about the violent exploits of Anatol Klugman. They’re aware of the Preston family, and the powers that be. But Team Keshida is directly responsible for the successful launch of the Extremus mission in the first place. No two people are more important to it. They’re in Gatewood Collective, which is thousands of light years off course.

“Report,” Captain McBride says.

“Could you tell us the date first?”

“It’s August 24, 2269,” the Lieutenant answers.

“We’re Extremusians, from 78 years in the future,” Tinaya answers.

“Did you use the recall device to return? How come it’s just the two of you?”

“I am Aristotle Al-Amin,” he replies before Tinaya can stop him this time.

“I see,” the Captain says. “There is probably a lot that you should not tell us.”

“There is only one thing that maybe you can tell us?” Tinaya asks hopefully.

“We might be able to send you back to the ship,” Lieutenant Caldwell says, assuming this to be the question they were going to ask.

“That’s a problem,” Tinaya begins. “We weren’t on the ship. We’ve...found planets along the way. We do indeed want to return to Extremus one day, but it’s complicated. There are those we left behind on our outpost. We would have to retrieve them first, and would rather never see Extremus again if it’s the only way to reunite them.”

Captain McBride nods. “I may be able to rig up a sort of homestone that takes you back to the place you last left, rather than the place you were when you first time traveled. It will take us some time to figure out how to do that, though.”

“We would be eternally grateful,” Tinaya tells her. “In return, we would be willing to brief you on matters of the mission for the last eight decades.”

“That would not be wise,” the Lieutenant contends. “Extremus has not even launched yet from our temporal perspective.”

“Perhaps we can brief the archives, with a temporal firewall in place, which will only unlock a file once it becomes the present day for you.”

“Hmm,” Captain McBride says, considering it. “We would have to invent that too, but it would be acceptable.”

“It would be nice to be able to keep up on your progress,” the Lieutenant agrees, “even if there is nothing we can do to help you while you’re out there.”

The Captain nods. “In the meantime, you will report to the medical wing for a physical, and an adaptive quarantine.”

“Adaptive quarantine, sir?” Aristotle asks.

“It starts with eleven hours,” Lieutenant Caldwell begins to explain. “At that point, the medical staff will reassess. If the sensors detect an issue, and you need longer, it will jump up to twenty-four hours total. Then forty-two, then fifty-six, and then eighty-three. After that, we start measuring it in days, starting with eleven again. Let’s hope it doesn’t get that far.”

They end up staying in quarantine for eleven months.

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Microstory 2145: Fresh Fake Baby Brains

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Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2

Wow, yesterday was some roof stoof, wasn’t it? I guess I need to explain a bit more. What you need to understand about the bulkverse is that some universes can stand on their own, while others need some kind of oversight. It’s not that every world that you can imagine can exist, but a lot of them can, and the more reasonable ones tend to be stronger. For instance, there’s a movie where I’m from where two Earths orbit each other so closely that you can actually take an elevator up from one to the other, and depending on which one you were born on, gravity remains the same for you, so if you travel to the other one, you will fall up towards your homeworld if you’re not careful. It’s super ridiculous, and practically impossible, and the universe where that story took place only lasted for one hour and fifty-four minutes before it imploded. Basically, the more normal things are, the safer you are there. That sucks for them, yeah? Well, unfortunately, it also sucks for you, because even though your planet doesn’t violate any reasonable laws of physics, it is weird. It’s too dependent upon the historical context of a different universe. I couldn’t tell you which one that was; maybe mine, but either way, yours too lacks stability. You’ve obviously lasted a lot longer than two hours, but that doesn’t mean you’ll last forever. It’s entirely possible that literally none of you existed until I entered the brane. My alternate self back on my homeworld may have conjured you up in that moment, and automatically implanted memories in your fresh fake baby brains, which make you believe that you’ve been around for years, even generations, or even for billions of years. That doesn’t make it so, but it happens. It happens all the time. It happens in dreams. I know it’s scary to think that this might be the case, but as I said in my last post, that doesn’t make you any less real. It’s all relative, and all in how you frame it. I long ago made peace with the possibility that I was also conjured in this way, and that I could one day blink out of existence. It didn’t change how I lived my life, because I couldn’t do anything to change it, so if you look at it that way, you’ll be all right. If you do happen to blink out of existence soon, you won’t be able to experience any emotions on the matter. You won’t experience anything at all. So you might as well just keep going. Me, I’m different, because I can leave. And I must.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 10, 2431

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Generated by Google Workspace Labs text-to-image Duet AI software

Once everyone was back in the ship, Ramses plotted a course to Ex-42, and launched. As they were standing there, Mateo looked over at Vitalie!324, who seemed to be deep in thought. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking, or even what she was feeling, since she wasn’t part of the empathy circle, but he took a guess. “We’re going the wrong way.”

Ramses was taken aback. “Leona, could you check my math?”

“No, your math is fine,” Mateo started to clarify. “I mean, I don’t know that it is, but it always has been. I just mean, I think we’re going to the wrong place. How many populated planets did you say were on the way to Ex-42?”

“Thirty-one,” Leona reminded him.

“That’s thirty-one planets who could all do with a little extra...vitality.”

Vitalie hadn’t been paying that much attention, but she recognized the play on her name. “Wait, what? No, you don’t have to stop at all those other worlds on my account. Let’s go find your bad guy.”

“Hm,” Leona said. “Thirty-one worlds means an extra seven days on our mission. That’s not that big a deal.”

“Well, who knows what you’re gonna run into on the intervening planets?” Vitalie argued. “One of them might end up stopping you from being able to reach it. No, the safest course of action is to go straight there.” She shoved her open hand forwards from her nose.

“It could be a trap,” Angela reasoned. “Maybe that’s not where the archive is at all. Maybe it’s an inescapable prison planet. Going to the other worlds is strategically logical. We can’t lose the information that we have. We can only gain more.”

“That’s true,” Leona agreed. “So we wouldn’t be going just for the other versions of you, Vita. There are other reasons to make stops. Again, it’s a week out of the way.”

“It’s seven years,” Vitalie argued. “I think you lot tend to forget that. Everyone else moves on without you, and a lot can happen in that extra time. Ex-42 might be destroyed by the time we make it there if we go on every detour available. Hell, the Prime Minister might have sent a relativistic kill missile to beat us there.”

Marie shrugged. “If he sent a missile tomorrow, it would beat us there anyway. Hell, he could be on the quantum phone with them right now, instructing them to detonate their self-destruct, and then we would end up the whole twenty-four years too late. Time jumps or not, it’s a risk.”

Mateo placed a hand on Vitalie’s shoulder. “We’ll make one stop every day. There, we’ll resupply, if needed, maybe help a few people, and yes, we’ll also find your alternate self’s stasis pod, and let her out. If not us, then who?”

“Don’t think of it as being selfish,” Olimpia reasoned. “They’re not really you anymore. You’re helping your sisters.” She gestured towards Angela and Marie, who were also alternates of the same person, but now thought of each other as twin sisters.

Vitalie nodded in concession. “Okay. Where are we going instead, then?”

Ramses pulled up the map. “Ex-548. Gah, I can’t figure out the pattern here. It’s buggin’ the shit out of me,” he lamented

“Ex-548 ho!” Mateo declared, standing tall, and pointing towards the back wall.

They all stared at him. Leona glanced over at Ramses, and nodded slightly. Ramses went over to the controls, and altered course. The Goldilocks Corridor was named such that the stars with habitable planets were all laid out in a relatively straight line, so he only had to adjust a little bit.

A year later, they were in orbit over Ex-548. During the interim year, the ship took readings of the surface. No signals were being sent out into space, or within the atmosphere. There were signs of civilization, but no sign of movement. This planet was either abandoned, or the inhabitants were living underground.

“Or they’re all dead,” Olimpia offered.

“Yeah,” Leona agreed. “They could be dead. Mateo, you found Vitalie!908, so I’ll look for her this time. Olimpia, you wanna come with me?”

“Sure,” she answered.

“Hubby, it’s your turn to stay on the ship. Marie, you know enough about this stuff to stay with him in case something goes wrong up here. The rest will go down and see what’s up with what apparently used to be populated areas.”

“There are-slash-were five major settlements here,” Ramses reported. “We can split up, and—”

“Nope,” Leona interrupted. “Ram, Vitalie, and Angela, go together, and stay together. You have the most dangerous job, so I don’t want to shrink the numbers any more than they already are. We’re getting faster at finding the stasis pod, so I’m sure we’ll join you pretty quickly.”

“Ready...” Olimpia began, “...break.”

A couple of hours in, Leona and Olimpia were still trying to triangulate the stasis pod, having underestimated how difficult it would be. In his spare time, Ramses had been trying to figure out how to track them directly, but they weren’t designed to be located like a GPS beacon. It was also possible in this case that word had gotten around about the team’s interference in the goings-on of the Exin Empire that someone decided to dig her up, and do something else with her. Maybe they tossed her into the host star, or just released her, and then shot her in the head. They would keep trying all day either way.

The settlement group was on the ground too, looking for an explanation for why no one seemed to live here anymore. When they were last here, the natives were living under turn of the 21st century Earth conditions, though they weren’t anywhere near that population size. Each settlement was the size of a town small enough for rumors to spread faster than sound, but large enough for a resident to meet someone as an adult who they had never heard of before. They were thousands of kilometers apart, on separate continents. None of the homes appeared to be locked, so they entered a few to get an idea of what may have happened here. There wasn’t any rotten food on the dinner table, or showers left running. There were also no signs of struggle, or hurried packing. Whatever the cause, it wasn’t sudden. The people had time to leave the lights off, and the doors closed. They left on purpose, and based on the level of dust, the computer estimated that it happened about a year ago. The interesting part was that all of the settlements were left in the same state, which meant that they all agreed to leave at the same time. The team just kept looking for answers.

Meanwhile, up on the ship, Mateo and Marie were in realspace, instead of the pocket dimension. They were lying down back to back in the tiny habitable section, admiring the view through the ports. “Hey, are your comms off?” Mateo asked.

“Output is off. Input is in cocktail mode.” Cocktail mode kept the conversations silent for the user unless someone else on the network used any out of a list of preselected keywords, like their names, or emergency.

Mateo didn’t continue right away. “Do you ever think about...?”

“Think about what?”

“Heath?”

“Oh.”

“Sorry, if that’s too sensitive of a topic.”

“No, it’s okay. I know I don’t talk about him enough. I mean he’s still my husband, and I should think about him more. I just...I don’t. I don’t know why. I know we left things in a bad place, but I think if I let myself dwell on it, I’ll see that I’m the bad guy. I left him long before he left me. I was never really committed to that relationship. I just never realized it until he had the courage to walk away. Don’t get me wrong, I still love him, but I’m a part of this team, and he’s not. He never wanted to be. He stayed as long as he did for me, but he has his own life to live. Could we have reconciled, and gotten back together?” She sighed. “Probably. Neither one of us tried very hard, and then we both all but died. It just seemed...like that chapter was over. I wanna be here, with all of you. I have no clue how he feels about it at this point. I hope he’s okay.”

“I hope so too.”

“Sometimes I wish I had just been alone during the four years before you showed up. It would have been easier. No attachments, no complications. I’m not blaming him for anything, but how would things have turned out if we could have just come back together as a team?”

“It could have been worse,” he pointed out. “I mean, I know it would have been worse if you had been alone. If you had ever recovered from that isolation, it still would have weighed on you for the rest of your life. I think, in the end, it was a good thing that you met him, even with the complications. I doubt our shared experience in the Third Rail for that year would have been improved by deleting him from the roster.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” she agreed.

“You’ll see him again. We always do.”

“Really?” She chuckled. “When was the last time you saw—I dunno—your mother, or that nanobot intelligence who tried to kill you near the beginning of your time traveling?”

He laughed with her. “Mirage? It’s been about since back then. I suppose you’re right; we don’t see everyone from our past again.”

“Is everyone on?” Olimpia asked through comms.

Everyone confirmed according to a predetermined order, so they would not talk over one another.

“Jump to our location, including Group Breakthrough. The ship will be fine on its own. There’s no one here. Not anymore.”

Leona and Olimpia were found standing next to Vitalie!548’s stasis pod in the middle of nowhere. It was leaning slightly to the left, open and empty, with dirt and sand piled up inside. “Now we know why it took us so long to find it.”

Ramses nodded. “It’s inactive, which incidentally shrinks its networking capabilities to a smaller radius. No reason to place two empty pods in sync.”

“Why were you able to find it at all?” Angela asked them.

“It’s still powered on, just enough to maintain coherence for this message, of which we only watched the beginning.” Leona reached in, and pressed a button.

At first, nothing happened. Then a hologram of Vitalie appeared from outside of frame, and turned around. She composed herself, running a finger through her hair as if she had intended to edit the very beginning out before uploading the final cut. “My name is Vitalie Crawville. I came to this planet long ago, and placed myself in stasis while I waited for the world to be populated. Unfortunately, someone else got to me before the population could. He overpowered me, and put me back in permanently. At least, I think it was supposed to be permanent. Later, probably due to geological activity, my pod was exposed enough to be discovered by the natives. They figured out how to free me, and I explained to them that my purpose here was to be their Caretaker.

“This was a peaceful world. For the most part, they didn’t need me to take care of them. Yet I stayed, and did what I could. It’s not like I had anywhere else to go. This was my only purpose. As it turned out, I was not the only thing that the Leighstens had found. They were a curious bunch, and as it happens, every inhabited world in this sector contains a hidden central computer, regardless of the level of advancement they are allowed to attain. Apparently, the Leighstens were an early experiment to make sure that the seeding process was viable. I have reason to believe that the godking who did this started a couple of similar experiments before he got it right, so you may encounter those during your travels. Once an experiment was over, he would abandon the project, because to him, the survivors were insignificant. We do not contribute to the Empire in any way, not anymore. I suppose we should be glad that we weren’t simply exterminated. Most of the details that would illuminate the full story were encrypted, but the computer was made to receive some news from other worlds, so we were able to keep up with current events.

“Team Matic, I know that you’re the ones watching this. Only you would have been granted access to this file. Out of concern for the Leighstens’ safety, I have made drastic arrangements for their protection. You will not find us, and more importantly, neither will Bronach Oaksent. Do not look into this matter further. I am doing my job. I am taking care of them. It hurts my heart to say that I would not be able to accomplish this if I didn’t keep them away from you. You are...irritants. You shuffle shit up and you make changes. You do it everywhere you go. Sometimes you succeed, and sometimes...you just make things worse. The Exins will retaliate, and that may result in a scorched policy. Honestly, Oaksent is nothing if not unpredictable. We’re not the only ones getting the news feed. They know you’re here now, and each next world will have one year more than the world before to prepare for your arrival. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t do whatever it is you’re trying to do, but I can’t let the Leighstens get caught in the line of fire. Please leave now. This pod will self-destruct in five seconds.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Leona assured the team. “The first thing I did was disable the triggering mechanism. We’ll still blow it up, but I know that Ramses likes to scavenge for parts.”

“No,” Vitalie!324 insisted. She turned away. “Destroy it all please.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 9, 2430

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Generated by Google Workspace Labs text-to-image Duet AI software

Ex-908 was unlike the other two planets in the Goldilocks Corridor that the team had been to. The first one was at medieval-level technology. The second one was more like the 2030s. This world was far more advanced, with an early-warning outer system defense grid, and multiple space stations in orbit. Fortunately, the AI on this little ship was intelligent enough to avoid being detected. It stayed out of range by hiding on a planetesimal in the inner edge of the transtellar debris cloud, which was smaller than the Oort Cloud that was around Earth.

“What are we going to do here?” Angela asked. “We’re trying to find the bad guy, but what exactly are we expecting to accomplish on this world? Or the next one? Do we have any protocols, procedures, or plans?”

“Good question,” Mateo said. It took him a few seconds to realize that everyone was waiting for him to answer it. “Why are y’all lookin’ at me? I’m not the captain.”

“This was your idea, though,” Marie pointed out.

“Wull...” He fumbled for words. “Why are you listening to me? I don’t know what the hell I’m talkin’ about!”

“It’s okay, honey.”

“Look at them, salivating like honey badgers, acting like I have all the answers. This is just what we do, try to stop all the bad shit happening when we find ourselves in a position to make a difference.”

“Okay, okay, it’s fine. Relax,” Leona encouraged. She looked into his eyes, and started to breathe methodically until he matched her. Then she gestured for him to continue while she talked. “This is the most advanced civilization we’ve run into. There seems to be some air of mystery surrounding the emperor of this empire, of whatever it is they call him, but maybe they know something. Let’s go and ask.”

“The last one could stop us from teleporting,” Olimpia reminded her as she was rubbing Mateo’s arm up and down, since he was the one who suffered from that technology the most. “We were smart to leave one of us in the ship, but that could have easily not been enough. We may not be so lucky this time.”

“Ah.” Ramses disappeared into his lab, and returned a few seconds later. He was holding a damaged gizmo with wires loosely hanging out of it. “The spatial tether. Yes, I almost forgot. In the future, I might be able to help us avoid it altogether, but until then, I’ve designed some clippers, which will break us out of it.” He held up the remote that he had been carrying around lately to do other things, like disrupt Bronach Oaksent’s interstellar holographic projection. The only thing is, there’s only one. If any of us gets caught, you’re gonna need me.”

Leona takes it out of his hand, and turns it around in her own. “How long will it take you to build another one?”

“A second remote that does everything? All day,” Ramses answers. “A cheap knock-off that only clips spatial tethers? A couple hours, maybe.”

“Stay here and do that,” Leona orders. “I’ll take this one in case we need it. Hopefully, if they have such technology, it operates on the same principles. If not, you’ll be up here to save us.”

“I’ll stay with him,” Olimpia volunteered. “I don’t think anyone should be alone. I can be your little assistant,” she said to him.

“I would love that.”

“Okay, we’ll split into three teams. The second group needs to go find this planet’s version of The Caretaker. Vitalie, I don’t know if you wanna do that, or if you very much don’t want to...”

“If not me,” Vitalie!324 began, “at least someone she recognizes. So either you or Matt. The other iterants never met Angela-slash-Marie.”

“I’ll do it,” Mateo said. “Whatever questions need to be asked to find Oaksent’s ruling world, I’m not the one to ask them. It may end up in a fight, who knows?”

“Okay,” Leona agreed. “I’ll go start askin’ questions, and knockin’ heads. Mateo will find Vitalie!908. Ramses and Olimpia are staying with the ship. By the way, keep moving. Break orbit, if you have to, which I think you probably will. Go into darklurking mode. We’ll still be able to communicate through our comms. I don’t think more than two need to stay here, though. Nor do I think finding the other Caretaker is more than a two-person job. So who wants to join my husband while the other two come back me up?”

Both Angela and Marie raised their hands.

“I don’t know what that means,” Leona said to them.

“We both want to help Mateo,” Marie clarified. She looked over at her sister. Then they dropped their hands down simultaneously for a round of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Marie won after the third game.

“All right, is everyone ready?” Leona posed.

They nodded.

“Rambo, navigate us to the planet. I want you to look for three things. Number one, the biggest, baddest seat of government you can detect. Number two, the remotest region on the surface. Number two, the most complex cave system that’s still remote. If something goes wrong, jump to, and hide in, the caves. We can find each other while avoiding pursuit. Once we know where to go, we’ll split. Group Confrontation will go to the city. Group Stasis will find the other iterant. She seems to usually be away from civilization. Obviously, Group Breakthrough will stay with the ship, which I’m realizing now still needs a name.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Mateo claimed.

She was thrown off a little by this, but didn’t push it. “Okay. Let’s do it to it!”

The quickly-conceived plan went as well as they thought it would. Speed was key, which Leona knew. Orbital defenses sprang into action, but they weren’t fast enough for them. The three groups jumped to their respective missions, and no one was caught. Not yet, anyway.

As it turned out, they might not have to worry about spatial tethers preventing them from teleporting. When they appeared in the lobby of what appeared to be some kind of capitol building, no one batted an eye. They walked up to the reception desk. “Hello. My name is Captain Leona Matic of the...” She faltered. “Well, I gave my ship away, but that doesn’t matter. We need to talk to whoever is in charge here.”

“In charge of what?” the receptionist asked. She looked pretty young to hold the job, and didn’t seem to care about it. She may as well have been chewing gum.

“The planet.”

She yawned. “I heard he’s dead.”

“Not Bronach Oaksent. I mean, in charge of this world specifically, or maybe even just this city?” Unlike the first two planets, this world had several distinct cities, and any number of smaller towns in between. This one was the largest.

“Oh, the Prime Minister. He’s on the top floor, but—”

They didn’t bother listening to her full explanation. They just jumped right up there and started to look around. There were people hurrying about, but it didn’t feel like a crisis. This just looked like a Tuesday. One of them made the mistake of walking a little bit slower than most. Angela gently stopped him by the arm. “Pardon me. Where can we find the Prime Minister?”

“He’s back there. Can I go now?”

She let him go, and they walked down the hallway until they reached the big double doors. Angela opened one while Vitalie!324 opened the other. Leona barged in through the center. A group of men were in the middle of a conversation around the long table. They stopped and looked over at the disruption. “Good afternoon, folks. My name is Leona Matic. Perhaps you’ve heard of me. It seems that your god-king is a pretty big asshole. I’m aimin’ to take him down. Problem is, ya see, I don’t know where he is. You tell me what you know, I’ll leave you be. You stand in my way, I’ll take you down first.” She teleported randomly around the room, which wasn’t impressing them. “You may know people who can do this. You may be able to do it yourself. But I have other tricks up my sleeve, so don’t test me. Where is the seat of power for this Exin Empire? My guess is you call it Ex-001, but I dunno.”

The man at the head of the table was the only one standing. He tugged down on his sports jacket authoritatively, and began to come around the corner. “Emergency teleportation.” Everyone disappeared, except for him. “You’ll leave them be, because they got nothin’ to do with this. Your fight’s with me.”

“You’re not Bronach Oaksent,” Leona accused.

“No, but I run this rock. We have heard of you. We were just discussing your team. You’re a problem. You’ve been to two planets already, not counting the, uhh...traitors. I think you’ll find that you won’t be able to bully us like you did 275 and 324. They are...irrelevant, especially Ex-324, which is in the state that it’s in because it doesn’t provide Oaksent with what he demands. And you’re wrong, the primary system is not called Ex-001. You could never begin to understand our naming conventions.”

“What’s the main world called?”

The Prime Minister smirked. “I can tell you what it’s called, but that doesn’t mean you’ll find it. No one goes to Ex-69, not even me.”

Leona cleared her throat. “Do you know the significance of the number 69, sir?”

“Oaksent calls it the Divine Figure. That’s all we need to know. That’s more than you deserve to know.”

Angela wrote it out for him on a whiteboard. “It’s two numbers having sex.”

Leona never broke eye contact with the Prime Minister. “Your leader is a fucking child. Tell me where he is, or I’m gonna fuck up your shit.”

“I would rather die.”

“Weird nerd,” she mused. She tilted her head away. “Ramses, are you locked on?”

“We’re in, sir,” he replied through comms. “What do you wanna do?”

“Burn up the biggest one,” she ordered. “I want this world to be defenseless.”

The Prime Minister’s face couldn’t decide if he felt horrified, or confused. “What are you doing? What are you burning?”

The phone on the back counter started to ring.

Leona paced around menacingly. “We were wondering, why would your world need the kind of defenses that it does? It doesn’t make any sense. This is an empire in the middle of nowhere. No one out there knows that you exist. And the other two planets don’t have it. You don’t care about Ex-324 and Ex-275. So are you fighting against outsiders like us...or amongst yourselves? We didn’t speak long, but Oaksent didn’t strike me as the type who would have some sort of inherent opposition to civil war. You’re not his little babies. You’re his playthings. Hell, he probably stirs up conflict on purpose. I suppose I’m more like him than I thought, because I’m doin’ the same thing. If you keep refusing me, there will be nothing left to defend you, except for her.”

Vitalie raised her hand up, and waved with her fingers. “That’s assuming you can convince her to stay here as your Caretaker. The rest of your defenses will have burnt up in the atmosphere.”

“What do you want?” the Prime Minister demanded to know.

“I want to know where your god-king is!”

“I told you, no one knows that!”

“Ramses, on my mark, drop another one, but don’t worry about avoiding populated areas this time.”

“Wait!” He struggled to catch his breath. “You would do that? You would kill innocent people? That’s not the Team Matic I grew up hearing stories about.”

“You must have heard sanitized versions of those stories. The way I see it, you’re fighting a war on multiple fronts. I consider you to be an enemy combatant, and I’ll do what I need to do to protect the lives of the people that I care about. The Welriosians weren’t hurting anyone, and your boss tried to destroy them all. What happens when the vonearthans make it this far out? How will you react?”

“It’s not my job to react to outsiders. We’re the farest from the stellar neighborhood out here. That’s the whole point.”

“What is Ex-908’s responsibility to the empire?” Leona asked.

The Prime Minister took a breath. “These are testing grounds. Ex-182 regularly attacks us to see how we survive. If you destroy even one more of our satellites, we’ll all die. These aren’t games, the stakes are real.”

“I’ll leave you with what you have left if you tell me what you know, like I’ve asked a thousand times already.”

“I really don’t know where Ex-69 is, but I know someone who might. Ex-42 could have the answers you need. I think it’s about 24 light years away. It’s where we keep all of our data. It’s like one giant space server.”

“Ram, you know where Ex-42 is?”

“There are thirty-one planets between here and there.”

“That’s our next stop.”

The Prime Minister looked over at the phone. “I never answered it. Which satellite did you destroy?”

Leona looked at him incredulously. “I didn’t destroy any of them. Ramses was the one calling you on that phone. He was able to hack the communications network, and not much else quite yet.”

“You were bluffing,” he realized.

“We were that time.” They teleported away.

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