Happy didn’t see any of that however. She had to put every bit of her concentration in controlling the broken and ravaged spaceship. She was sitting on her usual seat on the Hubble’s bridge and had tapped into her mutation to be able to manually adjust throttle controllers, manage the cooling system and organize power distribution between the shields, the remaining two VTOL-thrusters and the ship’s main thrusters.
“25.000, 9.41” Alena reported.
She was sitting at the copilot’s station for scanning, navigation and communication and it was her job to provide Happy with updates about altitude and gravity for their difficult take-off.
“75.000, 9.32”
On their last trip off-planet, they had been shot down by a fast approaching interceptor which had waited to ambush them. Niu had barely managed to land the Hubble without it blowing up and killing them all on the spot and it was close to a miracle that they could even try another take-off. Robin had repaired their ship as well as possible, but that wasn’t much more than a desperate attempt to keep the ship together with nothing but duct tape and good will. Their biggest concern came from the two VTOL-thrusters they had lost when the Hubble had the crash landing and only after Happy had double-checked her calculations four times did they decide to give it a go.
“250k, 9.11”
Surprisingly, it wasn’t that they had no alternatives as they actually did find another ship on the planet.
After they finally overcame the enemy’s attack in which they had to kill the whole crew, Robin and Timothy took their time to thoroughly explore the hidden Keeper ship. As expected, that was quite the challenge. Most of the doors on the ship were locked, they couldn’t read any of the signs and labels and they had no idea how technology based on ?ther worked. In the end it was ROMAS, the digital companion nested in Robin’s Neuro Chip, that managed to decipher some of the Keeper’s native language. Even if it was only a small part of the AI with the name Guard, which Robin had met at the Drel outpost on Ruca II, it was an invaluable asset in their endeavor to recover the Keeper ship.
“500k, 8.47”
“That’s it!” Niu happily shouted while she steered the Hubble into a stable orbit, “We actually managed to leave the planet without the thrusters failing and the ship crashing back to the ground… yay!”
“That was a valid risk, wasn’t it?” Landom sighed and secretly tried to dry his sweaty palms on his trousers, “I really should have stayed with Robin.”
“Well, then you wouldn’t have been promoted to Captain of the Hubble, right?”
“A dream came true! How did you know?” Landom asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Ah come on, you are no fun!” Niu pouted.
“When do you want to proceed?” Alena asked, ignoring their bickering.
“Give me a moment to calculate a good exit point for a slingshot maneuver. That’ll save us some energy before we’re ready to boot the QVT and switch to superluminal travel.” Niu explained and
Landom quickly checked some data on the screens of his captain’s seat.
“Doesn’t look like we are short on fuel, right?” He asked with a frown.
“No, everything is fine.” Happy confirmed, “But we burned through way more resources than usual just now and I wanna keep our reserves nice and dandy in case of emergency.”
“We won’t be able to land this ship on any planet anymore, not to mention surviving another take-off. That is not a question of resources but stability of the structural integrity.” Alena commented.
“Yeah, this baby is about to fall apart.” Happy sighed, “A shame, I really got used to it.”
“I thought it was too small for your liking?” Landom asked, “Weren’t you aiming for capital sized ships?”
“Yes, but I can also appreciate the… little things in life!” She said unconvincingly.
“Sorry about that.” Landom said, “That aside; Alena, did you catch anything from Robin and Timothy?”
“Not even the slightest whiff of a signature. It seems like Robin was right and the Keeper technology is really optimized for hiding from normal sensors.” Alena reported while she checked the screens in front of her, “However, they should leave for the Mereus Cluster in about four minutes.
“Okay,” Landom nodded, “we shouldn't let them wait for too long. Bring us home, Niu, will you?”
“Just leave it to me, Captain!”
***
“We need to have a talk!” Timothy complained for the umpteenth time while his eyes remained glued to the file on the tablet in front of him.
“I know, just let us hit the road first, okay?” Robin wearily conceded.
“Seriously? You’ll answer my questions then? Explain the things I had to put on the “no-questions-ask”-list?”
“Yes, I promise. The flight back to the Mereus Cluster is long. We have enough time…”
“All of them?”
“Sure” Robin reflexively agreed, before he winced when ROMAS showed him the actual list, “... most of them, okay? Now let me get this thing to take us home.”
Timothy looked up from his documents and scrutinized Robin with squinted eyes.
“Fine!” He finally agreed and dove back into his studies.
Robin took a deep breath and looked around once more. He sat in an elegant chair on the huge bridge of the Keeper ship. Everything was designed in black and a metallic silver and there were four similar stations around: one to his right, two in the back and one in the center. He still didn’t know what most of them did but he assumed the one in the middle was for the captain. The only station they were somewhat certain of was the one he was using right now. The four alien-looking joysticks suggested it to be for the pilot - not that Robin dared to touch them.
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There was an enormous window in front of him, running from one side of the ship all the way to the other, spanning close to 30 meters in total. Unfortunately, they couldn’t see a thing because they hadn’t managed to retract the external blast shield that covered the whole window. That was also the reason why the bridge was only dimly lit. They just managed to turn on some basic lighting and didn’t dare to randomly press buttons in hope that one of them would turn on the rest of the lights. Their only way to see what was happening outside was a holographic image from the ship’s immediate surroundings.
“So, how are we doing this?” Robin asked while he inspected the buttons and switches in front of him; each labeled in a language they couldn’t read.
There was a nearly instant reply printed on the Interface covering his eyes.
- Automated take-off finished
- We are in a stable orbit
- Altitude: unknown
- Speed: unknown
- System status: idle (98%)
- Destination needed (81%)
“Timothy, please select the Mereus Cluster now.” Robin said after he got the update from ROMAS.
“Yep, just a minute…” His friend confirmed and began to fumble with his station. He sat in the seat to his right, which was probably for the copilot or the navigator. That's what they guessed, after they found an interactive map on one of its screens.
“All done!” He shouted a long moment later, “Double checked it. We are good to go!”
- Plotting route… (79%)
- Course set (97%)
- Initiating QVT (36%)
- Attempting superluminal travel (91%)
- Please wait…
“Only 36%?” Robin gasped in shock at the low probability ROMAS had calculated on what was happening.
- It is unknown what kind of technology the Keeper are using to travel faster than light
- It is more likely than not that they are using something other than a QVT
- For now, it doesn’t matter as only the fact that we are entering superluminal speeds is important and not the exact means which are used
“What did you say? 36% for what?” Timothy asked with a worried look on his face.
“Ah, nothing. Wasn’t important.” Robin reassured him, “We are about to speed up.”
“This is utter nonsense…” Timothy muttered, “We have literally no idea what we are doing but still use this thing to travel between star systems.”
“Hey! No one forced you to tag along and if I remember correctly it was you who insisted that we couldn’t leave the ship behind.”
“Well, yeah… but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a stupid idea. Honestly? It is a miracle that we’ve managed to come so far and leave the planet. Do you even know how much can go wrong? How much we don’t know?”
“I have a vague idea, yes.”
- Unknowns sorted by priority
- Integrity of the hull
- Overall system stability
- Capabilities of the ship
- Max. travel-distance
- Speed
- Elemental weaknesses
- …
- Remaining fuel
- State of life support
- State of energy supply
- State of communication
- … (3.176 Entries more)
- Do you want the complete list?
“No!” Robin cursed, “Damn it!”
“Are you talking to the AI?” Timothy asked.
“Yeah, and I just got confirmation that we’ve entered superluminal travel. Let me explain a bit and answer some of your most pressing questions. Then we continue to explore the ship, okay?”
“Great! Let’s start with the capabilities of the AI.”
“How about I start with explaining where I met it and what exactly it is that lives in my Neuro Chip?”
“Yeah, yeah! That’s good, too!” Timothy happily nodded and looked at him with big eyes.
“Fine.” Robin said while he arranged his thoughts and after a few moments he began to tell the tale of his adventures on Ruca II.
When they had first explored the ship, they immediately dreamed of bringing it home. Unfortunately they neither knew the technology nor the language and quickly hit a wall in any kind of research. Timothy had already started to create a dictionary for the Keeper’s native language after his studies of the artifact, but it had a pitiful amount of entries - many even flagged as “uncertain”. Robin took up the idea and set ROMAS on it. To his surprise, the AI actually managed to extend the dictionary quite a bit, especially with technological terms. It had used the data salvaged from the monolith as reference and while the data itself turned out to be incomplete and riddled with gaps, it had schematics of different machines and parts. The combination of the blueprints and their legends helped massively to expand the dictionary.
After half a day ROMAS had enough data to guide Robin through some basic check up-routines of the ship. It was then that Robin couldn’t hide the AI any longer from his friend and told him some basics. He had to promise him answers before Timothy agreed to help repair the ship.
As they had hoped, the Keeper ship wasn’t badly damaged but only had some broken parts in its generator. They had learned that the generator itself wasn’t too different from the technology that the rest of the universe was using and could salvage the replacements for the burned and broken parts from the interceptor that was still waiting next to the Hubble. The crazy ?ther-based stuff started within the other big machine they found in the engineering room. Robin had spent two days inspecting it but all he could say was that it was some weird voodoo-crap based on biological matter, not unlike what the Wuranger did. You put in normal energy on one side, then magic shit happens and ?ther comes out on the other side.
He decided to look deeper into that when he has a better foundation on ?ther-tech.
***
Over the next few days, Robin explained most of his secrets to Timothy. He told the story about the Drel-AI Guard and the little “offshoot” ROMAS, how he had a Neuro Chip from the Drel implanted in his head and the price he had to pay in exchange: his lost color vision and the need to regularly recharge his chip. He only withheld the fact that Guard actually had a consciousness or at least behaved like it had one.
Was it a risk to tell Timothy so many of his secrets? Maybe. But Robin was sure that sooner or later someone would come to learn of it anyways and when he compared that to the fact that he was about to smuggle a spaceship from the Keeper into UAS-territory, it was actually negligible.
That’s right. He finally had decided to cut ties with the UAS. Originally his plan was to get a good ship from them and just travel around and explore the universe - looking for clues left by the Starborn. However, Robin had to acknowledge that his feats may have been too flashy and people like Commander Ramones from Gaunus would start digging. At some point they would find something and by then it would be too late to leave.
When ROMAS told him that this ship held a Star Atlas, a vessel capable of housing Guard, and that the AI would be able to control the ship, he came to a decision. He would hide the Keeper ship from the UAS and everyone else, bring home his friends, fetch Guard and then leave this system and cut all dealings with the UAS.
He was sure that he still had time before they would try to restrain him, no matter his own wishes.
With these naive thoughts in mind, the Keeper ship entered the Mereus Cluster and dropped out of superluminal travel six weeks later, one week faster than usual.