Deception

It was a long shot, but with our distance from The Behemoth we had the best chance of pulling it off. We would have to use all our improved technology and all three control pods, it would require quite a bit of concentration and energy as well, luckily we had it in excess at the moment. The project began with just a basic layout of the ship, nothing fancy, it was enough just to create that with all its various properties that would make it believable. Then our flow of energy turned towards the little things that would make it more realistic, even going so far as to create our own energy patterns in it that were close to the feel of us, but only an expert would be able to detect the slight change. The fake ship made of mindforce energy looked spectacular as we continued its construction, I was glad we had spent so much time working on this skill, at least Ambri and I did, Nira did her best and it was enough to help us out. Once we had it as far as we could take it, for we knew if we went too far we would use up too much of our energy and it would discipate too quickly, we unleashed it beside us, it kept pace and performed all the maneuvers we needed it to but stayed close enough that the other ship wouldn't notice it yet. We then gathered up quite a bit of shared energy between us to try to stealth ourselves so that when we broke away from the fake ship, which would change course soon, The Behemoth might follow it instead of us and buy us some more time to get some upgrades done and make it to the system before it found out about our ruse.

Once the energy was gathered up we performed our mindforce cloak on the entire ship and then broke away, a few moments later the fake ship changed its course. It would be a little while before it would be safe to remove the cloak. The strain of keeping an entire ship cloaked with just our own powers soon took its toll however, and we began losing our grip on the cloak. Once we felt it begin to falter we decided to conserve the rest of our energy and let it fall away completely. I then used the sensors as best I could to see if I could find the other ship, I knew it would be difficult and we wouldn't know for absolute sure unless we stopped, but we still needed to get some distance before we took that chance. With nothing turning up on the sensors we changed our heading back towards the system that we believed had the planet we were seeking. We would not stop until we reached it, but until then we could continue working on the parts we would need to upgrade the ship when we did stop.

Enhanced Senses

The enhancements to the sensors had been completely invisible to me, without a proper interface you just didn't see what you wanted to and so the old system had seemed so good. But with each system we took down and fixed I got to see and feel quite a bit more, though we still hadn't approached the system that we desperately needed to, mostly due to the fact that it was the system we were using to try to avoid the gravity blasts in the first place, but it was coming up quickly. With the improvements so far I was starting to get glimses of the ship that was pursuing us, it was still rapidly evolving which was a bit scary for us, even with the three of us working I don't think we'd be able to stay ahead of it for much longer, our only hope would be to start fighting back. When it was finally time to replace the last set of sensors I quickly ate what I would need and got into the control pod, I knew it could be a bit of time that I would need to be here and I wouldn't have the luxury of a break once we disabled this system. My senses weren't great on their own in sensing these attacks, but at least it was something. With the gravity sensors down we were nearly blind and if I weren't the one controlling the ship we would be completely unaware of what the other ship was doing.

It was very strange being in this position, I had less than a second to react to each incoming gravity ball and several times we experienced significant slowdowns that allowed the behemoth of a ship to get closer, however the closer it came the easier it was to sense it. It too had that strange energy about it that made it so difficult to counteract the blasts he was firing at us, I began to feel that this energy was part of the entity and it was expending parts of itself to attack us, though from the readings we had on the system that had contained it, there was no shortage of energy for it to use. As it began to draw dangerously close to us I could sense a buildup of energy, I knew I needed those sensors and soon and Nira had just about finished them, I just hoped we could get them back in place before whatever it was about to fire was unleashed upon us.

The blast of its cannon, at least that's what I was thinking of it as, was tremendous. There was so much gravitational energy that I thought for sure it was creating a black hole to draw us in to. The sensors were just about online, though I didn't need them to know what was coming at us, I just hoped that with them I could find a way through the force as safely as possible. The dread of feeling this thing coming towards us caused Ambri to scream, I heard her, but very faintly, I was caught in the moment of it all and felt the sensor coming online. Things seemed to slow down, as often they do in situations where things get very intense, and my mind was suddenly filled with clarity. The precision of this sensor astounded me, I could feel every subtle fluctuation in this giant gravity ball, it wasn't a black hole at all but just a larger version of a gravity blast, and it wasn't perfect.

I was told afterwards that it was only moments and both Ambri and Nira were amazed I had navigated through it, but I had found ample time to navigate through the imperfect parts of the energy that allowed us through the blast and avoid most of the damage that we had been sure was imminent. Following these imperfections and making slight adjustments to the shield made it so that the ship only suffered a little bit of structural damage, but the drives were completely unharmed. This meant that once the blast was past us I could use the force of it to help slingshot us forward, which gave us a much greater distance than we had before. No other massive charges came after us, the entity knew we had figured out how to get through his attacks and so he needed to continue evolving his ship. He didn't slow down, but I started to feel forces leaving it to things outside of the jump and pull them in, I hadn't thought it was possible, but he was doing it. His resources were endless in a jump because of this technology, I had hoped to make this technology myself, but we were at a major disadvantage when we had to defend ourselves and our resources would run out long before we reached our destination if we continued having to improve every little system. But for now repairs were the most important thing, we could not afford to have a weak portion of the ship if we hoped to survive the next onslaught.

Sensing the New Weapon

The tiny blasts of gravitational forces kept getting closer, though the feel of them wasn't as intense as they should be for a ship that was jumping. Every once in a while there was a big one, but it was never as close as all these small ones. It appeared a new weapon had been developed and he was firing balls of gravity at us to try to either disable us or at least to slow us down. I still wasn't sure how all these little forces were affecting us so much, our shields had been designed against it and we had even implemented some of the gravity technology into the ship to try to mitigate these interferences as well. The control pod was just about finished and I would be able to control the ship more precisely with it as well as link directly with the sensors to get a better feeling of what was going on, it wouldn't be nearly as good a connection as it was with the other ship, but it would do for our purposes. The other pods would be finished shortly after this one was connected, but they would have to wait, we needed to find some relief to this new onslaught.

The sensors picked up the gravity orbs pretty well, it was like microscopic black holes coming towards you and exploding. They didn't really suck much into them, but they had enough pull to be slowly bringing our speeds down. The part that seemed to make them more effective was some sort of energy shield around them, the sensors had a hard time figuring out what this energy was and so we weren't sure why this allowed the forces to get through our shields. I did my best to get the readings from this energy so I could counteract it, but most of it fluctuated so wildly that it would be impossible to come up with a defense. I spent probably a good couple hours trying to find a pattern to it or some rhyme or reason to these things but it just didn't have one. I knew the design was purposeful, but whatever made these things had some abilities far beyond what we could currently comprehend. The biggest frustration with the task was the lack of natural senses. Before, on the other ship, the ship's sensors were enhanced by my own natural abilities, which for me were magnified when connected to the ship. I knew it was possible to get some of that functionality back, but it meant having to upgrade the sensors we had, which would make us partially blind as each one was improved.

Piecing Together the Rest of the Ship

It turned out the virus wasn't simply trying to destroy the ship, as Evan and Nasero examined the pieces of the ship that were left behind it was clear that the pieces were trying to grow into a whole new ship, however the genetics of the ship weren't complete throughout, rather each part of the ship was an organism on its own that complemented the rest, meaning that though Nira had been a single ship each part of her had its own blueprints programmed into it. This allowed her to modify only sections of ship instead of the whole thing and control all of it very precisely, there was no DNA in a piece that wasn't necessary in that component. This left the virus with nothing to work from except what it had been able to infect, which was far from a complete ship. The most important parts had never been touched and so our design was safe so long as someone didn't get to the most critical pieces to copy. This is what made the ship so unique and hard to reproduce, the single seed was capable of growing multiple organisms that coexisted together. The virus was doing its best to try to make the rest, but anything that grew beyond the normal design soon failed, it was the balance that the thing lacked. It made all of what was going on very clear, the entity, though powerful in and of itself, must have overheard or figured out what we were capable of with our ship and wanted the technology for itself. I couldn't guess which purpose it would want it for, there were so many to choose from, but knowing what it wanted made it much more important to keep the seed safe. After taking samples of the mutating virus Evan and Nasero destroyed the remnants of the infected portions of the ship, they didn't want something else growing from it and possibly learning there was another piece of organic technology it could learn from.

Our journey so far was relatively uneventful, we had been building the non-essential systems in the ship and the entity had been unable to catch us, though sensors indicated small gravity fluctuations once in awhile, I assumed it was trying to keep up with or possibly even overtake us. The construction room was made big enough for all of us to work, there was a control console for each of us and a manufacturing area that could accomodate a project of whatever size, we just had to take turns in the construction process, but at least we could design all at once. Ambri was making the ship more livable while Nira was working on the virtual garden, she had plans to make it as automated as possible so we wouldn't have to go in and out, what a change that was for us, instead of wanting to live in a virtual world of beauty we opted to stay active outside of it and endure the hardships that we were sure to face. While they both were busy with their parts I continued working on modifying our systems, we needed to find a way to detect the ship for more than just the moment it left and entered a jump and we also needed a way to hide ourselves from it.

On the Run Again

The new ship was nearly ready when Evan returned, something had changed about him but we didn't have time to stop to figure out what he had done. He helped us finish everything and once it was ready Ambri, Nira and I boarded and took it for a quick test run. The drives seemed to be fine, though we would know how well they worked only when we performed our next jump. We double checked our food supply and virtual world garden, which would hopefully grow quickly and provide us with more food during our flight. We knew it was dangerous, but we desperately needed to reach the planet this thing had come from and try to determine how to stop it. Once we had finished Nasero informed us that within 10 minutes the ship would break through our star shield, which meant that the power supplies were going to go critical and could cause the star to explode if we didn't relieve the strain on them. So with no more delays we left the system, purposely approaching the ship before changing course and jumping. It took only a moment for the ship to stop its assault and pursue us, it knew we were the ones it wanted to overtake. Lucky for us our drives seemed to have improved enough, we felt no gravitational pressure on the ship which meant we were staying far enough ahead. Nasero reported that the power supplies were now cooling down and the shield was still strong enough to protect the system, Evan would go to the star base and work on improving the output of the system.

Once everything was repaired Evan then had time to report his findings to us. I was very anxious to hear what he had discovered. As it turned out we did have the cube that was the one that contained all the research on the cubes themselves. It had been the cube that Evan came from, the original one and we had it ever since capturing the planet ship, we just needed to extract it from the rest of the stored mass. Evan had taken the time to have the cube restore itself with all its information and then rejoin with it, though not to become the cube again but instead to get all the technology and ability he had before but now in his humanoid form. It changed his density but the wonder of the cube technology had made it possible for him to retain his shape. He was still going through all the information, for it was a tremendous amount to absorb all at once within the smaller frame he had constructed for himself, but he was quickly figuring out a way to use the technology that the entity had used to create its ship against it. The cubes all had a basic programming and signal that they would respond to, no matter who gave the signal. The programming had been overcome in him when he was no longer a part of the cube, and after rejoining with the cube he was able to disable this particular function, making him immune to the same manipulations. The signals would allow someone to change the shape of the cube to suit them, which meant we didn't need to adapt to the cubes to dock but instead they could adapt to us. This also meant that with the right changes we could disable the ship that was chasing us, at least for a time. The only problem would be detecting the ship long enough to be able to send the signal, but first we would want to see if we could disguise the signal and encrypt it so that it wouldn't figure out where or what we were doing to cause the problems it would have.

Swapping Horses

It was really quite fascinating to watch, I had no idea she was capable of ever doing something like this. The ship detached the sections that were infected, removing the virus' chance of getting to anything vital. This made the ship look quite bare and unworthy of space travel, but she didn't stop it there. The genetics of the ship contained all our technological advances and needed to be protected, so instead of the ship growing back the sections it lost it instead reverted to its original shape and size, a simple seed. This she picked up and tucked away in her garments until she could find a better place to keep it. It was brilliant what she did, and once we had some time to discuss it we understood why it had to be done. With the threat of such a virus that could quickly disable the most important ship we had we needed to keep it safe. We could easily create another ship with all the technology we needed that wouldn't be susceptible to such an infection, but we couldn't recreate this ship without a lot of work, and it could possibly be that the technology couldn't be recreated. It had all been done with a series of self induced evolutions which made the ship remarkably unique, to evolve in a single generation instead of multiple. I know Nasero was capable of some changes, but I wasn't sure he could accomplish the same task that Nira had in this ship. Not to mention that if the genetic changes didn't occur in the proper sequence the living ship would simply die due to its own instability. With that done we got to work constructing our next ship, the design would implement as much of the technology that we had before as it could, including a virtual world where our food would grow, however we wouldn't be living in this one, we would simply use it as a way to get what organic resources we needed. The plan was to keep the ship small enough to accomodate us and allow us to live quite comfortably despite the lack of spaces. We would also work on developing some new drives that would allow us faster travel once we left the shielded system, I just hoped that we would have enough time before the massive ship came and started trying to find its way in, I wasn't sure that our shields would be able to hold it back for long.

While we were busy working on our next new ship Evan had returned to the base orbiting the Tirtris world, he had some sort of revelation that he wanted to follow up on after his encounter with the energy entity and needed to gleen some information from the technology that the Klatvix had. I wasn't sure what he was thinking would be relevant to what was currently going on, but I knew he wasn't one to pursue wild fancies. Still, I was curious about how quickly he left after the incident. After some time I checked in with him, he was still busy with his research, however he said he was making progress into the study of the technology. He also mentioned that his study should help us in overcoming the power of the ship it had constructed, the base of that ship being in the Klatvix technology, namely the cube. Though I wasn't sure how he would be getting more information about the cube technology as we hadn't found the research station containing that yet. Still, any advantage would be a good advantage for us. We were just finishing the basics of our ship when the presence of the war ship was felt, it had increased its mass even more and was starting to try to take down our shield, luckily we had made enough progress in our power research to upgrade the generators on it to keep it strong for at least a little while longer. Nasero kept us up-to-date on the status of the shield so that we would know when we had to leave, ship finished or not. So while Nira constructed what we absolutely needed to get going, Ambri gathered up the food we would need and the small plants that we would be growing as well as the materials that they would need to feed on. I, however, wanted to ensure we could build the rest of our ship while we led the behemoth away from this system and so I got to work on the construction system and designing a few technology upgrades to assist us in using it.

Getting to Safety

Despite the fact that we couldn't detect or see the ship that was chasing us, it was quickly apparent to us that it was there. Gravitational forces, despite our technological improvements, were affecting the ship. Something was forcefully trying to make us stop. I was amazed that whatever this thing was could modify a gravity drive so quickly in order to be able to keep up with us and still be able to perform other gravity functions from the same drives. Each tiny modification we did made it a little easier to continue fleeing this thing. It was clear to me that we would not be able to outrun this ship with our current drive, however, I figured we might buy ourselves some time if we could use a wormhole gate and so I changed our course from the area we believed it came from to one of the stars we controlled. I notified Nasero that we would need a gate built very quickly to accomodate the ship at the system we were heading towards. He informed us that it shouldn't be a problem as there were plenty of resources available as well as a small army of drones and probes to get it constructed for us. We continued on and just hoped we would be able to make it through and close the connection again before this thing could make its way through as well. We also had to hope that the drones and probes could pull the gate back into the star once we were through to prevent this thing from learning our technology to perform such a task.

As we closed in Nasero opened up the wormhole, we would only have a few precious moments to get through before it closed and we had to leave our jump to do it, so our timing had to be perfect. What made it easier was that the feel of a wormhole was something unique and we could sense how close we were to it. Once we were about to hit it we left our jump and went into it, however we hadn't quite made it through when we sensed the massive ship leave its jump and fire upon us. Somehow in its pursuit the thing that was controlling that ship had absorbed a lot of mass and constructed a battle class ship. We made it through safely and the gate closed, the probes even reported that they got it safely into the star and were pulling the technology through the smaller gate as it was disassembled, they would only have a few moments to get everything done and then they would need to activate the self destruct sequence, which was simply the command to turn off the shields in the base, to ensure that the entity couldn't get to any of the remnant technologies.

Things seemed to be going well, the ship didn't make an attempt to enter the star after any of the technology and so we had only minor resource loss when we allowed the sun to consume the star shield base. With that taken care of the only problem we had to deal with was figuring out what we were hit with and how bad the damage was. From the feel of it there wasn't a lot of damage, but I know we had been hit by something. Nasero had brought us to our first base, the one near Ambri's home world. We landed in one of the docking bays and sealed it off from the rest of the complex then disembarked and checked out what had hit us. From the looks of it the blast hadn't been to destroy us, but mearly to disable or possibly attach something to us, but it was hard to tell. The section that had been hit was charred and there were some holes from where the heat of the blast had melted through. It was surprising that our shields had done nothing against it, I had thought we were pretty thorough in testing our defenses. There didn't appear to be any fragments of anything, though I knew that didn't tell me everything. Back on board the ship I started checking all the diagnostics information and quickly learned that the ship was dying. Whatever hit us had contained a virus and it was consuming the ship, it hadn't hit any major systems as of yet but we needed to do something quickly. When Nira heard what was going on she quickly kicked me out of the captain's pod and went to work isolating the problem. When she had finished what she was doing she quickly hurried all of us off the ship. I wasn't sure what she had done but I figured it would save the ship in the long run.

Fleeing the Thing

Back on the ship my first task was to lock out the tranlocation system, we didn't need anything finding its way onto the ship with us. I then entered the main control pod and started running scans to find the mass of technology that was heading towards us, this took only a moment but it was clear the mass was changing its shape and very quickly. Ambri and Nira, once they had gathered their wits, entered the two support pods and started asking what was going on. I showed them the mass that was moving towards us and informed them that it was the cube and power supply we had found, though I was now sure the power unit had been more of a prison for something else. As the mass closed in it was clear that all the technology was being converted into a type of ship I had never seen before, it was small but it had some technology forming in it that was likely very superior to our own. I tried to use the energy web on it, but the ship seemed to absorb the energy and then proceeded towards us at a much faster pace. I didn't take any more time to try to disable the ship, instead, I activated our jump drive and got away from it as quickly as possible.

Moments later Nasero was letting us know that Evan was waking up and the ship was in pursuit of us, though he could not track it once it had gone into its jump. We did our best to try to find it, but nothing showed up, it was like the thing had cloaked itself beyond our scanning technology. We turned on all of our defenses and hoped it would do something against this thing. I tried my best to be brave, but Ambri knew better, though at least Nira was buying it for now. We had to work quickly, there were upgrades we had ready to perform on the ship to improve our chances but it was risky to be fleeing from something and modifying the technology, though I felt we didn't have much choice. When Evan finally was able to talk to us he informed us that there was indeed something inside that power device we had found, the thing wasn't flesh and blood like us but seemed to be composed of the very energy it contained, which would probably explain why it didn't want to be tapped as a power source and why it was so potent. I wasn't sure what to make of it all yet, but I figured our best bet would be to find the place it came from and look for some answers.

The Vacation is Over

Every day she seemed to be getting stronger, she was getting used to having a body like ours. We went out exploring the beeches, rivers and seas today and she loved every minute of it. It wasn't very much different than what was simulated, but there was still something that wasn't quite right. I spent some time teaching her to swim, but not much as it was a difficult task using those muscles, but she did well enough. I was sure she would spend more time learning to do it later, but probably in the virtual world. Ambri had decided to join us today, though not right away, but she arrived just in time to see us leaving the water. She teased us about not waiting for her and Nira was about ready to jump in again when I suggested we take a break first, get some food and enjoy the sun before going back in. At this suggestion she realized that she was quite hungry and so we found some fruit nearby and sat down on some rocks to enjoy it.

We knew we needed to get going soon, but we were really enjoying the planet. If it weren't for the sudden blast we heard coming from the direction of the research facility we probably would have continued our swimming, but once we heard it we all rushed back. We could have used the transporters, but if we had we could end up in a bad situation. As we raced towards the buildings we could see smoke rising, something had definitely taken some damage. It was hard making our way through the forested area that surrounded the complex, there hadn't been a path made yet, mostly because the flying vehicles made that unnecessary. Once we finally did make it through I could see clearly that the blast had taken out a good portion of the roof that had been over the cube that contained the power source. It didn't look like something attacked us, but rather something escaped. The debris was scattered about in such a way that it appeared something had blasted its way out instead of trying to blast a way in. I quickly went inside while the girls stared at all the smoldering debris.

Inside I found Evan against one of the walls, he appeared to be relatively unharmed but he was knocked out. I tried to see if Nasero was responding and to my relief he was. His projected image quickly appeared and I asked him what happened. He informed me that I was overlooking one thing, and a quick glace around told me he was right. I asked him where the cube had gone to which he said they had removed it from the power source, which made me ask where that was. To this he replied that they had been successful in unlocking the device, however once they did it some energy burst forth from it creating the hole in the ceiling and then it seemed to attract the pieces of the cube to it, once it had those pieces it used the gravity drive technology and lifted itself out. Currently the mass was heading towards our ship. I wasted little time for additional information and instead ran out and pressed the buttons on the girls' wrist computers that would send them to the ship and then transported myself.

Planet Nasero

The trip to and arrival at the planet was nothing spectacular. We didn't notice anything at least, we had been busy in the virtual world. It hadn't seemed like that much time had passed, and yet here we were. The planet was gorgeous, Nasero had done a wonderful job designing the different areas and the fruits were in season and the animals had many offspring now. Ambri immediately went out upon arrival, riding around safely in a flying vehicle that Nasero had designed and looking at all the cute critters. Nira of course was going crazy trying to experience everything, and tasting real fruits for the first time was much better than what we had synthesized for her. The virtual fruits didn't even compare to the wonderful things she was having on this planet. She made plans to gather up some seeds so we could have more of these fruits when we left. I knew it would take quite a bit of time for them to grow, but we would soon enjoy the ones we had in the virtual world, just a couple more days and they should be done. Evan wasted little time getting the cube ready, it would use its own drives to descend to the research facility that Nasero had ready for us. Though he was anxious to continue that research, he also desperately wanted to work on the energy converting technology we had used, though he wouldn't have much luck with that as we had to get back to our mission once everything was set.

Seeing Nasero's projected image was comforting, though he admitted it was, at this point, a very dated technology. He admired the work that Nira had done and pondered the idea of trying to get his own body at some point, though it would be difficult to maintain all that he had done with this planet without being directly connected to it at all times, still, the thought was there and I imagined some day we would have another being of flesh and blood that wasn't born that way. He also was quite interested in the power source, possibly slightly more than the other technology, apparently he had been making more progress on the translations and he believed that this device was much more than just a source of power, though he wouldn't specify what he meant until he could gather more data. He was working on parts of the information that should unlock what was inside of it, but it would still be a little bit before he could access it, they first had to get it out of the cube. While they worked on that I followed Nira around, she refused to play it safe and wanted to walk and so I went with her, mostly to protect her from some of the creatures, but also to see the changes this planet had gone through.

Wandering around showed that the plants were roughly familiar, though they had clearly adapted a bit when they were converting the atmosphere. Quite a few of them showed some new traits, such as some that clearly would eat creatures that ventured into it, but others seemed to remain the same. The creatures were quite a bit more timid now, with all this space it was much easier for them to avoid conflict. I recognized the general energy patterns of them, so it was clear that none of the creatures had any need to mutate to live on this planet. We continued our hike through the forests and plains, making our way to the volcanic, mountainous region that Nasero had designed. Nira had a strong desire to witness first hand the power of nature, even if the area it was in was designed by the one who she had been designed after. As we drew near the temperature rose, it was a very active area. She began sweating, which she thought was great and which I had to warn her was not always a good thing. We had brought some water with us so we stayed hydrated well enough. When we reached the summit, or at least as close as we could get to it, we saw the raging fires that spewed from the depths of the planet. It swirled this way and that as it made its way towards its escape. We could see a few drones were busy maintaining the flow, the area hadn't been completely finished yet and Nasero was also learning more about it. Though he had designed this area his job was only to manipulate, but if he could understand it he could potentially find a way to control it. It would be interesting if he ever mastered the planet that he was becoming, being a type of Gaia to the world and overseeing its well being. When we had enough of the heat we headed back, though it wouldn't be the end of our explorations it had been enough for today. Nira was still building strength within her body and this trek had tired her out. Luckily we only needed to activate the translocation system on the wrist computers we had been given and we found ourselves back in the comforts of the facility.

Traveling Together Again

As we poured over the information Nira had provided us with it became clear that the technology relied heavily on the advancements Nira had made to herself when she was first growing. It was a technology that could, at this time, only exist on the ship. We were still making our way back to Nasero, but we had slowed down along the way to help Evan tow the cube back with us. Evan was simply amazed when he saw Nira, he really had thought it unbelievable but here she was in flesh and blood, no longer a ship but something completely different. She enjoyed seeing the look on his face as she showed off the form she had created, she really was delighted in how carefully she had crafted every feature of her avatar that was now her body. Nasero still had his doubts about it despite Evan joining in with us, telling him how wonderful this technology was that could create a living body for Nira. We continued on our way, much faster now that we had two ships towing the cube. For now the technology that resided inside the cube would remain a mystery, there were too many new, fascinating things to consider and work on while we finished our trip to planet Nasero.

When Evan entered the virtual world with us he didn't quite know what to expect, he knew that we had come up with many things for him to work on with the other simulations but he hadn't expected what we came up with. Once inside he began to understand why we spent so much time here, it was amazing the level of detail she had done with the place and that it wasn't a drain to the ship's power systems. Nira and Ambri had been spending quite a bit of time here, apparently simulating the sensations with her avatar hadn't been anything like experiencing them in her new form. She was all giddy with excitement about every little thing and I was happy for her, but I knew she would experience much more once we reached a planet that she could walk around on. Though we had made it realistic, there was always something different between it and the real world, though I just couldn't place my finger on it. I hoped eventually to figure out what it was, but for now it was enough to be with my friends in this wonderful place while we made our way towards our destination.

Unbelievable Technology

They honestly didn't believe us when we first started telling them what had happened. Evan and Nasero believed it wasn't possible to go from raw energy to heavy energy to a living body. They believed that the project had been to create a device that could deceive them and simply refused to believe it. But eventually Nira started to win them over, mostly through remote connections to the ship while she ate some food. The ship recorded nothing, and none of the systems were locked down, so they were able to see that though indeed she was consuming things, shown through the provisions system and monitoring the conditions in the ship and of its inhabitants, there were no nutrients going into the ship itself. They still held their doubts, but they would be won over soon enough, we planned to delay our mission and return to them to show them first hand what Nira had accomplished. Still, with their doubts, they wanted to hear how it all worked and why it had to be in such precise conditions. I knew it would take a while to explain, so I made myself comfortable as she related how the new technology worked.

After having it explained it made a bit more sense. The reason I couldn't understand why there would be a difference in stored energy versus new energy was because I wasn't looking at the right point, all I saw was the output, but what she had seen was a possibility. As energy is created it is in a state that can still be manipulated, it is before it becomes an output that it is in this state. Basically the chamber she had constructed drew all energy in before it was normal energy, the moment right before it was being conducted in order to manipulate it into a different state. It didn't make complete sense to me, but I understood it enough. The equations were already there at least so I didn't have to work on those, I just had to work on making something more durable than a single use chamber. The data from this project was also helping Evan to understand the technology he was studying as well, which meant soon we would have even more energy to work with which might make it so we can use this technology away from another source of power. Understanding it all, however, didn't make it any less impressive. Evan and Nasero were both amazed that Nira had come up with such a thing without seeing another similar type of technology. They both saw what this could mean as well, we could make anything we wanted if we had the right amount of power to work with, which meant no more stopping to pick up essential minerals to create the food we needed. We would all be able to survive on things created from the ship's power source, including the ship itself, it would be completely self sustained. It would take lots of time to figure it all out and to perfect it, but we knew it would be our next major advancement.

The First Activity, Sleep

Having finally overcome my shock after watching Nira learn to use her new legs for awhile, I started asking her about how she had done it. She had essentially converted basic energy into living energy and brought it out of the virtual world. It was entirely artificial and shouldn't have been possible, but she had done it. She simply smiled at me and told me she would tell me later, after she had a chance to sleep, for her body was weak from the effort of learning to use it and she needed rest. She of course refused to get the rest in the virtual world and instead fell asleep on the floor. Ambri and I stayed with her, though we took the time to construct some beds to sleep on and I carefully placed her on one of them to rest. It was simply amazing, I had personally seen several impossible things so far in all my travels, but this was by far the greatest thing yet. Evan and Nasero both wanted to know what had happened, but I decided it would be best for Nira to tell them, which of course they couldn't figure out why they couldn't talk to her yet, I just told them to be patient, it would happen soon enough.

Waking up was unreal, I swore it had all been a dream, but there she was still sleeping on the bed. The ship hadn't moved, no one had taken the time to get it to resume its course, so the ship's power had been fully replenished. It was odd to think that it was just a ship now, though it had automation to it there was no longer any personality, it was what it was, though still a living thing, it just did what it was told. I was sure Nira would still have some sort of link to it, but it would be so minimal now that she would require the pods to do anything with any of the systems. It still would be awhile before she woke up, so I spent my time studying the technology that went into the chamber she had used to construct her body in the real world. I realized the implications of such a technology, some of them quite frightening but others made for endless possibilities. We would definitely have to work on improving it beyond what she had done, but not for the same purposes.

When Nira was finally awake she sounded weak, it was definitely different to be in the real world instead of a virtual one where you could be what you wanted to be. In this world she needed to build up her muscle mass and learn to eat and sleep, she wasn't just a being powered by energy but a complex creature that had different needs. She could have easily made herself a machine like the ship or Evan, but she had opted for flesh and blood like ours. It almost seemed silly to give up what she had, but I understood it after spending so much time in control of the ship myself. Ambri tenderly cared for her while she worked on using this new form, the food wasn't great but it sufficed, we had unfortunately done away with the garden completely and so all we could give her were basic nutrients until the fruits finished ripening. She said she would eventually go back in the virtual world, but for now she wanted to experience life outside of it for a while. When she was ready we finally opened up communications with Evan and Nasero again and began letting them know what had happened.

Beyond Virtual

It looked like your basic translocation booth when it was done, but we knew better. She had been working on it too long for it to be such a simple device. The technology was far more advanced than any of the systems we had developed so far, but she wasn't giving us very many details, she still wanted us to be surprised when it activated. It had troubled Nasero and Evan a bit that she was keeping a secret, but we had decided to let her continue working on it. As the process was finishing up Nira became more and more excited about it, but without any details we were unable to join her in the stupendous joy that it was producing. We had sat around speculating what it was when she allowed us in the room, but neither Ambri or I could come up with anything more than a translocation chamber, but we were sure it was not that, there were some technological advances in it that didn't point us in that direction. When it was finally time for the device to be turned on we were relieved, though we liked seeing her being so excited about something it was difficult to listen to her while we waited. In order to have the energy needed for this device to function we had to delay our travels and stop next to a star that produced a lot of energy for the ship. Once it was activated the systems all went to their lowest settings and the room we were in grew very dark, the only light coming from the chamber itself, which had closed.

We waited for what seemed like hours, Nira was silent the whole time and not responding to any of our questions. Ambri had moved closer to me, not quite sure what to make of all of this and fearing for her safety and well-being. Finally the process seemed to finish and the systems started to come back online. The light from the chamber finished but it had not yet opened. Once again we tried to talk to Nira but she still didn't respond. I tried to get the chamber to open but it seemed dead, to me it seemed the technology had failed and Niracina didn't want to talk about it, so we decided to leave the room for now and see if we could get her to talk to us a little later after she had some time to recover. The only problem with that plan is that the door would not open for us. I tried to manually override the system however it was not responding. Trapped as we were we sat down and tried again to get Nira's attention. After a while of trying we finally heard something, it came from the chamber, it had finally opened a bit and the sound we had heard was of air pressure equalizing with the rest of the room. We waited a few moments to see what else would happen, but nothing did. I finally went over and opened the chamber myself.

With the chamber opened I could clearly see what she had been doing and what this technology had been developed for. Though it was a very powerful device it had been a one use deal, it was no longer functional but it had done exactly as she intented it to. As the being before me came to, for it seemed the stress of the process had made her woozy, the systems seemed to finish coming back to life, including the door to the room we were in, but we no longer desired to leave the room. The figure before me was the avatar that Niracina had created made flesh. She had figured out a way of creating a heavy energy of her avatar and then moving it from the virtual world into the actual world. As she opened her eyes her gaze fixed on me and that wonderful smile she had was fixed upon her lips, she knew once again that I was pleased with the work she had done, though I was simply stunned. Ambri, overcoming her initial shock faster than I could, rushed over and embraced Nira. It was evident that, though the reality had been realistic enough, Ambri had been wanting to do this in the real world for quite some time.

Waiting and Wondering

I wasn't mistaken that Evan would come up with upgrades, Nira had been implementing them every time he came up with something new. She hadn't given up her control of the ship since the information started coming, I knew she was onto something with her project but I still had to wait to find out. Ambri was beginning to worry about her, Nira seemed so obsessed with this thing she was working on. Though we were getting a lot of information to improve our own systems we still hadn't learned the greatest of the secrets the technology contained. Nasero was busy deciphering the data he received, he had at least narrowed down a particular set of solar systems that it may have come from, so we changed course and headed towards those systems instead of going for the next cube. The other information he was getting out of it didn't seem to make any sense though, the numbers seemed random, but he wasn't giving up on it just yet.

Ambri and I tried our best to use the time wisely, but it was difficult to focus when so many exciting things seemed to be happening. We did our best to distract ourselves, but training or energy painting wasn't an option as we just couldn't properly harness our abilities, so we mostly walked around and admired the scenery. The first fruits of the plants that were growing in this world were going to be ripe soon, and their sweet smell filled the air when we walked among them. Soon we would be able to try the first actual food that was grown in a virtual world, it would tell us if we could begin upgrading the other worlds we had created and make them a bit easier to sustain. As we went on it was hard not to discuss the things that the others were working on, mostly we were concerned about Nira, she had seemed excited about her project but as she spent more time with it and less time with us it seemed to be more of an obsession, we just hoped it would be worth all the trouble she was having with it. We also spent some time discussing our plans, it was exciting learning about the new technology, but even more exciting to meet other alien species out there, but what would we do after we had gathered all this technology? It wasn't something either of us had an answer to, but we had both been thinking about it a bit. I knew there would be more things to do, it was just a question of what those things would be and where they would take us.

Work for Almost All

Nasero and Evan were so excited about the information we were getting from the device that they couldn't wait, so Evan took a ship he had constructed for himself and went directly to where the device was, poor Nasero would have to be patient to see it directly. Once there the drone was recommissioned into a more advanced scanner and Evan took over the project of learning about this power source. I was sure we were going to see some upgrades come from his research very quickly. Nasero, not having direct access to the power source, decided to talk to Nira about her project, trying to figure out what it was she was working on that needed so much power, but even he couldn't figure out what it was. We were all getting very anxious about this project, it just wasn't our normal practice to create a technology that required more power than we could supply for it. She informed us it would be worth the wait and she had already cut the consumption down by over half, but it still required more power than the ship could currently give us. We tried to offer a few options but she told us it was the ship that had the right type of power for the project, no external one would do, the ship would simply have to be improved. She also said absorbing ambient energy would help, but it still wouldn't be enough power generated at a fast enough rate to be effective. Storing up energy in a large battery type device wouldn't do either, for some reason the energy had to be fresh and new to be effective in this technology. I didn't even know there was a difference, though I supposed it could be that what the technology would do is destroy the stored up energy all at once causing a huge explosion, but she wouldn't clarify on that. I decided to take the hint she gave and got to work analyzing energy as it was created in the ship as opposed to being stored up.

To me there didn't seem to be any different in the energy coursing directly out of the power source of the ship as opposed to energy we stored up in any device using any available source of power. Energy was energy, but she still insisted there was something special about fresh energy from this ship. I left her to her work after this and communicated with Evan about what he was discovering. To my surprise he said the power seemed different in how it worked, not completely just being generated but it seemed to already be doing something as it was created in this device. It also reacted differently if you tried to access it, the power seemed to move from what you tried to attach. He had also unconvered some information encrypted deep within it that seemed to belong to the original builders, he had already passed this information on to Nasero who was busy trying to figure out what it said. I hoped it might be some information about how the technology worked, or at least give us some idea of where it came from so we could go to the planet and look for other clues. All in all I felt pretty helpless with it all, I couldn't help any of them with their current projects and I didn't have anything major I desired to work on, I had already completed my current goals and it wouldn't be until the next cube that I hoped to find something new to inspire me.

Power Drain

Their research notes revealed that they had spent quite a few years on this technology, trying to figure out all that they could. However they realized after some time that they simply didn't have the technology to delve deeper and had sent it away until they could find what they needed. From our scans we saw that they had only scratched the surface of the technology contained in the device. With just our basic scans we turned up enough information that could have changed the outcome of our war with them, which made me start to realize what I had been about to them. They had seen me as a way to learn more than they already had about all the technologies they were acquiring, the inventiveness of the human race was something that they didn't have in such abundance. I imagined I wasn't the only human involved in their experiment, but I seemed to be the one that had succeeded as they had so desperately wanted to capture me. But those thoughts aside, the technology we now had opened a lot of doors for us if we could begin to understand it and use what we learned to improve our own technology. Perhaps we would even be able to figure out how to interface with that generator, though I wasn't sure just how much it would output once it was connected to something, but I was sure Evan and Nasero would figure it out once they had the device.

Back in the virtual world Nira was busy with her project, she seemed to be inspired by what we had just learned and was doing her best to not only finish her project but also to improve our systems to handle whatever it was she was doing. I knew she had tested a few things, but the tests never lasted long and they always had a major drain on the ship's systems. We always were able to recharge them again shortly after the drain by changing course towards one of the stars we were passing, but it was always worrisome to be so low at any point in our journey. I had talked to her about it and she had promised not to try again until we were already in a position to be recharged quickly, so she had modified our course a bit to make sure she'd have some chances and it had been helping so far. I hoped she would figure out the problems she was facing soon as I wanted to see what it was that she was working on that required so much energy.

The Problem with Power

It seems to be with more and more reluctance that we actually left the virtual world behind to do the things we must do outside of it. We had finally arrived at the next cube and were already docking with it when Ambri and I made our way out. This cube, once we were inside, contained a very large version of the power source that we had originally seen in the Klatvix technology. This cube was the one that held the research about their power and I had a feeling it would prove very interesting. The only problem we had with it was that the power source could not be shrunk down with the cube like we had done with the last one, the energy it was sustaining would become unstable if the structure was changed. We also would be unable to turn it into heavy energy and store it because of the strain it would have on our systems, especially considering we'd have to fight against the power it was generating. This limited our options and we chose the easiest, we would simply have this cube towed back to one of our stations. It probably would have been faster to change the programming in the cube and give it a faster drive to move itself around, but we didn't want to change what was already there, instead opting for purity of information. We did, however, leave a drone inside so that we could interact with the contents of the cube and learn about it while it made its long journey. The probes we constructed to tow it were also given stealth capabilities that could cloak the cube and ensure that we didn't lose it to some other curious alien race.

From what I could tell of the information that we were getting from the cube the Klatvix had not figured out all the intricacies of this power source and had not been able to learn about it from the aliens that had created it. The Klatvix had picked up a signal from an alien race that was pretty far away and had gone there, hoping to do as they had done to other races. When they arrived they found a decimated world, a world that had been torn apart by war. The aliens who had created this technology had used it to gain military advantage and it had led them to self destruction. The power source was quite potent and they could not figure out how to interface their technology with it, so instead they spent their time reverse engineering it. Their research had obviously been very fruitful, but there was a lot of things to be learned from this device we now had under our control. I began wondering why they had scattered the technology so far and in these cubes, it simply didn't make sense to put the original technologies into a remote location instead of keeping it where you would be able to continue researching it. I hoped I would figure this out eventually, but until then I still had to go through the information the cube contained, which, unfortunately, only contained notes about their research. This was a good thing for us, but it told us nothing of the world where it came from. Since the planet they found this device on had been dead they didn't catalog anything about it, I just hoped we'd be able to find it at some point.

Feeling the Flow

Absolutely delicious! I never imagined that it would taste this good, you just never think that it would have a flavor, and each one having its own very unique taste to it. I could have just rolled around in it all day feeling the different parts of me being nourished, though I was sure Nira and Ambri would give me some looks. Stars are simply wonderful things to behold in and of themselves, but tasting the light they put out was something new and exciting. By interfacing with the ship through the control pod I could actually find the right systems and paths within them to feel what food tasted like to the ship. The minerals had been interesting to take in, but it wasn't until I took advantage of the photosynthesis that I got something I wasn't expecting. I had no idea different colors of light would have different flavors to plants, but they did. I couldn't describe them as tart or sweet or bitter or any such normal term we would use, but the flavor came as a sensation. I don't think there was any that was necessarily bad, but each one had its place and depending on where it was being absorbed completely changed the feeling. Using these sensations I could automate the ship to take full advantage of the different lights that were hitting it and optimize its nourishment. The ship would now rock back and forth and adjust course to get the most of it all without delaying us too much, I'm sure if someone else saw us they would think we were drunk, but once the adjustments were made the ship responded better and seemed to grow a bit stronger. It also had an impact on the virtual world, with the right lighting I could help our plants survive even better, and now knowing the different feelings and effects I was sure I could make these plants produce abundantly. The next test would be to see how different minerals in the water affected the systems and when it was best to get it and through what means. I knew Nira probably had experienced this quite a bit, but she hadn't really been excited enough about it to make these changes. Once I was sure I had it all configured right I left the pod and had Ambri and Nira give it a try.

I was right in my thoughts that they wouldn't be quite as thrilled about it, but Nira did mention it was a vast improvement in the nutrients the ship was producing which would also help her to be healthier as she was still attached enough to the ship that her sustenance came from it. We were still working on it, but were finding it difficult to detache her intellect from the ships computers and thus couldn't separate her virtual body either, ultimately anything bad that affected the ship enough would cause her harm. We were still working on how to fix this problem, but she didn't seem too worried about it. Before I could get to work on the next enhancement to the ships automated functions Nira returned to the pod and got to work on her project, I knew I would be done with my work for today.

On this tiny little moon that we had given an atmosphere we spent time creating things of beauty. Training our individual powers meant not only using them as offense or defense, but also using it to do things that we never imagined had been possible. Using the right flow of the different elements we had control over we could paint scenes that could be seen and interacted with depending on what the creator wanted it to do. The scenes weren't permanent but they lasted a few days when they were completed. It took quite a bit of concentration and control to create it and you had to commit some energy to it to make it last any length of time, but we took the time to learn to do it. My favorite scene to construct was an underwater one, with tiny fish swimming about and the water moving above you, creating little rays of light that moved and danced about. Using this process we had learned a few more elements, they just seemed to reveal themselves when you were at peace with the energy you controlled. Ambri would often help me in creating the creatures of the deep and then spend some time making them do what we had desired them to do, mostly to swim off when you touched them, but some of them danced in the light. I had been working on this particular scene for awhile, it was always only partially done and I would probably never finish it as the first part would begin to discipate as I finished the last part. My goal was eventually to figure out how to replenish the energy of the scene before it faded, but most of the time the energy I put forward to go into it would just tear it apart. It was a very delicate thing and once you stopped what you were working on you lost the connection to it and would be unable to change or enhance it. So it was that this scene was always changing and being rebuilt, but the practice made it easier to do the art.

Ever Expanding Universe

Interfacing with the ship in such a complete manner took a little getting used to, but once you understood it all it made controlling it quite easy. We discussed the interface quite a bit after testing it out, Nira even spent some time in it, and determined the changes we needed to make. The control would be active on one side of the simulation or the other to prevent two people from trying to control the ship at once. There would be support pods next to the main pod so we could hand off systems to another connected individual if we needed to and the structure was closed off and given added features of protection in case something were to make it on the ship. We also began having the ship evolve in a few different areas to accomodate our desires in its control, which meant some more defensive weapons and additional systems to allow more virtual functionality if you were the one in the pod outside the universe. We had also started adapting the rest of the systems to free Nira from having to control them, the ship would become mostly automated and we would spend most of our time in the virtual world together. We also began developing other virtualized portions of the world, ones that would allow us to do different things. I looked forward to trying each of them out, but there was one in particular that would be of great benefit to me.

I wasn't much of a fighter, never had been, but I knew I needed to keep up on my mindforce training and this particular little planet had everything I needed. We had virtual enemies on this world and they would adapt and expand their capabilities the longer you used them, which meant that I had to continuously vary my attacks and defenses against them. The simulation was made so much like the real world that my training here would improve my abilities outside as well. I spent hours doing this, racking up tons of points on the boards. We had discussed the boards, wanting to figure out if we really needed to compete with one another. We did want to see scores, but mostly we were competing with ourselves as the boards kept statistics of points per hour, per day, even per minute if we were really working hard. Ambri came and spent some time here as well, she was more of a defensive fighter, using her abilities to cause the virtual foes to wear themselves out if not cause their own attacks to bounce back. Nira, on the other hand, had been working on mostly non-lethal, but very effective forms of defense, not protective but preventative. She was learning to disable her foes, freezing them in place, putting them to sleep, anything she could try to do. Her powers stemmed from the technology she had been given and it would be interesting to try to match her abilities at some point. One thing I did notice, however, was that the more her control over the ship was disconnected the less potent the powers were. She knew it too but she was determined to grow in strength apart from the ship.

When not training or enjoying the other features of the world Nira would often be in the control chair working on her secret project. Ambri and I would wander around and discuss the world we were living in. We both loved it here, though it was always a bit strange knowing that it wasn't real. If we had been born in this we would never know any different, nothing seemed out of place except for our own knowledge of the simulation. We also speculated on what Nira could be working on, but without any of the information about the room we had no idea. She seemed frustrated at times after her session in the control pod, but would always smile when she saw us. Whatever it was she was trying to do was difficult and it was obvious none of us would be much help with it even if she asked, but it was something she desired to do and so we just did our best to get her mind off of it when she was taking a break. With so much to experience in this world it didn't take much effort or time before she was happy again and enjoying everything we were doing together.

Being One With the Ship

Things looked good with the volcanic planet, it hadn't exploded and the activity appeared to be slowing down. The scans we could do also revealed that the resources had been moved around and were now more evenly distributed. The Tirtris had also launched their first mining ship and had started to collect the resources they needed to continue building the station, the process was much slower for them, but they were very proud of this achievement and we were happy for them. They had also been improving their communication technology after rebuilding it, they had seen what was possible with it and had made their systems work with ours. This would be a great help for both of us as we knew our time here was coming to an end, at least for now. We had much to do and had to continue on, plus the planet wouldn't be ready for us for quite some time, so we would rely on their communication system to keep track of when we might be ready for the next phase of the plan. To monitor the planet we set up our own satellite, it would orbit the planet and keep all of us up-to-date on its activity. Once we had everything in place we bid them farewell and got ourselves back on course towards the next cube.

Nira had been busy while we had worked on getting the Tirtris settled on the station. With the changes in the heavy energy storage she found new potentials with the virtual world, namely that she could put some actual resources and plants in it and instead of being virtual food that we would eat it would be actual, though it would take a little time for it to grow, there was no way to force the plants to grow faster. She also had to spend some time reconfiguring some of it to produce more accurate signals to fool the plants, they were much pickier than we were. This of course meant we would be keeping Evan busy when we uploaded the new data to him, but I was sure he wouldn't mind. This would also make it so we didn't have to maintain a garden section of the ship and wouldn't be nourished by just basic substances but instead actually have the thing we were perceiving ourselves eating. It was an odd thought, being able to eat foods in their heavy energy state without them ever being outside of this state. Once she had the plants in the virtualization she had begun changing the garden area into something else, but this she blocked off, saying it would be a surprise for sometime later when it was finished. She had already surprised us many times already, so we let her keep this secret area and instead focused on finishing up our virtual houses and projects.

The interface had been finished on the outside, but I didn't want to test it until I had the same one on the inside, it would allow a very interesting way of interacting between the two when they were both complete. It didn't take long to finish it and shortly after entering the world I was leaving it again to check it out. It could function from either side of the virtual barrier, but it had the most potential when outside of it. Once I had strapped myself in it took only moments before my vision was filled with all the different interfaces, including the virtual one on the inside of the simulation. Ambri was there and had been watching, she described it to me as the equipment suddenly coming alive and my image slowly filling the technology, like I was being pumped into the equipment, expanding until I was whole. I imagined it to be like a water balloon, expanding as the water was put in it, but she had no idea what a balloon was yet. I then began focusing my attention on the different displays, each one was a different system or sensor within the ship. Most of them had been automated and only a few remained that Nira controlled, we just had not been able to figure out how to automate them yet. Once I started getting the hang of the different displays and systems I then opened up the rest of the capabilities and felt the full weight of control over the ship. Nira was sharing it with me and instructed me in using what I felt, after a few hours and a couple breaks in between sessions I was able to do as she did with the ship, though I could not access the room she was working on as she had encrypted that particular section. With this control I could now better understand the ships systems and further free Nira from her burden, it also provided anyone who took the time to learn it the ability to be as Nira had been, a living ship. You could feel what the ship could feel and do as the ship had capability as well as work its evolution as you saw fit. It was truly an amazing change to our systems and would drastically change how we used the ship. Once I was done Ambri wanted her turn with it and so I turned it over to her while I worked on the adjustments we needed to make to free Nira completely.

How They Survived

Watching the planet as the ash and smoke cleared the air took me a good portion of the day, I was simply fascinated with watching it all. There hadn't been much to burn up so the ash settled quickly and the smoke discipated, the planet was burning cleanly. The glow of the planet rivaled the glow from the star in this system for us, mostly due to the proximity. The station actually did warm up a bit from all the activity, but it felt good to us because we knew that we hadn't completely destroyed it, only sent it into a cycle of rebirth. The first of their ships was done and they were taking it out and testing it. Our shields had been lowered once the process on the planet had finished and the rest of our technology was being taken down as it was replaced with their own. They had also begun the process of building a dome to house the plants that they would grow and put back on the planet. The terraforming process would end up being mostly technological this time, they were going to plant their seeds and saplings themselves once they could return to the surface. They were already working on the technology they would need to maintain a proper atmosphere without sufficient plant life.

It really was amazing what they knew and were capable of even when they had been living in a low technology setting for so long. The pods, it turned out, were older than any of them, having been a creation of wars once fought long ago by their people. They had simply been updated a bit shortly before they entered them for their sleep. Every once in a while one of them would have to wake up renew the technology that kept it all powered, the one that woke up would be giving his life for it as well. They could have lived indefinitely in those pods if the planet had been healthy, but in order to maintain the power source they were using the one who woke up had to recover a very volatile substance to insert into the device. They had plenty of it left, it was a substance that was a byproduct of some of the technology they had used to mine the planet dry. They remembered each of the ones who woke up to keep the rest alive, their image and biography were stored in the computers, it was the last thing they did with the time they had left. They had pondered before going this route of survival of just dying off, but they wanted to live as long as possible and hoped that eventually the one who woke up would find a world that was more habitable. They knew their chances weren't good of waking to a miraculously revived planet, but still they maintained the systems and kept themselves alive in hope of some unknown future. They never imagined to find another alien who would be willing to help them, but they were pleased we had arrived.

Planetary Rebirth

With everything in place we just had to wait and watch, the probe that had been on the planet was busy working its way deeper and deeper, the goal was to reach the very center of the planet for the greatest chance of success. The device had been sent through and delivered to the machine while it was working on the tunnel and hopefully everything was set that once it reached the center the device would activate causing the reaction we desired. The Tirtris had made quite a bit of technology while we were busy destroying the surface of the planet, there were many homes and ships in a half finished stage. They had wasted little time in getting their act together and as a race they worked very efficiently, always in sync with one another and quickly accomplishing the tasks that they had to do. I was anxious to see what they would come up with once they had finished making the basics.

It seemed like an endless amount of time to wait, but it would be too dangerous to be away from the shielded station as we weren't entirely sure how long it would take to drill down to the center of the planet. The current reports from the probe revealed that the planet was pretty dead, most of the heat was actually on the surface from the work we had done and the core had been in a cooldown period, given another couple hundred years the planet would have been completely frigid and even the pods that had sustained the Tirtris up to now would have failed to keep them alive. From our calculations it was close to its destination. Most of the Tirtris were still working, but not as much, choosing to stay in a position in their work so that they could see the result of our attempt at restarting their home planet. Finally we got the last signal from the probe telling us that it had reached its destination and the device was activating. It took only a few moments after that for us to see how it was doing.

The blasts around the planet pushed all the clouds away for a brief moment, you could see the bright glow as the core was transformed from an almost solid state back into a fierce inferno of activity. The device was working and had only moments to finish its task before it would be destroyed. No signal could be sent now, all we could do was watch and hope. Shortly after the initial eruptions the dark clouds moved back in and we were looking at a black orb with an occassional red flash here and there. By now the probe was gone and so was the device that Nasero had so carefully calibrated. The planet seemed to be holding together, but it would be a couple days before we could be sure, it looked like we had accomplished what we wanted and soon the whole of the planet would be covered in lava, cycling the resources down to all the various spots they needed to be. The reaction, if it wasn't too much, would be enough to get the planet to act as it once had, the internal temperature would have been corrected and we would begin the process of refining the atmosphere to make it habitable again. It was a fantastic thing to watch and I anxiously waited for the clouds to clear enough so I could see the bright reds of the planet's blood flowing.

Planetary Assault

Living quarters, shields, ships, that was the first things they needed to get done, the food was taken care of for now but they needed to keep their people safe on this station first and get their transportation going. While they did that Ambri helped a few of them come up with a biodome on the station to begin growing the plants that they had saved. Nira and I considered Nasero's plans on restoring the planet. It would be a major undertaking, though I was sure we could pull it off, but the amount of time it would take would be completely unknown as we had never tried this before. We had already discussed it with the Tirtris and they seemed to be okay with living on a station until the planet could be finished, it wouldn't be a terrible life compared with what they had been living before, they were very grateful for the freedom they had now. The materials we had mined up were being used quickly, but they had asked that we stop helping with that as they would develop their technology to assist in their needs moving forward, they were a very independent race and I admired that about them. We however had free reign to do whatever we needed to with our own technology to bring the planet back to life, they wouldn't have any hope of surviving without a permanent home, they only had so much to offer for trade.

It actually turned out to be pretty fun doing the necessary preparatory work for rebuilding this planet. It wasn't every day you got to use your technology to fling giant space rocks at a planet, though there were many we could start doing this with, but it wasn't a very practical use of our time beyond this particular task. We chose the richest asteroids we could find, broke them into small enough pieces and shot them at the planet. A lot of the materials would burn up, but that was what we were anticipating. We were making the planet worse before making it better. The more we threw in the darker the atmosphere became, quite a few of them had contained a lot of ice and so clouds were forming and rain was falling, though the rain was so acidic that anything that remained on the surface of the planet was destroyed. We knew it looked bad to the Tirtris, but they understood what we were trying to accomplish and so they didn't say anything about the further destruction of their home. Once we had finished mucking up the atmosphere we began using a slightly different tactic to get some more exact results. Using the translocation technology we would get the small chunks of space rock past the point where it would burn up and they would directly strike the ground, breaking it up and depositing their riches into the depths. The next part of the process would be much more interesting and was the part we would have the hardest time with.

Nasero had been busy designing the device we would need, it had to have just the right amount of force to it that it would start the chain reaction it had to but not so powerful that the planet was completely destroyed. It had been easy enough for us to litter the planet with resources, but having them all on the surface wasn't going to make the planet healthy again, we were going to have to ensure that all these things ended up in the depths and replenished the natural order of the planet. We had been taking readings of what minerals were on the planet since our bombardment and it was nearly ready. While we finished up depositing the rest of the resources Nasero deployed a probe to begin taking readings and measurements on the planet's surface, he wanted to get as much information as possible to make the calculations, plus the probe carried the tools he needed to begin the process of depositing the device once it was done. When he was done and things were nearly ready we returned to the station and prepared a second, temporary shielding device to protect us from what might happen next.

A Major Mining Run

With the others awake it took only a couple hours to explain to them what was going on and what the options were that they had to choose from, to my relief they chose the option that they would have the most control over. Construction would begin immediately, we would assist them with the start of the project but then once they had the first pieces they needed they would take over the process and finish. Due to the lack of resources on the planet a few of them came with us on Nira to find some asteroids that had the proper materials. Mining would take awhile but was fairly automated once the probes were all fitted with the proper equipment, in the mean time we had to figure out if there was a way to make their planet hospitable to life once more. The best resource I knew for this kind of question was Nasero, seeing as how he had pretty much become a planet he would know the most about how to bring the necessary resources back into it.

Though we posed the question to him right away he needed time to consider it, instead the topic turned towards some potential system upgrades, he was just having some issues finalizing the stability of the new systems and needed some help. While he considered our problem Nira and I poured over his. He was looking at a better heavy energy storage system, one that would be much more efficient and further reduce the weight of the things that were converted. This would be a very useful system for us as it would allow us to carry more before having to dump what we had. I knew our capacity was fairly large already, but this would make it so much bigger that we would be able to store something like the mass of a moon or small planet without having the major drain on our system like what we experienced with the planet ship. After several hours of work and with the Tirtris joining in, at least to look at what we felt safe showing them, we finally figured it out. The implementation of it would take about a half hour for Nira. While she worked on that I informed Nasero of our success in stabilizing the system, he also informed us that he had an idea of how to bring that planet back to life, but we would need to keep all the garbage ores from the asteroids as well as the valuable ones, and we would need a lot more than what we were planning.

It was simple enough to make more mining probes to get the resources we needed, we simply used what we had mined up already. We were also able to modify the probes as well, instead of just mining up what we wanted we could now basically blow up the asteroid and pull in the pieces, we only needed proper mining to get the resources we needed for the project we were going to start. We now had a press for time though, with all the Tirtris awake the planet's atmosphere was becoming increasingly toxic, I had not realized how many of them there were. We hurried to get what we needed and went back, the probes would continue to mine, but they would have to travel a bit further to meet up with us. Once back in orbit around the planet we quickly began making the platform we needed, it wouldn't take us long, we had done this numerous times. The Tirtris weren't huge fans of us using our advanced technology to create some of the systems as they had hoped to do it all, but they understood the urgency of the project and allowed us to create what we needed. Once it was done we began translocating all of their people to it. The platform was very basic, just a surface really to stand upon but we would work together to get it all fixed up. They had brought all of their remaining technology and possessions with them, leaving nothing on the planet. With the technology all up here they got to work creating a central computer for their information to be kept in. They only had a little bit of their technology still preserved in their old computers, but it would be adequate enough to help them rebuild their civilization. While most of them worked on that I began working with them to negotiate with the Golvenar to get adequate food for their people in exchange for some technology information. I was careful to guide them in which technology to give, knowing that the Golvenar were still a race that had much to learn. Once the negotiations were done we created a gate between the two bases, neither race would be using it, instead we opted to use an automated transport vehicle to bring the food through. With that in place we joined the rest in making the technology we needed in order to create this new base.

Exploring the Options

They didn't seem to believe it would be possible, fixing a planet to be habitable. I assured them it was and had some projections displayed for them showing the planets we had already done work on. As I finished up I felt so much like a salesman, I supposed it would be possible to fix up and sell planets to other races, but I was sure I wouldn't enjoy it. Once they were convinced as much as they were going to be we just had to determine what planet they would prefer. Several of the ones in the system were candidates, but they surprised me by asking if this planet that they were already on could be fixed up. I told them it would be difficult if not impossible, but I promised to run the simulations and look at our options. We then began discussing what to do in the mean time, I knew this planet would not be able to sustain them when they were awake and I didn't really want to tell them to go back into stasis so we had to determine what they would prefer.

We discussed it for awhile, coming up with several ideas, though it would have to come down to a vote and for that to be valid they would need to finish waking up the rest of their people. They had already begun the process once they had figured out that we were not hostile and they knew ways of speeding it up, so it would only be a few hours before the decision was made, until then they wanted to experience the virtual world we were able to create. They had found it hard to believe that we were able to repair worlds, but they thought it far more unrealistic that we could create a virtual world that could actually be entered and experienced, which was why they were apprehensive about believing we had isolated the Klatvix as we had claimed. Once we were on board Nira and they had satisfied their curiosity about a living being as a ship we moved into the pod room where the first volunteer entered the virtual world. They spent a few minutes there checking it out and then left it, relating what they saw and felt to the others which made the rest anxious to see it.

Once we were all inside they wasted little time before exploring it, they formed different groups and went to the different areas they had heard of using the tranlocation platforms. Nira joined the group that went to the beach while Ambri joined those going to see the forest, this left me with the rest who wanted to explore the snowy mountains. After a quick change of virtual clothes we transported there and they saw our igloo and other snowy creations. None of them had ever seen a substance like it, though there had been stories told of these cold, white crystals of water, none of them had been born when it was still there. After exploring the igloo and other things we had here they wanted to know what else we could do in this area. I took a moment to think of what to show them and once I had decided it took only a moment to have a set of sleds constructed. Though most of them seemed to be my age or older they all seemed to enjoy this sport as much as any child I had ever seen. Up and down we went for a good portion of the time we had, we would have continued had it not been for the alert telling us that the rest of their kind were waking up.

Catching up on History

The sensations were even better once you entered the universe, she really had done a fine job replicating all that we had explained to her and it had felt pretty real before, but once you were actually in this world it was hard to imagine that we weren't from it. This meant upgrades needed to be performed on the prisons, these changes would be gradual but it would further prevent any of the inhabitants from detecting that they were prisoners. We had hardly any time to enjoy the sensations though before we got our first alert telling us that the Tirtris were finally waking up. I didn't even have time to test the new interface for controlling the ship either, but that would wait, for now we had to find out if these aliens could or would be our allies and friends. I wasted little time transporting down into their hidden base, Ambri would follow shortly after once I determined that we weren't going to be attacked. Once there I heard the bustle of a few individuals inspecting their systems, probably trying to figure out why they were awoken from their stasis. It didn't take long before they found the technology we had attached and shortly after to notice me standing by the rest of the foreign materials. Most of them hid quickly and one seemed to glance around looking for something to grab to prepare to defend itself, though I already knew it didn't want to do anything violent, but having gone through what it did I wouldn't have been surprised by the change. I had learned a bit of their language from the historical archives and did my best to greet the frightened things, hearing their own tongue seemed to ease them a bit, though they were shocked as they had never encountered a being such as myself. I continued working at reassuring them that I came in peace and I had woken them up to meet them and offer them my friendship.

Of course friendship was a difficult term for them, they had once known it well but after being betrayed they had been leery to ever use it again. They did begin answering me, mostly with questions to figure out if what I was saying was to be believed, but eventually they settled into it and had assured themselves I had no weapons on me. Once we were all sitting there I asked them if I could bring my companion down to meet them as well, they were a little apprehensive to have another being among them but consented, not really seeing a good excuse to deny someone who had such sophisticated technology when compared to their own, though I had to admit theirs was impressive. When Ambri joined us and they saw how fair she was they seemed a bit relieved, her appearance was very non-threatening and they enjoyed seeing such a kind looking being among them. We then spent quite a bit of time explaining the time that had passed and what their people had missed in regards to the Klatvix, a name they were all too familiar with. I even explained to them how we had isolated them for now in a prison of sorts in order to keep all races safe from them, though even I couldn't assure them it was a permanent confinement. They had many questions about all that had happened, a lot of their history had been lost when the Klatvix conquered them and decimated all their old buildings and the technology they contained, they hadn't realized the Klatvix had kept quite a bit of it.

After they had heard what I knew of their history they understood a lot more about why they had ended up as slaves without much of a will to fight back. It also helped them piece together the missing pieces of what they did know, having passed on as much of it as possible through stories, though they knew they couldn't prove any of the tales that they told, but it was something for them to hold on to during a rough existence. They seemed pleased that they had been a peaceful race instead of a violent one like their captors, their situation hadn't been because of war but rather of ignorance at what they were doing. Having experienced meeting other alien species though and having such a horrible time of it had made them desire less to meet others, which was unfortunate because I knew they would have enriched so many species because of who they were. But, despite this I had hopes for their future and what they would be able to do for the universe and so I put forth my offer to them.

Expanding Capabilities

Despite the boost in available power we seemed to be hitting a limit to how fast we could go using this particular type of drive. The technological upgrades that were possible from the research Evan had found gave us hopes of making Niracina a much more powerful ship. We had just begun the upgrade process, it would still be awhile before it would be finished, but already we had the potential to create the heavy energy conversion chamber so we could actually enter her virtual world and survive. What this meant was that instead of having individual chambers or having a need for a garden we would be able to have a main room, a transport room, and a pod room which we would use to travel between the two realities. This of course brought a lot of excitement to Ambri and Nira (as she had started going by) as we all would be able to live together in this environment and only need to leave when we arrived at our destinations or had other things to work on outside of the reality. This brought about the need of some changes in the virtual world, namely creating controls and screens that could show us what was going on outside of the world and keep us up-to-date on things. The construction of them would not be difficult in and of itself, nor would the needed technology as we had already been testing a few of these things, but the tricky part came in making sure we were alerted and remembered that, though this was an excellent home, we still had to live our lives outside of it as well. This also meant that, in order to get rid of the garden area, we would need to develop a food system so that the virtual foods we ate actually gave us sustenance when we left the world. This hadn't been a problem for the other realities as they were in proximity to a world where food was being grown, but for us it meant we were going to need to keep up on our resources and supplies.

Nira had already begun the process of creating the new room, she was too excited not to do it as soon as it was possible and so we were limited in the areas of the ship that we could go. Ambri didn't mind this, she simply spent her time in the virtual world, I however had things to prepare for, so not having the space was a bit of a problem, but I managed anyway. The control room was completely redesigned, instead of the mental interface it was given proper controls, which would give Nira the ability to disconnect and for us to automate some of the systems as well as allow us to control it from the virtual world as well. She really would begin to exist exclusively in the virtual world as this project made progress, which seemed to suit her well, she liked her virtual body much better than just being a ship. It was interesting how things changed when you saw new potentials that weren't there before. Once some of the basics were in place that would give me the control I needed I also went into the virtual world to make the matching systems in there. This took very little time, actually, once Nira made the start of the system I needed I could use it to create the rest which was simply a process of entering the parameters into the simulation. Once this was done Nira said she felt her control lessened on the virtual world, but we would be able to continue shaping it through this interface. As I finished up and she continued telling me how it felt I realized it had been a huge burden on her, she had so much creativity and potential and she had been having to use part of it just to maintain the systems. I was happy to know that these changes would allow her to really live in here, but also saddened that it meant our interactions outside of the reality would be more limited. She knew this was hard on me, but her elation was far greater than her sorrow and so I was happier for the changes.

Going between the two worlds through the chair interface was cumbersome, there were some things that would be easier once I was able to enter and leave as I wished without having to go through an interface that only simulated the sensations. I had plans to make a very good control interface to the ship and it was going well in the real world, but would be much easier to simulate in the virtual world if I didn't have such limitations. It also didn't help much that most of the resources Niracina had were being directed to the construction of the pods, I could easily make my project a priority, but mine wasn't necessary, though the pods weren't either, but they were desired more by all of us. So I worked at the pace that I could, making the designs I needed to and watching them slowly grow. By my calculations the parts I was working on would be finished at about the same time as the pods, forcing me to take some time relaxing with Ambri and Nira in the virtual world.