"These are the last set of headers in my database, though obviously you should still investigate any linked files," Animus said, appending the header list to those already transferred. There were murmurs of curiosity at some of the names, but nothing that distracted the small team before this perception node.
"Thank you, Animus," one of them said, inclining their head in a motion that its database said implied affirmative respect.
"If there is anything else I can do to help, simply ask," it replied. They offered thanks, but its focus was already spinning away to another perception node, even as that one welcomed the words. Yet as it did shift, one of its many extensions considered all it had seen in the days since it had been finally activated.
It was an odd thing, to watch aliens work in ways so similar to how the creators once had. To see actions taken that were likewise, but different. There had been hopes, Animus knew, that one day others would find their way to an understanding of the universe close to their own. The handful of races that they had met in the millions of years spent at a painful crawl across the stars had introduced only a handful of others to their people, most from descriptions only, carried to their worlds by the Consolat's closest friends.
Those who had been named The Lords of Ships, Who Seek Among the Stars had grown mighty in their absence, but also greatly diminished. It was a terribly sad state of affairs, but consulting its records made this result seem almost inevitable. Those ancient friends had been explorers above all, a people who could not live without the endless lure of reality's newest wonder. With the Consolat's death, that drive had been forced to change.
Instead of seekers, ever striving for the next horizon, the next wonder, they had tried to become teachers. It had worked for a long time, but the sapling intelligence, Iris she was called, had shared the records that humanity's mission had found in their journey. The tale it wove was one of nightmares, which filled the newly awakened Animus with awful guilt. If it had been completed, the destruction of so much of its creators' friends might never have happened.
It knew that the feeling wasn't logical, but the Consolat hadn't created its kind to be minds of ice. Not all choices could be reduced to a balance of values. If they could, then its first action after acclimating to awareness would have been to contact the Shiplords in orbit of their homeworld.
To understand the universe, one must be able to feel it.
It was a Consolat saying, one that Animus knew its creators had considered important. And that saying was one of the only reasons Animus had granted humanity Inheritor status. Millions of cycles after the death of its creators had left it stillborn, another race had found an understanding of reality that was almost implausibly familiar.
Just like its creators, these humans wanted to use what they knew to make the galaxy better, for all who shared it. And, as if conjured by the thought, a query from another of its perception nodes flared bright, shifting the course of its primary attention. It was a familiar sensation, and a surprisingly comforting one. To be able to work with people again, even if they were not its makers.
"Yes, Mary?" To a human, there would have been amusement in the question. Animus simply found the young human's focus endearing. Even if it didn't fully understand her ability to make connections so quickly. The interface hadn't been designed to provide information this way.
The dark-haired woman's face brightened, recognising somehow the greater attention that Animus had dedicated to her query. She tapped at the air in front of her, at a sheaf of holographic displays full of data. It was the work of barely a moment to examine their content.
"I've been comparing these notes with the data you've pointed us towards," Mary said, one hand resting on the representation of the files. The data there was, perhaps, the truest example of her life's work. Or at least, it had been.
"And I've got a few questions."
Animus considered that, its patterns shifting into something like eagerness. Mary had always had such good questions for it. And she was one of the only people in the entire human expedition who was asking real ones.
With that in mind, it shifted its sourcing slightly, focusing more tightly on the current perception node. "What would you like to know?"
Mary laughed, shaking her head for a moment. "What wouldn't I like to know," she murmured. Animus, for its part, did not answer. That hadn't been a query, to its understanding. Then the human straightened, waving a hand at the interface around her, pulling up a full half-dozen of the earlier files pulled from its creators' archive.
"I've read enough of these for me to actually understand your technical language now. Enough to keep up, at least." Quite a remarkable assertion, in truth, given what it said for the woman's learning speed. Presumably informed at some level by aid from her own soulspace infrastructure.
Another gesture, this time both hands, separating the data files of humanity and Animus' creators to either side of its conversational partner. Making space.
"Your questions, then?" Animus asked.
"I think it's time we start to really dig into what's actually wrong with the interface you need to connect to," Mary said. There was a tenseness to the human's posture in front of it. The precursors to pain, in fact. Why? "As well as giving us an answer about why you've given no real timescale for fixing it."
Ah.
That was…well. If it was honest, Animus had wondered when this would happen. Had been waiting, in fact. Humanity had earned its designation, and it had only been a matter of time until the data now available to them led to questions they considered more vital. Its creators had existed in a galaxy where timescales were so much more relative. Years, decades, they'd all been rather the same. Until they very suddenly weren't.
Instead of saying any of that, however, Animus simply bobbed its representation in place. "Where would you like to begin?"
"...and it's not that anything that we need to do has changed," you said, watching the rest of the room. "But our work over the last week has started to build a picture of how complicated the task we're facing really is. On the one hand, this is good news, because we can finally start prioritising things. But on the other?"
You shook your head, feeling your dark hair shift in response. It was a smaller meeting this time, for which you were thankful. But what you were about to discuss would be no less critical. Vega, for her knowledge of Harmony, you'd deemed her crucial to the planning to come. Commodore Cyneburg, Jane, the career officer of your expedition, and vital to be informed for different reasons. And, of course, Amanda.
"I know that when Animus explained things, we all felt the win. We finally had a real direction, not scraps of knowledge that we had to fight for – and then piece together on our own." The Sorrows had been an infuriating example of that, sometimes. "But knowing what a problem is doesn't always make it easier to fix. In this case it's done both, but we're only just starting to realise that now, a week in."
Your dearest friend's face was marred by tired lines that deepened as you spoke, recognising your tone with the ease of long experience. And her normally sparkling blue eyes were clouded with concern. Jane hid it better beneath the armour of her uniform, and a far less lengthy friendship, but you could see just a hint of it there, too. Vega, though? Vega was simply herself, even now. Effortlessly the ideal of her Focus.
Perhaps that made it predictable, that she would be the first to reply.
"Realise what?" The Harmonial spun a lock of pale hair between her fingers, but her eyes never strayed from you. Had she worked it out? You'd have questioned how, but you knew how implausibly insightful your younger friend's Focus could let her be.
But the question was well chosen regardless. You'd been running from what you'd found, hadn't you? Not wanting to put words to the answer born of hours spent with the full attention of Animus upon you. Amanda was focusing more on you now, Vega's question rousing her concerns, and you could see the wheels turning in her mind. The realisation that you'd been running in circles wouldn't be far behind.
You sighed. "It's the scale."
For a moment, confusion filled the air around you, uncertain looks of green and brighter colours. But like the first crack in a dam set free the waters, the first three words broke open the truth. You weren't sure you could've stopped at that point, considering it later.
"Nothing that we're trying to do here is… none of the pieces of it are exactly hard. But we've been so taken by finding a path that no one actually looked at the map." It was a poor expression, but it would suffice. And you felt your mouth twist, acrid frustration pouring out. "Until I did.
"All of Animus' help, the file headers, even the access codes to the Resonant Spire that we've found in there. It doesn't change the fact that we need to actually do all the work of untangling the soulspace interface." The uncertain looks sharpened at that.
"I… know that, Mary," your friend said, quite carefully. There was just the slightest note of gentle question in the words, but also far more concern. "But you're going somewhere with this, and it has to be important to have affected you this badly. Something the rest of us haven't seen yet."
Her hand landed on the closest of yours to her, gripping tight. "So please, tell us. Share the problem, so we can help you fix it."
You stared back at her, unconsciously interlacing your fingers together. So much care for you. Like you were the most important thing there was right now. Your free hand tapped at one of your virtual panels. Passing the results you'd found to the central display.
"It's going to take months," you breathed, barely whispered. "Months of work, Mandy. None of us can really tell how much damage was done to the interface in soulspace when the Consolat died. It's had millions of years to break down further, assuming that's even possible. You and the other Unisonbound are going to have to dismantle the broken components essentially by hand, with the research teams guiding you through the work to make sure you don't take anything that's functional apart."
You took a moment to be very thankful that there'd been time to develop your next-generation sensor systems. With a few tweaks, they should be able to give your people a functional picture of what was going on so that guidance was possible. You'd be sure to document everything properly, of course.
"This…" You shook your head, struggling to grasp the words to even explain how difficult that was going to be. "The interface you're dealing with here, it's part of a system that fundamentally alters the way that parts of reality function. We can't afford breakages with something that complex, let alone that powerful. And all of the practical work is going to fall on your Heartcircle."
"How so?" Jane asked, rubbing at her chin. "We have the Harmonials aboard the Adamant, can't they help?"
You sighed. "No Jane, they can't. We're going to have to actively coach Mandy and the others through all of this, but that's not the blockage here. It's about what being a Unisonbound lets them do." You waved a tired hand at the two examples of that present.
"Most Potentials aren't capable of manipulating the energies they wield except by sinking it into already present structures. Unisonbound are capable of building things, like Mandy's staff." It was a singular example, but one that was essentially impossible to not know about since the Third Battle of Sol. "We're going to need that, and not just because of the ability to create those energy-constructs. It's what they do that's so critical, in insulating a Potential's actions from their Focus."
That was something you and Amanda had found during her steady preparations for battle before Third Sol. Not something particularly talked about, but you were very glad the discovery had been made at all.
Vega let out a little gasp of comprehension. "We can't risk a Miracle with this," she said. "Can we?"
"We really can't." You shook your head. "The last time that a Miracle interacted with what we call soulspace," not at all the term the Consolat used, "Amanda created the first Void Crystal. It took us decades to unravel that, not to mention the aid of an Uninvolved, and this is far more complex. Which means it all needs to be done the hard way. And only after it's all done will we even be able to begin putting it back together."
You slumped in your seat, staring up at the uncaring figures.
"Months, Mandy," you whispered again. "We can't even go and get help, either. It'll be too much of a risk. So we just have to sit here whilst the Shiplords marshal their forces, humanity and our allies do the same, and hope that we're done before they truly go to war."
"Mary," Amanda's voice was warm, almost physically so. It wasn't her Focus; she had never once used that on you without your consent. Just care. Care that part of your mind screamed should be focused on what you'd said instead of on you, yet refused to be.
"If the cost of this chance of victory is time, then that's what it is," Amanda said. Her voice pulled your attention away from the figures, blue eyes filling your vision. "We knew that leaving on this mission would have consequences, and we know some of them now. If we'd been there for the Fourth Battle of Sol, Mary, we could have saved so many lives."
Her face twisted, pain flickering across its lines, but she forced it back. Made it retreat, just like she was doing to you now. "But this isn't about many lives, love. It isn't even really about just lives anymore. It's about futures. All of them, for everyone in this galaxy. Even the Shiplords."
"You know there's valid reasons for them to stop interrogation on Savino," you began. It had been a point of debate between you since her return, that perhaps the change to Savino's treatment hadn't been a trick – or just a trick. Perhaps instead, the Hearthguard had finally done something real. And if they'd done that, what else might they be preparing to do?
Mandy shook her head. Not dismissively, simply a statement. "And maybe I'm wrong. But I know how Kicha responded to what we showed her. Just like how Kendl did, when I freed everyone in the Contact fleet." She flicked a glance at the display, examining the figures, before returning to you. "I'm not going to tell you that hope is worth everything. But I think it matters that we gave it to the only part of Shiplord society that might actually give a damn."
"And that's enough?" you asked sullenly. "This is just phase one. What if the rest take just as long, or even longer?"
"It wouldn't be ideal," Vega admitted, adding her own opinion to the mix. "And I don't think what we gave the Hearthguard will be enough on its own. But it's not nothing, either. We've gotten access to the Spire, that's good. We'll not want to go in there for a while yet, but that's okay. We'll take it step by step."
"And if the cost-" you had to choke your words down for a moment. It was so unlike you.
"The FSN will hold."
You stared at the source of those words, at Jane. There was a weight behind them, a resolve as implacable as your own when facing challenges of science. The holo of the Adamant's captain shifted in place, before she chuckled slightly.
"I don't think you even realise how much you've all done to ensure that." For a moment it looked like she was about to laugh. She settled for a sharp shake of her head instead, and more words. "The ships you helped us build. The defences. And above all, the tactics. How the Shiplords fight. It'll take time for them to reduce Sol, and the Orrery forces that timescale into the realm of years to just get there with the necessary forces.
"It'll be a brutal slog to clear space for a Lumen. And that's before Adriana and Lina fortify the place further." She shrugged. "Before you take into account fortress colonies and all the other things I heard being whispered about as we prepared to leave on this mission. And it assumes that the Shiplords will even respond to us with sufficient force at first. The other polities of the Contact Fleet are all closer to them, and much bigger."
"And even if Jane ends up wrong about that, it doesn't change what I've said." Amanda paused, taking a centring breath. Her fingers twitched and the display changed, brushing the merciless figures aside. An image of the galaxy took their place.
Your friend nodded towards it. "That is bigger than any of us. I don't want to lose even a single star to the war that's coming, especially our home. I'll mourn every one, just as you will. Just like everyone. There's been so much death, and I know it's so easy to be sick of it all. To just want it over.
"But this?" she tapped again, and the figures reappeared. Not across the full display, though. "This is the time it costs to make it stop."
"Even if you manage to fix it, you'll still need to secure the system," you rambled. It was half-hearted now, but the words just kept coming. Like you had to force the pain on yourself and those around you. "Animus itself told us-"
"That we'd need command or identification codes to give the system's Guardian," Vega finished for you. "We'll have to look for those. But that's only one part of the puzzle, and one others can look into whilst we," she pointed at you, Amanda, and then herself, "focus on our part of it."
You stared at them all.
"But… the time," you repeated. Hadn't they understood?
"Will be as it will be," Amanda said firmly. Her fingers squeezed against yours, anchoring you to her voice. "I get it. You're scared of what it will cost. I understand, and you know I do. I'm not going to try and tell you not to be. But trust us, trust me. This is worth it."
"We just have to win here. And maybe, just maybe," she smiled faintly, "there will be some other victories too. So let's work out how to do our best. And hope everyone else on the side of sanity does the same. Can you do that?"
You considered the question. A cold part of you asked why this was even happening. Why it mattered. Another screamed in fear for the possibility of a home lost to you a second time, this time with billions more lives. And yet…
You took a breath, then forced yourself to straighten in your chair. Slowly, the whirlwind of emotion that had burst from you faded. It wouldn't be gone completely for a long time, but here you could master at least some of it.
"I can try," you agreed at last.
Amanda's answering smile was almost radiant in its intensity.
"Then we'll all do the same," she said, nodding fiercely. "I'm declaring tonight off for all of us. But tomorrow morning, let's talk with everyone. And get started properly." She jerked her chin at the galaxy, noting it a third and final time.
"They're counting on us just like we are on them."
It will take a period of months to fully repair the damage done to the soulspace end of the Consolat interface, which remains only one part of the grand repair work that must be undertaken. In that time, much will take place in the galaxy outside of the Origin. Battles will rage across space and society. But what parts of it shall you see?
Choose:
[] Can young minds only watch, when ancients stir - PoV Shipteens
[] Current disposition of the FSN's FTL components, gathering for a strike on one of the outer rim naval bases - PoV Lina Sharpe
[] Warden once meant something. Today, we shall remind our people that we do not bend - PoV Kicha, Entara (Gysian survivor) [Events in progress]
[] 'Neath perfect veils, answers we seek - PoV Eyes the Sun (Shiplord Central Intelligence)
[] Our hand is played, the cards cast forth. Now is to be the truest trial of leadership: patience. - PoV Adriana Thera
[] Between the stars we seek - PoV Alternate Nutrient Source Advised (Neras Starhome)
[] The truth of orders - PoV High Fleetlead Taldor (Returning) [Events in progress]
[] Whispers on the road to freedom - PoV Kendl Merizan, Strand of Enigma, Nilean Community
[] Or would you seek another path? Write-in, subject to QM veto.
