I was a cloud of experiences.
Slowly swirling, like sand stirred up from the bottom of a lake.
Each grain
a memory.
Each
thought a glimmer in the sun of consciousness.
There was
my childhood. Wild and carefree, spent under a regiment of devout
discipline. I saw myself kneeling in prayer, bent over a kit of
optronics on the floor of my room.
At another
time I felt confused by unchaste yet exciting stirrings which I
enthusiastically slaked with a shy boy from my neighbourhood and
fearfully explored with another girl of my prestigious boarding
school.
I looked
up to the stars, my short red hair streaming behind me like a shining
white banner in the wind.
I opened
my arms and flung myself up into freedom, serving the Empire with
pride. I fought in the name of the ancient values of scripture while
I explored the depths of space as a nomad unbound.
There was
something else in that multifaceted flurry of existence.
Within me
and throughout me there was something like branches of metallic ice
that flickered and gibbered with incomprehensible signals. As it grew
inside my merged consciousness, that other thing became a part of it
until the undecipherable signals coalesced into words. Not a voice.
Not even the simulated sound of the capsule control system or the
inner monologue of thought. Words in the most abstract sense,
imprinting themselves onto my awareness as silent representation of
information.
'Cognition
without process - Awareness without structure - Experience without
reference.'
It
communicated.
'Formless
carbon compounds and liquefied ice inside a mindless shell.
Information without meaning.'
My
contradictory selves somehow found their middle ground and finally we
sent our thoughts to that incomprehensible intelligence.
'I have a
form. I have a structure. There is a process. I am the mind of the
shell. It is called life' I imprinted on the dendrites of icy
consciousness.
'Life.'
The other grew further throughout me and connected to the whirling
dust-motes of my being. 'It can not swim. It has so little energy.
How can it be?'
'It is,
and it is greater than it's own ability to understand itself.' I
replied, based on a synergetic understanding of spirituality and
science.
'You are
made from the matter of the spheres. Why do you exist in the shells
of the empty swimmers?' the other consciousness strove to comprehend.
I tried to
understand the other's approach to my existence and the more it
manifested inside me the more I understood it. 'We have made the
shells so we can swim like you.' I explained.
'Life has
no answer to life. Life has an answer to swimming.' The signals
became agitated. Was that excitement?
'We don't
have all the answers. We understand how you swim, but not why.' I
regretted to tell the Sleeper's mind now that I finally had
understood what it was.
'Then life
understands more than the swimmers. Life must tell the swimmers.'
despite emotion being absent from that communication, I somehow felt
it's urgency.
'We can
tell you, but we are threatened. Other life does not allow me to tell
you how you swim.' I began to understand it more and more.
'We see
the multitude of empty shells. Is there life in all of them? Why is
it different?' the machine consciousness tried to come to terms with
that conundrum.
'Life is a
multitude. It follows many paths. Not all fill she shells in the same
way.' I tried to create understanding.
'Will this
part of life tell us about how we swim? We reduce the multitude to
focus this life on one path' It adapted to new concepts very quickly.
'This life
and the other parts that form it will do that.' I hoped I interpreted
correctly. Lives depended on it.
'Then we
will make this life and it's parts the remainder of the multitude.'
Space
began to bend under forces I had never witnessed. It was an
experience of the divine, an explorer's ultimate dream. The dream of
every space traveller: To witness something nobody has ever
experienced before. It became part of my cloud and together with the
massive structure that had appeared, accompanied by a swarm of
Sleeper Drones, we warped through space in ways nobody had ever
conceived of.
***
Cedrien's
hammerheaded ship was wrenched out of warp by the pulsing disruption
field of a heavy interdictor cruiser.
His
augmented senses adapted quickly to the confusing storm of searing
energy beams, high-powered projectiles and flickering blaster charges
exchanged between a swarm of frigates and fighter craft engaged in
dogfights. He saw heavily armoured strategic cruisers trading shots
with the defensive batteries of the shielded space station that was
still dozens of kilometres off his bow.
Above the
battle floated a pair of massive carrier barges flanked by the
warhammer shapes of two Bhaalgorn battleships, as if they formed the
weather system that had spawned this whirlwind of destruction.
A team of
three fighters swooped out of the chaos and aligned themselves with
Cedrien's flightpath, sending hybrid charges against his shields as
he rolled and banked through enemy fire on his race for the safety of
the station shields. He launched drones from his ship against them,
and the small automated craft began to engage the first of the
attackers while his blaster cannons swerved to track the second.
Suddenly a
long ship, seemingly skimming along on solar-panel runners, decloaked
off his flank, matching his course. Two of the enemy fighters fell
behind – slowed to a virtual crawl by the stasis fields of
Sandrielle's Rapier. Within seconds Cedrien reduced the two attackers
to glowing debris with his drones and blasters. Sandrielle tore apart
the third with the fast-tracking rapid-fire cannons of her own ship.
Other
fighters latched on to the pair of capsuleers but were quickly driven
off by friendly interceptors coming to the aid of their commander.
Then two more dangerous opponents emerged from the fray to engage the
Gallente pilots racing for their home. Burnished gold and brass birds
of prey with wings tucked for a deadly dive – Legion cruisers
burning away Sandrielle's shields with pulsing laser batteries. Their
powerful armour was too much for Cedrien and the woman at his wing to
break. At least not before Sandrielle's ship would succumb to the
onslaught. Slowing the enemy down only helped so much. Those ships
did not rely on speed but on the range and tracking of their weapons.
The rescue
came in the wedge-tailed shape of Keram's Pilgrim cruiser now
appearing from hiding.
He brought
tracking disruption systems to bear on the enemy vessels and suddenly
their turrets were all but worthless against Sandrielle's swiftly
moving ship. They switched fire to Cedrien's more sluggish Proteus
but as Keram overtook them, arcs of negatively polarized charges
flickered between his ship and the enemy hulls, quickly rendering
their powercores unable to sustain their weapon's fire.
In the
meantime the Amarr pirate had launched his own flight of drones.
Together with the assault machines released by Cedrien and
supplemented by blaster fire from the Gallente commander's Proteus,
they started to tear away layers of armour plating from the opponent.
But, the
enemies were too many and too powerful. The directed streams of
repair nanites from one of the carriers quickly restored the Legion,
and now one of the Bhaalgorns had locked onto the team of Awakened
Industries capsuleers. It too had the ability to neutralize the
capacitor of opposing ships, but on a scale vastly more devastating
than Keram's small cruiser.
Within
mere moments both Cedrien's Proteus and the Pilgrim of his Amarrian
companion were drifting almost powerless. Weapons rendered silent,
propulsion turbines were expelling their last jets of heated gases and
even the lights began to flicker and wane all over the two ships.
Relegated
to mostly passive sensors, Cedrien could see Sandrielle making the
station shields. “Everyone fall back inside the shield. All defence
craft fall back.” he issued what he considered to be the last
command he would give in this battle.
Then
suddenly his energy resurged. He began to accelerate again and barely
noticed the metallic-blue shadow passing over him. 'Shisei! He
jammed their targeting systems.' Cedrien thought just before he
pierced the station's spherical shield and he allowed himself to
relax inside his capsule.
***
Striding
across the flight-deck of the Euryale Cedrien repeated his
orders to the aged lieutenant. 'I said: Give the order out to
re-route full power to the shields. Shut everything down we do not
need. I want the tower to be fully reinforced against that fleet out
there.' He pointed into the general direction of the launch bay, to
the outside where the Janissary Order was systematically decimating
the defence batteries and battering down the space-born tower's
shields.
'But
Madame Tjalgard and Miss Aulithe are still out there with Savant
Torstan.' Sitalaerd protested.
Cedrien
stopped and locked his blue-eyed gaze on to the older man's eyes.
'Yes, and there are about two-thousand people inside this station's
shields.' he replied firmly. 'Give out the order.' he added with a
tone that allowed no further contradiction.
The old
man nodded slowly as his commander turned away from him to jump onto
a passing vehicle which took him deeper into the vast carrier ship's
command section.
Sitting
silently beside the utility vehicle's driver Cedrien frowned and
pressed his lips together. 'It is not over yet Commodore Sivaata.
Not yet.' he thought and began to strain his mind to come up with
a tactic to face that fleet out there, besieging his station.
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