Jacob worked his jaw as he rubbed at his temples, wishing he could make the lingering pain go away. Choosing to go with only one information packet had been the right choice. The eiraxins were also monsters for including simulated pain in a virtual space.
He could sort of understand why they had included pain responses. Much like with a real body, pain was an indicator to stop doing something. That didn’t mean he had to like it. So far, the only upside to being digital was not having to eat, sleep, or deal with the other bodily necessities of life, and he still simulated most of those just to bring a bit of normality to his existence.
He wished he could comply with his body’s instincts and simply log off to rest and recover, but he didn’t have that luxury. So he was stuck rubbing his temples in hopes it would do something. It didn’t, but he kept at it until the painful throbbing finally subsided on its own.
Once he was finally well enough to proceed, he jumped into his drone and made his way to the ship’s engine section. With the main power restored, Melody was able to open the blast doors that sealed those sections.
Jacob had come across the sealed hatches in his previous repair work, but had ignored them in favor of focusing on getting the power back up. He was glad he did, because it would have taken multiple cycles to run power cores back and forth to open that many hatches with the little battery pack he built.
Honestly, it probably would have required multiple battery packs because, much like the hatch to the reactor room, some of the doors closed as soon as they lost power. He learned to recognize those types of doors because they were much thicker than the normal hatches.
He arrived alongside another drone controlled by Melody without any fanfare or issues. Unlike the section of the ship he had been working in, this area was undamaged. The last door opened, and the pair headed inside.
Jacob knew what to expect this time thanks to the data dump, but he was still surprised. Much like the reactor room, massive column-like structures extended from the floor and disappeared into the darkness overhead. These were much larger than the reactors. The twelve-meter-wide columns were the phase coils. He knew they extended all the way to the ceiling, which rose over three hundred meters, but the visual sensors in the drone weren’t capable of seeing that far.
“Melody, what if the coils are broken where the drones can’t reach?”
“I am not sensing any exotic radiation that would indicate direct damage to the coils, Captain.”
While that was good, that wasn’t really an answer. Jacob assumed the AI didn’t have an answer to the question, because that answer would be that they were shit out of luck if they were damaged in a spot that couldn’t be fixed.
He needed to stop worrying about what-ifs. He would come up with something if they couldn’t find the problem at the base of the columns. Their first stop was the control station.
The columns gave the room a strange air of majesty. It was almost like he was walking through some hallowed hall. In a way, he sort of was.
The control room was clean and empty, which Jacob was thankful for. He had come across a few corpses in the cycles leading up to the reactor restart, and they always made him feel uneasy with how human-like they appeared.
Since he didn’t want to deal with that issue, he had the other drones take care of the remains.
Melody trundled in behind him, and the sensor pod on its drone rotated to take in the room. “Captain, there doesn’t appear to be any damage here.”
“No, there doesn’t,” Jacob muttered as he moved over to the main console. The thing looked like it was straight out of an ’80s movie of what the future might look like. Hell, it had actual physical dials and controls.
There were a few small screens like what he had seen in other areas of the vessel, but otherwise, it looked ancient compared to everything else. He knew the space was a backup control room and not actively used, but the more he studied the controls, the more he frowned internally.
“Melody, it looks like someone accessed this control room and deactivated the phase coils manually.”
“That is not possible, Captain. The only reason to access this room would be if there was a catastrophic failure and the remote access systems were cut off. The remote access systems are still operational, or you would not be able to connect with the drones.”
“What about sabotage?” Jacob asked.
“Crew loyalty is checked before they join the crew,” the AI responded, sounding offended by the mere mention that someone aboard could have acted against the crew.
“Was I checked?”
There was a long silence from Melody following the question.
“I was forced to make certain exceptions in your case, Captain.”
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Jacob grunted. He heard everything he needed to. The AI might not believe it, but he started to get a picture of why the ship was floating aimlessly in interstellar space near Earth. One of those pieces pointed to someone sabotaging the ship’s ability to flee.
He reset the controls, and just like that, the phase coils started to pulse to life.
“Congratulations on repairing the phase coils, Captain…They will take a few days to charge.”
Jacob noticed the AI’s hesitation. He suspected it was now taking his question about sabotage a bit more seriously. “Let me know before you jump.”
“Jump, Captain? I am not physically capable of jumping.”
“Jump…you know, move the ship or whatever you call it when you activate the phase coils.”
“The ship does not jump, nor does it move when the phase coils are activated, Captain. The phase coils transition us from one point in space to another. The science behind it is rather complex. Would you like me to provide you with information on the exact process?”
“Not particularly,” Jacob said as he disconnected from the drone and ignored the AI. He knew more than he wanted to already, and just the thought of cramming more information into his head was bringing back phantom pains. Also, if he was honest with himself, how the coils worked was less important to him than the fact that they worked.
***
“Final transition complete, Captain.”
He sighed in relief. It had taken weeks to arrive at their destination, mostly because their transitions had to be kept short due to the damage sustained by the ship. Even so, they had travelled nearly a hundred light-years from Earth, according to Melody.
Jacob wanted to ask why it and its crew were so far from an eiraxin outpost, but he knew it wouldn’t know. Instead of rehashing a pointless conversation, he studied the feeds from the few functioning external sensors in his virtual environment. A frown quickly formed on his face. “I don’t see any repair station, Melody.”
Once again, the AI went silent, and Jacob was instantly on guard. This had been an ongoing problem over the last few weeks, and he was beginning to suspect that it paused when it was embarrassed by a mistake it made.
“Apologies, Captain. It seems I made an error in my calculations.”
“You made an error in calculations?” he asked in horror. The AI was already flaky; the last thing Jacob needed was for it to go senile as well.
“Well, not an error exactly. I simply failed to account for centuries of stellar drifting. Once the phase coils recharge, I will transition us to the correct location. It isn’t far.”
“Can’t we just travel there with the normal engines?”
“We certainly could, Captain, but it would take over eighty Earth years to reach our destination using that method.”
Jacob sighed. “So when you meant not far, you were referring to stellar distances?”
“Precisely, Captain.”
Jacob struggled to comprehend the size of the ship, which turned out to be just over four kilometers in length and a kilometer in width. Now he was forced to process the length of a light-year. It would take time for his Earth-bound mind to wrap itself around the distances involved.
***
“Final transition complete, Captain,” the AI said happily a day later.
“Is this the final, final?” he asked, hiding his annoyance.
“You can see the station from here, Captain,” the AI responded without answering the question.
Jacob squinted at a faint dot in the center of one of the windows. “Why are we so far away?”
“If we transitioned too close, the added gravity from the station would tear us apart. We will have to approach under normal power from here so the hull can acclimate slowly.”
“Alright,” he muttered.
After hours of what seemed like little to no change, Jacob grew frustrated. “We are moving, right?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Can we go any faster?”
“The ship is moving as fast as possible, Captain.”
“And what is our top speed?” he ground out.
“While there is a top speed, I fear you may be confusing the ship’s normal drive capabilities with human ones, Captain. This vessel doesn’t rely on propulsion to accelerate. It forms a gravitational force that pulls us along or slows us down. We are essentially falling at a set rate, a little more than the gravitational pull of Earth.”
Jacob didn’t understand much about physics, but he was aware of some things. “Won’t we reach speeds where time dilation starts to affect us?”
“I wasn’t aware that humanity had discovered that issue. You are partially correct. Even at our current speed, you are feeling extremely minor effects of time dilation. Anything in motion does, but we limit our top speed to keep the effects to a minimum.”
“Wouldn’t that make the vessel extremely slow and easy to target?” Jacob asked in confusion.
“That’s what the phase coils are for. As for combat, most of that is done from stationary positions, with drones and other weapons. You can think of my hull as more akin to your navy’s carriers than a warship, although that isn’t entirely correct either. I am more like an operations hub or fortress. As you can see from the state of the vessel, we do take return fire. This should all be covered in the command data I gave you as captain.”
Jacob rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. “I was rather busy, so I haven’t looked at it yet.”
***
It took two days to approach the station. It was a lot farther away than Jacob had realized, mostly because it was massive. He couldn’t even comprehend how large the structure was, but he knew it dwarfed their ship many times over.
Another thing he noticed was the lack of any activity or light. The place was dead quiet, but it didn’t look damaged. At least he couldn’t see any damage as they approached.
At some point, all he could see was construction girders of enormous proportions filling the sensor screens. The ship slid into one of the empty bays with room to spare, and the station finally responded to their presence.
Large arms came down and locked onto the vessel, holding it in place. Jacob expected something more to happen, but the station went quiet once again.
“Uh, Melody, what’s going on?”
“The station is operational, and I am attempting to communicate with the station’s AI, but it is refusing to acknowledge my requests.”
“Is this an AI like you?” Jacob asked.
“No, Captain. It is a much more limited model.”
Jacob wasn’t sure, but he thought he sensed a note of derision in Melody’s tone. “Do you think it would talk with me?”
“I am unsure, Captain. Without the ability to access its network, I would not be able to forward your request to speak with it. You would have to board the station and access a command terminal to see for sure.”
“Is that even possible?” Jacob asked, not looking forward to stepping aboard some belligerent AI’s station to have a chat.
“One of the clamps also doubles as a cargo transport and airlock. You should be able to use that to cross over into the station. You also don’t need to worry about losing connection. The drone connections are capable of operating at much farther distances without issue.”
Right, he had forgotten that he wasn’t actually leaving the ship; he was only sending a remote connection out.
