Half a year ago, Nova had taken control of the Gordanian slave arena by hacking into the Psions' energy monitor embedded in his body. That same device—the tracker—had since been assimilated into his nanites. And now, it seemed the Psions had also built the systems used in Gordanian warships, giving Nova a critical opening.
It had been a gamble. Joseph had studied dozens of Gordanians and could confidently gauge that they were a species built for war, not science. The Citadel didn't have another species as scientifically advanced as the Psions. So, the odds were high that the Psions had designed nearly everything for the Gordanians—from weapons to ship systems. Their gamble had paid off.
The Thanagarians didn't know he had Nova, an A.I., with him. All they knew was that Joseph was familiar with Psion systems after being captured and escaping. So they assumed he'd fight his way to the central command center and try to manually hack into the system—bypassing layers of encryption and security. To them, it sounded suicidal. They believed they were sending him into the lion's den on a hopeless mission.
But he'd convinced them otherwise. That he was a genius—which wasn't hard, considering half the room thought he was a demigod sent by the Hawkgod to protect them. He'd assured them that even if it didn't work, he could return safely. That part was true; he had grown very familiar with his new powers.
Then, time slowed.
He entered the Speed State.
Within it, Nova was enhancing its computational capabilities to a level beyond even the most advanced quantum computers. Fueled by the Speed Force, it could now hack and dissect complex Gordanian systems at incomprehensible speed. But this time, Joseph was better prepared. The nanites inside him—normally degraded quickly by Speed Force strain—had been reinforced. He had flooded his body with as much Strength Force as he could handle, fortifying the nanites to resist disintegration for as long as possible: 16 minutes.
Just as Joseph could imbue objects with Speed Force while in the Speed State—bringing them into his temporal flow—the same principle applied when Nova interfaced with technology. Every connection, every algorithm Nova touched now operated at his accelerated pace. Nova exploited this tactically, treating encryption protocols like simple locks, peeling back each layer in near-instant succession.
Firewalls crumbled. Code unraveled. Data streamed into Nova's awareness like light through glass.
Within seconds, Nova was breaking through multiple encryption layers, processing vast swaths of system architecture, identifying vulnerabilities, probing weak links, and overwhelming key control nodes in perfect synchronization. The system simply couldn't keep up.
For fifteen uninterrupted minutes, Joseph stood motionless, sustaining the Strength Force to stabilize his nanites as they dove deeper into the warship's neural networks. Then Nova spoke:
//I am finished. All weapons will be disabled after targeting the remaining hostile forces. All Gordanians and Psions will be expelled, trapped, or terminated where possible. I now have admin access to this Class-9 Bloodstar mothership. All data has been downloaded into the Data Archive.//
It was done.
Previously, neither Joseph nor Nova fully understood how the Dream State allowed them to store such massive volumes of data. It wasn't his brain—it wasn't even Nova's memory. But after Nova returned from the Dreaming, it became clear: everything was stored in the Dream State itself, Joseph's mental plane merged with a dream-world created by Nova.
It resembled something Joseph had seen through Nova following Morpheus: the Ghost Castle in Dream the Endless's realm. A library containing every book never written, every sonnet never spoken, every masterpiece never finished. Even stories erased from history remained preserved there—retconned from memory, but stored in a Dream.
'Okay. Let's exit the Speed State.'
Nova obeyed.
The Speed Force flow ceased. And like every time since the arena escape, there was no pain.
Nova had once told him the pain would fade with repeated use, and Joseph had expected it to be gradual. But instead of a slow tapering off, the pain had vanished entirely. The once-debilitating, skull-splitting agony that accompanied leaving the Speed State was just gone. Not that he was complaining.
He had the Psions to thank for that. When they modified him, they had removed parts of the chemical compound from the STAR Labs truck that initially gave him access to the Speed Force. Those same chemicals had also suppressed his meta-gene. But once his meta-gene fully activated, his body adapted—he could now use the Speed Force without pain.
'Do you have the time and coordinates for the other motherships' appearance?'
//Yes. They will arrive in 4 hours and 20 minutes. Their entry point coordinates are centered at: right ascension 2h 31m 48.7s, declination +89° 15′ 51″.//
Good. That gave more than enough time for Nova's nanites to regenerate—and the location was close by.
Outside and inside the mothership, no doubt thousands of Gordanians were dying in real time thanks to what Nova had programmed.
Joseph tapped the comm built into his golden hawk-themed helmet. Hawkman's voice came through, grim but hopeful.
"Hello? You alive?"
Ye of little faith.
"Send your people to take control of this mothership. I did it."
Well, it was more accurate to say Nova did it—but they didn't need to know that.
'Thanks, Nova. You're the GOAT,' Joseph said mentally as Katar Hol laughed—a mix of disbelief and relief. It was a fair reaction. After all, Hawkman likely knew Joseph had just been a regular kid a year ago.
A lot can change in a matter of months.
//It is my pleasure to serve you.// Nova replied.