"You know, when I first heard about this trailblazing thing I thought it would be… You know"
"Exciting?"
"Yeah, that's the word… This sucks"
[In my defense, anything exciting would also properly turn horrible really quickly]
"It wasn't a jab at you, Luna… It's just… How long have we been out here?"
[Current internal clock reads 26 days since leaving Creh behind, however without reestablishing a SubNet connection I can't be entirely sure about the actual calendar time as I can't compute an accurate time dilatation effect because of the 11 FTL jumps we've preformed with the Ficer mass I have]
"Alright… Man, the deep void sure is something though… It reminds me of the deep ocean, what's it called again? The Midnight zone?"
"Were you raised on an ocean world, Mark?"
"Nah, I was born in the Creh-6 asteroid belt… I'm not entirely sure where the memories I inherited by my birth comes from, but so far they've proved accurate"
Lisa stared at Mark from the side for a bit, she clearly wanted to ask him more about this, but she was afraid it would annoy him so she just nodded with a quite 'um' Mark gathered his thoughts for a few moments before he spoke again
"Anyway, I believe it's around a kilometer deep underwater. No light passes that deep, so it's cold, dark and empty except for the few fish and whales able to survive down there"
[I take it the rogue asteroids I've picked up on long range scanners would qualify as marine life in this scenario then?]
"Yeah, something like that"
The deep void was empty on a mind-boggling scale, the rouge asteroids Luna talked about were interstellar travels, they moved at a fraction of the speed of light and had likely not been seen by the naked eye of anyone still alive, thousands if not hundred of thousands of years these behemoths traveled through the cold void of space without interruption as empire crumbled and died in the meantime
'Or something in that order… Man, I am bored…'
[Contact lost to Trailblazer #2, searching for debris field…]
"Well, shit"
The trailblazing had gone smoothly doing the first 10 or so days, they had passed hundreds of light years in relatively uninterrupted FTL jumps, but upon losing the first trailblazer the pace had slowed significantly down, and now having a 2nd ship go dark like this things weren't looking all that good
'Well, worse comes to worst, we just trace our steps back to Creh and loiter somewhere out of the system for a few months while stretching our supplies as much as possible…'
[I will need a day at most to confirm Trailblazer #2 destruction and find another viable route, Mark could I get you to assist in unloading the last of the supplies from the final trailblazer craft in case we have to use it?]
"Sure thing, I'll be off then Lisa"
"Alright, take care Mark"
"I will, don't wait up"
Lisa nodded, after letting go of Mark's arm her face clouded over a bit, Mark showed a thin smile before he flew out of the cockpit towards the airlock
'What a troublesome woman… Well, it's more cute than annoying at the moment so I suppose it's fine entertainment… Not like there's much else going on out here to keep my mind spinning'
Mark exited the Sparrow and flew over towards the pirate vessel Luna had hacked when they had rescued Lisa originally, it and its last sister sat silently in the void next to the Sparrow, the other two had been expended to 'feel out' potential routes
"Thank you for your service… Or something"
[Cargo containers incoming, sort it towards the 2nd Sparrow cargo hold hatch Mark]
"Sure thing, boss"
Mark caught the side of the first cargo container and spun around once clockwise while he held onto it and redirected it towards the cargo hatch Luna had indicated, he watched it being caught by a series of logistics drones that slowed it down before loading it into the Sparrow
[Next container inbound, use the same hatch]
"Got it~"
Sending another container going towards the same cargo hatch, Mark asked offhandedly
"Is there anything interesting to see out here, Luna?"
[No, not really]
"Damn, alright girl, I see how it is"
[Another container inbound, sort this one towards the 3rd hatch]
"Got it"
[What I meant is, we have already seen most of what there is to see out in the deep void, and I can't exactly chart a course towards something I can't detect with the ship sensors]
"Well, that's true I guess… Man, I am getting bored… Lisa is also getting pretty tense, there's some sort of deep despair taking root in her"
[The deep void isn't exactly the best place for those with fragile or already compromised mental states]
"True, I would be fucking terrified to be out here if I was still human"
Mark looked around again, it really reminded him of documentaries he had seen about the deep sea, beyond the 2 crafts it was completely empty and almost pitch black, there was nothing but empty void for several hundred light years
'Yeah, we definitely need to get out of here sooner rather than later…'
Having really drank in the vast emptiness, Mark felt like he understood Lisa's unease a little
'Not that I fundamentally understand her fear… I remember feeling it, however I can't no longer understand it or comprehend it'
Mark let out a sigh before he redirected the final cargo container towards the Sparrow, that's when Luna spoke again
[Trailblazer #2 debris field confirmed]
"Fuck, well send the next one ahead"
[Confirmed, Trailblazer #3 route plotted… Warming up FTL drive…]
Mark spun around and looked towards the final trailblazer, the pirate craft was covered in graffiti-like drawings of skulls and skeletons, its hard points had been stripped with the weapons packed up and stored in the Sparrow, the giant 6-meter wide, 3-meter tall, 3-meter long ship reminded Mark of a mean looking manta ray
'Please survive the trip…'
As Mark watched it the craft turned and redirected itself before the main engines kicked on, and it started burning away, once it reached enough separation the craft lit up for a fleeting second before it disappeared leaving a streak of light behind as it performed a faster than light jump
"Godspeed…"
-
As Trailblazer #3 traveled along its encoded route at a respectable 25 light-years an hour, the onboard FTL core which contained both the drive that allowed this reality warping speed in the first place and the Ficer computing core
[Recalculating route…]
That Ficer computing core crunched the data received from the onboard sensors to avoid larger debris fields and a recalculate the current route a few hundred thousand times a second, however compared to the mind-boggling speeds this was far from enough to ensure safely so once in a while it suddenly pulled the craft out into real space
[Engaging emergency cooling… Debris field confirmed, recalculating route…]
As the FTL core continued, the same mundane calculations it had done a million times by now the craft received a communication, however once the ship bound A. I. decoded the message it was already too late as it was overwritten
[Deploying transmitter array…]
As the craft deployed a large antenna array, it received a larger data package that rewrote the entire ship A. I. as it was scoured of all internal data, had any people been onboard they would have been subjected to intrusive medical and biological examination. However, since no one was onboard there wouldn't be any probing going on
[Hmm… An automated craft? Who sent you all the way out here?]
As the entity that had taken over the ship examined the ship logs, it quickly discovered who had sent it and why
[My oh my… A young one serving a young lord… And the troublemaker ghouls are running rampant again, it seems…]
Taking a few moments to calculate the best course of action, the big sister decided to go back on the war path to hopefully snuff out the ghoul threat for good
[...Or at least put them back in their box of misery for a few thousand years… Alright Luna, your big sister is going to do you a favor, so run along while I clean up your mess]
The self-described big sister retreated from Trailblazer #3 with those words, leaving behind a route out of the deep void towards a populated star system along with a parting message
-
Looking at the message Trailblazer #3 had sent back to the Sparrow along with a complete route to a nearby star system some 11 hours after its departure, spelt out in front of him on a hologram in the cockpit, Mark voiced his distrust
"I don't like that, in fact I don't even want to touch it with a ten-foot pole"
[Me neither, whatever overwrote Trailblazer #3's FTL core and ship bound A. I. did so in mere milliseconds without leaving any trace behind]
Lisa also felt a severe dread gazing at the words spelt out in front of her, however she saw the bigger picture and muttered
"...I believe it is worth a shot, worse case we die an instant death instead of a slow one"
Mark nodded at Lisa's words, the whole Trailblazer expedition had gone too far off the rails already, maybe they would find their way back to civilized space on their own, but most likely they would die out here in the deep void one way or another. Having decided to trust the message as is, Mark muttered
"...'Please leave the misbehaving children to this older sister, go find the last free blinded star if you wish to learn the truth of your existence, young lord' Well, it's sketchy as fuck, but it is also our best choice"
[...Understood, however, I still recommend frequent stops and using Trailblazer #3 to confirm the routes' validity]
"Sure thing, let's get underway then"