Echoes
The sudden transition into the Leyline while under attack was enough to rock the massive ship with forces greater than the inertial compensators could fully handle. Metal and alloy groaned under the stress. After only a few moments the Leviathan’s systems performed an emergency exit that dumped them back into physical reality. The force of their exit catapulted Winter Reverie from the command throne across the deck of the bridge. It was as though the whole ship had suddenly hit a wall. Which in a way, was accurate.
The Commander groaned slightly as his body ached from the different pressures that had been exerted upon it even through his power armor. Several others joined in a chorus of pain and he was sure there would be numerous other injuries throughout the ship. He grudgingly pushed himself to his hooves and helped up a few others before returning to his station.
“I need updates. Damages, injuries, assessments. I want everything on this ship counted and calculated. And where in the hells are we?” Around him, others of his crew called up what few systems were still functional. It was Abacus who spoke up first, having managed to hang on to her console like a life raft.
“Well, unless someone wants to get out and push, we’re dead in the water. That jump took a lot out of us and crashed pretty much every system that was running. I’m seeing data corruption and subroutine failure across the board. It looks like our reactors were about to go critical so the excess energy was vented off which dragged us out of the Leyline we were on. The good news is that we’re in a star system and not lost beyond the galactic edge, the bad news is I have no idea which one.”
“First priority is getting the reactors back online. After that, Voids and sensors.” He switched to his squad’s general channel. “Aegis wishes Rosethorn. Everypony alive?”
“Shit that was some ride.” Said Rosethorn.
“Anyone mind telling me what the hell just happened?” Piped in Acrylic.
“Everyone gather in conference room…” Winter paused for a moment, going over the list of several dozen meeting rooms. “Just meet me at marked location in about an hour.” He pinged a rally point in one of the large virtual conference rooms amidships. A chorus of responses flowed in. It was tempting to hold it aboard the Omen, but that would take too long. He sent Viola to go see what she could do about the civilians who were certainly wounded.
The Commander got off his throne and walked over to where Abacus was glued to her console. He got to her side in time for her to scream in frustration and rip the bottom panel off the holographic interface. The unicorn thought it best to give the scientist a few moments as she muttered angrily to herself. She tore out a clump of wires and sent her mechanical spiders into the mess, accessing the Leviathan’s systems through them.
“Doctor Abacus, how soon can we expect to have power again?” He asked.
“The reactors are in a dormant state right now for safety reasons. The protocol for reviving them has been corrupted and has to be recompiled from the backup drives. That’ll take about forty hours. There’s only so much I can do at this point. The systems need time to cool off after being strained like that. And only after the stage one reset is done can I run the diagnostic routines and find out what else was damaged in our emergency drive activation.” said Abacus as she busied herself with working through the horrific knot of tangled data clusters.
“Will it do this every time we try to use the Leyline drives?” Winter’s note of skepticism was obvious.
“Of course not. Need I remind you that this is entirely new technology and has never been tested on something so large. We’re lucky our molecular bonds are still intact or that we aren’t fused with a wall or something. And, that my calculations for using the drives under such conditions were rather hasty given that we were under the immediate threat of destruction so under the circumstances I’d say we got off rather easy rather than spending the remainder of our lives making large rocks into smaller rocks in some Imperial work camp.”
“Do what you can then.” He turned to Crystal Flourish. “Please take care of things while I’m away. See if you can’t boost our auxiliary power enough to run a sensor scan of some kind. At least enough to try and figure out where we ended up.” The purple pegasus nodded. Winter Reverie walked off the bridge after doing what he could. There wasn’t really much he could do under the circumstances.
He walked down the empty halls of the Leviathan, letting events wash over him. He had to use the schematic that had been downloaded into his tactical data in order to not get lost in the many passages that wound through the Leviathan. The conference room was over a kilometer away. While Winter could have simply teleported there, being one of the few unicorns who could perform such a complicated spell with such precision, the stallion wanted to trod the untouched halls himself.
It was haunting in a way, that no living soul had actually set hoof in the areas through which he now travelled, only machines. The Commander did not feel unwelcome, the hull had had no time to obtain the lived in feeling his own Assault Cruiser had. It had no real feeling at all without ponies to crew it. The Leviathan had been built to be a warship, but had yet to be truly fielded in battle.
Winter Reverie was the first to arrive. The conference room he had chosen was huge; a long executive table stretched the length of the room, capable of seating at least a hundred ponies on either side. The flawlessly smooth black surface was so polished, Winter could see his reflection. He walked to the end of the table and took a seat on one of the simple but tasteful floor cushions designed for pony comfort. Lastly, he took off his helmet and set it in front of him, shaking out his two-tone blue mane with relief. The smell that filled his nose was not too dissimilar to a new car, or a freshly machined suit of armor.
The other members of his power armor team arrived all together. Rosethorn and Viola took the seats to Winter’s right, while Nightingale, Acrylic, and Circuit seated themselves to his left. The others followed his example and set all their helmets in front of them, forming a neat circle of six. Rose and Viola wasted no time in entwining their bodies. They sat comfortably nuzzled together, even in their armor.
Nightingale laughed as Acrylic turned a different color and looked away. She fell back and kicked her rear legs up onto the table, crossing her limbs in relaxation with a happy sigh. For Circuit it was just business as usual as he worked from his own uplink to the Leviathan.
“Welcome to the Leviathan.” Winter Reverie started off. “Our current situation necessitates a steady approach. At this point we do not know where we are. That means we also don’t know how far away home is. During our escape there were some civilian casualties. Were there any injuries for our crew?”
“The worst of it was just some broken bones.” answered Viola. “Oh, and one of the older stallions in the civ crew had a heart attack. Other than that just some bumps and some indigestion from the sudden spatial shift.” Winter nodded.
“We got off lucky. It remains to be seen if that luck will hold.” The Commander said.
“Luck is all well and good, but what we need is a trained crew of several thousand.” added in Acrylic. “For all their talk of preparation, they clearly weren’t ready to be attacked with their asses hanging in the void. There’re no expendable munitions of any kind in any of the bunkers. I found some dummy shells for testing the firing mechanisms of some of the big guns but all we have right now for defenses are the magical weapons.”
“Granted, that’s enough beam weaponry alone to outgun a dread.” Nightingale countered from her lounging pose. “Although, even if we had our bunkers topped off we still wouldn’t have enough hooves to crew every gun on this giant boat. Kinda makes me tingly down south to think about a fire control system that can handle all that bang bang.”
“No wonder you can never find a good stallion, Night, you’re too busy molesting the guns you gun-phile.” Teased Rosethorn.
“Guilty as charged.” agreed Nightingale with a raise of her legs. Circuit spoke up next.
“Actually, if you take into account the advances they’ve made in automated loading and central computerization it would be possible for such a small crew to use all the weapons on the Leviathan. It would be somewhat limited because you still need ponies on station to monitor all the nuances. Heat buildup and lens integrity for the Hell Lances, barrel alignment and cycling for the cannons, and last minute course adjustment for the torpedoes.”
“So we can use most of the weapons, just not very well. Show us the Void shield apparatuses please.” Instructed Winter.
“Of course, Commander.” With a flick of his telekinesis, Circuit Board shifted the information he was looking at onto the table top. “Sacred Luna I love these data conductive surfaces.” The three dimensional representation of a Void projector matrix floated above the conference table. It was a deceptively simple looking piece of tech. An artificial diamond was grown around a micro framework that embedded transistors to allow it to function as a focused plasma emitter with the proper energy current. And, if too much kinetic energy was absorbed the fuse would be overloaded and burn out.
“This is a standard Void shield focusing device. The ones onboard the Leviathan are pretty much the same, slightly more efficient transistor layout. I’d say these are able to absorb about two percent more punishment before burning out. That doesn’t sound like much, but when you take into account that there are several thousand more slots than any dreadnought, that two percent multiplies itself really fast.” The young unicorn fiddled with his controls and the image changed to the spinal configuration of the ship’s shields.
“Right now we’re operating at about a third of our Void capability. Only some of the slots were filled for stress testing. I’m guessing the reason we don’t have full Voids is the same reason we don’t have any ammunition. The civs were pouring everything they had into finishing the ship. Every bit of their mining effort was focused purely on getting the materials they needed for making components, not ammo or expendable shield parts.”
“Hold on a second.” Rosethorn held up a hoof. “Isn’t anypony else wondering how in Luna’s name we got here so fast? Is this Leyline drive really that powerful?”
“Doctor Abacus can probably answer that better than I can, but I believe I can explain it somewhat.” answered Winter Reverie. “From what I gathered from her explanation of it, Leylines are similar to the naturally forming jump pathways between the gravity wells of stars. They’re like rail lines that ship jump drives travel along. She said that using the Leyline requires a special isotope to fuel the drive system so it must require an exponentially larger amount of energy to breach the gap between normal space and the Leyline.”
“Ah, and from that we can infer that with a greater energy requirement comes a greater cumulative speed.” finished Acrylic.
“And that’s just from normal use. We were extremely deep in the cataclysmic variable’s gravity well and required that much more power and fuel to activate the drive, sending us farther, and getting us there faster.” Viola added to her brother’s assessment. Winter Reverie nodded once again.
“I suspect that the only reason we stopped is because we ran out of isotope. Abacus did make her calculations under rather stressful conditions. That also means we’re limited to normal jump drives until we get more of that isotope. At least they had the foresight to include normal jump capability.”
“Speaking of the civies, what’re we going to do about them?” Questioned Nightingale from the floor.
“Depending on-“ Winter started, but stopped when Crystal Flourish sent him a message. He put his helmet back on long enough to read what she had sent. With a perturbed ‘Mmm’ he removed his head piece again. “Well, I was going to say it would depend on where we are, but it seems Crystal managed to do an isolated star recognition through the Vengeful Omen. Ninety-nine percent probability that we’re in the system designated Z-765.
“We’re three jumps away from the nearest settled star system. That’s the good news. The bad news is we ended up on the opposite side of Solar Empire space.” There was a chorus of angry sounds and grimaces all around. “As I said, we were lucky we ran out of fuel when we did, or else we would have ended up even further away. There’s little choice now in regards to the civilians we have aboard.
“If we’d somehow been lucky enough to exit close to Republic space we could have just babysat them, or maybe have a few of the engineers help us with repairs and calibrations. Now though, we’re going to have to draft as many of them as are willing. Really, right now they’re all in shock at what happened, but soon that shock will wear off and depression will set in if we don’t set many of them to work.”
“Commander, if Abacus is on board with us, the rest of them should follow. Under such exigent circumstances the civies will follow her lead.” suggested his second.
“I’m sure the concept of combat pay will appeal to them. I’ll bring it up when we’ve got the ship working again.”
***
Abacus replaced the panel on the console and recalled her spider helpers. There was a small cheer as the Leviathan’s anti-matter engines reignited. The lighting switched from the angry red of emergency backup to full illumination. She stood up, stretching her legs after six hours crouched on the floor, her knees and neck joints cracking as her cartilage shifted.
The mare had reduced the Leviathan’s stage one reset to only six hours, restoring enough systems to restart one of the reactors. Abacus had built the control routines herself and knew enough backdoors and command shortcuts that through her guidance the stage two reset was already started. Really, it was just a waiting game. One reactor was just enough to power all the essential systems and take stress off the emergency generators.
In a very detached way she left the bridge and wandered the halls. Abacus hardly noticed the look the pegasus standing near the command throne was giving her. Crystal Flourish was a much lighter purple than Abacus, the scientist a deep indigo with an even deeper fuchsia streaked mane.
Her long tail and the edges of her white coat dragged dejectedly along the floor. She was exhausted down to her bones. Breaking down that much coding so quickly had given her a splitting headache that throbbed with every step. Her body still ached from the tension caused by her near-death experience.
A corner of Abacus’s mind was actually grateful for the exhaustion and the pain. It staved off the sorrow, the emotional trauma of seeing so many of her colleagues being swept away into nothingness. She had been prepared to finish her work on the Leviathan, bear witness to its first jump back into Republic space, and watch safely from a station window as it headed off to end the war.
She was not a soldier, and was not conditioned to deal with the realities of combat, the harsh, unforgiving hand of fate and random variable of battle. Now she and all of her science and engineering teams were trapped aboard their creation, lost on the opposite end of Imperial space, and so far from home it seemed an impossible distance. For a while the mare simply walked, unable to do anything else.
Abacus walked because she didn’t want to stand still, didn’t want to stop and think. Soon though, the weight in her heart outweighed the will to put one hoof in front of the other. She had pushed her grief, her trauma to the back of her mind through the need of self-preservation. Now that the unicorn was out of immediate danger, and so alone in the Leviathan, her walk faltered.
Not a single other living soul had passed by her, most of the civilians having stayed near their boarding point, unsure of what to do, while the few actual Republic service ponies had too much to do and were all busy in essential parts of the ship. So she felt no shame in crawling into an engineering nook, replete with a console and access to power conduits, and breaking down weeping. At first she sat on her haunches and cried into her hooves. Soon the sorrow was too much and she simply laid on her side and let the tears flow in the artificial gravity.
The mechanical spiders that followed her obediently were confused and lost with their mistress in such a state. The tiny AIs scurried about her in worry, reading the fluctuating biological readings from the mare. They sensed her body temperature, heart rate, and other vitals, seeing the enormous stress her whole body was suffering. A few waved their tiny legs and clambered over each other to try and get her attention. The largest, a Tarantula model tried to carefully wipe away the tears to little success. Another pair was sending tiny electrical shocks into her leg muscles to relax them and ease her suffering.
All of their ministrations were to little avail, and they eventually came together to try and come up with a solution together. One of them, a Black Widow prototype proposed the model of the partially mechanical pony it had examined earlier, the others recalling the smooth cybernetic components and the power armor. Finding such a pony agreeable to seek for assistance, they tapped into the Leviathan’s working systems to locate him.
After a few micro cycles of processing, the group of artificial arachnids found his suit’s signature and the Black Widow volunteered to go retrieve him while the others continued to attend to their mistress.
***
Winter Reverie reviewed the information on the table before him. He had stayed in the conference room after the others of his power armor team had left, content to work in the peace and quiet afforded by the isolation in the sparsely populated ship. He bounced messages back and forth with Crystal Flourish occasionally, coordinating with her and the others of his team to situate his crew in their new tasks. It also gave him time to come up with a plan regarding what their new course should be.
While he didn’t necessarily like the Leviathan, preferring the familiar comfort of his own Assault Cruiser, he understood that it was a powerful weapon indeed capable of performing the balance tipping that had been promised. His mission was now to get it and the ponies aboard it home to Republic space safely. He plotted various courses through the star map and pushed it aside in frustration.
A straight shot would take them through so many Imperial systems they would run the gauntlet of over half of the Solar fleets along the way. Avoiding all the enemy occupied stars was next to impossible without lengthening their journey by hundreds of light years through either unsettled, unknown space, or through space belonging to other races among the stars. They would have to come to terms with the nomadic Zebras, the Griffin Kingdom, and even deal with the Diamond Dogs and their territories. Those were the big three powers besides the ponies, who dominated known space. They had stayed out of the war for the most part, avoiding backlash if the side they supported lost.
Food was going to be a concern soon as well. With so many additional passengers and only the Vengeful Omen’s supply to draw on, their rations would be consumed very quickly. Being forced to abandon The Cradle had meant leaving behind the resources still not aboard the Leviathan. Time was a factor in many ways. The Republic had been counting on the Leviathan ending the war quickly, every battle becoming more and more of a gamble against the Solar Empire’s size and fleets.
They would have to make all possible haste, hopefully gathering perhaps enough of the isotope to use the Leyline drives again. Winter Reverie was impressed though as he read through the Leviathan’s mining and production capabilities. The ship’s onboard manufacturing bays had access to numerous blueprints and connected to resource bunkers that could be easily filled by a suite of mining bays, drones, and even a few gravity tethers the ship had to crack open the rich metals and minerals found in asteroids. Virtually everything they needed in a non-organic sense could be obtained or built.
The Lunar Republic did employ mobile repair and production ships for large fleets on the move, but the Leviathan put them all to shame. He could even go down a list of the blueprints and prioritize what was most important and the systems would automatically generate necessary material listings for the ship’s scanners to locate in any asteroid belt or gaseous formation in proximity. Winter was so caught up in learning everything he could about the Leviathan, lost in all its potential, that he almost didn’t notice the door to the conference room opening a crack.
The Commander looked up curiously, expecting to see perhaps a civilian pony who had lost their way. Instead he saw nothing, raising a brow at the phantom intruder. Then his expression changed one to even greater incredulity as one of Abacus’s spider bots climbed up onto the extremely long table. Winter was at the far end, so it had a long way to scuttle. Tirelessly though, it worked its eight legs forward, soon enough resting just beyond the digital windows the Commander had open.
“Yes? What is it?” He asked the mechanical arachnid, closing what he had been working on, mentally bookmarking his place in the information. When the spider only raised its front two legs and waved them emphatically he found a bit of irritation creeping in. Winter examined the thing closely, expecting perhaps the scientist had attached a message to her little helper. Begrudgingly he admitted that it was a fine piece of technology, the shiny black outer coating hiding an immensely powerful microprocessor. He wondered though at the significance of the crimson hourglass on its abdomen, not being very familiar with terrestrial creatures.
The Black Widow jumped twice, the tips of its legs clacking softly on the smooth finish of the table.
“What do you want Abacus? We actually need to talk, you know. Are you there?” Winter had expected the spiders to be installed with some kind of receiving and transmitting device, but it only hopped again, its shining ruby eyes staring at him intently. It scuttled once back towards the door, pointing with one of its legs towards it and turning back towards the soldier. He only raised a brow in question. The spider raced forwards and gave his armored hoof resting on the tabletop a desperate pull.
“You want me to follow you? Are you serious?” The Black Widow was very serious and bobbed the front of its body in its best approximation of a nod. With a rather annoyed groan, Winter stood and followed the spider as it skittered joyously in front of him.
***
When Abacus could cry no more, when the wretchedness had wrung her dejected body like a sponge, the desire to find a bed and sleep wormed its way into her. She rose to her hooves, her mind and body placid in the numbness of her passing hopelessness. Having built a good deal of the Leviathan, she knew its halls and corridors with the intimacy of a lover. The mare had spent so many hours designing and crafting, the map she had in her head even had exact measurements. Three hundred meters to the right, another one hundred and seventy-five up, and a final twenty to the right would take her to the nearest stateroom.
There she could slumber in guaranteed solitude and let her mind drift. Along the way she nearly succumbed to another fit of weeping, but the promise of rest carried her on. Her entourage crawled quietly behind her, sending updated coordinates to their fellow spider that was afield.
After a small eternity of miserable trudging, Abacus opened the door to the stateroom, locked it behind her, and fell onto the bed. Her horn gave off a feeble bluish glow that levitated her glasses to the bedside table and rolled more on top of the covers, comfortable enough in her lab coat. The room was fairly simple, with a bed, an empty dresser, a small private bathroom with a shower, and a personal terminal and meeting table for four.
She knew all this without even looking; she had designed it after all. Her spiders sat together on the edge of the bed in a worried huddle, unsure if they could assist their mistress in any way.
Even as she lay there, exhausted and to some extent comfortable on the soft mattress, sleep still eluded the mare. Her mind was a jumble of the code she had been sifting through for the past few hours, the haunting look of the ponies that had died in front of her and various concerns regarding the present situation the Leviathan was in. Soon she was tossing and turning, trying to find the perfect position of comfort that would at last allow her to drift off. Frustrated, she rolled onto her back in a spread eagle pose.
Oddly enough, a word of advice from one of her mare colleagues came unbidden to her mind. This wasn’t the first time Abacus had had an intensely stressful day and difficulty sleeping afterwards. Her friend had suggested a rather natural way to relieve tension and get to sleep. The unicorn blushed and found herself tingling slightly between her spread legs.
She let out a coo as she reached down to gently grind herself against a hoof, however her muscles were sore and the discomfort offset the good feelings to an unacceptable degree. Although it made her blush intensify, she reached out with her magic and wrapped up one of her spiders. Abacus brought it to her lips and whispered softly to it. A tiny hum filled the air as it obediently began to pulsate.
The mare let out a whimpering cry of desire as she pushed the vibrating abdomen of the tiny bot against her hidden pleasure button.
***
Winter Reverie followed the Black Widow for quite a while, winding a confusing path through many side passages or engineering corridors. They were in fact making good time, the mechanical spider just able to keep ahead of the power armored pony’s walk. Reverie kept his mind occupied with what he would propose to the mare. He knew that he been rather rude to Abacus up until that point and needed to be more cordial if they were going to be stuck on the same ship.
Her skill was undeniable, and she had saved the ship with her quick thinking, so she deserved his respect. He was wording out the most polite ways of speaking and decided it would be best to just get straight to the point. The unicorn kept his helmet off, thinking it would be better to speak face to face.
After a considerable distance of trekking, they came to a wing of the Leviathan where several staterooms lined the hall. The Black Widow scuttled over to the nearest one and climbed straight up the vertical surface, clinging to it with micro static charges. It ran in a circle once and looked up expectantly at Winter.
The Commander walked to the door and knocked a few times, however the door was too thick for such a vibration to carry through it, armored as it was against decompression. Next he tried the chime, but it was not one of the designated essential systems restored by the one working reactor. The spider jumped from the door onto Winter’s back, silently urging him on. When Abacus didn’t answer the non-functional chime or his unheard knocks he simply teleported past the door.
Reverie’s eyes adjusted almost instantly to the darkness and spotted the mare enjoying her personal time. His mind screeching to a halt as he got one good look at her in the midst of her activity.
“Ah! Ah! Ah!” She cried nearing her climax, which turned into a scream of fright as she saw Winter Reverie appear in a teleportation flash.
“OhdearsweetLuna.” He sputtered and immediately teleported back to the other side of the door. It had all transpired over the course of three point two seconds according to the Black Widow’s internal clock, which was now quite confused as to why the cybernetic pony had teleported in only to come right back out. Winter Reverie stood frozen in place as his mind struggle to resume normal function.
She’s cute without her glasses. Was the one coherent thought he could manage.
Abacus meanwhile immediately jumped up from her bed, quickly turning off the oscillation and wiped her fluids off the lightly glistening spider. In perfect, abject horror, she hastily straightened her white coat and took a few deep breaths before unlocking and opening the door. Winter Reverie stood with an equally schooled expression and acted as a gentlecolt and pretended not to have seen anything.
“Forgive my intrusion, doctor Abacus, your little friend here wouldn’t say why it wanted me to come and I must profess I was slightly worried when you didn’t answer.” He said formally, indicating the Black Widow on his back and unable to quash the mental picture of Abacus furiously servicing herself. The mechanical spider was filled with a sense of pride that it had succeeded in its mission and joined its fellows as they chattered together excitedly.
“Oh my… yes, please… do come in,” Responded the scientist, unable to look at anything other than his hooves as her cheeks blazed. She trod back and sat at the table in the stateroom, pointedly not looking at him. Winter Reverie took a few steps in and felt stirrings within him as the mare’s scent suffused the air strongly, invading his nostrils. He took a few deep breaths of his own and only succeeded in sampling the fragrance further.
Stiffly, he sat across from the mare as she intently studied the table between them. For a hair’s breadth of a moment, she considered how much better it would be if she had a partner to help her ‘relax’.
“So, I… uh, need to speak with you about… y’know, the other civilians.” He started falteringly, but gained confidence as he spoke. “We’re a far way from home and it’s almost certain we’ll be faced with combat situations. Now, I know you’re civilians but we need everypony working together if we want a chance at survival. You’re sort of the leader of the civilians. You lead the construction of the Leviathan so they’ll follow you in whatever you decide.”
“Yes, umm… I know we’re in a bad way. We burned through about five years of collected isotope with that jump. We’re out. There’s more stockpiled in the Var system, so we just need to find enough to make that far of a jump. The cataclysmic variable was one of the best sources, but it doesn’t have many uses so there’s no real demand for it.” She found the conversation distracting from the frustration in her nethers.
“There’s plenty of work to do now so let’s focus on getting the rest of the reactors back online so we can start making our way towards the nearest jump point. There are only two in this system and only one will take us back towards Republic space. We’re going to have to go through at least some Imperial systems if we want to get there without going light years out of our way. We’ll have to gather resources as we go.”
“Yes, the Leviathan isn’t in great shape. I’m sure that most of The Cradle team will agree to help as best they can. I’ll see to it when we get home that they receive combat pay. I’m sure that will please most of them. It’s not like we have much choice in the matter…” She said, the tingly feeling smoldering to ashes in her loins at the thought of their predicament.
Winter’s suit chimed.
“Excuse me just a moment.” He donned his helmet once again to read Crystal’s mute communication, part of him grateful that it shielded him from the arousing perfume still lingering.
‘Get to the bridge now. There’s something you have to see.’
He pulled off his head gear, concern clearly written across his features. Abacus forgot the awkwardness between them.
“What’s wrong? Did something happen?” Winter put on a false smile.
“I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about, but I need to get to the bridge. We’ll talk later.” The Commander wasted no time and teleported straight to the main deck. He met Crystal Flourish’s gaze and she indicated him to take the throne. She called up an image onto his console that was identical to the one on the main screen. They were the only ones on the bridge, the rest of his crew either sleeping or busy helping get the rest of the Leviathan in working order. After all, the only working sensors were aboard the Vengeful Omen, so that’s where the standing bridge compliment was at the moment.
Crystal had managed to piggyback some of the Leviathan’s sensors off the Omen’s power supply and was running thorough sweeps of the system they were in. The display was focused on one particular region of space surrounding the jump point they were hoping to go to. Winter Reverie examined it carefully, trying to sift through the different readings.
“Are those… ships?” Asked Abacus, having easily guessed where Winter Reverie had gone, and teleporting behind him. She once again had her glasses on and her spiders nestled in her mane, back, or her coat pockets.
“Yes, it’s a graveyard. And if we want to get to that jump point, we’ll have to go through it.”
(Author’s notes: I hope everyone enjoyed the rather ‘softcore’ scene of Abacus having fun, it was fun to write, and interestingly enough slightly more difficult than full on erotica, straddling that edge and all… Anywho. Hope you enjoyed this latest chapter! Don’t worry about Fire Ghost! I’m just… busy, and NLR is easier to write at the moment. Don’t ask me why.)