Chapter 26: Chapter 25 – Purifying

It was the binary star system, where the Vogh and the Gynkwhon’s swarm clashed against each other. In the end, the latter’s numbers won out and achieved a victory. A pyrrhic victory, but a victory nonetheless. The space was littered with thousands of derelict, destroyed ships, the remnants of the Vogh’s defensive stations and the wreckage of two side’s fleets. From the Astropath, new ships of the bugs were arriving, slowly occupying their new territory, gobbling up the destroyed ships like snacks. It was amongst this when a previously unknown, undetected Astropath opened up, right at the middle of the star system. It was leading to this place from the galactic core and an 800 meters long ship flew out of it. It was completely silver, looking like a droplet of mercury. It had no windows, no visible engines yet it was moving forward with incredible speed.

 

“We have arrived.” A stoic, male voice echoed out on its bridge. Its owner was a tall man, looking like a human. The only difference was his skin, which was ashen in color. He had no hair and the surface of his body was dry as a desert. His age was indiscernible both from his voice or from his appearance. He had a plain, white robe around his body, concealing his thin figure for the most part.

 

The vessel’s bridge crew only numbered four people. All of them were standing at different points, holding onto a smooth, metal ball, floating in the air before them. Two others were looking like the one who just spoke, while the final member was Finis. They had no real machinery on board, so to speak. There were no screens, projections of information or anything at all, besides the metal balls. The walls and the floor were bright and white, as if they were standing in the endless light itself. Finis was occupying the spot in the middle, his eyes closed, holding his own metal sphere between his fingers.

 

“There are traces of… something.” Finis said, unsure of what they found yet. The Astropath behind them already closed up and was gone, no scanners could even detect it anymore. 

 

“We are being approached.” Another man spoke up yet his voice was the same as the first one who spoke. 

 

“Destroy them.” Finis ordered without a care as his senses were occupied by something else.

 

His servants immediately went and executed his orders. The white sip changed its course, heading towards the approaching Gynkwhon ships. Before they could fire, they found their biomass simply disintegrating. Their hulls were turning into dust, scattering away, same with their molecules. Those who were piloting the ships only had a brief thought before falling apart, dissolving or just crumbling into separated body parts. What the tear-shaped ship had left behind was floating pieces of matter and nothing more. 

 

While Finis was scanning the whole system, gathering traces of feelings, residue, anything that was left behind by Omega’s presence, his ship was annihilating the Gynkwhon’s forces. The bugs finally found out, for the first time ever, that they are capable of feeling fear. All their attempts at communication were jammed, their scanners jumbled. Some tried to flee, opening up an Astropath but none of them answered. No matter what they tried, they remained silent and closed. They were trapped.

 

“Their battle has contaminated this region of space.” Finis said, opening his red eyes a little. “I can’t pinpoint from where he came from and where he went. But he was here…” He murmured and although he seemed unbothered, deep inside he was boiling with a maddening rage that wanted to burst out.

 

“What are your orders, Master?” The third asked, also having the same voice as the previous two.

 

“We split up. All of you go through different routes and scout for his presence! When you find him, notify me and try to stall him from escaping!”

 

“Yes.” The trio answered as the inside of the ship suddenly separated. 

 

Looking at it from afar, it was like the droplet of mercury split into three, smaller drops. They all were heading towards a different Astropath, traveling away from the binary star system and only the original, now way smaller one remained. 

 

“As for this…” Finis said, closing his eyes once again, when he was left completely alone. “This has to be cleansed.” He uttered with a snarl.

 

For the remaining survivors, it was as if the end of time had come. The white ship started to turn completely black, going invisible in the darkness of space. Even worse, as it dimmed, so did the two stars. There was no explosion, no violent outburst of energy. The two stars simply were snuffed out like candles pinched by two fingers. What remained behind was a new, swirling black hole, consuming everything around itself. It was expanding the space it was occupying in reality at a speed that was even faster than light. The remaining Gynkwhon had no chance to survive as all of them were consumed. By the time the black hole had finished ‘eating’, nothing had remained in the star system. Not a single speck of matter. After Finis deemed that it was finally cleansed, it started to shrink at the same speed that it came into life. When it finally disappeared, Finis’s ship returned to view, the sole thing in this new void of space. He thought nothing about it, simply entered a different Astropath, leaving forever. 

 

Nobody knew what happened here and nobody would ever find out, turning it into a dreadful mystery. Into a tale of horror, passed down for generations to come. A system that was captured by the Gynkwhon yet when the Vogh arrived to recapture it… it was gone. No bugs remained, disappearing along with two stars, turning the system into a no man’s land. 

 

…

….

…..

 

“Prof, shouldn’t you sleep?” Axian yawned as she asked. 

 

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She was once Keshnar’s student and after her graduation, she was inducted into the Professor’s own science team. She was a short yet long woman. The reason was simple, her torso was that of a grown, mature woman, with tied up, black hair and golden, snake-like eyes. They were not the only things on her that were similar to a snake. She had a black, forked tongue and a python-like lower body, reaching two meters in length. It was curling up and around her right now, functioning as her own seat that she was leaning back on. Her fair face was lit up by the monitors before her as she turned towards the others.

 

The rest of the team was either sleeping on or under their tables, drooling and mumbling in their comatosed state. They were going at the encrypted data files for a week by now, with minimal rest allowed. The only two who were left standing in the end were Axian and Keshnar. The latter was still working tirelessly, jiggling his jelly-like figure happily. He had a dozen arms stretching out from his body, all working on different things at once. He was simultaneously going through encryptions, translations and hacking attempts. Not to mention coordinating manufacturing changes in things they already verified and were ready to implement. 

 

“Hm?” He asked, as his beady eyes rolled to the ‘back of his head’, looking at Axian. “I can regenerate quickly! Sleep is only needed if I am low on nutrients! Luckily, Mirian is a good student, she comes and feeds me every 6 hours.”

 

“You sound like some kind of exotic animal, Prof…” She murmured, stretching, deciding to stop for now.

 

“Science is life, my little egghead!” He laughed, full of energy. “The stuff we gained from this, is going to cut the cost of producing ships like the Veil in half!” 

 

“I heard about its previous mission.” Axian chuckled. “Good to know the thing we worked on does not fail, even when going against terrible odds!” 

 

“Of course!” Keshnar answered “If it was destroyed, it would have been the commanding officer’s fault! Hmf! By the way…” He stopped, dragging one of the screens on a flexible stand forward. “I wish we could have this!” He tapped at it with a tentacle.

 

“Hm? Is it the backpack?” Axian rubbed her eyes with the end of her snake tail. “The one that blew up?”

 

“Yes! It was capable of short-range teleportation! Imagine if we could reverse engineer it! We could get rid of shuttles for good! Without the actual thing here, reconstructing it is going to take much more time…”

 

“We would still have a problem, Prof…” Axian sighed, slithering close to him, pushing back the screen and bringing forward another that had the Suit of Ares’s main core. “This…” She tapped on it, frustrated.

 

“Yes… that is… problematic.” Keshnar agreed. “I wrote an algorithm that is currently going at the files, attached to its engine’s encryption… but by what we have now… I don’t think we have the technology to replicate it.”

 

“We first have to understand dark energy. But at least we have the proof for it!” Axian giggled. “Isn’t that great enough? Such a discovery alone is enough to make everyone in this room worthy of a Kaltazar’s Wisdom award!”

 

“Hah! I have two of those! They're worth jack shit!” Keshnar grumbled.

 

“Tsk… we also want one…” Axian grumbled at his dismissal. “I want to publish a paper about dark matter! I… We want some recognition too, Professor Keshnar!” 

 

“Okay, okay, fine!” He rolled his beady eyes, literally. “Write a paper and publish it as a group! Make it into your own discovery! Leave the Suit of Ares out of it! The more brains get together on this problem as to how to produce dark and anti-dark matter and refuel this Suit of Ares, the better! They don’t need to know about its existence yet! It is enough if the others also start working on it. We can enlist them without paying them, fufufuf~”

 

“Geez Prof, you really have no heart!” Axian siad, chuckling, shaking her head.

 

“Hmf! This again!” He scoffed, returning to his own thing. “After you lazybones finished basking in glory, I am going to be ready with handouts!”

 

“You mean?” She asked.

 

“I am going to set up manuscripts, schematics, plans, you name it. Your job is going to be to compile them into different parts, different purposes and under different names. Then we can send them out to our trusted friends and tell them to manufacture them precisely! Down to a T! If we do it part by part, with different corporations, we can mitigate the chances of getting sniffed out! I want to keep this as a secret as long as possible! Get the parts, fix up the Xanthe and get it into a perfect condition! Test out its capabilities to the max! Then we are really going to know what we have on our hands, hahaha!” He laughed going back to work with another added, extra zeal. He was already waiting for the day, it was brought back to glory and they could push it to the limit.

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