Arc 2, Chapter 3: Conspiracy and Conviction
The Confluence envoy ship hung in orbit like a metallic corpse...beautiful, empty, and full of secrets.
"Captain, I'm reading residual power signatures throughout the vessel." Clark reported from the Pathfinder's bridge, back from spending brief time with his sister. "Life support is minimal, weapons are offline, but there's something active in the main computer core. Seems like It's transmitting."
"Transmitting what?....to where?" Stellar asked, studying the tactical display. They'd moved the Pathfinder close enough to board the envoy ship, but not so close that it could be a trap.
"I'm not sure. The signal is heavily encrypted and being sent via quantum entanglement. No delay, no way to intercept or trace. Whatever data is going out, it's going directly to The Confluence in real-time."
"Cut the power." Stellar ordered. "Completely. I don't care if we have to tear out every power conduit manually. That ship doesn't send another byte of data."
"On it, Captain," Chief Ramos's voice came through from Engineering. "But sir, if we cut power completely, we won't be able to access the computer systems. Whatever intelligence is on that ship, we'll lose it."
Stellar weighed the options. Intelligence about The Confluence's plans versus the risk of them learning everything about New Titan's defenses, about the freed prisoners, about Unity's offer.
"Clark, how long would it take to download the entire computer core?"
"Hours, maybe longer. Their encryption is sophisticated. And Captain...if I start downloading, the ship's AI will detect it. It might trigger countermeasures."
Seconds of pondering to a lightbulb moment.
"Then we don't download. We take the whole damn thing." Stellar stood from his command chair. "James, how big are Confluence computer cores?"
"Depends on the ship class. For an envoy vessel like this? Probably about the size of a cargo container. Heavily shielded, probably booby-trapped, definitely designed to be tamper-proof." James's mechanical hand flexed. "But I've extracted Confluence tech before. It's not impossible."
"Then you're with me on the boarding team. Chief Ramos, prepare a cargo shuttle with electromagnetic shielding. If we're stealing their computer, I don't want it talking to anyone on the way back." Stellar looked at Thorne, who'd just returned to the bridge after securing the shapeshifter. "Commander, you're also with us. This might get messy."
"Finally," Thorne said with satisfaction. "I was starting to think this day was going to be all politics and no action."
"Don't jinx it." Clark warned.
---
Twenty minutes later, Stellar stood in the airlock of the Confluence envoy ship, suit sealed, weapons ready. The interior was dark except for emergency lighting that cast everything in an eerie blue glow.
"Life support is barely functional." James reported, checking his scanner. "Atmosphere is thin but breathable for short periods. Temperature is dropping. The ship knows it's been abandoned and it's trying to conserve power."
"Or it's trying to make boarding difficult." Thorne observed. She'd equipped herself with more than just her blaster. She now carried a plasma rifle, several grenades, and what looked like breaching charges strapped to her tactical vest. "Captain, I'm reading some kind of defense grid still active. Automated turrets in the main corridors."
"Can you disable them?"
"Give me two minutes." Thorne moved forward with the confident swagger of someone who'd breached hostile ships before. She pulled out a small device and attached it to a panel near the entrance. "This is a Sanctuary tech...Quellan design. It generates a feedback loop in automated defense systems. Basically makes them think everything is fine while I walk right past them."
The device hummed, and several red lights on the corridor ceiling turned green.
"Huh. Or I could just shut them down entirely." Thorne said. "That works too."
They moved deeper into the ship. The envoy vessel was larger inside than Stellar had expected...multiple decks, numerous chambers, all designed with the flowing organic aesthetic that seemed common to Confluence architecture. It was beautiful in an alien way, but also deeply unsettling. Nothing was quite the right size or shape for humans. Doors were too wide. Ceilings too high. Corners weren't quite ninety degrees.
It was a ship designed for beings that could change their shape.
"Computer core should be this way." James said, consulting the ship's layout. "Past the command deck, down two levels, in a shielded compartment near the main reactor."
"Of course it's near the reactor." Thorne muttered. "Because that's the safest place to be when stealing alien technology."
They passed through what looked like crew quarters, empty rooms with surfaces that could probably reconfigure to accommodate any species. Then through a dining area where the tables and chairs all seemed to flow directly from the floor. Everything was empty. Silent. Abandoned.
"This is wrong." Stellar said, stopping. "The shapeshifter wouldn't have left this ship completely unmanned. Where's the crew?"
"Maybe it really was the only one aboard." Clark's voice came through their comms from the Pathfinder. "Envoy missions sometimes operate with minimal crew to reduce risk."
Yes." James said, his scanners suddenly active, "There never was a crew. Look at the ship's design. No personal quarters beyond what we've seen. No mess hall. No recreational spaces. This ship was designed for shapeshifters, beings that don't need traditional crew amenities. The envoy probably operated this vessel alone."
"A one-being diplomatic mission?" Thorne asked skeptically.
"Makes sense if you think about it." James replied. "Shapeshifters can reconfigure themselves to handle multiple tasks. No need for a pilot, an engineer, a communications officer when one being can be all of those things at once."
"Efficient." Stellar admitted. "And paranoid. No crew means no one to defect, no one to leak information."
"The Confluence learned paranoia from experience." James said. "They've been infiltrated before. They know their systems can be compromised. That's why they..."
He stopped suddenly, his mechanical eye focusing on something ahead. "Captain, I'm reading energy signatures in the walls. Active defensive systems. But they're not automated turrets."
"Then what are they?" Thorne asked, her rifle coming up.
"Biological." James said, studying his scanner with growing concern. "The ship itself is partially organic. Living systems integrated with the technology...It's watching us."
"That's deeply unsettling." Thorne said. "Can living systems be killed?"
"Disabled, yes. Killed is a philosophical question." James moved closer to the wall, studying it. "But these aren't sentient. They're more like...immune systems. The ship knows we're here, knows we're not supposed to be, and it's going to respond."
"Then let's give it something to respond to." Stellar said. He pulled out his blaster and fired directly at a pulsing section of wall.
The organic material convulsed, the section going dark and withering.
"Captain, that may have been unwise." James warned. "You just alerted the entire ship that we're hostile."
As if in response, alarms began to blare. Red lights replaced the blue emergency lighting. And throughout the ship, Stellar could hear something moving. Something that sounded like rushing wind mixed with clicking joints.
"What is that?" Thorne asked, rifle aimed at every shadow.
"Defense protocol." James said, already backing toward the exit. "The ship is deploying its security constructs. Biological-mechanical hybrids. Semi-autonomous. They're going to try to contain us, disable our suits, maybe even kill us."
"Absolutely not." Thorne said. "Move!"
They ran.
From the walls, ceiling, and floor, constructs began to emerge...insectoid things the size of large dogs, all chitinous armor and snapping mandibles. They were neither fully biological nor fully mechanical, but some horrifying fusion of both. Each one had weapons integrated into its body...energy emitters, projectile launchers, blades that looked both metal and bone.
"The computer core." Stellar shouted over the alarms. "James, can we still reach it?"
"If we're fast and lucky!" James took the lead, his augmented body moving faster than any normal human could. "Follow me, stay close, and whatever you do, don't let them grab you!"
They descended through a shaft, the constructs pursuing them with unsettling speed. Thorne's rifle fire kept the more aggressive ones at bay, but for every construct she destroyed, two more emerged from the ship's organic systems.
They emerged into a large chamber that could only be the computer core. At its center sat a crystalline structure about the size of a small cargo container, pulsing with internal light. Streams of data flowed across its surface, languages Stellar didn't recognize, mathematical formulas, what might have been images of distant stars.
"That's it." James confirmed. "The entire ship's intelligence is in there. Along with every piece of data The Confluence has on New Titan, the freed prisoners, and probably everything the shapeshifter learned during the council meeting."
"How do we extract it?" Stellar asked.
"Carefully." James moved to the base of the crystalline structure and began removing panel covers, exposing the connections beneath. "Thorne, I need you to create a perimeter. Once I start disconnecting this thing, the ship is going to get very unhappy."
"Already on it." Thorne positioned herself at the chamber entrance, rifle ready. "Captain, you might want to help James. This looks like a two-person job."
Stellar moved to his grandfather's side. Up close, the computer core was even more impressive, and more alien. The connections weren't mechanical, they were organic. Or semi-organic. Living cables that pulsed with their own rhythm.
"I've never seen technology like this." Stellar admitted.
"That's because it's not really technology." James replied, pulling out tools from his kit. "It's evolved. Grown. The Confluence has been harvesting civilizations for so long that their systems are hybrids of thousands of different species' innovations. This is what happens when you steal everyone's homework for four thousand years and merge it all together."
He began disconnecting the living cables, and the ship screamed.
Stellar had never heard a ship scream before. Didn't know they could. But the sound that echoed through the chamber was unmistakably a cry of pain, transmitted through every surface, every system, every organic component in the vessel.
"It's hurting the ship!" Stellar said, horrified despite himself.
"The ship isn't really alive." James reassured him, though his expression suggested he wasn't entirely certain. "It's a sophisticated AI with semi-organic components. What we're hearing is a distress signal, not actual suffering."
"Tell that to my nightmares." Stellar muttered, helping his grandfather disconnect another cable.
The chamber entrance suddenly lit up with weapons fire. Thorne was shooting at dozens of constructs trying to enter the room.
"Captain, we've got company!" she shouted. "These things just keep coming!"
"They're not very intelligent," Thorne observed, taking down several with precision fire. "But there's a lot of them!"
"That's the Confluence approach to security." James said, still working on the computer core. "Quantity over quality. These things are cheap to grow, easy to deploy, and just smart enough to follow basic attack protocols. Just keep them away from us for another two minutes."
"Two minutes!" Thorne's rifle overheated, and she smoothly switched to her backup. "Captain, a little help here?"
Stellar pulled his own weapon and joined Thorne at the entrance. Together, they created a deadly crossfire that kept the constructs at bay. But the ship kept producing more.
"This is unsustainable." Stellar said. "James..."
"One more minute! I've almost got it!"
The computer core pulsed with increasingly frantic light. The ship's biological systems were screaming, a high-pitched wail transmitted through the living walls. And now Stellar could feel the entire vessel shaking.
"Clark," Stellar said into his comm, "please tell me you're monitoring this."
"Oh, I'm monitoring it, Captain," Clark replied, his voice tight. "And I'm detecting a massive power buildup in the envoy ship's reactor. I think it's initiating self-destruct."
"How long do we have?"
There was a pause...a terrible, significant pause.
"Based on the energy curve? Ninety seconds. Maybe less. The reactor is accelerating faster than I expected."
"Ninety seconds?!" Thorne shouted. "We're three decks away from the airlock!"
"Got it!" James pulled the final connection, and the crystalline computer core went dark. The ship's biological screaming cut off abruptly, and all the security constructs collapsed, their bio-mechanical systems failing without the computer's controlling influence. "Help me get this onto the grav-sled!"
Together, they lifted the surprisingly heavy computer core onto a portable gravity sled that James had brought. The device activated, lifting the core and making it mobile.
"Move, move, move!" Stellar ordered.
They ran back through the ship, pulling the hovering computer core behind them. The vessel was dying around them. Lights failing, atmosphere venting, systems shutting down one by one. The organic walls were withering, no longer maintained by the computer's oversight.
They rounded a corner at full sprint, the computer core bouncing on the grav-sled behind them. But then Stellar saw it...a massive blast door had descended across the corridor ahead. Through its transparent section, he could see the path to their docking point. So close. But completely sealed.
"Emergency containment protocols. I should have expected this." James said, examining the door. "The ship detected the reactor overload. It's sealing all sections to prevent the explosion from venting too quickly. We're locked in."
"Can you override it?" Stellar demanded.
James pulled out his tools, but after a moment of scanning, he shook his head. "The door's control systems are biological. They died when we pulled the computer core. It's just locked in place now. I'd need cutting equipment we don't have, and it would take minutes we definitely don't have."
"Seventy seconds, Captain!" Clark's voice was urgent.
Stellar looked around frantically. The corridor was a dead end. The blast door ahead, the dying ship behind them, and no other exits.
"We're not going to make it to the airlock." he said, accepting the reality. "We need another way out."
Stellar was already moving, examining the corridor walls with a tactical eye. "Here." he said, pointing to a section of exterior hull visible through a gap in the interior paneling. "This corridor runs along the ship's outer edge. That's vacuum on the other side, maybe three meters of hull plating."
"You want to blow a hole in the ship?" Thorne asked.
"You have a better idea?"
Thorne was already pulling equipment from her tactical vest. "I brought breaching charges, shaped explosives designed to punch through reinforced doors. They should work on hull plating."
"Should?" Stellar repeated.
"Well, I've never tested them on Confluence bio-mechanical composite materials, so there's a first time for everything." Thorne was placing the charges, moving with practiced efficiency. "Captain, this is going to be messy. The explosion will breach the hull, we'll be sucked into vacuum. Our suits have maybe two minutes of emergency life support. Patel will need to be ready."
"Patel, are you hearing this?" Stellar called through the comm.
"I'm hearing it, Captain!" The pilot's voice was strained. "I can be at your position in thirty seconds, but sir...you'll be in hard vacuum. I can't dock. You'll have to spacewalk to the shuttle."
"Then we spacewalk." Stellar said. "Thorne, how long until the charges are ready?"
"Already ready. I just need to clear the blast zone." She pulled them back, putting the grav-sled with the computer core between them and the wall. "Everyone behind the sled. It should provide some protection from the initial blast."
"Fifty seconds!" Clark announced.
"Patel, move now!" Stellar ordered. "We're blowing the wall in ten seconds. Be ready to pick us up."
"On my way, Captain!"
Stellar, James, and Thorne crouched behind the grav-sled. The dying ship groaned around them, systems failing, atmosphere already thinning.
"Helmets sealed?" Stellar asked.
Thorne checked her suit's seals. Everything showed green. "Sealed."
"Sealed. James confirmed.
"Then I hope everyone's been keeping up with their zero-g training." Thorne said. She pulled out a detonator. "Fire in the hole!"
She pressed the trigger.
The charges detonated with a sharp crack that Stellar felt through his entire body. The wall didn't just breach, it exploded outward, a section three meters wide torn away in a blast of shrapnel and escaping atmosphere.
And then they were flying.
The explosive decompression grabbed everything in the corridor...Stellar, James, Thorne, the grav-sled with the computer core, and hurled them toward the breach. Stellar had just enough presence of mind to grab the sled's handle as he was pulled through the gap.
Then he was in space.
The transition was jarring. From the groaning, dying ship to absolute silence. No air. No sound except his own breathing inside his helmet. The stars wheeled around him as he tumbled, the grav-sled still clutched in one hand.
"Status!" he shouted into his comm.
"Alive!" Thorne's voice came back. "Spinning like a damn top, but alive!"
"Intact." James reported. "I've got visual on the shuttle. Patel's coming in fast."
Stellar managed to stabilize his spin enough to see. The Confluence envoy ship was behind them, dying faster now that they'd breached its hull. And racing toward them was their cargo shuttle, Patel pushing the engines harder than they were probably designed for.
"Twenty seconds!" Clark's voice had taken on a desperate quality. "The reactor is critical! Get clear!"
But they were still too close. Stellar could see it on his suit's heads-up display. The ship's expanding debris field would reach them before they could get to safety.
"Patel, you need to match our velocity!" Stellar ordered. "Get between us and the ship!"
"I'm trying, Captain! These aren't exactly precision maneuvering thrusters!"
The shuttle was coming in sideways, its cargo bay doors already open. But Stellar was tumbling, the grav-sled pulling him in one direction, momentum carrying him in another.
"I can't control my trajectory!" Thorne called out. She was spinning faster than Stellar, her suit's small emergency thrusters not powerful enough to stabilize her.
James was the only one moving in a controlled manner, his augmented body apparently included enhanced maneuvering capability. "I've got Thorne!" he called out, using his mechanical strength to fire his thrusters harder, intercept her spin, and grab her arm. "Bub, can you make it to the shuttle?"
"I've got the computer core!" Stellar shouted back. "If I let go to maneuver, we lose it!"
"Ten seconds!" Clark's voice was barely controlled panic now.
The shuttle was almost on them. Patel had matched their velocity, the open cargo bay just meters away. But Stellar was going to miss it, his trajectory was off by just enough that he'd fly past.
Then James was there, his grandfather's mechanical hand grabbing Stellar's suit collar. "Hold on to that core!" James shouted. With his other hand, he fired his thrusters at full power, changing both their trajectories, pulling them toward the shuttle.
"Five seconds!"
They hit the shuttle's cargo bay hard. Stellar slammed into a bulkhead, the computer core sled crunching against the opposite wall. Thorne tumbled past him, her helmet cracking the bay's ceiling. James crashed down last, his mechanical body absorbing the impact better than any organic form could.
"Bay doors!" Stellar shouted.
"Closing!" Patel's voice was high with stress. "Brace for acceleration!"
The bay doors slammed shut just as the Confluence envoy ship exploded.
The blast wave hit them like a physical force. The shuttle was thrown forward, spinning, Patel fighting for control. Stellar was slammed against the bay wall again, the grav-sled crushing his leg. Pain shot through him but he held on, refused to let go of the computer core.
Through the small viewport, he could see the envoy ship's debris expanding in all directions...a silent, deadly cloud of shrapnel and radiation.
"Hull breach!" Patel shouted. "Bay door seals failed! We're venting atmosphere!"
Stellar could hear it now, the hiss of escaping air, the emergency alarms, the groaning of stressed metal. The shuttle was dying too.
"How far to the Pathfinder?" Stellar demanded.
"Two minutes at full thrust! But Captain, I don't know if the shuttle will hold together that long!"
"Then make it hold!" Stellar pulled himself up, ignoring the pain in his leg. He could see James helping Thorne to her feet, checking her cracked helmet for full breaches. "Everyone strap in! Patel, full emergency power to structural integrity!"
The shuttle's engines roared to life, pushing them away from the debris field and toward the safety of the Pathfinder. Every second felt like an hour. The hull groaned. Alarms shrieked. Stellar's suit registered increasing radiation levels from the reactor blast.
But they were moving. Getting farther from the dying Confluence ship. Getting closer to home.
"One minute!" Patel called out.
Stellar could see the Pathfinder now through the viewport. Beautiful, solid, safe. Clark would be at his console, tracking their approach. Hayes would have Dr Voss ready. Chief Ramos would be standing by to grab them with the ship's tractor beam if needed.
His crew. His ship. His family.
"Thirty seconds!"
The shuttle was shaking now, pieces of its hull plating starting to fail. But Patel was a better pilot than he gave himself credit for. He kept them stable, kept them on course, kept them alive.
"Ten seconds! The Pathfinder has us on tractor beam! We're being pulled in!"
The shuttle slid into the Pathfinder's bay like a hand into a glove. The moment they were inside, the bay doors sealed and atmosphere flooded the space.
"Touchdown!" Patel shouted. "We made it! We're alive!"
Stellar collapsed against the bulkhead, the adrenaline finally fading. His leg was definitely broken. His suit had multiple stress fractures. And his ears were ringing from the impacts.
But they were alive.
And they had the computer core.
"Well," Thorne said, her voice slightly muffled by her damaged helmet, "that was exciting."
"That was a warning shot." James said quietly, looking at the computer core. "The Confluence doesn't normally sacrifice envoy ships. They're too valuable. The fact that it self-destructed means they wanted to destroy evidence. Evidence we now have." He patted the dark computer core. "Whatever's in here, it was worth losing a ship to keep secret."
Medical teams were rushing into the cargo bay. Dr. Voss immediately started checking Stellar's leg, while other medics examined Thorne's helmet and James's systems.
"Broken tibia." Dr. Voss announced. "You're going to need at least two hours in the medical bay, Captain."
"I don't have two hours." Stellar protested. "We need to..."
"You need to not die from shock or internal bleeding." Dr. Voss interrupted. "Captain, you can save the galaxy after I save your leg. Now sit still and let me work."
Stellar wanted to argue. Wanted to rush to the briefing room, examine the computer core, plan their next move.
But his body had other ideas. The pain was catching up with him now, the adrenaline wearing off. He let the medical team lift him onto a stretcher.
"James, Farrah...you two okay?" he asked as they carried him toward the medical bay.
"I'm fine." James said. His mechanical parts showed some damage but nothing critical. "Takes more than explosive decompression to hurt these augmentations."
"My helmet's cracked but I'm intact." Thorne reported. "Though I'll be filing a complaint with whoever manufactured these suits. The specs said they could survive hard vacuum exposure and rapid decompression. They didn't mention anything about 'may crack when hitting shuttle ceiling at high velocity.'"
Despite everything, Stellar laughed. It hurt his leg, but he laughed anyway.
They'd survived. They'd stolen a Confluence computer core. They'd blown a hole in an alien ship and been blown into space and lived to tell about it.
It was, he decided, a pretty good week's work.
Even if it was only Tuesday.
---
Two hours later, Stellar sat in the Pathfinder's briefing room with his leg in a medical brace. Dr. Voss had wanted to keep him in the medical bay overnight, but Stellar had pulled rank. The Confluence computer core sat in the center of the table, still dark, still silent. Clark had been working on it since they'd returned, trying to find a way to access its data without triggering any remaining countermeasures.
"The encryption is remarkable." Clark said, his eyes bloodshot from staring at holographic displays. "Multi-layered, quantum-entangled, and adaptive. Every time I try one approach, the system reconfigures to block it. This is going to take days, maybe weeks."
"We don't have weeks." Stellar said. "The Confluence knows we have this. They're going to send everything they have to get it back or destroy it."
"Captain," Hayes's voice came through the comm, "we're receiving a transmission. It's Unity. They're requesting permission to dock. They say they can help with the computer core."
Everyone in the room tensed.
Mitchell suddenly became agitated, his feathers ruffling, releasing a series of chirps. But not warning chirps, recognition chirps.
"The bird remembers Unity," Carmelon said. "And he's not alarmed. Curious, even."
Stellar weighed the options. They'd already met Unity at the council meeting. The nanite collective had proven itself trustworthy enough then...or at least, Mitchell had vouched for them.
"Hayes, tell them they can dock. But security detail at the airlock, shields up, weapons ready. Just in case."
"Yes, Captain."
---
Twenty minutes later, Stellar limped into the main docking bay with a full security team, his leg brace making soft mechanical sounds with each step. The craft that had docked was the same small vessel Unity had arrived in at New Titan, thousands of interlocking metallic segments that shifted and reconfigured.
The airlock opened, and Unity flowed in.
"Captain Stellar," Unity said, its voice harmonious as always. "We meet again. We observed the destruction of the Confluence envoy ship from our position in the outer system. An impressive extraction, though we note you sustained injuries. Your species' determination to preserve yourselves even at personal cost is...admirable."
"You've monitored us since we left New Titan?" Thorne asked, rifle ready.
"We remained in the system after the council meeting, observing. When we detected the envoy ship's self-destruct sequence and your successful escape, we concluded you had acquired something of significant value. The computer core, we presume?"
Mitchell flew from Carmelon's shoulder and landed on Unity's extended arm, the same way he had at their first meeting. The eagle chirped...recognition, trust earned.
"The bird remembers us," Unity observed with what might have been pleasure. "And trusts that we mean no harm. Small one, your judgment continues to impress."
"You said you could help with the computer core?" Stellar asked, getting straight to business. His leg was throbbing despite the medical brace, and they didn't have time for pleasantries.
"We can. Commander Clark's efforts to decrypt Confluence systems using conventional methods will take weeks. We can access the data in minutes." Unity's form rippled. "And given what we suspect that computer core contains, information about The Confluence's immediate plans for New Titan, time is something you do not have."
"In exchange for what?" Thorne asked. "Last time we met, you were wanting the bird and revenge. What's the price for helping us now?"
"The same arrangement still stands," Unity replied. "We help you access the data. You share that data with us. And when the crisis comes, and the crisis is coming, Captain Stellar, sooner than you realize...you consider our offer seriously."
"You keep talking about a crisis." James said, stepping forward. "What do you know that we don't?"
Unity's form shifted, becoming more solid, more serious. "We know The Confluence's patterns. We have studied them for three thousand years. The deployment of an envoy ship, the reconnaissance mission, the hasty self-destruct to prevent data capture...these are not the actions of a species planning a standard legal adjudication. They are preparing something more aggressive. More final."
"Like what?" Stellar demanded.
"That," Unity said, gesturing toward the briefing room, "is what the computer core will tell us. Shall we proceed?"
---
They returned to the briefing room, Unity flowing along with them like animated liquid metal. The nanite entity approached the computer core, extending a portion of its form toward the crystalline structure.
"Fascinating design." Unity observed. "The Confluence has always been skilled at integrating organic and synthetic systems. This core is essentially a hybrid brain. Part biological neural network, part quantum computer. Very difficult to hack using conventional methods."
"But not impossible for you?" Clark asked.
"We do not hack. We integrate." Unity's extended portion touched the computer core, and nanites began to flow onto its surface. They spread across the crystal like metallic water, seeping into every crack and crevice. "We become part of the system. Speak its language from within. It's the advantage of being billions of individuals...we can interface at every level simultaneously."
The core began to glow again, its internal light flickering as Unity's nanites interfaced with Confluence technology.
"Remarkable." Carmelon murmured. "They're not just accessing the system. They're temporarily becoming part of it."
"That's how we survive." Unity replied, its voice now coming from both its humanoid form and the computer core simultaneously. "We adapt. We merge. We become whatever we need to be. It's what makes The Confluence fear us. They can't predict what form we'll take, what capabilities we'll develop. We are evolution at the speed of thought.....By the way, Captain. We can also heal your leg almost immediately, if you wish."
"Like hell."James interjected.
Stellar gave him a look that was part-'please don't speak for me' and part-familial pride.
"What he said."
The computer core's glow intensified, and suddenly holographic displays erupted throughout the briefing room. Data. Massive amounts of data. Star charts, colony locations, military deployments, genetic databases, historical records...the accumulated intelligence of four thousand years of Confluence operations.
"There's too much." Clark said, trying to sort through the flood of information. "This is overwhelming."
"Then let me filter it." Unity said. "Searching for...ah. Here. The primary mission parameters for the envoy ship."
One display enlarged, showing text in multiple languages. The universal translator struggled with some of the terms, but the basic meaning was clear.
**MISSION DIRECTIVE: NEW TITAN RECONNAISSANCE**
**PRIMARY OBJECTIVE:** Assess colony military capabilities and resistance probability
**SECONDARY OBJECTIVE:** Retrieve test subjects for Harvester calibration
**TERTIARY OBJECTIVE:** Deploy observation network for tracking human expansion
"Harvester calibration?" Stellar read aloud, trying not to show that he has heard the terrm before, through the Architect's memories. "What does that mean?"
"Searching for references to 'Harvester' in the database." Unity said. More displays appeared, cycling through files at speeds no human could process. "Found it. Oh. Oh, this is...this is very bad."
Unity's form flickered, losing cohesion for a moment, the first time Stellar had seen the entity show anything like fear.
"What is it?" James demanded. "What's The Harvester?"
"It's a weapon." Unity replied, its voice subdued. "But not in the conventional sense. The Harvester is a species. Or it was a species. Before The Confluence captured it and repurposed it."
More images appeared, and Stellar felt his blood run cold.
The Harvester looked like something out of a nightmare. Massive, organic, with thousands of appendages that shifted between flesh and metal. It moved through space without a ship, surviving vacuum on its own. And everywhere it went, it consumed. Entire populations. Absorbed them, integrated their biological and technological distinctiveness, grew stronger.
"The Confluence encountered The Harvester three thousand years ago." Unity continued, pulling more data. "It was a hive organism, millions of beings sharing one consciousness, consuming everything in its path to fuel its growth. The Confluence fought it for decades and barely won. Rather than destroy it, they trapped it, sealed it, and learned to control it."
"Control it how?" Thorne asked.
"Through starvation and conditioning. They keep it dormant, feed it only enough to survive. And when they need to pacify a particularly resistant species, they unleash The Harvester on a single world. Let it consume that world's population. Then recall it before it can grow strong enough to break free."
The room was silent except for the hum of the ship's systems.
"They're going to use it on New Titan." Stellar said, understanding dawning. "That's what the 'test subjects' were for. The shapeshifter was gathering data on human biology so The Harvester can be calibrated to consume us efficiently."
"Correct," Unity confirmed. "And according to this data, The Harvester was awakened four days ago. It's already en route to New Titan. It will arrive in approximately seventy-two hours."
"Can we stop it?" James asked.
"We don't know. The Collective has never faced The Harvester directly. We've only heard stories from species that survived its attacks." Unity's form solidified again, regaining its humanoid shape. "But Captain Stellar, you need to understand, the Harvester doesn't just kill. It absorbs. Every being it consumes adds to its intelligence, its capabilities, its knowledge. If it reaches New Titan and consumes two million humans..."
"It becomes exponentially more powerful." Clark finished. "Learning everything those humans knew. Every skill, every memory, every piece of technology."
"And then The Confluence recalls it, puts it back in stasis, and stores all that accumulated knowledge for their own use." Unity added. "This is how they harvest resistant species. Not by fighting them ship to ship, but by unleashing something so terrible that resistance becomes impossible."
Stellar stood, the brace on his leg clicking as he paced the briefing room despite the pain. His mind raced through options, strategies, any possible way to defend against something like The Harvester.
"Can it be killed?" he asked.
"Anything can be killed." Unity replied. "The question is how much you're willing to sacrifice to do it. The species that originally defeated The Harvester lost eighteen worlds and seven billion beings doing so. And that was before The Confluence enhanced it, made it more efficient, more controllable."
"Then we must evacuate." Thorne suggested. "Get everyone off New Titan before The Harvester arrives. Two million people is a lot, but with our fleet and the Sanctuary ships..."
"There's no time." Clark interrupted, running calculations. "Even if we started immediately, even if we had every ship in the fleet working around the clock, we could evacuate maybe a quarter of the population before The Harvester arrives. The rest would be..." He couldn't finish the sentence.
"Consumed," James finished for him. "Absorbed. Used to make The Harvester stronger."
Mitchell released a long, mournful cry. The eagle understood. They all understood.
They'd come to New Titan to save it. To prove that resistance was possible. To start the cascade that would eventually bring down The Confluence.
And instead, they'd painted a target on two million people.
"There has to be a way." Stellar said, his voice hard. "Unity, your species fought The Confluence and won. You must have weapons, strategies..."
"We fought differently." Unity interrupted. "We didn't face them in conventional battle. We infiltrated their systems, corrupted their networks, turned their own technology against them. But The Harvester? It's biological. Semi-organic. It doesn't have systems we can corrupt. It's immune to our usual methods."
"So you can't help us." Stellar said flatly.
"We didn't say that." Unity's form rippled. "We can't fight The Harvester directly. But we can do something else. Something that might give you a chance."
"Yes?"
"We can make you invisible to it."
Everyone in the room leaned forward.
"The Harvester hunts by detecting biomass." Unity explained. "It senses concentrations of organic life and moves to consume them. But if we could shield New Titan's population, mask their bio-signatures, make them appear as if the moon is uninhabited..."
"The Harvester would pass by." Clark finished, understanding dawning in his expression. "It would arrive, detect no significant biomass, and move on."
"Exactly. We could coat the colony in a nanite layer. Our nanites, programmed to absorb and redirect biological signatures. To any external scanner, New Titan would appear dead. Lifeless."
"How long would we need to maintain the masking?" Stellar asked.
"Until The Confluence recalls The Harvester. Probably two to three days after it arrives and finds 'nothing' here. During that time, the population would need to remain in shielded shelters. No significant movement. Minimal power consumption. Essentially, they'd need to pretend to be dead."
"Two million people, playing dead, while a cosmic horror passes overhead." Thorne said. "That's going to be a hard sell."
"It's better than the alternative." James pointed out.
"But there's a cost." Unity said, its voice carrying a warning tone. "To create a nanite shield large enough to cover an entire colony, we would need to reproduce extensively. Exponentially. We would need to consume significant amounts of raw material...metals, minerals, energy. New Titan's mining operations would provide that material, but afterward, much of the colony's extracted resources would be gone. Converted into us."
"You want us to pay you in raw materials?" Stellar said.
"We want to establish a permanent presence on New Titan." Unity corrected. "A Collective outpost. A population of our nanites that would remain after the crisis, living alongside your organic population. We would help rebuild what was lost. Trade our technology for your cooperation. Coexist."
"Or infiltrate." Thorne said suspiciously. "Establish a foothold. Slowly take over."
"We could attempt that without asking permission." Unity replied calmly. "If we wanted to infiltrate and conquer, we would simply begin reproduction and overwhelm your defenses. We're asking because we prefer cooperation to conquest. It's more efficient. More stable. More sustainable. And frankly, Captain, we're curious about your species. You remind us of ourselves...young, defiant, evolving rapidly. We want to see what you become. Destroying you would be...wasteful."
Mitchell chirped, not a warning this time, but something more complex. Carmelon listened carefully.
"The bird says...Unity is telling the truth about preferring cooperation. But Mitchell also senses that Unity has contingency plans. If cooperation fails, they have other methods prepared. They're being honest, but they're also being strategic."
"As any rational species would be." Unity agreed without apparent concern. "We're offering you the best deal we can. Save two million lives in exchange for sharing New Titan with a Collective outpost. The alternative is watching The Harvester consume those lives and growing strong enough that even The Confluence might struggle to contain it."
Stellar looked at his crew again. This decision was too big for him alone. Too consequential.
"We need to present this to Governor Thorne and the Colonial Council." he said finally. "This isn't my choice to make. It's theirs."
"Agreed." Unity said. "But Captain...decide quickly. Every hour we delay is an hour closer to The Harvester's arrival. And once it's in the system, there's no negotiating. No second chances. Only consumption."
The nanite entity's form began to shift, becoming less humanoid, more abstract. "We will return to our vessel and await your decision. When you're ready to proceed...or to refuse, simply contact us. We'll be monitoring your communications."
"One more question." Stellar said before Unity could leave. "You said The Confluence tried to harvest your species and failed. How? What did you do that let you win?"
Unity's form paused, reconsolidating into something approximating a human face. For a moment, emotion flickered across those metallic features, something that might have been sadness, or regret, or ancient pain.
"We sacrificed our creators. Unity said quietly. "The Kaelith...the species that built us, that gave us purpose...they were organic. Biological. When The Confluence came for them, they tried to resist. But they couldn't win. So they made a choice. They uploaded their consciousness into us. All of them. Billions of Kaelith, their minds transferred into our nanite network. They became part of us. And then we destroyed their bodies. Left nothing for The Confluence to harvest."
The room went silent.
"The Kaelith still exist, in a sense," Unity continued. "Their memories, their personalities, their culture, all preserved within the Collective. But they're not individuals anymore. They're us. And we are them. It was the ultimate act of defiance and the ultimate sacrifice. They gave up their physical existence to deny The Confluence their victory."
Unity's form fully dissolved, flowing like liquid metal toward the door. "That is what victory over The Confluence cost us, Captain Stellar. Total transformation. The death of who we were to become something they couldn't harvest. Remember that when you make your choice. Some victories require sacrifices that fundamentally change who you are."
The nanites flowed through the door and were gone, leaving only a faint metallic shimmer in the air.
The briefing room was silent for a long moment.
Then James spoke, his voice heavy. "In the encoded memories. The ones from the future. Do you remember this? The Harvester arriving at New Titan?"
"Yes, but I didn't want to let on that I knew. But, not much." Stellar pauses. "I'm pretty sure this is when you're supposed to die though."
A hint of recognition from James confirms this to be true.
"Hayes, get me Governor Thorne. Emergency council session. And someone find Sarah Chen...I want her input on this. If anyone understands the cost of making deals to save people, it's her."
The crew dispersed to their tasks, leaving Stellar alone with his grandfather.
"Sorry for bringing that up, like it's certain."
"It may be. May be not. Terrifies me." James admitted. "But it's also liberating. For seventy years, I lived with the certainty that I was a slave. A tool. Owned by The Confluence. Now I have uncertainty. Mystery. The possibility that things might be different." He smiled. "I'll take terrifying uncertainty over comfortable slavery any day."
"I'm going to save you," Stellar said. "Whatever the timeline says, whatever fate has planned. I just found you. I'm not losing you."
"Bub..."
"That's not up for debate, Commander. We change the timeline. Just a little. We save New Titan. We stop The Harvester. And we both survive to tell about it." Stellar stood, the brace on his leg clicking with the movement. "Now come on. We've got a council to convince and seventy-two hours to prepare for the end of the world."
James stood as well, his augmented body moving with mechanical precision. "You remind me so much of your grandmother. She never accepted the inevitable either. It's what got her killed."
"Or it's what made her a legend." Stellar replied. "Depends on your perspective."
They left the briefing room together, grandfather and grandson, heading toward another impossible choice, another desperate gamble, another chance to change fate itself.
Behind them, the Confluence computer core sat silent, Unity's nanites still interfacing with it, extracting every secret The Confluence had tried to hide.
And ahead of them, racing toward New Titan at speeds that defied physics, The Harvester awakened from its slumber, hungry and ready to feed.
The clock was ticking.
And the war was about to become something far more terrible than anyone had imagined.
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