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Deathworlders Should Not Be Allowed To Date! 60
🕑 Added 2024-11-13 01:21:54 +0000 UTCLuna VI query: Set the source to the translation logs of Princess Amara Auralyn.
Certainly!
Luna VI query: Tell me how was the search for Argor.
***
Five days had slipped by since Argor was taken, with Nathan gone for three of those days, returning to the space station to board a human ship bound for Earth. Alone in the private meeting room of the Royal Palace, Amara sat at the head of the table, her gaze lingering on the empty chairs surrounding her.
Yelara, who had recently risen to the role of her first advisor, was tied up in ongoing discussions with the Elders and their clans. All had taken up residence in the Royal Palace for the time being. The death of Aldrinch, the first Elder in Amara’s lifetime to die a violent death, cast a dark shadow over them, a bitter reminder of their own vulnerability.
As her mind ticked off the seconds until her meeting with Sally, Amara’s thoughts could only linger on her actions in the recent past.
She had confronted her grief and sorrow, channeling those emotions to rally nearly all Irisians under her banner. She had ascended to a level of influence beyond that of her mother, and even her grandmother, who once ruled in the first years after Irisians joined the Alliance—a fleeting era of hope that had since dwindled into an individualistic society. Yet, despite the reverence of her people, Amara herself felt anything but powerful.
Her mentor was gone, her chosen was on a mission beyond her reach, and her son had been taken—from the very heart of the Royal Palace, in Caladris, the place meant to be the safest on Irisa.
Before Nathan drifted into her life, Amara had viewed all sentient beings beyond Irisa as weak and fragile, creatures who feared her kind for no real reason. She acknowledged their superior technology but clung to a belief that in every other respect, an Irisian held supremacy: stronger, faster, wielders of the final word in matters of life and death.
But with Nathan’s arrival, her worldview had slowly shifted. He was a being unafraid of her claws, one who could outmatch her strength and endurance. He was loud, the antithesis of stealth, but his other attributes had earned her respect. Time with Nathan had diluted her negative view of other sentient beings, nudging her toward a neutrality perhaps even tinged with respect, inspired by Nathan’s awe and curiosity about the universe’s diversity.
Recently, however, as she paced sleeplessly through the empty palace corridors every lonely night, her perception of those “frail” species who prided themselves on not being deathworlders had shifted once more.
Had Irisians hidden their claws for so long that others had forgotten their power?
Creatures who called them “Shadowlings” and claimed to fear them now dared to break Caladris's dome and challenge hers and her people’s sovereignty.
How dare they kill Aldrinch? How dare they take her son?
Had they forgotten where they stood in the food chain?
Perhaps it would be her legacy to remind them what it meant for an Irisian stealth ship to land on their worlds in twilight. The sight the next morning—when that ship was long gone—might be a powerful enough message for them to return her son on their own accord, with apologies on their lips.
When the silence of the meeting room pulled her back to the present, Amara glanced down at the skin of her arms, and her eyes widened with the sight of her own color.
Red.
It flowed among her black spots like a river of blood.
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and willed herself calm. Nathan was not here to calm her with his warmth, and Aldrinch wasn't here to advise her about the importance of temperance anymore.
Without looking, she was certain that gray had joined the red, but that was fine. There was no one here to see her.
As claws tapped on the table, the skin on the back of her hands slowly cooled to blue and black, and she found another self when her eyes opened—a fake facade that would serve her for the meeting.
Moments later, a pop-up window appeared in her view, Sally’s name filling the center. With a single thought, Amara accepted the connection, and Sally’s image materialized—a silver-haired human with glasses, typing away at her keyboard, obviously multitasking.
“Convincing your boyfriend to abandon his mission and head back to Earth was unwise, darling.” Sally spoke while typing, a familiar habit. “What you did might sour relations between our species.”
“He is my chosen.” Amara’s tone was firm, ignoring the implied accusation. It had been Nathan’s choice to return, and she was prepared to face the consequences once Argor was safe.
Sally paused, making Amara wonder if she’d been forgotten before the human woman finally continued, “I hope your people haven’t kept secrets about the missions you performed to the Alliance. Icaros is your best chance to find him, and any withheld records will only hinder its ability.”
Amara bristled at the scrutiny. She had ensured that every mercenary still living was found and interviewed, gathering tens of thousands of hours of recordings as they recounted their missions across Alliance worlds. Even Zaenvalor, with whom she had unresolved issues, had contributed his recordings.
“Rest assured,” she replied, voice even, “I personally oversaw the collection of every detail you requested, including the memory extractions that Ryo gave me.” She kept her skin from turning red, her dissatisfaction with Sally’s mistrust kept in check. “Though I would not be shocked if you already knew of my diligence, I have no way of knowing if your nanites still roam Irisa’s atmosphere, observing our every move.”
“If they were still active on Irisa, no kidnapping would have taken place, sweetheart.” Sally’s gaze met Amara’s for a brief moment. “You should thank Ivanov for using his influence to shield your kind from our ‘experimental weapons’; he sure made Irisa safer from our evil intentions.”
Amara’s eyes widened slightly as she considered that the abduction might have been prevented had humanity not held itself in check, making Irisa a neutral ground better than she ever could. She almost regretted not fully allying with Earth and baring the other from Irisa—a decision her mother and Aldrinch had once endorsed.
Still, she was painfully aware of the power disparity between Irisians and humanity. The disagreements among human factions had served to keep Irisa free, preventing any one force from claiming control—a balance she valued, especially after the several harvests of being fully suppressed by the Alliance.
“We can not change the past, but we can shape the future.” Amara’s eyes sharpened, even though Sally barely seemed to notice. “Tell me where my son is, and we will rescue him—with or without your assistance.”
Sally’s expression didn’t shift, her voice indifferent. “It’s not a question of willingness, darling, but strategy.” She looked Amara squarely in the eye through the virtual window. “The Global Union’s Defense Department weighed Icaros’s advice, and they’re not eager to start an open war with the Alliance. So, either there won’t be a war…or they’re waiting for the Alliance to make the first move.”
"I would not have expected a civilization as advanced as humanity to be so easily controlled by a machine of their own creation," Amara said, the notion of entrusting one’s fate to an AI unthinkable to her.
"You’ll understand once you see Icaros for yourself." Instead of explaining, another pop-up window appeared, prompting her to enter fully immersive virtual reality mode. Grateful for Nathan's guidance on her translator’s extra features, Amara accepted without fear, and the world around her blurred into a scene reminiscent of a spaceship bridge.
There were few controls, each surface deliberately subdued, crafted to fade into the background, ensuring the viewport commanded all attention. Spanning the entire wall, the viewport was a seamless glass wall that erased any boundary between her and the star beyond. Amara barely registered the artificial fluidity of her simulated movement; her gaze was transfixed by the sight before her.
A vast, spherical structure encircled the star, an immense construct composed of countless metallic squares, each meticulously fitted around the sphere. Scattered gaps between the tiles emitted piercing rays of reddish light, casting an intense, haunting glow. The tiles seemed to exude energy, laser-like beams flickering between them in constant flow, as if each module could communicate through light with the others around it. The entire structure hovered in perfect orbit, a modular titan cradling a star within its grasp.
Amara felt dwarfed by its sheer scale, a quiet awe settling over her.
“This is a virtual representation of Icaros,” Sally’s calm voice cut through her thoughts, appearing in a floating window. “In reality, you wouldn’t see visible light in the structure, nor could you distinguish the individual solar-powered computers from this distance. They’re so numerous that they appear as one continuous form.”
“As impressive as this is, you claimed I would understand humanity’s faith in this AI by seeing it.” Amara paused, still transfixed by the breathtaking sight. “But I still fail to understand.”
“You will when we peek inside Icaros’s imagination.” Sally’s voice hinted at something beyond the mere display. As she spoke, the viewport shifted, as if the perspective had leaped forward, accelerating through the structure and plunging inward, until a world startlingly familiar to Amara unfolded before her—the image of Earth, just as Nathan had shown her so many times.
The view continued to transform, descending through the atmosphere, gliding over forests, rivers, and sprawling clouds. Amara couldn’t hold back her curiosity. “Why are you showing me Earth?”
“This isn’t the real Earth,” Sally clarified, pausing her typing momentarily. “It’s a simulation Icaros created earlier today to forecast the planet’s weather. Look closer, sweetheart.”
The scene zoomed in on a single cloud, magnifying again and again until individual droplets of water came into view. But the perspective continued to deepen, revealing grains of dirt suspended within a single droplet, as if every microscopic detail had been painstakingly rendered. Amara could almost feel the density, the texture of this simulated world.
“This is incredibly detailed,” she remarked, her skepticism easing slightly. “But if this is your point—”
"My point, is that Icaros does this every day.” Sally’s face tightened, a flicker of anger crossing it. “It can simulate Earth’s climate down to the molecular level—and it takes less than a minute to do so.” She tapped a single key, her very presence exuding intensity. “And now, I’ve just fed Icaros all the data you collected and instructed it to go through all of it and find Argon among the countless ramifications of chaos.”
The scene dissolved, and Amara found herself back in the real world, seated in the same chair as before. A new floating window appeared, displaying a ticking chronometer beside Sally’s image, counting up from just under ten seconds.
“Is this—?”
“The time that has passed since Icaros began the task of locating your son.” Sally got straight to the point.
“Can we see what Icaros is doing?” Amara tried to mask her eagerness, but the faint yellow on her neck betrayed everything she wished to hide.
“No.” Sally’s answer was blunt. “I only showed you what Icaros can do to help you understand that we are not withholding assistance. I hope you realize the magnitude of what we’re offering. On Earth, millions of individuals wait years, sometimes decades, for even thirty seconds of Icaros’s computational power, yet we’ve placed the task of finding your son at the very front of the line.”
“That may be true,” Amara replied, her mind tracing Sally’s words. “But I also believe all the data we provided holds value beyond finding Argor.” She recalled humanity’s interest in the Irisians’ covert missions for the Alliance. “Even more so if humanity is seriously considering the possibility of conflict with the Alliance.”
“You still don’t understand how much we’re offering, sweetheart.” Sally’s expression hardened. “Compared to our tiny minds, Icaros is a god—a blind, bound god confined within the space of its own imagination. It has no sensors and no direct connection to the physical world; its only link to reality is the data we feed it. And even then, we enforce strict safety protocols to scrutinize every output. Can you imagine the devastation if such a being were to engage in social engineering or incite followers to worship it?”
The mention alone drew a flicker of purple across Amara’s skin, yet she still struggled to grasp Sally’s point. How did the dangers of Icaros connect with the significance of the help she was receiving? She thought deeply, unable to reach an answer, and finally admitted, “I am not following, Sally.”
Sally’s expression shifted to a knowing smile, as if she’d anticipated Amara’s question from the start. She paused her typing and gave Amara her full attention. “Icaros is dangerous beyond reason. That’s why we can’t simply give it request after request without careful control. Every output is closely monitored, and after each task, we’re required to apply extensive precautions, making it inoperative for short periods between uses.”
Before Amara could respond, Sally continued, her tone sharpening. “In other words, Icaros is a scarce, precious resource. A crafted being with a will of its own, constantly hungry for new data and new challenges. The longer we ask it to focus on a single problem, the greater the chance it’ll grow restless, even rogue—and we’d have no choice but to press the big red button and hurl it into the red sun.”
Amara’s eyes widened, struggling to absorb the implications as Sally added, her smirk enigmatic, “We named it Icaros because if it ever tries to operate beyond the limits of its own imagination, the mechanically triggered gas thrusters on each computational module will activate, propelling every fragment of it into the star, obliterating both its hardware and software at once.”
Silence settled over them as the weight of the revelation lingered. Amara and Sally locked eyes, neither speaking as the gravity of the understatement took hold.
Glancing at the steadily increasing timer, Amara couldn’t help but ask, “Is half an hour a significant amount of time for it to operate?” This was, after all, the duration Sally had initially offered her when she first sought help.
“Half an hour is within the safe threshold,” Sally replied, then sighed before offering another dose of unsettling news. “But the two hours allotted to find Argor—that’s only the second time we’ve pushed Icaros this far.”
Two whole hours? A flush of purple overtook Amara’s skin as her gaze fell back to the timer, noting that less than ten minutes had elapsed. For a brief moment, she wondered why Earth had suddenly prioritized Argor’s case. Then, a name surfaced in her mind—Nathan.
She carefully held back from asking directly, aware that it might inadvertently incriminate Nathan. Yet Sally’s perceptive gaze seemed to pierce through her silence.
“You haven’t asked me why this happened,” Sally remarked, her expression wry, “but I’d bet you already know, don’t you?”
Amara’s exterior returned to blue, her lips remaining sealed.
Sally sighed, her tone hardening as she continued, “Your boyfriend refused to complete his synchronization, forcing us to confiscate all his belongings and wipe his personal database before returning him to Earth.”
Amara maintained her composure, but Sally’s voice grew more bitter as she pressed on, “Somehow, he bypassed security and arrived on Earth with a hidden copy of his files, which he immediately leaked to the press.”
Sally paused, waiting for a reaction that didn’t come.
“The headlines are the same in every country.” She concluded as her voice softened with resignation. “Born and kidnapped: the only human-Irisian hybrid taken. What will the GU do?”
***
This was an account based on the search for Argor. The previous narrative is based on the events of the eleventh month of the exploratory mission of Irisa. According to your current settings, no queries will be suggested.
Comments
TheBrokenWise
Thanks you for the chapter.
