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Chapter 151 - The Abyss And The Light
🕑 Added 2020-10-06 14:47:47 +0000 UTC
"Can we move?" I ask the moment I enter the command center.
"Tahiri is double-checking the electronics, Kleihn is checking the engine, and Senka and I are working on the software." Exla replies as her hands frantically fly across the console before her. The doll girl beside her is doing the same, her big blue eyes shifting at blinding speeds while checking the code running across the screen.
"I need to know how long this will take." Sitting down in the captain's chair, I demand the unreasonable. Knowing Alverost, this isn't something that can be resolved in a few minutes - least of all by people unfamiliar with his technology. Given enough time, I'm sure Kleihn could take apart the entire ship and learn everything about it. But we don't have that time.
"Nothing." Tahiri suddenly materializes from the screen of her console, accompanied by flashing electricity.
"So, we at least know it's not a physical blockade to the engines." Senka comments without looking away from her work. I'm not that surprised that she can work with this technology. She has consistently shown that she somehow knows things apparently without ever having come into contact with them before.
"The engines are running normally." Kleihn's voice comes from the speaker on Exla's console, causing the latter to scratch her head in frustration. That's definitely not what she wanted to hear because it makes identifying the problem much more difficult.
"Everything looks normal. The commands are received and confirmed, but our speed remains limited." The cloud girl finally turns to me and explains. I can tell from her expression that this situation is grave; she's at her wit's end. While the solar storm will take another two days to reach Earth, by the looks of it, diagnostics, let alone repairs, will take far longer than that.
"Are there any vessels on this ship that can catch up to the storm?" I abandon the idea that the Queen Pelomyx will be up and running on time and look for an alternative. For now, the most important thing is to stop the solar storm; being able to continue our journey to the Rhodos station comes after.
"None of the fighters are fitted for long-range flight. It makes sense in reality." Before I can complain, Exla quickly adds the latter statement. I guess if space travel isn't instantaneous, flying for weeks or even months in a tiny cockpit is the best way to lose one's mind.
"Why do you need a vessel?" Aurelia comes up to me and gives me a skeptical look with her eyebrows drawn together. For a moment, I'm unsure what she means, but that only causes her to frown outright. "You can fly."
I stare at her with an eyebrow raised. I know that I can fly through space without a ship, but...
Now that I think about it, speed is all a matter of imagination. I put myself into a box because of the Queen Pelomyx, but it really is only a carrier for all those on board who can't survive in space yet. If I'm by myself, I should be able to do anything I can dream of.
"Thank you, Aurelia." With a nod to the Golden Queen, I then turn to the rest of the crew. "So, that's the plan. You find out how to repair the ship while I go and take care of the storm."
"Take one of the deep space probes with you, senpai." Exla grabs my arm when I pass by her.
"Why?" It's not like the solar storm can be measured with those instruments. I'll have to wing it, as I have done so often before.
"Because space is vast. There's no way you're getting back here without a super long-range communications device." Senka replies in the cloud girl's stead without ceasing her work. She sounds impatient as if suggesting that this is common sense.
"Alright, got it." I pet her hair, but she still doesn't look away from the screen. With a wry smile, I turn away to leave the command center.
"Good luck, Chloe." Rolan calls out to me, and I swivel my head around. Gram, Svanhild, and Halthor stand by him, their expressions telling me that they're praying for my success. As I look across the faces of everybody on the bridge, I realize once again how anxious they must feel.
"We will have a meal ready when you return, Chaos-sama." Rewera declares with a bow. The other maids on standby do the same, looking at me with hope in their eyes. Most of them don't have real family back on Earth, but the Maid Corps is the equivalent to most of them. More than half of the corps are still in Arkaim castle right now, waiting for our triumphant return.
Silently raising a fist while walking toward the door, I signal that I'm going out there not to try, but to succeed. It feels like something like this happened only earlier, but for the first time, I'll be all by myself. Not a single person can match my speed in space if I go all out as a Crawling Chaos - most likely not even Asoko and the twins, whose imagination isn't up to par with mine. Even Tahiri, who can travel close to the speed of light inside the atmosphere, can't join me this time. Lightning can't move through a vacuum after all.
As I make my way to the nearest airlock, I mull over the issue of my output. A gravitational field of twenty thousand kilometers is immense already, but I need to expand my mind further. The dimension on my inside is seemingly infinite, so I should be able to use that as a pointer for things on the outside.
Suddenly, an idea enters my mind at that thought, but it slips out of my grasp before I can fully form it. It felt like a significant discovery too, but maybe it's not related to my immediate concern, so my subconscious filed it away for later.
"Should I bring you before it?" Flann's voice suddenly asks right beside me. I'm not as easily surprised by people popping up out of nowhere these days, so I turn around almost leisurely to regard my half-sister.
"If I fail, we would get caught in the storm and die." I reply with a wry smile.
"No. Only you would die." She declares in her usual emotionless tone. I blink at her a few times, then realize that this may be the first time she made something akin to a joke.
"Haha, yeah. That's true." I laugh it off and shrug, then start walking again. But a hand is clasped around my wrist, and I stop before turning my head.
"Do not die." Flann requests of me with upturned eyes that catch me by surprise, but the moment is over in the blink of an eye. She returns to the expressionless self I've known her as since I met her again in Arkaim.
"Don't worry. I don't plan on dying anytime soon." With unwavering conviction, I declare while heading for the airlock door.
"There is more waiting beyond this, Chaos. So you cannot find your end here." Flann mutters, more to herself than for me to overhear. But my ears are incredibly sensitive, especially in the quiet of the ship's hallways. I act like I didn't notice, but remember when she talked to me about Mithra's plans. I'm an integral part of his rebellion against the Outer One. Surely, if I'm about to die, he will teleport in and whisk me away to safety even if that means leaving planet Earth to its fate.
I exit through the airlock and transform into my complete true appearance for the first time in what feels like years. The towering humanoid with tentacles for muscle strands and an empty face is something I only employ so that those close to me don't lose their minds. But now, I can go all out.
No, I have to go all out with no regard for anything else. This is my Crawling Chaos proving ground. If I fail here, I have no right to even think about challenging the Outer One one day.
A short distance away, a hatch opens, and a cylindrical object is ejected from it. That must be the deep space probe Exla and Senka were talking about. Floating over, I realize that it's as large as a tank truck. Considering it's designed to act as a lone beacon in the middle of nowhere, it must be filled with fuel and instruments for long-term independent operation.
"The short-range comms won't work once you're more than fifty thousand kilometers away." Exla speaks over the communications device still in my head. "When you have stopped the solar storm, take out the probe and activate its console."
She then proceeds to explain the sequence of buttons and keys I have to press so that it will show me the way back to the Queen Pelomyx. While she does so, I look back toward the Sun, and then at the massive solar storm front obscuring almost half of space. It's truly a sight to behold no matter how often I see it.
"Alright, understood." When the cloud girl finishes her explanation, I acknowledge in a confident tone. Then I spread my tentacles and will my body to chase after the storm.
I start moving slowly at first but accelerate at what feels like an exponential rate. I clear the surface of the Queen Pelomyx moments later. When I glance back, the massive carrier has already disappeared from sight, not even a speck of it visible even with the Fata zoomed eyes.
Then, darkness and light seem to bend around me as my mind enters another dimension. Without a reference point, I don't feel myself moving. However, at the same time, I know that I've reached velocities beyond human understanding. Something tells me that this isn't acceleration but another form of movement far removed from the laws of physics. Yet, I can't escape the desire to try more of it. To go faster. To go beyond.
"Stop!" I hear Flann's voice in my mind and pull myself together, in both senses of the phrase, before I fall off the edge of perception.
I'm surrounded by light that burns my bubbling surface, but I can tell that I'm not in the center of the solar storm. Otherwise, I would have evaporated in an instant. If not for my half-sister stopping me, I would have disappeared - and Chaos would found her end here. However, the storm passes within seconds, and I'm in open space once more.
Mending my burns with matter from the inside without sparing my brush with death any thought, I get to work. I'm the progenitor of a being that fills an entire dimension with its mass. A measly solar system is nothing compared to what I should be able to achieve. With that thought, I spread my tentacles as if trying to grasp half of space before me. Then I imagine gravity on par with that of the Sun.
The solar storm appears to get sucked into the all-encompassing darkness that spreads from me. I should be using gravity magic, but it turns out to be something completely different. The sensation of the plasma entering me is indescribable, and I'm overwhelmed by lust for more.
This must be a cosmic feast. I can still the hunger lurking deep inside me, and then I'll be able to return to my mother's womb...
"No, sister!" Once again, Flann's voice pulls me from the brink of the abyss. My sense of perception returns to find a field of stars before me. Looking around everywhere, I find the Sun in my back and a tiny blue dot in the far distance - Earth.
If the solar storm still existed, our home planet wouldn't be visible from here. That means I erased it entirely without even leaving behind a gravity-condenses sphere of light. Did I consume it all?
Just to make sure, I look all around myself using different modes of vision. But aside from the cosmic background radiation, the electromagnetic waves from the Sun, and the field of stars, I don't see anything else. Rather than physically stopped, it was somehow erased without a trace after all.
I don't feel anything inside me. Even if it was mostly hot plasma, if I had swallowed the entire solar storm, I should be able to sense at least something. Could it be that there really is a black hole inside me, and I pulled it all in there? Considering I'm a being not of this dimension, nothing should surprise me.
Taking out the truck-sized deep space probe, I press the combination of buttons that Exla taught me on the analog console. Luckily, it was quite simple, or I would have forgotten it already after the mind-boggling experience earlier. The instant I finish the sequence of keys, I can feel the radio waves emerging from the device when it begins sending a signal to the mother ship.
Not even two seconds later, the small screen above the console flickers to life. It shows a message from the Queen Pelomyx, giving me directions for how to return.
"Now that I think about it... Flann." I call out to the gatekeeper girl, and she appears from a vortex right next to me.
"You called, sister?" She's floating before me as if there's nothing unusual about being in deep space as an apparent flesh and blood human. But as with me, her appearance is deceiving.
"Bring me back to the Queen Pelomyx." I request of my half-sister while pulling the deep space probe back into my body. She nods and waits until I'm done before transporting me with the usual vortex.
In the next moment, we're back in the main hangar. She had the foresight to bring me here so that I could unload the probe before I head for the command center. When I look around, I find that Kleihn's handiwork is all over the place. In less than a day, she not only took apart a fighter and a bomber and put them together again but also built what appears to be a hybrid of the two. There's an ongoing tinkering site on the left of the main door, and many tools lie strewn across the ground on the right around what appears to be parts of an armored spacesuit.
The gremlin maid astonishes me time and again. She looks cute and has an agreeable personality, but there's something about her that makes me look at her as a little sister rather than a potential lover. And I'm sure she'd rather spend a night awake tinkering than wasting it on a tussle in the sheets.
Suddenly, an alarm begins blaring throughout the hangar. For a moment, I wonder if it's because of me appearing in here without warning. But then I realize that it must be a call to battle stations. After the solar storm disappeared, Areteniha must have sent something new toward us.
"All hands to battle stations. The Venus Fleet is on an intercept course." Exla's voice announces through the speakers. "Until Queen Chaos returns, we will have to hold them at bay."
That makes me realize they don't know I'm back yet. Running through the hallway to the lift that will bring me straight to the bridge, I patch through to Senka in my mind.
"I'm back on board. Launch drone squadrons and tell Asoko and the twins to get ready to head out." I speak without confirmation while getting into the lift.
"Understood. But you should come and see this first." Senka replies, not a hint of surprise in her tone. She must have sensed that I'm back on the ship already and maybe already informed the others. "I know it's clichéd to say this, but I can't begin to describe it."
"I'll be right there." Thinking in my mind while it races to imagine what she could be referring to, I press the button for the command center as the door closes. During the two-second long ride, I realize that I could have asked Flann to teleport me there. But the lift reaches its destination and opens again to reveal the hallway right in front of the main entrance of the bridge. As I step toward it, it automatically slides open sideways.
The main screen shows a view of space in the infrared spectrum. The Venus Fleet ships employ stealth technology, but as long as they're using their engines, they make themselves quite visible. And much like the solar storm earlier, the enemy now fills the screen with countless bright dots.
"Captain on the bridge." Rewera announces when I walk in. As an old demon who lived through centuries thinking of the world in one way, it's hard for her to grasp these new concepts that came to light recently. She can't contribute to the technological aspect of the Queen Pelomyx, but she's trying her best to help in its administration.
Everybody except for Senka spins their heads around in surprise. They must have thought that I would take longer to return after sending my message from the deep space drone only earlier.
"Status report." I give the maid leader a reassuring smile before turning to the others with orders. I'll have to inquire about the meal she said they would prepare for my return later.
"Over seven thousand confirmed blips." Hestia, the one in charge of the sensors, is the first to respond.
"Nothing changed about our engine situation." Tahiri states with a shrug. It couldn't have been longer than ten minutes since we first learned about the kill switch, so I didn't expect it to be fixed yet anyway.
"We're like a sitting duck." Exla adds with a grim look ahead. "Judging by how fast the Venus Fleet was made to adapt, they will be switching up their tactics this time."
"Not that they need tactics when they have those numbers." Senka nods in the direction of the big screen while continuing to hammer away on her console. She's still working on finding the kill switch, not sparing a second to look away from her screen.
"If each one of the capital ships fires a volley of inhibition field nuclear missiles, we could be looking at nearly a million missiles heading for us from all around." The cloud girl moves a stick on her console to swivel the camera for the main screen. It shows that the Venus Fleet's heat signatures are looping around our sides as well as above and below. "Not to speak of the fighters they could field."
"So, what can we do?" Uten and Saten ask in unison. They don't show any fear despite the desperate situation we find ourselves in right now. The odds we faced against during our journey to take down the God King are nothing compared to this. But as they did back then, they must now believe that we will overcome any hardship.
"We know from the last time that their missiles don't work on small individuals." I declare into the room with the bearings of a leader. Even though I'm not sure what we can do in the face of such overwhelming numbers, I have to maintain morale.
"This means we can come, too." Svanhild, of all people, is the first to step forward. She naturally came along because she belongs to Rolan's party now, but I didn't think she could ever make a difference in a space battle.
"Now is the time for you to see the fruits of my training." Halthor declares toward Korenga. After their fight during the siege of Erbilan, those two developed a friendly rivalry. It's a testament to the Chosen Knight's might that he can match the Black God.
"Then let's compete to see who can take down more of those black ships." The latter replies with a confident grin. This technology talk is beyond her; all she cares about is that out there is the enemy, and it needs to be destroyed.
"Moving through space isn't as easy as you think." I try to rein in their enthusiasm with hard facts. Korenga fell uncontrollably when we were on the Moon because she couldn't fly on her own and had to be rescued. I don't know about Halthor, but he can fly inside the atmosphere. However, aside from physical strength, he uses lightning, which doesn't work in space.
"The enemy has launched fighters. Or rather..." Exla's voice trails off when she hastily types something on her console. The main screen zooms in on the small lights emerging from the enormous carriers, then switches to normal view. "Mecha!"
"Woah!" I stare at the mass of robots, then notice that many of them have mechanical wings, much like those in Hestia's spacesuit. They were clearly modeled after the ones they used in our last encounter, albeit these are far more refined-looking. My enthusiasm drops. "Oh, no."
"Are you not happy about those, senpai?" The cloud girl asks with a skeptical expression. She knows that I love mecha, so my sober reaction must seem strange to her.
"Nah, those are human-sized. I want giant mecha." With a pout, I wave off the things displayed on the screen. "It's like fighting androids with those. Not that they put up much of a fight."
"I think those will." With a quick motion of her hand, she zooms in even closer at one of the Hestia-bots' chests. A blue dome sits where a real Fata's sternum would be located. "That's an inhibition field generator."
Considering one of those can cover a radius of about half a meter, the cores of their bodies are safe from the Imagination Engine. With their sheer numbers, we won't have the leeway to take them out one by one with conventional weapons. And if we don't destroy them completely, who knows what explosives they could be packing in those chest cavities.
"More than a million of those are approaching from all sides." Hestia announces, grimness in her voice. She was there when Erbilan was beset by a human alliance army a million strong. Even if each of us could take out ten thousand without breaking a sweat, we would still have hundreds of thousands making it through. It's an overwhelming number that can simply ignore us and flood the Queen Pelomyx.
"Should I do it again?" Tokomaha walks up to me and asks. She's referring to herself growing massive and possibly blocking the enemy's attacks with her body. If she can turn into a giant as tall as the Moon's diameter, she can easily hold the Queen Pelomyx in one hand. However, that doesn't solve our problem of being unable to fly through space. She would have to weather a constant barrage from the enemy fleet with no relief in sight.
Maybe the only way is for me to try and replicate what I did with the solar storm. But I don't think I have enough control over that not to swallow the ship accidentally. And if I did that, I'm most likely never seeing her and the crew again.
"You appear to be in need of help." A familiar voice suddenly announces through the speakers, and everybody turns to the main screen. A girl with closed eyes and blonde hair rimming her beautiful face is displayed on it. She exudes an aura of serenity and peacefulness that can even be felt through a screen. It's Sintress, sitting in what appears to be a fighter cockpit.
"Sintress!" Exla is the first to exclaim, utter surprise on her face. "I thought you..."
"Let us leave that matter for later. I will take care of the Venus Fleet." The Lady of Brilliance declares her intent to help us. She's wearing a light smile, but it's not one of arrogance. Her confidence is quite reassuring, but I still need certainty.
"How?" I blurt out instead of posing the sophisticated question I tried to formulate in my mind. She's possibly the Old Human most reliant on the Imagination Engine, so what can she do here?
"I know what you may be thinking, Chaos." Sintress speaks in a slightly chastising tone. I know that her personal imagination is forcing peace onto people's minds through some kind of brainwashing. "I will show you the perfect sanctuary."
