Chapter 1 - Prologue - Farewell and Again (Patreon)

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Chapter 1 - Prologue - Farewell and Again

The energy shield of the monolithic hybrid-vessel 'Gigantomachy' on the orbit of Enceladus fluctuated with intense light once more as the continuous barrage of lasers, coil guns, and gravitational missiles hit it with the rage of an angry meteor shower. It was as if the gods themselves had woken up from slumber to smite to the giant from the heavens.

The stealth combat jets from the Sanctums, Corporates, and Evidents flew in between the debris of what was left of the Collective's now destroyed protection fleet. They made for good cover against the counter barrage from Gigantomachy.

The jets made full use of the slow target's various disadvantages as they swivelled around for another round of their endless bombardment.

"How much longer do you need?"

In the tactical control room of the giant vessel, an aged woman who looked to be around 50 years old— far younger than her actual age, spoke into the comm line, her hands showing just the hint of a tremble as another of her laser shots missed a fighter jet, hitting nothing but its afterimage.

'… hells.'

The only other person in the solitary 2-kilometre diameter vessel spoke back to her, "5… no 10 more minutes. The Octa-core Hydro Annihilator is still calibrating… But almost! Please, try to hang on."

The woman's expression did not show any indication of the apprehension that slithered in her chest, "Copy that. However, I don't think the shield can hold on that much longer—"

*CRASH!!*

Another violent quake occurred, sending the whole vessel along with the shield trembling like static on an old television screen.

"Are you okay?" The woman asked her partner, who was in a place far more precarious than hers.

"….Ugh, maybe. I think I have a fracture somewhere. I hit the Alpha Logic pretty hard. Let me check if that did any more damage to it."

A few seconds later, the status report came back, showing everything to be still barely working in order. The woman released the breath she did not know she was holding.

Both the man on the other side of the comm line and the hyper computer Alpha logic were far more important than her right now, considering what they were attempting to do. However, fate had put her in a position where she had to protect them both. Something she seemed to be spectacularly failing at, considering her lacklustre attempt at thwarting the enemy.

Almost none of her shots hit the target. She was too inexperienced to even calibrate the shield in real-time for maximum protection. There had been other people, better people for the task.

But they now lay dead with the debris floating around the E-ring of Saturn.

The woman tasted blood on her tongue and a chill wind on her back, shuddering even though she knew that was an illusion. Her Exo gear was holding up fine, and the airflow system of the vessel was yet stable.

'There must've been a mole.' She pondered. The enemy had selected the perfect time to attack. By design, the Gigantomachy was not an attack vessel. The weapons installed mainly were either wholly new or experimental upgrades of existing models. Even if the research modules were field-tested more extensively—since the spherical space station was meant to primarily be used for the research of sciences, they could not contribute at all on a battlefield.

That should not have been a problem.

Because although, by protocol, only she and the scientist: her partner, were allowed on board the vessel this week, hence resulting in a severe lack of manpower to gun the weaponry, the heavy firepower itself was always left to the protection fleet—which had far more practical defence systems.

But alas, sometimes things happened that logic simply could not find any excuses for.

The synchronization of Enceladus's orbit with Dione's, the resultant surge of interference in the E-ring— which was the very thing they had been using to hide this operation so far, and combat crafts with the best stealth humanity had yet seen made the tripartite ambush look like three adults punching and kicking a pre-schooler, which was the Collective protection fleet.

'They were fine people… if only they noticed the enemy even a minute sooner, if only….'

*QUAKE!! *QUAKE!!*

The vessel shook again, its structural frame almost twistinglike a twizzler this time. The sparks and the creaks snapped the woman out of her recollection. Around her, many holographic status prompts were floating in mid-air, accompanied by soft pings and red flashing lights. The force field barely had 5% integrity left, and a missile had somehow gotten through it, hitting the western part of the station.

'We don't have time….' She lamented as her hands clenched around the triggers. 'I would rather…no, it doesn't matter in any case.'

3 minutes had passed since she last checked on her partner. But she won't be able to hold on for another 7 minutes as he had requested. So she…

*********

In the central part of Gigantomachy, an old man of about 70 years stumbled on a suspended gangway. He was struggling to hold on to the railing, the structure under his feet hanging beside the humungous Octa-core Hydro Annihilator. His fingers twitched because of the strain, even though genetic modification gave him the body and strength of someone two-thirds his age.

Worst of all, he didn't have the luxury of an Exo gear's protection, unlike his partner.

The interference from the radiation released by the annihilator was too much for delicate electronics. Moreover, the element that the giant device swiftly converted into pure energy inside its annihilation chambers was a theoretical element. One discovered a mere three years ago in the plumes of Enceladus.

Everything about it was unknown, especially its radiative and interference properties. So only the most general-purpose, nonelectronic forms of radiation protection could survive here.

"Finally," The old man muttered, blood dripping down from his right eye and nostrils, "After almost four decades of lazing around…."

He ignored the worsening injuries as he stared at the data flashing on his tablet device. The squarish brick-like computer was ancient, with century-old circuitry and chips, just like everything else in the spherical warehouse of a room.

"Ouch, that hurts." The old man squinted, holding the side of his belly with a bleeding hand. Yet the twinkle in his eyes was as youthful as a teen's. A laugh inevitably escaped his mouth, which turned into guttural coughs by the second. The fit made him shake left and right on the rickety harness that held his body to the gangway.

Yet his eyes never left the continuous prompts of data.

He had not felt this alive in so many years. All this time, he had been avoiding the world, living away like a hermit. He had vowed to never again be used, never again let his inventions be used while he was left wallowing in fear and rejection.

At least the money from the Single-core Hydro Annihilator had been worth that trouble. He could have lived off of that for a thousand lifetimes and then some.

'Was it 35 years? No, it was 38; it was the millennium shift of 3000 that I first met her.' He mused. The old man had lived life like trudging along with mud. He thrived in materialism, his spirit was strong, but his faith was broken.

Meeting her had made that so much worse. Fear and anger, quarrels and blames, and everything else hostile in human relationships seemed to sprout like grass after an uninvited spring rain. Followed by the gentle healing of time, friendship, acceptance, and contentment.

'I thought humanity and life were worthless. Then she showed me there is still worth in them; it's only the two of us who are worthless.' He smiled. 'Yet here I am, feeling disappointed that we are going to die today.'

The notifications on the tablet screen stopped. The final results paused on the screen as if time had stopped.

'Just as I theorized….'

The world called him a genius—he scoffed, for inventing the Single-core 43 years ago. Nobody knew that it was just one piece of the theoretical puzzle he accidentally crafted.

At least not until she had practically begged him to share it with the Collective. In her selfish, petty visions of betterment for the world, he was a peace equivalent to the king in chess: his invention, the queen.

A new power source that could theoretically provide 64 times the energy from 8 times less fuel. All they had to do was diversify it.

Now, it was complete, with the final piece extracted from this foreign, water-filled moon on the rings of Saturn.

The old man frowned, 'No… not just the collective.'He thought of the people attacking their very lives right now, 'Apparently, everyone knew. Go figure, farking bureaucracy.'

"Well, no need to think about the negative in life even when I'm gonna die. I still have work to do!" With that cheer as a pep-talk, the old man pulled himself up from his slouching position.

According to the data, the theory proved to be true. The instruments had performed to their capabilities with only a negligible margin of error.

Such a wondrous thing! Indeed a new era for everything human civilization signified. Yet it would be all for nought if these results perished with them.

If they wanted to avoid such an outcome, the Alpha logic hyper computer and the faster-than-light transmitter would need enough juice to fuel a signal powerful enough to break the jamming barrier put up by the enemy. Only then could a data stream be sent home.

His death here might be unavoidable, but his last legacy need not perish. Good thing he had already settled his assets in the event of his demise. So the test result would be the final paragraph added to his will, the will he had written after she persuaded him to pioneer this mission.

It would also be him repaying back the last of humanity his fickle mind still seemed to trust, with the ultimate work of his life!

'God help me if this is not possible.' The old man slowly made his way to the Octa-core's control panel. He noticed the connection wiring to Alpha Logic heating up to an unnatural blue. However, that was to be expected, as the power source was literally jury-rigged to the hyper computer.

Both machines were over-clocking on all parameters. Yet, they were still not quick enough. Telling by the frequency of the quakes, the shield was likely already broken in places. The Gigantomachy should have taken direct physical damage.

His eyes glossed over the connection one more time, then moved to the progress bar on his tablet.

'Think! There has to be something we can do!'

The old man's brain was the third thing over-clocking. 'Maybe divert the power of the backup source to the Alpha logic? No, that would take too long. How about I store all of the data inside a secure space probe? Or the harvester probe, which collected the theoretical element from Enceladus? Nah, the chances are too small that the enemy will ignore or miss them. They came prepared and know what we are doing. Can Alpha logic be more efficient in the encryption? What else, what else….'

A beep from the comm line woke him up from his trance, followed by another vicious quake. There was a crunch on the roof of the hall, with debris falling all around. One almost hit him square on the head, him barely dodging to save his life.

'Dammit! Just 4 more minutes!'

"… We're done; the shield has less than 2.5% integrity remaining. 1 minute at max, maybe? And then it's over." A cold, icy voice spoke from the other side. Only he, who had spent almost 4 decades in that voice's company, could notice the underlying unwillingness.

"I see… So this is it, then? For us, and everything…." He knew her feeling well; he had been wallowing in unwillingness for so long that right now, he only felt regret and not sorrow.

"For us? Yes, I suppose. But there is still one last thing we can try for the transmission."

"What?" The old man perked up.

"The original Single-core. Divert its power to the— "

"Absolutely not! It is powering the force field." He hadn't even deigned to consider that idea before. It was no better than suicide.

"The shield is useless after 1 minute. Dying a minute earlier doesn't really matter if we are to die anyway. Answer me this, my friend, will the power be enough to transmit the package if we include the Single-core's output?"

"…Yes." She was right, he grudgingly admitted.

"Then that's that. It's the only choice we have left." Her icy voice was no more, replaced by a gentle warmth melting her cold front. "You're a smart man. You know we have to do this, don't you?"
"… This isn't fair. I take back what I said earlier. Humans are shitty; we're not the problem."

"Maybe you're right." She chuckled, "I will disable the shield after their next volley. It will give us a short window of time when they re-adjust their armaments, so don't waste it. And…"

She paused, and all he could hear for the next few seconds were static.

"You there?" He asked, his hands already working to execute the plan.

"Yes. I was just thinking. You… Don't you have anything to say to me? This may be your last chance." She laughed.

But he didn't find it funny.

"… I don't…." His hands clenched tight, the nails biting into the fibre gloves—the pain giving him a second of respite to gather his thoughts.

He, of course, understood what she meant. What she wanted to hear, and what she didn't. "I don't think you will like it, even if I had something to say."

"Understood." There was another quake. The volley had arrived, then passed as soon as it came. "It's time. Are you ready?"

The old man wasn't ready. Life was finally worth living. The last time when he invented the Single-core, it was his own stupidity and the evil of humanity that had ruined the aftermath. This time, it would have been different. He had his best friend by his side and other people he trusted back home.

This time… "I'm ready. Do it."

"Farewell, my friend."

"Godspeed," he replied.

A few moments later, the power had been completely redirected. Unlike the backup power source, the Single-core had the same frequency as the Octa-cores, so the time it took was far less.

The Alpha Logic showed an excellent '100%' on its only tiny screen. A cartoon anthropomorphic robotic child modelled after the device danced on the lower-left corner, signalling a task completed.

But the old man had not the mind to chuckle at it like he had done so many times before. It only reminded if of the cheerful young lad who designed the character: the lad who was now but dust in space.

"Honestly, I really don't want to die. Is that selfish? You all died. So why should we get to live?" He asked no one. The silence didn't reply either. The comm line had long turned off.

He looked at the Octa-core. The old man had no kids of his own, but he raised one devilish imp from a tiny widdle girl all the way till she got married. So he liked kids, more than he found them absolutely suffocating.

And in a way, this power source was his child.

His mind crafted its theory like a parent's guidance; he had to protect it from those who meant it harm. He calmed it down when it threw a tantrum and had to be strict when it would not listen to his words. The culmination of all fathers' work and love in life led to their children. Even if sometimes it was naughty and did something it wasn't supposed to do.

Like right now.

"Wait!" The old man snapped out of nostalgia. The connecting line was glowing a multicoloured but predominantly violet rainbow light. A buzzing hum rang out, and the Alpha-logic module started literally ionizing before his eyes.

"What the flip!"

That wasn't part of the plan! There should be no multicoloured light emission going on here, at this critical juncture, let alone particle breakdowns!

"Something's wrong… Something's wrong; something is wrong!" He started checking the contraption for faults anyhow he could while screaming into the comm line, even though he knew she could no longer hear him.

The now scared old man found nothing he could fix. According to the logs, after the transmission of the packet finished, energy started flowing backwards from the Alpha logic to the Octa-core as if pure data was being fed into the machine to turn it into… reality.

He slowly backed up, his trembling hands gripping the railing and harness tight as if they could save him. Sweat dripped down uncomfortably, covering his vision, making him realize that somehow, the radiation from the Octa-core had overpowered the cooling system.

The heat burned. It rose uncontrollably like an inferno. Even the radiation protection suit should be useless with the amount in the hall right now, yet it was not.

But that didn't matter.

The chamber with the theoretical element was self-immolating. The whole contraption was losing cohesiveness.
"This is why you need more testing before over-clocking a hyper-unstable power source that is powering a whole goddamn space station!"

Before his very eyes, the Alpha Logic burst into ionic light and entered the power source. It didn't stop there, however, as the light seeped into each and every surface of that hall and beyond, including himself.

The last thing he saw, felt, was a million tons of matter turning into pure energy and information; and bursting out in all directions like a supernova.

*********

"-ods-e-d" The voice from the other side sizzled in the static of interference, now that the shield wasn't holding the untold jamming and radiation back.

The woman had a blank look on her face, tapping her finger on a metal surface.

'He never blames anyone, that fool.'

But she did. She blamed her own naivety, incompetence, and dreams of second chances more than anything.

But it was too late now. 'I shouldn't have pressured him….'

All the regret she had could only be buried in her aching chest and her soon-to-be-dead self in the vast coffin of space. She heard a painful buzz in the air, making cognitive thinking more difficult.

This time it wasn't an illusion.

Through the displays, she saw the enemy fighters showing irregular flight motions.

They were scrambling to turn around for one last volley to complete their mission. The enemy had most certainly noticed the disappearance of the shield. Like a pack of wolves finally realizing their prey had bled out and could no longer move.

She turned her eyes to another of the holograms. It told her that the remaining power of the shield was successfully redirected, and the transmission module was sending out a continuous stream of data straight through the enemy blockade.

As the transmission bar reached completion, the first genuine smile since this fiasco broke out bloomed on her weary face.

'Mom.' She thought, 'I'm sorry. Your daughter couldn't achieve anything in life, nothing like you. No family, no political accolades… no heroic medals, nothing.'

At the final moments of her life, she remembered her long-gone childhood. Her thoughts wandered to a time when she was happier.

She shook her head, her smile turning to self-derision.

'No, that's wrong. I've accomplished a few things, at least. I made a friend I could die for and who's dying for me. I saved lives. I am happy. Just a different kind.'

Warmth penetrated her heart as she again thought back, this time on the last few decades of her life, her eyes closed and her smile now satisfied. Some might mock her, that her small achievements were meaningless for someone of her family background. Still, she would disagree with them in a heartbeat.

Her life had been worth it.

If she could live past this, she would do what both of them were too cowardly to do until now. Her insecurities be damned. She was too old to be bogged down by needless stress.

Her chest, no, her whole body became warmer and warmer. Lights of salvation breachedher eyelids as if to concur with her inner thoughts.

'It's good that he never blamed me. That means I still have a chance. Hesitation will give me nothing but regret. I know what he feels of me; I know what I feel too. I feel' "Hot!" She screamed.

The woman finally realized that the warmth she was feeling wasn't the years of repressed emotions of an unsatisfied woman past her prime gushing out in the face of death. It was something else, coming from deep inside the Gigantomachy.

On the flickering holographic screens, she could see the space crafts of all three rival nations escaping from the vicinity in any direction they could like drugged up migratory birds.

Thousands of communication requests bombarded her displays from the enemies themselves, almost as if they were begging.

"Oh, I get it. Good thinking, my friend. Are we self-destruc———" That was the last thing she uttered before a humongous tide of something swallowed her and every material thing in a ten thousand-kilometre radius, blasting the last bit of her existence to smithereens.

******

In a vast void overlooked by the infinite universes, two souls travelled towards the unknown. Beneath them was a luminous bridge of light, connecting everything to everywhere.

As their cloudy bodies, the hue of sunshine floated forward, a hazy image of a perfectly spherical park superimposed upon their surroundings. The barking of dogs, chirps of birds, the rustling of leaves, and the laughter of children echoed as if carried by the ether itself.

One of the souls stopped, looking around the void for more things of interest. It was slightly deeper in colour than its companion. The creases on its aura signifying the passage of a greater amount of time.

"Have you ever hated me?" It asked while concentrating intently on what was happening in the illusory image.

A young mother was chastising a little girl. The girl was crying, her clothes muddy and wet. She was cradling a shivering kitten in her arms, unwilling to let it go.

The mother tried and tried but could not make the girl listen to her words.

"What is it, all of a sudden?" The other soul replied. It, too, was looking at the image. It saw a man, probably the family's father, hurrying towards them with a towel in one hand and a shopping bag in another. He knelt down beside the girl, gently wiping away all the tears and grime.

He then spoke to her in a more tender tone than his wife, and the girl soon stopped crying. The soul could not understand what was being said but saw the girl carefully handing the kitten over to her father, who then put it inside the bag filled with more towels.

"Just answer me, please." The first soul pleaded. Its cloudy body slowly turned more transparent as the bridge under them gradually neared a cluster of infinite disc-shaped… stars?

It saw the scene in the image shift from a park to a cosy little home.

The room looked familiar, somehow. As if the first soul belonged there.

That tea table, that small shelf, that plastered-up model of the solar system spinning with a gentle glow above the little girl's bed.

The mother quietly pulled up the blanket of stars over the sleeping girl's body and planted a soft kiss on her forehead. The girl squirmed a little, surprising the mother. She then went back to breathing gently, sleep taking her once again. Relief washed over the mother's face as she tiptoed out of the room.

"…Disliked, maybe. Only for some time. But never hated." The second soul replied. It went forward a bit towards the illusion to have a better look. The image showed a study. Or was it a garage, maybe? The room was filled to the brim with this and that. The shelves behind were spilling with sloppily stacked books, while the floor was littered with machine parts and screwdrivers.

The father was covered in dust and soot, building what looked to be a small spaceship-like house. It was too small for a human, though.

Nevertheless, it felt as warm as a fluffy hug on a winter's night.

"Even though I always blamed you, always so blind to your goodwill? Even if I messed up time and time again? Even if… it's my fault you died?" The first soul sped up, trying to catch the reflection of the mother in the image.

The mother was jogging in the morning mist. Sweat dripped down from her forehead as she huffed and puffed, finally returning home after a few rounds around the previous park.

She took out the keys, opening the front door with an electronic click. What greeted her was a tiny meow, bringing a smile to her face. The soul hovered over the kitten, who was now a tad larger. The kitten jumped onto the mother's arms from atop the shoe closet.

The mother laughed and cooed at the little creature.

A few moments later, she was sitting in front of a laptop on the sofa. The kitten was nuzzling beside her while chewing on a toy as she typed away on the device.

Apprehension was visible on her face. She kept deleting and retyping, then deleting again, never satisfied. Whatever she was doing, it wasn't going well.

"It wasn't your fault. It was my choice to go there, for my own purposes. It always was. You just thought you were responsible for me, for whatever imaginary sin you had once committed." The second soul answered, floating gently with none of the haste of the first's.

It watched on as the father yelled inside a large room with a round table in the middle. A meeting, perhaps?

His left hand held a stack of papers which he slammed on the table, spittle flying from his mouth. But the other participants shook their heads. The father looked like he had a lump in his throat, his shirt damp with sweat even in the air-conditioned office room.

The scene changed.

He was back home sitting on the same sofa that the woman sat on previously. The little girl was on his lap, excitedly talking about something while showing him a crayon drawing.

The man nodded along her to show he was paying attention, but his eyes betrayed his mood. They were unfocused, glossed over as he mindlessly started at the television.

The soul could not hear what was being said by the daughter or the television; all it heard was static.

The first soul quietened for a while. It might have been a minute, or it might have been an eternity. The touch of time remained unfelt while they floated along the bridge.
The scenes around them moved along faster and faster. It showed happy times, sad times, boring times, and exciting times.

As the bridge neared its end, so did the images. Yet, they got more precise. The audio crisped as the resolution rose. The souls could finally hear what the voices spoke.

It showed the family of 5, counting the kitten, gathering in the living room watching some program –a new years show—and laughing along.

The little girl was older by a few years, no longer sporting pigtails. But she was still little enough to sit on her father's lap while clapping along with the presenter on the TV.

The woman held a toddler in her arms, trying to feed him some cereal with a spoon, but the hyperactive baby would have nothing to do with it.

He wobbled up and down in his mother's arms while giggling, getting the slushy cereal all over his face. The woman hurriedly put the spoon down, taking a napkin to wipe all of that off.

The kitten was now a cat. A cute bell in the shape of a fish hung around its neck. The furry feline kept mewing, rubbing its head on everyone, trying to attract their attention away from whatever they were preoccupied with.

Finally, the first soul spoke, "Thank… you. You know, I—"

But the souls were no longer there. The one speaking was the woman.

The images had stopped at that exact moment. They had reached the end of the bridge. The illusion was breaking apart.

The man looked around, saying with a smile, "I know, it doesn't matter. Not anymore, at least. By the way…."

"…You are very rude. But yes, go on?"

"What do you think all of this is?" The man scratched his head in awkwardness.

"Some hypothetical unreality, maybe? The manifestation of the afterlife or a higher-dimensional space that souls go to, making everything we ever wanted a reality in whichever manner suits our needs?... I don't really know. Science should be your speciality." The woman answered in a monotone voice. Her hand grasping as the toddler broke apart into nothingness.

"Those are some very vague yet very specific guesses. How do you know?" The man asked again, ruffling the little girl's hair for the very last time. The cat was already gone, only leaving behind the bell, which too dissolved into particles of light.

"Because this is all that I have ever wanted. I realized it just before we died. I wished for us to always be together forever." Came another flat reply. Yet the man was caught off-guard at such straightforwardness.

He turned his face away, the tip of his fragmenting ears blushing red, "Can you not say such cheesy things at this moment? I'm trying to be serious here. We are possibly experiencing something no sober person has experienced before, okay? It should be a solemn moment, not a date!"

"Isn't it? But I am serious." The woman turned her heated gaze towards him, searching intently for an answer.

A moment later, when even their bodies began to scatter into plumes revealing two rapidly descending souls towards the cluster of luminous discs, she smiled.

She had found her answer.

"Then what about you, mister oh-so-scientific. Suppose the images really were our wishes; what part of it is yours?"

"I don't know. I was never the type to make wishes to shooting stars when I was a kid. But if I were to guess, then it was probably…." The man, the second soul, tried to trudge his way through space closer to the first. The acceleration made it harder, and so did the vertigo he felt.

"I wished we were both alive again."

The first soul giggled like a chime and tightly slammed into the second, sticking to him like the strongest magnet in the universe, never willing to let go.
Like two binary stars releasing infinite light, the souls broke through the veil of unreality. They made their way into a new reality, one different from their original in endless, inconceivable ways.

The exact moment their ethereal forms blended together, on one of the largest discs of this new universe, two strange babies were born into a local ruling clan.