>>5579264Vaguely you hear the grinding of metal on ice, and Coen reporting the way being clear but with your legs unresponsive you grant yourself a time to think.
You take a moment to process everything that you’ve experienced in the whirlwind of activity that has been the last 20 minutes. Strange, it feels like it's been a lot longer than that, but your perception of time has likely been skewed by your foray into the realm of the ship’s digital mind.
1. The orb, seemingly important to the function of the boarding craft and able to produce strange effects that could only be possible with advanced artech.
2. The entire vessel and its occupants crafted from organo-metallic voidplate, powerful DEWs mounted on the relatively small, crystalline chassis, yet seemingly expendable — unthinkable unless this was just basic technology to them.
3. The ability to rapidly absorb any and all heat and radiation when reaching its limits before turning inert and cold…why does that seem familiar?
The disparate thoughts and memories rush through your head but it hits you all at once like GRASER fire amidships.
“That’s a 'live' voidcore…” You gasp.
"Impossible! Well, improbable!" "Unlikely, Sir." <span class="mu-i">Distressed reptile noises.</span> "A FUCKIN' WHAT?!" <span class="mu-s">CLUNK
Your crew’s expressions of disbelief overwhelm your barely returned senses as several things all happen at once. A painful throb in your temple pulses, <span class="mu-g">a trickle of smug satisfaction bleeds through</span> and your eyes finally perceive what once you only had Peedee's crude sketch to go by.
The many faceted sphere of matte black, rests where Cleo dropped it, sheared cables and pipes hanging limply around its two foot wide diameter. Frost coats its surface, matching the layer of ice coating the rest of the boarding craft’s interior. A faint orange glow can be see in the mouth of one of the largest flexible silver pipes.
“Hear me out.” You try to make yourself heard over the cacophony from your prone position, unable to sit up with your spine in its current state. When that doesn’t distract your crew from arguing with one another you settle for weakly punching your Sci and Ops officers’ kneeling legs to get their attention.
“Ow, hey! Oh, sorry Dal. QUIET DOWN, THAT'S AN ORDER!” Your XO’s shrill voice cuts through the noise and returns attention to you.
“Thankyou Kiro,” you clear your throat painfully, and continue “as I was saying, this is clearly artech, so what could be advanced enough to stop time, power a vessel, and invert its function to <span class="mu-i">absorb</span> energy? Not to mention, the ship’s AI has been actively censoring my vision when I try to look at it.”
“Really?” EoN replies, sceptical, “I thought you’d just given me some virus command code to distract me. All I found before I was finally locked out was some old trash file relating to the ships… AI. Hmm.”
“Exactly, a trio of intelligences needed to manage something that was censored, redacted.” You muse, the pieces coming together.</span>
