chapter 181

POV: FH

Come on, don’t crash. The web page loaded. Finally, I could see what’s here. It took me four hours of trying to follow this path to finally get here and see what’s happening with the dwarves and elves.

I wouldn’t have much time before I’d be kicked out, so instead of reading it, I quickly went page by page, letting the screen capture do its job. In total I managed to stay here for 28 seconds, which was plenty of time. Now, if I wanted to return, I would need to get a new ID registered, which would take a few months, if not longer.

One of my parts rebooted the quantum computer and started following another thread I had found to gather more information. Most of me was concentrated on the data I recovered from that website.

This was exactly what I was after. It seemed that there had been, in the past, a cooperative initiative between the two species to figure out where their connection came from. From what I have gathered, they didn’t get anywhere with that, and overall, it wasn’t something that was supported by a lot of the higher-ups.

This time, things were a bit more nuanced. There was civil strife in both the dwarven clans and the elven dominion. Normally, this should have meant that these types of initiatives would have even less support, but the ones in charge knew the value of distraction. This way, they could continue playing their power games with less scrutiny.

With it being made more public, it was gathering more support from the populace, especially because they now had the third missing piece, humans.

They had yet to contact humans, mostly because there wasn’t a singular human representative, unlike the Evish dominion and the Dwarf council. Even though those weren’t really united right now, they were still a singular representation of a large portion of dwarvish and elvish populations.

The captain and Bob were currently working on harvesting eleven space monster corpses that we managed to drag out from the latest portal. I packaged the information I gathered and sent it to the captain.

“Captain, update on the research initiative about the connection of the three species.”

His head always looked toward me, wherever he was replying. It was so eerie how he always knew exactly where my core was.

“That’s some good news. I really would like an answer to that, but I don’t think anything would come of it before humans get involved as well. Speaking of them, how’s it going there?”

I hesitated to answer. While there’s plenty of information available, a lot of it is misdirection. There are some patterns that I have started to notice, and while I have told the captain about them, this situation isn’t looking good.

“It’s that bad?” he asked in a soft voice. It seemed that I had been quiet for too long.

“The bigger groups of humans have managed to stay quieter over the years, lessening the amount of enemies they would have gathered, but you all are too dangerous, even as individuals.”

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“There are always the crazy sort amongst us. What’s the damage?”

“You all have been prominent enough that basically the entire sector around Earth, and approximately seven more, making up about 20% of the entire galaxy, is now paying attention to your species.”

“Well, shit,” the captain said, but I could also hear some humour in it.

“Why is that funny?”

“The fact that we haven’t been destroyed means that we have already managed to gather enough power to make extinguishing us not that easy.”

“Yes, but from the chatter I’m picking up, the original coalition against the humans is gathering more support, and more civilizations are secretly joining.”

“What are the humans doing?”

I am chasing a few leads right now, but it seems that there is a movement to try to get as many influential humans together as possible to discuss what to do.

“Keep me informed, but it might be a good idea to eventually start heading towards Earth. If humans become an endangered species, that would also mean that many would start to hunt us down to kill us. That would be annoying.”

“Yes, captain,” I answered, returning to the never-ending tasks required to run a spaceship.

Time was a fickle thing. Whenever we were stopped in real space was my busiest time, which also meant it went by the fastest. Being able to search the quantum web and my new ability to scout distant solar systems and the pathways between them and me was so satisfying.

The feeling of finding another space portal was the closest I could get to a hit of dopamine. At least, I believe so from the captain’s description of the phenomenon.

There seemed to be so many space portals, but most of them were old, meaning that the space monsters inside were usually restrained in some way or injured enough that they could not leave that place.

“FH, we are nearly 20 space portals in, and we’re only finding scraps that are left behind. Also, I’m getting annoyed that we haven’t gotten any skill drops. I have been thinking perhaps it’s a good idea for you to re-scout what you have already scouted?”

It took me a moment to connect the dots. “This way, we could identify space portals that are new?”

“Yes, exactly. Now, I know you won’t be able to do that often, but try to get as many re-scouts as possible.”

“Of course, captain,” I said, bringing up the current aerial map. Most of it was unexplored space, but there were straight paths all over that were now explored. By targeting certain solar systems, I would be able to cross some of those explored paths, hopefully finding new space portals.

“FH, can you please find me more lore about the elvish mother trees? Your current database only lists them as extremely important parts of old elvish culture, but nothing new.”

“Of course, Lola, I will add it to the list. Why the interest? It might help me narrow down the search parameters.”

“I’m having a bit of trouble figuring out this seed technology. It seems really time-consuming to make new ones. Dean gave me an idea, and I want to follow up on it. There must be a reason why so much knowledge on how seeds are made has been lost to the elves, and to my knowledge, they currently don’t have any trees that they would call a mother tree.”

That last part seemed easy to confirm. Only a few minutes later, I had an answer for Lola.

“No, they do not have anything close to a mother tree. A lot of resources seem to be going into that field, but anything else will take a lot longer to figure out. I’m guessing that they’re trying to recreate one?”

“That would make sense,” Lola said, but then went quiet afterwards. I bumped the request up a bit more, as this seemed more important than she was letting on.

We hit another space portal. This time, we were able to use the captain’s new scout drones, which were actually mostly missiles with extra sensors on them. We were moving at near FTL transfer speed, so the scout missile that entered the portal should have hit its border a few moments later, but it had already exited the portal, sending the data back.

The tactical screen updated as I processed the data and displayed it for everyone to see.

“I knew that it would work like that. Somehow, the space portal’s entrance reduces the speed of entry to the maximum it allows. That is such a fascinating phenomenon. Wait, maybe the technology of the deceleration gates is based on space portals and this interaction?”

“It’s added to the list, captain.”

What followed was a pretty short debriefing, as there always seemed to be one space monster inside the space portal. The data we got back from the scout missile showed no internal damage from such deceleration, which led to the captain’s next words.

“Steady as she goes. We fly straight into the space portal.”

Sighing internally, I adjusted our course so we would hit the space portal in a way that would allow us to enter it. It took us 9 hours to do so. As we entered, we felt nothing different, although now all my indicators were going crazy because all of a sudden we were moving a lot slower.

My sub-AIs were already asking permission to fire. The captain gave it, and soon the space monster was dead, and I needed to move as fast as possible so we could get out of the space portal before it collapsed, dragging along the remnants of the space monster’s corpse.

We made it out quickly enough, as the purpose-built drones that carried the cables that allowed me to drag the corpse were efficient at what they did. It was time to once again delve into the quantum net and explore the surrounding star systems while Bob deals with harvesting.