A Chapter Of: B’Nar

I have zero ideas and I'm having a hard time trying to Brain, today. Therefore, I'm not stressing about it and just posting one chapter of an unedited novel of mine. If you want to actually read the novel and get back to me in the stuff that's in it, then contact me or comment on this thing. I have a paucity of beta readers and I need three people who are DEDICATED to getting back to me in regards to a long thing I wrote.

This is space; this is our known territories. Five systems of civilised worlds. B'Nar, our primary world, where everything we know began. Four planets in orbit of the sun are settled and productive: one is Ehalize, B'Nar's stellar neighbour. Home to five settled worlds, one a mining colony inside a dwarf planet. Thorn, sometimes known as 'the Farming Star', holding three settled worlds dedicated to agriculture and food synthesis. Kaatup, a binary system with one world possessing a double year. The other two settled worlds in that system are comparatively ordinary. And finally, Frangil. We are... here.

The briefing vision moved away from the basics and zoomed in on current tactics. Lodestone felt a thrill of excitement. This is what she was literally made for. There was the larger vessel that contained her and her Protector. She knew her Protector/vessel's name was Tikitav 345 She knew her vessel's preferred nickname was Tiki. She knew lots of things. Implanted in her brain/databanks from before she flickered into awareness and life.

This is the Explorer Fifteen, said the educational vision. Your origin point. A large ship capable of holding five thousand living, breathing souls, and possibly five thousand more artificial intelligences.

This is mother, thought Lodestone. This is home. Try though they might, her engineers hadn't been able to rid their models of certain instinctual responses. Not without removing instincts altogether. Those results... were not pretty.

This is the anomaly. A point on the strategic map. This is your route. An ever-decreasing spiral at ever-decreasing speeds plotted itself out over three dimensions.

Lodestone's fingers moved in sympathy with the graph. As if she were flying it with Tiki already. System checks in a corner window flashed greens as she did so. This was expected. This was excellent. Endorphins tickled her reward centres.

Your mission is to investigate the anomaly and gather all possible data. To that end, your vessel has been equipped with all necessities.

My sibling has been outfitted. They were created and programmed at the same time. They came online within microseconds of each other. They might as well be twins. The concept of twins was ancient, and her programmers knew that it was beneficial for a ship and its components to think of themselves as family.

Instincts could benefit programming, after all.

Lodestone sent out an archive query for data about any similar anomalies and received an endorphin boost before she got the data. Hundreds of years old. Thousands. From the time of Landing. Ancient.

And it was a relief to learn that Tiki had cryosuspension equipment in the event of this being a deep time trip, like the one that founded known space. And a 'screamer' to send a message through deep time to tell mother what they had found. Then it would be up to the Planners and Drafters to decide whether they wanted a new colony so very distant in time and space from B'Nar.

Come what may, they would recover her in due course. Orders could be sent down after her. Supplies, if necessary. But Lodestone could not return the way she had come there.

If such was the case.

Though the readings from this anomaly were different from the readings in the archives, there was enough similarity to suspect it might be so.

It might be something new.

It was her life to find out. This was what she had been made for. But she couldn't get there yet. First, of course, came the tests. 

Making certain her implants were meshed with her biological elements. Testing the interface between herself and Tiki. Testing reaction times, as well as reactions that had been implanted at a near-instinctual level. Testing that all her learning modules had integrated and, finally, testing telemetry and comms.

Lodestone even got to choose a nickname. A monosyllabic moniker by which to communicate in a hurry. Lode had connotations, and a simple spelling error could turn her name into a burden. Her creators had taken care to chose her given name, and she didn't really want to go with her line name. Therefore, all that was left was Stone.

It would suffice.

Six hours and fifteen seconds into run-time, she and her ship/sibling were united and launched. Data poured through hers and Tiki's senses/sensors. She could see the EM fields around the anomaly, feel the plotted flight plan as a smooth path of warm comfort.

This was her life. This was the life. Flying free with purpose. Investigating and learning and being exactly what she/they needed to be. Moving as one being, merged as two.

Tiki noted that, closer to the anomaly, the EM surge would likely cut comms, so Stone sought approval for a pause and data dump before plunging into the heart of it. Admin approved, and her/their course corrected itself.

All she got out of it was like the one way wormholes, but different. Which was not terribly informative.

She fired all her data back home and urged Tiki inside.

The EM burst cut off comms. Which they expected. It also stung, which they did not expect. The stab of fear made her open all of their sensors/senses to gather everything they could learn.

She/they were a probe. It was a probe's job to gather information and learn.

So much data.

Purple miasma. Electron clouds. Pockets of time that were almost a solid phenomenon. A glaring contrast in the space between the purple clouds. The fact that inertia wasn't carrying them forward, and they had to use fuel.

Do not go back. Go forward. Going back was deadly. Stone scoured her readings for a different anomaly. One that would lead out. She needed out. Her fragile organic brain was getting overwhelmed with data and Tiki could only store so much.

There!

Found one!

Stone pushed towards it, fighting the soup-like sensation of the lack of inertia. Fighting to stay conscious despite the sensations overwhelming them both.

It was the second EM burst that almost plunged her under.

He last thought was, The stars have changed... before she blacked out.

Tiki had her own messages. Most of them errors. B'nari network not found, she complained. Searching for other networks. Data overload critical. Compressing non-essential data. 404. 404. 404...