Two High Space Commanders. Thousands of ships. Millions of soldiers and crew lost in the breath of a second.
Loss of two IC Starfleets was a deathblow to Eve's hardliners in the Intergalactic Committee. Many members resigned.
Eve stood on the visitor's deck when Mira approached her.
Mira: "There was nothing we could have done."
Eve: "Two years of progress down the sinkhole."
Mira: "I was just talking to Commander Chinzoa. They are all strongly with you."
Eve: "If only Mother Cetra was human like us. If only she could cast her vote."
Mira: "You said it yourself. If Cetra interferes in galactic affairs, the universe will plunge into chaos."
Eve: "Still, you can't help wishing."
Mira: "There aren't many portals left in this sector. What are you planning to do? Were we planning to move towards the center at all?"
Eve: "Remember when the committee forced me out of Nomad and I disappeared into The Dark Galaxy?"
Mira nodded, "You never talked about it much."
Eve: "I had infiltrated the Thelarian Fortress."
Mira: "You did?"
Eve: "I was spotted soon after, chased. But I was able to escape."
Mira: "What happened?"
Eve: "The truth is, even then, the Galactic Center was out of my scope."
Mira: "Why?"
Eve: "I learned many secrets during that little trip. Then there was this secret monastery. They were communicating with some kind of entity."
Mira: "The Threat?"
Eve: "I can't be sure. But it was threatening them... to stay away from the center, or next time the fortress would pay the price."
Mira: "Something was threatening the Thelarians..? Right in their fortress?"
Eve: "That was my cue. Had my cover not been blown, that's where I planned to go next."
Mira: "Knowing you... that's exactly what you would do. What now?"
Eve: "Let's talk to Doc first. We need more insight."
Nomad Research Labs...
Salam: "Massive interference fields. Not artificial. Our scanners can pick up monoliths but..."
Kai: "...but something tells us they are more like ghost coordinates. We suspect our ships collided into a planet or an obstacle after the jump."
Salam: "The disruptive fields dominate the center. The closer you get, the more hallucinatory signals. There could be messages circulating down there forever without getting out."
Kai: "In short, nothing goes in there and comes out... not even radio transmissions."
Salam: "We overlapped the data. 90% of the portals have been destroyed. Mutant appearances... also reduced by 90%."
Mira: "You mean, all the portals are clustered in this sector?"
Salam: "Exactly."
Nadia: "So our mutant problem is already solved. What's the point of going to the core?"
Eve: "But we still have massive Monoliths down there, and Monoliths are gateways to the portals."
Kai: "I must add, they are dormant ones. Monoliths only create portals when a life form interacts with them or when they're interfered with."
Nadia: "The Thelarians experimented extensively with the ones in the out sectors. Hence the mutants. Besides, creatures in this galaxy."
Mira: "And they have a traveling monolith... but if there are no portals in the center... it means no life forms?"
Nadia: "Or no rabid life forms. Maybe it's ruled by intelligent species other than the Thelarians."
Kai: "I think the mastermind of whatever 'The Threat' is lives down there. What else could it be?"
Eve: "Our mission objectives are clear. We have to destroy those Monoliths. So somebody explain to me—how do we get down there?"
Salam: "Precaution is the only remedy here. If we take Nomad in there, we must go without hyperspace jumps."
Mira: "That would take us months."
Nadia: "It's a big-ass galaxy."
Eve: "Do we have nothing in the IC for situations like this?"
Salam: "Nothing that can travel faster than the Soul Drifter. Thanks to Kai, Anya, and me."
Eve: "Then maybe it's time to push the limit further..."
Eve spent the next few weeks studying and designing Soul Drifter upgrades. She was like a machine, absorbing new data, creating science of her own, working day and night in the engineering section.
Kai, Salam, and Anya all crashed in the engineering bay, bodies giving in to fatigue. Tired, drowsy, and sluggish all the time.
But Eve was focused.
Anya passed steaming mugs of coffee to Kai and Salam as they sat at a holo-table, eyes drifting toward Eve. She was surrounded by shifting data matrices, streams of light cascading around her, while the Soul Drifter hung suspended in the cavernous bay. Nomad engineers maneuvered cranes, affixing new modules to its armored frame.
Anya: "When she does stuff like that... I wonder what is she even doing in the battlefields."
Kai: "She just merged hyperspace tunneling tech with fusion drive thrust enhancers. Why can't we think of something like that?"
Salam: "I stopped being surprised by what Eve or her body can do after discovery of her Alien Trigger. I just gave up being curious. She's what she is. Full of surprises."
Kai: "You think Sable has a mind like that?"
Salam: "Sable may have her xenomorphic powers, and I don't know if she can activate her Alien Trigger... but I'm pretty sure super-thinking is only Eve's gift."
Kai: "What else can she make... she belongs to the labs. She was born for it."
Salam: "If she were a scientist..."
Eve: "I am... a scientist!" she yelled from her console in the other corner of the cavern.
Salam: "I forget she's got enhanced hearing. Anyway, if Eve was a dedicated scientist, she could have easily surpassed the likes of Dr. Kyle Seraphis." He shouted 'dedicated' so Eve could hear it. She smiled with continued focused on the data on her screens.
Just then Vayne joined them with a smug look on his face. "You guys look like hell. And Anya, you could seriously use a bath."
She gave him an elbow, "Jerk!" and walked away to her table where she worked on a new laser blaster Eve had designed.
Vayne: "Wow, what are those new modules for?"
Kai: "Your ship is getting... super-upgrades, but I don't want to ruin the surprise for you."
Then Eve got up and walked to their table. "I've finalized the quantum-flow algorithms and structural matrices. I need you to hard-code the architecture into the drive lattice, then fabricate the hardware scaffold. Treat the data as executable schematics—compile them directly into a physical model." She said and returned to her console.
Vayne: "From that I can tell you're making her super speedy. I'm tech-savvy but not nerdish enough for the other part. Easy English, somebody?"
Kai: "She gave us software design and schematic hardware outlines... of a module that we now turn into a physical extension, have engineering build it, and add it to the Soul Drif—"
Vayne: "That's what's been happening all these days."
Kai: "Yep. We were excited too when we came in. Watching all the upgrades just roll in, until she just kept making more."
Vayne: "Good! Oh, look, my baby's gained some weight. She curvy." He looked at the Soul Drifter's new modifications.
Kai: "She doesn't sleep for days. God, when will it stop?"
Salam: "Hold on, brother, just two more modules."