The Road to the Stars and the Echo of War.

Two years later | Central server of the spacecraft "Way" | Launchpad on the planet New Rubezh

Two more years have flown by. It didn't take this long to build a small transporter, according to my makers' classification. How I built the parts is a separate topic. Unfortunately, there were no orbital shipyards or factories for orbital equipment, so I assembled the ship myself. Almost. Oddly enough, I was helped in this by the inhabitants, who showed great ingenuity after I pumped in some knowledge. Unfortunately, not everyone joined me. Many were afraid, and some just didn't want to change their familiar world for the unknown. But back to the details, construction, and events that followed the battle.

About two days after the king's death and the army's defeat, people from neighbouring villages streamed to my "dwelling place. Some just to watch, and some, hearing about the recruitment of adepts, tried their luck. I didn't take all of them, by the way. Not by brains, no. There was a little test of what the subject wanted. I could read it, and if there were trivial desires in the form of enrichment, power, power, etc., then I rejected the candidate. But they were welcomed with open arms if they saw new possibilities, mysteries of the unknown, or even ordinary curiosity or a thirst for knowledge. But they didn't see other tribesmen anymore.

I did not want anyone to pass on knowledge to others and this world to develop with my handout. Let them do everything themselves. I've had my fill of this place. So there was an informational quarantine waiting for everyone who passed. After the training, which lasted about half a month, they were distributed among the production facilities because not everywhere the system could do everything itself and waste fire everywhere - not ko milo. By the way, we should call them something normal. Hmm... maybe... flash, firefly, light, signal... Oh, let's go with Spark. Just when I woke up, I mistook them for sparks and then for lights. So there you go! The locals became operators in the factories and some even technicians. I didn't trust them much, but they had enough of that.

By the way, half a month was spent less on training, as on getting them used to the technology. After all, it's not the easiest task to teach an inhabitant of, roughly speaking, the Middle Ages how to handle mechanisms. They thought it was witchcraft anyway and attributed it to me. I don't know if I can take it away. It's too deep. Well, as long as it doesn't hurt, it doesn't get in the way.

In the meantime, I tried to build a ship from various components using my and my creators' knowledge. By the way, the synthesis could have been stronger than I thought. Only energy was needed to create the most insignificant parts and connect them into "simple mechanisms". But the mystery of synthesis from energy was not completely solved, so the complex systems still required special minerals and ores, and since I do not have mining equipment, and to create it would have wasted time and resources, as well as ruined the planet, I had to use bots: both spiders and ordinary, as miners. So with a bit of a bang, I got something. It was not enough, but I'll be able to get more by the start. I made the parts manually at a regular factory, which was a pain in the ass: they didn't fit, everything was manual, the parts didn't fit, etc. But I could build a quiet, normal and beautiful ship after two years.

I also made myself a moving platform, by the way. I just took the biggest bot I could and stuck my module inside it. I moved around on my own instead of bouncing from bot to bot. I began to communicate more with the inhabitants and answer their questions. One of the first was from one kid who was first to learn: "What's waiting for us at the stars, and what are we going to do there?" It was a question I didn't answer right away at the time. I thought for a long time because if it was Massa, I would have to, sooner or later, deal with the reapers and the rest of the crap. And if I also got into the time after humanity entered space, I would be quite sad about my transporter. I am totally unprepared for war, even though I am technically superior to the races in the story. I will think about it later; although it is desirable to find Earth before I go into space, I will realize my full potential there.

One week later

So that's it, the last power grid is connected, the reactor is running at full capacity, the last gallon of fuel has been poured, and the last factory has been shut down or disassembled. I was taking everything I created and hiding traces of my stay on the planet. All those who chose to come with me are in stasis. By the way, I'll tell you about that separately. I also left messages from my creators on the planet. The natives will find it, I think, somewhere around the information age. This is approximately, so you understand. The only data left there is about the war. I took all the technology away and could not resist burning my coat of arms, the symbol of Omnissia, in the stone above the vault. Let them wonder who left it. It's time for me to leave this world.

About the colonists. I put them all in stasis for a simple purpose-I don't know how long I'll be flying, and I'll find the energy to do all my work, but I need to figure out where to get food. I'll take supplies, but will there be enough? And to be safe, they will spend all their time sleeping.

Putting all my legions of bots on charge and my platform, I moved to the ship's servers. After checking the systems, I gave the command to start the engines and activate the explosives. I had to destroy the launch pad. I was actually controlling everything and nothing at the same time. All the control was on the system, and what to do was up to me. That's how I lived the whole time. But the moment of launch and leaving the atmosphere passed, and I was in orbit there. I always wanted to go into space, and here I am. All right, let's get down to business. Namely, scanning.

I hoped to find some wreckage of ships from the war in the system and dig into their structure and technology. Preferably synthetics, but organics would come in handy too. And while the system was being scanned, I started the navigator to check the map and our location. I knew where I was now but could only guess where Earth was. After a few hours, the navigator gave me a route to the approximate location; the distance was a couple of crossings. By the way, about the crossings. My creators didn't use repeaters. That's where their paranoia about everything came into play. They used the principle of tunnelling space, which on Earth was known as the wormhole. They could travel enormous distances, but it all came down to the energy needed to punch through space. Synthetics also used another movement system but on the principle of matter transfer. The teleport. How they created it, they never disclosed, not even to my allies in the face of my creators. But they only knew that the technology was derived many thousands of years ago, perhaps by their creators... But never mind. If I ever find their planets, I'll likely find this technology too. In the meantime, I'll check the scanner.

Yeah, I was right. During the fight in orbit, the defence forces shot down a cruiser of an unknown race of organics. Then it went into uncontrolled flight towards the asteroid field. Now I found it 60,000 years later, crashing into an asteroid. Well, that's the first target. Later, I'll check several more systems and leave my creators' development sphere. I gave the order to make a route to the asteroid belt and temporarily went into stasis, as I had no other way to pass the time.

Three and a half hours later | Asteroid Belt | The Way

Yeah, the engine's a mess right now. Three hours of flight time and only half a system. I'll work on it when I have time, but I have to send the bots out to see the ship right now. I had a couple of small orbital ships attached to the ship's hull, so I sent them out to scout and collect on the dead ship. I was primarily interested in weapons technology. But according to the information from the ship, this race was using the mass effect to its fullest extent. That was not an option for me. I remembered the lore, which said that after finding all the solutions to this effect, the races would abandon their designs and go completely to zero elements and that it was a reaper trap. I wanted neither of these things, so having removed all the equipment from the ship, I ordered it destroyed. And so began my journey to the stars and my attempt to change the story, gathering bits of knowledge and technology.

After a couple of months of searching and finding a couple of wrecks, one of them allied and even one more or less intact, I began to prepare for the transition to the region of Earth. And while the energy buildup for the breach is going on, I'll tell you about the allied ship I found. As if my pleas had been heard, I found the last two ships hanging around in space at the end of my search. One was a nearly destroyed Organic cruiser, possibly even a Protean. Still, the other was a synthetic troop carrier packed with weapons and assault bots but with a damaged propulsion system. It likely lost the signal from the control station and shut down. After all, the synth government represented the AI enclave. All the other bots were just mindless machines. That was all fine, but without a signal, they wouldn't even budge. The control cluster of this unit was on the ship, or rather, it was the ship, and I even had an idea of how to take it all with me. After ordering the ships to be docked and secured, I could transfer to this ship through the communication tunnel. Well... it's just empty and dark. It needs a web to complete the picture. Oh, well. Summoning the Spark, I mentally commanded to take control of this ship and let it go. As I moved back, I was notified that the ship and landing party awaited my instructions. Wonderful! Having secured the ships, though the design did not fly well, it would do for one crossing. I gave the order to accumulate energy for a breach.

These are the pies I may now have, the only thing left of the two great nations. And with all that, I want to start a new life. And counting down the last seconds of accumulation, with a sigh, I gave the order to break through space.

After a couple of moments, a portal began to open in front of the ship, from which blue energy seemed to come out, and the ship itself began to enter it. Also, a few seconds later, the ship disappeared into a vortex, and the space behind it instantly slammed shut, removing all traces of recent activity. Once again, space returned to its infinite tranquillity...