Alone II

However, despite the lack of progress, he still remained focus on his objective. Since although he may find it hard to call his work "progress", it still did help him take a step to achieve his main goal. To produce energy in a stable manner.

Sitting on the bridge as he scavenge the remaining important parts of his newly acquired prey, he hesitantly send his robotic mechas. These robotic mechas, powered by portable nuclear fusion reactor, are rapid-moving objectives in deep space. It even pars the enemy anti-ship spacecrafts that could potentially obliterate an entire Washington-class battle-dreadnoughts. 

However, the problem is... They are controlled by artificial intelligence. 

Since he's currently alone in this ship, he had to remain dependent on AIs or he had to do it for himself. But Leone's a conservative man, he fears that providing an AI this much power could lead to complications, if not, his death.

His wariness is valid, though. It hasn't been a century since an AI rebellion occur that reverted human civilization back to 22th century. The death was staggering as well, causing most cultures to die. He was also influenced by his family's ideology against AI advancement.

He even suggested an alternatives from his superior, but instead of being considered, he was mocked.

He sent a squad of mechas to the space, he ordered the AIs to retrieve "relics" and minerals found from the enemy ship. These things will prove useful to him since he's currently isolated from the rest of the research team.

Certain reasons are due to this decision, such as safety distance, secrecy, etc. 

Anyways, as he observe the clumsy movement of the AI controlling the mechas, the ship suddenly vibrated, almost dropping him onto the floor. However, he remain calm and collected, then proceed to diagnose the ship's energy system.

And as he suspected, the IEL reactor acted once more. 

Since the past 2 years, he can no longer count the times when the IEL would act, oftentimes, it would violently shook the ships, sending him flying through the each sides of the ship. 

It was truly a miracle that he has yet to receive life-long injuries that could hinder the experiment. 

After concluding the IEL's energy instability, he made his way through the ship's main hallway, at the center of the 10,000 meters long fortress. A few walks later, he find himself in front of a massive door that stands 3 to 4 times taller him... who is currently considered to be taller than average in Earth.

As the door automatically opens, a neutron star-like object glimmering in purplish light move back and forth from its cylindrical container while its two tail from each side follows its body as if its having a hard time finding its connection.

Despite this panicking moment, he remain calm still. He walks towards a lever attached to a metallic tube and pull it backwards. As he did so, the container started to rumble violently. This rumbling causes the entire ship's lighting to flicker.

Then, a total blackout occur. 

All those that are connected or relies on electricity immediately shut down.

Even the mechas, working outside was disabled. 

This blackout wasn't due to the reactor being turned off but due to its "last attempt before death"-like pulse that sends emp towards its surrounding. This pulse was caused by the immense energy burst from the container that has yet to be capable of containing this sudden boost of energy. 

The blackout lasted a minute or so before Leone decided to push the lever back again. This push opened the [Multidimensional] tube that sucks energy across the dimensions. At the same time the wormhole opened as well and starts crumbling as soon as it does. 

However, upon opening the reactor, the immense energy produced by IEL was enough to sustain the wormhole's lifespan a few minutes long. Long enough for the energy to completely become stable.

Once again, the reactor is now in a calm state. The wormhole can be seen crumbling despite its transparency, but the energy can also be seen doing its job by providing the tube-maker enough electricity to produce high amount of negative energy within the vacuum space. 

As he smile in satisfaction, Leone proceeds to return to the bridge and continue observing the mechas.

As he walk through the desolate hall, he reminisce the time where there's people that walks among him. 

If only he didn't anger the higher up for his stubbornness, perhaps he's now developing a new and better type of weapon instead of living on an unstable, experimental ship that could explode at random times on a whim.

Soon, he arrived to the bridge. He was consulted by his AI companion named Ela but he ignored it and focused on observing the mechas, while at the same time, managing the internal system of the ship, improving its defensive and offensive weaponry, and anti-AI contingency measure system in case it happens.

Fortunately, he has complete control of the ship.

Leone separated each and every AIs from their singular consciousness by disconnecting them to the network and gave them each of their own source code to program what exactly he wants them to do. 

Though it may sound complex. he just copy-pasted each code and changed a few lines to change their purpose.

The only one connected to the network is Ela. However, he restricted her access to only within the external system to avoid internal system manipulation, such as oxygen-level, security measures, food production, etc.