Chapter 164 - Almost There

*(mood song: "Olivia Newton John - Twist Of Fate")

On the submarine, Erik could now walk around but still had to concentrate to avoid feeling nauseous, the floors, walls, ceilings, everything carried electricity and glowed in different colors in his vision. He had learned something interesting recently though, upon focussing on a particularly shining part of the wall, he had tried touching it, but his hand had absorbed that light, making a part of the wall crumble as the nanobots discharged.

He knew instantly what had happened, he had absorbed their electricity, it felt strange, like taking a relaxing hot bath, making his entire body feel relaxed.

Erik: "what the... so I can absorb electricity... it feels weird but good at the same time..." he observed the slowly reconstructing wall "need to learn to control it though... wonder how it works.... the mitochondria mutated maybe?"

Rose: [Who destroyed my... what the... you are up huh... do you mind if I take a peek?]

Erik: [can't I just tell you? it seems like I can absorb electricity now... you are looking through my memories ain't you?]

Rose: [just a quick peek..., huh the evaluation of that crazy bot seems to be accurate]

Erik: [crazy bot? 2137?]

Rose: [yeah, him... he used to control a space fortress you know? now he's just recycled as another handyman bot]

Erik: [another... how many other AI's do you have?]

Rose: [well, I can always create new ones, but from the old times only 2137 remains, AI's can go crazy with time too you know? it's quite sad, 2137 is slightly less crazy than others, but still unpredictable]

Erik: [he seemed quite helpful, and not even slightly crazy to me though]

Rose: [Anyone can do some diagnosis... sigh think whatever you want, just don't eat his food, also come to the kitchen, I see your nervous system improved but we need to improve it more by eating creatures brain matter, if we improve your brain's response to stimuli your new senses will become more usefull]

Erik tried to delay the disgusting buffet: [...on my way, b- by the way... what did you mean by others earlier? ]

Rose: [Well, most of the AI subordinates I had either died in the war, I was damaged and couldn't see but... I felt it as they slowly started disconnecting... dying... dying for me, to protect me]

Erik: [what about 2137?]

Rose: [well, he was never ambitious, but he did try some weird experiments trying to become a half organic organism like me... he made animals eat machines and studied them, and so he had some humanoid bots he used to jump down while his main body fortress fought the invaders... ]

Erik:[...Jumping from orbit with a bot? that should be impossible... and how did his experiments go?]

Rose: [It was impossible, that's why he used a dozen as shields before making it down and crashing on the ice, as for his experiments he gave up a long time ago, before the war. None of his stupid experiments ever worked, as the animals just digested the metal, ask him yourself if you have some years to spare listening to a rambling AI, he's quite obsessed about that topic]

Erik: [...I will think about it... by the way, why didn't I see him before?]

Rose: [well, as I said, his main body was destroyed in the times of the great war, and although some remnants do remain in orbit... he then lived for another million years as one of the combat drones fallen from orbit, I could feel him there, the last candle in the darkness... he was extremely damaged though... eventually unable to repair himself... luckily I was able to recover his data...]

Erik: [his data? where did you find him?]

Rose: [well, he was in what you call now the greenhouse lab, took a lot of time to restore his mind, that probably also explains why the greenhouse was so damaged, or why the base's door was open...]

Erik: [is that so? you never mentioned him]

Rose: [well, you never asked, and it wasn't your problem ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ]

Erik: [okay... can't you just ask him about those things?]

Rose: [sadly no... his memories are corrupted and lacking data, his memory crystal was cracked too...] Rose paused [...but enough of him, I'm about to start the next teleport of Sarah, two more and she should be close to this solar system]

Erik smiled: [that's a relief] he looked at his own hands though [I don't know if she will even recognize me though haha...]

Rose: [....that's easy enough, tell her about the day you met, or how her boss was trash, no one else should know that]

Erik: [Indeed, but you know, that proves it ain't a failsafe method]

Rose: [¯\_( ͡°з ͡°)_/¯ she doesn't know that]

Erik: [hah... fine, I feel tired already]

--- In a distant solar system ---

Sarah sped up through space on her mace like spaceship.

Spaceship AI: *Captain, I detect the gravitational waves again! just up ahead!*

Sarah sighed in relief: "Phew... I thought we had been left stranded... what a relief, get into it!"

Spaceship AI: *understood* the spaceship accelerated into the gravitational disturbance and disappeared with a flash of light.

Unknown to Sarah though, she had been about to be surrounded by multiple mismatched fleets.

--On one of them--

The captain of the spaceship, a pirate with a stony bark like skin, roared: "after them you maggots! this is our last chance with the union! we can't fail!" he belonged to a violent race known as the Trakonakt.

The crew quickly scrambled to reposition the spaceships on the correct course, as Sarah had been going on a straight line it wasn't too hard. Similar occurrences happened on the other spaceships as they launched themselves onto the darkness of space, following in the direction Sarah had flown.

--- In a different star system ---

The solar system had a big nebulous full of forming small planets and a birthing small star.

Sarah's spaceship emerged from nowhere with a flash of light, and quickly sped away from the system.

Spaceship AI: *captain, our course has changed, we seem to have been teleported horizontally this time*

Sarah raised an eyebrow: "that's peculiar, does that mean we are close?"

Spaceship AI: *assuming our previously unchanged trajectory, this final change could be a diversion tactic*

Sarah: "Is that so... the radar didn't show anything though"

Spaceship AI: *The enemy's technology is beyond ours captain, I can only guess, but there's a 90% chance that's the case*

Sarah: "and the other possibilities?"

Spaceship AI: *the other possibilities are an incorrect initial target, and a moving target due to unknown causes, but something or someone capable of folding space shouldn't make errors like those*

Sarah: "that seems like a reasonable explanation, sigh... we will know once we get there though" she looked at the vastness of space speeding up in front of her spaceship in deep thought "I just hope Erik is alright..."

--- Back at the ARK, submarine ---

Erik chewed on goey brain matter, tears of disgust fell from his eyes, as he chewed the salty and goey meat paste.

Rose stood by the side, cheering him as a very much full Inky was laying on the floor.

Rose: "come on, you should be able to fill four more Kilogram in your stomach"

Erik: "hah... hah... this... is... awful... my body doesn't wanna eat it... I wanna puke..."

Rose: "awww~~ you can't do that, come on you are almost there, I even captured some fresh new beast brains for you, they are still fresh and twitching, fresh sashimi right?" a radiant smile on her face.

Erik: "...sashimi is usually frozen first to kill parasites..."

Rose: "it's fine, the flesh is mostly clean, and don't underestimate your stomach and defenses, you should be immune to most if not all microorganisms and viruses back at your planet by now, your body even has its own defensive phages, the microorganisms just surrender to your body, getting absorbed and repurposed, so... don't worry and eat~~"

Erik's stomach was about to burst, like a normal human trying to eat two entire turkeys... raw, his belly was stretched and he couldn't take one more bite.

So Erik promptly laid on the floor next to Inky: "I give up... can't eat anymore... ugh..."

Rose was disappointed: "aww it was starting to get fun, we need to test the limits of your stomach, it's important data"

Erik: "clone... tissue sample... test yourself... hah... hah..."

Rose: "fine~, by the way, lay on your side, it's gonna crush your lungs otherwise"

Erik did as told and could immediately breathe better, as he fell asleep from exhaustion.

Rose: "sigh... well, this should be enough to equilibrate his senses" she then looked up "I also dealt with his girlfriend, now I just need to feed our cute little stowaways~"

She then proceeded to leave a big chunk of meat on the table, and walked away.

From a vent on the ceiling then came the Yaksha, Yhana at the lead came and touched Erik's side.

Yhana: "venerable one ate too much... needs digestion..."

Old Yaksha: "chief! meat left behind, offering..." pointing her spear at the meat on the table.

Yhana nodded: "they can't finish meat, we will finish, meat not eaten gets bad"

And so the Yasha quickly tore down the meat with their serrated sharp teeth. It didn't last long as they surrounded Erik once again.

Old Yaksha: "what do chief?"

Yhana: "we wait, Yaksha protect venerable one, venerable one digest and wakes up, venerable one sees, Yaksha rewarded"

They all nodded, and all of them pointed up their spears, as they stood in a protective circle around Erik.

Meanwhile, Rose reached the submarine control room, which only had Amanda sitting on the leading chair with her eyes closed, cables connected to the back of her head, and some octopeople hunters and scouts checking cameras on nearby chairs.

Rose: "so~ anything of notice?"

Amanda opened her eyes and rolled them: "you are connected to the submarine too, why are you asking me?"

Rose shrugged: "don't know~ to make you feel useful?"

Amanda's brows twitched: "...is that so..."

Rose sat nearby, her head looking at the ceiling as she rolled her eyes: "yeah sorry, it's tiring teleporting spaceships you know? so just humor me okay?"

Amanda: "...fine, there was a flock of some kind of... swimming starfish, but they were repelled by electrifying the hull, and leaving them behind"

Rose: "good good... and we are almost there too..."

Amanda: "...what are we expecting once there?"

Rose: "...sigh... anything really" she pointed up "this submarine is my best right now... I put everything into it... if we succeed great, but if we fail... it will take quite some time to recover... hah... me who used to think in centuries... everything goes so fast now..." she looked at Amanda "don't get me wrong, I have nothing wrong with it, it's just really tiring, I'm feeling tired and weak recently... we need to restart that fabrication center, if we capture it... I will be able to properly start recovering, maybe recover some debris from orbit to get some extra material..."

Amanda: "a- are... are you dying?"

Rose's eyes dilated: "hah! don't speak nonsense! I'm just tired... I can totally keep going, once we repair that place we will drill down... all other repair tunnels seem to be damaged, I just need some repairs... that's all..."