Auditor

"So, is there anything else you wanted to discuss?"

With River still stuck on top of him, Mike quickly started finding the silence that filled the all-room of the Wyrm quite awkward. While Mike was used to River's deep green eyes staring at him closely, it was still a little too much for him when she was literally centimetres from his own face. In addition to the mental damage Mike was taking from River's face alone, it also didn't help that she had at some point zipped her vacuum suit a bit further down than she usually did within sight of Mike, furthermore, some kind of pleasant smell seemed to drift from her brown hair; Luring Mike like a siren lured sailors back on earth to a watery, early grave.

"I don't know, is there anything?"

Asking from point-blank range, River's tone made it clear to Mike that he was supposed to know what they needed to talk about, only the dense lad had no idea and was starting to get uncomfortable.

"... Could you please get off of me now?"

"Why?"

As River was unusually aggressive and combative with her return questions, Mike only managed to stop himself from visibly flinching in response.

(What the hell is going on with her?)

"Because this position might be bad in the long run."

"Is that so?"

"...?"

Coming to a complete loss, Mike resigned to at least lose an arm (or even more) before he finally addressed the core of the issue.

"You know… Your… I mean some parts of your body…"

"Go on."

Still maintaining a complete poker face only a few centimetres from his face, River wanted Mike to say whatever he was saying clearly.

"Is touching…"

"Oh, I am aware of that already."

With negotiations completely breaking down, River stared blankly at Mike for a few more moments before she breathed a half-disappointed sigh and finally got up from her seat.

"... Ah, before I forget."

Stopping in place without turning around, River spoke up as she hid her expression.

"Stay and rest, we won't arrive for another 6 hours. If you don't lie back down I'll make you."

"Yes ma'am, right away ma'am!"

Having barely escaped a painful death, Mike obeyed River's words without question and laid back down as River breathed another quiet sigh before she returned to the cockpit.

-

"We're arriving in just under 10 minutes, from here we can observe the galactic centre from a relatively safe distance before committing fully… What exactly are we looking for Mike?"

Having covered quite a lot of distance while Mike was out cold, Jessica, Dan and River now needed Mike's expertise as he had only shared one part of the plan, namely the destination, without going into details about how the group was supposed to leave the galaxy cluster controlled by the Eden Theocrasy.

"If the gateways have opened we're looking for a series of half-visible orbs that orbit around the supermassive black hole at near-light speed, from there it is just a matter of getting into the system and activating them."

"And how large are those half-visible orbs?"

Already seeing problems with Mike's lacklustre explanation as she knew there wasn't ever anything easy that 'just' needed an activation.

"About 10 kilometres in diameter, but they block a shitton of hawking radiation when orbiting, so we can detect them fairly easily as long as we get close enough."

While spotting the relatively small masses moving near light speed using just visible light would be nothing but a fool's errand, Mike suggested looking for voids in the natural radiation the supermassive black hole emitted as signs of a possible active gateway.

"Well, that works, we're punching out of supercruise in a minute. Distance to the black hole will be around 900 light seconds."

(So about 15 minutes before anyone in the system knows we're here… Let's say 10 to call it safe, I hope there aren't too many Eden forces already here.)

Glancing at the others, Mike clenched his hands around the stick and throttle as he felt his pulse rising.

"10 minutes max, we don't overstay our welcome."

"Right… But this is our only way out isn't it?"

Optimistic about the situation, Jessica nonetheless recognised that there was no plan B available, there was only one way for the trio to escape other than through the gateways.

"If we can't get through these gates there are still other options."

"Like-"

"We're punching out now."

Cutting the chatter (or argument) short as they needed to focus on more important matters, Jessica, River and Mike all concentrated on the Wyrm's sensors as the

"Well, there are the spikes in Hawking radiation we were looking for, the gates are definitely active…"

Just from glancing at the sensor readouts, Mike confirmed the presence of multiple possible gateways in orbit of the supermassive black hole, along with at least two armadas of Eden Theocrasy war crafts ready to invade whatever world their god sent them to.

"Well, shit…"

Staring blankly at the countless contacts for a second, Mike felt a pit growing in his stomach as he really, really didn't like plan b.

Only Mike never got to further consider plan b as Eden Theocrasy crashed the misery party.

"45 Contacts closing in!"

"They found us!"

"Jessica handle the weapons! River find me a gap!"

Taking control of the situation, Mike lit the afterburner and started evasive actions as the Eden forces weren't holding anything back.

"There's no way out, they've fucking encircled us already!"

As Mike was about to try the trick which River had already used to escape from the Eden forces, they had clearly already anticipated that and moved to block Mike from accelerating with suppressive flak fire.

"We're taking hits from that flak already!"

While glancing hits from flak didn't do much on their own against the Wyrm's shield and amour, the excessive amount of them threatened to wear down the Wyrm's shields fast, opening it up to critical subsystem damage.

(Even if this kind of attack can't penetrate our armour plating, it'll only take a few hits before the Wyrm's thrusters start acting up… From there it's a death spiral.)

"Jessica, don't worry about our ammunition stores, fire everything!"

"R-right away!"

Seeing how things were going, Jessica, like everyone else onboard the Wyrm started panicking. As Mike continued shifting around the Wyrm he started seeing the writing on the wall, things were already out of his control, and as his vision started to narrow he finally gave in.

"FUCK! Plan B!"

"What kind of fu-"

"Dan, you better be fucking ready!"

Ignoring Jessica, Mike addressed Dan as he finally started to realise what Mike would do.

"Mike you can't be!-"

"Yeah, I fucking am, so be ready to deal with it! River, your ship!"

Shifting from piloting over to system management, Mike redirected power to the Wyrm's comm system and supercharged it as he prepared to send out an open broadcast.

(Since you fucking vampires like your fucking god so much, why don't you try and deal with them!)

Finishing up the transmission and sending it out, nothing seemed to happen for a few seconds, and then all the Eden ships stopped firing.

"...Mike, what did you just do?"

Looking over at Mike, River saw his signature shit-eating grin as she started questioning him.

"I called someone."

"Who?"

"A god."

"... What kind of- You can't fucking be serious."

Realising what Mike had done, River was ready to murder him before the vampire god did it for them, only she didn't get the chance to as one of the Eden flagships contracted the Wyrm directly.

Accepting the call instead of answering River, Mike was met with a very frantic Inquisitor.

[What the fuck did you just do heretic!? Answer me or I'll skin you alive!]

"... Wait, is that you Lua, how the fuck are you still an Inquisitor?"

Recognising the voice from the other side of the call, Dan spoke up not realising that the other side couldn't hear him.

"You know what I did, now why don't leave before things get awkward? I mean, the fact that I, a savage and a heretic, is apparently closer to your god than you are?"

Closing out the comms channel then and there, Mike was sure that the Inquisitor was currently trying to kill him, but as nothing happened, he figured he could just continue to ignore her. Before anything else could get to interrupt Mike's insane plan, it finally appeared.

In the empty space consisting of hard vacuum between the Wyrm and Lua's flagship, something ferociously violated the known laws of physics and tore a hole from another dimension.

[ARBRITRATION REQUEST RECEIVED; SUMMONING SYSTEM NODE MONITOR.]

As the Wyrm's cockpit was suddenly filled with a cold and synthetic voice as it finally appeared. with a radius far surpassing a kilometre, the black orb almost looked like a small moon or other natural satellite, if not for the countless biomechanical and synthetic eyes crawling all over its surface as the monitor node examined its surroundings.

(That's no moon, it's a space station… Or not really, but close enough.)

"How did-"

"It hacked our comm systems."

Silencing River as he was well aware that the monitor was listening in on everything they said, Mike examined the amount of red glowing eyes that were busy scanning the entirety of the Wyrm.

(Your move.)

Mike figured they had a higher chance of getting out of the current situation by negotiating with the Eden god compared to the Eden Theocrasy, but chances still weren't that optimistic.

[APBRITRATION READY: STATE YOUR CASE MORTAL.]

"We seek passage out of the Eden territory, in exchange we are willing to provide tribute and help further the Grand Directive."

While the Eden Theocrasy was a backwards xenophobic, supremacist, fascist state, their "leader" couldn't as easily be attributed to any kind of morality. In a sense, it wasn't good, nor evil.

All the Eden God would ever care about was its directive.

[ASISTANCE WITH GRAND DIRECTIVE INSIGNIFICANT, CURRENT PROJECTIONS PREDICT NO TROUBLE WITH CURRENT TIMELINE.]

(As expected… But luckily I know stuff you don't.)

Having expected the god to decline his offer of assistance and tribute from the start, Mike shifted goalposts.

"Then what if the current convergence invites too many contestants?"

[CURRENT ESTIMATION PROVIDES NO ISSUES WITH TIMELINE FOR PRIME DIRECTIVE, STATE YOUR CONJECTURE.]

While the Eden god believed Mike held very little actual value, it couldn't dissertation that he was lying, every single analysis told the god that Mike was telling the truth.

In other words, this mortal knew something about its Prime Directive that it, a machine god didn't.

"The appearance of non-organic life forms and remnants will present a significant threat against the Grand Directive, assuming the current rate of decay with no change all organic life forms will be depleted within 215 years, well before the Grand Directive can be completed."

[CALCULATING…]

Again, the Eden god couldn't detect any sort of deception going on, thus it started reevaluating its plan for dealing with Mike and the Wyrm.

"Mike, what are you talking about?"

As he was the only one left out of the situation, Dan took the time while the Eden god reevaluated its plans to ask.

"The upcoming convergence is going to be really, really bad. The crystal lifeforms, the remnants and other factions see these galaxies as nothing more than an all-you-can-eat platter… How I know all of this I'll explain when we're safe."

"... Fine, but I feel left out right now in more ways than one…"

Recognising that now was not the time to go into the fine details or life stories, Dan settled with the promise for now.

"Well, that's just how it is being the new kid on the block."

Feeling part sympathy, part superiority over Dan, Jessica's ears stood up proudly until Mike felt like he needed to poke at her pride.

"... At least Dan didn't try to kill me the first time we met."

"Wha!- How rude!"

"Guys, focus."

Pointing ahead to get the crew back on point, River froze up when she realised what she was pointing at. Instead of hovering a few kilometres away from their ship, the gigantic monitor was now mere millimetres away from the Wyrm's bridge with about a thousand of its eyes focused on them.

[PROSESSING COMPLETE, PRESENTING COUNTEROFFER: 3 TIMES TRIBUTE UNRESTRICTED, ONE-TIME ACCESS TO EDEN GETWAY NODE. AGREE Y/N? SUSTAINMENT OF ORGANIC LIFE IS A MUTUAL, NON-NEGOTUNAL GOAL.]

"Mike, what does that… Sorry, it, mean by 'tribute'?"

Correcting herself mid-sentence so she didn't offend Dan, River was growing increasingly worried by what Mike had just offered up in exchange for safe passage.

"Our most gracious god seeks to perfect organic life, therefore it seeks out samples to perfect its craft."

"Wha!-"

"We agree, take your tributes."

[AFIRMATIVE, PROCESSING… PREPARING FOR TRIBUTE.]

"MIKE!"

Agreeing before anyone could prevent him from doing so, Mike understandably caught some flak from River and the others.

But alas, the progress had already started.

Opening up like a grotesque flower, the black orb split up and quickly enveloped the Wyrm as its countless eyes shifted to the hollow inside of itself where it had now trapped Mike and the others. After enveloping the entirety of the ship, the monitor pressurised its interior to make sure its new samples wouldn't spoil.

"... Okay, so what happens now?"

Seeing that there was no way out of their current situation, River turned to Mike with a somewhat annoyed expression.

"We wait."

Before River could comment on Mike's absurdly vague message, a strange floating light appeared in the middle of the Wyrm's cockpit. Before anyone could react, the light expanded to the size of a person, then it grew tendrils which made their way to Mike, River and Jessica.

"AAAH!"

"WHAT THE FUCK!?"

"... And, we're done."

While Jessica and River understandably freaked out when the tendril rapidly approached them to touch their face, Mike knew what was going to happen and just let it happen. Without any sort of pain or discomfort, the Eden god extracted genetic material in a very different way from its followers.

"Wait what? Was that it?"

"Yeah."

"For re-"

"My lord!"

While River and Mike were bickering like usual, Dan took the time to get out of his seat and kneel down in front of the ball of light which seemed to recognise him.

[INQUISITOR DETECTED, IDENTITY CONFIRMED.]

"I wish to be of use to you again, please allow me to."

[PROSESSING, STAND BY… COLLECTING APPROPRIATE INFORMATION, PROTOCOL #77891 NOW ACTIVE. INQUISITOR #0000150231 PREMOTION CONFIRMED, NEW STATUS: AUDITOR #0000000091.]

Going over serval protocols and databanks which had laid dormant for multiple millennia, the orb of light grew multiple new tendrils which rapidly advanced on Dan. Entirely covering Dan's face, the tendrils started lighting up in complex patterns as Dan let out a half-suppressed grunt of pain.

"... Dan, you good?"

Seeing his comrade in great amounts of pain, Mike chose not to act immediately but instead asked as the Eden God was fulfilling Dan's request.

"ARG!- Y-yeah, I'm- AW good!"

"Okay."

After an agonising 5 minutes for Dan, the tendrils finally released him and found something very strange had happened.

"Huh?... Is that you Mike?"

Formerly horribly scared, Dan's face had now returned to its former grandeur, and for the first time in over a hundred years he could see.

"Yeah, I guess reintroductions are in order, but we have more important things to do first."

"I guess… Wow."

Glancing towards Jessica, Dan's red eyes were drawn to her and froze in place. In response to the sudden amount of attention, Jessica felt her face heat up as she shyly responded.

"W-what?"

"You're uglier than I thought."

"WHA!-"