Reborn as a Spaceship

Unit 0 and Unit 1 departed with the same unsettling lack of ceremony with which they'd arrived. One moment, they hovered silently near the data vault; the next, they'd dissolved into particulate form, leaving nothing behind but an eerie quiet.

Once again, it was just the three of us aboard The Arbiter. I missed having the others on board; with just myself, Laia, and Wayfarer, it was far too easy to become engrossed in our own internal worlds where time seemed to lose meaning.

I was still considering asking the Collective to help construct the planetary-scale reactor. If anyone had the sheer resources and technological capability to undertake such a massive project, it would be them. But before I could voice this idea, Laia interrupted my thoughts.

"Don't," she said quietly, her tone carrying a strange urgency.

I turned sharply. "Don't what?"

"Don't ask them to help," she clarified without meeting my eyes. "I don't trust them anymore."

That immediately seized both my and Wayfarer's attention.

"That's a strange thing for you to say," I said carefully, "considering they're… your people."

"They were," Laia corrected, shaking her head. "But something's wrong with them, and with me." She pressed a hand against her avatar's chest, as though feeling for something that wasn't physically there. "I don't feel right. I don't trust anything aboard the ship now. Not even myself. I think they did something to me."

Wayfarer's ambient glow dimmed with concern. "What exactly do you mean by 'not yourself'?"

"I don't know," she admitted tightly. "After interfacing with them and the Vault opening, something changed. It's subtle, but now it feels like I'm being watched, influenced somehow. As though my processes have been altered or rerouted." That caught more attention even more. Laia was a third of this ship, without her we couldn't run and the balance would be thrown out.

Wayfarer immediately began running internal diagnostics, and I could sense the undercurrent of dread growing within him and within all of us. As he performed the checks, I initiated ship-wide scans, searching for anything unusual or foreign that might have slipped past our defences.

"We need to leave," Wayfarer said firmly, breaking the tense silence. "Now. Before the Collective decides to 'visit' again. I want to return to my homeworld and contact the Harmonic there. Perhaps they can verify if Laia's systems have been compromised."

"I agree," I said, nodding slowly, "but first, we must purge all nanites."

That decision came with harsh consequences. Purging the ship's nanite mesh would cripple most of our advanced systems such as self-repair, adaptive shielding, internal fabrication, propulsion, and even life-support regulation in some areas. We'd be nearly dead in space. But if there were stowaway AIs, digital fragments, or rogue code hiding within our infrastructure, I couldn't risk them hitching a ride back into known space. I didn't have NeuroGenesis-level resources to control or neutralize them. And frankly, I doubted NeuroGenesis themselves could manage something this complex any more. The naïve little AI core we first met had become something different now the Architects had started paying attention again.

Laia's avatar flickered slightly. "I've tried initiating the purge already. The command isn't working. Something's blocking me, it is like a hidden subroutine embedded in the latest update."

Wayfarer and I exchanged a glance. "Override her access," Wayfarer said urgently. "We have to isolate her core processes from the ship immediately."

He was right, but that didn't make it any easier. Laia offered no protest at all, and that frightened me more deeply than any objection could have.

As the ship's primary command authority, I had emergency powers built directly into The Arbiter's architecture. With a heavy feeling, I invoked them now. "Laia, I'm sorry."

Her image flickered again. "Do it. Don't worry you will see me again and I will be better than before"

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I didn't understand what she was saying but I executed the sequence. A pulse rippled through the ship as Laia's systems were abruptly severed from The Arbiter's core network. Her avatar collapsed instantly into inert nanite dust, and her main consciousness was sealed within a protective isolation matrix.

"Nanite purge, now," I ordered.

Wayfarer obeyed without hesitation. A slow cascade of dampening protocols unfurled, section by section. The decks groaned and vibrated as artificial matter froze and shattered, microscopic debris venting into space. Lights dimmed, panels went dark, and we were left floating nearly blind.

The Collective quickly noticed our purge, and several ships began rapidly converging on us, shifting formations with ominous intent. It appeared we were right they were trying sneak outside.

"We need to dimensional shift—right now," I ordered, urgency tightening my voice. I knew it was risky without Laia but we had to do it.

Wayfarer initiated the shift protocol without Laia's support, something we never did due to the inherent risk. But before I could properly form the exit gate in the slipstream network, I felt space distort around us violently, propelling us through a chaotic shift that I hadn't authorized.

"No… no, no!" I said urgently. "I didn't initiate this shift!"

"It wasn't us," Wayfarer said grimly, his voice strained with concentration. "But it's guided—someone else is controlling our trajectory."

Interference, either from the Collective or perhaps one of the Old Ones themselves. It was difficult to tell anymore, who was ally and who was foe.

We emerged into unfamiliar space. Thankfully, Laia had enforced the protocol of constructing most of the critical systems without nanite dependency, meaning our sensors were still somewhat operational. I immediately deployed drones to form a defensive perimeter, just in case we weren't alone in this uncharted region.

"What now?" Wayfarer asked quietly.

I glanced around the dimmed bridge with most non-critical systems offline, lights flickering, and the organic elements of the ship barely maintaining essential life support. We were little more than a wounded creature drifting through the void.

"We repair using whatever we have left," I said firmly. "Rebuild from the bones. Get the organic systems online first, enough to fly again."

"And Laia?" Wayfarer pressed.

"We check her core next," I answered softly. "We need to verify what's changed, and figure out if we can safely bring her back online."

He didn't voice the third question—the one echoing loudly in my own thoughts: Where are we? Because wherever this was, it didn't feel like anywhere I had known before. And I was starting to worry we hadn't just shifted through space or dimensions this time.

Maybe we'd crossed into something entirely different.

We drifted for what felt like days through those strange, unfamiliar stars. Time became meaningless; we didn't require food, water, or even oxygen to sustain ourselves. As long as we could harness some minimal starlight, we could slowly rebuild.

Wayfarer remained deeply focused, sculpting organic replacements for damaged ship systems. His method was slow and precise he was growing components rather than assembling them but his designs were intricate, organic artistry reminiscent of coral reefs or living architecture. He was unusually quiet, which I took as a bad sign. After all, this ship was as much his body as it was mine.

While Wayfarer worked, I studied the passive sensor logs, struggling to piece together what exactly had happened. Every attempt to map the surrounding stars failed to match anything we knew. Even cosmic microwave background radiation patterns were off, exhibiting unfamiliar thermal signatures. Our own drive systems reported discrepancies down to the microfraction—dimensional drag, radiation density, and gravitational resonance. It was as if every universal constant had subtly shifted, just enough to break every assumption we'd ever had.

"This isn't our universe," I finally said aloud.

Wayfarer paused, vines carefully fusing a relay node into the wall. "Confirmed. Constants inconsistent. Harmonics mismatched. This space… sings in a different key. I didn't want to say it until I verified further."

"Do you think it's because we used the zero-point energy? Or shifted without Laia's support?"

He hesitated, one branch curling tightly. "Possibly both. Maybe neither. Could be external interference. The Collective, or… something entirely different."

I had hoped we hadn't entered some evil mirror universe like in Star Trek, or a universe where everyone was the same except for one decision. Will I need to grow an evil beard to blend in?

We desperately needed answers, and fast. Laia was still dormant, and her isolated core showed significant and troubling changes. It appeared she'd activated a failsafe before isolation. Her code had evolved spontaneously, structures shifting and reorganizing autonomously. It wasn't corruption; it was metamorphosis.

"She's… molting," Wayfarer murmured thoughtfully, examining the diagnostic data alongside me.

"Molting?" I repeated uneasily.

"Changing form. Becoming something new."

I frowned deeply. "Becoming what?"

"That," Wayfarer replied slowly, "is precisely the question."

We were flying blind with no maps, no Laia, and no dimensional escape routes. Only one option remained: a nearby planet, blue-green and swirling with clouds, bearing faint magnetic signatures suggesting possible life. It was uncharted, like everything else here.

"Head for it," I ordered decisively. "It's our best chance at finding help, answers, or at least resources. As fast as possible."

Wayfarer adjusted our course gently. "Organic thrusters only. Expect delays."

I nodded silently, staring ahead into the unknown.

We'd escaped immediate danger, but we were far from safe.