Starship Engineer

Convincing the others of my plan was not easy. The Godfather representative was glad the Judgment Day system was quite far from the old human core worlds where it was still trying to restore order. The radiation from the supernova would not affect his domain.

He wouldn't commit any resources until things stabilized in his region of space. That was unlikely to happen for decades. So, we were unlikely to receive any help from them even though all life in the galaxy was in jeopardy.

Admiral LaRoche was willing to join us in the construction of the massive armageddon missile codenamed Sun Diver, but it was clear that he wanted access to more of our technology as well. I was reluctant to give him that power even though it would probably only take his scientists another two or three decades to develop the technology independently. In humanity's past, nuclear weapons were used as a Damocles Sword. The Sun Diver had the capability of ending all life in a stellar radius.

But I needed the resources to build the Sun Diver Armageddon missile, so I had to give him some concessions. We were on an unknown timetable as well. We were already setting the trap for the Malevolent world ship, so the missile had to be in place sooner rather than later.

In return for the raw materials for our fabrication furnaces, we gave the Human Federation our most recent shielding technology. The shielding was the collaborative efforts of the Sylvan and Arcadian scientists and greatly enhanced the effectiveness of shielding for much less power. The Fateweavers that were on loan to the Human Federation did not have this shielding technology.

Admiral LaRoche tried to get even more technology, but I got impatient and threatened to just build the Sun Diver on my own without his aid and on a much longer timetable. He capitulated and would begin sending the raw material for its construction in days, diverting material from his fleet production.

It was mostly about getting enough mass on the Sun Diver and maintaining its capabilities to enter and exit subspace while keeping its inertia. We were essentially taking the mass of a moon and throwing it into the sun at sixty percent of light speed. The ship would break apart on its exit, and hopefully, its impact on the surface would trigger the implosion of the star. The modeling we were doing seemed promising, and the question was how we made sure the Malevolents didn't flee.

Every fabricator in the Bradbury system was turned to manufacturing the Sun Diver missile. The timetable we set was seven months. I wanted the Sun Diver on site in the Judgement Day system in just seven months. It seemed like an almost impossible task.

We were also preventing all ships from traveling in the higher bands, greatly slowing travel. We needed the Malevolents to focus on the Judgement Day system and not explore other space lanes first.

Bel'Fer was slowly translating the data from the beacon. It was a wealth of scientific knowledge that was supposed to be freely distributed by the ancient race that built the beacons and Malevolent world ships.

The database was confusing as the knowledge contained within had a lot of warnings about traveling in subspace. The Squirrel scientists were slowly piecing together the slow feed of data from Bel'Fer. Bel'Fer was doing her best, but the amount of knowledge she had to bring out of the shared Sylvan consciousness was immense.

Twenty-three days after the expedition had been annihilated, we got another surprise. The beacon suddenly started broadcasting using a gravimetric algorithm. We only picked it up because our scientists were experimenting with the new sensors built from the data.

We immediately understood that after the Malevolents destroyed the expedition, they had taken the time to clear the covering in which the quadrupeds had sealed the beacon. This caused Admiral Ghuller to believe the World Ship could be reasoned with. The Alien Alliance had already sent out dozens of diplomatic ships. They immediately pulled all assistance they had given in building the Sun Diver. They didn't need us as they could now get the transmission from the beacon themselves.

Nineteen days later, another of the galactic center beacons started transmitting again. The Malevolent ship was taking the time to clear the beacons. It would give us more time to prepare for its arrival if it continued to clear the remaining twenty-one beacons.

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A huge debate erupted that perhaps if we started following the mandates broadcasted by the beacon, we would be spared from extermination. The Sylvan did not believe the Malevolents could be reasoned with. My impression was the same.

As each beacon was reactivated, we at least had our Doomsday clock countdown. We would be ready for them if we were just dealing with one Malevolent ship. We were scouring the entire Milky Way galaxy, looking for signs of other world ships, and kept coming up empty. Our search, coupled with the archives from the beacons, even gave us a way to track the Malevolent World Ship. When it entered subspace, it was so disruptive that the ripples even reached us over five thousand light-years away.

As more and more of the beacon archives were translated, the scientists began to unravel the true reason behind the Malevolent purges. Higher bands of subspace touched on higher dimensions. Every time we traveled into the higher bands, we broke through and damaged the fabric of reality. The damage was repaired naturally.

However, those repairs took time. A single Fateweaver might not do a lot of damage—but one hundred Fateweavers? A thousand? What our scientists couldn't agree on was how much was too much. Also, we were confused that the Malevolent ship ignored the warnings of the beacons and traveled into bands of subspace we had not yet reached. It must be doing a large amount of damage on its own.

We also couldn't answer how the universe had not collapsed already. There must have been thousands of space-capable species over the eons. The theory was then placed that perhaps every new galaxy was birthed by these cataclysmic efforts to travel into the higher bands. Although the theory was interesting, I got everyone to focus on preventing the Malevolants from extinguishing all life in our galaxy.

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The Atlas' Journey entered the Bradbury system with a full cargo. Rae'Ver had thought they would have had much better security, but the Atlas' Journey was immediately flagged and directed to an asteroid facility to unload.

He was on the bridge as the transport moved to the asteroid that was constructing a massive ship. He was shocked when his sensors picked up two Sylvan City ships nearby, aiding in the construction of this new vessel. Why would the Sylvan help their enemies?

As his cargo was unloaded, he boarded the asteroid and talked with some people in a drinking establishment. He remained calm as he slowly tried to figure out what was happening. He was shocked when he learned they were building a weapon to fight the powerful race called the Malevolents. The Malevolents, the nemesis of the Sylvan? The human he was drinking with acknowledged the very same.

In Rae'Ver's time away, the Malevolent ships had returned to this galaxy. He felt extremely conflicted. His whole life and existence had been predicated on fighting the Malevolents. Now that they had returned and others were preparing to fight them, he did not know how he felt. He realized that he was no longer one of these corporal beings, so why did he even care about their fate? Why was he even seeking revenge against the human known as Deven Wellspring?

Still, he was curious. He wanted to see this enemy that had haunted the Sylvan for a long time. He moved his consciousness into the body of one of the engineers on the city ship they called the Sun Diver. This was to be their weapon against the Malevolent threat.

He walked the large ship, quickly got access to the schematics, and was immediately confused. The ship made no sense. It had no weapons and rudimentary shielding. The only advanced part of the ship was the engines. He started talking to other engineers while keeping his cover.

He couldn't believe it when he finally figured it out. They were planning to explode a star to deal with the Malevolent purge ships. He admitted that it was an ambitious plan and would probably succeed if the enemy did not flee.

He was curious enough to put off his revenge for now. He wanted to see the fruition of all these efforts. He remained a human engineer as the Sun Diver was built. He was almost discovered by other First Citizens who were assisting in the construction. He got better and better at concealing himself from their powerful eyes.

When the Sun Diver was complete, it required two thousand volunteers to crew her. There were hundreds of escape pods, but there was also a good chance that this was going to be a one-way trip.

Rae'Ver volunteered his human puppet. He would see the Malevolent threat for himself. The Sun Diver left the Bradbury system with 1,899 souls on board—plus one extra.

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