Chapter Text
Space is vast. And largely empty. The countless stars that can be seen are unfathomable distances apart. Going between even the ones closest together without any sort of faster-than-light capability could consume at least one lifetime. Likely several.
Some species would create ark ships with that very idea in mind. The passengers, and crew would be suspended for the majority of the journey, and only be awoken once they reached a suitable destination.
Others managed through skill, luck, or some combination of the two to discover means of traversing the void far faster than physics intended. Be it via warp gates, relays, onboard drives, or something along those lines. Perhaps they came up with something else entirely. A lot of species, and civilisations had arisen, and fallen since the universe began. Ever since the very first life appeared, the universe had never been completely dead.
Some of these species eventually found each other. Which could lead to conflict, trade, cooperation, mingling, or perhaps even harmony. Maybe several, or even all of them in one order, or another. Various species would enter, or leave these networks as they discovered space travel, or were wiped out in some way. Entire networks, and everyone in them might get wiped out by some cataclysmic event. But eventually new ones formed as new species developed new civilisations, and reached into space. It seemed inevitable that they would find each other as they journeyed into the unknown. Was that just the natural way for things to proceed as the signals everyone broadcast were picked up by others, or was there some invisible hand at play that nudged them together?
Either way travel, interaction, and exploration typically happened from star to star, system to system, world to world, etc. Anything that lay beyond these systems, anything stranded in the void, anything trapped in the vast emptiness, was virtually impossible to find. Unless they were transmitting something for people to follow, the only way they would be found was luck. Fate. Mere happenstance.
And in a not quite empty speck of that endless beyond, among a cloud of long-forgotten debris, an intangible something slipped through the hull of a battered, but somehow intact spaceship.
It found its way to a room that contained a large cylinder filled with some sort of yellow-green liquid. Inside the cylinder floated a body. Through the murky fluid it was hard to say anything more specific than that. There were other cylinders in the room as well, but they were all broken in one way, or another. Any inhabitants they may have once had were gone. It was impossible to tell whether they had escaped, dissolved, or turned to dust.
The intangible entity slipped into the cylinder, through the fluid, and into the body.
And the person opened their eyes.
As if responding to this awakening, the room sprung into action. Soft lights turned on, and various monitors lit up. Metallic arms descended to hold the person by their arms, and waist while the liquid inside the cylinder began to drain away. The person was then gently set down on the floor of the cylinder, and the mask covering their mouth and nose was removed. It was unlikely they were cognisant of their surroundings, as they displayed no reaction to what was happening around them.
They sat there unmoving until the last of the thick yellow-green fluid vanished. They had no clothes on, and their body was still quite goopy. The long, dark hair was draped wetly in all directions. In appearance the body seemed feminine. The decently protruding chest was a definite clue, at least by human standards, and possibly for species similar to humans.
The woman(?) slowly raised her head in what seemed to be the first sign of awareness, but she wasn't afforded any more peace as a variety of nozzles sprouted forth from the inside of the cylinder, and she was sprayed with a combination of soap, and water.
With a relentless lack of mercy the now startled, and panicked occupant was thoroughly cleaned until the goop was gone, and then rinsed to dispense of all the soap. Once that was over, and before she could attempt to properly catch her breath, a warm wind roared and whirled inside the cylinder, ruthlessly drying the poor occupant before finally opening the transparent casing to let her outside.
It still took her a minute to get moving. While she was certainly awake due to this rough treatment, one could say it went so far as to be shell-shocked.
Eventually she climbed out of the cylinder, and set her bare feet on the cool, but strangely not that cold floor of the room itself. It felt like metal, but it was as if someone had turned on the heating a bit.
"What the... hell...?" Her voice was raspy, and seemed to struggle to come out. Perhaps natural for someone who hadn't spoken for a long, long time. The body was not used to it.
Now that it was largely clean, and mostly dry, the hair that reached most of the way down her back revealed itself to be a shade of purple rather than black, or brown. Underneath that messy tangle one could just barely spot rather long ears. A clue that perhaps this person wasn't human after all. Or not fully human, at least. The eyes were yellow, which was also unusual for regular humans. Perhaps they had evolved, and changed in different ways since travelling into space, but this could be a different species.
Blearily looking around the room revealed only the lit up instruments around the cylinder she had just exited, all the broken equipment, and a thick layer of dust on everything. Her eyes might not be quite adjusted to use yet, and brain not quite booted up, but it still seemed pretty clear that there were no signs of recent activity. Wherever this was, it seemed like no one had been around in quite some time.
"Where..."
"Congratulations on awakening, Captain." A feminine voice that sounded somewhat artificial suddenly spoke up, severely startling the woman in the room. She quickly looked around to see if there was someone there, but it seemed like the voice was coming from the ceiling. Or perhaps from speakers somewhere up there. "Please make your way to the bridge." The voice was rather monotone, but it didn't sound entirely robotic.
"Captain...? The... bridge...?" The woman repeated in a confused tone.
"You might want to get dressed first, Captain."
A sudden hissing noise startled her yet again, and she looked to the source. A panel in the wall had opened.
"That cabinet has remained sealed, so the contents should be intact. Once you are dressed, please make your way to the bridge."
"Wait... what...?"
"Once you are dressed, please make your way to the bridge, Captain," the unseen voice repeated.
The woman was very confused. Where was she? What was going on? Who was talking? "Who am... I?" Something felt like it didn't quite fit.
Regardless she could see the sense in putting on clothes. While the air was not freezing, it was cold enough that she was starting to get goosebumps. The several jumpscares she had suffered might also be partially responsible.
The cabinet contained four drawers, a shelf on top, and a clothes rack above. The bottom drawer had socks. The one above had undies. Briefs, to be exact, in two different styles. Above that were bras. And the top drawer had shirts, both with long, and short sleeves. All of them were beige, and had no fashion style to them. They seemed made for function, and were entirely uniform.
Speaking of, what hung on the clothes rack seemed to be actual uniforms. The main colour was black, and the secondary colour was green. The buttons were a golden colour, but it was impossible to tell at a glance whether they were actually the metal gold or not. The fabric felt a lot more comfortable than it looked. The woman expected it to be stiff, but both the jacket, and the trousers were quite smooth, and form-fitting.
There was a mirror inside the cabinet door she could check herself in, and she noticed that on the right side of the chest on the jacket she had put on there was some sort of insignia. It made her think of a mark of rank. It seemed to be firmly fastened to the jacket rather than just pinned on, but she was fairly sure it hadn't been on there before she had put it on. Checking the other jackets revealed no such insignia on them, but it was still there on her chosen jacket after she took it off.
Putting on a different jacket made the insignia appear on that as well, but it didn't go away on the other one. She couldn't really recognise what the insignia meant, what rank it signified, but it seemed like both of these had been marked as belonging to her. Perhaps these clothes weren't simply fabric after all.
On the shelf underneath the uniforms were several pairs of brown boots, which was the last thing she put on.
She tried to do something about her hair, but without any form of tools the best she could do was make it hang down her back as much as possible. Maybe there was a brush or something somewhere, but it was apparently not here. Even in her groggy state she could tell there was something that seemed off about her appearance, but she couldn't put her finger on what.
After giving up, she made her way out of the room, and found herself in a corridor. It stretched off in both directions, and there were more doors along each side. The floor was steel grey, and the walls were a lighter grey. The doors had a green outline around them, but their actual colour matched the walls.
"Um... where is this...?" Her throat was getting accustomed to speaking, but she was still a bit raspy.
"You are onboard the GSCF Saber, Captain." The voice suddenly spoke again.
"Wha... who are you?" The woman looked up towards the ceiling, and squinted against the lights.
"Please make your way to the bridge," the voice repeated once again. "It will be easier to explain there."
"Okay... where is that?" She couldn't spot any signs on the wall.
"Just follow the lights, Captain."
A line of lights gradually lit up along the floor, leading the way towards the right. Having nothing else to go on, and no strong desire to randomly explore at the moment, she followed the line. She wanted to get some answers before anything else. For some reason there was a sense of familiarity about the 'GSCF', but she couldn't think of what it might be.
"Why are you... calling me captain?"
"It will be easier to explain on the bridge, Captain."
The dust whirled about with each step taken, and after some amount of time she found herself in front of a large pair of doors with a plaque that said "Bridge" above them. They slid open, allowing entry, and the woman stepped inside.
What she found was a large room with several consoles that had chairs in front of them, a series of what looked like view-screens that were currently dark, and a large chair sitting centrally at the back of the room a few metres from the door. All covered in more dust. About a metre in front of the large chair was a glowing circle on a slightly raised platform with a hovering blue sphere about it that looked holographic.
"No one here...?" She muttered. There was no obvious view of the outside either.
The sphere flickered, and more lights started to come on as if the room itself was waking up.
"Welcome to the bridge, Captain." It was the voice again, though it sounded a little different in a way that was hard to explain. And it was coming from the sphere.
"Yeah, I'm here..." The woman sounded tired. "Now. Where am I, who are you, and why are you calling me captain?"
"You are onboard the GSCF Saber, and I am the ship's artificial intelligence, and caretaker. You could say that I am Saber." The holographic sphere started moving like a cloud of particles, and formed the image of a ship. Presumably this ship. "And since you are the only surviving crew member onboard, you are by default the Captain."
"Is... that how it works?" The woman was very confused.
"That is how it works," the voice confirmed.
"Wait..." All of this just raised more questions, but the woman paused as she got a better look at the holographic ship. "Hang on... is that a Starlink 'Marlin' Heavy Cruiser?"
"Yes, Captain."
Pieces started coming together as more memories stepped forth. "Then... the GSCF is the Gurlian Space Combine Fleet?"
"Yes, Captain."
"How is that possible..." The woman felt dizzy, and steadied herself with one hand on the armrest of the large chair. "Wait..." She thought back on her mirror image. She had been too groggy to figure it out at the time, but she had seen some strange things. Yellow eyes were unusual, though not unprecedented. Purple hair wasn't unheard of, but was typically not considered natural. However it was what she had glimpsed underneath the hair that had struck her as truly unusual. A trembling hand reached up, and touched her ear. It was much longer than it was supposed to be, slightly floppy, and she could feel the pointed tip. "I'm... not human...? I'm... mantir?"
"Yes, Captain. More precisely you are an artificially enhanced mantir. Does this not align with your memory?"
"No..."
"Feel free to sit down while you orient yourself, Captain."
The woman took the offer without thinking, too lost in other thoughts. More memories, and knowledge started surfacing as if they had been waiting for attention.
She knew the GSCF. She knew this ship. This type of ship. She had owned one. A different one. But it hadn't been real. It had been a game. Star Surge Online. A massive faction-driven online science fiction game. As the pilot of a starship you could explore the galaxy, and engage in all sorts of activities. Most players wanted to earn money. Be it for better ships, better equipment, or maybe something like a station, or piece of land on a planet. Some maybe wanted to advance in rank, and influence. Others perhaps just liked experiencing this galaxy.
While it was possible to go independent, it was encouraged to join one of the big factions to help shape the galaxy. Some of which had been placed from the start by the developers, and some of which had been created later by players.
The Gurlian Space Combine was one of the established factions. She had joined because she liked the appearance of the ships, and the appearance of the founding species, the mantir. Among the player-base they were often called 'space elves' due to their ears, eyes, and vibrant hair colours. They had some interesting anatomy as well, but that wasn't important at the moment.
"Not possible..." She muttered again.
"What is not possible, Captain?"
"Huh?"
"I would appreciate if you could share your thoughts, Captain. It will make it easier to work together."
"Um... well..." How much was okay to actually share? She wasn't exactly the best at deception, and coming up with a cover story on the spot was probably too much to ask. She honestly had no idea how she had gotten there in the first place, or why she was in a mantir body. Was it a reincarnation thing? Transmigration? But then what had happened to her original self? That memory had not shown itself. "This is probably going to sound crazy..."
She did her best to explain, and the AI patiently listened.
"I see. So that body had no consciousness until you entered it. That explains the sudden awakening." That was the deduction the AI presented after listening to the story.
"You... don't think it sounds crazy?"
"It does sound far-fetched, Captain, but I have no evidence to contradict you. Rather, your story lines up too well with the current circumstances. Besides, whether or not it is factually true, I can tell that you believe it. I would be able to tell if you were trying to lie, Captain." The more the AI spoke, the more natural she sounded. As if she had also needed to warm up her voice. Or maybe the woman was just getting used to it.
The woman sighed. "Captain captain captain... I have a name, you know."
"Understood. Please state your name for the record, Captain."
She paused for a moment as she dredged it up from her memories. "It's Mia. Mia Harlan."
"Understood, Captain Harlan."
"I prefer Mia..."
"Understood, Captain Mia."
"You can drop the captain, you know."
"No, Captain. I cannot."
"It's really fine. I don't mind."
"I do, Captain."
Mia sighed again. "Alright, I give up..."
"Much appreciated, Ma'am."
"Wait, what was that?"
"A compromise, Ma'am."
"... I think I prefer captain."
"Understood, Captain."
Mia felt a headache incoming. "But are you really fine with me being the captain? I'm not actually a crew member."
"There are no other options, Captain. Besides, you have trained in a simulator, know the ship, and the GSC. That is more than sufficient to start with. I am also not keen on remaining stranded here."
Thinking of the game as a 'simulator' was a bit much, but it wasn't like Mia could argue. She didn't have any other options either.
"Speaking of, where are we? What happened to the crew? How long have you been stranded?"
"I am not sure where we are, Captain. After being rendered inoperable during battle with the MTF, the remaining crew evacuated, and I was abandoned. I entered dormancy to facilitate repairs as best I could. I remained dormant awaiting rescue, or your awakening. But with communications offline, and unable to even transmit a distress signal, the latter came first. I believe we have drifted far from the original site of the battle, outside the Cennor system."
"MTF..." Mia searched her memories again. "The Mell Torran Fleet..."
"Correct, Captain."
Mell Torran was one of the player-made factions, and one that had gained considerable power. Mia couldn't remember any open war between them and the GSC, but skirmishes happened all the time.
"Was Cennor in the contested zone?"
"Yes, Captain."
That explained it. "And what about the crew? You said they evacuated?"
"Some perished onboard due to damage, but I believe most made it to the escape pods, and shuttles. There are only three intact escape pods left, one shuttle, one fighter, and a corvette I believe can be repaired. The hangar bay managed to avoid any direct hits. I do not know what their fate was after leaving the ship. I hope most of them were rescued."
Mia hoped the same. Abandoning a ship they thought beyond repair wasn't a rare occurrence in the game. Scavengers and salvagers relied on that kind of thing, but it seemed like they hadn't found this ship for whatever reason.
"So how long has it been? Can we try to repair the distress beacon? Call for help?"
"It is hard to be exact due to the damage, and staying dormant, but by galactic time standards it has been around 1200 years."
"1200?!" Mia gaped.
"Yes, Captain." The AI sounded remarkably calm, but maybe that was just her way.
"Then... then... does the GSC even still exist?"
"I... do not know, Captain."
"And how is the ship still running?!"
"GSCF reactors are good for at least a million years, Captain."
"Huh..." Mia couldn't remember that detail from the game.
"The reactor room is the most shielded place on the ship, so it managed to avoid any critical damage. With no significant tearing in the hull structure, the nano machines were able to slowly restore the ship while we lay dormant."
Mia couldn't remember anything about nano machines either. Maybe not everything was the same as the game, or she had just neglected the flavour text. She felt like she would have remembered if the ships had self-repair mechanics, though.
"Then... is the ship fully repaired? After that long?"
"Unfortunately the nano machines have their limits, Captain. Especially without sufficient, and correct raw materials. They were able to replenish the hull, repair the interior, restore the shielding, get life support stabilised, fix the weapons that were not utterly demolished, and more. We might look a little beat up, but all seals are holding. Unfortunately they cannot completely replace destroyed components. We also lack the raw materials to make ammunition, so our stores are very limited. Most of it was used up, or destroyed. It would be better to rely on only the energy weapons, if we can."
"So we have no communications?" Were those the destroyed components the AI had referred to?
"We have short-range only, Captain. We will be able to hail other ships nearby, but no long-range."
"What about engines?"
"Three out of four were able to be repaired. 76% of thrusters are functional, so manoeuvrability is not a big issue, Captain."
"Jump drive?"
"Currently out, but I detect sufficient salvage in the debris cloud to restore it now that you are here, Captain."
"Why didn't you do that on your own all this time?"
"GSCF regulations restrict my ability to act without a Captain. Dormancy is also a way to safeguard my ego. My sense of self. If I had stayed active for all those years, I cannot say for sure what state I would be in."
"I guess that makes sense..." Mia slumped in the chair. "What of sensors?"
"Operating as intended, Captain. There are some potential issues with the long-range scanners, but I should be able to calibrate those with some testing."
"Testing?"
"Yes, Captain. However we will need to reach a star system to carry them out."
"Are we not in a system right now?"
"No, Captain."
"So we need to get out of here."
"Yes, Captain. It would be wise to search the debris cloud first. Assuming we can find the right materials, and components, we should be able to restore the majority of the ship. Granted there is no guarantee of that."
"Debris cloud? What debris?"
"From the battle, Captain. It is highly unlikely we will find everything we need here, and we would need a full overhaul at a maintenance dock, or shipyard to return to 100% condition. However, even if we make it back to the current iteration of the Gurlian fleet, it is hard to make guarantees. After so long we are likely obsolete, and the proper components might no longer be produced. However it should be possible for the nano machines to adapt other components with equivalent functions if they are not too alien."
It was hard to wrap her head around everything, but Mia understood the ship wasn't in prime condition."We can't even be sure the GSC still exists... a millennium might not be much on a galactic scale, but for civilisations and societies a lot can change. I wonder what the galaxy looks like now... are the same species around, at least? Humans? Mantir? Drorians? Targan? Lessims?"
"I cannot say, Captain. I would also like to know, and I feel an urge to get back to Gurlia."
Mia smiled slightly. A computer having urges was a funny idea. "I would like that too. To see it with my own eyes. Well, with these eyes. Though I guess they are mine now... and I'm sure we'll find a way to get you fully fixed up there." At least it was their best shot.
"Yes, Captain." It almost sounded like Saber was smiling too.
"Can we actually get moving without a crew, though?"
Marlin Heavy Cruisers could fit up to 200 people. About 120 main crew, and 80 combat personnel (which mainly included pilots, security, and soldiers) was the typical manifest, though it could vary. Now all they had was a provisional captain, and the ship's AI.
"We will not be able to operate optimally, Captain. Without soldiers and security personnel we cannot board other vessels, assault bases, or deploy away teams, and are in great danger if we are boarded, but so long as we are careful they are not essential. We have other defensive options if need be. No bridge crew does mean we lack some flexibility. I am not mantir, and I do not think in the same way people do. I am not as... creative. The lack of engineers, and maintenance crew is probably the biggest deficit. Any damage taken could be very dangerous. If we had even one person in the engineering section we would be much better off, but there is nothing we can do about it. However in terms of flight and combat, I should be able to operate at 70-80% efficiency, Captain. Perhaps more as I get accustomed to it."
"Right..." Mia sighed deeply. "I think I'm going to look for something to eat. Maybe that'll help get my brain going, or something." Her head was aching under the strain of this situation. At least it sounded like they weren't in danger of power failure, fuel shortage, limited life support, or whatever. Hopefully.
"Understood, Captain. With your permission, I would like to get the drones operational, so they can clean the ship, and perform other maintenance tasks."
"Ah, yes. Good idea. Do it."
"Understood. Oh, and Captain."
"Yes?"
"Your hat."
A hatch opened up on what looked like a small table by the large chair, and up from it rose a captain's hat. The GSCF emblem sat above the brim.
Mia blinked at it, and then smiled wryly as she picked it up. "Of course." She put it on, and did the adjustment thing she had seen in movies, and TV shows so many times. She had always wanted to do that.