CHAPTER THREE

  Earth?

  No. That couldn't be right.

  The planet had three moons, each clearly visible even from this distance. Its size was enormous — far larger than Earth. And the solar system surrounding it was completely unfamiliar.

  Whatever. Not my problem right now.

  He pulled his attention back to more immediate concerns and slipped out of Nue's frame. Nue blinked, momentarily disoriented, scanning the unfamiliar surroundings with quiet confusion.

  Yue gave him a brief summary of what happened. Nue processed it without comment.

  "Why were we in hyperdrive for five days?" Yue asked. He paused. "Actually — begin a full diagnostic first. Check everything and start repairs. The ship doesn't look like it's in good condition."

  Nue nodded and got to work immediately.

  "How much fuel do we have left?"

  Nue didn't look up from the panel.

  "Approximately two hours, sir."

  Two hours.

  Yue stared at the readout.

  That's not good.

  "I used everything I collected. All of it."

  "Sir," Nue said carefully, "the button you activated was the emergency hyperdrive. It was not designed for extended use."

  "It was an emergency."

  "Yes, sir. However, the emergency cutoff mechanism was already damaged before you used it. That is why it did not stop until the fuel was completely exhausted." A brief pause. "Had you been human, the acceleration buildup over five days would have been fatal. Humans can typically survive hyperjump for two to three hours at most. The longer the duration, the faster the acceleration compounds."

  He turned and looked out through the cockpit viewport in silence.

  So we came very far then.

  That explained why the navigation system had gone dark. No map. No reference points. Just open space and a strange blue planet hanging in the distance.

  Wonderful.

  He passed through the cockpit wall and out into open space, turning to assess the ship from the outside.

  Oh.

  It was worse than he thought. Panels cracked, sections missing entirely, deep scoring along the hull from the stress of sustained hyperjump. The ship looked like it had been chewed up and spat out. He made a slow circuit around the entire vessel, checking for critical failures.

  Nothing immediately catastrophic. But it wouldn't be flying anywhere for a while.

  It's bigger than I realized. He'd always seen it surrounded by the massive warships of ARO. Next to those it had looked like a toy. Out here alone it was actually a decent sized vessel — or had been, before he'd broken it.

  He filed that observation away and turned his attention to something else entirely.

  My abilities. Time to figure out what I actually am — and if I don't figure it out sooner rather than later I might find myself in serious trouble. I know the basics. But after coming out of that rock things got complicated.

  While Nue worked on repairs, Yue began testing himself systematically.

  He spent time checking rock formations drifting nearby — passing through each one freely, with no resistance. Normal. Then he located a gun from the ship's storage room and attempted to merge with it.

  Nothing. He couldn't move. Couldn't interface with it at all from the inside.

  He pulled out, considered for a moment, then tried a different approach — taking the shape of the gun rather than entering it.

  That worked.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  He spent the next several hours running experiments. Some results were useful. Others raised more questions than they answered.

  Conclusions so far:

  I can only physically carry and hold lightweight materials. Anything beyond a certain mass and I lose grip.

  I can absorb properties from things I possess. The android gave me their language — I absorbed it and translated it internally without even realizing it was happening. That's how I could suddenly read their script after leaving ARO.

  And the black ore—

  He thought carefully about that.

  It wasn't quite accurate to call it a weakness in the traditional sense. According to Nue's analysis, black ore was an extraordinarily efficient energy absorbing material. It didn't generate heat regardless of how much energy passed through it — which was precisely why it was used in supercomputer chips and advanced electronics across the empire. It conducted everything and lost nothing.

  Including soul energy.

  When Yue cautiously tested its edge — just barely making contact — he felt the drain immediately. A steady pull on something deep inside him. He pulled back quickly but even that brief contact left him feeling strangely heavy. Drowsy in a way that made no physical sense for a being without a body.

  Now I understand. Back inside that rock I kept feeling sleepy — and after I got out I never felt that way again. It wasn't punishment. It wasn't hell. It was just the ore doing what ore does. Draining me until I went dormant. Over and over again.

  Which raised the question he'd been avoiding.

  He drifted over to Nue.

  "Hey. I have a math question."

  Nue looked up.

  "If I lived inside a room for one day, but when I came out only one minute had passed outside — how many years would I have lived inside if the outside world experienced 502,145 years passing?"

  Nue processed this for less than a second.

  "721,991,638 years, sir."

  Yue went very still.

  Seven hundred and twenty-one million years.

  He turned that number over in his mind. It didn't feel real. It didn't feel like anything. He had no frame of reference large enough to hold it — no emotional response that fit the scale of it.

  That's my theory then. I wasn't awake for all of it. The black ore kept draining me, I'd go dormant, recover slowly, wake briefly, get drained again. Cycles of unconsciousness stretching across hundreds of millions of years. Each time I recovered I evolved slightly further. Each time I woke I was something a little more than I'd been before.

  Seven hundred and twenty-one million years of that.

  No wonder.

  He let the thought settle and then deliberately set it aside. Dwelling on it wasn't useful.

  "Nue. How long can you last on current power?"

  "Including backup batteries — approximately ten days, sir."

  "I'm going to look for resources nearby. Don't expect me to find anything useful though."

  He glanced through the cockpit viewport toward the distant blue planet.

  Except possibly that one.

  He searched for an hour. Rocks, debris, scattered mineral deposits drifting through the area. Nothing immediately useful as fuel or power. He returned empty handed.

  Of course. What did I expect with my nonexistent exploration skills.

  He ran the problem through his mind carefully. The planet was a viable option — possibly the only one within reach. But the distances involved were enormous. At full speed it would still take days to reach even the outer edge of the system. And Nue could only last ten days on backup power.

  Unless.

  If Nue shuts down completely — sleep mode — and stays within the solar system's gravitational pull, the ship won't drift far. That buys time.

  But carrying fuel back from a planet was another problem entirely. He couldn't carry heavy materials. He had no idea what kind of technology existed down there, whether he could find compatible power sources, or how long any of it would take.

  Too many variables. Too many unknowns.

  He explained the situation to Nue fully, working through each problem out loud. Nue listened, calculated, and offered a solution — a small microchip that could serve as a locator beacon, keeping Yue connected to the ship's position even across vast distances.

  "So all I need to do is keep this chip on me," Yue said, examining it.

  A pause.

  I don't have pockets. I don't have a body. I have nowhere to put a physical object.

  "Keep it here," he said finally, setting it carefully in a secure panel mount inside the cockpit. "I'll track it remotely."

  With Nue's repairs stabilizing the most critical systems and sleep mode confirmed, Yue made his decision.

  He shut Nue down.

  He had no idea how long this would take — and he wasn't willing to risk Nue losing his remaining power just waiting.

  The ship went quiet. Just drifting metal and faint starlight.

  Yue turned toward the blue planet and accelerated.

  He flew at full speed without stopping, without resting, measuring time only by the slow growth of the planet in his vision.

  Days passed.

  Then he saw it.

  A thin shimmering layer — barely visible, stretched across space in a vast sphere encompassing the entire planet and its three moons. He slowed and studied it carefully.

  Not a weapon. Not a barrier designed to stop physical objects.

  An alert system. A detection layer. Something designed to notify whoever was watching that something had crossed into their space.

  But the scale of it—

  He drifted along its edge without crossing, running calculations in silence. Maintaining an energy field this vast — stable enough to encompass three moons and all the distance between them — that wasn't purely technology. Something else was powering this. Something he didn't have a name for yet.

  Magic, maybe. Whatever that means.

  Even at full speed it would take another ten days to reach the planet's actual orbit after crossing this line.

  He hung in space outside the boundary for a long moment.

  I have a bad feeling about this.

  But I also don’t have any other options available

  He turned his attention back to the practical problem. Even if he found compatible fuel or power sources on the planet, carrying anything heavy back through space was still impossible. That limitation hadn't changed.

  When you can't find the answer — take one step forward. The answers come with the steps.

  He closed his eyes. Settled himself. Let the overcomplicated tangle of variables go quiet.

  Then opened his eyes and looked — not at the planet, not at the barrier, but at the space immediately surrounding him.

  Small rocks. Dozens of them. Ranging from one centimeter to about ten, drifting lazily in clusters nearby. Lightweight. Well within his carrying capacity.

  Hm.

  An idea began to form.