“Op two, report in.” Said a massive teal mass while resting in its chair. It rested in its chair as well as a bucket of jelly resting in a mug.

“There isn’t a response from Op two, four or five.” Reported the pilot, a yellow amorphous mass sitting amongst many on the bridge of their cruiser.

“Assume they are destroyed. Is the interdiction field holding?” The teal mass gurgled.

“Affirmative.”

The teal mass tapped a tendril on the floor below, a habit it developed over its life as a form  of focus. The ship should have been disabled by now. They had better technology than much of the galaxy, courtesy of their very rich, very powerful clients.

“What did the intel say about their virtual assistant?” It mused.

The yellow ooze brought up a window on their console holo and stuck a tendril through the screen.

“Likely a class three AVI. It had a simulated personality and helped with simple things around the ship, such as basic maintenance and chores for the prey.”

The teal mass shifted its form around in its all too small seat, finding new purchase it hummed to itself.

“No. This is unlikely. We will treat this as a class five artificial intelligence. Accuracy and Shield management is too much for a Reactive Machine. Assume Class five or Class six. I am authorising the use of the Starfury frigate.” Stated the teal ooze.

It did not like using all the cards it had available if possible, but if it was correct, and it was almost always correct, they would need it to disable the ship before it could make any semblance of escape.

“Messaging the star fury now.”





“LEFT! LEFT!” Aurelia yelled as she wrapped her arms around Isobels neck tighter, gripping for dear life. Isobel swerved down the corridor nearly on a dime, turning at Aurelia’s behest, and before long they came to one of many elevators the android hadn’t seen before. The scientist had since buried her face in the android's shoulder, her strangely powerful digits digging into Isobel's skin.

“Aurelia, we are in front of an elevator. Do we go in?” Isobel winced, the lithe woman was far stronger than she looked, gripping with vice-like strength.

Aurelia’s grip relaxed, and she let go of the android. “Yeah, this is it. Go in, we are going to the nineteenth floor.”

Isobel obliged and walked in, letting Aurelia push the button since her arms were full. While the elevator went down, Aurelia bumped her head on Isobel’s shoulder and shut her eyes.

“Excuse me miss, but there is a new ship on the micro sensors. Four thousand kilometres stern-side, one forty three by seventy six degrees. Its signature is smaller than the destroyers. I am picking up a sizable spike of radiation emanating from its prow.” Addison announced curtly.

Aurelia took a moment to frown, as this was an inconsistency to the artificial assistance usual candour. The elevator doors open, drawing her attention to the current situation. Something to look into later.

“Make a right, then the third right after that. Then run down the hall until you see a black door.” The redhead ordered.The air lashed at her face, threatening to wrestle control of her glasses from her face. The android was blisteringly quick, that was without a doubt, but she was still lacking a sense of agility.

This was to be expected as while Isobel had been active throughout her few months of consciousness, she was still getting used to her body. Aurelia spent a tense moment remembering the time the android tripped in front of the workshop door while carrying several tools and ended up punching her arm straight through the door.

“Excuse me miss, but it appears the unknown frigate is armed with a modified version of the Tethys-Class anti-capital beam.” Chirped the assistant.

“I want to ask how the fuck they managed that, or why, but for now, anything we can do to stop it?” Aurelia said, her tone slightly betraying the panic she was feeling.

“I could burn out the facing refractor emitters just before firing. I do not know how effective that would be, and we would be vulnerable to energy weapons fire afterwards.” Addison stated grimly.

They had reached the black door by the time Addison had finished speaking. The redhead reached for the door controls, motioning for Isobel to move a bit closer. The doors quickly relented, revealing a massive room filled from floor to ceiling with a massive, sleek, machine. Aurelia tapped her creations shoulder and was let down in a gentle, if not comical fashion, considering how much taller the scientist was than Isobel.

“Good enough, Addison. Not that we have much choice. Warm up the hypervoid drive, I am going to calibrate it so we don’t die.”

“Of course, miss.”


Aurelia tapped away at the console holo at the foot of the great, room-encompassing machine, mixing in curses with the self muttering. The hypervoid drive had of course been thoroughly tested over the past several years as an off and on project when she needed a palate cleanser. Those tests were small, contained, and not while half the ship hard half of its shield emitters overheated. Certainly not while an anti-capital laser known for its ability to put down dreadnoughts was aimed directly at the drive block.

They were very lucky on three accounts, and void be damned if she wasn’t going to play those cards.

The first advantage was of course the interdictor. The enemy thought they were just a lumbering beast bound by a chain in the vacuum.

Second, the Hypervoid Drive ignored the principles of fast sublight travel, as it didn’t manipulate space, nor punch a hole through two points like a wormhole generator. Rather, it simply tore open one hole to another layer of reality, a place that cared little for silly concepts like space.

Third, and most importantly, the enemy didn’t know of such technology, because it was new to this galaxy, as far as she knew, so they couldn’t account for this. So while she was nervous about being the sole organic being going through a dimension no one living creature would survive in, she took grim satisfaction in that alone.

“Right, so I’m fairly certain a dive won’t tear this ship apart, get this thing charged and ready to go, Addison.” Stated the scientist curtly.

“Yes miss. Will be charged in four minutes, assuming I don’t lose half of my body within that time.” Addison responded with a disturbing level of cheer.

“Right. Izzy?” Aurelia asked softly, placing her good, not crooked hand on the significantly shorter android.

Isobel’s gaze snapped up from the glaze she had over her eyes, turning her head to the scientist.

“Y-yes?” She stammered.

“I’m going to need you to rush me back to the bridge, possibly faster than you got me here. We are going to need to be seated for this.”

The android nodded meekly, then scooped up the redhead with far more finesse than earlier, without the threats of launching the human into the air this time. It was a comical sight, watching such a short woman carry the much taller scientist like a princess with ease. She picked up much more speed than before, each thunderous step leaving a foot shaped indent in the deck plating.

Within two and a half minutes and a fresh onset of panic with the looming threat of death or worse over their heads, they made it back to the bridge. Isobel gently let the scientist down to her feet beside the excessively opulent throne, before falling to her knees, panting deep, heavy breaths.

“Izzy honey, I know you are sore and tired, but I need you to get into one of the seats and buckle up. I have only the barest idea what’s gonna happen when we dive.” Said Aurelia tenderly, offering a sympathetic look.

The android looked up at Aurelia and gave a weak, wordless, nod, heaving herself to her feet and mustering as much haste as her screaming synthetic muscles could muster. Aurelia let out a loud sigh of relief when Isobel fumbled with the safety belt before clicking it in place.

“Okay, Addison, I set the co—”

The entire ship shunted forwards suddenly with enough force to interfere with the grav-plates. For Aurelia, this was uncomfortable as the cross-shaped safety belt kept her in place, and likely would only cause some bruising across her torso later, something Addison could fix later.

For Isobel, she weighed more than four times the average human while also being far more shorter and compact than the average human. This caused her to shunt backwards from the force, then carry that kinetic energy forward, ploughing through the promised safety of said safety belt. The result was over four hundred kilograms of android to shoot off her seat and into the adjacent console. Said console was slightly less durable than her, so her face got well acquainted with the circuitry underneath the panels.

“FUCK!” Cussed the typically excitable android.

Despite wanting to celebrate the young woman's first curse, there were slightly more pressing matters.
“I’m guessing that was the void-damned Tethys-Class laser?” Groaned Aurelia as she adjusted the cross of belts holding her to the seat.


Drones filtered in from a hidden door to the rear of the bridge, making their way over to the very much stuck android.

“Correct. While I am a very tough lady, I would suggest not taking a hit like that again.”

Four drones wrapped their digits around the arms of the snow-haired android, and made several pitiful attempts to pull her from the nest of holo parts. They were made for chores and tasks, sometimes a little violence, but they were not strong.

“I got this. Move back Addy.” Iso said, somewhat muffled by her situation.

The drones relented and moved back two steps to give Isobel enough berth. She placed her hands either side of her head and pushed hard. She did manage to wrench her head free, leaving the console a present of synthetic hair and a solid chunk of silicon. Her entire left cheek had been ripped off, a white foam quickly spreading across the gap left by the unexpected peregrination.

In addition, her arms were now jammed into the console. Fortunately, this was less of an issue as she just pulled each one free. Wordlessly, she turned on her heel, sat herself down at another seat, and buckled herself in.

“Are you okay, Isobel?!” Exclaimed Aurela as she fumbled with her belt.

“I’m fine.” She replied tersely.

Before Aurelia could contradict the android, Addison spoke up. “The Hypervoid Drive is charged and ready. On your command.”

The scientist let out a sigh, nodding weakly, then sitting back in her seat. “Fine. Let’s go.”





The entire dreadnought shuddered slightly, not quite so violent as the shunt from earlier, but enough to maintain the already high tensions on the bridge. In front of the stellar banshee a tear in space formed as if cracking the void in two. The crack widened, bolts of iridescent energy silently lashed out into the surrounding void.

Op One watched from its seat out the profacting viewport, watching space split in unnatural ways in front of the limping dreadnought. Its prey’s ship ignited most of its rear facing drive chambers, sending the wounded beast towards the ever increasing split in the vacuum.||

“All op’s, retreat. We will not risk being near… whatever that is.” It ordered over its q-comms.

The massive ship picked up pace, its twin noses poking through the tear, which had since ceased to expand. Was this a new faster than light technology? Perhaps it had underestimated the quarry even further than anticipated. This was not too much of a loss, as they were in dire need for repairs, and that made for an easy target, repairs for that size of ship are noisy.

The ship further pushed into the rift, dancing light licking at every inch of the ship as it plunged deeper and deeper.

Eventually, its target was gone, and the unnatural tear in space closed up succinctly behind the ship.