by Simon Archer
“If that’s the case, whatever is down there has to be incredibly dense.” I looked down at the roiling clouds. “Let’s find out.”
Before I could lose my nerve, I plunged downward through the clouds. It was a weird experience because I could feel them on my skin, and it was both gritty and moist, which wasn’t a combination I enjoyed very much.
Crazier still was that as I passed down through the miles of clouds, I felt something I hadn’t expected to feel. Excitement. Usually, when I moved through planets in my system, I could sense everything about them from the smallest atom to the largest mountain. The knowledge of what was there, for the most part, just appeared in my mind.
This was different because my godly senses seemed to short circuit, and while I’d expected that to improve as I approached, it didn’t.
“Man, I can’t see anything,” Veronica groaned. “It’s just more black storm clouds.”
“At least it is getting warmer.” I extended my hands out before me. “Whatever is down there must be hot.”
“That shouldn’t really be happening either.” Veronica shook her head. “It should get colder until you reach the edge of the atmosphere. Then, if it’s a molten core gas giant, you would feel it start to heat up. What’s happening now is much more like a normal, non-gas giant.”
“We’ll know in a minute as I reached the edge of the upper atmosphere and plunged through the roiling clouds.” And as I did, my eyes opened wide in fucking shock. It wasn’t a planet wrapped in a gas giant at all. No… more, it seemed like it was a star that never really was.
“Well, that explains that,” Veronica said as she shook her head. “This planet would have been a star if it had more mass, but since it doesn’t, it never really was able to become a star, so it's just sort of been sitting here in a non-star, yet non-planet state.” She sighed. “What do you want to do? I suspect we could probably turn it into a star if we wanted and turn your system into a sort of dual star system.”
“I don’t want to do that now,” I said with a shake of my head. “I’ll get the skill to recharge a star in a few levels, or at least I did when I played Terra Forma. There’s an offshoot of the skill that will let me turn a Jovian into a star or a planet too. So, we may as well wait until then.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” Veronica said, and I could practically see her nodding. “Mind doing a quick flyby and sending me some data on what you find so I can feed it into the models?”
“No problem,” I said, only before I could do anything, Gobta spoke up.
“So, my liege,” Gobta said as he turned toward me, “I’m going to go out on a limb and say this is probably not the best planet for your core.”
“I would think not,” I said with a sigh. “Have a second choice?”
“I do, actually.” He grinned. “We use the blue planet over there.” He pointed back toward the middle of the galaxy.
“The ice giant?” I asked curiously as I thought it over. An ice giant was similar to a gas giant but was made of heavier elements than hydrogen and helium. This one, of course, had a lot of methane, hence the blue color, and was where we’d dug out a ton of ice for use on Ares. “Why do you want to put it there?”
“Well, I just thought that the core we have was from a water dungeon and might be best served on an ice planet, rather than something else. Then we might be able to reuse several of the monsters.” He smirked. “And I like the color.”
“Hmm…” I said, and because I didn’t have much of a better idea, I decided to go with it. “Okay, you can put it there.”
“Excellent,” he said with a wide grin. “What will we call that planet?”
“Well, where I come from, there was a planet called Neptune that was pretty similar, so Poseidon?” I smirked. “He was a god of the sea.”
“Then it will be a good home for this core.” Gobta nodded. “You know, my liege, sometimes, I actually think you’re smart.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Can you handle the whole dungeon core thing on your own? It’s kind of a big job.”
“It would be my pleasure, my liege,” the Hobgoblin King replied as he took the core in his hands and zoomed off toward Poseidon. I watched him go before turning my attention back to the task at hand. I guess I’d see if he was right.
8
As I was finishing up Veronica’s surveys, something enormous blazed through my senses, and as I turned my head towards the disturbance, I realized something absolutely fucking massive was careening through my system. Only this… thing wasn’t a Tartaran.
“Veronica, are you getting this?” I said even though I was already fixing it with my godly sense.
“Sort of. It’s definitely some kind of massive incoming object,” she replied as I teleported to the object hurtling toward my system like a kicked soccer ball.
“Holy shit,” I said as my eyes fell over what could only be described as a fucking Death Star. Or Cybertron. Something fucking robotic. It looked like it had once been spherical, except a part of it looked like it had been caved in, and starlight was spewing out of it, making it look almost like a giant, metal-headed comet.
“Well, this throws everything off,” Veronica mumbled. “‘Cause that thing looks man made.”
“I’d say so,” I said as I gazed down on what looked like the skin of a giant spherical spaceship. Only that didn’t feel like the right word because this felt more like an artificial planet. Except for the whole spewing sunlight thing.
“I wondered when you would find it,” Rhapsody said as she popped into existence beside me. That was also when I realized time had stopped completely. I could tell because the light streaming out of the sphere had ceased to move.
“You did?” I said as I turned toward the goddess and realized it wasn’t her. Well, not really her, anyway. It was her avatar. How did I know? Well, I was a god.
“Yes,” the avatar of the most beautiful goddess in the universe said. “I am glad you found it.” She grinned. “After all, wormholes are pesky things. Who knows when one will appear to swallow something up and then where it will spit it out again?” She winked at me.
“Right…” I think I grasped her meaning. This thing had come from somewhere, and Rhapsody had conveniently opened a few wormholes to get it to me. “What is the ‘it’ exactly?” I gestured at the giant hulk of metal. “Like how is that even a thing?”
“How it exists will make perfect sense once you examine it further. Who knows what you will find out once you really try to pry its secrets out of it?” She nodded. “Though I suspect you have the wrong catgirl looking at it. You need to show this to your engineer.”
“Okay, I’ll do that.” I crossed my arms. “Anything else?”
“I cannot tell you more, nor tell you why it is here,” she said with a smile. “Rules and all.” Then she gave me an infuriating wink and vanished completely.
“Garrett, are you okay?” Veronica’s slightly panicked voice ricocheted inside my brain as I caught up to real time in an instant.
“Yeah, say, can you get Jodie?” I said as I stared down at the hulking metal monstrosity. “Maybe she knows what the fuck this is.”
“I’ll get her,” Veronica said. “Just a second.”
“Great,” I said as I turned my attention back toward the… whatever it was. Right, okay. So, the first order of business was to stop it before it crashed into something important and, I don’t know, obliterated a planet.
I swooped in toward it, and as I did, some sort of low-energy field smacked into me like a fucking radioactive sledgehammer. My head screamed in pain, and my senses went into overdrive as molten magma surged through my veins.
But I was a god, and I could handle a little pain. I gritted my teeth and allowed time to sort of slow down around me. I couldn’t stop it completely like Rhapsody had, a fact that was not lost on me because that hadn’t even been her, just her avatar. So, I did the best I could, which still let me slow it down considerably.
Once that was do
ne, I was able to regain my senses. The sphere seemed to be emitting that strange field outward in a cone that reminded me of, well, a broken net.
“Perfect,” I mumbled to myself as I reoriented my position to avoid the edges of the electro-net-thing, and once I was past it, the pain went away, and I was able to think clearly.
Which was good because the trajectory of the metal ball was going to send it slamming into Hades. That… would be bad because if it hit Hades and exploded, there might be enough energy to kick off a thermonuclear reaction that would prematurely turn Hades into a star that would expend its limited life rather quickly before turning into a huge disaster that enveloped my system when it died.
I had to stop it, which I already kinda sorta was gonna do, anyway. I focused on my Aura and then let it infuse me with strength. This was going to be a little difficult because there wasn’t actually anything to brace myself against as I pressed my hands against its metal shell. It was also doubly hard because I had to be careful how I pushed on it because, given that I was man-sized and this thing was the size of a star, well, it would be easy for me to exert too much force in too small a surface area and punch a hole in it.
So, instead of just pushing against it like Superman did in the movies and comics, I had to do a series of quick taps all over its surface at breakneck speed. Then I began summoning creatures and directing them to push on the skin of the sphere also.
Truth be told, I wound up pulling out very nearly my maximum amount of summons and having us all push on it with god-strength at once to stop the sphere.
“Phew,” I said as I wiped my brow a few femtoseconds later. “That was close.” I quickly dismissed my summons, so I’d have more Aura for myself and then circled the metal ball again. A few quick sweeps around it let me know that, while it was still moving, it wasn’t moving so quickly that it would do any damage to anything anytime soon.
Even still, I resolved to put it into some kind of orbit once I figured out why there was starlight pouring from it, and as I settled myself in front of the spot where sunlight breached its metallic surface, I heard a sharp intake of breath in my ear.
“OH MY GOD! HOW THE FUCK DID YOU FIND A DYSON SPHERE!?” Jodie screamed in my ear.
“A what?” I said, a bit confused. “Dyson Sphere? Really?”
“I need to come down there right now,” Jodie hyperventilated in my ear. “I need to get all up inside her. This instant.” I literally felt her stare at me despite being in a whole other star system however many zillion miles away. “Please, Garrett. I need it so bad.”
“I’m not sure that’s possible,” I hedged as I stared down at what I now knew was a star-sized Dyson sphere. On the one hand, that was pretty damn cool, but on the other hand, I hadn’t actually known one could be built. Even in Terra Forma, I’d never actually heard of one getting crafted, though there had been that one raid where I’d thrown a pair of planets at a partially completed Dyson sphere, and the resulting explosion atomized an entire galaxy. Even then, the thing hadn’t been close to being completed, though.
In my defense, though, the dudes building it were an army of giant space ants bent on turning the rest of the universe into food. Still, I had always been sad I hadn’t been able to recover the plans.
“How can it not be possible?” Jodie squealed so loudly that I actually cringed. “You’re a fucking god. Do god things and make it so.” Then it sounded like she snapped her fingers at me. “Snappy, snappy.”
“Did you just snap your fingers at me?” I asked as I raised an eyebrow though she couldn’t see it. “Because, if you did, I would like to remind you that I’m your boss.” I let the silence hang in the air between us.
“Sorry,” the redheaded catgirl rockstar scientist mewled.
“I accept your apology,” I said as I moved to the surface of the sphere and tapped on it with my boot. “I can try to bring you here, but I actually don’t have the power to let you live in the void of space. Also, there’s the matter of the sunlight streaming out. Like these edges are pretty hot.”
“Can you move closer and tell me if it seems like the sphere is actually venting? I’m willing to bet that whoever designed this thing expected holes to get punched in it, so they would have bulkheads set to seal off the damaged area. Otherwise, the whole thing would have been destroyed.”
“I’m not sure, but you can tell me,” I said as I moved into the breached area. Up close, it really did look like someone had just punctured it with a massive blunt object, but, at least to me, it looked like Jodie was right. The area around the breach looked to be sealed.
“Yeah, it was as I suspected. The inside area should be fine.” Jodie paused. “Are you sensing life in there?”
“No,” I said with a shake of my head as I used my godly senses one more time. “Maybe whatever was on it died with the breach?”
“Or maybe it was unmanned?” Jodie offered with an excited explosion of sound.
“Could be.” I rubbed my chin. “So, how do we get you here?”
“My personal shield is plenty good enough to deal with space and such, especially once I’m inside the Dyson Sphere.” I heard a whizz and a bang through the link. “I just need you to get me from the Hall of Mirrors to the Dyson Sphere.”
“Oh. Why didn’t you say that? I’ll be there in a second,” I said as I teleported to the Hall of Mirrors and found Jodie peering out at me from the one that led to the Hall of Research.
A moment later, she appeared in front of me, clad in her battle attire, which was basically a chainmail bikini. So, yeah, pluses and minuses.
“Man, I always hate having my molecules mixed up and then put back together again,” Jodie said as she stuck out her tongue. Then she licked the back of her wrist and used it to smooth back a lock of red hair that had fallen into her face. “But it’s worth it to see the Dyson Sphere.” She did a little bounce of glee. “Take me.” She offered me her elbow.
“Don’t mind if I do,” I replied as I took her arm in mine and then teleported us back to the surface of the Dyson Sphere. “Is it everything you hoped for and more?”
“I…” Her words drifted off as her eyes got as wide as saucers. Then she dropped to her knees next to me, and while I knew I wasn’t about to get one of my most favorite things, that didn’t stop the thought from drifting through my head. “This is amazing, Garrett.” She ran her hand along the surface of the Sphere before she popped to her feet. “Let’s go inside.”
“Right.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I have no idea how to do that.”
“You can’t like…” She waved her hands by way of explanation. “I dunno, teleport us inside?”
“You know… I can, in fact, do that.” I nodded once as I focused my Godly senses on the part of the Sphere directly below our feet, and though it took a lot more Aura than I expected, I was able to put together a rudimentary picture of the area. “Give me a second.”
I wasn’t sure what would happen if I teleported myself inside a solid steel wall or something, but if it was anything like Terra Forma, a whole lot of nothing would happen. Teleporting Jodie inside a steel wall on the other hand… Well, let’s just say, I didn’t relish the idea of turning her into raspberry jam.
“Sure--”
I didn’t hear the rest of Jodie’s words because I’d already teleported inside the hulking metal monstrosity. The first thing I noticed, apart from the fact I wasn’t stuck in a wall, was that it was dark. Part of me had expected the inside of it to be well lit or, at least, to light up when I appeared thanks to some automation.
That wasn’t the case at all. The reasonably large hallway in which I stood was totally dark, and a quick sniff of whatever passed for air in here tasted dead. In fact, when I scanned the area with my godly senses, I found that everything around me was completely inert.
“What do you see, Garrett?” Jodie asked rather excitedly.
“A whole lot of nothing,” I replied as I mentally mapped out the area so I could teleport bac
k inside without worry. Then I teleported next to the catgirl. “It’s too dark, and it looks like it’s been completely shut down. I mean, I’ve seen wrecks in Terra Forma that had more life than whatever was in there.”
“That is odd,” Jodie said, her cat eyes full of curiosity. “I wonder why that happened since it could still get powered by the star?”
“I’m not sure,” I said as I held out my hand, “but I can take you inside now.” I tapped my temple with my free hand. “I mapped it out.”
“So, you can take me inside?” Jodie asked, and when I nodded, she turned her attention to her communicator. “Veronica, can you patch into my scanners too?”
“I’ve already done that,” Veronica replied sheepishly. “In fact, here you go.”
There was a ping from Jodie’s cat ears, and then her eyes glazed momentarily, and I realized Veronica had sent her something.
“What you saw makes no sense, Garrett. It should definitely be able to power up,” Jodie said as she took my hand. “And I aim to figure out why it isn’t.”
“That’s what I pay you for,” I said with a grin and teleported before she could complain about her rate of pay. Not that she did, really.
“Great Pantharians above,” Jodie said with a gasp as she looked around the darkened hallway. “This is amazing. I never thought I’d see something like this.” She swallowed hard. “It’s not even supposed to exist.”
“What specifically?” I asked as she took a step forward and ran her hand over the seal on the wall in front of us. “Because, I mean, Dyson spheres, in general, aren’t supposed to exist.”
I hadn’t noticed it before, but now that Jodie was touching it, well, it was hard to ignore because it looked like one of those velociraptors from Jurassic Park with an eyepatch and a cigar wearing space marine armor. Only that armor had some sweet pauldrons covered with wicked spikes.
“No, this is much more than that.” She turned and looked right at me. “See, when my people were just kittens, we dreamed of conquering the stars.” She smacked her hand into her fist. “And yet, we’ve never managed to create anything like this. But, somehow, here we are in an actual Dyson sphere that was built by space lizards.” She pointed at the seal. “Space. Lizards.”