Melia stared at the captured Neku warships. The entire fleet was currently anchored off the ISS Constellation’s port bow. What was left of it anyway. A few ships had been destroyed. It was certainly odd, and the newly arrived reinforcements likely felt the same way. Twenty battleships, a flagship, and their escorts had arrived just an hour ago. Erisa had returned from her errand and decided to explore this part of the ship. As such, Melia had no doubt the crystal chip that Megumi had given Erisa was on its way to the fleet. Where it would quickly be transported to Eral, the Erali homeworld. 

Melia had some questions about what the ship was planning, but most of her focus at the moment was on the prisoners. Some of it was being directed to the ongoing repairs, as well. So it was with welcome surprise when she felt Megumi’s attention shift back to her.

“It’s getting rather late. I have prepared some quarters for you. Why don’t you find Erisa, and I’ll guide you two there.”

That did sound like a good idea. It really was late, well, for her anyway. The battle had taken most of the day, and she had been up since before the battle. A few hours had passed since then as well. By Erali standard time it was almost midnight. Although the same could not be said for Solean Imperial, by that clock it was mid-morning. Not that the clocks compared all that well. Solean Imperial had twenty-four hours in a day, while Erali Standard had only twenty. That four-hour difference in the length of a day was rather significant. It was something she had often heard people complain about, especially people who had friends or relatives on a different planet. The length of a day actually varied depending on what planet you were on. It made coordinating schedules between worlds hell, and it was why empires made a standard clock by which all fleets would operate. Usually based on the clock of the homeworld for the convenience of the leaders. Naturally, it was also set according to the regional time of the capital on the homeworld, again for the convenience of a nation’s leaders. For the Soleans it was the obvious conclusion that their homeworld had a twenty-four day, and while you would be right, Solean Imperial time was not based on any city on that world. Mainly because the Soleans were semi-nomadic, and their capital had long since moved from the homeworld to a cityship. Most Soleans lived on massive planetoid-sized cityships that could support billions of people. The capital ship of the empire was among the largest of the cityships, and it was also the oldest, built up and expanded over countless generations.

“That does sound nice, but before I leave. May I ask what you plan to do with that fleet?”

Megumi was silent for a moment. “Well, I have already extracted all the data in their computers. It gave me a few leads, and one race to look up later when I have the time. If anyone knows what happened to my creators, and how that war ended it would be the dragons. They are, in your terms, a precursor race as well.”

“Wait! Those ship-eating space monsters are precursors? They don’t have any technology!”

“Actually they do. The dragons are just as advanced as the empire. Although they apply themselves more towards the mystical side of things. We can talk about that later. To answer your first question. I plan to break them down into their base components. They could be useful for repairs.”

“Break them down? But almost none of the materials used in their construction are used in your construction. How would they be useful for repairs?”

“Not surprised you haven’t reached that section. The short answer is material conversion, as is, most of those materials are useless to me. However, they can be broken down into their subatomic components and reordered into useful materials. There is a fuel cost associated with that, but nothing prohibitive. Besides, I have already repaired the long-range sensors and found several nearby worlds with materials useful for a proper resupply, and those ships will provide enough material to jump-start the repairs to my warp drive.”

Melia already knew what that was. She had read up already on the ship’s design, and technology. Warp Drive was a technology that allowed for rapid interstellar travel through normal space by means of spatial folding. It was a method of faster than light travel that the Solean people had been using since before the founding of their empire, making it one of the oldest technologies still in use by the Solean people.

The ship actually had six primary warp engines and four auxiliary warp engines. The main engines were located in the massive nacelles at the ends of the flared wings towards the aft of the ship. They were set in three pairs, one parallel with the hull, one set above, and one set below the hull. The engines allowed the ship to reach a top cruising speed of warp twelve which translates to about 82,500 times the speed of light. More than sufficient for interstellar travel. At that speed, it would take a little over a year to cross from one side of the galaxy to the other. Meaning it was quite fast, but not fast enough for intergalactic travel. For that, the ship had a second set of FTL engines. This set also used components in the nacelles but it also had a drive core in Main Engineering. That second set was known as the Hyperwarp Drive. It made use of something called subspace tunneling to create a conduit between any two points allowing for near-instantaneous travel, well it seemed that way anyway. Actual travel speed was on the order of several million times the speed of light. Crossing the galaxy at those speeds was a matter of seconds, travelling between galaxies was a matter of days. Although from what she had read the early versions of hyperwarp took months to cross between galaxies. Both engines were far more impressive than any jump drive or hyperdrive she had seen.

“I’d love to see the science behind that. Guess I’ll look it up in the morning. In the meantime I better find Erisa.”

Kiru stared at the wall, deep in thought. Not that she had much else to do. She had already finished her breakfast, not that it was anything special. It tasted fine, so it was already a league above what she expected. Her mind really wasn’t on the food though. No, she was far more worried about her future. The hologram had mentioned something about having plans for her, but had said nothing about what they were. 

That was worrying enough, but what really worried her was what that hologram had said about her rights, or more accurately her lack thereof. It seemed that the alien program did not recognize her as having rights. She apparently could be classified one of two ways, and neither made a difference. Not that she really liked the first, ‘specimen.’ As in a lab animal. At least the second one made her sound like a Neku, a thinking creature and not something to be experimented on. Not that the other one was much better. Apparently what she thought of as her rights were classified by the Solean Empire as privileges granted to all citizens of the Empire. Since she had no citizenship in the Solean Empire; she had no rights here except those outlined by the Articles of War. Which simply put, guaranteed that her basic needs would be met.

She had asked if having citizenship would have changed things, and the answer was not much. In that case, she would have been classified as a Captured Rebel, and as far as the Empire was concerned rebelling against the empire was the same as rejecting the empire and all privileges they granted to you as a citizen of the Empire.

At least the Empire didn’t execute their prisoners. That was one of the few positive things she had learned about. Her life was guaranteed, but that wasn’t all that reassuring. Not with the whole lab rat thing still hanging over her head.

She sighed, and finally pushed herself out of the chair. Wanting to keep her mind off the whole thing. She went out into the main room of the cell. Perhaps some exercise would keep her mind occupied. There were very few things she could do in this closet of a cell, and there wasn’t much else to do anyway. The only other things she could do to pass the time was think or sleep. She didn’t want to sit around thinking any longer, and honestly, she was not tired enough to sleep. Besides, that shelf wasn’t all that comfortable, although it was better than the floor.

She had been exercising for a while and was starting to feel the need for a break. Not to mention she was feeling hungry again. She had no way to be sure but it might be time for lunch. Without a clock, she had no way to know what time it was. Not being locked up in this tiny room anyway.

Suddenly without warning, a certain hologram appeared. This time sitting on the sorry shelf of metal that served as the bed. “It’s about time you took a break, and I have prepared your lunch, Princess. It’s in the same place as last time. Also, I will be accelerating to warp speed in a few minutes, but since my inertial dampers are not fully repaired you may experience a sudden gravitational shift. Don’t be alarmed, when it happens.”

Kiru shifted into a sitting posture. “Thanks, I guess, but did I not ask you to stop calling me Princess?”

The hologram giggled but said nothing.

Kiru started to stand up and seeing as she wasn’t going to get anything more than a giggle asked something else, “By the way what do you mean about accelerating to warp speed, and sudden gravitational shifts?”

“About what it sounds like, if you have ever been on a shuttle with no dampers you will know what I am talking about. This will be a similar experience, with a few differences.”

“Not going to tell me more?”

“No, Kiru, I am not. I didn’t even have to give you the small warning I did,” said the Hologram just before she vanished. Kiru sighed and headed for the small side room with the table. A part of her wondering what the ship had decided to serve her for lunch. What she found was a plain fish served atop equally plain rice, although neither the fish nor the rice were of a type she was familiar with. She settled into the chair and picked up the lone utensil. It was plain white and made of a material she could not identify, but it was fairly soft. Bending easily, yet hard enough for the task. The food itself was okay, but it did not strike her as special. Not to mention it was not all that different from her breakfast.

Idly she asked the air, “Is fish the only thing you are going to serve me?” She was not expecting a response.

So she was understandably startled when a voice from nowhere said, “Well, it is all I have. My creators, the Soleans, have a diet of mainly fish, several different vegetables, grains, and occasionally the meat of a few different large animals. I was supplied with a few agri-bays with self-sustaining ecosystems to support my crew, and a few of them are still operational. The fish you are eating was just harvested today, so it is quite fresh. However if you don’t want fish, I can always serve you nutrient paste, princess. I have quite the surplus stored up.”

She gulped. “No, the fish is fine. I was just curious, nothing more.”

As if to prove it, she hurried to finish it, and had just gulped down the last of it when the ship suddenly jolted. She had a feeling that the ship had gone to warp. A feeling that was quite correct.

Megumi enjoyed the feeling of being at warp for the first time in ages. She had already finished deconstructing the Neku fleet. Spoken briefly with an Erali admiral, and the Erali fleet had departed with the precious cargo that Erisa had handed off earlier. There were still a large number of Erali onboard, scientists the fleet had left behind. She had started tagging them so that she could better keep an eye on them, and make sure they kept out of trouble. Megumi had even set up a few monitoring subroutines so that she didn’t have to keep a personal eye on them. So to speak, anyway. Her repairs to the warp engines were, however minimal, limiting her to a top cruising speed of warp 4.76 (784C) which was quite slow. It would take her roughly eight days to reach her destination at that speed. Since she now had the time, she activated her cloak as well.

It responded exactly as it should, and she felt all the familiar responses. Meaning she would have suddenly vanished from the screens of anyone looking her way. For the first time in ages, she was not only moving but cloaked as well. It felt familiar and proper. Megumi was starting to feel like a proper ship again, and in a few days, she would be able to strip a planet of the materials she needed from orbit. Accelerating her repairs, and allowing her to fix systems she did not have the materials for; like the shields, and the Hyperwarp engines. She also needed a few materials for her plans for the Neku she had captured. The planet in question was perfectly suited to supply those needs.