331 Large processor 1 (1/2)
”I don't really feel like there's a need to do that, we'll be destroying it in a bit so why give it a name?”
”I guess, but still, just calling it 'large processor' doesn't really catch the imagination…”
About a month after they had entered the dark systems, Dax and his team stood in front of their second ground based operation, this time it was one of Dax's favourite types of operations, in a way that was tricky as all hell and you might be insane to attempt it.
”It's called that because we don't hire people to name every single large Emergence processor array, that would be way too expensive, now cut the chatter, Lux, Alice.”
””Sir.””
As Dax entered the room a certain silence engulfed it, this silence was only broken by Dax when he had taken a seat.
”I take it you've all read the briefing, but for the sake of Ke who doesn't have a neural uplink, I'll go over the larger points. We've been tasked with destroying one of the last major Emergence nerve clusters outside of the former Iron race capital system, the first problem is that order is that our favourite 3rd party is the one guarding it, and most likely personally, so we'll need to improvise a bit… Oh, and the second issue that the processor is located in the core of Styx-1.”
”Styx-1?! Don't fuck around Dax!”
With Phillipa immediately reacting to Dax's words, all eyes turned to Dax who clearly had left something critical out of the initial briefing.
”Dax, what is Styx-1 exactly?”
”Styx is one of 5 rivers which supposedly flows from the mortal world to the underworld, Styx is described as a river of fire, which might be why some person who believed himself to be extremely funny named the system we're currently travelling to by that name. Styx is a binary system, containing two stars and a single planet which is our current objective, the problem itself is the stars in the system… Styx-A is a stellar mass black hole which completes about a billion full rotations a second, the gravity waves from this rotation are creating a constant surge of gravitational waves that make faster than light jumps extremely hard to accomplish, then there's Styx-B, a neutron star, which poses the real issue… Ra, what's the current strength of its magnetic field?”
”It's still classified as a magnetar with a magnetic field in excess of 10^10 tesla, so far above any value which would make a difference. The point Dax is making is that most electronics will not work inside the system, not until Styx-B's orbit decays and it falls into Styx-A but we're still a few billion years away from that.”
While Ra succeeded in clearing up the confusion for more science abled people, Ke shot a confused look to Dax who placed a hand on top of her head.
”Then how the fuck are we supposed to get to that 'processor' or whatever it is called? Rather how the hell did it even get there in the first place?”
Responding with a smile, Dax turned to Ra.
”That's why we're doing this briefing. Ra, can you destroy Styx-B?”
”Nope.”
”Not even with a gravitational pulse?”