Chapter 397 - Far Future Ch. 107 – A Bridge to the Future (1/2)

”Pretty mangled,” Briggs observed, visor up and looking around. The Corunsun Pendant was exposed on his chest, and he had one hand ungloved to show the Ring, expecting it would be useful here.

This place had indeed been pretty beat up. All the computer stations had been torn open, maybe looking for biomatter, maybe just messing up the electronics, which were definitely a non-functional mess. For some reason this whole section of the ship didn't seem to have had any repairs done to it, even topical, although the molmech sweepers seemed to be going though on a regular basis and cleaning up the dust.

It was pretty big, a good thirty yards across, and probably had several dozen crew manning it at one time. Whatever they had sat on had been reduced to scattered chunks of metal by now, of course.

There were a lot of punctures in the steel of the floor, any carpeting long gone, and several sections had been peeled up to reveal bands of cables now severed by unnaturally sharp objects, or fused to molten masses.

The central holo command center had been pretty hacked into, and I wasn't feeling any power in it. That would have been the main link to the ship's systems, with the stations scattered around the bridge for more specialized and powerful uses. The navigator and pilot stations were also reduced to many pieces in grim fashion, probably a little petulant. No doubt there was a secondary bridge, and the course had already been set beyond the ability of the 'vores to do anything.

Well, the captain's chair was still there.

The runes were acid-etched and filled with gold in a ring of mithral, nicely wrought and still glowing strongly after all these millennia. It was even still leathered and padded, the bright buttons on it polished and ready.

”Now that is a Ward,” I complimented the maker. It wasn't that it wasn't overwhelmingly powerful, it was just finely done, so it had lasted all this time. It was just strong enough that it had lasted longer than they had time to deal with it.

”Little small,” Briggs observed with a sigh. And this was with it being overbuilt to give it a thronelike air. I just laughed at him.

”Mock your predecessors not, Your Grace.” I ushered him towards the chair.

”Yeah, yeah.” Feel that bass, girls. All mine!... He sighed and stepped forwards.

He crossed the ring in the floor around it, and the runes in the Seal crackled, were answered by the pendant, and abruptly dimmed. He turned and sat down.

Yeah, it wasn't meant for an Ancient in power armor, that was certain. He examined the armrest, turned the jewel of the Ring down, and inset it into a convenient socket on the arm of the chair.

There was a crackle that wasn't from psi. Buttons lit up from within, power hummed, and a whole lot of sparks popped off in the floor and ceiling as various severed cables protested that they couldn't do what they were supposed to.

”Greetings, Duke Corunsun. I seem to have terminal failure in most of my systems, and am unable to welcome you properly. I am the Celestial Tribute. How may I be of service to the new Duke?”

Briggs grunted, looking at nothing. ”Tribute, confirm that you know how much time has passed since you crashed?”

”Your Grace, it has 9,707 Tellusian years since the last time the Ducal Ring touched my systems. As I lost access to many of my systems shortly thereafter, and went dormant, I cannot tell you what exactly has occurred since then.”

”Are you aware of the cerevore and xenosym horde that ate your crew and cargo?”

”Yes, Your Grace.” There was a definite note of profound regret in the voice.

”Are you aware of the suppression fire that prevented most of the horde from making a successful breakout?”

”No, sir. Once the ship was confirmed to be lost, the command systems of the ship are separated into different sections, physical connections between them are severed, and they are independently insulated and in control of their own areas, minimizing any contamination. My records indicate that there was infiltration from the engineering and life support systems, prompting the hard severance of those systems.”

Briggs looked at me, I shrugged for him to go with it. If there was any AI that could survive all this time, it would have been the primary command system, with the best insulation and protection available on the ship. Time didn't really mean much to a machine or item spirit, after all.

”Tribute, we'd like to begin the process of restoring you and the ship, a process that will likely take a considerable amount of time. How would we go about getting started?”

”First, sir, you will have to address the matter of the corruption coming out of the ship's core. You will be unable to link up the ship's systems before then. Once that is done, you can initiate a hard reboot of all other systems, which should wipe any corruption, before linking them back up and restoring full unified ship command.”

We looked at one another. Simple, true, and convenient. Of course, trusting the ship was likely not possible, at all. We'd probably need to do that hard wipe on anything and everything... or some alternative that was just as effective.

After all, we had the Ducal Pendant.

”Thank you, Tribute. We will be in further communication with you concerning this matter.”

”Sir, my intraship communications are blocked, and I will be unable to contact you easily. If you have a relay you can plug into the chair, and can set up others in the main shaft, I will be able to reach you outside this section.”

-Only a clean device with no ties or access to another. No letting it infiltrate other systems,- I /said promptly. Briggs nodded. Didn't need a sneaky AI taking over our systems.