Dick left the system. The ship's computers integrated with his Mi Goo canister perfectly. All he had to do was think, and his small shit responded.
He traveled for a few days at sub luminal speed. He thought about the warp engines, and they engaged. He was traveling at warp 1.5! He traveled liked this for an hour before he increased his speed to warp 11.5.
He came out of superluminal speeds and his ship engines eased his fatigue. While resting, he cast a spell. It stressed him greatly, as he was using pure thought to cast. He had no hands, no voice, no materials. He gleaned that the way to Division Zero was impossible. Had his friends on the Star Word lied to him?
He then detected something unusual. His sensors picked up strange radiations, like photons pushed and elongated. The only thing that could do this was something passed him at faster than light speeds. He scanned space around him. He picked up a massive object that was fast approaching.
He engaged his shields. It was a ship, or rather it was a fleet of ships. It was over a thousand ships all fused together and acting as one giant craft. It employed hundreds of weapons. Dante had no chance. He tried to flee but the super massive fleet ship overtook him and rammed him.
His shield protected him but his batteries were almost depleted. It fired missals at him. He was done for, the shields gave out.
Then arms, at last 10, from different ships, with different designs, reached out to him. He was dragged to the hull, and drills affixed him the hull of a derelict husk of a former battleship.
Dante was near exhaustion and near panic. One of the mechanical arms injected his ship with nanites. The nanites over ran his computer systems and shut down Dante's systems. He went into hibernation.
Dante woke to the Vagabond, as that is what it called itself, it learned English from Dante's computers. I needed Dante to examine its newest aquistion. It captured the now dead Bolivar, an exploration vehicle launced from Pan America, in the year 2417. Dante realized that the home he knew was centuries in the past!
Enraged he unlocked the power of his mind. Exerting his will, he took over the AI of the Vagabond. He quickly rewrote the programs and put himself in control of the ship.
He was then flooded with knowledge. He had access to the data of a thousand ships, from a thousand worlds spanning a thousand centuries! The information was painful. He had to limit it or lose himself.
He learned of the mighty empire of Gaz, a sentient microbe race long dead. He learned of the Aberration, a humanoid so far advanced that Vagabond feared and submitted to him. He learned of the Moevian Empire, the fate of the Gaour, and the deviousness of the Capellians.
He learned of the first ship in the Vagabond, launched from Vhoorl a water world with intelligent mollusks, also long gone. Their world was hit by a wandering planetoid and rendered inhospitable billions of years ago.
He learned of another Humanoid Race, again so powerful, so smart, they launched a computer virus on the Vagabond that erased all memory of their location, but not of their existence. They wanted Vagabond to be aware that they were out there, and be smart enough to avoid them in the future.
He learned about things that thrive in voids, and how its best to avoid them. He learned of the Cold Star, in a inverted galaxy of opposition.
And with all this information, Dante learned nothing of Division Zero.
He decided to go to the last place the Vagabond encountered the Aberration. He calculated it was over 70, 000 light years away. With all the engines of a thousand ships available to him, he could make it their in 29 days.
He studied his computer banks incessantly. He thought he saw something in the light haze of superluminal space, but that was impossible.
He dropped his speed. He was in a forming star system. It was a cluster of gas giants with a new born star. It was full of rocky asteroids. He engaged his shields as a precaution. This proved smart as he was constantly pelted with meteoroids.
He was scanning the system when he noticed something disturbing the debris. It collided with a nearby gas giant, deforming the world. It pulled a trail of gas in its slipstream. It stopped and Dante was engulfed in a planet sized storm of gasses. A large moon was now near him. It didn't move. A line formed across its horizon. the line became a canyon. And the canyon became a crater.
It took Dante a full minute to realize that his giant moon had just opened up its singular eye.
Dante hoped his shields would suffice...
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