The views of Jump space are as spectacular as always. Tunnels of color and shape that shift slowly over time. I wanted to see what the upgraded Viteză Furie was capable of, as I haven't really pushed the ship since the upgrades. Entered jump at nearly light-speed itself, 99.998%. It was fun to push it like that. Faster than CT's original designs were capable of achieving, but with the all the new technology that I have incorporated, well within the ships capabilities now. Improvements to the mains to make them more powerful and more efficient. Better inertial dampers. I can pull 1000 gravity maneuvers and not feel it. Structural stress sensors read higher than usual, but well within tolerance, and far from any danger zones.
I made my way to where my friends from the Speaker are from. That was a fascinating few months. I traded for so much. I probably shouldn't have, but I traded access to the map, letting them download as much as they could, for a massive amount of their currency. I bought so many things. New printer files that are compatible with my upgraded printers, which are able to print everything I had, and all the new stuff too. All my printers are replaced, including the vehicle printer in the garage. I also purchased a full Printer design suite. While I will eventually finish my own programming, this one is ready made and covers just about everything I could need and then some.
The printer plans I bought included new weapons, additional tech, new vehicles, just about anything I could think of. I've added additional computer systems, and what they called a Class Four AI system. It is really advanced, and provides much better control of remote drones and probes. They did offer to integrate a Class Five into the Viteză Furie itself, but I turned that down. We have an understanding, the Viteză Furie and I. Don't need to disrupt that relationship. That said, the AI is already helping with other things, like data processing, and processing the images from the Arc Drive display.
Even with the power of the AI chewing through the images, it is still far from real time. That said, I can now get a clear image from the display every other hour or so. That is a real improvement from the multiple days I was stuck with after everything else.
I also upgraded my on-board gardening, converting one of the spare staterooms into an actual grow room, complete with proper irrigation and lighting. Another of the rooms was converted as a space for some new friends, and one of the reasons I made the trip to visit my friends.
The AI helped me with something else. I had kinda forgotten about the sphere of sensor satellites that the other me left in a constellation out in the void. They are still there, and the data is still pouring in. Truly, it never stopped, and the AI is helping process all of it. Took it about three days to process the first batch, and it is finishing up the last batch of data from the satellites as I write this log. Correlating the data from what really is a construct of my own making, with the data from the map has revealed some amazing things.
With the integration of the data streams, something the AI excels at, I now have a frame of reference. I have true measurements of distance between universes, from Trost to Home, to the Construct, and the Nebula Universe. This gives me an actual scale to things that was just an estimate before, and my estimate was off. It is disturbing just how far off my measuring stick was. Even the estimates by the Ull Malk'et were off by multiple factors of magnitude. I sent a message to Kotth and Lurr to let them know, and how to tap into the Satellites feed.
These new measurements are accurate to within about a million light years. That might seem like a lot, but when you are dealing with things on a scale like this, where distances are measured in factors of millions of light years, raised to powers of ten. From Trost to Home, it is ten times ten to the three-hundredth power, billion light years. It's funny, but my friends are in fact closer to Trost than Home is. They are only ten time ten to the one-hundred-twenty-third power, billion light years.
All that is however dwarfed by the distance to the next speaker. I can know the distance, and knowing it, with the map and the data feed from the Constellation, lets me calculate just how long it is going to take me to get to the next speaker. It is a three year trip. There is a lot of interesting things between here and there, so I expect I will make quite a few stops.
While visiting my friends, I did pick up a few pets. Some interesting, genetically engineered creatures. I had to wait for them to be grown, as they were genetically mapped to me. That means, if the sales brochure can be believed, they are bound to me. One is called a Chat, and the other a Doog. Actually, I got two Doog's and two Chat's. They get along great, and have been great companions. All four, if there is danger, are able to shift into much larger, and far more dangerous forms, all at my control and command. They eat what I eat, are able to detect things that would typically harm me, such as harmful chemicals, etc...., and have some cyber enhancements that let us communicate so long as we are both in range of at least one drone with a link to the Viteză Furie.
There were some additional extras, weapons systems when they shift, and other such things, to choose from. I went with a mix of things. The first Doog, I named Arlex, or just Arl, usually. His shifted form is bipedal, with claws, teeth, and hands that can use weapons. The second Doog is a female companion for Arlex, I named her Jennek, though I tend to just call her Jen. Her form is also bi-pedal, but it larger and more powerful, with some heavy weapons systems. She's the tank of the group. The Chat's are Edix and Liss. They are about half the size of Kotth and Lurr normally, but are nearly three times their size when shifted. They're fast, claws, teeth, and bladed weapons. Their shifted forms have hands, though they are still mostly quadrupeds when shifted.
As companions, they have proven to be exactly what I needed. I can talk to them, and I get a bit more than just mindless churring. Don't get me wrong, the rumble that Edix and Liss make when they are happy surprised me the first time I heard it. Even more so when it was in response to me petting them, and the vibration that ran through them.
I am very happy that I made the trip and spent the time there with my friends.
I did need to move on though. They were preparing for a fight, for a war that I wanted nothing to do with. It is a war of survival for them, but it is not my fight. I wished them well and have made my way now back out into the wider cosmos.
I am still years away from the next speaker, and will be stopping in a universe just slightly off the direct path. It is a huge universe where I expect to resupply, get out to stretch our collective legs, and just take some time to sniff the air of a few new worlds.