It had been weeks, stuck in The Between, and we were doing our best to keep each other occupied. At least we could see each other. That helped, especially for my companions, as they are not used to being on their own for long periods. We could see each other, talk over direct comm's, as long as the laser was directed through the contact points of the bubbles.
I used a laser, and a few other things, fired out of the bubble and into The Between, to complete my tests. That is definitely where we were. I mean, you cannot be one hundred percent sure, but my confidence in that conclusion is high enough to be all but irrefutable. All that data has been recorded and pushed into the out-going queues.
Then it happened. Certainly was not what we were expecting. I am pretty sure this outcome was not on the AI's bell curve of possible outcomes. Then again... I am pretty sure ending up in The Between wouldn't have been on their bell curves either.
What happened is that the AI's finished the calculations for merging the bubbles. It was a risk. We went over all of the possibilities that were anticipated, as well as outliers. After some discussion, we decided to move forward with the plan that was a moderate risk, but highest chance of success.
It wasn't as hard a thing as expected, but it also didn't work out as expected. One of those possible risks happened. One so far out on the edge of possibility, it wasn't even calculated for. At least it didn't result in us all ceasing to exists.
Using the higher power output of Engineering, we extended the bubble from that module around the others, carefully ensuring that the velocity of each was near to null, and compensating. It was a near thing, but we managed to get all four modules within the bubble of the Engineering module. Although their bubbles were still active. It was then a matter of shutting down the bubbles of the Command, Lounge, and Drive modules. That seems simple enough on it's face. It did not however prove to be.
We timed it carefully, all systems timed down to the microsecond and slaved to my command. A carefully calculated delay added to compensate for the slightly different time experiences of the different modules. That difference in time experience was reduced, but did not go away entirely, after we were all inside the Engineering module bubble. We addressed it some more with additional tuning of the fields. Had it down to a microsecond a day difference. Should have been enough. Maybe it was...
On command, all three modules shut down their fields, popping their spacial bubbles. It happened with a pico-second of difference, and that might have only been the difference in detection across the distance of a few dozen meters. The precision we pulled off was truly impressive. We expected some backlash, and other effects. We got them, and the Engineering module was ready for it, as were the others. We had containment fields ready, tow fields ready, and mag-harpoons.
Everything went off without a hitch. The bubbles popped, the fields engaged, harpoons fired, and the shock-waves were countered. We were in formation, and all inside the same field. It was rough, and should have been enough. Then the blast-wave hit the Engineering bubble. It was stretched out to the limits to give enough space. We tried to compensate by bringing the bubble from Drives into the picture, to bolster the Engineering bubble. It worked, sort of…
Maybe adding the Drive Module bubble was the mistake, because the shock-wave got trapped between them, amplifying until the Engineering bubble ruptures, which caused the Drive bubble to collapse. For the briefest of moments, we were there, tied to each other by the harpoons and tow fields, but otherwise unprotected. We then had the fields re-engage from each module, but we were so close, they interacted and thankfully created a single bubble.
I thought we were going to be okay, but then we hit something. The fields didn't fail, but they shredded. Some of the inky blackness, the probability, leaking into the bubble and taking form. Mostly it was blasts of high energy particles, flashes of light, a few poor creatures that expired almost instantly. The harpoon cables snapped, and the energy blasts was screwing with the systems. We were still in contact with something beyond our field and then we weren't.
We were suddenly moving at absurd speeds in real space, and rapidly flying away from what looked like a universe birth scar. Sensors screamed, alarms screamed, and we tried desperately to keep things under control. The blast knocked out most of our systems and we had to wait for them to reboot, including the AI's. The only thing running was the space bubble drives, and those were screaming as well. I did all I could.
Being jacked into the Viteză Furie as I am, thanks to my implants. I was able to take control as I had before the AI's stepped into to take over the regular day to day stuff. I was able to get fusion plants back online, power restored, system restores and resets going, on all modules within a few minutes. We were all within the same bubble. We were however drifting apart, and there was little I could do to stop that. I tried to use Harpoons, and managed to get the Command, Engineering, and Drive module to stay together. The Lounge however, had drifted too far, and until I could get drive functions working, we were on our own.
Scans of the universe we found ourselves in indicate that it was at least close enough to ours that we shouldn't expect to just die outright, or have our atoms decompose as happened to that probe. Fired a few probes out of the field, and their tests confirmed things to be safe, from that standpoint. The AI's however would not come back online, and so I handed off as many functions to my companions on their various modules as I could.
No flight systems, power is up, but computers are generally down accept the Viteză Furie original systems. Tried creating a chain of probes to link the Lounge back to the other modules. Didn't work. The act of launching them just pushed us father apart. The Lounge is now in it's own separate bubble, because we have drifted too far apart. Assuming light speed is the same here, we are only about 2 light minutes apart, and both traveling on almost parallel, if slowly separating paths. They are linking their modules together and hopefully the Lounge can link up later.
We are however out of visual range without magnification. I am not sure why the engines won't start up, and so I may have to literally go out and look. I hope they are not damaged. Did figure out while trying the probe chain, that the drives on the probes work just fine, so we are trying that now. A collection of probes pushing us back towards the others. It is slow going. Only had a few on this side, so the thrust isn't huge. Once they are fully docked on the other side, they are going to use their larger probe collection for the same purpose.
I hope in a few days, we will be back to fully operational and no longer crashing. As noted before. We have not crashed, as yet, but we are still crashing. Especially with no drives, and no sensors either. Like the drive systems and AI's, they have yet to come back online fully. At the moment I only have visual scanning, as in me looking out the window, which is another reason why I am not being overly aggressive with the thrust from the probes. I'm quite literally eyeballing this. Only my upgraded Cyber-eyes are allowing me to keep the rest of the Viteză Furie in sight.
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