Risen: Shatterverse

Dark Matter Developments

The type 4 hummed to itself as Lux directed it to lift off the ground. Once again its passenger section was filled with world entities, Risen escorts, one pissed off mecha and a couple of ghosts. Or maybe three, depending on how you counted that kind of thing. With the T'sang keeping me fairly close to the cockpit so it could look out, I didn't have to deal with a visibly agitated Naveaia, leaving that duty in Hannibal's capable hands.

Not that I could anyway, with the T'sang at the helm. I was just glad I wasn't in range for one of her icy glares or her whispered invective, like Hannibal was. Even as I thought about it, I could hear her whisper hoarsely to the Carthaginian. And while I couldn't make out the words, I could tell she was pissed by her cadence and delivery

Then we were all falling silent as the type 4 approached the gate into extra space. The entities were too keyed up about the possibility of implanting dark matter worlds to talk. And the rest of us remembered just what sort of horror the Ha'shadar rained down on us before the zombie apocalypse counter attack shortly before the nuke that destroyed the first version of Fort Retribution and turned a good number of the first generation Risen into radioactive dust.

We had survived that, mostly through Max and his determination. And he walked away from the whole thing enhanced by world entities until his skill set and capabilities were unique amongst the Risen, along with being nearly unstoppable.

While I knew a similar event wouldn't happen here, I didn't know what converting to dark matter would do to us. Or to the T'sang, who claimed it was unaffected by the conversion due to the nature and structure of its mind. Yet this one was damaged like the Collector: it didn't have the other half of its dual entity makeup. So who could tell ...

I blinked and found myself looking at the white space with black cables of extra space. Wait ... did we just pass through the gate and get converted without me knowing??

"Well, that was rather anticlimactic," Hannibal muttered a few steps behind me.

Right? I too was apparently anticipating something momentous, something palpable that would tell me that I had been converted into dark matter by the T'sang's gate adjustments. And, like Hannibal, I felt a tiny wave of disappointment that I felt nothing happen.

"If you are referring to the tumultuous conversion the Ha'shadar experienced, both to and from, I said you wouldn't experience it," the T'sang quickly pointed out. "My adjustments ensured that you wouldn't have to deal with excessive negatively charged leptons." Then it was focusing my eyes on Lux. "Plot us a course, slave, to the world that resonates with the world soul known as 'Trin'."

"A course has been laid in," Lux confirmed, the column of light shifting subtly as it worked. "We will arrive there in four minutes."

Nodding, the T'sang looked over my shoulder at the clustered world entities.

"I would suggest you world souls begin your ritual now, so when we breach back into the primary layer the transference will be primed and ready to happen," it said. It then turned back to the forward windows.

"Considering all the compression and expansion that's been taking place recently, it'll be hard to anticipate how hospitable these dark matter worlds will be, even to significantly more robust beings as you all appear to be. We could find ourselves benefiting from making the process as quick and seamless as possible!"

While I found myself agreeing with the alien ghost's reasoning, I mentally frowned. Was I hearing a note of uncertainty in the T'sang's voice? When it had mentioned that the T'sang often harvested resources from the dark matter side of the universe, it didn't indicate that they spent a great deal of time over there. Was it possible the near-omniscient alien didn't know as much about the actual conditions on the dark side of the polychromatic barrier as it was claiming it did?