The Core: The Dark Enemy

12. Splitting myself up

(Above is a new series cover that I am tinkering with writing later. It will mainly involve Invicta and her adventures fighting inside the next dimension.)

A short while later I found myself alone with Meditati as we were still trying to work through the logistics of the new development. Tutor had left, citing that she had obligations to attend to and George had to run off with Invicta to work on the security of our starter base in the next dimension. Well, it was more to set her in place and to give her a direction that he wanted her to go in while he went off to check on some of his patients that he had taken up, both while working in the hospital, as well as since the uplift began. This practice was something that I completely endorsed in his behavior. I was proud of him and the care he showed to others.

Everyone seemed to have things to do, and I just wanted to take a break.

A break that it seemed that I might get if what Meditati was saying was true. It seemed that regardless of the immediate threat created by Time perishing I still would have to wait three months before I could do anything about it. The vessel that the Skii were on would take, at minimum, a little over three months to make the trip. There simply wasn't any other way around it due to the vast distance and needing to plan a safe path there.

It wasn't simply for the safety of the Skii, even though their health was the biggest concern, we also didn't want to blast through planets, inhabited gas clouds, or stars on the way. We could end countless lives and civilizations if the Skii ship blew through a large enough object at such insane speeds.

"Basically, we are building our own LOW superhighway on the fly." Meditati had explained as she lined out how she was sending out a string of warning beacons lightyears in front of the gradually accelerating ship. This would let her monitor any heavenly bodies and to dissuade troublemakers for the most part. Some, actually almost all, alien civilizations did not take kindly to foreign incursions into their sovereign space. This was one of the reasons why there was a little flexibility in the timeline for the Skii vessel's projected arrival.

This was all just in case she needed to rap knuckles on some alien foreheads to get them to see reason.

"You really think that someone will try to set up a blockade?" I asked as I browsed the plans that she was working on. Normal matter wouldn't cause a problem, as it would get obliterated from being unable to accept the energy alone. However, if someone with cr managed to place a sizable amount in the way, it could cause major problems down the line.

"Oh, I am sure of it, at least with two of the races that the Skii vessel will pass nearby. One of them is a "Red Listed" race and the other is, of course, a Core of the Tela."

"A red-listed race?" I asked as I looked up the term. Any alien race that was put on the "Red List" was warlike and highly aggressive. "Which one?"

"The U'lennea. They have systems everywhere and are even aligned with some of the older Tela who needed an outside force to do their dirty work. They enjoy being hired as mercenaries and exterminators in exchange for licensing and using Tela technology."

"I see, and they both are sending warships to investigate the nova it seems," I said as I delved into more of the hacked data she had gathered.

I wasn't sure when it had happened but Meditati had, somewhere along the line, decided that it was the best policy for her to be as completely transparent as possible with me in everything that she was researching and simulating. I couldn't tell if it was her trying to manipulate me or not, I still had trust issues with her, but from what I could read from her background data she was really trying to be as open as she could to me.