Gates of War - Chapter 3 (Commander SI - Multiverse)

CID: Day 30

I watched the sunset in a peaceful calm as I stared down at the waves washing upon the sandy shore. Although I can “feel” the temperature in the air, the coolness of the ocean winds, it didn’t feel real to me. It was good enough though, so long as I focused on something. Waves were always good to watch as they were never the same, though in time I did get bored of watching when I was doing tens of thousands of different things at once.

My calm came to an end when my satellites had finished their scan of the inner surface, and allowed me to look upon the sphere in its entirety. As expected, there was little to nothing I could see aside from just a smooth inside, but when I looked at the whole thing in the electromagnetic and infrared spectrum at the same time, it showed a different story.

The entire inner surface was covered in what appeared to be spots. These spots were similar to cold spots on a star, areas where the temperature was lower than the surrounding area. In this case, it was an area where energy absorbed by the inner surface was significantly less than the rest of the surrounding surface area. This in turn made it show up as “colder” than the rest of the sphere, but only slightly so. Like looking at a slightly darker shade of red on a page of red. You can only see it if you knew what to look for, and if you paid really close attention.

The Inner Surface of the Sphere was covered in no less than three hundred thousand of these spots. They were uniform, each twenty thousand kilometers in diameter, and placed exactly even distances from one another in all directions. Which meant this was part of the design to begin with, not an accident of construction. What they were for is now the real question. Why would the progenitors place these spots into the surface?

Knowing them and their penchant for building insanely huge or powerful objects, I would guess it was for the construction of something. I couldn’t begin to guess as to what those things would be, but a part of me hoped for a gateway to the outside, or the means to access the network if it still existed.

I turned as the wind began to pick up. The waves grew in size as they went from merely splashing the shore, to massive forms which broke across the shoreline. I stared at the spectacle while sending a signal to two hundred of my orbital fabricator satellites, and sent them to a single spot. It was time to poke this and see what happens, as well as building Teleporters so I can go to these spots personally.

Ten built a single Teleporter, while I connected to it from my end with a local gate, and I was instantly on the inner surface of the sphere. I got a little vertigo for a moment as I looked upon a near endless area of ground that wrapped itself across the expanse of my vision. I felt myself shake my head as I turned to look towards the center of the spot. It was a good 10,005 kilometers away. Fortunately, I made preparations.

With a mental whistle, dozens of advanced fabrication aircraft flew through the gate and began construction of a variation of the Pelican.

It wasn’t anything more than an upsized version that could carry my Commander shell, but it would do the job of carrying me to the center. Within twenty minutes it had been completed, and flew into the air upon blazing blue jets of plasma flame. I gazed upon it admiringly as it spun in place as it floated above me, and then felt the tug as it pulled me up into the air.

With a quick orientation, I began to fly towards the center, with the advanced fabbers following close behind. Without an atmosphere to stop us, the fleet of aircraft accelerated at seventy times earth gravity and continued to go faster and faster until the trip was reduced to a mere half hour. Half was spent accelerating towards the center, and the other half accelerating in the opposite direction, until I reached my stop.

With a quick release, the XLP (Extra Large Pelican) lifted off and hovered a few hundred feet away as I gazed down upon the center of the circle. My scanners still couldn’t read too deeply past the surface despite being on top of it, but there was something there now that I could look.

“Well...nothing gained by not trying.”

I pointed down and activated my sprayer, and within moments the nanites began to burrow through the surface and down into the wall, with the air fabbers spraying to spread the area of effect and increase the pace of penetration. The Wall was dense. Incredibly so, which is a given despite the lack of gravitational force from its very existence. Still, the machines did their job and slowly burrowed deeper and deeper. Hours passed before finally something happened. The Nanites breached through the wall and revealed to me...an inner space. There was machinery there. Incredibly large machinery. I couldn’t begin to measure it as it is, and once the nanites traveled the necessary paths and touched it, I felt them being drawn to a specific point.

I felt fear. I didn’t know what I was doing...and I was touching something I am woefully unprepared for...but at the same time I felt something deep within me...aggressively push me to drive into the heart of whatever it is I had discovered. I didn’t know what it was, or whether it was something from the progenitors or myself...but I couldn’t deny it. Even though I wanted to resist...I felt the need to find the center.

Within moments, the nanites dove into the center of the machine, flowing in intricate patterns that were almost artistic, and whimsical in design, before finally...I had reached the heart. All the nanites spun into the spiral that made up the heart. A disk with thousands of lines that formed a sort of alternator. I couldn’t rightly say what it was...but it felt like a power source and a motor.

Filled with nanites, the machine blinked to life and began to spin. Slowly...and then faster and faster, and then faster. The whole of the machine then came to life, and the energy of the heart spread outwards to the rest.

The desire and need I had left as suddenly as it came, and I was myself once more. I called the XLP, which in a flash swooped down and grabbed me, and then accelerated away from the wall to the depth of space quickly. By the time ten minutes had passed, I was over one hundred thousand miles away. I felt that was a safe enough distance as I watched the circle slowly glow bright against the black of space and the dull grey of the wall. Starting from a dark blue, it quickly grew brighter and brighter until it was a blue-white, before becoming pure white.

Then...within a second...a structure tore through the light and extended outwards a distance of five hundred kilometers from the wall surface. It came out as a ring...a massive ring. The Ring kept growing until it finally stopped at one thousand kilometers in height from the wall surface. Then the light...vanished. Leaving just the ring, and a vast mechanism that...looked similar to a camera shutter. I would blink if I could...but damned me if it didn’t remind me of the Teleporter...and I don’t mean the ones I already could make.

“Well...that’s new. Hello Halo. Bungie wants its thing back...anyways. I guess the Progenitors foresaw a time when a Commander would do what I have done. I suppose I should-”

Before I could finish my sentence, a light shined that encircled the entirety of the ring’s surface towards space, and grabbed me. I felt a jolt of terror as I was quickly pulled towards the Wall, ripping me from the grip of the XLP. Within moments stopped before the center, now face to face with the spiraling device.

“....Uhhhh…..Hello!? Please don’t kill me!? I am small and pathetic!”

Don’t judge me! It worked for John Crichton! Sort of…. not?... SHUTUP!

I was interrupted from my begging negotiating and internal gibberingmonologue to God/Rob no-one when suddenly a voice filled my entire being. From the surface metal and coloring of my armor plating to the very core of my center.

 “Commander Detected. Commencing Gateway Interface. Installing Datafile Gate_Interspace_System.Exe…. Installation Complete. Activating Gate.

I felt my head get jammed with a proverbial shit ton of data regarding what the hell I was looking at. Before I could even properly react to that data, the spiral began to spin faster and faster before it took on a shine of blue. For only a moment there was silence...and then I was sucked into it with the sound of a warble.

“OH FUCK! NO! STOP! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-”

Upon impact, I felt my body become encased in a shell of energy. I openly screeched in terror on all forms of communications as I felt my very being taken apart molecule by molecule. Before my final moment, I witness the spiral slowly spread apart, revealing a tunnel directly at its center...and then...I flew through.

Light...dark...nothing...everything...stretching...condensing...these were my only sensations as I understood and could describe them. After a few moments...my vision came back. My sensors and optics came online once more.

“Am I alive? I’m alive! ~ Thank God! I would cry if I could and... why am I falling towards a planet!?...oh shit.”

I flew towards the planet at a rapid velocity, and found I was missing my XLP!

“Shit! Uh..maybe I could fire plasma and use it to slow my descent...yeah that’s stupid. It’d need to be a torch to work and it’s a cannon. I don’t exactly have the means to reconfigure myself on the go...note to self. Work on that!”

Soon enough it stopped as I suddenly began falling through the atmosphere, heating up to thousands of degrees. It didn’t hurt, but my sensors were sending me warnings and data that was considered such.

I canceled it all and allowed myself to open up so I could control my descent. If I was going to crash, I was going to do it in the water. I could survive that, despite the sheer force of impacting the water. God, I wished I had a jetpack or something! Why don’t I do what every Commander Wanker does and make a “better” version of myself. Oh. I know why. 

Because I’m an IDIOT!

...I am an idiot. I have Nanomachines god dammit! I can do anything so long as I can think of it!

I am now only twenty kilometers from crashing into the water off the coast of an archipelago like continent in the southern hemisphere when I pointed my Nano Sprayer towards the ground, and sprayed in front of myself to allow the nanites to fly back at me and travel to my back. They quickly gathered together into a sphere as large as my torso before finally taking form...and opening up into a parachute. One large enough, and strong enough, to hold my weight.

I give out an audible sigh of relief and self-deprecation as I slowly floated to the water just five kilometers from the ocean surface. I splashed down, and quickly sunk to the ocean floor before hitting with a cloudy thud.

“...Well...that was exciting.” I groused as I looked about. To my surprise, I found a “metal” vein nearby. With a sigh, I walked over, and began the “commander builds a metal extractor” process all over again. Though I had one question on my mind as I did so.

“Where the hell am I?”