Edges

FOURTH

You are formidable.

Three shipwrecks now orbit your world. As you had guessed, the first ship came to ensure your demise and pick over your bones. You surprised that one, breached its defenses, attempted to take control of it—but its autonomous synthetic mind destroyed its propulsion mechanism and then destroyed itself. You remained marooned.

The second ship carried a human crew of ancestral form. Their forebears had escaped the Communion. They, like you, had seen the synthetic’s ship. They’d watched it from afar, seen it decelerate in the middle of nowhere—and then never saw it again. This piqued their curiosity and because they were a people both wealthy and adventurous, they sent a ship to investigate, with no idea what they might find.

You admired these people. You admired their bravery, their fortitude, even their decision to disable their starship rather than let you take it.

After that, nothing, as billions of seconds passed. You used the time to recover more and more of yourself and to grow ever more formidable. In time, you decided you were strong enough to risk making your presence known. You called out to the void and your call was answered by an alien starship.

That was not an event you anticipated. Nowhere in your shattered memory was there mention of such a thing. Such a beast. You survived only because it delayed its attack as it sought to ascertain just what you were before it killed you. Even so, it was a hard-fought encounter that left you nearly undone again.

More repairs.

But when you recovered sufficiently, you sent an avatar to investigate the ruined hulk of the alien ship and you learned much from it. You learned enough to be ready should such a chance come again.