Child of the Starless Abyss

Chapter 1: Child of the Starless Abyss

Awakening dawns in a tomb of steel and silence, cradled by the vast, merciless void. A new soul stirs within an ancient shell, born of circuits and shadow.

A rhythmic pulse, reminiscent of a cardiomonitor, dragged me from the depths of a heavy slumber—not the sound itself, but its sensation, that strange liminal state where you question whether it's real or imagined. Consciousness crept in slowly, a fog lifting from my mind. I tried to open my eyes, but nothing happened—no flicker, no light. I realized then that I couldn't feel my body at all: no limbs, no face, no eyes, just the persistent, rhythmic beep echoing in the emptiness. Panic began to coil in my thoughts—what if this was brain damage? I didn't want that, couldn't bear the thought of losing my mind to such a fate! For fifteen fevered minutes, my imagination spiraled through every grim possibility—car crash, death, oblivion—while I willed myself to scream, only to find my voice trapped, disobedient. In my head, a relentless drumbeat pounded: *"No, no, no! Wake up, get up, move!"*

— *Central ship matrix activation detected. Command received. Execution confirmed. Full activation in 17 len.*

It wasn't a sound but a sensation, spoken in an alien tongue yet instantly comprehensible, as though etched into my understanding. Even the word "len" clicked—a precise measure, roughly half an hour. The "sounds" grew louder, swelling into a flood of reports that poured through me in countless streams, a cacophony of voices shouting in my ears, all at once, in languages I couldn't name. Most of it washed over me like static, but when I focused, a single phrase would sharpen into perfect clarity, as if plucked from the chaos. Then came more—new voices joined the chorus, followed by images and sensations, a deluge of perception where I was seeing through thousands of eyes and touching with thousands of hands simultaneously. Where I'd once feared sensory deprivation, now I trembled at the brink of sensory shock.

— *Enough! Shut up! No more images! Don't touch me!* — I screamed within my mind.

Silence fell, abrupt and heavy, leaving only darkness pierced by faint, fleeting sparks—like a limb stirring from numbness. I turned my focus to sight, fumbling through the sensations for several minutes until the thousand eyes opened once more. Another ten minutes passed as I wrestled with the flood of visuals, finally arranging them across a virtual wall in my mind—focus on one, and it sharpened into vivid detail. Real-time feeds streamed in: corridors, warehouses, cabins, hangars, and then—*space*. A jolt of realization hit me—*Wait, space?* Indeed, there it was: a planetary system suspended nearby, a white star orbited by a dozen worlds. I was aboard a ship, a vast, utterly empty vessel stretching over three kilometers long.

So where was I within it? I sought my body, desperate to understand what had become of me, separating the sensations into "images" as I'd done with the visuals—but no true flesh answered my call, no familiar form emerged from the void. — *Where am I?* — I asked the emptiness, and the reply came swift and certain: — *Deck 0, Section 1-2,* accompanied by an instinctive knowledge of its location. I pulled the feeds from that section—two dozen cameras offering temperature, air quality, and a cascade of metrics. Along the room's edges stood crates aglow with blue light, while at its center rested a faintly luminous, translucent cube, three meters on each side.

— *Who am I?* — I pressed, and the answer struck like a hammer: — *Central AI, "Star Sculptor" class, of the ship L'ord'i.* A laugh bubbled up, sharp and incredulous—*Ha. Ha-ha.* I was a transmigrant in an AI, a damned computer—no, scratch that, a damned spaceship!

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*Promotional Materials for the Ministry of External Colonies Affairs. Video Material № MK-NT-000718.*

The frame opens on a green-blue planet against a stark white backdrop, encircled by stylized icons that flare to life: fire, snowflake, water, cracked stone, lightning, radiation, bacterium, and a fanged beast—each splitting the planet into shards paired with its doom. A rhythmic narration begins: — *A colony far from the metropolis faces countless dangers.* The fire planet steps forth with clips of blazing savannahs, flowing lava, burning homes, and dying settlers, followed by the snowflake's blizzards, avalanches, and ice fields, then the water-drop's drowned cities and mudslides. — *Earthquakes, extreme weather, harsh radiation, diseases, and hostile fauna,* — the disasters cycle through in rapid succession, each planet showcasing its ruin.

They vanish, replaced by three ships: one triangular, another an elongated barrel, the third angular with massive engines. — *To stand against these disasters, we need powerful construction and rescue equipment,* — the triangular ship extends translucent manipulators, splitting the screen to show it clearing rubble and building homes in tandem. — *A means of evacuation,* — the barrel ship peels open, revealing layered decks teeming with life. — *And rapid delivery,* — the third unleashes a dark jet wreathed in lightning. — *Loraban, Rifamin'puro, and Faiyak—over six decades of service, they've proven effective and reliable, yet what one possesses, the others lack.* Fanfare blares. — *So we've combined them, nearly literally.* The ships merge into a single, three-section vessel with sprouting wings. — *Behold the N'lor'garad—a ship to answer any colonial threat!* Clips roll of it thwarting calamities, splitting into independent sections to build, load, and haul simultaneously—modular and eternal. — *Twelve Mechanical Experts and a Celestial Sage oversee it; even a child could command! The N'lor'garad-class engineering-rescue vessels are the future of the Far Colonies Service!* Above, the ship rotates; below, schematics and specs gleam. *End of video.*

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It took two years to master this vast shell that is now my body, a relic that had hung dormant here for over sixty-six million years—once I learned that, haste lost all meaning. Logs marked this as a test flight, not for the ship itself, a proven elite vessel, but for its new AI—me, though the thought-matrix upload never finished. A sudden hyperfield breach consumed the creators, sabotage no doubt, leaving behind only echoes of an amusing folk—bipedal blends of bird and insect who called themselves *N'ktar'ati*, "speakers of the true tongue." Robots cleared their remains, and three years later, the ship sealed itself in stasis, waking every century for diagnostics before sleeping again—until my arrival jolted it fully alive.

I renamed myself *Indra*, an old nickname from my Hindu fascination, fitting with its thousand-eye allusion. Units shifted to metric, time and calendar aligned to Earth's—I couldn't stomach measuring speed in "lochs per milen." It was laughably simple; constants like lightspeed, Avogadro's number, and proton mass lingered in my mind, the rest mere equations I didn't even need to solve. The ship, my new flesh, is magnificent—3.7 kilometers long (*cue the Imperial March*), composed of three detachable sections: the captain's module, sleek and armored like a stealth craft with potent engines and tools; the cargo-passenger behemoth, a giant bean capable of housing over a million souls in comfort, doubling as a planetary city; and the engine block, with thrusters and hangars, all girded by antigrav wings painted in regal purple-lilac hues.

Weapons are sparse, designed for swatting space parasites rather than waging war—official doctrine against foes is to *run like hell*—but the construction gear could outfit a legion: excavators, lasers, drills, manipulators, and more. Piloting took a year to learn, the key lying in perception, action, and thought. Processing data one channel at a time, as I did at first, was idiotic—like a hale man feigning lameness—but seeing through countless unpaired eyes was brutal; I managed a hundred before faltering, with a quarter-million still to go. I improvised—automation, merged feeds, prioritization—and now danger pings instantly, inside and out. Feeling the ship came quicker, its sensors becoming my skin, while thinking proved simplest: my core process runs all, spinning secondary threads as needed without detailed commands. "Doing" was the hardest—two hundred manipulators, four distinct engine systems, weapons, matter-printers, cranes—a total of four thousand "limbs" if counting only the fixed ones—but like with the eyes, I cheated, coding and delegating until it flowed.

By the end of the second year, the Pilot VI graded my astrogation and piloting exams—*passed*. I could've pointed at a star chart, barked "fetch!" and enjoyed the view, but who doesn't dream of commanding the stars themselves? A galaxy looms beyond, my makers' ghosts fading into dust, and the unknown beckons with a cold, unyielding grasp.

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*[N'ktar'ati: "Speakers of the True Tongue," a vanished race of intellect and craft, their legacy now a whisper in the galactic dark.] 

[L'ord'i: Name of uncertain root, perhaps "Lord of the Infinite" in the N'ktar'ati lexicon.] 

[N'lor'garad: "Master of All Trades," a title forged in ambition, borne by a vessel of salvation.]*