300 Citadel mop up operation 3

Standing at the bottom of the massive subterranean drydock, Ra looked at the relic Dax and his unit had discovered with a sense of wonder clearly visible on her face. Meanwhile, her younger sister Mu was silently inspecting what was visible of the relic from the surface, looking at her face it was clear she was at an even greater loss for words than her older sister.

Of course, she was, this was the first relic from the precursor race which had created the qitons and avoaxians which had been found not only intact but also (seemingly) fully functional. To make matters even more bizarre than they already were, the relic was seemingly one with the surrounding bedrock and had only been uncovered by some sort of explosion, meaning it would be logical to assume it had been there for a long time, but as the subterranean drydock was constructed multiple geological surveys were conducted, there even was a filled up borehole directly above the main part of the relic.

"We discovered it like this, I have no idea how this thing ended up here but all the panels inside are labelled with traditional qiton glyphs. I accessed the central information control room and disabled it's jamming function and cleared the interior for Emergence drones, otherwise, we haven't touched it."

"Well, it seems we have our work cut out for us… Let's start with getting a floor plan."

"Agreed."

Settling on the first course of action, Ra tossed a series of tennis ball sized metal spheres into the air, once they reached the peak of their arches the sphere's split open on the middle and transformed to small aerial drones which emitted a constant stream of laser lights and ultrasonic soundwaves for 3 dimensional mapping. Spending an hour or so mapping the relic's interior which its size was determined to be about that of two CAS-7 crafts, containing countless advanced sensors and other unidentified systems.

"... This is a spacecraft, no doubt about it."

"Yeah, that's what I'm seeing from this floor plan as well. But to be sure we need to cut the entirety of the relic free from the surrounding bedrock…"

Working at their own tempo, the two avoaxian twins quickly left all other people around them behind as they switched language and started discussing advanced theories at lightning speed.

"They do that a lot, huh?"

Having seen the same thing when Ra and Mu were first introduced to mana, Solaris showed a wry smile as she remembered all the questions she had to answer before the two of them were satisfied.

"Yeah, best leave them to it and make sure to stay out of their way, the way it's going they should be done with their preliminary investigation sometime tomorrow."

-

"This entire craft is genuine lost technology, to just call this a treasure trove is understatement of its value, when we fully understand this craft it'll advance technology in a way not seen before. Keeping its existence a total secret was the right choice Dax, at least until we figure out how it ended up being used by the Emergence."

Having excavated the relic, Ra and Mu gave Dax and Alice a brief explanation as they prepared to move the craft back to their workshop where they could start taking it apart to find out precisely how it functioned.

"... Is it really that bad an idea to tell people about this thing? It's made by the same race who made that administrative AI, isn't it? In that case wouldn't it be great news that such a priceless relic had been found intact?"

While Alice understood the relic's importance, she hadn't lived in the same world as Dax had for quite as long as he had, therefore she didn't entirely understand what it truly meant to find a price of lost technology.

"Yeah it would be great news that this craft was found intact, that's the underlying issue. The precursors are the figurative and even literal gods to most of the galactic empire, it is also a widely accepted fact that they wiped themselves out over a billion years ago, so something like an intact and even functioning craft of theirs appearing in hostile territory is not the kind of thing we want to share when we're in the progress of wiping out the Emergence."

Nodding her head in agreement with what Dax was saying, Mu added to his explanation.

"The very existence of lost technology is also highly classified within the Empire, it is not something that's supposed to exist, and the risks associated with using it are immense. This relic is not something the general public is supposed to have access to, this is something that can easily wipe us all out if used incorrectly… Then there's the entire matter of how this craft ended up here, that's an entirely different headache. While we haven't entirely completed the analysis it is almost certain that this craft came from a different dimension and most likely not the one you're from Alice."

"Wait, what? There are other planes of existence?"

As Alice hadn't really put much thought into how reality breaking it even was to traverse planes of existence, she likewise hadn't realized that there might be other than just the one she was from and the one she currently found herself in.

"Yeah there are a lot, an infinite amount even. But dimensions where normal matter was created? Likely only a million, then in those worlds gravity had to form stars which in therm created heavier elements through fusion so even simple chemistry would be possible, then life had to emerge. Overall we've only been able to locate one other sable dimension, the one you are from Alice, even the suggestion that a precursor functioning craft came from a different dimension is something which would rock the galactic empire to its very core."

"... But, is it hiding all this from most of the Empire even the right thing? Don't the people deserve to know?"

Seeing all the secrecy as censorship which could come back to blow up on them, Alice suddenly became worried.

"No, this most likely isn't the 'right' thing to do, but decisions on this level have to be taken divorced from morals. Besides this isn't the first thing the empire wouldn't benefit from telling its citizens, the 125th was originally a black operations unit and even before its creation, I was a part of many other units that didn't officially exist. The empire already has plenty of pretty ugly skeletons hiding in its closet, some of them even of my own creation, therefore one more shouldn't be an issue."