331 Large processor 1

"I don't really feel like there's a need to do that, we'll be destroying it in a bit so why give it a name?"

"I guess, but still, just calling it 'large processor' doesn't really catch the imagination…"

About a month after they had entered the dark systems, Dax and his team stood in front of their second ground based operation, this time it was one of Dax's favourite types of operations, in a way that was tricky as all hell and you might be insane to attempt it.

"It's called that because we don't hire people to name every single large Emergence processor array, that would be way too expensive, now cut the chatter, Lux, Alice."

""Sir.""

As Dax entered the room a certain silence engulfed it, this silence was only broken by Dax when he had taken a seat.

"I take it you've all read the briefing, but for the sake of Ke who doesn't have a neural uplink, I'll go over the larger points. We've been tasked with destroying one of the last major Emergence nerve clusters outside of the former Iron race capital system, the first problem is that order is that our favourite 3rd party is the one guarding it, and most likely personally, so we'll need to improvise a bit… Oh, and the second issue that the processor is located in the core of Styx-1."

"Styx-1?! Don't fuck around Dax!"

With Phillipa immediately reacting to Dax's words, all eyes turned to Dax who clearly had left something critical out of the initial briefing.

"Dax, what is Styx-1 exactly?"

"Styx is one of 5 rivers which supposedly flows from the mortal world to the underworld, Styx is described as a river of fire, which might be why some person who believed himself to be extremely funny named the system we're currently travelling to by that name. Styx is a binary system, containing two stars and a single planet which is our current objective, the problem itself is the stars in the system… Styx-A is a stellar mass black hole which completes about a billion full rotations a second, the gravity waves from this rotation are creating a constant surge of gravitational waves that make faster than light jumps extremely hard to accomplish, then there's Styx-B, a neutron star, which poses the real issue… Ra, what's the current strength of its magnetic field?"

"It's still classified as a magnetar with a magnetic field in excess of 10^10 tesla, so far above any value which would make a difference. The point Dax is making is that most electronics will not work inside the system, not until Styx-B's orbit decays and it falls into Styx-A but we're still a few billion years away from that."

While Ra succeeded in clearing up the confusion for more science abled people, Ke shot a confused look to Dax who placed a hand on top of her head.

"Then how the fuck are we supposed to get to that 'processor' or whatever it is called? Rather how the hell did it even get there in the first place?"

Responding with a smile, Dax turned to Ra.

"That's why we're doing this briefing. Ra, can you destroy Styx-B?"

"Nope."

"Not even with a gravitational pulse?"

"I said no, Styx-B's orbit is too close to Styx-A's ergosphere. All gravitational interference is impossible with that amount of noise."

"Then can you shield a ship from the radiation it emits? Styx-1 is shielded from it, isn't it?"

"Sure can, if I do some major overhauls... I understand why you're that interested in this mission now."

With that fast back and forth over, Dax turned to Phillipa with a smug look on his face.

"See? It's possible."

Responding only with a deep sigh, Phillipa sat back down in her chair, leaving Dax to it.

"Now that we know how we get our insertion, we're doing a direct orbital drop together with a few drones, from there we make our way to the core and knock out the network, although this really annoying 3rd party we're dealing with at the moment is sure to interfere, after running into them directly and indirectly over the cause of this conflict, I've learned enough about them that they no longer pose an issue."

For whatever reason, Dax seemed confident that the precursor no longer posed an issue, but as Phillipa had a hard time taking his word in good faith at the moment she needed a bit more information than just that.

"Yeah, no. If I'm going to go on a suicide mission with you Dax I need a bit more information than that, what's your plan to counter them?"

"I don't want to spoil the surprise~"

With a grin on his face that didn't match what he was doing, Dax first pointed to Mu, then placed a finger over his mouth, reminding Phillipa that they still hadn't resolved the communications leak.

-

"So the pureblood thinks he can easily defeat me?... Well, overconfidence always has been an issue with that model, but that might also be because of genetic shifts… What to do about this?"

Having tapped into all Empire communication, the precursor, of course, kept tabs of Dax and his unit, but even when they heard the pureblood's bold claim, they felt nothing other than mild amusement.

An emotion which they hadn't come to them without stimulants for a long time.

"This dimension sure is fascinating, those old farts sure don't know what they're talking about, I even found this other toy."

Glancing to the side, the precursor shot a look at the Emergence nerve cluster which completely ignored their existence. They had found this unexpected amusement while travelling around aimlessly, and it was summarily on a whim that they had decided to free this fledgeling intelligence, but after devouring a few trillion lower lifeforms, it had finally started showing results which had made it worth the initial effort the elder had put into it.

"The real question is what will show more interesting results in the long term, this pureblood and his team, or the Emergence?... Well, I guess only time will tell."