The Mech Touch novel Chapter 4993

4993 Grand Convergence IV

The Babylon Excavator was a warship built to explore the Red Ocean.

Although she was far from the largest and most powerful warship to enter into service, the CFA reconnaissance carrier was among the fastest vessels that could operate in the wilderness for years on end.

In order to track the movements of the dominant alien forces and scope out the future targets of humanity's invasion, the Babylon Excavator had traveled deep into native territory.

The only CFA vessels that went deeper were the dedicated stealth scout vessels!

Though the Babylon Excavator could not remain hidden as well as the smaller starships that were equipped with the latest transphasic stealth systems, Captain Zonrad Reze loved his vessel anyway.

His word was law on the reconnaissance cruiser.

The traditions of the Common Fleet Alliance granted him a lot of autonomy in the way he ran his ship. As long as the performance standards of his crew remained satisfactory, the Sigrund could make use of his authority to remove or mitigate as many inefficiencies in his command as possible.

Although his crew initially did not embrace his increased emphasis on hard numbers and highly rational decision-making, the fleeters eventually came around to his approach.

Over the past half decade of exploring the deep frontier, he formed new friendships, deepened his understanding of the tech built into his ship and explored his own humanity.

Throughout all these times, Sigrund always had to remind himself that he was not truly human.

His apparent body was just a meat suit that the sentient Al used to camouflage himself among the fleeters.

Yet as his 'real' body continued to integrate with the brain of Zonrad Reze, it became increasingly harder for Sigrund to maintain this distinction.

Through the few self-examinations he managed to conduct outside the view of his own crew and the night-ubiquitous monitoring system of his warship, he found that there was no feasible way to undo the merger!

His original computerized sandman admiral core no longer processed all of his mental activity in isolation.

for one reason or another, his meat suit's organic brain had become a core part of his being!

The integration surpassed the level of an ordinary pairing between a cranial implant and an organic human brain!

They had become so mutually intertwined that not even the strongest implant blockers could successfully place a barrier between his sandman admiral core and his human brain.

This was not supposed to happen according to the customized implantation procedure that he calculated and implemented after he infiltrated the CFA!

The distinctly human thoughts, emotions and feelings that used to belong to Zonrad Reze had started to blend so much into his own thinking that ripping them out would be no less than lobotomizing himself!

Sigrund speculated that if he ever forced a separation, he would essentially split himself into half!

Neither of these halves would ever be able to come close to his current self in terms of intelligence, empathy and drive!

Still, even though Sigrund had become more human than he initially intended, he did not really feel that bad to be honest.

Humans were the dominant species in the immediate area around the Milky Way Galaxy. There was no logical reason for Sigrund to maintain any attachment to his alien origin.

While his inhuman self granted him many advantages, the power of humanity was not weak.

As long as he fulfilled his ambition and promoted the rank of admiral, Sigrund would truly be able to attain his own powerbase among the humans.

He could resolve any hidden dangers related to his true identity and reshape a part of the CFA.

His goal was to reform the Common Fleet Alliance into a better organization that did not irrationally cling to old human traditions and anachronisms!

After all, if his decoded programming forced him to remain loyal to the CFA until his termination, he may as well ensure it remained healthy enough to stand the test of time!

Yet before Sigrund could reach this point, he first had to ensure he survived his current mission.

A powerful explosion rocked the port side of the Babylon Excavator's damaged hull!

Her superdrive had been knocked offline and a third of the reconnaissance cruiser had lost power.

Large rents had been dug into the hull plating of the CFA vessel.

In all of the Babylon Excavator's previous engagements against the indigenous aliens, the hull remained virtually untouched.

The ship had always been able to count on an array of transphasic energy shields that performed a lot better than the equivalents utilized by the native alien races.

This was no longer the case!

"Alert! The alien pursuit fleet is about to launch its next phasewater torpedo salvo!"

"Redirect the fire of our plasma cannons to the torpedo launchers of their battleships and two largest cruisers! Instruct our mech squad to harass the remaining alien cruisers!"

The Babylon Excavator had put up a great effort into holding her own so far, but this time the reconnaissance cruiser managed to make a discovery that could change the course of the Red Ocean!

Sigrund and all of the other fleeters serving aboard the human vessel immediately understood that it became vitally important to pass on their intelligence back to the CFA!

Unfortunately for all of them, the aliens struck a powerful blow that not only blew past all of the Babylon Excavator's external defenses, but also disabled a lot of systems!

The powerful strike not only destroyed all of the quantum communication nodes, it also disabled the backup long-ranged communication device that only Sigiund could access!

Against an enemy of this magnitude, it was all the Babylon Excavator could do to flee from the star system and make her way back to human-occupied space as fast as possible.

The native aliens dispatched a powerful fleet of their own in order to prevent the CFA reconnaissance cruiser from bringing back the news.

For weeks on end, the two groups fought a running pursuit that increasingly dragged on the Babylon Excavator's heels.

"The enemy warships have launched their torpedoes! They are rapidly accelerating!"

"The alien carrier is beginning to launch both starfighters and bombers!"

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