Ragnarok

Chapter 29 - Approach

Smith awoke for the second time as the Sephirot was beginning its long approach towards Ragnarok. His HUD popped up a countdown clock, which showed an hour and 24 minutes until the Sephirot took up orbit around the giant planet. The clock was in the lower right hand corner; in the lower left, there was a small map showing the ship's planned approach vector. Currently, the idea was to slow down as they approached the planet's wake, then accelerate enough to catch up to it. Once they got close enough, the planet's own gravity should do the work for them; all they had to do was ensure that they were going fast enough that their angular momentum kept them in orbit.

Smith had plenty of confidence in the pilots' judgment; they were machines like himself, after all, and even if their calculations were incorrect, they were no doubt being double- and triple-checked by the Overminds of several different worlds. There was a great deal riding on this mission, and after the near-miss in Jupiter orbit, everyone was even more on guard than one would expect.

He looked around himself, seeing a number of other robot clones also coming online, each of them staring ahead silently as their own HUDs provided personalized information. A number of science officers were already unstrapping themselves from their harnesses and making their way to various instruments set along the walls, each focused on their own tasks and only occasionally communicating with one another.

Mia's replica was one of the ones who unharnessed themselves; she smiled over at Smith, and after a moment to gauge the correct response, he attempted a smile back. It may have been more disquieting than friendly, however, because she looked away quickly. Smith shrugged, and looked over at Rei, instead.

Rei was still in her stealth-black cybersuit, seeming to be lost in thought. Smith imagined she was probably receiving a transmission from the other Rei, the one who was still inside a brain implant back on the Moon. She didn't seem to notice Smith turning towards her, so he took the opportunity to enjoy the look of her profile. She was wearing the same face she had worn briefly during his first awakening.

Persephone, that was the name. Daughter of Gaia, and beloved of all... and the wife of Hades, God of the Dead. Smith found the symbolism all too appropriate, considering the massive gravestone of a world they were headed towards.

Rei finally seemed to notice that Smith was staring at her, and gave him a quick smile. She reached over and took his hand, and as though she was a hardline to the Datanet, Smith's sensorium expanded.

Overlaid over the ship (which was now transparent, as though made of reflectionless glass) was a swarm of scientists, many of them guiding their robot bodies directly, others floating along beside them in disembodied contemplation. They checked many instruments, took all the measurements they could think of, or just stared at the gigantic alien world that had invaded their little refuge in the vast cosmos.

As he finished looking around and turned back to Rei, he saw that Micah was floating beside her. He was one of the ones gawking at the dead planet, and trying to make sense of the miles-long ideographs that covered its surface, to say nothing of the tremendous concave depression that made up the planet's backside.

"-that's one gigantic impact crater," Micah was saying to Rei, a small screen floating in front of him that provided a telescopic view of the crater. "Maybe thousands of years ago it was an inland sea, and those huge statues at the center were constructed only to be sunk deep beneath the waters. Like the Christ of the Abyss back on Earth, right Rei?"

"That is possible, Master, but if so, the statues seem to have been reconstructed since then. There's no signs of erosion on the statues themselves, and while they're standing in a large field of what seems to be fossilized coral, there's not a speck of it on the statues themselves."