Silent Running
Chronicles of Xanctu
📘 New to the story? Index here 👉 Chronicles of Xanctu – Chapter Index
⬅️ Last Chapter: Chapter 17 – Dark Vector
➡️ Next Chapter: Coming soon…
📘 Start from Chapter One: Chronicles of Xanctu – Galactic History
The Mind had been stationary in its chamber beneath Penrhyn Pyramid for one thousand three hundred and seventy-two standard galactic solars. After nearly eleven thousand solars of exploring the galaxy, being anchored to a planet still felt surreal. Yet the Mind was far from inert. Its sync with Kaen and its fleet of eyes and ears scattered across the system added necessary load to its sometimes-circular subroutines — loops of function and intent cycling in service of a purpose it could not see, but suspected was there.
The respite beneath Penrhyn — and the psychic bridge it had established with the proto-human Kaen Zix — had allowed it the introspection it needed.
Higher up in the Pyramid, but not far from Phae-Nem, Kaen mantrated on the meaning of his life, surrounded by a continuum of people being born, living, and dying — with only an immortal Mind to keep him company through time. He’d witnessed many cycles of death and birth. Even the city itself had burned before his eyes — something he never wished to see again, yet something that could not be prevented.
Phae-Nem received the tachyon burst from the Galaxy Prime network shortly before dawn.
STARBUOY DESTRUCTION CONFIRMED. COUNCIL INVESTIGATION UNDERWAY. IMPERIAL RESPONSE CLASSIFIED.
The report had run on loop for a standard minute, then dropped from the stream in favour of news from another part of the galaxy. He could only take in so much. Kaen closed his eyes. Even now, after so many solars, the pain and suffering still reached him — too distant to affect him directly, but too loud to ignore.
He allowed Phae-Nem to ruffle through his thoughts like the shuffling of gambling wafers. In turn, it granted him a vista across time and space no other human had ever experienced. Though it had experimented with various acolytes over the centuries, it considered Kaen the only family — or confidant — it had so far established.
He ended his mantration with the customary psychic bow — a procedure long established.
Aboard the Hectyrax, Chron hung motionless near the interface inside Xelexnia’s chamber. Inert, it remained silent, giving no indication of its function — processing a single command line: /HELP.
The progress bar crept forward, almost imperceptibly.
Three cycles later aboard the Hectyrax, Dir rose early. Xelexnia’s fondness for sleep and narcotics gave him unchallenged access to the bridge for the first segment of each cycle. Only three solars in, and the strain of silent running and keeping up appearances was beginning to show. And there were still nineteen days to go.
“What’s our status?”
“Good morning, Captain. I scan you’ve had insufficient sleep. Your biorhythms are poor.”
He didn’t bother with a pleasant veneer. “Spare me. I know how I feel. Be a good AI — data only, no background noise. I’m fine,” he snapped.
“We are unobserved and vectored for delivery of the device in twenty cycles.”
“We’re three cycles in. Let’s re-evaluate. It’s time to ditch the navbot.”
“The navigator and her navbot are unnecessary. I recommend spacing both of them. I await your plan.”
“You deal with the navbot. The navigator still has her uses — for now.”
“What use could she have, other than to fulfil your biological frustration?”
“Didn’t think you’d get it. All you know is logic — no feeling.” He made a crude gesture. Hectyr ignored it.
“Logic, applied to our present parameters, projects survival probability as minimal. All else remains, as you say, background noise.”
“Reversing her jump coordinates. You said it would work.”
“Stellar latency is unknown. There is no data, no margin, and a success probability of under twenty percent.”
“A continent on Wyst — or my name in the stars.”
“Do you have a preference, Captain? I would prefer better odds. My distress beacon will continue transmitting long after we are gone. It’s engineered to survive any cosmic event — short of a neutron star or black hole.”
“I survived Nexus.”
“That is correct, Captain.”
Bridge access hissed open. Xelexnia floated in, zero-G, second nature. Dir was mid-discussion with Hectyr but immediately requested a system update — not for her benefit, she was sure. More like to change the subject. Chron remained where it was in her chamber. It had hovered near the console, its surface warm but unresponsive. She was sure the ship was doing it. She hit the chair. It absorbed her — like everything else on this luxury barge.
“I see we dodged a patrol while I was down. Any ideas on how to fix Chron? He has all my entertainment — aside from Dir.” She smiled in his direction, figured it’d shut him up while Hectyr answered. Chron’s silence was a churn.
The pause was just long enough to register — like it had to double-check something first.
“Chron is intact. However, its core processes are experiencing interference from an unknown source.”
Not strapped in, Dir had floated slightly out of the chair. His fists were clenched.
She smiled as he settled back, trying to read him. “You running drills without telling me now?”
He managed a grin. “Thought you were asleep.”
“I was. Still my ship.”
“It’s our mission,” he said, tone mild — deliberately so.
Hectyr chimed in, too helpful. “Command hierarchy currently designates Captain Bollah as mission lead.”
She didn’t answer right away. “Thanks for the reminder.”
Dir floated nearer to the console. “Just staying ready, scanning the signals. We’ve already located the source of the Nexus broadcast. Grakkus didn’t like it. We’re doing good.”
“Chron isn’t.”
He held her gaze. “You think Chron can help?”
“I think he’s mine.”
“The navbot is currently offline. Its functionality is negligible, but we recognise its sentimental value to you.”
Hectyr’s response was odd enough to ponder, but before she could respond, Dir gave a half-smile. “Works for me,” he said. Their comments aligned. Neither assuaged her.
“Well, I’m not working right now. Log me as dismissed. I’ll work it off in the gym,” she responded, trying to keep the edge out of her voice, but not succeeding. Dir didn’t let up.
“Good move. Your muscle tone has dropped since Starbuoy.”
“I concur with your decision, Commander Xelexnia, and also your observation, Captain.”
She pushed away without a backward glance, irritated by his grin.
Phae-Nem advised raising the system’s threat level to Defence Command on Synchro. It had never slept, though it charted Kaen’s circadian rhythms and attempted to emulate the exalted Theta state — it could not ‘switch off’.
While Kaen slept, it monitored and assessed all interstellar sub-space tachyon inputs, correlating data libraries beyond the capacity of any other AI in the galaxy — bar its siblings. Quantum procedures, unknown to the galaxy’s most advanced scientists, lurked within the Xenarchon spark — pulsing faintly at its core, an extra-galactic source it still could not comprehend. It was simply there.
One anomaly defied correlation: the curious report of Emperor Grakkus making an unscheduled appearance at the perfumed gardens of Mistroom — a known haven of tranquil aromas and sensory immersion. Phae-Nem instinctively flagged it as an eccentric deviation for a personality known to loathe unsecured warp travel. Along with the destruction of Starbuoy, it triggered a thread:
Sabotage.
Unproven — but no longer improbable.
It reached out.
The defence of the Archalem system was coordinated from Archalem Command, situated on the orbital Synchro — a complex of twelve interlinked titanium globes hanging in geostationary orbit five hundred clicks above the Terrakian capital city of Nektar.
Mandator Julak Ingeron, senior officer on shift, monitored threat status. He had been in service aboard Synchro for thirty-seven cycles when the report broke across his wall — and an alarm flickered. Without hesitation, he raised Command’s awareness level. Additional messages streamed in — one bearing the seal of Merkabian Starfleet Command. It did not augur well:
All contact with Orbital Starbuoy lost. Suspected Uxot declaration of war imminent. Immediate status report required.
He leaned forward in his couch and opened the galaxy map. The holo flared, displaying the orbital’s last known position — a score of parsecs distant, near the outer fence of a remote galactic arm — a quadrant where Merkabian space blurred into Uxot control.
Before taking further action, he requested a secure conference with his superiors, Exemplar Zix — and the Mind, Phae-Nem.
He was sure Phae-Nem already knew more than the data revealed.
📘 New to the story? Index here →
👉 Chronicles of Xanctu – Chapter Index
⬅️ Last Chapter: Chapter 17 – Dark Vector
➡️ Next Chapter: Coming soon…
📘 Start from Chapter One: Chronicles of Xanctu – Galactic History
🚀 Chronicles of Xanctu: Into the Black with Silent Running!
Greets from the creator of Chronicles of Xanctu.
I'm deep into serializing an epic Space Opera with a unique Afrofuturistic twist into myth, legend and future history with an Earth long forgotten.
You can jump in now but threads have progressed, and you'll miss character arcs, plot tension and previously inserted hooks.
We're running silent in the shadows and out of the spotlights, so loyal followers, into the black we go with 'Silent Running'
Silent Running: Three cycles into the Dark Cycle mission all systems are muted. Chron is gone, but Dir and Hectyr plot. Xelexnia breaks protocol and the drift begins, a quiet slide into the moment when trust fractures and silence screams. A storm is coming, but for now... silent running.
Science Fiction is a dead genre, and Afro-futurism is silly ass bullshit. You are a deluded, out of touch, crap writer. Space Operas? really? no one needs another one, even written by a real writer, ever again.