The harvesting was proceeding well. These new outsiders had offered to assist without even asking for a portion of the bounty. They only wished to take detailed scans of the void whale. Gantulga saw no issue with allowing it. Their fighters that they had retooled with mining lasers made good work of the beast's flesh. More importantly, they were precise and did as they were told with cuts that were within microns of the designated parameters. Truly the Avalon Fleet bred excellent pilots.

Gantulga turned his gaze to the bounty that was being unveiled even now. The organ the whale used to traverse subspace was being revealed and carefully hooked up to life support. The harvesting was going well, and they would be able to affix it to a new vessel. The Bixians would be pleased to have a new engine. He smiled, knowing he and his crew would have a handsome reward when they returned home.

The Gringolet – Coordinates [redacted]

The time had come for the Gringolet and the fleet it commanded to surface from subspace into the void that surrounded The Avalon. Gus fairly quivered in excitement as he waited in the simulation that Vivien had prepared for him. She apparently spent most of her time in a virtual environment, and now that Gus was more comfortable with his implant, he did the same, though he was usually in a separate simulation.

Today however, Vivien was letting him see what the transition from subspace was like. He wouldn't have control over any outputs, but she had shared some of the inputs for the Gringolet with him. It was far from the full experience as he still required significant modification before he could properly interface with a starship, but it was a start, and he was grateful to Vivien for sharing this experience with him.

The simulation had been scaled back in complexity to save system resources as Vivien performed the immensely complex calculations required to exit subspace. Even though the Gringolet had a massive amount of computing power available to it, Vivien was straining its resources and utilizing the majority of that power for said calculations.

Gus 'felt' reactors that were left cold most of the time warmed up and began to output power as they approached their destination. The transitions to and from subspace required a lot of power, and the requirements were directly tied to the amount of mass that was making the jump. This led to ships the size of the Gringolet carrying an excess of reactors. That's not to say they were useless outside of transitions, however. Apparently, the Gringolet could, and had, utilized the extra reactors output as backups in case of damage or overheating during combat.

The more Gus learned about the various warships that The Avalon utilized in its fleet, the more he was in awe of the technology that enabled them. Each one was a culmination of thousands of years of knowledge. There were some design standards still in place that had been set in stone during mankind's first exodus from Earth to colonize the rest of the Sol system. So much had been lost, including exact timeframes of how long ago that was, but it had been at least a thousand years since then. To say Gus was impressed by the genius of the men and women who had created those design standards would be an understatement. Their names might be lost to history, but their work had lived on and even now kept their descendants alive as they continued to traverse the stars.

The symphony that was the hum of cooling fans for computers performing their calculations began to reach a peak as Vivien finally finished her work. A hole was torn in the fabric of subspace, and the Gringolet was accompanied by over a dozen ships as it surfaced into normal space once more. Dark matter splashed at the edges of the ships and sunk back into subspace as the gaps closed behind the vessels.

Sensor data quickly began to reveal the surrounding area as passive sensors drunk in the surroundings. Active pings from the flotilla of ships that surrounded The Avalon like a school of fish sounded out and lit up the area for all to see, and Gus drank in the sight. What he saw was indescribable, hundreds of larger vessels held parking orbits around The Avalon. Everything from simple cargo vessels, to mobile shipyards cradling half-built vessels, to massive warships not unlike the Gringolet.

However, every single one of those ships was dwarfed by the sheer mass of The Avalon. It was less ship and more megastructure. The diameter of the living area contained within it was only slightly smaller than that of Mercury. That size was compounded by three kilometers of additional machinery, maintenance shafts, hangars, and workshops. Layered on top of that was half a kilometer of armor. This, of course, didn't begin to account for the length, which was nearly triple its full diameter.

Its original design was built upon the premise of an O'Neill cylinder, first theorized when humanity was just beginning to reach into the orbit of its home. The Avalon was truly a marvel of human engineering. It was a fully enclosed cylinder like the original concept proposed, but it was far larger. Its titanic, slowly rotating hull fairly bristled with point defense, originally put in place to destroy larger pieces of space debris. However, Gus knew that The Avalon had been deployed as a mobile battle platform when it first revealed itself, and those point defense systems had shot down more than their fair share of enemy fighters and missiles.

Gus noted protrusions in the armor of The Avalon, he remembered from the schematics he'd seen that those were its Alcubierre drive pods. It was the only type of sublight drive system that something as big as The Avalon could utilize effectively, and even then, it was a stretch. He now knew that the calculations to keep the twelve drive pods in sync were performed by ship Brains like himself. It required a minimum of one individual per pod, but usually, three were dedicated to each pod just for the task of keeping them in sync with each other. Another individual would perform the calculations for the actual course of the ship, which resulted in thirty-seven ship Brains being utilized just to move The Avalon in sublight.

He knew that over one hundred ship Brains were currently in residence aboard The Avalon. Few knew of their existence, but those who did were well aware it was those few who made operating a vessel as complex as The Avalon possible. Without a sapient mind to constantly error correct for such a titanic vessel, the systems that kept the humans on board alive would quickly begin to fail. Gus would be spending quite a bit of time training on those same systems aboard The Avalon, where there would be others to correct any mistakes he might make. Gazing upon it, he was only just now struck by the weight of responsibility he would be undertaking and felt humbled by it.

Gus noted that The Avalon had sent out communications challenging the newcomers. There was a flurry of responses, and parking orders were sent. He could 'hear' other communications flooding the area as well. The space around The Avalon was flooded with communication traffic though much of it was encrypted. But there was plenty of unencrypted traffic that he could 'hear.' The sheer amount of data of not only communications but sensor readings of the area was overwhelming.

He could feel Vivien's gentle touch, and he found himself slowly eased out of the systems. "That's enough for you today I think. You'll have plenty of time to experience such things later."

Gus just nodded. He was speechless after seeing what he saw. Words couldn't properly describe the majesty of The Avalon and the gentle dance of the ships that traversed to and from the vessels orbiting it. And to think he would soon be a part of all that, even if it was just for a while, as he trained to become the Brain for a warship.

***

Admiral Fletcher contained a bored sigh as the entrance into Avalon space went as expected. It was in a different spot than before. Not that it mattered since it was still just a random spot in the void between stars. Not having to deal with gravity wells and the general clutter of a star system made monitoring subspace much easier, and regularly changing locations added an extra layer of security.

There was no evidence to suggest that The Slugs were attempting to target The Avalon in particular at the moment, but it was wise to be cautious. Nowadays, The Avalon was kept off of the frontlines since it was fulfilling its original duty as home to a large population of humans. It also served as the current center of government for the strained alliance of human colony worlds. They had banded together under the banner of The Avalon out of desperation and a lack of options more than anything else.

Most of the ships that made interstellar trade possible had been owned by the USA and had retreated to the core systems with them, leaving many colonies with little ready means of interstellar travel. It had been a huge betrayal, and all attempts at communications with the core worlds since had failed miserably. Ships suspected to belong to them were occasionally detected, so they clearly still had an interest in the goings-on of the colonies, but they were too cowardly to actually involve themselves.

He'd been one of several captains to turn his back on the USA when it had abandoned the colonies. He'd helped run interference as civilian cargo freighters had evacuated worlds under siege. His one battlecruiser had hardly been enough to take the fight to the enemy, though. He still remembered when The Avalon had first come onto the scene. He had been utterly flabbergasted by the readings from the subspace sensors. And when it had finally surfaced, he had barely been able to reply to the requests to sync tactical networks as warships had spilled out from the behemoth.

Now, he was well acquainted with it and felt more tired than anything else. He was getting old, and command had worn him thin over the years. He thought of the letter of resignation he'd written after he'd been given his current assignment. It was still sitting in his personal files, and he was more tempted than ever to submit it and enjoy a well-deserved retirement. But as always, the memories of the footage from the ground battles in the early days of the war flooded his mind. Children eviscerated by the alien beasts the Slugs used as shock troops. Men screaming as acid burned away the armor that was meant to protect them.

Fletcher dismissed the thoughts and turned back to reality. His small fleet was joining the larger flotilla that was parked around The Avalon. Many of the ships were civilian ships or support vessels of some variety. However, more than a few active warships were stationed in orbit in case of an attack. There were also the ships that were undergoing maintenance or rebuilds, but there were relatively few of those at the moment, which likely meant that the current offensive was going well or at least was incurring few losses in the theatre of space combat.

After a few more minutes, he received the acknowledgment that his fleet had been integrated into the greater flotilla. Command was transferred to the Grand Admiral, and he was advised that he was on leave awaiting further orders. He took the news for what it was, an admission of a job well done and permission to take at least a few days to rest before he was given new orders. He reviewed the details and was interested to see that he was still marked as stationed aboard The Gringolet. The rest would likely not be as long as he hoped for if they hadn't bothered to transfer him. He didn't know what the Grand Admiral had planned for him this time, but he knew he wasn't looking forward to it.

***

Joseph sat in the same observation lounge he'd been in when he gazed upon his homeworld for the last time. Now he patiently waited to look upon the Avalon. He'd brought his tablet to grab a video feed in case he couldn't get a good look from the observation window, but he'd been informed that this would be a good place to view The Avalon from, and he found he was not alone.

More than a few individuals had joined him, including Dan, who had sat next to him during the ride up. They caught up briefly as they waited. Apparently, Dan had fit right in. Joseph hadn't so much, given his relative isolation over the years. The fact that his status was somewhat in limbo hadn't helped at all, and he'd found himself relatively isolated from the rest of the crew as a result. He was very much so a passenger and was treated like one. He was hardly complaining though, it suited him just fine for now.

As they had exited subspace, his breath had caught in his throat. The sight of so many vessels in one place was staggering, but they could not compare to the titan that they all orbited. The Avalon was a hulking cylinder, its dark grey outline marred the void of space with its presence. Ships streamed to and fro around it, looking more like gnats than space-faring vessels. He would be on board one of those gnat-like vessels on his way to that titanic structure soon. He could only imagine what awaited him inside.