08:00 IST, Fourth Day, Seventh Month, 3079 PV | Planet City Stelarum / Wreck of the Liiinas Starcrosser

  The entire expedition team is grouped up around a campfire just outside of the wreck. Trying to decide what the best course of action is. After all, it's not every day you find a ship of a long lost civilization, with apparently alive people frozen in cryosleep.

  Also, I managed to find a black box type thing and Initae helped me to decode it. The information inside was interesting to say the least.

  Apparently this ship dubbed the Liiinas starcrosser was the first ship to venture beyond the species known as the Elvan’s star system. Carrying a crew of several thousand and led by the High Saintess Lina Skla.

  It's unclear how many of the crew have survived such an unprecedented time in cryosleep, but it's likely to be a few thousand at least.

  It seems that after the ship scanned its target star systems looking for habitable planets, it malfunctioned and failed to wake up the crew. Without any target destination it seems to have just drifted endlessly. Until it somehow ended up here. A planet in the milky way galaxy.

  Initae says that they didn't even originate in this galaxy. So the non-functional ship must've drifted in the endless inter-galactic void for eons. It's a miracle it didn't get destroyed and seems to be mostly intact. But, space is quite empty, so it's not as unlikely as it seems.

  “So, we just casually discover the remnants of a dead race and we just casually sit down around a campfire?” says one of the scientists, a young man with blonde hair and green eyes. I think he works with surveying equipment.

  “Yep, that sounds like us. I mean, have you seen what Ko and I have done so far? Remnants of a long dead race aren't all that special. I mean, we've got Emil and Initae and they are fossils as well!”

  “Oi, watch how you speak about your elders, you should show proper respect to those with more experience than you.”

  “Experience shmeriance. We've got Ko’s brains and my world-ending charm. We don't need experience where we are going.”

  “Now now, darling. Don't discredit experience. Initae’s knowledge and skills have helped us out a great deal. Perhaps we should follow her suggestions a bit more often, they can't all be bad.”

  Ko & Ray: “*laugh* hah, not a chance in kek’s basement that's gonna happen.”

  Ray:”Jinx!”

  “You are aware that the idea of Jinxes is very outdated. No one pays it any mind anymore.”

  “Geez, stop being such a spoilsport. At least you're cute.” As she says that she leans over and rests her head on my shoulder. Have I mentioned that my girlfriend is really cute? Well, she is super duper ultra cute. So cute that even the universe bends before her cuteness.

  “Oi, kiddos. This is kinda an important gathering that will determine the fate of an entire species or more. So could you at least try not to flirt prohibitively.”

  At this, the group explodes into laughter. I think even Initae lets out a giggle or two against her best efforts.

  Our mission is commander, a pretty tall older woman with nice brunette hair and brown eyes. Or at least, I think she is older, perhaps in her fifties? It's hard to tell how old people are with anti-aging tech nowadays.I think her name is Lisette or something like that.

  “Alright folks and milords. We've got a situation on our hands. To put it short, our expedition has been very fruitful. In fact, we've, as mentioned before, found the last remnants of a dead civilization.

  Now, they have journeyed across an unimaginable distance to get here. So its up to us to help them out and wake them up, right?”

  The group nods in agreement. Ray seems pretty happy that everyone else seems likely to pick up most of the work. I'm glad too, it means plenty of time to spoil my super cute girlfriend.

  04:00 IST, Fifth Day, Seventh Month, 3079 PV | Planet City Stelarum / Site of The Liiinas Starcrosser

  Our colony has been extremely busy over the past few hours.

  After our meeting, Lisette gave a flurry of orders. Basically saying to contact HQ and let them know of our situation.

  Then in a united effort from basically everyone on the planet, pausing most other projects. We excavated (or rather Initae did) the wreck and then picked it up. We've moved it to a site far closer to the city. Though it's still quite far away for security reasons.

  Initae has also been working hard with the R&D department to scramble together a basic translator to allow us to actually communicate with the Elvan. Since relying on her as our only point of contact probably wouldn't be the best. After all, she is their goddess and they might be too weird around her.

  Currently Ray (who is super cute) and I are sitting on a hillside a ways away from the wreck. We've got a nice view of the massive ship and the millions of humans that are scurrying across it doing various things.

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  It turns out that fixing an alien ship that is billions of years old and composed of unfamiliar tech isn't an easy feat.

  From what I have learned from the blackbox and Initae, the Elvan used a special system that they called folius. A combination of machine, biology and inae based technologies. Together they form a highly advanced mind/body-machine interface. Allowing for rapid construction and manipulation of vast structures.

  Apparently the entire ship could be managed by a single person, with the assistance of onboard AI’s of course. Though, AI is a bit of a misnomer in this case. The intelligence is actually biological, so I guess just plain intelligence would be more fitting.

  Unfortunately, it seems that all of the biological aspects of the tech have died. Which makes it very hard to turn on the ship and wake the sleeping Elvan.

  It's a miracle that the bridge had a separate loop that was still alive. It's a treasure trove of information from the Elvan. Our scientists are eager to get their hands on it. But we have decided to wait and see what the Elvan have to say for themselves.

  After all, it's kinda cruel to steal what little a species has left in this universe, isn't it?

  Also im trying really hard not to compare the Elvan to elves from human fantasy stories. But, its really klacking hard. Like, they are mostly humanoid in shape and have long pointy ears! It's like someone picked them right out of a human storybook and placed them in the universe.

  Hmm, perhaps it's the other way around. Maybe at some point the Elvan actually made contact with humanity. Thus inspiring the idea of Elves from them. Though that's almost certainly not true. Alien contact would have been recorded had it happened in the past.

  “Kooo, you've got that look again. Also how dare you stop the headrubs to think about things! Your cute girlfriend is nestled up against you, you should only be thinking of me!” Ray says, looking up at me with her brilliant blue eyes, full of what I can only presume is the look of someone completely infatuated. I'm sure my eyes have a similar glint as I look at her.

  “As you wish, milady. No more grand planning, only thoughts of cuddling and giving my super cute girlfriend headrubs.”

  A few hours of intense cuddling and headrubs later

  [Over comms] “Sorry to disturb your great times, Milords. But the repair procedures are about complete. We should be able to proceed with the defrosting momentarily. Everyone gathered awaits your orders, milords.”

  “Welp, I guess that's the end of my cuddly boyfriend time. C'mon darling, let's go meet some Elvan, shall we?”

  “That sounds lovely. I can't wait to show off my super cute girlfriend to an entirely different species!”

  We head down to the actual site. It's changed quite a lot.

  The ship has a bunch of giant holes in it where we have opened it to get to the internal bits. I hope the Elvan dont mind, we will of course put it back how it was for history’s sake.

  In the field in front of the ship the cryopods have been extracted and laid out in rows.

  By the way, these cryopods are genius. They use inae technology similar to Psi-cores to basically keep the occupied in a frozen state in a space-nullification field. Along with the actual freezing process, this renders them completely inert.

  It should mean that they are all perfectly alive and we can wake them all up. But our scientists expect that a few won't make it. Just due to the sheer time they have been frozen. Six billion years is a long time after all.

  We head over to the field command tent. Inside is an assortment of scientists, all geniuses in their respective fields. It seems that literally everyone was vying to get a spot on this project.

  We approach a wispy older guy who is currently leading the entire operation.

  He mentions that everything is ready to go. We've got systems prepared to treat anyone who is suffering from sickness. As well as food and medicine that should be suitable for the Elvan biology (according to Initae).

  There are even a couple ascendents of the order that Initae teleported over. It makes sense, this is a big event even in the theatre of the entire universe. We also need their gesir’s assistance to actually power the Elvan tech. Humanity doesn't have any gesir aside from me yet, and the Elvan tech is quite Inae hungry. But guess what, it's humanity that found the Elvan. More specifically our faction, the Moonlight Alliance. So we get to lead the charge (thus reaping many of the best benefits, probably).

  Which is both a good and a bad thing. On one hand, if they are friendly and willing to work with us, humanity is still very early in its ascension. So it shouldn't be too hard to integrate those willing into our faction.

  But we also don't have as many materials, resources, knowledge and manpower as one of the sovereign empires. Even the Velz’s empire is orders of magnitude more powerful than humanity.

  But no matter what, we are going to do our best.

  We head down to the cryobanks. A selection of twelve has been prepared first.

  Supposedly they are all high ranking crew and such. They are the most important to wake up as they can help control the other mass.

  I believe the plan is to work with them to slowly defrost the entire population a few thousand at a time.

  “Alright, let's do this, folks do whatever it is you gotta do.” Ray commands.

  One of the Ascendants walks over to a pedestal in front of the assembled cryopods and places their hand upon the terminal.

  Immediately I can sense a quite substantial amount of inae flow into the crypods and they begin to glow with the raw inae flowing through them.

  After a few seconds, I can notice a vast quantity of heat. The entire area around the crypods seems to have heated up by several dozen degrees. Luckily it doesn't really bother us thanks to our augmentation kits.

  The glowing in the channels of the cryopod intensifies over a few minutes.

  Then suddenly they stop glowing and I feel a small ripple go through reality.

  Shortly thereafter, the door of the first cryopod opens.

  Several humans rush to help the Elvan, a pretty tall one, perhaps about one and a half meters. She is clearly female and has shiny silver hair and golden eyes. Of course, the signature pointy ears can be seen peeking out from her hair. She also wears a strange flower token in her hair.

  She is wearing a beautiful golden robe with an insignia, not dissimilar to that of the order’s on it.

  Based on what I know, I can only presume that this is the commander of their mission.

  High Saintess Lina Skla.

  I can't wait to actually speak with her. I have a feeling we will get along fairly well.

  I'm sure that no matter what comes next. Whether it be giant trash dragons, a long dead alien race, or a mysterious organization trying to kill us. Ray and I shall overcome it together. So, bring it on.

  End of Chapter 72

  Next: Chapter 73 | Integration