Cavalon gaped. The Savant was at a loss for words? Fucking great.
“Jack, can we get a read on the dimensions?” Rake asked.
Jackin slid through a few menus, and a gridded overlay appeared on the viewscreen. “Just over seventy-two kilometers in diameter.”
Griffith let out a low whistle.
“No ships?” Rake asked. “Life-forms?”
“Nothing,” Jackin confirmed. “On the outside, at least.”
“Let’s move closer.”
“You got it, boss.”
Jackin revved the ions, and they accelerated. The scale continued to be difficult for Cavalon to fathom, with so little visible in their dim spotlight.
As they sped closer and circled around the right side, the structure’s design became more clear. The scales covering the entire inward-facing front wrapped halfway around the side. There, the slabs decreased in frequency, eventually melding into one solid piece. When the SGL arrived at the outward-facing side of the structure, Jackin swept the light over an expanse of smooth, matte-black metal. It carried no sheen and reflected almost no light.
“Flood it out,” Rake instructed.
Jackin typed into the menus, and the beam expanded, dimming as it broadened its throw.
“Can you increase the contrast?” Rake asked.
The image flickered as Jackin arrowed through settings and the shape of the structure took form. Even through the heavy grain dancing across the image, Cavalon could tell it was a single, seamless surface.
“This whole side is just … solid,” Jackin said in disbelief. “That’s … seventy kilometers of solid metal.”
Cavalon had never seen anything like it. Even the largest panels of the Apollo Gate hulls couldn’t be more than a hundred meters wide. He had no idea Viators could construct something of this magnitude.
Mesa’s voice broke through the silence. “Excubitor?”
“Yeah, Mes?”
Mesa leaned forward, peering at the viewscreen in shock. “I was absolutely wrong. This is not a data beacon.”
Rake let out a soft sigh. “Yeah. I’m starting to get that impression.”
“Or not just a data beacon,” Cavalon pointed out.
“That is true,” Mesa said. “A structure of this size could easily accommodate multiple functions. In addition to data collection and relay, it also could serve as a communications hub, a data facility, or even a biological-sample storage facility. Despite their penchant for xenocide, Viator scientists were avid in their study of alien life-forms, so long as they did not exhibit the threat of sentience…”
As they returned to the inward side, things almost felt normal as Mesa exposited the potential purposes of a structure of this scale, with an occasional sidebar into less relevant topics.
Rake ordered Jackin to search for a docking port. They systematically worked their way up from the bottom of the inward side, looking for any kind of abnormality or break that might serve as an entrance. About fifteen kilometers up, almost a quarter of the way, they found it. They might have missed it if Emery hadn’t perked up, insisting she saw a glint of bronze in the sea of stark black aerasteel.
Jackin refocused the light and flew toward the shimmering metallic anomaly, and it came into focus minutes later as they cruised closer to the hull.
Cavalon squinted as they approached. A gleaming triangular bronze panel sat flush with the outer face, each facet easily a hundred meters in length, outlined with a border of alternating gold, silver, and copper triangles, each no more than a meter wide.
Griffith leaned toward the screen. “What is that?” He smiled down at Rake. “Sorry, my eyesight’s not what it used to be.”