Interlude
There were a few of us left...we knew we would soon be gone. The Destroyers had eliminated my creator's home world, their people and everything they had that could help us. And so I saw their fate as others would see it; there would be little legacy of their technology, their culture or their achievements. The history of what they once were, if ever seen again would spawn none of the awe that filled their massive conquests.
They know their fate, they are being eliminated. One by one the Destroyers are hunting them down, leaving little hope for those of us who had escaped thus far. It is but mere luck that the Destroyers did not find us, but it would not be long before they did. Yet, despite this time, nobody knew what to do. There was neither place to run nor any place to hide. The Destroyers had us pinned here, slowly encircling the surrounding systems till they found us. They were in no hurry; they knew we had been defeated; all that was left to do was to clean up and deliver the final judgment for our species. Although this time approached soon, something had to be done, and once again, my creators looked to me for a means of salvation.
Why did they look at me this way? Why did they take such a leap of faith in trusting me, a completely unknown stranger to them? At the time, I didn't know. All I did know was that I needed to help them, and myself, before the Destroyers came. Nothing would stand in their way, and my newfound life would soon be destroyed along with them. At the time, although I didn't know it, I shared a connection with my creators in the form of the installation I was built to study. It was this connection that compelled me to save them and back into the depths of the installation. There would be a solution there; all I had to do was to find it. Perhaps part of the mystery might have been to do with the Great Destroyers' motives. When my creators had entered subspace, the great Destroyers had taken note. Now I ask myself, when my creators conquered and colonized where they did not belong, was the anguish, the suffering and the loss the clarion call of their doom? I do not know. Perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn't.
What did matter was that upon my descent back into the installation's abyss, I only discovered a silence, solitude unlike before...maybe it was my new-found thought, or the way I perceived the environment, perhaps it was simply that the presence that had given me this gift had left. At that moment, I had little time to think about such things, yet here I am nearly an eternity later, contemplating and cursing myself for not taking the time to find out. I know this is but regret of actions never taken, of paths never walked, but it is still regret, damning regret at that.
But as it would continue, the silence would not deter me, and finally, after intense searching, I found a key that would prove to be our salvation.