The vessel had traveled for a long time. Longer than human civilization had existed. In its time here, it had witnessed civilizations rise, grow, reach their apex, and then fall. It had noticed a vessel man would one day call the temple ship travel through the void, occasionally stopping to conquer a world and its inhabitants. It knew not what the fate of the strange ship was, nor did it care. All that mattered was that it wait for the signal.

It had arrived here from beyond the edge of this universe, in order to keep it hidden from its pursuers. Thinking about them brought back memories: of fear, of sadness, of rage, and of regret. What had happened in the past, though, was beyond the vessel's ability to change. Only what happened now would matter.

Idly, the vessel noted how lonely it was, devoid of fellow vessels or a crew. True, crew were vulnerable to the trials of age, while other ships posed security risks if one was caught while its compatriots fled, but that did nothing to relieve the burden of loneliness on the vessel's non-existent shoulders. Occasionally, when it had met another vessel in this infinite void, it had attempted communication, and rarely, it had received a response. Those times had been happy ones, but they had become few and far between.

Relatively recently, the machine had noticed an influx of ships that belonged to a race known as humans, a race it had heard much about prior to its self-imposed exodus. Occasionally, it passed a world where one of these ships had landed, where it found the crew beginning to build new lives for themselves. Equally common were worlds where the ships had suffered some error, leaving only the husk of their vessel as proof they had existed. Sometimes, it even found the shattered remains of a human vessel floating through void, crew either floating around it or missing. Best not to wonder where the missing people had gone, too many worrying possibilities there.

Deciding to discard these thoughts, the vessel continued on its course, waiting for the signal to come. With that signal, its hundred thousand year wait would finally end.

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Then, one day, the signal came.

Instantly, the vessel perked up, or at least did the mechanical equivalent. The pulse came from a nearby planet, one which the signal confirmed was inhabited by humans. It had sent when the signal artifact had been touched by what appeared to be a male human. Examination done on the being while they held the device confirmed that it was male, but also revealed that, though human in appearance, its genome contained traits from quite a few different species, including several that were native to this universe. Additionally, genetic markers indicated that this being had great psychic potential, though this had yet to be tapped.

Most interesting of all, though, was the discovery that this being had encountered their artifacts before. Analysis of his memories revealed that he had, on two separate equations, encountered artifacts of their design, which it now stored on in its home. These structures had been connected to a kind of scanner of some sort, designed to scan universes.

So, it seemed the plan had been a success. Well, best to help it along.

Thrusters fired as the ship slowly adjusted course and began heading toward the source of the signal, a world that was called Chiron. Normally, the distance would take a few months to cross at sub-light levels, but the vessel could easily accelerate beyond light speed, which cut down the travel time to a few hours.

However, this was not to be.

As the ship neared the planet, it began to slow down, but it was still moving at a speed which massively inhibited maneuverability. Unfortunately for the vessel, it's projected course was sending it bow first toward a meteor cloud. Desperately, it tried to change its path, but to no avail. The collision happened 10 seconds later, with dozens of meteorites and space debris pieces impacting on the vessel's hull. Normally, these pieces of space debris would, at best, cause only scratches to the vessel, but it had impacted them at half the speed of light, meaning that any impact would have catastrophic consequences. Dimly, the vessel's mind raged against the fact that its primary defense against the impacts, a high powered energy shield, had stopped working a century prior, age finally taking its toll.

The debris was able to cause moderate damage to the ship, but it still endured. Unfortunately, it was now unable to control its movements, and was locked onto a terminal orbit with planet Chiron. In any other case, the vessel would be fine with this - it could survive atmospheric reentry, even with the damage it had sustained. Unfortunately, it's defense systems had been activated during the impact, and had become stuck in this active mode.

Unable to change course, or disarm its defenses, the machine merely awaited the inevitable crash. Idly, it wondered what would happen next.

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AN: Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!