The years passed, but Null had stagnated in his development. The VR pod training was no longer enough to improve his abilities and he had gained all the knowledge he could from studying the voice of the universe with his current level of understanding. The years of loneliness had taken their toll on the young child.
Null was now 9 years old, with an accelerated age of 13 and he no longer talked to Zero or even trained. He would constantly use his VR pod to play games that Zero had taken from the human information network. This was Zero's solution to Null worsening mental state.
Zero had promised that he could visit the humans in a little while but time was different to an angel. A little while held a different meaning to someone who was 100 000 years old. Null didn't know what he would do if this kept up. The system reacted to Null declining mental state.
** Critical Failure. User Compatibility Failure Imminent. Cause Mental Instability**
**Mission Granted: Attend 2100 New Year Soldier Celebration**
The New Year soldier celebration was a large military event that was being held on Mars to celebrate the new century. Null had learnt about it from advertisements in his games. He was at a crossroads he could ask Zero to take him but he didn't believe Zero would do it. It wasn't that Zero was cruel just his thought processes were alien and he wouldn't understand while Null wanted to do go.
Null decided that he would sneak out. To anyone listening it would have sounded ridiculous. He was on a ship at the edge of the Kuiper belt how could he just sneak off to mars. He knew he would need a new ship. There were only 4 months until the new year which meant that Null had to work quickly and also secretively. For the first time in over a year, Null was motivated again.
Over the next 2 months, he designed his new personal ship. His ship the Aethon had significant upgrades over standard merge ships. The Aethon was powered by a large antimatter reactor instead of the standard fusion reactor. It was also surrounded by a plasma shield, like the one they used in the battle suit.
He had taken some Zallium from Zero supply and created his first technomagic spells. The two spells combined reduced the effect of gravity on the ship and also reduced the mass of the ship. This allowed for the ship to move faster and reduced the effects of inertia on the pilot meaning the pilot no longer had to be unconscious.
Null had used the knowledge gained from studying the voice of the universe to create an alloy using current known elements that reduced the effect of the mass and gravity field. The new alloy allowed for the ship to be lighter and to reduce the effects of inertia on the pilot meaning the pilot could still be conscious.
He had also increased the efficiency of the constant acceleration engine. In total, He created a ship that was capable of safely travelling at 30 percent the speed of light. Currently, the best ships humans had could only travel 7 percent the speed of light and had to be careful with acceleration as to not endanger the merge pilot even within their pods. Null was ready and keen to start his adventure to mars.
The Watcher wasn't as oblivious to the actions of Null as he believed. He had observed while Null designed and built the ship and while Null research the celebration. He hadn't intervened as the raising teenage guide he had taken off of the information network had suggested that control rebellion was good for teenagers.
The Watcher had noticed the improvement in Null mental health. He wished he could have taken Null to visit the humans, but he had other considerations he had to follow. He wasn't allowed to enter human space or interfere with them in any way. He was already pushing the limit of plausibility by letting Null sneak out.
The day came for Null to leave for his trip. He left a message for Zero telling him he would return soon. He hop into the Aethon and headed to mars. As soon as he started a trip he received a message from Zero.
"Null, have fun on mars. Remember that spells and fields are forbidden knowledge and can not be shared with humans. I will be monitoring so please be safe." Null smiled realising that Zero had been watching the whole time.
During the Aethon journey along the standard trade paths, it was causing distress throughout the upper echelons of various human factions. Each faction had spies and sensors throughout the solar systems and had been continuously sending back information on the unknown object via their emergency quantum entanglement communication (QEC) devices.
Humans had set up a substantive communication infrastructure with 12 communication stations sitting in orbit in a parallel plane to the solar system. Each of these stations had a quantum entanglement communication that linked to the other 11 stations. Quantum entanglement communication (QEC) stations were expensive and had very limited bandwidth. Each bit of information required a pair of entangled particles and a device capable of reading and modifying the pair.
Every major faction had noted the uptick in bandwidth being used over the emergency links. Each faction believed it was an advanced prototype that had escaped from a research facility of another faction. Earth believed it was martian, the Martians thinking It was the Lunar faction, etc. The ones that needed to decide were the Martians. Tracking its path, it was clear the object was heading towards mars.
The Martian military had scrambled its military merge ships. The ships formed a blockade in the outer orbit of mars.
General Alexander was currently in his office on the Mars orbital station in deep thought. 'These scans don't make sense, it looks to be a Martian design, but it is moving far quicker than anything I've seen. Even the black projects from other factions don't have anything that comes close to this. Its trajectory suggests it came from the deep Kuiper belt, maybe there is a secret base hidden there'
Null had noticed the blockade and didn't know what to do.