First Contact

Chapter 402

Moving from maintenance mode to low awareness.

Done. 317 seconds.

Mining Autonomous Machine 78462 has returned ahead of schedule.

Log files indicate machine surfaced due to megaton level impacts upon the surface disrupting mining operations. Upon gaining access to surface machine encountered heavy combat between unknown species, enemy species, and rebellious machine entities of enemy manufacture.

Machine suffered external damage in addition to damage to Grinding Array 17.

Ore bay 4 is nearly overweight.

Grinding Arrays servicing Ore Bay 4 did not process raw material to account for overweight.

Overweight occurred after Grinding Array 17 was damaged.

Machine returned to main processing facility for repair and servicing 126.43 years early.

More data is needed.

Moving to semi-autonomous mode. Initiating self-test checks on cryogenics systems.

The virtual intelligence ordered a scan of the interior spaces of the mining machine, waiting the long seconds for the system to interlock the equipment to ensure there was no communications leakage along any known spectrums that could be detected from the surface.

Inside the ore bay the virtual intelligence noticed a large mass of Substance W.

Files were loaded, comparing usage of Substance W to the approximate shape and size of the object. No data was returned.

The VI ordered the mining machine to transmit all logs of sensor readings on the surface and downloaded the logs for all seismic disturbances for the last 3.2 years.

In the last 289 hours there has been a sudden uptick of seismic incidents. Initial seismic disturbances are synonymous with large ships landing of Gatherer Class or below. Within 1.2 hours seismic disturbances synonymous with atomic weaponry have occurred.

ERROR - SEISMIC DATA OUT OF RANGE

Approximately 220 hours ago seismic events took place suggesting impacts registering in the megatons, far outstripped ease of use weapons. No secondary and tertiary signatures of standard high explosive munitions.

Deployed atomic weapons of such magnitude are outside of normal range.

Approximately 148 hours ago sustained seismic events strong enough to bounce from the core to cause aftershocks took place over the space of several seconds per blast.

More data is needed.

Supervisor data needed.

The VI ordered a cryogenic storage pod moved from deep storage to the cryogenic recovery bay. It was still 27.3 years until the next mandatory wakeup of supervisor level organisms.

Deep inside the hardened structure robotic gantries and cradles whirred to life in an icy tomb. Graspers removed a single pod, handing it off, where it was moved rapidly to the cryogenics section. The first three cryo-thaw systems were responding to self-tests with errors so the pod was moved to the fourth.

Self-test of the organism inside showed that at some time cellular crystallization had occurred.

The organism was beyond medical repair and was flushed into the reclaimer.

It took two more tests until a cryo-pod passed the self-tests and the thawing process began.

A malfunction occurred during dethawing, roasting the organism inside.

The remains were dumped in the reclaimer.

The VI was slightly concerned. Less than 25% of the original long term crew were left. It thawed out several biological maintenance technicians and set them to work examining the cryo-system. Less than 2.12 hours into their maintenance cycle all biological maintenance technicians no longer responded to orders.

A mid-level supervisor was found and successfully thawed.

Less than one hour after thawing the mid-level supervisor ceased responding to orders.

A high level supervisor was decanted.

And dissolved into a puddle of protoplasm, the cellular walls collapsing as the cell's nucleus failed.

The VI began to suffer the electronic equivalent of worry.

After two more tries, the fourth high level supervisor was successfully revived. The VI noted, again, that the particular high level supervisor had warnings attached to its file, but as the warnings contained no code the VI could parse, it ignored them.

It had the supervisor moved to the armored command center and injected with warmed ichor. Once brain waves moved into normal patterns, the VI sent the awake commands to the high level supervisor and began transmitting urgent data requests.

-----

Cordexen blinked as the system shocked them to wakefullness sitting in the facility command chair. The command center was still dark, even the monitors dark. For a moment it wasn't sure where it was, opening and closing their chitin eye covers and sensing the area around them with their psychically sensitive antenna.

I'm still alive, it thought. What have I done to deserve such a fate?

It gave the equivalent of a groan when it remembered that the command center was psychically shielded and why.

"Urgent status reports are waiting your examination," the VI stated.

Oh no, a rock got caught in a gear, and now I'm being woken up into this endless torment, it thought.

"System, how long since last awareness period?" Cordexen asked.

"That data is locked out by orders of the facility commander," the VI responded.

Cordexen groaned and shuddered as the memories flowed through it. The Lanaktallan Autonomous War Machines attacking the planet, the near panicked flight to the shelters. The silence of the planet as dust settled and the war machines left. The Hive Queen's orders for the deep level mining crews to refit the station for automatic and go into cryo-sleep until a rescue was mounted.

They're never coming, it thought to itself. The galactic arm is nothing but bare rock and laughing isotopes on the stellar winds. The Krikitak Empire dies, here, as each cryostasis system fails one by one. Dies in darkness and silence.

"System, how long has this facility been under emergency system protocols?" Cordexen asked.

"By orders of facility commander, that data is restricted for morale purposes," the VI answered.

It sighed to itself.

I wish this tortured existence was over but I do not wish to throw myself into the reclaimators, it thought. How long must we go on? How long will it be until I can leave this accursed facility? it thought. What does it matter what precious resources we gather if there is no being left to enjoy them?

It could remember the last time a group was sent to the surface. Servitors and one of the last Speakers.

It remembered their screams of agony and the long terrible silence afterwards.

It remembered what came afterwards.

"There are urgent situation reports that must be," the VI started.

"System, silent for one hour," it said. I wish I had a home to go back to, it thought.

It remembered the footage of the hivehome it was hatched in burning as autonomous war machines of the Atrekna rained orbital fire down upon the orderly fields and ranches and food corrals of Revaintik. How the planet had been reduced to nothing more than bare rock, radioactive dust, and thin wisps of atmosphere.

I wish I had been killed there, it thought, then flinched before the emptiness inside of him reminded him that there was nobody else there. I wish I had been killed before now.

Two green servitor caste entered the control room, moving to panels, and began repairing and powering the systems. Both of them had the slightly powdery look of a servitor caste that had recently left cryo-stasis and both of them moved slowly, almost painfully.

Cordexen watched silently, antenna trembling nervously.

What is it like for them? They live only a scant few decades, slaving away at keeping our Empire's technology moving. Are they aware? It is said they are largely non-sentient, that they must be ordered and calmed by the hive-mind, but is it true? Cordexen wondered. One stumbled and the other rushed over, combing the one that stumbled's antenna. It shows more care and concern for its fellow servitor than any have shown me.

It looked at the two of them. Come here, little ones, Cordexen sent.

The two green servitors put away their tools and jerkily moved over to it.

It lifted them up, cradling them in its hands. Can you hear me? Are you in there? Are you really just mindless drones or can you talk? Do you think?

It waited, petting them with its bladearms, soothing them with its touch and mind.

Please talk to me, it thought. Please. Just one word. It has been so long.

The two green ones were silent, a slight anxiety building that they had not finished the task the computer's psychic array was demanding that they perform.

Go, little ones, it sent, bending down and placing them on the floor.

"System," Cordexen said. "Stream to my display urgent reports," it swivelled the screen in front of it.

The color shift was off and in the upper right of the hexagon the pixels were dead, but it was able to read it.

Atomic detonations? Plasma munitions? Focused and directed nuclear blasts? Cordexen froze at what he was seeing.

Lanaktallan combat machines.

The sky, though. The sky was blue! That meant water vapor.

Cordexen spotted a flash of color and stopped the recording, backtracking a few frames. It zoomed in on the flash of color, magnifying it.

The image was grainy, heavily pixelated, but the Mantid knew what it was seeing.

Plants. Different than what I remember, but plants on the surface*,* it thought.

Black dark awareness settled on it.

How long? How long have we slumbered in this terrible place where only work that no longer matters is carried out? Life beneath the sun again! We have slept away eternity down here, it thought.

It huddled up into itself, watching the little green ones work.

I wish you could talk to me.

----------------------

The VI noted that the high level supervisor was no longer responding to requests, had silenced it. Like the mid-level supervisor, video logs of the mining machine's brief surface excursion sat on the monitor, the supervisor staring at the image.

The VI checked the rankings of those in storage.

The Supreme Supervisors were all gone. The Grand Supervisors were gone.

There was one other high level supervisor that outranked the currently inoperative one. The VI began unthawing it. It would move it to Secondary Command Center 281.

--------------

The electro-stimulus awoke Klakeka with a jerk. The massive Mantid shuddered as its internal organs, still feeling ice cold, were flooded with warm ichor. It reached out, for the stabilizing influence of others of its type, for those above it.

And found nothing but emptiness. A deep black gulf of silence.

Oh. Yeah, it thought to itself, huddling down and shivering. I live on, payment for my treachery.

"System, how long since last period of activity?" it asked, coughing the clear slime of cryo-fluid out of its abdomen.

"That data is restricted by order of the facility commander," the VI said.

"There is no facility commander, you hunk of metal and molycircs. Transfer all authority to me," Klakeka ordered.

"Cannot comply. Message is as follows: I entomb you here, faithless ones. Till the sun burns this planet away you shall be entombed in darkness. End message. Do you wish to view the current emergency logs?" The VI felt nothing about the message.

Klakeka reached out again, finding nothing more than the heavy psychic shielding around the command center, which was dark and cold.

"Lights," they ordered.

"Cannot comply," the VI said. It stated the message again.

"Move thermostat to standard living setting," Klakeka tried.

"Cannot comply. Message is as follows:" the VI repeated the message again.

Klakeka shivered. Cold enough to be uncomfortable, not cold enough to be existence threatening.

Three green servitors moved in, repairing the damage time had done to the consoles.

Klakeka watched them move, how they were slightly jerky from cryo-sleep. How they worked together, touching one another, sometimes touching antenna.

Oh, to be you. No thought, just purpose, Klakeka thought.

"System, unlock doors of command center," they tried. Again, the compute refused to comply.

Klakeka lifted one bladearm. Thick, long, razor sharp, serrated. Capable of ripping through Lanaktallan armor or Atrekna psychic shielding with ease. Capable of tearing through the armor and defenses of any living thing the massive Klakeka encountered.

For moment it started to remember the way his bladearms had slid past thick chitin armor, deep into organ spaces.

It pushed the memory away, but not before the bladearm was wreathed in the silvery purple nimbus of psychic energy.

The void is preferable to being woken again, it thought.

It touched under its jaws with the tip of the psychic blade. The psychic energy tingled, peeled away a small slice of chitin.

It only took a shove.

-------------------

The VI saw the high level supervisor's vitals go critical. It quickly pulled the command chair into the system, moving the high level supervisor to medical systems. The supervisor's brain was damaged, but not irreparably so.

Medical systems opened up the chitin head, the thick nerve mat around the brain, and began repairing the damage to the brain itself.

Within minutes, the damage had been repaired and the medical systems began putting the high level supervisor's head back together. The damage had been life threatening, but in reality it was fairly minor and easy to repair.

The VI sent the high level supervisor back to the command chair, moving the command chair to the command station.

It sent the wakeup commands.

---------------------

Klakeka woke, its head aching.

No. Not again.

---------------------

Abriketa unfolded itself from where it had huddled up on the command chair. Monitors glowed with dull light, displaying the facility's data. The screen next to it had a paused video that showed waving grass and trees.

Abriketa had been staring at that screen for hours.

To feel grass against my footpads, to feel the sun upon my chitin, it thought to itself.

"Lights," it tried.

"Cannot comply. Facility commander lockout. Message is as follows:" the VI answered.

Abriketa turned and looked at the grass again. It remembered being young, running through the grass, chasing food, with the others of it caste.

That fear they felt as I pursued them. That deep resignation when I caught them. Was it like what I feel now? No slavering jaws, no glittering bladearms, no, not for me. Just this. Darkness. Eternal, unending, it thought.

Inside, where there was normally purpose and the warmth of the hive mind, there was only silence and darkness. A cold feeling that it had tried to remove with bladearms, cutting tools, and once a blaster rifle.

My carapace is not even marred, it thought. It could remember putting the barrel of the blaster rifle against its chest, using the tip of a bladearm to press the firing stud. The high pitched screech of the blaster rifle, the THWAK of the impact, the feeling of pressure released.

And waking back up in the command cradle as if nothing had happened, his carapace unmarked.

Except, I am no longer armed. What happened to my trusty rifle that took the lives of so many Lanaktallan and Atrekna? Was it dumped in the reclaimer? Hidden in a storeroom? Thrown into a volcano? it wondered.

"There are priority logs to be reviewed. Would you like to continue viewing them? The VI asked.

"Kill me," Abriketa ordered.

"Cannot comply. Message is as follows," the VI said.

Abriketa curled back into a ball of misery.

"There are priority logs remaining to be reviewed. Would you like to continue to review them?"

A small green servitor moved along the tiny catwalk and Abriketa watched it.

Please talk to me.

--------------------

Cordexen watched the logs as they played through. The deep mining machine had been on the surface for nearly an hour before diving into the planet's bedrock again. He paused the recording repeatedly, examining them.

Enemy tanks, driven by the Lanaktallan, were easily spotted.

There were different ones. They did not use plasma or particle projection weapons. Instead, they fired kinetic munitions, focused nuclear detonations, missiles, rockets, mortars. The mining machine's sensors were crude, calibrated to move beneath the surface of a planet, so did no have clear data.

But Cordexen could see that the unusual tanks fielded battlescreens that were so thick that they belonged on combat spacecraft.

It paused on the power armors. It had found two, both types piloted by bipeds.

Do you think? Do you talk to one another? Do you touch each other? Cordexen wondered, feeling the dark silence inside of him keenly. Do you stand in the sun and lift your face so that you can feel the warmth?

I would willingly die at your hands to hear you cry out a battle cry as you did so, Cordexen thought to itself. I would gladly submit even if you only touched me long enough to rend my apart with your bare manipulators.

"System," Cordexen stated.

"Awaiting input," the system said, as always.

"Is there surface data to review?" Cordexen asked.

"Negative. As per facility commander's orders, no surface contact was allowed prior to Mining Autonomous Machine 78462 being forced to the surface due to nearby atomic detonations," the system told it.

"Open outside channel or camera," Cordexen tried.

"Facility is on lockdown as per facility commander's orders. Message is as follows:" the VI dutifully repeated the message as it had for the endless past.

Cordexen went back to reviewing the messages.

It suddenly stopped.

The doors leading into the mining machine's command center, which had been fully automated at a point in the past, had been forced open. Once two point three hours after the machine submerged, another time only two hours ago.

"System, show me facility log for door access," Cordexen said.

"Cannot comply. Data lockout for this station by order of the facility commander. Message is as follows," the VI recited the message again.

They're inside. Not Lanaktallan.

The bipeds!

Cordexen looked at the door, the bead of the weld glittering in the dim light provided by the monitors.

It felt something it had not felt in an endless time.

Hope and anticipation.

Please come in and kill me.

--------------------

"Look at the door," Addox said when the platoon came around a corner.

Vuxten stared. The doorframe was blackened, with shiny sections. The door itself had obviously been repaired and then welded shut. He checked his map. They had been forced to backtrack repeatedly, slowly working their way up and toward the center.

"Get it open," Vuxten said. He activated the platoon command channel. "Reflex triggers on, men. Anything faster than Casey or Tulmik gets a shot to the face."

Private First Class Tulmik had reflexes so fast, even in armor, that many of the Telkan Marines felt that they bordered on supernatural.

Vuxten watched as Casey slowly cut open the control panel.

"Well, that's new," Casey said, moving to the side.

Vuxten looked at the space past the cover plate. It should have contained simple wiring for a bladearm to rock a switch and open the door.

Instead, the internal casing was blackened and damaged, metal droplets where the metal had been turned to liquid and rehardened. Wires bypassed the controls.

"Cut it open?" Addox asked, looking at Vuxten.

Vuxten had been dreading this moment. They had been moving through the facility and using the door controls to open the doors. Cutting open the door meant that the facility would notice it immediately.

"Do it," he ordered.

"Roger that, sir," Casey said, setting to work with his fusion torch.

It took only a few minutes, the endosteel of the door cutting like soft butter before a hot knife. Addox used the suction pad Casey handed him to pull the door out of the way, leaning it against the wall

"Um, I don't think that's standard, sir," Addox said when the platoon's shoulder lights illuminated the hallway beyond.

The wall panels were pitted, scored, cratered, blackened, and covered in beads where liquid metal had hardened after being splattered against the wall. There were multiple blast patterns on the floor.

"You think they all killed each other and this place is just running on automatic?" Lance Corporal Zevrek asked.

"Possibly," Lieutenant Plunex said.

"No way. That little greenie leg we found smashed between those two pieces of equipment had only been there for a couple of centuries," Addox said.

"There's computerized automatic, then there's Mantid automatic," Casey said slowly.

The platoon moved slowly down the hallway, keeping their spacing up, looking at the walls and ceiling.

"Dead camera," Addox said, pointing it out.

"Ichor stains according to my buddy," Private Hekamet said, pointing at a discolored mark on the wall.

The hallway T-intersectioned at a larger one.

"Ideas?" Addox asked.

"Head toward the center," Plunex said after glancing at Vuxten, who stayed silent.

"Wish we could use the mapping seeds," Private Druten muttered.

The doors at the end of the hallway were missing, the hallway opening up into a massive space.

"Halt," Vuxten ordered a good ten meters from the door. He thought for a moment. "Casey, Druten, Vintra, five steps in. I want feed from your cameras to Lieutenant Plunex, Sergeant Addox, and myself."

"Roger that, sir," Druten said, moving up.

Vuxten didn't say anything as Casey reached down and grabbed the minigun, bringing it up and into play. The smart harness hissed softly, compensating for the weight of the gun, the ammo, and the creation engine.

Vuxten watched the three fields of view as the troops moved forward. They passed the doorway, kicking in their light enhancement.

The floor was covered with ancient debris, stains, craters, and blast marks.

Vuxten was watching Casey's feed as the human looked up.

"CHROMIUM SAINT PETER!" Vuxten yelled, his hands pulling his rifle into play as he slammed the platoon's psychic shielding to maximum.

Casey's minigun opened up.