First Contact

Chapter 406

Vuxten walked quietly next to Sergeant Addox, listening in on the rest of the platoon talking to one another on the chat channel. They were either taking bets on how long the little green mantid had been in cryostorage or bitching about the taste of the nutripaste or their water.

All good.

Addox stopped in front of the door that the little green one pointed at before settling back down on the top of Addox's helmet. Vuxten checked and saw that Addox was running his internal heat at three degrees above normal and raising the threshhold for dumping heat into his heat sinks or deploying the small cooling fins.

"Past. Open and there," the little greenie said. It settled back down and began gnawing on the beef jerky that Casey had run up for him.

"Casey, crack the door," Vuxten ordered. He opened the channel to the rest of the platoon. "Everyone, weapons off safe but fingers off the trigger."

One by one the icons went to amber.

Casey knelt down and started working on the door, bypassing it in only a few minutes. It took a few more minutes to break the weld holding the door closed and Casey took a minute to lube the track the door was set on.

"Ready?" Casey asked, holding up the two wires.

"Ready," Vuxten told him.

Casey touched the wires together and the door slid open. Helmet lights and shoulder lights illuminated the inside of the room with harsh white light for the first time in millions of years.

"Mantid automation, man," Addox said softly.

The computer was obvious. Quantum systems, supercooled, the piping repaired over and over again. The dangling superconductor wires woven through everything.

Vuxten saw the "Phasic Control Maintenance Manifold" right away. Looking at it gave him a headache as the psychic shielding jumped six points. The system was complex, the shielding and casings removed on half of the equipment.

"Dropping my psychic shielding five percent," Addox warned. He gave a low grunt. "Wuff, I can feel the tingle across the back of my teeth."

"471, talk with your ancestor, check the system, see what you guys can do," Vuxten said.

--roger roger-- 471 sent back. --better have turkey for us--

"I'll have Casey fab you up some turkey jerky," Vuxten promised.

--casey use too much lemon pepper-- 471 said, opening the clamshell.

The psychic protection clamped down hard enough the little mantid's knees buckled for a moment. He shook his head, the other dozen green mantids following suit. He climbed down Vuxten, moving across of the floor to the electrical conduits.

--it appears to run off of some form of power-- 471 sent.

Vuxten laughed.

--checky checky-- 471 said. --we will see what we can see--

Vuxten watched the greenies check out the computer systems, the phasic system, the wiring on the walls. He moved over and leaned against a computer console, watching everyone get to work.

"He's asleep," Casey said, jerking a thumb at the green mantid on top of Addox's helmet. "Poor little guy has some serious freezer burn. Probably been in cryostasis on and off since the Precursor War."

Vuxten nodded, remaining silent.

Long minutes passed while Vuxten chewed a piece of gum and watched.

"Glory, do you read?" Casey asked from where he was standing next to one of the computer consoles.

"I read you, Sergeant. Line's full of distortion and interference though," Glory answered.

"How's your dataslicing? Any good at it?" Casey asked.

Glory chuckled. "I'm a DS, what do you think?"

"We've got a Precursor Era computer system here, VI run. Can you do your thing and, you know, take over the system?" Casey asked.

There was a pleasant laugh. "No can do, Casey. Your pipeline is wide enough for me to talk, maybe do some data exchange, but the interference would cause too many errors and your pipeline is too thin for my fat ass."

"Heh, first time a woman's ever complained about the width of my pipe," Casey laughed.

"I'm hard to please," Glory laughed with him. "I'll help what I can, but you're going to have to depend on the greenies. 680 was in Digital Warfare Corps before transferring to the Telkan Marines," she said.

"680, can you lead everyone into cracking that computer open?" Vuxten asked.

--easy peasy lemon squeezy-- 680 sent back.

The greenies crawled over the equipment, using access hatches designed for them but not.

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

Cordexen sat in his command chair, staring at the console he had moved in front of him. He had traced, as best he could with only limited permissions, the areas where the servitor caste had stopped responding for a long period before responding again.

It was a wandering, meandering path from the Deep Ore Miner Maintenance and Processing Bay that led the empty area on his map that Cordexen knew contained the Hive Queens chambers, the primary phasic control system, and the facility's master control computer systems.

He wracked his brain, trying to figure out how the mere passage of the bipeds could be disturbing the servitors. Perhaps they left behind some of their numbers to be devoured?

No, that would be done by primitives, and primitives didn't fashion high tech combat armor or work Substance W.

Cordexen knew he should be alarmed by an alien species invading the facility but he honestly could not muster up the emotion to care much. If they destroyed the facility, he would be free. If they busted down his door and shot him, he would be free. If they destroyed the computer and the phasic system, he would be free.

No matter what happened, as long as it changed the unending status quo, he would be free.

"Warning, unauthorized entry to computer mainframe detected," the facility VI suddenly said. "Security control alert: unauthorized entry to computer mainframe housing."

"Open the door. I will examine the breach," Cordexen said, sitting up.

"Unable to comply. Message is as follows," the VI said.

Cordexen slumped in his chair as the Queen's words were repeated back to him.

"Unauthorized breach to..." the computer started. "Access granted. Welcome 'little teapot', admin access granted. Maintenance access granted. Power user group 'all your base' has been created."

Cordexen perked up again, watching his screen. Data was flowing by at an incredible rate, the screen's refresh capability actually being overloaded by the amount of data flashing. The VI kept reciting groups being created, access being granted to groups, power users logging on.

He watched as the facility actually posted a maintenance update to his screen.

Half of the facility was dormant. The cryopods were at critical. The power was running at one tenth power. Life support was at bare minimum.

He felt the heaters kick on, blowing warm air into the control room.

Cordexen slowly unfolded from his chair, moving over and standing under the vent.

He raised his face up, closing the armored eyelids, relishing in the warmth.

He imagined he was standing outside.

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

Klakeka stirred as the lights came on in his command center. He heard the environmental system kick in and felt warm air pour from the vent, enveloping him in a warm blanket of heated air. His monitor was showing a deep level scan of the facility's status.

"Environmental system lockout lifted by admin power user 'hip hop soldier'," the VI stated. "Nutripaste lockout lifted by power user 'delicious delicious turkey'. Facility lockout under review by power user 'all the electrons to my yard'."

Klakeka stared at the monitor as data flashed by almost impossibly fast. User groups he had never heard of were taking over systems, rebooting some systems, powering down others, powering up the rest.

"Power user 'Great and Powerful Zig' has issued autonomous mining machine recall and maintenance phase," the VI reported.

"Define user 'Great and Powerful Zig'," Klakeka ordered.

"Cannot comply. Message is as follow," the VI said and Klakeka started to huddle in on himself.

"Hi. My name is Technical Sergeant Grade Six 'proton movement in high gravity low temperature semi-solid strange matter' but you may call me 538. If you shoot at us we'll kill you. This facility is under lockdown by the Terran Confederate Military. Please keep all hands and bladearms inside the vehicle and remain seated at all times. Question and answer period will be after full facility control. The war is over but we'll still kill you if you resist. Turkey is delicious and we will share it with you. End message," the VI said.

Klakeka just stared. "Computer, replay message."

The VI obediently obliged, repeating it.

Klakeka frowned slightly, his antenna crossing slightly.

"Computer, define... 'turkey'," Klakeka ordered.

"Cannot com... data loading. Loaded," the VI said. It suddenly showed a picture of a fat strange looking fowl. The feathers flew off of it, the head fell off, and it suddenly fell in boiling grease. It emerged looking golden brown and covered with a light crust of ground up grain flour. The skin and meat was pulled away, revealing moist white meat that dripped grease and juices.

Klakeka found himself salivating just staring at the image.

The meat was ripped away and dropped to cartoon green servitors, who were all dancing with strange little icons replacing their eyes to display happiness.

"Turkey," the VI stated with authority. "Is delicious."

"I would very much like some," Klakeka said softly.

"Cannot comp..." the VI started to say. "Do not resist. Resistance will be met with 15mm high explosive armor defeating phasic enhanced antimatter kinetic rounds delivered in groups. Compliance will be met with delicious turkey."

Klakeka kept salivating, watching the picture.

Comply? I'll do more than comply. I will put on a hat and dance like a Vurkeent at a mating ritual for a chunk of that delicious looking meat, he thought to himself. It sounds much more delicious than bullets.

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

Abriketa petted the little green servitor in his lap gently. He was able to generate enough of a psychic field that through contact he could ease its anxiety at not working on the task it had been ordered to complete. Its chitin was dull and flaky, waxy and distressed, but it huddled up against Abriketa in the cold and dark of the command center.

"Someone please talk to me," Abriketa mourned.

"Cannot comply. Message is as..." the computer suddenly cut off. It had been spouting gibberish for the last few minutes and Abriketa had tuned it out.

"Hi. My name is 'P2=G1(M1m2/r2^3)3' which is the universal law of phasic strength over distance accounting for gravity but you may call me '680'," the computer suddenly said.

"I am Abriketa," he said. Part of him, ancient commands from a queen long dead, wanted him to immediately storm out and kill this '680', but he ignored it, the command no longer having the power to induce anxiety or stress. "One of the facility security commanders. What of you?"

"I am a Technical Sergeant Grade Five with the Terran Confederate Military, specializing in computer system penetration and protection," the computer stated. It sounded different, like the words were almost tumbling over one another despite the steady cadence from the computer. "I'm only dataslicing your archive records so I can spare attention speak with you while I carry out my task."

"Are you real or is this another hallucination?" Abriketa asked.

He had once suffered hallucinations for the entire time he had been outside of the cryopod, his brain taking him back to the time he was in the creche learning to be a warrior caste. Not that the VI had cared. It had merely put him back in cryosleep.

"I'm real, but that's what a hallucination would say, isn't it?" the voice answered. "Huh, rare earth mining, like we suspected. Interesting, the liquid nickle-iron core is nearly 11% rare elements, down from 14%. You've been busy. Oops, sorry. What do you want to talk about?"

"Who are you?"

"I told you already. Call me 680, it takes forever for you non-technical types to say my name and you sound dorky," the voice said. It repeated the longer name, only with an accent that made the name sound mangled and stupid. "So, how long have you been here?"

Abriketa exhaled slowly through his abdomen, slumping down slightly. "Forever. I have been here forever. Since the Atrekna released their great war machines upon the Lanaktallan and us both, betraying us."

"So the Atrekna fired the first shot? Good to know. Willing to talk about it?" 680 asked. "Hang on, you've gotta be miserable."

Abriketa nodded. "I am indeed miserable."

The lights came on and the fans whirred to life. Abriketa felt warm air begin to circulate and sighed deeply.

"I thank you, 680," the massive mantid warrior said.

"How long have you been in the dark?" 680 asked.

"Since we slew the queens. We did not know that they had prepared for that eventuality and they entombed us all here, for all eternity," Abriketa asked. "The phasic regulators allow the computer to give orders to the mantid as if it was a queen. I am unable to countermand the computer's commands to the servitor castes."

"That's interesting," 680 said. "So the servitor caste's higher brain functions are controlled and suppressed?"

"Without the phasic regulator the servitor castes would return to primitive hunter gatherer reflexes," Abriketa said. He gave a sigh. "I so wish they could talk. I have been so lonely."

"Don't move. We have to reset the system. It'll come right back," 680 said.

The lights clicked off and the environmental system went dead.

Abriketa didn't care, still petting the servitor in his lap.

Even if it had only been a hallucination, being able to speak to another after so long meant he would die happy.

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

"How's it look?" Vuxten asked from where he was sitting in a chair designed for a massive mantid.

Addox had a good dozen green mantids huddled on his shoulders, on top of his helmet, and on his legs as he sat on the floor. Some were shivering, almost all of them were munching on turkey or beef jerky that Casey had ran off his nanoforge.

Another green mantid came in, started moving toward the computer, passed within a few feet of Addox and stopped. Its antenna lifted and it looked around, almost as if it was waking from a long sleep. It moved over next to another one of its kind.

"Food?" It asked.

"Is good," the one eating said. "Is turkey."

"Here, little guy," Addox said, holding out a piece of turkey. The little greenie took it and sat down next to its brethren.

"How's it look, Sergeant Addox?" Vuxten repeated.

"Pretty good. The phasic system is on its own dedicated systems, the software is all hard encoded, no way to patch it. It's different than the phasic systems used by the Confederacy to ensure no queen pops up and slams a hive-mind down on our Mantid allies and members," Addox said. Several little green servitors were in his lap and he was carefully petting them with one armored gauntlet. The ones on his lap had eaten more beef jerky and then gone to sleep. "If we want to disrupt it, we'll have to blow it in place."

"What about the active mantids? Any data on them?" Vuxten asked.

Addox nodded. "Three warrior caste are awake, pulled from cryostasis. That represents over half of the remaining warriors. No speakers, no queens, looks like most of the warriors and speakers were killed attacking the queens. There's about twenty active greenies, but the computer keeps sending them in here. There's only about fifty more in cryostasis. The remaining ones have largely succumbed to cryo-shock."

"How long?" Plunex asked.

"They've been down here for longer than anything I've ever seen. I'd say the Precursor War. They weren't hatched later. From the records 680 pulled, it looks like the computer would wake them up for emergencies it couldn't handle then refreeze them," Addox said. He gave a slight shudder. "They're the oldest living things I know of, frozen and thawed over and over for over a hundred million years."

"By the Digital Omnimessiah," Plunex said softly. "Talk about endless torment. May the Grave Bound Beauty comfort the damned."

Vuxten noticed that Casey was off to the side, doing something with a hologram projection. He shoved himself off of the chair and moved over to Casey.

"What are you doing, Sergeant Casey?" Vuxten asked.

Casey didn't look away from the hologram. "Back when I met Peak, oh, a hundred or so years back, she worked in psyops. Memetic Warfare Division," Casey said. He adjusted the colors slightly. "You've probably seen her handiwork a couple dozen times."

"OK," Vuxten said. The image was blurry to him, looked like it slightly overlapped itself over four columns.

"Well, explaining concepts to these guys is going to be difficult. We want to make sure they understand if they try to fight us, even if they overwhelm you and your people with their psychic power, Addox and I will rip them apart with our bare hands," Casey said. "Now, funny thing Peak taught me about memes is something I'm going to put to work."

Vuxten waited a moment. Finally, he tabbed up another piece of stimgum and sighed. "What's the weird thing, Sergeant?"

Casey shifted an image slightly. "OK, the more text on a meme, the less effective it is. Nobody wants to read your blathering manifesto, they want to look, laugh, and move on, or get the data quickly. The less words you use, the better. If you have a dual meme, they need to be on top of one another or side to side, instantly comparable, not 'turn over' or 'next page' crap," Casey said. He adjusted some of the lines again. "Now, a properly done image meme doesn't need text to convey its message. In some ways, the less words the more information you can have in the meme."

"What's the weird thing?" Vuxten repeated.

"A good, properly done meme, bypasses language and cultural barriers, even species barriers. We might not know anything about them, but there is a way to communicate, and that's memes," Casey said. "680 is talking to one through the computer, but the language drift and syntax morphology is damn near insurmountable outside of the computer. I want to make sure my meme works right and we don't have to fight these guys."

"So you're going to meme the warriors to death?" Vuxten asked.

"More like meme them to life," Casey said. He laughed. "There's an old classic song I could parody, right there."

"Think it'll work?" Vuxten asked.

"Might be a good idea to try this before we blow up the mountain, sir," Casey said, turning and giving a grin. "If it doesn't, I'm pretty sure we just blow the geothermal in place and ride out on a tsumani of lava."

"Hardy har har," Vuxten said, turning away. "Let me know when your magic meme is ready."

"I'll need a map of the facility, sir," Casey said, his voice distracted.

"Then I'll make sure you get it," Vuxten said.

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

General No'Drak moved into the situation room, putting a cigarette between his mandibles as he moved up to the holotank. He'd managed to get a good night's rest and a meal, but once again duty pulled him back.

The Precursors were largely defeated. Mopup was down to the infantry units. The tanks and strikers were largely cycled back for maintenance and crew relief.

Great Most High/General A'armo'o was requesting complete refit of his tanks. More than a refit, a "Service Life Extension" performed on them to bring them up to "parity or near-parity with Confederate allied military forces" that would require the least amount of retraining for his troops.

No'Drak considered it for a long moment. The decision was his, all the way to deciding if he wanted to offer a place in the Confederate military to the Lanaktallan soldiers.

It had proven highly effective in the case of the Warsteel Herd.

General No'Drak thumbed the approval button.

Next up was priority and No'Drak stared at it.

A list of template requests from that psycho Casey.

The most recent one was a recon drone with holoemitters calibrated for Mantid eyes. It had to be able to problem solve navigation issues, among other things, but didn't require a VI since his data bandwidth was low and depending on spooky particle boojums.

Oddly enough, there had also been a template request for turkey meat with Mantid vitamin additions as well as beef of the same kind.

General No'Drak frowned.

What are you up to? he asked.

Next up was notification that his request for a full Elven Court had been approved and was enroute from Telkan with an ETA of less than four days.

After that was meteorological reports on the damage all the atomic weapons and the Precursors had done to the ecosystem.

Well, at least there's going to be living people to worry about their ecosystem, No'Drak thought to himself as he settled in and began reading the reports.

Behind him, Second Most High Ge'ermo'o entered. He slaved his monitor to No'Drak's so he could see what decisions the General was making. No'Drak authorized it with a tap of his bladearm almost absently, noting the radiation levels in the sea water was far lower than initial projections.

Ge'ermo'o sat and watched the data Smokey 'No was looking over and contemplating why the Treana'ad officer made each decision he did.

He was a most observant officer, he was sure he could deduce, given time and information, each of General No'Drak's command decisions and the reasons behind them.

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

Cordexen opened his eyelids at the hissing noise. He looked at the door and saw the bright sparkle of a fusion torch cutting its way through the endosteel. It was a round half-circle, roughly the size of a russet servitor.

Cordexen reluctantly moved away from the air blowing through the vent and his fantasies of standing in a field of grass. He moved to his command chair and sat down, watching.

After a moment the metal fell to the floor. There was burst of mist and then the strangest thing rolled through the hole.

It had two tracks providing mobility. It was a large box with a row of infrared sensors with a pair of infrared projectors on each side to provide it with the ability to see. The little thing rolled into the middle of the room and shifted until it was facing him.

It suddenly played a little tune that Cordexen found pleasing. A mathematical arrangement of audible tones.

Suddenly a hologram flickered to life and Cordexen stared at it.

It was designed for his compound eyes to see clearly, the colors pleasing and well defined.

It was two columns of three pictures. Drawn, stylized pictures that made the subjects enjoyable to look at even if the colors were arranged in a slightly humorous fashion.

On the left it showed a warrior caste Mantid holding his rifle and pointing it at the door. The picture below showed bipeds and green servitors coming in and the warrior caste mantid shooting at them. The bottom picture showed the warrior caste mantid dead in the chair with little skulls for eyes and symbols of displeasure and sadness over the dead warrior.

On the right it showed the warrior mantid's rifle on the floor, the warrior mantid's arms and bladearms were lifted up. The one below showed the bipeds coming in and the warrior mantid holding a little stick with a square of white cloth on it and waving. The bottom picture showed the warrior mantid eating turkey with symbols indicating happiness around it.

They wish me to surrender or they will kill me, Cordexen thought. If I fight, they will kill me. They are familiar enough with my people to create this image. It can be clearly seen, the colors are pleasant, and the artistic style is stylized to be pleasing to me. They know my people and this message tells me that they will not only try to kill me if I resist, they know they can kill me.

He looked at the little robot and it played the tune again. This time the back opened and Cordexen flinched, expecting death to come from the little drone.

Instead it popped up a plas stick with a white cloth on it.

I would do anything just to see the sun once more, Cordexen thought.

He moved forward, picking up the flag from the little robot.

It made happy beeping noises.

The back slid open and steam billowed out. Cordexen jerked back reflexively. He could smell cooked meat, strange spices, and his sensitive antenna were almost overwhelmed by the first taste of something besides nutripaste he had sensed in lifetimes.

A cooked fowl raised up with a little triumphant tune.

"TuRkEy Is DeLiCiOuS" appeared above the little robot in maintenance runes. It turned and clattered away as Cordexen took his two prizes and returned to his command chair.

At the first bite Cordexen had admit the robot was right.

Turkey was delicious.