First Contact

Chapter 953: The Setting Sun

Oftr'kaj knew there was no sense in screaming as his body sprinted toward the low wall, suddenly laying down as he was moving so he slid on one leg and buttock, the other leg sticking straight out so his foot, clad in a heavy boot, led the way. When he reached the wall he bent his knee and hock so he ended up crouched down behind the low wall.

Lasers snapped over his head, missing him completely, before dropping down and hissing against the wall.

"Aych-Vee, Ay-Pee-Eye," his voice said.

"HV-API," the rifle replied, showing the Terror runes along the side on a small data display.

The Terror, Oftr'kaj himself, lifted the barrel of the weapon over the edge of the wall, holding it one handed.

Oftr'kaj knew now that the bars attached to the armor increased his strength to "Terror One Gee Normal", so that lifting the rifle one handed was trivial.

Windows opened up in Oftr'kaj vision and he suddenly knew*, because the Terror had known, that the soft bead that had been injected into the corner of each eye allowed data from the weapon to be displayed in his own vision by something called a retinal link. To top it off, he now knew that the injections in his palms and arms and pectorals had created something called* smart wires*, which ran the data from the weapons to his retinal link.*

One window showed two of the robots maneuvering, trying to get behind cover. The Terror grabbed the forward grip, unfolding it, and shifted his other hand to the pistol grip. He held it over his hand, using the picture in the window to walk his shots in.

Watching, Oftr'kaj realized that the little dot showed where the projectile would hit.

Kinetic rounds were obsolete, everyone knew that.

The Terror seemed to believe differently, and Oftr'kaj watched in surprise as the projectiles blew hunks of armor off of the robots and left behind burning white cores.

Both robots collapsed in just as many seconds.

The rifle panned twice, then Oftr'kaj grabbed the edge of the low wall and heaved himself up, clearing the wall in a smooth motion that had him land on the ground on one foot to push off into a run before his other foot touched the ground.

He didn't want to go after the robots, didn't want to chase them, but he knew that if he did not, the robots would build more and more and more until they built a great starship that would then begin destroying everything it found in the name of conserving all the natural resources for itself.

A small snake, no longer than Oftr'kaj's forearm, reared up.

He kicked it as he went by, the smashed head breaking free and sailing away.

Oftr'kaj was a scientist and an engineer first, everything else second, and he found himself analyzing what his body was doing. From the movement, to the way the Terror Reflexes had him hyperventilating, pulling in oxygen as fast as possible, to the way the Terror would snap the head around quickly, getting a 135 degree angle view in a second. The way the Terror kept a running map of the surroundings, including possible ways the robots might have gone, safe routes, where cover was, where concealment was.

The sheer amount of on-the-move data his brain was now processing was amazing to Oftr'kaj. The shot had rewired his reflexes, altered his neural plasticity, repurposed dormant or unused cerebral constructs for its own purposes.

The emotional centers were running different.

He was angry. Furious. Absolutely livid. But instead of screeching or yowling or wasting his time throwing things, the Terror squeezed it all into a mass, until it was a cold clear crystal of pure rage, that was then wrapped up in anger.

He was cold and focused at the core, enraged on the outside.

His Flight or Submit Reflex had been rewired, and was now being used to dump chemicals into his system. Painkillers from The Bliss, strength and reflex enhancers from Flight, wrapped up in aggression that stemmed from the injection.

He decided he would call it Aggress, which meant he now how Submit, Flight, Aggress in his reflexes.

While he was thinking, analyzing, the Terror was using his body to grab the tail of a robotic snake and use it to beat the others into junk, swinging it around and laughing as he did so.

A robot popped out from behind a vehicle, firing a particle projection ejector. The Terror moved, shifting, changing position even as the robot stepped out. The particle beam missed by a handspan but still Oftr'kaj felt his whole side go numb.

The Terror didn't care, forcing the muscles to move on sheer willpower, throwing Oftr'kaj into a clumsy roll, coming back up on one knee and firing the rifle, the projectiles ripping the robot into pieces.

Oftr'kaj thought about what had just happened. Let the Terror run the body, run all those reflexes, he was happy in this part of his brain.

The Terror had reacted to the shadow moving, had predicted what it was, took evasive action even as his brain had already identified the nearest cover. When the robot had stepped out, the Terror part of his brain had immediately identified the firing arc of the weapons, how the main body was angled on top of the two legs that only had a single rear facing knee and an ankle, the fact it didn't have arms, and that the sensory strip was a T shape in the middle of the forward part of the body/head. The Terror had immediately classified that as a possible weak point, as well as the inside of the rear facing knees and the ankles.

It wasn't exactly thought.

It was instinct.

Oftr'kaj wondered what kind of creature the Terror was that those were ingrained reflexes.

He suddenly knew.

Training. Endless hours of training. Movement and firing, vehicle and robot identification, survival training, all that and more.

All distilled down into a little injection that he had slammed into his chest.

With a bit of shock, Oftr'kaj realized that the Terror riding inside of his mind was not a warrior caste. Well, perhaps socially/culturally, but not biologically.

He was just like all the other Terrors when he had volunteered to be in the military. It was training, robotic implants, equipment, and physical conditioning.

That chilled Oftr'kaj.

Every other martial culture of any success had carefully bred a warrior caste, the pinnacle of their biology, to fight for the rest of the species.

The Terror was just like any other Terror before he started training.

Oftr'kaj thought over the permutations of that simple realization.

He suddenly understood why research teams never found any other biological castes. Only what was long accepted as the warrior caste.

Because they all had the ability to be warrior caste.

Another argument was that the majority of the Terror's industry and domestic product had to be dedicated to maintaining the vast amount of biological warrior caste. That perhaps industrial and economical collapse is what had led to the fall of the Terror, as more and more resources were devoted. After all, they would have to have hundreds of thousands, millions of warrior caste available at any time.

Now Oftr'kaj knew that it was as simple as having their warriors just leave the military and do another job. Switching between castes and lives.

He suddenly knew the Terror that was riding him was a 'hypercom wave superluminal array tuning specialist' before he was military.

Oftr'kaj thought about that. There was no superluminal communication. It was impossible.

The data flowed through his mind. Memories of working on vast arrays, balancing energy input with signal output, ensuring the delicate frequencies didn't overlap.

He wished he had the knowledge, not just the memories of performing the tasks.

BUT, he now knew that superluminal communication was actually possible!

If he ever got out of this, alive and intact, he had gained more knowledge having the Terror ride him like a beast of burden than he had gotten from Terror relic sites in decades of careful examination.

As his own body slammed a shoulder into a large robot, body checking it into the side of a grav-lifter hard enough the endosteel collapsed and the grav-lifter flipped over, the robot falling to the ground, sparking and leaking fluid, entirely crushed, Oftr'kaj realized something...

...he might get out of it alive.

Of course, there was just the minor issue of the Terror inside his brain. - video archive evidence, Incident 917167HG812, Xeno-Archeology Division, 1,872 Current Era

Senior Superior Agent Tilk'yanp turned off the video, taken from a download of the suit logs of that strange armor Oftr'kaj had been picked up while wearing, the logs from the archeological dig site, and the site management and reclamation facility. She turned to Senior Minor Agent Urtr'ekip and made a slow motion of disbelief.

"Four hours," she said. "Four hours after that injection and Scientist Second Class Oftr'kaj had destroyed seventy-eight reanimated robots, sixteen vehicles, and then topped it off with taking two hours to blow up the archeological site."

"He claims it wasn't him. That it was a Terror that took over his body," Agent Urtr'ekip said, making a motion of dismissal. "We have him in video taking the injection and then going on a violent rampage."

Tilk'yanp reached out and tapped the holo-emitter. "I've consulted with warrior caste with experience in combat, asking their opinions on the recordings of Oftr'kaj's actions."

She was silent for a moment.

"What did they say?" Urtr'ekip asked.

She gave a slow motion and noise of frustration. "They refused to believe the validity of the recordings at first, then doubted it was a simple science and engineering caste member of our species that was performing all of those actions," she made the noise again. "Once they were convinced, that was when they became suddenly very interested in the video evidence."

"Could any of them do what we saw Oftr'kaj do in the video?" Urtr'ekip asked.

Tilk'yanp shook her head. "No. Every military caste I talked to stated that the performance levels, thought to action time, reflex speed, all of it was off the charts."

"Do you believe him that the injection put a Terror in his brain?" Urtr'ekip asked.

Tilk'yanp thought for a long moment then made a motion of assent. "I'm starting to," she said. She tapped a few keys on the holographic keyboard, bringing up another video.

On it, Oftr'kaj was doing exercises. Holding his arms around straight and moving his hands in small circles. Push ups, situps, holding his arm out straight, back straight, lowering himself to as low as he could go and standing back up. Running in place. Jumping up and down, extending out his arms and legs.

"He does three hundred of each of those exercises a day," Tilk'yanp said. "Medical scans show a radical increase in muscle tone, endurance, and recovery," she turned to the male agent. "Most of those exercises are nothing like our warrior caste has ever seen."

"Where did he learn them?" the male agent asked.

"The Terror in his head? Who knows," the female said.

"He's not warrior caste, so why bother?" the male asked. "The warriors are the pinnacle of war fighting and combat biology."

She tapped a few keys on the holo-emitter. "Have you seen what happened a few days ago when some of the guards, on loan from the Way of the Means Military Guard, got abusive with him?"

Urtr'ekip shook his head. "No."

She touched the player.

[END INTERVIEW]

[THIS INFORMATION IS CLASSIFIED AND NOT FOR DISSEMINATION]

[SESSION CLOSING]

[HAVE A NICE DAY]

[END FILE] - Archive Record TL120348XL, Xeno-Archeological Administration, recorded 1,873 Current Era

Oftr'kaj shuffled down the corridor, heading back to his holding cell. The leg manacles kept him from moving his feet too far, the collar kept him from straightening up all the way, he had to keep his elbows bent and his wrists just above the leather belt to keep the chain from choking him.

His thoughts were crystal clear, going over the interview, dissecting it, examining it, analyzing it.

Oftr'kaj and the Terror in his head were more than separate now. They were one whole.

Oftr'kaj knew the Utopiate Serum should have washed out of his system, but he was only an 85% match, and apparently something in the 15% kept his body and mind from washing away the Terror.

That was OK. That just meant that Oftr'kaj had someone to talk to in a weird way.

If he wrote with his left hand, his right hand would answer and sometimes even ask questions.

One of the guards shoved him.

"Hurry up," the guard said, following it up with a degrading phrase.

The other one shoved him. "Eyes straight," that one said.

The one behind him shoved him. "Faster."

Before Oftr'kaj could stop it, his mouth opened up.

"Touch me again and you'll go home in box, anus sucker," he said.

Oftr'kaj felt his balance shift, his center of balance alter, as he flexed his hocks and knees very slightly. That cold crystal clear core of rage burst into flame.

His brain knew the exact span and movement range of his bindings. He could see the shadows in front of him telling him exactly how the four warrior caste were standing, where their limbs were, where the shock prods were. The light yellow-blue shine on the paint said the shock prods were at low power.

The shadow behind him raised its arm up.

Oftr'kaj suddenly turned*, spinning on the heel and toes of his feet, an instant one-eighty, even as he took a step forward, then his left leg went out in a half-step, putting his foot between the legs of the rear guard.*

The shock-baton was entirely behind him, the guard's elbow slamming into the suddenly tensed shoulder.

It gave a crackling sound. The guard started to scream, letting go of the shock prod as the force of the swing was suddenly transferred to their elbow with Oftr'kaj's shoulder acting as a fulcrum.

Oftr'kaj was already moving, falling, twisting in mid-air, tangling the legs of the guard, bringing them down even as he yanked his feet back, knees up to his chin.

Oftr'kaj kicked out, heels hitting the guard in the face. The flaceplate shattered and he kicked again, slamming the broken pieces of the faceplate into the guard's flesh. The shock ran up his body and dumped excitement chemicals into his bloodstream.

The guard started screaming.

His face didn't ache anymore when he made that Terror grimace of pleasure.

He rolled left, dodging the stunstick, then back on top of it, yanking it from the grasp of the guard even as the other one missed and slammed into the floor. Another kick, twist, and roll, two rapid fire kicks with both feet, knees spread when he brought his legs up, almost straight when he slammed his feet into the guard's stomach then face. The faceshield shattered and he kicked again.

Three kicks before the other guard even lifted their baton up from where it had shattered against the floor.

He got to his feet in a simple fluid motion.

The other two guards looked at him, one staring at their shattered shock baton.

Lightning coursed down his arms, purple and red. It hit the chains and arced across the metal links.

The chain snapped when Oftr'kaj gave a convulsive yank.

"Prisoner is..." one guard yelled.

Stiffened fingers drove just under the helmet, into a small gap in the collar, collapsing the windpipe. The guard went down on their knees, gagging and choking.

The last one, the one who had started it, started to get into a hand to hand combat stance.

Oftr'kaj stepped forward, the chain between his feet snapping in a spray of purple sparks, and drove his knee into the guard's midsection. The flexible armor collapsed and Oftr'kaj felt something rip and tear inside the guard's torso as they bent forward.

A chop with the edge of the hand to the suddenly exposed back of the neck was reward with a crunching sound and the guard went down, face first, one leg kicking.

The hallway stunk of urine, feces, and the faint smell of blood.

Oftr'kaj looked down at the one who started it.

He said one phrase.

The two agents had to look it up in a translator. Even then it didn't quite make sense and they had to estimate from context.

"[Crude euphemism for sexual intercourse] around, find out."

[END FILE] - Archive Record TL120348XL - ADDENUM 17R, Xeno-Archeological Administration, recorded 1,873 Current Era

Nakteti stared at the shields that surrounded the It Tastes Sweet, admiring the runic pattern the shields made. They were plainly visible, as if they were under fire. They were draining, but nothing that the reactors couldn't handle.

She had checked the scanners repeatedly. The long range, short range, even the precision ones used for SAR.

There was nothing out there.

No stars. No faint dusting of a nebula. No galaxies.

It was just dark.

It was so empty that her shields had noticed the photon, nearly out of energy, streak by.

For an unknown amount of time that was the only particle her ship's scanners had seen that had not emitted from her own ship.

Even time had been ground down by entropy.

Compared to what was out there, her own ship was the equivalent of a white dwarf. Photons, protons, electrons, neutrons, even matter was streaming off her vessel.

Her own sensors could watch the matter break down into its component atoms and then the atoms start to break apart within minutes, according to the shielded and secured mechanical wind-up clock that was on the bridge.

She steered with one hand.

The hand with the black rune on it.

Other than that, she felt very still.

It felt to her like her ship knew which way to go.

The reality matrix collapsar engines made the sound of something shaking a tin box of glass shards. They didn't exactly vibrate the ship, but that was the closest concept that Nakteti had to what the sensation was.

Finally there was a ping.

Her sensors had found something.

A tear. A rip.

Psuedo-matter was leaking through it. Not much, in a stellar sense, certainly it wasn't a large tear compared to an empty universe that no longer had the pressure to expand or the mass to cause gravity to collapse it.

But it was still magnitudes larger than the Sweet.

She piloted toward it without thinking, the rune on her hand sparkling.

The Sweet slipped through the gap and was gone.

It left behind more energy, matter, and particles than had existed in the universe for over a million years.

Enough to cause a tiny smidge of gravity.

The borders started to retract, and the universe began to slowly slide up and out.

The bright spark, far above it, began to sink, attracted by it.

The emptiness sighed.

The spark giggled.

Nakteti knew none of it.

She was laying on the floor of the bridge of the Sweet, staring at the hash on the viewscreen. Magnus and Surscee were picking themselves up off the floor.

"Sensor data is hashed. Give the adaptive polymorphic self-correcting systems time to figure it all out," Magnus said. He sat down on the chair. "Those last few have been weird."

Surscee nodded. "Such sights we have seen on these untraveled roads."

Nakteti pushed herself up, climbing into the captain's chair.

"We're almost there," she said.