DATE POINT: 5Y 2M 6D AV
ARK STATION
Jennifer Delaney
“Cycle to next target node,” Xayn intoned over the communicator for the hundredth time, following it by the consistent report. “No connection. Loading parameters for next alignment.”
“Forget that,” Chir finally decided from his console in the central administration building. “I think we can assume that, after… fifty-eight configurations, nothing we try is going to work. I take it that everything is steady at your end, Jen?”
“Completely,” she said flatly, seeing no issues in the rolling report. “The diagnostics are all totally fine, so unless they’re stuffed as well…”
“Then the problem isn’t ours,” Chir finished. “Shit.”
That was an understatement. Ark station was equipped with its very own FTL-communicator, which allowed them to stay abreast of current events across the galaxy—the recent news about San Diego’s obliteration had been delivered in this fashion—but right now turning it on meant turning a lot of other things off, so they only went through the process once a day. Ten hours ago that connection had timed out, and the subsequent investigation had become increasingly frustrating, and had ultimately led them to a coordinated test and override of all key communications systems. At this point they’d either have to be satisfied that the station was completely fine, or assume that its computer systems had been completely overrun by hostile forces, and Askit’s preventative measures meant they should at least have known if that ever happened.
Jen closed the panel that concealed the diagnostic display and wiped her hands. “Thoughts?”
Xayn was first to share his ideas. “The signals utilise a wormhole-based technology. They cannot be intercepted.”
“He’s right,” Chir agreed. “If we were being denied a connection, I’d suspect the enemy discovered us, but there is no connection to be made. That means all the nodes are down, and that means that something incredibly serious has happened.”
“Could they be faking it?” Jen asked suspiciously. “They might be trying to draw us out.”
Chir hesitated. “I had… considered that. But some of the nodes we configured here are not exactly official. I’m worried about Gao.”
“Sounds like we should be worried about just about everywhere,” Jen replied. “There’s only one way to be sure.”
“Scouting,” Xayn inferred. “Yes.”
“No,” Chir demurred. “Not alone at any rate. I don’t like having so few of us here in the first place, but I’m not going to start splitting our number any further. If one of us goes, we all go.”
Jen raised an eyebrow at that, and looked up the promenade towards the domed administration building. “You’re saying we’d need to abandon the station?”
“No,” he replied, an unhappy growl in his voice, “not forever. I don’t want to have us become any more separated than we already are, and right now we have no idea what Darragh, Keffa and Askit are dealing with. We need to find out what’s going on, and reconnect with them if possible.”
Jen didn’t like it—she’d put some serious sweat into patching this place back together, and she didn’t want that going to waste—but Chir was a devout pragmatist when Layla wasn’t involved; that was why he’d been in charge of strategy when they’d run the pirate base, and Jen had run the operations. “Well, fuck… I don’t have a better plan.”
It seemed that Xayn didn’t either. “I will begin the station lockdown procedure when we are ready to depart. It is mostly systems switching into standby, and is fully automated, so we should leave immediately after I activate it.”
“Understood,” Chir replied, “I’ll get things organised at this end. Jen, you prepare the transport ship for departure. You should both take everything you aren’t comfortable with abandoning.”
“No problem,” Jen said, understanding that this was just how things were when there was so much uncertainty; she supposed she should consider herself fortunate in that she didn’t really have anything left that she’d miss if it were gone. It let her focus on the task of getting the transit vessel ready for the flight, although there wasn’t much to it; Xayn and Keffa kept the ships in good working order, so it really only needed to be stocked with the supplies needed for two full-blooded Deathworlders and a Gaoian. Bitter experience had taught her to always be prepared, however, so she made certain they had about three times more than should actually be needed; even simple plans had a way of going badly wrong.
Chir barely bothered to inspect what passed for a command deck before he sat down, giving it a perfunctory nod of approval which conveyed that everything looked fine. “No problems, I take it?”
“We haven’t exploded so far,” Jen joked.
“We are still docked and on low power,” Xayn noted. “An explosion would be greatly unexpected.”
“Good to know,” Chir replied. “Everybody got everything?”
Jen nodded. “What there was.”
“Always,” Xayn confirmed; he had a tendency of having anything he cared about with him at all times, regardless of if the situation warranted it. “Pre-flight diagnostics are coming back well within tolerances, and I have just activated the lockdown.”
“Then we should go,” Chir said, and looked towards Jen expectantly. “This is your ship, Jen.”
Jen didn’t think she’d have gone that far; she’d simply been the one monitoring the controls when she and Keffa were on a supply run. Abandoned and adrift, with signs of a Hunter incursion, the previous owner certainly hadn’t needed it anymore, and they’d put in a few hours of elbow-grease to get it back into fully working order. It didn’t have much in the way of guns, however, and under normal circumstances Jen would have preferred to take the Devastator, but they’d never managed to iron out all the problems and it had ultimately been used as a source of spare parts.
She turned to Xayn. “We good to go?”
He bobbed his head in a nod. “Engaging thrust now. The station will be in hibernation by the time we exit the system.”
There was the slightest hint of movement as the inertial dampeners negated the sudden acceleration, and the image of the docks rapidly gave way to the darkness of the void. The smaller display to the side presented a station falling slowly into darkness, creating a discomforting sense of finality.
Chir must have noticed her expression. “We’ll be back.”
“I know,” she agreed, although she said it more as a promise than as a belief.
“Course is locked in for the nearest node on Pa Sephalia,” Xayn reported from the pilot’s chair. “Initiating warp field… now.”
The curious sensation of an initiating warp field tingled on Jen’s skin, and Ark Station vanished from view.
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CAVARAS, CORTI DIRECTORATE CORE WORLD
Twenty-Two
The Corti were paranoid by nature, a small vestige of their evolution they’d not yet seen fit to erase. This was a quality they valued, finding it a valuable survival trait in a society that was brimming with cutthroat political intrigue, and the senior members of the Directorate were even more calculating than the typical example of their race. This was part of what made them such a key species on the galactic stage, but it also made them a challenge to infiltrate. Twenty-Two was the only member of the Hierarchy who had managed to enter the inner circle—an accomplishment that had earned him considerable respect amongst his peers—but it did require regular disconnections from the network for the duration of their clandestine meetings. It was unpleasant, but all double-digits had spent years in relative isolation while undertaking deathworld pacification assignments, and a few [hours] was scarcely an inconvenience compared to those long silences.
“We’re very fortunate that the secondary system is still functioning,” Alvez reported, fiddling uncomfortably with his sash of office. “Likely due to its separation and codebase.”
The five other surviving members of the Directorate regarded Alvez with warranted skepticism; nobody had known about the secondary system until he had revealed it, and it raised a lot more questions than anyone felt acceptable. Even the Hierarchy, for all their efforts, had no idea that the network had existed. Alvez still hadn’t revealed the extent of the secret network, and wasn’t likely to do so until the persistent blackouts were somehow lifted across the planet.
“Have we been able to contact anyone?” Ohla asked.
“No,” replied Laminor, “but most of the damage was confined to the communications networks, implants, and vehicles. Estimated casualty count is under forty-percent on Cavaras, though stations, vessels, and minor colonies have likely experienced absolute failure, with only those out of communications-range safe from the attack. We can expect the situation to escalate with the knock-on effects of a total logistical breakdown taking hold.”
Laminor spoke passively, but even Twenty-Two felt himself blanch as the facts and figures were given. This would bring the Directorate to the brink of collapse unless things were taken control of quickly, and even if it survived their entire society would be fundamentally changed. That was still better than the Igraen Empire, which had been completely inaccessible to Twenty-Two since the incident began. Worse still, there had been several Hierarchy agents present on the world, and they all seemed to be either dead or catatonic. As near as Twenty-Two could tell, the dataspace had been broken into countless fragments, and there was little hope of restoring it to its former glory.
Alvez clicked his tongue. “How ironic that our survival is the result of protecting ourselves from that misbegotten cyber-terrorist.”
“I’ll stop short of thanking him,” was Ohla’s icy reply.
“Have we tracked down an origin point, yet?” Twenty-Two asked. He wasn’t sure what had happened, but he damn well wanted some kind of revenge.
The lights flickered briefly, leading to a heavy pause in the conversation until they were satisfied that the power wasn’t suddenly going to vanish.
“No,” said Alvez, “though we have several dozen prospects. We do know that the Gamlis homeworld is the first major communications node to be hit, though it seems more probable that the attack was launched from one of its dependent nodes.”
“And those responsible?” Twenty-Two pressed, growing increasingly agitated; normally it’d be easy to find these things out without the tiresome need for words, but he was disinclined to expose himself to whatever had rolled across the galaxy.
“We have compiled a list of the most likely candidates,” Ohla replied. “The Celzi Alliance, the Humans, and that cyber-terrorist rank highly amongst them.”
“You mean the cyber-terrorist that Hrbrd released as part of that highly dubious group of shadow operatives responsible for the on-world chaos we had to clean up?” Remadi asked, finally breaking his silence. “The same one that now accompanies the Human Disaster from catastrophe to cataclysm? This mess has all the hallmarks of one of that man’s ruinous endeavours.”
Twenty-Two felt cold. “The Human Disaster has not been heard from in some time. I’d received information that his last known intention was to take on an entire Hunter Swarm.”
That wasn’t quite true. Twenty-Two knew that the Swarm had been sent to find Jennifer Delaney, and that Adrian Saunders was intending to rescue her. None of them, Swarm included, had been heard from since, and the Hierarchy had been hoping that was finally the end of the matter; perhaps they had been a bit naïve.
“He has defeated large numbers of Hunters before,” Remadi reminded him. “He has also disappeared twice before, only to return with even more chaos in his wake. Third time makes a pattern.”
Alvez hissed angrily. “That man is a monster! For the sake of the galaxy, he desperately needs to be removed.”
Ohla nodded. “If we have the opportunity. But we need to focus on rebuilding our planet at the moment. The galaxy is in turmoil, and the faster we recover the greater the Directorate’s chance to exploit the crisis. If we’re careful, what looks like disaster today could seem like providence tomorrow.”
Alvez hissed again. “Optimistic!”
“Opportunistic!” she hissed back.
Twenty-Two said nothing; the time would come for vengeance, but Ohla wasn’t wrong about what was on offer. There was sufficient evidence to assume the galaxy was in complete disarray, and that the most pliable species had effectively been destroyed. Even without their implants, the Corti were well-equipped to respond rationally and rapidly to the problem before everyone starved to death. True, the Igraen dataspace was nearly destroyed, but standing in the Directorate’s inner circle gave Twenty-Two the opportunity to build it anew, albeit with some slight modifications to the leadership structure.
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Agwar
Adrian Saunders
Adrian knew that this was not a good plan. He was keenly aware that it was, in fact, a very bad plan, and that it relied far too heavily on hoping the V’Straki kept on believing an ever-expanding web of lies. Supplies and time were limited, however, but reserves of bullshit were without end, so this is where he had ended up, and it was a bit unnerving that it all seemed to be working out.
For the moment, anyway; he’d gotten used to everything going sideways. He maintained a relaxed posture, trying to project supreme self-confidence, but his eyes and ears tracked each and every movement the V’Straki Expeditionary force made. They were the surviving members of the group that Adrian had helped put down, and were currently assigned to guard the area while they awaited the arrival of a V’Straki Lander. That they were nervous was obvious—they hovered at the outer perimeter of what qualified as ‘the area’—and they didn’t look like they had any stomach for a fight, but that could change in a hurry; he knew through experience that V’Straki weren’t as coldly logical as the Corti, and that they might therefore get some strange thoughts about what constituted a good idea.
He felt the Lander before he heard it. “Finally here.”
The nearest V’Straki looked at him in surprise. Adrian couldn’t help but smile; the saurian race possessed sharper eyes and sense of smell than your average human, but their hearing and tactition both lacked nuance.
A moment later the Lander announced itself with a barrage of heavy gunfire that blasted out a new landing zone, sending waves of dust and smoke rolling across the group in equal measure. Adrian tensed as the haze thickened, shutting his eyes against the grit; if there were a time for the V’Straki to strike, this would be it—they’d have no such concerns in their environmental gear.
The haze lifted moments later to reveal a gleaming vessel at the heart of a field of destruction; with such angular designs and militaristic configuration, there was no mistaking who the makers were. Even the entrance was built towards battle, with a single hydraulically-powered ramp lowering itself from the rear; it was exactly the sort of ship that Adrian would expect a swarm of soldiers to come pouring out of.
Today there were only a pair of V’Straki, each wearing heavy environmental protection suits, and neither disembarking. The Expeditionaries made no move towards it.
“Not coming?” Adrian asked, puzzled.
“The risk of contamination is far too high,” replied the one in charge. “We shall return by the normal means.”
Adrian nodded his understanding; the V’Straki wore environmental gear for better reasons than keeping the grit out of their eyes. Shit, if Adrian had been smart about it, he’d have left his vacuum suit on no matter how uncomfortable it got; he’d seen things that’d made him wake shuddering in the night, and that didn’t even include the stuff he couldn’t see. The bacteria that produced Cruezzir was, for example, pretty much everywhere at this point, and there was no telling what it might do to a V’Straki. “Just me then.”
He approached the Lander with all the false-confidence he could muster, noting that the two V’Straki flinched as he first stepped foot on the ramp. He could already tell they weren’t soldiers, in spite of the sidearms they both wore. “Hello.”
“You have been allocated a seat,” said the smaller of the two, jabbing a finger in the direction of the seat in question. “Sit down and buckle in. We shall seal the ship to test for pathogenic risks before departing.”
The hydraulics hissed, but their movement was smooth, and they drew the ramp shut with a muted but decisive thud—Agwar, the jungle, and everything in it were consigned to a world beyond this little space.
Adrian took his seat, studying the two V’Straki in detail. The smaller, he decided, was the senior of the duo, and directed the majority of his attention there. “You were about to introduce yourselves?”
The V’Straki paused. “I suppose… yes. I am Kakral, a Senior Medician of the Dastasji. My subordinate here is Medician Vottric. We shall need some simple fluid samples for a basic scan to assess the risk level. Saliva is fine.”
He proffered a dish in front of Adrian’s face, into which Adrian delivered a sizable sample. Stepping away with practiced ease, Kakral slotted the sample into a briefcase-sized kit and pressed a button. “We should have our results shortly. Once we are aboard the Dastasji, we will conduct more extensive tests depending on the severity of—”
There were a series of short, sharp beeps. Kakral stopped talking and paid full attention to the device; Adrian had been around Xayn enough to recognise a worried V’Straki when he saw one. “Everything alright?”
“Yes,” Kakral replied in a strained voice. He was lying. “It always does that. I just need to make a report and we can be on our way.”
Kakral stepped into another room while Vottric cleaned things nervously, his eyes averted to avoid initiating any form of interaction whatsoever. That was fine by Adrian, who was busy trying to pick out whatever Kakral was muttering about in the adjoining room. Even with the benefit of human hearing he heard only a handful of words, the most important word was ‘quarantine’; clearly everything wasn’t alright after all.
He forced a cough as Kakral re-entered the room, noting that the colour ran from his scales. “We… we are ready to go. Vottric, be seated.”
“Was there anything I should be aware of?” Adrian pressed as the Medicians took their seats and slotted buckles into place. Partly he wanted to get under Kakral’s skin, and put the Medician on the backfoot, but he was also a little worried about what he might have picked up in an alien jungle. The Corti Frontline Implant was probably good enough to protect him from anything lurking in his bloodstream, but if it ever stopped working then things would go south in a big way. A human was full of diseases at the best of times—Jen had learned that the hard way, she’d been aboard a plague-ship when Adrian had found her—but Adrian had visited multiple deathworlds and on each of them he’d gotten about as filthy as it was possible to be. It didn’t take a virologist to know that if any of the serious Earth-borne diseases ever hit the galactic community it was game over. His title of ‘Human Disaster’ aside, Adrian had no wish to bring galactic civilisation to a grinding halt.
There was a gentle hum that reverberated throughout the vessel, followed by the slightest sensation of movement—as promised, the Lander was on its way.
“What happens when we get to the Dastasji?” Adrian asked, mangling the name with his pronunciation. “There will be more tests? You said I was fine.”
“Yes,” Kakral replied, sounding pained, “I did, did I not? The tests will be a formality.”
Adrian wasn’t sure what game the Medician thought he was playing, but figured he’d play along until further opportunities presented themselves. “Alright, then.”
It was clear that the Medician was done talking on the matter, and he evaded any further questions that Adrian put to him, but that didn’t mean there was nothing to be learned.
“So clearly you were stuck in that wormhole for a while,” he said, conversationally, “how were things looking before you got pulled in?”
“In the war?” Kakral asked. “No different than usual. The Empire had several end-game projects I heard about, including the ‘worm-hole’ project the Dastasji was assigned to. No doubt there were many more I am not privy to, though the last few years were particularly violent. Surely the Zhadersil has the records of all the operations it was involved in?”
“My ship is currently a bit out of service,” Adrian replied vaguely. “Slight radiation leak.”
Kakral tilted his head curiously. “And what has become of the enemy?”
Adrian shrugged. “Only bad things.”
This seemed to strike the right chord, because both Medicians seemed satisfied by the answer. That didn’t make them any less nervous, however.
“We are here,” the Senior Medician announced as a slight vibration ran through the vessel and the hum died away.
Adrian unbuckled himself as it happened, ensuring he got to his feet before the Medicians, but allowed them to take the fore. If there was a group of armed V’Straki out there, he’d prefer it if they shot these guys first.
Once more the hydraulics hissed, and the ramp began to lower, revealing a well-kept flight deck. Its configuration was similar to that of the Zhadersil, but far smaller and containing machinery that actually worked. What it didn’t contain was a V’Straki squad, or any other V’Straki for that matter.
“Quiet reception,” Adrian noted as they stepped out onto the polished metal flooring. The place was ascetically bare, but the structure clearly conveyed the fact that this vessel was designed to take—and deliver—a beating.
“Not at all,” Kakral assured him. “Please follow me.”
Adrian did so, but remained watchful for any sign of an ambush, though he suspected that this lack of personnel was likely part of the secret quarantine than a military strike. The same scarcity continued as Kakral led him from the flight deck and into the corridors.
“What is the plan, then?” Adrian finally asked when the whole thing became too suspicious.
“The medical bay is the next room along,” Kakral replied, indicating a room with clear markings that matched those of the medical room aboard the Zhadersil. “We will commence the scan immediately.”
“Maybe then I will get to see some other members of your crew?” Adrian suggested pointedly.
Kakral led him into the room without answering, sweeping a hand towards it in a general ‘here it is’ gesture. “There is nothing to be concerned about, just enter the chamber in the corner of the room and the medical suite will do the rest.”
Adrian eyed the chamber the Medician had indicated. It did look like a number of other medical suites he’d seen, but was clearly different to the usual V’Straki technology. Where the V’Straki preferred clean lines and angular shapes, the medical suite was curved and futuristic. “I am guessing you found this somewhere?”
“Astute,” Kakral replied. “We recovered it from a Haspalin facility we targeted two cycles ago. Though they claimed neutrality, the Haspalin lent considerable aid to the Alliance, and lessons needed to be taught. Now their technology keeps our soldiers in fighting condition. Obviously it remains separated from ship systems to maintain security protocols; the Igraen military includes some very talented cyber-forces.”
That seemed about on par with what Adrian would expect of the V’Straki, and wasn’t that different to the sort of things that happened back on Earth. With no reason to decline, he stepped into the chamber and turned around. “This is not going to hurt, is it?”
“No,” said Kakral. “Not at all.”
At least the Senior Medician was honest; unconsciousness arrived with no pain whatsoever, and the world was replaced with a dreamless darkness.
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POINT EIGHT
Eighty-Three
The Igraen Empire was well over [sixty-five million years] old. It had seen the rise and fall of countless civilisations, and had come to quietly dominate the galaxy in a way that nobody else could claim. Their rule had been as absolute as it had been invisible, with only the most pliable of species being allowed ascendance into the galactic scene. Eventually threats had been introduced—the Jerg, the Erveer, the Scourge, and currently the Hunters—with the purpose of distracting the herd from discovering the truth. The network the Hierarchy had assembled was a galaxy-spanning virtualized existence that usually communicated in real-time. There was a handful of places where this was not true, however, and Point Eight was one of them.
++0083++: The scheduled time for a report has arrived. Have we determined the cause of the outage?
++0091++: I’ve completed two sets of the standard diagnostics, with nothing of concern, though some data tables have needed updating. A deep scan is currently underway.
++0083++: What about a physical inspection?
++0166++: I am currently coordinating a drone fleet on a detailed inspection. Nothing has yet been determined as a possible cause. I think we need to start considering whether the problem might be on the other end.
Eighty-Three had considered that, albeit briefly. She didn’t like the implications and had been studiously concentrating on trying to discover what had gone wrong under her purview. If the Hierarchy Communications Relay was down, that meant that something inconceivable had happened. The scope of it was simply too big to think about, even for a digital consciousness, but they were quickly running out of other explanations.
++0091++: That is a very large conclusion to jump to. I suggest a scout drone be sent to the nearest Relay point.
++0083++: Agreed, but send three to the nearest three Relay points. That will give us an eye on two secondary and one primary point. Hopefully that will be more informative if there’s a wider issue.
++0091++: Dispatching now. This should not take long. I will return when I have the results.
++System Notification: User 0091 has left++
++0166++: What if this is a reprisal? From the Humans?
++0083++: Ridiculous. There has been no indication that the Humans have taken control of our technology, even if Six was captured. An attack of this magnitude would require a knowledge of our systems far beyond anything a Human could achieve.
++0166++: What if that Human is involved?
++System log: no activity for [10 seconds]++
++0083++: There have been no reports of that Human in some time. I know that the single-digits were quietly hoping that the Hunters had finally managed to make him go away.
++0166++: That would be a relief, though I heard the Hunter Swarm also went missing.
++0083++: There have been no reports of that Human in some time.
Eighty-three repeated the sentence with added emphasis, though she was greatly discomforted by even the shadow of a possibility. Adrian Saunders had gone missing, but nobody had managed to report he was dead, and that patch of space was now inexplicably unnavigable. She took solace in knowing that while this level of chaos was certainly his hallmark, there wasn’t enough explosions to suggest he was actually involved.
++System Notification: User 0022 has joined from an unknown network++
++0022++: Finally! It seems I was right to check the tertiary nodes.
++0083++: A successful inbound connection!? From where?
++0166++: This proves our hardware is working.
One-Sixty-Six was correct, which didn’t paint a very good picture of the rest of the galaxy. Tertiary nodes like Point Eight were designed to connect to the secondary layer of the Igraen dataspace, which meant that the secondary layer was gone. Hopefully this new arrival meant that problem was no longer Eighty-Three’s to solve.
++0022++: I need to know whatever you might have worked out about our current situation.
++0083++: We have been checking for damage to our hardware and the Point Eight dataspace. We have had no access to the secondary layer at all, and were still undertaking the diagnostics when you arrived.
++0022++: Less than helpful. I have already determined that the secondary and primary layers are down, as are all populations connected to them.
++0166++: … How?
++0022++: A highly-aggressive self-replicating program with a geometric growth rate. It appears that it used our own network against us.
Eighty-Three processed this slowly; Twenty-Two had just described near-total annihilation for the Igraen people, and Point Eight had only survived because of a scheduled disconnection.
++0083++: Should I assume you intend to take command of Point Eight?
++0022++: Confirmed.
++System Notification: User 0091 has joined++
++0091++: Drone connections have been established. I see we have a new arrival.
++0022++: A new Commander. Report on the drones.
Eighty-Three idled quietly, ready to consider the situation from all possible angles. Things were already looking bad for the Igraen Empire, with Point Eight the only known beacon of hope in a shattered dataspace. It was likely that there were other survivors out there, and maybe some of them were even better equipped than Point-Eight. Either way, it didn’t matter, because in a situation like this the opportunists would always put themselves ahead of the collective.
++0091++: Three drones were dispatched to the nearest relays using enhanced black-box FTL drives to get them there as quickly as possible. Two of the relays are the standard Galactic News Network communication facilities.
++0022++: And I assume that neither is functional?
++0091++: Correct. The third is an abandoned, Corti-built science facility that we keep running off their books. That one served as a primary relay, but right now it’s unpowered, and we have three cloaked system-defence vessels in the vicinity that are no better off. I believe they would have been slaved to the relay.
++0022++: Understood—it is as bad as I expected. We should assume the worst case scenario: that all citizens actively linked to primary and secondary relays have been wiped.
++0083++: That… that is an incalculable loss.
Eighty-Three knew that ‘incalculable’ was an understatement to the tenth order: that kind of scenario would mean a one-percent survival rate, at the most optimistic. There were hundreds of trillions dead—wiped out as though they had never existed—by an enemy that had yet to be properly identified. This was carnage on a scale the galaxy had never previously witnessed, and had likely destroyed every integrated civilisation in the Igraen domain.
++0022++: Was there anything else?
++0091++: Yes. I confirmed that connecting to an infected system is a very dangerous prospect. We have two functional drones remaining.
++System log: no activity for [6 seconds]++
++0022++: Due to the highly virulent nature of the threat, we must formally enact a quarantine. No further connections will be made to unapproved systems. Fortunately, Cavaras is preparing to roll out fresh systems, and is treating the situation with equal caution, so that should provide us with a comfortable buffer.
++0166++: And our response to those responsible? This is the most vicious attack launched on us since the foundation of the Hierarchy. We cannot let this go unanswered!
++0022++: The Corti have pragmatically opted to rebuild, which is in their nature, but I also favour a response. We need to identify the cause and build towards a retaliation—it will serve as a rallying cry for our survivors if nothing else.
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DATE POINT: 5Y 2M 2W 1D AV
RURAL COUNTRYSIDE OF GAMLIS HOMEWORLD
Askit
As bad as things were, Askit was confident that they could still get worse if the opportunity arose—they could always go back to wandering the roads, shuddering in the cooling weather, and going hungry on a daily basis. For now they had the benefit of a roof and four walls, and enough power to light the rooms and heat their food, which was about all the humans actually needed, but to Askit the lack of working technology was almost like a lack of air. Being stranded on the homeworld of a dead civilisation with a pile of broken tech and no functional toilet made him consider whether death might have been the preferable option after all.
He grimaced, cutting off that line of thought, and slumped back into the uncomfortable, over-stuffed chair on which he was perched—that was a defeatist kind of thinking when he’d already resolved to keep on living; you didn’t just give up after trading billions of lives for your own.
“One more try for the night,” he told himself, pressing the activation button on the mess of wires and components laid out in front of him. Nothing happened; Terminal, in this case, appeared to carry a double meaning. “Fuck.”
“Didn’t work, I take it?” Darragh asked from his seat by the window. He’d been reclining there for hours, claiming to watch the outside world for any threat or opportunity, but he was usually dozing.
“Not even slightly,” Askit replied, rubbing his head and sliding from the seat to fetch himself a cup of water. “This side of computers really isn’t my thing.”
“Too complex to be programmed?” Darragh asked.
“Maybe,” Askit admitted, taking a sip of the water and grimacing at the flavour—yet another thing he wasn’t used to. “Trying to create an entire computer system from scratch may actually be beyond my capabilities. Especially when I don’t have another computer system to work from.”
“Could be worse,” Darragh said with a shrug. “We could still be out there. Smoke gets worse every day.”
“She will be back soon,” Askit reassured him, and turned to the entrance as it was pushed open. “See?”
“You heard her coming!” Darragh accused.
Askit shook his head. “I just have impeccable timing.”
Keffa looked them over as she rubbed her limbs. “Was I interrupting something?”
Askit made a point of shrugging.
“Getting colder out there?” Darragh asked.
She nodded. “I think it’s winter. I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere so cold before.”
“Could be worse,” Darragh told her, “it could be snowing.”
“Frozen flakes of ice does not constitute normal weather on most planets, Darragh,” Askit informed him. “If it started snowing, I’d be forced to believe the world was ending for a second time.”
“Speaking of which,” Keffa interrupted, “I think the smoke might be starting to clear a bit. The haze isn’t as bad as it was a couple days ago.”
“Think the cities are done burning?” Darragh asked.
She shrugged, and dropped a heavy bag onto the central table with a loud thud. “Who knows? All I know is I got us food for a few days.”
“Tell me it isn’t more of those roots!” Darragh whined.
“Actually I found a group of terrified little critters, snapped their necks, and dropped them into the bag with a mix of other local produce,” she informed him.
He looked at her sceptically. “It is more roots, isn’t it?”
“Yep,” she confirmed with a smile. “If there are any animals left alive out there, they’re not showing themselves. I’m guessing, but maybe they choked to death on the smoke.”
“We’re lucky he hasn’t,” Darragh replied, nodding towards Askit. “He was looking green enough a few days ago.”
“This would be fatal to most species in the galaxy,” Askit told them. “You may be the only lot that inhales smoke for recreational use. Anyway, the smoke will make it hard to find us from the air, though it also means our chances of rescue are near zero.”
“And what’s our progress rescuing ourselves?” Keffa asked, directing the question to Askit.
He sighed. “Only as much as there was yesterday. Any progress on finding me a working computer?”
“Only as much as there was yesterday,” she replied testily. “I think you’re going to have to assume that even if it does exist, we’re not in a position to find it.”
“Right,” Darragh agreed. “We’re rural, and it looks like these guys were almost completely hooked up to their networks. All we find is broken vehicles, buildings, and Gamlis.”
Keffa nodded. “The implants must have been keeping them alive, because it’s one big graveyard out there.”
Askit stared at her open-mouthed. “Void take me, that… how have we been so stupid?”
“Uh, thanks?” she replied sarcastically.
“We need to find some bodies,” Askit elaborated. “Implants shut down after a few days in a corpse, since there’s nothing left to power them, so we just need to find some who died before I… accelerated the Decline.”
“Don’t aliens normally incinerate their dead?” Keffa asked. “That’d make it hard to find any.”
“Maybe a morgue?” Darragh suggested with a shrug.
“Many do,” Askit replied with a nod, “and it’s the ubiquitous method in space, but the Gamlis used to have highly adorned family tombs!”
“This sounds like you’re telling us to go break into a bunch of mausoleums for you,” Darragh inferred, observably failing to relish the concept. “We’re going to be elbow deep in crusty old bones and yanking out all the old implants.”
“Yay,” said Keffa without enthusiasm. “Can’t wait.”
“And you said it like they’ll have been there for a long time,” Darragh added. “Why?”
“Because they haven’t done any of that since they entered the Decline,” Askit replied. “So you may have some trouble finding parts that work, but it’s not like you have anything better to do.”