Chapter 25: Before the Storm

TheOther was injured. The wounds he received from the relentless attacks of these smaller Y’All versions were too deep and too severe for his incredible healing abilities to cope with.

He regretted the fact that he opted to forego the AutoDoc adjustment, Cateria recommended for months now.

The original factory-issued unit, requested a species update because this amazing piece of Union technology was deploying medical nanites and his own bodies defense mechanisms fought the nanites and neutralized them. Cateria and Circuit had developed new ways and new nanites that were specifically designed to cope with that, he had kept postponing it because he always argued he was a Y’All and could restore and regenerate on his own.

If he ever saw Cateria again, he would apologize and follow all her medical advice.

His face was not designed to display any emotions, but if he could he would have smiled.

All his instincts told him to fight, fight until he ceased to exist. This is what Y’All did, relentless and unerring, just as he killed the last of these small brethren in this section of service corridor. He heard the clamor and screeching of many more coming his way. A similar noise came from the other direction.

Oh, what would the Captain do? She probably was the most Y’All of all humans. Just as relentless and unstoppable.

His mind urged him to meet them head-on, this was the Y’All way.

He stopped as he noticed a circular metal cover right before him. Most likely access to some kind of system.

Y’All did not hide, but a free Union officer was able to assess all his options.

Even for his titanic strength augmented by the Atlas suit, everything here appeared to have been built with Y’All in mind.

The thick metal disc had been secured with sturdy clasps. Instead of ripping it open, he took a second to examine the mechanism.

His friend Estree, or as he was known all over the ship Mr.Warner was minute and weak in terms of body strength, but that little Holdian was a hell of an engineer and taught him a few things. Instead of going by it the Y’All way, he did what Estree would do.

And there it was, hidden under an almost invisible panel, a simple button. It would have taken the strength of five Y’All to open that heavy cover, all it took was a different approach.

He pressed the closing button, jumped in and a heartbeat later the lid closed over him.

TheOther could hear his enemies clamor over the metal cover, screeching and yelling. From the sound of it, they even started to fight their own kind. The ones coming from the other direction, before they realized he was gone.

At first, he wondered why he could hear them. The metal was too thick for any sound, but as he looked around in the near dark space he was in, he noticed light shining through a small grid covered opening. It was very small, too small for even Warner but as he moved over and looked up, he could actually see clawed feet milling around.

A harsh voice yelled.

“It is not here! The Drone will fight us till the end. It must be somewhere. Make more noise.”

Another one yelled back.

“You let him slip past you!”

Accusations were yelled back and forth and then they dispersed. Not one of them even considered examining the floor.

Yes, these new Y’All were inferior in strength and size, but they acted like the full-size brutes. It wasn’t TKUs or Translocators that defeated them back then. It was this inflexible, head-on approach. They inflicted damage and killed millions when they came the last time, but they were doomed then and they would be doomed now.

His own captain defeated two in hand to hand combat.

Thinking about her, he knew she was on her way. No one aboard the Tigershark would give up on him. There was no reason to give up or lose hope. Erica always found a way and if he died here, she would make them pay.

TheOther remembered his Academy training. The instructor had shown him many times that strength was not always the solution. Assess your situation, gather any resources you can find and utilize them.

He looked around, TheOther was almost certain no one had been down here for a very long time. The slimy grime and the thick layer of stringy mold was a certain indication of it.

This was not a corridor but some kind of waste management system, long defunct or maybe just inactive. He was standing on a conveyor belt. He always envied Warner for his fine sense of smell, but right now he was glad that he had none of his own.

“Mama, status?”

“Estimated restoration time, eighty-three minutes. All repair resources maxed out. System will not be able to restore more than 78 percent.”

Except for dripping water in the distance, there were no sounds that indicated any immediate danger.

“Mama, prioritize sensor repair.”

“Acknowledged.”

As any direction was the same to him, he started to proceed in a Southern direction, following the inactive material transport systems downward slope.

He-who-guards-the-Crucible was sentient, thus he was quite capable of experience emotions. The one he felt right now was a sense of frustration.

He had watched the visuals of the fighting drone. It was a real Y’All no doubt and it validated the assessment of all his subsequent creations. They were vastly inferior.

What he called the new Y’All were torn apart like toys. Three hundred and twelve of them had died trying to capture the malfunctioning Y’All. Whatever he tried, the old battle drone did not respond to the control device. That drone appeared to be shielded with technology he could not analyze.

He was not concerned about the fate of his troops. He had millions available and was in the process to activate them all.

The old, original drone somehow managed to disappear. The Crucible was an artificial factory of planet size and existed for many million years. There were regions and places, crawl spaces and old laboratories, immense storage facilities filled with equipment and bio base material.

It could take years to find the drone.

After so many years, he finally succeeded and found an active drone of the original design and now it was lost right here.

It would be only a matter of time though.

While his millions of sensors and systems were scanning the crucible for any activity that was to reveal the drone’s location, he focused his ego center to the human being that was brought into his presence.

The being claiming to have the construction secrets of a weapon that defeated the Crucible’s last answer to the Call.

“Human, proceed closer so you may be analyzed. I have seen the weapon’s effect.”

“I am Harold Julkus, I am a Translocator technician and weapon developer. If I share this information with you. You will give me command over a fleet of Y’All?”

“Ridiculous. My agents promised whatever you wanted to get you here. Now you have no other option but to obey. Your wants are in subsequential.”

“You know, you overgrown monstrosity. I came to that same conclusion. I changed my mind, I won’t share crap with you.”

“Pepino Lakey, bring this life form to the analyzer.”

Harold evaded the grasping arms of the Pepino.

“I might not be a Union Officer anymore, but I am Terran.”

The man whipped out his TKU and burned the former first mate of the TRAA to ashes. Then he fired the powerful weapon right in the middle of the T shaped half organic machine, creeping closer to him on tentacle shaped legs. The blast burned a sizeable hole into the machine before it engulfed itself in shield energies.

“No one has ever dared to injure me. Human your end has come, all I need is a few cells of you.”

“I know.”

He-who-guards-the-Crucible reached out with tractor manipulators while he heard a whining sound that increased in pitch.

“I am a weapons engineer, you see and I disengaged the safety features of this TKU...”

I realized it wasn’t such a good idea to announce my intentions.

We had just dropped out of quasi. The scanner data filled my battle view with thousands of signals. SHIP identified them as Y’All battleships. All under shields and weapons charged.

At their center was an immense roughly spherical thing, the size of a small planet. It wasn’t anything natural. According to our sensors, it was made of a variety of metal alloys and it appeared to be hollow. While it was of incredible size and mass, it did not have the same gravimetric mass signature than a celestial natural body of similar size.

It was also riddled with holes. Each of the holes big enough to let the Devi pass through, and the holes spewed out more Y’All battleships.

Har-Hi said.

“I think we forgot to bring a few more ships. Maybe we should go back and borrow the Dominator.”

“The whole first fleet wouldn’t be enough to fight all those.

“Mao gasped.

Elfi said.

“But TheOther is here for sure. I am picking up his wrist com.”

Narth voice was as calm as ever.

“It appears they have noticed us. An estimated 14,453 Y’All main battle units are forming an intercept cocoon and coming our way.

“An estimated 14,453?”

“Yes Captain, I do not yet have a clear number on the Y’All units emerging from this construct that are joining the interceptors.”

“They are also scanning us,” Shea said.

“Their sensors are unable to penetrate, but they know where we are. Cloaking might not be effective.”

“Elfi, hail TheOther if you can.”

TheOther estimated he had covered about twenty klicks when he reached what appeared to be a recycling facility of some kind.

That the waste transport system wasn’t as inactive as he thought, came to evidence as the conveyor started moving. Dumping greenish slime into a rectangular funnel intake with powerful shredder wheels at its center.

TheOther managed to jump off the conveyor and grab onto the rim of the funnel.

He now noticed the bodies and body parts of Y’All, most likely the ones he killed coming down the conveyor and dropping into this intake chute.

The shredder system had no difficulty to churn them to bits.

But so far he didn’t see anyone alive, not even robots.

He pulled himself over the rim and dropped onto a platform.

Just at this moment, he heard Elfi’s voice in his helmet.

“Ensign TheOther come in, can you communicate?”

If a Y’All could have cried, he would have done so now.

“Elfi, yes I can ... I mean Lt.Elfirata. Ensign TheOther reporting. I am free of the influence as long as the suit is able to maintain the shield.”

“Forget regulations.

“The Captain’s voice chimed in.

“We are all so worried about you, what is your situation?”

TheOther could hear the Battlestations alerts in the background.

“I am currently not in imminent danger, Captain.”

“Try to stay safe. I am not sure when I can get there, but hang in there I figure something out.”

TheOther heard Har-Hi’s voice.

“Captain, primary shields down, secondary shields at fifty...”

“Aye Captain.”

Despite the Captain’s calm and friendly voice, he knew the Tigershark was in trouble.

“Captain, I am expendable. The ship and all of you...”

“Nonsense, stay save as long as you can. It might be a while, but we are coming.”

“We’re down to five loads.

“Mao said.

“All torpedoes are spent.”

He had responded to my question.

We had blasted and destroyed a large number of Y’All ships. Yet it appeared we made no real dent in the number of attacking battleships.

There were so many, that we were the focus of fire of at least five units at all times. Regardless of how skillfully Shaka evaded the rest.

We could not get a clear path to escape into Quasi-space.

It looked grim.

Har-Hi just gave me another shield report and Narth warned of more Y’All ships joining the fray.

“Well, we tried.

“I heard Sobody say.

“I am dying the richest man in the Universe, able to meet you all.”

I grinned hard.

“No one dies just yet. Mao, fire all remaining loads at mark 0,0,12. Shaka you follow and accelerate. No slowing down, our hull will hold! We plow right through and go for quasi.”

He-who-guards-the-Crucible now felt genuine anger. His ego shell had sustained damage. That man had fired a strong weapon, that impertinent human! Now he somehow managed to detonate that weapon. And why did Lorkis not disarm the Terran?

Of course, he knew the answer, because this was the downside of controlling others. He-who-guards-the-Crucible did not specifically order it.

There was nothing left of the Pepino or the human. He affected self-repair so his ego shell was going to be restored.

The drone was still on the loose and perhaps penetrating deeper into the old tracts.

Now he had received a message of another human. A captain she claimed to be, an officer of that very association of sentients that defied and destroyed the last attack wave. The same ones that stopped the Herald and his own version of the Y’All not so long ago.

Now she had arrived in a small ship. Ridiculous as it appeared, that small ship had torn through a wall of Y’All battleships; survived withering energy blasts and refused to be destroyed.

His battle commanders, reported the small ship’s excellent shields finally starting to buckle.

At first, he was elated and knew that impertinent intruder could not last, but his logical analysis concluded that if one relative small ship could inflict this kind of damage, it would be a disaster sending the next wave. A wave without real Y’All, but an inferior copy of what he was able to create. A wave without the marvelous weapon that defied their best shields and armor.

While he, like the previous AI relied on Mora technology. There was a virtually limitless supply, but automated factories did not develop anything, just churning out copies of the same thing.

The very reason for his existence was in question. He was created to send an answer to the Call, but sending the next wave knowing it was to fail was illogical.

There in the bowels of the Crucible was a genuine battle drone, and out there was a ship that carried that wonder weapon. It had to be captured!

He issued new commands. It did not matter how many perished, they were pepino after all.

TheOther was elated, he felt so proud of his friends. His conviction they would come for him had been validated. He had seen the hangar filled with thousands of battleships. He knew the numbers of the last attack wave. There was no reason to think, there were any less this time.

The Tigershark was formidable, but what could it do against such overwhelming forces?

It was the same as with his situation. He was a Y’All, a genuine Battle Drone there weren’t many life forms as aggressive and tough, but even a giant had to fall to the relentless attack of lesser beings.

His friends came to rescue him, but all he did was provide bait for a trap that spelled doom for them.

“What have I done?” He asked himself in agony, but then he wanted to smile.

“No, there aren’t enough Y’All in the universe to stop his captain. It wasn’t the ship and its weapons that made it such a great fighting machine. It was the crew and the Captain.

Erica did not give up when faced with two Y’All, everyone else would have given into fear and succumb.

She was stranded bare feet, wounded on a very hostile planet. She didn’t give up.

Dressed in nothing but a thin dress, she fought in an arena filled with beings so much stronger than her, yet everyone agreed she was the most dangerous one of them all.

He shook one of his fists against the dark ceiling.

“He-who-guards-old-junk, you got nothing in your arsenal to stop her.”

As he moved along the catwalk next to the intake chute, he almost stepped on a segmented, worm-like creature with thin legs. It was about a meter long and was dragging a dark blood dripping organ along the metal catwalk.

He did not pay much attention to the thing, suspecting it to be some sort of parasite. But then he noticed the thing was holding a small cutting tool in one of its extremities.

The creature tried to get away, leaving its meat piece behind.

“I am not going to harm you.”

“Whaazz? Yehaa noz hurz meeze.Youze muzst be crazzi”

“If it makes you happy. I kill you.”

TheOther wanted to go on, not really knowing where to go, but he figured staying on the move was the best strategy for now, until he found someplace he could hide and wait.