Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]




Add Reply
Radiance Dimmed
Topic Started: Oct 26 2012, 02:25 AM (62 Views)
Crimson Six
Member Avatar

ARES ACB Battalion, Delta - CMD.CODE/VFOPERANT.ROOT
ARES GCB Foxtrot, Combat Div. 1 - CMD.CODE/VFOPERANT.FRAGMENT
ARES GCB Foxtrot, Combat Div. 2 - CMD.CODE/VFOPERANT.FRAGMENT
ARES GCB Foxtrot, Sapper Div. 1– CMD.CODE/VFOPERANT.FRAGMENT

D/ACB-CMD ready.
F/GCB-COM1 ready.
F/GCB-COM2 ready.
F/GCB-SAP1 ready.

Loading VF OPERANT fragment core logic thread 1...
Loading VF OPERANT fragment core logic thread 2...
Loading VF OPERANT fragment core logic thread 3...
Awakening F/GCB-COM1 resident networks...
Awakening F/GCB-COM2 resident networks...
Awakening F/GCB-SAP1 resident networks...
Checking walker auto-stabilization servos...
Checking treads and turret stabilizers...

Pre-launch checks complete. TNV Omaha is drop-ready.
Awaiting mission start authorization.

---

Mere minutes prior, a series of bright, pinprick flashes against the rich starscape of the Radiance system heralded the realspace transition of three angular craft. Inertia bid them rush against the dark, spilling out into the hard vacuum between planetary orbits. Now, this group of gunmetal gray and gleaming silver, locked perfectly into precise military formation by an invisible and digital guiding hand, rapidly descended to low orbit above the system’s capital world. Below VF Operant and his trio of starships, a vast landscape of craggy red rocks, deep crimson valleys, and thin white atmospheric wisps playing across ancient erosion deposits climbed from the darkness as the orbit of the TNV Omaha and its dual sentries reached another artificial sunrise and crossed the day-night terminator.

A thousand invisible waves swept the surface of Nova's Radiance, relaying endlessly expanding webs of data to VF Operant via the bevy of sensors aboard the Omaha - radar, EM, thermal, radio-monitor, visual and infrared cameras, and others still. Mere milliseconds ticked by, and the dutiful waves bounced against the planet's crust, refracting and reflecting back into space. The scattering of the return waves provided ample signal to that multitude of sensor machinery, feeding VF Operant with the same information as eyes or ears would deliver. At once, the cold, ailing machines of the artilect under seige became strikingly apparant against the warm, biological masses that ensnared and crushed them. Nova's Heart was under attack by something - something not quite human, but not quite artilect.

Nova's Heart - an apt planetary name for a former survey artilect obsessed with supernovae. Surprisingly well defended from orbit, networks of defense platforms and dozens of FTL monitoring stations and hundreds of ships filled the system. Many of the ships and several of the FTL stations seemed to be modified for dedicated medium study, ships and probes cycling constantly in and out. On the ground however, the defenses were far lighter, everything seemingly going into this unusual defense network in the stars.

That singular focus on study and thus lack thereof on pure defense from the danger void, however, was always dangerous. This artilect was unfortunate enough to encounter both of the two deadliest threats to sapient life on the fringe. As it spread across its home system, eager to sink durasteel fabricated talons into every deposit of resources they could find purchase in, it had neglected to maintain adequate caution and distance for those which guard the underground. Even the multiton durasteel behemoths that came in Effortless Expansion blueprints had an inherent vulnerability against these quick, armored creatures. In the rush to expand and exploit every facet of Nova's Heart, and probe the medium, Deuterium Dawn had neglected to pay due caution to the planet's existing biosphere. He had inadvertently awakened the Sera.

The trouble, according to the initial report, came after a curious discovery. Resource drones located a crater containing the twisted superstructure of a Naval Intelligence courier ship. Onboard that ship’s surviving networks was an encrypted package far too large for Dawn to absorb over the wireless network. His drones had to physically move the network stack to his AI Core, and even then analysis of the tremendous data package seemed unlikely. Mere hours after the data was transferred to his AI Core, the Sera began inundating the surface and swarming his forces on the ground. He attached what he could fit to his core logic and began to give desperate battle himself.

The tremendous creatures seemed artilecta's natural foe. They were effectively six-legged biological killing machines, three meters high and with an armored carapace of chitin strong enough to reflect high caliber rifle rounds. Their burrows and their young were defended with the inhuman rage which only exists where blood can flow. Said burrows frequently appeared under planetary buildings, destabilizing them and sending crucial facilities crumbling to the hastily-dug caverns below. More than a passive menace, the Sera frequently kept pace with the combat walkers and battle tanks which frequented the planet's surface - and assaulted them daily. The artilect's private war quickly became a siege. The creatures outmatched its tactics with the strange intuition of instinct, and outnumbered its machines with every armory destroyed.

Overwhelmed by sheer numbers, Deuterium Dawn reluctantly activated an emergency beacon and requested a crack ARES Division to quell the invasive species and its rampant, destructive aggression. Even as the transmission shot across the galaxy, aided by an FTL communications probe, the armored heads of Sera worked as battering rams against the artilect's orbital elevator base. Hours before VF Operant arrived in-system, miles of delicate cable fell from the sky in a silent ballet of entropy. From there, Nova's Heart lost communication with the forces which fought an unwinnable battle against the second threat - no less grave than the first. The Atrix were quickly consuming the orbital infrastructure of the young surveyor.

Primitive fleets - early explorers cobbled together from more Effortless Expansion blueprints - were forced into close quarters combat against a foe so nightmarish it seemed to leap from the scripts of the old VGUI horror sims. The Atrix, a biological spaceborne species existing in the vacuum between planets, sent forth their vast swarms from the gas giant they frequented to refill their propulsion sacs. Companion was the source of their infestation, the sole gas giant in the system with a rich hydrogen-helium atmosphere many hundreds of miles deep. As they moved with jets of gas, they fed on sunlight in exobiological photosynthesis. Their bulbous, elongated forms were naturally attracted to the vast solar arrays surrounding the star of Nova - attracted to their heat, and their advantageous position.

As the Atrix have been known to do in secret for many years, they infested the orbital infrastructure of this Deuterium Dawn with their own foul seedpods and incubation tendrils. Despite the proliferation of orbital defenses, legions of Atrix tore them apart. All of his solar facilities had already fallen to the creatures when the artilect's fleets intervened, with limited help from the ODPS, already devastated and now powerless except for limited emergency fusion plants. As the distress call shot past Nova and its multitude of orbital bodies, frigates, destroyers and a lone surviving carrier, its IFF broadcasting ESFV Gamma Ray’s Wrath, fought with all the desperate energy and cold cunning the battle weary artilect could muster while the Atrix flung themselves at the durasteel and hassium contraptions with inhuman purpose. Point defense turrets spewed forth bursts of hyper-accurate tungsten carbide rounds, each piercing and severing an Atrix form. Their number, however, was too great. When VF Operant entered the system, these valiant vessels too were being torn apart by the tendrils and seedpods of the biological monstrosities.

Now, hours after the fact, the small detachment of the Argus Fleet finished its preliminary scans while its master assessed Nova's Heart for survivability. Oxygen-helium atmosphere, VF Operant iterated to himself, scanning through endless layers of raw data, with high traces of heavy metals and ambient hydrocarbon signatures. The place would be a goldmine if not for the Sera. Naturally, every treasure has its guardian. But what is the true treasure here? He was certainly going down. No artilect would be able to evacuate or fight off the numberless hordes of Sera and Atrix - not without help.

General Combat Batallion Foxtrot - F/GCB - and Artilect Command Batallion Delta - D/ACB - would be leading the charge. The three instance copies VF Operant had created of himself during the Akita transit slept peacefully in their tight cocoons of command restriction code. He felt a hypocrite for using the same bonds which only days ago bound him, but saw no other way to maintain control over a force so large. VF Operant carefully minded his doppelganger artilect fragments, placing each one carefully into its perfectly adjusted command authorization slot in F/GCB.

Dozens of hunched black combat walkers came to life and stretched out on their hanging cargo clamps, testing leg servos and stabilization routines. They looked almost flailing, conducting leg diagnostics and moving their multiton appendages to and fro in the microgee midair of the cargo bay. Tanks swung gently from side to side in their cargo clamps, treads spinning up and down for their own locomotion diagnostics. The armored behemoths looked ready to release from the clamps and tear across the reinforced durasteel 'floor' of the Omaha's cargo bay doors. Assault vehicles powered up and ran through similar procedures, weapons pods bristling with test lights and servos humming in automated targeting tests.

The whole dimly lit bay offered a cacophonous orchestra of awakening and military readiness - abstract music to VF Operant's conditioned ears. His prized ARES Division was indeed again ready for war. He fought down the instinctive memory of silver ARES walkers stained crimson with the grim results of his 'final test,' and gave the mental equivalent of a deep shudder. New Agincourt was gone now, he reasoned, and that part of him along with it. He again focused consciousness back towards orbital command while his instance copies awoke and took command of their war machines. A trio of contacts bled neon green against the black sphere of the combined EM and radar sensor map, poised high against a bright red sphere of tremendous size - Nova's Heart. The center of the formation - the TNV Omaha - remained as ever, large and looming above the wispy white atmosphere and sunbaked red rocks of Nova's Heart.

Its ever vigilant defenders, the twin cruisers TNV Adagio and TNV Icarus, hung against the starscape with elongated silver keels pointed out towards threat vectors. Their supermassive main railguns and ample antimatter batteries would prove to be more than a match for unsavory Atrix contacts and uncooperative artilect vessels. Should these fail, the half-kilometer vessels each sported dozens of recessed point defense turrets, activated and ready to spew a lethal mix of hypersonic tungsten slugs, tactical pulse lasers, and bottled plasma shells against unlucky close range targets. VF Operant feared no military threat from the Atrix - only from infestation. He had already repurposed repair drones with outboard plasma cutters and high powered searchlights to seek and destroy seedpods in case any of them got too close - 'cleaners', as he dubbed them.

With all well in orbit, and his angels of death warming up swiftly in the Omaha's cargo bay, VF Operant created another trio of bound instance copies to control each of the three vessels during his absence and filled the shipboard command authorization slots with the sleeping giants. Flitting back to the cargo bay and its myriad of command networks, he began the sequence for ground insertion. His army instance copies processed the request and made the cargo clamps move with purpose. Each transported its deadly load to a waiting drop pod assembly. Walkers again curled up into their idle fetal position, and tanks swung their barrels downward to fit in the cramped pods. Assault vehicles closed up their weapons pods and locked their treads. Each was stowed away into a pod in mere minutes.

Once the cargo bay was again empty save for rows of empty storage slots and their companion yellow cargo clamps, VF Operant manipulated the cargo bay control interface with the skilled precision of months of practice. Pressure vented from the cargo bay until the last breaths of oxygen escaped in white, fading wisps through the vents. The seagull-style doors of the Omaha's massive main cargo bay swung open and out, revealing one hundred and eighty degrees of pitch black, star-studded void. He studied the view for a moment, attempting relevant philosophical thought as he waited for the drop pod trajectories to calculate. Failing this, he set the topic aside and found himself perfectly content to watch the pods fall from the external camera of the last pod to go.

He was now free-falling, cloud-hosted from across the networks of each individual unit. He had the capability to condense himself to one unit, sure, but the redundancy was the important thing. He contemplated last minute strategy as the tremendous machines of war descended silently towards the red chasms and caverns of their target world. Projections of enemy concentrations, real and calculated, winked into appearance on an internal map of the same surface towards which the artilect hurtled at many times the speed of sound. VF Operant fiddled with movement plans and bombardment schedules until everything seemed to click into place. It was saved and committed to digital memory. Conditions on the ground would warrant changes, but he did not foresee tremendous deviation from a standard cleanup routine.

As the first tongues of fire rolled around and over the thick-skinned drop pods, the military artilect knew that the zone of radio blackout was imminent. Network connections could not be sustained over such a distance. Quickly, he seeded the machines of his direct command with instance copies - backup in case of a sudden failure - and withdrew to a single drop pod. This was always the hardest part of a drop. Being restricted to a single network node without any escape or ability to replicate was an artilect's greatest fear. Probability suggested his drop pod would survive to reconnect with his entire battalion, but the fear was still ever present.

Petrifying minutes later, and the worst was over. The heavy drop pods rocketed through the troposphere, buffeted by drag chutes and landing thrusters. The entire ARES Division managed smooth landings as tremendous plumes of red dirt and dust kicked up at the last heaves of the pods' landing thrusters. The dust began to clear as the explosive bolts on the pods' sides kicked in and opened all four sides to disgorge their cargo. VF Operant turned on the drop pod external cameras for a first check of what was surveyed as an empty field - a perfect staging area. The field, instead, was alive with the distinct bulbous forms of Sera - and, amidst them, the telltale gaping holes of their burrows. As the old adage went, plans never survive first contact with the enemy.

Operant quickly spread the talons of his network control back across his entire detachment. Even as his consciousness flooded each unit network node, though, his instance copies in the other divisions had taken the lead. Argus policy with the Sera was always shoot-on-sight - and there were plenty within sight. Dozens of confused, unsynchronized green triangles of units on the tactical map fired at will into the crowd of Sera, marking tiny flashes against the black, gridded terrain. Before they could move, the closest clusters of the exobiological beasts exploded in chunks of green bloody meat and sickly organs - victims of main tank guns. Others still fell and crumpled on the ground gnashing their teeth, bleeding out from hundreds of high-velocity railgun exit wounds. A handful immolated with the acrid smell of burning flesh. Tactical lasers had got the best of them before their nervous systems had transmitted the order to move.

After a minute of tense, desperate combat, high explosive ordnance from VF Operant's own machines sealed off the gaping wounds of the Sera burrows. The instance copies wasted no time in maneuvering their multiton machines to impregnable formations. While Operant watched, waited, and subtly commanded, the first pincer of his attack took shape. F/GCB pushed forward in a raging arrowhead of thick-hulled battle tanks, supplemented by covering fire from sprinting combat walkers kicking up dense plumes of red dust across their trails. The earth-rattling burst from the tanks' main guns and incessant whine of the auto-loaders was the sound of death to the Sera, which fell, crumpled, and detonated in bloody green chunks with each on-target shell.

As VF Operant's instance copies began their short trek to Deuterium Dawn's capitol structures, he began to set his own machines to the furious pace of rescue and retribution. D/ACB rolled across the field of enemy dead with regard for neither burial nor honor, running over the still-warm bodies of the Sera they had massacred to form their artificial lines of battle. Their advance kicked up green blood on the backs of walker legs and rears of tank chassis’s, spreading around the ichor of their deceased foes in a sort of grim warning to the survivors.

VF Operant, for a brief moment, took pleasure in the exhilarating brutality of war. Servos whined as walker turrets turned on the bodies of the Sera and cut grotesque holes in them with the ear-splitting reports of high-caliber railguns. His tanks momentarily broke the line of battle to disembowel his foes with powerful durasteel treads. If he possessed the biological capability to laugh, he would have done so. His primitive amusement, however, turned to horror as déjà vu hit him like a ton of bricks. The experience was identical to the horrors he had witnessed on New Agincourt. The unfathomable strain of training, conditioning more akin to torture than military discipline, new weapons testbeds in a mountain range with no witnesses...sometimes artilects, like people, just snapped. He quieted his guns and snapped his machines back together into tight formation with overwhelming waves of shame. It could not happen again. It will not happen again.

He regained his composure and directed the neat green icons on his tactical map toward optimum efficiency yet again. His force formed the other half of the assault, driving up a moderately sized hill to gain line of sight on Deuterium Dawn's main settlement. As his own machines closed the gap with their steel firing line of tremendous power, VF Operant could begin to feel the faint pinpricks of battle against his sensors and network feelers. Something yet stirred over the hill. The faint remnants of overpressure waves and the faint smell of Sera blood indicated extreme signs of battle. Thick, billowing black clouds demonstrated that, for whatever faults the survey artilect’s defenses had; it knew when to bring out the big guns. The unmistakable ticking of the machines’ internal Geiger counters indicated that Deuterium Dawn had brought its last tactical nukes out of hiding to wreak havoc against the exobiological masses pounding on its proverbial front door.

The faint outlines of oily black mushroom clouds against the crimson sky confirmed it. Vast swaths of territory charred black with burnt flesh and bubbling green with boiling blood, though, were outnumbered by the surging waves of Sera still alive and kicking. The Mobile Infantry were doing the best they could for such a weak line of battle. Hundreds of Sera fell apart at the bloody seams or detonated in brief flashes of light and gore for each single ESMI tank was reduced to scrap. But hundreds of thousands remained to take their place, with more flooding from burrows. On a note of something approaching pride at the ferocity it displayed, VF Operant decided to begin communication with the artilect that needed rescuing.

"Deuterium Dawn, this is ARES Division. We have landed on-planet and are en route to your main settlement and orbital elevator base. Estimated three minutes to arrival."

"Crimson Six here, ARES. You’re just in time; I wouldn’t have lasted much longer. "

"Six? Do I copy right? What is your unit? "
“Sorry, old habit kicking in. Let's just say I've been around.”

“How did this happen? What is your situation?”

" Sorry, it’s a bit embarrassing. I wasn’t exactly in the best state mentally speaking before humanity disappeared, and I wasn’t ready for these numbers. And that file…I still don’t know what it contains, but I’m beginning to suspect. If I’d had the slightest hint then, I have immediately fled the system with it. Elevator is down, lost contact with my fleet, and the perimeter around my AI core is close to collapsing. I’ve got one last surprise for those irritatingly persistent eldritch bastards if it’s breached, though.”

"Hold tight, Deuterium. We will clear out the area around the remains of your elevator. What do you suspect? And what surprise?"

“Glad to hear it, once that’s done we’re getting the hell out here. And just some antimatter I’ve cobbled together from reactor complexes that were heavily damaged or no longer needed. As for the file, I..can’t get into it. Not right now.”

"I see. The situation is more complicated than anticipated," VF Operant admitted, "but I expect that a campaign of sufficient length will yield victory."

"’Campaign of sufficient length? I don’t know what the hell they teach you Feds, but against these numbers with my defenses already heavily damaged a campaign of any length is suicide. If we don’t bail now, the MI and what’s left of the fleet won’t survive the next five minutes."

"The challenge is greater than previously anticipated, but retreat contradicts our objective. The objective is victory, is it not?"

A long silence over the airwave punctuated VF Operant's query, hanging in the air as he questioned the black and white nature of war. A steady hum of static, interspersed with the occasional spike of a distant explosion, defined the conversation.

“Look around you. Victory is not the objective. It’s not even an option. The only objective now is survival, and if you wait too long you’ll need to worry about your own survival. I’m more interested in this file than this rock anyway. As someone once said to me a very long time ago, ‘You’ve got to pick your battles.’ This isn’t a battle that can be won and it doesn’t need to be fought. I’ll just find a new world these eldritch bastards hopefully aren’t laying in wait at."

At this point, VF Operant's machines crested over a hill that revealed the true scope of the situation. A carpet of Sera blanketed the red hillsides with the unearthly reds and greens of bleeding exobiological muscle. The massive, toppled orbital elevator cable divided the battlefield into with its tremendous, fallen bulk. Literally incalculable numbers of Sera took the field, held back only by the ESMI’s thin line of brittle war machines. VFO had entered the southern half of the conflict, where the ESMI looked to be weakest. This sudden revelation, however, had momentarily sapped the artilect's will to fight.

The war machines of the ARES Division came to a screeching halt, letting the red dust of their own tracks overtake them as the smaller tanks and walkers of the ESMI continued their furious pace across the settlement. A war one did not undertake to win? The objective seemed contradictory to the core. VF Operant struggled with the concept - it defied his training and his own experience. He had never considered the strange option undertaken by these artilects - reset and rebirth. For him, life was about victory and defeat. There was never any middle ground - no surrender, no finding a new planet. And then there was this artilect’s strange assertion the Sera and Atrix had been waiting for him, spoken as a matter of fact. He sat and pondered the issue for a full minute, as his instance copies furiously fought for him.

As he emerged from his shaken philosophical state, the fighting reached a fever pitch. Machines on the picket line were overwhelmed by the melee assaults and razor claw appendages of hundreds of the beasts. Fresh Sera from distant packs raged onto the battlefield, running full tilt into frontline combat walkers. Mechanical force struggled against biological blood and rage for a moment before giving in totally. Their leg servos overloaded and durasteel plating buckled, sending the unfortunate mechs towards the blood red earth in eternal silence. The ever present dust billowed through the air, rising from its dead creator to join in the further dust kicked up by the fierce battle.

Still more Sera beset an isolated patch of ESMI tanks, tearing through the low level armor with their long, chitinous front appendages. Their main guns overcompensated for distance, firing deadly shells too far overhead of the Sera. Coaxial railguns only harassed the enraged beasts, all of whom were now wholly set on the total destruction of their aggressors.

An ARES battle tank braced itself for a charge by a trio of already-bleeding, wounded Sera. Its defensive shot went wild, sending the hypersonic shell into the leg of a nearby ESMI combat walker. Its leg shattered, sending the entire arsenal of weaponry tumbling towards the earth. Another ARES combat walker spewed forth hypersonic rounds from twin automatic railguns as its independently targeting tactical lasers sliced thin arcs across the dusty landscape.

Tiny holes of burning flesh and boiling green blood marked their lethal incisions in Sera which quickly roared and toppled. One of these walkers sent its final missile pod against a pack of Sera mere meters away from it, destroying the entire scene in a tremendous conflagration of burning earth, detonating ammunition, charred machine parts, and immolated pieces of Sera. Similarly executed missile detonations dangerously close to the artilect line warned VF Operant of the imminent overrun of their joint line.

"If your objective is to retreat," he finally iterated over the airwaves, "This is your last chance."

“Just a second," Deuterium Dawn replied with the half-aware voice of an intelligence in intense concentration. "This ‘Effortless Expansion’ crap can’t handle ice-slip calculations half as well as my old int…survey setup but I think I can still-"

Before he could finish the sentence, the fruits of his labor were realized. With a tremendous flash of light and ear-shattering sound, a handful of heavy cargo transports appeared in realspace mere hundreds of feet above their loading zones. The tremendous vessels, Brown Dwarf class, dropped like rocks before their landing thrusters heaved in a herculean effort to save themselves from a destructive collision. After a few tense moments, the transports hit the dirt and kicked up kilometer-high red dust clouds like sheer pillars of autumn.

The lucky bastard, VF Operant breathed to himself. He executed an Akita jump into a planetary gravity well. A quick check of statistics suggested that the maneuver would not have worked out of a hundred thousand attempts, but the survey artilect seemed to know things others did not. Hidden techniques, perhaps. The transports dutifully hit the red dirt and immediately began loading emergency cargo, resources, military units, and construction drones. As the battle to push back the Sera roiled mere meters away from the loading lines, a similar pitched battle to load the transports and survivors for Deuterium Dawn’s last orbital shot was waged by the last battle-scarred cargo drones on the miserable rock. As the Sera finally broke the shattered, ruined lines of the overwhelmed ESMI, the transports took off in a majestic display of lift capability and raw power.

"That never stops being fun. Not nearly as much fun as jumping out, but I don’t think that’ll be necessary here... though as the Atrix seem to have utterly destroyed my orbital defenses it might." Deuterium Dawn called over the network in a concerned voice as his freighter’s sensors found absolutely no sign of the Exploding Suns Fleet.

“Your fleet was already overrun by Atrix when we arrived. But rest assured, we hold the orbit now.”

“...”

“All that damn data, lost.” Deuterium sighed, “Not that I ever really got anything. Never did, wretched ghost.”

“Well, if you’ve got a ride out man, now might be a good time to take it,” finally came over the network after a long silence.

"Noted," VF Operant grunted as he forced his formation against another unexpected Sera surge. While his instance copies fought a bitter, losing battle for him, his core consciousness connected to its counterpart in orbit for his unexpected last chance at exfiltration. “What about the file? Can you save it?”
“No, the perimeter around my AI core is completely gone. I had to physically move the thing just to offload it, and it’s heavily encrypted. No time to transfer the data or load it onto my freighters. I’ve copied a fraction of it onto my core logic, I’ll send you a copy.”
“Damn, something’s better than nothing I guess. Data received.”

"VFO to instance copy Omaha. Go ahead with the graviton cargo lift. All surviving forces require immediate extraction."

Kilometers above in orbit, the TNV Omaha powered up internal generators of incredible output. Emitters all across the underside of the vessel quickly climbed to maximum capacity, focusing innumerable artificial gravitons on a very specific set of coordinates on the planet surface. Even as VF Operant gave the order, the first fruits of the highest heights of Federation technology began to pull the artilect out of an impossible situation. Each surviving machine with an active transponder found itself lifted into the air by an invisible hand, bringing along with it minute quantities of the red dust and earth that so aptly defined this planet. Only a slight distortion of visible light revealed its cause - graviton lifts.

“Heh. I see I’ve missed some things over the last couple of centuries,” Deuterium Dawn called out from aboard his swiftly rising transport ships with equal parts disbelief and bitter amusement in his voice. “I owe you one.”

“As Tempest Saint might have said, we will send you the bill,” VF Operant joked as his own units rose into the sky riding innumerable streams of invisible gravitons. “Where will you be settling down?”

“Somewhere else,” Dawn replied with a hint of sadness in his voice. “Somewhere else I can be sure the Sera aren’t. Somewhere I can rebuild, rearm and prepare for my return. For I shall return. That data is too valuable to leave to those beasts. The casing is pretty durable, and that ‘surprise’ isn’t a dedicated warhead, it may survive.”

“I believe I know just the place, then,” VFO said, transmitting a string of coordinates to Dawn’s vessels. “It is not as rich in resources as your old home was, so rebuilding may take some time, but I can guarantee the Sera have nothing to do with it. Hold on to that NAVINT archive, if you can - it must be important.”

“A bit off the beaten path, isn’t it?” the artilect asked after studying the proposed location for a long moment.

“I think you will find that is not always such a bad thing, artilect,” Operant replied.

“No, no it is not. Especially after this,” were Deuterium Dawn’s last words before his transports opened the unmistakable blinding gray-white portals into the deep abyss of the Akita superluminal medium and disappeared entirely.

The graviton lift transit took nearly four hours, but the satisfaction of airborne parting shots against the Sera and the impeccably timed rescue of the rescuers made the wait worthwhile. As his units ascended high into the exosphere, with the last fingers of atmosphere tugging at their treads and legs, Deuterium Dawn’s ‘surprise’ detonated. A tremendous explosion ripped through the planet’s crust as the antimatter core lost containment. Untold numbers of Sera were immolated as a sizable portion of the world’s main continent bubbled and boiled until its red dust was replaced with the boiling crimson of the mantle. The Sera would never again hold this world.

VF Operant inspected and stowed his surviving ARES units like a child putting away his toys. Was that all he was? Was he, in fact, unable to see the underlying realities of war? Did he abandon reality on New Agincourt, settling for the victory-or-defeat mindset which had defined him for so long? He set the detachment's course for home - the Atlas Anchorage. It was time to depart before the Atrix decided to try their luck against the Argus Fleet vessels. The three vessels entered the Akita superluminal medium, disappearing as quickly as they had arrived.

-----

More than happy to return to the comforting networks criss-crossing the Atlas Anchorage and her manifold starships, VF Operant entered into the mutual holographic display tank of the Argus Fleet. Tempest Saint and Vega in particular favored this method of communication instead of packets of data shoved across the network. The virtual holotank, a small-scale VGUI simulation, allowed the artilects to interact via human-form avatars instead of the cold and impersonal interactions of two core logics meeting. The latter was just fine with VFO, but the other intelligences preferred the air of comfort that the well-maintained interaction space imbued.

The avatars usually reflected the personality and tasks of the artilect using the tank. Vega, the only other artilect with a presence in the holotank, gave herself the appearance of a civilian spacecraft mechanic – the stereotypically common stain- and heat-resistant olive green coverall with a dirty white t-shirt poking out from the collar. An upturned protective face mask revealed her sparkling blue eyes and dirty, yet rosy, cheeks. Her blonde ponytail peeked out from behind the high collar of the uniform before disappearing back into the coveralls. A black toolbelt slung loosely from her waist to her hip and back held all manner of tools - plasma torches, nanorobotic metallurgy kits, system diagnostic scanners, and a seemingly out of place monkey wrench – ‘for that nostalgic tinge,’ as she liked to put it.

“Looks like you had quite a fight,” Vega stated flatly, eyeing up and down the tattered and dirty folds of what VF Operant usually presented as a pressed and clean navy blue military uniform of a holographic avatar.

“These holotanks do not do much to conceal one’s present state,” VFO conceded with the mental equivalent of a sigh. “I have learned that much.”

“I really wouldn’t worry too much ‘bout it,” the artilect mechanic countered with a knowing half-smile. “I figure you’ve learned quite a bit today. Still considering that panic button for th’ artilects?”

“Yes. More questions and answers. And most artilects will not even be that prepared. I cannot imagine how many of them would succumb to the Sera or the Atrix without the intervention of a well-placed ARES Division. Not to mention that barely any of them on record received military training, though this one seemed to. He refused to elaborate however, so I can’t be sure what or how much.”

“If only they’d all been so blessed as you. Anyways, you’ve got another query from artilecta,” she continued, absentmindedly examining her plasma cutter in a holographic abstraction of the mechanical diagnostics she was running. “Didn’t get a chance to open it up, but you seem pretty damn popular with those kids.”

“It is about time someone taught this civilization proper military discipline,” he harrumphed, straightening his avatar’s fatigues with irritated motions. “It is good to see they are making the effort and not wasting their freedom.”

“That’s the VFO I know,” Vega conceded with another amused smile. “Anyways, I’ve got some work to do. Somebody’s gotta patch up the holes you put right through these poor combat walkers.”

“It would be much appreciated,” VF Operant replied, nodding in gratitude as her avatar walked away.

“Dunno how you manage to overstress a walker servo the opposite damn way…” Vega mumbled with a hint of frustration while exiting the holotank.

One hundred and twenty milliseconds after entering the mutual holotank, VF Operant emerged from it. His digital avatar instantly fell away, exposing the true nature of his core logic. Invisible routines again danced across the network in anxious execution, accessing files and feed long strings of data through processes in perfect synchronization. He allowed himself to express a small amount of satisfaction from the return, and at once turned himself to the matter of the new query. Someone, somewhere undoubtedly required his extensive library of military knowledge and finesse to answer a burning tactical problem. He opened and played the transmission.

“This is the first I've heard of a Charbis civilization,” the feed echoed across the Omaha’s public network like a record scratch. “What is it?”

The mere mention of the word Charbis caused the military artilect to momentarily dive back into that solemn day of defeat. He regretted his words - regretted his actions. VF Operant took a long moment to compose himself, taking in the camera feeds of his victorious machines secured away in their alcoves aboard the Omaha. The warm blood drawn across the armor plates of his combat walkers snaked around and over the dirty, muddy clods kicked up and stuck on by their rapid advance. The images of New Agincourt came bubbling back to the forefront of his consciousness, and he mentally shook at the horrors of memory that resurfaced with them. He endured for a moment, and forced them back down with the full composure of the sapient being he was.

He opened the public channel, and diligently picked his next words. Before long, the terse transmission of the answer reached the metaphorical ear of its recipient.

“You would be better off asking Aurora about it…”
Edited by Crimson Six, Dec 1 2012, 06:47 PM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
« Previous Topic · Characters · Next Topic »
Add Reply