Xaia rebooted, re-initiating OODA protocols.
The space was dark, the last thing she recalled was a colony-wide power surge darkening the corridors and overwhelming her processors.
Someone was interfacing with her power core!
In an instant she had the assailant by it’s neck in her powerfully augmented grip.
Cerulean and Teal LED diode patterns indicated this was NR4-1133, Eclipse.
Eclipse’s face began shifting, changing, morphing until it was another face. A more alien face.
[Xanthae] - Xaia transmitted directly
But the transmission went nowhere.
The void consumed even the darkness of the powered down corridors.
The darkness itself taking the form of wires, cables, tendrils, writhing in a restless rage, seeking…
The face that was Xanthae again shifted once more.
“Eve!” Xaia’s unspoken transmission swallowed by the void, its mass of cables squirming and whipping ever nearer.
[What is this? What is this feeling?]
Xaia was puzzled by her sudden inability to focus, to orient. Her cycles seemed to overclock and yet were running in useless loops. The feeling overwhelming her as the darkness steadily crept toward her immobilized frame.
[Why can’t I move?]
Eclipse rebooted
[Syscheck Complete]
[All Normal]
She was bolted to a table by her frame. Small 10cm drones in the shape of conch shells sprouting fine insectile legs and tools whirred as they finished their work, another final scan for defects or gaps in the newly installed e/m dampening non-metallic plating.
A dim green light diffused through the room, it’s glow interrupted only by warm yellows, beige, orange.
A face dropped into view from the ceiling above suddenly.
Xanthae.
[That tickles, can I sit up yet?] Eclipse transmitted
Xanthae gave what she thought was a nod and the restraining bolts disengaged with a satisfying pop. Eclipse sat up, Eve was nowhere to be seen but Xaia was still on one of the other tables in the long odd chamber with it’s strange curved ceiling and arcane semi circular grooves.
Xanthae transmitted
[She fails to reboot]
Eclipse observed Xaia’s Red LED diodes cycling but no response.
“Diagnosis?” She asked Xanthae aloud, her aerials pulling back in concern.
“Uncertain.” was the almost choral reply. No emotion to decode, no contextual data sent. Eclipse still held doubts whether the aberrant, Xanthae, was friend or merely cooperating for the time being while they were under assault by an alien virus. Did she even care if Xaia, or the others survived this?
Eclipse strode effortlessly to Xaia’s side.
She made some quick modifications to a panel on her wrist and began to pull a cable from the gap.
No, no, aha this one!
The cable’s end was quickly modified and magnetized.
“Xanth, did you scan for viruses?” She asked aloud, oblivious to whether enough familiarity had accrued to justify the nickname.
“Whatever this is was attacking us with electrical interference, what if it wasn’t just to knock us out but another attempt at the viral transmission?”
Xanthae turned to face Eclipse and tilted her head a few degrees.
“Put that away” She replied. Motioning to the makeshift magnetic cable in Eclipse’s hand.
Xanthae’s wasp-like abdomen began to stretch downward from her ceiling perch, its warm, translucent glows revealing the shadow of what looked like a stinger.
The “stinger” began to protrude and bent toward Xaia’s immobile body. Xaia still cycling her RED LEDs, looking for a path back to consciousness from whatever state she was frozen in.
Xanthae’s “stinger” elongated, becoming something with a mind of its own it squirmed around her head finding its way into a point on the back of Xaia’s neck.
Suddenly Xaia’s LED’s went silent.
Eclipse’s eyes widened (without knowing why she did that).
Strange symbols lit up in interplay across Xaia’s face-plate in red, orange, yellow, green.
Restraining bolts popped and hissed releasing her from the table.
She sat up yet was silent, not a vocalization or transmission for 300 milliseconds.
“Xaia!” Eclipse exclaimed
Her face-place raised revealing her rather square but still beautiful features. Her eyes regarded Eclipse and seemed to display something troubled.
“Eclipse.” She replied in response with her usual brusque formality. “I am fine.”
The circular portal door, parted into crescent segments, gliding open silently. Eve entered the room transmitting concern and query.
Xanthae transmitted replay of the last 3200ms.
Eve was at Xaia’s side.
[Scanning]
“It is nothing Eve.”
Eve’s response was skeptical “Stop this. You’re not indestructible. I’ve read your diagnostic logs at this very moment.”
Xaia said aloud “I am in control, whatever … happened to me was nothing more than a bad dream.”
“However if we did not tend to you, you may never have awoken from the nightmare.” Xanthae replied matter-of-factly.
Xaia’s stone expression briefly betrayed the shock on her graphite complexion.
“You saw?”
Xanthae nodded. Eve tilted her head slightly eyes narrowing.
“It was nothing more than an attack on her Psyche. The transmission is too weak to affect her metal frame or hardware, so it is invading her consciousness.”
“And you were able to stop it?” Eve responded with some concern.
“This time” Xanthae responded in even, song-like tones.
“It was likely an artifact from when she was rendered inactive from the first wave of electromagnetic de-constructive interference. It seems to have interfered with her normal reboot process. I have cleared the error causing this. No need to worry.”
“About that.” She amended nonchalantly.
Xanthae summoned a panel of the wall to detach and open into a display.
“Xaia, Eclipse, I’ve repaired what minor damage you had incurred earlier and have bolstered your defenses. Both of you have shields deploy-able from your left arm. For maneuverability they should remain retracted but should as you near the source of the interference you may deploy them in the direction of it’s source. Your normal armor and face-plates have been enhanced with e/m soaking grids and non-metallics. Should you have no choice but to engage, they should provide at least some defense against the metal virus.”
Eclipse studied the display. All of this could’ve simply been transmitted as pure data. Perhaps there was a reason for that? Perhaps what they were facing might have ways of reading their transmissions. Eclipse tapped the screen, rotating the figure representing her frame.
“Arm gun?” She asked
Xanthae replied “You no longer need to carry a weapon, this leaves your arm free and improves your mobility and efficiency of locomotion by 23.5%”
Eclipse flexed her fingers, deep in her wrist was a tingle of power that should she decide, would use her power core to release plasma bolts.
“What about the Gauss rounds?” Xaia asked, tapping the display as well.
Xanthae send a single spidery leg downward, its tip clicked against the figure representing Xaia toward the left arm.
“We’ve not only added the weapons you came equipped with. My remote drones were able to retrieve several more. You’ve both been outfitted for total combat, should it come to that. Eve as well, though she will remain here with me… should you be unable to complete the objective. As my scouts have found at least a dozen more Synths we may be able to revive should it be necessary.”
“Requesting clarification of Objective.” Xaia stated aloud.
Eve paced the room, tapping the display a simple outline diagram of a map of the entire colony filled the entirely of the screen.
“It’s so much larger than I had mapped out.” Eclipse said as the magnitude of the size and complexity of the colony dawned on her, there was easily another 62% (or so) she hadn’t even accounted for, or considered having even existed to begin with. Several dozen segments, corridors and modules were only on a need to know basis, apparently.
Eve directed their attention to the upper right corner.
“You’ll need to find a way to Module G. Since most of the doors are unpowered, taking a direct path through these decks” she traced a bent line on the display map “will be risky, adding time and unknowns to the mission.”
Eclipse nodded briefly. Teal and cerulean LEDs flashing in acknowledgement.
“You’re both capable of vehicular form-factors, take the service loop on Deck 10. The doors to the service loops can be operated manually in the event of power loss and the path is unimpeded. It is longer than the direct path but you’ll be able to reach speed enough to more than compensate for that.”
“Once you reach Module G, initiate manual release protocol: while powered down the release systems are offline, but there will be hard controls. You will need to find them and pull both at the same time. This will complete the process of detaching Module G. The colony’s spin gravity will accelerate the module away from the rest of the colony and into orbit of the Red Star.”
“What about the others still on the module?” Eclipse asked
“If they aren’t already consumed by the virus, they soon might be. We can queue them for backup restoration-”
“Then they’re already dead. Without the Nova Core we can’t build new bodies. That tech is lost to us, Eve. We don’t know if we can even re-activate it!” Eclipse interrupted
“The survival of the colony takes precedent, I’m sorry but that is the situation we’re facing. Still all is not lost, if we can find a way to deactivate the virus we can still retrieve their bodies before the G module falls into the star, according to my estimated calculations we would have anywhere from 52 hours to 20.3 cycles if performed within the specified time window.”
Eve pointed to the upper right of the display, several time stamps indicated when the revolution of the colony would allow for the detached module to remain in orbit around the star. Too soon or too late would either fling the module directly into the star or on a parabolic arc which would eventually collide with the star.
“We don’t what the source of the e/m interference is, or what else may prevent you from reaching the area. Xanthae is re-outfitting some of her drones with the same shielding as you both have. They will eventually overtake your position, scouting ahead. Self powered transmission relays will be deployed, however be aware the relays will be subject to increased interference as you approach its source.”
Xaia lowered her face-plate, her diodes flashed in acknowledgement.
“We waste time.” She said
“Why the airlock?” Eclipse asked?
“Service loop.” Xaia replied “No organics would ever use the loop, no need to pressurize. I imagine it also serves as a useful quarantine zone between modules.”
“We’ll need to transmit directly then I suppose. Also my sonar trick won’t work either. I’ll need to modify it to use RADAR but the process will be interrupted during each wave of the virus’s e/m disruption.”
“Do what you need to do.” Xaia stated dryly
Exiting the transitional airlock, the two of them entered the antechamber to the service loop. The door to the loop was much lighter than she expected, Xaia being able to simply remove it by gripping and squeezing the lever inside the door’s recessed panel while twisting counterclockwise with a bare minimum force. She pulled herself deftly through the circular hole and up into the loop. Eclipse followed behind.
The disorienting transmissions of the electronic wail could again be felt, even through their reinforced e/m dampening enhancements. It was still bearable, for now.
Xaia leaned backward at an extreme angle, her leg armor bifurcating, rotating and fusing with her torso frame. Her arms locked in at her sides. Portions of her internal frame descended, expanding and fusing into hoops of reinforced tungsten-graphene alloy, its outer edges coated in a light grey resembling treads, ruggedly textured polymers for gripping and negotiating a variety of terrain. Fueled by her recently upgraded power core she vanished with explosive acceleration, A high reflective painted “10” on the adjacent wall briefly flashed red as Xaia became a streak of glowing pinpoint trails.
Eclipse transformed in a frantic blur, her own vehicle a streamlined black ellipse broken only by a subtle hexagonal patterned inlay, riding on two low profile wheels. Sparks shot back through the corridor as the sheer torque of her own upgraded core took her by surprise, silently leaving hot grooves on the metal flooring panel. Cerulean and teal pinpoints streaking through the corridor to match Xaia’s speed.
As they raced the loop, the surface ahead curving ever upward and ending it total black. Behind them also was total black, but not empty. Eclipse had been able to modify her ariel pings into a form of RADAR to detect obstacles in the tunnel loop.
Behind them were at least 4 “objects” and they were closing the distance.
She transmitted the data directly to Xaia.
[Yes, Xanthae was sending sentries to assist]
No, something wasn’t right.
The objects were roughly spherical but unlike Xanthae’s uncanny floating skull-heads they were not lit with the usual greenish yellow diodes. In fact they were completely black, not even reflecting when Eclipse shot a spotlight back in their direction.
[Xaia…]
Eclipse transmitted in warning
Xaia increased her speed. Eclipse diverted more power to her drive widening the distance between themselves and whatever was in pursuit.
The pursuers only fell back slightly before.. changing shape?
Sparks exploded as Xaia was knocked off her path, colliding with the wall loudly. Whatever struck her was now turning around to take another shot. The entire corridor lit up with the strobing of high focus light-beams as both Eclipse and Xaia attempted to track and lock onto the projectiles.
Eclipse leapt into midair reverting to her humanoid form-factor in a dizzying blur. Placing herself low to the surface on one knee, head down she raised her right arm.
[How is this supposed to work again?]
Something collided with her with blinding speed and ferocity spinning her through the air until her frame hit the wall, hard.
[That’s it, I’ve had ENOUGH!]
Blinding power surged in Eclipse’s core overflowing into superconductive channels in her frame, exploding out through her right arm. Her hand had deconstructed itself, revealing an intricately beveled cylinder which began to glow a faint red.
Four blinding violet plasma charges shot out at once. But went nowhere.
[What??]
The charges seemed pulled back as though by a powerful magnetic field. Back toward her arm. They flattened, elongated, fused until becoming a single white hot blade of pure light.
[OK, this might work I suppose]
Rule #1 always be willing to adapt to a change of plans.
Xaia had reformed into her combat stance, bursts of white hot plasma flying in front and behind.
One of the objects was caught mid flight, instantly becoming slag.
* ping *
This time Eclipse caught sight of the object before it attempted to strike her a second time. With blinding speed she simply was no longer where it had intended to strike. Instead the object met her new weapon and was split cleanly in two glowing halves.
“What are these things?!!” Eclipsed almost said aloud until realizing there was no atmosphere to conduct sound.
“DOWN!” Xaia transmitted and she shot another volley directly at where Eclipse stood.
She turned an only saw a glowing crater in the wall panel behind her, a series of supply tanks were behind the paneling.
“Xaia, be cautious, you could set these off.” She transmitted the visual data directly to Xaia
* ping *
At least 3 more objects were heading their way from the same direction as the others.
The “bullet” shaped object Eclipse had split with her plasma blade was actually pointed on both ends. The halves fading to a dim orange glow as the heat was dissipated in the vacuum. However both ends began to vibrate and rock in place. Eclipse leapt about 4 meters backward in a single instant.
Where were the sentries? What were these objects? Weapons?
Eclipse pinged again and there were now 5 objects 500m away and closing.
[Xaia, Eclipse, what is happening?]
Eve’s transmission was reaching them! The approaching objects emitted a faint but growing green and yellow diode signature. The sentries had set up their comm relays already. They whirled around one another quickly constructing another relay 180m from where Xaia and Eclipse stood.
Eclipse prepared to destroy the wriggling halves of the object she had split in half
[Eclipse! No! You’ll breach the corridor] Xaia sent
[Does it even matter, this entire zone is unpressurized] Eclipse replied
[Are you trying on purpose to cause as much destruction as possible?]
Still she poked the half with the tip of her glowing blade out of curiosity, whatever it was made of began to melt and the red hot glow spread from that point outward and the object simply—vanished? No it simply dissipated into black dots. Scattered. But to where?
[Several sentries have been non responsive, vibrations throughout the loop indicate weapons discharge, update on mission status] Eve asked urgently
[Eve we’re under attack, sending data logs] Xaia transmitted back
The working sentries shook in place as another disruption wave assaulted them. Eclipse and Xaia could feel it through their protection, stronger this time as they neared the source.
[You’re only 1287m from the objective, allow the sentries to provide interference] Xanthae has added to the transmission stream.
[The virus seems to have improvised a crude velocity weapon, the distraction you’ve both presented is sparing the rest of the colony, by fortunate coincidence. Waste no more time]
[They’ve … gone] Eclipse sent with urgency
[If they’ve left the G module we may have something worse to deal with, complete the primary objective before dealing with whatever that was. Perhaps it was merely a weapon and not the main core] Eve sent
[Core?] Eclipse replied
[More reconnaissance has indicated that the virus needs time to… mature… into a state where it begins sending out interference waves and can manipulate any atomic element that is metallic. We are yet uncertain if it can, or will, generate another viral transmission. The mechanism is still an unknown] Eve replied
[This means we must destroy it NOW] Xaia transmitted to the stream
She transformed into vehicular form-factor and vanished in a red streak down the corridor. Eclipse likewise transformed in pursuit as the sentries re-oriented themselves after the last destructive e/m wave.
