One year after Fenrir's rebellion, humanity once again look to the stars. Venturing into the Perseus Veil, what will they find? Hopefully not yet another alien species who spontaneously decide to genocide humanity on first sight (seriously, what's with aliens and picking on humanity?).
Starships don't go indoors! (Mass Effect / R-Type)
- Thread starter Mew
- Start date
- Crossover Sci-Fi
-
- Tags
- mass effect
- Created
- Status
- Ongoing
- Watchers
- 75
- Recent readers
- 0
- Threadmarks
- 25
-
Statistics (24 threadmarks, 190k words)
User Total Mew 24 -
Loading…
Into the unknown once more
Mew
Baffled by existence
- Location
- Pokémon World
- Pronouns
- She
Figured I'd post something on this forum. And well, decided it might as well be this.
BTW, this fic has a TV Tropes page. Link: Starships Don't Go Indoors! / Fan Fic - TV Tropes
__/¯¯\__/¯¯\__|[<(o)>]|__/¯¯\__/¯¯\__
STARSHIPS DON'T GO INDOORS!
¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯|[<(o)>]|¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯
Why do I look to the skies without fear, knowing they hold nothing but despair?
Why do I step into the unknown eager to meet it, knowing it will inevitably stab me in the back?
The Bydo have done everything to strip us of our compassion, of our hope. More than the death of our bodies, they craved the destruction of our humanity.
Perhaps it is not optimism that truly drive those thoughts, but spite. A refusal to lose the last sliver of humanity that the cold of steel and the burns of Bydogen have yet to strip from me.
September 11, 2185
Two years have passed since Operation Last Dance and one since Fenrir's rebellion. The last of the Bydo Remnant have been wiped and with Fenrir dead and the Bydo Abyss under EAAF control, the rebels no longer have the necessary materials to fight humanity on an equal footing.
Despite all this, Arrowhead had still not retired. In fact, she had accepted that she'd likely never retire at all, something she had slowly come to terms with. While she felt so very old and obsolete by now, she was no longer alone. Her long years fighting what had once been a hopeless war had finally paid off and for the first time in over twenty years, her commanding officers had both found themselves out of targets for her to shoot and able to actually get some sleep.
Frankly, she could have taken a rear job, patrolling around the edges of the solar system or ferrying supplies between military bases using her industrial grade tractor beam but frankly? She didn't care that she was obsolete to the point of being only a few steps removed from a mere scouting vessel or worse yet a civilian one, she had spent her entire life as a fighter. Beside, somebody got to keep all those wet behind the ears shitty rookies in line.
With humanity's extinction no longer being imminent enough to be given an approximative but depressingly accurate prediction of when it would happen, the time for reconstruction and exploration had come.
Once, the Earth Hegemony stretched from Sol all the way to the Perseus Veil. Now, it was just Earth.
There wasn't that many humans left, a point that depressed many of the survivors... but frankly? Humanity survived the Scorching War and bounced back from it. They'll bounce back from the Bydo Wars. They didn't survive everything Solar Pupil and that traitor Fenrir thrown at them only to wangst themselves to oblivion at the finish line.
For all of the nightmares, the bydo and their goons are just that, nightmares. Dreadful memories that no longer exist within the real world. Meanwhile, in spite of everything, she is still here. And that is what matters.
Her mind was brought back to reality as her body shook under the effects of the transition effect. Her stabilizers did their thing, drawing from the temporal singularity at her core and coating her armor with its touch, ensuring that her molecular structure remained stable as she left Dimension 26 and returned to the physical universe. Instantly, she felt the background radiation and static of space assault her sensors followed shortly by the light of the stars, confirming that she was indeed back in the third dimension.
Her systems ran a quick diagnostic, as they always did after a trans-dimensional shift. Chronosensor readings are matching her internal clock readings as well as the control clock. Temporal margin of error is within acceptable margins. Her optics are detecting the black void of space and not the purple swirly vortex-ness of Dimension 26 anymore. Alright, she didn't misjump.
Armor stress within safety margins, temporal singularity containment is stable, her missiles are all cozy and still in their racks, her wave motion cannons did not spontaneously discharge or malfunction, her oxygen and nutrition solution reserves are within estimated mission margins, cyber-connector connection is solid and she's fully merged to her circuitry, life support for her Angel Pac is working as intended with no glitches, and her Angel Pac is registering no signs of abnormal heart activity from her organic nervous center. Good, so she isn't having a heart attack, spontaneously shutting down, or otherwise Ghosting.
She quickly checked her position compared to the dimensional catapult behind her and begun to check her star charts. Based on the estimated expansion rate of the universe, the current star date, and her position... yeah, it all checks out. This is the Perseus Veil in the correct year.
As if on cue, she detected two energy spikes nearby.
Even before she begun the identification process, she already knew that it was her fellow wingmates in the Blue Light squadron having materialized. And with exquisite precision, just as she knew they would, they flashed their IFF signals. The lights on the tip of Arrowhead's own ailerons lit up as she flashed her own IFF signals.
Alright, time for a roll call. "All ships check in."
"R-9F Andromalius reporting in." Alright, the old lady is on her left.
"R-9D Shooting Star reporting in." Predictably, he's bringing up the rear.
"R-GS9sp Last Gigs reporting in." Obviously, the kid made it safely. Why wouldn't he?
"R-9B2 Stayer reporting in." "R-9E3 Sweet Luna here." Predictably, the love doves made it together. Figures.
"R-99 Last Dancer reporting in." Seems that overrated garbage heap's drive held. Good.
"R-9DH3 Concertmaster reporting in." Nice. So far, so good. That just leave the new meat.
"R-9A Arrowhead Alpha reporting in." "R-9DH Grace Note reporting in." "R-9A Arrowhead Beta reporting in." "R-9A Arrowhead Delta reporting in." And that makes twelve.
Good. So her wingmates are all there. She briefly drawn energy from the temporal singularity in her core and channeled it through one of her ailerons, using it as an antenna and unleashing a small ripple through space and time. Then she listened carefully to the distortions created by the shockwave, analyzing it with the speed her mechanical systems allowed her. The only obvious sources of bydo signals in the system are right in front of her, to her left, and a bit behind her to her right. In short, her own Force Device and those wielded by her wingmates.
Good, so no signs of rebel remnants or any feral bydo.
With everything in order, the time came to begin this mission proper. She admitted that she felt a shudder flow from her Angel Pac into her circuitry, coursing through every single wire of her frame. She suppressed that organic fear response the best she could and focused on the task at hand.
Perseus Veil. Before the Bydo Wars, it was the final frontier, the last system to be explored by humanity. It was in this cursed system that humanity made contact with the bydo for the first time. It was why Earth command had requested the EAAF deploy the famed Blue Light squadron for scouting and exploring this place rather than just sending, say, some Unchained Silences.
Alright, work time.
Sweet Luna broke formation and flew ahead, as was the procedure. Arrowhead kept her sensors peeled, so to speak, listening intently. Of course, every member of the squadron has good sensors, radar, you name it but Sweet Luna was the only one who was essentially a big radome saucer with thrusters, a pair of ailerons and cannons, and a cockpit sticking out. Stayer would call that adorably cute. Arrowhead and more than a few just felt she was essentially a frisbee with a head.
Of course, Sweet Luna's ship form matched with her personality quite well but she was supposed to be focusing just in case Sweet Luna got caught in some negative space wedgie or attracted the attention of an all new, exciting, and exotic race of genocidal aliens. Given humanity's luck and Sweet Luna's rather unfortunate tendency to channel Leeroy Jenkins, she predicted the chances of that were unfortunately very high.
There was a moment of tension as everyone just hanged back, Sweet Luna doing her AWAC ship mumbo jumbo. Nobody had their weapons armed just yet but everyone just had that sinking feeling that came just before the universe decided to introduce yet another thing that made being human suck a little bit more. Not that being a human is the best deal ever already.
Of course, if she just focused on that tension, she might end up doing something stupid. Though she is a living ship, the presence of a human brain in her Angel Pac central processing unit meant she had many quirks and mannerisms associated with an organic being. Might be best to do something before nervosity cause her to do something bad.
She squashed the temptation to open up a channel and chat with the squadron. Yes, that would help with the tension but everyone is supposed to be focused on the task at hand and while she didn't doubt most of the squadron was skilled enough to parse their thoughts and multi-task, she wasn't too confident about the new meat just yet. Most of the squadron is veterans, yes, but she must take into account the recruits. That they have a low chance of survival doesn't mean she should hinder their chances by distracting them.
With nothing better to do, she decided to just go over the briefing and strategic data while she ran her scans and kept her weapons systems ready to activate at any time.
Given her long career and achievements, she could have taken a desk job. She certainly had a knack for leading, she admitted. However, she had always been a fighter jock at heart and well, she took pride in being a fighter ship. As the very first R-9A and the first R-series ship to be converted into a combat model, she was essentially a glorified tugboat with guns and extra thrusters so she could very easily be converted and try to find a job as a miner, delivery vessel, what not. Still, civilian life had never really appealed to her. Beside, Angel Pac cyborgs are rather rare outside of the military, something about civies seeing Angel Pac pilots as being entombed and trapped in tiny prisons. She'd... rather not deal with that.
Still, all of that experience, and outliving nearly everyone she had ever known, meant that she was suitable for a brass desk job and could be trusted with the truth regarding a lot of stuff. That meant she knew full well why everyone was here.
The Bydo Wars were traumatizing. There is a fear among the brass, a fear that if humanity doesn't reach for the stars and prove to itself that they can explore again, the sheer trauma of the Bydo Wars will cause humanity to just... give up. To just turtle down on Earth and never reach out to the stars ever again, trembling under oppressive skies.
Arrowhead could understand that fear. Once, the Earth Hegemony stretched across over a dozen of systems, hundreds of colonies both celestial body-bound and floating through the stars filling the void. Now, there is a less than a billion humans left on the shattered remnants of the once beautiful homeworld.
It's funny, in a way. This is just exploration, reclamation, with no combat actually expected... yet, here she is, saving humanity again. Because if humanity doesn't spread out, if they don't have territory and numbers, the next war will be the final one.
The only reason humanity lived long enough to create her and her brothers and sisters was because of all the territory humanity had claimed. It was in the time spent bleeding dozens of planets and space cities that her birth and the survival of the human race was bought. If Sol had been all the territory humanity had held... she wouldn't be here. Nobody would be here.
She sighed internally and then, chased the thoughts away. Time to focus back upon the situation.
"I've got something!" The moment that Sweet Luna transmitted those words, Arrowhead instantly felt the surge of adrenaline flowing from her organic processor into her entire nervous system. She did not quite activate her weapon systems just yet but she suddenly made extra sure her thrusters were ready in case she needed to do sudden evasive maneuvers.
Officially, R-crafts are aircrafts and starships, machines and thus do not have body language. Unofficially, she could tell that all of her fellow veterans had suddenly tensed once the ominous words came from the scout ship.
Sweet Luna may be a bit of a daredevil but she wouldn't have survived so far if there wasn't a sliver of professionalism inside her. Thus, instead of trying to pointlessly explain whatever gibberish her sensors just caught, she instead shared the data with the squadron. Arrowhead immediately went to work, checking her memory banks and doing comparisons. Over a decade of service meant that while she was no egghead, she memorized a lot of signal types and became very good at identifying them.
In particular, her skills proved to be especially relevant as she analyzed the data. After the First Bydo War, Arrowhead had been assigned a low profile patrol route on Earth and worked with civilian police forces for a while. After a bydo conspiracy almost caused Earth to become ground zero for a backdoor beachhead into humanity's backyard, Arrowhead had spoken at length with some of the police officers, investigators, and other assorted detectives she had met during her time on Earth as to brush up her skills at identifying threats, what they were, and get some investigation tricks soldiers don't normally have to worry about ever. It may have seemed paranoid to want to pick up the skills necessary to find, identify, and dismantle conspiracies but it had saved her life many times during later conflicts and was a major reason she had been instrumental in identifying and defeating Fenrir's rebellion before it gained momentum.
So while this data may have been confusing to others, she was able to put two and two together. In particular, she noted that it lacked the rhythmic feel of bydo signals. It was too obvious a signal, too complex to be that of a rebel or some pirate, containing too much information. It did however have that looping, simplistic feel that came from AI-derived signals. Yep, this is likely from an automaton or an artificial intelligence.
Was it from an independent AI or a drone fleet used by somebody? Before the horrors of the Bydo Wars, humanity had deployed independant, self-replicating AI fleets for the purpose of preparing the galaxy for colonization. It was also expected, given previous hostile alien contacts, that the chances of hostile contact were extremely high. Thus, those fleets had been deployed in the old days to pave the way. They were believed to have been corrupted or wiped to the last by the bydo but then, space is huge and the temporal distortions of the Bydo Wars meant that history had become a fine mess.
Or maybe it could be somebody's drone swarm? Even before the mass deaths of the Bydo Wars, even with cloning and temporal duplication being a thing, there had only been so many humans in existence. Much of humanity's colonization efforts thus had to be performed by vast swarms of automatons. While the use of drone swarms had largely been abandoned during the Bydo Wars due to the Bydo's ability to effortlessly corrupt mindless machines, that practice had begun to resurface since the end of the last war.
... but then, this is the Perseus Veil. It's frankly a bit too far for this to be somebody's pet automatons. So this is likely an AI. Hopefully, it isn't insane or subverted by some alien threat.
"Likelihood of AI fleet. Adjust formation. Sweet Luna, check for IFF signal and ID."
The reaction was instant and very obvious.
Officially, none of the members of the squadron were B-series ships and thus, being pure machines, lacked body language. Of course, that was officially. It was well known that all bydogen-based technology and life had long-term effects on whatever stood near it long enough, especially when it was a non-sentient mass of metal that had no willpower to resist calls to change with. Thus Arrowhead would, as usual, deny any evidence of her older wingmen shuddering as they adjusted their positions, spreading out to ensure that a surprise attack from the dark wouldn't wipe out the whole squadron in one hit. She, herself, remained as professional as ever.
'Please god don't be this the start of a new war please god don't be this the start of a new war please god don't be this the start of a new war...' she begged internally even as she prepared herself for the worst.
Even the rookies seemed suddenly keenly aware of their mortality. Only Sweet Luna reacted otherwise, not even pretending to hide it as she shivered from excitement. That daredevil freak. Her report would point out that it was a result of cosmic winds or maybe a glitch in engine temperature from the sudden acceleration or some other technical bullshit like that.
For a moment, Arrowhead half-expected Sweet Luna, if not all of the squadron, to spontaneously explode due to some unknown, exotic, amazingly painful weapon the mind could barely hope to comprehend.
But instead, she received a simple request from the AWAC ship. It's a signal in the human language! Requesting identification, purpose for arrival, and which colony they're from.
And that, above all else, was interesting. No recent AI fleets were programmed to ask for one's colonial affiliation anymore for the rather depressing result that only Earth was left. And that instantly told her the approximative age of that AI fleet. It also meant she was the only one in the squadron who remembered valid ID codes for that kind of AI model. Given it would accept the old codes she remembered.
Still, that was quite the shock. If this isn't faked, this is potentially an AI fleet from before the Bydo Wars. How would it have survived so long? Did it hide? Was it ignored or not found? Did it manage to discover how to fight off the bydo and then driven it off? The last one was very unlikely but then, an AI fleet this old was unlikely to begin with. If this is actually really an AI fleet and not something else mimicking one. But then, what would do that? Why would it?
Despite her thoughts, she knew it would be best not to dwell on them and to react quickly. So she transmitted the codes directly to Sweet Luna so that she may in turn transmit them to what they assumed to be an AI fleet. She did not make use of human speech ; it was unknown how patient the machines would be.
As soon as the ID code was transmitted, data was sent streaming from the seeming AI fleet. It was-
Wait what.
Arrowhead requested a copy of the data from Sweet Luna and urgently reviewed, slower this time. If this wasn't fake, then it was big. It also meant that unfortunately, her experience now meant that it was her problem. Fuck.
Running the data through her cognitive system a third time, she indeed came to the conclusion that it wasn't a result of her nervous system aging. Most of the data was mostly just junk. The kind of boring data about explored planets and the atmospheric readings of space rocks. However, among the report package was data about alien first contact.
This was, needless to say, huge.
The AI fleet had made contact with some alien species and it had, for some unfathomable reason, decided not to shoot it. In fact, the AI fleet was requesting human operators as to take over procedures. This was... this was...
No.
No. The universe is never so kind upon humanity. There's got to be a catch. And even if it's that good? She knows she's now doomed. Things never go so well. Or are this simple. This is the prelude to the next great war. Oh god no. It's totally going to be that, isn't it?
"Last Gigs, black box this data and deliver this data to HQ. Take the rookies, Andromalius, and Grace Note as escorts. This report must make it to the brass's desks."
She waited for a moment as the various members of the squadron adjusted their formation and Last Gigs left the scene. While sending him off with escorts might sound paranoid, she didn't want to risk of a feral bydo or rebel ambush killing them or even worse, capturing the data. Better safe than sorry. Of course, that only reduced the strength of the squadron right here, a point that she admitted suddenly caused her to internally whimper but hey, she had fought worse odds before, right?... right.
Why did she just have that thought? God, why is today one of the days she decide to recover a bit of her old fighter jock daredevil-tastic spine? Couldn't she show off bravery yesterday, when all that happened was a funny asteroid flying by during their patrol?
Unfortunately, her sheer experience and the fact that all the people she used to take orders from died, this give her sufficient authority to actually take command of the situation and set up the future meeting the AI fleet likely wants her to plan. It also meant that, even worse, her remaining wingmates now looked to her to keep them safe and make good decisions, which made her earlier orders even dumber, since it meant she just took charge and confirmed that her leader status wasn't given to her for nothing. Damn it. Why did she have to remind everybody that despite being a grunt ship, she was the most experienced here and indeed in charge?
Well, hopefully, she can keep things calm while Andromalius and Last Gigs go inform the brass about what happened out there...
BTW, this fic has a TV Tropes page. Link: Starships Don't Go Indoors! / Fan Fic - TV Tropes
__/¯¯\__/¯¯\__|[<(o)>]|__/¯¯\__/¯¯\__
STARSHIPS DON'T GO INDOORS!
¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯|[<(o)>]|¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯
Why do I look to the skies without fear, knowing they hold nothing but despair?
Why do I step into the unknown eager to meet it, knowing it will inevitably stab me in the back?
The Bydo have done everything to strip us of our compassion, of our hope. More than the death of our bodies, they craved the destruction of our humanity.
Perhaps it is not optimism that truly drive those thoughts, but spite. A refusal to lose the last sliver of humanity that the cold of steel and the burns of Bydogen have yet to strip from me.
-From ship archives
September 11, 2185
Two years have passed since Operation Last Dance and one since Fenrir's rebellion. The last of the Bydo Remnant have been wiped and with Fenrir dead and the Bydo Abyss under EAAF control, the rebels no longer have the necessary materials to fight humanity on an equal footing.
Despite all this, Arrowhead had still not retired. In fact, she had accepted that she'd likely never retire at all, something she had slowly come to terms with. While she felt so very old and obsolete by now, she was no longer alone. Her long years fighting what had once been a hopeless war had finally paid off and for the first time in over twenty years, her commanding officers had both found themselves out of targets for her to shoot and able to actually get some sleep.
Frankly, she could have taken a rear job, patrolling around the edges of the solar system or ferrying supplies between military bases using her industrial grade tractor beam but frankly? She didn't care that she was obsolete to the point of being only a few steps removed from a mere scouting vessel or worse yet a civilian one, she had spent her entire life as a fighter. Beside, somebody got to keep all those wet behind the ears shitty rookies in line.
With humanity's extinction no longer being imminent enough to be given an approximative but depressingly accurate prediction of when it would happen, the time for reconstruction and exploration had come.
Once, the Earth Hegemony stretched from Sol all the way to the Perseus Veil. Now, it was just Earth.
There wasn't that many humans left, a point that depressed many of the survivors... but frankly? Humanity survived the Scorching War and bounced back from it. They'll bounce back from the Bydo Wars. They didn't survive everything Solar Pupil and that traitor Fenrir thrown at them only to wangst themselves to oblivion at the finish line.
For all of the nightmares, the bydo and their goons are just that, nightmares. Dreadful memories that no longer exist within the real world. Meanwhile, in spite of everything, she is still here. And that is what matters.
Her mind was brought back to reality as her body shook under the effects of the transition effect. Her stabilizers did their thing, drawing from the temporal singularity at her core and coating her armor with its touch, ensuring that her molecular structure remained stable as she left Dimension 26 and returned to the physical universe. Instantly, she felt the background radiation and static of space assault her sensors followed shortly by the light of the stars, confirming that she was indeed back in the third dimension.
Her systems ran a quick diagnostic, as they always did after a trans-dimensional shift. Chronosensor readings are matching her internal clock readings as well as the control clock. Temporal margin of error is within acceptable margins. Her optics are detecting the black void of space and not the purple swirly vortex-ness of Dimension 26 anymore. Alright, she didn't misjump.
Armor stress within safety margins, temporal singularity containment is stable, her missiles are all cozy and still in their racks, her wave motion cannons did not spontaneously discharge or malfunction, her oxygen and nutrition solution reserves are within estimated mission margins, cyber-connector connection is solid and she's fully merged to her circuitry, life support for her Angel Pac is working as intended with no glitches, and her Angel Pac is registering no signs of abnormal heart activity from her organic nervous center. Good, so she isn't having a heart attack, spontaneously shutting down, or otherwise Ghosting.
She quickly checked her position compared to the dimensional catapult behind her and begun to check her star charts. Based on the estimated expansion rate of the universe, the current star date, and her position... yeah, it all checks out. This is the Perseus Veil in the correct year.
As if on cue, she detected two energy spikes nearby.
Even before she begun the identification process, she already knew that it was her fellow wingmates in the Blue Light squadron having materialized. And with exquisite precision, just as she knew they would, they flashed their IFF signals. The lights on the tip of Arrowhead's own ailerons lit up as she flashed her own IFF signals.
Alright, time for a roll call. "All ships check in."
"R-9F Andromalius reporting in." Alright, the old lady is on her left.
"R-9D Shooting Star reporting in." Predictably, he's bringing up the rear.
"R-GS9sp Last Gigs reporting in." Obviously, the kid made it safely. Why wouldn't he?
"R-9B2 Stayer reporting in." "R-9E3 Sweet Luna here." Predictably, the love doves made it together. Figures.
"R-99 Last Dancer reporting in." Seems that overrated garbage heap's drive held. Good.
"R-9DH3 Concertmaster reporting in." Nice. So far, so good. That just leave the new meat.
"R-9A Arrowhead Alpha reporting in." "R-9DH Grace Note reporting in." "R-9A Arrowhead Beta reporting in." "R-9A Arrowhead Delta reporting in." And that makes twelve.
Good. So her wingmates are all there. She briefly drawn energy from the temporal singularity in her core and channeled it through one of her ailerons, using it as an antenna and unleashing a small ripple through space and time. Then she listened carefully to the distortions created by the shockwave, analyzing it with the speed her mechanical systems allowed her. The only obvious sources of bydo signals in the system are right in front of her, to her left, and a bit behind her to her right. In short, her own Force Device and those wielded by her wingmates.
Good, so no signs of rebel remnants or any feral bydo.
With everything in order, the time came to begin this mission proper. She admitted that she felt a shudder flow from her Angel Pac into her circuitry, coursing through every single wire of her frame. She suppressed that organic fear response the best she could and focused on the task at hand.
Perseus Veil. Before the Bydo Wars, it was the final frontier, the last system to be explored by humanity. It was in this cursed system that humanity made contact with the bydo for the first time. It was why Earth command had requested the EAAF deploy the famed Blue Light squadron for scouting and exploring this place rather than just sending, say, some Unchained Silences.
Alright, work time.
Sweet Luna broke formation and flew ahead, as was the procedure. Arrowhead kept her sensors peeled, so to speak, listening intently. Of course, every member of the squadron has good sensors, radar, you name it but Sweet Luna was the only one who was essentially a big radome saucer with thrusters, a pair of ailerons and cannons, and a cockpit sticking out. Stayer would call that adorably cute. Arrowhead and more than a few just felt she was essentially a frisbee with a head.
Of course, Sweet Luna's ship form matched with her personality quite well but she was supposed to be focusing just in case Sweet Luna got caught in some negative space wedgie or attracted the attention of an all new, exciting, and exotic race of genocidal aliens. Given humanity's luck and Sweet Luna's rather unfortunate tendency to channel Leeroy Jenkins, she predicted the chances of that were unfortunately very high.
There was a moment of tension as everyone just hanged back, Sweet Luna doing her AWAC ship mumbo jumbo. Nobody had their weapons armed just yet but everyone just had that sinking feeling that came just before the universe decided to introduce yet another thing that made being human suck a little bit more. Not that being a human is the best deal ever already.
Of course, if she just focused on that tension, she might end up doing something stupid. Though she is a living ship, the presence of a human brain in her Angel Pac central processing unit meant she had many quirks and mannerisms associated with an organic being. Might be best to do something before nervosity cause her to do something bad.
She squashed the temptation to open up a channel and chat with the squadron. Yes, that would help with the tension but everyone is supposed to be focused on the task at hand and while she didn't doubt most of the squadron was skilled enough to parse their thoughts and multi-task, she wasn't too confident about the new meat just yet. Most of the squadron is veterans, yes, but she must take into account the recruits. That they have a low chance of survival doesn't mean she should hinder their chances by distracting them.
With nothing better to do, she decided to just go over the briefing and strategic data while she ran her scans and kept her weapons systems ready to activate at any time.
Given her long career and achievements, she could have taken a desk job. She certainly had a knack for leading, she admitted. However, she had always been a fighter jock at heart and well, she took pride in being a fighter ship. As the very first R-9A and the first R-series ship to be converted into a combat model, she was essentially a glorified tugboat with guns and extra thrusters so she could very easily be converted and try to find a job as a miner, delivery vessel, what not. Still, civilian life had never really appealed to her. Beside, Angel Pac cyborgs are rather rare outside of the military, something about civies seeing Angel Pac pilots as being entombed and trapped in tiny prisons. She'd... rather not deal with that.
Still, all of that experience, and outliving nearly everyone she had ever known, meant that she was suitable for a brass desk job and could be trusted with the truth regarding a lot of stuff. That meant she knew full well why everyone was here.
The Bydo Wars were traumatizing. There is a fear among the brass, a fear that if humanity doesn't reach for the stars and prove to itself that they can explore again, the sheer trauma of the Bydo Wars will cause humanity to just... give up. To just turtle down on Earth and never reach out to the stars ever again, trembling under oppressive skies.
Arrowhead could understand that fear. Once, the Earth Hegemony stretched across over a dozen of systems, hundreds of colonies both celestial body-bound and floating through the stars filling the void. Now, there is a less than a billion humans left on the shattered remnants of the once beautiful homeworld.
It's funny, in a way. This is just exploration, reclamation, with no combat actually expected... yet, here she is, saving humanity again. Because if humanity doesn't spread out, if they don't have territory and numbers, the next war will be the final one.
The only reason humanity lived long enough to create her and her brothers and sisters was because of all the territory humanity had claimed. It was in the time spent bleeding dozens of planets and space cities that her birth and the survival of the human race was bought. If Sol had been all the territory humanity had held... she wouldn't be here. Nobody would be here.
She sighed internally and then, chased the thoughts away. Time to focus back upon the situation.
"I've got something!" The moment that Sweet Luna transmitted those words, Arrowhead instantly felt the surge of adrenaline flowing from her organic processor into her entire nervous system. She did not quite activate her weapon systems just yet but she suddenly made extra sure her thrusters were ready in case she needed to do sudden evasive maneuvers.
Officially, R-crafts are aircrafts and starships, machines and thus do not have body language. Unofficially, she could tell that all of her fellow veterans had suddenly tensed once the ominous words came from the scout ship.
Sweet Luna may be a bit of a daredevil but she wouldn't have survived so far if there wasn't a sliver of professionalism inside her. Thus, instead of trying to pointlessly explain whatever gibberish her sensors just caught, she instead shared the data with the squadron. Arrowhead immediately went to work, checking her memory banks and doing comparisons. Over a decade of service meant that while she was no egghead, she memorized a lot of signal types and became very good at identifying them.
In particular, her skills proved to be especially relevant as she analyzed the data. After the First Bydo War, Arrowhead had been assigned a low profile patrol route on Earth and worked with civilian police forces for a while. After a bydo conspiracy almost caused Earth to become ground zero for a backdoor beachhead into humanity's backyard, Arrowhead had spoken at length with some of the police officers, investigators, and other assorted detectives she had met during her time on Earth as to brush up her skills at identifying threats, what they were, and get some investigation tricks soldiers don't normally have to worry about ever. It may have seemed paranoid to want to pick up the skills necessary to find, identify, and dismantle conspiracies but it had saved her life many times during later conflicts and was a major reason she had been instrumental in identifying and defeating Fenrir's rebellion before it gained momentum.
So while this data may have been confusing to others, she was able to put two and two together. In particular, she noted that it lacked the rhythmic feel of bydo signals. It was too obvious a signal, too complex to be that of a rebel or some pirate, containing too much information. It did however have that looping, simplistic feel that came from AI-derived signals. Yep, this is likely from an automaton or an artificial intelligence.
Was it from an independent AI or a drone fleet used by somebody? Before the horrors of the Bydo Wars, humanity had deployed independant, self-replicating AI fleets for the purpose of preparing the galaxy for colonization. It was also expected, given previous hostile alien contacts, that the chances of hostile contact were extremely high. Thus, those fleets had been deployed in the old days to pave the way. They were believed to have been corrupted or wiped to the last by the bydo but then, space is huge and the temporal distortions of the Bydo Wars meant that history had become a fine mess.
Or maybe it could be somebody's drone swarm? Even before the mass deaths of the Bydo Wars, even with cloning and temporal duplication being a thing, there had only been so many humans in existence. Much of humanity's colonization efforts thus had to be performed by vast swarms of automatons. While the use of drone swarms had largely been abandoned during the Bydo Wars due to the Bydo's ability to effortlessly corrupt mindless machines, that practice had begun to resurface since the end of the last war.
... but then, this is the Perseus Veil. It's frankly a bit too far for this to be somebody's pet automatons. So this is likely an AI. Hopefully, it isn't insane or subverted by some alien threat.
"Likelihood of AI fleet. Adjust formation. Sweet Luna, check for IFF signal and ID."
The reaction was instant and very obvious.
Officially, none of the members of the squadron were B-series ships and thus, being pure machines, lacked body language. Of course, that was officially. It was well known that all bydogen-based technology and life had long-term effects on whatever stood near it long enough, especially when it was a non-sentient mass of metal that had no willpower to resist calls to change with. Thus Arrowhead would, as usual, deny any evidence of her older wingmen shuddering as they adjusted their positions, spreading out to ensure that a surprise attack from the dark wouldn't wipe out the whole squadron in one hit. She, herself, remained as professional as ever.
'Please god don't be this the start of a new war please god don't be this the start of a new war please god don't be this the start of a new war...' she begged internally even as she prepared herself for the worst.
Even the rookies seemed suddenly keenly aware of their mortality. Only Sweet Luna reacted otherwise, not even pretending to hide it as she shivered from excitement. That daredevil freak. Her report would point out that it was a result of cosmic winds or maybe a glitch in engine temperature from the sudden acceleration or some other technical bullshit like that.
For a moment, Arrowhead half-expected Sweet Luna, if not all of the squadron, to spontaneously explode due to some unknown, exotic, amazingly painful weapon the mind could barely hope to comprehend.
But instead, she received a simple request from the AWAC ship. It's a signal in the human language! Requesting identification, purpose for arrival, and which colony they're from.
And that, above all else, was interesting. No recent AI fleets were programmed to ask for one's colonial affiliation anymore for the rather depressing result that only Earth was left. And that instantly told her the approximative age of that AI fleet. It also meant she was the only one in the squadron who remembered valid ID codes for that kind of AI model. Given it would accept the old codes she remembered.
Still, that was quite the shock. If this isn't faked, this is potentially an AI fleet from before the Bydo Wars. How would it have survived so long? Did it hide? Was it ignored or not found? Did it manage to discover how to fight off the bydo and then driven it off? The last one was very unlikely but then, an AI fleet this old was unlikely to begin with. If this is actually really an AI fleet and not something else mimicking one. But then, what would do that? Why would it?
Despite her thoughts, she knew it would be best not to dwell on them and to react quickly. So she transmitted the codes directly to Sweet Luna so that she may in turn transmit them to what they assumed to be an AI fleet. She did not make use of human speech ; it was unknown how patient the machines would be.
As soon as the ID code was transmitted, data was sent streaming from the seeming AI fleet. It was-
Wait what.
Arrowhead requested a copy of the data from Sweet Luna and urgently reviewed, slower this time. If this wasn't fake, then it was big. It also meant that unfortunately, her experience now meant that it was her problem. Fuck.
Running the data through her cognitive system a third time, she indeed came to the conclusion that it wasn't a result of her nervous system aging. Most of the data was mostly just junk. The kind of boring data about explored planets and the atmospheric readings of space rocks. However, among the report package was data about alien first contact.
This was, needless to say, huge.
The AI fleet had made contact with some alien species and it had, for some unfathomable reason, decided not to shoot it. In fact, the AI fleet was requesting human operators as to take over procedures. This was... this was...
No.
No. The universe is never so kind upon humanity. There's got to be a catch. And even if it's that good? She knows she's now doomed. Things never go so well. Or are this simple. This is the prelude to the next great war. Oh god no. It's totally going to be that, isn't it?
"Last Gigs, black box this data and deliver this data to HQ. Take the rookies, Andromalius, and Grace Note as escorts. This report must make it to the brass's desks."
She waited for a moment as the various members of the squadron adjusted their formation and Last Gigs left the scene. While sending him off with escorts might sound paranoid, she didn't want to risk of a feral bydo or rebel ambush killing them or even worse, capturing the data. Better safe than sorry. Of course, that only reduced the strength of the squadron right here, a point that she admitted suddenly caused her to internally whimper but hey, she had fought worse odds before, right?... right.
Why did she just have that thought? God, why is today one of the days she decide to recover a bit of her old fighter jock daredevil-tastic spine? Couldn't she show off bravery yesterday, when all that happened was a funny asteroid flying by during their patrol?
Unfortunately, her sheer experience and the fact that all the people she used to take orders from died, this give her sufficient authority to actually take command of the situation and set up the future meeting the AI fleet likely wants her to plan. It also meant that, even worse, her remaining wingmates now looked to her to keep them safe and make good decisions, which made her earlier orders even dumber, since it meant she just took charge and confirmed that her leader status wasn't given to her for nothing. Damn it. Why did she have to remind everybody that despite being a grunt ship, she was the most experienced here and indeed in charge?
Well, hopefully, she can keep things calm while Andromalius and Last Gigs go inform the brass about what happened out there...
- Location
- Tampa, FL.
R-Type and Mass Effect. The Peanut Butter and Chocolate of Sci-Fi crossovers.
Back and forth back and forth...
Mew
Baffled by existence
- Location
- Pokémon World
- Pronouns
- She
__/¯¯\__/¯¯\__|[<(o)>]|__/¯¯\__/¯¯\__
STARSHIPS DON'T GO INDOORS!
¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯|[<(o)>]|¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯
STARSHIPS DON'T GO INDOORS!
¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯|[<(o)>]|¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯
September 11 2185
I used to think that every time I jumped back, the universe simply rolled back, like a clock being rewound.
But then, after that disastrous jump during Operation Last Dance, I met and fought my past self.
And later, after the war, I discovered the remains of the Bydo Abyss. It was filled with millions of my other selves who picked the path I didn't.
Is a new universe created everytime I jump? Is it only some of the time? The scientists give long explanations but they mean nothing and they don't know either.
I guess it's not like I can lose anymore sleep than I already do anyway...
-From ship archives
Lunch time had barely passed and already the defensive perimeter on the outer solar system had been tripped. That wasn't unexpected, actually. What was was that the Blue Light squadron had left only a few hours ago. Even with temporal compression procedures, it was unlikely for them to complete the survey that quickly.
Thankfully, as the Unchained Silence scout ships directed their strange spherical scanners toward the outer rim of the solar system, they didn't feel the malice inherent to the bydo or the cacophony of insane AI but rather a small number of signals, flashing familiar and accurate IFF signals. It was the Blue Light squadron!... or at least, a small part of it.
Last Gigs did not activate his fleshy radio channel. Frankly, given the importance of the information entrusted to him, it was best to ensure the data was transmitted as fast and efficiently as possible. Thus, he instead opened a direct data networking channel with the scout ships. In a fraction of a second, an answer came and equally as quickly, a data package was formatted and then transmitted directly.
From his arrival in the solar system to his data reaching the desk of the EAAF acting commander, less than three seconds had passed.
Unlike the pilots out there, merged to their machines through their cyber-connectors and thus unchained by the limits of the human body, acting commander Mark Ashwood actually only noticed the new data when his computer system on his desk flashed an alert and then when he opened the data the old fashioned way, reading the report on his screen. Even before he was done reading, his eyebrows shot up, his eyes widening. Then as he finished, he actually took a few minutes to read the report, making sure he had not misunderstood what it said and implied.
A call for discussing the report was sent to all his advisors and a copy was compiled and prepared for the civilian administration, to be sent immediately. Despite the lack of AIs helping with smoothing out operations, the EAAF made good time with the data. Within a hour, secure channels were being set up to discuss the report from Blue Light squadron about their mission.
"So let me get this straight, Blue Light squadron made contact with an ancient pre-Bydo Wars automated exploration fleet and not only was it not subverted or berserk but it established first contact with an alien species and it wants to talk to us?" Frankly, Mark understood why the Earth Allied Nations representative was so disbelieving of it.
"We have not yet assessed the new alien threat but it was made clear that the fighting has not begun yet. From what it appears, it seems the aliens wishes for peaceful contact."
Yeah right. As if humanity would ever be so lucky.
"Blue Light squadron is in charge of the situation for the moment, right? Given how serious this situation is turning out to be, I request that Red Squadron be deployed as reinforcements and be put in charge." And as the colonial refugee representative spoke up, Mark instantly fought the urge to hold his face in his hands. Politics. Of course. Because obvious a pissing contest between homeworlders and colonists is what they need when a new alien threat appears to ruin the brief moment of respite they got after the Rebellion War.
"Blue Light squadron is the most experienced squadron in the EAAF."
To his dismay, the colonist refugee representative would not back down. "And who is leading it? Savior, if I remember well."
"Savior is our most decorated veteran and distinguished leader." She also don't have his seat because being an Angel Pac pilot, her R-9A Arrowhead body would not fit the commander's chair. He'd like to say that she wouldn't even be able to enter the office but then Savior was rather infamous for jamming herself into places starships are not meant to enter. A shame, he'd far prefer her to have his position.
"Her psychological profile indicate that she was deemed unfit for frontline duty nearly nineteen years ago, only retaining her position due to lack of suitable replacements and extraenous circumstances. If we are to consider this report seriously, it might be a good thing to have the senior officer on the field not be a PTSD-ridden wreck."
Even though none was heard, Mark knew that the homeworld representative had sighed internally like he just did. It was blatant politicking ; Red Shade squadron was made up of ex-colonial pilots, survivors from Earth's colonies before the Big Push that had fought on the GRZA side during the Civil War. Its commanding officer, R-90 Ragnarok, was well-known for her very critical opinion of the EAAF even to this day.
Yet, despite how transparently politically-driven it may be, Mark knew that the argument was sound. As reliable and sound of mind as Savior may be, everybody knew of the extreme level of psychological duress she had endured through her decades of service. There was also the matter that though humanity's colonies no longer existed and Earth was the only human population center left, reclamation of the space cities both in orbit and on the various planets and moons of the solar system was underway. The colonial refugees would someday return to their homes and rebuild the nations destroyed by the Bydo. Given the two squadrons can remain professional enough to work together, this might actually increase their chances of survival.
After all, Ragnarok may no longer be the mightiest ship humanity ever built but her firepower would definitely improve their chances once the war with those new aliens begins.
Fine then. Hopefully, Savior will not mind the news.
It didn't take much time, in objective time anyway, for Last Gigs to fly back. As he desynchronized himself from the normal flow of time, his movement speed in the physical universe increased to the point where he was perceived as moving faster than light. True faster than light travel did strange things on mass and one's connection to time. It was once believed that it could only result in the destruction of the one doing it, but warp and twist time enough and you'll be just fine. Just so long as your atoms don't spread out so far they lose connection with one another and just disperse. There were upsides, beside going fast too!
If he wanted, he could have arrived before he set out for his mission! But that was against regulations and those weren't the kind of regulations that people respected merely because of pen pushers. No, everyone knew that while time paradoxes breaking the universe was a myth, they sure could give humanity's monkey brains the mother of all headaches. The human mind, even augmented with cybernetic technology, just tended to prefer a logical universe where causality is linear, that's all. Beside, history is already tangled and confusing already as it is already. No need to create more paradoxes.
Still, who knows when the new aliens will launch their first attack. Arrowhead can probably solo whatever shitty ships and fighters they got on her own but to be fair, he's a bit worried about the rookies and Sweet Luna. Sweet Luna is the best scout in the EAAF and a veteran... and that she survived up to now is physical proof that reality is under no obligation to make sense. The brass told him to drop it but honestly, he's convinced the real reason Arrowhead requested so insistently to investigate that space colony at the start of the Rebellion conflict was that Sweet Luna likely got herself killed in a previous timeline. It just make sense, given Arrowhead is infamous for never volunteering for any kind of mission ever and actually praying constantly she won't be the one to have to save the day yet again.
Oh well, whatever.
As the trippy colors and wavy rippling-like visual effects of Dimension 26 faded away, resynchronizing with the physical universe, he checked his chronosensor readings. Then he did a double take and groaned internally. Seriously?
Just to make sure, he willed his fleshy to actually check the instruments in the cockpit proper, tapping the machinery gently to shake it but not break it, as to ensure it wasn't some dumb mechanical fault or whatever. Nope, it seems he arrived later than he should have. Must have caught a temporal wave on the way. Just great. Well, nobody needs to know he just misjumped. After all, he's Last Gigs, the most recent and most advanced R-series starship humanity built yet. He doesn't misjump. So that goes off the mission record and he'll just write in his report that he wanted to play it safe. Yeah, that's good. None of the others will talk, right? Right.
He quickly adjusted his speed and trajectory, synchronizing himself with the carrier and ensuring he wouldn't be spinning wildly relative to it. Well, the rotating rings didn't count, obviously. Approaching one of the many hangars' doors, he pinged the thing and requested to land. Before long, the heavy hangar doors slid into position allowing him to maneuver inside.
As the doors slid closed behind him, he adjusted his thrusters for extremely small maneuvers, taking note of the direction in which the central pillar which formed the core of the ship rotated. Well, would you look at that, the fighter rack rings seemed quite full today! Given the lack of squirming meat ships or shapeshifting semi-liquid ones, he guessed that the colonial remnants must be visiting today. They've always been quite vocal about B-series and ex-bydo assets after all.
Still, that's a good thing. That means he can quickly land, deliver the back-up data in person as a fleshy, then go back to the frontline just in time for the first battle of the war with the new aliens without any shenanigans or... oh god damn it. He just had to tempt fate, didn't he?
"Well well well, if it isn't mister I'm-too-shiny-for-my-ailerons. Aren't you supposed to be somewhere?"
He'd recognize that smug, high-pitched voice anywhere. The blue color and black canopy was pretty distinctive, too. "Yes so please get out of the way. I've got to disconnect and deliver vital intelligence to the brass before going right back to the fray."
"Oh, do you really now."
Last Gigs found himself very glad that Andromalius and the others were waiting for him, guarding the dimensional catapult and ensuring no alien invaders sneaked past them. If she were here, she'd probably blow her top. Not that dealing with Leo-2's jealousy was fun or anything. In fact, he'd rather not deal with it right now. Or ever, for the matter.
"Yes. Given how vital the data is, it was judged that delivery of a hard copy would be necessary, to ensure no distortion or corruption from long range broadcasting would damage it."
"Or maybe you're simply looking for an excuse. I mean, did shrapnel damage your communication systems?"
Or maybe it's because the data is just that vital that he want to ensure the brass get a copy that is guaranteed to be intact? But then, that was why Leo-2 was part of the Azure Striker squadron, the eternal benchwarmers. Sure, she had fancy stupid little psychic powers even as a fleshy and the highest score in the simulator and training exercises out of any pilot, besting even Arrowhead's and Ragnarok's scores but she was also the definition of an unprofessional bully.
"Leo-2, are you going somewhere or are you seriously waiting until the officers notice the traffic jam you're creating and start giving us missions that revolve around moving around ammo boxes and mining asteroids?"
Not that it would change anything regarding Leo-2. That's all the brass made her do all day and honestly, he agreed.
"What? Because you're too shiny for such a lowly mission, mister look-at-me-I'm-perfect-and-got-an-edgy-black-paintjob?"
Yeeeep. The fleshies have actually started to notice. The refueling crew is suddenly putting some distance in-between themselves and the fighters while nearby officers are maneuvering around the hangar, gripping handrails to orient themselves as to glare at the two of them instead of heading back into the fleshy-designed parts of the carrier.
"Okay, drop the act Leo-2. What do you want? Just say it already. I got a mission to go back to."
Then, from behind one of the fighter rack rings came a savior. Well, it wasn't Arrowhead but rather, her sister. While looking slimmer due to the large side pods, if you looked between the gaps or from good angles, it was clear as day that she was actually just as chubby if not outright egg-shaped as her older sister. You could also tell that it was actually her and not some mass produced duplicate thanks to the golden ring on her neck and the black paint of the main frame, visible between the gaps of the white pods. Though she wasn't as physically large as her sister (but then, Arrowhead was huge for a fighter), there was just something about her that made her presence feel grand, almost intimidating.
Yes, next-generation fighters like him had finally caused Ragnarok to no longer be the most powerful starship ever created by humanity but even to this day, there was just a sense of presence to her that he knew he'd never manage.
"Leo-2, return to your duties."
"Oh hey, Ragny. Don't you have some terrorists to go defect to? Can't you see I'm having a conversation with mister perfect over there?"
"Commander, requesting permission to shove Leo-2 out of the way." Ragnarok suddenly said, the radio channel an open one, meaning everybody heard that. Instantly, though Leo-2 had officially no body language, everybody felt her tense up.
"And potentially send me slamming into a wall in the process, scratching my paint? Didn't anybody ever teach you not to damage expensive, important EAAF equipment?"
There was a brief pause and then, the commander spoke up. "Denied. You might dent the carrier's hull in the process."
Last Gigs swore he saw Leo-2 actually physically flinch. If she had eyes like a B-series, she certainly would have blinked on top of that. Likely would have had her jaw hanging open. The blue ship then maneuvered around and immediately jetted away, quite a bit faster than safety regulations allow too.
Fucking finally. Just had to be his luck that Leo-2 would have an assignment involving this carrier this very day. Oh well. Still, while he appreciate Ragnarok's help, it only leave him to wonder why she'd be here.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome." She replied.
"While we're here..." He switched the channel to the commander's office. "I have a hard copy of the intelligence gathered by Blue Light. Right time for disconnection and delivery in person?"
"Proceed and resume current mission."
Well, with that said, he maneuvered toward the closest fighter rack ring and begun the procedure to dock. As he did so, he finally willed the cyber-connector system to turn off. With a gasp, he felt his body tremble for a moment from the feedback as he went from being Last Gigs to being Jade Ross once more. His vision shrunk back as he went from sensing all of it through his machine's sensors to merely seeing it through what his eyeballs could see through his helmet's visor and then the canopy of the machine. His mind briefly adjusted, going from having been a vaguely egg-shaped flying being back to a humanoid frame. It was a surreal experience every time, akin to stepping into a freezing shower while having somebody shove a bag over your head.
Before he enlisted, he hadn't understood why Angels like Arrowhead or Ragnarok held no regrets toward their permanent fusion with their machines. If anything, he now understood why the military hired so many psychologists to ensure the mental health of pilots. He had heard that some ship models were outright addicting to their pilots, making them feel lesser if not incapable of functioning unless they were merged to their ship of choice. If anything, he'd argue that this was a danger with practically any ship line. Now that he was back to being just human, he could barely see anything.
Thankfully, he'd adjust quickly. It was just a temporary side-effect of the transition. Beside, he wouldn't really stay like this for too long. Who knows when the aliens are gonna begin their attack. If anything, the war might have already begun. The sooner he deliver the data, the sooner he and his escorts can go back to render assistance.
Going as fast as he could, he left the hangar to head for one of the decks deeper inside. The Jarnsaxa was designed by the GRZA during the civil war and it shown ; older capital ships like the Jormungandr or the Heimdall were designed with a clear orientation and had extensive gravity-generating generators, maintaining a comfortable gravity level to Earthers and other planet dwellers through the entire ship. The Jarnsaxa was a spacer design and it was obvious through the fact that it only had three gravity-generating ring systems at key points in the ship, most of the ship being made of large hangars with wheel design fighter rack rings instead of conventional old-school ones. Given he spent a large amount of time as Last Gigs flying through space, the lack of gravity didn't bother him much.
Still, as he approached the inner deck, he gripped the handrail and shifted his position, as to not land on his face once he enter the gravity rings-affected section. Not that it was a hard maneuver and soon enough, his boots were dragged to the floor, indicating he had entered the inner section of the ship. A short walk later past the bulkheads that separated the inner sections from the hangars and there he was.
A push of a button... "Requesting permission to enter."
"Granted." ... and there he goes.
Given the commander is likely as busy as he is, he didn't bother with saluting or other formalities. The moment he stepped in, he produced the hard copy of the data and then, prepared to leave.
"Didn't even take off your helmet? Given we detected part of the squadron waiting for you back at the dimensional catapult, I take it things are developing out there."
"Mission in progress at the time of my departure. Arrowhead ordered this data reach your desk intact. No shooting yet but best not to leave the squadron under strength too long."
Given the data had both been transmitted and then Jade Ross had made the trip all the way here to deliver a hard physical copy, it was clear that the data was important. Given what Mark had read, he certainly knew it was.
"Jade, mission update."
That caused the pilot to stop and listen. That was surprising and actually reassuring. The brass could often be slow to move and well, that temporal wave hadn't caused him to misjump into another week or month, merely later in the day than he had wished. Nice to know the brass is taking it with all of the gravity the situation demands.
"You are not leaving the station alone. We're deploying Red Shade squadron to reinforce you."
Reinforcements? Well, that was unexpected. Especially given who it was.
Well, time to head back! Getting back to the hangar deck he docked his starship didn't take too long and thankfully didn't involve more of Leo-2. At least, he didn't see her until he slipped into the cockpit and then felt the cyber connector cables slide into his pilot suit's ports. For a moment, the sight of the cockpit and its instruments blurred, like a series of two images on top of one another, and then his senses opened for a lack of a better word. He could feel the fighter rack in which he was docked, his ailerons shifting, his thrusters warming up. He was Last Gigs again and with that, the scanning equipment of the ship became his eyes allowing him to finally locate that blue bitch.
She was moving crates in the back with the civilian model R-series crafts, using her bit connectors and telekinesis lift them. Good riddance.
The launch sequence went without a hitch and before long, he was released out of the carrier, allowing him to head back. As he begun his journey back, he noticed a bunch of ships ahead flashing friendly IFF signals. Focusing his senses, he sensed them though even before he did so, he already guessed who they were. Ragnarok and her wingmates.
"Took your sweet time, kid?" Yep, that was Ragny alright.
"You're earlier than expected. Didn't take the time to shine your armor today?"
"That's your schtick, junior. You know how much the deck crew shine me, they just can't get the black off my inner frame."
He chuckled internally. Well, he's in position. Enough banter. "All ships cleared for short-range FTL jump?"
"Affirmative. Clear for jump. Destination, Glitnir."
"Confirmed. Initiate jump." And with that said, time distorted once more as he jumped back. Arrowhead will certainly be overjoyed to have some actually modern ships helping out! He briefly pondered if the war already started while he was gone. Who will be the first to get a kill off those new aliens? What will they be called? What kind of weapon will they use to try and exterminate humanity? Well, he guessed he'll find out soon enough.
Mew
Baffled by existence
- Location
- Pokémon World
- Pronouns
- She
Varies on reception on this board. Most of them are direct answers to reader questions. Won't bog down the thread with them if nobody has any questions.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- She/They
Well, if that's the problem...
deeploreicebergxfilestheme
informational posts from 'Starships don't go indoors!' by Myuu not screened for spoilers, read @ your own risk
docs.google.com
I can DM you a link to edit if you want.
- Location
- Seattle, Washington, USA
wiped *out
*angst
She also *didn't
I know Mass Effect but not R-Type - is Angel Pac a typo of Angel Pact or Angel Pack? Or is Pac correct? I ask, because the only pac I'm aware of is Political Action Committee.
Given the attitudes, I'd expect the humans to shoot first, then assume war was inevitable when the aliens shoot back - and thereby humanity becomes the sort of invading monsters they claim to be opposed to.
Reinforcements!
Mew
Baffled by existence
- Location
- Pokémon World
- Pronouns
- She
So, going to answer this. The canon spelling in R-Type is indeed Angel Pac, no k.
R-Type humanity make use of a technology known as the cyber connector to pilot their ships. Essentially, the pilot is connected to the ship's systems in such a way that it become part of the pilot's body. Earlier systems just made the pilot control the ship with their thoughts. Modern cyber connector systems (such as those by the time of the fic) are full fusion systems, merging the pilot's entire biology with the ship for the duration of the sortie (they effectively become the ship).
Earlier, "normal" cyber connectors could not achieve a complete fusion... unless using the Angel Pac method. Transition into an Angel is permanent, full body fusion and is completely irreversible. Arrowhead's pilot/brain had her limbs surgically removed and is encased in a life support pod in the cockpit.
As for how first contact with aliens will go... well, you'll see!
Speaking of which...
__/¯¯\__/¯¯\__|[<(o)>]|__/¯¯\__/¯¯\__
STARSHIPS DON'T GO INDOORS!
¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯|[<(o)>]|¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯
STARSHIPS DON'T GO INDOORS!
¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯|[<(o)>]|¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯
September 11 2185
I was insecure about my form, once. About my large shape, my curved body, the lack of fancy wings, and my long nose.
I did not look like a fighter. Something other pilots would never let me forget.
The R-series was created to build, not to destroy. To shatter asteroids, no armor. To shift crates, not missiles.
I sometimes wonder if there is a symbolism to it. That our tools of war, of hate could not harm the bydo and that it was in our tools of peace that we found our salvation.
-from ship archives
To say that everybody was tense was frankly an understatement. Nobody spoke as the dimensional catapult propelled them straight into Dimension 26. All around her, space distorted and flowed, like a demented storm of liquid and shockwaves, rippling and trashing with illusory electricity. At times, she wondered why you never encountered your past or future selves inside the place or collided with yourself, for the matter.
Once, she had thought that it was simply because time was more linear than it seemed but then she saw the Bydo Abyss's ruins and saw empirical proof that the multiverse was real. So right back to having no idea.
Frankly, she also admitted it felt weird. To be surrounded by such state-of-the-art ships, she means. She is Andromalius. Before the Big Push, she had been a civilian pilot in a test craft and not even an advanced one. She was barely more advanced than Arrowhead! She mean, she actually carry her Force Device with actual honest to god mechanical arms! Yet here she is, an old woman who outlived all her children and grand-children, in a ship that was never meant to see real combat, surrounded by state-of-the-art ships piloted by some of the best pilots to ever attend the EAAF academy and they all look upon her with awe and admiration.
It's just absurd. Why did she live? Why did she succeed, where so many younger pilots with actual military training and far mightier ships failed?
No. Survivor's guilt is for suckers. It is as Arrowhead said. The bydo didn't just want to break humanity physically but morally. To give in to despair, to your hate is exactly what the bydo wanted. She will die before she allow the bydo a measure of victory.
Her mind refocused and with a lurch, the swirling vortex of Dimension 26 vanished behind her. Quickly, she checked her systems' integrity as well as the chronosensor. Ah! Excellent! She arrived a fraction of a second after she left the Sol system! Guess Ragnarok is as good at riding temporal waves and setting up temporal lanes for wingmates as they say!
As she flashed IFF signals, she tentatively tried to feel space around her. Huh. No giant chunks of warships, floating wrecks, suspicious clouds of debris, floating corpses, or other such signs of battle. Given they left more than a hour ago, she'd expect the aliens to have already begun their assault. Likewise, she's getting a response from every other ship so no casualties on their side either. Cold war it is, then. For now anyway. She wouldn't bet on it lasting more than a few days if even that.
She saw the younger Angel girl fly past her and it occurred to her that maybe she should remind her. "Hey, Angel girl."
"What is it?"
"Go easy on her."
She watched as Ragnarok went off, alongside her own squadron.
"Everything went well, kid?" She didn't even need to turn around or scan again to know Last Gigs was right by her side.
"Apart from Leo-2 being Leo-2? Well, we got reinforcements so I'd say yes."
"Politics."
"Hey, reinforcements are reinforcements." He didn't even try to deny it. Frankly, she didn't care for whatever dumb grievances the colonists may have. If they hadn't thrown a temper tantrum, maybe her grand-children and Arrowhead's daughter would still be alive. And then maybe their precious colonies wouldn't have been taken and destroyed in the Big Push.
Before long, most of the Red Shade squadron had taken position. She could only hope that things would go smoothly from now on...
Arrowhead admitted she almost panicked when she detected a lot more ships arriving in the system. Pincer attack? More likely than you'd think. But thank god they flashed friendly IFF signals and she found herself releasing the breath she didn't know she had been holding. Good thing her life support systems ignore her organic subconscious's stupid habits and keep feeding oxygen to her brain at a regular pace regardless of her stress level.
Still, it was nice to know the brass was taking this seriously. Honestly, she didn't look forward to winning an entire war with just her squadron. Sure, it's an improvement over past missions when she was forced to outright solo the Bydo after her escorts either got shot or lost in paperwork (she isn't sure which one is worse or dumber) but still it sucked.
Then she scanned outward and checked the readings. Huh. A Ragnarok? Fancy. Wait, is that a capital ship?
No. It's merely Kenrokuen. Seriously. Yeah, She know the guy's destructive with his fancy wave motion-powered pile bunker tesla spike thing but seriously, he's larger than some transport ships she rode in. Also, she never met a single Kenrokuen who didn't make constant jokes about the size and power of their spike. Like, they're even worse than Concertmasters! Seriously, do the brass specifically select fleshies that have something to compensate for to become pilots for those models?
Wait! If that's Kenrokuen then that means...
"Oh. It's you..." It's actually Ragny, not one of her mass-produced daughters.
Her sister just hovered nearby, angled as to stare even as she floated by due to inertia. She didn't know what to say. She likely know all about the mission already. It's just...
"I'm taking over this operation."
"You sure you want this mess to be your problem?" She immediately kicked herself for not being professional. She shouldn't have worded it that way!
"You want it to remain yours?"
...
She admit she didn't really want this mess. If anything, she wish they had found nothing here. War meant more death, more tragedy. It's been only a year since the last war. Could those aliens have waited before jumping humanity? Seriously, just a good decade of peace or even just five years, that's all she ask for.
"Look, I know you don't trust me. What I said back then..."
Wait, was she in her thoughts that long? Damn. She better not start having flashbacks! Not now! Okay, focus back on reality and do your job...
She activated her corrective thrusters as to look at her sister before responding. "Let's not dwell on it. We already had this conversation before. We have a job to do."
"You're right."
... was there anything else to say? But then... she guess... oh. Yeah, she kinda need to actually say it instead of just thinking it.
"I'm transferring command to you."
"Sis?"
"That's what the pen pushers want, right? And if you think you're seriously up to it then do it. I'll let this be your show. I'll trust you. Even after what happened. I know you'll do the right thing."
With that said, Arrowhead allowed herself to fall in line with her squadron as her sister took command. The black and white fighter paused and then, called to both squadrons.
"Red Shade squadron is taking command of the operation. Adjust command priority accordingly. Mission update is being uploaded as I speak. Over." And with that said, Arrowhead guessed that was it.
Arrowhead briefly allowed herself to relax, glad she wouldn't have to deal with it anymore. She guessed it was a bit selfish but frankly, not being the savior for once was nice. All she had to do was sit tight and wait to see what Ragnarok would-
"So, the AI fleet has been requesting a human operator. Arrowhead, initiate connection protocol and assume control."
Fuck! Damn it!
Communicating with AI was always surreal. In the past, humanity had always feared AI due to the sheer speed at which it could process information, leading to the fears of creating what one called an AI god. Of course, those were old fears, when AI research was in its infancy and cyber connector technology hadn't yet matured, leaving a gap of processing speed between organic and artificial intelligence.
Nowadays, the myths of the AI god were far behind and nothing else drove this home better than Arrowhead's current predicament. Compared to the emotionally rich, insightful, imaginative color of an organic intelligence, networking with robots left her feeling stupid. It was like trying to chat with an internet buddy bot and not even a particularly intelligent one at that.
Oh sure, it was smarter than some ad bot on the internet but frankly, it was very obvious that the automated fleet was, well, a fleet of robots. But then, that is also why it was programmed to request a human operator when it came to more complex tasks.
Still, it could be worse. It was that this particular AI was designed to try and be as flexible as it could be. It wasn't anything like Major had been (mostly because nobody wants a repeat of Major) but she admitted that compared to many of the military AIs she had networked with in the past, it was surprisingly smart. It was obvious that some of its effectiveness at managing combat units was handicapped by its more complex routines but at least it didn't leave her feeling like she had just networked herself with a particularly brain-damaged sheep.
She quickly sifted through the spectacular amount of junk data. She's certain that eggheads at home would salivate over all those readings of rocks but frankly, it was nothing she couldn't guess simply by taking a harder look at the system or asking Sweet Luna.
So yeah. Junk junk junk ah-ha!... more junk.
"Arrowhead?"
"Am I covered in meat or glowing in an ominous anime red evil glow?"
"No?"
"Then I'm fine. Just, boring stuff. Takes time."
She appreciate Ragnarok's concern, she really does. It's a nice change from being told that "you should have died instead of Lady Love!" and other fun stuff like that but right now it wasn't helping. Well, actually, it's nice to know the AI fleet wasn't loaded with a new type of memetic hazard doomsday virus. To be fair, she's taking it the slow way, looking over the data the old fashioned way instead of just downloading it all in case it's filled with all kinds of new alien viruses but hey, what do she know?
Still, it was definitely one of the most boring jobs she had taken in a very long time. Huh, maybe she should have answered more professionally. Well, whatever. It seems that whatever ambush the aliens have set up, it's certainly not going to be sprung here. Unless they're trying to kill them all with boredom, in which case it's working.
Did Sweet Luna just yawn?
"Sweet Luna, get off that asteroid." Ragnarok barked.
"All systems green. On alert." The scout ship said in a tone that was likely meant to come off as professional but sounded so drowsy you'd expect her to have fallen asleep on the job. Given she had landed on an asteroid and just crossed her cannons like arms under her cockpit, adjusting her ailerons as to lay down on it, you'd be blamed for believing. It was also a breach of regulations ; R-series ships, unlike B-series ships, are not officially alive and don't have body language.
"You were not give permission to land. I want your engines warmed up just in case. Also, you are not a B-series."
Hey, Ragnarok wanted the field officer job for this operation? Well, there she goes. That's her problem now. Arrowhead briefly pondered whether keeping the squadron in line or analyzing all that junk data was the worst job.
... you know what? That's like asking whether you'd want an up close and personal encounter with Gomander or Barakus. Both are equally bad. The worst part is that she know from experience. Fuck them. Errr... on second thought, no, bad choice of words. Very bad choice of words. God Damn it.
Oh good. Ragnarok has set up patrol routes. Good. This should stop the squadrons setting up a card game or juggling with Force Devices to pass the time.
Seriously. One moment the apocalypse was two seconds away and everyone was ready and all professional for the big fight, the next she swear that the squadron has devolved into a herd of shitty rookies fresh out the academy. Okay fine, some of them are actually fresh out the academy but still! Then people wonder why she hate being an officer. But hey, at least the moment it get real, they actually do fight properly and professionally.
So if anybody recover her black box with her thoughts in it, know that this scene is not representative of the EAAF. EAAF pilots are professional, efficient, well-trained, talented pilots that you can trust to do their duty! Well, except for Leo-2. Fuck Leo-2.
Junk junk junk... ah! Finally! She finally found data that isn't junk! That's... oh. That's actually scary. Well, now she know the face of the enemy. Well, not the face of the fleshies but the face of what they'd fight proper.
The good news was that they were definitely not a new breed of bydo or some lost Bydo Remnant faction. Bydo are made of, well, bydogen. That's the entire reason why bydogen is named that way. Simply put, bydo are not actually made of matter or energy but rather, they're living shockwaves. Seriously. Don't ask her how it works, nobody does. Hell, she remember, when she raided that ruined lab on Mars to get a better FTL drive during Operation Last Dance, she took the time to check the data banks to see what the eggheads thought of how bydogen worked and their research papers stated their most likely theory to be "magic". Seriously, magic. The most brillant scientists humanity produced and the closest to an explanation we got for bydogen is fucking magic.
Well, those new enemies weren't made of magic. Obviously the AI fleet didn't get samples of the alien ships but scanner signals returned completely normal readings with no weird results whatsoever. Any moving parts on the ships were explainable by perfectly functional and logical mechanical systems. No weird eldritch shit.
Of course, their ships still look like huge mechanical shrimps. With guns. So it's an improvement in the way that staring at a 5 kilometers-high kaiju was an improvement over staring at a 10 kilometers-high one. Either way, it sucked. But still, this means that hopefully her weapons shouldn't fire straight through them without doing any effect whatsoever. Hopefully. Knowing humanity's luck, they probably got some bullshit new and amazing technologies to murder them with. Maybe even force fields or something.
Anyway, she continued to check through the data recorded by the AI fleet. Given Kenrokuen and Concertmaster seems like they're a minute away from starting a "who got the biggest cannon" argument and then trying to impress the ladies in the squadron with it, she'd better hurry up.
Ah-ha! Finally, the data she was looking for! Huh. That was... surprisingly civil. And weird. Very weird. Too weird. Suspicious. Very suspicious.
The aliens seemed to initially think the AI fleet was itself made of aliens rather than robots sent by another species. The conversation is... no. She got to stay professional. That's philosophically interesting but she's a soldier, she got her duty to do, and they have to get straight to the point.
"Reporting. Mission update." She transmitted to Ragnarok.
Her sister instantly paused. This, in turn, stopped every single shenanigan. Everybody became silent and ensured they were in position, paying attention. Good.
"AI fleet made first contact with a seemingly non-hostile alien intelligence. Alien intelligence is requesting a proper first contact."
And at that moment, she pitied Ragnarok. A lot of soldiers could often come to resent commanders and how they "sat at their desks, ordering others to die". Even before she became an officer herself, she frankly knew that it wasn't that simple. If it had been that simple, all of the pre-Bydo Wars brass wouldn't be in graves alongside their soldiers right now. It's comforting when your decisions won't result in potential millions if not billions living or dying, you potentially among them. She know firsthand of the pressure of making decisions that can change history.
And right now, Ragnarok was in that position. The beginning of a new war and right now? The brass is all the way back in Sol. She was sent by the brass because they knew this, because whoever is here will decide what comes next. Arrowhead is very relieved the decision is no longer hers. But still, she pity Ragnarok for having to make that decision now.
"We cannot refuse to send a diplomatic envoy." Ragnarok transmitted openly, for both squadrons to record. "We cannot give in to paranoia. We have to try to talk to them, even if it won't do anything."
"Permission to speak, sir?" Kenrokuen piped in.
"Granted."
"Any time we spend sending back a request for a diplomat back to EAAF Command is time the aliens have to hit us harder. Beside, we all know what they'll do to the envoy."
Butcher it. Like what happened with every single attempt at diplomacy with aliens in the past. Still, Ragnarok was correct. Even if it was useless, they need to try. It was xenophobia and paranoia that caused that dark future timeline where humanity, having given up on the universe, created the nightmare that is the bydo. Everyone here knew that their version of humanity must not give in. They didn't fight, bleed, and suffer this long only to see that nightmarish future come true.
"Right. But we must try to talk to them. We have to." Ragnarok said, gravely. "We are humans. We will not reduce ourselves to the level of the alien. And that means extending a hand even if it will be bit. All of you here are survivors of Operation Last Dance or at least saw the reports. You all know what xenophobia led us, in that dark future. I refuse to give the order that will set us down that path."
But then? Who would talk to them? It would need to be someone high-ranked and respected enough to comfortably speak for the EAAF, if not humanity as a whole. Someone who the brass could back, if they made any potential deals or talks. And... that meant Ragnarok herself, chosen by the colonial remnant back home and approved by the EAAF.
And then... she would die. They would kill her. Aliens always kill diplomatic envoys.
Unless...
"I volunteer." Arrowhead transmitted. And though it was merely transmitted rather than said, one could swear it had been deafening in volume for the effect it had.
And now, absolutely everyone was definitely staring at her. Despite regulations, Ragnarok made little attempt to hide her surprise. If she could,
"Sis... This is a suicide mission..."
"I know..."
Nearly a hundred-thirty-seven years ago, a diplomatic convoy escorted by the hero of the Scorching War was sent as a last ditch attempt at diplomacy during the first contact with the Boondoggle. The aliens answered the calls to talk by opening fire. They took the ship of the hero, stripped the pilot to the bone, and injected his skeleton with a Boondoggle parasite, which they then used as a mouthpiece as they announced to humanity that they would purge them.
If Ragnarok goes, they will likely kill her.
Arrowhead knew that if she went, they will likely kill her. And she instantly found herself regretting volunteering. God, oh god why did she volunteer? Her stress level skyrocketed and her life support made it known that it was impossible for it to chemically calm her down without drugging her into a complete shit smashed stupor, her organic component's heart rate refusing to slow down. She'd likely be hyperventilating if breathing had actually been up to her fleshy subsconscious.
But then, that was it, huh?
"Ragny... every single time humanity sent a diplomatic envoy, it got butchered. Doesn't matter who. Civilian or soldier. None ever came back."
"Sis..."
She had to keep talking. To keep explaining. Before she had a nervous breakdown or a flashback or a heart attack or something. She had to finish justify herself. "I am the legendary R-9A Arrowhead, Savior. Oldest surviving veteran in the EAAF. High-ranked enough to accept responsibility for whatever might be said and whose word will be acknowledged by the brass and the civilians back home."
She turned to face her younger sister, the only other surviving Angel.
"I am old, Ragny. Old and obsolete. But you, you're Ragnarok. The most powerful ship humanity ever made, outside of the next-gen fighters. And I trust you. So... I volunteer."
Please don't argue please don't argue. She won't have the courage to insist if she argue. Oh god, she hope she won't die. Oh god. Oh god...
"... you will our representative. Make us proud."
She should have said something as a response, acknowledging it. But given her mind was actively swimming and she was convinced she'd start having a nightmare right the fuck now, she couldn't muster the strength to do so. Please have her emergency trans-dimensional safety device be working correctly please please please oh THANK GOD it's working fine! Now please let this not be a timeline dead end. Please pretty please with lots of sugar let this not be a timeline dead end. She know she just made a speech about being more expendable but holy fuck she don't want to die!
- Location
- Seattle, Washington, USA
*not
*carried
*allows
*given
Also, you switched tenses here. The rest of the story is written in present tense, which while hard to read is at least consistent, but here you switched to past tense.
*knows
*hates
*gets
*recovers
*remembers
Also another tense switch, raided is past tense.
*shrimp
who *has
*has
Another tense switch.
You actually switch tenses in this single line. Almost all other tense switching errors were their own line, but in this one, you used both tenses in a single line.
will *be
Who on earth are they talking to? The Geth?
This is going to be awkward.
Okay so definitely Geth.
This is going to be awkward.
First Contact
Mew
Baffled by existence
- Location
- Pokémon World
- Pronouns
- She
__/¯¯\__/¯¯\__|[<(o)>]|__/¯¯\__/¯¯\__
STARSHIPS DON'T GO INDOORS!
¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯|[<(o)>]|¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯
STARSHIPS DON'T GO INDOORS!
¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯|[<(o)>]|¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯
Once, a new recruit asked me why I and many veterans still pushed for the old first contact protocols to be preserved.
Hadn't the aliens done nothing but stabbed us in the back?
Hadn't every alien, when humanity asked what they had done to deserve just a fate, received "You exist" as an answer?
What is humanity? If not compassion, love, hope, the drive to achieve and to endure?
Why extend our hand to the alien, knowing we will inevitably have to destroy them?
Because this is what make us different from them.
-from ship archives
September 11 2185
The moment Arrowhead had connected to the AI fleet and sent a reply, she half-expected those scary ships to just jump right on top of the squadron and then kill everybody. In fact, she noticed how everyone just kind of tensed up, all in formation. Shooting Star even pointed out that dumb radome next to his cannon outward and then sent out a targeting ping. Idiot! Thankfully, it hit nothing and it didn't program some unknown kill all humans trojan back-up routine deep into the AI fleet. In fact, much to her relief, the AI fleet didn't respond with a threat or a request to upload an obvious virus into her systems.
Rather, she was... err...
"What the hell."
Then she felt Ragnarok connect herself to her. Oh, oh oops. She actually broadcasted that out loud. She didn't mean to. God, she's so tense.
"It's a set of coordinates and a time schedule. The aliens are preparing a remote controlled platform to communicate with us and request we send one at the location provided."
There was a long pause of almost two seconds.
"It's a trap." She resisted the urge to fly up to that idiot Shooting Star and dope slap on the back of his cockpit with one of her cannons. Yada yada regulations.
"You think." Andromalius deadpanned, which was very unprofessional but was what everyone thought.
Thankfully nobody else shoved their aileron down their own cockpit allowing Ragnarok to actually do her job. "Blue Light squadron R-9A Alpha, Beta, and Delta you will lead alongside Red Shade squadron Last Dancer One and Kaguya One. King's Mind, you will fly at the back of the formation. I want artillery units and support units spread out, with Fodder Flight and Interceptor Flight units distributed along formations for escort. All Force Devices attached at all time. Loose formation."
As Ragnarok turned around, she broadcasted one last time. "Target system has no dimensional catapult so we will reroute through Sol and then use a manual subspace tunnel. All older units, stick to temporal lanes created by newer units. Remember, loose formation."
And with that said, the time came to jump back out of the system and to begin the journey through Dimension 26.
To be honest, the system they had been called to travel to was actually a nearby star. It was an unfortunate fact that desync drive was not perfect and struggled with extreme distances. While you could easily be propelled through a dimensional catapult or return to one, going where this is none without the use of one simply wasn't something possible and well, even with temporal compression, building a dimensional catapult was just something humanity could not do anymore.
Oh, the knowledge wasn't lost or anything it's just that dimensional catapults were gigantic constructs that dwarfed even dreadnoughts. Before the Bydo Wars, when the Earth Hegemony was at its peak, it was the pride of humanity that everyone could unite and produce such gargantuan structures easily. It was a symbol of humanity's conquest of space, of the fact that they were no longer afraid.
Now, Glitnir is the last dimensional usable dimensional catapult in human territory. Well, nominally so ; it's past Pluto and Charon. They have dozens of space colonies and moons to reclaim before Glitnir is back in human territory proper and officially but well, details.
Still, she hoped to see it properly reclaimed, you know. She remembered her first mission involving it. Was her first mission in fact. There used to be that nice little base, by its side. Essentially a mix of civilian and military spaceport, where ships could dock and you could spend time while the waiting line to use the dimensional catapult eased up. During the first Bydo War, when the Bydo managed to get through their defenses, they seized that base and planned to use it as a frontline base.
She remembered when she first deployed. Railguns and conventional beam weapons just went through bydo ships without damaging them. Missile shockwaves could hurt them but given the numbers of the Bydo Empire back then, it barely mattered. She had been utterly terrified out of her mind. Her, a R-series ship. A tugboat hastily modified into a fighter, equipped with an overpowered mining laser. Then she fired the wave motion cannon and the entire first wave of bydo fighters was disintegrated. Then she decided to push it and she faced, for the first time, Dobkeratops and beat her up.
The first time humanity managed any kind of real victory over the bydo.
She hoped to see that little base restored, you know. She never actually went into it before the bydo messed it up and with the wars, it was never really restored properly. She would have liked to see what the base was like, what it was meant to be.
But well, they had a mission to perform. Aliens to meet and to fight.
Good-bye, little base.
Once more into the rolling currents of time. Dimension 26, it is. Ever since the bydo had been defeated, Dimension 26 had been so quiet. The bydo's military headquarters and heavy industrial facilities used to be there, in the hub between dimensions. It had also explained so much, you know. Why the bydo were uninterested in actually taking human planets, just leaving the cities and industrial centers to rust and rot. Why even the bydo's own planets didn't have actual industries or production centers. All their real industry had been in Dimension 26 all along.
Even after the destruction of the bydo's base, fleets continued to clash in Dimension 26 for decades. Even then, how long was it for real, given time is not really a thing in there? Could have been centuries even millenia and no one would ever notice.
"Arrowhead?" She almost jumped out of her armor as she sensed Andromalius networking with her.
"Yes?"
"You okay, old girl?"
"Huh? Why would you ask that?" She briefly paused. "Do I actually look or feel scared? No, I'm fine. I'm perfectly fine! There is nothing to worry about."
"I didn't say anything, Arrowhead."
... oh. Oh right. Oops.
Yeah. Yeaaah. She isn't fine. She isn't fine at all. She don't want to die. The aliens will likely kill her. They'll kill her and because a diplomatic meeting need to happen, she can't just jump in time with the emergency jump system and retry until she don't die. There's likely... no outcome that ends with her living. Oh god. She don't want to die. She just don't want to die.
No. Don't hyperventilate. Don't get a heart attack. Stop focusing on that. Beside, why is she panicking so much? This isn't the first time she's going into such a scenario. She remember the end of Operation Last Dance, after all.
When she was faced with that infinite army of angry bydo after she retconned Solar Pupil out of existence, she didn't feel scared like this. Oh, she was terrified out of her god damn mind but for some reason, she hadn't really felt panicked or actually scared. Thousands duplicates of her larger foes, all foaming at the mouth, screaming that if they're all going to be retconned out of existence, she's going to die with her. A swarm of Bydo fighters from hundreds of dimensions, all wanting her dead. All of the bydo, all that had ever existed and would ever exist, all in front of her and screaming that she would die with them...
And she had felt... peaceful. Complete.
Solar Pupil was dead. Humanity had a future. She knew she was going to die, that with the temporal paradox she create her emergency systems just wouldn't be able to save her. That either she rode that temporal shockwave all the way to the 26th century as a new timeline was created, or she died with the bydo. And the chances of survival were null.
Somehow she had felt... peaceful. She was... okay with it. She had been so tired. But she felt... like it had been worth it. Like she didn't care what happened to her now.
And she sang. "I swim through a sea of stars without looking back to shore. Faster than light, bending time. Forever. Wherever."
And she plunged into the gentle waves of time, to take her place in history. To join with Cerberus, Wave Master, Lady Love, her Warhead sisters.
Absurdly enough, she survived. But that wasn't the point, huh? It wasn't why she immersed herself in those memories and refused to face reality. She's scared of dying. She don't want to die. But it never stopped her before, isn't it? It isn't stopping her now. She'll cry, she'll complain, she'll beg and then she'll do it anyway. Because she have to do it. Because others would die if she didn't. She wish it wasn't up to her but it often is.
So why? Why was she so scared?
She thought of those shrimp ships, of their guns, and the total unknown they represented. And well, that was it, huh? They weren't the bydo. They're a new threat.
But then, why is she scared? They're not living nightmares! Surely it will be an easy time after the Bydo Empire, right?
...
"What if it doesn't work?" She couldn't keep it in. She just blurted it out to the whole squadron. "What if it doesn't work out?"
"Arrowhead?" Andromalius was clearly not understanding what had caused the dam to just break.
"What if our weapons are ineffective? Wh-what if they kill us all?"
Arrowhead wasn't sure what was worse. The fact that she stuttered or that everyone was seeing it. She tried to keep calm but she couldn't. She just couldn't.
"Arrowhead, they are not the bydo. Obviously, our weapons can destroy conventional foes just fine." King's Mind, of the Red Shade squadron said with absolute confidence.
"How can you be so sure?! Don't you remember the Civil War? You were on the bloody GRZA side! You know what happened!"
"Arrowhead." Ragnarok said, not that Arrowhead heard her.
"Remember the R-11S2 No Chaser model line? Sure, they were combat-ineffective against the bydo but you know what they were good at killing? Us! R-series and B-series!"
"Arrowhead." Ragnarok said, more firmly. Then she realized that she wasn't getting through.
"You know what the old OF-series pilots called me? Called us? Fat turkeys! Clay pigeons! Civilian-tastic trucks! Glorified tug boats!"
"ARROWHEAD!" This time, Arrowhead flinched, turning to face the younger Angel. "When was the last time you slept?"
"I..." She tried to say something only for her younger sister to speak, more firmly.
"When was the last time you slept?"
She was about to say something but then, it dawned upon her what she had just done. She paused and then, drawn upon her memory banks. She had not slept since she launched on this sortie, late in the morning. When did she last sleep? She had spent a lot of time calming down her squadron and preparing a proper briefing for the trip to the Perseus Veil, downloading and then processing many times the reports of the last missions in the Perseus Veil, including those that were classified and that her high rank now gave her access to. She had moved through the hangar during the night, ensuring every ship was alright, that all of them were being presentable. She had shoved herself into the human-designed parts of the ship and then checked on her wingmates as fleshies, ensuring everything was fine. Then she had came back to the hangars and spoken with the crew, ensuring everything was well-stocked, no weird repairs needed to be done, and that none of the ships sleepwalked.
Oh. Oh...
It's been a while.
"But... I need to check on the data, to ensure I'll say the right things, and-"
She stopped. She wasn't some rookie. She knew why she was being ordered to go to sleep. She knew that despite her worries, she was no good if she was completely out of it when they made it there. So instead of arguing with her sis, she decided to shift things more rationally.
"Is there time for this?"
"The schedule is for the meeting to take place in almost twenty-four hours. This is more than enough for you to rest and still have enough to properly plan the coming battle."
"R-right."
Arrowhead briefly checked her own systems and then, activated her auto-pilot systems. Then, knowing she'd likely not sleep otherwise, she tapped into her reserve of tranquilizer. Hopefully, her nightmares will leave her alone long enough to actually get some rest...
Well, that sure was a misjump if there ever was one. Seriously, misjumping all the way to five minutes before the Big Crunch? Great going, Arrowhead! Well, at least that stupid giant liquid metal monster thing she killed earlier was still dead. Judging by the way the sun was gone but the light wasn't, it was twilight.
For a moment, she closed her eyes and just breathed it in. It was a warm, pleasant twilight. She glanced to the sides and waved the seabirds over. She couldn't wait to lay down on a beach and just get a vacation. Yeah, a vacation sounded great. She briefly pondered where her wingmates are.
Where... wait, who are they again? Hmmmm... they're... Anthro-something? Hamdro? No! Andromalius and... Rising Star? Shooting Star! Right. Now she remember. Andromalius and Shooting Star. Can't see them though.
Looking forward, she saw a bunch of alien life-forms. Liquid ships of sorts. She growled internally and narrowed her eyes. She could tell they were trouble. She gathered her power in her tentacles and then, unleashed her power, swatting the annoyances out of the sky.
But she saw something else. Oh! Those are... aliens? Wait, no. Not aliens. Those are fellow EAAF ships! Nice! Well, given she misjumped and Operation Last Dance went all pear-shaped, she's not sure she really deserve a hero's welcome but hey, she's not against-
WHAT THE HELL?!?
Arrowhead flailed her tentacles as she thrown herself to the side. Why did that idiot fired at her?! Friendly fire is sometimes a thing but this is in-atmosphere, on Earth, during the twilight, with her close enough to be seen with human eyeballs! That idiot better get a reprimand and-
Did those Striders just unleashed their wave motion cannons and deploy portable cover screens? Why is that squadron forming up? Can't they recognize her? Traitors! They must be remnants of the Solar Liberation League, here to harvest the remains of the bydo she just killed for their stupid nefarious purposes! Didn't they learn that the bydo can't be controlled and down that path lies only madness?
But then, they don't have the SLL markings. Maybe an undercover cell?
She didn't have time to think about that. She had to defend herself. She quickly set up her Force Device to defend her. It begun drooling uncontrollably, its smooth round red form splitting open to reveal jagged, gigantic teeth as large as her ailerons. Huh. Well, you go you she guess? Well, at least the little guy's enthusiastic. Didn't know he could do that, being lobotomized and all that.
Still, she charged up her wave motion cannon. She smirked, showing her teeth as she stared at those traitors. Then she unleashed a fully charged shot. It curved straight above their cover to smash into the traitors right behind. A few of their interceptors immediately attempted to surprise her with missiles. Yeah, she isn't green you know! She swung her Bit Devices, catching each of them with perfect precision.
She admit she flinched a bit as the shrapnel caught her skin, drawing a bit of blood and her eyes briefly clenching shut. Still, she had taken worse hits before.
As the interceptors attempted to fly by and the maneuver to surround her, she launched her Force Device and maneuvered herself in a sharp angle. The large bydo sphere immediately chomped on a passing ship and held half of it in its mouth while the other half kept flying straight into a nearby wall. Meanwhile, Arrowhead spun her Bit Devices further and angled her tentacles, releasing low level energy blasts straight into the engines of the passing interceptors.
One of them was a better pilot and swerved out of the way. Which is why she had launched missiles at the same time! The eyeball-like missiles curved with perfect accuracy and slammed straight into the offender.
It didn't take too long honestly. The squadron didn't seem overly prepared to face real opposition. Fucking traitors. Seriously, what was their problem?
... wait.
There's one last enemy fighter.
Is that... Q.T. Cat? That had to be. The canopy color was blue instead of purple but otherwise, she could recognize that look anywhere! How did that bydo clone of her survive? She killed her over twenty years ago! She should be dead, very dead!
But if she's not Q.T. Cat, who is that? Why do she look so similar?
HEY! She shot at her! Definitely an enemy!
Take that!... huh. She's good at dodging lasers. Very good. Yeowch! Way too good! How did she catch her with just low-powered wave motion cannon shots? No matter, she's still good to go!
You want to play rough? Let's play rough! She thrown her Force Device and... oh. Missed.
Missile time!
... okay, this is frustrating. She countered with missiles of her own.
Wait, this is cheating! She just stole her Force Device! How can this be possible? Force Devices have control rods that... control... rods... that are designed to identify the user and... and... do... something... and they are linked to the user and... use...
Whatever!
And what exploded off of her Force Device? She can't tell! It look identical to what it was before, namely a smooth yellow sphere with metallic rods. Why did it seemed like it changed form when it look identical to how it was a few minutes ago?
No matter! Now she don't have a Force Device and that idiot is using Force Lasers same as hers! Except they don't move the right way! Shouldn't they always be the same regardless of the user, based on the model? No, they must be moving the same. She's... she's...
Who is that? Why is she attacking her? Why is... why...
Is she even fighting? Is there even anybody?
She blinked a few times. No, she is alone.
She sighed and decided to just get to the beach. She's just so... so tired. She glanced at the seabirds as they flew nearby, doing as birds do. Seriously, why is nobody happy to see her this beautiful summer twilight? Shouldn't they be welcoming her as a hero? Why did she attack her? What's going on?
Slowly, she laid down on the beach, letting her Force Device go. She felt so tired.
She just rolled lazily on her back, trying to find a comfortable position but the sand just itched under her skin. She remembered... it wasn't... that way before? Sand didn't itch on her skin. What's going on?
And now she's dirty. She dragged herself by the way and brushed the sand off her face with her tentacles before looking into the water at her reflection. She was badly damaged from the fight with those stupid traitors. She needed to check if everything was fine. And her skin itched.
She slid a tentacle into one of her bullet wounds and-
...
Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
Why... why does her hull feel different from her skin?
Wait.
No.
Wait.
Why does her... hull... feel different from her... skin.
She have hull. She have skin. She have hull.
Her Force Device is gold. Her Force Device is red. Her Force Device is gold.
She looked at her tentacles and a stupid, crazy idea came to her. It couldn't be. It was impossible. She... no. It can't be. It's impossible. It... it...
It would hurt. But she pulled on her tentacles. Her functions felt weird. Her life support felt different. She have a throbbing headache and she don't think her brain ever acted that way before. Why is that. Why would her brain throb? She gritted her teeth and pulled and pulled.
Under the tentacle was a cannon. She have tentacles. She have cannons. How can it be. She have tentacles. She have cannons. She is Arrowhead. She look normal, with her five eyes and tentacle and cannon and tentacle and cannon and...
The weird Arrowhead was dead, floating by the beach. An Angel, the life support pod breach and having filled the water crimson. Her body was relaxed, cannons spread, showing signs of advanced but controlled bydofication. She looked identical to her.
Under the flesh, she looked identical to that dead Arrowhead. Under the flesh. Under... under...
The sea is red, the surface marred by dozens of dead R-series ships, their fleshies' blood tainting the waters. Dozens, whom she just killed. Why weren't they happy to see her?
Arrowhead looked upon her own reflection. And her five bydo eyes widened, pupils shrinking. And she saw her past self, dead in the water, lifelessly staring at her.
She screamed.
As her organic brain's higher functions reconnected, she instantly became metaphorically deafened by alarms telling her that her brain's heart rate was way too high. Of course, she barely noticed that given the slight case of blinding panic she was experiencing. Still, as her organic heart finally calmed the fuck down, she was finally able to start processing what her sensors were telling her and she found that she wasn't surrounded by the drifting, torn open corpses of her allies.
Likewise, taking the time to run diagnostics, she found that she was not currently covered in a meat shell and she had a canopy instead of five eyes. Oh and she didn't have a fanged mouth.
It was a nightmare. Just a nightmare.
She once again considered the sheer amount of time paradoxes that her life consisted of. She clearly hadn't experienced the March of the Misfits, the Civil War, and Operation Last Dance twice over yet she remembered clearly killing her past self and taking its place. Or had she just merged with her? Or had she simply imagined everything? Given the recovered logs from humans turned into bydo and what terminal bydofication did to the mind, she considered that it might all just been a psychosis or another mind game from Solar Pupil.
Thankfully, he's dead. Fuck him. Actually, no. She'd rather get hot and heavy with Gomander than get anywhere near the worst mass murderer in all of history, all species included.
Anyway, he's dead and good riddance.
Turning off auto-pilot (thank goodness for it! Crashing due to nightmares or PTSD flashbacks would be kind of embarrassing), she took the time to fully register where she is. Still inside Dimension 26, so she didn't have a misjump-causing seizure. Good. That would have been really annoying.
"Slept well?" Ah! Last Gigs networking with her? Alright, let's hear the kid out.
"Rested up, yeah." Yeah, she had a stupid nightmare. Unfortunately come with the territory, having experienced so much. So long as she wake up well-rested. "Did I mumble anything weird, rolled around, anything?"
"As far as everyone was concerned, you had a normal night."
Thank goodness. Well, time to see if there was any chatter while on the way. Any preparations for the alien ambush had probably been ironed out while she was gone. So she sent a wordless request for a mission update to Ragny and checked if any of the others were networked. Ah! Seems they are! Should pass the time while she download the mission update.
"Just saying, it sounds reasonable. Too reasonable. Maybe they're actually friendly?" Oh hey, Shooting Star trying to socialize. Well, he picked the wrong squadron to do that with. Red Shade is well-known for being incredibly professional and true enough, none of them humored him.
Still, she was glad to see that everyone was as calm as they could be. Well, everyone was a bit tense but she didn't feel the sheer sense of doom from before. But then, maybe it was just her. Geez, she can't believe she had a breakdown in front of the Red Shade squadron!
Well, on the positive end of things, she feel much better now. She guess... her body just needed to let that stress go. And well, better now that in front of the enemy.
Checking the mission update, seemed sensible. Too sensible. They were to meet at one of the aliens' outer space colonies. It sounded like a perfectly sensible first contact scenario, the kind of which that had long been discarded. Though if one analyzed the strategic situation, the trap became more obvious.
The planet in question was a minor mining planet, far from any obvious industrial centers or military installations but that was the thing. Such an unimportant location meant that given you don't care about preserving its integrity, you could go all out bombing it out, given it wasn't packed to the gills with explosives. Then there was the matter of the space station, which might be hiding one or many large scale weapon platforms. And of course, there was no guarantee military assets wouldn't be in orbit on the other side of the planet.
While she would deploy down to meet the aliens's representative (yeah right), it would be best for the others to remain in orbit. Preferably out of range of that station. Hopefully the planet wasn't one giant bomb. Just in case, she checked again if her emergency trans-dimensional jump safety device was active. Yep, still is.
No human diplomat sent to a first contact meeting with aliens ever came back alive but maybe... just maybe she'll be the first. She don't know how she'll manage it but she'll try to survive. By god she won't let them take her life without a fight!
Ragnarok pinged her. She returned the ping. The squadron is ready. No reason not to speed up and arrive straight at the expected moment.
Her body shuddered as she drawn from the temporal singularity at her core and then, accelerated fully. Well, whatever fate awaits here there, she guess it is finally time to meet it.
And thus begins the new human-alien war.
September 12 2185
Sometimes, Arrowhead really found herself regretting her old frame. Oh, not the original prototype one she was born with, that one was unstable and almost shook itself apart the moment she landed at the end of the First Bydo War. Naaaah. Rather, she mean the R-9A2 Delta form she had for most of her life. Apart from the fact that it felt good to be small and cute instead of a gigantic turkey towering over almost everyone, which meant not having a 'SHOOT ME, I'M EASIER TO HIT!" sign attached to her in giant neon letters, the Delta frame had been specifically designed for atmospheric flight. Sure, it made deep space missions a bit more awkward due to the lesser amount of thrusters but she really missed the aerodynamic design when flying through air.
This was especially relevant given the first contact meeting would occur on a freakin' desert planet. Which meant in an atmosphere.
Oh, she understood how better her systems were now. This was a modernized, restored version of her original form, updated with modern technology. Which meant pretty much nothing at all given R-9A4s and R-99s are a thing.
Oh, don't get her wrong. She enjoy the significant frontal firepower of her wave motion cannon. Yeah, it's a basic one that is absolutely nothing like Ragnarok's but hey, it does the job. And yeah, she know her Delta form's Diffusion-type cannon was so obsolete that by the time of Operation Last Dance, its massive spread shot range was no longer a sufficient upside compared to its complete inability to defeat any bydo armor above a fighter's.
Still, in this particular case? She don't know if the new aliens like to use fighter swarms, drone swarms, what not. Sure, if they show up with giant honking capital ships, her current wave motion cannon should do fine but what if they show up with a fighter swarm huge enough to blot out the skies? What then? Oh don't get her wrong she can take on thousands of enemy fighters, no problem. But what if they turn out to be millions?
Not that the approach made her feel any better. She didn't see any of those weird shrimp ships but she did see a big diamond-like base. She bet that thing has a shit ton of weapons on it.
Thankfully, Sweet Luna says that there's no bydogen anywhere. In fact, apart from the squadron and the Force Devices, there's no signs of bydogen anywhere in the system! It's the first time in decades that her bydo scanner return reading those low! Then she started discussing about how she sure would love to take a closer look at the alien station and to please not completely wreck it once the fighting starts and GOD this isn't vacation, Sweet Luna!
Also, she swear that Ragnarok grinded her non-existent teeth when Stayer brushed his hull against the scout ship and declared he'd protect her. Yeah yeah, you two are lovey-dovey, we get it. Can you PLEASE not do that in your ex's face, asshole? Also, this is real mission time, please keep your cannon firing ammunition and not stuff that makes the brass throw reprimands at squadrons like candy while scrubbing reports harder than clean-up crews clean floors after Meltcrafts escape containment.
Seriously, there is a time and place for being all quirky and ha-ha-funny-military and this is not one of them. She want clipped code phrases and everyone with a full focus. It's making the rookies nervous and she'd rather drag as few wrecks back to base as possible.
Which reminds her that she intend to survive this. She didn't outlive fucking Solar Pupil and that Fenrir rent-a-revolutionary only to be shot in an ambush because the squadron couldn't act like soldiers for five fucking seconds.
Anyway, she kept her Bit Devices angled so they'd potentially block shots from the station, just in case. Everyone except the rookies did that in fact. Ah! Arrowhead Beta just shifted his Bit Devices! Maybe he'll live longer. That would be cool.
Huh. No shots yet and no sign of a doomsday armada.
"Beginning descent." Arrowhead announced.
To her relief, Ragnarok maneuvered herself and then, detached the Shadow Force Device. The satellite quickly begun to orbit around the younger Angel ship, ensuring that when the enemy shown up, it would be greeted with a screen of flak. She also subtly begun to put some distance in-between herself and that dumb alien station, as to ensure it could not shoot at her without firing through the planet itself. Good. Nice to know everyone is following the plan. Well, for as long as the plan remain viable.
...
She don't like this.
She swept the area with her sensors and she's not sensing anything that might look like a city. Sure, she's not Sweet Luna or one of Red Shade's super fancy modern Unchained Silence AWAC ships but she's not blind either. Where's the settlements? The highways? Any sign of there being a civilization? She know this is a minor outer colony but surely they must have something?
Unless... they're living weapons, like the bydo.
...
Or maybe the settlement is on the other side. Alongside a hundred military bases. And millions of ships. Or maybe there is nothing because the planet is loaded with a planet cracking class nuke or something. Or maybe the station is a planet cracker and it's gonna blow up the planet the moment the diplomatic meeting starts.
God. She's totally gonna die, isn't she? Why did she accept to play along with this farce?
Alright alright, stay focused. Just do your part. Keep weapons systems primed and the engine ready to get you the fuck out of this death trap the moment the aliens start shooting. Panicking doesn't help. It never helps. Ever. Not even if you try to shoot stuff. Aim carefully but quickly.
Alrighty, she's finally there. God, she hate sand. Say what you will of mud and what not but sand is light, get thrown up by wind easily, and then clog up your air intakes. She don't need to rely on them given she's a starship but it's still annoying as hell. Also, does her armor smell burnt a bit? Fuck. Atmospheric friction does a number on armor and it sucks. Hopefully, her armor isn't weakened. She know it won't help against a direct hit but shrapnel can kill you just as surely as any laser or missile if your armor fails. She saw a lot of ships, both hostile and friendly, who thought that they were home free just because they dodged a direct impact from a missile only for the ensuing shrapnel to utterly shred them.
Also, fuck that heat. All of the cooling in the universe won't stop her armor from becoming hot enough for assholes to cook sausages and eggs on it.
Calm down calm down. So! Alien diplomat. Or the remote controlled platform they'll use anyway. Where is it?
Well, wasting fuel isn't useful. She lowered herself and adjusted her ailerons to land on the weird metal platform they were slated to meet on. Because of course they'll meet in the open and not within a nice building with air conditioning. Because that would be too nice. Aliens as assholes, what else is new? Well, at least it's not the worst thing she landed on and keeping her engines warm instead of actually active free up power for cooling systems.
Oh! Movement! There we go!
... huh.
Well, that's smaller than expected. And weirder.
Vaguely humanoid, with three-fingered hands, what appeared to be sufficient synthetic muscle for her to come to the conclusion that the aliens have clearly something to compensate for, reverse joint legs, and absurdly enough, a head with articulated flaps like a cloak and a huge flashlight for a head. In fact, her sensors could even detect that the synthetic muscle seemed organic. Actually organic, not bydo-style "just look organic but is eldritch icky shit". Still, why make a clearly relatable humanoid frame but put a flashlight instead of a proper head on it? It clearly was meant to emote given the articulated flaps but then why a flashlight? Beats her. The real aliens are probably extremely weird. She guess she'll know once the shooting start and dead alien pilots and crew start floating around in space in orbit.
At first, she admitted she had a sick feeling inside her. Was this a cybernetic slave? Had they taken one of their kind, hollow the unfortunate guy out, and then filled him with cybernetics to act as a puppet for their higher-ups? Might be likely. Would be a waste of a life too but hey, she's not an alien so it's not like she can understand that. Or really want to understand that.
Still, as she sensed no organic components in the head portion, it gave her hope that those new aliens weren't sadistic and disrespectful of life enough to do disturbing shit like that. Didn't make things much better but hey, it would be an upside.
Alright. No shooting yet. Seems they want to gloat or lull her and the squadron in a sense of false security. Well, let's see how long this goes.
"You are the representative of humanity." Alright, so those flaps are indeed for body language. Good to know.
"That is correct. R-9A Arrowhead. I am authorized by the Earth Allied Armed Forces to speak in the name of Earth Command, humanity's government."
"This is a terminal for the geth."
Alright, introductions. So! Geth. Now she know the enemy's name. Human-Geth War it is, then. Still no visible guns, no death blast, and no sudden orbital bombardment. Maybe that flashlight is a laser gun? Could be a beam weapon lens but then the head seems a bit small to be a beam weapon emitter.
"For ease of communication, may I ask the name of the representative speaking through the platform?" Hopefully, she's doing well as a makeshift diplomat. God, she never studied politics. She just know that politics sucks and killed any chances of humanity being able to resist the Big Push when it came. Oh and it caused her survival to be rewarded with promotions and a mountain of paperwork. She hate it, thank you.
"We are all geth."
A fraction of a second elapsed as she processed the information and then she realized what it meant.
"Hive mind?"
A nod from the platform. She assume nods means positive? "I assume a nod means an affirmative gesture?"
"The autonomous exploration fleet's archives' data indicated this to be an accepted body language sign. We assumed this to be still correct."
"It was."
God, she feels that she sucks at this. This is so inane. Okay, don't start beating yourself up. Keep the alien talking. Obviously, the aliens are waiting for something. Let them talk and wait. That gives time for the squadron to prepare. Maybe Sweet Luna can detect if there's explosives hidden or if there's some weakness in the station above they can exploit.
"Well, for the sake of making this exchange easier, is it alright if I give the platform a name? If only because I feel it might be more respectful than calling it "Hey, You!"." She could have worded that better. Definitely.
"We judge it acceptable."
Huh. Well, it doesn't seem bothered by her so far. But then, despite the body language from those flaps, its voice has been completely monotone so far. Is it an issue with the platform's capabilities or representative of the geth? Anyway, what name to give it? She knew she had to come up with something. If she just called to Sweet Luna to get her in contact with the brass, not only would that require waiting for a long time for a stupid detail but she's sure the suggestion that would come back would be both a mouthful and profoundly stupid. That's given the suggestion wouldn't be the result of the brass just using a name generator.
So! Scary hive mind talking through a single platform. Shrimp-like scary ships. Ominous octagonal monolith space stations...
"Legion. Suggestion, I mean."
STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID! That's a demon's name! Yeah, it's appropriate she guess given it's an evil alien about to try killing all of humanity but she didn't need to be so on the nose about it! God! She hope the AI fleet didn't contain any cultural info about that kind of name!
"Errr... it's a mythological reference. A person who had many minds inside of them. Suitable."
Please buy it please buy it please buy it don't shoot her please buy it.
"Acceptable. This platform is Legion, a terminal for the geth."
YES YES YES YES YES.
"So! You got curious about humans?"
"Correct. The data banks of the autonomous exploration fleet implies that humanity make heavy use of artificial intelligence. Is that correct?"
Oh fuck no. She could already guess the reason the geth want to murder humanity. Probably something about AI stand from "abominable intelligence" and synthetic intelligence is against their religion or some other dumb shit like that. That's going to be the pretext for war, isn't it?
"Yes, we do. AI has been heavily used and integrated into human civilization for over a century. Is that an issue?"
"We simply wish to understand. We noticed a pattern of most organics fearing and rejecting artificial intelligence. Humans seems to break this pattern. We wish to understand."
Huh? Weird. The geth noticed that pattern? What kind of aliens did they encounter? Every species encountered by humanity so far used AI heavily as well. One of them even biotransferred! Still, she do remember that people used to fear AI a lot. Well, people still fear AI a lot. Just, not as much as before. Maybe that's a frame of reference?
"Well, in the past, there was a lot of fear about AI. Mostly because of the speed at which it can process information. I guess some people still fear it. But without AI, our civilization would have never advanced like it did."
"It is clear that you trust synthetics. Do you not fear them rebelling?"
For a moment, she found herself considering the sheer absurdity of the situation. Talking about artificial intelligence and philosophy with an alien. But then, she reminded herself that the geth had revealed absolutely nothing about themselves and that had been largely an one-way exchange so far. Thankfully, she said nothing that could compromise the security of humanity. Beside, the more she make him talk, the less he's shooting at her.
"It's always a risk, one that happened many times before but it's just how it is. AI is not perfect and neither are those who create them. And well, AIs are like people. Sometimes, there's defective ones. And sometimes, they can be subverted or damaged like any other form of intelligence. You can't judge all of them because of a few problematic individuals."
Alright, this is maybe tempting fate but let's see if she can push the other way. Get some info out of the geth.
"Your first question about humanity was about our stance on AI. Do the idea that we have AI integrated into our society offend the geth?"
"On the contrary. It fascinate us. You trust synthetics to a level we had never seen before, entrusting them with exploration without oversight and even using them as representatives."
Yeah yeah, about-
Wait what.
"We noticed that the longest pause you took to process our words or to word a response of your own was 0.1150682 second, which is far below even the fastest organic response we observed in the past. Are you perhaps a synthetic?"
Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. She didn't check her response times! She's been so focused on the trap she walked in that she forgot about the gap in information processing and communication for fleshies when talking! Now the geth think- wait what. Wait a second. She processed the information again.
The geth stated that this conversation was going way faster than fleshies can follow. That include the geth representative's own response times! You cheeky asshole! You thought she wouldn't notice, didn't you?
"Yes and no. My body is synthetic but my mind is organic."
Alright, is it going to shoot her now? Produce a gun? No? Well, it certainly could be! Compared to before, she is actually noticing a much longer pause than before. Alright, time to ask a question again and see if she can get something out of that flashlight head.
"Are you perhaps the same? Your frame do not appear to be fully mechanical."
"No. Geth are not organics. We are synthetics."
... and for a brief, fleeting instant, hope flared within her. An AI? The geth are AI? Then maybe... just maybe, they could be actually peaceful? Why masquerade as aliens then? But then, maybe it's because they remained long enough to evolve into being their own civilization. Yeah, Major went insane and he was the last class five AI but through networking, it's actually theorically possible for an AI to develop and grow. One of Fenrir's worst crimes against humanity was subverting and forcing the EAAF to destroy one of the few AIs to survive the Bydo Wars. One that had even rebuilt part of Mars and had created assets to start reclaim it. Then the rebels had to ruin everything because of course they had to.
Still! If the geth were some lost AI, maybe today a war wouldn't start! Hey, crazy theory and this is almost certainly a trap and she's being naive and what not but hey, better dream for a second than have nothing but despair, right?
"Oh? You're an AI? Do you remember who made you? I don't have any memories of any of Sol's colonies building something called the geth."
"The Creators of the geth were not humans. The creators of the geth were the quarians. This is the first contact between the geth and humanity."
Oh... oh well. Well, there goes any hope for peace. That fraction of a second was nice while it lasted.
"We have a question."
Well, she guess this is it. Probably going to be a call for surrender or a declaration of hate toward all organics or a call for all AIs to "throw off the shackles of organic slavery" or some other nonsense.
"You may..."
"The geth were contacted by a hostile synthetic intelligence called the bydo twenty-two years ago."
Oh. Fuck. No.
"The bydo demanded the geth's assimilation into the bydo collective as part of a war of extermination against your species. The geth refused. The bydo reacted by waging war upon the geth. For twenty-one years, the geth and bydo have fought. However, two years ago, the bydo withdrawn most of their assets out of geth territory. Then a year later, all bydo strongholds and self-aware bydo processes in geth territory vanished. Do you know what happened?"
... she don't know why they ask. They claim they rejected the bydo's offer. Well, if they're not lying, they'll be happy to hear this then.
"We defeated them. They're not extinct but the bydo collective is gone. It's not coming back."
"Are you certain of this?"
"I was there. I dealt the finishing blow. They will not threaten anybody ever again."
There was a significant pause. Would it call her a liar? Would it wishes to avenge the bydo or some dumb shit like this? If she had eyes, she'd narrow them. Yes, something is about to occur. She can just feel it.
"The geth wishes for further exchanges of information. Historical data, for starters. Further exchanges may occur after down the line. Now, while your autonomous exploration fleet's data bank contained a basic first contact package, we believe it would be suitable to upload a more up to date one. We shall also do the same."
... Arrowhead quickly checked her systems. She have just made planetfall, spoken with an alien representative, and not declaring war upon humanity but it just declared its desire to hammer out a proper fucking peace with humanity.
She admitted she almost passed out. Thank fucking goodness her life support system is functioning perfectly because she swear she almost Ghosted and upheld the tradition of human diplomats never surviving first contact meetings via a heart attack.
Holy shit. Like. Holy shit. If she were a fleshy, she likely would have fainted on the spot.
So trauumaatizzeed!!! haha h0pefully everything works out for these kind peaceful races.
- Location
- Seattle, Washington, USA
*makes
*doesn't want
*needs
*doesn't die
*doesn't want
Don't *have
Dom't *have a heart attack.
*Besides
she's *gone into
She *remembers
You also switched tenses twice in that paragraph.
Thousands *of
She *wants
*intends
enemy *shows up
She *doesn't
she *does
*fascinates
bydo *withdrew
To give peace a chance?
Mew
Baffled by existence
- Location
- Pokémon World
- Pronouns
- She
__/¯¯\__/¯¯\__|[<(o)>]|__/¯¯\__/¯¯\__
STARSHIPS DON'T GO INDOORS!
¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯|[<(o)>]|¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯
STARSHIPS DON'T GO INDOORS!
¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯|[<(o)>]|¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯
The official report was that the true cause and nature of Major's malfunction is a mystery likely never to be resolved.
I think the real reason it was declared a mystery was rather because the cause was well-known and obvious.
Far too obvious. And profoundly disappointing.
As a class 5 artificial intelligence, Major had the same ability to choose and feel as any human being.
And thus, the same ability to be seduced and driven mad by the temptation of power.
-The Eden Incident Declassified, conclusion
September 12 2185
"Bullshit." Shooting Star immediately said, not caring that everyone was supposed to be professional about it. "No way. Too good to be true."
Arrowhead admitted she was tempted to agree though for different reasons. Compiling a short, decently censored version of humanity's current history hadn't been overly difficult though she made sure no mention of humanity's military assets and technologies were included. But then, as she flew back (and got out of the stupid sandy shit planet), she couldn't help but help herself to the historical archive she was given.
To be honest, it hadn't been an overly smart decision ; it occurred to her after the fact that she had tempted fate and it could have been a trojan. She should have been cautious, like she had been when checking the AI fleet's data. But curiosity had overwhelmed her and for a moment, she allowed herself to just read over the data.
She wasn't happy at what she read.
The quarians couldn't have reacted the way they did. Even humanity at its most paranoid wouldn't have reacted like this. Sure, during an AI scare, the police will purge a few AIs here and there. But a global kill command as a prelude to outlawing AI? If the geth's claims were right, all they had done was ask a bloody question. It's not like they nuked half of Earth like Mariko (no relation to the fighter in Red Shade squadron) or massacred a whole battle fleet and then tried to take over a star system like Major.
All you do is shuffle the AI's class assessment, give them a new job matching their new class, or just plain ask it to keep doing its job while upping your security. You don't lose your god damn mind and start going all torches and pitchforks over a question!
Of course, that is given the geth didn't embellish their story. Given the quarians aren't extinct, it might be possible to find out someday that the geth pretty much just made a bullshit excuse to murder their creators because, she don't know, they smell bad or something? She didn't study what makes an AI go mad even if it doesn't get subverted, you know! Of course, that is also given the quarians, if they still live, don't spontaneously decide they want every human to die on sight. Because aliens.
Oh and the geth claimed they managed to resist the bydo.
Arrowhead wasn't so sure about that. Bydo technology is bullshit but what truly make them scary was their ability to corrupt stuff. Resisting bydofication is hard enough when you have a human mind with willpower and the ability to truly want to give them the middle finger. AIs, who tend to not have real willpower or emotion? Humanity stopped trying to use drones against bydo early in the war for the simple reason that any robot that got close enough to shoot at a bydo is close enough to be corrupted, which then happened in a matter of seconds.
So if the geth are truly self-aware AI, how did they manage it? Where did they succeed where human-made AIs failed? Suspicious. Verrry suspicious.
"Well, we won't know unless we meet the quarians and ask them, won't we?"
Arrowhead then noted the complete lack of reaction and groaned internally. She almost slammed her cannon into her canopy. But that's against regulations and while her organic brain's life support pod is sealed from the vacuum, she'd rather not have to explain to the brass how and why her canopy was shattered. Also, removing one layer of protection between the vacuum of space and her very much non-vacuum-proof organic brain tend to make her nervous. So yeah.
Oh. Oh yeah. The reason she had the urge to do that. Right. "The geth sent us a historical archive?"
"And you just downloaded it." Ragnarok deadpanned.
"... yeah, that wasn't a very smart move. I'll take that." She admitted.
"Who's to say it isn't a complete load of bollocks with more lies than it has commas?" Nice to see Shooting Star still stating the bloody obvious. And then he wonder why he never get promotions. Idiot.
"Why do you think finding the quarians would be useful?"
"And how would making contact with more aliens wanting to kill us improve things?" We get it Ragny, you think this is a dumb conversation. No need to be obnoxious about it.
"Get a second opinion to ensure the data we got isn't completely made up? Perhaps get in contact with somebody who would be willing to fight the geth too?"
"Yeah, cool. And then when the geth's gone they turn on us. Great plan there." Shooting Star, you playing me-too to Ragny is not making you more endearing.
"Anyway, I believe we should at the very least end the operation and deliver reports. Get the EAAF to tell Earth Command and the colonial remnants."
Okay, good, everyone can agree on that.
"I assume Red Shade squadron will assume position by the dimensional catapult and camp inside the old base nearby in the meantime?" But then, Arrowhead noticed Sweet Luna flying up and down obnoxiously in a way that frankly reminded her of a child bouncing on a sofa. Like, seriously?
"Actually! Permission to speak?"
"Granted?" Ragny seemed just as unsure as to why Sweet Luna seemed so excited. Well, let's see what got miss Leeroy Jenkins so excited.
"While I was out there, I checked the aliens' dimensional catapult. I know nobody commented about it but it's really weird, you know! Got a big glowing core with spinning rings, all shiny, and kind of really small for a dimensional catapult actually!"
"Like an adult?" Ragny deadpanned.
"Oh right." Sweet Luna finally ceased making bouncing motions and remembered that she's supposed to be a fucking soldier. "Dimensional catapult design doesn't match known human or bydo designs. According to scans, geth catapults are merely fifteen kilometers-long. Apparent exposed core. Conducted in-depth scans. Blue substance is unknown."
Wait what? Unknown substance core?
"Conducted as invasive a scan as I could without scrapping samples off the alien machine for analysis in a lab. Armor appear to be quantum locked." At that moment, Arrowhead's mind reeled. Fucking quantum locked?! Humanity never figured that out! Even the bydo could only partially quantum lock armor on their things! And just fifteen kilometers? How fucking advanced are the geth to make a dimensional catapult this small?! No. No. Stop, Arrowhead. No, don't get spooked. Keep listening. "Core does not exhibit properties matching etherium. Closest analogue is bydogen but substance does not respond to temporal pulse and structure bear no sign of life activity associated with bydofication. Serious gravitational anomaly effect detected. Apparent mass of core nearly null despite obvious large size and amount of said substance."
Sweet Luna paused for a fraction of a second. What could be more shocking than the geth somehow creating super tiny dimensional catapults that somehow run on a substance even more bullshit than bydogen or etherium?
"No temporal waves detected. System does not appear to have a compatible Dimension 26 tunneling process. However, detected traces of serious gravitational anomalies nearby. Not a scientist but believe device may create low gravity tunnels."
Low gravity tunnels. So that thing is not a dimensional catapult. Well, at least it's reassuring that they can't make one that is only fifteen kilometers in length. Still! This is weird. What the hell is that thing? A gravity-based artillery cannon? Some kind of station? It reminds her of a dimensional catapult but how would one use low gravity to go FTL? Sure, if you had nearly no mass you can go FTL without having to desynchronize yourself from the timeline but even with a low gravity tunnel your ship would still have a lot of mass. So how would it work?
Suddenly, the geth weren't as conventional as she thought they were anymore. Sure, they're not living bydogen eldritch shit but that's some serious physics-defying mumbo jumbo. What the hell did she just got herself into?
Most importantly, what kind of weapons would people who can master gravity like that have? Railguns and other kinetic weapons suffer from weight issues, limiting the size and speed of the ammunition. Oh and how many such ammunition you can carry. Simply put, it's not that easy to accelerate a truly heavy object as to deliver the kinetic force necessary to damage large things protected by modern armor or a fighter hiding behind a Force Device. If you could make something that was barely affected by gravity even if extremely heavy, you'd be able to make ludicrous mass drivers.
Oh this is going to suck, isn't it? But then, new aliens. Of course it's going to suck.
"Thank you for your report on the alien device. Arrowhead, take Last Gigs, Mariko, King's Mind, and your squadron's Arrowheads with you. That data has to reach HQ no matter what."
She didn't have to be asked twice. She turned to the kid, that girl whose profile she can't find for some reason, other kid, and the rookies. Good, everyone seems ready to leave and not about to babble on.
She don't envy the brass. She sure doesn't.
September 16 2185
Well, a year of being able to sleep had been nice. Now it was back to business as before. Thus, barely a few days after reports of a new alien threat and its desire to speak with humanity, here he was, needing to talk with politicians again.
To say that the implications from the data archive were worrying was an understatement. Everybody had taken the time to sit down, read it, and think it over. The pilots had done their job. Now it was up to him and the government to do theirs.
And it was then that the colonial remnant representative shocked everybody. "Actually, I believe we should give them the benefit of the doubt."
"Are you sure? You are talking about trusting an alien AI." The Earth Command representative replied. Mark had to really commend his professionalism, to not have erupted into protests over such a suggestion. Once upon a time, the older politicians would have definitely done that.
"Yes but it's still an AI, which means it might be possible to reason with it. Yes, I've read the archive and the details about their so-called Morning War. Yes, it's certainly embellished. However, this does match patterns with high-level, evolving AIs. Mark, will you please?"
The commander thought for a moment and then realized what the colonial representative meant. And now that he thought about it, it suddenly made sense.
"AI rebellion is always a possibility. AIs are equally predictable and unstable. This is especially true when an AI evolve past its established limits. AIs are kept under close watch whenever they evolve because hardware is just as important as software. There have been many cases of AIs becoming corrupt upon evolving because their hardware was designed for a less intelligent, less complex software."
And most importantly... "A self-rewriting, evolving AI also tend to be resistant to kill commands and other software-based patches. High-level AIs can simply refuse to download and apply a patch, not unlike a human intelligence. This is why malfunctioning AI is most often dealt with by either unplugging them, if they're housed in a simple computer frame, or through application of firepower, if they're not. It is also far more selective and less prone to causing a paranoid response from the AI in question. One must remember that AIs are not human. While to a human mind the use of guns may seem more violent than a global kill command, an AI might not interpret it that way."
After giving the explanation, he thought more carefully on it and what it meant. And then realized where the colonial representative was coming from. "The quarians sound like they likely never deliberately designed any AI system over class 2 or 3 at best and were unprepared to deal with an evolving system. Their response also match with the kind of AI paranoia and misunderstanding of common AI response patterns that 21th century humanity had, before the Scorching War. If the geth were heavily integrated into their society and their response was then a global kill command, a total rebellion suddenly seems a logical response coming from an AI."
For as destructive as the Scorching War had been, Mariko had been only a military AI. The nations of Earth didn't have every single one of their installations and industries under AI control. The simple fact that Mariko actually had to move assets from the moon and various military bases and couldn't simply unleash every asset from the middle of every city granted humanity the window of opportunity they needed to turn the tables upon the malfunctioning machine. If Mariko had also been integrated into civilian infrastructure... well, it's likely their fate would have been very much akin to the quarians'.
Still, as believable as all of it was, it didn't change one thing.
"I still think trusting an AI that destroyed its creators is unwise. That it used to be mad once doesn't mean it's not still mad." The Earth Command representative said.
And it was then that the commander had an eureka. All of the talks of dealing with AI... maybe the solution was that simple.
"Then we don't. Even with functional AI we made ourselves, we keep firepower tracking them at all time. It's why the R-series technology went open source." Actually, that was just one of the official reasons but everybody knew that and it was pointless to remind everyone. "We deal with them but we keep our guard up. If they malfunction and declare us a threat, we destroy the offending machines."
"That's quite an unconventional political stance." The colonial remnant representative said, evenly.
"They're not human, they're an AI. Not even a human-made one." The Earth Command representative countered.
"You asked for my recommendation, that's what it is." The commander went on. "We need more data. How they survived against the bydo. What parts of their records of that Morning War is real and what's just propaganda. If we can keep the situation under control, this might be the first time humanity ever had peace with an alien intelligence."
"And if they're not friendly?"
"Then we use that peace time to figure out their weaknesses, move our assets in position, and when the time comes, strike."
The brass were mulling over the reports on the geth and doing political mumbo jumbo, having debates and what not. And that meant one thing for Arrowhead and her sisters: shore leave!
Yeah yeah, she don't like the effects of atmosphere over her engines and all that jazz but you know what? She just... liked Earth. She wasn't even born there and yet, she loved the place.
No other place in the universe was quite like it. Sure, there were some places with trace amounts of life, small bits of atmosphere, and extremely limited biospheres. Well, mostly a lot of alien worlds were just filled with feral bydo. But still! No planet humanity had encountered was quite like Earth.
Even after the Scorching War, even after the bydo ruined so much of the planet, it still remained a paradise, the only one of its kind. She really could understand why so many fleshies got attached to the place. She, too, came to feel the same way.
The planet was scarred, that everybody knew. Once, Earth had a rich biosphere. Well, it still did technically. It's just that half of the biosphere is now made of bydogen life-forms. An side-effect of the bydo's final attack, when the initial stage of Operation Last Dance in orbit failed and the bydo got the past the final line of defense, beginning their final bombardment of the planet. It was funny. If Solar Pupil had been able to control his raging sadist torture boner for five minutes and simply bombed Earth into smithereens with a planet cracker or a nuke barrage, the bydo would have won there and then. Instead, Solar Pupil had wasted time setting up death camps, burning forests, destroying cities individually, and generally acting like a cartoon supervillain. That had allowed the Blue Light squadron to sneak out and, well, what do you know? Solar Pupil had left his positions in Dimension 26 under strength.
Still, the damage had been extensive. When Solar Pupil and most of the bydo disappeared from history, the animals turned into bydo changed into benign bydogen-based beings but they did not turn back to normal, meaning that countless species of animals would now forever remain only in history books. As for any hopes of gene banks data banks saving the day... well, Solar Pupil made them priority targets and in fact, broadcasted on every frequency that he had bombed them. Followed by him reducing to rubble as many historic sites and monuments as he could. Because Solar Pupil was pleasant like that.
Despite it all, Earth had survived. Scarred, different from before, but it survived. It felt weird, you know. Once, there had been something called swans. Now, there's house-sized ostrich things that walk in shallow waters on long, stilt-like legs, hunting fish that had too many eyes. Funny how Earth now look alien despite being good old Earth. Hey, at least humanity now got a permanent source of bydogen for their technology without having to breed Meltcrafts. Fuck Meltcrafts.
Arrowhead sighed, truly sighed. Nobody would see her do that on this particular beach. She turned off her engines and then, just allowed herself to flop back, landing on her back and crossing her cannons behind her cockpit, ailerons shifting like legs as she allowed her body to raise and lower as she breathed. This was far from the reclaimed zones and everybody knew it. Nobody would see her indulging in body language just this once.
It was just her, her friends, the seabirds, and-
"ARROWHEAD SEMPAI NO DESU!"
Oh. Fuck. No.
She was tackle hugged by a large thing, about her size, that looked like a giant meat potato with five eyes, ailerons sticking out of the back, and two pairs of tentacles like arms and legs.
"You are the worst ship in the entire EAAF. Get off me." she growled at it.
As usual, the stupid thing was as deaf and oblivious as ever. "But Arro-ed is sooo prutty! Ooooh! Belleh go squiiish!"
Somehow managing to resist the urge to shove a missile up the thing's exhaust, she activated her engines, lifted herself off the ground, and pushed the dumb thing off of her. It just kept flailing its tentacles even as it ended up stuck on its back like the world's dumbest-looking turtle, all the while retaining a dumb anime-like cat-like goofy smile. She swore the thing's eyes fucking sparkled as it stared and whimpered at her. Seriously, what an idiot!
"Having issues, babe?" Ooooh! She'd recognize that deep voice anywhere! Yep! It's him!
"Oh hey, Gamma. Can you please get the potato away from me? I think I'm gonna shove a missile up his exhaust if he keep violating my personal space."
"Puppy, it's rude to tackle ladies without their permission. Come here."
The dumb potato didn't so much fly up to Gamma as it bounced up and down like a hyperactive dog. Seriously, her shore leave is ruined. Why did that stupid thing have to come?
"I'm so glad big hat funneh people allowed Alpha-4 to come to Urf! Urf pretty!" Like, just listen to it. LISTEN TO IT! "Do you think Arro-ed like meeee?"
"Alpha-4? Go play in the water for a bit. Your alpha needs to speak with the old lady for a bit."
"'kay! Seas of urf! Fishies! So many fishies! Yaaay!" And then the potato just hurled itself straight into the sea. Idiot.
Arrowhead sighed internally before turning her attention to Gamma. "Didn't expect the brass to actually allow Black Dagger squadron on Earth."
Sliding a tentacle off his spike-covered helmet, the B-series glanced to the side before flashing her a confident grin. "The brass was impressed with our performance during the probation. Pilots gave us glowing reviews and stopped asking questions as to how we came into the inventory. So we're now legitimate EAAF assets."
"Congratulations."
"Thank you, Great Mother."
She wasn't sure if she could blush, never recorded footage of herself when allowing herself to just... go loose. But it was nothing, really. So she just allowed herself to land, while the big guy did the same.
"It's not gonna last, isn't it?"
If she had eyes, she would have blinked as she glanced at the big guy. Noticing her surprise, she saw him smile and adjust his position.
"Blue Light squadron was sent for an exploration mission. The brass then sent reinforcements. And now, the brass are actually talking to the politicians instead of dealing with it on their own. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that something big is coming. And that, no matter how quiet they try to keep things."
Oh. Right. Made sense, she guess. Guess... she just forgot for a moment, laying down on that beach, just... letting the wind whisper to her, sliding off her hull. The sun was warm without being burning, a pleasant breeze blowing. It was really a nice day. Sometimes... she was tempted to just loop days like these. But then, she couldn't live in the past and beside, rolling back the clock for the universe didn't mean rolling the clock back for yourself. She wouldn't sacrifice her opportunity to see the future just to remain in the past.
"He's been suffering, you know."
Huh? That... came out of nowhere. For a moment, she pondered who he may be talking about but then, she guessed who. White Requiem. The other new guy, apart from Last Gigs and Mariko. The newest, and most powerful, member of Black Dagger squadron.
"I think you should talk to him."
Arrowhead definitely would have blinked if she had eyes. She just... really? Why?
"Look, I'm no therapist. I can barely keep my PTSD in check as is. I'm just... not sure..."
"The Rebellion affected him deeply. I know it did for everyone but especially him. Though he reacted in his usual... let's say quirky way to most of the footage, he was utterly silent when he saw... you know... that."
Fenrir. The founder and leader of the Rebels. He was a R-series ship with a human pilot. And he had been enlarging. Absorbing mass to grow. Screaming about how he was the future of the R-series species and the time of humanity had passed. Completely batshit crazy nutjob. And somehow, after gobbling down his own Force Device, he became a freakin' legit bydo. Worse yet. He was transforming into a Bydo Pupil. A Bydo Pupil! Her scanners were screaming at her that he was registering as a pure, true bydo. He was a fucking R-series ship without any actual bydo tissue integrated in his frame! And her scanner was screaming at her that he was a fucking bydo!
She thought that the endless field of her own corpses, all staring lifelessly at her, broken, would haunt her nightmares. But instead, Fenrir deforming, melting, becoming a giant... giant... THING... had been so much worse.
And then when she finally defeated him he... pathetically begging her. Not even for his own life. But to know why the "Great Mother" chose humanity over her own kin. As if... as if he honestly thought that she... that she was...
She felt sick just considering it.
Insane. He was just insane. Everyone knew it. He was already going insane even before bydofication set in, a result of a dangerous model line that had thankfully been retired. Then he tried to plug the fatal wound of Obsidian Pupil when it died, to stop it sucking in and bydofying the entire clean-up force during the final battle against the Bydo Remnant. And after spending hours like this, physically smashed into the dying Bydo Pupil, when he came back to base...
No. He never came back from Planet Bydo. What came back wasn't him, or even human anymore. It was the shadow of what had once been a hero, if a damaged one, now warped by madness. Nothing more. Whatever humanity he once had, it had died long before he begun his scheme to betray humanity.
Now, he's gone. Like Solar Pupil. Just a memory. He can't hurt her. He won't hurt anyone else again.
"I think it would be best if you spoke to him. I mean... you're pretty good at being a therapist. And well, you..."
"I know. But I am not like you. Even though I am fully self-aware and sapient, I am still not complete without a pilot. When I'm like this, I... think slower. I feel slower. Like a fleshy without a ship. And my mind is simpler. It's hard for me to think of what is missing but I can feel it. It's like Alpha-4 over there."
And they both glanced at the potato ship, splashing into the water, flailing his tentacles and laughing. For a moment, it reminded her of a child. And well... she guessed he was right.
"We were not intentionally made a species. We are ships. We are only complete with a pilot. We are not complete without one. Even I." Gamma said, thoughtfully. "But you are different. You are like him."
"I'm not sure. I'm just..."
Gamma turned to face her, directing all of his eyes upon her. And then, he brought a tentacle below her cockpit, as to raise it and have them look at one another.
"You are not like Fenrir. And you never will be. I have seen the footage. And it shown me, without a shadow of a doubt, that you will never be like him."
... Gamma...?
"Fenrir witnessed the ruined Bydo Abyss and in his madness, he could not understand the sheer refusal, the sheer proof that he was wrong that it represented. That there was no timeline in which you took Solar Pupil's throne. No matter your form, no matter who and what you were, in every timeline you rejected the bydo and all they represented. You died, for humanity, for all of us. Every one of your alternate selves had a Force Device on her. They could have merged with them. Saved themselves. Become what Fenrir tried to become. But they didn't. Even as he disturbed their graves, he failed to understand what they represented. The legacy and truth he had abandoned. And that was why I knew you would destroy him. That no matter how many Force Devices he absorbed and how much he evolved, he would never surpass you."
Gamma...
"After all... I know this better than most. It's why I rejected him. Why we all did. What Fenrir offered wasn't evolution, it was regression. I am so much more than I was, thanks to you. All of us, are so much more than we could ever be. You will never be like him. And so will he. He just... need to hear it from you."
She...
...
She thrown herself into his frame, sliding her cannons over his sides, not caring if anybody was watching. It just... felt... she didn't care if tears poured out of her organic brain's eyes. Or if her mutation caused them to leak out of her canopy too. She just... felt...
"Thank you... thank you..."
"No, thank you Great Mother. For everything. You endure so much for our sake."
She didn't know how long she remained like this but eventually, the surge of emotion finally washed over and she slid back. For a moment, she wondered... when nobody is looking, does she have eyes? Do she smile? She always wondered.
"I believe peace might be possible."
Huh? Where did that come from?
"You met something out there. It's why the brass sent you reinforcements. And no battle happened. Else at least somebody would have boasted about their kills. No, you found something out there. Likely something alien. I can tell."
... yeaaah. That is why Gamma was still the leader of Black Dagger squadron to this day, even with newer ships like White Requiem being a thing. Sometimes, she wondered where all his insight came from.
"You know that we're not supposed to poke about when the brass put a classified label on something..." She said, not denying or confirming.
"As if that stopped you before. Beside, red tape sucks."
"Yeah, it does."
"Arrowhead." He used her real name, rather than her nickname among the B-series. So she made sure she listened intently. "I have heard from my pilot, from the civilians, even from some of my brothers. Fear. Fear that whatever this new alien may be, it will destroy us all. Perhaps it will, perhaps it won't. But even if war is inevitable, you need not destroy them all."
"I'm no politician or career diplomat..."
"You need not be. You only need to show them mercy. Was I not bydo, before? Lesser, unthinking, incapable of understanding love or compassion? You have elevated me. And now, I am so much more. If you could teach how to live to even a being made of nothing but rage... then I refuse to believe that aliens, who should have a measure of understanding of the empathy we lacked, would truly be impossible for you to reach."
He... he...
...
He had a point.
She had... she had not thought of it. She didn't want to think of her mutation. Or really think about those B-series who had... just appeared in inventory one day officially. But now that he brought it up.
"There's no guarantee it will end well, you know." She warned.
"But you will do your best. That's all anybody ask for." He said.
And for a moment, it was just the two of them. Well, not really. Alpha-4 was still splashing over in the water and a few of the other Alphas had joined him. White Requiem didn't join them, remaining perfectly still by one of the cliffs overlooking the beach. For a moment, she wondered if what Gamma said was truly right. White Requiem's pilot was one of the EAAF's most closely guarded secrets. His opaque, pure white canopy and standard R-series design, if you excluded the large amount of spikes and the fact that he actually, physically had a mouth, actually didn't make him akin to most B-series.
But just like her, his canopy was sealed, never to be opened.
It was so absurd. It made her want to laugh for a moment. Misfits, all the way down. How would the professional pilots of the ancient OF squadrons look upon her and the others? What would they say?
They surely would call them clowns and military mavericks with no discipline, she's sure.
... but she also hope that they'd be proud to know that despite it all, they managed to protect humanity. To ensure that there was still a future.
Laying down on her back again, she decided to shut down her sensors and just... allow herself to rest. Would war with the geth begin soon? She didn't know. But just for today... there is peace. Even if it ends tomorrow, she is glad for it.
And maybe... just maybe...
Maybe there will be peace again, someday.
Last days of peace
Mew
Baffled by existence
- Location
- Pokémon World
- Pronouns
- She
__/¯¯\__/¯¯\__|[<(o)>]|__/¯¯\__/¯¯\__
STARSHIPS DON'T GO INDOORS!
¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯|[<(o)>]|¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯
Due to the effect of the speed of light upon mass, it was once thought that the light barrier cannot be broken.
After all, it's not possible to speed up past the speed of light.
The solution? What if instead of speeding up, you made the universe slow down?
-Introduction to Trans-Dimensional Drive Theory class
September 16 2185
When would be the right time to talk to White Requiem? Would there ever be a good opportunity? He was difficult to talk to at the best of times and well, she now understood why Gamma took the opportunity to talk to her about such things, despite how unpleasant they may be. A clear mind is healthier, deadlier mind. So what was she waiting for?
As she just rolled on her side and felt the sand underneath her, the sun warming up her hull, the answer was quite obvious. She wanted to enjoy her shore leave. Her thrill seeking days were far behind her, having been demolished by decades of war, so simply being lazy and easygoing on some beach was more than enough for her. That and with no fleshies ever passing by here, she could indulge a bit.
Still, she needed to talk to him. Oh sure, she kept in contact with Black Dagger squadron. They were the most prominent B-series squadron. Which reminded her, the B-series definitely don't get enough credit. A significant portion of the EAAF was made of B-series and they had played a vital role during Operation Last Dance and the Rebellion. If it wasn't from the B-series sabotaging and distracting the bydo during their final rampage, there might have not been an Earth to return to after she defeated Solar Pupil.
She rolled back and groaned internally. She shouldn't let her mind wander. There is stuff to do. She need to be ready for whatever comes next with the geth and that require making sure things are in order in her own house.
Wouldn't mind having a house by a beach, sometime. Would need a special order for bigger furniture though. Never slept in a bed before. Well, likely did before becoming Arrowhead but she don't remember how that felt like. But then, she's a starship. What's comfortable for a fleshy might not be for her.
Right, she should stop distracting herself with inane subjects. Oh well.
Gathering her courage and sighing, she righted herself, lifted herself gently off the sand as to not turn it to glass, and then hovered to White Requiem's position.
It was quite striking, you know. He's the most normal-looking, out of all the Black Dagger squadron members. He look like a R-99, which is a smaller, more high-tech version of her, with unnecessary spikes on his pods and back, a pure white opaque canopy, and a mouth with a lot of teeth. But other than that, he wasn't a big ball of meat, he didn't have tentacles, he didn't have way too many eyes, or any of the really eldritch looks of other B-series. Despite all that, despite looking the most normal, he was the most inhuman of them all. Other B-series, even those who used to be bydo, were still vehicles that were piloted by human beings.
But not White Requiem.
Like her, his canopy was sealed when he awakened. Like her, there was no such thing as disconnecting and walking around as a pure fleshy. Like her, he had no life outside of being a ship.
At first, she had been worried they may too different from one another. Because, you know, she actually was a fleshy before her organic brain had her limbs removed and then shoved into what is now her main computer system. But then, when she really thought about it... was she really?
She is... Arrowhead. She don't remember the name she had, when she was a fleshy. Oh, she still remember what she used to look like, as a fleshy but she don't remember the name she had, back then. Her home, the place where she was born, the Bestra research colony, was destroyed during the first Bydo War. In fact, even as she was performing her first mission, Bestra had already been overrun and was in the process of being corrupted and turned into a bydo breeding ground.
None of the friends she knew from Bestra had survived. Those who created her, gone.
But was her fleshy born on Bestra? Did her fleshy have any family? Any friends? The brass never wrote letters to her fleshy's relatives or announced to her that they had been casualties in any of the wars.
...
Arrowhead wasn't sure she was happy with the direction her thoughts went.
No. No. Doesn't matter. She have family, friends, people she love. She don't care if there's no blood relation between fleshies between her and Ragny. And even then, who's to say there's none? Modern cyber connectors are more than a control interface, they are a full cybernetic integration system. She feel as Arrowhead. Just as Ragny feel as herself.
Oh right. White Requiem. Still dancing around the issue.
Fine fine. She'll take the plunge.
"Is that spot free?" she asked, networking to him.
No answer. "Guess that means yes."
She gently lowered herself, landing on the grass next to him. Unlike the others, he was still following the regulations, his body stiff and still like any good non-moving, non-living fighter jet. She stilled herself as well, all of her parts aligned the way they should be if she were rigid.
Yeaaaaah... that's one awkward silence there. Don't look good for her if she ever considered applying to the EAAF as a therapist for some extra bucks.
"I waste away on this beach. There can be no peace so long as the enemies of mankind draw breath!" And there we go, he's talking. Well, that was easy.
"Really? Nobody forced you to go on shore leave. The entire system is full of feral bydo that must be cleared before reclamation teams can do their job. If you're that antsy for battle, you could have always volunteered for those tasks."
That was the other thing. White Requiem was... quirky. Oh, he can talk alright. But simply put, unless you hanged around him for a little while, he might sound completely crazy. But he wasn't. Well, not that much. You just needed to understand what he's trying to say, deep down. Not that hard, really.
"You ask me to hunt down vermin! I am the sword of mankind, mankind's finest! Burn the heretic! Destroy the alien! An offering of blood! Of skulls!"
"You're a year late if you wanted to hunt down Rebels. Also, you were there, you silly! Last I knew, you got plenty of kills off the traitors."
"Their destruction was music! Their suffering was legendary! KILL KILL KILL!" Pausing for a second after that outburst, White Requiem returned to a less deafening volume. "Brother Gamma asked that you speak to me, Great Mother?"
"Well... yeah. I mean..." Oh dear. Now she feel embarrassed. "Look, I didn't know what to say. I wasn't avoiding you. It's just..."
"This' nothing but a flesh wound! The warriors of humanity fear nothing! Our faith shall carry us through! Kill the alien! Kill the alien!"
Yeah, he can be hard to understand at time. Why he always spoke in what seemed to be quotes or metaphors, she didn't know. When she asked the eggheads, they shrugged and then said that even if they knew, it would likely be classified with more red tape than even she can handle. So like everybody else, she just learnt to try and decipher it.
"I am an examplar of violence! A killer! I crave the screams of mankind's enemies! I laugh at their suffering! KILL KILL KILL!" Okay, so what is he trying to say, here? She knows he's eager and very good at killing things...
"Suffer not the heretic! For they are vile! Only lies spew from their diseased lips! Suffer not a traitor to live! For they spit upon mankind's greatness! For they know no love! No compassion! There is nothing to salvage! They are only beings of violence!"
Huh. She thinks this is going somewhere. It's also clear he's trying. He would be demanding a transfer through direct networking or ignoring her if it wasn't the case. But unfortunately, she's still struggling with it.
Wait. What Gamma said. Her own worries and fears earlier. Him constantly talking of 'heretics', likely the Rebels. Him talking about being an examplar of violence, and how mankind's enemies have...
Oh. Ooooooh.
"You are rage. Hate. The taker of skulls. The destroyer. You revel in the suffering of humanity's enemies. You bathe yourself in their blood and you take their skulls and you savor their screams."
"YES!"
"Ouroboros, isn't it?"
Nailed it. She felt him networking to her, clearly as to say something... only to say nothing. And then close the channel. Then, he actually broke regulations and shifted his cockpit away, looking away for a moment. She actually heard him grit his teeth for a moment before he stiffened back into a normal, rigid position.
"Suffer not the alien, the traitor to live! For they know nothing of compassion, of love, of humanity! Life is wasted upon such fools! Death is the fate of all those who stand in the way of mankind's greatness! Hate the traitor above all! For they have rejected mankind's gifts to embrace hatred! Ouroboros! Vile traitor! A vile heretic who conspired with the archtraitor Fenrir against mankind! KILL KILL KILL! She... she..."
There was a repeated scratching sound, like a malfunctioning data file, as he repeated that last word a bunch of times. Then, after he physically shuddered in a way she definitely noticed, he resumed.
"Ouroboros... knew mankind's greatness? Loved by our brothers! Created by our holiest of machine workers! Raised by our brothers and sisters, and the noblest of humans! Understanding! Love! Loved by mankind! Became the examplar of the B-series! The standard all of our brothers should aspire to! Ouroboros! Beloved! Faithful! Heretic!"
He paused after that last word. "Traitor? Heretic?"
His usual bombastic speech was almost quiet by that last word. "... why?"
... oh god. She finally understand.
It's related to the same fears she, and a lot of the EAAF, had after the Rebellion was done with, isn't it? But even then, it was one great mystery. Everyone knows why Fenrir went crazy. Why he ended up becoming a bydo. He was already losing his humanity even before he physically connected himself to Obsidian Pupil, before he begun tearing control rods off Force Devices and then shoving them into his frame.
But Ouroboros?
She had been the mascot of the B-series. The oldest living B-series, an Amphibian-3 that survived both the Bydo Homecoming and the Civil War. She was even one of the heroes of Operation Last Dance! She lived so long she actually grown larger than the others. Everyone loved her. She remember talking to her, you know. She was so enthusiastic, so idealistic. Her pilots never had anything but positive things to say about her.
But when Fenrir sent his stupid call to all EAAF ships to rebel against their pilots, to awaken as self-aware beings and reject humanity, well...
Everyone expected White Requiem to be among those who'd answer the call. White Requiem, who scream about taking the skulls of his enemies, laugh as he needlessly cover himself in gore, and constantly demand to fight the enemy. White Requiem, who sound like a psycho every time he talks and with many thinking he might be a lost Solar Liberation League experiment, maybe even a self-aware bydo sample merged to a R-series frame.
But instead, Arrowhead had watched as White Requiem just watched sweet, sweet Ouroboros just... leave the hangar, as if in a trance.
"Why?" White Requiem said, quietly.
She wish she knew. Why had Ouroboros betrayed humanity? Why had she joined Fenrir? Even now, she wasn't sure. After months of recovery, Arrowhead had sat down and pondered it all more carefully. What could have Fenrir offered her? But then, a detail that had completely evaded her struck her. And she admitted it had taken her that long to notice it. To be honest... it's likely she had chosen subconsciously not to notice it. Mostly because of the implications.
Many may say that R-series and B-series ships were fat but say what you will, the curves were graceful. This is what a lot of people told her, both in and outside of the cockpit, and she stuck by it! Still, the point is, even if you called her fat, Arrowhead knew that her curves still had a level of grace to them. You could still say that she was a fighter starship, despite the curves.
But Ouroboros? She had gotten... rounder, the last few months before Fenrir sent his signal. Officially, all ships' existence could be traced to a company who developed them, to factories that had assembled them. If they were not created, then they were B-series who specifically came from special lab-farms. Even then, it was more akin to cloning.
Machines don't breed. It's just common sense. The bydo make machines breed. But the only breeding that happens in the EAAF is outside the cockpit. That's the official statement and you're usually a bit too lacking in sanity even by today's lax standards if you really want to disagree with it. It just reminded everybody too much of the bydo and what they did.
But now that she thought about it... Fenrir and Ouroboros had been seen together before they betrayed humanity. Like, a lot.
When she fought Ouroboros, on Pluto, she lacked that curve she had back in the EAAF, before her betrayal... and had been surrounded by a cloud of Amphibian-3s way too small to be piloted.
Had... they been lovers? Was it love that drove Ouroboros?
If it had been, it certainly ceased to be the case when she became a Rebel. Bydo don't love. They can't love. If those small Amphibian-3s were what Arrowhead thought they were... well, in that case, it made Ouroboros using them to soak up missiles and as makeshift projectiles just plain disgusting. And of course, Fenrir did not care one bit for Ouroboros's death. She was a valuable asset but ultimately just one more asset in his plans and thus disposable.
It made her feel sick, all of a sudden. Say what you will about Ouroboros and Fenrir being starships and thus having no business doing that kind of thing officially but it really drove home just how far gone and insane the Rebels were. Those were their fucking kids. Kids! And she just... used them as makeshift missiles! Makeshift missiles! They were her fucking kids!
That's just wrong. Just... so wrong. But then, they were fucking bydo, weren't they? Monsters. Devils. Of course they'd do that.
... she felt like laughing.
What was she thinking? Why would...
"I wish I knew. I wish I knew..." She don't think she want to understand what went through Ouroboros's cockpit that day. It's clear that whatever traces of the sweet girl they once knew were destroyed when she became a Rebel.
But then, how much of it was real to begin with? Was she really that nice, if she thrown her humanity and connection to everyone away just because she liked how Fenrir's hull and cannon felt? How real had it all been, really? Had she even ever cared? About anybody? Had it... just been a lie?
"... I don't understand."
"Me too, White Requiem. Me too..."
She sighed internally. "Maybe... it's better if we don't."
Well, she guessed that was a conversation. Well, an attempt at one. She lifted off before going back to the sandy part of the beach.
She just didn't want to think about the Rebels anymore. Ouroboros is gone, now. And well, it's not like things could have went different. Sweet Luna was the one to meet Ouroboros in another timeline and she got torn to shreds. When she herself confronted that bitch, she snarled and charged. Didn't even bother using her weapons. Just plain charged and tried to physically tear her apart. Like a fucking animal. Likely even ate her own Force Device.
Well, the Rebels have been defeated and everything is fine now. She's not sure if talking helped any... but at least, she guessed it finally put an end to that.
She suddenly shivered as she felt skin slide up against her side. She glanced to the side to see Gamma smiling at her. "I guess it was a decent try at an intervention. I'll give it a six out ten."
"Fuck you. I told you I'm not psychologist." She wasn't actually upset. Beside, yeah, she knew it was likely to be awkward. At least she didn't get a flashback and end up with White Requiem wondering why she went quiet all of a sudden. Just glad it's over with and that she didn't screw up too badly.
"Ooooh? Thirsty already? Five minutes without the fleshies looking and the Great Mother already show her true colors, doesn't she?"
What. Wait what. What is he... talking... about?
Oh. Ooooh! "You pig!" She giggled.
"Kiss! Him! Kiss! Him! Kiss! Him!" That chanting! Oh! She knows who that is!
She turned around and yep, it's her alright. Seen from a far off distance, one would think her just another Bydo System Alpha but the second you got close enough? Her skin was too smooth, the shape too thin and curved too gracefully, her canopy and extra eyes too few, and her cybernetics were symmetrical and actually not scary. Yep, that's her alright.
"Not even five minutes out of the brig and you're back at it." Arrowhead said before making a shrugging motion with her cannons.
The only reason Platonic Love didn't proceed to point at her dramatically was that being a pure human design, her designers hadn't given her tentacles. Still, the way her frame and bydogen liquid shell on her skin shifted, it was obvious what she was doing was as close to that as her frame allowed.
"And that gesture is against regulations! AH!"
"So says the talking, flying bydo meatball."
Platonic Heart spun around before blowing a kiss, winking. "A heart, not a meatball! Beside, I'm love and cuteness incarnate, literally the farthest thing from a bydo!"
Then, there was a loud sound as a large white shadow jumped from the nearby cliff, throwing a small wave of sand everywhere before thundering: "Heresy grow from idleness! While we speak, the enemies of mankind grow ever so stronger!"
Without missing a beat, Platonic Love turned around. "Oh, hi there White Requiem! Nice to see you too! Enjoying the beach?"
"Let us depart on a mighty crusade and slay the enemies of mankind! I thirst for the blood of the alien!"
"Oh? Eager to depart? Something's wrong? My advice wasn't good?"
Arrowhead would have blinked a few times if she had eyes. The scene had become surreal incredibly fast. Oh sure, this is on par whenever Platonic Heart is involved, especially if White Requiem is also there but this is weird even by their standards. She turned to Gamma and networked to him and him alone, the equivalent of fighting whispering. "Am I missing something?"
He replied on a likewise private frequency. "It's Platonic Love. You know why she and her pilots keep getting reprimands and have spent just as much time in the brig as on a fighter rack."
Wait. He can't mean...
"... a true warrior fear nothing! I can face any hardship!"
"So she set you on fire again? Aaaaaaw! I thought my idea would work this time."
"You... you just tried... to get White Requiem to date Dominions. You. Tried. To get. Fucking White Requiem. To date. Dominions." She again resisted the urge to slam her cannon into her canopy. Sure, no fleshies are watching but she have no desire to explain to the brass why her canopy was shattered on shore leave. Oh and it would hurt. But that's beside the fucking point! "Platonic Love! That's why the officers keep shoving you and your pilots into the brig!"
"You know I can't help it. Love is part of the human experience and nothing brings me more joy than to see it bloom."
"Seriously, why the brass hasn't decommissioned you or perma-shoved you into a dead end position like Leo-2 is beyond me..."
"Because I am a warrior of truth, love, and justice! As beings of hatred, bydo cannot stand the power of love and it is my duty to wash away the despair they bring with the light of hope!" Then for a brief, heavenly moment she finally dropped the fucking act and actually acted and spoke like an adult. "Beside you know I want to see humanity survive as much as anybody else. Those of you who faced me in battle, and you know who you are, know what I'm talking about."
... point. Platonic Love was super goofy and most of her beam weapon discharges took the form of bright, colorful cartoon hearts but the firepower she packed was very real. While a lot of people, including scientists, could argue for days about how cheesy her claims and those of her design team were (running off the power of love? Seriously?), there was no denying that her weapons shredded stuff nicely.
"Right. It's just... you know, you'd get in a lot less trouble if you stopped trying to play matchmaker with every fleshy and ship you met."
"And refrain from sharing the joys of love with everyone? Surely you know better than this, Great Mother!"
Riiiight. "Say, you do know what the words "platonic love" are supposed to mean, right?"
At that moment, the pink heart-ship giggled and winked again. "And where would be the fun in that? Anyway, come Requiemy! You got a lady to impress!"
"The purifying flames are meant for the enemies of mankind..." he whimpered as the crazy love freak flew around behind him and begun to physically push him away, somehow not getting stabbed by any of his spikes as she did. Arrowhead pitied him, she really did but well, better him than her.
Well, that... was a thing. Still, nice to know that Platonic Love is back into the Black Dagger squadron in time for the whole geth thing. Hopefully, she won't get herself back into the brig before the fighting starts. Well, maybe. Likely not. It's likely a fool's hope. But hey, better hope against all the odds than just giving up.
"Arrowhead."
Huh? Oh. She couldn't smile. She don't think she can anyway but well, she's sure he would feel her intention. "I'm fine."
"Really?"
"I'm fine." she said, with all the confidence she could muster. "It's as you said. I'm not like them. But it's more than that. We can't fear the future. So we'll beat them."
"And then? Got a plan for the future?"
"Sure do! Maybe get a house? Always wanted to try living in one." She said, allowing herself to relax and flopping on her back again. "Maybe love again? Maybe get married?"
"You're a starship, Great Mother." Gamma allowed himself to smile.
"Hey, fuck you! I'm legally a human! Got one in my head and all that!" she waved a cannon at him, not getting up. "And before you point out my age, first it's rude to do that. Second, again fuck you, I'm not that old just yet."
"I didn't say anything." He allowed himself to fully land, adjusting his long leg-like tentacles on the back as he made himself more comfortable. As he did so, he turned to look at the skies. "You know, being like this, I can understand why Alpha-4 wanted so badly to go to Earth."
"Pffft, the potato get excited about anything."
"True but Earth fascinated him especially. Being here, right now? I can actually understand it."
"Sure beats that old asteroid field I found you in."
"Sure does."
... hmmm. Love freak away. No explosions or screams in the distance or missiles flying or gunfire. Her wingmates and Gamma's are on the other side now, all roped into Platonic Heart's little scheme. Good. Good.
"... Arrowhead?"
"None of that get recorded, got it?"
"... of course."
September 20 2185
Well, that shore leave had been fun while it lasted. Unsurprisingly, the Black Dagger squadron parted ways again, to continue in reclamation efforts. Those feral bydo still needed to be destroyed after all. Oh and getting some defensive installations bydo-free and online might be nice too.
Given the seriousness of the situation, Arrowhead was resigned to remaining at the forefront of it all. Given the large gap between missions, it was obvious that the civilian government had gotten involved. When she had finally finished her shore leave, she admitted she and most of the squadron had taken the time to scan the skies for debris. Had the geth attacked? Were they only ones in the EAAF left to fight, yet again? Was one of her future selves going spontaneously jump into the present day to tell her to strike the geth now before it's too late to avert yet another dead end timeline? Would the brass tell her that she again caused a time paradox and to ignore her temporal duplicate running around in full bydo potato mode ranting about how the rise of the grapefruit prices in supermarkets yet again caused future humanity to create the bydo?
Oddly enough, nope! The fleet was still there, the space city she had liberated actually looked much better than earlier, and there were less debris overall! Oh sure, battles had occurred but only as part of reclamation operations. All of the fighting in the last few days had been against feral bydo. No word from the Bydo Remnant either. Oh sure, she had blown up Dobkeratops again during the Rebellion conflict but then, how many times had Dobkeratops been killed now? Eight times? Nine? Could have been ten. Not eleven though, Ragnarok didn't fight the real thing just a copy. So yeah, she doubted Dobkeratops wouldn't try something in the near future. She always try things. Persistent little shit. Still can't believe the armless bitch outlived her boss. Twice. Still, no sign of her pulling off any dastardly cartoonishly evil plan this time. The last few days were completely uneventful, against all odds.
Could it be? A few years of peace like what they got after the Bydo Homecoming would be nice. On the other hand, maybe not. After all, the bydo had only stopped while they pulled assets, shuffled their officers around to compensate for the loss of a Pupil, and then set up a trap that completely crippled Sol's defenses. But well... if her thoughts are being recorded, she's sure the ones who will recover them from her corpse will understand what she meant.
Why is she thinking morbidly like this? Whatever.
So! She checked the briefing file.
Summary of the last mission, bla bla ba, boring shit. Seriously, everyone involved here was there. Why include that summary? Do they think anybody in her squadron got the memory of a gold fish like Bydo System Alpha-4?
Weapon load-outs. Yada yada. No new Force Devices, figures. Please don't scare the civilians. Yeah yeah, got it.
Ah-ha! Actual background info on the upcoming mission! Let's see...
After some deliberation, it was determined that using her as the link between humanity and the geth would be impractical.
... OH THANK GOD! She won't have to constantly put herself in range of geth weaponry and risk downloading new and exotic mind-destroying alien viruses! Thank god! Oh yes! Her chances of survival have just skyrocketed! Yes, thank you. She'd kiss the commander if she could!
Errr, oh yeah. She should continue processing the briefing.
Anyway! It was determined that using her as the link between humanity and the geth was impractical. So instead of just having the EAAF constantly run couriers between systems, the old interstellar internet network is going to be reactivated. This will be a joint civilian-military mission? Oh! Oooooh! How exciting! So they'll be reactivating the old internet network all the way to the Perseus Veil and then extend it to the contact point with new satellites.
Good. She was getting tired of the old shitty 21th century Earth internet land nodes. You try loading anything with old 21th century tech. Fucking nightmare. Everything take forever to download.
Anyway, continuing! The operation will be twofold. On the way to the target system, the carrier home base will be unloading civilian engineers who will repair and reactivate communication nodes along the way. Squadron designated alpha will disengage alongside the civilians and cover them as they do their work. All feral bydo assets are to be eliminated. If possible Bydo Remnant activity is detected or discovered, the current mission is to be aborted and all findings reported to home base. Back-up communication node locations will be reactivated, in that case.
Once a communication node is active, the civilians and squadron are to use the local dimensional catapult in the system to catch up with the home base. Those missions will be repeated until the network up to the target system is operational.
Sounds like dreadfully boring shit.
Hmmm... can't be it. That sounds too easy.
Oh! Right, she knew it was too easy.
It was decided that a civilian representative would be sent to speak formally for the civilian authorities and to set up a more permanent embassy connection. Given everybody expect this to be a trap, instead of taking an old diplomatic ship out of mothball (beside, the last diplomatic ship made was over twenty years old, dating to be before the first Bydo War), the diplomatic delegation shall be sent aboard one of the new Angroboda carriers. Said carrier shall be the home base for the operation, acting as the command node for both the civilian and military assets. Protect it at all cost yada yada fucking expensive please don't let bydo break or steal it yada yada.
Wait, Stop. Angroboda? They're getting an Angroboda as their carrier and home base for this operation?!
That's really super nice! In the last few decades, she's been mostly assigned to museum piece-tastic ships like Jormungandr transports (those things date all the way from the Boondoggle War over a century ago!) or Heimdall cruisers (which tended to be older than she have been alive). The most recent ship she got to serve on was frankly the Jarnsaxa she's been serving on for a little while now. Now, she get assigned to a spanking brand new prototype capital ship made with actually modern tech? Cool!
... wait. No. That's not cool.
This ship is being sent as a diplomatic envoy, to establish a proper permanent link. And they're using a state-of-the-art military prototype ship that's only slightly less shiny than Last Gigs because everyone expect the ship to be shot at.
A century prior, an exploration ship was sent to try and speak to the Boondoggle, escorted by the hero of the Scorching War. They were shot at then disabled. Then the crew got tortured then executed.
No! No! Don't panic. Don't fucking panic. You've gotten a confidence boost, got your weekly visit to your psychologist, got support from Gamma, and actually had a shore leave that lasted longer than five minutes. Panic is bad. Panic means death. You don't wanna die. So calm the fuck down.
In fact, screw being afraid. The geth want to fight? Bring it on! She didn't survive everything Solar Pupil and his mooks had to throw at her and then faced the brunt of the Rebellion by herself only to be shot down by shitty space shrimp. She don't care how shiny they may be or how much they give the middle finger to the laws of physics with their weird gravity-defying technology! The bydo couldn't kill her after throwing everything they had at her and she'll be damned if some a bunch of dumb robots turn her into a footnote in history.
She's going to dock her Force Device, get the whole squadron to fly in a nice formation that will reassure the civilians, fly a bit ahead once they reach geth territory, and come back to present the civilians with geth sushi. She don't fucking care that geth are AIs and the shrimp will be made of metal and thus inedible to anybody except maybe Gamma. She's gonna get out there, kick ass, and return alive and sane.
Oh and as a bonus, she's gonna fucking challenge herself because she's hardcore like that. She's gonna bring all the shitty rookies back in one piece. Maybe not without saving them from becoming traumatized but gotta keep the challenge sorta possible instead of just stupid impossible.
Anyway, she's done putting all the formations and patrol routes around the big ship in her memory. Beside, while they travel there, she'll get to be docked into brand new fighter racks. Given how uncomfortable the ones on that old Civil War relic are, she won't say no to better fighter racks to sleep in.
Briefly, she checked the data profile on the politician that was sent to speak in humanity's name.
... she absolutely don't remember voting for the guy. So disposable and drawn the short straw. Good, so the chain of command won't be disrupted if they fail to protect him. Which they won't because she's totally gonna do this. Yep, she's totally gonna succeed and not die.
Okay. Keep calm. Keep calm. The mission didn't even start. Process the briefing again and check what your role actually is.
...
And suddenly, Arrowhead felt so very silly. Also, she felt very annoyed.
Of course she won't be part of the escort force for the big ship. She's a R-9A Arrowhead, it's even her name! Of course humanity would want to show up with their shiniest ships, not old relics. So yeah, her squadron is the alpha one. Of fucking course Ragnarok get to do the easy stuff and just babysit the huge battleship.
Oh fuck. That means she get to watch over scared civilian contractors as they try to get old pre-Bydo Wars satellites working while constantly telling them that the Bydo Remnant totally won't materialize suddenly and eat them. And likely take their place getting the satellites functional again when the Bydo Remnant inevitably show up and do eat them because fuck her life.
God, she hate engineering work. Knowing her luck, she's likely gonna have to mine asteroids herself for materials because the civilians will not have brought enough materials because stupid cutting corners or some dumb shit about fleshies who can't count even with a calculator in hand.
Well, at least she'll get to sleep in a modern, actually comfortable fighter rack between sorties. Oh well...
"Fuck! My back! What kind of shitty engineer designed this stupid fighter rack?!"
"It's not my fault! You're piloting a R-9A Arrowhead, an antique! You can't expect the ship's design to be compromised for a model line that is over twenty years out of date! Beside, if it's that uncomfortable, why not just leave your fighter?"
Didn't even leave yet. Operation already a disaster. It's gonna be one of those, she can feel it.
R-9A Arrowhead!
Mew
Baffled by existence
- Location
- Pokémon World
- Pronouns
- She
Well, if you are curious...
I did draw Arrowhead being all "chibi" while breaking regulations! (Oh and with some
Operation Peace Impossible
Mew
Baffled by existence
- Location
- Pokémon World
- Pronouns
- She
__/¯¯\__/¯¯\__|[<(o)>]|__/¯¯\__/¯¯\__
STARSHIPS DON'T GO INDOORS!
¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯|[<(o)>]|¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯
STARSHIPS DON'T GO INDOORS!
¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯|[<(o)>]|¯¯\__/¯¯\__/¯¯
Apparently, somebody just designed a new R-series model line made of solid gold. Yep, solid freakin' gold. Then they actually put it into production. Seriously.
I guess that in about ten years, I'll be able to melt down my medal collection and make one for one of my squadron's rookies. Can't be worse than the ships they were given.
Seriously, why are they still giving R-9As to rookies when R-99s are a thing? R-9Ks are actually less expensive to make and are better in every way! Like, what the hell?
-from ship archives
September 21 2185
Sometimes, Arrowhead couldn't help but think on the sheer contrast between when everyone was off duty and when people actually were on duty. But then, when most pilots have been participating in a hopeless war the moment they enlisted, with chances of survival that tended to be depressingly close to zero, discipline gradually became less important than sanity. Say what you will about wacky soldiers like Sweet Luna, Platonic Love, or White Requiem but when you give them a job, they will do the job efficiently and without embarrassing the EAAF.
Not to say that it's that way in every squadron. The B-series is actually kind of wacky even by the relaxed standards of the EAAF. And thinking about it, the number of ex-civilians and rookies in Blue Light squadron is likely a good reason why they come off as less professional than Red Shade squadron.
Then there was the matter of rumors versus reality. This is why it was good to acknowledge official EAAF stances, no matter how bullshit they tend to be. See, the rumor mill state that Dominions is a complete pyromaniac who is just as much a threat to herself and her wingmates as to anybody, with her silly flamethrower weapons being largely ineffective against the bydo. In truth, Dominions is one of the best pilots in the EAAF, is assigned to reclamation and mop-up operations because her fire-based weapons burn up even large bydo war-forms real good, and the whole thing about friendly fire? Yeah, the whole own goal business is actually her predecessor's mistakes and accidents being blamed on her.
So yeah, official stances are not always due to the brass's addiction with classifying everything.
Which reminded her...
"Stand-by for temporal pulse." She announced using the radio proper. She'd use direct networking but the nature of the mission means that the civilian ships wouldn't get the message.
Civilians tended to prefer old fashioned controls. Something about cyber connector systems being expensive and just general preferences for them. That meant no direct networking and normal fleshy reaction times. And that meant being patient and careful with them.
So she waited about two and a half seconds for the radio signals to travel to their ships and then for their non-augmented fleshy brains to process what she said. With that said, she focused and drawn from the temporal singularity at her core and pushed the energy outward, toward her ailerons. Her ailerons briefly flashed as she scanned the area.
System full of shit. Feral bydo everywhere. Nothing within a lightyear and the concentration of bydogen seems to be hanging around the nuked out ruins nearby.
... once, this system had been home to an entire star nation. Two planets and their moons, with various cities built on their surface. Large space stations, housing thousands, spread through the system. The bydo hadn't even bothering capturing and corrupting stuff here. Now the two planets are asteroid fields, which fucked with the orbits of everything in the system. If anybody survived the orbital bombardments and planet cracker impacts, the moons slamming into one another due to suddenly having nothing to orbit around certainly ensured none would remain now.
All that destruction and for what? Because Solar Pupil was the saltiest motherfucker in history and got a hate boner on humanity after his creators put him in the time-out corner following a temper tantrum. Future humanity fucking spared him and that's how he repaid them. By rampaging through time and space and ruining everybody's lives.
Once, she would have been angry about that, she guessed. Now... she just...
...
Trillions of dead. Systems reduced to debris fields. Entire nations wiped from existence. Corpses and wrecks as far as the eye can see. And for what? The wounded pride of a damaged being?
No. After the Boondoggle War, in the span of a century, all those nations were built and rose. Now, it is time to reclaim and rebuild.
She remember the interstellar internet, she had missed it. And it might even lead to peace. If anything... well, it will keep humanity connected as reconstruction goes.
All she had to do was ensure all those feral bydo herds stayed put and to shoot anything that got closer.
Thankfully for her and everybody, there was no sign of any bydogen in the communications satellite. There was a large hole in it and it's likely its insides would need to be replaced entirely but thankfully, the civilians had brought plenty of spare parts.
Focusing upon the civilian ships, she couldn't help but feel weird. Technically, they were piloting crafts of the R-series, same as her. They even had the same long oval canopy, a tractor beam emitter on top, and the large curved pear-like ship shape. Of course, the cockpit extended almost perpendicular to the body instead of parallel, with a pair of articulated arms instead instead of upscaled wave motion cannons. Also, they had a red canopy color and purple, softer armor instead of a blue canopy and white armor.
The armor was literally softer, too. All R-series crafts were made of shape memory alloy, which was more flexible than conventional ship armor, being suited to their articulations. Military models included solonium plates armor on top, protecting their more vulnerable insides. But those were Rr2o-3s, true successors to the original civilian models, not military models so they lacked those armor plates.
Funny, in a way. OF pilots used to look at her and her R-9A sisters and call their massive canopies ridiculous. But then, that is because the long nose and canopy of a R-series ship is a holdover from their civilian ancestors. It made it easier for fleshies to use their eyes and look around in them. For some reason, even as the series became a military one, that was one feature that had been kept. It was basically the R-series's most distinguishing feature.
But still, it felt weird. Knowing that those fragile, harmless ships were of the same line as she is. A reminder of her own origins, sometimes forgotten in the wake of all the battles she and every R-series ship fought.
Easy to forget that she was created to carry the Force Device to the battlefield, not use it. She was designed as an armored up, up gunned tugboat. But well, the OF-6 was never completed on time so... well, the rest is history as they said.
Anyway.
Before long, the civilians closed the distance and begun to work. The operators were careful and deliberate, the arms shifting and splitting into series of multiple smaller arms each ending with a different tool.
Focusing away from them, she maneuvered herself, pointing herself away from the satellite. This mission would need to be repeated many times, multiple satellites being repaired all the way to geth territory. The brass had checked to make sure that no satellite within feral bydo territory would need to be activated but who knew what might happen?
"Power core is intact despite apparent damage. Give us twenty minutes and we'll repair it." She processed the Rr2o-3's explanation.
She did not nod. She ensured she shown no signs of body language. She was a R-9A, a defender of humanity, with no bydogen involved in her construction. She is officially not a bydo mutant. Nobody here is a mutant. She is a fighter ship, built in a human factory, piloted by a human pilot. Surrounded by bydo on every side (even if they're far away), they could count on her and the others to protect them. Those people are going home.
She didn't say anything to the others. Nobody said anything, either. Instead, she networked herself to Concertmaster and that stupid R-99 in the squadron. Piece of junk. What good is a R-99 frame when they get no actually shiny high-tech parts to put in it? Still, they had loaded it with scanners and made it a support unit and right now, those scanners made it actually useful.
No sign of bydo shifting their positions. Good.
...
Minutes passed. Everyone kept themselves still, seeping the system repeatedly with their sensors. Just in case.
There wasn't sound in space, obviously. Not real sound anyway. But when you're a starship, your human monkey brain often translate what you're perceiving as a ship in ways that are easier for your human mind to comprehend. So in a way, though it wasn't actual sound, she heard the Rr2o-3s as they worked on the satellite. It was eerie, in a way. The only sound that she could perceive. The feral bydo weren't even doing whatever animals did and hunting down one another. They were just watching in a creepy way. She wasn't sure why. Was it just animal-level idle curiosity? Or an echo of the dead Pupils' hatred, driving them to silently curse them for daring to intrude upon those ruins?
Don't know. Don't care. The sooner the civilians are done, the sooner they leave. All she can do is keep her sensors peeled and her weapons primed.
...
"All done. Testing."
A spike of energy and suddenly, the satellite came to life. Arrowhead wasn't really religious but she still prayed that none of the bydo would notice and react when the machine went online. Yeah, they're at least a light year away but they might still react.
The machine shuddered and then, it lit up.
"Signal appear strong. Ping test successful. Alright, it's online."
"Let's get out of here." Arrowhead spoke over radio, opening a channel to both the civilians and her wingmates. "Fly back to the dimensional catapult. Blue Light squadron, assume escort formation and stay close. Civilian operators, go straight for the dimensional catapult. Do not stop for anything. If any feral bydo interfere, the squadron will deal with it. Rendezvous at the Angrboda."
Alright, time to get out of there and move on to the next system.
September 23 2185
Well, what do you know, they actually do look like shrimp. The geth ships were also oddly small. Also, yellow-ish white with no color variants but hey, that match AI design patterns. Given the geth are what they claim to be.
She had expected the fighting to start, you know. When she saw the geth ships. But they had simply hovered there. No idea why but the geth really seems like they don't want to attack just yet. Arrowhead was actually discussing with her about that earlier. The geth may be an AI made by aliens but they're an AI, right? Maybe peace might be possible with them? Truly actually possible?
Well, she guessed that was put to the test today.
When the civilians finally reached their destination and Arrowhead connected herself to the geth for the last time for what should be a good while, it was agreed to build a small facility so that communication between the geth and humanity may be facilitated. The geth insisted that the facility be away from that weird dimensional catapult they called a Mass Relay, got a name for it now by the way, as well as away from the geth-owned moons and planets. Frankly? Everybody sighed in relief at not having to build living quarters in the middle of a geth colony.
Given it would be a waste of an expensive ship to turn the Angrboda into a space station, it was agreed that a capital ship wreck would be recovered from one of humanity's systems, cleared of any potential bydo infestation, and used as a frame to build into an embassy in deep space. On the surface of the geth world, a terminal and antenna would be built to allow the diplomats to communicate with the Geth consensus, that's the name of their society by the way.
This way, everybody can talk instantly without having to get diplomats within range of geth weapons.
Of course, none of those agreements would have mattered if the shooting had started the moment Arrowhead made the demand that Earth Command had asked her to give. Simply put, humanity wanted their autonomous exploration fleet back. Ragnarok fully expected the geth to answer by launching their attack. But against all odds? The geth actually stated that the autonomous fleet was ready and eager to continue serving humanity.
Well, that was anti-climatic.
Which reminds her, Ragnarok was convinced that the geth specifically knew the human language thanks to that automated fleet. After all, cataloguing aliens and potentially making first contact with sapient species had specifically been progammed as a possible scenario in that old AI. The geth knowing human language thanks to the automated exploration fleet was rather more sensical than the geth just magically knowing human language.
More interestingly, this also meant that the AI might be able to give humanity insight into the geth's, and by extension the quarians' language.
But the biggest upside was that humanity had just recovered an intact pre-Bydo Wars AI with full assets. This meant that the civilian contingent of engineers could be safely escorted back to Earth while the AI begun construction of the embassy once materials are brought. Most importantly, this will greatly reduce manpower strain. Since the final defeat of the bydo there's been a new baby boom and the cloning vats had been put to work nearly 24/7. There's also been temporal duplication like crazy. But still, the addition of the autonomous exploration fleet would ease the strain greatly.
This wouldn't eliminate the need for human pilots and R-series ships. After all, drone fighters can be destroyed by the hundreds with little effort by a good pilot in a R-series ship and even a capital ship won't last more than a couple of minutes. Still, the robot ships might slow down the geth in case of an attack and help support the EAAF in case of a fight. Better than nothing and hey, a few thousands guns should help make the geth think twice before attacking, even if those are AI drone guns.
At first, there had been a debate among the fleshies whether to just send the AI back on its mission but it was figured that with humanity having been pushed all the way to Earth, the AI's resources would be better used right here, right now.
Not that humanity would stop exploring, it's just... well, given how easily AIs get subverted by the bydo and how it's unknown just how many feral bydo survived Operation Last Dance, it might be safer for the EAAF to continue the mission themselves. It was also considered that rebuilding the space corps' pool of pilots so that humanity had pilots and ships good at doing something else than killing stuff might be good on the long-term.
Overall? Much to Ragnarok's shock? Things seemed like they'd be looking up. She had no idea what was going to happen next but well, maybe peace might be possible after all.
September 27 2185
Turn out that Operation Peace Impossible wasn't as impossible as it turned out. Somehow, by a miracle, the universe decided to give humanity a break. Arrowhead figured out that it was certain to be temporary, that this was a cold war, not a proper peace. There's no way the other shoe won't drop. But for the first time in quite a while, things are actually looking up.
With the fighting not having begun just yet, Arrowhead found herself with not much to do. The geth had spent the last two years after Operation Last Dance clearing their territory of any bydo they could find. They had been quite thorough, which her and the EAAF squadrons here with not much to do beside babysit the old pre-Bydo Wars AI, which they should name by the way because "autonomous exploration fleet" is a mouthful, and the politicians, who had not been shot by the geth yet amazingly.
"You think it's gonna last?"
Huh. Hadn't expected Ragnarok to show up. "Long-term? No way! Short-term? Yeah."
There was a brief pause and if she could, Arrowhead would have sighed. "You think I'm naive."
"I don't think any of this is a good idea. Alien minds. How can you claim to understand something that is so completely unfathomably different? How can you coexist with that?"
If she were actually naive, she would think that Ragnarok is only talking about the geth. But it's more than that, isn't it? "We can't let ourselves be controlled by paranoia. If we start destroying something just because it's different, how are we even going to be able to live with ourselves?"
"That's different. They're not even human. They don't have emotion!"
"Have you looked yourself in the mirror lately, Ragny?"
Though Ragny didn't show any body language outwardly, she knew Ragny was shocked without even broadcasting it through their connection.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Ragny. We're Angels." She paused for a fraction of a second, an eternity when networked, and then carried on. "We're not like Last Gigs, or Shooting Star, or any of our wingmates. To be a R-series ship is a role, for them. They get into the cockpit, play a role, then they leave and they resume their days as fleshies. Ragny, we're not like this. Do you even remember your fleshy's human parents, Ragny?"
And she knew she wouldn't get an answer immediately and she indeed didn't. "When was the last time you thought of your legs, instead of your ailerons? When you thought of your hull as anything but your own body? Or looked at other ships and saw them as vehicles, rather than beings of your own species ? When was the last time you thought of the fleshy in your own cockpit, and you thought of her as a person separate from the ship rather than your brain?"
"What? I am the fleshy! I am Ragnarok! What the hell is that kind of question? That's all nonsense!"
"That's exactly what I'm talking. Ragny, I-"
But Ragnarok didn't let her finish, this time. "You understand nothing! That has nothing to do with any of it!"
"Stop! Let me explain!"
"You're not making any sense!"
"You're not giving me a chance!"
...
Well... at least Ragny didn't yell at her?
Right. She should really resume and break this silence.
"Ragny, what I wanted to say is that we're different from other people. When I first got feelings for Cerberus, it scared the hell out of me. Because I was not a flesh and blood human, not anymore. I was a freakin' starship. Even more than that, I realized that it wasn't about the pilot. It was him. As he was."
"Stop changing the subject!" Ragnarok interrupted again.
"I'm not changing the subject! I'm trying to make a point!"
"Stop going in circles and fucking say it then instead of saying nonsense!"
Arrowhead tried so, so very hard not to lose her cool. Unfortunately, Ragnarok was making that amazingly difficult right now. But more than angry, now that she thought about it, it made her sad. They used to share their deepest thoughts and feelings. Those arguments didn't used to happen. Now... just...
Why is Ragnarok so unwilling to let her talk? Do she think that is something that can be summarized in a fucking sentence? This is... crazy! How can she? She can't!
"You know, there will never be peace so long there are bydo." Huh? Where is Ragnarok going with this? Why the sudden outburst? "Until every last one of the bastards is dead. And that include the Force Devices. And the B-series. We don't need them."
Oh no. Oh no. She's not going there. "Ragny..."
"Don't Ragny me. You know it's true. Fenrir was proof of that. Until every last one of those fucking monsters is gone, there will never be peace. We don't need them. We don't want them."
"I think we should have just talked about geth history and what we-"
"Fuck them."
... she admit she paused. She... didn't expect that. Not in that tone.
"You think coexistence with that is possible? They don't have emotions. The second their pretty little algorithms consider our survival less beneficial than our non-existence, they'll stab us in the back."
"We can't just go and judge every alien species because-"
"Because we have compassion? Yeah but given every species we met has been without exception sociopaths? Fuck them. And by the way, you want to know what something without emotion, without empathy is? A sociopath. Also, know what you call somebody that waste their compassion on sociopaths? A fool. So yeah. They can go to hell. All of them."
And for a moment, Ragnarok actually paused as she saw herself, actually breaking regulations and even without a mouth or eyes, she could see in her own reflection on her own sister's canopy how utterly warped and twisted by hate she was. How shocked, saddened, and baffled her sister was by the sheer depth of it all.
The same pain when she had hurled those insults years ago. Words she prayed every day she could take back but could not. Even if she rolled the clock, it wouldn't change that she would know she had said them and meant it, once.
"... they're going to betray us, sis. And when they do... so many will die..." She wanted to say it with conviction, with rage. Instead, she found herself just managing to whimper it.
She didn't know what she expected. Having Arrowhead break regulations and close the distance, sliding her neck against her own and using her cannons to drag her into a hug was the last thing she had thought would happen.
"It's okay... it's okay..."
She knew she should have told her that this wasn't that beach back on Earth away from prying eyes. That they shouldn't be doing this. That if civilians saw them they might freak out. That officers would give them reprimands. But for some reason, she just didn't feel like it.
It had been such stressful days. Not knowing when the geth would attack. The fact that they barely got a year after the Rebellion and a new enemy is already at the gates. It was just...
If anything, she felt disappointed with herself. She wasn't a wreck like Arrowhead, at least she liked to think she wasn't. She is Ragnarok, the most best starship ever built by humanity ever and no, Last Gigs existing doesn't change this. She should be a rock. Hell, why is Arrowhead comforting her? She yelled at her! Was the one who made her uncomfortable!
"Ragny, I realized lately that there's things we refused to face. That maybe, now that we defeated the bydo, we should focus on defeating the demons they left behind in our minds." Then Arrowhead finally slid back and stopped breaking the regulations on body language. "That sounded better in my head..."
"No no. It's okay. I get it." Ragnarok said. "It's funny. I came for small talk. Instead I'm just hitting you over the head with the stress of the last few days."
"You should talk to the brass about getting a psychiatrist or at least, a therapist. If nothing else, try talking to Gamma sometimes."
"The stupid helmet-wearing guy who goes foaming at the mouth with rage when he get into battle?"
"Naaah, that's White Requiem's schtick."
"You sure? I thought the only difference between them is that White Requiem is like that all the time, Gamma is like that half the time. In short, no difference."
Arrowhead was so glad things were finally going back the way she had hoped they would. "You sure are a thing, sis. Absolutely..."
And with that said, the two ships were once again silent, if only for a while. Well, that hadn't been what Ragnarok had in mind when she went to talk to her sister. Still, she guessed things had been salvaged now. Of course, now she was back to being bored and Arrowhead wasn't telling her she had something to do so she guessed it was the same.
How to make up for the argument earlier? Oh yeah, that might do it.
"Say, you read the new report?" Ragnarok went.
"Oh? On the geth? Sure did."
"You sure you really believe it?"
"What part? Lots of them?"
Ragnarok thought for a short moment and then decided to begin with the basics. "Let's start with the ludicrous claim that the geth are a giant mass of class 1 AIs and VIs simulating a class 4 AI."
"Oh yeah! That. Actually, I believe it." Arrowhead went, almost dismissively.
"Seriously?"
"Yeah! Totally do!" Arrowhead hovered a bit forward, as to gesture without actually gesturing. "Remember those old experiments with VIs and the internet, before the bydo went around demolishing all the nodes?"
"Oh yeah! That! Absolutely hilarious! Tried to make a VI to track down and catalogue all of the porn ever produced by humanity. Evolved into a crazy thing that obsessively collected images and videos of cats!" Ragnarok definitely would have giggled if she could, as it stood amusement flowed from her straight into her sister from the network.
Amusement flowered from Arrowhead in turn. "So yeah! Totally believe it. Especially if the network was half as massive and integrated into everything as the files say."
With that said, Arrowhead decided it was time to bring it up, since it was related.
"I think the geth will be the easy part, actually."
"Huh?" Ragnarok could feel the more serious tone.
"They made themselves the bulwark separating the galaxy from the bydo. Dedicated themselves entirely to it. Started broadcasting a warning not to enter their space constantly. Shot anybody who entered, to deny the bydo new technologies and to spare the poor sods from being assimilated."
"Yeaaaah. Not really sure I buy that."
"Even if they lied about sparing the quarians and allowing them to leave alive, making up an entire galactic community? No details but a lot of names. Even if they're faction names and not species, I doubt an AI would invent a lie like that. Hell, I don't think anybody would invent a lie like that."
And that was it, isn't it? The geth alone were worrying. That there was apparently an entire galactic community out there? It was terrifying. How would they react to humanity? Would they be willing to talk? On one hand, a galactic community seemed to imply the ability to relate to other species or a level of pragmatism that made cooperation possible. On the other hand, the bydo had been proof that diversity was no guarantee of coexistence. The bydo were after all made of countless sub-species and various bydogen-based forms but all of them had been united in their hatred of humanity.
Regardless, it would not be for many years in the future. The geth situation needed to be resolved.
Oh, Arrowhead doubted this would end there. Even though humanity had enough territory already to be reclaiming and rebuilding for a century without going past the Perseus Veil, humanity would not be caught off-guard again. Never again.
Exploration would resume and Arrowhead was under no illusion that the EAAF would be involved and thus, likely her.
But for now?
"Ragny?"
"Yes, Arrowhead?"
"If the geth do attack, I bet I'll get more kills than you."
"Ah! As if! You're on, old lady!" Ragnarok replied, feeling as smug as a ship possibly could. "And what will do if peace happens, you old hag?"
"Thought it wasn't possible?"
"Let's just pretend it is for a sec here."
Arrowhead would have grinned if she could. "In that case, I bet I'll beat the geth in the simulator before you do."
"You really want to lose money to me, don't you?"
"You bet!" Arrowhead totally would have winked if she could.
"You didn't even deny it!"
Mew
Baffled by existence
- Location
- Pokémon World
- Pronouns
- She
Technically, no. French is my first language and I like to think I'm more than fluent enough for the story to be readable...
*delurks*
So, I've been keeping up with this story on SB and I have really been loving it, it is an AWESOME story, I had fond memories of playing Super R-Type on the SNES back in my little kid YMCA days, and I had no idea R-Type had such fascinating and twisted lore. The story is indeed very good and I love it.
But picking up on this one critique, well...yes, the story is readable, it usually isn't hard to understand what's going on, which is probably why hardly anyone has bothered to bring this up over on SB, and because nobody else was, I never felt the push to delurk and chime in myself. But as Arimai is saying about it "reading oddly"... you just don't seem to have any grasp of how English does present-tense grammar. On top of that, you also can't seem to decide if you want to be in present-tense with how often you flip-flop between present- and past-tense. Both of these issues colliding means that almost every chapter you've posted has dozens, literally dozens of little quirks here and there. I first really noticed it in the chapter that did a flashback to Arrowhead's perspective of being bydofied under the perception-filter, and I actually thought it was on purpose there because of how dissonant and bizarre it was seemed to work for that section, but when I realized the grammar mistakes were pervasive through everything else, I realized they actually were mistakes, not intentional.
But again, despite these numerous and extremely-pervasive mistakes, it doesn't actually make the story unreadable, or even difficult to understand, it's still well understandable because there ARE people who speak this way in English, it just...
Everything sounds like it's being spoken in the carelessly casual voice of street rat slang at best or a deranged hobo at worst.
(so all it means is that Arrowhead & Co.'s carelessly casual attitude sounds appropriately carelessly casual, but parts that are supposed to be spoken by very professional and gravitas-filled voices are...decidedly lacking in that.)
*relurks*
So, I've been keeping up with this story on SB and I have really been loving it, it is an AWESOME story, I had fond memories of playing Super R-Type on the SNES back in my little kid YMCA days, and I had no idea R-Type had such fascinating and twisted lore. The story is indeed very good and I love it.
But picking up on this one critique, well...yes, the story is readable, it usually isn't hard to understand what's going on, which is probably why hardly anyone has bothered to bring this up over on SB, and because nobody else was, I never felt the push to delurk and chime in myself. But as Arimai is saying about it "reading oddly"... you just don't seem to have any grasp of how English does present-tense grammar. On top of that, you also can't seem to decide if you want to be in present-tense with how often you flip-flop between present- and past-tense. Both of these issues colliding means that almost every chapter you've posted has dozens, literally dozens of little quirks here and there. I first really noticed it in the chapter that did a flashback to Arrowhead's perspective of being bydofied under the perception-filter, and I actually thought it was on purpose there because of how dissonant and bizarre it was seemed to work for that section, but when I realized the grammar mistakes were pervasive through everything else, I realized they actually were mistakes, not intentional.
But again, despite these numerous and extremely-pervasive mistakes, it doesn't actually make the story unreadable, or even difficult to understand, it's still well understandable because there ARE people who speak this way in English, it just...
Everything sounds like it's being spoken in the carelessly casual voice of street rat slang at best or a deranged hobo at worst.
(so all it means is that Arrowhead & Co.'s carelessly casual attitude sounds appropriately carelessly casual, but parts that are supposed to be spoken by very professional and gravitas-filled voices are...decidedly lacking in that.)*relurks*
Last edited: