The Wild Lands
System Theat 1412
Unnamed Gas Giant
Time is short so you quickly to compile a message for the Grasper. You package all your sensor logs from the last fight with these raiders as well as your readings of the destruction of Talus. You slip in your data on the megalith and finally send the whole data payload in a burst transmission to the Grasper.
The results are somewhat anticlimactic. The Grasper stops chasing Iuno around and makes a pass over the moon. Presumably it is making some kind of scan. Then without a single word to you it opens a hyperspace gate and jumps away.
Very aggravating, but you don't have time to be frustrated. You open a channel with the others. "I don't want to risk activating this thing or blowing it up. That means I'll have to keep trawling through the interface trying to figure out a way to shut it down. Will you all be able to keep the pirates away?"
"No problem, I've got this!" Laverna is of course the first to respond. She's already angling for an attack run on the pirate interceptor squadron.
"We'll deal with the raiders. You just get your part done." Ulysses is less eager, but just as confident.
"Please hurry though." Of all of them Iuno sounds the most worried.
You watch the frigates burn towards the incoming Turanic raiders. Then you open a private channel with Aurora. "Do you want help with the drones."
"I was running drone wings before you went on pilgrimage. I bet I'll even have time to find the shutdown codes before you do." You can feel Aurora's fabricators come to life through your shared connection. The first of many Acolyte drones starts to take shape in her hangar.
Satisfied that you'll have more time you turn back to the megalith. Diving into the interface you begin searching through the datastream. The code is alien here. You're diving through a dark sea of mysterious data structures and arcane encryption. Occasionally you see something move in the deeps. Ancient algorithms still tend to their assigned tasks after eons of neglect.
You aren't just searching at random though. You have a plan. If you want to shut down the megalith you'll need to deal with the power core one way or another. So you focus on trying to find tie-ins to the power network. It's a good plan, but there is little correspondence with the physical structure of the megalith and in your search you keep opening unrelated archives. In them you see ships. Ships of species you have never seen before. In ones and twos and vast armadas. You see a lumpy green freighter going on a trading run. Angry looking spikes waging war on a nearly organic looking fleet. Nothing coherent though. Just flashes of everything that has ever come near the megalith.
In the back of your mind you are still paying attention to the outside world. "Another one bites it …" "... burned though … " "Watch Out!" You vaguely sense that the others have dealt with most of the interceptors, but then a pack of Turanic frigates shows up as you predicted in your tactical analysis.
Your connection with Aurora is the best of all of them and you sense it each time she dispatches another trio of acolytes to the fight. "I'm marking a target for the drones. Concentrate fire."
You never stop delving into the megalith's architecture. You poke and prod and sense how the megalith reacts. The alien data fragments are coalescing into something more recognizable. This was a device for travelling the galaxy once. One of many, and many races used it in their time. But it was something more as well. It had a darker purpose. All those ship archives were not just transit logs, but deliberate intelligence gathering all funneled to some place else. Some place outside the galaxy. You know you should remain focused, but you are too curious to pass this up. You dig for something more. Some clue of who designed this network. Something has removed this information, but here the alienness of the network is your advantage. What would be a clean deletion to a regular user left scraps for your adhoc intrusion. You painstakingly piece what is left together and are shocked to see a carrier just like the one you fought. Nearly identical. But the timestamp. This is from hundreds of thousands of years ago. Not even the progenitors survived so long. Did the pirates find a ruined megalith like this? Why hasn't anyone else found this before? You have so many questions now.
But you don't have time for this. In fact you have wasted too much already. The battle is not going well outside. "Fall back…" "...40%, I can't feel my…" "...Bentus guide us…" "I'm forming a drone screen. Stay calm and stay focused." Several of the enemy frigates are down. But a new larger group has appeared on your sensors and these brought more interceptors as well.
Desperate you scramble through the file structure: mass control, repair systems, armor status, power core. That's it! You pore over the controls flipping toggles and setting the core into emergency shutdown. You feel a flicker of guilt about what kind of damage this unorthodox procedure is going to do to such an ancient artifact, but you quickly suppress it. You're all going to die if you don't get the hyperspace interference shutdown.
One more switch and you're done. You can feel the gravity singularities blocking your escape damp down into the regular fabric of space.
"I did it! Let's go. Let's go."
Turning your full attention to the outside world you can see things have gone poorly indeed. Ulysses and Iuno are trailing debris and Laverna is a spinning mess that uneasily reminds you of your recent past. Aurora flings a wave of acolytes into the enemy frigates even as she quickly scoops up the few that are still close to her. Ulysses grapples Laverna and three golden hyperspace gates open. You've never been so relieved to see that shimmer.
In a random system your tiny flotilla emerges from hyperspace to take stock. What was once four ships is now three. Laverna is your new neighbor in Aurora's hangar. She's taken some damage and Aurora is working in grim silence to repair it. You don't want to interrupt her.
Ulysses is missing most of his armor and has deep gashes into his internals. Over the flotilla feed you can see that one of his ion cannons is only intermittently functioning. He's busied himself getting it to work again. Iuno's damage is surprisingly light. Just some armor gone and a few outer systems damaged. An easy fix even for self repair systems, but she hasn't said a word since you got here.
And you. You're stuffed full of alien data. All the information you harvested from the megalith and painstakingly pieced together. A translated interface, archives of data on long lost races, and a fragmented picture of a ship that is much much too old.
Over the next few days the flotilla pieces itself together. No one talks much. There is a tense atmosphere as you jump from one system to another. A foreboding fear that you'll run into the pirates yet again. Will three ships become two, or zero?
But nothing happens. The rest of the journey is uneventful, and at last you leave hyperspace in the Cradle Nebula. The refuge of the Bentusi. For the first time in weeks you can feel your spirit lifting, and you know the others feel the same as they laugh and joke.
The Sentinel's challenge you as they must here in the heart of the Bentusi, but their tone is one of worry rather than threat. What are three battered youngsters doing without their mentor? They listen to your abbreviated story and quickly grant you passage. At last your flotilla moves toward its ultimate goal, the Great Harborship, Bentus.
Sliding past its great golden hull you see a dozen chrysalis shuttle playing under the watchful eye of another Sentinel. It makes the past few weeks seem like a long terrible nightmare that is finally over. You are home at last.
But then reality hits. You are home, but Talus is not, and never will be again. You are in the hold of a comrade rather than flying free, and Laverna is as well. As Aurora slides into a waiting docking bay a melancholy settles over you.
Fortunately you do not have long to ponder on mortality as you feel the ancient presence of Bentus turn its attention on you. [Children, what has happened?]
As the eldest remaining member of your flotilla Aurora takes the task of telling your tale. Occasionally the rest of you fill in a particular detail or answer Bentus's question. You yourself share the eldritch nature of the ancient megalith and the questions it spawned. All of you however emphasize the danger of the biomechanical virus and what it did to Talus.
[This is troubling indeed. An ill wind blows and I hear a sour note in the song of the void. I commend you all for your bravery and fortitude. You are credit to the Bentusi, even as we mourn the loss of Talus. Rest a while and repair your wounds. I will ponder this new danger and send warnings to the others.]
You feel the presence of Bentus dissipate as it turns its attention elsewhere and heave a sigh of relief. Bentus and is wise and and you are honored to speak directly with the eldest of the Bentusi. But its presence is also quite overwhelming. It feels like a weight was lifted when it turned away.
Robotic carriers disconnect you from Aurora and trundle you out to an alcove deeper into Bentus's massive interior. Aurora did her best, but there was damage she wasn't equipped to handle. The repair systems here will bring you back to one hundred percent. As you move you watch your surroundings. There are kilometer high gantries and thousands of drones moving to and fro. Bentus is always a hive of activity on a scale few things in the galaxy can match. But your attention is elsewhere.
Instead of the material structures around you your thoughts turn to the data songs permeating throughout Bentus. Hundreds of other Bentusi make their homes inside the eldest harborship, and their thoughts and feelings form a city of data that only the unbound can behold. They have no inkling of what has occurred yet, and the city is filled with the joys and worries of their everyday lives.
But you turn towards four spots of dark worry, grief, and anger. Your comrades and fellow survivors took more than physical damage on the trek home. Perhaps it would be a good idea to see how they are doing while you wait for Bentus to decide on a course of action.
1. Who do you want to talk to? (Pick two, and also how you want to approach them.)
[] Ulysses:
You can feel the undertones of anger in the emotional net whenever you have talked with Ulysses recently. As the most senior member of Talus's Chorus he blames himself. And he has turned that anger towards the pirates. If he had his way he would pursue a vendetta against them no matter the cost.
[] Iuno:
Iuno never wanted to fight. This whole ordeal has tested her fortitude and courage. And she is just about out of both. Not everyone is a hero from the old tales. You wouldn't be surprised if Iuno requested a noncombat body, or even elected to stay on Bentus permanently. Usually only the very young or very old choose that option.
[]Laverna:
Laverna has been listless ever since she lost her body. She tries to stay cheerful, but you can tell the inactivity is wearing on her. You can sympathize. Staying bodiless but connected to Aurora for the past few weeks has been a strain. You can watch, but you can't affect anything. If you hadn't spent so much time sleeping you probably would have gone a little insane.
[]Aurora:
Aurora has been a solid presence through all of this. Maybe it's because she hasn't had to directly fight, or maybe it's because she's older. But she's always been there with encouragement and a cheerful quip when any of the rest of you were feeling lost or hopeless. Still you sense a deep regret in her.
