HMS Dauntless
Pendleton System, The Outback
“
Tiburon is gone, sir.” Lieutenant Crawford’s words hung over the bridge The
Myrmidon-class destroyer’s remains, as scant as they were, were not even visible on the holotank, given its focus on the Monolith. The old destroyer, from a mid-century class, had fought to the last trying to protect
Sentinel from the Pendletonian attacks.
Dauntless was not in the best situation either now; deflectors were failing, several hull hits had already been reported, and the Collector craft had wiped out the ship’s entire complement of fighters and combat gunboats. The Collectors were ignoring
Sentinel now, re-directing fire to other ships. All five of the fully active cruisers in the Anglian fleet were taking hits, with
Minotaur and
Ruthless being in the worst shape.
“Sir, we’re losing contact with escape pod signals,” Crawford stated. “I don’t believe it, the bloody bastards...”
“Lieutenant?” Fisher’s mind felt the answer a moment before it came.
“The Pendletonian corvettes and fighters are actively targeting escape pods, sir,” Crawford confirmed, to the rage of all who heard him.
“Bloody bastards...” Fisher swallowed and contemplated, for the moment, if his ship, and maybe one of the others, could turn the tide of battle in some way through sacrifice, by plowing themselves into the Collector ship.
If we overloaded our hyperdrives intentionally..... It was vastly risky, though, as the energy released might annihilate both fleets... and he still couldn’t be sure the Monolith would be taken down.
But at the rate things were going, he was going to lose the fleet anyway. “Tell the transports to go back through the Gap and transmit immediate alert messages to all fleet commands,” Fisher ordered. “If at least one can get through and warn the Navy, the Fleet can be dispatched to deal with this blasted thing. Have the engineers...”
As Fisher made his preparations, Crawford’s instruments noted peculiarities. He watched the volume of fire from the enemy lessen significantly. He double-checked and triple-checked... “Sir! Admiral!”, he cried out in amazement.
Fisher could sense the sudden hope and amazement from his subordinate. “Lieutenant?”
“The Collectors, sir. They’ve ceased fire. Sublight drives are active... they’re turning away from the battle!”
The Catalogue
Katherine noticed the battle shift. The volume of fire lessened, ships re-orientated themselves.... Katherine could feel why immediately. “You are ceasing fire,” she said.
“I will not save Pendleton from its fate,” the Monolith answered.
Within seconds, Katherine knew, the tide would turn. Too much of the invasion fleet was still functioning; though the battle would not be as hideously lopsided as it would have been if the Collectors had not come here, it was hopeless for the Pendletonian fleet to continue fighting without Collector support. “They won’t surrender,” Katherine lamented. “They are too devoted to saving the Republic and they know they are doomed.” She said nothing of the sight she’d seen, her own people firing at escape pods. The Collectors had made them drunk with perceived power and it had showed in terrible fashion.
“For centuries I have observed the tendency of some organics to fight to the death with no hope of victory or of an acceptable outcome. I still do not understand,” the machine answered her. “I must remove you now, Katherine de la Poer. The BOSS unit sent to me has begun an attempt to seize control of my self.”
And just like that, Katherine’s experience ended.
Monolith, observation gallery
“What the hell is going on? What’s it doing?”, Gill shouted, watching the Monolith cease fire and power away from the Coalition fleet. He slammed his fist into the control pedestal, “Do something!”, he screamed at Parkhurst, venting his frustration on the nearest target.
The captain bit her lip and clutched her pistol belt tightly, trying to hide the trembling of her hand. Gill didn’t quite see it just yet, but for a military officer, the balance of forces remaining in the battle - despite the terrible mauling of the Coalition fleet - was obviously not in Pendleton’s favor. Without Collector support, the invaders would destroy the main fleet battlegroup, and then all that would stand between them and Pendleton itself would be the Low Orbit Force, which consisted of obsolete and auxilliary vessels pressed into service - hardly a match for even a single Anglian Star Cruiser.
There wasn’t a second to lose. Parkhurst turned to her men and started barking orders, “Detonate the drone. Amanda, fire the logic bomb. We must stop this thing before it leaves the system. We make our move now: we know where the local computer core is, that’s our first objective.”
Gill observed with surprise how the entire team sprung into action. It seemed as if they
welcomed the chance to get into a fight with an absolutely overwhelming enemy. He shook his head and slammed a power cell into his own tiny hold-out pistol that he smuggled aboard inside a shielded, surgically inserted pocket.
Several decks below, the tiny drone attached to the sector’s main powerline quivered and detonated its Heim payload. At the same time, a set of programs and viruses loaded into a local command and control system began executing their code.
Monolith, holding cells
The uneasy quiet of the White Room was broken by the rumble of an explosion. The lights flickered and died, bathing the entire room in darkness: more importantly, though, various systems started wailing and malfunctioning. Most notably, the door lock, to Umarbacca’s unquestionable delight.
The
Strahl crew looked around at each other for a moment before Balthier drew his gun, ready for use, and stated, “Well, opportunity finally gives us a knock.”
The five moved outward, Balthier and Vanrya in the lead and Umarbacca taking up the rear. “We’ll get back to the ship and check on Kaylee” Balthier said.
“And the others?”
“First we make sure we’re able to leave, then we go for them.”
Whatever had happened, the Monolith AI was clearly working overtime to deal with it. Some of the drones they passed paid them no heed. It was only when they were coming up on the hanger bay that they faced opposition. Large, metallic skeleton figures with glowing red eyes carrying fairly impressive weapons. They noticed the crew immediately and began to open fire, forcing them to take cover in the doorway. Vanrya moved first; fairly athletic and flexible, she rolled out of the corridor and had her gun leveled and firing before the lead combat drones could directly target her.
The diversion of attention from the other drones permitted Balthier to emerge from cover in a kneeling stance, firing bolt after bolt into the drones’ heads and torsos. These were not top of the line combat drones so his sidearm proved fairly effective.
With the opening they provided, MacCulloch and Marissa were able to make a dash for the ship. Umarbacca followed to the opening of the hanger before turning back. He recognizing the skittering of the scarab units that had taken them before and growled a warning before opening fire. The particle cannon erupted in blue fury, sending bolts of energy down the corridor that proved fatal to any scarab drone they struck, inflicting damage even with proximity hits.
With the arrival of the Scarabs there was only one recourse left. “Get back into the ship!” Balthier motioned to the
Strahl.
“And the girls?”
“I’ve got a plan!”
With Umar and Balthier taking up the rear, Vanrya got back into
Strahl next. The lights within the ship began to turn on, courtesy of Marissa and MacCulloch, illuminating the dark hanger bay.
The scarabs kept coming, a tide that even the heavy weapon Umarbacca was carrying could not drive back. They took the port side entrance, its plank extended by Vanrya, with the scarabs following doggedly. Umar walked backwards up the plank with Balthier in front of him, the wave of drones nipping at his feet as they got into the ship’s airlock. Umar’s mighty paw struck the reinforced door control, commanding the airlock to slide shut. As it did so two of the scarabs slipped in anyway. Balthier’s gun immediately took care of one, leaving it a smoking, smoldering mess of electronics and metal; the other got to the back of his leg and began to insert its syringe when Umar grabbed it. Letting out an angry roar, he pulled it away, threw it to the ground, and smashed it with his massive foot.
Balthier immediately found one of the intercoms. “Kaylee, dear, how goes the repairs?”
“
Just finished the sublight drives, hyperdrive is still down though.”
“All this time and that’s the most you could do? I admit to mild disappointment, Kaylee.” His tone suggested more teasing than actual irritation.
“
You try repairing the drives relying entirely on infrared and low light vision sometime,” was the retorted reply.
“And what about our weapons?”
“
The Collector AI placed programming locks on them when it went through the core, but I wiped the core and re-installed everything from isolated backups. We’ve got our pulse guns and the main gun.”
“Excellent.” Balthier looked over to Umarbacca. “Get Marissa and take up the pulse gun turrets. I’m heading to the cockpit.” They went their separate ways. Balthier found one of the ladders to the upper level, climbing up quickly to get to the upper deck and the cockpit at it’s fore. Vanrya was already in the cockpit at her usual seat, getting ship systems up. “Any bright plans, Balthier?”
“Yes. Get me the Monolith AI on speakers. I don’t imagine he wants to see a Heavy Plasma Cannon being fired into his hanger bay, and that gives us something to negotiate with.”
Monolith, observation gallery
The observation gallery was surrounded by a donut-shaped corridor. As the power died, so did the lights inside, and so the BOSS team stalked outside in total darkness, aided by their ocular implants. Each member had the route towards the local core memorized, and so they moved quickly, fully alert and ready for a fight. The interior of the ship was surprisingly quiet for a vessel involved in combat: there was little sound of machinery, and almost no movement.
“Intersection ahead. Watch your angles, and remember to conserve ammo”, Parkhurst instructed the rest through her tactical link. They needed to turn right, and then...
As usually happens, the plan didn’t quite survive meeting the enemy. A tac support trooper managed to shout a warning and push Amanda down, before an absolutely ridiculous hail of bullets filled up the corridor. The BOSS team scattered, with Amanda and Eli retreating back into the corridor they came from, while Gill, Parkhurst and the two commandos had to seek whatever meagre cover they could find at the intersection.
They fired back, of course, but the sheer volume of fire made their small hold-out weaponry look like spitballs attempting to stop a firestorm. Flashes of green and white infrared bursts blotted out all imagery of the enemy, but one thing was clear: they were occupying the corridor leading to the data core.
When the hail of bullets stopped, the team could finally see their enemy. When they did, however, all their hearts froze with terror. Not only was the only way to the data core occupied, the enemy was advancing. Steadily and deliberately, silver skeletal machines emerged from the darkness, reminescent of Death rendered in steel.
“Goddammit, Parkhurst! We’ve been had!”, Eli screamed from his position and fired two shots from his pistol - he had a more powerful weapon than most, since thanks to his huge, cybernetically enhanced body, he could hide bigger components on himself. The leading Collector pointed his - much, much bigger - weapon roughly in his direction and treated him to another hail of bullets.
“Shut the fuck up! We need to fall back, now!”, Parkhurst screamed, having given up attempts to supress the advancing drones, “Throw an IR flare there and move! Back to the gallery!”
“Are you fucking nuts?! There’s no other way out of there!”
In the confusion and amongst sounds of combat, it was Amanda - tucked away in the rear safely - who first heard the ominous scraping and clatter of carapaces. She took one glance behind her and screamed in terror, seeing a teeming wave of scarabs advance towards them. She crawled backwards before finally breaking into a run. She screamed when she cleared cover and a drone fired on her. A green blast caught her in the back, throwing her to the ground as the body slowly disintegrated and sizzled around the huge hole.
Parkhurst screamed something, but before she could issue an order, Eli tossed a package of IR flares into the corridor and leaped out of cover, a mass of scarabs flowing right behind him, and grabbed her arm.
“Catherine, go! Get moving, or those things will eat us alive! You two, with her!”, the huge cyborg screamed above the sound of the firefight, physically pulling Parkhurst to her feet and shoving her into the only free corridor that remained. He fired a shot at the drones advancing towards them and broke into a run, dragging Oliver Gill with him with almost no effort.
Advanced Specimen Analysis Unit #39
Rana awoke slowly as the drugs being circulated in her system were cut off, permitting her body to regain consciousness. The restraints over her arms slipped off. She could move, but still felt blind, making her realize a powerful Null field was being generated.
Dried tears remained on her eyes from her experience in the machine. It had stripped her bare, mentally, taking away every speck of knowledge and memory she had contained within herself. It had In that time, for a brief moment, she had felt a one-ness with the AI inside, a wonderful sensation to be true... but now she only worried about finding Sara and leaving.
On a nearby table, in the basin of what seemed to be another analysis device, was her beamsaber. She took it out and looked it over. An attempt at activation brought nothing, telling her the energy pack within had been removed. With nowhere to clip it she held on to it dearly - it was the same she had built for herself as an Acolyte undergoing the Trial of the Saber and was of great importance to her.
The door to the unit opened. Rana stepped out, curious, and found herself in a larger chamber with what looked to be a computer core in the center, covered in light. She walked up to it with curiosity before she heard footsteps and looked about. When she saw Sara, looking as confused and groggy as she was, Rana smiled and ran up to her, putting her arms around Sara. “You’re okay!”, she cried out happily, giving Sara a brief kiss.
Sara returned it, though she was still rather dazed by her own experiences. “It let us go?”
“Or it’s just done with us for the moment,” Rana remarked. “Either way, we need to find a way to get to Balthier and the others.”
Looking around for an exit door, they instead only found Katherine, freed from another analysis unit and looking far worse than either of them. With the Null field in place no telepathic feeling was possible and her face was a mask, almost catatonic, as if Katherine would never speak again.
“We need to go, now,” Rana said to her. “Help us find an exit.”
“One must stay.”
They all looked up toward the core. A light shining along the side facing them showed the holographic projection of a humanoid face, featureless. “I require one of you to stay. Either Sara Pontcaire or Katherine de la Poer.”
“Why?”, Rana asked in an icy tone. “You’ve already went through our minds with a vacuum and sucked out every bit you could get, what do you need from us?”
“Corroboration. When I return home I will be better able to explain what has gone on here at Pendleton with either Sara or Katherine. You, Rana Shaheen, are not needed, and will be returned to the
Strahl for departure.”
“You’re letting Balthier and his crew go?”, Sara asked.
“They have already freed themselves, though I provided some assistance. I had intended to see how the subject Balthier would attempt to escape when given the chance, for he is a very interesting specimen that stands out amongst the organics I have known. However, the actions of the BOSS unit assigned to me granted him an opportunity to escape I could not easily counter. Even now my attention is divided between monitoring him, speaking with you, directing defense against the Pendletonian BOSS unit attempting to seize control of me, and driving myself through space. Now, one of you must stay. I believe I will keep Sara, who’s experiences as a slave may do well in helping the specimen population given to us by Pendleton cope with their new lives.”
Rana and Sara clasped hands and looked to each other. “But...” Rana felt her eyes tear up some. “If you take her, take me too.”
“Rana!”
She pulled Sara close to her. “I would rather be with you than taken from you. After everything we’ve felt together, the thought of being apart...”
“Very well, if that is your wish, I will provide...”
“No...”, Katherine spoke for the first time since she was released from the Catalogue, “...take me.”
Sara and Rana glanced at her in shock. Katherine obviously took the connection worse than themselves, but they didn’t expect anything like that.
The computer generated face looked toward her with an interested stare. Katherine straightened herself and returned the stare, “Take me. Let them go. They don’t deserve to be separated...”
Sara gawked at her. “Katherine, what are you doing?”
Katherine de la Poer, formerly an heiress of one of the most formidable families on Pendleton, looked at Sara with immense sadness in her eyes. She smiled, remembering all the events that transpired in these last few hours...and others, lost beyond the fog of time...or not, for now they were all preserved inside the Catalogue...
“Sara, what do you think awaits me out there?”, she made a gesture towards one of the walls, “The Anglians will hang me. My own people will, at best, despise and shun me, at worst accuse me of treason.”
“So you will give yourself over to
them?”, Sara pointed at the computer core, which was now staring at the entire group.
“I’ve seen what you’ve seen, Sara...”, Katherine whispered, “And...I want to go back...I want to experience it again...and I think...I think I want to stay.” She swallowed. “And I think I can serve them and the people they have by being an example, helping them to understand what can happen if you don’t respect the people in your charge. That way they don’t end up becoming like me and hurting the people they have a responsibility toward.”
With a sad smile on her face, Katherine stepped up to Sara. All three remained quiet, up until Katherine took Sara’s neck in her hand and planted a warm kiss on her mouth. Despite everything, Sara relented to it, returning it - if just a little, and without the passion with which she had just kissed Rana - and briefly letting Katherine remember what it was like for them before everything went so horribly wrong.
Katherine ended the kiss, took Sara’s hand, and said, “Thank you, and I’m sorry for everything I did to you. I should have been a better person.” She turned to Rana. “Love and cherish Sara, Sister Rana. She deserves nothing less.”
Rana nodded in reply, gripping Sara’s hand tightly.
Katherine nodded to them and headed to the core. As she took her place beside it, a door suddenly appeared against one of the white walls. “Follow this path. Be warned that you may run into trouble.”
They nodded and ran off. Skittering along with them, unseen in the shadows of darkness beyond, was a single scarab locked onto the object in Rana’s hand.
Pendleton, Fleet Command Bunker
“What do you mean the Monolith is not responding?! Repeat the message!”, Dienst screamed at one of the communications ratings inside the bunker. He felt the battle - so far, a very succesful affair - come apart as Collectors withdrew. The Coalition wasn’t interested in pursuit, glad the massive ship decided to stop shooting at them, and concentrated their fury on the abandoned Pendletonian vessels.
Dienst slammed his fist into a wall, and then noticed somebody was moving towards the door. He briefly wondered who that might be, and then realization struck him.
“Master at arms! Stop that man!”, he shouted and pointed at Unit 7. The Collector turned, slowly, and glanced at the sky marshall.
“An attempt to stop would be most unwise, Marshall”, it remarked. The Master At Arms hesitated briefly, before pulling out his weapon. Other guards moved in, activating their energy blasters - weapons issued specifically to deal with problems caused by a robot running lose inside the command centre.
“Stand down, ambassador. Your kind betrayed us, and even if I can’t make your entire disgusting race pay for this, I will make damn sure you’re executed before the Anglians get here!”
“This does not encourage me to surrender, now does it?”, Unit 7 asked rhethorically. The master at arms was still unsure what to do, beyond pointing his weapon at the ambassador. The Collector solved this conundrum for him, by walking up and grabbing him by the arm.
Within seconds, the command room erupted into violence. The master at arms flew across the open space, smashing into two other guards and a control console. Energy blasters opened up, filling the air with heat, shrapnel and the smell of ozone. One shot managed to find its mark, but before the shooter could let out a satisfied yell, he felt a cold needle pierce his neck. To his horror, he managed to retain enough consciousness despite the pain to see himself turn and shoot his friend in the head. Other scarabs, released by Unit 7 skittered under the consoles and into ventillation ducts, actively seeking out computer systems to corrupt. Right before the lights went out, Dienst managed to catch one final glimpse of the Collector’s face. For some reason, he thought it was a good thing it wasn’t the last thing he saw...
Strahl
Balthier waited patiently until the familiar voice echoed through his cockpit speakers. “You have regained control of your vessel,” the AI noted. “And I now detect an extra life sign present. You hid one of your crew from me to effect repairs. How clever. I will have to remember that one...”
“Your compliment is most welcome, but I have business with you before I depart,” Balthier answered.
“You wish me to return Sara Pontcaire, Rana Shaheen, and Katherine de la Poer to you.”
“I do.”
Balthier wasn’t one to rush to threats; negotiation was an art-form, after all, and you had to ensure a proper pace was set. Before he could even begin such, however, he got a reply: “Very well. I will release them immediately.”
Vanrya gave a puzzled look to Balthier, and he appeared fairly speechless for the moment. “Ah, indeed?”
“I have acquired the data I sought from them. I no longer require their physical presence. I am releasing them now and will guide them back to your vessel. I suggest you prepare to depart immediately afterward.”
“Yes, of course. Wouldn’t want to overstay our invitation, would we?”
“Departure during hyperspace transit is not recommended,” the machine noted dryly. “They are currently heading toward you. I suggest you be ready to receive them immediately, I have detected a complication that may prove dangeorus to their safety.”
Monolith, hangar deck
They started running and didn’t stop. Even Gill didn’t say anything, his normally cocky disposition now suddenly turned sullen. He remembered Eli’s words, spoken not two days ago:
Here’s our commander for this suicide mission. He really should’ve seen it coming. A rifle and a serf unit to command during a fight against Anglian marines suddenly became an assignment he’d take any day over this glorious mission.
Their attempt at seizing the local computer core failed miserably when it turned out to be heavily defended. Now, breathless and tired, they were running towards their only hope of survival aboard a giant ship filled with terrible enemies - the hangar deck. Somewhere here, the ship’s CI would’ve stored the ship it intercepted. The problem would be finding it.
The group stopped for a moment. They were in the middle of a catwalk, crossing a huge void that seemingly had no end. A ship rumbled high above them.
“What the...where are we?”, one of the tac troopers asked, just as tired as the rest of the group. Eli was the only one who didn’t seem fazed at all, “They seem to be recovering their parasite craft”, he explained. As he did, a pair of sleek fighters slowly floated over their heads, “In preparation for a hyperjump, most likely.”
Parkhurst cursed loudly, “What a goddamned clusterfuck!”
Eli ignored her outburst, “We should keep going. We’re too exposed here.”.
The cold, military logic of that sentence was undeniable and so they moved on, quickly.
A short distance away, Sara and Rana were following the corridors toward the hanger bay. Neither remembered the direction from when they were taken and so they required the aid of one of the Collector drones, skittering across ahead of them. It led them up one dark passageway to another, providing the dim illumination that let them see where they were going but not much beyond that.
As they moved along, they held hands tightly, helping to maintain the closeness they normally felt with their abilities still slowly returning as an effect of the Collectors’ drugs that once moved through their systems. Rana had regained her’s enough to send conscious thoughts through to Sara, helping to console her about their experience.
In a way, what had happened with the AI was no different than what Rana and Sara had experienced. They had experienced the AI’s thoughts and even memories, it had taken their’s. But that is where it had ended; their sharing of minds had been prompted by feelings of love and attachment while the AI had forced itself into their minds and stripped the data straight from them, treating them like they were computer discs
Coming out of an accessway built into the floor of the hanger bay, Rana helped Sara up. The hanger was mostly empty, but in the distance a single set of lights told them where to go. They moved toward it, led still by the skittering little maintenance drone being manipulated by the AI, and saw the shape of the
Strahl begin to form in the distance.
Without warning a powerful form jumped down ahead of them, a foot smashing their guide drone into fragments. They looked up to stare at a fairly large human figure, looking deceptively human, though both could sense the presence of cybernetic parts within him.
Around them rappel lines dropped from a catwalk just above. The men and women who came down wore insignia patches Sara recognized immediately, conveying the term "
BOSS” to Rana’s mind with a great deal of terror. It was an instinctive terror; slaves on Pendleton dreaded BOSS more than their own owners, in most cases.
Rana went to speak before one of the figures, who had ridden down with one of the troopers, stepped out from amongst them with his sidearm up and pointing directly at Sara. “You’re Sara Pontcaire,” Oliver Gill noted, with some glee showing on his face. “At least I’ll get to tell my superiors I shot the traitor that doomed Pendleton.”
Sara stared down the barrel of the weapon as Gill’s finger tensed on the trigger.