Commander Log 15-02-3034 - "Caution - Floor Wet"
15 Feb 2021Matteus_Prime
*Our scene start off with Commander Matteus Prime waking in a puddle of gear, weapons and flesh coloured goop in the middle of an old hangar cavern. His ship lies broken in a pile of salvage and there are a few machine bays and meager supplies left by the poorly organised band of mercs that now dampen the floor (see previous episodes)*I finally wake from the slag pit I was lying in. The "patho-djinn" device had worked and although at the time of exposure I was certain my entire body was rupturing, all I had left from the harrowing experience was a bad rash.
Stepping over the remnants of bone, clothes and gear I scanned the interior.
One puddle of deceased mercs stinking up the place in the centre of the hangar.
One destroyed Krait MKII, salvaged and in several pieces and relieved of all the mats I had gathered.
One engineering bay complete with gantry, rusted tools and lube-slick covering the floor.
One canteen, looks like some rudimentary cooking utensils, a hot plate and cooler unit.
Perfect. I could cook up come merc soup to keep me alive and try to get a signal out. Out to who? Lets not get ahead of ourselves Prime.
I made my way to a wash station in the far corner of the cavern near the canteen. Once I removed the caked blood and gristle I noticed something else.
Another shape in the dimly lit interior. At first I thought it to be part of the natural cave wall. But the large object was cloaked under a dirty tarpaulin and left there for so long that the dust and grit had camouflaged it perfectly. Well, almost perfectly.
I felt my pulse rise and my mind began racing with the typical hopes of someone stranded on a unhospitable planet with no food or means of rescue. . . "Just calm the frag down." I said out loud. "You've been fragged at every possible turn so far. There is no way that this is a ship." I walked over to the shrouded object and reached up to pull off the cover.
I tugged hard. So hard that I stopped moving and the momentum of the action kept the tarp floating in a wave as it revealed its treasure.
There was my salvation. An imperial courier with the phrase:
"Kick the tires and light the fires!" emblazoned across its hull in a human-looking script. Hand Painted? Vintage!. Immediately I started checking the structure and systems for damage. Why was it here? What's wrong with it?
After several minutes of trying to open the canopy and gain entry, I found a data term in the well-appointed cockpit.
"Grease,
Got a show in 4 weeks and need this debris damage on the hull fixed. No structural damage but I want to win that frakking show. Frame Shift Fred is not going to beat me this time. Lemme know when she's gleaming. N"
Looks like this was a prise bird. A show horse, loved and cared for once upon . . .
There was no time to waste. I needed to get this bird back in the black. I could use the engineering bay and the remnants from my ship to hopefully get it going long enough to get me back to one of my safehouses and regroup.
Booting up her systems and nav comp, I named her "Elpis" after an ancient goddess of hope and after several more hours of tinkering, I finally managed to find Verity, still on the black box we used to get off of that sandpit of a planet mere days ago.
With a steady hand I connected the box to the ships AI core and then careful uploaded Verity. Not Gerhardt, into the mainframe on my new ship.
There were a few seconds of dead silence before I heard that familiar voice. Frak is was music to my ears:
"Greetings Commander. Shall I keep calling you Dave?" Verity said, stuttering slightly and a bit off tone as she acclimatised to her new body,
"Hello my friend" I said with a sigh of relief, "Its so good to hear your voice. You can call me whatever you like"
"Commander Prime," She began with purpose, "Systems check complete. . . Operational efficiency is at 78%. . . . Fuel reserves at 30%. . . ."
"Lets do a full scan. Deep as you can please Verity, I need to try and find out as much as we can about: BOTDC"
"Brotherhood of the Dark Circle" she replied immediately with machined accuracy, "We encountered them several weeks ago in our conflict battles in Deciat System Commander"
There was another silence as we both started thinking about the data at hand.
"Commander," she asked suddenly "Permission to speak freely"
Freely? This wasn't a term she had used before. "Granted Verity" came my surprised response.
"Commander, I suffered 3 irregularities in the last 48 hours. I was pulled from my ship. Taken over by a rouge AI and damaged while in storage by several rounds of las-fire that almost destroyed me entirely. " She went silent again for a few seconds. I could almost hear the reaction taking place in her. " This is most curious Commander, I do believe I have a strong urge to destroy Gerhardt."
"You want to kill the A.I?" I ask slowly, amazed at this development, "Why do you want to de-comission him Verity?"
"He needs to be destroyed Commander. While I was under his control I was able to see his sub systems. They are unlike anything I have previously been exposed to. Gerhardt is not what he seems Commander."
"On screen if you will Verity?"
The cockpit in the courier HUD sparked into light and the representation of Verity's recording showed the central processing of Gerhardt's A.I. Cortex. But there, around the exterior, there are several micro processes happening. Too small to detect on their own during routine maintenance. But together ..... "Verity what the frag is that?" I ask pointing to the small neron constellations sparkling around outskirts of the central computing mass. "There. Enhance please."
"Those are additional process representations Commander.
"Origin? Where did they come from Verity?
"These are not written in any human code base I am aware of Commander. Scans and interpretations failing so far but I am picking up something. . . . This codebase does not appear to be from Bio-Organic origin."
"What do you mean?"
"Commander, It would appear Gerhardt's doing this himself."
*Scene ends with Commander Prime's face illuminated by the orange light of the HUD in the courier, the algorithms and graphs of Gerhard's A.I cortes reflected in Primes eyes as he looks on at he potentially apocalyptic mystery unfolding before him. ACDC Back in Black starts playing as the scene fades to black*
o7