Guardian Ruins Part 2
09 Mar 2018MMMMMalcolm
What we ate wasn’t that satisfying, even if it was filling. Bland rations washed down with fluids squeezed from a pouch. Brings back my nightmares of Pilot’s Fed Academy MREs every time I eat in space. I don’t know when I became such a snob, requiring my food heated by a real flame whenever possible. But I doubt I’ll change anytime soon.As we huddled around the small table in “Menace’s” break room, I processed our earlier adventure while my stomach processed the rations.
“Kay, play that Galnet article again for me please.” Kay pushed a button on the wall panel above the table.
“The engineer Ram Tah, a leading expert on the mysterious Guardians, has requested help in locating undiscovered sites from the ancient alien race. He has issued the following statement:
‘The artefacts recently delivered to me have been subjected to intense molecular analysis. As a result, I have deduced the possibility of Guardian sites in three specific systems: Col 173 Sector QU-O d6-25, HD 63154 and Synuefe EU-Q c21-10.’ …
“There, that’s what I was looking for.” I proclaimed, slapping the table. “There are three sites. Back up and play that last Sentence again.”
“As a result, I have deduced the possibility of Guardian sites in three specific systems: Col 173 Sector QU-O d6-25, HD 63154 and Synuefe EU-Q c21-10.”
“So far we’ve only solved the one at Synuefe. We still have to go to Col 173 and HD 63154.”
“Aw man,” Chase groaned. “That means there will be more of those sentinels to contend with.”
“True,” Kay stated. “But at least we will be looking for them this time. Plus, if I fly in low enough, maybe I can draw them away from your SRVs. Their weapons don’t seem that effective against your paper thin hulls. I’m certain they won’t do anything against the hull and shields of this ship.” Kay and I looked at Chase waiting for his approval.
“Okay, okay I’m still in. Just keep those things off me.” He shuddered after he made his demand and a pang of sympathy ran through me. Chase was young, barely in his twenties; I just realized our little adventure from his perspective had to have been pretty scary. “So, which site do we go to next?”
I thought about it for second and then said, “HD 63154, it has the shortest system name. We won’t waste so much time typing it in.”
*********************
It may have had the shortest system name, but this site required the longest travel time. It was on a planet over 200k light seconds away from the main star. It took us a minute find it and then it took us a few more minutes to get there. I was grateful Chase didn’t say anything about it. When we got there, I keyed the coms.
“Ok guys and gals, same routine as last time; except, let’s draw out the sentinels first and then search for the power pylons.”
“Copy commander,” Chase replied. “Beginning landing sequence.”
It didn’t take long before the first sentinel appeared. Kay had just taken off to patrol from the air. Chase and I hadn’t even split up yet.
The two of us made quick work of the drone. When our coms were restored, I made Chase an offer. I hoped to calm his nerves without him thinking I was calling him a coward.
“Why don’t we stay together until the sentinels are taken care of and then split up to find the power pylons?”
“Ok.” I guess it worked. Besides, I didn’t want those sentinels sneaking up on me either. We found three more sentinels before things seemed calm enough to look for the pylons. We were just about to split up when…
“Hey, look to your right. It’s another one of those pyramids.” I turned my head and sure enough another creepy pyramid sat a few meters from my rover. I headed towards it and found the ‘X’ on the ground in front of it. When I rolled over the ‘X’, two power pylons rose out of the ground. And two sentinels jumped us from behind. They were beginning to annoy me.
“Under Attack!” I applied my handbrake, activated my turret, and turned to face the attackers. Chase was arguing with the one on the left, so I engaged the drone on the right. “Target Destroyed!”
“These guys are beginning to bug me,” Chase complained.
“Yeah, me too buddy. We found the first two pylons.” I spun around and shot them to charge them up. “We have eight minutes to find the other four. You look around where we started; I’ll look around south of you.”
“Copy.”
I turned my rover so the pyramid was behind it. Then, I turned left and searched keeping the boundary of the site on my left side. Chase headed the opposite direction. We each found two more pylons. Did I mention when things go south it’s bad?
My radar lit up with red triangles. Sentinels were everywhere. Coms were jammed so I had no idea where Chase was or if he was still alive. No, I wasn’t going to think like that. Kay is an excellent pilot. If she said she was going to cover you, she did it so well she made blankets jealous. Besides I had bigger fish to fry. I had a date with a huge, metallic, glowing, sparking, alien orb and I was not about to miss it.
I put power in my rover’s shields and engines and headed toward the pyramid now on the other side of the site. “Under Attack!” Shields down to seventy percent. “Under Attack!” Shields down to fifty five percent, but I could see the orb now. “Incoming Missile!” Shields down to twenty five percent. C’mon, hang in there a little while longer. I just need to dump this crystal, lock on the orb, and… “Shields Offline!” “Crap! C’mon, Scan Already!” “New Data Discovered.” “That’s it; I’m out!”
I glanced at my HUD. My hull was down to fifty five percent. I hit the go pedal and ran toward the rendezvous point as fast as I could. In the distance I saw the ‘Menace’ hovering a few feet above the site. Kay had put it between a wave of sentinels and Chase’s Asp which was still on the ground. Multi-cannon fire and exploding drones lit up the area like a solar flare. Man, I hope Chase is alright. Nope, not going to think like that; you’ve got your own problems. My hull was down to thirty five percent and I still had not made it to the safety of Kay’s little conflict zone. I pushed the rover even harder, not caring about the rocks I hit or the mounds I jumped off of. I ducked under the ‘Menace’. Kay must have saw me coming and lowered her down further. Once on board, the internal communications came online.
“Kay!”
“Yeah?”
“I’m onboard! Did Chase make it back?”
“I don’t know. Coms went down the moment sentinels started popping up. I moved to protect his ship but… Wait, I see him! He’s outside the site coming out of the hills behind us.” That was a huge relief.
“Great , move closer to the sentinels and keep them occupied. We’re outta here the minute his engines spool up.”
“Copy that.” Watching Kay work was mesmerizing. Her right hand squeezed the trigger while her left hand hovered above the weapons selection button. When the cannons needed to reload, she switched to the beam lasers; yet she never released the trigger. Her feet manipulated the rear rudder to turn the ship in sync with her head. It was then I noticed she was manually aiming.
“You know the weapons are all gimballed right?”
“Yeah, but apparently so do the drones. Their signatures are so low I can’t get a target lock. I went with plan B.”
I glanced down at the radar. Chase’s Asp was gaining altitude behind us.
“Looks like Chase is safely out. Let’s join him shall we.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Kay switched power to shields and engines, pointed the ‘Menace’ straight up in the air, and hit the boost. Any drone foolish enough to be under us would have been roasted. A thousand kilometers above the site our communications were restored. Kay was about to engage supercruise when Chase called.
“Hey, don’t jump out! We have to go back.”
“Are you crazy? We barely made it out. I thought you hated sentinels, why would you want to go back?”
“I do. But I saw a strange obelisk that had weird symbols glowing on it. I was just about to scan it when sentinels started popping up everywhere. It could be important; we have to go back and see.”
“Ok, we’ll go back.” Kay glanced at me out of the corner of her eyes. “But not right now.” She appeared to slump slightly in the pilot’s seat. “My rover is low on fuel and ammo. Since I’m sure you don’t want to fly out to the nearest station, we’ll land a few kilometers away from the site and gather the materials needed to refuel and rearm the rovers.”
“Copy commander.”
*****************
The Guardian site was quiet; too quiet. Chase and I sat in our rovers at the edge of the site.
“Where did everybody go?” Chase asked.
“I don’t know. Keep your eyes open, they could be anywhere. Kay, you see anything?”
“Negative, my scopes are clear. It’s like they just vanished.”
“OK Chase, lead the way but stay alert.”
We entered the site and Chase lead me to a triangular obelisk. It was slightly taller than the rover. One side was glowing with two strange symbols carved into it.
“Here it is,” Chase stated. “I’ll scan it.”
“Wait.”
“What? Don’t tell me you rather I shoot it.”
“No, but I have a feeling those symbols are important. Let’s look around and see if we can find more symbols like those. Maybe something will tell us what they mean.”
“What if I just scan this? Maybe it will tell us what they mean.”
“And what if they mean: ‘HELP! Sentinels, unauthorized access!’? Wouldn’t you like to figure that out beforehand?”
“Good point.”
We began looking around the site.
“Hey I found something.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“A Guardian Sentinel Weapon part. Guardian Sentinel Wreckage. A Guardian Power Cell. It’s all over the place. They must be salvage from Kay’s handiwork.”
“Awesome, gather what you can.” I hit a pile of rocks with my rover. Any other time I would have backed up and gone around it, but I was in a narrow passage and the rocks were blocking my way. I blasted the rocks and a strange object fell out of them. I scooped the object into my cargo hold. Analysis reported it was an ‘Ancient Totem’. I had that and an ‘Ancient Relic’ in my hold. I made my way back to the obelisk and scanned. Ram Tah’s voice boomed through my rover’s audio system. I nearly jumped out of the vehicle. Man, I wish they would stop doing that.
“This data concerns the automated defense systems found at Guardian sites. You may have already encountered them. The data indicates that these Sentinels date from some time prior to the second Guardian civil war. They are designed to respond aggressively to any unauthorized activity around the ruins. If you are forced to defend yourself, kinetic weaponry would be your best form of attack, since the Sentinels have no shields. Sentinel weapon parts and wreckage are of considerable value, so the loss is not significant.”
Now he tells us. “I think I found what those symbols mean.”
“Yeah, what?”
“They represent artifacts scattered around the site. These two are a Relic and a Totem. I found the totem in a pile of rocks. See if you can find some more.”
“I found one. Computer says it’s an ‘Ancient Casket’. I now have it and a Relic in my hold.”
“Good work Chase. I found another obelisk but the symbols don’t match what I have. Come see if they match what you have.”
A moment later Chase scanned the pillar and again Ram Tah’s voice was heard.
“This log outlines the downfall of the traditionalist faction during the second Guardian civil war. The main issue was the internecine nature of the conflict, which raged for over one hundred years and brought the Guardians’ civilization to its knees, retarding any further social development. But the challenges facing the traditionalists were exacerbated by the fact that they devoted most of their resources to honoring the dead. From what I can gather, they regarded the departed in much the same way as the primitive cultures of Sol, constructing vast shrines to honor the deceased. As their situation worsened, they became increasingly obsessed with these practices. With so much of their resources dedicated to these rites, it is little wonder that their enemies’ war machines were able to overwhelm them.”
Two things became clear. One, I found something else that was bigger than I thought it would be. Two, Ram Tah somehow rigged his decryption device so he would receive the data immediately. I no longer had the leverage I needed to force him to talk to me. Frustrated, I called Kay.
“Are you reading any sentinel activity?”
“Negative.”
“Then come pick me up. We’ve done all we can do here.”