Several miles above the surface of planet Primus a drone sundered the night, burning it’s way through the planet’s Van Allen belts with a rapidity which could only be described as disdainful, light flaring from it’s surfaces as impurities particulates and crystal ice were seared from it’s surface during the arduous process atmospheric re-entry, transponders bursting as the drone warned all other inbound traffic of it’s meteoric descent, splitting the atmosphere under several, high-intensity sonic booms that shattered the cloud layer.
Then suddenly, it was over. The nanotube missile slowed, burning backwards under the force of its retro’s before alighting on the steel pad with barely a frustration.
Di’taraAlpha: “Intelligence Di’taraAlpha back at pad. [Query] orders?”
Consensus Command Hub: “[Statement] Mining unit Tv223 has fallen on its side and cannot self-right. [Command] examine unit Tv223 and correct Unit Tv223’s telemetry”.
Di’taraAlpha: ::[Affirmation]::
The teardrop body of the probe rose back into the air, heavily this time, and with less of the obscene fanaticism which had dominated its initial flight. Over the rutted, dry, earthen landscape Alpha hovered, brushing just above the fungi stalks which sucked hungrily at the Primusarian tar, gulping away at the enormous peat bogs that eclipsed Primus’s equatorial regions.
Di’taraAlpha: ::[Statement]:: _NavPoint set. On route.
Consensus Command Hub: ::[Affirmation]::
Seven minutes passed as Alpha listened to the continuous, whistling buzz of his drive, sluggishly pushing over the crust at less than 1% thrust, sticking to the contours of the ground. At this height, the aerodynamically unstable drone became a bullet, sensitive to the buffeting winds which swept sand and dust into his shields, dissolving in a hail of microscopic slag particles before falling clear. Suddenly the purple heads up display marker snapped off, and Alpha hovered vertical, scanning the landscape for the offending extractor unit.
Within the glimmering of a pecosecond the unit shimmered into view, a large, quadropedial tank-like shape, langishing sideways among the topsoil, tar lapping at it's sides. Only the quizzical probiscus of the extractor pipe was visually prominent, rising from the morass that enclosed it as a snorkle might, thirstily slurping at the air. Algae and small mushrooms had formed along the extractor's conical sides, no drift prominent, as though the extractor had been offline for several months, just another protruberance among the inhospitable landscape.
Alpha hovered, the fruit-fly warble of his engines dwindled into a dull whine as he approached the seething morass which slurped and bubbled hungrily around the sunken extractor, lapping at the walls. Only up close was Alpha fully able to appreciate its size, a colossal, slab-sided leviathan that groaned through the murk, intimidating in it’s bulk, dwarfing the parasitic drone under the shadow of it's significance.
Di’taraAlpha: “[Statement] _UNIT.Tv223.EX appears to be structurally sound; condition operable.”
The Command Unit, in it's wisdom, did not respond.
Di’taraAlpha: [Query] “Please state exactly how the Command Unit expects this unit to be able to lift an extractor 3.71352 times this Host Unit’s mass from tar mire by tractor beams alone? Situational data indicates a 58% probability of structural failure if this unit attempts such an improbable task individually.”
The Command Unit halted before responding, masticating it's answer between a grinder of a million minds.
Di'taraAlpha: "Requesting response".
Consensus Command Hub: "[Command] Di'tara unit, please restate the odds of a successful retrieval?"
Di'tara's next reply rang with sharpness, as though mildly peeved; "[Statement] the percentage odds still reside at 58%, as was pre-stated by _Unit Di'tara drone. This unit requests..." Cut Di'tara, "that the Command Unit provides a response based upon the intelligence provided by this Unit, at this time". Di'tara hissed, slakes of mud crisping solid as the Drone's shields flared unconsciously up.
Alpha's engines whined in the void.
The Command Unit remained implacable.
Consensus Command Unit: "The Consensus has conjoined over the issue. 58% failure probability is an acceptable risk assessment "[Command] Sentient _Di'taraAlpha will attempt to secure the drone unsupported".
Alpha (snapping): "Effective when?"
Command Unit: "As soon as _Di'tara intellect is capable... (nonplussed), is there an issue"?
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's Shipping Unions, retired from a life of piracy.)
Command Unit: “Empirical evidence and past communications concerning _Di'tara unit and _Di'tara unit's host character would indicate that “you” are evading the command, Di’tara unit. [Command] _Di’tara Unit will retrieve _Tv223c at this instance, immediately, not at Di'tara's discretion, nor will, nor prerogative, but at the discretion of the Consensus”.
Several plates on Di'tara's side ruffled slightly, as though perturbed.
Di'tara: "Is a replacement unit available?"
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's Shipping Unions, retired from a life of piracy.)