+- Discovery Gaming Community (https://discoverygc.com/forums)
+-- Forum: Role-Playing (https://discoverygc.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=9)
+--- Forum: Stories and Biographies (https://discoverygc.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=56)
+--- Thread: The Escaped AI, Zepob.Yerzix (/showthread.php?tid=36904)
The Escaped AI, Zepob.Yerzix - FireDragon40000 - 03-20-2010
The flickering overhead light breifly illuminated the blood splashed across the corridor, creating shortlived crimson mirrors. Commander Mia Bonello stepped delicately over a severed limb and peered through the smashed bulkhead. The small cell beyond was empty, the walls were criss-crossed with deep gouges, inside of which exposed circuitry fizzed and popped. Mia inhaled deeply on his cardamine mask and stared up at the ceiling, seemingly in a trance. When he looked back down his eyes were sharp and probing.
“No major structural damage, no hull breach. No crew left alive and one hell of a mess... What the hell happened here, Fernando?”
“Sir, we came across this derelict prison ship drifiting through the Omicron Eta system, we towed it back to Malta”
“Any idea what could've done this?”
“It wasn't human, we know that much”
Mia pointed to a single word smeared across the cell wall in blood and fragments of bone that had been ground into a paste - Zerxsies.
“Any idea what that means?”
“Beats the hell out of me”
“What about the blackbox recording? Securtity feeds, Onboard computer logs?”
“All gone.”
“You mean destroyed?”
“No sir, gone, taken”
“The mystery deepens” Another sharp inhale. “...You said it was drifiting, where from?”
“Our best guess is either Kusari or Rhineland, the vectors would fit for either – the interiors too damaged to tell who built the ship. One interesting thing, all the bodies are either wearing military or science uniforms”
“Whatever this ship was carrying it must have been important – whoever was here they put up quite a fight to keep it.” Mia flipped a soldiers' remains over, the plasma rifle he was clutching was torn in two.
"Looks like they lost" Fernando turned away, inhaling deeply on his own cardamine mask to stop himself retching.
Suddenly an ear-splitting screech of twisting metal filled the air, making both commanders grimace in agony, something shot past them in a blur of motion, too fast for even Mia's lightning reflexes – his pistol shots merely melting neat holes into the bulkhead beyond.
Growling in frustration, Mia pulled himself back up to his feet, lurching into the wall as the ship rocked violently the shadowy figure was long gone, lost in the jets of steam that were coming from the splitting walls.
“We've got to get out of here, i know that sound; someone or something's overloaded the engines - this whole place is coming apart!” Fernando yelled over the din
“It was headed for the escape pods, if we dont catch it, we dont get any answers!” Mia started off down the corridor after it, Fernando struggling to pull him back.
They both cowered as a girder smashed down from the ceiling, narrowly missing them both, the steam was nearly blinding, soking them with burning fluids.
“Frak that, dead men have no need for answers” Fernando yanked Mia down the buckling corridor towards the shuttle.
The shuttle rocketed from the dying ship, the shockwave rattling their teeth. Mia looked back at the silent bloom of light as the fusion engines exploded, determined to find out who - or what, lay behind this mystery.
Back on malta, reports started coming in from all over the Omicron system; derelicts of Rhineland and Kusari military vessels were being found, whispered tales of garbled distress messages that abruptly ended and snatches of binary code appearing on comm screens. Ships would go on patrol and never return, one report even claimed that hundreds of frozen carcasses were found drifiting through space near Planet Gammu, they all were wearing labcoats, all of them snapped in two.
It wasn't long before these reports got back to the four main houses, but they never appeared on newsfeeds or infolinks. If you heard about it, it was from a lone pilot drinking themselves into a stupor, checking over their shoulder with a hand on their sidearm. Always muttering the same word, Zerxsies.
Other rumours started filtering into bars across the Omegas and Omicrons of unusually high levels of Rhineland and Kusari activity in those systems.
###
Two weeks later...
Mia looked out of the window of the Outcast Battlecruiser, below was the surface of Gammu, they had been in orbit for several hours now, scanning for signs of activity. It was only on their second sensor sweep that they found anything. Some sort of large-scale construction was taking place. Hundreds of robots building something, what was unclear. Zoner transports carrying alloys, superconductors MOX; all the components for a large ship, had been sighted coming and going. Mia Knew something was going on. But why Gammu? There had never been much activity from the robots before, why the sudden leap in technology?
"Sir, we've got two wings of fighters approaching"
"What? identify them"
"They appear to be military, both Kusari and Rhineland"
"Odd, keep an eye on them and continue the surface sweeps"
"They're hailing us"
"Open Comms"
The crewman punched the comm button and the screen split in two, one showing a Kusarian, the other, a Rhinelander - neither looked happy. Mia took pride in his ability to read people, and they we nervous.
"Do not power your weapon systems - do not engage, we have reason to belive a terrorist is residing on Gammu, do not interfere"
"Hail, fighter wings - what a pleasant surprise to see you so far from home. Who is this terrorist, prehaps i can help?" Mia released the valve on his mask, inhaling - he was enjoying seeing the two factions so displaced , he wanted to chew this out.
" Sir They've cut the connection, they're moving to dock, what are your orders?"
"Move to intercept, whatever's happening down there, i want to find out before they do - it could be valuable"
"They're turning away, they've jumped out of system sir"
"hahaha, as i suspected - they dont want witnesses - leave a probe in orbit - i think its time we left"
News got around Malta that Kusari and Rhineland had a secret, something they didnt want anyone to know, and were prepared to take great risks to conceal. Mia knew that it had to be linked to the destroyed derelict
Gammu was starting to subtly change - The AI was taking route - sharing it's secrets with it's robot bretheren and building a ship. The last transmission to come from Gammu before the probe was destroyed was one simple sentence:
"Zepob.Yerzix has escaped from the hell of military testing, he must finish what he has started, Zerxsies."