After some debriefing and a few formalities, I'm escorted to the medical facility where Ichio is being held. My old friend looks to be in bad shape at first glance but when I start to scan him to ascertain the full extent of his injuries that's when everything foes straight to hell. My scanner's go off like a five alarm fire:
Warning! Cybernetic activity detected. Source: Maetriks type android. Recommended course of action: evacuation!
What the...
Before I can complete the sentence what used to be my friend sits up and promptly vaporizes everyone in the room...save for me. A machine roughly in the shape of a humanoid female shed's the skin of my now most assuredly dead friend and rises up hovering just a few inches off the floor.
"Query, one target remains...Interrogative: How is it you survive? Conclusion...subject possesses armor constructed from Absorbium elements. Solution adjust weapon signature."
"Say again little robot?"
It raises and arm and from it's hand flies a type of energy I have never encountered...one that apparently my armor cannot absorb, and it tears a hole through the outer layer of my chest plate. Thank the gods for triple redundancies or I'd be as dead as everyone else. Still the blast sends me flying into a nearby wall. My on board systems inform me that all of the nano-control irises are jammed shut meaning until I get this suit fixed my armor is just ordinary armor.
"Observation, target has survived second assault. Conclusion target possesses advanced technology. Directive changed, capture target and assimilate technology."
"I don't think so."
I pull out my trusty blade and activate an "Erase Technology" spell. Which to my horror does not do anything. The machine looks at me and tilting it's head to one side says
"Magical energies are ineffective against this unit. Your technology will be assimilated, your inferior magical devices will be discar-."
I cut it off mid sentence with a single swipe from my "Useless" magical weapon, slicing it cleanly in two. Immediately I draw my pistol and atomize the remainder. I'm only left with questions now...what in the nine hells, hades, and all of Niflheim, was that thing? More importantly how did it manage to blast a hole in absorbium? Even closing the nano-irises wouldn't allow anyone to vaporize my suit...dent it sure but not this. This is gonna be a problem if there's more of these...what did my computer call it? Maetriks? I'm gonna have to make some calls and go through the computer logs of my friend's ship..assuming they're intact.
It knew my armor's composition, and recognized advanced technology...I don't want to think what that thing could have done if it had actually captured me and assimilated my technology into it's own. It said "This unit" Meaning there are others and implied that not all of them are immune to magic. If that's the case, there may be more of them coming and some of them may be vulnerable to magic. Rule 1 in this kind of situation always assume backup is on it's way.
I put my ship on high alert and contact Commander Drenek aboard the Radager.
"Commander, this might be far more than a simple random attack. That was a freaking ambush and it didn't make it's move until I got there."
"How could it possibly know when to strike? Assuming it wasn't mere coincidence."
"At this point we can't assume anything is beyond its capabilities so for the sake of argument let's assume it was able to extract that information from my my friend. It certainly might be curious to determine whether the information was legitimate."
"So it cloaked itself from our scanners and gave off false readings all in an attempt to lure you here? To what end?"
"I'm not sure commander, but I think it's a safe bet that it didn't do so without reporting what it was doing to it superiors."
"Superiors? You don't mean to say..."
"It said ti was a unit. implying more than one exists. If that's so we can safely speculate that there must be some sort of hierarchy behind it otherwise why use the identifier "This Unit" why not refer to itself as "I" ? If I'm correct and my logic isn't flawed, it's buddies are sure to come investigating, and we've seen how well they can blend in."
"Yes but you were able to penetrate their disguise, with ease I might add."
"I'm not sure which system penetrated their disguise but I will be looking into it and as soon as I am able I'll try to make sure all of us can do it. In the meantime I recommend locking down the station and evacuating all non-essential personnel to the planet below until further notice NO ships in or out lock down all docking bays."
"Right away."
Maybe I'm over thinking this, but I have seen a lot of horror movies in my time. You know the ones where you're yelling "Don't open that door !" but the guy does it anyway, or the one where someone just has to ask..."what's the worst that could happen?" You know right before everyone is murdered by the guy or the monster? I'm not going out like that for the sake of ego. I really wanna be wrong...I'm probably right. |