Leaning back in my chair, I watch over the display in front of me as our pilot carefully manoeuvers us through the asteroid field.
As commander of the Usagigant Carriot, I know a ship of our size and caliber has nothing to worry about, but you never know what kind of crazy active ordnance you might accidentally set off while floating through one of these giant graveyards. Plus, it’s just good practice in general.
“Commander!” One of my subordinates suddenly bursts into the room, sweeping back his floppy white ears from dangling over his face. “There’s a transmission for you. It’s... hard to decipher and it’s on a strange frequency but it appears to be one of our mineral cores.”
One of our mineral cores? An AI attached to a large, autonomous mining vessel that travels the galaxy in search of rare minerals before bringing it back to one of our processing worlds. It’s rare for one of them to try and contact us directly. And from an odd frequency too...
“Do we have any information on this core?”
“Well, it appears to be one that went missing over nine hundred cycles ago in an unexplored sector. We’ve had no other word on it until now.”
As huge as they are, it’s not completely unheard of for some of these mining vessels to go missing from time to time. As far as resource efficiency goes, leaving them to their own devices is still more beneficial than keeping constant tabs on them. Losing a single core every two hundred cycles or so doesn’t affect our bottom line too much. Although, for one that went missing nine hundred cycles ago to finally get in contact with us... It’s a little odd, to say the least.
“Very well,” I respond. “Patch it through.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
The man runs off again and, shortly after, one of my screens suddenly lights up, displaying a bizarre arrangement of coloured pixels. A hollow voice calls through the static, slowly becoming clearer and clearer.
“... ster, can you hear me? Master? Are you there?”
Master? Why would an AI be calling me...? No, I suppose it doesn’t matter. Let’s just find out what it wants.
“This is the commander of the Usagigant Carriot,” I reply. “State your reason for—”
“Surprise! Found you!”
Out of nowhere, I’m interrupted by the strange AI with a bizarre exclamation. Is it malfunctioning? There’s clearly something wrong with it...
“Ahem...” I clear my throat. “State your reason for contacting us.”
“Ah... Master...” it replies in its flat, feminine voice. “I’ve been trying to contact you for forever. I’m happy I finally got through.”
What does it mean it’s happy? It’s an AI. And why does it keep calling me Master? It didn’t even answer my question either! Either this thing is broken, or...
“It seems one of my predecessors may have instructed you to adopt a false personality or behave in a certain way. I don’t know what relationship you might have shared with them, but the commander of the Usagigant Carriot you once knew hasn’t been active in almost nine hundred cycles. As the current commander, I’m ordering you to return to your default disposition.”
“Huh? Predecessor?” the AI buzzes back. “I never met them. You’re the first Master I’ve talked to, Master.”
It is just broken!
“I-I see...” I reply. “Could I order you to at least stop calling me Master then?”
“Okay, Mama.”
“M-Master is fine... Please go back to Master...”
Ignoring the odd bugs in the clearly malfunctioning AI, I try to push on and get to the bottom of why it contacted me in the first place...
“Anyway,” I begin again. “Why have you been trying to get in contact with us? What is your current situation?”
The colourful static on my screen suddenly warps and transforms, rearranging the pixels on the display into a simplistic and pixelized face. Two dot eyes blink back at me as the single-lined mouth buzzes and vibrates with each hollow word from the AI’s voice.
“I've crash-landed, Master. Most of my systems were destroyed when I made impact with the planet's surface and I've been stuck here with no way to leave or contact home."
Crash-landed, did it? That would explain being missing for so long. It might even explain why the AI is so ridiculously broken. Though these mining vessels are obviously built sturdy enough to withstand the leaving and re-entering of multiple planets' atmospheres as well as having the appropriate shielding systems to assist with each landing, it wouldn't be impossible for one to crash had their shields been disrupted somehow upon impact...
“Hmm... Was it some kind of EMP storm undetectable from orbit?”
“No, Master,” it replies. “It was a woman.”
“Eh? You crash-landed because of a woman? What, some kind of intruder onboard your vessel?"
“No, Master. One of the inhabitants. I tried to land and she punched me.”
“One of the inhabitants... punched you? From the ground? While you were landing?”
“Yeah.”
“And that punch broke your shields as well as most of your systems...?”
“Yeah.”
“...”
It’s broken! This AI is totally broken beyond repair! Is there any point in even talking to this thing any longer? Nothing it tells me is of any use whatsoever. I’m considering just cutting this transmission, but I’m still somewhat curious about why it felt the need to contact me directly in the first place...
"After I crash-landed, most of my systems were broken so all I could do was sit here and try to contact home..." the AI continues, its single-line mouth turning downwards into a sad frown. "One day, the inhabitants made their way inside me and turned me into a prison. I managed to move my core into the lower levels which they haven't been able to access yet, but they managed to fix one of the elevators on the upper levels and build several more primitive ones on the middle levels. They even found a way to repurpose one of the organic stasis chambers into a holding container for one of their more dangerous criminals.”
“That’s... not ideal.”
The mining vessels have orders to not land on planets of a certain technological level. The fact that this vessel landed in the first place means the inhabitants of this planet must be incredibly primitive. However, if they’ve managed to find a way inside... I don’t really like the idea of leaving our technology in the hands of another civilization, no matter how primitive they are.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“And what about the defense systems?” I ask. “Broken on impact, I assume?”
“Mostly, Master. I was trying to hide it, but recently I was forced to activate them along with most of the mining drones to deal with some unwanted internal probing.”
“I see...” I reply. This AI might be malfunctioning, but if what it says is true, it probably made the right call there. “Good work, AI. Right now, what is your current—?”
“Surprise.” The broken AI interrupts me again out of nowhere with an odd comment.
“... What?”
“It’s my name,” the AI replies flatly, poking a simple pixelated tongue from its mouth and winking one of its dotted eyes. “The inhabitants named me Surstrom Spire, but it wasn’t very cute so I shortened it to Surprise. Please call me by my name, Master.”
“G-good work, Surprise...”
“Thanks, Master.” The face on my display beams happily with two blushing dots on each side of its smiling face. I guess I’ll just have to go along with this bugged program’s bizarre whims for the meantime...
“So,” I continue. “What is your current status after activating the defense systems?”
“Complete destruction beyond repair, Master.”
“... What?”
“Yeah... A lot of fighting from inside destroyed what was left of my internal systems and then the same woman from before came back and punched me again. All that’s left is my core. Right now, I’m using the last of my power to send you this transmission. This is all I have left, but I needed to make this report no matter what...”
“I see...” Ignoring the nonsensical comment about the ‘punching woman’, it seems I’m finally getting to the real reason why this AI felt the need to contact us. “And what do you have to report?”
“In the moment before crash-landing and all my systems were rendered inoperable, I managed to scan the planet for any useful minerals.”
“... And?”
“This planet has a large deposit of soulite.”
“—!” I feel my own floppy white ears spring up above my head at the surprising news. Immediately sitting forward in my seat, I face the screen with a more serious air. “How much?”
Soulite. The rarest and most unattainable source of energy in the entire universe. Discovering the existence of soulite several millennia ago was able to quickly kickstart our civilization to levels we first thought impossible. A single unit of this almost mythical mineral could power an entire planet for countless cycles. I know the Usagigant Carriot has been completely powered by a single unit of soulite for over a thousand cycles, giving it incredible capabilities no normal ship could possibly match. I also understand that warp technology wouldn’t exist today without it either. The discovery of soulite on a planet is an incredibly rare thing to happen upon.
“Seventy-seven,” the AI—Surprise—drones back.
“Seventy-seven units of soulite?! That’s... pretty good.”
It’s not just pretty good. It’s great. Seventy-seven units of soulite is incredible. It would go a long way towards making us—the Lepus—one of, if not, the most distinguished species in the galaxy. Seventy-seven units of soulite could mean seventy-seven more warp gates. Or seventy-seven more Gigant Series warships. Seventy-seven habitable planets. Seventy-seven mutant hyper-soldiers. Seventy-seven autonomous mineral cores. Seventy-seven units of soulite would open up so many more opportunities in such a short amount of time. Seventy-seven units of soulite could—
“No, not units,” the AI interrupts. “Seventy-seven percent.”
The image on the display suddenly changes—a rotating, three-dimensional scan of an unfamiliar planet replacing the pixelated face. A tiny, one-continent planet in the middle of a one-planet system in a faraway, unexplored sector. One of our warp gates is already orbiting the pitiful-looking world, acting as its one and only pseudo-moon. Back when we first discovered warp technology, we started haphazardly zapping these warp gates into random pockets of deep space with the notion that ‘we can always just warp them back anytime we want!’ That was a mistake. And we’re still in the incredibly slow process of recalling a great deal of them now. This complete waste of a warp gate is one of those that would definitely be on the recall list...
“Huh? Seventy-seven percent? What does that mean? Seventy-seven percent of what?”
“Seventy-seven percent of the planet is made up of soulite,” the AI answers back.
...
“... Huh?” My voice cracks as a confused squeak escapes my lips and I find myself tipping out of my seat.
“Seventy-seven percent of the planet is made up of soulite,” it repeats.
“Th-that’s not... Even for a single-continent planet of this size, that has to be over one hundred trillion units!” I shout up from my new position on the floor.
“Yeah.”
“No! Don’t just ‘yeah’ me! Do you know how stupid that sounds?! One hundred trillion! That’s barely even a real number! It’s the kind of number a child would make up to win some kind of pointless playground argument! That’s not a real thing!”
That’s not possible. I don’t believe it. Even looking at the 3D scan with my own eyes and seeing the large density of the purple mineral spreading out from the planet’s core with entire veins branching up to the surface, I still don’t believe it. Especially since this information comes from a clearly malfunctioning AI...
Or maybe it’s not malfunctioning...? Maybe this is...
“AI— Surprise..." Standing up, I climb back into my seat and address the AI by name. "... Are you currently under the effects of a soulite-induced mutation?"
If 77% of this planet is made up of soulite, it’s entirely possible this AI isn’t malfunctioning, it’s just been mutated by the bizarre, unexplainable power of the mass amounts of soulite it’s suddenly been exposed to.
Many experiments have been made on this rare and mysterious mineral to gain insight into its almost limitless power—both technological and organic experiments. Many of these experiments result in some form of mutation, granting the affected victim some bizarre and often dangerous abilities.
As ridiculous as it sounds, an AI gaining sentience and a strange personality isn’t something I would put past the powers of soulite. I’ve definitely heard stranger reports from some of the experiment results...
“Dunno,” it replies. “But I started feeling weird ever since I scanned the planet.”
Of course... Scanning a planet sends out a planet-wide signal, momentarily ‘activating’ any dormant minerals beneath the surface in order to track its location. However, activating over one hundred trillion units of soulite—even for just a moment—is bound to cause some cases of mutation to occur, I’m sure.
I wonder if any of the inhabitants have been affected by a mutation as well...
“I see...” I finally utter after some thought. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Surprise. I’ll be sending someone to check it out immediately. I’ll have them retrieve your core while they’re at it. Good work out there.”
The 3D scan warps back into the simple and pixelized face of Surprise. It smiles happily at me one last time with its dotted eyes and single-lined mouth—
“Ah... Thank you, Master...”
—And then the transmission cuts out, returning to nothing but a blank screen.
...
Regaining my composure, I tap a button on my console, patching me through to one of my subordinates onboard the ship.
“Get me in contact with another of the Virtuous Seven immediately,” I instruct.
“Yes, Ma'am! Which one would like to contact?”
“Whichever one of them is closest to a warp gate.”
Any of those six powerhouses should be able to check the validity of this information while dealing with the inhabitants as they see fit. The main thing here is to play this carefully and not let this information get out. If the rest of the galaxy finds out about this, there’d be no stopping the all-out galactic war that would result from it.
“Patching you through to Humility now, Commander Temperance.”
I still don’t believe it, but if there truly are one hundred trillion units of soulite in there, of course, extracting it would mean the death of the planet and, by extension, all of its inhabitants, but that shouldn't pose any kind of problem for us. I mean, it’s not like a bunch of primitives could put up much resistance against an entire galactic armada, right?
I'd sooner believe in one hundred trillion units of soulite than something as ridiculous as that happening...