The encounter was so unexpected that Alissa actually checked to see if those “things” were an artifact of the software she was using. She literally couldn’t think of anything else that explained them their appearance or how they had gotten so close without being noticed.
Nova was equally surprised and couldn’t come up with anything either, aside from a subroutine that was saying remarkably nasty things about her competence, and another that had gone into an emergency analysis of how the “things” escaped notice of the sensors without the aid of any advanced technology.
Both parties stood looking at each other neither apparently expecting what stood before them the “things” were standing mouths open with occasional grunting sounds that might have been language and glances at each other, then looking back at Alissa. The actions were so reminiscent of confusion that Alissa reflexively checked behind her to see if there was something causing that confusion. However, she was the only one there and the “things” were most definitively looking at her.
“Uhm… Nova, what the fuck are those and how the hell did they get there?” She asked aloud in a surprisingly calm and even voice.
“Uhhh… Designating new species number: 000001. Unknown likely local inhabitants of this environment. As for how they got there…” came Nova’s immediate reply.
“Thanks, that isn’t helpful at all. I hate this place! Can you at least tell me if that noise is a language?” Alissa had only sarcastic things to say here.
“Unknown.”
“Great just freaking great, your only one of the smartest and most powerful AI’s produced, and you’ve got nothing.” Alissa rolled her eyes at the expected but annoying answer from her not so helpful helper.
At this point Nova was getting nervous, it was becoming readily apparent that Alissa was in a mood, and she wasn’t over this place trying to screw with her. Nova’s worries were more toward how a group of distasteful but sentient beings might help them survive while being certain that Alissa was going to be less than diplomatic, maybe even taking her anger out on the “things” standing at the entrance. Nova really had little idea of how Ally would react without the constraints of her old life holding her back while she was this pissed off. Nova also had data that indicated that peaceful cooperation was unlikely as species # 000001 were showing aggressive, pack hunting behavior. They were obviously carnivorous based on their teeth and IF, and it was a big if, her sensors were right showed signs of viewing her ward as a sexual partner even getting blatantly aroused.
Now Alissa didn’t consciously process all the information the sensors in her body and her bodysuit had, that information was filtered into her subconscious. The “things” in question 19 in total were bipedal humanoids that had hunched shoulders, eyes that showed a faint red glow, drooling mouths filled with sharp, dirty, and crooked teeth. Ragged greasy and clumped hair on their heads. Dressed in loincloths at best, most being naked, and definitively male. 16 of them were smaller with pale skin that lacked pigmentation (somewhat confirming them being deep cave dwellers), allowing Alissa to see the blood vessels near the surface and some bones and organs covered with dirt and caked on grime. Skeletally thin standing at just under a meter tall on average, four fingered hands with opposable thumbs tipped with jagged and filthy talons, gripping tools that ranged from what looked like crude bone and stone “weapons” to poorly forged rusted or corroded and discolored metal tools.
The three others looked to be leaders of the group they had some muscle over their bones, not much just enough to stand out in comparison to their “companions” standing roughly a head taller than the others, wearing a bit of bone ornamentation. Some pieces acting as rough piercings alongside what looked like ritualistic scaring and slightly tribal “painting” of foul looking grime onto the dark gray to nearly black skin. They also had faint hints of bony protuberances growing from their skull in varying places with no order or symmetry. The largest stood in the center with a remarkably poor vest made of what appeared to the same type of skin as the smaller creatures reinforced with some bone, but oddly no covering of its lower body.
“That one is the leader.” Alissa thought.
It was just standing there staring at her vulgarly. Strangely she felt like she knew what that stare meant it was so similar to some she had seen before. She was no stranger to being parts of the fantasies of others, from sick bastards who looked at pictures of her as a child at her birthday party at the palace, to those who hung pictures of her in the sometimes skimpy clothing at a beach or the pool. To the morons she met when outside the palace when shopping or at clubs, either thinking that a few words meant they were going to get lucky, or the rare and delusional few who thought that she would just jump in bed with them for “reasons”. She knew what she looked like and that she had formed the center of more than a few peoples intimate fantasies, but seeing this filthy creature staring at her tits with a dumb look on its face, eyes filled with lust and a member showing quite clearly what it wanted, well… she was already in a bad mood and more than ready to stomp someone’s ass into the ground. Two things held her back, first they were outside the field that she couldn’t leave (something that gave her a whole new appreciation for how animals at a zoo felt) , and she was aware that while they would never get what they seemed to want from her, despite their primitive appearance these things could be a solution to her problems. Maybe. Probably not. She was not that lucky.
After a few actual minutes of stating at each other, and the primitive creatures seeming to be working themselves up into a frenzy. The obnoxious sounds they made growing in volume. While highly unlikely that such primitively armed creatures could be a threat, especially with so few. Technology doing such wonderful things to reduce the advantage of numbers after all. Her bodyguards had a thing they did a final resort they had called it “protecting her for the beyond”, paranoid fuckers that they were, all of them planned to fail. That at some point despite their best efforts and all their sacrifice, she would be left to fend for herself. An absolute worst case scenario for those guarding the Imperial family, so there was only one thing to do and that was to impart the skills needed to survive onto their ward and hope that the combination made the difference. It helped that every member of the Imperial family was expected to lead and participate if war broke out, but it was only paranoia if they weren’t out to get you, and someone was always out to get those standing at the top.
Alissa had no intention of underestimating these creatures and getting the nasty surprise. Because of course it would be nasty you so rarely got nice surprises for underestimating the people trying to harm you. So despite believing it unnecessary she activated the Advanced Aegis defense system in her bodysuit. Eight focus lenses floated into position spacing themselves out from ankle to waist height ready to react and good for three shots before needing recharge in her current environment. She also pulled the defensive memory metal multi-tool from where it was clipped on the side of her left thigh out, activating blade mode. The metal flowed into a shape even these primitives would recognize a double edged sword with a nearly monomolecular blade as long her arm from pit to extended fingertips (some resistance actually being helpful when fighting as it could provide more options, and using a edged weapon that passed through just about everything without apparent resistance was surprisingly difficult to master requiring a unique way of fighting), an eighteen centimeter guard, handle long enough to use two hands and a solid hexagonal pommel with a cone shaped point at the end. It was light and well balanced enough to use easily with one hand while offering the option of increasing the power with two handed strikes. The material allowed her power freely to flow acting similarly to the focus lenses, the only difference was that the power source was not independent with the blade, she had to power it herself. If she wanted as a nearly monomolecular edge found that remarkably little stopped it.
Despite being young for her people Alissa had access to some of the best instructors money could buy and was considered to be one of if not the best swordsman of her age group she had given masters a run for their money on several occasions where they truly sparred in as close to real combat as possible where she could overwhelm them with power. Everything she knew about fighting classified these creatures as brawlers, they learned through trial and error on unforgiving battlefields not though training, dangerous enough in that they would use their weapons but lacking the scientific approach to the best and most efficient methods of killing that trained killers had.
As soon as the blade formed in her hand and Aegis lenses took position, the creatures charged. Screaming and spreading into a single file v-like formation with the largest three at the center.
“Well that settles that, it seems peaceful options are off the table. Guess I’ll just have to ask them… politely to stop.” Snorting at a joke she had heard so many times and the sheer insanity of the attacking someone with her tools this way.
As soon as the creatures passed the edge of the field she activated Aegis and eight lines of eye searing violet energy lanced out spread wide, then closed tracing a complex geometric path across the room. Leaving nowhere for the “things” to hide and closing to an intersection a few meters in front of Alissa so fast it was only seen as the afterimage on the retinas.
As they passed the cut precise lines across and through both the physical features of the room, and did horrible things when it met flesh not cutting so much as creating line of miniscule explosions vaporizing the fluids stored in cells. The creatures didn’t fall apart so much as they where violently torn apart limbs flying though the air and leaving a fine red mist behind in the gaps that used to part of their bodies.
Stolen story; please report.
Surprisingly the larger three survived what she thought would be a violent and quick death. Leaving only deep, but probably mortal wounds, but there limbs were still attached so silver lining for them. It wasn’t going to change their fate as Alissa closed the remaining distance blade in her left hand.
The first slash came up flicking out and took the leader through the throat opening it to the spine spraying blood in a near perfect arc with the tip of the blade. Taking a step to the right keeping the leaders body between her and the third creature on the left. She followed by pushing the tip of the sword from its current height into the chest of the creature on the right. Recovering after she felt the tell tale signs of a muscle clenching on her blade telling her she had hit the heart. She rotated and brought the blade down vertically with all the force she could muster splitting the last creature from collar bone to crotch. Its insides mostly deciding that the outside was a nice place falling wetly out and onto the ground much like a gutted fish, followed by a life ending amount of blood.
Keeping her eye on the dying creatures she stepped away a vicious smile on her face and feeling like she had gotten some of what this world owed her back. A slight skittering from the tunnel brought that feeling back to rock bottom as she saw a final one of the pale creatures flee out of sight.
“Great, just fucking great. Now I need to think about defenses earlier than planned.” She sighed “Nova add it to the to-do list would you.” Receiving a mental note of acknowledgement in reply.
Walking over to the river and washing the blade she stored it back into its proper position. She quickly finished the survey of the space and got to setting up her other tools finally getting ready to do some serious work. While it might be nothing the one that had fled might return with friends she had to politely ask to stop. She hadn’t truly gotten the joke before, one she learned from her bodyguards, now she kind of did and was further convinced that they had remarkably dark senses of humor.
The bodyguards of the Imperial family known colloquially as “The Empress’ Own” (since her mother was the current empress) where fanatically loyal and the meanest, deadliest, best trained and supplied beings produced by Voidborne society, not really part of the military they were household troops limited is size and actions by tight political and governmental constraints. However they were frequently deployed to deal with the fucktards of the galaxy that some governmental bodies wanted to ignore. When the Imperial family sent their personal soldiers to ‘politely’, always politely as manners were important, tell a slaving or raiding fucktard to stop being a fucktard things got real serious really quickly. Surprisingly they did, every time… there where no repeats simply one less idiot roaming around all through the power of persuasion, apparently you just needed the right people to deliver the message. Who knew? They never became a problem and the issue that got them noticed never cropped back up with their involvement sooo… all’s well that ends well.
In any case she approached the ledge as she was going to use it to deploy her nano-swarm and clean up this mess. The palm sized three sided pyramid was placed at the edge of the plateau one face standing perpendicular to the floor and facing the entrance. The device rapidly expanded to roughly waist height and disgorged a visible cloud of nano-bots into the air where they rapidly began to swarm towards the bodies so rudely left behind by her guests. Several branches began to flow towards the debris on the ground either collecting it or moving out to fill the cracks and holes in the cavern.
The goal was to level the floor and plug unnecessary openings in the walls and ceiling before smoothing them out. For that the swarm needed materials, harvested from the environment the majority of these materials would be used for construction, a small amount would return to the base station to create new workers or repair damaged ones in a ludicrously complex dance. The material not used was going to be stored for other purposes.
The other thing Alissa did was place the matter to energy converter below the station on the cavern floor proper it would be capable of powering the initial builds she needed. It unfolded into a balloon like structure with geometric faces, like a tent with a lot of supports but remained flat where the ledge was going to made into a vertical face.
Sighing Alissa knew that there was a ton of work to still do so she got to planning out what was needed while the swarm began its harvesting. The one that escaped worried her, almost as much as the three large one all surviving Aegis.
Granted it hadn’t been at full power due to the visible technological level of the creatures, and they were almost certainly fatal hits in the long run but it shouldn’t have been possible.
“Nova please prioritize the study of those things, I need to know how to counter them and what level of defenses are necessary. I doubt they were the best representatives of their species.” After receiving an affirmative answer she mumbled “Just screw this planet. Locals that survive against an advanced Aegis system what else could possibly go wrong… Bad things I’m going to do bad things to its designer for failing to take this into consideration… also …” she continued to talk to herself as she laid out the first designs to hopefully begin dealing with the toxic energy in the environment.
~ * ~
Nova had been just as shocked as Alissa at Aegis failure to deal with the situation. She had remained quite because the situation didn’t need her input. She had continued to designate places around the room for removal and monitored the updating layout to insure that the program didn’t make a mistake.
This was her way of helping behind the scenes. Most Voidborne needed little incentive to fight when needed so she had little worry that Ally fail to act and losing wasn’t perceived as a likely outcome, it hadn’t stopped her from lining up another set of shots from Aegis, but as expected it was unnecessary. Her creators hadn’t stood at the top of the hierarchy by being shrinking violets, they were apex predators and those who forgot that typically found they couldn’t pay the price. Alissa had the same instincts that her ancestors did, a beast ready to be loosed without remorse or pity upon those who threatened her.
While thinking about this she participated in the designing of what Alissa had planned mostly fixing small errors and looking for what the purpose of this part or that part. She also ensured the Nano-swarm was prioritizing properly, there was little chance it would get out of hand but little boosts in efficiency could mean the difference between life and death right now, and there was only so much intelligence that could be packed into even a swarm of billions of robots linked via a quantum network operating out of a survival base station.
~ * ~
Clack was a goblin born in the deep caverns of the beneath. He was not a particularly impressive representative of his species the only thing that made him stand out was a slightly higher sense of self preservation. Named supposedly for the sound his skull made when slammed into a wall, but really it was a loose rock his skull had dislodged hitting at the same time, at least that was his story. Was unique in that he knew he was stupid, weak, and clumsy. This made him avoid behaviors that got most of his spawning killed.
You see he didn’t particularly try hard, he found in the his sustenance in the place others of his people wouldn’t look. He didn’t scramble for the best food, try to breed females, or challenge for position in his tribe as those fights would have meant his death. He liked living, he had no idea why, however his natural cowardice kept him alive when other survived by being strong. He hid instead of fighting, and only when victory was assured would he come out and kill those who were too weak to defend themselves.
In short his only redeeming quality was a slightly heightened sense of self-awareness that gave him the instincts to “nope” out of the types of situations that were a leading cause of death among his people.
He had been a part of Gulp’s hunting party mostly as a scavenger, trying and usually succeeding at remaining unnoticed. While skirting the line of doing dangerous things, like walking. While remaining useful without being seen a lazy gob that wouldn’t pull his own weight unless forced.
Honestly that was a mean thing to say, it was true, but they said it like they wouldn’t laze about if given the chance. Every gob knew that working hard meant you were doing something wrong.
In any case Nap lazy bastard that he was thought he had heard something screaming when they were resting after a day of searching for food, while patrolling the tunnels that the Crooked Nose tribe “owned”. So they went looking… and found a scary maybe, probably elf lady in a room.
Clack had stayed back because monsters could sneak up on them if someone wasn’t watching. It was most definitely not because he thought the elf was scary. He was thinking ahead, yea that was it, what the crap was an elf doing here. It was suspicious. So while “watching” for monsters he saw the scary elf kill the WHOLE group. This confirmed for Clack that Gulp was stupid and he was smart for staying behind.
Gulp was a stupid hob, even stupider than Clack and now Gulp was dead. Even Clack as stupid as he was, could see that messing with the elf lady with glowing eyes was dumb. And only the dumbest of the dumb would think a pathetic group like Gulp’s had a chance. Those eyes were scary, and scary meant dangerous, even smart goblins that didn’t hide when confronting dangerous glow eyed creatures died. And this elf didn’t seem to want them near that floaty, shiny thing.
Clack knew what was going on, the glowing eyed demon bitch was guarding a Thing. The type of Thing that he had to tell the elders about. Not something he looked forward to, although he might die on his way back. At least it would save him a beating in front of the whole tribe while he told the lies he had to. No way was he telling them that he hid and let the stupid head Gulp die, no he would say he was told to stay back. That was a punishment for Clack. Yes that would work he thought. He would explain that he had wanted a turn at the elf, and a chance to fight, but Gulp punished him by making him guard the opening to the cavern. That he didn’t try to kill the scary elf because he saw the Thing. Every goblin of his tribe knew what a Thing was, a shiny rock in the air. Yes it was Gulp’s fault he wanted the elf to himself and to keep the Thing. The elders would believe that Gulp was ambitious that he wanted the chiefs place, or to be an elder and to get the females fawning over him and worshiping at his feet.
“Only and idiot would think she wasn’t dangerous, I mean she’s here and here is not safe. We’re hear after all.” He muttered as he valiantly ran to tell the elders what he had seen. It would be a long journey almost a week to return, but staying was worse. “Shining lights and goblins fly apart, then she just chops the rest up. Could barely see her move she was so fast, definitely not a place for Clack only dumb gobs would try.” He briefly paused thinking about how glorious that would be, all the gobs dumber than him dying, as long as he didn’t have to go he could use this to rule the tribe. All the scary members were dumber than him as far as he was concerned “Then Clack will be the boss.”
He did know how unlikely this was and didn’t really have to courage to try and force it but a gob could dream, right?
After making up the true story of Gulps death and avoiding having to take any responsibility Clack moved back towards the tribes village. Hoping he wouldn’t run into anything else, but he ran fast so that was good.