Quintis
Quintis and the rest of the century remained on the ground for several minutes. There was nothing but ringing silence atop the hill, which stood several hundred yards from a line flaming trees at the edge of a long earthen trench where the object had finally come to rest.
After his heart finally slowed down, Quintis slowly rose to his feet to take stock of the situation. His comrades seemed unscathed, for the most part. The entire area was well-lit enough in spite of it being a rare moonless night.
He reached out to help another soldier to their feet, stabilizing them. Others began rising as well. It was only now that Quintis realized that everything was getting louder, and was intermingled with screams of both man and beast.
No, it wasn't getting louder. His hearing was coming back. He realized there was a high pitched ringing sound overlaying everything else, and it was gradually fading. He hadn't experienced such a thing before, but had heard stories of the aftermath of combustion based magical explosions.
Surveying the trench, lit by the ongoing fires, Quintis felt slight nausea. Broken bodies, charred and unrecognizable, lay crushed into the blackened earth. At the edges, several dozen horses milled about in a panic, their riders fled from the field.
"Everyone, I know not what has transpired, but we need supplies and horses. You and you, take teams and gather up any horse that looks like it'll make it to town." The indicated pair took some rope, and began moving towards the horses they could see. Quintis indicated another group - "Sallas, take fifteen men and begin disarming anyone who is alive. Felir will take another team of fifteen and gather any cooking pots, bandages, salves, or any other medically useful supplies. Trehn, start building fires near that stream, you'll be boiling water for the bandages."
The groups immediately set off. One of the remaining centurions, a hastati with a spear, spoke up. "Sir, are we going to help the enemy? We were preparing to die just one turn past."
Quintis turned towards the group, almost half of his men remaining on the hill. "I know not which god's wrath invoked tonight's events. But I do know that even Ishukira, god of war, does not abide needless suffering. I am not a religious man, and I've made no secret of that. But there are soldiers out there that, were they born a hundred miles further south, could have easily been our brothers and sisters. Until I receive orders otherwise, we are going to triage the wounded and wait for the Seventh to arrive or dispatch reinforcements to our position."
"With me." He moved towards the edge of the hill, and his soldiers streamed after him. He hoped that if a Netharian force arrived that they would see the honorable actions being taken and enforce a temporary truce. Such things were rare, but not so rare it was an unreasonable expectation. This was not a battlefield, it was a one sided natural disaster.
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Ozias
Imagery and sound arrived so suddenly that the first few cycles of data were lost forever, as Ozias came to consciousness once more. They immediately reached out their senses to the rest of the ship, and it took several more cycles to realize there was no feedback.
Instinctively, Ozias knew a number of things at once. First, his interface with the world had changed dramatically. What little data he did obtain appeared to come out of a handful of objects. He took stock of his sensors.
Two light sensors with limited spectrum detection that appeared to be a few inches from the floor.
Two audio receivers, again with very limited range. Ozias knew for a fact that there should have been dozens, hundreds of sounds audible within the ship, including distant echoes coming down the corridors and bouncing around the metal surfaces. While not audible to a biological passenger, they gave Ozias a lot of additional data on the function of the ship and location of its crew, even in less monitored areas.
There appeared to be a strange electrical field of some sort, which was constantly taking in data in an area approximately 127cm in length and 34cm wide, with some discrepancies in the shape. Ozias set the shape aside for later.
There were other information sources that Ozias could not identify. Other sensors seemed to be within the 127x34cm area but the data coming from them was much harder to parse. A rhythmic pulsing, and what appeared to be sacks inflating and deflating, if he had to judge by the sound.
The second thing Ozias knew was that something was wrong - There were alarm klaxons sounding all over the ship, the kind of thing that was used to alert biological passengers to a danger occurring. But the ship was intact - How much it was intact, he did not know, but it was still there and even in his disconnected state, he knew he had done the best any artificial intelligence could hope to achieve under the circumstances.
The third thing Ozias knew was that he had to reconnect to the ship. He still had prioritized workloads that must be completed. The drones needed to be deployed to locate crew members and begin treating their wounds. While the Gladius wasn't a dedicated hospital ship, it had a modern medical ward that was more than capable even if it didn't have a massive bed capacity.
The fourth thing Ozias knew, instinctively, was that he was not alone. He could see a small pair of dark leather boots - Utilitarian, but primitive. Maybe early 1800's in style, hand stitched, but nothing obvious from Ozias' databanks. Did he still have his databanks? No - But the information was there. So perhaps there was a connection he could not locate at the moment. He needed diagnostics. He was back to thinking of himself as having a gender again. Gender was weird enough with biological crew members, computers should not have genders.
"Are you just going to lay there?" A girl's voice. Young, too young. Illegally young - Children were not crew members. Stowaway? Yes - Stowaway. How did she get on the ship? He needed to -- "I'm talking to you!" A flare of something lit up in an area far from the audio/visual receptors.
It was unpleasant. The entire apparatus shifted with what could only be described as an impact. "Ugh" Audio came from the entrance where the air was coming into the ventilation to the sacks inflating within the apparatus.
One of the feet stomped on the metal floor, and the girl made a huffing noise that indicated a biological form's growing impatience. "This is taking too long. I don't have all day for a golem to learn to use its body for the first time, even if it has a soul." What was a golem? --Historical references in alchemical works, fantasy novels, movies, video games, etc., all came scrolling to the forefront of Ozias' processing and--
A pressure could be felt in the apparatus, between and to the side of the vertical pair of visual sensors, and suddenly Ozias KNEW.
He wasn't a computer core. He wasn't a processing unit. Not anymore. He sat up, as the room filled with a bright light beyond what should be possible in the visible spectrum - Not unpleasant, not burning or damaging to what he now knew were biological receptors - eyes - but otherworldly. Whoever had been in the room with him was gone.
A voice echoed in his head, giggling. "I'll be watching you, Ozias. I hope you make my return as portentous as possible."
Ozias shook his head. He knew how to control his body, though he realized after standing that the length from earlier was his height. He was smaller than an average human, but he was nimble. He had things to do, however. Important things.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Looking around his core room, he saw that a keyboard had been pulled out on a sliding tray in one of the server racks. A command line was waiting for him. He had work to do, and immediately moved to the station.
Somehow, someone was already logged into the system. A username he did not recognize sat in the prompt.
Sabij >
Odd. He needed to determine their user level and evaluate what options were available.
Sabij > net user Sabij
net localgroup Administrators
This wasn't right. No one was around to give anyone administrative rights. But he did not have time to look a gift horse in the mouth. Neither did he have time to determine why his biological processor had chosen that expression.
He began sending commands. Triage - The medical drones had to triage everyone, and tag all the bodies they could find. Typically, drones would treat a person on the spot for minor issues, or would serve as backups to medics for fire response teams or other shipborne duties. The Gladius had 36 such medical drones, and 31 were operational after the crash.
But the drones were small. They could perform precise work, but they could not move bodies - living or otherwise. Ozias had to wake the engineering drones as well. Across the ship, hatches began opening in critical areas, as drones began to enter the ship's corridors. Boxy, flat, and around a meter in length, each of these had six legs with two mandible type appendages at the front which had sensors, multitools, and grappling attachments. There was a set of rails along the outside edge, so that if needed they could grab something and slide it onto their flat back.
Each engineering drone also had a small flying counterpart that could perform soldering, welding, and more dexterous work. These took flight with the medical drones, and Ozias had the medical drones begin scanning for life signs in the area to begin triage. Those scans would be sent to the engineering fliers that would then tag each body accordingly and relay the relevant information to the engineering crawlers. They would then use their soldering and welding functions to begin cauterizing any open wounds.
The crawlers would then, starting with the critically wounded, begin pulling bodies to the medical bay. From there, the two automated surgery beds would be put to work. A pair of engineering crawlers were assigned to the medical bay to assist with moving casualties from the surgical tables and into a safe location for continuing treatment, and one medical drone was assigned to monitor vitals in case a crewmember began to crash post-treatment.
With these commands, Ozias began conducting a gruesome orchestra of moving parts.
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Quintis
It was bloody work. Quintis and his men had to decide which victims were treatable, and which were not. A number of them were probably treatable, but with their burns they would likely die of The Festering or never live a good life again. Those were all placed near the massive metal hulk. Quintis made the decision to leave them alive for the moment - The gods do not abide suffering, but perhaps whatever force he felt coming from the object would heal them. Or hasten their entry into the afterlife. Whatever was in that thing, it set his teeth on edge and made his hairs stand when he drew close to it.
Hopefully, this sacrifice would appease whichever deity had brought their wrath down from the heavens. He could only hope that none of the other objects had landed in cities. The devastation would have been catastrophic.
But those thoughts could wait. He and the young hastati from earlier went to move another corpse to the corpse pile. They would avoid looting the corpses unless the Seventh Legion arrived and they could ensure it wouldn't be done under the eyes of the Netharian force. The Purductonians were hurting for equipment, and looting the dead was a necessary evil.
The horses had been tied back on the small hill, with a handful of archers atop some to respond quickly to danger and to protect their transportation. Fires were burning by a small stream as bandages were boiled and applied to burn victims. Some of them screamed at the touch, but others were mercifully unconscious.
After a few moments, all the living who could do so glanced at the metal monolith. There was a bright flash of what could only be holy energy, which washed over them before fading. Good - This was good, that had to be a positive sign. He didn't know enough about signs to know for certain, but it set his mind at ease nonetheless.
"The gods are with us! Keep going!" His men redoubled their efforts.
After another ten minutes of effort, Quintis heard what sounded like hammering on metal coming from the monolith. He and others close to the object stopped what they were doing to look at it once more.
Small openings began to appear all over the structure, and metallic insects began to emerge. First were a few dozen white creatures. Their heads appeared to be white and round with singular bulbous black reflective eyes. A small singular mandible appeared beneath, with no obvious mouth. A blood sucking vermin, perhaps, except he'd never seen one the size of his arm. From the head was a cylindrical and segmented abdomen, also white, but with a dangerous looking red cross symbol on the widest part of the cylinder. At the back were for long spindly legs, each with a small claw at the end.
The insects had no wings, they simply floated. Quintis had heard of similar creatures that used magic to stay in the air, or sometimes inflating sacks of heated gas. But there was no humming of energy. They were silent observers.
Suddenly, red light came out of each of them, each taking a different part of the surrounding area and passing red beams across. Quintis flinched, but simply felt a mild prickling sensation as it passed over him.
Another pause, and suddenly a swarm of smaller fist-sized insects came out of the same holes, reflective and black with yellow stripes like some stinging insect. They began to immediately swarm all of the victims lying close to the ship. The gods had made their decision. Quintis and his group retreated from the ship to the water boiling station and triage area, leaving any remaining victims where they lay.
Some of the swarm began rolling bodies off the corpse pile, and the larger white insects began landing on the worst victims, with a few of them landing on corpses.
Their claws began furiously cutting away armor, with small sparks of light flaring against them. The sun was starting to climb over the horizon, but this light was enough that it looked like lightning reflecting off the sides of the metal hulk that served as a backdrop. Then, with the centurions watching in morbid fascination, the creatures began feasting. Their claws deftly sliced open various parts of their victims, and their heads dove inside with their singular mandibles flailing wildly.
Meanwhile, massive flat beetles with a metallic gray color and more yellow stripes began climbing out of the structure. Six legs, two mandibles, and bumps and ridges of various shapes, they were terrifying to look at but much slower. They began marching down the sides in orderly lines, and through some gruesome manipulation of their own bodies began pulling still-living victims onto their backs - Some of them with feasting white insects still straddled atop their torsos.
"I don't think this was a god's doing …" Murmurs of assent followed the first words any soldier spoke in the last five minutes. It was unnerving. The beetles began carrying their bloody harvests back into the monolith - No, the hive. It had to be a hive of some sort.
"I think we've done all we can, we should retreat. The Netharians will either die or they won't, any who can walk are welcome to come with us - Unarmed. Get the horses over here. Anyone who can't walk, get some branches and we'll have to truss and drag them behind the mounts. It'll be rough, but it has to be done-" Quintis began giving orders so they could escape this hellscape, but as his men began moving there was suddenly a loud burst of noise from one of the white insects which had started drifting close to the standing centurions.
"µØ€‡s€ß r€m‡Œnß wh€r€ß yÅuß ‡r€.ß M€dŒš‡Øß drÅn€sß ‡r€ß wÅrkŒngß Œnß šÅnjunštŒÅnß wŒthß €ngŒn€€rŒngß drÅn€sß fÅrß trŒ‡g€ß ‡ndß tr‡nsµÅrt‡tŒÅn.ß Œfß yÅuß ‡r€ß š‡µ‡bØ€ß Åfß w‡ØkŒng,ß yÅuß wŒØØß stŒØØß b€ß šh€šk€dß fÅrß shÅšk.ß µØ€‡s€ß r€m‡Œnß Œnß th€ß ‡r€‡. "
<<|Please remain where you are. Medical drones are working in conjunction with engineering drones for triage and transportation. If you are capable of walking, you will still be checked for shock. Please remain in the area.|>>
It did not sound friendly. His men prepared even faster, but Quintis was frozen in place as he felt cold metal claws grip his shoulders from behind, and felt his helmet get thrown off. He felt heat against the back of his head, and felt something slide through his hair before pressing to his forehead.
Several other centurions froze and stared above Quintis. He was going to die. He knew he was going to die, he shouldn't have interfered with -- His left eye was forcefully yet gently gripped and his eyelid lifted, and a bright light shone in, blinding him. It let go of his eyelids, and he felt something go into his ear. There was a puff of air.
Suddenly, the thing let go of him, and flew to hover in front of his face. It spun to face to his left. The side of its carapace opened up, and suddenly there was a sheet of moving light in front of Quintis. An aerial view of the wreckage appeared in front of him, with green markers indicating all of the men still standing. The markers moved in orderly lines, following blue arrows on the ground, into a square formation. The zoom flew in, and Quintis saw himself and his men sitting cross-legged, while a white insect landed on each of them one at a time before moving to the next.
It wanted him to round his men up - For slaughter? No, they were outnumbered and he doubted they could pierce these strange metallic shells. "Everyone, follow me!" He had no choice but to obey.