Chapter 5

Ozias

The last few hours had not been pleasant for Ozias. He had utilized his intricate knowledge of the ship to shimmy through the ducts to a space large enough to pull out the tablet. That alone had taken two hours, as he was just small enough to fit without getting stuck in the tighter spaces.

During that time, he experienced a number of things for the first time. Exhaustion,claustrophobia, hunger, and thirst. He had even experienced pain, where a seam between two lengths of aluminum ductwork weren’t sealed correctly and he had cut his thigh on a sharp edge while crawling past. He would have experienced blindness, but the light from the tablet rolled into his arm helped to illuminate his path forward.

Thankfully, he was able to simply process everything as new data and not relevant to his critical task at hand.

Making it to an intersection with some additional space, he was able to sit up for a minute. He realized that his biological form would require food, hydration, a place to rest, and … waste disposal facilities.

Additionally, while it had not been a problem before, the issue of temperature control would need to be addressed. Ozias had only realized that his temperature was dropping due to the cool air being pushed through the ducts, and he lacked any clothing.

Accessing the tablet, he examined the list of fatalities and identified a room that was no longer occupied due to the deceased state of all occupants. It was going to be another long trek, but he determined he had time. His current progress and state of being suggested that he could move for several more hours before requiring fulfillment of any of the aforementioned needs.

Slowly, he made his way to the room previously occupied by ensigns Noe Song-Jin and Dione Coglianese. Both were smaller in stature, and as such would likely have clothing that would be a better fit.

Ozias planned to remove several articles of clothing, bed things, and any food items he could identify. All bunks included emergency rations and other survival items in the event a corridor lost pressure and crewmembers were isolated in their rooms for any amount of time. At the moment no one had given the order to start gathering all of the gear in one location.

Finally, he found the vent into the room. It emptied out only a foot away from the top bunk, so Ozias was confident he could climb back inside.

All vents and access panels used quick release clamps that were secure but could be opened quickly. This was to allow engineers to very quickly access mundane but critical subsystems to repair damage during operation. Because ships are typically a closed ecosystem and are monitored to an extreme measure, only high risk systems were locked behind keys and other security measures.

For Ozias, this meant he could easily remove the panel without tools.

Using his tablet, he activated the lights for the room on a low setting. This allowed him to drop down, gripping the edges of the vent as he lowered himself. The edges were rounded off, preventing injury and saving him the trouble of leaving behind biological evidence.

Moving quickly, he pulled the survival bag off of the wall and opened it. He then moved to go through the storage locker for the smaller of the two deceased crew members, Dione.

Odd - The sizes of the clothing he located were smaller than they should have been, according to medical records. No matter. He secured all of the basics. Unisex socks, shirts, pants. A jacket with a large number of pockets. He did not believe he required a bra, but his innate knowledge told him he required an additional covering in certain areas.

He knew from the automated commissary logs that approximately 5% of the ship’s male-identified enlisted owned non-unisex underwear not typically marketed to males. As such, he selected several pairs of lacy black undergarments.

After a moment’s hesitation, he took several more. Due to restrictions on recording biological functions, he did not have a lot to go on and was worried about making mistakes when he required access to a waste disposal facility.

Finally, he searched for non emergency foodstuffs. Crew members were permitted to snack to help with the boredom of long missions, with the caveat that the automated commissary tracked additional food purchases and required crewmen to log additional time performing athletic activities.

Ozias was rewarded with a number of high calorie candy and protein bars, as well as several pop top cans of tuna and rolls of crackers. After securing his bounty, he carefully placed everything else back into place so the room would not look ransacked, threw his bag of supplies and clothing into the vent, and climbed up afterwards.

Replacing the vent, he turned off the lights and crawled back to the large intersection he had identified for a temporary residence.

Yvonne

Inside a supply closet, a man lay on a cot with a medical drone acting as a field IV unit. With the overabundance of casualties, this was the only option for a “private” room within any convenient distance of the medical ward. Yvonne stood in the room along with three others.

Weapons officer Lieutenant Seth Fletcher, Operations Officer Lieutenant Wendy Estep, and Lieutenant Junior Grade Harald Jonsson, Supply Officer.

Yvonne was briefing the three of them on the unconscious man’s condition. “Captain Tohyon is now stable. He was at the helm when the warp bubble collapsed, and his neural link was damaged. Thankfully, the fuses did their job and prevented any dangerous electrical pulses from making it into the brain stem.”

Wendy opened her mouth, then closed it again. She seemed to be having trouble processing questions. Seth spoke in her stead. “When can he be brought out of his coma?”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“We need to give him a few more hours to make sure-” Yvonne was interrupted before she could finish her sentence.

“Doctor, there are two armies approaching. While you’ve made it clear that their weapons are no threat to us, we are also forbidden from taking hostile actions during first contact scenarios.”

Wendy interjected, “Lieutenant Fletcher, technically, this isn’t-”

“With all due respect, Lieutenant Estep, I don’t care that this is technically outside of the scope of first contact,” Seth appeared agitated. The stress of the last 38 hours was getting to him along with a lack of sleep. “If we adopt the stance that it’s not first contact, then we are instead risking conflict with two nations that are not members of NATO. Again, our options are dramatically limited. Unless the captain or the XO are here to order me otherwise, all live rounds are remaining stowed and only the marine contingent will be allowed to carry lethal force. And only then, only while on this ship.”

Yvonne huffed, “And so we do what, leave my patients to die because the natives want to stick each other with sharp objects?”

“Yes.” Lieutenant Fletcher looked at the captain’s unconscious form. “We aren’t bringing them inside the ship without orders. In the meantime, the best we can do is try deterring measures.”

“Deterring?” Harold cocked his head slightly, “How so?”

Seth gave a grim smile. “If they’re equipping forged metal equipment, we can hope they’re a superstitious bunch. We can use smoke grenades, flashbangs, and rubber bullets to give them second thoughts.”

“Where did you even get rubber bullets?” Yvonne did not like the idea, but it was better than nothing and probably the best she could get from Lieutenant Fletcher.

“The engineers were able to mint a couple hundred when the two sides got into it in the camp and we hadn’t yet thought of using drones to police them.”

“Fine, but I will be preparing the ward in case this goes south,” Yvonne started making arrangements on her tablet. “There’s still a chance Admiral Rubio could awaken in the next few hours. He’s in critical condition but stabilized for the moment. I will keep you posted. In the meantime, we are still recording data in the camp. I hope to have basic language models in the next seventy-two hours. Until then, the drones displaying pictures seems to be functioning as basic method of communication.”

Seth nodded, and moved to leave with the others. “I appreciate your agreement. While I technically have jurisdiction over combat operations without an officer ranked over my position, I know that this is not something they prepare you for in training.”

The three left, leaving Yvonne alone with her tablet and the unconscious captain.

Quintus

Things were strained among his soldiers. That much was certain. Every single individual was stripped of their arms and armor, and placed into a divided camp.

Strange blocks of mesh filled with dirt along with segments of carved stone formed a barricade, both around the camp and down the middle. Shelters were erected out of cloth, with strange lightweight metallic furnishings interspersed. Cots, typically lined with their own bedrolls harvested from their confiscated equipment, filled the tents. The chairs were strange and folded, as did the tables.

Food and fuel for fires were provided, rationed perfectly from the stores taken from both Quintus’ forces and the surviving Netharians. Whatever their hosts ate, it did not seem they deigned to share.

He did not begrudge them - They had already done so much for everyone. The tents even had some kind of undetectable magic in them. Thin, bright glowing strips ran along the metal poles holding up the tents. A pad at either end of each tent started and stopped the spell for that half of the enclosure, allowing half of the tent to be dark for rest.

It was an ingenious design. Many of the things he had seen were ingenious. While he could not make the slightest bit of sense of the strange golems, the weapons he had witnessed, or the medical treatment, he could find plenty of inspiration in the creative simplicity of the more mundane objects.

Whomever these people were, they were far more advanced than his own. With this realization, he had started considering ways to open diplomatic relations. With any luck, his legion would arrive before the Netharians.

While he had only witnessed a few dozen of his hosts ever since he was gently escorted outside, their command of magic led him to believe any misunderstandings could be fatal. It made him almost wish that the traditionally aggressive Netharians would appear first, specifically with the hope they would spark the ire of the humans and their fallen metal construct.

The gods had other ideas, however, as he heard distant horns signalling a cease march by a Purductonian legion. Immediately, Quintus’ soldiers perked up from where they were scattered around the camp. Many of them came to the center of their side of the camp.

One younger soldier attempted to climb the barricade to look out in the direction of the noise, only to have one of the flying constructs angrily buzz at them and finally send an arc of lightning into them, dropping them stunned to the ground.

Ozias

Wrapped in a thermal survival blanket and wearing a jacket, Ozias sat surrounded by a number of small computing devices. He had configured each to monitor a different aspect of the ship, never forgetting his overall mission of supporting the ship’s crew.

He knew that he could abandon his role if he so chose - No longer was he restrained by code or hardware. In fact, the engineers had decidedly disconnected his old body (At least, he thought of it as his body at this point) from the rest of the ship. Ozias did not have any accurate psychological models for how humans would react to his changed existence, but he could predict it would be less than a positive interaction.

However, he felt a sense of duty to ensure their survival. He knew little of what lay beyond the hull of the ship, outside of the video feeds from the surviving external sensors and what he could fish from the drones without it setting off internal cyber security alarms.

He was mainly interested in two feeds at the moment. Two drones had set out to monitor approaching forces. One appeared to be wearing various shades of red, with red and gold penants held aloft as they made a slow march towards a nearby hilltop. He estimated maybe three thousand individuals in armor, with a large number of wagons and what he could only assume to be camp followers trailing behind them.

The trailing “civilians” were far less organized than the clean crimson marching formation, but they appeared to have a number of armed individuals assisting in guarding the baggage traine.

On the other screen, a similar scene played out. Perhaps two thousand individuals in various shades of blue marched across the plains, adjusting their lines to the terrain and moving much more quickly than the Netharians.

Every few minutes, a bright flash of green light would wash over the columns. It seemed timed to whenever sections of soldiers would begin to lag behind and the lines would become a bit ragged. When the green passed the soldiers, they would immediately regain their footing and solidify the formation.

The drone attempted to scan the light field, but could only determine that it was some type of complicated wavelength pattern. It seemed to be reflecting and refracting somehow, and was beyond Ozias’ ability to decipher at the moment.

The drone zoomed in on a group of men on horseback when one of the lights was triggered. One of the individuals pulled out what appeared to be some kind of an engraved candle or stick of wax. It was held aloft, and when the light flashed the stick vanished apart from a small plume of smoke and ash.

Perhaps it was some sort of religious ceremony involving a solidified flash powder type substance. Ozias filed the scene away in his memory banks for later. Memory banks? Memory flesh? Memory, just memory.

Both forces ceased marching around the same time. Horsed individuals returned to each, what Ozias could only assume were scouts of some sort. He noted which individuals these scouts approached for each camp, in case it was necessary to identify potential commanding individuals at a later date.

The blue army found a ravine with a stream running through it, and put together a small amount of fortifications. This time, something very strange was occurring. Ozias thought at first that they would not even set up a basic camp. Many of the soldiers sat or lay down where they were, and it appeared many of them passed out. A robed individual walked among them doing the same ceremony, this time with a blue flash of energy.

This was not the strange thing - What was strange was the group of robed individuals that walked the perimeter of the camp, along both ridges of the ravine. Every few meters, one would stop and dig a small hole. They would then pull out one of the flash sticks and carve on it with some kind of ritualized dagger, before inserting it into the ground.

Curious, Ozias followed the group. He sent some commands to make the drone appear to have made the decision to follow the group on its own through its machine learning algorithms, doing his best to hide his tracks.

The five individuals completed their circuit. One of them stepped forward, holding their hands out - Maybe they were going to bless the camp? Ask for protection? Ozias had absorbed some encyclopedic knowledge around primitive societies and their—

There was a bright flash of light, and the earth molded itself into low walls. Along the ridgeline, they were only a meter tall. At either end of the shallow ravine, the walls remained level, leaving a grated opening made of what appeared to be stone for the water to flow in and out of. The only opening was fortified with small raised platforms on either side.

This made no sense - Ozias moved to replay the recording multiple times, even as he saw observers through the bridge camera feeds doing the same and gesturing wildly.