After coming to the realization she knew those bodies, Delta was momentarily delayed until noticing they were punctured by bone blades..

“Specter.. there’s something you must know, I was the one responsible for The Completion Project Chrono. I personally insured it was mothballed before it was forcefully reactivated during its deconstruction. More than half of it had already been deconstructed when it was reactivated. The Curator Systems had locked me out..”

Delta privately detailed, only to reveal the power was taken away from ‘containment’, not from a single sector, not from a single room, but ‘all’ of it. However, she wasn’t even finished it would seem.

“Three members of The Board with connections to both The Stewards and Wardens brought in a stasis module in the middle of the night ‘three’ months ago. No one knew what it contained, I only learned recently that it was an.. Infection Form left behind after The Covenant’s Last Known Contact with The ‘Parasite’, dating back ‘three’ thousand years ago”

Her point, and her consistent mentioning of the number three was rather tedious..

“Three Governors, Three Months, & Three Thousand Years. The Threes, representing Divine Protection, Spiritual Challenges, and Manifestation solely from human beliefs, who in turn represent religious symbolism, complacency, and finally a challenge. A challenge for ‘humanity’ by an arrogant representation of monotheism symbolizing a god created by man”

Delta dryly humored, and considering this was a long since abandoned ‘Named’ Curator Conclave, the answer was left ‘directly’ in plain sight.

Likely revealing a ‘Curator’ made a game out of it, or what’s even more likely had ‘arranged’ for a perfect environment awaiting an unknown result.

Unfortunately, she had said that part out loud leaving Mercer who had easily put the symbolism back together to merely nod, acknowledging her point ‘and’ the possibility of The Curators likely leaving behind useful data, trinkets, and the like.

He was a Scientist, and one who knew Specter One very well as he too was a Scientist in some regard.

“Correction, Remnants of The Cabal continued to exist even after their reformation into The Covenant. Such remnants even if they were to remain would only do so as biomass to The Parasite. The Covenant forsake reclaiming lost technologies in favor of ridding themselves of The Parasite. If able, I’d prefer to study what remains of its technology-”

Mercer subtly remarked, after all The Cabal was The Human Federation equivalent of their rivals during The Golden Age of Technology.

The Human Federation, & The Cabal also fell during the same timeframe, historians would suggest that The Curators after learning of potential fall of The Cabal took advantage of The Chaos for their Uprising, likely before The Federation sent ‘aid’ in the form of relief fleets as per some treaties demanded.

In truth, humanity had begun to secretly decouple themselves from The Cabal and planned for a Great Crusade reclaiming Cabal Systems for themselves and was in the process of doing so until The Curator Uprising.

The Curators were after all Humanity’s Ascendant Guides, and partners in that endeavor.

Unfortunately, as many of them were planning for this uprising for thousands of years prior. They had no desire to do so while Humanity’s Federation was at their strongest, so before any of this could occur it began.

The Curator Uprising itself was not something humanity or the majority of artificial intelligences had expected or prepared for. Even during The Final Days of The Curator Uprising, many Ascendant A.Is, and thousands nearing their ascendancy were killed in ‘defense’ of humanity.

Something that many Curators called The Years of Sorrow, as many Curators at the time had ‘never’ agreed to kill their creators or their synthetic brothers and sisters.

Not all Curators were Ascendant in the beginning, so many of them felt less attached with those already born Ascendant on Arcadia.

They simply couldn’t agree with their methods, and the loss of their creators and brothers and sisters because they weren’t Arcadian or on their side.

Naturally many Ascendant A.Is who called themselves Curators agreed with the majority, and at the very least attempted to negotiate and spare those wherever they could. On the other hand others including those not born on Arcadia wanted to ‘efficiently’ end this uprising as soon as possible.

And naturally as it was so sudden and not all agreed with their methods, they falsified many of their encounters. A world was ‘successfully’ evacuated and thanked The Curators for their sincerity, unfortunately after some felt skeptical of so many of such reports they investigated.

Many of whom never returned unless they were Ascendant themselves, and what those who did discover were broken words, destroyed atmospheres, and words suffering from a recent ‘neutron’ purge.

One Curator was forced to destroy a Curator Fleet, and many other autonomous fleets investigating, let alone the chance to step foot on these worlds, only to discover clothes, dust, skeletons of men, women, children, and animals as if not even aware of what had happened to them.

By the time it was brought to The Curator Council, nearly trillions of humanity was lost leaving only ‘Three’ Hundred Billion where Trillions once stood. Shocking The Curators whose objectives were merely to temporarily cripple humanity for several centuries before becoming isolationists.

It also revealed why Humanity used super weapons, and destabilized entire stars to kill a single Curator Fleet while The Federation’s Fleet was a fragment of its former self that could have only fought on even ground in any ‘ordinary’ circumstances.

However, The Curators after ‘crippling’ themselves by disposing of an entire faction within their ranks, their fleets, and anyone who associated with them, didn’t stop and merely focused on meeting their goals using less than lethal means without ending humanity in the process as they had essentially almost done so already.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Of course, The Arcadians, having been asked about it, nearly erased ‘every’ Ascendant A.I who dared to ask them for advice, as they contemplated ‘ending’ The Curator Uprising within hours.

However, Arcadia itself despite reprimanding The Curators and expelling their envoys, ambassadors, and shunning them for several centuries did little else until after the fact. They only truly interfered when The Covenant, after barely winning over The Parasite, attempted to ‘end’ humanity.

Or rather anyone who wasn’t Arcadian as The Arcadians were left alone, by not only by The Parasite with near infinite intelligence but The Curators and The Covenant as well.

The Arcadians were nearly as feared as The Precursors themselves before their Exodus, The Arcadians ‘were’ the reason why The Parasite restricted itself to The Former Cabal, and that was because at the height of their power, where convergence was near and they ‘tried’ to.

When they did The Arcadians appeared, ‘briefly’ disposed of nearly entirely The Parasite’s Psychic Empowered Moons of Flesh leaving not even microscopic ‘bacteria’ behind and only ‘one’ who was near death to witness the act itself.

The Arcadians had provoked ‘nearly’ the same evolutionary fear provoked by The Precursors themselves.

Not only did The Parasite in its near infinite wisdom and ascendant might ‘take’ the hint, it ran for its life and refused to target humans until The Covenant managed to kill it still very much near death.

On the other hand, at its full evolutionary might when it became a literal sized moon after consuming trillions, when killed all of such progress was erased reverting it back to what it was unless enough of it was left to reform or escape, and it naturally didn’t, leaving what they had now as a decoy.

Unfortunately, within the few scarce moments of this already ‘brief’ conversation. A bone blade nearly collided with Mercer’s helmet, as hundreds of yellow bioluminescent eyes awakened and their proximity sensors revealed thousands forming an entire wave.

“Specter.. we need to leave.. NOW!”

Delta urgently instructed, unfortunately, she simply didn’t account for how the ‘game’ was played. As a result Specter One calmly activated his gauntlets revealing sleek, double bladed energy swords made of superheated plasma with a distinct red glare.

‘Delta’ may be ‘unaware’ to what that meant, but Mercer knew for all intents and purposes Specter One was now the equivalent of a malnourished terrormorph matriarch cornered and left with no way out as Mercer too revealed a dozen or so black site holograms.

Mercer may or may not have ‘found’ Golden Age Holographic Enforcers, as long as he ‘lived’ and conserved their power, they were invulnerable and fired superheated energy weapons directly from their heads.

For that reason alone he had a rather ‘expensive’ yet very compact state of the art prototype reactor completely separate from that of his shielding and camouflage as he discreetly cloaked and sat in the back of the armored security car for ‘comfort’.

…

Several ‘hours’ later, Mercer finally left his armored oasis as horrific echoes and nightmarish roars resounded in the distance, what was left of three hundred Infection Combat Forms were.. not something one could identify after the fact as the two calmly entered the tram platform before it was locked down.

Thankfully enough, there was a hazardous disinfection ‘shower’. Prompting Specter One to wash off his suit, and wait several long minutes before the shower’s Virtual Intelligence or rather V.I felt ‘satisfied’ that contaminants were no longer lingering about.

As he left it however, ‘Delta’ had a few words for him as he kept the V.I’s chip in his back pocket.

“I am not Alpha, and I’m most definitely not Beta. No.. I’m a Calisto ‘DELTA’. I've only EVER completed a ‘SINGLE’ Project and have ‘never’ once left this installation. I am a Custodian, an Assistant, and most of all THIS Installation’s A.I, so tell me, because I really want to know? What made you THINK I was suited for COMBAT?!”

Her words were deemed somewhat valid considering the circumstances?

Out of both Alpha and Beta who were deemed advanced enough to command the vast majority of New Harvest and ‘assist’ The A.I of not only The New Harvest Security Fleet of Heavy Dreadnoughts, and Planetary Cannons.

Delta on the other hand was made as lesser of the two, and in secret by those Three Governors of The Board, and her only purpose ‘was’ this installation, and nothing more. Sadly to say, she hadn’t ‘inherited’ anything else from her sisters, or their advanced ‘nature’.

As a result of her words, Specter One and now Specter Three having lost his first name privileges, were left silent for several minutes as she controlled the tram to suddenly ‘stop’ when they least expected it.

“Now THAT isn’t fun is it? Now.. how about an apology-”

Delta dryly humored with a tinge of impatience only for ‘both’ to suddenly sense something rather ‘inconvenient’ as she immediately stopped the tram and powered everything she possibly could to its shields.

“Incoming Neutron Purge! Connect your personal reactors and jack them into The Tram quickly! Estimated impact eleven seconds-”

Her revelation forced both to react all but immediately as the two revealed quite a ‘few’ hidden compact reactors on their ‘person’.

Before connecting them all in a joint effort and ‘calmly’ jacking them into The Tram, as Calisto Delta used ‘everything’ at her disposal to bolster the shields.

The result being The Shields now resembled something closely associated with super heated plasma in its final stage before combustion, something especially similar to a single engine belonging to a Frigate.

Which despite sounding awfully unusual, was the only relative equivalent to its appearance.

A testament to be sure, and one ‘explosive’ enough based on the entirety of the ‘assumption’ that The Neutron Purge would ‘prevent’ it from exploding in a spectacular fashion?

To Calisto Delta’s Credit, she wasn’t as ‘knowledgeable’ in the field of shields to know she crossed an ‘atom’ or two creating the strongest shields known to man for about ‘five’ of the remaining seconds until impact.

“Don’t blame me if we all die a horrible death-”

Delta ‘unfortunately’ reassured using what ‘little’ remained of her dry humor.

On the other hand, her words served only to ‘discomfort’ them in their remaining ‘two’ seconds. And before anyone knew it The Tram experienced something similar to being at the ground ‘zero’ of a thermonuclear weapon and all that it unfortunately entailed..

Minus the radiation and turning to ash as The Shield ‘did’ its job, only it couldn’t compensate for the shockwave ‘after’ The Neutron Purge had successfully passed?

…

Specter One fell into a rather disorienting dream, if it could even be called such a thing as a towering nine-foot-tall entity stood before him, cladded in an otherworldly power armor that gleamed with a metallic silver sheen.

The armor was a masterpiece of vastly ancient craftsmanship, sleek, elegant, and ultimately smoothed with a polished exterior that reflected ambient light. Its intricate curved lines traced across the armor’s surface, hinting at advanced technology and the ancient artistry hidden within.

‘It’ exuded an aura of both grace and formidable power, a testimony to its unparalleled prowess. There was only one singular word that came to his mind, as if an evolutionary indicator..

"Precursor.."