It's late and I decide to hit the hay knowing that I have a lot to do when I wake up.

*FLASHES*

I see images of a pyramid, a tunnel going underneath the pyramid and people in lab coats studying something. I hear them saying the word bright speed?

Before I could make out what it is I wake up.

I think about it for a few minutes before I decide to get up and push on. Maybe the therapist will know something? Should I even tell her?

After a while I decide to review the current geography of where I am. I am in an underground base located outside of Alaska. The weather is freezing but the base is heated quite well. There is a main hangar area where the ship is at. There are 3 hallways that branch outwards from there, 1 being to the mess hall and another hallway being towards the sleeping quarters. The last hallway heads toward the command center where he had been briefed.

I decide to head to the mess hall. I get a sausage egg and cheese croissant with an orange juice.

"So what exactly are you System? What is your purpose and why me?" not sure where to look while talking to myself I end up staring into my plate with my head down.

[My own origins I suspect we will learn as we defeat more Aliens and add more scans to my database]

[As for my purpose, it is to assist you (the host) with whatever you desire.]

[As for why you... ... ... ... .. *silence*]

"Thanks, I feel real special now, could hear crickets in my head with that response." slowly turning his head left and right while letting out a deep sigh.

"Anyways we must push for the artifact, maybe I will remember something along the way." Allen says while looking hopeful.

After eating for a while longer, Joey shows up.

"We got a mission Allen, we are heading to point of interest. An old abandoned base where chatter from aliens has spiked up around the area. We have been monitoring their frequencies using the ship we captured." Joey turns around and begins heading towards the ship. "Come on Allen, its time-sensitive" he says while waving towards me.

"Yea, Yea" I say while getting up and beginning to jog to catch up.

A few minutes later we arrive at the ship. This base is huge. I mean not complex but very big. I was almost tempted to take a jeep over here.

I see the big black ship as I head over, Strange they want us to take it. It makes sense because it would provide the perfect cover to pass by other alien ships without being detected.

As I walk up the ramp, I see 2 new people joining our party.

One is a red haired woman in a lab coat who steps forward and introduces herself as Mary. She would be the doctor it seems.

The other is a older fellow with dark grey hair, dressed from head to toe in spec ops gear. He has grey eyes that show a deep history behind them. He looks like he has seen a lot of war.

("He is quite a character I bet").

I look over and introduce myself to the two. "I'm Allen, I'll be leading this mission."

"Call me Maximus" the older fellow says with a hint of authority.

Cool name but there must be more at play here, maybe we are under review? There seems to be complications that they are not letting on about.

"Okay, wheels up in 5 min, I will brief us on the flight over." I look at each of them seriously. Can't have them doubting their new leader.

They head inside the ship after exchanging glances.

It seems the alien ship has been refitted, although still massive, the main area seems to be cargo hold for vehicles and weapons. There is a room for medical at the other end of the cargo hold near the front of the ship.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

It seems like they made a new entrance to the hallway that also leads into the command center. I kind of like it.

As we walk I see other solider are aboard. They are grunts sent to guard the ship and I guess keep the engine warm.

I begin to walk and Joey comes over.

"Did you see Mary? Wow. she is stunning. Bright green eyes, she is totally my type." Joey says with a smirk.

"Yea sure thing Joey, but lets keep the mission in focus right now, I have a lot in mind right now." I exclaim worried for my friends focus.

I need more clues on exactly who I am, what I did here and what this artifact even is.

It seems I will find some answers at this abandoned base. The intel says it was abandoned over 20 years ago for unknown reasons. I suspect I will find clues once there on why the base was there.

The base is located in Transylvania, what a place right? If that doesn't scream spooky I don't know what will. I was almost tempted to bathe in garlic.

I mean first aliens, who knows what else was true out there.

A few minutes later I arrive in the command center and we plug in the ship coordinates. It seems the techs at the base retro fitted some type of translator to plug in the basic information for coordinates, they even got the auto pilot working.

I don't know how they did it but I don't know much of anything right now so oh well.

"Okay, so as some of you know already, the mission is in Transylvania. We are flying to an abandoned base that has been the target for a lot of alien chatter on the frequency waves we picked up in their communications. We are still deciphering the language but this is what we could make out. We are on a mission of discovery, any aliens is shoot to kill. Recover intel from their databases and bring it back for the techs to examine. This is straight forward. If I go down, command falls to Joey. We get in, get out."

As I finished speaking I knew what I said would not be so simple. Nothing ever really was.

Wide scale intel of the invasion had the world in complete disarray. Nobody was willing to work together, everyone was scavenging for resources. I should clarify, they weren't able to work together. Communications were largely cut off, the military was a mess in most nations and it threw most nations in a panic.

The top nations still somewhat holding their own was Chana, Russic, and the USS. Briton was another one. The others were grey zones, not much intel.

------

The flight took around 3 and a half hours. We kept the speed normal and the height below space so as not to race suspicion from the aliens currently invading.

We arrived at the abandoned base. It was outside a dense forest populated with pine trees. The base appeared to look like a few mounds covered in grass and A wide rectangular entrance, of course black inside. The doors had long but fallen off and rusted.

As me, joey, and Maximus head inside we near the entrance. I begin to question what exactly happened here when i noticed the claw marks on the large 15 ft iron doors.

Those doors were a foot thick!

What made it more freaky was the claw marks appeared to have come from the inside of the door.

This means aliens didn't come from the outside and whatever was inside wanted out. We don't know what could still be in there.

"Weapons hot, Joey you are on my left and Maximus cover the rear. Flashlights on."

We begin to move inside in a tight formation.

This place is something else. Abandoned lab equipment, syringes and trays are all over the ground. There also seems to be some old newspapers as well. They seem to date exactly with our intel. This place really got abandoned around 20 years ago.

As we move through the dark hollow tunnels, a slight breeze goes through my hair. The air is musky and there is a moldy smell in the air.

I see cracks in the walls and what looks like more claw marks. These are some big claws, very deep indents. Whatever made these, was big, very big.

We keep walking for what seems like 5 to 10 minutes. This tunnel is far and it seems to be heading deeper into the earth. We have been on a decline since arriving.

"Entrance up ahead" Joey says quietly with a concerned look.

I bet he is focused now. Fear can do that to a person. I have never seen him look like that, the marks had me concerned as well.

We come up on the entrance, it opens into a large room with large glass windows stretching across the wall on the opposite end. The room seems to have 3 entrances including the one we arrived in.

1 on the left and 1 on the right. The door we passed was torn apart and the keypad was also destroyed. The room for this mound seems to be a scientific lab of some sort.

There is a large table in the center of the room with many computers mostly destroyed on top. Very old computers at that. They look like windows 95.

The sides of the room have servers lining them. There is a lot of dust covering everything and the lights no longer work.

"Joey find some power and get the lights working...., Maximus you are on lookout, I will review the files on the table and attempt to salvage a computer for when Joey gets the power up."

I watch Joey head over and try the light switch. The room lights up.

"Would you look at that" Joey said with a smart ass smirk.

I roll my eyes thinking that was a load of bull.

But then a thought irks me, why was the light turned off? Wouldn't a power out make more sense? If the light was switched off, did the people fleeing do it? Were they trying to hide?

I had even more questions then I started with.

I manage to salvage a computer, one seemed to be in okay condition.

It was of course severely outdated by computer standards but it would definitely work.

I boot up the computer and about 10 minutes later I reach the log in screen.

Dam that was a long time. I should cut it some slack, this computer should be called a nokia at this rate.

There is of course a password lock. What do i do now?

oh right!

("System can you unlock this pc?")

[Consider it done, system accessing...]

[Computer Unlocked]

With that the computer logs in.

"How did you do that?!" Joey exclaims with a curious look in his eyes.

I tell him "It must have been bugged"..

Joey shrugs it off. "So what does it say?"

What I see shocks me!

The files name is....