NOW: PROXIMA CENTAURI B (4.22 Light Years from SOL), TWO WEEKS AFTER THE ATTACK ON THE FESTIVE NIGHTBEAK
Final Log entry of Repairdrone, 2nd class, QZane Pandip, currently stationed at PZ204 Second. Serving on board the Bloated Cocoon. There’s a lot of stuff happening I don’t understand, but somebody needs to hear this. I feel like this is another unprecedented event. I heard what happened to the Festive Nightbeak a couple of moons ago. I know it was classified - and command told everyone it was a cosmic string fragment, but everyone knew that was a coverup story. Drones talk. There’s stories of... of the Thirders, and their strange powers, and the attack that came from nowhere and wiped out the Nightbeak in a matter of minutes. And… and the strange technologies or… something they had.
I’ve seen similar things and want to make sure I report it, including these video records, so some Cyph’d can do something about these… these monsters.
I had just come off my second shift - we’re short tent’d at the moment - and was about to get my beak wet when the battle alarm went off. Everybody ran to stations. I ran to my station - operational structure, primary engine core. I oversee the structural amplifiers around the core pseudoneutronium armor.
I guess me and the other Repairdrones were surprised. I mean, we’re not a combat station. We’re just here processing the radioactives and minerals we’re mining planetside. We’re armed, but only lightly. It’s not like we were in a war or had any enemies nearby. More fool us, I suppose.
Anyway, we started to hear noise - pounding on the hull - so I patched into the external topside cams to see. And… it’s pretty unbelievable and terrifying. There were twelve Thirders on the top hull. They dropped down through a glowing red circle that looked like a Tunneling circle, except it didn't just flash in and out - it was stable, if that makes any sense. And it wasn’t just one big circle - it was made of a group of overlapping ones, and they all were… moving, I guess. Rotating. And they all were covered in what looked like symbols of some kind.
I should have been terrified of the symbols, I guess - but I know engines, and Tunneling tech, and a stable egg-damned Tunnel is a refutation of everything we know about transient-state Tunneling.
So these Thirders just dropped to the hull and were pounding on it with these hammers - each one looked like they weighed a ton, yet they were just swinging them around. The servos you’d need on the armor to wield them, incomprehensible, and yet I didn’t see any indications of any.
Finally they all just smashed their way inside and it was confusing for a few minutes. From the damage report terminals I guess they were just moving around the ship, disabling things, killing anybody who got in their way. No guns. No projectiles. If someone shot them, the shots would miss, mostly, or rebound off clear lines of force. The weirdest part was two of them. These appeared to be Thirder females. I… uh. Well, the encrypted wartransmats have been coming through the station to be relayed, right? They got decrypted. Everybody’s been downloading the videos, and the language parser files, and the cultural stuff, so I, uh, know how they are gendered, sort of.
Instead of hammers, they had these short blades or swords or something. One had a staff, but it was made out of wood. Wood! And it was embedded with glowing rocks, and had symbols on it. I mean… wood, in space? But there it was. And the other had what looked like…I know how this is going to sound. She had a sword, but also a collection of.. Endoskeleton parts of Thirders, but no flesh. You know, just head endos. I’m looking in my dictionary. Skulls! She had six skulls, hanging from chains, she was just carrying like a sack of clams! It also looked like someone had silverplated the skulls. It was nicely done, really. And when a combat drone got close, she just lifted the skulls, and their jaws opened up and they egging shrieked, and fire spewed forth, hot enough to slag the defense Cyph’ds armor! It was terrifying. One of the junior Repairdrones with me inked himself.
Anyway, these two females ordered a male hammer drone with them, and they just kept bashing down the hulls until they got near the main Fusion chamber. I thought maybe they were going for the reactor so I overloaded the structural fields and locked them - this is important - locked the structure field generators to the same frequency as the EM waves coming off the hammers. Everybody took off, except for me. I hid behind a terminal. And then they busted through the ceiling and dropped into the chamber with me.
They were close enough to hear now, so I turned on my black market Thirder auto-dict so I could figure out what was going on.
The one with the staff told the male with the hammer to “egging crush this egging reactor and send these roundfood haters to the bad afterlife”. The translator wasn’t doing a great job, I guess. So the male started pounding on the reactor, but the shell wouldn’t budge. Ha! Then the one with the staff started making funny noises, sort of musical if I was guessing, and her staff changed color, and then the hammer changed color. And now when he was banging on the shell it started to dent a little, but not much. Boy, were the females inked. The male started asking for forgiveness, too, which I don’t get.
Then the staff female started arguing with the skull female, who was saying no no no to something, but then in the end she gave in. The staff female started drawing this complicated figure in light on the deck, and then the skull female raised the skulls and they all started singing in harmony, and singing in… hang on, I made a note in the auto-dic… in a Thirder language called High Enochian, which the auto-dic said was a “75% Linguistic set match” for Holy Beyond, which I mean, that’s weird, right? I haven’t heard any Beyond spoken by a priest since the last time I went to a Meet, and I’m not that religious. It’s been a while!
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
So as I said these skulls were singing, and there was light and symbols and stuff, and then the air sort of… ripped, I guess. And this… this being stepped out. And it was terrifying at first because I thought it was an Avian, feathers and such, but it wasn’t. It was like… like a Thirder, but with wings, and wearing this shimmering sheer cloth, and carrying another sword, but this time the sword was on fire! And the being was on fire, but not burning, I guess? I think I’m losing it. Anyway, I’m cutting and pasting out of the auto-dic with the verification keys for the next part because nobody is going to believe me otherwise. I’ll parenthesis in any notes for context.
THIRDER FEMALE 1: NURIEL THOU ART
THIRDER FEMALE 2 & SKULLS: (in harmony) HOLY HOLY HOLY
NURIEL: WHAT IN THE ALMIGHTY’S NAME
THIRDER FEMALE 1 (pointing at reactor shell) RENDETH YON WALL ASUNDER SO THAT THIS EDIFICE BE OBLITERATED YEA AND ALL THAT LIVE HEREIN SHALL -
THIRDER FEMALE 2 & SKULLS: HOLY HOLY HOLY YEA HOSANNA -
NURIEL (pointing at skulls, and putting a hand on his face): ART THINE ACCOMPANIMENT ADAMAIC SKULLS? ART THOSE VERILY EGGING ENSOULED ADAMAIC SINGING SKULLS!!!?
THIRDER FEMALE 1 (pointing at reactor shell) RENDETH YON WALL NOW!
NURIEL: (squinting at reactor) I CANNOT. THE RADIANCE OF YONDER APPARATUS HAS CAUSED A LORENTZ ABOMINATION AT THE QUANTUM FOAM LEVEL IN THE ARTIFICIAL ADAMANT. I CANNOT BREECH! NOT WITHOUT… UM… MAYHAP…A TEN E TO THE TWENTY-FIRST CONTINGENT OF PLANCK LENGTH SIZED CHERUBIM.. TO DE-MESH…UM…I MUST CONSIDER -
NURIEL (pointing at me, even though I was hidden, and I damn near inked myself) PRITHEE CEPHY’D ARTIFICER, HOW MANY MEGA-TESLAS DOTH THIS FIELD LOOP BACK TO THE ANCHOR YONDER?
THIRDER FEMALE 2: FOR EGGS SAKE-
SKULLS: (in harmony) HOLY HOLY HOLY YEA HOLY-
THIRDER FEMALE 1: NURIEL EGGING DO SOMETHING!
NURIEL: SERIOUSNESS, THOU CANST KEEP SUMMONING US FROM THE TREE - THOU ART MAD - THERE ART FEEDBACK LOOPS - MINE KIND ARE NOT EGGING FEDERATED EXPRESS DELIVERANCE AGENTS -
SKULLS: HOLY HOLY-
NURIEL: THE QLIPHOTH CANNOT HOLD FROM THY CLUMSY PUMMELING-
SKULLS: HOLY HOLY-
NURIEL: I WILL NEVER UNSEE THESE SKULLS HARMONIZING, VERILY THAT IS SOOTH-
THIRDER FEMALE 1: WAIT! ART THOUGH NOT THE ANGEL OF HAIL?
NURIEL: I.. VERILY THAT’S A REDUCTIVE--
THIRDER FEMALE 1: DE-ORBIT THIS EGGER! BRING IT DOWN AS HAIL ALONG WITH EVERY FLATBREAD-HATING OCTOPOD-
NURIEL: YOU DAUGHTERS OF EVE ARE EGGING ADDLED!
THIRDER FEMALE 2 & SKULLS (in harmony): WE ABJURE THEE IN THE NAME OF THE MOST-
NURIEL: AIIIIIII! VERY WELL! VERY WELL. (stretches arms out) I SHALT ATTEMPT TO LOCALLY WARPETH THE BOLTZMANN CONSTANT TO EXCHANGE SOME HEAT INTO LOCAL MOMENTA.
Ok. At this point, I’ll stop with the translation. The glowing being reached down and started pushing on the deck and the whole station lurched. The orbital attitude alarms all went off, and I could see we are starting to break orbit. The station is, I mean. The rest of the Thirders jumped back up from where they came from. I thought about getting to an escape pod, but I spent the last few minutes getting this message ready instead and into a quantum messaging unit.
I hope - I hope this all made sense. I don’t know why these Thirders seem so insane. But maybe someone can ask the Cyphipope to say a prayer and hold a Meet for our souls. I think we are all in trouble.
Repairdrone, 2nd class, QZane Pandip - end transmission.