Momentum. An object in motion would continue moving until acted upon. Be it gravity, someone with anger issues or sheer exhaustion. Strehin raised her head from her desk. She was the unmovable object. It didn’t apply to her. A series of curtains marked her new office next to the command golem. She could see the techno-forest through small gaps in the cloth. It still looked wrong to have electric equipment merge with nature but it had done so splendidly.
The golem hissed and groaned behind her and in front was her hive. Every person had a specific task that kept them going. Xim was out collecting food and doing some stock-taking. Sarina’s team was scavenging for daily necessities while their leader accompanied Sovan. Kathrain was the secondary queen of her hive, the groaning, coughing and those lacking common sense all went to her.
Strehin considered herself part of the latter but she had no time to go pay a visit. Her attempts to massage her murderous headache away failed too. She was clocking in at nearly two days since her awakening. Most others had slept, she didn’t get the chance to do so. There was always something else.
“Administrator, we’ve got a situation!”
Like that. She heard the urgency in his voice and focused her gaze on the young man.
“Skip the niceties, get to it”, she commanded while adjusting her glasses. The man looked like one of Xim’s gardeners. A curious collection of grass smudges on his pants and earth under his fingernails worked better than any badge could have.
“Oh, yes. At once. I’m sorry. I’ll tell you what happened”, the man wasted more of her time, “We’ve got poisoned water. Three people drank from it and came down with something.”
Strehin took a deep breath. Grey lords all-embracing, she muttered and raised one of her eyebrows.
“You didn’t boil the water?”
The young man blinked, “Why would we do that?”
Of course, they hadn’t. The blessings and curses of humans growing up in controlled environments. Nanites kept the water clean down to a molecular level and dynamic doses of vitamins via drinking water kept people healthy. None of that worked and too few of them had been out there, surviving on some barren rock, living off the broken land.
“Xim should have instructed you about it.”
Her words seemed to hurt the man physically. Strehin put up a smile but somewhere between intention and reality, the result went awry. He lowered his head and voice.
“He is... uh, sorry we’re not supposed to tell you. Xim was exhausted and entrusted us with gathering.”
Sleep. She felt an irrational pang of anger before her brain could slam on the brakes. Strehin hadn’t foreseen it either. It might even have been her fault because she had water prepared the first time they woke up. Boiled, naturally.
“Then surely the doctor told you about the cause?”
“Lady Kathrain is fast asleep and her staff is busy with the gravity incident from hours ago.”
A cold sweat formed on her skin and she ran her hands through the short hair. Had it really been hours already? The flicker of a campfire distracted her long enough for the man to grow concerned.
“Administrator? About the problem?”
Strehin stretched her shoulders and got up from her desk. Too fast. Her office began to swim around her before her vision settled again with her fingers digging into the cheap imitation wood. She could not appear weak, right now there was but one pillar to keep things going. Her. Icy eyes stared the man down. He immediately straightened out, corrected his posture and saluted.
“Heart, prepare a broadcast to everyone awake. Water from untested sources is to be filtered and boiled before consumption. Failure to do so will result in health hazards and a personal session with me on my best mood” she said into a device resting on her desk. Her focus went back to the man. He looked pale.
“Anything else?”
“No?” he said with the single word stretched to a whole sentence. She looked down and got back to work. Sometime later, the man must have left on his own. Her body had begun alternating between rushes and crashes. The former got shorter and the latter hit harder with each breath. Normal people would have collapsed. She was not normal people. She couldn’t be. Not when every life depended on her.
.: You need help. :.
“Sarcasm, beautiful.”
.: That wasn’t sarcasm Administrator Strehin. You are overworked. Let me find you an assistant. :.
“No, not yet. This is too important for anyone else to deal with. Especially now that we’ve got visitors knocking on our door”
Was she still acting rationally? The fact that she could still wonder that, told her that yes, she was rational. A quiet lingering doubt however never quite went away. She really was overworked and tired people made mistakes. Why exactly was she against an assistant? Because the last one had shot her? Simple arrogance that only she could solve a problem? Strehin slammed a fist on the desk and the short pain jolted her awake.
“Not rational after all. Okay, listen up, Heart. We both know I won’t make the hour. Let me set some basic instructions. Our absolute priority is regaining power one way or another. The Star of Ashina must not be woken yet, she’s a security hazard. Heart, do a bounce back. Is that thought logically consistent?”
.: It lies within operational parameters but inches close to paranoia. :.
“I see. You’re right. I’ll deal with it after I’m back up again. Logistics, just keep everyone busy. You are free to adjust priorities based on current need but don’t forget clothes, tools and hygiene. Make sure our operators get some sleep too.”
.: Affirmative. :.
“Alright, then... uh... logistics... did I mention clothes, because - we all stink and...”, Strehin racked her brain. It was getting harder to form simple sentences and she caught herself getting little blackouts from microsleep.
“Did we do logistics yet?”
.: Affirmative. :.
“Of course, I’m just testing. Power, Logistics... let’s not forget Morale. When they stop moving, there is going to be trouble. We might need a... something...”, she stopped and dug her nails into the palm of her hand.
.: You need to sleep. :.
“You’re not my doctor”, she snapped back. Deeply Irrational, she diagnosed her own behaviour as if it didn’t concern her.
.: Indeed I am not. Your doctor has fallen asleep hours ago. :.
“I can still keep going. See, the next... problem are the... visitors... we...”
----------------------------------------
Sovan yawned. The subtle bumping of the tram made for a good lulling atmosphere. He blinked his eyes open and stared into the red lights of the heavy lifter. A grin made its way onto his face.
“Do you want a picture, so you can stop creepin’ on my sleepin’?”
“HOW DID YOU KNOW I LIKE HORROR?!” the machine thundered and the sheer volume outright punched the rest of his sleep out of his system. If the machine hadn’t also added a cute little curtsy while running down the tracks, he might have snapped. Now he just rubbed his ears and commented in a laconic tone.
“That’s it, your speakers go out the airlock.”
“Aye, aye. Actually, we’re getting close to the command centre. Do you think the others will be alright up there?”
“Those two? They’ll be fine, same with the other folks in my crew. They’re good at keeping busy and a station this broken, it’s like a blackhole joyride for them.”
Blackhole joyrides, fun for the whole family. Just grab one suicidal captain, a powerful ship that is more engine than anything else and then go and play with the laws of reality breaking down. The result was always funny – and tended to require reassembly afterwards. He began stretching his muscles in preparation for his morning routine. One look up at the machine and he suddenly realized that while he had slept, Sarina had kept going.
“You need sleep too”, the man suggested with a smile.
The machine wiggled the observation dome in response. A head shake. It was curious how easily human gestures translated into a four-legged metal monster.
“Nah, we operators have got a special technique. The meat sleeve sleeps while the mind stays awake. It won’t last forever but I’m good for a couple more days.”
“Just can’t get enough of me, can you?” he said with a grin.
“You? Pfft. These smooth metal arms though? Hrrrmmmm” the machine replied and unfurled all of the various tool-arms. Sovan laughed and a likewise chuckle came out of the lifter. However, words suddenly erupted in his mind.
.: We’ve got an emergency. The Administrator has collapsed from exhaustion. :.
“So the iron dragon is human too”, he said and shrugged his shoulders, “We’ll get to her on the double. Who is in charge now?”
.: Right now, no one. Xim, Kathrain, Strehin are all asleep. Sarina is with you. Furthermore, the Administrator currently serves as a symbol of strength. If word gets out that she collapsed, morale will take a significant hit. To further complicate matters, the visitors you 'accidentally' saw will be here soon and I’m forbidden from informing further crew members. :.
He slinked back down on his chair and narrowed his eyebrows. The drone stared at him and it was obvious from the funny little head tilts that Sarina realized he was in conversation.
“So are you suggesting either of us take over?”
.: You, to be precise. :.
Sovan shivered. There wasn’t even a sliver of doubt left in him that the golem had undergone a significant change. Heart had become sentient and more than just a little bit creepy. Could he trust her? Did he have a chance? He shook his head. Wrong question. Had she done him any harm?
“Alright” he stretched the word for a few seconds, “Yo Sarina, did you get any of this? We need to take over for the dragon. Grey gods, why didn’t she just wake one of her adjutants?”
The heavy lifter started to slow down at the same time as a bright light appeared further down the tunnel. With the speakers set to a lower volume, Sarina explained.
“It’s something I remember from way before. You know there are a lot of rumours about her, right? Highly decorated Stellar Mage, survives an assassination attempt, gets assigned a border station as if she were punished – that gets people thinking. Some might go looking.”
Sovan listened quietly while wondering what that had to do with support staff.
“This type of station usually runs on four reactors, two more for the habitation domes, sure – but why did we have twelve of them and this thing croaks when it is below eight? Why do we have an unrestrained command golem? What’s this edenleap stasis tech?”
“What does this have to do with her not wanting staff?”
“Patience, fleshy one! The thing is - this station isn’t normal. It’s something the families from the factions would want an eye on. Who is she really working for? Think about it. Adjutants might be spies and she just can’t risk it.”
It dawned on him, perhaps a bit too late, that this was another one of Sarina’s pet theories. He stared at the series of red lights and began to understand the finer nuances in their blinking. When the leftmost light blinked in a slow rhythm, that meant she was mixing up one of her conspiracy theories. He buried his face in his palm and sighed.
“And they might be bird-people?”
“Exactly!”
He groaned and the drone chuckled. The tram finally crawled to a step as they approached the platform. They both headed down a corridor while the drone chirped happily.
“Nah, Sovan. I reckon she’s just a control freak and a workaholic.”
The young technician could ultimately not hide his amusement. A grin crept on his face and the heavy lifter didn’t so much walk after him but rather it danced. It looked silly and slightly terrifying when one considered just how many tons were thrown about. The command centre was just a few steps along but the smell was already horrible. It had that note of a locker room mixed with the pleasant scents of nature but also horrid machine fluids.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
A group of people stood around a fire and were arguing while subtle groaning came from makeshift tents to the side. Kathrain’s tents of pain were easily found by people flocking too it and then leaving even faster. A sudden whine made him pause. While the machine couldn’t enter due to the size, he was sure she also didn’t want to see her – how would she call it – Meatsleeve. He waved back smiling and the machine waltzed off.
Well then, it was time for him to act the fool. He made way for the one area where no one went unless they absolutely had to. It was an easy mechanism to find the scariest person on the space station – and the one he needed to see.
Sovan glanced back over his shoulder to check if someone was watching and then slipped inside. There she was. Nearly twice as large as he was. She reminded him of fairy tales he had heard about the Thunderwomen of Switra III. Fierce, proud and loyal to the undying empire, the first and only line of defence against the invaders from the outer worlds.
“There might be a wee bit of propaganda in that story”, he said with a smirk and walked up to his boss. Sovan pulled off his jacket and formed a simple cushion out of it, which he then gently moved under her head. Even now she seemed like a force of nature that was just waiting to snatch up unsuspecting nano technicians in a death struggle. He took up position outside and blocked the entrance with his body.
“What should I do then? I’m really not a leader”
.: I’m confident in your abilities. There will be a steady stream of people needing minor instructions. Deal with them as they come. More importantly, we’ve got the issue of the visitors. :.
Sovan started to rotate his arms in an effort to loosen his muscles while his mind focused on the problem. Foremost, they needed information. Another sensor pulse would give them just that but it would lead to more accidents. Without information, he would be acting blind. Who were they? What did they want? Had they come to the station before and was that strange tool theirs? How had they entered the station anyway?
Too many questions and he found himself kneecapped. They needed eyes out there but external sensors needed too much power and they couldn’t very well go out themselves and have a look, could they?
Unless...
----------------------------------------
“No. Nope. Nyet. Not happening. Nein. Non. Lie. Get lost”
Despite her protests, Sarina found herself standing in an airlock. More precisely, her drone filled it out on all corners. She felt the air pressure lower around her and a dull thrum reached her mechanical ears.
“Sovan, I’m not doing this. Going out there with a terrestrial drone is awful. One drift and I’m ejected back to my... other body. I hate spacewalks”
“True and I believe in you. Look Lieutenant Sarina Istengrad. You need to be our eyes and ears”
“I know, let me whine in peace you horrible muscle-klutz”, she snapped back. It wasn’t like she didn’t realize the necessity of the situation. The solution was ingenious. Simple, makeshift but absolutely clever. The last hiss of air vanished from the airlock and her sensors noted on a scale of blue that all temperature had gone along with it. Her meat-body gulped and the drone just bobbed down for a second.
She hated what the sound sensors did in the vacuum. All she heard was the screeching and thumping of the heavy servos in her body. And with everything that silent, she also heard her own heartbeat. The real one in her meat sleeve. It made her far too self-conscious.
“Sarina?”
“Go hug the king of Orion” she sent with a growl and pushed herself forward. Carefully, one step at a time while clutching onto the strange construction that had been strapped to her chest. One more step, anticipation took hold of her and it wasn’t the good kind.
“I hate space”, she transmitted over her comm-line. The face of that accursed fitness fanatic grinned in reply.
“I doubt that. You’ve got clearances for all manner of drones”
She didn’t bother replying. Her left front leg moved out of the airlock and thumped against the outer hull. Sensors indicated that the metal had warmed from being exposed to the sun. She moved the second leg out and began heaving herself forward. Carefully. Inch by inch. If she slipped, she very much doubted the ramshackle machine on her metal chest would help. Her third leg exited the airlock and she had a stable foothold on the hull. Ever so slowly, she crawled forward while her sensors lit her up like a forest fire.
Heat began rising and despite not feeling pain, she still somehow felt the heat and imagined herself sweating. More steps. They passed without a problem while she was on her way towards a small outgrow tower on the hull. She would climb up there and use it as a vantage point from which she could use her full sensor suite to find their guests.
As she slowly inched closer, she suddenly felt the urge to hold onto something. Her tool arms unfurled and reached for the hull. They scratched over it before she could block the command. The sudden impact suddenly pushed her away from the hull. Sarina groaned in frustration as her drone spun away from the station.
“Lieutenant Sarina. Remember the RCS”
“The what?”
“Reaction control system... the thing on your chest. Stop the spin, then orient yourself” he said and then his voice changed in tone, “You’ll have to wait. No, you won’t enter the iron dragon’s office. Give me one minute, this is important”
Sovan was engaged in two conversations at once. One part talked her through the operation, the other part was dealing with a herd of angry cats meowing for attention. Sarina reached for the levers sticking out of the RCS. This was absurd. Her metal hands wrapped around two of the levers and she gently nudged them forward. Liquid fire washed over her skin and singed her metal but the spinning slowed down and finally came to a stop.
This RCS was little more than a series of cracked open plasma projector guns that had been jury-rigged to function as micro rockets with lever based control. In short, insanity. With the spin back under control, she turned her observation dome towards the tower she had aimed for and used more of the levers to gently nudge her in the direction.
“I hate you”, she sent over the comm. Sovan didn’t answer, he was deep in some conversation about pets, of all things. Seemingly a rather heated discussion too. She grunted in frustration. Each movement needed a delicacy she wasn’t feeling but her limbs finally touched the tower. She immediately clung her limbs around it.
“I’m in position and I’m hurting. This nightmare machine just killed half of my external touch sensors. It hurts.”
“No, you’re not. Your body is fine and unhurt. There is no pain.”
There was. To her. Unhealthy, side effect of drone addiction, would be the judgement. She made it herself so no one else had to. She jammed her four legs down and for the first time in minutes, she felt safe again.
A dull thump marked her lockdown and like that, she stretched her body and began searching. Strange moods washed over the woman. She felt vulnerable in a way that space drones didn’t. Here she was, outside, naked. Well, machine naked. To her, it felt like she had literally gone out the airlock in nothing but her underwear and was now clinging to the outside. She also felt overwhelmed. The massive planet took up much of her viewport.
Sarina was no astronavigator but even she could tell this wasn’t the usual planet. One glance at the enormous asteroid belt and she got a good idea what had actually happened to it. She shifted her machine body and began searching on all spectrums. The observation dome worked by soaking up all energy it received in whatever form and then tried to make sense of it. She could see but also feel radiation, waves, even temperature differences. There! A bright line on the thermal view approached the City of Citadels. At the end of that line, something radiated absurd levels of heat.
“The iron dragon is busy”, echoed the raised voice of Sovan, “Sure, feel free to. Go and tell her that you’re causing a fuzz over toilet paper.”
What? That obviously wasn’t meant for her. At least she hoped it didn’t. Not with the subject matter. She refocused her attention on the ship instead. Now that she had found it, she set a target lock and switched back to normal view. The foreign space vessel peeled out of the darkness as her systems enhanced the image to make sense. It looked like a singular spiral structure. There was no main engine but rather a series of smaller ones along the ridges that all fired in quickly changing angles.
“That ship makes no sense” she mused and shifted her drone around to keep the target lock active. The hull of the vessel had taken considerable punishment from engine wake and the inefficient placement of the rockets had caused visible structural damage. Still, that thing was somehow flying and she watched it weave around the countless wrecks with cumbersome determination.
“You can’t be serious. If you’ve got an argument, go and solve it like adults. Do you really need mommy dragon to do it for you?” echoed Sovan in her mind. More of his conversation spilt over into her implant and she sighed in response. It felt good to know that mister sunnyboy was in fact rather awful with authority.
“Sorry for disturbing your professional cat herding”, she pushed through the connection, “Let me give you an update. We’re dealing with a singular springship. My systems tell me it’ll be here in thirty”
“Springships?”
She forwarded an image of the floating spiral and saw his face twist on the tiny screen, like he had just sprained his ankle.
“We’re at least not dealing with intelligent life”, Sovan answered with a grimace showing on his face, “No I’m not talking to you, Sir. Look, you’ll figure it out.”
And he was gone again. Sarina lowered the volume from his input and began crawling her drone along the hull in an effort to keep the ship locked in view. A simple guesstimate of their course pointed them at the lower habitation module instead of any of the docks. She stretched her drone further in an attempt to get a look at the section below but the structural make of the station prevented that. The city of citadels had too large a belly to see its toes, so to speak.
One of her artificial arms reached for the levers on the reaction control system but she hesitated. In theory, she could use her limbs to jump away from the station, get a look and then use the RCS to head back. If she miscalculated her drone would become part of the wreckage and her consciousness would fall back to her body. A shudder ran down her spine. She hated losing her body, it felt like a part of her died every time it happened. Her mind still remembered the comfy feeling of her first custom made machine. Sovan’s voice interrupted her train of thought.
“Listen, Sarina, they’re not calming down here. Can I shove this alien business off to you? I’ll trust your judgement. Deal with them any way you see fit. These people are driving me up the wall”, he started but soon changed his tone to one far more aggressive, “No, you listen to me. Go out there, use your own emperor cursed hands if you have to and make a way to the cantina. We need that freezer, yesterday and I don’t care if the brambles are nasty or tasty”
Sarina panicked. Just a bit. Then curiosity took over. Without another thought, she compacted her body and then jumped towards the void. She got to greet the visitors. The little drone-head would write history as either the arbitrator of the first contact ever or for walking into the most embarrassing reunion in human history.
“Relax girl. You’ll do well and even bring your body back”, she assured herself as her body drifted out towards space, “You can’t really die either, what are you afraid of?”
The answer came soon. She started to feel sluggish. Her limbs didn’t move with the usual speed and the sensory input turned numb as the drone started to reach maximum operational distance. The drone finally moved out far enough to see the lower end of the station. A massive hole stared at her from the observation deck and one check on the trajectory told her that was the most likely target.
That was good enough. Her mind commanded the limbs to reach for the levers but every motion happened as if she were dipped in wool. The actions started to lag and her delicate control turned into what looked like a drone in a drunken stupor. A surge of motion sent her into another spin as she finally grabbed the levers. It was, however, a spin in the right direction. Sensation returned to her metal limbs and with control returning to normal, she began working on regaining control.
Her vision started to stabilize just in time for her to realize the hull was closer than she thought. Much closer. She braced for impact. There was no pain but she somehow felt it regardless. Anger flared and just as she ricocheted off the hull, one of her mechanical hands managed to grab onto the edge of the airlock.
With a grace that seemed impossible for such a large machine, she swung around and finally hooked one of her legs down, then another. She was stable again. That was all she needed to climb back inside and get creative on how she was going to punish Sovan for this experience. Her stomach still lurched and one of her limbs dragged. The metal skin was dented and large parts had been charred by the RCS. Sarina reached up and tore the system from her artifical body. She jammed up her speakers to maximum volume and vowed to go and meet Sovan first chance.
She made a leap forward but misjudged the damage on the leg. A wall panel came undone with a loud clang. Sarina picked it up, noticed the massive bump in it and cheekily just put it back where it came from. Just a bit worse for wear, really. For now, she had places to be.
----------------------------------------
The tram tunnel ended in a massive platform with several hundred tracks all leading into one station. This part of the City of Citadels was weird for a space-borne woman like her. There were houses. Actual old-style houses sprung up inside of the ginormous dome of the habitat. They were empty, of course. The accident had happened before they could ever be activated.
The planet-way architecture was weird to her eyes. Many of the houses shared the polygonal style she had seen in Strehin’s office once but there were also rounded structured and even ugly blocks of construction material. There were even medieval castles and buildings made in the style of re-imagined brutalism.
What irked her most was the adherence to ancient design sensibilities. There hadn’t been cars in thousands of years but people still build roads out of habit. Transparent walkways above the streets made sure that skirts stayed out of fashion while a complex system of inner-city trams connected various districts made with a purpose. Sarina guided her heavy machine along the walkways. The transparent material crunched with every step.
The habitation module was a ghost town. Not just because it was empty but also since everything not bolted down had gone out of the massive hole in the dome. Self-healing protocols seemed to have installed a temporary membrane over it. It stopped the decompression but the neat skybox of the habitat was in ruins. The hole literally looked like a hole had torn open the blue sky above.
“This place really is a mess”, she said and continued further into the dead city. A bright light up above introduced the arrival of the strangers. She watched them cut their engines and drift into the membrane. Clever. The self-healing protocols immediately went about repairing the damage while expelling the foreign matter on the other side. Their springship simply phased through the membrane and began firing engines again to slow down their descent.
Sarina felt like her heart was trying to leap out of her chest. This was it. First contact. Please let it be first contact and not some ape flopping out of their airlock. She began moving her machine closer to where the ship was headed and stumbled into a park where surprise made her stop in her tracks. Three spiral towers reached up with a central pad spanned between them functioning as a landing zone. The aliens had a basecamp.
The springship touched down with surprising grace and Sarina patiently waited for the airlock to open. First contact. First chance at meeting something other than human, something deemed impossible. She saw three large cranes reach out from the towers. They attached to the top of the rocket and then began... unscrewing... part of the rocket. Her drone blinked to signal her confusion. Surely that wasn’t their idea of an airlock, was it? Sudden motion caught her attention. Something undoubtedly alien.
She shifted her position when the damaged limb suddenly gave out. Her massive machine began sliding down the hill in comically slow motion as dozens of aliens flooded the landing pad. When her drone finally came to a halt, the fourth limb reactivated again and she propped herself up. She was standing just meters away with her observation dome pointing directly at the landing pad.
It took her a while to wrap her head around how the aliens looked. The central bulb seemed like the main body while hundreds of filament strings sprung out in all directions. It vaguely reminded her of the extinct willow tree, except that several of the filaments gathered into thick spiral strands that shaped various improvised limbs. Those things lacked eyes but she got the impression they were looking at her.
This was all or nothing. She had already messed up anyway. Sarina rose to her full length and carefully walked closer. The fourth leg held up while her heart beat so fast, it began distracting her. They still stared at her. She was sure of it. Their filaments vibrated in her direction. Would they understand gestures? Should she speak? Maybe not, the drone could be scary in that regard. A sudden movement caught her attention! One of the aliens walked out of a spiral tower by using the prehensile strings as limbs.
It held up a leather sleeve with something suspiciously familiar looking inside of it. The alien flowed closer and put the object down at the edge of their landing pad. Almost immediately all the others lowered themselves flat on the ground while pointing their shivering limbs at the object. Sarina zoomed in and nearly fell over backwards. Their holy object was a decrepit looking bust. Edges had broken off and it seemed to have gone through a war or two - but there was no doubt about it. That promotional statue belonged to one Star of Ashina.
“GROUPIES!” she gasped in-between bursts of laughter. The aliens suddenly hobbled together into clumps of hairy furballs. Their filaments shivered as if something had brushed through them all at once. Sarina blinked and her drone did as well by rapidly switching red lights. A sudden realization dawned upon her. Just a tiny one, really. She might or might not have left on her speakers. On the ANNOY-SOVAN setting. Woops?