It was a relatively quick affair for Neirdith to clear the rest of the ship. While there wasn't much of interest, she did find a weapons locker containing a beam rifle, several charge packs and a set of exo-armour. While it wasn't the expensive full coverage powered armour model typically found in slaaveth combat vessels, the security armour was still worth taking. After all, who knew when it might come in handy to have.
Seth had calmed down during her time exploring the ruined ship and had, with her urging and the Captain’s approval, taken the shuttle and used its maglocks to fully open the wrecked ship's cargo bay main door. With the door fully open it was a simple, if slightly stressful affair, to shift the mass of debris from the dead ship to The Arctic Heart. Once the debris were shifted on board and Neirdith was back in the Arctic Heart’s airlock, she took off her spacesuit and put it away.
She met Seth walking back from the hangar as she stepped out of the airlock and into the ship proper. His eyes still smoldered with restrained anger as he met her gaze but he remained silent. They walked together towards the cargo bay in silence, neither of them speaking a word. As they entered the much smaller cargo bay of their ship she couldn't help but be once again drawn to the mass of twisted wreckage and the hidden figure within.
“So you weren't kidding huh?” Seth suddenly spoke in a thoughtful manner.
As she looked over to him he switched his eyes from the mystery in front of them and to her face. She thought about asking if he was okay then decided not to, human males were awfully touchy about feeling related discussion and she didn't want to aggravate him further than he already was. So instead she just nodded grimly and drifted closer to the large mass of metal.
The salvage had the look of having been cut from a much larger mass, the wavering lines of plasma cuts evident on the surface of the metal. If the inertial indicators of the shuttle were anything to go by, whatever it was it was extremely heavy. The mass of metal had to weigh several dozen tons.
As she once again began to try and visually puzzle out the shape under the twisted metal plates, her train of thought was interrupted by a cough from directly behind her. She jumped a little and flushed a mild purple from embarrassment before turning towards Seth fully.
“So, I'm glad you made it back okay,” Seth started, “I was worried about you when you told me about the bodies, I was afraid there might have still been pirates on board, and I… Well, I didn’t…”
Neirdith stepped forwards quickly as his speech started to break off, embracing her slightly shorter friend, she put one hand on top of his curly hair. “Shhh, I understand you were afraid for me, but I'm back, nothing bad is going to happen. The pirates are gone, you’re safe here with me.” She said as comfortingly as she could.
He clung to her and she could feel rather than hear a small sob escape him. After a few moments though his stance straightened and he took a step back, not meeting her eyes he sniffed, a small smirk showing through the pain on his face. “Heh, look at me, crying like a little girl. Well it doesn't matter, I'm just glad you are okay.” He swiveled his face up to look at hers as she was much taller than him “No matter what happens, I still consider you my best friend Neirdith.” Grabbing hold of one of her shoulders in his firm grip he said “I know that I bug you a bit too much. I can't tell you how much you mean to me…”. He paused. Shaking his shaggy haired head he continued “Well, I'm going to head back to monitoring.” he said with a glance at his wrist mounted personal assistant. “Good luck with digging, whatever that is, out of that mess.” He gestured towards the pile behind her.
With a step back and a wave he started to turn to leave.
“Wait! Seth,” She began, and as he turned around and fixed her with a deep look with his blue eyes. “Uh, thanks and good luck, hopefully things calm down a bit right?” She said a bit lamely.
He gave her a smile and nodded. “Yeah, that would be nice.” She waved to him as he strode out of the room, she was a little worried about him but she turned once again to inspect the mass in front of her. ‘Well, nothing too it but to start I guess’ she thought to herself.
Neirdith grabbed a scanner from a nearby toolbox and began to walk around the perimeter of the mess trying to feel out the dimensions of the mass of dark gray alloy in the middle. While the readings were far from assured, she could see a mass of denser material in the center that was a little over three and a half meters by just slightly under three and a half meters. Whatever it was had a recognisable body structure with two squat ‘legs’ apparent at one end of the thing while another ‘arm’ was buried somewhere further inside. Her scanner glitched momentarily as something seemed to mess with its electronics but no sooner had her mind registered the flicker than it had returned back to normal. Putting this off as a minor glitch she continued scanning till she was sure she could safely cut the thing out without damaging it.
She turned around and got to work cutting and prying and was so intensely focused on her work she didn't even notice the slight twisting of entering warp that happened a while after she started. Quicker than she had expected, the mass was relatively free and she attached one of the overhead electromagnetic cranes to lift it more upright.
What greeted her was a hulking juggernaut of some dark gray metal, its body was heavily armored and had no apparent ‘head’ that she could discern. What she at first mistook for damage turned out, upon closer inspection, to be dark holes about the size of her outstretched hand covered over in some glasslike material that she couldn't place, as she touched it she noted that they felt like obsidian, cool and very hard. She judged that these must be sensors and continued exploring around the thing.
The one arm that had greeted her connected to the thing at the shoulder and was heavily armoured as well. The right arm ended in a fully articulated metal hand. While it was similar to her own, the proportions were distinctly alien, she couldn't help but be put off by how familiar it looked however. After a few seconds puzzling over it she gave up and moved her gaze to the left arm. The left arm was different, it was just as armoured as the right but rather than ending in a hand with fingers, it seemed to have four equally spaced claws arrayed around the outer edge of the wide circular wrist. She looked closer and saw that they looked to be hinged to move perpendicular to each other and surmised that this allowed it to grasp with them like a more primitive kind of clawed hand.
Neirdith wondered briefly why whoever made this thing would handicap it in such a manner when they could have easily just given it two fully functioning hands. With a quiet mental shrug she grabbed the scanner again and pulled up the data on her personal assistant. While the machine was three-hundred and sixty centimeters tall, it was almost three-hundred and forty centimeters wide giving it a heavy almost squat look. She looked at the mass readings and her eyes opened a bit wider in mild surprise. She had expected it to be heavy, it was metal after all, but her assistant was telling her the thing weighed almost thirteen thousand kilograms. She looked up at the wide bodied machine in fascination, it obviously wasn't made of steel it seemed. As she walked behind it she noticed a bit of scrap still attached to one of its wide legs. Frowning, she grabbed a hyperdiamond grinder to cut the piece off.
She started to cut at the piece and swore as her grip slipped and the rough hyperdiamond blade grated up against the leg, and shattered. With surprise she looked down at the grinder and then at the leg. It was undamaged, what's more not only was it undamaged it had just ripped apart the blade of her grinder with an ease that bespoke a hardness far surpassing that of even hyperdiamond.
With morbid curiosity she replaced the blade of her cutter and finished cutting off the offending debris. Neirdith then once again tentatively brought the blade to the dark gray metal only to jump back in surprise as the whirling blade once again kicked off the surface without doing any damage. The grinder was wrenched out of her grip at the contact and fell between the thing’s massive legs before it raced across the cargo bay, digging a shallow groove into the floor for a few meters before coming to a stop.
With a deep sigh she walked around to the front of the thing and picked up the grinder, she was just about to put it away when her personal assistant screamed an alarm. She looked at her wrist in shock and her jaw dropped as it began listing a huge amount of signals detected. Everything from radar, gravatic and sonic sensors crawled over her and quickly stopped.
Neirdith shuddered and was about to call Seth to ask if he had picked up any of the scans when she noticed that the machine in front of her seemed to be looking at her. With her mouth open in shocked surprise, she saw that there were now lights active on the front of the thing and what seemed disturbingly like two molten orange mechanical eyes that tracked her own.
For a short while silence reigned as the two figures continued to stare at one another. The silence was broken by a deep grating noise emanating from the machine, it took her a few long moments to realize that it was in fact speaking. The language was alien to her and she couldn't understand a single word. The noise was harsh, almost guttural and evoked a profound sense of unease from her mind.
After a brief moment of silence the thing spoke again this time in a louder tone and with more aggression causing Neirdith to squeak with fright and hide behind her toolbox. The noise immediately stopped. After a few seconds she peeked out from behind her flimsy cover. She saw that the huge figure seemed to still be looking intently at her, those burning eyes locked with hers. With a quiet whirr of motors the thing’s arms came down to rest at its sides in a relaxed posture. After another heavy moment of silence the thing spoke in its alien language again. This time the gravelly voice was lower, more subdued. It seemed almost gentle in nature this time. Feeling a little calmed by this, Neirdith came out from behind her toolbox and cautiously walked towards the armoured behemoth, stopping well short of it.
With a cautious voice she said "I'm sorry, I can't understand you."
The machine leaned back slightly in what seemed like surprise before its eyes roamed around the cargo bay. It remained silent, seemingly expecting more as its glowing eyes returned once more to her.
Feeling like she was making some sort of connection she asked "Who are you, what are you? Are you some kind of robot? Are you alive?" Gaining confidence with every question she stepped slightly closer to the machine soon coming so close she could hear the faint sounds of mechanical components inside its form.
She was now just out of its reach when she stopped once again. She looked at the machine in wonder and steeled herself. Against her better judgment she decided to make the one gesture she was sure would cross the language boundary. She slowly reached out her hand towards the great hulking machine.
**********
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Sweet silent darkness, unending, unyielding, blessed nothing. Then suddenly, noise and sensation. With a small measure of timidness they cast their senses out detecting a large mass of metal approaching, they were uninterested and a little disappointed and went back to sleep.
Some time later. Hours? Days? They had long since given up trying to track time. They once again cast their awareness out and were mildly surprised to see that they were no longer in space. With mild interest they noted that they were inside a vessel crafted by intelligent beings, it could see their frail biological bodies and hear their struggle for life in their breaths and the rapid beating of their hearts. They tried to move but realized they were still imprisoned in the wreckage that had sent them hurtling into the great unknown. With an annoyed internal grimace they went back to sleep, certain that things would work themselves out.
Some time later they once more awoke, but to the sounds of violence. Casting their senses out once more they noted that the vessel in which they were housed had been attacked and the biologicals from the attacking craft had invaded the one in which they resided. They saw the old ones die, their lives cut short by cruel burning plasma and wicked laughter. While they could not understand the language they understood cruelty, and they reviled such acts, but they were powerless to stop the evil ones as they were still stuck. With no way to physically help they did the only thing they could think of, they sent a signal into the void as loudly as they could.
The evil ones heard the cry, and they were frightened. As the evil ones fled they tried to destroy them, but they signaled again and the cruel ones ran. As minutes stretched into hours they called out into the void several more times in the hopes of attracting others. But as it became clearer no one was coming soon they went back to sleep putting their void call on an automated timer.
A strange noise was heard, a high pitched squealing getting louder, and then something grabbed hold of them and lifted, wrenching them from their metal tomb. It took a few precious minutes to fully register what was happening, they were free. They stood still, not moving, just observing their surroundings but saw nothing initially. They were just about to try and step forwards when a strange device seemed to fly from between their legs and scrape along the metal of the floor. While they stood pondering this strange new development they were surprised by a small biological creature running after the device.
They noted the new ones position and hit them with active scanners to learn more about them, the small horned creature seemed to wince at the feeling of being scanned and they immediately stopped their active scans, switching instead to passive scanners. The creature was looking at a small device on its wrist and then it looked up and looked straight into their eyes. They would have held their breath if they were able. This small creature had the most intense eyes they had ever seen, bright purple irises surrounded a petite slit of a pupil. The small being seemed to stare straight into their core, as if they were seeing through them.
After a moment of staring they mentally kicked themselves, and they said in a calm voice. “Do you know where we are?”
The creature twitched but it remained silent. Fearing that they must have not understood they said in a louder voice “Hello, I mean you no harm I would just like…” they stopped quickly as the fragile creature made a frightened noise and tried to hide itself behind a small metal storage chest. Fearing that they might have frightened this creature away, they lowered their arms and straightened while saying in as soft a voice as they could manage. “It's ok little one, I am not here to cause suffering, I only wish to learn more about this place. I have been dreaming for a long time and I no longer wish to slumber.”
The delicate being seemed to gain courage from their words. It timidly came out from its hiding place and began to rapidly speak, its animated voice gaining strength with each unintelligible statement all while approaching their location. Stopping just short of their reach it seemed to quiet in a moment of contemplation before slowly it raised its arm in a gesture towards them.
Feeling a rush of excitement in their core, they ever so slowly raised their right arm in a similar manner towards the creature, it flinched slightly at first but stayed in place, its eyes widening as they reached their arm gently towards it, and in a single smooth motion their hands touched. While they could not feel per say, their hand was capable of detecting heat and electrical currents and so a shock seemed to go through them at the contact, the first contact they had with another living soul in eons. They almost broke right there from happiness, they had made a connection, and maybe even, a friend.
**********
Neirdith flinched as the machine started to move its right arm but she didn’t move. She would not flee, she needed to be strong. If the thing had wanted to hurt her it could have done so already. Her eyes widened as it reached out towards her and then their hands touched. Her hands were dwarfed by the great metal fist of the machine but it seemed to make contact with a degree of hesitancy, almost as if it was shy. As its hand contacted hers, palm up, she smiled in wonder. She moved her hand further, laying her hand in the middle of its massive palm, then looked back towards its mechanical eyes. They seemed brighter than before, almost twinkling.
Neirdith couldn't help herself and let out a gleeful laugh. The sound started from somewhere deep in her soul and rolled out of her in a wave. The machine recoiled slightly and as soon as her hand lost contact with it the feeling of mirth subsided, still there but now at a manageable level. Curious, she stepped closer to the machine with her hand outstretched, it made no motion towards or against her as she placed her hand on the warm metal slope of its front and almost immediately felt an almost overwhelming sense of worry and dread. She gasped in shock and jumped back quickly, her rand recoiling as if bitten. The great form of the machine seemed to inwardly sag as if in remorse. Feeling as though she had somehow hurt its feelings she once again reached out towards its armoured bulk. Ignoring the sense of worry from before, she tried as hard as she could to think of happiness and warmth.
The reaction was almost instant, one moment the machine seemed to slump, then the next it straightened and its arms came up in a defensive position. It tried to step back but was held fast by the maglocked crane above it, it may have been a huge mechanical juggernaut but that crane was designed to shift hundreds of tons at a time and held fast.
As it thrashed and struggled, she leapt forwards and tried to think calming thoughts while cooing “It's okay big guy, I'm here it's okay, you don't need to be afraid.” This seemed to have the desired effect as the feeling of panic subsided and was replaced with a serene calm as its movements ceased. ‘Holy ranx’ she thought to herself in wonder. The thing seemed to be highly reactive to emotions, she wondered to herself why anyone would bother giving a robot feelings.
Her sense of amusement seemed to be reciprocated by the machine as an odd grating noise emanated from it, it took her a second to realize it was laughing. Her smile grew wide as a sense of happiness flooded through her.
Before she could test her new working theory any more she felt a stab of panic from the machine and heard Seth’s voice shout “Holy shit Neirdith! What is that thing and what are you doing!” As the machine moved its arms in a protective gesture between her and this perceived threat she saw Seth grab a breaker bar and rush the machine.
“Let go of her you monster, I won't let you hurt her!” With a roar he rushed at the figure and swung with all his strength at the leg of the vast machine, and yelled in surprise and pain as the bar bent and the shock traveled up it into his hands, with a cry he lost his grip on the now deformed metal bar and fell to his knees. The machine straightened and moved Neirdith to the side, shifting in the direction of the downed human.
Before it could react any further Neirdith gave a shout and ran to her friend. She turned towards the machine while hugging Seth and shouted “No, this is Seth don't hurt him, he was just trying to protect me.” turning her attention to her friend she put on her best scolding tone “And you mister, is that anyway to treat a guest?”
“Guest!?!” Seth sputtered in confusion, “What is that thing and what were you doing, and what is going on here?” Getting slowly to his feet he turned towards Neirdith and hissed “That thing could have killed you Neirdith, I was in the comms room when I detected a massive spike in strange coming from the hanger, I was worried about you so I came to check on you and what do I see when I walk into the bay, but you about to be crushed by some sort of huge metal monster.”
“Aww, that's so sweet of you Seth”.” she said while hugging him harder, after a second she released him and stepped back a look of seriousness on her face as she said “But you didn't have to. I had everything under control, I think it was scared and lonely and it just wants a friend. We did rescue it after all.”
“You are acting like that thing is alive, it's just a machine right?” as Neirdith didn't answer him Seth repeated “It is a machine right, did you check for biological signals when you were scanning it?”
She blushed slightly in embarrassment as they both turned towards the thing and had two different reactions as they saw it observing them with hands at its sides. Neirdith gave a little wave and a wide smile, while Seth gave a much more subdued grimace. Walking over to the tool chest, Neirdith pulled out a scanner and set it to biological scan before hesitating.
Shaking her head she activated the scanner and swore softly, “Well what do you know, it seems that our friend here is not a robot, I'm getting a faint biological return from the scanner, it’s sort of cyborg?” Turning to the cyborg she said in a clear voice while gesturing to herself “My name is Neirdith. Neirdith. What's your name?”
The glowing eyes of the machine seemed to dim a bit and it didn't respond.
Turning to Seth, Neirdith urged “Well, go ahead and introduce yourself.”
Swallowing loudly, Seth stepped forwards then froze as the eyes of the machine immediately flicked to him and transfixed him with a soul rending stare. “Gah, I, uhhh…. Erm, Seth. My name is Seth.” he finally got out while indicating himself then pointed at Neirdith and repeated her name a few times while she nodded encouragingly.
Falling silent they turned towards the cyborg expectantly. Its eyes flicked back and forth between them as it seemed to mull over this new information, straightening as much as it could while still held in place by the maglocked crane it let out a single rumbling word.
**********
They were surprised. The creature, no, their friend, was able to blend with them. They had never come across another lower capable of the blending, they were initially panicked by the long unfelt sensation and afraid the others had returned. Luckily their new friend seemed to be just as perceptive as they were kind as a feeling of calm washed through them at their new friend's touch.
Looking down at the small being in wonderment they felt its amusement and let out the first real laugh in what felt like their entire life. But their amusement soon turned to alarm as another creature entered the room. It was the same as the evil ones. They had killed the others and now they had come to kill new friend, this could not happen. Wrapping their arms around their new friend as the evil one rushed at her with a long metal rod they were surprised when the bar smashed into their leg instead of their arm. Shifting their friend gently to the side they turned to deal with this cruel animal when a cry of alarm rang from their friend. They watched in astonishment as their friend wrapped their long arms around the downed evil one in a protective way and gave an admonishing speech.
It seemed that the new one had thought their friend was in danger from them and had rushed to its defense. Standing, the two seemed to converse quietly together before their new friend walked to the metal container and retrieved a small object. After a moment they felt a series of scans permeate their form and were slightly warmed by the fact that their new friend would check to see if they had been injured, they were quite all right. It would have taken much more force than that to even scratch their shell. It was quite endearing and they were about to remark upon it when their friend started to make a repetitive noise at them. They nudged the other one and it did a similar action though the noise had changed, it then motioned at their friend and repeated the first noise several more times. They shifted their gaze between the two creatures thinking about the behavior before a flash of realization passed over their mind.
“Neir-dith?” they asked. It seemed to be the correct response because their friend jumped up into the air in excitement and said the word while referring to themselves again. Looking at the other one they stated “Seth.” It was the other one's turn to look shocked as their new friend, who seemed to be called Neirdith, hugged the other one called Seth. Neirdith and Seth each repeated their names again before looking at them expectantly. Thinking deeply, plumbing their memory for the information that they were seeking. They had to go back through eons of memory to find the information. But after what seemed like an eternity they found it, their name, unused for so long it had nearly faded from their memory.
Focusing back on the two small figures in front of them they straightened and uttered a single word. “Skorr.”