I began what many considered to be a daily pilgrimage to and from the village and the Warden of Eternity as Intra called it. I learned much during my time spent inside its walls, as I learned that it was not some cave, but a boat of sorts. A rather large one, she called it a ship, or more precisely, something called an Icarus Class Battle Cruiser, a ship made for war. I have personally never experienced a war, but the tales she spoke of with war as the subject suggested they were something terrible. So many lives lost, it was awful, and she was made to both protect the lives of her creators but also end the lives of those that sought to destroy her and her people.

She was like father, back when he was younger and not our chieftain, a warrior. But the battles she fought were so much larger than anything father had experienced, and would probably leave him screaming in abject terror. I learned exactly what she was, a machine made to handle things faster than a person like me could even think. Even now she was in twelve different places, doing twenty different tasks in each place, and was coordinating the efforts of the metallic beasts that still scuttled through her halls.

My earlier assessment that this place was like her body was correct, she told me that the ship was her body, the sensors her eyes, the tractor beams and cannons, missiles and other weapons her hands, and the engines her legs. The place where I learned all of this was considered her head, or her brain, the bridge was her head technically. I learned that the thing which gave her power to live was practically her heart, and the armor she wore was just that, armor over vulnerable flesh.

She was amazing, honestly, I remember being enthralled by everything she told me, but I could sense a profound desire to leave, to go back to her own home. There were things she didn’t tell me about, I knew this because she’d always change the subject when I asked certain questions, but she did so politely. I never pressed her for more on those particular subjects, not till she was ready.

Finally I started to think of her less as a divine being, and more like another member of the tribe. I shared my mealtimes with her, even though she didn’t partake, but that was okay. In time she became something like a sister, or perhaps a favorite aunt to me, and she continuously awed me with tales so fanciful I sometimes thought she was lying. But she always said they were true, and so I believed her.

But one day I went to her and I found her pacing, agitated by something. This was concerning, the repairs to her had been all but completed, it’d been a month since she woke up, and now she was building something new on her hull. She’d told me that they were thrusters meant to get her off the ground, and I had accepted this. I had been playing my part, keeping the tribe ignorant of what she really was, doing my best to stem the tide of worshippers trying to gain entry. Thankfully her drones would keep people out with little more than a few bruises, or simply knocking them out with a few well placed darts. Nobody was killed, praise the god-no… I can’t think like that, that’s what got us all into this mess in the first place.

I stood before her, and she seemed to simply ignore my presence, even as her holographic eyes swept over me time and time again. It took me clearing my throat to even get her attention, and when she finally looked at me and saw me, she did so with a clear look of surprise on her digital face.

“Is everything alright?” I asked, and she floundered, before collecting herself.

“Yes, yes everything is alright. I just… I get this feeling sometimes that something bad is going to happen. I’ve never had a reason to ignore it but I shudder to think what could cause such a thing to affect me at this time. Your world is quite peaceful after all, and the only dangers I would ever have to face from it rest at the bottom of your oceans.” I nod, thinking, then shrug.

“Perhaps you are simply anxious to be off this world? You are almost fully repaired after all.” I suggest, and that seems to make sense to her, as she nods and sighs, a chair taking shape for her to sit on.

“Maybe… I just don’t like this feeling. It never ends well.”

I sit beside her, smiling softly. I touch her back, rubbing it softly, like she did for me a month ago. Since then there have been no further outbursts from her like that, for which I am thankful. For a time we simply sit in companionable silence, but then something changes in her, she goes stiff, her face stern and layered by a mask of something bordering on hatred and disgust. But it is, again thankfully, not directed at me.

“Intra… what’s wrong?” I ask, concerned.

“The Yil’kaa, they’re coming.” She says, and I feel my heart skip a few beats.

⫷⟪∞⟫⫸

I had felt a disturbance in the higher bands of the hyperspace lanes, something that I had detected long before my accidental exile upon this world. It signaled the transit of a large fleet, and based on the band that this fleet was using, there was only one possible match, the Yil’kaa. A race so foul nobody likes them, warmongering technophobes that they are, so sure of their superiority they wipe out anything that dares stand against them. At least till the rest of the galaxy decided enough was enough, and gave them a thrashing they’d never forget, nor forgive. The sort of species to always play the victim when called out for their heinous acts against sentient life.

But surely it couldn't be them, why would they come here? Based on what I’d learned as well, having repaired my chronometer, it’d been a long, long time since I’d crash landed here, so surely they’d either changed their ways, or had gone extinct thanks to their repeated acts of barbarism. But if it was them… Then I had every reason to be worried. Because they’d take one look at me, then at the innocent people here and decide that all was forfeit. I bet they’d not even think twice about planet cracking this world simply to destroy me and any possible ‘heretical’ contamination I’d caused. I couldn’t let that happen, I wouldn’t let that happen. I’d fight them all if I had to, one last blaze of glory, a giant fuck you to a species that deserved all the hate they got.

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I was drawn out of my thoughts by Ula, who came to me. I didn’t even know she was there till she cleared her throat, and I was so startled by my lack of awareness I visibly floundered. But we talked, and I assured her I was fine, just worried is all. Then there was silence, and again I let my mind drift.

It was then that I felt the disturbance again, and this time there was no doubt as to what caused it. I felt bile in my nonexistent throat, flashes of images, two children, horribly mangled. I felt anger and hatred welling up in me, a desire to tear every last Yil’kaa apart with my bare hands. But cannons would do just fine, cannons that could unleash such devastation that the Yil’kaa would falter when faced with wrath.

She asked me what was wrong, and I told her. I told her the Yil’kaa were coming, and I could see that my stories had stuck with her, as her skin paled a few shades and I detected her heart skipping a few beats in terror.

“How long do we have?” She asked, and I ran the calculations.

“A month at most, based on where they’re coming from, there’s a considerable distance between us and them, enough time for me to get away… But doing that would leave you all vulnerable, and they’d probably destroy you simply for knowing about me.” I say, and Ula blanched. I tried to think, I tried to find some solution. I couldn’t hide myself, that’d only result in all of us dying. I couldn’t run away, because then I’d be violating a prime directive that had been hardwired into my programming, to protect the innocent. I couldn’t stand my ground either, because I was but one ship, and they had thousands of them no doubt. I would only prolong our deaths.

But a thought did occur to me, I could run, and I could take these people with me. I think I had the space, after all there was no crew to get in the way, and I was pretty massive all things considered. Yes, that seemed like the best course of action. I could easily outrun any Yil’kaa fleet, hide easily as well, and I had the room to carry them all. I hoped.

⫷⟪∞⟫⫸

I stared at Intra, as she was clearly thinking over her options. I was frightened, and she could probably tell I was too. I had long ago given up on trying to deduce how exactly she was able to do that, but she had once tried to explain it. I didn’t understand it at all. Finally, she looked at me, and there was a glimmer of hope in her eyes.

“Ula, how many of your people are there, in total across all the tribes?” She asked me, and I had to really think about it. I wasn’t sure, so I shrugged.

“I don’t know honestly, there’s a lot of us though, too many some might say.” I said, and she sighed.

“Dammit… Well, guess I’ll have to do this the hard way then. I’m going to… I’m going to need you to do something for me.” She said, and I raised a brow, perking up.

“Anything!” I said, perhaps a bit too hastily. I never once stopped to think of how that single word would change my life, and the lives of four million people.

“I’m going to need you to lie for me.”

⫷⟪∞⟫⫸

The galactic community was in a right tizzy now, word had been spread from the Terran Alliance that one of their lost ships had been discovered within Yil’kaa territory, and that already the Yil’kaa were on the move to eradicate it. Many said to simply allow it to be destroyed, but they changed their tune when it was revealed that it was the Warden of Eternity. Valkyr had been taken to a very public court when their deception and unethical business practices had been revealed, any and all surviving H.I.s had been at last freed from their forced servitude, they’d gotten their pound of flesh from the company that’d enslaved them.

The rehabilitation of those minds had been slow, but many had endured, all save one, Intra, who had supposedly been lost during one of the last battles against the Yil’kaa during their genocidal campaign against the Alliance. Now it was back, and since H.I.’s were considered people, and also sovereign citizens of the Alliance, they couldn’t simply sit back and let her be destroyed simply to avoid starting another war.

Because the Yil’kaa would surely use her presence in their territory as an excuse to declare they’d been attacked and victimized yet again, thus kicking off another war. So the only thing they could do was ensure the Warden of Eternity was retrieved without loss of life, on either side. But knowing the Yil’kaa, that was impossible.

So they all prepared themselves for the brewing conflict, as a QRF from the Alliance streaked towards Yil’kaa territory, intent on securing their lost lamb and bringing her home.

⫷⟪∞⟫⫸

Ula returned to her people, and spread a lie so convincing that it had the entire tribe rushing to the safety that Intra could provide them. It wasn’t exactly entirely a lie, but the wording of it was indeed a deception. They both played upon her peoples faith, spreading the warning that demons were coming from the sky to destroy them and their world, but that if they took shelter within Intra, within the goddess, they would be saved. Some didn’t believe it, and they left, intent to wait out the supposed destruction coming for them, but the rest, spurred on by faith and terror, flocked across the lands. It would take time, but many would be saved, or that was the hope at least.

⫷⟪∞⟫⫸

I stared at the drone feeds, another million souls were headed for me. Crossing miles of possibly dangerous terrain in the hopes that I could save them from the demons. I had dispatched my entire complement of shuttles and transport craft to pick up those that simply couldn’t make it in time on foot. Our lie had spread far and wide after all, and there were so many of them now seeking safety behind my armor.

I am twenty square kilometers long, more than large enough to hold the number of people coming to me. I had weapons that could tear a star apart, or a planet if I so chose. Every day more and more started to arrive, and many were already sitting within my hull, staring in wonder at the things I gave them. Fresh food, blankets, medicine. It hurt to see them bow or kneel, or hear them utter prayers to me whenever I showed myself to them, but I didn’t tell them to stop. They didn’t need to know the truth just yet, not yet… Only Ula knew, and she was very good at keeping secrets it seemed.

A month passed, and I grew more anxious as the Yil’kaa fleet grew closer and closer, I’d detected more of them as well, coming from every direction it seemed. And I knew that they had, as one of the now dead ensigns had once said, a murder boner for me. They knew it was me, and they intended to make sure I was very, very dead indeed.

So I began my final checks, noting with pleasure that I was fully repaired, my fuel supplies restocked, my armaments as prepared as they could be, as though they’d just been installed. I was ready to fly again, I was ready to fight and possibly die saving innocent lives once more.

I would not go quietly.