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Don't Look Here! Get out before it is too late! No!!!
Posted By: Frightener<AndrewNewman@carolina.rr.com>
Date: 11 March 2004, 10:42 PM
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Ship Master Preda 'Sadomee stared at the visual representations of the twisting hallways of his prowler, the Swift Retribution. He could see tiny blips representing Grunts, Jackals, Elites, and even a luminous golden triangle that showed where the shipboard Prophet was. The hallways shifted and turned, scrolling through the entire ship in roughly three units. 'Sadomee whipped his head around as a dull alarm sounded. There was a large anomalous dot on the ship's advanced radar.
It was a human vessel.
The fact that there was a human ship in Covenant territory was astonishing, and somewhat disturbing. But this ship was so deep inside the Hegemony's borders. The lack of information, the unpredictability, the size of the ship displayed ran a chill down 'Sadomee's spinal column. His mandibles chittered, the Elite's form of a cringe. His instinctual reaction turned several heads: it was not often that an Elite was scared.
Preda noticed many of the bridge members present were staring at him. He chose a target, a Grunt clad in red armor, raised his plasma rifle, and fired. The Grunt's head exploded, and the other crewmembers got back to work as fast as they could. A few Elites dragged the dead soldier's corpse away.
"Siku," 'Sadomee yelled to his weapons officer, "Charge up the plasma torpedoes."
Siku 'Darakee nodded and tapped several holograms on his display.
"Praetorian?" Preda summoned the shipboard AI.
A deep, formal voice, almost God-like, responded, "Salutations, Master, is there anything I can do for you?"
"Yes," 'Sadomee responded, "Charge up our pulse lasers, there is an enemy ship in the area and I want it destroyed before it can charge up its Slipstream engines and escape."
"I shall charge the pulse lasers, Master, but it appears that the ship is dead in space."
For the first time, 'Sadomee realized the communications relay light was blinking. The light was a bright white, indicating the type of message was being sent.
It was a distress signal.
"Wait a few units, Praetorian," 'Sadomee knew that AIs weren't patient, but in Praetorian's case, that was too bad.
'Sadomee flicked the COMM on, expecting to hear a desperate, yet booming voice of a fellow Elite. No, there was no sound entering Preda's ears.
Seconds passed.
Music. Obviously human music. Coming from the nearby vessel. While most human music was primitive, random-sounding noises, this had beauty in it. In fact, it was more beautiful than the highest temple chant, or whatever the gods themselves might listen to. 'Sadomee felt compelled to go aboard and investigate. He was about to give the order to board that ship, but he couldn't concentrate, not with that music. 'Sadomee shook his head rapidly, then yelled.
"Shut the COMM off!" he growled. He hadn't the strength to shut it off himself. An Engineer idly floated to the COMM station and shut the music off. Engineers couldn't hear at the frequency that the music was on, so they had no problem shutting off the speakers.
'Sadomee, with his mind now cleared, tapped in demands to see the statistics on the strange human vessel. In the Covenant's runic text, the words "Not Available" appeared for every possible spec. Save one, the name. Ironically, it was called the Nameless. That was odd. The Covenant had gathered information on each type of Human vessel, this must be a newer model.
'Sadomee wanted to see this. He called up the best, most highest ranking troops on the ship. He had gathered ten Black-clad Elites, each armed with plasma swords, plasma pistols and plasma rifles, and also brought four Hunters, and the shipboard Prophet, Nara, wished to come along as well, an unusually bold move for a Prophet.
'Sadomee carefully looked around as he walked through the dark ship's interior. Behind him, two hunters shuffled along. Nara floated on his combat hover chair a few units behind. Nara's chair was armed with four plasma turrets and a fuel rod cannon, though the latter of the weapons would be near useless in the ship's closed quarters, lest he accidentally kill an ally.
'Sadomee turned his head, and saw a mechanical arm reach down and grab an Elite. More Elites were gathered up by the robotic assailants. Nara, as well as the Hunters, were pulled upward by the arms. Preda felt a horrible pain in his back as a mechanical arm grabbed him.
Nara couldn't blink. He couldn't move. He was paralyzed. Hours passed, he waited for a rescue squad, but none came. He tried to sleep, but to no avail. Nara made an attempt to scream, but couldn't. A laugh, a human one, filled his species' equivalent to an ear. It was an AI. The AI sounded insane. Nara detected pleasure in the Artificial Intelligence's synthetic voice. He waited for days, weeks, months. His eyes eventually blurred so bad he couldn't see out of them.
Preda wished strongly to scratch his itch. On his lower left arm. He had longed to relieve himself of this minor pain for hundreds of millions of years. This ship was feeding him. Keeping him alive until it ran out of food. It used its machines to preserve his body. Like Nara, Preda also had his eyes open when he was taken, but Elites had no need to blink. He could see clearly. After a long while, several hundred thousand millennia, a spike descended in front of his eye. Only three units away. For the next thousand years, it moved ever closer. At least Preda thought it did, he knew he had gone insane hundreds of millions of years back. Finally, when the pike was but a few nanounits from his eye, it sharply jabbed forward, relieving him of his insanity and of his life.
Nara heard the AI laugh. It laughed for millions of years, until, finally it stopped. Nara felt empty when it stopped, pushing himself deeper into insanity as he missed the sound of the AI's sadistic chuckle. He desperately tried to remember the AI's name. He heard it mentioned so long ago, but had forgotten it. Nara couldn't even remember if it was male or female. Then, exactly eight-hundred billion years after he was captured by the AI, he felt the breath being taken out of him. He rejoiced, as he would be released from this hell, this perverse world he had stared out for so long. But no, after a few units, before he could die, he felt the rich oxygen fill his lungs once again. He would live on in hell. Nara would remain very busy for the next few billion years, repaying his dept for his crimes against humanity.
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