Chapter Five (1/2)

Cheekeet Longflight stared at the scanners and clicked her beak in frustration and grief as she stared at the screens, which painted everything in lurid colors. Ruffling her feathers she willed the screens to change.

They didn't.

Her species could see five primary colors. Her hearing was more sensitive than that of all but two of the Unified Civilized Races despite having rejected membership in that august body. Her people were one of the Ununified Races, rarely considered civilized by the rest of the races, but outside of the ever present rules and laws and regulations of that eons old organization.

But that didn't help.

In up to 150% of standard gravity she could fly, unfettered by earth, for miles at a time. Her people had taken to space and exploration as a natural extension of their own abilities, their hollow bones and unique muscle structure quickly adaptable to nulgrav and microgravity.

But that didn't change anything.

Her people, the Akltak, did not worry about such things as the Precursors. Those eggs were smashed, why worry about them? It was like worrying about last year's wind. You should know about it, but it didn't effect today's flights. They were not afraid of what some called the Long Dark, others called the Great Void, and still others called the Great Empty. They had explored it in the three centuries since they had obtained FTL, established colonies, and explored the worlds with what other races called reckless abandon.

Which is why things were what they were.

Precursor ruins were examined, resulting in the knowledge that those nests were empty and abandoned. Not even bones remained, much less anything useful or enlightening. The ruins were exactly that because of warfare. Akltak understood struggles over nesting grounds, which made it so that the Precursor Ruins intrigued them. What would make two star-faring civilizations completely destroy one another to the point where nobody had even found remains, fossilized or not. This planet, this dead world, had extensive ruins in the sand and rock. The atmosphere was able to support life, able to allow the Akltak to fly, and was rich in oxygen.

Which is why things were burning.

The ruins had been interesting. Evidence of ground fighting, orbital strikes, of terrible weapons being used that Cheekeet Longflight and the Longflight Clan had eagerly gone over, hoping to glean knowledge from the evidence of the weapons. They had not reacted in superstitious fear like the other Civilized Races to the old breezes of a forgotten nest fight.

Which is why her Clan was dying.

Almost a hundred years of exploration, expanding the colony, the Longflight Clan budding off into five other clans. The population moving from two-thousand to nearly a half-million.

Then The Discovery.

Rock had been turned molten, covering The Discovery, concealing it until a hundred million years of wind and dust storms had exposed it to the Longflight Clan's sensors. They had examined it, slowly excavated it as they recorded and examined it. Strange, advanced alloys, unknown construction. The entire Longflight Clan had rejoiced. They had found an intact Precursor Artifact.

Which is why Cheekeet had watched her people die.

It had suddenly activated. Come to mechanical life.

And set out to destroy all life on the planet.

Cheekeet had managed to load precious eggs and chicks into a shuttle, had managed to reach one of the stations, and now watched her people die.

Kikteek Deepswoop was sitting at the communication station, normally used to file reports, talk to family, or watch the GalNet news. Her feathers drooped with despair as she repeated the request for help from someone, anyone.

But they were halfway into the Great Empty and there was no way help could reach them in time.

”High Nest Six, are you in need of assistance?” the voice was translated by the Omnitranslator, changed by the computer into the language of the avian Akltak but even so, the calm confidence in the voice came across electronic translation.

”By the Great Egg, yes. Oh, Those That Soar, we are all dying,” Kikteek wailed into the communicator. Her professionalism was gone, burned away like the feathers of all of the warrior caste who had tried to stop the rampaging machine.

”May I assist you?” The voice asked.

Cheekeet checked her scanners. There was one energy source, coming in fast, nearly at light speed, but her scanners could not detect a ship.

”Please! Please help us! There are still eggs, chicks, and moltlings down there! It's killing them all!” Kikteek cried out. ”Help us, stranger!”

”Then you have invited me in and I may assist,” the voice said.

Cheekeet checked quickly. The voice was coming across the GalNet superluminal communications array, somehow speaking across a wavelength that normally required huge arrays.

Yet she could not find a ship on her scanners, just that energy signature, bright enough to be a huge colony ship.

Cheekeet watched as the energy source came streaking at the planet and she cringed, hoping that the being offering assistance wasn't going to ”help” by slamming into the planet at nearly light speed.

Instead, it suddenly stopped in a flare of inertia and kinetic energy being dumped into jumpspace as if a battle cruiser had just lit off its engines.

Cheekeet focused her scanners, eager to see their possible savior, putting it up on the main screen to replace the horror of what was happening on the surface.

Everyone trilled in shock.

They had expected a ship. Perhaps a battle cruiser full of drop troops. Maybe even a light attack craft willing to enter atmosphere to engage the machine.

Instead, it was a bipedal figure, positioned as if they were standing on an unseen platform, upper limbs crossed across their chest. A long piece of material, perhaps even cloth, rippled behind the figure as if it was in wind despite the impossibility of such a thing in space. It was dressed in red and blue, one arm mechanical, one leg mechanical, and one half of its face obviously robotic.

Yet exposed skin was visible on the face, one hand, half the neck.

Cheekeet chirped softly in confusion. Perhaps its flesh wasn't affected adversely to vacuum? Still, seeing an eye blink, she wondered how that worked, how the figure could even see. She glanced at her scanners and was startled.

The energy signal was greater than she'd seen on anything outside of a major metropolis on one of the Core Worlds.

”I'll stop this evil-doer,” The voice said, and Cheekeet's eyes widened as she realized the figure's lips moved.

It was some kind of primate, melded to mechanical robotic parts. As she watched a panel opened up in the figure's leg, disgorging some kind of machines that took up positions around the figure at various distances.

”Those things are broadcasting. They want to know if we wish to view the broadcast,” Kikteek said.

”Yes. Log the transmissions,” Cheeket said. Kikteek fluttered her feathers in acknowledgement.

The figure suddenly moved, faster than the speed of sound, somehow leaving a blue and red streak behind itself even though Cheekeet could detect no reason for it. Cheekeet set the scanners to follow it, to watch it.

”It can't win by itself,” Eekreek said, using the peeps of a molting chick rather than the authoritative clicks and chirps of an adult, as she had since the slaughter had reached its crescendo on the planet.

Cheekeet's scanners followed the figure as it swooped down on the closest fight. There were twelve of the lesser mechanicals moving in on a nesting area, rushing up on the defenders and ripping them apart with mandibles and blades, almost seeming to relish in the slaughter.

The new being landed in the middle of the battlefield, dust raising up from where it had crashed to earth. Cheekeet expected to see a huge crater but instead the figure was just kneeling on the dirt. The broadcast devices swooped down to get the best views from different angles and distances.

One of her monitors reported that a massive amount of kinetic energy had been dumped in jumpspace.

The figure stood up and surveyed the scene calmly. Energy, in the high red visible spectrum, lashed from its eyes. Despite the attempt by Cheekeet's people to use laser weaponry to no avail, these beams blew huge chunks from the robotic killer's armor, severed limbs, and when ever the beams touched something vital, caused explosions.

In less than then ten seconds all twelve robots were destroyed and the being took to flight, one limb extended in front of them, the broadcast devices keeping up.

After the third combat against The Artifact's manufactured minions Cheekeet noticed something odd. Something that tickled at her like a loose feather.

The being, which was no taller than Cheekeet, made sure that Cheekeet had the best scanner view. She shifted one of the satellites to check and the being shifted its lines of attack in order to give Cheekeet the best view.