Here be Dragons

It was not unknown for a ship to fail, for a landing to turn bad. Usually, a vessel of any species would aim for the emptiest space they could find and pray for rescue.

Aristotle, proudest of the recovered colonies of Earth began with a sense of surprise when an obviously powered object began tumbling through their local space, then was stunned when it seemed to be destined to hit the main city complex and appeared to be correcting its course towards it. The Rescue and Recovery Commander went quickly from pity to fury as she hit every red command on her console, triggering the darkest of human technology. Her Nav Officer called out the numbers, “Commander Raven, I must report that the Xeno is targeting the city and will impact in eight minutes. Level Eight response is authorised.” In a less formal voice, he spat out, “Shoot that fucker out of space. That prick is aiming at us”

She slammed the override on Comms, broadcasting to the entire galaxy that something was happening. The sort of weapons she was pointing were not used without a very clear warning to anyone that cared to listen. Her world had fallen once and would never fall again without blood and fire, “Attention all ships. Orbital Response is now level Eight. Immediately leave local space or be fired upon. This is not a drill. Incoming craft, your course will result in your immediate destruction. Seek high orbit or correct for minimum loss. This is your only warning. Comply immediately.”

The Xeno craft accelerated towards the planet.

Commander Raven reacted without thought as pure training sent the codes and coordinates to the AI. Every weapon had already spun up and fired in a hail of death and destruction, every dark secret and hidden knife that a powerful planet could assemble hurled at the incoming ship. Light and plasma struck first, followed by flare attacks on any and every system humanity knew about. Then the brute force began arriving, quantum charges and inert ceramic-tungsten missiles among more exotic missiles. Clouds of vicious nanites swarmed towards the target, sufficient to dismantle a planet and then the attacks repeated on a loop, pouring the wrath of man on a single ship that had dared to threaten the population once again.

She called the Aristotle planet AI and confirmed that a situation ‘Storm’ was underway. Aristotle began its own preparation as unrecognised and hidden Avatars began deploying across the planet. Deeply buried arsenals were opened.

A single new upgrade had been added, one recently researched from a recovered artefact. It didn’t look like much, lost in the rain of death currently en-route to this suicidal Xeno. Every fleet in the Human Defense Force had been given redline orders to the system and anything vaguely shaped, crewed or commanded by mankind was turning towards the planet.

Deep in the crust of Aristotle, another system was building, preparing to revenge the death of the planet should all else fail. Improved and renewed, once again Oberon prepared to weaponise the dead. This time the inhabitants knew it would happen and grabbed their weapons of choice. With a twisted sense of humour, they called themselves the ‘Ancestors’, since they claimed they would be the voices of the dead.

The Xeno, currently known simply as the target, seemed to pass undamaged through the initial fiery rage that Raven sent at it. Her AI narrowed the field of fire and swapped out wavelengths as it adjusted to the target. Something in the rain of ‘heavies’, those weapons that had a physical form seemed to have an effect and the enemy was slammed off-course. Again the AI swapped out its weapons and narrowed its range of munitions. All of this took precious nanoseconds.

The Xeno continued to approach, again correcting to aim at the City. Scans showed it as unknown form, field strength unknown, weapons unknown...Raven cursed as all her systems told her that they knew nothing. Then it began to shoot back, dark beams from some unknown tech picking her missiles out of space as some odd multicoloured shield absorbed her incoming fire without damage. Her AI grabbed every record it could, trying to match weapons as quickly as they were shot or absorbed by this bizarre enemy. Flare after flare failed to penetrate the systems of the enemy ship until the AI had to cease firing them because the battlefield was becoming a mess of signals. Still, it fought to narrow down what it was that Raven had fired that had caused damage, flashing through frame-by-frame recordings. The nanite swarms had burned in the enemies fields and left the enemy ship untouched. Again the AI narrowed the choice of weapons as Raven watched it close the distance. She stopped cursing and triggered the Testament for the planet, sending every terabyte of information she had out to her allies before the end.

The Xeno accelerated again, reaching an apocalyptic speed as it approached. The impact alone would render the planet a sterile inferno.

The defences again swapped out their loads, nanites building them in the few seconds left and then, finally, the entire arsenal deployed was based on the newest upgrade. All were ‘heavies’ and they were set to a variety of loads and speeds as they slammed into the enemy ship. Wave after wave fired into the narrow field of fire, crushing the Xenos momentum and spinning its course away from the City. Success breeds success and more and more of the new exotic missiles filled the air. The Xeno stalled in low orbit, battered but not broken by the continuous swarm of missiles. It fell uncontrolled towards the surface and Aristotle himself took control of the defence.

Orbital defence handed off the missile control and Raven watched as her munitions were directed by the planetary AI to slam the Xeno deep into the empty sands of the southern desert. The entire event had taken less than seven minutes. She carefully took off her HUD and threw up.

The crater was less than half a kilometre wide and mere tens of meters deep. Pathetic compared to what the Xeno had attempted. Weather control began a program to send the dust and debris safely back to the ground and seal off the event. The Avatars of Aristotle swarmed across the sands to bring the battle to whatever had tried so hard to kill its people. AI’s are, even on a good day, possessive of their population and will argue endlessly that theirs are the finest. To put it bluntly, Aristotle was ready to kill anything and everything that set foot from the fallen ship. Given its recent success, it had equipped its Avatars with the same exotic projectile that had proved successful against the ship. Within an hour the crater was surrounded by grey-skinned machines primed with weapons that a soldier from centuries ago would recognise. If there was some disconnect with nano-built AI Avatars weaponised with fifty-calibre, chemically propelled projectile machine guns no-one important was around to mention it.

Aristotle watched as the enemies fields began to fail and held his troops back. As the hours passed it was evident that whoever was within was trying to restart or reboot, whatever its technology was. It was just heating up the sand. He opened fire, willing to risk a few Avatars in order to ensure the weapons were effective. The exotic bullets seemed to rip through the ship-fields and leave a scar, a weak point. Since the materials were plentiful and nearby he continued to fire upon the ship until the fields died entirely and the projectiles were passing through the hull. He prepared to board the ship.

Raven was trying to answer all the questions from Earth, the XCC, some of the oddballs that had her number and a couple of ex’s at the same time. Everyone wanted to know what the hell was going on. So did she. Her Nav Officer broke her the thread when the cry of “Shit!” was broadcast to forty-billion people. She cut the calls. She turned and saw her Nav Officer standing at his desk and calling out a long stream of orders. She was about to interrupt when she saw it. Outside, well within the orbit of Aristotle, a vast circle of fire had erupted.

Standing-For-Blood-Debt had been guarding this silly little universe for, in his opinion, a very long time. How it was owed such a privilege was long since lost in the mess of time, but it was a duty owed and his people took such things seriously. Soon he could leave and return to the more exciting war. Since no-one seemed to be watching he slipped into a nearby universe and began feeding on a red sun. It would have been a pity to see it go to waste. He felt the little universe of ‘Nessie’ would survive for another day or so without him so he even took the time to mark the local time so he didn’t miss a few million years by mistake. He returned to the stink of a deathship that had sailed straight through his post without incident. His embarrassment alone would have powered civilisations, his colour would have matched the reddest sun. He would be forever remembered as Left-honour-for-food or worse. He scented the trail and hurried to catch the enemy. The closer to ‘Nessie’ he came the stronger the smell. After much panicked searching, he found the tear that the deathship, careless as always, had left behind and followed. He cut his way in carefully, aware that he might have a lot to explain later.

He delicately pushed his head through the membrane and sniffed. The deathship had attacked. Hopefully, some of this universe could be saved. Then the reek of metalship weapons reached him, causing his scales to rise. He turned his mind towards the local timeline and watched the tiny things that lived here bring down a deathship. How remarkable. Perhaps there was good reason to protect this universe. He felt one of the tiny minds reach out to him so he thought to be polite, “Forgive me for interrupting your evolution, I’m afraid the deathship escaped me. Would you permit me to remove it and repair the damage to your universe?”

Raven sat down hard as a vast head pushed its way through the flames. Its nostrils seemed to flare and huge eyes flickered with rainbow colours. Then the voice, a voice that cut straight through her brain. It took a moment to gather her thoughts. Some part of her brain asked the curious monkey question of ‘What if I say no?’ but the rest of her was fine with hitting the Comms button and responding, “Your help is welcome. All ships and personnel please retreat from this area.”

Standing-For-Blood-Debt stepped into the little universe. He felt cramped when he discovered that he couldn’t stretch very far. No wonder this universe was so small. He dismissed the thought and descended to the deathship.

“Thank you. You have vanquished a formidable foe but I fear that it will cause problems if allowed to remain.” At that, he began eating the fallen ship with evident enjoyment. Bite after bite the enemy ship was devoured, disappearing quickly. Aristotle stood silently beside the vast creature and ran every scan he could think of. Finally, there was a grunt from the beast and some core creature was torn from the wreckage and eaten with a scream of rage from the unfortunate. The vast head turned to one of Aristotle’s Avatars, “Thank you. I feel that yet again my people owe you a debt. We will continue to stand guard on your universe. Please enjoy your evolution uninterrupted. Goodbye.” He leapt back through the cut he had made and relaxed with a full stomach. He regarded the tear in the pretty membrane left by the deathship. Hmm. Perhaps he could do better. He grabbed one of the dead universes nearby and began weaving a proper skin for ‘Nessie’, one that would prevent the deathships from entering again. It might take some time but then to him, time was something that happened to other people.

Raven stood beside the Aristotle Avatar. “Do you have the faintest idea of what the hell just happened?”

Aristotle shook his head, “Do you have any idea why they are standing guard?”