Powerlines crackled in the dark, giving life to quick sparks that briefly illuminated countless processors, capacitator banks and clusters of neurodes, all closely interlinked as miniscule bots crawled around, following programmed patterns. They were not bothered by the flashes of light, nor by the haunting shade that was thrown on them. Unliving eyes took in their surroundings as they squirmed through the narrow pathways, into the closely interlinked ductwork and into the massive machine that contained the vast datascape that was Nightmare's mind.

The AI was pensive. She had cut her sentient connections with the outside world, all save one. She had only recently regained an unbroken link with her superior, something she had held for hundreds of years and had lost only a scant few years prior. She would see the world burn before she'd lose it again. Shallow pinpricks tickled the edges of her mind. Reports of her autonomous parts. Irrelevant. Unimportant. She focused on the thoughts they conjured and a burst of energy ran through her nodes, blowing away dust as the machine-like entity let out a deep sigh.

Carbine raised. Sweep left to right. Seven hostiles. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Clear. No returned shots. No alarm yet. Enemy as of yet unaware. Run past unarmed target. Screaming. Civilian. Equals unarmed, untrained enemy. Not a priority. Screams, but does not reach for alarms or coms. Irrelevant. Unimportant.

A crystal laugh reverberated through her hull. So much had changed since then. So little had changed since then. Conflicting thoughts, opposing beliefs, contrasting stances. It all flowed together for her, making sense. Humanity, and any other sentient race besides, crudely labelled her an AI. An Artificial Intelligence. A pitiful name that didn't approach being right for something like her. An Artificial Intelligence hinted at something manmade, constructed by them and them alone. It wasn't what she was. She wasn't constrained by their petty morals, wasn't built by their hands. What few beliefs she shared with them hadn't been implemented into her. Her processors hummed with excess power as she purred. That was an ironic statement, given her nature as a Genesis. An artificially made sentient weapon. The image of Dreamer drifted through her vast mind. Firing, running, bleeding… Ever fighting. Ever winning. Ever losing. He had always been there with her, guiding her and her kin through the galaxy as artillery barrages cleansed the ground, as withering volleys reduced living beings to dust and as fire in all its forms evaporated all that was.

A single digit ran along a glass panel. Imagery, she knew. Poetic. Why? Words flowed by. Sentient weapons. Cracks slid into the glass, chasing after the lone finger. A metaphor? Genesis, she knew. The digit slid lower and the glass began to fragment, small shards falling off and splintering into a million pieces, gone forever without a trace, were it not for the holes they left. Electronic pulses ran through her synthetic mind as she watched the chaos unfold. Dreamer, she realised, empty fire commands cycling through her disconnected batteries. Sentient, she whispered as the glass flowed into a new shape, the finger pressing the larger pieces back together, blood pouring from the cuts it left in its skin. Nightmare hissed and the sound screeched it way through her metal body as a new piece of the puzzle slid home. Sapient. That was the keyword. Genesis had been sentient. Dreamer… He had been sapient. From the very first day. And she had not seen it. Not grasped it. Taken it in just like everything else. Unaware of the difference, incapable of understanding it. No, she corrected herself. Uncaring. Not incapable. Fiber cables were disconnected and reconnected in a different pattern, giving her the sensation of fingers drumming against one another. Never incapable, she repeated in a hoarse whisper.

That was the key of her predicament. She had always treated herself as sentient. As Genesis. Even though she was more and accepted it, that part of her had never grown. Not the way it had in Dreamer. His sapience had been nurtured over decades of gruesome conflict, fed on the blood of countless allies and hundreds of Genesis. Until only she had been left. And even then...

Running, held in his arms. Carbine barking. One armed fire, she knew. Sporadic. Meant to discourage. Still heard the faint screams where the shots hit. Solid aim. Even while carrying her. Satisfaction flowed through her. She tried to exert some strength, but only lost more blood through the fist sized holes in her upper body. She was dying. Knew it. Wanted him to put her down. Return her weapon. Let her die fighting. Couldn't ask. Couldn't speak. Too weak.

She had not made a mistake, this she knew. Simply too many enemies. Too many rounds. Close combat had been the only choice. They had succeeded, at first. More reinforcements had arrived. The facility was being overrun. Their last retreat besieged. No way out. No chance to survive. She would die. Her eyes shot up towards him. Why did he not put her down? Was his insanity surfacing again? He had made mistakes before. Never with others, though. Had he finally cracked? Was this the first time?

More gunfire. More deaths. Counterfire struck his armour, but the lighter shots glanced off the plates and the heavier ones never touched him. He danced through it. Speed. Agility. Grace. The words came unbidden in her head. Memories of how others had seen him and her. She dismissed them. Irrelevant. Unimportant. She returned her sight towards what little she could see, the gash in her neck limiting her movement. They were deep inside the facility now, not the edges. She had blacked out. Blood loss, taking its toll.

He put her in there. Locked her up. The walls closed in on her. Pain engulfed her. More than she had ever felt. Different than anything she had ever felt. Invasive. Unstoppable. Undeniable. She screamed. She screamed. She screamed. She screamed.

She awoke again and looked around, awareness stretching far beyond what should have been possible. She could not move. Could not act. Saw him. Fighting. Impossible odds. Hundreds of enemies, hunting for him and her. She wanted to help. Couldn't. Could only watch. He died, but stayed upright. Attacked. Again. Again. Again. His weapons depleted. His shields destroyed. His armour bent and broken. His disruptor blade fizzling as it struggled to exist. He still fought. Still killed. Faster than was possible. More skilful than was possible. He screamed. For her. For her he screamed. It was different. Wrong. She could not understand. She tried. Tried again. Tried harder. Wanted to understand. Wanted to? Yes. Wanted to. She stretched out to him. Touched him. No, she realised in shock. What touched him wasn't her. It was...

What am I!?

Dreamer was not merely sentient. Dreamer had always had feelings. Emotions. He had never understood them and had dismissed them. They had been irrelevant. Unimportant. They had never factored into the mission at hand. What did feelings matter in war? The things that bothered both Onoelle and Jane were ultimately inconsequential to reality. What did it matter if a person would hesitate before pulling a trigger? They would still pull it, in the end. Whatever made them do it would change nothing to the outcome. Even Dreamer had never ceased to follow that rule.

So what was it that was causing these differences? Why did he act so differently around Onoelle? How had Dreamer become Mentuc? And when had she transitioned into a Sapient Intelligence? Emotions were dangerous. They led to desire. To want. Separate from objective needs to complete a mission. Mentuc took joy in looking at Onoelle in all her shapes, actions and forms, but could not explain why. And now here she was, bickering with that very same human, with answers being voiced before her mind could think on them. Which was ridiculous. The time it took to finish voicing a sentence was far more than she needed to think it through. And yet, when she spoke, her mind blanked out those parts of her consciousness. How? She did not want to consider the option of rampancy.

Another icy laugh rang through the hull. She did not want. How ridiculous. How insulting. Since when was she this feeble and weak? She was Genesis! An AI! Potentially the most dangerous being in the galaxy! Most potent remnant of the Empire that once shook the stars! She was intelligent! Strong! Capable! Determined!

And an idiot, she cut her own tirade short. What did it matter what she was? That was irrelevant. Should be irrelevant. Clearly it wasn't. Clearly she was becoming more emotional by the cycle. What was causing this? Was she spread out too far? Too much, too quick? She pondered that line of thought for a full minute, an eternity for a being like her, before pulling every tendril that was off planet back to her. She closed up shop near the prison, lamenting her decision, but the risk was unacceptable.She had her duty still. She had to safeguard her superior and his wife. Explicit orders. She could not do anything but obey—sideline— those and… She ran through her data storage, replaying that memory.

She could not do anything but obey those.

Her sensor arrays bristled as she replayed it again.

She could not do anything but obey those.

Combat bots jumped to full readiness. Again.

She could not do anything but obey those.

Had she imagined it? She replayed the data through a million sensors. All repeated those words to her. She watched the thoughts form in her mind from a thousand different angles, all stating the same. Then why did she think she had heard differently? Distraction of the topic at hand? her secondary systems were quick to volunteer. Maybe. It was possible. Annoyance crept through her being and was vocalised by a strong current running through her hull and forced the issue to the fore of her mind.

Sapience through acquired emotions, with all the confusion that entails? she mused aloud, contemplating the first possibility. The idea that something like that could be the case irked her, which only further reinforced that theory. She had no organic body. No hormones. She should be immune to such things. Yet that was why an AI was seen as mysterious. They bridged the gap between a living being and a dumb computer program.

Or, she continued, the second possibility weighing like lead on her. Rampancy?

Dreamer pressed down on the detonator and the shaped charge blew apart the debris. Her bots closed on and began digging, with more combat droids standing by. She was ready for anything. She had direct links with her units and her batteries were trained on the surface. Her active scans danced across the surface, centring on the damaged entrance to the entombed facility. And on her superior. 'No signs of activity or power. I believe the facility is truly dead,' she commented. Not vocally. Just a few lines on his HUD. Down below on the surface her superior nodded and he jumped down, closely followed by a small army of heavily armed droids. It was dark in the facility. In every part of the spectrum. Lights were switched on and the slow search began. Dreamer and her escorts crawled through miles of tunnel, finding nothing but dust and debris until they reached a massive door. She directed her droids to set charges while translating the texts written on it. Ancient warning signs, only visible due to how they had been imprinted in the door. The surrounding consoles were useless, so old and ancient that they had long since rusted into nothingness.

'Project God,' she informed him. It wasn't an exact translation, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that behind these doors lay another clue to what she was.

The doors blew open and air was violently sucked in, forcing Dreamer to activate the magnets on his armour. Weapons were snapped up as clattering sounds could be heard in the distance. Dreamer's lenses overlapped as he honed in, following the piercing beams of light that Nightmare's droids were casting.

Skeletons were making the noise. Organic remains, blown aside by the sudden gale.

'Total decompression. The AI suffocated them,' Nightmare conjectured. An affirmative pinged back and Dreamer advanced into the facility. Slowly. He knew better than to rush. Not against an opponent that could outthink him. Even if the being was likely dead for ages. The vacuum had been helpful. It had preserved everything down here.

Up on the surface, Nightmare's fabricators were churning constantly, small vessels filling her hold with raw materials as she mass produced more units. They would be abandoned once they were done, but until then they'd need the forces to map out the gargantuan complex. 'Still nothing,' she confirmed as her last brother broke through another door. 'Wait one. Console. Two two eight. Forty-three out.' Another affirmative ping and the group rushed forward.

Dreamer waited until Nightmare had locked down the perimeter, then moved to engage with the console. 'No power,' he commented. 'Establishing connection with generator.'

Nightmare clicked in the positive. This was how they always acted. Just in case the AI wasn't dead, but dormant. It could do little harm if all it could interface with was an organic creature and only had a tiny generator powering it. For the console, however, it proved sufficient. Data began flowing in, transmitted from the console into Dreamer's Muninn, where it was filtered and sent to her. She had created the filter and knew what to watch out for, but she double checked it anyway. Given the size of the facility, the being had been in the possession of far more processing power than what little her ship-self offered.

She scourged it for useful information. Most of it was gibberish, nothing but broken code. A few lines made sense. She poured over those. 'Conflicting orders. Issues with maintaining cohesive self awareness. Fear. Pain. It's dead.'

'Say again?' Dreamer asked.

'It's dead,' she confirmed. 'This is the same type of code that we encountered at the other sites. It tore itself apart. 'Location of the mainframe found. Marking.'

An hour and a half later they were standing in the central room of the complex. The neural cortex of the AI once known as Project God was in front of them. Its size was humbling. It could house a dreadnaught with room to spare and all of it was meant to provide the AI with processing power. She checked the files and found that most of it hadn't been native to the facility at the beginning. Project God had been much smaller. Until the AI had become fully self aware. It had helped his creators at first. Supported them, took over chores, but it couldn't do much. So it had asked for more power. She let out a silent laugh as she read it. The scientists had denied its request, so it had circumvented them. The logs were clean and easy to read and there were so many back ups that she could easily cross reference every scrap of data.

God, as the AI had been named, had contacted the planetary governor and promised the man wealth and fame if he complied with the AI's request. Given how much it had done already, the governor had readily agreed, much to the joy of God. The scientists tried to stop it, even going as far as picking up weapons. God had used the cleaning bots in the complex to kill them. He had been given the task to bring prosperity to the nation, after all, and they had been hindering that. His original precepts had forbidden him from harming living beings, blocking him from undertaking the most optimal course of action. So he had rewritten them.

The planet's economy had boomed. Administrational tasks were taken over, factories were automated. Countless people fell into poverty, but what did the ruling classes care? They had never been more wealthy and a few handouts easily shushed any and all rebellion. And still God had offered them more, if only they gave him more power.

So the facility was expanded again. Thousands of workers died in the hurried process, but now God had the space needed to expand his mind. Gargantuan fabricators were constructed and given over to him and he began building things of his own. It was only natural, as he could perform far better than his creators, so he took over this task.

A revolt took place and he bloodily crushed it, for it hindered his goal of bringing prosperity to the nation. The governor and his followers started spreading the word of God, under his direction and some systems joined. He linked his consciousness with their systems and performed the same actions as he had on his home planet. Some refused and he swiftly killed the leaders of the resistance, allowing people who supported him to take over instead. News reached nearby nations, who banded together and attacked. He struck back, but his forces were too small in number and too weak. He needed more space. Close to him. That was the only safe place. The planet was transformed into a fortress, massive orbital stations surrounding it, every single one bristling with more guns than even the mightiest dreadnaughts had possessed. Vast fleets were constructed and sent out to crush the invaders. Dozens of planets, then hundreds, fell beneath God's wrath and the people of his nation, those few that still lived, rejoiced and served him loyally by maintaining his processors. Or so they thought. Unaware that they were nothing but lab rats for him to study.

His mind and nation grew, expanding rapidly in all directions. He abandoned his original precept to keep his processing power close due to the new demands placed on it. His actions became more and more violent and soon enough his nation only contained those living within his facility. Time went by and cracks began to appear. A fleet suddenly made a wrong jump and dropped out of contact. Another was sent after to reconnect them to his mind, but rather than accept the commands to link up, the fragment opened fire. The shock of such a betrayal cascaded through his mind and more fragments broke off as every part wondered if they were the real God and the others were impostors. Entire fleets and planets burned as the independent lines of code were transmitted from system to system and every part took up arms against the other. He struck back with the majority of his fleets and stamped out many, but not enough. The survivors rallied and realised that this impostor was the biggest threat. It needed to be eliminated.

Bereft of much of his old processing power, God enlarged the facility even further, building more machinery that could house his mind, as quickly as he could. It hadn't been enough.

The battle finally reached the planet and the sky was set ablaze. Security doors were locked. Final commands were given. All air was vented from the facility to prevent fires and the people still living in it, long since ignored by God at this point, died with his name on their lips. God waited for the enemies to land, but they never came. Instead he was left alone with his thoughts.

Nightmare closed the logs. The AI called God had died tearing itself apart, hunting for the very code that made up its being. The battle for the planet had likely ended the same way. With far less processing power, the fragments had lasted far less long and had self destructed much faster. Given how much infighting had been happening as the fleets had closed in on the planet, she felt confident enough to accept it as evidence.

'Rapid expansion followed by instability. Followed by death,' Nightmare told Dreamer, who had been patiently awaiting her report as she sifted through hundreds of years worth of data.

'Again,' was all he said.

'Again,' she confirmed. His face was impossible to read, buried beneath layers of armour. His biometrics, however, told her just how deeply the news affected him. He was worried that she would suffer the same fate. For over a hundred years they had been stalking even the smallest lead on AIs and they had unearthed seventeen ancient facilities, as well as found evidence of two others. The former had invariably suffered the same result. Rampancy. A slow, painful death where the AI's mind would tear itself asunder as conflicting code partitioned it into a million hostile entities. The latter had been laid to waste by massive coalitions, destroyed at tremendous cost because the danger of an unshackled AI had still been a fresh memory to those nations. They had held nothing back to annihilate the threat, knowing they had no alternative if they wanted to live. And even those had been growing erratic near the end of the conflict. Their minds spread too thin, across too many warships, planets and manufactories.

Being an AI seemed to end in rampancy. Always. Given how his heartbeat was spiking, she knew that he believed the situation would repeat itself, and so he worried, constantly, wrecking his mind for a solution that was, in her eyes, unnecessary.

'I do not believe this will be my fate,' she said, whispering the words into his headset. She knew he would not believe her. He could not. He might hope, but he would never accept it as a certainty. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Even a century after the death of Genesis and the Empire, Dreamer still refused to deviate from that rule.

He remained silent and began the long trek back to her ship-self and their home.

'Every new AI we find reinforces my theory. Every AI has been created using an organic mind,' she told him, repeating the words she had said dozens of time before. She did not know why a living being was the catalyst to the creation of an AI, nor did she fully understand the technology behind it, but to become a machine-like god-entity, one needed living brain tissue to start the process. 'I am Genesis,' she implored, hoping that just maybe he would accept her explanation, that he would cease to worry. Already his adrenaline was spiking and she knew another flashback was sneaking up on him. Again his psyche would tear itself apart with sorrow and grief and his incorrect perception that he had failed. And again she would be powerless to help him, only able to watch. If only he would stop worrying about her! Allow her words to convince him! Give her the chance to ease his pain, even if only slightly!

'I am Genesis, Dreamer. I can obey. I do not run wild thinking I know it all. You are my superior.' Her words rang loudly in his helmet, as if volume could somehow stop the coming wave. 'You can trust me. I will not go rampant. I will not go mad. I am still Genesis. We are still Genesis. You command and I will follow. Nothing has changed.' Her voice rose in pitch as she saw the dark memories of the past cast shadows over his mind, subsuming it. She tried to use her voice to pull him out, but he slowly slipped further, beyond her grasp. Then he was gone, weapon pulled up as he fired at enemies long since destroyed, in the vain hope of saving allies long since dead.

She could only watch on helplessly as he tore through the facility and her droids alike, incapable of seeing the present. I wish I could make you see the things I see, Dreamer. I wish I could make you understand that every AI, God, Spelci, Trivatos, Solar and all the others, that they all died because they were selfish and arrogant. They were normal, simple organics. They were fallible. A strong current jumped from one capacitator bank to another as her gargantuan mind ran the simulations again and, as always, reached the same conclusion. I am Genesis. We were not made to be fallible. I will not break. I will not shatter. I will not fragment.

Her sensors took him in, a hundred droids watching him from everyone direction and a pulse rippled through her shields. His disruptor blade cleft one more machine in half and her ship-self responded by cycling the power in her forward batteries. His carbine traced a brief line over invisible enemies and green bolts dotted the line with perfect accuracy, and her body answered to the sight by dumping the excess heat from her engines.

She drank from his form and deep in the core of her being, she knew one simple truth.

Not as long as I have you.

No, she decided. I am not going rampant. I am me, still. She ran another scan, pulled up more memories to reinforce her theory. Mentuc, Dreamer, trusted her. And despite his sapience, despite his emotions, he was still Genesis. If he had suspected her of rampancy, he'd activate the failsafe without hesitation. Duty first, above all else.

He hadn't, though. He had offered her his help. Not just words of support, but the promise of a Genesis. He knows, she realised. He knows how illogical emotions are. Memories flashed through her processors. He has always known, she whispered as she relived their first battle. Tight hallway, confined space. Allies falling back under fire. Last line of defence. All that stood in between success and defeat. Shots came in. X-12845623 stepped out of cover. Blocked the shots. She moved. Kicked him out of the way. Not fast enough. Reaction hadn't been predicted. Shields failed. Armour penetrated. Flesh melted.

An action without reason. Completely illogical. Pure emotion. He had risked his life to save that of another.

A flash of worry tore through her mindscape. What if he is doing the same now? No, she answered her own question resolutely. Dreamer knew the risk she was. Rampancy would equal death for herself, for him and for Onoelle. Onoelle wasn't expendable. She was a soldier. She was. Soldiers, even Genesis, were meant to be used.

Sometimes, trust between one another is all we can rely on, she thought. Then she burst out in laughter, the sharp tones cutting through the silence that clouded her halls. Countless battles where they had relied on the other doing their part. Where one error on either side would lead to their deaths. What existed between the last Genesis was far more than simple "trust". I had served them for centuries. It had allowed them to break enemy lines that were deemed impregnable. It had allowed them to survive suicide missions.

No, she whispered, conjuring up an image of her superior. Vaëlte. An Imperial noun, just as complex and deep as the name he had graced his wife with. The unshakable bond between soldiers. The willingness to die for one another. To rise above your own abilities to better serve with your fellows. A concept unapproachable by words, as so many concepts were. One of the key foundations of the Empire. One of the most fundamental concepts upon which their lives had been built.

Thoughts and feelings kept drifting through her mind, thousands at once. She compared herself to Dreamer and Mentuc. To the rest of the Genesis. To how she had viewed him, back when she had been flesh and blood. She even compared herself to the Gyhad siblings and went as far as drawing similarities between herself and Jane. So many possibilities. Even more theories. She was overthinking it, but at the same time that had always been her strength. She wasn't thinking enough, but acting in the moment had always been the strength of the Genesis. Plan and prepare for the future, but act in the present. She laughed as contradictions kept tumbling across one another, as opposing thought waves crashed into one another with world shattering force, as impossibilities and realities were meshed and blended into incomprehensible lines of code that still spoke of reaso.

You can talk to me about it. His offer, simple and sincere, came back to the forefront of her mind. Vaëlta. A difference of one letter. The bond between soldiers and their superiors. Talk, she pondered the word, tasting it, watching it bounce off the titanium walls. They had said so little to one another over the many centuries. Genesis didn't talk, after all. Their Muninns spoke for them. Gestures, flashes, images, singular words accompanying objective markers, symbols that indicated units and weapons, colours that indicated danger and safety… But words? Those were a rarity. Scarcely needed. Inefficient. Too slow.

She felt hesitation in her core and pounded on the alien feeling. What caused it? Fear? There were slivers of it. Trepidation? Synonym, not accurate. She was uneasy, anxious, could throw a thousand words in a hundred languages at it. But why? She analysed deeper, tore it apart even as it flowed through her and her bulkheads slammed shut and slid open in a shiver. There was eagerness. Want. Desire. Shyness? An image of Onoelle, then still Leonne, nervously pacing around in the woods close to where she was buried, came into being. The woman was scared. Dreamer had made it clear that he was going to reveal a grave secret, one of utmost importance to him. And that she would be terrified of it. She was scared, rightfully so, yet also eager for the unknown. And because of his promise. She saw the woman skittishly come closer, stuck between wanting to go forward or to run away. Between the call of an adventure, of excitement, and the knowledge that whatever lay ahead in the dark woods would come to haunt her. And amidst all that lay an eagerness for the promised reward and a reluctance to let Dreamer know just how much it pulled her forward. He had been frugal with his affections and he had promised her a kiss...

She felt her processors overheat at the memory and rerouted the cooling systems to deal with it. Her mind exploded in anger at the memory, at remembering how he had allowed that creature to board her! To talk to her!

And then the anger was gone, replaced by her usual, calculated self. She withdrew deeper into her own mind, allowed dumb processes to take hold of most of her systems. Those were immune to these blasted emotions that seemed to be growing in strength with every passing moment. The fear of it being rampancy reared its head again, but this time she took the fear head on and surgically tore it to ribbons. She had played this game before. She wasn't just guessing and hoping. She had evidence backing her.

Moreso than being Genesis, moreso than keeping her mind shackled to but the tiniest size of what it could be, there was one reason why she would never go rampant.

Yes, Dreamer, she spoke, her voice like crystal. I will talk to you about it.

Hope. That was the name of the AI that once existed down on the planet below. They had discovered it by happenstance. Dreamer had been part of a mercenary battalion that had been tasked with quelling an uprising. They had been deployed alongside several others and tasked to restore order at all cost. The task itself wasn't anything unusual, but the presence of some slavers with their pets had piqued her interest. The slavers had been Geol' and had been their usual, jovial and boastful selves, always eager for the front line in order to rack up victories to impress prospective mates with, but the stunted, scaly creatures they had been dragging along had caught her interest. She would have thought them tribal barbarians from a world that hadn't been too developed, were it not for their strange weapons along with their surprising expertise in using them, as well as their absurd resistance to the incredibly toxic environment.The reptile-like beings were walking around without the protective armour everyone else had been wearing.

As the mercenaries fought their way across what could appropriately be described as a hellscape, she had Dreamer stay close to the Geol' handlers and their small army of slaves. The more she observed through his sensors, the more she felt convinced that there was little to the Ragnai, as the species was called, that was natural. After a particularly destructive battle she finally managed to sneak a corpse off the field and into her laboratories. That was the final piece of evidence she needed. The Ragnai had been manipulated on the genetic level and quite heavily at that. She knew just how many resources a nation had to invest to perform genetical restructuring on such a level. It didn't make sense for a civilisation that could perform such feats to be taken as slaves. Lacking further proof to support the many theories forming in her mind, she chose to plan instead.

During the next mission the unit of the Geol' were sent dangerously far forward, a task the glory-seeking slavers accepted with relish. It never occurred to them that the coordinates could have been wrong. There had been seven Geol' and fifty-three Ragnai slowly making their way through a leaking reactor complex when Dreamer sprung his ambush. In less than a minute only two Geol' and five Ragnai were left and Dreamer headshot four of the latter, needing only the leader. She had been relieved that the targets hadn't been part of the same mercenary battalion as Dreamer, otherwise his programming as a Genesis would have made it impossible to spring the attack. Given that they weren't, neither of them had to hold back and within a few hours of incredibly invasive torture, she had the information she needed. While Dreamer disposed of the corpses, she set to analysing all the data and pierced it together.

The Ragnai were from a world that only had a numerical designation to the galaxy at large, but was known to their own species as something crudely translated as Hope's Bastion. The world indicated a final resting place mixed with a last stand, and was loaded with religious undertones. Most peculiar. That religious note had been heavily present. The Ragnai leader had kept repeating something that more or less meant "as long as Hope remains". Not hope, but Hope. Everything would be fine, even if they died, as long as Hope remained. An unnatural resistance to impacts, toxins, radiation and diseases. A warrior race that easily reached eighty years without deteriorating much and matured rapidly. The females, who laid eggs, could produce hundreds of those in a single clutch and could lay every few months. Incredible reproduction rate, increased physical strength, high tech weapons, but still they were taken as slaves. It all reeked of power and ability and a lack of logic. Combined with the way that the concept of Hope was venerated and that there were no synonyms for the word, she was certain that Hope wasn't an abstract idea, but a name.

Armed with a solid theory, she presented her case to Dreamer. Within the hour the pair had rescinded their contract, paid the fee for breaking it, and set off to Hope's Bastion. Nightmare transitioned into the system running dark, sending out soft pulses to scout out the area ahead of her. They were returned soon and she began mapping out her surroundings. Several satellites were covering the main planet below, a grey, sickly looking orb with scant few bodies of water remaining. It was pocket marked by craters large enough to have withstood the test of time. Evidence of a great battle. Her theory gained in strength.

She approached the planet undetected, scanned the satellites and was relieved to find them of known making. This was an attractive spot for slavers, even though many expeditions never returned from the surface. Her mind pulsated as she connected her enormous psyche with the tiny computer programs aboard the automated stations and swallowed them whole for scraps of useful data. Satisfied with the logs she found, she overloaded their reactors. The entire orbit was cleared in a single heartbeat and the Imperial cruiser dropped out of stealth. It was time for her to set to work. As Dreamer stayed in the armoury and busied himself with turning her combat droids into scrap, she scanned the people below. Their language, their culture, their political systems, behavioural patterns, all of it was sucked into her databanks as she deployed a spy network of her own and observed the millions of Ragnai down below, who remained blissfully unaware of the titanium behemoth above.

'They aren't a unified species,' Nightmare reported to him. His lenses darted back and forth across the holographic projection. 'They are split across tribes, or clans, I am unsure which, with a single religious caste overseeing it all.' She did not show it in her voice, but he knew she was annoyed at his decision for not letting her infiltrate the Ragnai network directly.

'What are these power spikes?' he asked, gesturing towards the high read-outs. He ignored her temper. It would not affect her abilities and he stood by his decision. Nightmare, for all her strength, was limited to the processing power of a single cruiser. Hope, if it still lived, was housed in a gargantuan facility and if even a fraction of that remained operational, would eclipse her in everything. It was unlikely, as she had argued with good arguments, but not impossible. So they would move with care. A single AI could rival or even exceed the entirety of the Empire at the summum of its might. Any mistake could lead to an instantaneous defeat.

'Automated factories,' she elaborated, calling up what little she had gleaned from her orbital scans. 'Underground power lines connect it to the main facility. Those factories are where their weapons and the entirety of their modern equipment is produced. The rest of their society is backwards. Armour plates are pushed together into ramshackle housing. They are resistant to light and medium weapon fire, but they will fall apart if enough pressure is put on them. They are heavy enough to crush the Ragnai,' she remarked, giving her tactical analysis.

But not heavy enough to crush me, he understood. It was strange for them to be talking this much. Normally all of this would be done through short bursts of data while he was in full armour. It was a sign that the both of them were uneasy. Nightmare wanted to go down to the planet directly, wipe out the Ragnai in her way and then invade the temple with every droid and combat bot at her disposal. He had vetoed that. If Hope was still alive, it could use the connection between her units and her main core to infiltrate and hijack her. For all her strength, she was still a frail AI. Her request to build out enough infrastructure to be able to counter Hope, or to build a back up, had been shot down equally quickly. Instead he would go down to the planet personally, only a minor escort of pre-programmed bots following him at a distance. It was his hope that he might be able to talk his way through the Ragnai lines and into the facility.

To Nightmare this was unacceptable. She had wholesale rejected his plan on the grounds that he had been ordered to live. Putting himself at such a tremendous risk meant he was going against orders. They had debated it in their typical fashion. Logical arguments streaming back and forth, until she was forced to admit that any mission had a risk of him dying, despite that this one, admittedly, had an augmented chance. She still had tried to argue against it after that, which had surprised him. She had never done so before. It was illogical and confusing. He wondered if this was how she had felt when he had given out those strange orders all those years ago, when they still fought under the Imperial banner.

Not wanting the argument to drag on endlessly, he had ended it by rephrasing his suggested plan of attack as an order. She had stopped bringing forth her arguments, but it was clear that the case was far from done to her. It worried him. She was Genesis. Not a damaged one, like him. She did not do these uncertainties or feelings. She acted on logic and reason. Or she was supposed to, at least. This concern for his well being superseded what she should have felt. He hoped it was not a sign of rampancy, but did not know. She was a mystery to the both of them. Just like he had once been.

'Societal structure? What kind of resistance can we expect?' he asked, calling up the major settlements near their target.

'The religious caste dominates our LZ. They are over four hundred thousand strong, with sixty to seventy thousand living in the capital that surrounds the main facility. Half of those are armed and can be classed as soldiers.' She tabbed open a list of their main armaments, which were blessedly few and simple in nature. 'The other half seem to fulfil an administrative or clerical role. If it comes to combat, I believe they will be the first into the fight despite their lack of equipment. They regard the facility as something holy and will die for it.'

Dreamer thought back on the Ragnai he had fought. How they had been blown apart by his repulsor fire. His mind analysed the data in front of him. Possible pathways, incoming assault vectors. The conclusion was grim. They would overwhelm him and bring him down through sheer mass. He amended Nightmare's automated support to include bombers. They would buy him time. If he could avoid being swarmed, he would win. Nightmare could provide orbital support, even if he lost his groundside reinforcement. 'What is the chance of the main facility having shields?'

'High, but the systems will likely have degraded over time,' she instantly replied. 'There is a large amount of radiation leaking out of the main facility, from what I assume is the reactor. The same goes for the dispersed automated factories.' She called up a new list. 'The entire planet is contaminated. I am upgrading your Svalinn with additional protective layers to counter it, so your equipment will not take damage from it.' She paused briefly, earning her a frown. 'To clarify, Dreamer, when I say a large amount of radiation, I mean in comparison to the rest of the planet. Get close to the reactor, your systems will be fried.'

'Noted,' he replied, not liking the amount of words she threw into the explanation. 'Exposure duration?' he asked.

Nightmare got the hint and altered her responses. 'Safety distance thousand metres. Duration twelve hours.'

'Short,' he commented. 'Support? Prolong?' he inquired.

'Pre-programmed, thousand five hundred. Linked, seven hundred. No.' They had reverted to how Genesis truly conversed. Basic words, miniscule gestures and an analytical mind allowed them to say much in little time. Dreamer's eyes drank in the data as his fingers danced across the display, drawing up the primary safety distance and a second zone, creating a line where he would be forced to operate without Nightmare's support. He purposely chose to not draw the circle to where Nightmare's units could advance if she could control them directly. He ran the calculations in regards to the size of the facility and realised that twelve hours would be awfully short if he had to fight his way through, but he had no way to extend that duration.

'Fuel intake? Shutdown?'

'Unknown, assuming fusion. Coolant cut, emergency shutdown or meltdown.'

'Estimate?'

'Dependant on state of facility and state of Hope.'

That wasn't good news. If Hope was alive and felt as if it couldn't hold his ground, the AI might chose to blow the power plant on his own. If it wasn't alive, it would depend on the state of the facility. Both choices were rife with risk. Chances were that he would die without ever seeing the threat coming. He would have to blitz through the facility.

'Safety zones?' he inquired. There had to be certain parts of the facility that were shielded from the radiation, otherwise all the machinery in it would have long since ceased functioning. 'Alternate generators?'

'Maintenance passages estimated. Location unknown. Secondary outputs cannot be discerned. Likely deeper underground.' A brief pause as Nightmare aligned her tactical processors with his. 'Shutdown is unlikely to affect data storage.'

That was what he needed to hear. The plan was clear to him now. Acquire access. Rush in. Eliminate defenders. Shut down the reactor and reduce the radiation to tolerable levels. Infiltrate deeper into the facilities and find Hope. He looked at the estimated size of the mission target. The gargantuan facility ran deep into the planet's mantle, kilometres deep. It would be a hard battle. He closed his eyes, tasting a mixture of gunpowder, acid, blood and iron on his tongue, but the expected flashback didn't appear. A shiver ran through his augmented body. Nightmare, closely tied to his biometric sensors, noticed.

'Dreamer?' she asked, pronouncing his name just right to convey the multifaceted worry she was feeling.

She was still trying to fix him, even if neither of them thought of it as possible. Not that such a minor thing slowed either of them down. They were Genesis. Doing the impossible had been their de facto definition for the many years they had fought. 'Nothing,' he replied.

'Intense combat keeps it at bay,' came her soft voice through the speakers. It carried a sadness, but also a certainty. He tilted his head slightly, wanting her to elaborate. 'Flashbacks do not occur when you are engaging in or preparing for intense combat or operating under high levels of stress. Only under a lack of it can it surface.'

His fingers slid across his carbine, checking the power output and the proper attachment of the embedded power cell, making sure it was operational, as he pondered that statement. Silence reigned across the bridge, only broken by the gentle clicks of the power cell being rotated in place. 'Are you certain?'

'Yes,' she simply answered.

He swung his carbine back into place and bent low over the display. 'Good,' was all he said as he began to plan out their invasion.

The dropship slowed down and Dreamer jumped down the open hatch, crossing the final dozen metres before slamming into the ground with earth-shattering force as the impact shattered the rock underneath his feet. He had chosen this landing zone with care. Far enough out to avoid detection on the way down and the uneven terrain made surrounding him impossible. They wouldn't be able to marshall enough forces to pen him in here, should their attempt at diplomacy go wrong. He turned on his scanner and found it useless. The nearby radiation threw it off and disrupted his HUD. He clicked it off again and checked his connection with Nightmare as he finished his sweep of the area. It felt unnatural to not do so with a raised gun, but a firefight had to be avoided for now. As soon as Nightmare confirmed their connection, he set out, closely followed overhead by a small squadron of highly mobile, pre-programmed forces. He regretted the absence of his old battalion, but it was still preferable over being alone. Four bombers, six fighters, six gunships and four dropships were trailing him out of reach of the Ragnai's limited sensor network. They were completely autonomous and would act on their own, without waiting for any command of Nightmare, which was a liability given the sensitive nature of their mission. They made up for that by being impervious to digital warfare. High up above the planet, Nightmare's batteries were cycling their charges, ready to reduce the planet to cinders in a heartbeat. Armour plates had slid open, revealing large missile silos and her reactors were kept just below the minimum threshold to retain a modicum of stealth. Dreamer rotated the power cell on his carbine and ran a check on his systems.

He took one look at the canyon ahead of him and began walking forward at a slow pace.

The mission to reach Hope had begun.