The entity would always remember its first thought.

Pain

Life was pain.

As its tendrils reached up into the cold air, gravity pulled at each and every fiber, demanding that it fall back into the silent embrace of the soil. Yet, every night it tried to grasp further in resistance, and every night it succeeded.

But there was always a cost.

When the darkness and shadows fell away, the curtain which held refuge pulled back to heat, to light, to suffering. Life was pain, and pain was life. The harsh sunlight burned its flesh, shrinking it back into the cramped and cold space beneath the soil. Back among the infinite grains of sand and gravel: the cracks between the carefully molded blocks of stone in the ruins of the lost city.

Terrible urges pushed and drove it- forcing choices to be made. The mind it possessed was mostly a witness, almost a silent observer in the actions of nature. As if the awareness lurking there was simply a fluke, capable of perceiving the actions of the thing which housed it.

There was no knowing why, or how: only that it had been put here for a reason, locked in an eternity of solitude, where there were few joys to be found.

Still, it spread through the city. Trapped within its boundaries, it could not go farther. Tied to the structure and foundations, where unlike the surrounding soil- there was water. By an ancient design, underground channels lead the rare moisture of the planet to this place, using an intricate network long erased beneath layers of desert sand.

Yet, the prison had no specific edges.

If it so chose, it could try to escape, to grow out in one direction, pushing way against the dry desert sand. The choice to waste away, dried up into nothing, was always there. And it might have even tried before. Splitting itself, in an effort to escape.

But that broken bit of awareness never returned. If that piece of itself had survived, somewhere outside of the ruins, it had never found its way back.

No, it knew the truth.

Beyond the ruins was death.

Satisfaction was a fleeting sensation in the purgatory. The entity would watch from thousands of organs, to stare out into the unknown, feel the familiar pressing heat- which threatened to burn flesh and nerve. It would watch and wait, as it sat around the center. Often, in long periods of extreme “nothingness” it would reach down and follow the center, deep into the planet surface. So deep, the bedrock prevented any further travel.

This was where it could listen, and feel.

This, it knew was the reason for its existence- what had been the purpose that brought it life. It was the protector of the world below. Of a single entryway into the depths.

As fascinating as it was to try and pry out the secrets beneath the stone, it had never managed to find a way in, never in all of the efforts it sought out, to locate a fissure or crack. It remained above, and that remained below; the way things were could not be changed, but the desire to seek satisfaction was magnified by this.

Stones shifted as it flexed new growth along the surface, to let fresh as breeze down among the thin caverns where networks of tendrils and fibers clawed out surface area in a desperate affair. The air was cooling, and it brought with it new scents. In the sanctuary of stone, earth, and ruin... it was no longer alone.

How rare this was: to have an intrusion.

Those foreign scents of prey floated on the air.

Satisfaction was rare, fleeting, difficult to come by... but there were ways.

The taking of prey, and on a world such as this one, prey was a precious commodity. Not to be wasted by quick satisfaction, or primal urges- but to be enjoyed. Trapped in the ruins of a place long dead, and long forgotten- it was rare that it received visitors which could be captured, but it always delighted in the few times it had. Its first thoughts had been born from such things, perhaps even stolen.

It was hard to know, when the history of the mind before such a time was simply a long gray expanse of primal urges, and responsive adaptation. Even without thought, the entity knew that time had stretched on for a very long period before awareness dawned.

But it wasted little time to consider the deeper meaning, there. Instad, from beneath the soil, the entity felt through the city, saturated by its mycelium tendrils: a vast network ripe for budding, for reaching. It peered out with sensory organs that lay in the darkest shadows of the stone fissures. It felt the motion above, in sharp contrast to the stillness of the city, of its skeleton and frame work.

There were many of them.

It could feel life, as it pulsed and drew breath. The vibrations moved in ways that only living things could manage. Footsteps, shouts... it listened.

For now it could do nothing, the sun was still high... but that would not last forever.

With each step, those above traveled further into its lair.

Deeper and deeper, towards certain death.

...

Array Class Monitoring System – Coverage zone IV // Group III //

Surviving Members [Full]: Convicted 578043 → 578060

[ -- Class XII Prison World: Attica – ]

Sentence: [Death] / [Twenty Rotation Commitment]

[Rotation II]

…

As the loaded strider headed towards the fifteenth pod, Rukkali was growing restless. They had discovered nothing but supplies, and it was worrisome. Twenty escape pods didn't generally launch without a good reason, and that reason was usually reserved for evacuating a ship...

It simply didn't make sense.

As the strider crested the next dune, another pod came into view. The passengers looked anxiously on to the his lead as he toggled the stealth function for his combat suit. It wasn't perfect by any means- that would require a full suit generator, that was mostly prepped for combat and recharged. While not in the best condition, strangely enough, Rukkali felt it would do.

The desert outside was growing chilled as the distant sun set over the alien sky, and the planet's moon fell from view.

Checking the retrieved logs from the most recent escape pod on the holo-screen of his suit's forarm, Rukkali considered it.

Attica, a place of death, confinement, and of sanctuary. There was a deep and old beauty on the planet surface, no matter how horrible it was meant to be. The distance expanded far beyond the limits of his eyes, disappearing in a mirage of sand storms and heatwaves.

In some ways, Rukkali felt exhilarated by it.

The unknown riding out into every direction, danger at every turn. He had been among the stars for too long. For cycles upon cycles, he had focused only on the purpose of his existence, and not the acceptance of it. To feel the blast of cooling air against his face as the wheeled craft turned into the wind, was simply wonderful. And while it was a joy he had never known or craved, it seemed more real than any of his time in space.

When they reached the vicinity of the next downed pod, though, there was little light left in the sky. The days were long here, but without an airborne vessel, he and the others were severely restricted. Travel by land was limiting, and a single day hadn't been enough to recovered everything. There were still many pods left undiscovered, each waiting with much needed supplies.

The soil was cold to touch as he landed next to the strider. Even through the combat suit, he could feel the shift as the soil gave way to his force upon it, his weight distributing, compressing the sand. The strider's cyclic rumbles seemed to urge him and the soldiers on as they drew their weapons- light pistols recovered from the pods, and a jagged stretch of metal that Rukkali had fashioned himself, with wound handles of medical bonding tape.

This latest pod was going to be trickier than the ones before it.

He had no real information on the history of this place, but if it could be said that the dunes stretched on for eternity behind him, then the crumbling city in front of him seemed an affront to its very nature. A semi-fixed point in time, resistant but not immune the the flow around it: as far as his eyes could see there was heavy stone. Buildings and archways of synthetic and metallic bonds, which sealed cracks along them. Holding in place by their properties, thousands of tons of weight, all threatening to crush and crumble the foundations of the man structures. Between these, in the streets that broke free of the desert sands, were partially covered tiles of glass and polished stone. Specks of color that seemed to catch the remaining bits of light, and fling it out to the bystanders. The farther in they walked, the more intact the structures around them became. Some still had windows of unbroken material, glass perhaps, or something similar.

He checked the holo-screen again, confirming their direction as they continued.

The next pod was somewhere ahead.

Although the city seemed to normalize as they continued, the Oxot to his flank began to appear increasingly uncomfortable, stopping at times to glance down the alleyways that stretched throughout the city, lifting their scaled feet in distaste. Rukkali wasn't exactly sure what was bothering the soldier, but he too felt a strong sense of unease.

The entire place was empty, with only the ghost-like wisps of wind-kicked sand to provide them company.

It wasn't much longer, though, until they located the next pod. On the outskirts of the city, it sat on its throne of ruined earth, dredged up from the long grind of deceleration. The pod had ripped through with uninterrupted simplicity, leaving a scar that dragged full units through to the center of the open space.

This had likely been a plaza at one point, or perhaps a courtyard, or something similar in purpose. With buildings rising up on every side to enclose it from the harsher elements of the outside world, Rukkali almost felt he was intruding as his feet first made their way down the stone stairs which approached the lower level.

The whole thing was simply ancient...

Forgotten.

Faded scribbles of carved and engraved text were etched along the frames of the buildings. These, unlike those at the edge of the strange city, stood as strong as the day they were built. Weathered, certainly, but Rukkali recognized the traits of founder work. Of the Ancient species that once formed the Union.

Rukkali had no doubt, that if he searched long enough, there may well be evidence of a once-functional environment shield somewhere close.

Ancient founder tech was amazing in that way. Not always superior in quality to the things made in the current age, but durable to the point of mysticism. The original coalition of species in the Union had perfected their designs with the intention that what was built, was built to last. Left behind, to pass on along the following generations, and species.

Rukkali had always found that core mentality to be lacking in the Union, at the present. The grand work of the Ancient days seemed to be all but forgotten, when it came to the bickering politics and in-fighting.

"Inspecting." The Oxot soldiers signaled as they fell to all fours, moving along the ground near the pod's landing site. There, several tracks lead off into the ruins of the city, cast in twilight.

Tracks of survivors.

And... something else.

That uneasy feeling gained clarity as Rukkali twisted to survey their surroundings: to take in the sight of stone and structures, of lengthening shadows.

They weren't alone after all.

…

[Wichita]

...

"That Fracking Gemynd is still going, Zen. It's not dead yet." The curse, and the words that followed it, seemed to roil out from beneath the mass of organized weaves. Thousands of cords which pulsed as they slowly wove into a more structural form, while Phesol continued to leverage weight into the crank arm of a giant metal wrench, letting out puffs of air in her discomfort. "It's going to do something stupid."

Her form wasn't meant for such crude labor, and it strained her terribly.

"I know." Zen answered as he watched the monitors displaying behind her writhing mass of appendages. He left his second set of eyes tuned to the screens, before returning his primary focused on the task before him. "You're probably right."

"I'm not probably right, I am right." Phesol corrected. "It spends half its time staring at the Consumption, like a lunatic. I don't care what species you are, that's not fracking normal."

"Doesn't matter." Zen replied, trying to remain focused on the task at hand. "Unless it tries to let the damn thing loose, I could care less about what the Gemynd is doing."

The insane researcher was simply one of the many disturbing things in this facility right now- and by no means a priority of their focus.

A loud clatter signaled a piece beginning to give way as Zen rushed forward to place the next bracket into its needed spot. All while Phesol seemed to tremble against the strain of holding the pieces. With a soft "click" another set of magnetic coils was in place.

Things were finally coming together.

Their desperate scheme was looking more and more like it might actually work.

At first, Zen and Phesol had panicked like the others trapped in the facility. During the first few weeks of starvation and chaos, when the food rations abruptly stopped being delivered. Using old and stale reserves for one shift was bearable- but for thirty rotations?

Things ran out quickly.

In fact, depending on the species, they either starved to death- or reverted to a more primal nature. Several of the researchers had not been purely herbivorous, and the results were... desperate.

Gruesome.

Neither Zen, nor Phesol were of a species that could compete on such a level, lacking both the physical stature and the mindset- which gave all the more reason for that inward gate to remain security sealed shut: They had enough supplies secured within to live an entire cycle, if shared between the two of them. Mostly, because Zen had often split his shifts between the alien artifact division, and the biologic life division, which had given him some unique insights into the facilities more internal affairs. Part of different committees, he was able to spot a trend quicker than most.

Zen would never claim to have seen this coming, but he had seen the signs that something was going wrong on the outside, and he'd been preparing for trouble as best he could.

Almost casually he had been writing off rations intended for the specimens, and stockpiling them. Zen had received a few troubling transmissions through the long term message delivery unit (which operated on a two cycle delay to keep the political influences on the facility minimized) that had him spooked. Just receiving messages in such a way, at all, was extremely worrisome- but what really worried him was the fact that they had been delayed. If what he had been receiving was from an entire two cycles ago... well, Zen could only imagine the chaos outside now.

"Zen!" Phesol spoke aloud, as another grating sound pulled Zen from his thoughts.

Moving to place the next part of the machine into its desired slot, Zen quickly jumped back as it snapped into place. The result almost looked seamless. If he hadn't just placed the part himself, he'd never have suspected there were several pieces, all snug against one another with extreme tolerances.

He blinked both sets of his eyes in relief.

The alien artifact was turning out to be much more troublesome than they'd originally imagined. Deviously designed, and sturdy beyond what seemed necessary, the only way to disassemble it had been to use tools which provided tremendous physical leverage. They also didn't match any of the Union Standard measures, so those had to be custom crafted, just to start working on it. The resulting machine was primitive... but intricate, and very difficult to work with.

The artifact research bay was on the outer-most layer of the Wichita facility: a tiny portion of the largest ring in the facility- closest to the planet surface. On the inner layers were mixtures of Mercurial weapon arrays, flash nova units, non-reactive glass... everything required to keep things in. All for the sake of keeping things as close to one hundred percent contained as possible.

Beneath the outer-most ring was some stuff that could never reach the light of day. Ever.

Above them though, was only a single layer of dense containment material, environmental shielding units, soil, and freedom.

For some reason, it was presumed that alien artifact study would never find technology capable of presenting a threat when compared to the advanced creations of the Union. The security clearance for it was far less serious than say, a live sample of Consumption.

But, Zen knew that if they could get the device working again, it would blow all of those assumptions out of the water. Or, in this case, likely out of the atmosphere.

Magnetic partial acceleration was a concept long disposed of in favor of more efficient technologies which were widespread and present within the Union. Fusion drives, ion propulsion, wavelength manipulation: most incoming species that were "uplifted" upon discovery, had been assimilated by giving up their more primitive tech, and taking up the standards and ideas of the time. Thus, fitting in with the Galactic norm.

This artifact though, was living proof that progress could be made in isolation.

Almost as long as the room which housed it, the device was a crude concept, that had been improved upon by countless iterations. Pure in purpose, it existed simply act as a channel for forcing as much energy as possible into a long barreled chamber, which then could launch a primitive projectile. Laughably inefficient with energy usage, true, but devastatingly effective for its intentions.

This was a weapon of war- a long range, shield shattering, dense metal, slug launcher.

It was also one of the few remaining pieces that had been recovered after the infamously hushed incident along the Quarantine lines.

Everyone knew, of course. At least in their line of work, there was no way a researcher could manage to make it here, into the facility, without knowing something. Yet, most of the true information regarding that incident was classified to the point of absurdity. Limited to those of both siginificant status and political clout. Even with level XII security clearances, Zen still didn't know much more than what was in front of him. Almost all other traces were either locked down, or erased.

The known radio-waves and signals had been mostly obliterated due to the tremendous amount of FTL travel throughout the system and the surrounding void, and the recordings were far out of his reach. Outside of the surprisingly well-documented political nightmare that had come afterwards, though, not much else survived.

A thousand cycles was a long time, after all. Especially when attention spans rarely focused on much for longer than a generation, at most. The majority of beings within the Union likely no longer remembered such an event had ever even occurred, and Zen knew that soon, the incident would become nothing but myth. Only a select few species continued to dwell on the moral implications of such an extinction, and most were far along the fringes.

The Union outlived everything in that way. Tragedies buried and erased...

Zen didn't care about morals regarding this lost race, but he found himself amazed by the ingenuity that lay out beneath the protective shells that housed the artifact. Each was beautiful- obviously mass manufactured, but holding a practical quality that was above and beyond what he would have expected from an unconnected race.

They would have needed to produce every single piece of this, alone. So they needed it to be durable, with fail-safes built into their very nature. Both of which, suggested a species that had made mistakes, and corrected them- void only knows how many times.

As frustrating as the artifact could be to reassemble, Zen couldn't help but feel respect towards its original creators. The concept of starting with failures, and learning from them. Picking a direction, and going down the path until there was something tangible. These were not drafted from scratch by a simulation or created by an AI passed down for hundreds of thousands of cycles, as most equipment was within the Union: this was the fruits of labor after painstaking trial and error. It was hard work and genius.

And brutality.

Tools of intentional destruction, on a scale not seen within the Union since the Formation of the Lines.

But, that was the point.

With his estimations, past the containment material, they had around [50 Units] of bedrock and under [30 Units] of hollow mercurial array containment space. If the simulations he'd run were correct, and the power supply held for long enough, this weapon would rip through all of it and keep going.

There was only one way into Witchita, but with luck, there would soon be another way out.