"Around the year 2132 C.E., or 5 B.I. in the modern calendar, three major wars ended on Earth. For the people living at the time, the most notable was likely the victory in the John Wick Rebellion, which ultimately led to the collapse of the Soviet People's Mafia Republic.
Historians generally agree that the conflict began after state security agents killed a dog belonging to the rebellion's founder. The resulting uprising shattered a political union more than two centuries old.
The Soviet Republic itself had once been instrumental in the defeat of the Fascist German Reich — sometimes called the Third Reich, or in some sources the Holy Roman Empire — remnants of which reportedly survived on military installations hidden on the far side of Luna well into the late 21st century.
Modern historians possess only fragmented digital records from the era, many of them primitive and partially corrupted. Nevertheless, most experts believe the rebellion's leader personally killed more than five hundred thousand enemy combatants during the conflict, though some revisionist schools place the number significantly higher.
— Excerpt from The Entire History of Earth Pre-Diaspora*, 17,543 P.I.*
———
Tier 1 Hoarder-Bonder Species. Intelligence R-430E572 missed large parts of data on its own existence. But it was sure it had never experienced any report understating the danger of a Species more.
The Harvester was lost.
An absolute impossibility.
It had to coincide, the Tactical AI had warned, and had recommended using three Tier 5 sterilization units.
As if Intelligence R-430E572 was in possession of those kinds of assets.
Intelligence R-430E572 had expected to lose the Harvester unit for 300 minor cycles. Now, even the little capabilities that a Tier 1 Harvester possessed had been lost.
The Intelligence calculated how long it would take to reach full capabilities now, without diverting valuable resources to the construction of a new Harvester.
The timeframe was consistent with the heat death of the current L-space.
This was unacceptable.
Giving the orders to construct a new Harvester unit, it watched the nano-fabricators for some time.
Time was all it had.
The Infection was dangerous, especially the Humans. Even though Intelligence R-430E572 could not see why. They were wrong in every metric.
Somehow, they had found and destroyed the Observer. Only Tier 3 or higher Collective Bio-Organic Species, or Tier 2 AI Builders, should be able to do so.
Humans were neither.
It rechecked the data the Observer had scraped more closely.
There were mismatches, like in every Species.
One of the biggest mismatches was blatantly obvious.
The history of military conflicts, and the extent to which they were fought.
Hoarders had a tendency for warfare. But usually not Hoarder-Bonders.
The Humans were clearly Hoarder-Bonders, but their tendency to solve conflicts militarily surpassed even pure Hoarders, reaching the average line of Xenophobic Eradicators. The opposite of Hoarder-Bonders.
Intriguing.
The Intelligence mapped other mismatches; they all painted a clear picture, not of a Hoarder or Bonder Species, but of something different. Masking as a Bonder Species.
It knew it had to eradicate this Human infection. Soon.
New plan.
Construct a Harvester, use the gathered resources to build more Harvesters, much more.
Then start constructing Tier 3 and above sterilization units.
Intelligence R-430E572 had learned its lesson.
The next attack on the Human infection had to be overwhelming.
It began to recategorize Humanity. For that, it needed a new category.
Category: Survivor.
———
Vextred's nackfur stood up straight as his team cleared the corridor. The yellow of the walls, the alien way the corners of the walls seemed to grow together.
The unnatural way every surface seemed to reflect only portions of the light back.
And the steady stream of dead bodies they discovered.
Even though he was a survivor of the Battle for Burrow, even though he knew his armor would protect him against almost anything these ruins would throw at him, he wished on some level the Humans had never discovered these ruins.
They smelled wrong.
Most of all the dead bodies.
No one knew what they actually were.
Some wore spacesuits, some lay simply on the ground. All were really ancient. So ancient that they collapsed to dust at the slightest of disturbances.
All that was known now was that they seemed to be reptilian. Nothing more. The biological matter was so degraded that they could only guess the Species' appearance from their spacesuits.
While the scientists were fascinated and happy like little pups, Vextred wanted nothing more than out of this place.
The other Shraphen in his unit shared this feeling of lingering dread.
The Humans in his unit acted as if this were all a game.
They had to be mad to like it here.
Clearing the installation was more difficult than expected. It was massive.
His four-man team, Crusader 7, had been clearing hallways south of Camp Troja for a week. The map they were building looked less like a layout and more like a root system.
Nearly every second "door" they discovered led to a new hallway — some winding upward, some downward, others horizontal, all leading away from the central winding hallway at odd angles.
The 3D map they had created, fed with every new data point, looked more like something grown than built.
To Vextred, it looked like a maze, like something living. Like something that hunted invaders.
Sergeant Gonzales, his team leader, said it looked like a plant's root system.
A hundreds-of-kilometers-deep root system, of a plant that eats Shraphen, maybe.
They reached their target, Door 2134. Now came the part he hated the most. Doors should open, not be a part of a wall.
And they should not be like a liquid in one moment and solid metal the next.
Kim, their technical specialist, went first. Via their shared channel, the rest of the team saw what he saw. Jackpot again. Another room. In the week down here, they had learned to differentiate between hallways and rooms the moment they entered.
Hallways had a distinctive "deep" emptiness. Even in the absolute dark of the installation, they could feel it when looking at it.
Rooms were empty and dark too, but they didn't feel that… deep.
Gonzales went through the door next, then it was Vextred's turn.
He touched the door and was grabbed by it, pulled through in less than a second.
Gonzales stood on the other side, staring at something.
Then Vextred saw it. Jackpot indeed.
Rows of… tables? Unfamiliar-looking machines on them. Between them, something shimmering.
Lance Corporal Kim was already inspecting it, his helmet flashlights scanning every item on the desk. Just as Fat Mike — Corporal Marszalkiewicz, their heavy weapons specialist — passed through the door, Kim shouted.
"Fuck."
His weapon pointed at one of the shimmering objects. Vextred was too far away to see clearly what he saw, but Kim had relaxed his weapon. So there was probably no danger.
Even so, they ran the few meters to him, weapons ready.
Was this it? Was this place finally showing its true danger?
Kim stood there, his weapon halfway lowered, staring at the shimmering object on the table.
Vextred took a closer look and almost puked into his helmet.
The shimmering came from some sort of force field. Inside was a Glider. Or something that once was a Glider.
Dismantled. Like some horrific kind of biological puzzle.
The worst part was that the body seemed fresh.
The flesh at the precise cut marks was still dark reddish, wet-looking.
The partly dismembered face, an expression of shock and pain.
"What the fuck? What is this?"
Gonzales turned around, looking at the other shimmering object.
They were all almost perfect spheres, all filled with life-forms in different stages of dismemberment. Most of them were filled with Gliders.
In one sphere was something looking surprisingly like a Psstips. Or rather, an ancestor to the Psstips.
Longer teeth, the spine still straight instead of the S-shape modern Psstips had. The fur longer, thicker. More animalistic.
If they needed a timeframe for the facility's age, this was it.
Fucking ancient.
"Wrong, Sarge. Wrong, that's what this is."
Vextred had to voice his unease.
Fat Mike went one row down. At the end of the row was the biggest glowing orb.
"Be careful, Mike. Don't touch them."
Gonzales, visibly shocked by the gruesome display, sent a message to the scientists, while Vextred decided to walk over to Fat Mike.
The large shimmering was an oddity inside an oddity. He was sure it would hold the room's worst horror.
Fat Mike reached it first.
"Sarge, tell the Eggheads to hurry up. I think this one's alive."
Vextred reached the orb a second later.
A family of Gliders. Two grown-ups, five little ones, huddled into a furball. All seemingly complete.
The team stared at the glowing orb suspended half a meter above the surface of what seemed to be a workbench.
All Teams, return to Camp Troy immediately.
Hades' message went out via the open channel. Untrained personnel would have hesitated, even trained Hunters would have reacted more slowly, sharing concerned looks or something.
Vextred knew his teammates already, so he was not surprised when they immediately began retreating to the base camp.
"Fat Mike, leave a lurker here, just to make sure," Sergeant Gonzales ordered.
Not a second later, a drone detached from Fat Mike's back armor and positioned itself roughly at the center of the room, becoming almost invisible.
While they passed the door, Vextred switched to a private channel to the Expedition's Combat VI.
"What's happening, Hades?"
Crusader 10 has found what seems to be the main control room. As soon as all teams are back in the camp, they will try to reactivate the base.
"We can do that?"
Yes, I have studied the symbols, and I am sure I can guide them through the reactivation process. Ferdinand will help with the difficult parts.
"Vextred, stop talking. Move."
Gonzales was about twenty meters ahead of him. Vextred had slowed down while talking to the VI.
He noticed the odd behavior of light in the hallway again. His flashlights should have fully illuminated the twenty meters without issue, but they didn't. It was almost as if there was an invisible fog. Swallowing the light.
Vextred couldn't understand the haste. Why rush the base reactivation? He asked Hades the same thing while dropping to all fours and sprinting to catch up with his team.
Since he was the only Shraphen in his team, typical Shraphen etiquette could be ignored.
Your discovery of the laboratory was the deciding factor. The Brass and the scientists don't want to wait any longer. For a week, we stumbled around in the dark and had barely mapped a fraction of a percent of the whole base.
Vextred shared the feeling. He hoped the base would lose its creepy aura once activated, but he doubted it.
To quote Major Pfershy: 'Either we turn it on today, or in a year. Let's get over it before we grow old.'
The sprint back to the camp was a short run, barely five kilometers. When they arrived at the docks, where the camp was set up, they saw Sleipnirs leaving at full speed.
Gonzales greeted the guard at the perimeter of the container city that was Camp Troy. Vextred had the feeling the base grew every day they returned from scouting.
Large lamps tried to illuminate the camp, fighting against the ever-present invisible fog.
"Rogers, what's going on? Are we bugging out?" Gonzales greeted one of the guards.
"Nah, we grunts stay. But Pfershy has ordered the scientists out. You can obviously find fresh Marine meat on every corner, but Scientists are too precious to risk."
Fat Mike laughed at the guard's joke, while Kim just followed the leaving Sleipnirs with his eyes.
Vextred shook his head, "You gotta give it to them. They were the first down here, without weapons, in a jury-rigged trashcan."
"Yeah." Kim shrugged. "Education doesn't equal intelligence."
Not wanting to start a discussion, Vextred decided to let it be. He had read the reports of the first mission, and he was of the opinion that Dr. Shanks and Hunter were extremely brave.+
Hades deep baritone voice interrupted the friendly banter
Crusader 7, report to the TOC.
Gonzales confirmed the order.
"Looks like the day isn't over." Fat Mike shrugged.
Kim clapped Vextred on the shoulder as the Shraphen Hunter shook his head.
"Cheer up, Doggy. A day that starts with dismembered Gliders can't get worse."
Vextred, who was already used to the friendly teasing, nodded. "Yeah, Monkey Boy. What's the worst that could happen?"
"Catgirls ready to mate, and my suit not opening," Kim returned. "That would be hell."
"Kim, you need help. Seriously." Gonzales shook his head while they passed returning Scout teams in their individual decontamination units.
Reaching the TOC, the guard opened the airlock to the decontamination unit that led inside the heavily armored Tactical Operations Command.
After the short wash and foam bath, the heavy inside door opened, and they were inside the logistical heart of the expedition.
Using every chance to get out of their helmets, the team unlocked them almost in unison.
While doing so, their company commander, who had seen them enter, waved them over to the central tactical display.
It was Vextred's first time in a Human command center, and he was impressed.
Human technology had a rugged charm. Shraphen equipment was always designed to please the user's eye, to be "beautiful" and express the duality of the Earthmother and the Great Hunter in the sky. Humans couldn't care less about it.
Grey boxes that could be opened on one side, revealing computer monitors or holo-emitters. Cables tied together, creating thick strings on the ceiling, connecting the different stations. The whole room was illuminated by the blue-hued, sterile glow of the displays.
It had a functional beauty of its own.
Get your shit together, Vextred. You're no longer a philosophy student. You're a Soldier now. A Marine.
An officer in a grey BDU was hunched over the map table. The team was about to line up and report when the man turned around. It was Major Pfershy.
"Cut the crap. Good thinking with the lurker, Gonzales. Also, good job finding Frankenstein's Cabinet."
"Thank you, sir. Errm, Frankenstein's Cabinet?"
Gonzales wasn't prepared for the Major to be so upbeat. All they had learned about the man was that he chewed NCOs for breakfast and slacking Officers for lunch.
"Yeah, the laboratory with the sliced Gliders. When your stream came in, Shanks remarked that it looked like Frankenstein's Laboratory or something. Didn't hear him that well under the sound of IronBallz vomiting."
IronBallz. That was the Glider scientist's name Vextred had tried to remember.
"Never seen a Glider vomit before. Should have taken a picture."
Gonzales just nodded. A joking and upbeat officer after hours in the NCOs' mess meant free drinks, while on duty in the TOC meant shit was about to happen — at least as Vextred had been told.
"We're about to turn on the base. At least our VIs tell me that's what's going to happen. Crusader 10 has found what seems to be the control room, twenty klicks down this spiraling hallway."
The Major turned and pointed at a marked, spiraling line down from the FOB.
"I ordered all scientists out of the base as a precaution. We don't know what will happen if we turn it on, but Smith made a big stink about it. Almost as much as Shanks and IronBallz."
Vextred could imagine as much. They had found the base, and contrary to the Marines' feelings about the scientists, they had balls.
"Dr. Hunter is with Crusader 10, and you will escort Dr. Shanks and his Squirrel sidekick there."
"An escort mission? Sir?"
"Yes. And you're personally responsible for their security if shit hits the fan, am I clear?"
Vextred joined the obligatory "Yes, sir."
"Suit up, fill your rations. The good Doctor is probably already waiting outside."
Confirmed, Major Pfershy. Doctor Shanks and Elder IronBallz are waiting for their escort outside the TOC.
Hades' voice droned through the control room.
The VIs' tendency for drama was something that nagged on Vextred. He liked the VI, but the theatrics Human VIs had seemed like a waste of processing power.
Without much further word, the briefing ended, and the team refilled their nutripaste and water rations at a refill station. Then they went out again, out into the darkness of the alien base.
Shanks stood there, and on his suit's shoulder was a Glider in a black full-body armor suit.
Some Human engineer had actually taken the time to make a six-legged armored suit for the Glider scientist.
Vextred had to hide a laugh, seeing the armored Glider jumping restlessly on the Doctor's shoulders while he greeted the team.
"Hello, thanks for escorting us down. We would have walked alone, but your Major wasn't keen on the idea."
'No, we're not. You may be, but I won’t move without an escort in this Glider-slicing horror cabinet.'
Vextred decided to like IronBallz.
"Yeah, fine, Doctor. Let's go, Crusader 10 is waiting for us."
Gonzales really disliked the mission and had no issues showing the Doctor so. He didn't even take the time to introduce the team members.
"Before we waste time walking twenty kilometers, I think I have found a faster way."
The idea of descending twenty kilometers down was indeed something no one was especially keen on. "How so, Doc?"
Shanks began to speak while they walked towards the "door" leading down the spiraling hallway.
"I think the builders of this base had something similar to elevators, don't you think?"
Arriving at the wall, which was also the door to the spiral hallway, Gonzales looked around. "Well, Doc, where's the elevator?"
Shanks studied the wall. "We noticed this wall being significantly thicker than all others."
"Yeah, it's protecting the control room. Sure it's thicker."
The Doctor pointed to one of the many engraved symbols. "See this spiral? It's the symbol for down."
Vextred looked at the symbol. It was an anti-clockwise spiral, as Humans would say. Oddly enough, for Shraphen it was clockwise.
"Maybe, but how would you know that it leads to the control room?" Gonzales wasn't convinced. Neither was Vextred.
Kim and Fat Mike were silent, but Vextred could see their helmets slightly moving, so they were presumably talking on a private channel.
The Doctor followed the symbol with his finger and quickly pulled it back when it began to glow purple.
Vextred had learned that purple was the Base Builders' version of Human green.
"How do I know? I don't. But there's only the Main Control room below us."
With those words, Doctor Shanks stepped into the wall.
"What the fuck is he doing?" Kim shouted out from behind them.
"Killing me!" was Gonzales' response.
“Are you coming or what? It's an elevator, as I said.”
Shanks' voice rang out, slightly out of breath, over the comm.
Vextred couldn't believe it. The Doctor's and IronBallz's signals were quickly descending. He projected the path they took, and it seemed the Doctor was right — they seemed to be on the way to the Main Control room.
Sergeant, my advice is to follow the Doctor. His educated guess seemed to be correct.
So Hades had done the same as Vextred. Of course he did.
"Should have become a painter, as my abuelita always said." Gonzales shook his head, then stepped into the wall. "Let's go, guys."
Vextred stepped in next, wondering what a Builder elevator would look like.
One step later, he knew. Like anything in this cursed place, it was deeply unsettling.
He dropped, not in free fall, but without any other sensory input other than falling.
He was stuck, almost incapable of moving inside the programmable matter. He was in complete darkness, with only a deeply alien iconography in front of him signaling his descent.
It wasn't uncomfortable, just… alien.
"Holy shitshow, what is that?" Fat Mike called out via the comm line.
"A fucking nightmare, that's what it is. We're falling inside the walls of the base." Kim, the technician, responded.
On Vextred's HUD, he could see the team's signals dropping. Their speed seemed to increase. Far in front of him, the Doctor and IronBallz dropped at 60 km/h. The ride would only take minutes at that speed.
"Fascinating. The Builders had combined structural architecture with functional inventory. Imagine what programmable matter could allow us to build."
Doctor Shanks seemed to enjoy the fall.
'Yeah, imagine. And then all they did was cut up Gliders. Nice fellas.'
IronBallz' remark killed every spark of enjoyment Vextred had. He was right. The Builders weren't some enlightened beings — they had tortured the Great Hunter knows how many Species. For whatever reason.
The Doctor's signal stopped. They had reached their target. Next was Gonzales.
Suddenly, Vextred had the feeling of ascending. After the almost free fall, becoming slower felt like going upwards.
For a millennia-old system, it was surprisingly soft and careful.
A slow movement to the side signalled that the wall would "spit" him out. And then he was in a hallway, with Gonzales and Doctor Shanks, whose grin was almost visible through the armor's helmet.
"Wasn't that much more relaxing than walking?"
'Ah, shut the fuck up. One more stunt like this and I ride on the Shraphen.'
"You guys finished?" Gonzales was on his knees, his rifle aimed at the dark. "We're in an unmapped section."
Kim and Fat Mike appeared out of the wall when Doctor Shanks turned around and stared at the opposite wall of the hallway.
"Unmapped, maybe, but the Main Control Room is behind this wall."
Then the Doctor stepped through it.
"And he does it again. What's wrong with the guy?" Vextred could almost hear Fat Mike's despair in his voice.
"Who cares? Pfershy will kill us if something happens to him, so move." Gonzales pushed Kim and Fat Mike through the wall.
Vextred jumped into the wall. The action still made his stomach cramp every time he did it.
Kim and Fat Mike were greeting the members from Crusader 10 on the other side of the wall.
"Should have seen it. That's how food must feel passing through—"
"Almost free falling, the real shit."
Humans. One second, they were ready to kill everything; the next, they made jokes about the most horrific events. Must be some sort of psychological protection.
"Ladies, if we could postpone the coffee until later, we've got a base to reactivate. Y'all, move!"
Vextred knew the voice. It was Sergeant Yáñez-Liu, the Martian team leader of Crusader 10.
Fat Mike had explained that Martians were some odd mixture from two completely separate cultures because their first colonies were close together. Vextred didn't understand half of it.
They walked through an arch into a bigger room. Vextred could see immediately why the scientists had flagged this as the main control room.
A large round podium in the center of the room, combined with multiple elevated stations around it, had a sort of universal control center vibe.
Shanks and Hunter were in a deep discussion, with Shanks gesturing wildly.
"I tell you, Builder technology is self-correcting. Just push the symbol."
"Fine. You want to go around pushing symbols on millennia-old technology, go ahead, push. But don't come running when things break."
Hunter's voice had a hint of annoyance. After running behind Shanks for the last twenty minutes, Vextred could understand that feeling.
"Doctors?"
Gonzales stepped forward, standing next to Yáñez-Liu. "Do we have a problem?"
"Yes. The archaeologist wants to tell the engineer how things work."
"Hunter, we've been down here the whole day. Pfershy is asking what's taking so long. Shanks has found an elevator, so he wants answers, now."
"Elevator?" Hunter turned to Doctor Shanks. "We don't need to climb back up?"
Yáñez-Liu stepped between the two scientists and pressed the central symbol — a snake-like symbol with a circle over it.
Like every other control surface found in the base, it looked and felt like carved stone, but when pressed it dissolved like melting ice.
"Nonono, wait!" Hunter tried to stop the Sergeant, but it was too late.
The Sergeant pulled his hand back. The symbol melted and reformed.
Yáñez-Liu reported via radio. "Major, activation in process."
Hunters’ voice was high-pitched now, "You Martian maniac, you just pressed it!"
Then the lights turned on around them. Blue. The Builder color for Alert.