City of the dead

Dustin staggered off the elevator once it had reached the top, much to the surprise of the Moa’thif representative. Pulling the empty clip from his carbine, he slotted a new magazine into it and gestured back towards the shaft. “Basement’s haunted.” The envoy looked genuinely puzzled, so Dustin explained in a little more detail. “We found… entities, down there. Pretty sure they’re what’s been killing off your building micro-organisms. Not sure exactly how yet, but they were not friendly.”

The Moa’thif looked shocked. “Entities-life on the lowest-bottom levels? Impossible-implausible, it should not be possible-capable of sustaining life.” Turning, it rattled out a series of commands to one of the other natives, and within a few moments the room was filled with guards. “If there are hostile-enemy creature-beings down there, we will ensure they cannot escape-climb through. Do you have any other-additional information?”

Sammie grimaced and nodded to Dustin. Turning back to the Moa’thif, Dustin shrugged. “We took a sample of some of the dead building organisms. I’ll get my scientists to run it through our scanners - it looks like they were overworking themselves, dying of over-exertion due to hyperactivity, but as to what caused it we can’t say yet. I do need to inform you though - the creatures that we encountered down there look to be similar in origin to the entities that attacked the council.”

The local representative didn’t have much skin visible to colour, but what it did have paled at Dustin’s words. “The killer-destroyers?! You are sure-confident that they are the same-identical?”

Dustin shook his head. “Not identical - these were bipedal, and had flamethrowers for weapons amongst other things… it’s probably best if we play you the footage we’ve got. Let me get my crew started on analysing everything we found and saw down there, and then we’ll be able to give you a clearer picture.”

At a nod and another chirping burst of the Moa’thif language, Dustin and his party were escorted back to their shuttle. “Please-request, inform us as soon-immediate as you uncover anything. In the meantime-now I will ensure-guarantee that the shaft remains sealed-closed, and begin prepare-readying fire teams to sweep-cleanse the lower levels based on what you told me. Hurry-quick!”

Rye already had the shuttle airborne by the time the airlock finished cycling. Bleu waved away Sammie’s attempt to hand her the sample of Moa’thif building creatures. “We’ll run it through the big scanners. Hang onto it for now. And all four of you sit down while I check you out - you first, Yril’k, your suit reported that you opened up your blade covers.” The medic’s words were measured as she unholstered her scanner and strode over to the security chief.

Dustin slipped into the seat next to Rye as the shuttle climbed. “Zombies. Fucking zombies.” He said in response to a raised eyebrow from the bunny girl. “Let me pull all our helmet cam footage together, then we can go over what we found down there back on Sola. Right now, I want to get as far away from creepy glass passageways as I can.”

Back aboard and in his ready room a short time later, Dustin spun the hologram that Sola had formed of one of the Fractal zombies around, frowning. “You say these things aren’t standard Fractal design, Defia?” he asked the woman sat beside him, who was busily engaged in adding detail to the model based on her own combat experiences with them.

“Statement. They are not. We do not integrate biological components for structural aesthetic or rigidity. It is inefficient. The composition was also wrong, and they communicated via ultrasound rather than standard pulsed communications. Hypothesis. Reconfigured Fractal technology, hybridized to ‘leash’ it.” Her tone was odd, a mixture of horror, sorrow and anger that Dustin had never heard her use before.

At his raised eyebrow, she tilted her head to one side. “Statement. When I aggressively deconstructed several of them, I attempted to **** a connection to their internal network. They had none; even the simplest drone has one. They are essentially ‘dead’; the mass is responding to predetermined commands. I do not believe those units were responsible for the destruction of the biostructural material; instead I hypothesize that they were ‘guard dogs’ to prevent further investigation.”

Dustin nodded thoughtfully. “That’d make sense - Fractal bodies can withstand the atmosphere down there, and you don’t need to eat or drink unlike organics. If you wanted a **** that could just stand and swarm then zombified Fractals would be a potent weapon. But that doesn’t explain the writing on the walls; you think those zombies didn’t make it?”

Defia frowned, fingers pausing in their continued adjustment of the model. “Statement. Based on available evidence, there is most likely further Fractal presence on this world. Given the amount of resource involved in this matter, it does not make sense for a cluster to be doing this. If it were a cluster, stripping the world of material and biomass from orbit would be the optimal option. Hypothesis. Durathisians have repurposed Fractal technology at least twice before that we know of. Most likely species to be involved here. Inquiry. What do they gain by killing the hives? Motives unclear.”

That was the big question. Right now, there was something killing off the hives - but that didn’t make any sense for either the Fractals OR the Durathisians to be doing it… unless… Dustin paused in his contemplation of the model, not wanting the thought to escape. “Unless…” he began “…they’re not working for one motive. What if… yes, what if the Durathisians are using Fractal tech not just to destabilize but to test things out. The motivation for killing the hive would be to disrupt the Moa’thif and possibly the wider Tho’unn empire - but they could do that in loads of ways. Using Fractal zombies on the other hand - an army of simple creatures that survive in **** environments and are utterly loyal? Those could be useful, and how many species are likely to go poking around to help the Moa’thif in an atmosphere that acidic? It’s the perfect test bed, especially with everyone but us hunkering down with the collapse of the council.”

The rogue Fractal nodded after a moment to consider his idea. “Statement. Your hypothesis is logically sound. Permission to re-purpose the short-range scanners?”

Her request came so far out of left field that it took Dustin a few moments to figure out a response. “Yes - but why do you need them?” He managed at last, turning to look at the red-eyed woman curiously.

Defia flicked the hologram that she’d been working on away and turned to face him fully. “Enquiry. If they are testing an army of Fractal entities below, who do not show up on traditional life-sign scanners as we are non-biological, and are unlikely to be detected by standard electrical scans due to the lightning storms in the atmosphere… why do you assume they would be limited to the tunnels inside the Moa’thif habitation?”

It took Rye and the rogue Fractal a little over half an hour to reconfigure the scanners to their satisfaction. A nervous half-hour while Dustin paced up and down the ready room alone - everyone he would normally go to with his worries about this particular problem was working on it elsewhere. Bleu and Meli were investigating the building organism sample, Trea’k and Emely were deep in discussion with the locals, Yril’k was resting in the medbay on doctors orders while her blades were repaired, and Sammie was prepping the shuttles to return to the planet as soon as they had a plan. That left Naera, Yaerwen and Aricia for potential confidants - but while he loved his shortstack and was… Dustin paused in his thoughts to confirm to himself that yes, he was looking forward to the other two fully joining the harem, before continuing his pacing. Despite looking forward to spending more time with both Yaerwen and Aricia, none of the available ladies would have helped with this particular worry.

Eventually, he made his way to the bridge just in time for the Rabyth woman to call up from engineering to say she’d finished the last of the changes. “Alright, Defia. Let’s see what we’ve got,” Dustin said, nodding for the junior officer at the sensor station to fire up the scanners. On the screen, the view of the planet zoomed into the area around the spire - while Defia’s adjustments would in theory allow them to detect any Fractal zombies on the surface, the compromise was that they’d needed to shrink how wide an area they could scan.

For a moment, nothing happened. The feed flickered a few times as Sola processed the incoming information - and then, to Dustin’s mounting horror a wave of tiny red dots spread out like a rash around the spire. “Statement. There are a lot of them…” Defia said, the faintest hint of concern in her voice as she added “…I believe we need a bigger plan.”