Ozymandias Rising
A/N: I own none of the things here except for my OC's Ozymandias and Lars Olodran. This is just a short ficlet that has been bugging me for a while. It's my first fic and feedback would be appreciated. No flames.
I awaken slowly. My optical sensors come back online with an amount of interference. I appear to be in a large icy cavern. If reports from my exterior sensors were to be believed, the temperature was far below zero. I am unsure whether to trust my exterior sensors. They appear to be damaged and are therefore unreliable. If they are correct however, simply being here would be death for any normal living thing. Of course, I am no ordinary living thing. I am many, in one. I am protected by a hard shell of metal that keeps insignificant things like sub-zero temperatures from ever reaching my more vulnerable organic body. This observation sparks several new concepts. 'I'. 'Me'.
Who am I? What am I? My memories are blurred and filled with static. I struggle to recall and get only fractured images and sounds. I remember…an Enemy. A mindless Enemy that was a scourge on all life. That is all I can recollect at this moment. That, and my name. I am Ozymandias, the Earth-Shaker, the Decimator of Armies, He who carried out the Will of the Gods!
With a loud and piercing screech, I begin to stand up. Ice shatters as limbs that have not moved for millennia are suddenly pushed into service. Remembering my function can wait. At the moment, my top priority is to assess myself and my systems to make sure that none are damaged.
Limbs are operating at an acceptable capacity for movement. Sensors are performing at only 74% of what they normally are. For now, this is does not bother me. Their performance is adequate and that is enough. I finish standing up and I feel the me/colony squirming impatiently, wishing to be gone from this place. The line distinguishing between me and the rest of the me/colony is blurred. I am but one member of the me/colony and yet I am the one who has control over what the rest of the me/colony does. I am the one that gives the orders and has them instantly obeyed. The me/colony is filled with many consciousnesses yet I am the dominant one. I ignore the rest of the me/colony and continue with my assessment of my systems. I finish with an analysis of my weapons systems. My secondary plasma turrets are completely frozen. Also, they need a crew to man them and I am currently operating alone. My dual-barrelled heavy plasma turret is partially iced over but now that I have achieved activation, they will thaw and become operable in what I calculate to be less than an hour. The news about the heavy turret displeases me. It would be wise to be at full combat efficiency when I venture onto the surface of the planet. My scattered recollections of the Enemy tell me that the Enemy would attack me on sight, as they attack all living things. I may not appear to be a living thing, clothed in metal as I am, but the Enemy would know that an organic core exists within my armoured shell and would attempt to destroy me. I cannot remember what purpose, what reason, what motive, drove the Enemy in its senseless destruction. I cannot even remember if it had one.
My analysis of my weapons system has been interrupted by this pointless musings. The time spent frozen must have damaged my mind more then I thought it would. If it had been a combat situation, such distraction could've cause my and the rest of the me/colony's deaths. My main armament, my plasma Beam Cannon is fully functional. This pleases me. Not only is it my favourite and most devastating weapon, it is also my only possible way of freeing myself.
Having formulated my plan of escape I incline the Beam Cannon upwards at the roof of the frozen cavern. With a small twitch of a nerve a command is passed along to it.
An intensely hot beam of plasma and energy, burst from the cannon and started boring a hole in the general direction of the surface. It would take time. Time was not an issue. I appeared to have been frozen for at least several millennia. I could wait a few more hours.
Lars Olodran ducked down in the trench as Imperial laser fire swept over his head and once again he was left to wonder how the Imperials had ever found their base on Hoth in the first place. It was one of the better-kept secrets of the Rebel Alliance.
As he raised his head above the trench he heard several shocked gasps from his fellow Rebels. Off in the distance, were a group of AT-AT's. The huge quadrupedal walkers were very slow but their armour was nigh impenetrable and their weapons were fearsome.
The Rebel Snowspeeders were darting around the metal leviathans but their weapons were ineffective. The AT-AT's were swatting them like flies. And if the Snowspeeder's weapons were ineffective, then what in the name of the Force was his blaster rifle and thermal detonators going to do?
He was contemplating retreat when a patch of ice nearby the battlefield exploded as a bright beam of light burst up from underground. The beam sweeps around, widening the hole until it is huge.
Both Imperial and Rebel forces seemed to pause. And from the hole, Lars began to think that he was starting to hear the sound of giant feet clanking up and down as if some huge monster was about to emerge. But monsters didn't exist. Right?
As I walk up the passageway the Beam Cannon has made for me, I begin to pick up radio signals. Apparently, two alien armies are battling each other. The idea of battle brings back several memories. Of tiny figures running at my feet, of their flimsy tanks blowing up, of persistent green-armoured ants that didn't seem to die…
The idea of battle brings a pleasurable sensation both to myself and to the rest of the me/colony.
Several seconds later and I was struck by a peculiar thought. I could understand what was being broadcasted on the radio channels. The aliens were speaking a language known to me. The oddness of this had escaped me before as I was still emerging from the befuddlement that comes from millennia of sleep and memory loss.
I searched my databanks and came up with the language that the aliens were speaking. It was a language known as 'English'. I strained my memory as I tried to remember. English was a language spoken by…Humans!
With a rush, it all came back to me. Memories of the war between my people and the Human infidels. I had spent years fighting them, crushing them beneath my feet. But what were they doing here? For I remember what I was doing here now.
When the war between my people and Humans was going well, we came across the Enemy. The Enemy was relentless and unstoppable. The Enemy was far dangerous then the Humans. The Enemy had defeated the Gods themselves!
I was part of an expedition; I suppose you could call it. When the Enemy was revealed in all it's hideousness and power, several plans were made to counteract it. Some involved the old artefacts of the Gods that we had based our civilisation on; some didn't.
I was part of a fleet that was sent out testing a new experimental slipspace drive. A group of Engineer Pods had found it at a Forerunner installation just weeks before. Blessed is the wisdom of the Gods for giving it to us in our hour of need.
The drive had malfunctioned and marooned us in another galaxy. However, the galaxy was in the throes of being consumed by the Enemy. We decided to settle on a dead planet and freeze ourselves in cryogenic sleep rather then be killed and had our natural forms perverted to serve the Enemy's blasphemous needs.
The cryosleep was supposed to wear off after sufficient time had gone by. By this time, the Enemy would've run out of prey and starved to death. New life would populate this far away galaxy. And we would rise again. Of course, we knew that the life might be hostile, that was why I was designated as a sentinel to wake before everyone else to determine whether the time was right. That was why before entering cryosleep, we built many tanks, many machines of war.
And now it seemed that humans had the run of this planet. This could not be allowed. This planet was Covenant territory, had been their territory for millennia! Something must be done. With a pleasing impulse, one of the other members of the me/colony informed me that the heavy plasma turret had almost finished thawing.
As Ozymandias reached the top of the tunnel and stepped out onto the icy surface of Hoth, it sent out a radio message on all frequencies.
"Your destruction is the Will of the Gods, and I am their Instrument."
"Your destruction is the Will of the Gods, and I am their Instrument."
Lars looked up in awe as an immense purple leg crested the lip of the hole. The leg was soon followed by three others and the rest of the strange, alien machine. It vaguely resembled the AT-AT's nearby but it was slightly taller.
Unlike the Imperial machines, which had a slightly canine look, this thing looked nothing more then a giant, purple armour plated bug.
I looked out upon the battlefield and noted my surroundings. The pitiful bipeds running beneath me were of no threat. Neither were the mechanical two-legged walkers or the flying machines that fired ruby red bolts of light. I soon asserted that my only threat lay in the four large walkers heading towards me. They resembled my own blessed form but instead of being a bright vivid colour, were drab and grey. The entire contraption was without a doubt, the ugliest thing I had ever seen. It was human built there was no mistake. Only they could make such an atrocity.
I turned my head towards them and charged up my Beam Cannon. It's beam of divine wrath slamming into the closest of the walkers. The charged plasma strikes against its hull and slowly bores a hole right through the machine. It collapses, a huge gaping wound in its side.
The other walkers open fire on me. Red bolts of energy erupting from their guns at the front of their head. I wait for more but then I realise that the mouth guns are the only weapons they possess. Primitive.
My heavy plasma turret by this point had finished thawing and had powered up to a sufficient level. A hail of blue bolts burst from my back and struck the side of another walker. The plasma shots have little effect on the walker's metal plating until several of them strike its head, destroying it and causing it to topple over.
The other two continue their steady rate of fire. I find myself weakening as my vulnerable knee joints are targeted and my armour gets worn away.
While my heavy turret opens fire on one walker, my Beam Cannon, having recharged enough, fires once more. It strikes one of the remaining walkers head on, vaporising the head and melting a hole straight down it.
I am in paroxysms of glee as I continue to fulfil the function that I was built for. The me/colony rejoices, having tasted battle after so long.
Their happiness is cut short as the repeated laser fire from the last surviving quadruped bursts open my knee joints and rips holes in my carapace.
I slowly collapse onto the ground, shaking it mightily. But even in my final moments I am content. I, Ozymandias, go now to join the Great Journey that awaits all true believers. I go knowing that my death was not in vain. I have sent the vital radio transmission awakening all the Covenant forces sleeping under the ice of this godforsaken planet.
There will be other Scarab Tanks to take my place. Hundreds of them. And thousands of Ghosts and Banshees and Vampires and Wraith tanks. A titanic army is now awakening under the ice of Hoth, along with several ships.
Soon, the fury of the Gods will reawaken this galaxy and all shall tremble.
A/N: This is obviously told from the POV of a Scarab Tank. I have always wanted to do a POV from one of them ever since learning that instead of just mindless vehicles, they are living organisms. Scarab Tanks don't get enough appreciation these days. Please Review, constructive criticism is welcome.