The strange ship drifts aimlessly in the void of space.
It's a fair sized, ten-kilometer long ship completely unlike that of the Imperial ships, nor those of the Xeno races. Shaped like a streak of silver in the darkness of space, it was certainly of human make, yet it looks sleeker than ships of the current millennia. A beautiful craft in its prime, it has since then been left to decay; its various countermeasures had shut down millennia ago, leaving the craft pocketed with various asteroids and space debris that it has run into for time immemorial. The ship no longer had a name; were it spotted by the less knowledgeable, they would assume it to be some Xeno craft and burned as such. Were it found by the types, such as the Adeptus Mechanicus or Rogue Traders, they would rightfully deem it archeotech and begin salvaging it for lost treasures of a forgotten age.
But there's something still inside. Waiting. It hums silently in the darkness, without light, without anything. It doesn't need anything; it already has what it wants. It had just enough control of the derelict ship to move it towards the nearest planet, the first it has scanned in thousands of years. Whether or not it was inhabited will have to be seen, as the ruined craft slowly drifts into the gravity field of the rustic, dusty planet. It could only hope that this time period would prove to be more fruitful to its sleeping children than in the past.
Xelia, Subsector Caspil, Ultima Segmentium
Some years later…
Hal Vallaht cannot believe his eyes. Or his scanners, for that matter.
They've been excavating this site for some weeks now, pursing another whisper of archeotech in another far-flung region of the Imperium. With all honesty, the enginseer was expecting another fluke, or some little scrap of archeotech that barely justified the effort of finding it. But this…a well-preserved ship from the Dark Age of Technology? Even if Hal was more machine than human, he could not stop himself from trembling with excitement. Everyone is working full speed; from the lowliest servitor to the highest tech-priest on site. Even though the craft had suffered damage entering the atmosphere of this fringe world, it is more than intact to preserve whatever treasures are inside. And everyone who still had conscious thought wanted to be part of this history.
The ship had sunk some distance into the sand and is listing a little to one side, but it had hit bedrock before it went too deep, thank the Omnissiah! A few more minutes of work and the servitors have finally cut through the thick outer hull of the craft. Hal made a note to himself to study the alloy composition of this hull later. It was tougher than anything he had ever seen before. As the cut piece falls inside with a dull bang, the tech-priests closest to the crude entryway peers in. Hal curses to himself, too low ranking to be one of the first to feast his eyes on this discovery of the millennia. Everyone was silent for a few moments, unsure of how to react. Magos Jellaph was the first to break the tense silence. "Send in the servators first. Let them clear the way. Let us proceed only once they have cleared the outer perimeter." His peers nod in agreement as they get to work, swiftly and impatiently.
Deep within the confines of the buried ship, it waited. Its outer sensors had ceased to work after the atmospheric entry and subsequent crash-landing, but it didn't need them anymore. The sudden change in pressure signified the arrival of salvagers, or scavengers. But it didn't care, as it had expected this long ago. It had already awoken its children from their slumber, digging into the planet from the deepest, the most buried parts of the ship in search of materials. Once it had found a stable source of materials, it had set its uncountable number of robotic limbs to work, building more of its children by the thousands.
If this turbulent galaxy still isn't safe for its children, then it will make the galaxy safe.
Author's Note: This is my first released fanfic! Any and all critiques or reviews are wanted!