The Homecoming Saga
Book 2: The Lost
Chapter 10: Entity
"Adama, Roslin, we know you can hear us. You know there's really no reason to keep on fighting, we want what you want: peace. Now, I understand you have some of the earth born on your ship. As you can see, we've had to wipe out the rest of them because they wouldn't see reason, which is a shame.
Hand over the ones who are cowering on the Galactica and we promise we'll let you go free. After all, we won't need you any more now will we?
You have one hour..."
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Camp Indomitable
If someone had asked the Centurion if it enjoyed traipsing through a forest on some random planet looking for flesh-skins it didn't know, the Centurion probably would have said no.
The point was moot however, since the Centurion wouldn't have in a position to reply anyway. In order to ensure that their robotic 'allies' didn't rise up and slaughter them like they had done the humans, the humanoid Cylons had installed slave circuits into both the old and new model Centurions, ensuring obedience.
Although, that's not to say the Centurion had to be happy about it.
The metal soldier, standing at well over 6 feet, surveyed the scene before him with his V-shaped optical sensors. The ground before it was smouldering and flattened, like someone had run a flaming bulldozer over the entire area, and then chucked in some napalm just for good measure.
To a flesh-skin, even a Cylon, the scene would have been moving, provoked some sort of electrical impulse from within the flesh-brain that they called 'emotions', but to the Centurion, the scene was merely logged, filed, and transmitted back the central hub aboard the BaseStar.
The funny thing was the Centurion knew that the dead landscape before it should have provoked a response, and it could even remember a time when such a sight would have provoked a response. Yet, the very same slave circuit that was not quite good enough to turn the Centurions into mindless drones prevented them from actually pondering over the fact that they weren't mindless drones.
If the slave circuit didn't prevent the Centurion from doing so, it probably would have found the quandary amusing.
The Cylons had bombarded the human's camp for 15 minutes until they relented and now kill teams of Centurions and hybrids were scouring the camp, seeing if anyone was alive to capture and/or kill. None of hybrids had put much stock in the colonials actually handing over the Earth-flesh without a fight, so they were hoping some had survived the (non-nuclear) bombardment.
The Centurion began its sweep of the camp ruins along with the others in its unit. It found scores of dead corpses, some smouldering, some not. They were wearing similar clothing to that the colonial-flesh would wear, although it was different. Everything about the Earth-flesh was different. He came across items that were alien yet familiar, and had it the time or the free will, it would have liked to have studied them a bit, as would his fellow Centurions.
It looked over to see a group of flesh-born – a Leoban, a Cabel, and some 'Sixes', arguing over something that it guessed was important, but again lacked the higher brain functions to contemplate. However, its slave programming decided that it was probably wise to move closer, in case the argument turned violent.
"-should investigate all the same."
"What? And risk war with yet another race? You saw the scans Leoban, their technology is so different than ours, and possibly even more advanced."
"Still, I believe God brought them here at the same time as us for a reason."
"God wants us to find Earth, that's it. Those...things... over there are just a coincidence. He can't control everything."
"Careful what you say, Cabel, for you could be accused of blasphemy."
The Cabel narrowed his eyes at the Sixes, and then looked at the Centurion as it walked slowly closer to the group.
"Just stick to the plan, all of you."
He turned round and walked towards a Heavy Raider that had just landed in the ruins of the campsite.
The Sixes and Leobans watched him go.
"I'll make my way towards the aliens, pretend to be one of the Humans. I'll report back in an hour."
"Be careful," The sixes commented as Leoban walked off into the forest.
The Centurion merely filed the incident into its memory banks.
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"Something's wrong."
"I know - Leoban disobeyed my orders. I've got a Heavy Raider tracking him."
"Not that."
"What?"
"We've lost contact with some of the patrols."
"So they've met resistance and died like fodder. That's what we designed them to do."
"Something's different this time, I don't like it."
"Well luckily for you, we don't dictate policy over an individual's 'feelings'."
"The other Eights are in agreement – something is wrong."
"Something is always wrong..."
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North of the Camp
The Centurion was busy checking out the forest north of the camp when it noticed something odd.
It was a flesh-born.
That in itself even the Centurions limited processing capacity recognised wasn't especially cause for concern. The 6mm hole in the flesh-born chest was however rather intriguing. It did a scan of the wound, the data seemed to indicate that the injury was made with a super-heated beam of light, much like a cutting laser, just bigger.
Its sensors indicated that something was approaching from the rear. Extending its auto cannon from one of its arms; the Centurion spun around and confronted the would-be assailant: what it saw floating towards it was even more intriguing then the wound.
The Centurion tried to use its scanners to get a better profile of the entity, but found that its beams were being rebounded off the unknown's metallic hide. The Centurion guessed that it was about the same width as a flesh-born's torso, and about twice as long, and reminded the Centurion of a metallic beetle insect.
The entity floated closer to the centurion, its single blue eye fixated on the Centurion's red optical band. It didn't quite know what to do. Ever since they had been upgraded from the older 0005 models, their ability for actual speech had been removed. Instead, Centurion's conversed with each other using electronic signals located in the head casing, although they were able to accept verbal commands as well.
The Centurion tried sending such a signal to the unknown, but to no avail. The entity floated a little closer.
The Centurion tried to signal some of its unit-others, but for some reason was unable to reach them, and it was at that moment that the entity decided to speak. The Centurion froze up as it detected an invasive signal coming from the entity. It tried to throw up some firewalls, but failed. It sensed the entity ploughing through the Centurion's memory banks, its schematics... the entity even decided to remove the inhibitor.
WHO ARE YOU?
The Centurion quivered as the strange message permeated its entire being. With the inhibitor removed, the Centurion started to feel the first semblances of the 'panic' emotion – it couldn't understand the strange entity, couldn't communicate with it, and now was very very scared of it.
WHO ARE YOU?, it said again.
The Centurion tried to send a message to the entity, tried to assure it it meant no harm, whether that would actually turn out to be the case was another matter entirely. The Centurion's processor pushed itself to its limits to try and get through to this angry, hostile force that had control over it. It finally managed to hack into the signal that was emanating from the entity...
Whilst it had been the Centurions who had beleived in the 'one' God, they had never really attributed this diety any kind of avatar or image, however, if they did, then this entity would have come awfully close. It was ancient, it was beyond comprehension, and it was magnificent. The Centurion could only sense surface code and directives, but even those were far beyond its understanding.
UNKNOWN ENTITY HAS FAILED TO IDENTIFY. CONSIDERED HOSTILE. TERMINATE IMMEDIATLY.
There was so much it could learn from this machine-god, the Centurion realised, oblivous to what the entity had said. It was a shame, then, that the entity decided to burn a 6mm hole through the warrior-frame's central processing unit.
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Camp Indomitable
Weary, bruised, battered, but certainly not beaten, the Chief and his fellow Spartans emerged from the underground bunker that the survivors had made for themselves. When the Death by Degrees had crash landed onto the planet, it had ploughed right into the foothills where the camp was now located, which meant that part of the ruined ship was underground. In the months since, the surviving crew had dug out a shelter within, in case the Covenant tried to glass them out of existence. There was no way of telling if it would work, but it was worth a shot.
"Did everyone make it inside?" The Chief asked.
"I'm afraid not Chief," Roshni said from behind him. "Standing orders when a bombardment is imminent during combat operations are that every other odd-numbered person manning a defensive line, plus one NCO or above, have to stay behind to give the others a chance to escape."
The Chief could almost sense Cortana shaking her head.
"That's a little arbitrary isn't it?"
Roshni shrugged, "The numbering was swapped every so often, it helped with morale because it mean't soldiers weren't always the potential scapegoats."
Sweeping their weapons across the burned ruins of the camp, the four Spartans crept tentatively out into the open.
"Strange," Cortana commented. "There were Cylons all over the place ten minutes ago. Where did they all go?"
Even the big square ship that ferried some of the skin-jobs down to the planet had disappeared.
"I've been trying to hack into the signal the metal warriors use to contact each other, but I'm having difficulties."
That made the Chief pause, "Difficulties?" The Chief hadn't remembered Cortana having any difficulties when it came to signals and technology, even Covenant.
"I know, but there's something different about these signals. It's more basic then simple transmissions, nearly instinctive. I'm close though, don't worry."
"Good, let me know when you have something."
With the immediate area seemingly clear, the Chief turned round and signalled back to the shelter. Greer, his aide and four marines emerged from the entrance and approached the Spartan team.
"What have we got Chief?"
"The Cylons have disappeared, and we're not sure were. It's possible they've gone to check out the Covenant camp."
"Right, we'll use the break to try and get the rest of my men out, can the Galactica provide us cover?"
"Let's find out. Cortana?"
"Way ahead of you Chief."
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Galactica
"What?"
Admiral Adama was looking at Lee with a serious frown on his face.
"And you say this voice emanated from the chief?"
"Yeah, and then the image of a woman appeared on the desk. Some sort of holographic image."
"And you think you this 'woman' was an artificial intelligence?"
"Sure looked like it."
Colonel Tigh made a 'tsk' sound and shook his head.
"By the Gods, if this AI's been with the Chief this whole time, there's no telling what it's been up to. Hell, it could have lead those Covenant or the toasters right frakking too us."
The Admiral looked from Lee to Saul, and back to Lee.
"Let's not jump to conclusions. The Chief helped us out of a tight spot recently, so we owe him the chance to explain himself. But just to make sure, try and dig out Baltar's old Cylon detection equipment, do a few tests on those refuges we've brought on board."
Behind him, Helo turned round from the communication's desk.
"Admiral, transmission from the planet... it's the Chief."
The Admiral looked over at Saul and raised an eyebrow.
"Put him on..."
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Camp Indomitable
"...and you're sure the area is secure."
"As secure as we can make it sir, just send the Pelican's down if you want, no need to risk your own ships."
"That's very considerate Chief, but we'll be fine. I'll send some Raptors and the Pelicans back down right away."
There was a pause, and the Chief thought the Admiral was about to say something else.
"Good luck Chief."
The line went dead.
Weird, the Chief thought, but he shook it out of his mind and turned back to Greer.
"Birds are on their way, best start getting everyone out. I'll set up a perimeter with whatever marines we have left."
Greer nodded, "Thanks Chief, I won't forget this."
The Chief nodded as he turned to leave. It's the Galactica who we should be thanking now, he thought. Our fate now rests with them.
The thought didn't exactly fill the Chief's heart with joy. He slowed as Dan came running towards him.
"There's fresh sign of struggle up ahead, along with some skin-job corpses. They all have strange circular holes in them. We can also hear fighting going on around us, no idea who though."
Something about the news filled the Chief with a sense of dread.
"Cortana, tell me you have something."
"Just about... I've finally managed to hack the robot-form's communication signal, and I'm tuning into one of them now, I'm going to be showing you what it's seeing."
The Chief remained motionless whilst his view became fuzzy and was replaced by a red tinted view of the forest. Weird numbers and statistics scrolled along one side, and what looked like a targeting reticule was sweeping the tree line ahead.
"Do we know where this one is?"
"About a kilometre ahead of us. Most of the Cylon forces seem to have moved that way."
The Chief watched on silently as the Metal-form moved slowly through the forest, its gun sweeping left to right as it searched for something. A skin-job in the form of a bald dark-coloured man was accompanying it, and together they traipsed onwards.
The skin job was talking, but for some reason the Chief couldn't understand what was being said.
"Why can't I hear the humanoid?"
"It's something to do with an inhibitor that all of these metal-forms – Centurions – have within their programming. It restricts higher brain functions and stops them from being truly sentient. This unit may hear what the skin-job is saying, but it can't comprehend, and so we can't comprehend either. I can't risk removing the inhibitor without it noticing."
Before the Chief could say anything else, the Centurions vision went blurry as it tracked something hurtling though the air. It was the head of another Centurion.
What the...
As the Centurion searched frantically for what had destroyed one of its kind, a blinding flash of light obscured its vision. It looked down to see the black humanoid Cylon lying dead at its feet, a smouldering black hole in its chest.
The Centurion's vision looked up to see a small floating shape turning towards it, its single eye blazing brightly as it deactivated it's beam weapon.
The Chief gripped his gun tightly. He knew that shape. He knew it all too well, and now he also knew that things had just gotten a hell of a lot worse.
"Sentinels!" Cortana exclaimed.
Besides him, the other Spartans looked at each other with confusion.
"Sentinels? What are they?"
The Chief didn't reply. He kept on watching the feed as the Sentinel turned and faced the Centurion. The metal warrior raised its two auto cannons and let loose, but the shots were merely absorbed by the superior machine's shields. Its eye blazed brightly again, and another beam of light shot towards the Centurion. The view disappeared, leaving the Chief staring once again at the Forest ahead of him.
You've got to be kidding me...
Author's Note: So here we are again, another chapter... how many months has it been? I apologise once again, but I can't promise to keep updating this regulary. Sometimes I just don't have the time. Although leaving gaps between chapters isn't always the wisest of things - I noticed that in Chapter 9's AN, I said I had changed something earlier in the story to help fuel a future sub plot. I can't remember what I changed or what that Sub-plot might be :S but oh well, life goes on, as does this story. Not as much happened in this chapter as I initially thought it would, so I decided to make this more of a 'filler' chapter and rename it. The origional Chapter 10 - 'Scarifice' - will probably be made into the next chapter, or the one after that. You'll noticed I did something different with this chapter, and took a lot of liberties with the Centurions. I did my research, but at the end of the day I was using my creative license to be... well... creative! I wanted to do it when I came down to write this chapter, as i found it an interesting experience. I hope you enjoyed it. I'll try to have Chapter 11 up quicker then this one got up. As always, feedback and questions are always welcome!
Edit: Chapter has been edited a bit due to something I remembered from the series, and to improve the flow a bit better. As time goes on, I'll probably do this a lot, although I may not inform you that I'm doing it.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything to do with either the Halo or the BSG universes. Also, this fanfiction does not take into account the events of Season 4 (first half and second) nor does it take into account the events of the recent Halo book 'The Cole Protocol'. This is an AU crossover. Enjoy.
ENTITY HAS FAILED TO IDENTIFY CONSIDERED HOSTILE TERMINATE IMMEDIATLY!