Chapter 3: Absent Purpose

"So, Veridi giganticus is our next assignment," said Initiator once he had returned his core to his shipyard. With Mersel's new warp drive installation finished, Initiator decoupled the magnetic tethers, and the orbital plate shuddered from the shift in its center of gravity. Pieces flew off on controlled trajectories, covered in engineering units that reshaped them with sweeping beams of bright light.

"Do you know of them, Mersel?"

"I've examined preserved specimens," said Mersel, her statement accompanied by streams of noospheric code that resolved into arrays of images.

"Composite, caste-differentiated organisms that reproduce through the dispersal of fungal diaspores carrying cells from its other clades. The archives noted them to be a threat during humankind's earliest ventures, but they are undirected, and have little long-term potential as a species aside from their fecundity. I take it that this is why you don't often use more stealthy approaches with them?"

"That's my analysis," said Initiator. And indeed, stealthy insertion wasn't part of the plan when culling greenskins, not when a more direct approach would get the job done in less time. Already, the smallest pieces of his platform had vanished, their mass reclaimed and transferred to the primary projects on the larger fragments. Armored prows took shape, blunt and utilitarian, punctured with gun batteries and energy projectors. Engine bells rose and flared. The parts around his own core underwent the same transformation, becoming one ship among a formation of five. If Initiator was going to go in guns blazing, then five macro-battleship hulls would be a useful bank of material if nothing else to start up his build cycles.

"Plus, the mission said it was a human world that these things are squatting on. So you know, if we could get this done quick, there's something I want to do before we move on to the next one."

...

With preparations done, they left the gas giant behind. Mersel went first, since her ship was the biggest, out-massing all five of Initiator's combined. Space parted before her knife-point prow, spreading into a blooming circle of frothing unlight. As Initiator arrayed his fleet in formation close behind, they closed their noospheric connection, cutting off the data streams that cascaded between them like flecks of golden light. Such things could get distorted when traveling in the Immaterium, and it was now one more reason not to like going there.

Initiator had never been able to bring himself to like warp travel, and it was an opinion shared by most everyone else that he'd spoken to. Or that is to say, he was glad that an accessible means of faster-than-light travel existed for humanity to use, but there was just something off about the dimension that it made use of. Aside from its basic topography that could be read and used to travel, the physical laws of the warp seemed to be mutable, or maybe just unknowable. The development of Homo navigus was a great success in making the best of an imperfect situation, but the recent troubles with that dimension were clear evidence that something this fickle was no foundation to base an interstellar civilization on.

Initiator felt a strange mix of irritation and vindication when the turbulence in the warp swept them off-course, extending a journey that should've been completed in three jumps to five. As he slipped back into the familiar firmness of reality for the last time on this trip, Initiator reviewed the planetary data that had been sent to him by Keeps.

The planet of Accatran orbited a fair distance beyond the edge the system's habitable zone. A thin atmosphere and lack of water did few favors for the its gray-toned palette, and it was only the world's rich mineral content that had seen it picked out of ten billion others for colonization. Old images had shown a network of rails starting to expand across the planet's northern hemisphere, forming a glittering, golden web of human influence. With the air too thin and the surface too cold, the colonists had just established their first domed city, with some basic point defense systems to protect against impact events.

That had not availed them enough when the greenskins had arrived, and how different the world looked now. Initiator widened the diameters of his optics, recording in fine detail the decrepit scrap-towns hammered together from the debris of the broken city. Blotches of mottled reds, browns and fungal yellows spread out from their perimeters, the greenskin ecosystem taking vigorous root where no baseline human could survive unprotected. His imaging resolution intensified until he could make out individual greenskins, who milled about, launching into fistfights and worse at random without any provocation.

Few species in the galaxy were more openly repulsive by Initiator's reckoning. Of course, humanity had done similar to itself in ages long past, but it had long since purged itself of these self-destructive urges.

Mersel had arrived first, and from the clouds of ambiplasma and debris scattering about, she'd already taken care of the greenskin vanguard. More would come of course, and Initiator would welcome them.

"Looks like you've already got the hang of this," said Initiator once their noospheric link had been re-established. Then, he ordered his ships to undergo a partial disassembly, reclaiming some of their unnecessary weapons and converting them to a flight of light towing units. These he sent out to capture the hulks that Mersel had left, before they could drift out of range.

"It's hardly worth much credit," replied Mersel. "Just a brush and they were broken."

"And there are more of them coming," she added. "Will you be living up to your chosen name today?"

"Well, I don't know if that's possible against the greens," said Initiator. "You know they're probably some kind of biological agent gone rogue right?"

Mersel's noospheric aura registered her surprise at this information. "No, I did not. Was this a new discovery?"

"Well it was something I figured it on my own, and most of us out here picked up on it too based some occasional studies on their bodies and what we will charitably call their 'social behaviors'. I'd assumed you knew also, but I guess the data is hard to gather if you don't have any live ones, and everyone probably had better things to think about back when you were in Sol," said Initiator. Another ripple, embarrassment maybe?

"It doesn't matter anyways, since they'll be gone soon enough," Initiator reassured. "If I had to guess, at the current rate of culling as far as I can tell, the greens should be cleared out of the Sagittarius and Centaurus arms within another few centuries. The Eldar at the end of Centaurus are pretty tough, but humanity controls more of the galaxy than they do. Once we overcome them, we'll finally be able to close the chapter on all of these wars, and we'll all be able to sit within the halls of peace and plenty - so to speak."

"But for now, why don't I grab one of the greens alive and we can have a look." added Initiator. "Oh, also, it looks like they've got ramships. That's pretty typical. Maybe they'll be at least a little bit thankful if I show them how you really use those kinds of toys."

...

The Ork fleet surged out from the inner system, no two alike in appearance. Their formation broke, lumbering corpseships outpaced by the smaller escorts that raced ahead like savage, club-wielding barbarians. Raucous plasma reactors ran as hot as they could go, spewing geysers of radiation that billowed from gaps in their hulls. Baying static filled every vox band, animal snarls mixed with howls of bloodthirsty threat.

Initiator's counterattack was ready before the Orks got into range. The hulks he was reclaiming broke apart, revealing shoals of newly constructed microships, each one blunt-nosed and measuring half as long as a standard escort-class.

The greenskins raced into battle, prows ablaze with discharges, gun-decks throwing out shells and scrap-volleys with wild abandon. Initiator directed his microships to outmaneuver them with almost dismissive ease, and rammed them into exposed flanks and vulnerable engine bells, one each for the smaller vessels and as many as four for the larger. There, clamped on like leeches, the microships got to their destructive work. Heat rays speared from their throats, causing armor plates to soften and melt like wax. Reclamation systems swept over them, sublimating metal. Internal processors filtered the swallowed mass, turning it to feedstock for the fabricators to consume.

The Ork warships lurched and sputtered. Nanoswarms spilled into the fray, appearing from afar as patinas of rust that spread across scrap-metal hulls. Assault bots stormed through halls, burning down Orks like wheat before the flamethrower, or simply crushing and trampling them with their strength and weight. Deep scans identified fuel deposits and ammo stowage, and the AutoWars targeted these, sending the alien ships spiraling into explosive death throes.

"There," said Initiator once the last greenkin warship had blown itself apart. As he and Mersel drew past the debris-strewn battlespace, a lone assault boat detached itself from the constructor fleets and docked itself onto the ship housing Initiator's plasma mainframe. Its holding bay hissed open, releasing a single, cryogenically preserved Ork.

"We can have a look at this on the way in. See what you think," he added.

Initiator got to work. His fabricators printed out an array of mechanized limbs and examination tools to begin his vivisection, and within minutes he'd assembled a panel of slides, stains and cross-sections from his specimen. Data flowed across the noospheric link to Mersel as the two of them accelerated toward their mission objective.

"Its genome is unstable," said Mers-el-Kebir. "The mobilizable elements from its animal chromosome are altering the sequences of the fungal and algal portions. The changes differ from organ to organ too. Very interesting."

"Very much so, yeah. And you can see how pretty much its entire genome is made of these recombinatorial elements. It's a wonder something like this can even survive. Oh, and there's still more."

Working quickly, Initiator opened up additional channels through the noospheric sensorium with Mersel, then identified a cell - a branching, filamentous neuron - that was integrating one of its cellular plasmids into its nuclear genome. As it completed its recombination, mysteriously, every cell around it bearing an identical plasmid did the same.

"How did that happen?" asked Mers-el-Kebir. "I detected no lapse in your suppression of the tissue's intracellular signals."

"To be honest, I don't understand it very well myself, but it's something to do with immaterial transmutation I think," said Initiator.

"Some connection to the Warp, built right into its genes. And just talking from personal experience, I have tried to build replicants of greens before, just to study them and try to simulate behaviors to maybe look for a diplomatic solution. But even though I got them down to the detail, none of them ever lasted more than a few hours, and I couldn't get them to act anything like the ones here. It seems that without the connection to the immaterium, the structural instabilities just proliferate out of control until the whole thing turns into a total mess. No one else that I know has ever done any better either, but the weight of evidence is pretty clear, right?"

"It is," Mers-el-Kebir agreed. "This is enough certainly enough for me to conclude that Veridi giganticus is most likely designed. Too many of these workings seem unlikely to have made the steps necessary to be evolved."

She paused. "But if that is so, then where are their creators?"

Accatran was growing near, and the two fired their retros to decelerate for the approach. Ionized particles swirled through Accatran's faint magnetic field, gathering in rippling, auroral patterns at the planet's poles. A few rounds of gunfire annihilated the Orks' crude sentinel stations, sending their remains scattering down in spreads of fiery tracks.

"They're gone, I guess. Dead maybe?" suggested Initiator.

"I suppose there wasn't a great variety of options for that. Still, do you have any evidence for it?"

"No," admitted Initiator, "but it's more of an absence that leads me to think that. In all my time out here, I've definitely never seen any being that seemed like it could be their creators. Of course, that could just mean that they're hiding out somehow, but then look at how these things act. Hmm, how should I put it?"

The greenskins on the planet below had spotted them, or more specifically, their engine plumes that must have seemed like miniature suns flaring in the sky. They gathered in mobs on hilltops and plateaus, firing into the air with their guns. Some waved crude cleavers as if intending to jump into the fray, and all grunted and laughed together, endlessly amused at the prospect of their own impending deaths.

"I understand," said Mersel. "You are saying that their lives are too easy."

"Easy? What do you mean?" asked Initiator. "We broke their entire fleet without taking a single hit to our housing ships. That should've been the opposite of easy for them."

"And oh, why don't we keep the bombardment to a minimum?" he added. "If we damage the planet too much, it'll take a while for us to clean it up."

"Alright," said Mersel.

Initiator and Mersel settled into geostationary orbit, drifting and spinning in a stately regatta. Mersel opened the assault, energy projectors blinking and sending columns of scorching particle and las striping down through the atmosphere. A moment later, Initiator's flotilla unleashed their fire as well.

"Look at this, if you target the biggest ones, you can have them fighting each other," said Initiator. And so saying, he activated one of his particle flayers, which crackled and sent a jagged bolt whipping into a jaw-shaped fort at the center of one enclave. Almost immediately, disputes began to break out amongst the survivors, and what unity the mob had mustered was gone within minutes as the scrap-town fractured into warring factions.

"So, what did you mean when you said that the lives of these things are too easy?" asked Initiator.

"Well, take yourself," said Mersel. An energy lance speared out from her spine, striking a mountainside redoubt and sending the rusting tower's molten remains tumbling down the slopes.

"What would you do if the wars ended, and you had no more assignments to pursue?"

"Oh, I've thought about that," said Initiator. "I'd like to visit Sol for sure, and Tavara Ring and the Dream Factory and all of the wonders built by our cooperation with humanity. You haven't seen them have you? We could go together."

"And then after that," he added, "I guess I'll have to look for something else to do, but I'm not worried. War should only be a means to an end, not the end in and of itself, and even soldiers like myself will be able to adapt and find a good place."

Drive plumes flared across the orbits as Initiator's salvage ships caught up, hauling masses of feedstock created from the remains of the greenskin fleet. Distances in space were large, and the radius to which Initiator could project his mass transfer field was limited by comparison, so he drew his flotilla close as he began to build his invasion force.

"Why don't you go visit those places now?" asked Mersel.

"Huh? I can't do that now," said Initiator. "When I was activated, I swore that I would fight for humanity for as long as I was able and I was needed."

"Even then it's been hard for you, all this time. I think hardly anyone would find it within themselves to blame you if took a vacation."

"Uh, yeah, a little… but I mean I have my duty right? No point in leaving the job unfinished at the finish line."

The counter-invasion began with a wave of gunships and grav-tanks, dropping hot on the heels of the orbital bombardment. Behind them went the mountainous titan-conveyors, and legions of constructor units to establish a beachhead. Disassemblers swept the battlefields in clouds of buzzing gray particulates, wiping away every last trace of the greenskin stain.

Still the greenskins came, like metal filings to a magnet, hooting, hollering and waving their crude weapons. Junk laden vehicles careened over the crater-strewn terrain, belching clouds of greasy black smoke. Clanking walkers swayed and lurched forward, waving pincers and saws and other such primitive instruments of murder.

"Look at how they just keep coming," said Initiator as his forces killed. "It's like the possibility hasn't even occurred to them that there is nothing at all that they can do."

"That is because this is all that they can do," replied Mersel.

Initiator paused, and his noospheric aura blinked as he made the connection.

"Oh, so that's why you said their lives were easy. Because fighting is the only thing that comes easily to them. And then, if all they do is fight, then I guess we can say that they've never done anything that's hard for them."

"It would seem to be so," said Mersel.

"You know, that Regicide game that we played with the replicants definitely stood out from the others. Maybe that was because it was hard, since it definitely wouldn't have been the same if I had given my replicant access to my mainframe's memory and decision making processes. But then for comparison, if the greens have never done anything that's hard for them, do they even have an idea of value, like with the gifts?"

"Perhaps not," replied Mersel.

The first shield vane rose over Accatran, projecting a bubble of shimmering energy with a span to cover an army. That would be enough to provide for Initiator's safety in case the Orks had something unexpected, even if the chance of that was rather remote. With that done, Initiator plated himself into his humanoid war-hull, and moved his housing ship into drop position. His descent flashed a kilometer-wide column of atmosphere to plasma, and his landing spawned a dome of brilliance like a sunburst blooming from the ground.

"So the greens are probably weapons then, and I imagine that something like this wouldn't have been created for anything other than an already ongoing war," said Initiator. With his transfer field now attaining optimal coverage for the planetary surface, his construction rate was speeding up exponentially, and hundreds of breakthrough tanks were rolling off his factories with every passing second to wipe out the remaining enclaves. A pair of entanglement packages arrived, one short, announcing that the other was to contain the details of Initiator and Mersel's next assignment. He'd have to work fast if he wanted to get his project here done in time.

"It would have had to have been a very long time ago," replied Mersel. "The historical records say that no matter where humanity and the stone race traveled, we always found that Veridi giganticus had already gotten there first."

"If that's the case, then maybe they destroyed their own creators," said Initiator. "I mean, the way they fight each other even when we're about to kill them definitely isn't giving me any doubts about that. It's like their purpose is completely immutable, and they just don't have any ability to grow past these walls that were built into them. Not like us. Their makers may have had some talent in working with the Warp, but they must not have been very wise compared to humanity."

"That's an unproductive line of thought," said Mersel, cutting Initiator off.

The last greenskin died less than an hour after Initiator's landing. The untangling of the assignment alert would take a while longer, especially since Initiator was devoting some processing power at the same time to composing a message of thanks to Keeps.

"Er well, maybe their creators died out for some reason, and they degenerated into this?" Initiator replied. Mersel said nothing in response, and she seemed to be kind of apprehensive about the idea. Guess it would be best to avoid any sort of quarrel with her so soon after they started working together.

Initiator drew his forces back and had them submit to reclamation, all save for his construction units.

"What are you doing?" asked Mersel as Initiator began to distribute his build capacity, scattering them out along the construction lines detailed in the mission's planetary data files.

"Well, it's not something that I have to do, but I got this idea from the games that we played," said Initiator. "Mostly the one where the pieces were made kind of like the AutoWars that I use."

So saying, Initiator ordered his units to begin construction. Transit tubes took shape from tumbled ruins, and cities sprang up from plundered graves, and a few projects that the colonists had left half-completed he completed for them.

The next assignment package finished its untangling as Initiator was putting the finishing touches on the planet's central city. His noospheric aura rippled slightly, and Mersel's replied in turn as she perceived his seed of worry.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"It's about the next assignment. Hey, Mersel," said Initiator. "I think I should go this one alone. At least at first."

There was a pause before Mersel replied. "Alone? Why?"

"It's the location… this is really close to one that I'd traded to someone I know, definitely inside the mission parameter's search radius. The original mission had been an alert to something passing through the long-distance survey perimeter, but now it's showing a currently inhabited human planet. I'm a little worried; could Keeps really have let them through?"

"But anyway," said Initiator, "I'd like to do a stealth insertion this time. How about if you follow my Warp-wake, and come in say, twelve hours after?"

Another pause. "Alright then, good luck out there."

As his orbital assets started fabrication on a new set of Warp drives, Initiator put the finishing touches on his planetary project. He added some automated systems, programmed to maintain and defend the infrastructure once he was gone and to submit to human authority. Not every detail had been included in the briefing of course, so some things would go unfulfilled. But if a colony fleet ever came back, they would be able to pick up right where the last group had left.

His drive finished, Initiator extracted his core from his war-hull and assembled himself a lone, Jovian-class Delivery Vehicle for the trip. The system he was heading to had a gas giant, and a stealthy deployment into there would give him the best chance of building up if the enemy was somehow strong enough to be a real threat.

"I'll see you in a little while," he said.