From the chamber, they emerged into a hallway fashioned like a malformed ribcage pulled inside out and twisted sideways. Despite the macabre design, Scott noticed it was patched out or thin in places and some reminded him of bits of Angaran ships. They've encountered a few Kett stragglers and dropped them quickly. Scott stuck close to Jaal in case he jumped into the fray again but the Angara was silent and subdued, perhaps tired from before. They followed the path where SAM said was the fastest and safest way for them to reach the room where the Moshae was suspected to be held. As they jogged, thoughts of what happened in the rooms behind them returned, and Scott had to, unfortunately, revisit them as the leader of their group. He looked back on it, with the same sense of detachment he used when dealing with the death of his father.
Among the horrific scenes he's remembering, he found some answer to a question he had prior to entering the base. Did the Kett have communication to the place they came from? An answer to this question would change the way they would conduct themselves in this war later on. However, the fact that the Kett had to source their troops from the local population made it likely they didn't. There is still the possibility they can communicate to their homeworld, but that wouldn't matter much when they cannot get past the Shroud. The Angara may think this knowledge too little gain for its price, but for them, it changed their outlook entirely. The Kett could not get reinforcements from outside, which meant that if they cut them off their supply of troops, the war will be over simply by attrition.
However, if the Kett cannot get past the Shroud, then this also meant they were effectively stuck here...along with them.
He glanced at Jaal, who was slightly ahead, moving faster than them with his stalking gait, silent as a panther. It was tragic what was happening to his people and he agreed entirely that the Kett's method of warfare was extremely deplorable. Not just for the cruelty of it but for its senselessness. Any advanced society would know an army of drones is more efficient and effective in attaining its mission objective. People are irrational, emotional and had this pesky trait known as a conscience, and there is no better killing machine than a machine. A machine does not need to eat, shit or sleep and can go on killing indefinitely. Yet the Kett chose to create their soldiers from the Angara and with those horrific methods.
There were two possibilities: either the Kett has the same fear towards AI as they do or they are evil. Maybe both, the former making it convenient for the latter. Though he was taught not to think of evil on living beings purely because they are alien, he found it hard to stick to that instruction after what happened. Who wouldn't after seeing evidence of their brutality?
They finally reached the room. The chamber had a high ceiling with ramps before them and on the side. It was illuminated more brightly than the previous rooms. There were no wires running to and fro like the hallways they passed by and the floor was made of a material that did not sound with their footfall. The ramps lead on to the side of the room then down the stairs, where, at the end of the hall, a dais rose. As they went further in, they felt as if they were in a soundless, endless space, where the only thing of color was the great window behind the dais, with a simulation on it like colored glass showing a raised Kett figure, its arms spread and linked to other aliens who are likewise linked to another in infinity. That light was broken now, as a Kett leader with the maroon robes carried the female Angara onto the opening, onto snowy ground extending to the horizon and stopping abruptly into empty air.
Then a shuttle hovered down. They did not have time to waste.
"Moshae!" Jaal called and charged ahead. They ran after him as he fired upon the leader's guards flanking it, who quickly turned and closed ranks.
At the junction, Scott signaled at Marcus to follow Jaal as he and Cora went to the other one, while moving ahead and giving suppression fire. He reached railing and ducked behind its cover, while Marcus took up the role to give them time to move into position. He peeked and saw the leader was close to carrying the Moshae past the hole. He leaned out quickly, ignoring the beeping of his shield as the Kett guards hit him so he can shoot at the shuttle's thrusters. The thrusters caught fire and the shuttle careened away before the Leader could load the Moshae in it.
Meanwhile, Jaal vaulted over the railing and onto the ground and engaged the Kett in a melee. Cora followed after, her body glowing and she charged, throwing the Kett around him into the air before he dropped down and the Kett can concentrate their shots at him. She finished them off with her shotgun and grabbed at the Angara roughly to retreat and take cover behind the pillars, but Jaal resisted so she was forced to cover him with her barrier. The two covered them from above. Then Jaal chased the Kett out of cover by leaping and pouncing around them, almost impossible to track as he jumped against walls to attack the Kett on angles like a cheetah on steroids trapped in a box. His skin flickered and he disappeared only to appear and stab them behind their back or else sending arcs of electricity over them, throwing them across the room.
"Fight to the death! Protect this sacred place!" the leader yelled to its followers who were cowering, unable to decide whether to focus on the raging Angara bearing hard on them, the biotic moving on their side, or the two above picking them off as if they're clay pigeons.
Then Jaal shifted direction and was about to snatch the Moshae from the leader's grasp when it sent an expanding energy ball at him, throwing him back.
"You will not take her," it spat behind a bioelectrical shield. The Moshae was lying behind it. Jaal got up and hissed at it.
"Jaal, no!" Scott shouted as Jaal attempted to charge at it again but he was thrown onto the side as Cora charged onto him. The leader was attempting to summon another ball so they started firing upon it. Their bullets have no effect on its shield so its summoning continued. The Scott saw a tiny ball revolving around it and out of whim, started firing at it. The leader turned at him with a snarl.
Jaal stood up and shook himself off where he had fallen. He saw what they were doing, saw Scott fire upon the ball, saw the leader snarl at him and knew what to do. He pumped all of his rifle's bullets into the thing until it started to crack.
"NO!" It shouted and shot a streaming beam of energy at the Angara. But Cora leaped in its way and made a barrier, blocking it from reaching Jaal as they shot the ball, over and over, until it exploded. The Kett screamed as the field around it vanished and Scott and Marcus shot at its arms and legs.
It fell down beside the Moshae, screaming in pain. Jaal turned and advanced on it, dark as a thundercloud, intending to throttle it when Cora blocked his way and shouted at him to stop. Scott and Marcus shouted too as they ran down from the stairs and reached the Moshae in the dais.
"We need to talk to it, Jaal. We need answers!" Scott yelled as he and Marcus stood protectively before the Moshae, their guns on the Kett leader. Jaal looked at them, still angry beyond words, then at the Moshae behind them. Then his skin returned to its normal color and he did not try to fight them anymore.
He walked past the leader, past them and to the side of the Moshae. "Moshae Sjefa," he called as he raised her gently up from the floor to a half-sitting position. His arms supported her back as he called her name once more. "Moshae Sjefa!"
She coughed and opened her eyes, then looked up at him. "Jaal?"
He smiled down at her. "Yes, Moshae. It is me."
"What-" she looked around, at them, then at the Kett leader. "What's happening?" Her gaze fell on the humans. "And who are they? Another Kett?" she asked.
Jaal followed her gaze. "They are not Kett. They are…friends. We came to save you."
She stared longer at them. "I see." She freed herself from Jaal's grasp and tried to stand, but her limbs were wobbly so Jaal raised her up. The Moshae stood with an arm around Jaal, leaning heavily against him. Cora went forward and asked Jaal with a look if she can approach. Jaal nodded and she scanned the Moshae.
"Vitals are bad, her immune system's been compromised," she said, reading from her scanner.
"We'll make the Kett pay for what they did to you," Jaal vowed to the Moshae. He turned to look at the Kett leader behind Scott and scowled.
"Wait," the Moshae said quickly, placing her hand on his arm. "I want to know why the Archon-"
"Arrogant simpletons!" the Kett leader cried bitterly at them. "This is a gift we offer them. Who are you to deny it?" it demanded at Scott with a jerk of its white-capped head, glaring at him with the eyes of the Angara, but with the stars gone and the iris milky like a dead fish's. "These chosen join with us to become great, beyond your ability to understand. Like them, I was once wretched, unenlightened until the exalted DNA of our great Archon entwined with mine." It raised itself up from the floor despite its injuries to its limbs. Scott and Marcus backed away, their rifles still pointed at it, but despite the guns, it stood regal, its eyes burning with zeal despite the blood pouring from its wounds. "The Archon's vision was shared to me and I saw then how insignificant my life was compared to the glory that is yet to come. That is ours to have. I stand on the shoulders of greatness," it declared, looking coldly at the humans. "Which you never will," it added then its face twisted into hate as it cursed them. "For your sacrilege, you shall face the Archon's wrath. Our vengeance will be terrible to behold. You will be like grass withering before the fire! You shall not stop us from our destiny."
"Alright, that's enough crazy from you," Scott cut in, butting it into the stomach. He wasn't much a believer in destiny. As it doubled over, he opened the line to Commander Heckt. "Commander, I have the Moshae."
The line crackled and the commander answered. "Stars and Skies! We will send a shuttle to-" Someone started shouting in their language in panic, which transferred to the Commander's voice when she spoke again. "Alien! They say the armada is coming this way! We have to leave!"
"You saw the place!" Jaal cut in while Scott contacted the Tempest to get them now. "We can't just leave our people in here!"
"We're saving everyone as best as we can!" the commander said. "But the Archon is coming this way and it brings with it all of its forces! We're don't have the force to oppose it right now!"
"The Archon is coming," the Kett leader said in a flat tone as it stared into space, its arrogance gone and replaced with…fear? Then it jerked itself awake and cast its eyes on them with panic. "Leave this temple intact," it begged, "and I will open the pods of the Chosen. Take them-just, leave this holy place standing."
"No," the Moshae said firmly. "Even if I die here, this place must be destroyed."
"But what about our people here?" Jaal insisted. "Whatever was done to them, they are Angara. Our people. Our family. You cannot just let them die!"
"Jaal," the Moshae said, calling his name gently. "They are mindless. They are not our people. Their minds were never developed since their birth. They are a mockery of Angara. We need to destroy this place. They will only fill this place again with more of our brothers and sisters."
Jaal's skin grew turbulent as he struggled to control his feelings and he said, with effort, "With respect, our compatriots are also here. Our fighters, our scientists, our strength."
"And you know that they'd choose to die rather than lead more of their brethren in here."
Jaal looked hard at her, saw her resolution, and so turned to Scott. "Ryder, help me," he pleaded to him.
They heard the whoosh of a ship's exhaust and saw the Tempest descend and stop just above the ledge, the ship slightly tilted like a hummingbird on a flower. The doors to the cargo bay opened showing Vetra who was holding tightly to the ropes. "Get in! We don't have the time!" she yelled at them, the wind making her voice vibrate even more.
Scott whipped to the Kett leader. "Free them right now!"
"Only after you promise to leave the temple intact and go," it answered.
Marcus called his attention when he received additional information from Commander Heckt. "Scott. There's no time to save everyone," he advised. "The Archon may catch up with Commander Heckt and everyone else who's rescuing all the people in here. We can't be delayed; It'll be all for nothing if the armada arrives and shoot all the ships leaving this planet."
Scott nodded at the Kett leader. "We'll continue our interrogation with...that."
The Moshae coughed. "Don't bother. We have tried but their physiology allows them to adapt at will. Nothing you can do to them will have an effect."
Scott did not answer her but he turned around and shot the Kett leader dead. They then helped carry the Moshae inside the Tempest, Jaal jumping with her in her arms as Vetra pulled them in. As Jaal carried her to the medbay, she insisted on speaking to Commander Heckt. "Commander! Desist rescuing our people and start evacuating. This place must be destroyed! We shall not permit it standing for the Archon to create more of its forces from our own kind!"
The line was silent, then the commander answered, "Very well, Moshae. You asked for a very difficult thing, but I will obey." They heard her order her people to stop freeing captives and start evacuating then radioing in the ships above them to bomb it from orbit as soon as it was safe.
The Tempest arrived above the planet with all the other ships just as a spot of light bloomed from where the base once stood. Then a shrill, warning message passed through the fleet. "All ships retreat to Aya now!" Commander Do Xeel yelled. "The destroyer is here! Run as fast as you can!"
The fleet prepared to heed her, careless of their formation, when it happened.
At first, there was nothing. Then there was a flash; an explosion that ran through time and space and set a shrill ringing inside their ship.
"Hull integrity to 26%! Heat capacity 83%!" Suvi shouted above the din of the alarms going off.
"What?" Scott asked in shock and turned to look at his own console. It couldn't be. It couldn't be…that whatever that was, it took one hit to strip them of their protection and set all the alarms on the ship. He knew the Tempest was built with light armor and won't withstand either direct hit or sustained fire but it wouldn't go down easily like this. Not like this.
He looked up at the viewscreen. "What the fuck was that? An energy beam?"
"A gamma-ray burst," SAM answered, which made him gape even more. That kind of radiation with that level of power can only come from something as powerful as a star.
"Did a star explode nearby?" he asked, about to curse their luck in lying at the path of solar ejecta. Of all days to have a star exploding on them….
'No. It did not come from any star. The source was much closer, just outside the system."
He went still. There are no anomalies outside the system so it must mean-
"The destroyer," he said out loud.
The viewscreen flicked to the source of the burst. It was fading to a light tinged with violet, shifting to blue then down to red and disappearing, but still echoing as a microwave to radio wave. Then the ships between it and them lit up in a series of explosions, as their structures fell apart and their drives detonated.
"We need to get out of here, people. Now," Scott ordered. The shielding embedded in their armor had prevented them from being doused with radiation but they won't survive another hit.
Suvi shook her head. "We're flying blind. Our sensors shorted; we've got limited range. We can't make a safe FTL jump, especially since we're not out of the system yet."
"Our hull won't last much longer and heat is building up to dangerous levels," Kallo added. 'We can't jump in FTL, Scott. It's not safe."
Scott opened a line to engineering. "Gil, give me something that'll take us out of here, fast."
They heard yells interspersed with the shrill beeping of alarms. Then finally, they heard their engineer. "We've got a lot on our plate, Scott," he grunted. "Everything's fucked."
Commander Do Xeel's ship whizzed by and gave an insistent, blaring hail. "Why the skutting shit are you still here?" she yelled into the line. "Get the Moshae out of here, or we'll all die!"
"That burst shorted our sensors and warped our hull. We can't jump to FTL!" he yelled back.
"What?" the commander asked sharply. "You didn't get extra radiation shielding?"
"This is a survey ship, not a warship. And this wasn't mentioned in the briefings you gave us."
The commander uttered a long litany of curses then said something to her crew before returning to him. "Tell your pilots to keep in contact with the ship I will send. It'll guide you to the carrier that brought us here."
The fleet limped past Prachonyi, whose blue-green atmosphere was now aflame, auroras roiling on its edges, making the whole planet look like it was wreathed in hellfire. A cruiser broke away from the main fleet and flew alongside them. Then the fleet turned around and faced the planet, keeping it between them and the destroyer.
"What are you doing?" Scott asked.
"We'll buy you time to escape. The Moshae must reach Aya."
She sounded like she believed she wasn't going to survive. "What? Can't you fight it off?"
"This is not the time to argue! That destroyer's going to make a second attack and it'll be just as devastating as the first. None of us will be safe because it's using gravitational waves to kill us all!"
He paled. Those waves will travel through space like a tsunami on the coast. Objects caught by it have their molecular bonds ripped from each other, resulting in immediate disintegration depending on their distance. Not only is it that powerful, but it also travels by speed of light, as fast as their laser weapons but have a range wider than any weapon they have. No amount of armor or shields will protect them from its devastating effects.
Because that kind of wave can only be made by something as powerful as black holes.
He stood rooted to the spot, struck still with the immense power the Kett wield. What kind of monster was they up against?
Commander Do Xeel snapped him out of his panic. "Get the Moshae to Aya, Alien or it will be over for all of us."
Scott nodded. "Yes, Commander. Tempest, out," he replied and looked at Kallo to teeter them to the oncoming cruiser.
As the Tempest flew away, Scott looked back at the viewscreen, where the commander's ship and what's rest of the fleet grew farther and farther away, to lie in wait behind the planet at their unknown enemy and cover their escape. He felt helpless and it's making him feel sick to his stomach. This was supposed to be a job in exchange for some favor, yet he felt like a coward as they flew away and left those people to fight the monster coming for them.
He thought they had it; that they can win this war with the strength of their friends and sheer nerve. But now, seeing how their opponent can wipe their fleet in one shot, he knew they would need more than that.
AN: So that's it for 2019. We're busy this month due to the holidays so see you next year! Please review and let me know what you think of Part 1.
Edit: To the guest who left a review about this fic not considering the impacts of AI-human integration, I get your point. However for this fic there were two assumptions: 1) SAM was designed as a separate entity, not an augment like an extra neural network. It was made to understand organic thought, not uplift it, because (spoiler). If SAM was made to integrate with human minds to be one entity, then humans should have been trained on merging with an AI which the Ryder family did not do, even Alec. Second reason, as shown in Chapter 8, Scott has issues with SAM so he doesn't really use SAM's full capabilities (I hope I gave enough hints, like Scott consciously blocking SAM access to his memories). So for now, SAM is more like a highly capable personal assistant and the Pathfinder system is more like two minds in one body, not a cyber-augmented super human. I'll discuss the ramifications of this design in later chapters.