The building trembled.

Warning. Swarm breached the first defense perimeter. Recommendation…escape.

"Really? I thought that it would be best if I stay here." I bitterly spit out at the A.I.

Sarcasm does not help in this situation. Please go to the escape hangar.

"How the hell did they get here so fast anyway!? They barely landed few minutes ago!" I shout at him as I run down the corridor.

Swarm displayed offensive capabilities previously unencountered. Estimated time until planet will be conquered by Swarm… 33 minutes.

Another tremble.

Enemy titan sized unit breached second defense perimeter. Attempting containment.

Containment failure. Switching strategies. Moving all remaining units to third defense perimeter.

Please professor proceed towards the escape hangar. You are the last remaining non-swarm organic lifeform on the planet.

Damn it! "Wont they just shoot me down the moment I leave the area under your protection?"

Negative. Enemy is engaging on all fronts. They deployed on ground but are still fighting my fleets in orbit. It is an all-out assault trying to overwhelm me with pure numbers. Enemy army too big to out produce. War of attrition impossible. Professor get to the hangar and LEAVE!

Almost there. Just need to- The whole building trembled. I fall to the ground. "Shit!"

I get up quick and resume running and for the first time feeling the nine millennia of age.

"What was that Invictus?" Another corner and a staircase down.

Enemy managed to deploy troops on top of the building. Too many drops for anti-air and anti-orbital units to handle. Enemy already destroyed and clean up in progress. Assimilating enemy bodies to save miniscule amount of resources.

Finally, in front of the hangar door. They open and there lays the ship. A small gunboat only hundred meters long. Let's hope that's enough.

"I'm at the hangar and am entering the ship. Invictus call your commander body back and we'll get out of here. Just let the bots take the blow so we can escape." There was silence for a moment.

Negative. Kestrel-class sail does not possess sufficient databanks for my mind nor the holding space to transport my body in a timely manner. Commanding body must remain. Enemy too numerous to leave either way. Full dedication on front lines required for successful escape of Professor Mika. At moment of escape activation of Ragnarök titan imminent to deny enemy resources for further expansion. Calculated additional time due to denial of world for total Swarm victory. 1 Day. Use it wisely.

The engines start up and the ship lifts off as gravity generators create artificial gravity on the ship.

Soon enough the ship starts to accelerate through the tunnel leading out of the facility.

Moving air support and orbital fleets to cover for your escape.

Soon the ship leaves through a secret hatch near the facility and I get to see the enemy for one final time through a holo-screen.

Waves of monsters smash against the defenses of the last and soon to be lost bastion of this planet. Multiple Vidar variant of the Atlas-class titans are holding positions at key locations to prolong the inevitable. The Atlas, a titan that began as a housing and refining unit for unterraformable planets repurposed into smashing, seismic destroyers, this Vidar variant is repurposed for pure firepower.

A literal tsunami of nonsensically horrid creatures stacked on top of each other ready to cover the titans' surface. Tens of thousands of guns, thousands of cannons, hundreds of rockets of every variety fired from the Vidar-Atlas smash against the oncoming tide. For every hundred that perish in the hail of bullets or get ripped apart from the humble 300 millimeter cannons to the roaring monsters of the 1000 millimeters, the monsters continue without care the moment a hole to the other side opens its immediately filled with millions more than before. Even as the dead bodies fall the monsters smash against the 2-kilometer-tall weapons platform and after a while despite the ludicrous number of weapons on the titan firing upon the beasts, it falls.

I want to look away from these living horrors, but I can't. If I close my eyes, I might never want to open them ever again.

Another holo-screen appeared and showed how multiple air superiority fighters and orbital interceptors moved around the ship to provide escort.

In the distance flying beasts too big to reasonably fly in this planet's atmosphere engage with one of the escorts that disengaged to kill it before it reaches my vessel.

The last destroyer in orbit provides support and rains death upon anything that tries to reach the Kestrel.

As my ship leaves the orbit the 10-kilometer-long destroyer moves behind and above me to cover me from the incoming fire of the living ships that will give me nightmares.

Soon enough I'm far away for a safe jump to another system.

Professor Kala you have reached sufficient distance for a safe jump. Ragnarök will commence in 3 minutes. Enemy overwhelming the final line of defense. They will not reach Ragnarök in time.

Professor… I am sorry.

"Whatever for?" I ask Invictus in concern.

I wish… I wish I could have done more. I feel as though I failed.

"…I don't think so. You've done enough. More than enough. Rest. You deserve it more than anyone else."

…Gratitude. I…thank you. Self-destruct sequence activated. Professor…survive.

GLORY TO THE PROGENITORS!

The line went silent as the jump drive activated and the machines on the battlefield continued fighting. Last thing I saw was the planet cracking before the jump happened.

"Glory to the progenitors…" I mutter under my breath.

Just like when Alana woke up the good professor Kala woke up coughing up the remaining fluids of the tank. She looked around confused. Then she looked at her hands. Then she slowly got up and looked up at the camera with a concerned look.

"Who are you?" She asks me with slight confusion in her voice.

"Hi! I'm Dave and I'm the guy in the bot who's trying to revive your folk." Her eyebrows rise as she blinks a few times before shaking her head.

"How many were revived before me?"

"Just Miss Alana for now. She asked me to revive you before anyone else."

Her brows furrow in thought. Probably to figure out why her before anyone else. Then she looks at a table next to the door, more specifically the machine on it. It is the very same soda maker that Alana made. She said that she wanted her to have something to drink since she felt parched after the revival.

Kala without a second thought walked towards it and selected few things on the data pad. Then a cup that was already prepared beforehand started to get filled with a warm liquid as steam was leaving it.

Is that tea? But I thought that was a soda machine. It's too small to…

All it needed is a constant source of water to make drinks. Hmm. Maybe a small fabricator inside creates the chemicals present in herbs and gives the flavor and properties… No that would mean she'd know a formula for every drink in the machine, which could be quite a lot.

She's progenitor. She could possibly do that. Unless I'm overestimating her.

She takes the cup and sips from it.

"Does she know I'm up?" She asks.

"She knows now." I tell her as Alana is blazing towards Kala's room.

She sighs a bit and leans back on the table.

Doors open revealing Alana in her lab coat not even a drop of sweat on her from the running across the entire building the size of a major hospital.

Kala lifts her cup a bit. "Hey. How is it going." She says in an offhand manner with a small smile.

"You're back." Kala nods. "You're actually here." She immediately crashed into Kala.

Kala was just as surprised as me. You know, it's just now that I have two Progenitor women that I can really make any sort of comparison.

Alana is 2,5 meters tall and still has to look up because Kala is 3 meters tall.

Where Alana's hair is forming at certain points together into grey spikes Kala's sliver hair seem to be like water, where it's only disturbed by her long pointy ears and her butt where it ends in strips.

Both of their eyes are golden, though Kala's do have a hint of bronze. Kala's face is sharp, and Alana's was a bit chubby? I suppose. Her cheeks were definitely fuller.

Whilst both had super soldier bodies with a lot of muscle Alana's are thicker where Kala's were somewhat slimmer.

Now Alana is rubbing her head in Kala's chest like some sort of child. Surprisingly uncharacteristic of her.

Kala seems just as surprised. She pries her off with a questioning look.

"Sorry, I just… It's just that I'm happy to have someone I know to talk to." She said.

"And Dave?" Kala asks.

"Commander Tykus is an A.I. that I believe is somewhat insane. Despite it's inane speeches about fiction it has been quite compliant and has not shown any hostilities." This feels a bit childish.

"You're acting uncharacteristically childish." Holy shit! Me and Ms. Mika are on a same wavelength!

Alana blinks a few times before taking a step back. "Right. Um, sorry for jumping on you like that. I'm just so glad you're here."

Kala crosses her arms and waits in silence. After a small staring contest, she points towards the camera with a look of expectation aimed at Alana.

She in response sighs and turns towards the camera. "I'm sorry commander for the things I said." Why can't you just say my name? Always commander this and commander that, never Dave.

"Honestly you can be so impulsive at times. You're over 6 000 years old. Act like it. If not, well I guess I can teach you some manners."

"B-but we have our entire civilization to rebuild." Alana tries to counter. To which Kala picks the ends of both of her ears and pulls them up a bit.

"Ouch! Hey, my ears are sensitive!" she exclaims with a pout.

"That will not stop me from teaching you." Kala tells her with a cold dead serious voice.

Whilst they continue to banter between each other I look at the civ miner and fabs that arrived at the asteroid.

You know what? Since I'm here already aside from the teleporter I start building few unit cannons to shoot at the other asteroids where the fabs will make more extractors.

In the meantime, I check other places if there's anything out of the ordinary. Aside from the relay nothing of interest is here. Hmm. Perhaps more orb-fabs for Artemis and other anti-orbital platforms.

Ya'know it's kinda sad that there's no gas giant for the Jigs so I could get a crap ton of energy and material for building. Seriously it would be like having a shitty Dyson sphere or rather a Dyson swarm.

…I have Solar arrays.

Why hello there Mr. Star! You look rather bright and juicy today. Mind if I borrow a cup of energy? Or a few thousand?

And with that I send several orb-fabs towards the sun to make me a Dyson swarm around it and get that sweet sweet Sunny D energy.

I look back at Alana and Kala and -oh. It been 10 minutes already? Oh, how time flies.

Alana was standing feet up arms on the floor whilst childishly pouting at Kala. Who was drinking her tea.

"Hey, uh, guys? Just here to tell Alana that the rock deposit from the asteroid will arrive in few minutes. You might wanna prepare for... whatever you need for xenogeology." Those civvie miners work fast.

She immediately gets back on her feet, puts on her lab coat she took off and left without a word.

Kala didn't even try to stop her.

"So…you guys related or something?" Their bios don't really have anything in terms of relationships like parents or other relatives.

"I'm her aunt. A very strict aunt by her standards." She answers my question.

"And you didn't stop her despite being so strict because?"

"This is one of the moments where I don't think I could tell her anything that would stop her. When it comes to research and priority goals she pretty much never compromises unless she's very desperate."

"Do you know why we revived you so soon?" She looked in thought for just a moment before answering.

"Possibly because of my skills as a psychiatrist alongside my 9 millennia of experience. She probably woke up completely confused and confused and most probably lashed out." I check through the time I wasn't paying attention to check if they talked about that. It took under ten seconds. I think I'm getting better at this acceleration thing.

Anyway, Alana never told Kala about her outburst. Thus, she deduced it from Alana (and possibly me) alone. Somewhat terrifying if you ask me.

"I think you don't want a repeat of that situation and settled for someone who could help you make things more accommodating for other revivees."

"Yep. Straight on the money." She chuckles a bit.

"Quite the organic expression for someone who's been interacting with by niece alone. She very introverted."

"I told her that I'm a guy who's been put into this commander body and am here pretty much against my will."

She quirks an eyebrow at my statement." And you're willing to just help us despite your supposed predicament?" She asks.

"Well I have to do something and reviving your people can't be that much of a bad thing. I'm reading through your history and literature and it's quite nice and thought provoking." She's more cordial than I imagined her to be.

Her other eyebrow shoots up at that. "Well, I must say that it will be very interesting having chats with you commander Dave." Hah, she said my name. That already makes her a bit better than Alana.

"You know we can talk right now, right?"

She sighs. "True but I need a bit of time to gather my thoughts after the event that was our escape from certain death. Also need to get used to this." She flexed her right-hand biceps moving up. She looks kind of unimpressed by the display of meat on her arm. She sighs again and takes another sip form her cup of tea.

I oblige her request and leave her to her thoughts.

Honestly, I could have this finished a week ago, but I was just so lazy. Also, I think that the latter part flowed a bit weird. Might be because my had hurts a bit (I didn't even drink any alcohol). I might be sick. I'll see tomorrow, I guess.

Hope you enjoyed it. Please tell me if there's anything to improve in terms of interactions and such.

Good lord I'm feeling tired.