The past often brings horrors best left forgotten, but if you remember; remember well.
- History of a Mere Fraction of the Scattering by Paul Idaho
"Hahaha! Just where you foresaw it Po! We'll be rich from this haul. A whole thinking machine fleet, wow. The guild'll surely give us all promotions for this! This stuff hasn't been touched or seen in more than fourteen millennia, that's crazy to think about ain't it?" Frisch let out as he stared at the heighliner's information panel.
"Yes, it appears my prescience is greater than that of a standard navigator. You were right, my Atreides blood allows me to see that which others have missed for eons," Po responded, "This fleet is large, it will certainly take multiple trips with this Heighliner to wring it dry of profits."
"That it will, but first we'll need to do a little reconnaissance. It looks like there's thirty-one ships in total, based on these scans it seems that mmm... only twelve of em' are fit for human habitation. That's too bad, oh well at least those'll be easy to scrap," Frisch said, "I'll head a squad and take a shuttle to one of the habitable ones and see what's what. So long as these things stay asleep I think we'll be good."
"Yes, we must make sure we won't wake them by boarding," Po replied, "But in my foresight I did not see raving hordes of machines killing every living thing in the galaxy, so I believe you'll be fine. Better safe than sorry though."
Soon Frisch and four of his fellow Guildsmen (Rourke, Abram, Raina, and Barnes) were aboard a shuttle and on the way to the nearest machine ship.
"Alright everyone," Frisch began, "Put on your masks and make sure there are no holes in your Ohtoos, I don't want any of you suffocating. It might give me a bigger share, but I'd prefer you all get your slice of the pie too."
All four of them did as they were ordered and prepared for boarding.
"Raina, you and Barnes try to find the life support system and see if you can get it working again. Abram, Rourke, you two'll come with me and look for any of the best scrap. We won't be able to do much until the life support systems are online and we can get more workers onboard, but we can get a small head start," Frisch ordered.
A few minutes later the shuttle finished its approach to the machine ship. It attached to a docking port, standards didn't last tens of thousands of years, but the shuttle was designed for just this task and was able to mold itself to practically any port. The port opened and all the air in the shuttle rushed into the machine ship, revealing a hallway. The five of them entered, Raine and Barnes went left in search of the control system, the other three went right.
"Keep your eyes peeled for anything interesting, who knows what the machines were storing here," Frisch said.
They walked for a few dozen meters.
"This hallway is weirdly empty, there's nothing here!" Abram exclaimed; the others agreed it was strange.
The three of them continued on, nothing interesting in the corridor, until they reached a 100 gradian turn. Abram was ahead of the other two and turned the corner first.
"Oh shit!" Abram cried out, pulling her pistol from its holster and pointing it at a dark figure standing in the middle of the hall.
Frisch and Rourke also pulled out their pistol and waited for a few moments with baited breath.
"Ope, sorry about that; false alarm," Abram sheepishly let out.
Frisch and Rourke turned the corner to see a mek standing in the center of the corridor, totally motionless.
Rourke raised his fist and banged it multiple times, "Ah this thing's been dead since before the Guild was founded, Abram you shouldn't be so much of a scaredy cat it was nothing!"
"These things slaughtered millions of humans, it's not nothing, it just happens to be dead," Abram retorted.
"Alright you too, that's enough," Frisch scolded, "This thing's too big so we definitely can't salvage it now. Let's just take note of it and continue on."
The three of them kept going, the corridor illuminated only by their flashlights. They walked for a few meters before they came upon an open door.
"Oh!" Rourke exclaimed, "It looks like this door would be totally flush with the walls of the hall if it were closed, no wonder this corridor is so bare, all the doors are closed!"
"Huh, who knows what we've missed. When the rest of the crew is doing a full strip down they'll have to keep that in mind," Abram said.
"Well, lets go in and see what's the bots were storing," Frisch said.
The three entered the room and scanned around it with their flashlights.
"Muad'Dib!" Abram screamed, the others pointed their flashlights to the same place Abram had hers pointed and there was a body, perfectly preserved by the cold vacuum of space.
The body appeared to be female and was severely damaged by the trauma of vacuum exposure. It was completely naked and there were symbols carved into its chest.
"That's nasty!" Rourke said.
"Geesh, usually you find skeletons, this thing being perfectly preserved could be quite valuable though," Frisch said.
"How so?" Abram asked.
"It looks like the flesh is intact, that means genetic material. I think the Tleilaxu might pay top dollar for very old, very well preserved, and very potentially valuable DNA," Frisch answered.
"What's that writing on it's chest?" Rourke questioned.
"I don't know, I've never seen writing like that," Abram said, focusing on the mystery.
"I haven't either," Frisch said, "but based off the age of this ship I think it's unlikely that anybody alive today'll be able to read it. You'd have to have somebody intimately familiar with ancient linguistics."
"I might know someone who can help," Rourke quietly said, "but you can't ask how she knows."
"Really, Rourke?" Frisch sounded surprised, "I trust you. Abram, snap a picture of the writing."
Just as Frisch said that the lights flickered on and the sound of pressurization could be heard.
"Ah good, let's finish looking around this room and then head back to the Heighliner," Frisch said, "it seems like Raina and Barnes managed to get the life support online. We'll get a full crew stripping this place bare and we'll move on to the next machine ship."
Now that the room was fully lit, the three of them could see things they couldn't before.
"Is that a brain in a goddamn jar?" Abram exclaimed.
Rourke and Frisch turned to see what she was looking at, and sure enough there was a brain in a jar on a pedestal.
"No idea what that is, let's get back to the Heighliner, that thing gives me the creeps," Rourke said.
"Yeah, we'll leave it to the rest of the crew," Frisch declared.
Soon all five of them were back on the shuttle.
"The life support and lights we were able to reactivate, but heating and gravity are an issue. We won't need full Ohtoo systems, but we will need parkas and mag boots," Raina informed Frisch.
"That's too bad, better some than nothing I suppose," Frisch replied, "Rourke, once we get back to the ship I want you to take me to your translator.