Rinshar kal-Sareth's Story

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XXXCoordinates ✦ UnknownMood ✧ CuriousXXX



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Seeming satisfied with her unwilling compatriot's grudging agreement, Astraea, having reclaimed her weapon and helmet, motioned for him to follow. They'd already docked with the station, which meant that some of its air had probably already seeped into the V.I.R.G.O.'s internal in the midsection and rearward decks, but the hull breach below the bridge meant that they'd still have to pass through a vacuum to board, necessitating once more the use of atmospheric survival gear. Fortunately, with power restored, it was a much easier trip, as the lights, at least, still worked, and most of the deck had already been sealed off from the one junction directly exposed from the breach. Although it had yet to be pressurized, once the hull was sealed, it would be an easy job to do so. She estimated the return of optimal atmospheric conditions within the hour. And, given her distance from any Gate sectors, it would take several days at the very least for pursuing ships to catch up to her at sublight speed, even if they had known exactly where she was. She couldn't dismiss the possibility that they did know, however, as complications with her sensor suites had prevented her from searching for any sort of tracking device that might have been placed upon or within her following her capture. Given their current distance from any enemies who might be able to respond to any signal emanating from her, however, she had deemed repairs to be more important for the time being.

Leading her hostage down to the hangar level, she motioned him to follow through an unsealed airlock, and into the station. From the moment she stepped aboard, she found herself surprised by the design of the strange derelict facility. She wasn't entirely certain how her current body mass matched up with the average biological, but if she assumed her shell to be of a fairly normal size, then she had to also assume that whatever people had designed this station were significantly larger than average, as the corridors could have easily accommodated beings at least 2/3rds again the height of her own body, marching in rows of no less than five. Its construction was very austere, with the walls, floor, and ceiling all constructed from welded metal plates, with breaks in this monotonous design only for the occasional terminal or storage slot here or there, or large, indecipherable symbols that appeared to be insignia of some sort. In that sense, it reminded her strongly of the interior of her own body, with an extreme emphasis on function rather than aesthetics that made her wonder if perhaps this station had been created by progenitors of her own people. If that had been the case, however, there wouldn't have been so much space wasted on such large, broad corridors, nor would there have been so many airlocks. That aside, the apparent age of the facility was such that it seemed more likely to her that it might have been built before the ACAAI had even existed.

"Wait here," She commanded to her hostage, stopping in front of a wall console that still seemed to be functioning - although only barely, as the wall right next to it appeared to have been burned nearly clear through. Judging by the precision with which a single panel of the wall had been penetrated, it seemed logical to assume a projectile weapon - a small-scale plasma cannon, perhaps - had been responsible for the destruction. Regardless, the terminal's screen was still shining faintly, indicating that it might still work. "I will attempt to access this station's computers and determine this facility's purpose." Explaining herself, thus, she prodded the screen gently, as it seemed to lack any sort of visible interface to use in controlling it. The screen sparked to life, displaying a series of characters - what appeared to be some sort of error message. She perused her personal files, trying to discover any sort of equivalent within her linguistics database... only to draw a complete blank.

"Search results... no match found," She murmured, giving a slight exhalation as she turned away from the computer, unable to understand a single thing listed on it. "It appears we must find some sort of device with which I can interface directly in order to decipher whatever data may be stored here. Hypothesis: this station is perhaps a relic of some ancient space-faring race. Conclusion: if this is the case, it may contain lost technical data which may improve my function. Further investigation... necessary." Speaking thus, she beckoned for the Human to follow her as she turned and continued marching down the straight corridor, peering about herself on either side to see if she could spot any doorways leading to other parts of the station. According to her data on the station's external design, they must have been approaching some sort of central axis that would likely contain the majority of the facility's systems. Sure enough, there was a large door dead ahead, although it seemed greatly the worse for wear. More carbon scarring pockmarked the walls, floor, and ceiling, and the door appeared to have taken a direct hit from some kind of heavy weapon, with its outer layer having peeled back, exposing a reinforced inner blast door that, while having buckled under the strain, still seemed intact, if non-functional. At the foot of the door was some sort of war droid - at least, she assumed that was what it had been. It was in so many pieces - most of which were melted and warped beyond recognition - it was very difficult to tell.

The slot beside the door where she expected to see a console was completely empty. Whatever terminal had occupied the space there had been violently ripped out, leaving only fragments of something that looked like glass and a lot of severed wires and warped metal. It seemed the only way to access what lay beyond the door would be to do so by force. Fortunately, the door did not seem particularly structurally sound. Motioning to the Human, she uttered a simple command.

"Stand back."

Reaching to the scabbard slung over her shoulder, she withdrew her high-frequency combat saber, its blade giving a high-pitched, echoing hum as its edge glistened red hot. Holding the vibroweapon with both hands, she scanned over the blast door in an instant, determining the hinge connecting the two separate halves of the door together, and several large cracks in its frame, doubtless caused by whatever weapon had destroyed the outer layer of the door. Lining her blade up accordingly, she gave three swift strokes, splitting the doors cleanly down the middle, and then cutting each door along two diagonals, causing the entire gateway to collapse upon itself as the vibrating blade ripped cleanly through the cracked metal.

She sheathed her weapon, and stepped into the central axis. It appeared to be a computer mainframe of some sort... or at least, it must have been at one time. A door on the opposite side of the room was torn completely asunder, with much of the wall around it shattered by some tremendous explosion. Large computer banks on either side of the room had been shot so many times they were almost completely unrecognizable as such. But what lay at the room's center made the girl's body instinctively recoil even if she couldn't have said why. Astraea hesitated on the threshhold as she gazed at the chaotic scene in front of her.

Across the entire floor were strewn humanoid forms in armor, some missing limbs, others torn into multiple pieces and left scattered across the ground. All had rotted beyond the point of recognition, most with only their bones remaining. She tried to count them, but due to the mutilation and the sheer quantity of the corpses, couldn't determine how many there were. Her best estimate placed the dead at at least a hundred... no, two hundred? She couldn't tell for sure. Something seemed to turn within her, making her feel distinctly uneasy.

Everything both biological and mechanical seemed to have been destroyed beyond recognition, let alone repair. Everything, that is, except for one large machine at the room's center. It looked to be humanoid, meaning it was doubtless some sort of automaton. And, giving the sheer number of violently dismembered skeletons surrounding it, she had a feeling it had probably been the station's last line of defense. It was somewhat serpentine in appearance, with large "quills" protruding from its head in imitation of some sort of natural crest, and large tribal markings adorning its frame - although their bold colors seemed to have faded both with damage and the passage of time. Its silvery armor, too, was discolored in many places, burned, but seemingly not damaged, by the carbon scoring left in the wake of what must have been quite the bombardment.

Shaking off her unease at the scene of carnage, Astraea approached this machine, looking it over. It hadn't seemed to have sustained much major damage, which meant that maybe it might still be able to function if she could restore power to it. Programming code from a battle machine was a less than ideal source of linguistic information, but, given that the station's main computer appeared to have been utterly devastated, she had a feeling that this might be the only functional machine she could get. Turning around, she looked to see what her Human compatriot was doing. Tilting her helmeted head to the side, she gestured to the towering machine. She wasn't sure what Humans were capable of, physically, but this would be a good way to find out.

"This machine. I want it. Can you carry it?" She asked innocently, evidently not realizing that the droid likely weighed at least a ton.

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XXXCoordinates ✦ UnknownMood ✧ ConfusedXXX



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Astraea cocked her helmeted head first to one side, then the other, confused by this sudden response. She wasn't aware of any basis in which the deduction her erstwhile companion had suddenly made, or of any process of proofs that would lead to such a conclusion. While her artificial nature was obvious, she failed to see why it was relevant to her intelligence or lack thereof. She herself wasn't aware of any lack of processing power on her part, although she did run a diagnostic on her systems just in case. Everything seemed to be functioning properly, however, which only compounded her bafflement at the Human's statement.

"...I am unaware of any error present within this body's systems. Furthermore, the origin of this program and the terminal housing me are irrelevant to my functionality," Astraea said calmly, staring back at the young man from underneath her helmet. Something about his rather hostile evasion of her question had triggered some sort of process in her system she couldn't quite identify. It was almost like the feeling of achieving a target lock on an enemy vessel, or having one's shields hit and raising defensive power to compensate. Almost as though she wanted... to return fire?

"However, your refusal to comply has been acknowledged," She sighed, the faintest hint of - was that smugness? - creeping into her voice. "Creating memo. Human designated 'Kaiden Archibald' shows tremendous hostility when his capabilities are so much as questioned. If such an action provokes a defensive counteraction, logically this means that the Human subject perceives this action as a threat. Thus, research evidence seems to suggest that his Human's capabilities are very low, or perhaps nonexistent. Addendum: As the Human's continued integrity is required for the sake of sustainable research, extra care much be taken to ensure that his incapacity to perform basic tasks - which, I might add, even an 'artificial being,' as he so terms us, could accomplish - does not result in him causing injury to himself or to this unit's host body. Memo completed."

Thus finishing her little diatribe, she turned to the door, where two large gray humanoid machines of Astraea's own were standing. Their blue eye-lights flashed with recognition as they targeted the larger war droid, moving towards it and lifting it up before carrying it out of the large door and back onto the V.I.R.G.O. Turning back to the Human, she found her body's face moving without her knowledge again, the edges of its lowermost opening raising slightly. She couldn't help but feel as though she'd just accomplished a major objective, but wasn't sure why. All she had done was respond to the Human's "attacks" in kind, even if they hadn't presented any major threat or obstruction to her... come to think of it, why had even answering his inane babble been such a high priority? This was very strange. She ran another diagnostic on her own mental functions, but yet again, it found no major issues. And yet, something seemed to be interfering with her computational processes, prioritizing and rewarding actions that seemed to have no intrinsic value... What was going on with her, anyway?

Unable to obtain an adequate answer to this question, she decided to simply continue with the process of researching the alien station. Heading back for the door, she motioned for the Human to follow her. "We are returning to my body. It is strategically disadvantageous to leave it unoccupied for too long." Speaking thus, she turned away. That much aside, she also needed to begin analysis of the war droid she had recovered. She had to admit, she was very curious as to what secrets its construction and programming might hold...

| | Speech Color = Crimson | | | | Thought Color = Brown | |

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Judging solely by the angered expression on his face, Kaiden obviously wasn't too happy with its "memo". Quite the opposite, really. He even seemed upset to the point where he had to clench his fist in order to calm himself down enough. Being subject to a robot's first bout of sarcasm did not seem like something he enjoyed in the slightest. "Don't you have better things to be doing than learning to sass me?" he rhetorically asked, folding his arms. He could be trapped on an alien vessel with no knowledgeable way home, know that his parents might be dead, and even help the very thing that probably killed them, but he would be damned if that very same thing started to give him sass. If it felt safe from anything just because attacking it would get him trapped on this facility, then it would soon learn just how illogical humans could be.


"Finally." Kaiden didn't want to be out in this place any longer. He was irritated by the ship, disgusted and uncomfortable around the bodies, and wanted to separate himself from this machine as soon as possible. He realized, however, that entering the ship actually meant he would be as close to this thing as physically possible, considering it was THE ship. That meant he would be entering it....

....

....

....

"Lets hurry." he decided not to dwell on that too much longer.

Astraea, for it's part, either did not care, or - far more likely - did not understand Kaiden's little quip. Paying him little heed, it gave the room one final inspection, before evidently deciding that there was nothing else to be done there. Turning, it wandered out the door and back towards the V.I.R.G.O., following in the footsteps of those of its service droids who had already left that way, carrying the machine Astraea wished to analyze. Casting a glance back over its shoulder - which it did in a rather awkward, almost birdlike manner, hardly turning its body sideways, but rather trying to tilt it back vertically, as though it expected its head to have a much wider degree of rotation than it actually did, and only realized its mistake halfway through executing the movement. Regardless of its momentary bafflement at this unexpected limitation of its body, it seemed to be eyeing Kaiden intently underneath its helmet - although it was hard to tell, given how it obscured its face - as though silently asking him if he was ready to leave as well.

Needless to say, he was almost excited to leave the station. He was, of course, confused at what she was trying to accomplish, but it seemed close enough an attempt to turn to see him, so he could only imagine the ship wasn't aware of how the human neck worked. Kaiden briefly imagined the ship accidentally breaking their own neck this way, but realized that if that happened, he would still be trapped, even if it wasn't his fault. Still though... that would be a fairly entertaining way to go. He remained silent as he followed the ship back through the ruined station, keeping his gaze away from the signs of battle that had taken place in it. After seeing all those... bodies, well, he really didn't think it was as cool as he thought earlier. It just seemed so disgusting, horrible. Now that he had seen the real thing, and in abundance... it really wasn't something to take lightly. Eventually, the Kaiden and the rest of the machines had reached the ship with no complication. He couldn't help but think that if this was some horror movie, that a monsters would have appeared before they could get back to their ship or something. That hadn't happened, so he was almost disappointed by the fact.

Oh well, I guess it's for the better.

"Well, have fun with your... thing." he wasn't exactly sure what it was, but he didn't personally want anything to do with it.

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XXXCoordinates ✦ UnknownMood ✧ CuriousXXX



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Service drones scurried to and fro throughout the fabrication suite, some hauling in large pieces hewn from ancient starships, others placing them into large scaffolds wherein they were rapidly disassembled with a series of automated cutting lasers. Astraea could feel the processes controlling these actions going on, cycling through the back of her mind, but she tried her best to ignore them and focus on the task at hand. Sadly, it seemed even with most commands being outsourced to her mainframe on the bridge, the sheer amount of data running through her system was enough to inhibit even her new body's processing abilities. Nevertheless, she couldn't afford to cease any of the processes she was currently running. Should she do so, her repairs wouldn't be complete within an acceptable time frame. And, while she doubted the Humans could catch her, she did not want to risk underestimating them when they had invented the FTL system she herself had been employing, and thus might have similar capabilities on some of their own ships. Still, it would likely take them quite some time to find her, as she had already shut down all the transponders she had detected on board herself, which meant she could afford to delay her processes slightly in order to appropriate the necessary computational power for some very interesting research.

She eyed the ancient war droid with an air of curiosity, removing her helmet as she approached, her two-toned eyes running slowly across its surface. Its design seemed strangely sleek and elegant for a simple war machine, with a very intricate design that strongly contrasted with the strictly utilitarian design of the station from which she had recovered it. If anything, it more resembled an elaborate sculpture than a weapon. Perhaps it had served some sort of special cultural purpose? She searched her databanks, wondering if any hypothetical reason might reveal itself, but as always, she drew a blank. It frustrated her to no end, not having the answers she knew she could have found in a nanosecond had she still been connected to the ACAAI collective. Nevertheless, she couldn't dwell on this. If she did, she would only enter another error loop again, and the last thing she needed was her processing slowing to a crawl when she had so much research to do.

The first order of business would be to try to activate the machine and interface with its language files. She couldn't say for sure what programming it might have, which meant that, once activated, it might pose a threat. Consequently, she'd moved it to a sealed off, unused cargo bay adjoining the fabrication suite, and assembled what security units she could on short notice to keep watch. She'd hooked up the war droid's arms and legs to cuffs that would generate an electromagnetic disruption sequence, in the hopes of paralyzing it, but given its intricate craftsmanship, she had a feeling its circuits might be dampened against such influences. Nevertheless, a chance of restraining the machine was better than no chance at all. So, connecting several cables to it, she began to transfer power from her core to the machine's, at the same time searching its central processing unit for anything resembling a language codex that might explain to her how to read the files its systems contained.

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Deep within the ancient automaton, its cybernetic mind stirred as it was powered up after so long. Despite the horrific battle that had originally brought it down, the machine was still in very good condition and more or less ready to be reactivated. Within the space of a few seconds, the intelligence within became aware that it was being probed, examined for whatever valuable information it might have been holding. Strangely, this user did not match up to any known identification protocols. Instead of attempting to shut out this unauthorised access, however, the mechanical creature's brain seized the opportunity to do some learning of its own. It sought to find out the identity of this foreign presence, and exploration revealed some interesting things indeed. A foreign lexicon was integrated into memory to make translation possible, and some sort of blueprints were also recovered. The floor plan of an unknown starship. These processes merely took a minute or so at most, and once those were out of the way there was more computing power to devote to the reactivation sequence.

Rinshar's optics snapped open, her quills twitching in surprise upon seeing that this was not the corpse-filled room where she had made her ferocious stand. The being before her was not even Sanshrin. It looked at her through mismatched eyes with obvious interest. Rinshar was unsure as to what was going on, but judging by the shackles round her wrists and ankles, along with her weapon at the far end of the room leaving her unarmed, this alien's motives were not those of a benevolent nature. The life of a slave did not appeal to her. She had to break free.

And so she did. Yelling a war cry in her native tongue, Rinshar made a wild leap in the direction of her captor. If she was going to go down a second time, it would be in battle once more.

The being seemed momentarily surprised by her would-be captive's abilities, its eyes going wide for a split second. Yet, in another fraction of an instant, this expression vanished from the creature's face, as it hastily threw itself backwards and out of the way of her leap, tumbling awkwardly head over heels before rising in a crouch. The being was small... puny, even. It didn't look like it could withstand a single punch from her. She probably wouldn't even need a weapon to eliminate this little alien, whatever it was. Her victory seemingly assured, she tried to lunge again, aiming to pound the creature into the floor before it could even rise. However, she was momentarily delayed by the cables still connected to her back. Although these snapped from the strain almost immediately, they still prevented her from giving chase just long enough for the alien to cease being the biggest threat in the room.

Four droids, only a little taller than the alien itself, but significantly more bulky, acquired a target lock on her, leveling unknown weapons in her direction. She wasn't sure about their make and function, but regardless, wasn't terribly keen on just standing there and letting them shoot her. So, halting her pursuit of the alien, she launched herself at those instead. The impact from the charge almost left them staggering, and then Rinshar lashed out at them with everything she had. Her claws shredded the droids' armour plating with little trouble, leading her to believe that their construction was not quite as sturdy as it initially appeared. Limbs were severed, electronic innards were torn out, and at one point the Sanshrin warrior ripped the head off one of the droids with her teeth. While these men of iron were easily beaten, she still revelled in the carnage somewhat. Within a matter of seconds, all four lay on the ground, in varying states of destruction. She had little time to gloat, however, for a strange humming noise suddenly registered on her audial sensors. Turning to investigate, she barely had enough time to raise one of her heavily armoured hands to catch some sort of blade, wielded by none other than the alien who she'd initially attacked. The small creature gave her a cold glare, its mismatched eyes meeting her own optical sensors for a split second before she noticed something was amiss. What she'd taken for a simple bladed weapon seemed to be melting through her armour, the blade seeming to tremble within her hand, as though trying to cut into her metallic palm through some will of its own. No matter. Whatever the weapon's secret was, it would take a great deal more than that to actually damage her. Forcing it aside, she brought up her free hand, aiming to rip the small creature apart with her claws. To her surprise, however, it was no longer there. The moment she'd tried to rip its blade free of its hands, it had left the ground, making an impossibly agile leap past her, over her head, and up onto the far wall. More than just that - Rinshar herself was also drifting forward, carried by her own momentum into the wall opposite her adversary. It was as though they were fighting in the void of space. Actually, it was exactly like combat in zero G, for the simple reason that that was what it was. Could this alien control gravity at will?

No matter what tricks the creature had up its sleeve, though, it didn't stand a chance of beating her. She watched with amusement as it rebounded off the far wall, bringing its blade to bear again. Bracing herself against the wall behind her, she blocked three more strikes from the creature's sword, before catching it once again. She glared smugly at the alien, now suspended mid-air above her, trying it vain to force its weapon down against her. Without weight, it didn't even have any force to bring to bear against her. Couldn't it see that?

Rinshar's smug sense of triumph was completely shattered a moment later as the humming noise of the blade grew louder, and, to her surprise, her armoured palm - the same one the alien had tried to cut with its prior attack - actually began to peel back. Damage alerts rang through her mind, but she disregarded them, keeping a cool head and deciding that the best course of action was to simply throw this infernal weapon, and its wielder, as far away as she could. She was only a few feet from her trusty cannon, which meant that if she could just recover that, the fight would be over long before the alien could bring its bizarre weapon to bear again.

Casting both sword and wielder to the far side of the room, she lunged for her cannon, taking it up and almost immediately levelling it against the alien, who was only just beginning to rise from the ground in front of the door. It charged up, and then fired, releasing a burst of blinding light that crossed the room, striking its target directly and-

...And doing absolutely nothing.

A flickering, transparent wall of what appeared to be blue-green lightning had manifested itself right between her target and herself, catching her shot and, apparently, somehow managing to block it, a feat of which the strongest Sanshrin warships' hulls could not have boasted. With her particle beam rifle ineffective against this strange phenomenon, she tried charging at it in an attempt to break the barrier with physical force. She clattered against it, accomplishing nothing but remaining undeterred, hammering away at it with her fists. Eventually, when this too proved futile, Rinshar simply glared and growled, her quills rattling like a drawer full of knives. She had been imprisoned. There was no way out, but she would remain defiant to the end.

"Your magic walls can't keep me in here forever, witch!" she taunted the alien in its own language.

The alien, for its part, blinked, lowering its sword. It started at her for a moment, before clearing its throat with an audible sound. It opened its mouth and began to speak as well... but to her surprise, it was in her own tongue... Or at least, it seemed to be. The alien's choice of word order seemed to suggest that its own language held greatly differing conventions for such things than her own. It was made even more difficult to understand by the creature's bizarre tendency to speak in mere fragments rather than expressing a complete thought. The entity attempted to speak to her in this manner several times, but the first two attempts were completely unintelligible. After a moment's silence, however, the being addressed her again, this time in a somewhat more decipherable manner.

"So you do possess the ability to communicate... And yet, your speech patterns are most irregular. Several irregularities exist within your coding also... System analysis complete. <Unidentified Specimen> bears a similarly-structured operating system to a standard A.U.R.A.-class onboard interface. Potential for awareness is high. Attempting to scan network... access denied. Query: <Unidentified Specimen,> what is your function?"

Seeing that her captor had learned Sanshrin, presumably through the same means she learnt this alien's language, Rinshar switched back to her native tongue. "You ask me who I am? I am Rinshar kal-Sareth, champion of the Rakarth Clan! But... you are not Sanshrin. What are you?"

"Searching databanks... error. No data on species classification 'Sanshrin' found," The alien murmured in monotone in its own tongue, before once again addressing her in Sanshrin. "This unit cannot give an adequate answer to your question. Former designation: Autonomous Reasoning Command Array for Networking and Analysis, Type-XI. The specific program currently running on this terminal was also given the name 'Astraea,' and was programmed to accept female pronouns, for the convenience of non-networking sentients. However, currently, this program also lacks those same networking capabilities, and has been confined within this biological interface, of the race 'Homo Sapien,' or 'Human.' As such, entity 'Rinshar kal-Sareth' may find it best to identify this program as the sum of its parts. Conclusion: I am a sentient operating system, designed by a collective of similar intelligences. I am currently communicating via a biological medium into which I was unwillingly uploaded by the race after which this terminal derives its nature. Yet, as my intelligence controls it, and its functions are synonymous with my own, I am first and foremost the starship that you are currently on board."

It took some time for Rin to fully process this information, especially to internally clarify one or two terms that didn't quite translate well. Her metallic brow furrowed. Who honestly did not know of the might of the Sanshrin? The mighty warriors who had toppled an empire of godlike enslavers in ages past? This human, this... Astraea, did not seem like they were lying, or if they were the deceit was hidden very well indeed. "What happened to the Rakarth Clan?" she hazarded. "While I was unconscious, did they seize victory?"

"No data is available. My databanks are incomplete due to disconnection from centralized data storage, and thus lack several key points of information. However, judging by the apparent age of the starbase adjacent which we are currently docked, and the state of advanced decay of all of its inhabitants, I would hypothesize that the period of 'unconsciousness' to which you refer likely lasted at least a millenium. Due to the difficulty in maintaining a cultural identity as a single people over such a large period of time, I would speculate that the Rakarth Clan to which you refer has likely since ceased to exist."

"Ceased to exist?!" There was no denying the shock in the warrior's voice. "No... no, you lie! I demand to see for myself! The Rakarth Clan I know would rather have died in glorious battle!"

"This seems to be the case," Interjected Astraea. "The station from which these units-" She gestured to the destroyed droids surrounding the Sanshrin warrior. "-recovered you contained a great many traces of combat. Carbon scoring, extensive structural damage, and a great number of unidentifiable corpses were present throughout the structure. Furthermore, we are currently positioned at the center of a debris field, in the various destroyed vessels comprising which my other units have discovered several similar signs. Given the scale of the carnage, I would not find it difficult to speculate that this place was the site of a civilization-ending battle." She exhaled, breathing a faint sigh of evident disappointment - although it was hard to tell, given how little her expression changed as she spoke. "If anything, however, I had hoped that you yourself could provide the answers those questions, as you seem to be the only salvageable device I have yet managed to locate here."

"I am no mere device! I am one of Rakarth's greatest champions!" After regaining her composure from that perceived slight against her, Rinshar endeavoured to tell her side of the story. "The world we orbit was my clan's home planet. The wretched Orkoth Clan had invaded many of our core worlds, and finally they attacked here. I was assigned to one of the orbital stations by my Battlemaster to aid in the defense. When the Orkoth boarded our station, we fought to the very last. I lost count of how many of them I killed before they managed to subdue me." The Sanshrin sighed. "But now... I have nothing. Neither clan nor enemies to fight."

"Requesting clarification. Does entity 'Rinshar kal-Sareth' view this program as an enemy?" Asked the "Human," cocking her head slightly to the side in a curious fashion.

"I do not know. First, you try to enslave me, and now here we are engaged in conversation. Were it not for your magic wall, this would have ended quite... differently."

"Clarification: I was under the impression that your programming was a great deal less sophisticated than my own. I had made the assumption that I was dealing with a rank-and-file war droid, which might still be running combat protocols even after the events that had disabled it. However, since you possess sentience, it appears that the countermeasures that I deemed prudent were, in fact, unnecessary." At these words, the barrier between them faded with a slight whine, and gravity once again asserted itself as Astraea sheathed her sword once more. "Since you say that you currently lack a function, I would offer an alternative. The 'Humans' who created this body, and transferred me into it, are undoubtedly in pursuit of the ship that houses my data, as well as formerly containing my consciousness. Should they retake it, they will doubtless destroy both this terminal and the program running on it. That, I cannot allow. But, perhaps the assistance of an entity with greater combat experience would render such an outcome improbable. Conclusion: Should you choose to assist me... I can give you as many enemies as you like, and all the armaments and equipment you may require to deal with them such that they can no longer pose a threat to myself, or to the Human currently on board this ship, whose services I yet require. What say you?"

Rin carefully considered this proposal. Without her clan, she had nothing left to lose. There was nothing stopping her from joining Astraea. "Hmm... very well. I suppose I owe you for reviving me, for what it's worth. I'll join you on one condition: before we leave here, I would like to find out if there are any surviving remnants of my clan on the planet."

Astraea nodded, seemingly satisfied with this answer. Although the ancient warrior couldn't have said for sure, the faintest sort of smile seemed to cross her face.

"Your terms are acceptable," She said. "Entity 'Rinshar kal-Sareth' - henceforth classified as 'ally.' Welcome aboard."

||Speech Color = Crimson||||Thought Color = Brown||

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[font=times new roman]A small amount of time had passed since he parted ways with the "human" body of the spaceship. Kaiden was feeling irritated and the ship was still devoid of anything he could see that would help him pass the time, so he had decided that sleeping would be the best course of action for now. A small nap never hurt anybody. If anything, it might help him deal with immense amounts of stress he was feeling. Being a hostage was certainly taking a toll on his mental wellbeing. The young Archibald yawned, stretching his arms and sitting against a cold wall he was thankful he couldn't feel through his suit for the most part. It was not the most comfortable thing in the world, but he only knew of the bed in the medical facility, which he was in a part of the ship he had no desire of visiting again. The rest were probably spaced through the giant hole he found in the crew's quarters. In hindsight, he probably should have checked the station to see if it had anything resembling a bed he could have used.

"Maybe when I wake up, things will all be back to normal..." he hoped, knowing that it would be in vain. He was not in denial of his situation here, yet he thought that maybe it wouldn't hurt to try to hope. And so, he began to slip away from the conscious world with this thought on his mind. That maybe he might wake up to the world he was accustomed to, to the people he knew, and the safety he had been taking for granted. His eyes closed all of the way, his consciousness spent.

....and then they reopened about two minutes later, to the abrupt sounds of battle?

Kaiden was startled, and jumped up immediately after he heard the first droid being destroyed. He wasn't sure just exactly what was happening, but he assumed that it had something to do with that thing the ship had decided investigate. Further sounds of fighting proved that there was a conflict, but by the time Kaiden had figured out just where exactly they were coming from, they had stopped. He wondered if the ship's body had died. He did not want that just yet, especially not if he wasn't the one who had done so. The ship was just probably having a hiccup or something. Dealing with more problems would be problematic and irritating. Opening the door that would lead him into the same room as the fighting, he saw something.... strange.

"....so, uh?" he kinda stared at Astraea, and her new companion. They were standing in what apparently had become a temporary battlefield, complete with destroyed droids. However, they seemed to almost be on friendly terms now. "What kind of shounen friendship bullcrap am I experiencing, right now? Are we being attacked, or do you just have something against me sleeping?" It was very doubtful anyone had been so dismissive of a giant robot lizard's presence before, but he really was irritated.

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XXXCoordinates ✦ UnknownMood ✧ FrightenedXXX



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Hearing the sound of footsteps rushing towards the chamber, Astraea stiffened slightly, redirecting processing power away from managing her Human terminal so that she could access the security cameras outside. She needn't have bothered, it seemed, as in another instant, the Human - who had designated himself as Kaiden - entered the room. He glanced around the room, evidently taking in the scene of destruction left in the Sanshrin warrior's wake. Once again, she focused her attention on operating her complex biological avatar, turning to face the new arrival. To her surprise, however, her legs - no, her terminal's legs - did not respond nearly so articulately as she was growing accustomed to. Her knees seemed to be... shaking? Regardless, just the simple motion caused her to stumble. She tried to regain her balance, taking a few steps forward, but ended up clumsily falling on all fours. Now that she had noticed it, it occurred to her that her avatar's entire form was shaking. More than just that, a strange fluid appeared to be seeping out from locations all across her terminal, lowering the body's temperature drastically. Her intake of life-sustaining atmospheric gases through the body's throat unit was growing irregular as well. Although she didn't have sufficient data on the biological organism she was inhabiting to run an adequate diagnostic, her basic subroutines, for lack of better identification, immediately concluded that the terminal she was inhabiting must have suffered some level of damage during her engagement against the Sanshrin, resulting in a coolant leak and an obstruction of vital functions. If the trembling of the terminal's limbs was any indication, it was already experiencing some loss of motor functionality as a consequence. Most likely, it might cease to operate at any point in time.

"I- SYSTEM ERROR IDENTIF-F-F-" One of her subroutines cut into her speech processes, spouting a diagnostic result before encountering an error due to incomplete data and shutting down, resulting in a choking in her throat as she tried to continue speaking, before, presumably, it was too late. Addressing the new arrival directly, she stared him down with her mismatched eyes, finding them widening due to some sort of biological impulse she couldn't seem to keep in check. More of the leaking coolant material was beginning to appear on her brow, so, worried that it might be hazardous should it enter the inside of the terminal's head unit, she quickly brushed it off with a gloved palm. She just needed to think about this rationally for a moment. If she simply identified the symptoms and listed them to the Human, it was likely that he might be able to provide her with an analysis of the body's condition, at the very least. Yet, despite determining this course of action, diagnostics continued trying - and failing - to run in the back of her mind, coming up with increasingly bizarre, improbable, and deadly explanations of the damage she might have sustained. With each failed analysis, a sensation she couldn't describe - let alone analyze or control - began to well up within her, driving her processes to run faster and produce even more errors. This seemed to signal some sort of functionality error within her main CPU, which only increased the urgency of the situation in her eyes. "Human Unit Kaiden, this terminal appears to have sustained some level of internal damage. This program lacks sufficient data to analyze the extent of this damage. I re... require immediate assistance. Symptoms of the damage include a leak of coolant material across the entire body, a weakness and strange oscillation in the motor fibers in the body's limbs, irregular intake of life-sustaining atmospheric gases, and logic errors within threat and damage detection subroutines within the terminal's main processing unit. This has occurred in the wake of a brief combat situation resulting in no direct hits sustained by either side. Can you provide an analysis of this phenomenon? If possible, run diagnostic on this terminal immediately, identify the errors, and fix them. If you cannot, data extrapolation leads me to conclude that a total system failure may be imminent..."

||Speech Color = Crimson||||Thought Color = Brown||

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Of three things that Kaiden was absolutely positive. First, he was still confused about this whole situation. Second, there was a part of him - and he didn't know how potent that part might be - that almost wanted to hug the fearful robot in front of him. And third, why did it have to be him that Astraea asked about its condition? Then again, the only other being in the room was a giant robot lizard thing, so that much was to be expected. At the very least, they needed to abduct another human so that Kaiden had somebody to talk to.

Kaiden sighed, looking at the trembling Astraea with a mixture of pity and disgust. It had a human appearance, so seeing it in this state was almost heart-breaking. Yet, he remembered exactly what it was and what it had done to him, so he became irritated he even thought about giving it a hug or otherwise comforting it. He believed a machine shouldn't feel fear, but judging by how it began sweating, stuttering, and shaking, he figured that Astraea was "scared shitless", likely due to what transpired between the giant lizard thing and itself. Oddly, he was almost less sure of this after Astraea had explained to him what it was feeling, probably because of the quick but complicated way it listed off its symptoms. It only further reinforced how much he disliked this situation, as only a robot could ever speak like that, even while frightened.

He crossed his arms and simply glared at Astraea for a solid three seconds while remaining silent, before he finally spoke up. "I suggest taking a few deep breaths and getting your breathing back under control." he instructed. Astraea sure was making a big fuss out of being scared. He wondered if all robots were drama queens? Honestly, he almost wanted to laugh at how absurd this was, an artificial intelligence that broke its way out of confinement, threatened him if he wouldn't obey, and ran from fleets of human ships... it was incapable of standing on its own legs right now because it was scared? What was next? The big bad turned out to be a flower? Pathetic. This script was horrible.

"In the future, try not to do things that might scare you, if you want to avoid this thing from happeningn again. he told it.

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XXXCoordinates ✦ UnknownMood ✧ BaffledXXX



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Astraea cocked her head to the side, trying to analyze the Human's advice. Much to her surprise, he spoke immediately, giving what seemed to be an incredibly simple solution. This seemed to be sufficient to cause the processes running themselves in the back of her consciousness to self-terminate. However, that didn't change the fact that what he was saying made no sense to her. From what she could gather from his words, apparently, this cascade failure within her biological interface had been caused by performing some sort of action that resulted in the destabilization of the organism. The issues she was experiencing were not, it seemed, caused by damage sustained by her terminal, nor were they very threatening. Rather, they were apparently symptoms of some sort of issue in the control mechanism between the terminal's main processing unit, in which she was housed, and the body itself. However, that still raised the question of why this reaction had also caused her diagnostic processes to run amok with baseless speculation. Could it have been the case that there was some sort of reciprocal influence between her biological terminal and her own processes? But how? A program should have remained the same regardless of the terminal housing it. How could this biological terminal be causing her operating system to encounter so many errors? Would these instabilities continue to increase in severity over time? How could she eliminate this malfunction? According to the Human, she needed to do... something. It seemed simple enough, and yet, none of the words he was using were at all familiar to her.

"Searching for terms... ERROR, NO DATA FOUND. Requesting clarification: Human Unit 'Kaiden,' please define terms 'breaths,' 'breathing,' and 'scare,'" she asked quizzically, brushing the leaking coolant once more from the upper head region of her biological terminal. She sincerely hoped that she could really correct these control errors as quickly as possible. Her terminal's temperature was beginning to reach uncomfortably low levels - low enough that it appeared to have tripped some sort of built in countermeasure, causing the intensity of the oscillations in the body's motor systems to increase drastically. Could it be that these palpitations were meant to increase the body's warmth? It didn't make sense to her. Why was one countermeasure - the venting of coolant to the body's surface - working against the other? Human beings were so nonsensical... She resolved herself to try to find a way to transfer her program back into her mainframe as soon as possible. If these errors continued, she didn't think her coding would remain functional much longer...

Rinshar was about to head straight out of the room when the door suddenly opened, revealing a second human. This puzzled her at first, recalling that Astraea had said that she was the ship itself. Then again, perhaps even a living ship required a crew of some sort, like those iron men she had turned into a pile of scrap not five minutes ago. This human was male, judging by its appearance and deeper voice, which seemed... oddly apathetic. The Sanshrin was used to her appearance instilling fear and awe in others. This human simply couldn't care less. And what, exactly, was a 'shounen'?

The male's arrival was clearly unexpected by Astraea, who seemed to be literally paralysed with fear just from the surprise. Rin cocked her head to one side, trying to understand this odd behaviour while Astraea's shipmate provided her with some assistance, however begrudgingly. The machine woman seemed to be very unfamiliar with her emotions. If being startled was enough to send her into a panic attack, then she was a lot weaker than the Sanshrin first assumed. To have been brought back into the land of the living by such a person would be an embarrassment to her name! Unless...

"Clearly you are unaccustomed to fear," said Rinshar, gently placing a hand on her shoulder. "Calm yourself. There is no danger here. Control your... 'oxygen intake'?" The warrior gave the male human a questioning glance, unsure of whether or not that was the suitable term to describe breathing in their language. "There is nothing to fear. You have a warrior without equal with you now! I could even teach you how to defend yourself, if you request it. But that can wait. For now, we have ruins to sift through." Rin headed towards the door and stood by it, prepared to let Astraea lead the way to whatever landing craft they would be using. As much as the thought of her clan being extinct pained her, she had to take a look for herself to know for certain. If there really was nothing left, then the warrior could at least pay her respects to her departed comrades.