Tales From Beyond

Cmdr. Gurchack couldn’t believe his eyes.  Surely there had to be a malfunction in one of the display systems, or even the sensor array, but this was his ship, best survey vessel in the entire fleet, and more redundancy in its systems than even the mightiest <dragon> War Destroyer. 

“How is this possible?” he asked, “Come on people, this isn’t something that just happens, either find the fault or tell me what I’m looking at.”  This was not a good day, not by a long shot.

 

Deep in the ships hull, the AI Dalmsh was replaying ancient scripture to one of the researchers when he suddenly stopped.  This wasn’t all that odd, he predated the development of civilisation by millennia, and yet, this time was different.  His display hadn't faded as was usual when he hit a corrupt section of his data structure, no this was different indeed, he appeared brighter, more intact.  As if he had hit a routine that existed at the very core of his programing.  The researcher was paying extreme close attention to Dalmsh at this point.  Suddenly Dalmsh turned to the researcher and said something, not in the ancient long dead language that was all he knew, but rather the same language as the researcher. 

“Run.  He has awoken.  Run for your lives, all my creators have done will have been for naught if you don’t turn this ship around and run.”  said Dalmsh.

“What but why?  Why must we run?  Who has awoken?” quizzed the researcher. 

Noticing that the researcher was looking at him with disbelief, he said “My apologies, I don’t believe we have been introduced.  I am Dalmsh, Artificial Intelligence tasked with keeping track of the other side.  It appears that we are near the boundry, yet I find my systems have fallen into disrepair.  Odd.” 

“Yeah, we received a call from one of our outposts, we came to lend a hand in identifying what it is.” said the researcher, “I’ve been working for years studding the scripture that you have been repeating but never have you spoken in anything other that the tongue of your creators”

“I see.”  Said Dalmsh, “I must run repairs on my systems, but being this close to the other side is a unique opportunity, we are safe from his influence for the time being, but I must have access to external sensors, the safety of this side is paramount.”

“You want me to hook you up to the ship?  Oh I don’t think so, we tried that once before and we had to replace all the equipment just to get the language back to our own.”

“Oh, in that case I understand.  But surely not all of the equipment would have been replaced.”

“Well, there were a few systems we couldn’t replace, but that’s why all new ships have hot swap modules.”

“Ah, I can see those systems now, thank you kind sir, but unfortunately you should have scuttled the ship after connecting me while I was in that state, Now lets have a look at the boundary.” With that Dalmsh faded from view.

“He doesn’t know.  NO, wait, he does know, but of course.  He doesn’t care about this place, why would he.  You are not they who did imprison him.  But neither are those left behind, although more direct is their ties, it is not their burden to bear.”  muttered Dalmsh to himself as he returned from the sensor array.  “Hmm, interesting, he seems to be sending what ever they throw at him through to this side, that could prove his downfall.”

“What?  Where did you just run off to?  Who is sending what through?”  asked the researcher

“Look, long ago my creators locked this section of space away from the rest to protect themselves from a dark entity, they stayed outside the ‘Rift’ and sent a few seed ships to this side, to be safe, that rift was sealed when they defeated the entity, but it seems as if it didn’t stay defeated, now their direct descendants, who may not even know what is happening are having to deal with it, and it appears as if they may wind up on our side.”

“Wait, your creators are coming here?”

“No, no.  Their descendants, its quite possible that they are less technologically advanced than your own civilisation.  And that’s just judging by the station that just appeared in the asteroid field.  I should add translation software to your ships systems so that you can communicate with them.  It is likely they will be fearful and quite possibly dead from the journey.”