17-04-2004 09:18									#1
	Unity Pod? Suffering from ads?

Western Sea, MY 2132

The ponderous Unity transport pulled up beside the anomaly. It had given off intense magnetic readings from over two sectors away, and orders from The Hive had finally come through to risk investigation.

Now that they were within visual range Captain Sihn was not so sure that investigating the anomaly was a good idea. It was clearly not a Unity pod at all. The anomaly was, in fact, an ancient and pitted metal island approximately 50 meters in diameter. While it was in the water it did not respond to wave action; waves washed around or over it, and the metal island did not move. The entire surface was encrusted with the detritus of hundreds or thousands of years, so much so that initially it looked like a promontory or a remnant reef. In fact, they would have avoided it as a navigational hazard to their ship if it hadn’t had the intense magnetic signature that even pulled their compass needles toward the ‘island’.

The obvious age and the signature indicated it was alien, and that gave the captain cold shivers. Their ship was seaworthy, but it had nothing to defend itself if the need arose. And, they were also a long way from home.

Slowly, so slowly, the ship neared its goal. The metal island grew slightly larger with each passing minute. Captain Hussein stood at the helm and his five crew members stood at their stations at the engines and navigational controls, waiting.

A wave of fear touched his mind, and Hussein thought of the dreaded mindworms he had seen in the educational vids before they left his warren Seat of Proper Thought. Maybe this was the same, but at sea? Was such a thing possible? This was an alien world, after all, and they had only explored a tiny portion of it. It was said that the mindworms touched your mind, paralyzing humans with fear and then swarmed, consuming your flesh as you still breathed, be were consumed as you felt every last tendril and minute bite of your flesh.

Query…activate.

Captain Sihn’s head jerked to the side. What was that?

Field: coherent, ordered. Activation protocol initiated.

“James,” he yelled. “Did you hear something?”

His Number One nodded his head and swallowed hard. “Yes, sir. A voice in my head.”

Imprinting: initiate. Identify hierarchy. Initiate.

The captain felt a white stab of pain, and he let out an involuntary scream. Images filled his head: metal monstrosities, beams of searing death, alien thoughts and a language he that reeked of nightmares. He fell to the floor, screaming as he collapsed. He felt the agony. Just like the vids!!

Then the pain was gone. He breathed hard, trying to clear the fog from his mind, which felt like it was swathed in a suffocating dense fog. He vaguely heard the voices of his crew, who were bent over him and asking if he was all right. They seemed far away and insubstantial. He saw his own arm and hand reach out to them and grasp James’ outstretched hand.

Then there was another commotion and James looked up, and quickly scrambled away. The others ran this away and one stumbled over Hussein, seemingly in slow motion. They were yelling to each other, frantic. Chaos.

But the captain understood. The fog was lifting. He stood up, and looked toward the metal island. It had opened; that was the cause of his crew’s fear. The encrustation of millennia shattered and sloughed away, cascading into the sea and creating a white froth as it exploded into the waiting water. A dark portal was revealed, and there was movement from within.

While his crew continued to panic the captain smiled and walked the helm. He gave a shrill, piercing whistle and succeeded in getting the crews’ attention. Their discipline was admirable since they almost immediately stopped running and looked toward him.

“It has talked to me,” the captain said.

The crew was almost motionless, but their eyes were drawn to the motion from the metal pod. Rending and tearing of metal erupted, and more encrustation was jarred loose. Dull booming echoed from the disintegrating pod.

There was a pause as the captain tried to find the words. It was so hard to pierce the images, find a context. He struggled and finally found something he knew his crew could visualize.

“It emerges, like a butterfly.”

There was another pause.

“No,” he continued. “Not a butterfly. A wasp. With a very, very large sting.”

The captain was silent, and so was the crew. Their gaze was fixed on the dark opening. There was more rending, and sheets of metal at least a half meter thick were pealed away from the pod, rising like a petal from an opening flower. A metal monster was emerging, a thing of nightmares. Tendrils and multi-jointed legs ripped the metal husk that surrounded as if were paper. In moments it had obliterated its metal tomb, seeing the light of day for the first time in a hundred thousand years. Its ovoid body swiveled, and it looked at the fragile Unity transport. Tendrils and weapons swiveled to lock the bobbing hull within its sights.

Orders: needed. it said to the amazed crew.

The captain wasn’t amazed. Not now. He simply smiled. He activated the impeller and adjusted the tiller to steer the boat toward the shattered alien pod, and the waiting battle ogre.

“First Citizen Yang will be most pleased.”