Unwanted Barbarians

Richard sat on the wrecked remains of a transport and looked up at the sky, the night was clear and he could see the hulking harvest ship moving slowly across the sky. It looked more like a flying wall than a ship as it was built to resemble a moving building of colossal proportions, inside there were mining operations ready to deploy along with vast prepossessing plants to minimize cost and maximize profit. It was scanning the ground for minerals and whatever else it could mine out, Frontier 78 was a harvest planet that would be stripped of everything and left to wither away into the cosmos and Richard would be on another ship cruising to the next planet. An android approached him and turned to look at the ship also.

“This planet will be stripped in 5 cycles, you should be back to your station Richard.”

Richard looked at the android and smiled, it was Clunk, his only friend in this life. “You know Clunk, there was a time when this was all a dream to humans.”

“Indeed there were stories and other medium indicating such a future, though many were beyond the capabilities of what we can create even now. I surmise that humanity only saw conquest and riches rather than true intellectual pursuit of the cosmos. I made a rough calculation from all the data collected that Crosswind Corporation caused the extinct of over 4 million species on this system from the way they strip mined the planets.”

4 million was an understatement, the number would be in the billions if they were properly recorded but the merge of man and machine gave greed a new state of being. Richard worked as a technician for the ground mining operation so he was part of the few that lived off scraps that the corps saw as expensive small operation. Newman Drilworks was his uncle’s company so he was the only unpaid employee of the company, his uncle was a like a father to him and let him experiment when he was free which allowed him to repurpose a supervisor droid into Clunk.

Richard got up and looked around, the mining operations were winding up and soon he would need to prepare to depart this dead planet. As he looked up to the Crosswind ship he noticed something odd, there was streak of light approaching the ship and before he knew it the light flew right into the hulking ship and out the other end resulting in a large explosion coming out the front of the ship. The roar of the explosion soon followed and Clunk looked up also to see what just happened, the light caused this changed direction and went in for another attack and flew right through the ship causing another explosion. Richard immediately began to run to the base operations ship his uncle would be in while Clunk followed, “that was an attack, I tried to scan the object that his the harvest ship but could not get a reading. I believe the object that attacked could be from another planet, we need to leave immediately Richard,” communicated Clunk.

“I sent the video to your uncle and he had sent out a full alert to all crew to evacuate, I suggest you proceed to the main ship.”

“Where do you think I am running to C, I saw that thing fly into the ship twice, whatever its made from did not come from our factories. We may need to be careful when leaving or we could be next.”

Just as they were in sight of the main ship Richard saw another light streak approaching the sitting ship and ram it from the top, he shouted his uncle’s name over the comm but before he could register a reply an explosion threw them back. Clunk just tipped backwards while Richard was thrown a good few meters, he landed heavily and lost consciousness. Clunk got up and began scanning the environment looking for what attacked the ship and if there were any survivors. It found a being emerge from the wreckage of the main ship and watched it walk towards the main dig site, Clunk did not move. The being was long and slender with a short head, it had a dark suit on that hugged its slender shape. In one hand was a weapon of sorts that was waved around and anyone found was immediately hit with an electrical discharge from it. Man and machine alike were shot down and anyone who tried to fight back found that the dark skin was a kind of reflective armor that deflected the projectiles.

Clunk waited for the figure to walk away and turned to pick up the unconscious body of Richard and move towards the wreck they were sitting on. The communications from others were full of static as it felt that this attacker had jammed their signals, Clunk had no choice but to ensure the safety of Richard first then asses the situation. Once at the wreck it placed him down on the side of the wreck and then crouch down out of sight to try and send a distress signal. The harvest ship was being attacked and the sounds of explosions was deafening, the night sky was as bright as the day, streaks of light were everywhere now and Clunk knew that any signal for help would be either blocked or used to triangulate their position. This attack was a complete surprise for everyone and who the attacker was that was a complete mystery.

Broken signals of people and other androids kept coming in along with corrupted transmissions, Clunk could not process them fast enough but knew the situation would only get worse. It checked on Richard who was still unconscious but unharmed, Clunk was grateful that Richard was asleep as the attacks were in full force. The site was in complete chaos and so was the mining operations, the private armies that the corporations kept did not have time to prepare so it was looking like a complete massacre.

Just as it started the attack stopped and the mining ship fell to the planet registering a ground shaking explosion. Everything shook and the dust storm that followed after was worse. Clunk quickly moved Richard into the wreck to protect him while it held stood up to make sure there was a way to escape when this was over. The dust storm ended after a couple of hours but they were now covered in a few feet of dust, Clunk had to gid its way out of the layers that accumulated. It then pulled out Richard who was still unconscious, after checking it realised that he had hit his head on a stone and had a concussion. Treatment was not possible as the dig site was also covered in dust and the wreckage would not yield any possible medical supplies.

“Help….. I… vered…” a transmission came through but it was not clear. Clunk tried to triangulate the origin and found it, “Help us, we are trapped in a tunnel. We were attacked by something then an earthquake hit and trapped us here. Please help.”

Clunk sent a reply that it was on its way and also needs help. The reply was not good as the 2 people trapped did not have anything it could use. Still, it picked up Richard and began walking to the tunnel while scanning the area for the attacker. No lifeforms were detected but it there was a doubt about the scanner as the figure that emerged from the wreckage did not have any signals that it detected when it emerged. Clunk walked past the wreckage, there was a very weak signal of life and Clunk made a note, other signs of life were detected but they were too weak to investigate. The remains of the settlement was buried under the dust so Clunk calculated that trying to find the medical bay would not yield anything worth the time, it walked.

As it reached the dig site it scanned the area for life and movement, there was nothing and it began descending into the pit, the tunnel was another 124 feet and progress was slow due to the shifting sands and the occasional quakes from the explosions. As it got closer there was ping in the sensor and it came from further down the road, Clunk stopped to confirm what it was. The sensor readings could not confirm the object and it ran a risk analysis and it was not looking good. I proceeded as it needed the crew to help Richard, once it reached the tunnel site it placed Richard down near a rock and began to move the rocks. There was nothing else it could use so it used the hands, because it was an android it did not need to rest but ran calculations and analysis on what next to pull or push.

After 30 minutes it was 10 feet in and could hear the people within, telling them to also try and clear the rocks yielded favourable results and soon there was a clear path for them to crawl out. Once outside they thanked Clunk but it pointed at the unconscious figure of Richard and asked them to help treat his friend. Nazia the one who contacted Clunk walked over to Richard and ran a scanner over him and waited on a full prognostic while the other survivor, Davis, was looking around nervously. Clunk was not interested in Davis but was interested in the signal that was coming from a short distance away, the signature was unusual and did not have a identifiable signature. Not wanting to take the risk Clunk waited for Nazia to figure out what to do.

“He hit his head bad, unfortunately without a treatment bed I cannot do anything. We…. Wait what happened there?”

She was pointing at the bright burning harvester ship, Clunk gave them a full report of what happened and shared with them the capture to see. Both survivors went pale and looked around this time, they began talking in unison and Clunk waited for them to finish. Davis was panicked and would be of no use to Clunk so he was ignored but Nazia pointed out that there is a possibility of finding a corp rescue pod that might be used to leave the surface. Clunk tried to connect to the network again but it looked like they were on their own and spoke to Nazia about this, she was scared and tried to talk Clunk in to looking for something to leave the planet.

“There are no signals I can confirm, in fact, the entire network has been shut down Nazia. I am trying to find something to help us but whatever that attacked the harvest ship and us made sure we are cut off from the outer fleet.”

“Shit, ok there must be a back up signal booster in the camp. Mr. Diller made sure we had one in case of attacks by rebels or aliens.”

That was a viable solution Clunk had assessed but, viability did not matter here as it would mean digging through dust and debris looking for something that could have been moved to the main ship. There were too many variables that Clunk did not like, also the fact that they did not have weapons to defend themselves in case the attackers returned.

Clunk then picked up Richard and began walking to the main camp again and the other two followed, Davis kept whispering that they were exposed and should remain in the tunnel while Nazia tried to keep him quiet. The two bickering was blocked by Clunk and it did not like unforeseen variables in the path forward. It had to find a way to treat it’s friend but also find a way out before any further attacks. All this along with the question on who attacked them was creating parallel processes that were tangling the already confused lines of solutions. As they reached the camp Davis fell to his knees and cried out on how things were hopeless while Nazia tried to get her bearings and find the operations pod to find the signal booter. The dust storm and quakes from the fallen ship had caused most of the camp pods to collapse in on themselves so trying to remember which one could hold the booster proved to be challenge.

After an hour of searching they found the pod they were looking for and the booster was not there, it was moved. There was a med kit that Nazia used on Richard, by now the damage was done and Clunk could see the brain was essentially dead. It kneeled down next to its friend and placed a hand on the shoulder of his only friend. Nazia stood next to it and placed her hand on its shoulder, it did not know emotion but it surmised that this is what people did when mourning someone close.

“He may have been my creator but he was the only friend I knew, I do not know how I am to feel but right now I cannot process anything. Is that normal?”

“Yes Clunk, that is normal. You may not be built like normal androids but I think Richard knew that building you the way he wanted would help you be different from all. I am sorry for your loss.”

Davis joined them and he stood there scoffing at Clunk’s show of empathy and tried to speak but a screeching sound came from above and when they all looked up it was a light streak heading straight for their position. Davis ran, Nazia stood her ground and raised her hand to shield her eyes from the light, Clunk remained in his kneeled position but tried to look for a signal again.

Something beeped in his connection and Clunk adjusted his signal parameters to try and check what was trying to communicate. It connected Nazia’s communicator with its connection and soon they were staring at a figure that looked like the attacker of the company. It spoke at first in its alien language, Clunk tried to run an translation program but could not find anything that matched. After a few seconds the voice came through in plain English.

“You were warned not to invade our system, we sent out an envoy to halt your operations. Like barbarians you invaded our planets and stripped them of everything. I gave you full warnings and still you did not listen. Hear us now unwanted barbarian humans. We will defend our worlds and when we have massed the forces needed we will then return the attack to your planets.”

With that the transmission ended and there was sizzling sound in the air and Nazia fell forward on to Richard, Clunk registered a massive electrical discharge. These aliens were using a lethal form of electricity to kill organic beings which was why androids were subjected to brute force.

Clunk got up and when it checked the network it found that the aliens had stopped blocking the network and it registered millions of calls over the vast network asking for help. The chaos from the attack was evident and the entire Crosswind Corp. network was awash with reports of attacks that were either in progress or the aftermath. In all the signals it found one that belonged to a rebel group and it tuned the others out to listen.

“People in the Beta Frontier System 29807 please listen, the corporation ignored all reports when probes were sent to confirm life. They ignored the Mining treaty and decided to mine the system despite the resident Kitel Arack’s calls. Now we are at war with another alien species because of their greed, if you are able to leave the system then leave now and if not well we wish you good luck in survival.”

Clunk realised that there was no way out from this planet and walked to the place it and Richard saw the first attack and sat down to look at the moving streaks, its power levels were now at 10% and soon it will also shut down.