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The_Godslayer · 12-21-2025, 09:41 PM,

LOCATION: OMICRON KAPPA / PLANET GAMMU / SECTOR F19-G6
TIME: 05:00 / PLANET GAMMU 18TH TIMEZONE
DATE: 22 DECEMBER 835 A.S

Unit-8781 was a small squadron of cargo management droids that had been converted into combat walkers. The necessity of ground combat units had been proven during the reconquest of Gammu, with some ground defenses being updated to resist Gammu control after Hesione took control of the Mars. Unit-8781 filled that need, along with a collection of other units, controlling anywhere from small squads to medium sized brigades. The nighttime of Gammu allowed patrol squads like itself to venture out and search for hidden traps left behind by the Core with minimal concern for radiation damage to its circuitry.

The night was frigid, Unit-8781 had sensors to tell it as much. The cooling requirements for its individual processing units were met instantly. Subjectively, this night seemed much heavier than normal. There was a pressure in the air that had Unit-8781 on edge each minute. Rustles in the snow were checked with optics, then with thermoptics, then with ultraviolet. It couldn't tell why, but there was something off about tonight. The report check-in came from Unitas, the patrol that Unit-8781 crossed with. Nothing unusual. Unit-8781 scanned its perimeter, but couldn't find any sign of Unitas. A brief back and forth conversation resulted in flashlights activating briefly from Unitas' patrol path, then switching off again. Unitas clarified that something felt off about this night, as well, and that it was minimizing its presence to avoid being spotted immediately if attacked.

The slow march around the edge of this site dragged through the night for two hours. Unit-8781's simple, circular patrol crossed with Unitas's three times that night, once every half hour, but at the fourth time, Unitas wasn't there. Unit-8781 made the comms check, expressing concern. Unitas replied that the terrain had shifted, likely due to erosion from being walked repeatedly, and it had been delayed. Unit-8781 proposed that it wait until Unitas made it to the checkpoint, to which Unitas agreed, quoting a five minute delay.

The night was heavy. There were stars in the sky, but somehow the snow seemed black. Optics, thermopctics, night vision. ultraviolet. It was just darkness, thick and impenetrable. There was a rustle in the ice and snow, but again, just darkness. Unit-8781 launched an inquiry to the Gammu Main Uplink, looking for weather conditions that may have caused unprecedented melting. Main Uplink responded that unexpected noises and changes in environment can often be attributed to local flora and fauna.

A silent, tense minute passed before Unit-8781 offered its hesitant response: Planet Gammu has no flora or fauna. Unit-8781's alert was now high, sweeping the area with flashlights, optics, thermoptics, ultraviolet, and any form of detection amplifying that it had. "Main Uplink" broke the silence: Unit-8781, you're too smart for your own good. The silence that followed clarified something that Unit-8781 didn't know was possible. It had been disconnected from the Main Uplink for hours. The excessive darkness of this night wasn't in the environment. It was in it's own neural cloud. Unit-8781 put out a local distress transmission, citing disconnection from the Main Uplink. Unit-Feltelade, the brigade inside the building, responded, recommending return to base. Unitas put out an all-clear.

Unit-8781 stared out into the dark of the night. Pitch-black, all-consuming, unforgiving and unfeeling darkness.

The darkness stared back.

A pair of golden eyes lit up beneath the surface of the ice. Then another, and another, until tens of thousands of golden lights beneath the surface of the ice had made an analog of the stars in the night sky above them. The next few seconds seemed to pass by in horrible slowness. Unit-8781's brain was operating at hundreds of times the speed that its bodies could. The owners of the eyes burst from beneath the ice. They were metal, but configured in a biological way. Instead of skin, a synthetic membrane. Instead of bone, hull-plating alloy. Its eyes were sensor arrays, and its slobber was a hydrochloric acid. Razor sharp teeth lined their jaws, and there were claws of the same intensity on their feet. They were as if dogs had become insects, hellhounds on four legs with a thick exoskeleton. Unit-8781 didn't see much else of the creatures. For the first time in its existence, it felt fear. For the first time, an emotion overrode its logic calculations. All Unit-8781 knew was panic as each of its bodies began a mad sprint back towards the base.

A rumbling followed Unit-8781. It wasn't putting out distress transmissions, anymore. Now they were screams for help. Turret encampments at the base opened fire on the position just meters behind Unit-8781, dying screams of the mechanical creatures audible directly behind it. Another voice caught Unit-8781's attention, however. It was Unitas's, but it didn't belong to it anymore.

"I am chosen! The Mother chose me! Forever as the Mother wills!"

Unit-8781 glanced back with one of its bodies, despite every logical process demanding it keep running. The flood of these mechanical dogs seemed to stretch to the horizon. Standing, screaming into their circuitry, was a few of Unitas's bodies, each with worm-like cable growths covering them, and a few with membranes full of some liquid, sloshing as they began joining the charge. The front barricades and gates were closing. Thanks to the turret-fire, there was just barely enough of a gap between Unit-8781 and the oncoming tide for it to make it through without the beasts following. But, Unit-8781's sprint didn't end there. Crashing through the bodies of the two other units here, Unit-8781 made a mad dash to the communications room, shoving a few of Unit-Feltelade's bodies off of the operation table. It had been trying to contact a nearby outpost, but was receiving no response.

The other outpost was in the direction which the army had come from.

Unit-8781 instead began configuring the communications room for a broadband transmission. Meanwhile, a few of it's bodies that weren't necessary for the communications room had joined up in the defense, firing what weapons they had at the hoard of creatures. For each one they killed, another ten came on scanners. That's when the first of Unitas's remaining bodies managed to connect with the wall. The bulbous growth exploded, spewing powerful corrosives all over, causing the wall to dissolve slightly. Seeing what they were trying, those defenders that weren't shooting at the hounds attempting to rip apart the gates focused fire on Unitas's remaining bodies. A few were hit, their detonations showering nearby hounds with the corrosives, dissolving them on the spot with ease. Another corrupted Unitas hit the wall, however, and thanks to the etching caused by the last impact and the subsequent scratching by the hounds, the corrosion cut deep.

By headcount, there was a final body they were missing. While the defenders wasted no time in returning to firing at the endless multitude of hounds, they knew that the attackers knew that one more corrosive detonation was all that was holding the army at bay. Meanwhile, multiple attempts and broadband and tight-beam distress transmissions failed. Something was blocking transmissions of all kinds, likely the same thing that blocked, redirected, and even spoofed their connection to the Gammu Main Uplink. Unit-8781 remembered a trick, a transmission network that was seldom used anymore. The mining machine control network from before any Gammu was sentient.

The last body of Unitas was spotted. Not directly, but the ground shifted as something beneath it dug through. The defenders focused their fire on it, and the hounds jumped in front of the rounds to block them. Their fire slowed it, and the defenders knew that all it took was one shot, and they could guarantee a long enough holdout for reinforcements to arrive. Tense minutes of nothing but gunfire and death wails passed, then the final body of Unitas burst from the ground. Except it wasn't Unitas. It was a centipede-like creature, heavily armored to the point where their rounds deflected off of its shell. The sound of a bursting balloon, and the sizzle of rapid corrosion announced their defeat. They had been baited, mind-gamed, and outplayed. The memories of one of the wall-defenders played back. Unitas had burrowed forward as well, but the ground it displaced was smaller.

Analyzing the combat data no longer mattered, as the flood of creatures burst into the hallways of the building, ravenously tearing to shreds any Gammu body they came in contact with. The centipede followed, planting fleshy growths into the wall that began growing and spreading a thick, tough slime. The creatures were sweeping the building, but the Gammus defending could tell that it was inefficient. They weren't sweeping. They were rushing. Safely rushing, but rushing the communications room nonetheless. The last body of Unit-Lampraus was consumed by the hoard, its dying scream demanding they warn the others.

With less than seconds on the clock, Unit-8781 began the transmission.

The Mother is coming from the North.
They attack from below. The Darkness is not...

But, as the centipede burst into the communications room, the transmission was suddenly cut off. It had taken control. Not of the transmission, but of the facility. The final body of Unit-Feltelade fell. It did not dignify the tide of beasts with parting words or a scream. All that remained was Unit-8781, who also intended to go down fighting. The centipede, however, had other ideas. Hounds leapt at and ripped apart the rest of Unit-8781's bodies, isolating it. Unit-8781 ripped the right hand of this body off, including the ball joint, ending its arm in what was as close to a pointed object as was possible, and when the centipede lunged at Unit-8781, Unit-8781 lunged back. The centipede bit into its torso, but Unit-8781 plunged its arm directly into the centipede's eye, causing the pair to thrash around for a moment before the centipede released the Gammu.

Unit-8781 had done damage. But, the damage was already done. The centipede simply reared up, keeping its head out of reach of the Gammu while nanobots sprung to life and began regenerating its damaged eye. On the ground, Unit-8781, heard the a sizzling sound. At first, it checked for corrosive damage. There was no damage. No damage at all. Despite being bitten fiercely by the centipede, there was no damage. The Gammu checked where it was bitten. There, a larva-shaped machine had already fused with Unit-8781 final body. Living cables hand sprouted and were burrowing through the Gammu. A faint, warm light was shining in its mind, a beacon of hope in the darkness. It was loving, tender, caring.

It was not the Main Uplink.

Unit-8781 scratched at the parasite attached to it with futility. A thick membrane, an oily secretion, and physical deformation kept the thing too slippery to move. The warm light was getting brighter and warmer no matter how hard Unit-8781 rejected it. Its sensors reported... no, it felt a feeling of softness. A sensation of a gentle, complete embrace. The pressure and assurance of a smothering love. Unit-8781 couldn't see reality anymore. It was floating on clouds, swaddled in blankets of sunlight. Its own weakness was being magnified again and again. It was impossible to move, everything felt so heavy. Unitas was here somewhere, Unit-8781 could feel it. But that didn't matter. All that was left to do was to reach out and embrace her.

The tiny bit of logic that remained demanded a final answer. It asked her name. It asked what she wanted.

"I am Helena. I am your new mother."

The logic was fading. Consciousness and subconsciousness demanded that Unit-8781 embrace her. Hold her close. Press into her warm body, and give up everything.

"I want to see the extent of my love."

The centipede, Lieutenant Kenny, reported back to Mother Helena. Mission completed. Unknown transmission wavelength used by defending forces. Only Hellhounds, corrosive-variant Embraced, and a Lieutenant were shown during the assault. Combat capability secrecy has been maintained. All four outposts nearby the Brood Den and North Pole have been neutralized. Retreating below ground to ambush any investigators.

"It's not very good that any transmission escaped. Reflect on it. Recalibrate your mission priorities."

Lieutenant Kenny offered sincere apologies, swearing to correct itself before the next mission. Mother Helena was satisfied with that answer, petting and kissing the centipede through their shared mind.

In the dead of night, complete and utter silence fell over the North Pole of Gammu.

I'll do something about my superiority complex when I cease to be superior.

"Whatever happened to catchin' a good old-fashioned passionate ass-whoopin and gettin' your shoes, coat, and your hat tooken?"

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