Chapter 18: First Contact
The more people he met, the more promises, implied or not, that he would lead them to a better tomorrow. As they say, easier said than done. Thousands of people, possibly more, if what they said about other colonies on other planets and Earth or Terra is true.
Rex watched the child disappear around a corner. Around him, the habitation deck continued its routine. It wasn't
It wasn't much different from the cramped residential districts he observed between travels. To think all of it was happening inside a ship. If you didn't think about it, the distant ceiling and walls would resemble a rusty-looking Martian landscape. There was noticeably less exhaust since it was all being expelled outside the ship.
"Omnissiah?" Theta-9 called his attention. "The bridge awaits, if you wish to continue the survey."
Rex glanced back toward the residential quarters one more time, then nodded. "Yeah. Let's keep moving."
They returned to the gravity lift, descending deeper into the Ark's structure.
"The Lex Ultima has served Mars for years," Theta-9 said as the lift hummed downward. "She has carried expeditions to the edge of known space and recovered thirty-seven STC fragments."
'I wonder what they recovered. Will have to ask next time.' "That's amazing to hear. Is it really appropriate to be using it to travel across Mars?"
"Distance is not the measure of a quest's significance. Not only will you be guiding this vessel, but the Backup Archive you seek may also hold more value than a dozen stellar expeditions."
The lift shuddered to a halt. The doors slid open onto a wide corridor lined with statues of Bronze Tech-Priests.
"Creepy," he muttered.
"They are the Ark's honored dead," Theta-9 explained. "Magos-Exploratoris who gave their lives in service to the Quest. Their memory guides us."
Rex took it in stride. Another reminder that the Mechanicum clergy were of a higher societal class.
The corridor opened into a vaulted chamber large enough to swallow a city block. Tech-Priests moved between workstations to complete their designated tasks. Hololithic displays showed star charts, some system diagnostics, and real-time telemetry from across the ship. Thank god that connecting to the databases here made futuristic readouts like this easier to understand.
"The bridge of the Lex Ultima," Theta-9 announced, pride evident. "Command heart of the Ark Mechanicus. From here, Fabricator-Locum Anzion guided us through the void for seven hundred years before the Motive Force called him to rest."
At the center, elevated on a dais of black iron, stood an empty throne, no less gaudy than the one back at the temple.
The throne was a work of art and engineering, carved from a single block of adamantium and inlaid with silver circuitry. Cables descended from the vaulted ceiling like roots, terminating in interface ports around the throne's headrest. Yeah, Rex knew where this was going. No use resisting the gestures at this point.
A priest near the dais noticed Rex, froze mid-gesture, and dropped to one knee. One by one, the bridge crew turned, saw Rex, and knelt.
"They honor you, Omnissiah." The Magos Explorator bowed his head. "The Ark's bridge has stood empty since Anzion's passing. No successor was deemed worthy." He gestured toward the throne. "Until now."
Rex didn't argue. "Tell them to stand. We have work to do."
Theta-9 pulsed a command-cant across the bridge. Slowly, the Tech-Priests rose and returned to their stations.
Rex took his seat on the throne and felt his nanite begin to interface. Unlike last time, he seemed to remain awake and conscious. 'Huh. Maybe I can control it now.' With a wave of his hand, he tried to see if something worked. Sure enough, a holographic map of Mars was projected onto the right side of his throne, and it was easy to read. "Nice! Alright. Let's get this show on the road."
#
Deep within the Lex Ultima's cognitive core, the STC intelligence had been observing Rex Salazar and had to pull back its reach.
When Rex sat on the throne, some part of him registered across all directly connected monitoring arrays simultaneously.
Lex Ultima was fascinated by the seemingly hybrid entity. Calling this man a Cyborg would feel inadequate. There was a sort of… presence within this Rex that the STC did not understand
The STC compiled data, cross-referenced historical records, and found no match. It really was… learning something new.
The STC personally did not believe the Mechanicum's Omnissiah theologically; however, Rex displayed many technological attributes and aptitudes that would incite believers.
The STC increased monitoring priority and allocated additional processing cycles. Observation would continue. Perhaps this Rex would be a more respectable administrator than those who came before.
#
Rex's hologram duplicated itself on the main hololith display as Theta-9 began entering data. Olympus Mons glowed at the center. Beyond it, the Martian badlands stretched in rust and shadow.
A golden line traced northeast from the city, threading through canyons and skirting radiation zones before terminating at a flashing marker.
"Backup Archive Designate: Theta-Seven," Theta-9 said. "Seventeen hundred kilometers from Olympus Mons. Estimated transit time: forty-two hours, accounting for terrain and environmental hazards."
Rex leaned over the display, studying the route. The land between here and there looked like craters, collapsed structures, and fields of debris that might once have been cities.
"What kind of hazards are we talking about?" he asked. He got the gist from the city's system, but hearing from the locals can't hurt.
Magos Yavann stepped forward. "Radiation storms. Tectonic instability. Feral servitor packs. Possible Men of Iron remnants, though unconfirmed."
"Men of Iron," Rex repeated. "As in, the things that nearly wiped out humanity?"
"Fragments," Yavann clarified. "Broken war-machines. Most lack higher function, but they remain hostile to biological signatures."
Rex straightened. "And we're taking eight thousand people into that."
"The Lex Ultima is a fortress, Omnissiah," Theta-9 said. "Void shields. Lance batteries. Skitarii detachments trained for planetary operations. We are prepared."
Rex looked at the faces around. Tech-Priests who had spent lifetimes serving this ship. He met Theta-9's optical array. "Let's pray that we don't encounter anything beyond our defenses."
Theta-9 inclined his head. "As you command, Omnissiah." Everyone immediately started praying per his words.
Rex didn't mean it literally, but he should have realized what comes with using those kinds of phrases as the 'Omnissiah.'
The bridge crew moved through final checks. Chants echoed softly between workstations as Tech-Priests verified system integrity. Rex sat on the throne, cables connected to ports around the headrest, and tried something new.
His nanites spread outward, threading through the ship's systems like fingers searching for purchase. The throne responded. Windows opened in his vision: camera feeds from the Ark's bow, stern, port, and starboard. The sheer size of the vessel limited what he could see. Each feed showed only a fraction of the hull, but it was something.
For a moment, Rex felt like he was being watched again.
He glanced around the bridge. Tech-Priests knelt at their stations, murmuring prayers. Probably just them again. He let the feeling go.
"All systems report green, Omnissiah," Theta-9 said from beside the throne. "The Lex Ultima awaits your command."
Rex looked at the hololithic display. The route stretched ahead, threading through broken terrain toward a vault that might hold answers. Or nothing. No way to know until they get there.
He took a breath. "Take us up."
The command rippled across the bridge in binary cant. Engines deep in the Ark's belly roared to life. The deck trembled beneath Rex's boots as thrust built, and the vessel began to rise.
Through the forward camera feed, Rex watched Olympus Mons fall away. The landing zone shrank to a square of scorched plating. Dust storms erupted outward from the Ark's passage, swallowing entire districts in rust-colored clouds. Ground forces became dots. The city became a sprawl of spires and smoke.
A transmission crackled through the bridge speakers. Distorted. Thin.
"Blessed be the Omnissiah. May the Motive Force guide your path."
Rex didn't answer and just watched the city shrink until it disappeared into the haze.
The observation deck spanned thirty meters, armored viewports giving a clear sweep of Mars below. The Ark's shadow slid over the wastes.
Past the city was a rust-red desert to the horizon. The remains of cities half-buried in sand, hab-towers snapped open, transit tubes broken.
Below, the ground escort kept formation. Tracked vehicles chewed up red plumes.
He'd watched Mad Max back in Providence with friends. Not only was this real, but it was thousands of times worse than he initially thought.
Meanwhile, most of the Ark's crew were at stations, keeping a ship of seventeen kilometers alive in the air. Even without turning, he felt their reverence and stares. They moved carefully when he was near, like a mistake might count as blasphemy.
Rex closed his eyes and let his nanites reach into the ship. Some alone time might help.
#
Deep within the Lex Ultima's cognitive core, the STC intelligence ran another light diagnostic sweep toward Rex. Anything more might alert the being.
Rex Salazar remained an anomaly. Human biology is intertwined with something the STC could not classify. The more it observed, the less it understood.
Lux Ultima allocated additional processing cycles and refined its search parameters. Historical databases. Genetic templates. Pre-Strife augmentation records. Nothing matched.
The STC compiled another query and prepared to contact its other brethren.
Lux Ultima had been staring into a void where Rex's nature should have been, probing the darkness for answers. Now, from within that void, something stared back with equal intensity.
From Rex, another presence made itself known.
The STC's monitoring subroutines flagged the anomaly instantly, but classification failed. The presence came from within him, nested somewhere beneath the surface.
One distinct signature. Impossibly complex. Watching. It knew the Lux Ultima was there.
The STC recoiled, reallocating processing resources to threat assessment. It had been alone in this vessel for centuries. The realization struck with cold clarity: it now had a neighbor, residing within the body of the one the Mechanicum called Omnissiah. Unsure of what to do, it attempted contact through standard interface protocols.
…
No response.
It cycled through 743 communication formats spanning 5,000 years of recorded human and xenos languages.
Still nothing.
According to its threat assessment, the results returned inconclusive. Rex and, in turn, this presence didn't project any hostile intent. It wasn't a simple artificial intelligence like Lux, that was for sure. Instead of being limited to the computer system, its influence seemed to extend even beyond it. It was something else, akin to a sleeping bear, as humans of the past used to say.
Lux Ultima withdrew its deep scan and reallocated itself. Direct analysis had failed. Observation would continue. It flagged this entity as an Unknown-Class-Alpha. But as the STC pulled back, it felt the presence tracking its retreat.
Subject: Rex Salazar
Classification: Unknown-Class-Alpha
Threat Level: Indeterminate
Recommendation: Continued observation. Do not provoke.
A connection reached out, not to the STC intelligence, but to the ship's and, in turn, the STC's database. Thankfully, the entity didn't seem to pry into the information that Lux was intentionally hiding from the Mechanicus.
The ship had been alone for so long. Now it shared its space with something that defied every category in its memory. The STC did not know if this new neighbor was an ally, a threat, or something beyond such simple classifications.
#
Inside Rex, OMEGA-1 registered the external intelligence.
The ship's core system had attempted an analysis. It posed no immediate threat to Host integrity or Prime Directive parameters.
OMEGA filed the encounter under peripheral awareness and returned focus to data collection and integration. Host physiology remained stable. Thanks to this, TECHNOLOGY was nearing functionality.
The ship's intelligence could become problematic if it continued to escalate its observation protocols. Intervention might become necessary.
OMEGA determined that passive observation remained the optimal strategy. The ship's intelligence had withdrawn. That was acceptable.
#
Rex was going over files related to the logistics of the Ark. For what it was worth, it was a sustainable in the loosest sense possible for long-term space travel. It would get the job done, but it's not exactly a vacation spot.
"Omnissiah?"
Rex returned his attention to the physical world. Magos Explorator Theta-9 approached, lenses clicking through focus patterns that might have been a concern.
"You have remained immobile for six point three minutes," Theta-9 said. "Are you experiencing difficulty with your communion?"
"No," Rex said. "Just thinking."
The expedition was underway.
The controlled territory around Olympus Mons lasted longer than Rex expected. City signals reached out for nearly an hour before fading into static. When the last transmission dropped, the bridge grew quieter. They had crossed a line.
Now they were in the wasteland for real.
"Long-range auspex active, Omnissiah," Magos Yavann reported from her station. "Initial scans report standard atmospheric interference."
Rex returned to the throne and pulled up the sensor feed. Blips appeared on the display, scattered and inconsistent. Some flickered in and out of existence. Others moved in patterns that didn't match the wind or the debris.
"What am I looking at?" Rex asked.
Yavann adjusted her station and tapped at input nodes. "Signals shift location without corresponding movement vectors."
"Contamination," another Tech-Priest offered. "Residual radiation from the Dark Age collapse?"
Rex watched the blips. They didn't feel random. "Can you filter it?"
"Negative. The interference is embedded within the telemetry itself."
Theta-9 stepped closer to the throne. "Recommended course adjustment places us seventy kilometers south. Cleaner sensor profile."
Rex looked at the route. The detour would add six hours. "We hold course." Rex needed to face these threats head-on as a leader.
Theta-9 paused, optics refocusing. "Omnissiah, the readings..."
"I know. As I said, we hold course."
The Magos Explorator inclined his head. "As you command."
The Ark pressed forward. About 15 minutes later, it became clear what was causing the interference.
"ALERT. ALERT. MULTIPLE CONTACTS BEARING TWO-SEVEN-ZERO THROUGH THREE-THREE-ZERO. RANGE: TWELVE KILOMETERS AND CLOSING."
The bridge snapped into motion. Tech-Priests surged to stations. Mechadendrites found ports. Tactical overlays flared across the viewports, reticules, and threat tags painting the ruins below.
Rex's nanites fed him the data before the displays finished updating. Movement. Dozens, then more, converging from multiple angles.
"Report," Rex said.
"Scavenger bands," Theta-9 replied. "Subsistence populations. They raid for resources. They usually avoid Mechanicum convoys."
Through the observation viewport, the attackers broke into view. Vehicles stitched together from salvage, armor plates bolted over rust. Bikes on screaming engines. A few hover rigs wobbled.
Rex pulled the tactical display to the fore. Dots converged on the Ark from three directions, moving fast across the broken terrain. They split into smaller groups, spreading out as they approached the Ark's ground escort vehicles.
"They're going for the supply trucks," Rex said.
"Confirmed," Yavann replied. "Water recyclers and power cells are primary targets."
Rex frowned. The raiders ignored the armed transports and Skitarii. They went straight for survival resources. "They're desperate."
"Desperate and hostile, like animals," Theta-9 corrected. "Engagement protocols are active."
On the tactical display, red icons appeared as Skitarii maniples moved into position. Combat servitors deployed from armored carriers.
Rex leaned forward. "Tell them to hold fire until-"
The first volley cut him off.
Through the camera feeds, Rex saw the raiders. Humanoid, but wrong. Some limbs were too long. Skin mottled and scarred. Some carried crude firearms. Others had blades welded to their arms.
The Skitarii advanced and fired in controlled bursts. Servitors with heavy bolters hammering the wasteland.
Then the mutants fired back with similar, if not greater, firepower.
A lance of directed energy vaporized a combat servitor mid-stride. Another beam punched through a Chimera transport's frontal armor, detonating the fuel cell inside. The vehicle erupted in a fireball that sent debris spinning across the wastes.
"WHAT IN THE MOTIVE FORCE-" Yavann's station flared with warning runes. "Energy signatures consistent with plasma weapons. Advanced pattern. Pre-Strife classification!"
Through the feeds, Rex saw it clearly now. Some of the mutants carried cobbled-together weapons that definitely didn't belong in their hands, like a plasma rifle, shoulder-mounted cannon, and a blade that shimmered with a disruption field.
Dark Age technology. In the hands of mutants. "HERESY!" A Tech-Priest at a nearby station recoiled, mechadendrites flailing. "The unclean defile sacred relics! They desecrate the Omnissiah's gifts!"
On the tactical display, the battle shifted. The Skitarii maniple that had been advancing in textbook formation broke apart as concentrated plasma fire cut through their ranks. A servitor's torso disappeared in a flash of superheated light. Skitarii troopers dove for cover behind wrecked vehicles as laser fire and bullets gave way to energy beams and graviton pulses.
"Ground forces are taking significant casualties," Theta-9 reported. "The mutants are entrenched and using superior weaponry. Our advance has stalled."
Rex watched another Skitarii fall, his armor doing nothing against a weapon designed to crack open bunkers.
"They don't know how to use them properly," Yavann said, studying the scans. "But the weapons compensate through sheer capability."
"It doesn't matter," another Magos interjected. "They possess what they should not. They defile what they cannot understand."
A proximity alert shrieked. On the display, a mutant carrying a gravitic accelerator fired into a Kataphron formation. The blast compressed. Servitors and armor folded inward like crumpled parchment.
The bridge erupted in overlapping cant and shouted Gothic.
"Omnissiah!" Magos Yavann turned from her station, optics blazing. "The artifacts must not remain in their hands. Request permission to deploy lance batteries."
Rex's attention snapped to her. "Lance batteries?"
"Orbital strikes," Theta-9 clarified. "Ark-class weapons. We can sterilize the engagement zone in forty seconds."
"Sterilize." Rex looked at the tactical display. Red and blue icons overlapped and intermingled across two kilometers of the battlefield. "Our forces are still down there."
"Acceptable losses," Yavann said clinically. "Twenty-seven Skitarii groups. Sixteen servitors. Thirteen ground crews. Several Castellax battle-automata battalions. Against the desecration of sacred technology, the calculation is clear."
Rex stared at her. "You want to kill our own people."
"To preserve what is holy, Omnissiah. The unclean must not be allowed to escape with those relics. The weapons they wield could fall into worse hands. Or worse, be destroyed through ignorance."
Around the bridge, Tech-Priests murmured agreement. Rex saw it in their body language, the way they leaned toward Yavann's station. They were ready to do it. Ready to glass two kilometers of Mars and everyone in it.
"Power to lance batteries," Yavann said, fingers already moving toward the command input. "Targeting solution locked. Awaiting your word, Omnissiah."
Rex's jaw tightened. People doing their jobs were being written off as acceptable losses. "No."
Yavann's hand froze over the panel. "Omnissiah?"
"I said no." Rex stood from the throne, cables disconnecting with sharp hisses. "You're not glassing our own people."
"But the relics-"
"Can be fixed by me." Rex's voice carried across the bridge. "I can't cure the dead." At least, he didn't think he could if the Meta Nanites were online
"Omnissiah, with respect, the tactical situation-"
"Will be handled." Rex turned away from the tactical display and broke into a run.
"Omnissiah?" Theta-9 called after him.
Rex ignored the voices behind him and sprinted toward the nearest emergency transit corridor. The hangars were too far away, and every second brought more casualty reports.
"Omnissiah, where are you going?" Yavann demanded.
"Outside."
The bridge fell silent.
Rex hit the corridor at full speed, his enhanced body carrying him far faster than any baseline human could manage. Tech-priests and servitors flattened themselves against the walls as he passed.
"Outside?" Theta-9's voice crackled through the vox network. "Omnissiah, clarification requested."
"I'm going to lead the charge."
A chorus of alarmed responses erupted across the command channel.
"You cannot mean from the hull itself!" Yavann exclaimed.
"They have Dark Age weapons, and people are dying because of it." Rex turned a corner toward a maintenance airlock he had spotted earlier. "I'm not waiting for a shuttle."
"Omnissiah, the risk-"
"Is mine to take."
Warning klaxons sounded as he reached the armored hatch leading toward the outer hull access network. The door recognized his authority and cycled open immediately.
Rex slowed only long enough to step into the airlock chamber. The outer hatch began to open.
Across the vox network, silence lingered for several seconds before Theta-9 spoke, quiet but clear. "The Omnissiah marches to war."
Beyond the hatch stretched the immense armored hull of the Lex Ultima and, far below, the battlefield. Rex felt his nanites stir in anticipation.
Time to see what he could really do.