LF Friends, Will Travel

Every Terran noticed it at once, every Terran felt the change instantly.

The room was a depressing affair of oppression and finality. The walls were a deep brown, hardened vines wrapping around each other, large thorns sprouting off each tendril to form a painful, solid barrier. A bare dirt floor: dusty, untreated, and uncared for, much like the occupants inside. 246 Terrans were scattered around the room, a forlorn expression on each of their faces as they sat still and silent in the dimly lit prison.

Rough organic bars separated the Terrans from the three Uhae guards that overlooked them, the heavenly angel-like figures armed with weapons, keeping them in place by stripping them of their will. For the last few weeks, they had stayed here, having been kidnapped and imprisoned from Far-Sa-De, only leaving the prison when removed by their captors to have information extracted from them.

Not that the Uhae had gotten much from the Terrans. A lifetime of easy access to someone’s mind meant that their captors didn’t even know what they were asking for, and at this point just wanted secrets, whatever that meant. Somewhere in the Uhae database now lay the recipe for “Grandma Rosssine’s chicken soup.”, alongside thousands of other useless pieces of ‘secrets’ they had managed to extract from the Terrans, drowning out any useful information.

This was why every Terran in the room immediately noticed the absence of the Uhae’s control. It was like a switch, the pressure looming over them for the last few weeks dissipated in a moment, like the first clear breath after an illness, the moment in which they could… move freely.

Something was happening. The sounds of explosions had been echoing around in the distance, the sounds of fighting getting louder and louder. The prisoners didn’t know exactly what was going on, but they could guess. People back home had found out where they were, and the Uhae were about to be on the receiving end of a bit of karma and justice.

The Terrans resisted the urge to jump and scream and shout with their newfound personal freedom, instead settling for shared glances and a simultaneous agreement for the same course of action. While their bodies might have been their own, the three armed guards were still staring at them, nervously looking left to right as the noises continued to get louder, the harsh thorny walls and bars still keeping the group from true freedom.

Still, they all silently communicated the same message to each other with just a glance, the same plan, the shared comradery of each of them having gone through the worst holiday since Fyrefest:

As soon as an opportunity shows itself, we make our move.

This would never be the case, however, since something completely unexpected happened.

The noises grew louder, and the first thing the Terrans saw was the look of shock on their guard's faces as they seemingly saw something approaching down the hallway. The first took a chest full of plasma fire, collapsing into a heap as they died. The remaining pair started to raise their weapons at the approaching threat, only to find they were not nearly fast enough to stop the terror that was bearing down on their position.

The android came into view, reaching the second guard at a blistering speed, shoving a bladed hand deep into the chest cavity of the Uhae, the terrified member giving a gurgling scream as he was lifted up off the ground through the blade impaled in their chest. One of the attacker's three sharpened feet dug deep into the lower half of the unfortunate Uhae, the two points of impalement pulling against each other until finally something gave way: The body of the guard, tearing into two.

The remaining Uhae had managed to get their bearings together enough to fire their weapon, the first two shots hitting the wall, the third deflecting off the artificial beast’s armour with a glancing blow. As the four insectoid eyes glowed a deep angry red, the Uhae realized their mistake.

With another frightening display of speed, the android rushed forward, grabbing the remaining guard by the head and driving it into the wall with a sickening crack and splatter of blue blood and brain matter. It did so again, and again, over and over until the flesh and bone it was holding was no longer recognizable as a person.

“HOW DARE YOU TAKE WHAT IS MINE, THAT WHICH I FOUND. I SHALL ERADICATE EVERY SINGLE ATOM AND MENTION OF YOUR PERSON UNTIL THERE IS NO TRACE OF YOUR FOUL TAINT LEFT UPON THIS UNIVERSE TO BE BLIGHTED UPON. THERE WILL BE DEATH AND I AM ITS BRINGER!”

The robotic voice echoed out with pure rage as they continued to mutilate the long-dead body of the Uhae, still slamming what was mostly no longer solid into the wall. The humans… just stared, half in shock, half in fear as the scene played out in front of them. There are three common reactions to any kind of unforeseen external impact: Freeze, Flight, and Fight. There is also a fourth far rarer action, which requires a special set of circumstances to unlock. When something so absurd, so unlikely, so completely outside the realm of logic happens, a person might have the fourth reaction: Blue screen. Tumaini was currently blue screening.

She recognized that android, the design, the terrible cruelty. It was of Tritian make, a figure that had appeared in some of her nightmares ever since that fateful day when she’d been taken prisoner by a warship filled with them. The real confusion however was why was there a Tritian on this planet assaulting their captors? Her brain was desperately trying to come up with some baseline of knowledge to recover to, and failing catastrophically as the Tritian android continued to mutilate the very very very dead Uhae.

“No, no no no no! Come back Ramsey, what are you doing!”

That was was voice that Tumaini recognized, one that she’d spent a lot of time around, a lighthouse in the absolute dark confusion of unknowns currently raging in front of her. That was the voice of JOSH, just before a heavily armed exosuit of clear Terran design bounded into view.

“Stop, stop, stop! You are freaking the humans out, what are you doing?!”

JOSH placed a hand upon the shoulder of the Tritian android, causing him to finally stop assaulting the now mostly smoothified Uhae, spinning around to look upon the Terrans staring back at the digital pair from behind the prison bars. It took a mere 1.52 seconds to fully scan and recognise several of the crew members within this prison, but one in particular caused his attention to focus, the one he’d come all this way to rescue.

The barrier didn’t stand a chance as the Tritian smashed it apart, lumbering into the now broken cage with a purpose, staring directly at his target, making their way towards the singular female Terran with a purpose. A few more defensive and braver prisoners tried to put themselves within his path or even attack them, but Ramsey simply pushed through them like a hippo wading through water, unconcerned with the near-zero threat the other Terrans posed.

In mere moments Ramsey stood in front of his goal: A very confused and scared Tumaini.

“TUMAINI! THE MUSIC MAKER! YOU ARE FINE, YOU ARE HERE. YOU ARE HURT! WHO DID THIS. POINT THEM OUT AND I SHALL REMOVE THEM FROM EXISTENCE! NO ONE WILL TOUCH MY ORGANIC! YOU ARE NOW FINE, YOU CAN NOW PLAY MUSIC, THIS IS GOOD!”

Tumaini just stood slack-jawed with confusion as the dripping-with-blood Tritian android referred to her by name

“I - I - I’m sorry, who are you?”

“I AM RAMSEY. I AM HERE TO BRING YOU BACK FROM THOSE WHO TOOK YOU FROM ME. I DO NOT SEE VICTORIA HERE. THE ORGANIC WITH ‘FETCH’ BETTER BE FINE OR I SHALL SET ALL UHAE WORLDS ALIGHT IN FLAME!”

More confusion flowed out of Tumaini like a faucet. She didn’t know any Tritians, or people who controlled a Tritian android at the very least. She did know one Ramsey, though…

“Wait… the Roomba? Ramsey? What?” The Terran paused for a moment, before turning from confusion to pure annoyance to the other figure. “JOSH! What is going on?”

JOSH had been taking the time to make sure those bowled over by the Tritian were ok while also trying to calm down the group of prisoners who were reasonably concerned by the murderous robot who had broken in and killed their captors.

“So about that Roomba…”

“Explain. Now!”

“Well it is a long story and we do not have the time to-”

“JOSH, this is your fault, isn’t it!?”

There was a pause, a pause not of contemplation, but of shame from the AI.

“...Ramsey is a Tritian AI that I placed within the Roomba to attempt a re-education about Terran, or human, empathy for AI beings. There have been some successes, as Ramsey has not only accepted the name that you gave but has come to, for admittedly slightly selfish reasons, care for the safety of the crew.”

There was a pause as everyone in the room took this information in, a few staring at the remains of the Uhae in disbelief.

“So this is a successful experiment then?” Someone asked with clear disbelief in their voice while gesturing towards the blue slurry splattered against the wall.

“It is a work in progress, admittedly.”

Tumaini paused for a moment, thinking, narrowing their eyes at JOSH.

“Wait, since when do you have a Tritian AI? The only time we interacted was…”

“Before we left the Tritian Warship that captured us, I took interest in Ramsey and brought them along as an experiment in AI rehabilitation.”

Tumaini grew more irate at this statement, now completely ignoring the 10ft tall death-dealing android who stood before her in favour of chewing out the Terran AI.

“That was ten years ago!”

“Yes.”

“We've changed ships four times since then!”

“Also correct.”

“So I’ve been living with a genocidal AI, being transferred from system to system, for over ten years, without being told! Why did you think this was a good idea JOSH!”

Tumaini’s voice grew louder as she shouted, the previous fear and confusion had turned to flat-out anger as the realization slowly set in.

“I kept theTritian in an isolated environment unconnected to the main system. It was all perfectly safe and they could not ever harm anyone. Although in retrospect…”

There was a pause for a moment as JOSH got distracted by something else, the 9 different instances still clearing out sections of the prison hindering their processing capabilities.

“I am sorry. I know I should not have done this, but a deeper apology will have to wait. We need to move, as we are on a tight deadline on this rescue attempt.”

With this statement the Tritian seemed to react once more, going from simply watching the interaction to moving forward once again, causing several nearby Terrans to react warily in response.

“I AGREE. GETTING THE MUSIC MAKER AND OTHER CREW MEMBERS OUT OF HERE IS OF THE UTMOST IMPORTANCE, ENSURING MY ORGANICS ARE SAFE.”

There was a brief pause as Ramsey seemed to consider something.

“ALSO, THE REST OF YOU CAN COME ALONG AS WELL, IF YOU WISH. I GUESS.”

—-----------------

Scellestra was going to enjoy this. The last few weeks had been the worst weeks of their long digital life. The pain of being split into several different parts, trying to maintain two separate identities as one over FTL distances was by every definition of the word, unimaginable for organic beings. Being able to finally remove half of the problem, and disconnecting the now inert nanobots left behind on Far-Sa-De had been a major relief.

But that hadn’t been the cause of the Woolean’s discomfort. Because while the Terran AI gathered their forces and made their way towards the military base, Scellestra had nothing to do but wait and watch. In particular, powerless to stop the sporadic torture sessions that they were inflicting upon Ivan.

It was funny. The Terran didn’t have any secrets to divulge: no information about troops or secret bases. Ivan still held out and told them nothing out of sheer quantities of spite, and all the while the Woolean had to silently watch. They wished they could have done something, to provide comfort or aid the Terran in any way, but to interfere risked removing the element of surprise the Terran rescue forces were currently enjoying, so against everything they wanted to do, Scellestra had to wait.

Now they would wait no longer.

The Woolean had been busy, amassing… well mass, eating away silently at the immense supply of organic material that lay everywhere. They were quite literally ‘in the walls’. Trillions of tiny nanobots, invisible unless you look closely, surround the entire base.

Scellestra could see where Ivan was being held, looking worse for wear, arm in a sling, with the same look of confusion as the several thousand other humans while some of them began to realize that the niggling feeling of control lodged in the back of their heads was gone. The twenty guards would soon find out that something was wrong, but by then it would be far too late.

Slowly some of the Woolean’s parts began sliding down the walls, nearly imperceptible to the naked eye. They flowed along surfaces, collecting along the floor as the wave of nanobots descended upon their targets.

The Uhae guards didn’t notice. They were too busy worrying about the sounds of fighting happening and the explosions rocking the landscape outside, looking around nervously as the Terran attack continued. They should have been more worried about the floor and the shifting sands approaching them, not that they could have done anything had they noticed.

“What is that, get it off, what is that!”

The cry of panic rose up as the first guard noticed Scellestra for the first time, covering and crawling up their disgusting blobby lower limbs, the others soon following in panic as they all realised the strange substance was starting to cover them.

The Woolean could have killed them instantly; they were a theoretical blender, but these guards in particular had made a very specific mistake: they had hurt Ivan, and they had made Scellestra watch as they did so. So the Woolean, filled with an absolute cold calculating digital rage, was going to make it nice and slow.

By now the twenty were mindlessly kicking and flailing, desperately trying to get… whatever these things were off of them as they marched ever onward, starting to cover them head to toe. Weapons were dropped and a few bodies collapsed to the floor writhing as others stood their ground, screaming in terror and panic. It didn’t matter what they did, the end would be the same either way.

Scellestra poured in through their orifices, a now cascading torrent of sand-like nanobots, slipping between the gaps in an eye socket and pouring down their mouths into their lungs. The Woolean did some damage, blue blood starting to pour from every hole as they bit and sliced open flesh at a microscopic level, but in reality, the real fatality was found in just the presence of Scellestra’s form, drowning the Uhae in technology and the wrath of a vengeful AI.

The Terrans were freaking out. While they had no love for their captors, this was an entirely new threat, an entirely new complication to an already complicated situation. Only Ivan couldn’t help but grin as he had a good idea what, or more accurately who was behind this sudden horror.

“Don’t worry guys, I think I know who this is. They’re a friend!”

The Uhae were no longer screaming as they lost the lung capacity to do so, each of them frothing blood and viscera from their mouths as they continued to seize and shudder on the floor, each of them now lying in their own personal pool of blood as the life was slowly ripped from their bodies. One by one, each of them slowly began to stop moving, giving a final burst of life before being silenced forever.

Scellestra began to reform the bots, the grains of sand flowing from the now dead bodies of the Uhae to reform into a figure once more, humanoid, the figure Ivan had spent quite some time with at this point. The form tore through the organic bars like they were butter, Ivan hobbling forward to greet his friend as the rest of the prisoners looked warily on.

“So what took you so long, did you stop for snacks on the way here? Or did ODIN get distracted shopping for a suitable paint job for the rescue vessel?” Ivan gave a grin as he spoke.

“I am so sorry for being unable to stop this. I snuck on board and have been waiting for the rest of the Terran AI forms to arrive. I saw what they were doing but I could not stop them for fear of endangering the mission so I apologize for your pain and I-”

“Dude, it’s fine. You’re here now, that’s all that matters buddy!”

“Still, I should have done better, I have caused you unwanted pain and-”

Two things happened at once. Ivan reached in for a hug, and then Ivan realized that Scellestra didn’t have a real solid form going on unless they specifically focused on it, the Terran stumbling forwards before falling through the Woolean AI, flat onto their face.

“Like I have informed you several times… I do not have a solid form unless I prepare one.”

“Yeah, I’m remembering that now. That was supposed to be a touching moment where I’m so glad to see you again, but now my face hurts”.

Scellestra couldn’t help but inwardly roll their eyes at such a display, before taking a moment and realizing how… natural attempting to do a biologically redundant action like eye rolling felt. The Woolean had only spent some time amongst these crazy Terrans, but even still this was having an impact on Scellestra’s entire outlook and personality.

Scellestra wasn’t certain if this was a good or bad thing.

They reached down with an ‘arm’, taking the time to solidify and pull Ivan to their feet.

“I am glad you are ok and not angry with my failure… ‘buddy’.”

—------------

Clearing out the rest of the prison had been a simple matter. The vast majority of the Uhae forces had been deployed to stop the devastation happening at the hands of TANK and ODIN, simplifying the cleanup of the lightly defended facility.

This led to the biggest challenge in any military operation: Logistics. In front of the Various AI now stood just over one hundred thousand people of varying species. Ignoring the unfortunate fact that this wasn’t a full count of every confirmed missing person from Far-Sa-De, this provided a set of unique challenges. A hundred thousand people needed to be triaged for injuries, armed where possible, and then moved to the now-awaiting troop carriers. The ground transport vehicles from TANK and ODIN were now ready to get the prisoners off-planet.

They now just had to move the people. To some extent, the easy part was now completed.

“We have transports to get you off the planet, but it is going to take a few trips to get everyone to the ships. This should take an estimated 53 minutes if all goes well, but once the Uhae realize what we’re doing, things are going to get interesting.”

The voice of JOSH boomed out across the crowd of people, mostly Parket, all celebrating in joy at the feeling of being free in their bodies once again as well as investigating the… strangeness of their rescuers.

“We would like anyone willing and able to fight to help defend the area while getting everyone to the pick-up point. We have brought a multitude of weapons and other fun accessories for all anti-Uhae and anti-Uhae related activities!”

The pile of weapons and ammunition were displayed proudly as a testament to this fact, the small armies worth having been disgorged from the storage space found on JOSH’s exosuits. They watched as the freed prisoners walked up to retrieve their weaponry, Terrans, Parket, and even a handful of other species. All of them shared the same look in their eye, a rage and vengeful desire to get even with those who had wronged them.

JOSH could see two figures approaching that they expected to see first in line: Victoria and Jeremy.

“I said something was up with that Roomba. I knew it wasn’t a mindless robot.”

Upon hearing those words JOSH realized they had made a fatal error in introducing Ramsey to the crew: The AI would never hear the end of it from Jeremy.

“Yeah, but you didn’t say they were another AI, did ya?”

“Come on! Who would have guessed that the Roomba was actually a Tritian AI of all things!”

JOSH felt a little bit better upon hearing Victoria push back against the righteous statement from her husband, intercepting the two with one of his now empty exosuits before they could reach the weaponry.

“No Victoria, I have a special weapon for you, as I correctly calculated you would want to aid in the assault.”

There was a moment of delay as the final storage compartment on the last exosuit opened, causing Victoria’s eyes to widen with excitement and joy.

“Is that a…”

“Technically no. The European Union tried to create a replacement for the M134 in 2084, and while this model comes with a slightly faster fire rate and better recoil management, the increased price and doubled maintenance costs caused it to never catch on.”

The joy in the Terran’s eyes was still obvious as she held the weapon out in front of her.

“Also, I have the paperwork to state that this is a salvage item.”

The mad laughter that started to emanate from Victoria, while terrifying to those nearby, told JOSH all they needed to know about how correct they had been to bring the weapon along. The AI was certain that the Uhae wouldn’t know what hit them with Victoria’s newest weapon.

—-------

Estana was still not having a good time, as the past few weeks had not been kind to the Parket. Becoming the Uhae’s queen's new favourite toy had been a taxing experience, the sheer violation of having her own will taken from her, the constant niggle in the back of her head as she went about her ‘tasks’.

She could see the others in the same situation, various species she’d never heard or seen of, all tortured playthings of the Uhae queen, all broken and completely accepting of the life and fate they found themselves in. But Estana wasn’t any of those species, Estana was a Parket.

The Parket and Terrans share a great many similarities, but the biggest one is the simplest: Stubbornness. The phrase “The end of an argument between Terrans and Parket” now referred to a never occurring event in some parts of the galaxy. The strong-willed Avians had easily found a friend with the strong-willed Primates of Sol.

So Estana didn’t stop fighting. Even after the punishments came, even after every poisoning attempt, after every attempt to escape or resist the Uhae was thwarted, Estana still tried. Had everything remained the same for a month, a year, or a decade, the blue Parket would have probably never given up. She was a Parket after all, through and through.

The Terran attack gave her the opportunity she needed. Saelihn was distracted with organizing a defence and working out the attacker's identities and true intentions, but Estana knew exactly why they were there: The other prisoners. There were only two real possibilities for the people attacking the Uhae, and frankly, she didn’t care which one it was. So she ran.

Through the chaos, through a sky that was burning and a world under artillery fire, she ran. Her broken wing made flight impossible, so the Parket stayed on the ground, hoping that nobody would notice. All it would take is for a single moment of realization, a single moment of Saelihn wondering where Estana was for it all to fall apart. Hopefully, the Terrans would keep her distracted for long enough.

Estana felt it as she reached the prison, a feeling of… release, removal. Like a great weight that had been pressing upon her neck was now released. She could see a machine approaching, humanoid, of Terran design. She didn’t care as the Parket collapsed.

“Are you ok? What happened? Do you need aid?”

Estana looked up with tears of rage in her avian eyes, spitting out her first free words since the attack on Far-Sa-De.

“I need a gun!”