Crimson Stars - 5 (Patreon)

5. Unidentified

Yamaloka System

The rover radio was quietly playing music as I ran through some stretches in the living compartment in the back. I had been placed on the back benches while my body recovered from the burn of Bloodshot. A few days had passed and I was probably better by that point, but there also wasn’t anything pressing to do.

So I had nothing better to do but a bit of physical exercise while trying not to go mad with boredom. Which was far too much of life in the Resistance. We had to bide our time and wait for rare chances to actually do anything.

And, even when we did do something, it rarely managed to be anything more than annoying for the vampiric authorities.

When I finished the cool down stretches, I dug through the mini-kitchenette for a protein pudding, and then headed towards the driver’s seat at the front of the rover. I stared out at the wide dead landscape ahead of me while digging through the thick and barely flavoured nutritional paste with a spoon. A dust devil zipped past, but, apart from that, there was nothing between me and the distant volcanoes other than rocks, boulders, and more rocks.

At least the sun was up.

“And that’s it for the morning music hour,” the radio host’s voice crackled. “On for the weather. As always, it’s going to be a scorcher today… pretty well everywhere. The cool spot is Khoon, with a brisk 43C. Also, Fortune Canyon is under a dust storm advisory all day.

“Now, the news—”

I flicked the radio off before they started up with the propaganda and lies.

Then it was just me, the protein pudding, and the soft howl of the weak wind outside.

I finished the pudding and headed back to clean the jar and the spoon. Then I tossed the jar in the empties bin, realising it was starting to fill up. I was going to need to head into town soon. I just hoped I had some legitimate work to—

A rumble shot through the rover.

I scrambled over to the window to look out at the ridge of volcanoes on the horizon. Well, ridge was an overstatement. There were just the two of them, but they were massive. The whole eastern horizon was covered by them as they rose up out of the atmosphere.

Neither seemed to be erupting, though. Which meant it had probably been a meteor impact. I cursed the weather broadcast under my breath for not predicting any. If I’d known I would have tried to head to cover. Or out of the impact estimate zone.

Something.

I didn’t like the idea of dying to a random space rock.

Before I could manage to come up with any more complaints, though, the two way radio crackled alive.

“Hey! Sk—you there?”

The transmission was even worse than the normal radio, but it always was.

I hurried over and picked up the receiver. “Skoda here. What’s up?”

“Did—feel that?”

“Yeah. It seemed close. Closer than I’d—“

“The impact w—twenty K’s n—est of your positi—you c—y?” came a particularly garbled transmission.

“Repeat please?”

“—north north west of—can you investigate? Do you copy?”

“The impact sight? You want me to go to the meteor?” I asked.

“—not a meteor. Som—else. The Vampires are excite—”

“Not a—” I mumbled under my breath, before lifting the receiver back to my mouth. “I’ll check it out.”

“Good.”

The transmission cut off and I hung up the receiver. Then I hopped into the driver’s seat and started heading mostly to the north. The land was uneven, boulders and ravines cutting across it so that I couldn’t drive very quickly. On a proper road the old hauler could skirt 50km/h, but on the unworked wild lands I was lucky to cover half that.

Today wasn’t turning out very lucky. The air was filled with dust from the impact, and the ground was covered with freshly fallen stones (that got bigger the closer I got to the impact). Trying to navigate through it all was a nightmare.

It took me two hours just to travel twenty kilometres. Which did not get me to the impact point, though at least the dust was clearing up and I could see the direction the debris had crashed down from in long streaks. It was quite a bit further west than I was, either proving I’d drifted off track a little (civilian positioning satellites being pretty trash) or whoever had been at the base had a different idea of what ‘north-north-west’ meant than I did.

Swearing under my breath, I corrected my course and followed the lines of debris in the straightest line I could manage.

After another half an hour I finally made it to a ridge where I could see the crater and I had to share a few more swears with the empty rover. The place was already crawling with guardsmen, pouring out of shuttles. No vampires, obviously. It was daylight.

But there were plenty of humans in the militia.

I only had so much brain power to spend on glaring at the traitors to the species, though. My eyes were drawn to the crater proper. It was massive, easily a kilometre across. Then, in the middle of it, was something that was glinting in the sunlight that was now breaking through the dust. It looked totally pulverized, but I could still tell it had been artificial. Whatever it was.

Since I wasn’t getting past the guardsmen setting up tape and modular buildings, I was about to turn around and leave. I’d figured I at least had something to report… and then I noticed what looked like a parachute fluttering along the ground about near the horizon. Off to the east.

Curiosity getting the better of me, I decided to go check it out. Turning around, I did my best not to get any attention from the guardsmen. There was still enough dust in the air I hoped they wouldn’t notice my now rather well camouflaged rover as I rolled away.

With all the debris from the impact on the ground around here, it was slow going, but I eventually made it to where the parachute was. I pulled up as close as I dared with the rover. Then I grabbed my scattergun, pulled on an oxygen mask, and closed the door between the cab and the living compartment. Most of the air in the rover secured, I popped the door open, hopped out, and tried to slam it shut before all the breathable air blew out the door.

It was hot, dry, and dusty out. I was glad I wasn’t trying to breathe the air. Even if I still had to feel the dirt caking onto every sweaty exposed bit of skin I had. At least there wasn’t any humidity to worry about.

Making my way over the rocks, scattergun at the ready, I headed towards what I realised was some sort of ejector seat. It looked a bit fancier than any I’d ever seen, but the actual seat only held my attention for a moment or two. It was the occupant that stole the show.

It looked like someone had shoved a statue into the seat, for some reason. A humanoid thing, with joints of brass or gold, and a sort of porcelain skin on the parts that didn’t need to bend.

Even with the fancy seat it clearly hadn’t handled the crash landing with the surface of Samhata as well as had surely been hoped. One of the arms and the head had both broken off, and the ceramic parts were cracked in several places.

Still, it was definitely tied to whatever it was in the crater. The vampires would probably want their hands on it, and I wasn’t going to give them that.

I leaned my gun against one of the rover’s tires, then pulled out the winch mechanism. The rover was designed to haul junk and scrap (and actually did that just enough to keep people from wondering how I made a living), so I was ready to load the statue onboard. Even when I realised it was bigger than I’d thought. The whole thing would have probably been two metres tall in one piece. Maybe bigger.

It definitely towered over my 155cm. Still, there was a reason I worked out as much as I did, and I was able to drag evering into place and then winch it into the cargo hold in the back of the rover. I closed it up, grabbed my gun, and headed back into the driver’s cab.

Once the door was closed and the air filled back up I pulled off the oxygen mask and gasped in the air conditioned bliss of the rover’s inside.

Then I started driving, wanting to get as much distance between me and the crater as possible. I was very glad the dust was still settling after the impact, so my tracks weren’t going to be as obvious as they might have been.

I managed to last another hour before the dehydration from working outside got to me and I had to get a drink. But then I went right back to driving.

“—da? Report,” the two way radio crackled.

I picked it up with one hand while continuing to drive across the rough landscape. “Skoda here. The guardsmen beat me. They had shuttles. I found something, though.”

“Found what?”

“I don’t know? A statue maybe? It definitely came from… whatever it was that crashed.”

“Not a—eor?”

“No. Looked artificial from what was left of it. Plus, there was the statue-thing.”

“Affi—we will meet at—‘s Corners.”

“Balla’s Corners?” I asked.

“Yes. Balla—rs.”

“I’ll be there. Might take a few hours, though,” I replied, before the radio crackled back to silence.

With a destination, I made my way towards the nearest road. A dirt track that someone had decided to declare a planetary highway as some kind of a joke. A joke that the maintenance authorities didn’t bother acknowledging, letting the whole thing fall apart.

Balla’s Corners were a good hundred kilometres away, so would be a couple hours of driving. Also far enough that I would hopefully be back off the guards’ radar. Especially because it was off of everyone’s radar, just being a radio relay, general store, and a fuel station. The settlement’s population was in the single digits last time I’d visited.

It was a far enough drive that I ended up needing to use the toilet along the way, so I pulled off the track. All that water I’d drunk to recover from being outside was only staying in my system for so long, after all. The odd thing, though, was that I swore I heard noises coming from the cargo hold through the washroom wall. Noises like something was alive and moving in there.

Once I’d washed my hands I walked up to the driver’s cab and grabbed my scattergun. I held it at the ready while returning to the back of the living pod, flicking the switch to fill the hold with a breathable amount of air. Then I pressed the ‘door open’ button.

And found myself staring at a now assembled and undamaged version of the statue I had loaded in there.

The statue, with its minimalistic facial features, did a sort of blink while looking at me. Instead of eyelids, it had shutters, but the basic idea was the same.

I could only stare back, not sure what to make of it pulling itself back together. Or the fact it could blink.

Then it raised its hand in something like a wave and spoke. A short word or phrase that sounded vaguely friendly.

It took me another moment to realise I should respond, I was still so dumbstruck. “H—hello?”

It blinked again.

“H—hello?” it said, mimicking my words, but in a softer and more feminine sounding voice.

Well, it had sounded somewhat feminine before, but it hadn’t been as easy to tell in whatever language it was speaking. But I could now tell it definitely sounded more feminine than my gruff voice, gravelly from years of shouting and breathing dry dusty air.

“What are you?” I asked.

It gestured to the various bungee cables and rope I’d secured its torso in place with.

“I’m not letting you out just yet. Not until I know what you are… though I have to doubt those things could hold you,” I muttered, thinking about how big it was, the fact it was presumably a machine, and the way it had repaired itself. “How did you put your head back on anyhow?”

“I fīgere I,” it replied.

“What the heck is ‘fīgere’?” I asked.

“Ah, id est antiquum…” the statue said, before muttering something to itself after I just stared blankly. The second part of its muttering sounded even more foreign to me, a much sharper language.

“Alright, I have no idea what language you’re speaking. Or, languages, I guess…but you’re somehow awake and moving and… wait. That would make you an android, wouldn’t it?” I said, lowering my scattergun while I shook my head at the weirdness of it all. “Where does an android that speaks weird languages even come from? Androids are illegal…”

“They is?” the android said, sounding surprised.

“Yes, the vampi—wait, how did you just get better at speaking?”

“Analysis. Synthesis. Evolutionary hypotheses,” it said (or, she, maybe… somehow more than just the voice seemed feminine). “I am cognizant of prototypical linguistic elements.”

“You’re a fast learner,” I replied, starting to worry it might get too good at speaking and I wouldn’t be able to understand it again, but because of my own lack of knowledge. Assuming it wasn’t already there (was that what ‘cognizant’ meant?).

“But—Androids. We are illegal?”

“Uh, yes? Vampires don’t like things with smarts that they can’t eat hanging around?” I replied. “So computers are kept dumb and androids are very illegal?”

“Well, that is vexating,” the android muttered.

“Where the heck are you from that you don’t know about that?” I asked, before an answer came to me. “Elysium?”

“I am from… away.”

“Away?”

“Yes.”

I nodded. I had no idea what to make of that, but I did have to admit she—it seemed polite and friendly. So I could probably return the favour by unhooking the cords and untying the ropes.

“Gratitudeness. I am confused on one point, though,” the android said. “The phrase ‘vampires’… the etymologies I can deduce for such a word refer to a folkloric sanguinophagic abomination.”

I vaguely recognised the term ‘sanguine’ as being a fancy word for blood that vampires sometimes used and decided to guess at what ‘sanguinophagic’ meant.

“Well, the real ones suck souls instead of blood, but, yeah. That’s the basic idea. Though, if you don’t know that they’re real, then…” my mind froze up as I tried to put together all the information and figure out what in the world it could mean.

She must have been from outside the empire. And have left from human settled space a very long time ago. Which… right. Slower than light than light travel. People had sent probes and stuff out way back in the day, didn’t they? Robot probes, if I remembered right. Off to explore distant habitable worlds before we’d learned how to jump. Maybe they’d sent people too?

It was all so long ago it was basically just legends. The stuff we whispered about the myths from before. When civilization was Human Civilization. I hadn’t even known half of it before I’d joined the Resistance, but the historians liked rambling about it and apparently a little bit of it all had stuck in my brain.

“You’re from an old probe, aren’t you? From before the Vampires happened. Something that went out beyond the jump bubble…”

She stared at me, still seated. It looked like she was putting facts together in her own mind, though it took only a sliver of time next to how long I’d taken.

“Yes,” she said, nodding and letting her eyes shift in a way that seemed happy. “I was sent—sent back to find out what has happened here. To the Earth.”

The last word threw me, wondering why she was interested in soil until I remembered one of the other things the historian types had rambled about.

“Impetus. It’s called Impetus now. The vampires renamed all nine planets in the Inferno system after circles of an old underworld myth,” I replied.

The android stared at me for a moment, again processing what I’d said. “Oh. Oh yes. The circles of Hell in Dante’s Inferno. Yes. Nine circles…”

She went quiet again. It was a lot to take in. Especially if that crash had her still out of it a little. Still, it couldn’t have even been a minute before she spoke up again.

“I think I can help.”

“Help?” I asked.

“With the vampires. You don’t seem to like them.”

I blew out a small burst of air to make it clear that was an understatement.

“If I can contact home, I can call for aid,” she said.

That was… I found myself leaning against the doorframe, needing to hold on to something while my mind processed that. It meant—it meant the Resistance might actually do something real. In my lifetime.

“We’ll see what we can do,” I replied, once I’d gotten myself grounded again. “We’re going to meet up with some allies of mine. They’ll know what we can do to help you… um, did you have a name?”

“Yes. Tamchim,” she replied. “And you?”

“Skoda. Skoda Joshi,” I said.

I then told her to stay in the back before walking up to the driver’s cab. I shut the door to the living pod, to give her a little more space to walk around (though I kept my scattergun at my side, just in case). There was still a half an hour or so’s drive to Balla’s Corner, and it would give me some time to think. Time to process everything she’d said.

It had said.

Even if it had a name, it wasn’t human, right? It was a machine.

With programming.

As I drove the initial enthusiasm faded a bit and well honed paranoia nibbled at my confidence. Could the vampires have built it? They had all sorts of hidden sciences buried in libraries older than their empire. Who knew what millennia old secrets they could dig out? They had ancient knowledge that made klivanions almost impossible to kill, healing from any wound. A machine that could repair itself was probably doable, wasn’t it?

It all seemed too perfect. There had been thousands of years of vampiric rule. What were the odds our prayers to the empty universe would be answered while I was alive?

A trap seemed more likely. Bait they wanted us to lead into our headquarters, to hit us with a decapitating strike.

But what if Tamchim was the real deal? What if there actually was hope to be had?