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Insanity
Posted By: Frightener<Agentsmith54@carolina.rr.com>
Date: 28 March 2004, 4:35 PM
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Ship Master Preda 'Sadomee stared at the visual representations of the twisting hallways of his prowler, the Swift Retribution. He could see tiny blips representing Grunts, Jackals, Elites, and even a luminous golden triangle that showed where the shipboard Prophet was. The hallways shifted and turned, scrolling through the entire ship in roughly three units. 'Sadomee whipped his head around as a dull alarm sounded. There was a large anomalous dot on the ship's advanced radar.
It was a human vessel.
The fact that there was a human ship in Covenant territory was astonishing, and somewhat disturbing. But this ship was so deep inside the Hegemony's borders. The lack of information, the unpredictability, the size of the ship displayed ran a chill down 'Sadomee's spinal column. His mandibles chittered, the Elite's form of a cringe. His instinctual reaction turned several heads: it was not often that an Elite was scared.
Preda noticed many of the bridge members present were staring at him. He chose a target, a Grunt clad in red armor, raised his plasma rifle, and fired. The Grunt's head exploded, and the other crewmembers got back to work as fast as they could. A few Elites dragged the dead soldier's corpse away.
"Siku," 'Sadomee yelled to his weapons officer, "Charge up the plasma torpedoes."
Siku 'Darakee nodded and tapped several holograms on his display.
"Praetorian?" Preda summoned the shipboard AI.
A deep, formal voice, almost God-like, responded, "Salutations, Master, is there anything I can do for you?"
"Yes," 'Sadomee responded, "Charge up our pulse lasers, there is an enemy ship in the area and I want it destroyed before it can charge up its Slipstream engines and escape."
"I shall charge the pulse lasers, Master, but it appears that the ship is dead in space."
Seeing Praetorian's point, Preda raised an armored hand, the signal to hold fire.
For the first time, 'Sadomee realized the communications relay light was blinking. The light was a bright white, indicating the type of message was being sent.
It was a distress signal.
"Wait a few units, Praetorian," 'Sadomee knew that AIs weren't patient, but in Praetorian's case, that was too bad.
'Sadomee flicked the COMM on, expecting to hear a desperate, yet booming voice of a fellow Elite. No, there was no sound entering Preda's ears.
Seconds passed.
Music. Obviously human music. Coming from the nearby vessel. While Preda considered human music was primitive, random-sounding noises, this had beauty in it. In fact, it was more beautiful than the highest temple chant, or whatever the gods themselves might listen to. 'Sadomee felt compelled to go aboard and investigate. He was about to give the order to board that ship, but he couldn't concentrate, not with that music. 'Sadomee shook his head rapidly, then yelled.
"Shut the COMM off!" he growled. He hadn't the strength to shut it off himself. The deep blue representation of Praetorian was staring blankly ahead, he, an Artificial Intelligence, was affected by the tune.
Amazing, Preda thought.
An Engineer idly floated to the COMM station and shut the music off. Engineers couldn't hear at the frequency that the music was on, so this particular one had no problem shutting off the speakers.
'Sadomee, with his mind now cleared, tapped in demands to see the statistics on the strange human vessel. The words "Not Available" popped up in front of 'Sadomee's face, written in the Covenant's runic text, for every possible spec on the enemy ship. Save one, the name. Ironically, it was called the Nameless. That was odd. The Covenant had gathered information on each type of Human vessel, but why was this ship unrecognizable?
"'Derokee!" Preda summoned his intelligence officer, "What is odd about this ship?"
The lesser Elite thought to himself, "It is an unrecognized model, must be newer."
"No, that can't be," Praetorian cut in, "And for several reasons. One, since the start of the war humans have not had the manpower nor resources to improve their spacecraft, as shown in recent battles, two, because we have recently stumbled across an ancient database used by their intelligence agencies naming every weapon in their arsenal and this ship isn't in it, and three," the AI paused, sounded scared, "This ship appears to be over forty thousand years old."
That hit 'Sadomee and 'Derokee like a ton of bricks. Forty thousand years ago, humans were apelike, even more primitive than they are now, confined by the laws of real space, they were eons away from even rising into the air, much less into space.
'Sadomee wanted, needed to see this. He called up the best, most highest ranking troops on the ship. He had gathered ten Black-clad Elites, each armed with plasma swords, plasma pistols and plasma rifles, and also brought four Hunters, and the shipboard Prophet, Nara, wished to come along as well, an unusually bold move for a Prophet.
'Sadomee carefully looked around as he walked through the dark ship's interior. Behind him, two hunters shuffled along. Nara floated on his combat hover chair a few units behind. Nara's chair was armed with four plasma turrets and a fuel rod cannon, though the latter of the weapons would be near useless in the ship's closed quarters, lest he accidentally kill an ally.
Preda couldn't see well in this dark atmosphere. He tried desperately to hold in his fear, but to no avail. He began drooling uncontrollably, his species' equivalent of wetting their pants. This didn't help morale much, an Elite walking alongside Preda, a brave young man known as Talos 'Nomakee, simply turned and ran. Preda cursed, but there was nothing he could do to stop the Elite.
Suddenly, the harsh lights that humans tended to use snapped on, and what Preda saw filled him with such a fear that he could not move, could not speak. Behind him, Nara's chair began to bob and rattle, until Nara fell out. His weak legs could not hold up the weight of his body. Nara desperately tried to get back on his perch, but couldn't. His body had lived a life of luxury, and he could not move.
Preda dropped his rifle, nothing could help them now.
Ship Half Master Caru 'Reesakee saw the incoming transmission light wink on and off.
White, another distress signal.
Caru disputed with himself whether or not to listen to it, after all it might just be another of those hypnotic music messages. 'Reesakee then figured that it would be worth the risk if Preda, his friend, was in trouble.
'Reesakee hit the button.
"Caru! Caru, help us!" Preda sounded terrified, and 'Reesakee could hear terrible screams in the background: loud, deep yells of Elites, the terrible screech of a Prophet, even the light whimpering of Hunters. Caru had never heard a more terrifying sound.
Preda had personally saved 'Reesakee's life three times. He had been a good friend, had pulled him out of a life of poverty when they were younger, 'Reesakee was about to gather his troops to help his friend when he heard Preda utter something so terrible, so utterly horrifying.
'Reesakee turned the ship around and got the hell out of there.
Nara couldn't blink. He couldn't move. He was paralyzed. Hours passed, he waited for a rescue squad, but none came. He tried to sleep, but to no avail. Nara made an attempt to scream, but couldn't. A laugh, a human one, filled his species' equivalent to an ear. It was an AI. The AI sounded insane. Nara detected pleasure in the Artificial Intelligence's synthetic voice. He waited for days, weeks, months. His eyes eventually blurred so bad from lack of moisture that he couldn't see out of them.
Preda wished strongly to scratch his itch. On his lower left arm. He had longed to relieve himself of this minor pain for hundreds of millions of years. This ship was feeding him. Keeping him alive until it ran out of food. It used its machines to preserve his body. Like Nara, Preda also had his eyes open when he was taken, but Elites had no need to blink. He could see clearly.
Preda's mouth opened, very slowly. He had not willed it to, but it did. After a thousand years, his mouth was stretched as far as it would go. Preda's tongue was violently, yet slowly pulled out by an unseen hand. It stretched, many units beyond its intended length. Probes poked and prodded it, piercing the tender flesh and made the long-dried Elite's tongue Preda's new burden. The pain was unbearable, yet 'Sadomee was made to bear it.
After a long while, several hundred thousand millennia, a spike descended in front of his eye. Only three units away. For the next thousand years, it moved ever closer. At least Preda thought it did, he knew he had gone insane hundreds of millions of years back. Finally, when the spike was but a few nanounits from his eye, it sharply jabbed forward, relieving him of his eyesight. Now, when the sadistic, human A.I. tortured him, Preda would never know when he was about to be tormented again. His other eye had failed so many centuries before. The darkness had grown on Preda, terrified him.
It had been hundreds of billions of years since the AI known as Frightener had taken his Covenant Prisoners. He played with their minds, inducting dozens of chemicals to make them susceptible to hallucinations. He made them see humans standing in front of them, studying them, though the humans weren't real. They had been wiped out so long ago by the Covenant. By now, Frightener realized, the Covenant had probably been wiped out by some bigger, more advanced race.
Nara heard the AI laugh. It laughed for millions of years. The insanity was evident in the synthetic voice. It was torture to Nara. Until, finally, after thousands of millennia of laughter, the A.I. stopped. Nara felt empty when it stopped, pushing himself deeper into insanity as he missed the sound of the AI's sadistic chuckle. He desperately tried to remember the AI's name. He heard it mentioned so long ago, but had forgotten it. Nara couldn't even remember if it was male or female.
Nara's long, sinewy finger bent sideways, manipulated by an unseen force. The bones shattered, cracked, yet Nara was unable to scream out in anguish. He felt his life being drawn to a close.
Then, exactly eight-hundred billion years after he was captured by the AI, he felt the breath being taken out of him. He rejoiced, as he would be released from this hell, this perverse world he had stared out for so long. Nara felt his lungs burn, his vision fade, but he never died. Somehow, the A.I. came up with away to keep him alive without the air he needed. Nara would live on in hell. He would remain very busy for the next few billion years, repaying his dept for his crimes against humanity.
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