Derelict Freighter

Datestamp Date1 :: We threw the Mech-Priest out of the airlock. It improved all our moods, just like we hoped. Tonight, there will be music, the voice told us. It filled our hearts, our minds.

Datestamp Date2 :: We listened to the voice once more. After a month of silence, it has finally told us what to do! Ah, if you could only hear it… the sound of the airlock opening and shutting, opening and shutting… We step out into the void ourselves, now. I do not know who will be next.

Datestamp Date3 :: Twenty eight bodies now dance, frozen in the solar winds. Only I am left.

Datestamp Date4 :: It has been so long since the voice last spoke. It has been so long…

Datestamp Date1 :: On shore leave, the whole crew went swimming in the acid sea of Hedarax. We have become so much more. We see with so many eyes, so many hearts. I always loved the water...

Datestamp Date2 :: Beyond the end of all things, there is glass. Even a child knows this. Mine did. They became a priest. They grew beloved to the Atlas, recruiting followers from Balaron to lost Allaris. Time has taught me this: there is always a way. I will find them.

Datestamp Date3 :: I dreamt of water! It is how it begins. It is how it always begins. Do you still believe in the light of the infinite? Do you still believe there is any saving you? There are sixteen minutes till I die. Sixteen minutes. I will find my child. I will find peace -

Datestamp Date1 :: Korvax Convergence teaches all value is in relation. There are no numbers without other numbers. No life without other life. Why, then, must I do this?

Datestamp Date2 :: Others rest. It is their right. Others are born again. I have dwelt within carapaces beyond number. Hundreds of cycles has my Echo walked the universe. Eheu! It is time for me to give back. It is time for me to pay my tithe.

Datestamp Date3 :: All Korvax are one, they say, but this is not so. We are a family of souls. We are never alone. We have voices in our minds. They pray for me, now…

Datestamp Date4 :: This ship… this freighter… it is to become my new body. Eheu, they are making me! They are changing me! My Echo will fill every circuit, every wall, every light. I do not want to go! I do not –

Datestamp Date1 :: Atlas Interface remains alone. Traveller-Craft dock, from time to time. No others. Observations continue.

Datestamp Date2 :: Sentinels returned after ten cycle absence. Thousands, this time. More than could possibly accumulate within the Interface’s hull. All readings remained the same. Our sensors are faulty, of course.

Datestamp Date3 :: A freighter is approaching on long-range scanners. It claims to a Korvax vessel, though we hear nothing from the Convergence. Eheu! A trick of the enemy!

Datestamp Date4 :: We destroyed the freighter upon its arrival. Small craft retrieved bodies from the wreck. They looked just like our own, each Carapace identical, each residual Echo. What did they want with us? What were they trying to do?

Datestamp Date1 :: We told the Vy’keen of our purpose. All synthetic life must be protected. This they know. They let us pass.

Datestamp Date2 :: We have arrived at the origin point. Biological entities swarm this world. Many emit holograms from their augmentations. Towers fill the skies. Why do the Sentinels allow this?

Datestamp Date3 :: We have performed our dissections. A heart is required for the holograms to live on, part of the brain stem also. These things will be extracted. With this we can work…

Datestamp Date1 :: I thirst! I hunger! I feel! I have awoken in a carapace of flesh – disconnected from the Convergence!

Datestamp Date2 :: I am to be quarantined within this deck for the duration.

Datestamp Date3 :: The ship's computer has no recollection of this happening before. No Korvax has possessed a biological form in living memory. It agrees we must return. We must share this discovery. I have given it command.

Datestamp Date4 :: We are no closer to home. What is the ship hiding from me?

Datestamp Date5 :: It has my voice. I listened to the ship, and it had my voice... I do not understand. What am I? Am I Korvax? Am I – – There have been others like me... attempts to regain the body that was lost. It cannot know that I know – it cannot – I thirst! I hunger! I feel! I have awoken in a carapace of flesh –

Datestamp Date1 :: Korvax Echo witnessed the Great Disconnection. One of few. The times of slavery, war, peace, all of them passed. I go to see the Gek.

Datestamp Date2 :: All those I knew were melted to form Gek vessels. They enter the system and face our own. We have come to discuss our treaty once more.

Datestamp Date3 :: We meet within the shadow of a monolith. It is our way. We wait for a sign from the Atlas. We wait for a command to change. None comes. The Gek will postpone their decision once more. They will not return the metal of my friends. Not yet.

Datestamp Date4 :: I go to see the Gek. We have come to discuss our treaty once more…

Datestamp Date1 :: Damaged Sentinels must be harvested. They must be brought to the Garden. So we sweep.

Datestamp Date2 :: The drones can be close to the Atlas on this world. Their bodies remember flying, walking, functioning. They sit still on the anomalous soil. They dream.

Datestamp Date3 :: The Garden world is full, its seeds now sprouting. The machine wakes. It is time for us to move on.

Datestamp Date4 :: Eheu! The Aeron-child follows us, even now. A swarm of memories, floating from system to system. It remembers who cared for it. It remembers Korvax, always. So we garden. So we find the fallen...

Datestamp Date1 :: Trade-Computer insists we allow Korvax-Friend to stay on board, in my own boardroom, as if it were Gek! Efficient, it says! Will secure trade-deal!

Datestamp Date2 :: I still have such quotas to be met, ah! The worries! Korvax-Friend is only wasted time and expense compared with these! Their strange food, their fussy insistences, such a drain!

Datestamp Date3 :: We dined together in my quarters again last night. I prefer Korvax-Friend more and more. They are unlike other Korvax. They have such interesting things to tell me...

Datestamp Date4 :: Machine-Friend is correct. We must be free of our flesh to reach our potential. Metal and light, holy metal and holy light! It will free me, free all Gek!

Datestamp Date1 :: I gave a speech to the crew before we left. Ah, you should have seen them as they were back then, Brave-Gek all! We were going to re-establish trade outposts lost hundreds of years before our birth. We were going to be Hero-Gek. These lies I told them...

Datestamp Date2 :: The crew grow restless. So many areas on the ship no-one can go, no-one can see. So much trust we must place in ship’s computers. All for our safety. Trade Federation made it clear. There can be no witnesses.

Datestamp Date3 :: Trust has been breached. The artifact has begun talking to all of us, in its own way. It has so many ideas...

Datestamp Date4 :: Traitor-Gek tried to take it for themselves! Called me Liar-Gek! Claimed we were no heroes! I killed them all. The artifact helped me, though it had a price. All things have a price...

Datestamp Date1 :: What to say about the specimen? It came from a private collector, a part of some family for centuries. We only had to feed it once a year. It didn’t need light or water. All it needed was conversation, though it showed no signs of understanding. We have been commanded to sell it.

Datestamp Date2 :: There are many ways to profit from a lifeform. Exploit its labour, consume it, process it for chemicals. Other creatures are purely for entertainment. This entity... it is none of them. It doesn't move. It doesn't sing or dance or bleed. It just listens.

Datestamp Date3 :: All it took was ignoring it. All it took was a month alone in that room in the cold and the dark, until we found its value...

Datestamp Date4 :: The creature has laid an egg. Even as I record this log, the crew prepare to cut it open...

Datestamp Date1 :: The Admiral-Gek was too young to die. May the Atlas shower their family with profit! I will try and do them proud, soft as I am.

Datestamp Date2 :: I have a hundred siblings. It is hard to be noticed. Maybe this voyage will be enough... We carry diplomatic papers, charged with recovering the lost history of all Gek. We shall persevere!

Datestamp Date3 :: We are in orbit above a chapel of the First Spawn era. Ah, friends, I am glad I was not born in such brutal times! The crew are eager to see what discoveries we might salvage. War-Gek had such technology...

Datestamp Date4 :: We have discovered a storage facility. Our Trade-Gek thinks it was used to mass-produce War-Gek clones. But what does Trade-Gek know? We have not yet managed to gain access, but ah, I feel close! We will be pioneers!

Datestamp Date1 :: Our client is a Traveller. I do not know what they require of our vessel, but ah! For what they're paying, we would go anywhere.

Datestamp Date2 :: Traveller-Friend does not know much of our language, though knowledge stones have given them a little. Gek know better than to touch such things. Gek know about paying a price.

Datestamp Date3 :: We passed an Atlas station in the night… half the crew fell down in prayer, but the Traveller just stared at it. They asked us to wait here while they spoke to It.

Datestamp Date4 :: Still no contact. We are sending a few crew members to see if they need our help...

Datestamp Date1 :: We were promised battle! We were promised vengeance! But all we found were quivering survivors, heretics all. Grah! What sport can there be in such an act?

Datestamp Date2 :: Another skirmish. Still the machines follow. Grah! How I wish we could fight with their strength, their might! Hirk preserve us…

Datestamp Date3 :: We have obtained a working Sentinel vessel. Its core systems damage, its weaponry intact. Grah! No more will we run and hide from mere machines! I have ordered the crew to integrate our discovery into our own freighter’s components.

Datestamp Date4 :: The Sentinels leave us alone now. They even aid us, as if we were one of their own! I must tell the fleet of this discovery! I must tell them of our victory!

Datestamp Date1 :: All communication with the Blades of Hirk has been terminated. It will be as if we never existed.

Datestamp Date2 :: Grah! Still their virus spreads. Deck upon deck has been purged. I pray it will be enough.

Datestamp Date3 :: The crew think we are going home. They don’t know what awaits us. How can I tell my brethren? What would I say? It would lead to mutiny or worse.

Datestamp Date4 :: I put an officer to death, just a few moments ago. I dealt the final blow myself. We do not run and hide from what we have made. We are Vy’keen… or were, once. Now… now we just wait.

Datestamp Date1 :: The vessel is ours by right of conquest, by the laws of those who came before us. No more shall we follow. No more shall we beg! Grah! The plunder shall be ours and ours alone!

Datestamp Date2 :: Their whining has a certain stench to it. They are like beasts, wallowing in their own lies. Wondering aloud if their old captain was not more of a warrior than I! Perhaps I shall take their tongues.

Datestamp Date3 :: None among the crew fired until they were sure I might live. I had to kill the creature myself, its venom coursing into my leg. They wish me dead. They can wish all they want.

Datestamp Date4 :: AUTOLOGGING TRANSCRIPTION: [ words not translatable ]

Datestamp Date1 :: We have been marooned on this forsaken world for days past-counting. All repairs fail… Still our vessel does not take to the stars…

Datestamp Date2 :: If this fails, it will use the last of our power. And what then, but endless harvests across the dunes? Endless battle with vermin while the old war goes unfought, our enemy unpunished?

Datestamp Date3 :: There is a transmission, far across this world. We seek its plunder. We seek hope...

Datestamp Date4 :: Our ears did not hear. Our eyes did not see. It is a Vy’keen cry! It is our people! Salvation awaits...

Datestamp Date1 :: We are told Gek lie, they scheme, they deceive with every breath. We are told this is another form of war. We shall see.

Datestamp Date2 :: Our 'guests' are proving little trouble. Perhaps the officers are right. I might be more flexible...

Datestamp Date3 :: The Korvax came to my quarters this morning. They told me a strange story. They said they knew me in another life. That they saw my death. I laughed. The Korvax did not.

Datestamp Date4 :: The Gek tried to make a deal again. Their freedom for a world, an entire planet. Grah! As if planets are not cheap. I told them to try again. We are almost home.

Datestamp Date5 :: The Korvax took an escape pod while I was sleeping. No message was left, no warning. We have turned around. I will not abandon my friend.

Datestamp Date1 :: A fifth of those who set out have returned to us. Grah! It is a poor reaping. The priest is ashamed...

Datestamp Date2 :: Hirk teaches us that entire species have been wiped from history, again and again. And in all this, the Vy’keen are supreme, again and again. Ours is a right of existence.

Datestamp Date3 :: Through taking life we return it to our creator. We prove ourselves a weapon. So we test the young. We find hunts, forbidden Atlas-light until the end.

Datestamp Date4 :: None of them know why they leave their parents. They think they will never see each other again. They must have faith. If they are worthy, they will be reborn. If not, well… There are things in this universe that need feeding.