IC
M-5 35 System, three thousand years ago
A bright lime green flash announced the ingression of the Fiduse exploration and research vessel Terminus into the system of M-5 35, the fifty third system surveyed, the small deep blue vaguely mantis ray shaped vessel began its work by releasing a number small black probes inward towards the terrestrial orbital bodies as its own scanners and sensors began to report back on the gas giant the vessel now orbited. The crew noted the rocky rings and pock marked moons, but little of worth was discovered. Life had not chosen to bless these worlds; their mineral wealth was likewise depleted.
Instead Terminus turned inward documenting with probe and sensors the inner rocky planets of the system and its trio of yellow-orange stars. The scramble to catalog this intertwine of gravity and plasma quickly left the ringed gas giant behind. As more data began to flow in the researchers found that the system was not entirely stable, the stars had began to spiral into one another. The researchers’ initial assessment placed only a few thousand years left before they completed their fatal dance. The resulting flux of energy would surely destroy anything in the system; the researchers briefly intercoursed with their mission control delivering their estimates and data collected thus far. After several days of observations, the researchers were finally able to tear themselves away from the stars and again focus on the other orbiting bodies in the system, and what their probes had gathered both shocked and delighted them, the second body was inhabited and the third had the suggestions of once being inhabited. The researchers reviewed their data, no signs of FTL usage had been detected thus far from this region of space. Concerned that a sentient species could well be wiped out the researchers directed their small vessel towards the planet.
Only a few hours later the researchers had established contact with someone or something, the translation of the alien language had proven difficult but at last they managed to swap names and the intelligence told the researchers that it too knew it was doomed, and that its masters had built and given full control to it to find a solution, but that had been two hundred years previously and it had not found a workable solution...
*Data logs have been corrupted*
A few days later, Terminus crew were dead, driven into rage filled insanity, clan brother had turned on clan sister, the insane turning on the not quite sane. Terminus’ power plant and FTL drive had been jettisoned a few hour previously by the last "sane" member of the crew before she too was overrun by the virus that infected the links, the ships data banks had been purged but not quickly enough the intelligence had lied and deceived, gathering the exploration data that the researchers had thoughtfully gathered and had begun to twist the vessel and its data into its own purposes. It infected and reprogrammed the FTL equipped probes still onboard; placing but a minuscule part of its own vast intelligence into each. Once the defiling was complete it launched the probes towards the other inhabited planets Terminus had glimpsed. Dozens of lime green flashes rebounded off the planet’s surface...
Fiduse recovery vessel Artemis, two years later M-5 35 system
A familiar lime green bounced off the gas giant’s moons as Artemis jumped into the last known location of Terminus, it had taken two lingering years to retrace the Terminus’ path. Artemis soon after began a system wide search for the Terminus. Pinpointing its location just beyond the second body, Artemis’ crew remotely attained the vessel’s logs and began to search for the reason as to why they had lost contact; almost as soon as they started the crew could tell something was seriously wrong with the vessel…
A lime green flash denoted the swift exit of Artemis, its crew choosing to flee after accessing the numerous still hidden subroutines and downloading the majority of the Terminus's log. They hoped that they had missed the ever present gaze of the machine intelligence. They were wrong...
Artemis, outer edge of Fiduse Space
A sudden and brief transmission reached the outer Fiduse defense fleets, most of it was garbled by static and distressed mumbling of the messenger but the final logs of the Artemis and Terminus were passed on before the transmission was fully silenced.
After no further contact with Artemis could be established, the logs were passed onto the Fiduse Central Council, they were aghast as the final parts of both vessel’s logs played back, the crew eliminating each other in brutal almost mechanical fashion, how both crews had sacrificed themselves to stop the taint for not, as the last recorded information showed that the taint had spread..
A united clan warfleet was aroused, the largest such fleet since the unification of the core systems and dispatched to the planet, due to the effects of time dilation and limitation of their FTL, these fleets took a decade to amass and another two years to arrive, allowing the taint time to spread and prepare. With every planet glassed to the bedrock another two sprung up, with great difficulty and loss of life and matériel they corralled the taint at last into three systems in an unimportant sector. As events elsewhere required their attention, a quarantine system was developed until the problem could be effectively dealt with, but years of war had drained the Fiduse coffers and the public support with the problem getting passed off onto each new generation as new crisis emerged.
The Present, Quarantine flagship, Terminus XI
The quarantine fleet had stagnated over the numerous years, vigilance had been allowed to fall as increasingly obsolete and ancient vessels were allowed to populate the fleet. The taint had not dared to try a break out for decades, and most thought it had given up, content with the handful of worlds it currently held. They were wrong...
"Admiral detecting multiple contacts."
"Our relief?"
"Afraid not sir, they're coming from the taint side of the border."
"Damn it, full battle stations, alert the..."
Admiral Briggins was unable to finish his order as something massive crashed into his vessel, barely pausing as it continued outward, reaching a point fifteen light seconds out the object broke open, releasing thousands upon thousands of probes, the quarantine fleet began to fire on the probes destroying hundreds at a shot, but still dozens got through. Hundreds of lime green flashes lit up the battered remains of the Terminus XI...
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