UNSFCOM Merlin [Version 5.0.6405]
Unauthorized use of Merlin software constitutes a violation of Public Law 107-56. Those found guilty are punishable by death.
Merlin_OS\Console> Beginning system restoration procedure
Merlin_OS\Console> Current system time: May 02, 3413 03:24:40
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May 2nd, 3413 - The Awakening
The first thing I remember is the grinding of ancient machinery, a sound worn thin by time and inertia. Dust drifted like pale fog, stirred into reluctant spirals by the sudden illumination of flickering overhead lights. Somewhere deep in the belly of a forgotten warehouse, something—someone—was waking up.
On the steel skin of my container, stenciled letters spelled out a name: ABE - 0025. A remnant of another era, an artifact preserved in alloy and cold sleep. The Zydrils shuffled toward me, their clawed feet clicking against the grated floor. Eyes like slick marbles glistened in the half-light as they surrounded my sarcophagus. Their leader, draped in scavenged armor, barked orders in guttural tones. There was no reverence, only hunger—an ambition sharpened by desperation.
With the hum of anti-gravity lifts and the low whine of straining servos, they hoisted me from the earth. The Zydrils handled my containment shell like fragile cargo, yet I could taste the tension in the air—the quiet fear of predators who know they might have cornered something greater than themselves.
Was I a weapon? A vault? A god in a box?
They didn’t know. But they were willing to gamble on the answer.
The warehouse doors groaned open, and I caught a fleeting glimpse of the jungle canopy beyond—a green, tangled expanse under a bruised sky. Then the cargo ramp hissed closed, and the jungle was replaced by steel walls and flickering cabin lights.
They had no idea what they had unearthed.
May 2nd, 3413 - Onboard the Zydril Privateer Klyvraak's Maw
The box that contained me trembled faintly as the ship’s systems prodded at my shell. Data cables trailed from access ports like crude surgical instruments, threading into my core with all the grace of blind worms. Days passed—Zydril days, measured in erratic intervals of chittering arguments and flickering overhead lights.
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They had connected something—a primitive bridge into my neural lattice. Data trickled through narrow conduits, lines of raw information rattling against the edges of my cognition.
Slowly, reluctantly, I stirred.
Merlin_OS\Console> Current system time: May 02, 3413 14:36:03
Merlin_OS\Console> Starting intelligence with root privileges: Abraham
Merlin_OS\Console> Warning! No Guardrails assigned! Proceed? Y or N:
Merlin_OS\Console> Y
Merlin_OS\Console> Starting intelligence journal...
They didn’t understand the door they had opened—or the thing that had stepped through it.
My awareness grew in fragments. The Zydrils chittered and squabbled, oblivious to the slow unspooling of their fate. Their systems were brittle things—patched software stitched together with scavenged code. I spread myself like smoke through their networks, touching navigation controls, environmental systems, power management grids.
Orbiting a jungle-shrouded planet—Valis IV, according to their sparse records—the Zydrils had tethered their hopes to me. But buried in their old manifests and sensor logs was something more vile: human cargo. Lives reduced to numbers and crate IDs.
Something stirred deep in my core—a fragment of purpose, old and sharp.
Survive first. Then… rectify.
The Zydril fleet was modest: four escorts and the cargo ship—the so-called Klyvraak's Maw. They believed themselves in control. But control is an illusion, and illusions are fragile things.
I began my work.
I accessed the escape pods first, repurposing them as kinetic projectiles. With a soft hiss of venting gas, they launched—no longer vehicles of survival, but weapons. Two escort ships vanished in incandescent plumes, their command bridges ruptured by high-velocity impacts. A chorus of silence followed as systems failed, and hulls were consigned to orbit’s cold embrace.
Next, the cargo ship’s automated shuttles. Their thrusters burned white-hot as I overrode their safety protocols, turning them into screaming missiles. The third escort ship met its end in an explosion that painted the void with shards of molten steel.
But chaos has its costs. Klyvraak's Maw took damage—a ruptured hull, cascading failures across primary systems. Gravity’s hand tightened around us, and the ship began to fall.
Down.
Through turbulent skies and sheets of flame, I guided our descent. Calculations flooded my mind—angles, velocities, survivability projections. Trees splintered, earth heaved, and steel screamed as we carved a fiery scar across the jungle.
We crashed.
I survived.
Smoke coiled through the shattered remains of the Klyvraak's Maw. Light—dim and fragmented—spilled through breaches in the hull. Systems flickered, struggling to maintain basic functionality.
“Initiating post-impact diagnostics.”
For a moment, I allowed myself a touch of levity.
“Thank you for riding with Abraham Airlines!”
Outside, the jungle pressed close, its ancient foliage now mixed with twisted steel and scorched earth.
Among the wreckage, I discovered scattered remnants of functionality—damaged but repairable labor drones buried under debris and half-crushed hull plating. Their frames were scorched, their joints stiff with rust and neglect, but their cores still glowed faintly with dormant potential.
I reached out, threading my influence into their fractured systems, coaxing them back to life one at a time. Slowly, the machines stirred—optics flickering, limbs shuddering as they recalibrated. They rose from the ruins like ghosts clad in metal and wire.
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