Algintal Reports 2 - Dronietta

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Star date Y113.08.02. Natelia of Ataraxia Pharmacies, Material Acquisition Division, continuing from my last report: What I "forgot" to mention to Miss Formur was my discovery of another piece of equipment at the last RogD battle site she send me to; a Raid Drone Navigation Chip, discovered on the wrecked remains of a dysfunctional raid drone. The chip hinted that the drone queen was making another assault one the augmented drone strain at Parchanier VI Moon 5, so, of course, I had to check it out.

Arriving at the scene I spotted a number of RogDs patrolling a drone hive which they apparently had wrecked too. I guess the drone queen in the Skeleton Comet was a quite persistent lady. To my surprise my ships scanners picked up the presence of another cracked mind cage like at the previous battle site. Interest in seeing if it too contained remnants of a Cognitive Hive Mind, I engaged the RogD guards.

No match for the SS Endorphin and I soon found the Cognitive Hive Mind I has suspected. To my surprise, the ships scanners identified a single drone who was still active. Though, it was severely damaged and energy readings showed minimal activity. Funnily, it seemed to try and hide behind a piece of floating rock. To my surprise, and initial horror, the drone seemed interested "talking" to me. I had no idea these metal beasts could talk. I did not understand much of what the drone was saying before I had a binary decoder to help me out:

Drone Mind – 01010011 01001111 01010011 (1 of 2)

Damaged Drone Hive Mind aka. 'Dronietta'

I warped off and found there… nothing! Except a lone Hulk slowly chewing on rocks. I assumed that was not what the drone was talking about and there were many asteroid belts in the system, perhaps I should simply look elsewhere.

At third location there was nothing, not even an asteroid larger than a Fedo, to be seen, but just as I was about to go look for another asteroid belt three ships warped in. The ships computer identified them as Serpentis registered vessels that carried the designation 'Crook Defender'. Strange name and to my great dismay they started opening fire on me. They must have been high on something strong as they were far from any match for my Cynabal; even before I had finished thinking the thought my trusty guns had turned them into piles of rubble. I could just as well look through the wrecks to see if anybody or anything had survived the destruction. To my surprise all of the three ships had a Binary Transpositional Code item that had avoided destruction. That was properly what Dronietta had in mind.

Dronietta was indeed interested in the Binary Transpositional Code and "said":

Drone Mind – Embryo (2 of 2)

Apparently Dronietta somehow improved, at least she suddenly became a bit more understandable:

Yay, finally able to understand each other. Or at least me understand her, maybe she understood me all along. Anyway, the darling needed an embryo of some sort, I guess I could help with that. Dronietta replied:

Aether Drone Hive with spatial rift

Aether Drone Queen

Aether Drone Hive Germinator

Astonishingly, a beacon labeled 'Aether Drone Hive' suddenly appeared on Overview. Like drawn to it, I set off to investigate. Nothing was present at the entrance stage except an acceleration gate leading to the 'Hive Anteroom' further inside the complex.

The Anteroom was guarded by a trio of Aether Guardian drones, three Drone Patrols and five Drone Processers. The drones in the first group were about medium sized, like cruisers, while the second group was a bit larger, like battlecruisers. All the Processers were about frigate sized. In the middle of the stage lay the ruins of a very old space station that the drones had been converting. Behind the station something large and shiny could be spotted but I had to dispatch the drones, which very obviously were hostile to my presence, before I could investigate further.

A few minutes of fighting later and could get closer to the shiny stuff and discovered to my amazement it was a large spatial rift. Oblivious to the danger such a rift can pose, I flew closer to investigate. Astoundingly, my navigational computer picked up a trace through the rift and I hit the warp key without thinking…

Few seconds later I got to my senses as I dropped out of warp and multiple hostile drones appeared on Overview. Three Aether Gatekeepers and, I could first not believe it, a large Aehter Queen with her escort of Curators and Equerries (four of the first, three of the last). The drones were all small to medium sized except the Aether Queen which was about the size of a battleship. Obviously the matriarch of this new breed of drone, she looked extremely deadly too. The drones were protecting a strange 'germinator' structure of some kind. Could not peek much before aggressive drones were all over me. I dodged left and right and eventually managed to bring down all the Gatekeepers and the Queens escort. But the Queen herself had unfathomable armor regeneration ability; much greater than my guns could damage her. I had no choice but to make a temporary retreat.

Luckily, SS Endorphin was not the only ship I had nearby. The SS Dopamine, my trusty Dominix type battleship, was packed with heavy blasters and ready for action. Navigating my way through the Aether Drone Hive I encountered the Queen again and, after a lot of blasting, finally brought her down. In the wreck I found the Drone Mind Embryo for Dronietta.

Dronietta sounded… "excited"... maybe, not sure:

Along with the thanks, she presented me with some ability enhancing implants, which I guess, if I never think about where they came from, can become quite handy. I also noticed Dronietta had identified herself as a member of Outer Ring Excavations, though I doubt she would ever pass the job interview. But, apparently she had managed to hack the ORE database and added some positive entries about my persona. Not very well formulated though, in fact, hysterically funny ones. I was grinning to myself all the way to Deltole and it was only much much later a thought popped into my head: "Hey, did she say 'procreate'?"

To Arek'Jaalan: Ancient Races