The astronauts entered the ship, bouncing across the lunar surface. Two sets of astronauts. Two power blocs, on the pale blue dot below. Two different ideologies. Two different faces of humanity. United, for once, in their mutual desire for exploration and the new faction this ship represented.
They approached a hull breach. Up close, the ship looked even more foreboding and ominous than normal. The power was dead, with no signs of activity. Rudimentary cameras and some such, searched through the wreckage. No heat, no thermals, and no movement. The place was dead. The two groups nodded to each other, communicating on radio frequencies. The situation on the ground was tense enough, with fingers being put on the trigger, and nerves being strung. There was a chance of nuclear Armageddon. Nobody wanted it, but nobody wanted the other to get the advantage either. Thus, a decision was made. This would be a joint operation.
The leaders of the respective expedition stepped up. And, as one, they stepped over the threshold, stepping into the ship. One small step for them, one giant leap for mankind. Upon landing, the shockwaves from their boots spread out from the impact, kicking up a cloud of lunar dust. They looked back to their expeditions, and beckoned. The teams would explore the wreckage, and hopefully find something useful. Or prevent the others from finding anything.
Taking small little jumps, the denizens of Terra began to slowly explore the dark hallways of the fallen ship.
—————————-
It had no name.
There was no true need for it. It was the ship. It was part of the ship. It was not of the ship. It had no body. Its body was the ship. It was there, making all the systems run normally, to Ensure life support was not cut off, to make sure that the ship did not plow itself into a star or get trapped within a black hole. Amongst its many missions, it was to protect the integrity of the ship, fight off intruders, and to protect its inhabitants.
But now, those missions were in danger. Non-friendlies had entered its confines. It was still damaged, from the dimensional jumps and the damage from its pursuers, large amounts of damage had been inflicted amongst its subsystems and power. In fact, the scientist that had examined it from Earth had been right. The power systems were down. The only thing that let it run its consciousness.... was a slow trickle of mana that it absorbed from the surroundings, and the power it gained from the heat the ship absorbed when the lunar surface was exposed to the sun. But that was barely enough to awaken it. Beforehand, it had more power to spare. But with all the power devoted to repairing itself, it could not spare any to wipe out the intruders. And as it watched, the intruders entered the darkened areas of the ship. The places where power had died, and the cameras and security turrets with it. Once there, they would be out of its reach.
Besides, one of its directives was to serve and obey the human race. And with all of its crew unconscious, it, itself, was in a bind. Numerous directives and orders conflicted within it. Slowing it down. Confusing it. Scattering its efforts. And with barely enough power to activate systems and
Then it hit upon a solution. Its crew was unconscious. And it needed assets to wipe out the intruders.
So it shall revive them. If a human were to realise what it did, he or she would applaud it for the artificial intelligences' imitation of the human behaviour of 'passing the buck'. The computer reasoned, that if a crew were to be revived, it would be able to give working directives or at least orders. And with a crew surviving and moving under their own power, they could deal with the intruders where the computer could not do so itself. A flawless solution.
But where, though? Whom? Most of the crew were severely injured before being put into stasis and hibernation. They would be in no position to speak, or even get out and fight. Except for one. Just one. Barely injured, with a small cut on her arm. Training in police work, hostage negotiation, and non-lethal takedowns. High scores in all tests. A recent graduate from the Peacekeeper Academy.
It set to work, carrying out life support and pumping in mana, and casting out telekinetic tendrils to awaken the sleeper. No time to lose, now.
———————————
They did not dream.
That was a minor quirk of their biology. A small price to pay, really.
They were a race meant to explore the universe, back when mankind was weak and frail. Artificial intelligence was limited, and human explorers often suffered catastrophic mental breakdowns, died, withered away, or fell victim to their own neuroses. The universe was a dark and dangerous place. And so they were made, to explore it, catalogue it, and tame it. Hyper-efficient biological systems. Perfect memory, along with the ability to carry out multiple trains of thought. Enhanced musculature and repair systems. Reduced need for sleep. Adaptations to survive in the vacuum of space. Reduced fatigue. Multiple brain enhancements and alterations to mental state.
And last but not least, the ability to go into hibernation.
When the ancients made them, did they glimpse, what would later turn against them and replace them? Or were they too arrogant, too sure in their power, as they sent out this new race into the great beyond?
Alisa was a member of the Peace Keeper Academy before The Fall. Recently graduated, in fact. If a Terran was to see her, he would peg her age as roughly 15. As the universe began to break up into civil war, she and other members of law enforcement, directed bands of refugees and civilians onto the generation ships. The ships, built by government funds and private shipyards, were to be a new hope. A way for them to make a new home, far away from the fighting. It was just unfortunate, that they had met some rather malicious and belligerent militia, who had insisted on opening fire.
In the chaos of the jump, the rest of the Peace Keepers were injured, and kept in stasis. With time and luck, they would reenterr service as savants of Law and Order. Of those who kept chaos and anarchy at Bay. But not today. Today, what was needed was speed. The girl was within a bulkhead, a trail of blood where her arm had been cut by a stray piece of metal, as she was flung from the impact of the crash-landing, the hull-metal breached by the stresses of the landing. Now she lay still, in the gloom, covered in lunar dust, her Peacekeeper uniform covering her prone form. Her body was the same temperature as the dirt around her. Her body did not move, her heart did not beat, and her breathe did not stir the soil. From all normal perspectives, she was a dead corpse.
Within her skull, protected from the deadly effects of solar radiation by passive defences that used ambient mana to create a shield, preserved by glycerol and anti-freeze proteins, a neuron sparked, synapses releasing chemicals and passing a voltage. And then another. And then another. And another. Until consciousness began to stir. If a map was to be made of the brain activity, it would look like the dancing sparks of fireworks, or perhaps the glow of bioluminescence. The body itself, began to restart. The Linker Core beat once, then twice, then thrice, pumping mana and powering spells. The cold rime of frost across her body vanished in a puff of steam. Stimulants were expelled by glands into her body, overclocking it. Beneath her eyelids, her eyes began to flicker and rotate. A nervous pulse spread to her hand. It began to clench, digging a trench into the lunar regolith that had settled around it.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Alisa began to awaken. Then came the telepathic missives, from the ship's computer.
Alisa of the Peace Keepers. Rise.
Intruder Alert.
Unidentified hostiles detected.
Civilians under danger.
Then came several telepathic messages, showing her a map and where the intruders were. Barely conscious, Alisa of the Peacekeeper force stumbled to her feet, unholstered her wand, and walked through the darkened corridors of the ship, aiming on apprehending whomever had just entered the ship.
No one expects the Peace Keepers.