An explosion rocks the ground, flinging metal and shredded flesh high into the air, as the screams of the dead and dying echo against the eerie silence of the Enemy. The explosion is not the only one of it’s kind, but it landed far closer to Captain Julia Rale than she found comfortable. she waits for her rifle to cool down from behind her cover, now and again peeking out at the stainless forms of the invaders, formerly her own people. one shoots a stream of seemingly molten metal in her direction. that one was slightly different, bulkier, and carried a massive cannon on one arm. she jumps from her cover, running. the silver meanwhile had begun melting it, converting it into what the scientists called “baseform”, the purest iteration of the nanites that were the true enemy, comprising the warriors, and the plague that ate at the world she was on.

    A ping sounded in her ear, the automated sensors in the gun saying it’s cool enough to fire, and she fires again, the gun barking as it discharges ammunition wildly behind her, some impacting silvery forms, which drop, still with an alien grace, and return to the baseform spreading under their march. others go wild, shooting into the air, or into the ground. around her, more explosions sound, their position is being overrun, that was nothing new. she’d been running, cut off from all communication, for about a day now. she was tired, but still the inexorable, silvery tide continued onward.    

    In the truest sense of the word, the fight she now has on her hands is hopeless. death doesn’t slow them, and they have more resources than her. Her goal, therefore, isn’t to win. she is holding them off, all of them are, until they can evacuate the noncombattants. that’s it. they can wait and plan for success later, for now, they run, regroup, and run again, so that they could keep the civilians safe.

    She reaches another suitable piece of cover, and drops behind it, firing with far more precision now. behind the marching forces looms an alien planetscape, trees, grass, and buildings all subsumed into the silver, it evens the landscape into a flat plane. in the sky beyond them looms a large, foreign object. like a moon, but far closer, and totally subsumed in silver, the former Outpost Rho, now an incomprehensibly massive invasion point. another missile shoots from the silver sphere, impacting, and revealing a single, silver-tinged form. unlike the others, though, this one still has definition. it looks like an old man, dressed in a labcoat, his eyes lock onto her, and she scrambles back again into a run. seconds later, the cover she was behind shatters into a thousand pieces, as an unseen force strikes it. She runs until she sees a glorious sight, ISU dropships, black painted, and manned with soldiers, they fire at the enemy, holding them back behind a wall of bullets. her energy nearly expended, she reaches the nearest Dropship, and drags herself onto it.

    the relatively small transport lifts off once it has reached capacity, she’s recovered enough now to take potshots at the enemy as they move, lifting out of the battlefield-turned-rout. from the air, the state of the battle is even more clearly seen, the Enemy had begun forming structures from the baseform, anti-aircraft batteries and other, more bizarre structures, whose purpose she couldn’t even begin to guess at.

    Out of the range of the anti-aircraft guns, for now, the transports rally towards the capital city, Rahvi, so far as the drivers know, it is the only place that hasn’t either been overrun, or evacuated yet, and so, the only place the military was concerned with holding. they give her a working communicator, which she uses to replace the one that was destroyed when the first Electromagnetic pulse had taken out most of their equipment. good foresight on the part of the ISU had made their guns and most vital equipment resistant to this kind of warfare. unfortunately, communicators were not among those so protected, the technology having not progressed to the point where one can communicate from within a faraday cage.

    the first thing she does when she gets the communicator up and working is contact High Command. The signal is tenuous, as is to be expected from so far away, even ten years ago, contacting a planet as far away as Origin would have been impossible. of course, ten years ago, they’d still been the Sovereignty, not the InterSpecies Union. the speaker crackles, and a voice, accent belying an Origin native, speaks,

    “Captain Rale, glad to see you’re alive. report in.”

    “just barely, Sir. what’s the situation?” she replies, glad to hear someone sound so collected.

    “things are bad, Rale, we’ve got panic from all sectors. Rho wasn’t even supposed to exist, and now it's attacking a Union world.”

    “i hear you, sir. We’ve got garbled communications from the Outpost starting six hours before the attack, it cuts out after five minutes. then Rho breaks from the asteroid belt, and enters atmo. it’s hanging about sixty klicks up, we’ve got no idea what’s keeping it up there, it’s not no visible propulsion, and has been eating all our attempts to knock it down. it began launching pods, full of what the eggheads are calling “baseform”, as well as troops. we think these used to be researchers and guards at the station, but they’ve been, well, they’ve been turned into... “ she struggles to find the words to describe what’s happened.

    “we have the tapes, Rale. how long you think your boys can hold out for?”

    “how long do you need?”

    “unknown, the civs are calling us on the floor for this, and it’s hampering rescue efforts.”

    “roger that, we’ll hold out as long as you need.”

    “good luck, Rale.”

    “sir.” the communicator cuts out after that, leaving her with her thoughts. not for too long, however, as she gets a ping on a secure channel.

    “yes?” she inquires tersely.

    “Rale,” there is a long pause. she doesn’t recognizes the new voice, although it’s clearly female, nor can she quite place a planet of origin, but the tone makes it clear that this is serious. “you need to see this.”

    “what is it?”

    “we’ve got video footage of the attack on Rho.”

    “you what?” she asks, shocked. how on earth had they gotten that?

    “i’m sending you the file now, can you pass it up to High Command?”

    “definitely.” the line clicks off, and she receives a ping as a video file is uploaded to her. it’s on a secure channel, and has the proper passcodes to be security footage from a station, as well as several other codes which basically translate as “your pay grade isn’t high enough to know the pay grade high enough to view this.” she opens the file anyway.

    Outpost Rho, a name that is deliberately non indicative of the size and purpose of the installation in question. It implies a minor thing, maybe fifty or so souls posted in the back end of nowhere, watching for pirates or something. That, combined with its position, on an asteroid near the heavily-inhabited world Xera, means that no one would have any interest in going there. Further, it implies that an assignment there is a sign of disfavor with the higher ups, a dead end position that no one escapes from until they are honorably discharged, at the end of an utterly boring and normal term.

    Nothing could be further from the truth. The location is correct, but the small outpost they show anyone truly interested enough to actually go to the remote post is a lie, it’s staffed by the most trustworthy of the several thousands assigned to the true installation, which has totally hollowed out the asteroid, replacing its interior with floor upon floor of workstations, storage compartments, and sleeping quarters.

    Outpost Rho is the premier research and development center of the InterSpecies Union, dealing with subjects too classified to discuss, secrets so important that no communication is allowed in or out aside from very secure channels directly from and to Origin Command, encrypted, and routed through other secure terminals. The idea being even if one was breached, they would not be able to get the full message.

    The technology inside Rho is years ahead of what is considered cutting edge military technology, and decades ahead of anything a civilian can lay their hands upon. Entire species are born and die in the specially contained biolabs, the fundamental forces of the universe are experimented upon using tools that the rest of the galaxy don’t even know exist. The best and brightest of every race in the Union is collected, and sent here, assuming they can be trusted. it is the absolute center of the Union’s power, and its prosperity, and controlling that power is a man named Aaron Valte, At one hundred and five years old, once he would have been considered far too old to continue working, or even live unassisted. That was in the past. Medical advancements have been made,allowing the extension of life, so the man looks barely over seventy, with dignified, greying hair, a stern, but caring face, and an air of wizened intellect. he personally accepts or rejects every project to go on within the Outpost, vetoing those that are morally reprehensible, or too dangerous even for Rho. he knows every project head by name, and communicates often with them, offering suggestions when they run into walls, and adjusting dates and times according to what can actually be accomplished. He does not tolerate laziness, but understands setbacks. under his care and guidance, Rho has grown farther than under any other director.

    The day begins normally, project updates are provided via the artificial intelligence who, just as much as Valte, runs the facility. The Pinnacle artificial intelligence unit is itself an achievement of Rho. without it, the Facility would have suffered just as much as it would have had Valte been removed. Both are integral, and they work well together, complementing each other’s weaknesses with their strengths. Valte looks over them, a delay of the project designed to improve the effectiveness of the delivery system of gene therapy, a successful experiment on the subject of cold fusion, still elusive after all this time, the stabilizing of an isotope of element 117, which displays unique magnetic properties, and a minor containment breach releasing a toxic chemical into the observation chamber. no one was harmed in that, as safety precautions had been followed, but it was another delay. there were dozens more like it, each one either indicating a delay in a project, or another update. these daily reminders were useful, but they took quite a while to read.

    One caught his eye about halfway through the read, it was the delivery of an unknown artifact discovered at a Sentinel dig site six days ago. the Sentinels were the military branch of an ancient empire. It had collapsed long ago due to political infighting and some kind of external threat, the species that were its constituents mostly remain pre-spaceflight now, having been kicked back to the stone age by the fall of the empire. the ISU will not interfere with them until they develop to that point, based on a guideline found in an ancient, science fiction story, now mostly forgotten. The guideline does actually make sense, as greater technological and cultural diversity can be found by a species that has matured itself to that point. there are exceptions, if a species is going extinct, rescue efforts can be made, as well as if it is obvious that there is an oppressive government that is actively harmful to the populace, and that the species in question is not going to rebel on its own.

    Regardless, the planet in question was abandoned except for those ruins, and an archaeological team had been sent in to recover what they could of the technology inside. Their goal was not to bring back things which were expected to be superior to what the ISU already had, they’d gleaned all those secrets rather easily, through study and reverse engineering. This was a desire to better understand the dead, ancient culture.

    what they found shocked everyone involved. The installation had been a prison, massive and well guarded, filled with still-working automatons, which had violently responded to the archaeological team’s attempts to gain access to the ruin. When they finally had cut their way through, the entire area suddenly went dark. When a rescue crew arrived hours later, there was no signs of the archaeologists, or the automatons. In the center of the camp was a sphere of silvery metal, which seemed to glow with an inner luminescence. Attempts to dent the surface, or determine what the material was proved fruitless, and in the end, the object was loaded into a transport, and delivered to the Outpost.

    The delivery was taking place this afternoon, it would be interesting to see what they could find out about it. In all honesty, it's likely that it’ll be nothing noteworthy, but on the off-chance that it is, the Outpost wants to take a look at it. Survey teams don’t dissapear often, and the unusual circumstances involving this particular event are what made the Outpost interested, but there is always a mundane explanation. They just need to find out what this particular one is.

*   *    *    

    The transport had arrived, and Valte headed down to see the delivery himself, the exterior of the outpost was not atmospherically sealed, so he had to wear a Hostile Environment Suit. depressurization protocols occurred to save the oxygen inside the outpost, and he was allowed outside. the team of five that was assigned with bringing in the object was with him. the landing pad had cooled after the landing of the transport, and the cargo hold was open. inside, on a magnetically sealed cart, the object sat inert.

    the team walked forward, moving the object out of the transport, and into the facility. all of these events would be recorded on security cameras as well, so there really was no reason for Valte to be here… aside from curiosity. nothing really unusual had happened recently, and the mystery surrounding the disappearance of the survey team had peaked his interest, in spite of the rational mind which continued to insist that there was a mundane explanation. In his tenure as the facility head, however, he’d learned to trust his instincts.

    once inside, the chamber repressurized. the hiss of air flooding into the chamber signalled the end of the stifling hostile environment suit. Valte replaced his on the wall in the chamber, and muttered something about his advancing age, and the quality of the equipment that this supposedly advanced installation had. shaking his head to ward off such thoughts, and trying to remember to put in a requisition order for better space suits, Valte walked with the security team. they headed to a low-security test chamber. that is likely all that is required for such an object. besides, it’s not like they’ll be doing much more than a physical evaluation of the object, and some scans. if they reveal the need for higher security measures, so be it. it had sat in the cargo hold of the transport for the time it took to reach the station, however, and he had no reason to believe that would change.

    Valte powered down the magnetic locks remotely once it was placed securely within. air began to circulate between the room and the orb. no one was inside the chamber at that time, of course. that began the first battery of tests. nothing appears unusual about the air, not that can be detected by the sensors placed at intervals around the room, at least. that test concluded, he triggers the box to fall around it, revealing it completely. he then bombards the sphere with x-rays, hoping that they’ll be able to penetrate, before switching to gamma radiation when it does not. even that appears to be stopped cold, giving no indication of if there is an internal structure, and if so, what that structure is composed of. admittedly, the sphere is rather large, with a diameter of around seven feet, so if it is simply a solid mass, then it would make sense for it would absorb the radiation.

    A few seconds later, though, he begins to realize that perhaps that diagnostic was not the best idea. the Sphere’s surface ripples, and then collapses, moving from the well defined form into a puddle in the containment chamber. Alarms begin blaring. it’s eating through the seals!. immediately, liquid nitrogen is blasted into the chamber, hoping to freeze it solid. it slows it down, but does not stop the unknown substance. Valte rushes from the room, barking instructions for containment which are picked up by a subdermal microphone in his jaw, and then transmitted to the AI. It processes them at inhuman speed, and sets them into motion, beginning air-separation of the infected region from the rest of the lab, the first step in combatting what they believe to be a nanobot infection. 

    Alarms go off throughout the section, letting researchers and guards know to evacuate. It's a level 3-local evacuation, so everyone in the area must drop everything, assuming doing so won't destroy the station, and leave immediately, but only in the surrounding area. Such events happen, while not frequently, at least with some regularity, so the halls are still orderly, with people mainly wondering who'd screwed up this time to cause them to miss out on a part of their experiment, or how so and so was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and this was a disaster.

    The air seal locks when the scientists have moved out of the section. they gather around monitors in the hall outside to view what's going on. The nanites had by this time eaten through the seals on the door, and are spreading through the halls. artificial gravity is disabled, so hopefully none will drip onto the lower levels. The section is prepared for jettison, if it comes to that, but all those assembled hope it won't. Extreme cold hadn't stopped the nanites, but maybe heat would do the trick, so certain lines are sent into overdrive, and flame engulfs the testing chamber. Everyone waits for the results, and they begin filtering in... unfortunately, it seems that heat and cold have an equal amount of impact upon the unknown things. The jettison is prepared, aimed away from the planet, and anything habitable. the corrupted chambers will float forever in the void, hopefully to be forgotten. They didn't anticipate the speed that the nanites would convert the chamber, however, and the jettison malfunctions due to a partial takeover. Things were spiraling out of control fast. Redundant systems activated, and explosions rock the station as blasting charges attempt to fling the infected portion into space. It works, but also flings some of the silvery material into the surrounding cubicles, where it begins consuming them. Too many have been compromised at this point, and, for the first time in history, Outpost Rho was unrecoverable. Valte speaks two words to the AI. "Code Black." 

    Immediately, all over the station, alarms begin blaring, two-toned, and shrill. The first tone signaled an evacuation. it was the one people practiced for, the one they'd seen and heard about. the second, however, was the tone of Code Black, which indicates that it's station-wide. that one had never been used in seriousness, and the sense of urgency it conveyed was unmistakable. The response was also near immediate, everyone began funneling out of labs, break rooms, restrooms, from every conceivable direction, people began flooding into corridors, Their expressions and worried conversations made clear that this was not something they'd been prepared for, but still they moved. It was time to send the signal to Xera, that there was something wrong. but something was even more wrong than originally anticipated. the comms antenna had been hit, and was being converted, effectively locking the station out of regular communications. Even this could still be worked around, assuming they could get people to the transports and escape pods, and that's where they were going now. People hurried by, carrying papers and USB drives and tablets and anything else they could take data out on. they know they're not going to be able to come back, and are rushing to do as much as is humanly possible before that happens. That is against regulations, muses Valte as he hurries along with the others. These people should be mainly concerned for themselves, but at the same time, it was inspiring to see. 

    Honestly, though, his perspective is a little flawed, as he himself is about to break regulations. He slips down a side hallway, heading the opposite direction of those working their way out of the building. He is hampered by their passage, but still makes good time along the corridor, especially as it begins to empty out. People see him, but no one stops him. Why would they? He is the director, after all. The halls empty out quickly, and soon he is running through empty corridors, towards the very heart of the station. He arrives, and is greeted to a sight which, in a time of less grievous danger, would have caused him to stare in wonder, even now, decades after its construction. A massive void, the refracted light of various entrances illuminating the steel sphere he is now within. All the paths lead to a central chamber, alongside hundreds of electrical, and data transfer cables. This is the station's AI core. He has no time for ruminating about the aesthetic appeal of the chamber, though, as he barrels down the corridor, and enters the Core. he quickly overrides the door, as Pinnacle asks "director, what are you doing?". 

    "Everyone gets out of here" is his only reply, as he hurries into the chamber. "Pinnacle, hard sleep mode. Archive everything. Prepare for cessation of electrical current. Override 1-1-32-914.".The code, programmed into the most basic levels of the AI, immediately requires that it follows the directions given, and it shuts down. Valte begins removing the cables from the Quantum computer, and shoulders the heavy weight of the AI's physical frame afterwards. He begins retracing his steps, far slower now that the initial adrenaline had worn off, and he was now carrying a heavy load. Everything was empty, disquietingly so. His footfalls echo sharply in the metal hallways, as he retraces his steps. Everything seems to be going fine, until at a cross hallway he sees something which makes his blood run chill. the hallway he had planned to go down was covered in... no, Was, a uniform silver, and it was eating its way towards him. 

    He retreats, heading back the way he came, trying to find another hallway to take him where he needed to be, hoping against hope that it would be unblocked. He turns a corner, and continues running, tiring himself out, still carrying the AI which was his crowning achievement, and his friend. Thankfully, the next hallway down hasn't been consumed, and he runs down it. His breath is coming in gasps, and his body is on the verge of collapse. he hadn't run this hard in ages, and his body was aging, for all that modern medicine had slowed the process considerably. A side hallway reveals the encroaching silver is drawing closer to him, and he picks up the pace, for one final burst of speed. Then, the silver appears at the end of the hallway. Trapped, he stares in disbelief as it covers the ground, walls and ceiling, in front of and behind him. He slumps down against a wall, unable to believe it's come to this.