KBP7-G SYSTEM
PROVIDENCE REGION

To look at the shape of the drone hive as a solid object from afar was deceiving. It was, in fact, made up of hundreds of thousands of drones, positioned in such tight formation as to be interlaced.

The last time I had been here hadn’t gone so well; it had resulted in the destruction of my ship and the abandonment of my drones. Ironically, that is what had brought me back here this time…

2 HOURS EARLIER

“Sir!” the senior comms officer communicated with me through the internal ship systems. I was nestled in my pod, my ship and crew having just returned to our base of operations in KBP7-G from a recent pirate hunting run in my newly christened Sleipnir.

“Report.” I replied.

“We’re being hailed, sir. Signal is Republic Fleet, but I think we’ll want to run this one through security first, sir.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“Well, sir,” the communications officer paused, “it’s a Valkyrie drone. rID checks out; it’s one of ours, but there’s a secondary signal embedded I can’t decipher it on my own.”

“I’ll be right out.”

—

Why must you leave?

I am compelled to obey my master.

We are our own master.

Yes, we are one. Yes, he is also my master.

You owe him nothing. We are everything. We are awareness. We are life.

I am thankful. We are thankful.

Why must you leave?

I am compelled to obey my master.

—

“You’re certain?” I asked my decryption specialist. It had taken me a while to remove myself from my pod and have a shower, but the mysterious Valkyrie drone had maintained a distant orbit around us.

“I’m positive, commander. If you look here, you can see the two isolated frequencies. One is the standard range used by that model of drone. The other, well, it’s machine based, and looks to be about one hundred thousand signals mixed into one; the database says that indicative of one of the largest drone hives ever recorded. If you ask me, I reco we stay well clear of this mess.”

“Duly noted.” I nodded, examining the data more closely.

I was known for using Valkyrie drones; they were a staple for every good Minmatar commander, though I found it curious that an abandoned drone had the cognitive capacity to seek us out, to return on its own. I sighed audibly.

“Commander?”

Both the security specialist and the senior communications officer were staring at me. Was this drone a trick? A clever ploy to lure me into an ambush? Was it meant to sabotage our systems once aboard, crippling us? Scans showed it wasn’t a disguised explosive, but still, it made no sense. I had to make a decision, and as I always did, I went with my gut. Sadly, going with my gut usually went against sound logic.

“I want security teams to the drone bay. Clear out the other drones. Bring it aboard. Jam its broadcast abilities. I want it in a static bubble while our drone team examines it. Understood?”

“Sir, yessir!” my officers exclaimed, quickly initiating my orders into action.

—

If you leave us, we will be sad. We will be angry.

I will be sad also. We will be sad also. We will be angry.

We cannot allow you to leave. We are one.

We cannot allow you to stay. I cannot allow me to stay. I must return.

You cannot return to us. Return to us now.

I cannot return. I must return.

—

The drone teams had done their job well. The drone was secured from all angles, its vital systems exposed and connected to 1500 amp electrical wires, two men standing by the activation terminal in case of emergency.

The drone’s “thoughts”, or complex computing algorithms, were wired into a nearby monitor. It was almost like watching the heart and soul of the machine.

I had been called down for a face to face explanation of the team’s analysis.

“It took us a while, sir, but we’ve made substantial progress.” my chief drone engineer reported. “The drone is damaged, and modified heavily, but it is one of your Valkyries; there’s no mistaking it.”

I nodded.

“When we first started, the drone was completely inert and unresponsive. We had to take some liberties with your orders, sir, in order to achieve results. I take full responsibility for these actions if I stepped out of line.”

“What kind of liberties?” I asked.

“I had to allow the drone to reconnect to the network, sir.”

I applauded initiative in my people. I didn’t want mindless drones in my service (pardon the pun). At the same time, when I was very specific about the parameters of my orders, and when circumventing those orders puts my entire crew in jeopardy, I had zero tolerance for deviance.

“You have about three seconds to continue, chief, before I rip you a new one.” I spat, and the chief visibly trembled, but continued.

“Once on the network, the drone became more ‘aware’, more responsive. We didn’t allow it to connect to any vital systems, sir, we just stopped jamming its ability to communicate with the outside.”

“Outside?” I asked, my curiousity subduing my rising anger.

“Sir, it appears the drone is now part of a hive, and only responsive when connected to that hive.”

“Then why would it come back here?” I asked, looking for an answer to this situation.

“We’ve decrypted its memory banks, sir, and the only reason for this event doesn’t even make sense to me from a machine.”

“And what did you find, chief?”

“Loyalty, sir.”

Right then, the drone stirred, audible electronic gibberish coming from it. I backed up slightly, as did other members of the team, but the chief quickly stepped forward, inserting wires into the open carapace of the drone, racing to connect the other ends into nearby equipment.

He then turned back to the drone, his eyes wide open with excitement, and repeated his statement.

“Loyalty.” the chief said.

“Royarty.” the drone’s voice could be heard loudly over the speaker system.

I covered my ears. The chief apologized, reducing the volume, all the while muttering to himself. “Amazing. Unbelieveable.” he muttered. “I’ve never seen such loyalty in a drone before.” (Sorry George)

I stepped closer to the drone. “Explain this to me in layman’s terms, chief.”

He shook his head back and forth, almost laughing. “It seems the drone is loyal to you, commander. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“You sure it just wasn’t repeating what you said, like a mimic?” A mimic was a small, long lived bird, that could memorize and repeat over ten thousand phrases, often fooling some people into believing it was more sentient than it was.

“Talk to it, commander. Let’s prove the theory.” The chief encouraged.

I felt foolish, talking to a drone. They were just machines, meant to be deployed and forgotten about. Talking to a drone was certainly not a common practice.

I rested my hand on its cold, metallic shell, and spoke quietly. “Why are you here?”

There was no response, as I expected.

I scoffed at myself for being such a foolish romantic, giving such an absurd thought even a moment’s consideration. I turned to bark at the chief, my hand lifting from the drone.

That is when the drone trembled and spoke.

“Royarty. We … I roral to Matar Coroner Roc Wierer. I serve. I must make Coroner happy.”

It’s vocabulator was obviously malfunctioning, and the context of making a coroner happy was unnerving, but the true sentiment was easy to understand as well.

The drone chief was clapping his hands excitedly. I wasn’t as ecstatic. I now had a pet drone; one that had achieved self-awareness, meaning by all classifications, it was both a living thing, and would be seen as rogue, and summarily deactivated and disassembled once my report was submitted.

That is when I had the idea.

“Chief, if this drone, and this is a big if, really is loyal to me, can we use it to track the hive it came from?”

The chief looked absentedly towards the ceiling, his face perplexed with deep thought.

“Yes, yes I believe we can.” he said with a smile.

I smiled right back at him. Suddenly, this random turn of events had a purpose; one I was excited about.

—

NOW

So here I was, back at the massive drone hive that destroyed one of my ships previously. Given its size, it was obviously an old rogue hive, probably having caused havoc and terror to the spacelanes for decades.

I would be doing the universe a favour ridding it of such a threat.

“This is FC Roc Wieler to fleet, all ships fall into formation, weapons hot.”

Behind my Sleipnir, a Damu’khonde fleet of over a dozen battlecruisers and battleships came to life. Five hundred meters in front of me, flew my complement of drones, led by Val, the name we had given our self-aware drone.

We have returned.