“Dis is scrapper Ryu, I have a legitimate claim to salvage rights over da ship dat appeared in sector four, two, tree. Anybody dat thinks dey can take dat claim from me. Just know I have rigged da ship to blast anyone other than me who attempts to get on.” Hopefully the bluff is enough to trick any idiot who thinks they can outsmart me. I set the transmitter going across the hull of the ship. Any craft that connects is going to have that message vibrating into their ship. 

I crack open the airlock and close the door behind me using the mag controls. Checking my sensors, there’s no life support in here, no gravity either. I need to keep my suit on while I work. I float toward the inside and try to find a map, propelling myself with my rudder tail. I need to locate the engine room or the command deck. Maybe there's logs or some record of what happened.

Once inside I set my alarm. It’ll let me know if any other scrappers will try to enter the ship. I grab my spray can and prepare to mark out paths, I walk inward, passing several sleeping areas that look like meditation pods. Weird for a ship.

A quick look and I see the dusty remains of the long dead passengers just floating in what's left of the rooms. I pass the bridge and enter to cut the main and backup power from here. 

Seems like they did that already… strange… 

Must have had engine trouble… s’probably nothing… 

I head back to marking the ship, I see an armory. I mark it with a star to come back to later. Finally I make it to the data banks, I set down my tools outside the door and begin pulling the memory blades. Maybe they will have some info of what happened. 

Then it hits me. Or I hit it and bounce off the wall. 

Crud! Someone is trying to dock. I check my arm to see if the alarm has gone off. Nothing.

Must be trying to cut through somewhere else. 

I pop the memory blades I’ve pulled into my bag and throw it over my shoulder.

Floating out into the hallway I just swim through the corridors as silently as I can. Just then, I see the flashlights typical for helmet cams. 

Black Fangs… That means experimental tech… unstable… I hear them heading to the engine room.

Sloppy, they're gonna try and turn the ship on.

I shift my direction and turn into the wall, I scramble up the side and pull the vent cover off the power conduit lines. A tight squeeze for a human, but perfect for a Lutra.

I squeeze in and crawl through. Much easier to see where everything is leading. I head toward the engine room. See if I can power it off from there before they get there. Another minute and feel the ship begin to resonate, like it is powering up.

Crap

I scramble as fast as I can following the power conduits, hoping that there arent defenses on board that will activate. As I get closer I realize that the air has begun recycling and the atmosphere is coming back.

Then I hear someone moving around in the engine room. They’re singing to themselves loud enough for me to hear nearly 50 feet away, but there is another sound underneath.

Kuh-Tss…… Kuh-Tss……

It sounds like the old style magnet boots, I gently pull myself forward and I see the head lamp flashing as its wearer looks around the engine room. He’s not the one that's moving… so where is the sound coming from?

I pull myself closer to the edge and look around, then I see a dim red light blinking slowly. And with each successive blink it moves forward.

Kuh-Tss… Kuh-Tss…

The scrapper is still unaware of the being coming up behind him. Do I help him? Warn him? Or will that just alert whatever that is?

I wouldnt be able to live with myself. “Behind ya!” I shout hoping he can hear me.

Kuh-Tss, Kuh-Tss

It’s speeding up. “Turn ‘round, ya moron!” I try to throw a spanner, but I’m not strong enough for it to reach the other side of the room.

Then the thing begins speaking in a clearly manufactured tone. “POWER SIPHON RESTORED, FORGEBORNE UNIT AT FULL POWER. ORGANIC LIFE DETECTED. SOLUTION: PURGE.” The Fangs tech that was down there, turns around and is immediately grabbed by the thing. 

He starts screaming but the monster just speaks over the top. “DO NOT EMOTE ORGANIC, YOUR FLESH WILL BE PURGED, YOU WILL NO LONGER REQUIRE EMOTIONS.” The tech grabs a shock stick and slams it into the neck. I watch as arcs of lightning jump between the plates that make up its armor.

Smart… That thing seems to run on power… maybe he can short it out…

“POWER SOURCE ASSIMILATED” it grabs the hand that holds the shock stick, and squeezes. I hear the crunch of bones from my perch far away. Another scream is let out before the monster punches through the helmet, grabs their jaw. I watch as the glove begins to charge with electrical energy before releasing a shock, the tech's body convulses and then goes limp.

I scramble away as fast as I can and continue floating along hearing the clanking release of the monster's footsteps fading as I make distance between us. 

I need to make my way back to the bridge. Get them to turn the ship off. Hopefully I can get there before they restore gra-

Before I can even finish thinking about it, the gravity returns and I hit the grating, which gives way, and I slam to the floor into the room below.

It looks like one of the meditation pods but standing in the corner is a deactivated clockwork droid. Suddenly I forget about the giant forgeborne and remember the old books that my father would show me.

The crystalline shell, with the colorless mist floating around internally among the moonstone and metal gears, and the face, an ornate expressionless mask covering up the intricate details that made up these ancient constructs. But one of the lenses that make up its eye is cracked and reflecting back a scattered image.

I drop my bag and focus entirely on this project. Maybe there is a switch that will wake it up. As I lift its arm I feel its weight suddenly gives and I see the colorless mist begin to coalesce into a singular purple mist.

I stood in front of it as it just stared back at me. It began repeating “Nerys’Feyra’vae Umbra” until it finally spoke a language I could understand. “Hello, unregistered entity. How may this unit be of service?” 

Confused, I said, “Uh, yeah. Can ya gimme yer designation?” It took a long moment like it was running some kind of diagnostics.

Its mist changed to a shade of grey, before it continued talking. “Fault detected in memory banks, power diverted from flash memory to maintain offline functions. This one does not have a designation. Will you provide one, unregistered entity?”

I look at its face marveling at the craftsmanship and then the crack going through its lens. “I’ll call ya CIL.”

The mists shifted to green as it stood up and spoke. “How may CIL be of service, unregistered entity?” Its enormous frame stands at almost seven feet. It then looked down at me, and suddenly I remembered that the enormous Forgeborne is roaming the ship. 

“We gotta get to da bridge. There's a monster on da ship. Maybe we can shut down da power. And just call me Ryu.” I scrambled out of the room and back to the bridge. 

CIL followed behind me, when suddenly I heard the metallic clack of weapons. “So, here's the clever scrapper! Where’s your traps? I thought we were gonna get blasted.” They all look at each other and start laughing. As they level their guns directly at my face.

I throw my hands up and try to explain. “Your friend in da engine room is dead. There’s something on board da ship. We need ta shut it down and scuttle it.” They all continued laughing as they readied their pistols.

Kuh-Tss Kuh-Tss Kuh-Tss

“ORGANICS DETECTED. SENTRY MODE: DEACTIVATED. PURGE MODE: ACTIVATED”

“S’here! We need to run. Now.” I saw their faces change as they looked at the monster now turning the corner. 

Its massive frame and obsidian black metal which seemed to pull the color in around the edges, contrasted by the hexagonal glow of blood red light emitting from its chest. It passed right by CIL and advanced on us

“It’s another one of his tricks, just unload on it and then we can handle the lutra.” They shot a bolt directly into the forgeborne. It advanced undeterred

Kuh-Tss Kuh-Tss Kuh-Tss

The forgeborne grabbed onto the closest one and you could see the pistol crumble in its hand. It then grabbed their chest and flung them backwards. I scrambled up the wall and into a vent “CIL! Run!”

CIL just stood its mist changing to grey, as the Forgeborne continued its massacre. The other three fangs techs pulled out larger guns and proceeded to unload them into the forgeborne. “Aim for it’s joints! It's gonna be weakest there!” 

The one who spoke unleashed a rapidfire series of bolts into the forgeborne's left shoulder and I watched as its arm went dead. But with its remaining arm it punches through the tech’s chest. The two remaining tech’s scattered and tried to run away. 

Proving faster than the forgeborne, they went in different directions leaving CIL standing in the room with it. “SINGLE ORGANIC SIGNATURE DETECTED. THREAT LEVEL: MINIMAL. PRIMARY MISSION: PURGE PRIMARY AND SECONDARY THREATS.” It looked right at CIL whose mists have now turned black. 

 “SENTRY MODE: ACTIVATED. PURSUING PRIMARY THREAT” it turned and walked off after one of the black fangs techs. 

I waited until it was fully gone before I got out of the vents. I walked over to CIL and it just looked back at me with its expressionless face and the mists shifting back to a grey color. “Was that the monster that you had mentioned, Registered Entity Ryu?”

“Yeah. We gotta figure out how to stop it and prevent it from gettin out.” I stare down at the weapons on the kheltasi engineer who died. Gravity grenades, shock stick, plasma cutter. 

I grab it all and drag the plasma cutter with me. “We’re heading to the bridge. Maybe we can still salvage the situation. Otherwise it’s going to be a Code 9 and that leaves us nothing but destruction.” 

“Registered Entity Ryu, you told the other unregistered entities that we would need to scuttle the ship.” He slows his steps to maintain speed with me, before noticing that I was struggling. “Would you like me to carry the plasma cutter?”

I hold it up as CIL lifts it single handed with no effort, while the mists turn green. “Are you happy?” I’m getting distracted by the beauty of it as we continue walking towards the bridge.

“What does happy mean?” They don't adjust their view, they just continue forward. 

“Not important right now.” I say as we arrive at the bridge and toss my bag on the table, all the contents spill out, including the memory blades from earlier. “I’d say we got about half a shift before dat thing comes for us.” I scramble up to the central console and begin trying to adjust the power. 

Every attempt fails, as if that thing is in the computer too. “Damn!” I shout and see CIL’s mist change quickly to grey and then back to green. “Dat things got control.” I look around at what we have. “Only one entrance. Good, we can use dat.”

I pull out the three gravity grenades and stick each onto the cavities around the entryway. “CIL could ya feed dis string through each of da pins and have each come back to dis spot on da console.”

CIL quickly comes over and carefully feeds the string through. I look up and see a broken hinge. I can probably rig up the shock stick. “If the gravity in those grenades is strong enough maybe it can pull off it’s arm. Then maybe a direct hit to it’s power circuits will stop it.” 

Once it's disabled I can try to kill it. But that’s gonna be a long shot. I am going to have to hope I can surprise the giant evil monster. “Alright, we gotta get it’s attention now.” I open the panel under the steering console, and remove every connection except from the steering column itself.

“Alright CIL, We’ve probably got a couple minutes before he comes. I need to get dis thing aimed at da star.” I lean into the steering grip and watch as it slowly turns

Kuh-Tss

“Vekk! Its here” I finish aiming the ship and set the engines. I jump up onto the central console and wait for it to come.

Kuh-Tss

“TERTIARY THREAT LOCATED. PURGE MODE: ACTIVATED.” It walks into the threshold of the door and I yank the strings. 

I watch as all three gravity grenades begin pulling everything in their five foot radius. It’s left arm seems to go stiff as it’s yanked at the joint. Finally after two long seconds the arm finally gets yanked off. And the grenades stop pulling. 

Kuh-Tss

Kuh-Tss

It steps on the pad and I yank on the post. The shock stick slams into its open arm socket and I see it seize slightly at the rush of electricity.

Hopefully he’s frozen long enough that I get my chance. I grab the plasma cutter and try to hack off its arm as quickly as I can. 

I see its right hand slowly form into a fist. “POWER SOURCE: ASSIMILATED” It tries to grab at me and I duck out of the way. Then suddenly it freezes. “UNKNOWN ENTITY ATTEMPTING CONTACT.” 

I look over at CIL, their mists now flashing between Red and Black. “Ryu, you must leave, I will keep it occupied.” 

“No, I’m not leaving you behind.” I grab one of the memory blades and I slam it into the arm socket. Suddenly the red glow from its chest behind glowing lighter. “CIL, follow me back to my ship. We’re getting out of here.”

I grab my bag with its remaining blades and we both scramble out of the bridge following the arrows I painted.

Kuh-Tss

“PROTOCOLS: CORRUPTED. FORGEBORNE UNIT REQUESTS HELP.”

We make it to the airlock and I pull the air mask over my mouth. Back on the ship we release and watch through the viewport as the ship flies into the sun. 

“Ryu, what does CIL mean?” their mists have turned back to yellow, curious again.

“Crack in da Lens.” We see the ship explode into flames as CIL’s mist change to green.

The expressionless mask stares back at me. “Which lens specifically is cracked?”