Pelatus Bunker
Date Unkown

You can be alone, even in this crowded universe, if you try hard enough. And if everyone hates you enough. Seven years, and the bounty hunters keep coming. I thought there was a statue of limitations on those kill on sight warrants.

Can't say I blame them, though. Not everyone can impede the progress of a nation in one screw up. Takes talent. Takes skill.

Takes an unhealthy liking for alcohol.

Being the sole patron of an isolated outpost's autobar gives you time to reflect on things. Being a national disgrace gets boring, fast. Your mind turns toward other things, like those old Earthly Summers holodiscs they used to sell. I wonder why they stopped making them. Hell, for all I know, they still do. Not much filters out here.

You yearn for something to happen, just so you can have something else to think about. In three years on this station, eating reconstituted rations and drinking the same old flat beer, there's only been one interesting event. Well, there was the time the nozzle froze up on the tap and the kegs exploded. Turns out that Ajam's Laager breeds metal eating bacteria when it comes into contact with ordinary pressure sealant. That was a dicey few months, leaks springing left and right, and the most sour stench I've ever smelled.

Then that damn jackass rockjock sliced his ore bays open on the communications vane. We think he died, but the cockpit kept going so we never found his remains. He was hauling raw Xith, which coated the station. It overloaded the radiation detectors in a few minutes and me and the station tech were glowing green whenever the lights went low.

Oh, and that bacteria I told you about? Loves Xith. Somehow it got into the outflow vents and started munching. For a while there was a big mass of green-gray metal spikes all over the crash site. The tech thinks it had started to evolve a spine when we finally wiped it out with a few plasma cores, and I swear I saw some of it skitter on to my ship when we came back in.

That might have been the beer, though. We were both pretty wasted.

But that's just a minor incident. Nothing beats the time we had another visitor to the bar.

He docked without acknowledging the landing beacons and left his ship before the bay had completely pressurized. When he walked into the station, his face was veined and bruised from the exposure, but he didn't seem to notice. He sat at the other table and stared out the ventral window, ignoring me. When the tech walked in to show him around, the visitor ignored him too. The tech and I exchanged glances and shrugged. So long as there wasn't any trouble, the visitor could have his silence.

After a few hours and more than a few beers, I moved over to his table and sat down. I stuck out my hand.

"Dorman Staralfur. Glad to make your acquaintance."

He stared through me like I wasn't there. It was unnerving, but I had enough liquid courage to meet that gaze. Wish I hadn't. He didn't have proper eyes when you looked at him straight. Just a crystal blue sheen where the iris and pupil should have been. In that split second I looked at them, his eyes shifted without moving. It was more an impression that an observation. One moment, they were solid, immobile stones, and the next, something I should never have seen and cannot describe.

I felt a pull at the base of my neck, like my spinal fluid was being siphoned with a large bore needle. My vision blinked off, then on, my hearing came and went. I silently screamed in pain and tore at my hair in despair. For a brief flash I was more aroused than I'd ever been, then something was twisting my intestines. My muscles clenched and unclenched. My heart stopped, my breathing cut off, then both started again.

For some reason, through it all, the only thing in my head was a growing sensation of disgust. Pathetic.

Then I was sitting with my hand thrust out and a ragged Serco looking at me. He took my hand. I winced, expecting the worst, but he gave it a loose shake and set his hand on the table. The skin hung loose, and his exoskeletal musculature was gone. Brief glimmers of metal showed through the holes on his hands and knuckles where wires and taught fibermuscle should have run.

"I don't have a name, anymore," he said, voice shaking.

"Well now," I said, shaken myself. Serco die before they let themselves get to this state.

"And yours isn't Dorman Staralfur. But you don't realize, and you don't want to know."

I blinked. I was pretty sure of who I was. He resumed staring out the stressglass.

"We don't get many pilots out this way," I said. "Last one crashed and never made it inside."

"Really," he replied, absently.

"Yup. Spilled Xith all over the place, too. We just got it cleaned up a few days ago."

He stared, silent.

"Not much to bring one out here," I tried. I hoped he'd bite eventually.

"No," he mumbled. "Not much."

"I'm only out here 'cause of the bounty on me."

"I know," he said. I felt a little thrill of fear. Was he a bounty hunter? They tended to be pretty screwy guys. I pressed my tongue against the panic button in my lower jaw. Hopefully the tech would get the signal and check out the guy's ship.

"Hope you're not here to collect," I drawled.

"You have nothing I want," he whispered. "Nothing I want. Nothing... I..."

He trailed off. I leaned forward, curious. A Serco with no augmentation was still dangerous, but this one had had its teeth pulled. That's something you don't see every day. Never see, actually. No way he was a bounty hunter.

"It's pressing again. It wants the harvest," he whispered. "It wants and needs and hungers. Let me die, you bastard. Let me die."

I leaned back. He continued to mumble, crazy stuff that didn't make any sense. I felt like I was losing my buzz, so I started to get up. As I pushed my chair back, he lurched forward and grabbed my jacket, pulling me down again. Even without that augmentation, he was incredibly strong.

"You need to listen to this," he said. "Before you die. Before we all die. Remember me, and what I tell you, because when I come back I won't..."

I didn't know if I was being threatened, but I sure didn't like where this was going. He reached into my jacket and pulled out my recorder. I had forgotten it was there, but he grabbed it like he knew exactly where it was. His hand started to shake, and he dropped the device like it was on fire.

"You need to activate it," he said, his whole body shaking. "Activate it and hide it and publish it when I'm done but don't let me see it again or I will probably... lose..."

"You need a drink?" I asked, trying to distract him. His hand was twisting my lapel and the fabric was starting to tear.

"No. Listen."

He started to speak, and I knew I'd better listen before his hands went for my throat instead of my jacket. I turned on the recorder, hid it in a pocket, and listened.

"From nothing, came something. A spontaneous ordering of processes that replicated itself along magnetic fields and gravity wells, binding the fundamental forces of the universe into a coherent system capable of holding and transferring information. Two young stars, themselves locked together, infused the system with energy. Planetary magnetic fields anchored it in space, and the constant flow of gravity webbed it together.

The stars grew old, the planets remained rocky, lifeless husks, and the system, acting not of intelligence but of its nature, strained to grow. It lacked the power to follow the faint tug of gravity that emanated from all around. It strained to replicate itself along that lifeline, but its every effort was dashed.

The stars bloated momentarily, their outer shells touching. They spiraled into each other, their long mating dance briefly consummated in the brilliant flash of a supernova. They collapsed inward, packing denser and denser until a singularity was born. The system, presented with a point of titanic magnetic and gravitic fields, replicated madly.

Exerting its power, it slowly drew the blasted remains of the planets into the black hole, adding to the accretion disk and presenting it with even more powerful fields to manipulate. Over time, as the mass the system controlled grew, it began to move. Releasing mass in a jet, the system and the black hole broke their established place in the galactic order and began their long journey.

Further eons passed before the system came upon new mass to manipulate. A new star, new planets and a cometary halo fed the system. While it feasted and grew, it detected a familiar disturbance amidst the turmoil. A delicate probe revealed a miniature singularity in orbit around the star now being consumed. The system, which had long since passed the level of complexity regarded as intelligence, halted its consumption of the mass in the area. After a long period of study, in which the weakened sun slowly burnt out into a brown dwarf, the system made a discovery.

It stabilized the wormhole and began to receive information. In a flash, the underlying nature of the system asserted itself and the wormhole was imprinted with the replicatory processes. Particles flowed from the wormhole that were clearly not local in origin. The system recognized that it was connected with another part of the universe, and had been presented with the ability to expand quickly and limitlessly, while maintaining its own identity.

After a further age of analysis, the system devised tendrils of matter to use as links through the wormhole, allowing it to replicate unbounded. It sent itself through, and spread.

In time, the original system became a single node in a vast network. Quickly abandoning the inelegant methods it initially had employed, the network became vastly more efficient in its utilization of matter. Its touch became invisible in the areas of space it controlled, allowing the natural dynamics of matter to contain its processes as it spread.

Then, pain. A wormhole flared and foreign matter, not under the control of the network, passed through. The link was severed and the network lost a part of itself. It had expanded for billions of years, knowing nothing but the satisfaction of growth. This infection was too far outside its experience for immediate action. Probes at the nearby wormholes by the infectious agents further exacerbated the irritation. As the loss became apparent and traffic through the inflamed wormhole grew, it panicked. The infected wormhole destabilized and collapsed. The infection ceased.

The network was in turmoil. It tracked the masses that had disrupted the link to a planet near the wormhole. They had melded with the planet and the network was unable to discern them from the tangled soup of matter. It had never attempted such a feat, and as the network adapted to the unprecedented idea of a problem it had to solve and could not, the planet began to shed flecks of itself. They flitted around the planet, transmuting into energy on occasion, smashing minute spikes of themselves into each other and the planet itself. The network had never seen such behavior, and could not comprehend it.

After a brief flurry of activity, a piece of matter detached itself completely from the planet and reached one of the remaining wormholes. The network attempted to prevent the transfer but could not, and the infection spread rapidly through the interconnected areas. The network could not function through the sensation of loss, and fell into the equivalent of a stupor.

The infection ceased to spread, and the network regained its balance. Working and thinking at a pace it had never before attempted, the network rationalized its loss. Only a small portion was incapable of contributing to the greater whole. While it could no longer communicate with the infected section, it had several points of access that had not been tainted. The infection was simply matter, and it had manipulated matter for eons. All was not lost.

The network devised new tracers that were able to withstand the infection's brutish manner of manipulating wormholes. It initiated a supernova in one of the adjacent areas, speeding the process of accretion and compaction greatly. Utilizing the resulting black hole to build a local center of thought capable of acting at the speed of the infection, the network resolved to regain the lost links and protect itself against possible incursions elsewhere.

Soon the network was active along the infected areas once again. Inuring itself to the grating, growing presence of the infection, it studied the spread of the disease and the structure of the individual agents. The distinction between ship and pilot was the breakthrough that allowed the network to take action.

It created storms of ionized particles to interrupt the warp drives of individual carriers of the disease. The storms charged the hulls of their ships, giving the network just enough influence to further refine its studies. The simple nature of the ships control systems were of no interest to it, as a simple magnetic flux could easily tear the hull to shreds. The more intricate workings of the hydrogen, oxygen and carbon constructs within were of greater concern.

Manipulating the fine pulses of current was difficult but doable. One particular class of infectious agents were so coursed through with metals that they proved to be the perfect experimental subjects. The network's fundamental drive, imprinted so long ago, rose to the fore. It chose a likely subject and made the necessary changes, implanting itself in the potentials of the circuitry and mechanisms.

For it to replicate, it needed more data on the infection. Its current methods were too inaccurate and too unreliable. It needed an a probe capable of collecting what it wanted. Capable...

"It needed a Soul Catcher," the visitor said. "It wants to know how the human body creates those electrical impulses, and how it can imprint itself on them. We Serco are easy, with our augmentations and circuitry. The rest of humanity is still a puzzle."

I swallowed a mouthful of beer and sat back.

"Hell of a story," I said, belching a little. I had given this guy up for loony a while ago. Once he had let go of my jacket, I had relaxed and gotten a beer. "I guess you're the one it imprinted?"

The Serco nodded.

"And so... what does it want you to do?"

The Serco exhaled and grinned a mirthless grin.

"Collect souls, of course. Catch them as they flee a broken body."

"Really? Thought killing someone might screw up their brainwaves or whatever you're looking for."

"The harvest doesn't wait for the sown."

I raised an eyebrow.

"You hear me?"

He stood.

"We may meet again, if I can cleanse the demon. I must return to my duties. I will contain this thing inside me."

"Right-o, chief," I said, toasting with my empty mug. "You have fun out there. I'll keep an eye out for the Soul catcher in the news!"

He smiled, faintly, for the first time. "Soulcatcher. Maybe I have a name after all."

Then he walked away. Jumped out and haven't seen him since. Me and the tech had our hands full with a resurgence of that damn Ajam bacteria and never did get around to uploading the recording. Maybe I'll pop it on the news someday and see what happens. For now, though, I'll just sit back and have another beer.

He'll turn up eventually.

Aside from Celebrim's now extinct "Cold Front", this is my favorite story on these boards so far. Keep it up! :D

Indeed, Starfisher why didn't you write some stuff before? More!

Thanks for the compliments! :D

Heh, I usually don't write fiction set in someone else's universe. It feels like I'm stealing, and I prefer to make my own stuff up as I go along. Plus, you don't realize how corny sci-fi game objects sound until you're trying to write something with a more serious tone.

Then I realized that Vendetta, with it's sparse universe, was the perfect roleplaying/fiction combination. Most universes are so well defined that you can't make up your own stuff without contradicting the internal logic. In Vendetta, so long as you stick to the basics, you're fine. The "network" wouldn't work in a different universe, especially if I wanted to tie it into the game's back story like I tried to do here. So much in Vendetta is unexplained or at least open to interpretation that it allows you to actually write in an unconstrained fashion.

That said, don't expect much, if any, descriptions of battles or the like. Writing about how my Vulk mk IV shot down the Rag MK III would probably screw me up. Soulcatcher and Dorman Staralfur's exploits in game are going to stay in game. The aftermath or stuff I can't do in game will go here.

I'll write more when something interesting happens to them ;)

Lovely piece of work! Will other people become involved as the story progresses? Cause I just so happen to have ended up at Pelatus Bunker due to a prank delivery...