Sub-space rifts were not a new thing to the Eidolon but never before did they have a planet on the other side. He made a short scan to make sure he wasn't just seeing things and sure enough, the scan came back with a planet.
"How odd. Chancellor, I have an anomaly." The ship chancellor moved one of its many eyes to see what the Eidolon was talking about. "The gravity well should cause the rift to fail to even open but the planet has a strong enough energy source that we are still able to open the rift." The Eidolon turned to the mechanical eye watching its screen and waited for instructions.
"We shall follow the rift and build our fleet back up to what it was before the Sentience were encountered and annihilated." The eye of the Chancellor returned to its resting point just in front of the mechanical creature. "The flesh is weak, young Eidolon, don't forget that."
"Yes, Chancellor." The Eidolon turned back to his screen and increased the ship's thrust till they were at cruising speed. "The flesh is a burden and a disease that we must purge or assimilate."
"Very good, now I will be getting the drones and forges ready to build our fleet back up." The Chancellor's chair module swung around and sped down its track to the depths of the ancient vessel.
"And may the metal protect-" An alert had popped up from the scan. The Eidolon checked what the scanner had found and hit the ship-wide comms button. "The Sentience are still alive! I have detected them on the third planet from this system's star. I have also detected another flesh bound race on the fourth planet." The Eidolon scanned both planets again to double check his previous readings. "And they have our crystalline technology!" The Eidolon brought the ship behind the planet to avoid being spotted by the bio-forms that had been detected.
The Chancellor returned at speed and checked the Eidolons' findings. "Impossible, we destroyed every single cell of those horrid bio-forms! How can there be such a large one that we missed?! Eidolon, begin the mining procedure on this planetoid and send gunships to the swarm planet. Then make contact with this new bio-form and see if they will make an ally or an enemy."
"Of course, Chancellor but the swarm have already sent a ship to the new bio-forms and appear to have sleeper agents on the planet as well." The Eidolon zoomed the scan in on the planet and then on the base where swarm biomass was detected. "Chancellor, they appear to have found a way to cancel out the swarm hivemind and are making their own swarm. Perhaps we should send a gunship there as well instead of revealing our position with an open broadcast?" The Eidolon turned to the Chancellor who was thinking.
"Perhaps you are right. They may not know the dangers of the swarm or perhaps do know of it and are trying to harness its corrupted power." The Chancellor thought on this for a time. "Send the gunship and use it to bounce our signal. Keep a close eye on these new bio-forms in the meantime. How long until the swarm ship reaches the planet?"
"It will arrive before our gunships reach the halfway point but we can intercept it if need be by opening another rift."
The Eidolon had swapped the larger main screens feed over to what his terminal was seeing to make it easier for the Chancellor to see. It showed the current location of all the planets in the system as well as the current location of both the swarm ship and the scout carrier that was hiding from view behind one of the seventh planets moons, one rich in minerals and with massive water geysers.
"No, do not intercept it. Let us see how these new bio-forms fight. It will be useful information if they turn out not to be very friendly. Try and intercept any of their transmissions so that we can learn their language as well. It will make diplomatic negotiations far simpler." The Chancellor retracted his eye once more and began to leave the control room again.
"I have already intercepted a signal from them asking what we are, Chancellor. I did not notice it at first as I was examining the scanner with you. How should I respond?"
"How can you understand their language?" The Chancellor had stopped and turned back to the Eidolon confused.
"They use binary like we do, Chancellor."
"Then respond with, 'We are a race that has hunted down the swarm for countless eons,' and that, 'we are the last ship still functioning searching for a world that we might call our own.' Tell them, 'we are sending a ship to them as to make communications between ourselves easier.'"
"Signal sent. I am detecting a large build-up of energy coming from the planet."
"What do you mean by that? How big of a build-up are you talking about?"
"Chancellor, I mean that the energy build-up is enough to take out the planetoid we are hidden behind."
"Tell them to power whatever weapon system they have down or we will annihilate them." The Chancellor lowered his head, his voice growing more mechanical as his defensive subroutines started to be activated.
"It is not a weapon system, Chancellor, it's the Mother Crystal! These creatures have found our original homeworld and have reactivated the planetary forges!"
"Impossible! Our homeworld was lost to the void millennia ago through a rift that crossed galaxies!"
"But is it? Is it possible that the homeworld called us here? Never before has a rift taken us to a planet? And a galaxy was getting closer with every rift we created." Both mechanical beings turned and stared at each other coming to a silent agreement.
"Once the swarm is defeated for good." The chancellor left, leaving the Eidolon to communicate with these new bio-forms.
xX Sometime later and on mars Xx
"So, wait, these things are Martians, and they are mortal enemies of the swarm? Then, why aren't they sending one of those gunships to earth?" The committee gathered before the General was made up of all the top military, commercial and government representatives from across Mars.
"Because they wish to watch us fight. So as to know if we would get in the way or lower casualties on their end if we fought the swarm together. Apparently, they are the last of their race and don't want to go extinct." One of the military advisors said to a commercial representative.
"Then, how did we even manage to speak to them in the first place? Do they speak earth languages or can they simply guess that well?"
"They speak in binary and were able to communicate with us pretty much as soon as our antenna had turned in their direction. Their ship looks like it is made of a bronze-like material with stripes of gold running the length of it. Aside from that we don't know much about it as it's hiding behind Europa. Supposedly to hide from the swarm. Do I need to explain anything else to you governor? Or can we get to talking about whether or not they only want to be our allies as long as we can defeat the incoming swarm vessel in close quarters combat?" The General was growing impatient.
"That is all, General. I just wanted to make sure I was on the same page as the rest of you."
"Very well then, I propose we go through with this trial by fire proposal. I have an entire corps of bio-type cadets ready to engage these hunter killers. One of these cadets already has some experience piloting his bio-type as well."
"Are you mad?! We don't know if the swarm will be able to take control of biotypes yet! If they can, then all the swarm has to do is-"
"I can assure you the swarm won't be able to take control of this pilot or his CTAS. I am willing to bet my position in the program as well as that pilot's life."
"So, you gamble with the lives of children?! You are a monster, General! I'll back this only so I can see you removed. Who else will see this done?"
A majority vote of over ninety percent of the noble's present voted for the Generals plan.
"Then, I shall inform my pilot of his newest assignment upon the completion of today's event. No reason to get him all worked up over both."
xX In the simulation room, before the first Saturday event Xx
"Hey, Loyd, you were right. I did put the wrong joint parts together when I made the modifications to my armor," Sara called over the neural network that the group now shared.
"See? I told I thought that's what was wrong. If anyone else has any trouble with the assigned tasks, let me know now, before we actually deploy." The neural network remained quiet for a brief moment.
"Uhm, my knee won't bend correctly I'm using that driver set up Griffon has, but with my legs, and now the knees won't bend." One of the younger cadets had been having trouble with the assignment for the longest time and just couldn't figure out what was wrong.
"Let me see really quick… oh, you applied it to the limb rather than the limb joint; the simulator is just confused as to what you're trying to do. Here, this is all you have to do to fix that." Loyd reapplied the driver to the joint and watched as it worked fine.
"Oh, I feel dumb now, thanks, boss."
"Are there any other issues?"
Again, the network remained silent for a brief time before everyone readied up.
"Alright, then we're ready for the event now." Loyd readied up and they all felt the gravity shift as the shuttles they were in started to accelerate. "Everyone, get ready for reentry. These shuttles came cheap so expect them to start breaking up after a minute."
Loyd's shuttle was the first to hit the atmosphere and it was definitely a rough ride. Some time passed and the group of shuttles started to slow down, bending and creaking as they did so.
"Everyone, get ready, these things are going to come apart about a kilometer before we hit the ground. Shields, you'll have the worst of it because of your additional weight but do as we practiced and everything should go smoothly."
All of the shuttles came apart, just as Loyd had said, and thanks to several hours of practice, everyone landed just fine.
The shields quickly formed a wall and braced as the first shells hit. The mortar suppression teams got into their positions and began taking down the missiles and artillery shells that were being fired.
"Shield wall, forwards!"
The entire group took a step forward then another, shells bouncing off the wall in front and artillery and missiles exploding in the air above them.
The group made it to the point where the direct fire emplacements started to punch through the shields and took a few steps back.
"Fast movers on my mark!"
The extra shuttle Loyd had gotten entered the atmosphere just on time.
"Mark!"
The fast movers leapt over the shield wall and came around the sides, making a beeline over the last five kilometers so the shields couldn't take them. The mortar suppression teams pulled out their heavy laser cannons and started firing through gaps the shield team had made. The fast movers watched as continuous lasers cut through the weak first wall and partially melted the second one before the guns began to overheat. They had made the enemies duck down and stop firing while the fast movers closed the distance. The shuttle broke apart at the same point the ones carrying the CTAS had, except this time, it was carrying the fast movers' heavy weaponry.
The weapons fell into the hands of the fast movers as they jumped over the second wall, dropping anti-CTAS grenades as they passed over the enemies.
"From here on out, its adlibbed. Just don't get yourselves killed."