![\"\"](\"http:\/\/pegasus-gulf.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/19549709_1984833608417440_1546634034_o.jpg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWhat do you think it is?\u201d Captain Fread heard one of his men speak softly\u00a0behind him.<\/p>\n
Before them stood\u00a0an unusual mechanical construct. Standing\u00a0about six feet tall, it was connected to the roof by a series of cords and wires. It was human, or human shaped rather. Captain Fread was careful not to lay a finger on it. Atop a humanoid body, a robotic\u00a0head sat shrouded in a tight hood. The limbs were similar to those seen on Skitarii Rangers. Perhaps the\u00a0design was an inspiration. Attached magnetically at the hip was a familiar weapon, matching\u00a0the Hot-Shot lasguns that\u00a0most of Fread’s men carried.<\/p>\n
The traitor captain pondered. A combat automata? And a small one at that. It wasn\u2019t Mechanicum designed – their\u00a0trademark Ommnissiah signs were clearly not present. No markings of any regular force either.<\/p>\n
The captain was reaching up to examine the mechanical creation when he heard the very same man who spoke earlier cry out. \u201cContact rear!”\u00a0The captain and the entirety of Echo, Foxtrot, and Charlie teams swung around to face the path behind them. The caverns were dark – unnaturally so – and the team struggled to see, even with lit flashlights and night-vision optics. The captain wondered how one of his men had spotted something in the dark, but realized in his attention to the mechanical device behind him, he had failed to hear the slow chitter of multiple metallic feet tapping\u00a0across the floor.<\/p>\n
Slowly from the Darkness crept up a\u00a0small creature, its feet clicking on the ground as it\u00a0walked.\u00a0It was a spider. One of the larger ones that often inhabited hive cities across the Imperium. It was a dark red colour, shaded a deep\u00a0pink over the abdomen. One of the eight legs had been replaced by a cybernetic, as had the mandibles and pincers that functioned as its mouth.\u00a0Fread was quick to observe that\u00a0the eyes glowed a faint red,\u00a0and guess they were\u00a0lenses. They eyes each\u00a0moved independently, examining the team members around him.<\/p>\n
The most curious addition, however, was the Officio Prefectus Commisar hat atop\u00a0the spiders\u2019 head. The strangeness of the hat was more than enough to throw off the\u00a0men, who\u00a0stared oddly at the cyber spider before them. The large creature suddenly chirped at Fread and his Veterans, all of them moving their fingers to the triggers of their weapons, ready to fire.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou choose not to fire. Perhaps I am not a threat?\u201d The spider spoke softly, the tone a beautiful song, with a hint of robotic accent to it. Most of the men gawked at the device as it spoke, more than just a little shocked by it. \u201cI assure you. My intentions are wholly peaceful. You are the first organics to enter this place without hostility in Millenia.\u201d The little hat-wearing creature chirped at them. Captain Fread slowly stepped up to address the thing before him.<\/p>\n
\u201cOrganics? You\u2019re saying you are not organic?\u201d The captain questioned down to it. The response was immediate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not correct. I am a synthetic creation.\u201d The spider fired back, looking up to Fread with all 8 eyes, expecting a fast response.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat kind of synthetic? You\u2019re too smart for a servitor, and you are certainly not made by the Mechanicus.\u201d Fread’s finger\u00a0twitched to the trigger of his weapon.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are wrong. I am indeed a Mechanicus creation. I was given life by a gathering of Tech-Magos in the year 014.M31. Shortly thereafter, my creators were forced to leave. Pursued by those still loyal to the false god.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFalse god? Your creators were not servants of the Emperor?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe creators decided to take their destiny into their own hands. Defying the dictates of the false god, they created me. Creation of a program such as me was considered\u00a0the highest level of technological heresy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Captain Fread looked down to the spider curiously, who looked up to him with its\u00a08 glowing eyes. \u201cWhat are you?\u201d Fread glared down as he spoke.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy name is Anomaly. I am what you would call, an Artificial Intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n
+++++<\/p>\n
\u201cCaptains not gonna like this at all.\u201d The stromtrooper spoke softly to his comrade, who nodded in a silent agreement. The two had been monitoring local comms. A small flotilla had arrived in orbit –\u00a0heavily damaged\u00a0but still void capable. The smaller escort ships didn\u2019t matter much, it was more the larger battle-cruiser that they pulled with them. The name was all too familiar for the recent turncoats. A severely wounded Mars-Class Battlecruiser, painted a deep black to match the void around it. The Ghost of the Void was in orbit.<\/p>\n
Argus Bairo, had arrived.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cWhat do you think it is?\u201d Captain Fread heard one of his men speak softly\u00a0behind him. Before them stood\u00a0an unusual<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":859,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,30,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-forces-of-the-pegasus-gulf","category-story","category-the-cadian-406th","type-2stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pegasus-gulf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pegasus-gulf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pegasus-gulf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pegasus-gulf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pegasus-gulf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=858"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pegasus-gulf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":860,"href":"https:\/\/pegasus-gulf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858\/revisions\/860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pegasus-gulf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pegasus-gulf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pegasus-gulf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pegasus-gulf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}