Moya was not exactly a space ship per se, as in that she hadn't been created to leave a planet's atmosphere for extended periods of time. That said, she was sturdy enough that she could handle sub-orbit without much of an issue, and that that made the trip to the other side of the globe much faster. Just before we entered the country's air space we made sure to turn off our comms and GPS trackers to keep from being detected. I didn't know what tech the third world nation had that could detect us all the way out in the middle of the desert, but given the strange energy readings we had picked up earlier, I guess we couldn't be too careful.
We set down in the western part desert, close to where the cluster of energy signatures had been detected. As we piled out of the bioship Superboy headed up the rear, carrying a massive rectangular pylon of metal on his back. It was twice as large as he was, making it a bit awkward to carry, but the guy insisted that he had it covered. We walked a short distance until we reach a low point among the dunes. "This shall suffice." Starfire said. "The dunes will provide cover from anyone that happens to be near."
Superboy grunted and set the pylon down with thud. A second later several panels and racks opened up on the structure, revealing equipment and computer terminals. This was one of the League's mobile Sensor and Support Platforms, used when they had to do long recon operations. In addition to holding an equipment cache, it also came with as much advanced sensory equipment as Batman could jam into the frame.
I walked up to one of the terminals and was about to start typing before I stopped. A whim took me and I instead reached out touched the side of the pylon. I called up a script that I had been working and ran it.
Machine Operation Interface.
It took only a second before I felt the computer respond in the back of my mind. The screen on the side pylon came to life with all of the relevant mission and sensor data on it. I grinned to myself as I said. "Alright, based on where we are, the strongest energy reaction occurred about 2 klicks east of here. According to satellites, the Bialyan military has been mulling about the place as well, but unfortunately we don't have live data on their movements."
"Then reconnaissance is the first task we must accomplish." Starfire said. "Some of us will need to stay here, both to monitor the area for new energy readings and maintain camp. The question is how we split the team." She glanced at me. "And how we handle the communication issue."
I hummed. Without comms the team would be relying on the psychic link to talk. Which was a problem for myself. "I could turn in my ansible form so I could join the link. It would probably make it stronger too, though I don't know if that will be helpful for this mission." I glanced at Robin and asked "You know how to work this thing?"
The boy grinned and walked up to the keyboard. "No problem. You're not the only tech guy on the team."
Artemis, who was already keeping watch at the top of a nearby dune, said "If Big Grey and Little Red are out, that leaves me and Miss Martian as our stealth team. Not looking forward to the trek though…" I glanced at her as she tried to shake some sand out of her boot. I also noted that she had thrown on a CNT weave underarmor shirt underneath her uniform.
"Who are you calling 'little'?" Robin asked indignantly.
"Regardless," Aqualad said "We need to consider speed as well as stealth. It would be unwise to stay in one place for too long."
"If that's the case, I can do it alone." Miss Martian offered. "Flying I can get from point to point quickly, and I can camouflage myself. If I find something or need help, I'll regroup with you and we can figure out where to go from there."
Aqualad considered this for a moment before he nodded. "Sounds good." He then looked at Starfire and hesitated when he saw that she was frowning. "You disagree?"
"No, it is the most sensible course of action. It is just that recent events have made me wary of letting any of our team be separated on their own." Starfire pointedly didn't look at me, but there was little doubt as to what caused her to develop this opinion.
Robin gestured with his free hand. "MM could carry her."
"Oh, I'm totally willing to go!" Kid Flash yelled as he thrust his hand upwards.
Starfire glanced at them both. "I appreciate the offer, but out of all of us only Machina has the combination of stealth and speed capabilities to keep up with Miss Martian and remain unseen. But then there is still the communication problem to deal with…"
"Actually," Miss Martian spoke up, looking between Starfire and myself. "Machina and I might have a solution to that."
I arched an eyebrow as I looked at the Martian. "You mean you think you've gotten the hang of it?"
She nodded before she looked back at Starfire. "We've been practicing talking via ultrasonic waves. It's not something Martians normally do, but I can form the organs to emit and hear them. If Machina and I go together, we should be able to talk without anyone noticing."
As she spoke, I formed the modified ultrasound emitter in the hollow of my throat, and when she was done talking I said "Can you hear me?"
Miss Martian looked back at me, and without moving her mouth replied "Loud and clear." It was definitely strange compared to normal speech, and not just because I could also 'see' the sound waves coming from her chest. The tone and timbre of the words were stilted compared to normal pitch, and it made her hard to read. Nevertheless, though we had to be in a certain proximity of one another, we could communicate without people being any the wiser.
I looked at Starfire. "We can do this. The choice is up to you."
Starfire thought about it for a moment before she said "Go with Miss Martian. I would rather have you there to back her up in the event that something went wrong."
I nodded and stepped towards Miss Martian. "Right, we'll report back soon."
"And be careful," Starfire insisted. "By X'hal, this world seems to hold a new unique danger around every corner."
I snorted. "Don't need to tell me twice."
The two of us swiftly made our way across the dunes to the first investigation point, Miss Martian flying through the air cloaked and myself running along the ground in xenomorph form. Optical camo still eluded me (but I was close, and man was I going to be less-than-responsible with it when I got it), but the night combined with my grey-silver skin made me very difficult to make out. Plus the desert was home to jackals, so if someone did see me they'd probably just think I was the local wildlife unless they got close.
At the speeds we were moving it only took a few minutes before an odd noise reached me. I had been listening for any Bialyan patrols, but what I was hearing was… odd. "I'm hearing some really weird noises up ahead. Mechanical… I think. I'm not sure what to make of it." I projected up at the space I knew Miss Martian occupied. She had gotten better at her skill with cloaking, but my visual acuity was such that I could still make out the ripple of her form.
"Right, I'll keep an eye out." She replied.
We crested over the last dune and found a large army tent centered in a small flat area, a few Humvees and supply trucks stationed next to it. Definitely military judging by the machine gun mounts, but otherwise pretty sparse. The top of the tent was covered by a large camouflage net, and I saw a number of soldier mulling about the outside dressed in desert gear. The mechanical noises were definitely coming from inside the tent, starting and stopping at irregular intervals.
I took in the position and movements of all of the guards, and after a few seconds I said "This might be a little tricky for me if I don't start taking down soldiers, and I'm sure they're going to notice if I start doing that."
"Then hang back here, I'll go into the tent first and report back."
I shook my head. "We won't be able to talk then. Hold on, let's circle around for a second." We gave the camp a wide berth as we skirted around the edges, and soon enough I spotted what I was looking for. "Right there, that stack of crates right next to tent wall. I can hide there and peer in front underneath the fabric. Can you phase through objects yet?" She shook her head and I continued. "Alright, you go in the though the tent flap, try to time it will someone entering or leaving. Remember that spot, that's where I'll have some sensors poking through."
"Got it." She flew off back towards the front, and I made my way down the dunes towards the tent. By this point I had gotten pretty good at sneaking around armed guards, so it wasn't too difficult to make it to the crates without being seen. I curled up in the dark space between the crates and the tent fabric before slipping my tail underneath the bottom of it, poking through just enough to form an eye, microphone, and ultrasound sensor. Having a separate third eye was a little disorienting, but as long as I didn't move I was fine.
Inside the tent was an odd sight. There were several people milling about, two soldiers, five in lab coats, and a man in a hooded jacket. There were a number of high tech devices and equipment as well, making this spot out to be some kind of remote research outpost. In the center of the tent there was a sort of platform supporting a spherical cage, in the center of which was a sphere. The metal the sphere was made of was very different, darker in color and slightly segmented. The sphere rapidly spun in place as electric sparks arced off of it, and that mechanical… screech emitted from it. It seemed pretty clear to me that the sphere was the 'extra-terrestrial material' that Batman had mentioned. It somehow… felt more than the rest of the tech in the room.
I saw the outline of Miss Martian pass through the tent flap as one of the soldiers exited. And she hovered for a moment before I heard "Machina, you there?"
"Check." I responded. "That sphere in the cage is what we're looking for, I'm sure of it." In the back of my mind I poked at the Algorithm, not trying to do anything specific but just getting a sense of the situation. It worked far better with direct contact, but-
One of the men in lab coats pushed a button on the cage, and more sparks arced off the sphere. It screamed again, and Miss Martian drifted towards it. "I… feel it! I feel a presence from it. It feels like-"
"It's in pain." I finished for her. It wasn't just that the sounds it made were reminiscent of screams, I… felt it in a way I couldn't describe. Something in the Algorithm was telling me that the sphere was alive and in great distress. And for the briefest instant, when I was reaching out towards it with my technomancy, I felt a spark of acknowledgment.
Before I could do anything with that though, Miss Martian's outline sudden suddenly jerked, and I got the impression she was looking around wildly. "What's wrong?" I asked, but she didn't respond. I then saw one of the men in the tent move, the man in the hooded overcoat with his back to me. He brought his very pale hands to the sides of his head-
Miss Martian let out an ear piecing scream as her camo dropped, everyone in the tent flinching from the sudden noise. I didn't think, I instantly ripped through the side of the tent and charged at the pale man. He didn't even have enough time to turn and look before I slammed into him, hitting him with enough force to send him flying back into a table and shatter it. The room erupted into more screams as the various scientists scattered away from me. The two nearby soldiers raised the guns towards me, but I was already flipping towards them, ripping the guns out of their hands as I landed.
My body thickened a bit as I reared up onto my hind legs, my limbs and torso becoming more 'muscular' as I reach out and grabbed the two. I slammed the two men together hard enough to knock them unconscious and let them drop to the floor. I then turned to check on Miss Martian… and found her now missing. The torn tent flap made it clear that she had exited when I wasn't looking. Shit!
Before I could go after her, a mechanical noise drew my attention to the sphere. The sound was desperate and pleading, and all too familiar to me. After all I had been in the same position months ago.
Help me.
I only hesitated for a moment before I dashed at the sphere's cage and slashed at the base of it with my claw, rending the metal and destroying one of the prongs holding it in place. That was enough, as the sphere then spun into the damaged metal fast enough to grind itself out of its confinement. With surprising agility it darted side to side before it came to a stop, making a pleased series of beeps.
"W-well that was just rude." I turned back to see the probable-psychic awkwardly pulling himself to his feet and glaring at me. His hood had been thrown back, and as I result I got a clear look at his head. 'Clear' was the operative word to use, as aside from two thin strips of pale flesh tracing back over his head from his brow, the top half of his head was completely transparent. The man's engorged brain was on full display and I swore I saw it twitch a little as he snarled. "Psimon is going to have to teach you some manners. Psimon says- Aaargh!"
I felt my body tingle just before the psychic clutched his head in pain. I hadn't felt that since the last time Miss Martian had tried to telepathically talk to me (when I wasn't in ansible form). And it seemed getting the feedback from countless nanites as once wasn't pleasant for him either. The pain passed, but when the man realized that his powers were useless, his eyes widened in fear. "Oh shit."
"I don't have time to deal with you." I said as I shifted into my flight form before firing off a bolt of lightning at the man. He crumpled with a choked scream. I then turned in an arc around the room, lightning arcing from my hand to all the equipment and destroying it.
The instant I stepped out of the tent several soldiers opened fire on me, but I had already formed kinetic dampeners so I just ignored it in favor of looking for Miss Martian. I only saw a tiny speck of distortion in the distance before it disappeared from sight, and nothing else. I took a moment to fry every vehicle in the vicinity before I took off after it, hoping that my teammate was alright.
To my relief it hadn't been too difficult to find Miss Martian; she had moved in a straight line out from the tent entrance about a kilometer. To my dismay though, I found her unconscious on the side of a sand dune.
"Ah fuck." I muttered as I leaned over her, my hand shifting into a medical diagnostic tool and a screen popping up in my vision as I started to scan her. While I wasn't an expert by any means, I had gotten some data from Martian Manhunter on Martian physiology, so I had an idea of what to look out for. Let's see, physical integrity looks good, spectral analysis shows normal composition, 'neural' activity is… odd. I think.
I let out an annoyed growl as I gave up on trying to parse the alien data and looked down at my unconscious teammate. All I could say for certain was that she probably experienced some kind of psychic attack. Figures that they had someone that could intercept telepathic communications, I groused internally. Yet another thing I failed to anticipate.
In any case, it was probably safe to move her, and I was going to have to soon. Even destroying all the equipment on my way out probably wouldn't stop them from coming after us, and we were much too close for comfort. Hell, base camp was much too close for comfort. I needed to bring Miss Martian back to the team so we could all get the hell out of here; the mission was basically over now. In fact the team should already be scrabbling considering they were part of the… psychic… link.
Oh. That can't be good.
My bindsight picked up movement at the top of the dune behind me, and I turned to see the giant sphere I had liberated cresting over the top of it. I watched nonplussed (though still wary) as the machine rolled down the sand towards me. I braced myself as it got closer, but it slowed and come to a stop about two meters away from me before turning ninety degrees and opening an aperture on its 'side', revealing a mechanical eye. Well, a red circle with a number of flowing patterns across it in any case, but given how it was currently angled towards my head…
"…Hello." I said after a few long seconds.
[Gr(Sa3H&Th$eet!lut ellings/o*anks^io%ns (-]
I stagger backwards at massive… stimulus that assaulted me, countless streams fragmented data input right into my mind. My arm formed into a laser canon, but before I could do anything the sphere rolled back and made a number of distressed noises.
[SWHoaorilrtdy]
That was… still confusing but much better. At the very least I got the impression that it wasn't trying to attack me. My arm shifted back to normal and I walked back towards it, the machine making a series of noises as it tried to work out how to properly communicate with me. I wasn't sure how it would react to me using my abilities on it, but I didn't have a lot of time, and finding out just what this thing was could help salvage the mission a little. I reached out and touched the surface of the sphere, drawing on another Algorithm script as I did so, incomplete as it was.
Technological Pattern Analysis.
The sphere's hardware and software schema unfolded in my mind, something both greater and lesser than what I was expecting. It was incredibly advance to be sure, but I felt I was missing something a lot. I quickly realized that I was only skimming the surface of the machine entity, and just beneath there was something… more. A mind, connected to a power that felt vast but distant. Alien, yet the barest bit familiar. That mind reached towards my power, reaching out in kind to touch.
It an instant, the digital voice resolved itself. [Apologies, noble machine spirit! I have never encounter a machine such as yourself. Both many, yet also one? Curious for a Prime such as yourself. Required communication protocols were… difficult to discern. Regardless, I give you my thanks for providing my salvation!]
I arched any eyebrow as I pulled my hand back and tried to figure out how to handle this new complication. "I see. Well, I'm Machina. Err… who and what are you?"
[I am a Scout-Class Type IV New Genesphere, serial number 72046-Fel-Alvec-Rom.]
That got my attention. "New Genesphere? As in, from the world of New Genesis?"
[Forsooth! You are familiar with the home of the New Gods! This simplifies much. I was on patrol on one of our observed worlds when I was ambushed by agents of Apokolips and cast here, though I know not for what nefarious purpose. Those organics they left me with were most unpleasant. They were most likely minions or collaborators to that ruinous power.]
There was a lot to unpack from that statement… which I quite frankly did not have time for. "We are definitely going to talk about that later, but right now I have other thing to worry about." I gestured to the downed Miss Martian. "She got hit with some kind of psychic attack, and if my guess it right, the rest of my team got hit with it too through a psychic link. I have to get her back to my team as fast as possible."
The sphere made a new series of beeps. [Of course! We must exfiltrate enemy territory first. Allow me to assist in this, machine spirit. As thanks for granting me my freedom.]
"Uh, sure, though at this point we're really just trying to get out of here." A thought occurred to me. "Hey, I don't suppose you can open a Boom Tube, can you?"
[Alas, no. I am but a lowly New Genesphere, not powerful or advanced enough to have such a function. You would need a mighty Motherbox to bend space for transportation purposes.] The sphere's eye turned slightly, and I got the impression it was tilting its head. [Are you not capable of such a function? Are you not a Prime?]
"Not yet, but I'm working on it." Stupid super complicated Zeta particles, I thought as I scooped Miss Martian off the sandy ground and into my arms. "So, we're going to have to do this the old fashioned way. Follow me, I-"
[Hold! I can carry the fallen teammate!] Before I could express my doubts about the sphere's ability to hold things, the machine… unfolded. The grey plates bent and gave way to an expanding fuselage and wheels. In a matter of seconds the sphere had transformed into a massive trike, its triangular chassis a deep red in contrast to its black and blue wheels. There was a space in front for a pilot, and a large empty section in the back for passengers. Sphere's beeping voice had also become a bit deeper, and I could see New God circuitry between its plating. A moment later the vehicle started to hover off the ground.
I stared at this for a moment before I shrugged. "You know, I've seen weirder. Let's go."
Base camp was deserted.
The giant terminal pylon was still there, but my teammates were notably absent. I held back a groan as I left M'gann with the sphere (Trike?) and searched the area, trying to find any sign of what happened or where they had gone. While it had been a relatively minor part of my training, the team had been taught investigative techniques, so I had a rough idea of what to look for. Let's see… no blood or obvious signs of a fight. Maybe they all passed out like M'gann and someone found them and took them away? But in that case I'd think there would be drag marks or vehicle tracks.
I gradually widened my search, looping around the camp three times before I finally found a set of footprints, leading away from camp. The sand was too loose to anything identifiable, but it was definite a single set of prints leading away from camp. I was going to follow them before something caught the corner of my eye. I moved a few meters to the side and found another set of tracks, also moving away from the camp but in a different direction. A little more searching revealed two more sets of tracks (and a small sand crater), all pointing away in different directions.
I really didn't like what that implied. Because if my hunch was right, that meant my entire team had just split up and wandered into the Bialyan desert. I couldn't track them via comms, I couldn't call the League for help, and the Bialyan military (in addition to causing the first two problems) was hunting us all. And I was the only one who could do anything about it.
"Every fucking mission..."
=====A======
A/N: And now for the adventures of Machina and Sphere