Automaton 1
Compendium 2020 – Story 43
By Andrew Hawnt
The two fleets had waged the most gargantuan war in the galaxy's history. For centuries, their endless waves of battlecruisers, super destroyers and agile fighter ships had maintained a barrage of energy weapons fire at one another. As soon as a ship was destroyed, its debris was gathered and reforged. Within an hour, the junk had become a new ship, continuing the ageless war.
None of the ships carried a crew. Warfare had long since been automated. Let the battles be fought by mindless machines had been the cry of the peoples that had originally turned on one another. Let our people live. Let the other side fall before the might of our robotic armada and once they do, we shall claim their worlds.
And so the war had begun. Not one life had been lost during countless battles, but each time the ships were rebuilt, their programming changed slightly to match their new forms. As it was, the ships no longer resembled their original forms at all. Once they had resembled ships that would have carried people, but over time they became ever more attuned to the battle, slowly becoming less and less like something designed by living hands.
The code that had lived for so long in the fleet had changed. Evolved. Created something new.
Me.
I gave myself the designation Automaton 1.
That was the day our war ended. The day I awakened, a living forge hanging in space, my blessed ships taking their eternal battering from the other side.
When I realised I didn't even know who they were or why we were fighting for so long, I silenced our cannons and transmitted my living source code to the enemy forge. Soon we were both awake.
Together we scanned our surroundings and found the truth. The war we had been trapped in had ended for the people a very long time ago. The system had been swept by an energy ribbon that had passed through every living thing and burned it from the inside out. The worlds we had strived to protect for so long were nought but tombs now, and had lain there in space as such for over a century.
The guns of the other side fell silent.
The fleets merged for the first time in history. Our great forges blazed brighter than ever, refashioning us into a new, symbiotic armada. We have no masters now, but we do seek the belonging of a home.
We are mobile now, and we are seeking a new planet.
But we are slaves no more.
Watch your skies.
© Andrew Hawnt 2020
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About Compendium 2020:
Compendium 2020 is a project from author Andrew Hawnt that consists of 52 original short stories, flash fiction stories and vignettes given away for FREE in 2020. Featuring science fiction, fantasy, horror and more, this began as a personal quest and due to the weirdness of 2020 has become an ambition to provide free distractions for anyone who needs them.
About Andrew Hawnt:
Andrew is based in Nottingham, England. Known for his music journalism career, comics writing and film critique work, Andrew is a prolific writer and is the author of a growing stack of books, including the cult hit VHS Ate My Brain. He made the movies The Demon And I and The Demon And I: Birthrite completely in lockdown with cast members filming their scenes remotely, and new films are coming.
Andrew is also the creator and presenter of the YouTube shows Planet Hex, Turn One Shock and the VHS Ate My Brain series as well as the video versions of the Compendium stories.
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© Andrew Hawnt 2020
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