The Wandering ; (Planetary Annihilation Multicross SI.)

Synopsis: A planetary annihilation fic is typically a self insert to a commander body. A commander body is essentially a robot body that can assimilate and build things through the use of nano bots. Essentially allowing the mc to develop along the lines of Starcraft-esqe ways. The first universe starts of in The Alien vs Predator universe.

Author: Kadaeux

Site: Sufficient Velocity

Prolouge:

LV-223 Archaeological Dig Site.

The archaeological dig had been at it for almost a week on LV-223. They had found the mass beneath the ice when previous surveys had missed it before. A colossal metal structure beneath the ice. Danforth was, of course, a member of the company. The only one that mattered this far out.

And that find was why he was no sitting there, watching under Marine watch. Mother had sent them out. The priority of their find absolute. But even as the heat units opened up the excavation there was something in there. Something huge. Eighty metres in height.

It's strange mechanical form entrapped in the melting ice. Inactive for who knew how long.

It was beautiful.

Until the slit where eyes should be lit up a baleful red.

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Consciousness returned to me in fits and starts. Like a boot sequence running through its paces. First operating systems. Power. Mass. Senses. Production Engines. Reclamation Engines. Data Intrusion equipment. Weapons.. and finally my personality. I didn't even realise I had it until it was loaded into active memory. What the hell had been done to me, by what or whom?

I knew what I was. More intimately than the memories I had could ever have explained. I also knew that there was a man standing on the rim in front of my eye. I processed his appearance in all of a few seconds. Coveralls, basic tools... and a logo.

Oh no.

Weyland Yutani.

++Get off me.++

The sound came from the radio on his hip. There was no vocal transmitters in my body, it hadn't been built with communication in mind, at least not that with lesser minds. It was made for a singular purpose. War. He promptly startled, and fell off.

Fortunately for him he was secured tightly with rope. Unfortunately for him, he was secured to me. I shrugged off the ice creeping into my joints. A moments annoyance gripping me. The Marines were turning, surprised towards me. I scanned them easily ignoring the harsh light of the floods. The M41A Pulse rifles didn't intimidate me. Neither did the Smartgun carried by one of them.

But they weren't intended to intimidate me. They were intended to protect the site from other interests.

But right now they were freaking out.

I stepped from my icy prison, poor WY employee dangling from the ropes securing him to me. I tapped into their comms channels and their barking for help. And reinforcements.

++You, dangleboy. Do you have enough rope to get down?++

The employee, managed to get himself under control looking into my eyes, and abseiling down me as quickly as he could manage. My sensors studied my surrounds. It seemed that the game, predictably, was by far not to scale. It didn't change the fact that I was forty times his size. Nearly the size of a 20 story building.

As soon as he was down I raised my arms into the active position. The Marines were panicked and reacting, weapons raised and shouting commands. I frowned.

No I wanted to frown. I wasn't physically able to do so.

++What year is it?++

I asked and the employee, running for the biggest rock he could hide behind paused and turned. Taking up his radio. "2170. It's the year of our lord 2170."

++Where am I++

He hesitated. "We call it LV-223. I don't know what you would call it, or how you know our language..." the marines had an APC rolling down into the excavation site. It's turret following me with every turn it made. The time to make a decision came quickly, my arrival unprecedented, but also unexpected.

And now I had to decide whether the secrecy of my existence was more important than the lives of these men and women. I didn't want to kill men and women just doing their jobs, they hadn't done anything to me, likely couldn't do anything to me. But the men they worked for were another story entirely. A corporation that would fuck around with the Xenomorphs and put everyone at risk.

No.

I wouldn't murder them just to preserve myself. But I would disarm them. The reclaimer beams fired, narrowed down to a point almost beyond their specifications. Absorbing their weapons, comms equipment.... the APC fired a hundred rounds before I turned capture beams on it.

Those beams took over the hardware and electronics. Shutting down their comms. With it, the machines schematics entered my databanks. There was nothing impressive or useful. But it was local.

I had left the radio on the employee's waist. ++I apologise for the unpleasantries, but nobody is hurt. And I have places to be.++

Chapter 1:

I could feel them trying to follow me. And to be entirely honest they were not doing entirely terribly at it for something so small. And I may have been nearly twenty stories tall, but that meant I had quite a stride on me as I tried to put distance between them and myself.

But I couldn't take too long, or the others would be able to get help. And thus, giving up after ten kilometres I turned on and the nanolathes came to life spewing the form of the the metal extract, that too was not in scale with the games, not just in scale, but in time to produce. It seemed that the game was a little generous with production times. But taking a few minutes instead of seconds was no significant issue. Especially once production was well and truly up and running. But within twenty minutes I had half a dozen metal extractors, a dozen power plants and was working on my first air factory when the humans caught up with me.

I always defaulted to air factories first. Their fabricators were simply too useful for their ability to ignore the constraints of terrain. One second of production had become sixty seconds. And so the twenty seconds it should have taken to build had become twenty minutes.

The worker was the first to approach. The disarmed Marine had frozen at the perimeter of my works. And even the worker looked nervous. But wouldn't you? Why was I taking this in stride so easily? Was it a place where programming overlapped my personality?

Or was it my personality already seeing them as unthreatening, thus not something to be concerned with. But still, the worker proved to be a brave little peon.

"Hello? Hello, can you hear me?"

++Of course I can hear you.++

What an odd thing for me to say, how could he know my audio processors could pick out a xenomorph's fart at two kilometres?

"Oh you can... um... what are you?" I didn't have much to occupy my expansive thoughts at the moment. In fact, my physical body was able to operate on the factory without direct input from me. But still, I hesitated considering the question. What am I? A commander built for a war without end possessing theoretically perfected technologies? A man displaced through space, time and physics into such a body?

++I am Delta Imperator.++

He frowned, as if that answer wasn't enough. Of course it wasn't, he was an archaeologist, his curiosity must be afire. Something he had been digging up. He wanted to really know. Well truth was I didn't give a fuck if he wanted to know. I was more concerned with a bigger picture. "But... what are you?"

++I am Delta Imperator. Nothing more. But certainly nothing less.++

"Who made you, what is your purp..."

++I am Delta Imperator. If you know who, or what, created me you would be the first. As for my purpose? My purpose is my choice. I do not subscribe to the mortal notion of destinies and fates.++

He didn't know that I was jacking his comms channels and focusing on the larger communications going on between the Marine ship in orbit. The commanding officer was considering adjusting their orbit to overfly the site and get orbital scans. That meant adjusting my plans. I wanted an Umbrella built before then.

Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

At this stage, I was particularly vulnerable to that maxim. Even if Ripley wasn't here to give it. The strategy right now was simple. Build up. Find a nice moon. Load it with Halley Rockets and hotfoot it to LV-426 before the colonists stumbled across the biggest mistake that they would ever make.

I realised I was busy queuing orders and had missed something the human said.

The Human. Surely my thoughts were not that divergent already?

++I apologise. I was at a delicate stage of assembly. You were saying?++

"What are you... doing?"

Oh. It wanted noise...

But time enough had passed and the factory was completed. The factory already spooling up to produce air fabricators. ++Preparing. Industry. Growth.++ Each aircraft would take fifteen minutes to produce. Which meant I needed more than one factory.

The employee fell on his arse when the reclamation beams soared out and removed the foliage in the area. The foundations for a second factory already being laid by my nanolathes. I had little concern for his injury, falling on ones arse was rarely problematic for one as young as he was. But still. Courtesies.

++Are you well?++

He recovered from his shock quickly, but didn't try and report what he was seeing. Climbing to his feet. Awe on his face. I kept forcing myself to understand why. How often does somebody witness the construction of a fifteen story building in a mere twenty minutes?

"What is all this for?"

The question didn't catch me off-guard. It was just a rewording of a question he'd already asked before. But either way, I had no interest in revisiting it. ++You have asked a lot of me, it is time for me to ask of you. Who are you human?++

"Me? What could you possibly want to know about me?"

++Your name, place of birth, position within Weyland-Yutani.++

He started in surprise, heartbeat elevating. He now wondered, no doubt, what I knew, how, and... what it meant.

"Jacob Mills, a little place called Chicago, archaeologist... I admit, you worry me."

++How strange. Whatever could possibly worry you about a near twenty story walking machine-man you just freed from the ice.++ A chuckle in my tone slipped through the radio. ++Chicago isn't exactly a little place either.++

Well, there goes my fucking mouth. I'd never been to Chicago. But it was a major US city.

I was right he looked truly worried now.

"You know of us?" He said... fearfully.

++I do. That worries you?++

"Of course it does.... no offense but you are terrifyingly massive. And within an hour of being defrosted have a bunch of buildings already complete and... by the looks of it, making more machines." I had been driving the APC I captured up as I processed his statement. The Marine had found that the situation was safe enough to get closer himself as well.

But fifteen minutes on the picosecond had passed and the first fabrication aircraft launched and they both jumped. The irrepressible scream of the potent jets under its wings lifting it high into the sky, where it began to speed up the production of a second fabricator. Taking it from 15 minutes to about 7.

++Correct.++ I didn't allow myself to become distracted. ++I need a basic economy to begin my work.++

I allowed my perception to stretch out to the Gas Giant above us. If it didn't have a crashed alien ship on another of its moons I might have had more time to appreciate the beauty of what I could see around us. Instead I was looking for LV-426. It was difficult to tell at first glance. But one of the other two moons I could observe orbiting Calpamos was it.

++Tell me Jacob, which moon is Acheron?++

He hesitated. "Why do you want to know that?"

++Because the company sent a colony to inhabit the moon LV-426 after it had detected a non-human signal source, and sent a vessel by the name of Nostromo there. The Nostromo met with disaster, and so Weyland Yutani decided to simply settle and terraform the planet to find the source.++ I finished the second air factory and another fabricator began construction. Once I had four air fabricators they would begin construction of the Umbrella.

No I didn't need the Halley rockets. I was already in the system with LV-426. It would be trivial to boost over to it. No... no it wouldn't. I didn't think of the effects of scale on travel times.

Plans to build the Halleys were scrapped entirely.

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It was monstrously large. Standing there vomiting out clouds of something he didn't want to think of, but Jacob was in fear and awe of the machine before him. The Marines APC entered the clearing and drove over, parking near the foot of the monstrous machine. The machine was producing things at a prodigious rate and frankly it scared him. He thought about his wife and kids on Hadley's Hope, waiting for him to return with news of the strange find they'd made.

The Marine who had been instructed to follow him moved up towards the APC. He needed access to the comms equipment in it. ++No touchy.++ The massive machine blurted through Jacob's radio and the Marine stopped. His own had been... absorbed.. by the monster.

But still, Jacob decided that it wasn't threatening them, and it hadn't tried to kill them, whatever it was doing was clearly not designed to threaten them. Soon there were four of the vast, and loud, aircraft in the skies, with more being produced. But these four were no longer assisting the factories. They had moved to a marginally taller hill and began building something new. The Marine stepped up closer. "Jake, that thing is looking awfully like a defence gun to me?"

"Don't be absurd, it's more like a gyroscope." He retorted. Why they were building.. oh there it was, the utterly massive gun was being fabricated.

The marine grabbed the radio from his waist and tried to make contact with the base camp to no avail.

++Please don't make me reclaim that radio. At this time its my only point of contact with you.++

"Why are you building a gun then?"

++Because you have a Conestoga class troop transport in orbit. And I don't want a trigger happy grunt to decide I would make good target practice.++

"Jesus Mike, please don't piss it off. I don't want to end up as something it washes off its feet, you feel me?" Jacob said terrified.

"You do know if you finish that gun, they will take it as hostile intent and attack?"

++We all make mistakes. It would be their last. But I intend no harm, and will not retaliate unless attacked.++

"Seriously. Shut the fuck up Mike!" Jacob took the radio away. "I'm sorry about that Delta Imperator. We did not mean to sound threatening. We are just trying to understand. You seem to know these things, and it is scary stuff. But you seem worried about this thing on Acheron, why?"

++Because in ten years you will find something there. Or one of you will anyway. It will kill everyone in Hadley's Hope. I intend to prevent that. Tell me Marine. Do you have a Synth on board?++

'Mike' took the radio back. "We have a Science officer at the basecamp yes. Why?"

++Because I am a machine. It might be easier to converse and explain my purpose with another machine. Please invite him to come here.++

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It took almost three hours for them to get their Synth here. Not because i'd stolen their APC. But because they had spent two hours arguing about it back at the basecamp and on the ship above. That, unfortunately for them, had been more than enough time to get working. Mike and Jacob lounged around, insofar as one can amongst a growing base camp.

The sound level was significant with Air Fabricators, and now Bot and Vehicle fabricators working. Many were just operating in clusters of five going out to resource patches and setting up metal extractors, power plants and radar. But the Marines were obviously intent on setting the tone. The Conestoga, the St Kitts practically hovered overhead.

The second APC pulled in with its turret stowed. I mentally nodded at the wisdom of the Marines before they piled out. Fully armed. But that didn't matter to me. He was a 341-B Weyland Yutani model. A Bishop.

Then three of them shouldered rocket launchers.

A pair of Ants rounded their factory tracks tearing into the soil as behind them half a dozen Drifters emerged from the forest canopy from where they had lain dormant out of the Colonials paths.

++You know that the M83 Launcher cannot hurt me don't you? Or do you think the M112 HIMATs are sufficient to cross the rubicon into actually threatening me?++

They looked at each other as the Bishop stepped forwards.

"You asked to speak to me?"

++Yes. I did.++ The capture beams fired and I scanned and studied every molecule of the Bishop as it fought the intrusion. It only lasted a few seconds before I released him from bondage to me. I didn't need him personally.

He fell back from the beams as they snapped off. He knew he'd just been violated. His very core studied. His program unravelled layer by layer and reassembled. But I was already working. The nanolathes fired for not even a second. Something human sized was such a trivial meaningless effort that. In moments Bishop saw another of himself standing there before him as I poured a sliver of awareness into it.

Suddenly the people were people sized to me again. And the weapons looked much more threatening.

"Bodysnatchers!" One of the Marines said, "They're goddamned bodysnatchers!"

Bishop was more magnanimous than the Marine was inclined to be. "You attacked me, I felt you in my.."

"I apologise for that." The Marines jumped, so did Jacob. Bishop was more composed, having more or less expected that. "Communicating through someones walky-talky is a bit of an irritation and frustrating at the best of times. The best solution to that was to get a way of communicating personally myself. And so here I am. Delta Imperator, or at least a sliver of me, in the faux-flesh."

I held out a hand. Bishop, confused, shook it.