Sleeping Angel

I. Sleeping Angel CCXXII

BLIP.

BLIP.

BLIP.BLIP. BLIP.BLIP.BLIP.

BLIP.

A faint signal drifted through the cosmos.

BLIP.

BLIP.

BLIP.BLIP. BLIP.BLIP.BLIP.

BLIP.

Sleeping Angel CCXXII's six meter satellite communications dish was first to detect the trace radio frequency.

The ship's AI Computation Suite concluded this since it hadn't received a pass-on confirmation message from any of the thousands of other exoplanetary system skimmers operating in the sector.

The signal was barely discernible against the cosmic background noise. Code in the ship's communications array flagged the message for refinement and retransmission to all surrounding space vessels.

Reaction wheels attached to the satellite dish spun up, further aligning the dish to point at the source of the signal.

BLIP.

BLIP.

BLIP.BLIP. BLIP.BLIP.BLIP.

BLIP.

The patterned message was clearer now. The communications array was able to isolate the minute waveforms against the constant onslaught of ever-present cosmic radiation. It sent the raw data to the ship's AI for interpretation.

The AI Computation Suite meticulously calculated through a detailed analysis of the radio signal. It had all the markings of a colonial distress signal, but it was incredibly underpowered. It should have poured out across multiple sectors, yet this one had barely managed to trickle its way into the outer reaches of its own planetary system.

Based on the message's telemetry and known outposts in the quadrant, the signal had to have come from New Virga, a tungsten mining colony at the outer reaches of the Commonwealth's footprint. The AI sent a query to the outworld communications bank at the heart of New Virga's only registered colonial settlement, Nephele. There was no response.

It tried to communicate directly with the colony three more times over the next six hours but not once did it receive a reply. It passed along this information back to the Communications Array which rebroadcast the original distress message, this time at a significantly stronger power level and spread across multiple waveform spectra.

Along with the processed signal, the Comms Array attached a tag essentially stating, "Sleeping Angel CCXXII (Solar System Skimmer SA-CCXXII) has received the following message: [BLIP. __ BLIP. __ BLIP.BLIP. _ BLIP.BLIP.BLIP. __ BLIP.] and will proceed to investigate. Expect bi-hourly updates on the following frequency bands: 430 MHz, 2.045 GHz, 2.45 GHz.

-- --

II. Julia

Julia's eyes flickered open. The sterile cabin light reflected off of her cerulean irises.

The ship's AI had brought her out of hibernation mode and activated her systems.

She performed a quick internal query of her chronometer and concluded that she hadn't been activated outside of her regularly scheduled diagnostic sessions for over 4 years.

Wirelessly tethered to the ship's AI, Julia scanned through the logs to sort through what was going on.

1. A distress signal had been picked up from New Virga, its strength was troublingly weak. 2. The Comms Suite had broadcast out its findings and confirmed that the Sleeping Angel CCXXII was en route to investigate. 3. The ship's AI had already adjusted the skimmer's trajectory and they would be entering into a highly eccentric orbit within the next two hours. 4. The signal had been processed over 18 days ago. She had only been brought online once the ship had hit a targeted proximity distance to the colony.

Julia squirmed as her OS completed its boot-up cycle and she slowly regained sensation through her 1,362 embedded chassis sensory arrays.

She inhaled a simulated breath as her human emulation subroutines kicked on.

Moving through the rest of her system checks with no red flags, Julia noted her activation status with the ship's AI and pushed herself out of her reclined hibernation chair.

Three sets of cables and two sets of tubes disconnected from ports located along her spine as she took a step forward. The power and data cables quickly retracted back into recessed cutouts in the chair, while the motor lubricant and All-Purpose-Emulation-Fluid tubes slowly snaked down into the floor.

Recognizing their disconnection from the tubes and wires, five skin-colored discs slid into place down the length of Julia's artificial vertebrae, neatly sealing each connection port closed. Fully activated and free of her hibernation chair's tethers, Julia stepped up to the full-length mirror at the front of her small cabin.

Appearances were important to Angel-Bots like herself. They often had no idea what situations were going to be like planet-side before dropping in, so their elegantly constructed feminine appearance provided them with a quick avenue of establishing rapport, empathy, and trust with the local colonials. She examined her face. High cheekbones were set upon either side of her small, button nose. Just above sat her large, vibrant eyes. If she focused her vision enough, she could see the camera lens apertures hidden beneath her irises, but damn if they weren't well-disguised.

A thick mane of red hair hung down, tickling the tops of her shoulders, making a stark contrast against her blemishless fair toned skin.

Her body was supple and lean; just beneath the delicate outlines of her hybrid-alloy collarbones sat two perky breasts which, since her creation, had been handily winning their fight against Earth-standard gravity. Wide hips flared, connecting her athletic stomach and her slender legs. Her toned calves could have been carved of marble. She was curious just how great they'd look in a pair of stiletto heels.

Julia ran her hands up and down her body, meticulously logging each and every sensation of her tactile sensory arrays being stimulated from the delicate touch of her fingertips.

She gently reached a hand down to the intersection of her thighs and traced a finger along the soft contours of her plastic folds. Registering nothing further than the most basic of tactile sensory impressions due to her lack of self-pleasure routines, Julia removed her finger with simulated annoyance.

It sure did feel nice down there; it was a shame she hadn't been able to fully utilize that hardware outside of self diagnostics.

Most Angel-Bots spent most, if not all, of their operational lifetimes soaring through space, waiting for distress calls to finally bring them out of hibernation, so they could intervene and assist. Inwardly, Julia couldn't help but to feel a twinge of excitement at finally receiving a distress call that necessitated her presence planet-side faster than any human transport would allow.

Pushing the thought aside, she returned to her regimented set of procedures for readying herself and the ship's personnel transport, Ascendant, for planet entry.

Julia made her way to a modest closet filled with six bodysuits. Each Exploration Suit, while identical in size and measurements, was uniquely tailored for the conditions of the planet, space station, or cruiser that she would be visiting.

She paused, running a query through the ship's AI for atmospheric conditions on the planet.

The results came back almost instantly:

Gravity: 1.3 G's Air Density: 0.85 kg/cm^2 Air Composition: 70.22% nitrogen, 22.30 oxygen, 1.02% argon, water vapor: 6.00% | [remainder --> trace elements] Land Colony / Water Colony: Land Destructive Acids Present in Atmosphere and/or Fauna: N Day / Night Cycle: 22 earth-hours total (11 ea.) Avg. Temp. - Day: 46 C Avg. Temp. - Night: -6 C Radiation: Varying levels of radiation in the planet's atmospheric environment. Conditions change rapidly and seemingly randomly. Conditions are dependent on both activity level of solar storms and local environmental factors.

So, it was going to be quite hot in the day, cold at night, and a bit radioactive. Nothing her all-weather chassis couldn't handle. Might be nice to have someone to keep her warm though; she blushed then frowned. Latent programming quirks in her emulation package seemed to be triggering responses from her sexual suite when she simulated certain scenarios. She started up a debugger to diagnose the issue.

Other than the wild temperature swings and varying radiation levels, the only characteristic that caught her attention was the amount of gravity. At 1.3Gs she estimated she could still operate near 100% of her rated performance limits. Standard Commonwealth extraction procedure required her to bring a few spare battery packs along. Her current battery should be sufficient enough, were she to need to stay for a bit more than the planned maximum 24 hours. Hopefully the locals would be kind enough to help her carry out a battery swap, if it became necessary for whatever unlikely reason.

She felt a slight tingling in her tight plastic sex at the idea of somebody having their hands inside of her, changing out the component that singlehandedly brought life to her systems.

Submitting all the variables as inputs to a complex algorithm, Julia concluded that her standard Exploration Suit would be appropriate for her visit. She was required to bring a helmet, but with the air composition so similar to Earth standard, there would be no requirement for her to wear it at all times. At least, when radiation levels were nominal.

She cheered inwardly at this minor development. There was some latent programming within her interlinked software packages that relished the chance to show off her pretty facial features to the locals.

Grabbing the bodysuit from its rack, Julia stepped into it one foot at a time and, slowly pulling it up her body, cinched it tight with a magnetic clasp at the back of her neck. It fit her measurements so well it looked as though it had been painted on.

She chuckled as she bounced up and down lightly, the jiggle of her breasts not hindered by her new garment in the slightest.

The bodysuit was ivory white from the neck all the way down through the built in knee-high boots and gloves. There were three large charcoal-gray patches, one stretching up from her pubic bone to her sternum, and the other two spread across her inner thighs. Teal highlights were strategically interspersed throughout the gray and white, adding bursts of color to the suit.

She grabbed her sleek helmet from a nearby shelf, only needed for occasional exposures to radiation. All of the life-support equipment needed for a human had been stripped away.

The ship's AI informed Julia that their elliptical orbit with New Virga would be reaching its near apsis, roughly 600 kilometers above the surface, in 40 minutes and 22 seconds. At this point, the Sleeping Angel would fire her engines to move into a circular Low Earth Orbit (LEO). As soon as the maneuver was completed and stable orbit of New Virga achieved, the Ascendant would launch towards Nephele.

She was able to assist with the maneuvering of the Ascendant if required, but the piloting software built into the personnel transport's local AI was capable of performing descent and planetary takeoff operations independently.

She opened the doors to the transport and began loading it up with supplies. First in went her helmet and spare power packs. Next, she brought in two pulse rifles, two magna-coil pistols, and two electro-daggers. She was programmed with weapon redundancy in mind. Already packed into the Ascendant were several crates of non-perishable food, water canisters, emergency beacons, first-aid kits, and other survival necessities.

With T-minus 14 minutes until her launch window began, Julia locked the airlock to the transport and took position in the pilot chair. Her eyes widened with delight as Sleeping Angel's planetside bay door opened, flooding her visual receptors with the bright organic blues, bristling greens, and dark oranges of New Virga's horizon sitting just beneath her.

-- --

III. John

John's makeshift bunk shook as thunder roared outside.

He sat up, his bed sheets tightly gripped in either hand. There were no thunderstorms on New Virga...

Warily, he stood up and popped his head through his shelter's porthole window. He watched as a shooting star arced through the sky, its fiery orange tail a glowing serpent in the early morning light. As the luminous object grew brighter and brighter; he realized it was coming right towards him.

No mining ship would take such a dangerous approach vector towards a colonial settlement. What the hell was coming his way?

The fiery streak only slowed after cresting the 15 kilometer high Halysis Mountains, which encircled the Nephele settlement. The firing of the ship's retrorockets, steadily arresting its forward momentum, finally put his mind at ease.

Whatever was approaching him was of human design.

The vessel cut a searing path through the permanent blanket of virga, colloquially referred to as the Shroud, at the mountain's inner edges. The tendril-like vapor clouds glimmered a brilliant emerald green in the early morning light.

Good. The Fallax never ventured near the colony center when the Shroud was that color. The team of now-deceased climate scientists had hypothesized that varying levels of atmospheric ionization caused the drastic color shifts to the low-hanging cloud cover. The brutish Fallax had never been spotted outside of their cave systems when the virga clouds glowed this color.

With a crackling howl, the ship continued braking. Finally, in a shroud of flaming dust kicked up as its rocket engines torched the ground, it settled about half a kilometer from Nephele's town center.

After several minutes the dust around the landing zone settled. John watched from his shelter's porthole window as a lone figure descended the ship's loading ramp and began walking towards the settlement. He couldn't make out many features of his visitor at his distance away, but one thing was for certain. Whoever was approaching him was distinctly feminine.

-- --

IV. Nephele

"Welcome to Nephele!"

John walked down from his shelter in the central pumping station with bated steps, greeting the new arrival with a friendly facade. He forced the muscles of his jaw into a smile; they hadn't formed the shape in weeks.

The new arrival turned her head to face him, looking him over with laser focus, "Hello! I am Angel-Bot GEN 2.2, designation 'Julia'. I hail from the Outer Commonwealth Exoplanetary System Skimmer, Sleeping Angel CCXXII. I am here in response to the distress call received from this colony 18 days, 14 hours, and 22 minutes ago."

She shifted her weight to one side, allowing her hands to fall to each of her curvy hips. She smiled, her ivory-white teeth gleaming in the soft morning light.

John was awe-struck. The red-headed beauty had a rifle strapped across her back, a pistol holstered to her hip, and a knife of some kind attached beneath the generous swells of her bust. It was too much information to process all at once; he could only manage to run his hands through his hair, muttering incoherently.

Julia tilted her head, looking at him curiously, "What is your name? Was it you who activated the distress beacon?"

John looked up at her and nodded his head, "Yeah. It was me. I'm...I'm John."

He thrust his hand out to shake the stranger's hand but she didn't reciprocate the gesture. He returned his hand to his side and pointed his eyes at the ground.

The servo-actuators behind Julia's faceplate pulled it into an expression of concern, "Where is the rest of the Nephele's population? My records indicate there were 3,731 colonists as of the most recent Commonwealth network report."

John's gaze dropped even further, "Dead. Everyone's dead but me. I've been here alone since we were attacked...you said you received the distress call 18 days ago...so, yeah I've been here alone for the past 21 days then. HA!" He chuckled, sorrow lingering on the edge of his voice.

"HA! To think that I actually lost count...It took me three days to piece together enough components to just barely power up that beacon. I've been holed up in the pump station ever since." He gestured at the two-story cylindrical building just behind him.

"No Fallax have come since that last attack 21 days ago. Thank the heavens."

Julia took several steps forward and put her hand on John's shoulder. She gently lifted his chin to look him directly in the eyes, initiating a small handful of protocols aimed at comforting the lone colonist, "I'm so sorry John. You're safe now. I'm here to protect you and get you to safety."

John noticed how her eyes seemed to glow a brilliant blue. He exhaled sharply, getting his breathing under control.

"What attacked the colony, John? What is a Fallax? I have no record of this."

He felt his breathing pick up, "They're native wildlife. For the first couple of years we only had unconfirmed sightings of them from well outside our shield perimeter, but something changed several months ago. They became more and more aggressive, ripping through a few scouting parties before eventually overrunning the shield wall and making their way into the settlement. They brutalized everyone here. Women, children...it didn't matter to them. They killed indiscriminately. Destroyed all of our computer systems too. Every piece of equipment with a chip in it was ripped to shreds."

He buried his gaze in-between his feet, "I'm only here because I hid."

Julia cocked her head to the side, blinking at John as she absorbed the information he was presenting.

She opted to further comfort him and stepped forward, pulling him in for a hug.

They embraced for several moments before John eventually backed out of the hug and managed to look back up to Julia, his curiosity getting the better of him, "You're a bot? You look so real though? You sound real too..."

Julia flashed a genuine smile as her circuitry hummed from the praise, "Thanks! All Angel-Bots are designed and programmed with the most cutting edge tech to best emulate human behavior and interaction." She subtly adjusted her stance, straightening her posture such that her exploration-suit covered breasts were on further display. She logged his eyes lingering on her bosom for a full 2.8 seconds before they looked back up to her eyes.

She stood there, engaging in a pre-programmed idle animation, as she waited for John to respond.

"Well, I can't tell you how glad I am that you're here. Can we like...leave now? The sooner we get away from here the better."

Julia's facial template smoothly shifted from its smile into a neutral expression, "No John, I'm sorry. The Sleeping Angel, in orbit, has informed me that the wind conditions in the upper atmosphere are too extreme to attempt a takeoff. The transport takes much longer for ascent than descent, and prolonged exposure to these high-altitude winds will exceed acceptable parameters for safe launch. We will have to wait."

John's face deflated. Julia, sensing his dejection, queued up her most reassuring vocal synthesis patch.

"My understanding of New Virga is that these atmospheric conditions change frequently? It should only be a matter of hours, at most a day, before the conditions change again and we can attempt a safe ascent to the Sleeping Angel. Do your experiences match this assessment?"

John sighed, bringing his hands up to his face, "Yes. You're right, but we don't have time to just hang around and wait. The Fallax stay in their caves when the Shroud is green like this. Usually this happens when there are cluster storms like you just mentioned.

Julia stared at him blankly, her long eyelashes blinking in even, discretized movements.

"...the Shroud is green when the atmosphere is charged with the high levels of ionization energy... Whether it's cosmic radiation or something generated from within the planet, I honestly don't know. But, when the atmospheric radiation conditions change, the color of the Shroud changes too. That's when the Fallax have previously come and attacked Nephele. They're somehow tuned to the planet's atmosphere and our settlement here disturbs that in some way. The sooner we can get out of here the better."