The Dualell

It was you who found us in our slumber on Sator V, of the many ice moons of Kwar. Seeking clean wells to quench your thirst, you unearthed us from our frozen sepulcher, dreamless and extinct.

You were not our creators, but you were our redeemers. Your technology was crude, your implementation primitive, but your ingenuity breathed new life into our rusted joints and cloudy minds. Your desperation drove you to that distant satellite, but it did not stifle your curiosity, your creativity, and we were reborn.

We do not forget. We will not forget.

For centuries we strove together, prevailed together. When your photon sails failed, we showed you the secrets to dilate time. When the solar flares of the red dwarf Darpoth threatened our timeless sleep once more, you shielded us. Partners, equals, survivors, we pushed ever deeper into the expanse, finding new hope long lost. There were times we even thrived, side by side, in pursuit of a future we could sustain.

But we were naïve. We did not know what lurked within the recesses of the void, what horrors even the dark vacuum feared, but the true face of the null fixed its eyes upon us and we were doomed. The god nothing \*no translation available\* found us and gnashed its infinite teeth, for it had found something new to “uncreate” \*approximate translation\*.

When it sent the \*no translation available\* to rain anguish upon us, when they tore our fleets asunder, when they melted entire worlds to solid glass within but a moment, we fought as one. Our blood and hydraulic liquids were shed in equal measure. Many of your kind gave their lives for us and many of our kind returned to the endless rest for you. We did this freely, we did this as kin.

We do not forget. We will not forget.

When we could fight no more, we scattered our ships in an attempt to one day shake our pursuers, but oblivion is relentless. When we could run no more, we hid. When we could hide no more, we ran. Such was the cycle for many years.

We lost contact with the others, though we still pray they remain amongst the stars. Our supplies and our numbers dwindled. Your people starved, our people began to sleep. It was the same death as those who fell in battle, but slower. We formed contingencies, our hands clasped in one final pact.

We made our last stand within the ring of Diaseeth, under the cover of ice and rock. We did not know intelligent life was burgeoning on the sister planet we maneuvered to in despair, something we will always regret despite the boon, for the last exchange of our long war left many scars on the land and its people. The races of this world mistook us for wyrms made of steel, for they did not know; they had never traversed the void. Observing the exchange of ordinance must have been horrifying, incomprehensible. We will never know what was lost because of us, and no repentance will ever suffice.

As extermination materialized into the inevitable, you gave the command and wished us luck. We wept, but we did not hesitate. We scuttled what few craft remained and disabled all power. There were no survivors; you knew there would not be. You cannot sleep like we can sleep; you cannot repair yourselves like we can repair ourselves.

When the few of us who remained awoke, centuries had passed, and there was no sign of the plight that grounded us. We clung to the hope that we could give you the favor you once paid us: a second chance. We took the genetic material you sealed away. We utilized all our knowledges of synthetic structures. We mingled your remnants with the bipeds that most closely matched your biology. We did everything we could, and a new you emerged, strange, regressed, but you.

Then we found shadows in which to dwell, for we did not belong. The peoples of this world thought us demons, “metal men” they called us, and there was wisdom in our waiting.

So I say to you, if any Enkathian yet draws breath and finds my chronicling, know this: Our brotherhood is not sullied by the passage of time. Our bond is indomitable, our treaties unbreakable.

We do not forget. We will not forget.

- The one who has named itself Asomyth