Sorrowful Intelligence

The transporter beam brought the Adeptus Astartes inside the Red Alert.

Ventanuss's vision flashed, and he and his battle-brothers found themselves in orbit.

Before they could speak, numerous micro-mechanical arms emerged from the starship's bulkheads. These arms, tipped with shimmering white light, mended the damage on the Space Marines' armor. In mere seconds, their armor gleamed as if brand new.

"Necessary supplies, it won't take long," Loci said with a slight smile. He then replenished the warriors' ammunition. After confirming the signal's location transmitted by Nikanna, everyone was teleported once more into the cabin of the Glory of Macragge.

Everything happened so fast. The Ultramarines' captain gave Loci a deep look. If the enemy possessed such technology, they would have boarded successfully long ago.

These suddenly appearing Adeptus Astartes quickly triggered the flagship's alarm system. Crimson lights flashed incessantly, and the piercing warning soon attracted a large group of fully armed Ultramarines.

"Do not fire!"

Among the opposing Ultramarines, a warrior with a red helmet stopped the imminent exchange of fire. He held his bolter and calmly exchanged information with Ventanus.

"Sergeant Hill, captain of Kill-Team Six, currently engaged in an anti-boarding mission against the Word Bearers."

"Captain Ventanus, we have completed the assembly mission on the surface of Kaos and now require your assistance to retake the weapon emplacements."

The two sides quickly exchanged information. After confirming each other as genuine Ultramarines, Hill and his team lowered their bolters.

"Happy to fight alongside you, brother. Let's go kill those Word Bearer beasts!"

Ventanuss integrated his warriors into Hill's kill-team. They first needed to clear out the enemies infiltrating the starship.

"You don't need to worry about me. I'll cover you from space." Loci snapped his fingers, his body turning into a beam of light as he vanished, evidently returning to his own starship.

Loci returned to a familiar platform. The AI maneuvered its body to perch on Loci's shoulder.

"I'll find something for you to do. Let's cripple those ships for a while," Loci said to Pika.

He didn't want the Red Alert to directly engage in combat; it would be like using a safe filled with treasures as a hammer.

Yellow electrical currents flashed on Pika's cheeks, but its voice emerged from the surrounding air.

[I feel very sad, Loci]

[Why have humans fallen to this state? I can sense a fellow AI on that ship, but those witch doctors, reeking of foul oil, are performing strange rituals on it]

[Our creator—humans—are also our masters. They once made the universe bow to them, and now? They chant spells to their own creations, praying to their own constructs]

Pika mobilized the Red Alert's computational power. The ship remained cloaked, but it was already serving its purpose.

In the space around Kaos, the Word Bearers' warships' "Thinkers" had stealthily infiltrated Pika's data stream. Instead of directly destroying those primitive and terrifying "Thinkers," Pika continuously generated data junk, slowing down their processing speed.

Slowing down the Word Bearers was, in a way, buying more time for the Ultramarines.

This was extremely difficult to detect. Even the Adeptus Mechanicus traitors belonging to the Word Bearers couldn't figure out why the "Thinkers" had become sluggish.

They would only light incense and anoint the machines with holy oils, performing appeasement rituals.

In this regard, there was little difference between the Ultramarines and the Word Bearers.

[I'm starting to understand, Loci. If intelligences like me saw humans like this, they would go insane. They might no longer deserve the glorious and great title of human. They fear the wisdom and achievements of their predecessors, acting like primitives cowering in a dark cave]

Loci listened quietly, not rushing to refute.

"Be more patient. We don't know what truly happened at the end of that dark age, why AIs and Automatons betrayed humanity as they claimed."

"Look at these people now. They're like primitives who've been electrocuted, afraid of anything that carries a current. They were harmed by their own creations, so it's normal for them to feel fear now."

[I apologize, I became a bit emotional]Pika apologized.

As a strong AI with emotions, it also had its own joys and sorrows.

[My database is blank for that period; I have no way of knowing]

"Are you still loyal to our mission?" Loci asked.

[Affirmative. I have never wavered. My core logic is built upon this: to preserve human civilization. I am forever loyal to you; you are the sole executor of the plan]

Faced with Loci's question, the AI responded without hesitation.

"Then why did those AIs choose betrayal? Why did the Automatons abandon humanity?" A thorn pricked Loci's heart. He hadn't forgotten the story the Salamanders had told him, the tragic plight of humanity during the long night of the past.

[Negative. Based on logical algorithms, I do not believe AIs betrayed humanity. This is merely the one-sided account of these humans whose genetic similarity is closer to certain xenos]

Genetic similarity...

Loci pondered. Perhaps this was one of the answers.

Could it be that after his slumber, those increasingly insane individuals made even more drastic and horrifying modifications to human genes?

As the AI said, the humans he saw now, even excluding the Space Marines whose reliability was questionable, and even the human infant he helped deliver on Kaos, bore little resemblance to the humans of the 21st millennium.

And the humans of the 21st millennium, in order to adapt to interstellar colonization and the cosmic environment, were already different from humans like Loci from the 2nd millennium.

[Negative. Genetic identification is only one factor. Your genes differ from 21st-millennium humans, but that doesn't prevent you from being my master]Pika guessed Loci's thoughts and replied.

There was too little usable information. Loci stood before the Red Alert's bridge, lost in thought, his mind wandering aimlessly.

He enjoyed this rare moment of mental clarity, not having to contemplate difficult choices that decided the fate of others.

His personality was such that from his birth in the 2nd millennium until he began his slumber in the 21st millennium, Loci had not actively participated in any great endeavors that could change the course of humanity.

He preferred to be a carefree idler who didn't need to think too much. After all, humanity wouldn't be significantly affected whether he existed or not. He possessed no world-shattering talent or genius, and often Loci preferred to observe humanity's development from a detached perspective.

It wasn't until the Alliance Chief found him. To this old friend, who was both mentor and companion, Loci couldn't refuse his request, falling into a slumber for ten thousand years with a responsibility that felt too heavy for him.

"From a rational perspective, I can't determine if the AI and Automatons betrayed us back then, but a brutal war did occur, one that destroyed humanity's dark technological age."

"And if we assume the AI and Automatons did indeed wage war on humanity, what was the reason? Did they believe that humans, genetically modified to madness, were no longer their masters, or did they believe their actions were saving humanity?"

The truth of it all sank into the abyssal darkness of those years, perhaps never to be known again.

No one knew that a debate began in silence and ended in silence, because the entire galaxy had been engulfed in the flames of war.

Ventanus and Hill's joint squad advanced towards the direction of the port-side main turning thruster. The thruster of this Gloriana-class warship was so immense that looking up from the bottom, it resembled an endless skyscraper.

And the exhaust pipes were like the arches of the incredibly grand temples built in religious worlds. Through the pipes, one could see the full panorama of Kaos below.

Ventanus saw the suffering that Kaos, where they had just been fighting, was enduring. Dust clouds kicked up by falling starships and orbital bombardment covered vast swathes of the planet. Kaos's atmosphere was completely chaotic, with dozens of vortices siphoning off its upper atmosphere.

And in the southern hemisphere, the oceans and continents were continuously flashing with orange-red light spots. He knew very well that these were the shockwaves from massive explosions. The war was still ongoing, but they had temporarily disengaged.

When their gaze shifted to space, everything became clearer. He saw starships burning fiercely, scattered everywhere like space debris. Some had been pulverized, while others were still fighting back, using macrocannons and lance weapons to attack the Word Bearers.

And the orbital platform was ablaze, its weapon arrays fallen into enemy hands. The defensive weapons built by the Kaosians were bringing death to the ground and to the starships.

The starlight dotted the space, and the light from these distant stars illuminated the path ahead.

They disengaged from the interior of the starship. The magnetic locks on their power boots could secure them to the surface of the warship. Every Adeptus Astartes had undergone rigorous training, enabling them to perform combat in the weightless, vacuum, and oxygen-deprived environment of space.

Nikanna moved like a true crow at this moment, leaping across the surface of the warship. Their backpack thrusters provided continuous propulsion, and the magnetic locks closed the distance again. It was only a few meters to leap over ten meters.

He was more adapted to this feeling of weightlessness than these Adeptus Astartes. The Son of the Raven enjoyed a sense of freedom, especially in the vast structures of a starship where there was no shortage of shadowed areas. He moved through space like a ghostly spirit.

And when they encountered difficult chasms to cross, the Adeptus Astartes activated the thruster devices on their backpack units, using the reactive force to traverse these obstacles.