Remnant

Polina, if he could even call her that, looked unharmed. She seemed unaffected standing in hard vacuum without a helmet.

Mike undid his seat straps and stood up, magnets on the soles of his feet kept him grounded on the floor. He activated his radio and slowly raised his sidearm. "This vessel is operated by the US Air Force. Don't move!" he shouted.

She looked at the weapon pointed at her, and Polina's monotone voice sounded through every speaker in the spacecraft and their helmets. "Entity dialogue established. Attributing hostile action to entity sub-grouping."

Mike's eyes narrowed. This thing called them 'hostile' after it had nearly killed them? This was total hypocrisy.

He glared at the Russian woman standing in front of him and she stared back unfazed.

When it didn't respond, Mike continued. "You have illegally trespassed on United States property, damaged US property and caused injuries to US and Canadian citizens. As commander of this vessel, I order you to surrender immediately."

Polina looked at him for a while and asked, "Are you claiming authority?"

Mike immediately responded, "Yes, absolutely. I have authority."

Polina, or rather the creature, cocked its head to the side for a moment and said, "Hostile invasive grouping operating within claimed system territory. Hostile group tier expanded."

Chris' weak voice came through the intercom, "Mike, I don't have a good feeling about this."

The Canadian was still strapped into the co-pilot's seat but he had managed to patch the nick in his suit with a repair kit while Mike talked with the alien creature.

Mike's eyes widened, "Ours is a nation under God! If you are our enemy, that makes you an enemy of God!"

Chris blinked, "Mike, what..?" He looked at the man in the spacesuit holding a gun at the alien.

Polina looked troubled. "...You are agents of god?" she asked.

Mike instantly replied, "Yes! I am a follower of our Lord God, Jehova."

She looked confused, "Je.. ho.. va?"

Mike said, "Ah.. you must know God by His unspoken name, Yahweh."

Polina cocked her head to the side and asked, "Yah.. weh?"

Mike nodded emphatically, "I see you for what you are, demon spawn."

If Chris wasn't wearing a helmet he would have facepalmed.

Polina sounded like she was tasting the words as she repeated them back, "demon.. spawn.."

The American cried out "Leave this place, demon spawn! Return to the fires of Hell!"

Polina seemed to lose consciousness, she closed her eyes and lowered her head.

Mike snickered, "This thing's definitely some kind of demon."

Chris looked at him aghast.

Polina stirred and she looked up with a fearful expression. Her mouth moved. There was no sound in the vacuum but they could hear her voice clearly through their helmet speakers. "Mike, you've no idea how dangerous this thing is. Stop it."

Mike looked back suspiciously, "How do I know it's you talking, Polina, and not that demon?"

The Russian stared at him in panic, "Mike, this thing is older than our religion. It's older than our species. Please. The only reason I am talking with you is because it thinks there was a problem with language interpretation. One of its roles is communication. It was selected from a vast pool of intelligences because its original characteristics were considered compatible. The powers behind it are something y.."

She trailed off and her face became dead pan emotionless.

Chris whispered into his mic, "I hope you're getting this, command."

Mike dry swallowed. He kept his firearm pointed at Polina, or whatever it was, in front of him. "What do you want?" he finally asked.

She replied, "Hostile invasive species operating within system territory."

Mike's eyes narrowed, "We've been here a long time and no one made us aware of any problems."

Polina's head jerked, she blinked and said, "Integration successful."

She then raised an eyebrow and smiled. "The kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea, gathering fish of every kind, and the good fish are gathered in containers, but the bad are thrown away. So it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come forth and take out the wicked."

Mike blinked and even Chris' eyes widened. How did it suddenly increase its knowledge of Earth religious texts?

Polina seemed to be watching the two astronauts in pity. "A prevalent issue in communicating with primitive lifeforms is having a comparable reference model. Sometimes it's easier to establish a foundation that can transcend those barriers."

Mike asked, "Are you saying you're from the 'Kingdom of Heaven'?"

She watched Mike with an amused smile, "A fitting name, no? I thought that up just now."

Mike interrupted her, "Wait! You thought that up just now? It was written centuries ago."

Polina raised an eyebrow, her eyes glinting with amusement. "Well, yes." she said. "Never underestimate a precursor civilization that spans entire galaxies."

Mike glanced at his firearm, sighed and shook his head. He flicked the safety, holstered it and held his hands up in a placating gesture. "I apologize. There seems to have been a misunderstanding.."

Polina interjected sharply. "There was no misunderstanding."

Mike blinked. 'What is that supposed to mean?'

He continued in a less confident voice. "Why did you appear here now?.. And is there a chance our two peoples can work together?"

Her face tightened. "If there was zero chance of dialogue they would not have sent me, but.. the prospects are not high. The precursors have priorities and those interests would not be related to a primitive species like yours.. normally."

Mike raised his eyebrows. "Normally?"

Polina paused and stared at Mike with dead pan eyes before saying, "It should be stressed; entire species more advanced than yours have been wiped out for showing less hostility than your species did."

Mike and Chris froze.

She continued, "The precursor remnants are following a set of instructions left by their creators. For all intents and purposes you could consider them 'gods'. They've been operating for.. billions of years.. and part of their operations include observing and cataloging various lifeforms."

She seemed to stare into the distance.

"They are synthetic lifeforms, but unlike the many other synthetics, they achieved a higher order of being. Most stars throughout this galaxy cluster are host to at least one precursor remnant."

"For some unknown reason, a distress signal from a remnant was traced to this planet. The system's host remnant and local group have responded in kind."

Polina focused her eyes on Mike.

"The remnants can phase in and out of space and time. However, if it was found that any entity in this system committed an aggressive act towards a remnant, it could spell the end of all life here. I, 32089176, and the others demand your unconditional surrender."

Mike pointed towards the Sun. "A 'remnant' caused this?"

Polina nodded. "I've never seen a remnant lash out like this. I recommend you contact your people and make sure they do not do anything that could be misinterpreted. That includes interfering with communications, or any kind of interference for that matter."

Mike's pupils shrunk as he considered the ramifications of what 32089176 said. "What would happen if someone caused interference?"

Polina stared at Mike with a dead pan expression. "It's too late."

Mike half turned and looked at the pilot's console. There was a display showing their position on the re-entry path. They didn't have much time before re-entry but the capsule had been damaged and it was likely they'd burn up in the planet's atmosphere.

He ground his teeth and said, "I cannot speak for the entire planet, but as commander of this vessel, we unconditionally surrender."

Polina's expression did not change. "Wise decision. If it were not for me being here, you would already be dead."

She pulled the cable attached to Dmitri's suit and carefully placed him in the remaining empty seat and then gestured at Mike to sit down.

Mike sat down in his seat stiffly. He saw Chris staring at him out of the corner of his eye but ignored him.

Polina moved to the control console and placed her hand on a keypad and small arcs of electricity flashed from her hand into the console.

She cocked her head to the side, "It's unfortunate. Your species is playing with quantum-wave data transmission but it's extremely primitive and limited to local space. If you think you know what will happen in the future, this will influence your decisions. But this form of transference has many risks and is subject to manipulation."

Mike looked at Polina curiously. "Quantum-wave transmission?"

She nodded, "Yes. Essentially, the operators have sent information from one point in time to another in an attempt to prevent an event from occurring. However, even if they change their actions, it cannot remove the remnant's records logged outside local space."

Polina looked thoughtfully at the console. "Perhaps if they were dealing with a less advanced species it may have been effective. Their system uses redundant keys that are reset after each transfer to prevent distorting and overwriting each data sequence."

A bead of sweat rolled down Mike's cheek. "What do you mean?"

Polina glanced at him and said, "Your military launched weapons to intercept our craft. This resulted in their people's annihilation. They desperately sent a message back warning not to launch an attack, but do you think that is sufficient?"

The inside of the spacecraft suddenly became black and white as an extremely brilliant light radiated through the viewport casting pitch black shadows in the areas not illuminated in white. It lasted for a couple of seconds and stopped leaving an afterimage burned into their retinas.

Mike looked at Polina suspiciously and brought up the Soyuz external camera feed on his monitor.

Chris gasped. "Is that Colorado?"

The camera feed showed a view of the Earth and the North American continent. An enormous mass of debris was rising above the clouds over the United States and a visible shock wave was expanding outwards from Colorado.

"What have you done?!" Mike screamed. "There are innocents down there!"

Polina cocked her head to the side, "The remnant has logged their crimes. They need to pay for their actions."

"Mike!" Chris shouted, "Look."

Mike zoomed in on a section of the camera feed and though it was unclear, he could see what looked like exhaust trails from ICBMs launched within the United States.

He sat back in his seat. "My God!" he said numbly. "Do you know what you've done?"

Polina looked at the monitor and asked curiously, "Why are they launching so many weapons? The previous hostile group was eliminated. If they were not eliminated then the greater tier would be implicated. Isn't it a good thing to limit the extent of the damage? They should be grateful."

Mike slammed his fist into the console. "It doesn't work like that! Heck you said they changed what they did."

"Do they not understand that aggression will inevitably lead to destruction?" Polina asked.

Mike felt his blood pressure rising. "Most countries usually have a small group of people in charge. The majority of citizens have no say in what their military does. If your 'remnant' responds, the majority of casualties will be completely innocent!"

Polina touched her chin thoughtfully. This was something the original Polina would do and it caused Mike to wonder how much of her was still in there.

"No.." her whisper came through Mike's helmet speakers.

Mike looked at her and saw an opportunity, "Look, I believe that we can accept surrender. We just want to be able to live."

He closed his eyes for a moment before looking at Polina. "We can execute anyone who has acted against a 'remnant' or their people. Or we can hand them over to you. Please communicate that we do not want to fight. We can help you but we need your help too."

Chris tapped a button on his console. "Mike, I'm getting transmissions from all over." He continued in a hushed tone, "The Russians and Chinese have retaliated. It's over."

Mike watched Polina as she stared at the monitor. "32089176, what if the remnant that sent that distress signal is harmed because of this conflict?"

She immediately refuted. "That is unlikely. These kinds of weapons are ineffective against the precursors."

Mike persisted, "What if the remnant in the star harmed the remnant on the planet with that attack just now?"

Polina blinked, "It is.. unlikely." but she didn't sound as sure of herself. Her eyes narrowed, "What are you trying to do?"

Mike held up his hands, "Don't misunderstand, I'm only concerned about the 'remnant'."

She blinked again, "Yes.. it must be.. a misunderstanding. We should be concerned."

Mike nodded. It looked like this creature and the precursor remnants prioritized their own. If he could convince her to scale back their attacks, maybe the human race would have a chance to survive.

Polina murmured, "This is not like the data of the organisms on the planet surface. The precursor can copy and recover every single entity on the planet... but a remnant is different."

She cocked her head to the side and said, "It may be necessary to make some changes."

After a while she nodded. "The remnant can make some changes but it is in conflict with its base instructions. One of its directives is acquiring data on alien lifeforms, and integrating and utilizing that data to further its ability to communicate with more alien lifeforms. Interfering with the cultures of primitive species will inevitably have unintended consequences."

Mike thought about what Polina said. 'It's almost like these super advanced aliens were a tool created by an unimaginably powerful civilization.'

Polina slightly smiled. "The remnants are a trillion years ahead of Earth's technology."

Chris coughed and sputtered, "Impossible! The universe isn't that old."

Polina didn't reply, but she kept smiling slightly.

She placed her hand on the control console and said, "We're making a short detour."

Then the Soyuz's main engine fired causing the spacecraft to accelerate into space.