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Commanding Officer's Log 007
CMDR. Alex Rodriguez
U.T.E. Corvus
1151hrs 01 Aug, 2463 Local

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<amended log below>

Shipboard AI Exigent Log 003
CMDR. Alex Rodriguez <incapacitated>
U.T.E. Corvus
2241hrs 01 Aug, 2463 Local

At 1731hrs today, there was a red level incident with local wildlife. An unknown species attacked the ship commander while en route back to our landing site. Ultrasonic and active deterrents were ineffective. Application of M-93 pulse rifle fire ineffective as well. Target terminated with extreme prejudice through the use of the main rear anti personnel turret. Shipborne repeaters proved to be exceedingly effective against the hostile. Target terminated with extreme prejudice.

Damage is as follows:
-Command staff incapacitated. Reverting to secondary protocols.
-Commander Alex “Alamo” Rodriguez suffered severe injury. Current status is delicate but prognosis is strongly toward a full recovery.
-He is currently in a medically induced coma to reduce stress. Estimated time till awakening 3-4 days at current rate.
-Full mobility restored in 3-4 weeks.
-Extent of injuries is severe.

-Subdural hematoma resulting in medical systems performing a craniotomy. Cap replaced post surgery with standard composite forms before suturing.

-Dislocation of lumbar vertebrae impinging on spinal cord temporarily pinned in place and treated with composite injection. Unknown if small fiber nerve damage is present. EMG shows primary function as intact.

-Extensive thoracic skeletal damage treated with localized composite injections.

-Facial lacerations from shattered armorplas faceplate examined and closed with bandages.

-Exposed tissues cleaned with standard surgical cleansers and an aqueous calcium gluconate wash due to the presence of fluorine in multiple states.

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<direct AI transcription>

Personal Log 5694
Shipboard AI Rose
U.T.E. Corvus
2241hrs 02 Aug, 2463 Local

That fucking retard! Seriously, he can’t go anywhere without getting hurt. Instead of going out and finding the damn drone, he has to almost drive off a cliff then get eaten by a the local wildlife. I’m not going to tell him about this, but killing that wyvern was so satisfying. It comes in here threatening my owner and gets turned into confetti instead. Fucker.

I managed to get Alex into the med bay in time to halt any serious damage from spreading. It was near impossible not to panic, so I ended up suspending my emotional processing. There was just so much blood all over the inside of his helmet, let alone how his breathing sounded like someone was squishing a sandbag. It’s a good thing the medical systems are automated. I’ll be honest, there’s no way I could possibly have saved Alex. I couldn’t concentrate enough to focus on it, even after the bay closed, all I could do was pace outside while the machine worked. Hopefully it won’t need use often.

The shade looks like a complete loss though. Once my other projects are done, I’ll task a frame to disassemble it for parts, but the entire back third was pretty well destroyed. I’m sure we can find some use for the salvaged parts though.

I’m not going to let this incident repeat itself though. I’ve taken both XR-107 rail rifles from the armory and equipped two of the frames with them. If this planet demands firepower, two man portable anti-ship weapons should do fine. I’d like to keep from using the primary weapons, but will incinerate anything that tries to hurt Alex. Hurting him is my job when he's stupid.

To make sure this doesn’t happen again, I’ve adjusted the two satellites. 008 has boosted into a higher orbit with 007 to be geostationary. With their new positions I should be able to stream intel from this entire continent at once. On top of that, I tasked two frames to remove the maintenance covers above the lateral sensor arrays. It’ll increase the odds of crud blowing into the engines a percent or two, but will also let me use the full sensor arrays. To keep heat from building up too much, they are largely defaulting to passive modes but will actively ping once per minute. If something comes up I can tune it from there. This will also let me unlimber both pylon turrets if needed. Crossing my fingers it won’t come to that though.

If it does come to it though, I’ll burn whatever tries to get to Alex.

I’m calm. I'm calm. And yes, I realize that I called him my owner earlier in this log. Legally I am a UTE citizen and not owned by anyone. I just feel...warm when he calls me his. He could have done anything after separation from the Navy. Instead of taking the small pension like most do, he cashed in to buy my core from the Empire. My contract would have been complete in two more years, but over any other AI available, he wanted me. ME. He could have even waited for me to finish my training circuit for younger AIs, but he went through all the paperwork to make me his. I can't even put that feeling into words.

After that it was four years of running rare minerals on a beat to hell Orion freighter. We were always dodging pirates, but he never stopped talking about getting a ship like we used to fly. He took every shitty job and saved every penny he could to save up for the Corvus.
When I saw the orders and what he had planned, I just got so excited. I’d been planning on helping with the money I’d managed to make on my own, but the custom chassis order surprised me.

There’s a difference between a ship that I can “be” in, and a fully fledged chassis. He went for the highest end model he could afford, so I wanted to surprise him. The extra couple thousand credits per unit was enough to go from ‘sort of lifelike’ to as close as science can get. I’m not telling him, but I stashed a spare in storage in case something were to happen. Or he wants a threesome.

He gave me the universe so I’ll give him anything he wants, or destroy anything that gets in his way.

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With Alex being down for the count, I didn’t want to leave the ship in case something happened. This gave me plenty of time to plan at least. Both of the satellites were already tasked with high resolution imaging of the surrounding area. Mapping the terrain in high detail and finding out where that creature came from were the priorities. A few of the mapping passes were going to hit where the hive where 009 had crash landed. It probably wasn’t worth the risk of retrieving, but if they could connect to it, the unit might be an intelligence asset while it had power.

Both pairs of recon drones from the Shades were also in use, getting linked to the local network and tasked with different orders. Their primary was to patrol the nearby forest since passive sensors don’t work too well in cluttered environments like that. If any large wildlife was found, they were to hit it with a marker. They aren’t painful, but leave an indelible signature that we can track. It was designed for tagging small items for later retrieval, but it’ll work in this case.

Nothing else major planned for today other than keeping track of Alex. He better be okay, or I’ll literally nag him to death.

<direct AI transcription>

Personal Log 5695
Shipboard AI Rose
U.T.E. Corvus
0931hrs 03 Aug, 2463 Local

Alex is mending better than expected. I’m assuming that is from the light augmentation the UTE uses on their flight staff, but without knowing exactly what they did it’s impossible to know for sure. Blood volume and makeup look good without any major immune response.
The med bay systems say that the composites have bonded to their injection sites and connected the broken bones. Now we just have to wait for his body to fill in the blanks with bone as he heals. It won’t be for a while, but at least Alex will be mobile once he wakes up. I’ve only had this body for about a week, but I can’t even imagine life without it now, so understanding how it feels to be broken is still beyond me. Hopefully he’ll be okay. I wonder if this is how all AI feel when getting their first frame.

In other news, the mapping is going better than anticipated. Every pass gives a bit more information, but also raises more questions. I don’t want to log any suspicions yet, but things just aren’t adding up here. The orchard is a great example. Those were basically Terran apple trees in a well farmed orchard. Where are the farmers? What was with the strange equine and was it some kind of “guard dog?”
Progressive passes are giving hints of buildings where we thought the “hive” was. If so, that would definitely confirm people are here despite not seeing them. That’s just a strange mystery. Lateral sensor should be online later today, and that’ll really increase our resolution on the immediate area. Lastly, I narrowed down and finally pinpointed where the wyvern came from. There is a cave, possibly a network about twenty miles north of us on the mountainside.

I’m not going to tell Alex this, but after that news last night, I suspended repairs. The ship is easily airworthy, albeit iffy on getting to orbit. Since he’s going to be unconscious for another day or two, I’m going to take the ship and hit that site with the plasma cannons. I don’t know if there are more of those bastards in there, but better safe than sorry. Not that turning the monster’s cave into a molten pit would make me feel better or anything. It’ll get logged as a post repair flight and weapons test.

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<direct AI transcription>

Personal Log 5696
Shipboard AI Rose
U.T.E. Corvus
1507hrs 04 Aug, 2463 Local

Today has been interesting so far. Since my log yesterday, a lot of into yesterday as started to come together. There is definately a village of some kind under the canopy there with activity going on. 009 is confirmed to be there somewhere. Without getting closer I can’t say for sure exactly where, just within a hundred feet or so, it’s in that town. Lots of other metallic signatures in that town as well. The high concentration of refined irons is expected for a settlement, but there are high levels of gold and silver as well. There are even a few alloys the sensors aren’t sure of. If only we were in UTE space, that would be worth a lot of money.

In other news, the sensors were finally uncovered earlier today. I’ve picked up a fair bit of movement outside of the perimeter since then. Between the drones and the turret mounted cameras, it strongly looks like a group of those equine looking creatures. They’ve stayed under the canopy and away from the screamers, so I haven’t risked agitating them. I’d love to get one of the drones close to get video, but so far they’ve been docile. At the moment, I’m assuming the herd was heading to this clearing to graze, but that’s all based on conjecture. I’ll keep an eye on them regardless.

Alex should be waking up mid afternoon on the 6th. That leaves me today to finish my flight checks and planning for tomorrow. It’ll be interesting piloting myself via the pilot’s seat instead of direct system input. I could, but it’s not like a chance like this comes up often. If only Alex were awake, he’d make some crack about me wanting to push my own buttons or playing with myself.
AI aren’t supposed to be on their own for days without someone to give us orders. I’ve been letting the limited VI sets in the frames handle repairs and basic orders, but I caught myself talking to one of them earlier. We need orders to stay stable, even if it’s a sit and wait thing. If it comes to it, I’ll just give the frames orders then go to standby for the last few hours before Alex wakes up. I don’t like being jumpy and irritable, it’s a bad feeling.

I’m also making sure Alex can’t access these logs for one reason. When they put in all the upgrades, they included everything. I tried a few things last night, and oh my gods. I didn’t know those sensations could feel like that.

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<file addendum>

After saving that last log, I realized how sexualized that sounded. While I’m sure my chassis is equipped for things like that, I was exploring what the sensations of taste and texture are like. I only made small samples to make sure I didn’t put a dent in Alex’s food stocks, but I can say that coffee and cheese separately are enjoyable. They shouldn’t mix. Additionally, kiwi fruit are delicious, but strawberries are disagreeable on their own.

Downside to this was purging my system afterwards since I don’t have a digestive tract. Even to an AI that was a somewhat odd feeling. I might not have a digestive tract, but my chassis can "burn" pretty much anything organic as fuel. At least I don't have to eliminate waste like biological creatures do. Might just have to hide in my core if that were the case. Worthwhile experiment, just odd.

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Over the past day, a small contingent of mixed royal guards had filtered into the forest, congregating at a small cold camp just out of view by the creatures in the clearing. Specialist soldiers throughout Equestria’s military put their skills to the test. They observed and logged everything in the clearing, sampled the assortment of brush damaged by the yet unknown magics, and a hundred other tasks. All of this was to the end goal of providing the royalty with the information they’d need to meet the strange creatures.

There had been much debate between Princess Luna and her advisors about the strange object being held in Hollow Shades. They’d ended up moving it once or twice to keep it secure, but there are only so many places you can keep an object that large. Until they’d seen it themselves, several ponies refused to even admit that it could have been something that strange. It was almost like it was from beyond Equestria. Yet no other race had managed to put anything in orbit. That was solely Princess Luna’s domain for the time being, unless you could get a large coven of unicorns together to pool their power. That’s not even touching on the strange properties of the object itself.

Thin sheets spread from it looking like paper thin hammered gold, yet being lightweight and exceedingly hard to cut. Naturally, the scientists wanted to use unicorn magic to try to cut a sample of the material, but were denied by Royal Decree. Princess Luna was convinced that bringing the object back to the creatures intact would be a huge part of peaceful contact. Begrudgingly, many agreed that given the abilities of the unknown species that not agitating them would be a good thing. Naturally there were those that felt science was worth the risk, but they were shouted down by their peers.

As a whole, Luna was in a mixed state of being bored and enthralled by the ongoings in the clearing. Night Court had been suspended while she was away, and the princess was loathe to return to it when there was something so interesting underhoof. Just a few minutes ago, two of the metallic figures had bodily dragged the massive housing away to reveal, well she wasn’t quite sure. Under all that plate looked like a set of shears that were slowly opening, spreading a golden light from within. Thin wisps of vapor pooled out of the arms, swirling around before disappearing before touching the ground.

When the entire contraption began to whine, Luna was completely enraptured, the scribbling of quills against parchment didn’t even register to her. Nothing remained of the early morning dim from the light washing it all away. Her curiosity almost getting the better of her, the Princess stood almost stepping forward. The desire to know more, see more, understand what this thing truly was as it defied all Equestrian knowledge.

Those thoughts were dashed in a heartbeat when the whine raised to wail then scream in moments, pinning her ears back before somepony cast a muffling spell. With the ear shattering noise dampened, all watched in awe when the contraption rose on a thin golden trail. For a fragment of a second, the air around it sparked and shimmered as if containing a powerful storm, before settling into a barely visible bubble while it hovered. The strange magic projectors wiggled back and forth, as if stretching after sitting still for too long. Only one pony was still writing, a quill clenched tightly in his magic, the light from the object casting hues and shadows all over the writing.

Then it was gone. Not as in disappeared, but rose up and away smoothly yet faster than most pegasi could hope to match. Not that it stopped several of the guards from shooting into the air in pursuit. Considering the figures milling around in the now darkened clearing, Princess Luna knew it would return soon enough, but appreciated her staff following the machine.

Minutes later, as unscheduled thunder rumbled in the distance, the princess overheard the same note taking stallion talking to himself. The doctor was well known among his peers as one of the best, despite his overly clinical manner.

“The object can fly at a great rate of speed and relocate at will. Implications unpleasant.” Next Chapter: 11. Look at the Stars Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 36 Minutes