"<em>REDIRECT ALL POWER TO THE STARBOARD SHIELD EMITTERS, ENEMY CONTACT STILL CLOSING!</em>"<br/><br/>Nearly ten hours ago, and that was the last order Draiss had given, some kind of energy lance had scythed right through the shields, not even reacting to the most powerful shields in the fleet. Or what had been left of it at the time. The black armored and cloaked figure stood in the ruins of the command frigate's bridge, carefully trying to get the hulk to atmosphere without any more strain than it was already under. Its only arm rested on the single console on the bridge, installed so Draiss could play at being a starship captain while the AI had run the ship and bitched about his 'helpful' suggestions.<br/><br/>Now, the AI was gone, its main and backup data cores irradiated or blown to hell, and only the emergency manual controls still functioned. And even for those, it was barely, the ship groaning in mortal protest as it slowly drifted toward the desolate, unknown planet before them. There had been thirty similarly armored beings on board on the unique command frigate with Draiss Arcaniss, Archdragon, God of Choice, but only six still had functionality. They were his Death Guard, children of his mind rather than body, AIs of war and death, and they hadn't been able to do their job.<br/><br/>The figure shook its head in a surprisingly organic gesture for an AI, dismissing its doubts, and resumed carefully coaxing the dying hulk toward the planet. If it had done the math right, the ship should slip into a geosynchronous orbit in about two hours, and then they could board the transport, and debark the ship for likely the last time. It would remain in orbit for years, hoping for rescue, but the AI realized that it was likely a forlorn hope. But with only enough room for the equipment keeping Draiss alive and the six somewhat intact AIs, the other seven would just have to shutdown and wait for either rescue, or the Vanguard to awaken them to get them on the Last Line.<br/><br/>Once they got down, the AI, designation Reaper, and unit X1, actual designation to be determined after they figured out how many units survived the last encounter, would calculate what to do next. Assuming they got down at all, of course, the other units were either tending the Creator, or trying to get the only intact transport chassis working again.<br/><br/><hr/><br/>Four hours later, Reaper was standing outside the crater their chassis had made, and turned to unit X1. "So, any idea where we are this time?"<br/><br/>They usually conversed with electronic signals rather than vocally, but X1 had taken some minor damage to its receivers when the salvaged transport's engines had abruptly disengaged from the rest of the chassis, and again when they had impacted the ground. The good news was that Draiss was not harmed from either event. The bad news was that Reaper and X1 were the only ones now fully mobile and combat ready of the six combat AIs. X1 was planning to stay back with the other four to tend and protect Draiss, while Reaper went looking around.