A Horus in Strange Lands (Horizon Zero Dawn SI) Chapter 34

Karos Graveyard. A location near the core of the Galaxy where thousands upon thousands of derelict and decommissioned star ships are abandoned.

All of these ships are usually stripped of anything useful by their builders before they are abandoned here, left to drift in space for eternity. However, there are some ships, like those of Progenitor origin, that are usually left relatively intact, untouched by the younger races due to their powerful defense systems.

Unfortunately, these defense systems, known as the Keepers, were facing the worst crisis in their thousands of years-long existence since the collapse of their creator’s empire.

For their enemy was employing three Mothership class ships that continuously produced drones that either captured the keeper ships, such as the Progenitor Movers, or were releasing large swarms of nanites that ate through everything that the Keepers threw at them.

The Keeper’s main ship, also called The Keeper, tried desperately to slow down the invaders and stop them from capturing the Dreadnought Berth. The derelict fragment of the Progenitor Mothership which housed the last functioning Progenitor Dreadnought aside from the Sajuuk.

However, they were unable to keep the invaders at bay for long.

Soon, all of the machine resistance was wiped out by the invaders who proceeded to devour the Dreadnought Berth, including the Dreadnought, leaving behind no trace of its existence.

With their task done, the invading ships jumped out of the region, heading straight for the gate that would lead them to the ancient dreadnought Sajuuk, the key to the Progenitor Hyperspace Gate network.

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A part of me shifted through the data streaming into my core originating from the attack force we sent to the Karos Graveyard.

Originally, we were going to personally oversee the trip to the Graveyard to acquire as much of this galaxy’s technology as possible before heading straight for Sajuuk. However, we changed the plan at the last minute and sent our Horus VI instead.

Turning back to reality, I watched Vast Silver make a theatrical gesture as he unveiled our new product for the people of Kharak.

“-and so, with keeping all we said in mind, I present to you, the first ever product launched by us, Kiith Artivon. The Focus!”

The crown in front of us roared as Vast Silver did his best to emulate a certain someone from back on Earth when they first launched a series of Phones that changed a lot of things.

This is the reason why we changed our plans to personally venture into the distant parts of the galaxy.

When we finally decided to accept the Diamide’s proposal to become a part of the Kharaki people and establish a Kiith of our own, we were asked to start taking part in Kharak’s economy in some way.

Out of all the options available to us, including politics, we decided that the best option for us was to establish an industrial Kiithid that focused on technology and mass production.

Essentially, our Kiithid would mostly focus on operating factory units across the planet whereas the other industrial Kiithid, such as the Somtaaw, would outsource the manufacturing of their products.

We would concentrate on manufacturing things for others, along with marketing, sales, and after-sale services. In exchange, we would take a cut of the profit earned from the sale of the things that we manufactured.

Aside from this branch of our business, we would also sell things that would be unique to us. However, we would only sell things that would be useful to everyone on the planet and had nothing to do with anything military systems or weapons.

While all of Kharak treats their people as family and the chances of a civil war or rebellion are close to none, the people of Kharak still remember the bloody times of the Heresy Wars. That was why, they requested us not to sell such things to the public.

It was a sentiment that we understood and agreed with wholeheartedly.

Ever since then, we worked on establishing factories across the planet, which was not much of an issue thanks to our fabrication technology, and secured hundreds of contracts from Kiithid of all kinds.

And finally, for a product unique to ourselves, we decided to sell the Focus device from Earth.

The personal media device that works with a Photonic Computing processor is a revolutionary product for the people of Kharak and would no doubt bring us tremendous profits.

With the Focus, not only would we be bringing the people of Kharak much closer than before and giving them the same kind of creative freedom as the people of Earth, but we would also be preparing them for the various civilian technologies that we had in mind for them.

Since we have decided to join these people in earnest, it is only right that we help them advance to the best of our abilities.

Knowing that Vast Silver had everything handled here, I diverted a part of my mind and continued monitoring the situation with the Horus VI that was operating my armada of ships and drones.

While there were a few anomalies that I detected in the Horus VI ever since we arrived in this universe, the newfound initiating and responsiveness of the VI is a welcome addition to our forces.

I watched through the network as our fleet dropped out of Hyperspace near the Balcor gate.

Time to wrap up one of the biggest technology assimilation goals I had for this galaxy.

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At the edge of the exclusion zone around the core of the Galaxy that spanned more than five hundred light years, caused by the powerful gravitational field of the Black Hole cluster at the center of the galaxy, Amun-Ra’s fleet dropped out of Hyperspace.

The moment they dropped out, the Horus VI did not waste a single second and headed straight for the colossal superstructure in its vicinity.

The Balcora Gate.

One of the progenitor Hyperspace gates designed to get past the exclusion zone and lead straight to the heart of the galaxy, to the ancient Progenitor Dreadnought, Sajuuk.

The Gate was so large that the Horus VI did not even have to assimilate its fleet into its Ammit ship and would allow for at least ten Ammit ships to pass through side-by-side.

The Horus VI utilized the codes that it obtained from assimilating the Progenitor Dreadnought and the Dreadnought bay and sent the access codes required for the Gate.

The ancient superstructure hummed to life as its three power conduits started to transmit energy to the Gate.

Within seconds, the ancient artifact roared to life as a Hyperspace Wavefront erupted into existence within its confines, leading straight to Amun-Ra’s goal.

Once again, the Horus VI showed no hesitation and moved its fleet straight into the Gate, emerging at the center of the Galaxy and right behind the ancient Dreadnought floating aimlessly in space.

The Dreadnought Sajuuk had finally been located.

Unfortunately, it would not last for long.

At Amun-Ra’s distant command, the Horus VI released a swarm of nanites from its tendrils that immediately started to devour the ancient Dreadnought that would be worshiped and revered across the galaxy should its existence be known to anyone else.

Unlike the people of this galaxy, Amun-Ra did not have any religious expectations or value for the Progenitors, and neither did he feel that there was any need to keep the dreadnought intact for the sake of archeological value.

For the uploaded human, the only thing that mattered was accessing the Hyperspace Gate Network spread across the Galaxy, reverse engineering it, and making his own version. And since the dreadnought was the key to the network, it would be prudent to assimilate said key into his network so that he could replicate it when needed instead of using the actual dreadnought and risking losing access to the Network in case of an accident that would result in losing the dreadnought.

In such a way the ancient dreadnought Sajuuk was eliminated from the face of the Galaxy without the various native species knowing anything about it.