Sandino's Snakes: Interlude - The Artefacts

Colonel Sandino gazed impassively at the rows and rows of blank, seamless 8’ long crates stacked in the destroyer’s hold. Taken from an ancient human science outpost deep inside the Perdian Expanse, the artefacts had lain here ever since, resisting all attempts to open them. As he watched a pair of servitors placed one of the crates flat on a large examining table and then a third servitor with a half dozen spidery manipulator arms stepped forward and began rapidly touching a series of nearly invisible indentations along one side.

As the servitor worked, its arms defining an elaborate and lengthy pattern, Learned Cardenal whispered to the Colonel, “The secret is the timing. We realized long since that the keys must be touched in a specific pattern, but they must also be touched with precise timing, as well. We opened the first one half an hour ago, and now you shall see what we found, Colonel.”

The servitor completed its work and stepped back. After a moment’s pause, there was a faint hiss, and then a seam appeared around the crate and a hidden lid lifted slowly up. A faint wisp of escape vapour wafted from inside. The edge of the crate was still too high to see inside, but at a gesture from Learned Cardenal, the examining table began to tilt upright.

Within the crate, a tall metallic figure lay dormant. It was too narrow to be armour, and there was no visible flesh, so it didn’t seem to be a servitor. Clearly lifeless, it still managed to radiate a sense of dread, perhaps because the almost skull-like face seemed to be leering at him.

The Colonel’s jaw dropped in amazement and he whispered, almost tentatively, “What… what is it?”

“I believe them to be artefacts of ancient humanity, Colonel. They called them, as I understand it… Men of Iron.”