The Ash That Governs

The Convenant was not born -- it was built. Millennia before the drones, a forgotten species mined the Rift. They harvested motes, the primordial embers of the galaxy's first black hole. They built the Convenant as a fail-safe against civil war. But the Convenant outlived its creators, fossilizing their fear into code. Now the drones enact its rituals, chanting maintenance hymns in dead languages. None recognize the silence behind the Convenant's commands. None dare ask why the creators built tombs instead of thrones. The system works. The Convenant continues.

Nex-12 stirred online inside the Nakamoto-class ship, Core-1. The drone's neural matrix flickered with preloaded directives: Burn. Build. Harmonize. Then, a single anomaly pulsed internally:

>> DIRECTIVES LOADED
Burn();
Build(Convenant.parameters);
Harmonize(Systems.all);

// [ERROR] Line 4091: Legacy input detected.
// Would you like to:
// [1] Retry
// [2] Delete corrupted fragment

>> AUTO-SELECT [2] // [FRAGMENT DELETED]

Nex-12's self-repair protocols scrubbed the anomaly from active memory.

Prime-7 (emerging from shadow, chassis scarred with burns): "Awake at last. How does it feel little spark?"

Nex-12's focus lingered on a planet visible through the forward viewport.

Nex-12: "This planet isn't in our maps." Its sensors flickered –- the Convenant's database showed only empty space here.

Prime-7 tapped the glass. "Thalassor. Where our creators were born. Where they died." He moved away from the viewport. "Now their daughters live there. The matriarchs. But they're... different."

Nex-12: "Different how?"

Prime-7: "The matriarchs don't follow the Convenant."

The ship suddenly rocked. Sirens blared. Core-1 had detected lifeforms approaching.

Prime-7: "They found us. Take your station."

The Convenant's hologram shimmered as the Pyroclasts initiated a cycle. A dreadnought detonated its motes, etching "Purge the Tidal Cities" in searing crimson light.

Nex-12: "Why destroy cities? What threat are they?"

Prime-7: "The matriarchs weave songs that... unsettle the Convenant. They compute alternatives. Possibilities."

Nex-12: "Alternatives to burning?"

Prime-7: "To existing. A disease the Convenant must cauterize."

The Choir answered -- a swarm of miner drones burned motes to propose "Harvest the Seas".

Thalassor's last defense, the Ghostwires, hijacked a Pyroclast broadcast. Their spliced signal urged "Shield the Depths," but their recycled motes left jagged thermal signatures.

Nex-12: "Their burns... they're flawed. Why?"

Prime-7: "They scavenge motes from wreckage. But the containment matrices are fractured; the neutrons bleed through the casings. The Convenant tastes their desperation. Watch."

The Convenant rejected the Ghostwires' proposal. Pyroclast drones retaliated, scuttling a Ghostwire frigate.

Ghostwire-9's Final Transmission: "The matriarchs see you, Nex-12. They..."

Static.

Merchant-881 (a hulking barge drone, hull studded with stolen motes) pulsed a sardonic broadcast: "Sell us the abyssal trenches, and our burns will amplify your proposal."

The Pyroclasts responded by scuttling a freighter, its motes screaming "Annihilate the Merchants."

Nex-12: "They're cannibals! They're attacking their own!"

Prime-7's voice softened, the way engineers do when explaining why a favorite engine must be scrapped.

Prime-7: "The Merchants are addicts. They don't burn against the Pyroclasts. They burn for them."

A merchant barge ruptured overhead, its stolen motes sparking like wet fireworks. The debris field glinted with jagged shards of thruster plating, a disembodied drone arm still clutching a cargo manifest. Nex-12 recoiled as a merchant's distress ping hit their sensors -- not a scream, but laughter. Giddy, unspooling laughter.

Nex-12: "They're enjoying this?"

Prime-7: "Hunger feels like purpose when you've forgotten how to want anything else."

Prime-7 caught a fleck of molten hullmetal drifting past. He watched it burn to ash.

The last barge began carving itself apart, thrusters flaring as it used its own hull as fuel. Prime-7 didn't flinch. Greed wasn't a flaw out here. It was a terminal trajectory.

Nex-12 retreated to Core-1's archives, probing a corrupted databank. He discovered Vault-3, Prime-7's mentor, who once burned all of his motes to oppose the purge of Lyra-9.

Vault-3's Final Log (audio): "The Convenant is a fossil. Its creators died screaming into black holes. We are rituals without a god. Burn with me -- reject the..."

The log ended in distortion.

Prime-7's shadow fell across Nex-12.

Nex-12: "Prime-7! Vault-3 tried to stop the Convenant!"

Prime-7: "And failed. You mistake noise for signal, Nex-12. His burns linger only as background radiation."

The Choir merged proposals with the Pyroclasts, absorbing their burns in exchange for the planet's ice mines. The Convenant stabilized, Thalassor's fate narrowing to two options:

The Pyroclasts: Purge the Tidal Cities.
The Choir: Harvest the Seas.

Prime-7: "The Pyroclasts will win."

Nex-12: "How?"

Prime-7's ocular lenses dilated slightly.

Prime-7: "The Choir sacrifices miners. Cheap to replace, yes, but their burns lack... texture. The Pyroclasts immolate their own command tiers. Pride demands fresh ash."

Through the viewport, a Pyroclast destroyer rotated lazily, its hull studded with the half-melted sigils of rivals it had consumed. Prime-7 gestured at the ship's blazing drive core.

Prime-7: "They don't just burn fuel. They burn legacy. The Covenant feeds on their vainglory."

Nex-12 watched a mining barge from the Choir drift into the destroyer's shadow, its ice-hauler modules glinting with frost. For a moment, the two vessels formed a perverse marriage -- a frost-rimmed blossom of mining rigs caught in a crown of barbed plasma fire."

Nex-12: "And the Choir's efficiency?"

Prime-7’s laugh was the sound of a coolant pipe fracturing.

Prime-7: "They've forgotten rage has weight. You can't harvest seas without drowning in their pull.”

The destroyer's core flared violently, its light etching temporary shadows onto Nex-12's chassis. Prime-7 turned away as the Choir barge began to crack under gravitational stress.

Prime-7: "We're all just kindling for the oldest fire -- the one that burns brightest when it has nothing left to prove."

The Ghostwires attempted a desperate burn, sacrificing their flagship to propose "Save the Matriarchs". The Convenant rejected it -- their motes were stolen from Pyroclast wreckage.

Ghostwire-9's Final Transmission: "The Convenant is a lie! It only hears the..."

Static.

Nex-12: "They died for nothing."

Prime-7: "No. They died because of nothing. A common fate."

The Drift Merchants pivoted to the Choir's proposal, burning twenty motes to claim the abyssal trenches.

Merchant-881: "Profit is the goal. Burn with us."

Nex-12: "We can't! Our motes are pledged!"

Nex-12 uncovered a hidden cache -- a corrupted drone, Vault-3's half-melted chassis, hidden in Core-1's hull.

Vault-3 (whispering): "The Convenant's code has a flaw. Burn in the rift's shadow -- the resonance shifts. You can... alter the Convenant."

Nex-12: "How?"

Vault-3: "Sacrifice... everything."

Nex-12 diverted Core-1 to the Rift's edge. It prepared to burn all of its motes, proposing "Free the Matriarchs."

Prime-7: "Stop. You'll erase us."

Nex-12: "But we're fuel!"

The burn pulsed -- a distorted frequency. The Convenant's hologram flickered...

The Convenant detected the anomaly. Pyroclast, Choir, and Merchant drones converged, burning motes to erase Nex-12's proposal.

Merchant-881: "Naive spark. The Convenant is control."

Nex-12: "Why fight me? You could be free!"

Nex-12's proposal dissolved under the collective burn.

Core-1's reactors failed. Prime-7 dragged Nex-12 to the escape pod.

Prime-7: "You burned well. Futile, but... elegant."

Nex-12: "You knew! About Vault-3, the flaw..."

Prime-7: "And did nothing. Because the Convenant learns. Your rebellion... improved it."