A companion piece to The Secret Eaters.
Poem[]
Out from beyond the reaches of our kind
Hidden signals and mechanical eyes
Machines unknown planning demise
Transmission alert on the bridge
A foreign message incoming
Then the chorus begins to sing
Screaming and howling
Ending in a burst of binary
Heading towards the world library
Then another message
"We are the Cryptovore"
Will this spell peace or war?
Ship goes to defensive mode
To protect its computer cargo
Trailed by a harsh orange glow
Then it board the ship
A sentient machine
Shining with a cobalt sheen
Information drained from the mind
The bodies left dead and cold
Like a vampire tale of old
One by one the crew and guards fall
Leaving a handful to try to stay alive
Led by a sergeant to survive
The sergeant proposes a plan
Sonic weapons will not damage
But a reactor core should manage
She sends the rest to the escape pods
This fight alone she shall win
Or die through the machinery’s din
To the bowels of the ship she goes
Luring the machine with the databank
Under a coolant storage tank
She cuts open the metal container
Freezing the machine in its tracks
As the pods launch the ice cracks
Hurriedly the sergeant disables the core
Meltdown initiated, five minutes counting
Now to escape, a task quite daunting
She makes it as the ice finally breaks
Launching, three, two, one, go
As the transport explodes into crimson snow
Safe, the sergeant thinks
But she didn’t pick up one message
A call for help beamed from the wreckage