Greyloch.

The Aeneas loomed in low orbit far in excess of the gravitational pull of SX-02.
From his seat in the billet office looking out one of the few portholes on the deck, Lakeman studied the shadowed hemisphere dominating the view. The deck plates were slick from automated sterilisation in the overhead environment cleaning machines. Patrolling the ceiling rails and dispensing oxygen, and other gases, disinfectant wall spray and floor detergent...

Leaving the embarkation halls and walkways required one to plough through the sharp tangy-tasting soap-mist at times to reach the gated ends to board a vehicle in stand-by deployment harness.
All personnel who are resurrected from cryostasis and have processed the standard 24-hour wake-up routine, will begin (dependant on unit and mission) armouring or suiting up for operation. Personnel not equipped with pressurised enviro-atmospheric gear, have to get mildly dampened during scrub down at airlocks.

TASTRAS operators in infantry powersuits are ably equipped to enter the vacuum of space in their gear. Pilots and Crew often donning fully transparent domed breather rigs and oxygen supply.

Lakeman turned slowly to stare out the open doorway behind him, in the glow of the hangar out and beyond, the blanketing white sheet of light pouring through often broke and eclipsed with silhouettes of passing people, be they TASTRAS or Fleet.

From the massive concourses stood crane and auto-rail technicians controlling the vehicle lockdowns. Hydras clung to launch-rails built into the floor of the hangar ready to be propelled out through airlocked launch-ways into space. On the landing above the Hydra mounts and causeway, launch rails again, requiring significantly less space and a lower maintenance ceiling, these rails contained hundreds of combat drones in pre-launch state. Usually controlled in one of two launch-modes, A.I mode, where the Aeneas combat data loaded for all drone drives and system controls takes over flying and navigating the drones, and employing approved tactics during combat. The drones secondary control suite mode is Manual Mode. The drones are flown from portable terminals aboard ship by pilots.

Lakeman turned back to resume his stare off into the void. In the glaring light outside the ammunition dump room he now stood in, the Lieutenant Commander had several minutes prior, called up his two Lieutenants, call-signed Hunter 3. They, and Lakeman would board their Hydra bound for SX-02 on the count of orders from STRAT-COM.
Mission brief at the airlock went smoothly and the trio decided on area reconnaissance first in the night of the planet. Searching for any signs of life. Each man would wear a Preyhound for the duration of reconnaissance, signalling for reinforcements once any sign of a team is collected for retrieval and med-evac for casualties.

Lakeman had finished the briefing by outlining the objective and variables on strategy, objective alpha is to defend the retrieval runs of drop-craft and their pick-up payloads of TASTRAS in the event of Hostile Contact. He'd picked up the warning beacon from a Sergeant Tyrone, on a satellite fly-by, it bleeped in the objective code pattern for “Intelligence Update” Lakeman had had a hunch they would be down there... Holcroids had poured through the outer reaches of the western traverse in as many as forty-two locations. SX-02 making this planet the forty-third now discovered to be harbouring Holcroids...
Lakeman seethed. Dismissing the two officers, then winding-down for some minutes in the ammo receptacle. Psyching up for the inevitable go ahead.

He marched to the edge of the room and leant on the open door frame. He folded his arms and watched. His attention was drawn to the large heaving robot legs moving in alternating steps, and thumping up and down on the deck-plates. There, only metres away, two huge war-machines marched slowly down their lanes on the painted and illuminated floor.
The machines the crew, and most of the TASTRAS referred to as “Canids” and are the 23rd Century equivalent of a force-application armoured combat vehicle. Used with miniframe-controlled terrain-busting legs, in place of wheels, the vehicle can deploy via Hydra from orbit to planet-surface to aid in combat where large calibre and extreme suppressive fire is needed.
All tactical assault platforms and personnel deploy by this means and in conjunction with battlefield necessity.

Lakeman had ordered the units to ready up in the likely case that, if Holcroid numbers were accountable, their proximal shape-building strategy and transfunctionally modified cybernetics come into play faster, requiring more destructive power to meet the aliens en mass.
Each machine strode ponderously along its way to be cradled aboard a drop-craft. Lakeman felt some confidence, but remained wary knowing that some heavy-duty hard-hitting firepower could be called upon on the ground and from space. But nothing is ever without risk.
The two stomping, clanking vehicles echoed through the deck and soundwaves vibrated the air loudly in the great expanse. Lakeman gave the two Canids a last glance, admiring the super-structure in its hunched, boxy configuration. The main weapons were two magnetised pulse-powered rail-guns housed in the gunnery suite in the upper chassis rotating on the turret mount at the things waist. On the left and right flanks of a Canid are two sponsons enclosing an electrically powered field-gun. Rapid-firing pulse-assisted ammunition for anti-personnel sweeping and close-in fire support. Each gun can be manually operated or set to security mode via miniframe so the gunner and driver may coordinate use of the main guns.
Packed with ordnance, and disappearing from his view, Lakeman sighed long and hard. Willing his superiors to receive his transmission, and send his team in to begin evacuating the operators lost in space.

In the twisting turning linkages, conduits, tunnels and shafts of the Aeneas, activity stirred. Throbbing energy, sectional transmission waves, electric current and pestilential insects flitted and darted through the heaving structure of the Carrier.
The A.I ports and operation nodes held open by an unseen force.
Every so often a spark would occur at a junction box and force the Aeneas to switch data streams and editing algorithms...
The de-powered segments of the Aeneas consciousness began to blurredly come online and process rogue requests being fed into its neural-core.

With the inhibited layers of processing being re-written by an unknown code-cypher with an artificial link to control the A.I... In the next power-cycle, a new consciousness would manifest from the repurposed code.
Without anyone aboard in possession of knowledge that such events were in progress, the glitches, errors and malfunctions would accumulate much to the dismay of all ship-board crew reliant on Aeneas' computational capability.

The lieutenant-Commander found himself pacing toward a pressure door leading to the upper-deck elevator when it, and the one he had passed through slammed shut, trapping him in the causeway before the lights went out and filled the space with a dull red glow of emergency nav-light.

He cursed and toiled about in confusion, a circuit-breaker exploded above his head, littering sparks. What now?
He thought. He tried his wrist-computer touch-pad, seeing if he could open a radio link to someone. There came a fizz and crackle in his ear. Nothing. As if the transmission were jammed somehow, but who by and why?

“This is Lakeman to any crew or Task Force personnel, do you read me? I'm stuck in causeway seven of the forward elevator shaft from Hangar Nine... Anyone read?” His plea was answered with more static and crackling noise. He flipped his shoulder lamp on to find a manual door override.

He found the locking port in the floor in front of the elevator door. Lakeman had just begun to strip away the panel to start cranking the door up when a fizzing started in his ear.
“Hello...?”

You... You have come to us... And now we... Understand... You...

Lakeman stood slowly, shocked by the familiarity of the voice communicating with him, horrified more that it was somehow different.
“Aeneas?? What the hell...?” He stepped back and was met with a massive burst of sound emitting from every and all audio nodes. The entire ship experienced the same ultrasonic burst in synchronicity but would be unable to account for its origin or purpose.
Stranger still, within minutes, the lights and door automation restored itself around Lakeman.
He lingered silently for some moments, unable to process the bizarre occurrences, before hesitantly stepping into the elevator. Expecting more strangeness, Lakeman backed out of the elevator and decided on the ladder instead.

Lakeman ascended the maintenance shaft in near-darkness, making for the upper catwalk overlooking the hangar. He paused to use his tac-pad;
“Captain Grey, do you read me?” He glanced down the ladder, beyond the hatchway he had climbed up from, a roiling dark abyss plunged away toward the Aeneas' hold and ballast. Steam rose up in cloying wafts from the dim red glow below. There was a crackle at Lakeman's ear.
“Grey. Go ahead.” The Captain's voice held a sense of alertness, or maybe a lacking thereof.
Lakeman, not caring to decide which, clambered higher as he spoke.
“Captain, the ship is glitching real bad, are the lockouts in place? Some power went out for a few minutes down here, I don't trust the mainframe, so am climbing maintenance shaft seven, Hangar Nine...” The suited Lakeman reached a hatch to the catwalk, punching the door override panel and ripping it away to fall into the depths of Aeneas' bowels. The crank turned slowly in the Commander's grasp, he was through.

“There are reports of shit going wrong all over the place Commander. The lockout's are active, but the A.I may have superseded the restrictions. Program Hub says they can't isolate the cause or mend it. Stay alert and go manual on all controls -”
Lakeman cut in; “SIR! Has anyone else reported the Aeneas ghosting verbally? Any anomalous talk? Because I just had a helluva creepy insight into the ship's thoughts...”
There was some silence from the Captain as Lakeman made his way toward the armoury once more.
Grey returned with a semblance of confusion; “What? Ghosting speech? What did it say exactly?”
Lakeman halted to let a troop of crewmen jog past. He glanced around to see several technicians having what amounted to overtime set on them by senior officers to fix circuitry and conduct repairs on the ship where damaged. Some wore gear to go E.V.A.
“The mainframe wasn't making sense, but it said it knew us, or understood us, that we had come to it. I'm not sure when it used the term 'you' that it meant me specifically, or all of us aboard, or something of a higher order of magnitude if there is a contextual error in its processing...”

At the armoury, Lakeman waved the armourer over and made him stand to attention while he waited to hear Grey's response to his explanation.
Grey sighed then said, “Jesus... What do you suppose Lakeman?”
“Sir, I might be crazy, but I don't think the Aeneas would share such eerie words with me, given that the A.I is not programmed to voice opinions or state its observations without being asked to do so. I think it's NOT the ship who spoke to me...”
Grey was flabbergasted. Somehow, the Commander's point seemed worth a thought – if what he said was at all true, the idea had been perpetually overlooked by him and the rest of the technicians assigned to maintain the ship's mainframe. He asked Lakeman to clarify.
“Are you saying we're hacked Dustin?”
“If we are, we need to fix the thing and fast.” Replied Lakeman. His brow raised in exhortation.

Lakeman slipped the armourer a small device and gestured for him to standby. He answered the Captain in kind with a hushed affirmation of his suspicions, then ended the radio exchange.
Turning to the armourer to brief him, the man stood resolute, hiding any concern or confusion.
“Go to the aft signal-port, transmission cold-store, connect the listener to one of the incoming receiver nodes, report to me when you're done Corporal.”
The armourer snapped to attention acknowledging his task. The 'listener' squealed softly, then exploded with static as the armourer began to diagnose it for functionality.
“Ach, a wire tap sir? The ship's gonney a tad loopy no? Bastard thing wanted a despatch of ammo to upper deck galley just afore! Fuckin' loopy I warrant!”

Lakeman acknowledged the man, then sent him on his mission. Reminding him to radio in when he'd done his job. The two parted in opposite directions, Lakeman estimating the armourer would make it to the aft of the ship in around an hour. Whilst en route across the catwalk, bypassing the automated gantry's, running lines, robotic loading arms and supply holdings to get to the far maintenance ladder, Lakeman made a detour for his weapons.
Boycotting the ship's logistical automation, instead retrieving an R130 rifle and twelve magazines from an arms stand. He scooped up a handful of power-clips for the rifle too. Stuffing additional ammunition and ordnance into the power-suit's outer webbing rig. With pouches loaded, a sidearm holstered on his person, and hefting the rifle, Lakeman scuffed along the Aeneas' corridors intent on regrouping with his lieutenants.
You understand us do you? He thought to himself.

Lakeman and Hunter 3 set about performing manual checks of their gear and Sprint-Suits. Stowing weapons aboard them, then marching them each out to the waiting Hydra, the flight lieutenant absently aware of their procedure, but otherwise ensconced in his pre-flight checks.
The Preyhounds secured, Lakeman ordered his patrol to standby aboard the Hydra. Imagining that at any moment the call would come through to drop. The Commander paced around the exterior of the drop ship, fiddling with his tac-pad, willing the armourer to hurry. The wire-tap of data-streams incoming from the planet below should confirm whether or not something had access to and was hacking the ship externally.

Time ticked by. The hangar echoed with the din of works, machines whining as they carried cargo from level to level, voices shouting out a coarse blur amongst the infrequent thud of articulating armoured legs belonging to an occasional Leviathan or Canid marching either to embarkation or maintenance bays.
Another cargo-train whizzed by the Hydra trailing caseless artillery shells in a flock of carriages.
Lakeman silently urged the armourer to double-time it. Convinced that if he could isolate the source of Aeneas' hijacked cognitive state, the operations of the ship might revert to normal...