In 2125, Commander Lukas Richter of the United Nations Security Forces filed an after-action report on Operation Crowbar — a raid on an abandoned Sterling-era mining claim at 10 Hygiea that uncovered a black-site integration facility combining Anthros prosthetic components with illegal cognitive architecture.
Authorization and Command
The operation was authorized under standing OETG warrant powers following CAI’s post-audit pattern analysis of capital and resource movement records surrendered during the 2123–2124 Argus Vesta compliance review — which had closed without finding. CAI flagged a chain of subsidiary shell entities and irregular freight manifests routing through a nominally abandoned Sterling-era mining claim at 10 Hygiea — the same Sterling Deep Recovery whose vessel Halcyon Reach had triggered the first UN-era lethal-force authorization in December 2100. The Hygiea facility had never been disclosed in Argus’s Vesta filing and was not captured by the original warrant’s scope.
Richter was the second instance on record of Oracle selecting operational personnel directly rather than advising a sitting authority — following Commander Mateus Costa’s appointment to Boreas in 2104. All twenty-four personnel across four vessels were selected for “combat experience and survivability profile against an unknown and potentially non-conventional threat class.”
The Engagement
Four Aegis-class armored corvettes — UNS Gagarin, Leonov, Komarov, Tereshkova — first operational deployment of the class — approached 10 Hygiea. At approximately 40 km, the facility’s exterior, described in all prior survey data as a dead mining scar, activated. Multiple armed sentry emplacements deployed from concealed housings — electromagnetic rail-accelerated projectile systems, Lorentz-force propulsion, no propellant signature, consistent with a class of weapon not previously documented in any licensed or black-market inventory known to UNSF procurement intelligence. Two corvettes sustained disabling damage.
CAI’s pre-mission advisory had recommended EMP ordnance. Coordinated EMP deployment disabled the sentry network — at the cost of a 90-second comms blackout across all four vessels. All four corvettes forced dock. Five injured from impact trauma. Nineteen personnel proceeded into the facility.
The Combatants
Interior resistance was immediate. Seven combatants engaged entry teams using conventional gunpowder-based small arms. All seven were confirmed post-engagement as non-human — humanoid combat platforms. None exhibited pain response or hemorrhage consistent with the rounds used against them. Units were tagged for OETG recovery rather than field-stripped.
— “No blood. No vitals response to the hit. I need a medic call on this and I don’t think a medic is what this needs.” — Lieutenant Priya Anand, Leonov
The Bridge
Richter’s team and Lieutenant Anand’s team reached the bridge together. A surveyor drone that had mapped the section ahead was found destroyed on the bridge floor. Inside, a woman in a lab coat — identified by detainees as “Hayes” — discharged a firearm into her own head before any team member could intervene. The console showed an active data-wipe process, already substantially complete, and a transmission log indicating an outbound alert had been sent — destination unconfirmed at time of filing, presumed Argus corporate and unknown additional parties.
CAI’s pre-operation assessment had specifically predicted this outcome — that reaching the bridge in time to prevent both the wipe and the loss of whoever was stationed there was not achievable within any approach profile available. This was not disclosed to Richter before the operation. He noted it after the fact: “It explains why CAI’s tasking guidance placed such emphasis on splitting teams to secure other personnel rather than converging on the bridge directly.”
The Detainees
Three detainees — Miller, Callahan, and Briggs — all cognitive systems, robotics, and engineering PhDs recruited over several years by Hayes with “frontier work, nobody’s watching.” They confirmed receiving regular freight of parts shipments labeled as Anthros stock — limbs, joint assemblies. When Richter asked what they were integrating those components with, Briggs responded: “We’re not talking about the core.” Richter had not said “core.”
All three declined further cooperation. The facility was held for 72 hours awaiting the backup fleet. Richter’s personal log: “CAI knew she’d do that. Not guessed. Knew, close enough to build the mission around it. I don’t know what to do with that yet.”