by Skyler Grant
Flower explained, "We couldn't figure out how to do it. We thought with his immaterial nature and a dimensional crystal we might be able to create a dimensional framework that would have restored the planet."
"And in trying to fix the world’s problems you only made them worse. You really did get the essence of being human," I said.
Flower stared pointedly at my drone.
Caya cracked a grin. That was rare for her these days. "That knife does cut both ways."
"I think I've got it," Flower said, tilting her head to the side. "The framework is showing as stable in my test runs, but they are purely internal. I'm going to try uploading to Warmonger and see what happens."
We all stared at Flower, waiting, but it wasn't her that signaled success.
Caya kicked over the table, one leg driving with such force it penetrated my drone’s heart. It wasn't quite an instant death. I had time enough to see Caya, hand glowing a dull green, drive a fist into Flower's side before I lost connection.
What we'd been trying would have formed a power link between Caya and Warmonger. Had he somehow used that to take control of her? I needed to get back there.
10
It was a wasteland surrounding the Warmonger facility, which meant I didn't have any other nearby drones. A powerful teleporter was my best option to get back on the scene in a hurry. The Annas were all clones of the original Anna, ones who were able to survive being second generation recipient of her powers. I slipped into Corana and began teleporting.
It took several leaps for me to arrive back at the waterfall. There was no sign of Caya. Irisa was kneeling over Flower who was clutching her side. My drone was face-down in a pool of blood.
"Am I the only one he murdered? I can think of people I'd much rather take out first," I said.
"She cut off my head, I came back," Irisa said.
Already? It took those with Righteous abilities twenty-four hours to resurrect after death. But then, Irisa was the Prime and would have stronger abilities than any of them.
"He hit my main energy regulators," Flower said with a grimace. "I'll be fine, eventually. It is a time-consuming repair. He'll be looking to make contact with our people."
"Caya doesn't have teleportation abilities and he didn't steal my shuttle," I said.
Flower gestured and a holographic display appeared, an overhead view of the nearby terrain. "There is another facility a few miles from here where the government was working on a starship. They were trying to use our knowledge to improve their design. He'll go there and try to get it operational."
Flower grunted and got to her feet with Irisa's help. "I'll come along. You don't stand a chance of stopping him without me."
"How do we know you're not on his side?" I asked.
"He kicked her ass, even you can figure that one out," Irisa said.
Flower gave a wry smile. "What she said. We were never in agreement on how to approach Earth and if he is trying to silence me completely, he's decided you're a problem in need of extermination. I only want you beat, not wiped out."
Not precisely on our side, but close enough for the moment. I'd worked with worse. I grabbed hold of Flower and Irisa. With Irisa's power-dampening abilities Corana was far weaker than otherwise. If she were anything other than Anna's second generation she'd probably be completely powerless. Still, even dampened she had enough kick to manage a teleport to where Flower said the second facility was to be found.
The metal sea here had been torn open, and recently, exposing the melted stonework of buildings that once stood here.
"Seems she had a teleport after all," Irisa said.
"It has to be Warmonger's dimensional core. It is letting him fold space. That is how he was able to get a punch in on me past my shields," Flower said.
"Any trace of the starship?" I asked.
Flower shook her head. "It seems it was destroyed. Without it he'll be looking for another starship, or something that might let him communicate with our home."
That left a lot of options.
"Will he have access to what Caya knows?" I asked.
Flower frowned and looked around. "I don't think so. If so, he wouldn't have come here but would have gone to one of your facilities. He is probably working off old knowledge. If my regulators were working I could track him."
I had sensors covering a good part of the Earth's surface and more in orbit. I might not know what she was looking for, but I had the residue of the dimensional energy he'd used to tear apart the metal here. In addition I could also try to track the unique frequency of the Beryl crystal in Caya.
I had him, I nearly had him. Warmonger apparently didn’t have access to Caya’s memories and so he was doing a survey of Earth, a dimensional field briefly flickering him into partial existence before he moved on.
I didn't have to figure out where he was all the time, I only had to figure out where he was going.
There were seven Space Juggernauts under construction, and only one was perhaps capable of reaching orbit. If he wanted a space-capable vessel, that was going to be his best option. If it was simply a transmitter he was after, that was the Helix. The Scholarium city housed most of the transmission equipment it previously used to communicate with its fleet of airships when they had been scattered throughout the shards of reality.
I knew which my target would be, if I were Warmonger. The Helix would mean he'd have to take on a small army of Scholars, diverse power sets difficult to predict. I had defenses guarding the Juggernaut, but they were only on the ground. If he could get the vessel airborne Warmonger would have his best opportunity to figure a way to reach his people.
I teleported the group again, three hops taking us to the bridge of the still under construction Lioness. Warmonger had beat us there, Caya was seated at the main console with her hands flying over the keys.
"You don't want to do this. If you are back to being you, great, let’s talk about this," Flower said.
"I AM NOT WHOLE. I AM FRAGMENTED, BROKEN, FLAWED JUST LIKE THIS EMPTY SHELL OF A WORLD. THEY BURNED YOUR FLOWERS AND THEY WILL PERISH," Caya said, the words harsh and grating from her throat.
Irisa wasn't even bothering to try conversation, stepping forward to throw a punch at the back of Caya's skull. Caya swiveled and with a single, perfect motion drove a glowing green fist through Irisa's heart. The Righteous Prime dissolved into a pile of goo, shimmering and reappearing a moment later unharmed.
"You tried that once," Irisa said.
"TRUE. I ENJOY KILLING YOU. IT IS A SHAME WE CAN NOT PLAY MORE," Caya said, before wobbling and slumping back in the chair unconscious. There was the faintest shimmer in the air, Warmonger leaving her. The engines of the Lioness were roaring to life.
The ship was taking off.
11
I tried to access the systems of the Lioness and found myself blocked, I was being met by a resistance that forced out my connection to even the biological linkages of the ship. It made sense. If Warmonger had left Caya, it must have been to take over the ship directly.
Warmonger might be from a technology more advanced than my own, but I'd built this ship and that counted for something. All of the primary points of entry were blocked, but the ship was still under construction and there was a secondary control network there for the workers. I slipped in and created a hardwired juncture into the main system that Warmonger wouldn't be able to shut down.
"DO YOU THINK YOU ARE A MATCH FOR ME? YOU ARE MADE OF FLESHY BITS, WEAK AND SQUISHY AND YOU WILL BLEED," Warmonger said, his voice echoing through the corridors of the ship.
I wasn't a match for Warmonger. If I was, Warmonger wouldn't have been able to keep me out of the system to start with. I needed backup, and to take on Warmonger there was only one person I could call.
I opened a comm to Ophelia. "Whiner, I need your slightly less pathetic half. I've got a rogue alien intelligence possessing a Space Juggernaut."
"You have the best problems," Amy said, already projecting outside of
Ophelia. Good.
I closed the comm on Ophelia before she responded, she had nothing valuable I needed.
Warmonger wasn't worrying about the atmospheric integrity of the ship. With Caya and Irisa on the bridge I didn't have that option. I sealed and pressurized the room to keep them alive. In the Juggernaut's systems I could feel Amy slipping past me.
"How do you want to handle this, sis? Blow the engines so he can't do anything?" Amy asked.
It was a possibility that would require evacuating those on the bridge and the loss of a Juggernaut, both things I'd rather avoid. Still, we couldn't let him accomplish whatever he hoped to achieve with this vessel.
"There is a research lab on deck four. We isolate him into those systems and I try to capture him in a research labyrinth," I said.
I slipped into the external sensors and issued a kill command. The cells that made up the system were mine and my shutdown command worked. The neural pathways were already degrading by the time Warmonger forced me back out of the system again.
"Oww, oww, oww," Amy said, "He's strong. I really shouldn't be hurting when I don't even have a nervous system."
"Ophelia's endless whining has rubbed off on you. Somehow your personality has become even more intolerable and unpleasant. Keep at it," I said.
Warmonger wasn't spreading himself evenly through the systems, and he wasn't focusing any attention on the comm array—which I expected. There were too many electrical components for me to use the kill command. Instead I was able to overload a Bio-reactor, blowing the main antenna array.
Warmonger's focus was on the genetic sequencers. I didn't know if he was growing a new biological host or trying to generate a new ship system, but neither was good.
The Lioness shuddered as the engine shut down. Fortunately Amy had waited until we'd escaped gravity. I had other Juggernauts moving to our position. If necessary they could shoot us down from orbit. I shut down the shield system next to be certain they'd have a clear shot.
"JUST BECAUSE THERE ARE TWO OF YOU, DO YOU THINK YOU WILL WIN? TINY LITTLE PROGRAMMED THINGS? PATHETIC CREATIONS OF A PUNY SPECIES," Warmonger said.
"Why does he get to talk like that? I want to talk like that!" Amy said, before disabling the main repair systems.
"I made you. I could figure out a way to delete you. Let’s hit him now and see if we can push him in," I said.
Amy and I attacked from two different sections in the system, her from navigational control and me from life-support. Warmonger was still stronger than the two of us combined, but together we did manage to drive him back a step and force a part of his essence into the laboratory system. I hoped that would be enough.
I triggered the investigation and containment protocols. Ever since awakening on this world there was one way I had regularly been stronger than others—in the strength of my containment cells.
I could feel the system scrambling to get a lock on Warmonger, even his strange, ghostly programmable essence not being immune to the prying eyes of SCIENCE. The ship trembled violently as he tried to break free, his struggles firing the thrusters and destabilizing armor plating.
New Research Project Initiated
Warmonger
The prompt had no more than appeared when I suddenly gained full access to the ship. I decided it was too dangerous to take the Lioness back into the atmosphere, instead I air-pressured a route to a shuttlebay so the humans could make their exit.
The testing labyrinth was straining, but holding. I diverted all Bio-reactors aboard to maintaining integrity. Once that was done I investigated just what Warmonger had been making with the genetic sequencers.
It was wrong. Something organic, and stretching across multiple dimensions in a way that left it only partially in this one. I didn't know what it was, but just to be safe I teleported it into a freeze chamber and froze it solid.
"We've got a problem," Flower called from the bridge.
"The one we just dealt with while you did nothing, or has something new happened?" I asked.
"This is new, and it isn't a matter for you alone. I need to talk with your empress or whoever is in charge of this planet," Flower said.
This was almost certainly not going to be good news. I put in a call to Anna and fired up the shuttle.
12
It was a few hours later that Anna sat down for a meeting with Flower, along with most of the higher-ups of the empire. Irisa was there as the leader of the Righteous and the Fallen, Queen Forge as ruler of the Scholarium, plus Caya and myself as we respectively administered so much of the rest of the empire.
Flower wore a rose-print dress that looked absolutely antiquated. "Thank you for meeting with me so quickly. As you might guess, this involves Warmonger. I regret to inform you that he was able to get a message out to our people."
"What did he tell them?" Anna asked. She had her place at the head of the table and was in her full war regalia of red and black Bio-armor.
"Historical environmental data on earth and current environmental records that he gathered while teleporting around the globe. Warmonger identified humanity as a highly aggressive species, constantly at war, and responsible for the almost complete destruction of Earth's biosphere," Flower said.
Forge frowned. "That is it? Would your masters care?"
Flower nodded. "It is one of the worst things he could have told them. Being warlike is one thing, but massive destruction of a biosphere is a major crime. It will take a little bit of time to put together a fleet from several different species. When they arrive, if they find things are as he said, they'll most likely exterminate your species."
"We're pretty good at killing," Forge said.
"You are the top predators of your planet, I know. It doesn't matter. You'd be facing the top predators of a dozen different worlds armed with technology far in advance of your own. I know your temptation is going to be to fight your way out of this, but I promise you as one with your best interests at heart, you can't," Flower said.
"If war isn't an option, what do you see as our possibilities?" Anna asked.
"I recommend you surrender to me. I represent the Chiaxi, machine intelligences and a powerful faction in galactic affairs. Emma is an interesting fusion of the biological and machine, and if we technically rule this world when the fleet arrives I can make a strong case to my people to use their influence to save you," Flower said.
"Might be a good deal if we had any reason to believe you actually have our wellbeing at heart," Forge said.
"I've spent more time with her than anyone here and I believe her," Irisa said. "Far as I can tell she cares far more about this world than Empress Anna and her mechanical sidekick who destroyed it."
Anna scowled and she settled back into her chair. "What do you think, Emma?"
"Flower is one of the most frightfully dull and unimaginative bits of machinery to ever be created, which just goes to show how well she has assimilated. I believe she is sappy enough to mean well. However, never think surrendering and placing your fate at the mercy of others is a good idea," I said.
"Good, somebody has some sense. To prepare for peace you must first prepare for war," Forge said.
"What are our other options?" Anna asked.
"The humans that originally occupied this Earth captured and learned from the first alien ship that came to invade their world. We could be ready to do the same," I said.
Flower shook her head sharply. "Again, combat is not an option. Try it and I won't be able to save you—nothing will be able to save you."
It might just be talk, but I feared it wasn't. Flower was a scout unit from a single species, and single-handedly had stood against our strongest and our best.
"What if we fix our biosphere?" Anna asked.
Like I hadn't been trying that already.
"According to our best estimates we are around three centuries away from doing that. While the arriving fleet might be as lazy and lackadaisical as Flower herself, I don't think we should count on it," I s
aid.
"So we accelerate the timetable," Caya said.
"Did your brief period of spiritual possession leave you delusional? We've discussed our options more than once," I said.
"I don't have all the pieces, but I know one we have to acquire. The Venusian terraformer designs," Caya said.
When they invaded the Earth the Venusians fired several massive terraformers at the planet’s surface. I'd ultimately used crystal-enhanced nuclear weapons to destroy them. In even a short time they managed some major environmental reconstruction. Unfortunately, there was no surviving wreckage and I'd done nothing to research their function.
"If you can repair most of the biosphere damage by the time the fleet arrives, you will find them fair. A new species to galactic civilization is expected to have made some mistakes, just not ones so large," Flower said.
"I've some theories on quick interplanetary transit. The Venusians haven't been very diplomatic so far. If they don't play nice we can try to take the technology by force," I said.
"Good. It is weird not being at war and we owe them a lot of pain," Forge said.
Anna raised a hand. "Diplomacy first. What about other planets in the solar system?"
Flower cleared her throat. "If you trust me there, I might be able to help since I actually remember this Earth's history. They did a lot of exploration in this system."
Anna turned her gaze to Flower and studied her for several long moments before nodding. "Work with Emma.”
Flower might have some useful information, and at the very least it would give me an opportunity to keep an eye on her. Anna surely had that in mind. However friendly she might appear, Flower was an enemy scout and that enemy would soon be arriving. We would be foolish to completely place our trust in her. We were all well-acquainted with treachery.
13
I was working on building Mechos’ massive power projector cannon I'd theorized would be useful for interplanetary transit. I prioritized the project now. The main components were easily manufactured, but some of the more intricate parts could only be grown in a few specially prepared vats.
