by David Beers
"I'll do my best, sir," Alrain replied.
Bin shut down the holovid. He stared at the table, thinking about what the man had said. Did he have any idea what he was saying? He was going to try to shut down an intergalactic corporation, one that had unlimited firepower? Bin had never experienced anything that idiotic, yet the man spoke as if his words would become truth.
Well, shortly he would see the truth. Fire would fall from the sky, and this little episode would be over.
"Contact that dreadnought," he told the AI.
A few moments passed, then the computer said, "You're connected."
"This is Lord Binsum Tinsert Immorium Dax. I own the planet you’ve sent intruders to. After repeated attempts to contact you, this will be the last time I do so. It is now clear that you have attempted to invade our private property, and one of the cretins you just dropped on our peaceful planet has threatened us. Due to the corporation’s peaceful nature, we will not be sending an armada to destroy your ship, although we are well within our rights to do so. However, we will be killing those you sent within the next hour. If there is any attempt by your dreadnought to intervene, we will be forced to take drastic measures against it as well."
He paused for a second, letting his anger subside at the sheer audacity of what they were attempting.
"It is in your best interests to leave our airspace. If this aggression continues, you will force our hand. This has been a silly, stupid, and pointless endeavor on your part."
He shut the holovid down, then slammed his flat hand onto the table.
Bin didn't like any of this. He was a businessman. In all his father's time as head of the company, nothing like this had ever happened. Of course, it would be under his reign that something this idiotic happened.
Still, it could be used for his benefit. Bin planned on upping the cost of the gigantes playing where the fire fell. If they sold at a premium, he saw no reason other types of intrusions couldn't happen. It could create a premium caste of gigante.
Maybe this was a blessing in disguise. He'd find out within an hour.
Servia listened to the transmission coming from the planet beneath. She saw the thin, annoying face of the company's leader on her holovid and wished she could slit his throat. Unfortunately, he was too far out of her reach.
The rest of Pro's council watched the transmission as well: Relm, Faitrin, and the AllMother. Servia had taken over as leader when they left, the AllMother saying that her time leading anyone was done. Still, Servia found herself looking at the old woman when the message was over.
The AllMother stared at where the man's face had been.
Servia didn't say what she was thinking, that the man had been right in his assessment. This was stupid, not to mention deadly. Servia didn't say it because she'd thought that about many of Pro's decisions, and each time he'd come out stronger than before. Their entire movement had. Servia was coming to understand that things that couldn't be accomplished by mere mortals, Pro could make happen.
Even so, this seemed beyond him. He had himself, Thoreaux, and Caesar.
"Does anyone have any thoughts on this?" she asked those at the table.
Relm raised his eyebrows. "I think it might be a good idea to skedaddle on out of this galaxy at least if we're talking about safety."
Faitrin punched him in the arm. "I don't even wanna hear that shit in jest."
He put his hands up in protest. "Okay, okay. Calm down." Placing his arms on the table, he looked at Servia. "I mean, we're not leaving him. So that leaves us two options. We send down the gigantes, or we let him do what he planned."
"The gods dashed that plan the moment the bullet left our dreadnought," she said. "Faitrin, what do you say?"
The pilot was obviously still controlling her emotions. "I say we let Pro continue. I don't think he'd want us to send the gigantes down there and risk their deaths. He seems to have different plans for them."
Servia understood how hard it must have been for her to say that. Right now, she looked like a woman carved from stone, but there wasn't any doubt of the love she felt for Thoreaux.
"AllMother?" Servia turned her attention to their former leader.
The old woman looked up as if she'd been lost in thought and hadn't expected anyone to ask for her opinion. She waved her hand in the air as if to dissipate smoke in front of her. "Whatever you all decide. I'm sleepy, and I think I might lie down for a nap."
Servia raised her eyebrows, not in jest as Relm had, but in surprise. "Mother, you can't be serious."
She yawned and pushed up from her chair. "I am, Servia. I'm very sleepy. Whatever you all decide, I am good with."
Servia watched as the old woman left the room, more than surprised by the move. She was shocked.
The door closed behind the AllMother, leaving the other three on the council alone.
Relm stared at the door. "Does she have dementia or something? I know we pretty much eradicated that as a species, but her age combined with this shit..." He shrugged and looked at Servia. "What do we do?"
Servia could unleash the gigantes, and—she'd admit it to herself—that was her first instinct. She had to trust Pro, though. They were out of contact with him, but Faitrin was right. Pro had different designs for the gigantes. If she ruined that, it could destroy his later plans.
If they survived.
"We're going to trust Pro. He'll get out of this."
The AllMother knew the rest of Pro's council thought she was toying with them. She wasn't, though. She was tired and growing more so each day.
She wouldn't claim to understand what Prometheus was doing. She hadn't found him in order to know what he would do. She'd found him to unleash him on the universe, and that was exactly what she had done. Right now, he had been unleashed on an enslavement camp. While their little president might think he had the upper hand, the AllMother knew the truth.
Pro would get out of this. Somehow.
The AllMother was more concerned about herself at this moment. She was coming to wonder something she hadn't thought about before. Would she live to see the revolution?
Would she see her blood lose his iron grip over the human race?
The AllMother made it to her bedroom and laid down.
She closed her eyes and knew that sleep would come soon. Perhaps dreams, too—the dreams of the modified. They had been coming more frequently lately, although she'd said nothing to anyone about it.
The AllMother took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The dreams would come. She didn't want them, but she was tired.
Oh, so tired.
Chapter Twelve
"Alexandria..."
The word rolled across her like ocean waves, each syllable hitting her individually.
Alex, not yet the AllMother in this place, dropped to one knee.
"You know if you die, that won't stop me, right?"
The voice wasn't the changed, morphed, alien voice of the creature who called himself the AllSeer. It was the voice of her brother Alexander before he had become this twisted monster.
"If you die, sister, it will make it easier."
Alex got to her feet. She had been able to explain what was happening to Prometheus because the same thing was happening to her. It was something else she'd kept from those she cared about. So much of her life was a secret that she hardly knew what to tell anyone anymore.
Something flashed in the corner, and Alex's eyes darted to it. Whatever had been there was gone, replaced by shadow.
"I only want you alive so that I can look you in the eye when you finally understand that all of this running, all of these unending years, were for nothing."
Another flash, this one in her peripheral vision. Alex turned quickly, but it was gone.
"I'm going to make him suffer, Alexandria. I'm going to make him hurt worse than you could ever imagine. The things Father inflicted on those he conquered? They will seem like a sweet release compared to what will happen to your Prophesied One."
The shadow that had been bouncing around in the corners now appeared in front of her. It was massive, like Caesar, and had form and substance. She could see some of her brother's former features, though most of them had changed or were lost in the blackness of this three-dimensional shadow.
It stepped forward far quicker than she could back up. It was upon her, and the shadow opened its mouth. Her brother's perfect teeth were gone, and a black hole confronted her. "I defy time, sister. My Superior Ones are not me. I am what our father wanted to be, what he could not ever become."
Alex wouldn’t back up. She wouldn’t give an inch to this bastardization. "Well, brother, you still don't have my warrior or me, so it seems like you're missing something."
The shadow raised a hand as if to backhand her but stopped before it slapped her face.
Alex smiled at the creature. "Why not try it?"
Her brother did nothing, his black jaw flexing with anger.
Alex took a deep breath, and when she breathed out, she did it directly into the shadow's face. Pieces of it broke off, fluttering away and disappearing.
She heard her brother's whisper as he left the shared space.
"I'll see you soon, Alex. Don't die on me. I want you to see me when you meet your fate."
The Written History of the Great Insurrection
This writing will address the AllMother as well as her leadership. Given that I served under her most of my life, I cannot say this is an unbiased account, but something needs to be said about it.
Without the AllMother, there would be no Insurrection. There would be no Prometheus. Alistair Kane would have died a Titan, his name perhaps preserved in some small footnote of history, to eventually be lost in the vastness of space. I, Servia, Faitrin, Relm—no one would have ever known our names beyond those closest to us, and our deaths would have wiped us from humanity's memory.
The gigantes, the Terram, the legions of followers—none of it would exist without her. Looking at human history, I'm not sure anyone ever built anything as vast or strong as she did. I'm not sure such a thing will ever be possible again. What she did was flat-out heroic, and before anything else is said, that is the most important thing.
Looking at what she did from the moment she left Earth until she was reunited with her brother, her leadership tactics should be evaluated. I imagine military scholars will study her far into the future.
For my part, I will say the AllMother withheld a lot of information from her followers. Truthfully, until Prometheus arrived, she withheld almost everything, only telling those who needed information that would further her ends.
With the vision of hindsight, it's obvious there were things she hid that shouldn't have been kept from us. Things that unduly harmed the insurrection. The greatest was about her brother. She told Prometheus what he wanted, but not everything.
Perhaps he will comment publicly on it one day if we survive.
Or perhaps keeping that from him doomed us all.
We will know soon enough.
Chapter Thirteen
Five quadcopters whisked overhead. Alistair stopped his dreadful pace through the jungle to stare at the sky through a small break in the canopy. The copters had rushed past but were now slowing down and spreading out to four corners, with one in the middle. The area they were spread over was vast, multiple square miles.
"What's happening?" Alistair yelled to Caesar.
"The makers kill us now," Caesar hollered over his shoulder. He hadn't stopped running. Neither had Thoreaux, although if Caesar was right, it was a futile exercise.
"STOP!" Alistair commanded, and he heard his friends come to a halt. He turned to the giant. "Caesar, how are they going to kill us?"
The giant was staring up now as his chest heaved. "Fire."
"Like, right now?" Thoreaux asked.
Caesar nodded without looking at either of them. "They're positioning themselves."
"The area is huge," Alistair said. "They're going to burn gigantes too."
Caesar finally tipped his head down. "We are property, same as this land. They can create more."
"Pro," Thoreaux said, "this isn't good."
Alistair had seen something like this before, but that time, they'd had somewhere to escape to. A Portal. Alistair's eyes scanned the jungle around him. There was nothing but yellows, reds, and blues surrounding him. He saw plants of all kinds but nothing that would stop the coming fire. He looked across the expanse at Caesar. "Your armor won't protect you, will it? What about the nanotech?"
"They will burn this land until there is nothing left. No armor will protect us. Not yours, not mine."
"Fuck," Alistair whispered into his helmet. He wasn't sure his suit would fail him. Then again, if they just continued to burn, eventually the Fire Starter would falter.
Caesar's head jerked to the right, and he pulled a laser blade from his leg with his left hand and a small gun with his right.
The quadcopter above them moved a little bit to its right, perfecting its location.
"What is it?" Alistair asked, turning in the same direction Caesar had. His HUD scanned the area but wasn't able to see through the dense vegetation.
The first quadcopter unleashed its flames from the far right corner. They shot from a generator on the bottom, streaking through the air and immediately setting the canopy on fire. The flames forced their way down, and unseen animals cried into the air.
"RUN!" Alistair shouted, but Caesar didn't move. He held the gun steady on something in the distance even as the second quadcopter unleashed fire onto the world, this one in the top left corner.
Flames slammed into the jungle floor, spreading out as more rushed down from above. The fire leapt onto everything it touched, burning bright blue leaves to black in mere seconds. Land animals were fleeing, small things that Alistair had never seen running past his feet. Huge birds of prey flapped into the air, some of them on fire.
Caesar grunted without moving, then a strange language exited his lips. He'd never spoken it in front of Alistair before, not even when addressing another gigante.
Alistair's HUD relayed that the temperature was increasing rapidly. A third copter let loose its flames, another one in a corner. They were trapping Alistair's group. The fifth and final would be the middle one, ending their endeavor on this planet.
"Caesar, I need to know something quickly because we're all about to fucking die," he said.
The fourth copter let loose, and flames roared in from all directions, a quarter-mile away at best. The temperature was rapidly increasing.
Alistair felt a hot wind coming from almost directly above him. He looked up, the planet's star reflecting off his helmet. The quadcopter's weapon opened from the bottom, and blue flames circled the edge.
Alistair heard another example of the strange language, but this time it wasn't coming from Caesar. He looked down. They had mere seconds. The giant was pointing east with his blade. "GO!" Caesar screamed.
Alistair didn't wait. He rushed in the direction the giant told him to, flames roaring in the not-so-distant jungle. He felt the whoosh of something from above, his HUD telling him the temperature was rising at a rate it could hardly keep up with.
Warning, incoming fire at your six, it read on the faceplate.
Alistair cut down anything he encountered with his Whip, knowing he had to keep moving forward.
Damage to rear panels, the HUD said as the heat increased. The flames were nearly at his back. Those in front of him were only yards away.
There was nowhere to go.
Then, Alistair found himself falling.
Alistair landed hard on all fours, his Whip clatter
ing in front of him. He leapt forward, grabbed the weapon with his right hand, and rushed to his feet as fast as he could. The Whip spread out, all three lasers ready to kill. His faceplate switched to night vision. Thoreaux was still on all fours, and Caesar had reached a knee.
Another gigante was in front of him, holding a weapon Alistair didn't recognize.
He charged forward, ducking as the giant retreated, then leaping into the air. He kicked out, nailing the creature in the chest before landing on top of him. Alistair thrust his Whip forward, the red lasers floating inches from the gigante's skin. "Who are you?"
The gigante's eyes were wide as he stared at Alistair with fear etched on his face. Alistair could tell he was younger than Caesar, and most likely, he'd never seen anyone or anything move so quickly.
Caesar stepped up behind Alistair. "Don't kill him, boss."
Alistair heard his friend but didn't release the Whip. "Who is he, and how did he know we were out there?" he asked without turning around.
"I have been watching," the fallen gigante said in the same stilted English Caesar used. Alistair could see the fear on his face and watched as wonder slowly crossed it. "What are you?" he asked.
"I shouldn't kill him, Caesar?" Alistair asked.
The giant answered from behind him. "No. He saved us. He'll have knowledge we can use."
Alistair slowly got off the new gigante, although he didn’t take his eyes away from him. He took a few steps back, creating space between the two of them before looking at the place they had fallen through. Flames rushed overhead, but they didn't flush down the hole above them. There was nothing but dirt for them to eat, and the rush of the wind wasn't allowing the fire to fill the space they were in.
That much was true—the gigante had saved them from certain death, but for what? He looked across the hole and took the measure of the gigante. He was much younger than Caesar and bigger, which was hard to believe. "Who are you?" Alistair asked.
