Cleansing Fire

by D. L. Harrison

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Good morning,” I said a bit nervously.

  We were inside a very large amphitheater room with enough seating for all twenty thousand of us.

  I continued, “In the interest of sanity, I’ll share what my team and I learned, and what plans we have as a proposal. Right now, we have about four hundred parties, all with their own leaders. It just makes sense to do it this way, and we’ll entertain questions and alternatives when the initial plan is laid out.”

  No one looked especially outraged by that idea, so I continued.

  “You’ve all had time to peruse the database Gaia helped compile, but to recap the enemy is physically at nineteen worlds. Three of those worlds are human occupied, two of them appear to just have the enemy in them, along with herd animals they feed from. The other fourteen are split up into the home worlds and colonies of three additional races.

  “The plan we’ve conceived of will take out all their ships, in nineteen solar systems, at the same time. Our twentieth ship will be destroying enemy sensor probes in twelve other systems, including Earth. I’m sure you’ve noticed that all of those other systems have animal life in them, and seven of them sentient species. It seems obvious the enemy is expanding at a rate designed to satisfy their populations feeding as well as their ship growth which seems very slow. In short, they’re expanding when they have to, and not before. None of the twelve other systems have space flight, so I guess they had no reason to rush to quell those races. I believe they only moved fast on humanity, because we were out in the stars, and a possible threat to their dominance.

  “We’ll defer the decision on what to do with the enemy’s two home worlds, or if we will contact and try to be friendly with the other ten sentient races in all the systems combined. All these plans cover is destroying all their ships and probes, and then removing them from the seventeen worlds that don’t belong to them. Obviously, some contact will be made with the three races in captivity besides humans when we free their worlds, and those responsible for taking those missions should include it in their plans.

  “Each ship will have a thousand of us, or two hundred parties. Their ships should be the easy part. With our scans to provide good teleport coordinates, we’ll send in one of the fire blast grenades we’ve been building, to disable engineering and take out the enemy ship’s systems. Then ten groups for the star systems with just city ships will teleport in, drop a spell to destroy their massive mana crystal, and then immediately teleport to the planet where you will join the other one hundred and ninety parties fighting on the ground. The ones at the two enemy race’s home worlds, will simply teleport back to our ship, and head back to Earth. Until we decide what’s to become of them, our goal is to simply keep them confined to their planets of origin.

  “Obviously, in the six systems with twenty additional ships, we’ll need thirty groups instead of ten to take out that attack fleet as well. Then they’ll join the others on the planet. The planet will be a bit more difficult and far more complicated, some of the planets have enclaves, or small cities of the enemy that will need to be removed, along with the guards that are guarding the enslaved races.

  “With two hundred groups per world, we should be able to hit two hundred sites at the same time, and therefore prevent the enemy from killing the enslaved species of the planets out of spite. We’ll also have three ships with six hundred parties at loose ends shortly after this starts. The two ships dealing with the enemy home world fleets, and the ship dealing with the probe only systems. They can split up and shore up numbers on world’s where we’re having particular difficulty.

  “The worlds are large of course, but generally the enemy is holed up in a small part of it, and just has a few soldiers elsewhere to keep an eye on things. When groups are assigned to ships, they’ll also be assigned to the ship and planet, or just planet missions. Obviously, the ship missions will require the groups that have someone with both the Water and Life sphere for teleporting. There should be enough left over to take multiple groups down to the surface missions, for those groups without that ability. If necessary, the ship itself can fold space and drop people off in several places around the planet, I’ll leave it to you to work all that out.

  “Obviously, this is just the general overall plan, outside of killing their ships I mean, and once you’ve all been assigned to your star system, ships, and world, the two hundred assigned groups can volunteer the ship groups, and make deeper planetary plans based on where the enemy is and all that. Not every planet is the same, so seventeen individual plans are best. Small steps, and I don’t want to step on toes. I’m thinking after the battle has been won, we should split up into four groups of five thousand, and then settle on the four human worlds.

  “At that point, you can build houses, get back online to train, or retire and become an ambassador to the ten other species, whatever you want really. I don’t really think we need an overall authority to tell us what to do, outside of Gaia keeping an eye on us. We’re the ten percent of five percent of humanity, the ones that are willing to step in front of a bullet, and whose compassion guides our ambition to good ends. We don’t need to be told what to do, we already know and just do it. So, if you agree, no leader of the human protectors. Hopefully, at that point we won’t have to do any ass kicking outside of the virtual world. But just in case, several volunteers are currently checking for and scanning every oxygen producing world in this galaxy. Based on the seventy-nine we’ve found just around Earth within five hundred light years, five of those intelligent species with interstellar capability, we can assume there are many thousands more intelligent species, with hundreds of them in space. Which is both exciting, and a bit worrying.

  “Any questions?”

  One asked, “The ships have no weapons, how is the twentieth ship going to destroy probes?”

  I replied, “Our armor which was designed by my team, will work out in space and keep you alive. I imagine anyone that can teleport out there can destroy the probes easily. Their shields are only five thousand mana. Once back on the ship, jump to the next world, then twenty or so teleporters take out the satellites. If planned beforehand where everyone is going, and who is going, it shouldn’t take longer than a minute at each system. Ten to fifteen minutes should also give us a good idea if any of the groups needs backup as well.”

  “Where will you be during all this?” one asked.

  I shrugged, “Not sure which world, but I have the necessary spheres. My party will take out a ship, then teleport to the coordinates on the planet which we’re assigned to. Each ship needs enough teleporters, so to ensure there are enough to go around, Gaia will be allocating all your groups or parties to ships and the ships to worlds. Once that happens, all the group leaders on that ship should meet, and go over who’s taking the ships, and after that the best deployment sites for your specific world. Twenty of the cafés should be large enough to host the two hundred party leaders. Once that happens, we’ll be ready to go.”

  After that, we’d be able to breathe. I hoped. I knew my group will want to build a large house on the planet we stay at, and then probably take that vacation inside the game before we gather more power. Maybe. In truth, I worry that the list of shit will never end, but I know that isn’t realistic, things will slow down eventually. They just got a whole lot more complicated now that we had two worlds to worry about, well, two realities, this reality had four worlds to worry about.

  “Anything else?”

  There was nothing. I shouldn’t have been so surprised, there’d be a lot more disagreement among the general population of humanity, but all of us here were already volunteers. They all probably just wanted to get it done, and they didn’t give a shit about being in charge. I only got stuck up at the podium because we were first and had an effective plan against the ships. A proven one as well, if the online world was any guide.

  I smiled at Gwen when I stepped down. I felt a bit of relief, from that point on, I was just an
other party leader, the deeper plans would come from us all.

  Gwen said, “Well said. I don’t imagine it will take long for…” our communicators beeped in our heads that we had a new message, “for Gaia to split us all up in groups,” she finished in a deeply ironic tone.

  I opened my message, sure enough we were assigned to a ship and world.

  She probably was just that fast, but it was possible she’d already had it ready to go, and she’d just been waiting on general approval of the plan that me and my team had come up with before sending it.

  I read it quickly on my overlay, and then said, “We got one of the two enemy home worlds, so after destroying the thirty ships we’ll be on standby.”

  That was both a good thing and a bad thing, we didn’t have to worry about our own world. The bad part of course, was that we’d be responding to and assisting in the worst situations on the other fifteen worlds. It also made our planning much easier I supposed, we just needed thirty group volunteers, for the ten city ships and the twenty-ship attack fleet.

  We were in café six, so we all headed that way.

  Gwen gave me a quick kiss before I went inside. There wouldn’t be enough room in there for all thousand of us, just the two hundred party leaders would be a tight enough squeeze.

  I walked in and took a seat. It didn’t take all that long to fill up. No one spoke at first either, we were all strangers for the most part, though I recognized a few of them from the race war. I bet most of them had come from other continents in Evolution Online.

  Apparently, they were even more like me than I suspected, because for a minute or two absolutely no one talked, as if they were all afraid of stepping on toes and taking the lead.

  One of them snorted in amusement, “Fine, I’ll start this. I’m John. Raise hands for everyone with a teleporter?”

  Fifty of us raised our hands, which made sense. When it was time to hit the planet, we could teleport our own groups and three others.

  John snorted, “I bet all of you will volunteer to blow up ships, so the first thirty to message me gets to go.”

  I had a forty-one intelligence, so I beat out most if not all of them with my quicker mind.

  John smirked, “I’m replying back to the winners, the rest of you will have to suck it up and stay safe.”

  There was some laughter in that.

  John nodded, “So no planet, are we done?”

  I frowned, “We should at least assign groups. Three non-teleporting groups with every teleporting group. That way if we have to respond to a bad situation and call for help, we don’t have to scramble at the last minute to figure out who’s teleporting who. We might also number the groups one through fifty. So that if there’s two maydays, one through twenty five goes to one, twenty six through fifty goes to the other. Or ten maydays, where we can send five groups of four parties to each one, you know? Assignments to the mayday locations will go in order they came in.”

  John said, “Good idea, that would’ve been a cluster. Alright, the fifty groups with teleporters line up against the wall, then the rest of us will split up into threes. Once you have your line of four, trade information and communication codes, and then we’re done. Oh, we’ll also count off from left to right, so you know your four-party group number. Then we’re done?”

  Someone else stood, “I’m Carol. The ships have a hundred rows of ten seats, five on either side of a very wide aisle. I suggest we count the first two rows as one, the second two rows as two, for groups one and two I mean, and so on. That way all four of our parties are standing in the same area as our group. We can all just stand and move out into the aisle, and teleport when the time comes, without much thought at all. Otherwise it’ll be a mess, if we’re trying to match up after sitting randomly.”

  John grunted, “Another good point, thanks Carol. Let’s do that. Anyone else?”

  No one else said anything.

  We got up and did all that. In the end we spent about fifteen minutes to get it all done. The ones with planets to free would take much longer. I wound up being group number seven, along with Tony’s, Carol’s, and Alan’s groups. Fortunately, Carol’s and Alan’s parties had five people, and Tony’s had four. That gave us the perfect amount to fit the twenty seats in rows fifteen and sixteen.

  Once I left the room, I tracked down my party to brief them, and then we enjoyed some time together before dinner.

  Most likely, we’d be going to war in the morning. With our magic, we hoped to make it an extremely short one…

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Nervous?” Gwen asked.

  I held up a hand and shook it back and forth. We were in bed together the next morning. We’d be getting up shortly for breakfast, and then move out on our ships.

  She smirked.

  I replied, “The ship part of the plan. It’s pretty much my idea. We can’t really be sure what awaits us in engineering on these real ships. Outside of a mana crystal that generates twenty-five million mana on the city ships, or fifty million on the warships.”

  She nodded, “I get it, we can’t know for sure that blowing up nearby equipment will lower the containment field, just because it happened in game. The electronics might be hardened to EMP as well. We’ll figure it out, and so will the others. We all made it to master, and we can think on our feet.”

  I shrugged, “No second thoughts, just worries.”

  It would be my responsibility wouldn’t it, those that didn’t make it off their assigned enemy ship? Or was that arrogant? They’d all volunteered, and they all knew the risks and stakes. At least this had a better chance than trying to slug it out ship to ship. That really wasn’t an option. Hell, we’d have a better chance against the ships by leaving ours and just attacking an enemy ship while we all floated in space.

  She kissed me, which was very effective at chasing away those doubts, temporarily.

  We got out of bed and into the shower. It was a little weird for me putting on armor, but it wouldn’t affect my magic any. Everyone pretty much got the same suit of armor, it was just the gem enchantments that varied. It was lightweight, and extremely strong. Stronger than steel. It was made up of both polymers and various allotropes of carbon in microscopic layers. We helped each other put on the bracers, then grabbed our weapons.

  Holding a staff felt strange, but I’d get used to it.

  We met up with the rest of the team at breakfast. They all looked confident, but then so did I. I pushed down my doubts. If things got complicated, we’d deal with it. We’d adapt.

  At least I had fresh coffee, things were looking up.

  Steve looked around, “We look like a military, all in the same uniforms.”

  Lara giggled, “Maybe that’s a good thing. The normal humans we watch over and protect will never fail to recognize us.”

  Cassie nodded thoughtfully, “Let’s hope they appreciate us.”

  Dan replied, “They’ll probably fear us, at least at first. I mean, this is all pretty crazy.”

  “We need to rescue them first.”

  We all finished up breakfast, with private thoughts of both the immediate future, and beyond.

  Then we all headed toward the ship.

  It was a little overwhelming, all twenty thousand of us getting on the ships and finding our seats. We took a few minutes to introduce ourselves to Carol’s, Tony’s and Alan’s parties.

  Steve quipped, “Umm, did we assign a pilot?”

  I frowned, then laughed. It’s the small details that get you in the end. Sure enough, there was no one in the cockpit when I checked on what my detect life was telling me.

  Lara giggled at the look on my face, and Gwen was smirking.

  Carol blushed.

  “Umm, I got it,” then louder, “Alright, we’re heading out. If anyone has doubts about their assigned enemy ship, or what they’re doing, now’s the time.”

  The chatter quieted down as everyone sat down. I took that for a mission go, and I reached out and connected with
the ship’s enchantments. The folding space enchantment on it required we had ten meters clear of anything being in the way around the ship in all directions. So, I lifted off and hovered in the center of the cavern to make sure we were clear, cloaked, and folded space.

  I took a brief minute to go over the scan data after arrival.

  “Nothing has changed, mission start in five minutes, twenty seconds.”

  It would take time for the others to get in position, the cavern didn’t have enough space to safely launch all twenty ships at once. The ship was cloaked, and it would stay that way until told to lower it. Our folding space out of it wouldn’t destroy the cloak either, just like the mana shields we would go around the field, not through it.

  The thirty parties chosen for that first part of the mission stood up, and we all went into the aisle. I could see on the others faces they wished they were going. I had to go, it was my idea after all. Five minutes never felt so long, this was the first mission ever we could actually die for real. It killed me to be taking the woman I loved with me, but I knew better than to try to talk her out of it. She was fierce, and she would kick my ass if I tried to coddle her, but it felt different this time.

  Far more serious.

  The time arrived, and I built the teleport spell and sent the fire blast grenade. Two seconds later, I took us to the enemy ship. Teleporting to precise coordinates was more difficult, but it would be much easier to get back on ship since I was familiar with it.

  We arrived into a huge mess.

  Three engineers were burnt to death, four warriors dressed in armor were around us against the walls. Some of the equipment was still running, and there were plasma turrets on the walls, some kind of security system.

  We all froze, and my heartbeat took off like a galloping horse, as my sphincter tightened. We all exchanged wary glances as the enemy scanned the room, and the turrets turned back and forth, and let out a breath of relief.