by Michael Kan
The Arcenian then grabbed the official insignia on his chest, and crushed the medal emblem with his hand, the electronics inside snapping.
“The Alliance. What a joke.”
While it was true that the galactic organization still existed, the Alliance was no longer a cooperative body. What power it had left had been diluted in the last week to form an advisory committee that primarily served the Ouryan Union.
It was a regrettable move, and to some, a humiliating loss. But at the time, there had been no other choice, the remaining galactic powers all desperate for access to the Ouryan collapser — or what had been thought to be the salvation of the galaxy.
The Arcenian commander fumed, his large nostrils flaring.
“The Ouryans. They go too far,” he continued. “Trying to silence you and issue a bounty. The galactic public will not forget this.”
The admiral’s blood seemed to boil, his face snarling with more anger. Julian wanted to back away, alarmed at the steam coming from the alien’s lips.
Thankfully, Alysdeon was there to intervene. She gently touched the admiral’s rock-like face with her hand.
The admiral recognized his folly, and eased his stance to focus on the priority at hand.
They turned to the figure next them, a far slender individual dressed in a transparent containment suit.
There were no eyes, mouth or discernible facial features to the being. Only a thin mop of red skin, followed by a bush of more tendrils at its feet, and a stream of bubbles rising around it.
It gracefully hovered closer, powered by the anti-gravity units embedded in the suit. The senator had been pondering the matter, and within a short time, had spoken to dozens of other representatives from across the Alliance.
“For now, the collapser is politically dead. Or at least delayed,” it said in a comforting and feminine tone.
The being then glowed, the veins of blue light flashing through its skin.
“The whole galaxy is waiting for you, Sovereign,” the senator added. “What is your next move?”
They all looked to her, waiting for the answer. Alysdeon studied the data on display, trying to weigh her options.
Inevitably, she would have to rendezvous with the battleship, the Davinity, and learn the exact progress that had been made to eliminate the Endervar shield. It was her hope to repeat the success, as soon as possible, and freely distribute the technology to the other galactic governments.
Knowing that the expectations were high, Alysdeon dared not to disappoint. But as she looked at the latest intelligence, she realized that liberation would not come without a fight.
Julian saw it as well, the Alliance tracking networks noticing the start of a dramatic shift in Endervar movement across the sector.
“The warp signatures. Maybe the enemy is pulling back,” he said. “Away from the frontlines.”
It was what he feared might happen: an army of Endervar ships ready to strike, and reclaim Haven once more.
“Don’t worry,” the admiral said, his laugh creeping in. Surprised, Julian looked at the Arcenian, and saw his head held high.
“They will never take back Haven. Not while I live,” the admiral said. “No, we will have our vengeance.”
The Arcenian then approached Alysdeon, and knelt down on one knee in a loyal bow.
“What’s left of the Arcenian home fleet is ready to serve,” the admiral added. “Your cause has become ours. We will fight as one.”
Touched by the gesture, she knelt down, and took the admiral’s six-fingered hand.
They rose from the floor, only to hear another pledge of support.
“The Lanadi Yissau is also with you Sovereign,” the red-skinned senator said. “We seek liberation. My peoples’ ships are all eager to join.”
She was heartened by the words, and nodded in thanks. It was a sign that the free galaxy would, indeed, rally to her cause, just as she had hoped. Together, she would have a formidable fleet at her command, comprising of hundreds of able ships, maybe thousands. The tide was turning in their favor, and she could feel it.
However, there was one figure left in the room that had yet to speak.
She looked at him, the commander no longer embodying an attack bot, but how she had first met the sentient machine all those years ago.
Out of all the three alien figures, the commander looked the most human, the veneer of a man there, but covered in chrome and fastened by liquid metal.
It was the form that the machine had designed. As a way to emulate and respect a long-deceased comrade. To uphold that honor, the commander still wore the pinstripes of blue across his artificial chest, the colors chosen by the first human sentinel to ever enter the ranks.
The commander now saluted Alysdeon, wanting to pay tribute to that memory once more. But regrettably, he could only ask that she wait for his answer.
“I would gladly fight with you Sovereign,” the machine commander replied. “But my will is now bound to the Union. Please standby.”
***
The agent watched from every location it could access. The consciousness moving through ship, planet, and even into the heart of the Union to bear witness.
“The upheaval,” the Ouryan said. “It grows.”
As expected, the footage of the liberated world had generated an outpouring of support. The sudden response potentially culminating into its own galactic movement.
However, the sentiment had not been lost to the Union. Even members of the various collectives had been affected. Perhaps moved by the plight of their former brethren.
The “inferior masses” were rising. The billions upon billions of the recently converted no longer wishing to remain silent. In a flood, they had thrown their backing to the Sovereign and her cause, forgetting the collapser and all that the Unity had sought to accomplish.
The shift was in the air, the Ouryan masses equally in awe. No doubt it would continue, the festering support demanding the Union take action.
But in spite of all this, none of it would matter.
Not today. Not ever.
The Unity was the one to have true dominion over the Union. And so in all its infinite wisdom, the great hive mind had made its decision and sent out the decree.
The war could not be won, it had declared. To think otherwise, would be futile. No other action would be tolerated. Only silence and obedience were necessary.
The agent was not in the least surprised. Its masters would not stray from the conclusion they had made over two centuries ago — that the Endervars were too vast and simply unstoppable. That to fight them would only delay the inevitable.
The agent recalled it all, and scoffed, the derision entering the cold recesses of where its masters lay.
-- You oppose us?
The audience asked the question, very aware of the agent’s presence, and its indecision to complete the previous task.
The Ouryan, in its own way, looked back in disgust.
“Hmph,” the agent said. “Will we simply become a shadow to the Endervars?”
The audience was listening and very displeased with the response.
-- Why do you protest? Our aims are greater than this war.
“Your aims... You seek godhood, and yet you act like a coward.”
-- SILENCE! Do not let your weakness cloud your judgment.
The words arrived like a boom, piercing the hushed and near breathless surroundings.
The agent sighed, wanting to roll its eyes.
“I merely seek to fight. To do what I was born for.”
-- You were born to serve us. Nothing more. Nothing less.
The agent could sense the biting disdain from the audience; the Ouryan and its masters were clearly at odds.
-- You grow insolent and wayward. Devolving...Undefined...
But it was more than just that, the remarks hiding the true concern. Even the Ouryan could feel it. In fact, it had felt this sensation many times before. The hunter closing in on its prey.
“Do you fear me?” the agent asked. “Fear my power?”
The scoff from the audience was just as derisive as its own. The accompanying chatter like a cackle within the shadows.
The Unity knew its champion well. And so they responded in kind, offering their own, thinly-veiled insult.
-- Why do you defy us now? Like you did before? Have you learned nothing? Nothing from your failure...
The Ouryan felt the contempt. The frigid words trying to prick at its will.
“That again?” the agent replied, sarcastically. “My most glorious moment.”
-- Or your most humiliating defeat...
The agent felt the sting, the figurative wounds from that age-old failure still fresh.
It had been why the Ouryan had been reduced to its current position; the battle had been stricken from the records, but not forgotten by its masters.
-- You did the unthinkable. Sacrificing seven fleets, all in a vain attempt to destroy it.
“The Overlord,” the agent replied. “I will not run from it...Never.”
The isolated conflict had taken place almost three centuries ago — the Endervar mothership smashing through a star system home to 8 billion lives.
The order had been clear, the concession made. Retreat on sight, and stand down, the Union had declared. There would be no action this time. The order final.
-- So why did you disobey us? What did you seek to accomplish?
“I could not let the indignity continue...”
And so, at the cost of seven fleets, the agent had tried to do the impossible. It had sought to destroy the Overlord vessel, with every resource available, only to leave the fray defeated and disgraced.
-- Tens of thousands of ships lost, and for what? The Overlord still survives...
“I regret nothing,” the agent said. “I only wish I did more.”
-- Yet you paid a heavy price...
“Indeed. To teach me obedience, was it not?”
Following the incident, not only had the agent been stripped of its duties, but the Union had ordered a “re-processing” to rectify the alleged flaws within its mind.
-- Perhaps another re-processing is in order. Or maybe a full eradication is required.
It was another threat. The Unity once more disappointed with its creation.
The desire was obviously there. That need to cleanse the Union of its “organic proclivities” and begin anew. Other enforcers were ready to be deployed, all bred with far more loyalty, and empty of any gall.
Although the Unity was tempted, it could not so easily discard its champion. One more chance would be given. One more mission to prove its worth.
The agent read the order.
“Interrogate and then dispose of Captain Nverson, along with Sovereign Davinity...”
-- It has been decided. The Union will have no part in this wasteful crusade. They represent a threat to our plans.
“So you will not even entertain the notion. The thought of a true alliance?”
--The organics are inferior and weak. We wish to lay claim to Arendi Soldanas.
“Yes, and perfect your precious collapser. Even as the Endervar shield can already be lifted.”
-- Do not question us. Follow your orders. That is all.
The audience had turned silent, but impatiently it waited, expecting an imminent and swift execution.
Reluctantly, the agent accessed the sensory data, and saw the Alliance vessel, still well within Ouryan territory.
The ship was lightly armed, and had been tasked to help advise the Union on the collapser’s deployment. Moreover, it was surrounded by Ouryan ships, drones and defensive systems of every kind.
To cripple it would be easy. And if the agent would not complete the task, then someone else would. Already, it could feel the other ships from the Union activating in the vicinity, presumably ready to target the Alliance vessel, and gut it dry.
No, there would be no need for that.
“There is an alternative,” the agent said. “Another way...”
-- And what is that?
“Hmph...” it replied, taking a moment to try and explain. But what came instead was a long, and almost diabolical laugh.
Its masters would not understand. Nor should they. The irony a human concept.
It had happened a moment ago, the message arriving from the sentinel on board the Alliance ship.
The agent expected to read a request for action. And so it was. But not from the individual it imagined, the sentient A.I. mysteriously absent from the projection.
On the other end, was the human captain of all people, standing among a gathering of other organics.
He extended out an open hand.
“Destroyer,” he said confidently. “The galaxy calls upon you to fight the Endervars. Will you join us?”
It was an amusing plea. The captain pointing back. His face was largely composed and resolute, but his eyes still displayed that hint of doubt.
The Ouryan laughed some more.
The irony. Of all the beings in the galaxy, it was these humans who understood what the Ouryan really desired.
Again, the captain had made an incorrect, albeit flattering, assumption.
No, the agent did not care for the organics. Or for its own people, or for the Unity. It would not fight for the galaxy. Or for any just and moral cause.
No, it would fight for itself. To the agent, only the glory mattered.
“I tire of this Union...” the Ouryan finally said. “I will have my satisfaction.”
It could already envision it, the preliminary scans showing the movement across the galactic sectors. Endervars ships of every class, were converging and moving back to the one location. The very place where liberation had begun.
The Ouryan relished it. The idea of going there as well.
-- You dare? You dare oppose us?
“I do.”
-- Then die!
It masters made the attempt. An act that should have further enslaved its creation, and destroyed it in that very moment. The order from the Unity came. The surge of doctrine plunging down to crush its very being.
The Ouryan felt the sensation. A deathly sensation that soon evaporated into nothing.
The agent remained. The order mysteriously annulled.
The Unity sent it again. And again. Not knowing why the order had failed, only to witness everything wither away.
-- How? This cannot be?
The agent stood tall, unaffected. Even the Ouryan was slightly surprised. The man’s secret had actually worked.
“Richard…” the Ouryan said. “You knew I could not resist.”
It thought back to that package. The one the former human had sent off in his final demise.
Inside was a highly encrypted code. A code that the human had failed to fully understand, but which he knew could disrupt the very foundations to the Union.
The Ouryan, however, had managed to decrypt it. Only those who had touched the Unity could.
-- What have you done? Our authority…
“Yes. You have lost it…”
By equipping and deploying the secret code, the Ouryan had gained access to the Unity’s root infrastructure. The agent could feel it all. An entire empire in its hands.
Maybe it would not last. But at least for now, the Ouryan had taken almost complete control.
-- No. Have you gone mad? What will you do?
“I think you know.”
The upheaval
would become an insurrection, the agent displaying its influence and using its vast presence to assert command.
“I am taking what is mine.”
The bid for power immediately extended to the surrounding territory, affecting every Ouryan construct present. Warships that had once been loyal to the Unity had been purged clean, and brought into the fold of the agent’s will.
But the subversion would also gone far beyond. Into thousands of other vessels, drone armies, and supply ships, to even entire facilities residing throughout the Union.
The ripple effect was jarring — the networks under the agent’s control dwarfing what any had imagined. Few from the Union had ever sown such turmoil, the heretical action amounting to mutiny.
-- This will not last, deviant. We will hunt you down, and annihilate you. We do not fear you.
The Ouryan chuckled. The threat merely added to its sense of euphoria.
“Then you will learn to fear me,” it replied. “For I am the Destroyer.”
Appalled, the audience then vanished, lurching back into the shadows. The Ouryan was pleased, and returned itself to its new domain.
In another display of its power, the agent sanctioned it, and initiated the self-destruct sequence.
It set off a blaze of destruction, the adjacent field of Ouryan collapsers exploding into debris.
Although it was unnecessary, the agent could not resist the temptation, nor the shock value. To bathe the stars with the remains of its masters’ plans, the resulting satisfaction could only be described as “liberating.”
The agent laughed. But the Ouryan was still hungry for more. The man that it once was had not even begun.
It sent the orders to star systems far and wide, and instructed the sentinel on board the Alliance vessel to act as its emissary.
Fleets would need to be organized, and strategies for every situation would have to be devised. But to this, the Ouryan could only sense the approaching glory at hand.
Accessing the comm, the agent then finally replied to the human’s plea.
“Prepare yourself captain,” it said. “What is to come may be the greatest battle the galaxy has ever seen.”
Chapter 65
