by Greg Ramsay
“So let’s say we don’t go out in a blazing fireball of romance, what’s the plan? James asked.
“You set the reactor. I carry your whiny damsel ass all the way back to the mothership; you eat a couple of the Jello-fuckheads, and we kill the rest.”
“And then they lived happily ever after,” James said mockingly.
“Pretty much,” Lia said.
Chapter 10 – KamaGiri
Minutes later, James prepped the reactor for full-power meltdown. They stood together hand in hand, keeping each other balanced as Utopia Prime quaked with the force of countless shots. Lia waited until she could feel impacts on all sides.
“We’re in the thick of it. How’s she lookin’?” she asked.
“She’ll blow in a couple minutes,” James said.
“Perfect, after you then,” Lia said, gesturing back the way they came. Lia and James took off full-tilt for the bridge. Once they arrived, he immediately started gasping due to the breach. “Hold on, damsel,” Lia said as he held his remaining breath.
She grabbed him before launching powerfully through the breach headfirst into the line of fire. If the enemy ships noticed them, it was uncertain, though some of their shots grazed the couple as they flew. James was weakening so his armour wasn’t repairing correctly, while Lia’s sword threatened to go off in their faces. He wasn’t at her level. Lia knew if she didn’t hurry she’d be alone. Finally, they passed the ships ending up in the metaphorical dead man’s land between their line and the mothership. Lia quickly propelled them all the way into the hangar. She bellowed for reinforcements. Only one alpha came, larger than any they had encountered, but still heavily damaged and covered in grey-blue slime. She gave quick instructions for it to find two living aliens then return with them. Between the two of them, enough aliens were assembled for James’ sake. His armour consumed them ravenously, setting him into incontrollable convulsions. Lia watched relieved. At least he wouldn’t die of suffocation. Seconds later he stood beside her in time for the three of them to watch Utopia Prime erupt in nuclear devastation. Lia commanded the alpha to cover her while she stood in front of a surprised James.
Thankfully, Utopia Prime’s initial entrance had drawn massive attention, causing a murder frenzy that sucked in countless enemy ships. Unfortunately there were still many intact, maybe about fifty or so smaller attack vessels. Lia instructed her pet alpha to resume systematic execution before turning to James.
“Stay here,” she said.
No, he replied telepathically. He stood tall and straight like a toy soldier. Tendrils opened up his entire side from the armpit down and out seeped his kynari carried by tendrils from within. She ran back to battle with James in tow. James improvised a means to project his defensive spinning vortex on the unsuspecting ships. Carefully he used them like localized black holes that tore whole ships apart. The aliens’ reaction appeared to be that of insult because every single ship amassed around them.
Space Gangbang...Fun, Lia thought sarcastically.
Not really... James replied. Lia smirked through her mask.
Every single ship opened fire. Through their new telepathic link, James already knew what to do. Their kynaris absorbed the energy to the point of undeniable instability, at least in Lia’s katana’s case. James formed his armour-based blades which similarly reacted poorly. True to form, even in excruciating pain, Lia could tell he was trying to remain analytical about the phenomenon he held. Lia released her new joined power backed by more enhanced vortexes launched by James. Before the aliens or anyone knew it, the space around the mothership was a field of broken alien ships. Lia and James floated back to the mothership haphazardly, heavily damaged but alive. Each of them was missing limbs, their stumps gradually freezing in the vacuum of space. Undeterred, Lia grabbed James before flying them back to the mothership.
They collapsed hard when faced with its simulated gravity, crawling drained along the floor. Lia bellowed for her alpha. It didn’t come immediately. She could just vaguely hear it fighting something in the distance. Eventually it gave up and sped over to them. The alpha now stood nine feet fall, a giant imposing force literally dripping with the blood of her enemies. Like her, it was missing an arm, and its exoskeleton appeared to have been cracked open in places by an army of hammers. It was even walking around with massive holes drilled through parts of its body. And yet its horrifying face almost gave off a hint of pride.
“Good boy,” Lia said gently, repeating the sentiment with her alien voice.
The alpha roared powerfully before falling suddenly silent. Its body split clean in half vertically, one half in front of her, one in front of James. Lia looked somewhat saddened. In a sense, she’d murdered the last thing that once was human, at least more than her. Her katana seemed to smoke before disintegrating entirely after that final precision cut. Both of them consumed a half, their limbs regenerating perfectly.
“I...” Lia started to say before breaking into extreme convulsions. James too floundered on the ground lost in a world all his own. Rather than etheric blackness, whole lives seemed to burn through every cell in her brain. Lia screamed, her mind overloading with the consciousness of every soul her alpha had consumed. All at once she knew the culture, the social structure, the very intricacies of the countless lives that had died. “We aren’t done!” Lia exclaimed abruptly while standing.
She and James ran through countless empty corridors. Riding many reverberating gravity shafts down deep into the bowels of the city-sized vessel, Lia instinctively knew they were finally getting closer. A dimly lit cathedral-esk corridor built of glossy metals guided them into a mammoth cavern. James looked to be in awe. Giant pillars like those that supported MiraiCorp bolstered the room while fencing in a surprisingly intricate free-floating platform. The platform itself shrouded much of the floor in darkness. Luminescent gases floated freely along the floor bound by the same energy their weapons seemed to fire.
Lia could see what looked like form-fitting benches ringing the floor to form a spiral seating arrangement that led to the centre of the platform high above. In her mind’s eye Lia suddenly saw vivid details of the aliens gathering in worship. Their strongest warriors when proven, advanced to the next bench position. When one finally made it to the centre, all in attendance would begin bellowing out an eerie harmony for the dark figure above, chanting Yanmoushala. The warrior would shed its armour, modifying its body to reach in desperate supplication to the shadowed mass. Dark tendrils slowly seeped from the platform above interacting with hidden command switches.
Suddenly, a turbulent wave of black substance surged up from the floor. Bellows of horror mixed with joy filled her memory. Lia watched unmoving as all the aliens were mutated into viscous black masses that set upon the great warrior. James too was immobilized by a gentle thrumming hum. He knew Lia must be hearing it too, but he couldn’t call out to her. His mind went blank, save for this overwhelming sense of peace and calm; every concern he had seemed wholly irrelevant. Meanwhile, Lia was still trapped in a memory movie watching the lone warrior barely fend off his own warped people. Eventually after a long-protracted fight for survival, the warrior’s body was beset by countless tendrils not unlike her own. A deafening cry slowed their animalistic rampage so a massive blue appendage could drop down, seize the body and shepherd it into a blinding light shining from above. Then more commands caused a reverberating blast of weaponized energy to tear apart the mutated worshippers. Lia returned to reality, gasping in horrified realization. Her fear was only compounded by James’ apparent trance.
“Yanmoushala!” she bellowed. Minutes passed in disturbing quiet. Lia couldn’t see the massive shadowy figure that adorned the platform in her memory. Nor did she have any semblance of a plan. Multiple blue-grey tendrils bathed in painfully bright light gradually collapsed down to her. Lia stared defiantly ahead, ready to fight as they lifted her up onto the platform. Lia found herself in awe. Before her was an alien far larger than the rest, surrounded by a 360 d
egree command centre. Its giant bulbous head appeared to have shrunk in the years since she remembered it. Its body too seemed to be withering. Despite all that Lia knew, she was looking at the gargantuan figure cloaked in shadow, known simply as Yanmoushala.
Yanmoushala’s sunken giant eyes seemed to peer through her while scanning her body at the same time. A single button press launched blasts of alien energy into her armour. Lia screamed as it started to reverberate, shatter, and fail, still trying to reform at her will. She remained suspended and increasingly exposed in maddening agony for minutes on end. This time, Lia had enough experience with that pain to partially tune it out, focusing all her will on absorption, rather than defence. Staring enraged into the alien’s eyes, Lia forced her armour to obey, reconstituting it around the reverberating power. At the same time, she redirected that energy to her katana, pointing it directly at the curious monster’s face.
Release, she thought through the pain, willing her crimson-alien reinforced power free. In that split second her blade failed, so the kynari released a full-power laser blast instead, nearly overloading with the effort. Her kynari’s silver tip smoked as if it was itself on fire. Yanmoushala simply put up a transparent energy barrier that blocked most of her strike. However the ancient entity couldn’t combat her willpower. Lia’s crimson power burned through the defence, scorching the entity’s face with searing intensity. She could hear its pained bellows screaming for her to stop. Lia tore through Yanmoushala’s tendrils before blasting each port it had opened in the floor. She stood there ablaze with anger, fully nude, looking ready for war. Quickly the effect of the being’s weapons faded enough to allow her armour to reform over her human layer. Lia left her mask off so it could see her expression clearly.
Sought. Anomaly... Found the one, Lia heard a distorted, almost synthesized voice say in her mind.
What do you mean? Lia thought.
One to carry us from the Ravagok, the voice replied. Lia felt her anger bubbling. This ugly bitch ain’t making sense, she thought to herself.
As if in retort, the Yanmoushala bellowed a low harmony, putting her back into a trance state. In her mind’s eye, she could see a galaxy far away. A giant planet loomed full of purplish clouds and luminous gases. Structures not unlike the mothership in material dotted the landscape. Countless aliens slithered their way through underground structures. She could see something resembling an amphitheatre where larger aliens morphed their bodies while bellowing for the entertainment of others. Suddenly she found herself looking at a massive army of them. Then they were under attack by an army similar in physiology, but stronger in every way.
Yanmoushala’s army was being overwhelmed in every skirmish. Aliens lined up at ships labelled Ramashin deployment. Soon after, Lia was faced with a much younger, far larger Yanmoushala pushing countless Ramashin out of a gash between her massive tendrils and bulbous body. It was then Lia realized why the aliens of her memory kept chanting Yanmoushala; it meant All Mother. Despite her vast production rate, her forces kept being defeated.
Countless years ago, Ramashin had become slaves to the Ravagok. Lia could see them toiling like slimy factory workers, developing technological advancements for their rulers, while Yanmoushala herself was relegated to the draining process of constant replication. After centuries of subjugation, Ramashin rebels stole the technology their forebears created; using scientific means, they began experimenting on themselves. Desperately they sequenced Ravagok, local predators, and even their own, replicating DNA in a last ditch effort to overpower their rulers. Lia watched with a sick sense of familiarity as Ramashin rebels became the first pseudo-shifted, their bodies warped beyond recognition.
To the horror of Ramashin scientists, their volunteer soon became their destroyer, its clawed tendrils infecting all but a few before distractedly rampaging summoned Ravagok guards. For a brief time the Ramashin gained the upper hand in their centuries’ long war by hiding while their enemies infected each other. Those remaining scientists, aware of the horror they’d unleashed, hi-jacked a Ravagok destroyer and armada of smaller vessels. Many sacrificed themselves so that the Yanmoushala could be shuttled, platform and all, into the makeshift nest she now occupied.
Lia’s mind raced through the decades that followed, watching the remaining scientists develop weapons as their mother bred soldiers. They tried earnestly to quell what they’d created but were woefully incapable, losing resources in their attempts. Soon their entire flourishing world was left to the infected, just as with Earth. Lia was strangely proud to watch as the infection gradually transmitted to the non-dominant species, their animals. In a sense, to her it vindicated her cause for mercifully destroying Earth. Ramshin left their planet to rot under their mad science. She couldn’t help wondering why they preferred what looked like hand-to-hand combat over their dark-matter charged nuclear-type weaponry. Yanmoushala made a point of showing her all of their technological achievements, even if she didn’t understand all of what she saw.
Are you arguing your value? she thought questioningly as she observed them in her mind experimenting on other species they encountered. She was disgusted. They didn’t learn at all. Instead they kept on sequencing the strengths of various dominant species, prioritizing power over intelligence. You’re sabotaging your own argument, Lia warned, unsure if Yanmoushala was even listening.
Yanmoushala rushed her through the development of the substance that she recognized from the pod on Earth, showing her how they programmed it to obey them. Lia didn’t care, she was getting increasingly agitated, wishing she could kill the bitch. For some reason, Yanmoushala showed her how its scientists set about infecting the various species to test their improved biological weapon. When one finally succumbed to what Lia assumed was age, Yanmoushala sucked it up with her tendrils into the light, rebirthing it anew. Lia wished she could vomit. Their confidence renewed, the Ramashin scientists tested the serum on a volunteer. Initially it obeyed, but its physiology rejected the combination of traits from countless species, causing its death. Lia felt satisfied, wishing it had ended there.
Yanmoushala spread herself thin over the centuries, replicating and re-replicating more troops to collect resources from planets all in a vain effort to save their planet from what they’d unleashed. Over time they began instating themselves as gods, morphing to approximate the shape of each planet’s dominant species. With that awe-based influence they fostered advancement in each species. They elevated charismatic figures with scientifically injected special abilities so that average entities would come to revere their alphas further. When their chosen patsies died, the Ramashin elevated them into the sky into their invisible ships. Unbeknownst to each species their heroes were still kept suspended in pods not unlike PsychoLife.
You’re all deplorable, Lia seethed in her mind. She was disgusted they would use their science to play god, all so they could observe each species. When the species in question finally matured enough as a society the Ramashin would return, secretly releasing pods filled with their weaponized ooze. Then they would coldly observe, each time hoping they could find a species that survived infection long enough to be usable as disposable super-soldiers. When they didn’t they space-nuked the surface and mined the planet to death for resources.
Centuries passed in an instant, the Yanmoushala now beyond over-extended. Its fleet was no longer sustainable, its body no longer able to clone, only rebirth. They’d run out of planets with species intelligent enough to be swayed by their god game. That is until they came upon Earth. Humans already had primitive religions worldwide, even societal structure. All it took was their usual pattern of providing the means to advance them while simultaneously picking charismatic individuals to empower, inspiring yet more religions themselves. Eventually those individuals, like so many before, died and “rose to the heavens” as gods, or used temples to find them.
Ramashin were fascinated with humanity, how far they re-imagined their religions, how much they murdered each other over them, an
d most of all, their insane capacity to destroy each other – rather than an external species. Yet they were equally intrigued by their capacity to survive both their needless self-decimation as well as diseases the Ramashin left for them. No matter how many individuals they drove to healing or war, humanity always found a way to carry on, happy to make the same mistakes over and over no matter how many generations advised against it. War, slavery, social subjugation were all things the Ramashin sympathized with. Never before had they witnessed so much potential in a species. For that reason, they intervened secretly when potential-ending events became a possibility, such as the mutually assured destruction of Earth in a nuclear war.
Observing silently and anxiously from far out in space, the Ramashin waited until humans began destroying their world. They were dismayed when humanity began reaching into space far beyond their moon. As far as Ramashin scientists were concerned, humanity was on the path of becoming a threat to their tenuous sense of rule. More importantly, they were an amazing candidate for militarizing.
Yanmoushala showed Lia a massive section of her ship filled with humans from all time periods left pickled like trophy test subjects in pods like the other species. Abductees... Lia thought to herself. Crazy asses like the Area 51 hippies were right; aliens were real. Worse they were a true threat. Lia was only getting angrier. You’re not giving me any reason not to snap out of this and kill you! she thought seriously. Then she saw herself kitted out in Spec Ops gear staring into an invisible camera on the pod that infected her and her team. Humanity had been chosen. She had been chosen. Lia was beyond distraught. James had made the L strain from something meant purely to enslave for the purposes of an egotistical failing species. Of course it had backfired badly, despite his efforts.
In response Yanmoushala lifted James up like an action figure, lording him in front of her, pointing to her armour with a spare tendril, then at her exposed face. Lia’s eyes widened. They were the exception, and it was thanks in part to James. We didn’t become the shifted... monsters for you cunts to deploy like toys, she thought suddenly proud of herself and James in spite of her anger. Lia had overcome a centuries’ refined super-weapon, combined with James’ mad science based L strain, to become a super weapon none could control. Now the “almighty” itself was at her mercy.
