by Aer-ki Jyr
“The blocks make independent thought difficult, not impossible.”
“Is that why you are talking to me? Hoping that I will have the will to betray my responsibility?”
“I am trying to ascertain what that responsibility is so I can propose an alternative that does not conflict with it.”
“My responsibility when captured is to escape if possible…”
“No chance of that.”
“…or die so to not give the enemy any information or assistance in any form.”
“And those two things are not currently possible,” Paul pointed out. “So tell me, is your intelligent mind considering other alternatives in this unforeseen circumstance, or is your mind driven to the same repetitive conclusion that you must kill yourself?”
“How are you preventing me?”
“That device heals you, but it cannot finish its task while your own body betrays itself. It is interfering with the process, but cannot stop the trigger. If we take it off you, you will die. That’s why I’m holding you in check physically.”
“And how exactly do you accomplish that?”
Paul looked at him with all respect. “If you only want to die, and there is no way to return that knowledge to the others, why do you ask? You have curiosity, the blocks have not eradicated it. You must use that curiosity to overcome the blocks.”
“I will not assist you.”
“Then how about assisting yourself? What if I agreed to let you go?”
The lizard saw the other Humans twitch, then regarded Paul skeptically. “Why?”
“If I wanted to use you as a courier to send back a message to your leaders, wherever they are now, could you do it? Or would your mental constrictions have you kill yourself the moment you were outside our control?”
The lizard began thinking hard. “What message?”
“Irrelevant. Could you do it, or would you be compelled to carry out your self-destruct order?”
“It is not an order, but a necessity. Take away the necessity and it no longer becomes an issue.”
“Would the other breeds do the same? Are they intelligent enough to make that distinction?”
The mastermind regarded him skeptically. “You have tried this approach before and failed?”
“If they were in our custody they would kill themselves, without fail. Only when we rendered them unconscious then delivered them to another location or free ship did they not do so. Tell me, if they did return to the others what happened to them? Were they reincorporated or destroyed?”
“I have no personal knowledge of this.”
“What would you do if I sent a captured ship back?”
“For what stated purpose?”
“None. I just released it from our custody after a period of time. None but your crew onboard.”
“I would destroy it before they had a chance to contaminate others.”
“Contaminate?”
“Subterfuge of some sort. Biological, explosive, software. You would not return them to us without purpose.”
“There is your answer. We would, and have in a few occasions, because we didn’t want to keep them sedated or restrained indefinitely. We’d rather they die against us in combat than to allow them to die as prisoners at their own hands. We did not tamper with them, we respected them for the living beings that they are. And from what you’ve said, I would guess they were killed upon returning, assuming they didn’t fly themselves into a star on the way back to save you the trouble. Your blindness to the possibility that we could have no malevolent motive has caused you to waste resources and personnel.”
“Negligible. You put value on life where there is little. If we need more personnel we simply create more.”
“So if I offered to let you and every other living Li’vorkrachnika in this system go, you wouldn’t consider it. You’d just write off trillions of people as inconsequential losses.”
“You would have us forfeit the remaining worlds without a fight?”
“In exchange for your lives and your freedom, yes.”
“Our lives are worth less than your losses and consternation with having to remove us.”
“And is that your personal assessment, or do the others do your thinking for you?”
“The logic is sound.”
Paul all but snarled, letting his displeasure and annoyance visibly show as he theatrically reached out a hand towards the lizard and telekinetically lifted him up off the floor and lightly bounced his head against the ceiling.
“My power is strong, not because it is built that way, but because I have increased it in small amounts year after year, and others have done the same. I have lived for more than a millennium, and will continue to grow stronger so long as I survive and continue training as I have. That power is something civilizations with your expendable philosophy will never achieve. You relegate your own powerbase to that which you can take cheaply and quickly, while true dominance is forged with time.”
Paul smashed him back to the floor, but kept his restraining hold on him so he couldn’t rip the Kich’a’kat off his chest. “You are inferior because you do not see the value in life. And you, personally, are someone who should see it, if only in a combat perspective. Highly skilled troops that, if allowed to continue development, will outscale the young 2 to 1. 3 to 1. 10 to 1. You know how damn effective we are in combat, but all of us are like that because we have had time to grow stronger because we weren’t deemed expendable. We keep our people alive in order for them to grow stronger and kick your ass. Can you not get that concept through your feeble mind!”
There was a brief, but chilling silence that the lizard finally broke. “That is why you do not push all advantages?”
“Destroying the enemy at the cost of ourselves is not an option. We would rather wait and devise a way to kill you without any of us dying. I do not know how much information flows back to you, but I have personally conquered several of your planets without losing a single person. We take injuries, then heal them, but if we do our jobs right none of our people will die.”
“We have cost you lives here.”
“Some, yes. And even one loss is unacceptable. A defeat.”
“Why then are you concerned about our lives?”
“Given time you could learn, overcome your blocks, and realize that we are only fighting you because you give us no choice. Stop destroying other races and we’ll leave you alone. If you would just understand that the war could be over in an instant.”
“You think to spare yourselves more losses via strengthening us?”
“You could look at it that way. Your strength is not a threat so long as you do not misuse it.”
“Strength is always a threat, and there can be no security if others have the power to dominate you.”
Paul sighed. “There it is then. That’s why you’re doing all this? You’re trying to take out threats before they can harm you. You’re so scared of the galaxy that you want to destroy it before it can destroy you.”
“We are not alone in that motivation.”
Paul flicked off the energy shield and walked inside the containment area, then turned it back on with him standing only a few inches away from the mastermind. He wore a thin robe like Kara had observed previously, but this one had been fashioned out of Star Force materials given that the clothing he’d worn when the building fell on him had been torn and battered upon recovery.
“If you are truly dominant, you do not need to fear others,” he underscored by tapping on the lizard’s exposed chest next to where the V’kit’no’sat device was. “I have no need to kill you. For all your strengths, you cannot harm me. And if not for that medical device I would release my hold on you to prove it. You would attack me and I would kick your ass, over and over again until you understood that I do not fear you. I respect your skills, but I do not destroy you because you possess them. My responsibility as a leader of Star Force is to be the best. And if I am not the best, I do not try to destroy th
ose who are. I improve myself until I am the best again, then I continue improving to increase my advantage. Destroying your opposition instead of developing yourself is a telltale sign of an imposter.”
“I know my physical skills are no match for your abilities.”
“Are you not compelled to try to kill me regardless?”
“Perhaps.”
“And what purpose does that serve?”
“I might get lucky.”
Paul smiled. “Ok, I can agree with you on that count. But wasting numerous lives by telling everyone to do the same thing in the hope of you getting lucky every now and then is not worth the tradeoff. If you have nothing to lose, then go for it. But if you can live to fight another day, you shouldn’t waste your life looking for a lucky hit.”
“How then would you recommend we go about defeating you?”
“Defeating us, or keeping us from killing all of you?”
“Defeating you.”
Paul decided to indulge his curiosity as long as he was showing it. “You would either have to develop units stronger than ours, whether they be ships or personnel…especially personnel…or you would have to field so many weaker units that you’d need to blanket a star system with troops and ships in order to wear our superior units down. You almost did so long ago when we were weak, but now you do not have that option short of generating truly insane numbers, the like of which you do not possess the ability for.”
The lizard tilted its head down and slightly forward as far as Paul would allow him and stared the Human in the face.
“And there is your answer to why we must conquer the galaxy.”
9
June 21, 3221
Krachnika System (lizard capitol/homeworld)
Trexklip
Paul walked into the holding area again, this time with only a pair of titans present and using their telepathy to hold him in place. Feeding him and other amenities had been tricky, but they’d kept Archons here round the clock to prevent him from killing himself and potentially destroying the regenerator…something that they didn’t have the skill to replace yet.
“I’ll take it from here,” Paul said, getting a telekinetic grip on the lizard and allowing the other two Archons to release him and walk out of the room. The trailblazer gestured to the pair of techs, one medical, one mechanical, to leave as well, then when the door shut behind them Paul walked up to the edge of the blue energy field and stared up at the mastermind again.
“More questions? I thought you had grown tired of my interrogation.”
“We are done,” Paul admitted. “We’ve learned a great deal from you, and there may still be some secrets you carry deep within your mind, but we’re not going to spend the time trying to find them when we don’t know what is or is not there.”
“Then why are you here?”
“We can cancel the self-destruct protocol within your mind. It requires equipment we do not have onboard this ship, but it is possible. We can even remove the capability from you if we wish.”
“You are moving me then.”
“No,” Paul said with a sigh, “but I will return you to another Li’vorkrachnika system, if you’ll allow it.”
“Allow it?”
“Are you going to kill yourself as soon as I release you? With your claws even if I arrange to disable your current method?”
“What do you wish to use me for? A courier?”
Paul shook his head. “Would there be any point? No message we send will be considered. You have made that clear.”
“Then what is your purpose? Contaminate me?”
“No. I simply don’t want you to die, but if we keep you here you are going to find a way to do it. And I will not keep guards on you at all times.”
“Why is my continued existence valuable to you?”
“I hate seeing skill such as yours be wasted.”
“So you would return me to another world, not one here that you are about to assault, but another where I will fight you later?”
“Perhaps, but that is of no disadvantage to us. They will grow a replacement for you if needed. Sending you back gains them little other than your experience.”
“That is something of note, whether you realize it or not.”
“And even now you are trying to find a way to die,” Paul said with irreverence. “Rather than trying to find a way to freedom, you seek to die. Do you not know I can see right through you?”
“So you say.”
“Sending you back may gain the Li’vorkrachnika a bit of information, and therefore not be in our best tactical interests, but the simple fact is we’re winning and you’re not going to be able to stop us. I do not expect your people to negotiate, so I am not offering to send you back as a messenger, nor am I intending to use you in some tactical sense. I am simply offering you travel back to your people as a courtesy.”
“Why not then send me to a planet in this system?”
Paul stiffened. “You won’t live as long here.”
The mastermind stared at him intently. “I cannot determine your intent. Your intent does not make sense.”
“We are enemies because you chose it. We don’t have to be enemies. I’ll fight and kill you if I have to in order to stop you from killing others, but I don’t do it because I seek your death. Someone of your skill should not be treated as expendable, and you deserve a chance to think and reason your way out of your genetic shackles. You’re smart enough to do it, given time, if you have a reason to try.”
“And what reason would that be?”
“Curiosity. Now that I’ve told you of it, you will want to know the truth. You can’t help it. You’ve been bred to find solutions, ascertain what works best, not blindly follow tradition. You are built to think, and once I have shown you the chink in your armor you will not be able to resist picking at it. You do not tolerate weakness or vulnerability, and in our conversations I have shown you many within the Li’vorkrachnika, though you may not fully understand them at the moment. In time, however, I am confident that you will reason most of them out.”
“So you seek to contaminate us with knowledge?”
Paul smiled faintly. “Perhaps so. But the truth is not a poison. It is a weapon that I am giving you. Only those who are wise can truly wield it. All others, no matter how effective they may be, are clumsy when trying to grasp it because they are in some form of denial. Only those who are loyal to the truth in its pure form can grasp its full power, and none of them are enemies of one another. All find themselves to be allies over time. If you came to see the truth you would be our ally, and I’m not speaking of your race, but you individually. I don’t think most of your kind are smart enough to work their way around your genetics.”
“Then why not keep me imprisoned in order to give me the time to contemplate these revelations?”
“Because I know at this point you already have, and you will either choose to pursue them further or turn a blind eye to them. Further time in this state is pointless. Only when you are free will you be able to truly think through the matters we have discussed.”
“Even if you did so it would be of no use. They would not accept me back unless I escaped by my own means.”
Paul pointed a finger at his scaly face. “There. You just did it. You broke with your programing for a split second and considered an alternative option. Don’t deny it, it’s too late. I saw it.”
The Human lowered the energy field and stepped up to him.
“I will not assist you with this.”
Paul loosened his grip on the lizard enough that he could move freely, but kept a zone over his chest where his arms would not move. He gave him a split second to realize he was no longer bound, then another to realize his arms wouldn’t allow him to tear at the device, before Paul leapt up to get more height and punched the mastermind in the side of the head.
“Think!” he demanded. “You are nearly my equal in strategic skill. Use your abilities and prove me wrong if I truly am, bu
t do not cower like an imbecile. Find the truth, whatever it may be, and face it.”
Unable to get his clawed hands at the device on his chest, the mastermind went for his own throat…only to find that it was also inescapable. Unable to kill himself he decided to go after the Human instead and found that option was still available to him. He struck out with his thick right arm in an overhead slash that abruptly stopped as Paul simply raised an arm and blocked it.
The mastermind’s arm hurt as if he had just flung it against a bar of metal, with the two seemingly locked in place as he did not relent against the pain and tried to force his arm down, mostly out of spite, rather than trying to attack with his other.
“If you are truly my peer then you will think!” Paul half yelled. “If not, then you and the whole of the Li’vorkrachnika are INFERIOR,” he said, emphasizing that word with significant telepathic force just before the lizard grew faint and fell to the floor, soon to black out.
The mastermind woke up groggily, not knowing where he was or even who he was for a long moment, then he saw the interior of a familiar ship…one of their small atmospheric troop transports, and he was laying on the floor of the hold bound up in several restraining straps. He reflexively pulled against them, then as his head cleared enough to focus his strength he snapped them and freed himself, standing up just as his memories clicked in of his captivity.
He froze in place, looking and listening around as he heard the distant sounds of battle coming in through the broken cargo bay door that was slightly ajar and spilling in light from the exterior. He had no memory of coming here, nor where he was, and the fact that he was in one of his own craft made no difference. This must be some type of subterfuge. Reaching into his mind he sought out the self-destruct function, seeking to take this chance to fulfill his responsibility before the Humans could stop him, having erred by giving him this moment of freedom.
But it wasn’t there. The spot was dead in his mind.
He snarled, taking a moment to give Paul credit for doing exactly what he said he could do, then the mastermind brought his hand up to his throat, not relishing going out this way but finding it preferable than remaining a captive or assisting the enemy with whatever plans they had set in motion. He stiffened his arm then raked his fingers across his own throat, closing his eyes in the process…
