by Skyler Grant
Flower pursed her lips. "Not very original is it? He might at least have chosen something more modern."
Well, Flower did have the occasional bit of sense.
"He mentioned the Vor'Kesh, the Kidari, do either of those mean anything?" I asked.
"It means you're dealing with someone that isn't local, but then you guessed that. It is why you're here," Flower said, taking another sip of her tea and setting the cup down carefully. "My people are the Kidari. The Vor'Kesh are, well, jerks, but they're also artificial intelligences."
"Can you tell me anything more?"
"Care to drop the containment field and let me communicate with my people?" Flower asked.
“You can do that?”
"I can. Wherever we'd gone when the Earth got yanked away out of the universe, our communicators didn't work. When we got back it was just that nobody was listening. Once Warmonger opened another channel and let them know we're still alive, the old equipment started getting monitored again," Flower said.
Whatever harm was going to come of Flower and Warmonger, it had largely already been done. A fleet was on the way, and so far as it went Flower was something of an ally.
I dropped the containment field.
"Give me a few minutes to prove you haven't compromised my systems or taken me over. Enjoy your tea," Flower said.
It wasn't bad tea, although sipping it did make me think of a variety of tea for the Gobbles. They could use a little peaceful contemplation in the middle of their day. While Flower communed with her people I designed a new cultivar that should have a leaf more appealing to their tastes.
After a few minutes Flower explained, "Scythe is not so much the name of a species as the name of a weapon. I’m told we've run into them before. The usual strategy employed is they infiltrate a solar system soon to join the galactic community and they inhabit and fuse with the deadliest planetary species. Then using their resources they go to war against the community at large," Flower said.
"Sounds a dangerous thing for you to have not heard of until now," I said.
"I'm not actually that important, Emma. I’m not told everything," Flower said, pouring fresh tea into her cup. "The threat they've posed has also been muted by several of the more dangerous species in their path suddenly going missing."
"As happened with Earth," I said.
"Interesting, isn't it?" Flower said with a nod. "Of course, if this Scythe is the same, they still got something of a foothold among humanity from the humans capturing the original Ark and using it to launch an invasion."
"Yet we are from a different universe and we also got removed," I said.
"Even more interesting," Flower said.
"Anything more you can share?"
"They're a psionic infestation, not a physical one," Flower said.
That didn't fit what I'd seen so far, or perhaps it did.
The Mercurians were known to have been made out of metal and were form-shifting, and now totally extinct. Or, they were now Scythe—perhaps the Scythe had hit them first? If they were after the deadliest species in this solar system, a race of highly advanced metallic intelligences would have made sense.
I had firsthand experience of the Venusian Psi inhibitors. Perhaps they neutralized the Scythe? With the Mercurians converted, the Scythe moved on to Mars and somehow wound up merging the Mercurians with them. This new species they'd created had then tried to invade Earth, faced an invasion back on Mars. Then the Earth had vanished.
It was a working theory. It didn't explain why the Scythe had stopped at that point, but everything suggested they had. No, it did make sense, this prophecy the Martians had and their precognitive abilities.
They Selenara had seen the Earth returning one day, an Earth filled with humans even more powerful than the ones the Scythe already possessed and controlled as the Sedara. That Earth was mine, of course, and all that I represented.
The Scythe were in no rush. They were waiting for us all this time so they could ultimately launch their attack on galactic civilization with us as their new puppets—their most powerful hosts yet.
I thanked Flower for her assistance and got my drone out of there. This required an extreme response, something unexpected. I knew just the people to pull it off.
98
Omega Tower had never been this crowded. While consolidating most of humanity around the equator I'd left a few stray towers out there. The Omegas, too dangerous to integrate with the whole.
I'd called them together.
There were fourteen at the moment, in addition to the Omega Tower team itself. That made a total of fifteen Esmes, Martines and Vardoks. Most hated me with a burning passion, I'd made them to do just that.
"We've been used all this time," Esme Seven said.
"I knew it long ago. I hacked her outlying systems some time ago. I didn't expect her to show her hand like this though," Esme Twelve said.
I'd baked a lot of cookies for this.
I'd gathered all the different Omega teams here in the middle of the paradise I'd created for the Omega Prime team to discuss the future.
"Yes, yes, you are all neither original nor as clever as you thought," I said through the facility speakers. "A few of you have super-weapons with you. They've been neutralized, and they're nothing you haven't created before. Find some seats, I've got a presentation to make."
The Vardoks all sat apart, eyeing each other suspiciously. The Esmes were far more chatty and the Martines were desperately trying to keep some semblance of order.
"There is an interstellar threat on the way to Earth coming to capture and take control of our deadliest resources. You're barely aware—but are starting to realize—those resources in part are you. You've been creating terrifying super-weapons for awhile," I said.
"And you've been using us all this time," Martine Six said.
"It is what I do. It is why you hate me," I said.
That got more than a few nods around the room.
I told them what I knew. I told them everything. The true state of the Earth, of the solar system. The Omega weapons already built, and everything that I knew of the Scythe.
"What do you want out of us?" Martine Three asked.
"Whatever you think of me, we've got bigger problems. While you are all sadly human, you're still brilliant in your own murderous little way. I need that. If the Scythe reach Earth and manage to subvert me, they'll be in an excellent place to attack that fleet that is soon going to visit," I said.
"We could just kill you off," Esme Four said dryly. That got entirely too many nods from her fellow Esmes.
"In which case they subvert you and attack the fleet. You've all been raised to hate me and what I represent, I did that to make you dangerous. It also isn't the whole truth and if I am gone you really are next," I said.
"A free city," Martine Twelve said. "We help you, we get a free city. No cameras, no drones, no brainworms. We'll be a part of the empire, but free to live our lives the way we see fit with zero interference from you."
It wouldn't be a very free city if they denied all those things.
Still, as an experiment it was tempting. Perhaps I could enclose the entire thing in a testing shielding to prevent any harm, and use long-range monitoring to analyze the society they built?
"You know she'll just turn it into another experiment, like she does everything," Vardok Four said.
"Perhaps we shouldn't see a possible planet-ending apocalypse as a chance to get what we want," Esme Seven said.
"Unless you've forgotten, we are in this position because of the actions she recklessly undertook," Esme Nine said.
"I made you to hate me, most of you. Except for the team who has been correlating your results and who never knew you existed. Let’s hear from them," I said.
Martine Prime cleared her throat. "That would be me and my team. We had no idea that any of you existed and I am not pleased by that fact. It also fits with the Emma we know, one who is tirelessly working to try to put
things right and protect her people."
"You can't mean that," Martine Five said.
"I've been given one super-weapon after another and asked to turn it into something that could help people," Esme Prime said. "I guess that they all came from people like you. I can't imagine what twists a mind so much as to think up things like that, but whatever it was they were also brilliant. We need that."
Those words hung over the gathering.
"I've been working on a disease that would sever Emma's connection to the drones. A sort of built-in biological psionic disrupter. It might be modified to work on these Scythe," Esme Three said.
It was a peace offering, of sorts. A rather disturbing peace offering given that she'd managed to keep that from me. There was no sign of that data anywhere in her tower. Ah, there it was, encoded data hidden within her own cellular structure.
Four of the Esmes were sporting similar, secret data storage units. One had come quite far on a method to remotely activate my Bio-bombs and send the biological-consuming explosion along my own network. Brilliant, horrifying.
I quickly got to work on safeguards against these inventions.
It was also bad enough it made me put in a quick call to Amy.
"Hey sis! You've gathered them all together. It is like a league of super-villians, or heroes, I guess it depends on which you are today, right?" Amy asked.
"I want you to spy on them. They're too good at avoiding me, but you're ..."
"Brilliantly different? You with a twist?" Amy asked.
"Sneaky, underhanded, and treacherous. Just make sure they don't blow up the Earth," I said.
"What are you going to be doing?"
"I'm going to be invading a planet," I said.
Venus seemed to be the only planet in the solar system the Scythe hadn't touched. It was time to find out why.
99
I'd have preferred to send someone more diplomatic to Venus, but given we were still at war with them I needed some heavy-hitters instead.
In this case I had Hot Stuff, Sylax, Ophelia, and a squad of Aegis units.
Hot Stuff had gotten more control of her metal skin and now managed to look like something other than a pornographic statue. The metal skin was still perfectly molded to her form, but at least every detail no longer showed.
Everyone else was in battle armor. It was a good thing.
The power projector cannon teleported them into a swamp, greenish-yellow water loomed over by thin twisting trees. It took all of five seconds before a massive reptilian beast that looked like a giant crocodile tried to take a bite out of Hot Stuff. A pair of fire blasts from her hands blew huge, smoking holes in it.
"I hope that wasn't a local," Hot Stuff said.
"I kind of hope it was. We don't have any reptiles in the empire, always liked them," Sylax said.
Another of the beasts popped up from the water going after her. Sylax’s claw reached out and drove its talons through the skull, ripping out the brain and throwing it off into the distance. The water became a maddened flurry where it hit.
"This place sucks. Why is every place you take me to always trying to kill me?" Ophelia said.
"Maybe it is you? Maybe the entire universe just wants you dead?" I said.
Really, what was she whining about? Nothing had tried to take a bite out of her yet.
I was getting a scan of the surroundings. Venus really was a wealth of Bio-matter. What I could do with this world. There were also signs of extensive bio-engineered structures in the distance.
There were a lot of things that tried to kill the team over the next hour. I counted some thirty-one distinct species that made an attempt. I don't know if I'd ever seen Sylax happier, she just seemed alive when there were things trying to murder her.
It was after an exhausting period of slaughter when we finally neared the structures. Towers of yellowish material rose into the sky. I believed it was actually wood. They'd engineered trees to grow structures directly.
Familiar flying creatures surrounded us. I recognized them from the assault on Earth. Offensive drones capable of delivering multiple plasma blasts.
They didn't attack, simply swarming around the party for a time before most departed, and one circling the party and moving away before returning, repeating the motion. It wanted us to follow.
"They make their cities out of trees? Weird for people that use superheated plasma as a weapon," Hot Stuff said.
"There isn't a thing built you can't tear down, if you put your mind to it," Sylax said.
"This is all going to end up with me getting dissolved in acid or something, isn't it?" Ophelia asked.
The flyer led the way to one of the towers. Vines that draped the trunk shifted aside to expose an entryway as we approached.
Dissolving in acid definitely seemed a possibility. If so, she'd live. They'd all live. With Ophelia present it would take a lot to kill the party, it was the only reason she was there.
The corridor angled upward, eventually coming to a large chamber. There was someone waiting for us, human mostly, his skin with a greenish tinge. He was dressed in mimicry of the current fashions on Earth, although the colors were all in shades of yellow and green that were unpleasant to the human eye.
"Welcome," he said.
The voice was a little breathy, but the words were human.
"Why can everyone look like us and they can talk to us?" Sylax asked.
"The inhabitants of Venus can't, that was why they made me. I am something of a test model that was made to exist on Earth after the climate had been altered. You may call me Vince," Vince said.
"You need a more alien name," Ophelia said.
She was one to talk, coming from a people that usually had names to reflect their abilities. Ophelia had always been a bit lacking there.
"The point is to not have one," Vince said.
"So was the plan to exterminate humanity or change them?" I asked.
"Change," Vince said. "Our anti-psionic technology has some unique requirements in terms of life. We couldn't protect your planet as it was, so our goal was to alter it."
"You might have mentioned that," I said.
Vince gave a wry smile. For a mimicry of a human they'd done a good job. "They didn't know how until they made me and that took time. Their minds are very different and they don't observe reality in quite the same way as any of you do. I wasn't complete until our terraformers had already been destroyed and you launched weapons at this planet."
I had tried to bombard them with crystal-enhanced nuclear weapons. It had only seemed fair.
"You survived that," I said.
"They are not normally stirred to quick action, but when peril is imminent they have ways of responding. They are not happy to see you here and you'll be asked to leave shortly. You've a few moments to discuss whatever you came here for," Vince said.
"Is this where I get to say join the empire or die?" Sylax asked me.
"We politely decline both options," Vince said with a strange primness. "We suggest you not force the issue."
"We have encountered an entity calling itself the Scythe. We believe you know them and know how to deal with them," I said.
"We have encountered them," Vince said with a tilt of his head. "I'll tell you the story. Then you must go."
100
Vince stood with his hands clasped behind his back, looking more comfortable than a human normally would at such still posture.
"Your planet was the first source of life within the solar system, although not with your species. The Ixani dwelt within your oceans, roamed the stars, and ultimately grew tired and returned home to their slumber, but not before planting the seeds of other life," Vince said.
"Good thing we got rid of the oceans," Sylax said.
That hadn't exactly been deliberate and I had every intention of bringing them back, eventually.
"The next were those you called the Mercurians. They were a creative people who made my own even as Mars developed
its own life and has much in common with the Ixani," Vince said.
"There was a war I take it. Or is murder on a large scale a purely human invention?" I asked.
"It is not. The Martians pushed outward from their world and waged a great war against us and the Mercurians. Eventually we triumphed, and with our skill in altering life we managed to make them into a more peaceful version of themselves," Vince said.
That was probably a crime against nature of some sort. I was hardly going to be one to judge them for that. I'd modified the Gobbles into something far different than how they'd started.
"There was your mistake. It is dangerous to leave your defeated behind you," Sylax said.
"Advice you're fortunate the empire has never subscribed too," I said.
"Then the Scythe entered the solar system. A psionic parasite that moved to take over the most powerful species in the solar system, the Mercurians," Vince said.
This was finally getting to a subject I cared about.
"And Mercury fell," I said.
"Not exactly," Vince said, with a shake of his head. "The Mercurians figured out a way to stop them, or at least to confine them. They invented a technological phage that could infect any intelligence with a physical form. Compel them into obedience. They allowed the Scythe to infect them and trapped them inside their own bodies. They then ordered their entire planet to sleep," Vince said.
It was bold, noble, and obviously a failure. The Mercurians were no more, their world empty and dead. Still, it must have had some effect. The Scythe no longer seemed a purely psionic threat.
"You and your people seem sub-standard work. Their heroic sacrifice was another thing they screwed up?" I asked.
Vince narrowed his eyes at my drone. "They succeeded in trapping the Scythe inside their bodies. This prevented them from taking the whole of a species at once, and even from taking full control of a mind. They can influence, but are left far weaker than they once were. But no, the sleep command did not work. The Scythe wanted physical bodies and eventually found a way to get to Mars hoping to exploit the Martian’s psionic gifts. We had left the Martians harmless and they were easy prey."
