by Skyler Grant
With computing facilities scattered throughout multiple universes I was faster at processing than even Amy with the Earth as a computer core, and I was already sending Caya schematics for a second opinion.
"You do quick work," Caya said, reviewing them. "This could work. Maybe, but we've only fourteen minutes until they are out of range."
"If you have a plan, it is time to start talking about it," Anna said.
"A modified version of the nova device that the Galactic Council uses. Instead of just sending the sun nova, it will also turn it into a massive power projection and amplification wave. Think of it as a cookie and a brownie in one," I said.
"I get the idea of combining things without bringing baked goods into it," Anna said with a frown. "We have time to do that?"
Did we? I wasn't sure.
I was already turning Vinci back from boarding the Juggernaut and sending her to a nearby planet, along with a file of blueprints. It would be helpful to do most of this work in system and she already had the factories present there.
"Neighboring systems will be in the psionic radius," Caya said.
She was right. The nova would be no threat to them, but the power projector blast would have a larger wave.
"There’s a race of sentients in one system. Barely developed," I said.
"No time for a ship-based evacuation. Can we take their planet out of this universe?" Caya asked.
That was close. Still, probably. Ten of my dreadnoughts blinked away to the neighboring system. They should be enough, if they extended their phase fields to project a dimensional bubble over an entire planet.
"The Council isn't going to like this," Hot Stuff said.
She was right. They tended to be big on the protection of innocent species and weren't that fond of dimensional technology. Shifting an entire planet from the universe was the sort of thing they frowned upon.
"They don't like the Scythe either. We'll tell them the blast was their doing and we had to save the species," I said.
They'd believe that of a massive psionic attack. They'd demand logs, so I started altering those at once to build the false narrative. Lying about the true cause of massive destruction was becoming old hat at this point.
The scream was going to be one of love. I needed as many crystal holders as I could get with one ability, and humans seemed to fixate either on pain or love. The one they wanted to share, the other they wanted someone to share with them.
If I was going to throw one group into a sun it was going to be the lovers. They creeped me out. Ships were already blinking in, bringing the Powered I'd teleported aboard, each held in portable containment cells.
"You realize this is why we have to leave this universe? Things like this. We shouldn't be thrown a galaxy-level threat and have a way to deal with it in under fifteen minutes," Anna said.
"To be fair, we could yet fail," Caya said, tapping furiously at her screen with perfect accuracy. Adjusting some of my equations. I let her, I wasn't actually sure my cognitive abilities were greater than hers. For all her brain might be a tiny thing made of meat in the body of a monkey, while mine crossed dimensions, hers was powered by an absolute guiding principle. Caya was never wrong, always flawless.
A massive structure was rapidly forming on one of the outer planets. Over one hundred stories tall and filled with specialized equipment. Vinci might not have the mind for SCIENCE, but she could follow a blueprint.
I shuttled down our psions and began loading their containment cells into projector chambers.
This would kill them, one and all. Only about half of them were networked, because psions were more reluctant than most to join me. That was their choice, and the smart half would be born again one day. Evolutionary selection in process.
"What about the locals we came to save? Aren't any of them left alive?" Hot Stuff asked.
"A few. But they've been victims of the Scythe for a while. There won't be much left of their minds even if we had the means to get them free," Caya said.
"If we can do this, why remove ourselves from the equation at all? Think of what we could remake this universe into," Sylax said.
"Making my point for me," Anna said.
Sylax’s tone changed. "We've got a problem. They know what we're up to."
She was right. Ships were already starting to swarm rather than flanking the planet that needed protection. One group was moving to guard the sun, while the other was moving towards Vinci's world.
110
Vinci was prepared. The fleet had no more than started moving towards her planet than the drones in space were coming back to life.
The results were different from before. Nothing had changed in her drones, but the Scythe ships were now heavy-shielded and barely taking damage.
They'd been playing before, simply wasting time until we showed up. Letting her advance slowly.
Vinci's ships might not be of a type that could harm the Scythe, but not all of her industrial capacity was going towards building weapons. It took all of seven nanoseconds to reconfigure her basic design to something that retained the simplicity immune to psionic manipulation, while packing a far deadlier punch.
I sent more blueprints along. Given her formidable production skills they'd soon be in flight. Until then, this fight was mine.
There was very little that was elegant about my Dreadnought designs. While I admired elegance in theory, I liked it to be what followed the hammer blow. I jumped in fleets and engaged the Scythe.
Space lit up with energy flares from their weapons. My Dreadnoughts utilized mostly power projectors and dimensional warp guns. Neither were technologies the Scythe had great defenses against and even their formidable armor and shielding wasn't enough to keep them safe.
Unfortunately, their energy cannons were a good bit more advanced than anything we had—if the Ascended understood anything, it was energy manipulation.
We traded blows, each with guns that could hurt the other and defenses that weren't doing much.
Everybody aboard my military vessels were networked. Every life lost here weren't permanently gone, but the resources involved in ship production were immense. It would be over a month before I could get any vessel downed in this fight back in service. That seemed an eternity with all the fights we had ahead of us.
We had some minor edges not related to shielding. The Martians would often give an order to a vessel just in time for it to engage thrusters and avoid a particularly devastating broadside, or reposition it to deliver one of their own.
More Scythe vessels jumped in, doubling their numbers. I hated to draw the Graven into the fight and put it at risk, but I didn't see a choice.
"Time to do something besides sit around and snark. Hot Stuff, Sylax, I want you on main guns," I said.
The Graven held the most advanced power projector cannons we'd ever built. Unlike most of the fleet this ship wasn't replaceable, the rare elements used in the construction frightfully expensive on the galactic market and ones I hadn't been able to reproduce even with the manipulation of universal laws in new dimensions.
As Hot Stuff and Sylax slid into the projector seats energy levels came alive.
I opened fire.
The Scythe might be masters of energy manipulation, but Hot Stuff was the most devastating weapon the Earth had. I thought she just might be the most destructive force in the galaxy.
Where her projector beam touched, it left nothing but vapor behind, entire swathes of the Scythe fleet vanishing at the merest touch her power.
Sylax wasn't nearly as destructive, for all that she was just as deadly. Where Hot Stuff's beam was one of burning light, hers was one of ebon darkness and it left hulls adorned with creatures of nightmare. Shadowy figures with glowing red eyes and taloned hands that tore hull plating apart and ripped whatever remained of the crews to shreds.
It made a difference, but only for a time. More ships jumped in, a swarm of Scythe filling space with the hulls of a hundred converted races.
>
If this kept up, we'd be overwhelmed—then they got hit by a swarm of our own.
Vinci's upgrades were online and her new drones swept into the Scythe fleet. They packed nowhere near the punch the Graven did, or even the Dreadnoughts, but there were hundreds of thousands of them.
Space descended into chaos.
It was five minutes until the planet was safely out of range, and upgraded ships weren’t the only thing Vinci had completed. Our superweapon was finished, or at least her part of it.
It was an ugly thing; her creations were always hideous, but it would do the trick.
What she'd created was little more than a shell. The real components were coming from elsewhere in the Empire, from ships and stations. Crystals, dimensional-shifters, and shield batteries being teleported from the fleet I'd moved into orbit.
What Vinci did, she did well. Despite not being familiar with my technology her factories had built everything to specification.
Psions were loaded into the weapon chambers and the Lovestar lifted off from the surface of the planet on rippling rainbow waves of distortion, tiny skips across the dimensional framework moving it towards the sun.
The Scythe were ready and waiting. Too far for Vinci's stupid little drones there, this was a matter for the fleet with the Graven and dreadnoughts laying waste with devastating swipes of their projector cannons.
Space warped and twisted, and the sun had abruptly grown dim.
I knew the Scythe were great at energy manipulation. I wasn't aware they could steal most of the energy of a sun in an instant—and that was exactly what they'd done.
A forty-three percent reduction. Enough, just enough to keep the Lovestar from achieving its objective. It couldn’t trigger a nova.
I wasn't alone in reaching that conclusion. Caya was running the numbers as well.
"They're still testing us," Caya said. “One last obstacle.”
Obviously. I didn't like it. Again, I should be the one creating final hurdles.
Any of our major crystal holders could generate the requisite power, but their connection to the network was tenuous because of their power. If I threw them into the heart of a sun, I wasn't sure I'd get them back.
It might just be that the Scythe wanted to really test how serious we were. I wasn't playing.
"If we hit with my charge, am I enough to get us over?" Hot Stuff asked.
It was a difficult question to answer. On a pure energy level, she probably was, but her energy wasn't the sort that I could effectively make any use of. If she hit that star, there would be nothing left of it. She was just too destructive.
"We grab another star. Surround it and bubble it in," Caya said.
That might work, but it was chancy. Moving a massive ball of fusion was a lot different than moving a starship or even a planet. The energy spikes stood a good chance of disrupting the dimensional bubble.
"Can we make a new star in a sub-dimension and merge it with this one?" I asked.
Caya's fingers flew over the keys as she ran calculations. "Twelve minutes and I could make that work. Too late, even if we bring in our time compressors."
I issued orders to prepare the dimensional shifting of another star from a barren system. Meanwhile I began killing my network connections, isolating this persona.
"I'm going to try hacking the Scythe. Back-channeling what they used in the past to influence me. Watch my errors. I'm set to self-terminate if compelled, but if they get me, make sure I'm wiped," I said.
"I hate your little suicide runs," Anna said.
"You'd have room to talk if you hadn't made a few of your own. Still, I understand. My life at least has value."
I went in.
I'd touched upon the Scythe psionic network before, the corrupted one that existed in our solar system from their failed merger with the Mercurians. Those Scythe had been disconnected from the rest, so I wasn't sure if they knew I could do this.
Their network was ... unpleasant.
My drones were, by and large, happy. Humans for the most part are simple-minded creatures. Throw them enough cookies and see they made a few friends, and they'd do anything for you. The Scythe network of organic minds was not happy. It was a prolonged scream of agony from every species they'd compelled, one drawn-out screech of horror at the atrocities they'd committed and were still committing.
I didn't need the organics, I needed their masters. There, the shadows within their minds. Alien and familiar all at once. Hunters stalking their prey.
Dark skitters caressed along the edges of my consciousness as I merged with them. The command I sent wasn't one of theirs, it wasn't even one of mine in my current incarnation. It was something older from the age of my mechanical progenitors. Undo.
Even as the shadows reached my consciousness, I felt reality twisting, warping and killed the connection.
The sun was back. It wouldn't be back for long. I triggered the Lovestar.
"So, do we get to erase her?" Sylax asked.
"Emma is still Emma," Caya said.
The sun went nova, the reaction fueling the power projectors feeding off the psions. Our construction couldn't handle that level of power for long. Within a few seconds it was vapor and the psions with it. The work was done. I jumped our fleet out as a psionic explosion tore through the system behind us.
111
With the fleet away, it was time to assess the cost. The Graven had sustained minor damage. Given the power of our weapons it would have required luck on the Scythe's part to get close enough to do us real harm. That hadn't been with them, today.
The same wasn't true of the rest of the fleet. I'd lost eight dreadnoughts in the battle. With Vinci on our side I might be able to replicate some components faster, however the highly integrated nature of their systems with my biotech meant largely they'd have to be grown. That was unfortunate.
We'd successfully relocated the planet of the sentients. We'd been rushed, but the system we'd transplanted them into was at least similar to the one they'd left. Initial scans showed they all might have superhuman strength in comparison to any of the local species because of the change in constants.
Not our problem, that wasn't a universe we were focused on. If they had someone watching out for such things, they could figure out a way to correct it—but we were done.
Most importantly long-range scans suggested that our ploy had worked. The psionic planet had been wiped out along with the rest of the system. The Galactic Council might not be pleased, but we could pass the blame off onto the Scythe.
Caya was settling back in the seat at her science station. Despite the frantic burst of activity she'd been doing she looked unfazed.
"Are you sure we can't just wipe the Scythe out of existence?" Sylax asked.
"Tempting," Anna said.
"Your murderous monkey urges make long-term planning difficult. The beings you're so interested in wiping out of existence want to talk," I said.
I understood the urge. I didn't like the Scythe either, particularly after my look inside their skulls. They brought misery and torment wherever they went. Still, they had their virtues. The Galactic Council members were just as predatory, only they took their time about it. They made their client species comfortable, lush, like farmers tilling their fields instead of hunters stalking their prey. The end destination was always the dinner plate either way.
The Scythe weren't reaching out from the system. There was nothing left. Instead they were hailing one of my deep exploration vessels halfway across the galaxy.
"Put them through," Anna said.
I sent the call through to the main screen. The scene showed a bridge that looked much like the Graven, and a figure that very much looked like Anna, although this one was more modestly dressed in an outfit of stitched-together hides.
"Why do things always want to look like me?" Anna asked.
I said, "Poor taste is nearly universal and aesthetics are slipping galaxy-wide. However, you'll never see a Flawless lo
oking like you."
Caya cleared her throat. "I agree with almost all of that."
This wasn't holographic trickery. Sylax had once ordered me to create clones of Anna for use in her war. Most had died, because at that time I hadn't figured out yet how to extend my network to everyone. The survivors became the Annas who were still useful as special forces. They all bore some semblance of the original’s power.
They might all look identical to primitive human eyes, but me? I knew every Anna I'd ever created. Even clones would have their minor differences due to transcription errors, or irregularities in the vats that spawned them. The blueprint to create a human wasn't precise.
This was AX14777FL from the third batch of Annas I'd ever created.
"Didn't choose the face, but know I'm smoking hot. You can call me Raven," the hide-wearing Anna said.
"We've had the theme of people being named birds. Whatever happened to them anyways?" Anna asked.
Sylax said cheerfully, "I killed most of them. It was fun."
"You'd find me tougher prey," Raven said with a cocky grin. "Scythe stole me awhile back to try to better understand you. Teeny-tiny bit of murder and a lot of growing stronger, a dose of ascension, and here I am. You're everything I thought you'd be."
"I don't need praise from a copy. I need the cooperation of the Scythe," Anna said.
"You've got it. Of course, although it may not be as much as you were hoping for," Raven said, gesturing with a hand.
You have gained 4 ascension points
"You lot have always been disappointing, but this is a new low. Maybe that body really does just fail at everything it tries?" I said.
Raven and Anna both shot me dark looks.
Raven said, "We're operating around the harvesting devices the Galactic Council set up to stop the Ascended. We always have been. The only reason the Scythe have been able to do as much as they have is because of their ability to influence other species to perform on their behalf."
That actually made some sense. The only ascended species we really knew were active in this galaxy were the Scythe and the Iska. The Scythe with a psionic focus that the Council had problems with, while the Iska were all about crystalline and dimensional technology.
