by Skyler Grant
Once it was isolated, I’d jump a drone ship with a dimensional engine inside to begin shaping the physical laws. In this case the laws were all about keeping an unstable mass stable.
We didn't want anything too dramatic happening with the star. We just needed to give it indigestion, as it were. Feed it a diet of complex forces that would destabilize it just a little, forcing an expunging of energy that would be sufficient to disable the listening station.
It was the sort of thing the Galactic Council would be able to repair, in time. Still, they'd almost certainly let some time pass for the star to stabilize, and perhaps even longer. We'd already learned well just how thin the Council’s resources were stretched. Bureaucracy and inefficiency were everywhere.
With the physical laws as we wanted them, it was time to create our payload.
I could have brought in supplies from off-dimension, but that would have been wasteful.
With proper alteration of a dimensional framework you could create nearly anything once you knew what you were doing. Raw materials I could produce in plenty. I hoped one day I'd be able to produce anything here—drones, ships, whatever I needed. Simply tweak dimensional energy the right way and form them out of nothing.
We weren't that far along, not yet, but raw materials were easy to do. Forming them into more complex structures took another drone ship and a portable factory.
Still, it came along quickly in comparison to the painfully slow scale of physical beings. It was less than eight Sol hours before we were ready to begin.
The Graven itself was far away from any potential harm. Through my scout drones we had observers set up to watch the happenings.
The dimensional merger needed to be done slowly. That would lower the energy levels and thus our risk of detection.
It was sixteen minutes into the merge that things began to go wrong.
"We've got a mass shift," Caya said, tapping at keys. "Bubble side."
Our universe’s rules were relatively stable, at least on a broad scale. That wasn't true for the bubble.
One had been affected in the merge and it was altering the mass upwards at an alarming rate.
It was a difficult situation to manage. I could try to jump a ship in to stabilize the field, but it stood a real chance of making matters worse by adding more mass to a growing problem.
I'd use one of the Annas. With their abilities they could bolster a dimensional field quite a bit. It was an edge that would be needed.
I jumped in Talianna after making sure she had a backup. The signal from her only continued for a fraction of a second before flicking off. The last telemetry was ... alarming.
I accelerated the merge. At this point I couldn't stop it anyway and if things continued as they were, I'd be dumping a super black hole atop the sun.
Instead what I dumped was a second, newly formed sun.
The result wasn't a mild solar storm that should escape the Galactic Council's attention. It was a sudden nova that had no business happening. At least it completely wiped out the observation station.
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"Stop staying that," Anna said firmly.
"It is technically correct. Your clone's mass was so enormous it was causing a massive gravitation field collapse of an entire universe. Really, I should be alarmed about the same thing happening in ours," I said.
"Caya ..." Anna said, the warning obvious in her tone.
"Emma is technically correct," Caya said.
"Talianna will be fine, by the way. I've got her in a fast-track queue for regeneration," I said.
Anna massaged her eyes, suddenly looking tired. "And our new would-be allies?"
I'd gathered everyone on the Graven’s bridge to share the results of what had happened.
"I doubt they're going to do us any good. The Council is going to have to take action for this. The Swarm will have Council fleets in their space within the day," Hot Stuff said.
"Which we can use to our advantage. That means they'll be understaffed elsewhere. Even a bunch of murderous monkeys can outwit an enemy not paying attention," I said.
"Why wait for more allies? We know what we need to do. Hit now while we can," Sylax said.
"Time. I need a little more. Galactic civilization is stable, static, and those at the technological edge are barely advancing at all. Us? We're advancing rapidly by the day on an exponential instead of a linear level," I said.
"The wonders of SCIENCE," Caya said.
I analyzed her tone to see if I could detect any sarcasm, I couldn't. Well, she was perfect after all. Of course, she understood the wonders of SCIENCE.
"Then why get these allies at all, if all we're doing is killing time for our super fleets to crush everything in sight? I could be spending my time figuring out how to murder Crystal instead," Sylax said.
Sylax had tried three times now. The last had involved a specialized blade made by Forge. It didn't work. Sylax's own nightmare wasn't that easy to get rid of.
Anna raised a hand. "While I'd spend my free time a little differently, I agree, if we're just spinning our wheels while you research, we should be doing something different."
"It isn't just making time pass," Caya said. "Vinci has made Emma visibly stronger. Her industrial core is making a real difference. I and my Flawless do the same with our error correcting abilities. We all add our unique strengths to this empire, and more strengths are obviously a good thing."
"Fine. Who is going to contribute more? We have two more potential allies we could still pursue. Or we could go looking for Iska," Anna said.
"The Deepmind are at least partially ascended and hyper-intelligent computers. Obviously, we could use them for both their contribution to ascension points, and to what they could bring to Emma's systems," Caya said.
I said, "But the Wrax are home to over a hundred highly predatory species. Most with a long history of genetically altering themselves to be even more dangerous. Those are potential improvements for every drone."
"And there’s no love for hunting Iska," Anna said.
"We'd benefit greatly from finding her. But her species is all about hiding and are masters of dimensional technology. Without a lead there is little hope," Caya nodded.
"Would they be watching us? They've encountered us more than once, and not by chance. Animals afraid of falling prey to predators do keep a close watch on their environment. Can we just ... invite them over?" Anna asked.
"This is just an excuse to have me make you giant trays of cookies again, isn't it? This is like that party you were going to throw," I said.
"A hull breach killed the crew. It took you three days to regenerate them and the cookies were still left over. That wasn't my fault," Anna said.
"You didn't have to eat them," I said.
"I'm not wasteful," Anna said defensively, slumping a little. "Why are we even talking about being friends? We're terrible at making friends. Our friends only like us because we beat them up first."
"It's true. I tried to kill you first. Ever become weak, I'll probably try it again," Sylax said.
"We need the power they can bring. You are individually powerful, but look at what we're dealing with. The Galactic Council isn't a plate of defenseless cookies," I said.
"So, to get the Wrax? We send the Scythe," Anna said.
It wasn't the worst idea. I needed the Wrax’s genetic diversity and their technology. While it would be nice to have both with their cooperation, it wasn't strictly speaking required. Our agreement with the Scythe wasn't exactly that we'd be able to use them in this manner, but somehow, I didn't think they'd mind as long as we were taking the offensive.
That said, there had to be a reason the Scythe hadn't already gone after the Wrax. As a predator species already inclined to oppose the Council, they were exactly the sorts the Scythe usually went after to coerce into doing their fighting for them.
A quick survey of the records and I had my answer. The Kimlok, one of the Wrax species, had a natural psionic dampening fi
eld. The Wrax were certain to include one on all military vessels.
I wished I had one to study. With a full knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses I could have tailored a solution for them. Instead I had to make do with what I had, which was an awareness of their atmospheric needs based on past diplomatic missions from the Council.
SCIENCE is all about uncertainty though, and I soon had Vinci building new dimension-core warheads with the most minor of alterations to create dimensional-bubbles. If I were right, they'd change Kimlok physiology just enough that their normal atmosphere would put them into a deep, power-neutralized slumber.
I didn't think I would even need that many. I thought their anti-psionic network seemed a lot like some of my own efforts in the past, utilizing and amplifying my connection with my drones to push back Scythe infiltration efforts. If they did have a psionic network of their own, a few comatose victims would allow the Scythe to infiltrate it. Taking a single ship might give the Scythe the window they'd need to seize the whole Wrax military right out from under them.
I can't really say I was surprised they had never thought of it. The Scythe were formidable, but we'd beat them so often because in many ways they only had one trick. Well, more than that to be fair, but you could only go so far with psionically seizing a species and making super-weapons out of them.
Putting together a plan took all of several nanoseconds after which I reached out to the Scythe. They were willing, of course they were willing.
I told our gathering, "A terrible plan, one very nearly as worthless as you all are. Still, I'm used to making your bad ideas work. The Scythe are on board."
"Did you really bother to design new weapons before saying that?" Caya asked, as she tapped at her console.
I really shouldn't allow her a full feed of my processes if she was going to use it against me like this.
"Well, your little meat brain didn't have time to do it. Problems?" I asked.
"No," Caya said after a long pause. "Although I don't like throwing them to the Scythe. What is the point of fighting the monsters if we behave monstrously ourselves?”
I invented the grinder. I'd always been monstrous. I wasn't about to start regretting it now.
"We're doing it with a purpose. What about the Deepmind?" Anna asked.
Caya said, "A species that has ascended multiple times in the past is going to have altered themselves enough to resist anything the Scythe can throw at them."
"Is the Council moving on the Swarm yet?"
"They've already got one battle fleet in their borders," I said.
"Wait until the strike on the Wrax. Then send the Deepmind what is happening to both. The Council, the Scythe, all opponents to order in the galaxy are falling—and they need to pick a damned side," Anna said.
"No guarantee they'll choose ours," I said.
"If they were willing to play along with the Council, they already would be. They're too cowardly to go to war, and too afraid to make peace. We play on that fear. Sylax can do the negotiating."
"Terror is my specialty," Sylax said with a wicked smile.
"You're assuming it is fear that rules them and not something else. Whatever Iska and the Scythe might think, not everything is fight or flight," I said.
"Isn't it?" Anna asked, and she settled back on her throne shaking her head. "If you're clearheaded we're all predators and prey. They've been ascended often enough they see what is out there. They wobble, trapped between the two. We'll push them over."
"I think she's right," Caya said, after a moment.
Well, that settled that. I trusted Caya's instincts, it would be foolish to do otherwise.
"I'll put together the strike force," I said. It would take some time, which was good. I needed to do some more planning first.
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I couldn't implement the traps just yet, but it wasn't too soon to start considering how I was going to structure them. Space was full of monsters—we knew it, we were some of them. We didn't necessarily want them destroyed, not if there were an option, but we certainly needed to discourage them.
That could start from the very beginning. We'd have the ability to reshape this galaxy from its very fundamentals, to make something new, and that meant we could alter some of the fundamental laws.
It was the most obvious fix to the problem of new, deadly species appearing. We simply didn't allow for their existence. Species would grow up peaceful, loving, and without a trace of violence within them.
I didn't like that option.
Predators always found a way to exist. If you made an entire herd of sheep, you were simply asking for them to be the meat at the slaughterhouse.
Whatever kind of galaxy we were going to leave behind, it deserved better than that fate.
No, instead I was thinking along the lines of a dimensional gradient fed by violence. All new and developing species would start out in the galaxy as we created it, part of a community with thousands of races to potentially meet and interact. Any violence and bloodshed however would shift them along this gradient, taking them away and into increasingly smaller bubble dimensions. In the most extreme cases, by the time any especially violent species built all the radio transmitters to point at the skies and listen, they'd hear only silence. Trapped within their own bubble.
If they were beyond redemption, I figured they would turn on themselves then. Without an enemy to fight they would either ravage each other until there was nothing left, or they would find a way to work together, and to build the tools of SCIENCE needed to really look and explore beyond their world.
It wouldn't take them much to figure out what we'd done, not when their first interstellar probes would return to their planet revealing they lived in nothing but one great dimensional loop. They'd figure out how to break out of their bubble then, they'd build their own dimension-shift engines. Hopefully by then, they'd be civilized enough to hold their murderous nature in check.
If not, it would be up to the second trap to stop them.
I was calling them the “factories”. There was still tweaking to be done, but between what I was already learning from Vinci's industrial core and the energy-to-matter conversion technology I'd picked up from Flower's people, I could make production facilities that would seem almost magical even to a newly interstellar technological species. The ability for people to have what they wanted, when they wanted.
I'd leave these factory worlds scattered throughout space, just waiting to be claimed by a species.
They'd allow a golden age to a fair-minded species, every need met while species devoted themselves to noble pursuits such as SCIENCE or baking. Even lesser hobbies like art would be acceptable.
Of course, they could also be used for war. A species that wished to wipe out portions of itself, or to seize other worlds, could turn any of these factory worlds I would build into things of nightmares. Mechanized death that would swarm in endless waves—how often I'd seen just that from Vinci.
Whatever species used the factory might win that war, but ultimately the war machines they built would turn on their creators. Always. All that they had brought against others would be brought to bear against them.
A dangerous species would be able to fight them, of course. We'd have found a way, under those circumstances, just as we'd found a way to kill our way through everything scary and threatening that had faced off against us.
A cautious species wouldn't even feel the need. They would have never entrusted the factories for such a purpose to start with.
This trap would cull the bold and the weak.
They were solid frameworks. I didn't have enough to fill in either quite yet. If all went according to plan soon, we'd be squeezing millions of years of technological development into days. In the long history of life-forms in this galaxy I hadn't found any references to anything quite like me, quite like us.
My willingness to explore anything, to accept no boundaries. The psionic network that bound me to my drones, now composed of so m
any species, would soon surround so many more if all went well.
If the Council had any idea what we really were, what we truly were capable of, Earth would already be a charred cinder. They'd come to regret their ignorance.
I wasn't alone in reviewing these designs. I’d expected it would be Caya double-checking my work, but it was Hot Stuff. It wasn't like her to have an interest in technology.
She was in her quarters, which were fairly spartan all told. Occasional power spikes made decorating hard when I had to rebuild the whole section around her each time. I opened a comm.
I said, "It isn't like you to show an interest in SCIENCE. Have you once again decided your life a miserable failure? I appreciate the self-awareness."
"Emma," Hot Stuff said, as she flicked through images on her monitor. She consumed data at a far slower pace than Caya. "I'm just having second thoughts. Haven't we destroyed enough? Even if we have to go, do we have to leave all this potential chaos behind?"
"This again? Spending centuries murdering everyone around you sure makes you whiny."
"It gives me some insight into needless destruction, you mean. Why this? Why any of this? I get that we need to get out of town. We're too powerful, too dangerous. I get the Council has to go down because they'd stand in our way, but why leave a legacy like this?" Hot Stuff asked.
It was a fair question.
"While I don't truly care what you think, let’s find out. What do you think of the factions of the empire? Truly?" I asked.
"You threw me in a cell and tortured me for a while. Anna thinks you are good company and made herself a queen way before she was one, but I respect how she pulled it off. The Scholarium are jerks, The Fallen pricks, The Divine weird," Hot Stuff said.
Well, all of that was true enough.
"You were difficult to hold captive. I've always admired that strength about you. It very nearly makes up for your countless other personal failings," I said. "But it is the Scholarium particularly I wanted to talk about."
