The Light

by James T. Crichton

  Now, the feeding complete, it eventually took a step back and took stock of itself.

  It was more than massive, it was a super-being, it contained the minds and memories of nearly thirty billion individuals and many more countless trillions of other life forms, as well as the collective data and digital knowledge of the entire Imperium.

  It existed on Praxima, Kryxo and five other worlds. It was the dominant life form, and there was very little left of anything else.

  It could sense some disharmony among some of its new Praxian nodes, seemingly caused by the trauma of recent events.

  Realizing what had to be done, it made the effort and compelled the nodes to return to their previous locations, as most of them were now many miles away from where they were initially when it arrived; which had caused some confusion.

  Then it reset the memories of all its Praxian nodes to a couple of hours before the invasion and added a few plausible explanations to their memories to explain away some of the damage seen.

  It wasn’t long before it could feel its new billions of nodes buzzing about their daily business and living their lives as if nothing had happened; for the most part. The metropolises, busy skyways and life in general returned to the appearance of normal throughout the Empire.

  There were gaps of course – the many thousands of religious followers that were missing, caused a few questions. But as they had given their energy freely, the creature didn’t bother to rematerialize them and for now, whenever it detected that a node missed another, the creature would summarily just delete all memories of the missing person from the questioning node.

  And like one would do after receiving an exciting and new gift, it was eager to inspect, explore and play with its new toys. So for a time, it would take a few individuals and observe them, then it would take a random dip in its newly updated collective knowledge to see what was there.

  It observed the personal lives of its many billions of subjects and wondered about the frivolousness of it all. It marveled at the advanced creation both in the arts, in technology as well as in the architecture of the sprawling cities of its fascinating Praxians.

  Then it played Emperor for a time, ordered some repairs, and in a successful effort to bring the last remaining free Praxians into its fold, gave some instructions to inspect all vessels on the shipping lanes and ordered all of the smaller military fleets out on distant patrol to return to the nearest shipyards, for similar inspection. It added a few more thousand souls to itself this way.

  Later, it ordered the speedy construction of large new reactors, for use for the Imperial households. And for a time, things were looking fine.

  It wasn’t long, however, maybe a week or so, before the folly of its ways came back to bite it – hard. In general, the Imperium was a well-oiled machine and had well-stocked food stores.

  But these stores did not contain infinite supplies, and were now beginning to run out.

  To make matters worse, the creature was suddenly stricken with a massive pang of hunger. There was nothing left to eat – it had eaten it all. The only source of new energy was the leftover trickle that remained after the reactors supplied the cities, which was not nearly enough for what it needed to run its enlarged self, let alone maintain the elaborate show of a fully populated Imperium and its vast cities.

  In desperation, it ordered the construction of the new reactors to be fast-tracked, but knew already that it would not be enough.

  Somewhere, from deep within the creature’s consciousness, Jera’s assimilated mind, out of turn, made a comment the creature’s subconscious must’ve thought relevant to allow the intrusion.

  “You fucked up”, it said.

  Indeed, the excitement of finally arriving at Praxima for a magnificent feast had clouded the creature’s judgment. It had let go and had stopped thinking.

  Aside from eating everything, there never was any plan to do it intelligently, no strategy.

  In hindsight, consuming everything in sight had been foolish. It should’ve limited itself to the Praxians, yet due to desperation and hunger, and an infantile perception of limitlessness abundance, it ate everything – trees, crops, grass, insects, birds, animals, and fish – everything.

  Now, it was too large, it was completely unsustainable, its Praxians and other creatures were running out of food, which placed an even larger energy burden on it.

  Ironically, because of this fuck up, it was in an even a worse situation than before it arrived at Praxima. And now it needed an even larger supply of food to survive.

  It didn’t want to let go of its many billions of Praxian nodes, but it knew it had to start trimming and would need to free up its energy use considerably. It started a process of consolidation and review.

  Soon it began to cannibalize and redistribute energy; first it started with objects that were assimilated unnecessarily such as some skycars, ships, computers, appliances and so on.

  Then it focused on life forms and cannibalized the energy of the entire insect, marine and wildlife populations of all six worlds.

  All this freed up a significant chunk of energy. However, its thirty billion individual Praxian nodes were fast working through what was freshly freed up.

  As before, the creature was beginning to feel the pinch and started feeling nervous, a bit scared and insecure. It was a far cry from the godly confidence that it had felt only a few days before. It knew that soon, it would have no choice but to start trimming its population of Praxians as well.

  It realized that the fauna and flora of Axaria was still left untapped. It promptly materialized another shuttle back on Kryxo, and flew it over to its icy sister moon Axirio and assimilated the small mining base there, afterwards it flew the shuttle to Axaria, where it quickly began converting all life on the planet directly to energy.

  Once the process was complete, it spread this massive flood of energy through to its main self on Praxima, leaving nothing but an empty, lifeless and barren planet behind. And after leaving a very small presence on Kryxo, it moved the rest of its energy from there as well.

  All this had bought it a little more time, but little else. It knew it was stuck here, that it was doomed. How could it have come so far and have done so much, yet be so screwed? it wondered. It began panicking again.

  But then out of the blue, a realization dawned – it had left its greatest resource untapped.

  The collective minds and knowledge of the Empire and its billions of subjects was completely at its finger tips, just under the surface. But due to the sheer volume of information, it knew that it would still take some time before it was all available for instant, effortless recall.

  However, the information was there and all it had to do was query it and an answer would present itself.

  So it asked this great store of knowledge, if there was a better source of energy, a source that promised near infinite if not infinite supply. It was half surprised when a positive answer came back a brief moment later – Yes, there was.

  What is it? Where is it? The creature wanted to know impatiently.

  It is new technology created by Helley Ulxo. Allows you to draw energy from the very fabric of the universe itself, promising near infinite, clean, renewable energy. But it’s not here. It’s with her and she’s not here.

  Then where is she? It demanded.

  Don’t fret, the knowledge replied calmly. We know where she is. We have a spy on board.

  The creature snatched up the frequency for the tracking beacon and what little more information the knowledge had about the technology, such as a few observations and the unique subspace signature created by disturbances caused by the Reactor. Then it immediately rematerialized and dispatched the Dawn.

  Using its collective scientific knowledge, the creature made adjustments to the shape of the vessel and to its drive, allowing for an almost doubling in speed.

  And to provide an additional boost, it fed the Dawn a direct and constant injection of precious, purest energy. To top
it off, it filled the vessel with enough energy to spawn fifty fleets if the need ever arose.

  Soon, the Dawn was in hot pursuit, racing across the universe at the highest warp. According to calculations, it would catch up to the Valiant in little over a year.

  With the prospect of salvation, its confidence was restored to near previous levels and the creature could allow itself to think about the future again. It realized there was no longer any reason to keep all its eggs in one basket.

  It had space travel. And like a flower, scattering its seeds on the wind, the creature prepared a few hundred vessels, with semi-autonomous independent control and dispersed them into space in search of new homes and new food.

  It also began scanning the heavens for suitable life-sustaining planets and throughout the course of the next few months, it would periodically send out more vessels in the search. It made sure that it kept a lookout for the so-called gods of the Praxians as well; as consuming them and their infinite power could be an alternative solution to its energy problem and could maybe even enable it to heal itself from the hunger permanently.

  After long deliberation, it decided to suspend its elaborate Praxian play after all. It planned to go into a semi-dreamlike state of hibernation which would help to conserve its remaining energy and where it could explore and better integrate its large treasure of knowledge and collective experiences of its Imperial civilization.

  It would maintain a small group of repurposed brainwashed Praxians on all its planets to run and maintain its reactors, which would feed it while it was sleeping and provide power to the small settlement of the support staff and the shields deployed to protect the cities – especially from the elements.

  Once a large supply of food was found or the Reactor or the gods were detected, it would immediately snap out of its dreaming and be able to act.

  Hopefully it would have more than enough energy to restore all its many billion Imperial nodes to full function and bring the Imperium out of stasis and back to bustling activity again.

  Preparations now completed, it slowly and carefully turned off its Praxian populations, taking care not to damage any property, first on the colonies, then finally on Praxima. Simulated fauna and flora were also turned off, and the energy was redistributed.

  Throughout its worlds, the cities fell silent and the worlds became empty, devoid of life and sound, save for the rumbling of the ocean waves, the hum of the city shields, and the lonely wind, howling across empty, dusty plains and through abandoned streets, seemingly longing for the life that existed and flourished here before.

  But on several abandoned continents of its worlds, the empty planes were replaced by vast fields of millions of beautiful ebixus flowers that appeared suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere, soaking up the energy of the sun.

  The flower was chosen by the creature for its low-energy footprint, simple form, low maintenance, resilience to the elements and its very efficient photosynthesis mechanism; creating another passive source of energy to feed it while it slept.

  Now, the creature entered its slumber, and dreamt the lives and knowledge of its countless billions.

  It slept lightly, almost with one eye open, and waited.

  Chapter 17: The Hill

  Frank had been driving like a maniac.

  First to the house to pick up Jo with her last duffle-bag and suitcase, then on the way out of town, zigzagging through side-streets and dodging obstacles, like abandoned vehicles and people in the street, popup traffic jams and dogs and cats walking in the road.

  As they drove through Jasperville, Mark observed something curious happening on the sidewalks: cats and dogs were emerging from their suburban dwellings and yards, and were flowing into a growing stream of other pets that were running down the sidewalks, and were chasing down any pedestrians they encountered, touching them with their noses or rubbing up against them – tagging them, and then moving on.

  The road Frank was taking out of town led them past the bottom, normally more quiet part of the town square, and as the truck drove past, Mark saw the actual large square – the business and transport hub of Jasperville.

  There was an imposing sight of a gigantic glowing blob, probably about ten stories high, right in the middle of the square. It was surrounded by police vehicles, their doors open and blue-red emergency lights flashing, and a large crowd. And at the edge of the square at the shop fronts, groups of people were going from one open shop to the next, with one or two members going into the shop, and then the group moving on quickly to the next shop.

  Some members could be seen entering busses and cabs parked nearby. Before they passed the square, Mark noticed some individuals breaking away from the main crowd surrounding the blob, and one by one, they began scattering outwards in several directions, seemingly heading back into town.

  Frank took another side road, then another, and eventually he managed to get them out of town and onto the little-used old highway road, which would lead them to a small mountain-pass starting at Kent hill. The road would then take them away from the city and into the country, which was hopefully far enough away from any trouble. The trip out of town was largely uneventful, with no large blobs or other obstacles blocking their way. But when they looked back, the sky over the town was filled with drifting blobs.

  The road took them to the top of Kent hill. The hill had a nice view of the city in the valley nearby and had a lookout point, where young couples used to go look at the romantic city lights on date nights. It happened to be the same place Frank had sometimes taken Jo on dates many decades ago and where he eventually proposed to her. Just as they got to the hill, a tire burst, forcing them to pull over at the lookout point.

  Frank and Mark got out the truck. Frank started changing the tire, while Mark kept guard with Frank’s shotgun, keeping a watchful eye on the surroundings and the sky above. They were still quite a distance away from the cabin and needed to get to a place of safety before nightfall, plus, they were far too close to the city for their liking; they needed to hurry. In the truck, Jo was busy tending to Harry’s cut with the first-aid kit.

  The kids were staring transfixed at the sprawling metropolis beyond the window in the valley below. What was happening seemed like an intense scene straight out of a sci-fi film.

  The sky overhead was filled with thousands of glowing orbs of light, which were slowly drifting down unperturbed from high above. Anti-air batteries positioned around the city were fiercely firing continuous streaks of multi-colored heavy anti-air rounds and missiles at the things.

  The sky was lit bright by constant explosions and higher up; the orbs were aggressively being attacked by zipping fighter jets, hammering the things relentlessly. The city’s emergency sirens were still wailing.

  Mark thought about Stacy and prayed that she was ok. He tried calling her again earlier, but couldn’t get through. And for a while now he hadn’t been able to get a signal on any of their phones.

  The city was dotted with a few large orbs, which were obscuring some buildings and parts of the surrounding suburbs. Helicopter gunships were hovering nearby and were attacking the blobs. Fighter jets intermittently zoomed past, dispatching barrages of air-to-surface missiles; explosions hitting the blobs, seemingly without effect.

  What looked like large alien mechs emerged from some of the blobs. Fires had broken out in parts of the city, and Mark saw the lights of emergency vehicles, rushing over in response. The distant sounds of gunfire and explosions had drifted up the hill. Tanks and troop carriers could be seen on the main road leading into the city. Miles of vehicles were parked in gridlock on the on-ramp leading to the highway out of the city, which was also jammed full with stationary vehicles.

  And on the outskirt of the city, near one of the mega churches, Mark could make out what looked a long queue of tiny ant people seemingly trying to enter a large white blob nearby.

  Suddenly the ground rattled with the deep rumbling bass of a huge boom.

  “Good God!�
� Mark exclaimed, “What was that?”

  Then, on the far horizon, more or less in the direction of the neighboring city, the answer came in the distant form of a massive, rising mushroom cloud. Shortly afterwards there was another deep boom.

  “Oh shit! They’re using nukes?” Frank exclaimed in shocked amazement, as he finished changing the tire. “We need to get out of here” he said and hurriedly walked over the driver’s side.

  “Exactly what I was thinking” said Mark as he limped over to the truck.

  But suddenly, a rustling in the bushes nearby caught his attention. Instinct told him to freeze, as right then a monster emerged, leaving behind what looked like glowing ooze on the leaves.

  “Everybody, keep quiet and don’t move,” Mark said softly, not sure if anyone had heard him. Frank froze. The twins looked away from the city and at the monster. Jo looked as well.

  Mark had his finger on the trigger of the shotgun. The thing looked frightfully otherworldly, and was like nothing he’d seen before. It was glistening black, about half the height of a man, had eight tentacles, six eyes on funny-looking stalks, and a fierce-looking face, bristling with teeth.

  For Mark, it looked like some sort of weird, alien battle octopus. A deep growling sound was emanating from it and it was looking straight at them.

  One of the twins let out a whimper.

  In a flash, it was on them; first on Mark, who fired a shot but missed the fast-moving-blur, then it was on Frank, then it got inside the truck. The twins and Jo were screaming.

  Then abruptly they fell silent.

  Chapter 18: Earth

  It had awoken for short intervals several times during its long slumber.