Theseus snorted. Her dispensation of knowledge on a “need to know” basis was about as irksome as any military high command.
Finished cutting their way through the last of the Kang drones, Gamma Group was now acting more like an army corps of engineers, repairing the damage to Sacran’s hull.
Their laser eyes functioned now like blow torches. Gamma Group cadets’ musculature was quite up to bending metal made to withstand meteor rocks hurtling through space at hundreds of thousands of miles per hour.
When tools were needed, Gamma Group cadets concentrated, and the tools formed in their hands—right out of zero point energy.
Somehow Mother had turned their minds into zero point energy computer printers!
So, in addition to having an inexhaustible power supply, and not needing to feed, Gamma Group could synthesize weapons, as needed, in order to travel light. All of which made sense, Theseus supposed, for soldiers meant to be as home in the voids of space-time as anywhere else.
“Hmm, soldier scientists like us,” Lassiter said, sounding a little less star-struck than Theseus felt. “Thank Techa Mother had the sense to design them accordingly. Theta Team wasn’t made for crawling about outside artificial worlds any more than the real ones, in the absence of an atmosphere.”
More dragon ships were arriving, disgorging more Kang at the Sacran. As before, Theseus couldn’t shake the feeling he was watching space pirates determined to steal bounty that really did not belong to them; the Kang drone boarding technique seemed as age old as the original pirates back on Earth.
“Gamma Group will be overwhelmed soon enough,” Theseus said.
“They only have to buy us enough time to calibrate the Kang dragon ships’ energy signatures into the galaxy cruisers at our command, so the starbursts pass harmlessly through Gamma Group even as they vaporize the Kang.”
Theseus noticed the dragon ships arriving on the scene and decloaking were being knocked out of the sky every bit as quickly by the starbursts emanating from the alien cruisers inside the Sacran. Only a handful of Kang soldiers were getting through. The cruisers themselves really weren’t meant to procure firing solutions against targets so small as individual soldiers. But Theseus could bet Lassiter’s people were hard at work procuring a fix for that gross oversight on the part of the Dead Zone civilization.
“If we could just launch these ships,” Theseus said, eying the bounty of alien cruisers inside the Sacran, serving as a giant airplane hangar. “Even if we can’t figure out how to work more than one firing solution. At least then Gamma Group wouldn’t be sitting ducks.”
“We’re working on that. I’ll keep you posted.”
On the hull of the Sacran, Gamma Group had resumed combat, fighting off the Kang drones making it past the exploding dragon ships by leaping onto the hull of the Sacran in time. The drones and the Sacran hull both seemed immune to the exploding ships.
As the Kang drones were employing lasers, Gamma Group tooled up to match, materializing assault rifles no less menacing out of the void to return fire, their arsenal limited only by whatever blueprints Mother had downloaded to their mindchips, or possibly, only by their imaginations.
“What are we going to call this latest class of warbirds?” Theseus asked, shifting his attention away from the battle taking place on Sacran’s outer hull.
“I rather fancy The Peacekeepers,” Lassiter offered.
Theseus laughed. They both did. Though the chuckling sounds both lifeforms made would probably not be recognized as such by more conservatively modified humanoids.
“I swear the way the name popped into my head, it was as if the ships were talking to me.”
Lassiter sobered before Theseus did, and returned his attention to his birds of prey. “It’s obscene we’re sitting on a bounty like this, tech beyond even the Nautilus’s supersentience’s wild imaginings, and we’re still the underdogs in this fight.”
“Yes, well, I imagine keeping two colliding galaxies from consuming most of one another’s real estate is a challenging enough problem for any stage civilization, far less ours. And that’s without factoring in the Kang. Now, stir into the mix The Collectors, who even the Dead Zone peoples could not escape with the help of their technology alone.”
“That last realization alone should help us both keep our feet firmly planted on the ground,” Lassiter said, “speaking pejoratively, in my case.”
Theseus smiled. “Forgive me, but why are you built like that?”
Lassiter must have come to like him enough in the short time that they’d met to show him.
He extended his larger tentacles about a Peacekeeper. Those larger tentacles in turn branched out, becoming, smaller and smaller. He was growing around the ship like some rapidly spreading forest floor fungus determined to reclaim a fallen tree.
And then, as if bursting from fungal infestation, the Peacekeeper was simply pulled apart, reduced to its smallest components.
Hundreds of Theta Team operatives flocked to him for a look inside, to see if the latest intel they’d been exposed to would make the difference.
Lassiter’s big eyes swiveled back to Theseus as his bulbous head rotated back to him. That menacing smile spread across his face again.
Theseus bowed to him respectfully, and departed.
He couldn’t yet score the battle in progress on Sacran as a win or a loss. But he also couldn’t do much more for them.
Theseus was on his way to the latest Galactic hotspot with fires that couldn’t be contained without his help. At least if the screaming SOSs he was receiving could be taken at their word.
FORTY-FIVE
A CLONE OF THE PATENT-DESIGNED UFO
LEON AND CASSANDRA FROM CLONE TEAM ONE ABOARD
Leon stared hang-jawed as a Kang Castle World careened headlong into a Milky Way Galaxy world. The latter shattered on contact. The material the Kang Castle World was made of was just too dense for any other outcome.
The Kang drones, the Kang’s most common caste of soldiers, were already swarming the planetary fragments, pulling them back together, assembling them into the next Kang Castle World.
Whatever surface remnants, living biomass that hadn’t had time to die yet, from tree roots to ice-capped mountain tops, were instantly petrified, as trees might be gradually turned to stone over time back on earth. The transformation was taking place in record time thanks to an exudate the Kang drones extruded from their mouths, their hands, their feet. There was an even larger portal in their chest that opened up to spray the gooey substance. Of course, for the planetary transformation into a Kang Castle world to fully take place, the drone exudates would have to penetrate every pore of the newly erected Kang Castle World; it couldn’t just be hard on the surface, or it’d crack like an egg on impact. The UFO’s scanners showed the final saturation taking place in the same record time as everything else.
“At least now we know how they come by their Castle Worlds,” Cassandra said, “and why each one has such a distinct look.”
“Even if the unifying theme of each Castle World is sheer horror,” Leon said, still trying to soak it all in. “It’s alarming enough how quickly they capitalize on chance opportunities. But how do they manage the planetary makeovers when they can’t rely on their planets being thrown at unsuspecting alien worlds?”
“The dragon ships ramming unsuspecting worlds… Enough of them doing it at once with their equally hardened exteriors…”
“They nearly shattered the moon trying to move it. I suppose that’s explanation enough.” Leon’s mind was already reeling out in another direction.
Leon hammered the UFO’s dashboard COMMS with his fist. “Damn it, Patent! What the hell is Skyhawk up to? We need a fix now. We cannot allow the Milky Way Galaxy Worlds to keep colliding with the Kang Castle worlds. They’re no match for them. We’ll lose the entire galaxy at this rate.”
Patent was slow to respond. Perhaps he was giving Leon a chance to collect himself. Good luck with that.
“Easy, Leon. You’re asking the kid to do what even the Nautilus supersentience can’t do. She’s not yet powerful enough to toy with underlying physics, short of communicating across and skipping between timelines.”
“I’m in no mood to hear excuses!”
“Well, you’ll hear this one. If it weren’t for the kid’s hack of the artifact on Earth’s moon, with the help of the Hailey girl and her father Dillon, the three of them working in unison, we would have an even worse mess on our hands. The threesome got the two spiral galaxies to overlay one another like old fashioned 33 LPs in a turntable that could stack more than one.”
Patent sighed before continuing, “But some syncing issues remain. The two galaxies are twirling at different rates, causing gravitational warping effects. To say nothing of the temptation of the galactic cores—the massive black holes at the center of each galaxy—to gobble up one another and permanently merge both galaxies. So, yes, planets will be colliding with one another and with the Dead Zone space stations for a while.”
“Prognosis?”
Another delayed response.
Leon drove his fist into the UFO dashboard again. This time Cassandra caught it. “You’ll shatter our controls,” she hissed.
More silence at Patent’s end.
“I hate to say it,” Patent cut in finally, with a report he clearly didn’t want to give, “but at this rate, the two galaxies causing perturbations in one another is the least of our problems. The Kang Queens, now empowered with their new class of Kang Tesla types, will overtake us long before the gravity of those merging galactic cores will.
“Dare I say it?” Patent paused briefly again. “Maybe it’s time to send up a signal flare, get The Collectors to come rescue us? Once they pull our galaxies apart, well, that’s two less battle fronts we’ll be fighting on simultaneously. Then all we have to contend with are The Collectors.”
Leon thought about it. He had to admit it wasn’t a half bad idea. And it should have occurred to him long before it had occurred to Patent. Leon hesitated to think his injured ego and pride had gotten in the way of the obvious revelation. Maybe they still were getting in the way.
He stewed on the matter a while longer. Finally, he got back on the COMMS. “Not yet, Patent. I’m still determined to win over the Kang Queens, get their caste, and the Tesla and drone castes subject to the queens’ will, to work with us, not against us. When the time comes, we’re going to need all the mind power we can to cut free of The Collectors. And now that I know the Queens can make more Tesla types, I’m curious to see how rapidly they can turn out more queens as well.”
“Careful, Leon, we don’t want to give our enemies any bright ideas, especially when they’re already doing such a good job at kicking our asses. So far every asset we’ve been able to bring on line from the Dead Zone tech looks better fitted to empowering the Kang further at our expense. They can always crank out more Tesla types. We’ve just got one—Natty—per timeline. And the Nattys in the other timelines are contending with their own problems.”
Leon looked for a way to refute Patent. But there was little he could throw at him by way of logic. The Kang might well be next to impossible to pacify, far less recruit, owing to their savage, warlike natures. If they had any conscience at all, it had yet to be demonstrated. And the queens were disinclined to spike the mind power of their own civilization too much for fear of the populace turning against them. The fact that they were great at cannibalizing the genius of others, moreover, did not bode well for them being the best of partners when it came to coming up against The Collectors, even if Leon could get them to cooperate. They might not have too much creativity of their own to contribute. There might well be other civilizations trapped in other galaxies in The Collectors’ Menagerie that would make far better partners.
“Let the Kang continue to work against us then,” Leon said, coming in late on cue again. “Who knows, if not one of the queens, then one of the Tesla types will figure out how to activate the very Dead Zone technology that can get us out of here, even if they mean to destroy us with it first. And failing that, they can help us to activate a lot of this legacy tech well ahead of our ability to do it on our own.
“That boosted level of empowerment,” Leon continued, “might serve the Kang initially, but if we can win the legacy tech back from them, it’ll ultimately empower us to play on an even bigger stage. Give us more bargaining power with the other galaxies under The Collectors’ influence.
“And if we can’t escape The Collectors on our own, and even when working in collaboration with the other galactic empires in their Menagerie, then we’re going to need something to negotiate with to solicit the help of TGCs and TGEs further up the food chain that might otherwise be disinclined to intervene in our fate.”
“That’s assuming we can open communications with TGCs and TGEs outside the Menagerie,” Patent said.
Leon groaned. “Yes, I suppose a little positive thinking is implied. Still, knowing just what the Dead Zone technology can do can go a long way to that end.”
Patent sighed. “True enough. But that’s one dangerous game you’re playing, Leon. Have you received the intel yet on The Space-Time Alchemists?”
Leon groaned. “Yes.”
“If any one of the more mature Kang Queens manages to negotiate a deal with that civilization, she’ll take over our Milky Way Galaxy,” Patent said, “and then she’ll be the one negotiating an exit strategy with tech other TGCs and TGEs besides The Collectors will be drooling to get their hands on.”
Leon ran his hands over his bald, sweaty scalp. “Yes, I considered that. It’s a risk we’re going to have to take. The luxury of exploring all this tech on our own, without interference from the Kang, once the galaxies are pulled apart…That could well take us far more time than we have. Dead Zone technology is dangerously far beyond our understanding. And give the Kang one thing, what they lack in creativity they make up for in other ways. Their Tesla types are good at making use of tech that is ultimately beyond them. They can do it in far less time than we can.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Leon breathed heavily into the COMMS channel while he considered their next move.
“Don’t mean to interrupt you in the middle of masterminding your next Guardians of the Galaxy play,” Cassandra interjected, “but we have business that requires our immediate attention.”
Leon didn’t even bother looking up at the portal. He needed to make the most of deep thinking mode before it was lost and couldn’t be accessed again for some time. “Maybe it’s high time we engaged Alpha Unit. These kids have a lot more experience with battles like this than we have.”
“In VR! Are you out of your mind? They’re kids, Leon. And they’re just not ready to face anything this ugly, I tell you.”
“Gamma Group is focused on keeping the more aggressive Kang warrior drones away from our Dead Zone legacy tech, when and if it pops up on their radar. Let’s loose Alpha Unit on the Kang Tesla corps. They’ll ascertain what makes their proclivity for tech so superlative before anyone else can. Barring that, Alpha Unit might beat them at their own game for puzzling out alien tech. Or at least find a way to steal it back from them once the Kang Tesla types do figure it out.
“And if all else fails, there are still a lot of planets colliding with Dead Zone habitats we’re losing before we can even ascertain what they can do. It’s like the damn Amazon Jungle mass extinction event where we lost two-thirds of the world’s biodiversity before we even knew what the hell we had.
“Alpha Unit might be able to hack their way into the Legacy Tech habitats enough to at least get them out of the path of destruction. We may have sent in Theta Team prematurely, when we should have had Alpha Unit figure out how to turn the lights on first, reboot the habitat AIs, before Theta Team set out to interact with the ecosystems within those habitats.”
Patent was silent. Leon had presented him with a series of challenges well suited to Alpha Unit, as
much as he’d like to shirk them right now.
“Fine, Leon. You win.” Patent signed off the line without being excused. He was usually the last one to brook disrespect for Leon from anyone. To experience it coming from Patent himself was unusual, to say the least. But Leon realized if he couldn’t be on scene to lend protection to each one of his Alpha Unit teens, he’d hold himself to blame if something happened, not them. Tough. Patent could figure out how to clone himself without Mother’s help, or deal with the consequences of living large like the rest of them.
Leon only now realized he’d given the order to clone Patent and the Alpha Unit teams earlier so they would be on board of as many formerly Dead Zone cylinder worlds as possible to keep them out of harm’s way playing two games at once of When Galaxies Collide and When the Kang and Leon Go Head to Head. Patent hadn’t bothered correcting him, figuring he’d catch up with his own thinking soon enough, once his stress level dropped. So, if Patent was pissed off, it was about the idea of Alpha Unit getting a little too up close and personal with the Kang Tesla types.
Leon raised his eyes to the UFO’s monitor.
He should have had the sense to listen to Cassandra sooner.
“What is this?” he asked.
“I thought I’d find out what the various buttons did. This appears to be another Patent invention. The device is like space sonar. It detects anomalous bodies that cannot simply be classified as extraterrestrial. Currently it is programmed to ignore Dead Zone tech. So whatever this is…”
“It’s not a natural phenomenon, and the Dead Zone peoples did not create it. Please tell me we have more to go on than that.” Leon realized the look he was giving Cassandra bordered on pleading.
The port to deep space revealed what could well pass as a jellyfish, glowing at deep ocean depths miles down on Earth. Only this “jellyfish” could easily fit a few suns and their associated planets inside it—could and in fact did. “Is that thing alive?” Leon asked, “Or some kind of bizarre light phenomenon, like the aurora borealis, put out by the clashing of solar wavelengths from those suns in ways we’re not familiar with?”
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