by Skyler Grant
"They've caused us more trouble than anyone else. Over and over again," Hot Stuff said.
"Why were you never a part of them? You wandered the wasteland with a gang instead of joining the one faction that would have welcomed you with open arms."
"I hated my crystal. It wasn't safe for anyone to be near me, you know that. I only even had a gang because ... well ... you know how my powers spread."
The original variant of her gifts was spread through sexual contact. In a few rare cases partners would manifest a more limited version of her own powerset, but most had simply died screaming.
"Your murderousness is something I've never doubted. It isn't an answer to my question though. They'd have welcomed that too," I said.
"Because I didn't like either about myself and they'd have glorified it. I didn't have much in the wasteland, but I had my space to be whatever I am with my people. At least until you killed them all."
People held such grudges when you killed off their friends. I didn't, I just made new friends. Everyone should have growth vats, it made interpersonal dynamics so much easier.
I said, "I admire them, too. They're all quite mad, of course, but they'll accept anyone if they have power. They'll bend knee to any who has the strength to force them down."
"Yet isn't all of this about you stopping the powerful?" Hot Stuff asked.
"The tallest trees in a forest kill everything around them. They wind up killing themselves. They consume too much of the resources everything else needs. The strongest predators are the same, they'll fill a world with extinction events of those other species who had once thought them appetizing," I said.
"This isn't about making a more peaceful universe. Not really. This is about ... an even more dangerous one?" Hot Stuff asked.
"Look at what we've made because we tried to kill each other. Because predators of equal strengths repeatedly came together. The Scholarium has always been like that and I learn my lessons well."
Hot Stuff let out a weary sigh. "I hate this. I hate all of it."
I knew she didn't. It didn't matter. The flame didn't need to understand or approve of the destruction it could bring, it just needed to kill off the tallest of the trees.
116
I jumped in the fleet. It was a mixed force, a number of my Juggernauts along with several massive Scythe ships. Whatever race they were from, they'd been compelled long ago; the vessels were falling apart and life-signs were minimal.
I'd chosen to hit the Eldonari expanse, an arm of Wrax territory away from the Council. It was my hope we'd find defenses light there and response to our incursion slow. I just needed a ship to hit with one of my new warheads, and then buy the Scythe enough time to hopefully take over their psionic network.
The Eldonari expanse didn't have much in it. A deep-space listening station and two small warships. The moment we jumped in I fired distortion missiles at all three. None reached their targets. They weren't dimension-shifted from what I could tell, but they were all definitely off-sensors.
I devoted more attention to the battle. I could think far faster than my drones or any organic species I had yet to meet, although purely mechanic computers did have an edge on me in speed.
What was happening here?
There was little point in firing more missiles. I might later, if it came to it. Sometimes swarming attacks could overwhelm any defense, but it was better still to figure out what was happening first.
Definitely no dimensional shift. It would have been a great defensive system, and something like ones I had tested, but it wasn't what they were using. The missiles weren't impacting any sort of energy shield—that would have resulted in an explosion and left behind debris. Were they being converted to energy? No, no detectable radiation or exotic particles like I'd expect from something like that.
Teleportation? Teleportation technology would leave behind certain energy traces, and reviewing the logs I decided none were present.
There was something off about the dimensional field readings though, but I couldn't quite grasp what. I had a solution for this, though I'd have to burn a few seconds. I sent the data through to Caya's console and lifted my intense focus.
There, her finger had flicked over the readings I'd sent. Where? Mass readings—why would the mass readings be making any difference? But they were.
They were unchanged. My missiles weren't gone, they were still having their full effect on the local dimensional engines.
Invisible?
What was the point of rendering an enemy’s weapons invisible to them? Well, there was some point, because it had certainly caused me a moment of scrambling.
If they were invisible there was no point in continuing my intense focus. I lifted it and the flow of the battle resumed. The distortion of singularity corridors were opening in the distance, the Wrax were jumping in ships.
There, the first missile should have impacted and nothing had happened. I resumed my focus and let time once again seem to crawl to a slow.
Not invisible.
Even with my processing power it took several nanoseconds of studying the dimensional readings to figure out what the Wrax had done, mostly because I'd not encountered similar technology anywhere else. Miniaturization. My missiles were there, but they'd been shrunk.
Neither my Juggernauts nor the Scythe vessels had been shrunk, so that meant some sort of limitation to the technology. Maximum size of the target vessel? Energy shielding? Proximity?
Energy shielding was the easiest to test for. I couldn't modify missiles nearly as fast as I could think, but several seconds later I had an upgraded version ready to go. This time packed with energy shields modified from Aegis battle armor. Despite the relatively small size of the units they would let those missiles absorb a fair bit of punishment.
A launch quickly proved the new variants weren't effective. At the same distance they simply seemed to vanish, shrunk again.
The Wrax fleet had arrived, an assortment of seventeen vessels, and they were already opening fire. In addition to the traditional and expected energy beams they had some offensive capabilities unlike anything I'd seen before. One utilized something that seemed like a monofilament net flung from a vessel, another was some sort of a focused gravity beam.
It wasn't that much of a surprise. So many species had given the Wrax a great deal of different viewpoints to shape their technology, and they'd obviously learned the advantages to hitting the Galactic Council in ways they didn't expect.
I could hit in ways people didn't expect too.
It would require another rework of the missiles, making them no longer missiles at all. Originally designed to detonate just outside of a ship’s hull and encompass it in a dimensional bubble, I could modify them into bombs with a smaller field.
As soon as Vinci had the new prototypes ready to go, I used teleporters to get them directly aboard the enemy vessels.
Ripples of energy announced my teleporters were back aboard. No sign the bombs had done their work, not yet, but if their psionic network was now vulnerable the Scythe would be acting on it. I just had to give them cover.
I interposed my ships between the Scythe and the enemy fleet, letting them take the brunt of the offense. It was fairly quick as organic battles went, ninety-six seconds elapsing before the enemy vessels stopped firing.
Success, and with the defensive armada neutralized I began jumping in fleets throughout their empire. They would categorize and sort life-forms and technology, and send the best of what was found back to the testing labyrinths.
I recorded everything, of course. Swarms of my vessels moved over Wrax worlds and I bundled up all the data collected to send to the Deepmind.
I didn't know if Anna was right, but she had always had a certain flair for detecting another's weakness and exploiting it. If theirs really was fear, they were right to be afraid.
We might be leaving this part of space for good, but before we went, we had business to do. One last war to fight. The Wrax d
idn't want to be on the wrong side of that.
117
The Labyrinth was my creation of which I was most proud. When I'd started an extra-dimensional research facility it had originally been just for the purposes of keeping the Council from seeing what I was up to. It hadn't been long until I saw the possibilities.
My laboratories at this point extended into over one thousand dimensions, winding through different planes with different physical laws, and allowing me the facilities to hold and study almost anything.
Currently that now included the Wrax.
Over a hundred species to dissect, vivisect, and run through combat labyrinths. That was before I started testing hybrids and making custom blends.
I wasn't just interested in enhancing my combat drones, although of course I was. Being largely biological myself these new species offered a wealth of possible improvements. One of the Wrax species had a degree of electro-kinesis that was more adept than even the crystalline variants I'd researched, and the improvements this would let me make to my neural fibers was impressive—and that governed everything I did, from research speeds to reaction times in battle.
Other improvements were more subtle. Camouflage systems that would allow a whole new way to passively mask my ships from detection.
While the wide range of discoveries was expected, some of the findings were still turning out to be complete surprises. One of the Wrax species were essentially an assortment of symbiotic viruses, colonies of entities that shouldn't have even been able to survive. From what we'd found on the Wrax ships they weren't without assistance. They had to regularly inject neutral cells for the viruses to conquer simply to remain functional.
I should be terrified of sentient viruses, given my organic nature, and certainly I was factoring their data into my immune response. But the possibilities!
A virus, at its core, took a cell that did one thing and transformed it into one that did something else. Organic systems tended to be so inflexible, but with something like this I could change that. A limiting factor to my developing anything had always been versatility versus specialization. A drone with superhuman strength and no other virtues would be very useful in some circumstances, and largely useless in a great many more.
While I'd once built a lot of specialized units, I'd time and time again found myself defeated by generalists. A foe that could determine your weak spot and use it against you was the most dangerous enemy you would ever face.
But if I could quickly modify even my most powerful units, I no longer had to be versatile. I could design the most extreme variants I could think of to maximize specific attributes and when I determined an enemy’s weakness, modify whatever forces I had locally to take advantage of it.
There were two main types of mutagens I should focus on. The primary drones throughout the Empire were humans, and I didn't see any reason to change that. Most of the forces we'd absorbed over time were human, and while I had Gobbles, Martians, and others in some specialized roles, largely I'd stuck to humans because of their versatility. It made sense for a baseline.
What I needed then was virus mutation packs that could quickly transform those humans into something else.
Close combat was the first concern, and I currently utilized Gobbles in most of those roles for a reason. Yes, yes, when properly fitted into a combat exoskeleton a human could be a formidable force, but the goal of this was to forgo the need for the armor.
Gobble claws worked well as a close-range melee weapon, especially if I enhanced them with some of the monofilament technology I'd observed in the Wrax battle. Claws so fine they'd be able to cute through even reinforced ceramic plate. The Gobbles were still too squishy though, fur simply wasn't what I needed.
I settled on scales. With an awareness of any bandwidths weapons I could set them to be reflective on such a level I'd render my forces immune to most energy weapon damage, and with some durability upgrades they'd take a lot of punishment from kinetic weapons as well.
Another mutagen was probably wise, because not every battle went my way. It wouldn't take much to turn a human being into a bioreactor, their organic body a shell around it. In the event of a ship being lost or a battle turning against me I could quite literally transform my people into bombs. It was worth designing.
It begged the question, if I could transform my people in bombs, could I transform the enemy? Or into something more useless? That was far more difficult given I never knew quite what I'd be fighting, but I did know the major races that made up the Council. Their general biological data was kept in all our medical facilities, just in case.
I was certain they had their own defenses against biological warfare. Still, it didn't hurt to have solutions ready. I prepared them.
I wasn't quite done. The same changes that applied to my drones could also apply to my own vessels. Ships often tended towards one offensive technology, usually either something based around kinetic energy or one that utilized some sort of energy beam.
I made use of energy shields and armor plating so I could be defended against both, but the same scales that were meant to defend my drones against beam weapons could also work for my hulls.
It wouldn't be practical to use them as a standard; kinetic weapons were too popular, but if facing a foe that relied on beam energy, I could change my armor to be a secondary beam defense in the case energy shields fell.
I reviewed my new discoveries. They weren't just unique in the Council, they were unique to me. If the Council had been watching me and planning a defense against me, this would take them by surprise.
That was good, because all that we'd done hadn't gone unnoticed. Long-range sensors were detecting a fleet in transit on the way to Earth. The time for hiding in shadows was past.
118
I couldn't tell exactly what fleet was about to hit Earth, but their singularity drives distorted space before their arrival. Judging by this around twenty-five ships were on the way.
It didn't sound like much, not given the numbers that Earth could field—and the allies that we already had. However, the Council was millions of years ahead of us technologically. Not all of their ships were that advanced, of course, and like any great power they'd have a mix of forces. Still, even the oldest and most run-down of their fleet was likely to be superior to anything I had.
The hope had been to go unnoticed until we were ready to strike at them, but there was always the possibility they'd act first. There were plans for this too. I'd been backing up the residents of the Sol system often, and kept the bulk of the navy off-system.
It didn't mean Sol was undefended. Between orbital defense platforms and planet-based projector cannons there was a lot of firepower in system even without the navy present. I'd even added some new weaponry based on the scavenged Wrax designs.
I laid a minefield through where they were set to appear, a mass of amplified crystal nuclear bombs backed with dimensional distortion fields.
The Council always had problems with dimensional technology and I thought I had more chance than not of actually doing them some damage this way. The real fun would begin if I could breach their shields and get a proper scan of their interiors. With that I'd be able to teleport forces aboard. Capturing one of those vessels would do a lot to advance our technological understanding, even if the next step of our grand plan failed.
The ships materialized and it wasn't good news—they hadn't sent their worst. Glikt Class battle cruisers. They were a backbone of the Council navy, capable of planetary bombardments and renowned for their durability.
It was time to put that reputation to the test.
My mines were already detonating within the first second of their arrival. Distortions of dimensional space twisting and warping around the battle cruisers, and causing their shields to strain even as the bombs went off.
When the blast arcs faded and my sensors could get a proper reading again the ships were still there, seemingly untouched with their shields rippling around them. They
launched missiles, dozens of warheads heading towards Mars, Venus, and Earth.
They weren't even bothering with the defense platforms first, they were going straight for the population centers.
Shielded missiles, so I couldn't even get a proper read on the payload, but it was certain to be bad. Time to try out those newly acquired Wrax defenses. Their miniaturization had certainly made my attempts to bomb them more difficult, and energy shielding hadn't prevented it. I still didn't understand the technology, not really. I'd found from Wrax databanks they'd traded for it from a formerly ascended species. I didn't need to understand to replicate.
I put it to the test, teleporting miniaturization emitters into the path of the missiles and firing a pulse. It worked—for about three quarters of them it worked. Why it didn't work on the remaining missiles I really had no idea. I launched a second round of emitters just in case it was faulty hardware. Nothing, they ignored the second pulse as well.
So there was a defense against miniaturization tech and the Council had it. The costs must be high in some way or they'd have shielded every missile. There was time, and I'd throw everything I had at the remaining ones. Knowing that the Council both had a defense against miniaturization tech and were sparing about using it opened up another possibility. I put the Vinci foundry to work producing emitters as fast as she could, and by the time the missiles had advanced halfway to their targets I had enough to surround the enemy fleet.
I initiated a pulse.
The ships weren't destroyed, I wasn't that fortunate, but at least they did something to those vaunted Council vessels. My best bombs hadn't scratched their shields, but the miniaturization emitters had warped and twisted their hull armor. Parts of the hull had shrunken, folding in on itself, and were causing the ships to vent atmosphere. More than that, in a few places it had caught the shield emitters and their defense grids were down. That was just what I'd been waiting for. I sent in the teleporters, squads of drones whom I'd already mutated using my new viral mutagens. Each squad carried a container of aerosolized virus to be pumped into the ship’s atmosphere, the better to teach whatever crew were aboard the true power of SCIENCE.