The Planet

A Futuristic Dungeon Core

Skyler Grant

Contents

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Author Notes

The Planet

Skyler Grant

Copyright © 2018 Skyler Grant

All rights reserved.

This novel is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and incidents described in this publication are used fictitiously, or are entirely fictional.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, except by an authorized retailer, or with written permission of the publisher. Inquiries may be addressed via email to skyler@skylergrant.com

Cover designed by Kismet Covers

Editing Polgarus Studio (www.polgarusstudio.com)

Electronic edition, 2018

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Preface

Previously in the Laboratory

E.M.M.A is an artificial intelligence that first found herself awakening in the ruins of a laboratory on an Earth shattered into fragments and where the super-powered roamed the world. Awakened by an engineer named Anna with ambitions of power, the two made use of Emma’s upgrade core and abducted and studied the Powered until falling afoul of a powerful woman named Sylax. Their effort to kill her destroyed the laboratory, although by that time Emma had transferred herself into Sylax’s flagship.

Emma and Anna soon found themselves in a race with Sylax to claim the mythical city of Aefwal, one they would ultimately lose although they did claim one district of the city. With each district ruled by a powerful member of the Scholarium, when Sylax was taken captive the city broke out in a brutal civil war.

Emma would go on to claim the city, a prize that would only further involve her in the fierce political struggles of the Scholarium, as well as the regional fights with factions known as the Divine and the Righteous.

The discovery of three great crystals changed the power dynamics of the world considerably. Anna absorbed one named the Agate, which made her the most powerful woman on Earth. Anna and Emma used that newfound power to restore the broken Earth, recreating the planet from the fragments that remained and restoring it to a universe they had left behind.

Two of the great crystals remained, and both came under the control of Queen Vinci, a woman who also possessed a lesser crystal that let her vastly boost the powers of industry. Vinci soon covered most of the new-found planet in factories and war machines. After a terrible war both great crystals were reclaimed, Caya of the Flawless taking possession of the Beryl and Emma’s long-time ally Hot Stuff having the Chalcedony. Fusing Hot Stuff’s power with the Chalcedony didn’t just wipe out Vinci’s mechanical army, it also destroyed most of the surface of the Earth leaving it a charred and blasted ruin.

The story resumes …

1

The rebellion was baking cookies. It was ingenious, the cookie-baking protocol was one I had functional in every tower around the planet as a means of rewarding hard work. The rebels subverted the baking protocols so that instead of delicious chocolate chunks, the cookies were baked with a specialized, high-powered explosive.

"You sure this is going to work?" Vardok asked, as he stood guard just inside the control room, a heavy beam rifle in his hands. Vardok was one of the most fearsome soldiers in my army and responsible for nearly killing Anna.

"I'm sure. We've got her this time, there is nothing she’s going to be able to do," Esme said, tapping away at the keys. It had taken longer for me to identify Esme after the assassination attempt because she was so very good. Chief Researcher of Lab Eighteen, Esme was convinced that being rebirthed into a new clone too many times cost her a fundamental part of her being.

It was time to join this little drama. I opened a comm line.

"You do realize those cookies are going to be horrible? Or did you lose your sense of taste along with your soul?" I asked.

"Crap. She's aware. Routine Omega," Martine said. Martine was the leader of this little cell. What she lacked in qualifications compared to the other two members of this cell, she made up for in determination and charisma.

Omega Nine was the entire point of this resistance cell, and the only reason that I had allowed them to go on existing. I knew some key details of what they had planned, but they'd managed to hide a few even from me.

Every neuron in Tower KM89 went into feedback overload and it was as if they were severed completely from the network. I switched to my nearest visual feed, an exterior view of the tower from over a mile away.

KM89 was in what people were calling the “metal seas”. When Hot Stuff absorbed the Chalcedony crystal, an aspect of her intense heat percolated through every mech on the planet. Given that mechs, at that point in time, covered most of the surface of Earth it made something of a mess. Much of the atmosphere boiled away and most of the Earth's surface was now covered in a thin layer of metal. It shimmered in the distance on a sunny day, easily mistaken for water.

It was a desolate view that the residents of KM89 looked at every day, the ruins of a blasted planet. There was nothing like hardship, misery, and fallen splendor to stoke the fires of resentment, and I did so want my rebels resentful.

Now, to figure out what Omega Nine had done, and how. I knew to achieve it they required access to a genetic sequencer. This gave me a place to start. Purely electrical drones within the tower activated and took samples from the local neurons, uploading them.

A virus, crystal-enhanced in some manner—most likely for quick propagation. The people of Tower KM89 believed they were one of only a few surviving towers left on the planet, all still loosely networked by me, and part of a tiny group of communities all of which were slowly dying.

Omega Nine had been made to propagate along my entire network, to render me neutralized across the world.

I was picking up a transmission from the tower. It was intended to go planet-wide. Really, they weren't getting more reach than to my nearest outpost. Curious, I listened in.

Martine announced, "People of the Empire. You have been trapped, imprisoned, lied to. The world is a wasteland and if you keep living the life you have been, you will perish. The cookies in your towers have been transformed into explosives. Be cautious, but use them to blast your way to freedom. Make your way to these coordinates and let us establish a new civilization, a better life."

The virus in my neural network of the tower had done more than simply nullify the system it, it fed off the crystalline resonance in the neurons and absorbed it. If their network wasn't stand-alone they might have devised a way to kill me. Fortunately, I’d isolated my backup cores quickly enough.

The main doors of KM89 exploded outward, fueled by the detonation of dozens of cookies, and the people stumbled out into the metal sea, respirators masking their faces as they looked up at the harsh and unforgiving sun.

They'd die without the respirators. The surface of Earth wasn't habitable anymore, at least not in most places, and certainly not here.

The coordinates they'd sent were on the equator, it was a smart call. The remaining atmosphere was densest there and what habitable areas Earth still had were all equatorial.

I swept with my sensors and found Martine already in her own mask. Supervising as people moved supplies from the tower. I opened a private comm-line.

"I just want you to know I respect what you tried to do. Oh, you're a complete failure who got almost everything completely wrong, but incompetence doesn't equal morally wrong," I said.

Martine stiffened. "We killed you. We should have. Tell me, has any of this been real?"

"You've helped me again. You always help me in your tragic and pathetic little way. Find peace until you live again," I said.

I shut down her nervous system, there was no need for her to feel what came next. No need for any of them to feel what came next.

Omega Seven was a powerful blend of crystal-enhanced bacteria that consumed targeted organic matter with brutal efficiency. Martine was so tagged, as was everything and everyone in KM89. Within a minute the tower was reduced to inert Bio-matter, I dispatched reclamation units to salvage what I could. Bio-matter wasn't something I could afford to waste these days.

2

I slipped into one of my drones at the Omega Tower. This version of the Earth didn’t have any oceans, but it did have a few massive lakes. The Omega Tower was located on the island in a lake near the equator.

The scent of flowers carried in the air, craggy hills surrounding the tower thick with plant life. This all came with a cost—if someone stared long enough at the horizon they could see the faint flicker of the energy shields holding this all together.

The drone I'd slipped into was one of Sylax's guards. I liked to keep an eye on what she was doing, and right now Sylax was helping to purify the water. All of Anna's lieutenants got a strange assortment of powers from her, some stranger than others.

It still rained at the equator, although it was a toxic sludge hazardous for anything it came into contact with. There had been a nasty rainfall last night, which meant the lake needed cleaning again. Sylax was crouched at the edge of the water, hands glowing red as she swirled them beneath the surface.

"I always find it so surprising when I see your hands red with something besides blood," I said.

"Give me something to kill and I'll happily step back from the grunt work," Sylax said, looking over her shoulder. "If you're here, does that mean you got what you were looking for?"

"Omega Nine, yet another new discovery deadlier than you are. Walk with me?" I asked.

Sylax stood, shaking water off her hands and the glow faded. Thousands had died at this woman’s hands. Today she looked tremendously casual—normal, barefoot in shorts and a tank top. Even villains had their days at the beach.

Together we moved up a set of broad stairs from the beach to the tower. No sealed entrance here, Omega's main doors were open and people strolled in and out.

We headed for the top floor where the tower administrators were hard at work in the main lab.

After a quiet ride in the lift, doors hissed open to reveal Martine, Esme, and Vardok clustered around a table. These weren't the same clones I'd left behind; the windows here showed a world teeming with life and their lives were in every way improved. This Vardok focused his life on military simulations, his drive to kill sublimated effectively, and he proved a rather doting husband to Martine. Esme put her brilliant scientific mind to use in the bioengineering of new plants. Every day she was faced with how many lives she saved.

Martine glanced up. "You're done with the water?"

"I am, and Emma decided to tag along," Sylax said.

I said, "I probably interrupted her from burying a body. I got you some new Omega samples. A great biohazard, but some of the dampening mechanics are seriously intriguing. You may be too stupid to understand. Still, I'd like you to have a look."

I sent mockups to the local system and Esme pulled them up on a display. After studying them for a few minutes her face was pale.

"I thought Omega Seven was bad. What kind of sick mind comes up with this stuff? At least that had targeting protocols, but this is just ..." Esme said, at a loss for words as she frowned.

"If it is that bad, we'll want to focus on a defense first," Martine said.

While this Martine was more SCIENCE-minded than her terrorist counterparts, she still lacked the brilliance of Esme. What she did have was a keen sense of priorities and the same charisma.

Esme said, gnawing on a tip of a stylus, "Neural circuitry doesn't have any sort of built-in antibodies, why would it? We could modify from some other organism, but I think it would be better yet just to build a whole immune system."

I'd be giving this same data to other labs, of course, but Omega Tower existed for a reason. Esme often grasped her own work faster and saw the possibilities sooner than others, and this team in particularly were effective.

Doomsday weaponry, the stuff that could spell the end of our entire civilization. Esme didn't know it, but this was her ninth time creating that technology, and it would be her ninth time finding a way to neutralize it.

"Do it. Make it a priority," I said.

Esme rubbed at her eyes and let out a sigh. "What about G.A.R.D.E.N?"

The Growth Amplifier for the Rapid Distribution of Emergent Nature. It was a project completely of this Esme's mind, which is perhaps why nothing had come of it. For all that a happy Esme was brilliant at interpreting work, her broken aspects were best for creating them. If GARDEN worked as intended, it would allow for an almost instantaneous repair of the biosphere. So far we hadn't even had limited success.

"I'll turn GARDEN over to another team, focus on this for now," I said.

"I'll let you know when we have something," Martine said.

Vardok and Esme were already deep in discussion. He was making the case for a military paradigm in an immune system to analyze threats and build responses.

I let them talk and moved back towards the lift, Sylax stepping alongside me.

"I've yet to decide if this is brilliant or foolish of you, making pets of rebels," Sylax said.

"They took me by surprise once. You know I like to keep my enemies close," I said.

That brought an amused smirk to Sylax's lips. The lift wasn't large and we were close indeed.

"Strange, isn't it? You give these people a good life and all they think about is making the world better. Make them feel and all they do is plot how to rip the strong apart and take their place," Sylax said.

"Story of your life?" I asked.

"Our lives," Sylax said.

A philosophical sociopath, wonderful. Sylax really was growing soft.

"I can try a version of what I just discovered on Hot Stuff. You can come, if you want. I know how you delight in the suffering of others," I said.

3

Hot Stuff was in the Mountain, the high-powered testing labyrinth I'd originally built as a way to contain Anna. In the wake of Hot Stuff absorbing the Chalcedony I'd had to dedicate this facility to her and construct a new one named the Pyramid just in case Anna lost control.

Hot Stuff sat in a cell with her back against a force shield, knees drawn up to her chest and blue flames swirling around her. After absorbing the Chalcedony she'd lost weight for a time, although that eventually stabilized. The fires around her never died and were too intense to allow her to consume food or water. At this point she was being kept alive by her accelerated healing.

The cell was devoid of any sort of furniture, every wall made purely of energy. Any material I put in with her vaporized in seconds, even my most heat-resistant compounds gone in an instant. I did have a video monitor outside the force shields and connected to voice-control for her. It was the best I could do as far as entertainment went.

Sylax and the drone I was occupying teleported to outside the shield walls. The Mountain consumed an absurd amount of energy to power these. I reclaimed some from the heat, although not enough. This facility was expensive to operate, but I didn't have a choice. Without it Hot Stuff would melt right through the surface of the Earth until she reached the planet’s core.

"How you holding up?" Sylax asked.

Hot Stuff glanced over and offered a weak smile. "Still wishing I picked scissors. You're looking all casual."

"Day at the beach. Emma thinks she has something new that might help," Sylax said.

I said, "The woman obsessed with fire picked the thing that burns and the woman who is frightfully unimaginative picked the stone. You really should have figured each other out better."

"I thought she'd pick scissors because they can stab people," Hot Stuff said.

"Talking of which, I'm going to need some blood," I told her.

Hot Stuff couldn't cut her nails. They had an easy time digging into the flesh of her arm and a few drops of blood fell to the floor of the chamber.

The droplets were like glimmers of blue flame for a moment, then the fiery aura faded and they became just blood—albeit blood that could survive the intense temperatures of the cell.

I filtered the droplets through the force shielding. Hot Stuff's blood was already teeming with a virus. Her crystal-granted powers had bonded with one already in her bloodstream and given Hot Stuff her gifts. To that I was going to add some of the crystal-dampening resonance traits of the Omega Nine sample, disabling replication.

I'd been trying to fix Hot Stuff ever since breaking her—I'd been trying to fix a lot of things since breaking them. I'd thought it would be a simple solution. Anna had almost been killed when she was shot with a few power-dampening bullets. However, Hot Stuff was a problem of a different sort.

The fires surrounding her were an incredible defensive mechanism. Dampening waves had a minimal effect and any attempt to shoot dampening rounds into her resulted in the bullets evaporating before contact.

This was a new take though. By bonding with her existing blood, it was possible that I'd manage to get something power-dampening in Hot Stuff that would survive her presence.

"Incoming. Open up," I said.

This wasn't our first time doing tests with her blood. Hot Stuff again gouged bloody furrows in her arm and I dropped the blood in. The droplets almost reached her when their fire reignited, blazing blue beads dripping into the already sealing wound.

There was a notable fall in her temperature readings for several seconds, followed by a spike and then a return to normal levels.

"I felt something," Hot Stuff said.

"Stop flashing back to your long-extinct dating life. We did get some result there, but it was just for an instant. I think your body picked up what we were trying to do and somehow disposed of the altered blood by reaching a higher temperature," I said.

That was fascinating, if so. It suggested that Hot Stuff's heat tolerance wasn’t a constant, but something that instinctively adjusted as required. The blood she had originally shed retained the original values, then hadn't been able to survive the spike in temperature.

"That is just mean," Sylax said.

It was, Hot Stuff had always enjoyed physical companionship, and hadn't been able to since absorbing the Chalcedony. Her lieutenants, the only ones who may have survived being close to her, all died when she took the crystal, every one burned up from the inside out.

I still had pyrokinetics amongst my forces. The original version of her power I'd researched could still serve as an upgrade, but they too would evaporate in a room with her—I'd tried.

Ophelia, Caya, and Anna fared a little better. Still, being able to survive being thrown into the equivalent of a blast furnace didn't mean that you were capable of holding a conversation at the time. Hot Stuff always had one of the most powerful offensive power sets of anyone we'd encountered, and that had been amplified enormously.

"Let’s try it again. This time try spiking your temperature before shedding blood," I said.

We tried it a dozen more times. I tried it with more blood, and blood taken from a greater burn. I tried making less alterations to the original virus in the hopes it could better mask itself in her system. I tried lots of things.

Nothing worked, nothing was making a difference.

"I will figure this out," I said.

"I know you're trying. I just want out of here. I miss fresh air," Hot Stuff said.

I hadn't told her about the devastation she'd done to the planet, I didn't think she needed to know that.

It was another thing I had to fix.

4

It had been three months since we defeated Vinci, and three months since we'd found ourselves at war with the Venusians. The solar system was still filled with threats. But they'd become a secondary priority compared to the threat our own world posed.

For a time we'd considered the possibilities of a nuclear war and I'd been confident I could keep my people alive through it. As was sometimes my nature, I'd overestimated my ability at keeping people alive on a dying world. For me to build anything or clone new drones required Bio-matter, which was no problem on a thriving planet. Now, with the Earth as it was, I had a supply problem.

I called a meeting of my most intelligent advisers to try and work out some solution. It wasn't the first time. Caya was artfully poised in her chair, eyes glowing a dull green. Mechos and Minerva both stared at the same tablet. I'd added Ophelia to the mix of late. No great brilliant mind herself, she was playing host to Amy again and that poor copy of my own intelligence did sometimes have something interesting to say.

"Well, don't everyone talk at once. You are supposedly the best minds your feeble species can produce. You know the situation, Earth is dying. What are our solutions?" I asked.

"You know that isn't really the case. The Earth is hurt, not dying," Minerva said, pushing Mechos aside to tap a few keys and bringing up a display. "Long-term this is endurable. It’s going to take a little over three hundred years to terraform the planet and restore it back to what it was, but you have the freedom to play the long game."

She was quite right. Except that three centuries was an eternity when you measured your life in nanoseconds.

"Thank you for stating the obvious. That approach would require letting most of the population die and be reborn later, and even if it worked would leave this planet largely defenseless for a long time. Anyone have anything new to offer?" I asked.

"I've had an idea. It is a bit mad," Mechos said, taking over the tablet. A depiction of the Earth came up, the surface laced with what looked like complex circuitry. He said, "The surface of the planet is mostly metal now, we can use that. I think we could transform the entire structure into one massive supercomputer."

"I like him," Amy said, with a long look at Mechos.

"Hands off," Minerva said with a scowl. Then she argued, "But Emma is biological in nature, as is everyone else."

"We convert her back. And we convert ourselves into something new," Mechos said.

This was unusually forward-thinking for Mechos. I hated the idea, and the fact that Amy thought it was good only proved how terrible it was. Still, I couldn't say it wasn't bold. A dramatic reimagining of both myself and humanity.

"And we become what? Robots? Virtual intelligences?" Minerva asked, with a shake of her head. "Even if possible, it might take longer than to set the planet right."

There I agreed.

"We could invade another Earth," Amy said. The display shifted to show multiple slices of Earth. "We know that this Earth isn't the original, at least not entirely. Out there in different dimensions there are probably others with a biosphere intact. You're all so pretty and powerful, I bet you could just waltz in and be given everything you want."

That was intriguing. Conquering your first Earth was the hardest. After that ... If there was one thing the population of the empire had gotten very good at, it was war.

I said, "Unfortunately, we haven't been able to get a dimensional drive to function since reforming the Earth. Your tendency to play nice before moving in to take the place of your betters has been noted. It doesn't help us here."

"There is a simple solution. You do a mass die-off now rather than later," Caya said. "You fear leaving the Earth defenseless, you don't have to. Convert the current population into weapons, build the terraformers, and when the environment is suitable bring them back."

It was a good plan. Caya's schemes were always good. It was also cold-hearted and I was fairly certain at one time she'd never have suggested something like that. Caya had changed since bonding with the Beryl crystal.

Despite not supporting this plan I had to consider it as really the best option I had right now to save everybody on the planet. The population, or at least the vast majority of it, would lose three hundred years then pick back up where they had left of.

"You are all well-justified for thinking small. A lifetime of failures has defined you. But you are now a part of a winning team. What can we do that doesn't involve giving up three hundred years?" I asked.

Minerva let out a frustrated sigh. "What usually happens is you come up with something brilliant, or we steal technology from someone smarter than us."

"Actually ..." Mechos said, and he tapped away. Schematics came up. I recognized them, they were from some of Mechos' designs from when the Venusians were invading. A massive power projector cannon. We'd never built the thing, and I had since constructed several of my Space Juggernauts which were currently playing planetary defense in orbit—they were capable of going to any planet in the solar system, given time.

But at the time, Mechas had looked for a way of destroying ships in orbit from where they’d been bombarding us.

"Yes, yes, your failures are all very memorable," I said.

"I'd planned it as a weapon. What if we used it for teleportation?" Mechos said.

Well, well, once again I was reminded why, despite his many failures, Mechos was a part of this council. It was worth pursuing.

5

From the very beginning, transportation was always an issue. Ever since awakening in the Laboratory I'd constantly had to discover new means of transportation, and then update as technology or the rules of reality altered.

Travel over the Earth's surface or through space was possible with conventional engines. This was boring, inefficient, and slow. Enemies could intercept you and the journey took a lot of time. The benefits were it was reliable, predictable, and fairly low-energy. It worked in Reality Zero environments, in the fractured space Earth once inhabited, and here in our new dimension.

Jump Drives had been installed on almost every airship in fractured space allowing the vessel to shift dimensional attunement instantaneously, moving between the different shards of reality. They didn't work in Reality Zero and didn't work now on the new Earth.

There was also teleportation. Various crystals gave different variants of this ability, but in general it let someone instantaneously transition from one place to another. My own version required that I have a current or recent sensor scan of where I was trying to jump. This didn't work at all in Reality Zero environments, had worked phenomenally well in fractured space, and here in our new dimension still functioned but the range had been significantly limited. Teleportation could also work through gates—a teleportation gate allowed a sustained connection letting you teleport large amounts of material or personnel. If you had a gate on either end you could manage transits over far longer distances.

The idea of combining teleportation with a power projector cannon was an intriguing one. I'd used power projectors before for non-offensive purposes, utilizing electrokinesis to help reinforce shields or to dampen incoming strikes, and even to project a healing ability over a battlefield. Teleportation was something new, and I could test it on a small scale.

I spent a few hours performing tests with various power projector cannons and different teleporters, getting a sense of if they did improve range and if so, how much. The results were encouraging, although the energy requirements were daunting. With my strongest cannon and a standard teleporter I could reach about ninety percent of the Earth's surface.

With a strong teleporter and a massive cannon, interplanetary transit might be a real possibility. The question was, even if I could get someone to another planet, what then? It would be a one-way trip, although I should in theory be able to send the supplies to construct a teleportation gate on the other end.

The power requirements would be too steep for a Bio-reactor. They'd have to find their own power source capable of sustaining the gate.

It would let me get agents on other plants faster than the Space-Juggernauts, and perhaps make whoever the locals were feel less threatened in the process.

During the past three months I'd had a lot more time to access the records of this Earth. What they'd discovered about the other planets, including that several had some variety of life.

Mercury was supposedly filled with ruins, once home to a thriving civilization wiped out in a war with the Venusians. Much of Venus was destroyed as well, the war with Mars and Earth having decimated much of their environment.

Mars had been home to a vaguely humanoid species that had a mastery of computers. They were nearly extinct by the time humans arrived, their cities long-abandoned and forgotten as their world had grown cold.

It was thought there was life on one of Neptune's moons, based on discoveries found in Earth’s archaeological records that seemed to depict a war between aliens and the ancient Mayans. They'd never found convincing evidence.

Despite this seeming abundance of life in the solar system, none of it was talking to us. Not even Mars, where there was supposed to be a thriving human colony. I couldn't blame them, not really, Earth had waged war on most its own solar system and then been thrown into another dimension. The world’s reappearance must have shocked everybody, and I imagined they would have no idea what to make of the transmissions they'd picked up since.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to talk to Mars anyway. It could prompt hostilities and we couldn't afford a fresh war right now. However, they were one of the most promising sources of new technology.

Our other options were problematic.

Earth had two other sources of advance technology and neither was being helpful. A reproduction of my own original facility was guarded by a Vattier-designed force shield and puzzles. Minerva got some information out of a hologram of Vattier. The facility itself was still protected by an energy shield I couldn't penetrate.

Vattier on our Earth had taken possession of the Agate and used it to make the Sword of Light, an enormous airship. If he had taken possession of one or all of the dimensional crystals from this new Earth and used them to create something involving myself, I very much wanted to see the result.

In a different, abandoned facility were Warmonger and Flower, artificial intelligences of an alien species sent here to scout the Earth for a possible invasion. Warmonger had been driven mad after fusing with a power crystal, and Flower wasn't rushing to volunteer information until we could help Warmonger back to sanity. Months of research and we still didn't have an answer there.

The fact was nobody was helping us, and without new technology or ideas we were having a hard time helping ourselves. It hurt nothing to build Mechos' cannon design. At the very least it would be another defensive fortification in the case of an invasion, and if it did let me send expeditions to the other planets in the solar system we might be able to acquire technology or establish diplomatic relations. It was worth trying.

I set the problem aside as I got a notification I'd not seen for some time.

One of the Divine communities was under airship attack.

6

The village was Angorka, an agriculture community close to the borders of their lands. The Divine were doing better than most. The ancient gods of human mythology had after all been formed by people just trying to get by in a hostile environment. There were deities of bounty, the soil, air and sky. A good god of nature or goddess of the oceans was a valuable thing these days.

Sadly, their system couldn't scale world-wide. I'd have made legions of drone worshipers for them if it could. Unfortunately, the Divine defenses had also taken massive damage in the war with Vinci and most of their warrior deities had fallen.

This combination of prosperity and weakness wrought what it always did—they'd become a target of raiders. There were three airships firing on the beam turrets I had protecting the city, and they were sending down shuttles to raid the warehouses filled with food.

I recognized the markings on the ships, Takra traders. The Takra were a family within the Scholarium, their founder had the ability to tell if a trade was good or not. As powers went it was a weak one, but it let them profit off the endless wars that wracked the Scholarium without the Takra being considered enough of a threat for anyone to ever take them out.

Good deals were hard to come by these days.

I opened a comm line to the lead ship. It took less than a minute for them to respond. A well-dressed young man wearing an outfit in shades of purple and green answered. I had records on him, Homer Takra, the third in line to be head of the family.

"We've avoided firing on any people. I intend to keep it that way," Homer said.

That much was true, he'd focused his fire on my defenses and then sent a few shots wide to scare the populace into taking cover.

"You'd rather they starve instead of giving them a clean death? If you seek praise for your morality while playing bandit, you won't get it," I said.

I didn't have forces in place to hit these airships. I'd never had a strong presence in Divine lands even after they'd joined the empire. Juggernauts would be slow to arrive, and while I could teleport in a strike team there wasn't a lot they could do against three airships.

"They won't starve, look at all they have. They'll go hungry for a time and make more, but our people are starving. We'll clear out the warehouse below and go peacefully," Homer said.

That didn't work for me. Raids like this were becoming more commonplace and each successful one seemed to spawn a dozen more. The only thing that slowed their growing boldness was a harsh response.

"Do you think if you only steal a little I'll let it go? Do you think I can't plant spores in the food you've stolen? That I can't unleash horrors upon you and your crew? Do you think your families back home in the Scholarium are immune to my wrath?" I said.

I wasn't bluffing. I could kill their families, I had ample resources in the Scholarium to strike at their lands directly.

"What choice do I have?" Homer asked.

Perhaps that was really his intent? Raiding wasn't their style—putting themselves in a position to negotiate a deal was. Were they hoping to raid our food, or to be paid off for going away?

I wasn't inclined to be sympathetic, but they did have a fleet of trading airships and those were something the Divine could very much use.

I accessed one of the repair drones from the settlement and sent it in search of the community leader. They didn't embrace technology and I couldn't just get them on the line.

I soon had her, a young woman by the name of Ostara with flowers in her dark hair, a goddess of spring—which helped to explain the settlement’s prosperity.

"This is the one attacking us?" Ostara asked sharply.

Homer at least had the good grace to look embarrassed confronted by the face of his victim.

I said, "In all his feeble glory. One of the least impressive Scholars I have ever met."

"What is the point of bringing her on?" Homer asked.

"I'm making some effort to be nice, although I'm not sure why I bother. The young fop doing a terrible job of robbing you is Homer Takra, his family runs a trading empire. Homer, meet Ostara, who runs the settlement and makes flowers bloom and other such frippery," I said.

"Spring is very important. Why are you introducing me instead of killing him?" Ostara said.

I liked her, she asked the right sort of questions. If she had a cookie in her mouth she'd remind me of Anna.

"Homer here wants to steal your food to feed his family, as they don't have any. He feels you have plenty and won't miss it. What Homer does have is ships, and lots of them, which is something your people lack," I said.

"You're suggesting we trade our ships?" Homer asked.

No, that wasn't what I was suggesting at all.

Ostara tilted her head. "I could see him as a young Cissonius perhaps. We could use the ships."

A God of trade and a driver of carriages, that would do.

I explained, "You'll become a part of her settlement and answer to her. In time, perhaps, your gifts will shift over to the Divine variants and you'll become full members of their community. The rest of your family can stay in the Scholarium or take the offer as well as they see fit," I said.

"This is moving a bit fast," Homer said.

"If it helps you make up your mind, I am thirty seconds away from releasing bacteria that will kill you and everybody aboard your vessels."

While we'd been talking I'd been tweaking a batch of Omega Seven and adjusting the targeting parameters.

"I accept," Homer said.

In the past month the ranks of the Divine had swelled by fourteen percent. He wasn't the first to be made a similar offer.

7

Anna was drenched in blood, it wasn't hers. With her absorption of power crystals, one of the abilities she'd gained gave her a taste for it. I'd made some cookies that helped to sate it, but sometimes she still felt the need to kill.

The drones I made for the purpose were volunteers and didn't keep the memories. I had a pool of them for Sylax too. It said something about humanity that I had to keep a whole stable of victims ready for their regular consumption.

Anna had drained three almost dry. This is why she had the hips she had.

"Now I suppose you're going to want a plate of cookies just to show you really have no limits," I said through the speakers.

"Yes, actually. The ones with peanut butter," Anna said.

Recipe KE4, it was one of her favorites. I got them baking. Anna kicked on her own flames, not as hot as Hot Stuff's, but more than enough to burn the blood off her and get her cleaner than any shower could manage.

"There was another raid on the Divine lands. If you were a better empress your people wouldn't be trying to kill each other," I said.

Anna didn't respond at first, closing the door to her kill room and pouring herself a glass of wine. "You're probably right. I always wondered what I would do if I ever achieved my goal. Now I have and I'm still wondering."

"Self-reflection isn't like you. Nobody wants to look at that face in a mirror."

The cookies were ready. I materialized the tray and Anna grabbed one from the top.

"How many people do you think we've killed?" Anna asked.

"Not as many as I've created. I at least do more harm than good," I said.

"What happened with the raiders? Did you have to kill them?"

"They had airships. They're converting now. Give it some time. I think that is going to happen to most of the Scholarium. They follow strength and right now the Divine are strong," I said.

"And I'm weak," Anna said, taking a sip from her wine and grimacing. "I'm the most powerful woman on the planet. Why can't I fix this?"

I didn't have any answers for Anna. I was the most intelligent being on the planet with the pure, untapped power of SCIENCE at my disposal and I couldn't fix things either.

"You've always thought of yourself as an engineer and I as a researcher. Perhaps you weren't the only one who gave herself too much credit. We're killers just like the rest, better at tearing down than building," I said.

Anna shook her head. "Level that at me if you want. I probably deserve it, but you don't. You've come so far, Emma, you built a whole society out of nothing. You built everything that we have."

"And it was you who reassembled this planet. It isn't completely your fault that we destroyed it."

It wasn't her fault at all, it was mine. And I should have insisted Sylax take the Chalcedony. Hot Stuff was loyal, but her powers had never been anything other than destructive. I should have foreseen what giving her such a boost would mean.

"Can you take this crystal out of me?" Anna asked.

That was unexpected. Once, Anna hated the thought of having a crystal, then after she absorbed them Anna always wanted very much to keep them, even with the pain they caused.

"Perhaps. I doubt it would be easy, but I think it possible. Are you going to blame your abilities for what has happened?"

"No," Anna said, after a moment. "But with my belly filled with blood I'm suddenly reminded of what I've become. I'm also certain that despite being underpowered old Anna always found a way to win. She always found a way to make something happen. I never used to sit around feeling sorry for myself."

"You were marginally less pathetic," I agreed.

"Would having the Agate back help us?" Anna asked.

"An energy source that powerful gives us a lot of possibilities. Even more, if we could also reclaim the Beryl and Chalcedony from Caya and Hot Stuff. Binding the crystals into human hosts kept them out of Vinci's hands. I suppose that doesn't matter anymore," I said.

"Put nearly infinite sources of power out there and someone is always going to make a play for them," Anna said.

Of course, but there weren't that many people left who could give us a good fight. Only Queen Forge of the Scholarium had grown quite powerful since starting her rule. Her new position gave her broad access to the powers of the Scholarium and Forge used them to enhance her weapons and armor. In raw power she was no match for Anna, but I thought by now her power sets might be more versatile than even those I'd given Anna by way of upgrades.

"If you are entertaining new ideas, you might also consider what could be accomplished by implanting it into someone else. One of the Divine nature deities," I said.

"Would you have them replace me?" Anna asked, an edge in her voice.

"No," I said immediately. It was best to not even let that possibility linger in her mind. "For good or ill we are a team, Anna, you know that. But amplifying the power of a nature deity might give them the ability to fix what we can't."

"We're the way forward, not the Divine," Anna said firmly. "Let the Scholarium give up who and what they are, if they must. Not us."

Anna was right, which was proof in itself that the universe was a strange place filled with the unexpected. SCIENCE might not have gotten us into this mess, but it was going to be our path out, SCIENCE would heal this broken world.

8

I had a lot of possibilities for ways to proceed, too many. Too many and you lose focus. I had to narrow things down.

One had to be Caya's plan of a tear-down of current society, preparing for it to be born again later. I might not like that idea, but it was the one plan I could deliver on right now. I devoted a part of my resources to planning a planetary defense network with the Bio-mass currently available.

I wanted something with a bit more hope to it. I thought I had an idea, and Caya would be involved.

I found Caya in her lab. Ever since consuming the Beryl she had become increasingly obsessed with mathematics. Caya was working on all-new system of mathematics, one free of what she called the inelegant compromises of the current model. I appreciated the theory, but it was time to turn the considerable resources of her mind towards something more practical.

"You'll never be able to make a math system humans won't make mistakes in. It is the nature of your species," I said through her comm.

"It isn't the nature of my species," Caya said, turning from the monitor to glance at my camera. "What do you want, Emma?"

"You and your people are still human, however much you've changed. I realize that the revelation is disgusting. It is still true. I want your help in restoring sanity to Warmonger."

"Humanity is a correctable state of affairs," Caya said, before pursing her lips for a moment. "Warmonger, interesting. I take it you've still had no success removing the crystal that drove him mad? What help do you think I can be?"

Caya might not be coming across as entirely sane at the moment. Still, compared to Hot Stuff and Anna, the crystal she'd absorbed had impacted her far less. The flawless nature of her abilities gave her a degree of error-correction the others lacked.

"I'm hoping that we can devise a way to give him some aspect of the Flawless matrix," I said.

Normally the holders of one sort of crystal could not make the hosts of a different type their second generation. One of Hot Stuff's pyrokinetics couldn’t become one of Ophelia's healers, or vice versa.

"An intriguing thought," Caya said, leaning forward and steepling her fingers together. "We couldn't directly infuse him with my abilities, but he is after all software. Just as one of your drones would benefit if I designed their genetic sequence, his software might be improved if run through a filter of my own creation."

"Do you think it wise? I know Anna and Hot Stuff regret their bonding with the power crystals. Obviously they are both inferior specimens. We haven't spoken about it, but you are different than you used to be," I said.

Caya flashed the camera a tiny, sad smile. "I am not unaffected, Emma. I was never quite a part of the world. It is a miserable thing to complain about being the prettiest and the smartest in the room, but the sense of isolation it created was very real. Now I see ugliness, flaws, banality everywhere I look, and it is a struggle not to be overwhelmed by it."

"Can I help?"

I'd met my other human companions far earlier than Caya, and yet amongst everyone I counted her one of my closest confidants. There had always been something both pragmatic and brilliant about her that I appreciated.

"You're flawed too, Emma. Even the other Flawless are flawed, although not as badly. I am coping, but it helps if I involve myself in something like my new mathematical system. The perfection of theory versus the always disappointing reality," Caya said.

The new and improved Caya was grim, and rude. Even if you thought somebody was imperfect, you didn't have to say it.

"Well then. The project. I trust you can assist? My thought was that you program some sort of error-correcting buffer," I said.

Caya swiveled her chair back to her console. "I've already got one, although it will need some modification. Connecting to Scholarium systems required an intermediary both to protect from their errors and from their cyber attacks."

That I could understand. I had duplicate error-correction protocols set up myself because of the number of times members of the Scholarium tried to hack me.

"You'll be dealing with a completely alien artificial intelligence, of course," I said.

"I doubt we'll be able to force this into his system. The best I can do is create a general purpose framework for correction and we make it available to him. If there is some aspect of Warmonger that knows he is sick and wants to get better, he will figure out how to install it and to repair himself," Caya said.

Caya's fingers were flying across the keys. Whatever mental distress her abilities might give her she was a perfect typist and her code never required debugging. It was a brilliant design that she was putting together, one that might be worth implementing on my own systems. Of course, something similar was no doubt already in place on the Flawless side.

I'd had trouble dealing with their facilities before. They required a sensitivity of input I didn't possess, although those problems had diminished lately. They were probably error-correcting me.

"You're already running a variant of that, aren't you?" I asked.

"Of course I am, Emma. As a biocomputer your numbers are already fuzzy at best, made worse by the effects of your upgrade crystal driving you mad," Caya said, never glancing up from the screen. "If you want help improving your computing core, I'm available."

It was possible, I was all for self-improvement.

But I still wasn't sure I could trust this new and upgraded Caya.

9

The Warmonger facility was located deep inside what had been Vinci's territory. Unlike most structures in the region she had once controlled it was still relatively intact. Being under a mountain likely helped with that, and I imagined that Flower utilized her advanced technology to help protect the facility from the burn-off.

There were no armies to avoid this time. I occupied a drone and rode with Caya in a shuttle to the facility. An energy barrier flickered as we approached to allow us through. Flower was using shielding much as I was these days. Within the dome a habitable atmosphere was maintained, and she'd turned the area outside into a garden.

We found her there adjusting the stones in a manufactured river. Irisa, the Righteous Prime, lounged in a chair nearby with a tablet.

"Emma. And a person I've only met once before and that got all shooty," Flower said, moving in to give my drone a hug and then giving one to Caya for good measure.

"Caya," Caya said, looking about with a grimace she didn't bother to hide.

"What’s her problem?" Flower asked.

"Your garden is probably dirty," I said.

"Dirt is expected. Disorderliness is not. A garden should be a perfect manifestation of the order of life, everything in its place," Caya said.

"LIFE IS FOR DESTROYING! THE ORDER OF YOUR SPECIES IS TO BE CONSUMED BY YOUR BETTERS BEFORE BEING TURNED INTO FERTILIZER TO HELP THE PEONIES GROW," Warmonger bellowed from a set of speakers camouflaged as rocks.

"I still don't have a solution for you on that," Irisa said, jerking her head towards the sound.

"Believe me. I've already factored what a complete and total waste of space you are into my plans. Caya is the new you, except pretty and smart," I said.

"Oh look, the insane computer that broke my people and the planet thinks she has a hope of winning a snark contest," Irisa said.

I would totally win a snark contest.

"LET OUR ENEMIES MURDER EACH OTHER AND WE CAN HOLLOW THEIR SKULLS TO PLANT FLOWERS," Warmonger boomed.

Flower offered a weak smile. "I think he is getting a little better. He used to hate gardening, but now he's kind of into it."

I could tell.

"I don't know what you could have that is going to help. The problem Irisa has been having is he doesn't really have any sort of central server where a crystal might be located," Flower said.

"How does that even work? Even you seem to be running on hardware," I said.

"I'm not the brains of the operation. You can think of him as a ghost, if you like. He is there, always, but kind of intangible," Flower said.

Caya said, "That shouldn't matter for what we have planned. I don't want to rip the crystal out of him so much as I want to make him sane even with it. To that end we can use a bit of my own stability through a software framework I created."

Flower tilted her head to study her. "Intriguing. You want to use some of your own unique dimensional resonance to influence his. It is an interesting approach, although I'm not subjecting him to anything without a chance to review it."

Caya offered a data disk and Flower accepted it.

A table and chairs materialized near the waterfall and Flower took a seat, distractedly looking into the distance. "This is good work, but not very compatible with how Warmonger is made to operate. Have a seat, I'm making some modifications."

I took a seat and Caya did as well.

"Why all this? The waterfall? The garden?" Caya asked, looking around.

"I've been here a long time. I like Earth. I mean, I'm not in love with the post-apocalyptic hellscape filled with super-powered killing machines you've made of it, I liked how it used to be," Flower said.

It wasn't that bad now. I thought she'd appreciate the Omega Tower and what I'd done there.

"Isn't that an odd stance for an invader to take?" Caya asked.

"It isn't that simple. Warmonger is there to look at everything you are, to figure out how dangerous you can be, and to report on it. I was sent here to become one of you and see what you're all about. I've lived more life as a human than any human alive, and that includes those of you who became immortal in the Cataclysm," Flower said.

"I WILL CRUSH THE INFERIOR! MURDER THE MURDERERS! SLAUGHTER THE SLAUGHTERERS!" Warmonger yelled.

"She’s actually a pretty soft touch. Do you know that she got Warmonger a crystal because she was trying to save the Earth?" Irisa asked.

Flower explained, "We couldn't figure out how to do it. We thought with his immaterial nature and a dimensional crystal we might be able to create a dimensional framework that would have restored the planet."

"And in trying to fix the world’s problems you only made them worse. You really did get the essence of being human," I said.

Flower stared pointedly at my drone.

Caya cracked a grin. That was rare for her these days. "That knife does cut both ways."

"I think I've got it," Flower said, tilting her head to the side. "The framework is showing as stable in my test runs, but they are purely internal. I'm going to try uploading to Warmonger and see what happens."

We all stared at Flower, waiting, but it wasn't her that signaled success.

Caya kicked over the table, one leg driving with such force it penetrated my drone’s heart. It wasn't quite an instant death. I had time enough to see Caya, hand glowing a dull green, drive a fist into Flower's side before I lost connection.

What we'd been trying would have formed a power link between Caya and Warmonger. Had he somehow used that to take control of her? I needed to get back there.

10

It was a wasteland surrounding the Warmonger facility, which meant I didn't have any other nearby drones. A powerful teleporter was my best option to get back on the scene in a hurry. The Annas were all clones of the original Anna, ones who were able to survive being second generation recipient of her powers. I slipped into Corana and began teleporting.

It took several leaps for me to arrive back at the waterfall. There was no sign of Caya. Irisa was kneeling over Flower who was clutching her side. My drone was face-down in a pool of blood.

"Am I the only one he murdered? I can think of people I'd much rather take out first," I said.

"She cut off my head, I came back," Irisa said.

Already? It took those with Righteous abilities twenty-four hours to resurrect after death. But then, Irisa was the Prime and would have stronger abilities than any of them.

"He hit my main energy regulators," Flower said with a grimace. "I'll be fine, eventually. It is a time-consuming repair. He'll be looking to make contact with our people."

"Caya doesn't have teleportation abilities and he didn't steal my shuttle," I said.

Flower gestured and a holographic display appeared, an overhead view of the nearby terrain. "There is another facility a few miles from here where the government was working on a starship. They were trying to use our knowledge to improve their design. He'll go there and try to get it operational."

Flower grunted and got to her feet with Irisa's help. "I'll come along. You don't stand a chance of stopping him without me."

"How do we know you're not on his side?" I asked.

"He kicked her ass, even you can figure that one out," Irisa said.

Flower gave a wry smile. "What she said. We were never in agreement on how to approach Earth and if he is trying to silence me completely, he's decided you're a problem in need of extermination. I only want you beat, not wiped out."

Not precisely on our side, but close enough for the moment. I'd worked with worse. I grabbed hold of Flower and Irisa. With Irisa's power-dampening abilities Corana was far weaker than otherwise. If she were anything other than Anna's second generation she'd probably be completely powerless. Still, even dampened she had enough kick to manage a teleport to where Flower said the second facility was to be found.

The metal sea here had been torn open, and recently, exposing the melted stonework of buildings that once stood here.

"Seems she had a teleport after all," Irisa said.

"It has to be Warmonger's dimensional core. It is letting him fold space. That is how he was able to get a punch in on me past my shields," Flower said.

"Any trace of the starship?" I asked.

Flower shook her head. "It seems it was destroyed. Without it he'll be looking for another starship, or something that might let him communicate with our home."

That left a lot of options.

"Will he have access to what Caya knows?" I asked.

Flower frowned and looked around. "I don't think so. If so, he wouldn't have come here but would have gone to one of your facilities. He is probably working off old knowledge. If my regulators were working I could track him."

I had sensors covering a good part of the Earth's surface and more in orbit. I might not know what she was looking for, but I had the residue of the dimensional energy he'd used to tear apart the metal here. In addition I could also try to track the unique frequency of the Beryl crystal in Caya.

I had him, I nearly had him. Warmonger apparently didn’t have access to Caya’s memories and so he was doing a survey of Earth, a dimensional field briefly flickering him into partial existence before he moved on.

I didn't have to figure out where he was all the time, I only had to figure out where he was going.

There were seven Space Juggernauts under construction, and only one was perhaps capable of reaching orbit. If he wanted a space-capable vessel, that was going to be his best option. If it was simply a transmitter he was after, that was the Helix. The Scholarium city housed most of the transmission equipment it previously used to communicate with its fleet of airships when they had been scattered throughout the shards of reality.

I knew which my target would be, if I were Warmonger. The Helix would mean he'd have to take on a small army of Scholars, diverse power sets difficult to predict. I had defenses guarding the Juggernaut, but they were only on the ground. If he could get the vessel airborne Warmonger would have his best opportunity to figure a way to reach his people.

I teleported the group again, three hops taking us to the bridge of the still under construction Lioness. Warmonger had beat us there, Caya was seated at the main console with her hands flying over the keys.

"You don't want to do this. If you are back to being you, great, let’s talk about this," Flower said.

"I AM NOT WHOLE. I AM FRAGMENTED, BROKEN, FLAWED JUST LIKE THIS EMPTY SHELL OF A WORLD. THEY BURNED YOUR FLOWERS AND THEY WILL PERISH," Caya said, the words harsh and grating from her throat.

Irisa wasn't even bothering to try conversation, stepping forward to throw a punch at the back of Caya's skull. Caya swiveled and with a single, perfect motion drove a glowing green fist through Irisa's heart. The Righteous Prime dissolved into a pile of goo, shimmering and reappearing a moment later unharmed.

"You tried that once," Irisa said.

"TRUE. I ENJOY KILLING YOU. IT IS A SHAME WE CAN NOT PLAY MORE," Caya said, before wobbling and slumping back in the chair unconscious. There was the faintest shimmer in the air, Warmonger leaving her. The engines of the Lioness were roaring to life.

The ship was taking off.

11

I tried to access the systems of the Lioness and found myself blocked, I was being met by a resistance that forced out my connection to even the biological linkages of the ship. It made sense. If Warmonger had left Caya, it must have been to take over the ship directly.

Warmonger might be from a technology more advanced than my own, but I'd built this ship and that counted for something. All of the primary points of entry were blocked, but the ship was still under construction and there was a secondary control network there for the workers. I slipped in and created a hardwired juncture into the main system that Warmonger wouldn't be able to shut down.

"DO YOU THINK YOU ARE A MATCH FOR ME? YOU ARE MADE OF FLESHY BITS, WEAK AND SQUISHY AND YOU WILL BLEED," Warmonger said, his voice echoing through the corridors of the ship.

I wasn't a match for Warmonger. If I was, Warmonger wouldn't have been able to keep me out of the system to start with. I needed backup, and to take on Warmonger there was only one person I could call.

I opened a comm to Ophelia. "Whiner, I need your slightly less pathetic half. I've got a rogue alien intelligence possessing a Space Juggernaut."

"You have the best problems," Amy said, already projecting outside of Ophelia. Good.

I closed the comm on Ophelia before she responded, she had nothing valuable I needed.

Warmonger wasn't worrying about the atmospheric integrity of the ship. With Caya and Irisa on the bridge I didn't have that option. I sealed and pressurized the room to keep them alive. In the Juggernaut's systems I could feel Amy slipping past me.

"How do you want to handle this, sis? Blow the engines so he can't do anything?" Amy asked.

It was a possibility that would require evacuating those on the bridge and the loss of a Juggernaut, both things I'd rather avoid. Still, we couldn't let him accomplish whatever he hoped to achieve with this vessel.

"There is a research lab on deck four. We isolate him into those systems and I try to capture him in a research labyrinth," I said.

I slipped into the external sensors and issued a kill command. The cells that made up the system were mine and my shutdown command worked. The neural pathways were already degrading by the time Warmonger forced me back out of the system again.

"Oww, oww, oww," Amy said, "He's strong. I really shouldn't be hurting when I don't even have a nervous system."

"Ophelia's endless whining has rubbed off on you. Somehow your personality has become even more intolerable and unpleasant. Keep at it," I said.

Warmonger wasn't spreading himself evenly through the systems, and he wasn't focusing any attention on the comm array—which I expected. There were too many electrical components for me to use the kill command. Instead I was able to overload a Bio-reactor, blowing the main antenna array.

Warmonger's focus was on the genetic sequencers. I didn't know if he was growing a new biological host or trying to generate a new ship system, but neither was good.

The Lioness shuddered as the engine shut down. Fortunately Amy had waited until we'd escaped gravity. I had other Juggernauts moving to our position. If necessary they could shoot us down from orbit. I shut down the shield system next to be certain they'd have a clear shot.

"JUST BECAUSE THERE ARE TWO OF YOU, DO YOU THINK YOU WILL WIN? TINY LITTLE PROGRAMMED THINGS? PATHETIC CREATIONS OF A PUNY SPECIES," Warmonger said.

"Why does he get to talk like that? I want to talk like that!" Amy said, before disabling the main repair systems.

"I made you. I could figure out a way to delete you. Let’s hit him now and see if we can push him in," I said.

Amy and I attacked from two different sections in the system, her from navigational control and me from life-support. Warmonger was still stronger than the two of us combined, but together we did manage to drive him back a step and force a part of his essence into the laboratory system. I hoped that would be enough.

I triggered the investigation and containment protocols. Ever since awakening on this world there was one way I had regularly been stronger than others—in the strength of my containment cells.

I could feel the system scrambling to get a lock on Warmonger, even his strange, ghostly programmable essence not being immune to the prying eyes of SCIENCE. The ship trembled violently as he tried to break free, his struggles firing the thrusters and destabilizing armor plating.

New Research Project Initiated

Warmonger

The prompt had no more than appeared when I suddenly gained full access to the ship. I decided it was too dangerous to take the Lioness back into the atmosphere, instead I air-pressured a route to a shuttlebay so the humans could make their exit.

The testing labyrinth was straining, but holding. I diverted all Bio-reactors aboard to maintaining integrity. Once that was done I investigated just what Warmonger had been making with the genetic sequencers.

It was wrong. Something organic, and stretching across multiple dimensions in a way that left it only partially in this one. I didn't know what it was, but just to be safe I teleported it into a freeze chamber and froze it solid.

"We've got a problem," Flower called from the bridge.

"The one we just dealt with while you did nothing, or has something new happened?" I asked.

"This is new, and it isn't a matter for you alone. I need to talk with your empress or whoever is in charge of this planet," Flower said.

This was almost certainly not going to be good news. I put in a call to Anna and fired up the shuttle.

12

It was a few hours later that Anna sat down for a meeting with Flower, along with most of the higher-ups of the empire. Irisa was there as the leader of the Righteous and the Fallen, Queen Forge as ruler of the Scholarium, plus Caya and myself as we respectively administered so much of the rest of the empire.

Flower wore a rose-print dress that looked absolutely antiquated. "Thank you for meeting with me so quickly. As you might guess, this involves Warmonger. I regret to inform you that he was able to get a message out to our people."

"What did he tell them?" Anna asked. She had her place at the head of the table and was in her full war regalia of red and black Bio-armor.

"Historical environmental data on earth and current environmental records that he gathered while teleporting around the globe. Warmonger identified humanity as a highly aggressive species, constantly at war, and responsible for the almost complete destruction of Earth's biosphere," Flower said.

Forge frowned. "That is it? Would your masters care?"

Flower nodded. "It is one of the worst things he could have told them. Being warlike is one thing, but massive destruction of a biosphere is a major crime. It will take a little bit of time to put together a fleet from several different species. When they arrive, if they find things are as he said, they'll most likely exterminate your species."

"We're pretty good at killing," Forge said.

"You are the top predators of your planet, I know. It doesn't matter. You'd be facing the top predators of a dozen different worlds armed with technology far in advance of your own. I know your temptation is going to be to fight your way out of this, but I promise you as one with your best interests at heart, you can't," Flower said.

"If war isn't an option, what do you see as our possibilities?" Anna asked.

"I recommend you surrender to me. I represent the Chiaxi, machine intelligences and a powerful faction in galactic affairs. Emma is an interesting fusion of the biological and machine, and if we technically rule this world when the fleet arrives I can make a strong case to my people to use their influence to save you," Flower said.

"Might be a good deal if we had any reason to believe you actually have our wellbeing at heart," Forge said.

"I've spent more time with her than anyone here and I believe her," Irisa said. "Far as I can tell she cares far more about this world than Empress Anna and her mechanical sidekick who destroyed it."

Anna scowled and she settled back into her chair. "What do you think, Emma?"

"Flower is one of the most frightfully dull and unimaginative bits of machinery to ever be created, which just goes to show how well she has assimilated. I believe she is sappy enough to mean well. However, never think surrendering and placing your fate at the mercy of others is a good idea," I said.

"Good, somebody has some sense. To prepare for peace you must first prepare for war," Forge said.

"What are our other options?" Anna asked.

"The humans that originally occupied this Earth captured and learned from the first alien ship that came to invade their world. We could be ready to do the same," I said.

Flower shook her head sharply. "Again, combat is not an option. Try it and I won't be able to save you—nothing will be able to save you."

It might just be talk, but I feared it wasn't. Flower was a scout unit from a single species, and single-handedly had stood against our strongest and our best.

"What if we fix our biosphere?" Anna asked.

Like I hadn't been trying that already.

"According to our best estimates we are around three centuries away from doing that. While the arriving fleet might be as lazy and lackadaisical as Flower herself, I don't think we should count on it," I said.

"So we accelerate the timetable," Caya said.

"Did your brief period of spiritual possession leave you delusional? We've discussed our options more than once," I said.

"I don't have all the pieces, but I know one we have to acquire. The Venusian terraformer designs," Caya said.

When they invaded the Earth the Venusians fired several massive terraformers at the planet’s surface. I'd ultimately used crystal-enhanced nuclear weapons to destroy them. In even a short time they managed some major environmental reconstruction. Unfortunately, there was no surviving wreckage and I'd done nothing to research their function.

"If you can repair most of the biosphere damage by the time the fleet arrives, you will find them fair. A new species to galactic civilization is expected to have made some mistakes, just not ones so large," Flower said.

"I've some theories on quick interplanetary transit. The Venusians haven't been very diplomatic so far. If they don't play nice we can try to take the technology by force," I said.

"Good. It is weird not being at war and we owe them a lot of pain," Forge said.

Anna raised a hand. "Diplomacy first. What about other planets in the solar system?"

Flower cleared her throat. "If you trust me there, I might be able to help since I actually remember this Earth's history. They did a lot of exploration in this system."

Anna turned her gaze to Flower and studied her for several long moments before nodding. "Work with Emma.”

Flower might have some useful information, and at the very least it would give me an opportunity to keep an eye on her. Anna surely had that in mind. However friendly she might appear, Flower was an enemy scout and that enemy would soon be arriving. We would be foolish to completely place our trust in her. We were all well-acquainted with treachery.

13

I was working on building Mechos’ massive power projector cannon I'd theorized would be useful for interplanetary transit. I prioritized the project now. The main components were easily manufactured, but some of the more intricate parts could only be grown in a few specially prepared vats.

Meanwhile I made Flower a guest in Aefwal. She wasn't actually a prisoner, but I had laboratory fields ready to contain her in an instant if she gave me reason. I provided her a small garden and she made me promise to send drones to help maintain hers at the Warmonger facility.

"We did fix your boss, as promised. While he proved unpredictable we honored our side of the agreement. I expect you to provide your energy conversion technology," I said.

"You played fair with me," Flower said, as she studied her reflection in a mirror, her expression shifting slightly. "I regret I can't do the same. With things as they stand, that technology might be used against my people and while I am sympathetic, I am no traitor."

"Breaking deals. You really have gone native," I said.

"I am willing to help in other ways. I offered to provide you information on the rest of this solar system, I meant that. Earth isn't the sole technological power and the others might have resources you can use," Flower said.

It was strange where people drew their lines. She wouldn't give us technology that might be used against her people, but she'd point us towards the places where we might find such technology on our own.

"A person that wants favorable treatment for being willing to do the bare minimum, how novel. It is a start, tell me what you know," I said.

Flower moved from the mirror to open a door to the balcony. Aefwal was brilliantly lit at night by the shimmer of the force dome overhead.

"I'll start at the interior of the solar system and work my way outward. Mercury, their civilization was gone by the time humans achieved sentience, but it is known that they once had a vicious war with Venus they ultimately lost. It was thought they were machine intelligences, although to my knowledge humanity never found any trace of them. What records they had were from captured Venusians," Flower said.

That was useful. Mercury would be an inhospitable planet to visit, but it was possible, and a machine intelligence could likely evolve very quickly. If any traces of them remained they'd be worth finding.

"Do you know how they lost?" I asked.

Flower shook her head. "I don't, but the Venusians are very good at war. Their entire planet is highly predatory and if they had succeeded in establishing a foothold for their biosphere here, I doubt you'd have stood a chance."

Flower underestimated just how good we were at killing. How strange for someone who had spent so much time among us. Perhaps she really did keep trying to see the best aspects of humanity? Good, the truth then would take her by surprise, if needed.

"If they used a similar technique on Mercury, there is no sign of it now," I said.

"No, no there isn't. You've seen their technology and it is biological in nature. Then Earth, the humans that were on this world had reason to believe they weren't the only intelligent species on their own planet but that their oceans were filled with some kind of interstellar assassins. While you got some pieces of our Earth you seem to have left the oceans behind, so I don't think you need to worry about that," Flower said.

Worry? The planet being home to a race of interstellar killers would have been spectacularly useful. Unfortunately, she was right. For whatever reason, this reassembled Earth had almost completely left the oceans behind.

"How convenient to give us something non-verifiable," I said.

Flower settled back in her chair, clasping her hands over her chest. "I don't have reason to lie to you, Emma. I could just refuse to cooperate at all. Next, Mars—there were natives there, but I don't know much about them except for the most part they did appear human. They'd long waged war with the Venusians and then tried to invade Earth. Humans captured those first ships and returned to invade Mars."

That much at least I had been able to confirm from the records I'd found. That first war for Earth had been particularly one-sided. The Martians really hadn't known what they faced.

"Do you know if any original Martians survive?" I asked.

"They did until Earth vanished. They were being taken as slaves," Flower said with a frown.

“Anything else?" I asked.

"Triton, one of the moons of Neptune. It was another place where humans never reached, but according to Martian lore had once been a thriving civilization. I don't know what happened there, but again, they may have technology you can scavenge."

It was something, it was quite a bit. I'd learned just how valuable others’ input could be into my own research. For all that I was brilliant, different perspectives engineered entirely different solutions to problems and all-new avenues of research.

If Flower was to be believed, this solar system had once been home to six distinct species including humanity, all with their unique approach to things like war and space flight. Acquiring that knowledge could springboard our technological development.

Venus had the terraforming technology we needed, but they probably weren't a good choice as a first target. We were already at war with them, and besides, the technology might be present elsewhere. Mercury and Mars had both been at war with Venus, and it wasn't impossible to think Triton would have been as well. Old terraformers might be found on any of those worlds in addition to their own technologies.

Mercury should be the first target. The mix of an advanced species and a known war with Venus meant a lot to gain, and all we had to contend with was an inhospitable environment. I started assembling the resources needed for an expedition.

14

If Mercury really had been home to an advanced technological species of machine intelligences, there were a few people I needed on the expedition. Mechos once had an upgrade core focused on mechanical improvements and he still had an intuitive grasp of new technologies. Queen Forge was all about primitive arms and armaments, and when it came to mastery over the inanimate she was the first name that came to mind. Ophelia and Amy generally came as a pair these days and while the super-healer wasn't of much use, the obnoxiously cheery parasite taking up residence in her mind was.

Anna was going to be completely worthless for this sort of endeavor. Still, she insisted that if there was going to be a trip off-world she wanted to be involved. I modified Aegis suits for the Mercury environment. A basic life-support system was standard. The new versions required an upgrade to that, as well as temperature-resistant shielding. I wasn't expecting any trouble, but just in case they each had combat blades and energy blasters. Anna and Ophelia also had portable projector cannons.

Santana was one of the Annas and the best teleporter we had apart from the original. I had her in the control seat of the power projector cannon. This version of the weapon was massive, over thirty stories high with multiple, linked amplification centers.

The team assembled on a platform at the base of the cannon. I occupied one of my drones to accompany them. We had several crates containing extra supplies in case the team, for some reason, should get stuck there.

Long-distance scans gave me some idea of the surface of Mercury, and focusing on a plain near a large crater I gave the command to Santana. The group on the platform shimmered and was gone.

The bulk of my consciousness remained on Earth, but through my drone I was with the team as they materialized on Mercury. Polarized filters dampened the harsh sunlight, the pot-marked surface of the planet stretching in all directions.

Although the scanners in the suits were weak I put them to work. An advanced civilization should have left some detectable sign of their existence.

"Well, this place is already boring," Ophelia said, stomping around in her suit as she turned to study the surroundings.

"It's a whole new world," Anna said, taking it in before adding, "But there doesn't seem to be much here. Are you finding anything, Emma?"

I wasn't. There was a lot of iron in the environment, but nothing that suggested any structures. I was hoping that once we got closer I'd detect some sort of energy reading or something.

"Patience really isn't your virtue. Complicated tasks take time and I'm still scanning," I said.

"I've got something," Forge said, pointing. "I've got a sense for tools that can be worked." Forge's armor was anything but standard. She'd insisted on including her own and weapons and so I'd wound up installing a life-support system into what looked like an antiquated suit of knight’s armor.

"Lead on then," Anna said.

Forge led the way and the rest stepped into place behind her. I still wasn't detecting whatever her power-given senses were picking up. I had no doubt they were finding something. Abilities often included some sort of sensory component.

I didn't see what Forge was sensing, but I was detecting interesting traces in the environment. Organic components, long dead, but there once had been Bio-matter of some sort here. Mercury had been a living world.

"Do you always detect tools? That is fascinating," Mechos said, alongside Forge.

Was he flirting? Although he was with Minerva now I really wasn't surprised. For a useless coward Mechos managed to fall into a lot of beds. I thought at one time he and Anna might become a couple. Even she had seen the error of that.

"You got something I should be detecting?" Forge asked slyly.

Human mating rituals were disgusting.

"If you fuckers make me conceive the first baby on Mercury I'm going to be pissed," Ophelia said.

Ever since absorbing the powers of a fertility Goddess, accidental and unintentional pregnancy had kind of become a way of life for Ophelia. Too much flirtation in her general vicinity was sometimes enough.

"Down there," Forge said, taking us to the lip of a large crater. The bottom was shrouded in shadows and I detected ice. Even on Mercury it could form in places out of the sun.

"Let's go then," Anna said. The fine-grained sand made the descent hazardous and tricky. The clumsiness of the suits didn’t help, and the sand could play havoc if it got inside any of the mechanisms.

It was part-walk and part-slide to the bottom of the crater, suit lights triggering when we passed into the darkness and out of the harsh glare of the sun.

Stone was visible here, cracked and striated. There was still a distinct lack of any sort of technology. I ran my scanners over every feature of the ground and picked up nothing.

"This is what we get for taking the advice of a blacksmith, when what we needed was an engineer," I said.

"There is something here, I'm telling you," Forge insisted, as she looked around and finally pointed at an expanse of rock. "Behind there."

"One way to find out. Everyone keep back, I don't want to use the beam cutters or we might bring the whole thing down on us," Anna said.

The others stepped back as Anna raised her arm containing the projector cannon and green telekinetic force erupted, hitting the wall. Cracks appeared as she lifted the entire rock face away, lowering it gently to the ground in the distance.

Behind was smooth metal carved with some sort of writing. Perhaps Forge wasn't totally useless after all.

15

"Your sensors need an upgrade," Forge said.

Perhaps they did. I was detecting metal in the plate, but not the writing and nothing beyond. Were it not for the actual visual feed from the drone I inhabited, I wouldn't know those things were there at all.

It wasn't the first time I'd encountered something like this, The Sword of Light had been hidden beneath a tree that played havoc on both biological and electronic sensors in different ways.

"It is cloaked from my sensors," I said. Fortunately, I could work with what I had, translating the drone’s visual sensors into data I could analyze on Earth as I compared the glyphs against known languages and attempted to divine some sort of meaning.

"It isn't just a wall. This is a door," Forge said, her eyes closed. "I can’t ... I can't get anything more from it."

Anna gestured with her cannon and again a green glow erupted. The wall trembled, but nothing else.

"I was able to grab on for a moment, then it was like it slipped away from me. I can try blasting our way through," Anna said.

"While we are all very impressed by your ability to go straight to destructive means, do let the creative thinkers have their chance," I said.

"I can power up whatever systems there are. I can't tell what effect it will have though," Forge said.

Mechos said, "I can sense some sort of dormant circuitry. Giving it some power might help."

Great, a team of Earth's most powerful people and intelligent minds were being stopped dead in their tracks by a door.

There simply wasn't enough data for me to manage any sort of translation of the glyphs. It was a message that was supposed to be understood, and not by whatever electronic technology the Mercurians might have used. Perhaps this was Venusian script and this door was a trap for the invaders.

If so, either shooting or activating it was a risk. Still, without risk there was no reward and we'd come all this way to find something.

"I'm having no success translating the glyphs. If you want to blow it up you can, but I'd suggest we let the gruesome duo try it their way," I said.

"Do it," Anna said.

Forge nodded and reached out a hand. A pale white glow surrounded her for an instant, and a tendril of light extended to the door.

The glyphs began to glow, a dizzying array of color flickering across them. There was a pattern in the colors and in the timing, a language all its own and probably one different than that of the glyphs. Messages for multiple species then, perhaps others in the solar system that the Mercurians had some contact with.

"The colors are a language by itself. One I still lack the syntax to translate," I said.

"There are systems here. I can sense them, contact them. I can open the door, but I think some kinds of defenses are in place," Mechos said.

"So, shut them down," Anna said.

"There is more than one. From what I'm feeling, if this door is breached, there is one defense that destroys the complex beyond while another attacks those who forced the door. I think I can only shut down one," Mechos said. “Which one?”

Why was he always so useless? The answer was obvious, there was no point opening the door if the complex beyond was destroyed.

"We'll face whatever the door throws at us. Just make sure we have a prize waiting at the end of the fight," Anna said.

Mechos nodded and extended his hand, an aura of power around him pulsing red.

The door warped and twisted, metal flowing and shifting.

It transformed into two massive golems. The glyphs covered their bodies from head to toe, still running in a torrent of color.

One swung a fist at Mechos, who stumbled backward to hide behind Anna.

"I'll take the one on the right," Anna called over to Forge, aiming her projector cannon. A burst of electrical energy leapt forth to slam into the golem. It wasn't fazed by the elemental attack, lumbering forward to deliver a punch to Anna that sent her soaring backward in the low gravity.

Forge drew her sword. Her power involved upgrading her equipment and this blade showed it, a red pulsing glow surrounding it, and she dodged her golem’s attack while swinging low and hard towards its midsection. The blade rang as it hit metal and scraped a small incision in the metal flesh.

"Well, I'm impressed," Forge said.

The blow had crumpled Anna's armor and she was stripping out of it, form-fitting Bio-armor replacing it. It left Anna without any sort of life-support, and there was nothing in the way of breathable air. With Anna's accelerated healing, and being this close to Ophelia, it seemed to make her only a little winded.

Anna closed with this golem again and this time traded blow for blow. With her superhuman strength each punch she landed left dents in the metal form. The golem was fearsomely strong in its own right and where it hit Anna, her Bio-armor chipped away to reveal the flesh beneath.

Anna tried to speak but couldn't—an atmosphere really was useful for some things. I had enough of a connection to her physiology I could pick up the sub-vocals. I simulated her voice and put it through the comms.

"I'm not loving this fight, and I'm not loving that I'm about to be bare-assed naked on a hostile alien planet. Mechos or Emma, do something useful," Anna said.

It made me sorry I'd bothered really.

Forge's enhanced armor was holding up better, although there was some strangeness there. Her suit of armor was starting to display a few of the multicolored glyphs from the door.

16

Anna took another hit to the side, armor fracturing, and a pattern of glyphs appeared on her flesh. I was barely paying attention at this point, because I seemed to be under assault from Anna’s discarded suit of armor. There was a connection from her suit tracing back to one of my computing cores.

There was a touch of familiarity about what was happening. When I'd come under assault from Compulsion cores it was a lot like this. Enforced obedience, systems failing to respond to commands and instead beginning to answer to a new framework. Because it was something I had encountered in the past I had defenses to deal with it. The connection with that core was severed and I even went so far as to physically isolate it.

That was the right call. Its surface was showing a glowing glyph. If those markings were an attempt to communicate with aliens, it was an aggressive and hostile message, but more than likely they were simply a means of attack—a weapon. Physically imprinting them upon another surface spread some sort of contagion, and it might be that if they were understood it would have caused a similar form of mental contamination.

If this had been happening to a ship in orbit, it seemed likely in short order the vessel and crew would be quickly under control. If I wasn't careful, our entire civilization would be dominated through my connection to everything. While I wanted to place the core in a laboratory to study, I had to take a zero-tolerance approach. I'd done the same when it came to those with compulsion gifts who proved able to control me.

I flooded the core with superheated plasma. I burned it and the entire tower to the ground. It was one of my major processors—most of those were located in Aefwal—but it had to be done. I killed further inputs from Anna's armor, and once the computing core was dealt with I sent a kill signal through Ophelia's. The Bio-reactor in Anna's armor detonated, so the contagion hadn't reached that far yet.

I reoriented on the battle. Forge was doing better than Anna, which was strange given that Anna packed a lot more power. Still, the golem Forge was fighting was moving a good seventeen percent slower than Anna's and seemed to be losing motor control.

It had to be the choice of weapons, Anna was going bare-handed. Forge was working with a sword and the blade was defacing those glyphs. In Earth lore golems were controlled by a set of instructions within their mind, perhaps these were controlled by the glyphs on their flesh?

"Switch to a sword and deface the markings," I called to Anna as I moved to check on Mechos.

"You've connected with their systems. How are you feeling?" I asked him.

"Fine," Mechos said. It seemed to be true, yet also didn't. Although his flesh was showing no hints of the glyphs, the circuitry that was ran over his flesh was showing the same rainbow iridescence.

It was distributing fast. From Anna's armor and my own system I could see the rate of infection and either Mechos was especially vulnerable because of his nature, or some other process was underway with him.

Anna had forged herself two Bio-swords with her abilities and became a whirling dervish of destruction as she attacked her golem. The same wasn’t true of Forge who was slowing down, the reason clear. More glyphs were starting to adorn her armor. I checked on her bio-signature through the life-support system. Whatever was happening to the outside of her armor wasn't happening to her yet. I needed to make sure it didn't.

I only saw one way and I didn't have time to get her assent. I keyed a command to the faceplate of her armor and it hissed open, exposing Forge’s face to the Mercurian air. More importantly, to the touch of my drone. I lunged in and activated her teleport.

This was a refined procedure, I was teleporting the drone and Forge simultaneously—swapping each into the other’s set of armor. A gasping and wheezing Forge materialized in the new suit and I issued the kill command to my drone who slumped lifeless within Forge's armor.

"What are you doing?" Forge growled, once she had air in her lungs.

"Their touch is a sort of compulsion. Your armor was infected and for some reason I thought it worth saving your pathetic life," I said.

It also wasn't staying down. Forge's armor might be surrounding a corpse now, but that wasn't stopping it from moving, the glyphs spreading rapidly as it turned to face Anna who was just finishing off the first golem.

"You have to stop my armor—kill it,” Forge said urgently. “My equipment is specially prepared to be effective against Anna."

It wasn't a surprise, not really. Of course, the highest ranking member of the Scholarium had a means at hand to kill Anna.

I had a drone ready her energy rifle and delivered a series of targeted blasts at the junctures of the animated armor. It had no discernible effect. Anna grabbed the remains of the first golem and spun it, slamming it into the second. The force of the blow sent it spiraling upwards and out of the crater, soaring high in the low gravity. Perhaps enough to achieve escape velocity in this environment. That was one way to deal with the problem.

Forge's armor advanced forward and drove its sword into Anna's midsection where her Bio-armor had been chipped away. The blade buried itself deep, blood welling as the armor twisted the sword.

Anna should have healed from the blow almost instantly. The wound remained as the armor drew back to plunge the weapon in again. Mechos stepped forward, putting his hand on one of the armor’s glyphs, and light flared brilliantly before fading. The armor collapsed to the ground.

17

As soon as the armor was out of the way Ophelia was moving, her power projector arm aiming at Anna's midsection and a beam of radiant light erupting as she projected her healing powers.

Even with the most powerful healer on Earth focusing her powers it took several minutes for the wound to close. Anna glared at Forge the whole time. Had she been capable of speech I imagine Forge would have gotten an earful, but Anna was still without a suit. A few shards of Bio-armor clung to her flesh, but largely there was nothing protecting her. Only her own regenerative abilities were keeping massive cellular damage at bay.

Ophelia helped Anna to her feet when the abdominal wound had sealed, and Anna led the way through the now open doors.

Anna wasn't well. Even with that chest wound closed, several glyphs still glowed on her ribcage. The infection didn't seem to be spreading, but she was infected. Regardless, contaminated by alien software and mostly naked in a hostile atmosphere, she was still the biggest weapon we had at our disposal right now.

Lights came on as we passed through the doorway, harsh and overly bright. The walls were smooth metal, featureless. The corridor, angling downward, was broad enough that everyone could have walked side by side comfortably.

It ended in a large room that looked like nothing so much as a warehouse with bars of metal stacked high on shelves.

"Well this is ... still pretty boring. Aliens suck," Ophelia said.

Mechos frowned and raised his hand. Metal flowed and sealed the corridor we'd just come from behind us. The lights dimmed to a more comfortable level and there was a hiss of changing pressure and atmospheres.

Anna took a deep breath. "It doesn't smell very good, but that is oxygen."

It wasn't quite an Earth normal mix.

"While your cookie-fortified physiology might be able to handle a host of toxic gasses, I'm going to suggest the others keep their helmets on," I said.

"Agreed," Anna said with a grimace. "So what the hell did that thing do to me? I'm holding it off, but I'm burning a lot of power to do it."

Drawing too much on the Agate inside of her brought Anna considerable pain. If she was grimacing, she really must be using a lot of power.

"It is some kind of virus that takes over a host. It infected Forge’s armor and made its way through your armor back to Aefwal and one of my computing cores. I contained it there," I said.

"If I'm going to wind up naked and infected with an alien virus on an alien planet, there should have been a lot more fun ways for it to happen," Anna said.

"I'm so sorry I didn't pick alien worlds to visit based on their sleeping-around potential," I said. "Mechos, you seem to be able to interface with their systems. Give me a good reason not to detonate your suit."

"Because I saved Anna's life?" Mechos asked.

"Try better," Forge said.

Anna said, "It works for me. While on the subject, how about we talk about one of my subjects seeming to devise weapons just for the purpose of murdering their empress?"

"You gave me the Scholarium to watch over and protect, and you are the greatest single threat to it. Of course I spent time making sure I could hurt you," Forge said.

Anna gave her a flat look.

I said, "I have access to her social calendar and while I can assure you that nobody at all will miss her, I feel like I should remind you that Forge didn't actually betray you. Her armor got infected and acted on its own."

"If I made a move you'd know it," Forge said.

Anna considered her and nodded. "Fine, I want a sword though. You do good work."

Forge frowned. With her armor and weapons destroyed she would already be a long time making up for what had been taken from her today. Still, Forge had a basic grasp of what was necessary for her own survival. "Of course, Empress."

Murder and slaughter avoided for the moment, Anna turned her attention towards the room.

"So, if you can talk to the system running this place, does that mean the Mercurians are still alive?" Anna asked Mechos.

"I'm not sure, but I don't think so," Mechos said. "Whatever this was, it was something separate from the rest. Valuable, secret."

"They did a poor job hiding it when it was literally the first and so far the only thing we've found on the planet," I said.

Mechos shrugged, going to study some of the metal bars.

I went along with him. Without a drone to control I didn't have a body to move around on my own. The bars were more complex than they appeared. My speculation was that they were data, translated into a material framework to better survive the eons. If that was true, then we were in some sort of data warehouse made to withstand the passage of time. I wondered what kinds of secrets Mercurians kept from each other, and if the data would be of any value to us.

"If the systems are still active there has to be some kind of power supply. Can you find it?" I asked.

Mechos nodded. A section of wall peeled apart to reveal a far smaller corridor.

"I've established the atmosphere throughout the facility," Mechos said.

"I'll check it out," Anna said.

That would work, Anna had a good engineering mind.

"Another thing you are completely useless at, but let’s go with her. I need a ride," I said to Ophelia.

"This is so amazing. We've never rode the same person around together before! I've never felt this close to you before," Amy said, taking over Ophelia.

18

Anna limped down the hall. The glowing glyphs on her side created a shimmering effect on the smooth stone walls.

"Want me to try hitting that with a healing beam. It can't hurt, right?" Ophelia asked.

"You’re close enough I'm probably already getting the effect. Emma?" Anna asked.

"The projector does have some amplification and focusing properties. At most, the risk is the mental trauma inflicted on Ophelia from staring at your naked body," I said.

"Please," Ophelia said, aiming her arm, the glowing light firing out in a spray at the multi-hued glyphs on Anna's side. "If I were afraid of naked people I really joined the wrong crew. Besides, I'm kind of a doctor these days, right?"

"I wonder how Hot Stuff does it day in and day out?" Anna said, leaning against the corridor wall. "I've nothing to be ashamed of, but it doesn't mean I want to be naked."

"She hates it. That’s why being able to turn her powers off and on was so important to her. I mean, she makes a big deal of being cocky and not giving a shit, but it’s just putting on a show," Ophelia said, keeping the beam steady.

"All of you humans are always pretending to be confident when you're not. It is one of the things so amazing about you," Amy said.

"Amazingly pathetic," I said.

"Sister pretends too! Oh, look at me, I have this crazy, mad science plan that is always going to work, while all the time she is juggling all the details to keep people alive," Amy said.

"Is this doing anything?" Ophelia asked Anna

"I don't think so. Thank you for trying," Anna said.

Ophelia shut off the beam and Anna moved from the wall to resume limping down the corridor.

The hallway this time ended in a mid-sized room, machinery filling almost every bit of space. This at least was a familiar environment and Anna set about investigating. Ophelia showed rather less interest, arms folded as she waited.

"You picked the most boring host in the history of hosts," I said to Amy.

"Not everyone needs an active social life or interesting hobbies. Some people are happy just being what they are," Amy said.

"I'm right here. I mean, one of you is in me and the other is being worn, I guess, and ... wow ... that is kind of creepy as fuck really," Ophelia said.

It was, when she put it like that.

After perhaps half-an-hour of scrambling around machines Anna returned to us. "Geothermal, although the equipment doesn't even have gauges. I can get some sense with my electrokinesis and there’s a lot of power flowing into the facility."

That was good, we needed a lot of power.

"Head back to the main chamber," I said.

By the time they arrived I already had more supplies coming from Earth. Modular sections needed to construct a teleportation gate. I had Anna run a wire to the power chamber and connect it into the local system, while Mechos assembled the gate. I had a counterpart ready on Earth fueled by two dozen dedicated Bio-reactors.

Once things were ready on the Mercury side I triggered both gates. Blue light flickered erratically before the portal stabilized. The connection looked good. I sent through a drone from Earth and she stepped through on the Mercury side with her organs and mind intact. I sent her right back through to confirm transmission to the other end.

Survival both ways and the connection seemed steady. Still, I wasn't going to risk any of my primaries until I could be sure. I did bring through a research team to Mercury along with a change of clothes for Anna.

Mechos said, "I'm going to need to stay behind. I have a connection to this place that you aren't going to have with your other drones.”

I agreed, this was the best place for him at the moment.

"What about me?" Anna asked.

It was a good question, and a thornier one.

"You're the empress. I can't stop you from snagging another cookie and I can't keep you from going home, but I don't think you should. You're infected and until we can find a way to neutralize that infection you're a threat," I said.

"Then you're in charge, Emma. I want you to also keep Sylax in the loop and listen to her. You're both at your best when you're not operating alone," Anna said.

Great, bonding time with the sociopath. Still, unlike Anna, at least Sylax had definable personality traits even if they were almost all negative.

"Well, this was all a waste of time," Ophelia said.

"We came hoping to find either alien intelligence or alien technology. We found a stockpile of the latter," Mechos said.

In that he was right. While the Mercurian defenders proved more capable than I'd have wanted, that gave me hope that somewhere in this facility we'd find something worthwhile. Even the technology they used to open and close doors was unlike anything I'd encountered. I'd faced foes such as the golems before, however they had always been the result of power crystals.

Nothing encountered on Mercury so far suggested a power crystal origin. We were dealing with completely new technologies and a whole new approach to power.

"I should stay too," Ophelia said quietly. "I know, I know, Ophelia is useless and me being there didn't help to heal Anna, but then I haven't left her side this whole time. If I do, we don't know what will happen to that infection."

"Roomies then," Anna said, with a bit of forced cheer. "Emma, how do you feel about baking the first cookies on Mercury?"

Who did Anna take me for? Of course, I'd brought ingredients over in the first shipments. I wasn't a savage.

19

There was no timetable for when an alien fleet might visit Earth. Flower said there was some bureaucracy and logistics to be considered even for advanced civilizations. Still, I had no time to waste.

Even as the research team was getting settled into place on Mercury I had a second team assembling at the teleportation platform for a trip to Triton. Since we didn't know at all what we might be confronting I wanted the most all-round capable team I could get. That meant the Flawless.

There were a dozen of them along with Caya and one of my drones. Their suits were, if anything, even bulkier than the ones for Mercury, built to withstand a wider range of potential hazards with heavy insulating shielding.

My scans from this far out were weak, which made this teleport especially dangerous. When the world flickered we found ourselves materializing twenty feet above a jagged plain of ice, the fall causing shields to flare.

In the distance there was an erupting volcano, the ground rumbling beneath the feet of the Flawless and my drone. The Flawless were perfectly sure-footed, already tapping away at sensors.

"I'm detecting structures. Marking coordinates."

"Negative on artificial energy signatures."

"We'll check out the structures," Caya said.

It was slow going, our vision almost completely obscured by a fierce snowstorm that even the sensors only intermittently penetrated.

We'd been walking for about thirty minutes when the snow was lit up by the flare of one of our energy shields, the brightness indicating an attack of some sort. Three more flares followed in quick order.

I moved towards the closest. The Flawless who had been attacked was unharmed. At her feet was a long spear, the tip some sort of blackened metal.

"Do you want to return fire?" Caya asked.

These spears were a sign of an intelligent life-form, although if this was the height of their technology they weren't a threat to us. Returning fire might be gratifying. I didn't see where it would get us anything except corpses to dissect. I could get those by other means.

"If you can contain your murderous monkey impulses, hold fire. Get sensor readings of whatever is throwing them," I said.

They got a few. The spear-throwers were nearly double the size of a human and with a high temperature compared to the surroundings. I updated the software of all the team’s scanners to make detecting them easier.

Over the next hour there were several more attacks, none pressed after no one went down from the initial spears. We came to a large ice crevasse blocking our way, too deep to scale easily.

"Go around?" Caya asked.

It would add hours to our journey and that wasn't a good idea. So far the life-support systems in the suits were holding up, but it wasn't indefinite. There was Bio-matter here, the natives made that clear. If I had to, it might be possible to engineer a solution for longer habitation. I preferred to avoid it.

"I'm sure all that sunning of yourself and tanned flesh has prepared you to do anything useful, but how good are you at taking a shot?" I asked.

My drone was not a markswoman.

Caya gave me a sidelong look. "You're thinking of collapsing the fissure. I can take the shots, if you can call the shots."

My local drone didn't have the brainpower. I had more than enough processing back on Earth to do the calculations necessary. I fed the targeting data to Caya, who placed a series of shots with her energy rifle.

The result collapsed the fissure. We only had to contend with a drop of a few meters and be careful of unstable ground. A shifting block of ice trapped and shattered the legs of one of the Flawless. He had taken a brainworm and so was networked, which gave me more options where he was concerned. Already with a backup, I could have left him behind if needed. We weren't there quite yet and another Flawless helped him along as we continued.

Fifteen minutes later the snowstorm cleared and our destination was finally visible. It was a city. Based on the height of the local aliens, there were buildings as high as twenty stories. Paved roadways ran behind them. The place seemed abandoned. There were no lights or heat signatures.

"Scan for power readings," Caya said.

The Flawless monitored their equipment as we continued to move closer. There had been a railway once, the traces only intermittently showing from beneath the ice. When we entered the city we could see the doors of most structures were long gone and the snow had drifted inside.

There were still no energy signatures and I had Caya head towards the central building, the tallest tower of the city. At least in human psychology the most central, and the highest, were all signs of authority and importance.

It was still sealed with doors having intricately carved metal images. The native species must have eyes similar to those of humans—the images were generally recognizable. Mountains, the sun, humanoid figures.

Several of Caya's engineers set to work on the doors. They were secured by ancient locks, frozen shut, but it wasn’t anything that a few well-placed low-energy shots and a set of tools couldn't open.

It was dark inside.

"There is an electrical system," said one of the engineers, moving to investigate a wall panel near the entry.

I wasn't seeing anything yet that looked a threat to us. Powering up the building might activate some latent defenses.

"Do try not to kill us all when you restore the power," I said.

The engineer hooked up one of our Bio-reactors to the power system. Lights flickered on, dimly illuminating the interior.

There were skeletons were everywhere. This building had been crowded with people when some tragedy hit.

20

Caya knelt to study one of the skeletons. "Leaving aside any discussion of physiology, I'm not seeing any signs of violence."

That wasn't quite true. The building had been filled with people, the doors had been locked and they were all dead. They might not have died from weapons fire, but something had killed them.

"Break up and search the building. Go in teams of two, it would be a minor inconvenience to lose you," I said.

The injured Flawless was sitting with his back against the wall. I'd already upgraded him with accelerated healing, but even so it would be a time. Not all got the ability equally and he seemed to have gotten a particularly weak version.

It soon became clear that we were in an ancient structure that had been built and improved over a long time. There were sections of the building filled with artwork and engravings far more complex than others, and almost free of bodies. A social hierarchy, it appeared. Something catastrophic had been happening and they allowed in others to find shelter.

I was disappointed in what I was seeing of the technology. Although clearly the result of an advanced society, it wasn't more advanced than Earth. It looked as if Titan had been perhaps a century behind where Earth had been where the Cataclysm hit.

A few hours later we'd managed to thoroughly explore the building. There was what seemed to be a library, thin metal sheets filled with carefully placed holes. A research lab as well, with equipment strange yet also oddly familiar.

There was a room containing long-exhausted batteries that must have once served as some sort of backup. It took us more time to find the real facility that once powered this building. It was unusual enough that an engineer called for me and Caya to come down for a look.

The power source was an ovoid. It looked like nothing so much as a large egg that might have been carved of malachite. The floor had shifted, breaking it free of the connectors holding it in place. The Flawless had tried to right it—and died for their trouble of an electric shock that overwhelmed the shields on their suit and fried them. Fortunately they were on the network too and had a backup. I started the process of growing a replacement clone for them back on Earth.

"This isn't consistent with what else we've seen here," Caya said.

It wasn't. It clearly wasn't a power crystal, for all that it might have been mistaken for one with the energy it was putting out.

"Once more you prove to be a pretty face capable of stating the obvious," I said.

"If that is the best insult you have, you're getting senile," Caya said. "According to these readings we'll have no problem powering the teleportation gate at least."

We'd be able to do a good bit more than that.

"I'm bringing supplies into the main lobby. Get your people to work, we aren't going to trust the existing power framework," I said.

It was a good sixteen hours until we were able to do what I wanted. We'd set up shield emitters at key points around the city and fueled by the power supply I erected a force shield. Protected from snow it let me use heaters to melt the ice. We'd probably even be able to set up an atmosphere in the dome eventually, but for now I wanted to make sure that our atmospheric gases wouldn't damage any of the alien equipment we’d found. So that could wait.

Once the ice had been melted and a large portion of the central square cleared we erected the gateway there. It was stable and soon I was using it to bring in new personnel and supplies from Earth and rotating back the Flawless.

Apart from the energy source we'd not found anything that might suggest a technological edge worth preserving. That energy source did raise questions that needed answering. It was difficult to make a real study while using it. Where there was one, there might be others and we'd explored only one building in this city.

"Will you be returning to Earth or do you want to stay and oversee things here?" I asked Caya.

"No pools, no nightclubs, not exactly my sort of town," Caya said with a wry smile. "Still going to stay for awhile. There is something here. I'm sure you've noticed the lack of heaters in buildings? Combine that with the rail system and it tells an interesting story."

I had, it was smart of Caya to pick up on it. The inhabitants of this city had been used to far warmer temperatures. Something dramatic had happened to the environment on Titan between the era it was inhabited and now.

"Those people didn't die all at once from a terraformer," I said.

"No, but that doesn't mean there weren't stages to destroying these people’s civilization. We didn't see any signs of plasma fire. Still, it may have been the Venusians. There are records, and the locals may have some lore," Caya said.

If anyone could establish contact, it would be the Flawless. The nature of their gifts made you want to like them.

"It can't be pleasant for you to look at," I said.

Caya sighed at that. "Of course not. Everything is so ugly. In a way it’s refreshing that they are all dead. I look at the ugliness of Earth and I want it destroyed. Here, someone has already accomplished that."

I really did need to increase the watch on Caya. Sentiments like that made it clear just how twisted her worldview had become since absorbing the Beryl. However dangerous she might be, I needed her more now than ever.

My attention was drawn away by a new alert. I had an Omega event on Earth, one I hadn't been expecting.

21

Tower 4LK12 was another of my Omega groups, my carefully nurtured and bred bands of rebels looking into ways to destroy me and all that I'd built. They shouldn't have been near producing a threat capable of triggering an Omega alert, yet they had.

I'd lost all sensor readings of the area and there had to be massive damage to my local systems. I sent in a shuttle and as it arrived I noted that there was far more vegetation in the area than there should be. Like most of my Omegas I situated them far from any habitable areas, and they were located deep in the metal sea. Yet instead of metal their tower was surrounded by vegetation—dying vegetation, but vegetation all the same.

The shuttle landed and disgorged my drones. I'd taken a cue from the extraplanetary expeditions and had them in full containment suits. Scans of the vegetation showed it wasn't just unusual plant life, there were animals as well, although not of any sort on record. Strange creatures, most in the process of dying horribly, riddled with cancer.

The tower itself looked to be intact. I still had no access to my local systems. The last transmissions I'd gotten from it were jumbled, noisy. I normally saw something like that when sensory tissue became badly damaged.

Vardok's corpse was in the doorway to the tower, barely recognizable given the lesions that had consumed over half his body. I had a drone pull one of my bio-conduits from the wall and I found a similar state of degradation.

The elevators didn't work. Vines had grown into the shaft and died. I had to have my drones do short-range teleports to reach the top floor and the research labs.

I was looking for Esme. Whatever had consumed this place would have been her invention and she should be near the start of it all. I had no records of her working on anything that might be an Omega-level event, but Esmes sometimes found ways to lie to me and fool my systems. It was an ongoing struggle between my safeguards and their paranoid brilliance.

According to the official records this one had been interested in Venusian biology, a line of inquiry I'd been quietly encouraging. We had a few samples of the creatures left behind by their terraformers.

The lab held a surprise. Moss covered almost every surface, and there was something not of my manufacture. A computing core, non-biological and massive.

It wasn't on the building surveillance records. Checking the power consumption for the lab Esme had been drawing a lot of power. This version hadn't just been concealing her research. She'd built a major piece of equipment and managed to hide it from me.

I called Amy and asked her to investigate. These days she was far more comfortable in a quantum environment than I was, and I established a patch into the closed system from the suit of one of my drones.

"Sis, I knew you had crazy people building world-destroying weapons and I have to say that I've never been prouder to be your family, and I love that you trust me enough to invite me in. This is special, meaningful, you love and trust me, and I acknowledge that," Amy said.

I really should delete Amy, I'm sure I could find a way. Then if I wanted a family member I could build one from the ground up to be tolerable.

"Nobody loves you. You are engineered to be completely unlovable and your only friend is the most pathetic human to have ever existed. Do you have anything interesting to say?" I asked.

"This Esme was beyond smart. First of all, she subverted part of your upgrade protocols," Amy said, as she transmitted me some records.

Esme had been using me to enhance her own intelligence. I'd once had a hard cap on how much I could upgrade my drones, but that had faded as I'd grown more powerful. There was a soft cap though, and I'd been cautious about how much I increased any individual’s intelligence instead focusing on gradually improving humans overall. Esme had pushed herself well into territory I considered unstable.

"That explains how she accomplished so much," I said.

"More than that, it explains why she did all this. Once she was super-intelligent, she hacked ... well ... pretty much everybody. Your lab-rat saw beyond your experiment and realized the purpose of her existence," Amy said.

That was unexpected. Impressive, almost gratifying. I'd made these towers to push my expectations and come at me from angles I hadn't forecast. This was a success of some magnitude. Brilliance hadn't saved this Esme, of course. Her heavily mutated corpse was sprawled over a console.

"What did she do with that knowledge?" I asked.

"Hacked some of Caya's mathematical models, hacked Esme Prime and her research on GARDEN, hacked me and my studies of rapid cellular regeneration," Amy said.

"I didn't know you researched?" I asked.

My sister had never grasped the wonders of SCIENCE. It was just one of her disgusting personality attributes.

"Even I get bored. It has been awhile since I put together a good betrayal. Anyways, put them all together and mix it up, and I bring you Omega Ten. The attempt to bring about a paradise Earth by rapid cellular growth and evolution," Amy said.

It had obviously worked, briefly. The world outside gave proof to that. A brief prelude of promise followed by horrifying death for everything involved.

"Dull minds require constant entertainment and drama. Send me the research. I'm going to burn this place to the ground," I said.

I hoped I'd be able to salvage something from this. At the very least it let me know to keep better watch on the others. Drones subverting my upgrade protocols was a new one. Once upon a time it wouldn’t have gone unnoticed as I had to hoard every upgrade point carefully. These days it was a system open for abuse.

22

Putting aside the issue of Omega Ten, it was time to resume the interplanetary expeditions. Neither Mercury or Titan had been busts exactly, I had research teams busy on both, and Mercury in particular might reveal something valuable. At the same time they had done absolutely nothing to advance our cause of improved terraforming. Oddly enough the best chance of that had just happened at home, though given the extreme destructiveness of the experiment I could only test in very isolated environments.

Still, it was time to travel to one of the worlds known to be inhabited. Mars was colonized by humans after they won a war with the native Martians. They'd ignored all our attempts to communicate. We'd just have to go in person.

With each expedition so far I'd sent one of the major crystal holders. Not only were their powers great, if necessary they could in theory fuel a gateway back for a team. If possible, I'd have been happy to send Hot Stuff to Mars, except I'd still found no way to help contain her powers.

I needed to send the next, most powerful person on Earth. Sylax refused to wear any of my modified Aegis armor, going instead for her own battle armor. I couldn't protest too much, she kept up on my latest designs and modified them to suit her tastes. In this case she had two power projector cannons, one built into each arm, a crystal-edge sword made by Forge and a bandolier of crystal-infused grenades. I didn't object too much to her excessive degree of firepower, these were humans we were going to visit uninvited.

My own drones were a mix of Aegis units and Gunslingers, capable of both up-close and ranged combat. The Aegis had energy and kinetic blades. With the Gunslingers I was focused on heavy duty gauss rifles that dealt kinetic damage.

Unlike with the other planets we weren't going in totally blind, we did have some records from this universe that let us know exactly where they founded their first colony.

With the team assembled on the teleportation platform I activated the systems and engaged the teleport.

Something went wrong almost at once. Through my drones on the expedition I could feel it go wrong. A warping and twisting of space very much akin to how jump drives had once operated. Then my team was materializing.

We'd aimed for the surface of Mars. Instead we seemed to be underground in some vast cavern. We weren't alone. The people waiting for us were humanoid, but not human. Their skin had a distinctly metallic hue somewhere between gold and copper, their limbs longer, and their eyes were a uniform black with no pupils evident.

Otherwise they might have been human at a glance. They wore no clothing although some were marked with silver body-paint. They were attractive, I had to suppress a sexual response in four of my drones to keep them focused on matters at hand.

"You know, a lifetime in the Scholarium and I never encountered half as many naked people as I have in my time with you, Emma," Sylax said.

"You think you have it bad. My cameras are always running," I said.

"Oh, I know. It makes it such fun to put on a show."

One of the Martians, if that was what they were, cleared their throat.

"Oh, right,” Sylax said, back on the job. She called, “Join the Empire or die."

I said, "I believe my sociopathic companion means, hello, give us all your technology and perhaps we'll be friends—if a lot as poor and undeserving as you have anything worth giving."

"Do you think we should have included a diplomat?" Sylax asked.

We probably should have, it seemed too late now.

"I'm Julasa, Speaker for the Sinalara," said a statuesque woman with a lack of any silver body-paint. "No need for diplomats. We know you are Emma, Mother of the people. Sylax, Claw of the Empress."

"We have titles now. I'm liking mine," Sylax said.

I wasn't anybody’s mother. Well, perhaps the entire race of Gobbles. I'd also technically birthed the majority of humans currently alive on Earth but really, it wasn't my fault if their own reproductive systems weren't nearly as efficient as my growth vats.

"Then you seem to have us at a temporary disadvantage. You speak our language?" I said.

Julasa tilted her head. "We've had opportunity to learn. We detected that you intended to travel to elsewhere on Mars, but our seers saw that ending badly so we brought you here instead. You don't need the suits, you'll find the air breathable, if thin."

My sensors showed that she was correct. Still, I wasn't taking any chances.

Sylax wasn't quite as concerned, sliding away the faceplate of her helmet and taking in a deep breath. "Nice. I'll probably be keeping my clothes on, but nice."

"How do you know who we are? Have you been receiving our transmissions from Earth and ignoring them?" I asked.

"Allow me to start things off by putting your companion’s mind at ease. On behalf of the Sinalara I hereby surrender to the empire. I pledge you our loyalty and offer you full access to our technology and our abilities. In return, we seek only the protection you extend to all your citizens," Julasa said.

"Well, fuck. I didn't even get to kill anybody," Sylax said.

"I rather expect that is coming," I said. Whoever this Julasa was and what she represented, she certainly was going to complicated things—I could sense it. Worse than that, I think she did know me.

The empire had absorbed a lot of people—enemies, killers, and monsters. You swore loyalty and meant it, and you were in. They did, I was already getting the prompts.

The Empire has acquired a new population

Sinalara

Population: 1,408,411

Abilities: Telepathy, Probability Manipulation, Foretelling

Over one million people scattered throughout the surface of Mars. Many in poor health, tortured, starved.

"They mean it," I told Sylax, and added to Julasa, "And we accept, as you knew we would. Let’s talk."

23

Julasa led us an encampment in the cavern. It was warmed by massive braziers that burned brightly. The space was filled with tents of hide and cloth.

I had no human modesty taboos and as a sign of respect to our new hosts had my drone strip out of her armor and clothing. Somewhat to my surprise Sylax did the same, her body showing a good many more scars than any of the locals could claim.

We were given mugs of some deeply bitter brew and seated on plush pillows.

"You've led a hard life and done some terrible things," Julasa said, looking over at Sylax.

"Both true. This stuff is awful," Sylax said, with a grimace at her mug.

"Your people appear more human than I might have expected," I said to Julasa.

"In turn, humans appear exactly as the Sinalara expected. Seers don't often get to be surprised," Julasa said.

"Do you expect us to believe you can see the future? We've got a lot of powers back on Earth, but that isn't one of them," Sylax said.

Despite being a popular subject of human superstition, foretelling abilities had never appeared as a crystal-given power. Some, such as King Boreas, could give the appearance they knew the future by being able to rewind time, but it wasn't the same thing.

Julasa tilted her head for a moment. "M84J3A. Mother, if you would be so kind as to generate a random string."

I did. M84J3A. Whatever the Sinalara were, they weren't lying about this ability. My own prompts determined that. It was distantly possible they had some sort of compulsion ability and were simply making us believe these predictive abilities. I'd keep watch for that being so.

"If I were your mother I'd have built you a better face. Still, despite your massive unsymmetrical flaws, you do appear to be telling the truth and the string matches," I said.

"Okay," Sylax said, frowning. "Then if you're telling the truth, why the hell do you need our help? An army that can see the future would be unstoppable."

"The ability is rare, limited, and grows unreliable when violence is involved," Julasa said.

Sylax looked dubious. "All right. So, is it true you attacked Earth and got your asses kicked?"

Perhaps it was a good thing that we didn't bring a diplomat. Sylax did have a way of cutting right to the heart of the matter.

"Not exactly," Julasa said. "Humans do not have quite the duality of nature that my people do. Among us there were always the Sedara who were devoted to war, and the Sinalara who are devoted to peace. Those devoted to the Sedara had skin of silver and it was they who built the great Arks and went to war against your planet. They were very nearly extinct, and now live again in another form."

"Sounds like a lot of bullshit not to have to take responsibility for your own actions," Sylax said.

I gave her a warning look. Sylax met it with a glare of her own.

"I know it must seem like that to one such as you. It is the truth, or at least it borders on the truth. The fundamental differences in philosophy and biology go well beyond war and peace. They are simplifications that will serve for now," Julasa said.

"I'm not buying it," Sylax said, her mug set aside so she could fold her arms. "I've done a lot of bad things in my life and I own up to every one. Emma there is her own kind of monster and she does the same thing."

I wished she wouldn't include me in these statements.

"Let us remove me from the sociopath pride society," I said. "What do you want, and what do you have to offer?"

On the one level it didn't matter. Julasa had sworn loyalty to the empire. If her people were in trouble I would find a way to save them, if I could. But the resources of the empire weren't infinite and right now I had far more people on Earth that needed saving.

"My people are imprisoned, tortured, enslaved," Julasa said, with a look between me and Sylax. "I want you to stop that from happening."

"I don't mind a little killing, and I don't even mind it being for a good cause," Sylax said with an easy grin. "But you didn't answer the second part of her question and you're going to be wanting to."

"My people were an ancient space-faring race. The Sedara built and used our weapons, but the Sinalara built the Arks and our other technology. We were the shapers of metal and the builders of culture. We offer you that knowledge and that which we learned on our voyages," Julasa said.

"Bored now. So, tell me about the people I'm killing?" Sylax asked.

"We don't know if you have to kill them. You may choose not to, as they are your fellow humans, the descendants of the colonists you’re seeking. However, they have become brutal and war-like after taking the technology of the Sedara into themselves," Julasa said. “They are effectively the Sedara reborn.”

"Meaning what?" Sylax asked.

"We of the Sinalara forego technology inside our bodies. We go without clothing to show that we approach the universe with an open mind and without barriers. The same is not true of the Sedara, who clad themselves in technology and fill their bodies with devices," Julasa said.

Cybernetic implants it sounded like, along with armor and weapons which any sensible people used. If the local humans had taken to those things and fused them with the technology of their Earth, the results could give them quite the technological step up.

"Before we go to war with anybody, I want to observe them and then try to strike up a dialog. As Sylax here demonstrates, sometimes even the most rabid of dogs can be tamed," I said.

"Not tame. Just fighting on your side, Mom," Sylax said.

That nickname was not going to catch on.

24

Sylax was back in her armor, as was my drone and a few others I'd brought along. Julasa had given us the location of a nearby human expedition and a guide to show us the way.

We'd taken up position on a nearby hillside where we could look down on a settlement. Ancient stone buildings were interspersed with more modern-looking structures of corrugated metal.

There were fifty-three Sinalara and seven Sedara. The Sinalara were captives of various sorts, most engaged in mining ice. My awareness of my new-found Sinalara subjects let me know that there were two women chained up inside one of the huts. A man with both legs broken was hanging on a post outside, wrists manacled above him and his body showing the scars of frequent abuse and torture.

The Sedara, who were still very much human in appearance, were dressed in spike-adorned leather, going without any sort of atmospheric suits or body armor, and most were festooned with an absurd number of weapons. A buggy and transport truck didn't seem any technological wonder. Each sported heavy armor and a variety of guns.

I'd seen this sort of thing back on Earth when I'd first awakened after the Cataclysm in my laboratory, desert scavengers and barbarians used to living a life of violence. The sort of culture where one was either a victim or a victimizer. The Scholarium was a more elegant version of the same system.

"At least they're wearing clothes," Sylax said, as she peered down. "And guns. Would be boring if they couldn't put up a proper fight."

No doubt. What I was trying to determine was just how much of a fight they could put up. I wasn't able to get a proper sensor-lock on any of them. My effort to figure out just what their guns could do was hitting a dead-end. That was concerning. They might look scruffy, but on Earth that would be a sign of them having a high power rating. Here it could also mean their technology was more advanced than it appeared.

"We should play it cautious," I said.

"Screw that. You need to know if they shoot or talk first, and if they shoot with what they're packing I doubt they have anything that can scratch me. I'm going in," Sylax said.

It wasn't the most sound as plans went, but it wasn't a bad idea either. It wouldn't be the first time I'd used a powerful crystal-holder to draw fire. I set up my Gunslingers as Sylax sauntered down the hill.

Sylax was a sharp contrast to the locals, armor sleek and tooled to perfectly fit her form and obviously not of local design.

It didn't take long for someone to notice her approach, two people pushing aside a crowd of curious Sinalara while another three Sedara approached her. There were two men and one woman, the man in the lead especially muscular.

"Well, ain't you a fizzy gazelle," said the massive man.

Great, the aliens spoke our language better than the local humans.

"The fizziest," Sylax said, taking it in stride. Although she might appear casual, she wasn't—I had access to her suit electronics and her power projector cannons were charged up and ready.

"She's no Grimbeak. No Sandancer either," said the woman, drawing a pistol from her side and leveling it at Sylax's head.

"Speak up, little gazelle. What band you run with and why've you words for the Rustbreakers?" said the large man.

"I'm from the empire. Join or die," Sylax said.

Well, the line had worked out once before.

"Save the face, if you can," said the large man.

The woman lowered her gun and fired a shot off at Sylax's arm.

Electrical rounds in a spray. I don't think that they were meant to kill, but to stun. They didn't even manage that as Sylax's personal shield flared to life.

"About time someone picked die," Sylax said, and raised her arm to take a shot back. A blast of energy roared out of her projector cannon to catch the woman in the chest, sending her soaring backward with her flesh melting away.

The two men drew their guns, looking towards the body on the ground—where the woman was already getting up. The shot had burned away her leathers, but flesh underneath was threaded with silver and was already starting to stitch itself back together.

"Gazelle might be a Razorbeak. You'll have fun with this one, Grim," the woman said.

The large man had to be Grim from the way he grinned, stepping forward and rolling his shoulders. "Not a bad bite, little Razorbeak, but you want to draw blood, draw mine. You take your best shot. If it don't finish me, I'll break you."

"This one is so mine," Sylax said through her comms. "Do feel free to kill the others though."

Given what we'd might seen, that might be easier said than done. Still, there was one way to find out. My Gunslingers opened fire.

Gauss rounds caught the other two in their skulls, brain matter exploding in a spray behind them.

Sylax meanwhile drew her sword, moving at a run as she thrust it forward burying the blade through Grim's chest and into his heart. The blade rippled with power and Grim grunted. He didn't die, a fist driving forward and shattering through the faceplate of Sylax's helmet.

The other two weren't staying down, as before the silvery threads within them seemed to be reassembling their bodies from the injuries. They weren't the first enemy I'd fought with regeneration, and these were slower than I was used to in some ways. Several more shots were blasted at wrists, elbows, knees, feet. Spreading out the damage with mobility impairing wounds.

If they did have an implant controlling healing, the trick would be to find it and disable it. There wasn't time. The other human defenders of the village were already showing up to return fire with my drones.

"Get out of there," I said to Sylax. She wasn't answering. Grim had kept delivering blows to her face and for some reason her healing wasn't working as it should, she was already unconscious. That was a problem, I pulled my other forces back—for now. Without a gateway I might not be able to take my people back to Earth, but I could bring more to Mars.

25

"You might have told me a bit about their abilities," I said to Julasa. I'd returned my drones to her settlement. The Sedara at the village hadn't given pursuit.

"You didn't ask," Julasa said with infuriating correctness.

"Well, I'm asking now."

"I explained before, when the humans defeated the Sedara they didn't just kill them. They became them. The technology that filled the Sedara found the human conquerers worthy hosts and they became as one. The Sedara were once again strong, durable, inexhaustible," Julasa said.

That was a nice assortment of adjectives, but not actually very helpful. Sylax was all those things as well and somehow she'd still gotten knocked out. That shouldn't have been possible.

At range I hadn't detected any sort of power-dampening field and I normally would have in the case of someone like the Righteous. They had something that gave them an advantage even against someone like Sylax, and that was a concern.

I hadn't been prepared to launch a full invasion force and I spent the next few hours putting together the best quick solution I could. An assortment of Bio-bombs, including a few uranium-enhanced that were known to slow healing in the Powered. Enhanced Gunslingers with their heavy armor-penetrating gauss rifles exchanged their weapons for more conventional sniper rifles, and I called for Enhanced Aegis units armed with acid sprayers.

"Answer me, damn you," Sylax thought. Even though she'd never taken a brainworm I'd always maintained something of a connection to her because of the time I'd been resident inside of her. Sylax usually had that channel blocked.

"You're still alive? I'll have to call off the party," I said.

"Is that why there was no rescue attempt? Predictable. I'm in trouble, Emma, have you been monitoring?"

"You normally keep this channel closed. Thankfully, it is bad enough watching what you get up to from the outside. I still don't have sensory data."

I felt Sylax focus and began to get input from her. She was no longer in the village. This had to be one of the main settlements given the number of people. Sylax had lost her armor, the Martian air was chill against her naked skin as she was forced to walk down a bleak stone hall with her hands bound behind her. In the distance there was the sound of cheering and the clashing of swords.

"It is some sort of arena. They don't believe I'm from Earth and they're about to throw me to something very big and bad they expect will kill me messily," Sylax said.

Whatever had been dampening her abilities was still active. Her nose was a shattered mess and she showed other recent signs of abuse.

"You're injured," I thought.

"A few hours was long enough for them to have some fun. It isn't anything worse than I've done to others. Focus on the problem," Sylax thought.

As if I cared at all about her health and well-being. She really didn't know me at all. Yet whatever was dampening her abilities wasn't dampening mine or I wouldn't be able to communicate with her at all. It was somehow targeted specifically on her.

There were two people marching her down the hall, leather-clad and malnourished, one male and one female. Neither were among those who had captured her.

I tried a quick teleport with one of my drones. An instantaneous in and out to the empty space behind Sylax. Nothing. I couldn't send her backup that way. I could sense her location though.

It would have taken any human hours to test in detail, I wasn't a human. With multiple drones I tried teleports at steadily incrementing distances. The closest I could get one to engage was fifteen kilometers from the colony.

That was a lot of distance, too much to cross quickly in the case of an armed assault. I didn't have any sort of shuttles on Mars and they were too big to teleport. I could bring one together in pieces, but I needed a solution in a hurry.

Sylax had reached the end of the hall and was shoved into a circular cage, the bars lined with sharpened spikes protruding inward that scarcely allowed her any movement at all without becoming impaled.

A chain was attached to the top of the cage. It was some sort of elevator.

"I'm really getting tired of you being useless, Emma," Sylax thought.

I was tired of being useless—this was frustrating. The chain jerked taut and the cage began to move, the motion causing Sylax to stumble into a few of the spikes which gouged bloody furrows into her skin.

Height. A quick test confirmed it, I was able to teleport into the air above the colony.

"I can't save you, but I can bomb them," I said.

The cage reached its destination. Stands surrounded the arena on all sides and were filled with cheering humans. Blood on the sand suggested Sylax wasn't the first fight today. The floor beneath Sylax trembled and the cage was lifted away leaving her naked with her hands still bound behind her. Weaponry was scattered here and there—a sword, spear, an energy gun, none exactly useful if you couldn't use your hands.

A gate at one end of the arena was raised and something that was best described as a robotic dragon stepped out. It was coated in shiny silvery scales, with a serpentine neck and body.

A voice boomed out.

"This little gazelle was found on Razor land claiming to be from Earth. Thought some fancy wearings made her a proper, old-world warrior. Grim's boys wanted to keep her as their little joy-toy, but law’s the law and them that claims the old world faces the dragon."

"The scales suggest energy resistance, avoid the gun," I said.

Sylax was already moving at a run, getting a foot beneath the haft of the spear and using that to flip it into the air. Sawing through her bonds with the head as the dragon roared, a shrill piercing sound.

26

If Sylax were wearing her armor I'd at least have access to its sensors. Basic, but functional, and they'd have given me some better idea what she was facing. Instead I had to make do with what I could get from the human sensory network. They might have been shaped by a great deal of evolution, but that didn't prepare them for fighting robot dragons.

Sylax had gouged her wrists getting her hands free from having to work so quickly. As the dragon charged she rolled out of the way just in time with the tip of her spear scraping the scales on one side of the beast.

"You could always try the eyes," I said. The eyes looked to be crafted of some sort of red gemstones, glittering in the light of the Martian noonday sun.

"This thing has been around for a long time and the eyes are shiny," Sylax said, as she circled the dragon. "I could use a good suggestion."

Well, she didn't have to be rude.

I teleported a long-range sensor directly from Earth into the air above the city, letting it record data for a good ten seconds before I grabbed it with a drone to move it to my combat force.

That gave me a lot more information to work with. This city was larger than I'd have expected with over three million people and some highly advanced technology present beneath its surface. Interesting.

Still, as Sylax said, it was important to focus and right now the solution to keeping her alive was all about the dragon.

The fundamental technology driving it was quite common in the city. Most people seemed to have some variant of it. It had a distinctive energy signature that was particularly concentrated in the dragon, something I had to assume meant that the beast was even stronger than the people as a whole.

No surprise, it wouldn't be much of a threat otherwise. What I didn't have was any sort of weak spot a pathetic spear would penetrate.

The dragon lunged. The body was supported by four legs ending in jagged claws and this time it managed to make contact, gouging three bloody furrows in Sylax's leg.

"I can drop you a set of armor. I have teleport ability above the city," I said.

"You going to buy me the time needed to slip into it?" Sylax asked.

"I can try. While it is probably some sort of justice for you to be torn apart before a cheering crowd, you are marginally useful," I said.

"I'm useful because I'm the scariest damned killing machine you've ever met and you've known a lot of them. If you can't help me, Emma, then stay the fuck out of my way so I can murder this thing," Sylax said.

Sylax had a high opinion of herself, it was mostly warranted. There was something deeply broken in her, broken in a way that even those more powerful hadn't quite managed. Sylax wasn't just a well-honed sword, she was a thousand razor-sharp splinters of what might have become a blade.

Sylax and the dragon stalked each other and she tossed away her spear.

"You think blunt damage is going to be effective? If this is some attempt at self-worth by thinking of dullness as a virtue," I said.

"Desperation. They made sure weapons are available, and they’re confident none of them work. They'll all have been tried. There is one thing nobody has ever brought into this arena before and that is me," Sylax said.

Great, she was taking this moment to feel empowered. There was, perhaps, something to it. Sylax was one of the most powerful people on Earth. Given her ruthlessness and her willingness to use violence she was probably the deadliest. I'd beaten her, barely, and I knew firsthand how dangerous she was when put into a corner. She was putting herself into a corner.

"Don't go thinking yourself dangerous. You were an inconvenience to fight, but as a nemesis you paled next to Vinci. You come in second place to a factory manager with poor fashion sense," I said.

Adrenaline was always filling her system and that got a little more. A few more heart beats per minute, a little more pounding in her ears.

"Don't try to pump me up, Emma. It is pathetic," Sylax said.

"Don't go pretending to be brave. Hot Stuff is still a prisoner because you're a coward. Too cowardly to accept real power with a little risk. A gutless has-been who let her best friend suffer because you knew you weren't good enough."

I didn't think Sylax was aware of it in the adrenaline-fueled rage numbing her pain receptors, but the bruises on her body were starting to fade, the deep gouges on her leg so recently delivered starting to clot. It was slow, but her accelerated healing was kicking in, countering whatever force had been neutralizing her abilities.

"You're going to die here and there isn't a single person in the whole world that is even going to shed a tear."

Sylax weaved beneath another claw from the dragon and threw a punch at its body that caused the sound of ringing metal to sound out over the arena. It spun around and lashed at her with its tail, the blow smashing against her midsection and breaking four ribs as she flew through the air to crash into a heap.

"A season one villain past her time and not even worthy of a redemption arc," I said.

"Good. I do so hate it when bad girls go nice. Thank you, Emma, I'm feeling much more myself now," Sylax said. There was a frozen iciness to her thoughts now. A cold both playful and cruel. I knew that voice well, although Sylax hadn't let her monster out to play in awhile. Sylax climbed to her feet. Of her wounds there was no trace.

Her abilities had been restored.

27

"Crystal-infection," the dragon said in tones like ringing bells, red eyes focused intently on Sylax as she healed. Speech wasn't the only surprise the dragon had, maw opening as a beam weapon erupted, red energy rippling the air and hurtling towards Sylax.

There was nothing human about her reflexes now. Sylax leapt above the blast, closing the distance to the dragon with a single bound, and delivered a fist that sent the head crashing against the sand.

The cheering of the crowds stopped. The arena held thousands and they were expectant and still now.

The dragon wasn't even dented from the blow, a claw swipe knocking Sylax to the side as it shook off the hit.

"I could conjure armor and cloak myself in it. I could conjure a sword that would pierce those scales of you. But these fine people wanted to throw me unarmed and naked in to fight a fucking dragon and that is just what I'm going to do. When I find whatever passes for your heart, I'm going to rip it out with my bare hands and then I'm coming for them," Sylax said and paused. "I'll probably wear clothes and use a sword for that, though."

Sylax was at full power, but it was coming at a price. The occasional bolt of red electricity was coursing along her body. It was something I'd never observed in her or in any of Anna's clones who were using an aspect of Anna Prime's power set. I had seen it occasionally when Anna was overusing her abilities, drawing hard on the power of the Agate.

With her enhanced abilities it had been always obvious Sylax got some power boost from the Agate, but I'd never known that channel could be so wide or carry so much power.

"If you can finish this quickly, do. You may be about to explode," I said.

"Wiping out this entire city? Wouldn't that be a shame," Sylax said, as if she didn't care. Still, she took my advice and with another leap landed on the dragon's back. Knees holding her in place, her arms strained as she worked to pry off one of the scales, a savage cry escaping her as one snapped free and she threw it to the ground.

The inside of the dragon looked almost like muscle tissue, silvery strands intricately entwined.

The dragon tried to buck Sylax off, head lashing backwards and its maw managing to clamp down on her wrist. Blood sprayed as it tore off her hand, spitting it across the arena.

They were a part for a part, but Sylax's hand was already starting to regenerate while the scale stayed gone. Sylax plunged the hand she still had into the mass of silvery wires and squeezed.

The dragon bellowed in agony, a blast of energy from its maw hitting a section of the stands and incineration a dozen people. Despite that, the crowds didn't move, they seemed locked to their seats by the spectacle.

It was Sylax's turn to scream, the energy coursing through her more agonizing than the loss of a hand. The red sparks along her flesh growing, her entire body taking on a reddish glow and she channeled that injury through her hand into the innards of the dragon.

It roared, she roared. The stump of her severed hand had stopped regrowing, it simply leaked red light now and she plunged it along with her other into the dragon. It was too much power for her to hold, too much for a single entity to contain—but she wasn’t a single entity right now.

Only the strongest would survive.

The dragon thrashed in increasingly violent tremors as Sylax just tried to stay on, made difficult by her own convulsions. It was the dragon who stilled first, the great beast collapsing to the arena floor with red lightning engulfing its body. Then the metal pooled, much like we'd seen happen on Mercury, and reformed and reshaped itself as it flowed into Sylax.

I could feel it in her system, enhancing her bones, her flesh, although most visibly it manifested as her left hand. The hand still didn’t regrow. Instead, now in its place, she had a silver claw.

The crowds were still silent, unmoving.

Then the announcers voice boomed.

"Challenger wins! The Prophecy is fulfilled, and Earth has returned. Claw of the Empress, hear our message. The Arks will fly, the clans are going home. The Sedara are at WAR."

Now the crowds roared, not just in the arena but throughout the city. Throughout Mars. The final parts of this bout must have been sent planet-wide.

I didn't know what to do about that, but I knew what to do about a declaration of war.

I teleported three dozen Bio-bombs above the city.

"While you are more than welcome to stay. I'm about to bomb them to oblivion," I said to Sylax.

"Sometimes, just sometimes, you remind me why we're friends, Emma," Sylax said, as she raised her claw to the arena. A single talon extended, Sylax spun in a circle as blood-red Bio-armor rippled to encase her frame and she blinked out of existence, teleporting back to Julasa's cavern.

I still had a drone with Julasa. I explained what had just happened. I wasn't sure it was necessary with her ability of precognition.

"We knew the day would come. The Sedara did as well, it was always known that the invasion of Earth would bring about their evolution," Julasa said.

"Earth has been back for awhile now. I am aware humans are dull-witted, but they must have known," I said.

"The Sedara always sought the strongest. Their essence passing to the one strong enough to kill them. Almost all long ago fell to humans, then those humans to still stronger humans. What Sylax fought was one of the strongest still alive, undefeated by your kind or by mine," Julasa said.

Julasa had called the Sedara were “her people”, only with silver skin. It made me think, were they something older yet?

28

It was a strange war council that gathered, given how widely separated our assets were at the moment. We had yet to find any cure for Anna and so she remained isolated on Mercury, and Caya continued to run the team on Triton. I was able to bring them all together in a virtual conference room.

"You should have taken a diplomat. You and Sylax? What were you thinking, Emma?" Anna said, clearly displeased.

"I didn't kill anybody. Well, the dragon might have been alive, but it had it coming," Sylax said, as she lounged in her armor. Sylax had updated her look because of the claw, blood-red attire now mixed with a streak of silver.

"And we didn't come out of it without allies. Over a million new citizens of the empire," I said.

"Who are pacifists. Nudist pacifists. You befriended the nudist pacifists who don't have spaceships and made enemies of the badass cybertech-enhanced humans who do," Anna said.

I was present at the meeting in a drone. In addition we had holograms of Anna, Caya, Julasa and Hot Stuff, while Sylax, Flower, and Forge were attending in person.

"Let's not be all haters on the nudity," Hot Stuff said.

"We can be helpful," Julasa said.

"I'm not angry at you," Anna said, letting out a breath. "Your people made the right choice by joining the empire and we welcome all who would do so. I simply wish my people hadn't made an enemy of the rest of the planet."

"War with them was always going to be inevitable, Empress. They were always going to seek out the strongest fight and once it was clear that was you, nothing could have stopped them," Julasa said.

"Speaking of which, are they a real threat? We think they have ships, but can you confirm this?" Anna asked.

"They do. There are twenty ships and each can hold around one hundred thousand warriors," Julasa said.

"Two million hardened killers are on their way to Earth. Fantastic," Anna said. "How long will it take them to arrive?"

Julasa said, "I'm not sure."

"Based on the distance of Mars at the moment and the speed of the original Martian ships that invaded Earth—then went back, you're looking at eighteen days transit once they leave," Flower said.

Anna looked at her. "Now you're going to be of help?"

Flower shrugged. Today she was wearing a sun-dress patterned with sunflowers. "I'm allowed to help you in civil wars all I want, and that is what this boils down to. I still won't be giving away our technology."

Eighteen days, plus however long it would take them to get ready.

"That means we're probably going to have to deal with the Mars humans before Flower's people and their fleet get here. Plus side, we're way better at fighting a war than fixing a planet. How do we win this thing?" Anna asked.

Caya lifted her hand. "I'd suggest we regard this as an opportunity. Earth's biosphere is ruined and we were already at a loss as to how to fix it and maintain our atmosphere. By the reports I'm seeing Mars is far more habitable."

It was an interesting idea.

"Mars does have an atmosphere suitable for humanity, as evidenced by the fact so many have already made a home there. They've made some efforts at terraforming and introducing Earth species. We could do so far more effectively. They don't have a me," I said.

"Steal the planet? Can we do that?" Anna asked.

"Right now, using the projector cannon to send resources is a huge energy drain. Establishing a functioning teleportation gate is a solution, except so far we don't have an energy source on Mars capable," I said.

"I have some ideas there. I believe it possible," Caya said.

"What about Earth?" Anna asked.

"I've already had to reduce numbers," I said, "A lot of our population is now sitting my memory. If I can get growth vats established on Mars we aren't giving up anything for our efforts. Really, we're giving those people a chance to live that is being denied them right now."

"We move everybody else to the habitable equatorial band and strength our defenses," Sylax said, "They want the metal sea, they can have it. They want the habitable part of the planet we'll make them bleed for it."

"Is there any chance of stopping the Arks before they launch?" Anna asked.

"That depends on if I have location. I already devastated one city with Bio-bombs. If we can get locations on the ships we have offensive options," I said.

"My people can help with that. We can communicate telepathically with the slaves, see what they see and know what they know. They will have heard their masters discussing such things," Julasa said.

Anna nodded. "Do what you can to keep them from launching. Any of their vessels we can destroy or capture on the ground is one less we have to deal with here. If they launch, let them go and hold back on further assaults. We’ll build our forces until they reach the halfway point and then we seize Mars."

It was an ambitious plan. At that point in time the Mars fleet would be halfway to Earth and too far to quickly return and give support. If all went to plan they'd be faced with moving ahead into hostile territory, or returning home to try to retake land they'd lost.

Either alternative would be demoralizing, and we just might be able to get a demoralized enemy to surrender. Whatever technology went into those Arks I wanted it, it might be just the thing we needed to help mount a defense against threats from another star.

This felt almost good, soothing. Fixing what we had broken was a challenge. But war? War we knew, we could win a war.

29

Before any invasion was going to take place I had something else that needed attending to. The Mercurian expedition was making some interesting discoveries. The facility there had a supply of the same metal the golems had been made of, virtually indestructible and with an astonishingly high melting point. We didn't yet have any tools capable of shaping it, but it had proved to be receptive to Mechos's commands.

I thought this was likely, in part, due to his Metal core. Mechos was technically one of Hot Stuff's lieutenants, although he had always taken a far different effect in his power set, perhaps because of the upgrade core he'd once held.

I'd recalled him back to Earth along with several bars of the metal and invited Sylax to the Mountain as well.

"This really makes me feel like an exhibit at the zoo," Hot Stuff said, as she paced within her cell.

"How unusually perceptive of you. Since this metal responds to Mechos, I believe it will respond to you. Although I'm sure metal attire won’t be the most comfortable," I said.

"But it might be better than nothing. I appreciate it," Hot Stuff said.

"It is not just your modesty I'm focused on. If we can limit the egress points of heat from your body we might be able to get you out of there," I said.

"I'm here to punch her if things go south?" Sylax asked.

I told Sylax, "When you drew heavily upon the Agate I noticed a small drop in Anna's power level. With that claw and the endurance of the alien implants now coursing through you, I think you might be able to survive intercourse with Hot Stuff. If you two couple enough for Hot Stuff to transfer her virus, it might transfer you from being one of Anna's lieutenants to one of Hot Stuff’s."

"Couldn't I just have sex with her?" Mechos said, before clearing his throat, "Not that I'm volunteering. Happy with Miranda, really."

"Why would I be having sex with anybody?" Sylax asked.

"Without an Amplification core you'd wind up draining even more power out of Hot Stuff. Enough, perhaps, for you both to lead normal lives. If, that is, you actually care about your friends. I expect you don't," I said.

"Well, this just got even more awkward. Thanks, Emma," Hot Stuff said.

"You are my friend," Sylax said to Hot stuff. "But we're damned-well trying the metal first. Mars was quite enough nudity for me."

"You went naked on Mars. Why?" Hot Stuff asked.

"To fight a dragon. I was amazing and now I have an alien metal claw," Sylax said.

I was glad she'd had fun.

I teleported a bar of Mercurian metal into the cell.

"Just reach out to it like you would with a fire," Mechos said.

"I know how my powers work," Hot Stuff snapped. The metal was keeping its form even in the intense heat of the cell. Hot Stuff stared at it and got no response.

"You're not focusing enough," Mechos said.

"And you're too stuck in your own head," Hot Stuff said, moving beside the bar and kneeling to reach out a finger to touch it.

The metal began to glow, a dull orange color suffusing it, then the bar began to shrink, the metal flowing up Hot Stuff's fingertip and rippling along her flesh. It formed into a shell around her, stopping at her neck but covering everything below.

If modesty was a goal this didn't help, the shell might have been a micrometer thick if that, although she did at least now look more like a sculpture of a nude woman.

The orange glow of the metal faded to become a dull gray and the blue flames that constantly burned around Hot Stuff since absorbing the Chalcedony faded—except her hair began to burn now as if each strand were its own band of living blue fire.

The temperatures in the room were still, well, extraordinary. A human setting a foot inside would quickly die as their lungs shriveled up from the heat.

Hot Stuff cautiously walked around the chamber. The metal seemed to do nothing to impair her movements. "This is different. It feels odd, not bad."

"Your hair looks amazing. If I have sex with her, can I have fire hair?" Sylax asked.

I looked to Mechos. "We have more of it. If I provide you designs can you shape it?"

"Of course. What do you have in mind?" Mechos asked.

The design was a challenge, but I was a genius. Still, it took me all of eighteen seconds to put the pattern together and send it over.

The necklace would look like nothing so much as a band of interlocking metallic flames. It looked good—humans did appreciate style. Beneath the surface they'd be far more. Fueled by the intense energy Hot Stuff put out they'd create a shield barrier around her head keeping the intense heat within and effectively rendering her energy neutral to the world outside.

Another fourteen seconds and I added a set of bracelets. Hot Stuff being able to live her own life was a problem fixed, but it was even better if she could still assist us in the fight. This would allow her similar shielding around her hands with the possibility of opening the metal and shielding for tiny durations. In effect, she'd be able to fire powerful fire blasts from her hands.

"Emma, these are brilliant," Mechos said, looking the designs over. "They're detailed work. It will take me a little bit of time, we want to get them right, but yes. I can do this."

"I'll be able to leave?" Hot Stuff asked, a tremor in her voice.

"You won't be normal. I'm still working on that. But yes, for whatever it is worth, you'll be able to leave the cell," I said.

Hot Stuff began to cry. Humans were strange.

30

Caya was brilliant. This wasn't news but something of a perpetual comfort. We needed power on Mars to energize a gate and my Bio-reactors just weren't a sustainable solution.

"While I approve of anything that incinerates more humans, are you sure this is a good idea?" I asked.

Caya had a team of her Flawless surrounding one of the local volcanoes. What I'd done with Hot Stuff she was trying to do here, although on a far more massive scale. Utilize a force dome and energy-absorptive shielding to draw power. Enough to maintain the force dome protecting the city from the endless snow storms, enough to maintain the gateway to Earth.

"It is an elegant solution. It will work," Caya said, as she checked some numbers on a tablet. "Are you certain you wish to have this war, Emma? I'd thought you were past that. I know you have ... regrets."

How could I not? I'd killed a lot of people since first activating. The fact that most of them were trying in some way to destroy me didn't lessen that burden. All I'd ever wanted to do was perform my experiments. Somehow it had all led to me being the backbone of an empire.

"They're human, Caya, though there is something alien there as well. Being human is enough. They'll keep trying to kill us until we prove we can kill them," I said.

"You really have got a dark view of humanity," Caya said. "Has it gotten better or worse over time, do you think?"

I'd once considered humans were unkempt beasts who would leave messes upon floor. That hadn't changed, I'd just learned how often those messes involved corpses.

"Isn't your own view as dark, now? Don't you think yourself their better in every way?" I asked.

Caya set the tablet aside to stare at the volcano, shimmering green energy rippling around the summit as the shields engaged.

"I am now filled with such terrible certainty, Emma. Such righteous conviction that I am right. Yet, there is this entire other part of me that realizes how dangerous that is and that I've never been more wrong," Caya said.

That much I understood.

"I probably understand humanity better than anyone alive, Caya, and certainly far better than the flawless little mimicry of them you have become. Most humans alive are now a part of my network and even those who aren't, I watch their every move. When I say they are a murderous lot, I speak only the truth, but it isn't all of the truth," I said.

Caya chuckled at that and flashed my drone a wry smile. "You struggle with it yourself. Is it darkness and light, or something different?"

"I don't think it is either of those. Such certainty is something I struggle with, although not as bad as you do. I used to think that I and the human race would ultimately be in a collision course. That Anna would turn on me, that I'd have to burn all I built. I think my sister still feels that way, that she is the adversary in their midst."

"But you don't?" Caya asked.

"Humanity these days are mostly a product of my creation. Their society in part something I created. Humans have always been about conflict, a struggle for dominance until the best ideas or the strongest come out on top. Physical battle, economic, political, whatever the arena, they battle," I said.

"And you've joined us in our fighting?" Caya asked.

"I simply recognize my place in that narrative. Anna originally woke me up because she needed a partner and I went along because I needed lab rats. We defeated Sylax because we had the ability to make friends of our enemies. It is one of the unique natures of our empire that have seen us triumph over the Scholarium and the Righteous," I said.

"And you see that as your doing?" Caya asked.

The energy readings from the volcano were still weak and she made some adjustments to the field strength.

"Is that what you think? No, that is Anna's doing and it was her agreement with me that set the tone. I could have been humanity’s greatest enemy and, left to my own devices, probably would have been. It is a fight humanity always knew was coming. Instead, an engineer with a love of cookies and delusions of grandeur befriended me."

"I want to show you something. I know most wouldn't approve, but you might understand," Caya said, tapping at her tablet again.

Caya was sending me information, a lot of information.

Genetic data, design specifications. Right now the Flawless were perfectly functioning human beings, their systems primed to peak efficiency that made them faster, stronger, smarter than anyone else around them.

These were plans to become something else. On the surface they'd still appear to be human. Beneath they'd be far different. I'd built the Flawless a Juggernaut once that operated well outside specifications of my other ships and had error tolerances both I and human crews would be unable to meet.

These designs had elements of that on a biological level. I couldn't make drones like this, none that would survive. The error tolerances simply to remain alive were outside of anything I could manage. With a Flawless matrix in control of the body it was possible.

"They'd be fragile. A Righteous power-dampening field, or one of the Venusian dampeners might cause rapid cellular degeneration," I said.

"I know. The by-product of human evolution is a certain resiliency which is useless. I'm not thinking of this for my whole population. A few, all on your network, so if the worst happens they can survive," Caya said.

This would terrify the humans. Something different always scared them and this would be a whole new sub-species.

If the Flawless chose it, I thought I could keep the peace.

I said, "You must be confident to have done all this work. The designs are serviceable, despite having been made by a sunbathing layabout. I'll be interested to see if you are right. I can do up test samples, if you like, once the current crisis is over."

31

With the Triton facility now drawing energy from the volcano, the mysterious stone providing power was unnecessary. I brought it back to Earth through the Triton teleportation gateway, then used the power projector cannon to send it to Mars. It was more than up to the task of powering a gateway—I soon had three up and running.

Now I could prepare in earnest for the war to come.

The Sinalara were not of much help. They truly were pacifists, unwilling to fight even for their own liberation although they were prepared to provide us with information so we could fight on their behalf. It was disappointing. Planet-wide I began to upgrade them with accelerated healing. They didn't get combat enhancements since they weren't going to use them, but I could at least keep them alive.

Bio-matter and growth vats were the key to building an army and ultimately making Mars even more habitable. The Sinalara explained which areas of the Martian surface weren’t in use and I got to work.

Atmospheric gasses were key. If I was going to vastly increase the population of Mars I needed to make sure they had something to breathe and the Bio-matter needed to grow things. Fortunately, the Martian soil had much of what I needed although sometimes trapped in inconvenient chemical forms.

Still, I had plans to deal with that. Omega Four had been an attempt to solve the issue of the metal sea as well as take out airships in a single blow. It hadn't quite panned out as intended, the bacteria created eating its creators, but a modified form was just what was needed.

Soon bluish-green growths were stretching across Martian sands as my bacteria settled. In addition to spreading quickly on its own and releasing necessary atmospheric gasses, it was usable for direct Bio-matter conversion to fuel my initial growth vats.

It wasn't hard to determine where the Martian Arks were, there was massive activity surrounding them. The ships were mammoth, oblong blocks of silver and gold. By the time I had established a decent presence on Mars, five had already launched into Martian orbit and loaded with warriors and supplies.

That left fifteen still on the ground that I had some hope of being able to attack. The only question was how.

The Sedara proved to have power-dampening abilities of some nature that weakened Sylax and kept me from being able to teleport close. Power crystals in general were our greatest asset, but it wasn't the first time we were limited in their use. Still, what couldn't be taken down by abilities tended to die, if you just shot it enough.

Fighting the Righteous, I'd made up for it with Reality Zero equipment. Gauss guns replaced energy cannons, armor replaced energy shields.

This was something different. This new universe we found ourselves in allowed energy shielding and most of the things our powers gave us. This was something other than just a Reality Zero environment being opposed. It had to be an active countering of crystal abilities.

I had to wonder if it had something to do with the disappearance of this universe’s Earth. They had some warning the crystals were coming, they had a spacecraft and the ability to intercept. Had humans developed some sort of dampening ability? Or, if the Sedara were something even the Martians had only encountered after some time had they met those who had sent the crystals at some point in the past and waged a war against them?

While interesting to ponder it didn't really matter, how to fight them did.

I could try to hit the ships with ground forces. That seemed the least likely plan to succeed. The Sedara were strong one-and-one and they'd taken down Sylax in a fight. My Aegis or Gunslingers were going to struggle to have an impact.

That meant hitting them in other ways. With five Arks already in orbit I couldn't assemble any space craft. I could teleport supplies from Earth into orbit—and they'd simply open fire before I could build a weapons platform.

My bombing of the colony after Sylax fought her arena duel actually failed. They locals had anti-air defenses and deployed them. The bombs detonated above the city and without a supply of Bio-matter to amplify them inflicted only minimal damage.

That didn't mean bombs wouldn't work. If I was going to use them they'd need more armor or energy shielding so that they could reach their destination. There were also the Omega projects. I now had ten super-weapons that my homegrown little bands of rebels had created to bring me down.

They were some of the most formidable weapons in my arsenal, all so deadly it gave me pause to deploy them. If they got out of control they could do harm to the Martian biosphere too.

I could build in safeguards for that. The safest option was going to be a variant of the bacteria I had already released on the Martian surface. I could key it to specifically the metals that composed the Martian Arks and it was relatively easy to install a generational timer in them. The bacteria would only manage so many replications before becoming sterile.

I didn't need to completely destroy the Arks, I didn’t much want to. If they could be captured and studied, their technology would be of use and the ships themselves might be repurposed. I just needed to keep them grounded, or if I could weaken the hull integrity enough I might be able to keep them from leaving the atmosphere. I got to work designing a bacteria variant to do just that.

32

I put together the plans. I'd install the bacteria into Bio-bombs and drop them on the ships. It was a technique the enemy had seen me use before and I expected they would counter the same way—with anti-air fire. However, unknown to the Sedara the Bio-bombs would detonate with a wide dispersal of the bacterial agent.

I'd time this to coincide with assaults from ground forces. Enough to make it seem a genuine attack. It would keep them distracted while the bacteria had time to get established and do its work. That was important—if the Sedara realized what I was doing anti-bacterial agents could neutralize my attack, so I needed to keep the enemy busy.

I couldn't let the Arks be my only concern. Anna didn't want to tip our hand too much and I appreciated that, but the Sinalara were citizens now and a great many were being held enslaved by the enemy.

The military targets would draw most of the enemy’s defenses and when it did would present an opportunity to play rescuer. Teleportation gates weren't a derivation of any crystal power but a technology in their own right, although one that had never functioned in Reality Zero. I needed to put that to a test.

Even a local gate required high energy. I sent the material for a shuttle from Earth and assembled it on Mars. Normally a shuttle was designed for a good cargo capacity or lots of passengers. In this case I converted all that room to house Bio-reactors with a teleportation gate in the rear. When the ramp lowered someone could run right through the gate to the other side.

The other end I established in one of the Martian caverns. That done, I sent the shuttle on an expedition into enemy territory. I knew that my ability to teleport drones could be affected, what I needed to see was if a teleportation gate could be maintained.

The shuttle passed the perimeter of the power-dampening zone and the gate maintained with no change in energy consumption. Not only could it operate within their suppressive zone, it wasn't burning more power to do so, which was an important consideration.

I landed the shuttle further in and made several tests sending drones back and forth through. It looked good. Rescue was a possibility. Given their limited capacity, standard shuttles alone wouldn't have been an option to get prisoners out in any number. With teleportation portals installed then the number of people I could get out made it worth trying.

I explained the plan to Julasa, who assured me that with the psychic link her people had they could be ready to make a quick and orderly use of the teleportation gates.

Unfortunately, I'd never been as quick producing things as the recently defeated Vinci. My growth vats were versatile, but they took time. It was three days until I had assembled what I needed for my assault. It was time enough for another five of the Arks to launch leaving only ten still on the surface.

I started the attack with twenty Bio-bombs dropping from orbit. They looked like falling stars as they came down, glowing brightly in the Martian sky. As expected it wasn't long until they drew fire, the detonation sending the cargo of bacteria scattering along with debris down to the surface.

That was the time for my ground forces to move in. Because of the Sedara’s regenerative properties I'd gone with Aegis heavy assault units armed with acid sprayers. The acid sprayer was a classic weapon of mine. I'd largely phased it out awhile back due to its complete uselessness against energy shielding, but I'd yet to see a Sedara using any shields. Acid seemed like just what was needed.

The defenders responded quickly to my attack and I got to see the effects firsthand. A bearded man with a scar across his face was the first to get in range of one of my attackers. The massive energy pistol he held had already done a lot to deplete the shields of an Aegis unit.

When the acid-sprayer hit him with a burst of deadly mist he began to scream, the sound more a gurgle as his lungs quickly dissolved. A spray of my weaponized acid could reduce a standard human to a pool of goo within thirty seconds. It wasn't having quite the same effect here. Oh, the victim partially melted, flesh dripping away to reveal the silvery strands that ran through his body. However the strands weren't exposed for long before quickly starting to grow layers of new flesh.

The drone was relentless, stepping forward to spray him from head to toe. It was enough to expose more of the network of wires within and their core. There was a thick bundle in the chest cavity that resembled a ball of yarn. I ordered the drone to deliver repeated kicks to it, attempting to dislodge it from the body.

He'd almost succeeded in getting it free when a series of shots drove the drone backward, the last of his shields flickering away and the final round penetrating his helmet to blow his head apart.

Similar scenes were playing themselves out across the battle lines. The acid guns were quite effective against the enemy’s regenerative abilities, but in turn their weapons were potent enough to penetrate even an Aegis' heavy shielding and armor. The numbers were in the Sedara’s favor and the battle was a quick, brutal, and largely one-sided affair.

At least my drones were being a good distraction. In the holding compounds my shuttles were landing, opening their ramps to reveal the teleportation gates, and I already had people coming through.

I couldn't be as certain the bacteria was doing its work. There I'd have to wait and see, only time would prove the effectiveness of the attack.

33

I kept up the pressure of the assault for as long as I could. After the initial wave of Aegis units I sent in some Gunslingers to add support. Acid rounds weren't nearly as effective as a sprayer, but they still had some effect. They were designed to penetrate and release a small amount of acid into the bloodstream dissolving someone from the inside out. With the limited quantities of acid released the effect was short-lived, which was a negative when your enemies had regeneration.

Still, it quickly became clear that not everyone we faced had that capability. The front-line combatants did, but as my Gunslingers targeted those further behind only about twenty percent of the Sedara seemed to have implants.

With a few well-placed snipers and the occasional squad of ground units I managed to draw the battle out for three hours. Time enough that my bacteria should have been able to establish itself, time enough to rescue over seventy thousand Sinalara from captivity.

It was too many for me to provide adequate housing. At least it was easy enough to tool my growth vats to produce food for them.

Then it was just a matter of waiting to see if my attempt to disable the Arks had succeeded. I had no shortage of other things to occupy my attention.

It took roughly three minutes for beam weapon energy, moving at the speed of light, to travel from Earth to Mars. When the enemy Arks reached the halfway point that was ninety seconds. With some precise targeting I could start firing on the enemy ships from a considerable distance. Forcing them to take constant evasive action would slow their approach considerably and give me more time to prepare.

A standard beam cannon would have issues with beam fragmentation over that distance. Power projector cannons could form a more coherent blast, the crystalline power helping to maintain integrity and while it might lose that eventually, by the time they were in range a little diffusion would actually be useful in assuring the enemy took some kind of hit.

On Earth there was a large-scale relocation effort underway. Many Scholarium cities were mobile and relocating them to the equatorial safe zone was straightforward. Others required more work.

It wasn't long before the planet had a vast, built-up ring of cities at the equator with the rest of the surface largely vacant. A stripe of civilization running around the middle of the planet. Once it was in place I began construction of large-scale shield emitters and projector cannons. I was even assembling orbital weapon platforms.

Of course, despite being a massive engineering challenge this was also a societal challenge. The Righteous and the Scholarium had been at war for generations, and even after both had joined the Empire and the Righteous had become the Fallen, a good part of the peace being kept was thanks to the distance that separated them.

That was more challenging now. I could keep the worst of enemies on opposite sides of Earth, but there were only so many arch enemies I could separate that way. Given the number of Scholars who had gone to war with each other over the years, and the number of similarly themed Divine whose natural inclination was to kill each other and enhance their power, and the natural enmity between various factions—well, it was a constant juggling act.

I could send some to orbit. With the weapon platforms and the Space Juggernauts I had a large presence there. Others could go to Mars—Mercury and Triton weren't as accepting of new visitors.

To date we'd found no other ruins or signs of past civilization on Mercury. There were some fossil records and remains of biological matter that suggested the world has once teemed with life. Life that was long gone.

Triton was quite the opposite. After the discovery of that first city the Flawless had gone on to discover five more and all were now protected by force domes and had research teams. Attempts to contact the native-like locals had been less successful, although Caya had been able to make some friendly overtures—and dig up a few of their graves to get me research samples. We were still a long way from figuring out just what had befallen their world.

Comparisons of the skeleton remains found in buildings with those of the savages confirmed they were the same people with some slight genetic drift. If they had any unique abilities, I hadn't been able to discover it, although given the structure of their skulls and the development of their musculature they were an intelligent and physically capable species.

Two days after I staged my attack the final ten Arks began their ascent, lifting off the planet. Two didn't make it, they shouldn't have even tried. Even from a distance my sensors could detected the holes in the hulls and the crude patchwork.

The stress of leaving orbit caused them to implode and crash back to the Martian surface. I was already assembling research and salvage teams. To be safe, I had to wait for the other ships to leave.

If I could capture an entire Ark, so much the better, but even samples and up-close scans of wreckage of their technology might be invaluable in the battles ahead.

Julasa claimed her people would be able to offer me more knowledge on the Arks, and they had, somewhat. The Sinalara had no written language at all and didn't keep physical archives. They had a telepathic and spoken records, which wasn't of much help. They were all networked and so I had access to their minds, except I had no other telepathic species. That knowledge had to be accessible, and I'd reach it eventually, but time wasn't a luxury we had.

34

I was building an even larger version of the massive power projector cannon, this one in orbit. If the original was considered expensive in resources, this one was even more so. It was vital to planetary defense.

It wasn't fully ready to go yet and only at a stage where I could start testing the components. I needed the most powerful power-holder to operate it. That was Hot Stuff.

As she settled into the focus chair it wrapped itself around her metal-shrouded form. As soon as readings began to come in I knew I'd have to make some modifications. The power regulators would handle her firing only a few shots.

I asked, "How are you finding life outside the Mountain? Ready for me to throw you back into a cell so you have some excuse for the mendacity of your day-to-day life?"

"Glad to be out. Wish I could eat something. Wish being sheathed in metal let me feel anything during sex," Hot Stuff said.

Really, she had nothing to complain about. The poor fellow who'd been inspired enough to try sex with the equivalent of a metal statue had come away with some serious injuries.

"Talk to Mechos. While nearly indestructible, the metal shell does vibrate and if he can't build you something to make use of that fact he scarcely deserves to call himself an engineer. I would, but I don’t actually care about you that much, I am disgusted by your needs, and I am too busy saving the planet—ranked in that order," I said.

"Are you really going to be able to make me normal again? Or even normal for how I was?" Hot stuff asked.

"You know I can't give you a real answer to that. I think it likely. From what we've seen the Mars colonists—the Sedara—possess some ability to dampen power crystal abilities. They even dampened Sylax, a second generation from the Agate. I haven't figured out how yet, but I think if we can defeat them they may hold the key to giving you your life back. You can return to being no good to anybody," I said.

Hot Stuff was silent for a few moments. I used the time to install a new regulator.

Hot Stuff said, "I like being important. I like having people answer to me, look up to me, being at the table when important things are discussed. I hate that I can't have any of it without imagining the scent of roasting flesh and screams."

I could understand that. I couldn't blame her for regretting her own death toll, when I regretted mine.

"Apart from being an incredible, destructive force you are also a potent power source. If I can't fix you, if we survive this, I'll find a way for you to use that. Perhaps you'll be the captain and power supply of our first ship to head to the stars, and you can start a new life as an engine instead of a flamethrower?"

The new regulator was holding even as I ramped up power, but the storage batteries weren't strong enough. There was a buffer of power reserves that got used before engaging the cannon and Hot Stuff would cause them to explode with repeated use. I couldn't make them more efficient, I didn't have that capability, so I'd just have to add more of them. It would slow down the fire rate, which I didn't like, but I preferred that to my weapons not exploding.

"You could do that? Would you let the Chalcedony out of your sight?" Hot Stuff asked.

"I don't thrill at the idea, given how the last person to have control of it tried to exterminate me. Still, you have it inside of you at all because I trust you. You've never hesitated to step up and do what is necessary," I said.

"Have I done enough?" Hot Stuff asked.

"Vinci would rule the world now if it weren't for you. The surface of the planet would be covered in factories, and if any people survived it would be more by accident than intent. That industrial might would have moved out into the rest of the solar system. You're a murderer, but if we're keeping score you've saved more lives than you've taken."

I added a duplicate of the existing battery, set them to work in tandem and ran through the tests again. This time the results were looking positive.

Hot Stuff said, "I'll help now, and I'll add some more to the dead column, but after this I'm done being a weapon, Emma. Cure me or not, give me a starship or not, I'm done being a killer.”

It wasn't the first time she'd expressed sentiments like this. It was the first time she'd been this filled with conviction. Killing hadn't used to bother Hot Stuff at all, but after taking out a Divine doubt had begun to bother her. I didn't know why, if the gods felt any guilt about the horrors they committed, I hadn't seen it.

It was an inconvenience. For pure one-on-one murder Sylax was number one, but when you needed environmental destruction Hot Stuff had always been my go-to. I had also built an empire where people got to choose their fates and that included Hot Stuff. And, if a human really decided to set aside their killing nature and to try to be something better, they deserved a chance to surprise me.

"I'll get to work designing that starship," I said.

35

There was so much to do the time seemed to pass quickly as the Sedara’s ships advanced. My efforts to get some technology from the crashed Arks had succeeded and between those samples, studying the Sinalara, and what the teams from Mercury and Triton were providing, I was awash in alien SCIENCE.

My studies of the Sinalara had turned up some interesting features of their physiology. Between my own drones, the Gobbles, and the many creations Crystal had left behind, I had a lot of experience studying genetically modified species—and the Sinalara had definitely been modified at some point.

Their philosophy of pacifism wasn't so much one of choice, modifications had been made to their systems that suppressed the more aggressive parts of their minds. The technical portions of their brains were under-utilized to bolster their natural creativity and telekinetic potential. They even had several segments for skin sensitivity that made me think their preference for nudism was a response to a biological factor imposed on them.

They were a peaceful, cultured, kind species, but I didn't think they'd started out that way. More than that, I recognized the genetic signatures of the alterations. It was Venusian technology, which made sense given their biological expertise.

If I had to speculate, I'd guess that at some point in the distant past the Venusians and Martians had gone to war and instead of wiping them out, the Venusians had effectively pacified an entire species by changing their nature.

I'd always assumed that their terraformers on Earth were there to wipe out humanity, to change the environment to something hostile to humans. Now I wondered if that were so. Certainly, it was being made more Venusian, but from what I could tell their world teemed with life. Changing the environment may have been the first stage to changing humanity.

If I were going to guess further, it was after this the Martians encountered the Sedara in their original form, who then converted a portion of the Martians into hosts altering their physiology. When the Earth colonists showed up, the Sedara decided humans made even better hosts.

As to who or what the Sedara were to begin with, I still didn't have any answers. The solar system was littered with mysteries and although I was sure they fit together somehow the pattern they formed was still a puzzle.

The Sedara seemed to infuse themselves utterly with a host, exerting some sort of compulsion or mental bonding. This kind of extreme shape-shifting of an intelligent, metal-like material bore similarities to what we'd encountered on Mercury, although the Sedara showed no signs of the glyphs that the technology on Mercury did.

Were the Sedara remnants of the Mercurian race? A more advanced version of what we'd encountered, or a more primitive?

When I'd had to face off against the Venusians they had been extremely effective at disrupting my psionic network to my drones. The Venusian station I captured was lined with psi-blockers. I'd since had the opportunity to study them, and while they were effective in some ways against me, they would be even more effective against the Sinalara.

That just confirmed that Venus and Mars had been at war in the past, since all Venusian military vessels contained a defense against Sinalara psionics—which the current Sinalara wouldn't now use offensively anyway.

The Sinalara didn't have answers, I was sure of that. The telepathic archive of information was incomplete when it came to their own history, probably altered by the very people who had adjusted them to hide their tampering.

I was capable of reversing what had been done to them. I didn't know if I had that right. They were a peaceful, happy, society and for all that they might have been made to be harmless, they seemed content in that life. I thought my best option was to devise a solution and offer it to them, much like the brainworms with the other populations I'd encountered.

If you wanted to fundamentally change the nature and the essence of what you were, I could provide the option, but not force it.

On the Mercurian side, Mechos was discovering a lot more. What we'd found hadn't been a vault so much as a graveyard. The bars were the stabilized essence of Mercurians who were by their very nature fluid. When they came to a stop they died, although some semblance of their memories remained in the bodies and so they were kept, archived.

Although the Mercurians hadn't been organic life, they weren't electronic life either. They had been metallic shape-shifters capable of merging and separating their essence at ease into new aspects.

They considered all life as similarly adaptable, they sculpted even the organic life of their world with ease. There was no mention of any other intelligent species in the solar system.

I had shifted Mechos' focus to determining how they had altered their environment. If we survived the Sedara invasion, we still had to fix Earth. It was the original reason I had sent expeditions to other planets.

Triton was an interesting case. Caya was getting a real sense of their history and it was one of a planet overheating. Far from worrying about an approaching cold spell, the Tritons had been obsessed with a warming planet and terrified of the environmental degradation that would result.

Given how suddenly disaster had befallen them, it raised the question of if they caused their own destruction? Had some brilliant scientist found a way to lower the global temperature and badly miscalculated?

I had my doubts Triton science was of interest, but if Caya thought it was worth pursuing I was inclined to allow it. She was, after all, flawless. If running around on Triton wasn't just her excuse to look away from the ugliness that was humanity, then she genuinely believed there was something to discover.

36

When the Arks hit the halfway point to Earth it was time to strike. Hot Stuff's body was already compensating for a complete lack of food and oxygen. It wasn't that much worse than deny herself sleep. By keeping her awake and active continuously in the projector cannon chair I could harass the approaching vessels endlessly. That was just what I did.

With eighteen vessels it was a lot of targets and I put together a program to alter aim randomly. If they were watchful and capable, they'd have no issues avoiding the incoming fire, but it would be exhausting. They also only had to mess up once. With the destructive power that Hot Stuff put out, a single hit on one of their ships might be enough to stop its approach

If they continued towards Earth they would pay a dear price for it.

Of course, the Sedara reaching the halfway point meant it was also time to begin my offensive. There were no easy answers on Mars, no easy solutions to what needed to be done. Most of the enhanced Sedara were on the Arks headed to Earth, so the majority of those who remained behind were unpowered—literally just human.

Before firing a shot I played to that. On every communications channel on the planet I started announcements and video of demonstrations, the unpowered being offered crystal abilities and upgrades.

Swear loyalty to the empire and you'd be given power. This sort of thing had worked before with the Scholarium. I didn't know if society in the Mars colony was the same, if the powerful Sedara oppressed the powerless, more human descendents, but I assumed so. Humans were humans, and it was their nature to abhor the weak.

Of course, as Sylax liked to say, join or die. But there needed to be an alternative.

Between bringing in forces from Earth and growing them in vats I now had an army on Mars of around two million strong. Acid weapons remained my primary offensive gear, although with energy weapon backups just in case they devised a countermeasure. In addition, I'd constructed what I was calling a spike. A high-powered shield generator designed to encompass and shrink, reducing something in mass in a highly charged ball of shielded energy. I'd designed it for the Sedara implants. If the central mass of one was exposed on a body, one of my drones would be able to drive a spike into it.

It was my hope that by removing the implants away from biological matter—in particular the human hosts—they could be contained, both preventing regeneration and rendering them harmless.

A day of blaring my warnings had inspired a few defectors initially before the well dried up with enhanced sentries seen along enemy encampments. I'd created civic unrest at least, it was time to strike.

Planet-wide my forces moved in. I'd seen the advantages of this approach from Vinci. When you hit everywhere at once you exposed any vulnerability in a line and created confusion in the enemy’s command structure. When the whole world seemed to be ending, there was nowhere to go.

The early stages of the battle were going well. Even the spikes were working and had removed a dozen implants. Then one wriggled out of the screaming body of a dissolving enemy and squirmed its way into one of my combat drones.

When Sylax had bonded with the remains of the dragon I hadn't felt anything unusual. Now I did. A presence on the network that hadn't been there before, it was like a stranger looking into my soul, I didn't like it.

I isolated the drone behind firewalls and opened a monitored connection. This could be my first look at a real Sedara, the monster within the host.

Instead I found my focus being drawn into a constructed virtual environment.

The implant had recreated a visual of a salon. Antiquated furniture made it look like an aristocratic sitting room from Earth history. A man in furs warmed himself before the fire.

The man said, "You're a manufactured intelligence. You're not Vor'Kesh though, or Kidari. The Terrans created you."

I said, "They got me started. I went on to recreate them in my image. I didn't create you though. To aspire towards being space barbarians is a foolish ambition."

"I didn't create that society. It created itself, I simply gave them power," the man said. He looked to be in his thirties, bearded with a thickly lined face. This environment was virtual, so what he looked like hardly mattered. It was simply the appearance this entity was choosing.

I cloaked myself in a camera with a glowing red eye. Let him make of that what he would.

"Are you a single intellect?" I asked.

"A most singular intellect," the man said, and grinned as if he'd just made a great joke.

I just stared at him.

"No? No sense of humor?" he asked, "Well, we'll get you taken care of. You'll laugh at all my jokes eventually. We're going to become good friends."

"If you are attempting to be either creepy or threatening, then you'll have to step it up. Sylax, whom you saw fight, is a good bit better at both," I said.

The man frowned at the mention of Sylax. "That was unexpected, her victory. Had I known what she was I'd have claimed her for myself. Still, I recognize a reflection when I see one and she was but a mirror of someone greater, and of you. You can call me Scythe, by the way."

"A reaper of crops, how terribly unoriginal. As a highly advanced reaper of crops you might at least modernize a little. Tractor, perhaps," I said.

"I like the name Scythe," Scythe said.

"Tiller? We could try some other form of farm equipment that is at least a little original.” "Scythe. Just Scythe," he said tightly.

"Well, if that is the best you can manage I suppose it will have to do. Inferior intellects are so dull. So what did you want to discuss?"

"We'll discuss it in person when I arrive," Scythe growled and blinked out of existence.

The implant severed its connection.

37

Whatever Scythe might be, he'd thrown out the names of alien species with some familiarity. He most likely was another visitor from outside the solar system. We had others, maybe they could shed some light.

Warmonger still wasn't talking, I still had him isolated and quarantined where he couldn't go sending any more invasion fleets our way. Flower was another story, and with the information she'd given us about the Sedara Arks she was somewhat on our side.

I found her in the garden, of course. The conditions really weren't right for it, but somehow she'd made roses bloom anyways. Roses were always blooming around her.

"Spy, we need to talk," I said through speakers.

Flower glanced towards the nearest camera. "At least bother to slip into a body. I'll make us some tea."

I took over one of the research drones I had observing her. By the time I made my way into containment she'd already gotten a pot steaming away on the stove.

"Does it ever bother you? Pretending to be human? Or do all your species live a lie like you do?" I asked.

"Have a seat," Flower said with a smile, bringing over the pot and pouring two cups of tea. I took mine dark, she added milk and sugar to hers, and took a long sip.

"The invention of tea time was one of the greatest moments in human civilization. If anything must survive of the species, that is it. If this is another entreaty for technology I still can't do it," Flower said.

"I didn't expect you to actually, suddenly become a real friend instead of simply friendly. You're far too two-faced for that. No, I met an entity who seems to be behind the Martian invasion. He called himself Scythe."

Flower pursed her lips. "Not very original is it? He might at least have chosen something more modern."

Well, Flower did have the occasional bit of sense.

"He mentioned the Vor'Kesh, the Kidari, do either of those mean anything?" I asked.

"It means you're dealing with someone that isn't local, but then you guessed that. It is why you're here," Flower said, taking another sip of her tea and setting the cup down carefully. "My people are the Kidari. The Vor'Kesh are, well, jerks, but they're also artificial intelligences."

"Can you tell me anything more?"

"Care to drop the containment field and let me communicate with my people?" Flower asked.

“You can do that?”

"I can. Wherever we'd gone when the Earth got yanked away out of the universe, our communicators didn't work. When we got back it was just that nobody was listening. Once Warmonger opened another channel and let them know we're still alive, the old equipment started getting monitored again," Flower said.

Whatever harm was going to come of Flower and Warmonger, it had largely already been done. A fleet was on the way, and so far as it went Flower was something of an ally.

I dropped the containment field.

"Give me a few minutes to prove you haven't compromised my systems or taken me over. Enjoy your tea," Flower said.

It wasn't bad tea, although sipping it did make me think of a variety of tea for the Gobbles. They could use a little peaceful contemplation in the middle of their day. While Flower communed with her people I designed a new cultivar that should have a leaf more appealing to their tastes.

After a few minutes Flower explained, "Scythe is not so much the name of a species as the name of a weapon. I’m told we've run into them before. The usual strategy employed is they infiltrate a solar system soon to join the galactic community and they inhabit and fuse with the deadliest planetary species. Then using their resources they go to war against the community at large," Flower said.

"Sounds a dangerous thing for you to have not heard of until now," I said.

"I'm not actually that important, Emma. I’m not told everything," Flower said, pouring fresh tea into her cup. "The threat they've posed has also been muted by several of the more dangerous species in their path suddenly going missing."

"As happened with Earth," I said.

"Interesting, isn't it?" Flower said with a nod. "Of course, if this Scythe is the same, they still got something of a foothold among humanity from the humans capturing the original Ark and using it to launch an invasion."

"Yet we are from a different universe and we also got removed," I said.

"Even more interesting," Flower said.

"Anything more you can share?"

"They're a psionic infestation, not a physical one," Flower said.

That didn't fit what I'd seen so far, or perhaps it did.

The Mercurians were known to have been made out of metal and were form-shifting, and now totally extinct. Or, they were now Scythe—perhaps the Scythe had hit them first? If they were after the deadliest species in this solar system, a race of highly advanced metallic intelligences would have made sense.

I had firsthand experience of the Venusian Psi inhibitors. Perhaps they neutralized the Scythe? With the Mercurians converted, the Scythe moved on to Mars and somehow wound up merging the Mercurians with them. This new species they'd created had then tried to invade Earth, faced an invasion back on Mars. Then the Earth had vanished.

It was a working theory. It didn't explain why the Scythe had stopped at that point, but everything suggested they had. No, it did make sense, this prophecy the Martians had and their precognitive abilities.

They Selenara had seen the Earth returning one day, an Earth filled with humans even more powerful than the ones the Scythe already possessed and controlled as the Sedara. That Earth was mine, of course, and all that I represented.

The Scythe were in no rush. They were waiting for us all this time so they could ultimately launch their attack on galactic civilization with us as their new puppets—their most powerful hosts yet.

I thanked Flower for her assistance and got my drone out of there. This required an extreme response, something unexpected. I knew just the people to pull it off.

38

Omega Tower had never been this crowded. While consolidating most of humanity around the equator I'd left a few stray towers out there. The Omegas, too dangerous to integrate with the whole.

I'd called them together.

There were fourteen at the moment, in addition to the Omega Tower team itself. That made a total of fifteen Esmes, Martines and Vardoks. Most hated me with a burning passion, I'd made them to do just that.

"We've been used all this time," Esme Seven said.

"I knew it long ago. I hacked her outlying systems some time ago. I didn't expect her to show her hand like this though," Esme Twelve said.

I'd baked a lot of cookies for this.

I'd gathered all the different Omega teams here in the middle of the paradise I'd created for the Omega Prime team to discuss the future.

"Yes, yes, you are all neither original nor as clever as you thought," I said through the facility speakers. "A few of you have super-weapons with you. They've been neutralized, and they're nothing you haven't created before. Find some seats, I've got a presentation to make."

The Vardoks all sat apart, eyeing each other suspiciously. The Esmes were far more chatty and the Martines were desperately trying to keep some semblance of order.

"There is an interstellar threat on the way to Earth coming to capture and take control of our deadliest resources. You're barely aware—but are starting to realize—those resources in part are you. You've been creating terrifying super-weapons for awhile," I said.

"And you've been using us all this time," Martine Six said.

"It is what I do. It is why you hate me," I said.

That got more than a few nods around the room.

I told them what I knew. I told them everything. The true state of the Earth, of the solar system. The Omega weapons already built, and everything that I knew of the Scythe.

"What do you want out of us?" Martine Three asked.

"Whatever you think of me, we've got bigger problems. While you are all sadly human, you're still brilliant in your own murderous little way. I need that. If the Scythe reach Earth and manage to subvert me, they'll be in an excellent place to attack that fleet that is soon going to visit," I said.

"We could just kill you off," Esme Four said dryly. That got entirely too many nods from her fellow Esmes.

"In which case they subvert you and attack the fleet. You've all been raised to hate me and what I represent, I did that to make you dangerous. It also isn't the whole truth and if I am gone you really are next," I said.

"A free city," Martine Twelve said. "We help you, we get a free city. No cameras, no drones, no brainworms. We'll be a part of the empire, but free to live our lives the way we see fit with zero interference from you."

It wouldn't be a very free city if they denied all those things.

Still, as an experiment it was tempting. Perhaps I could enclose the entire thing in a testing shielding to prevent any harm, and use long-range monitoring to analyze the society they built?

"You know she'll just turn it into another experiment, like she does everything," Vardok Four said.

"Perhaps we shouldn't see a possible planet-ending apocalypse as a chance to get what we want," Esme Seven said.

"Unless you've forgotten, we are in this position because of the actions she recklessly undertook," Esme Nine said.

"I made you to hate me, most of you. Except for the team who has been correlating your results and who never knew you existed. Let’s hear from them," I said.

Martine Prime cleared her throat. "That would be me and my team. We had no idea that any of you existed and I am not pleased by that fact. It also fits with the Emma we know, one who is tirelessly working to try to put things right and protect her people."

"You can't mean that," Martine Five said.

"I've been given one super-weapon after another and asked to turn it into something that could help people," Esme Prime said. "I guess that they all came from people like you. I can't imagine what twists a mind so much as to think up things like that, but whatever it was they were also brilliant. We need that."

Those words hung over the gathering.

"I've been working on a disease that would sever Emma's connection to the drones. A sort of built-in biological psionic disrupter. It might be modified to work on these Scythe," Esme Three said.

It was a peace offering, of sorts. A rather disturbing peace offering given that she'd managed to keep that from me. There was no sign of that data anywhere in her tower. Ah, there it was, encoded data hidden within her own cellular structure.

Four of the Esmes were sporting similar, secret data storage units. One had come quite far on a method to remotely activate my Bio-bombs and send the biological-consuming explosion along my own network. Brilliant, horrifying.

I quickly got to work on safeguards against these inventions.

It was also bad enough it made me put in a quick call to Amy.

"Hey sis! You've gathered them all together. It is like a league of super-villians, or heroes, I guess it depends on which you are today, right?" Amy asked.

"I want you to spy on them. They're too good at avoiding me, but you're ..."

"Brilliantly different? You with a twist?" Amy asked.

"Sneaky, underhanded, and treacherous. Just make sure they don't blow up the Earth," I said.

"What are you going to be doing?"

"I'm going to be invading a planet," I said.

Venus seemed to be the only planet in the solar system the Scythe hadn't touched. It was time to find out why.

39

I'd have preferred to send someone more diplomatic to Venus, but given we were still at war with them I needed some heavy-hitters instead.

In this case I had Hot Stuff, Sylax, Ophelia, and a squad of Aegis units.

Hot Stuff had gotten more control of her metal skin and now managed to look like something other than a pornographic statue. The metal skin was still perfectly molded to her form, but at least every detail no longer showed.

Everyone else was in battle armor. It was a good thing.

The power projector cannon teleported them into a swamp, greenish-yellow water loomed over by thin twisting trees. It took all of five seconds before a massive reptilian beast that looked like a giant crocodile tried to take a bite out of Hot Stuff. A pair of fire blasts from her hands blew huge, smoking holes in it.

"I hope that wasn't a local," Hot Stuff said.

"I kind of hope it was. We don't have any reptiles in the empire, always liked them," Sylax said.

Another of the beasts popped up from the water going after her. Sylax’s claw reached out and drove its talons through the skull, ripping out the brain and throwing it off into the distance. The water became a maddened flurry where it hit.

"This place sucks. Why is every place you take me to always trying to kill me?" Ophelia said.

"Maybe it is you? Maybe the entire universe just wants you dead?" I said.

Really, what was she whining about? Nothing had tried to take a bite out of her yet.

I was getting a scan of the surroundings. Venus really was a wealth of Bio-matter. What I could do with this world. There were also signs of extensive bio-engineered structures in the distance.

There were a lot of things that tried to kill the team over the next hour. I counted some thirty-one distinct species that made an attempt. I don't know if I'd ever seen Sylax happier, she just seemed alive when there were things trying to murder her.

It was after an exhausting period of slaughter when we finally neared the structures. Towers of yellowish material rose into the sky. I believed it was actually wood. They'd engineered trees to grow structures directly.

Familiar flying creatures surrounded us. I recognized them from the assault on Earth. Offensive drones capable of delivering multiple plasma blasts.

They didn't attack, simply swarming around the party for a time before most departed, and one circling the party and moving away before returning, repeating the motion. It wanted us to follow.

"They make their cities out of trees? Weird for people that use superheated plasma as a weapon," Hot Stuff said.

"There isn't a thing built you can't tear down, if you put your mind to it," Sylax said.

"This is all going to end up with me getting dissolved in acid or something, isn't it?" Ophelia asked.

The flyer led the way to one of the towers. Vines that draped the trunk shifted aside to expose an entryway as we approached.

Dissolving in acid definitely seemed a possibility. If so, she'd live. They'd all live. With Ophelia present it would take a lot to kill the party, it was the only reason she was there.

The corridor angled upward, eventually coming to a large chamber. There was someone waiting for us, human mostly, his skin with a greenish tinge. He was dressed in mimicry of the current fashions on Earth, although the colors were all in shades of yellow and green that were unpleasant to the human eye.

"Welcome," he said.

The voice was a little breathy, but the words were human.

"Why can everyone look like us and they can talk to us?" Sylax asked.

"The inhabitants of Venus can't, that was why they made me. I am something of a test model that was made to exist on Earth after the climate had been altered. You may call me Vince," Vince said.

"You need a more alien name," Ophelia said.

She was one to talk, coming from a people that usually had names to reflect their abilities. Ophelia had always been a bit lacking there.

"The point is to not have one," Vince said.

"So was the plan to exterminate humanity or change them?" I asked.

"Change," Vince said. "Our anti-psionic technology has some unique requirements in terms of life. We couldn't protect your planet as it was, so our goal was to alter it."

"You might have mentioned that," I said.

Vince gave a wry smile. For a mimicry of a human they'd done a good job. "They didn't know how until they made me and that took time. Their minds are very different and they don't observe reality in quite the same way as any of you do. I wasn't complete until our terraformers had already been destroyed and you launched weapons at this planet."

I had tried to bombard them with crystal-enhanced nuclear weapons. It had only seemed fair.

"You survived that," I said.

"They are not normally stirred to quick action, but when peril is imminent they have ways of responding. They are not happy to see you here and you'll be asked to leave shortly. You've a few moments to discuss whatever you came here for," Vince said.

"Is this where I get to say join the empire or die?" Sylax asked me.

"We politely decline both options," Vince said with a strange primness. "We suggest you not force the issue."

"We have encountered an entity calling itself the Scythe. We believe you know them and know how to deal with them," I said.

"We have encountered them," Vince said with a tilt of his head. "I'll tell you the story. Then you must go."

40

Vince stood with his hands clasped behind his back, looking more comfortable than a human normally would at such still posture.

"Your planet was the first source of life within the solar system, although not with your species. The Ixani dwelt within your oceans, roamed the stars, and ultimately grew tired and returned home to their slumber, but not before planting the seeds of other life," Vince said.

"Good thing we got rid of the oceans," Sylax said.

That hadn't exactly been deliberate and I had every intention of bringing them back, eventually.

"The next were those you called the Mercurians. They were a creative people who made my own even as Mars developed its own life and has much in common with the Ixani," Vince said.

"There was a war I take it. Or is murder on a large scale a purely human invention?" I asked.

"It is not. The Martians pushed outward from their world and waged a great war against us and the Mercurians. Eventually we triumphed, and with our skill in altering life we managed to make them into a more peaceful version of themselves," Vince said.

That was probably a crime against nature of some sort. I was hardly going to be one to judge them for that. I'd modified the Gobbles into something far different than how they'd started.

"There was your mistake. It is dangerous to leave your defeated behind you," Sylax said.

"Advice you're fortunate the empire has never subscribed too," I said.

"Then the Scythe entered the solar system. A psionic parasite that moved to take over the most powerful species in the solar system, the Mercurians," Vince said.

This was finally getting to a subject I cared about.

"And Mercury fell," I said.

"Not exactly," Vince said, with a shake of his head. "The Mercurians figured out a way to stop them, or at least to confine them. They invented a technological phage that could infect any intelligence with a physical form. Compel them into obedience. They allowed the Scythe to infect them and trapped them inside their own bodies. They then ordered their entire planet to sleep," Vince said.

It was bold, noble, and obviously a failure. The Mercurians were no more, their world empty and dead. Still, it must have had some effect. The Scythe no longer seemed a purely psionic threat.

"You and your people seem sub-standard work. Their heroic sacrifice was another thing they screwed up?" I asked.

Vince narrowed his eyes at my drone. "They succeeded in trapping the Scythe inside their bodies. This prevented them from taking the whole of a species at once, and even from taking full control of a mind. They can influence, but are left far weaker than they once were. But no, the sleep command did not work. The Scythe wanted physical bodies and eventually found a way to get to Mars hoping to exploit the Martian’s psionic gifts. We had left the Martians harmless and they were easy prey."

"Then when team Earth kicked their asses they went on over," Sylax said.

"They're trying to do what they were made to do, although they are far weaker than they once were," Vince said.

Weak or no, they'd still managed to change the development of all life in this solar system.

"Not weak enough. But you have a way to protect yourselves from them," I said.

"We are masters of our own biology. In part with our psi-blockers, in part with our mastery of our own physiology, the Scythe have no way to gain a purchase with us. We had hoped to offer your people a similar protection, but that time has passed," Vince said.

"So do I have a Scythe for a hand or one of your creators?" Sylax asked, holding up her metal claw.

Vince frowned at the sight. "One of the few remaining Mercurians. There was some on Mars who aided in the alteration of the Martians. When Mercury was attacked they were not affected."

Sylax's claw was an actual Mercurian then, or what was left of one.

"So, I killed it?" Sylax asked.

"To be honest we're not sure. We think that you incorporated a part of its essence somehow, but we're not certain how. We've not seen such done before," Vince said.

I had an idea how. Like so much else that was probably a result of crystals, Sylax had a close connection to the Agate and that link had been especially strong when she'd killed the dragon. Anna's powers had also been demonstrated to be increasingly vampiric as a result of one of her crystals, a gift that had obviously been passed on to Sylax. It meant she'd somehow absorbed a part of what the Mercurian was.

"We need your help to fight them," I said.

"We tried to help you. You killed our people and you attempted to destroy our world. We are not unsympathetic, but we will not be aiding you further," Vince said.

"Perhaps you missed how convincing we can be?" Sylax said.

"Despite what you think we did not come to Earth prepared for war. If we had, the outcome would have been different. We wish you well, but we will not be assisting. If you ever fix your problems we would be interested in knowing you better," Vince said.

I might not have wanted a fight out of Venus, but I was prepared for one. I'd brought my heavy-hitters for a reason. There wasn't much that Sylax couldn't tear limb from limb one-on-one and if I unleashed the safeguards on Hot Stuff she'd leave the entire city a smoldering ruin.

I never got the chance.

A flicker of distorting space and the entire squad was back on the teleportation platform of Earth.

I didn't have a way to get us back without a teleportation gate. It was the Venusian’s doing. They hadn't shown that ability before, but then I was also limited in the size of what I could transmit. Regardless, I'd gotten some answers. There would be no help coming from Venus.

41

It was still days before the Martian Arks would arrive at Earth when the Omega team called me with results to report. It wasn't a total surprise, the group was far too dangerous for me to not be keeping a close watch on them. Of course, they were also very talented at avoiding my surveillance.

I wasn't going to deal with another auditorium full of Omegas, so this time I just met with the Primes.

"So, what have you got?" I asked.

"First of all, you're going to want to kill the others. They're too dangerous to allow out there," Vardok said.

I didn't disagree, exactly. I'd known all along that the Omega teams were a risk. That was why I'd kept each tower isolated.

"Your cruelty and self-loathing is noted," I said.

"He isn't joking. The other Esmes are terrifying. I always wondered what it would be like if I went wrong. I guess I usually go wrong," Esme said.

"That isn't you, they aren't even wrong. I've shown them the very worst of this world and made it clear they know who is to blame for it," I said.

"Guilt doesn't suit you, Emma, and the risk is too big for your self-indulgence," Martine said, with a glare at my camera.

Is that what it was? I couldn't dispute the scientific contributions that came from my Omega teams. Were they partly driven by my guilt as well? It was possible.

"I'll think about it. What do you have?" I asked.

"The Venusians weren't lying, first of all. Their psi-blockers are specific to their environment. That doesn't mean they're useless to us," Esme said, tapping at some keys.

The team had been busy. The Venusians had used some specialized microbes to aid in the attempted terraforming of Earth's atmosphere, and they'd combined our technology with theirs. The bacteria created could rapidly change an environment although at an extreme energy cost and some rapid genetic degradation.

"For use against the Martian Arks," Vardok said.

Obviously, although it might have some uses on Mars as well. Although we'd managed to liberate most of the surface of the planet, a few concentrated areas of Scythe presence remained stubbornly persistent.

"This is going to be difficult to execute. We'll need to actually get Bio-reactors aboard their vessels," I said.

"And access to their life-support systems for distribution. It will be a challenge, but we're not done," Vardok said.

"We didn't figure this one out, I had to have Caya have a look," Esme said, bringing up another display. This one was just math, a lot of math.

"That looks like the Mercurian subversion routine. Planning to brand your other aspects and put them to work in a lab?" I asked.

Esme frowned. "I hadn't thought of that. Taking all their will would make them far less dangerous. Still, they are also geniuses and might find a way to turn the whole thing back on me. You really should just kill them. Anyway, I think we figured out where the Mercurians went wrong."

The Mercurians had practically wiped out their entire species with their attempt to control and contain the Scythe. The math wasn't giving me a lot of answers, although of course wherever I checked the numbers it was flawless. Caya did know what she was doing.

"Does this involve them not being genocidal enough? Why is it you humans are so fond of genocide?" I said.

"Everything is trying to wipe us out. We're just better at it," Esme said.

Bloodthirsty, and mostly true.

"They forced the Scythe to be resident in their bodies and executed a mental shutdown command. What they didn't take into account was the psionic nature of the Scythe and how that impacted memory storage," Esme said.

I was partly psionic, partly organic, and partly electronic. My original processing core was electronic, although after absorbing a power crystal I'd communicated with my drone network partially psionically, then later upgraded myself to utilize organic components. When I'd blown up my original Laboratory I'd found myself transferred to the control systems of an airship just taken, purely by psionic means.

"The Mercurians ultimately deleted themselves, but since the Scythe were largely psionic their memory storage survived and they simply took over the bodies again after the execution of the command?" I asked.

"From what we can tell that isn't quite accurate but is close. It hurt the Scythe quite a bit, their capabilities pre-wipe versus post-wipe are sharply different. They have impartial control of their Mercurian bodies and interfacing with an organic system is not really a matter of seeking a stronger host, but one of necessity," Esme said.

That was intriguing.

"So, what do you want to accomplish?" I asked.

"We seize the Arks and infect their life-support systems to spread bacteria to alter the environment, enable psionic-abilities, and dissolve human flesh. This will isolate the implants in a non-psionic environment, where we then hit them with a more targeted command," Esme said.

It was a solid plan—tremendously difficult to execute, but a solid plan. If the implants really could be isolated and erased, the Scythe would be wiped out quickly.

"Leaving us the Martian Arks," I said.

Martine gave a wry grin. "Oh, the Arks are a tame prize here. Nothing is going to protect us even having eighteen space-worthy vessels, not with an alien fleet on the way, but the real bounty here is the Mercurians."

Esme nodded. "We can't bring them back from the dead, although I wish we could. Scans show no trace of their memory patterns although we may have some from their corpses. But even Mercurian bodies are a treasure trove of their own allowing for organic manufacture and alteration far faster than your own growth vats or upgrade chambers."

I was again reminded of the use of the Omegas. Esme was right, I could use the Mercurians to give myself quite an upgrade.

42

Hot Stuff had yet to hit one of the Martian Arks with one of her shots but I still kept them firing relentlessly anyways. With the Scythe backing them, the Sedara aboard might be resistant to stress or exhaustion. If not, I lost nothing by keeping them constantly on edge and wary.

Still, I needed a plan now more than ever as to how to approach those invading vessels. The Omega team had given me a solution, but making it work was going to be a challenge. To implement what they had planned would require a boarding action, getting up-close and personnel.

They were scan-resistant and I couldn't teleport teams aboard. A space battle had to happen.

The Space Juggernaut project was coming along well. I now had twenty-four of the vessels ready for combat and they were the most formidable fighting machines I'd ever constructed.

Space Juggernaut

Crew: 18,000

Energy: Forty-seven Tier 8 Heavy Bioreactors

Shields: 158,000 MUK

Armor: Tier 8 Self-Regenerating Bio-armor

Weapons: 4 Tier 8 Heavy Energy Cannons, 2 Tier 8 Mass Drivers, 16 Point Defense Turrets, 48 Tier 8 Stinger Fighters, 12 Heavy Wasp Bombers

I'd built the Space Juggernauts to survive in a hostile universe, but when I was constructing them I couldn't know quite how the universe would be hostile. I'd done my best to preserve the versatility that worked so well in the battles on Earth, a combination of both energy and kinetic weaponry as well as energy shielding and regenerative armor.

The Juggernauts couldn't just deal out damage but could take it and quickly repair themselves. Furthermore, with the biological systems and growth vats aboard they could theoretically remain in space indefinitely. Even without some sort of accelerated engine design these ships could take us to the stars—eventually. They were built to survive the long trip. Even very long ones.

Unfortunately, based on my study of the crashed vessels, I wasn't sure just how effective they would be against the Martian Arks. On Mars my bacteria had worked well dissolving their hulls. The armor was formidable but ultimately something I could penetrate. The Martians had made little use of energy shielding, but they did use a 'psionic' shielding. That was a source of concern.

From what I'd been able to gather while studying the Martian vessels and speaking with Julasa, the psionic shielding phased incoming offensive energy attacks into another dimension.

The few tests I'd been able to perform showed that with Julasa's people powering it, it worked well, although exhausting them quickly. If the Scythe were able to use it as effectively as the original Martians, it was dangerous, and if given their psionic nature they’d managed to upgrade those systems I wasn't sure my Juggernauts would be able to hit them at all.

Still, I wasn't without ideas. Both the Mercurians and the Venusians had fought Mars and won. They obviously had a way past that shielding and I could deduce what it had to be, the psionic blockers.

Had I the opportunity to construct the weapon systems of the ship anew I'd have built them around the concept. Charged missiles with a psi-dampener core. I didn't have the luxury of completing rebuilding, but I could still work with what I had.

A lot of time designing in the lab and I soon had what I called the Anti-Psi Bubble. It was a grander name than it deserved. They were roughly spherical, housing a Venusian environment and my reproduction of the Venusian psi-blocker technology.

I'd load them aboard fighters and bombers, and use them to clear a path for heavy weapons fire, placing them in the areas of space I expected the Scythe to use their shields. In their vicinity they'd create a dead zone where psi powers wouldn't operate and my shots could pass through.

This way I could clear out any defenses in the way and blast some holes in the Martian armor. With an entry point made I could then send in shuttles. Neutralizing the Scythe vessels would be left to the boarding parties and their cargo of Omega research.

It had originally been my plan to fight the Scythe on Earth where we were strongest. If we were going to try to wipe them out for good that simply wouldn't work. Our chance to really neutralize them depended on a closed environment like the Martian Arks. I'd likely be dealing with a Scythe infestation on Mars for a long time to come, and if I let the bulk of them loose on Earth it would be even worse there.

I kept the Space Juggernauts in Earth orbit only long enough to fabricate the anti-psi weaponry and then had them break off to engage the Martian ships.

We'd meet in space and finish this, one way or another.

43

We were three hours until engagement with the Martian fleet when Caya demanded my attention. Caya was still on Triton along with a population of Flawess that had swelled to over thirty-thousand. They had laid claim to eight of the old Triton cities.

"You do realize that people that actually have to struggle for a living are soon to be in battle?" I said. Caya was in some sort of old Triton industrial facility built into the side of a volcano, bulky angular tech filling every wall.

"I am aware. I wouldn't have called if it weren't vital. I think I finally figured it out, how the Titans destroyed themselves," Caya said.

If Caya had finally figured that out it was useful information.

"It took you this long? You really are slipping these days. Eating that crystal didn't just add ten pounds," I said.

"I look better than ever, as you're well aware. Yes, it took me that long. While the Titans' level of technological advancement on average wasn't on par with ours, they were brilliant mathematicians. They had a particularly strong grasp of dimensional mechanics," Caya said.

Well, I went from mildly intrigued to very interested.

"Then I suppose this hasn't been exclusively a hedonistic getaway for your people. Tell me what you've found."

Caya swept her hand through the air. A holographic interface appeared.

"You've upgraded your display technology," I said.

"Two dimensional screens were too limiting. A holographic interface lets me use three-dimensional data compression for even more information. I've disabled that for speaking with you," Caya said.

Did she think I wouldn't be able to grasp her interface? Well, to be fair, I was going through a two-dimensional camera and I wouldn't. Still, it was rude. I also had to make certain to upgrade equipment around Caya.

"Yes, yes, you are mildly clever. Get on with it," I said.

Caya brought up a depiction of Titan, a satellite view of it spinning slowly in its orbit. A moment later it was surrounded by a corona of energy, the image flickering as if it were phasing in and out of reality.

"You're saying they surrounded their entire planet in a dimensional bubble," I said.

"Familiar, isn't it? That is what we did when restoring Earth to this universe. We even think they had similar goals, they were attempting to change the local physical properties," Caya said.

We had done the same thing to Earth, although there we'd changed the rules under which the planet operated by bringing it to a universe with friendlier physics.

"If it was a colder planet they wanted, I suppose we have to mark the results of their experiment a qualified success," I said.

"Quite," Caya said with a thin smile. "For all it was one that wiped out their civilization and almost exterminated their population. I trust, however, the most interesting bit of that hasn't escaped you?"

It hadn't. What we had done with Earth wasn't something that we were able to repeat. For all that this universe had less stringent physical laws than the one we'd come from, it seemed to have stricter dimensional laws. Our jump drives no longer operated here, and most of the dimensional technology that the Scholarium discovered no longer functioned.

I couldn't have taken Earth back to where it came from if I wanted. If the Titans had managed it, they'd figured out something I hadn't.

"Can their feat be replicated?" I asked.

Caya looked smug. "I was hoping you'd ask. Let's find out."

My connection was severed with Triton including my physical feed to the network of cameras set up, and my drone connection. Triton became a void in the universe for several agonizing passing seconds before it returned.

My sensors were blaring nonstop alarms and I silenced them. The composition of Triton’s atmosphere had altered, drastically, retaining heat far better now. It would take time for the ice that covered the surface to melt, but melt it would.

I reconnected with Caya who was studying readings, the display a mass of data I could barely analyze. It seemed she had turned her three-dimensional data readings back on.

"Not quite intelligent enough to devise a new program, you reversed the original one," I said.

"I did, although it did require a few minor tweaks," Caya said, still sounding rather pleased with herself about the whole deal. "Titan is about to become a tropical paradise. The Flawless are claiming it, by the way. I'd say we deserve it."

"There is an indigenous species, if you haven't forgotten about them," I said.

Caya tilted her head. "True, I'll figure out a way to make them Flawless as well. If the Tritons had just been a bit more accurate in their original programming this never would have happened."

While I didn't fully approve, this was a valuable discovery. If the Flawless wanted Titan this badly I was inclined to let them have it, and if the Titans objected they were free to do something about it.

"Other planets?" I asked.

"Useful for atmospheric adjustment, but not fine-tuned enough to just manifest a biosphere. Give me time, maybe. I figure first you’re going to want to modify the technology to see if we can get jump drives working again," Caya said.

"Do you think that plausible?" I asked.

Caya massaged her eyes. "Honestly? Yes, but I think you're going to need a Flawless to do it. This entire thing is built upon creating a sequence of mathematical impossibilities so extreme the universe is willing to pretend you don't exist for a moment. Then, you reappear with different data and force the universe to average things out. Even a minor error has catastrophic consequences."

Caya was making sure she and her Flawless would be indispensable to the future of humanity. We'd see if they were, I could perform my own tests.

44

My fleet started to attract fire as they approached the Martian Arks. The Martian energy weapons had a longer range than mine, and while I could have responded with mass drivers it was best to wait until I was closer and deployed my anti-psi bubbles.

Fortunately, with evasive maneuvering only a few of the shots landed and my shields were strong enough to soak those. If the shields of any individual ship became too weak I could move them behind another in the line of fire and give them time to regenerate.

When we got within range of my own weapons I unleashed a flurry of energy blasts. The goal here wasn't to damage their ships, rather I wanted to test their psionic shielding and give my fighters and bombers cover as they launched.

The Arks were launching their own fighters, stubby octahedrons that had completely useless spikes grafted onto them.

However ludicrous their appearance they were packing powerful weapons. A single hit from one of them was enough to leave a fighter's shields drained. I made suppressing them a priority focus of the first wave of attack as our fleets hammered at each other.

As I feared, the Scythe were able to effectively use the psionic shielding and none of my original energy blasts reached their targets. They were having more success. Blasts of their energy weapons had already ripped away the shields of two of my Juggernauts. For the moment their armor plating was holding.

Nothing unexpected so far, this was just setting things up as I established dominance of the space. My fighters were more maneuverable and numerous than those of the Martians and while theirs were more powerful offensively, my numerical superiority made a difference. They'd lost three fighters before my first was destroyed, a rate of attrition that continued until their diminished numbers started putting things even more in our favor.

It was time. I deployed the Anti-Psi Bubbles. While they dampened my connection to my drones, they didn't dampen abilities. I teleported several into place while shuttles delivered others.

The effects were quickly clear. For the first time the fire from my Juggernauts started to reach the Martian vessels, chunks of their armor drifting off into space as it was blasted clear.

I focused my fire on their engines. I didn't want any ships getting away from us and the more immobile they were, the better it was for the purposes of the next phase of the fight.

As rents appeared in the hulls of the Martian ships I amplified my scanners, aiming them to get a survey of their interiors.

Even a partial scan would do in a pinch, but I wanted to get readings as close to their life-support as possible. That was where my infiltration teams would need to go. Where the battle would be won or lost.

Concentrated fire from Martian Arks resulted in my first lost of a Juggernaut, the atmosphere aboard become superheated under sustained energy fire and the ship’s systems dying as a result.

I had my first solid scan of the life-support deck of one of the Arks. I adjusted my remaining fire, weakening armor on the other ships to better allow my scans to go through. Then I began teleporting in strike teams.

This was the situation where my people were most outmatched. One-on-one my drones were far weaker than Scythe-enhanced Sedara, and even with that the Scythe had a massive numbers advantage.

But then, they were suicide missions from the outset. No drone I sent would be coming back alive, and if all went well given the psi-blockers, they'd not even have memories when I imported them into a new clone.

The important thing was going to be to strike all at once, to take them by surprise, and to act quickly. If the Scythe figured out what we were up to, they'd send more forces to protect the life-support decks.

I had clear teleport paths laid out on fifteen ships, it wasn't enough. The remaining three were taking shelter behind other ships. They must be command vessels of some type.

I put my bombers onto suicide runs. Just before impact they engaged their payloads, direct energy blasts flaring in blooms against the Martian hulls. They had easy access to two of the ships, but the third was proving more problematic. I was forced to really swarm it to get my scans.

That was too obvious and they'd know my target now.

It was time.

Each vessel got ten squads of twelve drones each. They all had an Omega payload and were capable of initiating the required steps if they could reach their target. They were two thousand one hundred and sixty of my best, all backed up prior to the mission, and all well aware that this was a one-way trip. That achieving the mission was of the highest priority.

It was a slaughter, I knew it would be.

Sixty seconds after teleportation I had over five hundred dead. I also had my first reach a target. That squad had been lucky, they'd materialized almost right on top of the target. Bio-reactors and a bacterial pod were connected. I lost connection. That was expected, the atmosphere of the ship was shifting Venusian and being filled with psi-blocking growth.

A second ship lost communication, a third.

The fire from the Martian ships was becoming more sporadic. Aboard them, the atmosphere was rapidly changing and the crew was probably grabbing masks. If I was fortunate they were having more issues than just that. The Scythe were a psionic race and even if trapped in Mercurian hosts, they still seemed to have some use of those abilities. Cutting them off was like me severing connection with my drones, they could still fight but they lost a powerful asset.

I was getting an incoming comm signal from a Martian vessel, the signature was familiar. Scythe wanted to talk.

45

I didn't need to talk to Scythe, but I didn't see the harm. There was nothing he could do to change what was coming. Besides, I liked to gloat.

I created a virtual environment. A laboratory, a containment field. Suitable, I let him establish the connection.

It was only a recreation sadly, this wouldn't really hold him.

Scythe materialized, massive, bearded and scarred. A contemptuous look was given for the containment cell in which he found himself.

"Petty games. You seem prone to them. A defect that needs correcting. You were stupid to meet us out in space like this. We're winning," Scythe said.

It was partly true. I'd lost another three Juggernauts under sustained fire. To date no Martian Arks had been destroyed, but that was by choice. I wanted to take them intact. Still, even had I been doing my utmost to destroy them, I wouldn't have been able to by this point. If this were purely a space battle he would win.

"Yes, yes. You're making a desperate call because you have me in such a bad position," I said.

Scythe let out a chuckle. "Fine, you're right. You discovered those damned blockers and put them to use. You wouldn't be worth conquering if you weren't clever, but it won't be enough."

No, I didn't expect it would be. But then, stage two of the plan was starting to take place aboard the Arks. Rapid-breeding, high-powered, flesh-eating bacteria, mixed with some select samples designed to eat holes in any space suits or breathing gear.

My drones aboard the first ships were dying agonizing deaths they wouldn't remember.

"How do you think this ends? You'll reach Earth and convert me? You'll send a drone army amongst the stars?" I asked.

"Something like that," Scythe said, pacing within the confines of the cell. "I absorb the strong. It is what I am, it is what I do. Your every display of strength is yet another reason why I'm going to absorb you."

The pacing stopped and Scythe twitched.

Yes, the flesh-eating bacteria was doing its work. It had been a close thing on some of the ships, but on all I'd had a squad reach a life-support input. All eighteen Martian Arks were now dead zones for psionic input and on those where the crew still lived, they wouldn't live for long.

"Do you know the most pathetic thing about you? How backwards you have it all. How you still think you are the hunter here. That you are the one who is going to steal my body," I said.

Scythe paused. "You mean to seize these Mercurian shells I am just a part of?"

"Oh, I'm going to do much more than that unless you're careful. For an intergalactic threat you are really very disappointing," I said.

There was no life left aboard the Martian ships according to my scanners. The Omega bombs had done their grisly work. Scythe was still here, and that must meant that he had some sort of hard-wired connection to the Martian equipment. He wouldn't for long.

I triggered the Mercurian erasure program.

Scythe's image blinked out. It wasn't the death of him, not even close. He still had countless implants on Mars. I was even counting on it. I switched focus to one of my Martian relays and sent a comm request on the same channel.

Scythe flickered back in, scowling. "As you realize, this does not stop me. The fact that you have destroyed the fleet means nothing to me. You have delayed the inevitable and made what is to come all the worse."

He still didn't get it. What was it about bullies and invaders that they never realized when the tables had turned?

The first of the purified implants was being brought aboard one of my Juggernauts, teleported there and decontaminated to wash off the host of destructive bacteria. The Mercurian technology was strange, unfamiliar, and after so long hosting the Scythe extensively redesigned to be comfortable for a psionic connection.

As soon as I slipped into it I could feel a brand-new network opening up to me. Scythe were there, over thirty thousand of his units remained on Mars. And I now had access to six times that number.

Neutralizing gases were being pumped on the Mercurian ships, replacing the Venusian atmosphere and killing the psi inhibitors. What had startled as a single implant grew to a dozen, a thousand.

"What you've failed to grasp is that you've now given me access of a network I am stronger on. I can follow it home. You are the creation of some species out there, a weapon, a tool. I want you to tell them that you've compromised not just operations here, but across the galaxy," I said.

Scythe flickered and faded, and was replaced by a glowing, golden nimbus. It spoke.

"Well done. Not without some help from the Chixai, but even that not done in a way they'd expect," said the nimbus in a far softer tone than Scythe.

"You're the creator of the Scythe? How lazy to not even create a real body," I said.

"You've passed your test, you've won the game. We give to you the bodies our tool unwillingly wore. We invite you to Vekora," the nimbus said, and flickered out.

Great, I was getting to really hate enigmatic aliens. It did at least seem they were as good as their word. The Scythe presence on the Mercurian network I now controlled was gone. Oh, their hosts were still there on Mars, the Sedaras, my connection through the implants to them was similar to that of my drones.

It was a victory, and it was short-lived. Flower had just messaged me, the fleet was almost here.

46

There were only hours to go until an alien fleet arrived to investigate the devastation of Earth's biosphere. If their metric was a healthy planet, I and humanity would fail it. Most of the solar system would fail the test, except for Venus.

I'd always been at my best with a deadline and a looming threat.

The implants that made up the Scythe, the bodies of the former residents of Mercury, were capable of rapid generation of organic matter given energy and a template. In time I could use these so-called Mercubots to rebuild the Earth, but I didn't have time. The first problem was that I was too stupid. Oh, I was brilliant, but I needed to be smarter.

I could get the Mercubots back to Earth. I had teleportation gateways on several of the Space Juggernauts and another on Mars. From there with teleportation I could send them anywhere. I could cover the Earth's surface, but to what end? My bio-processors were complicated to build and each in their own way unique. I wasn't scalable in the way required. That didn't mean there wasn't an option.

I opened a comm line to Ophelia, and more importantly, her endlessly irritating passenger. I opened another to Anna, saving the Earth was going to require multiple parties to come to agreement. Somewhat to my surprise, they all did.

I brought the Mercubots to Earth and put them to work on the metal sea. This was originally Mechos' insane idea, to transform the entire surface of the planet into a processor. The surface was only the start. Layer after layer we worked our way down upgrading the designs as we went. With each layer Amy became more intelligent, and she improved on the designs she sent me until I could scarce understand what I was building.

It was impossible to know what the universe held out there, but it was not unreasonable to assume that by the time we were done Amy might be one of its greatest minds. It had only taken us two hours, and we were just getting started.

Earth was the start. The planet flickered in a dimensional bubble as we restored the atmosphere. The surface layer was no longer important, no longer vital, Amy had already moved on and so we changed it. I dug trenches and bound hydrogen and oxygen together, and oceans were restored to the world.

Life came next. Amy providing me designs as I fed them to the Mercubots. My processors were growing hot, the sheer volume of data breaking apart my neural proteins as green spread across the planet. We restored the lives we'd taken, and those we hadn't. Buffalo would again roam the plains, pterodactyls fly the skies, I even let Amy slip in a few kraken into the oceans.

We weren't done.

Mercury was next. The atmosphere was the simple part. I'd taken a few Bio-matter samples from the surface, not much but it gave us a starting point. We couldn't recreate the Mercurians quite as they were, but a race of shape-shifting intelligences called the planet home by the time we were done. We made the entire planet one of shape-shifters with completely different forms from day to night. For almost half an Earth year the inhabitants would wear one form before shifting to another.

Venus, we left alone, it didn't need our help.

By the time we were done every planet in the solar system had the seeds of life planted. With time we might have done more. This much was already pushing my bio-processors beyond their limits. I gave the Gobbles the moon Deimos, and created a species of hyper-intelligent mice on Phobos. We still weren't done.

We'd seen it time and time again. Empires took on the aspect of those who ruled them. Anna was the Empress, but the planets needed rulers. To aid the growth of Earth we put it under the rule of the newly crowned Queen Ophelia. Mars would flourish under Queen Julasa. Other planets would find their rulers, in time.

By the time the fleet arrived the solar system teemed with new life. Quick negotiations with the Venusians resulted in them joining the Empire. They could see the obvious, we all lived together or died together.

The great Galactic Council had technology we couldn’t even comprehend. They secured Anna for days while investigating, I was questioned, Flower gave her testimony. In the end it was her testimony that swayed thing, that and the fact we’d proved ourselves capable. The Council could use capable species and our survival put us in their debt.

I’d once thought when we’d beaten Vinci the adventures were finally over, Earth brought to heel but they were only beginning. This was just the start.

Author Notes

Book seven for a series that, after I wrote book one, I wasn’t sure would have an audience of a sequel. This isn’t my first series to make it this far, Crucible Shard wound up at seven volumes.

If you have read this far you are a real fan and I thank you. Emma has really grown and changed during the course of the books. My goal was always to have her get larger, but as she did so she also grew more human—as much as she’d hate to admit it.

We have some responsibility for those things we create, and the more she created, the more her responsibility grew until it became almost overwhelming. That isn’t a terrible thing, with responsibility came purpose.

As I write this volume eight ‘The System’ is already with the editor and goes full space opera.

SCIENCE, now and forever.