Chapter Twenty-Four (Daxin) (2/2)
Instead of the memory filling him with despair as Hellspace wormed deep into him, seeking out his worst moments, his weakest moment, the moments where he had failed the worst.
New York, Los Angeles, Moscow, Delhi, Beijing, Sydney, Rio, Lagos, Berlin, London, the list went on and on, all of them snuffed out in the blazing light of a new star erupting on the surface of Terra Sol. Billions boiled out of existance as even Soulnet staggered and howled in pain, even as the SolNet screamed, even as every Terran troop on every battlefield everywhere saw the horror in their minds, broadcast by the Omniminds that had brought war upon Terra, how he'd gone still and stared...
Hellspace energy found that memory, caressing it, licking at it, whispering to it to come out of the little black ball it had become deep in Daxin's soul, suckling at it to encourage it to blossom and force Daxin to relive the memory.
It exploded, that little black ball forced deep into Daxin's memory.
The Leviathan left Hellspace, it's long journey over, its surface ravaged and damaged by the length of its travel through Hellspace, by the eternally long moment of its Helljump.
Daxin followed just as the little black ball inside of him exploded.
The Leviathan felt it, it's empathy circuitry still drunk from the whirling chaos of Hellspace. Felt the last tiny wisp of Hellspace around Daxin's vessel find a black ball inside of the feral intelligence's soul. A black ball that the feral kept even from itself.
Sensing a possible advantage, the supercomputer reached out with its weapon that it was loathe to use, that took up so much energy, heated up so high that it could damage even the AI, and caressed Daxin's craft before it could bring its shields up.
The core programming, the hunger behind the grasping hands that had built them as bladearms were cleaned by mandibles drooling at the thought of the minds that would be snuffed out in agony by the mechanical behemoth, sizzled in electronic greed as the beam touched Daxin himself.
The black ball exploded.
The Leviathan reeled, heeling off the side, trying to roll and flip to put as much armor and shields between Daxin and itself, the meta-psychic circuitry of the intelligence dominator exploding as the wave of psychic energy from Daxin himself rolled over the ship.
Rage. Pure. Clean. An axe-blade of raw fury. Incoherent and all consuming. Rage crashed across the Leviathan's ancient psychic shields, crashing them down, crushing them, mangling them. Hatred came next, a tsumani torrent that snatched up the psychic shields and chewed on them till blood ran down from mangled lips and shattered teeth. Wrath came next, pouring across the exposed psychic core of the Leviathan.
In his own ship, Daxin screamed in howling fury as he relived that agonizing moment when he had seen TerraSol savaged by the Mantid warships and the Overminds across the galactic arm had gloated and spread the image to every living mind in reach.
The Leviathan managed to right itself, managed to arrest its uncontrolled tumble, hastily got its shields and point defense up just before the feral intelligence's attack hit. It staggered from the physical assault even as it streamed a plume of psychic energy from it.
It's Artificial Psychic Intellect Assault System was nothing more than boiling matter eating into the surrounding hull spaces. It pumped supercoolant into the area to save missile bays even as it dove for the inner system, screaming for help.
Daxin gritted teeth he no longer had as he managed to get his ship under control. The warbois and scanbois were all capering and shrieking for his attention. He was reaching to release the Vipers when he realized what he was seeing.
The Vipers, small craft that used old and outdated technology, clenched in anticipation as Daxin mentally reached for the launch lever. They were outfitted with ripple drives in addition to standard reactionless drives, able to stretch or compress space as if it was cloth, enabling them to cross light seconds in moments while only moving at lower C speeds. Their main gun, what the little ships were wrapped around, was a hyperspace point to point gate that their computers had already established coordinates for the photosphere of a white dwarf so that they could transfer the plumes of energy in the photosphere into the chamber where the energy would be compressed by gravatic lensing into a directed beam of energy. They had standard debris shields and projector shields, but relied on the ability to stretch and shrink space, shunt mass and energy into jumpspace, for their primary protection. Jumpspace was connected to their inertial and kinetic compensators, providing limitless energy and a place to shunt excess energy to prevent overloads and then siphon it back as needed.
They were eager craft, an older design, easily countered by hyperspace disruption, jumpspace stabilizers, and realspace gate anchors, but Daxin hadn't seen any evidence of the enemy possessing those weapons.
Daxin had almost launched them when his scanners reported the system back, what they'd seen across the ancient system. He triggered another scan, bringing his ”finger” back from the trigger to launch the Vipers.
It was an ancient system. Twelve words. The asteroid fields littered with discarded mining vessels that had long since run out of resources to devour. Ancient stations cobwebbed with millions of years of dust accumulation. Gas giants mined down to wispy echoes of what they had been, the ancient extractors long since shut down and left to tumble through the dark.
The four planets in the green zone, all of them close to one another, were nitrogen heavy worlds, mostly desert. Daxin double-checked the atmospheric contents to be sure. Double-checked the gravitic scan of the planet surface.
ANTHILL ANTHILL ANTHILL
His memories screamed as he looked at the scan.
He had never seen it. Nothing in his DNA had ever seen the system.
Yet he knew what he was looking at even as the psychic wave crashed over him.
THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE
the Mantid Overqueen trilled to him as her psychic tendrils reached for his brain, touched him, and recoiled in agony as the backwash of rage from the memory of TerraSol burning washed over the elaborate hive on the longest inhabited planet. Her tendrils touched the rage, the wrath, the fury, the HATE still reverberating through his mind.
The Mantid Overqueen, the last of her kind, screeched in pain, shock, and indignation at the touch and taste of Daxin's emotions, raw emotions it had never felt before. Raw emotions that dared assault her, dared strike at her, dared to crash into her mind and lash at her psychic core, dared to deny her, the triumphant creation of the universe.
shit, Daxin thought.
He launched the Vipers, ordered the Creation Engine to build heavier psychic shielding and install it, ordered it to build more Vipers, install psychic shielding, and prepare the SUDS array. The warbois danced with glee as he goosed his engines and headed in-system.
THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE AND YOU ARE NOT ONE!
Today is a good day to die, he thought to himself as he opened up the broadcaster he'd built that matched what was aboard a Confederate vessel.
On the planet every surface vibrated, every electronic squealed, every speaker thundered, every psychic resonator roared the same answer.
The Overhive Omniqueen screamed in rage and pain as a broadcast crashed down on her for a change.
WE ARE MANKIND
WE ARE NOT HERE TO HELP
FOR TERRASOL
-------------
MANTID FREE WORLDS OPEN BROADCAST
THE GODS PROTECT US!
SHE HAS AWOKEN!
SHE LIVES!
SAVE US, BROTHERS, SAVE US FOR THE SAKE OF OUR SOULS!
--------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------
CONFED TRANSMISSION
TO ALL
CC: MANTID FREE WORLDS
FOR TERRASOL
FOR FREEDOM!
IN BLOOD AND STEEL, OUR BROTHERS!
FOR OUR MANTID BROTHERS AND THE GALAXY ITSELF!
LET LOOSE THE DOGS OF WAR!
RIP AND TEAR!