Chapter Seventy-Five (Dreams) (2/2)
That made all five Mantids nod.
”We have always assumed that we moved through the enemy's space, what was to prevent him from moving through ours?” Speaks asked. ”What is to prevent our assumption from being faulty?”
That got another round of nods.
”So we have fourteen races that survived the Precursor War,” Dreams mused, slowly sharpening her bladearms.
117 flashed an icon and Dreams nodded.
”I stand corrected. Fifteen, counting our race. Our records are largely destroyed between time, our flight from our original systems, our own internecine warfare, and the 1% Line,” Dreams stated.
”Yet the records are clear, our Enemy during the Precursor War was destroyed,” Speaks countered.
”No, they are not clear,” Fights said, cleaning her antenna. ”It is an assumption based on exactly zero evidence beyond our own survival and the face that no Precursor Machines came after us.”
”And that is not evidence,” Sees stated softly. ”I cannot see what you do, but I see where our inquiry is leading us.”
They all turned to the blind seer, waiting.
”War. War in the manner of, not of our race, but war in the manner of wrathful humans. Burning stars, burning worlds, burning beings, all afire as wounded but not mortally wounded Terra smashes out in rage and hatred with a fierce violence, leaving horrified survivors to stare, shocked, at the ashen wreckage of the empire they had once ruled over,” Sees said, wringing her hands. ”The galaxy, the universe, will never be the same.”
”And if I was to delete our simulations and our data at this second?” Dreams asked softly.
The seer held still for a long moment, as if she was a statue carved of ivory.
She sat on her boat made of a fragile leaf, a dragonfly's wing as a paddle. Her vestigial wings hummed as she paddled, following the swirls, sliding with the current and paddling into the pool where the current slowed and eddied. She looked around, shading her eyes with her paddle.
Silence. All around her was eerie silence. The banks were covered by wreckage, ruin. Ash covered ruins, bodies still and dead beneath a thick ashfall. There were no suns on the sky, no stars to decorate the inky void. A crushed and wrecked Precursor Great War Machine was covered in thick black ash. There was no wind to stir the dust and ruin.
Nothing. Nothing lived. Nothing moved. Even the stars were gone.
Then the rubble began to shift, began to move. The shoreline bulged and a jet black warborg, its eyes bright red, lifted from the rubble, raising its fists to an empty sky and roaring in rage. Blood and screaming bodies poured from its bellowing jaws. Its fists were covered in the remains of shattered worlds, history denied and destroyed pouring from the ruptured worlds.
At its feet were dead, small, twisted, bloody. Children, broken eggs, podlings, littlelittles, immature beings of all types, twisted and dead.
Their presence had driven the Terran mad. It smashed about it, picking up the Precursor Great War Machine and ripping it in half, throwing one half away and putting the other half in its bloody jaws where it crushed it between jagged warsteel teeth. The Warborg picked up a red star, grabbed it with both hands, and tore it in half, blood and screaming being falling from the sundered star.
Sees paddled away, fighting against the current, until she reached the calm water of the Now, where she slumped, putting her paddle across her forward legs.
The others watched Sees jerk and twist, twice wracked by convulsions. Then she went still, shuddering, her vestigial wings rubbing together softly. Finally the blind seer lifted her head, her antenna raising.
”Deleting the data will do no good. The humans will discover circumstances, events, and procedures they cannot abide and will react with such violence that the stars will hide their light. The data, as terrible as it may be, is the only way to hold back human rage and hatred. We cannot hide this data, the fate of trillions are held within it,” Sees stated.
They all leaned back, considering the information. Mr. Rings woke up, climbing around on the new ceramic tree that Dreams had purchased him, enjoying the new feel of the larger nest. Speaks watched him move, mesmerized by the fluid way he moved.
”How bad is it?” Dreams asked softly. ”Are we looking at what the Combine did? What the Imperium did?”
Sees shook her head. ”This will be a measurement all of its own that other events will be weighed against long after Terrans have been forgotten by the turning of the galactic wheel.”
Speaks shook his head. ”So we've outsmarted ourselves. This data means we have a definite conflict of interest in acting as the political envoys. We all know how the Terrans are when it comes to diplomacy.”
”Pardon me, I appear to have, through no fault of my own, spontaneously ignited. Do you happen to have the time? Oh, and it appears that your food dispenser has ceased working due to issues completely unrelated to any action on my part,” Dreams said, finished by running a bladearm through her mandibles.
That got amused responses, including 117 showing a short cartoon of a human warborg completely wreathed in flame with a bunch of little green Mantid engineers chasing it with fire extinguishers.
”Well, we better send this for TerraSol to look over,” Dreams said sadly.
The others nodded.
Mr. Rings stared at the Lanaktallan dressed in black armor, holding a neural whip in one hand and a neural stunner in the other and wondered if his beak was strong enough to crack open the helmet.
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MANTID FREE WORLDS
No. No way. No way that's true.
-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
What, that you got your antenna torn off by a bunch of herd dwelling herbivores?
-------NOTHING FOLLOWS------
RIGEL COMPACT
You're acting like you never got your legs torn off by the humans.
-----NOTHING FOLLOWS----
SIGNUS SAURIAN GESTALT
Who cares? It's a hundred million years ago. Most of us weren't even recognizable.
----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----
MANTID FREE WORLDS
It's not what they are, its that they are still around.
-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------
DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS
Just picture Project Dandelion Seed and apply it to a bunch of cows. Same idea. Picture the herd all scattering, thundering away. Where was the best direction to go? Into YOUR territory since your Great War Machines were chasing you.
-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------
TERRAN CONFEDERACY
Welp, guess we're gonna end up finishing this war.
We'll start by staging in the systems within a few hundred light years of the Deep Darkness and go from there.
This war is going to be long. There's factory worlds we're going to have to find and destroy.
Welp, lotsa killing to do!
Terran Confederacy whistles as it walks off, twirling a pistol
>TERRAN CONFEDERACY HAS LOGGED OFF
----NOTHING FOLLOWS------
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
I wonder if its too late to pretend to be a pacifist?
-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------