Chapter 406 (2/2)

”Who are you?”

”I told you already. Call me 680, it takes forever for you non-technical types to say my name and you sound dorky,” the voice said. It repeated the longer name, only with an accent that made the name sound mangled and stupid. ”So, how long have you been here?”

Abriketa exhaled slowly through his abdomen, slumping down slightly. ”Forever. I have been here forever. Since the Atrekna released their great war machines upon the Lanaktallan and us both, betraying us.”

”So the Atrekna fired the first shot? Good to know. Willing to talk about it?” 680 asked. ”Hang on, you've gotta be miserable.”

Abriketa nodded. ”I am indeed miserable.”

The lights came on and the fans whirred to life. Abriketa felt warm air begin to circulate and sighed deeply.

”I thank you, 680,” the massive mantid warrior said.

”How long have you been in the dark?” 680 asked.

”Since we slew the queens. We did not know that they had prepared for that eventuality and they entombed us all here, for all eternity,” Abriketa asked. ”The phasic regulators allow the computer to give orders to the mantid as if it was a queen. I am unable to countermand the computer's commands to the servitor castes.”

”That's interesting,” 680 said. ”So the servitor caste's higher brain functions are controlled and suppressed?”

”Without the phasic regulator the servitor castes would return to primitive hunter gatherer reflexes,” Abriketa said. He gave a sigh. ”I so wish they could talk. I have been so lonely.”

”Don't move. We have to reset the system. It'll come right back,” 680 said.

The lights clicked off and the environmental system went dead.

Abriketa didn't care, still petting the servitor in his lap.

Even if it had only been a hallucination, being able to speak to another after so long meant he would die happy.

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”How's it look?” Vuxten asked from where he was sitting in a chair designed for a massive mantid.

Addox had a good dozen green mantids huddled on his shoulders, on top of his helmet, and on his legs as he sat on the floor. Some were shivering, almost all of them were munching on turkey or beef jerky that Casey had ran off his nanoforge.

Another green mantid came in, started moving toward the computer, passed within a few feet of Addox and stopped. Its antenna lifted and it looked around, almost as if it was waking from a long sleep. It moved over next to another one of its kind.

”Food?” It asked.

”Is good,” the one eating said. ”Is turkey.”

”Here, little guy,” Addox said, holding out a piece of turkey. The little greenie took it and sat down next to its brethren.

”How's it look, Sergeant Addox?” Vuxten repeated.

”Pretty good. The phasic system is on its own dedicated systems, the software is all hard encoded, no way to patch it. It's different than the phasic systems used by the Confederacy to ensure no queen pops up and slams a hive-mind down on our Mantid allies and members,” Addox said. Several little green servitors were in his lap and he was carefully petting them with one armored gauntlet. The ones on his lap had eaten more beef jerky and then gone to sleep. ”If we want to disrupt it, we'll have to blow it in place.”

”What about the active mantids? Any data on them?” Vuxten asked.

Addox nodded. ”Three warrior caste are awake, pulled from cryostasis. That represents over half of the remaining warriors. No speakers, no queens, looks like most of the warriors and speakers were killed attacking the queens. There's about twenty active greenies, but the computer keeps sending them in here. There's only about fifty more in cryostasis. The remaining ones have largely succumbed to cryo-shock.”

”How long?” Plunex asked.

”They've been down here for longer than anything I've ever seen. I'd say the Precursor War. They weren't hatched later. From the records 680 pulled, it looks like the computer would wake them up for emergencies it couldn't handle then refreeze them,” Addox said. He gave a slight shudder. ”They're the oldest living things I know of, frozen and thawed over and over for over a hundred million years.”

”By the Digital Omnimessiah,” Plunex said softly. ”Talk about endless torment. May the Grave Bound Beauty comfort the damned.”

Vuxten noticed that Casey was off to the side, doing something with a hologram projection. He shoved himself off of the chair and moved over to Casey.

”What are you doing, Sergeant Casey?” Vuxten asked.

Casey didn't look away from the hologram. ”Back when I met Peak, oh, a hundred or so years back, she worked in psyops. Memetic Warfare Division,” Casey said. He adjusted the colors slightly. ”You've probably seen her handiwork a couple dozen times.”

”OK,” Vuxten said. The image was blurry to him, looked like it slightly overlapped itself over four columns.

”Well, explaining concepts to these guys is going to be difficult. We want to make sure they understand if they try to fight us, even if they overwhelm you and your people with their psychic power, Addox and I will rip them apart with our bare hands,” Casey said. ”Now, funny thing Peak taught me about memes is something I'm going to put to work.”

Vuxten waited a moment. Finally, he tabbed up another piece of stimgum and sighed. ”What's the weird thing, Sergeant?”

Casey shifted an image slightly. ”OK, the more text on a meme, the less effective it is. Nobody wants to read your blathering manifesto, they want to look, laugh, and move on, or get the data quickly. The less words you use, the better. If you have a dual meme, they need to be on top of one another or side to side, instantly comparable, not 'turn over' or 'next page' crap,” Casey said. He adjusted some of the lines again. ”Now, a properly done image meme doesn't need text to convey its message. In some ways, the less words the more information you can have in the meme.”

”What's the weird thing?” Vuxten repeated.

”A good, properly done meme, bypasses language and cultural barriers, even species barriers. We might not know anything about them, but there is a way to communicate, and that's memes,” Casey said. ”680 is talking to one through the computer, but the language drift and syntax morphology is damn near insurmountable outside of the computer. I want to make sure my meme works right and we don't have to fight these guys.”

”So you're going to meme the warriors to death?” Vuxten asked.

”More like meme them to life,” Casey said. He laughed. ”There's an old classic song I could parody, right there.”

”Think it'll work?” Vuxten asked.

”Might be a good idea to try this before we blow up the mountain, sir,” Casey said, turning and giving a grin. ”If it doesn't, I'm pretty sure we just blow the geothermal in place and ride out on a tsumani of lava.”

”Hardy har har,” Vuxten said, turning away. ”Let me know when your magic meme is ready.”

”I'll need a map of the facility, sir,” Casey said, his voice distracted.

”Then I'll make sure you get it,” Vuxten said.

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General No'Drak moved into the situation room, putting a cigarette between his mandibles as he moved up to the holotank. He'd managed to get a good night's rest and a meal, but once again duty pulled him back.

The Precursors were largely defeated. Mopup was down to the infantry units. The tanks and strikers were largely cycled back for maintenance and crew relief.

Great Most High/General A'armo'o was requesting complete refit of his tanks. More than a refit, a ”Service Life Extension” performed on them to bring them up to ”parity or near-parity with Confederate allied military forces” that would require the least amount of retraining for his troops.

No'Drak considered it for a long moment. The decision was his, all the way to deciding if he wanted to offer a place in the Confederate military to the Lanaktallan soldiers.

It had proven highly effective in the case of the Warsteel Herd.

General No'Drak thumbed the approval button.

Next up was priority and No'Drak stared at it.

A list of template requests from that psycho Casey.

The most recent one was a recon drone with holoemitters calibrated for Mantid eyes. It had to be able to problem solve navigation issues, among other things, but didn't require a VI since his data bandwidth was low and depending on spooky particle boojums.

Oddly enough, there had also been a template request for turkey meat with Mantid vitamin additions as well as beef of the same kind.

General No'Drak frowned.

What are you up to? he asked.

Next up was notification that his request for a full Elven Court had been approved and was enroute from Telkan with an ETA of less than four days.

After that was meteorological reports on the damage all the atomic weapons and the Precursors had done to the ecosystem.

Well, at least there's going to be living people to worry about their ecosystem, No'Drak thought to himself as he settled in and began reading the reports.

Behind him, Second Most High Ge'ermo'o entered. He slaved his monitor to No'Drak's so he could see what decisions the General was making. No'Drak authorized it with a tap of his bladearm almost absently, noting the radiation levels in the sea water was far lower than initial projections.

Ge'ermo'o sat and watched the data Smokey 'No was looking over and contemplating why the Treana'ad officer made each decision he did.

He was a most observant officer, he was sure he could deduce, given time and information, each of General No'Drak's command decisions and the reasons behind them.

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Cordexen opened his eyelids at the hissing noise. He looked at the door and saw the bright sparkle of a fusion torch cutting its way through the endosteel. It was a round half-circle, roughly the size of a russet servitor.

Cordexen reluctantly moved away from the air blowing through the vent and his fantasies of standing in a field of grass. He moved to his command chair and sat down, watching.

After a moment the metal fell to the floor. There was burst of mist and then the strangest thing rolled through the hole.

It had two tracks providing mobility. It was a large box with a row of infrared sensors with a pair of infrared projectors on each side to provide it with the ability to see. The little thing rolled into the middle of the room and shifted until it was facing him.

It suddenly played a little tune that Cordexen found pleasing. A mathematical arrangement of audible tones.

Suddenly a hologram flickered to life and Cordexen stared at it.

It was designed for his compound eyes to see clearly, the colors pleasing and well defined.

It was two columns of three pictures. Drawn, stylized pictures that made the subjects enjoyable to look at even if the colors were arranged in a slightly humorous fashion.

On the left it showed a warrior caste Mantid holding his rifle and pointing it at the door. The picture below showed bipeds and green servitors coming in and the warrior caste mantid shooting at them. The bottom picture showed the warrior caste mantid dead in the chair with little skulls for eyes and symbols of displeasure and sadness over the dead warrior.

On the right it showed the warrior mantid's rifle on the floor, the warrior mantid's arms and bladearms were lifted up. The one below showed the bipeds coming in and the warrior mantid holding a little stick with a square of white cloth on it and waving. The bottom picture showed the warrior mantid eating turkey with symbols indicating happiness around it.

They wish me to surrender or they will kill me, Cordexen thought. If I fight, they will kill me. They are familiar enough with my people to create this image. It can be clearly seen, the colors are pleasant, and the artistic style is stylized to be pleasing to me. They know my people and this message tells me that they will not only try to kill me if I resist, they know they can kill me.

He looked at the little robot and it played the tune again. This time the back opened and Cordexen flinched, expecting death to come from the little drone.

Instead it popped up a plas stick with a white cloth on it.

I would do anything just to see the sun once more, Cordexen thought.

He moved forward, picking up the flag from the little robot.

It made happy beeping noises.

The back slid open and steam billowed out. Cordexen jerked back reflexively. He could smell cooked meat, strange spices, and his sensitive antenna were almost overwhelmed by the first taste of something besides nutripaste he had sensed in lifetimes.

A cooked fowl raised up with a little triumphant tune.

”TuRkEy Is DeLiCiOuS” appeared above the little robot in maintenance runes. It turned and clattered away as Cordexen took his two prizes and returned to his command chair.

At the first bite Cordexen had admit the robot was right.

Turkey was delicious.