Chapter 628: War In Heaven (1/2)
Today sucks! But tomorrow might not. The only way you'll know is if you're around to see it! Are you going to give in to a malevolent universe? It's laughing at you! You! Personally! Are you going to just sit there and let it laugh at you? Let it dominate you? Fight back! Scream, cry, but do not go gently into that dark night! Call or text to our crisis management teams! All calls are anonymous. Call 800-273-8255, operators are standing by!
--Pubvian Public Service Announcement after the Terran Die-Off
Brentili'ik scrolled through the historical data on her terminal, sitting at her desk in the Staff Officer's Quarters on the Telkan Marine base. She'd moved there after the attack on the Planetary Director's Offices and her own home.
She'd also been saddled with power armor wearing guards as well as guards from the Telkan Intelligence Services.
Which is why she had six extra people in her office aside from the newly appointed Director of Intelligence.
The taste of Terran blackberries was across her back teeth and the tip of her nose tingled from the security screens and jamming that was in effect. The windows all slightly vibrated with stripped down warboi code in case anyone tried using a laser microphone on it. Everything was guarded, the data cables in and out of the office were one way only. The room was SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) compliant as well as having the best security the Telkan government could beg, borrow, buy, or steal.
Brentili'ik highlighted another passage in the historical datafile she was going through.
...following the attempted assassination of Confederate diplomats by agents of the Mithril Nebula, the Senate adjourned to seek shelter and only met through hypercom and needlecast conferences. During the conflict elections were held four times. Due to mishandling of the early years of the conflict, over three quarters of the Senate seats were lost to incumbents.
Once the Mithril Nebula Conflict was over, the Senate reconvened...
Brentili'ik tapped her monitor, throwing the data she had highlighted to Kreldan, who had been confirmed with 92% of the vote.
”That's when it happened,” she said softly.
Kreldan read it quickly and looked up. ”The perfect time.”
Brentili'ik nodded and waved at the holotank where the Confederate Senate was holding a roll call to being the opening of business. Again she noted that everyone was present, looking immaculate, surrounded by staffers and functionaries. As she watched the roll call finished and the Senate Majority Leader stood up to call the Senate to order.
The Senate Majority Leader suddenly blinked in and out of existence. Brentili'ik frowned and looked at the holotank showing the entire Senate chamber.
The whole Senate flickered. Static filled the image then vanished. Thick bars of static moved up and down the images.
The gathered Senators, functionaries, aides, cabinet members, and lobbyists suddenly turned blue with small white words across the dark blue coloration.
The blue suddenly vanished and where each of the people present in the Senate chambers had been there was a red bar with white words.
CONNECTION LOST TO HOST flashed.
The screen suddenly cut off and ”TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES” suddenly appeared.
”Did they... did they just vanish?” Kreldan asked.
Brentili'ik couldn't help it.
She burst out laughing.
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Acharya dropped down on one knee, firing three quick bursts at the androids that had just run up the to the railing of the balcony that surrounded the room he was in. He lunged to the side, rolling, socking the weapon into the pit of his stomach when he rolled onto his back. He fired without sighting, trusting his cyberlink, his onboard combat packages, and his wetware.
The burst took a large headed Thinker straight in the face right as they reached for a control console.
”Getting thick out here, Lady Kay,” Acharya said, rolling over and coming to his feet in one smooth motion that let him take off running. ”How's that override coming?”
He didn't expect an answer as he ducked behind a console.
The androids couldn't risk firing at him and damaging the control console. Without it, they couldn't override the Terran female that had sunk into the thick nanite sludge surrounding the Master Control World Engine.
If they couldn't retake the Master Control World Engine, they couldn't control the soup that permeated every layer of what Acharya had started to think of as ”The SUDS-Onion” or ”The SUDS-yun”.
He glanced at the status screen, frowning slightly as he focused his eyes on the data and blinked twice, putting the data into his datalink's memory. It showed nearly fifty World Engines and their statuses.
Most of them had ”OVERRIDE ACCEPTED” next to them. It looked to Acharya like only a half dozen or so were left, most of them on the outer layers.
He looked to the side just in time to see a pair of android Warrior caste come around the corner. He lifted up the crude propellant based battle rifle and triggered a quick burst that he controlled the recoil on so the weapon's barrel moved in a figure-8.
The Warriors fell back, shattered, as Acharya lunged to his feet, scrambling to the next cover.
Just as he reached cover the words appeared in his vision.
”NANITE EXCLUSION ACCEPTED”
”ONBOARD WEAPON LOCKOUT RELEASED”
”ONBOARD DEFENSE SYSTEM LOCKOUT RELEASED”
”WHO LOVES YOU BABY”
Acharya smiled as he swapped the battle rifle to his left hand and lifted up his right hand. He cocked his wrist back to a ninety degree angle and flexed a muscle that didn't exist.
A thick barrel slid up out of his palm and he felt the smartwire go live. He felt his onboard inertial dampener fields kick on, his battlescreen systems kick on, and kinetic gel flood his adipose cells.
A half dozen Warriors charged into the room, pointing their weapons at him.
He grinned and leveled his arm at them, feeling the recoil compensation system go live. A twitch of his thumb, which did not actually move, and the gun in his forearm fired.
Before the Warriors, and the Thinkers behind them, could comprehend the sudden change in the equation 10mm hypersonic darts slashed them into ruin.
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Herod tensed. He could feel it.
Madness.
It was gibbering and raving, almost like a round black furry creature with massive eyes, a fang filled mouth with a waving spiked red tongue, bouncing toward him as it screamed and howled.
Herod swallowed and closed his eyes for a second.
He had just opened them when the door exploded inward, derezzing and falling into a shower of pixels.
Sam-UL stood in the doorway, wearing a tattered jumpsuit that looked like the one he had worn over his hazardous environment frame in the Black Box.
”KILL YOU!” Sam-UL screamed, lunging forward at Herod.
Herod jumped out of the window that overlooked a well cut lawn with artificial flamingos and a ”VOTE FOR KODOS!” sign stuck in the lawn.
The one with the pink casement.
Sam-UL snarled as the windows shattered into pixels, leaving that section of the room's 'wall' blank. He cast out with his senses quickly.
Herod had fled to a database storage section on Bravo Layer.
Snarling, Sam-UL turned and ran through the door, vanishing down the hallway that represented a major dataline.
The door appeared back in the frame.
Herod climbed back into the room through a window with a casing painted with pink and white stripes. The window dissolved as Herod dug in his pockets and pulled out two stickers he quickly put on the wall.
A window with a pink and red polka-dotted casement and another window with pink and red crosshatches painted on the casement.
Herod moved over and changed the door knob on the door into a carved glass one, dropping the brass handle onto the floor where it shattered into bouncing pixels that glittered for a moment then faded from existence.
Sam-UL stopped in the log file database and looked around.
A small doll, wearing overalls and with bright red hair as well as freckles looked up at him.
”Where is Herod?” Sam-UL screamed.
”Hi, I'm Ducky! Want to play? We can be best friends!” the doll answered.
Snarling, Sam-UL went to kick the low level VI.
With a shrill scream of glee the slasher ICE erupted up from the floor, slashing with the knife. It grabbed onto Sam-UL's shirt and, laughing wildly, slashed at Sam-UL even as the DS tried to keep the blade away.
Sam-UL took the stab wound, felt the attack code dig deep into his arm, but he used the time to grab the ICE by both legs.
He ripped it in half.
Bleeding from several slashes he reached out with his senses.
Herod was hiding in an environmental control port on Gamma Layer.