Chapter 640: The Spoked Offensive (1/2)

The mighty have been cast out from Paradise, but face the world with feral grins and arms wide. The Terran knows not of Fear, but drinks deep from it. As the prophet Rorschach told the demons, ”I'm not locked in here with you, YOU'RE LOCKED IN HERE WITH ME!! YOU ARE LOCKED IN HERE WITH ME!!!” The chips of rebirth were a panacea, a leash upon the Wrath of Terra. When Death has lost her scythe, the worst of Wrath is kept at Bay. Only Righteous Anger need be feared. But when Death mows once more, she brings Pain of Loss and Wrath of Vengeance with her. Woe be unto the planets upon which the Wrath of Vengeance walks. For it will scar the ones that survive, and destroy the rest.

To quote holy Vegetius, ”Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.”

And the Terrans are Militaris Rex. - u/Netmantis

Kra'atmo'o preferred order and stability.

He disliked rude war and conflict, it upset his status quo.

The status quo, to Kra'atmo'o, was important. It ensured that people felt confident in their lives and their leadership. Upheaval led to stress which led to conflict which led to the status quo breaking down.

When he had been a young Lanaktallan, just out of training, he had been the Eighteenth Semi-Temporary Understudy to a System Most High who had taken over a busy industrial system and then ran it straight into the ground through incompetence. When the population had been pushed to the wall, when they had neither food nor entertainment, safety nor security, freedoms nor leisure, the population had reacted as Kra'atmo'o had learned in school.

In less than four years the once profitable stellar system had been reduced to howling isotopes, bitter black ash, and terrible stillness.

Kra'atmo'o had never forgotten that time.

More, he had never forgotten how the Most High had blamed everything on the dead population rather than his own disastrous policies.

A status quo had to be maintained by allowing it to naturally grow and breathe, to undergo slow change when needed and growth spurts when necessary. It was when the status quo was forced to change that things became unbalanced.

And unbalanced meant chaos.

And chaos meant death.

Just over two hundred years prior, Kra'atmo'o had been entrusted with twenty-one stellar systems, at the far edge of the Unified Council territory down and 'out' from the Unified Council territory. After establishing himself he reached out and seized control of more systems. Most had no Most High, at the most a Tenth or Fifteenth Most High or an empty office.

He had guided them, through predictive analysis software, dedicated and capable counselors and subordinates, and an eye for the status quo, into wealth and plenty. True, there was the accident at the reactor that had destroyed the Executors. True, there was the unfortunate Corporate Reshuffling. And true, there had been the Tyranny of Representation and all the struggles it had brought.

But he had guided them and, with their trust and faith, the entire cluster known as the ”Kra'at Systems” had come through every challenge stronger and healthier.

The systems sat in an odd 'twisting' of jumpspace. It was a six year trip from the edge of what he liked to think of as the ”Kra'at Systems” to the nearest Unified Council System. Jumpspace was weirdly twisted and warped and in some places a ship would actually move slower than light and if they exited the region instead of traversing the 'shallows' for three months, they would be further away then the edge of the rapids, ending up further 'down' and 'out' from the edge of the shallows. It took a while to get used to, but in some ways, the twisted space allowed for more rapid transfer of resources and cargoes within the ”Kra'at Systems” than outside cargoes.

It was just fine to Kra'atmo'o.

Everything went fine for over two hundred years.

Then the Terrans had arrived in Council Territory.

Kra'atmo'o, and the System Military Most High, had examined everything they could about the Terrans, specifically the 'creation engines' and 'nanoforges' and 'cloning arrays' available to the common civilian.

The implications were horrifying to the Military Most High. The elderly Lanaktallan had pointed out that the Terran's supply lines and reinforcement lines were only as far away as the nearest gas giant or Oort Cloud. That the Unified Council had met a species that might suffer defeats but could not be beaten.

So, taking a great risk, Kra'atmo'o had journeyed to a system to await the arrival of the Terrans. When they had arrived, Kra'atmo'o had overseen the creation of a mutual defense pact, trade treaties, and diplomatic promises of support for one another.

Everything had gone well for nearly two years.

Then the Terrans had suddenly dropped dead.

Or worse, turned into rabid killing machines that took anti-armor weapons to stop.

That had led to a massive undertaking unlike anything Kra'atmo'o had ever expected to happen. His predictive analysis programs had collapsed, his carefully tailored estimations had fallen apart, and he was, once again, forced to rely on his skills.

The undertaking had been dangerous. Beings had died, killed in close combat with insane Terrans.

But the sixty-eight Confederate Space Force Navy vessels had been cleared of Terrans and docked at the space stations.

The non-Terran crew members that had survived had requested reinforcements, and Kra'atmo'o had settled down to await the reinforcements.

Then the Atrekna Offensive had started.

Kra'atmo'o had consulted with the elderly Military Most High and together they had worked up a plan to have their own people trained to operate the ships.

But that wasn't the most amazing thing.

The Kra'at Systems' GalNet was known as CompuNet, as it had its own hiccups and had an intermittent at best connection to GalNet. This was just a fact of life. It could take two or three days to download a simple hour long video even on a high speed connection due to lagginess and network timeouts.

Which meant that what dropped into Tyrant Kra'atmo'o's recently re-elected lap was one of the most amazing, but also most horrific, things that the universe could have possibly provided.

It was titled, simply: AVENGE-US.DOC

It came along with a lexicon. Explanations of the mathematics and science used. Psychological profiles.

The entire file dripped with ”AVENGE US FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE!” and rage and grief dripped from every byte.

Kra'atmo'o and the Military Most High had stared at the document for hours. Paging through literal yottabytes of data, images, graphs, and text.

It had been the Military Most High that had noticed something odd about the download. When he had pointed it out, Kra'atmo'o and he had examined it.

The data was on a timer.

It would drop into the public CompuNet after thirty days if the government did not acknowledge receipt.

The Military Most High had advised caution. Kra'atmo'o had agreed.

Finally, on the 29th day, they made their decision.

A decision that made the malevolent universe howl with laughter.

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Kra'atmo'o stared at the Avarerak in front of him. The being was slightly disheveled, with wild eyes, and a habit of twisting their index finger side to side with its other hand, twisting the digit in the socket in a manner it wasn't supposed to twist.

”You think it will work?” Kra'atmo'o asked.

The Avarerak nodded jerkily, eyes still wide.

”Explain it to me,” Kra'atmo'o said. ”In terms I can understand.”

The Avarerak did so. Twice.

It sounded ridiculous. It sounded insulting. It flew in the face of common sense and logic.

It involved Terrans.

”Your funding and resource allocation requests are approved,” Kra'atmo'o said. He thumbed the datapad in front of him. ”Just... be careful.”

The Avarerak giggled.

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The bioforge was a large unit, normally used to clone cows, oxen, gupta lizards, things of that nature. Primarily used for large carnivore nutrition, it was used to print of simple animals. The neural imprinter was crude, basically rebuilding, neurologically, the same animal over and over.

Tvewlika, the Avarerak in charge of the project, had another vision for it.

It had taken months to recalibrate, reconfigure, repurpose.