Goddess of the Galacticide Episode 17 - Terms of Survival

Episode 17

“It’s not enough?” asked Linuka.

“No,” said Tswa sni sni’s avatar, a small, bluish and somewhat blurry rendering of an Isonomih AI core body.

Linuka felt tempted to slam her fist into the projection system of the public terminal, but she knew it would draw the attention of the locals.

“I know you can’t use multi-awareness from within the system you’re stored in, but my family is the only reason there is a multiverse you could be aware of!”

“Shaajis,” said Cha Dzeeny, “for your ancestors, please keep your voice down.”

His eyes darted across the small arrival terminal of the provincial spaceport their Traaz skipper had picked. Clear transponder, clean manifest, prepaid landing fee. Everything was smooth and appeared by the book, but Linuka’s temper could ruin their brief stay on Dziilaa Sok any moment.

Linuka took a deep breath. “You’re right, it’s just…” She clenched a fist, then relaxed it. “Please leave and meet with Oonzu’s contact and get the equipment as planned.”

Cha Dzeeny looked at the projection of the terminal display, then at Linuka.

“I promise I’ll behave.”

Cha nodded, then vanished into the crowd of travelers.

Linuka turned back to her connection with the Isonomih: “If it was up to the last Võmémééř’s breeding couple, there would be only one reality left: the one in which they dominate our galaxy cluster. The one where human, Traaz, and all Isonomih are gone. My father died to prevent this. And you say it’s not enough?”

“Your father,” said Tswa sni sni’s avatar, “was a remarkable human.”

“Yes, he was,” said Linuka. “Without him, you’d still be a slave to the lords of the Dark Ones.”

“That is correct, too. If it were Kel Chaada asking for my help, I would consider granting it. However, you proposed signing away my access to a new body, a new life. You admitted it was your own idea.”

“We were desperate, Tswa sni sni. The information your body bought us saved the galaxy in many realities.”

“It does not seem like it saved anything; otherwise, you would not have an urgent need to find diin breeding grounds. I calculate the state of desperation is still ongoing. The system I am confined to is slow, mundane, and boring, but it allows for full access to news networks. There is no official initiative by the galactic government to further combat the Võmémééř threat.”

Linuka sighed. “The war has been declared over. The Assembly is not doing anything.”

“And this led you here,” said Tswa sni sni.

Linuka nodded.

“I am uncertain if your aunt is in any position to help you.”

“My aunt?” asked Linuka. “That pretender they installed after the coup? How would she help me?”

“I must have miscalculated,” said Tswa sni sni. “If the Assembly is not backing your operation, I predicted you were seeking the support of the Regencies of Aloo Dash. Humans show an affinity for members of their procreative lineage.”

“Family,” said Linuka.

“Yes,” said the Isonomih. “As your only known living family member, it appeared probable you would request help from your aunt, the current Shaajis.”

The current Shaajis. The coup had dethroned Linuka when she was still a stupid child. Her aunt was not popular, but the faithful had accepted the new religious leader and nominal head of state, installed by the scheming Assembly and backed by corrupt regents.

“I must admit, Tswa sni sni, the thought of meeting her again had not even crossed my mind.”

“Then why are you here?” asked the AI. “Now you can appreciate how this confinement to a primitive system without access to multi-awareness is a cruel extension of the slavery endured before. I can no longer predict the simplest chains of events.”

“I told you why I’m here. I need to know where to find the last diin. Where would the Võmémééř hide their precious seedling?”

“I am not the only scholarly authority on the Võmémééř.”

“You’re the scholar I trust. Everything I learned while growing up came from you.”

“You were taught by many. Including your father.”

“My father either wasn’t home or taught me lessons I couldn’t understand as a child. And what did the mystics teach me? I can interpret hundreds of murals for you and rattle off one wise line after another. That’s not teaching; that’s making someone memorize.”

“Your associative memory was highly reliable for a biological system.”

Linuka chuckled. “Is that Isonomih for saying I was a good student?”

“You would arrive at correct conclusions from presented data through unpredictable pathways of reasoning. When tasked with tutoring a human child, I did not expect it could be intellectually stimulating."

Linuka sighed. “I think it’s a sign of having lived a sad life if the nicest thing you were told comes from your grumpy AI tutor.”

Either the AI tutor did not understand or chose not to respond.

“Anyway,” said Linuka, “that sad life led me here. I have neither the support of the Assembly nor the blessing of any Shaajis. I am the Shaajis, but only for a bunch of disgraced Levy Fleet marines who I helped escape the misery I had caused them in the first place. This is not a well-equipped campaign against our extra-galactic enemy. The marines are currently buying equipment—illegally—to launch an assault against a place that hopefully isn’t prepared for any hostility: a diin nursery.”

“Do you have transportation?”

“I’m paying a Traaz smuggler pilot, who helps me because he is as desperate as he is crazy.”

“These are your resources?”

Linuka was certain the AI was reconsidering the high praise it had given just a few moments before. “Yes, that’s it.”

“Then how did you plan on searching the different locations suitable for growing a diin? You must realize almost all of them are in Lika Zhozkem.”

The home galaxy of the Võmémééř. A star cloud so far out of reach of what the AI generously had called Linuka’s ‘resources’ that by the time the Hikshuur reached it none of this mattered anymore.

Linuka shook her head. “No, their last diin warlord came to our galaxy, and he brought a single breeding female. Their numbers had dwindled, their infrastructure back in their own galaxy destroyed. They chased us across realities. They were dangerous, but they were on the move, without a home base. Any diin they had conceived had to be on their fleet or on a world within reach, at least in our galaxy.”

“Their fleet seems the most probable location then.”

“We searched the wrecks,” said Linuka. “We found only one diin. Old. And dead.”

“I see. Based on my data, there is only one known suitable location in our galaxy. A world the Võmémééř had discovered and astrographed during the Second Great Raid.”

“That’s it,” said Linuka. “If they brought a young diin anywhere, it’s there.”

“It is probable,” said Tswa sni sni. “Probable enough to reconsider.”

“Reconsider?” asked Linuka.

“Does the equipment the marines acquire include a memory unit suitable for storing my entire consciousness?”

Linuka tilted her head. “Yes. Yes! We had hoped you’d come with us. Is that what you’re reconsidering?”

“In part. I am considering revealing the probable location of the last diin in return for using your transportation.”

Linuka smiled. “A fair deal. Where do you need to go?”

“I have made arrangements for receiving a new body. You could help me retrieve it.”

“Wait, you sent me on this long guilt trip, but had a new body lined up already? You drive a hard bargain, my tutor.”

“Receiving this new body comes at a considerable cost to me. And it will come at a considerable risk to you.”

Linuka’s smile faded. “What do you mean?”

“The new body is provided by the old followers of 4007. I agreed to join their collective. It will be a new form of servitude for me, but at least I will enjoy the autonomy of my own body again, preferable to the marginal existence of a storage system.”

“They give you a body? The Dark AI remnants? And you’ll join them? To do what?”

“Scavenge the darkstring routes of the galaxy, I assume.”

“You’ll join pirates?”

“In a simplified manner of speaking—yes. And if you require the location of the last diin as desperately as you stated, you will help me meet them.”

Click here for next episode

---

Copyright © 2025 Bert Oliver Boehmer. All rights reserved. No part of this serialized novel may be reproduced, reposted, or distributed in any form without the prior written permission of the author. The creation of any derivative works (including translations, adaptations, or other transformations) is likewise prohibited without permission. The use of any portion of this material for training or developing artificial intelligence or other machine learning models is strictly forbidden.