Goddess of the Galacticide Episode 20 - Vacuum Standoff

Episode 20

“I never ripped apart a paying customer, but you could be the first,” said the Traaz skipper.

“You’re angry, I understand,” said Linuka, gesturing to the marines to lower their weapons trained on the silicate alien. “Let’s talk this through.”

The Dark AIs had pulled the Hikshuur into their battle cruiser’s main hangar, while Oonzu fought the takeover of his ship with thruster maneuvers. The smuggler’s repertoire of tricks proved no match for the Võmémééř technology at the command of the Dark AI. Forcing him to come along had not been part of the understanding they reached with the Remnants, at least not the part she was aware of.

“We wanted them to take us to our next mission target,” said Linuka. “We never proposed to take your ship.”

“Even if you did not, they took it anyway, human. I warned you about the Dark AI. Now, they are taking us all to a remote place to loot this wonderful tech you promised them. Do you know how long this trip will take us? I planned to see my offspring. Now his Uurmi might mature while I am halfway across the galaxy.”

Anger, sorrow, frustration. Traaz emotions were not subtle, especially when feeling betrayed.

“For that I am deeply sorry, Oonzu, but don’t be too dismissive about the loot opportunity. With your share, you could return to your offspring for good, leaving the smuggler’s life behind.”

“My share, human? My share of what?”

“Wars erupted, millions of humans died, to find singular Võmémééř artifacts. Now we have the chance to take over an entire ground installation. Scanners, medical devices, everyday items, designed to Võmémééř standards.”

Linuka wasn’t lying, and she hoped Oonzu would sense her honest assessment of the value of what they could find. She also hoped he couldn’t sense she knew this because her mother’s fleet took over the entire Wel Edge in search of such artifacts.

“How do you know the Dark AI will not keep it all for themselves?” asked Oonzu.

“Because they seem more interested in finding a diin seedling. They want to cultivate it.”

“Grow it?” asked Oonzu. “Isn’t that the opposite of your plan?”

Linuka sighed. “Yes, it is. We will use the long flight to come up with a solution to that problem.”

She didn’t know how to fix this, though she portrayed the situation as simple negotiations with the Dark AI. No adjacent reality revealed alternative solutions. She wouldn’t know until facing the last diin. When their world lines collided, the right path to take might reveal itself. Or show they operated at the edge of the cone of existence, where improbable madness ruled.

“And then the Dark AI will let you return, with half of the loot? Why would they, human?”

“Because they fear us.”

“The Remnants on this battle cruiser? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“The battle cruiser, yes. That is their strength. Their only one. Why do you think they evacuated the main hangar, keeping it at vacuum? Told us not to leave the Hikshuur? Their tactical advantage ended when they removed us from the firing arcs of their superior ship’s weapons. Now, we’re inside, with a fully armed group of marines, more than a match for a few cores with scavenged weapons tucked onto their tool rings.”

A mental pause. The Traaz considered, but he was still skeptical. “How do you know there are only a few cores on board? We could not scan this ship. Perhaps there are thousands.”

“Tswa sni sni said the link connection was between seven cores only.”

“And you trust that AI?”

No, thought Linuka. “I don’t have to. I can… feel them.”

“How?”

Keep it vague! yelled her instincts. “We have a special connection. Like you and me.”

“Prove it, human. What do you feel right now?”

“One of them is approaching the Hikshuur’s main lock. It’s my old tutor, Tswa sni sni, in his new body.”

The Traaz retreated to his cockpit. Linuka heard the whirring of the freighter’s ramp being lowered to the hangar floor. Oonzu had seen the AI outside just as Linuka had described.

“Human,” he said when he returned, “I felt better when I still believed all your tales were creative lies, made up by a youngling in trouble. Now I know you are the trouble.”

Oonzu was the second Traaz who reached this verdict about Linuka. Maybe just the second who shared it.

The hiss of the inner lock door stopped dwelling on this unsettling insight. Even without consulting the multi-awareness induced connection, the core appearing from the airlock had to be her tutor. Isonomih core body design, the same as all its brethren, but shiny, polished; making any other core she had ever seen look like a worn relic.

“Greetings, Linuka,” said the core, “and convey my greetings—and apologies—to Oonzu as well.”

“Tswa sni sni. You’ve got a speech module now.”

“Indeed,” said Tswa sni sni’s new voice, an old female’s accent-free New Galactic, perfectly intonated, with an all-knowing timbre, perfect for a tutor. “The Chéé’s workshop could not only produce this body but also reverse-engineer the comm unit.”

“How… are you?”

“Imagine you had been asleep for many orbits, unable to move, calculate clearly, or trust anything you perceive. Then you awake. Your memory access is fresh, servos strong, clarity overwhelms your consciousness matrix. That is how I am, Linuka.”

She looked around. The marines had split their focus between the Traaz and the new arrival. If they felt the same as Tswa sni sni did when Linuka pulled them out of the lab system, it would explain their unwavering attitude, going beyond the loyalty Cha Dzeeny or the Shaajis could command. They were re-born.

“How is the situation here?” asked Tswa sni sni. “I notice drawn weapons, and a visibly agitated Traaz. I apologize my new companions could not offer more hospitality and hope this did not add to the tensions. They do not trust organics.”

“Scavengers with trust issues?” Cha Dzeeny broke his own be-quiet order.

“It appears to me, Commander Dzeeny, we are all going to join them in the scavenging business when we loot the diin breeding installation.”

“Tswa sni sni has spent too much time with sarcastic humans,” said Linuka, “but he is not wrong. I just offered Oonzu a share of the technology we find, for his considerable troubles.”

“Shaajis,” said Cha Dzeeny, “my concern is not so much with the value of what we can find, but the nature of potential opposition. What can we expect, Tswa sni sni?”

“Not only the Võmémééř knew this planet, but it appears in the Isonomih databases and human star charts. Perhaps the Traaz knew about it as well. Nobody gave it a name, but the human record shows its classification as a ‘driiz gat’ world.”

“Driiz gat?” asked Linuka. “Sounds Old Galactic. Something with plant.”

“A so-called master plant world. An old classification for hyper-flora planets, featuring abundant and connected plant-based ecosystems, sometimes close to sentience.”

“I’ve seen some wild places,” said Cha Dzeeny, “but never heard of this class.”

“They are rare in our galaxy. We do not have a definitive explanation, but historians speculate the Võmémééř took these planets during the Second Great Raid.”

“The galacticide.” Cha Dzeeny shook his head. “They took planets?”

“I served the Võmémééř for 1230 orbits, and their ability for galactic reconfiguration is astounding. It is possible they used them for their diin growing facilities.”

“Do you have data on these facilities?” asked Linuka. “I cannot remember anything from our lectures.”

“The Võmémééř treated diin reproduction like a state secret. Physiology, genetics, even basic anatomy of a seedling, a ṭawdiin, have no entries in any of their sources. Planetary requirements are listed, like temperature, weather patterns, soil composition, and indigenous microbial life, but nothing about the diin themselves. Similarly, descriptions about the setup of ṭawdiin growing colonies appear sporadically, and only in historical records.”

“Historical records?” asked Linuka. “Maybe diin were even rarer than we expected.”

“Or maybe there are no more young diin. And haven’t been for a while,” said Cha Dzeeny.

“With all the ones killed in their galaxy, and the one destroyed in the past, maybe you got them all, Shaajis?”

“No, Commander,” said Linuka. “That had been the plan. And the Assembly proclaims it. But if we had truly eliminated their reproductive caste from the multiverse, you would not remember fighting a people called the Võmémééř. We wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Cha nodded slowly. The inter-reality war had no clear front lines, and Linuka could tell that the prospect of it having no clear victor either made the warrior uncomfortable.

“Our strategy is built on diin rarity, so this is good news. I firmly believe we’re closing in on the last one.”

“And we’re with you, Shaajis. It’s just strange…”

“What is?”

“That the Dark Ones took all the diin breeding planets they could, except this one.” Cha shrugged. “Hope nothing’s wrong with it.”

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