Goddess of the Galacticide Episode 3 - Thirteen and the Dead
- Bert-Oliver Boehmer
- May 20
- 5 min read
Updated: Jun 10

Linuka Omga didn’t comprehend the curses, but the analyst beside her summarized the base dwellers’ sentiments well: “This is our enemy?”
Nobody was missing out on the base-wide broadcast of the recovery ship pulling the diin carcass out of his former flagship’s shredded hull. The alien body looked like a twisted, oversized tree. Linuka had never seen a tree in nature, but she learned about those plants, their appearance and dimensions. Even the tallest ones reached only the height of a multi-story building. The diin, when alive, dwarfed a skyscraper. She could not read the humans as she could feel the Traaz, but she was certain the emotions ranged from dread to pride.
“Yes,” she nodded to the analyst, only a few orbits her senior, likely not remembering a time without fighting the extra-galactics, “you are still here, you prevailed. You should be proud indeed.”
The young man grinned at Linuka, then pointed at the diin on the holo-display, damning it with some choice words. He and his peers saw the true enemy for the first time. For most, the Võmémééř leadership had remained a faceless, voiceless menace, blasting their habitats and peeling the crusts off their worlds.
The recovery tug had almost cleared the entire length of the diin out of its metallic grave. The last body segment leaving the battleship had its many branches covered with large plaques of what looked like a fungal overgrowth. Linuka remembered this assumed to be ‘light leaves’, part of the sensory system, the monster’s eyes.
Careful, she thought. The growth got entangled in some of the spiky metal parts near the gaping wound that once was the ship’s lower hull.
“There is danger,” said Me-Ruu. The hovering robotic body of the Isonomih AI core had joined the half-circle of onlookers.
“Yes,” said Linuka, “either their tug lines will snap or they’ll rip off the sensory growth.”
“My concern lies elsewhere. The power source of the battleship might become unstable.”
Linuka took a deep breath. Her multi-awareness was strong, but conscious, situational. Me-Ruu’s machine civilization were the original multi-aware beings in the galaxy and if he foresaw danger…
“Warn the Commander!”
One analyst raised his hand. “There is a temperature build-up behind the battleship’s dome structure.”
Base Commander Ksheep approached the analyst’s station, likely attracted by the hand gesture, but did he understand the threat? No one understood the Võmémééř’s power sources, but what if the massive damage to the battleship had destabilized it?
Linuka turned to the AI core. “What do you see, Me-Ruu?”
“I calculate a high probability of an explosion. The recovery crew with the diin in tow are in the blast radius.”
Nreedz. She had to act. “Commander!” Linuka reached out to the Traaz. “The recovery ship needs to get out of the debris, fast!”
Ksheep’s photosensitive side remained facing the displays as his voice cut through the chatter. “Linuka, we proceed slow and steady, or not at all.”
“The battleship’s going to blow!”
“You don’t know that. All we got is an increased heat signature.”
“I might not know, but Me-Ruu predicts it.”
To the Traaz, Linuka was a human youngling, clever, curious, but the doubt in all his dealings with her was underlining each word he thought. He did not hide it, maybe not even tried. Talking him into the diin-recovery mission took several rotations. Now she tried to hurry him, and his patience was wearing thin. Me-Ruu, however, represented the Isonomih, a faction the Traaz respected. She hoped his word had weight enough to sway the Traaz.
“You said you needed the corpse. We are close to retrieving it.”
Yes. Linuka needed the corpse. She had seen the Võmémééř going through great length to retrieve their fallen leaders. They had no sentimentality for the dead, no emotions beyond the practical. But they will want the corpse, too. Well, they wanted what was inside it.
“Have them leave now! They either pull that diin along or they don’t.”
The memory column. A bio-storage containing the diin’s experiences through the eons. The extra-galactics had ways to read it after death, draw conclusions from the events leading to the diin’s death, adjust their strategies and plans. They had done it before. Linuka wondered how the base dwellers would replicate the feat, but they needed to secure the memories first, if they wanted to keep any chance to read them.
“Yes, we need it. But I came here to save people, Commander. Get the crew out there!”
Information on the Võmémééř campaign, their remaining numbers, and possibly the locations of the last diin - if any. 12 humans and one Traaz on the recovery ship. 13 lives. Her mother had faced these decisions. Her father had, too, on a galactic scale. She never fully appreciated what he had done until this moment.
“Save them! Magii this diin!”
Commander Ksheep gestured some geometric glyphs to the analyst, apparently communicating with the tug via QT-buoy. The craft’s powerful chem engines lit up, the momentum snapped the tow cables, and the 13 broke free. The Traaz onboard might only have a single child by Linuka’s timeline. But the 12 humans’ progeny could represent star systems settled with people carrying forward their genes. Maybe none of them would survive long enough, but maybe Linuka just saved billions.
The flash was blinding, even on the filtered displays. It was impossible to say which part of the wreck went critical. The entire ship vanished in a moment, engulfed by a blue fiery sphere, bathing the surroundings with radiation and a cloud of metallic shards.
“Are they…?”
“They’re safe,” said the analyst and pointed at the fast moving dot on the display, outrunning the wave of destruction. The tug had escaped. The diin’s carcass did not.
Ksheep pulled away from the spectacle and faced Me-Ruu and Linuka. He did not gesture nor use his mind-language. The warm wave of gratitude Linuka bathed in was more than enough.
“I apologize” said Me-Ruu.
“What for? You saved those people.”
“Had my prediction concluded sooner, recovery of the diin might have been possible.”
“Oh, don’t you dare get started with the guilty attitude.” Her father had embraced it. Every flaw in the plan, each failure in its execution, every nreedz happening in the galaxy—all his fault. Me-Ruu had been father’s friend, but she didn’t want him to take over the self-chastising.
“I do not understand,” said Me-Ruu.
“We don’t have the diin’s memories. But the Võmémééř won’t get to them, either. Maybe it’s for the best. They have no reason to return."
The AI core didn’t immediately respond. No doubt Me-Ruu accessed the adjacent realities.
“I calculate there are no further steps for us to take in this reality.”
Ksheep approached, probably to express his thanks to the Isonomih, who could not read his thoughts.
“Commander,” said Linuka, “It looks like we’re done here.” She felt tired, like a burden falling off her, the adrenaline of battle giving way to the exhaustion of the constant threat, her Uurmi relenting its grip on her biochemistry. “Don’t take this as lack of gratitude for all you have done, but we’d like to return. We have friends waiting for us who are barely holding their timeline together.”
“I am afraid this future of yours will have to wait.” Ksheep’s jovial mood had ended. “The recovery crew will return from the mission soon, thanks to you two. We failed to secure this diin, but they found something else.”
Linuka glanced past the analyst. Nreedz. She had seen this—right before her father died.
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.
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