Goddess of the Galacticide Episode 36 - The Other Shaajis
- Bert-Oliver Boehmer
- 5 hours ago
- 6 min read
Linuka entered the Chéé’s main hangar control room. Cha Dzeeny had beaten her to her favorite spot on the battlecruiser.
The layout was spacious, allowing for bulky iiṇawr navigators to congregate here, offering the best possible view of the weird spectacle of an intergalactic dark bubble interior distorting spacetime outside, and the ship’s hangar on the inside.
“Can’t get enough of the mirror horizon, Commander?”
“Shaajis.”
He stood before she could wave him a gesture to stay seated.
“Yes, I still get lost in it sometimes. But right now I marvel at all the loot the Remnants crammed into the hangar. When they announced they would disassemble the Tẽlchi colony before we left, I thought they were joking.”
Linuka joined him in overlooking the neat rows of cut-apart Võmémééř buildings and hoards of alien devices surrounding the freighter Hikshuur on three sides, leaving only a small clearing for takeoff and landing.
The Remnants had promised one of these loot blocks to the freighter’s skipper, Oonzu. An appeasement, and an incentive to allow the AI cores to study the potent biomolecules brimming in the ship’s many unsanitary nooks and grooves.
“They’re as serious as they are industrious,” said Linuka. “No surprise the Võmémééř rather enslaved them as workers than kill them like everyone else they encountered.”
Cha nodded. “Do you think they’ll venture back down to the surface of that jungle planet to re-build the diin-growing facilities or keep them in orbit? I must admit that when you suggested to them returning to Green Wave, I believed you meant it as a trap—based on our experiences with the ecosystem—but now I’m worried they could make it work. Shaajis, can we allow them to breed more of our most lethal enemy right in our galaxy?”
Linuka appreciated how Cha phrased the question. What he wondered about was why they were not seeing through their mission. Linuka’s mission. The quest she had wrecked everyone’s life for, made the New Assembly an eternal enemy for. Betrayed her own deep certainty of never trusting the Dark AI for.
She knew the answer. The reason was trivial. And most importantly, it was incredibly selfish.
“We needed a strong incentive for them to return to Akaa Upsa,” she said.
Not a lie. Enough truth for the moment. Maybe buying enough time to fix things. Reign in what she unraveled. “The Remnants will help as long as there is something to gain.”
“I understand,” said Cha. Linuka knew he wasn’t happy with her answer. “But what is our next move after Green Wave? The Remnants will be busy growing their diin and building new core bodies for the slave AIs we freed. We got the Hikshuur to get back to human-settled space, but we’re not welcome anywhere, including home. There will be no meat skewers for us.”
All Aloo Dashaad—young, old, rich, or poor—would kill for the spicy skewered meats, the most successful cultural export of the former Ancestrate. Linuka missed few things about her childhood home, but she remembered the traditional food with every single meal she ate.
“Maybe there could be,” she said.
Cha Dzeeny looked puzzled.
“You’re right, Commander. Our alliance with the Remnants will expire soon. Instead of accepting our outcast fate, maybe we should make some new friends. Or at least get closer to our enemies.”
Cha looked down. “I guess enemies are all we got left. None of us got even a single family member who’d help us.”
Linuka looked up. The orderly blocks of organized material might not inspire the creative thinking they’d need to apply, but maybe the unpredictable skewed spacetime did.
They beat the Võmémééř, or at least closely controlled their fate. An orbital strike could take out the last diin, no matter how rapidly it grew on Green Wave. The true superpower of the Dark Ones had never been their realm or fleets; it had been procreation. The ability to bounce back from near-annihilation within a few generations. That power was strangled, even if temporarily controlled by the Remnants.
The Remnants’ power was multi-awareness, being several steps ahead of their enemies. So far, Linuka had stayed at least one step ahead of them by anticipating their biggest need and offering to fulfill it.
Their biggest foe remaining was the Assembly. Their superpower was immortality. That’s why they hated her father. That’s why they hated Linuka even more. Other immortals could retreat from their grasp, regroup, and strike back later. If need be much later. The Assembly feared everyone who could outlast their schemes.
“I might have a family member left,” said Linuka.
Cha sighed. “Shaajis, if you think about your father…”
Linuka inhaled. Could he have sensed her irrational fear? She buried a desire so deep not even a Traaz interrogator could peel it out of her mind.
“No, I was thinking about my aunt.”
Cha gasped. “The… other Shaajis?”
“The current Shaajis of the Regencies of Aloo Dash, yes. I appreciate you and the marines still using my old title, but I know a coup dethroned me. Orchestrated by the Assembly. They figured my replacement was much easier to control, and they’re right. I met her once, and she was silly, super inexperienced, easy to manipulate.”
“Is she multi-aware?” asked Cha.
“No, she isn’t. I inherited it from both my parents, but it’s not a family trait.”
“I see,” said Cha. “And you think she could help us?”
“She could help all of you get your standing as a proper Aloo Dashaad back. I’m certain every pious family member of your marines would reconsider the banishment if the Shaajis absolved them. Not me. I’m as much a fugitive as you are. But if Vriishany Omga pardoned you from ancestral shame…”
“It would have weight, yes. Don’t get me wrong, Shaajis, you’re still our…”
“Commander, I have many flaws, but jealousy is not one of them.”
He smiled for a tick, then turned serious again. “The Assembly will still hunt us. And I doubt they will let us anywhere near the acting Shaajis.”
“I think we could help her. They forced her into her position. I don’t hold a grudge against her. Assembly handlers shield her from everything. We need to beat them with their own weapons to force a truce. And my aunt might be the way. If we could convince her to join the Assembly, we would have a powerful ally, and a way to calm the Assembly members plotting against us.”
“Join the Assembly, Shaajis? How is that possible?”
“My mother left a vacant seat in the chamber. Vriishany Omga is the head of state for a nation rich with Honored Ground; every Ancestrate core world has it. She could claim an Assembly seat; she just wasn’t told by these sniffling makak.”
“I see how that would increase her power beyond being an influential figurehead, but she’d still be only one vote in a chamber filled with adversaries.”
“That’s where the Assembly’s meddling will backfire for them. The new Shaajis was meant to unify the peoples of the former Ancestrate of Aloo Dash under the banner of religion. And she did. If we made her a voting member of the chamber, she could lead the largest voting block for human-settled space. Combined with Isonomih and Traaz, they could block anything the corrupt immortals are trying to push through the Assembly. The illegal mind-experiments you suffered would be a thing of the past. Seizing parts of the Levy Fleet to guard their own sphere drive testing station? No longer possible.”
Cha smiled again, a lasting impression this time. It suited him, making him look younger.
“Your father would be proud, Shaajis. And a bit jealous. It took him leading two armies into the Assembly chamber to seize control from the immortals, but you might just do it by introducing one woman.”
Linuka laughed.
“The only problem…” said Cha.
Curse you, Cha Dzeeny, can’t you stop being practical for a few moments?
“… is getting to Vriishany Omga for long enough to convince her of this plan.”
“No,” said Linuka, “it’s simple. We've become very skilled at infiltrating places we were not meant to be. And even better at breaking out individuals from those places. We won’t settle for a short, hush-hush audience.”
Linuka clenched her fist. “We go to the palace on Dziilaa Sok—and snatch the Shaajis.”
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