Galactica: Book 1 - Via Lactea

 

Enron had been pushing his Swarm forward through the mountain range that separated him from his way-point where the nine Hordes he had left would split to reach their next objective. Things were not going well. The weather was atrocious, as the planet moved ever closer to the Primary and water was beginning to thaw the closer to the Equator they progressed. He had left the 10^th Horde to explore the tunnels they had found at the cave’s extended edges. Meanwhile, Mages were busy materialising clothes for the Ones as the Natives called themselves. Another shocking discovery, made by Greywolf’s Swarm, had been the extensive cemetery, above the cave’s roof itself. At first, the placement of the cemetery had been strange, as Atlanteans tended to incinerate their dead or bury the body below. It was Thorsten that had unravelled the mystery for them from his experience with caves and mines.

«We never did discuss how we dealt with our dead before we joined the Community, did we?» he asked as the question was laid on the table the evening prior to the clean-up of Thebes.

«No, it never occurred to us that your rituals might differ from ours,» replied Enron.

«When you live in a mine, or, for that matter, a cave, you soon realise that digging a hole to put a body in might well prevent you from mining ore later on. No one wants to disturb the resting place of a loved one. So, in order to resolve the issue, we either used abandoned galleries or placed them in the upper reaches of the mine, at the tip of the mountains. The Royal Necropolis was at the very top of the mountain where our mine was located on Earth. It was designed so that the Founding Father and his Wife were at the very top, and their Children were placed below, in a circle. Their Children were then placed below them, and so forth. We had several thousand layers like that, tightly packed, barely separated from each other by a foot of rock.»

«That must have endangered your water supply! Imagine the seepage in the fissures down to your lakes and drinking water.»

«It might have had we not taken the precaution to insert a thick layer of clay and activated charcoal to filter out the water. And there were specific outlets for water drainage leading outside of the mine. Do not forget we were guided by Thor in the establishment of this mine and he had been instrumental in the creation of our first home world in what became Norway before we moved across the Pond. Enron, Atlantis Two was a powerhouse of technology before the disaster and they taught us a lot, especially the Emperor.»

«I still have problems grasping the whole extent of what Atlantis Two did to ensure the survival of its allies and how old Harold actually is.»

«We all have the same issue, but just remember who you really are as well.»

Things quieted down for the evening as everyone thought about the upcoming battle within Thebes itself. Enron ordered a halt to the progress for the night as he looked at the daunting mountain range he had to cross in the early morning hours, not that it would be dawn on the planet itself. Like the other Commanders, he had decided to keep to Thebes Standard Time rather than suffer jet-lag from trying to adapt to the planetary time. The planet’s slow rotation made for 45-hour long ‘days’, and that was just not in most Atlanteans’ wiring.

Greywolf’s issues were different: ahead of him lay a vast expense of rapidly melting ice, one of the many seas that dotted the planet. He could see the ice move and explode violently as pressure ridges pushed it up in the air, sudden chiasms several miles deep opening where once there was solid ground, and monumental blocks of ice getting thrown up or swallowed whole in gaps that closed back in an instant, crushing the ice in the process. Water fountains would get ejected a couple of miles in the air to freeze instantly and fall back down in razor-sharp icy blades that could have cut a non-magical being in half without losing their sharpness. Icy shrapnel could be seen flying in every direction as the long spikes shattered on the surface of the planet.

"How the Hell shall we cross that minefield?" wondered an Elf.

"Ness?"

"Yes, Greywolf?"

"Take off in Dragon form and find us a safe porting point out of reach of that deadly rain."

Ness immediately took his native Green Dragon form and lifted off by doing a vertical takeoff. He followed the meridian to the nearest island but quickly realised it presented no safe haven from the falling ice. Progressing further, he found an archipelago that was no better. After three hours of searching, he resolved himself to progress to the nearest mainland, bringing their potential portal point several hundred miles off the expected way-point. There, he found a glacier circus, and studied the area. It was a bit small to port the entire Swarm, but it could be used effectively as a staging area to organise the Hordes so they could undertake their task.

«Would a glacier circus about a hundred miles inland do?»

«Image, please?» replied Greywolf.

After looking around, Greywolf wondered how a Horde could leave the circus, since it was framed on three sides by glaciers several miles high. Ness dropped to the ground and began exploring the area on foot, all the time projecting to his bonded what his eyes saw. It rapidly became clear the circus had only one exit, leading to the sea.

«Follow the glacier valley and see if it is possible to leave it and enter the mainland proper.»

«I have recorded what I saw while flying to find this place, Greywolf. Do you want it?"

«Sure.»

After doing a dump of his memory to Greywolf, the two discussed what the Dragon had remembered.

«From what I see, the valleys are parallel to each other, separated by huge cliffs that make crossing from one valley to the next almost impossible. You have the destination points for the nine Hordes in memory?»

«Yes. They are all located on the same parallel.»

«Travel to the most eastern of our targets and find a porting point for the Horde; do the same for the others. We will bypass the use of way-points.»

«Okay. The first target is an hour off from my current location. I shall contact you as I fly over it.»

«Make sure you are not seen.»

«As soon as I have located the proper staging area, have a Mage accompanied by a Dragon port to the site," suggested Ness.

«I was thinking along the same line.»

Silver Moon was faced with another problem entirely. Ahead of his troops lay a very desolate and extremely dry wasteland, flatter than a pancake and with not a rock to break the monotony for as far as his magical eyes could see. If the Insects ever caught them on that plain, he would have some serious strategic nightmares to deal with. Considering the need for speed, Lord Agramon Silver Moon called up his best Scouts and had them run ahead of his slower Units.

"Stay six hours ahead of us in an arc. I do not want to be taken by surprise."

"What surprise could there be, my Lord? We could see a Gnat like the nose in a face given the flatness!"

"It is not what I can see that bothers me, it is what I can not see. That plain is too flat, way too flat. This smells of artificial landscaping, more like a farm land! If it is the case, that means there could be hidden caves right under foot and we would be none the wiser."

"What are your specific instructions?"

"You need to think about safety all the time. I shall not try and teach you your work, Centurion, but consider what you would do if this desiccated place was the top of a glacier with all the hidden traps and dangers of that environment."

"I get it. We will team in lines, a Decurie to a line and tie each member together. We will walk in a V formation while maintaining visual and verbal contact along the way."

"That is acceptable. There are two Legions of Scouts. Make sure you all follow these rules. I will also spread a Legion of Mages with the Scouts. Should there be an issue, such as the need for shields, or medical emergency, call on them."

Alexander’s Scouts had been hard at work marking safe passages to their separation way-point, using black volcanic rocks disposed in an irregular arc around a small mound of the same material. The change of directions were marked by placing a white rock under one of the black ones and adding 15 degrees left for the first arc, then 15 degrees to the right to the second arc, and so forth for each change. The disposition was such that the Insects, should they cross the pattern, would miss it completely even from the air.

"I wonder where you got that idea?" asked a Legate of the 3^rd Horde, as Alexander smirked.

"From a Native American tribe: they were known as the Sioux and lived in a rather dangerous time where tribal wars were common and they fought with an invader that had much more powerful weapons and were immensely more numerous. Their fate was sealed by these sheer odds. They did not have writing as we know it, but they nonetheless managed to leave extensive information to their warring parties to guide them to their objectives. Naturally, their means of leaving the information behind differed, depending on the nature of the terrain, but overall, the trick was similar. They could leave not only the direction of their enemy, their intentions, the numbers involved, but also some strategic points."

"Still, it does not tell me how you learned of these tricks."

"I do more than command, Legate. I study military strategy, and I find that the Imperial Library is an unfathomable mine of ideas and plans. When my Brother sent his data collectors back in time, they recorded all sorts of fascinating things, some nice, quite a few highly disturbing, but, if you can get beyond the disgust and look at what is there dispassionately, you learn a lot."

"It must take years to find something!"

"Legate, I only asked a simple question from the AI of the Library, and it came up with over fifty examples of what you have seen, all in different cultures and forms. I picked the Sioux method because of the terrain; had it been possible to mark the rock with some natural-looking scraping, I would have suggested it. Unfortunately, the type of rock we are travelling over is what Earth Geologists called a Precambrian basaltic shield and is exceedingly hard."

"All that matters is that it works. I seem to be remiss on learning things, my Lord."

"Do not smash your head on a rock; all of you are in the same situation. We study at least six hours a day, seven days a week, all year around. When was the last time you opened a book, Legate?"

The Legate became red and stammered "When I graduated from grade school, your Highness. I never liked reading. I am more a hands-on guy. I train a lot physically, and try to outwit my opponents at the exercises."

"Yet you have seen us. Do we look out of shape?"

"Oh no! I got my arse whipped by Ian far more times than I care to count."

"Then you should see my point. You can not expect to rediscover everything by yourself. It is always beneficial, even for a hands-on guy, as you describe yourself, to study the masters and try to repeat what they did to be recognised as one in a field."

"I shall try to apply myself to this method."

***

In Thebes, the Royals were resting around a small snack of s-mores and a nice fire. Compline was barely past; the Boys had been burning marshmallows strung on wood spikes, eating the messy delicacies as they dripped from their respective green wood stake. Tom, Jerry, and a good dozen Troll Kids were a mess, as might be expected from faces that were far from glabrous. The funniest remained Rockhook, whose serious mien contrasted with his wide eyes as he tried to figure out how to eat the sticky and rather hot stuff that dripped at the end of his own stiff rod. He was sitting on a log, his head resting on the side of the Matriarch of the Seraphrims. She had declined trying the treat, reminding the others she was a silicon-based life form and that this type of food was not appropriate for her.

«So, Matriarch, how is the Nest?» asked Harold.

«It is fine. I felt we moved quite a lot over the past few... months?»

«Yes, we have been quite busy star-hopping. What brought you out of it for such a walk with us?»

«I feel we are getting near one of my Sisters. I wish to ask you to keep an eye out for her.»

«We shall gladly do so. Do you think she nested?»

«I can not be sure. All I know is we are moving toward her.»

«Let me inform the Officers of the necessity,» Harp said before popping to the Bridge.

«Matriarch, feel free to come to the Bridge to assist in locating your Sister. We may need you to help us find her, since your composition matches quite a few debris in the space we are currently travelling,» added Thorsten, before yelping from burning his tongue on a slightly overcooked marshmallow.

«I shall do so, then. You seemed preoccupied, young one?» she questioned, turning her head toward Ian.

«I am anxious for the hunt to begin. I hate having to wait!»

«The hunt? I do not understand.»

«We have issues with carbon-based Units that have betrayed their sworn word. I shall partake in the hunt. It is not acceptable to swear something and to then betray what was sworn.»

«Ah, I see. And what is to happen?»

«They will be hunted and killed. Foreswearing warrants the death penalty and they knew it when they took that oath.»

«Banishment?»

«It is a form of banishment to the next cycle of life, Matriarch. This is a space-ship, and, however impressive its size, it can not safely harbour traitors without compromising the security of all and its mission.»

«When you say they will be recycled, what do you expect?»

«They will be reborn, probably in a lower life-form, on either this ship or on another planet. There is a fair chance of them being reborn on this ship, but no guarantee whatsoever. I suspect Magic itself will dish out a punishment proportional to their betrayal to our mission.»

«Will you know?»

«We probably could, but it is preferable we do not.»

The discussion of different forms of punishments continued with the Matriarch until an hour before matins. By then, Tom and Jerry had fallen asleep and needed to be woken up. Harp used Magic to clear their fur of any residue of the evening’s party before dumping a bucket of cold water on them to bring them back to the conscious world, much to a lot of grumping. The other three Boys did not need a watery treatment. The yells and indignant protests from Tom and Jerry were enough to bring them to complete wakefulness.

"Boys, report to your Units. They are expecting you in five minutes. Here are your orders. Unseal them when you are in the presence of your Decurions and do your best," said Sitar. "Remember, do not attack before matins. That goes for you too, Ian."

«I still do not know how to read!» whimpered Zen.

«Come here, Zen, and coil in my lap,» said Harp. «I shall transfer that skill to you mind-to-mind.»

The King Cobra slithered into Harp’s lap, marvelling at the comfortable heat his body felt from the position. It felt as good as a warm rock, he decided.

«Relax and move your head so your snout touches dead centre between my eyes, just above my nose.»

The Snake raised a third of his body to reach the proper position and held it, gently tasting Harp in the process and discovering that the Boy had a mixture of flavours unparalleled in his memory.

«I know what you think, Zen. What you taste is the combination of all the other forms I can take, from Insect to Dragon, passing by Ophidians, Birds and Mammals, to name a few. Now, open your mind to my mind. Let us merge...»

Harp guided the Snake to his mind’s landscape and began teaching him how to read, count, and even write using his body as a pen holder. Time passed slowly in their continued work, so much so that Zen thought they had spent several moults doing these studies.

«We are done, Zen. In the outside world, barely a heartbeat separates the initiation of the mind meld and our leaving it with you a much enriched Snake. Do not feel to disoriented. Now relax and leave my mind slowly.»

«Before I go, I have a question.»

«What is it?»

«Will I ever be able to emit these rumbling noises the others do?»

«You mean talk with sounds? I do not see why not. It will be available to you the moment you acquire shape-shifting capabilities. You already have the vocabulary, thanks to Mark and Ovid.»

***

As matins rang across the different clocks that dotted the space-ship, 1,464 Legionnaires moved silently within the segment where the traitors had been gradually amalgamated. Ian took the form of a Mamba Snake and slithered underbrush to begin his rampage. Spare Ribs and his Brother Fang Chao were leading a cleanup team to finish off those missed by the veterans at laziness, under the guidance of Sitar. Thebes was technically in the middle of the night, so few people roamed the streets.

The first to die that night was the watchman of one of the numerous parks that dotted that section of Thebes. He happened to walk on Ian’s tail and got bitten in the calf for it. As he was rather far off, his calls for help went unanswered. Most renegades expected some form or other of mass invasion, with the accompanying explosion of noise.

In a nearby park of similar disposition, Jerry climbed in the trees and began swinging from branch to branch in order to get a better view of the strategic situation. He let himself drop on the watchman as he walked under his position, breaking his neck silently. Tom used a different method entirely: he pulled a branch back as far as it would go and, when the patrolman walked along the almost invisible dirt path, he let go, literally slicing the head off from the violence of the hit. The noise this produced attracted a passing Human, who learned quickly that curiosity satisfied meant a shorter life: One of the green trainees slipped a very fine stiletto between his first and second vertebrae, effectively killing him instantly.

At the other end of the enclave, Zen slithered and let himself hang upside-down from a tree limb that shaded one of the main arteries of his operational sector. He could see the position of his Legionnaires by their thermal signature. A group of felons, noisy and evidently inebriated, were coming his way, making a lot of noise. He pulled himself up and let them pass under him, only biting the last one, a laggard too drunk to walk straight. The man fell silently on the pavement, his state totally ignored by his drinking companions.

«Two to hide the body!» Zen ordered as he made his way quickly to another tree, invisible to the partygoers in the tall grass that had not been cut in months. Less than five minutes later, Zen was ready for a repeat of his move.

Mark used Magic to penetrate within a living area that was lit like a Christmas tree. His sudden appearance right in front of the doorman almost foiled his plan, but he used the few fractions of a second the doorman was stunned to block his air passages with a violent kick to his larynx. He then ported the dying Elf to some storage locker, and unlocked the door to let in a Decurie of Legionnaires in.

"Silent kill!" he ordered, as he took out a fine black silk string from one of his front pockets and led the Decurie toward the lit room. There, he watched what was going on in the other room using Magic to see through the wall. He watched with interest the debate on how to escape the trap the felons found themselves in and an exchange of acrimonious comments, clearly demonstrating that the villains were well aware they had been discovered. Figuring he might gain more insight with live captives than dead corpses, he held back the assault team while he scanned the sewers of the felons’ minds. Dutifully transferring all the information he gained by his mind-snooping to Thebes and relatively sure he had gained all information he could from this exploration of the dumps, he silently dissolved the door and had his men move around the table where the renegades were looking at a sketch of their area with avid attention. On a hand signal, the Legionnaires moved forward, slipped the string around the neck of their respective target, and began pulling with a strength multiplied by their hatred of the betrayers.

Ovid was faced with a rather difficult choice. Should he tackle the big concentration of enemies he could sense in a nearby auditorium, or decimate the numerous groups that seemed to patrol the area as if on Guard? Finally, he opted for the later. He figured there were more outside than inside and that attacking a large number of individuals would be noisier therefore more likely to attract attention. He had yet to hear any suspicious noises in the enclave, so he figured his Brothers had also selected discretion over flashy attitudes.

"We clear the immediate vicinity of that concentration of felons!" he decided. "Then we move out in a circular fashion, leaving a Decurie to intercept anyone leaving or trying to enter the building. First Decurie, deal with that group on the left that just turned around the corner; 2^nd Decurie, deal with the one coming from that alley; 3^rd, you are with me, we deal with the Guards at the door. Stay silent, and invisible. I would not be surprised if there were eyes watching from these windows. Fourth Decurie, make your way to the back and occupy the alley. Again, block access at both ends, silently, and leave a silent signal so no one can move from this building to the one behind without being killed. The others, spread in a circle and start decimating these patrols silently!"

Ian moved to a roof and spotted a watchman overlooking a wide boulevard sleepily. A gentle pressure applied to one of the 87 killing points solved the problem of indiscreet eyes, and put the tired man to eternal rest. Happy with this, he toured the roof to find another man sleeping on duty. The man never woke up from the gentle bite Ian’s Mamba form took at his jugular. Looking down from the roof, Ian spotted a lone figure headed for his building. He threw a shuriken at the man cutting his air flow, and then ported the corpse to the food stores for the big predators.

Jerry arranged his Centurie in two columns along a narrow alley and began a systematic search of the buildings on both side, getting his Decuries to enter from the back doors. Each flat was systematically searched from basement to attic, and everyone was killed without even a single sound. Some were found in rather strange postures, and others had made their way to the bathrooms only to die on the porcelain throne. Each corpse was identified and moved to the freezers for consumption by predators later. Food was at a premium in the Ark and there were no false sentimentality attached to meat and its recycling for the benefit of the animals held in the gigantic zoo.

Tom was the first to escape classical military methods. Spotting a group of individuals trying to pierce a wall, he decided to give them a shocker.

«Thebes, electrify target area D-2, external wall, 60,000 Volts, 10 Ampères, three minutes!»

The resulting shower of sparks and burned-out meat logs was spectacular. The smell of burned Pork that pervaded the area quickly dissipated as the bodies were moved out of the area by teleportation. «Mark the area for emergency repairs.»

"I never liked overcooked meat, and now I know why!" said one of the Decurions as the last corpse was ported out.

Off to his left, Tom spotted the Unit led by his blood Brother, Jerry. After a discreet exchange of hand signals the two groups separated and resumed the hunt. There were so many spots to clean up before dawn.

Zen tasted the air and guided his Centurie toward what appeared to be an empty building. Upon reaching the immediate vicinity of the construction, he had two of the most agile Legionnaires climb up to the roof and drop ropes for the others to assist in escalating the back facade. Once the roof was reached, he moved off to explore the darkened surface, killing a watchman that had his eyes way too fixed on the big street to notice his position was being compromised by the back entrance. Once the roof was taken, Zen used his Magic to unlock the door leading to the landing below. Well aware that steps could crack and be noisy, he floated down, and ported his Centurie by Decade to his position. Again using Magic, he unlocked each flat, numbering 20 to a landing and sent his troops out to kill everyone inside. Landing after landing was cleared of occupants, until everyone was dead.

«Should we exit now?» asked a Decurion, also Apprentice Mage of much lesser power than Zen.

«No. We do not know what lies across the street. We need to get there as quietly as possible and do the same trick with that building. It seems to be arranged in a similar fashion. We leave by the back alley, cross along that dark corner where the light is out, and move to the back alley of the building using the trees to hide us. When you hunt, stealth if of primordial importance. Drop down along the ropes, and wait for me to move. I shall untie them by Magic and drop them on you so they can be reused.»

«And how do you plan to get down?»

«The same way I came up, Decurion, by Magic.»

The poor Decurion felt like slapping himself in the face. He had been told the Snake was a M-1, and he had seen it at work, but it just did not register in his mind that a Reptile could be so powerful. Prejudices are hard to dispose of.

Off in another sector, the Felines were growing impatient. The so-called seasoned Legionnaires were still in their barracks, well past their assigned time to walk into the enclave.

«If these jerks do not move their butts, I shall dig some claws in their ham!» exclaimed Fang Chao, pacing back and forth in the Barracks, tail swishing violently to and fro, ear low on the head and hairs raised on their ends.

«You are welcomed to put some motivation into their slow love dance, my dear. I told them they were pitted against green troops and they think they will win that competition hands down. Yet, the greens have been at work for an hour and have cleared a fair share of their assigned sectors, all this without being detected. I give the greens another hour and they will be sitting on the side-lines watching these idiots do a parody of battle.»

«Are you sure, Sitar? And I thought you were to keep an eye on the tenderfoots?»

«Oh, I am. I keep a discreet mental watch on the different Centurions, and so far, things are going fine, so I do not see why I should be in their hair.»

«Well, watch how I get in the hair of these slow-moving flops of the Imperial Army!»

Fang Chao moved behind a Centurion busy curing his nose while watching his second in command distribute one by one swords and registering the serial number. He roared ferociously, and took a swipe at the exposed butt as the Centurion jumped three feet in the air out of shock.

"Fang Chao is telling you to move your arse or face him in battle Centurion," snickered Sitar.

"But the inventory, the registering of weapons so we are sure we recover every single one of them?"

"That inventory should have been maintained up-to-date by your Decurie of service staff, Centurion. That it is not the case tells me you neglected your duty. Move it, because I just heard Spare Ribs make the same message to your friend the next-door Centurion, Mr. Pork Chop, as he called him. The Felines are getting nervous and do not want to reach the battlefield once all the fighting is done!"

"Are they nuts? That is the best time to reach a battlefield: you reap the work of the others, including the loot they fought for and the glory, all that with minimum risk!"

The Centurion should have thought things out before opening his big mouth in front of Sitar! Barely had the words left his lips that he took his last breath in a gargle of blood, his throat torn open by a suddenly transformed God of War. After taking a mighty swing at the half-cut neck and sending the head flying across the room in a bloody parabola as it was ripped from the body held in place by his left front paw, Sitar reshaped from his Sabre-tooth Snow Leopard into his original bipedal form, but not before letting out a roar that shook the Barracks to their foundations.

"You guys have exactly five seconds to get moving!" he thundered, as Fang Chao licked his lips in a very threatening fashion.

Off in the enclave, the night was progressing quietly. More and more buildings were cleared of their occupants, and an important cache of weapons, under strict guard, had been recovered after Tom and Jerry united their Centuries to take the place in a pincer move. Tom made use of his best asset: water. He flooded the basement to the top, effectively shorting the power to the building and making communications to the outside world impossible. The weapons themselves, mostly composed of kinetic weapons using some chemical explosives to propel the slug, were rendered ineffective when their cartridges were wetted by the flooding. Once the weapon cache had been moved out by the care of a couple of Mages, the Units split and returned to their own assigned segment.

Ovid and Mark were getting frustrated. The information Thebes had given them was to the effect their bullying Dad was in the area they were assigned but, for some reason or other, they were running out of buildings to search and still no trace of the jerk. Finally Ovid remembered the concentration of individuals that he had let in peace at the core of his section and decided to return to the building in question.

«Mark? Are you done? I am almost finished, and I have not found the bastard!»

«I am dealing with some guys who left a building and almost caught us by surprise. Then, when that building is searched, I am done.»

«Ok. If he is not there join me. Zen? What is your status?»

«We are leaving the last building now. Do you want us to join your forces? I would be coming from your left.»

«Ok.»

«I am done as well. There was nothing in that building except a dorm, which was easily cleared of sleepy heads. I will be coming from your right,» stated Mark.

«Can we join the show?» asked Tom. «Jerry and I just merged after finishing the cleanup of our segments. We should reach you from the rear of your Unit.»

«That is fine by me. Just dispatch a Messenger to all the other green Centuries to hold defensive positions and to intercept any person moving into their sectors with extreme prejudice. Dawn should be on us in an hour, and I find it strange we have yet to see a single seasoned Centurie in the enclave.»

«Ok. We shall do so.»

Thirty minutes later, five Centuries encircled the building where the high concentration of individuals had been detected. The roof was rapidly invaded by Tom, Jerry, and Zen. They found eight Watchers aligned two to each facade. Tom and Jerry used raw muscular force to break the neck of those they met, while Zen simply bit them in the neck, killing them instantly by injecting venom in the grey nuclei that controlled breathing. Once this was attained, ropes were let down and a Centurie climbed up silently in the pre-dawn darkness.

The final assault began simultaneously from the bottom and the top of the building. The basement was occupied first, through a window cut open with a diamond, and revealed another cache of weapons, this time made exclusively of high-energy types.

"This indicates treason at the highest level," Mark said to his second in command, as he guided his Centurie toward the stairs leading to the ground-level floor. "I wonder who we will find in that last group? Thebes has been rather parsimonious in giving away identities."

At the ground level, Ovid cleared up room after room silently, while keeping track of the progress downward of Zen’s Centurie from his constant reports.

«The next level up is where the meeting is held. Let us wait here until Zen’s Centurie reaches the landing just above that one.» suggested Ovid. «Tom? Can you call up one more Centurie? What I want is to have all windows on the first floor broken simultaneously and the rooms penetrated from the outside by your Centurie while we charge from the bottom and Zen’s Centurie does the same from the top.»

«Okay. It will take a few minutes to get them in place. Ian just joined me on the roof. He is porting them up now.»

«Mark, join me at ground level and leave the command of your Centurie to the second in command. The moment of revenge has arrived. Zen, my Snaky Brother, we will wait for you to join us to deal with the creep.»

«All is in place, Brothers! We are waiting on your signal to launch the final assault. Ian is with the team targeting the meeting room. He says it is to protect your Dad from premature justice.» said Jerry.

«Luckily he was not there to protect the bastard from premature ejaculation. We might not have survived!» said Mark.

«May justice be rendered with all its severity and yet in fairness,» prayed Ovid, much to the surprise of those listening on the communications. After a long-drawn breath, the order came: «Go! Go! Go!»

The sound of breaking windows took all the occupants of the first floor by surprise. The invaders used this moment to butcher or simply incapacitate as many opponents as they could. The green troops had been well trained and few missed their target on the first shot of the disruptors, and none on the second shot. Ovid’s Unit led the invasion of the left wing as Zen’s Unit dealt with the right wing. Tom’s unit invaded every room through the windows, killing without mercy anything moving within sight. Jerry’s Unit prevented any escape from desperate individuals willing to jump the windows after playing Possum. Overall, the operation was a success, if slightly noisy and pretty bloody. A single green got hurt, and then it was by a shard of glass, not even from enemy fire.

Ian had kept his promise: nothing had happened to Mark and Ovid’s Father and he was the only intact person, in fact the single survivor after the butchery ended. The two Boys, accompanied by Zen, made their way amongst the carnage, ignoring the limbs, headless corpses, broken skulls spilling brain, and other less than engaging scenes to stand in front of their Dad, who was backed against a wall, holding a phaser in his shaky hand.

After looking at the hateful face of the Elf to find an excuse for his actions and finding none, Ian turned his back on the individual, clearly indicating his fate now solely rested in the hands of his Children. Everyone understood the gesture’s underlying meaning and watched Mark and Ovid’s actions with renewed interest.

«So, Zen, what do you make of our ex-provider, and my sperm donor?"

«He tastes foul, even more than a long-dead Mouse.» replied Zen after flicking his tongue out to get the information required.

"Zen says you taste foul, Dad, even more than a long-dead Mouse according to him. And he does not know you. I wonder what description he would give if he had access to the full repertoire of your turpitude."

The Elf blinked at his Son, not fully understanding what he had said.

"I am waiting Dad. What do you have to say?"

"You better answer quickly, for we do not have all night. Dawn is near and we still have half of that Rats’ nest to clean up."

"No use looking around for help; the sectors we were assigned are all clean from top to bottom, all done in relative silence and amazing speed. You might want to know who these Units are? They are freshly minted Centuries, under our command, Dad. Yes, you hard me right. I command a Centurie; so does that useless Human you so frequently debased and devalued. Had you taken notice, you would have spotted his blue tailbone dot marking him as Atlantean, you old fool. And then, there is Zen, here, that also commands a Centurie. Yes! You heard me right! A Snake commands a Centurie and has proved his worth as a valuable Commander! And let me introduce you to two of my newest friends, Tom and Jerry. They are Australopithecus Regressi and form the most terrible pair of pranksters I have ever seen! If you think we were bad, you should see them at work! It is awe-inspiring! They too have a Centurie at their command and have proven they could use their inestimable imagination to put pranks to good use during a war."

"Dad, that is not all," continued the other Boy. "You hate Magical beings, and yet you never suspected we were living under the same roof! How else can you explain that we can talk to a Snake, Dad? And explain this!" while creating a ball of fire in his hand so bright the Elf saw black spots once the fire vanished.

"So, what do you have to say for your actions?" asked Ovid.

"This!" said the enraged Elf as he opened fire on Mark, only to see the energy being absorbed by a force field.

"So we thought. Do you really think two powerful Mages would stand unarmed in front of you without taking some basic precautions?" snorted Ovid. "Yes, we are Mages, and not just run of the mill ones, we are M-1, meaning we are near the top, and will one day occupy a place in the most important command structure of the ship, the Bridge!"

"Ovid, I have drained him dry of all information he has. We can dispose of him any time you wish."

"Thank you, Mark. What have you learned?"

"The source of the advanced weapons is a guy that is being blackmailed to protect his only Child. However the Child has been long dead, as the group did not ever consider returning the Baby to the Parents after they had taken control of the ship. The body was stored in a freezer by an Elf working at the Ark project. From what I learned reading that cesspool, the Elf in question is either already dead or in the segments that still need cleanup. They expect the body to have been fed to Alligators some time back."

"Do you know who it is?"

"The supplier? Yes, Ian."

"I shall visit them immediately. Feed me their co-ordinates."

"Here! What do you plan to do?"

"The Baby was young, so he or she did not have time to develop a distinct personality. I shall put a sample of the genetics of the Baby in one of the accelerated type K stasis pods and recreate the Baby. Since we automatically take a map of memories and brain patterns for everyone in Thebes every night, he or she will recover these memories, and potentially, if we are lucky, we will even recover the soul of the Baby from the ambient psionic flux. It all depends on how long ago that horror took place. If not, well, I shall create one."

"A soul?"

"Yes, why not? A soul is a coherent reasoning energy. I am a pure form of such a thing, there is therefore no reason why I can not do it if necessary. Off to a sneaky visit I go. I better do this while they still sleep so they are unaware of what happened."

«Ian, you are fetching things too far,» said Harp.

«What do you mean?»

«We can go back in time and capture the soul as it leaves the kernel. It is, as you said, a cohesive energy flux, something a lot easier to transfer through time than what we had to do with Atlantis One. How long will it take to create the body, Paschal?»

«Approximately three months, give or take a few days. Since we are considering a cross-time transfer, we might as well recover the memory map; it will be fluctuant, given the lack of reference points a Baby has, but it will be done almost instantly. Depending on the method these bastards used to kill the Baby, I shall select the map just prior to their despicable actions.»

«We need an excuse to delay returning their Baby to the Parents,» added Ian.

«We can always put a doll in a long-term stasis pod and tell the Parents their Baby needs treatment of some sort for a genetic defect or other,» suggested AI-1.

«That might work, but it does not take into account the fact that a Mother has an intuitive bond to her Child. And I was thinking we may have issues with phenotypes that are not of genetic origins, such as a scar or other markings, but if we claim reconstruction of the genetic inheritance, that would probably allow for any apparent physical change the Mother might see. AI-1, as soon as I have sent you the genetic sample, do a model of the phenotype expressed by the genotype. It is nearly prime, I better go collect that genetic sample. I shall meet you in your laboratory, Paschal.»

«Colibri is waiting for you already, Ian. He has started the separators; the only missing ingredient is the cell culture. Make sure it is not the family Dog’s hair you pick!»

«Let us render justice. Burn!» decided Mark, as the Elf felt his body erupt in a living fire. The body melted into a puddle of molten fat and burned proteins before dissociating into its chemical components.

«I figured he was such a poison no animal deserved that dish.» explained Mark. Ian ported the residue to the bottom of the oceanic Tessaract, thus feeding the garbage to the Worms that carpeted the sea bottom.

***

Meanwhile, on the Bridge, Typhoon was woken from his nap by a touch from Iridia.

"Yes?"

"The sensors indicate we are headed toward a concentration of Insect ships that are in the process of slowing down, Lord Captain. They are located two light-minutes ahead of us. We are yet undetected."

"How many are there?"

"The counter stopped climbing at over 3,000,000."

"Do we have their target?"

"There are three planets in their path. Two giants and a rocky one, much smaller than the two others. The Science station reported the two giant planets are compatible with the Insects, whereas the rocky one is way too warm for their needs."

"And yet..." prodded Typhoon.

"And yet, I detected several explosions on the rocky planet compatible with the Insect ships detonating. And yet, all indicates they are invading the rocky planet."

"Blaze our path with the corpses of Insect ships. Timor? You have command. Clear space of these ships. No quarters."

"Finally some exercise! I am not going to ring the red alert. That would stop the clean-up and break the green’s insurmountable advance on our so-called seasoned troops. I wonder how they will explain their poor performance?"

"With excuses," replied Rockhook. "Hey, what brings you to the Bridge, Matriarch?" Suddenly remembering that the Matriarch was solely telepathic as yet, since Harp had not completed the reconstruction of her body to allow verbal communications, he repeated his question telepathically.

«I sense one of ours adrift in our path. It is quite near. Can you help me locate her?"

«Sure!» followed by another command to Timor. "Timor, hold the battle off for a bit while we locate the Matriarch’s Sister and bring her on-board. Helm, reduce to quarter impulse." Turning to the Matriarch, he enquired «Are we still moving toward her?»

«Yes. We should cross her path in a short while.»

«When we do, tell us.» "Navigation? Mark the point as soon as I tell you!"

«I will know, Typhoon. I can register the Matriarch,» replied Jefferson.

«Ah, It is you, Jefferson. I was not expecting you on the Bridge for some time.»

«I ran out of heads to slice. The few survivors of my Court finally understood I was not a pushover. I am thinking of dissolving the entire thing and turning my Crown over to the Emperor.»

«I doubt Dad would be pleased,» replied Ian from his hunting point in the enclave. «He gave you that Crown so he could distribute the work, not so you could give it back when you got tired of the work. I thought you had already done the dissolving and were now in the process of reconstructing?»

«I did. This is the second Court. Of the original metal-heavy heads, only a single Duke survived; none of his Sons did, and his Daughters all died in the first round. I told the Duke he might as well play with himself rather than Father that kind of crap, and he laughed so hard he wetted himself.»

«That sounds familiar?»

«Ian, it is the Duke that needed to learn how to wash his ears, the one that threw his eldest Son in the bathtub and kept him there at the point of his sword."

«I remember! You did what I should have done that day! Good! What brought the second weeding?»

«Another attempt at gaining what was not rightfully theirs through coups, corruption, and back-stabbing. I am so glad I am not into Women. Most of the shenanigans were the result of ambitious Bitches (growl from Felicia) Oh, sorry Felicia, I did not mean any disrespect! Anyway... Females, does that garner your approval, Princess Felicia? Females that pushed their Mates to reach for more than they had earned.»

«Why did you dispose of the Males?»

«If they did not have the balls to resist the pressure from the ambitious Females, they were a liability and did not deserve the responsibilities and duties I had entrusted them with.»

«Are you aware the Duke probably survived the purges because I removed his Wife, the Slut as she was nicknamed?»

«Yes, and so is he. He flatly acknowledged the fact, but since he did nothing against me, I had no reason to shorten his body and his life.»

«We just crossed the path.» the Matriarch signalled, totally ignoring these strange bipeds’ politics.

Jefferson marked the position on a three-dimensional map and asked for a change of trajectory.

"Helm, climb up at 45°, and move at ¹/₈ impulse!" ordered Typhoon.

«We are still moving away,» reported the Matriarch.

"Revert path, vertical at 90°!" commanded Typhoon.

«We are getting closer again.»

A few minutes later, the Matriarch told the crew they had again crossed path with her Sister.

After marking the new reference point, Jefferson gave his instructions.

"Helm, heading -42,2° from original point! Sensors?"

"There are 18 masses compatible with a Matriarch within sensor range and within the plane defined by the two reference points. I am establishing the trajectory of each one."

«Ion impulse! Reduce speed to Match 25!» ordered Typhoon.

«Navigation? Transferring the 18 points to your map. They should be yellow dots on your projection.»

«Received!»

«We are still getting closer!» the Matriarch reported.

«We passed the first object. It is a core for an Aquarian Female, free-falling toward the Primary. It shows severe photonic erosion, indicating it is very old. We are at the vertical of the second object, Navigation.»

«I removed the first object from the map as irrelevant to our search, Science Station. The second object also seems to be following a free-fall trajectory, headed for one of the gas giants. It is unlikely it is our target.»

It took several minutes for the Matriarch to manifest herself again.

«This one! I can sense the life in her! She is carrying a nest in gestation!»

«Ok. Traction beam! Pull her in! Mineral Spider carrier to the outside shell! Matriarch, the Spider will bring her inside Thebes. I suggest you move to the bay we selected. It is located at Sector ZU, level 4992. Thebes? Guide the Matriarch to the selected berth. In what condition should we expect her to be?»

«She is in deep-space hibernation, Dragon Lord. She will not know of a sudden change of trajectory until she emerges from the hibernation stage. It will be several planetary rotations before this occurs.»

«Then you have proper time to reach her so she has someone to meet her of her own Species. Good luck establishing a friendly rapport with her.»

"The capture is complete! The Seraphrim is now in a mineral carrier and is being taken aboard."

"Return to previous trajectory. Timor, you now have command. Catch up on the Insects!"

"The mineral carrier Spider is in, the doors are closed and the Seraphrim is being unloaded to the deck. The reception crew is polishing her shell to remove interstellar dust. The outer shell is composed of Orichalque," reported the Dwarf team tasked with recovering the newly collected life.

"One light-minute from the Insects!" reported the sensor array officer.

"Photon torpedoes?" asked Timor.

"Ready!"

Timor waited until they were less than two light-seconds from the Insect concentration before ordering the first volley. Almost half the Insect ships exploded before they could even figure out what was hitting them.

"Slow down to stand-still relative to the Insect flotilla and blast them like we were at the fair."

The Insect armada turned slowly on itself to tackle Thebes, thus exposing their flanks to the incoming torpedoes.

"They did the same mistake I did during the simulation," noted a young officer that still had his bars of junior in training. "They would benefit from that hairy strategist that came with you, Felicia, Jerry I think his name was."

"I knew you looked familiar. Still Ensign, I see?"

"I failed the test. We all did. I shall take it again next month. We are hard at work studying strategies and I asked to spend some time with these two fur balls. I was told they were occupied?"

"Yes, they are currently leading a Centurie each in cleaning up a concentration of felons."

"I wish I was there!"

"And miss a turn at the Bridge?" asked Typhoon.

"Any hands-on real experience in a fight far outweighs any book-based training. I am sure I would learn more and further my career as an Officer much more quickly with that experience and just watching them at work."

"Well, watch us. Thebes is faced with a far greater number of foes than you will ever face alone. Helm! Dive below them at 29°, turn 38° to the left, and lay a trail of gravitational mines every two minutes."

Thebes made the requisite trajectory changes, and left behind a string of mines that constituted the first line of a web that would eventually lay in the path of the incoming Insect ships.

"Backtrack, and rotate in a spiral around the base line of mines. Lay a mine every three minutes!"

The Atlantean space-ship had no issue completing the complex manoeuvre, and shortly, there was a thicket of mines between it and the charging Insect ships.

"Move off by three light-seconds. Full shields!"

The Insect ships made their way to the base line without hitting a single mine but then as the gravitational mines took effect, they were pulled in an ever-tightening trap, unable to move in any direction without triggering another mine and adding to the artificial gravity well that kept pulling the Insect ships toward each other and the mines ever closer to the doomed vessels.

"Bye-bye Insects. We raided your home-world, now we raid your fleet. Typhoon, you have command."

The young Ensign was shocked by the efficiency of the tactic. He had always thought that gravitational mines were to be used to trigger the implosion of a planet, but never had he realised they could be laid in a trap much like a web. He looked at Timor with unadulterated awe.

"Now I know where these two take their strategic genes."

"I am sorry to dispel this, but Tom and Jerry are not my blood Sons. I adopted one, and Colibri adopted another. They are not even blood brothers. Their assets are theirs alone, Ensign."

"Navigation? How long before we reach the planet?"

"At our current speed, several years. I suggest we kick up some space dust!"

"Helm, warp two, we lost enough time as it is."

***

On the icy planet, Alexander had dispersed his Hordes according to plan and began leading the one he had decided to supervise down the tunnel. By then, the protocol leading to the take-over of the cave had been thoroughly thought out. The Scouts would focus on taking control of two major points: the communication centre and the Insects’ living quarters. Then the main forces would assist the natives in dealing with the Insects in the production centre and the mines, should the need arise.

Several hundred miles away, the exploration teams that had been left behind to study the transport tunnels were busy. At first, they found nothing of interest, but as they progressed deeper in the passages, they found traces of ancient activity that told them the story of the initial battle between the Insects and the Natives. They found weapons caches long forgotten by the Slaves, and also examples of writing and national treasures hidden in vaults. Remembering Alexander’s recommendations, they called on the leaders of the Slaves to visit with them the long tunnels and brought them to the vaults and weapons caches.

At first, the Slaves were surprised, and then feared the Atlanteans’ reactions to the weapons, but when the Soldiers began showing them how to use the weapons properly, they began to understand that these newcomers were not there to replace the Insects as slave-drivers. They gladly took to the weapons training, and were even more surprised when the Atlanteans supplied them with isothermal suits so they could travel to the surface and assess the situation with their own eyes. As they saw for the first time stars, they grew scared and worried. It took some time to explain what these colourful dots were, and that the bright lights that seemed to flare up at irregular intervals were Insect ships being destroyed by the Atlanteans high in the atmosphere of their home world.

The most tragic aspect of all was the extensive loss of their culture. They no longer knew how to read their own writing, and they had no knowledge of numbers. Yet, the Atlanteans explained to them that their ancestors definitively had written means of communications as were proof the presence of written documents in the treasure caches. The next part was more sombre. The leaders were brought to the pile of rubble and told this was once one of their great cities, destroyed by the Insects. They were told that the Atlanteans planned on studying the rubble pile in order to gain a better understanding of the past and the culture of the Natives. Maybe, with the help of the time-travel data collectors, they could even rebuild the city to its former glory so the Natives had a new home to be proud of. The Atlanteans then showed them the miniature Spiders that would be sent in the ruins in search of any hidden treasures that might be worth recovering for their benefit. After all, collecting through time could insure an exhaustive harvest of their national treasures, but it would not give them a feel of the extent of the damage brought about by the Insects’ destructiveness.

The miniature Spiders began their search and progressed rapidly through several layers of rubbish before finding an extensive network of partially obstructed passages under the city. The cameras revealed that a part of the Native population had found refuge from the Insect invasion down in these tunnels, and had died of starvation, unable to grow anything in the dark passages to feed themselves.

One room attracted the attention of the Horde’s Commander. A couple of rather very dry skeletons were crumpled on the ground near high-backed marble chairs. It reminded her of the thrones found in Thebes’ Imperial Thrones Room. She called the Elders of the Natives to show them the image, and was surprised by their reaction: They fell on their knees, hugging each other in a scene that clearly showed their distress.

«Alexander, your Highness! I need your assistance!»

«What is it?»

«Look!» as she projected the scene to the Prince.

«I am coming. Expect me now,» before porting to her location instantly.