First Contact

Chapter 767: The Inheritor's War

It is debatable what was more horrific.

What the Terrans did to us to win the war.

Or what they did to themselves. - Excerpt from Horrible Horrible Freedom, Author: Fears the Unfettered Thoughts of Self, 127 Post-Glassing

The world had been under the control of the Atrekna since the loss of the First Prime System. For hundreds of thousands of years the Atrekna had stripped the resources of the system. The gas giants were nebulous shadows of their former selves, the two asteroid belts were scattered gravel, the worlds stripped and riven. The sun was huge and dark purple, over two thirds of its mass lifted out to fuel the war machine of the Atrekna as well as making it more to the Atrekna.

On the single inhabited world the jungles, forests, and plains were all gone. All that remained was dust and sand. In what had once been the deepest depths of the seas and oceans was acidic brackish water that was shallow and oily looking. The mountains had been ripped down and apart to tear the crystals and metals desired by the Atrekna. The moons were ripped and torn, great chasms silently screaming once the precious resources had been torn away.

Hundreds of miles apart were vast crystalline cities, each containing twenty to forty fortresses with suburbs around them that touched one another to form the glittering urban landscape.

On the plains of dust and sand, of sterile barren dirt, were vast crystal and phasic constructs, all dedicated to defending Prime System Nine and the Fortress of Hunger and Thought as well as all the massive research facilities. Constructs capable of striking at craft in far orbit, of disgorging mechanical and biomechanical servitors to defend the surface of the planet.

Atrekna were free to plot and plan against one another, to be supreme within the city or local Overmind Consensus. To drag away a rival and implant them with larvae. Those who had already implanted their larvae cultivated apostles and acolytes and apprentices to implant foes and rivals with those larvae who had been subsumed by the phasic power of those more powerful.

Vast breeding pools of Atrekna young swam in brackish slimy pools of fluid, fighting one another and developing their phasic power. The strongest, toughest, left the pools as immature Atrekna, seeking out mentors, patrons, protectors.

Even though only three years had passed for the greater universe, nearly three million years had passed within the carefully hidden system, sunk deep into the dimensional foam.

The Atrekna had used that time to build a fortress, an indestructible redoubt capable of rebuffing anything any other species could bring to bear. The Atrekna knew, in their billion years of history, exactly what other races could bring to bear.

Inertial and kinetic interdiction fields were wrapped around the planet. High energy deflectors, capable of even deflecting X-rays, were spun around the planet. Devices to prevent the detonation of nuclear fission or fusion devices were carefully emplaced with overlapping fields of protection. Psychic teleportation was interdicted.

The system was sunken into the dimensional foam, the entire system heavily interdicted and protected.

It could not be assaulted.

The Atrekna who dwelt there knew that simple fact, just as well as they knew the basic formula for the dissolution of psychic power over distance.

Which is why the Atrekna gathered to watch a duel between two Ancient Ones on the black glittering sands of what had once been a vast primordial forest had no fear.The dueling field was in the middle of a fortress city that had stood for millennia, black sand in the middle of ringed comfortable seats. The duel was vaguely interesting, a break from the monotony of steady research into the New Universe, from the plots and plans that moved glacially slow, from the tending of slavespawn in hibernation.

The two Ancient Ones moved toward one another as another dozen watched impassively. The duel was over who was correct about the movement of New Universe chronotrons at astronomical speeds, the two differing opinions separated by a picosecond of difference.

The Ancient Ones prepared their circles of power, drawing them in the glittering sand with pure phasic energy. Some of the Young Ones present felt a slight flicker of envy at the raw power on display as each drew their protection and counter-attack runes slowly and carefully, each keeping a watchful eye on the other.

The duel had not formally begun, but they were on the dueling field, and that meant that one could strike at the other at any second and formally begin the duel through a surprise strike.

The sun flickered and vanished, leaving nothing but the distorted starscape in the suddenly black sky.

The Atrekna looked up, many frowning slightly, a few opening their third eye to see what had happened to the stellar mass that normally dimly lit the surface of the planet.

Most of the Atrekna realized that they could not see the small orbs of the other system planets in the dark sky.

The warped starfield, twisted and folded by the sinking of the system, suddenly went out.

The sky was black.

Empty.

It seemed to press down onto the ground, an almost physical thing that even pressed against psychic senses.

There was a ripple in the sand.

A slight bump in the sand appeared.

Some Atrekna went from staring at the empty sky to the little bump.

Tentacles spread from the bump, six of them, arced tightly.

The tentacles quickly began moving in a spiral around the bump, spreading out, even as the bump got large and flattened out.

The Atrekna who were set to duel turned their attention from the empty sky pressing down on their senses like cold black glass to stare at the bump.

There was nothing there.

Just misaligned sand.

Black smoke erupted from the fist sized hump and the Atrekna shuffled and glided back from the purplish black smoke that rose in a twisting pillar. The streams of smoke, none of them thicker than a forearm, swirling around one another and twisted together. Purple and blackish-red electricity began crackling at the base of the pillar of smoke.

Some Atrekna drifted far enough back to not be seen by their fellows. They suddenly looked as if they were made of thousands of vibrating strings woven together and then vanished.

None of the other Atrekna noticed as the threads of dark purple lightning climbed up and down the pillar of twisting and writhing black smoke.

The smoke suddenly vanished.

A Mad Lemur stood in between the two duelists.

She was clad in sleek black armor, spiked at the shoulders, down the spine, at the knees and elbows. Chains were crudely welded the black armor, which the Atrekna could sense was Substance-W. Strange banners were held aloft from her back on cruel barbed poles, the banners snapping in an unfelt wind. The armor seemed to drip shadows and blood. Her eyes were closed, her mouth shut, but the bleeding wound on her throat pulsed blackish purplish red blood down her gray skinned throat.

It vibrated with malevolence and rage.

Her head was exposed and she stood still for a brief shard of a second, a shattered piece of a moment.

The sound of great rusted iron doors crashing open jerked all of the Atrekna's attention back to the sky for a second.

It was still black, empty.

As full of nothing as their own universe had been beyond the entropic barrier that kept the slightest particle from escaping the Atrekna's tiny bubble of the Old Universe before it had been destroyed.

The Mad Lemur threw her arms to the sky, raising her face to the horrible emptiness above her as the sound of the door bursting open echoed through the stellar system.

Lightning cascaded down from the emptiness, wreathing her arms and torso, pouring down her legs like water, impossibly black and shot through with red and blue and purple, all so dark as to make even the Atrekna's eyes ache.

Her eyes opened, revealing empty eye sockets full of nothing but purple fire.

She shrieked in a voice heard across the entire system, jerking the Atrekna's attention back to her.

LET THIS WORLD SHAKE IN THE RAGE OF LOST TERRASOL

her voice howled across the system, reveberating in the crystalline structures of the fortress cities and the redoubts within. The dead sand on the surface of the planet puffed free, rising in a dusty cloud to knee height.

The Overminds shuddered as the scream resonated through the thick cerebral fluid surrounding them. Smaller ones shriveled as lighting played over them, the viscous fluid steaming and bubbling as it started to boil.

The scream crashed into the Communal Mind, echoing in the thoughts of every Atrekna on the planet. Thousands collapsed as thin tendrils of lighting skittered from ruptured eye sockets to flay flesh from the bone as their psychic defenses totally failed.

The lighting burst from her, shredding the two combatants, the judges, and half the crowd, reducing them to rags and scraps of tissue and flash-fried blood.

The remaining Atrekna were still staring at the Mad Lemur, unable or unwilling to move, stilled with shock so profound their thoughts were stilled.

The blackness screamed and the Atrekna looked up.

Over a dozen threw themselves into the dust, covering their heads, coiling their feeding tentacles, keening in fright, an emotion they had not felt in their entire lives.

The blackness seemed to bulge.

Droplets fell from the sky as the bulge widened and pushed down toward the planet more.

Atrekna across the planet felt the droplets hit them.

It's warm, was the communal thought.

Many looked at the droplets, still able to see despite the perfect darkness.

The drops were a bright lurid crimson, the fluid thick and warm as it fell from the black sky with no apparent source.

On the dueling field, those that remained, who felt as if they were nailed in place, stared at the sky.

Atrekna in the city around the dueling field began to scream in terror.

The sky bulged further and a line of fire appeared, two large armored hands pushing through the line of fire, grabbing the edges where burning fire met blackness. With a horrific tearing sound that caused crystalline fortresses to crack and tremble, the fiery gash was ripped open.

Standing in a ragged tear of roaring fire in the black sky was a massive figure in black warsteel armor of heavy plate and pistons, all angled deflection plates and terrible burning runes. Banners flew from barbed poles extending from the shoulders, the snapping cloth roaring with unheard rage, full of promises of freedom or death. The being's face and head were uncovered, revealing a dark skin lemur whose face was graved with scarification and tattoo decorations.

Black skeletal hands of entropic nothingness that the Atrekna could sense had been forged in the deaths of a universe, reached out past the figure, grasping the edge of the rent, and ripping the bleeding wound in the empty sky wider. Profane, warped, twisted, and screaming energy of Hellspace slithered from the wound, looking for anything it could attach to.

The Atrekna in the city began to scream.

The ones at the dueling field only stared, the female lemur forgotten.

A massive canine appeared next to the lemur in the sky, its warsteel jaws open to reveal serrated conical teeth. Warsteel drool poured from its mouth.

Hellhound was whispered in the communal mind. A cold, viscous, dead feeling though.

The huge lemur and the canine stepped from the wound in the sky, crudely attached chains forged of madness, agony, and horror clattering after it. The lemur and the hound hit the surface of the planet, next to the female lemur, his knees flexing as he went down on knee, a fist slamming into the dirt, the other fist holding a heavy blocky submachine gun.

The figure slowly stood up even as the Atrekna began to scream and try to flee. Others attacked, their FWOOP of phasic attacks flat and empty, the power of their attacks dissapating less than an arm's length from their faces.

The figure straightened up, his face to the sky, and the chains exploded into shards of nothingness.

The female lemur had drawn a cruel blade with a rotating edge as the Atrekna had watched, shocked into stillness, the huge figure fall from the sky.

HE HAS COME! the female lemur screamed.

Before the Atrekna could react the massive figure leveled the submachine gun and began firing quick, short bursts of three or four heavy shells. Each burst shredded an Atrekna, the whitish flash of antimatter thickly laced with rose-gold of bloody chronotron bursts and deep purple of phasic kickers.

In less than a breath the gathered Atrekna were all slain.

The Overmind was shuddering, trying to deal with the influx of pure rage pouring off of the two figures, the sudden feeling of fear that most had not felt outside the loss of a servitor species. The Communal mind was unraveling as the female lemur's screams echoed through it.

On the empty dueling field the female lemur raised her face to sky and screamed again.

CLEANSE THIS WORLD WITH FIRE AND FURY she shrieked out.

The phasic and psychic protections shielding the Overminds crackled and began to fray and crack.

Skulls appeared in the system, massive skulls of burning Hellspace energy. The skulls opened their jaws and each thundered out a single word.

HATE

From the jaws glided forth ancient looking baroque spacecraft, ten, twenty, thirty miles long, miles thick and miles wide. Their shapes were terrible to behold, with twisted cathedrals and temples hammered into the surface armor of the ships. The majority were terrible in their purpose and majesty, but a handful looked as if they were made of the welded together parts of crashed and wrecked spaceships.

Most of the ships were black but here and there some were daubed pink and white.

From those came silent screams of insanity and rage.

The female lemur screamed again.

COME FORTH, SPEARHEAD OF HATRED AND WRATH!

On the vast sands of the planet two pillars of fire, separated by nearly a mile, roared out of the black sand, fusing into black glass. The pillars twisted around themselves, columns of burning fury. A great door, made of black iron and decorated with burning bronze, appeared between the two columns, held shut by broken chains.

Atrekna that could see it stared in shock.

A few turned to vibrating strings and vanished, casting off decades or centuries of careful infiltration.

The gates thudded. Trembled as another thud hit them from the other side.

The gates burst open, revealing a plain of burning brimstone and volcanic rock beneath a sullen sky the color of bruised flesh.

Massive tanks roared through the doors, their tracks clattering, their hulls scorched and gouged but unpierced. They flew the same banner from barbed stakes, although time had made subtle changes to the emblem.

The Atrekna on the planet reeled, trying to get their feet under them as psychic shockwave after psychic shockwave hammered their Communal Mind, their Overmind, their very thoughts. Some Atrekna were overcome by the enraged maddened shriek of the female lemur and collapsed in a heap. Some smouldered, others burned, and some exploded into steaming rags of Atrekna flesh.

ATTEND ME, MY CHILDREN!

Across the system space bulged and twisted. Space exploded in showers and waves of protomatter as vast ship prows burst into realspace like a ship lifted from their dark graves at the bottom of deep sea beds.

HAVE GREAT FEAR, THE MIGHTY 'MO IS HERE! rang out as the largest, nearly the size of a Harvester Class PAWM, surfaced into realspace in a spray of protomatter that began burning around it.

Dark ships suddenly appeared in a puff of black smoke. Atrekna that reflexively reached out to those ships began screaming, shrill cries of terrible knowledge as their minds touched the minds of the crews of those ships.

And found them to be the same person.

Those Atrekna felt their minds shred, rent into tinier and tinier pieces as their mental senses were spread across millions of the same person across one shared mind.

The planet itself shuddered as the black armored figure took a single step forward, his submachine gun leveled and ready.

"Cleanse this filth from the universe, brethren," the figure ordered.