First Contact

Chapter 776: The Inheritor's War

"Every species knows, at 10% casualties the unit has been effectively destroyed and should immediately retreat from battle.

"I've seen the Mad Lemurs continue to fight when there was less than 10%.

"And call what they achieved victory." - Mantid Philosopher: Cast Into Darkness, 235 PG.

In the 812 seconds since I returned to the battlefield, casting off the shackles of death, the Atrekna orbital defense satellites have been identified and targeted. While a BOLO cannot fire directly overhead with our primary armament, we can fire line of sight along the angles needed to support one another.

Within 172 seconds all Atrekna satellites have been eliminated from orbit within my maximum effective range and my firing arcs.

At the same time, I engage the Atrekna autonomous war machines. They all have the characteristic blue glowing crystalline domes that signify an electronic/biological cybernetic synthesis, but they are inferior by a large magnitude to myself and my crew's interlocking gestalt.

The enemy is inferior before our guns.

A fire request is accepted. Gunner Kicker sets the target, his brain filling in for the gaps in my positronic network, and the fire order is given.

My VLS cells report that they are destroyed, yet I feel the bay doors crashing open, feel irises open over the 11 inch tubes, and am not surprised when the single VLS cell fires off the entire cell of 2x6 pods, each pod containing six missiles, for seventy two missiles total. They lift off on tails of fire, getting a safe distance before the graviton systems engage and the missile breaks hypersonic within a hundred meters above my hull.

My Hellbores go back to punishing the Enemy for their temerity of approaching me. It doesn't not matter that they are beyond the maximum effective range of their own weaponry. I care nothing for fairness, for fair play, they are the Enemy and the Enemy only exists to be destroyed. My Hellbores blow huge holes in their ranks as Gunner Kicker selects omnidirectional Hellbore detonations with a high radiation 'kicker' to them that turns biological tissue to slurry if it is not protected by sufficient radiation protection.

We have used that exact same munition to turn a city into a graveyard while leaving the buildings, vehicles, even the plants completely unharmed.

We discuss it with our fellow BOLOs over the GM(GHOST) tactical net as several of the Brigade are within firing distance of Atrekna settlements.

We quickly make our decision for the millions of sentient beings within the cities. Their minds are nothing but screams of agony and despair, filled with hundreds, thousands of experiences of being harvested.

These are not genetic memories. Each individual has been temporally replicated and harvested so often that there are temporal ripples that make it so that each individual remembers the last several millennia of being repeatedly harvested.

What we do is not in anger. They are not the Enemy.

We make our decision within 6.72 seconds.

We will grant them mercy.

May Enraged Phillip, the Protector of Lost Souls and Those Who Art Doomed, take them by the hand and lead them into the grace of the Digital Omnimessiah.

With solemn duty we aim our guns, even as our lighter Hellbores, our mortar tubes, and our VLS cells continue to rain hell down on the Enemy. Our gunners select our munition and the energy mixture.

As one, we fire.

Not a single shot each. The cities are too vast for that.

Carefully planned shots, overlapping areas of effect.

The city I am targeting has complete coverage 96.112 seconds after my first shot hammers the breach of my main gun back onto the recoil stabilizers.

Purple light washes over the city as black suns are born over the city in a carefully selected geometric pattern. The screaming I can feel coming from the city ends with a sigh of almost relief.

I turn my guns back upon the Enemy war machines.

-----

The Atrekna Defense Command watched as the satellites were wiped away rapidly, the tank's damaged barrels still able to put out firepower to rival the main gun of a light cruiser. The lightly armored and shielded satellites put up less resistance to the firepower of the massive tanks than the slavespawn or autonomous war machines did.

**do we have munitions expenditure profiles for the Lemur tanks yet?** an Old One asked.

A Young One examined their phasic instruments and signaled assent. **They all seem to possess the same amount of firepower, munition types, and rate of fire and reload**

The Old One walked on their own two feet slowly next to the Young One, resting their long fingered hand on the Young One's shoulder. **Compare the current profiles for weaponry as well as weight and speed to current Mad Lemur self-aware supertanks**

**All of the tanks are of different design** an Ancient One protested.

**With the Mad Lemurs, appearance is separate from function and is often used to conceal the true function** another Old One stated.

The Ancient One nodded solemnly and took a slight step back.

The Young One signified slight confusion and doublechecked its data. **Despite these machine's appearances they all match the profile for Mad Lemur autonomous supertanks in rate of fire, armament, munitions type, and weight. Speed is far below and reaction times are far slower**

The Old One nodded. **what we see and the reality are two different things** the Old One stated, moving back to their position in the arc of watchers and commanders.

An Ancient One moved forward as another tank, which had been pounded to scrap by overwhelming firepower of thousands of autonomous war machines, all of which were now smoking debris, broke free of the twisted and flowing resin shell to rejoin the battle.

**was there any temporal replication detected** it asked.

Another Young One consulted their instruments then signified negative. **Chronotron levels are consistent with Mad Lemur temporal stabilization technology. At the current time, temporal replication and reconstitution is impossible within the Vast System**

The Ancient One nodded. **Is it using technoreversion to repair itself by returning itself to a previous temporal state**

Another Young One doublechecked its instruments. **Negative. No temporal or chronotron cascades or energy flares have been seen**

The Ancient One signified deep consideration as it shuffled backwards.

Bright purple flares suddenly blossomed over the servitor and food species farms. The Atrekna present felt huge sections of the Communal Overmind and the High Conclave Overmind suddenly go still and empty, not even a sensation of pain preceding the loss of contact. Conversations and thought trains suddenly ended, sliced short abruptly.

There was echoing silence in huge sections of the Communal Mind.

**do we still have probes and survelliance in the cities** an Ancient One asked.

**rebooting and resetting** a Young One said. **feed coming back... now.**

All of the Atrekna leaned forward slightly.

The streets were full of bare bones clothes in the unitard bodysuits that slavespawn, servitors, and food species were allowed. The buildings and pens were full of the same. Insects were buzzing about, disturbed by the flash, yet insectiod servitors were hollowed out chitin or just scattered pieces of exoskeleton.

Black dust was blowing away, dissolving into purple mist that tattered and dissipated on the breeze that created a low moaning through the streets.

**Life signs?** an Ancient One asked.

**None** a Young One stated. **There are no life signs left in the resource pens**

The Atrekna looked at one another.

**check the facility overlord and the overmind chambers in those cities** the Ancient One ordered.

The chambers of the Overminds and the Atrekna Overlords were brightly (for Atrekna) lit. For the Overlords there were comfortable couches and meditation levitation plates. The Overminds had the deep pools carved in bedrock and inlaid with glyphs of precious metals and gems.

The offices were empty of the living.

The pools were full of thick black sludge with sickly yellow algae covering the pools that bubbled slightly.

**There are no life signs** the Young One stated.

An Ancient One moved forward. **Status of the Orbital and System Defense Commanders efforts?**

A Young One touched his phasic crystal workstation, attempting to contact the Defense Commands for Orbital and System.

**any Defense Command stations within the cities affected by the Mad Lemur weapons are no longer responding** the Young One stated. **Connecting with Exoplanet Defense Dommand stations**

**Get us a report** the Ancient One said, stepping back. It glanced at the others, noting the tight feeding tentacles, the slight opening of the third eye, and the twitching of their long fingers. **package and transmit the data we have gained to other fortress systems**

The feeling of trepidation that ran through the chamber felt like a cold breeze.

-----

They had been running silent for hours, taking turns napping in the cockpit as the swarm of little craft coasted through the blackness. The guns were already firing as the big ships slugged it out but the tiny craft were on an angle and heading to keep them out of the worst of it and so far had not been detected or had their ranks thinned by an errant volley from either side.

Finally, the massive autonomous war machines were within range.

The bombardier reached forward and tapped the pilot, waking her up. The pilot stretched and yawned, then pulled a flask out of her pocket. She unscrewed it, took a drink, swished it around her mouth, then spit it over the side.

It froze within a meter of the hull of the craft.

She passed it to the bombardier, who repeated the pilot's action, then took a long drink and passed it back. The pilot took a swig, shook her head as she put the drink away, then wiped the frost from her goggles.

She could see the huge war machines.

She turned back, her lips moving, as she shouted orders to the bombardier. The bombardier nodded, unbuckling their restraint, and stood up, flags in her hands. She began signalling the craft behind her, giving orders.

Flag wavers for flight leaders answered.

She settled back down, buckling her restraints, and rubbed her hands together, clapping them briefly together, ice and frost puffing off of her thick leather and canvas gloves.

The pilot adjusted her mask, tugging a strap to fix it securely, then wiped her goggles again. She pressed a button on the floorboard with a foot and the targeting reticle, made of curved wire, popped up in front of her. She grabbed the gun handle and ratcheted it back and forth several times until she felt the heavy gun load with a clank. She grabbed a flywheel and cranked it for moment. Telltales went from dark, to red, to amber, to green.

Under her mask she smiled a wide grin as she flipped up the switches and the power flowed to systems.

She pushed the fuel pedal three times with her foot to charge the system, then stomped the button.

The blurred disc of graviton energy appeared in front of her at the end of the fuselage. The ailerons glowed as they prepared to move gravitational points to allow the little spaceship to do high-G gravity turns around an artificially generated gravitational point. The tail rudders clicked back and forth then began to glow.

The plane lunged forward, leading the way toward the autonomous war machine the size of a continent. It was a speck of dust compared to its opponent as the ailerons tilted, the graviton anchors rotated the little craft, and the artificial gravity point allowed it to pull a tight downward turn.

She held her tongue between her teeth as the huge swarm of planes behind her separated into thousands of tendrils of dust-specks and raced toward their targets by the hundreds.

She saw the crystalline growths, the fairy castles and giant pillars of solid crystal and gave a wordless cry of euphoric joy as her body shivered with pleasure at the sight of such targets. She blinked her tail lights quickly, in fast patterns of three, giving orders.

Her flight broke into dozens of wings.

She cut the engine and coasted.

She leveled out just above the hull of the massive war machine, casting no shadow in the darkness as her flight followed her. The cloth covering of her plane cracked in the silence as if she was rushing through a wind. She banked around massive guns that were still unused, the huge warship not able to close the distance with the ships of the Dead Fleet.

Those were not her target.

THERE!

A huge crystalline dome, the outside carved with runes and inlaid patterns. Gravitic energy and phasic energy leaked off of it and she could faintly hear the shouts of enemy commands as those inside the dome gave orders to the fleet. The shouts were muffled but the frustration and anger were clear as those inside the vast dome bellowed commands to the other war machines from within the crystal dome.

She shivered in pleasure again as her craft slipped through the shield, too slow and with not enough mass to trigger defensive shields, easily penetrating debris and particle shields.

She stomped the fuel pedal three times, grabbed the engine start lever, and raised a fist over her head.

A long pink and purple and white ribbon fluttered from her closed fist.

"KAWAII!" she suddenly shouted, stomping the starter and pulling her mask off of her pale face.

The engine roared to life.

She yanked back the yoke, stomping the pedals, and the little craft practically stood on its nose as it climbed a sharp angle, up, over the dome. For a moment she could see the dome beneath her.

Her bombardier stood up, lifting her skirt, and showing her bare buttocks to the dome before sitting back down.

She dove at the dome and pulled the trigger on her heavy guns.

In the Atrekna's defense, they weren't looking for anything that small, with that little of a power signature, made of genetically engineered wood and covered with strangely high and low tech cloth.

They had been giving orders to the slavespawn to try to close the distance and bring the Dead Fleet into range.

They were shocked as the 66mm rounds started hammering the thick phasonium crystal dome, each round blowing a crater a third of a meter wide and 10cm deep, the cracks extending out for three or four meters.

The cracks linked together as more guns joined in as the flight of twenty-four craft dove at the dome from a high angle.

The Atekna aboard the ships that were in charge of the scanning organs and machines frantically looked for what was attacking the ship as 66mm guns pounded vulnerable structures, bombs 'fell' onto the hull and blew mile wide holes in the armor, and the little craft arced and banked wildly.

The scanners couldn't find the craft as they banked port or starboard, coming around for another attack on their targets.

The massive point defense guns, used to tracking missiles with a high power signature, grav-drives or chemical drives easily seen for thousands of kilometers, missiles that were as large as two or three train cars end to end, couldn't see the little craft.

She banked around the point defense cannons, all of them larger than her craft, the base of the point defense cannons larger than the hangar that could house her entire flight wing. She came in low and fast, guns hammering, screeching her unintelligible warcry, her teeth bared in a grimace of pleasure and fierce concentration.

Only a few dozen meters from the surface of the dome she pulled up hard, the genengineered wood, full of carbon nanotube fiber braided strands wrapped about warsteel molecular chains, creaking and groaning at the G-forces from the gravity source being generated only a few meters away.

The bombardier was staring at the lens between her legs, her tongue held between her teeth, her hair whipping around her face, her scarf snapping behind her.

"DESU!" the bombardier cried out, yanking the lever.

The massive 2.4 ton bomb fell free as the little craft clawed for altitude.

Spread out around her her wingmates dropped their bombs and raced up the surface of the five kilometer high dome.

The bombs hit as the little ships cleared the dome and banked hard, diving back down toward 'the deck', the graviton blade howling and the engines hammering.

There was the white flash of strange matter white phosphorus backed antimatter with a bright purple ring of phasic energy chasing a gold halo of overcharged chronotrons.

The dome imploded slightly, then the interior atmosphere pressure shattered it outward.

For the two hundred Atrekna inside, controlling slavespawn, the atmosphere rushed away, they tumbled out into space, turning into nothing but frozen corpses.

On ship after ship the tiny craft wreaked havoc as they found and targeted critical systems that were unprotected by the massive battlescreens that had allowed the ships, smaller than the nCv shells the ship would fire, to slip through.

One of the larger ships had a bay door open to allow a ship the size of a city to lift off from the manufacturing bay.

The pilot of the little craft, her face bruised and bloody by a near-hit from a point defense cannon, screeched victoriously as she rolled her craft.

"Kono tawagoto o supin!" the bombardier screamed out as she flipped her targeting reticle around.

The bottom of the city-sized autonomous war machine came into sight. It was heavily armored, but the armored covers over the antigrav lifters were pulled back to allow the ship to exit the manufacturing bay.

The bombardier yanked the lever.

The bomb detached. The graviton system went live, the 'nose' seeking and finding mass to attach the far point of the grav-bouy line. The tail fins glowed as they provided terminal guidance.

The little craft whipped out from under the craft, flipping itself, and skimming across the surface of the massive autonomous war machine.

The bomb hit the antigrav engines of the Djinn class AAWM and detonated.

The explosion caused secondary explosions deep inside the Djinn.

Its engines failed.

The huge Harvester class had enough mass to form a gravity well of its own.

The Djinn slowed its upward advance.

Then began 'falling' back into the bay, where the keel of another Djinn was already being laid by high speed manufacturing robotics.

A massive explosion boiled up out of the open bay doors.

Secondary ones spread out as the antimatter thorium reactors that were to be emplaced in the new Djinn exploded.

The strike craft racing only a hundred meters of so above the Harvester all banked hard, running away from the explosions radiating away from where the Djinn had fallen back into the manufacturing bay.

They cleared the body of the Harvester and raced for the next one, only a few thousand kilometers away, kicking in their sprint drives.

The Harvester exploded.

The fruit flies continued their harvest.

-----

The Young One looked up.

"Our forces are under attack by a combination of heavy enemy ships and light attack craft. The light attack craft are too small to effectively target and are taking a heavy toll upon the autonomous war machines and the slavespawn space organisms, the three heavier ships are staying out of our range while keeping us at optimum range** it said.

Another Young One signalled. **We are losing gas giant manufacturing and spawning facilities at a geometric rate**

Another one signalled. **stellar mass facilities are under attack. Temporal dilation and compressions facilities are apparently an enemy priority target. We will soon lose temporal sinking**

The Ancient Ones conferred together, as did the Old Ones.

After a long moment the Ancient Ones shuffled over to the Old Ones.

**this battle will end in Lemur victory** an Ancient One stated.

**The lemurs have already won. They will shatter the Vast System and then stab everyone to death with the shards** another Ancient One stated.

**We concur** the Old One Speaker replied.

**biological resource farms are being eliminated at a rapid pace. It is impossible to perform temporal retrieval or replication due to lemur temporal munition detonation** a Young One added, unbidden.

The Old Ones and Ancient Ones signaled assent.

**Transmit all data from the battle to all other fortress systems** an Ancient One ordered. **contact all Atrekna. Order them to retreat from battle and regroup at a fortress system of their choosing, taking into account loyalties, agreements, and domination metrics**

The Young Ones nodded.

One of the Ancient Ones turned to the others.

**The Maimed One is correct** it stated. **His wisdom is now undeniable**

The other Ancient Ones and the Old Ones nodded.

**Abandon the system. It is worthless now** a Young One transmitted.

**Consult with the Maimed One, those of you within his conclave** another Ancient One stated.

Nearly fifty of the Ancient Ones, two dozen Young Ones, and nearly a hundred Old Ones suddenly turned into tightly woven, hair thick strings that vibrated and formed a blurred version of themselves for a split second.

Then they were gone.

**Abandon system. Repeat: Abandon System with any retrievable resources** a Young One transmitted.

The remainder of the Old Ones and Ancient Ones lifted up on discs of phasic energy and glided from the room, heading toward where their private ships, or ships shared with allies, were docked.

The Universe watched the carnage and howled in malevolent glee.