Chapter Eighteen

Speaks in Loud Spaces sat in the fifth contemplative position, his legs folded next to his abdomen, his vestigial blade limbs pulled up in what humans called 'prayer', his grasping hands folding at where his thorax met his long abdomen. His antenna quivered softly, sampling the emotions of those around him and keeping contact on his little ones.

All those around him except his two guards. He could hear them, even though he was able to exclude them through long training and a quirk of genetics and growth jelly.

Where the Council was either the mental equivalent of a dial tone or confused whiplashing emotions overlaid with fear, suspicion, resignation, or avarice, two minds growled and snarled in the emotional equivalent of running a mandible file across one's antenna, warning and threatening "keep out" with a large portion of what humans called "get fucked" for good measure.

But Speaks was used to that. He had been dealing with humans since he had left the quiet solace of the Chambers of the Elder Sleepers.

In a way, it was comforting. Like being covered in a suit of hissing spiders that spit bees.

He had never been around equals before.

His multifaceted eyes were blind but he still watched the councilbeings surrounding him, the design of his little ones allowing him to lift their triangular heads and view a complete 360 degrees around him.

Even beyond their wild gesticulating, he could sense their emotions, hear the thread of their inner voices, feel the emotions they hid from everyone else.

Speaks was saddened at how many of them lacked an inner voice.

After a while the council's outrage was spent and the final protestor sputtered slowly to silence.

Speaks reached out to his Speaker, meshing his thoughts with its tiny mind. It welcomed him, happiness radiating out from it as it raised itself up, ready to snatch words and thoughts and meanings from sounds.

"Do you need more time to discuss things among once another? Your outrage has only killed a few million, do you need time to increase this august conclave's body count?" the Speaker trilled.

The chamber exploded in rage again.

Speaks didn't care.

Every moment he could hear untold scrying out in fear and agony before going silent.

To Speaks it was as if stars were going out in the sky.

Despair, the little black mantid, whispered to him across their interwoven thoughts.

any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.

it quoted to him. An ancient Terran poem that raged against what this very council was so enamored with. The poem inscribed at the base of the statue on TerraSol known as "Do you need assistance?"

Speaks let his mind drift, taking comfort in the snarling rage growling and snapping from his two honor guards. He knew that, should these beings attempt to raise their hands against him, they would protect them with their very lives, dying in pieces to protect them and shield them from the violence that so terrified his people.

The violence within him as it was within the Terrans.

Do these beings understand such a thing? Speaks asked himself.

The little alabaster one told him that nay, they cannot, they can only see what their grasping hands can snatch close, ignorant of the bladearms of others.

She could see more clearly than he could through his hunger.

Finally the outrage died down again. He paid no attention to any of it, instead, reaching out and tasting their various emotions, having the green little one commit to memory which ones he would seek out privately in their chambers away from prying eyes.

"No matter what words and sentiments you cast upon me like chaff upon the wind it does not change the simple fact that you cannot defeat them, cannot save any of your species from the Precursors," He said through the little russet Speaker.

Again the council chamber exploded.

A fantasy of climbing onto the podium that one being with a large head was banging upon, striking down in the perfect clean strike, pulling the being upward as it screeched, grabbing it with his grasping hands, bringing his jaws down upon its skull, cracking it, crushing it, sheering through flesh and bone to find...

His cybernetic implants shocked him.

Not that anyone would have noticed that faint wingflutter at the edge of one of his vestigial wings.

Both his honor guards powered up their weapons, targeting Speaks, then released their omnitargeting linkages and let the power trickle from their weapons as Speaks was calmed by his prosthetic.

The little green one rubbed its bladearms together and scraped them through its mandibles at the way the Terran's minds sharpened and focused on the five before the gentle current from the prosthetic calmed it.

The council thought it was just cleaning itself out of primitive instinct.

They had no idea how close the Grand Unified Council chamber and beyond came to being a slaughterhouse.

Speaks relaxed, cleaning his bladearms slowly, licking along their blunted edges, cleaning them with intricate care, as if they had never been altered by genemods from their razor sharp beautiful lethality.

For a split second he had an image of the heavy warborg on his right holding him into the air by his throat, its other arm drawn back with a piston-like fist clenched and aimed at his head as his graspinghands held the Terran by the throat and his bladearms slashed through its warsteel armor, both of them locked in a death embrace, coolant spilling from the warborg as ichor leaked from Speaks armored neck, the two of them...

the light electric shock was a hush to his mind. In the aftershocks his mind sampled and tasted the minds surrounding him.

He could silence them all in an instant, he knew it. He could simply reach out and snuff their minds, stop their thoughts, freeze their muscles, hold them silent in place, even still their heartbeats. Let his thoughts ripple out from this chamber throughout the building, stilling the thoughts of the inhabitants, stripping away their thoughts and memories and emotions, devouring them into his own overmind in his abdomen, his mind rippling out across the very city, taking control of their bodies once he devoured their minds...

Except that would cause

glorious fight to the death with the two warborgs who's minds would bellow in rage as they instinctively attacked him. Glorious glorious combat with a mind that could withstand the punishing assault of his will and

the shock made him quiver and his little ones go still.

The warborgs didn't let the charge trickle from the weapons back into the power pack, instead they left their weapons charged.

The metallic KACHUNKALACK! that sounded from the two borgs as they loaded their rifles and the cannons on their backs stilled the entire council chamber. Many beings quailed and cringed back as the two massive cannons slowly rotated up the backs, trailing 60mm belt-fed collapsed density depleted uranium shells jacketing unstable deuterium, moving slowly over the shoulder to point at...

the mantis creature?

The confusion that action caused kept the council chamber to go silent.

A slight blush colored Speaks wings and slowly colored two lines, one on either side, of his abdomen. He reached out for the little russet speaker, calming its mind, and spoke through it.

"I have come before this body, not to ask permission, but to merely inform," the little russet one said, it's voice a high pitched peep that some in the council thought was done to make it appear cute.

Some noted that one of the two big armored figures aimed his rifle at it and wondered why. It was so cute and harmless looking.

"You should know, and understand, not only what you face, but what you have no choice but to rely upon to save you from an onslaught you cannot defeat," Speaker said, its voice slowly lowering. "If you are ready to hear my thoughts signify a vote of yes upon your podium."

The little black one spoke. "Vote no and we shall leave and you shall wonder why it all happened."

Speaks found himself trembling and willed his implants to shock him down his central ganglia.

The vote was carried, barely passing, and an electric shock broke into Speaks's fantasy of exploding into sudden and violent motions, screeching his species ancient war-cry.

Omnitargeting data was shared across the linkages.

"We will hear your words," the High Council Speaker said.

I would rather make you hear my thoughts, Speaks thought to himself. Being so close to these species made digestive juice slowly coat his mandibles, but he cleaned it away rather than let his escorts see it drip from his jaw... mandibles.

The little gold one shocked him.

Hard.

"In ancient times, before your species were much more than barely sentient creatures crawling, not understanding, the Precursor War occured between..." Speaks started.

Several of the councilbeings shouted they knew history and get on with it. A half dozen screamed that Precursors were mere rumor, baseless unfounded rumors designed to frighten and spread conspiracies among the mentally ill.

Speaks disconnected himself from the sight organs on everything around him, slowly cleaning his bladearms as the cattle around him brayed and whinnied and mooed as if their words and crude vocal sounds mattered at all.

The gold one shocked him again and brought to the attention of his guards that one of her cybernetic implants was showing signs of overheating.

Wisps of vapor drifted from the mouths of the 60mm cannons and the council was stilled by sound of superdense capacitors charging.

"Between two races," Speaks continued. He had to impart this knowledge to them, to make them understand what they faced. "Those races build vast machines to combat one another."

Again the council chamber fell to arguing whether or not the the Precursor races could have built what was ravaging their worlds, how they could last a hundred million years.

Speaks slowly stood to his full height, a twelve foot mantis, with thick exoskeleton armor over thick biomechanical muscle. His bladearms suddenly molted, the dead carapace puffing away, the blades glittering in the lights of the council chambers.

Thirty billion viewers shrunk back and gasped as the sight of the Mantid triggered some kind of primordial instinct in their brains.

The council members all went still, their muscles frozen, their words stuck in their throats, even their hearts stilled as their brains were squeezed somehow. The invisible wave crashed through the building, washed over the city, and began to cover the world.

"HEAR MY WORDS AND DESPAIR!" Speaks in Loud Spaces roared out with his mind.

Billions screamed in terror.

"WE PRECURSORS REALIZED THERE WERE ONLY ENOUGH RESOURCES IN A FINITE UNIVERSE TO SUPPORT A SINGLE RACE! ONE SIDE'S WAR MACHINES DETERMINED THAT THEY WOULD BE THAT RACE AND THEIR CREATORS FLED THEIR MACHINES!" Speaks in Loud Spaces howled into every mind within a fractured microsecond.

His little ones went perfectly still.

"WE LEFT BEHIND OUR CATTLE TO BE EXTERMINATED BY THE OTHER SIDE'S DEATH MACHINES!" Speaks roared out. "NOW THEY HAVE COME TO FINISH THE JOB! ONLY THOSE WHO CAN WITHSTAND ONE SUCH AS I HAVE ANY HOPE AGAINST THEM!"

He exploded into motion.

The council watched as the two armored figures roared in wrath and hatred, abandoning weapons to shift their weight to bring fists to bear.

Speaks turned inside out and splashed into his component parts as the implosion charge, forged into a wire that ran from his skull to the end of his abdomen, was triggered as he moved faster than the cybernetic embedded in his spine would allow.

"Now you know," The little gold one said, looking at the terrified beings of the council chamber. She looked around at the gathered politicians. "Do you understand?"

----------------------

MANTID FREE WORLDS EXTERNAL MEMO

now they know

terrasol protect us from ourselves

--------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

CONFED MEMO

TO: ALL

Safety precautions went well. Now they know why they can't win on their own. From what we've seen, we have to help them break the chains laid in the ancestor's minds that still hold them today.

May the Omnimessiah protect them.