Chapter 320: (Sidelines)

She had left behind the Ancient System. Stripped it of eggs, larvae, slave caste, resources, and every iota of anything that she could load aboard the great armada she had put together. It had been over two years since the Rebellious One and the feral intellect had invaded her system. A year since her last attempt at sending out minor queens to create a web of systems for her to begin to bring about her will on a universe that had forgotten her people.

She had armed the ships heavily, crewed them with loyal Speakers, Warriors, and Thinkers, all served by the servitor caste. The guns were the best she could make, the drives the most powerful, with the densest battlescreens and the thickest armor.

Her magnificence was in the middle of the largest ship, slightly larger than a Goliath Class Harvester, surrounded by heavy armor. Her personal quarters could survive the breakup of her ship, to provide her with a heavily armored escape pod with powerful jump drives and sublight engines.

She left the Ancient System behind, stripped down to bare rock and magma, as her fleet engaged the jump drives.

The last Omniqueen headed toward the far end of the Orion-Cygnus Galactic Spur, away from the ancient battlefields, toward where her ancestors had sent ships fleeing the Great Rebellion.

The feral had to have come from that direction. She knew she would be facing a powerful civilization, capable of resisting her.

She had allowed several seers to be grown, put them in predictive states, and listened carefully to what they saw.

The Omniqueen had been full of wroth when she heard their twisting contorted dreams.

Fire and blood. Burning planets and extinquished stars. Stellar systems vanishing in the blink of an eye. Great ancient machines tearing apart destiny and fate.

She had a name now.

Not for just the ferals, but of all the players.

The Sundered Ones, allies of the ferals.

The Liberated Ones, again, more feral allies.

The Children of Food and Smoke, again, allies.

The Servants of the Ancient Foe. Of course they had survived.

The Enemy Who Came Yesterday to Today From Tomorrow. Did the Great War extinguish anyone?

Finally, the ferals.

It was a strange name. Just screaming it had killed nearly a hundred seers.

The Confederacy.

The seers had claimed that if she pitted her unending might against this Confederacy then darkness would fall.

In her rage, she had devoured the last handful of seers.

It was a stupid name, for an inferior people.

The massive fleet of ships supporting the Last Omniqueen oriented, ran the computations, and activated the jump drives.

The system was left empty.

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Dreams of Something More was a diplomat, and she considered herself a good one. A three foot high golden Mantid, she had found herself leaving behind diplomacy to embark on some kind of strange quest, following the guidance of the diplomatic team's seer Sees That Which May or May Not Be.

"This is where her coordinates led us?" Dreams asked Captain Awgwark.

The large Rigellian nodded from where she sat in her command chair, one elbow on her knee, her chin in her hand, posing unconsciously as she stared at the stellar system the small diplomatic fleet had arrived in.

"Yes. Right down to our hyperspace exit vector," the Captain said. She looked at Rear-Admiral Loganette, who was virtually present. The Rear Admiral was down in the Fleet Combat Information Center, in the center of the ship, armored just as heavily as Dreams' own quarters.

"I am not sure what led us here, but here we are," the female Terran Descent Human said. She turned slightly, looking at someone who wasn't present on the hologram, then back to Dreams and Captain Awgwark. "The system is dead, without a doubt."

The holo-tank in the middle of the bridge flickered, the image of the fleet's twelve ships and their status vanishing to be replaced by an image of the stellar system. A half dozen planets, all barren rocks with no atmosphere, all six of them with rings, but not a single satellite.

"This system has been mined into oblivion," Rear-Admiral Loganette said. "The second and fourth planets have orbital strike evidence."

"How long ago?" Words Spoken We Fear asked, his jet black carapace gleaming in the light. He was technically a communication specialist and translator for Dreams of Something More but when this mission had gone sideways he'd embraced his actual profession of intelligence gathering and analysis.

The Rear-Admiral looked at another speaker, then turned back. "Over a hundred million years ago. Consistent with Precursor Autonomous War Machine combat."

Words Spoken We Fear, who usually went by the nickname Speaks, leaned forward and looked at the image. He turned and looked at the hologram of the Admiral and the Captain both. "May I? I will need to take control of the scanning systems you put in place."

"By all means," the Admiral said, waving her hand.

"Of course," the Captain said.

Dreams watched with naked curiosity. It wasn't often she got to see one of the black mantid combat caste go to work, especially doing data analysis.

He was examining the ancient orbital weapon strikes, laying out maps of the planets, doing reconstruction work quickly and efficiently. Dreams could see the datalink implant wrapped around the back of his head had all five lights burning a hard red.

It gave her the shivers and reminded her that every Terran Descent Human had three red lights beneath the skin at the base of their skull.

She made small talk with the Captain and Admiral, mostly inquiring about the health and welfare of the crew. They asked about the discomfort of having to have the psychic shielding turned up so high as well as Mr. Rings' health.

Finally, after nearly two hours, Words leaned back on his back two legs and nodded to himself.

"It's the best I can do. I could do a better job, but it would take me a week or two of scanning," he stated.

Floating in the tank was eleven planets, three of them gas giants. The eight planets had moons, two of them had two moons.

"This is an estimation, based on vapor belts, thickness of planetary debris rings, and some astrophysicist programs I pulled out of the archives," Words said. "Now, I can't show you the planetary orbits at the time of the attack, but I can show you which planets were hit first and which order the hits took place in."

Dreams watched with fascination as the impacts started registering. The moons winked out, and 'smaller' hits from lunar debris started pock marking the planets but quickly stopped.

"As you can see, while the orbital bodies broke up, they were quickly pounded into smaller debris, giving us the rings," he stated. "Now, pay particular attention to the orbital strike order and patterns."

Dreams watched at the orbital strikes hit.

"Now, this is a rough estimation based on overlap and fusing of surface material at the bottom of the craters," Words said.

The simulation went on, then suddenly stopped. Then, roughly all at once, each planet took multiple heavy hits. Three planets broke up.

"This was a Precursor attack, but..." Words paused for effect, "It was not just the Precursor Autonomous War Machines making the attack."

"What gives you that idea?" the Admiral asked.

"The hits. They are mathematically wasteful and imprecise. This was done to smash a civilization on the various planets, then the planets were borderline planet cracked, their atmosphere either siphoned or blown away, and the system denuded of any possible use," Words said.

Captain Awgwark nodded. "You're right. The early hits were sloppy, almost random."

"So this system is a victim of the original Precursor War?" Dreams asked.

"More than that, Madame Diplomat," the Admiral said, her voice intent.

"Oh?" Dreams said.

"This is before the AWM's rebelled against their creators. This is one of the battles when you Precursors were fighting one another instead of the AWMs," the Admiral said. She looked up. "When you are ready, the next hyperspace jump is ready."

"I am ready," Dreams said. She turned and looked at Words. "You?"

"I have seen enough," Words said. He shook his head. "I can tell you one thing."

"What?" Dreams asked.

"It wasn't a Mantid world. Even after that kind of attack there would be evidence that you and I would recognize. This was Lanaktallan or our mystery third guest," he said.

Dreams nodded. "So we're not in the stellar systems owned by our ancestors, but their enemies."

Words nodded and moved to the elevator. "We tread on the dreams of the forgotten."

Dreams wanted to throw her hat at him.

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The train roared and vibrated as it appeared, materializing out of the circle of glowing light a few dozen meters down the tunnel. It was covered in graffiti, was rusted, dirty, and dented. It slowed to a stop, the train station appearing as first a blank wireframe, then a monocolored construct, then colors and textures appeared on it as the train came to a full stop.

As steam billowed out from under the train debris and graffiti appeared, then the debris began moving as the steam began to flow more naturally.

The doors opened and a tall figure in a trench coat stepped out, a bulky and heavy rifle in his hands, a cyberdeck on a sling across his back, and mirror shades on his eyes. He shifted his grip on his rifle as he looked around.

"It's clear," the man said.

Six others came out afterwards. Before they had all sported day-glo mohawks, piercings, and facial tattoos. Now their hair was cut short, their piercings removed, and their faces covered by balaclavas. They all had on trenchcoats lined with heavy armor. All of them had heavy weapons and it was easy to tell they had only the basic familiarity with them.

"Where are we?" one asked.

"An old Bothan Fusion Power Incorporated payment processing site," the figure said. He pointed at the bullet holes in the wall. "Many Bothan Irregulars died here, holding off a Smaug long enough for resistance fighters to escape."

The six just nodded.

"Are you sure he'll come here?" another asked, looking around nervously. "There's not many places to take cover."

"He'll come," the leader said. "He's been after me for a while."

"Can we ask why?" another one asked.

The leader moved up to the ticket booth, looking down at the floor to check for any nasty surprises. "A long time ago I pulled a run that resulted in me getting an important piece of data directly from the Smaug itself," he said.

"You're Crashrider," another said, turning and staring. "I heard you were dead."

"Most of us are," the figure, also known as Eegleet, answered. "Two of us survived that run."

"How long have they been chasing you?" another asked.

"You crouch down here," Eegleet/Crashrider said, dropping a device onto the ground. "That'll mask you from any sensors."

"I thought you were female," another said.

"I was. I had to reroll to avoid being tracked," Eegleet admitted. "Back during the First War. I've done it a couple times. Hit up a NuYu Shop, redid my shape."

"I tried that. I couldn't seem to move right for a few days afterwards," one of them said.

Crashrider wasn't bothering to learn their names.

Not yet.

"You get used to it," Crashrider answered, shrugging. He put his hands on the wall and pushed, forcing an alcove roughly his height in the wall to emerge as he pushed the tiles backwards. He slapped a device on the wall and turned it on. "All right, you over there, get in here."

They all moved to their assigned positions as Crashrider one by one created and shielded hiding spots.

"Don't come out unless it goes bad," Crashrider said. He took off his cyberdeck and put it under a bench, tapping a program and making it appear as a pile of rubbish. "When I give the signal, shoot," he told the one he had given the heavy rifle to.

"How will we know it went bad?" One asked.

"You'll know," Crashrider said. "Now hush, here comes the next data pack."

The train rushed in and slowed to a stop.

Crashrider knew there was no reason to stop at this data node. It was still active only because the planet the fusion plant had been on had not been rebuilt or had any aid.

The door opened and the steam billowed out.

From inside the train came a large Terran male. Hair cut short, heavy with muscle, wearing an old military jacket over a band T-shirt, with chains on the jeans and jacket and a heavy belt. It turned slowly, its face expressionless.

When it saw Crashrider it reached into its jacket.

Crashrider signaled and the heavy anti-material rifle roared.

The round hit the Arnie in the chest and it immediately fell to the floor as debris shot out its back.

Crashrider knelt down, slamming the device in his hand to the ground. The train station bobbled and warped, the resolution dropping for a split second as the programs loaded up in Crashrider's deck and the device cut the outside lines except the single dedicated line that was now processing the Arnie as well as Crashrider and his six hirelings.

The hireling on the rifle used two fingers to run the bolt on the rifle, running it slowly so that she could grab the expended shell with two fingers and let it slowly drop to the floor of her hiding space behind the wall. She closed her eyes, listening, as she ran the bolt carrier forward, loading another round.

Crashrider ran up to the Arnie, pulling another device out of his pocket. The Arnie was already starting to derez, starting to dissolved into tiny brightly colored blocks that would spill across the tile before evaporating.

He pushed his finger into its eye, bringing the program from his deck's memory to his onboard memory and then running half from his onboard hardware half from the Arnie's derezzing systems.

It only took a second, finishing and burping up the answer just a heartbeat before the Arnie burst into pixels and dissolved.

"We gotta move," Crashrider said, standing up. He dusted the chrome pixel dust off his knees. He waited for everyone to leave their hiding places and waved them forward, heading for one of the stairs that led upward.

"Why?" one asked.

"The Smaug will send another one. It doesn't mind losing one, that just lets it know where I am and that I'm packing enough firepower to stop an 800 Series Arnie," Crashrider said, taking the steps two at a time. "It'll send a 1000 Series one next."

"What's the difference?" one of the hirelings asked, shifting the grenade launcher uncomfortably.

"That one will require the plasma grenades you've got to even slow down," Crashrider said. He stopped and opened the door at the top of the stairs, revealing a white rectangle.

"Go through, I'll hold it open. Do not move from the ledge," he warned.

He followed the last one through, feeling his stomach churn and the base of his skull ache as the programs he was running took non-game system information and translated it into the game.

He was standing on a balcony ledge of a ruined building. Around him were smoking buildings, burning fitfully, pouring black smoke into the air. Below the group of seven were streets that were covered in rubble.

"Where? Where are we?" one of the hirelings asked.

"The remaining GalNet systems of a dead world," Crashrider said.

"Why are we here?" one of the hirelings asked.

Crashrider knew he'd need to start asking names soon.

If they survived.

"This is where the Arnies are coming from," he said. He turned and looked at the building. Nearly thirty stories were still there, even though the top five stories were a burning shell. Through the broken glass that was lacking shading and bloom was the barely rendered room beyond. "Somewhere, in this world massacred by the Precursors, in what's left of its GalNet infrastructure, a Smaug is building Arnies in a factory to follow the rules of the game."

He stared at the room past the broken sliding glass doors.

It had yellow walls, beige carpet, dim flourescents, and three open doors off of it that led to beige carpeted rooms with yellow paint on the walls.

"Let's go. We've got to make it through the Back Rooms, get to ground level," Crashrider said.

He looked over his shoulder. "Don't get separated."