Chapter 443

"How bad?" Dreams asked, poking a piece of sushi with her bladearm and lifting it up to nibble on.

"Bad," Words Spoken We Fear commonly called Speaks, said softly. He glanced over at the Mosizlak, who was sitting on a hard light boulder and drinking a can of something or other. He was dressed in adaptive camouflage, but without his deadly implement. Instead of a hat he was wearing a heavy psychic dampener.

"You're supposed to be the diplomatic assignment's intelligence operative. Surely you can tell me morer than 'bad'," Dreams said with a smile.

Speaks sighed. "The Mosizlaks, all three of them, are the only surviving Terran Descent Humans on our ship," he said, waving at the human who was drinking out of the can. The human let out a long burp. "And like we say, without those dampeners, they're a bit... um..."

"Growly?" Dreams suggested. She sniffed the air. "Well, at least the environmental is holding out," she speared another piece of sushi. "What about the rest of the fleet?"

"I was able to contact most of the vessels. The thing is, diplomatic missions are largely crewed by Terran Descent Humans," Speaks said. He stabbed a piece of dripping raw 'beef' with his bladearm. "There's twenty-eight ships between our diplomatic mission and the group we ran into."

"I thought we had thirty-one," the russet mantid Fights said.

"We did. They were destroyed and half of the rest of us are damaged," Speaks said. "When we did the crash translation, for some reason, the partial crews of one of the vessels went crazy and started firing on each other and on us before firing off their self-destruct."

"How many ships are under power?" Dreams asked.

"None. Between the twenty-eight ships there are thirty-one humans still alive and coherent," he sighed.

"None?" Fights said. She shivered. "We only have three Terrans here and nearly no crew members."

"117 was bringing the ships AI out of storage before Sees had him start helping her on some kind of weird project," Speaks said.

"How many Terrans do we have total?" Dreams asked.

"Between twenty-eight ships, five aren't responding at all. 117 said the sensors show no life signs. Six only responded with garbled screaming. Over the last eight hours three of those are no longer showing life signs and the other three are showing a rapid decrease in life signs," Speaks answered. "Every warborg is in critical damage hibernation. Every bioborg, same thing. All of the cryopod backup crew are in critical injury medical hibernation that can't be unlocked."

"So how many Terrans do we have?" Dreams repeated.

"Forty-one," Speaks said. "across seventeen ships."

"And non-Terran crewmembers?" Dreams asked.

"Two hundred sixteen," Speaks shook his head. "Enraged humans did a number on them. You have to remember, nobody was armed or armored, and nobody expected Enraged to start rampaging through the ships."

"That's probably who was doing all the screaming and who started shooting with capital ship weaponry," Fights said.

Speaks nodded. "Whatever happened, the Terrans it didn't kill it Enraged. We're lucky the Mosizlaks didn't go crazy," he turned to the human, who was pulling another drink out of a rock. "No offense."

"None taken," the Terran burped. "I do feel weird."

Fights moved over to him, asking questions quietly.

"Can we even crew a ship with who we have?" Dreams asked.

Speaks shook his head. "No. To fly a modern ship you need engineers, astrogators, navigators, all kinds of specially trained jobs. We've got some serious gaps."

"What about the AI?" Dreams asked. She looked up at where Mr. Rings was thumping a treat against a branch. "Can it do it?"

"Something caused the security charges to go off on critical sections. 117 has most of his brethren working on fixing critical systems like, you know, drive computers, navigation, stuff like that," Speaks said. He paused to take a bite of the beef. When he swallowed he looked at Dreams. "Whatever it was, it dropped us out of hyperspace, the shields went down, which shredded the DS's, and then the security charges went off on everything from the SUDS system to the clone banks to the databases."

Dreams adjusted her hat, thinking.

The Confederacy put a lot of security precautions in a diplomatic mission's vessels. There was a lot of high security data, a lot of sensitive information, and all the equipment was state of the art. Something had caused the security charges to go off.

She wondered if it had to do with the massive superstructures they'd destroyed less than a week ago.

"What's 117 working on with Sees?" Dreams asked.

Speaks shook his head. "I don't know. Sees had a trance fugue state, drew a bunch of stuff on the wall, called in 117 and some of his friends, and they all ran off to a cargo bay and started working."

Dreams stood up. "Then perhaps we should go find out what they're working on."

The Mosizlak stood up. "I'll guard you, madame diplomat," he said.

Dreams wanted to ask him what exactly he was going to guard her against, but changed her mind at the sight of the heavy psychic dampeners.

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

The cargo bay was massive, the huge set of six Class XI Creation Engines sitting silent against the far wall. One was surrounded by mist, deslushing and cooling off, but still silent.

Dreams felt a twinge of fear from something more than the fact that her implosion wire had gone dead when the ship had made its crash translation from hyperspace. In the middle was a swarm of green mantids, all working on computer surrounding a hexagon of black armaglass. A bank of cables ran from a hypercom connection to a huge computer that was then hooked up to all of the computers in the encircling rows.

Something about that hexagonal chamber made Dreams feel cold.

She quickly saw 117 standing with several other mantids, his black warsteel cybernetic bladearm marking him out.

--stand back power test-- 117 said, moving forward and waving Dreams and Speaks and Fights away.

"Where is Sees?" Dreams asked.

--here here here-- 117 flashed, obviously excited.

As Dreams approached the opalescent seer she saw that the other mantid had her eyelids fully retracted, her compound eyes glowing with bluish energy. She was rocking back and forth, chittering out numbers and words and letters.

There were nearly two dozen green mantids and a Mosizlak gathered around, writing things down as fast as possible.

Dreams stopped and looked down at 117. "What is going on?"

--no know exciting yes yes yes-- 117 said. He looked up, then waved at the computers being turned on. --seeing sees sees things seen and unseen with seeing sight-- he said.

Dreams did the equivelant of purse her lips in irritation. "Funny. Now in Standard, please."

--sees sees passwords network addresses logins data requests on invisible networks-- 117 said.

Dreams saw one of the greenies step forward, raising his bladearms up and his clasped together hands. He spread his vestigal wings in two fans of bright color as the others all gave the mathematical and formula equivelant of a cheer.

The greenie stepped up to Sees and Dreams frowned, wondering why he was going to interrupt the seer.

Sees's bladearms flashed down, impaling the greenie, and folded as they lifted the doomed engineer up. Her hands grabbed the biceps of his bladearms, holding them still.

As Dreams watched horrified the opalescent mantid took a big bite of the greenies head.

The rest of the greenies cheered.

"WHAT!?!?" she shrieked.

117 smacked her. --no interrupt--

"What, what is happening?" Dreams gagged as Sees took another bite of the doomed male's head.

--not know never seen before-- 117 admitted.

Sees finished off the male's head, then began chirping and singing, blue energy flowing from her eyes and antenna and down her thorax to run across her abdomen and drip down her legs.

Dreams could feel the hypercom fire up as three greenies dragged away their dead brethren.

--ooh new datastore-- 117 said.

A dozen greenies moved a cable from the computer connected to the hypercom to a bank of computers that were powered but nothing more than a simple command prompt to show that a bare bones operating system was loaded.

Sees shrieked out a rush of disjointed words, numbers, and Old Terran letters and symbols.

The greenies cheered again.

Data started flowing across the screens of the computers that had just been hooked up.

"I think we are seeing something we are not meant to see, madame diplomat," Speaks said softly, moving up next to Dreams. "Might I suggest we return to your room?"

Several of the greenies at one of the computer banks gave a cheer as the computers beeped and went to standby.

"No. I want to witness this. Everything that happens is my responsibility," Dreams said, gagging as another greenie stripped off his tool harness and raised his bladearms and hands in victory. She looked away before the slice of the bladearms and the crunch of the greenie's skull.

Why? Why throw away their lives like this? They live in a world of science and logic, why like this? she wondered.

Dreams faced away from it all, staring at the computers. When a computer bank that had been dark except for the operating system lit up after Sees spouted gibberish, the greenies would drag the dead one over and drape him on the console, arranging him as if he was praying for a new head.

It made Dreams's stomach knot up.

Finally everything went still.

Speaks moved up next to her. "They're surrounding Sees with psychic shielding," he said softly. "She collapsed after that last bout."

"Doesn't this bother you?" she asked.

Speaks shrugged. "Yes and no. Did you notice how the one selected for 'sacrifice' was painted up with engineering and other formula? How he knew what was going to happen and went into it willingly?"

"Still..." Dreams said reluctantly.

"We are in unknown waters, Dreams, without a paddle, without a map, our tour guide was eaten by alligators and our rowers are gone," Speaks said. "If you've got a better idea, let me know."

Speaks shook her head.

The computers all whirred to life and a low hum filled the cargo bay, pulling Dreams attention from the conversation to the hexagon of black armaglass. She gasped as veins of red and gold and blue started snaking through the glass, as the glass turned from night black to a pale opaque blue. The lights in the cargo bay dimmed as the reactor took the load. Sparks showered down from the glowstrips and when Dreams looked up she saw that in more than a few places the glowstrips were now tubes of flickering white light. Mist gathered around the base of the huge hexagon, then started pouring down from the walls and forming on the top of it. The mist only pooled out a foot or two, then wisped away.

Finally the lights brightened and the mist tattered and vanished.

There was a slow winding noise that lowered in frequency until it went inaudible.

Like every other Mantid in the cargo bay, Dreams held her breath.

The door opened and Dreams rubbed her wings in anxiousness.

A Terran stepped out, wearing a green beret and dressed in green, brown, and black woodland camouflage. He was carrying a rifle and had wargear on his chest.

"Mantids," the Terran said in Confederate Standard. He looked around slowly as he took several steps out. Five more exited behind him, all moving so they were spread out and not in each other's way.

Dreams moved forward, despite wanting to run back to her room.

"I am Dreams of Something More, diplomatic liaison for the Terran Confederacy of Aligned Systems," she said. "The fleet has suffered extreme circumstances and I am trapped light years from any help."

The Terrans spoke quickly to each other in a language she didn't understand.

**be very careful they're speaking Ancient Hamburgereese** Speaks sent to her over the secure channel of her datalink.

"Then we'll provide assistance. We'll try other methods first, since extraction would be problematic," the blond one said.

**those are old Hamburger Kingdom uniforms, from the before the Burger Wars** Speaks warned.

"I must insist on verification," Dreams said stuffily.

"And you are right to insist," the leader said. He used two fingers to pull a plastic billfold out of his top pocket. He slid it across the floor to a greenie, who picked it up and ran over to Dreams.

Dreams opened it and stared. All of it was written in Ancient Burgerlander. The picture matched, but seeing the ancient symbol of the Hamburger Kingdom was chilling. She looked up and the Terran nodded.

"Case Omaha Protocols," he said. "If you'd rather, I can return and try to arrange another method of assistance," the human said.

Dreams felt suspicious but still nodded. "We need a way to gather up the crews of the disabled spaceships and get this ship to the nearest friendly planet."

The Terran nodded.

It looked on the up and up, but something nagged at Dreams as she waved at the Terran.

"If you'll follow me to the bridge," she said.

Dreams felt her chitin grow cold as the Terran moved up and held his hand out. "My ID, madame diplomat."

She handed it back, ignoring the deep feeling of fear as she stared into the Terran's eyes and saw a red glow deep inside.

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

Daxin was leaned against the ground vehicle, staring at the fire, which never got any lower nor any higher, never needing fuel once it was lit. He took a long drink out of the bottle, which never emptied, and stared at the flames.

He was at peace here. It was possibly the only place in 8,000 years that he'd found that he felt peaceful.

Which made the crunching of gravel from deeper in annoying.

"What?" Daxin growled, using the sound of his voice to cover the sound of the compartment on his leg opening and the pistol sliding out.

"It's just me, brother," Legion said.

"Don't lurk around in the dark," Daxin said, taking another drink. "Come sit down."

Legion moved up and looked down at Daxin. "You know, Dax, I finally met someone grouchier than you."

"Interesting company you're keeping then, Dhruv," Daxin shrugged.

"You might want to hold onto your balls, Dax," Dhruv said.

"Why?" Daxin asked.

Legion pointed at the fire. "We're about to get a visit from the Devil herself."

That made Daxin take notice. The pistol retracted into his thigh and the shutters snapped closed as he stood up. He took a long drink off the bottle and watched the fire.

It roared up suddenly, the flames reaching the concrete ceiling and spreading out. Screaming and wailing could be heard as the flames began to twist and warp.

Daxin expected the huge brown demonic figure to burst out of the flames.

Instead it was a shined and polished loafer, attached to a leg covered by grey slacks. A woman stepped out, in a gray suit, polished black loafers, a black tie, her hair pulled back into a bun that looked painfully tight. She had on dark red lipstick that was more reminiscent of blood than sensuality, a little blush on her cheeks, and the mascara and eye shadow made her gun metal eyes even more striking.

The flames suddenly returned to their eternal size.

The woman looked around and sniffed, tasting the air.

"Earth. What a shit hole," She said.

"You look different," Daxin said.

"I'm in disguise," the woman said, smiling.

Daxin had been around long enough not to be fooled. There was no warmth, no real emotion in that smile, it only existed so that his brain would tell him that she had smiled.

Daxin smiled the same way back.

The woman turned to Legion. "He's a big thug, but I like him."

Daxin snorted.

"Where's the dobie?" she asked.

"Fido!" Daxin called out.

**DAXIN DAXIN DAXIN** sounded out from above.

"Wow, what an imaginative name," the woman drawled.

"I didn't have a dictionary when I found him," Daxin shot back. They could hear Fido running down the ramp from the second story of the parking garage where he'd been up chewing on a tire.

"Get hungry and eat it?" the woman sneered.

Daxin smiled. He recognized what was going on. Pure dominance games without any excuses, veneer, or thin justification.

"Some of the words were a little overdone," he said.

Legion just stared silently as Fido stopped in spray of gravel next to Daxin, lolling out his tongue and panting.

"Does the words 'Cheyenne Mountain' mean anything to you?" the woman asked.

"Crying Anne Mountain," Daxin answered. "You might say that."

"Mister Multiplexity here assured me you can open the door," the woman said.

"Thanks for that," Daxin said, glaring at Legion, who just shrugged. He looked back at the woman. "Maybe, why?"

"Heard of Prince Whopper?" the woman asked.

Daxin nodded. "Keeper of the Keys of the Sol System," he said. "What does a mythical prince who never existed have to do with anything?"

The woman stepped forward, her smile getting larger, which Daxin knew was just to show off all of her teeth.

"Because, like most myths, it holds a grain of truth," she said. She reached out and rubbed Fido's head.

"It isn't spelled w-h-o-p-p-e-r," she smiled.

"It isn't a myth?" Daxin frowned.

"How is it spelled then?" Legion asked.

"W.O.P.R."