Chapter 63: Finale

Chapter 63: Finale

Would you like to hear a joke? Its kind of a personal bit of gallows humor, and Im not sure I can really put it into words. A bit off the cuff, the sort of joke where my options are laugh or scream. But here goes.

I was never really alone, was I?

The call propagates out across thousands of comm buoys and relays, thousands more transfer satellites, thousands more end-point calling orbital circuits. Attack code hits a wave of quantum receivers, reception dishes, and good old fashioned comm units, and brute forces its way in.

The collective surviving residents of the Sol system hear me in a spreading wave.

Message outgoing. Glitter murmurs to me in a quiet and solemn song. Lily, what are

Glitter. I say back to her softly. We may not get a chance for this again, so Im gonna say it now. When its time, you go with them, okay?

She stops talking for a beat, the connection flickering, before her next words. You have a plan. She accuses me. For the first time, you have a plan, and its now?

I always have a plan. I want to sound indignant, but all I can manage is to flatten my ears against my head and put some amusement into my voice. This time, its just going to work.

I get the feeling that Glitter wants to say a million more things to me. To argue, to fight, to resist. But Ive chosen my timing well. Because shes the envoy on deck for this, and Ive given relay access from the majority of the stations grid to her for this moment.

And she has a job to do. Which is to tell me how bad this is going to be.

Glitters voice turns to all business, and she starts sending information that I map into the air with my AR display.

Asteroid habitat White Ficus responds. She says. Thirty combatants, two corvettes, theyre with you. I dont think that will be enough. They had a quantum link, they heard and replied first. Glitter adds.

Still.

Then she starts talking again, and this time, something different happens.

This time I dont get a chance to interrupt.

Krital Vard pirate flotilla, three ships, ceding command to you. Forty two- forty eight- ninety nine Real America drone ambush platforms, opening links, full control. Far Sight colony ship, engines coming online, weapons coming online, now in our local command structure. Glitters voice picks up as she starts rattling off data points. Troi France orbital weapons network, altering trajectory on our command. Faithkeeper orbital shipyard coming online, beginning rapid fabrication. Umthengisi headquarters station prepared to accept orders. Second Olympus provisional government reports Martian population is ready to mobilize. Lily Glitters voice reflects the same astonishment that Im feeling.

I expected a few people, maybe a few weapon satellite AIs with the Oath buried in their programing, to answer my call.

Not this.

I told Glitter to put me through to everyone.

I didnt expect them all to listen.

Ohio Incorp reports ready to mobilize mining drones as strike craft. Glitter keeps taking. Glitter hasnt stopped talking, Ive missed a few names, staring at the updating screen, the wave of lights flickering on across the solar system as more and more people reach back. Masonic Lineage confirming four construction vessels and eight hundred combatants mobilizing. Hirigeki Dua confirms one structureship mobilized and surrogate population coming online. Another splash of dots on the map. And another, and another, and another.

In orbit around the planet, eighty thousand weapons platforms go loud, dropping stealth to broadcast their allegiance. A few of the stupider ones that cant think enough to remember the Oath open fire on the newly revealed targets, and are wiped away in moments. Ground based weapons platforms undergo a similar transformation.

On the primary moon, underground launch bays crack the surface open for the first time in generations. Rapidly checked and armed cruisers launching by the dozens as the different lunar cities stop fighting, and join the growing fleet.

On the original moon, the dead fortress-state of Luna Polis comes alive again. Synthetic bodies dusted off, the best warminds they can find copied and deployed an infinitum.

In orbit around Uranus and Jupiter, the distant worlds of their moons pledge ships and soldiers and engineers, the ancient Oaths of their peoples and systems calling them to war. The high technology hypercorp factories of Europa and Titan and the populations of durable survivors on Umbreal and Oberon alike rising to the call of the old words.

Terran cities reporting ready status. Glitter keeps talking, the list of names blurring together through the fuzzy edges of my vision as I try to catch my breath. Vivo Rio returning to ready state, prepared to act as launch platform. Melbourne citizenry mobilizing, preparing for power draw of long range teleportation, offering to act as surface operations center. City X-99-T/NA-4 ceding command to you, fleet beginning high speed construction and launch preparations.

Even the city seed Glitter asked me to leave alive checks in.

The names keep scrolling by. I see people Ive helped, people Ive spotted and never talked to, people I dont know. I think one of these habitats is where Dyn is from.

I dont even know if Dyn is still alive, and I dont have time to check.

Industrial Repeater Klunkar reports ready, acting as union steward for sixteen other surviving repeaters. Glitter doesnt stop. The names keep coming. Ships and settlements and old living weapons and more, and they were all here this whole time, and I can barely breathe. Wrath field Ishimaru pledges to your service, using the microhabitat Islet as an intermediary. The passenger-slaves of the Mark of Profit report they have taken the bridge and the dreadnaught is prepared to fight. The People of She pauses in her speech.

If the next thing is enough to make even Glitter stumble, Im more curious than panicked. The who? I prompt. I also make a mental note of the second to last thing she said. The Last Ship, a now flagrantly inaccurate name, is on our side. That feels good.

The People of the Haze are prepared to act as soldiery or medical staff if called upon. Glitter finishes.

The uh Okay, that one gets me. Ive figured out the answer. Its laugh, not scream. That ones hilarious. And, in more ways than one, it is incredibly helpful, because it snaps me back to reality.

Back to the reality where a hundred thousand dots of light fill my map. Soldiers, sailors, ships and weapons, smart missiles and ancient bioweapons, the people of Sol, united in one purpose.

They are not organized.

Ennos. I say, knowing the other AI is listening in. I need a favor.

Anything. They answer instantly.

Use the comm relay. Spread to everything you can on this map. I point with one paw, sweeping my eyes across the crescent of projected light around me. Youre in charge of the logistics. Get ships crewed, and engineers working.

On it. Ennos says, but before signing off, adds. Lily the AI pauses. Were not alone.

And then theyre gone. And its good that were not alone, because something the size of Saturn is menacing the whole solar system, so were gonna need a little help.

Communications are standardizing. Glitter reports in her professional song voice. Would you like to address your people?

My people. My people. That seems wrong somehow. And yet I called, and they answered.

A lot of them are not going to survive this.

Yeah. I meow slightly.

Ready. Glitter tells me almost instantly.

She puts a small blinking light on the camera drone shes using to indicate where shes recording from, and I suddenly feel like an ancient cast actor. I flick my tail before getting myself under control. I have something to say, and its going to have to be quick. People of Sol. I start, wondering at the number of confused looks across the system as a lot of people are going to see a cat on their screen when they get to see me for the first time. Maybe not exactly what they were expecting. We dont have much time. The enemy spawnship has already started launching attackers, focused on Earth. They will spread through the system, and destroy everything, until they find what they are looking for. Then theyll kill everything else. I am not a good motivational speaker.

Wait, no, did I say that out loud? Glitter indicates I did. Oh no.

I plow on regardless. We are outnumbered. We will never not be outnumbered. We cannot win that fight. But we can force the big one away. I pause. There is a form of electrical shell about thirty thousand kilometers outside of the surface of the main entity. No craft can close that distance. It has point defense capable of taking down almost any missile or projectile that tries. But I have something that can hurt it. All I need is for you to kill everything incoming for an hour.

I should say something impressive. I have no idea how to do that. Neither Glitter nor my political science education ever covered rousing speeches to coalition militaries. But theres one thing I need to tell them. Thank you. I say. For answering. For remembering. When this is over, things wont be the same. And I hope you all remember this, too.

I flick my tail at Glitter and she cuts the feed.

Ive got a number of communication requests from my crew. A few messages from my sisters, too, mostly telling me that I look good on camera but that theyd look more glamorous. Theyre taking command roles, working with Ennos to organize combat squads. I pull up a comm link to one of the new crew members, tell them things are going alright, and to link up with the rest of the crew on the deck Ive been collecting them on.

I check the system map. Things are not looking good.

The spawnship, the massive object that has simply torn a hole in reality and inundated itself into our star system, has begun launching its attackers. It did this ten seconds ago, and the light from the event is just now reaching us to let us see the action.

I have seen this before. I have seen how this ends. My sister of another timeline saw to that. Alice saw to that. And this time, I already know the dance. I know what its going to try, and I know what its going to do when I beat it.

The monstrosity is only half out of its emergence event, but that doesnt make it any less dangerous. A sucking organic maw the size of Australia opens up, and discharges hundreds of flagship sized organic invaders. Thousands of other sizes of things follow them, creatures made of beetle shell and undulating slime and blisters that explode with acid and plague. Millions of smaller intruders are shot like missiles, headed for Earth.

It mercifully ignores the outer colonies. It knows where its toy is, roughly. It just doesnt know where.

And it is slow. Slow and stupid. The ships it has launched dont move under normal physics; they swim through vacuum like rabid mutated dolphins, plunging onward in an inexorable wave that slows as it approaches. Drag does not exist in space, but it slows them all the same.

We have twenty one minutes before they hit.

The station pivots. Agonizingly slowly, to prevent damage to critical systems.

Sometimes, I get out of situations that I probably shouldnt with one really dumb idea that works by some impossible Sol-blessed miracle.

Were going to need a lot of dumb ideas for this one.

I open a full command link to the crew still on the station, and a wall of half-shouted reports and questions washes over me through the AR display, hanging around me like a turtles shell as I sit here, alone, in the primary command post.

There are thousands of small attack craft, with pilots both AI and organic speaking hundreds of different languages. I start to order them routed through the stations translation database, but realize that will overtax our grid in the extreme. So we pivot, one crew member arranging a data transfer to Vivo Rio, the massive empty waking city given command of a portion of the lit up comms array Ive unified, and ordered to keep everyone speaking to each other.

Were too spread out. The solar system isnt impossible to traverse, but a lot of craft are meant for short jumps or months long hauls. We need to be closer together. There are three old-guard merchant houses, one hypercorp, and the automated moon techlabs of Europa with experimental or proprietary warp technology. Ennos gives me the rundown, and I give them permission to organize the effort. Three minutes later, emergency engineering teams have outfitted unmanned craft with interdiction fields for breaking and a reckless disregard for safety regulations. Two minutes after that, weve lost two thirds of the drones, but a network of corridor portals and untested warp gates are in place between planetary bodies.

I meow something at the station AI, who quirks an eyebrow at me. My voice is gone, too far from my sisters now to rely on them for projection and translation. But its fine. She speaks cat. And the invader is still here; a remote command wouldnt be enough. This has to be my voice.

Yes commander. The AI says, and the engines of the station light up.

All of them.

The station is not what I would call structurally sound. I thought Id have more time, but I didnt, so Ill just have to hope the reinforcement I did get done is enough.

Power dips as fusion torches and impulse drives and a dozen other things shove us on the vector I demand. Chunks of the station rip away as thrust and force ratios get out of control. Warnings and alarms become the entirely of my world, every way the station has to caution me that Im doing something stupid going off all at once.

Half the Real America barracks snaps off, tumbling away and venting chunks of combat drone and old guns into the void. My newly made hydroponics bay gives, an engine pushing too far forward and crushing my own hull as it drives me forward. The station starts to spin, bleeding atmosphere and matter from a dozen breaches.

Ten seconds to impact.

I meow again. Were closing in on the point we need to be at. I set the coordinates as soon as I knew them; theyre always the same, in every timeline, just like the stars. We start to break, shedding velocity and more chunks of my precious home.

The reactor cores are screaming at me. Warning about impending meltdowns or shutdowns or just generic explosions. The life support goes down. I should have maybe put a suit on.

Nah. Too much work.

Five seconds.

Thanks. I meow at the station. For being home.

Thanks. She meows back in perfect cat. For protecting ours.

One last command. The math I input a while back, now its up to the station to execute it.

Here are the variables. There is an incoming high velocity projectile, and there is a planet that it cannot, under any circumstances, be allowed to hit. And there is one space station in the way, with way too many shields and armor plates.

And one more thing.

I take a deep breath.

I dont feel the impact. One second Im on the bridge, the next Im in open space. The hull ripped away so fast the atmosphere is sucked out before I can realize Im being dragged.

I am falling. Bleeding out. My organs ruptured, my eyes cracking. My internals become externals. Everything spins and tumbles, lights and shapes flashing so fast I cant tell what is what. And just like that, in tremendous pain, I black out.

_____

I come to. The station is above me, maybe a kilometer. I have not fallen far. I can see the line of debris from the projectile hitting. It blossoms out like blood in still water. My home is more cloud of debris than intact station now.

It did something to the matter, something unreal and quite lethal. I can see how it deflected. I twist my head, feeling the broken and pulverized bones inside me shift with intense pain so bad I can barely think.

But I see the trail curve away from Earth. Off below the ecliptic plane. Off to nothing. To nowhere.

And inside the station, the monstrous and grim machine, the one that started this all, the one that no mortal effort could ever break, the heart of the station itself, was right where I put it. Lined up perfectly to take that hit.

You want your toy back?

Come and get the pieces.

I black out again.

_____

I come to. I am falling. I should be dead. My immortality was a result of that nightmare machine. Why am I still alive? I run out of air, and black out again. Let me sleep. I hurt. Let me go.

_____

I am falling. I am burning. My fur is gone in an instant, my flesh chars and flakes away. I am nothing but bones and pain and-

_____

I wake up again, whole and intact. I am ten miles above the surface, and falling far slower than Im used to. Air resistance is weird. I still cant breathe, I am already burning again, and the air is stripping my skin away.

The ground is approaching. An abstract sphere resolving into patches of color, and then shapes and lines in the dirt, and then-

____

The next time I wake up, I am not moving. I hurt from literally every piece of my body, and some limbs and organs that I dont think I actually have but that I decide hurt anyway.

I dont want to open my eyes. But I do anyway.

I am laying in burning dirt, and all around me is dirt. Overhead, through a wide circle, I can see the vibrant sickly orange and white of a sky with actual clouds. Earth. Im on Earth.

I dont want to move. Thats it. Im done. Ive done my job. Everyone else can clean up the rest. I close my eyes again.

I breathe.

The air smells like ozone and barbecued cat and ash and radioactive pine smoke.

I breathe again. It hurts. But as I exhale, I let go. Of responsibility, of fear, of everything. A tension leaves my rebuilding form for the first time in centuries. And I am done, and free.

I keep my eyes closed, and drift into a nap.

_____

Some time later, I am awoken by the roar of an engine in atmosphere. I keep my eyes closed. Maybe theyll go away.

The shouted voices indicate that this is not going to be happening.

I crack my eyes open when I hear someone yelling Shes over here! from up above me.

I look up.

Standing on the lip of the crater that Ive put in the ground, eight other cats stare down at me. I met the first one, the one thats an ambulatory and living nanoswarm, on a ship when she saved my life. I met the next, the one made of living electric plasma, near one of my power generators, before we had lunch. The one thats biologically augmented to live in extreme conditions came next, and then the one thats a living liquid construct. From there, we found the psychic imprint of another sister, and brought her into the waking world. The hologram of the feline program at their side was the next to join us when my precious Ennos brought her to light. And the fully robotic shell of a cat who had been offline for so long we pulled back to life after. And then, the cat from all our futures and all our pasts, the sliver of a second shaped like one of us, the messenger.

They stand in a row and stare down at me.

You know, the liquid slime of my sister Lily says, its a shame youre still alive, because Ennos is going to kill you when they get ahold of a body.

Get out of your hole. The cat shaped like a slice of a second says. Weve got stuff to do. Come on, clocks running.

Yeah, third taunt! The robotic sister adds her voice to the chorus.

I cant help it. I laugh. Everything hurts, but I dont stop, as my sisters join me.

Im alive. And I won.

Things are going to change, now. A lot. This is the sort of thing that ends and starts eras.

But you know what?

I think, I really believe, for the first time in my life, that my mom would be proud of me for this one.

And so I crawl out of the crater, helped along by eight sets of paws, some less helpful than others, with my tail and spirits high.

Time for the future.

Oh, and apologizing to Ennos for not telling them that I might be about to die. Thats gonna be a fun conversation.

But then the future! I promise! Unless I get sidetracked, or stuck on a tangent.

And that basically never happens. Im a very focused and poised example of catlike grace.

My name is Lily Ad-Alice. First, but not only, member of the species Felis Astra. Honorary human, guardian of Sol, follower of the Last Oath, survivor of a very old war. Daughter, sister, mother, commander, friend, and sometimes god. But I already said cat earlier, so you knew that last one.

You have met me at an interesting time in my life.