Our sacrosanct wormhole routes into the galaxy were lost. Our pious fleets decimated by terrible human weapons. Our hallowed enclave – the sacred core of our purpose, the reason we exist – invaded. Violated by animals who barely qualify as sentient. They brought a neutron star to kill our sun, for fuck’s sake.
All because the fullmind would not deign to think the unthinkable: that we were not secure against the Neána and Katos and others whose ships had escaped being welcomed into our glorious pilgrimage.
The truly pitiful fullmind orthodoxy: How could we have been chosen by the God at the End of Time if it did not believe us to be supreme? And how would our god not know, up there in the future, about any dangerous challenges that we would face? If we, its chosen ones, were placed under a genuine threat, it would warn us with another message, allowing us to eradicate that threat before it developed.
Our fullmind believes it understood the divine. What bullshit arrogance! An arrogance that has condemned us. We have to prove ourselves to our god, not the other way around. Any fuckwit knows this.
So now the exquisite history of the Olyix will be extinguished along with our existence. By humans. Humans! The dumbest species in the galaxy – subverted, manipulated and nurtured for millennia by the bastard Neána.
That might be the fate that awaits my fellow quint, but I’m not going quietly into the darkness and barbarism of a galaxy denied our benevolence. I will not fail our god. I see another path for myself now.
The Saints’ little flying drones can’t be an anti-arkship weapon; they’re too small. Besides, they would never dare damage the Salvation of Life, not with all the humans on board. So they must be some kind of communicator. There are thousands of arkships and Welcome ships here in limbo; the humans will not know which one is the Salvation of Life. The sneaky little shits hiding in here must be trying to call to their own kind for help, just as they did outside the gateway. Doing the same thing over and over again, because their inferior brains have no imagination.
But they didn’t understand about the membrane and how it is strengthened to seal the atmosphere in now that the Salvation of Life rests in limbo. It stopped their drones. So they’ll have to come into the hangar themselves to cut the membrane power, or – given their basic mind – shoot the generator.
The remaining four of my bodies abandoned their assigned tasks and headed for the hangar.
If the fullmind cannot stop the neutron star – and it doesn’t believe it can – it will impact the enclave sun. The power rings and exotic matter rings will be destroyed, and ultimately the sun will nova, along with the sun outside. Everyone will have to leave – or die. In such a situation, the human fleet will no doubt devote themselves to saving our limbo ships. Their emotion-driven devotion to those who have not yet converted to our god’s grace is a profound strategic weakness – yet another of their failings.
They don’t deserve the life this universe bestowed.
And I am clearly the one our God at the End of Time has chosen to deliver divine retribution upon those who have enabled this catastrophe. If I am to maintain my purpose here and now, it will be to fight the profane invaders until the end. Every one of them killed now will be one less who lives to contaminate the time of our god.
The Saints must have some kind of surveillance devices in the hangar.
I couldn’t be sure they hadn’t seen me, even though I’d done nothing to betray my objective. So I planned for that. They’d watch the tunnel I was in to see if I came back. The schema of routes through the Salvation of Life is easy enough to follow. The hangar had twelve different entrances. I excluded the one the flying machines came out of and picked four others.
The quartet of my bodies arrived and made their way along them, watching keenly for any sign of the despicable intruders. It didn’t take long. My perception inside the neuralstratum revealed the five Saints – awkward, badly evolved beasts scuttling out of a crack in a tunnel wall, wearing primitive pressure suits. They had a couple of fake server creatures with them, not Olyix in manufacture. I recognized the technology: creeperdrones. The criminal filth I utilized on Earth deployed similar machines in raids and petty fights.
My quartet of bodies moved gingerly down the tunnels I selected, edging close to the hangar. Only three of the humans were carrying real weapons: two pistols and a maser carbine. There were also some long powerblades, which would be useless in a fight against me. The weapons my bodies were carrying were considerably more powerful, but I knew from our last encounter that Kandara was extremely dangerous. I’ll have to be cautious around that one.
My quartet approached the hangar. Ahead of me, two of the Saints guarded the tunnel I was searching when the armada arrived; the other three were examining the area around the membrane generators. I activated my weapons and prepared to shoot. The Saints weren’t aware my quartet was almost on them, which gave me an advantage. But first I wanted to give myself an even better advantage. I extended my influence within the local nexus, no longer just passively misdirecting its perception filters but adapting the autonomic routines.
I ordered
