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Chapter 156 - Passing the Mercury Screen
🕑 Added 2021-06-16 17:36:21 +0000 UTC"What did you do?" Exla asks me when I return to the command center. Everybody's eyes are on me as I walk to the captain's chair and sit down in it.
"Chaos stuff." I reply with a shrug and look at the big screen that shows the already much closer sun covered with a darkening filter. I don't want to elaborate on my powers right now - not that any spoken language could truly describe them. "Status report."
"The Collective's hacking has been removed, and there are no traces of its physical encroachment within the core section." The cloud girl returns to a professional attitude and reports while looking at her screen.
"The core section is still quite big, but we only have one hangar with two shuttles and four fighters remaining. Not that we were using those anyway." Senka adds with a shrug. "Also, the energy-matter conversion bays were on the city section, so we'll have to do without them."
"Sensors are clear. No enemy vessels detected within range." Hestia continues from the top. She seems to be having fun with her job as the sensors operator.
"Engines are a go." Exla takes over for the absent Tahiri, who is in her quarters with Aurelia. They must be talking about the experience of witnessing a Crawling Chaos's true appearance. It might take a while before the God of Storm can return to her duty as the chief engineer, although Kleihn has essentially taken over that job.
"Everybody is accounted for." Tokomaha announces, then turns to me with a curious expression. She must have seen me disappear the entire city section within mere moments and can't wait to ask me how I did it whenever private time arrives for us.
"We went off course a little, but the route has been adjusted." Senka returns to her previous station as the navigation officer and completes the little game of starship crew.
"Take us to the Rhodos station, Exla." I lean back and sigh in a resigned tone. I never expected this to be a quick and painless journey, but I've had about enough of fighting space and ship battles.
We will have to assume that the Venus Fleet's improving artificial intelligence is also communicating with the Rhodos station, which means that Areteniha and Shelnir most likely have an inhibition field generator in place to stop our attack once we land. But as before, Shelnir will learn the hard way that there's no predicting a Crawling Chaos's potential.
Exla pushes the acceleration lever at her console and activates the impulse engine. We can't feel anything inside the ship, but I assume it's moving now.
"Tell me there won't be a Mercury Fleet waiting beyond the Venus Fleet." I inquire of the cloud girl, but she turns her head with a wry smile.
"No, there's only the Venus Fleet." She replies, and I sense a hint of sadness in her tone. "Mercury no longer exists."
I blink my eyes a few times at this revelation. Then I turn to Senka, who only shrugs as if saying it doesn't matter to her if one or two planets are missing from the solar system. Did the Old Humans blow it up for sport?
"See here." Exla inputs something on her console, and another filter lays itself over the screen before us. "We have already passed Venus. This is where Mercury should have been at this time of the year."
She conjures a circular pointer on the big screen - essentially a mouse cursor - and moves it near the right edge of the sun's muted corona. There's only empty space, so I don't see the point in telling me where it should have been if she already told me that it no longer exists. But then I notice something akin to a starfield surrounding the luminous sphere.
"It's a Dyson swarm." Senka explains when she sees it. "The Old Humans mined away all of Mercury and turned it into satellites to power the Imagination Engine."
"Correct. Kind of." With a sigh, Exla states quietly. "A partial Dyson array was constructed for the initial activation of the Imagination Engine. Afterward, one person did the rest and completed what is now called the Mercury Screen."
"Let me guess. That person is Areteniha." I avoid the urge to glance at Kerry, knowing that any mention of their mother will awaken bad memories in the child of the sun. From Exla's expression, I can tell that I'm right, which would mean that the God of the Sun is the oldest of the Old Humans.
She was there at the inception of the Imagination Engine and lived through the cataclysmic first war using its powers. Then, she survived the second war that Mataku caused and is still going strong now. She must have been living on the Rhodos station since the very beginning and ignored all that happened on Earth.
She's as far removed from the plight of mortals as can be. Mataku may have caused the apocalypse that reset everything, but she witnessed it all and did nothing to help. I shudder when I remember that I once compared her to my mother. She's a failure as both a parent and a human being.
"By the way, her real name is Elaine." The cloud girl adds, and I notice her turning to look at Kerry. Now I feel compelled to do the same but find that they appear to be sleeping in Korenga's lap. "Areteniha is a mouthful."
"What should we do about her?" I wonder when I consider Kerry's strained relationship with their mother. Even if she mistreated them in the past, killing her might only generate another trauma. But asking them what we should do would be too cruel.
"Strip her of her powers and send her back to Earth." Exla suggests, but I furrow my brow. I don't think that would be good for Kerry either. They might want to reconcile with their mother, but Elaine could let her anger and frustration at her powerlessness out on her child.
"Strip her of her powers and exile her to the Rhodos station." Kerry suddenly remarks, and we turn around to the androgynous child of the sun. They aren't wearing their spiked helmet, so I can see their expression. It appears resolved, with a shadow of sorrow behind the strong exterior. That solution would be barely different from what Exla suggested, but maybe there is meaning in remaining on the Rhodos station instead of being sent to Earth.
"Couldn't she sabotage the Dyson swarm or command the Venus Fleet from there?" Crossing her arms with a thoughtful tilt of her head, Senka wonders. Elaine would still have access to all the Old Human technology and find a way to seek revenge.
"I have reason to believe she's a vengeful... person." It's sarcasm, despite the serious situation; everybody knows that Elaine was ready to destroy Earth to avenge her son Alverost. I had to hold myself back from throwing an insult at the Old Human considering her child is right in front of me. "It would be better to keep her far away from all technology if we're going to exile her."
"It's alright. Let me worry about that." Exla says with a downcast look, then gazes up at Kerry. She doesn't want to discuss this matter for much longer in front of them. "You should remain free."
From the cloud girl's words, I suddenly understand what Kerry was suggesting. They wanted to be a warden for their mother in her exile and keep watch over them. Even when stripped of her powers, she would still have the ability to use technology for her purposes. After all, she was the engineering genius behind the Dyson swarm that enables the Imagination Engine to function, if not one of its creators. They would prevent her from trying anything, and in doing so, become an exile themselves.
It would seem that Kerry accepts Exla's proposal, as they remain silent and look aside in thought. I stare ahead at the screen showing the visible dots of the Dyson swarm. The Old Humans kept all of this a secret for so long and made the new humans live in the mud for millennia. If I hadn't come along, they would have continued doing this until whatever Mataku planned eventually came to fruition.
Why can humans be so disgusting?
"So, what are you going to do with these?" I ask Kleihn while pointing at the robots that Asoko brought her. They sit in a large pile at the center of the hangar, stopping any vessels from taking off if need be. None of them show any exterior damage, so my other half must have found a way to shut them down before they could fight back or self-destruct.
"I don't know yet, but learning about this technology will surely come in handy for the future." The gremlin maid says without looking up from her work. She's taking apart one of the Hestia-bots on her workbench with seemingly practiced hands. It has been a few hours since we returned from the cleanup mission, so she had plenty of time to tinker on them.
It would appear that Asoko didn't ask for a reward from the technophile maid. My other half and I have agreed not to touch each other's girls, even if the boundaries aren't set in stone. But when I look at Kleihn, I just can't imagine her ever engaging in a relationship; she's married to technology and the pursuit of knowledge.
I pat the gremlin maid's hair, and she looks up in surprise. Blinking her eyes at me a few times, she seems to be working her brain. Then, something visibly clicks, and she puts down her tools.
"You want the reward I promised." She says and fully turns around to me. I glance left and right, but nobody else is in the room.
"Uhh, I wasn't-" I start, but she interrupts me.
"I have something for you." With these words, Kleihn stands up and walks over to another workbench, where she picks up a wristwatch-like device. I remember it as the inhibition field generator prototype that Alverost used during the attempt to free Zenlith in Arkaim. I assume she tinkered with it and probably increased its effective range. But I think it hinders us more than it helps us against enemies who wield technology. "This is an inhibition field generator inhibitor... I'm still working on the name."
"It can cancel inhibition fields?" I stare at the wristwatch with round eyes. It seems silly that there are two layers of canceling in this, but I won't question how it works as long as it does.
"The range is about the same as it was before, but I reversed its effect." Kleihn explains while gesturing at the Hestia-bots with the inhibition field generator domes on their torsos. "I tested it using those."
She did all that within a few hours. I wonder why I didn't use the gremlin maid before all this. Once we return to Earth, I'll have her and her clan get to work on deciphering all Old Human technology we have captured and help build everyday tools to make life easier all over the world. For now, I'll have to make do with hastily constructed prototypes like this one.
"Thank you, Kleihn." I smile and pat her head, and she closes her eyes contentedly. "I should be the one rewarding you. You're doing so much work with no rest."
"Oh no, this work is my reward." Raising her arms to gesture all around her, Kleihn asserts with a laugh that reveals her sharp canines. Rather than being a workaholic, she combines work and hobby into one. That's why she can be so happy about being burdened with more of it. "Please bring me all the enemy technology you can find, and I will make it work for us instead."
"Good. Keep at it then." I ruffle the gremlin maid's green hair and return the grin. "I'll make sure to bring any toys I get my hands on."
I push aside the thought that it was Asoko who brought her the latest batch of technology. Kleihn doesn't seem to think anything of it either and fixes her hair with a wry smile.
As I leave the small hangar to check on Tahiri, I run across Tokomaha, or perhaps one of her clones. When I approach, she stands at attention and greets me with a salute, but then grins.
"Nothing out of the ordinary detected." She reports the situation on the core ship, what remains of the Queen Pelomyx. Her clones have been dispersed on the much smaller vessel and constantly patrol anywhere they can fit through to ensure there are no remnants of the Collective.
"Good job." I caress her leaf hair, and she nuzzles into my hand. After this short exchange with the Tokomaha clones, I continue onward to the crew quarters. I left Tahiri with Aurelia for all this time because I felt that she would come out of her cabin herself when she's ready. But we're approaching the Rhodos station, and I need to know if she's prepared to join us or will have to stay behind for the final battle.
Taking a deep breath before her room, I knock on the door. Then I realize that the thick metal plate doesn't exactly transmit sound well, and I wouldn't even be able to hear if she answered. Instead, I press the bell button on the panel next to the door.
"Chaos." The screen lights up and shows Aurelia looking at me. I can't tell what she's thinking from her expression, but she sighs and presses a button on her side of the panel. The door slides open a moment later and reveals the Golden Queen awaiting me.
Tahiri is lying asleep on her bed and appears at peace. To be able to sleep after witnessing a Crawling Chaos's true form shows that she must have overcome the terror in her mind after all. When Aurelia notices my expression, she raises an eyebrow.
"It was not easy." She comments, seeing through my thoughts. I'm sure it took some effort to convince the God of Storm that the irrational horrors that we represent are no danger to her. According to Senka, it's an existential terror that grabs hold of people's most basic instincts, resisting any logical explanations the mind can conjure. Of course, I can't judge that since I never experienced it myself.
"I understand." Still, I have enough empathy to know that people will suffer from this. "She should stay here when we reach the Rhodos station."
"No, I believe it would be best to let her fight alongside us." Aurelia disagrees while flicking back her hair. "Reaffirming her power is the best medicine."
Now that I think about it, those most affected by our true appearance have always been the relatively powerless people. The Old Humans were far less impressed because they believed themselves to be gods. Aurelia didn't lose her mind because she felt invincible due to her control over gold - and in extension, her own body. If Tahiri hadn't lost her power at the time, she wouldn't have been as overwhelmed by it.
"It's her decision to make then." I sigh and declare, glancing at her peaceful sleeping face. Maybe I've been underestimating the God of Storm despite knowing her very well. She's not so weak to let this keep her in the abyss of despair for long. When she wakes up, she will surely float about lazily and laugh about my mishaps as she always did.
"Our enemies are the God of the Sun and... Shelnir." Aurelia adds while looking down with her brow furrowed. It seems that she has to bring herself to express the following statement. "We will need all the help we can get."
I smile wryly but don't comment. At this point, I think I could put an end to Elaine with a single thought, and Shelnir doesn't have any special abilities aside from using the Akashic Records to calculate a likely future. The only person I know that could fight me now is Mataku, and only because he's another Crawling Chaos who has access to the same abilities I have.
"Get ready for battle, Aurelia." I caress the Golden Queen's cheek, compelling her to look up at me. She gazes into my eyes and seems to glimpse a hint of my thoughts.
"Whatever happens, I want to be the one to end Shelnir." Aurelia has seen through my utter self-confidence and demands from me at least this much.
"Of course." I give her a reassuring smile and move in for a kiss.
"Please do not leave me behind." She mutters before our lips touch, and I'm taken aback. Those words are an admittance of weakness that I never expected to hear from Aurelia, the Golden Queen. But it seems that she understands the scope the false gods and I operate on compared to hers.
"I will be with you. Forever." Promising with a whisper, I kiss her lips. She accepts me slowly but then begins to seek more from me as if afraid that I'm leaving her behind. The Golden Queen's power is immense even when compared to the Old Humans. However, witnessing me disappear the entire detached city section of the Queen Pelomyx must have driven home how far I've moved ahead.
And she knows that beyond the two remaining Old Humans awaits Mataku, a being possibly even more powerful than me. The others must feel the same, especially Kamii and Hestia, whose powers can no longer measure up against the enemies we face now.
"And I was wondering why it was getting hot in here." Tahiri suddenly remarks in a sarcastic tone, and I separate from Aurelia. The God of Storm is sitting up on her bed and watching us with a grin. Gone is any hint of her earlier unstable demeanor after witnessing Asoko's true form.
"How are you doing?" I keep a hand on Aurelia's waist while turning to Tahiri. The Golden Queen glances at me from the side, then smiles sardonically.
"Chasing clouds while you carry gold in your hands, huh?" She comments, and I understand that she's jabbing at my polygamous tendencies.
"I'm incorrigible." Ducking my head in feigned guilt, I chastise myself.
"I would feel better if you joined me in bed." Tahiri beckons me with an enticing wave of her hand, causing the blanket to slip from her shoulder. It reveals her bare skin underneath, unblemished like a polished pearl.
"I would love to indulge you. Both of you. But we will be arriving shortly. Can't have you tired and out of breath before the big battle, can we?" I finally let go of Aurelia and step back with my hands raised. She and Tahiri both stare at me with wide-open eyes for a moment, then exchange a glance.
"Is that a challenge?" Tahiri asks in a rhetorical tone.
"It did sound like one." Aurelia plays along and answers.
"Even though it was you who could not wake up before I was gone that day." The God of Storm throws a verbal jab that pierces my heart.
"I remember you losing your mind and nearly plummeting from the sky." The Golden Queen relates her side of the story.
I don't know if I made a huge mistake or started down a new hidden route with this. The only two girls to defeat me in bed are with me in a small room, and the atmosphere is just right. Maybe I should take it all the way, after all?
"Captain to the bridge." Exla's voice announces through the speakers, breaking the magical moment. I feel both sad and relieved, sighing to mask my expression from showing either emotion. I have to show that I'm in control.
"We shall continue this later." I wink at Aurelia and Tahiri, who tilt their heads with smug smiles. They must be thinking I'm using this opportunity to run away, but that only makes me look forward to showing them my true power later.
I leave the cabin and walk down the corridor to head for the command center. Along the way, the maids I pass greet me with respectful bows, and I raise a hand to tell them to be at ease. I feel blessed to be surrounded by so many like-minded people as we head to the conclusion of this battle of the ages. Everything will be over soon, and we can return to live a comfortable life back on Earth.
"Captain on deck." Rewera announces me when I enter the bridge.
"Report, Helmsman." I play along and request of Exla in a commanding tone since she was the one who called me here in the first place.
"We have passed the perimeter of the Mercury Screen. Rhodos station is under an hour away now." The cloud girl explains without turning around.
"The sensors show the Mercury Screen behind us, but no enemies ahead." Hestia continues with her role as the sensors officer and reports.
"To battle stations." I sit down in the captain's chair and order with a wave of my hand. "Ready whatever weapons we have left."
"Some lasers, a railgun, a few missiles." Uten and Saten comment while exchanging a look with each other and shrug in unison. They make it sound like it doesn't matter, and I feel the same, but we still need to uphold discipline.
"You have me. That should be enough." Korenga declares with a grin.
"Those who can't fly under their own power in space shouldn't leave the Queen Pelomyx. At this distance, the sun's gravity is already quite strong." Exla finally turns around on her seat and gestures at the screen. At this point, the sun almost touches the top and bottom edges, which seems to be its real size when viewed from our current position in space.
"Roamukao didn't kill me. The sun won't either." Crossing her arms, the Black God asserts fearlessly.
"Maybe, but you won't be able to get out once you fall inside. And none of us will be able to help you." The cloud girl explains patiently, causing Korenga to shrug. I shudder at the thought of falling inside a star. Even I know that the immense gravity wouldn't let anything go, so the invulnerable Korenga would be trapped for eternity.
"So, what's the plan?" Asoko asks from her seat, where she's leaning back casually instead of trying to act like she's a member of the crew. She has as little knowledge of technology as I do, so she knows better than to fiddle around on her console.
"We go in and beat the Old Humans." I respond with a sarcastic grin. We can't plan ahead properly since we don't know what they have prepared for us at this point. All we can hope for is that our powers suffice to overcome their imagination. But I'm not too worried after expanding my limits in the recent outings.
"Sounds good." Of course, Korenga would agree with me there.
"The usual then." Asoko comments with a sigh, then chuckles. "Break through the front and beat everything they throw at us."
"Exactly!" Uten and Saten cheer in unison. "That's how we've always done it!"
"Incoming transmission." Senka suddenly interjects, causing everybody to turn to the doll girl. She types something on her keyboard, and the big screen showing the dimmed sun is replaced with a familiar smug face illuminated from below against a dark backdrop.
"Greetings, Shelnir." Exla speaks in a low and threatening tone. I'm glad that Aurelia isn't here since she would most likely have snapped upon seeing the Old Human. It seems that Shelnir has something up her sleeve yet, although I glimpse a hint of madness in her eyes. Maybe she has gone insane after the repeated losses of her comrades and has deluded herself into believing that she found a way to defeat us.
"How are you doing, Exla?" Shelnir inquires with a sardonic smile. She shouldn't be able to see us because Senka wouldn't make the mistake of transmitting our feed to the enemy.
"I feel great. I'm doing what I should have done millennia ago." With a tilt of her head that her conversation partner can't see, Exla responds honestly.
"Is that truly so? Do you not sense it? Is it not scratching at the back of your mind?" The Guide of Tomorrow whispers in feigned concern. It almost looks like she can see into the command center and look directly into Exla's eyes.
I glance at the cloud girl and notice that she seems to be frozen in place. Then I turn to Senka, who returns my gaze of worry. She gets off her chair and walks over to Exla, but before she reaches her, Shelnir speaks up again.
"Perhaps it has progressed so far that you no longer feel at all." She muses, then laughs out loud.
"She has withdrawn into her mind." Senka explains when she looks into Exla's eyes. "It must be the hacking from the Venus Fleet artificial intelligence!"
"I thought she already dealt with that." I jump up from my chair but realize that there's nothing I can do to help. The cloud girl has changed her mind to be an organic supercomputer and literal cloud storage, so it's in the domain of technology. Among all of us, only Senka knows anything about that.
"Shall we return to fulfilling the prophecy that you avoided in Zohigal?" Shelnir changes her target and seemingly stares directly at me. Then she steps back from the camera and slowly fades into the darkness.
Suddenly, the screen is blown out in white, but the camera quickly adjusts the brightness and reveals the interior of a dome illuminated by countless floodlights. At its center is Luna, strapped to a rack I recognize to be the same as the one in Alverost's spherical battle station. It would seem that Shelnir truly is still hung up about us overcoming her prophecy.
"The hero of this age arrives in time to witness the chaos at the center of the maelstrom murdering his beloved. What shall he do against such terror and malice?" The Guide of Tomorrow spreads her arms and announces, but her tone is quite different from when she acted as the blind seer. Then she stares into the camera with deranged eyes. "You know what must be done."
