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114. One of Millions
🕑 Added 2023-12-10 10:23:14 +0000 UTCToday was a day like any other for the past few months, at least that was the thought going through Charles's mind as he drank his morning coffee while gazing at the dark void of space.
It was a beautiful and daunting sight, the light of faraway stars reaching his eyes and giving a magnificent tapestry to observe. He didn't know where the Sol System was but that mattered little, he knew he was far from his birthplace and that was something indescribable.
“Everything is going smoothly…”, he muttered with a smile flicking a hand he brought up various graphs in holographic forms, the way the data shifted leading to his smile widening showing artificially white teeth.
This was going far better than he or anyone else had anticipated and for one reason, a reason he was still very conflicted on. The RDA had made the rational and logical choice of surrendering, there was no nefarious plan behind it, after all, this would be beyond foolish and useless aside from the fact it was obvious and would have been seen through in seconds.
And why even do so? This alien, the Homo Deus, Liam Cram was not malicious as far as Charles had seen, quite the contrary even if how he worked was confusing to the highest degree but that was to be expected from an unknown intelligent life form with far greater intelligence. Even if what Liam was doing seemed beyond naive and foolish at first glance, accepting all and everyone but also giving complete freedom of choice.
It never worked and never will but that was without taking into consideration the inhuman treatment of the ones that broke his ‘rules’ but also on how the artificial society worked from what Charles got.
A society that was not meant for humans but it somehow worked with the extreme retaliation to the ‘delinquents’. It was beautiful in more ways than one but it couldn't exist outside of a bubble or on a large scale. It went against many of humanity's current principles and way of life as well, if it would be the life of a caged animal.
Humans would remain humans no matter what and a benevolent tyrannical meritocracy to run at its full capacity required something that wasn't humans or at least by the regular definition of the term.
It required the population in its entirety to work for the best of themselves and everyone. Lovely on paper but not much else, and impossible in practice aside from the fact it went against how society worked. Truthfully he didn't know how to feel about it, like many other things in those days and ages but he preferred to not make any hasty judgment or actions.
Waiting and reacting or generally being passive was the way to go and it had worked until now.
The exchange had gone smoothly; civilians with clearance could move freely from Hell’s Gate to the ISV Venture Stars which also led the way to an influx of food and water that they needed. The spaceships had plenty of food and water was easily recycled but it wasn't enough to sustain a population of thousands for years.
“Though if the metal we have come here doesn't flow this will lead to questions that will lead to investigations and unpleasant discoveries… Yet mining it is an impossibility. But we have time and our unsold reserve of unobtanium is vast… I wonder if they can synthesize it. It would not be a far-fetched idea with what was shown.”, Charles mumbled there wasn't any greed in his mind however, only the method to make authority on Earth stay ignorant about the ongoing situation here.
He was a businessman and not just a greedy man without any thought in his mind aside from money even if greed played an important role here but more out of the fact there won't be money without Earth, it was in moderation.
And unobtanium was more of a sign of power, it was far from being the RDA's main source of income, far from it, the main sources were alimentation and pharmaceutics, but the superconductor at room temperature oiled things together quite nicely.
His thoughts reached a sudden stop as a bright white spot lit up in the space he was looking at, confusion spread over his mind, and then curiosity replaced it. The dot looked like the teleportation of those bizarre quadruped living metal creatures he had seen.
“Motherboard, what is thi-”, he was interrupted by the room turned crimson red, the ISV Venture Star he was in shaking, and the cold voice of the AI he was reaching to blasting in his ears at maximum volume.
*POWERFUL GRAVITATIONAL ANOMALY DETECTED! DANGER LEVEL LETHAL FOR ALL PERSONALS! IMMEDIATE OVERRIDE OF ALL COMMANDS AND BEGINNING OF ESCAPE MANEUVER!*
“What!?”, Charles screamed in disbelief and he was soon joined by Frances whose cold expression revealed an equal amount of confusion to him as they stared at the supposed gravitational anomaly.
The bright spot was growing, the light emitted following suit in brightness, and then it began to spin both clockwise and counterclockwise as space visibly folded. The mere image was enough to cause the rise of migraine in both of them
*FAILURE! MOTOR 1H 4U HAVE SUSTAINED CRITICAL DAMAGE! RECALCULATING ESCAPE MANOEUVRE! FAILU-*, as the robotic voice of the AI echoed within the spaceship the white gravitational singularity stopped spinning and growing.
The next second it became but a dot the size of a pin head yet as bright as ever, in the background, the Motherboard's calm voice repeated the same few words like a broken record as the bright light suddenly disappeared. Then in a dazzling show of light reappeared and detonated creating a shockwave of repulsive force.
The repulsive force washed over the fleets at the speed of light, the force bent, folded, and destroyed anything and everything, Charles observed it didn't and couldn't process what had happened and luckily he didn't have to.
He didn't feel his right arm be torn off, or his lower half spared by a block of metal, and neither did he feel his head be crushed, Frances also didn't feel her body suffer a similar fate. It happened too fast all at once for them or anyone to realize anything before they were pulverized to fine gore mists.
One nanosecond the RDA fleet with thousands of people living within was here with the Motherboard stirring the ISV Venture Stars away and the next an omnidirectional blast of repulsive gravity had ground everything to dust of metal and flesh that was pushed aside by the green force field of the one that had caused it all, like mosquitoes on the windshield of a speeding car.
It was a saucer-shaped structure of dark metallic grey, its form carved in untold symbols and shape of unknown meaning and purpose where six blades came out of its side at equal distances, their point of origin a brilliant green heart in the middle of it all.
It was massive, it outstripped in diameter the biggest natural satellite of the Sol System, it was larger than Ganymede and as such it was larger than the Moon itself by a significant margin, it even had a larger diameter than even a planet like Mercury and Mars.
It was truly gargantuan, four thousand, eight hundred and thirty kilometers (3,000 mi) from one claw's tip to its opposite, and its mass even if its internal structure was mostly hollow didn't change that it was dense enough to generate its own powerful gravitational field, one stronger than most moons and even smaller planetoid body.
On Pandora hovering in the air was an imposing man of blue light, the All-Father, the metallic device in the center of his chest was beating to an unknown rhythm pumping glowing blue and purple fluid in nonexistent organs. His fiery gaze of silver was upon the sky the focus, the alien spaceship that existed from a fold in the space-time continuum approaching fast.
Liam had felt it, the way gravity had shifted unnaturally into a single point and where this point connected to, the edge of the Milky Way million light years away, he understood what it was before it had even begun to construct itself but he didn't have the means to stop it in those circumstances.
It happened too fast and he didn't have the tools to disrupt such phenomena from this far away, adding that disrupting it in such conditions would not lead to a good result, altering a forming wormhole to an unknown part of space could be… Devastating and not in a good way for both ends.
And so he could but helplessly watch the Harvester Mothership, of a size that made the one on the frozen moon look like a vulgar toy, appear out of a wormhole and destroy everything and everyone by its appearance, thousands dead in an instant. Blown away like a card castle in a windstorm.
That the humans that died could be revived did little to reduce the bubbling fury in the Homo Deus, he felt their death as fast as it had been, even without this they were HIS and under HIS protection, protective instincts similar to parents with their children screaming in outrage at the sight, he had failed in keeping them safe from outside force.
Irrational as that may be it irked him.
This… This was unacceptable and this was far sooner than he would have liked, far, far sooner but his wish and reality weren't one and the same. He knew his Ascension had attracted their attention but the hope they would have waited had still existed though ultimately it was extinguished, the only positive thing was that it was happening after he had done so and also after the Obelisks.
Feeling his emotion a dainty hand with lavender skin touched his shoulder of ethereal blue light causing him to relax slightly as he grabbed it softly with one of his hands.
The hand belonged to a white-haired Na’vi, the Avatar of the All-Mother, her soft pink eyes looking in the same direction as he did.
Her face was calmer than his but she was not less displeased, she could feel the entire hive mind, but it was quite interesting there were many differences since the last time she sensed it but what truly fascinated her was the terror and determination flowing like a broken faucet from the Queen in the heart of the Mothership.
“We can sense that the Queen is weaker than We remember, this is confusing. The only possibility is that she is very young or very old, in her last moment of life. This isn't an invasion or a tangible attack.”, Eywa said and it was followed as reading her mind by Liam saying, “She is disposable, a throwaway piece for her final uses, your assessment is correct.”
The both of them could tell several things were out of place from what they gathered, this was decidedly suicidal there was no denying it, but it wasn't desperate or without purpose, it was for all intent and purpose a lone suicide scouting party. A smart strategy, and an annoying one.
As such they were aware they were being observed and studied, scanners of many types were flashing against the World Barrier, some the right frequency to pass through before being filtered out by Liam who constantly adapted the barrier. Others still passed thanks to their Psionic nature but suffered the same fate as Eywa.
Still, the sheer quantity and diversity of them made some manage to get through, and that was unacceptable, an affront but a reality all the same. Thought it was to be fixed immediately.
Then there was the suicidal part, it was clear death from the last interaction was a certainty for any Harvesters that came and the Harvester Mothership's velocity kept on increasing and its trajectory did not change as it gained more and more momentum.
Its kinetic energy was so impossibly enormous it would fly through planets without difficulty, its energy shield making it end up unscathed. The comparison to a bug smashing against a windshield would be appropriate here as well but it won't be going through the World Barrier and the other party likely knew it.
“The bitch is going to ram into us with her vessel and then likely explode, my love. This would be very unpleasant for you with the sudden gravity shift that it would bring on the tectonic plate. The World Barrier can't block unfocused gravitational fields in any meaningful way.”, Liam said with a hint of fury, energy crackling from his form as after images of himself manifested and disappeared by the hundreds.
All appeared at a precise point in Pandora where Na’vi lived to intercept the Argent Sea disasters such as volcanic eruptions, unnatural rising tides, and tsunamis that the major shift in gravity would lead to and they were beginning already.
Waves in height equal to multiple stories buildings were going to slam into the village of the Metkayina where hysteria could be smelled in the air due to both the raging sea going to kill them all and the new rapidly approaching structure in the sky that in their mind was going to do the same.
Liam's sudden appearance above the village served as a beacon of hope and his action brought a sense of safety as from his hand flowed in abandon a silvery liquid of incredible beauty that commanded the chaotic sea to calm down and the storm to part away.
And that was but one of several thousands of villages adding that gravity also affected the atmosphere and that storms of cataclysmic magnitude were going to befall many, millions would die without the All-Father and All-Mother immediate intervention and those were unacceptable deaths for they were of scope far beyond normality.
“Hmm… We understood the implication honey, maybe we made her last moment the most painful and terrifying possible that may bring you solace in the pain that is going to befall me for this cause and effect of gravity upon my surface. And We will harden my hold upon the crust, modify and biome, and more to reduce its effect on our children as much as We can.”, Eywa said, matching his displeasure while she lazily enthralled her arm around his neck she placed her head upon his shoulder.
“Do so, I suppose it would but that wouldn't change that I hate it. And this would affect Pandora and of the other moons around Polyphemus orbit as well, this will need fixing later or we are going to slam into Polyphemus.”, he responded as he felt her point a finger at the Mothership now taking a fifth of the sky, Psionic building within her body then exploding in a thin destructive beam of esoteric energy.
He felt the Harvester Queen scream both physically and mentally as her mind and that of all she was connected was slowly and meticulously ripped apart piece by piece like a sheet of paper in a grinder, slow, and destructive.
But the gargantuan spaceship continued on its predetermined track, the dying passengers within but an afterthought as the world turned to night for a third of Pandora the Harvester Mothership collided with the World Barrier, there was no explosion, loud sound, or impossible show of light.
No, instead two tapestries collided with one another in a combat of force, millions of massive blue-white hexagonal patterns manifested against soft green as neither seemed to gain any advantage over the others.
For the ones not focusing on the impact they would have noticed the sudden shift in the sky of the moons and Polyphemus, it wasn't so much that the sky had moved but that Pandora had and this had changed from the ground how the sky appeared.
Then the Psionic scream of the Queen ceased as did the billions of Drones connected to her, their hive minds torn to shred and what followed after was as Liam deduced to his great displeasure. The deep organic groove of the spaceship lit up a green similar to the shield but far brighter, and it spread through everything until the Mothership was glowing in its entirety.
‘Fusion explosion but without thermic energy… Cold fusion? There was something like this in the movies if I recall correctly. How fascinating and how fucking infuriating.’, Liam thought, his contentment not stopping him from studying as best as he could the unique biotechnology used by the Harvester that he would soon not be able to study.
Seconds before it reached a critical point Liam decided to shift the World Barrier to block all radiation, and visible light within, which did not prevent him with his eyes from seeing the green energy shield turn off the entire Mothership to compress itself into a miniature green star, a fake star unable to sustain itself for more than a fraction of a microsecond for it was not dense enough.
And so in a cataclysmic explosion that did little damage to the World Barrier, the fake star collapsed on itself and went supernova in an explosion of brilliant greenish light. What was left behind was a black hole the size of a needle head but of a similar mass to what it once was.
“Fuck.”, was Liam's word, many things contained within, this Harvester Mothership was but one between million scattered in the Milky Way and far beyond, today was the official beginning of a horrific war that would end with the total eradication of the opposite side.
“Indeed, honey.”, his mate said after a frown over her feature at the strain put by the black hole upon Pandora, a problem that was to be fixed sooner than later like the alteration of all the moon's orbit around Polyphemus.
Comments
TITOO
Thank you for pointing out mistakes.
Deathknight134
Hm, I wonder if Liam will bring the passengers of the ISVs back to life. Will he warn Earth of the Harvesters? Or would that give their location away? It could buy them time tho if it causes the Harvesters to shift focus a bit for easier prey first...but their numbers are also greater than Earth and Pandora, so would it even do anything? They're certainly going to be annoying to fight
Deathknight134
Corrections: unsold reverse --> unsold reserves, sigh of power --> sign of power, outstriped --> outstripped
