Authors: Greg Fish
She grabbed his hand and put it firmly on her breast. Reflexively squeezing it, Newman couldn’t help noticing how soft and yet firm it was. Before he had a chance to think, he felt the touch of her warm tongue slowly tracing the curve of his lower lip.
As her tongue finally made contact with his lips, they kissed. It wasn’t a deep, passionate kiss, but a short, exploratory one when a quick touch of the lips and a light press together could signal a taste of incredible things to come, or nothing at all.
“And now you know,” she said as their lips parted and she drew herself away. “I don’t think you’re ready to find out anything more.”
“Thank you for your company,” bowed Newman, reaching for a drink and holding it as if he was toasting in her honor.
Without another word, Mai turned around and headed down the beach. She would be leaving for the Nation’s territory soon and even though she may have lost her battle on Earth, the least she could do is make things as hard as possible for Ace and his colleagues. If the Nation wanted to stay here, they would have to fight millions of restless critics and pundits for it every moment of every day. As far as she was concerned, that was worse than living in hell.
[ chapter _ 033 ]
On the outer edges of the galactic rim, a world called Sigma 07Xd by the Nation’s navigational systems was settled by curious Dark Gods who wanted to observe intergalactic space. Over tens of thousands of years, they built sprawling observatories, giant temples and factories devoted to creating the technology that would propel the Dark Gods to other galaxies. As impressive as their spacecraft were, these killer worms were still confined to their own galaxy, unwilling to travel for decades before they could reach Andromeda. Their furthest trip out of the Milky Way took them through the Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy a few hundred thousand years away, but no further.
Not yet surrendering their dream to travel between the giant star cities, the Dark Gods stayed on Sigma 07Xd and kept experimenting with exotic methods of deep space travel while aiming their monster telescopes at the universe beyond the rim. The virtually non-existent atmosphere of the small planet and its bone-chilling temperatures let the Dark Gods make some of the most detailed astronomical images known to exist within the realms of the Milky Way. The knowledge accumulated on this ball of frozen stone was their legacy meant to be preserved by Sentries of the future.
As the Nation’s missiles fell on their worlds, a substantial squad of battle cruisers and gunships was sent to defend this planet from an attack by weapons of mass destruction. In their minds, the Nation’s warriors and leaders were too primitive to recognize the importance and significance of their work and could annihilate it, a fate that was completely unjustified for such an important world. Their odd battle cruisers methodically patrolled the planet’s high orbit while gunships ventured into interplanetary space to feel the gravitational wakes of the Nation’s destroyers or of one of their interstellar missiles with the delicate array of chrome spikes which surrounded their formless bodies.
But when the missiles finally reached Sigma 07Xd, the defensive fleet was unable to stop them. Rather than a missile or two heading for the planet, a dozen missiles fragmented into powerful IGFs and unleashed their power on the ships in orbit. The combined might of almost two hundred devices ignited a curtain of radiation, spewing plumes of white hot plasma for thousands of miles as electromagnetic pulses disabled shields and communication arrays.
Just as the plasma coils began to cool off and dissipate, a swarm of destroyers warped into view, surrounding the remnants of the fleet and deploying their weapons. Several planet killers surged with a red flame between their menacing spikes, ready to provide suppressive fire. Countless fighters and bombers were spread out and ready for a melee, their guns armed and deployed.
But it wasn’t the typical units of the assault fleet that worried the Dark Gods’ fleet the most. What really unnerved them were the odd, jet black shapes in a state of constant flux, zigzagging between the destroyers. Seemingly made out of liquid, these bizarre ships had no set shape or identifiable weapons. Orbiting around their equators were three red spheres of light that swirled around each other. These swirling balls of light confirmed the Dark Gods’ suspicions and sent a chill down their spines.
Armed with the Shape Shifters’ attack craft, the Nation’s armada tore through the Dark Gods’ defensive fleet with surprising ease. The battle cruisers and the gunships were no pushovers with their energy bolts and tentacle mounted laser cannons which brought down an impressive fifth of the Nation’s fleet. However, there were simply too few of them to drive back the armada.
Isolated into small pockets and torn apart by the swarming craft of two powerful species, the Dark Gods were about to face their very first military defeat in the last million years. Fighting back with their all, the gunships and battle cruisers put up a formidable challenge to their attackers. In its typical fashion, the Nation used ships damaged beyond repair as makeshift missiles, instructing dying craft to push their reactors beyond critical mass and smash into the biggest ship in range. As the Nation’s craft died, they did so in fiery blasts which decimated entire squadrons.
The liquid ships of the Shape Shifters proved their worth on the battlefield once again. When the surging spheres of light swirling around their bodies collided, they shot forth a devastating bolt of raw energy. It slammed into the shields and hulls of the Dark Gods’ craft like lightning, knocking out defense mechanisms, shoving gunships in each other’s orbits and incapacitating battle cruisers.
Within half an hour, the Dark Gods’ defensive fleet was down to just a few gunships and a badly damaged battle cruiser. Winding up its tentacles back around its shapeless core, the battle cruiser warped out of focus as it accelerated back to its home base. Firing off a few token shots, the gunships spun around and followed the battle cruiser to safety.
Confident that the space around Sigma 07Xd was now secure, the destroyers deployed domes with ground units as they moved closer to the planet and started firing on the Dark Gods’ surface cannons. Bombers and fighters entered the thin atmosphere, unleashing a torrent of laser and particle fire on grounded transports and robotic drones that were trying to get to them. Even though the drones were armed, they didn’t have the range to return fire.
The rain of lasers from above finally reached the Dark Gods’ city as several destroyers hit the spiny domes that made up the outpost with their main cannons. Bursts from the liquid ships tore right through the streets, disabling electrical grids and frying drones. On the outskirts of the city, the vessels carrying ground troops began to smash into the ground, raising columns of steam and rock when they impacted.
Rushing to defend their city, armies of drones with their weapons at the ready, created a defensive perimeter on the hills around the factories and observatories. They were amorphous shapes lined with sharp spines used for locomotion, defense and attack. Their sides glowed with red tribal markings which gently pulsed in a sequence. This bioluminescence was their primary method of communication and right now, they were displaying a warning. These bright red threats glowed eerily in the darkness, casting a pale light from the drones’ alien silhouettes set against the prominent edge of the Milky Way looming in the sky.
As the dust kicked up by the hard landing of the Nation’s ground troops began to settle in the low gravity, pulses from Siege Machines and laser bursts from rovers hit the drones. Through the dusty cloud, the drones could see the vague forms of their opponents, including a group of Shadow Demons armed with black, transparent swords enveloped in churning auras. After a short volley from the rovers that circled the hills around the city, clearing out drones and their mobile laser and particle cannons, the Demons sent out devastating energy spirals to push the drones back into the city.
Moving closer and closer, the Demons summoned the shape shifting Guardians to the front lines as easily as Ace summoned them in the Temple of the Shades. Undulating from an inky puddle invisible to the drones, the Guardians rose with their compound eyes aglow, sprouting laser sharp spikes and spines, ready to tear anything in their way to shreds.
The drones fired back with their rail guns, straining the shields of several Siege Machines and shredding a dozen rovers. Protected by an impressive horde of OctoBots and Guardians, the Demons escaped injury. Directing their machines onward, they warped out of focus to appear in front of unsuspecting squads of drones with their swords ablaze, unleashing devastating waves of red fire and blasting their opponents into clouds of shrapnel. Guardians swirling around them plowed through drone formations shredding the robots into scrap metal. Their liquid bodies were immune to rail gun fire.
Like a tsunami, the Nation’s ground troops swept into the city as a rain of laser fire destroyed any defensive mechanism in their way. Spiny towers that shot hellish pulses into the Nation’s war machines and deep into orbit were being shot down with bursts from the liquid ships of the Shape Shifters. Careful blasts from the destroyers’ main cannons destroyed power plants and thinned out highly concentrated drone formations which were then quickly overtaken by the swarms of Guardians and OctoBots. These nimble units forced their way into buildings and purged them of all inhabitants and weaponry. In no time at all, drones were retreating from buildings to be hit with an unexpected shot from a fighter circling above or a pulse from nearby Siege Machines. An occasional rover would zip through the streets, its powerful lasers tearing large groups of drones to pieces.
After six hours, the sounds of battle finally ceased. The wreckage of countless drones littered the streets and the hills around the city’s outskirts. Parts of rovers, OctoBots, and Siege Machines were strewn in the mix. Much of the city that was destined to be the Dark Gods’ legacy was still intact despite the deep scars of a recent bloodbath. In the sky, the red lights of the Nation’s fleet hovered above the first world of the Dark Gods to fall into the cyborgs’ claws.
When the Dark Gods learned about the fate of Sigma 07Xd, their first reaction was relief that their grand observatories were left alone. Next came confusion as to how the Nation could use Guardians and Shape Shifter attack craft so easily. After all, this was the technology of a primeval race. These weapons were thought to have been lost in some catacomb under the City of Ghosts. How could the cyborgs know how to find it and how to use it?
Just knowing where to find anything in the City of Ghosts was a challenge. They knew. They tried. After the Shape Shifters left their home world and abandoned their last great city, the Dark Gods paid a visit to Abydos to scavenge for anything useful or interesting. The killer worms were never above grave robbing and their curiosity led them deep into the abandoned capital of the previous Sentry. After a few days of slow, methodical searching, they came across the Reaper in a small temple.
The Reaper was an excellent fighter, quick and feisty. It took an entire day to finally catch and subdue him. Impressed with his skills, the Dark Gods offered him a new lease on life. Rather than stalk the abandoned city for all foreseeable future, he could join their military and work with their black ops projects. They didn’t mind that he was a shadowy character. In fact, they preferred it, confident that once he got used to his new surroundings, he’d start talking.
As they continued their expedition deep into the heart of the City of Ghosts, they eventually came to the nexus of all of the city’s vast pathways. No matter where you went in the City, if you follow a path to the end, you will inevitably come to a cube made of polished obsidian and decorated with the same silvery image on all its sides. At two stories tall, it was hardly giant by Dark God standards, but it wasn’t its size that fascinated them. It was the incredible image with which it was adorned.
Millions of years old, the cube and the image were clearly made by an artist of the highest order. It was cut and polished to absolute perfection, not a single bump, not the tiniest sloping on its sides, not even to a thousandth of a degree. The image was fresh and sharp, its clean lines made by a sure, steady device and its silver hue applied with the greatest of care.
The image itself showed a crowd of Shape Shifters who were by all account a bizarre species, even by the norms of the Dark Gods. Their bodies were thick, long, flexible tubes with a single compound eye in the center wrapping itself all the way around their girth to provide the Shifters with a sharp and detailed 360 degree view of the world in any direction. Six pairs of spines, three on each side of the eye, were used as their legs. They had no mouths or discernibly free appendages. No one knows how they ate, what they ate, and how they managed to build an entire space faring civilization with such an odd, simple body.
Looking at the starry sky, the Shifters carved into the cube were focused on something that looked like a supernova, casting its rays on the alien observers. Between two of the faint, downward rays of the exploding star was a humanoid figure with claws, glowing eyes, jagged runes on its cheek and torso, armed with a sword-like object enveloped in a churning aura. Its hair was crystalloid and spiky and its simple, rounded face was obscured by the shade.
It was a Shadow Demon armed and ready for battle.
Hieroglyphs carved beneath the crowd explained that the image was the representation of the first encounter between the Shifters and the War Demon who descended from deep space to merge the many tribes of the Shifters into a single, powerful empire. It also specified that the Demon was born countless eons before the Shifters’ home world was forged in the crucible of its stellar nursery. When he came down from the heavens, the Shifters were spread across many tribes, one tribe caring nothing for the other. The Demon united them, gave them a vision and told them of what they could achieve acting as one species rather than a small population of isolated tribes. To honor the day he came to the Shifters, this cube was created.