High above the spreading ruin, Zildiz watched as a world died. For that was what a biome represented to her; a complete ensemble of living organisms bound together by a beautiful tapestry of interdependence, a balance composed of and sustained by the unconscious actions of innumerable individuals.
One could displace that balance at one end by changing any one of the variables in the system. Temperature, terrain, population size, climate—anything could upset the delicate equations. But in time Vitalus would always right itself and reach a new equilibrium.
Not so here. Here, there was only death.
She watched as the glaring ruby eye of the monster reached the brilliance of a sun, slowly building in intensity before finally unleashing a line of pure destruction that set the very air ablaze, a gout of flames reaching in and gutting the Amit mound.
Tiny figures tumbled out of the conflagration, flailing their limbs and sprinting in every direction in a hopeless attempt to escape. There was nowhere to run—the vegetation had also turned into a sea of flame. Even from her high vantage point she could smell the burning green wood and the rich scent of melting fat. Her mouth watered uncontrollably even though Zildiz felt sick to her stomach at the sight she was witnessing.
Other Gallivants quickly arrived at the scene, their minds tugging at hers, the magnetotactic symbiotic bacteria in her brain responding to the fluctuations in the surrounding EM fields.
“Zildiz,” one of the arriving males greeted, hovering closer while carefully maintaining a respectful distance. It was not yet mating season, and though the males outweighed her significantly, they knew better than to startle a female just back from the hunt.
“Menash,” she nodded, politely returning the greeting. Menash’s exomorph had bluish green armor plates and was equipped with heftier musculature than hers. He’d replaced one of his arms with a pincer since the last time she’d met him, and looked every inch the perfect predator. But even he was frightened by the level of destruction down below.
“What on earth is that thing down there?” he asked in open wonder.
“You know as much as I do,” she told him, “It almost looks like a Gallivant, don’t you think? Or at least one of the terrestrial castes, anyway.”
“Maybe it’s one of the Vitalus’ new creations?” suggested a smaller brown male named Racek, nervously fluttering from side to side in his lightweight exomorph.
“What possible function could that monster serve within the All-In-One?” Zildiz scoffed.
“Well, for one thing, it’s cracked open that mound quite nicely,” said a red-and-white female, licking her lips eagerly, “I haven’t had an Amit in months.”
“You can’t be serious, Vezda,” Zildiz said, “We shouldn’t take advantage of this situation. Look at them, the entire colony is getting wiped out even as we speak!”
This was not quite true. A handful of albino figures were limping through the canyons, having miraculously escaped the destruction.
“He that dares, wins,” Menash said, “This looks like an act of nature to me. It’s certainly destructive enough to be one. We’re well within our rights to adapt to changing conditions within the system.”
“Then why didn’t Vitalus tell us about this…creature?” Zildiz asked, “We aren't due for a seismic event this cycle, remember?”
“Enough of this alpha-female posturing!” Vezda snapped, “Just because you’re a mother of three doesn’t mean you decide what’s best for the rest of us.”
Flexing her scorpion’s tail, the fiery female swooped in for the hunt. Other Gallivants followed after her, eager to score some free calories from the dying Amit colony.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Madness,” Zildiz whispered, watching them go.
“The game has changed,” Menash shrugged, “This is hardly the first time that the Vitalus has introduced a new species to the equation. It’s all part of directed evolution.”
“There isn't anything directed about this!” Zildiz said fiercely, pointing at the grey giant, “That's a mass extinction event in motion!”
#
Rene reached into the dying embers for the second time and dug around with the drill hand. The arms of the Engine were moving sluggishly now and a warning message kept flashing across his retinas:
“Danger! System overheating—multiple ruptures in coolant circulation lines. Recommend immediate evacuation.”
“Over my dead body,” Rene gasped. His mind was overwhelmed, senses deafened and blinded by the bewildering new stimuli. In addition, his body was beginning to feel the hard edge of fatigue. Though he’d sustained only modest injuries in the siege of Mound Euler, all the little scrapes and bruises were adding up—the detonation of the blasting charges earlier had definitely ruptured one of his eardrums.
“Power reservoirs at 0.9841% capacity,” the spirit of the Engine told him, "Fuel rods depleted. To request resupply, please contact your local supply chain manager via EXOCOM network—"
“Piss off,” he grumbled. The claw hand finally closed around something solid and he pulled out a fistful of solid rock the size of a cathedral. Examining the object and seeing the hexagonal chambers studding its interior, Rene deduced that he was holding the Amit hatching nursery in his hand. Amazingly, some of the Amits still clung stubbornly to life within it, nymphs clutched the grub-like infants to their chests as if shielding them from his fury.
Even now after all the carnage the sight of them gave Rene pause. Memories flooded through him, sounds and smells he thought long forgotten. He was a young boy again in Mound Ulysses running up and down the spiral staircase of the school, eating candied grubs on a stick and building clay castles with his bosom friends.
He’d had a talent for working with clay back then, fashioning ballrooms and topiaries and drawbridges for his tiny king and queen. While other boys played at making sieges and fashioned cannonballs by rolling the clay into balls, Rene had imagined the most impossible things of all: a kingdom at peace with itself, under no threat from monsters or men, ruled by the just and free of the wicked, where everyone had enough grubs and mushrooms to eat. A kingdom where men could walk in the sun and breath without masks, and a boy of thirteen didn’t have to trade in his box of crayons for a tin of cartridges at the enlistment center.
But now the castle was real. So were the tiny lives he held in the palm of his hand.
“It has to be done. For the good of the Fleet,” he heard Deschane say.
Rene curled his hand into a fist, saw bodies mashed to pulp between his fingers. Something inside him died in that instant. Drawing back his arm, he hurled the broken mess across the mountain range, watching it disintegrate through the air in countless pieces.
“Power reservoirs at 0.1201% capacity,” said the voice in a drunken slur, “Initiating shutdown procedure in T minus 10 seconds. 10. 9…”
“I’m not done,” he raged, “Not yet!”
But really, what was there left to do? There was nothing left to destroy. There was nothing left in him, too.
Then he cast a weary eye over the land and saw strange birds alighting across the tortured landscape. He squinted at them, the glass dome responding to the movement of his facial muscles by magnifying the image.
What were these flocks of creatures? Hideous, all of them, even uglier than the Amits. They each had two pairs of wings and their faces were wholly made up of shiny, bulbous eyes. He saw them swoop into the smoldering vegetation below and begin feeding on the stricken Amits, devouring them on the spot.
Sickened by the grisly spectacle, Rene made up his mind in an instant.
“Open fire,” he told the Engine.
“8…Systems overheating. 7… Recommend full diagnostic of onboard laser platform. 6…”
“Belay that order!” he said, using one of Deschane’s favorite catchphrases, “I am assistant navigator Rene Louverture, and I am ordering you to fire.”
There was a brief pause, then:
“Acknowledged. Commencing atmospheric ignition.”
#
“Everybody back!” Zildiz cried, both verbally and via magnetosynapse, “Get back!”
She’d seen what it had done to the nursery. There could be only one thing that was driving its actions: hatred, pure and simple.
Some of her kin heard the warning and veered upwards, abandoning the feast as the red eye gathered its energies.
“No,” she told them, her bowels loosening in terror, “It sets the air on fire! Water, it’s our only chance!”
Racek heeded her and followed as she plummeted towards a narrow mountain stream winding through the canyon. The follicles on her neck stood on end as the humidity of the air dried up in an instant, water vapor evaporating on contact with her exomorph.
A red star was born, a terrible brilliance that threatened to engulf them all. The stream below was bubbling like a pot of stew even as she broke the surface at terminal velocity. Her last thought as her head cracked into the stony stream bed was how irritating it would be to dry her wings again. And then the foam closed over her, and she knew no more.