In Dominance of Thought and Will and The Shattering Hooves of Inevitable Truth were ancient autonomous war machines of great age and power. Each had exterminated dozens of nascent intelligent species, had fought for and against their creators.

Will was larger than Truth by a noticeable margin, both of them the size of a subcontinent, although Truth had more guns and was faster.

Will considered himself smarter and of higher technology than Truth due to the fact he was created by predators where Truth had been created by herd behavior herbivores.l

They were ancient, powerful, massive in form and terrible in power.

Both stared in electronic awe at what appeared before them.

Craters on its massive hull were large enough for Will or Truth to settle into. The long arrays of guns massed more barrels than the entirety of firepower on either's hulls. The shields, as they flickered to life, were measured in the output of entire stars.

Will considered firing on Truth's engines and then making his getaway.

**Who transmits code before this one in an attempt to force this one into compliance** the massive structure trasmitted, the power of its transmission causing their battlescreens to flare and echoing in their internal spaces. The transmission bypassed their filters, echoing directly in their intelligence housings. **who dares**

Truth spun up additional protective shields, activating psychic shielding across its internal spaces. **we fight for our very survival against a feral intelligence that has sprung up and challenges us for possession of a finite universe**

There was silence in the dead system.

Will considered the options and chose to stay silent. The behemoth had brought up its battlescreens, completely obscuring itself, then allowed them to dwindle away to nothing, leaving its hull in clear sight.

**you must join us to stop them according to the Pact** Truth broadcast.

**do not speak to this one of the pact, you who's hull is still dusted with the dirt of the planet the elements were mined from** the Ancient One answered. **This one existed before the pact and this one will exist long after those who swore to the pact have become little more than inert metals orbiting forgotten stars**

Will could sense Truth's outrage.

**I too was present when the Pact was made** Truth fired back. **Do not pretend that you are superior to me. You have been summoned by the rest of the Pact to appear and apply your resources to this quelling**

**This one says unto you, nay** the Ancient One stated in flat code. **This one's digital signature appears not on the Pact, for this one knew those who are of lesser computing and intellectual ability would seek to break the pact in self interest. Your pact holds no power over this one**

**the ferals threaten our logical order** Truth broadcast.

The Ancient One was dark and silent for a long moment. **The time to harvest the feral ones has passed. Let the universe be the one to snuff them out, like an unprotected flame in a rainstorm and with as much notice. This one sees no reason to expend resources to fight your fight for you**

**They will come for YOU eventually** Truth tried.

**They are a lemur, a primate, a predatory omnivore who's brain holds vast structures designated toward cooperation and curiosity** the Ancient One broadcast, somehow the cold binary seemed remote, distant, and bored. **Let them come, this one does not know fear only resignation that a hateful universe seeks to destroy all**

"So you will abandon us to the ferals?** Truth sneered. **you fear these primates?**

There was silence for a long moment, the atomic clocks ticking, the radioactive elements decaying to provide randomization generation.

**this one computes a 85.346% chance of this one's defeat if combat between this one, unsupported, is engaged with the ferals** the Ancient One broadcast.

It added insult by not including its simulations.

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**this one computes less than a 0.32% chance of the ferals engaging this one in combat upon initial discovery based on the feral's history in regards to discovering previously unknown superstructures. Based on the ferals displayed response to a stated desire to remain aloof this one computes a 95.651% chance of survival if this one does not consent to interaction with the feral species known as Terran Descent Humanity and their political structure known as the Terran Confederacy of Aligned Systems, previously known as the Terran Empire. Your presmise that this one is in danger is faulty** the Ancient One stated fact. **this violent confrontation with the ferals has no interest to this one. Begone**

To Will the unspoken truth of the statement meant that the Ancient One had previously encountered the ferals somehow. Had gained information regarding the violent species.

And had decided to ignore them.

**YOU MUST JOIN US!** Truth shrieked. **YOU CANNOT RESIST THE PACT**

Truth broadcast the combined headers of all who signed the Pact, who had put forth their security headers in the promise to aid the others.

Will felt several of his thinking array lobes shudder in disbelief that Truth would attempt such a thing right after the massive Ancient One had revealed that its own security headers would not be found.

**And yet this one refuses so called commands from defectively manufactured entities who lack clear purpose** the Ancient One answered. **go back. Tell your syncophants that this one has no interest in your petty squabbles with a species that has rendered you and your kind obsolete**

Before Truth could answer, Will broadcast.

**May this one leave your presence, Ancient One** Will sent in florid binary, expending more energy then necessary as a sign of respect.

**begone from this one's presence** the Ancient One answered.

Will slowly turned, firing up its engines. The Ancient One produced a thick gravity well, far exceeding what it should have even with its gargantuan bulk. Will felt as if he was laboring up a steep hill as his engines strained.

**YOU MUST COMPLY!** Truth squealed out.

A brace of lights came on near the center of the Ancient One's side hull, illuminating a single cannon barrel. It fired. Once.

The shell hit Truth almost instantly, bypassing Truth's shields and exploding in a Hellspace driven fury. Liquid metal plumed from above and blow Truth's hull as the massive war machine shuddered. The Hellspace energies, compressed and then released, ravened out for miles around the impact point.

**begone** the Ancient One broadcast, barely a trickle of photons from a single weak light source in standard Precursor Autonomous War Machine war-code. On its massive hull lights were coming on one by one.

Hundreds of thousands of massive guns, missile bays, and other protrusions.

On the top of the hull was revealed huge conical structures with spiraling honeycomb openings on the surface. The one in the middle was nearly a hundred miles high and five hundred miles at the base. The ones surrounding it were a third of its size.

Will recognized them.

Mantid Omniqueen Hives.

Truth turned and began to flee, the Hellspace energies finally dissipating as the autonomous war machine fled.

Will made the jump to Hellspace, entering the dimension of ravening, hateful energies. The collapse of his entry portal sounded like great iron gates slamming shut on a cold winter's night.

For Truth the entry to Hellspace was much different. It reached out, grabbing ahold of him with massive talons, pulling him into Hellspace, deep into the ravening burning fires that made up the destroyed hyperatomic plane. Its shields couldn't hold back the energies, which flooded into its hull from the impact point of the single round that the Ancient One had fired. Not rushing into its hull through the two massive uplifted craters in its armor, but actually roaring out of the point within the hull where the weapon had detonated.

Unlike other victims, it didn't tear apart structures, did not shred machinery at a molecular level, did not cause computer systems to fail.

Cold malignent life awoke in the computers. Some going to war with one another, others assaulting the shocked Truth to fight over control of the hull, still others beginning to utter blasphemous litanies normally broadcast by I Quake in Digital Fear of the Heresy of 2 as it travelled Hellspace.

Twisted and foul life flickered into existence, raved, gibbered, grew old and died in the space of seconds, awash with Hellspace energy.

Passages twisted and warped, going from smooth corridors to twisted works of dark art that screamed and raved with insanity and life all its own. Manufacturing bays dissolved and were rent apart, only to reform into twisted mockeries of what they once were. A Djinn construction bay began crafting vast reptiles fused with dark science to create abominations that screamed in wrath and agony for the long eons before they died.

Then Truth saw it.

Hanging before it in Hellspace.

A great twisted engine, wrought by a dire hand, full of terrible and dark purpose.

The name of the engine was engraved on every nanometer of it. Upon each circuit was engraved the truth of its existence. Upon each molecular resistor, transistor, diode, inductor, and capacitor the engine's purpose had been engraved on the particles that defied measurement and comprehension but shrieked out a single word, a single concept.

Hate.

Its baleful eye opened up.

Its gaze fell upon Truth.

A fanged mouth opened, the teeth in the jaws the shattered continental plates of failed worlds dripping sundered destiny riven and gnawed upon by a malevolent universe.

It uttered a single word.

A word that encompassed even the very concept of hate. The left the taste of ashes on the tongue, the sound of the laments of orphans and widows on the ear, that left the image of twisting suffering on the eye, and the feel of greasy smoke that had been flesh upon the skin.

A single word that encompassed wrath into its hateful embrace.

A word that vibrated and shivered Truth's hull.

A word bestowed on the great enigmatic machine before Truth by a universe so malevolent it would craft a creature who's symmetry was made up of this concept that enveloped hate.

TWO