Dreams of Something More stared out the observation blister in one of the lounges at the massive troop ship that was shedding dropships, all heading toward the surviving ships of the diplomatic envoy team.
Two Rigellian females and a Saurian Compact Kobold stood near her, watching around her as she stared at the dropships. She was aboard the Task Force Flagship, a massive Pubvian vessel that felt oddly ancient to Dreams even though it was only a decade or two old.
Gone for 8,000 years, and they're back like nothing happened, Dreams thought to herself.
She slowly petted Mister Rings, who was cuddled up against her, watching with big round eyes at the glimmering specks on the viewport. He was idly wondering if they were fireflies or not.
Fireflies were tangy and sweet.
She watched as the first of the ships were scuttled once the dropships left.
One by one the remaining ships of the diplomatic task force and the scouting task force turned into a brilliant white star that hurt the eyes. They lasted a few seconds before dissipating to growing clouds of gaseous debris.
When the final one had vanished Dreams turned to Words Spoken We Fear and stared at the black mantid.
"Opinions?" she asked.
The black mantid was silent for a long moment, only the slight movement of his antenna and his abdomen pulsing as he breathed giving any hint he was alive.
"The human race is nearly extinct," he said slowly. He nervously tapped the tips of his bladearms together a few times. "Think, Madame Diplomat, what that means for a completely unprepared galaxy."
Dreams combed her antenna for a moment then looked at the beings surrounding her.
Every single but the Rigellian females had tried their hands against Terra.
And lost.
"The Lanaktallan are still a threat," she said slowly.
Words shook his head, the lights gleaming on the glossy black of his carapace. "No. They're dead, they just don't know it. Oh, the species will survive, but the Terrans destroyed the Unified Council as surely as they had planet cracked and nova sparked every system possessed by the Lanaktallans," he gave a slow shake of his head. "Uncle Mikey is shown across the inner systems of the Galactic Stub more than even Lanaktallan propaganda. Lanaktallan children can sing the intro to Sesame Street and Obese Albert as they play the Lanaktallan version of hopscotch."
He slowly scraped his bladearms together. "But that is not what I foresee."
"Prophecy again?" Dreams asked. She wanted to get in a few pointed jibes at him, but the situation was just to... overwhelming. "Your carapace is a bit dark."
"Predictive analysis based on intelligence," Words said stuffily. "You know, my job."
Dreams ducked her head. "My apologies. Continue."
Words walked toward one of the tables, sitting down and tapping at the icon to summon a Pubvian bartender to bring him a frosted Ozland Eatmu Scream, and make it a double.
Dreams sat down carefully, ordering several treats for Mister Rings before she set him in the seat next to her.
Mister Rings stared at everyone around him, looking up at the ceiling. There was nothing to swing upon and that displeased him.
"Terrans believe in something that no other race holds so dearly," Speaks said.
"Which is?" Dreams asked.
"Mutually Assured Destruction, colloquially known as 'you can always take them with you' to Terran children," the black mantid said.
"Yes," Dreams said carefully.
"You and I," he suddenly made a motion to include everyone else in the lounge, "And everyone else, could not ever intellectually or emotionally believe what has happened would ever come to pass. We had always, quite rightfully, assumed that whatever could cause the Terrans to nearly go extinct would leave the entire galaxy, not just the spur, but the entire Milky Way, to nothing but wreckage and death."
Dreams nodded, thanking the Pubvian who brought her Animeland food rolls. She gave one to Mister Rings to get him to stop eyeing the Pubvian. Mister Rings took the treat and climbed under the table, wrapping his strong tentacles around the chrome underside and swinging slowly back and forth.
Speaks took a long drink off of his drink and looked at her. "I know that this, right now, is merely a period of calm before the real attack begins."
"How?" Dreams frowned.
Speaks took another drink. "We have no idea how many humans are left. We've heard estimates that 99.9985% are dead," he took another drink. "Which people have pointed out: oh, that means millions are still alive."
Dreams nodded, nibbling on a piece of raw fish wrapped in seaweed and steamed rice, enjoying the taste of the sauce. "Species have recovered from having less numbers than that."
Speaks shook his head. "That's not the point. Of course the human race itself, as a species, will survive. Tens of billions didn't believe in cyberware or SUDS or bioware," he said. "Analysts believe those ones survived," he shook his head. "I don't. I think very few survived that had any type of genetic lineage from before the Great Glassing."
Dreams cocked her head. "You said that wasn't the point."
Speaks accepted another drink and swallowed down nearly a third of it in one long convulsive gulp. He set the glass down, rested his bladearms on the table, then put his hands on the table's surface, spreading his three fingers and two thumbs.
"It's not the Terran Confederacy's Terran Descent Humans that everyone should be frightened of," he said. He leaned forward slightly. "It's what will happen due to the Great TDS Extinction."
Dreams stared at the black mantid and wondered if he had been working too hard. "Like?" she asked softly.
Speaks leaned forward even further, standing up, straddling the relaxation bench.
"Behold," he whispered fiercely. "Humanity."
He grabbed the drink, slugged the rest of it down, and staggered from the lounge.
Dreams watched him go. She had never seen the black mantid, a highly skilled, trained, and experienced intelligence analyst, act in such a manner. She looked at the Mosizlak and motioned him over, gesturing for him to sit down. She waited until he had made himself comfortable.
"May I ask you questions?" she asked carefully.
The human had a half-helmet that provided psychic dampening and his eyes glowed a soft amber as he nodded. Dreams noted that six of the nine LEDs were lit up red, the other three yellow.
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"Do you agree with Words Spoken We Fear?" she asked.
The Mosizlak thought about it for a long moment, staring off into space. After a moment he nodded slowly. "Vengeance never dies," he said. Dreams was startled how unfamiliar his voice was and realized that she wasn't sure he had ever spoken in her presence before.
Before she could ask for further clarification he resumed speaking.
"Mister Words was correct in our belief that you can take them with you," he said. "Many consider that to be part of a vengeful makeup involved in the Mantid Glassing of Terra."
"Is it?" Dreams asked softly. She noticed that their little corner of the lounge seemed to have gotten darker, quieter, and the vibrations and normal sensations of a starship had receded.
The Mosizlak shook his head. "No, Madame Diplomat," he said. He summoned up the tables holographic keyboard and made a few strokes on the keys.
A large tawny feline appeared, huge teeth, sharp claws, an engine of carnivorous destruction.
"A mountain lion, Madame Diplomat," the Mosizlak said. "Rendered extinct by the Glassing after genetic engineering restored it and this version is before the Extinction Agenda Attack turned it up to eleven," he tapped a few more keys and a Terran appeared. Scraggly haired, a short beard, wearing crude clothing, holding a spear with a chipped stone tip. "Meet the only thing that could match it."
Dreams nodded, wondering where he was leading.
"His village, which would be nomadic, would be behind him. There would be a handful of adult males with him as the females found stones to throw in case it got inside the perimeter," the Mosizlak said. "Now, you know that your Hive Lords would have just sacrificed as many as needed to drive it off, but your queens laid eggs by the hundreds."
Dreams speared a piece of smoked fish and dipped it in sauce, motioning for the human to continue.
"Our human here is a vital part of his tribe, which might consist of twenty to thirty families," the human said. "He, and the others, will attack the mountain lion, to drive it off, or, alternatively and better, kill it for its hide, bone, claws, teeth, meat."
"But he knows, as does every other village, that this massive engine of destruction will kill one or two of them, possibly most of them," he said. He looked at Dreams and the glow in his eyes darkened with deep red. "All of them hope that if it does kill one of them," he paused for effect. "He can take it with him."
"Before you state that all species went through this, I'd like to remind you that this man right here, this human male who archeologists determined was killed by a mountain lion while defending his village and was buried with the creature's cleaned skull, was only fifty thousand years ago," the human waved the images away. "That instinct, to take our enemy with us, was once in all of you, it was how you climbed to the top and stayed there. Only hundreds of thousands of years went by for you, or millions of years, where for us, less than a hundred thousand."
Dreams just nodded, thinking over what had been said so far, so she was startled when the image of the Black Fleet appeared. It made a part of her cringe in fear to see the Missouri and the Yamato depicted.
"You," the Mosizlak said. He brought up the Fleet of One. "Can," he said.
"Always." Black warborgs in endless ranks beneath the sunless skies of a dead world orbiting a neutron hole.
"Take. Them. With. You," he said. The last image he made larger and wiped away the others.
It was of a little Terran girl child blowing a dandelion so that the seeds streamed out.
"But wouldn't they be effected to?" Dreams asked.
The Mosizlak stood up. "Perhaps. Perhaps not. Either way," he stopped and looked back. "We're Terrans. We prepare for the unthinkable by committing to the horrifying."
Dreams watched him walk away.
-----------------
Dreams was in her cabin, in the resting pose, watching Mister Rings swing from branch to branch, chasing a Pacific Northwest Buttersquirrel solid light construct that had a core of RealMeat™ for him to snack on.
She had asked virtually every species aboard the massive Pubvian flagship if they thought the humans were gone forever.
The answered had ranged from "Yes, but..." to "No, although..." and had all universally agreed.
Whoever had done the deed would regret it eventually.
Probably when a warsteel coated fist slammed into the last of their species member's skull.
"Operator," she said softly.
"Yes, Madame Diplomat," the ship's computer, an eVI, said softly.
"Run a search for retribution with a filter for Terran military operations or theory," she said softly.
"I have sixty-two trillion search results, please refine your search," the eVI said.
"Search for retributive military strikes cross referenced with mutually assured destruction," she tried.
"Working. Diplomatic authority required," the eVI said.
Dreams of Something More gave her authorization.
"Two point two million results, Madame Diplomat," the eVI said.
"When was the oldest determined?" she asked.
"Pre-Glassing Terra, the Burger Wars, specifically Jack's War," the eVI said. "It is the concept of ensuring beyond mutually assured destruction, that your opponent, indeed, the entire world itself, will be obliterated in order to deny anyone the luxury of victory. Specifically, listed as 'From Hell's Heart' doctrine. The Extinction Agenda Virus was believed to be a stolen bioweapon from this philosophy of military doctrine."
Dreams sighed.
"Request data for the Nosferatu Initiative," she tried.
"No records found," the eVI said.
Dreams frowned. "No?"
"Zero records found for 'Nosferatu Initiative', Madame Diplomat. Would you like to try another keyword search?" the eVI said.
"No," she stretched. "Summon Words Spoken We Fear and engage Diplomatic Privacy Mode, all recordings are to be encrypted and sealed."
"Executing," the eVI said. Dreams noticed it sounded a little huffy.
The black mantid arrived fairly quickly. Dreams noted that he looked extremely tired. He settled down on a rock near the stream and reached out to stir the water with the tip of one bladearm.
"I've been thinking," Dreams started.
"That's your first mistake," Speaks said. "Just embrace the horror."
Dreams frowned. "Still, you know that our being forced to flee after multiple assassination attempts activated something called the Nosferatu Initiative that's apparently been following diplomats for like five thousand years."
Speaks nodded, cleaning his antenna slowly. "Yeah. It's about the only slice of amusement aside from Mister Rings ate an assassin."
"It's not in the Diplomatic Secure Information Database," Dreams said.
Speaks shook his head. "It wouldn't, just in case our databases were taken intact."
"I've talked to other diplomats that are aboard the vessel," she said softly. "We're heading back to Lanaktallan Space to negotiate a peace treaty."
"But will the Unified Council think we're coming from a position of weakness?" Speaks asked.
Dreams shrugged. "The Confederacy is more than humans. The Treana'ad have millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of trained soldiers and those soldiers are equipped with Terran quality weaponry, training, tactics and doctrine. Our new allies the Telkan and Leebawian, just to name two, are mobilizing for war."
"But will the Council see that?" Speaks asked.
Dreams looked up at the starry night above the 'branches' of the glade she was sitting in. She found the North Star and Orion, and stared for a long moment.
"That is a worry for when we arrive," she said. "I fear what might have been released by the extinction of the Terrans."
"Which is why you brought up the Nosferatu Initiative," Speaks said. He yawned. "What's wrong?"
Dreams tapped one of the rocks for a long moment. "I fear, as the Hive Lords and Hive Queens should have, that what we see now, with the extinction of humanity and their perceived defeat," she took a deep breath and released it. "Is just the pause before humanity's wrath is unleashed as it was during their war against our people."
She looked down at the rock in front of her, where she was scraping one bladearm against it, sharpening it.
"I fear the emergence of something far far worse than anything that could be imagined," Dreams looked up. "in fact, I fear it has already begun."
Speaks frowned. "How so?"
"Fights managed to get a DNA sample from the humans who enabled our rescue," Dreams said. "Most of the information I did not understand, but she broke it down for me plain and simple."
"Broke what down?" Speaks asked.
"Those humans had evidence of genetic engineering. Not the current method, a strange method, with very precise modification," Dreams said. "However, they weren't like modern humans."
"How so?" Speaks asked.
Dreams looked up. "They were Pre-Glassing, Pre-Diaispora, possibly even pre-superluminal drive Terrans."
"You mean, real OG humans?" Speaks asked.
"How could she tell?" Speaks asked. "Was there some way to pin down roughly when? They seemed adapt at weaponry and computer technology. They're obviously fairly recent."
Dreams shook her head. "All of them had antibodies in their system for something that should be impossible," Dreams leaned forward something. "They had antibodies due to a vaccination regimen for a virulent plague virus with a rather innocent sounding name. One that's been extinct since before humanity created their global information network."
Speaks frowned. "Which one?"
"Smallpox."
-----------------
Despite the fact they were still reeling from the unexpected turn of events at the Entry Point, the Atrekna felt a cold satisfaction at what they had accomplished.
Throughout the Feeding Systems, the bright raging spark of feral primitivism had been extinguished.
Sure, there were a few outliers, a few datapoints that had not been subdued, but already the Atrekna had been able to establish themselves on several of the ancient worlds beneath a cool red sun.
The ferals had been eliminated.
The food had no future but enslavement and a return to their proper place. The Mantid would be destroyed, as they should have been before. The Lanaktallan would be re-gentled and return to being consumed.
Hive worlds for the Great Extractor Species would be established.
They would domesticate the remains of the Galactic Stub.
Then would come the domestication of the galaxy, and eventually, the universe itself.
It all belonged to them.
After all, what could stop them?
-------------
Behold.
Humanity.