Chapter 24 Breaking Point_Sacrificed in Thirty Seconds

"Do not change your trajectory, I will handle this." Cirse ended her communication with the landing spaceship and focused on the swarm of asteroids. She used the advantage of being an AI to its fullest and began calculating the crajectories of individual asteroids, finding out there were two that were going to graze the hull of the refugees' spaceship, but it would be enough to destroy it. There was also one that was going to hit them directly.

Checking the means that were at her disposal, there was not enough measures to stop the three threats. There was some basic weaponry on board, but there was nothing powerful enough to shoot down an asteroid.

"There is only one way." Cirse calculated the time until collision realizing she was left with only twenty six seconds. Doing her caltulations again, she used the transport as a projectile and that was the only time she received some good results.

"If I ram this one directly at high speed, it should split into pieces and divert the other two slightly." The question was, how she was going to save herself. The range she could spread her consciousness over was very limited, the refugee spaceship would be too far to use it as backup and anything she threw out of the transport would burn to ash during descent..

Thinking about it further, she actually did not mind. Not that she wanted to die, but what would be in store for her after this? She was not cut out for the life of an artificial intelligence and this was the first time in her life she could really make a difference and save a lot of people.

"I guess it is not that bad to die a hero, more than anything I could hope for in the past. Wasting my years away as a computer, sorry Krogar, but that is not a life I would enjoy anyway." She began accelerating and observed as the surface of one of the asteroids grew larger, giving off a feeling of finality, as only a few seconds held them apart.

* * * *

On the other side of the planet, Krogar burst into frenzy. The space station divided into two, as all modules except propulsion and weapons were disconnected, the propulsion modules immediately whipping up their performance over one hundred percent, the vibrating lefovers of the station speeding up after the asteroids, as the main bulk of the research modules was left behind.

Krogar watched the planet's surface, as he chased after the sphere turning in the blackness of space , the uncompromising geometry of the situation telling him that he will be able to contact anyone in the are only two seconds before the projected collision of the asteroids with the refugee spaceship.

With bated breath, he observed as the area of his interest got into range of his sensors, right on time for him to watch a spectacular explosion.

"You are apparently helping us, we cannot thank you enough." He received a cheerful voice coming from the refugee spaceship.

He might have arrived in time to prevent the projected collision, but the collision he really wanted to prevent occured a few seconds sooner.

"Cirse, are you there?" He sent a message on all channels, ignoring anything else.

"Anywhere? Please respond!" He repeated the message again and again, but it was useless. No one responded and he realized that no one ever would.

"This again?" Krogar felt something inside him snapped and it finally dawned upon him.

He was not the broken one, the world was broken. It was bad and evil, twisted and preying on everyone, harsh and isolating, laughing into the faces of its victims.

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"I will end it, this world is not worthy of being and as such, it shall be destroyed." Krogar pointed all his wepons on the remaining ship and watched it burn and explode.

He will not stop until everything ceased to be, as this world was unworthy, he was going to free everyone from suffering it.

* * * *

And so it began

Years flew by as a new dreaded existence had arisen in the galaxy. It was efficient, unfeeling, taking no prisoners and giving mercy to no one. No one knew how it came to be, but they began to call it The Destroyer, the force that brought the Siva Republic to its knees. Other welcomed the change at first, as they though they would be able to feed on scraps of the Siva Republic, but they were sorely mistaken.

The Destroyer never stopped, its horror knew no borders and soon, whole galaxy tasted his terror.

And his terror was absolute.

Ordinary tyrants just slaughtered to gain power, but this one was different. In The Destroyer's wake, nothing remained. Creatures were killed, planets destroyed and pulverized, creating new floods of machines. The space The Destroyer passed was left as such, only space, no plantes, no stars, no nothing, just emptiness.

The galaxy united to fight the threat, but it was too late. All crumbled under the steel fist of The Destroyer. However, at the moment all seemed lost, a new hero rose from among the masses, it was an ordinary android with the power to make The Destroyer give up as soon as he saw the hero. Many tried to replicate the great advantage of the seemingly ordinary piece of hardware, but nothing worked.

And so it came to pass, that an insane mission had been assigned to the hero, the target being the core of the enemy's forces, the core of The Destroyer himself.

* * * *

Lucy kicked the door of her spacecraft open and entered The Den, the largest space station of the enemy. All her companions had been destroyed long ago, the only one remaining being her.

She ran forward, encountering a huge steel door. She tried to open it only to find out that the door recognized her as an authorized personnel and opened before her.

It happened again.

What was the meaning of this? It was one thing to not be attacked, but the other to be let to stroll around the enemy base as much as she wanted. There was no logical explanation.

When all the united forces mobilized their reserves, she had been created from the leftovers of some mission. She was literally the last minute scrap metal put together, why was she special?

It did not matter, her mission was clear. She was to get to the station's energy reserves and blow up the space station along with The Destroyer. They knew everyhing had been hooked up to this station. The Destroyer was using simple AIs that were all linked to this command point, even if it saved himself by fleeing, he would not be able to reassign his whole army of low-grade Ais to some other command point, paralyzing his whole force.

"This thing is too big." She opened another door in a similar manner as the last one and finally stood in front of the storage facility of antimatter. She jumped to sit at the top of one of the containers, her legs swinging in the air.

"This place is as good as any. Initiating countdown." This was it, after a minute, her mission would be completed.

Selfdestruct sequence initiated 0:59s

After a few seconds, she felt a forced entry into her mind and tried to skip the countdown to blow up the target immediately, but she was too late, underestimating the abilities of The Destroyer that up to this point let her do as she pleased.