Authors: Greg Fish
“Now I know why we fired Mai,” Alice was saying with a sigh. “I bet you the Dark Gods paid her to do it.”
“Probably,” agreed Shohei as he took a bit of his grilled fish.
“Ace tells me we won’t have to worry about her anymore,” said Sergio. “It’s his ex, so we should just let him handle it his way. What I want to talk about is how Nelson pulled a fast one on Earth.”
“He turned a complete and total cluster fuck into a way to get rid of that Newman character,” nodded Eric with admiration. “We need him on the High Command after Aari retires and I’m even prepared to make a special amendment to let Children be on the Command.”
“He has to win the election first,” noted Alice.
“Oh he’ll win,” winked Eric plunging a fork into his salad. “His win in a general election would integrate the Children and the Nation into a single governing entity over the next few centuries. We’d have a much stronger, more unified governing system that way.”
“But we can’t do that yet,” chimed in Sophia. “It looks like we’ll be heading for a war with the Dark Gods and it may be a bad idea to flaunt the integration of the Children into the Nation. Mai wasn’t just out there for revenge on Ace. She was out there because Dark Gods in a tactical center on their home world decided that they couldn’t let us work with Earth. They wanted to cut us off from humans and a potential addition to our population, not to mention steady sources of food for the next few million years. Hence the 11th hour attack.”
“If I know Ace,” said Alice, “and I know him pretty well, he’s probably planning to just go for it.”
“Right now?” wondered Sophia. “He’d just go for it right now?”
“It was bound to happen anyway. The Dark Gods replaced some ancient Sentries. And if we go look at the ruins that we preserved in the catacombs under the main temples, we’ll see that once upon a time the Sentries that used to live here sent another alien species into exile. And if we exile the Dark Gods... You know the rest.”
“Ah, the circle of life,” chuckled Sergio. “Then we go to another galaxy and play with the big boys there and so on and so forth. Or... Maybe we can change the dynamic if we become the hyper-power of the galaxy?”
“We can think about it later,” replied Alice. “An if isn’t a when so we shouldn’t get too far ahead of ourselves. Right now, is there so much as a sliver of a chance that we can overpower the Dark Gods? I’m sure someone must’ve ran it through a simulator.”
Shohei put down his fork and brought up a holographic screen of various charts, numbers and diagrams. Alice reached out, grabbed it as if the screen was a piece of glass and carefully examined it.
“Thanks Shohei,” she said.
“No problem,” he nodded.
“All right, so let’s see,” hummed Alice studying the charts. “Now if I read this right, the simulator shows that we have a good chance of a draw, but not so much of a win with a straightforward military campaign using our current fleet.”
“That’s what the data suggests,” confirmed Shohei.
Alice turned the holographic screen off with a wave of her hand, her lips pursed and her brows narrowed in deep thought. A stillness settled over the chamber for a long, tense minute until Sophia spoke.
“Maybe we don’t actually have to fight,” she mused. “Maybe we could make a deal to keep sharing power. It worked, didn’t it? There are tensions in any power sharing arrangement, so if we just iron out the dilemma with Earth, we could stabilize the situation. I’m not sure the just because other Sentries were overthrowing each other for the last ten million years that we should do the same.”
Sergio shook his head in disagreement.
“Actually Sophia, that ten million year pattern is the reason why we have to go to war with them,” he declared. “If we let the attack on Earth slide, they’ll see it as a sign of weakness, a lack of intelligence gathering capability or a lack of a will to fight or even as just plain fear. They’re expecting an overthrow and they’re worried that their civilization is living in its twilight years. Any weakness on our side would encourage them to attack, to get us before we get too powerful or too big for them. This is what it’s all about. They hit the million year as a Sentry mark and they’re looking to reassert themselves.”
“Are they really that paranoid?”
“They have good reason. Just like Alice was saying, go ask one of our scholars about the artifacts in the catacombs. There are almost ten million years of history there showing Sentry after Sentry getting exiled.”
“And as one of the Sentry-killers, the Dark Gods know very well that one day it could be their turn too, just like mobsters who killed competitors to get ahead know how easy it is for someone to get rid of them,” added Eric. “They’re worried that we’ll be the next Sentry-killers and in due time, they could be right.”
“And then what?” sighed Sophia. “We’re going to watch potential new superpowers who might want to go after us, start paranoid wars, face our eventual twilight and go into exile from this galaxy to find a new place to call home?”
The other Commanders were silent, their faces indicating a very grim, but necessary agreement with her assessment. As they reached ever closer to the level of the Dark Gods, they started to believe that some natural law punished any species that started living outside of concepts like age and time, and plotted conquests of entire galaxies. Just like the human intellect realized the mortality of the flesh, their minds realized the imminent twilight of their power in the future. To them, it wasn’t a question of if but a question of when and how, just like it was for the Dark Gods. The war with the Rexx and their use of a traitor to attack the Earth were the first stages of panic, a set of pre-emptive strikes.
“Either way,” finally said Sergio, “we’re looking at timescales of absolutely ridiculous magnitudes. Let’s focus on what’s going on in the galaxy right now, not what might happen in a million years.”
With a nod, everyone agreed to put away the depressing view of their distant future and focus on the present. After all, they still had to make it to the distant future and right now, it seemed that the path to it was blocked by the Dark Gods.
[ chapter _ 027 ]
When Ace and Dot entered their favorite nightclub, cheers, applause, offers for drinks and compliments drowning in the noise greeted the cyborgs. They were the returning war heroes, defenders of Earth, and celebrities. Even the ultra-rich and ridiculously famous who made up the club’s regulars applauded with sincere admiration. Ace raised his hands in the air as if surrendering to the crowd. Dot bashfully tried to wave off the applause. Finally, as they were seated by the owners in the VIP lounge, the cheers and applause died down.
The nightclub itself wasn’t much different from nightclubs of the past. It was huge, tiered into two levels around the dance floor which was surrounded by tables and curved couches. Colors emitted by the many holographic projectors danced on the translucent glass walls to a funky electronic tune which made Dot’s foot shake to its rhythm.
When she visited this club before, she let herself dance and catch the eye of the same curious men who saw her risqué pictures in magazines and thought what sex with her would be like. She’d go alone because her shy admirers were afraid of Ace. It wasn’t that Ace was very jealous by nature. If she wanted to experiment outside of their relationship, he would be fine with that. But his claws, fangs and red eyes naturally scared off every male in the vicinity.
She sometimes wondered about whether Ace ever thought about sex with a human female. Plenty of human women liked him for the same features that made other men so cautious. He looked dangerous and mysterious, an irresistible combination to some women. And not to mention the bragging rights would be a big mistake. Just like men competed with each other about the greatness of their conquests with the opposite sex, women also liked to talk about how they bedded an amazing or highly desirable lover. What woman wouldn’t want to be in another catty conversation about sexual adventures and be able to say that she seduced a veteran of interstellar wars, a famous and dangerous alien?
Dot heard these claims already from women she occasionally ran into, overhearing one of them brag about how Ace was smitten with her. She knew that Ace didn’t care for them. He found them fake and hollow, too interested in bragging rights and not at all interested in a person they were trying to seduce. His preference always went to the girl with who he shared his bed for well over a thousand years. From the couch of the VIP lounge, she saw him eye the girls waiving at him or approaching him with fake laziness. These scantily clad dolls wouldn’t get any luck with him tonight and oddly enough, that’s why they had such an interest in him.
They were attracted to the confidence emitted by someone who had over a millennium of experience and already had a constant companion. He was picky and they liked that. Similarly, the men who tried to approach Dot were taken by her invincibility to all of their charms. Nothing ever changed when it came to sex. Men and women both wanted those they couldn’t have, playing a silly mating game with overly elaborate rules.
Either way, neither of them could have sex with humans. That’s a line they didn’t dare cross for all their spirit of adventure, realizing full well that they would give traditionalists unnecessary ammunition to back up their wild claims about the Nation. But they couldn’t help wondering what it would be like and how would a human feel when touching them as they would touch an object of desire.
As they enjoyed the drinks and the music, a woman in a business suit approached them with a smile. Her name was Andrea. She was a manufacturing tycoon who’s fusion reactors powered half the globe and her dealings with the Nation gave her access to advanced reactor and energy grid components. Her company, Fusion GEC, was one of the first human businesses to partner with an extra-solar corporation, the Nation’s dominant defense contractor, Advanced Kinetics. Besides enjoying a very profitable business relationship with the Nation, she also became a friend of Ace and Dot.
She sat down next to them and with another warm smile started a fairly normal conversation. However, the blue-green drink danced in its hemispherical glass as her hands shook with anxiety. Feeling her unsteady hands, she gently put the glass down on a black table shaped to look like an abstract face of a clock.
“So, just wanted to congratulate you and of course, thank you for defending us from another alien invasion,” she said.
“Eh, it’s nothing,” shrugged Ace.
“That’s actually our job,” added Dot. “Just because we’re on TV so much, people started thinking that we’re TV personalities and not soldiers.”
“At any rate guys,” smiled Andrea, “I mean it. Thanks.”
“No problem,” smirked Ace. “So how is the work with Kinetics going for you?”
“Good, good. They’re well ahead of us... obviously... but we’re getting an astonishing amount of information from them about fusion technology. We could modify all of our reactors to put out twice the power they do now and double the grid redundancy.”
“Go for it. Nelson tells me that other energy companies are about to sign up with Kinetics’ competitors. Oh and what about a quantum singularity reactor? Have you guys touched on that at all?”
“Yeah, a few times. But it’s a bit too advanced to build now and a fully completed one is going to cost quite a bit. As long as we have our energy needs are taken care of by fusion, I just don’t see market demand for it.”
“Right, right. Market demand. Forgot about that thing.”
Ace chuckled as he shook his head and took a sip of his drink. Dot nudged him with her elbow.
“Be nice,” she warned him and turned to Andrea. “I’m sure you know how those scientists are. They always want a new toy.”
“Oh, I deal with that all the time,” laughed Andrea. “Ace, what’s that you’re drinking? Something strong?”
“Nah... I can’t drink alcohol.”
“Really? Are you allergic or sensitive?”
“Neither. My body doesn’t absorb alcohol.”
“Well that’s a shame.”
“You get used to it.”
Andrea blushed and took a sip of her drink, promptly putting the glass down before her hand could shake the drink in it again.
“I’m sorry Ace, I keep forgetting that your body is so different.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Andrea grew silent. Unconsciously, she rubbed her hands against each other slowly, in deep thought and clearly very nervous.
“Andrea, are you all right?” asked Dot.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine!” she tried to smile. “I just wanted to ask a question that I’m not really sure how to ask.”
“I speak a few alien languages,” said Ace to be promptly nudged in the lower ribs by Dot’s elbow again.
Andrea took a deep breath.
“Ok, here goes. How can I get a mechanical body?”
Just as she said it, she recoiled as if she expected Ace’s claws to slash her to shreds. Like any person who thinks she crossed the line, her tight, rigid posture was a defense mechanism. Chills shot up and down her spine because she realized what she asked. She was asking to be given immortality.
To her relief, Ace merely scratched his chin in thought and Dot’s face gave no sign of surprise. Finally, Ace replied with a hushed tone which reflected the weight of this discussion.
“Becoming a cyborg is easy,” he said. “All you need to do is get a special drip with nanobots that will change your body and insulate your brain.”
“You feel very odd as it happens,” reflected Dot. “It’s like all the organs in your body start growing cold and you feel tired and dizzy, like you’re slipping away. Your skin starts turning silver in patches, spreading across your body hour by hour. And then, in a few weeks you start feeling energized, revived, almost like you’re reborn.”
“What did you feel Ace?” asked Andrea as she relaxed.
“I didn’t feel anything. I was in a coma. When I woke up, took a good look at myself and realized it was me, I had no idea what really happened until I met the aliens.”