Chương 164: Nova Wars - Chapter 134

They started it. We'll finish it. - Confederacy of Aligned Systems Faces slowly turned away from the Detainee as she stared at the Lord Captain.

"Well?" the Detainee asked.

"By all means, do it your way. It is not my desire to thwart you, madame," the Lord Captain said. He leaned back in his command throne, looking at ease.

"I have your oaths you will do nothing to harm the ship or its crew and that is enough for me." The Detainee snarled.

"Might I suggest first this planet and then the next?" the Lord Captain asked. He motioned at the multiple holotanks full of data.

"The first Mar-gite cluster won't reach attack range for at least 16 hours." The Detainee nodded slowly, still looking angry. She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket, slowly lighting one. It didn't make sense to Nav how the Detainee was able to light up when she had admitted the forcefield was only a few microns from her skin.

The Detainee reached up and touched her temple with her index and middle fingers of her left hand even as she moved forward, taking a drag off of the cigarette held by the same two fingers of her right hand.

"Once you're done feeling sorry for yourself, get your asses up to the bridge. Rat girl, come stand by me," Nav heard over her link. Nav moved over, standing next to the holotank, the Detainee only a few feet away. Even with some distance, even in vacuum, the Detainee seemed to put off some kind of aura of hot malevolence. It felt like prickly all over her skin, even through her armor and uniform and fur. She kept expecting to smell burnt pelt hair or worse.

The Detainee brought up a context menu and quickly twiddled her fingers through it. Suddenly the hologram in the middle of the table winked out and the holographic menu vanished. The screen in front of the detainee, on the lip of the tank, lit up with branching tree style menus. Nav watched the Detainee speed through the menus.

"Sir," one of the people at the security consoles said, starting to stand up.

"I see it," the Lord Captain rumbled.

"Let it go." The holotank came to life again and the Detainee stepped back. Nav could see the planet slowly rotate in the tank. It had a single protocontinent and a handful of large islands on the other side. Clouds started to form in various places on the globe.

"Infusing now," Dee stated, her voice cold.

"It will take roughly twenty minutes for ignition levels."

"I don't understand why you are using this method," Nav said. The Detainee looked at her.

"Fire. FOOF will use fire. Energetic fire that will devour everything, even dirt, evaporating the oceans to tear apart the mist to use the component atoms for fuel," the Detainee said.

"Non atomic, non-anti-matter, no real esoteric stuff." She exhaled smoke.

"It isn't even spooky or strange particle mix. Just straight FOOF," she grinned.

"Since the little bastard is made of some nasty stuff, lets use nasty stuff back." Nav nodded.

"And use stuff from this universe, not alternative substances allows you to see if the insects will require esoteric matter to combat." The Detainee looked over at Nav, slowly nodding.

"Yes. Your educational profile, the folds in your brain, the firing speed of your neurons, your ability to absorb and process information is why I chose you," she took a drag then spoke as she exhaled.

"Keep using that intellect or I'll toss you out of the airlock." Nav just nodded, watching the screen. It looks like storms were brewing. The elevator door opened and the Immortals filed onto the bridge. The two goats were back in armored vac-suits. One was wagging its little tail as it scampered forward to butt the Lord Captain's armored leg with its little horns. The Lord Captain chuckled, reaching down to pat the goat's head as it rubbed its horn against the armored leg and made happy noises.

"How do you want the data?" Legion asked.

"Toss it to my implant," Dee stated. She looked at Legion and made a tossing motion.

"There's the location, same method of coordinates you use. Get the elves out of there. They've been there for long enough that I want to debrief them," she jerked a thumb at Nav.

"Take the rat with you." Legion nodded slowly.

"All right. She won't like it."

"I don't care," Dee said, looking back at the tank.

"Ten minutes. Every second here on out that the clouds haven't ignited raises the chance that just atmospheric friction will cause it to ignite."

"It's FOOF, it'll ignite the second it thinks it's the most funny or will cause the most damage and lament," Menhit said softly. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work. Legion held his hand out toward Nav.

"Take my hand. Trust me, that's the easiest way for you," he gave a smile.

"And the least painful." Nav just closed her eyes and nodded. Painful seemed to be part and parcel to being around the Terran Immortals. She reached out and took his hand. It felt like she had exploded. Like every cell in her body had ruptured and spewed out the internals into the uncaring void. She saw flashes, fragments of stuff that made no sense. A planet turning below. Oceans she knew were poison, air she knew she couldn't breathe.

She reached out one naked hand and pressed the button so that everyone on the planet could hear her.

"I..." she said. She took a long slow breathe.

"Am Legion." Watching herself appear over and over, geometrically, filling the space with armed and armored versions of herself that were her. She looked at herself through a million million eyes. She held conversations with a dozen people at once, her brain parsing all the conversations, holding them easily without getting mixed up. Touch a being and having its DNA string appear in her mind, then watching it fly apart as it was automatically sequenced and examined. All of it.

An ageless looking woman with black hair and sharp features. Her dark eyes were full of affection and care. Wee... It all shattered and she was on her knees, coughing into her suit. She gagged as something seemed to fill her throat, long strings down from her mouth to something blocking her breathing. Fingers touched her visor and pulled it away. She vomited up red strings of code. The computer code filled her mouth and she spewed it out on the grassy floor.

Another touch to the back of her helmet and it folded up into her collar. She spewed out more code that glittered and them broke apart into tiny blocks before shimmering and vanishing.

"I greet you," she heard. The voice was musical but stately at the same time.

"I see you," she heard Legion say.

"I am Sings with Summer Leaves," the voice said.

"May I know who I gaze upon?" Nav spewed out more code. She could feel her datalink tingling and her throat filled with computer code somehow. It made no sense but Nav knew better than to question things.

"That is Commodore Navelu'uee, of the Dra. Falten Imperial Navy, a loyal daughter of the Empress," Legion stated.

"She is currently suffering from sickness inflicted upon her by my method of travel."

"This is Girl of a Warm Heart, this is Smiles as the Stars Glimmer," the strange voice said. There was a pause.

"We are elves of the ancient tribes." There was silence for a second. Nav threw up green lines of code that had amber edging.

"Might we know your name?" the voice asked. There was silence again, then a sigh that Nav could feel the tension of even as she spewed out blue code and amber coding dripped from her nose.

"You may call me Victor," Legion said.

"Her vomit is leaking from her nose," a female Terran's voice said.

"She will be fine. Her people are resilient," Legion stated. He stated something in a language that Nav's implant did not translate. The other voices answered in the same language. Nav slowly got up. The last mouthful had been jagged, rough, and she was surprised her throat and mouth were not bleeding. The people were Terrans, only with canted eyes, ears that had long tops that came to a point, sharp chins, high cheekbones. Their hair was so black it was almost blue, their eyes dark brown, almost black.

They looked very distinguished to Nav as she accepted a soft cloth that Legion held out to her without even looking in her direction. The female's hair was long and braided into braids only as thick as Nav's middle finger while the male's hair was down past his shoulders but unbound by anything but a single copper ring by the back of his head. Why did he need me if he speaks the language and not even my translator will help me, Nav thought. Legion stepped back, shaking his head.

"She never once told you about me?" he asked. The trio shook their heads, the beads in the hair of the two females clicking.

"Nav, if you would," Legion said.

"Do what?" Nav asked. Legion gave a sharp, almost frustrated sigh.

"Tell them that they can either leave this place or die when the Detainee planet-cracks this place. They don't quite believe her." Nav nodded, stepping forward.

"The Detainee is powerful. She possesses the strength to shred planets or detonate suns. If she has said you should leave, then you should leave," Nav paused.

"We are here to help you." The male lifted his chin slightly, looking down his prominent nose at her.

"So she had said to some of our people. She states many things, both in dreams and in thoughts. But how are we to know she is not lying or some of her words are not being misconstrued as they have been stated withing a dream?" the male asked.

"You hide here from the beetles and the Mar-gite," Nav said.

"If the beetles are disturbed, mechanical means are used to attack us. Should we resist too strongly, the starfish creatures are brought to attack us," the man admitted.

"This has forced us into hiding for many centuries."

"That's what I just said," Nav replied, frowning. She looked at Legion.

"Am I saying it right?" Legion opened his eyes, his expression looking pained.

"No, you're saying it right."

"We hear and understand your words. We are ensuring that you are correct in your knowledge and understand the full context of why we commit the action we do," the male said. Both females nodded. Nav closed her eyes for a second then opened them.

"She really doesn't care beyond debriefing you on what you have seen and experienced," Nav stated. She drew herself up slightly.

"Your lives mean nothing to her. The fact she offered you salvation is something you should be grateful for."

"Our gratitude is reserved for those who assist us when..." the male started.

"She doesn't care," Nav snapped.

"She will take what she wants whether you like it or not, whether it kills you or not, or she will just decide you are too much of a bother and wash her hands of you."

"We are not defenseless, we can..." the male started, his severe face starting to show a hint of anger.

"Do nothing against the Mar-gite and even less against the Detainee. She is older than your people, stronger than your people, wiser than your people," Nav snapped.

"Fine, you aren't grateful. We're here as a courtesy to try to evacuate you cleanly. If you don't want that, we'll return and she'll do it her way." Nav rubbed her upper arms.

"And you won't like that." Legion stepped forward.

"I would advise that you bring us to talk to your leaders." A young female ran up and whispered in the ear of the younger of the two females. That female whispered in the ear of the older one as the one that had carried the message retreated quickly. The message was then passed to the male, who looked shocked.

"The planet is on fire. Even the ocean burns," the Elf said. Legion nodded.

"Yup." The man snorted.

"A demonstration of..." Nav broke in.

"Nothing." Everyone turned to look at her.

"It isn't a demonstration. She's going to rend that world down to the bedrock with fire then crack the planet itself. She isn't doing it to demonstrate anything or impress anyone," Nav snapped.

"You don't understand." The male elf looked uneasy for a moment.

"The People do not understand what?" the male asked. Nav looked at Legion.

"Should I even bother?" she asked. Legion looked thoughtful for a moment.

"We, the People, do not understand what?" the man repeated.

"Sure. If you want. I'm about ten seconds from doing it my way," Legion said.

"She doesn't care about you," Nav said.

"That is not the concern of the People, we are..." the man started to say.

"Not human," Nav said. She looked down at the ground.

"You aren't human...

"That means she doesn't care." Legion's smile made that simple truth hurt Nav all the more.