“Captain, this is operator 379C-AP92 from monitoring station GZ-9W. There is an unauthorized FTL signature in your sector.”
“It appears to be from an ascendant species, GZ-S113.”
“This is their second detected FTL jump. The first was intercepted and inducted, per standard procedure. Initial investigation determined that the jump was intentional, and that the species is ready for full induction.”
“And now that a second jump has been detected, you’re contacting the nearest interceptor captain - me - to bring them into the fold.”
“Correct. You have far greater than normal allowances for reinforcements, as well. The occupants of the first ship showed surprising mental fortitude, and proved to share some sort of limited, communal hivemind.”
“Understood. Mind giving me those coordinates?”
“Control system engaged. Coordinates provided, target intercept calculated and locked. FTL jump initiating in 3… 2… 1…”
“All right crew, you have your targets?”
“Good! Punch through and get us in. Surprising fortitude or not, a small crew like that won’t compare to the mental assault of seasoned interceptors.”
As I stepped forward, the uneven terrain crunched beneath my feet. The entire landscape seemed to be made of trash and debris, though I couldn’t make out any details through the thick mist covering it. Above me words rushed through the air, interspersed with colors, lights, sounds, and the occasional smell. They all moved a mile a minute, though one would occasionally stop, scan around, then dive and grab something from the ground around me.
I stilled myself, calmed my own thoughts, and prepared an attack. A simple opening salvo, really. Suggestions of passivity, commands to relinquish control. The vast majority of races fall to those alone.
Then, for just a moment, everything sped up and stopped. The words turned, blinked, and glared at me.
“YOU. THIS IS YOUR FAULT!”
A hand grabbed me from behind, sank into my neck and reached into my skull. Cold, hot. I was everything, nothing. When I got back up and looked around, I was in an ancient forest, surrounded by nothing but the sounds of the world.
A shaking, chattering sound rose up all around me, then died down again.
Eyes blinked from the shadows as the chittering, chattering surrounded me once more.
“I know you can hear me! I am your captain! Respond!”
The forest seemed darker, somehow. The eyes continued to stare at me, the chattering rattled up my spine.
“Captain! We’re having trouble! They just keep throwing more stuff at us, no matter what we do!”
A battle, raging across space. Small craft screaming through the void, lasers tearing through the gaps and gouging deep into ships the size of stations. A planet below, torn by the signs of the same battle happening above. A moon rising above the horizon. No - not a moon. An absolutely massive battlestation, primed for war.
A deep chasm, warriors fleeing across a bridge. One falling behind, easy prey for my soldier. A moment more, and he will be mine. He takes out a weapon, shouts his farewell. A blinding light, and the bridge shatters. Falling, I grasp at him before darkness covers my view.
A young boy clad in green and a girl in pink is doing battle with my man. He is outmatched, outclassed, and doomed to fail. My man reaches for his prize, only to see it stolen from his grasp by another. Water cascades around me from above as the sky collapses and the battle resumes.
A small fleet comes into view of my overwhelming armada, arrayed around my homeworld. Doomed to fail by numbers alone, they still attack, driven by suicidal desperation. They dive in and through, picked off one by one by my superior fleet. One deploys a weapon, straight to the surface of my planet. It begins to boil and bubble, and suddenly it explodes outward, my own world a weapon used against me, wiping my race from existence.
A single man wearing a bathrobe, in a temple to his destruction. My soldier yelling at and ridiculing him, fighting him for a goal worth nothing and everything. Destroying himself with his own mistake, the temple collapsing around them and somehow allows the man to escape.
A man, collapsed upon the ground. My soldiers turning away, going to continue their work. The man rises, and my soldiers turn and shoot him. He raises his hand, and the bullets simply stop. He picks one out of the air and drops the rest, then charges at my soldiers.
View after view, battle after battle, loss after loss. My soldiers fall. They have no resistance, no way to stop it.
White faces poke out of the trees around me. The chattering resumes as the wind rushes through the trees.
“This isn’t real! None of those battles are!”
More faces appear, shaking and chittering away.
“What are you? Who are you!?”
The trees turn, and the faces stop moving. The wind stills and the silence is palpable.
“Haha, he figured it out.”
“Of course he did, he was the first in. Who else would?”
“He wants to know who we are!”
“Heh. He’s right, though”
The trees fade away, the white faces surrounding me turn faded and plastic. The ground all around is flat, covered in regular marks. Towering above me is a monster - no, a woman.
“It’s over! I’ve broken whatever defenses you weaved! Stand down or be destroyed!”
The woman rolled a large, marked object. It crashed toward me at random, before settling a distance away.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t think that’s quite right. You’re going to be stuck here for a while.”
“Nah, not even close. My mind, my rules.”
“That’s not how it works. It’s neve-”
The word crashed into me, knocked me to the ground. Sank into my very bones.
“Yes, it is how this works.”
She slithered along, her ruby scales glinting in the blinding light from above.
“See, you jumped into my head. You had some pretty pathetic protections, and you dragged your friends along for the ride. If I hadn’t gone digging through your memories in return, I’d have thought it was an accident. But no-”
She raised her hand, claws pointing toward me.
“Your race has been doing this for ages. Enslaving races, taking their very wills for them. I don’t even know how you managed it like that, you seem so bad at it. In return, I did myself a favor.”
A glittering, dew-covered spiderweb dangled from her palm toward the floor, point after point catching the light and growing new strands.
“I’ve taken your entire network - your whole race - for mine. You see, we had a fair idea of what happened to the first ship we sent out. We were prepared for the worst, and given rather impressive blanket permissions to do as we saw fit. Not quite enough to declare war, obviously.”
The web shook and shimmered, held in front of her gaze as she watched it grow.
“Fortunately, you let me take the initiative. War as we see it was already delcared by you and yours. And then you handed me this truly wonderful beauty on a silver platter. You know, your people didn’t even manage to do a collective right.”
A hideous cube of conglomerate metal tore through space, piloted by monsters of flesh and machine made one.
“Anyway, you’ve effectively given me your entire species. I even managed to draw them all in here. Every. Last. One. And since you’re in no position to reject my request for an unconditional surrender, I’ll just move right on ahead.”
“As a duly appointed representative of humanity, I accept your surrender and charge you and your race with heinous war crimes beyond counting. You and your race, by your own memories, are hereby declared guilty. Your sentence is another matter entirely, though. It’s actually pretty simple. I can even spell it out in one word.”
areudirty
2087
tangentwithtanner
