Stellar Rampage by J.S. Morin & M.A. Larkin

Author:J.S. Morin & M.A. Larkin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781643550732
Publisher: Magical Scrivener Press

In her ambassadorial quarters, Klxzark pored over reports of the world-eater’s predations in eyndar space. The mammalian plague had infested countless worlds and now felt the wrath of something equally implacable and greedy.

Poetic.

Unfortunately, the supposition of a moral code for the world-eater fell apart upon close examination. The stuunji of New Garrelon had been helpless, hapless creatures, simply in the ravenous beast’s path. Any agency of a universal ethical imperative could not have commingled the two species in such indiscriminate retribution.

Tulera had fallen. A minor planet, the mining colony had been primarily populated by slaves of the eyndar and a disproportionately small garrison to keep those oppressed workers from rebellion.

Now, all shared equally in the freedom of death.

That was on top of the 980 million ershorass dead on Ershalon.

“Perhaps I should hold a Renewal Ritual for the planet.”

Somehow, simply witnessing snippets of long-range scanner recordings and reading text reports seemed inadequate. The eyndar were receiving judgment, whether with the intent of the universe behind it or not, but the enslaved multitudes deserved better than an unremarked passage to oblivion.

The door chimed.

Klxzark triggered the controls remotely.

“May I enter?” Fujita Hiroko asked.

“As always,” Klxzark responded. She gestured with one hand for Fujita to enter. “Your demeanor has changed since last we met.”

It was easier to convey her thoughts without worrying how the translator would interpret her words.

Fujita entered agitated, muscles tense. It was such a telling physiological response once she learned to look for it. The idea of such an exposed reaction made keeping an emotional state secret nearly impossible—one of the many, many pitfalls of an internal skeletal structure.

Unusual now, for Fujita, who often lacked any emotional response to stimuli, so far as Klxzark could tell.

“How many more star systems have to fall before your people act?”

Klxzark cocked her head and straightened her antennae. “I have previously informed you, we lack⁠—”

“You lack the will to fight. Armaments are not your blockage. The threat is out there. Multiple reports have confirmed the void kraken has increased in mass by 14 percent since arriving in our universe.”

“I am aware of the rate of growth. The broodfleet has calculated that we can produce ships faster than it is currently growing.”

“A numbers game?”

“Strategically advantageous patience.”

“Meanwhile, other planets, other species suffer. Ershalon was mostly innocent species.”

“Pieces of the machinery supporting the Eyndar Empire. Any effort that weakens the Zheen Collective to preserve the Eyndar Empire will not be politically acceptable. The expected mean time to encounter the world-eater in zheen space is 2.6 years.”

“And billions will die in that meantime.”

There was no other way to get this message through to her human friend. “But they won’t be billions of zheen lives.”

Fujita was silent a moment. “I thought you had begun to appreciate non-zheen life.”

“Personally? Yes. To a degree. I appreciate individual lives. Personally caring about the lives of statistical quantities of mammalian, reptilian, and amphibian creatures eludes me.”

Fujita shook her head. “So, until the kraken reaches zheen space, you’ll do nothing, no matter what it destroys.” She turned to leave, her emotions again suppressed or missing entirely.

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