Dark Cascade (Galacticide Series Book 2) by Boehmer Bert-Oliver

Author:Boehmer, Bert-Oliver
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SpringwaldWeller
Published: 2022-11-14T00:00:00+00:00

19—Buying Time

4007 had decided quickly, forgoing initiative, involving risk, but the multi-aware prediction models favored most outcomes. The battle was supposed to be a decisive victory against the humans, ending with the destruction of the Adverse Singularity, when suddenly, tracking buoys inside the sphere drive bubble had registered incoming vessels. The lead vessel showed Diin Ṛũl’s flagship ID—the highest-ranking slaver lord of the Võmémééř had made the journey here to find and punish the escapees personally.

Short-term predictions looked disastrous, especially when the unexpected boarding attempt by the humans reached 4007’s command room. However unlikely it seemed the boarders could overcome the diin-sized blast door, protected by 4007’s false reality projection, it had to prepare for this option. Doing so paid off, though not for the decoy core 4007 left in its stead, which was destroyed by a berserk Traaz.

Being crammed into a prison cell with five more AI cores was humiliating, but surrendering to the human fleet bought 4007 time and gave it options. Ṛũl’s presence meant the diin had declared this expedition a raid, or a great raid even, in order to justify a significant force crossing intergalactic space. He was here to hunt 4007 and its followers down, but being on a raid meant he could not ignore this galaxy and its remaining riches, infrastructure, and inhabitants. The humans had put up a defense against 4007’s fleet, and in almost all realities, they would do the same against attacks from Diin Ṛũl’s forces. The diin would have to fight his way through this galaxy.

4007 knew where Ṛũl was going; it intended to beat him there and leave this galaxy, which had turned out to be inhospitable for 4007’s vision. It also knew how Ṛũl had found the escapees. Evolving in a small galaxy with little baryonic matter, fewer than 10,000 stars but high dark matter content, the diin sub-species had an innate understanding of the gravitonic underpinnings of the multiverse. The technologies they had developed over eons were impressive, and they had the means to scan deep into intergalactic space, receiving information much faster than methods based on classic causality speed. In this galaxy, however, such scanning array technology did not exist, and they could not have brought one as they were impractically large, even by Võmémééř standards.

Once 4007 and its followers left this galaxy in favor of a new destination, Diin Ṛũl would have no way of finding them again. They only had to get there first. 4007 decided it would throw this entire galaxy into the Võmémééř’s path.

The forcefully extracted memories of the prisoner AI cores had shown how this could be accomplished. A single individual unit of Those Staying Behind had adopted a short name instead of the 125-digit ID—just like 4007—and called itself Me-Ruu, becoming a successful negotiator with the Traaz and the humans. 4007 imitated this behavior and introduced itself as the single representative and negotiator for the escapees—Bo-Sni.

The humans were wary and careful not to embrace the escapees easily. They mistrusted their

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