First Contact

Chapter 917: Edge of Twilight

Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.

If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway. - Basic Laws of the Arch-Demon Murphy

If the Enemy is in range, then so are you.

If you really need an officer in a hurry, take a nap.

There is nothing more satisfying that having someone take a shot at you, and miss.

Don't be conspicuous. In the combat zone, it draws fire. Out of the combat zone, it draws sergeants.

If your sergeant can see you, so can the enemy.

When you are short of everything but the enemy, you are in combat.

If you can see them, they can see you.- Arch-Demon Murphy's Laws of Combat (First Global Conflict, Terra, Late Industrial Era)

The Omniqueen snarled at the image of the two ships. One was black, one was gleaming brushed steel, one was wrapped in chains and thick wire that was closer to cable, the other was flawless.

She thought she had felt hate before. Hate for that ship that was even more than she had felt for the Herd Lords or the Time Masters. Hate for that disgusting primate that had woken her from her slumber, dragging a rebellious autonomous war machine (which she also hated) along with it.

But the Hated Ship, it had made her plumb new depths of hatred.

She thought her well of hatred had been tapped.

The sight of two of the Hated Ship filled her digestive organs with bile and redoubled her hate. It was an incandescent fury like she had never felt before.

JUST DIE! she took the thought, wrapped it in hatred, and flung it at both ships.

And got two different answers.

DIE ALONE! came from the brushed steel one.

From the black and twisted vessel came something else, something different.

Hate and rage.

More than she had ever felt.

It tasted like the rage of the primate that had attacked her system, only with a howling edge of madness that twisted all of into a baying of wordless bloodlust.

The whisper beneath it chilled her marrow.

there is room in this grave for thee...

This was more than a ship full of beings who had accepted their death. She had encountered that plenty of times. Crews that hovered in the edge of death bliss, that had decided to ram with their last actions.

This was cold, cruel, and merciless.

It made her even angrier.

Who did these creatures think they were? Did they really think they could resist her? Did they think they could threaten her maj...

...except...

..the Hated Ship, by itself, was pounding her majestic vessel into scrap metal.

Now there was two of them, both maneuvering to keep her in range of their weapons while staying out of the range of her weapons. Her torpedoes, her missiles, they could reach, but only with dead drives, relying on terminal guidance drives and even then having little to no maneuver ability.

Another hit from the Hated Ship blew a hole clear through her ship, wiping away another false command center. More hits blotted away her surface mounted guns or ripped deep into the superstructure.

She jolted slightly as a High Speaker, leading hundreds of warriors in a counter-boarding action, was wiped away with a bright, almost painful snap of its death.

victory or death... either is fine...

she heard whispered by cold, bloody lips right as the High Speaker died.

She knew, without glancing, that the black, empty spikes where her own powers no longer could reach, were slowly approaching her, as sure a bladearms struck a prey creature.

For the first time in her millions of years of life, she began to feel dread as the black empty tentacles swelled at a point and then began rapidly advancing.

They were less that a mile from her, moving through maintenance spaces that had not been sealed off, that could not be sealed off and allow her to maintain the overmind.

"Oh, Queen, something is wrong!" a voice spoke out.

She looked at the three Overqueens in the chamber with her.

All three were flinched back from where a single holo-emitter had gone live.

A small immature female primate stood, flickering, in the middle of the command chamber. She was made of crimson and silver light and she looked around with burning red eyes.

"You are all going to die here," the immature primate said.

And she was gone.

The screens, manned by green and gold servitors, simple engineers and data processing servitors, suddenly flickered several times. When they came back on badly pixelated bipedal figures were visible. All jaggy, with slavering jaws. They pressed their faces on the screens, howled out shrieks full of distortion, and jumped up and down, clawing at their side of the screen.

The lights flickered and went out.

"FIX IT!" the Omniqueen screamed as the infrared emergency lights came on.

Several of the green servitors slowly turned and looked at the Omniqueen, tiny holograms flickering between their antenna as they stared at her.

"Get back to work," the Omniqueen ordered, reaching out with her psychic power to give them a slight slap to encourage them.

**DIE SCREAMING** all twenty of the greenies yelled. They all launched from their perches, their wings fluttering, pulling out tools and cutters and torches. **WE DIE FREE** Their minds were full of fury, of red ravening blood thirsty fury that was focused on the queens.

The three Overqueens cringed back from the sudden fury emanating from the green servitors.

The Omniqueen blinked, then lashed out in a near panic.

The burst of psychic power made the heads and spines of all the servitors in the command room rupture, cracking the chitin of the servitors, even those that were still dutifully working.

The greenies fell to the floor with light thumps.

"I hate the ferals so much," the Omniqueen said.

Another blast rocked the ship.

-----

Yar-38173 lunged to her feet, chainsword in one hand, SMG in the other, firing with one hand as she hacked around her with the other. She stepped on her own body, ignoring the squish of the guts leaking from her ruptured abdominal cavity.

The High Speaker in front of her used its bladearms to parry the chainsword then keened loudly in pain as the burning white warsteel teeth of the chainsword ripped away its bladearms. Ensign Harold James Earl jammed the barrel of his 12 gauge pump at the connection of the thorax and abdomen and pulled the trigger.

The bladearmless High Speaker's torso went one way and the body went another.

The Yar took a second to hack the body twice, the second slice tearing apart the skull.

More warriors were flooding in, but Yar and roughly twenty men sprinted through the gap.

A wave of psychic energy rolled down the passage and Yar braced her shoulder, slamming into it like she'd hit the front line of the rugby team when she had been skinned as Riker and played at the Federation Academy.

The psychic power hit her, she slowed, staggered, and pushed through it as more and more of her men joined her.

"VICTORY OR DEATH!" someone yelled behind her.

A fusion grenade went off with a white snap and Yar saw her radiation counter peak for a moment.

She didn't care.

That was a problem for future her.

Joke was Future Her, she wasn't going to live that long.

Howling with savage glee, she gave one hard push and the psychic power shattered into razor sharp fragments that showered down the corridor behind her.

She could sense it ahead.

That screaming, gibbering, bellowing, deep well of absolute narcissism. That overwhelming ego that dared tell her... HER... Jenny Marcus Tasha Martinez Yar-38173 that she was nothing. She was a Yar, and that meant a long history of refusing to lay down and die.

That meant surviving Turkana-IV for fifteen years. That meant surviving everything the malevolent universe threw at you and coming out the other side with your life.

I don't care what happens, but you're going to die here, Yar thought to herself, spitting out blood as she sprinted down the corridor.

She could hear her men running behind her.

Either is fine...

-----

Lord Captain Jack Pikark watched the first volley of the new and improved ISS-80102DX Dakota hit the Omniqueen's ship. Very little damage to his eyes, so he looked over at the Spok.

"Well, old friend?" Jack asked, taking a bite of an apple.

"Your evil counterpart was right, Captain, she is much tougher than our version was," the Spok said.

"And she took down two thirds of the Imperium," Doctor Lazurus added.

"Well, things are obviously different here," Jack said. He took another bite and gestured at the screen with the apple as he chewed. When he swallowed he smiled. "The Emperor was wise in allowing our upgrades."

"Praise the Emperor, his Holy Daughters, and the Warsteel Throne," Crusher rumbled, making the sign of the Holy Crown with one hand.

Jack Pikark just noticed it and didn't bother with anything else. Wesley "The" Crusher seemed to take great comfort in the Cult of the Imperial Throne, and Jack saw no harm in it.

"Confederate Dakota is firing again," his Ensign Soto said. "Direct hit. Major damage. Her shields are completely down, all weapons are hitting bare hull."

"Run the warplan, Mister Ingersol," Jack Pikark said. He took another bite and watched as the weapons all hit within five seconds.

More debris and vapor blasted from the gargantuan ship, but it kept moving, kept firing its weapons.

"Hmm, this may take a while," Jack mused. He took another bite and chewed, thinking. When he swallowed he looked over at Crusher. "Well, Mister Crusher, any ideas beyond sending you over with a triple strength away team to rip her apart with your bare hands?"

The Crusher looked thoughtful for a moment, the red glow in his eyes cooling to amber for a moment. "The transporter works. We could send over alcubierre ripple warheads to the back of the ship, in front of the engine strip, with the target for the front of the ship. Additionally, we can do the inverse, then time them to go off at the same time," Crusher said, his low growl thoughtful.

"That could create a limited cascade resonance, Lord Captain," Doctor Lazurus said.

"Well, Crusher, grab your toolkit and head down to the transporter room," Jack Pikark said. "I will notify Tech Sergeant Chen to join you."

Crusher nodded, rolling his shoulders and making his neck vanish for a moment as the heavy muscle shifted. He grabbed a toolkit from the side of his chair and jogged to the lift.

"Boy is big enough we could launch him at the Omniqueen and probably blow a hole clean through the ship," Jack Pikark grinned.

"While his mass may be insufficient, Lord Captain, I believe his anger could possibly give the Omniqueen problems," Spok said.

"Levity? Again? Old friend, are you feeling all right?" Pikark asked, tossing the apple up and catching it.

"Merely observations, Lord Captain," Spok said with a perfectly straight face.

-----

I have been engaged in combat for 32732 seconds. In that time the majority of the Mantid forces on the planet, driven by the High Speakers and Speakers, have all begun to approach me at flank speed. The Enemy's indirect fire as well as hypersonic missile and rocket attacks are easily swept aside by my point defense.

My slush is at 12% and heat is at 22%, despite the extended time of combat.

The Mantid forces obviously expect me to fully expend my ammunition at any moment. Normally, an estimate of mass and reactor output would be sufficient to guess at an enemy's munitions and fire capabilities.

But I am a Confederate Mark XXIX Bolo, in possession of creation engines and a fully repaired thorium fusion reactor.

My Commander and I are both Born Whole.

The Enemy is little more then cheap copies of one another. They react the same to stimulus. The use the same tactics. They have the same weapons, all of them plasma based, which my battlescreens are highly effective against.

I have mounted a large hill with a slow and even slope. At the top is a forest that I burn off with short bursts from my infinite repeaters and drive into the flame. Once the flame has cleared I have an uninterrupted view in a 360 degree field around me.

I have the high ground, Annie's Kin, you cannot prevail.

The meme is an older one, but Nekonya assures me it checks out with a giggling smile.

Using my Hellbore I clear away several obstructions within line of sight, then check my satellites. Satisfied with the data, I check my lingering weapons that have ID'd high levels of phasic energy.

It isn't time to use those weapons yet.

The first of the Enemy closes within optimum range of my weapons.

I do not feel pity at destroying them.

They are the Enemy.

They exist only to be destroyed.

-----

Captain Jeff Pikark of the BX-Dakota watched as another salvo hit the Omniqueen's ship.

The warplan he was sharing with his Dark Universe counterpart was carefully staged to avoid hitting the away teams.

He had six battalions of troops aboard the enemy's ship.

Despite the size, he had faith in the Yars and the Worfs.

They could get the job done.

"Heavy guns are overheating. They need to cool down," the Worf said.

"Signal the Lord Captain to open up the range, we'll let her chase us again," Jeff said. He looked at his Sulu. "Reengage the impulse engines. The time for the little ruse is over. Keep us just out of range."

"Aye, Captain," the Sulu said. "Moving to .333C."

Jeff Pikark smiled.

This was it.

-----

The Omniqueen saw the hated ship, the original one, suddenly accelerate and ground her mandibles together in hate.

The Hated Ship should not be so resiliant. It should not be able to be repaired by the primates infesting it.

It was bad enough that they were denying her power and majesty, but now she realized that they had been deliberately simulating battle damage to mock her.

HER!

She was so focused on the hated ship that she was unaware of just how close the leading, needle tip, of the dead area was.