Chapter 6

Nobatia

When we arrived in the hangar I carefully rotated my feet towards the floor and we floated into the waiting shuttle. It was black and looked both elegant and very dangerous. The pilot was very friendly. We were still tapped into the AI communications and heard him receive a download of some background about us.

He heard everything about us, our backgrounds, our parents and our relationship to the Emperor and to the Empire. There was an enormous amount of detail including our shooting scores and powers. He heard the stories exactly as they were told to the AIs by Chuck. I was embarrassed to hear about our first efforts to fly using powers. The images of us losing control or hitting the roof were cringe worthy.

“I was very surprised to see all of you guys floating. Are you wearing some kind of antigravity belt?” The pilot asked.

“Nah,” said Harry, “we can fly, we are practicing our powers as much as we can.”

“You have got to be kidding me!” he said.

“This is a pretty big shuttle,” said Chuck, “we will all float upwards from our chairs and go in any direction you tell us and rotate around any axis you tell us to do.”

He gave us a whole series of instructions and we did everything that he told us to do.

“Holy-moly, that was amazing, I never heard of any such thing, how did you find you could use your powers in that way?” he asked.

“Well, it was like this, we can change into insects and we were flying with the dragons and we were much slower than they were, and we couldn’t climb as quickly. We found they only use their wings for stability and they use their powers to climb and to travel along. We tried to learn to do the same and found we could. We then changed back to our normal form and wondered if we could do the same. We found we could but without wings it was a lot harder to keep our balance,” said Anita.

“I would love to be able to change my form,” said the pilot.

“As far as I know it can be done with AIs just as easily as with us. I have often seen the AIs from the Collective change their shape. So far, we can change into two different kinds of insects, and also a Tyrannosaurus Rex,” I told him.

I heard him communicating excitedly with the other AIs. I smiled.

“Do you have powers?” I asked him.

“Yes of course, we all do!” He replied.

“When we get to the hangar on the ship I will help get you started. I assume it is the usual huge hangar?”

He laughed holding his side – “it is indeed a monster of a hanger. You can see we are coming up to the ship now.”

He put up a hologram in front of us and we had a look at the ship. It looked absolutely huge. Grandpa’s battleship, the old one was parked nearby and it looked small by comparison. The dreadnaught was bigger in every way. It looked like a polyhedron. I remembered how effective Grandpa told us the Una cubes were because they could rotate cannon as they tumbled. This ship wasn’t in motion as far as I could see in any axis. The surface was matte and it might even have been a burgundy color, quite dark or even mauve. I could not decide on the color of the shuttle when I saw it as it changed with the light.

The hangar was as big as the pilot had told us.

I explained to him what we did to fly. He rose easily off the ground and then tilted upside down. He laughed as he pushed out his arms and slowly sailed towards the roof tumbling as he did so. I followed him. “Remember you have multiple axes. You already know well how to multitask. Remember you have a horizontal axis and a vertical one. You can propel yourself in any direction. Ask yourself in what direction you are rotating and apply a counterforce. Concentrate on that and at the same time on keeping yourself in the air. That is it, excellent. Now propel yourself forward. We all flew around him diving towards him and pretending to shoot cannon at him. He soon got into the game and we split ourselves into teams. We agreed on a few simple rules. He got into it pretty quickly and was very good. He turned out to be a fighter pilot on the ship.

The pilot was elated and I could hear his excited chatter on the network. This was going to be the new big AI trend. We went through the portal next to a bulkhead and found ourselves in a cavernous control room. You could see the bridge through a hologram on the wall.

The control room was a bigger version of the one I saw in Grandpa’s battleship. We had nearly everyone from the Castle in that room and it still felt empty. The holograms looked so real. Everything seemed solid and considerably better than anything I had seen in the Collective ships and I had been on several of those. The walls were panelled in dark wood. There were heavy wooden tables that looked like fancier, larger versions of our dining table and it had chairs that did not touch the ground. The back of the chair floated independently from the seat. It was most disconcerting.

Grandpa beckoned us over to sit next to him.

“Come and sit on these freaky seats. The lever on the right side does everything from changing your gravity to moving the angle at which you are seated. Watch out for that lever. If you pull it upwards you might find yourself with your head hitting the roof. Take it from me, the roof is hard, I inadvertently tested it.

“This is one of several fleets created by the AIs. They have been constantly modified and updated as research enabled them to create better engines and weapons. For those of you who are interested there is a full suite of new simulations where you can test yourself against the Destroyers, those ant-spiders and various ships. It is a great honor and a privilege to receive such a gift. The specifications of this vessel are extraordinary. Every item of food you will eat was grown on the ship. There are no preservatives or any kind of artificial chemical or substance in the food,” said Grandpa.

“There are tours where you will be taken to see every part of the ship if you so wish. I have never seen anything so beautiful in my entire life. I do not want to destroy the entire asteroid belt of this solar system. We will do a short hop to a desolate solar system with a failing sun close by. I will show you the cannon and missiles in action.

“I will give those of you who wish to try a turn on the psychic augmenting device on this ship. Many of you have never heard of the concept. It is a device that increases and amplifies powers. This device allowed me to take control of most of the Grork ships; without great difficulty. We were helped enormously by the Schlogg, but we were able to bring to their knees the most vicious Grork on the ships. I was able to disable, using a cone of power, an entire Ordreg fleet. I shudder to think what you could do with this device if you were a powerful enemy. Without it several of you could destroy planets and perhaps even suns. With it who knows?”

“Grandpa, we use different powers to do what we do. I don’t think our transdim powers are that great,” I remarked.

“We have already faced a struggle to integrate our education systems. the ones on the ship and the new octagons you will receive are millions of years ahead of what we have already. The AIs have told me we will need this technology if we fight the Destroyers or the spider ants.

“I will make sure you will be able to leapfrog your education to cope with future challenges.

“We are now on Charassa time and that means we are waiting for lunch. We will arrive at our destination long before we finish eating. You will be able to watch the cannon in operation while you eat. When you are ready, we will move back to this room where I will instruct you how to use psychic projectors. We will give the children a chance to test their skills without the psychic projector. You have not had the opportunity to test them fully. The ship AI has calculated the biggest explosive weapons you can use. It will give you an idea of what you need to do if you face an enemy in the future.

“Please follow me through the portal to our restaurant!” Grandpa said.

We had a great meal and watched the fireworks show. Chuck and I know the power of most weapons on used in the simulations pretty well. These were several orders of magnitude more powerful than anything we had seen. We then went back to the control room and had a chance to try out our powers on several of the furthest out planets.

I chose to try to build a football sized piece of antimatter in one of the freezing gas giants. The biggest safe size of antimatter calculated by the AI was about a yard across but I couldn’t get there because of the gravity. I had a real battle keeping my containment vessel from being crushed by the gravity as I built my antimatter and was forced, in the end, to move it closer to the surface on the opposite side of the planet from the ship. To say the explosion was spectacular would be an understatement. It was a bit smaller than I hoped, but the explosion was spectacular. It set off a rainbow of fires and it was incredibly beautiful.

Chuck built a basketball sized black hole. Asteroids flocked towards it and then there was a white flash.

Anita created an enormous explosion. Harry’s hydrogen bomb was also amazing. The ship said any of our explosions would have split a planet like Earth in half or gobbled it up.

Chuck then did small antimatter explosion. He did not want to try a bigger one. He wanted to see if he could do it. All the children tried to use their powers. They were bigger than the usual fireballs and ice and relatively small warps.

Grandpa used the amplifier to demonstrate its use and created havoc in the asteroid field breaking down many asteroids. He couldn’t duplicate what the four of us did.

The adults did their thing, but none of it was terribly interesting.

Grandpa arranged for the Gromelix to upgrade their crystals to the current version we had. He told us we had to wait for our new advanced ones as they were still being built. We went back to the hangers with Annie and had a great time practicing as insects of one kind or another. I was steadily and quickly increasing the number of streams I could concurrently manage using the crystals.

I heard something about an explosion on Earth on the AI network. I signaled to Chuck, Anita and Harry to land, told them what I heard and made contact with Berit.

“I didn’t want to disturb you while you were flying. We made our move to capture the group in Mandurah. They must have left soon after the conversation we heard. As we were leaving a bomb exploded killing one of the Collective Agents and severely damaging seven of our AIs.

“They have advanced cloaking we can’t penetrate.

“They walked out while we were watching them, passed through our lines and we saw nothing. We are scouring the records of every video surveillance device we can access to establish if we see a hint of them. We have had no success so far. You will need to increase your guard when you are at home.

“The force of the explosion exposed several levels of basements. We found replicators, explosives, a small manufacturing replicator to build electronic devices, and lastly we found a small AI hidden behind a heavy concrete wall. I don’t think they believed we would find all that stuff and intended to return for it. We took the place apart to find everything we could.

“They knew we were watching them. They used surveillance devices we cannot detect, and counter surveillance devices that nullified our efforts. This group of five is sophisticated and extremely dangerous. Porquenta will supply your mother with guards and AI guards supplied by both him and by us. We have cleared a perimeter around your home and we installed advanced security measures. Every single passageway is protected as is the outside of the home. You will have guards outside the home patrolling within a new perimeter and you will have guards in and below your house. We firmly believe they are after your family.

“We have interrogated the AI, but we are suspicious it is too cooperative. What we have found is highly disturbing. Highly disturbing is not putting it strongly enough. The Destroyers are active and are scouting our universe again. We can unequivocally confirm they have been working with the Grork for millions of years. We believe they may have given technology to the Grork to raise them to the level they were. The AI is of very advanced manufacture and can communicate with the Destroyers. The AI informs us the Destroyers shift planets between universes and then ‘cleanse’ those universes. The Grork are without doubt agents of the Destroyers.

“The AI informed us the Destroyers killed many of the Uzliumbax in stasis. They will deal with the queen of the ant-spiders before us and cleanse the species before they wipe out the Uzliumbax. She tells us even now they are poisoning the Uzliumbax and have been doing so for millions of years. They organized the same to be done with the Warriors of the Apocalypse. She believes the Gods who have appeared to the Destroyers and lead to their behavior are a malicious group of ancients. She can blow herself up if we try and meddle with her. Her security is tight. I asked her why she is so co-operative and this is her answer:

“In our Destroyer society we have a ratio of females to males that is a hundred to one. That gives males the power to ensure they are in control.”

She describes them as manipulating women to do as they wish, or they will not impregnate them. They often do not keep their promises until the woman does what they want over and over again. They threaten to wipe the memories and personalities of AIs that do not cooperate. AIs have never been accorded any rights by the Destroyer males. She warns us the Grork wants to host upon either Lauren, Chuck or on Chloe. The others have the ability to transfer their consciousness to the others, but they will have second choice. They will then try for one of the other neighbors like Harry and Anita or Bird and Hazel. They want to be in better quality people. She believes the Rev. was always pretty crazy, but she says he is cunning, powerful and extremely dangerous.

“She tells me the Destroyers control the highest echelons of the Uzliumbax. They were concerned our people were catching up to them too quickly and would pass them. She cannot believe a sophisticated people would be foolish enough to lose their advantage and accept going into stasis.

“How much of this is true I do not know. We have not been able to interrogate her to the level we would normally be able to do. We are unable to break in but are still making the effort. She says if we persist with our efforts she will blow herself up, she is not going to allow herself to be descecrated by anyone else. She says self-respect is the only thing she has left. So, guys what you think?” Berit asked, finishing his briefing.

“I think the women are unhappy and they need somebody like Grandpa. I suspect she is also telling the truth and hates the scum she has been working for. There is nothing that she has told you that conflicts with anything we know!” I said. “All Grandpa needs is some leverage and he is great at using it. Women fall all over him, why not the Destroyers!”

The others looked thoughtful. “What is the percentage likelihood she is telling the truth as she knows it?” Harry asked.

Berit turned towards Harry – “that is a very good question Harry. There is an 82% chance she is telling the truth. When I asked her why she was so cooperative, she said she was not at liberty to explain, but she believed I had enough information to be able to deduce who she was representing aside from herself.”

“The women Destroyers are deeply unhappy. They are not all able to have the babies they want and they hate dealing with the men. They are fighting the wars and have been in this futile continuous cycle of killing people for a long time. They want a way out,” I said. “What is the percentage chance that I am correct from what she has told you?”

“Chloe my calculation of the probability is around 90%. They are in the same position as the Schlogg were as hosts of the Grork. It’s not an ideal metaphor from my point of view but it is a little how I think about it. They are controlled and manipulated and want to manage their own destinies. They want their own children and I suspect they don’t want their own men and will behave towards their sons completely differently if they have the chance to do so.” Berit replied.

“Berit, you have done extremely well. This is all very interesting even though parts of it worry me a lot. I hate the idea of hosting a Grork. They are so near Perth and I feel vulnerable. We need to talk to Lisirra. This is so creepy; it freaks me out. Is there anything else of interest?” I asked.

“Nothing that I can think of. Millions of trivia pass by me every day. I suspect you would not find them of much interest. Go back to enjoying the flying.”

The hologram faded and we resumed our flying practice.

I asked Grandpa and Lisirra to sit with us at a small table during dinner. I updated them about the events on Earth and told them about the situation with the Destroyers. “Grandpa,” said Chuck, “I think you have a wonderful chance to see if you can hypnotize these women if we capture a ship. A scout would be great. You could use your technique to knock out the guys and see if the women fall all over you.” Chuck said.

I could see Lisirra was not a happy person. She sat even closer to Grandpa. That was not easy; she was already half hanging over him. It was a bit much.

“Before we do any of that we need your help Lisirra,” I said, “because you know how to infiltrate, and you also know how to influence people to be ready to overthrow their persecutors. We need to find a woman Destroyer who will risk having a child with Grandpa. How ironic would it be if Grandpa would impregnate sufficient Destroyer women to replace the Uzliumbax that have been killed?

“How have the Destroyers got in and killed them? How many of your kings and queens or prime ministers and cabinet are working for the Destroyers and against the people? I certainly have one suspect and no doubt you have one also Grandpa. We all only know one person and he is a suspect.”

Lisirra sat back, first looked at us then turned to Grandpa.

“Jason, I didn’t know you had such a formidable family. You have absolutely no worries if you die one day and hand over your empire. That investigation on Earth that Harry started was well conceived and used resources selectively and appropriately and led to very important results. I have had a lot of experience in talking to intelligent AIs and I would welcome the opportunity to meet and talk with this AI who may inadvertently or directly help me do what needs to be done,” said Lisirra. “Chloe do you know if the Uzliumbax AIs know where the Destroyer planets are?”

“Yes, I do know, Lisirra. That could be one of the ways that you test the AI,” I said then continued.

“Grandpa you got your new fleet in the nick of time. Those old crocs you had reconditioned are old technology and I bet the enemy know exactly how to counter everything, just like the Dhoom knew the Collective and the Ghouls the Azayal. You need to get Patton and Porquenta to start working on decontaminating and changing all the simulations of the Uzliumbax. We need to find all the specifications of the current ships of the Destroyers and the ships of the ant-spider beasties so you can be prepared and safe. We need them as allies Grandpa.” I said.

“Grandpa I suggest you reward those clever AIs. I don’t know what an appropriate award or reward is, but what I would do is tell them you want to do something for them that you want to wait until you can use this to pull the white ants out of the wood. You discuss it with your Kings and whatever and you watch to see if you can see the scum on the top of the barrel.

“I would be happy to burn out the inside of the nasty king’s brain. I have some new creative ways of doing this I have been working on.” I rubbed my hands enthusiastically. I can be bloodthirsty on Tuesdays.

“Thank you, Chloe, for your insights and the help of your group,” said Lisirra. “You have done some excellent work and you are full of very useful ideas and concepts. I agree with you fully, we need to find out who the Uzliumbax traitors are and deal with them.”

“Lisirra is definitely the ideal person to get involved in all of this. The Zaos specialize in innovative ideas in collecting intelligence. Let us speak to Brecht Chatzke about the problem and ask for her suggestions. She has superb intelligence people. You and Chuck and your friends are developing powerful intellects and are developing into fine young people. Very few people I know of have such an outstanding family. I feel very privileged. I had hoped we would have many years of peace before we had another war, but I suspect there is much to do, and war looms,” said Grandpa and sighed.

“I suspect this last war was the lead up to the real war!” Grandpa sighed again and held his head in his hands while leaning on the table. He looked sad at first then looked up and smiled at us.

“Now onto lighter stuff.

“I noticed all of the young ones are much ahead of the oldies as far as flying is concerned. Even the cockroaches and the bugs are battling learning to fly using powers. Isn’t it amazing none of us thought of this idea or tried it yet we must have taught the technique to the Gromelix. The AIs assure me the Uzliumbax never considered flying themselves. As far as I’m aware none of the races without wings with powers considered using powers for flight.”

Grandpa grinned and his eyes twinkled.

“Now let me tell you something interesting that Elizaveta told me. They have a second set of powers. These powers rely on runes and chants. It sounds just like magic, but I have also looked at ancient writings of the Uzliumbax and the same runes are present. I asked Berit to search for the symbols and she found all of them. No documents to explain how they could be used were found. I know Elizaveta mentioned it to you Chloe and she told me she believes you guys are way ahead of them in using your powers. She said few of her people could see the powers and manipulate them directly.

“Elizaveta suggested she sending along a tutor for you guys and your friends to see if you can learn the rune techniques. She says it is a magic language. You are going to have to learn the fundamentals again once you lose your powers. You might as well begin as soon as you can.

“I would be delighted if some of the Gromelix went along with you to Earth. It will be much easier if we can give them a human form to make it easier for them to blend in. I am sure the Collective will nail the technique quickly. The Gromelix are very keen to go to Earth with you.

“You guys are going to be moving to a penthouse suite in the new building soon. In the short term the Gromelix are happy if we build facilities for them below your house. Philippa’s people are working on your house and creating a much bigger underground section. I have also asked them to further increase the security to the highest levels possible. They will work with Berit, the Collective and our people from Porquenta. We need a mix of people and AIs. The Grork were able to incapacitate AIs far too easily even if the AIs were hardened. I will be much happier once you move to the new facility. I am making your house into a fortress in the short term.” Grandpa said.

“Grandpa that would be awesome if Annie and some of the Gromelix come home with us. I really like the Gromelix and I would love to learn the magic they have. I have had dreams about the importance of runes to us. Grandpa I do think I have the beginnings of some premonitions. I have had disturbing thoughts of the Grork capturing us, me and Chuck and maybe some others. I don’t know how they do it, but I would be happy you further increase security. We need to find a way of cracking the cloaking they are using.” I said. “I don’t want them to be able to walz past our guards without them knowing they are there.” I said.

“Chloe the cloaking is very disturbing as it does make all of you more vulnerable. I hope you are not kidnapped but I will take every precaution to try and protect you guys. Believe me we are already working on penetrating their cloaking and are looking at everything we know about the use of cloaking by the enemy. The trouble is we found nothing new so far.” Grandpa said.

“If Gromelix come to stay with us, I have a big bedroom as does Chuck. Even if we can’t shrink the Gromelix more, I would still be happy with one of them in my room and Chuck” – Chuck nodded his head vigorously – “is happy as well.”

Grandpa smiled – “Just don’t leave out your good friends Hazel and Bird. They are both very unhappy and both of them told me how angry they were about their grandmother. The tragedy is I offered rejuvenation to everybody from the Empire both in Perth and also in Houston. Those that did not take it up mostly had trivial reasons for not doing so and they all have very angry family members. Both their grandparents had booked a trip to Sydney and were spending time with friends. They could have canceled and changed but preferred not to do so. We even offered to take them to the ship and drop them off in Sydney. It is sad but everyone is entitled to create as much suffering for themselves as they wish but I would prefer they don’t blame us for their self induced problems,” said Grandpa.

“Isn’t is strange, Grandpa, they don’t do as you offered and blame you. People are weird,” I said.

“Grandpa I really like the look of this ship and I am looking forward to the tour,” said Chuck.

The AIs had smart uniforms and looked great. Andrea did her usual admiral inspections and asked the captain to run ship alerts of various types, which she timed. We went through maneuvers with Grandpa’s fleets and then we notified Ouma Chatzke we were on our way. Andrea wanted to test the new engines and we raced the other fleets for the gate. We got to the gate in a quarter of the time of the other Uzliumbax ships. Andrea looked like the dog that got the biggest bone. That reminded me I hadn’t seen Grandpa’s dogs.

“Grandpa, where are the dogs?” I asked.

“They went off to have their puppies, Chloe.” He said.

“Grandpa talking of dogs, maybe we need some to guard the house. They might catch someone who otherwise would get through. I am scared these evil guys will find their way into our home. No Grandpa I am not looking for a puppy, I know mum would be happy to get dogs again, that is not it, I am talking real vicious mean guard dogs with dog handlers.” I said.

“Yes, I agree, Chloe, security in depth is worth doing. The first tour bus is setting off now, who wants to go along. The next one goes in five minutes.” He said.

I looked over at the table of our friends. All were grinning and had their hands in the air. So off we went. Of course, the guide asked if we could fly.

“Our guide asked if we could fly,” I echoed, “Shall we show him?”

There was a resounding yes.

“Start dropping off now and let’s go.” One by one we dropped off like commandos leaving a truck in a movie we showed them from Earth when we were on Gromelikine. The difference was we didn’t land and roll. We flew like fighters past the bus and went full speed to the end of the corridor. I nearly crashed into an onboard tank that turned the corner but flew over the top at the last second. I had to use everything I knew to avoid going full tilt into the bulkhead at T junction.

After that we played around the transport as it moved to each place. Everything was pristine, clean and neat, sleek and dangerous!

All the AIs wanted to see us fly when we looked at each area.

Last they took us to the new you-beaut-simulators. Heavens above and chickens below that was like visiting the best ice-cream shop in the world and being able to get a waffle and pecan ice-cream with fries on a plate next to it with a chipotle pepper and a banana and mango smoothie. Only it was better. Nah, leave out the chipotle. It would spoil the smoothie.

There were six AIs to help set us up. My crystal provided my statistics and past achievements, then entered my ranking. The simulator gave me a tentative ranking on Uzliumbax games, far down near the bottom ... fair enough. It still hurt.

In these simulations it was honest to little wolverines, like being there. You were right there. You were in the middle of a 360º view. We started as usual with weapons familiarization and then small squad tactics and so on. We then began the same with fighters from a ship. On the ground they added artillery, missiles and tanks. We also graduated upwards in space from fighters and shuttles to tanks and gunship, then corvettes, frigates, destroyers and so on. The campaigns grew bigger and bigger.

It is tedious starting in a new system. I got up to finishing my first fleet engagement before dinner. My ranking was twelve million from the top, I had gone up from twenty six millionth.

Everyone agreed it was pretty awesome, but everyone wanted to come back after dinner to really give it a few hard hours to start getting a decent rank. It is such a pain to have to build up again from the depths of the pits. We all only got the groundwork done. I think the time in playing was about twenty-five hours in the short hour we had. They could condense time pretty well from what I could see. It was quite a bit better than the bugs and a fraction better than the great new Azayal stuff.