Book 02, Chapter 18
“The engines and drives are nearly cooled,” Ocura reported over the comm.
“You’re getting slow, Mahie,” Nuta commented with a fake disappointment.
Nothing. No return fire or anything. He looked over to see her still at her station. No one else was on the bridge except them, and only they and Ocura were awake for this shift.
Nuta turned to get a better look, thinking that she had fallen asleep. Her eyes weren’t closed, but fervently scanning her screens.
“Mahie,” he called over.
Still no response. She looked down, writing out notes and looking back at her screens. Nuta considered giving her more grief, but this expression from Mahie looked a tad dire. She would be spared, for now.
He strode over to her and called her name again. This time, with the proximity, she jumped out of her seat.
“Don’t sneak up on me!” she snarled at him.
“I called twice and walked over loudly,” Nuta chided. “What’s wrong? You always get the navigational data before the engines cool.”
“We’re lost,” she admitted, her head hanging low. “But it doesn’t make sense!”
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A projection formed in front of the assembled crew. Mahie, Nuta, Ayabegei, Geib, Ocura, and Wits looked on as the known cosmos formed in front of them.
The Ultraverse is a quasi-three dimensional model. It’s difficult to articulate in written form, but I will oversimplify as best as I can.
Imagine a vast flat surface. Cover it in a layer of hard candy like jawbreakers. But then turn them into a taffy-like substance and push it down so it fills the gaps between as best it can. However, there is always a gap between these blobs, no matter how infinitesimal it might appear in scale.
That is the Ultraverse. Each candy is a metaverse and each layer within represents a universe. Metaverses on average had three layers of universes. And like averages, you can have larger metaverses of five layers next to a metaverse of two layers. All metaverses have a sense of size based on how many layers it has.
To simplify the cartography, Anlov is present in the most central area, of course.
“We started here,” Mahie declared, pointing up at a metaverse in Anlov space. Her height made it difficult which was hardly solved by her rapid jumps to supplement the pointing.
“Mark it,” Ayabegei suggested, nodding towards the console.
Mahie appeared annoyed that she was unable to do the touch recognition with the projection.
“Here,” Mahie declared, lighting up the point on the outside layer of a metaverse in Anlov space.
“And we were meant to arrive here,” Mahie stated, with a slight point and jump before turning back to mark it with the console.
The second metaverse lit up a specific point on its outer layer.
“The navigational markers confirm we aren’t in this universe layer. Our travel time should have ensured we cleared the gap between the metaverse with plenty of clearance.”
“We are in a single universe,” Ayabegei concluded.
A single universe was uncommon, but hardly unknown. A metaverse has to start somewhere, and some universes don’t fuse because conditions haven’t been met, leaving it a singular universe.
“The cosmos shift. A single universe must have wedged between these two metaverses. Reconfigure with the navigational data of the neighboring spheres. Were you not trained on these scenarios?”
Ayabegei, having solved the riddle, was ready to depart. But Mahie spoke up as Ayabegei had reached the door.
“I WAS trained on this. But I didn’t need that to know what to do. And I don’t need THIS.”
Ayabegei turned back to face her.
“I’m not an ignorant child. I’m this ship’s navigator.”
The two stared each other down. At the distance they stood, height hardly played a factor. But it always plays a factor. Geib opened his mouth, but a brief glance from Nuta had him close it.
Instead the stare down in silence persisted. Ayabegei finally approached Mahie.
“Finish your report,” Ayabegei ordered, looking down into Mahie.
Mahie didn’t respond immediately. She glared up at her superior.
“We aren’t in Anlov Space.”
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The Cardboard Box jumped through the inky nothingness to arrive within the galaxy of this single universe. It was a larger galaxy, but was the only galaxy detected.
Stealth prevented their detection as they scanned the solar systems in the area for technology levels and language. Most of all worlds that were found to have life hadn’t passed a neolithic level. However, as it approached the center, The Cardboard Box began detecting ever increasing levels of technology. And alongside, ever more familiar languages.
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At the nucleus of the galaxy was an enormous structure. A Dyson Sphere.
As per Anlov directives, as there were enough indications of known languages, stealth was no longer required as these must be contacted peoples.
And contacted they were. The Dyson Sphere responded to the Cardboard Box’s hailings and opened a bay for it to enter. After landing, their ship was met by a contingent of guards and personnel.
But they carried batons, stun rods, and cabling.
As the crew departed the ship, the contingent halted them.
“You have found this most sacred place,” an Anlov stated.
“And so you won’t need your weapons,” a Klelk beside him added. “Please leave them on your ship.”
“We won’t,” Geib replied directly. “We don’t know where we are or how we came here. Our weapons are to ensure our safety.”
A group of Raxarors nearby tensed up, gripping their batons with an audible squeeze.
The Scholars slowly reached towards their weapons and backed towards the ship.
The Anlov stepped forward.
“Please, commander, captain, whichever,” he started. “You’ve found a place where you truly DON’T need them.”
This Anlov had such tired eyes. They sank deep, grey and cracked. But something about them. They looked to be going in the other direction, coming back from a previous point. They were eyes that finally, FINALLY got 10 hours of sleep.
Geib relaxed, and so too did the others. Ayabegei moved forward towards Geib, but he turned back to her.
“Stay on the ship with the others. Vihili, Lyr, and Rib Chieuch will come with me.”
Ayabegei said nothing, only motioned for the others to get back aboard. Geib and his team handed their weapons off to Ayabegei. She had to call over Teliar to help carry them.
“This is unwise,” she warned Geib.
“If I die, you’ll get to be in charge completely,” he responded with a smile.
This humor was not returned.
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The guards led Geib’s team along a curved open walkway overlooking a wild garden. Suge noticed and stopped. Dogot stopped too, and finally Geib and the others. The Klelk from earlier walked up to Suge. He turned to parallel Suge’s gaze.
They both, or rather everyone stood in silence, looking upon this garden.
“That tree there is from the Klelk world,” the Klelk said pointing to a small fat tree.
“Yes, the E’bin’yquin tree,” Suge replied.
“Your pronunciation is superb!” the Klelk praised. “You know much about Klelk?”
“Plants more so,” Suge answered.
“Scholars, you earn your name,” the Klelk started. “Perhaps you can identify one for me.”
The Klelk pointed to an odd sort of cactus with a flower atop it. The flower had long drooping leaves, giving the cactus a hairdo.
“That’s a Messy Lad,” Suge answered. “It’s found on… found on a planet in the Breakaway Spheres.”
“The former Anlov colonies?” the Klelk asked in a surprised rhetorical way.
“The furthest place from Klelk,” he added.
They stood in silence for a moment, with only the wind blowing past the Messy Lad and E’bin’yquin to be heard.
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Geib and the others reach for their weapons, of which they had none. Suge and Dogot take fighting stances. Pip-is also takes a fighting stance, but only after a prolonged freeze. Geib activates his Cha Drive, ripping out chunks of the floor.
It stood over two and a half meters. Its infernal exoskeleton was a glossy darkest blue. Its “skin”, its fleshy membranes, while also dark blue, were covered in sickening orange vein-like colorations. It stood on its four thick, muscular legs. The legs, radiating outward from the lower body, were bestial arms with distinct elbows. Its toes gripped into the ground. From the middle point of the lower body, the torso raised upwards like a tree trunk. This chest was massive, wide, and flanked with arms. These arms were equally horrifying, reaching abnormally long, nearly down to the floor. And its head, canted forward, wore a nightmare. It had two horrifying red eyes, flanked by two smaller yellow eyes. Its nose was but two slits beneath either large eye. Its wide mouth scowled a most loathsome grimace with rows of jagged teeth. It wore as its cloak the undead stench reminiscent of diseased gums shedding rotting teeth.
A Ruuthsgathga.
Few things in the cosmos froze the blood faster.
Geib uses his Cha Drive to sculpt the floor chunks into various bludgeoning weapons. Guards flood into the room. Suge starts calling into the ship.
The Scholars stand their ground, their muscles ready to go nuts.
But…
No one approached.
Not even the Ruuthsgathga.
“Things are not as they appear,” she chittered through an Interpreter device.
“Listen and you’ll understand. I’m… Maladaptive.”
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^^For Ruuthsgathga themes playlist. “Oblivious Prey”^^
>>>On the Ruuthsgathga::
“They are beyond death.”-Maladaptive
The Ruuthsgathga are an insectoid species from an unknown homeworld. Their history indicates that their home world was long since destroyed due to their own wars.
>>>Genocide Aesthetics::
Central to the Ruuthsgathga culture is the concept “*******” which translates to “Genocide Aesthetics,” and reflects the innate relationship with death, destruction, and entertainment of the Ruuthsgathga culture. Genocide Aesthetics is the art of waging genocide on a species, typically not other Ruuthsgathga, but not excluding it. Due to it being seen and interpreted as art, there is no right way to do it as it comes down to personal taste. As some might prefer a sports car, a truck, or a motorcycle, so too may Ruuthsgathga prefer to inflict or witness specific types of extermination.
>>>Genocide Aesthetics as demonstrated in popular culture::
It’s no exaggeration to state how integral Genocide Aesthetics are to Ruuthsgathga. All Ruuthsgathga discuss, theories, strategize, reminisce, and argue about Genocide Aesthetics. It is a sport in their eyes, but also a way of life and the expression of their unique culture.
Everything from films to children’s tales feature Genocide Aesthetics. Competitions are regularly held to showcase types of Genocide to impress audiences and judges. Religion amongst the Ruuthsgathga is a pantheon of different icons of worship. Various cults of no great cohesion beyond the dogma of death revere the various means of demise. This can range from generalities, such as the worship of disease, to the worship of the concrete, such as Ruuthsgathga clique fleets. The most popular religion is the worship of the Grandest Euphoric Armada of the Delightful Ruuthsgathga Empire, and its One Who Eats Suns, the Ninth Eclipse.
>>>Genocide Aesthetics in practice::
Ruuthsgathga occupies the majority of a three-layer metaverse, covering the entirety of the two inner universes. This provides plenty of planets with sentient or sapient species that haven’t been in contact with alien species, creating a massive playground for Genocide Aesthetics. While typically demonstrated on a planet in its entirety, it can be done on a smaller scale, such as individual continents. Inversely, The Delightful Ruuthsgathga Empire’s military engages in Genocide Aesthetics against entire galaxies that have unified as interstellar communities, thus showing that scale can range to either extreme.
When a Ruuthsgathgan clique has decided upon a strategy for a desired populace, they will execute their plan while broadcasting and recording the entirety. Most commonly, the clique will approach with stealth and decode the languages and cultural identities of the soon-to-be victims. With this information on the local civilization secured, the differences in aesthetic manifest. Some Ruuthsgathga monitor the communications on the planet in real time. Some prefer the communications in curated blocks. Some want only the communications when the end is in sight.
Cultures often have diverse religions, myths, and fears. And some Ruuthsgathga see a joy in masquerading as the demons or benign gods of the cultures as the killing is done. The apocalypse can be modeled specifically after end time prophecies of the target species. Specific iconography can be replicated, and key events will be aligned.
Stealth can be maintained or it can be shattered immediately. The palpable fear of overt alien devastation is something many Ruuthsgathga find delicious. Ships obliterating cities from an untouchable orbit while a society responds with ineffectual technology is a popular sight in Genocide Aesthetics.
Conversely, a clique can choose a more surreptitious approach. Engineered plagues are a popular choice of extermination. This approach brings diversity in application. Some prefer a horrifying explosion of mortality from the plague, while just as many prefer a slower descent into total death.
All of the differences in approach signifies the differences inherent in art. The approaches listed above are in no way the only styles of portrait.
Other apocalypses can be full terrestrial invasions, mind controlling mental destabilization, or even arming and supplying one side of an already existing conflict among the natives. There is no limit as even bioengineered monstrosities have been unleashed, violating the native life forms to death in all the darkest ways of comprehension, including such examples as–
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“Enough!” Dogot shouted.
“Enough?” Maladaptive said. “Enough. Enough?! There is no ‘enough’. There is never enough to the Ruuthsgathga. Even now I feel like ripping you limb from limb and listening to your screams as you beg your gods for mercy, when the only god you’ll see is me!”
All immediately ready for this possibility.
“But…. that’s the blood speaking,” Maladaptive trembled.
“You need to know the depths of the darkness,” she continued.
She approaches. Geib tosses rudimentary firearms he crafts with his Cha Drive to the others. She puts her claws against Dogot’s skin. Dogot was frozen, looking up into the molten red eyes of the Ruuthsgathga, its claws slicing the outermost layer of his skin.
“They listen, like music. Near the end, when all hope is lost, spies and listening devices are sent down. They record the cries of fear, of despair, of death…the weeping, beseeching their absent gods and the pitiful words whispered to their dying children…”
Her teeth glistened with slime, her eyes burning through Dogot, infernal portals screaming the anguish brought by her kind. Even the sound of weapons arming didn’t pull Dogot’s gaze from her. He pissed himself. And she breathed deeply of this new scent.
“Past the uncaring sky, the Ruuthsgathga waltz to your cries of extinction.”
Dogot could hear them. He could see them…he could feel the crushing image of his own species, so long ago before reaching the stars, huddling and dying in caves, crying, begging for the sun to save them. And then silence.
“Release him now!” Geib ordered.
She gently set Dogot on the ground, back to his feet. But instead of standing, he fell to his knees, coughing and gagging. He trembled, knowing that she was looking down at him with her red eyes.
“But I refused,” she stated, striding away.
“I was a scout, sent out to find worlds suitable for genocide. I’ve damned countless people to death by simply cataloging them. I decoded languages that would later go on to shriek in agony. I learned of cultures vast and different than my own. I learned of beauty and peace only to blacken it and destroy it. It scratched, always. I was a freak to my kind as I felt something so deviant as sorrow.”
“But then I found this universe,” she stated as she looked about. “And I knew what I had to do.”
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The captain put his claws over the projections and instantly a great change was reflected. The holograms showed the universe flying away from the universes of the Ruuthsgathga.
“This is the most. Most important. A most important discovery,” the captain chittered in glee.
The others too joined in the revelry. All but one.
“We’ll return immediately!” the captain squealed. “Our reward will be most!”
“No,” came the response from behind him.
All of the Ruuthsgathga had drawn their weapons on each other. Each bickered about their share of the immense wealth they imagined.
None noticed as the runt of the group had found a weapon of her own.
Alien bodies were strewn about. They had defended this place from the Ruuthsgathga scouts, dying to the last, all holding terror on their faces.
She held the trigger down on the defender’s weapon until it clicked empty. She retrieved another and emptied it on all Ruuthsgathga who still squirmed. Who had been tormented by her peers now stood over their bodies.
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The Cardboard Box took off and departed from the system. There was no place for them here.
As they left this cosmic oddity, The Maladaptive’s words echoed in them.
“Though you mean it not, Anlov coming here will only bring pain for those who found refuge here. On behalf of all those who found peace here, you must leave. This place has a magnetism; it pulls in those who are lost. All here fled from pain. War must be unknown here.”
“Perhaps you’ll return. I do wonder which of you was so lost that this place called for you.”
Anlov Record 