Mindworm - Conclusion

[Googlie]

Hell hath no fury like a worm scorned………..


Under cover of darkness, they moved. They came by air, by land and over the ocean; stealthily, surreptitiously and however hard we tried, not unnoticed.

Agents reported back to their intelligence controls.

“Large crawler platform with the structure hidden by a silksteel camouflage sheath.”

“Heard screaming in my mind when I tried to get closer to observe, but it was huge.”

“Unloaded at Aerospace Center – too far to observe details, and covered anyway”

“It moved into the city last night”

“We think that there is at least one in every city.”

“Lost our best operative when he got too close. Had his brain fried by a mindworm”

“I’ve heard whispers of the codename”

“Operation deathsphere.”

Even at Gaia’s Landing, speculation was rife:

“Lal’s finally cracked – all those years without Pria, now he’s gone mental.”

“Who’s the target? All except us?”

Lady Deirdre herself wondered what sort of an alliance she was entering.

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I knew I hadn’t much time. Lal had given the order to throw energy credits at the Special project, and a tentative date and time had been set.

I had tried to intervene, but Planet was blocking me. She had become immensely powerful in her own way after the assimilation of all the alien knowledge, and I began to wonder why She didn’t take me on.

Had I indeed become too powerful for her to deal with? Was she preoccupied with her impending venture with the aliens? I attempted to interrogate her, but found her consciousness largely closed to me.

I pondered this. I recalled distant memories of my training with Sarita, and the early exercises in logic we had engaged in. Planet had originally been against my ideas, and had tried to dissuade me from pursuing my goal. She had argued that even one righteous person should be saved. After some thought, I had seen her wisdom, and had engineered the pact between Lal and Lady Deirdre.

Now that Phase two was underway, Planet was not remonstrating, not impeding, and in fact although She now had ample power to, was not blocking my psi-control of the scientists and technicians within my and my commanders’ range.

The revelation hit me like a massive psi-energy neural whip. Planet now agrees with me. I have become part of her master plan.

**Well done, Little One.**. The thought entered my consciousness like a whisper in the wind.

It was all I got. Planet couldn’t acknowledge any more.

I had been skillfully nurtured and sculpted into Planet’s Avenging Angel>

I had become Planet’s Dark Force.

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Under the Pact I had been given control of The Gaian Mindworm Corps, to oversee their contribution to the prosecution of the Gaian Morganite war.

My contribution was minimal, limited mainly to putting one of my trusted commanders in control, with instructions use our operation as a template and try to recreate the same vigor and tactics in their battle.

I was more concerned with the Ascent preparations, and in my own role as Planet’s agent.

Gently probing the minds of the scientists and technicians, I explored their thoughts, learning more of the great adventure from the alien’s perspective. I inserted some suggestions, and was gratified to see their immediate responses as they programmed accordingly.

The clock ticked on, and as it neared the deadline I opened my consciousness wide to embrace my commanders and the red Army troops.

**Prepare for Phase three.**

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The people were gathering all across Planet in the Gaian and Peacekeeper bases. In the civic square of each base had been built the Ascent. Some were serious and sober, others chattered excitedly. Families came together and stood holding hands. Others who were not going on the journey, and some curious observers from other factions were idly standing around, watching.

As the hour neared, they entered the edifices that had been built in the center of each square.

Agents were whispering into comm-links to record the sequence of events for their intelligence superiors back at headquarters. They knew that they would be grilled repeatedly on the events of this day.

A Morgan News team stood by, with holo-recording and vidcom equipment ready to record for their viewers.

The program counted down, and the temporal mechanics underwent a dysfunction shift. At the center of each Ascent gate a light slowly grew, gathering strength, until it became too bright for the naked eye. Photosensitive lenses and holo-recorders burnt under sensory overload. The light continued to grow until it focussed into a raw energy beam, and started rising, swaying, searching for the sky. Breaking through the atmosphere from over a hundred Gaian and Peacekeeping bases the energy flares rose to meet the stars as their light weakened and dissipated on Planet, leaving the handful of onlookers staring at a sea of corpses, with blissful smiles on their faces, waiting to be absorbed by Planet.

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The sensors on the lone Hive hydroponics satellite picked them up first, and relayed the signal to the monitoring station on Planet. The signal moved through the ether to the control room where the young technician was sitting raptly listening to the report from Communal Nexus, a Hive base that had been captured by the peacekeepers. He was mildly jealous that he hadn’t been in that base when it had changed hands, as even now he would have been part of the exodus.

A flickering on the console caught his eye and he glanced over.

He swiveled round in panic, unable to believe what he was looking at. Glancing at the others for corroboration, he saw that it was all too true.

The signal went dead as the Peacekeeper Orbital Defense Satellite turned the Hive’s hydroponics satellite into cosmic ash, just a few seconds behind schedule. The few seconds of temporal dysfunction had not been accounted for.

He hit the communications override button and his frenzied voice interrupted the meeting Yang was having with his war council about possessing the newly vacated Peacekeeper bases.

“Incoming.

“ Massive launch of Planetbusters.

“Every Hive base targeted.

“ETA 1 minute.”

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My commanders linked with me telepathically as we sent our psi-energy burst across planet and to the stars, not knowing if she could hear:


**Sarita, Rest in Peace**


[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited June 10, 1999).]

[WStriker]

That was a really nice story.

Keep up the good work.