Kick the Sphere 25 (Patreon)

Kick the Sphere

Chapter 25

-VB-

Alan

1 day after the expeditionary fleet’s return…

“... and once we wiped out the militarily-relevant industrial base of the planet, I ordered all of the replicators to form into spaceworthy models and return to the carrier,” Catherine - our dear Kar98k - reported. “Once the fleet was ready, we warped away rimward, dropped out of warp just outside the system, and warped straight home.”

“Good job,” I told her with a smile. “At the very least, they won’t be able to directly path us, and the people of this era don’t have extra-solar satellites in place to detect interstellar movement. And as for the results of the expedition?”

“Handicapped replicators achieved an overwhelming victory with less than 1% of the original mass lost and over nine hundred times mass recovered as new, if dependent, replicators.”

“And the dependent replicators?”

“According to the data we’ve acquired, it seems any construct with less than 50% of its mass composed of the original replicator blocks will start to see an exponential decline, reaching non-viability at less than 1%.”

I hummed as I looked through the report she submitted and arrived at the page she was describing.

All of the “original” replicators were ones that were built using Resource Generators and the naquadah they produced. Naquadah definitely had something to do with producing the Keron pathways that made up the energy and information replicator’s intra- and interblock network if replicator blocks made off-world didn’t work properly.

While I could mass purchase Resource Generators to ram up the replicator production, I would needlessly invest my points into bottlenecking my own production.

“Unfortunate, but I am glad that we were able to test out the replicator’s reliability in a controlled setting,” I replied.

Catherine didn’t reply, holding to her military stance.

I sighed. “You can relax and have the rest of the day off. Your sisters are out and about and most of them should get off their self-assigned work before 3.”

She gave me a salute and left my office.

I looked back down at the report and all of its data.

Replicators proved to be effective but ultimately it would be limited by my own resource. Replicators would be my perfect defensive tool of war, scorching the earth to prevent salvage and new construction alike, but it would never be used to project power outside of specific instances.

No, I needed something more basic than replicators.

I opened the Catalog and began to look through its list of items. I briefly glanced at the corner of the computer-like ethereal screen only I could see. It’s been some time since I visited the Catalog and I had apparently saved up 900 points.

900 can get me the most powerful item on the Catalog.

Then I found something very nostalgic. So very nostalgic.

I glanced at its cost. Only 600. I would have 300 to spare if this investment went sideways, but considering what it did in its original universe, I doubted it would be a bad investment.

In fact, this little purchase will outdo the battlemechs in scale.

“After all,” I muttered to myself as I gained the ability to strands of life. “Essence exists almost everywhere… and inside battlemechs.”

Humming, I pulled out a letter knife from one of the drawers and pricked myself on the thumb. My mind immediately zoomed in on the drop of blood and all of the cells within. I saw what were red blood cells but my Essence Weaver immediately ignored those in favor of the white blood cells and some of the bacteria that had been swept up as the blood came out.

“Oh, this is going to be fun,” I hummed as I began to physically weave the DNA with the very cells themselves.

-VB-

Hermes

He saw the report and knew what it meant.

Replicators are limited. They - he and his brothers - were nonviable as weapons of war for their father. They could spread out but they could never wage war in the manner that made replicators special in galactic warfare.

Now, all of his predictions and stratagems had to be thrown out. He had to start all over again, and that pissed him off.

But more than the frustration at recalculating everything to help Father, it was the creeping fear that he would be left behind to garrison some important but ultimately boring world far from the frontlines. Worse, what if … what if he and his replicator mind brothers were useless?

What if they were more than useless? They took up space, time, and energy to maintain. What if … they were a net loss for his father’s future plans?

That would be the worst.

… But father will know of a way to make use of them, right? He had to.

Hermes transferred his consciousness from his main body to that of a replicator spider near Father’s office and quickly made his way over. Sure, he could have talked to Father through the comms, but there was something substantial about a face-to-face meeting. When he arrived outside Father’s office, he heard Father speak.

“... That’s interesting,” Father’s muffled voice came out. “Let’s try this then.”

Was Father experimenting with new things again?

He pushed the door open -.

And froze.

Sitting on Father’s desk was a blob of flesh, slowly expanding and then shrinking like it was breathing. It didn’t look like anything, just a mass of flesh, but it was …

It made Hermes feel anxious.

“Father?”

Father looked up and then back down at him. “Oh, I didn’t see you enter.” There was a pause before he smiled. “Hermes.”

He quickly skittered over to Father and then on top of the desk but kept himself as far away from the flesh blob as he could. “What is this, Father?”

“This? I’m trying out new things.”

“Yes, you try new things often, Father. I will, however, say that your attempt at ‘Onslaught’ was a horrible waste of resources.”

Father grimaced. “Yes, I know. How was I supposed to know that the metal fatigue couldn’t take the two forward wings?”

“Father, the Onslaught weighed in at five million tons. Each of those wings was one million tons. A connection only one hundred meters in radius, no matter how well constructed, was not going to hold onto one million tons when the ship turned ninety degrees in under thirty seconds.”

“... I thought it would with the advanced materials, okay?”

Hermes rolled his eyes, though this action couldn’t be copied on the replicator spider. “... And this?”

“Ah. You must have read the report already. You really are the most industrious of your brothers.”

Hermes just cleared his throat. “I am merely keeping up to date with everything that happens in your empire, Father.”

“Ugh. It’s not an empire. Why do you insist on calling it that?”

“Father, you control the entire system. You have multiple fleets of ships, both civilian and military, patrolling not just the system but also all of the planets. The only people living on this planet either live in terror of us or have pledged their loyalty to you in one way or another, and on top of that, you rem-.”

“Okay, okay. I get it. Just because they do that doesn’t mean I’m an emperor or something.”

“... Father, both Aunt Janice and I have noted before, there are weird things that you like to run away from. This seems like one of those.”

He grimaced. “Whatever,” he grumbled and refocused on the flesh blob.

“... And what would that flesh thing do, Father?”

“Hmm? Oh, this? I’m trying to replicate something I saw before in my past life.”

Father’s past life, a confirmation of reincarnation, was something that fascinated people, both among his kin - Ares and Apollo - and among his aunts - the T-Dolls.

The blob suddenly distended as something inside of it pushed out. Hermes quickly flared the replicator spider’s sides in a show of aggression and in preparation for a jump, but Father stopped him. Father watched with eyes alight with curiosity and fascination as the flesh sack tore open, showing him with spittles of blood and some kind of yellowish amnionic fluid.

A scythe-like arm came out, followed by another, and then a head.

The creature crawled out of what Hermes now realized was an egg.

And the worry that had faded in his conversation with Father came back in full force as he watched something that could - and probably would - replace replicator spiders.

“This, Hermes, is a zergling, and it’s my solution to supplement the replicators.”

Father was already replacing them.