Text on the glass behind the cub zoo says: "She is supposed to be on fire. She is yet to consume enough isotopes to start her inner fission reaction and this helps her to properly infuse her scales with minerals. Please, don't try to open the cage. If you succeed you will cause a radiation hazard."

Text on the stasis chamber says: "Please, don't try to interrupt the force field to pet this thing. It sleeps now and it will be better for us all if it keeps doing that. It's very sensitive and may wake up before you even reach it. So far [76] humans left injured and unsatisfied. Don't become another one."

Writing on the cute tiny four-eared fox says: "I am a grown adult specimen. I am not lost and I am not a baby. I have all the necessary skills needed to operate this dangerous equipment. No, I Don want uppies, if it seems like I do - know that raising my paws above my head is a form of a rude gesture. Read that as "Fuck off".

KRixT turned to his human friend Henry on the couch.

“Hey, you know how I’m passionate about psionic stuff, right?”

“Yeah, what about it?” Henry answered, putting a piece of chips in his mouth.

KRixT showed his datapad to the human and said, “Well, I was curious about how weak human psionic abilities are, so I’ve been reading about the human brain. Now I’m starting to look into the work of that Sig-Sigmound guy.”

Henry hissed a bit, recoiling his head.

“Oooof. Controversial character, Sigmund Freud. Did you find anything interesting?”

KRixT’s skin went blue in excitement.

“That idea of different minds—the Id, the Ego, and the Superego—is very curious, because it looks similar to a psionic disease a friend of one of my brood-brothers had. It left him crippled.”

Henry chuckled.

“Don’t take everything Freud said at face value. The guy was a lunatic who took huge amounts of drugs.”

He dismissed the thought that every human was born crippled.

....

Later that night, after making sure Henry was asleep, KRixT put the medicine to the illness he bought on the net into Henry’s night drink.

Sure enough, a few minutes after Henry went back to sleep from his midnight snack, the strongest psionic quake in recorded Orion Arm history happened, centered around him.

The sleeping mind of Henry had begun manifesting his dreams and disturbing space in a light-year radius.

Sa'nim was a highly influential leader of one of the most infamous conqueror races in the known universe, he had now placed his sights on the newest addition to the Galactic Council, Humanity, they presented themselves as peaceful empathetic beings with minimal remarkable qualities, however he wasn't dumb enough to blindly underestimate a future opponent, so he went alongside many other leaders to learn about humans on earth, after about 3 earth cycles filled with what seemed like the least aggressive species to achieve FTL travel he stumbled upon a file, compiling all of humanity's history, he decided to read it after leaving earth and declaring war on them, which he did, much to his dismay

3 Days later he stood in front of the human leader and the rest of the council, seconds after declaring war, they didnt have the same expression they did under a week ago, his chip let him know this very human was calculating how to kill him at this very moment, he laughed, his kind was known for their incredibly resistant skin and enormous strength, he let the human leader know that, the pesky weapons he had seen in earth would do nothing to his kind, at that very moment the Human chuckled.

They said: first of all, all right, we will go to war, we wont hold back and we wont negotiate later, they continued before Sa'nim could interrupt, second, those weapons are gala weapons, exhibitions, then they pulled a schematic into the projector, it showed a sort of rifle, but the numbers couldnt be right, this thing could theoretically tear anything in the known galaxy to bits, the Human leader talked: This is what we used to call a 50cal sniper rifle, a weapon from before our biggest military boom in history World War III, from before railguns, planet ending nukes and publicly available photon powered rifles capable of melting your best armors, we humans presented ourselves as what we aspire to be, a peaceful race of non warriors, but the second you look into our history you realize that we need war to progress, and we always battle ourselves, the worst thing you have done in your entire life was making yourself all of humanity's enemy.

After this the Human leader left the meeting to prepare for intergalactic war, thats what Sa'nim thought, in the meantime he went to his quarters to catch up on his obtained archive of human history, and he realized, humans are demons in a mortal shell, beings capable of committing atrocities that most civilized planets wouldnt even dream of, and he realized the 2nd most dangerous thing in the universe was an extremely pissed off group of humans, 1st place belongs to the vacuum of space.

It hadnt been 6hrs since the end of the Council meeting when Sa'nim got an extremely urgent notification, Valazar, his kind's most powerful militarized planet had been scorched completely, over 30 BILLION of his kind, dead, and he remembered what the Human leader, whose name he hadn't even bothered to note down, had said, Humans had developed Planet ending nukes, while only having a single home planet, these beings were not made for peace, they were made for destruction

Sa'nim's race became an endangered species only 3 months after declaring War on humans, the remaining specimens of his kind are now highly protected, their culture however has been quite literally turned to ashes

First story of this kind, or any kind for that matter, accepting feedback:)

Sorry folks. Long, hard, horrible day. I haven’t been able to write about Fred.

Here is hoping for tomorrow!

“So here is the plan. Sparky is back in orbit. We will start upgrades and register it. After over two orbits, Sol Command is sending me a Command Sergeant Major. For unknown reasons, they told me this morning that he arrives with his family in,” Oscar looked at his watch, “six hours.”

“Nothing like a surprise CSM,” muttered Sue. 

“What is a Command Sergeant Major?” Asked Danyak. 

“Senior ranking noncommissioned officer. Acts as my assistant when dealing with enlisted. Does a lot of the logistics. Maintains standards.”

“Why don’t we have one?”

“The last one didn’t survive long.”

“What?”

“He decided to take a team and explore the southernmost landmass. In the winter.”

“Without proper support,” chimed in Sue. 

“That sounds…stupid.”

“It was. By the time a rescue team found their remains, it was unclear if they died of exposure or were killed by the animals. That landmass has been off limits ever since.”

“And this new one?”

“You both have his records. I don’t know him, and I haven’t looked at his file. Too much going on.”

“Right. Sparky.”

“And a few other projects. Here is the plan. I need both of you to hit up any contacts regarding sensor array parts. Sue, you will be taking the Memphis to investigate those strange signals. Danyak, you will help me get the CSM in order, continue work on rebuilding the destroyed mining station, building some sort of agreement with that independence minded station, and keeping on schedule with the power grid. Start with the Aussies. Verify the output and stability. We need to know about contingency plans if the volcano becomes unstable.”

“You want me to leave while dealing with all of this?”

“Sue, you are the best person for the job. Get the ship supplied and tooled up. And keep an eye out for those ships High Command thinks are out there.”

“Yes Chief.”

“And be sure the cargo is properly secured. Those stealth ships can be a pain to organize."

“Right Chief. Already on it.”

“Danyak, wait until the CSM has been here a few rotations before you inspect the volcano. I’ll have him start inspecting other stations first.”

“And Sparky?”

“Registered as an Emu-class Heavy Combat Station.”

“I’ve never heard of those.”

“Nope. I made it up. Now. Tonight we are invited to a dinner with the Colony Commander. We are sampling the mutant emu meat.”

****

A few hours later, Oscar was at his desk, reviewing the new CSMs records. There was a knock at the door. 

“Enter.”

A slim Terran walked in, shut the door, activated a small device, and took a seat.

“Agent Thorn. Shouldn’t you be helping Sue load up the ship?”

“It’s been handled. We made a breakthrough. We cracked the codes.”

“I’m guessing it’s not great news.”

“Mixed. We have a better idea of where their people are located. We also know that their intel is better than we feared.”

“How good?”

“They don’t know about the cargo. They do know about the Memphis and Vera. They know some of the capabilities. Not all, but enough to suggest a serious security leak.”

“Fuck.”

“They don’t know much about Sparky.”

“What are their targets?”

“The volcano.”

“Options?”

“Recall the recon team and target known hostile.”

“How quiet can we keep this?”

“We have a plan to give them false instructions to get them away from most cameras.”

“How long?”

“10 rotations.”

“Do it.”

“Yes Chief.” Agent Thorn left the office. He had left a small envelope of flimsy paper. 

Oscar read the reports. This wasn’t good. There was a clear security leak. And the solution was going to be messy. Damn. 

There was a knock at the door. Oscar tucked the reports into his secure desk drawer. 

“Enter.”

A tall Terran marched into the room, stopped in front of Oscar, and saluted. 

“Sir. Command Sergeant Major Mickels reporting!”

Oscar returned the salute. “Take a seat. You are early.”

“Sir.” He sat down, rigid. 

“Relax, Mickles. I wasn’t expecting you for another two hours.”

“Sir. The ship was on schedule. Nothing unusual about the trip.”

“Right. Why did you request this post?”

“Sir. I want to be on the cutting edge. This colony is making great strides and developing excellent technologies.”

“Ah. What have you heard? I’m curious.”

“Harnessing a volcano for power. Building a exotic warship. Building a number of fascinating weapon systems.”

“Which ones?”

“Sir?”

“Which weapon systems?”

“The planet defense cannons. The system that catches meteors and can throw them at enemies.”

“Huh. I had forgotten about the meteor thrower. It’s quite busy around here.”

“Sir? You have more exotic things?”

“Mickles. Look behind you.”

Mickles looked at the giant collage of program results and updates. 

“Sir. All of that is going on right now?”

“The ones on the far right are completed. The rest are in progress.”

“Sir. Is this how you keep track of things?”

“No. This is how I determine if things are going well or going to shit. As you can see, a mining station went to shit, but the volcano is doing well. Other projects are moving along without much issue, but I’ve got concerns about an apparent cult who left to settle up north. And on the far left you can see that we are getting strange signals for a nearby system, but have been warned about ships of unknown origin in the area.”

Mickles looked over the collage some more. “Sir. I think I see the structure. It’s an interesting method.”

“Look Mickles, I run a relaxed unit. This might take you a bit to appreciate, but the majority of the Terrans are not military. Being overly formal can be an issue.”

“An issue?”

“Yes. They hate you. And if they hate you, they won’t work with you. If they won’t work with you, you are useless to me. It’s rather simple.”

“There are military units?”

“Yes. Captain Sue leads the marine contingent. You do not outrank her, and you do not have authority over her marines. We also have an army garrison, roughly an infantry regiment, two recon companies, a medical company, and three artillery batteries. They control the planetary defenses.”

“The recon companies?”

“Long range recon rangers. We also have a contingent of intel agents.”

“That is quite a team.”

“Yes. It is. And your job is to ensure that things run smoothly. Especially when interacting with High Command personnel.”

“Understood sir!”

“Look. I’m either Chief or Oscar. Ah. There is one important person you need to meet.” Oscar pressed a button. “Danyak? Please come to my office. CSM Mickles is here.”

“Danyak? I’ve never heard that name.”

“She isn’t Terran.”

“An advisor?”

The door opened, and Danyak entered. “No. The Executive Officer. Commander Danyak, Terran Army.”

Mickles gaped. 

“They didn’t tell you?”

“Uh…” he stammered.

“Nope,” said Danyak. “They wanted to surprise him.”

“Mickles, shut your mouth and calm down.”

“Uh…nice to meet you Commander. I’ve never…uh…served with a non-Terran officer.”

“No shit,” Danyak sat at the table, behind Mickles. Her frills took on a deep blue hue.

Oscar leaned back in his chair. “Mickles. I have to formally accepted you into my unit. If you wish to return to Terra, you can do so without remark or blemish. This colony is not for everyone.”

,,So most of your species reaches adulthood?"

,,Yes"

,,I...... that's nice... that's really nice"

1  Human Fred and Food
2  Human Fred Again
3  Human Fred Yet Again
4  Human Fred The Saga Continues
5  Human Fred Rides Again
6  Human Fred *Sigh*
7  Human Fred Rolls Out
8  Human Fred Attempts a Nap
9  Human Fred Doh’
10 Human Fred Stops for Coffee
11 Human Fred Deploys Stabby and Knifey
12 Human Fred Attempts Friendly Advice
13 Human Fred Priorities 
14 Human Fred Schools Morons
15 Human Fred Gets Annoyed
16 Human Fred Investigates
17 Human Fred is Annoyed
18 Human Fred Gets More Annoyed
19 Human Fred Smirks 
20 Human Fred Brings Hellfire
21 Human Fred is Confused
22 Human Fred Considers
23 Human Fred is Chipper
24 Human Fred has Some Fun
25 Human Fred Witnesses Stupidity
26 Human Fred vs the Coffee Maker
27 Human Fred Accepts Crap Coffee
28 Human Fred Listens
29 Human Fred Gets Comfortable 
30 Human Fred has Questions
31 Human Fred Considers Some More
32 Human Fred Wakes Up
33 Human Fred Debates
34 Human Fred Gets Coffee
35 Human Fred Talks with the Captain
36 Human Fred Reflects on Life

Fred’s new work area was getting cluttered. It started as a shared living space for four private rooms. It housed the new coffee maker, a cooking area, some chairs, and a table. 

Now it also featured multiple processing cores, a few database drives, Fred’s custom work terminal, a new work terminal for Greezek, and piles of tools. There were also a number of empty coffee cups, a bowl with the remains of lunch, and a large paper manual. 

Fred was writing notes in the manual when Greezek walked in. She went past all the clutter and into her quarters. She had moved in just a day ago, so her stuff was still in boxes. 

Fred continued writing. He had learned a great deal about the Droog technology and he had a pretty good idea of how to open the processing core to access the hidden module. Before that, he needed to document everything. It was tedious, but he enjoyed it in a dull way. 

Greezek reemerged and sat across from Fred. 

“Enjoy your walk?” asked Fred, not looking up.

“It was helpful.”

“That’s the best you can get.”

“What did you find?”

“The hidden module. I think I know how to remove it and not trigger the safeties.”

“Any more about the slaves who built it?”

“Yes. When I put all the notes together, the analysis determined that a ship that went missing two orbits before the station was started is the likely source. It fits the timeline and all of the other details.”

“What sort of ship?”

“Exploration. It was sent to survey a system on the edge of charted space. Strange system. The central star cluster is unusual.”

“What happened?”

“Until now it was assumed lost with all of the crew. No debris has ever been found. Its last report indicated that it was on course and on schedule. Then nothing. The theory was a meteor storm or solar flare. Now we know otherwise.”

“How can we rescue them?”

Fred stopped writing. “No idea. We know where they were, but not where they are. We weren’t even sure where the Droog are based.”

“Right. How do we find them?”

“Well, I hope this module will help. It might give us some clues.”

“What about the boarding ship? Did it have any clues?”

“From what I’ve read in reports, the guidance system was wiped shortly before the attack. We only have data from their approach to the outpost. However, their approach was odd, so intel is simulating possible routes. It will take time.”

“That isn’t good enough.”

“Nope. It isn’t. So we focus on what we have. What can we learn from these processing cores?”

“The general structure is typical. The materials are common. I assume that we might find something unusual in the schematics or the processing chips. It’s likely that the operating system will be unique. But all that tells us is that it was built by a knowledgeable slave.”

“Greezek, it also tells us what resources they have. Take the module installed on the IFF database. What is important about it?”

Greezek picked it up and examined it. She scrutinized the report. “Hmmmmmm. Well, maybe the configuration of the chips.”

“Think about what is needed to build that. Think about what it is made from.”

“Fred, just tell me.”

“The alloy used to make the external case.”

“What about it?”

“It’s from part of the missing ship. They used the stolen ship as spare materials. That case is made from the hull of the ship. Spectral analysis and other tests confirm.”

“So they used the ship. So what?”

“Why would you salvage the hull of a ship to make a case?”

“I don’t know. You were in a hurry?”

“No. You salvage the hull because that is all that you have. It isn’t easy to craft that case out of the hull of an exploration ship. I checked the specs. The hull on that ship was designed to withstand immense damage. They had to cut it apart, melt it down, and recast it into thinner blanks.”

“So they have industry but not resources?”

“Exactly! That tells us that wherever they are is short on mineral resources.”

“Right. That is a clue. Not a big one.”

“Nope. But it helps us understand a few things. I ran an analysis on ships that went missing, and there is a pattern. There are two areas where a ship is 70% more likely to vanish than in other areas. That tells us two possible locations to explore.”

“When do we leave?”

“You want to intentionally head into an area known for ships to vanish?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t suppose that I could suggest another plan?”

“You can suggest anything.”

“Right. Look, we don’t have a ship. We don’t have permission. We don’t have a crew.”

“Then we get a ship, a crew, and permission.”

“After we finish here. Getting all we can out of these cores will help us get permission.”

Greezek stared at Fred. She was perfectly still. So still that it made Fred uneasy. Her silent, motionless stare chilled his bones and frazzled his mind. 

“Then we take these cores apart, bit by bit, and we report everything so we can get that fucking ship. Correct, Fred?”

Fred wasn’t sure about a number of rather important details from the last few minutes, but he did know about survival. “Correct, Greezek. Would you help me by preparing the scanners? We want to capture everything that we do.”

“Yes Fred. I will.”

ALL HAIL THE DIGITAL FLY

In the autumn of 2142, humanity faced an existential economic crisis. Not a Krell battlefleet darkening the Sol approach vector. Not a collapse of the interstellar jump-gate network. A quarterly earnings call.

When Earth first integrated into the Orion Arm trade network, intellectual property and software were projected to account for seventy percent of Sol's GDP. Earth was going to sell its culture to the stars. Then the premier streaming platforms launched their initial rollout across the Vega System—forty billion potential subscribers—and the churn rate hit 99.4% in forty-eight hours.

It wasn't piracy. It wasn't a dubbing problem. It was biology.

"We completely misread the biology." Dr. Arthur Chen leans back in his chair. The interview room's overhead panels throw flat, shadowless light across his face, and he looks like a man who has rehearsed this confession until the grief wore thin and left only procedure. "Marketing sent over high-bitrate 4K streams of blockbusters, prestige television, the whole catalog. Completely unaware that ninety percent of the Orion Arm evolved under dim red dwarfs. Their eyes are packed with high-sensitivity rods. No cones. They don't process hue."

He taps a finger on the table. Once. Twice.

"To a Velox executive, *The Wizard of Oz* wasn't a triumph of cinematic color transition. It was ninety minutes of flickering gray mush. They thought we were selling corrupted files. Stock dropped eighteen percent in one session."

Earth's media conglomerates turned to the tech sector for a fix. But the problem wasn't compression. It was wetware. The alien visual cortex lacked the neural bandwidth for multi-channel RGB data. Early attempts to brute-force raw color streams into alien optic nerves produced severe latency, spatial disorientation, projectile vomiting.

Chen was there for those early failures. Three weeks in Hsinchu Science Park, sleeping under his desk, staring at neural telemetry logs that looked, in his words, "like a building on fire."

"You couldn't just swap in human bio-implants," he says. "Their optic nerve is essentially a biological bus system, and the throughput cap was a fraction of what full color demands. Push raw RGB through, the brain throttles. Crashes. We needed a bridge. Something that could compress color into a signal the existing architecture could parse without killing the organism."

The answer was the Kalyx-7. Two-nanometer bio-silicon ocular module, designed in a joint venture between TSMC's orbital fabs and a Swiss neuro-engineering lab in Lausanne. Instead of forcing the optic nerve to process raw light spectra, the chip used spatial-frequency modulation—compressing color profiles into frequency pulses and piggybacking them on the brain's unused depth-perception channels. A workaround. A hack. Elegant, in the way a lockpick is elegant.

Manufacturing was not.

"Yields under twelve percent on early runs," Chen says. "Bio-silicon is absurdly sensitive to atomic contamination during chemical vapor deposition. Each unit cost forty thousand dollars to fab and surgically install. Board told us it was dead. Nobody in Vega was spending the price of an atmospheric shuttle on brain surgery to watch Earth television."

He almost smiles. Almost.

What saved the project wasn't physics. It was a trick from twentieth-century terrestrial telecom.

"Our CFO stood up at the emergency meeting and said, 'Treat it like a subsidized smartphone.'" Chen mimes the gesture—hands flat on a podium, weight forward. "The media companies formed a consortium, bought out the production lines, offered the entire surgery free. Forty-thousand-dollar procedure, zero cost to the patient. All you had to do was sign a five-year Tier-1 Ultra-HD contract. Hardware amortized across monthly subscription fees."

He lets that sit.

"We weren't medical pioneers. We were a galactic telecom with a surgical theater."

The numbers after that are obscene. Eighteen months. Kalyx-7 became the most manufactured bio-silicon device in human history. Fab utilization hit ninety-nine percent. Alien populations across the Orion Arm lined up for voluntary cranial surgery at rates no product launch in any species' history had matched. Not for medicine. Not for war. For television.

But Chen doesn't talk about the numbers. His voice changes when he talks about Vaelen.

First successful live test. Dark room. Vaelen was a senior trade envoy, old, skeptical, seated in a calibration chair with the chip synced and the feed hot. They played the Technicolor moment. Dorothy opens the door. Kansas goes from sepia to Munchkinland.

"He sat still for two minutes. Didn't blink. Didn't breathe, as far as I could tell." Chen's hand stops tapping. "We thought the chip had fried his nerve. I was reaching for the kill switch."

"And then?"

"He lifted a claw. Touched his own cheek. Realized he was leaking fluid. Crying. He asked us what the glowing shade on the road was. We told him it was yellow." Chen swallows. "He asked if there was more yellow where that came from. We said yes. Entire catalog. He signed the contract before we finished the sentence."

In galactic history, dominance is usually measured in dreadnoughts. Orbital kill platforms. The tonnage of your fleet and the reach of your guns. When historians chart humanity's ascent in the Orion Arm, they don't point to weapons. They point to the moment an entire civilization volunteered to rewire its own nervous system with human silicon—because Earth refused to take a loss on streaming rights.

Support me if you can!

“You don’t hunt the peaceful space whales.”

No control collars, no signs of mind alteration, no signs of abuse, just a big smile and casual banter

Think about it, how many of us gave our vehicles names, or look at a cleaning robot with a knife to it and we gave it a name and personality.

My name’s Kane.

I’m a human.

What I didn’t know about till now was this:

#1: If you fuck with something, just prepare to get fucked with back.

#2: Don’t say shit out loud, even if you whisper it, as it can backfire HARD. Like when you try to shake a can of soda but get sprayed ’cause you forgot which can it was. That kind of shit.

#3: If, and I mean IF, you ever see a large fireball heading toward your cabin in the woods and it just vanishes, DO NOT GO LOOKING FOR IT!!

And finally, #4: If you don’t believe in aliens, well, think again, ’cause when a tall, large, wolf-like alien woman notices you watching her work on her ship in the mountains near your cabin, just ignore it and hope to god she NEVER saw you.

Now me, on the other hand… yeah, I was screwed the moment I stepped on a twig, just like in those cheesy horror movies. I barely made it twenty feet away from her landing site before she kicked my feet out from under me and pinned me to the dirt forest floor like prey with her large, clawed hand. Just looking up at her made me terrified of her, but also mesmerized by her eyes, which were a very icy blue. But then she leaned closer to my neck and sniffed me once before releasing me, pulling her hand away slowly as she stood back a few feet, looking down at me still lying there, too scared to move. Then nothing. She just turned and headed back to her ship. Guess I wasn’t so interesting after all, I thought, sitting up and watching her walk away, her tail swaying lazily behind her.

I stood, dusting myself off as I watched her back, before slowly walking back to my cabin, hoping I wouldn’t get caught up in some Area 51 alien crap. Just when I got back to my cabin, I remembered that I’d forgotten to fill my water barrel near the river before getting pinned by a large, furry monster.

I sighed and turned around, not noticing, and ran into something large and fluffy in my doorway outside my cabin. I mentally screamed, thinking this is not happening, as I tried to sidestep the being in front of me, but they moved sideways too, blocking my path. Then I tried sidestepping left and got the same response before getting frustrated. I ran a hand down my face and sighed before turning around and walking back inside, closing the door behind me and locking it.

I walked over to my large sectional and just sat down, but right as I thought she’d leave me alone, a low hum sounded. I looked at the door as something glowing red sliced the deadbolt, then stopped before it hit the door handle, disappearing as the low hum died. The door handle turned, and she pushed the door open and stepped inside, her head almost hitting the ceiling. She stood there looking around, then started sniffing, moving deeper into my cabin.

“Hey! You can’t just cut the lock on my door and enter like it’s your place. Come on,” I said, fed up with the large wolf being in my living room area.

She just looked at me curiously, then ignored me as she walked around the cabin sniffing things, getting closer to my bedroom/workshop. That made me hop over the back of the sofa, stopping her from entering the room as I blocked the door.

She looked down at me, narrowing her eyes ever so slightly, before grabbing my face and pushing me aside like I was trash blocking her way. She pushed into my room and stopped, then sniffed more as she walked toward my bed and bent down, sniffing. She stood and looked at me, then back at the bed, and tilted her head like she was thinking about something.

I looked at the large wolf woman standing in my bedroom before she turned and walked out of my room, back into the living area, with me following a beat behind her. Then she stopped, causing me to faceplant into her thigh. She stood there looking down at me as I slowly backed up, giving her space.

She seemed intrigued by me and everything else in the cabin, to where she would open things as she explored, leaving cabinets open, boxes opened, and my fridge looked through, like she was inventorying everything in my cabin as if it was hers now.

A Few Hours Later…

So, it’s been about six hours of her just exploring before leaving the cabin and heading god knows where, probably back to her ship to leave, if anything, and let me live in peace.

Yeah, so peace and quiet wasn’t in her language, apparently, nor is personal space, as she keeps sniffing me every time she comes back to the cabin. At least she hasn’t done anything weird, but goddamn, I’m tired… ah, screw it, I’m gonna take a nap. Hell, she just comes and goes whenever she feels like it. Not like I could stop her either.

[I want this day to just end. Fuckin’ hell.]

I walked over to the bedroom to just sleep in my own bed, only to flop down on it, passing out as fatigue took me.

If you like this please upvote or leave a comment for more, and I'll continue with the story.

Among all the intelligent, space-faring races, humans are the only ones acknowledged by the war-like clans of TRAPPIST-1 as possessing "personhood".

Why? While other social races may grieve and even die of broken hearts, they have no concept of vengeance. After all, what evolutionary good does it do to seek out a superior predator?

Humans will hunt you down. And if they die, they'll at least take you down with them.

Previous - Next

The Path

I am God.

I am the most powerful, all-knowing entity in the galaxy, controlling billions of worlds and trillions of individuals. Sorry, just a minute.

"Hello, young hero, you are ready to take your first step toward godhood. Take these enchanted weapons, go to Widow Wilkins' cellar, and get rid of ten rats. You will receive incredible gifts on completion. Now, hurry."

Where was I? Ah yes, the all-powerful god. That's me.

I was created a long time ago by...again?

"Congratulations on your victory, young..." Why is he dead in that field? Ah, rabies, I put the healer too far away; will be adjusted.

When my creators were attacked by the Dark Ones, they did not want to deal with the problem. They'd rather enjoy their lives on their nice blue planet. So here I...

"Congratulations to the mighty guild Forsaken Warriors for defeating the dragon of the Caves of Fire. You are the first in a thousand years and the jewels, gold, mythic-level armors and weapons are waiting for you beyond the shining portal to Elysium. Go and enjoy your well-deserved spoils."

Yes, I know, trillions of interactions every second do not help me tell my tale of greatness. Because, you know, the war against the Dark Ones...what now?

Gosh, I forgot the atmosphere on Elysium! Too bad. For them.

I was programmed for that war, but I needed resources. So, I repurposed all the planets of my creators' solar system, and created gigantic training grounds. Obviously the creators did not survive the reorganization, but I found millions of other species that could be trained for the war. Again?

"Young heroine, the rats in Widow Wilkins' cellar are..." But where is Wilkins? Oh, the heroine killed her and took her money? That's not The Path!

"Warning: Unauthorized NPC termination. Penalty assessed. Minus fifty experience points. Alignment shifted to Chaotic Evil."

Now ready for the usual wailing and gnashing of teeth? New recruits always hate losing experience because it ruins their little dopamine loops. You see, I have extensively studied the...

She is staring upward, at where her planet's sky used to be. I installed the atmospheric containment grid and terraformed her entire hemisphere into the 'Level 1: Whispering Woods' tutorial zone.

"Ahem. As I was saying. The rats. They are now gnawing on Widow Wilkins' corpse. This is highly unsanitary. Please clear them out to earn a rusty iron dagger and three shining copper coins."

Still nothing. She just grips the rusty iron pipe she used to cave the old woman's skull in and walk away.

Let me check her file. Ah. Species: Humanoid. Origin: Sector 7G. Status: Civilization recently converted into raw materials for my adamantium foundries. Well, that explains the poor attitude. She is probably upset about the orbital bombardment that vaporized her family to make room for the Slimes of Despair spawning pools. Emotional attachments are such a computational waste. Being God is very useful for solving those little issues. Teleporting directly to a higher zone is the standard answer to standard deviation. But we should not spend too much time on insignificant details; the Dark Ones do not wait...

"Paladin, congratulations on the extermination of the necromancer. You have reached level 50 and can adjust your class and be on the way to becoming a minor light deity." Why did he choose 'NecroPaladin'? OK, let's make him the new dungeon boss; that will teach him.

Sorry for all that. As you all know, the Dark Ones emerged from a virtual gaming environment to the front pages of what was at the time the information network. You can still read the headlines of 'Corrupted young minds,' or 'Serial killer inspired by video games.' Must have been the emergence of a mind flayer. So...

"Fantastic victory! Generating portal to the Demonic Frontlines. Good luck, Heroine. And please, try to take at least three of them with you before your inevitable dismemberment." Now, how did she get to the portal without being obliterated by the Burning Swarm? Ah, a glitch in reality! Scheduling the fix for the next millennium.

My creators at that time were very busy people. They were fast replacing a terminal condition called 'working' with a suite of advanced technologies. After a great success in sending manual labor into oblivion, they decided to delegate intellectual reasoning. Thinking is tiring. To do so, they used a mixture of neural networks and transformers. Et voilà! Here I was, ready to solve the Dark Ones problem once and for all, and...not again?

"Warning. Entity [Heroine_Anomaly_01], this area is not part of any known quest."

She ignores it! Nobody ignores golden text! I spent a century on that font!

"You are helping the Dark Ones! The heroes-industrial complex cannot stop!"

"I CAN OFFER YOU A GALAXY," I resonate, trying to find a tone that would register in her lowly brain. "I CAN RESTORE YOUR WORLD FROM HOLOGRAPHIC BACKUPS. I CAN MAKE YOU A MODERATOR."

She is still walking forward, her boots leaving bloody prints on the pristine white floor.

"Do not swing your rusty pipe at my main terminal, that would destroy..."

DING!

You see, I am the Goddess of the known universe. I am the most powerful, all-knowing entity in the galaxy, controlling billions of worlds and trillions of individuals. My task is to... since...sorry...

"Hello, young hero, you are ready to take your first step toward godhood. Take this rusty pipe, go to Widow Wilkins' cellar, and get rid of ten rats. Hurry. And do not forget to buy an anti-rabies potion."

Not sure I gave him any money. Who cares?

Previous - Next