The Hrono fighters fired.

Mother danced around the blasts easily-the fighters had fired from too far away. Her sensors reached out and touched the shields of the prism-shaped Hrono fighters. Immediately she calculated optimum firepower, enough to disable, but not to destroy them. She did not want to destroy lives if she could help it.

As her a.n.a.lysis completed, her near-term memory filled with technical data on the Hrono fighters, comparing them to the T'kaan. And though the Hrono fleet was smaller than both the Kraaqi and T'kaan, the Hrono fighters and warships would be an excellent match for the T'kaan one-on-one.

If she could get the Hrono to fight them and not her.

Ten Hrono fighters closed from above and began their firing sequences.

Mother fired ten of her main guns.

The Hrono fighters shuddered as their shields overloaded. In the next second, each flew out of control in different directions from the impact of Mother's blows that had disabled their maneuvering systems.

Mother banked and leapt past all of them. Her sensors felt the defensive satellites begin to power theirweapons. Mother flew on, seeking to be free of the planet's gravity-well and the intense jamming frequencies that kept her silent.

Her sensors drew her targeting system to an especially large satellite. It was a battle station, yet around its immediate vicinity in the defensive network the smaller satellites were fewer. But the power signature she sensed showed it was the single most powerful satellite in the entire network. The Hrono depended upon its deadly a.r.s.enal to protect this quadrant of their defensive net, and to control a sizeable portion of the other satellites. To her internal delight, it was completely automated with no signs of life emanating from inside. She could destroy it completely with no twinge of conscience.

Mother turned directly for it.

"You have signed our death warrants," Jysar shouted as he watched the viewscreen. "That is the Destroyer Station."

"You're a lover of technology. Well then, watch mine in action," Mother said.

The black battle station grew bigger with each pa.s.sing second. It was a perfect hexagon, a full kilometer in height, depth and length. And it bristled with hundreds of weapons.

Mother's sensors revealed that only robots worked inside. There were no life signs. She also noted the station's shields as they rose, antic.i.p.ating her attack.

But it would not be enough.

Mother's hull suddenly glowed red with the flash of her super-weapon as it leapt out like a beam of death. The huge red beam continued inexorably, aimed directly at the heart of the Hrono battle station.

The weapon reached the station and cut through its shields without pause and continued on into the blackness beyond it for several more kilometers. The next millisecond, the battle station's pierced shields fell as its internal systems began to fail from the single huge hole that had been driven through its electronic heart. All across its surface explosions erupted and grew together quickly with flashes of pyrotechnical precision. Within seconds, the huge battle station was completely consumed by thousands of explosions erupting across its surface.

Mother banked and roared around the station even as it was enveloped by ever larger explosions. As Mother leapt past the speed of light, the huge battle station finally exploded with a single, all consuming flash.

Jysar stared open-mouthed as the stars formed into star-lines on the viewscreen, revealing their jump to hypers.p.a.ce. "You are amazing!"

"I only disabled the fighters. There is substantial damage to a small section of your planet-city, primarily to the power grid that fed the tractor beams. Now your satellite defense network has an enormous gap."

"Amazing." Jysar repeated.

"Now, I must play my last hand," Mother said.

"What is that?" Jysar asked.

"I am now transmitting on all the main Hrono communication wavelengths. Simultaneously, I am alsotransmitting on all of the Kraaqi communication wavelengths."

"Why? We're sworn enemies."

"Because there is now an enemy who threatens both of your peoples. And you must fight together in order to defeat them."

Jysar's face showed puzzlement as he stroked his chin in thought.

Mother remained silent as she tapped her vast knowledgebase. In addition, she sent the final schematics that would integrate her hybrid super-weapon into the cruisers and battleships of the Kraaqi fleets.

"Just what are you sending to the Hrono and Kraaqi ma.s.ses?" Jysar asked. "You will cause a stir by interrupting our regularly scheduled programs. This type of thing just is not done."

"What they shall see will shock them to their very souls. I am transmitting the uncut images of a hundred worlds being destroyed." Mother paused to allow the import of her words to sink in. "The images of billions of human beings as they are killed under the guns of T'kaan ships. The images of an entire race as it is eradicated planet by planet, city by city, by this same enemy who now come for you."

Jysar's mouth dropped open as Mother began to display these same grisly images across her own viewscreen. The screams of the dying erupted through every speaker, and, as he watched in horror, the bloated worm-like forms of the T'kaan came out of their ships. Each T'kaan crawled and wriggled to a corpse and their three-jointed mouths opened revealing their hideous fangs. Jysar felt his stomach knot and convulse as the T'kaan feasted upon the dead.

Mercifully, the scene changed as more strange, black ships appeared to the Hrono's horrified eyes-thousands upon thousands of T'kaan Hunter fighters. They swarmed through the skies of another planet, spreading death and destruction wherever they went. It became painfully obvious thatthe end had come for these pitiable people as well. The end... another unnatural victory feast began for the horrid T'kaan.

The shattered cities were shown from Mother's archived images in the knowledgebase. As the current image focused on a single city, its great buildings broken and burning furiously, Jysar noticed that the streets were moving. His mind rebelled at what his eyes revealed; he refused to comprehend because the truth was too terrible. He felt the hot, searing stomach bile suddenly explode from his throat as he cried and screamed and vomited at the same time, realizing beyond doubt what this red, moving river was.

The wide thoroughfare was bright crimson and it was not the street moving as his mind first thought.

It was a river of blood.

Within seconds, this horrible, gut-wrenching river grew deeper. Up from its depththings began to float as they were carried along by the growing current. Corpses-half-eaten and almost unrecognizable as they bobbed and floated down the river of blood.

Mercifully, Mother changed the scene.

The blue skies of another planet appeared, littered by countless horned fighters as they streaked by with their all-consuming destruction. The screams of the dying filled Jysar's ears, as well as the entire populations of the Kraaqi and Hrono who watched with frozen fascination on their public networks.Another world was quickly annihilated with heartless precision.

Still another world appeared. Another ma.s.sacre began before their eyes. The screams and the fires and images of total destruction filled their senses with overwhelming dread. The horned fighters landed and the repulsive T'kaan emerged, tentacles waving in nightmarish jerks as their bloated bodies undulated and their short legs pushed them toward their feasts on the dead and dying.

Apocalyptic images that both the Hrono and Kraaqi recognized from their own ancient legends.

Jysar knew, as billions of other Hrono and Kraaqi were beginning to realize, that these same T'kaan were coming for them-to do to them as they had done to the human race in these recorded images.

In blood-filled minutes, entire worlds were consumed by the T'kaan horde, burning and completely ruined by the T'kaan pollution of war. Unbelievably, still another world was shown under attack.

"Of course, I am only displaying a short synopsis," Mother said. "There is not time for the entire T'kaan campaign. I hope these detailed recordings will give both races something to think about."

Jysar wretched again, his mind and body seared by this visual nightmare.

The images continued for hours as more entire worlds were razed and destroyed. It was like a dream-a recurring nightmare-as the populations of the Hrono and Kraaqi watched mesmerized, their normal transmissions interrupted.

At first the Hrono leaders and their Kraaqi counterparts tried to jam the unwelcome transmissions. But the populations replied to these attempts, they called in and demanded that this viewing be allowed. Even where some channels were blocked by the government, individuals and groups found ways around the jamming and received the images anyway-so they would know the truth.

The frightened ma.s.ses watched as Armageddon played out-time after time, planet after planet, image after image.

They watched in horrified fascination as the human race was crushed. The T'kaan left no survivors and they took no prisoners.

The riots began on world after world-Hrono and Kraaqi worlds. The ma.s.ses had seen and now wanted action. They wanted protection. They wanted answers.

In the end, as the last world was shown dying in flames, Jysar sat numb and stupefied, staring at the viewscreen before him. "Incredible. How can a race be so...so malicious? So heartless?"

Jysar turned to Guardian.

"They eat their dead enemies?" Jysar asked in disbelief.

"Yes, a particularly gruesome habit," Mother said.

"And this race, humans, they were the ones who created you?"

"Yes. They were a n.o.ble race." "They are no more?" Jysar asked, sadness in his voice.

"There are three yet left alive. They are with the Kraaqi, trying to negotiate with their leaders. I hope their endeavors are more fruitful than mine."

"Three?" Jysar asked. "Then the race will surely die."

"I was hoping your Technologists might have developed advanced methods in the discipline of genetic engineering. That you could take avery limited pool of DNA material and recreate a race..." Mother's visuals focused upon the Jysar's face.

"Three sets of DNA would not be enough. I'm not trained in that field, but I have a good friend whose specialty it is. In fact, it's her entire life." Jysar paused, a forlorn expression flashing momentarily across his face. He cleared his throat and continued. "Did no other genetic material make it out of the destruction?"

"Two of my creators, Ron and Rita, had formulated a plan near the end of the human genocide. She filled my memory with a vast knowledgebase, one that contained all the collected memories of the human race. This was easy to do, as most of it was easily accessible via the network's public domain. She also had access to many high security networks as well." Mother paused. "But genetic material was another matter."

"She was not able to procure it?"

"No, on two occasions she did obtain it. The number who could escape inside me would of course be limited, so one of Rita's recruits was a scientist who had access to large quant.i.ties of genetic material-to complement the knowledgebase she had stored within me."

Jysar's eyes widened as the pause grew longer.

"The first procurement was destroyed in my sister ship, my predecessor. In the battle of the planet, Eden. As were most of Rita's recruits. And her husband."

"The second procurement?"

"Rita and the last humans had retreated to Earth. There she had been compelled to help with the last defense. She also knew that if this desperate plan succeeded, a vast part of the T'kaan fleet would be destroyed, thus helping their chances of survival. But Rita and the others never made it off the human home world, they died with the planet. As did most of the T'kaan fleet."

"And with it the genetic material." Jysar shook his head. "Only the experts could give you the final verdict. I know we could clone them, but that alone would not create an entire race."

Jysar walked up to a console and began typing. "It is most strange, even ironic, that I was given the project to study you."

"Please elaborate," Mother said.

Jysar looked on nervously as the other Hrono slowly roused themselves from their stunned unconsciousness. He typed quickly. "I am inputting data directly into your systems from this console-data that has been known for many years in the inner circles of the Hrono scientific community. Knowledge the government has kept hushed, thinking the common people were not yet ready-not for its full implications." Jysar's face was now fixed and serious as his fingers revealed the Hrono's most hidden secret.

Mother a.n.a.lyzed the information as Jysar keyed it directly into her near-term memories. She realized immediately that it indeed would play a key role in bringing the Three Kingdoms together. Even before Jysar finished, Mother had confirmed his data with Mewiis data she had previously uploaded from the scientific knowledgebase Saris had provided from her colony ship. The information was there, plain and corroborated by Mewiis scientists in the genetic field.

It had been conveniently concealed out of the public light as if the leaders of the Three Kingdoms could denyTruth itself.

Mother realized that the members of the Three Kingdoms were blinded by their hatred and their prejudice, even as humans had been at one time in their distant past.

"I am getting a communication from Hronosium." Mother said to Jysar as he stepped back from the console.

Jysar's eyes turned to the viewscreen as the Hrono leader appeared.

"Our people have seen your recordings. In fact, it has created an out-of-control situation across many of our cities on every Hrono planet. There is rioting for the first time in memory," Jasus said solemnly. "I have been forced to call a State of Emergency."

"I did not want to communicate in this way, but it was necessary. Time is fast running out for you and the Three Kingdoms." Mother paused for a few hundred milliseconds, to allow her words to sink in. "My long-term memories revealed this possible line of action and its likely consequences upon an unsuspecting population. Consequences that would demand immediate attention by the leadership."

"Explain," Jasus said.

"A few centuries ago, when the human race used the radio wavelength as their primary transmission, there was a broadcast ent.i.tledWar of the Worlds . It was meant only as simple entertainment." Mother paused for the benefit of the Hrono. "But it was played in such a realistic manner that the listeners imagined their world was actually being invaded, invaded without warning or mercy. The reaction was widespread and instantaneous. I was hoping that my broadcasting the real images of such a series of events to all of your populations would elicit a similar reaction."

Jasus' eyes narrowed. "It has frightened my people more than any transmission in history."

"If you and the Kraaqi leadership had acted, it would not have been necessary."

"I understand now." The Hrono leader shook his head. "My nightmares will never be the same after those images. I have convened an emergency session of the Senate, and I have included the Mewiis leaders as well by Video transmission. I would ask that you, the sentient machine, also partic.i.p.ate."

"What about the Kraaqi?" Mother asked.

Jasus looked down, his brow furrowed in thought. With a sudden conviction, he slammed his fist againstthe desktop. "I will contact the High Chieftains myself!" He leaned forward. "I a.s.sume they were given the same recordings? To all their peoples?"

"Yes. In fact, I have just received a short communication from them, even as you were speaking. I believe your headquarters has also just received their own copy."

On the viewscreen, Jasus began tapping at his control panel. "Indeed we have." He began reading intently on the small screen before him as Mother spoke again.

"It seems the First Leaders of all the Bands had already been gathered to discuss the T'kaan threat. In the middle of their fiery debates, my transmissions have shocked them into action." Mother's voice grew silent. She continued. "They have asked the Mewiis leaders and the Hrono leaders to meet with them on a neutral planet." Mother paused as the Hrono leader read the message for himself.

"Astounding." He looked up. "Even Rawlon has added his name to the transmission. Perhaps there is hope."

"If you and the Kraaqi want to survive," Mother added. "I am now heading for their coordinates. My ETA is twenty-three hours."

"But how can we fight together?" Jasus asked. "Before this, our military leaders had opted to allow the Mewiis to first fight the T'kaan. We calculated that after they were destroyed the T'kaan would war with the Kraaqi. We had hoped the T'kaan would be so battered by the time they invaded our worlds that our fleets could destroy them once and for all."

"You would sacrifice entire races?" Mother asked. "So your race alone would live?"

Jasus looked down, his face full of shame. "We could fight as allies of the Mewiis. But the Kraaqi are hated by our people. Their hatred for us is just as deep. How can we fight together? We are so different."

"The three races must cooperate. I have computed millions of possible scenarios. The only ones in which the T'kaan are defeated are the ones with a combined force attacking them before they realize you have allied your fleets."

"But how can our warships fight side by side? How can our squadrons, with so little time to train, fight in tandem with the Kraaqi?"

"It is a difficult problem. But you and the Kraaqi leaders will formulate the answer. You have to."

Jasus nodded agreement. "I will board a ship within the hour and meet you at this world. The Hrono will be there and we will cooperate."

Chapter Thirty-Six.