Part 4
Surprisingly fast, the crew adapted to their new environment; although it consisted of previously hostile races, there were no conflicts among them. The Skytology headquarters was selected as the target for our first attack with the BRIGHT STAR 3. While there were such headquarters in each of the over one hundred countries, they were all controlled from a single location: Denver, USA.
I had recovered quite well in the meantime and was preparing an attack plan with Jessie: "Jessie, I suggest that the ASO flying discs start the attack on the tower first, drawing the defensive systems toward them while the BRIGHT STAR finally destroys the headquarters in a nosedive from high above."
"Your plan has a weak point, Varlon. Unlike conventional radar systems, Luzifer's radar has no blind spot. We must try a direct, full-scale attack and be careful not to destroy any surrounding buildings."
I preferred a surprise attack where the BRIGHT STAR 3 would not be detected by radar, but this seemed impossible. Then, however, I had an idea. I called Dean Rho to us, who had already proven that he was unsurpassed in the field of microelectronics through his further development of our wormhole expander.
"You once built a cloaking device for me during the Zer attack, with which I could fly through the defensive shields of the DARK ASSASIN without dissolving."
Dean understood immediately what I was getting at and finished my line of thought: "So you want to fly through solid matter again and risk the attack from below? Actually, I was already thinking about that and wanted to surprise you with a finished cloaking device. With it, you can easily fly through solid matter."
I was surprised that Dean already had a finished device, but for a mastermind with an IQ of 370, he was even superior to us Genomorphs. The most intelligent among us had an IQ of just 320, and I hardly lagged behind with my 318 points. Actually, I should be the president instead of Delar Nor; then I wouldn't be in this situation and certainly wouldn't be separated from my family in this universe.
I just realized that I was thinking too much about myself; the correct term for such behavior would be egomania, egocentrism, and other things that sounded similarly bad. There were people here who all counted on my help.
Immediately after the device was installed, the entire crew went on board, and I ordered an immediate launch without warming up the engines. Because of this, I couldn't use the ship outside the atmosphere, but I hadn't planned to anyway. Immediately after the BRIGHT STAR 3 lost contact with the ground, Dean activated his machine. The ship became invisible!
Carefully, I pushed the throttle forward and felt my way toward the wall, but instead of a dull thud, the mighty ship flew into the solid matter without resistance. This planet had a navigation system similar to ours, also with GPS satellites, which I could use to set my course. There were barely one hundred kilometers of distance to overcome under the earth's surface—for a spaceship of this class, a flight of a few seconds—so I ordered full speed ahead. Without the Space Drive, the BRIGHT STAR only had a maximum speed of Mach 50, and the Space Drive could only be switched on in space.
Without triggering a shockwave, I got closer and closer to the Skytology Tower. Finally, the time had come; I was right in front of the tower. With the cloaking device switched on, it was impossible for me to fire. Firing was actually possible, but since the atomic resonance of the projectiles was exactly the same as ours, they would simply fly through the matter just like us. On the other hand, Luzifer's radar was so perfect that it could detect even cloaked objects, unless they were under the surface.
The BRIGHT STAR 3 shot up and decloaked immediately. I could feel the horror of the humans and Ectomorphs inside the building; their fear caused all telepathic barriers to fall, and I could read their thoughts. Without hesitating, I ordered to fire; a sea of fire shot from all weapon systems at the tower and turned it into a heap of rubble and ash.
The rule of the Skytology was over; all of a sudden, all Skytologists and Luzifer were left defenseless. It annoyed me that Luzifer was still alive, but there was nothing I could do about that, at least not at that time! While everyone was happy and enjoying themselves at the subsequent party, I withdrew and analyzed the thoughts of Luzifer that I had copied. My goal was to find out why Luzifer was immortal.
I saw his memories, his many deaths and resurrections, the creation of Luzifer, the Prince of Darkness! The immortality of Luzifer had a plausible reason: when he was sent to Earth to monitor the food reserves, his own kind had implanted a small chip in him. This small chip constantly transmitted the entire brain content to a computer. If the signals stopped or the energy center no longer provided power, the computer generated a new body with a new chip.
What else I had from his brain was not pleasant; just like the Zer back then, an entire fleet of Ectomorphs was racing toward Earth. From planet to planet, the entire race of Ectomorphs travels and eats the human souls wherever they stop.
CHAPTER 2: Invasion
Master One brought someone into our base. It was a captured Ectomorph with bound hands. What bothered me about him was his all-too-human appearance, for while all other Ectomorphs spread fear and terror through their appearance in order to amplify human life energy, he did not differ from humans at all.
The Ectomorph sat down at our conference table and said, "I am here by my own choice; we need to talk."
"So you let yourself be captured voluntarily?" joked Master One.
"Yes, you have probably already heard of me; my name is Mephisto, and I am an observer of the Ectomorphs who was supposed to monitor your planet."
"Mephisto?" I asked, and immediately synonyms for his name came to mind: Devil, Satan, Lucifer, Diabolo.
Mephisto looked at me regretfully, as if he were reading my thoughts, and said: "You may know a few things about our world, but certainly not everything, because I am not the only observer. Besides me, many others were sent to this planet, including this Luzifer. I, on the other hand, was always fair toward humans; if I needed a soul to maintain my vital functions, I either used that weak animal life energy or I bought human souls."
"Bought?" I asked, horrified. I couldn't believe that someone would sell their soul and thus never find peace after death. Master One enlightened me: "So you don't know everything either? I know the stories about how Mephisto fulfilled people's wishes and was then swindled by some of them. Believe me, here, people do anything to be rich, powerful, or beautiful and young."
Mephisto continued: "I have always been against Luzifer and the other Ectomorphs, but with my technical knowledge, I am inferior to them. Then the last message from the home world stated that they have selected Earth as the next target of their gluttony."
"Why Earth?" Master One wanted to know.
"The reason is quite simple. Do you know how many neurons the human brain has?"
"Yes, in a normal human, it is ten billion neurons. But there is a minority who have to be careful when sneezing not to sneeze their brain out through their nostrils, even though they have normal-sized nostrils."
"Stop making fun of followers of past religions," I interrupted him before the decisive hint fell as to who he meant. I only knew that this religion should have died out 140 years ago.
"And how many people live on Earth now?" Mephisto continued to ask.
"Nine billion, nine hundred thousand," answered Master One.
"When ten billion humans live on Earth, a global consciousness will develop. Actually, it should have happened by 2010, but we kept humans small through constant minor wars. If the global consciousness were to develop, we would be powerless against you, and your souls would merge into one single one. It has already happened to us with one planet."
So the invasion will take place very soon. I suspected that the soul-collecting ship of the Ectomorphs was already in our solar system. I personally wasn't in the slightest danger from them, but I couldn't allow them to destroy our parallel world; Luzifer even wanted all the souls from Terra Prime—he was that immoderately greedy. It all seemed like a déjà vu.
"How can one stop them?" asked Master One with a grim expression.
Mephisto shrugged his arms and said with a smile: "Be diligent and multiply!"
To be honest, I doubted that we still had nine months to follow his suggestion with appropriate diligence; after all, it wasn't entirely unrealistic, since we were "only" missing one hundred million Earth inhabitants. For a Genomorph, a task of barely a year if he were to hurry a bit. But this suggestion gave me another idea that would work much better and wouldn't need a nine-month gestation period.
I asked Dean, who was sitting one seat over: "Can you build a wormhole expander that has the properties of a vortex?"
"Maybe, I would first have to analyze the wreckage of the vortex generator. What are you planning? Do you want to evacuate us all?"
My idea was something different; I actually wanted to bring the missing humans from Terra Prime to Earth to gain the global consciousness prematurely, provided Mephisto hadn't lied to us. In an emergency, I could even use it to move the entire Earth into my...
into the universe, similar to how Vahanara once brought the planet Malkor into Terra Prime's orbit.
Dean immediately sat down at his workbench in the BRIGHT STAR 3 lab and began turning his technical ideas into reality, while other crew members were sent to the ex-Skytology headquarters to salvage any usable debris. I was just about to discuss my further ideas with Master One and Memphisto when my wrist computer suddenly piped up with a beep.
"—,What's going on?", Master One and Memphisto asked simultaneously.
"—,No idea, but it seems to be important.", I replied and switched on the 3D projection mode.
A holographic representation of a nearby city. Right in the middle of it a display, a red dot, then suddenly two blue dots and one yellow dot emerged from the red dot, and it disappeared immediately.
Thanks to the color codes, I knew exactly what had happened. A red dot meant a wormhole, the blue dots were my homing beacons, and the yellow dot meant a life form contaminated by Ochryd radiation (* Ochryd, a decay product of tachyolyte, is used for wormhole generation. Author's note). However, this radiation dissipates very quickly, so I had to act fast. Without saying a word, I adjusted the wormhole so that it would dock with the other one and reopen it.
Fortunately, the dark alley was deserted—almost, anyway. It was the kind of alley people only enter if they desperately want to be stabbed and robbed. I would bet that quite a few people had lost their lives here already. Since my eyes had been genetically adjusted to a broader spectrum during my stay on Malkor, I could see everything in the infrared range and noticed three silhouetted figures a few meters in front of me.
"—,Who's there?!", I called out into the dark alley.
"—,Varlon?", another voice asked and shone a flashlight at me. But since voices usually can't hold flashlights, I assumed a body belonged to this voice. I recognized her—it was A-Tya!
"—,What are you doing here, how did you even get into this universe?"
Gunfire could be heard in the distance; the area was very unsafe for mere mortals, so I suggested:
"—,Come through the wormhole to our place, we can talk in peace there.", then I jumped through first and waited. A-Tya came next and greeted me with such a passionate kiss that I thought she was trying to suck me in. Then A-Kara showed up, our daughter, and last came Stella Pluri. I was very surprised that a delegate from Juventa came here and asked her:
"—,Stella, what are you doing here?"
She replied in a male, metallic-sounding voice:
"—,I changed my mind."
I recognized that voice immediately—it was Vahanara!
"—,Vahanara! I should have known! Why do you have a different body this time?"
"—,I have only converted a few Juventans into Vahanara, that way we keep everything under better control. Nevertheless, I have access to the MEMORY OF GOD and am more intelligent than any Genomorph."
"—,Yeah yeah, don't brag, I know how you tricked me last time. Even so, you still don't have access to my memory. If you want to help us, tell me everything you know."
With his incomparable sense of humor, he replied:
"—,I know that there are far more powerful beings in this universe than me, beings who only need to have one evil thought, and the Earth is already a smoking little cloud. But if you were to ask me about the Ectomorphs, I have already found a way to kill them."
I was slowly growing impatient and asked:
"—,What kind of way?!"
"—,Their ship is drawing ever closer to us, always staying in the shadow of a planet or moon; we only have a few hours left. The newest biochips of the Ectomorphs work by a different method to ensure their immortality, but even that is no problem for me, except I unfortunately have to return to my universe right away—I cannot exist here for long."
"—,All right, then hurry up!", I urged, but Vahanara was not to be flustered:
"—,I brought your family here as an apology for the wrong I did you back then. As for the information itself, I will name you the price later. Well, the biochips store all brain data into a wrist computer similar to yours. If this computer is destroyed, all data goes to a main computer, which then controls the regeneration. Destroy this main computer and all wrist computers, and the Ectomorphs will be vulnerable.", after saying all this, Vahanara opened a wormhole to his planet with his mind power and vanished.
Well, Vahanara had always been uncanny to me, but that he could create wormholes with sheer mental power or that he would help me was quite something. I began to wonder what other powers Vahanara possessed that I hadn't the slightest clue about. A series of explosive tremors tore me from my thoughts; Master One, Master Four, and I immediately leaped to the monitors and saw several Earth fighter planes attacking a gigantic ship that had just landed outside the nearby city. Suddenly, this ship began emitting a series of beams.
Everything collapsed.
* * *
Jessie stormed the base and shouted:
"—,The whole world has gone crazy, we need you, Mastermorph, help us."
It reached me as if through a wall of cotton wool; I had no control over myself and assumed a fighting stance. Without being able to control it, I executed a flying kick and knocked the delicate girl to the floor.
"—,Hey! What's that for, why are you attacking me?", she called out in terror.
I could do absolutely nothing against it; my mind said: STOP IT, but I had no control over myself.
E
Share your thoughts about the article