Elder Cultivator

“Dear Mister Everheart. I hope that my letter reaches you and doesn’t get exploded into a million pieces by your automated defense systems. I am writing this letter with my own hand. Note: I do not have hands. That’s just how language works.”

Bear Hug set down the pen. Writing letters was hard. No wonder most people didn’t do it. But they couldn’t communicate with Everheart in the normal ways, so letters had to be it.

With great determination, Bear Hug once more lifted a pen.

“How is your Rafflesia doing? I heard that they smell really bad but I can’t smell anything. Lots of bugs and things seem to like them so I don’t know if it’s actually true that they smell bad.

“Is Pipsqueak doing alright? I bet he’s so big now! You can tell Pipsqueak that he was already big, so he feels good. Does Pipsqueak have any baby turtles? Second Gift has some turtles. They are very nice but not very big yet.

“I heard you were dead but I’m not sure I should believe that because people said you died in several different places. If you are dead, I hope you did a good job with Third Gift, or Ultimate Gift, or whatever planet you’re infusing those plants into. You probably aren’t dead though because I heard that people have tried to kill you a lot and you aren’t dead yet. But I do hope that other thing is still true!

“I am going to send this letter on a little flying thingy so please don’t blow them up in the future. If you juice it up you can probably send it back to me. Someone is going to read this so don’t ask for any secrets or I can’t be your friend. I’m pretty sure I don’t know anything really important anyway. Second Gift isn’t even secret anymore and people were attacking it for a long time along the way so it was only a tiny bit secret to begin with.

“If you are having trouble growing anything send me information about the climate. I can get information on how to grow it good. I can also get you some seeds. If you need advice for converting energy I also know how to do that. I probably should have started with that because without the right energy all that stuff will die or be boring.”

Signed, Your Future Friend, Bear Hug (the algae thing you talked to on Second Gift in case you forgot)

“Second Gift has pretty normal gravity so maybe smash a bunch of things together until they weigh the same amount if it’s not working. Be careful with the soil composition. You don’t actually want earthworms everywhere even though they’re pretty neat. Some things do better without them. If your planet is too big I hear you can split it into bits and make them orbit in cool patterns without them crashing into each other. Make sure to keep all the middle bits in the middle!

“I’m not allowed to ask you to visit or anything so just write a letter back. It will be hard to read but I’ll do it. Okay bye.”

-----

Sometime after they wrote the letter, Bear Hug had to contact Catarina. “There’s a bunch of people coming!”

She nodded. “That was something we already knew. Does this mean they have reached the border?”

“Oh, yeah. Hold on, let me get more details. Okay, um… there’s Koronis and a whole bunches of bunches of other people. So many people. They’re packed together like ants but they’re people and I don’t know how they breathe.”

“Ants also breathe.”

“Whaaat? That’s crazy! Anyway the ship says that the bunches and bunches of people are the Swirling Swarm. They might or might not have Domination cultivators somewhere in there.”

Most of that information had already gotten to the Scarlet Alliance in one form or another. After all, it took time to transport large quantities of people… and the Swirling Swarm wasn’t exactly subtle.

“Does the ship have an estimate on the quantity of Swirling Swarm cultivators?” Catarina asked.

“Not even a little bit! It’s having so much trouble approximating a volume!”

Worrying. And yet… this was precisely the sort of thing that they should be able to handle. It did require an active response, of course, and Bear Hug’s involvement was to make certain she could mobilize at the proper opportunity. Being constantly on alert herself would have been wasteful, as there were always productive things to occupy her time. Or relaxation, once in a while.noveldrama

Chidi was already on site, because teleporting him was a good bit more difficult. Besides, Aconite had been building up additional anti-swarm measures and wanted company.

After alerting those who needed to be aware, Catarina grabbed Timothy and Zazil as well as Bear Hug. They would be dropped off at different locations. First, they rushed to the solar platform- Catarina was capable of moving them directly but it was much more strenuous. It was better to make use of the infrastructure they already had to begin with. That brought them to the star closest to one of the regional borders- not necessarily the closest border, but the one that was closest to a star. Because the regional borders were straight planes, some were closer than others. However, even with a great many systems none of the edges actually passed through a system- though that depended on the tolerance.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

It actually took the Domination cultivators over a day to reach their destination, but they had more time than that. Not much more time for Catarina’s purposes, but enough. They had planned this properly, after all, and even practiced executing it.

They reached one of the regional borders, and Catarina took control of the formations. Here, space was to link up to somewhere not adjacent to itself. That remained true, but it was a different location. Timothy went through. After confirming his transmission, Catarina sent Zazil onto her destination. From there, they would approach the forces waiting for them- systems with emplacements meant to fight against invasions.

It didn’t matter why the Swirling Swarm had chosen now to act, but it was clear they were aiming for the main body of the Scarlet Alliance instead of attacking the theoretically more vulnerable region Ratna controlled. They’d taken quite a roundabout path, which was how the Scarlet Alliance had first heard of them even with information delayed. It was entirely possible they wouldn’t have had sufficient advanced knowledge to make any preparations if not for Bear Hug.

This assault would force them to reveal some of their capabilities, but it was unlikely that the Trigold Cluster wasn’t already at least somewhat aware of how the spatial distortions functioned. They certainly had spies sneaking about, calculating routes. They probably didn’t spot all of them, but they let some go intentionally. Because the way things were wasn’t the way things had to be.

Catarina followed up Zazil by stepping through herself, coming out on the inside edge of the eastern border. She would be acting on the opposite edge of where the intruders were entering, though precisely which segment was still up for debate. She would be able to move to head them off no matter where they went.

“What is their course?”

“Uh… 17-D?” Bear Hug commented. “That’s what the ship and the operator say! I think that’s the same one as before. It’s so weird suddenly being in a different spot all at once. I go whoosh, zoom, swash!”

Bear Hug hadn’t mentioned strange feelings before… in Catarina’s presence. However, they had long ago confirmed that Bear Hug’s network connection wasn’t harmed by such travel. Perhaps several transmissions close together was disorienting. Or perhaps they’d just not mentioned it.

“Do you feel alright?”

“I was hoping I would have gotten a letter already, but other than that I’m pretty good.”

“Alright,” Catarina said. “Let me know if there’s any change in course.”

-----

When they arrived, Koronis and the Creeping Fire Sect were in the lead. It was kind of like they were being chased by the Swirling Swarm. That might even be the case, but they were also clearly together. Bear Hug’s ship was sneakily watching from a distance- it was easy enough for them to follow the movements of vast energy sources like millions of cultivators and Koronis.

“They’re going through soon!” Bear Hug warned.

Catarina nodded. Then she altered the destination of the spatial distortion. Sadly, it wasn’t into a black hole. They didn’t even have any of those, and it would have had to have formations built through it, so it was a bit much. However, they did have regional boundaries within the Bloodsoaked Nebula.

They put so much work into a grand formation that had pretty much never been used there, calling upon the malice of those that had died at the hands of the great powers. When they had most recently invaded the Scarlet Midfields, they mostly just avoided the area.

“How is it going?” Catarina asked. “Is Koronis still at the front? Is she through?”

“She’s taking her time,” Bear Hug commented. “Some people came back through. She’s going! She’s through now.”

Catarina waited several more moments before swapping the spatial distortion to lead elsewhere. She also temporarily disabled the one passing through the Bloodsoaked Nebula so that it didn’t go anywhere. People would just pass through ‘real space’. It would take constant monitoring to make sure things stayed stable with a different configuration, but this was how Catarina fought.

“A whole bunch of Swirling Swarm guys are charging through.”

“Tell me when it’s about a quarter,” Catarina said.

“Uhh…”

“It’s okay to be wrong. Any approximate is fine.”

“I think it’s about a quarter now?”

Catarina swapped once more. The first group would be going to Chidi. The next to Timothy where he waited. Then Zazil. Finally, Prospero and Xankeshan… more or less. They might go elsewhere, but those would be the most tempting locations to assault.

Though there had been good intentions behind concentrating defenses on Xankeshan in the past, the battle there had shown they simply didn’t have sufficient space to build out all the defenses they wanted. Thus, splitting up groups like this was more efficient. Each fortified system could handle its own power infrastructure without having it be overly bulky. They could fit a decent number of orbital defense platforms above their planets. And they could focus their fire on a slightly more reasonable number of foes.

“Are there any more enemies? No? Good. Alright, now contact battle groups as I tell you.” Catarina would be sending some of their extra forces to flank the foes… though she would be waiting for confirmation of contact first. All of which would be coming through Bear Hug. Instant transmission of information was extremely useful.

It was too bad they didn’t have an abundance of death zones to send their enemies into. Chances were that Koronis would survive the Bloodsoaked Nebula. Dropping a Domination cultivator directly into a star would probably be insufficient as well. Stars were powerful, but not nearly focused enough to cause a sufficient level of destruction. Hopefully ancient malice would wear her down at least. They wouldn’t be able to monitor where Koronis was going to come out, but all of the exits to the Bloodsoaked Nebula led to fortified regions.

It was possible she would break through the spatial distortion edges and menace some unimportant systems, but it would be foolish of her to effectively strand herself in that manner. Even if it was uncomfortable, the losses they would suffer there were nothing next to the luxury of being able to hunt down a Domination cultivator in a leisurely manner.