If the Tekrons could put death to good use, why couldn’t we?

“I’m on board,” I agreed.

-Ready, Mom?- Nina /sent me.

-Yep,- I /replied, toting my load of annihilation.

Space opened in front of me, leading right out into the starry void, held at bay only by the material of the Rift. Only intelligent matter could pass through this violation of physics, so no worry about a hurricane starting here or something.

I stepped through, my wave to Wayland also dispersing and sealing the Rift behind me.

Nora was dark-haired and dark-eyed, vaguely Oriental in appearance, cute as a button, and currently standing on a floating hunk of rock in a dead system with some stupid designation, since it wasn’t worth naming.

Like most floating material above a certain size, it had its own atmosphere naturally gathered to it, and its own gravity. It wasn’t enough to protect the rock from the radiation of the dying star, of course, so the only thing that might grow here would have to be psi-powered or a radiation eater, neither of which were present, thankfully.

The Santa Maria was nestled on the dark side of the rock, throwing off I’m-not-here cancellation vibes for sensors looking for signs of bound energies, ultradense materials, and other indications of technology.

The atmosphere might have been breathable if it wasn’t so ionized, but oh well, that’s what Vajras and radiation immunity were for. I followed her up a ridge, and peeked over the edge.

They’d done pretty well, getting within ten thousand miles of the gathering fleet, which to keep security had picked a fairly densely populated area of the rubble around the star to set up shop. Given the size of the ships, even having ten miles between them while they were in orbit was incredibly close if something should happen, but there were dozens docked together, bringing in supplies from diverted freighters for a big fight.

I could feel sensory waves sweeping past me, and I bent them past my Vajra and around me without really thinking about it. Nina stayed below the ridge.

I swept my eyes over the whole fleet, painted it into memory and up for analysis, my eyes up on full 100x magnification from the Mask. Most of the ships were at least half a kilometer long, and so were visible even at that distance, given the void didn’t impede vision much... and I could see through any particles, anyways.

That said, I still brought a pair of magnifiers out of my vest pocket, and they easily stacked with the Mask of Clarity. The distant ships leapt forwards, and I could now make out details as if they were only a mile away.

The Goldilocks were watching and promptly started matching up ships to designations and designs, and were soon assigning names to them, captains, capabilities, histories, and everything. Also, was evidence if we cared to use it.

We definitely cared to.

Chalice thrummed readiness.

I had fed her constantly as the Dark Angel, and even if she could only grow a limited amount a day, when that just kept coming into an orichalcum blade at QL 55, that was plenty fine.

Grandmother was also definitely an Eternal now, because you had to have 21 Ranks in Weaponsmithing to make an Eternal-Level Weapon and get the Caster Level that high.

The original Chalice had touched mine in the Warp. The changes in QL permeated through her quickly, and Mom had done the work to start the first Eternal Slot.

One million gold, two thousand goldweight equiv in Karma to open that Slot.

But... an Eternal Weapon could digest 10k in Karma or gold a day, not just a thousand. So, instead of a thousand days of killing or Investing to open her up, I only needed a hundred.

The money was a non-issue. It was an immense sum to lower Levels; 10k was a +III Armor, but it was literally pocket change to me now. The interest on my personal wealth was probably higher at this point (I had to check, and yeah, it was. I had some good financial managers...) so she was improving every day, even if I had to sit down for eight hours for the Investing.

But all her old Karma had been going into improving her Caster Level and the Spell Levels of her intrinsics as my own Spellcraft had been rising.

That included Teleport.

Teleport Without Error was the VII upgrade to Teleport. It allowed perfect teleportation anywhere within a planetary body... no matter the size of that body. So, for example, I could literally go anywhere in the Underweb I could actually picture... and I had The Map Right There to actually visualize everything. I didn’t even need a Lived-Line of my own anymore... although The Map was basically Lived-Lines incarnate.

The Linejump variant was basically unlimited on sight. I could jump from a planet to a moon if I could see it. It would even compensate for the time delay of light.

Likewise, the fact I had close to twelve tons of Mass to tote around didn’t mean all that much right now. I could carry it, that was all that was important, as long as it was non-living matter.

Cost 108,000 gold, or 216 goldweight, or a hundred days of combat.

And 14 PP, too.

I would be improving it further, to Interplanetary Teleport once I hit Seventeen. Another 54k in goldweight equivs, but I would be able to pop from planet to planet as casually as my girls hopped around a city.

I would not need Gloom to move around places anymore. Actually, I could sub for a Riftcutter if one of my kids discovered a new world, going right to them. Not even the Great Rift cutting the galaxy in half would stop me.

Go where I needed to, when I needed to, without the stop in the middle.

I could also Cut a Greater Rift now, a full 10-foot radius circle. It still only lasted for 150 seconds. That was big enough to drive a tank through. Or a bunch of tanks, if they were fast enough and lined up correctly.

At Seventeen, I should be able to Cut open a Gate, and keep it open as long as I gave Chalice the juice to keep it that way. That would be a full 20-foot radius, big enough to fit mechs... and long enough to move a real army, straight from planet to planet, without going through Gloom.

What that meant for now was that I crossed ten thousand miles in a blur of spatial transit, and wound up right on top of the key structural stress point abutting the main power core of the Mechanist Ship Cogwrighter.

I looked all around as my hair eased out the first antimatter mine, and its snug load of anticarbon in stasis. Oh, what a pound of mass could do when injected into the right area...

I fixed it to the hull in the desired location, gave it the nanite spray to blend in with the hull and thwart any of the sweepers roving about unperturbed on their preprogrammed courses of automatic security.

The Goldilocks double-checked all my ship sightings and placements, all lined up in standard Mechanist protocols by size, need, and peerage of their commanders, and I looked around and did a standard Linejump for only 7 PP to my next target.

Yeah, I had a huge amount of PP, and that was no joke, but I had a hundred ships to visit, and some of them weren’t positioned optimally, so I’d have to trot over skyscraper-plus sized hulls to get my little presents into place.

That was all okay.

------

I inquired how the kids were planning to handle the detonation of these things, and got drawn into some very grim discussions.

Taking out this Mekker Fleet wouldn’t solve the problem. It would only harden the stance of the Mekkers.

Oh, we could blow it to hell, and it would go silent. We wouldn’t be able to clean up the battlefield before others came in to investigate, and they’d figure out how everything was killed from the wrecks, one way or another.

They’d follow SOP and double down. This time they wouldn’t be circumspect about what they were going to do.

A lot of people were going to die. There was going to be unrest and rebellion across this part of the galaxy, and if word of it reached the other side, over there too.

Internal unrest was a huge excuse for external enemies to pounce. It was going to be ugly, and there was no way around it.

No way, except to just be ready to take them on when they were going to pounce, and make the internal conflict mercilessly fast and deadly... just the way the Mekkers didn’t want it to happen to them.

I thought there were a lot of us Hags around. Goddamn it, there wasn’t even a fraction of what was going to be needed. There wasn’t enough of my kids for even one to a planet beyond the Rift, let alone the main portion of the Empire.

Gawdammit...

All we could do is hit that button, and tried to guide the crash-landing in the most profitable direction.

This fleet was going to Janus III. Odds were that they would purge the planet of anyone who knew about GAMT, and use their successful action as a springboard to start a purge across the Sector.

All to maintain their monopoly, covering it up in talk about illegal and alien tech infiltrating humanity, how it couldn’t possibly be equal to their ancient tech and so had to be Warp-influenced.

They couldn’t duplicate it, couldn’t replicate it, therefore it was wrong and had to be rid of.

Goddamn, I hated the Mekkers.

-------

In the end, there was precious little drama.

The order was given for the Fleet to move out, to head for the edge of the system’s mass shadow and start the Helljump to Janusspace.

There was one mass broadcast.

“YOU HAVE DISAPPOINTED THE GOD OF THE MACHINE.”

They had the necessary one second to process the words, comprehend that it was coming from everywhere, and the mines blew off.

Anticarbon met carbon, 100% energy conversion at stress points happened. Situated where they were, megatomic explosions tore through Engineering and their power cores, and the mighty stars bound inside the ships were set free.

Millions of humans, pretty much all of them significantly cybered, died screaming. Molecularly hardened durasteel blew apart, and fire flared in the orbit of the dying star, before slowly fading away.

The Corunsun Fleet came streaming into the system on Tachyon Drive. The Celestial Tribute was already opening up, and the solar furnace it had been building the instant we had heard of this fleet assembling drifted out to begin processing starships, rendering them down into raw materials, and making them ready to be turned into something of our own.