She, of the Reliquary

"This is the one," she declared triumphantly, pointing at the distorted rendering while her firm breasts swayed under the glow of the display.

The Warrior stared skeptically at the display -- sneaking furtive glances at her chest -- while plumes of methane sublimated from his muscular, light blue frame. He raised an eyebrow: "Forgive me, but whenever you show me one of these displays, I get ill. One what?"

She dismissed his sarcasm. "My projections tell me a class m star is forming -- or has already formed. There will be life there ..."

He walked forward and touched the display: "So the end of our adventure is at hand."

She noted the resignation in his husky voice. "It was never meant to last forever."

"Nothing ever does."

"So," the Warrior continued through gritted teeth. "When will we know?"

"The Reliquary is already on final approach and we will be phasing from hyperspace soon."

@@@@@@@

The Reliquary emerged soundlessly into relativistic space near the fifth planet in the young planetary system. It was a potential proto star that was only a few masses away from fusion ignition. It had enough smaller satellites to constitute its own inner system. The vessel orbited the gas giant, analyzing the various moons, establishing that some could support life but not following the evolutionary tram she required.

The vessel broke orbit from the gas giant and plunged deeper into the planetary system -- the star radiated massive amounts of energy across the spectrum and occasional gravitational tidal forces slowed or accelerated the inner planets as the star and the gas giant fought for supremacy. The vessel crossed a young field of asteroids of varying size -- this was evidence that a planet had once orbited in that plane and was mangled by the tidal forces generated by the two rival masses.

The Warrior watched as the Lady Relic manipulated the holographic rendering of the four inner planets -- strings of information flashed around the planets, conveying data regarding atmospheric and geological composition and surface temperature. The two outer planets held the best chance of evolving carbon based life.

"There!" the Warrior indicated -- a section of space around the fourth planet was highlighted and enhanced. The vessel's intelligence reached out and connected with the object in orbit around the world.

She had not noticed the shadow in the display. Her eyes grew wide as she recognized the silhouette. She turned to her Warrior who nodded gravely.

"Another reliquary," he confirmed.

"What is it doing?" she murmured. An odd energy field connected to the intrinsic field of the planet to the reliquary.

The Warrior ignored the question and reached out to the intelligence -- the vessel shared what it learned from the other reliquary.

"This can't be right ..." the Warrior said as he shook his head.

"It's tying to seed the planet," she said, incredulous as the other reliquary's noosphere effect and its goal of delivering the pure cognisance of the Providers caused the planet's genosphere potential to collapse on itself, inviting the life that existed already to fall prey to entropy. "But its incomplete and incompatible ..."

"It's a Seed Lord and he is acting alone -- the knowledge is not being broken down into strings of inceptualized potential," the Warrior hissed at the travesty. His mind touched the vessel's intelligence -- failure will send the other reliquary to the third planet in the inner system.

She watched her Warrior with intense concern as his face turned sour and he said: "We can't interfere with the operation -- it's already too late. The tidal forces are too strong -- we will phase into hyperspace and reemerge near the third planet."

She nodded, understanding the inherent danger of such a short transition in hyperspace. She smiled in resignation and the Warrior signalled the vessel to reenter hyperspace.

5. The weight of a world

The emergence from hyperspace was not as simple an affair as when the Reliquary phased near the orbit of the fifth planet. The gravitational tidal forces pulled the space-time fabric apart with a blinding flash of light as bright as a second sun when the vessel popped into the third planet's near orbit. But the Reliquary was a sturdy vessel and as it stabilized its trajectory, it was already feeding information to the Warrior and his ward. The atmosphere was a chaotic maelstrom of nitrogen, methane and carbon dioxide, keeping the meagre heat the planet received and allowing the sparsely spread pools of water that filled the pock marked facettes of the ever shifting plates that formed the planet's malleable surface to remain liquid. The water was the result of impacts from asteroids and comets early in the world's history that exposed deep segments of the planet's iron geology.

She observed a series of graphs that indicated a carbon cycle originating from those small lakes and that steadily increased the oxygen and water vapour.

"There's life here," she said as a topographical map of the planet's surface formed behind her eyes. "Mass ... composition ... atmosphere ... it's perfect!"

The guardian gazed at the display and its multiple coloured graphs and nodded gravely. "This is where the other reliquary will come once the failure with the other planet is complete. This is where we will wait and make a stand."

She turned to her guardian and put a hand to his shoulder and kissed it. "You won't let this world die, will you?"

"It would break your heart -- I cannot have that."

@@@@@@@

The Reliquary orbited the third planet, its sensors establishing the full topography of the surface, as well as the best areas to insert the noosphere fragments of inceptualized potential. If completed successfully, the noosphere would slowly reform, prompting and nudging evolution down a set path. The Warrior and the Lady Relic pondered the arrival of the second reliquary and its passenger: their vessel did not possess any weapons and luckily nor did the other reliquary. Although the apparent madness of its Seed Lord might be weapon enough.

The planet completed two full stellar orbits with the Reliquary circling it before its long range sensors located the other ship as it navigated the slowly stabilizing tidal forces that pulled at the inner planet and against the young star.

"They must have been damaged during the escape," the Warrior theorized as he paced the length of the command chamber. "Or perhaps quantum wraiths ... that could warp their sense of purpose. Your purpose."

She looked from her chart and smiled sadly at the subjugated meaning in his words. But before she could add to his comment, the inner lights of the Reliquary's command centre shifted to a deep red and a large holo-display filled the room -- it showed the third planet and its satellite and indicated an incoming point. The other reliquary was within range.

"They aren't answering our challenge," the Lady Relic stated. The Reliquary had reached out to its sibling but while they had shared a mind upon entering the system, silence was all that awaited the intelligence.

The other reliquary established an orbit opposite the Lady Relic's vessel and they proceeded to circle each other like two mighty predators eyeing the same meal. The Warrior made a small gesture and the Reliquary accelerated its orbital velocity to rendez-vous with the other vessel while it established a geo-synchronous orbit over the main land mass -- the Reliquary slowed its orbital speed but had to veer hard around the other vessel as it expanded a null gravity web.

"Are they going to trigger the effect already?" she asked as she noticed the concentric rings that marked the other reliquary's hull flickered and changed erratically.

The Warrior studied the readings along with her and his purpose -- which included the ability to destroy -- allowed him to discern a pattern to the other reliquary's actions. He touched the display, his finger tracing a line from the immobile reliquary and the land mass and back.

"No," the Warrior murmured. "They plan to use the null G web to envelop the entire planet and invert the mass effect, flattening space-time"

The lady Relic gasped as she brought her slender fingers to her thick lips. "That will tear the planet apart," she whispered as he nodded.

"The entire star system may be compromised," the Warrior added.

"The gravity well this planet represents acts as a buffer between the tidal forces of the star and the gas giant," the lady Relic stated, her mind playing the likely scenarios. "It also maintains a gravitational anchor -- the system is young so the planets are steadily moving away from the central star. The farther they move away the easier their velocity might fling them from the system. Or the reverse effect might happen and the planets will all fall within the star."

"This can't happen!" she cried as she turned to her Warrior and grasped her stone like shoulders. "You promised ..."

6. Broken

The Reliquary accelerated its lateral orbital velocity as it rode the outer delimitation of the expanding null G web generated by the other vessel. The Warrior chose the quark sword he had used in his skirmish with the quantum wraiths. It was a two dimensional weapon and thus he could conceal it within the spaces of his molecules.

He had removed all garments and stood in the capsule room where the Lady Relic had once slumbered. She watched him carefully as he advised the Reliquary intelligence of his course of action. The floor thinned and the swiftly moving planet appeared beneath him and a cylinder of light enveloped him. The Lady Relic put her hand on the solidified energy field and watched as the colour of his skin turned a deep shade of blue and his strong, regal features and ears melted away, leaving on his face and cranium smooth but for only his two blue eyes as he prepared to face the harshness of an orbital ejection.

Once the Reliquary was parallel with the other vessel's vertical axis, the floor beneath the Warrior's feet dissolved and he was ejected from the bottom hull of the Reliquary with the explosive force of a fractal dissolution. In such a high orbit, the lingering young atmosphere was insufficient to transmit any sound but the Warrior could imagine a tumultuous rush of sound as he crashed towards the expanding reliquary. The Lady Relic was already moving away at high speed -- he was aware of his own speed as friction heated his skin as he crossed the expanse towards the deranged adversary.

The Warrior crashed into its erratically coloured hull with an impact that made the ship's dark matter surface ripple. Once the hull regained its composure, he felt its surface and noted how cold it was -- a cold that told him that this reliquary's intelligence was dormant or worse.

Touching his chest, the Warrior extracted the quark sword and sank it into the dark matter of the reliquary and carved an incision as that temporarily disrupted the cohesion of the hull -- he managed to pry the incision apart and he slipped into the ship before the incision sealed itself. The interior of the reliquary was that of a tomb -- the atmosphere was stagnant and fountains of light occasionally flashed from the ebony walls like ephemeral embers. The Warrior pressed the sword back into his body and a sequence of genetic triggers made his ears and features to reform. He cascaded a series of synaptic sequences and his awareness reached out to contact the ship's intelligence. It was cold and quiet as the ship itself -- even the swarms of maintenance nano bots were listless.

The Warrior walked the arched corridors of the ship, noting cracks and warping within its basic structure. It had been made sick by the flawed noosphere effect and the stress of the null G web was slowly precipitating the degeneration. Despite the silence, he was able to detect a slight vibration -- he dropped to his knees and touched the floor and a three dimensional map appeared before his eyes, displaying his location and indicating a path to the source of the vibration. The source itself was veiled in electromagnetic interference.

But it was a simple affair for him to locate the source of the interference -- the ship's command centre was barricaded with both pieces of inner bulkheads and force fields. He attempted to cut through the barricade but the unstable entropic nature of the dark matter reduced the efficiency of his quark sword. He replaced it within his core and examined the barricade, his augmented vision revealing every little flaw within its dynamic structure -- until he found what he sought: a truncated tesseract that functioned as a portal between the two side of the barrier. Without hesitation, he pressed his head against it and was immediately catapulted through the barrier and emerged on the other side with a crash from which he easily rose and assessed his surroundings.

An eerie green illumination filled the vast chamber. Panels were ripped and strewn across the floor while a flickering holographic display of the third planet and the growing null G web occupied the centre of the room. Beyond the rendering, he spotted two figures -- one stood at a peculiar angle while the other knelt. His awareness was dulled by the interference.

The Warrior stepped through the rendering and was taken aback by what he saw: the Seed Lord was strung up to the ceiling, cables and relays entered his flesh where it was torn open, exposing his juicy muscles as they bled, leaving a crimson pool under him. The cables and relays were connected to his nerves and cerebellum while a rudimentary interface was wired through his eyes and mouth to his frontal lobes. Saliva bubbled and ran down the cable in his mouth as the Seed Lord took the occasional, shallow breath. His guardian was beneath him, her lips wrapped around his grossly erect penis and she sucked lavishly at the bruised member.

Her head was as bald as his but was somehow marked it with a series of chaotic line drawings. She was tall and carved of lean muscle -- like him, she was designed for swiftness and strength and was possessed of the power to destroy. Her hips were slightly flared and her breasts were small but enticing while her nipples were as thick as her thumbs and stiffly erect.

As he triggered a series of sleeper genes to better perceive the electromagnetic spectrum, his eyes identified a faint glow emanating from the markings covering her skull. On a quantum level, her entire body appeared to flicker in and out of existence like a virtual particle.

"Guardian!" he bellowed. The entire chamber shook beneath the force of his voice. "What have you done?"

The guardian released the Seed Lord's cock and sprang to her feet with disturbing elegance and covered the space between her and the Warrior almost instantly. Her eyes were orbless as she examined this new comer.

"You came," she said as she smelt the newcomer. "We thought we were the only ones left."

"You're not alone," he said. Some of his indignation turned to pity. "What happened?"

"There was a rift in hyperspace," she said as a tear drifted down from her empty eye socket. "The reliquary flew through a swarm of uncertain things. We were lost."

"What about him? Why did you try to seed the fourth planet?" he demanded as he grabbed her shoulders and shook her despite himself.

"We came here -- the core intelligence told us the planet was ripe for seeding the noosphere and that encoded fragmentation was unnecessary." The guardian walked around the display, her arms hugging her shoulders and covering her small breasts as though she felt cold. "But there was a backlash -- the planet's evolutionary tram derided the noospehre's introduction. The core intelligence was destroyed and the reliquary needed a new core ..." She had moved over to the pendant Seed Lord and caressed his greying skin.

"At his command, I improvised," she added. "I've been trying to retrieve the noosphere code key but I have been unable." She touched his cock.

She turned to face the Warrior and said: "I don't have much time left, do I?"

The Warrior examined her -- the glowing fissures on her head were gradually spreading across a body that had once been an ode to athletic power and grace.

"No," he said as he stood next to her and put a broad hand on her shoulder. "Can the null G web be reversed?"

The guardian brought her eyeless face looked at him. "The inverted mass effect is greater than the planet's own mass." She went over to him and rested her cool head against his thickly muscled chest.

"Warrior? May I have one last request?"

"Of course, my sister," he said, acknowledging her as being of the same type of creation he was.

"I don't want to die cold."

The Warrior cupped her dirty face and tilted her head back and he kissed her -- when he touched her lips he felt her body warm up slightly and the haze leaking from her markings abated slightly. With her actions, she had betrayed the oath to protect the Seed Lord. But when he touched her hips and felt the passion ignite within her as she plunged her tongue into his mouth, they shared a sudden synaptic harmony and the holographic display in the room faded and began showing her memories and he understood: she had stopped loving the Seed Lord. They had encountered a swarm of quantum wraiths but damage suffered during the escape from their home system left them susceptible to the madness of the agglomerated beasts.

The Warrior had pushed her up against the bulk head and he kissed his way down her neck till he found her nipples. He swirled his tongue around her thick nubs while he cupped her breasts and his mind was filled with the guilt she experienced -- the display shifted to show that despite her lack of love, she was still compelled to follow his orders and she did. After the failure at the fourth planet, the insane Seed Lord ordered the destruction of the third planet, certain that the planets themselves were actively plotting against them -- so she established him as the ship's new core and they came to third planet. She redesigned the singularity drive and created the null G web.

"I'm sorry!" the guardian sighed as the Warrior fell to his knees and placed her thigh onto his shoulder -- his mouth found her sex and he kissed her moistening flesh, his tongue exploring her inner folds. As she was getting warmer, the Warrior felt his own limited body heat diminish as it seeped into the guardian. But the risk was worth it if it could relieve the guardian from her guilt -- he put a finger into her pussy and made a figure eight motion with it to accompany his tongue against her clitoris and while she shuddered, she grabbed the back of his head and pressed his face into her fabricated sex.

The Warrior explored the guardian with a fervour he had not experienced when he had coupled with the Lady Relic -- he stood and held her against the the warped bulkhead and she snaked her legs around his thighs and he reached between them and rubbed his glans against her clitoris.

"Please," the guardian pleaded, her voice a hoarse whisper.

The Warrior bent his knees slightly so he could better angle his cock and he slid into her with a series of slowly sensual thrusts while her virgin cunt accepted his scorching member. She wrapped her arms around his neck and covered his face with desperate kisses as his thighs and buttocks clenched, pushing his shaft deeper into her core while her juices leaked down their thighs. Her tongue parted his lips and danced about his tongue like a wanton prey offering itself to a stoic predator; he slipped a hand under he ass to support her as she squeezed his waist whenever he thrust, driving him deeper towards her artificial womb; his other hand slid up her muscled stomach and he squeezed her firm breast and erect nipple; she moaned through their kiss and her skin began to glow while some of the markings that were spreading across her flesh receded.