EXXOS
The shadow cloud moved through the back passageways of the universe, a bubble of dark entropy with no destination and only a chaotic goal.
After the victory at Hiltos, Exxos could not power down his mind into rest mode while his thoughts churned in search of a solution. The robots would find a way to destroy the hideous shadow entities, but if necessary they would first destroy everything else. Once the Shana Rei granted the surviving black robots their own isolated corner of the universe, Exxos would ponder the next phase of his plan. Since the black robots had been in existence for millennia, he was in no hurry. But although their losses had been minimal, his robot numbers were dwindling. That would have to stop.
Pulsating inkblots appeared in the void, and their baleful incongruous eyes shone like acid lightning. They regarded the black robots as if they were specimens in a bizarre cosmic zoo. Exxos did not plead with them, did not offer suggestions unless the shadows asked, because any comment could trigger an unexpected violent reaction. But they had to continue their destruction. With so many targets, he thought, which one should he choose next?
The empty void wall around the robots thinned, and stars appeared. The shadow cloud reemerged into normal space. The fleet of angular black warships remanifested out of nothingness, constructed according to the detailed blueprints the black robots had provided. Those designs had worked well at Hiltos.
One of the inkblots appeared in front of him, and a pulsating, droning voice made his embedded circuits sparkle with unprotected chaos. “We have found something. You may do as you wish.”
The robots found themselves aboard their battleships, and Exxos reaccessed all the systems, studied the projected images, the sensor maps. His crimson optical sensors glowed as he spotted a lone vessel, a minuscule speck in the infinity of emptiness.
A single ship. A human ship.
The Shana Rei withdrew, taking no part in this incident, even though they had facilitated it. The robots were more than sufficient to take care of this small vessel. Moving with a single mind, Exxos’s mind, the black robot warships surrounded the vessel in empty space.
In his grand scheme, Exxos envisioned destroying whole human colonies, gigantic Ildiran stations, widely settled planets—particularly the ancient worlds abandoned by the Klikiss race. But on a canvas as vast as the universe, even a star system was an insignificant speck. It was all a matter of scale.
So, Exxos and his robots would destroy this spacecraft and consider it one small step toward progress.
“Who the hell are you?” screeched a gruff female voice over the comm. The image of a Roamer captain with gray-black dreadlocks and puffy cheeks appeared on the sensor screen.
Exxos didn’t care what the victim looked like, but the sight added an extra layer of satisfaction. He responded to her because he chose to. “We are the ones who will destroy you.”
“By the Guiding Star, I’ve got nothing! Take my damn cargo if you insist. It’s boron-laced conduits headed for Newstation.”
“We have no interest in your cargo.” Exxos strung this moment out. The Shana Rei had allowed this, so he would enjoy it.
The pilot sounded angry and baffled. “Then what the hell do you want?”
Exxos believed that much was obvious. “We want to annihilate you.”
Over the years, he had become an expert in human expressions. Fear was one of the obvious designators here. The trader captain spluttered. “But, why? What the hell did I do?”
Exxos thought that was obvious as well. “You exist.”
The captain continued to transmit, pleading, but further conversation was pointless. Because all of the black robots were linked through him, he could coordinate their maneuvers, so he chose to use this event as practice.
His warships encircled the trapped trader, and he commanded them to focus their weapons on the same point. All of them fired at exactly the same instant.
The energy burst was sufficient to vaporize the ship, even powerful enough to cause minor pinpoints of nuclear fusion among the denser materials collapsing from the implosion. The boron-laced conduit tubes disappeared as easily as the human flesh did. The entire ship vanished in a flash, and even the energy outburst dissipated quickly into blackness.
The robot warships hung there, and Exxos waited, wondering what the Shana Rei intended next. Would they want the robots to go on the rampage again, as they had done at the Hiltos shrine? That incident had been satisfyingly destructive, but he had lost another twenty black robots—a far more significant loss to him than what they had inflicted on the Ildiran Empire. As the war went on, the black robots could not survive such attrition.
Perhaps that was what the Shana Rei intended.
Exxos needed to find another solution.
The shadow cloud reappeared in space, pulsing around them. One of the inkblots appeared on the bridge of the remanifested warship, and the silence hung heavy for a long moment. Nevertheless, Exxos got the impression that the shadows were pleased. Even with centuries of analysis, he would never understand Shana Rei modes of thought.
If the robots could find a way to annihilate the creatures of darkness, however, it wouldn’t matter. Or, if the Shana Rei and the black robots destroyed human and Ildiran civilization, that too would be a good enough victory.
The shadow cloud engulfed the robot warships again, and folded them back out of the cosmos.