—But we will not allow it to hasten that victory.
To fight a holding action that would last two trillion years was the greatest victory that ordinary, baryonic-matter lifeforms could hope to achieve.
Across the Earth, billions of humans and Haxigoji of living crystal shared those broadcast thoughts and images and grew fierce, because this was their reason for existing now: to beat back the enemy’s advance, to hurt it enough that it would never try again.
The earlier waves were in final preparation, having fought training campaigns in the depths of Jovian oceans and interstellar space; soon the greatest deployment the galaxy had ever seen would begin.
When the initial speeches and briefing were over, the nine war leaders split their mid-air formation and flew to their respective armies. Gavriela chose to walk among her troops as an individual instead of addressing them from on high, so she glided across the metallic crimson expanse of a continent-sized arsenal, in parallel to one of the silver regions where the crystalline warriors grew.
At random, she picked a spot and swooped down to land on metal.
Among her warriors, standing at ease now, were humans of the modern kind like Magni, born to this form, and those who were grown for the battle, Haxigoji and human alike, their neural patterns laid down via cross-temporal resonance: some personalities copied many times over, to varying degrees of fidelity.
Each possessed true warrior spirit: they were grown that way, absorbing from the very start paraneural crystal shards analogous to archaic logotropes, whose purpose was only to awaken natural potential. Any individual is the descendant of billions of years of ancestors who fought and survived: the son, daughter or clone of champions.
Gavriela stopped before a strong-looking crystalline woman.
—I am Gavriela. What was your name, originally?
Diffractive spectra shifted as the woman smiled.
—My name was Rekka, War Leader.
—And do you remember your first life?
The woman shook her head.
—Vague dreams, is all. Though I have spirit-sisters who remember more, some of them clearly.
—And your thoughts on the war? Or on the way we resurrected you?
Again, the Rekka-echo shook her head.
—If you hadn’t resurrected me, I wouldn’t exist, and that would be a shame. And as for the darkness, whether the hatred comes from the training or just from being me, who can tell?
This was the moral question faced by every commander:
—Is it worth fighting against?
—With respect, War Leader, you know it is.
Once, Gavriela would have been unhappy at being addressed as a military commander, but half a million years had hardened the notion inside her.
The other warriors in the platoon nodded agreement.
—Good luck, Gavriela told them.
She stepped upon her shield and soared upward.
So many weapons. So many warriors.
But against an enemy like the darkness, was even the population of Earth-turned-Valhöll enough?
Perhaps they were like children playing with toy guns and mock-heroic fantasy, to be brushed aside and killed when the real invaders came.
When the war leaders reconvened, eight of them floating in a circle surrounding Kenna at the centre, they raised their arms and tuned their minds to the crystalline armies standing to attention on those silver and crimson pseudo-continents banding the globe, to the eight waves floating ready across the solar system, and for a time they became one being, unifying their purpose: protecting life, protecting the galaxy.
We fight until we win.
Or die.
It was thought and emotion combined, shared and uniting them all. Then every warrior raised a weapon and transmitted a single intention:
Win.
Nine times nine billion warriors were ready for the fight.
For Ragnarökkr.
SIXTY-TWO
SHADOW GATE AT HALO’S EDGE, ARCHAIC GALACTIC ANTI-CENTRE, 1005300 AD
The galaxy had continued to rotate, but the jet had not, relative to distant stars: it still pointed in the direction of Auriga, though Valhöll-once-Earth no longer lay exactly on that radial line. The enemy’s bridgehead linked the dark-matter star at the galactic core to the intricately structured dark-matter halo enclosing the galaxy like an eggshell.
A black bridge from intergalactic space stretched from beyond a distant void all the way to the galactic core: so long that it would take photons hundreds of millions of years to travel from end to end. Beyond the galaxy’s halo, it was thick and intricate and strong; inside the galaxy proper, its narrower presence could be sensed only by the spotter squadrons, deep space reconnaissance groups composed of Haxigoji warriors, their crystalline bodies resonating with the zero-point energy of spacetime itself, needing no ships to fly, no more than fish needed assistance to swim.
Among the living-crystal Haxigoji were crystalline Seekers, entangled in constant communication with their brothers and sisters, remaining alert for hostile feelers along the hyperdimensions, for the Anomaly had also enjoyed a million years in which to prepare: the darkness was not without allies among the baryonic-matter entities of the galaxy.
The location where the jet ended was designated Shadow Gate, and unless something unexpected occurred, this was where the battle would begin. For all the timescales involved in reaching this moment, no one expected this to be an extended campaign: this was a single confrontation, with everything at stake.
When Schenck’s renegades of distant memory had tried such a strategy in a different universe, they had failed and died; luckily they were the enemy. Here in realspace, Kenna and her fellow war leaders intended to do better.
The first test was upon them.
It was darkness with structure: a three-dimensional moving maze of invisible matter and energy falling upon the spotters and the lead warriors of Roger’s army: phalanxes of crystalline fighters floating in space, some in human form, others morphed into dart-like shapes, all trained to lay down devastating fire by cracking apart raw vacuum, by letting rip with zero-point energy.
The greater darkness was here.
—Now.
Warriors attacked.
Explosions and death were everywhere.
Around the fiery end of that great spindle, the galactic jet emanating from the core, spacetime burned, and gamma- and X-radiation spurted like blood, while squadron after squadron threw themselves against the dark, complex structures of the enemy: a ghost creature or creatures wide enough to devour stars, crawling along its black bridge from who-knew-what dark-matter hell, pushing implacably on into the precious galaxy, advancing despite its wounds and losses, for the squadrons were damaging it, that was certain, even as they died.
An honourable death is still extinction.
—Fall back.
Roger had delayed as long as he dared, but to lose his entire vanguard was not his purpose. A huge mass of darkness, all right angles and hollows, was growing large before him; standing on his shield, he focused along his spear and used it to direct his vacuum-splitting beam, gamma-rays and sapphire light spilling everywhere. Then he tipped back, whirling through a vertical half-circle, crouched on his shield as he accelerated hard.
Angular dark extrusions grew on either side, soundless yet seeming to clatter into place, attempting to enclose him; but he swung his glowing spear and spacetime shimmered and the darkness shrivelled back, unable to touch him as he flew to rejoin his retreating army.