Risen: Shatterverse - The God War

Chapter 6: Practice? We're Talking about Practice!

It shouldn't have surprised me that the two powerful AI wouldn't wait until I found them. Alys had barely taken off to go look for Miranda, who was tracking logistics transports out to the satellites, when I heard Naveaia's voice lift above the crowd's rumble to call out my name. And a heartbeat later Siofra's arms were sliding around me from behind to pull me into a hug.

"You were not traveling with your tour buddy, Siofra," I said with mock sternness as she kissed the back of my neck. "No tour buddy means you're going to get lost in here!"

"Sorry, darlin'," she said in a happy whisper just over my shoulder. "As soon as I saw you, which was well before our fine draconic friend there, I had to go to you. Dragon be damned!"

I smiled as I put my hands over hers and spent a moment luxuriating in feeling her pressed against my back.

"Two," Naveaia repeated my name as she stepped around us to come face to face. "Passing out in the middle of a briefing. Well done."

"Have you met Admiral Ikinyo?" I retorted, brow lifted. "So boring! I couldn't stay awake!"

"Uh huh. So what contacted you this time?" the mecha asked, hands clasped behind her back. "I was hearing blather about Progenitor weapons."

"What are progenitor weapons?" Siofra let me go to slide around to my front. I looked at her then back to a waiting Naveaia.

"Science has found that in every inhabited galaxy, there are one or more species that evolve into sentience first. These First Ones are what we and the Ascendency call 'Progenitors'," I quickly explained. "Usually they appear shortly after their galaxy finishes forming or shortly before, making them trillions of years old as a species and a civilization when compared to Humans, for example. So their tech is significantly ahead of ours."

I made a thoughtful grimace.

"They are also usually extinct by the time we find evidence of their existence," I added.

"The mad god called the Collector would be the exception," Naveaia noted. "That gargantuan pain in the ass transcended a physical body at some point in their evolution and is still very much alive."

I pointed at her.

"The exception," I repeated before dropping my hand and looking back at a thoughtful Siofra. Meeting my eyes, she nodded.

"Okay, I think I understand," she said before a querulous expression appeared. "And in this place? Who are the Progenitors here?"

I sighed then frowned.

"Good question," I conceded. "I don't know how many galaxies there were before the end war began."

"Which is the war the T'sang fought against the rest of the universe," Naveaia interjected to add. I nodded to her then looked back again at Siofra.

"I do know from my shatterverse visions of the past, there were many Progenitor species scattered across this universe. The Demdagon were one. And the T'sang, which claims to be the first to rise to sentience in the whole universe."

"And T'sang tech is powerful?" Siofra asked.

Both Naveaia and I nodded.

"Garolan built an artificial nebula to help rebuild its universe with that tech," I said. "And star-eating gatherers to bring it raw building materials from different universes." I then reached out to gently touch the blonde AI's upper arm with my hand, which made her smile.

"This body, so complex it has achieved true life, is t'sang tech," I said, giving her arm a squeeze, which she acknowledged by quickly lifting a hand to put over mine.