"To live is to eat. To consume, and it would be… ill-advised to consume this world until it was hollow, hence my decision."
Thunder and the other senior siblings nodded as they stood alongside their mother just next to the Sleeping Anis, who were hard at work coordinating the Bio-Web.
"Fortunately, mankind left us entire settlements and technology which we are going to commandeer." Anoona detailed, and it was Rusteater, sitting lazily on his sister's elytra, who spoke next.
"That Tora and his fiends have returned to their ship in orbit. We are setting up systems to intercept their signals, and I have my boys working hard on setting up the bays we'll need to reverse engineer their tech, including the ships that will get us to the moon. The Newmen will most likely react negatively to our presence on the moon, and that's where the Long-Range Noetic Launchers will come in."
Anoona's eyes fluttered as Rusteater sent a blueprint into her mind.
Her jaw then clenched a little, and it was Thunder who stepped in to quell her growing anger.
"Mom… we spoke about this. It must be done… for everyone's sake." The Giant Warrior spoke softly, but Anoona didn't know how he was able to stay so calm.
The design that Rusteater sent her required her to give birth to a new type of Beta Class child with an Ostraka of exactly 300 000Ø, one that would grow to be as big as a large observatory and embed itself into the ground. It would then be fed ammunition, which it could launch as far as the moon.
Anoona had chosen not to pry into Rusteater's mind when he was designing this weapon because she wanted him to surprise her, but this…
The child would also need specialised cells that could store electrical energy like batteries, but that much was doable.
Condemning her children to such a torturous fate, however…
She had taken great lengths in ensuring all of her children were healthy and able to live as they pleased to an extent, but his...
Anoona took a deep breath and allowed herself a moment to think.
This was inevitable.
There was no way around it.
She wanted to argue that they could find another way, but her children would rightly say that they didn't have time.
The Newmen were coming, and they were advanced.
Anoona needed to do this, but if she was going to be backed into this corner, then she was determined to claw out of it just as she had done before.
She was no longer content with fending off the Newmen.
Any one of them that dared to point their weapons at her children would be devoured, assimilated, and their blood would nourish the fruits that would feed her young.
"Alright, but I'm gonna need a lot of food. And good food!" She huffed, making her children wearily smile.
"I see where 01 gets it from, haha!" Thunder grinned, making Anoona cross her arms and puff her cheeks.
"I should've expected as much from the one who devoured all life on the planet." Rusteater teased, earning him a glare from his mother.
The Gamma Class scientist hid behind his sister and continued.
"Ahem! We'll need one hundred, dividing them between the Earth and Moon."
Anoona's shoulders slumped.
She then dragged her feet over to 01's cocoon, which she sat against.
"Yeah, yeah." She sighed in resignation while trying to ping he cells she had stuck onto Tora, but she wasn't picking any of them up. It appeared as though an organism's Noetic Presence was limited to the space surrounding its body.
And while her powerful eyes could clearly see them entering their shop, even from three hundred thousand kilometres away, she couldn't see through walls, so she didn't know what they were up to.
They had most likely begun to analyse the samples she'd allowed them to take, and, while this was just a gesture of goodwill, she wondered if they would discover something she hadn't.
And as for their technology, she wondered how the were able to cross the vastness of space.
She was determined to find the answers to these questions and share them with her studious son, Rusteater.
That's how he was able to design so many things in so little time.
Armed with the Bio-Web, he could pull from all the knowledge his mother and siblings had, along with the complex calculations that were being handled by the Anis.
"Alright, then. I want like five hundred of your best cakes, Dahlia, and you know exactly how I want them! Slightly mushy on the inside." Anoona huffed while producing one hundred cells in her stomach that matched the design Rusteater had drawn up.
Now all they needed was food, so Dahlia gave her mother a deep bow in response to her demands.
"Of course." She smiled before following Thunder and the others out of the Throne Room, leaving Anoona with her Anis and 01, all of whom were unresponsive.
Well, her Anis were just smaller versions of herself, so talking to them would be essentially talking to herself.
A dark idea suddenly sprang in her mind as she sat in hungry patience.
Some of her cells were on the Santa María.
She could potentially have them consume the Newmen they had managed to burrow into and spread to the rest of the ship, but… that was a bit much.
She would employ such a tactic only when every member of a group had been deemed guilty, although something was bugging her.
Some of the cells she had snuck into the Newmen had stopped pinging her before Tora's group left.
Before they went dark, they had discovered small, cell-sized artificial machines that littered the bodies of the Newmen.
They looked like nanomachines or nanobots, and while such technology had been dreamed of in Anoona's time as a human, they were never produced to this extent.
The nanobots in the Newmen seemed to target any foreign bodies, which they promptly destroyed.
These things were pretty advanced, but Anoona had sent a few cells after one of them, and it was successfully destroyed, meaning that, while a potential threat, they could be dealt with.
Anoona decided it was best to let the rest of her cells be destroyed so as not to rouse suspicion before Tora's group left.
Dahlia eventually returned, along with several Thetas who placed five hundred large cakes that were made from extreme concentrations of every nutrient imaginable. They had a dark peach colour, smelled like sugar and tasted like carrot cake.
Dahlia personally placed one of them in front of Anoona, along with a glass of water.
"For you." Dahlia sighed, towering over her mother.
Anoona looked up and playfully squinted at her daughter, looking into the Delta's two big, cyan coloured compound eyes.
"Wanna be queen for a day?"
"Nope! Good luck!" Dahlia quickly scurried out of the chamber with her brothers in tow, leaving Anoona in silence again.
"Aww…" She deflated before grabbing a piece of cake and eating it.
Tears began to well in her eyes as she could taste the care that Dahlia had placed into each bite.
Slightly warm, slightly crumbly and all around delicious.
This alone was enough to give her the determination to challenge what was no less than a galactic empire.
She didn't know when the first attack would come, but Rusteater was working on an upscaled Noetic Shield that would use the air processing pylons across the planet to focus some of Anoona's Noetic Presence, creating a bubble that would protect the surface from bombardment.
These were less like machines and more like markings on a grid that allowed Anoona to easily channel her presence into, generating a repulsive field.
It wouldn't take long to set up since the Pylons were made up from a combination of Bio-Metal and her cells.
All she had to do, according to her wonderfully intelligent son, was send more of her cells into the towers and slightly tweak her Noetic Presence, which she idly did as she ate. Taking slow, deliberate bites of cake, savouring the sweetness which filled her with joy even when she was eating the fiftieth one.
Part of her wished that she could spend the rest of her life eating and being with her children, but she was also comfortable knowing that would never be the case, so she leaned on 01's cocoon and ate away in preparation.
.
..
[Mr. Tora, The Council needs you to be very specific with your wording. Are you sure that the organism designated Anoona barred every Newman from landing on the surface? Or did she express some kind of grievance with your group in particular?]
Tora's brow twitched as he attended a conference call with the six members of the Council of Humanity United.
The only six Newmen who were older than him with Chairman Herto, being 11,432 years old. His face, aged and weary, was projected onto a display on the bridge of the Santa María.
Herto had bronze brown skin and short white hair, much like most Newmen.
His pure white eyes focused on Tora, who gnashed his teeth at the Chairman's questions.
"She has denied all Newmankind our home, and I hesitate to test the severity of her words; that is why I am using uncertain terms." He answered while trying to keep his expression as neutral as possible so as not to give away the frustration that bubbled beneath.
The Council had sent two Second Class Space Faring military ships that were fifteen kilometres long each and filled to the brim with soldiers, in addition to smaller combat-ready vessels.
Accompanying them was a single First-Class ship that would be responsible for the construction of a Space Compression Gate, but that wouldn't be complete for another fifteen years.
The High Generals aboard the Council-sanctioned ships had demanded that Tora allow them to board the Santa María, but he invoked his fourteenth interstellar right, which stated that any Newmen travelling legally in open space existed as a sovereign entity and thus had several protections unless they were in breach of other laws.
This meant that the Council's soldiers couldn't forcefully board his ship, and so they had to get his cooperation without using force.
[Do you think you could establish communications between it and the council?] Herto asked in a deep rumble, but Tora's eyes fell a little in response.
"Unfortunately, not. We haven't had contact with her since we left the surface, but I have a suggestion for how to deal with her, if you are willing to listen."
[Mr. Tora, need I remind you that you are still under review for your reckless actions? I expected more from one as supposedly wise as you. That aside, you are to take no further action regarding the Earth until the Council decides otherwise.]
"And what will you do?" Tora raised a brow.
[I am only telling you this because you are still an esteemed member of our species and your cooperation may still be required, but we will first completely scan the planet, find the cause of the interference, make landfall with enough manpower to subdue or eliminate the organism that is Anoona and reclaim the Earth.]
Tora's eyes narrowed.
He had told the Council that the earth was now crawling with an entirely new kind of life that was far removed from what the Newmen understood.
It was far too risky to go down there, hence why he thought of simply carpet bombing the surface, as Vice-Captain Persephone had recommended, claiming the earth, then harvesting and studying whatever was left.
They didn't have to act according to Anoona's will, and since Tora had terraformed dozens of worlds, he knew exactly how to tear one apart and reshape it in an image that pleased him.
He would let the council do as they pleased, and when they inevitably failed, they would come to him and he would help them on his terms.
"Alright. I understand. May your efforts be swift and successful." He said in a calmness that sent a chill up his own spine.