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The Room

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Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.
—Sun Tzu

Her eyes opened and the Great Fox had vanished. One moment she was there, observing the odd planet that was home to the aparoids, the next she was here in this strange place.

Krystal looked around, uncertain of where she was. It was a dark place, wide and cavernous, but somehow felt oppressive. There was a distinct wrongness to her senses, as if this had been scooped out of whatever material it was made from, reconverted. It was cold, like a dead hulk of a space ship, and her breath rose about like a thick cloud.

"Are you there?"

She jumped. "Y—Yes?" she squeaked.

Another voice answered her. "All of us. Kind of late for practice this morning, aren't you?"

"Sorry, I overslept," the first voice replied.

There was a smattering of laughter, half-hearted but also relieved. Then there was silence.

Krystal suddenly became aware of others in the room with her. Directly before her was the speaker who had spoken first, about her own height. It was dark, but that, she knew, was due to both the twilight of the room—why was it so dim?—and the dark bluish uniform the figure wore. It wasn't Cornerian—the shape of the head was wrong, for one thing. Too small to be a toad, too well-proportioned to be a bird or dog's head, with no visible ears like a cat or fox's except for some weird ridges and bulges running sideways over the top. It didn't seem to be aware of her, even though she was standing so close she could see the mistiness of her breath drifting about its head.

She looked around it—him, the sense came to her. There was a console of some kind before him, fitted with levers and buttons, but no displays. She checked herself. No, there was a display, but it was the most dull-looking display she'd ever seen—blue-green dots of light moved through a massive holograph cube that represented open space. There were other dots, yellow and orange, moving swiftly, but the blue-green overcame them with an ease that spoke of extensive experience. Fox had told her about simulators like this, except this person didn't look like he was controlling one ship. There was no information display whatsoever that showed vital statistics like fuel and bombs.

Was this person like her, who didn't need computers to tell him what he needed? Cautiously, she reached to touch his mind—and found it opaque to her. No, not opaque. No mind was truly closed off.

What most got wrong about her unique ability, including Star Fox themselves, was that they thought she could read one's mind as if it were an open book, instantly discern their motives and point out their thoughts. Anybody could do that, with enough practice, one just had learn how to read the other's expression and body language. No "mind-reading" required. What Krystal actually did was she could discern emotion before it was made visible to others. That was easier than reading thoughts, for with emotions came thoughts, and she could read intent through one's emotional makeup—though she had difficulty, as someone skilled in hiding or obscuring their emotions would throw her off completely. It was like watching a pattern of lines on a screen that fluctuated and changed as sound was played, that was what a mind looked like to her, carefully smooth or ridged lines wrapped around a rough spheroid, which she knew was an abstract representation of a physical brain.

Like sounds, each brain—each mind—had its own "wavelength", its own frequency. Some she knew intimately—Fox's, for example. Star Fox, even Star Wolf, their patterns instantly recognizable to her. Others were different, like the average Cornerian soldier's. And then there were the aparoids, which were on another track entirely, for while she could sense them it was like trying to "hear" or remember a distant memory of some unpleasant sound she had blocked out. In numbers and up close it was hard to close them out, like hearing an orchestra of badly tuned instruments of no great quality and led by nobody in particular, and she had to shield herself thickly to stay sane.

Here, there was none of that. For the first time in months she met a mind so alike to her own and yet so different. This one was laser-focused—I must win—but there was extreme weariness shading it, almost smothering in intensity.

It was also extremely young.

Krystal broke contact in surprise. This was a child?

There was murmuring behind her, and she thought it was the other speaker, who had sounded much different but similar, and turned around. About four or five meters away, watching with solemn alertness, were a group of men, all taller than her. Unlike the person she had just looked into—and he was aware of them only distantly—these felt extremely old. They thought slower, just slightly, but it was enough to dissuade her efforts. What she could gather from them leaked from behind the rigid shielding that bespoke of military training. And it left her open mouthed.

They were not Cornerian—this much was clear. But the differences were just cosmetic and slight, for they could have been genetic cousins. No, the main difference was each man was over two centuries old, some three centuries. The youngster, for instance, was ten years older than Peppy yet he was barely considered adolescent by these people's standards. That explained both the slowness of thought and the similar-yet-dissimilar mind patterns.

What was more, and no less surprising, was that they had been fighting a war against the aparoids for a century of their own reckoning; but by Corneria's, it may as well have been eternal. Those seven "months" Corneria spent pushing back the aparoids could have been a skirmish, as laughable as the maneuvers the boy—old enough to be her grandfather—was doing.

What did the aparoids do to cause such a long war? Were they the aggressors? Were they on the defensive? These questions troubled Krystal. Was the entire war against Corneria an offshoot of the main conflict? Who were these people and why did they train their children to fight wars—were they as militarized as the SharpClaw, only to the nth degree? She couldn't sense anything outside of this room except other minds like the boy's, all single-mindedly focused.

Moreover—how did she end up here? Krystal looked down at her hands. They were blue and white, gloved by her jumpsuit. She pinched one, and the pain shot through her like cold water quenches thirst.

There was a commotion. She looked at the men again. Someone had come up and was whispering into one's ear. Krystal strayed over to them, wanting answers. Somehow, she could hear them.

"Colonel," the person—a century and a half—was saying, eyes focused on the boy. "Something came through the Philotic contact with the fleet."

"Is it dangerous?"

"We are not sure. We've traced it to this room, tethered here by the ansible. Scans can find nothing and thermals don't show it."

"Is this cause for concern?" The officer was dismissive.

"I'm afraid so. In addition to this presence, comscan has detected another fleet a few seconds from ours which coincided with that burst of anomalous energy just before transmission. They aren't sure whether to inform the sim."

"Why are you telling me this and not Rackham?"

"Sir, the boy is under a lot of stress—"

"He is no longer under my command, Major, and this won't change. Go bother Rackham with it."

"Yes, sir."

Krystal came up to the one addressed as Colonel as the Major departed. She felt small, both physically and mentally, and looked into the craggy lines and swarthy features of his face. "What are you," she asked, unheard. "What are you to do this to a child?"

"They were desperate."

She whirled around. Behind the boy, a hand caressing his dark head, was a tall woman, glowing and angelic. She had folded wings that were insectoid, like the vast wings of a butterfly, colored gold and light green and blue; her raiment was silvery, dresslike and diaphanous. She was looking at Krystal, and her eyes were pupiless. No, not pupiless—compound. Antennae poked out of her aquamarine-colored hair, which flowed thickly upon her back and between her wings.

Krystal immediately crouched into a fighting stance. "Get away from him, aparoid," she hissed. She reached out to touch the other's mind, and found it reminiscent of the aparoid orchestra of chaos, only… only more organized. Like she were a conductor, directing music. There was no music being played.

The aparoid considered the boy, ruffling his hair (her fingers passed through without touching), then turned from him. "I cannot hurt him any more than you can," she answered.

"Then why are you here?"

"Why are you here?"

Krystal couldn't answer that.

"Krystal of Star Fox, please stay your aggression," the woman said gently. "I come in peace."

"I won't fall for that."

"I understand." She turned away, her antennae dropping, and watched the holographic screen before them. It had changed—there was an orb at its far end, filling nearly half the screen, blocked and obscured by a vast orange mass of light. Many thousands of thousands of dots of lights, ever-shifting, ever-changing. Floating before them were twenty blue-green dots, each with four tinier ones in escort.

The boy was frozen. Krystal could tell that much from where she was. There was a curse from one of the gathered men, and one muttered, "This is insanity."

"Get away from him," she ordered, moving toward the aparoid, ready to pounce. The insect woman did not answer but stood quietly. Krystal crept closer—then, with a yell, leapt for her.

Her yell turned into a squawk of pain as she fell forward, hitting her head against the boy's console. Nothing changed in the field, so she was in some measure incorporeal. Krystal stood, rubbing her head, and turned to look at the woman, who smiled sadly at her. "Why can't I touch you?" she asked stupidly.

"We are phantasms, Philotic projections drawn through the hyperspatial link between here and there."

"Philotic?"

"Something you couldn't understand."

Krystal was annoyed. "Look here, lady, don't talk down—"

"A century ago neither did these," and she gestured around the room, indicating the men and the boy, and the invisible presences elsewhere. "And they have mastered it. You will too, in time, eventually."

"Who are you?"

"I am the queen of the aparoid species, the mother of my daughters." Her eyes drifted down to the boy. "And their mourner."

"Y—You?" Krystal was speechless. "Bu—But, I thought you—you were hideous an—and ugly—!"

"Yes, I suppose I am. We are different kinds of being. Here, I choose to shape my form. It gives me some comfort to know the one who will destroy me."

"Destroy you?"

"Yes."

Krystal turned, looking from the boy—who was still staring at the impossible task before him—to the queen, who looked indeed every bit the regal stateswoman. "How?"

"For the past year, nearly five of your own, I have been fighting the battle for my life. These single-minded queenless beings like you came with vengeance in their hearts. They fought with unmitigated foreocity. I could not defeat them. They are capable of fighting like aparoids but also as if each were a queen. Deadly, unstoppable. This boy is the high queen of the queens."

"Queens?"

"I am a queen. My daughters are queens. But we are few. You are a queen, your mate is a queen. Your army is made up of queens. You can make your own decisions, you can react because you are not mindless. These people are queens, and they have mastered what we and you cannot. Fuse the queendom into a hive."

"I don't understand."

"What you call individuality," the woman answered. Krystal then understood. It was impossible not to.

Almost as if he had the same revelation the boy laughed, his trance broken, started to whisper into a microphone which Krystal saw for the first time was connected to a headset which sat on his head, which explained why he looked so odd. The points of light that represented his fleet (with no sign of Corneria anywhere) started moving. Instead of pulling into an attack formation they instead began clustering together, rings within rings, layer upon layer, creating a thick cylindrical projectile. Then they moved toward the mass of aparoids.

"So you're here to torment him, is that it? Watching over his shoulder so you know his plan?" Krystal asked. "I'm warning you, Corneria is there, and is larger than his fleet. If you do anything we will move to help him, and you can't account for both of us."

"Krystal of Star Fox, there is a difference between observing and acting upon that observation. I do not know what goes on in his head, nor the heads of his subordinate queens. He knows me thoroughly. There is nothing I can do that can stop him. Your fleet can do little better."

"Then why did you say they are desperate? It doesn't look like they are."

"Krystal of Star Fox, I am not speaking of the pupae but the mature adults. Nearly six hundred years of your time past, they were a single system, divided and squabbling over resources like thoughtless animals. Then I came. I intended to set up a home for my youngest daughter. But somehow they defeated her. At this point I knew I had made a terrible mistake and retreated, hoping they would not come. But they did, using our tools against us.

"Imagine this, Krystal of Star Fox, of a small world, imagine: you and your world, alone in the universe. You know of no one else but you and your neighbor. Then you discover another species out there on one of the worlds you want. You think of them as animals, for they are animals. But these animals push you away and humiliate you, taking your ships and your thoughts for their own. At once, you are filled with shame and try to make amends, to be reconciled, but you cannot speak to them for neither they nor you can understand the other. That "aparoidation" your Slippy of Star Fox speaks of is an innovation of ours, whereby we could communicate with your people and convince them we are not their foes. But it is too late. You are bent on our annihilation, and we can do nothing to stop it."

"Hold on—you are saying your invasion was you trying to talk to us?" Krystal was speechless. "I don't believe it!"

"What else can I say? You won't accept any apology should I offer it. And now you have found your way to our world, a dying world filled with the clustered billions of my children, armed and armored with ten thousand useless ships, like sheep before the slaughter."

"Yet you outnumber Corneria."

"Yes—Corneria can be beaten, because you are hasty. But we are tired and do not wish to fight."

Krystal glanced at the hologram, where the orange mass had swallowed the blue-green like a cell would food. "Could have fooled me."

"If you must be cynical, at least spare the feelings of a woman on her deathbed. It is all I ask, Krystal of Star Fox."

"Queenie—right? Look, I don't know what your goal is here but your high-minded speech isn't going to work. You are going to die, and that'll be the end of it, even if we fail in the attempt. You stole the souls of billions to bypass evolution!" The queen was shaking her head, saying "no, no", but Krystal pressed on. "And now you are getting your just reward, if not from us then from these people."

The aparoid was silent. "Then so be it," she then answered. She knelt on the floor so she was level with the boy, who had bent himself fully into the holographic simulation. It had changed—the greater mass of aparoid ships had been left behind and the planet loomed larger, nearly four-fifths of itself dominating the sim. The blue-green ships—no longer single dots but a solid bar of light—arrowed toward it, bypassing smaller aparoid clusters that sought to close it off.

"Oh my son, Absalom," the queen whispered. "My son, my son Absalom. Would God I could die for thee, oh Absalom, my son, my sons."

Krystal drew near. Somehow she felt pity for the queen instead of despising her.

"During my time with this boy," the queen said, "I devoted myself to learning about them, but most of all to understand my executioner. In that time I came across a King, who like myself had everything, was above all. Then tragedy struck him and his family. Krystal of Star Fox, this man almost overthrown by his own dear boy, who hated him, enough to murder him. He was rebellious, but ignorant of his King and God's decrees—and yet the King loved him in spite of it. In that time, I have come to see this boy—" she waved a hand to him, "—as my own flesh and blood, as if he were one of my daughters, as if he were my Absalom. And it hurts me deeply. If I could spare him of the pain he has suffered these long nights past, I would do so, but I cannot without giving up life. If I could spare my daughters, all nine billion of them, I would but I—I…"

She breathed in, sorrow heavy on her shoulders. Krystal knelt beside her.

"This is my sin, to be stripped of ignorance and filled with shame. I have killed a sister instead of a pest, and her daughters come for payment. For this there is no redemption but death. He is my Judas—yet, my Christ."

"I don't understand."

"You will, Krystal of Star Fox, you will. One day you will meet them. Do not make the same mistakes as I have done. Remember me, for my people's sake, for your people's sake, for this people's sake." She reached out and caught Krystal's hand. It felt warm and full of vigor, though it was a phantasm and an image of a real flesh-and-blood being many thousands of light years away, separated by Philotes.

"Please."

Krystal couldn't look at her. The sorrow in the queen's eyes was too much to bear.

She looked around and found the simulator. The boy commanded, oblivious to their presence, leaning in; his hands were off the controls. The aparoids were few now, stragglers—the perspective had changed, for they were looking down on the planet from the viewpoint of the boy's ships. They were falling down, separating as they were pulled by gravity, aiming their incomprehensible weaponry for one target only. What would Star Fox and Corneria think of this? This was suicide. Or could they even see them? Were they fighting with the aparoid fleets left behind? Or were they still watching, paralysed and uncertain of what to do?

Suddenly the planet's surface undulated. Disturbances like ripples in water spread across it, rapidly fading as it erupted outward in a vast geyser of flame and molten rock. The inferno consumed the boy's ships, the last of which pulled away. Before Krystal's very eyes the planet exploded in a fireball of atomised dust and death, chasing after the last of its destroyers. Aparoid ships were consumed, doing nothing to evade it.

But that was only the epilogue. The aparoids were dead. She looked back. The queen was no longer there. The queen was dead.

The room faded away and disappeared into the aether, and she too vanished.

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