Yeah; I love those hard hitters; balistic missiles from God I call 'em. [There are seven in this story, how many can YOU find?


*Chapter 24: Emergency! Well, not really*

Captain-Luteniant Will DeSchmitt dashed between monitors ignoring the constant hail of verbal abuse from his captain, besides, most of it wasn't directed at him. Reports were coming in from the planet's surface of all sorts of improbable mayhem; rivers of blood, darkness at midday; bugs, strange deaths... The captain said it was probably mass panic; that there was some sort of attack occurring. Will had to agree; the entire planet was shrouded in thick grey clouds, worse even than Medivo; Carrotus never looked like that.

As it was this called for a high level rapid response; but everything was going wrong; none of the ground systems were responding; the cloud cover or an electrical disturbance seemed to be blocking transmission, and any attempts to deploy ships into the atmosphere resulted in loss of contact, despite being the early warning system and communications hub, they were utterly helpless.

Helplessness is not a feeling military personnel are used to, and when it occurs it tends to cause very, very rash decisions.

* * *

Wit smiled beatifically, though currently it looked more like a yawning cesspit; his body had melted and bloated as he'd wrapped himself around the world, chocking the atmosphere with poisons and polluting the land and its inhabitants. It had taken a lot of energy and Pollution was tired. But it had been worth it; Pestilence had never done such a beautiful job, that's why he'd been defeated, in the end. Pestilence was, after all, just a small part of pollution, surely?

He stared at the Book, with its Reader, hovering in the sky. The invitation was almost complete, his part was over, for now; t least until they rode out, then the real would begin! Death had been doing Its work, and would continue to do so. It was worrying in fact, Death took care of everyone, even immortals could be... diminished. "Hey 'Red!' Your turn huh? C'mon, get a move on! We haven't got all day! Red turned and stared at him. "It is not my time yet." Wit snarled, his true nature was showing more and more through what had been his disguise for so long. "Not your time!? What the hell are you on about? Take over! Do your thing! You've been waiting for this for ages!"

Red's face was expressionless; unusual for her, but the situation was serious, and something was nagging at her mind, it was going far too well. But it had gone well before... She turned to Sheldon who had started, in some strange way, to flicker. "I can't do anything yet, I'm not in control; for that I need a little... disturbance. Why do you think I keep him around?"

Sheldon shut his eyes, but still saw, and spread himself around the world like Pollution just had...

* * *

Will stared at his screen in horror. "Sir? SIR?" Captain Barnes was yelling at an underling about organizing a rescue fleet, it was hard to be heard over the din. "SIR!" The captain turned. "What? This had better be bloody important!" Will pointed to the monitor, which showed messages being sent to all ship under sector 7G; all ships were being armed, and not just light weaponry; all possible warheads were being activated, armed and aimed.

Imagine a world like a living being, easy to do perhaps. Now imagine civilization in the same way; imagine everything else as black, but the lines of communication, structures cities, power stations, the lot, all lit up and pulsing with energy as people go about their business. At night it dims, but never stops, fed from the generators, a coruscating web entangling the world.

Now see a new presence, a different color, see it spread through the network like water soaking into a sponge. As it spreads see it suck power from one place, and put it into another, see the web subtly alter as the entity switches, alters, fiddles with the entire network.

All over Carrotus panic broke out as alarms rang, missiles armed and silos opened. Rabbits typed ineffectively at dead keyboards, banged helplessly at doors that had locked themselves, tried to remove ruses that had blown themselves, tried in vain to do anything to stop the vast military leviathan awakening.

But awake it did, there was nothing they could do. And it knew what it was created for, it longed to be told what to do. It was after all, just a very big, very advanced sword, and in the fabric of reality something reached out for it and took control.

.