One thousand five hundred and forty-two years ago - Deep Space

  Nabaat-Mon crawled through the underbelly of the Vanguard-class spaceship, perspiration glistening on her bioluminescent blue skin as she grasped a carbon fuel line in a four-fingered grip and pulled her body forward. Her hearts raced, sending patterns of her bioluminescent veins to reflect on the metallic wall of the small passage she found herself in. Her fluid skeletal plates ground together painfully as she squeezed through a narrow opening.

  This passage is a sub-optimal method of traversing the ship, she thought tiredly as she wiped her brow. Luckily, she was small for her race. Most other Seraxiin were tall and willowy — a remnant of the aquatic life their ancient ancestors had lived. But Nabaat-Mon was short, small, and her skin was a shade of blue most others of her race found too green to be visually appealing.

  Variables… she thought as she crawled further down the narrow passage. So many variables to consider. The first variable she considered was that of her greatest achievement and her greatest shame: the discovery, classification, and qualification of Earth as a habitable world for her people.

  What if she hadn’t brought her findings of Earth to Varesh-Til? What if Varesh-Til had trusted Nabaat-Mon instead of pushing her out of the New World Development Council? What if she had done something to stop the atrocity that was about to be set in motion? All variables that were written in stone now.

  The council cared nothing for the fledgling race inhabiting Earth as Sabbat-Mon had come to. Though primitive, they were not so different from the Seraxiin people, all things considered. Capable of logic, love, violence. Why were they any less deserving of a place in the galaxy than her own people?

  But the council had seen Earth as a lifeline — one only they were entitled to. Fear of The Unmaking drove her people to commit a barbaric act that Nabaat-Mon viewed as unforgivable: genocide. Throughout the history of her people, instances of this event occurring were consistently and unanimously condemned by those who study the past.

  Even now, her people railed against the indiscriminate destruction of all races by The Unmaking, but in her mind, they were no better in what they were about to do to the people of Earth.

  Fear-based decisions produce sub-optimal results, she thought sadly as she drew closer to her destination. While decades of research revealed relatively little about The Unmaking, one thing they had learned was that the only systems that escaped being consumed contained an Anchor Entity.

  The Seraxiin people had devised millions, no billions of tests to try to understand what an Anchor Entity was and how to produce one. But as The Unmaking had swept into their system and began consuming planets and moons, it was clear they had been found lacking. Her civilization had been condemned.

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  So, Nabaat-Mon had made a hope-based decision. Science, calculations, they had failed her people, and that failure would infect Earth, and at the cost of an entire race living there. Sabbat-Mon would not let that happen without at least a meager attempt on her part to shift the odds. Unbalance the variables.

  She pushed past a ventilation grate, consciously dimming her bioluminescence and moving slowly to avoid any attention from anyone observing on the other side. She picked up her pace as soon as she was past. Time was running out.

  A genocide was certain — a fact that tore at her hearts, but she was just one person standing against Varesh-Til and the rest of the council. She did not know if her plan would work, but she hoped to at least give the residents of Earth a chance at life free of bondage. One variable may be enough to do the trick.

  She pulled herself down the passage, confident she was close to the launch bay holding the Seeder System payload that would soon be sent to Earth. The bio-pad in her arm blinked a dull yellow, letting her know she’d reached her destination.

  She shifted around in the confined space to reach down and open the pouch on her thigh, retrieving two items: a plasma drill and the spider drone she’d spent the last months cobbling together. She set the depth on the plasma drill to 1.349 meters and pressed it to the spot her bio pad indicated. The drill flashed to life as she activated it by touching the control embedded in her arm, and it began to burrow through metal down toward the payload.

  Down is relative in space, she thought humorously as she monitored the drill’s progress. Her humor dissipated as she received the ship-wide alert on her bio-pad that the launch sequence had begun. One fewer variable to account for.

  The drill reached the specified depth, and Nabaat-Mon winced at the loud clang it made as it dropped and bounced off the payload. She could only pray no one would notice the drill or the hole until the payload was too far out of reach to do anything about it. She had no doubt her plot would be discovered — she just needed time enough for them to be unable to do anything about it.

  Cradling the spider drone as gently as a baby, she placed it at the entrance to the hole she’d made. She tapped a quick sequence on her bio-pad, activating the initiation sequence on the drone. The multi-legged drone twitched as if shocked. It spun in a circle before focusing its single large eye on Nabaat-Mon.

  She smiled, the blue skin around her azure eyes crinkling. The AI embedded in the drone was as close to a clone of herself as she could fit in the tiny machine. She had pre-programmed millions of sub-routines, but ultimately, the AI would execute them as it saw fit. Ideally, giving the inhabitants of Earth a fighting chance.

  “Go, little one,” she said in a low, warbling tone, her voice thick with emotion. “Give them a chance at hope.”

  The drone gave a single, exaggerated Seraxiin salute before it scuttled into the hole and disappeared from view. Nabaat-Mon rested her forehead on the cold metal, visualizing the drone’s route she had pre-programmed. An external port would grant access to the drone, where it would then attach and embed itself in one of the AI nodes that had a predefined destination somewhere on Earth.

  She breathed a sad sigh of relief. She’d done what little she could, and she would have to live out the rest of her life reconciling her part in Earth’s genocide and her meager attempt to mitigate the effects. It felt like she was trying to quench a blazing inferno with a single drop of water, but that was all she had.

  “A few extra variables, and a quantum magnitude level of luck,” she whispered. At that moment, the entire ship shuddered as the payload doors opened and the Seeder System missiles were deployed. Nabaat-Mon, the Saboteur, closed her eyes and dared to hope.

  main page and hit follow and favorite or leave a review! I'd love to hear from you.

  Wanting more content? Get advance chapters, exclusive bonus chapters, and other extras on my .

  Thank you for reading!

  Check out this great read: