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pete
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a moments blessing and the sky turned deep green, filtering through the eyes of the feral humans below. more than ever their lives seemed meaningless to the evermind's slaves, more than ever they seemed so alive and subversive to the plot of efficentcy.
the babies wailed in the moments before dawn, creeping shadows clinging to their thrashing form in the descending light. the air hummed with electronic sensors, invisible to all but the most talented elders.
it was coming, and they knew it. soon their village would become a scorched field. the people woke and knelt in prayer, filling their minds will images of Nysus and their god, long departed.
the sensors retracted, the ships began their descent into the isolated village seeking nothing more than to grant the retched population submission or elimination.
immediately their air exploded with energy. all around the village a shield shimmered into view, dashing the incoming raiders to bits on its green hot waves.
the village people looked up in horror. the rapture had come and they were lost. they were lost. from the vibrating silence within the protection field the people cried and offered themselves to their long departed god. and then the shield de-activated.
reckage lay strewn for leagues around the village. no one moved as the sun came back into view. no one breathed. the force of salvation tore through their souls, leaving them hollow wrecks.
in the distance a flare activated in one of the destroyed robot ships. the blue red streak shot towards the stars, fading from view as quick as it took flight.
the elders met in the village centre, huddled and whispering. they were afraid that their long departed god had returned and this was a warning. they feared retribution if they did not make offerings, using the examples given to them by their gods.
the men turned towards the gathering population and spoke in shattered galach: "each family must offer one mechanical artifact to god. each family must offer one child to god. each family must offer one months food to god. each family must offer their comfort to god, so that he will be kind."
--six hundred years earlier--
the captain looked nervously at the gathering of hovels. the people of this village had treated him well while he recovered from wounds recieved fighting the intelligent machines. in return he installed his ships damaged containment fields around the village, in hopes that if their help was ever found out that they would at least have some form of protection.
finishing his work, the man stood up and inserted a detection program that would activate the shield the instant, that is if it would work at all, any artifical intelligence entered its destructive range.
the captain looked around and nodded at the wizened elder and his people who had come to see him at work. they considered his machines to be heavenly creations, and considered him a god bringing good fortune to the village. he hoped the machines would not strike them for helping him, or for the help he had provided.
the elder took his hand and slipped a bone bracelet from his wrist onto the captain's. he murmurred something that sounded galach, though the accent was incomprehnsible. smiling cautiously the captian nodded, raised his adorned arm, and strode from the village never to return.
that night the villagers saw a blue gold streak fly through their sky. at the moment they knew their god was gone.
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050719
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