The Martial Unity

Ten light-years away from the frontier of human civilization, the homoarachnoids grew engrossed in their investigation of what had happened in the Strehegeld Star System and the now destroyed Planet Amadeus III.

The first thing they did was search for signs of life.

They couldn’t find any.

Not even a single microbe.

There weren’t any alien presences, from what they could see. No ships, no spacecrafts, no satellites, or even a single space probe. The star system was completely devoid of life, which made sense given that there was a supernova. The astronomical death of a star was not something that tended to leave life intact.

Regrettably, not a single one of their kin had survived either. They were faced with the destruction of their planet and that of their star; there was no chance that even a single homoarachnoid was alive.

They couldn’t find any traces of Divine Mother o-o-o-o.

She was simply missing.

”If. She. Had. Fought. Or. Used. Her. Webverse. Then. We. Would. See. Traces. Of. It.” —oo-oo— spoke with a conflicted expression. ”I. Do. Not. Sense. Any. Trace. Of. Any. Exercise. Of. Web. Authority.”

She floated in outer space, surrounded by glowing space debris, her hair and her webbed clothes floated weightlessly in zero-gravity. The lights let out by the esoteric ore matter in the space, gravel, and dust made for a sight that was profoundly beautiful and exotic.

They were the remains of Planet Amadeus III.

Beside her, -o- gritted her teeth.

She had expected to find answers with much greater ease when she had been given this mission.

Yet, the star system betrayed almost no information.

It was almost as if the star system had been washed.

As if it had been washed by water, cleaning out any incriminating evidence. Like a killer scrubbing out the blood of his victim from the ground and the walls.

”This. Does. Not. Make. Sense!” -o- snarled. ”Something. Is. Off. Here! This. Star. System. Has. Been. Tampered. With! Otherwise. This. Does. Not. Make. Sense.”

—oo-oo— didn’t retort with a grounded, rational rejoinder. The fact was that this was very bizarre indeed, and there was no logical explanation for the state of the now-destroyed outpost world and the star system.

—oo-oo— didn’t retort with a grounded, rational rejoinder. The fact was that this was very bizarre indeed, and there was no logical explanation for the state of the now-destroyed outpost world and the star system.

Planet -oo-o—o- stopped sending back periodic reports. Divine Mother o-o-o-o also stopped sending back regular reports. Then, when they arrived at the star system, they found a black hole where a star was supposed to be, a far too premature supernova, and a destroyed outpost world, and a missing Divine Mother.

It just did not add up.

Something was wrong.

Very wrong.

”O. Divine. Mothers!” They received a transmitted web message from the mainframe of the mothership. ”Our. Superluminal. Light. Harvesters. Have. Finally. Intercepted. Light. From. The. Event. Roughly. Fifteen. Light. Days. Away!”

The two Divine Mothers lit up at that news.

Superluminal light-harvesting technology was the forensics used by advanced civilizations to investigate events in the past. After all, the light from an event traveled only at the speed of light. Thus, even if the event was in the past, the light from that event still existed, permeating through the empty fabric of space.

With superluminal technology, it became possible to harvest that light. Advanced civilizations sent probes equipped with super-high-resolution electromagnetic sensory apparatuses equipped with superluminal warp drives, allowing them to almost go back in time.

This was why it was extremely difficult to get away with things at any meaningful scale in advanced civilizations if they were determined enough to track it.

”Finally!” -o- the Deathweaver barked. ”Transmit. The. Data. To. Us. Right. Away!”

The two Divine Mothers received the feed collected by superluminal light harvesters, immediately browsing the video feed.

It was, of course, blurry.

Even in the absence of an atmosphere, light degraded in quality as it traveled through space and time. Space dust and gas, dark energy from the expanding universe causing it to redshift, dark matter warping it, and the general expansion of the light wavefront reducing its intensity. All of these factors caused great deterioration to information quality despite state of the art high-resolution sensory technology.

But despite it being blurry, it allowed them to see what happened in the past.

What they saw shook them to their very core.

They saw a tsunami of water consuming an entire star system. The spectrography analysis of the substance made it clear that it was H2O. More water in one star system than perhaps there was in the rest of the Orion Star Strand.

”What…” —oo-oo—’s six eyes widened. ”What. Is. This? How. Is. This. Possible?”

It wasn’t. There was no way such a thing was possible within the laws of physics. The gravity, the speed, the effects of this war, and the way that it engaged with the star system were entirely contradictory to the laws of physics.

That pointed them to one explanation.

CLICK CLICK CLICK!

”An. Administrator. Was. Responsible. For. This!” -o-’s six eyes blazed with vengeance.

She had been vindicated, since she had been pushing the theory that this was caused by some powerful third-party entity.

—oo-oo—’s eyes sharpened. At this point, there was no denying it. An Administrator was responsible for the anomalous state of the Strehegeld Star System.

They continued watching with a very intense expression.

They watched as webs emerged shortly after.

The webs and the water fought.

The details of the battle were not visible. There were hard limits to the resolution, but they were still able to clue in on what happened when they saw massive solar flares emerge from the star as it wobbled and shifted in orbit.

As if someone had thrown somebody deep into it.

They watched as the star began unleashing more and more solar flares all of a sudden, rapidly focusing on Planet Amadeus III.

Then, they watched the star growing smaller.

Brighter.

Bluer.

It continued compressing even as the star bubbled with solar flares.

Until it went supernova.

”…Our. Sister. Was. Responsible. For. The. Supernova.” —oo-oo— realized with a stunned expression. ”She. Had. Sought. To. Crush. Her. Enemy. But… she. Failed.”

”Water!” -o-’s six eyes sharpened with recognition. ”There. Is. Only. One. Advanced. Civilization. That. Can. Be. Responsible. For. This!”

Anger flared in her expression.

”The. Aquadites! They. Must. Be. Responsible. For. This!”