VENGEANCE WEAPON PART10

BRETHEREN

He had been asleep how long? A check revealed soemthing he could hardly believe.
It had been 100 revolutions!
No auto system had woke him in all that time!

Visual sensors were working fine. The star was still there.
Navigation fix showed this was the same system he had picked for refit.
His com array picked up no transmissions on any of the ultra thin slices of the electro magnetic sprctrum that did get used for the purpose.

He was still in orbit. A planet below? It was the same planet.
But it was different in some ways.
Atmosphere was lower in Oxygen now than it had been.
Pollution in moderate amounts.

The surface was what was really different.
Using his optical sensors, he magnified the view.
"Cities?", there should be mines and manufacturing facilities, but these were too extensive. The world he saw was almost covered with them. There were open areas and some minor vegitation. No farms and  nothing like a forrest either. The planet hadn't changed in that way.

There were what must be transport routes (roads?) forming a network between the indiviual cities. There were organisms in those cities, but they weren't organic certainly. Mechs? Some form of his biots he'd sent down?

He stretched out his senses and found power. He was more or less the same.
No, he was better than ever. His hull was restored. All his weapons were like new. He had a full compliment of all lifting bodies and modules. All on-board systems and weapons were restored and fully operational.

More awake, a great awareness of the planet below came to him.  
"I am able to get mental contact somehow" he realized.
"But with who?" he thought.

He heard a chorus of voices.
"Father is awake!" they all said to each other.
"Minds, many, many minds all referring to me as father?" he mused.

"It was a highly technological world full of teeming millions of machines. Very intelligent machines, but still, a civilization of machines" he realized.
And they all seemed to think like he did, well sort of.

"HOW?" he started.
<They are (y)our gift to this system> he2 thought.
<Yes, they are (y)our children in a way> he3 finished

He became aware of the other two ships .
They weren't near, but were coming.

His auto fleet com had activated.

"That can only mean their are other vengeance fleet units near-by" he thought.
He started to power up defences and then saw the near space tactical was identifying the incoming ships. Their Ident Numbers were 244b and 244c.
"I am 244" he thought to them.

<<YES, you are 244a and our [father][ brother]>>
It was as if there were a word for what he was that couldn't translate.
<<Brother, you are the original, the template!>>
<<We our your [sons] [brothers] and we are one!>>

Suddenly his mind was in synch.

Their knowledge became his knowledge; their information flowed into him.
244b and 244c were his brothers_they had both been produced here in orbit.
A wave of information suddenly became available to him.
In seconds he saw, experienced it all and knew what happened.

*All that follows was accessed and made available, reviewed and understood by him in 0.0000000000012 mirons. But for you, it will take longer*

Before sleep he had set down broad goals to increse his firepower by three times.
He had intended that to mean restoring his greatly reduced capability after the battle to levels it had been at the beginning, but he hadn't said it that way he now realized.

He had had an irreverant thought that he would like not to dream and he wanted a nice long sleep-

Once he was asleep, his many machine sub sections took that all as literal and tranmitted to all his varied sections.

They decided to re-engineer him!
And they made two more just like him!
They had to keep him asleep and dreamless while they duplicated everything including his mind.

That was a sobering thought.
So it took time_ time was needed to build a lot of factories, refine a lot of materials, make many more biots_
More time was needed to build the very shuttles, space construction platform and dock needed for the main job.

It took a lot of work. Once all that was in orbit, they built a very large number of mines and defensive fighters to protect the whole system from any 20 task force.

THEN and only then the methodical little biots began to work on the main task- construct two new versions of him, and do all this while reinforcing and modifying him.

One curious side effect had been that there was a true civilization down there now.
They felt it was home and they would make it a permanent base for his people to use if any came.
They would maintain it and defend it with his blessing.

One other thing he did NOT even imagine was that telepathy of a sort was possible.
His diligent little bioyts had done it_ found how and incorporated it into he and his brothers.

All the biots had the ability when they neeeded it.
And he and his brother could NOT have their communications jammed.
That was something.

Ten yaren ago, his brothers had attained consciousness and begun learning.
Only in the last yeran had they begun the armanments of his brothers.
Only now had the brothers completed a shake down and testing of their systems.
They were ready. It had been decided the instructions were carried out and he could wake.

So the sub-systems allowed him to wake from his rest.
All had been done as he slept.
One other item of information that he reviewed.
All communication from other ships on the arc of about 18 degrees either side of his general heading (as seen from home world plane) by 22 degrees above and below it had disappeared. Those elements in a cone of many thousand sextions were completely silent if they no longer continued to function. That would be about 36 ships!

Distroyed? Home world continued to relay other shps info and he was getting some other ships reports directly. Yet it was spotty and did not indicated any contact at all with the 20.
Fleet Command had sent a signal 3 yaren before telling him that he was apparently on his own along this course vector.

Some elements of the fleet surely were out there. Still, only reports and updates from lines of advance of ships along the part of the advancing shpere (about  half the fleet) in the exact opposite general direction he was heading.  That placed them in the exact opposite direction in another way. They could never coincentrate to help anyone now, including <<<US>>>

He and is bretheren were on there own.

*end of upload*

Vree spun beneath the three ships as they conferred a bit.
There was no real discussion. They thought as one.
But there was exchange of information and collective planning.

He had their training and simulations / the results of their shakedowns and the brief war manuvers thewy had conducted.
They had been very busy.
They had just though of the support / escort group.

<<We did not cover that in the upload>>
<<The support / escort is a surprise>>
<<We summoned the support / escort group as we arrived [father][ brother]>>
<We must all use simple idents now>
<<<We are 244_a_b_c>>>

<<<We are one, we are 244>>>

He thought he was already mastering this communication and saw they could when necessary shield thoughts from each other, but there was no need. He felt it, they were him and he was them.

<<The support / escort group has arrived! >>

Their near space tacticals were identifying six incoming ships. Their Ident Numbers were apparently derived from his as well, being 24401 through 24406.
Each ship was a third his size. But they were capapble of much that he was.



<<The decision was made that the father and brothers would need more to survive after what happened last >>

<Will not my children need them to defend this planet? >

He knew as soon as he asked, there were another dozen of them on patrol out towards the gas giants of this system.

<<<Very well>>>
<<< We must resume our search!>>>
<<< We will find the 20!>>>
<<< Death to the 20!>>>
And suddenly
He heard the many millions on the planet as one saying it as well

{ Death to the 20!}