By me, Molly kept finding things for others to do, and healed our friends. “Azure, how you holding up?” I felt healing.

  “Save it for the others—”

  “I have to keep you healed! Without you, all this falls apart!”

  Does it? My arm looked impossibly thin in her hand and she fed me a pastry. I could absolutely live off Zheien pastries. I ate an impossible amount. “Without Ry’nao, we couldn’t do this.”

  Suma also healed legions of our people. “Or Suma’s healing. Wally’s people are fighting him, too, on a lot of worlds. Neal got hurt—”

  “Kia’s finding more Ty’nirrhans who are fed up with being slaves!” I showed her ships flying from C’tral, their homeworld after the Wausen rose. Some came back to fight with them!

  Sara showed Kia more Ty’nirrhans to fight who sided with Rentappenen. Those 700 worlds that Pirad gave ‘em this morning? One of Eriganh’s World Destroyers exploded in their new star system. There went Rentappenen’s forces in the Seventh. I felt sad. All of them weren’t evil. Most got trained to be that way from herbs that didn’t belong on our level.

  No time to cry! Deb found rogue Ty’nirrhans and sent a surge to destroy them. We’ll all cry when we know how many people we all killed!

  Molly wiped a tear. “I’m just a healer, not a warrior! At least I’ll probably die doing this. Maybe my host won’t know. You won’t tell her, will you, Azure?”

  I shook my head. I’ll be dead, too. Maybe that’s a good thing. How will the others—but they are all Otherselves, not the hosts. No, they are safe in Alb.

  The worlds and the people and the battles all got jumbled in my mind. All I have to do is hold this bubble open. I’m not killing anyone. That’s for others. Every Cube has a role. The hosts, they aren’t killing. The minds in the Collectives are, and they are bred to be weapons.

  Adia directed Cubes, but someone in her Collective showed her what to say. No one is directing me. My Collective warned me, what I’m doing is impossible by what they know. Maybe someone upper level’s helping me do it. Gave me the idea—no, no, and no. My Collective is telling me, we’re on our own. Upper levels washed their hands of Rentappenen. They thought the shame of kicking him to lower levels would stop him. It just gave him new land to exploit! People like him never get tired of collecting power. Greed never ends.

  Everyone looked exhausted. Ry’nao frantically directed men until they died, and the anguish on his face was hard to watch! He’s got responsibility for all the people linked in his mind through his Gray Cube Of Knowledge. That Cube exists to know everything we can know on this level, to record it for other tech levels. It’s like the master archive. It records every death in this War. Entire civilizations died. I can’t--

  “I brought them back!” Dromie smiled at me.

  I couldn’t smile. Every death is still recorded in Ry’nao’s Cube. Every. Last. One. He feels them all. How’s he still alive, feeling that?

  There are things too horrible for me to be thinking about. I concentrated on my bubble, keeping it expanded just a few feet beyond my emperor. The bubble itself is tiny compared to all the people fighting in it. They don’t have to fit. It’s virtual, like some humongeous computer game that’s international and online. I used to like to memorize which game had the largest maps and how much of Earth they covered, it it could be real. It’s easier if I think of this as a game, a chess game between me and Rentappenen. He has troops and we have troops. One galaxy at a time. But, this affects a lot more than the Thirteen that Ry’nao rules. What’s the score? No one can tell me. Are we winning? If we aren’t, the Padrisa loses. That’s estimated to be a hundred thousand galaxies. So. Many. Worlds. Worlds with people. People with families they love.

  Do I know what that’s like? My grandparents said they loved me. My parents did. But, did I get any love? All they did was fuss. I’m not doing it right. I’m worthless. I should have died as a baby! But I tried to do what they want, in the hope of love.

  My aunt said she loved me but she didn’t want me living with her. None of my cousins. Nobody. Yet, Ry’nao welcomed me on his ship, a person with a weapon that could destroy it and his Thirteen Galaxies! He doesn’t know me, but he loves me. Molly loves me.

  Right now, my relatives are complaining to one of Pirad’s many clones that they want out. He’s dismayed that I’m in one of Kirnonos’ secret labs with my stupid relatives. This Pirad doesn’t want to bother his Pirad with it so he’s in his lab working, the lab that he had in Antartica that Rentappenen thinks he destroyed. Along with all the memories of my entire Collective and their peoples! The thought makes me happy. My memories are there, too, not that I’d want to burden a clone with ‘em. Pirad can use ‘em, maybe.

  But, my parents are back, and my grandparents, and they are cured of their addictions. Cured. Maybe they know what love it. I’ll never know, but they all have a second chance. Are they thinking about that? Right now, they’re thinking how nice it would be to leave that cold room and go home. They can’t go home. Ever. But, they can live on Alb. Why doesn’t he let them leave?

  Then I realized, stupid, they all have your genetics. Rentappenen wants them dead, like he wants you to die, because you can all interfere with his power. When this is over, they can go. They can be free. I’ll be free, too, because I’ll be dead. As a spirit, I can go wherever I please and do what I want. Isn’t that a nice thought?

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  But, Pirad, that Pirad’s shielding me and the ship, he’s helping Pirad here on this ship, but he’s for me. He’s sweating. Doesn’t he have a healer down there?

  I realized, no one knows he’s there! They can’t, in case Alb Seer Pirad, the host Pirad, gets killed. They’ve had attacks in the Alb System from upper level people! Pirad’s Earthan wife, Leticia, she’s on Ye~. Not with him. Yikes!

  Deb made Greg lie down. They heard my thoughts! But we people with Cubes, we hear each other. Rentappenen hears me, but I hear him, how scared he is. He can’t go back to a timeline once he goes there. That never happened before. What changed?

  He’s worried about losing territory. His troops are losing star system after star system. He’s exhausted. People are dying in his Collective faster than he can clone new ones. People are rebelling and leaving, even though it’s instant death from his guards on Lisbaar. And those guards? Some are pretending to work for him and some slaves are getting out. Others left. He can’t track them.

  There’s a new recruit with a light green Cube powered by fear. She just learned how to take others’ fear and project it onto Rentappenen. He doesn’t know how to handle that!

  I made that ability in a time loop. This girl heard Ry’nao’s fear for his son, for his diplomats, and it’s powerful! Now Rentappenen’s getting hit over and over like a broken record. You don’t listen as well when you’re scared, do you, Rentappenen? You’re missing things!

  He got mad and people died in his Collective! The more upset he gets, the faster they die!

  On that ship to Alb, they got the slaves from Titan, the ones I saved on that ship! Molly and MarKu’s royalty are relieved to see Jog Sa, their greatest programmer, and he’s not badly hurt! Healers take him and his family to a room and Goes, First Prince Of MarKu, goes with them. Molly and healers taught Earthans on the ship to help everyone. A few didn’t want to do that, or had small kids, but most of them learned to be healer helpers. That amazed me, in Rainbow. Molly got all of them to help her heal people. If they couldn’t heal, they could comfort people or bring a healer.

  If I lived, would I want to be a healer? I’m scared to open my mouth, just to talk to someone. Molly, she’s checking in on everyone in this battle. I’m just struggling with my time bubble, and it makes me shake to think Rentappenen can see me. He’s too busy to attack little me. I guess it takes attention to a lot of things to run a war. Even him, a boss with lots of people to run parts of it.

  He doesn’t know who he can trust. Lots of his head honchos died, and he’s having trouble replacing them. Doesn’t he have clones? Oh, they got killed, too, and the memories to make them know what to do. Sara did that! Cevit Ion’s new Earthan wife. Oh, she’s talented!

  She and Cevit Ion are working together. She finds slavers and he finds a diplomat in the links who’s near enough to strike. They have diplomats all over the Thirteen. This War is bigger than that, but that’s where they are working.

  Dromie’s people are doing the rest. They are infiltrating slave camps and inciting riots. Some of the species they resurrected are wiping out Rentappenen’s troops and their worlds at the same time! Some of those civilizations they brought back are dying again? But, they are taking chunks of Rentappenen’s defense with them. My Collective’s glad. They think they were all evil. But they think Dromie’s people are, too.

  Someone created them out of weapons. They thought like weapons, ruthless, kill, kill. I couldn’t imagine our supply of atomic bombs waking up and deciding to blow up a country! But that’s what Dromie meant when he could make people into weapons. That’s what Kia thought.

  I sent a surge through Peatabus expecting Pirad to protect him. Bour Wenh Cet died.

  Peatabus had a convulsion and everyone got upset!

  Kia killed people? But the Wenh Cets were evil slavers, and Rentappenen depended on them to do his slave training. Greg and Briahh Wenh Cet infiltrated Rentappenen’s Lab and organized a revolt that’s still going, hundreds of years later! Now they’re helping Pirad.

  Dromie told his story to Kia. “I noticed children and thought I’d take the form of a toy in my real form. Children speak simply. They can help me learn what this people wants so I can promise them things. I made noises like the book described when people picked me up at times. It made them laugh, like the goblin in the book. Then I got messy like the goblins in the book and put myself in a store for used things.

  “A man picked me up and bought me for his daughter. ‘Oh, I’d love to see Gwen’s face when I give Luna you! But Luna will love you. She’s like a dog you kick and she always comes back.’

  I grimaced. Wasn’t I like that? With my parents, and my grandparents? He sounded like Daddy.

  “‘Dromeda! Yay! I love lookin’ at galaxies far away! That’s it! I’m gonna call ya Dromie! Wanna see somethin’ purty? Andromeda’s purty. Look at all those stars up there. I wanna see ‘em someday.” She held me so my face pointed up. I never saw what stars looked like. I knew some of them had planets with people. But, for the first time in my life, I stood on a planet and looked at a dark sky with points of light. I knew every one. Some were empty star systems and I piloted ships to the worlds, to divide their resources and carry them to other worlds. Others were inhabited, but I didn’t act differently.

  The beauty of it through Granny’s telescope touched me. Here’s a galaxy of star systems, like ours and not like ours, in a spiral galaxy very like ours. Dromie sighed.

  “I saw things differently that day. Granny and her people talked, and I learned. But when Luna gave me to Granny, and Gwen left me with her to go work, I saw that even helpless people have worth. When I revealed myself, at first, she was scared. But when I told her about myself and what my people did, she told me I should fight, even if I died doing that.”

  But, those people went to Alb and got exiled, because Dromie had rogues that killed one of Pirad’s clones! Right now, they’re on a dead world with their house like they wanted, but no one else. And, the food Dromie left ‘em is spoiled. They’re starving!

  I put food in the refrigerators and cabinets of all the houses. Left the cabinet doors open. In other words, I reversed what the rogues did. It can’t last! But no ships are coming to bring them supplies because all of Alb is terrified of Dromie’s people. Yet, he keeps popping into Kia’s big meeting of everybody with Cubes. They’ll all get infected! Pirad’s upset. But what can we do? These rogues are like a computer virus for people, and it’s from levels far above us. My Collective can’t tell me anything.

  But one of those rogues infected Kia, and she can do massive healings for our troops, those who are Ty’nirrhan and Biehshah and Bisillips like Pirad and Kirnonos and Taredias Gupa and his Elder friends I met in Antarctica. Yet, they killed Pirad on Ye~.

  Pirad’s losing clones like water, and he’s making more. Are we winning?