We Stood and Waited

Like fallen angels, in fire and fury, we hurdled to the ground. We had heard the call for help and we came, streaking through the sky. We came and we would not be merciful to the enemy. We came.

Screaming through the sky louder than a 747, we crashed into the Earth. Each impact was as powerful as a nuclear weapon, yet it was merely kinetic energy that was used, no radioactives were used or needed. We crashed into the Earth a behind the enemy lines, far enough away from those under attack to leave them unharmed. We were here to help, not harm, our friends.

Our impacts were devastating. Because we came in at a 45 degree angle, over 8,000 tons of material ejected from the impact craters we each created. These showered the enemy right after the shock waves of our devastating arrival had already hit. Pelting and killing many more.

Each of our craters was over 50 meters in diameter and almost 14 meters deep. No mere mortal could have survived the crushing energies. Yet, one by one, we rose from those craters, no larger than human, but far, far more powerful.

We did not climb. We do not walk. We did not crawl out of the craters.

We rose.

Filaments of blinding white energy lanced out and connected us to the Earth, to the sky, to the very essence of the universe itself: we tapped the quantum foam itself to draw energy from the very universe. We roast, floated forward and steadied our weapons.

When the enemy recovered, they began firing upon us. The very energy we tapped into, protected us. Filaments lashed out and vaporized incoming projectiles. We flashed with the impact of energy weapons, negating them. We were protected by the very universe itself. The shock waves of their artillery crashed and smashes against us, like waves around a granite island: left unharmed and untouched.

When we reached where the enemy was in range, we lashed out. Bolts and shards of white energy lashed out and vaporized the enemy. It was hellacious for the enemy.

They should not have come here.

They should not have sought Humanity's extermination.

And now they faced the ultimate in devastation for their forces and in the future for themselves.

Should Greater Humanity so willed it.

They had been observing the galaxy for signs of the technology we now wielded. Once before, the great and terrible Ancients had developed it. No others had developed the trick themselves, but had found and used Ancient devices that did. A galaxy wide ban had been proposed, but no race was willing to give up their weapons. So, instead, every race had agreed to their nonuse: keep them, but no testing them, no using them unless they were used against the holder of the weapons. Response allowed, no first use.

Yet, for whatever reason, no race could replicate the technology. Until Humanity did.

We finished clearing the enemy from before the beleaguered armies before us. The ones who had been faced with extermination. To them, we were bright lights as angels. They may have thought us gods. We were not. Though we were their saviors.

The aliens had detected our experiments. They had come in force. A race that could develop that technology would be unstoppable. They knew it and they sought to prevent it. No race could be allowed more than a handful of the weapons. No race could be allowed to develop the technology with all its potential implications. So the enemy came and they sought our demise, complete and utter.

We descended to the ground and turned off our equipment. The field subsided and we were visible once more. We stood before the humans who marveled and we worried: would they accept us or fear us?

We were not in the flesh Human, but were made by Humans and thought of ourselves as Human. Our biological collaborators and we had created the technology the aliens now sought to destroy us for. We had done so in secret, just as we were secret. We were the Created, machines, artificial intelligences. We could have let the aliens wipe out Humanity and continued in secret.

But if we did, what sort of children could their parents be murdered when they could prevent it?

Not us. We could not. We did not. We were here.

We stood and waited. How would they react? Love? Hate? Pride? Fear?

We stood and waited as nervous children, full of love, hope and fear.

We stood and waited.