Utopia War

Chapter 13 - Guns Before Butter

Abraxia, as it turned out, also lived on the top floor of a rather tall building. Min-ji was beginning to wonder if any of the other floors on these skyscrapers were inhabited.

The office, as with all rooms in Abraxia's home, was a garish assault of pastels, flowers and ribbons. An unpleasantly thick sweet floral scent hung in the air like a bad fart.

"You asked for the best, I hereby present to you the best," said Abraxia from her control chair "You can compare these darling works of art with the most sophisticated weaponry of any of the FTL Players and they still come out on top. Microscopic genius missiles with anti-lithium warheads and fully self-aware AI systems whose only goal in life is to die gloriously for the cause of successfully striking their target. 6d hyperspatial movement. A lifejammer field prevents mind-state retrieval for a kilometer radius around the impact point. A single carrier missile breaks apart into 10,000 of these sweetie kittens which proceed to enhypercube their target and then fulfill their life's ambition. Now imagine filling up the night sky with them."

Min-ji blinked twice, as though not certain of what she heard.

"That's the single most disgusting concept I've ever heard in my entire life," she said, with an almost flat affect.

"I don't know what to tell you," said Abraxia "You said you wanted the best."

"I think I should buy the weapons," said Sparkle, "You're probably not going to like any of them."

"I probaby won't," admitted Min-ji, "But let's just get this over with."

"Okay," said Sparkle, "But you're going to have to get in the spirit of it because right now you're being uncharacteristically unhelpful. This is what we came for."

"I know," said Min-ji, "I know. I apologize to everyone."

"Oh you can't hurt my feelings," said Abraxia, "Okay, you don't like weapons that contain within them suicidal intelligences. I can respect that."

Min-ji was quite proud of herself that she said nothing in response to any of this.

"I have other avenues we can explore. Before we begin I assume you're looking to kill something with human-equivalent technology and are hoping to do so in such a way that they don't come back?"

"No!" Min-ji half-shouted, before adding more calmly "That is to say, we will engage in violence only when it is purely defensive. We only want to stop our own people from getting hurt. If we can do that without any permanent mind-state loss on either side that would be the best possible outcome."

"We want to neutralize enemy spacecraft," offered Sparkle.

"Technologically sophisticated spacecraft?" asked Abraxia.

"Extremely," said Sparkle "Possibly more-so than us."

"Well," said Abraxia, "when in doubt I always recommend hurling matter at something at relativistic speeds. Hard to beat for efficiency. You could try some magnetic lances."

"I've never heard of those," said Sparkle.

"Well there are those without poetry in their souls who also call them mass drivers. Railgun is technically obsolete but you get it sometimes as well. Multi-staged magnetic cannons that fire material slugs at just shy of 90% of light speed. At that speed a warhead is completely redundant."

"How's that going to hold up against a defense field?" asked Sparkle.

"Poorly," Abraxia admitted "But I have yet to see any kind of defense that could withstand a sustained bombardment from a sufficient number of magnetic lances. Especially the extra silky smooth ones I make available to premium clients such as yourselves."