The invasion of the New Universe to harvest its wealth and return it to the Old Universe in order to continue Atrekna existence for another several billion years had been an unmitigated disaster for the Atrekan. There was no way to look at it unless one was to take the most cynical viewpoint and eliminate everything left behind as parasites upon those who had entered the New Universe to subdue and harvest it.

Billions of the remaining Atrekna, including those who had gone into hibernation until a time where there was sufficient resources was reached, were gone. Wiped away with the destruction of the Old Universe. Gone too were precious artifacts, from works of art depicting past glories over races tens of billions of years gone to memory crystals containing fading memories of how the Atrekna had not only dominated their own universe but had harvested the plenty of the New Universe to phasic artifacts containing the consciousness of ancient Atrekna Overminds and Thinkers.

That discounted the loss of the factories that would have churned out new ships and even new slavespawn that the Atrekna could have taken to the New Universe and then temporally replicated endlessly to allow them to subdue the New Universe.

When the Old Universe had collapsed, it had happened due to the fact that the remaining stellar masses had gone hypernova, swept over the remaining worlds, and destroyed the entropic shielding that was all that held back the dead universe of the Atrekna's origin.

Only a tiny fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of the Atrekna had made it through the portal before it all collapsed and the Old Universe simply ceased to exist as the entropic shielding ruptured and entropy rushed in to devour everything. Even an even smaller fraction of ships and slavespawn had made it.

Even worse, birthing thralls had been destroyed, Overminds and Thinkers had been burned away, and the Atrekna who had made the journey to the New Universe to face the Feral Ones and the Ancient Enemies had barely escaped with their lives.

That was just the consequences of the loss of the Old Universe and the Origin Systems.

Dalvanak was an Elder Thinker, who had been hatched in the plenty that had followed the First Great Harvest billions of years ago. It was the oldest, wisest, most experienced, and most powerful of the Atrekna who had survived the loss of the Old Universe.

It also was the architect of the Plan for Survival and Dominance.

It knew that the others, especially the Young Ones, had disagreed with his plans. Some had struck out on their own, convinced their own machinations would be the ones to lead the Atrekna to dominating.

Dalvanak's strategy was simple: Secure a score of isolated systems. Attack and attempt to secure up to a hundred of the Harvest Systems that were now in the Herd Enemy's hands. Establish manufacturing and growing facilities to create new war machines. Establish birthing thrall species.

From there, Dalvanak's strategy was to take over the Great Expanse of Empty Stars, take over the base of the Galactic Arm Spur, then take over the far end, where the Feral Ones held sway. Once that was done, move 'up' the Galactic Arm to take over the core and harness the power of the massive singularities they knew would be found there. Once that was accomplished, the subjegation of the galactic arms. Once that was firmly in place, the Atrekna would take over each galaxy one by one, harvesting it for the future survival of the Atrekna over the hundreds of billions of years that would follow.

To an outside viewer, Dalvanak's strategy should have taken place rapidly, with Atrekna strongholds popping up all over the galaxy and then the universe, as the Atrekna moved to any world or system that cross the path of a currently occupied system, in the past, present, or future.

The Atrekna would move backwards, establish their dominance of the system, establish Overminds and Thinkers, alter any species worthy into breeding thralls, and harvest the system to build more warships, slavespawn, and resource stockpiles.

That was where Dalvanak, and the rest of the Atrekna ran into their first problem.

Chronotrons moved faster than light. Far faster than light. They existed, in the Old Universe, across the entire timestream, from the founding of the universe in the Great Explosion to the end of all things, the chronotron strands just becoming thinner and thinner as time went on and their energy was expended, with the chronotron, no matter how energetic, at the tip of the strand.

That was not how it went in the New Universe.

Dalvanak had survived because it had come forward to the Invasion Fleet with the ancient crystals that held the knowledge of how the Harvesters had dealt with the strange activity and design of chronotrons in the New Universe. It had arrived on its private ship, a carefully grown creature of synthetic and biological tissues that was more a living creature than a machine.

Then the explosion had happened.

Dalvanak had watched as the precious crystals, the faint but still readable memories of those who had harvested before contained within, shattered into tiny fragments when the explosion had washed over its ship.

It had fled, ordering the great living ship to flee the explosion. When the ravening cascade of chronotrons had caught it moving through jumpspace, it'd been dumped out, drifting, between the stars while the great ship had slowly healed.

That had given it time to consider what to do, and to examine the temporal mechanics of the New Universe.

When Dalvanak had opened itself up to the timestreams, it had been shocked at how they could view the past, but not move backwards any more.

The huge pulse of chronotrons, mixed with the dying strands of the Old Universe that had been reenergized by contact with the New Universe, had completely blocked off the past as if there was a massive wall.

Dalvanak could view the past, could reach back and move slavespawn and servitor machines forward, even make temporal replications, but it took far more strength, effort, and energy than it had before.

There was no going backwards in time, though.

Worse, Dalvanak had to do psychic surgery upon their great living ship, removing the temporal drive that had previously allowed their ship to move forward and backward and sideways in time, or even hold position in one shattered split second while they spent moments, years, decades, even centuries carrying out actions to ensure that at the end of that split second everything went as necessary.

The loss of the temporal drive was a huge blow to Dalvanak and their plans.

Trying to divine the future was useless. It was nothing but a mass of fog, disconnected images, collapsing and separating timelines that exploded to shower out more chronotrons, forever reinvigorating the New Universe.

Dalvanak despaired but did not give up.

They delved further into the temporal makeup of the New Universe.

In the Old Universe, the Prime Universe as far as the Atrekna were concerned, the chronotron strings had been created in the Great Explosion and did not grow in number. Each timeline was wound through with chronotron strings, which enabled the Atrekna to move timelines as well as bind them together or even split them off.

The New Universe had particles that were created in its Great Explosion, but those numbers were increased every timeline split or collapse as more chronotrons appeared out of the additional energy of creation or destruction.

The fact they were particles was of interest to Dalvanak.

While others fretted and worried over establishing bases and supply storage areas and growth systems attempting to follow the rules of the Prime Universe, the Old Universe, Dalvanak delved into the secrets of the particles.

It quickly discovered that the speed of the particles determined the flow of time. If the particles slowed, time slowed, if they sped up, time sped up. It was nearly impossible to stop them from moving or vibrating, taking geometrically more power every moment that they were held still, a single particle quickly exceeding the energy output of a stellar mass.

The others began 'sinking' stellar systems into space-time to slow time down, based on Dalvanak's research, in order to allow them to use entire centuries in the span of mere months.

Dalvanak warned them that the 'sinking' of the systems left a visible mark on space-time that could be seen for light years in real time. They scoffed at the idea that anyone could detect a sunken system at a further distance than the light of the star had reached.

Research showed Dalvanak that a sunken system could be detected as it sunk as far away twenty-thousand light years at the exact instant it began to sink.

Dalvanak's research also showed that the new galaxy was formed of corrugated waves of arms and extended out nearly 150,000 light years, having already thrown off several galactic arms due to spin.

It knew that things were far different than its peers had already decided. Galaxies in the Prime Universe were little more than fifteen thousand light years across. According to the fragmentary records that Dalvanak had been able to coax into readability, no galaxy larger than eighteen thousand light years had ever been found.

The next shocker was the sheer scope of the Young Universe. It was less than fourteen billion years old, having come into existence as the Old Universe had entered the final phases of entropy, but rather than only being a half million light years across, it was ninety-three billion light years.

That data made Dalvanak triple check all of its work. They were convinced it had to be wrong until they realized that somehow the leading edge of the universe was moving faster than the speed of light. Additionally, Dalvanak found that the New Universe was still expanding, in some places as rapidly as two million miles an hour, being pulled toward something beyond the perceivable edge.

While the others began working on creating breeding worlds, Dalvanak continued his research in his living ship, moving from place to place by slipping in between where something was and where something is and where it would be.

In the Old Universe, that led to a rapid way of expansion, as nothing was further than six jumps from anything else.

In the New Universe, Dalvanak concluded that six jumps would only lead to a little less than 50,000 stellar systems. With almost a hundred million stellar systems in the galactic arm spur, that meant that the New Universe would require much more difficult methods of movement than the Atrekna were used to.

Consulting with other researchers of the Atrekna that had managed to escape the Old Universe or that had grown to maturity in one of the New Breeding Systems, Dalvanak found that they preferred to discard knowledge that did not reaffirm the laws of the Old Universe.

With a curse, that Dalvanak had heard roared at the Autonomous War Machines and the Biological War Machines, Dalvanak left the other Atrekna to examine space-time more closely.

Its ship roared out EAT A DICK as Dalvanak made the translation to another place.

Dalvanak planned on investigating the Feral's home system.

True, it was locked down in a gravitational anomaly, taken out of space time into its own pocket universe via a carefully aligned series of artificial singularities, and thus the system itself was out of reach, but Dalvanak was a master researcher and they intended on investigating the secrets of the Ferals.

When it reached the location, it could tell that temporal travel was not going to happen. Chronotrons exploded into more chronotrons, popped out of gravitational rifts and tears in space-time around the system that went back thousands of years, and erupted into existence from nothingness, making the entire area for parsecs around a complete blinding stroboscopic nightmare to any who could see time streams.

Being careful, Dalvanak could look backwards. Not with the smooth elegance once possible, but in fits and jerks.

Research showed Dalvanak that the Ferals were somehow not only living temporal stabilizers, but major events in their existence caused temporal shockwaves and fixed temporal points for the entire universe somehow.

Despite prior abilities, despite being able to reach back and effect the past and events that had already happened in their own universe, the New Universe was completely inured against such meddling in dozens, hundreds of fixed points in time that extended across the entire universe due to the fact that the Ferals developed fire, or cast bronze, or detonated atomic weaponry, or had an object leave their solar system after they launched it, or fought an Autonomous War Machine.

Or got Glassed.

Or fought slavespawn on a dozen worlds.

With shock, Dalvanak's research showed it that because the Ferals had fought slavespawn in the past, that meant that the Atrekna's past actions could not be altered, because that fight against the slavespawn, and other fights, were locked points in time.

That made Dalvanak realize there was no way to undo the Feral's destruction of the slavespawn breeding facility that launched them out on great rings and tubes to enable the Atrekna to pull those slavespawn for use.

Curious, Dalvanak learned that any slavespawn ring or tube that had been destroyed by the Ferals was gone. That meant that a ring that had crossed a world's path, only to be destroyed by the Ferals, could not be tapped for slavespawn.

They were gone forever.

Any ring or tube encountered by the ferals could not be temporally copied either. It was locked down in a shower of chronotrons that was almost painful for Dalvanak to look at.

The plan to shift billions of biological horrors onto the genesis planet of the Ferals died before it could be born from a myriad of difficulties.

Dalvanak examined their history more, looking for weak points.

And found madness.

Dalvanak had been a temporal researcher for millions of years in the Old Universe. It was fairly simple, a discipline largely regarded as not much more difficult than counting one's fingers.

Here, it was madness.

Dalvanak had been saddled with several Young Ones that had already implanted their larvae in breeders, ones that fancied themselves temporal researchers.

Dalvanak took one look at the Feral's genesis system's history and backed off. First was the problem of the fact that time was related to speed and mass and gravity. Then there was the problem that the feral's history was, well, to put it succinctly, an unholy fucking mess. Like some higher being had taken dozens of timelines and rolled them into a ball in their great hands, then pulled them roughly in a straight line, wrapped a few other timelines around it to keep its shape, then used a couple more timelines as nails to hammer the timeline of Feral history to spacetime to keep it in place.

Caution warned Dalvanak to be very very careful with the history of the Ferals.

Five of the Young Ones, barely enough to make a Quorum, scoffed and dived in where Dalvanak had only looked.

They began screaming as the maddened temporal times sucked them in.

Loopbacks, time streams that dissolved into nothingness, explosions of chronotrons so heavy it melted neurons, dead ends that shattered into crystalline moments of times and took random assortments of molecules with it.

One found where the Burger King faced off against the rebel leader Jack Boxx on the red plains of Okie's Golden Corral and suddenly dissolved as the temporal historical branch suddenly turned to a dusting of giggling chronotrons.

Another attempted to shift the moment that the Titan Kali, the Titan of Time, Creation, Destruction, and Power, emerged, believing that it could possibly relate to the temporal damage to the region. That Atrekna believed that the Titan's depiction of four arms could contain information that the Lanaktallan, the hated Herd Enemy, had created them.

Instead, that one found itself beheaded, its head raised up, and blood dripping into a bowl held by one of the blue skinned female lemur's four hands.

The Atrekna watching drew back, their tentacles fluttering with alarm, as that Young One's head suddenly vanished, cut cleanly off the shoulders, a fountain of blood erupting from the severed neck.

The third attempted to adjust the attack of the Autonomous War Machine, created by the Herd Species, as it attacked the Feral's home system.

The outraged scream of rage that rippled outward from that point in time turned its brain to slurry.

The last two attempted to pull back.

One got lost, its mind racing in circles as it chased circular events down an ever-tightening loops until its body suddenly sucked into itself and vanished.

The last one fled, desperately, from the shattered, fractured timelines.

Cold white hands grabbed it, pulled it toward something.

A female lemur, ancient beyond belief, even to the Atrekna's eyes. Bedecked in fine cloth and expensive jewelry, part of the face replaced by cold black warsteel, with burning red eyes beneath a piled up wealth of white hair draped in jewelry and cobwebs inhabited by mechanical spiders who's jaws dripped envenomed chronotrons.

The Atrekna felt itself torn apart, alive and screaming, tossed at the feet of the crown wearing women.

Cyberhounds jumped on the parts of the Atrekna and began to feast as the Undying Cyberqueen of Bongistan chuckled to herself at taking another victim who dared attempt to look upon the Bongistan Imperial Isle without permission.

To the Atrekna aboard Dalvank's ship, that one suddenly tore into pieces that vanished with a loud BONG BONG BONG!

Dalvanak counseled the others to be cautious.

One rejoiced. It found what might have been a weak point.

A temporal incursion. An alternate timeline invading the prime timeline.

Dalvanak examined it from afar as the others jumped in.

After a few moments for Dalvanak, the rest of their lives for those who had attempted to alter the events, the Atrekna turned away.

There was no weakness to be found that they could determine.

It was as if the universe itself, this New Universe, had hammered on the Feral Ones with everything it could bring to bear. The world itself had been seeded with life that had all had a chance to thrive and survive.

There was a basic common ancestor for the Lanaktallan.

It became a food source for the Ferals before the Ferals were capable of regulating fire with any precision. The ancestor for the Lanaktallan did not get the chance to expand, to mutate into its herd perfection.

Instead, it was eaten.

The Hive Enemy never grew much larger than two feet tall.

The Ferals ate them.

Even the Atrekna themselves saw a common approximation of a pre-thought ancestor upon the Feral's genesis system.

The Ferals ate them too. Pulled them from the ocean and ate them, did research on them, and eventually uplifted them.

Somehow, against all odds, against everything thrown at them, the hairless lemurs had clawed, spit, bitten, fought, and ate their way to the top.

Dalvanak laid back in the mucus membrane lined pod and ordered their great living ship back to the few Atrekna held worlds.

The Ferals would need new science to overcome.

It would take time to understand how the New Universe dealt with time.

But time was the friend of the Atrekna, and the enemy of everyone else.

This, Dalvanak knew just as well as they knew that the Atrekna's victory was inevitable.

Around him, the universe howled with mad laughter.