Even as the alarms were activating to the dire presence of His Worldship, His Will reached down to the controls that would activate the systems designed to strike Him down, powers intended to tap the destructive forces of a new universe being made, and so unmake the Devourer of Worlds.

In the matrix of computer systems and preserved brain patterns of countless dead Kree, the Supreme Intelligence felt its systems jolt as an awesome Presence reached down with formless power, and with barely a flicker of effort, turned matter to anti-matter.

---

On six locations around Hala, the computer systems that sustained the Supreme Intelligence of the Kree were immolated in massive explosions, and with them went all the control systems for the Universe Gun that might have proven a threat to Galactus. As the hard-wrought shields and cloaks on those systems failed, the eyes of Galactus turned down, and from orbit overhead, obliteration reached down and removed the threat of the weapon from existence.

With the destruction of the threat, the resistance of the Kree fell to nominal levels, no longer worthy of His attention. Galactus prepared Himself to descend to the world below.

As Dynamo had relayed, the touch of the Celestials was indeed upon the Kree, and they were indeed one of the failed experiments. There would be a Seed within this world, likely fat and swollen, near to maturing.

He would feed well, and save this transient empire of Celestial failures, although they would not thank Him for it...

--------

With the absolute destruction of the Supreme Intelligence, any resistance to Galactus’ coming quickly faded.

The Kree loved to fight, but assaulting something that simply ignored your existence was about as demoralizing a foe as they’d ever had to face.

The Accusers took control at this time, ordering the evacuation of Hala, which was carried out with remarkable speed and discipline.

Tellingly, no attempt was made to disrupt Galactus in the assembly of His feeding device. The assembly of the device gave them more time to evacuate their citizens, after all, and the Skrulls were an obvious example of what happened if you destroyed it, the memory still very, very fresh in galactic memories.

I watched the evacuation, impressed by the thousands of ships leaving the world by the hour, already being allocated across the Kree Empire. Some were merely going to other planets in the system. Entire sections of the ecumenopolis were lifting off, the world-city becoming transports to other places, carrying millions of Kree with them as they did.

It was an extraordinary display of competence, discipline, and emotional control. The Kree were going to lose their homeworld, and despite it all, they were coldly addressing the loss in the most ruthlessly efficient manner they had to save their people, and even vast amounts of their production and scientific capabilities.

The many civilizations watching this were going to be learning some important lessons in how dangerous the Kree could be, just by watching them run away from a fight they could not win.

“Well-played,” Norrin Radd told me, waiting next to me and watching the death of the heart of the Kree Empire. “Few are those who have managed to use Galactus as an instrument of both Justice and Mercy.”

We both looked over at the Kree Accuser named Ronan floating near to us. Perhaps he thought he was there to watch over us in case of violence, his Universal Weapon one of the most powerful techno-weapons in the cosmos. But the Surfer was never one to do battle if not attacked, and I was not known to be overly hostile to the Kree... although my destruction of the Magus and his Church had still put countless stellar powers on edge.

Regardless, he was now the highest authority in the Kree Empire, although there were rapidly going to be challenges from the Kree military over such things. The Accusers were judges and enforcers, not rulers... but as the hands of the Supremor, they were still among the most-trusted and individually powerful Kree in existence.

In this time of emergency, they had the authority to command the evacuation. When affairs returned to normal... who knew?

Still, he had reviewed all the evidence I had gathered of the scale of the Supremor’s manipulations, and his normally emotionless face looked quite grim right now.

Ninety percent of the Kree were intended to be sacrificed, just so that the random remaining few might be mutated by Negative Zone energies and begin to evolve, breaking the curse of their Celestial genetics. They were a superior race in many, many ways... but they had not changed for a thousand centuries and more, much like their rivals the Skrulls, who were also Celestial Deviants.

“Your praise is unwarranted. If there is a Seed inside our world, it was indeed doomed.” Ronan the Accuser paused. “Hala has no biosphere. Galactus would not come to feed here unless such a thing was indeed here.”

“And you are wondering how the Supremor did not know of it?” I inquired, not looking at him. “Your Seed is old and ready to come forth. What makes you think the Supremor had any ability to comprehend that it was present? The Seed or its forebears needed only influence one intellect, and all of Kree space was being prepared for its birth. Did you think your people were beyond the manipulations of the Celestials?”

Ronan actually closed his eyes and took a deep breath at the impact of that statement. Their own vaunted AI and technorganic elders, ultimately subverted and betraying them! “Would it have been worse than the detonation of the Shi’ar device?” he asked grimly.

“Races touched by the Celestials are naturally perfect fuel for the apotheosis of their offspring. It is likely that any Kree within the galaxy would have been slain and served as energy for the new Celestial.”

The only Kree to survive would have been those stationed well outside the galaxy. Basically, the Kree would have been reduced to near extinction, at best a few million left.

“Are these surveys of the invading force from the Negative Zone true?” he growled at last, contemplating that ugly news.

“TRUTH.”

Ronan the Accuser’s jaw dropped, and he nearly crumpled upon hearing the Word. The Surfer whipped his head around to stare at me in amazement, tears spontaneously forming at the edges of his eyes.

“A-A Truthspeaker!” Ronan croaked out, staring at me, ignoring the blood coming out his nose and eyes, the dark blue hissing softly in the void.

“The Negative Zone is dying even as our universe is growing. The races and their leaders there desperately seek a chance to live, and our universe is their choice.

“They will come, driven by the urge to survive, and there will be war, Ronan the Accuser. It would probably be very wise for the Kree to get ready to face them, for they are a foe unlike any you’ve made war upon in the past.”

Despite himself, the grim smile he gave forth was stone cold proud and confident. “The Kree do not fear war!” he declared, barely hiding his enthusiasm. Indeed, the Kree loved war. Their whole society was built to prosecute war!

I nodded slowly at him. “They will come with the numbers of galaxies, and they will have no way home. For them, there is only taking a territory or dying. They will come from a thousand peoples who know war, a thousand tricks and technologies, and they will be savage and merciless. It will be true war, vicious and merciless, the very worst of war, even for the Kree.” I nodded at Kree-lar, the burning pits still ravaging their surroundings where the Supremor had died. Gaping holes were evident in the steel mantle of the planet as sections of the ecumenopolis pulled away from Kree-lar, mixing with the countless starships. “They were making planet-ships, with workforces of billions and the resources of galaxies with nothing better to spend their time and energy on.

“The technologies there were sufficient to rival the highest level of the Kree, including the Universe Gun.”

Ronan looked at his homeworld, and frowned at the description. Of course, it was all in the data I had handed to him.

I had all those Stealth Spells for a damn good reason. Using Cosmic Awareness could be detected by the sensitive, but I could also block the same looking for me, so mundane scouting was totally feasible for a certain someone who could get to the Negative Zone at will.

Discovering the Negative Zone had been something Fate had woven into circumstances, and was unavoidable. Although the Kree had not ventured there, they had known of it, and used the energies to empower the first of their Negabands tens of thousands of years ago. That alone likely would have been enough for the N-Zoners to find us eventually.

“Will the Terrans join us in this fight?” he asked simply.

“Yes.” It wasn’t a question.

“And your allies?” he inquired further.

“Yes.” Also not a question. If Terra was threatened, so were they.

He was silent for a time, watching his world. “Terra’s strength and stature seem to grow by the day,” he remarked. “Many worlds are thinking of your people as a threat.”

“I would note that the Corbinites, the Galadorans, and the Xandarans are not among them. Ignoble and duplicitous peoples, them.”

He was going to say something, and stopped himself. “A formidable line-up of allies you’ve arranged, woman. The Acanti are not among them?”

“In their long lives over billions of years, the Acanti have never gone to war with anyone or anything. Even their conflict with the Brood is the equivalent of suddenly finding a superb fishing hole, and being willing to eat it empty now that they can.” I smiled slightly. “Which does not mean that they are not willing to feed on the richly nutritional other-dimensional forces from the Negative Zone, who have a large number of technorganic bioships and such among their forces, and so are likely to view the Acanti as more bioships for them to use.

“The Acanti are fully capable of defending themselves, and they have large appetites when they do.”

“So... you will be setting up a buffet for the Acanti, the invaders will prove their intentions to them, and then the Acanti will start to feast?” the Surfer asked, amused.

“It is an important distinction to them, and I concur. If the N-Zoners leave them alone, the Acanti have no reason to attack them and are no threat to them. However, desperate survivors ready to raze entire worlds and genocide other races are seldom so restrained and reserved in their actions.”

“Are these invaders a threat to Galactus?” the Surfer asked warily.

“Would Galactus have aided us, even if only in such a minor way, if they were not?” I returned, and the Surfer frowned thoughtfully. “Annihilus is a power-mad tyrant who tolerates no threats to himself or his influence, and that includes cosmic beings... of which the Negative Zone is almost frighteningly empty of.

“He likely sees Galactus, the Phoenix Force, and such cosmic entities as nothing more than power sources and potential slaves, and when you have multiple galaxies worth of technology and resources to draw on... potentially, that is exactly what they are.”

The Surfer considered the scale and threat of being invaded by the survivors of a dying universe, and his face grew grimmer. “Please keep me informed of happenings there, and I will relay them to my master.”

I nodded slowly. “Accuser Ronan, you have a rare opportunity here.” He turned to me in surprise. “You bear a Cosmic Weapon, so you will attract the attention of Galactus, should you address Him. When His task is done here, you may wish to thank Galactus on behalf of the Kree people for saving them from extinction.”

His face as I said that was worth a picture. “This...” he trailed off.

“He may not acknowledge it, but He will remember your words, if only because they are so rare. Those who respect His purpose are few and far between, and perhaps in the future, when your purposes align, He may be willing to humor a request from your people.”

Norrin Radd said nothing. He did not speak for his inscrutable master.