The connection exploded and a handful of Lukas clones died. The fighter-ships kept attacking the ships while flying in arcs around the 6 citadels. The Lukas clones were in uproar. They were scared to die but willing to fight. The bridge on the other hand was ready to flee, they just needed the approval of the captain who, sadly, just passed away.
"What shall we do?" One of them asked in a panic. They did not know what to do. "Send someone to… I don't know! Fight back or something while I charge the turbines."
Small and weak ships with vibrating guns glued to them left the citadel and attacked the remaining fighter-ships. The extraordinarily giant citadel in the form of a Geddos head turned towards their citadel. Through the nose holes came three dozen more fighter-ships.
"Turbines charged, entering hyper-space." The pilot Lukas said. After everybody sat down he started the turbines and they shot away into space, leaving their small ships to die.
***
"They got away!" The supreme king complained and threw his hands into the air and pouted. But he got happy again once he saw their ugly little ships exploding into a thousand pieces and the blood of the Lukas clones floating away.
***
3 of the citadels were still connected through the connection halls, they were the Teddy citadel, the pheddie citadel and the citadel filled with Teddy and Geddos copies. They tried flying away, pulling at each other.
The pheddie citadel send the other two a message stating that they should coordinate their escape instead of pulling at each other. They proposed fleeing through the asteroid belt.
"Are they trying to trap us or did they not yet develop a life scanner? There is a citadel hiding in the asteroid belt." One of the Teddy copies said.
"No. It's not a trap. The citadel back there is filled with Maxes. They wouldn't attack, instead they are observing if we are safe to approach!" Someone replied.
The pilot nodded once and started flying towards the asteroid belt: "Activate the shields." They were finally able to accelerate since all citadels were moving towards the belt. "Ask the other two to activate their shields as well. Our shields would also shield them and due to the higher size it would be 3 times less efficient."
Behind them was the ninth citadel. It was following them and shooting at the fighter-ships. They could no longer see the small donut shaped things which apparently shoot lasers, able to annihilate everything on contact.
They drifted above the asteroid belt trying to escape as the fighter-ships hurried after them.
"Steady." Pilot Teddy said. She did not like the idea she had in her head, it might result in death or just be for nothing, but on the chance it might work she drifted towards the spot at which the sixth citadel was hiding. She did not enter the space between the asteroids and just flew past them and the sixth citadel.
The moment the ninth citadel also flew past the sixth citadel, the sixth citadel activated their shields and moved into the way of the fighter-ships. 8 fighter-ships crashed into the shield and exploded on impact. Another dozen of those which dodged were shot down by the ninth citadel once they were visible again.
***
"Another one! What a great day it is!" He screamed and started laughing, "Another hundred thousand souls to slaughter and in whose blood we can bath!" The supreme king stood up and hit a button on his throne.
In the bowl of the head a laser was visibly charging up for several seconds. The citadels dove down to hide behind the asteroids in order not to be hit by that monstrous weapon.
"Activate the divider and auto-aim." He shouted.
"Activating divider." A Geddos said: "Divider activated, now activating auto-aim."
After having activated the auto-aim function the bowl shot out a thick beam of energy which divided itself into thinner beams which curved through space. Hundreds of beams attacked everything in sight. Every fighter-ship was hit and hundreds of asteroids exploded on impact.
A giant cloud of debris and ashes was left where once was an asteroid belt.
"Did we get them?" The supreme king asked, his eyes shining with delight and anticipation. "Did we?"
A murmur went through the bridge before someone finally spoke up: "We— Sir, we can't detect any biological signatures in the rubble. We missed—" Before he could finish his sentence a bullet went through his head. His inner cotton flew against the walls and his body fell to the ground.
"SHIT!" The supreme king screamed, gun in hand: "Replace him!" He sat down on his throne with an angry expression.
***
Somewhere hidden at the edge of the universe were the 5 citadels. Some time had passed since the attack from the Geddos head. The first, third, sixth, eighth and ninth citadel had once again settled down and were holding a meeting digitally, as nobody wished to repeat the previous mistake.
"I believe we should join our citadels together. With a higher number of people and a higher volume comes more power and efficiency and we would be able to fight back against that disgusting citadel." One of them said.
"While I agree with the reasoning, how can we be sure the Geddos copies on the eighth citadel won't betray us?" Another one countered, "I think we should join forces but exclude the citadel with the Geddos copies. They pose a threat!"
A Teddy from the eighth citadel gasped: "How could you say that? Do you know why we have them bound to us instead of letting them walk freely? It is not because they would betray us, it is because they try to kill each other at every opportunity." She took a deep breath before continuing: "As long as there is more than one living being on the ship with them that is not a Geddos copy they do not team up and instead do some kind of There can only be one!"
"How could I believe what you are telling me, you could be working for them.",
"No!" Another interrupted once more. This time someone from the ninth citadel started talking, it was a Max clone: "We also started with a hundred thousand Geddos copies, we currently have 1 left. Teddy is telling the truth."
The Lukas next to him nodded.
"Fine. But if there are any signs of betrayal, we will immediately leave again and attack anyone who is following us."
After having finished speaking, the display vanished and everybody said their goodbyes before heading down to the connection halls. Happily, each citadel had 3 each, so losing one was not a real problem.
The connection halls slowly extended from the citadel towards a middle point between each of them. Once they connected, every citadel activated their shields and extended them for breathing space between the citadels. In that empty and yet oxygen-filled space they send out people to increase the size of each citadel until they connected to one another.
"Finally time to rest." A Max clone sighed in relief, carrying a Teddy on his shoulder and walking through the new area created, "I didn't think it would take weeks to finish. But it's still rewarding to see how it all worked out. It still is weird that all our captains don't allow us and the new citadels to enter all the lower floors."
"Well, your citadel doesn't even allow outsiders to enter it." The Teddy on his shoulders said, holding on to his head.
"We are just making sure that we are able to leave at any possible time without invaders on board." He answered, "And the reason as to why nobody is allowed in the lower floors, apparently, there are dangerous objects or creatures down there. We had sent down a unit to investigate, led by our strongest squad and our best trained Max, A24, and he came back alone, bloodied and traumatized."
The Pheddie copy holding his hand and the Teddy on his shoulders looked at him amazed with excitement in their eyes. "Dangerous? In what way, what is down there?" They asked simultaneously.
"Well, I wasn't on the bridge while he gave his report and he hasn't spoken to anyone since waking up, so I sadly don't know." He let out a dramatic sigh, "You should ask one of the Lukas clones once we meet them again, they said that they had killed a strange creature and implied that it was in the lower floors. So, if it is the same creature on every citadel, they should be able to give you a satisfying answer."
"I hope that is very soon." The Teddy said and jumped off his shoulders and ran ahead, greeting other Teddy copies already sitting at their destination, a small bathhouse.
The Max clone and the Pheddie copy just kept walking hand in hand with a smile decorating their lips.
Somewhere else on the citadel, A24 was sitting, a hat was covering his face and hair. He tried avoiding everybody around while staying close to his citadel, but was still too scared to enter it.
He was sitting inside an opening which could be described as alley-like. It was dark and a trashcan was standing next to him. It was not needed, it was there simply for the aesthetics.
He murmured something while polishing his gun. It was now as reflective as a mirror and he painted it black so he could polish it again. It is what he has been doing for the past few weeks, over and over again.
Everybody in the citadel felt sad for him. Well, not really everybody. The Geddos copies had a blast scaring him and making fun of his trauma.
***
"Why haven't we found them yet?" The Teddy Emperor asked one of the plushies. He looked at the inanimate plushies sitting in their seats. "Quite bold words you are throwing at your Emperor." A laugh escaped his lips and he leaned back into his chair.
He put his feet up onto a table which stood before him and rested his hands on his stomach. A small Teddy plushie was sitting on his lap: "You Teddys are so cute." He petted the plushie and it fell over.
"Oh, did I pet you too hard? Or do you just want to do something?" He muttered.
The plushie suddenly stood up and turned towards him: "I need to continue with my job bestowed onto me by your royal highness." She bowed to him and ran back to her station down on the lower floors, carrying her clothes in her arms.
The Teddy Emperor went down with her, a gentle ruler with a kind heart, as he liked to call himself. He sat her back onto the pipe on one of the floors and positioned her into a position which made it look like she was actually working.
Back on the bridge he was swarmed by plushies running at him, shouting reports and holding up clipboards each with a singular and empty piece of paper. All of them were shouting at him to read what they wrote.
"Relax, I am going to read it. Just give me a second to sit down." He told them.
The plushies laid down their clipboards on the table next to him before hurrying back to their spots.
He sat down into his throne and took one of the clipboards from the table in front of him. "Hm." He started reading the empty paper, acting as if there was more than one piece on each clipboard and text on them. "Taxes? On a space-ship? No!" He said confused.
He put down the clipboard and picked up the next one and… Wow! This one had actual words on it. It was a report about the update. "It has been weeks since that time, why do I only get this now?" He complained to himself and started reading.
While the update announced the ability to traverse the universe, in this report there was a lot more than just that. It stated a few extra additions which were added. Firstly, planets now had the ability of supporting life and in a note below it was stated that life can already be developed but in a future update they would add already developed civilisations in different time periods, but none advanced enough to leave their own solar system.
The next few updates were small things, like a console room update and similar stuff.
"Life, huhß Maybe we should colonize some of them." He said and stood up, "TOWARDS THE NEAREST PLANET, EARTH SIZE OR BIGGER!" His finger pointed out into the middle of the vast emptiness and the citadel shot forward.