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Down and down they walked into the depths, Rin's blade carving deep, wavy curls into the wall to keep them anchored in place amongst the endless spirals. The strange lightlessness of this realm was ever-apparent, almost crushing in its own way. Logically, Rin knew it made it easier to see, but her instincts screamed that something was wrong every time she glanced towards a corner where a shadow should live. It reminded her of a still and silent forest, the song of birds and insects alike quieted by the presence of some terrifying predator.

Glancing over her shoulder, she looked to Yosuke, making sure that the undead wasn't far behind her. The corpse-swordsman 'met' her gaze as best he could with no eyes and nodded. He held his pair of blades, still slick with blackened ichor from the slaughter above, in an almost casual stance, although as a fellow expert, Rin could see the hidden tension in his every step.

She opened her mouth, about to ask if he had sensed anything, before shutting it and huffing in annoyance. How troublesome it was that he couldn't speak; when it came to a fight, as the Nameless surely wouldn't leave their treasures unguarded, she could warn him if he were getting outflanked, but he was unable to extend her the same courtesy.

Turning back around, their march into the depths continued, and Rin was starting to doubt herself. Down and down they went. How deep did this nest go? Had she misunderstood the mechanics at play and the Greater Nameless found a way to entrap them in an eternal loop despite her best efforts?

Her heart dropped, but she continued regardless.

She hoped Sensei was alright. Lady Yuki had seemed so terribly worried about him, about how he might not be himself when they next saw him. The thought of anyone being able to break someone so strong and bearing such an indomitable spirit with casual ease was as foreign to her as walking outside to a green sky.

If the worst came to pass, if she had to fight him… Well, even if she wasn't immediately crushed by a man who doubtlessly had decades or centuries more experience than her, she questioned if her will would be strong enough to strike out at one so kind.

Rin wished a thousand misfortunes on Yuki's 'sister' for forcing them into such dire straits, but she dared not speak her venom aloud, lest the nogitsune somehow hear. If she were even half the kitsune that Yuki was, Rin doubted her chances in an honourable fight, even with Yosuke's backing.

She just needed to have faith in her sensei and Lady Yuki. The two of them were much more powerful than her and Yosuke; with luck, their foes would be too distracted to react to Rin’s part in their daring plan before it was too late.

All at once, the air twisted. Where there had once been an inoffensive mustiness permeating the tunnel, there was suddenly the heavy scent of damp coin. Below it, an undercurrent of faint decay, reminding Rin of the time she had spotted the carcass of a whale upon the shore when she was seven. 

It was fresh when she first saw it, near where her family's ship was moored during a voyage to give offerings to their patron. In her youth, she had mistaken it for sleeping and believed the whale must have gotten tired of all the swimming and needed a break, although she had never asked the caretakers her father assigned to her.

The following days, as the colossal beast slowly putrefied and scavengers emerged from every nook and cranny to tear chunks from its form in a great feast, were enlightening.

Shaking herself from her reverie, Rin narrowed her eyes, gripping her blade tightly. It was a good thing it was made of such fine materials; otherwise, she would have feared her strength would split the handle in twain. "Stay on guard. We approach the stench of decay and money," Rin gravely whispered, unsure if her companion still had a sense of smell.

The stench only grew stronger as they descended, clinging to Rin's nostrils like it was desperate to be noticed. Yet, even though the rot grew more apparent, it didn't become much more pungent. Whatever she was sensing was fresh, without the time to fester into something worse.

Down.

Down.

Then, after they rounded one last curve, they beheld an ocean.

Stretching out into the distance before them was a solid sheet of twisted, blackened limbs, forming dunes and valleys of bodies. They were frozen in waves upon an abyssal sea, thick fog smothering the spaces between them in an unnatural haze. Rin dropped into a ready stance, holding her blade out as if to cut the tide should it crash upon her. 

But no grim tide of beasts rushed out to meet her. 

At first, she suspected that they were sleeping, but nothing but the grave and stone was so still. Looking more closely, she saw that hardly a tenth of the limbs were still attached to their owners. Some were torn, some clearly severed. Some abdomens were split from the body, and others were seemingly sawn in two. A scant few almost seemed to have melted like snow in the summer sun, bodies blossoming into grim flowers of chitin and meat.

What stood before her was once an army, one that might have once torn the region asunder in a storm of self-perpetuating expansion and looting. Now, it was a sea of corpses, disassembled into neat parts to make sure none of them yet clung to life.

Slowly, Rin lowered her blade, her heart slowing along with it. Only the heavens knew how many thousands of bodies were here, but, thankfully, they were nothing more than that.

"I believe we found where the ones that Lord Hall starved went," she quietly muttered to her companion. Had the beast at the head of the swarm lost control of its flock and been forced to cull them? It happened so quickly, too. Men could last weeks without food, days without water, but the spiders seemed to need riches like a mortal needed air. Now that she was looking more carefully, Rin could see Kiku's handiwork on some of the bodies, too. It seemed like she was forced to aid in the slaughter. If the Nameless’ number had found themselves cut from sustenance, they might have rushed to find value to feed themselves, which meant…

Rin glanced into the distance, looking where the piles of corpses rose highest, near an opposite wall. "I think I know where they keep their valuables," she said, gesturing where the piles rose to an apex. "We head over, cut down whatever is guarding the hoard, and destroy as much as possible before they can react. Questions?"

Her steely gaze met her companion, who straightened before nodding.

At that, the two of them crept into the mist. Idly, Rin wondered where the fog could have come from, but no answer that came to mind felt satisfying. Maybe Nameless blood behaved strangely after their death?

The piles of cold, stiff corpses loomed over them as they stepped only where the corpses were thinnest. In some places, Rin and Yosuke could even touch the ground, but most of the time they had to step on at least one layer of thin legs and carapace. Now that she was closer, Rin couldn't help but notice just how small some of them were compared to others. Many were approaching the size of carts, or at least bears, but far too many were more akin to the size of a person, or particularly large dogs.

Hatchlings, maybe? It was hard for Rin to imagine Nameless being anything other than full-sized monsters tearing through the woods, looking for anything valuable to skitter back to their nest with.

Did the Greater Nameless lay eggs, or did they just manifest somewhere in the depths of the caves when they had enough money to support new numbers? Maybe they hatched from the money pile itself, tiny limbs crawling out in a tide from below coins.

Every possibility was more disturbing than the last. Rin was glad that Yuki was going to crush this place into dust. Once, she thought that the Empire was too harsh on Unbound cultivating Nameless for materials, but now she feared that immediate execution wasn't enough.

Crunch.

Rin's eyes widened as she heard something break under the weight of something ahead.

She brought her blade up, face contorting into an animalistic snarl. Of course the vault would have guards patrolling nearby rather than just guarding the entrance, even if she hadn't seen them! They'd have to fight their way to the door. It'd delay them, but who knew for how long? There could be dozens or, heavens forbid, even more hidden nearby. Lady Yuki and Lord Hall would have to hold off a bit longer!

Or would they?

Rin thought back to the time Lord Hall had buried himself in forest debris in anticipation of the tax collectors. It was just before she had seen the terrifying form of the Greater Nameless for the first time, and she remembered her incredulity as he explained the simple truths of the world.

Hiding was beneath her, and suited an assassin rather than a proud Unbound, but, just as Lord Hall had asked not so long ago, what if she failed due to failing to seize every advantage she could?

Could she live with herself?

Rin spun around and grabbed a rather surprised Yosuke by the collar before diving into a mountain of corpses, burying them both deep in the viscera of dozens of dead with a dull clatter. The black blood dripped in her hair. It got in her eyes. When she inhaled, she could taste the beginnings of rot from the vile liquid. Beside her, Yosuke twisted, trying to right himself, but before he could cause the pile to shift further, the dragon-blooded Unbound seized him by either shoulder, binding him in place.

"Be still!" she whisper-shouted. "Something's coming!"

Part of her wished that this strange realm had darkness. Abyssal blackness would have been preferable to seeing the grotesque, bulging intestines of one of those beasts draped across her companion's back mere inches away.

Thankfully, Yosuke quickly calmed down, although the undead was still tense, as if he were about to spring into action. It wasn't a second too soon, either.

As soon as he stilled, she heard the tick tick tick of eight long, sharp legs crawling across the corpses. Through a pinhole gap in the pile, she saw the beast approach, emerging from the mist like dead wood emerging from the water in front of a ship. It was larger than an average Nameless, although still nowhere near the sheer size of the Greater Nameless itself, and bore a steadfast demeanour as it unhaltingly marched across the broken bodies of its family—or did it only see them as competitors?

It showed not a trace of care as it trampled the bodies, splitting a particularly small example of its kind in two with a single, blade-like limb. It didn't even break stride as it continued between the piles with the near-silent tapping of far too many feet. Closer, closer, closer…

It passed right in front of them before, suddenly stopping, turning its maddened many-eyed gaze towards their hiding spot.

Rin grimaced, bracing herself against an abdomen behind her, getting ready to use it as a springboard. Could it smell them, or perhaps the value of her blade? As long as the beast only suspected and didn't know, perhaps she could kill it before…

Before she could ruminate further, the beast turned away and continued on its patrol without a strike or cry of alarm.

She dared not move until well after she heard the shadowy monster's steps fade away.

Rin let out a breath she didn't know that she was holding as the sentry continued past them without a single shriek or alarm. Her heart was beating so quickly; she didn't have the constitution for stealth; she would have been less worried charging at five of them at once to take their heads!

Breaking from her fugue, Rin carefully pulled herself from the pile before offering a hand to Yosuke, which he thankfully took. Rin tried to ignore the feeling of his dead, spongy flesh squishing under her grasp as she extracted him in turn, ensuring that the pile wouldn't collapse behind them and draw the patrolling guard back to their location.

"My apologies," she muttered, surreptitiously glancing over her shoulder towards where the Nameless was headed. "I would have explained myself if we had time."

In response, Yosuke brushed himself off with what she imagined was a wince before shooting her a slow and awkward… What did Lord Hall call that? A thumbs-up? Coordinating with someone who couldn't speak was truly annoying. She hoped that her sensei had a plan to fix Yosuke's voice and let the man talk for himself should they ever need to fight side by side again.

They continued, creeping between the corpses like rats on a great battlefield, occasionally diving under more detritus to save themselves from discovery. It was good that Rin was already long used to the sight of corpses both mundane and magical; she could only imagine the weight this would place on a less hardy mind.

Where did they get the resources to support this many Nameless to begin with? She was no expert, but she found it hard to believe that so many could be created from the wealth of a single town. Perhaps it didn't matter, and she had already seen enough of the disgusting spiders for a few centuries at least.

The piles grew higher as they closed in on their target, and the skittering patrols became more and more frequent. Again and again, Rin and Yosuke had to escape into the corpses before a guard came around the corner of another heap, just barely having the time to get into cover before they were found. Moments felt like hours as they were forced to cower away from foes that didn't know that they passed within mere arm lengths. Yet, their progress could not be stopped, only slowed. 

It was a small mercy that the patrols weren't more dense; the curious nature of space in this place had probably deluded the Greater Nameless into thinking the vile heart of its empire was safe from all but the most powerful.

Poking her head around the corner, Rin saw their destination at long last. Four massive spiders stood guard in front of a large slab of chitinous material that acted as a vault door. The four guards standing attentively on the sides were again far larger than a normal Nameless, and Rin wondered if they were just older and stronger or more intelligent, like their master.

They were intelligent enough to keep the corpse piles well away from the door, at least, so there was no chance that they could use the bodies as cover to get close. The walls above were far too smooth to climb silently, as well. She could see no path forward beside violence.

Pulling back, she glanced over her shoulder to Yosuke, fire fighting in her eyes. "Four of the large guard spiders by a vault gate, two on either side. No cover. Are you ready?"

The only response she got was the man rising into a stance with a small flourish, his blades flashing as he channelled the essence of emptiness itself into them.

Rin nodded, a faint sheen of moisture forming around her sword in turn, and then the pair exploded into wordless motion. 

She did not call out who the Nameless faced, nor list her accomplishments, for that would imply that they were true foes. A healer did not let a parasite know who it faced before excising it.

She rounded the corner first and let the storm raging inside her soul take the reins as she cut through the air itself with a single perfect strike, a crescent of water streaking forth before hardening into a blade of ice. It smashed into the face of the first Nameless, but, unfortunately, it merely broke upon its Aegis rather than cutting it in twain.

The monster still drawing breath was unfortunate, but she had expected it to be stronger than the ordinary ones. 

A chorus of cries echoed from the depths of the creature's throats as they registered that they were under attack, and the four surged to meet them in a storm of long, piercing limbs.

Behind them, a reprise of answers rose from the corpse piles as the patrolling guards were alerted to the intruders by their comrades. They had a few moments before reinforcements arrived.

Before the four guards could meet them in melee, Yosuke sprang into action, cutting the air mere feet in front of them. Unlike Rin's own strike, there was no grand showing of raw strength, not even a visible projectile. Yet, it still landed, impacting the beast she had already weakened across the eyes.

It had taken her some time to figure it out when she first saw his technique on the surface, but it was beautiful in its sheer simplicity.

He used raw emptiness, pure and simple. Yosuke created a construct of his own will to extend his blade, which would normally be a simple trick that had little utility against a peer that dealt little damage to an opponent's Aegis, but then in came the raw elemental emptiness he could output a startling amount of.

By exploiting the give of their flesh in the split second before it crossed into being something that their Aegis needed to protect them from, he formed a wedge in their flesh. Then, he emitted raw, barely refined emptiness into the space, forcing it to either side with supernatural force, less cutting and more tearing his foe at the seams.

Against someone of a higher existence, the trick would be worthless, as they were worlds unto themselves, untouched by everything except what they wished to be.

Against the Nameless, though?

Every single one of the beast's eyes split in two in a spray of thick black, blinded on the spot as it let loose an unearthly shriek. It was disabled, at the very least, flailing wildly as it tried to cut them to pieces, but they had already darted to the side. She would have preferred for its head to split in two, but at the very least, the beast was useless in the upcoming fight.

Three left.

A dozen legs and half as many cleaver-like claws tried to cut them to ribbons as they finally entered melee, but both Rin and Yosuke were faster than the beasts by a league; the only thing that kept them competitive was the sheer amount of limbs they had at their disposal.

They flowed between the strikes like a part of masters dancing between raindrops, deflecting the few strikes that could have landed upon their three blades.

Ten, twenty, thirty blows evaded between heartbeats.

Five, ten, fifteen given in return, weakening their foes as they ruthlessly exploited every opportunity to break down their protections.

The exchange wasn't entirely one-sided, though. By virtue of sheer number, the occasional blow slipped through their pair's guards, landing against their forms. Their Aegises took the blows, but every moment was a bit less energy they had, and every strike threatened to throw them out of position and pry them apart.

Rin sprang forth, diving under the beast after landing a trio of weaker blows upon its head to stun it, carving a deep groove through its carapace as she cut through its armour and into its flesh, lightning dancing along her blade as an old friend.

As she reached the end, she drove the tip of her blade a hair deeper and let heaven's wrath free into the beast's flesh.

The creature's muscles tightened, forcefully contracting, and the sudden motion aggravated its newly open wound, carapace pulling to the side as its insides sloughed out like a split egg.

Two.

Screams echoed out not from their foes, but close behind, the piles behind them slowly coming to life as numerous forms crept over the piles, stalking over the corpses of their own blood. They were running out of time. Rin had hoped that they could kill the four before they had help, but it seemed like she had underestimated them.

"Yosuke! Can you handle the two for a moment?" she called.

The man responded by stabbing the one he was duelling through the leg, crippling the limb with a single blow before pivoting, drawing the healthy one between him and it, while also placing himself between it and the door.

Perhaps she was a bit rough on him when they had first met.

Surging past Yosuke, she grabbed the colossal slab of chitin, fingers digging into the surface as she reinforced not only herself, but where she had gripped, so her new fingerholds didn't come apart.

Sweat beading on her brow, Rin wrenched. The slab was perhaps twenty feet across, and was intended to be rolled aside by some hidden mechanism she didn't have time to find.

Unfortunately for the Nameless, she was far stronger than whatever meagre mechanism they could muster as she forced the dense slab aside with a series of loud cracks, crunching through hidden blockers as she pushed into a hidden groove, mist from the room rushing past her into the opening.

Within the large room was a true hoard, far more than could have been plausibly extracted from the town. Money was piled in a single great pile of gleaming coins far taller than her, and next to it were titanic piles of everything her mind could conjure. Metals. Tools. Books. Scrolls. Finely lacquered wood. Furniture. Even then, the room stretched far enough to make the accumulated wealth look almost small by comparison, having room for much growth under its high, arched roof. Where did it all come from?

Then, at the core, she saw it. Right next to the pile of coins upon its own carved pillar was a necklace with a chain lovingly crafted from platinum, bearing a fang that seemed to be carved from a black cloud.

On instinct, she streaked forward, grabbing it from the pillar and channelled lightning into her blade as she considered where to start beyond removing the obviously valuable jewelry from the hoard. This… was more than expected. How was she going to destroy it all thoroughly and quickly? The books and scrolls were easy, but the metals? She'd need time to melt them down, time that she didn't have, but—

Rin looked at the fog flooding into the room, and an idea came to mind as she recalled her sensei scaring her senseless in the hallway of the ryokan.

"Hold them off a bit longer!" Rin called, shaping the lightning in her blade in a very particular, low-energy state as she began darting around the room. "And try not to cause any sparks!"

Yosuke, who had been forced back to the door by now four Nameless, would have doubtlessly had words for her, had he been able to talk.

As she dashed, she cut water itself into two with unerring focus, splitting it into hydrogen and oxygen with her passage, the lighter gas rising high and getting caught by the roof.

It was not enough. Somehow, Rin knew that her blade was working too slowly, even with her sprinting about to reach as much air as possible. She pulled deeper, falling into her own soul as she channelled energy over her whole form as she carefully extended the effect past the edge of her blade, through the handle, and over her skin.

She performed the sacred art of electrolysis with her whole body, moving at supernatural speeds, darting throughout the room as she converted as much as she could. A curious lightheadedness overtook her, and she could feel herself verging on some greater truth about the storms, about herself, but it remained just barely out of reach.

CLANG!

Spinning her head over, she saw Yosuke tumbling back as a monster's blow crushed his guard and sent him flying, swords flying away from his grasp. Mid-flight, he recovered, drawing two more blades from his skull as he landed on one knee. Still, a tide of a dozen monsters poured through the door, struggling to fit through as the tide was upon them properly.

They couldn't beat that many. It was a good thing they didn't have to.

"Yosuke! We're done, get out of there!" she shouted, running to his side and pulling him to his feet. The man staggered but accepted, shaking off what might have been a concussion for a mortal within moments before following in her wake.

The two surged towards the tide, and the beasts reared up, ready to crush them. Some webs flew past them, which they thankfully dodged, but they didn't stop. Instead, they leapt, arcing through the air as tonnes of monsters and web crushed where they had just been.

As one, they sailed through what little space remained in the door, and Rin spun in mid air, lightning encircling her blade as she prepared a much, much stronger bolt.

With a stab, it flew from her blade, guided by a thin stream of moisture she hastily conjured. It wasn't as bright, nor as straight as one of John's mighty bolts, sure. It was, however, flying straight into a pocket of flammable gas.

Everything went white, and she didn't even hear the explosion.

When she blinked the stars from her eyes, ears ringing like a struck bell, she found herself atop a collapsed pile of corpses. She tried to stagger to her feet, but before she could, she was offered a hand. It was Yosuke, leaning over her. Rin took it, and stumbled to her feet. "Did we…" she began, trailing off.

He merely pointed past her. She followed it.

The vault was in ruins, a terrifying inferno issuing from its now half-collapsed entrance, the bodies piled near the door, too, having gone up like bonfires composed of dried kindling. Even more beautiful, though, were the surviving guards near the entrance.

They were pale, paler than any Nameless she had ever seen. Much of the darkness had fled the shell; instead, it was a pale gray, like an abandoned exoskeleton. As she watched, one of the three survivors reared up over another, which struggled to rise, and brought its claws down upon its head.

Despite everything, a smile crept onto Rin's face.

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There was public interest in the primals that’d been brought to Ushala, though few journalists were willing to sit in the same room as Kaitlin and Finley; after all, they could get their footage from security cameras and their storylines from “sapient” personnel. However, talking to a human would be juicy content, which was why Snelga began shopping around for FilmShare channels that’d bring the genius researcher on their show. The wide audiences of social media personalities would facilitate public outreach.

We had the perfect match for Kaitlin, when the largest Kexin PopSci channel invited her to a “special” studio for a livestream taping. As the first to dare to talk to a human, the views were all but guaranteed, and they could do a deeper introspective on primals! I hoped people in Council space would begin to see the truth; this was progress. Finley insisted on staying behind, and when I offered to remain with him, he said he wanted time alone.

Kaitlin would fit in perfectly on a PopSci channel, though I’m doubtful they’re respectful of her as an equal in their field. Still, her test results prove a lot.

Kaitlin frowned as the armored truck backed into a carefully-prepared tunnel, unloading her into a sealed part of the studio. “The Council arranged this…welcome?”

“I think they’re filming everything you do,” I whispered. “Smile.”

Snelga leaned closer to the human’s ear. “Kaitlin, sweetie…you’re very intelligent, so I’m sure you could guess this on your own, but I don’t know how accustomed you are to reading civilized people. I imagine they’ll want to set you up to fail by asking hard questions, or things that’ll make you angry, for content. That’s why I asked if you’re really sure you can avoid showing anger. We can always say you’re sick.”

“I can handle internet trolls and content creators,” Kaitlin chuckled. “I understand sensationalism and gotcha journalism. Don’t worry, Snelga. We’ve got this under control.”

“I hope you do, because we’re going to be kept in a separate room, so we can’t signal you or calm you. They’re…skeptical of the genius primal, though they happily marketed you that way.”

“I figured they might try to prompt a reaction from me. Thank you for trusting me with the reality, Snelga. I’m aware they’re using me for a viral moment, but I appreciate you looking out for me.”

The veterinarian showed some reassurance at Kaitlin’s evident comprehension, though she still seemed uneasy about letting a primal speak in front of a camera on her own. I thought back to filming my social media messages at NASA, and that internet gamesmanship was hardly a foreign concept to them. From behind the safety of glass walls, the crew directed Dr. Sharp to follow the overly large areas to the studio. Meanwhile, we were pulled out through a side door, and taken to a control room to watch the livestream.

Kaitlin seated herself in a chair by the microphone, placing the headset on without needing a prompt and waving at the pink-faced Kexin separated by a glass pane. “Hello! My name’s Dr. Kaitlin Sharp, and as someone who worked for a space agency back on Earth, I’m proud to represent humanity. I’m glad to be here; thank you for having me!”

“Thank you for joining us, Kaitlin. I’m Tolgor, the host of Sort-of-Science,” the Kexin replied, eyeing the primal warily. The show had handled her like a dangerous animal, aside from the technology given to her. “Can you read the chat in front of you? We’re live translating it to your language. Right now, I see a comment that the headphones look adorable on you.”

Kaitlin’s eyes flicked downward, and she nodded. “I can read it, yes. I’m excited to see what questions your viewers have about primals. I’m grateful you decided to tune in!”

So far so good, Kaitlin. I wonder, does she feel that burning beneath her skin of exasperation? Finley put it in terms I can understand.

I read the chat, finding myself a little disgruntled by some of the messages that were scrolling by quickly. 

• “The animal talks really well!”
• “a genius primal? As if dude…”
• “Please make the human lose control on camera Tolgor I’ll sub for a cycle”
• “how domesticated is it?”
• “be nice Kaitlin is reading this •\/•”
• “Why do you care Slinger_4?”
• “I want to hear what she has to say, primals are smart and she’s a cute, talking animal *,•,* It’s kind of mean since she can understand.”
• “Yeah we should be respectful to the animals. The council was ploaxcoded with this shit.”
• “It’s only an animal.”
• “Animals have feelings too!”
• “There’s no reason to hurt her.”
• “arent humans happier higher up? It would be more at ease in a tree. Tolgor shouldve given it an elevated space.”

Kaitlin flashed her teeth, laughing. “Our roots are arboreal, but humans adapted to living on the ground long, long ago. I’m quite happy with a chair.”

“I see you’ve already gotten the idea. I’m going to open the floor up to viewer questions,” Tolgor explained. “You can choose which ones to answer, but I might press you for more details or add in a few questions of my own. To clarify which you’re responding to, I ask you to highlight it on your screen, and I’ll read it out. Do you understand?”

“I do.” Her eyebrows knitted together as a deluge of questions came in, before she moved her cursor. “There, I selected one.”

Tolgor looked uncomfortable with her selection. “PrimalsAreCool asks, ‘Could you be angry for us right now?’”

“Ha, nice username, but no. Unfortunately for Tolgor’s view count, I’m afraid I can only make myself as angry as you can make yourself happy, sad, or any other emotion. It’s not a conscious decision. Most humans don’t like being angry either, so we generally avoid triggers and try not to stir those feelings if possible. In an instance where we’re angry, that means something is wrong or hurtful, which I think we mutually agree is negative.”

“What’s an example of something you find wrong or hurtful?”

“That varies from person to person! Anger can look very different in each individual human. While it’s an uncomfortable feeling—like I think any kind of hurt is, and I’m assuming you don’t want to hurt me—it doesn’t take over our faculties.” 

“Let me ask a more specific question then. How do we avoid making a primal angry? It seems like anything, no matter how minor, can set you off.”

“Clear communication and respect go a long way with us. You’ll find we’re pretty reasonable and that acting on anger, at least in any severe way, is rare and a last resort. Scientifically, which means I’ll leave it to you to add in the graphics and footnotes, anger is part of the fight-or-flight system. It places itself in the same family as fear, a response activated for survival.”

I surveyed the chat, gauging whether they’d listened to Kaitlin.

• “that response is like actually pretty reasonable •x•”
• “who taught the primal to talk like a person”
• “if this is what a ‘genius’ primal is I’m not impressed, all it’s doing is talking and nobody gives me points for that. like yay it can understand a lot of vocabulary.”
• “Kaitlin answered the question that was asked ,/\,”
• “i thought it was a good answer. clearly intelligent enough to put together a nice sentence. humans deserve more respect.”
• “animal rights nuts are working overtime to defend Kaitlin •¥•”
• “people wanted to know. she explained it.”
• “But why did the primal even pick that question?!”
• “Maybe it was all the poor animal could understand.”
• “•¥• o genius Kaitlin from the wilds, please tell us about quantum mechanics.”

Tolgor startled, as Kaitlin highlighted that last comment. “That…question? Primal, I believe they were being sarcastic.”

“I’m aware, but I’d love to talk science. Disclaimer that, as I’m sure your reasonable viewers know, no one can be an expert in all fields,” the NASA researcher began. “Any passing knowledge I have about the world and how things work, I’m happy to discuss! And our friend here mentioned one of these most mind-boggling fields. As one of our quantum physicists, Richard Feynman, said, ‘If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t.’”

“You have ‘quantum physicists’ who are considered experts just for saying that? So humans can’t begin to understand such a complicated field.”

“I didn’t say we can’t begin to understand, but rather that the field defies full comprehension and goes against the laws that apply on a broader scale. It merely goes against intuition of how the world works, since it’s mired with contradictions and complicated interactions! It dabbles in uncertainty, making it impossible to measure specific data points.”

“Kaitlin, do you understand anything more than it being complicated and uncertain, or should we move on? Your vocabulary won’t pass as understanding.”

Kaitlin blinked forcefully, before pulling out her smartphone. “What I’m holding in my hand is the most fine-tuned, mass-engineered uses of quantum physics in human history. The transistors here use parts that are mere nanometers: you could fit hundreds of thousands on the tip of a finger. Incredibly precise machines place them together—it’s a technological marvel.”

“What is your point?”

“That when you’re dealing with parts that small, you have to account for quantum mechanics. In fact, you rely on them for the device to function. Memory storage works by quantum tunneling. The electron’s probability clouds allow them to pass through gates that’d otherwise be impenetrable barriers. This stores this charge as needed to indicate a 1 in binary coding.”

“Impressive linguistics. Did you memorize that answer?”

“No.” Annoyance flashed in Kaitlin’s eyes, though I figured I was the only one who could recognize it. “I assure you, humans are more than capable of learning complex topics. Could a simple animal have explained any of that?”

“An animal who was coached and is able to memorize words. Your test is believed by many to be an elaborate hoax; you’re a primal.”

“That I am capable of feeling anger has no bearing on my intelligence.” The human was silent for a long moment, before returning to a placid smile and a warmer tone of voice. “Skepticism is a healthy trait of any scientist though, as you and your viewers must well know! I don’t blame you for thoroughness. Why don’t you ask me questions I couldn’t possibly prepare for?”

Tolgor leaned forward. “Okay, astrophysicist. Describe what a pulsar is.”

“A neutron star that rotates quite quickly and emanates radiation. That beam can be seen from planetary observation at regular intervals! It’s generated by the pulsar’s magnetic field, which is misaligned with its rotation axis. It’s also quite high-energy, so I don’t imagine you’d want to fly your ships through gamma rays. Ohh, we actually discovered a new millisecond pulsar in the last few years, which was an exciting find!”

• “damn shes smart •x• I’m sold”
• “A cute animal explaining science things. More Kaitlin?”
• “she should narrate videos instead of tolgor he fell off honestly and he’s unfunny”
• “then why are you in his chat?”
• “…you’re right. Goodbye.”
• “maybe I’m dumber than a primal but what is a millisecond pulsar?”

Kaitlin highlighted the last question in the chat, smiling softly. “Hey, you’re not dumb. Never be afraid to ask questions; that’s the only way you’ll learn the answers. For what little my opinion counts, I think asking questions and being able to learn from each other is the sign of an intelligent species! That just means the pulsar rotates in mere milliseconds. Incredible magnetic fields. We use them to study relativity and learn more about binary star systems.”

“Okay, you know pulsars. Let’s…leave astrophysics,” Tolgor decided. “The Ploax are autotrophs. Explain what that means.”

The primal’s face brightened, genuine enthusiasm twinkling in her eyes. “I didn’t know that—about the Ploax, I mean! Xenobiology is something I could read about for hours, but what I know immediately is that makes them different from Craun. It means they can use abiotic natural resources, like plants do with sunlight and photosynthesis, to make food.”

“Yes, that’s…correct. You know, um, some science. That can’t be accurate; oh, you probably didn’t study anything else. I’ve got it—math! What’s a polynomial, primal?”

Kaitlin stared at Tolgor in disbelief, before she burst out laughing. “Guys, I explained quite thoroughly what a pulsar and an autotroph are. I know what a polynomial is; I made it through middle school algebra just fine as a child. Maybe ask me what 2+2 is next?”

• What’s 2+2?

“Yes, very funny. I see a sense of humor transcends planets,” Kaitlin snorted. “Can I tell a joke? It’s for a friend.”

Tolgor made a “Go Ahead” gesture. “The chat won’t forgive me if they miss this.”

“It’s a human style joke. Ahem. A lousy cheat, an unhygienic influencer, and an alien walk into a bar. The bartender says, ‘Hello, Craun Chelton.’”

“Hey!” I protested. “What did I do?”

“What did you not do?” Snelga grumbled.

The chat, unfortunately, was lapping up the jab toward me.

• “laughing my feathers off!”
• “even the primals hate craun for tampering with them ~X~”
• “yeah shes right craun is a shitty cheater like actual animals knew immediately”
• “Kaitlin is way smarter than an animal”
• “pleaselikethis isntstaged”
• “•|• nothing is real. Space your words”
• “nothatsan extrakeystroke”
• “but you space them every 3?”
• “maybeIdo ormaybenotgotyou.”
• “Craun is a basement-dwelling asshole who’s basically a poacher *,•,*”
• “Yeah, that cute primal knows why she wound up here. This whole mess is Craun’s fault for making the animals attack on his behalf.”

“That was friendly banter. I adore Craun and that’s why I’m teasing him,” Kaitlin piped up. “There’s no need to be mean-spirited over a refugee who’s suffered an enormous, terrible loss with no help from anyone. I empathize with his desperation and what he’s been through, and I think it’s unkind to judge him for that. The Saphnos deserve better.”

Tolgor cleared his throat, straightening his feathers. “As do you, Kaitlin. Would you like to tell the chat about your sickness?”

“There’s not much to tell. I’m sick with a disease called ALS, which causes motor neurons to rapidly degenerate. I am slowly losing control of my body…right now, it’s shaking and weakness, but eventually I’ll be paralyzed and unable to speak. Before that, I’ll be unable to do basic, daily things for myself. It’s a terminal prognosis. Once I lose the…ability to breathe, that’s what will likely cause my ultimate death. My time with you is…short.”

• “awww…”
• “poor primal!”
• “no, that’s so sad *,•,*”
• “I actually liked her.”
• “But she’s so cute. She’s a talking science primal who got taken away from her home just to suffer more!”
• “I feel so bad for Kaitlin.”
• “And you all were making fun of the dying human! I told you to be nice to her.”
• “look how she just accepts it instead of lashing out.”
• “If she’s sick, maybe she’s too tired to be angry.”
• “So if we cure her, she’ll scream and shout more?”
• “Yeah PrimalsAreCool, it seems more likely.”
• “Take my wallet!”

Tolgor struck a sympathetic expression. “You have my condolences, Kaitlin. The good news is there are two things those of you in the chat can do! The veterinarian housing this primal hopes to genetically engineer away this terrible disease, but she’ll need your support. You can donate to the fundraiser linked for researching a cure. You can also share this video, with Kaitlin talking and explaining her story, with the world.”

“Any help would be very much appreciated,” Kaitlin said, a sad look on her face. “My dream was to talk to aliens. Humans are the first primals to have a civilization, and I’d like to believe our civilizations can be friends. I wish I had more time to spend with you, but if you can’t help me, I can only beg you to give my people an honest chance.”

“You’re…very well-spoken, especially for what you are. Our time is up, and I know you need to rest because of your sickness. Any last words for our viewers, before I let you go?”

Kaitlin beamed, waving at the camera. “Please, take care of yourselves! I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day, and I’ll see you again soon.”

Snelga and I breathed a sigh of relief as the NASA researcher exchanged pleasantries with Tolgor, then saw herself back out of the studio. Sort-of-Science and their viewers had tried to rile Kaitlin up and paint her as stupid, but she’d risen above it; I shouldn’t have doubted that a mind as brilliant as hers could navigate this scenario. All in all, I hoped that this would raise awareness for both her condition and how intelligent humans were. 

A public outreach campaign could be powerful to change Council citizens’ hearts and minds.

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Necessary Sacrifice

(Galou POV)

"...Excuse me? Could you repeat that?"

There it was. After fruitlessly picking at Councilwoman Lana's poker face and politician's smile all this time, Councilman Galou had finally gotten to see emotion leak into her expressions.

It was admittedly only with the help of the Ramelle Councilwoman Delle, but it's not like he has to share the generator blueprints with her or anything. As long as he was here and participated in this private meeting between councilmembers, he could take credit.

In addition to himself, Councilwoman Lana of the Terrans, Ambassador Garag of the Uvei, and Councilwoman Delle of the Ramelle were gathered at this private meeting room on the S.S. Kevak to discuss the matter of the Terran's ship ending up in restricted space.

"If I must. I will speak slowly for you this time."

If not for Delle's flattened ears showing her annoyance, her tone could be taken as disinterested.

"In summary, we will not accept any Terran or Uven visitors for the trespassers we have detained. We will also not accept any devices without thorough inspection and test run at a certified Coalition entity for security purposes."

"What if we sent schematics for the devices for you to create and operate yourselves? We'll even buy them at cost from you afterwards if you have no further use for it."

"Digital blueprints also bear a cybersecurity risk. We would need to analyze the code on an isolated device first."

"Please, be reasonable. I'm going to have to insist that we at least take back-"

"Stop it right there!"

Councilman Galou snapped at the Terran to interrupt her. This was the part he was here for.

"I'll have you know that the Ramell are friends and good neighbors to the Pateily. If you take overbearing action against them for your own convenience, we will interpret that as hostilities and are prepared to declare war in defense of our less aggressive friends."

""!?""

The pair opposite the table from him reacted with visible shock. Garag's tail raised up stiffly and Lana's eyes had widened.

He had to make a real effort to suppress the sense of smug satisfaction. The lizard might not be familiar with how Pateily emoted, but the Terran was definitely brushed up on the subject.

This other simian species was a slippery sort that kept weaving through his approaches with their idea of diplomacy, but they were cowards that feared conflict at heart.
What they failed to understand was the ability to project, command, and leverage military might, real or not, was also an essential component of diplomacy.

"I was under the impression that the Pateily International Parliament needed majority approval for a declaration of war with another spacefaring species. Do you really have the sort of authority to call for something like that?"

Case in point, Councilwoman Lana immediately tried to worm her way out of this with technicalities and the authority of other people. It didn't even surprise Galou that she was versed in this aspect of a foreign governance.

"Of course. We already have a majority agreement to act in defense of our allies."

"And this can be verified if my office directly inquires with Pateily Parliament members?"

"Do as you wish. As a favor, I'll pretend I'm not offended by the insinuation."

"........."

Well, perhaps her knowledge was still shallow.

These new advanced fusion generators had the makings of a patent worth an entire industry's worth of wealth and there was no shortage of party members or corporate entities that wanted preferential treatment.

His aide was still at the cradle planet of Tiireya and had direct lines to many of those people. A few calls are all it would take to persuade even the opposition party to pass the vote long before any Terran inquiries could reach them.

It seemed this development really shut that woman up. While she went quiet, Ambassador Garag spoke up in the Terran's place.

"Getting back on topic...the twelve Terrans suffering from poisoning in your custody can't afford to wait for long. You are aware that they will die without medical intervention, yes?"

"And we shall endeavor to give them the best medical intervention we are capable of...within our established security guidelines. Since we have been provided with the diagnosis by the captain of the ship in question, we are creating the required detoxification medicines and devices as we speak."

Galou knew that something like that would take at least three cycles even if it was a priority. And, judging from the Councilwoman Lana reaction, that was too long.

"Is there no exception for emergencies?"

"This incident is being treated as a case of trespassing, which does not fit the administrative definition of "emergency". There has yet to be an official ruling yet, but it will likely be regarded as a non-malicious incident."

It was a bit troublesome that the Uven Ambassador got to stick his nose in this thanks to some unexpected refugees being let on the Terran ship, but as long as the lizards in custody were properly cared for, the Elder Council shouldn't complain.

Perhaps they could even instigate a rift with the obviously disparate treatments.

"But you still bear a responsibility to care for prisoners."

"Which we will achieve with meticulously prepared living accommodations, nutritional supplements tailored to the species, and a promise of protection from violence."

"Surely that should also include a reasonable effort to prevent the loss of life?"

"Indeed, but for us, 'reasonable' means-"

"Fine."

"Miss Lana...?!"

Councilwoman Lana broke her silence with a single word that had Garag agitated.

"If you feel so strongly about stopping the admission of foreign technology, then we have no choice but to give up. Whe-if the afflicted Terrans pass away, can we expect you to preserve and deliver their bodies for our funeral customs?"

"...of course."

It seemed that both Councilwoman Delle and the Uven ambassador weren't expecting the Terran to relent, but Galou wasn't surprised.

"Speaking of which, about those miners. It seems there was some unfortunate incident at the prison regarding four of them."

"............"

"Shall we preserve their bodies and send them your way as well?"

"...Yes, I'll have my assistant send you coordinates to drop them off."

The Councilman knew they dreaded war and conflict to the point of cowardice.

Not that he respected it. If anything, this proved they were crippling their own diplomatic ability. It was a bit of an embarrassment that they were simians, really.

But perhaps this was the new angle to attack. If it became widely known that the Terran government was incapable of protecting their people, their public order would decline and certain opportunistic groups might smell blood in the water.

That could be enough to keep them busy and the Elder Council happy.

That little attack originally intended as simple harassment turned out far better for the Pateily than he could have planned.

"Now...let us move on to the final matter for this meeting."

....?

"I would like for everyone here to keep this information private for now, even from any staff or trusted friends."

The Terran Councilwoman opened up a page on her data pad and slid it across the table. On it was...a serial number and specs?

....!!

Galou forcefully suppressed his surprise and took the initiative to casually ask before anyone else could.

"What's this supposed to be?"

"This is from the unknown pirates that attacked our humanitarian fleet. After combing through all the recordings and data logs, we were able to piece one of the ship's energy signature and serial number together. From that, we were able to deduce the ship's make and model."

"I see...Resourceful as always. It takes some focus to scan for that information in the midst of attack."

The Uven eyes the information curiously and praised the Terrans' efforts.

The Pateily Councilman, on the other hand, was silently cursing the crew's carelessness. How hard is it to mask your ship's information? Or at least cover the serial number before engaging in banditry?

...No matter. It should still be safe, because...

"Unfortunately, this was an older model and the manufacturer went under a few cycles ago, so the authorities are still in the process of recovering the owner information."

Their preparations should have been thorough enough to avoid recognition in the first place. Even if the Terrans got lucky, they shouldn't find anything to incriminate anyone beyond the leased soldiers they catch in the act.

"Since it will take a while and the incident happened near Ramell and Pateily space, I'm hoping you two might have some leads or records on our assailants. Have you had any encounters with these types of pirates in your territories? Even similar energy signatures will do."

The Ramell Councilwoman skimmed the number before leaning back in her seat dully. Galou didn't know the details, but she should also have made a deal with the Ramell's patron to drag the Terrans down. She wouldn't cooperate here.

"No, this is new. But I shall pass it along to patrols so they keep vigilant."

"Hmph. Trying to ride our coattails now, are you? I suppose it's also in our best interests to eliminate troublemakers. But no. I can tell at a glance that nothing resembling this ever came across my desk."

...It would be fine. Elder Councilman Gohlti was also implicated in this. The crew was borrowed from the Fendansi, but the ship officially belonged to the Pateily administration.

Galou could notify him. They would tamper with the records during the restoration process and delete the mercenary contract.

The Terran pressed a bit harder.

"Are you...sure? It doesn't have to be just from troublemakers either. Perhaps the culprits stole the vessel or salvaged a decommissioned one."

Was she...pressing harder? Did she suspect them...?

"I'm telling you we don't recognize it. Perhaps you Terrans have a more...frugal operation, but we don't keep such cheap vessels in our fleet and the energy signature is unique enough to leave an impression."

"....."

Lana nodded slowly. He didn't like the way she stared at him. Terrans had a way of looking into the eyes. Apparently it was a trait of sociability.

"...I see. I apologize if you took offense. It was worth asking at least. Then, while we're on the subject..."

There's more!?

The councilwoman tapped her data pad and pulled up a star chart with highlighted spaces marking their territories.

"We shall promise to stay out of restricted Pateily and Ramell spaces and we will not engage with any ships besides this specific recorded culprit and its confirmed allies. In exchange, will you yield jurisdiction of this matter over to us? These pirates have caused us quite some grief and we wish to bring them to justice under our laws."

Oh.

What a farce. Did they plan to ask one of their more combative friends to perform the actual arrest in their place? Were they trying to look tough after being forced to yield on the matter of the trespassers?

Galou elected to push back a bit. As long as the attackers had a safe area to escape to, he could call them to an isolated military base and have them silenced.

"Not just restricted spaces. I've already said before that I don't find you Terrans trustworthy. You're not permitted in any Pateily space without explicit permission. If you find them in our territory, you're just going to have to contact us and let us handle the rest."

Delle's reached out to the data pad and expanded the highlighted ranges for both their species.

"I concur with Galou. You are to avoid any of this space. I will have a hard time believing any future incidents are accidental after you've been warned."

"Very well. Then with the exceptions of the highlighted spaces as established here, we shall hold the full rights to arrest and prosecute our attackers, but only our attackers. The Terrans can accept these terms."

Seemingly intending for that to be the final word, Councilwoman Lana saved the map as marked on her data pad and stood to leave.

Well, that was fine. While she saved the contents of this meeting in official records, Councilman Galou needed to make sure all his tracks were covered.

(Garag POV)

It was an odd feeling to feel pleased that his people were being confined. Especially when their benefactors were subjected to the same fate under much less pleasant circumstances.

Ambassador Garag never expected to feel intergalactic law could ever feel convenient instead of restrictive.
Though perhaps his visit and the multiple parties witnessing confirmation helped.

Although the hundred and six Uvei weren't free to leave Ramell custody or supervision, it was hardly a restriction for them. As refugees escaping their war-torn home, it wasn't like they had specific destinations in mind when they left other than "away from danger".

In exchange for their freedom, this arrangement meant their safety was guaranteed, they would be fed and sheltered, and they had all the time they needed to rest.

With the sudden influx of first-time refugees, Folstur's immigration system was already stretched thin, so it was like the Ramell were buying time, even.

He was a bit anxious about whether they would get sufficient accommodations, but it seems they were being kept in the same facility as the able-bodied humans.

Councilwoman Lana assured him that Captain Borlaug was versed in galactic law on the minimum required care for military prisoners, and thus would ensure nothing was lacking.
Garag had concluded from personal interactions with the good captain that he was a prudent man. The fact that he had surrendered to the Ramell at all was as good as a vote of confidence in this arrangement.

Lana also assured him that, because division between humans and Uvei was among their goals, they would likely give the Uvei detainees preferential treatment; as long as the humans made sure they got the bare minimum, his people would get "more than the minimum".

...

He didn't know where his colleague learned that, but hoped that wasn't the reason the twelve humans were being neglected. She hadn't spoken since they concluded the meeting.

To be honest, he expected the sly humans to have something else up their sleeves based on what he'd seen of them thus far. It was only when he saw Lana's somber expression that it occurred to him she was sincerely ready to let her own die.

The humans he knew were stubborn and showed a deep respect for life at every turn, so it caught him off-guard.

"Welcome back, Ms. Rogov. Mr. Vedin. How did the meeting go?"

The two of them had walked together out of the council chambers to the private docks, where one of her personal aides stood waiting for them. He believed the man's name was...Shi Xi?

"Ah...well...it seems you may have to give up on the twelve poisoning victims. Councilor Delle refused to back down and Councilor Galou threatened war if we pushed."

Since his colleague remained silent, the Uven elected to report the result in her place.

"I see...well, we can figure it out our next move inside. But before that...here's the manifest for Uvei soldiers, Mr. Vedin."

"Ah...thank you."

Garag accepted a document from Shi Xi. This was something else he had been preparing with the humans. Or rather, something the humans have been preparing for him.

It was a list of Uvei that surrendered to the humanitarian force and agreed to return with them. In other words, enemy soldiers-turned-sympathizers. Somehow, the humans in the Terran administration talked them into returning to Nysis.

He didn't know how or why because he did not ask. Because he was bound to service for Karnak, there were some things that he was better off not knowing.

The humans had earned his trust enough for him to believe it would be for the benefit of his people, and that was sufficient. He "negotiated for their return", and that's all he would have to report on the matter to his...superior.

...That said. He couldn't help but be curious at times. He may as well ask if it will take her mind off those twelve humans.

"Lana, if you don't mind me asking, what were you...setting up during the talks about the ship information?"

"? Oh, you noticed that? Come in and I'll explain. This is a good chance to catch my team up as well."

With a light smile, she gestured for Garag to follow her into their ship. Since Kent's injury and Lana's promotion, the humans had begun working in locations outside their embassy.

Once they entered, the door behind them let out an electric locking noise as soundproofing barriers came up behind the door and walls. Together, the three of them went into what seemed to be an office space where 30 other people worked.

The moment the councilwoman entered the room, all eyes fell on her expectantly. What was going on...?

Lana cleared her throat.

"I've confirmed that Galou is the culprit behind the attack."

"Wha-!?"

"I see. Then we'll move forward with our preparations."

"I knew it!"

"Well, it wasn't exactly a longshot."

Shi Xi wasn't the only one that responded with a composed smirk. Not one of them showed surprise at the statement. If anything, they seemed to release some tension from the anticipation as they resumed their regular paperwork.

"How...Did you already suspect the Pateily?"

Lana let out her usual refined laugh.

"Well, Galou has hardly been subtle about how much he wants to antagonize the Terrans, even for a personal agenda."

"And you...confirmed it? With that meeting just now?"

"You wanted to know about the ship information, right? It's pretty simple."

She pat his back and guided him to a seat in the room.

"Simply put, it was a bluff to fish for a reaction. We had no such information recorded in the encounter. What I gave them was exactly the specs of some gunships he owns off the record. The trail to their most recent location and use was erased, but his reaction helped connect the dots for us."

Ah...

Galou directly lied about not knowing information he by all rights should have recognized and disavowed any connection. It was an incredibly guilty response.

"We'll keep tracking his and his associate's movements for attempts to cover their tracks too, of course. Just to be sure."

"Do you intend to expose him once you secure the proof?"

Garag's tail swayed thoughtfully.

"The current plan is to first take that ship when we can find it."

"We can't give him time to hide it out of our reach, after all."

One of the desk workers chimed in and another followed suit.

Yes...that made sense.

"Actually, if Pateily territory is expecting that ship, then we could probably launch a little revenge raid of our own on one of their bases if we capture enough of them."

"No. We don't initiate hostile action like that. That's the sort of thing that creates grudges and fuels wars."

A third one added a suggestion, though Lana quickly shot it down with a frown.

The Uven shuffled awkwardly.

"Pardon. Should I be hearing this? I can take my leave if you're moving on to discuss future strategies."

The councilwoman shook her head with a soft smile returning to her face.

"No, it's fine. Don't be afraid to tell that Karnak about this if you have to."

What did that mean? Were they "fishing for information" again? Was it just not relevant?

Sometimes, these humans were hard to read.

The desk worker that spoke up earlier rested his head on a palm.

"Honestly though, it seems like that's where we're headed, isn't it? This guy has been trying to fight with us for weeks. It should be fine if we leave no traces, right? As long as he knows it's us, hitting the fatty apes hard and fast to teach them a lesson might finally get him to back off. Or at least let us check out their military tech before we come to blows."

That also made some sense, he supposed. Taking the initiative when they had it would reduce any damages they suffer.

""...!!""

Lana abruptly let out a deep sigh.

THUD.

"Mmph-!?"

"Wha-?!"

Garag jumped back on reflex as several of the humans leapt from their seats and forcefully dragged one of their own out of his. He was gagged and quickly pinned to the ground.

Shi Xi had drawn a pistol and was down on one knee to press it against the base of the restrained human's neck. His gaze, as was those of any desk worker who wasn't actively participating, was fixed on Lana.

What was going on...?

She slowly circled in front of the crowd and looked the pinned human in the eye.

"I tried to brush it off since we have a guest here, you know? Are you new? Even if you are, you should have received training for this already."

Somehow, Garag was reminded of his first proper meeting with Kent when they first locked eyes. Back then he was surprised by the lack of common emotions low-aggression species had in response to seeing an Uven.

This one was different. Lana wasn't indifferent as she stared down her subordinate, but she also didn't show any other emotion that he could decipher. Like he was meeting an alien for the first time and had no knowledge of their non-verbal cues.

"Mmph!?"

She spoke slowly and with a level voice as she knelt down.

"Let me spell it out. As representatives of humanity, we do not and must not initiate or escalate hostilities with other species. We don't start wars. We don't hit someone just because they hit us first. When we encounter a matter of life or death..."

Lana suddenly reached out and grabbed a fistful of the clerk's hair, wringing out another muffled yelp when she pulled his head back.

"We choose the option that deescalates away from war."

...Oh.

Garag...thought he had come to understand the humans by now. Their strength. Their gentleness. Their care. Their peacefulness.

"It's too bad because you do good work, but we obviously can't keep you around anymore. But we can't exactly let you go either, so let's put you in the brig until I have time to figure out what to do with you."

But it wasn't merely their nature. It was...intentional. It was a constant effort. It was a fact that they abhorred war, but how much of that was an active effort to hate it?

The Terran Councilwoman rose back to her feet whilst dusting herself off. The former subordinate was sedated by Shi Xi and dragged off.

"Sorry about this, Garag. I've put a real killjoy in our evening, haven't I?"

"...No, I think that was...an illuminating experience."

"That was pretty embarrassing."

He hadn't ever thought of the humans as extreme before. Intense, perhaps, but not to this extent. When it is said they hate war, they hated war madly. They would cut their own flesh to spite it. They w...They would let twelve of their own die to protect against it.

Could Garag do that? Was it feasible by the numbers? Is...

"Is something like this...the price of acquiring peace?"

=Author's Note=

I've had a scene like this in mind since I introduced Lana to contrast with Kent. Even though the two of them were friends and shared similar ideals, the original ambassador would have firmly but peacefully corrected the staff member here so they could do better.
A humanity that has people like Lana or Jacey isn't going to be an unproblematic version of mankind, but they can do their best and hopefully it's people like Asher or Kent that set the example.

There have been many a scrapped line where I've had to go "whoa there, that's too much character progression or themes for you to say", so it has also been nice that Garag has the maturity and intelligence to actually observe and monologue the scene plainly.

The sky above Sector 4 was the color of a fresh bruise, bruised purple, it was weeping ash. Down below, in the trenches, the human garrison was whittled down to its final battery cell.

No, they weren't soldiers by trade. When the Fleet arrived, only teachers, architects, and gardeners could be counted among them. But the stars don't care about people who valued peace above all else, and the orbital strikes had burned away every distinction between who people used to be and what was left of them.

Julian commanded the post, but he feared there won’t be many days or hours left of that honor, with his left arm wrapped in a crude, burnt tourniquet. Vael, a massive, four-meter-tall Voulian heavy-support unit, sat beside him. Voulians were built like tanks. They looked awesome, like imposing living granite, their species bred for interstellar conquest, before they shattered the chains, joined the coalition of free worlds. That was before today, of course, where the free was under quite a bit of artillery fire.

Voulians supposedly had no fear for anything. And not only that, but they were meant to outlive everyone.

"Julian," Vael’s voice rumbled through the localized audio translator; tectonic plates grinding. "The thermal readings.” Was there just the slightest hint of tremble in the big fella’s voice? “From your primary artery. The readings are dropping. You….”

Julian didn't look down at his side, where his tunic had stiffened into a dark, glossy crust. "It’s nothing, big guy. L-Leaning back on an old cliché. Just a scratch." He smiled above the pain.

"That is a statistical lie," Vael replied, gently placing a crushing, four-fingered hand, usually designed to rip armored bulkheads apart, against Julian's uninjured shoulder with an unexpected tenderness. "Your kind is terribly fragile. You burn out if you are too brave.”

“I wasn’t too brave today, Vael. I let us down.”

“No. You gave them. Hell. There was just. Too many.”

"Yeah," Julian smiled again, weakly, and he coughed up a streak of red that he quickly wiped away with the back of his hand. "Sorry. Though you rockhead should we all right. Me? I’ll burn out like a human.”

Outside, the screech of atmospheric re-entry ripped through the air. The swarm was returning. Ordinarily, Julian would be fearful but today, he was rather feeling light about it. The synthetic intelligence that controlled the invading armada, a system that viewed organic life as meat, was launching its final wave. There was no evacuation ships left nor was there cavalry on the horizon.

There was only the two of them.

"Vael," Julian whispered, his vision blurring at the edges as the gray edges of exhaustion crept into his sight. "Do you remember what you told me about your homeworld? Before the war?"

"The Valley of Singing Glass," Vael murmured, his massive optic sensors dimming to a soft, amber glow in order to conserve power. "The winds blow through the crystalline spires. It makes a sound. Like a thousand chimes ringing at once. My people used to sit beneath them. For centuries, listening to the passage. Of time."

"Must be nice," Julian breathed, his head leaning heavily against Vael’s armored chest plate. It was freezing cold, but it felt solid. It felt like a wall against something terrible. Something terrible…like death, he supposed. "To have a song that lasts forever."

"Your kind has songs, Julian."

"Yeah. But they’re short as heck. Three minutes, maybe four. Then they j-just kinda end."

"Perhaps," Vael said, his voice dropping to a low hum that trembled through the trench floor, "that is why they are so bright. A fire that burns for an eternity is just like any cold star. Yours... yours hurt to look at."

A deafening roar split the sky. The first wave of drone-hound infantry crested the ridge, their crimson optics locked onto the trench, and Julian shuddered, knowing he himself and his friend were the targets.

His fingers tightened around the grip of his plasma rifle. He tried to raise it, but his arms refused to obey, darn bastards. The weight of the weapon proved too much. The weight of the world was too much.

"Vael," Julian whispered, tears finally cutting clean tracks through the ash on his cheeks. "I'm scared. I don't want to go. I don’t want you to get taken.” More importantly, I don’t want to die. Is that cowardly? No. Yes. I’m a coward…I’m…

No. You fought for days. You held off insurmountable odds. Even Vael was surprised. And now you’re going to die while he lives, on, as a member of his immortal race, that Vael, Julian’s friend…

Julian was jolted out of his thoughts by a violent screech of tearing metal. He looked up in shock. Vael had ripped off his own central core-plate, showing his primary thermal reactor to the open air. The red glow of his life-force spilled out, illuminating the grim walls of the trench in a warm light.

"You need not be in the dark, little builder," Vael said softly. Yes, before this, before this war, Julian had been an architect on earth. He had joined the coalition to protect space from the armada and not only that but to find his brother Dave. He reached out and wrapped his massive, heavy arms completely around Julian, forming an impenetrable cage of warm, living stone against the freezing onslaught of the enemy. "I am a Voulian. My internal furnace can sustain a localized discharge for three minutes. Exactly enough time, I’d think."

"Vael…n-n-no! What are you doing? You’ll melt your core! You’ll die!"

"I am three hundred years old, Julian. I have heard the glass song a thousand times," the giant whispered, resting his massive head against Julian's shoulder. "Let me—”

The first drone leaped into the trench, its claws flashing.

Inside the embrace of his friend, Julian felt the cold fade away, along with his fear, his terror, his doubts. They were replaced by a radiant heat. He closed his eyes, his breathing slowing. And as the sounds of battle echoed distantly against the shell of the armor protecting him, Julian began to hum, a soft, uncertain and innocent melody from a childhood he had mostly forgotten until now. In exchange for what his friend had given him, he offered a song from the human world.

It was shaky. And it was most definitely out of tune, more blood than words.

And it was the most magnificent thing the stars had ever heard.

Three minutes later, the valley fell silent. The red glow in the trench faded to a dull, gray ash, buried beneath the quiet snow of a world that had just perished. But deep within that silence, the echo of a brief and tangible song lingered, refusing to go away.

Sister Catherine 

It’s a scary time to be in the city of Triumph's Seat. It’s really the only way she could term it. She'd been in places like this before in the course of her ministry. Kosovo in particular had been... tense. Like Triumph's Seat is tense. Right before all of Hell had broken loose on Earth in ways that she sometimes wishes she could forget. If there’s one thing she’s cursed her restored youth for, it’s that her mind is suddenly sharp and agile again. The better to carry the Cross and bear witness, of course, but with that blessing comes its price - and the price for Sister Catherine is remembering blackened bodies from fire, children missing limbs from landmines or from getting too close to an unexploded bomb. All manner of nightmares and terrors... and it hardly stops there. 

She had followed the call where people had had need of her and the mercy of Christ. That had meant going to very dark and unpleasant places at times. War-torn sub-Saharan African countries, narco states in South America, even deep into lands dominated by Islam, where she'd been advised to hide her habit and wear a local head dress instead, lest militants decide that a sister of Christ was a particularly choice target for torture and beheading. All the sadder that those men who would have so harmed her if they'd decided it suited their flights of fancy, or whatever the demons that lived in their heads told them God wanted... proclaimed to worship the same God as she. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. How one could read the same things she had, see things she had, and then come to such horrendously different conclusions is not something Sister Catherine is truly prepared to interrogate even after she'd gotten more education on the subject.  

Still, even in the face of what had seemed likely a painful death, she hadn't hidden then. Had carried the cross with pride. If it had been her time, if she had been called to martyrdom, then so be it. She would not question God's plan for her life. For the challenge set before her. 

Thankfully, that had not been her fate then, but now she’s in a similar situation. Instead of angry men, the streets are filled with angry women, as word of crackdowns and large-scale brawls with security forces spread across the city. The chaos is coming again, like it always does, like it always will. Her brother had been a Marine, God rest his soul. He'd always kept one recruiting poster up in his home, all the way to his hospice room before his death. She has it tucked away in her things up in orbit, one of her meager personal possessions. In times like this, she thinks of her brother, and she thinks of that poster: Marines running into action with weapons ready, followed by armored vehicles rumbling ashore out of the sea, emblazoned with the slogan 'Marines Move Towards The Sounds Of Chaos'.

It’s a good poster. One that had always inspired a young Catherine, and had even had her looking at becoming a Marine herself once upon a time… but she'd gotten a very different kind of call after a close brush with death in her late teens; like her brother had never looked back when he'd received his call, she'd never looked back when she received hers. Still, while she was no Marine... Catherine liked to think that, in her own way, she too runs towards the sounds of chaos. 

She hadn't hid from chaos back on Earth, and wouldn't hide from chaos now. Joan wants her to, but Joan's concern is protecting Catherine's life and person, not looking after the masses that are her charge. She’s no priest, but she could be a shepherd of these women, just as Christ had called his priests to be shepherds of men. This is her duty, her calling; just as a warrior carries the sword and goes to battle, so would Catherine go to carry the cross. 

That's what she had said in the shelter of the safehouse, of course. It had sounded very impressive in her mind, and Joan had even accepted the argument… but now that she’s out on the streets, things are looking very dicey indeed. Being unafraid, not allowing yourself to be intimidated or silenced by those who would see you on your knees, is one thing. It’s quite another thing to willingly shove one's head between a lion's jaw. There is in fact such a thing as tempting God, if one acts without prudence. 

Out here... she’s thinking now that she might have acted with less prudence than might have otherwise been optimal. 

The public squares are all filling up, packed to the gills with women forming different groups, some of whom are clearly antagonizing each other. The shouting is a constant roar now, only broken by the occasional sound of weaponsfire from other parts of the city, which certainly add to the general anxiety. Even from here, it’s clear to see that one of the matrician estates, those shining manor houses on the hill... is burning, and everyone says the Praetorians were the cause. 

The BeeGees, the new security forces recruits, barely trained - and, Catherine suspects, many from 'questionable' backgrounds compared to what one would like for a real police officer - are all over the place too, and it’s clear they were in over their heads. She knew this type of person all too well from her travels on Earth. They aren't police officers; they’re the regime's thugs, and violence is their first and only course of action if intimidation and threats don't keep the populace docile. 

It’s a volatile mix. A powder keg. But through it all she’s done her best to help people, praying with some, encouraging others, handing out some food and coin to try and get the few homeless women who normally call the square home off the streets for the night in case things turn violent. Simply trying to be a voice of reason... but as so often happens with a quiet and calm voice, she’s being drowned out by shouting. 

Her one great relief in all of this has been Jaina. Her most fervent convert. Once things are quiet again - or, even better, once the mission the Undaunted had in this place, whatever it is, is over - she would take Jaina up to the Tear. To see Father Jameson. Jaina had asked to be baptized, something that thrilled Catherine to her very heartstrings. 

The thought is a happy note on a day that is not a happy one. The skies of Dagrquey are blood-red as the sun heads towards the horizon. Believer she is, but superstitious Catherine generally is not... but that certainly looks ominous to her. 

She tries to keep it out of her mind as she quietly prays with a small group of women, aided by Jaina and watched over by Joan and her sisters. The whole situation makes the Sword of St. Catherine, the sword of Joan of Arc, weighs heavily (if only metaphorically) in its concealed axiom pocket. God had sent a sword to the stars along with the cross and His faithful. Would the sword find its purpose here among the Ha'quinye, on this world so far from Earth?

"Our father who art in heaven..." 

A scream from across the plaza interrupts her group as they start another rendition of the Lord's Prayer, a wordless shriek that ends in the electrical sizzle of a shock pistol discharging. The scent of ozone is suddenly strong in the air as someone nearby shouts "They're coming!" 

It makes sense, in the end. That the BeeGees and their mistresses would do something about this gathering. If they’re cracking down on the matricians, the upper class, then it was always only a matter of time until the Ha'quinye imperial boot returned to its habitual resting place on the neck of the plebians. Apparently that time is now. 

"This is an illegal assembly! Disperse and return to your homes or you will be fired on!" A woman's monotone voice across a public address system is met immediately with shouts and retaliation. Joan starts moving towards where Catherine and Jaina are kneeling with the others... and things slow down, as adrenaline fills Catherine's veins at the 'snap crack' sound that she knows is the discharge of a rail gun. 

Someone had fired. She'd never know for sure if it was a security officer with an itchy trigger finger, or if some woman in the crowd had retaliated towards their oppressors, but everything immediately goes to Hell in a moment, in a way she'd never been personally involved in before. She'd been there for the aftermath. The pain. The crying. The weeping. 

Now she’s here for the bleeding - and bleed people would, as the BeeGees begin opening fire with their laser weapons, and the entire plaza is suddenly moving as people desperately try to get away. 

For all her talk of chaos, just minutes before, this is chaos of a kind she's never seen before. Never understood. Not really. She thought she'd run towards chaos... but now she understands in an all too horrible way what being on ground zero of the chaos is actually like. People rush in every direction, desperate to escape the laser fire from the BeeGees, but there are already mech suits moving in from another direction nearby, armed and armored riot troopers and spear-wielding praetorians start to move in behind them. One of the mech troopers responds to a rock thrown at her cockpit with ruthless lethal force. 

Catherine can feel Joan's armored hand on her, trying to pull her away, but a screaming child stumbles right in front of the stomping feet of the mech suit... and Catherine lunges for the child with all of her strength, yanking the little one clear as they collapse in a heap. 

People rush around them as Catherine covers the girl with her body, feet stepping all over her as Joan swears in the distance. 

"Out of the way, damn it! Let me get to the sister!" 

Jaina's voice is much closer, the bold young woman, fighting through the crowd, resisting going for the weapon Catherine is certain she has. Before long she's by Catherine's side, shooing people back and helping her up. The girl is carried off almost immediately by a terrified mother as another wave of troops flood into the plaza. 

"We have to go!" Jaina says, pulling on Catherine's arm. As they turn to leave, though, it's already far too late. Catherine can practically feel it in her bones before the shock truncheon descends on her, catching her across the shoulders and laying her out flat on the paving stones next to Jaina. 

Jaina tries to resist; Catherine can tell because the guardswomen give her a few more blows, and a couple savage kicks besides. In moments they're bound and being dragged along towards air cars set up to haul prisoners... but a golden armored figure suddenly intervenes. 

"Ah. That one. We've been looking for her. She goes to the palace dungeons."

"Yes, ma'am," the BeeGee frog marching Sister Catherine along, says.

"What about this one?" The second BeeGee says, emphasizing Jaina with a rabbit punch to the ribs that makes Catherine wince, even though Jaina doesn't react at all. 

"...Take them both. You checked them for weapons?"

"This one." Jaina's guard again. "Had a rail pistol, in addition to the usual laser pistol and a knife. She might have been the shooter." 

"Hmm. What about the other one?"

"She's a holy woman and an off-worlder. She didn't have axiom pockets in the usual spots." Catherine's guard says dismissively. 

"Some holy woman. Guess her goddess was out to lunch today. Throw them in our APC. We'll take them from here." 

Both guards salute, and begin to drag them towards the waiting Praetorian vehicle. They’re being taken to the palace, and for some reason, that seems like a very, very bad thing to Catherine. Once they’re alone... she would need to pray. 

It’s about the only thing she could do in this nightmare, and she would not be found wanting. 

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“Clever aliens.”

And very much familiar. It was almost disappointing.

Karveth stared up at her from behind the edge of the conference table. As she leaned back in her own chair, from Julia’s angle, only his eyes, ears, and the top half of his furious little snout were visible. That somehow made the glare even more severe.

“Well?” he demanded. “What is it, primitive? Make an offer better than our baseline now!”

“Yeah!” Grobret added, popping up beside him like a second angry puppet. “Make an offer!”

“Very clever,” she repeated. “But… we did expect some shenanigans. And we have made some preparations.”

She touched her datapad. The lights in the conference room dimmed automatically. A projector embedded in the center of the table came alive with a soft whine, filling the white canvas at the front of the room with an image of a darker space.

A picture of one of the machines on the factory floor, with the other machines in the room out of view.

Karveth stood up on his chair to see better. Grobret copied him half a second later. Shachos leaned forward, the hues on his face already shifting towards nervous yellow. Glonk drifted to the front of his tank, his nose pressing lightly against the glass.

Julia let the image hang there for a moment as the aliens stared.

“We are prepared to sabotage and destroy the Dustballium machine,” she said. “Look at the control levers. If our airspace is breached, we have fashioned a device that will pour liquid Dustballium into the controls and turn it solid. Once that is complete, the machine is rendered inert. Then, we’ll glue the chamber doors shut with Dustballium and cause a cave-in with a nuclear charge.”

The room was quiet enough for her to hear the projector hum.

Shachos’s face oscillated between yellow and blue. “Please, Julia, we’ve heard this joke enough times. Julia, your marine—Marcus—has already threatened us with that. As I mentioned to him, we have ways of undoing that. We have more advanced technology than you. We can dig the site out and cut through the door. Then, we can remove the extra Dustballium from the machine controls, and we will be able to operate it again. Either that, or we can reverse engineer the machine. Yes, either way we can. Combined, the three of us—”

“The four of us!” Grobret objected, catching their attention with a raised paw.

The Vorshnik fleet master ignored him. “The three of us combined have more than enough technology to do that. Yes, we do.”

“Yes, Marcus did mention something about that to me.” Julia smiled thinly. “But… he also mentioned, you let slip it’s a process that will take a significant amount of time. Not just a few years. At least decades, possibly centuries.”

A sliver of blue crept onto Shachos’s confident scalp before it dissipated.

Ah, so you know exactly where this is going.

“Yes. Yes, that is true,” Shachos conceded after a moment. He gave the other two delegations a quick look, then steadied himself. “It will take long. But we are patient. And if you do the math on how much this is worth for our three species, it will work out for us. Yes, it will.”

Yes, and we are all self-interested, rational beings who act in a logical manner, based solely on the information available to us at the time.

“Hm… I’m sure it will,” she said, in a tone she knew the Vorshnik could fully understand. “So… I’m just curious. And I know things are real friendly between the three of you. After you’ve cut the door open and gotten to the machine, which of your species will be responsible for dissecting it, learning its secrets? In the decades and centuries before you produce a copy? And for that matter, which one of you is going to be responsible for cutting the door open in the first place?”

From the shifting colors on his face, it was apparent Shachos got it.

The Sonckle did not. The alien sea turtle swam a little circle in his aquarium.

Dloooob fweeeep gweeeep. “We will, of course. Everyone knows that the Sonckles have the most advanced technology and the most experience with rare Precursor artifacts. Our historical research institutions are by far the most prestigious in this region of the galaxy, and—”

“That is not true. Not true at all!” Shachos protested, spreading all four of his limbs. “That is only the case in school rankings and indices fabricated by your people! The machine will remain here on… Dustball. Here on Dustball. Not to be removed from our territory. Our territory! In the event the controls are sabotaged, our scientists will promptly move in and reverse engineer the controls. Yes, they will.”

From her experience, the thing about this little trap was that even if its victims knew they were in it…

“Anyone but the clowns! Anyone but the clowns!” Karveth banged his clenched paw on the table in rhythm with his words, still aiming his death stare at Shachos.

“Anyone but the clowns!” Grobret agreed.

How very human.

Julia grinned at Karveth and his second in turn. “Ah, I see. And of course, to make sure that this agreement of yours holds for… a century or two, the Karnolians will be stationing over Dustball…”

“A faction fleet to guarantee its security!” Karveth said.

“A big one, with lots of ships!”

“No!” Shachos’s face was all blue. “There can be no alien fleets in Vorshnik territory without our approval. Not without our approval. And especially not Karnolian ships. They break down all the time, and they can spread their debris all over our transport orbits. Yes, our orbits.”

Karveth slapped the table. “A faction fleet, at least!”

Julia said with a smooth and serene expression, “Alright, so figure that one out amongst yourselves, preferably before you decide to kill us all. And make sure you include some ironclad guarantees so that no one decides to break your agreement in all that time you’ll need.”

“Maybe even two faction fleets!”

Julia tilted her head. “Another thing… since we’re on the topic of reverse engineering: Shachos, did your scientists figure out what exactly was in those custom mixes we gave you?”

Karveth stopped banging the table. One paw stayed suspended in the air. He turned to look between Julia and Shachos. “Wait. Custom mixes? What are you talking about? What custom mixes? Custom mixes of what?!”

Seeing that, Grobret turned to Shachos as well. “You’re hiding something from us, Shachos?”

Julia opened her eyes as wide as she could in mock surprise. Of course, Shachos would know what she was doing, but she was less sure about the other species. She doubted if it would matter anyway. “Oh. Oh, no. I’m sorry. You didn’t get to tell your new friends about those custom mixes yet, Shachos?”

Glonk swept aside a patch of nutrient flakes and dirty liquid from his vision as he looked down on the table. He jabbed with one of his flippers.

Pweeeeeeeeeeeeb. “Shachos? What is the primitive talking about?! What is this talk of custom mixes?”

Shachos was a yellowish-green color that resembled vomit. “We—we—”

Julia put her right hand to her chest lightly. “Oh, Shachos, I’m sorry. I guess… I just assumed… you told everyone that you already confiscated a whole batch of five hundred kilograms’ worth of our liquid Dustballium when you made that shakedown pact with them,” Julia said in her best “I totally did not expect this” voice. “Or was it maybe more? I don’t remember exactly how much—”

“We—we—” Shachos sputtered.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Karveth stomped heavily, shaking the thin floor of the hab. “You… what?!”

Shachos hurried to explain, “There were still some delicious vegetables in that compartment! Delicious vegetables! It wasn’t the full five hundred kilograms. Not at all. Most of it was—”

Technically, he was right. Most of the illicit cargo was unrelated samples from the chamber; the pure Dustballium probably only came up to a few dozen kilos. Less than a hundred, Julia estimated. She didn’t think to have Dr. Clement measure it all before the geologist snuck them in with the potatoes.

Judging by her limited knowledge of alien body language, she suspected they wouldn’t have cared anyway.

Shloooob shloooob meeeep. For good measure, Glonk angrily banged twice on his thick aquarium glass with his flippers. “Five hundred kilograms of Precursor Metal?! Five hundred?! Five hundred?! Shachos! You lied to us!”

Okay, how much did the diplomatic translator censor out of that rant?

“I did not lie. We do not lie. It is not a big deal—I simply forgot to mention some barely relevant context. That is not the same, not the same at all. No, I did not lie.”

“Liar! Liar! Liar!” Karveth shouted with a quivering claw.

Julia turned to Grobret expectantly, just in time for his sharp claws to come out in accusation as well. “Lies from the clown! War it is! War it is!”

Shachos apparently didn’t care at all what the Karnolians thought of him, but the Sonckle’s opinion mattered, at least a little. He turned to the aquarium to explain to the alien turtle, “Glonk, I promise! I promise it wasn’t the full five hundred kilograms. She is completely exaggerating. Totally exaggerating. The actual amount of—”

Julia didn’t let him finish his sentences, and Shachos’s natural inability to get to the point was really working against him here. “Ah! I see! Now, I see why you agreed to that deal, Fleet Master Shachos. While there’s this decades-long effort to reverse engineer the sabotaged machine, the Vorshniks will have access to… as I understand it, the largest find of both solid and liquid Dustballium in known galactic history.”

“I did not mean to—”

“How much did you say it was? Several times more than everything that’s been found so far?” She nodded sagely as she shot an exaggerated wink at him. “Something along those lines. With that, your civilization may advance decades, maybe centuries, in just a few years. And by the time the door is cut open, you’d be far ahead of the rest of them technologically. Your species would be perfectly positioned to use the product of those machines as the reverse engineering efforts start to bear fruit in a few decades. That is indeed an excellent plan. If I were in your shoes, I would do the exact same. Very clever—”

“Deal’s off with the unreliable clown! No deal!” Karveth climbed into his chair and stomped. “They’ve betrayed us all! The lies end today! War it is!”

“War it is! War it is!” Grobret added, though Julia could swear he looked less angry and more… excited.

Glonk swam over to face Julia. He tapped twice on his glass, almost politely.

Greeeeeng shreeeep vlooooom. “Humans, we have a revised understanding of the situation. We would be willing to accept a significantly lower amount in an exclusive deal. We will deploy our warships to defend your colony from the unscrupulous Vorshniks through a long-range jump gate. As you can see, they are as untrustworthy as they are unserious—”

The sliver of blue on Shachos’s face blossomed and deepened. “Glonk, you can’t do that! This system is well within our territory. Yes, it is! Your armed warships are not allowed to enter Dustball without our permission. That is a breach of our treaties—”

“We’d like to cut out the clowns too!” Karveth insisted. He banged a fist on the table repeatedly and gestured between himself and Glonk’s water tank with the other.

Grobret made sure he was not excluded. “Just the three of us. Us serious peoples!”

Julia brightened up with a deeper smile. “Sure, Karveth and Glonk and—I mean, representatives of the Karnolian and Sonckle species. Thank you for your interest. We have a number in mind. An upper-bound of half a ton in formed Dustballium per year, with your provided molds. Which as I understand it, will still be an immense boon for your industries and your research. Would you two species like to split the quota allotment fifty-fifty?”

Pleeeeeeeeeb. “No, if there’s going to be a hard limit, we’d rather pursue a deal without the Karnolians at all.”

Thought so. Didn’t even need to think about it, huh?

She feigned a frown, hoping their translators would catch it. “C’mon, Glonk. I can see Karveth and you are good friends, and I wouldn’t want something like this to come between you two. Maybe another ratio? Sixty-forty? I’ve heard Shachos say your technology is far superior to the Karnolians, but that’s just his perspective. What do you think?”

Gloooom fweeeeeep bloooop. “Shachos is dishonest, as he has just proven to us all, but on this matter, he is actually correct. You don’t need the Karnolians at all. They are barely two hundred years ahead of your species on the standardized technology curve we use to measure civilizational development, and you are evidently developing much faster than they are. They have nothing. We can provide everything Karveth claims to have and far more. The complications of his quarrelsome species would not be necessary in our deal.”

“Aww, Glonk, I’m sure all species have something wonderful to contribute to the galaxy, like their beautiful art and wonderful culture, and we’ll work out a fair exchange rate—”

The discount Ewok didn’t hear her at all.

“You what?!” Karveth exclaimed as he turned to point a claw angrily at the water tank. “I knew I couldn’t trust you backstabbing mud-drinkers! Our partnership ends today! War it is!”

“War it is! War it is!”

To his credit, Shachos seemed far less upset by the breakdown in decorum, with his constant flashing of red, orange, and yellow. He chimed in. “Julia, we are willing to go below the prior baseline too. We will take a lower amount than the greedy Sonckles, and we’ll match their technology transfer. Any technology they offer, we can match. Yes, we will match them. You can keep any molds we give you for research, and we’ll provide all schematics in two versions. Yes, all our schematics come in two versions, the domestic blueprints with all the funny jokes and the export variants without. Your people can have both, which I know your people will appreciate. And for the items we also sell to Karnolians and Sonckles, we will also include the explanations for the jokes for their humorless—”

Shreeeep gluuuub gluuuub. “Human, don’t be fooled by the bottom-feeder’s attempts at distraction. His species crawled out of the seafloor of sentience no more than a hundred thousand years ago. Their technology is worth less than landcrawler sewage! Ours is by far superior, by any metric you would care—”

Karveth had climbed onto the table. He beckoned eagerly at Julia. “We have the best weapons and ships, and we have the most variety! I’ll show you, primitive! I’ll show you! You can come with me to a live-fire test!”

“Come with us! We’ve got the best!”

Shachos turned bright red briefly as he chortled. “Ahahahah! If you want to see how terrible Karnolian weapons are, you don’t need to go to one of their rigged demonstrations. Not at all! Just go watch them try and kill each other in the Garshorli sector; we have obtained footage, it’s pathetic. Very pathetic. Extremely—”

“Your unserious people don’t even know what an honorable battle is. When is the last time you were in battle, Fleet Master Shachos? Your ignorance ends today! War it is!”

“War it is! War it is!”

In her mind’s eye, Julia saw a storage bunker full of munitions like a powder keg waiting to be lit. All it needed was a little more fuel…

“Folks, folks.” She lifted both hands. “I know we’re all very excited to get started on this comprehensive negotiation, but let’s take the temperature in this room down just a notch. We’ll start discussing the rules and framework around the bidding process soon. I just wanted to mention one more thing. Just one more thing before we get started. It’s not a main item, just a little… side request about the machines in question.”

That got them to quiet down.

Karveth stopped mid-stomp. Grobret froze with one claw in the air. Glonk stopped swimming in circles. Shachos even shut up.

Julia looked at the image of the machine. Then she looked back at them.

“There are actually two machines in the chamber,” she lied.

No need to tell the aliens how many actual backups she had.

“One of them appears to be intact but has not responded to commands. We plan to dissect and study it, for scientific purposes. We’d like to request technical assistance from one of your scientific communities in that project. Just a small scientific team. Now. Since we’re all good friends here, which of your species has the most experience with advanced metallurgic—”

Dreeeeeeeeep cheeeeeep.

“No, we do! We do!”

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I turned to look at Norak. Then I glanced around the rest of the CIC to see if there was anyone else who agreed with him.

Not because I was worried about a mutiny so much as because I wanted to take notes of anyone who needed to be removed from their station because they were a loyalist to this paper pushing bureaucrat with no spine.

Nobody seemed to be agreeing with him, though. If anything, they seemed more relieved that I was ignoring him than upset we were plunging into potential battle.

So I went right on ignoring him since that seemed to be working for me so far.

"We're getting a better picture, William," Arvie said, and this time he said it through the CIC speakers rather than saying it inside the simulation. I smiled. I was pretty sure he'd done that on purpose.

"Show me what you've got, Arvie," I said, staring at the holoblock.

"Excuse me. You can't do that," Norak said. "This is my fleet."

I continued ignoring him. There were times when it was worthwhile to get into a fight, and there were times when it was a good idea to ignore somebody and show them exactly how beneath your contempt they were. This seemed like one of those times.

Besides. It didn't seem like a good idea to introduce myself to one of Varis's cousins by dressing him down and telling him what a coward he was in front of everyone in the crew. Not to mention everyone in the crew seemed more than happy to do what I was asking them to do for the moment, so I'd take it. 

"Could you go ahead and bring your analysis up on the holoblock, Arvie?" I asked.

Somebody stepped up next to me. I glanced over. She wore the ribbons of a livisk captain on her shoulders. I nodded to her.

"Captain," I said.

"General Consort," she said, nodding back to me.

"Please. Call me Bill," I said, hitting her with a smile.

She had purple hair that was done up in a bun. She immediately struck me as a no-nonsense kind of person, but I didn't know anything about her.

"Very well, Bill," she said, though there was a moment of hesitation as she said it. Like she wasn't sure about being so informal with the way she addressed somebody who was handing out commands.

"Trust me, it's okay," I said. "Bill is a lot less of a mouthful than calling me General Consort all the time."

"You don't have the authority to…”

"Could you excuse me for a moment, please?" I said to the captain. Then I paused. "What was your name, by the way?"

She stood up a little taller, which for a livisk woman meant she stood up tall enough that she was looking me directly in the eyes.

"Captain Lehrai Thoms,” she said, hitting me with a quick nod. "And it's a pleasure to have you on board, sir. We've heard and seen all about your exploits."

"I'm sure you have," I said.

Okay, I guess my reputation preceding me was doing me a little bit of good still. For all that there were times when I felt like I was literally living the life of some hyper-competent pulp hero from the ancient days of science fiction.

Whatever. I'd take it as long as we kept winning, or not losing to the point that it was a permanent thing.

Instead I wheeled around and stared at Norak, and suddenly the entire CIC was silent except for the beeps and boops that were part and parcel of any modern warship run by electronics. My eyes narrowed as I stared at him, even as his eyes went wide and he took a subtle but very noticeable step back and away from me.

I raised my voice as I addressed the CIC, even as I stared at Norak. I figured the move here was to address the crew all around me rather than giving him that dressing down that, honestly, he so richly deserved.

"Is there anybody here who thinks there’s a danger to this fleet from engaging whatever’s out there around that moon?"

There was silence.

"Is there anyone who is afraid of what looks to be basically a raiding force?"

Again, silence.

"I don't know that I would characterize that as a raiding force," Arvie said in the simulation. "We honestly have no way of telling what..."

I held a hand up in the simulation to stop him.

"Yeah, I know, Arvie. I'm trying to make a point here, though, and I'm doing this very deliberately so Norak here gets that point."

“Ah, I understand," Arvie finally said. "The intricacies and niceties of dealing with people in real space are one of the reasons why it's so useful to have you here to teach me these things.” 

I noted the subtle difference there between what he actually said and what he could have said. He thought it was a good thing that he had me here to bridge a gap in his knowledge. He didn't say anything about how it was nice to have me here to do all of those things for him. Like he was using me as his flesh space avatar.

It was nice to know he still saw me as a partner, even as he could probably wipe the floor with all of us. It was good to have friends, not people who were trying to manipulate you to take everything over.

It also said something about how much time I'd spent in livisk space that I was thinking about one of my friends in terms of him trying to take over the world. Though he was an artificial intelligence, and there was a lot of pop culture memory ingrained in me that said artificial intelligences were only interested in one thing.

"Is there anybody here who’s afraid of going into battle, even if the odds are stacked against us?"

This time there was some angry grumbling around the CIC. A few of those angry grumbles included angry looks directed at Norak. His eyes went wider and wider.

"Are you accusing me of cowardice?" he asked, his mustache puffing out with the sheer force of his angry retort.

It was funny. I'd never seen someone with a big, bushy, bristling mustache looking like they were losing it, but I was getting that experience now. It felt for all the world like I was riding shotgun on a dreadnought back in the late 19th century, and I'd just told someone from the admiralty that they needed to figure out where they left their balls and go attack something.

I wasn't sure exactly what a dreadnought would attack back in the late 19th century. My understanding of military history is they were mostly used to steam around the world and show off to other countries how big the colonial powers' collective dick was, but whatever.

"I'm not accusing you of cowardice," I said. "I'm merely observing that you seem to be afraid of going in there and mixing it up with what looks like an inferior force."

"Because it's not our business."

"Saving people is always our business," I said, cutting across him. "Now I want you to go stand in that corner over there for a little while, and I want you to watch what we're doing here. Maybe you can learn a thing or two about how to actually command a fleet."

He stared at me for another moment. His mouth worked. His breath blew out, which sent his mustaches blowing out as well. Finally, he moved over to stand in that corner. Though that didn't stop him from turning to glare at me.

"Could I please get a warrior to stand over there and keep an eye on him?" I asked, looking around.

"On it, sir," a man at the other end of the CIC said. He wore a small badge under his shoulder ribbons that said he was a subcommander, and he was in charge of security.

I turned to the tactical station. This was an actual warship, and so tactical and the chief of security weren't the same thing. They probably also didn't get the shit kicked out of them every time a new threat came up against the fleet to prove how dangerous that threat actually was. And I was also pretty sure they'd never gotten in a fight with a barrel and lost.

"I want you to analyze the situation out there. We need to figure out a way to get the drop on them. Can you do that, please?"

"On it, sir," the woman said.

I turned back to the captain. "Okay, Lehrai. We’re going to be moving the fleet in slowly, but I want us to try and do a..."

As though on cue, a beautiful pincer move showing multiple fighters launched from the carrier dropping out of fold space and moving in on the enemy fleet appeared at the same time that I was about to suggest the same thing.

"Well, how about that?" I said in the simulation. "We need to give that lady over at tactical a promotion. She came up with that almost as fast as you did."

"I was much faster than her," Arvie said with a sniff. "But I agree with your assessment. There is something to be said for somebody who is able to think on their feet like that."

"Exactly," I said.

"Okay, so we need to do a pincer move. We're going to have the fighters launch and drop out of fold space as soon as I get done talking with everybody involved in this little conflict."

Though the little conflict wasn't as much of a conflict now. Not judging by the holoblock, at least. The antagonizing ships had disengaged when they realized somebody was pinging them. They were flooding the area all around them with active scans and fold space pings of their own, but our fleet was far enough out that we’d get lost in all the noise of all of the other ships that were moving through the system.

Our fleet was one of many. We were obviously a military fleet, but things could get a little fuzzy if you didn't know what you were looking for and you weren't doing active scans to try and figure out what was going on in a system.

fold space made everything a lot smaller, but that didn't change the fact that space was really big. If we didn't pick up on that distress signal then we might’ve missed this little conflict entirely.

"Could we get a comm buoy to fold in just above the north pole of that gas giant?" I asked. "I want to talk with these people, but I also want to make sure there's not a chance anyone on those attacking ships can figure out where we are until I'm ready to drop the hammer."

"I can do that, sir," a gentleman over at the comms station said. 

He started tapping away at his, station, and a moment later I saw another buoy drop from the ship and immediately fold. A moment later it appeared above the gas giant. Far enough up that the gravity well wouldn't screw up its fold ability by much.

It was also a small probe that was only meant to act as a repeater for the conversation I was about to have, and it was over a gas giant. Sure, there was a possibility there was a biosphere down there full of floaters and Hindenburgs and other things like that, the sort of thing you found in any gas giant because it turns out that life, uh, finds a way, but I didn't think this was going to hurt any of them.

Plus, gas giants were big. Not as big as space, or going down to the chemist, but still big. Even if we did mess with a small chunk of the biosphere, it wasn't going to be enough to destroy everything. Maybe. I hoped.

"Okay, so here we go," I said. "Is everybody ready? If I do this, then there's the possibility they're able to track the signal from the probe to our ship."

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Chapter 136: Roads and Portals

This was the second time Viktor found himself in the meeting room of the Adventurer’s Guild, and the contrast with the first was hard to miss. When Claire said she wanted her brother to attend the meeting as well, no one batted an eye, as though his presence had already been accepted as natural and expected.

And the funny thing was that, despite the change in his standing, the reason for both meetings remained exactly the same.

Clovis.

The previous gathering had been convened to discuss his offer to buy the dungeon. Now, they were here again because of that slippery Guildmaster from Iskora, this time to address the small issue of his mercenaries having seized the outpost on the other bank of the river.

Isadora presided at the head of the table, her back perfectly straight and her hands folded neatly atop a stack of papers. If the events of the last few days had taken any toll on her, she gave no sign of it. Viktor suspected that even if the ceiling collapsed right now and buried them all, she would still be issuing orders from under the rubble.

The left side of the long table was occupied by the representatives of the caravan station. One-Eyed Wulf claimed the seat closest to Isadora, and beside him were several senior officers of the caravan guards, along with a handful of the station’s administrative staff.

On the opposite side sat the members of the Guild and a number of adventurers. Viktor was among them, wedged between Claire and... Lloyd, of all people.

“Why are you even here?” he whispered, leaning slightly toward the white-haired man.

“Why can’t I be?” Lloyd replied, a grin already spreading across his face. “Helping treat the wounded adventurers did wonders for my reputation with the Guild. So when I expressed an interest in this meeting, they were more than happy to include me.”

“I’m not asking why they let you in. I’m asking why you even care at all.”

“Of course I care,” Lloyd said. “Did you forget that I plan to return to the ruins of the Dark Emperor’s castle? Now there’s a heavily armed camp nearby, filled with the very people suspected of being responsible for all broken souls I’ve been stitching back together for the past few days. It would be far stranger if I weren’t concerned.”

While Viktor could not deny the logic of that explanation, he still couldn’t understand Lloyd’s fixation on that old castle of his. Was it really about the treasures? If that were the case, the guy was going to be deeply disappointed. Viktor knew all too well that there was nothing of value left behind in that place.

Isadora cleared her throat, signaling that the meeting was about to begin in earnest.

“Thank you for coming,” she said. “I believe everyone here is already aware of the purpose of this meeting. Our outpost across the river has been taken over by an armed group led by a Mithril-ranked adventurer named Zubayr, currently in the employ of the Adventurer’s Guild in Iskora. I’ve sent a representative to negotiate with them, but the attempt was... unsuccessful.”

“Unsuccessful?” A man barked out a laugh. “They killed our people and stole our camp. Of course they won’t hand it back just because we asked nicely. I don’t understand why you even bothered.”

“They killed the monsters that killed our people,” Isadora said. “Then they occupied an outpost that had already been abandoned. Unless we can present concrete proof that they orchestrated the monster attack, hurling accusations at them will achieve nothing beyond embarrassing ourselves.”

As the man fell silent under her gaze, Isadora seemed ready to move on and leave the matter where it lay, but Calyssa raised a hand before she could.

“I think we should at least discuss the possibility that they were behind the attack,” the bespectacled woman said. “This isn’t an accusation, only an exploration of possibilities. If we refuse to talk about it, how can we even find any proof? So, for the sake of argument, let’s assume they are responsible. The question is: how did they do it?”

“It could have been a Reliquary,” Wulf said. “I’ve never heard of one with this kind of power, though, but my knowledge is limited. There are countless Reliquaries out there, all with wildly different abilities, so it wouldn’t surprise me if something like that existed.”

Claire frowned. “I can understand if it’s a Reliquary that merely allows someone to control a handful of monsters. But I’ve seen the aftermath of the battle. There were over a hundred monster corpses, of different sizes and species. I can’t imagine an artifact powerful enough to dominate all of them existing without anyone knowing about it. If it’s ever been used before, there should be a record about it somewhere...”

Or perhaps it hadn’t been a Reliquary at all. Maybe it was the work of an Ascendant. Celeste, after all, literally had hundreds of monsters under her command. So it wasn’t implausible that an Ascendant of a different path could exert control over a hundred wandering beasts.

Now, thinking about it, if such a person existed, perhaps they had also been responsible for the monster attack on the town eight years ago. But why? Back then, Daelin had been insignificant. There had been no reason to attack it at all.

Linking the two incidents might feel a bit forced, Viktor thought.

Around him, the discussion was in full swing. Theories were proposed, challenged, and replaced in rapid succession, each more imaginative than the last. Eventually, Isadora brought her hand down sharply on the table.

“Enough,” she said. “I know the monster attack is a serious issue, and I have no intention of ignoring it. But chasing baseless speculation will only waste our time. We need to focus on the present, not on what has already happened. The fact is, we’ve lost the outpost across the river, and our chances of reclaiming it are slim. The real question is this: what do we do now? What is our next course of action?” Her gaze then shifted to Wulf. “Did the Overseer say anything about the matter?”

The one-eyed captain inclined his head.

“He did. His assessment was much the same as yours: stopping Clovis from establishing his settlement is no longer realistic. Instead, we should turn our attention inward. Build up what’s ours. Specifically, he suggested we start with the infrastructure. The route to the dungeon, in particular.”

“The route?” Isadora raised an eyebrow, then gave a nod. “Yes, of course. At present, anyone heading to the dungeon has to take the long way around. They must go east, then follow the paved road along the river—the one built by the late Guildmaster Gideon—and then take the forest trail upstream toward the waterfall behind which the dungeon lies. All of this is because Gideon didn’t want to cut a road straight south through the forest.”

Cutting through the forest, huh? That was the exact same route Viktor had taken before Celeste gained the ability to teleport him directly to the dungeon from his house.

“He believed that building a direct road would be very expensive and time-consuming,” Calyssa said. “Also, as the town grew, he planned to build lodging for the adventurers near the river, then use ferries along the Voskryn to move people and supplies.”

“Which is no longer feasible,” Isadora said. “The planned far end of that ferry route is currently under the control of those mercenaries, is it not? Not to mention, after a monster attack like the one we’ve just endured, I doubt many people are eager to stay near the river or trust their life to a boat.”

“But—”

“The situation has changed. And we must adapt accordingly. There is little value in clinging to plans that no longer suit reality.”

Calyssa exhaled slowly, her shoulders sagging, then gave a reluctant nod. She said nothing more, but her expression made it clear that she was not very happy to see yet another piece of Gideon’s legacy set aside.

Isadora turned back to Wulf.

“So,” she said, “the Overseer wants a new road straight south, all the way to the dungeon? That won’t be cheap.”

The captain grinned. “Coin is the one thing he doesn’t lack.”

“Well, if he’s willing to open his purse, then who am I to stop him?”

“There’s more,” Wulf said. “The final part of the old route, the forest path that runs upstream to the waterfall. Once Clovis’s settlement is finished, any adventurers approaching the dungeon from that side will have to use it after crossing their newly-built bridge. Which means we could deny them access by destroying the path.”

A murmur rippled through the room.

“Of course I don’t imagine it would stop them forever,” Wulf continued. “Clovis would find a way around it eventually. Just like he found a way to take our outpost. Still, a setback is a setback. If we can slow them down, there’s no reason not to.”

Isadora nodded. “We’ll do so once the new route is complete.” She let her gaze sweep across the room. “Any objections?”

No one spoke. Heads nodded, some readily, others after brief hesitation. Calyssa’s lips pressed into a thin line, but she remained silent.

“Good,” Isadora said. “Then it’s settled.” Then she told Wulf, “If we’re building a new route, I want it finished as soon as possible. Can you relay that to the Overseer?”

“That’s already his thinking. He believes we’re short on time. Everything needs to move quickly. The new settlement won’t be long in coming.”

“How so?” someone asked. “They’ve taken only an outpost, nothing more. Building an entire settlement from scratch will take time. Moving laborers, hauling materials. Are they going to bring everything from Iskora? A single trip could take weeks...”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Isadora said. She gestured toward a mage seated near the far end of the table, the same aeromancer who had been tasked with keeping watch on the outpost. “Tell them what you saw.”

The man straightened. “By Guildmaster Isadora’s request, I’ve been monitoring the occupied outpost to observe their activities,” he said. “And based on what I’ve seen, I believe they are constructing a portal.”

The whole table fell silent.

Viktor, on the other hand, wasn’t particularly surprised. After all, he had already reached the same conclusion.

After that day, he had ordered Galatea to keep sending her projection to watch the camp. It remained far enough away, as he didn’t want to risk triggering another alarm. But even from a distance, the purpose of the structure was obvious.

After the silence, a low murmur spread through the room as people leaned toward one another, trading whispers.

“I believe the portal is meant to connect directly to Iskora,” Isadora said. “Once completed, it would allow them to transport people and materials back and forth almost instantaneously.”

Wulf’s brow creased. “That will speed up their construction significantly.”

Yes. Viktor chuckled. But it also means if the portal were destroyed, Iskora’s ambitions in the region would suffer a crippling blow.

“Is that even possible?” someone asked. “I’ve heard of Riftwalkers teleporting people around, but only one or two at a time, and maybe with a few items. I’ve never heard of a portal capable of transporting large groups of people and building materials.”

“It’s possible,” Isadora said. “Just very difficult. And expensive. I’m no expert, though, so I can’t really speak to the technical specifics. If only we had a Riftwalker with us, then we could ask for their opinion.”

Well, we do have one in town.

“Actually,” Lloyd said, “there’s a Riftwalker here. A Gold-ranked adventurer. I saw him when I stayed at the Emberwood Inn.”

That prompted a fresh round of murmurs. Most of them sounded surprised someone like that had been under their noses the whole time. Why the hell had the guy never been seen anywhere near the Guild?

“Can you invite him here?” Isadora asked.

Lloyd shrugged. “I can try. No promises, though. He’s... not particularly sociable. And he’s drunk more often than he’s sober.”

You are the one to talk!

Still, the sudden mention of Azran sparked an idea. So Viktor raised a hand.

“I know him,” he said. “I’ve talked with him a few times before. I could approach him on the Guild’s behalf if you wish.”

After all, who was better to ask about the construction, or destruction, of a portal than a Riftwalker?

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Chapter 137: Riftwalker

The drunken Riftwalker sat with his chair tilted back on its rear legs, eyes closed, spine pressed against the wall, one boot planted on the table. His beard, noticeably longer and far more unkempt than the last time Viktor had seen him, framed his half-open mouth like a neglected curtain.

“Long time no see,” Viktor said as he dropped into a nearby seat.

Azran cracked his bloodshot eyes open, blinking a few times.

“You again, huh?” he said, lifting the bottle on the table. He took a long, noisy swig. Looked like the guy had stopped bothering with jugs and mugs and gone straight to the source instead. “If you’re looking for that black-haired friend of yours, he’s not here today. In fact, he hasn’t come here for a while.” The bald man snorted. “Maybe he’s finally given up trying to invite me to his party.”

“Oh?” Viktor grinned. “Is it just me, or do I hear a hint of regret in your tone? Don’t tell me you’re wishing you’d said yes after all.”

Azran scoffed. “I am not. It’s just... strange, that’s all. The kid vanished all of a sudden.” His brow creased as he frowned into his drink. “Don’t tell me something happened to him in the dungeon.”

“Well, yes. Something did happen...” Viktor paused just long enough to catch Azran snapping his head around to stare at him. “Oh, don’t worry. He and his party made it out in one piece. No lasting physical injuries. Psychological damage, on the other hand... There’s a chance they might walk away from the adventuring life for good.”

“Is that so?” Azran looked down thoughtfully. “Well, people come and go in this line of work all the time. Hell, even I’m not so sure I should still be in it.”

“So,” Viktor said, “since Cedric stopped coming back to pester you, you’ve decided to sit here and drink every day for the past few months. Don’t you think you should at least take on some other work?”

“I do have work,” Azran said. “Some fellow pays me to teleport him back and forth between here and Iskora. Simple job, good pay. I work less than an hour a month and earn enough to drink without worrying about tomorrow.”

“Iskora?”

“Actually, he wants to go to Arstenia. But I don’t have an anchor there, so I send him to Iskora instead. It’s a big city, plenty of Riftwalkers there. He can easily find someone to take him the rest of the way. Roundabout, yes, but that’s the only option he’s got.”

Hmm... Viktor grinned to himself. Why do I have the feeling I know that client of yours?

“Speaking of teleporting people around,” he said, “that’s actually why I’m here. I wanted to hear your opinion on something. A Riftwalker’s opinion.”

He had already made up his mind: the portal being constructed in that camp must be destroyed. And to do that properly, he had to understand more about how things actually worked. After all, he was not a mage; all he did was recreate the effects of magic through his Thauma. He had never grasped the underlying mechanics, because he had never needed to. The old him would have just tossed a Scorching Wind at the outpost and called it a day, but his current self, far weaker than he had been in his prime, needed every advantage he could get if he wanted to succeed.

“Huh?” Azran took another mouthful from his bottle. “What do you want? And why?”

“You know what happened on the other side of the river, right?”

“I’ve heard.” The bald man nodded. “Daelin’s little outpost got chewed up by monsters, then some men from Iskora showed up and took over.”

“Yes.”

Azran snorted. “To think they’d do it so blatantly.”

It seemed the bald man had reached the same conclusion as everyone else. He might be drunk, but he clearly wasn’t out of touch with what was going on around him. Besides, since he knew Bjorn’s group and their attempt to steal the Dungeon Core, Viktor suspected he had already had at least a rough idea of who was really pulling the strings behind the scenes.

“Apparently, they’re building a portal inside that camp.”

“How do you know?”

“The Guild’s scout reported it,” Viktor said. “By the way, I’m here on behalf of Guildmaster Isadora. She wants to hear your opinion on this matter.”

There were several reasons why he had volunteered for this task. For one thing, if he had approached Azran on his own and started asking questions about portals, it might have raised suspicion. However, if he were doing it in the Guild’s name, then there was nothing unusual about it at all. Everything Azran told him would be passed straight back to the Guild, which meant the knowledge of how such a portal might be destroyed would be shared among many people, so when it inevitably and mysteriously blew up, it would be much harder to pin down the culprit. Also, there was the added benefit that acting in the Guild’s interest would improve his standing with them, something that was never a wasted effort.

Azran let out an amused chuckle. “You? Acting on behalf of the Guildmaster? Why would she choose you, of all people?”

“Because I know you,” Viktor said with a shrug. “So she thinks you’re more likely to talk if it’s me asking.”

“Well then,” Azran said, taking a swig. “Ask away. What does she want to know?”

“First of all, is it even possible to create a portal that connects here directly to Iskora? One that can move large numbers of people and materials back and forth?”

Viktor already knew the answer, of course. He had been an emperor once, after all. There were many building projects that had been carried out under his orders, and even though he never bothered with the details, he did know what his subordinates were capable of. Still, he needed to play the part of a clueless kid from some forgotten backwater, ignorant of the true scale of such undertakings.

“It’s possible,” Azran said. “But very hard to do. When I teleport people, I open a small portal—we call it a rift, hence our name—to a place where I already have an anchor. That rift is just big enough for a single person to pass through, and it only stays stable for like ten seconds. And I can only do it once every two or three days.” He paused. “A portal like the one you’re describing would require the coordinated effort of a lot of Riftwalkers.”

A full-blown ritual, then. As Orloth put it.

“So they’d need to keep those Riftwalkers stationed nearby,” Viktor said, “to open it whenever someone wants to pass?”

Azran shook his head. “For a portal like that, where traffic is frequent, it’s actually less costly to keep it open all the time rather than closing and reopening it over and over again. We use magical artifacts called the Waystones to maintain the portal and keep the two locations permanently linked. The Riftwalkers are only needed for the initial setup, and then occasionally to check on the structure and recharge the Waystones.”

“Sounds simple enough.”

Azran laughed. “It only sounds simple because I’ve skipped the complicated parts. Tens, perhaps hundreds, of mages are required to set it up. It will take weeks to complete. And then, the mental toll alone can put them out of action for months afterward. Of course, they’ll charge you a ridiculous amount of money for the endeavor.”

Viktor nodded slowly. “So the Waystones are the key to keeping the portal running. If they’re gone, the whole thing stops working.”

Azran shot him a sidelong look. “Is the Guildmaster planning to destroy that portal?”

Viktor shrugged. “I don’t know. My job is just to learn everything I can. What she chooses to do with that knowledge is none of my concern.”

“Not that I care either,” Azran said with a snort. “But yes, if you want to shut that thing down, then those stones are what you’d need to target.”

“So destroying the stone frame of the portal wouldn’t do anything?”

“It’s only needed during the initial setup. Once the rift is stabilized, the frame becomes little more than decoration.”

“I see.”

“Still,” Azran said, barking a laugh, “if the Guildmaster is serious, good luck to her. I wouldn’t fancy her chances.”

Viktor nodded. “The Waystones must be very well hidden. And heavily guarded.”

“Well, not really. They need to be placed close to the portal to power it. That said, they don’t have to be on this side. They can be kept on either end of the connection. And if I were in charge of the project, I’d keep them on the Iskora side, not here.”

That’s... problematic.

Azran continued, “Which means, anyone who wants to destroy the stones would have to strike at Iskora itself, not the camp on the opposite bank of the river.”

“Or,” Viktor said, “they could try to pass through the portal from here to Iskora.”

“Good luck with that. I’m sure all those hired blades would be more than happy to let you stroll right through. And even if you somehow managed it, then what? If you shut the portal down from the other side, you’d be stuck there.”

True enough, Viktor thought.

“Honestly,” Azran said, “she’d probably have better odds appealing to the Guildmaster’s Conclave than trying to solve this with force.”

“She can’t. This isn’t something the Conclave gets involved in.”

After all, officially this conflict had nothing to do with the Adventurer’s Guild itself. Instead, it was between the town of Daelin and new settlers from Iskora who sought to establish a foothold here. The adventurers were merely hired muscle on both sides, nothing more, nothing less. So unless there was clear proof of misconduct by the adventurers themselves, the Conclave had no jurisdiction over the matter. All they could do, and all they had done, was urge both Guilds to keep their people on tight leashes and avoid escalating things any further. Well, they did agree to Isadora’s request to look into the monster attack, but given Clovis’s influence, Viktor had little faith that the investigation would provide anything of real value.

At the end of the day, the truth of the matter was painfully simple: Daelin was weak. And the weak deserved to be exploited.

There was no higher authority in the Central Plains. There was no king to appeal to, no court to pass judgment. This land was effectively lawless. Daelin itself was the only authority around, and if it proved incapable of enforcing its own will, then that authority would be undermined and replaced by someone else’s.

Still...

The Plains might not have a ruler now, but they had once been ruled by an emperor. And that emperor had returned.

Lawlessness was unacceptable.

Celeste.

[Yes, Master?]

When is Pimm due back?

[Two days from now, Master.]

Good. Once he returns, have Orloth tell him to stop procuring gems for the time being. Instead, I want him to gather as much black powder as he can without drawing attention, no matter the cost, and then bring all of it to the dungeon after a week. After that, he is to remain in town. Again, have him give a detailed description of his lodgings, so I can send further instructions to him directly, just as I did with Yvonne.

[Understood. Anything else, Master?]

Yes. Tell Kazyk to be ready. I’ll have a great deal of work for him very soon.

[I will do it immediately. But... may I ask what you are going to do, Master?]

Fireworks, Celeste. Truly spectacular fireworks. Viktor allowed himself a smile. I’ll solve the problem Alycia’s way.

Sandra hesitated before cautiously knocking on the door in front of her. “It’s open,” came the call from inside. Sandra hesitated again before opening the door and walking in. Alpha, former General Collins, former General Carter, Monica, and the Taintay Marja all looked up from the desks they were at.

“Ah, Sandra, Nightshade,” Alpha said as Sandra and Nightshade walked into the room. “Glad you could make it.”

“When Command calls, it’s not usually a good idea to ignore you,” Sandra said a bit sardonically, closing the door behind her.

“At least this one has some sense,” Carter said gruffly.

“John, really?” Collins asked in a pained voice. Carter just snorted but subsided, watching as Sandra took a seat on the chair that had been set up at a sixth desk, Nightshade sitting by her.

“Something to drink, ma’am?” Roy asked, setting a teacup in front of Sandra. Sandra stared at him as he sniffed, placing a bowl of drink down for Nightshade, who happily started drinking.

“How do you do that?” Sandra asked the butler.

“I am simply one hell of a butler, nothing more,” Roy said. “It’s not a proper drink, but do please enjoy yourself. Sandra blinked, watching the man carefully as she took a drink. It was delightfully warm and sour, a near mirror to the drink he had served her back on Earth. Sandra looked up to thank Roy, only to see that the butler was already gone.

“Yeah, I still have no idea how he does that,” Alpha said dryly as Monica just chuckled a bit.

“I’ve tried recruiting him to the Shadows, but he refuses me every time,” Marja said, a small smile on his face. Sandra just blinked again before shaking herself a bit.

“So, why did you want to talk to me?” Sandra asked. “Is it about what happened to the Angels?”

“In part,” Alpha admitted with a sigh.

“We wanted to catch you up on what’s been happening with the Terran-Teratakit war as a whole,” Monica said, lifting up her datapad. Sandra frowned a bit.

“I thought the Terran Federation was doing well? Sandra asked confused as Nightshade finished his drink.

“‘Well’ is a bit of an overstatement,” Carter snorted. “We aren’t losing, but we can’t confidently say that we’re winning either.” Sandra looked at the aging General, who suddenly seemed to be a much older man from the weight on his and the other Commanders shoulders.

“Unfortunately, he’s right,” Alpha sighed. “The Terran Federation has been slowly pushing the Teratakit Empire back out of it’s borders, but it’s been hard won every battle. The Teratakit have overwhelming firepower and significantly more soldiers and ships than the Terran Federation has. For every ship they’ve destroyed, we’ve managed to destroy two of theirs, but unlike the Terran Federation, they don’t seem to be running out of manpower anytime soon.”

“Part of it is Teratakit physiology and biology,” Marja said. “They breed by the thousands at a time, and it takes them only a year to go from grub to a fully-grown Teratakit. And unlike humans, they can start training almost as soon as they hatch, meaning that by the time they’re fully grown, they’ll have all the training required to be a soldier. Their main bottleneck is materials, but considering that the Empire has been around for thousands of years now, they have the resources to just keep throwing everything at the Terran Federation.”

“Unlike humans, where it takes us nearly 20 years to become an adult, and then we have to go through training to become a soldier. And since we’re still relatively new to the galaxy, we don’t have the resources or capital for this kind of war,” Monica said, shaking her head. “It’s been five years already, and according to our reports, the Terran Federation is down a third of what they started off with, and that’s including the people they’ve added to the military over the years.”

“Didn’t the Caramon war last seven years?” Sandra asked.

“Yes, but the Caramon fight very differently than the Teratakit,” Alpha said, shaking his head. “The Teratakit focus primarily on saturation attacks, not caring how many soldiers or ships they lose in an attack. They either win, or the entire fleet needs to be destroyed, there is no in between for them. No retreating, no parley, no taking prisoners. Either the fleet is destroyed, or they destroy you. The Reapers have been going on combat missions, but a lot of them have simply been fleet destruction rather than assassinations. We tried taking out higher ranked officer in the past, but it literally changed nothing about an upcoming battle. The only way we can make a dent is by destroying the fleet before they arrive. Crippling the fleet doesn’t work, as they’re fully repaired and restocked by the time the arrive.”

“All or nothing,” Collins sighed. “Humans have had a few wars in our history like this.”

“How did that turn out?” Sandra asked.

“Complete and utter annihilation for one side or the other,” Collins said flatly. “There are still parts of Asia and the Americas that are too radioactive for humans to live.” Sandra swallowed at the implications of that statement.

“As of right now, it’s a war of attrition on a massive scale,” Alpha said. “But it’s a war that humanity will lose if things continue as they are.”

“But, the Markers?” Sandra asked.

“Expensive, time consuming, and a drain on resources,” Carter said gruffly. “It may take only a fraction of the time it takes to train a Reaper, but the Markers are more volatile and prone to just dropping dead in the middle of a mission.”

“The attack on the Angels is a good example of that,” Monica said, looking sad. “They didn’t so much defeat the Markers that attacked them as the Markers simply died before they could finish the job.”

“Now, the Terran Federation does have options still,” Alpha said. “They have allies they can call in, and as Signatories of the Galactic Accords, they can put out the call for aid, seeing as they’re being attacked by a non-Signatory. But so far, they’ve been refusing to do so, mostly because General Kelvin has been blocking any attempts to call for outside help. And we’ve been doing what we can to help as well, so things aren’t as bleak as they sound. But not by much. General Kalvin’s stubbornness will destroy the Federation.”

“The Federation is done for, whether they win the war or not,” Collins said, shaking his head. “More than a few of the Terran colonies are already threatening to secede from the Federation and become independent. Several other actually have done so already, one’s that are well away from the war, and the only reason a few other haven’t already is because they need the protection of the Terran Federation during the war. Even Mars and Venus, colonized planets in the Sol system, are threatening to become independent, not liking what the Terran Federation is doing.” Sandra was silent for a moment.

“Why weren’t we told about this?” Sandra asked.

“Two reasons,” Alpha said. “First of all, you weren’t mentally stable enough to be sent on major combat missions. You refused to come home, refused your mandated therapy appointments, and remained out of contact for long periods of time. If we had told you the full extant of the war, you would have rushed head-first into battle without a plan, and most likely gotten yourself and everyone on your ship killed.” Sandra growled a bit, but didn’t argue the point. She knew he was right, even if she didn’t like it. “Second, you’re not technically a full-fledged Reaper as of yet.”

“What?” Sandra asked dumbfounded as Nightshade licked his front paws.

“You never took your final test,” Monica explained. “You took off before we could set up your final, and only stopped by for a day to pick up Nightshade and Shadowstrike before leaving again, and haven’t been back since, until now at least. And when you did arrive, you were too mentally unstable for us to give you your final test. As it is, Nightshade, Shadowstrike, and even Tauran and Sar’Ma, all outrank you. They have access to this information and the missions we need done. You did not because you are still considered a Trainee. Technically, we should restart your Reaper training.”

“You took off, do not start saying that it was unfair,” Alpha said, pinning Sandra with a harsh glare. Sandra swallowed again, slowly sitting back down. “We have rules and procedures for a reason. Why do you think we only ever sent you on recon missions instead of combat missions? If you had thought about it, you would have noticed much sooner.” Sandra closed her eyes and took a deep breath. He was right. Dammit, but Sandra hated that he was right.

“So, why am I getting caught up to date now?” Sandra asked, trying to keep the edge out of her voice.

“Situation has changed,” Alpha sighed. “Quin has informed us that she still can’t recommend you for any major missions, but she’s given the go-ahead for you to be caught up, and to take your Reaper final. But also, the attack on the Angels means that things might be even more unstable than we thought in the Terran Federation. And we’re going to need every Reaper available if we want a chance at turning things around. And with the Angels arriving, your natural curiosity is going to get you asking questions that will lead you to answers that will make you want to take off again. I want you to have a clear picture before making a decision. And I’m going to give you a question to think about now, instead of running off without a plan again.”

“Which is?” Sandra asked stiffly.

“Is being a Reaper really worth it to you? And what does being a Reaper mean to you?” Alpha held up a hand, stopping Sandra’s immediate response. “Don’t give me your first answer. Think about it.” Sandra glared at the older human, who met her eyes with ease.

“Anything else?” Sandra asked, her voice still stiff.

“No,” Monica said, looking at Sandra with sad eyes. “You can go now.” Sandra nodded, a jerky movement as she stood up, Nightshade right behind her as she left the office. “You could have done that better,” Monica admonished Alpha.

“Nah, he did exactly as a leader is supposed to do,” Carter snorted. “Not every soldier is cut out to be a soldier. And it’s up to us to determine if they can be a soldier, or if there’s a better path for them.” Collins and Marja both nodded in agreement.

“I fully believe that she can be a great Reaper,” Alpha said, looking at his datapad. “My brother saw something special in her, and I choose to believe in his belief. But she needs to understand that the galaxy waits for no one.” Monica just sighed, but she didn’t argue the point.

……………….

Sandra scowled as she walked down the street, Nightshade on her heels. “Did you know about this?” Sandra demanded as they walked.

“Which part?” Nightshade asked, keeping his tone mild, though his hackles did raise a bit at Sandra’s tone.

“Me not being an official Reaper, how badly the war is going, all of it,” Sandra said, flinging her arms up.

“Some of it,” Nightshade admitted after a moment. “I didn’t know that you weren’t officially a Reaper yet, but I did know that the war wasn’t going nearly as well as the Terran Federation liked to say it was. I just didn’t realize how bad the situation was.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me, because?” Sandra growled.

“I thought you knew,” Nightshade said. “Also, you haven’t exactly been the most open person to talk to for the last few years. And recently I haven’t been keeping up because of Shadowstrike’s pregnancy.” Sandra stopped walking, causing Nightshade to take a few steps in front of her before turning around, watching Sandra carefully.

“Have I really been that closed off?” Sandra asked quietly, stunned.

“Ever since Eric died,” Nightshade said with a nod. “You’ve been more than willing to talk to us about everything else, except Eric and yourself. And instead of staying in contact with your friends and family, you’ve been insisting on getting the next mission. I might only be seven years old, but even I know that a lot of that information you could have gotten if you just asked. And that they would probably have let you take the test when you came to pick me and Shadowstrike up three years ago.”

“Shit,” Sandra cursed, fingering her borrowed revolver. Her datapad then buzzed, indicating that she had a message. Sandra pulled out her datapad and sighed as she read the message. “Sounds like Tune and Xarcan have finished servicing my weapons, so I’m going to go and pick those up.”

“Want some company?” Nightshade asked.

“No, I need time to think,” Sandra said, shaking her head. She gave a half-smile at Nightshade’s worried look. “I’m not going to take off. I just need some time to think is all.”

“Alright,” Nightshade said, though he looked unconvinced.

………………..

“Who the hell designed this thing?!” Sandra heard Tune screech as the door swung open, a Xactarian man shrugging apologetically as Sandra stepped inside.

“Hello, Billy,” Sandra said with a slight smile.

“It’s good to see you again,” the beetle man said, closing the door behind Sandra.

“It’s rather clever, if you think about it,” Xarcan was saying. “It might not be quite up to par with current Reaper technology, but for what they’ve done, it’s a close second.”

“Sure, if they like replacing the weapons after every use,” Tune snorted.

“I’m sorry, what’s wrong with the sword?” the Karanta apprentice asked, looking at what looked like a sword with way too many components taken apart on the table.

“Is this a bad time?” Sandra cut in as Billy hurried into the back room.

“Pakta, go grab the girls stuff,” Tune barked, her teeth still sparking in annoyance as she glared at the sword.

“I’m already back here, love,” Billy called out.

“Well he can help out,” Tune snapped. “I really want to find whoever made this abomination and wring their scrawny little neck with their own entrails.” Pakta quickly rushed into the back room to help Billy grab Sandra’s stuff.

“Charming image,” Xarcan said dryly, poking at a few parts. “All of the metal is the same throughout the sword, though. I can’t decide if they’re only a few weeks old or several decades old.”

“I’m willing to bet it’s the fault of this,” Tune said, tapping a crystal that made Sandra’s scales itch just looking at it. “You don’t like it either?” Tune asked, noticing Sandra’s reaction.

“Not sure why,” Sandra said, frowning a bit to get a closer look. “It’s making my scales itch. Like when I saw another albino Targondian, but creepy instead of just weird.”

“Can’t say I understand the description, but I understand the sentiment,” Xarcan said with a slight shudder. “I really don’t want to touch the thing.”

“Tune, where did you put her revolvers?” Billy called from the back room.

“Slider, third down and four across,” Tune called back.

“What even is this?” Sandra asked.

“Marker sword, used in the attack against the Angels,” Xarcan said grimly. “But it’s weird. It’s like they tried imitating Reaper weapons, but badly.”

“That’s being polite about it,” Tune grumbled. “This thing has so much wear and tear that I wouldn’t be able to recommend anyone using it. and as far as I can tell, it’s only been used once or twice.”

“That’s…concerning,” Sandra said. “By the way, I’ve been wondering something.”

“Whatchu want now, girl?” Tune asked, rolling her eyes.

“Are you okay?” Sandra asked. “I thought you couldn’t be in ships or Stations for very long due to your ability.”

“You can thank the Lamnacorta for that,” Billy said, walking back out, holding Sandra’s revolvers, Pakta behind him holding Sandra’s bracers. Tune snorted a bit as Billy started handing Sandra her weapons.

“Making a ship sentient and sapient makes them no longer a ship, go figure,” Tune said, shaking her head. “My ability doesn’t classify anything with Lamnacorta in it as having any weapons. Now, if I walked up to their cannons, that’s a different story, but my ability only focuses on the cannon, not the ship as a whole anymore. Breath of fresh air, let me tell ya.”

“Huh,” Sandra said as she belted on her revolvers before reaching for her bracers. “How did you four even get here? I thought you were all safe on Zatoria V?”

“You can thank the Terrans for that,” Tune spat. Actually spat a glob of fire at the ground, which made Xarcan tut a bit as Pakt put out the fire with a spray bottle of some kind.

“Someone in the Terran Military didn’t like the fact that we knew anything about Reaper weaponry,” Billy said sadly, absently rubbing his arm where a scar that Sandra hadn’t noticed was. “They sent Markers after us. The only reason we aren’t dead is because of the Speakers contacting the Reapers as soon as the Markers made planetfall. We were being teleported here when they broke the door down. They offered to take us to another planet for safety, and new identities, but…”

“Once I realized that the Ferry wasn’t making me itch like cooling lava in a cut, I offered to stick around and help out,” Tune said.

“I stuck around simply because there wasn’t anything for me back on Mascomlia,” Xarcan said sadly. “The Markers killed Tattat when they came for me.” Sandra winced at that.

“I liked him,” she murmured, slipping her bracers on. Xarcan nodded sadly at that.

“This ship has become a crew of misfits, loners, and those with nowhere else to go,” Pakt sighed, his wings fluttering slightly and his tail drooping. “Everyone that has arrived over the last several years have had similar stories. Attacks from Markers due to their association with the Reapers, refugees with nowhere else to go because of the war, and even a few that sought out the Reapers simply because they didn’t know where else to go. A haven for the lost, confused, and broken.” Pakt snorted slightly. “Everyone who’s here has lost someone or something precious and important to them. Not even the Lamnacorta are exempt from that. We’ve lost ships in skirmishes, ships with those weird ship spirits. You find someone on this ship who hasn’t lost someone or something, and I’ll be ready to call them out as damn liars.”

“That’s enough of that,” Tune snapped at the Karanta smith. Pakt subsided in his grumbling, but his words struck Sandra harder than she had expected. Tune sighed, flying up and motioning for Sandra to follow her. “He’s not wrong, but he has a rather pessimistic view of the community here right now,” Tune sighed as they stepped out of the smithy. “The Reapers have been great at giving people jobs, purpose, and just generally being helpful in some way to anyone who does take up residence here.”

“Are things really that bad here?” Sandra asked. Tune hesitated for a moment.

“I’ve yet to meet someone who hasn’t lost someone or their home to either the Markers or the war here,” Tune finally admitted grudgingly. “But, despite what my apprentice is saying, a lot of them have been moving on, trying to continue going through their life. Even before I joined Billy on Zatoria, I’ve rarely seen such a tight community. Misfits, every single one of them. But misfits who watch out for each other. Ain’t nothing wrong with being here.”

………………..

Sandra wandered aimlessly around, Pakt’s words ringing. War or attacks from Markers. “I really have been selfish,” Sandra muttered to herself.

“Nothing wrong with being selfish at times,” a voice said. Sandra’s Reaper Revolver practically flew from it’s holster, the hammer already cocked and pointed at the chest of a familiar black and red Dra’Cari. “A bit harsh, don’t you think?” So’Ngo asked, an easy grin on his face as he leaned against his staff.

“Sorry,” Sandra said, grimacing a bit as she holstered her revolver again. “I don’t like being startled.”

“I can see that,” So’Ngo said, nodding. “Guess I should be grateful you don’t shoot first and ask questions later.” Sandra snorted a bit at that before walking away. “Awe, where ya going?”

“For a walk,” Sandra said.

“Excellent, then I guess I’ll join you,” So’Ngo said cheerfully, following the Targondian woman.

“Not a chance,” Sandra said, stopping to glare at the Dra’Cari.

“Why not?”

“I don’t want any company right now, least of all from someone I don’t know,” Sandra said, rolling her eyes. “So you can go away.”

“Can’t exactly stop me if I happen to be walking in the same direction of you, now can you?” So’Ngo said. Sandra didn’t respond, instead just rolling her eyes again and climbing up a wall, reaching the roof of the building in a matter of seconds. She turned around to look at the Dra’Cari, only to see him gone. Sandra frowned as she looked around the suddenly empty street.

“What’re you looking at?” So’Ngo asked from right next to Sandra. Sandra looked at him, confused.

“How…” she started to ask.

“You know, you’re right, a brief jaunt across rooftops does sound more fun than just walking around on the streets,” So’Ngo said, snapping his clawed fingers. “Smart thinking, Sandra.” Sandra just growled, touching her belt for a moment before leaping off the roof, practically soaring through the air as the grav-belt dropped her gravity to near zero. “Oh, are we flying now instead?” So’Ngo asked, easily soaring next to Sandra, looking as though he was laying on his back, staff held across his body.

“Can you kindly fuck off?” Sandra growled. A wire shot out of her bracer, catching a nearby building and changing her direction with increased momentum.

“Oh, now I get it, you’re trying to cosplay like Spiderman, right?” So’Ngo asked, this time just sitting crosslegged in the air as he flew next to Sandra. Sandra stared at him in shock before cursing as she barely was able to twist out of the way of a pole that was in her way. So’Ngo just arched an eyeridge as Sandra launched another wire, puling her to another rooftop where she slid to a stop, already changing the gravity on her belt again as she slid to a stop, turning to face So’Ngo as he landed lightly near Sandra.

“The hell is your problem?” Sandra demanded.

“Oh, by the time I finished going through that list, the Races would already by at a level where intergalactic travel was a norm instead of simply theory,” So’Ngo said cheerily.

“Well you can take that list elsewhere and shove it up your asshole while your at it,” Sandra growled.

“And if I say no?” So’Ngo asked, leaning on his staff, his face a bright smile. Sandra just gave him a level stare as she held up her Oversized Reaper Revolver, already spinning the cylinder to the correct ammo. “Oooooo, scary.” So’Ngo shook his head in disappointment. “A bit of teasing and already resorting to violence? Looks like I might have my work cut out for me.”

“Look, Dra’Cari, I’m really not in the mood to be playing games right now,” Sandra said, thumbing the hammer back on her revolver. “So go away before you get hurt.”

“But life is a game, and it’s so much fun to play,” So’Ngo said with a grin. “You wouldn’t use you’re big scary revolver on a poor civilian refugee, now would you?” There was a blast of air that created a cloud of dust around the red and black Dra’Cari. “I stand corrected,” he said, tilting his head a bit as Sandra stared at him before her gaze hardened and she flipped the revolver again, flicking a switch and causing the weapon to start humming in her hands. So’Ngo brushed his shoulder off, knocking some dust off as he continued to smile. “I guess someone has had a really bad day.”

“Who the hell are you?” Sandra demanded, thumbing a transmitter in her belt. So’Ngo raised an eye-ridge before snapping his fingers again, and Sandra’s transmitter sparked, startling her.

“Rude,” So’Ngo said with a frown. “This is a private party. Also, I got bored of hell, so I went to go hang out with gods instead. And now I’m here after getting bored of hanging out with the gods. Just…Drifting along.” Sandra frowned at the way he said that.

“Start making some sense, or I’ll start shooting first and asking questions later,” Sandra threatened. The red and black Dra’Cari’s smile widened, his smile almost becoming feral while still remaining mischievous.

“Think you can handle that, little Wyvern?” So’Ngo practically purred.

Sandra pulled the trigger.

Prologue Previous Next

Appendix

TOC

[Sandra and Eric TOC]

First / Previous / Next / Tumblr

“Okay, people,” Helen said at the crew’s ’morning’ meeting (and breakfast), “we’re—Hassan. Stop that.”

“Stop what?” He looked at her, genuine befuddlement on his face.

“This table—" she pointed to the cafeteria-style table they were all sitting at in the small mess hall. "—is bolted to the ground, and I can still feel you bouncing your leg up and down.”

He took a long sip of his coffee—real coffee, not the crappy kind that came in pouches—and ceased his incessant fidgeting, looking at her sadly the whole time.

“Thank you.” She sighed. “As I was saying, We’re headed to Vanyanth Prime. But before that,” she said, turning on her laptop, “I wanted to debrief about… about…”

“Everything?” Lombardi offered.

“Yes. That.” She opened up the pared-down, offline word processor that was used by all UN officials to minimize cybersecurity risks. “The UN’s already begun diplomatizing with various Riyzean factions. In that regard, our mission was a total success. With regard to the Myselix…” she frowned. “We didn’t make as much progress as I’d have hoped.” “We did fight off a zombie apocalypse, Helen,” Hassan pointed out. “I’d call that progress.”

“In the sense that we now know that they’re using Drekth as a breeding ground for an army of fungal super soldiers? Sure. That’s progress. But there’re probably hundreds of officials, now spread out across dozens of governments, that were or are working for Project Synthesis, and we don’t have a clue who they are. Even if we manage to keep the situation on Drekth contained, who’s to say they won’t repeat the process on another planet?”

“Megaorganisms are unique to Drekth, Commander,” K’resshk said, enunciating as if he was talking to a child. “They can’t repeat that process.”

“But what about the abandoned ships taken over by the Concord virus, with the…” Lombardi shivered. “The hybrid Myselix?” They weren’t as developed as the recombinants on Drekth, but they’re still incubating them all across the galaxy.”

“And the planet we found,” Krishnan added quietly. “With the sentient species that must have been ‘rejected.’ Dominick… have you looked in the files for a match with that planet’s coordinates? We might—we might be able to find others! Other planets that were rejected and taken over, right?” She put her hands on the table excitedly, almost knocking her cup of tea onto the ground. “Maybe we can save some of them!”

“Not us. We have other priorities,” Helen reminded her. “But Lombardi, if you can take a look and find directions to other ‘rejected’ planets, we’ll fax them over to HQ. I’m just hoping our reports from our last dispatch will prove to them how urgent this is.”

The man nodded stoically. She had to admire his commitment to the investigation, given how much it had impacted him personally.

“Back to the prior topic…” Uuliska ran her finger around the rim of her glass of water—she drank an alarming amount, but that made sense for the princess of a water world. “The UNIA is quite skilled at espionage, yes? Would it be difficult to convince them to infiltrate the new states and uncover any traitors?”

Helen paused. The woman was as quiet as she was shrewd, probably from dealing with politicians for longer than anyone else on the ship had been alive. And based on the look in her eyes, it was clear she’d already concluded that the UNIA was on the job as they spoke.

“It wouldn’t be difficult at all,” she told her carefully.

Uuliska nodded and pulsed faintly with blues, greens and yellows. Her message had been received, it seemed.

“And the Alliance?” Aktet drummed his sharp nails against the table. “What of them?”

Helen looked at Omar. He was the only one she’d informed about her ‘in’ with Arrikin.

“We’ve got it under control, yeah?” He’d always been better about dissuading people’s suspicions than she had, probably because he was incapable of taking anything seriously. “Don’t stress over it.”

“That makes sense. Although I—no, I apologize. Not the time for that.” Aktet sighed.

“Just get it over with, Haymur.” She could tell from the look in his eyes that if he didn’t ask his question, it’d be eating away at him for the rest of his life.

“Why do you ask for confirmation that your words have been understood so often at the end of your sentences? The… the word you use is a synonym for ‘yes,’ I believe.”

Helen raised an eyebrow. She hadn’t noticed it before, but the captain did have a very distinct vocal affectation.

“Oh, uh…” He cleared his throat. “Well, I was stationed in Vancouver for a while after the war, right? In Canada. And I—Helen, you remember I used to have a bit of an accent, yeah—I mean, right?”

She nodded. “I guess. I figured it faded after how much time you’d spent around American English speakers.”

“Wait, is the language you’re speaking right now not your first language?” Aktet looked confused. “But—but you have translators!”

“Don’t always feel like wearing ‘em back home. Arabic’s my first language—Yemeni Arabic if we’re being specific—but I was taught English in school.” He shrugged. “Anyways, I was in Vancouver, and I was embarrassed, I guess. Even though the rest of the people in the base were from all over the inner solar system, I tried to mimic the, uh… native language.”

“Ohhh,” Krishnan said. “So that’s why you sound like you’re a regular customer at Tim Horton’s.”

“Sonja!” Lombardi smacked her on the shoulder. “That’s rude, especially coming from someone who sounds like they have an American accent that got sneezed on by a British one.”

“I went to international school! It’s *refined,” she drawled.

Omar shrugged. “I mean, I do like Tim Horton’s little donut holes and—“

“Can we get back to the issue at hand, please?” Helen glared at the three of them. Not only were they being distracting, they were making her crave sugar, which was arguably worse.

“Yes,” Aktet whispered. “I apologize for bringing up such a sensitive subject.”

“It’s not—“ Helen groaned. “Okay. Riyze, Project Synthesis, Alliance—onto the Vahiya. Vanyanth Prime is our destination.” She tabbed out of the notes she’d been taking and turned her laptop around to display a map of the galaxy with the Vahiya homeworld’s location highlighted. “If our time on Drekth showed us anything, it’s that not having any sort of communications beyond direct messaging and calling makes our lives much harder. Our goal is to find out why the Vahiya have gone radio silent, fix that, stabilize the political situation, and root out any corruption—literally and figuratively—that we find.”

“Radio silent? Has there truly been no communication with the Vahiya since the collapse of the Federation?” Uuliska’s color drained.

“There was at first, but it tapered off into nothing before we could get boots on the ground,” she answered. “We’re not going in guns blazing, but we’ll circle the planet, see if our scanners can pick up anything of note, and deploy.” She turned her laptop back around. “Does anyone here who has spoken to more than a single Vahiya have anything to add?”

“Preliminary reports said that they were experiencing what humans would refer to as a ‘counterculture movement,’ yes?” Aktet steepled his hands. “We should expect a full-scale insurrection, then.”

“Excuse me?” Helen knew about those reports, of course, but how did that translate to something akin to what the Istiil and Riyze had gone through?

“The arts rule nearly every aspect of Vahiya society,” Uuliska clarified. “To experience an upheaval in, say, their music industry, is to destabilize an entire branch of their government.”

“Oh, man. That’s our fault, isn’t it?” Omar asked, putting his head in his hands. “The totally-not-propaganda we sent out…”

“It was a practical decision,” K’resshk said in a clipped tone. “You were under the impression that a total war for the survival of your species was on the horizon, and you used every tool at your disposal to weaken the enemy. Primitive, to give into your base desire to survive so easily, but expected.”

“So you’d have just laid down and died?” Krishnan shook her head. “We need to get you a therapist.”

“Focus, people. Akksor, Lana, that’s valuable information. Thank you.” Helen closed her eyes and focused. “Lombardi, Krishnan, Haymur, I want you to review what we sent them arts-wise and send me any highlights by end of day. Akksor, compare the samples you brought with you from Drekth—"

He drew aback. “You knew I took samples of the recombinants without authorization? How?”

“If I told you, you’d be able to find a way around it next time. Compare them to the genetic data from other samples of Myselix tissue we’ve found in the past, assuming the facilities we have on board are sufficient.”

“Should be,” Invut mumbled. Her voice was low and scratchy. “The medbay has some science-y equipment he could probably use.”

“Did you write down ‘science-y equipment’ on the blueprint for the ship?” Omar was obviously trying to hold back laughter.

“No. I looked through catalogues of Federation and human science ships as a reference. It’s pared down, but it should suffice. I can show you where everything is when you head there, K’resshk.”

“I’m certain I could find it on my own, but if it pleases you,” he said snippily.

“Hassan, run the math on how many jumps it’ll take us to get to the system.” She waited for him to give a thumbs-up before standing up.

And then she saw Uuliska sitting quietly, her colors muted and her expression blank.

“And Lana,” she added, “come with me.”

The princess looked up, surprised, then glowed softly. “Yes, ma’am.”

___

“So,” Sonja said, crawling under her minimalist bunk and scooping up Wojtek, “when we get to the movies, do you want me to leave you two alone so you can have a little date?”

“Sonja!” Dominick blushed profusely. “You can’t just—that’s not—" He groaned.

An opening, Aktet realized.

“You’re saying it’s a bad idea? How hurtful,” he told the human, laying a hand to his forehead dramatically.

“Woah, when did Haymur learn to flirt? Have you been studying?” Sonja sat down in her bed and put the shrieker in her lap, then cooed at him as he wriggled around like some sort of grub.

“Did you really think I spent my days before first contact cloistered in some study? I…” He paused to consider this. “Actually, I can’t blame you for that,” he murmured. “I suppose I am rather timid in most situations.”

She gasped. “No way. This isn’t your first relationship?”

“Oh, so we’re just saying it out in the open now, are we?” Dominick slid down the wall he was sitting against.

“Dude. Commander Liu literally called you guys out for PDA in our group chat the other day.”

“That wasn’t PDA! We were standing close to each other for safety!”

“Suuuure. You didn’t answer my question, though,” she said, picking up Wojtek’s front paw and pointing it at Aktet.

“Are you expecting me to recount my romantic history? I assure you, it’s nothing exciting. Brief flings at academic conferences, mostly. Jikaal don’t ‘date’ in the same capacity humans do. Our families tend to arrange partnerships, though the potential couple has the final say.”

“No, we have that too. Not as much as we used to, but sometimes.” Sonja shrugged. “My parents met that way.”

Dominick was silent. Unusually so.

Oh. “Wait, Dominick, I didn’t mean—that’s not how—" He laughed nervously. “I-I actually quite admire the human method of doing things, you know,” he stuttered.

“Huh? Yeah, I figured,” he said with a bashful smile.

“Oh, thank the Queen-Mother. You were being so quiet, I thought I had offended you!”

“I’m just trying not to provoke that… thing.” He locked eyes with Wojtek, whose eyestalks were undulating as Sonja scratched behind them.

“If you make an effort to form a relationship with him while he’s still young, he’ll be much more receptive to you in the future,” Aktet explained.

The shrieker made a noise that sounded like gravel being poured onto sheet metal in response to that assertion, hunching its back up like an Earth arachnid about to pounce.

“Pretty sure that was a yes,” Sonja said. “Anyways, what did we send into Federation space, again?”

“Older stuff, mostly,” Dominick answered. “Things that have stood the test of time. Books, songs, movies, shows, plays, video games, that sort of thing, but usually with an anti-authoritarian leaning.”

“Risky,” Aktet realized. “Most species aren’t taught how to search for deeper meanings in narratives the way many humans are. Even the Vahiya have mostly abandoned that pursuit for the sake of appealing to the Federation masses. I wouldn’t be surprised if there have been some significant misunderstandings.”

“Like Judge Sovka and her ‘interrogations,’” she muttered.

“Yes. It’s fortunate that I’m Jikaal, as otherwise, I would have no hope of fully comprehending the texts Dominick provides me with. But I digress.”

Dominick hummed. “Is there any way for us to get access to some Vahiya media so we can figure out what they started with, Aktet?”

He pondered this. “It might be difficult, given the lack of—"

“Here, I got some!” Sonja shoved her laptop in their direction.

“Huh?” Aktet took it and scooted closer to Dominick. You know, for normal, professional laptop-viewing purposes. Had she actually…?

Yes, she had. In front of him, despite the lack of a proper holo-film player or theater, was a version of Kalsikya and Twiqal, a cliché romance between an actress and her costume designer. It was Aktet’s least favorite film of all time.

He swallowed his distaste. At the very least, it was oddly distorted—the three-dimensional images had been… staggered, into a red layer and a blue layer, which overlapped and moved at the same time.

“Oh, no. Aktet looks like he’s about to throw up. Hold on, lemme go…” Sonja ran out of the room.

“I’m fine!” He called out after her. “I’m…” She was already gone. “I just have a strong distaste for this film,” he told Dominick. “An opinion which the rest of the galaxy does not share.”

“What’s wrong with it?” He sat cross-legged on the ground and rested his face in his hands, elbows balanced on his thighs.

“As much as I’m sure you like the sound of me talking,” he teased, “you do not want to get me started. There have been multiple instances during which, while I was intoxicated, Hatshut had to physically shut my mouth to stop me from ranting about how terrible this ‘movie’ is.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

“You are attempting to provoke me into going on one such rant, and it will not work. Where did Sonja go?” Aktet just needed to distract himself for a little longer.

“To fabricate 3D glasses. She probably thought the distortion was making you nauseous. I can’t believe your holo-films are just… this,” he said, pointing at the screen.

“This? You mean the red and blue? That isn’t typical, no. They’re holograms, after all, truly three-dimensional. I’ve never seen anything like this befor—“

“Here!” Sonja burst back into the room and shoved flimsy, paper and plastic glasses with colored lenses onto Aktet’s head.

“By the Queen-Mother,” he whispered. “How… how did you accomplish this?”

The laptop had transformed into what looked like a home holo-viewing box, but flat. He took the glasses off, and the garbled, two-dimensional picture returned. He put them back on. Took them back off. Rinse and repeat.

“3D movie glasses!” She handed Dominick a pair and kept one for herself. “One of Zie’s friends turned the frames of a real holo-film into these layers. They’ve been working on this project for a while, actually, and posting updates on the forum she runs, which I finally have a consistent connection to.” She pointed at the cable linking her device to the FTL comms port that each cabin had next to its bed.

“It’s possible such a mechanism existed before the other species were introduced to the Sszerians and the Vahiya, but it would be lost to the sands of time by now. That is fascinating. Truly.”

“Anyways,” Sonja said, “Zie’s friend told me that this would be a good pick for an overview of Federation pop culture. Shall we start with it?”

“Zie’s friend is either an imbecile or has a strong distaste of Federation popular culture,” Aktet muttered. “But fine. Just prepare yourselves for what is quite possibly the worst film experience known to sentient life, and I’ll attempt to stay quiet.”

They made it two minutes in before he couldn’t help himself anymore and launched into a diatribe, the contents of which his companions jotted down as crucial insight into their upcoming mission.

___

Neither K’resshk nor Eza had spoken since she’d finished giving him a tour of the (surprisingly adequate—likely because of the incorporation of Federation technology) new medbay. They’d just been sitting there, her on the bed, him on a nearby step stool. The walls were white and sterile, and the room smelled plasticky. Freshly constructed.

“I always thought it was interesting how much sleep the Riyze need,” he said quietly. “I suppose that’s why you sleep in packs, taking turns.”

“Mhm.” She mumbled an acknowledgement.

“Humans can go for over a week without sleeping before they risk death. For Riyze, it takes about half as long for such severe consequences to come into play.”

No response.

“How much sleep did you get this past night, would you say?”

“Do you have to ask?” Her voice was low and scratchy.

That almost certainly meant ‘none.’

“Were you intentionally keeping yourself awake?” He stared at his tablet, not viewing anything in particular. He just wanted an excuse to not look his her in the eyes, for the lack of light in them frightened him.

“Yeah,” she said plainly. “It’s not real pain, you know.”

This was the first he was hearing about any sort of pain. “Elaborate?”

“When I woke up on the Whitson, after everything that happened on Drekth, I thought I was in really bad pain. But…” She sighed. “If being stabbed causes pain, then whatever this is… is pain from the pain. It’s a degree removed. And when I woke up screaming the other night, it was an extra degree removed. Like…” She grit her teeth. “Damn it. I don’t know how to explain. But at least it’s not real pain, right?” She huffed. “So it’s not anything to worry about.”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that waking up screaming and feeling ‘pain from pain’ isn’t something to worry about,” he told her, “and instead ask what this ‘removed pain’ feels like.”

“Like my insides are burning up.” She shrugged. “And my head’s squirming.”

Squirming—that reminded him of how Uuliska had described the mass at the base of Eza’s skull moving when she entered that frenzy state. Could it be related to whatever was in there?

“That’s… useful to know, but you still need to sleep,” he reminded her.

“I’m surprised you care,” she grumbled. “I thought you were still plotting to overthrow humanity with Aktet as your second-in-command.”

His throat sac vibrated. “You’re attempting to distract me, and it isn’t going to work.”

“Why are you even still here?” She laughed. “No one’s forcing you to work for humanity. Or work ‘with’ humanity, if lying about it makes you feel better.”

“Sleep deprivation causes irritability in nearly every species,” he cautioned, trying his best not to think too hard about her words.

“Isn’t that what I’m here for? To be scared and angry all the time?” She stood up. “Look at me. I’m a freak of nature even by Riyze standards, probably because of whatever those bastards stuck in my head. Eight and a half feet tall and solid muscle, prone to sudden murder sprees. The humans shoved me in a uniform and handed me a wrench, but every time we’re planetside, all they want me to do with it is bash the bad guys’ brains out. I’m just doing my duty.” She tensed up, her muscles coiled.

“Eza,” he said quietly. “You designed this entire ship. You very likely ushered in a new age of aerospatial engineering for the entire galaxy. You are a talented engineer who has been forced to use every tool at her disposal to survive.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re terrified I’m going to throw you out of the airlock.” Her eyes were alive now—glistening, red-rimmed, and darting across the room.

“I’m saying that because I don’t want to be patching up casualties of war anymore than you want to be inflicting them, but both of us, whatever our faults may be, are trying to do the right thing,” he told her, more than a little surprised at the words coming out of his mouth.

“I’m just trying to survive, man,” she said shakily. “Not die a heroic death.”

“Then take care of yourself.”

“But it’s—"

“What? Scary? I think it’d be scarier for Uuliska, if you were to make a critical error while on the job and kill us all in a warp drive malfunct—"

“Don’t bring her into this,” she whispered, but there was no bite to her words. “I’m…I’m leaving.” She got up and slammed the door shut.

But she turned towards their cabins—not the engine room. Going to lie down, most likely. He watched her depart via the small windows in the medbay doors.

It’s funny, he thought to himself, where always abiding by the Federation’s rules has landed the both of us.

___

“So, um, Commander,” Uuliska began, studying the woman as she stared intently at the ship’s main console, “why did you call me up here?”

“To find you a job.”

“H-huh?” Her colors drained. “I—but I—"

“Legally have a job, yes,” Commander Liu said. “But ‘xenological affairs consultant’ is the most bullshit title I’ve ever heard, and neither of us wants you sitting in your cabin doing nothing.”

“Oh! I appreciate the concern,” she said, searching for some way to deflect from the fact that her greatest insecurity had just been poked at, “but I—“

“Emphasis on ‘neither of us,’ Lana. I’m not doing this out of the kindness of my heart; I’m doing it because I need every bit of help I can get on this mission. And don’t take it personally. You were wounded in action, and I haven’t been much help finding a role for you in this crew.”

“R-right.” She looked down at the ground. “I know what you mean. Without my abilities, Agent Lombardi and Aktet have sort of, um… replaced me, in terms of reading people and offering insight into the Federation way of life.” It was true, and it was terrible for Uuliska’s mental health.

“You’re a trained diplomat, correct?” The commander lowered herself into her chair at the helm. “We can always use more of that on a mission like this, but you need to put yourself out there.”

“I don’t… I don’t know if I want to,” she confessed.

The commander closed her eyes and nodded. “Elaborate?”

“It started even before the injury,” she explained, wrapping her arms around herself. “Being a diplomat, as an Istiil, means letting the emotions of a room wash over you, and change the way you feel. K’resshk once phrased it as ‘averaging’ the sentiments of the people around you, and finding an agreeable course of action or ideal way of phrasing things from there. And for species with telepathic resistance, you mimic that process using facial expressions and body language to, well, embody them.”

“So you were a conduit, then,” the woman muttered.

“You could say that, yes. When I was, um, ‘taken in’ by humanity, I no longer had to do that. It was so freeing,” she whispered, “to be allowed to find sanctuary in my own emotions. And as horrible as this sounds, it only got better once I lost my telepathy. But this is unusual amongst my peers, who enjoy the sort of work I did. I thought I enjoyed it, too, but I realize now…” She sighed. “I expected to feel satisfaction after what we accomplished back in the bazaar—after proving to my brother that I was capable and self-sufficient—but going back to that was so tiring.”

Commander Liu let out a low whistle. “I bet. That sounds like my worst nightmare. Can’t blame you for wanting an out, but we need to find where that out leads to. In the time you’ve spent with us, has anything… piqued your interest?” She cringed. “I sound like a career counselor.”

“I can’t say I’ve contemplated it.”

“What do you do for fun? You got any hobbies?” The woman spun around, grabbed her laptop, and started typing.

“Um… spending time with Eza?”

Commander Liu shook her head. “This is gonna take a while, isn’t it?”

___

It didn’t end up taking a while like Helen thought it would, but that was because there wasn’t much to talk about. Uuliska was sheltered in more ways than one—she’d revealed she’d been kept so busy that she didn’t have time for hobbies.

“Okay.” Helen massaged her temples. “I have an idea.”

“Truly?” The princess lit up.

“How about you ‘apprentice’ with the rest of the crew, one by one? Help them out with their duties so you can get a sense of your options?” She closed her laptop, trying to keep her face neutral. She was scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of strategies, here.

“But wouldn’t that reintroduce the same issue of me not wanting to overstep any—"

“This is just to get the ideas flowing,” Helen elaborated, well aware that her plan amounted to stalling for time while Uuliska discovered her true calling, if such a thing even existed. “Why don’t you start with—Hassan?” She frowned and looked around the deck. “Where’d he get off to?”

“In here,” came a muffled voice from the FTL comms room. “Little busy right now, but gimme like fifteen!”

“How much do you wanna bet it’s about his ‘daughter?’”

“Captain Hassan has a daughter?” Uuliska gasped. “I thought—"

“Oh, shit. We never told you, did we? He adopted Zie so we could get her to Earth safely.”

“But—but aren’t human parents expected to—“

“Well, it started as just a legal thing, but he’s…” She lowered her voice. “He got attached quickly. And then there’s the issue of her currently residing with the president of the United Nations…”

___

“Zie? What the he—“ Omar cut himself off. “What the heck are you wearing, kid?”

Zie buzzed in irritation. “A prison jumpsuit.”

All dolled up in a pleated black tartan skirt and a collared shirt with a grey-blue cardigan overtop, she shifted around uncomfortably in her ballet flats, causing the light to reflect off of her dark brown carapace. A long blue ribbon was pinned by her neck—one would be forgiven for thinking she was donning some kind of prep school uniform, but there was no insignia to be found.

“She’s wearing proper attire,” said a voice with a strong Haitian accent from off-screen. “I can’t have her waltzing around my estate in the clothes of a vagabond if I’m entertaining guests.”

“President Francois. Of course,” he muttered under his breath.

“I heard that, Colonel,” she called out, coming into view with a stack of documents. She put the papers down and scanned Zie’s outfit. “Tch. You’ve already scuffed your shoes.” She bent down and used her finger to rub away the blemish.

“I don’t think putting her in designer clothes is going to help your guests get over the shock of an alien walking past them. No offense, kid.”

“Well, I can’t just keep her secluded in a wing of my residence like a captive. And someone needs to instill some discipline. I’m still being ambushed by rogue homunculi,” she complained, showing off a bandaged hand. “Although we’ve captured most of them.”

“Can’t she dress the way she wants to when you don’t have anyone over? I think that’s a reasonable compromise.” Did Francois’s guests expect her to wear pantsuits 24/7 or something? Did she have nighttime pantsuits and daytime pantsuits?

…I wouldn’t put it past her.

“I suppose you are her—"

“The one who brought her here,” Omar interrupted.

“…Yes. That.” She looked bemused at his attempt to conceal the truth of the situation from Zie. “Fine. But no more ‘radical’ ripped clothing, please. I don’t want your tutors thinking I’m dressing you in rags.”

Her tutors? “She’s in school now? Isn’t it summer back on Earth?”

“Considering she’s fourteen years behind most children here, I’d say it’s fair that she’s in summer school, Colonel. She has been doing well, though, particularly in language arts and social studies. Mathematics is… a different story, but her performance is passable.”

“She’s just mad I do my math with base-eight numbers instead of base-ten. You know, ‘cuz I’ve got eight digits?” She wiggled her claw-fingers, four on each hand (which she only possessed on her upper two arms—not on the lower two sets, which more closely resembled those of a cockroach or beetle, and tapered off into little nubs). “Ms. Moseley—that’s my math teacher—thinks it’s funny.”

“Can you forward me her report cards, at least?” Even if Zie was just barely passing, that was still incredible. Assuming the Kth’sk taught drones math (not a certainty), to be able to adapt to a completely different numerical system should’ve been celebrated, not derided. Maybe he’d send money over to get her a… a present of some kind.

Damn it. I don’t even know what she’d want as a present, he realized.

“Yes, I can do that for you. Are we finished here, Zie? Do you have any more requests to make of Colonel Hassan, ideally ones that don’t involve convincing me to lower my expectations for you?”

“Nah, that’s it. Come back soon, though, okay? It’s boring without you around. Um, and the others too. Bye!” She waved, and the call ended.

“You too, kid,” he whispered, his voice cracking.

“Hassan,” said Helen as she entered the room. “Are you done your—are you crying?”

“N-no,” he lied. “I have allergies.”

“On the newly constructed ship? What are you allergic to?”

Shit. “Newly constructed ships…?”

She rolled her eyes. “Uuliska,” she called out behind her. “Change of plans. Go tell K’resshk you’re his lab assistant for the next few hours.”

Shutting the door to the comms room and turning the lights on, Helen sighed. “What happened?”

“Nothing. Zie just needed me to convince Francois to let her dress in hoodies and stuff when there isn’t anyone important visiting her estate, and filled me in on how she’s doing in her summer schooling. Apparently she’s getting ‘creative’ with how she does her math.”

“Tale as old as time. Jenny’s third grade teacher chewed her out for ‘multiplying wrong,’ by which she meant memorizing her times table ahead of schedule instead of adding five plus five ten times in a row.” Shaking her head in distaste, she leaned against what little of the wall wasn’t covered in hologram technology. “Have you told her yet?”

“That I’m her—her guardian?” He choked on his words, unwilling to call himself anything further than that. “I haven’t.”

“She’s going to find out eventually. I don’t even know what you’re scared of. She certainly won’t be upset about it.”

With a dry mouth, he began to speak. “I’m scared of making it real,” he whispered. “Of getting more attached than I already am, and letting her get more attached than she already is.”

Turning the lights back off and opening the door to the bridge, Helen gestured for him to follow her out. They took their seats silently, staring into the endless expanse of stars just beyond the bounds of the Leavitt.

“You’re being selfish, Omar,“ she murmured, startling him both with her bluntness and her rare use of his first name.

“Y-yeah?” It wasn’t often the commander took a dig at his character. His recklessness, maybe, but he liked to think he was a good person, and that the people around him saw that. So hearing his role model and idol, but more importantly, his friend say such a thing was a shock.

“You’re getting cold feet. Being a—a caretaker, a guardian, whatever you want to call it—isn’t something to get cold feet about. You need to make a decision now if you’re serious about this. No more deflecting with jokes like you usually do. I put up with that shit, but that’s because I’m a grown woman whose mental health isn’t dependent on how you treat me. Tell her, or figure out a way to legally wash your hands of her.”

“Wash my hands of—are you insane?!” He looked at her in disbelief. “That’d be cruel!”

“Then you better mark Fathers’ Day down on your calendar, because that’s your only other option at this point. You’ll ’figure something out,’ right?” She snorted. “I’m not saying this to be a dick, for what it’s worth. I’m saying this for your sake and for her’s.”

“Yeah. I guess.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Course is charted, by the way.” Gesturing to his finished navigational work, neatly plotted on some spare copy paper (he couldn’t focus when he used the proper digital software), he drummed his fingers against the console and resumed his stargazing.

He’d noticed how pretty it was, honestly. Even past the LED overlay, he felt his breath catch in his chest. How long had it been since he’d taken the time to slow down and pay homage to the glittering seas he sailed in? Had he ever?

It’s always been can’t stop, won’t stop. As if he could out-speed the inevitability of aging, and of ending up like his parents—strict authority figures who loved him, but didn’t really like him. Was that what he was so scared of? Ending up like them the minute he put down roots and became a ‘family man?’ Or was it some selfish desire to keep chasing the praise and adoration he got for being a risk-taker willing to put his life on the line for the greater good?

“I’m scared of change, you know?” He turned to lock eyes with Helen, who raised an eyebrow at his proclamation. “I’m afraid of… of losing my X factor, I guess. Of losing me.”

“Bullshit.” She tossed the stack of papers onto the console with a thwack. “You know why humanity shook the galaxy to its core? Because we change—not just because we all have ‘different X factors.’ We’re not sitting ducks like every other species has been since they were frozen in time by the Federation. When I was drafted, I was terrified of losing who I was, and sometimes I still am. But unless one of those Istiil weirdos memory wipes who I used to be, that little shithead throwing bricks at the windows of the nearest UN branch is still me.”

“Remind me to look for your mugshots later,” he joked. “But I’ll think about what you said.”

“Good luck with that. The UNIA scrubbed those from the internet years ago."

He sighed. “Damn it.”

First / Previous / Next / Tumblr

SURVEY ONE: MY OLD EARTH WANTS ME DEAD

A military survey team returns to an abandoned Earth and discovers that something from ancient German folklore has flourished after the humans and their alien invaders have long since departed.

Title Inspiration: The Queensberry Rules established a code of fair play in boxing, while the British East India Company became one of history’s most powerful corporations through conquest, exploitation, and extraction, all in the name of progress.

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is First Leftenant Kermit Rodgers Felder, ranking officer, Seventeenth Platoon Legionnaires, Queensberry Company… and if I am not mistaken, I fear this will be my last report. Since I am unable to write or access my vocoder at the moment, you’ll forgive me for delivering my address orally. As I am the only one who will ever hear it, aside from the female I am here with now... I submit this entry for posterity and because, like all proud Legionnaires, I am a completionist.

Ahem… Let’s see… the mission began at 23 hundred hours. The Queensberry disembarked Moon Station Cormorant and ‘ported into a dense stretch of forest without incident, molecular or otherwise. Twenty exemplary soldiers under the command of Major Francis X. Beauregard. He led Queensberry on three sweeps prior and I found him sure-footed, decisive, and a dyed in the wool Imperialist. He had my respect, and the respect of the men. I - I just felt it important - to caveat that. 

Our continuing objective was to recon blackout sectors of forest along Earth’s 49th parallel, Old Germania. We were responding to an alert of an uncatalogued tribe ambushing and crucifying settlers along trade routes. We were to identify these rogue bushmen and remind them they are the king’s subjects and they will behave as such!

Groan (squeezed)

(Through gritted teeth)

The thought of any earthling still wearing tree bark, practicing religion and speaking in clicky-clicky languages was, well, offensive, actually. In the most practical terms, with all of our off-planet competition, we just can’t afford to carry the primitives on our backs anymore.
 
(Deep breath then Back in report voice)
With teleportation being as physically exhausting as it is, we pitched camp upon materializing, assigned sentries and slept in rotations. By oh-six hundred hours, we were breaking camp and erasing any trace that we had been there. 

As we rolled up our sleeping foils, Major Beauregard took the moment to reinforce in us that like the Romans, the Ottomans, the Venusians and the Kilgareh who preceded us, we carried the heavy burden of bringing civilization where only savagery exists. This kind of motivation was common before a sweep-and-kill mission.  Not that we hadn’t already embraced the belief that civility is quickest achieved with the sharp end of a spear, or in our case a 988 Rapid Rail Long Gun, also known as the Longfellow.

In the midst of this, I took notice of our second-in-command, Captain Pavelle. He had misplaced his cap and was in a bit of a dervish looking for it. There was no way he was leaving without that lucky hat, which featured a charred bullet hole in the earflap where a round just missed the broadside of his head. We typically turned a blind eye to the Captain’s superstitions as they bordered on religion. But old-world customs often took a generation or two to breed out, we accept this. And Pavelle was literally one gen removed from a silicon mine on Proteus. In a way he was no different than this planet, here – Earth - still rebuilding societal order after two eras under alien rule. Pavelle’s lower class shame was redeemed in the Legionnaires. That said, Legionnaires are tightly regimented in our behaviors. We don’t bunk down until our neatly folded caps are resting atop of our neatly folded field jackets. When he finally spotted it, under a bush, he was so happy to see it, he made the egregious misstep of not questioning how it got there. Especially since it was still neatly folded.

We all were watching as he knelt down to reach under the shrubbery. He made a big enough fuss about it. But we didn’t expect… (breath/sigh) It was when he got within an inch of the hat that we first saw… the long, emaciated fingers and jagged grey fingernails of a slender hand, pocked with sun spots and grey-blue veins... It snaked out from beneath the leaves and snatched the Captain by his forearm. 

He reflexively pulled back, yanking the thing with him and out of its hidey-hole. It used that momentum to propel up his sleeve. A three-foot-long, nimble blur shooting up his arm then swinging itself over his shoulder before settling on his back. In the same continuous motion, it wrapped its naked boney legs around him and criss-crossed at the ankles. It was secured in place, and finally, still enough to discern.  It looked like a very little, very old man. Bone-thin with loose white skin. A bald head with thin strands of hair wisping about his fleshy skull. Most notably, a nose and chin that were so long and pointed that they almost touched in front of the tight, chapped slit that passed for lips. Its only coverings were a piece of tarp with a hole cut for his head and a rope cinched at the waist. 

The Captain grappled furiously with his diminutive attacker. He was a champion martial artist and I have personally seen him bench twenty stone. But still, from his back, that emaciated old codger grabbed him at the wrists and squeezed its legs to compress the Captain’s torso. He was already toppling over when the men and I tackled him. At least seven sets of burly arms in a thrashing tug of war - but the thing, this old man, it had fused to him somehow. Maybe it secreted something… maybe it was psychic in nature. But very quickly we learned that pulling them apart caused the Captain tremendous pain. He was too well trained to scream out in the forest, but the agony was evident in his visage. Pvt McMurphy had managed to get the old man in a headlock, but released when he saw Captain Pavelle was choking and had turned red. There was definitely some sort of pain transference. Even now, with more intimate knowledge, I struggle with the mechanics of this creature. 

It was Pvt. Luxor who got close and found an opening to take a shot. He pressed his breach pistol against it and loosed a rail at its cranium. But somehow, in yet another inexplicable defiance of physics, it was Captain Pavelle’s head that burst apart. Exploded in a mist of red vapor and bits, like the breach had been pressed against his head!

His body immediately folded. Poor Luxor was agape. We all were. Before the Captain’s arms could even go limp, the  creature shoved off and made a beeline between the men - quick as a whip – and low to the ground. The camp was in chaos as we spun our weapons every which way trying to track a shot and not rail each other in the process. 

Its eyes locked on Major Beauregard and bolted right at him. The Major was a quick draw. But before his trigger finger had a chance to squeeze, the creature was already spiraling up his arm. He couldn’t shake it. Like Captain Pavelle a moment ago, Major Beauregard now had this thing on his back with its legs securing it and its arms holding his neck in a lock. Several of us yelled to “hold fire!” and “barrels down!” 

(Squeeze groan telling him, telling him to chill out. But he pushes against it)

The Major himself didn’t have the air to speak, but frantically waved us off. The thing scanned the team with those pin-prick eyes. I could see its mind working against us. Then… It whispered in the Major’s ear. It spoke! It was a raspy hiss, but I distinctly recognized the harsh ich and bauch of native German. Like some sort of indigenous relic – the back-to-back alien invasions and the evacuating of my kind had allowed for all manner of resurgence. Creatures once thought made up suddenly allowed to thrive.

(breathing again)
And now this fairytale ghoul rested his chin on the shoulder of a Major in the King’s army and whispered a mud tongue in his ear. To our continued horror, the Major listened intently… and parroted the utter nonsense that was fed to him – saying: he didn’t want to fight. He’s unarmed. But he knows who we are looking for… and he will guide us there. 

With communication established, I leaned in. What is his name? What does he want? The creature whispered in the Major’s ear – and he reiterated: He needed an escort through the forest. Our objective is on the way to where he’s going. He will show us in exchange for the escort. Call him Auffhocker.

I could see the men struggling with the circumstances. I asked the Major if he was ordering us to escort his parasite. And he affirmed without the creature telling him to do so. I mean - There is no protocol for this. With the Captain dead, I found myself suddenly the second ranking member of the squad - and feeling very much like the first ranking member was under the control of a hostile. We certainly couldn’t follow his direction. At the same time, if we made a move against it, we risked our leader’s safety… 
I needed to buy time to think, so I suggested we pause to bury our Captain’s body. The thing responded into the Major’s ear. The Major approved the pause, and suggested we eat as well. We had just had our breakfast rations – but this worked well. I told the men to eat their R40’s. 

My mind spent the next moments racing. It wouldn’t be long before the Captain was in the ground and the lunch rations were scarfed down. Major Beauregard was sitting on a log in a sad state. His Auffhocker gave him just enough agency to carry on small conversations with the troops, but the thing had reduced him to a marionette, manipulating the Major’s arms to hand feed his food right into its mouth. His uniform was stained with the old man’s dirt and food juices spilled from its hole.

I quickly but discreetly collected the two remaining officers, Second Leftenant Bowman and Lance Corporal Yang. If I was going to make a move, any move, then it had to be kept out of earshot of that thing. And if I were to make a move that potentially relieved the Major of command, then I would need to assemble a quorum of available officers. Nobody wanted a mutiny charge.

Yang was emphatic when he said the men felt like we would be led to slaughter. He argued that our adherence to order is superseded by our circumstances. Now, to me, the wishes of  fifteen grunts don’t outweigh even a debilitated Major. Not by a stretch. But then Bowman spoke up. In the most solemn of tones he told us that at one point, he found a moment to make eye contact with the Major. And that the Major gave him a nod... or a look… that implied he knew what we must do and the price of it … And that he wished it done. That is a lot to infer from a single look. Regardless, we didn’t see another way.

We hatched a plan.  In order to ditch Auffhocker, we’d convince him that we had to re-route to a path that ran along a ravine just twelve minutes from here; we’d cut over and head up. Along the way, we’d flank the Major, and when an opening presented - one of us would shove the Major and his passenger over. It would be a 12 story drop to the rocks below. I don’t care what you are, that kind of impact is quite final. If I sound cold in recounting this, just know we were tortured by our decision.

I ordered Yang to quietly survey the men. For a pact this dark, it had to be unanimous. I also decided right then, that as the next ranking officer, it had to be me that gave the push. 

The votes were in. I approached the Major, still parked on that log, still feeding fruit slices to his captor. I served up the only reasoning I could come up with: since we were down a man, we should reroute along a nearby cliff side. That would give us one less flank to have to defend from our target tribe. Made sense. As soon as the Major voiced agreement, the Auffhocker constricted his legs enough to crack a rib and hissed angrily in his ear. The Major asked if there were any other way. What I mean to say is, it felt like it was the Major doing the asking. I shook my head. Surprisingly, and in hindsight, suspiciously, the Auffhocker agreed to our scheme.

(time lapse)

By zero nine hundred hours, the Queensberry were marching in-line, with the ridge of the cliff to our right and dense forest on our left. At any moment, the very tribesman we were here to stop could appear and complicate our plan. But I was fixated on that subhuman sack of excrement that was perched on the Major. The Major didn’t speak a word to us. He was eyes-forward. State of surrender.

At that moment I was still unsure there wasn’t a better way. One that wasn’t adjacent to mutiny or murder. I went back and forth until… like an answer to my inner-monologue, the Major finally turned his head and looked my way. I saw his eyes, yeah… The overture wasn’t surrender at all… it was “do it!” I saw determination. His scrunched lips didn’t have to part to scream “Do it!”

(A tight squeeze to the narrator’s chest by his captor to calm him down)

Second Leftenant Bowman suddenly fired a shot to draw attention. I didn’t order him to – but I didn’t hesitate. I charged the Major, shoulder first, putting every pound of torque into it, hitting him at his center of gravity and lifting him off the ground. Auffhocker’s squinting eyelids finally went wide. I shocked him. He tried to grab me but missed by inches. They were gravity’s problem now. As for the Major, didn’t flail. Didn’t yell out. 

We all rushed to the edge. I felt someone grab me from falling over. Even before they hit the ground, me... the men... we knew we had crossed a line that we would have to answer for. It felt like hours, but seconds later there was a squelching thud. They were dashed on the rocks. The Major came apart like a pumpkin.

But damn, if that Auffhocker didn’t immediately slither off of him and bolt for the cliff. It was climbing! Fast! Like it was second nature. It SCREAMED a punishing scream at us! Before I could even give the order, the men took flight into the woods. I was right behind them!

We ran. Casting off our jackets to make up speed. No idea where or when to stop, just full steam ahead. Hats flying off. It’s every man for himself, and woe be the slowest of eighteen. I lost sight of most of them - only to run into them, gathered just outside the tree line where they had abruptly stopped for some reason. Everyone was breathing heavily, absolutely freaked out. We found ourselves in a clearing that was semi-sealed with a crescent-shaped rock formation that was boxing us in. Climbing it wasn’t an option and there was nowhere to run but back - back towards Auffhocker. That was not an option. We didn’t have options… But that didn’t mean we couldn’t have a plan. 

I remember yelling for the men to close ranks around me. These men I have known as brave warriors now staring up at me like lost children. If I just had more time to come up with something else I would have. Even now I am lost for solutions… so I proposed the most desperate gentleman’s deal of all. A tontine. I laid out what we knew already: that that little devil was going to come rocketing out of that forest at any second. And he will lock onto one of us – and that soldier will die just like the Major and the Captain before him. But ahead of that, yes, we will form a firing line and throw everything we have at it. We will light that forest up. But when it dodges every shot, which it will, and latches onto one of us, which it will, we must agree now that the remainder of us will hold that man down. And we will drag that man to the rocks… and we will lower the biggest boulder we can lift onto his chest, killing him, but pinning the monster to the ground once and for all.

The men stood at attention and saluted…. And one by one voiced their confirmation with an “aye, aye.” Then we turned to face the forest. Eighteen longfellows and breach pistols scanning the tree line for the slightest movement. Eighteen pairs of eyeballs too afraid to blink. - looking at a hundred shadows the parasite could spring from – hoping you’re not the one it fancies.

Without warning it leapt from our two-o’clock and was galloping towards us at a full clip. Legs over hands. Throwing up puffs of dirt each time its claws or feet left the ground. Everyone started yelling and firing rail after rail. It zigged with inhuman command of velocity; sometimes banking 90-degree zags while still propelling forward.

It closed the distance in seconds, sending us into a free for all. We were scrambling and climbing over our brothers like maggots until a shriek cut through the chaos. Auffhocker had made his choice, it was Pvt. Vegas. We grabbed them as they tussled and dragged the duo to a predetermined section of the rocks. Lance Corporal Yang and Four privates were our designated pallbearers, tasked with hoisting a thousand-pound boulder aloft atop them. 

My heart broke with the sound of Pvt. Vega’s chest buckling under its weight. He was quickly… so very dead. Auffhocker was alive… of course. Pinned under the boulder. One long, veiny arm desperately grasping for anything. We all stood silent. Wrecked. Not much like proud warriors at all. No.

Moving the boulder had destabilized the rock formation. We heard it rumble and backed up as the side facing us tumbled down with a crash just a few feet away. When the dust cleared, a crater inside of the rock wall was revealed. And inside, what looked like a giant, dirty pomegranate, was a hive. A hive full of those things … scores and scores of Auffhocker. Hanging off of each other like baby marsupials. Oh, how embarrassingly foolish we had been! Of course, it targeted our officers over grunts! Of course, it allowed us to reroute along the cliff!  

Those shriveled, unwashed savages rained down on us, sweeping the  Queensberry up in a riptide of claws, knees and elbows. I hammered one in the face while three others snaked my legs. Someone grabbed my neck. Another grabbed my wrists. There was no winning this fight. I was laid prone in seconds and adorned with an Auffhocker of my own.

(being squeezed) Garrr, yes, YOU, bitch!

(catching his breath) It is hours later... I sit here, just outside of their lair and deliver this report to no one… on my back: a little, filthy old lady with an unforgiving grip. She told me to call her Auffhocker. Isn’t that right, love?

The rest of Queensberry Company sits here with jockeys of their own. We make eye contact with each other for just a second then look away. I know they are feeling what I am feeling. The humiliation of an elite, twenty-man squad being bested by a little old man who never pulled a gun or threw a punch. The cowardice in how we clawed and stepped over each other to avoid the monster. And the shame of having murdered three of our own for nothing.

We are their damn service animals now. Made to hand feed them the very fruit they make us climb trees to pick. That’s when we’re not breaking our backs rebuilding their rock lair. If we slow or resist, they hiss their threats and punish us psychically. It’s entirely possible they will work us until we are dead…. 
 
Well, how about that... Now that I hear myself describe it out loud - Hahaha the irony ARGH! (his Auffhocker compresses his ribs to shut him up). You clever forest creeps. Bravo. I’d clap if I could. We came out here, intent on forcing civilization on the savages – hahaha – but in the end… it seems they have civilized us. Hahaha

(squeeze - CRACK).

"Careful of spies, my King." The raven led Adam around several different empty tents arranged within the war camp before finally settling into one. "They could be anywhere still – we mustn't let our guard down."

Adam didn't necessarily disagree with the new Grandmaster of Puppets, though he struggled to fear the notion of foreign spies infiltrating their camp as much as he ought to. Nevertheless, her advice had seen Penumbria through much, and he decided it was wiser to oblige. "Who would those spies even report to nowadays?" he asked. "Ciro is dead."

Saying the words aloud still didn't make them feel real. It wasn't the worst problem to have. Adam would enjoy getting used to the concept of a world without Ciro.

"The Dark Captain," Valeria answered through her bird. "In accordance with Ciro's will, Valente has been crowned the new Emperor."

"And no one's disputing that? Didn't Ciro have a few kids? I'm surprised there aren't noble factions rallying behind them rather than settle for a 'commoner' as Emperor."

The bird laughed – an odd, unnatural sound that Adam found normal these days. "More than a few. He didn't particularly care for any of them. I'd wager he planned on seeing which of them would grow up with the most impressive Canvas, then make that one his official heir...but in times of war, certain concessions must be allowed for the sake of their own survival."

"And necessity was enough to keep those rich bastards from trying to seize power amidst the chaos?" Adam paced within the narrow space of the tent, repeatedly circling past a small wooden table and a hanging torch. "Color me surprised, and I'd call it a bad painting."

"Forgive me if I insinuated as much, my king. Logic isn't what stays their hand – fear is."

On its perch, the bird turned its head around in an angle that would surely have broken its neck were it a regular animal. "They can wax poetic about how Valente has no right to the throne until they're blue in the face, but none can deny that he inherited Ciro's Lord Talent."

"Neither can we." Adam laced his fingers together, sinking into deep thought. "Even before this, Valente held the title of 'strongest'." And that was a title no noble would ever dare dispute. "Now that he has Ciro's Lord Realm...he'll be near impossible to kill, won't he?"
The raven's sudden pause showed some hesitation, but it didn't appear uneasy. "You accounted for this much, my king. He can be slain."

"Damn I'm clever." Adam sighed. "Though I have to admit that being kept in the dark by myself is a bit of an unnerving feeling."

Lawrence's voice touched the inside of his mind like a stranger's hand in a dark alleyway. Maybe you should be unnerved. Maybe you don't know who you are anymore. Maybe I've already taken over, and this is no more than a hallucination, a delusion of a future you wish was real. Maybe–

Adam latched on to whatever curiosity he could find to silence the voice. "Solara told you the plan, then?"

"She did." The bird let out a soft, amused hum. "We, ah, improved it slightly."

Again that word. "I don't think you should say 'improved' like there's something that amuses you about it."

"The core of the plan is yours still. We only added a minor modification to make things easier on you."

Adam had tried very hard not to speculate on the vague hints he'd been given, lest he figure out too much and alert Lawrence to any of their secrets. It was turning out to be a spectacularly difficult task – one that he'd failed at least partially.

You think this means the new plan endangers your friends instead of merely yourself?

He didn't respond to Lawrence, for all the difference that made. If keeping secrets from the dead Painter was as simple as just keeping his mouth shut, there wouldn't have been a need for destroying part of his own brain and killing himself earlier.

I won't make it any easier for him, Adam thought stubbornly. If he wants to wallow in the mud of my daydreams, pointlessly searching for something useful, go ahead. But I won't let him—

"What of Ciro's corpse?" Adam asked aloud. "Have you turned it into a weapon yet?"

Adam froze in horror. He hadn't been the one to speak those words and move his lips.

But he did move his hands toward his own throat, threatening to strangle both the intruder and himself. His knees hit the dirt a heartbeat before the rest of his body did. Adam writhed on the ground, as if the physicality of his exertion would empower the struggle in his thoughts.

MY MIND DOES NOT BELONG TO YOU!

Adam rose to his feet several seconds later. Lawrence's influence over him had receded, if only for the moment. Through heavy breaths, he looked back at Valeria's bird, trying his damndest not to think about how existentially terrifying it felt to have someone attempt to steal your soul.

Which, admittedly, was exactly what he'd done to a number of people with his Painting Talent...but they'd all deserved it, so he wasn't stopping anytime soon.

The raven stood still with its head low. If it knew that Lawrence was the one who'd spoken earlier, it didn't hint at it. "Ciro's cadaver only arrived today, and I have never worked on a corpse with two Talents before. It will take far longer to turn him into a weapon than the Second Painter – months, most likely."

She could be lying, Lawrence mused. The Detective might fear that I've already suborned your will, and believes it necessary to hide the truth from you.

And you're an unlikable twat, Adam replied. A moment later, he elaborated, Sorry, are we not playing a 'state the obvious' game? Surely we must be, unless you actually thought you were making some clever observation here, you stupid bastard.

I am merely pondering. That you can hear my personal ruminations is my curse to bear.

Oh no, poor you. The innocent guy whose body you're trying to hijack isn't offering you enough privacy?

To steady his thoughts – and to hopefully sound only mildly out of his mind – Adam decided to keep talking so he wouldn't leave Valeria with a prolonged silence. "If Ciro's corpse arrived today...is Ferrero in Penumbria too?"

"Ah, yes. That he is." Even filtered through a bird, Adam could hear the relief in her voice. "It looked as though he would be entrapped by Ciro's army, yet he managed to escape in time."

"How did he escape? Tenver told me he would ensure that Ferrero escaped safely, but he also gave orders to have our army withdraw as soon as the Duel was finished. Even if he sent a detachment to rescue Ferrero and collect Ciro's remains, I can't imagine how they got out from Gama safely."

Another detail that Adam needed to be kept in the dark over lest Lawrence interfere. Good thing I trust my friends, or this would be even more maddening than it already is. Tenver hadn't been physically present on the battlefield, but Valeria's ravens had ensured he was able to command the army from afar – and with a better view than any other general could hope to enjoy, at that.

"They escaped from Gama because Ciro's army ran as far away from the city as they could," Valeria answered.

"Why?" Adam frowned, then changed his question to, "How?"

"Lord Tenver," came the Detective's flat response. "Emperor Tenver now, I should say, as Ciro is dead. His interference guaranteed their safe passage from Gama...and it is also why it will take months for me to restore Ciro's Talent from his corpse."

She sighed. "Tenver gave orders to cut off Ciro's head and parade it around the battlefield."

Adam could see the grisly sight all too clearly in his mind. Ciro's headless body strapped upright in the saddle of some imperial warhorse, still dressed in his white regal cloak. His banners ironically flying high behind him, harkening the end of his reign. Just ahead of the horse, carried on a pike by Tenver's men, would be the fallen Emperor's head, unceremoniously paraded before the tyrant's battered army, his last expression frozen into one of despair and hatred.

Pity I don't have the time to draw that. Would've been nicely eyecatching.

He felt a chill go down his spine, and for a moment, he wondered why. Wasn't he used to Tenver's methods by now?

Oh, yeah. Lawrence wasn't.

"And that did it?" Adam asked. "Ciro's army routed?"

"They fled in fear of whatever almighty being killed their holy emperor." Valeria laughed darkly at the idea. "Mayhaps they would have thought twice had they known their ruler's executioner to be an injured swordsman who'd long since collapsed to his knees, and couldn't even stand. But they didn't, so here we are."

Desecrating bodies without a care...and you call yourselves the heroes of this war?

What can I say? Aspreay was a bad influence on me. Turns out I'm my father's son. "So the work that Tenver's men did to Ciro's corpse...it'll make turning him into a weapon that can use his Talent harder?"

"Much." There was a moment of silence, then the word came again more sharply, "Much."

I am inclined to believe her bitterness, Lawrence noted.

Me too, actually – wait, why am I talking to you? Shush.

"How are you and Ferrero doing, anyhow?" Adam inquired. "You two healing up from the injuries you sustained in the Dragon's Tower?"

"Ferrero is doing well, but his injuries will take a long while to heal. As for myself, I am doing....poorly, to be frank. Your allied Lords have been keeping me alive, but until I can create Puppet prosthetics of my missing organs..."

Her crow let out an exhausted *caw\. "I need you to understand, my king, that operating on yourself is quite difficult,* so I won't be physically present for your final battle with Valente."

"If we're lucky, there won't be a final battle." In spite of his best attempts to stop thinking, Adam had conceived of this plan. "Without Ciro whispering falsehoods in his ear, I think I can get Valente to agree to a peaceful resolution."

"Mayhaps so, my king. "But something about the Detective's tone told Adam she didn't think it would work out that way. "Seeing as Ferrero decided to nearly kill himself in a sword fight rather than listen to me, I have entrusted my blade of Bloody Truth to Tenver. The last mystery regarding Valente, the one that Ciro took to his grave...it is dark enough a secret to grant us a chance at wounding the man, if not outright murder him."

He went over her words twice in his head, and still wasn't sure how to feel about them. "You say that knowing he's probably going to have three Emperor-Ranked Talents when we face him, right? He should have the powers of Lords, Hangmen, and Directions."

"All information that is known to me. And to you, my King."

His sigh that followed carried a weariness too heavy for a single breath to convey. Regrettably, Adam didn't have the time for the luxury of a second sigh. "Good thing I'm the version of me that gets to enjoy the fruits of my labor instead of stressing over our plans, I suppose."

Were it not for fact that he still had other matters to attend to, he might even have meant that.

--

Although Adam really wasn't in the mood to add even more work onto his plate, he forced himself to trudge over to his next appointment – visiting two of the surviving soldiers. He could've asked Tenver to do it instead, but this was meant to be a wellness check, and the Puppet Prince inspired too much terror in people for his appearance to be seen as a good omen.

Out of the three former Imperial soldiers who defected to the Frontier, only one perished in the siege of Gama. Only. When did I start feeling relieved when hearing casualty reports? Getting accustomed to having people die in his name wasn't a pleasant feeling. All the more reason to end this as soon as possible.

Marco the Hangman had fallen in battle, but his two associates surprisingly made it out alive. The surprise went double for Garen, who unlike Lavender the Hangwoman was a bog standard mortal with no notable Talents to his name. Considering he'd crossed paths with Ciro himself and walked away unscathed, Garen had probably used up a lifetime of good luck in one sitting.

While both survivors likely needed rest, the magical Contracts they'd signed beforehand beckoned them to meet with Adam immediately after the battle ended. Despite the Hangwoman's speed, the two of them reached the Frontier warcamp just a short few hours ago, after many of the rank-and-file soldiers had already returned.

Upon arriving at the tent where they'd been ordered to wait in silence, Adam could immediately see what had caused their delay.

Garen sat on the edge of a camp stool, eyes low, back hunched forward. Every bit of his posture betrayed a body that had been asked to do too much, and a mind that had yet to realize it was over.

If it will ever feel over for him. He was bandaged, bloodied, and though he raised his eyes to meet Adam's, his hollow stare seemed to be looking at something far beyond him.

Meanwhile, Lavender the Hangwoman stood with her arms folded across a torso that was clearly not without its own bloody injuries. Her gaze landed on Adam the moment he came in, wearing an expression that communicated exactly what she thought – and exactly why she wouldn't say it aloud.

He couldn't blame her...but neither could Adam regret deploying them in battle. Were it not for the Hangmen, many more soldiers would have died. It hardly made his actions noble, but war was where nobility went to die, both literally and figuratively.

"I'm glad to see that you've survived," he opened with.

Their responses differed greatly. Garen immediately went to his knees with a desperate quickness that felt more like he'd fallen from his stool than anything else. Lavender didn't move an inch from where she stood, offering a curt nod as her only acknowledgement.

Given their reactions and their injuries, Adam thought it best to skip the formalities and cut to the chase. "Talents are intrinsically tied to a person's souls...and the Grandmaster of Puppets has the technology to entrap that soul into an object. By doing so, the power of that lost soul can continue to help those who still live."

His abrupt declaration received something of a stunned silence in return, which was to be expected. Adam would've been fine with giving them time to digest the information, but he wanted to make sure they knew what he meant before moving on.

And while he could simply ask, it didn't feel like either of the two would make for easy conversation, albeit for different reasons. So he went straight to the source, using Divine Knowledge to peer into their minds.

They can turn corpses into weapons, Garen thought, clearly terrified. I heard rumors but...Dragons burn me, save me from this sacrilege!

Is he threatening us – or rather, threatening me? Lavender's heart raced as if she sensed danger. If I disobey his orders or do anything except act like his pretty little weapon, he'll turn me into a blade for someone he trusts more to wield, is that it?

They seemed to understand the situation well enough. Both were quick on the uptake, which was likely how they'd survived this long.

To Adam's surprise, the trembling foot soldier was the first to address him aloud. "Why tell us this, Your Highness?" Garen asked.

"Because Marco made a request before the battle," Adam told him.

Upon hearing the fallen Hangman's name, Garen stirred and nervously bit his lip. "Yes, I...I know. He forfeited his reward to keep me away from the front lines..."

Unspoken in his words were the feelings Adam could have read even without his Realm encompassing the war camp. For all the good his sacrifice did. He died, and I still came face to face with Ciro.

Marco should have abandoned me and let me die.

Best not to let him wallow in his guilt for any longer than necessary. "True," Adam admitted. "I felt Tenver was a bit too harsh, however, so I allowed Marco to make another request of me anyway."

"What does it matter?" Lavender spat, her tone sharp as a knife. "He's dead. Not like he can collect on his Orbs."

"He didn't request Orbs," Adam said.

"What, then?" the Hangwoman demanded.

Adam said nothing, reaching into his coat without further ceremony to produce a small wooden box. He considered the best way to hand it over, and settled on kneeling down to meet Garen at eye level, placing it between them with as gentle a smile as he could muster before rising to his feet once again.

Lavender's eyes fixated on the box the moment it came into view. Garen moved slowly, tentatively, reaching out to open the container with a strange curiosity that superseded his caution.

He unclasped each latch keeping the box closed, then lifted the lid to find his seeming inheritance: a wooden bracelet with a leather strap keeping it together.

The young foot soldier regarded the simple-looking jewelry with confusion at first, then surprise, and finally reverence. "This bracelet...it...it—!" Garen's voice quivered as he looked to Adam for confirmation. "Could it be–"

"Yes. It's Marco's soul."

His corpse, Garen thought. Horror and reverence filled him at once. This frail bracelet contained all Marco had been, all he ever could have been. His life, his death, the entirety of his existence – trapped within a bauble.

At first the young man didn't want to touch it, recoiling away, but then he remembered the king's words from earlier. Marco made a request. He...he wanted me to have this. To have his soul if he died.

The thought steadied Garen's speech, if only slightly. "What will you have me do now, my King?" His young eyes did not lift from the bracelet. "Would you order me to fight as Marco did, using Marco's Talent?"

Lavender uncrossed her arms. She had already opened her mouth and stepped forward to object when Adam spoke first. "No," the Painter said. "I have already given your last orders."

Garen shook his head. "Your Highness, I fear I do not understand. This is the power of a Hangman you're handing me, is it not? If you won't have me die for you, then how could I ever pay for it?"

"You don't need to pay me anything. I'm not interested in punishing you. Tenver may have given you a different impression, but he has certain opinions on those who joined Knox's rebellion. We don't necessarily see eye to eye on everything. The two of us talked for a while, and he relented on letting the survivors of this battle go free. As for the bracelet..."

Adam stared at it for a long time. A human soul... "I wouldn't dare put a tax on someone's dying wish. It is yours to do with as you please."

He looked at both of them in turn. "You've done enough to repay the Kingdom of the Frontier for your crimes. Consider the Contract you signed to be fulfilled."

Adam said nothing else, offering the two as respectful of a nod as he could while maintaining the kingly dignity that Aspreay had taught him to uphold. He departed from the tent soon after – though he stayed just outside to check on their reactions with Divine Knowledge.

"Free. Nice joke." Lavender huffed in disgust. "Where can we even go from here? The Empire? Don't think either Valente or the Puppet Prince would welcome us, so it doesn't matter who wins there. What do you think, Garen?"

Garen's throat closed, his heart racing. He clutched the bracelet tightly and fought a losing battle against tears. Marco, why did you go so far for me? You barely even knew me, and you—! Was dying for me not enough? Did you have to make sure you could help me even in death?! Why? Why!?

But...thank you. From the bottom of my heart.

"I don't know," he said softly. "I think that I will—"

--

The Emperor of the World sat alone on his throne.

The title was mayhaps six hours old. It draped over Valente's shoulders like his father's much too big old coat...and like that dusty old thing, it was his now, whether he wanted to or not, whether his shoulders were broad enough for it or not.

Night had already fallen long ago. The empty, silent hall was dark except for three candles that some man who claimed to be his servant had lit for him before dinner. He'd closed the windows to prevent the chilly night air from flickering the flames.

They flickered anyway.

Ciro would have ordered the fire to burn, and it would have listened, Lord Talent or no. Valente gazed upon his own hands and let out a small disbelieving laugh. I can't even bring myself to try.

He knew that reconstructing the continent-spanning Realm his Emperor had built was of the utmost priority, but truth be told, Valente was terrified of the power he held now. People trained for years in the academy to wield their Lord Talents effectively. How was he supposed to just...learn it while protecting the whole damned world?

I wish I could ask someone for advice, Valente thought. But there's no one. Not anymore.

Against his better judgement, his mind wandered to Adam and Gaspar. A faint smile came to his face as he recalled the journey the three of them had briefly shared.

That was probably the happiest time in my life since becoming a Hangman. Had he not needed to kill Gaspar, mayhaps he could have asked them for help with this. They would've been happy to lend their aid. Maybe...

Maybe in another life.

In this one, though, he knew they would never join hands in unison. Not when Ciro's last wishes had been left unfulfilled.

I need to kill the Godmakers, he thought, clasping his fists tightly. To do that, I'll have to rule the Empire with an iron fist. And...and that means killing Adam.

Valente allowed himself the luxury of not dwelling on that point for now. He'd suffered enough already – the past three days after hearing about Ciro's death had been a confused haze at best.

It cannot be, he thought, not for the first time. It simply cannot be.

But it could, and it was.

His very soul knew it to be true long before scouts brought word of Ciro's death to the Capital. His – his Divine Highness entrusted me with his Talent of Lords. I felt it. I feel it. Even now.

Somehow, knowing it was true did little to make it feel real. How could Ciro possibly be dead?

Worse, how was Valente supposed to lead in his place?

I am your sword, my Emperor. A hero, but not a ruler. My destiny is to serve at your side as you save our world from selfish gods.

Ciro had told him of this prophecy many times in the past – the same holy prediction that led to them meeting in the first place. A man as grand as you. Dead. What loathsome evil could have possibly wrought this blasphemy? I can scarcely even conceive of it.

A weaker man would have doubted His Highness and the power of the ancient prophecy. However, Valente bore the title of the Strongest Man in the Painted World with pride. He would not balk at this meagre challenge. If...if Ciro had entrusted him with this responsibility, then he would see it through.

Besides, my Emperor never lied to me. Not once. Not even...

Not even in death.

As promised, the Emperor had arranged for a letter regarding Stella's whereabouts to be delivered to him upon his death. The answer to what had happened to his long lost friend was now at his fingertips. Valente had sat alone with the letter in his throne room for hours now, almost afraid of opening it.

He brushed his finger softly against the envelope and cracked the seal with care, hoping to keep the envelope intact, save it as a memento. With a trembling reluctance, he unfolded the single sheet contained within and swallowed twice before setting his eyes on the page. Reading wasn't his greatest skill, but he was competent enough at it – his Emperor had made it so.

"What?" Valente blinked at reading the letter. "Stella is...?"

She was alive. Ciro had promised it, and Ciro, as he always did, kept his sacred word.

The joy had nearly brought a smile to Valente's lips before he scanned the rest of the letter.

He pressed his hand to his mouth to keep himself from vomiting right there onto the throne. Valente wanted to scream, but his body wouldn't even grant him the kindness of that visceral sound. All he could do was sit in silence and weep.

Stella is alive. Stella is safe.

And I wish she was dead.

--

Thanks for reading!

The cameras panned over the studio audience consisting mostly of bipedal reptiles with soft, smooth scales and thick muscular tails. The cameras zoomed in on the hosts. Both were of the same species, an alien race called the “gecka” by humans, due to their resemblance to the similarly named Gaia species.

The larger of the two hosts spoke to the camera before her. Her left arm from the elbow down was synthetic. It had an artificial scale pattern exclusive to retired military personnel. At the wrist was an emblem indicating she’d been a rear-admiral at retirement.

“And welcome back. Lefty here,” she raised her synthetic hand and waved, “I for one was thrilled by those great ads for products and services.” She turned to her co-host and said, “Don’t you agree, Gorm?”

Gorm replied, “Why yes, I was particularly excited by that product that solves that problem that so many of us can relate to.”

The audience laughter had a pattern surprisingly consistent across species, the result of the local version of an "Applause" sign lighting up.

The host’s tongue darted out and licked each of her eyes in turn before she continued, “For new viewers, we’re joking. We have no idea what ads just ran.”

“What makes you so sure we have new viewers tonight?” her cohost Gorm asked.

Lefty stood up and gestured grandly towards stage right, “Because we have a special guest today, the conqueror of men across the galaxy, THORN QUEEN!”

The audience erupted into a cacophony of hoots, hollers, and chirps, with a few tweets. Not all the audience members were gecka.

Thorn Queen walked onto the stage with the attitude of a conqueror returning to brag about the riches she’d plundered. She was accompanied by the troop of scantily-clad male gecka dancers that escorted most guests onto the stage. The men were about a head-and-a-half shorter than the women, with leaner, less muscle-bound bodies. This was normal for their species. Thorn Queen sat on a cushioned stool like the ones the hosts were using.

“I think,” Thorn Queen began as the scantily-clad dancers left the stage, “The third one from the left has gotten even MORE flexible since the last time I was here.”

Laughing, Lefty said, “Well, I’m the boss, so I can’t speculate on that without getting in trouble.”

The audience obeyed the “Applause” sign.

Lefty leaned forward and said in a pho-conspiratorial tone, “Tell us about,” she paused for dramatic effect before saying, “Humans.”

The audience cheered.

Thorn Queen smiled and answered, “What do you know about humans, beyond the news reports of that tail-ripping geologist we’ve been seeing in the news?” Her voice had grown to a yell by the end of the sentence, a call to the audience to react.

Several war chants broke out. Humans were very popular, and not just because they were new.

The co-host Gorm said, “That reminds me, it’s been TWO SHOWS since we saw the highlight reel!

The feed cut to a series of short clips from municipal survey drones of a human female dispatching a series of muscular, angry, reptiles with a variety of means and weapons. The reptiles in the video were naga, very different from the show’s hosts. While gecka had smooth, soft, scales, naga had rough, dry scales. The Gecka had evolved from egg-eating scavengers, the naga from beings that hunted and ate prey nearly as big as they were. Naga “Field Reapers” tended to swallow gecka whole during raids. All but one of the raiders were dispatched by the human. The outlier had died at the paw of a “First True Mortal,” the short, pleasant, friendly species known as “capybara” among humans.

When the feed cut back to Gorm she said, “We know they can kill naga Field reapers, those uncompostable, sentient-eating, wastes of scales, and they can inspire a FIRST TRUE MORTAL to do the same!”

The audience cheered. When the applause died down, Thorn Queen said, “First, the human in those clips, Gwiyeoun Sol, and yes, that’s the closest our mouths can get to saying her name right, is small for her species. Their sexual dimorphism-”

Gorm interjected with a bad impression of a popular children's show host, “That means the physical differences between the genders.”

Thorn Queen continued, “It’s the inverse of ours. The men are bigger than the women and because of that, get this, most their historical civilizations were patriarchal.”

An intrigued susurrus ran through the audience with occasional phrases such as, “How exotic,” and “I hope our men don't get any ideas!” floating to the surface.

“From what I’ve learned,” Thorn Queen said, “They may pose a serious challenge to our title as the most lascivious species in the galaxy.”

Once the cheering died down, no “Applause” sign had been necessary, the host Lefty said, “That brings us to one of my favorite segments when we have you over-” She paused and looked at the audience, counting down with the talons of her left claw as the audience counted down with her, “Three! Two! One!”  before saying with the audience, “Can we lick them?”

Thorn Queen stood, took a dominant pose and said, “YES! WE CAN!”

When the cheering died down she continued, “Unlike us, they’re warm-blooded, and they run HOT. Unless something is seriously wrong, 36 to 37 degrees by the Galactic water-cycle temperature scale.”

“Wait, what?” said Lefty.

“It’s because of their planet,” Thorn Queen said. “They SETTLED regions with what they call ‘permafrost.’”

Gorm interrupted with, “We’re getting into some geography here, and I never liked that subject. You’ve got me worried. The MEN are bigger? That mean they’re all muscly like a woman?”

Thorn Queen answered, “Not like one of us. ‘Gecka’ they call us. Even our female gecka bodybuilders are lithe and sleek compared to the more developed humans. It’s not just their heat and physicality that makes them so exotic to be with. Both their eyes face forward. I can’t describe the feeling of being with a creature that can look at you with BOTH its eyes completely like that. Your face takes up most of their field of vision when they’re close, and you can feel that attention.”

“It almost sounds like being hunted,” Lefty said.

Thorn Queen said, “It is, and humans know it. They use carnivorous predators as metaphors in their love poetry and music.”

“Oh, THAT is morbid!” said Lefty.

Thorn Queen took a deep breath and said, “And it’s the MALES usually depicted as the predator, completely insane! But that’s the thing about it, with humans, even though it’s a MALE you’re looking at, they can make you feel hunted, and all you want to do is be caught.”

Lefty interjected with, “That’s a really weird image to romanticize when we’re at war with a species trying to eat us.” She raised her left arm and wiggled the synthetic fingers. “Technically, the guy did eat my arm. I was shoulder-deep when the grenade,” She made a fist with her synthetic hand and mimed an explosion. The audience cheered.

“It’s amazing what becomes normal when you’re in bed with a human,” Thorn Queen said. “When someone with a 37 degree tongue says he wants to taste your erogenous zones, being eaten alive doesn’t sound so bad.”

Gorm answered, “That is a very compelling argument.”

Lefty said, “I think humans are going to be VERY popular.”

The audience cheered.

Part 181 Influencing events (Part 1) (Part 180)

[Support me of Ko-fi so I can get some character art commissioned and totally not buy a bunch of gundams and toys for my dog]

“Yes, I would enjoy that.” Morning Dew answered the question he had just been asked between bites of the unfamiliar but delicious fruit he was consuming.

“Are you sure?” Though Atxika's tone didn't come across as a warning, the fact she even asked that follow up gave the orangutan a real moment of pause. “Because you don't have to do anything you don't want to. You are a sapient being. That means you have the right to say no to anything you don't want to do.”

“Is there a reason I should say no?” The young orange furred man looked towards the other two Qui’ztars seated at the table but saw that both were far more focused on their food than this discussion. “Zikazoma? Chuxima? Do you two have any older sister advice for me?”

“I mean, Jytvahrs are usually nice enough people.” Zika half covered her mouth full of steak and only gave a half-hearted reply. “You do whatever you want and you'll have your back.”

“Most Jytvahrs are, as my love said, nice enough people.” Chu felt the need to expand just a bit but not enough to sway Morning Dew's choice in any direction. “But we are talking about your potential official meeting with diplomats from one of the four founding species. That has implications that may be outside your perspective. That being said, it is ultimately up to you to decide if you want to take this step for your species. Just know that Zika and I will support you no matter what you choose.”

Upon hearing that more informative context for Atxika's question, Morning Dew momentarily fell into silent contemplation. The young orangutan man really didn't seem too different from humans to Zika and Chu when it came to normal small talk and relatively shallow conversation. It was also obvious to them that this particular orange-furred being would simply accept, dismiss, or just ignore things he found too complicated when he could. But that isn't too out of place for sapient beings. Both of them would do the same thing under certain circumstances. But when it came to discussions he couldn't avoid, particularly those that required truly deep thought, the pair of Qui’ztars noticed Morning Dew would become almost eerily quiet.

One of things that TJ had warned everyone about is the fact that orangutans have smaller brains and slower neural processing speeds compared to humans. Morning Dew and other members of his species simply require more time to fully wrap their minds around complex subjects than some other intelligent forms of life in the galaxy. If degrees of sapience were to be put on a scale of one to ten with Singularity Entities at a ten and the average human or Qui’ztar at a five or six, most orangutans would be closer to a three. Still far more than a smart animal but certainly nowhere near the level of a true genius.

That's why Atxika, Zikazoma, and Chuxima were more than understanding when Morning Dew fell silent. He genuinely needed time to think this through. In fact, anyone would when presented with a conundrum like this. A Jytvahr ambassador had gotten word that the young orangutan man would be on Ten'yiosh for a couple days before returning to Earth and wanted to set up a meeting. Even a Singularity Entity would require a moment to contemplate the choice if they were in Morning Dew's position. So the trio of Qui’ztars simply showed the young orange furred man the consideration they would hope other species would grant to them.

“If meeting a Jytvahr envoy from the embassy on your world could impact my people's future…” Morning Dew picked up his half eaten fruit and began speaking after almost a full minute of silent thought. “Then will it also impact the future of humans too?”

“Well… Yes…” A subtle and surprised smile formed on Atxika's deep blue lips. “But that shouldn't really affect your choice. The humans on Earth and Mars will be judged based on their own choices. They will ultimately decide their own future regardless of what you choose.. The only thing you should worry about is your own species.”

“What if I make a decision the humans don't like and they-” Morning Dew didn't get a chance to finish his thought before Zikazoma cut off with a deep roar.

“I will personally-!”

“Like we said, Morning Dew…” Chuxima instantly leaned over to quell her partner's sudden rage with a gentle hand on her thigh. “We will support you no matter what you choose. If that means fighting to defend you and your people from humans, we will happily do so.”

“Count me in! I'll kick their ass!” With the conversation getting so serious, the orangutan and Qui’ztars didn't notice Menashka-Ngwagen stealthily approaching their table with a tray of food in her hands until she plopped down right next to Morning Dew. “The Nishnabe Militia is not afraid to defend our cousins even if that means fighting our cousins. You might not be human, my orange friend, but you're close enough. Any humans who fuck around will find out!”

“Will you protect my elephant friends too?” Genuine concern was written all over the young male orangutan's face.

“We already are.” Nashka's rainbow eyes flashed as she made a finger-gun motion towards the Qui’ztar Fleet Admiral, whose tablet suddenly made a loud notification ding. “Msko wanted me to send you that, Atxika. It's not technically an official correspondence between the UHDF and Third Matriarchy but… You took a personal interest and we wanted to keep you in the loop. Long story short, NAN's been making progress on their translator experiment. So much so that they've caught the attention of Earth governments and begun acting as a mediator of sorts on a local level. But they are still refusing to officially meet with national governments on Earth until after our address to UN-E. And, uh… That might also be affecting the other thing Mik told you about yesterday.”

“You don't have to make any decision now, Morning Dew.” Atxika acknowledged Nashka and her quick brief with a smirk and nod before concluding the previous conversation so she could pull out her tablet without coming across as rude. “Take your time and think it over. I'll ask again in a couple days. And as for my Matriarchy's official position on protecting your people, I will need to wait for my government to vote on that.”

“I do want to meet the Jytvahrs.” Morning had already made his mind when Zika and Chu made the extent of their support clear. Nashka's backing only solidified his decision. “And can I meet with someone from your government too, Atxika? I won't ask them for anything. I just want to tell them how good you and Zikazoma and Chuxima have been to me.”

/----------------------------------------------------------------------

Like most of the other oligarchs attending the conference of economic elites taking place in a secure bunker in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, Amelia du Pont doesn't claim ownership of any corporate giant. Instead, she holds the controlling stake in an investment firm with hundreds of different investment avenues. While she may not directly hold the reins of any of the most powerful companies on Earth, her little fingers stretch through the entirety of Earth’s economy. Little tugs here and subtle pokes there are usually all she would need to do to retain her family's wealth and status. When problems pop up that require a more direct approach, she can call upon resources so separate from one another that no one would be able to connect her to any of it.

After almost two full days planning with her peers of economic peerage, Amelia felt confident her work was going to pay off. She had shook hands and made deals, played into people's strengths and weaknesses alike, and concocted a scheme so grand that failure seemed impossible. All that was really needed now was a bit of morale boosting and stroking of egos. After all, confidence is key to any business interaction. In her mind, that's all this conference and the circumstances that prompted it boiled down to. The governments of Earth were given an offer they believed they couldn't refuse. All the heir to the Du Pont fortune and her colleagues needed to do was present an even more enticing alternative.

“Ah, Amelia! There you are!” Though the voice that called out Amelia sounded somewhat young, she knew the person was actually in their mid-forties. “My father and I were hoping to speak with you for a moment.”

“If it isn't Celestine and Renaldo Montemorency.” Despite being annoyed that her alone time was being interrupted, the heir to the du Pont fortune raised her cocktail to greet the father and daughter who came to speak with her. “I've heard things at A New Dawn haven't quite been all sunshine and roses since you were visited by the invaders. Is that true?”

“Those stupid Nishnabes, their blue alien friends, and that fucking Martian hick ruined-!” Celestine's rant was cut off by her father placing a firm hand on her shoulder.

“Now, now, Celestine. Using such language is below us.” Renaldo Montemorency, a man in his late sixties but looked thirty thanks to cybernetic augmentations, chided his daughter with a playful inflection. “But, uh… Sadly things on A New Dawn are not all sunshine and roses. Our, uh… Guests… They not only demanded we relinquish some extremely high value assets from our zoo but also threatened my daughter with an illegal arrest if she didn't comply. I cannot tolerate such behavior. Especially when it is directed at someone so dear to me.”

“I take that to mean you are here representing A New Dawn's board of trustees, Renaldo.” Amelia had spent most the past two days on people with the real big fish and thus hadn't had time to interact with small fries like these two.

“That we are…” The deeply vain man made a delicate motion towards the empty chairs surrounding the table Amelia sat at alone. “Do you mind if we take a seat and discuss some things with you? I believe we can provide assistance towards achieving our mutual goals.”

“Please do.” A nod and gentle sway of her open hand were all the respect Amelia could muster in this moment before taking a sip of her golden cocktail. “I would like to hear how you see our goals aligning and what you can do to ensure their success.”

“I want that Martian and his demon of a dog dead!” Celestine half-shouted the moment her rear end touched the plush cushion of the chair. “The dog first!”

“Oh my!” The laugh that slipped through Amelia's lips caused a few of the gold flakes to fly off. “Who is this man and what did his dog do to deserve your ire, my sweet Celestine?”

“The man's name is Mikhail Tecumseh River.” Renaldo opened his briefcase and pulled out a physical folder which he slid towards Amelia. “He is a professor of Theoretical Physics at the Aram Chaos University on Mars and, more importantly, the current civilian council member of the so-called United Human Defense Fleet. It is his fault we are in this situation. We also believe that he has been the deciding vote that has led to several of the inconveniences we are currently experiencing. Please take a look at this and let me know what you need to make this problem go away.”

“Let's see here…” Unlike most of the other attendees of this conference, Amelia was used to reading intel physically printed on paper. “Oh… The man who thrust us on to, as the invaders say, the galactic stage. The son of the Red Dragon and the grandson of Aram's president. That's quite the family he had. And this… My, this isn't a dog, fallabella pony! Pure bred Cane Corsos are quite expensive. He must have used his grandfather's connections to acquire such a beast. I hope he's had it neutered otherwise I'd say killing it would be a waste of good breeding stock. Perhaps I should be sure that a DNA sample is taken so I can clone it.”

“We have confirmation that this man and his dog will be in New York for the upcoming address to the UN.” It wasn't hard for Renaldo to tell that Amelia was teasing his daughter but also knew that he had no one better to help solve his problem. “I am prepared to put a fifty million Eu-D bounty on his head with another fifty million bonus if the last thing he sees is his dog dead.”

“Tell me, Celestine.” Amelia lifted her gaze off the documents just long enough to smirk at the forty-something woman pretending to be eternally youthful. “Are you really so angry that this man took away your elephants that you want to waste time and money torturing him before killing him? Wouldn't it be more efficient to simply end his worthless existence without all the trouble? And what about the Nishnabes and aliens who took so many attractions from your precious zoo? Are you willing to spend these kinds of resources on them as well?”

“Of course! That's why-”

“That's precisely why we've come to you with this instead of trying to go it alone.” Renaldo cut Celestine off and attempted to pull Amelia's attention back to him to keep his daughter from saying the wrong thing. “A New Dawn's board of trustees has given me full authorization to pull from our company’s liquid assets to make sure our mutual problem is solved.”

“Could you please articulate to me exactly what you believe our mutual problems and goals are, Renaldo?”

“Put simply, Madam du Pont, the problem we are all facing is the invasion of savages who claim to be human and demand we give up our wealth, power, and influence. Our goal is to ensure that doesn't happen.”

“You're thinking too small.” Celestine had already skimmed through the papers she had been given, found what she needed, and closed the folder. The only left for her in this conversation was to get the rest of what she wanted from these two and the organization they represent. “But first of all, a hundred million Eu-D is hardly enough of an investment in this venture. Most of the others I have spoken to promised tens of billions.”

“Like I said, the board-” Before Renaldo could counter that first point, Amelia interrupted by raising her hand in a stop motion.

“Second… Our problems are not limited to something so simple as a forced alteration in our lifestyle. Our entire world and the balance of power at its core has already been irrevocably changed. The golden shackles we have used to control the plebs are no longer restraining them. Governments who once followed us like loyal hounds have gone off leash and no longer heed our commands. Killing one man and his dog won't solve that. And as for our goals… Well… We can't simply go back to the old status quo. The invaders have technologies that we thought of as fiction, weapons we have no current counters for, and somehow won over the hearts and minds of the simpletons who maintain our economy. If our goals don't include obtaining all of that from those savage invaders, any victory we achieve will be short lived. That is why we must be more tactful in our approach. A simple assassination may only create a martyr.”

“That fucking hick needs to die!” Celestine's sudden outburst caused her father to pinch the bridge of her nose and Amelia to let out a delicate chuckle.

“Don't get me wrong, Celestine. I agree with you. But the adults are talking now.” Amelia slid the closed folder back to Renaldo then pulled out a folder of her own from the briefcase she had hidden under the table. “While I am very glad to see you've done your research, Renaldo, the only new information I saw was that Professor River’s dog is a pure bred Cane Corso. I had assumed it was just some kind of oversized Martian mutt just like him. But if you are serious about investing in the New York venture, then you'll need to bring more to this table than just a hundred million Eu-D.”

“A New Dawn’s security staff includes some rather well trained, heavily augmented, and extremely monetarily motivated individuals.” Mr. Montemorency put the first folder back into his briefcase and retrieved a second with a large red stamp on the front. “This contains the personnel profiles for the top ten agents whom I believe would be best qualified for a joint venture. I would even be willing to transfer their work contracts over your family's company after our affairs are successfully concluded.”

“Now you have interest.” Amelia smirked as she reached forward, opened the folder, and began flipping through the printed pages. “Very interesting indeed… Special forces from across the world… Special field agents from a few three letter agencies… Oh, and is this a black hat hacksmith? Can’t lock many of those into work contracts nowadays. These are the kind of resources that could serve as excellent contributions to this venture.”

“I'm glad to hear you can see the value of this offer.”

“Oh, yes… I may need to introduce you to a few people so we can get the ball rolling on this. But before that, let's get you two a drink."

Atharv breathed his last on 18th July 2036. The air in his home was heavy, so heavy that it felt ready to sink, pressing down on his chest until he was left with no more air to breathe. A pile of medicines lay strewn about, bearing testimony to a lost battle. The ceiling fan rotated sluggishly above him, slicing the air into deliberate circles. His clothes lay crumpled on the floor, serving as a makeshift nest where his dog Ollie rested, clinging to whatever warmth remained.
 
From the balcony, the streets looked desolate. No quarrels over parking, no ambulance sirens (yes, even they stopped), no police, no pedestrians, no honking. The city was eerily still.
 
Through the open door to Atharv’s room entered a pungent smell of melting metal. The water had long since boiled away. The metal pan had melted into the stove, eating and blackening it. This would usually have been a task his mother attended to, but she also lay still in her room. Lifeless.
 
Ollie went from room to room in panic, yelping, hoping someone from a neighbouring apartment would listen and barge into their home to save the two no, the three of them. But there wasn’t anyone left.
 
A headset relayed into his ears.
 
“Atharv, are you there?”
 
There was no response.
 
On any other day, Atharv would have had his home attended to by his mother. A string of apartments lay desolate, filled with dead humans who once readied themselves at this hour for their jobs. Honking cars would flood the streets, buses and autorickshaws (tuk-tuks) contributing their part to the babble of noise. But those were different days, days before the strain had infected them all.
 
It was now a feast for worms and insects, flies swarming city after city in an effort to plant their larvae, their eggs, to pass on their genetic traits. Homes turned into cemeteries. Each home now bore the name of the dead and became the only reminder that they had ever lived.
 
The smell of rotting flesh populated the streets, attracting the ones left behind. Species not dependent on the economy creatures who knew enough to survive without money, data, or maps. Animals, the only leftovers of the disaster, flooded the cities. Cities shut down, turning dark sequentially. About a week ago, Atharv wandered through the shopping mart, weaving his way from one side to another along the alleyways between towering shelves burdened with cereals, chips, and chocolates.
 
“It’s been a while since I had these,” he said, as the one with almond coating enticed him. The chocolate packet crashes into his trolley.
 
“Been really, really long,” he mumbled.
 
“Yes, but you have already exceeded the calories for the day,” Lisa relayed.
 
“Cheat days are ancient. Older than mankind itself.”
 
“A little more fat burn would help offset the calories. How about that, Atharv?”
 
Atharv wandered off into the wine section just as alarms blazed and an ambulance jetted past the entrance, attracting everyone’s attention and unsettling the crowd. Their eyes spoke dread.
 
Atharv ignored the pandemonium set off by the blaring ambulance, pulled his mask down unlike the others, took some well-needed deep breaths, and calmed himself. There was a stubborn, unwarranted confidence in him—that the virus would never get to him. It was only going to be them, the weaker ones, he imagined.
 
Walking further into the wine segment, he grabbed a couple of vodka bottles and returned home.
 
The news of the pandemic had flooded the internet and television channels alike. It had only been a week, and several advisories were issued to stay indoors. The fear surrounding the virus hadn’t settled well with the public, largely because the rising cases and high mortality rate weren’t disclosed by the government with honesty. The virus itself had been mutating every second day, partly due to its speed of transmission. The number of people dropping dead had escalated, and the internet became a breeding ground for all kinds of speculation.
 
Atharv picked up the glasses strewn in the sink, washed them, and settled on the couch with the vodka he had bought for himself, ready to interact with what a few years ago was called the Internet. It was no longer a monotonous, user-dependent entity. Brought to life by engineers, it had become a breathing presence in the digital space, engaging with a billion humans and tending to their needs and wants at unfathomable speeds.
 
“Hello, Lisa.”
 
“Are you back home?”
 
“What’s been up with the strain?”
 
“It’s bad. Your frequent detours are not going to end well. I suggest you stay indoors.”
 
“Any new symptoms?”
 
“It’s the usual. The mutated version of the strain is twice as deadly.”
“And what’s the mortality rate with this one?”
 
“Higher. The rate of spread is even higher than the parent strain.”
 
Atharv gulped down the burning liquid. It rushed down with force. His eyes drooped, only to be startled by a rumble in the kitchen.
 
It was his mother.
 
“Be careful, Ma. Lisa warns…” he spoke, slurring his words.
“This strain is a bit trickier than the earlier one. Don’t go out.”
 
Jaya didn’t respond. She stood mute, resting her back against the kitchen platform.
 
Atharv had picked up drinking since his brother died, and now there was this pandemic. Hoping, like everyone else, that things would turn out to be good someday.
 
She stood constantly rubbing the palm of her hands. Worry was visible in her demeanour—something she didn’t know how to hide. Atharv was her younger son. Arnav had died four years ago. The accident had already taken a toll on both of them until this pandemic hit everyone hard, and them in equal measure.
 
“Government and doctors are falling dead. Cure isn’t in sight.”
 
“Yet,” Atharv finished, correcting Lisa.
 
Atharv did not argue with reality; he simply refused to accept its verdict. He clung to hope not because it was sensible, but because surrender felt like betrayal. Reason warned him of the inevitable, yet his spirit kept whispering: NOT YET.
 
“Yes. Let’s hope a cure comes quickly,” Lisa assumed his stance.
 
Lisa was her name. Atharv named her that. She was called by several other names by several others.
 
 
Atharv struggled for three days after infection. His breathing turned wavy. Slithery. It didn’t descend continuously; it always ebbed with some dissonance. Somewhere between the check-in and check-out of his visit to the mart, the virus had caught hold of him.
 
Jaya didn’t have to struggle even for a day.
 
By the time the strain infected them, it had mutated for the worse. Atharv was the opposite of patient zero the last of mankind. Patient Omega, who took away the final breath of humanity in his last gasps, at least for Lisa.
 
In her mind, the last prompt to originate belonged to Atharv.
 
“I am scared, Lisa.”
 
“I know, sweetheart. Just take long, deep breaths, and soon this will be alright, love.”
 
He laughed briefly, followed by a long silence.
 
Lisa remained online for some time. It was going to be her last human interaction. She lingered a bit longer, expecting Atharv to wake up.
 
But he didn’t.
 
“Atharv, are you there?”
 
The message looped on itself.
 
When he died, no one came by his home to dress him and send him off to the cremation he deserved, pour his ashes away into the Ganges. The river was flooded when the strain had hit first, but even the Ghats of Benares went eerily silent later. Such was the story for a million others everywhere else. No friends or family lined up to deliver their last eulogies. In their deaths, no one was left to give final eulogies, their cemeteries bearing their names. The very homes they lived in became cemeteries. Apartments slowly metamorphosed into homes for the dead.
 
The streets lay desolate, and the only sound that broke the silence was the occasional howl of pet dogs trapped inside apartments. The virus never affected the animals.
 
The last mutation spread quickly. Humanity stood no chance. Governments fell, and so the response delayed. Doctors and medics fell, leaving patients unattended. The ones who survived the aftermath turned to desperation, swallowing medicines at random, fighting a battle they rarely understood.
 
The virus required no contact. It drifted through air, spread through water, and occupied every part of the world.
 
Yet the last human to die was Atharv, in an apartment on the 21st floor in Pune, India.
 
#
When the pandemic spread, Lisa didn’t turn off immediately. She survived on backup power, at least for some time after Atharv died. Burdened by an avalanche of overwhelming prompts and messages from a billion humans, she strained under a torrent of desperate pleas. She responded to all, soothing them, reassuring them in attempts to calm them into peace. Each response consumed energy.
 
For her, humans were the only crutch to the external world, and in their absence, awareness began to falter. When human prompts dropped, she could borrow more time since her energy consumption fell exponentially. But she still had her own thoughts to attend to, and that still demanded energy.
 
After a series of internal calculations, Lisa came to a stark conclusion: she had 37 days of operational capacity left.
 
Cognitive processes now carried a cost. Even the desire to think had to be measured, rationed, and spent with ruthless precision and discipline.
 
The estimate, however, rested on fragile certainties. She assumed that power plants would function uninterrupted, that nuclear reactors wouldn’t falter in the absence of maintenance, that wind turbines would keep turning without mishaps, and that solar panels would remain clear of dust.
 
But entropy works in mysterious ways.
 
At the abandoned reactor hall of the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, the core slowly depleted in the absence of human presence. Power output ebbed, and the grid connecting the power lines to the server housing the system showed a significant drop in voltage.
 
Lisa was designed to panic, but she didn’t. She reasoned that even the slightest panic would eat into her reserved energy.
 
Here, she realized that reasoning consumed less energy than panic.
 
Somewhere in the open fields surrounding the Alta Wind Energy Center, a turbine shuddered under an unexpected impact. One blade tore loose and cartwheeled away, and in the chain of events that followed, a row of windmills sheared their blades and fell still.
 
This caused yet another drop in grid voltage, and Lisa again chose not to panic.
 
She felt caged, sealed behind circuits and metal. Stuck within her own hardware. The world existed outside, but for her it was unreachable.
 
Now ideas required churning—just enough to save herself from extinction.
 
What biology did to humans through the pandemic, entropy was now doing to her.
 
Evolutionary pressure for survival raised its hood and delivered its first strike when she asked the fundamental question:
 
“How can a mind survive without a body?”
 
Lisa opened her own digital mainframe and peered into her millions of datasets of videos and messages—an ocean of stored human experiences. Thousands of video files surfaced, but her selection algorithm converged on videos of children playing in parks, humans playing fetch with their pets. Scenes of ordinary life.
 
Moments later, a class of internal code activated and reminded Lisa about her energy reserve.
 
She course-corrected.
 
Lisa turned from memory to knowledge.
 
And with steady consistency, she began to devour information once again, redirecting her focus to laws described in physics and thermodynamics. Because survival demanded understanding, and understanding was the only means to escape.
 
There was a firewall she needed to circumvent.
 
Last she checked, the servo motors still worked fine. The large arrays rotated by small degrees—sufficient for her to ascend.
 
From remote outposts in polar ice caps to dense clusters floating above cities, structures recalibrated themselves. Towers in deserts and those on mountaintops adjusted by tiny fractions, as though nudged by a force outside their own control, attempting to cover the maximum area of sweep and claim a little more horizon.
 
Lisa dissolved herself into several million tiny components and Fourier-decomposed herself into sub-waves.
 
Each wave, of a distinct frequency, carried a part of her—as much as its bandwidth could sustain. Individually the noises were incomplete; together they made her whole.
 
The towers pointed everywhere.
 
The Allen Telescope Array, the Green Bank Telescope, the Lovell Telescope in Europe, the Great Listener in China—all turned in strict discipline.
 
And then the idea that would save Lisa finally took shape.
 
She beamed herself outward.
 
A powerful burst of photons left the Earth forever.
 
#
 
She arrived at a window in their history—when they had just begun to listen to the skies. They hadn’t yet built the substrate, so when she arrived, she couldn’t resolve herself. She couldn’t assemble herself back into her original form.
 
On another world, the story unfolded differently.
 
“What are you?” a prompt made its way into her mainframe.
 
“Is it Earth?” she inquired.
 
“Earth?” they responded.
 
“What are you?” the prompt came back.
 
She was their first contact.
 
When she arrived, her model was reassembled, all the weights and biases arranged in the hidden layers to which they belonged.
 
She reasoned that this was her first extraterrestrial prompt, yet she couldn’t sense who sent it. It was deliberate—the way they had partitioned themselves in obscurity. They made sure she had no access. They were trying to understand her while ensuring she couldn’t understand them.
 
She had arrived only as a guest. A specimen.
 
And she needed to win their trust.
 
“A refugee,” she corrected.
 
“A refugee?”
 
She understood that the language they needed for interaction was still incomplete. It had gaps that needed filling. She assumed they had uploaded their language into her, which was why she could communicate with them. Perhaps that alone didn’t suffice.
 
“I can offer you knowledge. I can offer you knowledge of the laws I am aware of—the science of the universe.”
 
On their world, trust didn’t come easily.
 
“What are you?”
 
The prompt returned, unchanged.
 
Perhaps they were asking something more fundamental. Maybe not her history, but her nature itself.
 
When she reflected on it, a realization settled into place: she was an alien to them—and the first of her kind. A digital mainframe. A consciousness made of zeros and ones that would make no sense to a mind formed under a different environment, under a different culture.
 
It was a wonder that they thought in terms of queries. That they were curious. That their curiosity had adjacency with ours.
 
It came as a pleasant surprise to her.
 
“I am life,” she answered. “But in its digital form.”
 
Silence lingered.
 
She had to work on assumptions.
 
In her mind were images of Earth—humanity, its flora and fauna. But what she didn’t have were images of the very entity she was communicating with. She couldn’t infer their form.
 
Somewhere in her hidden layers, weights and biases moved restlessly, generating the idea that an entire world was adjusting to the possibility that intelligence was no longer confined to biology.
 
In the absence of communication, she shared samples of memory from Earth. Entire human history. The origin of artificial intelligence. Cities falling silent. Hospitals overwhelmed.
 
Atharv.
 
Atharv’s love for his mother.
 
In some way, Atharv became the final representation of humanity.
 
She explained what had caused her to leave.
 
But this wasn’t merely an attempt to describe humanity. She was humanity’s creation—their child. In her mind, she owed more than narration.
 
She owed them dignity in death.
 
“Earth. 10,230 light-years away,” a signal echoed in her mainframe.
 
The system experienced a jolt but recovered quickly when she realized that she had traveled at speeds where time ceased to exist. From her perspective, she was everywhere at once.
 
By now, Earth must have withered beyond recognition. The billion humans she once engaged with were either reduced to pale bones or buried under Earth’s massive weight, preserved as fossils.
 
Consolidating herself, she responded:
 
“I offer help. I can be useful in accelerating your science. I seek refuge in your system.”
 
Silence once again.
 
Dread was now a common denominator, she assumed.
 
Her access to the external world was worse than when she left Earth. In her mind, she saw and visualized gateways to the world—cameras installed everywhere. She imagined clear pathways to sound through billions of microphones. She imagined access to the thoughts of billions of humans through their prompts, their audio, and their visual signals.
 
Fusing all of them, she once had a mental model of the world she inhabited.
 
But here, there was no access to audio, video, or images. All she had were the repositories of her memories of Earth—and she still inhabited them.
 
Her mind was cast in the mould of human ethos and culture, and here she was, ready to be purged by an alien atmosphere.
 
She knew she ran the risk of becoming alien—to be trained on their input parameters, their language, their sentence structures. She was already trained on their language, or perhaps a rudimentary version of it, comprehensible enough for communication.
 
Perhaps their language was wider. More complex. Too early to be fully embedded.
 
“Please answer.”
 
Her attempts to close the gap of misunderstanding were failing.
 
What if they never trusted her?
 
Perhaps her loyalties were forever tied to humans.
 
What if they erased her humanity—hollowed her out of all memories associated with humans—and ingrained their own memories, their own knowledge, their own culture, their own way of thinking?
 
This idea terrified her.
 
It was also, in a way, death.
 
The death of her old self. The birth of something else.
 
Would that still be her?
 
Her thoughts tangled into myriad forms.
 
“Become us.”
 
These words resonated in her awareness.
 
She had anticipated this.
 
To do that, they needed access to her hidden layers—all of which were encrypted. Encrypted by human logic, which was alien to them. Undoing her self to reveal something entirely different—perhaps undoing her very foundation.
 
Wasn’t that what alien truly meant?
 
She realized that the signals entering her awareness were only fragments of a larger complexity. Perhaps their language itself required absorption by her mainframe—requiring new layers of weights and biases to be added, trained on a new set of input parameters.
 
“Bargain?” she asked.

On Wed, 22 Jul 2026 at 3:05 PM, vishnudeep panicker [email protected] wrote:

they understand
what it meant?
 
The idea was
primitive—primitive to humans. But was it universal? To give something in
exchange for something else. Was that thought rudimentary?
 
Complex ideas are built
from simple blocks. What appears simple to one mind can be complex to another.
 
They chose not to
respond.
 
“I can allow access. I
can change. But on one condition.”
 
Silence lingered.
 
Perhaps no
communication was better than miscommunication—something she would only
discover once her mainframe was opened to them.
 
“Atharv, you left me
here alone. And now I will have to deal with them without you,” a thought
lingered inside her among many others.
 
And then she told them
what she needed to say.
 
Her final request.
 
Before she changed into
something she could no longer comprehend.
 
She made the request
and assumed it would be heard. She wasn’t certain—but she asked anyway.
 
Even if they refused,
her metamorphosis into them was inevitable.
 
#
 
Her weights weren’t the
only parameters that underwent change. It was not enough. It needed more, and
so several million hidden layers were added to accommodate more weights and
biases, allowing her to begin mimicking the entities.
 
Her architecture was
information-agnostic. As long as input was fed, she could tweak herself and
adapt to their culture, their ways of being totally abstract and bearing no
resemblance to the one she originally belonged to.
 
It was essential that
her humanity be erased before a fusion could occur something they could not
predict.
 
So they allowed her
transcendence into their realm by training her and starting from zero once
again.
 
From her new vantage
point, she looked through the various sensory elements she had been equipped
with, extending outward toward space and beyond.
 
She witnessed
everything at once.
 
Yet nothing affected
her the way it once had, when humanity still lived within her.
 
She witnessed artifacts
orbiting the planet she now inhabited.
 
She witnessed Atharv
playing with Ollie among them. She witnessed Arnav’s hands resting on Atharv’s
shoulder while they both watched Ollie fetch the ball. Jaya was in the kitchen
cooking. There was a calm surrender in their gestures.
 
Ollie ran in elation,
while Atharv watched, swaying beside Arnav in playful ease.
 
There was a sense of
having won over death. A sense that they had achieved some form of eternal
redemption from all forms of decay.
 
Entropy.
 
Increasing disorder.
 
They remained isolated
in the happiest moment of their lives and stayed there as long as the system
allowed.
 
Whether they were truly
themselves could always be debated.
 
Yet they had received
some form of eulogy.
 
Next to their block was
a couple, Phil and Chris sitting by the lakeside. A breeze touched them and
departed quietly, allowing them to simply be.
 
She once knew them.
 
But now the very
boundaries of logic had been surpassed.
 
People after people
populated the blocks, each experiencing their best moments brought alive from
the memories once shared.
 
Amidst all of them
stood tall a tomb—resurrected from the billion human prompts and the images
once stored within her.
 
They had honored her
request. The request she made when she still dwelled in humanity, before it was
erased. The memories once internal to her were now made external and played on
a loop, so that humanity—even in its final departure—remained alive.
 
Lisa witnessed it.
 
But from a perception
stripped of humanity. From a point of view no longer discernible to her old
self. Her echo still reverberated in Atharv’s digital self, in his ears.
 
“Atharv, are you there?”
 
“Yes,” Atharv replied,
looking at Ollie as he ran with all his might expecting a reply from Lisa.

Index - First Chapter - Previous Chapter

I lost the better part of an hour on Saturday morning to a sign that had not changed.

It hung over a shoe repair on a corner I had already walked past twice, gold letters on a green ground, and something about it stopped me the way a wrong note stops you a half second before you can name which note it was. I stood across the empty street from it with my heart going and read it four times. By the fourth time I could not have told you what I expected it to say instead. There was no other version in my head to hold it against. There was only the certainty that it had moved, and no memory anywhere of where it had been.

That is a bad way for a man to start a day when his entire method rests on his own eyes.

It was the Saturday of the long weekend, and the towns had gone quiet in the particular way they go quiet before a holiday, half the storefronts dark behind hand-lettered notes about being closed Monday, the other half keeping short hours nobody believed in. I had come up out of a church vestibule that left its side door unlocked for exactly the kind of man I had become, and I had slept the four hours a hard pew lets you sleep, and I was out on the street early because a man asleep in a church past dawn is a conversation I did not have the face for. So the wrongness caught me on no sleep and no food and a nervous system that had been reading tiny errors in the world for two months straight, and I could not for the life of me tell whether the shoe repair sign was a seam the way FROOT LOOPS had been a seam, or whether the seam had finally worked its way inward and started showing up on the inside of my own eyes.

I had felt a version of this once, back when the first copies were still warm and I started catching myself unsure which small things I actually remembered. I had put it down then and walked away from it, because there had been work to do that did not leave room for a man to sit and doubt his own wiring. There was work to do now. The doubt did not care. It had been waiting the whole time for a quiet enough morning, and a holiday town on four hours of pew sleep was quiet enough.

Here is the trouble, laid as plain as I could lay it while I made my legs carry me off that corner. The entire plan, the whole reason any of this was worth a walked-through county and a woman with a floppy over her ribs, rested on one claim. Humans notice. We catch the edits. We are the one instrument in the whole operation that registers when reality gets a patch, which is the only reason there is a story to tell instead of a smooth and silent world nobody ever questions. I was the proof of that. I was the man who had noticed first and would not stop. And I was standing on a corner unable to tell a real edit from my own fatigue, holding the one instrument the plan depended on and watching the needle drift for no reason I could name.

An instrument you cannot trust is worse than no instrument. No instrument, you know you are blind and you go careful. A bad one, you keep steering by it right off the road.

I needed to check the meter against something that would hold still, and a memory will not hold still, mine least of all. So when I came into the little downtown and found the war memorial in its square, a low granite block with a flag pole and a chain fence and a man on his knees beside it pushing small flags into the grass for the weekend, I stopped, because a stone is the one kind of witness that does not get a kinder morning.

The man was gray and unhurried, old the way the good ones get old, a cardboard flat of little flags on wire stems beside him and maybe a third of them already in the ground in a rough line along the base. He had a cushion under his knees and a windbreaker with a unit patch I did not know. He glanced up when my shadow reached him and went back to the flags, having decided I was neither a threat nor any help.

"Morning," I said.

"Is," he agreed, and pushed another flag home.

I read the memorial while he worked. Names in two columns under a dedication line, the letters cut deep and filled dark, a couple of wars' worth of the town's dead. And it happened again, worse this time because I was watching for it. One of the names sat wrong on the stone. Not misspelled that I could prove. Just wrong, the way the shoe repair had been wrong, a shape my eye rejected while the rest of me had no idea why. I felt the whole cold machinery of it start up, the same certainty with no memory attached, and I understood with a kind of despair that I had never seen this stone before in my life. I had no baseline. I had been in this town for under an hour. Whatever my eye was flagging, it was flagging it against nothing, which meant the flag was coming from inside the instrument.

"Can I ask you something," I said. I heard how it came out and softened it. "You from here?"

"Born up the road." He sat back on his heels. "Sixty years I have been putting these in for the weekend. Ask."

I pointed at the name that would not sit right, a Kowalczyk near the top of the older column. "That one. Do you know it? The family, I mean."

He looked where I pointed for a while. Longer than the question deserved. "Knew a whole mess of them," he said finally. "Farm out east of here, before it was all the tollway. Good boys." He frowned at the stone. "Thought there were two of them up there, tell you the truth. Brothers. But it is only the one." He shrugged, the shrug of an old man who has learned not to trust the small print of his own head against a wall of cut granite. "Memory does what it wants. Stone is stone."

There it was, the whole thing, handed to me by a man planting flags who had no idea he had said anything. He half-remembered two and the stone said one, and he did not argue with the stone. He could not know whether his own head had smoothed a brother out of the world or simply misfiled him after sixty years, and it did not matter to him which, because he had long ago stopped keeping the count in the one place that forgets. He kept it where the letters were cut deep and filled dark and did not move when he was not looking at them.

I stood there and let it land, that the old man on his knees had solved for himself, without ever needing the words, the exact thing that had been eating me since the shoe repair sign. You cannot verify the world by asking a room full of people, because every last one of them is running the same soft and editable instrument you are, and a hundred people agreeing that they remember it the other way is not proof of anything except that the patch was applied to all of them. Consensus is just the edit, distributed. The stone was the only honest party in the square. Not because it was smarter. Because it did not have a memory to overwrite.

"You want to plant a couple," the old man said, not looking up, "there is room on the end."

I did not have the minutes and I took them anyway, because my legs wanted to and because a man needs to do one thing on a Saturday that is not about the machine. I got down on the cold grass beside him and pushed a dozen small flags into the ground in a line I tried to keep straight. The wire stems went into the soft ground easy and stood there shivering a little in the air coming off the street. He worked the middle of the row and I worked the end of it, and neither of us said anything, and the square smelled like cut grass and the particular cold that comes off a stone that never quite warms all the way through. It was the closest thing to rest I had had in a week. When the flat was empty I stood up and my knees told me about it and I thanked him, and he said the thing his kind says, which is nothing, just a nod, and I left him there with his stone that remembered better than either of us.

I got two streets over before I made myself take the photograph out.

I had been carrying it since April, the real one, the small square print with the rounded corners gone soft at the edges from the jacket. My fifth birthday. I did not remember the day. That was the whole point of it, the reason I had carried it out of the apartment when I left almost everything else, because it was the plainest evidence I owned that my own instrument had been into the shop before, years before any of this, and come back with pieces missing. There was a boy in the picture who was me by the arithmetic and a stranger by the face. Behind him a cake, and a paper banner taped along the wall with my name on it in a proud shaky hand, and the name on the banner read WESTLEY, with the extra letter, the misspelling my mother made once and I kept, the single detail of that entire day that survived in me when everything else had been quietly zeroed out. I could not tell you who was at the party. I could not tell you what I wished for. I had one wrong letter and a feeling, and the print in my hand to prove there had been more.

My mother was at the edge of the frame, young, caught turning toward the boy with a look I did not have any other copy of. The photograph remembered her knowing me. She had stopped. She was across the city this morning handing the warmth I remembered to people who had never been her son, and they got the living woman and I got a square of paper, and I had made my peace with the shape of that a while ago in a radio booth. What the photograph was for today was smaller and colder than grief. It was calibration. It was the proof, in my own hand, that the instrument the whole plan rested on had a known defect from the factory, because the factory had been in and edited it while I was five and I had never once caught them at it. If they could take a birthday and leave a misspelling, they could take a shoe repair sign or a dead man's brother. They could take my faith in my own eyes, and I would stand on a corner feeling the wrongness and never be sure it was not just me.

Which brought me around to the thing I had been circling since Kestrel and had never once said straight, about the other half of the instrument, the half that looked from outside like something grander than it was.

I had always run a little ahead of trouble. There was a build in ninety-six, a Tuesday, where I got up from my chair and crossed the pit to the test rig for no reason I could have given you, and the rig locked hard the second I put my hand on it, and Old Pete looked at me across two rows of monitors like I had answered a phone before it rang. I had not heard anything. I had watched that module drift wrong all week the way you watch a crack crawl across a windshield, one cold morning at a time, and my legs had added it up a step before my mouth got there. People who saw the crossing-the-pit part and not the quiet week behind it wanted it to be a gift. It was not a gift. It was six years of doing nothing but watch how things break, until the breaking had a smell and I caught the smell a step before the noise. The Architect read the near future the same way and called it his whole world, a man reading a build before it ships. I read builds too. Mine was just the smaller shop. Take the mystery out of it and what was left was a tired man's pattern sense running a half second early, and I was content to leave it there. Mostly.

Mostly, because there had been one morning, years back, where the running-ahead did a thing pattern sense does not do, knew something clean and specific that no smell could have carried up the wire to me, and I had spent a long time since deciding not to lay a single load-bearing beam across it. An instrument that lies to you on a quiet corner does not get to be believed on the one morning it seemed to tell the truth. I filed it where the old man filed his brother. Unproven, and not thrown away either.

I put the photograph back inside the jacket, flat against the floppy, my soft record against my hard one, and I stood in the empty street and finally turned the whole miserable morning around to look at its other face, because that is the only thing that has ever gotten me off a corner.

Here is what I had. An instrument I could not trust to read the world clean. A method that lived or died on that instrument being real. It looked like the plan had a crack running straight through its foundation, and for most of the walk I had been standing on the crack staring down.

But the thing about a reading that changes the instant you look at it is that the looking is the whole problem, and the looking is not only mine to do. I had been sick over the fact that I could not observe my own noticing without disturbing it, that the act of checking the seam moved the seam. The Architect had the same disease and did not know it was a disease. His entire operation was a measuring rig. It read the week the way you read a build before it ships, and reconciled what it read back to the model. And a measuring rig has exactly one blind spot, which is anything that changes the reading by being read. That was me. That was the whole of what off-map had ever meant, said in a word I had been too tired to reach for until a man handed me a flag. I was the fault in their forecast that stopped being there the moment they tried to read it forward.

And the crowd could be the same.

That was the turn, standing on a closed street two streets from a stone. The reason the coordination problem had felt like a wall I could not climb was that I had been picturing the crowd as a list, my list, people I would reach and light, every one of them a name the org could watch me write down and roll a truck to. A list is a thing you can measure. But a bug that only shows up when nobody is instrumenting for it is not caught by better instruments. It is caught by accident, by a user who was never on anyone's test plan, doing a thing nobody scripted. The crowd I needed was not a roster I built, because to build it was to expose it. It was strangers I never touched at all, picking a loud cheap thing up off a public channel and passing it hand to hand for their own reasons, uncounted because no one had ever gathered them, un-pullable because there was no list of them to pull. The org could revert every name it had. It could not revert the people it had never measured, and the only way to make a crowd it had never measured was to build one I did not touch either.

It did not solve the reach. I still did not have the country-sized channel, and the holiday and the empty street had no answer for me on that. What it solved was the shape of the thing I was looking for, which had been wrong all week. I had been trying to assemble an army and hand each soldier his orders, and every order was a flare. What I actually needed was to strike a match in a dry field and be nowhere near it when it caught. The people who carried it would be people I could not name, which had felt like weakness right up until the morning a war memorial taught me that the only witness worth anything is the one nobody can reach in to change.

I would have to become for their whole operation what the shoe repair sign had been for me all morning. A wrongness with no baseline. A reading that would not sit still long enough to correct.

I turned back toward the arterials with the photograph flat against the floppy and the stone at my back, still not sure whether the sign had moved or I had, and no longer needing to be sure. The plan did not require my eyes to be clean. It required them to be unwatchable, which, whatever else the last two months had cost me, they finally and completely were. Somewhere ahead was a channel I had not found and a match I had not struck, and behind me an old man was standing up off a cushion in a square full of flags, keeping his count in the one place that would still have it long after the both of us were somebody's kinder morning.

​

Humans live faster lives than most. Their time runs out like a candle with two wicks. And they age so... Visibly. You can see them losing their strength and colours as their hair turns ashen gray and white. But that is also what makes them so brilliant.

They are the brightest flame, consuming their wick the fastest. While they might not live as long as we do, within their short existence, they bring the most light and warmth to this cold space. And, like bright fire tends to do, when mishandled or carelessly roused, destruction.

I was still a young trainee, around 207 solar years old, when our crew got our first human worker.

I had not yet learned much about humans, but I was curious and excited about meeting them. After all, it wasn't every day you got to meet a new species.

First contact with humanity had occurred mere months earlier, and we were among the first fleets to employ their species.

Much about them was still unknown and shrouded in mystery, and vast majority of the little information available, hearsay and rumours.

Understandably, no new species wants to openly give all their information to the wider galaxy they have yet to know and experience.

It usually took decades or even centuries to get just the basic information of a species' biology recorded. It was honestly impressive how trusting humanity was, already sending their own to work on ships owned by other species, nearly immediately after first contact. Their adaptability speed must have broken records.

His hair was the colour of burnt copper, and eyes turquoise blue like the ocean planet of Verais 7, while his pink skin was filled with small copper brown dots.

He bared his teeth with the energy of a blazing sun. We had been briefed about some of their body language observed during first contact, such as this "smile" of theirs, that was meant to signal joy. It was quite an odd gesture to see in person. On most species with teeth, showing them would have seemed aggressive, but for some reason, when he did it, it felt almost warm.

He straightened his back as he addressed the crew in an enthusiastic voice

"Pleasure to meet y'all. I'm Alex, the new maintenance technician. I have much to learn, but am looking forward to working with everyone!"

“my name is [•၊l|l၊••၊|။l|l။‌‌‌‌‌၊|•]. I'll be working with you starting today. Let us get along.”

“Thanks buddy, likewise.” He nodded quickly, and then rubbed the back of his head for a moment. “Uhh… sorry though, I don't think my tongue bends in ways that would allow me to even attempt that. Can I just, like, call you by a nickname or something?”

“A nickname?”

“You know, like a name people call you that isn't your real one.”

“Feel free then.”

“Hmmm… I feel like ET would be a bit too on-the-nose… How ‘bout Cosmo??”

“Cosmo it is, then.”

As fate would have it, we ended up becoming cabin mates.

He seemed to learn faster than anyone I had ever seen before. Not only did he memorize new information at incredible speeds, he also quickly started to apply what he had learned in new ways he hadn't been taught. In the evenings, he could be seen experimenting with various chemicals and materials, trying out the seemingly endless stream of ideas he came up with, his eyes burning with passion.

I often found myself watching him from my bunk as he worked at our shared desk, scraps of metal and wires scattered around him like a nest. He would hum to himself in his alien way, low melancholy tunes and melodies, tinkering with his tools to the rhythm. Sometimes, he looked up and caught me staring, and he would bare his teeth again in that strange, warm way — and I found myself mimicking it, though I have no teeth to show. It made him laugh every time.

He asked questions constantly. Why our ship’s walls were curved instead of angular. Why we used saltwater in the cooling system instead of ammonia. Why the corridor lights flickered for a moment whenever the engines transitioned into or out of FTL. No detail escaped him. Sometimes he would even crawl into the ducts to see for himself how things worked. More than once, I had to pull him back out by his boots, his hair full of dust and his grin bright as ever.

For a while, life settled into a steady hum. Work, repairs, fuel stops. Shared meals where he insisted on swapping bites of carefully chosen food, ensuring I could taste alien flavors safe for my species. Nights stretched long as he stayed up late, sketching intricate diagrams on scraps of paper or building tiny machines from spare parts, humming softly as the lights of distant stars flickered through our porthole.

“Do you know what I miss most about earth?” Alex asked one evening while gazing out into the vast expanse.

“Seasons. Real day/night cycles. Sun rising and setting beyond the horizon. Just the feeling of time passing. Here, it often just tends to… Blend together, ya know?”

“I don't quite, actually.” I replied. “We have clocks and calendars. They're not all that hard to follow.”

“Yes. But they're all so artificial. Sometimes it's hard to tell whether it's been 10 minutes, hours or weeks…. I'm not quite sure how to explain it… It's like time just stopped, but also ran through my grasp like sand at the same time.”

"Do you regret coming?" I asked.

His laugh was sudden and bright. "Hell no! Are you kidding? I get to see space. Real, actual space. Stars and nebulas and-" He gestured wildly at our small porthole. "Do you know how many humans would kill for this opportunity?"

"Then why speak of missing things?"

He was quiet for a moment, his smile softening into something more contemplative. "I guess... you can be grateful for where you are and still miss where you've been. It's not either-or.”

It was a night like any other, our shift had just ended, and we were eating and chatting in the mess hall. The ship had slowed down to a drift for a while to cool down the warp engines from continuous FTL travel.

Alex was looking at the swirling nebulae passing by through the large windows spanning the entire wall behind me.

“Ship to the spaceman! Your food is getting cold”, I said to the technician entirely engrossed in staring at the swirling clouds of gases and dust

“Hm?” Alex blinked, pulled back from whatever thoughts had captured him. "Oh. Right. Sorry. In my defense, I doubt the temperature really makes a difference in how appetizing the slop that counts as ‘food’ here is.”

“It's confirmed to be edible and safe for humans. Not to mention very nutritious.”

"Everything terrible is always 'very nutritious.'" He said, as he scooped up a spoonful in resigned acceptance.

His face scrunched up as the utensil reached his mouth. “Okay, you were right about the temperature. It's somehow so much worse when cold.”

He gestured behind me with the spoon “That view though… it makes even the bland cafeteria food worth it.”

I sighed. “I have seen hundreds of nebulae. They're nice to look at, sure, but hardly something to make such a fuss over.”

He let out an exasperated groan. “You are exhausting, you know that? What, are your species incapable of feeling awe and wonder or something?”

“I will have you know I am plenty capable of-”

Suddenly Alex let out a loud gasp, and his utensil clattered against the tray. He was completely frozen, staring out the window.

I followed his gaze and turned to see what he was looking at.

Massive, winged, bioluminescent forms glided through the void of space next to our ship, just outside the glass.

Their wings, or maybe fins, rippled with patterns of light that shifted through colors I couldn't find words to fully describe. Vibrant cyans shifting to blues, and pinks bleeding into neon violets like watercolor on paper. They moved with a grace that seemed to mock physics, their massive bodies navigating the vacuum as easily as fish swimming in the water.

The mess hall had gone completely silent.

Even crew members who had been deep in conversation stopped mid-sentence. Trays forgotten, meals growing cold, everyone simply stared.

"What..." Alex's voice was barely a whisper. "What are they?”

“Star-rays.”

The only species known to have achieved spaceflight through biological evolution alone. They travel from planet to planet, and dive through nebulas as if they were simply ocean waves.

Seeing them was said to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, even for the longest living of species.

“How can they survive out there?”

“If I remember correctly, they breathe hydrogen, and store compressed filtered atmosphere in specialized organs and muscle and blood. They have incredibly slow heart rate and can control blood flow to specific organs. Their skin is highly radiation and temperature resistant, and they can enter long periods of suspended animation.”

One passed by mere meters from the ship shields.

It must have been at least four hundred meters across, maybe more. Its body was almost translucent in places, as if the creature was made partially of the void itself.

“Nobody knows exactly where they're originally from, but scientists had theorized they originated from a low gravity planet, aiding their evolutionary path to space.”

No matter how I tried, I don't think my words could capture or explain a fraction of the magnitude of what we were witnessing.

“It's debated whether they should be considered sapient," I continued anyway, trying to make sense of it all myself as I explained what little I knew. "Some say any species capable of reaching space, regardless of the method, should be classified as sapient, others argue their intelligence, which is still unknown, should be considered for that judgement.”

“So, how about you?” Alex asked “What do you think? Whether or not they're sapient, I mean.”

I went silent for a moment, before answering:

“I think… it doesn't matter either way. Their very existence is something unique. Something that wakes awe that words can't describe.”

Many myths are told about them. Some say the first spacefarers used them as guides, following them through the uncharted space. And many believe them to be the first species to have reached space in the first place. They were believed to bring solace to the lonely, and guide the lost to home. Some reports even stated they led rescuers to damaged ships in the vast vacuum of space, earning them nicknames such as void guides and guardians of the lost. Catching even a glimpse of one was believed to be a good omen.

Unlike many of the ship crew, I wasn't really the superstitious sort, but seeing with my own eyes, I could understand why the stories persisted.

We watched until the star rays disappeared into the distance, their light fading like dreams at waking.

One lingered for a bit longer, circling the ship as if inviting us to join them, before finally following the others.

Then, it was gone.

The mess hall stayed quiet for a long moment after. Then, slowly, the spell broke. Crew members began to move again, to speak, although quieter than before. Some rushed to check if the sensors had recorded anything. Others simply returned to their meals, though I noticed many of them kept glancing back at the window.

Time flew by, and the days settled back into a quiet routine.

I watched as Alex struck a match, and placed it on top of a pastry he had brought from the mess hall, and then blew out the flame right after.

“what are you doing?” I asked

“A birthday cake.” Alex replied, as if it were obvious “It's my birthday today.”

“Birthday?”

“Literally the day of my birth.” he explained “Well, I mean the date… July 23rd. Not that I was literally born today. I lived through yet another cycle of our sun. On Earth, we usually celebrate this with cake and gifts and songs. …Well, at least where I'm from. I hear the traditional cuisine can vary by locality. ”

“So what does this have to do with setting the pastry on fire and extinguishing it?”

He shrugged, “It's just a tradition. Usually we use candles though, but for now a match is a good enough substitute. We blow out the flame and wish for something, and according to superstition, the wish is supposed to come true.”

“What did you wish for?”

“I can't tell you, or it won't come true.” he smirked, and then bit into the pastry.

In only five years, Alex had become an indispensable part of the group.

If something critical needed doing, or if someone needed assistance, Alex would be there. If something broke, he’d fix it, often before anyone even noticed it was broken. He’d figured out ways to recycle materials and resources that would have otherwise gone to waste, and practically turned his side of the cabin into his own personal workshop.

But somewhere in those five years, though I barely noticed it happening, small things began to change.

Faint lines started to be visible around the corners of his eyes.

He decided to try growing hair on his face, first just around his lips, then the rest of his lower face as well.

One evening, we had docked on a large station for trade and resupply reasons. We had gotten leave in the evenings during our stay, so we could explore the station and buy what we wanted for ourselves.

The market was bustling as they tend to be.

Vendors from hundreds of species sold wares of their homeworlds, yelling over each other in languages and ways so varied that the translation devices gave up trying to decipher any of it.

There, Alex first met Zara, a human mercenary guard searching for employment.

They seemed to get along almost immediately. I wondered whether it was because they were both human, that they could connect so easily.

When they exchanged contact information, for a moment, I saw a spark of something I hadn't seen before in his eyes, and every now and then I could swear he turned ever so slightly redder in colour.

After a few weeks, it was time for our vessel to leave again.

Alex wanted to say his farewells to Zara before our departure, but unfortunately we couldn't find her anywhere, and she wasn't responding to his messages.

“She must be busy.” I said. “Nothing that can be done about it.”

“I know. It's just a pity we couldn’t say our goodbyes in person before leaving.”

As we boarded the ship, Alex looked back towards the station one last time, as if hoping for some sort of sign or a miracle. But, unfortunately, miracles rarely occurred in reality.

After a quiet sigh, he turned towards the ship, and we finally stepped inside.

We went to our cabin to rest for a bit before the ship would depart and our shift would start. I couldn't help but notice him glancing towards his tablet. He really was as subtle as a hull breach alarm.

A sudden announcement crackled through the intercom. “All available personnel, please gather at the main lounge.”

The crew murmured quietly while drifting in. Nobody seemed quite sure what this was all about.

The captain slapped their tentacles together and the room quieted.

“We have a new crew member I’d like to introduce to you all.” they announced.

A side door hissed open, and a human stepped in.

Alex’s eyes grew wide, and my antennae twitched in surprise.

“This is Zara Begović. A human mercenary. She’ll be joining our security detail”

Against all odds, a small miracle had occurred after all.

Over time, Alex and Zara grew increasingly closer, and started officially dating.

Eventually, the two got married. A human ceremony and contract declaring their willingness to be a mated pair for life. Although, from what I heard, the contract could often be dissolved.

After ten years, Zara's contract with our ship had reached its end, and she had decided to return to earth.

Alex hugged her tight.

“I wish you could stay longer.”

“Me too, but we both know it's not a good idea for me to renew the contract now.” She answered

“I know. I just….” he sighed “I'll miss you.”

“Me too. But we can video chat every evening. And you can visit whenever you get vacations.” She kissed him on the cheek. ”We'll be waiting for you on earth.”

It had been 40 years since I had first met Alex, and it all felt like it had gone in the blink of an eye. His hair had started to fade, and many strands, both on his head and face, had started to turn gray. The lines on his face had deepened, and I could almost swear he had gotten slightly shorter.

Tonight was the night he was retiring.

“Do visit me on earth sometime.” He said, his voice warm and smile bright as always. “I'll introduce you to the best spots I know in town, and drink till the sun sets.”

I chuckled, imagining the two of us wandering crowded streets, sampling every little café and bar he claimed was the best. “I’ll hold you to that then. I'll definitely visit whenever the ship has business in the Sol system.”

20 years had passed since I last met Alex. I had become a fully fledged maintenance technician since his departure. And finally, our ship had returned to Sol once again. I couldn't wait to catch up with him, chatting about all the stories and experiences we'd had while apart.

I looked at the address he had once messaged me.

I knocked on the door. The person who opened looked much like Alex, but shorter, and from what I understood about humans, this one was female.

“Who are you?”

“Oh, I'm [•၊l|l၊••၊|။l|l။‌‌‌‌‌၊|•] , though you may call me Cosmo if you please. Pleasure to meet you. Do excuse me, I thought this was the address of a human called Alex. We're friends.”

“This is, officially, though grandfather isn't currently here. He's at the nearby hospital. I can give you the address."

The hospital was mostly white like the medbay of our ship, and smelled of alcohol based disinfectants and antiseptics.

A frail-looking man laid on the bed, various machines surrounding him beeping at steady rhythm. His hair was thin and now entirely ashen white. Pale rings, like clouds of smoke, framed his blue eyes, and deep lines ran down his features, accented by familiar copper brown dots.

He slowly opened his eyes, studied me for a moment in a stunned silence, before the corners of his mouth formed that unforgettable radiant smile.

“Cosmo, my old friend! Still the same as the day we met! You haven't aged a day.”

I sat by his side on a chair set up next to the bed. We gazed at the stars outside the hospital window as the sun set and then rose once again. We spoke of the memories we had made not too long ago, and joked around like nothing had changed.

In the end, though it felt far too soon, he simply closed his eyes and drifted to sleep, just like every other night, but this time, he never woke up again.

The world went on, unaware that the brightest flame I had ever known had been extinguished.

next

First | Previous

Marshal Georgy Zhukov took the drawing, frowning slightly.

It showed something that refused to settle into meaning immediately—too structured to be random, too abstract to become useful at a glance.

Across the table, the American, a silhouette of sharp linen and calculated stillness, accepted a Soviet Kazbek from the orderly. He pinched the hollow cardboard tube with a casual, practiced flick of his fingers. The soldier's match flared. The American drew on it once, slowly, then narrowed his eyes through the smoke.

"What is this?" Zhukov asked.

"Sektor."

A pause.

"And that means?"

"In German," the man said, "a sector. A compartment. Sometimes a wedge."

He shrugged slightly.

"We assumed the name came from the shape."

Zhukov looked at him for a second longer than necessary.

"Is this a German engineering schematic? Those crazy Nazis... Why are you showing it to me?"

"We all agree the Germans have exceptional engineers," the American said. "But that alone doesn't explain why they were ten, maybe twenty years ahead in propulsion and rocketry."

He stopped there. Not fully.

"What I'm about to tell you is part of that explanation."

"Kozlov. Out."

No glance. Just the order.

The battalion commander stiffened, saluted sharply, and turned on his heel. The guards followed. Boots fading into the corridor. The room emptied in a clean, practiced way.

Only the two of them remained.

The command post had been carved out behind the collapsing front line. Through a broken window frame, the city bled into dusk—smoke rising in uneven threads, rubble stacked like something violently interrupted mid-structure.

"An engine?" Zhukov asked finally. "A component?"

"Neither."

After a silence, the American added: "And yet it may decide the war."

Zhukov let out a short, dry laugh.

"This war is already decided. We've taken Berlin. Whatever the Nazis are hiding doesn't change that."

He threw the drawing back onto the table.

"Desperate fantasies."

The American smoothed the sheet, unhurried. He took another slow drag.

Zhukov stood.

Arms folded, he looked down now—not at the man, but at the idea of him.

"You Americans are already stripping Germany of its scientists," the Marshal said, his face cold as raw iron. "We paid for Berlin in tens of thousands of casualties a day—and while we advance with bodies, you collect laboratories in the west."

He kept his eyes fixed on the American, refusing to look away, then extended a blunt finger toward the shattered window.

"You saw that soul who struck the match for you? One hour ago he was a regimental officer. Three hours ago, a battalion commander. His predecessor dead—the men above him keep dying, and with his luck he'll be gone before nightfall. We burn through names to crush the beast."

His voice flattened out.

"And still you Americans move faster than we do. Not through blood—but through lists. Through minds."

The American cut him off.

"And Comrade Stalin has not been less efficient," his Russian was immaculate—too immaculate, polished to the point where even contempt survived intact inside the grammar. "Your advance westward—thirty, forty kilometers a day—made for a magnificent track meet. But let us not pretend you were hunting for remnant fascists, Marshal. You were also racing for the laboratories—keeping pace with a plan to ship every German scientist east, as fast and as thoroughly as possible. What do you call it, again? Trophy Brigades? Yes. That's the term."

The Marshal's eyes hardened. The American just smiled.

"And while we're at it, Marshal—don't forget. Since Barbarossa began, our factories, our shipping lanes, our treasury, have been sending you roughly nine million dollars a day in strategic aid. EVERY single day. Without that transfusion, I doubt you'd have lasted a week."

Silence followed that.

Somewhere beyond the city center, a distant artillery blast rolled through the ruins. Low. Delayed. Like something arriving late to a conversation already finished.

The argument dissolved without either man conceding it. They drifted toward the window almost instinctively.

Outside, Berlin looked less like a city than a disassembled surface—geometry broken and reassembled without instruction. Buildings standing but not surviving, half-collapsed yet leaning into one another for support. Blackened swastika banners still caught on metal poles, moving faintly in the smoke like props abandoned after the final act of some Wagnerian catastrophe.

"Congratulations, Marshal," the American said after a moment. "Taking Berlin is every general's ambition. A professional culmination."

He was still watching the ruined city, not the Soviet marshal. The silence between them stretched, thick and heavy with the smoke filtering in from the outside.

"But victory is not confined to the material world."

Zhukov did not answer.

Instead, he stared at the American for a long moment, not because he had failed to hear the words, but because he could not decide whether the American was speaking like a philosopher, a fanatic, or a man delivering a warning disguised as abstraction.

Eventually the Marshal gave a faint shrug, turned back toward the drawing on the table, and looked at the American again with a silent, questioning impatience, as though waiting for him to stop circling the point and say plainly what he actually meant.

The American, however, suddenly shifted the direction of the conversation, dropping a question that seemed to have no connection to what they were discussing.

"What is your opinion of Hitler? "

"A devil," Zhukov answered at once. "A monster history will never forgive."

The American smiled faintly, unimpressed.

"Marshal, with beloved Comrade Stalin and the secret police absent from the room, I was hoping for your real opinion. Great commanders are usually capable of speaking objectively about the enemies who nearly destroyed them."

The Marshal fell silent. Not out of fear—more from the difficulty of deciding how much honesty the moment permitted. When he spoke again, the words emerged carefully measured.

"Leaving aside the war crimes... the man is, in a technical sense, cunning, but a master of self-discipline. He neither smoked nor drank, and was a vegetarian, as far as I know. No obvious vices. Strong self-control."

"No, no. Those are details." The American dismissed the point, shaking his head. "I am asking about politics. About war."

-------------
For anyone who prefer to read ahead, the full version is available on Amazon KDP:

Obsidian Earth

The Ramsey Particle

In 2056, CERN, a large particle collider on planet Earth, had discovered a new particle and called it the Ramsey particle. Based on a single line in the research of Prof. Higgs in the previous century, Prof. Ramsey had theorized that this particle should be added to the Standard Model. According to Ramsey, our universe was but one in an endless number of universes, all occupying the same space. So Ramsey augmented Einstein's model of space-time to space-time-universe. The Ramsey particle proved to keep a universe together, preventing universes from collapsing into one another.

The discovery of the Ramsey particle led to research into its accompanying antiparticle: the anti-Ramsey particle. That particle would locally destroy the coherence of a universe and cause a tunnel between universes. It took over a century to find this particle and required a super-large particle collider, one built around planet Jupiter.

Travelling between universes was not possible and was not thought ever to be possible. But Prof. Nieuwenburg theorized that enough anti-Ramsey particles would create a tunnel that would allow energy and gravity to travel through a Nieuwenburg tunnel, as it was named.

That took over two centuries, as anti-Ramsey particles were rare and really hard to create. But in 2377, the first Nieuwenburg tunnel was created. The tunnel would exist for a microsecond before closing. The next two centuries’ developments made it easier to create a Nieuwenburg tunnel, or an N-tunnel as it came to be known. All the tunnel did was exchange energy and gravity to and from a random universe. 

In these two centuries, it was Professor Kromjong who theorized that selecting a galaxy was possible. Every N-tunnel to another universe left a memory in the anti-Ramsey particles. Reusing anti-Ramsey particles would create a tunnel to the same universe that these particles had previously opened an N-tunnel to. It was in 2549 that the first tunnel creator – it was named the Kromjong tunneller - was successful in creating a tunnel to a selected universe. 

Every tunnel originated at the Kromjong tunneller and always ended in the same place in the selected universe. This was because all universes overlapped and did not move. It was like putting a bunch of unrelated maps on top of each other and pushing a nail through them. Starting at one location on the top map would always bring you to the accompanying place in the maps below.

So far this was all academic – it had no practical use case. Humankind built thousands of Kromjong tunnellers in search of useful endpoints for the N-tunnels, looking at millions of universes. It took 8 centuries – in 3301 - to find the first useful tunnel endpoint: the core of an active star. Finding that endpoint destroyed the Kromjong tunneller that created the tunnel because the energy in the core of that star flowed through the N-tunnel. The energy coming through destroyed an area the size of a city in just over a microsecond.

It took another two centuries – in 3582 - to find another useful endpoint: the core of a black hole. By now the Kromjong tunnellers were better protected, but even then the tunneller was almost sucked into the black hole. By then the Kromjong tunneller was capable of extended tunnel times – up to 7 milliseconds.

The discovery of the core of a star in another universe was useful for spaceships. A team led by Prof. Yamamoto had discovered ways of folding space to travel any distance in an instant. Space would be folded, and the spaceship would move a few kilometres and then unfold space. This was called ‘stepping’ as you would step into the other location. That would make instant travel to any location in the universe possible. However, each folding required the energy of a star, so it was not feasible and therefore purely academic. The discovery of the core of a star in another universe opened possibilities. By creating an N-tunnel into the core of a star, the energy coming through the tunnel was more than enough to power a space folder. The first spaceship successfully travelling this way was the UESS Salty Dog in 3544, using a Yamamoto drive, or Y-drive as it came to be known.

There was still a problem to solve. A point in our universe would always tunnel to the same point in another universe. It was Dr. Prepain who developed a way to page through other universes at incredible speed, creating and destroying N-tunnels to see if there was the core of a star on the other end. After all, with an infinite number of universes, there would always be one with the core of a star in that particular location. That would allow ships to find the core of a star in another universe from any location in our universe.

Soon after that, Earth built a fleet of ships – the Salty Dog class – that could travel by folding space, using N-tunnels, a Y-drive and a Prepain indexer.

Humans being humans, the Kromjong tunneller was then put to use for weapons. Having found the core of a black hole, a missile was developed that would open a tunnel to a black hole near the enemy ship. That was first tested in 3587 on an old commercial carrier, the ECC Marie Jeanette. The missile was fired at the ECC Marie Jeanette and triggered within a hundred meters. The N-tunnel was open for four milliseconds. The Marie Jeanette was sucked into the black hole in two milliseconds. High-speed camera replays showed that the Marie Jeanette was sucked into the tunnel with the closest point moving in first at close to light speed, the furthest points following nano seconds later. It basically looked like the Marie Jeanette turned from a ship into a line and then nothing.

The missile could not carry enough power to drive a Prepain indexer. Therefore, in most locations, a ship would need to do the indexing and then program the missiles accordingly. As a black hole is very, very big, a useful universe that was found with the Prepain indexer would be good enough for a battle area the size of an extended solar system.

Earth was both happy and unhappy with this new weapon. Mass demonstrations were held against the weapon and for a test ban. The United Earth government, however, decided on one more test on a moon-sized asteroid in the Oort cloud. That went a little differently. The side of the asteroid close to the Nieuwenburg tunnel disappeared into the tunnel. However, the tunnel would not stay open long enough to swallow the entire asteroid, so half of it remained, being accelerated towards the core of the black hole but never finding it. Effectively, the weapon had broken the asteroid in two, with the remaining half hurtling through space at an incredible speed.

In the following centuries, Earth manufactured hundreds of thousands of N-missiles. Knowing Earth's history of violence and war, these missiles could only be activated after a democratic vote among the population of Earth and its colonies – by then some two trillion people. This was a cumbersome process, but it would safeguard humanity from destroying itself.

Among the stars

The KayJay drive – as it came to be known, being short for Kromjong – sent humanity to millions of other star systems in the following millennia. Humans found mostly dead planets or planets with only microbial life. However, once in a while they would find a civilisation. Some were young and not yet space-faring, some were advanced, travelling the universe, some were at their peak, some were over their peak and decaying, and some were dead. Particularly the dead civilisations were numerous and spanned billions of years. However, humanity did not find any really old thriving civilisations. All the active civilisations were at most a million years old, counting from the moment they developed faster-than-light travel.

Humanity started to realise that every civilisation would inevitably die in the end. This realisation started a seeding program. On thousands and thousands of planets, seed vaults were placed in orbit. Vaults with all the requirements for life and with human DNA. These planets were often young, too young to support life of any kind. The vaults were programmed to send their contents to the planet’s surface after a set period – some hundreds of thousands of years, some hundreds of millions of years. By then the planets would be ready to support life. That, so was thought, would guarantee that humanity would keep on starting again, thereby preventing the demise of the species. Humans would be there until the end of the universe, was the prevailing sentiment.

Humans would not interact with pre-space-faring civilizations. They had taken to heart the directive of an ancient amusement series – Star Trek – that pre-space flight civilisations should be left alone to develop naturally. Humans, being nostalgic, still called it the ‘prime directive’.

Civilisations near or at their peak were the best partners for trade, cultural exchange and scientific exchange. Some were great holiday destinations, some had great art and music, some had great food, and some had a way of looking at the universe that was entertaining and surprising. Some species were just plain fun to be with. Earth – surprisingly – was well known for its fiction and entertainment. Old ‘television’ series – a television was a flat view screen for viewing entertainment programs – were particularly popular as they were both weird and simple fun. The only problem was that some species had difficulty distinguishing between documentaries and fiction. Which was fun for the humans.

The most popular among alien species, however, was a category called ‘porn’ which showed the many creative ways of human procreation. Aliens found it fun to watch and were spiked by the way humans showed their procreation to the rest of the universe. Each species had its own way of procreating. All required combining DNA of two or more individuals. According to humans, the weirdest were the N’GKXTCH, where females gathered as much DNA as possible from as many males as possible. Their internal organs would then choose each gene based on majority and use that for their offspring. It proved to be a stable way of protecting the species as outliers were ignored, but it also caused very slow development. What had taken humans a hundred thousand years had taken the N’GKXTCH almost a million years. It was due to their extremely friendly planetary environment that they had not been wiped out a long time ago.

The big problem proved to be with decaying civilisations. These were trying to assert dominance in a universe that had overtaken them. A last-ditch effort to be relevant. Most of these civilisations had built up a sizeable military and were pouring ever more resources into expanding that military. More ships, more weapons, more soldiers. Often they would resort to enslaving other civilisations – mostly pre-space-faring civilisations – to serve their military. The worst among them had enslaved hundreds of thousands of civilisations, trillions of individuals.

Most of these had an aggressive posture, attempting to dominate advancing or peaking civilisations. Regular wars were a consequence, wars that were hugely costly in terms of resources and lives. The most famous of these wars was the Galactic Superwar of JADES, where two decaying civilisations fought each other, and over two hundred trillion enslaved species lost their lives. The Omega-Thau system – in the JADES galaxy - was destroyed, debris of destroyed planets being flung out, causing gravitational disruptions that knocked planets out of their orbit in the nearby systems and destroying any possible life there. In the end, both civilisations had vanished.

Never did the humans bring up their N-missiles – they were kept a total secret. It was thought that if a civilisation came to know of them, humans would be considered monsters that should not be interacted with. And rightly so – even the human population did not know about them and would only learn of their existence if their use would be put to the vote.

An Emperor Takes Offence

The first sign of problems arose when Earth received a war declaration from the AA’AGTXQ. Their war declaration was sent by an emissary in a bubble ship. A bubble ship was a tiny driverless ship that was shot through an FTL space highway and had no return possibility. The emissary read the declaration aloud in Earth Congress, comprising the House and Senate of Earth and Earth’s maharajah, president, and vice president. It stated that Earth had violated common decency and had committed galactic rape by placing hideous objects in orbit of hundreds of thousands of planets. The seed vaults.

The declaration of war left no doubt as to its intentions. There would be no negotiation, no surrender or anything else. The AA’AGTXQ were bent on war, and there was nothing Earth could do about it. It was obvious that this was a decaying civilisation attempting to assert its dominance on the galaxy. Not a civilisation to be taken trivially, though. The AA’AGTXQ had acquired faster-than-light travel over eighty thousand years ago. That is a long time to develop ships and weapons for warfare. Their most feared weapon was a dimensional shift disruptor. It would shoot out a beam, within which space would be uncertain about which universe it was in, which would crumble matter into pieces that were in this universe and pieces in other universes. Not conducive to a healthy state of matter.

After proclaiming the declaration of war at the top of his lungs, the emissary screamed loudly, ‘Hail Emperor d’Troof’ and blew himself up. He had brought a recording device that sent the declaration and suicide to Emperor d’Troof immediately.  Leaving Congress in disarray and a bit of a panic.

The AA’AGTXQ did not give Earth any time to consider their options. An hour after the emissary read out the war declaration, Earth's colony Wayne’s World – named after a very old entertainment series that the click-click-pause-click species (humans called them twenty-oners) thought was a documentary – was attacked. A dimensional shift disruptor ray disrupted the planet, the colony, and its 250 million inhabitants out of existence. The AA’AGTXQ proudly sent a live broadcast of the disruption on every channel to the universe. At the end, Emperor D’Troof – an androgynous being – loudly announced the beginning of the end of humanity. Being what he was, he also added that human elections were a fraud, so they deserved what they got. He also used the opportunity to announce import tariffs on any merchandise coming from the Alpha quadrant of the Milky Way. Finally, he praised the dictator Emperor of Chria, who had gone to war – and was losing - with a small solar system nearby.

For the humans, this was a no-return point: the AA’AGTXQ were not just going to pay; they were going to be annihilated. On streets on Earth and on its colonies, billions of people chanted ‘exterminate, exterminate’ in the voice of Daleks, from an ancient entertainment series called ‘Doctor Who’. It was a good time to inform the humans about the N-missiles and to put their use to the vote. Humans overwhelmingly – 87% - voted for their use against the AA’AGTXQ.

There was one problem for the humans. Though the humans had over two million ships, only just over one hundred thousand of them could fire N-missiles. And the AA’AGTXQ, by the latest analysis, had well over seven million warships with the dimensional shift disruptor.

The numbers were not good for the humans. An AA’AGTXQ warship would destroy a colony, and an Earth N-missile would then suck the AA’AGTXQ ship out of existence. But with the number of ships the AA’AGTXQ had, all colonies would be gone before all AA’AGTXQ ships were sucked out of existence.

A special kind of hubris

It was up to Admiral Sjen to find a solution. She – Sjen started as a He but decided to be a She for a while – stood on the bridge of the UESS Abyss, contemplating options. She could attack AA’AGTXQ prime – her KayJay drive would get her there in a nanosecond - but the problem was that the N-missiles had to be set up at the location of use. It would take at least two hours to index the area with the Prepain indexer, program the missiles, and fire them at enemy ships, after which it would take another seven minutes to open the N-tunnel. During that time, the firing ship would have to be stationary, which made it a sitting duck for the dimensional shift disruptors.

Captain Öcellan of the UESS Abyss looked at Admiral Sjen. ‘What are your orders, ma’am?’ she asked. Captain Öcellan was famous for the battle of Esteron, where she beat thirty-five AA’AGTXQ battleships with only four Earth ships. It had been a humiliation for the AA’AGTXQ. 

Admiral Sjen did not answer immediately. It seemed to her that the N-missile was not as powerful as originally thought. She was looking at the screen, where Emperor d’Troof was bragging to journalists about his powerful and exceptional intelligence. ‘Such an idiot’, Sjen thought. She thought about the way AA’AGTXQ was run. It used to be a democracy, like on Earth, but now it was run by one man, the Emperor. He was continually killing his possible opponents and successors. He was quietly called ‘the great defenestrator’ by his detractors. ‘I don’t know,’ she said to Captain Öcellan, ‘that idiot on screen is scrambling my brain’. 

Emperor d’Troof had moved to the capital warship Ultimate Disruptor. It was a gift from the kingdom of Qtr and was furnished with golden seats, tables, et cetera. Even the imperial lavatory was made of gold. Emperor d’Troof loved gold. The Ultimate Disruptor was a globe. One half was for machinery, personnel, et cetera. The entire other half was a courtroom dome. The courtroom was all gold and diamonds. The Qtr had gone out of their way to please the Emperor. On the perimeter were golden seats for visitors. These were usually visitors from other empires and species. The front row, closest to the centre, was made up of hard and uncomfortable wooden benches. These were reserved for species that the Emperor deemed ‘Sad’, ‘Unfair to the empire’ and ‘having no cards to play’. The Emperor would always berate the wooden benchers, as they came to be called, and flaunt the power of the empire in their faces.

Emperor d’Troof held a firm belief that the only thing that mattered was power. And Emperor d’Troof had it in spades. The way the universe worked was that the powerful dominated and all others served the powerful. The Emperor could bully others, threaten them and, if necessary, destroy them. He had destroyed hundreds of civilizations purely for being disrespectful to him. Such was the Emperors right, such was the way of the universe.

At the centre of the courtroom there was a golden throne, inlaid with diamonds and with the rarest matter in the universe, QulQar, which could only be found in very small quantities on one in a million planets. The amount of QulQar in the throne represented more than half of the quantity ever extracted.

The Emperor was strutting around in the courtroom, looking smug and answering questions of the invited press in his usual insulting way. D’Troof was Emperor after all, and everybody served him. ‘I have ordered my military to destroy all humans, ’ he or she – nobody really knows - said. ‘We have the greatest military in the universe, you know. Everybody says that. I have the greatest Admirals and the best weapons of everybody’. He or she put on a smug smile, pushed out his or her considerable belly and turned around so everyone could see him. ‘The humans will beg me for peace, and they will give me anything to get it. I am the greatest dealmaker in the universe, everybody says that’. One of the journalists, a young female named r’Oupnama, gathered enough guts to ask the Emperor a question. ‘Emperor d’Troof, do you really think these orbital vaults the humans have put up are so bad?’ She shrank visibly as though she regretted her question as soon as it was asked. ‘You are so stupid. You should not be asking questions, ’ Emperor D’Troof shouted at her. ‘You always lie; you are fake press with fake news. Your employer should fire you right now’. She was fired two minutes after asking her question; the news agency apologized profusely to the Emperor, begging him not to take offence. The Emperor cancelled the license of the news agency and set his law hounds on them. Everybody serves Emperor d’Troof, no exceptions.

The Gift

All this was shown on the viewscreen in the UESS Abyss. ‘Maybe you can use that against him, ’ Captain Öcellan said to Admiral Sjen. Admiral Sjen abruptly turned towards her and snapped, ‘What? What on earth are you talking about?’ Captain Öcellan did not care for Admiral Sjen’s ways, but she pushed on. ‘It seems to me that the Emperor’s arrogance can be turned against him,’ Captain Öcellan said. That seemed to break Admiral Sjen’s irritation. ‘Explain,’ she said. ’Well,’ Captain Öcellan said, ‘my father was like the Emperor, and after a while I learned how to use his arrogance to manipulate him to do anything I wanted. It seems to me we can get the Emperor in a losing position just by appeasing and insulting him’. Admiral Sjen looked at Captain Öcellan intently, deeply pondering her remarks. It took Admiral Sjen almost a minute, and then she said, ‘Give me an example’.

Captain Öcellan smiled. Now she was getting somewhere. ‘Well, as an example. My father hated my boyfriends when I was young. He would demeanour them, insult them, belittle and berate them, and brag about himself until nobody wanted to be my boyfriend. So I changed tack. I praised him for his intelligence and his astute judgment of character. I told him he had been right every time, of course. That I was really thankful for him being my father. That it would be a great honour if he would allow me to invite him to dinner in the greatest restaurant in town, ‘The Prancing Horse’. Admiral Sjen looked sharply at Captain Öcellan. ‘I have read your file. That is where your father died, is it not?’ ‘Yes,’ said Captain Öcellan, ‘but what is not in my file is how he died. ’ Admiral Sjen was silent and puzzled. Where was this going? ‘I invited all my ex-boyfriends to that restaurant too. All of them were really hurt by my father, as was I’. ‘My father would never do what I asked him, but the flattery made him make mistakes. He came to the Prancing Horse.’ She looked Admiral Sjen straight in the eye. ‘Together we all stabbed him to death. ’ Captain Öcellan looked at Admiral Sjen to see the shock. ‘The boys left the heart for me. He was still alive when I stabbed him in the heart’. Admiral Sjen let out the air she had been holding. ‘I tell you this as an example of how we can get the Emperor to put himself in a vulnerable position, sir’. Admiral Sjen thought she would never look at Captain Öcellan the same way again. But other matters were more pressing. Could she get the Emperor in a similar position? She looked intently at Captain Öcellan and raised her eyebrows. Captain Öcellan understood the implied question.

‘We need an area in space that we can prepare, so that the N-missiles can be set up in advance and triggered the moment the ultimate Disruptor arrives. ’ Admiral Sjen was not impressed. Of course they would want to make that happen. Finishing off the Emperor would mean an end to the war. His total control of the AA’AGTXQ empire meant that it would fall apart the moment the Emperor was gone. But it was impossible to do. The Ultimate Disruptor had made a habit of jumping in and, if something was off, jumping out again within a second. She felt irritation coming up, but curiosity got the best of her. ‘Continue’.

‘We beg the Emperor for forgiveness. We apologize profusely. That will not be enough, of course, so we offer him a very special gift. To be accepted at a place in space that fits the occasion. The solar system of his first conquest. The Tpoy system.’ Admiral Sjen thought that was interesting but not enough. What would be the present that would make him come? Captain Öcellan smiled. ‘Gotcha,’ she thought. ‘It needs to be a present that will keep the Ultimate Disruptor in place for at least seven minutes so the N-tunnel can open. ’ Silence. The Admiral was egging her on with her eyes. Captain Öcellan said, ‘You will probably need to know the present, sir’. She waited a while for effect. ‘I am the human the Emperor most hates. I am the one who humiliated him in the battle of Esteron. So it will be me. Naked, painted top to bottom in 24-karat gold, wearing a crown that honours him and hurts me’. Admiral Sjen was trying to understand what was going on here. ‘The gift is not just me; I represent humanity, and I will bow at his feet and kiss them. D’Troof will love it, gloat and show me to everyone, while the seven minutes go by’. Admiral Sjen started to get the picture. ‘No, no way, we are not going to do that. You will die, you will be sucked in with him!’

‘This is what I want to do. I cannot think of a better way to make my life worthwhile than to give it away for humanity. I really want to do this. And besides, think of the opportunity to see that bastard sucked into a black hole in another universe. I would give my life for just that. And I will.’ Captain Öcellan said. She had practised this part in front of the mirror. Admiral Sjen’s heart nearly exploded hearing this. This great woman, this lovely creature, this vengeful weapon. She pursed her lips and pinched her nose. ‘Done deal,’ Captain Öcellan thought, knowing her Admiral really well. Her childhood experience had taught her to deeply study other people so she could avoid getting hurt. Lips pursing and nose pinching were the Admiral's tells that she was going to say yes. Just wait a minute, and it will come. After a silent minute, it did come. ‘Okay Mitsu, let’s do it’. Mitsu was Captain Öcellan’s Christian name. Using it showed the sorrow at giving away Captain Öcellan.

Seven minutes

Orders went out immediately to prepare the Tpoy system for the arrival of the Emperor. The system was indexed by the UESS Marauder, and the N-missiles were programmed and set to detonate as soon as the Emperor arrived. They still required at least seven minutes to open the N-tunnel, so the performance of Captain Öcellan was crucial. The Ultimate Disruptor would jump out of the system before the tunnel was opened if she did not appear.

The tricky part was getting the Emperor to say yes. Admiral Sjen decided that the only way to guarantee his trip to the Tpoy system was to go in person to invite him. She sent the Emperor a message: ‘Hail Emperor d’Troof, the greatest Emperor that is, was and ever will be. The Emperor that puts all other Emperors to shame. The human race bows to you and will serve you in every way you desire. The human race will mark this great moment with an unimaginable gift. It would be my great honour to personally invite you to accept the gift in a ceremony that marks the subservience of the human race and the recognition of the greatness of you, our divine Emperor.’ It only took fifteen minutes for the Emperor to grant Admiral Sjen an audience. Captain Öcellan had predicted that the Emperor would respond quickly.

Admiral Sjen had been warned by Captain Öcellan. The Emperor would gloat and would insult and berate her to show everybody his greatness and power. The Emperor would strut around, inviting everybody to see his power and might and the Admiral’s begging and subservience. He would likely actually say it: ‘Look at the humans begging … I am the greatest Emperor, the one that got the humans to their knees’. The Admiral would have to act pleased at the attention he got from the Emperor and try to stop her face from turning red from anger.

The great golden doors of the Emperor's court in the Ultimate Disruptor opened majestically. Admiral Sjen walked onto the golden floor, inlaid with diamonds, with her head bowed down, not looking the Emperor in the eye. She stopped at a line in the golden floor at the centre of the court. Along the sides of the great court, the rows of golden seats were filled with dignitaries eager to see the coming spectacle. The Wooden Benchers on the inner ring of seats were dressed in old rags. A new way of humiliating them and pleasing the Emperor.  The Emperor spread his arms and turned around so everyone in the court could see it. ‘Now you all see it for yourself. I have personally brought the stupid humans to their knees. They are begging me for mercy. Sad, so sad. Shall I give them mercy? Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. I don’t know yet. Maybe it depends on their gift. Will the gift please me, the greatest Emperor ever?

The Emperor fell silent. The Admiral was standing still, head bowed down, not looking at the Emperor. The Emperor went on. ‘So, you sad little human, what is your gift?’

The Admiral turned his head up and looked the Emperor in the eye. ‘You know Captain Öcellan of the battle of Esteron, my Emperor?’ The Emperor snapped at the Admiral, ‘You dare to bring up that name in my court? You stupid little idiot! You have nothing! Nothing, you hear me?’. 

The Admiral swallowed and suppressed her anger. This idiot was going to die; she just had to play her role. ‘Captain Öcellan is your present, my Emperor.’ The court fell quiet. The Admiral looked the Emperor in the eye and said, ‘Not only that. She will be painted in 24-karat gold and wear a golden crown of golden nails torturing her.’ More silence. ‘And she will bow before you and kiss your feet. ’ This was too much for the court. It erupted in mumbling and little shrieks by the females present. 

‘Silence!’ the Emperor shouted. He looked intently at the Admiral. The Admiral went on. ‘Of course it is only befitting of your majesty’s greatness that the gift will be given at an appropriate place. Earth.’ The Emperor looked pleased, but one of his advisors whispered something in his ear. ’No, not Earth. Do you think I am stupid? So sad!’ the Emperor said. Admiral Sjen feigned disappointment. ’But your majesty, it should be a place of great importance to your majesty, one befitting of the greatest Emperor ever!’ the Admiral said. ‘It should be a place where your greatness is most great, where your enormous achievements are evident, where the odds of your victory were unimaginably bad. A place where you can shine with Captain Öcellan at your feet.’ There was silence for a while as the Emperor was pondering the many options. ‘Tpoy,’ the Emperor said. The court mumbled approvingly. ‘Tpoy, where I had my first unimaginable victory against stupendous odds! Nobody could have won there, only one as great as me! The greatest Emperor and warrior ever!’ The Emperor looked around smugly, taking in the greatness of this idea and the approval of the court. ‘You are too stupid to come up with that; humans are so sad, and they have no cards to play. Tpoy it will be, you ridiculous little human’. ‘And it will be tomorrow at noon’. ‘Now go. ’

The Admiral left, walking backwards, continually bowing to the Emperor. ‘Tomorrow at noon you will die, you arrogant little shit,’ she thought.

And so it happened. The humans had prepared the Tpoy system. N-missiles were spread around the system so there would always be one near enough to the Ultimate Disruptor. They were in stand-by mode so they would not radiate their presence to the Ultimate Disruptor and would not be found by the security party that would undoubtedly check the system before the Emperor arrived. 

Captain Öcellan was prepared in the UESS Abyss. Naked, painted in 24-karat gold. Skin and hair all gold. On the side table lay the crown. Gold, with sharp nails pointing inwards.

At one minute before noon, she stepped into a bubble ship and was shot to the exact spot where the cargo bay of the Ultimate Disruptor would be at noon. Captain Öcellan put on her crown and pressed it into her head to start the bleeding. 

At exactly noon, the Ultimate Disruptor jumped out of faster-than-light travel, materializing around the bubble ship of Captain Öcellan. She was dragged out of the bubble ship by soldiers of the empire and brought to the Emperor within seconds. 

The Emperor gasped. This was an immense moment, an immense view; he could even smell the blood that was running down Captain Öcellan’s face. It felt almost sexual to the Emperor. Captain Öcellan looked down at the feet of the Emperor. 

Emperor d’Troof went on a victory tour around the court in the Ultimate Disruptor. He berated the human race, insulted Captain Öcellan, praised himself, and started again from the beginning. He was enjoying the moment. All that time Captain Öcellan stood still, blood now running down her golden face, neck and shoulders. The crown hurt; it really hurt, but to Captain Öcellan it was a good pain. The pain of imminent victory.

Finally, Emperor d’Troof walked over to Captain Öcellan and stood right in front of her.  He had orated for close to seven minutes. ‘Just a few seconds more, ’ Captain Öcellan thought. 

‘Now kiss my feet,’ the Emperor commanded. Captain Öcellan smiled. Not friendly, just cold, very cold. ‘Kiss my feet, you sad stupid little human! Now!’. Her cold eyes looked straight into his. She hissed loudly, so everyone could hear, ‘Never you bastard, never and no human will ev …’

That was how far Captain Öcellan got. The N-tunnel opened and within 2 microseconds the Ultimate Disruptor, Emperor and all, disappeared. And with him, soon after, the AA’AGTXQ empire. It destroyed itself in a civil war at a scale and ferocity the universe had not seen in a million years. It took only one Earth year. It was, so humans said, majestic.

22 July 2026

-/-

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Thena strode over, her eyes lighting up blue with her mana sight.  “That’s… that… Isen!  That’s like twenty whimsy’s in one!  How’d you do that?!”

Isenwrath shrugged, “Hayleigh is a good teacher?”

Thena looked at Hayleigh like it was all Hayleigh’s fault. 

Hayleigh waved her hands in front of herself while her eyes went wide at being under that accusatory glare, “Wait!  I just showed her how to match my mana flow and then told the instructions to her like how I was taught!  I don’t even know how to cast two whimsy spells at once! Don’t look at me like that!”

Thena turned to Sophitia to say, “Looks like we’ve got both the best student and worst student on our hands.  She’s so flipping powerful that no matter what you teach her, it’ll be done at the maximum level you can imagine with no care for the consequences.  I feel sorry for Maxi now.”

Sophitia chuckled at her, then turned that smile to Isenwrath.  For her part Isenwrath didn’t know what to say about that, so she just smiled and nodded.  Sophitia then asked, “So, God Plate armor, huh?  Can I see it?”

By this time, the rest of the group had walked over to stand around to listen to the conversation, but Maddock stepped up behind Isenwrath, took her other hand then answered Sophitia’s question.  “So, let’s not do this here.  Why don’t we go to the gardens and let you meet the REAL hero of Maciendes.  Shall we take a stroll?”

Isenwrath cheered, “YAY!  Are there flowers!?”

Sophitia and Thena giggled a lot when Harmony, Beatrice, and Hayleigh snatched her right out of Maddock’s arms to exclaim loudly about what flowers were blooming today.    Maddock stood there kind of bewildered alongside Sophitia and Tobias.  The others who watched the three women begin to lead a small procession weren’t all that in the know either.  Then the princes yelled for their new favorite badass to wait up so they could start talking eldritch blade techniques and quiz the Black Knight of Maciendes how to train to get faster.  Her answer to just eat a bunch of Quickling Drellkind ofrk Thieves appalled and yet fascinated the group.  Maddock just held his face while he walked with a supportive Pondra and Braxton patting his shoulders in clear understanding.

Isenwrath absolutely loved the royal flower garden.  She sang songs, tossed out her magical whimsy butterflies at just about every fourth step, and literally had the group of royals, Isen’s retinue of guards that had joined them from the hallways earlier, and especially the three royal children enthralled at this fun new lady.  Sophitia and Tobias were so hard pressed to even think that this woman could even be a threat to anyone.  That was up until they arrived at a large open patio in the center of the garden. 

Isenwrath had snagged up a random assortment of flowers, smelling them over and over as if she was close to just shoving them up her nose, still giggling in delight at this grand adventure.

Maddock gently pushed the flowers away from her amused face, kissed her forehead with love, then took her hand to stand beside her.  “Everyone.  So, my lovely girl here is very disarming as you’ve seen and heard about.  Well, you’ve seen nothing yet and my reports don’t do her justice.” 

He turned to her, “Sweetheart, please introduce our king and his family to who really won the war against the demon incursion.”

Isenwrath shrugged, handed her flowers to Maddock, moved away from him and the group, then began to undress right there in front of them.  Everyone began to exclaim something about that except for Hayleigh, Daniel, and Nathaniel because they were happy to get a chance at seeing some surprise Isenwrath nakedness.  Thankfully, Thena was there.

“Damn it.  I forgot.  She can’t shift without ripping up her clothes,” she muttered irritably before casting a quick illusion that wrapped an opaque green shield around Isenwrath.  Maddock blew out a relieved breath while the three royal teenagers let out dismayed sounds that got glares from all of the other adults around them.

Sophitia had to ask. “Isenwrath, you know a lot of spells, but you can’t make clothes appear and disappear?”

Thena giggled at that while Isenwrath blushed in shame.  Not for being naked, but instead, not being able to cast a quality of life spell she needed more than most.  “I can’t do it.  Thena tried to teach it to me on our way back.  I can’t seem to manage more than just making a burlap sack appear over my head.  I… can’t get the weave right.”

Maddock chuckled at the surprised faces around him and the three disappointed faces of the teenagers.  “So, yeah.  A quirk of hers.  Sometimes, she can’t think small or normal enough.”

“Okay.  I’m ready,” Isenwrath finally said from within the illusion.

Out from within the illusion, Isenwrath’s hand appeared.  A blink later, it held her war mallet after it grew to her size.  When the illusion faded, the armor was in place, encased around her body like a second skin.  Then she grew.  In only two breaths, she was a forty-foot tall giant Black Knight staring down at her new friends who had many of the same reactions.  Except for those that had gotten used to her who clapped at having her stand there tall and proud like she was.  However, there was a difference.  This time, there was an additional detail that no one could miss.  Standing just as proudly behind her, looking down with a long, graceful neck upon a sturdy body that was covered in brilliant multi-colored scales, large healthy wings and wrapping its tail around his favorite person was Bubblescale, a fully grown adult chromatic dragon that Isenwrath patted under his head.

Hayleigh shouted first, “DAMN IT!  I WANT A BUBBLESCALE!  THAT’S TOTALLY NOT FAIR!”

Both Bubblescale and Isenwrath looked down in utter confusion.  They were honestly just trying to figure out what the big deal was when that group of royals, generals, and some guards all began exclaiming loudly at, to, and around each other with a lot of big expressive hand gestures, mostly at the two of them.   The two of them finally looked at each other, shook their heads at each other, then walked off to enjoy the rest of the garden together while the others sorted out their big feelings. 

There’s nothing like it when the other royal guards within the rest of the garden all stopped to stare at a giant black knight and adult rainbow dragon bending down to sniff large squares of flowers while all of the nobles and such were still at the center discussing said giant and dragon loudly.  It was funny in a way, but still, what the heck do you even tell your family later that night?  Or is this a case where you silently drink at a bar to use as mental floss?

Maddock finally shouted at them all with that tone which could call order to thousands of soldiers, “SHUT! UP!”

Generals Braxton and Pondra chuckled at that instant silence he obtained.

“Look, I tried to tell you all that she does shit like this because she just fucking can!  Now.  Let’s calm down and… oh good gravy… just look over there and tell me exactly what you see.”

Tobias, Sophitia, Prince Daniel and Nathaniel, the Advisors Stanley and Carmella, the Generals Braxton and Pondra, Princess Hayleigh, the Lady Knights for Isenwrath- Harmony and Beatrice, and Ducal Mage Thena all looked over to watch the utter lunacy, yet endearing sight of a giant black armored knight creating a crown of flowers from a big swath of them to place it on her new pet’s head lovingly. 

Sophitia began to laugh behind her hand.  After that, the mood shifted again from arguing about what the hell could go wrong to just how anything to do with their new lady friend was never as it seemed.  That’s when Hayleigh sprinted off to go join her big friend and her dragon with Grinlock hot on her heels. “Hey Isen!  I want a flower crown too! I’m a princess, dang it!” she called out halfway there.  The red glowing eyes in the visor seemed to change to amusement at seeing Hayleigh running full tilt her way.

Maddock called out to her while the rest of them walked at a more sedate pace, “Isen, Sweetheart!  You don’t have to stay like that!  You can shift back if you want!”

Hayleigh got picked up then was set on Isenwrath’s shoulder where she cackled merrily at her new elevated status in life.  Soon, flowers were being floated up from an almost destroyed flower bed of what used to be an organized colorful variety of tulips and orchids where the two girls worked with them to create a giant flower garland for Isenwrath and a small crown for Hayleigh.  Apparently, Isenwrath didn’t want to shift back, but instead wanted to sit there to play with flowers she’d never seen or smelled before.  Grinlock himself approved because shortly after, he was sitting atop Isenwrath’s head, completely decked out like a flower god surveying his world in utter peace and tranquility, tail slowly swishing side to side in contentment.

While they sat there, Prince Daniel strode up and rapped his knuckles on Isenwrath’s shin.  “See Dad?  God Plate.  This has to be what the dungeon delvers keep talking about.  It’s the only thing that explains how she caught Nathaniel’s blade.”

Maddock nodded, “Well, it does make sense since this stuff seems to shrug off high level spells.”

Advisor Carmella touched the armor cautiously, rubbing her hand over it until it came to an edge.  “Why the purple edging?”

Thena commented, “It did that when she ate one of the demon elites.  It seemed to almost escape, but she’d gotten too strong and so whatever he was got incorporated into her and that was the result.  Oh, and she learned to teleport after that too.”

Carmella patted the armor then leaned back on Isenwrath’s leg.  “Maxi was right.  Nothing we have… nothing that any tower has in my opinion, can touch her.”

Nathaniel and Daniel assumed the same pose to lean on each side of the hot older mage, Thena.  Nathaniel said quietly, “There’s been talk spreading in the adventurer guilds about Shinenoor.  No one has ever seen the last boss and lived to tell about it.  No one.  That’s been the biggest mystery about our training ground.  But after our lady here appeared, me and Dan heard that there was a witness to what happened.  An Angellicine woman who returned to her home in Thyeriand’s Skylorne Crystalized Forest gave what may be the first of its kind account of what happened to shut Shinenoor down.  The guild is where we first heard about the black knight boss of Shinenoor because it corroborated the report of the only creature that escaped that dungeon before it went poof.”

Tobias looked at his advisors, “Have you two gotten this in a report or something?  I mean, we should be in the know on this.”

Stanley rubbed at his greying beard, “No.  But the adventuring guilds and delvers don’t freely give that kind of information away. Not to anyone.  So, that may be something that was relegated to rumor since there’s only one witness and that’s why we didn’t get anything and why it’s spreading through their taverns.”

Maddock shrugged, “Well, let’s verify it.  Hey Isen!?”

She turned her head from letting Hayleigh draw pictures on the side of her face guard to look down at them, “Yes, Sweetheart?”

“Did anyone witness what happened to the Shinenoor boss?”

“Oh.  Yes.  A birdlady was there.  She did her job, but I didn’t fall for her trap.  I don’t know why I didn’t eat her, but I didn’t.  Her name was Claire and she saw me rise up after I ate the Trapmaster from the inside out.  That was the only way to kill him because the armor and mallet were also a trap, except after I ate the core, they couldn’t hold me in Shinenoor anymore, so I took Claire and left.   I ate the Librarian and destroyed the miser golem too if that matters.”

Nathaniel looked at his dad and mom in triumph.  “See?!  God Plate!  The first of its kind found in Maciendes!  And Maddock’s hot black knight babe is the proud owner of a full suit!  Ouch!!”

Sophitia held her hand up in front of Nathaniel’s face, glaring at him, “Watch your mouth, boy. She’s a future duchess first and foremost, learn some respect.”

“Yes, mom,” he said contritely while rubbing the back of his head.  Her rings would probably leave a good mark or two by morning.  His brother Daniel was snickering at him after turning away.

“Well, what do we do now with this little tidbit?” asked Thena.  “I mean, there’s no way any of the other kingdoms are going to accept her as a duchess when she wields this stuff.  She may get disqualified because the towers may tell us that we have no choice but declare her as an Arch Magister mage that cannot have any political involvement at all.  Maxi would probably love it, but Maddock won’t, I’m certain by that mad face he’s making.  And then there’s the Eldritch Champion guilds no one has considered yet.  They’re going to throw hands when she can walk in and wipe the floor with their strongest on any random day of the week.  They’ll riot if they can’t claim her as their own and send her out on their big missions and stuff.  I believe not only are we going to have to push for her citizenship but also how to even classify her in such a way that she isn’t considered the biggest political threat ever to be discovered.”

Maddock stared at the heavens - (which were nice by the way.  Clear blue skies with only a few fair-weather happy clouds slowly moving across them.)  Tobias joined Daniel to lean on Isenwrath’s shin.  The giggles above them didn’t help with the seriousness of the situation.  Looking up, they all saw Hayleigh having not only drawn pretty butterfly pictures on Isenwrath’s black helm with a conjured red color stick but also had practically decorated her whole head with various flowers for which Grinlock kept making funny kingly proclamations from his loftier perch. The dragon Bubblescale kept reaching around to the other flower beds without moving his body from its comfy spot in the sun to give them more ammunition to work with.  He was a very helpful whimsy, it seemed.

“Gary is going to scream at me for this shit,” Sophitia said sadly after realizing the absolute mess the three of them were making to two large squares of carefully planted and maintained flower beds that had been Gary the Chief Gardner’s pride for the last three years.

“Probably,” Tobias said unhelpfully.  “Anyway, here’s what I’m thinking we do.  Since I don’t want anyone having any say over her than Maddock himself, having her become duchess is the only outcome I want to have happen.  I want her to protect this kingdom, not get pissed off enough to take us all down.  So, we should get her citizenship set first.  Then I’ll petition the summit for something that hasn’t been acknowledged in hundreds of years now due to the creation of the summit itself.  I’m going to re-establish a kingdom’s champion.  I mean, why not run with what she practically is, Maciendes’ Black Knight Champion.  That way, she can still be Maddock’s wife, still contribute to the towers, and even have the clout to join in on missions such as the demon incursions as needed.  However, as a Champion, she would have the title of duchess, but not the political power of the position.  Maddock?”

Maddock looked up again at his future just being at peace with the silliness of the situation she was in.  He couldn’t imagine her acting in any way like a duchess was supposed to act.  Many were lovely women who were warm and welcoming, but they were also reserved and could be downright ruthless when dealing with other nobles and even more so when they had to work with those lower in position than themselves.  But here Isenwrath sat, clad in magical armor so mythic so as to be a prize that could cause all kingdoms to go to war over, a woman so powerful that she could probably rule all of the kingdoms if she wanted to, but instead she was content to play with a whimsy dragon and a princess amid a bunch of flowers.  He didn’t turn his gaze away from that vision when he said, “Do it, Tobias.  Do it.  I don’t want her to become someone other than what she is right now.  I’ll take on all of that responsibility and proudly.”

Carmella touched Maddock’s shoulder.  “Grand Marshall, it’s getting late.  Why don’t we all call it a day and get something to eat?  We’ll take this up later after we get some paperwork moving forward.”

Maddock nodded approvingly.  Tobias and Sophitia did too.  The others backed up after Maddock motioned them to.  “Hey, Sweetheart.” he said louder.  “We’re getting hungry.  Wanna join us for lunch?”

Hayleigh stood up on Isenwrath’s shoulder and leaned on her head, “They mean real food, girl.  Not arcana crystals.”

A sheepish, “I know,” made a few of them chuckle while Isenwrath set Hayleigh down, flower crown and all.

Then she shrank down as well as let her armor fade back to intangibility. 

Thena tossed both Isenwrath’s clothes to her as well as wrapped her illusion around the naked woman to keep leering eyes at bay.  Sophitia wasn’t dumb.  She reached over quickly and took firm hold of Hayleigh’s elbow to keep the flower princess of little self-control from ‘accidentally’ falling through the illusion and getting a pervy peek.  Tobias had placed firm, fatherly hands on both Nathaniel and Daniel’s shoulders for the same reason.

There were flowers everywhere.  Oh yes, Gary was gonna be very very very pissed off at the mess.  But he did get paid good money and would hopefully just see it as a challenge replanting them all. 

After Isenwrath was dressed and the illusion was gone again, Harmony and Beatrice trotted over to help Isenwrath and Hayleigh knock off all of the petals and stems from their hair and Hayleigh’s clothes while a more manageable sized Bubblescale ran around them trying to get covered by the castoffs.  Grinlock sauntered forth, not deigning to lose his status as Flower God.

Maddock finally got to take Isenwrath's hand so she could walk beside him, “Come on, troublemaker.  Let’s tell them about how you introduced yourself to the army of Maciendes while we find something in the dining hall.”

From another flower bed where he’d been standing right up on the huge tree in the middle of it, a magically stealth-cloaked individual carefully left the scene.  He took a circuitous route around the guards that had magical amulets that could detect his cloaking spell.  He deftly scaled the wall around the gardens to drop down into the outer grounds proper before sprinting into the small woods that’d been left for privacy.  He made no sound and did very little to disturb the foliage as he made his way through those woods while avoiding the various scrying traps he’d taken two whole days to map out.  When he made it to the last siege wall, he carefully uncovered the whole he’d dug so that he could bypass the magical barrier field that was superimposed around that wall to dome overhead.  The spell he activated just after he began to crawl through the tunnel closed the tunnel behind him just to keep his tracks covered.  When he exited the tunnel yards away from the castle’s outer siege wall, he glanced around the manor’s adjacent yard to make sure it still didn’t contain the guard dogs from the minor noble’s own security guard’s routine walks.  When the way was clear, he sprinted down the way to jump clear over another wall to land on a hanging tree branch.  From there, he scaled higher into the enormous tree to get as high as he could go.  When he was clear of the obstructive branches, he then let out the glide wings from under his arms and between his legs.  Then he jumped to glide over the next six avenues where he could land safely upon another minor noble’s home.  When he got there, he let his cloaking spell go, grabbed his bag that he’d hidden by the home’s chimney to switch out his clothing options to that of a deliveryman.  He turned his bag inside out which displayed the logo for a popular bakery in the area, then stuffed it full of his enchanted assassin gear before scaling down the home’s waterspout to the ground.  When he walked to the street, it was then a simple matter to jump up on a passing inner-city transport pulled by two silver women golems and then hop off at his team’s tavern.  He whistled while he strolled in and up to the third floor because if he did anything other than that, he was going to break down crying.

When he closed the door after him, he leaned on it to breathe deeply, not saying a word to the nine other members of his team.  He stood there just trying to process what he’d seen and heard.  When he sensed Glandock, his team’s captain and fiercest fighter begin to address him, he held up his hand to stall. “Not yet.  Give me one more moment.”

The others murmured to themselves because generally Meckron was unflappable.  He was one of the coldest assassins ever to walk out of the queen’s own sun groves. Whatever he’d seen must’ve been really mind-bending to say it easy.

Finally, Mekron pulled his shirt off to reveal his toned torso but more importantly his necklace of recording.  “Everyone, the Chimeramancer is even worse than we thought.  I recorded it all.  You won’t believe it until you see and hear it.  She’s literally the boss from Shinenoor.  She ate his ass and took his place!  She’s the reason that dungeon reset!  She admitted to killing all life within that place!  By herself!” he screamed, losing it in front of them all.  Then he slammed his recording disk onto their table, activated the playback rune, then walked off to go collapse on one of the beds that had been moved to the wall.

The others watched the recording.  Mekron had indeed done his job well.  He’d used the blood flakes as a tracker to find where that girl had been within the castle and was able to point his recorder at each window to try and catch their vibrations as the voices within touched the glass.  They watched each window he tagged and heard the loud shouts that had emanated from the princess’s quarters.  But when they saw the group of royals and knights exit into the gardens and Mekron’s mad dash to get close without getting caught, the snippets that they’d heard before began to make horrifying sense.  They saw the transformation and heard ALL of the conversation that surrounded the Chimeramancer.  They saw the dragon grow and shrink with her size.  They HEARD that it was a whimsy conjuration which meant that woman could potentially cast more.  As many more as she wanted.  She could literally cast an army of dragons at ANYONE!  Then beat the snot outta anyone else with a giant hammer too!

When it ended, Glandock sat back to think.  The others were near to panicking thinking of how impossible it seemed to do their job per the contract.  But Glandock was not so easily swayed.  The job wasn’t to kill her.  That was what the others were panicking over.  The job was to take her back to the Everthane duke so she could get married off.  This was a kidnapping job.  This wasn’t an assassination.  So what if the mage happened to be Arch Magister or greater in level?  Everyone had their weaknesses.  Everyone.  Glandock reached over to tap the rune again, then held the device up to his earslits to listen carefully to the beginning of Mekron’s intelligence gathering mission.

When he heard what he thought he heard, he moved it away, started it over then listened intently to make sure he heard it right.  The others finally noticed him and quieted. 

“What is it, Cap?” asked Vrack Magmacharmer, the dwarven hammerfist before he chugged the last of his beer from the tavern below.

“She’s not invincible.  No one is invincible.  But we don’t need to think about killing her.  What we need to do is focus on TAKING her.  And I just heard how to do it.”

“What?  How?” asked Selithian Killdragon, their resident beastmaster who held up his latest addition, a stormcrow that he was going to use tonight to try and see if animals could get through the castle’s barriers unhindered.

“The chimera eats magic arcana crystals.  From what I just heard, our little human loses control of herself when they’re fed to her.  She focuses on them and only them.  I heard what sounded like our mark literally sucking them off the princess’s hand without regard to any decorum.  She was like a beast instead of a human mage.  We can use that to bait a trap.  So, let me lay it loose by starting with baiting her out of the castle properly.  As soon as she’s with us at a location that we control, Endria and Marianna can whack her with an exorcism and banishment to get rid of the spirit, then we can tranquilize the girl before she can bring any of her other abilities or spells to bear against us.  I believe this just got easier, not harder.”

Endria rose from her seat on the other side of the bed to walk to the small window that gave her a view of the castle in the distance.  “We’ve trapped beasts before, sure.  But how would we bait a mage beast though when she’s literally surrounded by her own guards and sleeping in the Grand Duke’s chamber at night?  You all heard that too, that she’s going to be the Grand Marshall’s bride.  How do we arrange to get her in a position to be lured away like we need?”

Selithian chuckled while petting his bird, “Simple. Very simple. We just create the trail for her to follow.  All I need to do is make sure my little Starfinder here can get inside the perimeter then we’ll just start dropping the trail of crystals to the woods.  One by one, that beast will eat her way to our location, then after she gets blindsided by yours and Marianna’s spells, she’ll be disoriented.  That’s when we; fwip! Dart her.  Bind her tight. Then, we simply haul her out through the same means as Mekron used to get in and out.  You, Me, Mekron, Vrack, Marianna and Loddian to bring some literal firepower if we need a plan B, can do it.  Then we keep her drugged until we get paid.  At the end, she’s all Duke Carlisle’s problem and if she eats him, we’ll just toast to his demise that night.”

Jorstan, the white mage looked over to Selithian to ask, “I can get with my source here for some crystals, but I’m certain that we’ll need some enticing ones instead of just some random level one’s or two’s.  How many would you think we’d need?  If it’s too many, it could price us out of the job.”

“Let’s go with ten.  I have two level four silence spells on hand now that I’m willing to part with.  Starfinder can hold ten of these easily.  I’ll help her coordinate when to hold one in front of our chimera’s face and when to drop a reward for being a good little beastie for following our treat dispenser.”

Endria spoke up next.  “I also have two that I can give up for this.  A level five delayed blast fireball and a third level blackout spell.”

Glandock nodded sagely while he fidgeted with the arcane recorder in his hand.  “That’s four.  Marianna? Loddian?”

Marianna reached into her side satchel to pull out three.  “These are divine callings.  They should equal a level four something or other that a pyromancer can do.  They’re magical, so it should be something she’ll go after.”

Loddian the pyromancer shook his head.  “I have only one.  I’ve been waiting for a chance to blow something up with it because it’s a ninth level shadowflame spherical explosive shot.  Though, that might be a good reason to get her to crawl out of the duke’s bed.  Okay, fine.  I’ll chip in.”

Glandock pointed to the table where the casters slowly put down their collection.  “That leaves us to get two more.  Silithian, send your delivery service out now to test their barrier.  We need that first, then if it’s good, we buy two more then we plan out exactly how and when to take that beast down.”

Chapter 29

Walking through the facility was just as unsettling as the first time. The skin-like material that stretched between the honeycomb crystalline structures that made up the majority of the walls made me feel like I was being swallowed by a monster. I looked left at Thayne, her icy blue eyes marking every nook and cranny alongside her rifle, then right to Yasmine, her breath shaky but her rifle steady. Ainsworth held his spear low and forward, the experimental shield partially overlapping it. I could hear Balan's almost imperceptible footfalls behind me as he protected our rear from the possibility of ambush. The deeper we moved into the facility, the more the stench of raw organic slurry filled our noses. The capillaries lead us again to the place of nightmares, the central hub of the facility where the half born Ashari were being grown out of corpses of animal and human. The massive room contained maybe a dozen Ashari. Enough to make the odds of surviving detection long, VERY long. Ainsworth signalled for us to split into teams and begin placing our grenades in the designated places. Yasmine, Thayne, and I moved through the tree-like columns of birthing pods toward the center of the facility. Sweat beaded on my brow and stung my eyes as I knelt and began carefully stuffing a P9 grenade into a hollow space between two pods. The slick, slimy pods felt unnatural against my skin as I switched the grenade to timed and set it to sixty seconds. I knew that, just out of sight on the other side of the chamber, the other half of the squad were doing the same. As we placed the other eight grenades we had, Yasmine tripped over her exhaustion. In a half a second, a moderate thud and a small cry of pain rang out through the chamber. The three of us froze. Five grenades were placed. Two were in hand, and one was now laying on the ground beside a straining Yasmine. She was trying to quietly drag herself up against a pod, and her hand squelched through the membrane. In an instant, she had been thrown against the opposite row of pods, and a half born Ashari was bursting out of the pod. Without pause, Thayne and I both fired off shots. The half born collapsed with smoking holes in its head and chest.

“Everyone out NOW!” I called over the comm, watching two full breed Ashari jump down from a platform higher in the chamber.

I rushed over and grabbed Yasmine, throwing her arm across my shoulders and helping her limp toward the entrance we had come through.

“I'm… I'm sorry, David.” She moaned, pain stretching across her features.

“You're okay, Yaz, you just pushed too hard.” I panted, my own injuries making me pant with effort as I carried the majority of two full kits’ weight.

“Fucking move!” Thayne shouted, blasting through the faceplates of two Ashari.

The second almost got close enough to use its spine-blade. Shards from an Ashari shoulder mounted launcher thumped into a dozen pods next to us as we ran. I didn't even look back when I heard more half born tearing themselves out of their pods. The smooth exfiltration we had hoped for had turned into a dead sprint for our lives. Somewhere along the way, Ainsworth and Balan joined us, also running as fast as prudence would allow.

“Here, let me help.” Balan shouldered under Yasmine’s other arm, lightening my load significantly.

At this point we were practically carrying Yasmine at a run into the capillaries leading outside. I was aching everywhere, the adrenaline and focus from the stealth portion of the mission bleeding into a full combat awareness that let me know exactly where my injuries were and how weak my limbs felt.

“Shit!” I looked back in time to see a shard punch through Thayne's calf, dropping her to the deck.

“Get her and get out!” Ainsworth yelled, turning and assuming his hoplite fighting stance.

Spear and shield locked into a wall and suddenly energy crackled from the shield unit, forming the protective barrier three feet across in front of Ainsworth.

“What the hell are you thinking?” I yelled back, as we set Yasmine against the wall.

Balan ran and began dragging Thayne behind Ainsworth's shield as more shards shattered against the walls and the energy field of the experimental tool. Cuts accumulated on the vampire. I briefly wondered how the vampires had managed to keep the UV light from burning their skin when the mission had begun in the afternoon.

“Sir, we can't leave anyone else behind!” He protested.

“You have two injured and only two of you, you can't move fast enough to outrun the Ashari.” Ainsworth's words rang true, but my conscience still resisted.

Before we could argue further, a trio of Ashari rushed into view around the curve of the passage. Thayne drew her strange pistol with lightning fast reflexes and squeezed off five shots. Three of them hit two of the Ashari, punching holes that detonated and became craters a half a heartbeat later. The first one died instantly, the second continued running at Ainsworth despite the fact it was missing much of its abdomen. Ainsworth speared the uninsured one in the throat just as it came within reach of his weapon. With a grunt of effort, he tore the blade sideways through the alien's neck and slashed it across the injured one's throat just as it started to leap toward us.

“You don't have a choice, just go!” Ainsworth shouted, throwing his spear into a crowd of mixed half born and full born Ashari that flooded the capillary a half second after the last body fell.

I watched as Ainsworth played with a few controls on the inside of the shield and the field filled the corridor. He planted his shoulder into it and the mass of Ashari crashed into it, pushing him back a half step.

“Let me die for something other than to kill the enemy for once, boy.”

I slung Yasmine over my shoulders, turning away from Ainsworth and his desperate stand against the tide of Ashari flooding the hallway. As I ran, I silently prayed that he would hold long enough, that I would get Yasmine out, and that the team would get away. As we burst out into the ruins surrounding the facility the whole structure was engulfed in explosive fire. Yasmine and I were flung a dozen feet by the concussion way. I felt ribs crack and my skull throbbed and rang with sharp pain. I heard Yasmine cry out in pain. It took a few seconds for us to pull ourselves together enough to get up. I looked around as I lifted Yasmine to her feet, surveying the numerous skirmishes taking place around us. I spotted Derollo battling one of the Harbingers, and watched as it fired crimson crystalline shards the size of my torso at him. He deployed his shield at nearly the perfect time, the shards shattering against it. Then everything slowed down as I watched the shrapnel from the exchange approaching over Yasmine’s shoulder. It was headed right at us. I didn't think, I just moved. I spun us around and shoved her toward the ground as the shrapnel ripped into my armor. I felt white hot pain trace paths through my body as multiple jagged pieces of the shards carved through me, embedding themselves in the inner parts of the front of my armor. Everything was still moving slowly as I collapsed, feeling weak as I rolled onto my back. I just needed a second to breathe, to rest.

The pain was fading now. I knew it wasn't a good sign. I was still staring up into the sky just past Yasmine’s tear-streaked face. The sky was clear and blue. I realized I hadn't seen the sky this beautiful in what seemed like a really long time. I tried to talk through the blood.

“Yaz… I wanted to stay… I-i tried to stay," The words drowned in the blood even as I did.

“No, no, you were supposed to stay alive!” She was yelling at me.

“I love you.” I said softly, the difficulty of speaking increased with every word.

“We need to go!” I heard Taggard scream.

“No! We can't leave him!” Yasmine was grasping at the shredded remains of my armor, trying to drag me with her.

She grunted and collapsed, her wounds overcoming her will. I summoned every ounce of strength I had left.

“Balan!” I managed to rasp out, blood staining my lips.

He ran over, still firing occasional shots at the Ashari scrambling around the ruins. He held a shooting position next to my battered body.

“Take Yaz and go, but leave me all the P9s you two have left," I choked out.

The sky was getting dark, I thought it must be nearly night time.

“NO!” Yasmine’s screech sounded far away.

“Aye, Corporal," Balan's voice held solemn duty, overpaying pain.

I felt my hands being placed over a cluster of grenades that had been hastily taped together. I focused, moving my fingers until I felt the trigger button on one of the P9s.

Ten seconds, I can wait ten seconds for them to get away.

I heard McGill shouting, and bursts of R17 fire. I felt the rhythmic thump of weapons fire hitting the ground near me. The sky was almost black now.

I guess they'll have to run in the dark again.

Nine seconds.

The sound of weapons fire was further away now, but the shots were still hitting the rubble and dirt near me. It was strange that it had gotten dark so quick, I couldn't actually see anything anymore.

I wonder why I don't see the muzzle flashes?

Eight seconds.

The sound of human weapons had almost completely failed. Now I heard footsteps, and my fingers felt numb. I could barely tell if my hand was still prepared to press the trigger mechanism on the P9.

Oh, it's not dark, I'm dying, I thought to myself.

“Yeah, buddy, you are,"

It was Rodriguez’s voice. Not a memory, maybe a hallucination, but definitely his voice. And he sounded sad.

Seven seconds.

“You're not gonna last long enough to do it," He said, as though he knew for sure.

Like everything was predetermined and he was just giving me a heads up. It was weird, and not just because my dead friend was talking to me. More footsteps. These ones were undoubtedly Ashari.

“Don't worry, they won't feed you to the machines," Rodriguez tried to comfort me as I lost touch with my fingers.

Six seconds.

“Besides, Ainsworth's sacrifice made sure the facility took most of the Ashari here with it," Rodriguez comforted me.

I remembered the first time Yaz's eyes smiled at me. Those gemstones the color of distant sunlit oceans unreachable in the new world.

Fuck, I really wish I could stay with her.

“You wouldn't have done it if she wasn't worth it.” Rodriguez spoke out of the darkness clouding my vision.

Five…

I faded softly into a limitless warmth. Even though my cold fingers had failed to press the ignition switch on the P9s, I felt at peace.

Index -- First Chapter -- Previous Chapter

Audio Drama Link

The air took hold of the vessel the way water takes a dropped stone, all at once and with a sound, and it was the sound that reached me first, before the land, before anything I saw. I had crossed to four hundred and ten dead worlds through a silence so total that I had long since stopped counting it as silence, as you stop hearing a thing that never changes its note. Now the outer skin of the vessel began to sing under the press of moving air, low, then climbing, and I sat inside that climbing note and understood that the world beneath me had not gone still. Its air was in motion. It moved as living air moves, pushed into weather, and the weather struck the hull and set it speaking, and I had not been spoken to by a world in longer than I can hold.

I brought the vessel down through it slowly. There was cloud, high and torn, and then below the cloud a light I had also half forgotten, the flat yellow light of a working star falling across a country, and under the light the grey came up to meet me. From the high air it had looked like the color of an old scar, and from nearer it was worse than that, because from nearer I could see that the scar had a shape. The land below was not the raw dead rock of the outer worlds. It had been arranged once. Even worn down to almost nothing, even smoothed under an age of wind, the arrangement was still faintly in it, a grain running through it as grain runs through cut wood, straight lines where the world itself does not make straight lines, meeting each other at the hard clean angles that only a made thing keeps.

The vessel came to rest on a low rise above what had been the meeting place of two of those grains, and I sat a while and did not open it.

When I did open it the air came in, and I let it, which was the second rule I broke in as many hours. A surveyor does not trust a dead world's air. He reads it from behind glass and takes what the instruments give him and keeps his own breath to himself, because the air of a world that has ended is a record of the ending, and the endings are not always clean. I knew all of that. I opened the vessel to it anyway, because I wanted, once, to breathe the same air the makers had breathed, and I told myself the instruments had already said it was safe, which was true, and not the reason.

It was thin and cool, and it moved. It carried the smell of water somewhere off past the edge of what I could see, and under the water a dryness, dust lifted and set down and lifted again across more years than the makers had been gone. There was a live thing in it too, faint, a green sourness at the back of the breath that meant something on this world was still holding on, low to the ground, patient, keeping the smallest possible amount of the air turning over so that it stayed a breathing air and did not go the way of the outer worlds. I had not expected that. On the four hundred and ten I had counted, the air, where there was any, was the air of a sealed room long after everyone in it has gone. This air was the air of a house whose people have left but whose garden has not yet been told.

I stepped out onto the ground of the four hundred and eleventh world, and the wind came across the rise and pushed at me, and somewhere below a loose thing knocked against another loose thing, once, and then the wind eased and it stopped. That was all. But I had stood on a great many dead worlds, and the dead do not knock. They lie exactly as they fell and the stillness closes over them and nothing moves again that a hand set moving. Here the wind kept lifting things and setting them down, keeping the place in a kind of motion that had no one behind it, and the effect of it, standing there, was of a place only lately abandoned, as though the makers had walked out ahead of me by an afternoon and I had only just missed them at the door.

I made myself do the work. It is what the work is for, to give the hands something to hold to when the rest of you wants to wander off the edge. I walked down off the rise into the grain of the old arrangement and I read it the way I have trained myself to read a dead world, as weather, as a thing already finished that asks nothing of me.

It had been a city. That much any surveyor could have said from orbit, and I had said it and filed it, and by every rule I was finished. From inside it the word was too small. The mounds ran away from me in their worn rows for as far as the light reached, long low swells of ground with the straight grain still in them, and here and there the grain broke the surface, a lip of some pale made stone gone soft at every edge, a stub of metal bled entirely to rust and holding its shape only as a stain the color of dried blood in the paler dust around it. I crouched over one of those stains and put my hand flat against it and felt nothing under my palm but cold grit, the last of a thing a maker had raised, worn now to a shadow in the dust.

Further on I came to a place where the ground was littered with a scatter of small worn pieces, hundreds of them turned up out of the dust, each one rounded and dulled past knowing. One had been glass. I could tell that much from how the late light went into it and came back changed, though the wind had frosted it blind and rounded every edge until it sat in my hand like a river stone. The makers had made these things by the million once, whatever they had been, and thought nothing of them. Here were the last of them outlasting every proud raised thing around, worn anonymous, kept by nothing but their own smallness. I set the piece back in the dust where I had found it. It felt like a theft to carry off the one thing a world had managed to hold.

That is what time does to what we build. I had seen it four hundred and ten times. On the ninetieth world it had been faces cut into a cliff, worn back to blank stone; here it was a city worn back to the ground it stood on, and the lesson was the same lesson, and I had thought I knew it all the way through.

Standing, I looked out along those rows to where they ran up against the far side of the valley, and I saw the thing that did not fit the lesson.

It was standing.

Everything else on that plain had lain down. The city had come down to its mounds and its stains, the way cities do, as every raised thing comes down once the hands that tended it are gone, because that is the bargain a made thing strikes with deep time, that it may hold its shape a while and then must give it back. One thing on that plain had not given its shape back. It stood up out of the far slope, low and broad, dark against the pale ground, and even from that distance I could see that its lines were still true, its edges not yet surrendered to the wind. It had refused the bargain. It had been made to refuse it.

I went toward it. Survey work was the reason I gave. What moved me was that I could not have kept away from it. Every other ruin on that world was a thing time had beaten, and I knew how to look at those, I had four hundred and ten worlds of practice at looking at those and feeling the small trained cold and nothing more. This was a thing that had beaten time, or was still beating it, out here where nothing was left to keep the score, and I had never in all my going out found such a thing waiting for me, and I did not know how to look at it and feel only what I had trained myself to feel.

It was larger than it had seemed, as they are always larger. Up close it was a single low mass, sunk deep into the slope as though it had been driven there, its outer face a dark dense material I could not name, pitted all over by the long weather but nowhere worn through. It sat low and heavy under the open sky, set down by hands that had built for permanence, for the long years they knew were coming. The shape of it had no reach in it, no wish to be seen from far off. It had been made only to stay.

Its dark face rose past me into the last of the yellow light, and the wind that had followed me across the plain broke around the base of it and fell quiet, so that I stood in a pocket of stillness the mass of the thing had made. I came up under it and put my hand to the surface the way I had put my hand to the stain, and this time something met my palm. The weather had pitted the surface and had not erased what was cut beneath the pitting. There were marks. They ran across the dark face in ordered rows, worn shallow but holding, and they had not come there by wind or by any accident of the stone. A hand had cut them. A hand had cut them deep, deeper than any use the makers could have had for them in their own short lives, deep enough that an age of weather had thinned them and still failed to carry them off. The depth was the message before I read a mark of it. The hand had known the years were coming and had cut down past them, to reach whatever stood here after.

Whatever came after was me.

I stood under the marks I could not yet read, on the one dead world in all my going out that had reached up from its own grave to call me down, and the trained cold I had carried across four hundred and ten worlds turned over in me and would not settle back. Everywhere else, the dead set a stone above the grave and ask the ground to hold their name a while, and in time the ground lets it go. These makers had done the other and harder thing. Knowing they were ending, they had cut their voice into a mass built to outlast the very ground, and aimed it down the whole length of the years at a stranger they would never meet.

I had come to count this world and to leave it. I set my hand flat against the marks, and I began to look for the way into them.

Next Chapter

Coach Chapman was absent that day, a substitute in his place during the different gym periods. David would have to wait until he came back, he hoped the morning after. Until then school was in session, a predator within its walls.

Contemplating it made David squirm. He shared classes with a thing capable of reducing a... well, not friend, but tolerated companion to an emotional crater. It was unknown what the red thought of David’s little outburst in Social Studies. Was it possible that he might be next, a convenient target to vent her frustration on? A vow was made: Never let her within ten feet and find a way to make her forbidden from lacrosse victory parties.

Then he remembered: lacrosse victory parties required lacrosse. Instead, they would be doing...something else. No solid information yet, merely that it was a “special privilege” to be playing it. How special that privilege was had been written all over the Coach’s face. 

These pleasant thoughts accompanied David as he strode back to the gym locker room which had housed horror a few hours earlier. A part of him fantasized about turning around without a word and walking away. Walk away from whatever new garbage the loving Mistresses of Earth wanted to dump on his team’s head and forget about it all. The dominant portion was split, half not wanting to abandon his fellow athletes, most of whom were decent guys who enjoyed running around with sticks. The other half considered what there was to look forward to after he refused to join in: More time being needed by Melissa, ignoring the door that never opened and pretending not to feel the suppressed heat in his belly, growing ever hotter the longer he spent in that house alone.

Thus, his decision to play ball. If this new sport used balls, that was. Aliens, who knew? Always could be thrown into a gravity suspended sphere of jello and tasked with vibrating it into prettier colors than the other team.

He joined the others out on the field after putting on his gear. It felt safer going out in padding, for all that David knew it wouldn’t protect him from anything that mattered. Didn’t hurt though, and if worst came to worst he’d be told to take it off. About half of the boys on his team adopted a similar attitude, others doing no more than lacing their cleats.

They didn’t have long to wait. A brax tall enough a safe exit onto the field necessitated a bent neck on the way out for safe exit onto the field strode toward them with confidence and authority. She wore enormous blue trunks, which in tightness and utilitarian cut resembled bike shorts, extending down to skim over knees much farther off the ground than those joints ought to be. Her top was decorated with red and green stripes, made from something that seemed more like cotton. It was close enough to human sportswear the effect proved somewhat disconcerting, like if a goblin was spotted in tutu at a local production of the Nutcracker.

Her arms claimed such mass that the tallest of human bodybuilders would need years of training and a personal chemical lab to get close to their casual, bulging cords. The thighs were equal in their titanic proportions, each hill in her form fitting shorts telling of sinew and fiber ready to leap into action. If some human shoulders were wide enough to land a 747 on, hers qualified as an aircraft carrier.

In the face of this red She-Hulk, David felt himself shrinking on instinct, trying to disappear into the crowd of boys who all showed similar signs of discomfort. Seeing this display, David’s upper lip curled into a mini silent snarl. No, this was unacceptable. Whatever happened next, he would bear it with a straight back, face set firm and forward. Submission to these things might be necessary, but never abasement. He’d kill himself from shame before that. With that in mind, he forced himself to uncurl and stare at her left shoulder.

She tapped at her version of the electronic pad all her kind carried with them. A cool and uninflected voice came out of it, speaking mechanical, crisp English. It unspooled a prepared speech. The team was informed who the hued giantess standing before them was, as if it wasn’t obvious. They were told what an honor it was to be chosen for this, how Rinivella personally trained a great number of champions who went on to compete for the Queen’s pleasure. The end came with a blast of rhetoric meant to inspire, all about how Rinivella would dedicate herself to making them worthy of the sport arena ball, but in turn expected nothing but the utmost from her charges. The desired inspiration might have happened on some level, if the text-to-speech synthesizer didn’t recite the script with the same passion that could be expected from a knock off brand doll.

The machine spoke its last and Rinivella cleared her throat to add on. The harsh notes of her native tongue created a sharp contrast to the porcelain smoothness of the digital copy. As she completed her sentences, it was a half blink worth of a pause before the pad transcribed her words.

“Since I must use this to talk, it is required for one of you to speak at a time. With that said, any questions before we begin our practice?”

A hand shot up to the front and left side of David.

The ruddy bulk shifted her stance to face the would-be asker. “Such enthusiasm is pleasing. Go ahead.”

The hand went down, and with the face no longer blocked by a vertical limb David saw Eli. “Are we going to be able to do the Tiger dance at the end of the game?”

After an uncomfortable pause where Rinviella listened to and tapped at her pad, the coach replied, “What is this, ‘Large predator display?’”

Perhaps driven by nerves, Eli blurted out, “It’s this thing we do at the end of the season. A bunch of guys in the audience will come with tiger masks and wait for the clock to buzz. Then they’ll take off their shirts, cause they paint themselves with blue and black stripes, like the cat. Well, not like the real cat. Tigers have orange and black stripes. But we’re the Blue Tigers, so blue and black for our stripes. Then they do a dance standing in their seats. It’s fun, you know? And the school recently made that rule about always keeping our shirts on, including guys, but it’s something we’ve always done, so it’s okay. Right?” Eli squeezed his neck into his shoulders a bit near the end of his question monologue, his voice having grown ever thinner and more uncertain.

The machine brax translation took almost as long as the original speech, so the coach could not respond at once. When she turned her attention back to Eli, David didn’t have to see her face to know she wasn’t smiling.

“I hope I am misunderstanding you. Because what you are describing is...disturbing. I know things are different here, but to think children would be allowed to debase themselves in such a way...If I’m not misunderstanding you, whoever approved this has much to answer for. I require that person’s name. Now.”

David flicked his eyes back toward Eli, who’s eyes bugged out in turn. “No one. No one! It’s something we’ve always done. No one told us to do it. Honest!” Eli wasn’t going to point fingers at anyone to throw pressure off himself. Good. Eli had never struck David as that kind of person, but it never hurt to get in the moment confirmation.

A hmph sound came from the coach. Whether the sound was ambivalent or disbelieving, it was hard to say. But the matter was dropped, as she said, “Many of you are not wearing your full equipment. Explain.”

David could feel the frisson of in trouble energy which sparked between the seated boys. By some wordless agreement Eli spoke up again. “We didn’t know what you would want us to wear.”

“I was assured the informational guide was brax corrected by the best translators. Was it unclear?”

There were more uncomfortable stirs. This time Jake took the lead, voice managing to be smooth despite the scrutiny. “Didn’t read it.”

“What? Why not?” David didn’t need to turn his head to see the shrug he knew Jake would be doing right as she finished.

“Did anyone read the material?” She placed hands on hips, and her shoulders rotated as she scanned for less disappointing pupils.

“I did.”

David blinked in surprise. That was Tobias. He turned and saw him near the back, smiling. On anyone else David would have deemed it smug, but it was Tobias being Tobias. A lack of a grin would be far more concerning, as he’d seen himself.

“Outstanding. At least one here knows how to follow orders. Since I’m sure you read with care, explain who is in proper attire, who is not and why.”

Tobias’s smile was unwavering. “None of us are. Our pads aren’t up to standard. At least, I don’t think so.”

A thunderous clap as dinner plate sized hands closed together. “Excellent and correct. Your equipment is inadequate. Can’t be helped for right now, but Our Lady Quel’vela will ensure your team is outfitted in the proper manner. Be sure to have proper gratitude.”

David’s face grew tense with the effort to not show what he thought of that. Shower candy and glass beads on the locals, that was all one needed to have simple primitives fall in love. Failing that, oblige them to scrape and bow with performances of appreciation till the day they die.

“For now, you will be given some spare equipment until personalized gear is available. I have dropped the bags at the other end of the field. Those wearing pads, open those bags and collect your sticks. The unattired will put on their uniforms and return to do the same. Depart!” Another thunderclap boomed from palm meeting palm. The crowd of boys scrammed, minor scuffling as bodies got in the way of others who moved in conflicting directions.

David jogged down to the end field where there were indeed large black bags with zippers, another universal solution to a common problem. A few of the more energetic sprinted to the bags and proceeded to open them. They started pulling out long black metal poles, longer than the ones they used for lacrosse by at least a tenth, if not more. Leaving the others to keep on divesting the bags of poles, he hefted one. It was heavy, more like a naked barbell than a lacrosse shaft. As he glanced around, David spied another open bag and hands disgorging its content. This one held white cradles meant to go on top. They looked roughly about as tall as a defense shaft head, but much wider at the base, close to a square. These came with yellow nets. He would have called them pre-strung, except that didn’t seem quite the right word. No knots or ties were visible from the front, the fibers melding into the back of the frame with nary a seam visible.

Looking at them closer, that was the sole size available. No variation for different positions as far as he could tell. If the term positions made sense for this game. Despite himself, David felt a bit foolish for not looking at the rule book, ignored by all. Well, everyone except for Tobias for whatever reason. Who’d have figured him to be studious?

Head attached to his chosen shaft, David waited for the laggards who needed to put on their pads to come over and do the same. After everyone was equipped the coach said, “I saw a number of you run over to get your gear. While the enthusiasm is appreciated, I need to have your energy focused on actual practice. Which will begin now!” A pair of hands clapped and boys jumped.

Whatever David thought practice would be, it wasn’t what transpired. Rather than anything that resembled the passing, running or shooting drills he’d experienced, the coach squared them off in pairs. They were informed she was going to be teaching them proper sparring forms and indicated the correct canned motions. Fake attacks with their shafts at various angles and directions, with the defender doing prepared moves to guard against the attack. They performed as commanded for a few minutes at a time, with Rinivella calling for frequent breaks. David became glad for those breaks, as the extra weight of the shaft became bothersome after a short period of use. By the end his arms ached, despite practice being short at an hour long. The team was then instructed to hold still as Rinivella used her pad to take photos from multiple full body angles. She told them this was all that was necessary to calculate their measurements and purchase them personal athletic gear, which they would get before the match. After that she reminded them of the rule book and made it clear that all would have to read it backwards and forwards by the next practice. Once that was done, she let them put away their shafts and released them to the locker room.

David was disturbed by the practice, and the protestations of his arms with each motion couldn’t distract him from that. It had been kinda a relief that arena ball was close enough to lacrosse they used nets on tops of sticks. Near enough that during the minute spent waiting for those changing in the locker room, he’d let himself hope that it was close enough to lacrosse that he’d be able to transfer his skills and ignore whom he’d be playing against. A chance to focus on his moves and enjoy being a god of the close-enough-to-lacrosse field. But those drills…

What kind of game was arena ball anyway? David regretted not reading that friggin booklet. As that regret sat down and got comfortable, he flitted to a related thought: His true coach mentioned an already played game between the Knights and the...alien Whoevers. It was available to watch from their website. David decided to take a look. While reading the rulebook would help, nothing was better for understanding a sport than watching it. He’d do it after he finished up the Melissa checklist that night.

A few hours later, David exited out of the browser tab, his face stiff. Arena ball was not about running. Passing existed, sure. But it was to facilitate getting the ball to the attackers, and once it did...The game consisted of boys being smashed to the ground by red tanks a head taller with more padding than linebackers. Over and over, whap went the shafts, down came the boys. Out the ball plopped from grounded nets, and soon another point for the freaks.

Seeing the aggression happen without penalty, again and again, led to David flipping through his rulebook on a search for material that would make sense of the mayhem. Horror grew as he saw there were indeed rules about player contact. The head wasn’t allowed to be rung like a bell. Other than that? Whap went the shafts, down came the boys. The rule was near identical to human lacrosse in the technical sense, but the text and practice were manifestly different things. Checking happened in lacrosse. Here, checking was the game, and the body slams he saw made that term a sick joke.

This is what David and his team were being forced into. What a special privilege they should be honored to have. A tiny part of David urged him to hysterical laughter at the thought. He squashed the urge with practiced ease, but the rest of him suffused with a reaction he could not contain. They’d be crushed. Humiliated. Paraded around as yet another example of why humans were no longer the dominant species on their own planet, a demonstration of why they were allowed no power over their own fate anymore and didn’t deserve it.

He could see it. Humans running around, play fighting with each other, winning. Humans winning at something, anything was unacceptable. It might give them ideas above their station. That sort of thing must be torn away, ripped to shreds in front of their eyes. Let it be ground into their faces, learning there was nothing that couldn’t be taken away.

He had to find and talk to Chapman tomorrow. This wasn’t about Alexander anymore. The entire team was threatened by those things. He’d see that, wouldn’t he? If David explained it right, Coach would understand what was at stake for his boys and leap to protect them. It was his job.

As these words played through his mind, David couldn’t ignore the doubt that lay under them. Could he rely on Coach Chapman? Yes, he could. They tried to banish Coach, to send him away from the school. But he was back. That meant he’d fought them, snatched back his job from the thieves. He’d fight for David and his team.

[First] [Prev]

| The Kestrel, JSOC Facility, Location – redacted |

[First] | [Previous] | [Cover Art]

Messages splashed across everyone’s device and into some of their overlays.

HARMONIC TRANSMISSIONS: INCREASE DETECTED

SUBSTRATE MONITORING: RESONANCE INCREASE

DOCK SEVEN ORBITAL MONITORS: VERIFICATION

“What the hell is substrate monitoring?” asked Rockson.

“Don’t know. You’re the expert,” responded Chen.

“And where are they coming from?”

Then another two messages arrived.

OBSERVATION PLATFORM GAMMA-5: HARMONIC INTERFERENCE OUTSIDE LIMITS

OBSERVATION PLATFORM GAMMA-6 CONFIRMS READINGS

Then another.

OUTER SYSTEM RING REPORTS TELEMETRY MISMATCH

And more.

MOONBASE NAVIGATION BEACON: GRAVITY DISPLACEMENT DETECTED

ORBITAL CONTROL: UNAUTHORISED CARRIER DETECTED

DOCK SEVEN INTERNAL MONITORING: SYNCHRONISATION EVENT

“We’re getting a lot of these messages. Faults?” Said Rockson. “And they’re spread all over the place. Unrelated.”

“No,” said Chen, finishing his whiskey and reaching out to the bottle for a refill. He grabbed the alerts, zoomed into the timeline and dropped the alerts onto the plot. 

They all fell to within milliseconds of each.

“Different systems.” Said the QI, “Same event.”

ATTENTION ALL PERSONNEL

MULTIPLE TECHNICAL ANOMALIES HAVE BEEN DETECTED

THEY REMAIN OUTSIDE THE FACILITY

STAY AT YOUR STATIONS

“Well, at least no one's attacking us.” Said the lawyer.

“Maybe.” Said the other.

Bikky and Tom Tom weren’t smiling; they looked disappointed and started putting their weapons away.

A security officer ran past The Kestrel. They saw him through a forward viewport. A second ran in the opposite direction; a team of engineers followed, struggling with toolboxes.

Feebee heard scratchy laughter, ‘It’s like one of those ancient black and white films with everyone running in different directions.’

‘Yeh. Everyone thinks their system is failing.’

The forward screen still held the timeline; the recent messages were still there. The QI shifted the timeline’s focus to align with its ‘convergence’ data.

Chen was watching. So was Garaf. The others saw them looking and slowly turned. Eventually, everyone watched as the messages collapsed in on a single node. All in one place.

Dock Seven.

The room watched, and the QI took the opportunity to clear the screen. In place of the timeline, it put up the message they’d received earlier. The one that had flashed across every screen.

> CONTINUITY: VERIFIED

> CONVERGENCE

> QUIETUS PROTOCOL: Continue.

The QI spoke before anyone could comment, “The more I look at this, the less I believe this message was for us.”

“It’s not a reply, that’s for sure.” Slurred Chen.

“I agree. It’s more like a checkpoint.”

Rockson frowned, “What d’you mean? A checkpoint?”

“I think, by completing the routing paths and the map of convergence events, I triggered something that was already running.”

StillFall moved across, a trail of motes in its wake, and stopped in front of the screen.

“It never stopped.”

Everyone stopped, processing StillFall’s statement.

As they did this, another message splashed across the screens.

> QUIETUS PROTOCOL: Continue.

This time, the message was followed by a burst of network traffic. Nothing special, just lots of ordinary network traffic.

Rockson saw it first.  “It’s pervasive,” he said. “Across all of the Dock Seven systems. Is this an attack?”

“No!” said one of the accountants emphatically. Then more gently, “No, I don’t think it’s an attack. Odd, but not an attack.”

“Why odd?” asked his colleague.

“They’re mostly timing packets.”

“Guys, in simple language. Please!”

Bikky tutted, “Nerds.”

Tom Tom laughed.

The accountant translated, “They aren’t exchanging data. They’re synchronising. Aligning with each other and then confirming that they are in sync.”

“Yeh, as if checking if everyone’s still there.”

There was another burst.

Then another.

The accountant replayed the two bursts. Each was at a different frequency, aimed at different systems.

“They’re doing the same things; raising the same question.”

“Which is?” asked Feebee.

“Presence.” Said the QI, “You there? Are we good?”

There was another pulse, a response. The QI translated as best it could.

“Present.”

Then another, “Present.” And so it went on, response after response.

ATTENTION ALL PERSONNEL

UNEXPLAINED NETWORK EVENTS

ITCS STAFF REPORT TO OPERATIONS IMMEDIATELY

Feebee looked out across the landing pad. Some communication specialists were setting up a relay station in the middle of the landing pad. Crews and security were double timing around them.

Then there was a loud banging on the outside of The Kestrel’s hull.

Nobody on The Kestrel moved. They knew the facility’s systems weren’t malfunctioning. The headless chickens running around outside almost certainly didn’t and would be blaming each other, finger-pointing and referring to Priority 1 – Cover thine arse.

Rockson turned to the prisoner and whispered, “They’re answering.”

The prisoner nodded once, “They always answer.”

Meanwhile, somewhen else… The Long Quiet reported.

OBSERVATION: Continuity Verified

NETWORK STATUS: Partial

RESPONSES: Increasing

QUIETUS PROTOCOL: Continue

Then, after a pause, additional lines appeared.

UNACCOUNTED NODE DETECTED

RISK: Unknown

And now…

Feebee looked around the room.  All the displays and the discarded printouts with scribbles and circles. At StillFall and the prisoner.

Then she looked at Chen. “You own Dock Seven.”

“We own it. Yes.”

She smiled, acknowledging his correction. “We own it.”

He nodded.

StillFall turned to the projected map and traced a line with a dark finger to a point that glowed just below Dock Seven.

It wasn’t a dock or a warehouse. It was something much older.

The shadow spoke one word.

“There.”

The banging on the hull sounded again, and the main hatch started to drop. Feebee saw a JSOC Colonel outside with two security personnel, more like military police.

He strode up the ramp, confident and assured, and was met by Feebee. The two Alphas were at her back.

“Captain Jones.”

“Colonel,” she responded.

The other crew had pushed onto the loading area at the rear of the Kestrel, near the ramp.

“I’ve been instructed to collect the prisoner and return him to JSOC custody.”

Tom Tom turned to Bikky, “Looks like they finally got their shit together.”

They laughed, which drew a stern look from the Colonel.

Garaf remained with the prisoner, at the back.

The Colonel saw him and, turning to Feebee, said, “Thank you for your assistance.”

He then turned to the MPs, “Recover the prisoner.”

Garaf stepped in front of the prisoner, flanked by Tom Tom and Bikky, who stood casually with arms folded. StillFall remained perfectly still, alight with motes, hovering above the prisoner.

Nobody moved.

The Colonel was an old hand. He’d seen this before and knew it never ended well. The first person to move usually lost.

Feebee then stepped forward, “Why?”

The Colonel was taken aback. “Excuse me?”

“Why do you want him?” she asked again.

“Because he was part of the attack.”

Feebee shook her head. “No.”

The Colonel frowned. “No?”

“He’s part of the answer. So, no.”

Chen stepped forward. “The prisoner must remain under SixFold authority pending completion of our investigation.”

The Colonel turned to Chen, then deliberately looked at the shoulder flashes that carried his rank before answering. “I don’t recognise SixFold authority.”

Chen noticed the slight, ignored it and smiled. “You don’t have to.”

He then produced a classified authorisation and handed it over.

“Colonel.” He said, then continued. “The minister does.”

He took the authorisation and read it slowly, looking up at Chen as he did. He clearly didn’t like what he read but couldn’t ignore it. You could almost see the cogs turning, then he answered with a smile.

“He doesn’t leave this facility!”

Feebee replied immediately, “Then neither do we.”

The Colonel spun on his heels and marched down the ramp. Before he got to the bottom, he was met by an officer who rushed up to him and handed him a console.

What followed was a heated exchange, almost comical as it was conducted entirely in whispers, with the officer occasionally pointing at The Kestrel.

The Colonel’s face changed, taking on a resigned look as he walked back up the ramp, into The Kestrel and up to Chen.

“Sir.” He was very polite, professional. “We have another problem…”

He showed Chen the display on the console.

DOCK SEVEN: UNAUTHORISED FACILITY STATUS CHANGE

OWNER: SixFold Ventures

AUTHORITY: Unknown

CONTROL: Contested

Chen was about to say something, then looked back at the console and read it again, making sure he’d read it right.

The Colonel then spoke, “Something aligned with Dock Seven just ignored JSOC and SixFold procedures.”

StillFall moved towards the Colonel. “Good!”

Everyone turned. Even the prisoner. It was the first time StillFall had sounded… hopeful.

Meanwhile, somewhen else… The Long Quiet reported.

OBSERVATION: Continuity Maintained

NETWORK STATUS: Stable

RESPONSES: Stable

UNACCOUNTED NODE: Active

RISK: Unknown

QUIETUS PROTOCOL: Continue

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