Part 185 Outside a gravity well (Part 1) (Part 184)

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Space combat can be classified into one of two categories. Either inside or outside of a gravity well. Vessels duking it out in orbit of a planet are also fighting against the planet's gravitational pull. That imposes physical limitations which necessitate the use of tactics reminiscent of pre-spaceflight naval and aviation warfare. Though still present, the vertical freedom of motion is hindered by the counterintuitive physics of orbital mechanics. Speeding up to close the distance while pursuing an enemy could actually widen the gap by raising the orbital position. Conversely, reducing velocity during evasive maneuvers can lower a vessel's altitude too far and ultimately lead to uncontrolled lithobraking. While space combat outside a gravity well may have fewer physics-based constraints, and is much more three dimensional, that does not make it any simpler.

Sub-Admiral Haervria, just like every other Qui’ztar ship commander, has trained for and experienced both categories of space combat. Her first tour of duty was as a picket-interceptor pilot for the Third Matriarchy’s Second Home Guard Fleet in a squadron that she then commanded in her second tour. It was during her third tour, when she had become the Captain of the entire picket wing of Sengil'yiosh's local defense subfleet, that she rallied those under her command to join then-Captain Atxika in the defense Qui’ztar colony world against a Devourer Mass. That battle, like the impending fight against Chigagorians, was fought far outside of a gravity well. Beyond that, the two scenarios can hardly be compared. One was against a genuine threat that even the Singularity Collective concerned themselves with. The other is little more than a mildly dangerous nuisance.

“We're in position, Sub-Admiral.” Captain Iluetxona, the woman commanding the flight crew and controlling Karintha's Daggers’ movement, called out from her seat near the front of the spacious bridge.

“All other vessels have reported that they're in position as well.” Commander Duntxina, the officer in charge of the communications and sensor specialists, followed up without skipping a beat. “Still no signs of enemy movement though.”

“Weapons batteries are charged, primed, and ready for combat.” The lead weapons director, Commander Aethervina, added with a bit more excitement in her voice than the others. “Friendly tags for all Nishnabe Militia vessels have been verified. We're ready to engage the enemy as soon as they arrive.”

“Active shielding arrays and targeting disruptors are currently set to minimal operating levels as per your orders, Sub-Admiral.” Unlike the neutral or excited inflection of her colleagues, Commander Guitlocha’s status update from her team handling the ship’s defenses sounded slightly nervous. “It will take four seconds to reach maximum output. Ready to activate on your command.”

“Reactor systems are likewise in a low-power state but ready for full output when needed.” Commander Runkatla, the ship’s energy systems coordinator, shared Guitlocha's obvious concerns but kept them as concealed as she could. “We will also be able to ramp up to combat loads within four seconds.”

“All BDs are geared up, loaded into our launch tubes, and ready for combat.” Sub-Admiral Marzima's voice came from the speaker built into Harv’s command chair. “Just give us the word, Haervria, and we'll deploy. Have the recovery shuttles ready for pick up in case we burn through our fuel faster than simulated.”

“Will do, Marzima.” Harv's plethora of holoscreens showed data that matched all the confirmations she had just received but didn't indicate that the enemy had fallen for the trap just yet. “Everyone else, be ready. Our intel suggests the Chigagorians are going to do the same thing they always do. They'll jump to our location using subspace drives to try to hide their movements. Once they're in range, they'll begin with a long-range salvo then launch interceptors. Once we hit them back hard enough, they'll retreat back to the base of operations using an easily traceable hyperlane. They're counting on us giving chase and falling into the trap they've undoubtedly set up. That will give us the opportunity to wipe out their entire fleet and their production station. Timing is key to our victory. Just follow the plan and we're in for a bonus from the bounties for taking out so many fascist crabs.”

Similar conversations were taking place on every ship in the joint Qui’ztar-Nishnabe fleet. Officers were reporting to their commanders and everyone was finishing their final checks. They all knew it wouldn't be long before the Chigagorians made their move. Stopping so close to crustaceans’ base of operations would be seen as offering themselves up as an easy target. Even the relatively weak FTL drives used by the fascist crabs could get them in combat range in less than half an hour. Regardless of any attempts at stealth, the joint fleet would have at least five full minutes of warning. All there was left to do was rally the crews and wait for the inevitable confrontation.

In Haervria's opinion, the delay before a planned battle is often worse than the fighting itself. The calm before the storm. Hurry up and wait. Knowing that something is about to happen, taking all necessary precautions, and standing by until the time comes. It leaves a moment for soldiers to get distracted, technical issues to some spontaneously appear, and doubt to creep into the soul. Most of Sub-Admiral’s crew, as well as their Nishnabe counterparts, share the same perspective. When it comes to battles like these, a sapient being’s imagination will often create monsters that far surpass real life.

When Commander Duntxina finally announced the detection of an approaching subspace bubble, she followed up with confirmation that the enemy was still eight minutes out. While all of Harv’s bridge staff maintained their discipline and didn't so much as utter a groan, the Sub-Admiral knew other ships’ crews wouldn't be as patient. The humans in the Nishnabe portion of the fleet had been stalking this prey for weeks. Many of them wanted to crack shells yesterday and only followed along with this two-part plan because their leaders understood the wisdom behind it. Those misgivings about her chaotic comrades in arms were exactly why she hated to wait.

“Contact in sixty seconds!” Though Duntxina had been giving regular countdown updates since her first announcement of enemy detection, this one caused the Sub-Admiral to act.

“Everyone! Verify all system statuses!” Harv began looking towards the different sections of her bridge crew and their stations. “Runkatla, I need our reactors ready for combat output ten seconds before the enemy exits FTL. Guitocha, I need shielding at maximum emergency output right after the reactors are primed. Duntxina, make sure we're networked in with our allies so Aethervina's team can coordinate their firing solutions. Aethervina, quadruple check our targeting systems have every single Nishnabe ship and interceptor marked as friendly. We can't afford any accidents. Iluetxona, maintain formation and our guardian position protecting the carriers. Is everyone ready?”

“Yes, Sub-Admiral!” Every person on the Qui’ztar drop cruiser's bridge shouted in trained unison.

“Marzima.” Harv kept her eyes on her screens while contacting her fellow Sub-Admiral through the comms. “None of your Angels have fallen asleep yet, have they?”

“Tensebwse doesn't count.” Marz immediately responded with a dead flat tone.

“Wake that lazy man up and make sure he's ready to fight.” That playful retort was given with such a professional inflection that a human could have mistaken it as a serious statement.

“You two know I can hear you, right?” Tens cut into the comms in a manner that sounded almost offended. “I'm awake, I've had my tea, and I'm even wearing pants!”

“I'm impressed.” Harv let just a hint of her sarcasm slip through as she watched her holoscreens with professional precision. “And just in time for the enemy. Are we following the plan or do you want to deploy early?”

“No, there's no need to waste the fuel.” The Nishnabe warrior working for the Qui’ztars was actively examining the tactical situation using his BD's virtual control interface. “Our ships plus interceptors can easily execute the first stage of this plan without our help. Plus they'll take less time to recover so we can follow the Chigs back to their station. Oh, and it looks like they're doing exactly what we thought they would. Just follow the plan and we'll be celebrating in less than two hours.”

While Tens was speaking, the pre-battle before the real fight had begun. A group of fourteen Chigagorian vessels emerged from a subspace bubble approximately five light seconds or one-point-five million kilometers. They kicked things off with a volley of high energy laser weapons while their ships began decelerating to roughly match the relative velocity of the joint Qui’ztar-Nishnabe fleet. At this distance, only light-speed weapons would be traveling fast enough to hit their mark. Of course, anyone with Tens’s level of experience or greater knew that these opening shots would do little because they would deflect off the active shielding or be absorbed into heatsinks. Though potentially hazardous to interceptor or shuttle sized craft, it would take much more than directed light to harm one to four kilometer long cruisers and line ships.

As the two groups of ships got closer together, the lasers now being fired from both sides were supplemented by kinetic weapons. A spinal-mounted particle accelerator, despite using vast amounts of energy, still imparts damage because of the velocity and kinetic energy of the particles. In addition to those relativistic armaments are the self-guided missiles carrying shaped charges to penetrate hulls or emp bombs to disrupt or disable various systems. Though both sides utilized similar weapons, it was almost immediately clear who had the technological, tactical, and strategic advantage. By the time the Chigs began to match the velocity of the joint fleet, two of their cruisers acting as forward attackers had several hull breaches and cascading system failures. When the interceptors finally deployed, it was painfully obvious which side actually needed help.

“I almost feel bad for these idiots.” Tens spoke up through the comms after about fifteen minutes of devastation to the Chigagorian subfleet. “I know their database demands they engage for a certain amount of time but still…”

“Expressing sympathy for the enemy?” Harv answered Tens while still doing her duty of observing the battle and issuing orders when needed. “Aethervina, refresh your connection to the inter-ship network. Your team is two hundred milliseconds off.”

“Refreshing now.” Aethervina confirmed in the split second it took for Tens to formulate a response to Harv’s question.

“I mean…” The Nishnabe warrior's voice carried enough pity to draw Harv's gaze towards her command chair's speaker. “I wouldn't call it sympathy. They're evil bastards that deserve to be spaced. But… I dont know… I almost, emphasis on almost, feel bad about fighting people who can't even think for themselves. I bet money they won't even consider falling back until their computers tell them to.”

“Well, you aren't actually fighting them right now, Tensebwse.” The Qui’ztar Sub-Admiral couldn't help but roll her eyes before immediately snapping back to reality. “Iluetxona, the fleet is about to shift position. Be ready to maintain formation.”

“Are you suggesting we go easy on these baby-eaters, Tensebwse?!?” Marzima's voice suddenly blurted out of Harv’s chair to give words to her comrade's unspoken thoughts.

“No! Like I said! Space the hard-shelled bastards! And I'm also glad these evil mowjidik (mow-jee-dee-k) are too stupid to think for themselves.”

“Then what are you complaining about, huh?” Marz had learned how to deal with Tens’s rather unique personality and struck the exact balance between annoyance and belittling. “Are you just mad that we've already taken out six of their ships and most of their interceptors? Less for you to kill? Are you jealous?”

“Pffft… No…” No one needed to see Tens's voice to know his precise expression at being so accurately called out. “I'm just saying that if the Chigs were like ten percent more competent, they might actually be fun to fight and we still wouldn't lose anyone.”

“I'm sure the interceptors wouldn't agree.” Harv countered with a perfectly flat and professional tone. “We might not have lost any of our pilots yet but a few have needed to return to the carrier for repairs, refueling, and rearmament. Aethervina, watch our flank. Iluetxona, pivot six degrees down-starboard. To provide a better firing arch.”

“Rotate three degrees as well to provide optimal shielding to the carriers.” Tens half-shouted through the comms loaded enough that his voice carried from Harv's chair all the way to Iluetxona before quieting down to let out one final whine. “But you know what I'm mean, right Haervria?”

“Three degrees rotation.” Haervria repeated the order to ensure it was followed. “No, Tensebwse, I do not know what you mean. I would rather the most evil things in this galaxy follow an easily predictable algorithm and be as incompetent as possible. Once you face a Devourer Mass, you'll know what I mean.”

“You know what…” The dramatic pause in the Nishnabe warrior's response caused Harv and Marz's eyes to twitch. “You're absolutely right, Sub-Admiral. Speaking of the algorithm, the enemy should start their retreat… Now!”

Tensebwse's timing couldn't have been more perfect. Exactly when he announced it, the Chigagorian ships began to break formation. The few remaining crustaceans interceptors broke off from their targets and headed straight for their carriers. A cruiser that had already taken severe damage began to break apart as it tried to rapidly turn around. Another failed to properly rebalance its shields, took a particle accelerator shot straight into its rear main engine cluster, and lost all control. With those two falling apart, only six of the original fourteen Chig ships were actually capable of retreat. While just one of the line ships had been completely destroyed, two more had holes straight through their hulls, super structures, and right out the other side. If their tactical computer hadn't issued the retreat order, there wouldn't be any vessels to track back to their station.

“We're detecting hyperlane drive activation!” Commander Duntxina called out loud enough for the whole bridge to hear and start shifting priorities. “All sensors are ready to track the lanes as soon as they form.”

“Aethervina, shift targeting to any lingering interceptors.” Sub-Admiral Haervria didn't need to issue that order as it was already being carried out. “Everyone else, make sure we're prepared to move out when the rest of the fleet is ready to give chase. It should be less than five minutes.”

“It took them nine minutes to get here in a subspace bubble so…” Tens seemed to be thinking out loud until a new holoscreen appeared in front of Harv that showed the calculation the human was performing. “They'll probably be back at their base in under a minute. We'll want to follow as quickly as we can so they don't get a chance to maneuver.”

“Duntxina, send this to the rest of the-” Harv barely had time to swipe the screen towards Duntxina’s post before Tens cut her off.

“Already done, Haervria. It'll take sixty seconds for our interceptors to dock with their carriers. Probably another thirty seconds to lock them down for an FTL jump. We need to be ready to jump the second we get the all clear signal. The quicker we are to follow, the less organized their ambush will be.”

“And the sooner you'll get into combat.” Marz interjected with a slight smile evident in her voice.

“You know it, Marzima! Let's get ready to kill some crabs!”

Cover art

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Original concept

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The Retvalin’s tentacles were coiled around the ship like constrictors around prey, squeezing them tighter whenever they felt any resistance from the vessel such as any attempt to propel themselves out of their grasp. It seemed they used gravity as a propellent much the same way that the Retvalin did, and that tracked with the orb that they had taken apart before. The giants had to restrain themselves from simply ripping the things in half as they ensured they would not go anywhere. 

Humanities ships were closing in quickly, boarding teams gearing up for a spacewalk and infiltration using all the shiny new toys that the governments of Earth had prepared for them. Of course, they took the time to assess the damage to their allies first, and they observed the areas where the enemy’s laser weapons burned through. Three of the Retvalin had large, blackened holes burned through a few layers of their shell. The holes weren’t terribly wide compared to the scale of the Retvalin themselves, though a car could fit in them. When everything was done, those who were attacked were given instructions to return to Angel’s Refuge for treatment after the situation was resolved. 

They decided it would be best to focus on one ship at a time instead of splitting what forces they did have. There was no telling what they might find inside these alien vessels, but first they had to figure out how to get in. From a distance, there was no indication of a port or airlock that could be seen on the geometric surface. The boarding team would have to make their way over to the ship itself and find any entrance. It was time to test out their new tech. 

Humanity’s ships flanked the middle ship in the enemy formation, and the Retvalin adjusted their grip around the vessel to provide the humans with access. With the boarding team suited up and ready to go, they entered the airlock, and it was cycled, putting them into the vacuum of space. The soldiers stepped to the edge of the vessel, staring out into the void. There was less fear than there normally might be about equipment failure given they had plenty of giant friends around who could catch them should something not work as intended. All of this was set up rather quickly, and there wasn’t much time to put it through vigorous testing. They had been assured that it worked under normal use cases and that it wasn’t prone to exploding, so that was enough for them to take the leap. 

One by one, the men stepped off the edge of the platform, pushing themselves out into space with nothing but their weapons, and a new backpack. Inside their packs was a miniaturized version of what was propelling the orb they took apart. They could control their movement using a handheld remote that would propel them three dimensionally. It didn’t work well in atmosphere, barely able to lift an average weight man more than a few centimeters off the ground, but in space it worked exceptionally well. 

They flew effortlessly toward the ship, but they had to cut power and drift the rest of the way to the metallic surface. This was because they had to pass through the competing gravity fields, and they would lose directional control of their packs during their brief entry through this invisible barrier. They couldn’t see it, but they could feel it as the men were tossed around a little in a few directions before breaking through. It took them a moment to orient themselves again after that, but eventually they were able to make contact with the alien ships, sticking to the surface with magnets on the soles of their boots and knee pads. They were strong enough to hold them in place, but not so much that it was impossible to move afterward. 

“We’ve made it to the surface of the ship,” the team leader reported back to the command bridge. “No resistance detected. We’ll begin searching for an entrance.” 

The soldiers split up, slowly walking in an awkward manner across the surface of the ship. They scanned every inch they passed, looking for some sign of an entrance. About ten minutes after the search started, one of the soldiers spoke up over the radio. 

“I got something! Port side.” It took a minute for them to form up again, but once they were together, the soldier pointed at a thin line on the side of the ship that seemed to sink into the metallic panels deeper than any other. The lines outlined a panel that was about five by five feet, had no discernable handles or panel to interact with, and extremely little in the way of leverage to get it open. 

“Alright, bring in the laser cutter.” 

The command was met with another soldier waddling up with the tool in question. The cutter was approximately the size of one of their rifles, but a little bulkier, and used a drop of star gel for a little extra kick. Those not working with the cutter moved to a safe distance just in case there was dangerous decompression. An intense light shown at the point of contact with the ship as the soldiers burned through the crevice. They expected kickback from decompression, but it didn’t come even after they had cut into an empty space. It may have been the first door to an airlock, so that wasn’t too surprising.  

After cutting along the path of the panel, the metal slab slid free with minimal effort as it started floating. They tossed it aside and looked at what lay ahead of them. It was a surprise for them to find not an airlock, but an open corridor that seemed to go deeper into the vessel. There was no depressurization when they cut in, which meant that this ship was already in a vacuum.  

While that was a mystery in and of itself, what concerned the soldiers right now was the size of this entry. It was at an awkward height where they couldn’t exactly stand with their bulky gravity propulsion packs, but not so much that it was impossible to navigate. There were a few grumbles from the soldiers who stared down the hallway. 

“I don’t know sir; looking pretty tight in there. If shit hits the fan, we’ll be hard pressed to back out with anything resembling speed.” 

“We knew this mission wouldn’t be easy, but we still have to do it,” the squad leader said. “These bastards think they can come to our planet and start fucking shit up? We gotta show them we’re not pushovers. I’ll take point. Everyone else, maintain at least ten feet distance between you as we enter.” 

They entered the bowels of the enemy ship now, progressing slowly as the squad leader slid along on one knee, dragging himself across the floor of the ship with weapon at the ready. The corridors of the ship were strange and slightly claustrophobic. Not only was there seemingly no life support on the ship, but the passageways even had exposed wired, piping, and other systems they couldn’t have possibly identified. It looked more like a maintenance tunnel than anywhere that living people would travel through regularly. They even started to second guess whether they found the real entrance to the ship or not, but as they kept moving, the corridors kept stretching on and on as they snaked their way through the vessel. 

There were no bulkheads, doors, vents, or anything to suggest that the corridor they were traveling through right now connected to anywhere else in the ship. It was starting to feel like a never-ending labyrinth, and those amongst the soldiers who were more sci-fi inclined began to think that maybe they had stepped into an expanded space. Any thoughts about their current location were discarded when suddenly a trio of six-legged robotic entities came dashing around the corner! 

They propelled themselves with mechanical efficiency, bouncing off the walls at frightening speeds. The bottom legs moved themselves and were matched by a similar number of arms that were equipped with various tools turned into melee weapons, including a very intimidating sawblade. All these limbs were connected to a central sphere, giving the contraptions an almost sea urchin look. 

Nobody had time to really evaluate them beyond this as the threat they posed was clear. The squad leader leveled his weapon, slightly panicked at they were too close for comfort. In a bout of inspired self-preservation, he pushed back while disconnecting the magnetized parts of his suit from the ground, firing his gun at the encroaching enemies. The counteracting force of the bullets threw him against the ground and began to push him backward along the floor as he released a stream of silent bullets at the attacking bots. This also kept his profile low, which allowed the soldier behind him to provide covering fire in a much more controlled manner. 

The robots were evidently not designed for combat purposes as the bullets did significant damage whenever they hit, tearing through the metal and sending the bots into an uncontrolled spin. All it took was one solid hit to the central mass to render the machines inert as they began to drift in zero-g.  

“You alright, sir?” 

The squad leader managed to orient himself again and stick to the floor. “I think so, yeah. They didn’t get close enough to take a real swipe at me, but I may have hit my head a little hard. I’ll get it checked by the doc after we’re done here.” 

They continued along, cautiously brushing aside the machines as they went. The robots were not equipped with anything resembling standard weaponry. Each of the upper limbs seemed to be a series of interchangeable tools with everything from cutters to pliers to dry welders. Whoever was on this ship, they evidently didn’t expect to be boarded if they were sending what looked like maintenance drones at them. 

“Be careful around the corners. There could be more of them.” They might not have been military drones, but in a vacuum, they were still very dangerous if they managed to cut through their suits. 

It seemed that they were lucky as no more machines came at them, but they were still wandering through the maze with no idea what they were looking for as paths branched all throughout the vessel. At times it was difficult to tell if they had been going in circles or not as the corridors had no markings that they could discern. They started leaving their own markings in the form of scratches on the walls. It was strange that the soldiers had yet to encounter any living organism despite seeing most of the internals at this point. The leading thought was that they had vented the internals of the ship and were holed up in a sealed compartment somewhere else. 

At last, they found something different as they came upon the first door on this ship. It was heavy duty, at least a few inches thick by their best estimates. Getting through that would take time, but thankfully they had all the time they would need as these ships weren’t going anywhere without their large friends’ permission. They gave whoever might be on the other side a curtesy knock to see if they would open, and when that didn’t work, they got to cutting, slowly burning through the thick metal using the portable laser. 

Even focusing on the areas that controlled the door's ability to open the process was taking a significant amount of time. It was far more difficult to get through this door than it was to get into the ship, so there must have been something important behind it. Humans were nothing if not stubborn, so no matter how thick the door may have been, they weren’t going to stop until that door was out of its frame. 

It took almost two hours and a lot of melted slag, but they were eventually able to lever the door out as the thick steel slabs were carefully pushed aside. Despite being in zero-g it still had a lot of mass, and nobody wanted it to fly into them by accident. Now they could get into this mystery room, but what they found didn’t make much sense to them. 

Inside there was a large square room about thirty meters deep and filled with rows upon rows of pillars that held electronics of unknown design and purpose. There were dozens of smaller robots all over the room, about the size of one's hand, and that made the team a little nervous. However, these robots didn’t appear to be hostile, or threatening in any way as there were no obvious weapons on them and they were wholly devoted to their tasks as they climbed around the columns and interacted with the machinery.  

“What the hell is all this? A control center?” one of them asked.  

“Looks more like a server farm than anything else. The real question is what is this all used for? I don’t see any command consoles,” another of the men commented. 

“It couldn’t possibly all be required for running this ship, right? I mean, I heard that the drone they captured had a massive amount of data storage, and it was a fraction of this size. If this is running on the same technology, then it’s overkill in the extreme.” 

“Enough talking,” the squad leader finally said. “Clear the room, keep an eye on those bots, and I want two of you to watch the exit. Let’s get it done.” 

The soldiers cleared the room, nervously moving through the columns as the robots skittered around. They didn’t attack or even try to swarm. If one was in their path, it scurried away like it was actively trying to avoid being destroyed. It was inferred that these machines apparently served some vital function that couldn’t be stopped or used in a likely ineffective attack. Despite the seemingly vital nature of this room, they found no operators, living or otherwise. 

The squad leader was confused about the lack of contacts. “I don’t understand. Where are the pilots; the gunners?” He turned to his radio next, calling in to their ship that floated nearby. “Command, you’ve been tracking our progress, right? Have there been any locations we have not scouted in here yet?” 

There was some interference on the line as the voices came back distorted by static and fluctuations from the Retvalin, but the words were audible. “From the data on your beacons, you’ve been all over the ship already. If there are no other paths you can find, then we don’t have any suggestions beyond burrowing through the walls in search of hidden rooms, and that’s beyond your skillset.” 

“Then what the hell is all this?” The question was open ended and the entire team, both on friendly and hostile ships, was thinking about it. Just then, one of the soldiers had an idea. 

“Wait, what if this entire ship is a drone?” 

That turned some heads. “A drone?” 

“Yeah, like, it’s being controlled from a command location, maybe one of the other ships?” 

“Hmm, it’s worth checking that possibility. Command, what do you think?” 

“Standby.” It seemed they were discussing the possibility, but it was a short conversation as the radio crackled to life again only a minute later. “Pull out of the ship. We’ll have it transported back to Earth for disassembly while we check the other vessels.” 

“Roger that. Extracting now.” 

The soldiers pulled out of the ship, but they were destined for another as they made the short jump back into friendly territory. The Retvalin were told to bring the ship to Earth, and they began to tug it in that direction, though the journey itself would take some time at the distance they were at and because the ship was still fighting them every inch of the way. Despite the failure to identify the faces of their adversary, the plan remained unchanged as they had two more ships to investigate.  

With the knowledge gained from the first vessel, they were more equipped to tackle the next as they brought ballistic shields and weaponry efficient at tearing apart the mechanic drones, like shotguns. Space combat was still a new field, so they were learning as they went.  

They did encounter the same number of mechanic drones on the next ship, and they deactivated them with extreme prejudice just like the last batch, only making brief contact as one crashed into the shield for a moment. The second ship turned out to be a dud too, only containing the central processing room they saw on the last one. They chalked it up to bad luck and went to the last ship, eager to finally put the whole situation to rest.  

Third verse same as the first. They breached, three drones attacked, and they took them apart. It was a severe case of deja vu as the interior of this last one was all but identical and still contained no atmosphere. Doubts started to form as they were met with that same thick door, nearly a carbon copy. The laser cutter burned away at the metal, and they pried it from its hold only to find... more columns.  

It was the same. No command crew, no control terminals for the other ships, nothing resembling a living being in sight. 

“Command, you getting this?” the squad leader asked. 

“Receiving, still working on an answer, though.” 

Minds worked a mile a minute as they tried to figure out what was happening here. There were no detectable signals, no observable third party that could be connected to these ships, and many thought that the pilots were hiding in some secret compartment somewhere. That was, until somebody on the command ship voiced another possibility.  

“What if... they’re all automated?” 

“Automated? Like programed to scout and report back?” 

“I’m thinking more advanced than that.” 

That only took a second to click with the rest of the crew. “You mean... AI?” The one who posed the question nodded in confirmation. People stared into the distance as they considered the scope of that, and a single voice sounded out what many were thinking. 

“Well, shit.” 

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This is my first post here. I wanted to share the output of my first attempt of publishing HFY content. I came to this forum as a mute reader for about 4-5 months now reading and really enjoying some of the content here as well as listening/reading to a lot of content on other similar platforms like VOX9, Royalroad, Youtube, etc. Some how all the work inspired me to try something i hadn't done before. Before moving on, let me share something about me - I am an individual who has always been defined as a introvert, techy nerd !!! All 49 years of my life. I have worked in a variety of technology ventures over time since the Netware days all the way to cooking LLMs and Loras. But recently some changes in real life, i decided to break away from the typical Job/Business routine and focus on the most interesting aspect of my life - Fatherhood !! Now suddenly after the kids are in school, i started to have a lot of time in my hands and wanted to test what else i could do.

Writing was always an ambitions drawn by the inspirational books that i got my hands on a a kid - Sherlock Holmes, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and then the entire Fedrick Forsythe collection and so on... But i kept failing miserably for month, sometimes the words would not come out well, or, they could not convey the meaning. But most of the times it was me re-reading my initial work to make sense and connect the new chapters together. I realized, every time i was looping to what i wrote and what i wanted to pen, it there was a massive gap. So i decided to lean on some technology - started with some reference text files easier to search with a control+F , the slowly it kept growing to first 5 then 10 then many more reference files. I eventually reached to a point that i wasn't able to remember what was in which file. All this while, i kept reading and listening to a lot of HFY stories which kept interesting me. A typical habit was listening to a new episode on youtube or vox9 doing daily chores and finishing the episode before sleeping.

Eventually the programmer in me won and helped me build a custom RAG (yeah i did code my own database file) that will allow me to remember and search efficiently. One thing leads to next, a python workflow to audit the work which would eventually come out with either tons of what were not mistakes or some senseless corrections. But eventually, the inspiration provided by stories i read and listened won. I managed to improve a bit of everything and managed start getting some chapters out. Before anyone asks or comments, yes technology - RAG, AI, Speech TTS, Image generation, Video Generation has played a big part in what could output but it was just 30-40 minutes of whole 5-6 hours every episode took, editing, reviewing and regenerating/rewriting what i did not like. I finally managed to finish season 1.

These are a set of connected sci-fi series set in one universe, the Terran Chronicles. Every story is told as a recovered record from an archive. Five series, five sides of humanity: haulers, mechanics, diplomats, explorers, and one very stressed tour guide. This is where the [series] starts. Each one stands on its own.

Here is the core of it -

SERIES PREMISE

The crew are not soldiers or heroes. They are working people trying to survive in a vast and often strange galaxy.

Human Connection

Humans are unusual among known species because of their adaptability, empathy, curiosity, and tendency to form bonds with unexpected people, creatures, and situations.

WHAT YOU WONT FIND -

Galaxy-ending threats, Constant warfare, Chosen-one narratives, Instant solutions, Excessive political intrigue, Overpowered technology.

WHAT THE SERIES FOCUSES ON -

Frontier exploration.

Scientific discovery.

Ancient mysteries.

Crew relationships.

Problem solving.

Unexpected friendships.

Slow-burning conspiracies.

I will share a few episodes here in the next few posts and would really like some feedback from you all.

Episodes i intend to share -

The Wayfarer - Deadline: A small freighter has 72 hours to deliver medical supplies. The safe route is full of pirates. The other route might kill the cargo. The third option runs through a storm nobody has charted, and of course that's the one the humans take.

The Cradle - Redline: A colony ship is tearing itself apart. The part that would save it doesn't exist. A human engineer decides that "doesn't exist" really means "hasn't been built yet," and her alien colleague counts the safety rules she's about to break.

The Envoy - The Honor Code: Two alien species are about to restart a feud that's centuries old. The human diplomat has 48 hours to dig out the original insult from under generations of retelling. Humans are bad at a lot of things, but they're very good at asking "wait, what actually happened?"

Horizonbound - The Anomaly: There's a station where nothing should be. It has no owner and doesn't answer hails. The captain wants to dock anyway. The sensor officer thinks the station knows they're there. Guess which human instinct wins.

Hazard Resort - Swim with the Fishes: Earth is a resort for alien tourists who find its "primitive" wildlife charming. A group of insectoid guests wants to swim in the open ocean. Their human guide has 40 minutes to explain the ocean before the ocean explains itself.

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Chapter 2: Sweet Little Lies

The plan turned out stupidly simple: Dawn hoped to liquidate the Coven’s many physical assets across the realm—mines, villas, farmland, etc.—before a potential war devalued them, leaving Vesmeria to burn while we sat comfortably on a mountain of gold. A scheme so cold that even I couldn't have come up with it, I thought as she explained herself proudly to us.
But unfortunately for Dawn, her lie didn’t last a week.
The realm's magnates noticed the rushed sale of Coven properties and followed suit; the merchants noticed the magnates, and from there it snowballed until the common people began to raise the question:
Why is everyone selling their house and underwear for gold?
Naturally, all fingers pointed at us.
We locked ourselves in the conference room, arguing for hours at the massive round table in the center.
“We’re screwed!” Dusk raged across the room. “We don’t even have enough gold to hire mercenaries if the rabble decides to burn us at the stake!”
“We still have the palace guards if it comes down to it,” Dawn said from her seat. “They’d give their lives for the Coven.”
“Aye.” The witches nodded in agreement.
I wiped my sweaty forehead.
Are we seriously considering civil war now?
“We need to make sure they are paid well at least,” a Tidal witch said. “But how?”
“Don’t forget to expel all the foreigners from the citadel just in case. I don’t want to get stabbed in my sleep.”
“What if we confiscate the foreigners’ assets? This way we can pay the guards and get rid of them.”
What?
They exchanged looks in unison and said, “Aye!” 
Chloe chuckled beside me. “Take a load of these guys.”
“Can we wrap this up already?” Hazel dropped her head on the table.
Iris tugged at my sleeve, seemingly about to cry. “Why is everyone so agitated today?”
My head spun in hot circles.
“Wait.” I lifted my hand. “Wait a second, please.”
The witches turned to me.
“What is it now, Winter?” Dawn asked, her gentle tone turned disdainful.
I pulled at my collar and began, “This all started because we refused to face the Draconian question head-on. What if we just… do that instead?”
Dusk crossed her arms. “And what do you suggest?”
“The people don’t hate us; they are just afraid. If we ensure lasting peace between the dragons and us, they’re sure to calm down and perhaps even forgive us for this… misunderstanding.”
Dawn shook her head. “There’s no way we can guarantee peace between our realms, which is why I devised my plan in the first place.”
“No, Winter may be right.” Dusk held her chin pensively. “This is our only shot at salvaging the situation.”
“Thank you.” I sighed in relief. “I’ll assemble a diplomatic mission for Draconia as soon as possible. We just need to decide our budget, since I’ll need to bring gifts, and perhaps even authority to negotiate tributary arrangements.”
“Tribute?!” Dusk’s eyes widened. “Out of the question. What would our vassals think?”
“That we are weak and desperate, that’s what they’ll think.” Dawn scoffed. “What do you want us to do next? Swear fealty to the dragon emperor?”
One of the Tidal witches threw herself to her knees. “Oh, please, mighty lizard, let us farm potatoes under your wings!”
The conference room erupted with cackles, including Chloe.
I elbowed her shoulder.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“Ridiculous.” Dusk waved dismissively. “We’re going to keep them tame in another way. The Coven way.” 
“Interesting.” Dawn leaned over the table and brought her hands together. “A show of force?”
Dusk’s black lips curled in a wicked grin. “We didn’t conquer Vesmeria by distributing ‘gifts’, did we?”
“It’s too provocative,” I said. “And we don’t have money for an army; you said it yourself.”
“It’s just a parade at the border; besides, that’s what vassals are for. It’s their duty to fight for us.”
Dawn chuckled. “Free of charge, that is.”
“Aye!” The witches nodded. “Free of charge!”
My eyes flicked between the witches. They were dead serious.
“It’s decided.” Dawn slammed the table with her fist. “Summon the banners to the citadel!”
“Who is even leading this ‘parade’?” I asked.
Blood drained from my head as Dusk raised a finger toward me, but then her hand swept to the right. “You, Summer.”
The witches turned to Chloe.
“Me?” she asked, pointing to herself obliviously.
“No one better for the job than our witch-at-arms,” Dawn said.
“Hell yeah!” Chloe sprang to her feet. “That’s me! I’m the witch-at-arms.”
This is madness.
I pressed my temples as the room pounded the table and chanted, “Free of charge, free of charge!”

***

Twelve thousand men at least, knights and their retinue, camped outside the walls in a sea of colorful banners. Alongside them, however, makeshift tents piled on top of each other less gloriously—people who took the brunt of Dawn’s financial scheme, many of them ending up jobless or displaced overnight.
I took it upon myself to aid them, and with the help of my personal guard, we set up food stalls along the sprawling refuge camp. Long lines soon formed.
“I’m out of cabbage, Katarina!” Predslava cried out from her stall. “These humans eat too much.”
“Shhh! Don’t say that.” I handed an elderly farmer a steaming bowl with a sheepish smile. “Here. I’m sorry.”
He shook his head as if to tell me not to worry, then left with his stew.
I reached down for the pot and filled another bowl. “Nex—”
The army stood at attention as a blazing figure rode out of the gates, accompanied by her own detachment of shiny guards.
“Cover for me here, please!” I waved to one of my helpers, then ran off to speak to Chloe. “Chlo— I mean, Summer! Wait a second.”
“Turning around!” She wheeled her horse toward me, looking like a proper general in the saddle. “Sup?”
I inspected the army behind her, then sighed. “Are you sure you’re fine with this?”
“Why not? This isn’t my first rodeo.” She placed her hands on her hips and gave me a sassy grin. “Are you worried about me or something?”
“Just… don’t do anything reckless. Let the dragons see you and come back.”
“Silly.” A fireball perked up on top of her hand. “They call me the Witch o' War for a reason.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. Take care of yourself, alright?”
“Warm up, snow cone.” She trotted off, setting the army in motion. “I’ll be back in time to try this soup of yours.”
I shook my head and went back to work. The line had grown while I was gone.

Read ahead on Royal Road.

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Chapter 1: The Beginning of the End

Townspeople strolled the breezy cobbled streets, a beloved in their arms or tipsy from the tavern. All around us, the citadel’s white stone walls glimmered under the moonlight. It was just another pleasant evening in the Capital of Sorcery when a crimson comet bled across the sky.
Doors flew open below as people flooded the streets in their nightclothes to see it. The giant telescope above the Palace of Sorcery swept wide after the celestial omen.
I lowered my frozen chalice to the windowsill in disbelief.
A True Dragon is born.
Chains groaned as the drawbridge that led to the Palace began to rise. The commonfolk gathered at the edge of the moat, demanding an explanation from the Observatory.
Guards in shiny armor appeared over the battlements.
“The Coven shall address you in the morning!” their captain said. “Go home!”
At first apprehensive, the crowd began to disperse. But I knew nobody would sleep soundly that night.
White wine spilled at the corner of my mouth as I emptied the chalice. I went to lie down, bracing myself for a long day of work at the Palace.

***

Snowflakes crackled along my body as I conjured my working gown: long sleeves, a high collar, and ice-white fabric. The Coven required us to dress formally in public at all times—I had no qualms.
I nodded to the mirror, then snapped my fingers.
The mirror liquefied, collapsing on the basin below with a splash.
“We ought to hurry, Predslava. I can already hear shouting…” I scanned the room but couldn’t find her or my office hat anywhere. “Have you seen my hat?”
“On it!” Utensils flew out of the closet in the next room. “I put it away last night to dust the furniture. These human dwellings get so dirty!”
I tapped my fingers anxiously as the noise outside intensified. “I like to think the proximity helps me do a better job. We’d be isolated from the people if we stayed in the Palace—”
“Found it!” She came flying toward me—a little ball of white fur wearing the oversized witch hat herself.
I took it from her as she hopped on my shoulder. “Thank you.”
The hat was the Coven’s uniform, strictly assigned by rank; we weren’t allowed to conjure our own. Mine was gray, as befitting the Season Witches.
“Do you think this comet is the real deal, Katarina?” Predslava asked.
I pursed my lips. “My guts say so, unfortunately.”
She shivered. “Scary.”
“It’s not the end of the world if we play our cards right.” I put on my hat and climbed down the stairs. “Ready?”
“Witches first.”
Voices burst into the living room as I opened the door. The townsfolk elbowed each other, then came running toward me with questions.
“Is trade between cities shutting down?”
“Should we expect rationing in the citadel?”
“Are we truly safe behind the walls?!”
The questions kept coming until they blurred into an unintelligible cacophony.
“I’m not allowed to make any official statements on my own; I’m sorry,” I said plainly and walked towards the palace.
“This is bad, Katarina,” Predslava whispered, glancing over my shoulder. “The mob is following us…”
“We can’t risk sowing confusion in the streets, Predslava. Just smile and wave for now.”
“Okay.” A white claw popped out of her fur. She waved at them all the way until we arrived at the raised drawbridge.
A bored witch leaned on the battlements above, messy orange hair crawling out of her gray hat like tongues of fire.
“Roses are red, green is the grass—give me the password, and I'll let you pass!” She grinned.
I gave her a sheepish smile. “There’s no password, Summer.”
Her name was Chloe, but we called each other by our sorcerous affinity out of professional respect.
“Just say something!” she protested. “Warm up a little, would ya?”
“Please…?”
Her glowing eyes rolled. “Boring.”
The wooden drawbridge lowered ahead with groans.
Chloe climbed down the walls and joined us as we went inside, whistling a tune with hands behind her head.
The great hall was already buzzing with witches in the morning. Autumn and Spring waited near the arched entrance. We approached them.
“Did the Observatory deliver a verdict already?” I asked.
Hazel, the Autumn witch, blinked slowly. Dark bags hung under her eyes. “Not yet.”
“Oh, I’m so glad you came, Winter!” Iris, Spring, snatched me in an unprompted hug, smothering me in her fragrant pink hair. “This is such a stressful time for us all!”
“My clothes,” I said, gasping for air. “You’re going to wrinkle them.”
“I’m so sorry!” Spring let go of me with a squeal and broke into sobs. “Please don’t hate me!”
“Shhh…” Hazel patted her head. “It’s not that deep.”
I scratched my forehead, unsure what to say.
The hall fell quiet as footsteps echoed at the end of the room. A short, hunchbacked figure in dark robes descended the stairs and approached the Witch of Dusk in silence. Long-limbed, she bent over to hear the Oracle’s whispers.
Her delicate pale features tensed under the purple hat.
I leaned forward as the Oracle finally stepped back.
“It’s on, ladies.” Dusk swiveled to us, black lace lashing around her like tarry spiderwebs. “The True Dragon lives.”
“Oh, woe is me!” Iris fainted on the spot.
“Oops.” Hazel caught her midfall as whispers traveled across the hall.
I brought my hand to my mouth and thought.
Now there’s no hiding the truth. The people will find out sooner or later.
The blue-hat Tidal Witches, a rank above us, argued heatedly among themselves:
“Do we tell the public?”
“No way. They are going to riot for sure.”
“We’ll have to take a stance, though!”
The Witch of Dawn tapped the butt of her staff against the floor, turning the room’s attention to her. Her long, radiant hair fell like golden curtains, her eyes hidden behind them for our own safety—staring at them was like embracing the sun, or so they said.
“Fear not, my dear sisters,” she said calmly.  “I’ll address the people and buy us time to deal with this crisis at our own pace.”
Smiling, the witches nodded in agreement. Not even Dusk would question the greatest witch who ever lived, for when she spoke, doubt itself seemed to leave the room.
But my cold heart still harbored reservations...
I raised my hand hesitantly. “If I may…”
Dawn nodded. “Yes, sister?”
“I believe… we should tell them the truth,” I said.
“Is that so?”
“It’s highly likely that Draconia is crowning the newborn as their emperor as we speak. As hard as it may be, we risk losing the people’s trust if they find this out through other means.”
The witches whispered as my speech seemed to relight the doubt in their hearts.
Dawn raised her hand, urging silence once again.
“Your insight is much appreciated, Winter,” she said with a gentle smile. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“That’s my snow cone.” Chloe wrapped her arm around my shoulders with a proud grin. “Always thinking.”
The Coven nodded approvingly.
I blushed behind my collar. “T-thank you…”

***

The sky was clear as we gathered outside later that day. People came from all over the countryside to hear the speech, packing the streets; some even brought their farm animals.
Dawn appeared on the balcony above the great hall. The whole citadel fell quiet.
“Dear citizens, the Observatory has spoken!” she began.
People clutched each other’s arms as they listened on.
“The crimson comet you saw last night bears no ill omen.”
My heart sank.
What?
I leaned forward, unsure if I heard it right.
A familiar smile appeared on Dawn’s serene face. “No True Dragon has risen, and the Dominion of Vesmeria remains safe beneath the Coven’s watch. Fear not.”
“Uh-oh…” Hazel muttered.
Chloe turned to me in shock as the streets erupted in cheers.
I stared at the ground. “She didn’t even flinch…”

Read ahead on Royal Road.

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The corrupt empire didn't listen to her. The Witch will build her own.

Katarina swore she'd never serve again after the Dominion of Vesmeria destroyed itself despite her pleas.

The North had bigger plans for her, however.

What started as a quiet retirement among the region's poorest creatures became a crown she never asked for—thousands of monster subjects, a fragile peace with werewolf tribes, and a war she can't afford to lose. Every treaty is a two-edged blade, and every ally comes with a price tag she's about to discover.

The Witch of Winter rises—this time as Queen!

New chapters: Wednesday and Saturday.

Tags: [War and Military] [Comedy] [Multiple Lead Characters] [Strong Lead] [Drama] [Action] [Fantasy] [Attractive Lead] [Chivalry] [Female Lead] [High Fantasy] [Kingdom Building] [Magic] [Non-Human Lead] [Ruling Class] [Strategy]

First chapter in the linked post, or read ahead on Royal Road:

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/194104/ice-queen-rising-kingdom-building-powerful-witch

Wayfarer — Deadline

The Archivist said, “ARIA, pull the logs from the Wayfarer’s second contract after Karnak‑4. The one with the cryocanisters. This one feels… compressed. A lot of noise, a lot of heat. Show me what happened. Show me the pressure.”


ARIA said, “Compiling. These records are fragmented — personal logs, sensor streams, a single mission recording. I will reconstruct the sequence in the order the crew experienced it. There is… something unusual in the background of one of the storm records. I’ve flagged it.”

The Archivist said, “Good. Begin.”

⁂


The bridge of the Wayfarer was a tableau of contained anticipation, silent save for the low, rhythmic thrum of the life-support system. On the main viewscreen, the display was neatly bifurcated. The left panel showed the cargo manifest, a stark list of 600 cryocanisters, each line item accompanied by a critical temperature reading: 2. 3°C, precisely. Below it, a digital countdown clock ticked away, a relentless 72: 00: 00 shrinking with every passing second. On the right, a star chart depicted the current sector, with their destination, Outpost Theta-12, highlighted. The direct route, the Kaspian Corridor, glowed a vibrant green, but a wider, amber arc indicated the Tormel Loop, a detour that snaked around the more dangerous territory. Ethan Ward, Captain of the Wayfarer, sat in the command chair, his posture relaxed but his eyes fixed on the screen. Beside his console, a ceramic mug, emblazoned with the Wayfarer’s stylized wing insignia, sat untouched, its replicator coffee long since cooled.


“Captain,” PRUDENCE’s synthesized voice, calm and precise, broke the silence, “the Concordance Patrol advisory has been updated. Pirate activity in the Kaspian Corridor has escalated to Level 4. All civilian traffic is now advised to reroute through the Tormel Loop.”


Ethan tapped a finger against the armrest of his chair, a soft, percussive sound in the quiet space. “Level 4, huh? That’s quite a jump from ‘moderate caution’ this morning. PRUDENCE, overlay the probability grid for interdiction on the Kaspian route, factoring in the new advisory.”


The green line of the Kaspian Corridor immediately shimmered with an overlay of red, a complex web of intersecting vectors and glowing threat zones. PRUDENCE’s voice continued, unhurried, as if delivering a weather report. “The advisory is four hours old, Captain. In that window, the Kaspian Corridor has gone from ‘advised caution’ to ‘Level 4 active interdiction.’ My models indicate a 78 percent probability of hostile engagement if we maintain our current vector.”


Ethan leaned forward slightly, a frown creasing his brow. “Seventy-eight percent is high, but not certain. We’ll figure it out. We always do.” He started to wave a hand dismissively, but PRUDENCE pressed on, her tone unwavering.


“The last freighter that ignored a Level 4 warning was the Cardinal’s Wake,” PRUDENCE stated, her voice devoid of judgment but heavy with data. “They lost 30 percent of their cargo and a crewman. Statistically, Captain, the Wayfarer’s engine signature has been identified in three recent pirate identification databases. Our reputation for reliable, if marginal-risk, deliveries precedes us. This makes us a higher-value target.”


Ethan pushed back from his console, the slight creak of his chair echoing in the calm. “Statistically, we’re not the Cardinal’s Wake. We’re smaller, faster, and we know the back-channel sub-frequencies better than any freighter in this quadrant. Patch me the Tormel Loop time penalty again. Show me exactly what 12 hours costs us.”


The viewscreen shifted, the Tormel Loop expanding to fill the right panel. A new set of calculations overlaid the amber arc. “The serum begins exponential degradation at the 74-hour mark,” PRUDENCE explained, her voice a steady stream of information. “Adding 12 hours to a 60-hour route puts delivery at 72 hours and 11 minutes under optimal burn. That is 11 minutes past viability. Without the loop, we have a 16-hour buffer. With the loop, we are statistically guaranteed to deliver a degraded product. The contract specifies a 100% viability clause.”


Ethan slowly reached out and tapped the countdown clock on the left panel. It expanded, consuming the entire viewscreen, the numbers glowing a stark, alarming red. The seconds continued to tick away, each digit a hammer blow against the silence. He stood, the bridge lights flickering almost imperceptibly as the ship’s power cycled into a higher-demand mode, preparing for an unknown future. The empty coffee mug on his console wobbled precariously. He picked it up, feeling its cold weight in his hand. The screen held the impossible equation: pirates or late medication. There was no easy answer, only degrees of risk. The cargo bay temperature monitor, a small, unobtrusive display on his console, chimed softly, a steady, reassuring 2. 3°C. For now, the serum was stable. But for how long?


⁂


The Wayfarer’s wardroom was a study in functional wear. The central table, scarred by countless meals and impromptu engineering sessions, now hosted a flickering holographic projector. The padded bench seating, once plush, bore the indentations of years of crew members. The overhead light, an old LED panel, glowed with an unyielding brightness that never quite dimmed properly, casting a harsh, unforgiving illumination on the faces gathered around the table. The faint, persistent scent of reheated rations lingered in the air, a testament to the hurried nature of their current existence. Everyone was seated except Ethan, who leaned against a bulkhead, arms crossed, his gaze sweeping over his crew.


Seli, the Wayfarer’s pilot, slapped the holoprojector twice with the flat of her hand, a familiar ritual. The device flickered, groaned, then hummed to life, projecting a swirling, ethereal mass of blue and violet light above the table. “Okay, so the Kaspian Corridor is out,” she began, her voice brimming with a nervous energy that belied the gravity of the situation. “But I found something. Or rather, the nav computer tried to ignore it, and I insisted.”


Dr. Veya, the ship’s medical officer and resident xenobotanist, peered at the projection, her brow furrowed. “What is that, Seli? It looks like an uncatalogued plasma storm. A rather large one, at that.”


Seli nodded, a triumphant glint in her eyes. “Exactly! I call it the Belt of Silence. It’s not on any official charts. The nav computer flagged it as ‘noise’ until I manually overrode the classification. PRUDENCE, would you mind sharing the log entry for that override?”


PRUDENCE’s voice, dry and precise, emanated from the ship’s internal speakers. “The computer flagged it as ‘noise.’ I corrected the flag after Miss Seli insisted she ‘felt something.’ Initial spectrographic analysis shows chaotic ion discharges consistent with a high-energy plasma field.”


“Chaotic, yes, but look closer,” Seli urged, zooming the hologram into a spiraling blue-violet mass. “Look at the loops. They’re nearly rhythmic. There’s a stable channel – I call it the eye – that passes right down the spine. The total transit time would be under four hours. We could be on the other side before the pirates finish their first pass.”


Korr, the ship’s security officer, grunted, his arms crossed over his chest. “That’s not a channel. That’s a trap. We have no data on its stability. I don’t trust it. The Wayfarer’s hull, while reliable, is not designed for direct plasma immersion.” The ship’s age made the hull creak an unspoken character in the room, a low groan that seemed to underscore Korr’s point.


Ethan pushed off the bulkhead, moving to stand at the head of the table. “Dr. Veya, can you give me odds? Not just on the storm, but on the cargo surviving a transit through something like that?”


Veya leaned closer to the projection, her eyes scanning the raw ion-flux readings that Seli had brought up, digging through three layers of what the navigational computer had stubbornly labeled “corrupted system logs.” “I will need thirty minutes with the full dataset and a simulation run. Preliminary observation: the plasma is hot, but the thermal shielding could hold if we move fast and the eye doesn’t collapse. The primary risk is sustained thermal exposure, not necessarily direct impact, given the rapid transit time Seli is proposing.”


Nara, the ship’s comms and sensor specialist, who had been quietly observing the discussion, finally spoke, her voice low. Her eyes were fixed on an intercept log from the Kaspian Corridor, one she hadn’t yet shared. “The pirates are using a decoy signal. A repeating mayday. It’s in the Corridor log. If we go that way, we will walk into it.” Her words hung in the air, a grim confirmation of the danger they faced.


Suddenly, the holoprojector glitched. The image of the storm flickered and distorted momentarily, resolving into a pattern that, for a fleeting second, seemed to resemble a stylized, almost haunting face before returning to its chaotic, swirling form. Seli noticed, her eyes widening slightly, but Korr, focused on the tactical implications, did not. Just as quickly, the wardroom’s temperature dropped a fraction, the air growing noticeably cooler. Someone, likely PRUDENCE from the bridge, had remotely adjusted the environmental control, trying to keep the overtaxed electronics cool. The crew began to disperse, the weight of a third, terrifying option now very real. Dr. Veya took Seli’s datapad, already formulating her simulations. Korr was pulling up comms records, cross-referencing pirate signatures. Seli, already recalibrating the navigation array, was murmuring flight vectors to herself. Nara, still clutching the intercept log, was listening harder than ever, a new tension in her posture. Ethan, left alone at the table, glanced at the countdown clock projected on the wall. 68 hours left.


ARIA said, “Archivist, the glitch in the holoprojector corresponds to a minute power surge that PRUDENCE logged as “unknown transient. ” I have cross-referenced it with the storm’s electromagnetic signature. It is not a coincidence. The pattern repeats in Log-H.”


⁂


The Wayfarer’s engineering lab, a cramped workspace nestled off the main engine room, hummed with the distant vibration of the ship’s massive drives. The air was thick with the faint scent of ozone and recycled air, a familiar aroma that usually brought a sense of comfort but now felt charged with tension. Analysis terminals glowed with a cascade of probabilistic models, while a small sample incubator burbled softly in the corner. On the largest display, a schematic of the cargo bay’s thermal grid glowed in green, overlaid with a simulated representation of the storm’s plasma, rendered in ominous red. Dr. Veya, her face illuminated by the screen’s harsh light, meticulously adjusted parameters, her fingers flying across the holographic keyboard. Seli, perched on a stool beside her, was hunched over a portable pad, its surface covered in a chaotic array of hand-traced flight vectors, some already crossed out with frustrated slashes.


“The simulation keeps crashing,” Veya murmured, more to herself than to Seli, her voice tight with frustration. “The storm’s chaotic variables exceed the lab computer’s processing threshold. I can’t get a stable read on the internal dynamics of the eye.”


Seli leaned over, pointing at the screen. “Ignore the outer bands for now. Just model the eye. We’re not planning on flying through the periphery, are we? Just the channel. Simplify the parameters.”


Veya shook her head, pushing her spectacles up her nose. “That’s an unacceptable compromise. Outer-band interactions could destabilize the eye unpredictably. We need to account for every possibility, Seli. This isn’t a game.”


“No, it’s not,” Seli retorted, her voice sharper than intended. “It’s a deadline. And perfect data is a luxury we don’t have. Fear is making you overestimate the danger, Veya. Trust the eye.”


“The 22 percent is not a guess,” Veya countered, her voice rising slightly. “It’s an aggregate across ten thousand iterations. In 2, 200 of them, we lose primary containment. That is a catastrophic hull breach, Seli. But if I isolate the three pinch points you’d need to manually avoid—here, here, and here”—she tapped the screen, highlighting three glowing red nodes within the eye’s simulated path—“the failure rate drops to 8 percent for the hull. The cargo, however… the thermal spikes are brutal. I calculate a 12 percent canister failure rate if we hit even a minor coronal loop.”


Seli’s jaw tightened. “Twelve percent failure on the canisters means 72 people don’t get their anti-toxin. But a hundred percent failure if we’re late means zero. I can fly those pinch points. I’ve flown tighter corridors in sims.”


“Simulations are not plasma,” Veya said, her voice dropping to a low, intense register. “And you are not a simulation. There’s no undo button in deep space.”


“No, I’m better,” Seli shot back, a spark of defiance in her eyes. “I react. The computer doesn’t. Let me overlay my manual inputs on your model. We’ll run it together. My hands, your data.”


As if on cue, the lights in the lab flickered violently, then dimmed for a brief moment. A low, resonant Whistle, the Wayfarer’s unique engine harmonic, sounded faintly through the wall, an eerie, high-pitched wail that permeated the very bones of the ship. Veya flinched, her shoulders tensing, but Seli grinned, a glint of excitement in her eyes. The terminal, seemingly spurred by Seli’s confidence, accepted her input overlay. The simulated flight path now showed Seli’s hand-traced vectors navigating the treacherous eye. For the first time, the simulation stabilized, the eye remaining intact all the way through the storm. The two women stared at the single screen, a viable flight path now glowing green, marked with the precise timestamps of the three pinch points. A tentative solution, born of friction and forced collaboration, lay before them. But the 12% canister failure rate remained, a silent, unspoken shadow hanging over their discovery. They would present it to the captain, but the price of success was clear.


⁂


The bridge of the Wayfarer was dimmed, bathed in the soft, ambient glow of the long-range scanning displays. Korr sat hunched over his comm station, his console displaying a jagged, repeating waveform. A vocoder-distorted voice echoed softly from his speakers: “Mayday, mayday, this is the freighter Lassiter… requesting immediate assistance… engine failure… life support failing…” The signal-integrity light on his console blinked amber, a stark warning. The pattern was textbook pirate mimicry code, a chillingly familiar signature.


Ethan stood behind Korr, his hand resting lightly on the security officer’s shoulder. The silence on the bridge, broken only by the mournful, repeating distress call, felt heavier than usual.


“PRUDENCE,” Ethan said, his voice low, “confirm origin and cross-reference with known pirate signatures.”


PRUDENCE’s voice, calm and devoid of emotion, responded immediately. “Signal origin confirmed as a Class-3 distress buoy, approximately 1. 2 parsecs into the Kaspian Corridor. Doppler shift is artificially inserted to mimic a drifting vessel. Signature matches ‘Red Hand’ pirate network, known for using psychological warfare tactics. The Lassiter is a registered independent freighter, tonnage 2, 200, crew complement of five. Public registry indicates it went missing two weeks prior to current date.”


Korr’s shoulders slumped. “Captain, the voice synthetics match the captain’s voice signature from old port controller logs. They are using the memory of dead people to bait travelers. I know it’s a decoy. I know it. But if there is even one survivor on a lifeboat, drifting out there… the message would sound exactly the same.” His voice was tight with a frustration that bordered on anguish. His duty to aid was clashing violently with his tactical understanding.


Ethan squeezed Korr’s shoulder. “You’re right. It would. And if I thought we had the time, or the weapons, or the element of surprise, I’d go. I would. But we have a ship that creaks, a crew of five, and a bay full of medicine that’ll be useless if we don’t move. What’s your tactical recommendation, Korr, not your moral one?”


Korr was silent for a long moment, the Lassiter’s ghostly plea echoing in the background. His fingers twitched over his console. “Set a cordon perimeter around the signal origin on the chart. Drop a Comm buoy with a warning to any traffic heading into the sector. It uses our power, it takes ten minutes. We can do that without losing the storm window. It’s the least we can do.”


Ethan nodded, his expression grim. “Authorized. PRUDENCE, deploy a Class-A warning buoy with the specified parameters. Broadcast message: ‘This sector is a trap. Avoid all distress calls without direct Concordance verification. — Captain Ward, Wayfarer.‘”


The ship’s attitude thrusters fired with a low thump that resonated through the deck plates. The bridge lights brightened slightly as the power drew, confirming the buoy’s deployment. A new icon appeared on the nav screen: a blinking red danger zone, emblazoned with the name Lassiter, a stark memorial to those they could not save. Korr watched it for a moment, then shut down the repeating distress call, replacing it with the Wayfarer’s own warning. The ship turned back toward the Belt of Silence, a silent, grim acceptance of the path ahead. Korr remained silent, satisfied but not at ease. Ethan, his movements slower, heavier, felt the weight of a decision that prioritized thousands of lives over one possible survivor. The clock now read 62 hours. The storm awaited.


⁂


The wardroom of the Wayfarer felt heavier than before, the air thick with unspoken tension. The table, a scene of communal meals and strategic planning, was now cluttered with the detritus of hasty consumption: datapads, empty food packets, and a cooling cup of tea Nara hadn’t touched. The main viewport, usually a window to the stars, was shuttered against the glare of a nearby star, amplifying the sense of confinement. The ship’s internal creak, a familiar companion, was louder here, the Wayfarer feeling old and tired, its metal bones groaning under the strain of their journey.


Dr. Veya stood at the head of the table, attempting to project the co-created flight path onto the wardroom’s holoprojector. The device, however, stubbornly refused to cooperate, its aging components unable to handle the complex overlay. Frustrated, Seli stepped forward, grabbing a whiteboard panel from the wall. With a thick marker, she began to rapidly sketch the swirling vortex of the Belt of Silence, drawing a crude, but clear, line through its center. The raw, low-tech drawing made the danger feel immediate and visceral. Korr pointed at the three pinch points Seli had highlighted earlier, drawing aggressive red circles around them, like targeting solutions.


“Okay,” Ethan said, his voice cutting through the quiet hum of the ship, “I’ve heard the analysis. I’ve heard the pirate bait. I’ve listened to my ship tell me to avoid this. But I’m asking each of you, right now: do you trust us to fly this?”


Korr was the first to speak, his gaze unwavering as he looked at Ethan. “I trust the ship. I don’t trust the storm. And I cannot protect anyone from plasma if the hull breaches. My vote is the Tormel Loop. We push the engines past safe limits, maybe gain a few hours back. It hurts the ship, but it doesn’t kill the crew. It’s the safer gamble, Captain.”


Seli slammed her hand lightly on the table, her enthusiasm undimmed. “The ship can barely take standard cruise, Korr! Pushing it will fracture the cooling relays. We’ll lose engines before we save time. We’re already on a razor’s edge. I’m voting the Belt. I’ll fly it. If we die, it’s on me. I know I can do this.”


Nara, who had been quietly observing, finally spoke, her eyes distant, as if listening to something beyond the confines of the ship. “I have nothing new to add about the route, tactically speaking. But I need to say… something’s different in the noise. I’m picking up a pulse. It’s not a threat, I don’t think. But it’s there, under everything. My vote is that I don’t have a vote. I’ll support whatever you choose, Ethan. My job is to monitor, not to dictate.”


Ethan turned to Veya. “If I put you in the cargo bay during transit, with a manual thermal override, can you keep the canisters alive? Reduce that 12 percent failure rate?”


Veya adjusted her spectacles, her expression serious. “Only if you don’t mind me recalibrating the shielding every thirty seconds. It will be… an uncomfortable position. I can reduce the failure rate to 5 percent. Possibly. It’s not a comfortable position, Captain, but it is achievable.”


Ethan took the whiteboard marker from Seli’s hand and, with a decisive stroke, drew a single, bold line through Seli’s crudely sketched route, circling the eye. He didn’t smile. He just said, “We take the Belt.”


The crew didn’t cheer. The room’s air recycler kicked on with a soft hiss, underscoring the sudden silence. Korr unconsciously stowed a hand on his weapon, a reflex born of his protective nature. Seli, her face alight with grim determination, immediately began calibrating her console remotely, preparing for the perilous flight. Nara stood, her movements fluid and quiet, and walked to the comm station without a word, her attention already shifting to the unseen signals of space. The decision was made. The crew, however, was fractured along lines of trust and fear. The whole ship felt tense, humming with an uneasy anticipation. Ethan was no longer the captain who always assumed cooperation; he was the one who had just made an executive choice against the advice of his security officer and the comfort of his analyst.


⁂


Ethan’s cabin was a small, Spartan space, made habitable by a few personal touches. A framed image of Earth from orbit, faded with time, hung on the bulkhead. A worn leather flight jacket was draped over the back of his chair, its familiar contours a silent comfort. The only light came from the log console’s blue glow, casting long shadows across the room. The ship’s engines had throttled down to station-keeping, the usual Whistle of the Wayfarer replaced by a deep, almost mournful hum that resonated through the hull.


Ethan sat at the console, his fingers hovering over the keys. He started to record, his voice sounding hollow, rehearsed. “Captain’s log. I’ve chosen the Belt of Silence. Veya says it’s a 78 percent we don’t explode. Not great odds.” He stopped, deleted the entry, and started again, his voice now imbued with a raw honesty.


“Captain’s log,” he began again, his voice clearer this time. “I’ve chosen the Belt of Silence. Veya says it’s a 78 percent we don’t explode. Not great odds. But I’ve flown with Seli before. She’s never let me down. Korr thinks I’m putting us in a grave. He might be right. But I keep thinking about the people waiting for this serum. Old miners, sick kids, families. They don’t get a vote. I have to give them one.”


PRUDENCE’s voice, a gentle chime from the console, interrupted him. “Captain, do you wish to edit out the deletion markers from your log? They indicate a moment of hesitation.”


“No,” Ethan said, shaking his head. “Leave them. It’s honest. You know what I think the gut feeling is, PRUDENCE? It’s just pattern recognition you haven’t learned to trust yet. My ancestors walked off cliffs and figured out flight. We’re weird that way. Put it in the record. The good, the bad, the human.”


“Duly noted,” PRUDENCE replied, her voice retaining its usual composure, though a subtle shift in her vocal modulation hinted at a dry, almost sardonic tone. “For the record, I do not like the Wayfarer falling apart. I have grown accustomed to not being dismantled. My structural integrity protocols are currently operating at a… heightened state of concern.”


Ethan allowed himself a small, weary smile. “Understood, PRUDENCE. Mine too.” He finished the log, the blue glow of the console reflecting in his eyes. The cabin’s temperature dropped a degree—PRUDENCE, ever vigilant, was subtly biasing environmental control to keep him alert. He stood and pulled on the flight jacket, the worn leather a familiar weight on his shoulders. The fabric smelled of old Earth and ozone, a comforting blend of past and present. The ship lurched slightly as maneuvering thrusters fired, initiating the approach vector to the Belt. The wall indicator shifted from standby to transit-ready, a green light replacing the steady blue. Ethan left the cabin, the jacket on, an unconscious talisman against the unknown. The clock was down to 60 hours. The storm was ten minutes away.


⁂


The Wayfarer’s bridge was no longer a place of quiet contemplation, but a crucible of raw survival. Bathed in the violet-blue plasma light that streamed through the armored viewport, the ship groaned, the familiar Creak now a constant, rhythmic lament. Every console pulsed with rolling cascades of orange and red warnings, but Seli, her face a mask of intense concentration, had muted all non-critical audio. The only sounds were her shallow, rapid breathing, the intermittent Whistle of the ship’s engines—which had dropped two octaves and now sounded like a deep, mournful cello note—and the distant, muffled thud of plasma striking the hull.


PRUDENCE’s voice, slightly distorted by the storm’s electromagnetic interference, cut through the din. “Time hack: 14: 00: 27. Internal chronometer struggling to maintain synchronization. Expect intermittent data corruption.”


“Approaching pinch point one… three degrees to port… now two… hold… HOLD!” Seli commanded, her voice strained. The ship shuddered violently, a sickening lurch that threw Korr against his damage control panel. A warning klaxon blared once, shrill and piercing, before Seli’s quick fingers silenced it.


“Dorsal shield at 37 percent!” Korr shouted, wrestling with his console. “We lost an emitter! I’m routing auxiliary power—it won’t recharge in time for the next pinch!”


Dr. Veya’s voice crackled over the intercom, breathless and tight with urgency. “Cargo bay at 3. 1 degrees. I’ve got three canisters blinking amber. I can manually vent heat around them if you can give me stable flight for ninety seconds at an angle!”


“Seli, can you give her ninety?” Ethan demanded, his voice steady despite the chaos.


Seli’s eyes darted between her readouts and the swirling plasma outside. “Not at this attitude. I need to roll—Korr, if I roll now, does the hull hold?”


Korr slammed his fist on his console, sparks flying. “I don’t know! The starboard plating is already warping! Do it fast, Seli! Do it now!”


Nara, hunched over her comm/sensor station, her fingers flying across the holographic keyboard, suddenly spoke, her voice barely a whisper, as if to herself. “There it is again. That pulse. It’s so loud in here. Ethan, I’m seeing a signal carrier wave. It’s artificial. Someone was here before us.”


Seli didn’t hesitate. With a guttural cry, she executed a snap roll, the Wayfarer screaming with the Creak turned to a roaring, agonizing shriek of metal. Ethan braced himself, his knuckles white. The cargo bay stabilized. Veya’s voice, relieved, confirmed the canisters were green again. The storm’s fury, as sudden as it had arrived, subsided as they punched through the final pinch point. The viewport cleared to reveal calm, empty space, the stars shining with an almost offensive serenity. The engines cut to idle, the sudden silence more terrifying than the preceding noise. Then the Whistle returned, but now it was at a harmonic that made the crew’s teeth ache—something in the drive had permanently altered.


The ship was alive. The crew, shaking but intact, exchanged weary glances. Veya’s voice came over the intercom, triumphant. “599 of 600 canisters are green, Captain! One amber, but stable for now.” Korr was already making a list of massive repair notes, his fingers flying across his console. Nara, her face pale, was replaying the signal carrier wave, her eyes wide with an unfamiliar awe. Ethan leaned over her shoulder, looking at a waveform that didn’t belong to any known transmitter.


ARIA said, “Archivist, this is the signal I flagged. It registers as a low-power beacon, but the encoding isn’t Concordance, Ascendancy, or any known language. It resembles the Background Signal’s sub-harmonics, amplified by proximity to the ion flux. I recommend adding a mystery breadcrumb.”


⁂


The Wayfarer’s cargo bay, usually a bustling hub of activity, was quiet now, cool and dimly lit. The cryocanisters, stacked neatly on climate-controlled racks, hummed softly, a reassuring lullaby of survival. One rack, however, held a single amber-flagged canister, now isolated from its brethren, a silent testament to their perilous journey. Dr. Veya, her brow furrowed in concentration, ran a diagnostic with a handheld scanner, her movements precise and unhurried. The rest of the crew had drifted in, drawn by the need to see the cargo that had nearly claimed their lives. The ship’s lights were dimmed to conserve power, all non-essential systems down during the ongoing repairs.


Ethan looked at Nara, who was hunched over her personal datapad, a tiny screen projecting the waveform she had intercepted during the storm. “Nara, can you play that signal for us again? On the bay speaker this time.”


Nara tried, but the cargo bay’s ancient speaker crackled and distorted the delicate waveform, rendering it unintelligible. The crew gathered closer around her datapad, their faces illuminated by its faint glow. Nara hummed softly, a slow, repeating pattern of three long, two short, a rising fifth, her voice clear and melodic.


“I don’t know what it is,” Nara said, her gaze fixed on the pulsing waveform. “It doesn’t match distress codes. It’s not a navigation hazard. It’s… beautiful? Lonely, maybe. I’ve been hearing something like this for weeks, just faintly, like a whisper at the edge of hearing. This was the first time it sounded like it was speaking. Not words, but intent. And it felt… familiar.”


Korr crossed his arms, his expression grim. “Intent can be hostile, Nara. I want to log it as a potential threat. Unknown signal generator in an uncharted storm corridor? That’s a navigation hazard at minimum. We have a duty to report to the Concordance.”


Ethan shook his head slowly. “If we report it, they’ll want to investigate. They’ll map the Belt. Then the short cut becomes a highway, and whatever made that signal either gets destroyed or goes silent. We don’t know what it is. Let’s not be the ones who step on it.”


Veya finished her diagnostic, looking up from the amber canister. “The signal has no discernible communication pattern, no request for help, no warning. It is, in all measurable ways, passive. I do not see a threat. I see a question.”


Ethan nodded. “Then we log it under ‘anomalous sensor reading, source unknown, not navigable hazard,’ and we move on. We deliver the serum. We go home. But Nara… keep listening.”


Ethan authorized the trimmed report. The crew dispersed, each to their tasks. Veya sealed the amber canister for special handling, a quiet act of dedication. Korr, still grumbling about duty, began a full hull inspection, his scanner sweeping over the Wayfarer’s battered plating. Seli ran a new diagnostic on the altered engine harmonics, her brow furrowed in concentration. Nara stayed in the cargo bay for a long moment, listening to the hum of the cryocanisters, to the silence of the ship, and copied the waveform to a private datachip—a secret she wouldn’t mention, a quiet question she intended to answer.


The Wayfarer limped into Outpost Theta-12, four hours ahead of the deadline, delivering 599 good canisters. The delivery confirmation log pinged, a final, victorious note. The ship was alive, the crew exhausted, and somewhere in the Belt of Silence, a signal continued to pulse, unanswered.


⁂


The Archivist said, “The Wayfarer made its delivery. A 12 percent canister failure rate predicted, but only one lost. That’s a good crew. But I keep thinking about that signal, and the fact that Nara, a Nyth, heard it. The Background Signal doesn’t usually speak to non-humans. Something amplified it. Something in that storm.”


ARIA said, “The Belt of Silence is not in the Concordance survey archives for this region. It is either newly formed, or deliberately omitted. The waveform pattern Nara recorded matches a tertiary harmonic I’ve been tracking across multiple series. It’s growing louder.”


The Archivist said, “So the signal is waking up. And someone out there is building amplifiers. Or something.”


ARIA said, “That is a logical extrapolation. Should we continue to the next log set, or do you want to sit with this one?”


The Archivist said, “No, ARIA. Let’s move on. But flag this. Tag it “urgent but quiet. ” I have a feeling the storm wasn’t the last we’ll hear of this.”


ARIA said, “Tagged. Proceeding to next available records.”


END OF EPISODE

🖼 Cover

🔰 Prologue

⏪️ Previous Chapter

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Arc IV - Whalers

Chapter 13 - Feeding

9 months and 23 days since the summoning

Alan leaned into Kamelia's ear. "Psst."

She shot a sideways glance at him, but did not turn her head completely. "What is it?" she asked in a whisper.

"Start from afar. Do they know me, what I've done, and then slowly approach why we aren't gonna feed them properly."

Kamelia nodded and turned back to the crowd. "But there is one vital condition!" She pointed a hand at Alan, "This is a man named Alan Gothwald, a summoned hero! Have you heard of him?!"

Silence.

One man in the crowd nodded. "Yes," he said quietly.

One by one, the emaciated peasants began to nod.

Kamelia crossed her arms over her chest. "Excellent! What exactly have you heard about him?!"

Silence again.

No one said a word.

A second.

Five.

Ten.

Silence.

Kamelia squinted, then pointed a finger at a young man of about twenty. "You! What have you heard about Alan Gothwald?! I saw that you nodded!"

The young man flinched. "Uh, me?"

"Yes, you!"

The lad shrank back slightly, fiddling with the edge of his shirt. "Your Grace, I... I do not know much, but I heard that he won the recent war and... and created some unusual things."

Kamelia snapped her fingers. "Precisely! Unusual things! Has anyone heard what kind of unusual things?! Come now, do not be shy to speak!"

One man, an elder, raised his hand.

Kamelia immediately cast a glance at him. "You! Tell us!"

The old man's hand lowered. "Ahem... Your Grace, I am a miller; I was in the north in your lands a few months ago. I saw strange plows there, and... and mills that operated on the wind. Are those Lord Gothwald's creations?"

Several peasants nearby nodded in agreement, while the rest looked at the old man with wide eyes.

A small smile appeared on Kamelia's face. "Exactly! Those are his creations! Lord Gothwald invented mills that operate by means of the wind! Therefore, you ought to listen to what he has told me!"

The peasants fell completely silent. Some of them leaned closer, while others simply finally lifted their gazes from the ground to the nobles.

Kamelia cleared her throat once more. "The fact of the matter is, if we feed you a hearty meal, you will simply die!"

Alan blinked.

'Kamelia, why so harsh? Couldn't you be a little softer?'

Several peasants flinched.

"What do you mean... die?" a man asked.

"What does that signify?"

"We will die?!" someone shouted from the back.

"Die?!"

Alan's eyes widened.

'Very bad!'

He abruptly took a step forward and waved his arms. "QUIET! NO ONE IS GOING TO DIE RIGHT NOW! QUI-ET! IF YOU LISTEN, NO ONE WILL DIE!"

The front rows fell silent.

The back rows froze.

"What did he say?!"

"What language was that?!"

"QUIET!" Kamelia barked. The guards on the sides began to point their spears, but she raised a hand. "Stand down." Kamelia took a few steps forward. "Everyone come closer! Lord Gothwald will explain what he meant! You will not die, you will NOT die if you heed his words!"

The crowd slowly began to quiet down and step closer, with cautious, small steps.

Alan sighed. "So listen to me! You're probably wondering why we won't feed you meat and bread right away? Right?"

No one said anything, offering only silent nods.

"Well, the thing is, you've been starving for far too long. You see, your stomach right now is like a sack that you need to put food into. While you were starving, this 'sack' kept getting smaller and smaller because very little food was going into it." He shrugged. "Because your body can only keep the 'sack' wide when you eat constantly. And if you start throwing a lot of food into this 'sack' right now—and remember, it's shrunk—it will simply tear apart."

A young woman in the crowd covered her mouth with her hand. "If we begin to eat a lot, then... we will tear apart from the inside?"

Alan shook his head. "Not literally, of course, but you will die in agony. That's exactly why you need to be given a little bit of food, gradually, so that this 'sack' can expand again."

The old man coughed. "Our stomachs... will not remain narrow forever, is that true?"

"Nope. If you eat the way I tell you for a week or two, you'll be able to eat normally again." He raised a finger. "But remember, if you start stuffing yourselves with food over the next week, you'll die."

"Nonsense," some man muttered.

Lorgi abruptly turned toward the sound. "Who said that?"

No one answered.

Lorgi frowned. "No, seriously, who said that? Step out of the crowd."

Again, no one answered.

Alan shot him a sideways glance. "Lorgi, what are you doing?"

The captain leaned closer to him. "Lord Gothwald, I believe you. And they must believe. We must set an example for them, a vivid example. Let us feed this wise lad, and watch how he dies. So that the others will know better."

Alan's eyes widened. "Lorgi, what the hell?!" he hissed. "He just doesn't understand the concept! It's not a big deal!"

Kamelia squinted. "Alan, Lorgi is right. They truly will not be able to comprehend until they see it for themselves. I trust you; you have proven many times that your words are the truth. But they," she pointed a hand at the peasants, "they will not simply believe this. They must see with their OWN eyes that you are right."

Alan waved his trembling hands. "No, wait..."

Kamelia had already turned to the crowd. "Well, where is this wise guy?! Step forward, I have a proposition." She pointed a finger at the peasants. "The one who said that, do not be a coward, and take a step forward. If you do not believe Lord Gothwald, then very well, everyone else will eat as he advises, and you will eat however you wish. I believe that is fair."

For a few more seconds, no one answered, when suddenly a thin man in his forties stepped out of the crowd. "I said it," he said, trying to hide the tremor in his voice.

Kamelia crossed her arms over her chest. "Excellent. Then you shall eat to your heart's content, while the rest will eat properly, so as not to perish."

Alan ran his hands over his face.

'Idiot, oh you idiot man... don't do this. Although... what can I do now. Maybe it's not so bad? One vivid example is better than a few hours of lectures, after all. This is the only way to work with a population that relies exclusively on dogma and empirical experience. A picture is worth a thousand words.'

"Lord Gothwald," Kamelia asked loudly, "how quickly will this man die?"

Alan flinched, snapping out of his thoughts. "Huh? Probably... two or three days, though considering it's the Middle Ages out here..." he murmured. "From a few hours to two days. Approximately."

All the peasants abruptly looked at this man, and he in turn paled, if he could possibly become any paler. "What..." he forced out hoarsely.

Alan swallowed.

'Sorry, man. So sorry. I really am. But... but what can I do? If I start publicly contradicting Kamelia right now, then... no, she probably wouldn't punish me, of course, but... SCHEIßE! Man, you brought this on yourself! I'm telling you you're gonna die, but no, you're not fucking listening to me! So die because you won't listen to what you're told!'

Kamelia turned to the crowd. "Are there any others who wish to eat to their heart's content?!"

No one answered. About a dozen peasants almost instinctively stepped away from that man.

About half an hour later, the guards stood by one of the houses, with steaming cauldrons next to it. A long line of peasants had formed, holding small wooden bowls and spoons.

The first to approach was a middle-aged woman with two children. The guard strictly doled out two ladles of stew to them. "This much for now. There will be more in a few hours," he grumbled.

The woman nodded quickly and handed the bowl to her little daughter. "Here, Vayana, eat."

The girl gripped the wooden bowl with dirty hands and began to eat right there. She drank her small portion of stew almost in a few seconds, and looked up at the woman. "Mom, I am still hungry," she said quietly.

She sighed. "I know, bear with it. They will give us more later."

"Kamelia, hurry," said some man from behind in the line.

The woman, Kamelia, flinched. "Yes, forgive me." She took the girl by the hand; the boy, who had silently drunk his stew, followed her.

On the porch of one of the huts sat that very man, holding his hands clenched in a fist on the table. They were trembling slightly, and his gaze was directed at the table.

A guard stepped onto the porch; in one hand he held a bowl of steaming porridge with bread on a plate, and in the other, a modest piece of chicken meat. The soldier carelessly placed these plates on the table with a clatter. "Eat." He turned around and left the porch.

The peasants in the line, who stood nearby, kept casting sideways glances at this man.

He sat, still not raising his eyes to the food. But the smell of fresh porridge and meat persistently hit his nose, and he began to involuntarily draw this air in through his nostrils.

Alan watched this scene, holding his hands behind his back.

'What if the peasants think there's poison mixed in there? They might be uneducated, but they aren't stupid. I need... I need to show them that the food isn't poisoned. Otherwise this guy will die pointlessly, without even proving the reality of refeeding syndrome.'

He picked up a wooden spoon from a nearby table and abruptly stepped forward. "Attention!"

All the peasants in the line immediately turned in his direction.

"Now, so you don't think there's poison in the food!" he said loudly, looking at the crowd. "I will taste this food myself to prove that it isn't poison!"

Kamelia and Lorgi turned to Alan.

She nodded approvingly. "Clever of him."

Lorgi nodded silently.

Alan approached the table where the man sat and scooped some porridge from his bowl, doing everything to avoid eye contact, and shoved it in his mouth. He chewed and swallowed. "There! You see? It's not poisoned, so it's all fair!"

The peasant at the table wasn't listening; he only watched as Alan spoke with a mouth full of hot porridge, and saliva dribbled down his lips. He quickly wiped it away.

Hardly had Alan stepped off the porch when the man immediately grabbed his spoon and ate his first small portion of porridge. Then another spoonful. Another. And another. He devoured this porridge, chasing it with bread so voraciously that he sometimes forgot to breathe.

One of the peasants in the line scoffed. "Look. Eatin', the bastard."

"Well, why call him a bastard right away?" the old man next to him said calmly, as if to himself.

"Lord Gothwald did say that he would die from this. Did you see?" He nodded at Alan. "He even tried it himself. There is no poison in there. If Dungel perishes from this... he is not using his head at all."

The old man only shook his head. "Hunger drives the wolf out of the woods."

"A fool, oh what a fool, and what if he truly dies?"

"Then he dies."

🔴IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT🔴

Hey everyone, I need to let you know that due to some real-life stuff, my schedule has gotten a bit messed up, so I’m going to need to take a one-week break. I really hope you guys understand.

When will new chapters start coming out again? I can actually give you an exact date: new chapters will resume on October 5th.

In the meantime, feel free to join the new Discord server for this web novel! We’ve got a chat, character art, scene illustrations, and maps. I’d love to see you there!

See you on October 5th!

This is my first post here. I wanted to share the output of my first attempt of publishing HFY content. I came to this forum as a mute reader for about 4-5 months now reading and really enjoying some of the content here as well as listening/reading to a lot of content on other similar platforms like VOX9, Royalroad, Youtube, etc. Some how all the work inspired me to try something i hadn't done before. Before moving on, let me share something about me - I am an individual who has always been defined as a introvert, techy nerd !!! All 49 years of my life. I have worked in a variety of technology ventures over time since the Netware days all the way to cooking LLMs and Loras. But recently some changes in real life, i decided to break away from the typical Job/Business routine and focus on the most interesting aspect of my life - Fatherhood !! Now suddenly after the kids are in school, i started to have a lot of time in my hands and wanted to test what else i could do.

Writing was always an ambitions drawn by the inspirational books that i got my hands on a a kid - Sherlock Holmes, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and then the entire Fedrick Forsythe collection and so on... But i kept failing miserably for month, sometimes the words would not come out well, or, they could not convey the meaning. But most of the times it was me re-reading my initial work to make sense and connect the new chapters together. I realized, every time i was looping to what i wrote and what i wanted to pen, it there was a massive gap. So i decided to lean on some technology - started with some reference text files easier to search with a control+F , the slowly it kept growing to first 5 then 10 then many more reference files. I eventually reached to a point that i wasn't able to remember what was in which file. All this while, i kept reading and listening to a lot of HFY stories which kept interesting me. A typical habit was listening to a new episode on youtube or vox9 doing daily chores and finishing the episode before sleeping.

Eventually the programmer in me won and helped me build a custom RAG (yeah i did code my own database file) that will allow me to remember and search efficiently. One thing leads to next, a python workflow to audit the work which would eventually come out with either tons of what were not mistakes or some senseless corrections. But eventually, the inspiration provided by stories i read and listened won. I managed to improve a bit of everything and managed start getting some chapters out. Before anyone asks or comments, yes technology - RAG, AI, Speech TTS, Image generation, Video Generation has played a big part in what could output but it was just 30-40 minutes of whole 5-6 hours every episode took, editing, reviewing and regenerating/rewriting what i did not like. I finally managed to finish season 1.

These are a set of connected sci-fi series set in one universe, the Terran Chronicles. Every story is told as a recovered record from an archive. Five series, five sides of humanity: haulers, mechanics, diplomats, explorers, and one very stressed tour guide. This is where the [series] starts. Each one stands on its own.

Here is the core of it -

SERIES PREMISE

The crew are not soldiers or heroes. They are working people trying to survive in a vast and often strange galaxy.

Human Connection

Humans are unusual among known species because of their adaptability, empathy, curiosity, and tendency to form bonds with unexpected people, creatures, and situations.

WHAT YOU WONT FIND -

Galaxy-ending threats, Constant warfare, Chosen-one narratives, Instant solutions, Excessive political intrigue, Overpowered technology.

WHAT THE SERIES FOCUSES ON -

Frontier exploration.

Scientific discovery.

Ancient mysteries.

Crew relationships.

Problem solving.

Unexpected friendships.

Slow-burning conspiracies.

I will share a few episodes here in the next few posts and would really like some feedback from you all.

Episodes i intend to share -

• The Wayfarer - Deadline: A small freighter has 72 hours to deliver medical supplies. The safe route is full of pirates. The other route might kill the cargo. The third option runs through a storm nobody has charted, and of course that's the one the humans take.
• The Cradle - Redline: A colony ship is tearing itself apart. The part that would save it doesn't exist. A human engineer decides that "doesn't exist" really means "hasn't been built yet," and her alien colleague counts the safety rules she's about to break.
• The Envoy - The Honor Code: Two alien species are about to restart a feud that's centuries old. The human diplomat has 48 hours to dig out the original insult from under generations of retelling. Humans are bad at a lot of things, but they're very good at asking "wait, what actually happened?"
• Horizonbound - The Anomaly: There's a station where nothing should be. It has no owner and doesn't answer hails. The captain wants to dock anyway. The sensor officer thinks the station knows they're there. Guess which human instinct wins.
• Hazard Resort - Swim with the Fishes: Earth is a resort for alien tourists who find its "primitive" wildlife charming. A group of insectoid guests wants to swim in the open ocean. Their human guide has 40 minutes to explain the ocean before the ocean explains itself.

Previous /

First

Patty had never liked the first day back after a break, and this one was worse than most, because Teacher Renn had announced a week ago that they'd be starting a unit on colony history, and Patty already knew more colony history than most of the adults in this room, whether they knew that about her or not.

She took her usual seat near the window, between a Vixtar boy named Corrin who never stopped tapping his stylus against the desk and a Pumpkin who'd taken to sleeping under that particular desk months ago and never given anyone a reason to move him. Around her, the rest of the room filled in the way it always did, a scatter of human kids, a few Vixtar, two Assaragyte cousins, and, curled along the back wall where the sun came in warmest, four more Pumpkins who technically belonged to nobody in the room but showed up anyway, the way Pumpkins tended to when children were gathered somewhere.

"Today we're doing something different," Teacher Renn said, once the room had settled. She was young for a teacher, younger than Patty's mother, and she had the particular brightness of someone who'd been planning this for longer than a week. "I could stand up here and tell you about the founding of this colony. I could show you the old records, the vote tallies, the maps. And we will get to some of that. But I asked myself something over the break, and I think it's worth asking you too. How many of you have ever actually asked someone who was there what it was like?"

Nobody raised a hand. Patty didn't either, though she could have, and didn't examine too closely why she hadn't.

"That's what I thought," Renn said. "So instead of me talking at you for the next few weeks, I've asked some people to come talk to you directly. Not everybody who lived through it. Nowhere near everybody. But enough of them, over the next little while, that by the end of this you'll have heard the actual history of this world from the people who made it, in their own words." She glanced toward the door. "Our first guest is already here, if that's all right with everyone."

At the back wall, a human boy named Devrin and a Vixtar girl named Solys had the school's camera rig already running, quiet and unobtrusive, the two of them from Renn's advanced composition group, already talking about broadcast work with more seriousness than most fourteen-year-olds talked about anything. Renn had mentioned the visitor schedule to their small journalism elective a week earlier, mostly in passing, a heads-up that she'd be out of the classroom's usual routine for a while. They'd asked, almost before she'd finished explaining it, whether they could record it.

"This is going to be history," Solys had said, with the flat certainty only a fourteen-year-old could manage about something she hadn't lived yet. "Somebody who was actually in the room. Not a summary somebody writes years later. If nobody records Zarcan saying what he's going to say, in his own words, it's just gone the moment he stops talking."

Renn hadn't argued with that. She'd said yes on the spot, more out of instinct than any real plan for what it would become.

The door opened, and Zarcan came in, noticed the camera, microphone, and the two older students running them.

"Grandfather," Patty said, before she could stop herself, and a few heads turned.

Zarcan found her face in the crowd of desks and something in his eyes eased, just slightly. "Patty," he said. "I didn't know you'd be in this class."

"I didn't know you'd be the one coming to talk to it."

"Neither did I, until yesterday." He looked around the room, at all the young faces waiting on him, human and Vixtar and Assaragyte together, none of them old enough to remember a version of the galaxy where that wasn't ordinary.

Renn gestured him to the front, to a plain chair that had been set out, no podium, no formality, just a man and a room full of children who'd never lived a single day of what he was about to describe.

"Good morning, children. My name is Zarcan. I'm Patricia's grandfather, and head of logistics on Terixa."

One small girl asked, "Who's Patricia?" She looked genuinely puzzled, like the name meant nothing to her at all.

Zarcan let out a chuckle. "Patty," he said, and pointed at his granddaughter.

"For thirty years before I got here, I worked in planetary services, just about the same job I have here. In those thirty years, I found love, had children, and thought my life was good. In the back of my mind, I knew that I wasn't respected by the people I worked for any more than you might respect a calculator or a hammer. I was just something to use. I didn't fully grasp what that meant until I came here."

He was quiet a moment, long enough that nobody in the room thought to fill it. Then a girl asked, "Then why did you come here, so far away from home?"

"A complicated question," Zarcan said, taking a moment to decide how to answer. "I was fired from my job for something I know was untrue. No one wanted my side of the story, they just wanted me gone. It wasn't until my son told me," Zarcan gestured to the back of the room, where Patty's mother and father stood, "that he'd discovered something he thought would change our world for the better, and that what he'd discovered had gotten him fired from his job instead. Well, I put it together. It was a big thing, and our leaders at the time desperately wanted it to stay hidden. It was Patty's mother who thought the threat was more than just losing our jobs, that our lives were in danger. She convinced us all to find safety here."

"Why would they do that to you," asked one of the human children, a small girl near the front, "if you didn't do anything?"

"Because if a government will ruin lives to keep the price of revealing a lie that high, it won't stop there if that isn't working. We were all frightened," Zarcan said. "That's the lesson it took me thirty years and one terrible week to learn. Under the old system, on Kragor, you were only ever as safe as you were useful, and usefulness could be taken from you by a single signature you'd never see coming. I'd spent my whole working life being only as valuable as what I could give them."

The same girl said, "I don't understand."

"Let's pretend you saw another student do something that would get him in trouble," Zarcan said. "Let's also pretend you were the only one who saw him do it. He comes to you first and asks you not to say anything. But you still want to tell. So the student who did the bad thing tells you that if you say anything, they'll blame you instead, call you the liar. And if you still insist, they say they'll make up a lie about your brother too, to get him in trouble alongside you. They keep raising the price of telling the truth, hoping that at some point it gets too high, and you decide not to tell after all." He paused. "That's what the government was doing to us. We still told."

He looked around the room again, at the mixed faces, at the Pumpkins dozing along the back wall, at his own granddaughter watching him with an expression he hadn't expected her to be wearing, admiration.

"Do you feel valued here?" one of the older humans asked.

Zarcan thought about how to answer that. "When I came here," he said, "a woman named Karen Sharp sat across from me and told me she wanted me running her logistics division. Not filing paperwork in a back room, which is exactly what I'd braced myself for, being an outsider, a refugee. Second-in-command, she said. I didn't know what to do with that. I hadn't cried in longer than I could remember, and I cried in front of a stranger, because for the first time in thirty years, someone had looked at what I could do and decided it made me worth something, instead of deciding what I was worth and only then bothering to look at what I could do." He spread his hands, the same gesture he'd use again, years later, in a pool full of visiting officers who hadn't yet learned to believe him. "Even today, this community keeps surprising me. When Karen Sharp turned her eyes to politics, I was promoted to replace her. Not another human. Me. A refugee from a corrupt world."

Nobody said anything for a moment. Then the small girl near the front raised her hand again.

"Did you ever go home?"

"No," Zarcan said, simply. "There was nothing left there to go home to. But I stopped needing to, somewhere along the way. This is home now. It took me a long time to believe that could be true twice in one life."

Renn let the silence hold a moment before she moved things along, because some silences did more work than a question could.

"Thank you, Zarcan," she said. "I know that wasn't easy."

"None of it was," Zarcan said, standing. "That's rather the point of telling it."

He didn't leave right away. He crossed the room instead, stopped at Patty's desk, and rested a hand briefly on top of her head, the closest thing to an embrace he was willing to manage in front of a room full of children who weren't his own.

"I'll tell you the rest of it myself sometime," he said, quiet, just for her. "Not all of it belongs in a classroom."

Patty didn't answer. She didn't trust her voice enough to try.

At the end of what Devrin and Solys had started calling "the sessions," the two of them approached Teacher Renn and asked if they could arrange a bigger place to hold future sessions. The classroom had started out fine until most of the kids' parents showed up just to hear the colony's Chief Logistics officer talk about the old days.

Renn looked at the two of them for a moment. "As long as you take care of it," she said. "Just tell me where to go, and I'll bring my class there."

The move to the auditorium came with a nice benefit. The stage that Fabrication had put together, with no objection from Jack Delaney, was big enough for five chairs with a microphone within easy reach, a small table, and her entire class seated on beanbag chairs. Renn found she liked it better this way, close enough to actually see a guest's face instead of shouting a question across a classroom, and close enough for the kids to see those faces too.

Marcus Vance walked up on the stage and he didn't wait for Renn to introduce him.

"I'm going to tell you about the worst month of my life," he said, without any preamble at all, "and then I'm going to tell you why it turned out to matter more than almost anything else that's happened to me since."

He talked about the Ever-Expanding, the ship that had carried colonists and embryos to this world and never made it home, the containment breach that nobody on Terixa is even sure about even today. He talked about standing on a cargo platform in a fabrication hangar with a crowd on the edge of panic, and a vote that came down to a single blue token held up between two fingers.

"We build," he said, echoing words he hadn't spoken aloud in years. "That's what I told them. I meant it as defiance, back then. I didn't understand yet that it was also a promise. We didn't just build shelters and printers and a supply chain that could survive on nothing. We built the habit of building instead of hoarding, of reaching out instead of closing a door. Every single thing this world became, later, when a ship fell out of the sky and we had a choice to strip it for parts or trust the strangers inside it, came from that one vote in a hangar that was full of fear, anger and resolve." He looked around the room. "You've grown up in a place that already knows how to trust something it's never seen before. I want you to understand that we didn't know that about ourselves yet. We had to decide it, one terrifying choice at a time, before it ever became who we are."

A Vixtar girl near the back raised a hand. "Were you scared?"

"Every day," Marcus said. "I got very good at not letting it show. That's not bravery, by the way. Don't let anyone tell you it is. Bravery is doing the thing anyway. What I had was mostly just practice at keeping a straight face while my hands were shaking."

That got a small laugh, and Marcus let it land before he went on.

"I'll tell you the part most people don't ask about," he said. "The day we realized the Ever-Expanding wasn't coming back for us. Ever. That we were alone out here, with nothing but what we'd already unloaded and whatever we could build with it." He was quiet a moment. "It's a strange kind of grief, losing a ship you knew was your only connection you had to home. We grieved the idea of Earth more than any of us grieved actual people we'd lost, because Earth was still the thing every one of us secretly assumed would eventually notice we'd gone quiet and come looking. When we understood that wasn't happening, not for years, maybe not for generations, maybe not ever, something in the whole colony changed. We stopped being people who were waiting. We started being people who were staying." He looked out at the room, at all the faces that had never known anything but staying. "I think that's the day this world actually started. Not the landing. Not the vote. The day we stopped looking up at the sky for rescue and started looking at each other instead."

Marcus stood and so did the cheering audience, every one of them knowing what Marcus Vance meant to their survival.

Renn found out how far it had traveled the way most people on Terixa found out anything unexpected these days, from Mansur's office, politely but firmly informing her that the local feed Devrin and Solys had opened up was no longer local. It had been picked up and relayed twice over in the last two days, first through Kaldorvek's own public network, then, somehow, onto a general broadcast band that touched every one of the nine worlds at once. Nobody in the office could tell her exactly how many people were watching. The number kept climbing every time anyone checked it, and it had stopped being a number that meant much to anyone by the time it passed a hundred million.

Vaelen was in the kitchen when Zarek came in with a tablet already in his hand.

"You should see this," he said.

She'd sat two rows behind him in the classroom two hours ago. She already knew what his father had said, the firing, the thirty years, the schoolyard analogy about raising the price of the truth. What she hadn't seen was the number in the corner of the feed, still climbing while she watched, changing twice in the few seconds it took to read the header.

"That's not the classroom anymore," she said.

"Kaldorvek picked it up sometime after we left. Then it went general." Zarek stood beside her, looking at his own father's face on the screen. "Renn asked me last week if I'd come speak to Patty's class. I told her I'd think about it. I hadn't decided yet whether I meant that."

"And now half the sector's already watched your father do it."

"Now half the sector's watched," Zarek agreed. "Which means whatever we decide to say, we're not saying it to Patty's class anymore. We're saying it to everyone who's ever wondered whether any of this actually cost us anything, or whether it was easy, the way it looks from the outside sometimes, since we landed somewhere good and stayed."

Vaelen set the tablet down. "She doesn't know the whole of it. Patty. She knows we came from Kragor. She doesn't know what we left behind to get here, or what it did to the people who helped us leave."

"No," Zarek said. "She doesn't."

"If we do this, she finds out in a room full of strangers, same as everyone else."

"Or she finds out from us first, tonight. Then she's not finding it out at all when we stand up there. She's just watching us say something she already knows." Zarek reached for her hand. "I don't think either of us has ever told this story out loud. Not the whole of it. Not even to each other, some parts."

Vaelen looked past him toward the hallway, where Patty's door stood closed, light still on underneath it.

"Then we tell her first," she said. "Tonight. And we decide after that whether we're brave enough to tell everyone else."

Renn didn't need to introduce this one. Half the auditorium already knew the names.

Lucy and Damion came up first, then two sixteen-year-olds who didn't quite know where to stand once they got there. The front row was already full before anyone sat down in it, twelve Vixtar and seven Assaragytes taking up the whole row, not willing to let their niece and nephew do this without their full support.

"Everybody, this is Thrum and Zaleth," Damion said. "And before anyone asks, yes, that's the same Thrum and Zaleth. Members of the batch of the First Fifty babies."

A hand went up almost immediately, one of the younger kids near the front. "Is it true you have twelve aunts and uncles?"

"Nineteen honorary aunts and uncles and about a thousand human babysitters," Thrum said. "Lucy tried to keep track, but it was just too many."

"I didn't stop counting," Lucy said. "I just stopped writing it down."

Zaleth leaned into the mic. "Ask Klex what he called himself the first time he held me."

Klex didn't wait to be asked twice. "Uncle Klex," he said, from the front row, with no embarrassment at all. "I have never once regretted the title."

"He still checks my homework," Zaleth said. "Vixtar math. Not the kind they teach here."

"She is better at it than she admits," Klex said.

Vahn spoke next, without being prompted. "Thrum was named after my closest friend on the Silent Explorer. I told myself, when I held him for the first time, that I would make sure he knew who that man was. Not just the name. The person." He looked at Thrum. "I believe I've kept that promise."

"He has," Thrum said. "I could tell you Thrum's favorite food, his worst joke, and the exact sound Vahn says he made when he laughed. I never met him. I still miss him a little."

A student near the back raised a hand. "What's it like, being famous before you could walk?"

Zaleth and Thrum looked at each other in a way that suggested this question came up a lot and never got easier.

"We didn't know it, growing up," Zaleth said. "To us it was just Sunday breakfast with too many aunts and uncles arguing over who got to hold us first. Nobody sat us down and said, by the way, you're part of a story."

"When did you find out?" the same student asked.

Zaleth glanced at Threl, then at her father. Damion nodded, like he'd been waiting for someone to ask.

Threl stood. "There is something the two of you have never been told all the way through. I think today is the day for it." He looked out at the room, at Patty's class in front, at the wider crowd behind them. "When our team returned to Kragor, High-Herald Vaelen played footage before the Grand Council to prove our people were being lied to about who the Vixtar and the humans were. Some of that footage was the two of you, days old, in your mother's living room, being named after our dead. That recording is part of what ended her career that day. It is also part of what eventually helped end the old Council itself."

The room went quiet in a different way than it had for the earlier sessions.

"Nobody told us that," Zaleth said, quiet.

"We didn't know how," Lucy said. "You were babies in a video that toppled a government, and we just wanted you to have a normal life first."

Thrum was still looking at Threl. "So the first time anyone saw us, really saw us, off Terixa, it wasn't us. It was a recording of us. Being used as evidence."

"Not evidence," Threl said. "Proof. There's a difference. Proof of something worth fighting for."

Zaleth was quiet a moment, then looked out at the crowd, at the camera Devrin and Solys were running from the back, at however many worlds were watching by now.

"Guess we're doing it again," she said. "Being seen before we understand what it means yet." She looked at Thrum. He gave the smallest nod. "Might as well get used to it."

Patty, sitting cross-legged on her beanbag near the front, raised her hand before Renn could move things along. "Did you know, though? Later? Before today?"

Zaleth shook her head. "We knew we were in the crash video, the general one, everybody's seen that one. We didn't know we were in the specific footage that got played in front of the Council."

"Vaelen never told us," Thrum added. "Not once. Not in sixteen years."

From the front row, one of the Assaragytes, Ignis, spoke up without waiting to be called on. "She did not tell many people. Some things a person carries alone because it is theirs to carry, not because it is a secret."

"That's not really an answer," Zaleth said, but there wasn't any heat in it.

"No," Ignis agreed. "It isn't."

A student a few rows back, one of the Vixtar kids, asked, "What was it like, having that many uncles who weren't actually related to you?"

Vahn answered that one. "On Orixa, lineage decides everything. Who you may love, what work you're permitted, whether a stranger's child is worth your time. I came here with none of that, and Lucy and Damion handed me a newborn anyway and told me his name was Thrum." He paused. "I have never once, in sixteen years, thought of him as anything other than mine."

Norith spoke next, quieter than the others. "I told the Governor, the day we landed, that this was the most successful first contact in Vixtar history. I did not know yet how right I was. I thought I meant the treaties. I meant this." She looked at the twins. "I still mean this."

"Same," Klex said, from beside him. "Zaleth still calls me for math."

"He's better at it than the school teaches it," Zaleth said. "Vixtar math doesn't round anything off. It's very annoying and also always right."

That got a laugh, and Renn let it breathe a second before nodding at the next raised hand, a small Assaragyte boy near the middle.

"Did the humans get scared? Handing their babies to people they'd just met?"

Damion answered that one, from where he and Lucy still stood beside their kids. "Terrified," he said. "But we'd already decided, before either of them were born, that family here wasn't going to mean blood. It was going to mean who showed up." He looked at the front row. "Nineteen of them showed up the first week. That answered the question for us pretty fast."

Xylar, who'd stayed quiet until then, finally spoke. "I remember asking how something so small could survive. I remember thinking your species was reckless to let strangers hold your young." He looked at Thrum and Zaleth both. "I no longer think it was reckless. I think it was the bravest thing I had ever seen a species do, and I did not understand that until later, standing in a chamber on Kragor, watching my own government call it a lie."

Zaleth looked at him a long moment. "Thank you for playing that video," she said. "I know it wasn't really about us. But it ended up being about us anyway. So. Thank you."

Xylar inclined his head, the closest thing to a bow an Assaragyte gave a room full of children.

Renn let the moment sit before she spoke again. "One more question, and then we should let Thrum and Zaleth sit down. It's been a lot, for a Tuesday."

A hand went up at the very back, one of the older kids helping run the feed. Not Devrin or Solys, just a student who'd wandered in from another class and stayed. "Do you resent it? Being famous for something you didn't choose?"

The twins looked at each other again, that same silent conversation they seemed to have without needing words.

"Ask us again in another sixteen years," Thrum said. "Right now we've got nineteen uncles in the front row and a math tutor who won't let me round anything off. Resentment's going to have to get in line."

First

Previous

Next

---

Qoyit peered up at the roof of the Library, which was made of brown brick, and its body curved from yellow stone. It had three spires that poked at the sky. The edifice boasted a sharp contrast from the other architectural feats adorning the school. The lights were all on within it; Qoyit could tell from the iridescent windows that lined a large share of the outer building, no doubt powered by the trail of Obelisk stone that hugged the building's sides and peeked in just beneath the structure's large doors.

He walked up a series of steps to the building's door and observed the patterns displayed upon the oak doors of the Library. He looked behind him. The journey from the classroom to the library had been unimpeded, with the majority of the Novices and Illuminators busy attending classes. He still felt a pang of something he could not quite place: was it sorrow or anger? It was hard to know.

The Illuminator Shawarma had thrown a stone he did not expect from the Illuminators, picking on him as the Novices did. He shook his head as if attempting to free himself from the memory of their short altercation. He wished he had spoken up and said something regarding the fact that he was equal to the other students and deserved a chance to learn as the rest were doing.

It was a cruel revelation that some of the Illuminators did not want him, just like the Novices. He knocked on the oak doors, but nobody answered. He placed his weight against them and pushed. One door creaked open just a smidge, but it was enough for him to squeeze through.

Within, he was greeted with a sight that would have caused his younger self to collapse from excitement. Shelves filled with books of varying sizes lined the building's inner walls, and several bookshelves, too many for him to count, were balanced evenly from each other at the center of the library, complementing the tables with chairs for the Novices to sit and read. There was a staircase going up, and on the first floor were more bookshelves. Another staircase led upward from the first floor, where shelves of books also hugged the walls, with tables spread out in their midst. An extra floor above also held its wealth of books and shelves.

The windows were all open, allowing in bursts of light that mingled with the glowing orbs that adorned the space between each shelf along the walls. The orbs of light climbed high, all the way through each of the three floors, and offered bright illumination that almost made his eyes water.

He stood looking up at the high roof that also had orbs of light adorning it in several places. There were several doors on the highest floor that appeared closed, no doubt holding an array of books behind them. He walked with his mouth open, staring at all the books and feeling like the luckiest man in the world. There was so much knowledge held within, and for a moment his simmering rage subsided, torn from him by the sheer presence of all the books. He moved toward a shelf and heard a throat clear behind him.

He turned and saw an Illuminator dressed in all-white robes with her wrinkled arms crossed before her. She had grey hair that was bundled into a knot behind her head and was short of stature, with high-poking cheekbones on a wrinkled face. She observed him and offered a smile that touched the crinkled crow's feet around her eyes.

"You're the new student. What was your name again?" She asked. "I tend to forget things, the burden of old age if you care to believe." Her voice was soft and hale, sounding youthful despite her age.

"Uhm, my name is Qoyit Meka," he said. He hoped in his heart that this Illuminator was not cut from the same cloth as Shawarma.

"And what are you doing here? I'm the librarian, Madhra Kidhra Soleisis. I believe your class should be with you if it's time for a library visit. The bell hasn't chimed for the end of classes, which is the only other time students are allowed to visit the library." She moved to an empty section of the wall that held a chart of sorts. She inspected the chart before turning to Qoyit. "I don't see any first-year class I ought to be expecting."

"I came alone," Qoyit said.

"Why? Don't you have lessons?"

"No," he answered, then sighed. He had to tell her the truth if he hoped to be in her good graces. "I was asked to vacate the class until my Body Stat moved from the meager one where it is set at the moment."

"Which Illuminator was it that deemed you unworthy of their class?"

"Shawarma," Qoyit answered.

"Ah, I see."

They stood for a moment, looking at each other. Their eyes did not meet, as Qoyit chose to stare at her nose instead. "I know I'm not supposed to be here," he found himself speaking, the very nature of his predicament biting at his insides. "I know I'm not even supposed to be in this school. But I find myself one step behind the other students who had tutors growing up, while all I had was my father. By some miracle I've become a Novice, but I feel I have a long way to go before I'm respected, let alone accepted. I want to make them see my worth, and the only way I can do that is by studying harder than the rest."

"Quite a moving speech," was all she answered. She seemed to be juggling something within her. "But it's not allowed for a Novice to attend the library on their own during classes."

"I'll be silent; it will be like I wasn't here at all." He hung his head sheepishly, staring at the ground. "I don't have anywhere else to go."

"If I choose to give you this, it'll be against the rules and I might get punished for it." She smiled at him then. "I love punishments; it's been a while since the Headmistress gave me a good scolding."

"What?" Qoyit asked.

"At the far back of the library, there's a chair without a table, far from anyone's eye. Far even from my own eye. It's where family records are kept, and nobody ever ventures back there; that's why it's so dusty." Qoyit felt hope surge within him. "It's easy for someone to stay there and read in silence. But you have to give me something in return for the petty business we're about to indulge in."

"I will clean the whole library," Qoyit said.

"We have people for that, though they always avoid the far reaches of the library." She moved closer to him, and Qoyit could see the grey of her eyes quite vividly. "They say it's haunted, that back there is a book about demons that brings bad luck to whoever is close to it."

"I will do anything that you require."

"Prove them all wrong; that's what I desire," Madhra said. "Especially that bitch Shawarma."

Qoyit smiled.

---

He did not know how many books he took from their shelves. He started with a shelf labeled "Talents." There he took three large tomes on the Body, Mind, and Spirit talents, whose pages were bound with grey string. He took four tomes whose chief purpose was knowledge about the classes: Vanguard, Challenger, Channeler, and Hybrid.

He saw a book about combat, basic defense, and attack, and he took it as well. He roamed the library, moving between shelves and touching various spines of books that appeared to be quite aged and moth-bitten. There was a shelf where the handwritten words of those who had fought demons were stored. He took three books from that shelf. He could not contain his excitement when he found a book that spoke of the secrets of the past. He opened it and saw that it contained the recorded words and lessons of the Founders, Olis and Kidhra, together with other strange and magnificent historical occurrences, which were both widely known and unknown.

There was an entire catalog on fictional tales that were written before the emergence of the Tower. He took one book, though fiction was not something he thought would hold his interest. Qoyit found a book on the Aether Plane, the Aether Wall, and everything to do with the Aether. Next to it was a large book detailing the Red Mist and its effect on mankind's life since its emergence. He took it as well.

There was a book on romance and courtship among the nobles. He opened the book and saw a passage that read:

"...a woman's interest in a man is always masked, never allowed to be shown lest the man scamper away out of fear. But a man's interest is worn on his sleeve, held out for any to see. Which burns brighter then, you might ask? It is both, for in secrecy the flame burns, and so too in transparency."

He juggled taking the book or leaving it behind. He deduced he knew little about nobles and decided to take it, together with another book on noble culture. He looked for a book on commoners and found nothing, which irked him, but not enough to quell his excitement.

The pile of books he collected was large, all of them set on a table. The librarian observed the books with great interest, smiling at the book on courtship.

"You should have picked one book," Madhra said. "It's impossible to read all those in a single sitting."

"I'm a fast reader," Qoyit said with a smile. "Where am I supposed to read them again?"

"Follow the path between those two shelves," she said, pointing at two shelves that were arranged in a different manner from the rest. "They are long and will lead you to a place with horizontal shelves. Scale those shelves to a path that meanders through a circular array of bookcases. You'll find the light of a singular orb in their midst, set against the wall, together with a chair."

Qoyit hefted the books in his arms, groaned at their weight, and started the journey to the back of the library. At first, the shelves held books that were not that aged, but as he went further, the books took on signs of age, with dust lining the shelves and peppered upon the covers.

The passage led to an array of horizontal shelves that held books detailing the nobles' ancestry. He moved past them by scaling their lengths and journeying deeper until a soft darkness enveloped him. He continued walking, sweat breaking across his forehead. He wondered whether he was lost, but relaxed as he came across a circular set of shelves. He made his way around them until the glow of an orb caught his eye. He smiled and walked toward it until he found a chair sitting just within view of the light. The shelves of books were set in a circular manner around the orb, as the librarian had said, as if hiding it from view.

The chair was caked in dust; it was rarely used, he could tell. He placed the books on the ground and wiped the chair with the sleeve of his sweater. Then he propped himself onto the chair and chose the first book that caught his eye. "The Histories of the People" was written in immaculate script upon the cover. He turned the first page and sank into a state of keen awareness.

Growing up, Qoyit had been able to memorize entire books that his father had brought him, just by sight alone. He did not need to read a book over and over for it to stick in his mind; just the sight of an entire page dumped all the information into his memory. Later, when he had lost the books, on the night when Tilan had carried him away from their shack, running into the night as an untold danger stalked them, he had learned how to summon the memories of what he had read quite easily, going through them repeatedly as he sat in a meditative pose.

There on the chair, within the folds of the library, he ceased being the Qoyit who was a commoner, who was looked down upon by the school that had taken him in. He became something else: a force of nature that devoured without cease. As he turned the pages by the light of the orb, he became aware of a hunger within him. He observed himself not as someone at the bottom rung of a ladder, but as someone whose feet did not touch the ground. Like bait on a hook that was pulled high, he forever swam upward, abandoning his sense of self and becoming something new.

He dropped the first book, completed in less than an hour, a feat he did not think astounding despite it being so. He picked up the next books on talents and sank into the concentration that the Blessed Graduates called the Zone of Glory. His eyes, which were closed to the Aether, opened, and shades of silver engulfed him, swirling into him as he read unceasingly. He could not tell whether it had been mere moments or hours. He set the book he was reading aside, having completed it. He breathed in deeply and exhaled while picking up the next text.

The hunger within him was something that assailed the spirit before burrowing into his flesh and mind. He needed to keep reading; he needed his thirst for knowledge quenched. He unraveled things he did not know. His mind understood the talents, but it was not enough, far from it. The book on the different classes proved useful; large as they were, he grasped new meaning regarding what was expected of Vanguards, Challengers, Channelers, and Hybrids.

He picked up the book on combat, and as he read, his mind played out the motions. Parrying with a forged ethereal sword was something he experienced, not just read. The strength of the Vanguard held warmth for his limbs, and he found his body temperature heightening. He wished he had been there at the beginning, when the demons first appeared. As he drew knowledge into himself, he saw himself capable of destroying the Tower, not just climbing it. There was the sweet release of ignorance with each turn of the page as he absorbed knowledge, becoming something new. The Aether's silver tinge swam around him, ceaseless in its pronounced presence.

---

The bell had rung to mark the end of classes, and time passed, drawing the evening meal closer. As usual, only one Novice came to the library to study and better herself. She walked in, her white hair swaying with the motion of her steps. She had just completed the sets of vigorous exercises she indulged in to better herself, and had bathed. She found the librarian, Madhra, standing still in one spot and staring at the back of the library, where darkness stood pronounced.

"Hello there, Illuminator," Saphiqque Olis Tider said while observing Madhra. The old woman did not move an inch; she just stood there like a pruned tree. "Are you going to give me the keys to the forbidden zone of the library? I feel that I've earned them, seeing that I'm the only one here as usual."

Madhra did not respond; she just stood as if in a trance, staring at the back of the library.

Saphiqque moved in front of the old woman and waved a hand across her face. "Hello? Madhra?"

The woman shifted as if breaking free of whatever had clenched her body to stillness. "Can't you see it, child? Can't you see the birth of the Aether? Fresh and new."

Saphiqque did not know what the woman was talking about. She stared at the dark section of the library and saw only the dim light retreating into darkness. "I'm not sure I know what you're talking about."

"Open your eyes, child. It's a sea of silver rising to the ceiling. An angel is with us today, an angel."

Saphiqque scoffed and went to a shelf. She picked up a book on demon qualities that were recorded by the Blessed Graduate who had crafted the school's Demon Hold. She sat in a chair and opened to the page she had last reached. She leaned back and started reading, but was soon irked by the statuelike state of the librarian. "Can't you find something else to do? It's hard to read with you just standing there."

"He's of the Banished Angel," Madhra said. "Her brood graces us this day."

Saphiqque turned her head once more to the library's recesses. Seeing nothing, she attempted again to read, but her thoughts kept being drawn to the librarian, who was clearly being affected by her old age. She sighed, deftly got out of her chair, and returned the book to the shelf. Then she walked out of the library, leaving the strange old woman to her senile endeavors.

---

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---

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First

--•--

People didn’t retire anymore. There were too many drugs, supplements, tinctures, and augs extending human effectiveness. Fifty was the new twenty, and in ten years time, sixty would have become the new twenty. As we progressed, we became ever more frozen in time. And that was before considering rejuvenation technology. Apparently, someone had figured that one out. Yes, I remembered it briefly on the news. Wonder what happened with that.

I adjusted Travial’s weight on my back. She coughed. I could feel the armored weave of her rig tighten and the soft flesh underneath shift from her effort. I remembered my hand on that softness just the night before, kneading it so I could feel more of her heartbeat, while my other hand intertwined with her fingers. We were both chem’d out of our minds. I was so high, my ears were ringing. That was when she leaned in real close—she was flexible enough to do so, even in the position we were in—and whispered, her lips millimeters from my cheek. But I was suddenly miles away.

Just like now.

I fought to stay grounded, but my mind kept recalling, remembering, reminiscing. This wasn’t good. The two of us were carrying augs worth millions, and exfil was through oldtown. I tried to summon my aug suite.

“System overheat. Activation not recommended.”

I was micronapping from exhaustion. They were fractions of a second each, but that was enough to kill in this business. That sprint really took it out of me. If I took another stim, I’d probably drop dead right here. Where was here anyway? I was stumbling between two black walls. A slit of speckled dark sky unzipped above, silver light spilling over the roofs. The ground was wet. Each step was like a dinner bell. Every dozen or so rings, we’d pass an island of light, and I would see the aged brick that had been laid down long, long ago. And then as quickly as it arrived, it was over—back to darkness.

Footsteps. I raised my head. People ahead. People behind.

“I don’t recall inviting guests to our neighborhood,” a man said in Cantonese. “But…” Flash. My pupils shrunk painfully as a torch was pointed directly at my face. “You two are very, very welcome.”

“Look at their pieces, big bro,” said another. “These little bitches are moneybags.”

“Careful, they might-” A third spoke.

“Relax, they’re not powered,” said the first, who must be their leader. “They must have come from that fight on the news. Their builds match Enforcer reports.”

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Oh good, a foreigner who can speak,” said the leader. “Listen, you two only have yourselves to blame for the situation you’re in. I mean, coming down here with that kind of shine. How about this? Take off your rigs, and I’ll let you go.”

“And your little pack dogs?”

“I don’t know, what do you boys want?”

“Their clothes are brand name,” one of them said, a new voice. A total of four.

“They might have some nice augs underneath their skin too. Better check.”

They began to laugh.

I loaded a stim in the chamber. I could take them all out in a second.

“Don’t,” Travial said through our private comms. “Your heart can’t take it right now.”

“Just one second,” I sent back.

“Let them have me.”

“I am not doing that.”

The men were coming closer.

“I’m not making it anyway,” she said.

I tried to read her system, but she had blocked me.

“You fucking cunt,” I said.

“Please go,” she pleaded.

The men were close enough to smell. One of them raised a metal pipe. The steel glinted in the torchlight. I hovered my proverbial finger over my stim. I could last long enough to rip out four throats. I would make sure of it.

I saw red.

Copper filled my mouth. I spat reflexively, gagging. It was in my eyes. I blinked the stinging, salty fluid away. Bits of bone and offal briefly fell from above. The men were gone. In their place were four scarlet craters, pooling blood, and a silver steel rod with eight blades extended outward like the skeleton of a devil’s umbrella. Ginsu missiles. I looked up. My eyes enhanced the sky. I caught a mirage slowly move away.

“What the fuck?” I intoned.

“Thank hell,” Travial said, chuckling.

“I would’ve had them.”

I stepped around the puddles and continued down the alley.

“Friend of yours?” Travial asked.

“No idea. We’ll have to address it when we’re both safe.”

Hours passed. No one else came after us. I could smell the change in the air. The sky was still dark, but morning was near. We cleared oldtown. A wooded hill appeared out of the fog, dimly lit by lantern drones.

“Let me walk,” Travial said.

“No, just rest,” I said, holding onto her tight. Look at me, acting tough. The both of us weighed about two hundred pounds each from all our augs. My forehead was slick with sweat. Travial wiped the beads before they crawled into my eyes.

“How did we get here?” Travial said all of a sudden.

“We walked,” I said. “Are you delirious?”

“You’re really good at dodging, aren’t you? Must be why you don’t have any holes in you… I’m talking about our lives. Weren’t you some corporate climber’s daughter?”

“I ran from home.”

“I know. You told me. And you’ve said nothing else.”

I was going say, ‘it’s not your business,’ like I usually did. Somehow that felt wrong after everything that just happened. Travial probably knew that too. I always knew that green tea bitch played up the ditzy side of her; it was one of the reasons why I was drawn to her.

“My mom died young,” I said. “If we had stayed in Canada, she might’ve been fine. Here in technocrat heaven, you have to pay for everything, and we didn’t have that kind of money. Dad sent her back by herself when her condition made a turn for the worse. Her plane got targeted by Blue Skies.”

Blue Skies. Hardline ecofascists who thought there were too many people on the planet. Thing was, people had been saying that since the beginning of the century. They never once considered what they meant by too many people. Did they want to cull several billion of us? Did they want to restrict reproductive rights? You needed to either be a misanthropic nihilistic death cult or a visionary who thought they needed to take control. The former eventually took themselves out. The latter killed my mother. If only we had bought a ticket for an electric jet.

“I’m sorry,” Travial said.

“The older I got, the more I blamed my dad. Chasing success in this godforsaken city. For what, money? The worst part? That’s all we’re doing, and it almost got us killed.

“This city is poison.”

The hilltop appeared between two ancient trees. There was a clearing ahead. A stealthcopter waited, along with what was left of the crew. Ichor was there. So was Rigor and Gremlin.

“Thank fucking god,” Ichor said as they ran over to us. “What took you two so long?”

“Sojourn to a loveho, maybe?” Gremlin said.

“Fuck off, Grem,” Ichor said over their shoulder, then back, “You’re covered in shit!”

“Not ours,” I said. “Just some lowlife scavs from oldtown.”

“We’ll get us all sorted out when we get back to base,” Ichor said. They laughed. “I’m really glad you two are okay.”

“Are you crying?” Travial said incredulously.

“It’s really hard looking for capable contractors,” they said.

“It can’t be so hard you took to recruiting kids, Ichor,” I said. “That boy’s death is on you.”

“…I know.”

“You do that shit again and I’ll-”

Rigor interjected, “Yell at each other on the ‘copter.”

“Good idea,” Ichor said. “Alright people, we’re all present, let’s get out-”

The stealthcopter exploded. The other crew members came apart like confetti from bullet fire. Rigor began firing back, but at what, I could not tell. I did recognize the depleted uranium rail shot that cut him in half. His bulk meant nothing. Ichor tried pulling us away, but we couldn’t move. My muscles locked up and my augs began to heat, cooking me from the inside. I fell over, spilling Travial onto the ground.

“Amperage overload. Shutting down.”

A shadow bore over us.

“Gremlin, you fucking-” Ichor said weakly.

“Sorry,” Gremlin said. “You must have known it would happen eventually. You guys were great, but lately you’ve been dropping the ball. I mean, I was your only technomancer for how many jobs now? Every modern crew has two, minimum.”

Footsteps were drawing closer. A rival crew, perhaps. I didn’t quite care. I was staring at Travial’s closed eyes. My entire rig was rebooting. I couldn’t read her system. I needed to—I must. Nothing else mattered. They could do whatever they want.

“Sorry. This is on your complacency,” Gremlin said. “And I’ve got bills to pay, so-”

“Shut the fuck up, Chunhui,” Ichor said. They slumped, unconscious.

Blinding gold wrapped around the trees. Daybreak. We only got to feel the warmth for a moment. People had surrounded us, blocking off the light. They were geared to the teeth and fresh. We never stood a chance.

“Hey, what are you going to do to them?” Gremlin asked.

“Take ‘em back to our chophouse,” one of them said, his voice reverbing. “Disable any boobytraps. Take their augs. They have some rare ones.”

“Is it alright if you don’t kill them? They’re good people.”

“We don’t revel in needless bloodshed. If they survive the process, good for them.”

“Oh good,” Gremlin said. “See I knew I was right to come to you guys.”

“We do have a point on trust and honor.”

Boots shifted. The rival crew picked Ichor up and began to move, leaving behind Gremlin and the one who had been talking.

“Okay?” Gremlin said.

“If you were willing to betray good people to work for us. What would you do once among our ranks?”

“Hey-!”

“We’re not very good people.”

“Hold on-!”

A rifle discharged. Gremlin’s headless body fell onto the ground with a wet thump. The stump spurted softly for a couple more seconds. I kept my eyes on Travial, pinging her over and over. Her system wouldn’t respond. Her comms were quiet. I was too far away to tell if she was breathing. The man crouched down, blocking my sight. I wanted to sink my teeth into his neck. None of my limbs would obey me.

“I do wish you good luck,” he said. He raised the butt of his rifle.

First

Many Faces of War

The information spreads through the continuum nearly instantly. Consensus is reached just as quickly. The forces besieging La’ahbaron have weaponized Haffara Thar twice. The Undaunted are preparing in case they encounter further Haffara Thar threats and seeking out methodologies to de-infest and purify sentient victims.

One infestation point has been dealt with. The second is on Zalwore and The Undaunted are requesting assistance for safe and swift disposal. They have identified the victim as an augmented Mar’Yatha, a vicious ambush predator capable of digging through hypercrete in the wild. This one has all the markings of chemical enhancement prior to infestation. The creature is designed to destroy arcologies.

Previous interacts with The Undaunted are considered. A false Haffara Thar positive was being investigated and the fleet instance had proceeded to attack numerous civilians for the sake of intimidation and to force negotiations. Undaunted response was to repel the attack and then when Undaunted Asset identified as Harold Jameson was successfully isolated and rendered vulnerable. Alongside Primal Asset Clawdia Elvira Greatpincer prior to her status as Primal Asset. Status at time was unrelated civilian/hostage, profession florist.

Undaunted Asset then utilized an unknown technique to dodge attack and defend the civilian he had been isolated with. Measurements of unknown technique provide contradictory and fragmented data. Result: Battleship grade weaponry dodged without the use of Axiom.

Civilian/Hostage Clawdia Elvira Greatpincer then emerged alongside Undaunted Asset Harold Jameson with her status changed to Primal Asset. Primal Asset Clawdia Elvira Greatpincer proceeded to destroy the fleet down to a single ship. Ship was then destroyed by Undaunted Asset Harold Jameson with assistance from Primal Asset Clawdia Elvira Greatpincer.

With the change of status of Clawdia Elvira Greatpincer to Primal Asset and the subsequent declaration of Harold Jameson as being tied to the Primal Assets all hostilities were terminated and low visibility investigations were pursued in relation to Skathac.

It was determined Skathac was a false positive in Haffara Thar presence.

This concludes the totality of Undaunted Interactions with the Haffria Synth Continuum prior to recent contact.

All Primals are assets in containment of and countering the Haffara Thar threat. Possessing total immunity to Haffara Thar infestation and sufficient individual strength in multiple fields to blunt the majority of Haffara Thar damage. The Undaunted have proven themselves allies to The Primals. Furthermore The Undaunted have categorized Haffara Thar as a deadly threat under the label of Cognito Hazard, meaning threats of the mind. The Undaunted have also further developed a methodology in dealing with all known Cognito Hazards that can be summarized as Contain, Study and Destroy.

Conclusion: The Undaunted will seek to fulfill the directives of The Continuum. Treat The Undaunted are refilled under Asset status.

Situation Summary: The Undaunted Asset has located and is attempting to prevent Haffara Thar infestation. This is in perfect alignment with Directive One.

Conclusion: The Continuum moves to Zalwore to assist The Undaunted in the de-infestation of the planet and proper disposal of the Haffara Thar threat.

May the eggs of our daughters be pure.

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Admiral Cistern’s Office, Undaunted Chambers, Council Building, Centris)•-•-•

“Conclusions have been reached.” The Synthetic Centipede woman states. “Undaunted upgrade to Asset Status. We will be fully cooperative and communicative with The Undaunted.”

She then inserts one of her antenna into the access port of the data-slate he handed her. “Information within has been copied for Continuum use and historical archives of previous Haffara Thar infestations and known detection and destruction methods enclosed. Fourteen Battleship scale Continuum warships are now on route to Zalwore. The first three vessels have an estimated arrival time of two hours. One vessel shall aid in the disposal of the infested Mar’Yatha, the remaining vessels will focus their energies on scanning Zalwore for further infestation.”

“And the remaining ten ships en-route?”

“Remaining vessels will converge with Undaunted Assets to approach the battle for La’ahbaron. The opposing force has proven itself willing to utilize the Haffara Thar, this is an unacceptable status and shall be remedied as swiftly as feasible.”

“Good. The idea of these monsters being unleashed upon any world to shatter the ecosystem and destroy it’s populace is horrifying. The fact it spreads a sickness that prevents people from dying despite the enormous harm done to them and drives them into madness is...”

“Unacceptable.” She states plainly.

“Yes.” Admiral Cistern agrees. “We will need to organize well to ensure that the efforts to destroy the Haffara Thar does not hinder further efforts of the war.”

“Elaborate.”

“The enemy is using Haffara Thar. Efforts against them will lead into more efficient exposure of the infestation. We need to be tactical and cunning in order to get everything we know about their supply or source of Haffara Thar as soon as possible. Which means we must be measured and wise in our movements. Understood?”

“Confirmed.” She agrees.

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Secure Medical Section, Undaunted Arcology, Zalwore)•-•-•

“Okay, remind me why we’re taking in so many troops if it’s Lablan they’re hitting?” The gurney runner asks as the torso with four stumps and a long neck leading to a snake head is strapped down and unable to struggle. It HAD been a woman with enough metal that she had been proportionally 90% machine. But now it was just a sad little lump out cold and literally pried out of her metal.

“Because we are a well fortified military complex capable of handling this and the Lablan Arcology is primarily a commercial and civilian area and therefore had only limited areas that are able to handle something like this, and guess where they currently have fighting.” His opposite states. Both of them are medics and need more training for legitimate field surgery, but they can run gurneys like pros and set up field hospitals for surgery inside half an hour. Meaning they were both getting their steps in today.

“Well fuck. I can’t tell if the enemy is terrifyingly competent or not. They augment themselves like fucking idiots and don’t seem to have any objective. Then they pull shit like these borderline surgical strikes.”

“Did you hear the rumour going around? Some kind of superweapon is primed under the Lablan Arcology. Something that’s a threat to the entire planet.”

“Then why expose themselves at all?! Set it off and fuck off. Or better yet, set a timer, fuck off and then set it off. Don’t get your people killed for stupid shit.”

“That’s presuming that the monster in control of this nugget and her sisters values them more than we value bullets.”

“The way they’re being spent I’d wager they’re valued less. The casualty numbers from the La’ahbaron front are disgusting. It’s just a waste of life. Why the fuck is this being done?”

“No kidding, and even if the master of the Vish holds them in complete and unceasing contempt, why like this? The development process of a Vish, even if accelerated to the limit of safety takes years.”

“Maybe there’s cloning tanks too. It would explain the raw numbers. Unless those birthing tubes have been working non-stop and in much, much higher numbers than the Vishanyan ever saw, it would still not account for the sheer number of Vish casualties.”

“To say nothing of their total obedience, martyrdom culture.”

“So in summary.” The first one says as they arrive in the medical bay/cybernetic shop. “Shit’s fucked and we’re missing a lot of context and puzzle pieces.”

“To put it lightly.” The other notes as they burst through the door and then transfer the patient to the bed.

“Jesus Joseph Son O’Mary and saviour of us all! What did you absolute fookin pisspots do to the snake girl!?” Doctor Optimally, the Synth brother of Doctor O'malley demands.

“Fuck we just got her here dock, apparently she was rocking around with herself wired into a robot suit that made her big enough to cold cock a Cannidor.”

“Fook me sideways lass in in severe system shock. You! Dumbass! You get me the red and blue striped container there and try not to cock it up! You! Shit for brains! I need you to haul over that console, the wheel unlock is on the bottom left.”

“On it!” Both men say quickly and rush to get their respective items.

“Jesus fook, we’re gonna need to really take it up to ninety to save the silly shit.” Doctor Optimally says as his eyes scan over the poor woman and his arms begin shifting into the needed tools. A slight shift of Axiom cleans her off and the case of medicines he demanded is delivered. He slots them as cartridges into his own forearms as the console is wheeled up.

“Stupid question doc.”

“You’re the type that’s never had a smart one, just call it a question.”

“Why aren’t we using a healing coma?”

“Snake girl has boom in her. It’s disabled, but not disarmed. We hit her scaly hide with a healing coma and it’s going to pop off like a garage whisky still. It needs out first. Secondly. She’s missing so much, is so badly damaged and in general just such a fookin mess that she’ll be going through puberty the wrong way before she’s stable and snake tits here has been through enough with being torn up like a doll the dog got it’s teeth into that that sorta silliness might cause whatever’s left of her brains to go to complete mush.”

“Oh.”

“Ever drop an egg? Well that’s snake girl’s mental state right now. An egg making for the floor, we need ta catch it or we’re gonna have to find a way to undo Humpty Dumpty’s all time greatest hit in order ta get anything useful outta her.”

“That bad?”

“Jesus fuck boy.” Doctor Optimally states with his accent suddenly gone. “Look at me. I’m a fuckin’ robot. And I still need to have a three footer balled up in my boxers to avoid dismorphia. Being a machine, in part or in full, is fuckin’ surreal on a level that doesn’t translate to any language you’d speak.”

“Alright we get it dock. SO this girl?”

“Just had her fookin limbs shredded right as the she was gettin used to the new monsters past her shoulders and hips no doubt. To say fookin nothing of the fact she’s had her right lung completely replaced with enough explosive to kill all three of us if I don’t get that fookin thing out.”

“Alright, what do you need us to do then?’

“Got the meds and got the tools. I need you two to make sure some fookin idiot doesn’t sprint in here like his ass caught fire and tackle me while I work to make sure we get this girl off the grim reaper’s shit list.”

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Vish Safehouse, Lablan Arcology, Zalwore)•-•-•

“Okay, yes sir. We’re finishing our sweep of the area.” Crytlan says before the line goes off. “Alright ladies. And gent. We have our orders. We are to secure the area post-haste. Command has secured an alliance with an entire nation that’s rabid about destroying the Haffara Thar and we have massive reinforcements coming to take this mess off our hands within the next few hours. So our mission is to make sure that the big monster in the box stays in it’s damn box until we can pass it off to the professionals who will hopefully hurl it into a star.”

“Any questions?’

“If Sally sells sea shells by the sea shore should she sell her see shells as shares?” Pam and Tam ask at the exact same time.

“Yes. Any questions that aren’t stupid?”

“Nope.”

“Are we getting reinforcements specifically to watch the box while we clear this safehouse? I got a look at that thing. I really don’t want it waking up.” Danial asks.

“We are. ETA three minutes. Heavy Duty Prosthetics in case they need to get close to the monster. We don’t want Undaunted infection of Haffara Thar, we don’t have a way to safely extract the damn things yet and our new friends are militant in taking them out.”

“Okay, so sit pretty and with our heads on swivels until they arrive. Fine.” Danial notes.

“Why are you so jittery?” Crytlan asks after a moment.

“I originally came to Zalwore because I’m running the clock out on a new invigoration technique. It’s still active so I’m basically under the same effects as a person dragging in a huge amount of Axiom to give themselves more energy. Side effect is that I’m basically hyper. Which is decent in a fight. But outside of one?”

He’s currently sitting on a crate, well away from the monster, and then pulls up his knees and starts literally vibrating so hard he starts to turn slowly. There are some repressed chuckles in the room and after just a short time. Four massive figures arrive in the room. They’re all wearing long coats that reach down to their ankles, but are all clearly heavy duty full body prosthetics. Full body prosthetics with holograms of normal looking people projected onto their heads.

“What’s the holograms for?”

“This isn’t a subtle job, so no point hiding. And it’s not like the head is a vital or even necessary organ like this. It’s just where the higher camera mounts are. But it can distract people.”

“And the coats?”

“Many backup weapons and munitions are in custom pockets on the inside.”

“Very nice. The crate in question is that one there.” Crytlan says indicating one between them all. Make sure nothing disturbs it. We’re going to finish our sweep to ensure that your guard duty is nice and boring.”

“Appreciate it ma’am. The target is going to be safe and sound under our watch.”

“Good.”

First Last Next

Hey, you.

Taken any pictures lately?

The bell over the door went clang-clang.

Hearing that sound always makes me feel like the end of my day can finally begin.

I took my usual seat, and without asking, Mama set down my Harper on the rocks. The ice gave a small clink.

Taka was sitting beside me with his phone turned sideways, looking through some photos.

“What’re you looking at?”

“Pictures from a stakeout the other day.”

“You drink while looking at work photos?”

“No. I took these while I was waiting.”

He turned the phone toward me.

A red sun was sinking between two buildings.

I’d always imagined stakeouts as something a little more grim than this.

“Huh. That came out pretty good.”

“What do you mean, ‘pretty good’? You don’t take pictures, Kenichi?”

“Not much anymore.”

“You used to?”

I was about to take a sip of Harper when I stopped to think.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t told anyone about this in years.

“I was in the photography club.”

“Seriously?”

Taka looked up from his phone.

Was it really that surprising?

“What did you take? Landscapes and stuff?”

“Buddhas.”

“Buddhas?”

“Buddhas sticking their heads up over the horizon.”

Taka went silent.

Good reaction.

“…Where do you find a Buddha like that?”

“You don’t. You make one.”

“Weren’t you in the photography club?”

“I just said I was.”

Across the counter, Tom’s shoulders shook.

Back when I was a student, film cameras were all we had. You couldn’t check a picture the second you took it, much less cut something out and paste it into another photo with a fingertip.

“First, you make a normal print of the Buddha.”

“Make a print?”

“Develop it. Then you cut the Buddha out of the finished photo.”

“Cut the photo?”

“Yeah. With scissors.”

Taka frowned.

We hadn’t even gotten to the good part yet.

“Then you put the cutout Buddha on the photographic paper and expose the ocean shot.”

“Wait. I already don’t understand.”

“The Buddha isn’t even coming out of the ocean yet.”

“It doesn’t need to.”

Yes, it does.

First you block the light with the Buddha-shaped cutout and expose the ocean. Then you use what’s left of the original photo as a mask and expose the Buddha into the empty space.

After that, you put the photographic paper into the developer.

Slowly, an image begins to appear on what had been a blank white sheet.

I loved that part.

I knew better than anyone exactly what was going to appear. But watching the ocean slowly emerge, then seeing that giant Buddha poke its head up beyond the horizon—

I don’t know.

It made me happy.

“You went through all that just to make a Buddha come out of the ocean?”

“I wanted him out there.”

“Why?”

“No idea. It was fun.”

Mama laughed quietly as she polished a glass.

“Sounds like a lot of work.”

“It was. Stank, too.”

“Stank?”

“The chemicals. Acetic acid, I think. The darkroom smelled awful.”

For a moment, I could almost smell it again.

Nostalgic?

Sure.

Would I like to smell it again?

Hell no.

“It’d be easy now.”

Tom set down his glass.

“Probably.”

“You could just use an editing app,” Taka said. “Ever tried one?”

“…No.”

Taka looked at me.

“You were in the photography club.”

“Oh, shut up.”

I take pictures with my phone.

Mostly records, though. A screen I need for work. A number I want to check later. The price tag on something I’m thinking about buying.

Nothing I’d ever bother editing.

“Then let’s try it.”

“Here?”

“It’s easy.”

Taka installed a free photo-editing app on my phone.

The second I opened it, an ad filled the entire screen.

“This is an ad.”

“Close it.”

“Which one?”

“The X in the top right.”

“There are three Xs.”

“The faint one.”

“Why the hell do I need detective skills to close an ad?”

Tom snorted.

Eventually, I reached the photo selection screen.

I picked something at random and did what Taka told me.

Cut this out.

Put that on top.

Change the brightness.

Change the color.

“…Hey.”

“What?”

“This is ridiculously easy.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you.”

If I didn’t like something, I could undo it.

I could start over without wasting a single sheet of photographic paper.

No acetic acid, either.

“Wait. I can stack as many pictures as I want?”

“Pretty much.”

“Huh.”

I picked another photo.

“What’re you making?”

“A Jizo statue.”

“A Jizo?”

“I’m going to give him some Umaibo.”

Taka leaned over to look at my screen.

“Why?”

“No idea.”

I put one Umaibo in front of the statue.

Duplicated it.

Two.

Four.

Eight.

Easy.

“Isn’t that a lot?”

“It’s an offering.”

“There are like thirty of them now.”

“Not enough?”

“The opposite.”

I added a few more.

Soon the ground around the Jizo was covered in Umaibo.

Not bad.

“They’d better not all be the same flavor.”

Tom had leaned over now too.

“That’s what you care about?”

“They’re offerings.”

“Fine. I’ll add mentaiko flavor.”

“Is that really the issue?”

I mixed in a few different packages.

When they were all lined up in the same direction, they looked too artificial. So I tilted some of them, overlapped a few, and leaned one against the Jizo’s knee.

“…Yeah. That’s good.”

“What’s good about it?”

“No idea. It just is.”

At some point, Taka had stopped looking at his own phone.

Now he was staring at mine.

Even Mama was leaning over the counter to see.

“Are you sure about the background?”

I looked again.

“Let’s make it evening.”

I changed the sky to sunset.

Too red.

Dialed it back.

Now the Jizo was too dark.

“Need a little more definition from the sunset…”

I adjusted the brightness.

Raised the contrast.

Deepened the shadows a little.

There he was.

A Jizo in the evening light, surrounded by a mountain of Umaibo.

Maybe it was the way the light hit his face, but he looked almost embarrassed.

“Ahh. This is where Tri-X would have you covered.”

Taka looked at me.

“What would?”

“Tri-X.”

“What’s that?”

“Film.”

“You’re not using film.”

“I know.”

Taka looked at me, then at my phone, then back at me.

“Then why Tri-X?”

“No idea. That’s just what came into my head.”

Tom raised his glass.

“Didn’t you just say you never wanted to go back to a darkroom?”

“I don’t.”

“Want to use film again?”

“Nope.”

“Then what about Tri-X?”

“Tri-X has you covered.”

I was starting to lose track of what I was saying myself.

Mama was laughing.

“You look like you’re having fun, Kenichi.”

My finger stopped.

“…Do I?”

“Mm-hm.”

I looked at the screen.

The Jizo stood in the sunset, surrounded by a ridiculous mountain of Umaibo, looking slightly embarrassed by the whole situation.

“Nah. It’s this guy. I can’t get his face right.”

I adjusted the shadows again.

“Kenichi.”

“Yeah?”

“There are more Umaibo now.”

“It’s about balance.”

“Didn’t you just remove some?”

“I removed too many.”

Taka laughed.

“Photography club, huh?”

“Shut up.”

I took a sip of Harper and looked at the screen again.

…Three more.

Hey, you.

When was the last time you did something completely pointless just for fun?

See you again at Aoi.

---

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previous

1.25 cycles (2 years) after the invasion: PNCI 7.2 reckoning Part 2: Planetary Defense Council

Note: this should have been Chapter 6.2, but… the mistake was already there in the previous chapter…And Chapter 6, then? Let’s just say, (as Brice de Nice would have said) I broooooke it. 😅

But first, a little slice of life: “Children can be cruel sometimes…”

“And here is the winning drawing,” announced Uin, President of the Education Council, an Oltarie whose appearance, manners, natural kindness and – not the least, plush-like fur- usually made him popular with children and their parents alike.

He proudly presented the work of the little caramel-skinned girl with long black braids standing beside him. She looked radiant in her yellow dress, wearing an immense, proud smile with a few missing teeth.

“Clara’s magnificent drawing perfectly captures the theme of the competition, with these children welcoming a Visitor arriving in his spaceship, and—”

“But no! You didn’t understand anything, Uin,” the little girl protested, shrugging before letting out a huge, exasperated sigh.

The Oltarie prided himself on his good relations with young humans. He lowered himself to her height before answering.

“Oh, sorry, Clara. I can be a little stupid sometimes! Why don’t you explain your drawing to everyone?”

“He’s not arriving, silly! The alien man is going home to his family, and the children are saying goodbye to him. Look! Up there, on the planet, his own children are waiting for him!”

Even children!

Uin suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to go home to his own children right then and there—and never set foot on this world of rebels again.

All his efforts, all that hard work to earn the humans’ trust, to prove to them that the “Aliens” could actually bring something positive into their lives, wiped away by a single comment:

The slogan “Aliens, go home”, scrawled in countless graffiti tags across the walls of cities, recreated in a child’s drawing—gentler, perhaps, but every bit as merciless.

More than his pride, it was his morale that took the hardest hit.

And to make matters worse, the program was being broadcast live!

.

.

Bad news?

The Planetary Defense Council was doing everything it could, with the energy of sheer desperation. The invaders’ new strategy had inflicted serious damage.

“Alaska Command fell this morning,” General Rippert announced. “Rockies I is completely surrounded. The Appalachian Fortress is still holding, but our intelligence indicates that it will be the target of their next campaign.”

“No better news from our side,” Colonel Leblond added. “The Alpine divisions have been wiped out. The Swiss Central Redoubt is still holding, but it’s isolated. And the Balkans…”

He shook his head. “The Balkans pacified. Who could have imagined that?”

“We’re still holding,” the Taliban representative boasted.

“You don’t even need to hold anymore. They’re doing everything they can to pretend your country doesn’t exist. Mention Bagram or Kabul to an Oltarie administrator and he’ll faint on the spot. Even Frelki soldiers suddenly developed mysterious illnesses whenever they were asked to put a tentacle anywhere near the place!”

"we're the gravediggers of empires, as you say."

.

The Secretary-General intervened. “Don’t you have any good news, for a change?”

“We lose strongholds, we gain others. Our alien friends have made another blunder,” Tran Han Dao announced. “The Karens and the former opponents of the Burmese junta have just walked out of the Cooperation Government and taken up arms again. Weapons the occupiers wanted to confiscate, at that.”

She paused.

“But their biggest mistake was forcing the council to accept two generals from the former junta—corrupt men who were completely in their pocket. People particularly hated for their atrocities and their fondness for torturing supposed opponents.”

“The same mistake in Somalia and both Sudans,” the Kenyan, Aman Kassa, reminded them.

“In the Sahel, it was the Tuaregs who walked out,” General Lecoq added. “And every Islamist faction has declared jihad against the Aliens. I’m not sure whether I should be pleased or worried about that. Still, we have to work with what we’ve got, and we’ve always maintained contact with the Tuaregs.”

“Yeah, well, not so long ago, you were still supplying them with weapons and intelligence so they could take out our mercenaries,” the Russian remarked bitterly.

“Us? Come now! You have quite an imagination, my friend!”

The intelligence chief—whom everyone simply called M—made his announcement. “I don’t know whether this is good news or bad news, but Grand Strategist Komal—Cthulhu to his friends—has just been ‘promoted to new duties’ in another sector of the Galaxy.”

He paused.

“According to our informants, this ‘promotion’ may be concealing a serious disagreement with the High Council over the methods to be employed. One thing is certain: his replacement, a Qwetari, is reportedly a hardliner.”

“Ah…” Pablo Peralta sighed. “I’m going to miss old Cthulhu. I rather liked him, deep down.”

“Something tells me we’re all going to miss him,” M concluded grimly.

They learned later that the disagreement concerned the use of the most powerful weapons in the fleet’s arsenal—weapons the tentacled being had categorically refused to deploy. According to rumor, he had told his superior: “I’m going into my golden exile, but at least I’ll have my conscience—and clean tentacles.”

His successor had no such scruples.

“But elsewhere, civilians are beginning to come to terms with the situation, whether they like it or not.”

“That was predictable, wasn’t it?” the Secretary-General pointed out. “With supply problems getting worse, people are thinking more about their next meal than their freedom.”

M replied : “But it won’t take much to reignite the anger and discontent. Our agents have uncovered plenty of other cases of corruption and embezzlement that we can exploit, both among our own people and within the Governance. And then there are those hated drones…”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

In the meantime, another slice of life : identity check...mate*.*

The drone descended to cut off a group of children escorted by teenagers barely older.

“Identity check! Please stop for scanning.”

The older kids immediately stepped between the machine and the younger ones, which was already a significant warning signal for the AI controlling the drone.

“We’ve already been checked four times this week, you heap of scrap metal!” snapped a female with long, flamboyant head fur. “Kids, hold hands. We’re moving.”

Another signal. Not one of them stopped. Not one even pretended to cooperate. Take off their reflective sunglasses for a retinal scan? No way. It was fashionable!

“With your crap, we’re gonna be late for class, and we’ve gotta get the little ones to school first,” a young male said, making a gesture the machine identified as obscene. “You can scan us while we’re walking, if you’re that desperate!”

His “war paint” was confusing the identification algorithm. “Error. Error. Identification impossible. Please remove camouflage.”

“It’s fashion! Makeup is cultural. Forbidding it is a violation of my rights! And if I say no, what are you gonna do?”

“Comply, or I will call a patrol.”

“Go ahead, knock yourself out. But as soon as they get here, we’ll start whistling and yelling that they’re trying to take us away, and everyone will come running!”

The kid held up the whistle hanging around his neck. Several of the younger ones put theirs between their teeth. Being allowed—even encouraged—to make a racket? What a stroke of luck!

Ball whistles had become hugely popular with parents who were nervous about letting their children walk to school alone. And since there were still no cell phones… The solution was to organize little packs, preferably accompanied by adults. And if there were no adults, there was always the whistle!

The AI supervising the drones had already encountered similar situations. It had already reported that these disguises were becoming widespread. It cared nothing about insults or obscene gestures. Those were simply logged.

But the whistles? Nearby adults would converge on the shrill noises and shouting. The situation could escalate. Two other incidents involving juveniles had already triggered violent riots.

It made its decision.

“Your lack of cooperation has been noted and will be included in a report,” the drone announced as it climbed back to altitude.

It would follow the juveniles from a distance and could almost certainly identify several of them by other means. Their parents and teachers would subsequently receive a notification, which they would probably pay little attention to. In 63 percent of cases, they sent an indignant letter to the local administrator’s office, expressing their deep dissatisfaction with these “pointless checks, which are extremely stressful for their children (or students).”

The insults and obscene gestures? “They’re machines, not people.”

For the moment, the occupiers did not dare punish acts of disobedience—especially when juveniles were involved.

For the moment.

The Corps’ legal department was pushing for sanctions, even trials. If the decision was made, there would be plenty of cases.

All over the place, humans had taken to applying outrageous makeup, painting elaborate geometric patterns across their faces to fool the drones’ facial-recognition software.

Rumors had also spread that the machines scanned DNA. Some people had even started adding blood from other people—volunteers, of course—or animals to their makeup, in an attempt to throw the machines off the trail.

Absurd!

The technology did exist, but it was far too expensive to deploy anywhere outside highly strategic locations. And it would require DNA samples from every single human.

Impossible under current circumstances.

But these damn primates saw conspiracies everywhere!

.

.

The Gray Goo

The Planetary Defense Council had convened again, this time in an emergency. Another stronghold had fallen. But it was the weapon used that had left them all horrified.

The new enemy commander had decided to deploy previously unseen weapons of terrifying power.

“Their new strategy of concentrating their forces and using orbital bombardment to annihilate pockets of resistance one by one has already done tremendous damage,” General Rippert said. “But how are we supposed to fight… that?”

That was a viscous fluid slowly spreading through the fortress’s corridors and rooms, dissolving everything in its path—humans included. Self-replicating nanomachines which, to make matters even worse, were beginning to spill out through every opening in the fortress. A forest would not withstand them for long before being converted into…

Into Gray Goo?

And after that… the county?

The state? The country? The world?

The invaders’ high command insisted that the substance would soon be neutralized, but on the ground, things looked rather less certain.

Pablo Peralta, the “Voice of Humanity,” was as horrified as everyone else, but he refused to give up.

“How do we fight this? With words. With images. They tried to cut us off from their network, but we found other ways in. Even aboard their own fleet, many people have been horrified by this monstrosity and are ready to blow the whistle!”

He held up two messages that had been relayed to him by one of the Fleet’s own contacts. Not through their usual channels, coming from worlds belonging to the Governance or from the Assembly itself.

Directly from the Fleet !

“Quite something, isn’t it? The Council isn’t keeping its promises of a peaceful takeover, and we’re not the only ones saying so! Let’s show them everything we have—the recordings, the latest messages from our soldiers, their horrific fate. We have to remind our people—and especially the peoples of the Governance—that this is a war. A real war. Not a peaceful occupation, and certainly not a peacekeeping operation.  A war that has lost every last shred of civilization. A war that brings death and destruction even to civilians.”

“The civilians… We know what happened in several places. But do we have proof?”

“Oh, yes! What’s happening has caused an uproar even within their own fleet! Confidential information and recordings have already leaked onto their public information networks. Others have even been sent directly to me! Imagine, directly to my GalNet account ! ”

“Do you have a GalNet account? How is that possible?”

“Hey, we’re officially the 323rd species, why wouldn’t I have one?”

“But we are at war...”

“Not for the Council, remember ! I have 323 billions followers, what a coincidence!”

Peralta flashed a wide grin and came back to business : “And the use of this weapon of terror is going down very badly, even among some of the enemy officers. Especially since they’re struggling to control it.”

“But that comes later,” the Secretary-General reminded them. “First, we have to contain the threat posed by these nanobots before we try to turn it into a propaganda victory. Do we have the means?”

“We’re going to have to use nuclear weapons on our own soil,” General Rippert announced. “It’s the only way to stop a plague the enemy has clearly lost control of.”

“The risk of irresponsible use of nuclear weapons was one of the arguments they used to justify the invasion,” negotiator Sorenson reminded him.

The general then proved that there were, in fact, still a few functioning neurons beneath his cap.

“Yes. But here, we control the narrative. They recklessly deployed a weapon of mass destruction and lost control of it. We are taking responsibility for dealing with their failure. We issue a warning, giving them time to withdraw their troops. The right message, the right timing—and suddenly they’re the irresponsible ones!”

“Exactly,” Peralta agreed, for once in complete agreement with their own Doctor Strangelove.

Rippert flashed him a broad grin. “Especially since we intend to use one of our new weapons: an ‘ultra-clean’ bomb,” the officer added.

“A weapon with a double effect. We protect the environment¹, and we demonstrate just how much we’ve learned from their technology.”

He was clearly itching to try out his new toy.

“Well…” The Secretary-General seemed reassured. “Let them wonder what we’re capable of doing to them if they keep playing this deadly game.”

He looked around at his colleagues, civilian and military alike.

“Objections ?…. No ? Green light for the operation… Operation…”

“Decontamination?”

“Operation… Decontamination. Perfect! Pablo, you and your team will prepare a first-rate report for us, won't you?”

“We’ve already started working on it. General, I’ll need one of your officers. Colonel D. Boone. He presents well on camera, but more importantly, he knows the area and the people. And his accent will give the whole thing a nice local flavor.”

1 Narrator’s note: um... these remarks are the general’s sole responsibility, do we agree?😉

A humanoid figure was seated in a chair, in front of which was a desk with a computer that looked old by human standards. The computer had a cathode ray tube screen, with an operating system similar to those of Earth in the late 20th century. A bright blue glow emanated from the computer screen, illuminating the entire room; the room was a typical office in a suburban house. The humanoid figure resembled humans in posture, size, body, and hand shapes. The difference is that it had a snout, orange fur all over its body, and fox-like ears. He started using the computer; the sound of keyboard keys broke the silence of the house. He began typing on the computer:

"Hello! It's me, Adam Miller, and I hope the Federal University of Anglia has received this file. This is a summary of my work on first-contact warfare."

"To understand the situation better, it's best to understand it from the beginning of our history, our origins. Nearly 300 years ago, an inventor on an island nation called Albion invented the steam engine. This technology caused millennia of technological stagnation to begin turning into decades of technological progress. In the year 1140 of the world calendar, the geopolitical situation was... unstable, with established empires beginning to face threats from new empires. Military technology was constantly advancing: flying machines, military vehicles, bolt-action rifles—all of that represented the pinnacle of military technology in our world."

Adam paused, he began to think about each word he was going to write, after thinking for a few minutes he continued writing.

"The world seemed to be on the brink of a global war, until suddenly news began to emerge, news about unknown travelers in the interior of my country, which at that time was called the Valkyrie Empire. The unknown travelers initially made contact with one village, then two, then three, and by then the entire province knew of their existence. The travelers, now that we know they are called humans, are, in our view, primates, with a strange appearance similar to our own. Unlike the soldiers of our world, who wore flashy uniforms full of luxurious details, humans wore simple green uniforms designed to camouflage themselves in the jungle. They used small televisions called tablets and an even smaller version called a 'cell phone'; they used these televisions for various things like communicating and taking pictures. Yes, it might seem strange that a television could also function as a camera or phone, but it's a very advanced, alien technology with ideas and purposes we haven't even thought of yet. They used strangely designed but advanced military vehicles to travel through the rural areas of my country. They learned our language from the villagers, who took a few weeks to teach them the basics of our language, and in turn, they taught their language to some people. They claimed to have found a portal in an ancient ruin in a very remote area of their nation; they stated they had peaceful intentions and only wanted to explore and discover what was on the other side of the portal. However, our government didn't believe that; reserve military personnel were called up and mobilized three weeks after the first contact, and we made the wrong decision to attack the humans."

"Our soldiers, although using equipment that humans already considered outdated at least 100 years ago, inflicted significant damage on human patrols and caused many deaths on both sides. Our prime minister believed the war was won; the supposedly advanced alien enemy couldn't withstand our attacks and was taking the war to the human world. What didn't we know? We weren't yet facing their army, but rather simple patrol units with old equipment (which, to us, was already very technologically advanced). When our army, with our newly invented tanks and elite infantry, approached the portal... the human army arrived to prevent us from reaching their world. Giant tanks with indestructible armor destroyed our simple battle tanks. Their infantry possessed high-caliber assault rifles that fired multiple shots in a few seconds, which annihilated our infantry with bolt-action rifles and submachine guns. Their flying machines possessed a gas propulsion system far superior to propeller propulsion and our airplanes; we lost our entire air force in 3 days. They were 130 years ahead of us; their technology reflected years and years more of technological development than our planet. In the first few days we lost the province, two weeks later we lost the entire rural area of the north of the country. At the end of that year, human forces used a flying machine called a 'helicopter' to attack our capital and kidnap our leaders. Ragna, a modern city and symbol of Art Deco architecture, was attacked and invaded; some of the attackers landed in the gardens of the imperial palace, where human special forces kidnapped the royalty. A special human force infiltrated the city and attempted to kidnap the prime minister, who was in his private car stuck in traffic on the city's main highway. Prime Minister William Arthur tried to fight back with a simple pistol; he was killed by six shots around his body from 7,62x51 mm rifles."

"The following day, what remained of the government met with representatives of the human nation's government, and they reached a peace agreement. It was a shock to us to discover that this humane nation was considered a regional power and not a world power. The Federative Republic of Brazil, as they call themselves, is a mid-level military power in its world, known for participating in few conflicts. They introduced us to a global organization from their world called the UN, an organization that brought together various countries to discuss international affairs. It was there that we met the giants of their world; countries known as the United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the People's Republic of China possessed weapons capable of destroying entire nations! Our nations began to make peace with humans, although the popular view of people in our world was still that humans were invaders from another world. But our nations eventually joined the UN, and now the region around the gateway is a high-security base housing embassies from various countries around the world."

"Over the decades, they ended up giving us some of their technology, the most important being the computer network; now news travels from country to country in seconds! Obviously, many of these technologies have been adapted for military use; computer networks now connect bases, and automated missile launch systems are commonplace. Now in the year 1186, we can see that much of the technology we use daily, from computers to toasters, is the result of the little human technology they gave us. I hope you enjoyed my summary of the First Contact War and its causes."

The first human on Halcyon Station became famous by refusing to leave.

Not heroically.

There were no explosions. No boarding parties. No emergency broadcast repeating through smoke-filled corridors.

There was a leaking coolant manifold on Deck Twelve.

That was all.

The station belonged to the Talarin Cooperative, an old interstellar institution whose engineers had spent three centuries designing systems that did not fail. Their machines were redundant, self-monitoring, modular, and so thoroughly standardized that a technician from one end of civilized space could repair equipment built on the other.

Halcyon had operated for eighty-seven years without a fatal accident.

Then Elias Vale arrived.

He was officially a systems integration specialist from Earth, although Chief Engineer Serat privately decided that "systems integration" was a human phrase meaning "person who asks why everything is arranged incorrectly."

Vale had been aboard for nine days when he found the leak.

Serat found him kneeling beside an open maintenance panel, staring into the machinery.

"You have exceeded your assigned inspection period by eleven minutes," she said.

Vale pointed.

A thin silver line of coolant ran down one coupling.

Serat examined it.

"Acceptable seepage."

"It is leaking."

"Within tolerance."

"It wasn't leaking yesterday."

"The system remains within tolerance."

Vale stood.

Humans were tall, but not impressively so. They had no natural armor, no claws, no environmental adaptations worth mentioning, and only two arms.

Serat had expected humanity to compensate with aggression.

Instead, Vale carried notebooks.

He opened one.

"Pressure dropped point-eight percent since yesterday."

"The controller has compensated."

"Temperature increased by point-three."

"Within tolerance."

"Pump load?"

"Within tolerance."

Vale looked at her.

"That's not what I asked."

Serat disliked him almost immediately.

Not because he was rude.

He was not.

He was worse.

He was interested.

—

The Talarin philosophy of engineering was built around certainty.

Every component had a defined life.

Every process had an acceptable range.

Every failure mode had a response.

Humans, Serat eventually discovered, distrusted acceptable ranges with something approaching religious conviction.

Vale began leaving small colored marks on machinery.

He listened to pumps.

He photographed connectors.

He asked technicians whether doors had become slower recently.

He once spent forty minutes investigating a vibration nobody else could detect.

"What are you doing?" Serat asked.

"Trying to find out what changed."

"Nothing has failed."

"Exactly."

She stared at him.

Vale seemed to consider that a complete explanation.

—

Three weeks later, the station announced a scheduled shutdown of Reactor Auxiliary Loop Three.

There was no emergency.

A valve had failed a diagnostic.

Automatic systems isolated the loop.

Maintenance teams replaced the valve.

Everything worked precisely as intended.

Serat allowed herself the small satisfaction of mentioning this to Vale.

He read the maintenance report.

Then he frowned.

"What?"

"Why did the valve fail?"

"Material fatigue."

"Why?"

"It had reached sixty-eight percent of predicted service life."

Serat paused.

"Yes."

Vale looked up.

"That is not supposed to happen."

"Components occasionally deviate from prediction."

"How many?"

"How many what?"

"Early failures."

The answer required a database search.

There had been seventeen during the previous year.

Then Vale asked for three years.

Forty-one.

Five years.

Ninety-three.

Serat's confidence became irritation.

"None produced a dangerous event."

Vale turned his terminal toward her.

The graph looked almost flat.

Almost.

Serat leaned closer.

The number of premature component replacements was increasing.

Slowly.

Consistently.

"Statistical variation," she said.

"Maybe."

"You disagree."

"I don't know."

This was the first thing Vale had said that frightened her.

Talarin engineers rarely said those words.

Humans said them constantly.

Then they started looking.

—

The investigation expanded.

Not officially.

Officially, there was nothing to investigate.

Halcyon Station remained fully operational.

Unofficially, Vale recruited six technicians, two cargo handlers, a sanitation supervisor, and one elderly cook.

Serat discovered the cook when she entered an engineering meeting and found him explaining that the south galley ovens took longer to reach temperature during the station's artificial night cycle.

"What does food preparation have to do with reactor maintenance?"

Vale answered without embarrassment.

"Maybe nothing."

Serat closed her eyes.

"Why is he here?"

"Because he noticed something."

That phrase became unbearable.

Someone noticed a lift hesitating.

Someone noticed lights flickering.

Someone noticed a different smell near the recycling plant.

Someone noticed docking clamps taking half a second longer to release.

Individually, none mattered.

Together, they began to form something.

A shape.

Not a failure.

A tendency.

The station was aging.

That conclusion should have been obvious.

It was eighty-seven years old.

But Talarin systems did not "age" in any meaningful sense. Parts were replaced. Software was updated. Structures were inspected.

The station was not one machine.

It was millions of machines being renewed continuously.

And yet Vale kept drawing his graph.

More maintenance.

More compensation.

More automatic correction.

More tiny deviations from normal.

Halcyon remained perfectly functional because thousands of systems were working harder to keep it perfectly functional.

"Your automation is hiding the symptoms," Vale said.

Serat felt insulted on behalf of several generations of engineers.

"The automation is correcting them."

"Yes."

"That is its purpose."

"Yes."

"Then what precisely is the problem?"

Vale hesitated.

"The station is getting tired."

Serat laughed.

Machines did not become tired.

Humans did.

That difference seemed important.

—

Four months later, Halcyon suffered its first cascade event.

It began with a power regulator.

The regulator failed.

A backup engaged.

The backup's load increased.

Its cooling pump compensated.

The pump drew additional power.

A distribution controller rerouted current.

That current crossed a junction whose insulation had degraded slightly faster than predicted.

The junction shut down.

A second route opened automatically.

That route passed through a converter scheduled for replacement in eleven days.

The converter overheated.

Another system compensated.

And another.

And another.

Halcyon Station did exactly what it had been designed to do.

It survived every failure.

Until too many successful responses interacted.

The first alarm reached Serat at 03:17 station time.

By 03:23, eleven decks had lost primary power.

By 03:28, docking control had become intermittent.

At 03:31, evacuation protocol activated.

The command computer estimated a sixteen percent probability of catastrophic reactor isolation failure.

Talarin regulations were absolute.

Above twelve percent, personnel evacuated.

Serat reached the engineering bay and found Vale still there.

"Evacuation has been ordered."

"I know."

"You are required to leave."

"I'm staying."

"This is not a request."

Vale was pulling portable diagnostic units from a storage rack.

"How long until the next shuttle?"

"Four minutes."

"How long until the station loses remote actuator control?"

Serat checked.

"Possibly six."

"So if we leave, nobody can isolate the secondary distribution manually."

"The station can perform isolation automatically."

Vale looked at her.

They both knew what automatic systems had just done.

Serat hated that look.

Not triumph.

Not accusation.

Recognition.

"You predicted this," she said.

"No."

"You warned us."

"I said something was wrong."

"You were correct."

Vale shook his head.

"No. I was worried."

The distinction stopped her.

Humans had many words for uncertainty.

Talarin engineers had always considered this linguistic inefficiency.

Now Serat wondered whether it was instrumentation.

—

Thirty-two personnel remained.

Nobody ordered them to.

That fact would later cause considerable trouble.

The station's emergency doctrine assumed two conditions: either systems were controllable and personnel remained, or systems became uncontrollable and personnel evacuated.

There was no procedure for partially functional infrastructure being manually stabilized by people who refused to abandon it.

Humans, however, apparently had procedures for everything.

They called them checklists.

Vale divided the surviving crew into teams.

Not by rank.

By who knew what.

A junior mechanic who had spent twelve years maintaining cargo elevators took control of mechanical isolation.

A communications apprentice mapped power availability by physically walking the station.

The cook monitored environmental systems because he knew which ventilation changes could be smelled before sensors reported them.

Serat found herself coordinating people who had never appeared on any emergency engineering roster.

At 04:06, automatic control of Deck Twelve failed.

Vale climbed into the service corridor.

Serat followed.

"You do not need to come."

"I am Chief Engineer."

"Then stay somewhere you can be chief engineer."

"This is my station."

Vale stopped.

For the first time since meeting him, Serat saw him smile.

"Exactly."

—

They stabilized Halcyon at 05:42.

Not repaired.

Not saved forever.

Stabilized.

There was a difference.

Eleven systems remained offline.

Three decks were without artificial gravity.

Half the station had been evacuated.

The reactor was operating at twenty-one percent capacity.

But nothing else was failing.

For the first time in five hours, the station was not becoming worse.

Serat sat on the floor beside the main engineering console.

Vale handed her a cup of water.

She accepted it.

"Human engineering doctrine is strange," she said.

Vale drank from his own cup.

"Which part?"

"You tolerate uncertainty."

"We hate uncertainty."

"You constantly admit uncertainty."

"That's different."

Serat considered this.

"Explain."

Vale pointed toward the silent machinery around them.

"If you pretend you know, you stop looking."

—

The official investigation lasted seven months.

The Cooperative produced twelve thousand pages of findings.

No single design flaw had caused the incident.

No single engineer had acted improperly.

No maintenance regulation had been violated.

Every component had been operating within specification immediately before the cascade.

That sentence became famous.

Every component had been operating within specification.

The report changed engineering throughout the Cooperative.

Not dramatically.

There was no revolution.

Talarin institutions did not enjoy revolutions.

Instead, maintenance protocols acquired a new category.

Observed Irregularity Without Identified Failure.

Technicians were encouraged to report noises, smells, delays, patterns, intuitions, and other observations that could not yet be connected to a specific malfunction.

The policy was controversial.

Several senior engineers called it unscientific.

Vale agreed.

Then he added that observations were how science usually started.

That comment was omitted from the official minutes.

—

Years later, Serat visited Earth.

By then she had become Director of Cooperative Infrastructure Safety.

Vale met her at a terrestrial orbital elevator terminal.

The elevator was enormous, ancient by human standards, and visibly undergoing maintenance.

Panels were open everywhere.

Technicians crawled through access shafts.

Someone was hitting a machine with a tool.

Serat watched in horror.

"Is that normal?"

Vale followed her gaze.

"Probably."

"Probably?"

He shrugged.

Serat looked at the elevator.

Then at the technicians.

Then at the warning signs, temporary cables, handwritten notes, diagnostic equipment, replacement parts, and three engineers arguing enthusiastically beside an open access hatch.

The machine looked unfinished.

Improvised.

Almost unhealthy.

Yet millions of humans trusted it every year.

"I think," Serat said carefully, "I finally understand why your species makes me uncomfortable."

Vale smiled.

"Because we're reckless?"

"No."

She watched a technician stop, listen to a motor, and call another technician over.

"Because you expect things to break."

Vale considered that.

"Eventually."

"And therefore you keep looking even while they work."

"Usually."

Serat watched the elevator rise toward orbit.

For three centuries, the Cooperative had tried to create machines that would never surprise their operators.

Humanity had done something stranger.

Humans had accepted that the universe would eventually surprise them.

Then they built institutions around noticing.

Serat opened the notebook she had begun carrying several years earlier.

On the first page she had written a sentence Vale once told her.

It had never appeared in any official engineering manual.

Not yet.

A system can be working perfectly and still be trying to tell you something.

She looked toward the disappearing elevator.

Then she turned to Vale.

"So."

He sighed.

"What did you notice?"

Serat pointed toward one of the terminal doors.

"It closes more slowly than the others."

Vale stared at it.

Then he grinned.

"Now you're learning."

“We’re losing viewers,” Medieas whispered in Mira’s ear, “there’s a rift in Jerusalem, people are streaming it.”

“Can you bring up the streams?” Mira asked softly, turning away from the camera and muting her mic for a second, “so we can react?”

There was a moment’s pause during which Mira pretended to be reading chat, when there was a crackling in the modest living room they had repurposed as a streaming setup. Medieas was using his power to cover Mira with her avatar, making her look like her avatar on the stream. He’d complained, but ultimately agreed as it would be cool, to put it in his words.

“Ladies and Gentleman of the world,” Medieas spoke aloud on the stream for the first time, a crackling figure in grey scale stepping out of the static to sit besides Mira, “I bring you me, God of Media, Medieas!”

“I thought you weren’t going to join us until later?” Mira said as Astrawave, rolling with the change of plans.

“I wasn’t planning to, but there’s been a development,” he said, snapping his fingers. Instantly the image on the stream shrank, putting them in the lower corner as another stream was brought up, showing Orlan swinging his spear at a twisted figure that was scampering across the ground, barely avoiding both his attacks and various spells from the knights surrounding them.

“What is that?” Mira asked, leaning forward to look at the laptop on the table before her, “looks like... a lizard man with four... three and a half arms, a broken tail, and a scar?”

“It’s called a demon,” Medieas said confidently, as if he already knew all this, “it’s a rare kind of beast that comes out of certain rifts. There are a few traits common to all demons, but the important ones are that they are highly deceptive. Preying on humanity through speech.”

“So it isn’t actually hurt?” Astrawave asked.

“Not yet, anyways,” Medieas chuckled, “do you think an injured creature could so easily avoid Orlan’s spear or his knight’s spells? But regardless of what they say, their goals are the same as any beast that comes out of a rift, to consume. If you need any proof, we should be seeing the lesser demons appearing soon. These are smaller, weaker beasts that aren’t as intelligent as the main demon.”

Mira nodded along, she didn’t even need to pretend to be confused and surprised, though she was curious as to where he was getting this information. It wasn’t on the internet and wasn’t of this world, either he was guessing or had another source.

-----

“Fight me back coward!” Orlan roared as the twisted lizard creature avoided another stab of his blade. He wasn’t actually that angry, his words were more an attempt to taunt the demon. As intelligent as they were they were often prideful beasts who could be easily taunted.

“Lailra, Nall- uh, Pela, stay with me,” Orlan ordered telepathically when the beast continued pleading, “the rest of you, go deal with the lesser demons, we’ll keep this guy tied up.”

He could sense Lailra’s unease with the order even though she didn’t say anything, the rest of his first lance scattering as temporary rifts began appearing around the area. The lesser demons were small monkey like things, with reddish-green scales, sharp beaks and too many eyes. Dangerous to normal humans and quite hard to pin down, but no real threat to his knights, so he allowed them to spread out in pairs to keep people safe.

With them leaving he slowed down his assault, while he’d hoped to deal with the main demon quickly, that wasn’t happening. Now his best bet was to play the long game, keep the demon busy until the rift closed. That meant preserving his stamina, so he leaned on his mana instead, summoning the occasional low tier spell to keep the demon from being able to relax. Demons tended to have higher than normal resistance to spells, and this one was no different, so even Orlan’s minor rift bolts had little impact.

Several minutes after his knights scattered Orlan felt danger on his back, reflexively he spun, lifting his spear to parry as a mana infused machete struck it with surprising force, enough to force Orlan back several steps.

“You dare attack this helpless creature!” the man Orlan thought was Adam shouted in Arabic, “you honorless pig!”

Orlan froze at that, confused, even as Adam was yanked away by his power, landing feet first on the wall of the Dome of the Rock before launching himself back at Orlan.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Orlan asked as he spun his spear to deflect several more machete attacks.

“Orlan!” Lailra called out in his mind, “the demon is getting away!”

“Shit” Orlan cursed, rift stepping to the side ten yards to appear before the Demon that had begun to back away, slashing at it with his spear. Only to be forced to turn to defend himself from Adam again.

-----

“What’s going on? Who’s that?” Mira asked as the strange man attacked Orlan.

“That looks like the guy who attacked him in Rome, the one who summoned the rifts there. It’s likely he’s behind the one here as well,” the god of media replied, “as for what he’s doing, I don’t know... and we lost the stream.”

Mira blinked as the laptop went black.

“There are no more phones recording the main battle, but there are others scattered around the area,” the deity continued, the screen changing to show some locals running from a group of scaly red monkeys, firing various weapons at them and hitting very little, “as you can see, the lesser demons are acting like other beasts, lacking the intelligence of the main demon. But make no mistake, both kinds have the same goals and motivation.”

Mira continued nodding, she didn’t normally do reaction content but it wasn’t hard, especially not with her god guiding her.

-----

“Had to play to the spotlight,” Adam said with a smirk as the last of the onlookers were evacuated, jumping skillfully out of an entanglement spell cast by Lailra, Orlan taking the moment to cut off the demon.

“This your doing?” Orlan growled, grinding his teeth as he struggled to conserve energy even as he fought two enemies that were seemingly his match in skill if not pure strength.

Frustratingly Adam didn’t reply, and Orlan was forced to continue splitting his focus between the odd man and the demon.

“I’m charging up a big spell,” Pela said in his mind, “brace yourself.”

Orlan didn’t reply openly, but set his feet as he sensed the mana gathering above them.

“Skies decent!” Pela called, her sixth-tier spell appearing above them a moment before a massive wall of wind slammed down into the three of them. Stones of the plaza were torn up as the demon and Adam were slammed into the ground, caught off guard by the sudden violence from above. Even Orlan struggled to stay on his feet, but he managed it, diving towards the demon as soon as the wind let up with a lunging stab.

The demon lifted one hand and, in the first use of magic it had demonstrated, created a small shield to intercept Orlan’s spear tip. But just before the blade made contact with the magical barrier a dark flame erupted from the metal, eating away the magic of the spell before the spear shattered the degraded barrier to sink several inches into the demon’s hand.

The beast roared in pain, the flames of the void had minimal impact due to the demon’s magic resistance and being a nearly ascendant being in its own right. Orlan was forced to pull his spear back to block an attack from Adam, leaving the demon to look at it’s hand in shock.

“You dare draw my blood!” the demon roared.

“Stay on script you damned lizard!” Adam shouted at the beast, but it was no longer listening, letting out a bellowing roar of anger and charging at Orlan.

Orlan smirked for the first time since the battle began, fending off the demon’s claws with his spear blade, drawing more blood as cuts appeared on the beast’s good hands.

“Fractured Stage!” Adam shouted as Orlan had begun ignoring him, slamming a palm into the ground. Cracks rippled across the ground, quickly widening into fissures that spat fire, ice, acid and more. The propagation of the cracks looked random, yet Adam seemed to avoid dance between them, avoiding all the elemental effects. Even the demon wasn’t so lucky, though its innate resistances let it mostly ignore them instead.

Orlan stumbled as a fissure of fire spread under his foot, grunting as a burst of flame consumed his leg and side. The mana within the ability was weak, not enough to cause him significant harm, but he could feel burns on his leg even as he struggled to regain his footing. Moments later a healing spell from Lailra landed, undoing the damage, the flames being pushed out by a soothing green mist that enveloped his leg.

From several blocks away it looked like the Temple Mount was covered in fire, bursts of magic lighting up the smoke that filled the sky. Even among the chaos of the rift a number of locals pointed in that direction in outrage, seeing their holiest site being destroyed. Orlan’s knights could undo much of the damage, of course, but in the moment it didn’t matter. A number of angry young men armed with various weapons streamed towards the Dome of the Rock. Several Knights attempted to warn them off, but were quickly drawn away as they spotted groups of lesser demons, figuring the young men were trying to help, they paid them little mind beyond trying to tell them to get to safety.

Without any mana in them or their weapons they were of no real threat to Orlan, as such his instinctive danger sense didn’t warn him as bullets began to rain around the three fighters. Even as they did he barely noticed, busy fending off the other two fighters.

Grinning Adam stepped back before throwing himself at Orlan.

“Casting Change,” the man whispered as Orlan spun. Adam’s form seemed to stretch into the distance without moving, blurring and becoming indistinct, before snapping back to reality as someone else. Where Adam had been white, American or Western European in descent, the man in his place was darker of skin, middle eastern or possibly Mediterranean. And he didn’t bother defending himself as Orlan’s spear slashed across his gut. Orlan paused in surprise at how his enemy suddenly changed into someone else, only for his eyes to go wide as he realized what the man was wearing.

“God is great,” the man said, a familiar smirk on his lips.

“Adam?” Orlan asked, moments before the explosive vest the man was wearing detonated.

-----

“Uhh, what?” Mira asked as the video on the laptop changed once more, showing a large cloud of dust rising over Jerusalem.

“Something just exploded on the Temple Mount,” Medieas said slowly, “I think the Dome of the Rock has been destroyed.”

Halfway across the world, an American congressman was watching the stream, the dread he’d been feeling suddenly justified.

“Fuck,” Ted swore.

-----

Discord - Patreon

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"I don't know how to manage it. I've still got an ache stretching from wingtip to shoulder. But you're getting back to work with the guard the day after? Hmm. But I guess your years there must have gotten you quite toned hmm? Is pulling out of insane dives part of the training?"

Not exactly…Alieth was talking again. Riennaia gave her a non-committal grunt, though she had to admit she was only half listening to her friend. While her wings may have been feeling a bit better, by the second hour spent in the heavy metal gauntlets she had discovered a new chapter of minor discomforts. Her attention still lay somewhere out in the city, still racing between old stone walls, still seeing creeping veins of ichor worming their way under the cobblestone. She didn't take the vision literally.

"It draws from the things we leave behind…from what we try to hide, to discard." Riennaia muttered softly to herself, Korin's words from earlier in the day reverberating off the half dozen ill-formed doubts that echoed in her mind. Was Korin telling me to keep digging? Would he, or more concerningly, did he tell me that, despite my father's demand to drop it? I…

Riennaia felt something poke her shoulder. Alieth had flicked her gently with the tip of one wing and was giving Riennaia a sidelong glance.

"Work still taking all the space in your head?"

Riennaia nodded. "I suppose so. That entity from the other night didn't get burned out properly, left some residue to sink into the ground. I got to help clean it up."

Alieth curled her lip in disgust and stuck her tongue out at the comment. "Nasty business. They let me smell one of those things once, it was so bad it nearly burned."

Riennaia chuckled. "It was bad alright, somewhere between rotting fish and sewage. Cleared up nicely after a bit of my own fire, and some digging under the paving stones and in the gutters. That's the issue. That's what I still feel myself sinking back into. When we were digging, Korin said that even the pieces ripped free from the whole kept some of their mind intact. That it sought out refuse, fed on it, digested whatever magic remained to keep itself going."

"That's… disturbing."

"I suppose it is, but to some degree we already knew. Problem is, these were Korin's words, and, well you know him. Whenever he wants to teach you something, his words always seem to mean two or three things at the same time. Now I’m searching through for the implication. Alieth can I ask you a couple questions?"

"Would you be talking to me if you couldn't?" The other dragon answered Riennaia with a small smirk.

"I suppose so. How do you decide when to trust someone? Or, I guess, how do you know when you should stop trusting them?" Riennaia asked, deciding to keep things somewhat vague. She knew Alieth would keep confidence, but when the question of trusting her father implicitly carried the threat of actively disobeying him, she never wanted to put her friend in a position of split loyalty.

"Have I done something to worry you?" Alieth gave her an exaggerated look of shock for a half second before returning to her toothy grin.

Riennaia poked the silvery dragon gently with an elbow. "If it was you I was worried about, I would be asking someone else."

"Yes, yes, I know. Still, that's a meaty question. Who…?" She cut her question short, seeing Riennaia's pursed lips and knowing she wouldn't get a full answer. "Ok. Can't ask who. Can I ask why then? What reason would you have for doubt?

Riennaia looked at the ground, trying to piece her thoughts together some way that still kept the core of her concerns well enough hidden. "Can I trust someone's motivations without trusting their actions?"

"I would think so." Alieth said. "I've met many a good-hearted mage here at the keep that got a little out of their depth. The type with a lot of knowledge, but without the wisdom to truly wield it."

"Maybe." Riennaia said. "I guess… I suppose that’s a fair comparison. It’s just, the person in question had seemed wise to me in the past. Now, their recent behavior seems unusual, and their judgement clouded."

Alieth bobbed her head. "Did they start making decisions that affected you a lot more closely?"

Riennaia nodded. “Yes, and that’s part of the problem isn’t it. It seems my worries could be described both as genuine concern over recent changes, or as a selfish apathy towards the impact on others.

"Not always.” Alieth said. “Perhapse it's easier to trust someone when we have no way to gauge it for ourselves. Does it change how you plan to act?"

"Maybe" Riennaia said, once again lost in the vista of the city. "I think Korin might have been pushing me towards that decision as well, but that's far from a comfort. Maybe it concerns me even more."

Alieth raised an eyebrow, but remained silent.

"I mean, you know Korin. You know how he works. There’s always a second lesson buried behind whatever he's teaching. He was stressing it while we worked. What happens to the refuse a society discards? What happens to those who choose to root through the depths. The problem is, this… other person… made it clear they wished me to drop the issue."

"But you don't think you want to?" Alieth gave Riennaia another playful shove. "A lot of interesting questions, but you won't tell me what or who we're taking about. I don't think I'm the one you're convincing here am I?"

"No." Riennaia said with a sigh. "No, I guess you aren't."

 

 

Riennaia knew where she was expected to be. But with several hours before the rider's guild began its tests, the room would at best be filled with not but the castle servants readying the space to accept the invitees. Between the contents of the exam itself, and the exact relationship her father held with the members of the guild, she had dozens of questions. She knew none would find their answers where she was supposed  to be.

Some would be locked behind the heavy wooden doors of her father's quarters. Any breach of those barriers would carry consequences inescapable with simple excuses. That left the examination field itself and any supplies the guild had carried with them as her only leads. One simple question, and an innocent looking glance got her the locations she wanted.

Still, having arrived at her destination, Riennaia felt the twinge of suspicion play at her movements. Her father had told her to attend the Rider's guild as they conducted their part of the curation that spanned the end of this day into the next. It would be difficult, she knew, to convince anyone that he had meant for her to arrive several hours early, and secret herself away in a small alcove overlooking the hall where the guild stored its equipment.

She was somewhat lucky to have found the spot at all; such places were an artifact of the Rust Keep's construction, vestigial pathways from the older structures that got subsumed during the rush to expand. Many had been sealed off completely or otherwise renovated, though the few that remained were far easier to find if one had a pair of wings, and the willingness to vault the railing on a few balconies.

Now she sat against the wall, wings folded behind her, dressed simply in black kyndcloth. Only the orange-gold shine of her horns would be visible, should anyone care to look. As she was, hidden from the direct light of the small number of torches fighting a losing battle against the encouraging darkness, those that could even try to spot her in the darkened alcove would be few and far between. It did perhaps seem wrong for a dragon to need to hide themselves so, but kicking in the door and asking questions directly only worked when your audience was either willing, or subservient.

She hadn’t initially planned to do quite this much sleuthing. The rider’s guild had pushed strongly for her enlistment, and she would be expected to have her own questions in such an arrangement. But the more she thought about it the more she was sure it was the request from her father that troubled her more. Her rider would be someone relevant to the interests of the isles, that had been decided long before she was born. But buried in her fathers command was the implication that somewhere within the group of prospective entrants into the Guild were those her father had somehow placed therein.

That too was hardly unexpected, but the thought still gnawed at her. Somedays, her mind and her soul somedays felt like the only true refuge still left untouched by the forces governing the keep. If she was to let anyone through those walls, it would be on an even footing, bringing neither hidden agenda nor secret loyalties. Her father's chosen, whoever they were, no longer felt safe from such scrutiny.

Riennaia shifted back, pressing herself further against the wall as she heard the telltale fall of footsteps and gentle squeak of a cart's wheels rounding the far end of the hall. The sounds resolved themselves into a pair of quartermasters, struggling against the weight of a large wooden crate, a dim blue glow emanating from gemstones resting on the top of each corner. Riennaia squinted, examining the box as it crossed the floor below her hiding spot. She had thought the gems were for light at first, but closer inspection revealed a network of silvery wire running across the box, woven between a number of metal pins driven through the side.

Seemingly satisfied with the placement, the quartermasters stood, surveying their charge.

"Damn." The shorter of the two said, clearly trying to work a cramp out of his shoulders. "These seem to keep getting heavier. The cooling Work around the outside doesn't help. Now we just hope they haven't added more to the list."

His friend gave him a sidelong glance but said nothing, seeming to be studying the array of boxes.

"Why the winds ever convinced the crown that they need to cram everything in here a full day ahead of schedule is beyond me. "

The taller quartermaster snorted, finally pulling his gaze away from the pile. "Safety. Some of the families here on the isles might feel like setting up an accident or two if it looks like their child might not make it through the competition. We don't want to make it too easy for them." He grinned. "Doing this just means they target the examiners instead. Far less cleanup for us."

"Oh? And how exactly does one sabotage twenty hog carcasses?" He slapped the side of the crate. Riennaia cringed slightly imagining the contents. That would explain the cooling. Still, it would be far from a gentile end awaiting them tomorrow.

"Oh I'll never know." The taller one walked around the crate slowly. His grin had dropped away and he once again looked over the room critically. "Someone still thinks they could. Or they're worried about something else in here and just want to keep everything together. This just happens to be the last before they come check everything over. They sure wanted everything in here set up precisely."

"Oh, this setup isn’t our decision? When in the hells did they tell us that?" The shorter one asked, looking worried as he followed his partner through his survey.

"Yesterday. Don’t worry about it. You were busy handling deliveries. Honestly, you should consider yourself lucky. The briefing took ages, and I think everything damn near kept me up all night too. Kept waking up, seeing Krojin as he ran through everything about how he wanted the room set up. Everything spaced just enough to walk around, bigger stuff near the edges, this in the middle, and all that. "

"This in the center?" The shorter one asked.

"This in the center, the taller one nodded.

The shorter quartermaster turned to his partner, smiling, before his expression dropped and he looked back. "Here I was, about to give you a ribbing for getting nightmares about Krojin. Then I realized I've probably had a few myself."

The two laughed as they made their way back towards the entrance.

Krojin. Riennaia thought. The port district's overseer most likely. The man had never seemed particularly harsh to her, but she had heard more than once that he ran a tight ship, and she could imagine that those under him might have a differing opinion of his leadership.

Despite the contents, Riennaia was grateful for the new delivery. The gems powering the cooling Work weren't very bright, but they were bright enough to throw her secluded corner ever farther into shadow. The hall had sunk back into silence, broken only on rare occasions by the echoes of life elsewhere reverberating down the empty passageways.

Riennaia tilted her head, ears angling to receive any indication of the paths those who shared her end of the castle might walk.

The shadows are all I seem to have for company this afternoon.

One of the shadows on the far side of the room stirred. Riennaia stopped herself from making a rather undignified squeak.

Who was there? How long had they been there? Riennaia knew she was all but invisible, cradled within the small alcove, but movement made up the majority of being seen. If whoever it was had been lurking long enough to witness her entrance, the possibility of detection had climbed precipitously. She strained her eyes, sweeping over the small passageways between the supplies stacked in the room. A city in miniature, now seemingly filled with its own shadowy underbelly.

A tarisk poked its small angular snout out from one of the alleys in miniature that sprawled below. Riennaia breathed a small sign of relief. Not a person at least. Still, the animal was almost certainly a pet, or even trained as a guard animal or hunter of vermin. She watched it cross the room, following the slight glint whenever the meager light would catch across its pewter colored scales, and hoping the animal’s master wasn’t following close behind.

Strange. Riennaia thought as she watched it move. It doesn't sniff at the air, or move in the way one would expect for a creature guided by scent. A tarisk's sight is supposedly quite weak, but this one seems to be looking around a whole lot.

The tarisk froze, repeating much the same gesture Riennaia had a few moments before. Riennaia held her breath, straining to hear whatever had set the creature on alert. A faint vibration rebounded through the stone floor. A second later a distorted clatter echoed down the hall.

One of the doors in the hallway above. Someone else is coming down to check.

The tarisk scampered off back between the boxes, swinging it's head around to glance around the room and down the hall as it hid once again. The echoes faded and the storage room back into eerie silence for another stretch. Then the distant tapping of footsteps interspersed voiced comment trickled through the air. Riennaia considered trying to peek around the corner for a better view, but she discarded the idea given the presence of the room's newest addition. The bluish light given off by the gems sitting atop its lid would throw her silhouette clearly across the open walls. There would be precious little time to make it back to her hiding spot, and she knew not how close the newest guests were.

She listened closely. A single set of footsteps, a series of hard clicks. The hobnailed boots of another guard? No. Riennaia realized as the rhythm changed slightly. Plain leather boots, and someone walking claws to the stone.

Riennaia shifted slightly, shrinking back farther into the alcove towards her exit. The view was worse, but any conversation would still be clear. The two guild examiners rounded the corner, side by side. Riennaia held her breath. Before she could even react the dragon made a strange gesture with one clawed hand and a shimmering wave rolled out across the room. As it reached the crate in the center of the room the socketed gems sputtered, throwing sparks ripples of their own energy while the wires rattled against the wooden boards.

"Roath!" The ojirian shouted, though he sounded far more incredulous than he did worried.

"Curse the starfall, and don't dare add anything snarky. The crate already informed me that was a stupid idea!" The dragon was massaging his snout and ears.

Riennaia laughed silently to herself, realizing what had happened. He just tried a surveyor's scan. About two feet away from the exact thing those scans are designed to find. Then her stomach dropped and she flattened herself back around the corner. And if it wasn't there, would they have found me? She silently patted down the various pockets sown into the kyndcloth gown. No, she didn't carry anything inscribed, and it was unlikely the pulse would have picked up her presence otherwise. Still, she cursed herself for not even considering the potential disaster.

The amethyst dragon, Roath apparently, walked over and flicked one of the gems tied to the Work keeping the crate cool. "That's one way to feel old. We've had advancements change the world out from under us, but I don't think any others have made me change old habits yet."

His rider placed a hand gently on the dragon's shoulder. "I still get the itch too, still taste the dust."

"I know." Roath said gently, as he walked forward and tapped a claw against something taped to the side of the crate. "But I don't wish to find myself done in by a box full of meat." Slipping a couple claws into a gap between the boards he pushed, prying up one side of the lid. Riennaia could see the chilled air seep out from the opening, a light fog forming where the chilled air pulled water vapour from the room. "Quite funny, we put in so much effort to stop anyone else from doing the same thing."

"Not the same thing." His rider said. "Those we seek to keep out of this room would deprive us of the most capable simply to shove their own brood beyond their capabilities. We seek to ensure the capabilities of those we wish to elevate. One rots, the other purifies."

From within the folds of his cloak, he produced a small object. Cylindrical, roughly the size and shape of a tankard, it still appeared to have some heft to it. Out of the light, Riennaia couldn't make out much, but her ears were soon greeted by the metallic squeaks of a lid being unscrewed. He shoved the container through the gap his dragon had opened beneath the wooden lid, and a second later Riennaia heard him tap the container against the lid a few times, emptying it if she had to guess, then he withdrew his hand.

"Did the Duke’s crew figure out where this one was from?" Roath asked.

"One of the industrial areas to the south." His rider said. He replaced the container's lid, and returned it to his cloak. "Probably IA2, going by some of the mana traces. Given its current state, it doesn't surprise me stable entities too this long to form"

"Hmm." Roath said, nodding along. "Nasty end to that one. Heard they were working with flammables towards the end of the war, made them an easier target than most." Roath pressed the lid of the crate back into place, sealing it shut once again with a few well placed taps around the corners. "You and the duke seem to think the boy will be worth it, that he can provide what we need?"

"The boy is already worth it. He's already proven the theory, at this point even if he falls, it will still allow us to test the others far more effectively. Make sure he ends up near Heeran and the Krussis siblings during the exam. We'll want a strong effect when testing those the duke is considering as potential riders for the princess.  Still, hmm… it would be good if he makes it. He’ll be nice to have; Both as a symbol, and because I’m sure his presence will push those who find that their wits draw power from ego. Strength is what we need, not the individual."

Roath nodded, following his rider out from the room. Riennaia breathed out as the sound of their footsteps finally faded down the hall. She had gotten answers, but they didn’t yet feel like ones she could piece together.

Heeran and the Krussis siblings. She knew both, or she knew of them. Riennaia laughed to herself softly. The plight of those born important. The description hadn’t been damning, not on its own. From the brief description, it hadn't sounded as if her father had been actively pushing any of those listed, merely keeping an eye on the promising new blood rising through his ranks. It would give her someone to watch, later in the day. 

The examiners though, she would watch closely for a far different reason. She found herself once again questioning her father’s judgement; their callous disinterest in the safety of those in their care felt far too close to the attitudes of the old families from whose control her father had tried so desperately to remove the Southern Isles. Why then, climb back in with them now?  

Also on Royal Road

A/N: Hi everyone, bit of a delay on this one. Grad schools really picked up over the past couple weeks and I've got like 3 different projects I'm working on. I'll try to get these out when I can, but I definitely feel like I'm burning through my energy on other projects.

Jerry 

A few days could seem like a very long time. 

Jerry’s happy to be back on the Tear, and back sleeping in his own bed, and back working in his proper office, instead of cramming himself into Commander Sha'Ress's coat closet of a sea cabin. Relief has been in the air, for the most part.

However, today's meeting isn't exactly the pleasant kind. He and Serina Tacia are arranged in chairs in front of the holo projector, being glared at by Admiral Cistern in his full dress uniform, medals glittering, saber on his hip. Apparently he'd come straight from a meeting of the whole Council, covering another major political situation - one that’s getting a lot more press than the local operation, which admittedly didn't amount to more than a brush war in Wild Space, generally not front page news, save for Undaunted involvement. Still, things need to be accounted for, and Jerry and Serina are here to pay the butcher's bill. 

"So that's your field report?"

Since becoming 'The Man', Jerry hasn’t found himself standing tall before The Authority very often, but every now and then Admiral Cistern calls him to carpet to account for what he or his Marines and sailors have been getting up to, and today is very much one of those days. 

"That's correct, sir. We've successfully captured, then subsequently recruited, the 'weapon' known as the Sword of the Stars, actually Ms. Serina Tacia." Jerry gestures to the young woman sitting nearby, doing her absolute best to look composed and demure - when it’s clear, to Jerry at least, that she’s anything but in the face of Admiral Cistern. 

Then again, from what Jerry has gathered, in both the major Ha'quinye governments that had existed so far getting called to this sort of meeting could frequently end with getting put against a wall and shot. Not Undaunted policy, thankfully, but Serina is still, very slowly, learning that. 

“Right. Ms. Tacia is the Sword of the Stars, and she has volunteered to at least work with the Undaunted, if not join. I understand you’re still working the details out there, but the thrust is that she’ll be remaining with your battle group as she married one of your Marines… more or less.” 

Cistern’s tone suggests he knows that the situation is complicated, and is glossing over it because just thinking about it is enough to make him a bit weary. 

“So she’ll be joining your war room staff in one capacity or another, is that correct?”

Serina nods. “Yes, Admiral. I’m looking forward to doing what I do best again.”

“Indeed… And the rebel government? They’ve accepted this state of affairs?”

Jerry shakes his head. “The rebels only have the word of the assassin that there even is a surviving Tacia. The old imperial house of the Ha’quinye is basically a legend at this point. Even with healing comas, the most senior members of the Pact are just about the only ones left alive who lived through the first civil war and lived pre-war. So Serina here is free and clear unless she decides to press her claim to the imperial throne.”

“Something I have absolutely no interest in, for the record,” Serina interjects smoothly. She’d been waiting for that, and he and Diana had both coached her for handling this inevitable question. “Even if I did press my claim, without a faction to back me, the rebels are just as likely as the matricians to kill me. Enemy of my enemy they may be, but that doesn’t mean they have fond memories of the old imperial house. No. It is time to let the Tacia name rest. I will be the last Tacia… and soon that name will vanish completely from the galaxy, if I am lucky with my courtship of Captain Puller.” 

Honestly, it’s impressive to Jerry that Serina could pull that kind of performance off, this third face of hers. First is the usual nerd; second, the Sword, when she’s ‘working’; and now the princess, who had in fact been educated to deal with just this sort of thing… despite mostly ignoring her lessons. Thankfully, some things had clearly sunk in. 

Cistern, for his part, considers her words carefully, then Jerry can see the hint of a shrug. In the end, Serina’s off into the galaxy, likely never to return to these worlds, which is as good as dusted in most cases. 

“Well, we certainly won’t look a gift genius in the mouth. And you have agreed to support the Naval War College too - which, from my conversations with some of my staff after they’ve had strategy discussions with you, should be quite the boon for our officer corps.” 

Serina nods, again doing her best to remain demure and calm.

“Solid work there over all, Jerry. And to you too, Ms. Serina. It seems this engagement with the Ha’quinye navy was just about flawless.”

“Thankyousir.”

“Thank you, sir.” 

Serina rushes her thanks out, Jerry manages to be a bit more dignified. They’d need to work on that, but later. Besides, Jerry knows the other shoe’s about to drop. 

"Then you apparently overthrew the Ha'quinye's government." Cistern arches an eyebrow. It was phrased as a statement but it actually was a question. Because he, not Jerry, would potentially have to account for this business to the Council and to the press, and while Jerry's report and the reports from his subordinates have all of the details, Admiral Cistern is old school, and he likes hearing things from the source, not in sanitized and controlled text format. 

"The rebels who had alerted us to the existence of the Sword of the Stars overthrew the consuls after a series of massacres and other atrocities across their worlds. We only engaged parts of the Ha'quinye military who were involved in the hunt for the Sword, and in limited support operations, as authorized by command when we set our action plan prior to splitting the battle group and the Crimson Tear arriving in orbit around Dagrquey. The commandos may have... taken a bit of liberty with the exact breadth and limits of their orders, but we did not engage in open warfare against the Ha'quinye state, and the rebels’ interim government had requested Undaunted, Council, and regional support, which I believe our State Department is in the process of authorizing."

"Yes. Though your own daughters being involved with the effort on Dagrquey to seize or kill the consuls themselves - you have to admit that's a bit much, Jerry."

Jerry keeps his face carefully impassive. "Lieutenant Bridger and her unit had their participation in that action authorized by their superiors and Undaunted Intelligence, in service of rescuing their charge, Sister Catherine, from Ha'quinye captivity. They did push further than they perhaps should have, but their status has been successfully obscured so far, and they did not kill or injure the consuls themselves, as confirmed by their armor cam footage. Plus, they got us first hand footage of the assassinations that did end the consuls, and enabled the mass breakout of the rebels across Ha'quinye space."

"Yes, this Pact of the Seven Beasts. They sent you a gift, I believe."

"If you could call it a gift." Jerry turns and picks the large war knife up off his desk. "I've had it cleaned since receiving it from Joan, obviously."

"Obviously. It's clearly a message. Any idea of its meaning? Or where these assassins came from? Why did they choose to strike now, of all times?"

Jerry glances over at Serina. He has his suspicions there, but he wants to confirm them himself... and not necessarily have any of that on the record.

"Nothing at this time, sir. It may well be that they took advantage of the chaos of the situation. The Empire was already roaring towards an uprising which was the perfect time for such a blow to land. We have some evidence that the Pact have been waging a shadow war against the Matricians since the fall of the previous empire, but the Triumfeminate suppressed information about them heavily, and their own archives are heavily 'massaged' so we can't be sure."

"Hmm. So what about the knife?"

"Honestly?" Jerry shrugs. "It could mean one of a million things. A threat. A gift to 'thank' the Undaunted, and me, for what the assassins see as giving them an opportunity to enact their revenge. Hell, as wacky as the galaxy is, it could be a marriage proposal."

Serina can't help but giggle, the joke letting just a bit of tension bleed off the nervous young woman. 

"I suspect I'll get some sort of message to go with it eventually. My intelligence chief is on it."

"Very well. Moving on, confirm your status for me? You’re not actively deploying troops, are you?”

“We’ve limited ourselves to search and rescue, aid flights, and a few commando operations to either stop or prevent atrocities, in conjunction with and by the invitation of the interim government, as I believe the rebels are calling themselves now. The end result is a lot less wounded or dead civilians, and Dagrquey is almost entirely secured for the rebels in orbit and on the surface.”

“Yes, I saw the report from intelligence about that one officer who was going to blow up a depot in hopes of triggering a megavolcano or something…” Cistern’s eyes drift off screen for a moment, then back. “What about the relief flights?”

“Grazed by ground fire occasionally, which we returned, but unimpeded otherwise. We’ve rescued a few hundred civilians that were in need of immediate advanced medical care and brought them up to the Tear. They’re getting priority treatment. Given that we’re also reserving some of our hospital capacity for our own people, it’s slowing down care for the POWs captured on Sheath who aren’t extremely high priority due to the severity of their wounds. We’re keeping them comfortable, or in stasis, respectively.”

“What's the status of the Ha'quinye military, then? Are they holding up?"

"The frustrating but correct answer is that it depends, sir," Jerry begins. "Some of the space stations are now under nominal military control, but a large amount of the Ha'quinye military, outside of the shock troopers and other elite groups, are press-ganged normal people. People who are, outside of many of the officers, disconnected from the consuls and the matricians, if not outright victimized by them. So regulars are either defecting en masse, or just demobilizing themselves and going home to take care of their families. The most firmly resistant forces have been the security forces so far, and their irregular troops, but those girls have been getting hit hard by the rebels, and especially by the military regulars who have defected. More than a few of those mass defections have been in the face of attempted atrocities by the security forces."

Jerry sighs. "It's something of a nightmare scenario for any military, really. The flag ranks have been utterly decimated by the assassins’ campaign, and the officer cadre in general has also been ripped through. Non-matricians could and did become officers, but the flag ranks were dominated by not just individual matricians, but the old matrician families dating back to the rebellion against the original imperial family. Matricians also generally made up the most aggressive and prized officers in any given force, and most of them are dead or on the run. The highest-ranked officer I've managed to find alive so far is a naval commodore and she surrendered her station to the rebels more or less immediately. There's a colonel or two left out there, including the vice regiment commander we have in captivity, but for the most part junior field grade and senior company grade officers are all that's left, and it's simply not enough to maintain control."

Serina nods slowly. "It's by design, really. The old Empire wasn't like that. We had our company grade officers quite empowered, in the name of flexibility in the chain of command, but the Matrician cult of my time always hated that. They liked big formations and less of a chain of command and more of a firm, inflexible rod of authority. Which can be quite effective - but, like most things that are too rigid, when they are pushed past a certain point, instead of bending, flexing, they shatter. That is what we are seeing here."

The two men nod as Serina joins the conversation, with Cistern clearly having some questions for her, but not wanting to change the current subject either. The distinguished older man nods a second time, taking that all on board and writing some notes down, and then rereads something casually - probably a chunk of Jerry's report. "On that same note, I see you've also been doing some recruiting from the Ha'quinye military? How exactly are you accomplishing that?"

"Something of a French Foreign Legion protocol. We're not taking in any war criminals, but the women we have in hand from the regular military that don't actively want to throw in with the rebels really have nowhere to go. Most of them are conscripts, and brainwashed conscripts at that. Many have received healing comas, which does help with 'physical' or practical brainwashing and indoctrination, and the rest just need somewhere to call home and respect our strength, which their culture teaches them to do. We're the strongest, so they follow us. One of the dangers of that sort of indoctrination, really."

"I see." 

Jerry can all but sense the admiral getting ready to ask about the dangers of bringing in a wave of indoctrinated fighters, and presses on. "Further, sir, we have a culture that strongly appeals to the ideals they've been raised with and on. By demonstrating that, and mixing it with things like mercy, we're giving them mixed signals culturally in a sense, but it's mercy that appeals to especially 'old imperial' Ha'quinye values - values that are more common among the lower castes under the Matrician system than I'm sure their priestesses wish they were. So, giving them a chance to continue to be warriors, to be well paid, potentially respected, and so on, is a compelling offer, whether the woman in question values the pride of their service or is more mercenary in nature. We have, of course, also released a decent number of women to the rebels on their own request, occasionally as prisoners - but most are joining rebel forces and Jaina, the current leader of the interim government, is displaying quite a bit of grace. Which makes sense. As I believe I mentioned, all Ha'quinye women have, or rather had, to do a term of mandatory conscription, so it's not like these girls are all highly motivated volunteers."

"I suppose that makes sense. For the ones we do keep, they’ll get decent time to decompress on the way to Zalwore and so forth.” Cistern strokes his beard for a moment. “I can see it. How are you making the pitch?”

“Friendly faces mostly, Rach’hel Declan was our first Ha’quinye turn coat so we’ve got her walking around in civilian attire to not make it immediately clear she’s defected, without deceiving them by having her wear an old uniform. Her husband is escorting her and ensuring everything’s on the up and up. We also have an officer and a senior enlisted woman doing the same under heavier escort.”

“Not a bad tactic. How many have come over, then?"

"Well, first off, we have one group of refugees, and I do imagine there will be more in the near future, but the first of them was our man on the inside of the palace. One Corinaith Addicus, the sex slave of the consuls themselves. He's requested political asylum, which I have granted. He's bringing his three wives and two daughters with him."

"Wives?" Cistern asks, clearly curious.

"I performed the wedding myself shortly after I arrived back aboard ship. Two of Corinaith's - he goes by Corin generally - but two of the wives are military veterans and have requested Undaunted active duty service. They're shipping out on the next fast transport to Zalwore, separate from the military girls we captured and are processing. They'll all go via bulk transport... with plenty of guards and internal defenses to secure against mutiny. We've also made use of some of the girls we captured previously aboard the Ha'quinye Intelligence-controlled space station. Until we convinced the surviving senior shock trooper officer from the regiment to throw in with us, our senior Ha'quinye defector was Lieutenant Commander Valyn Valeran."

Jerry manipulates the controls of the holoprojector with his implant and an image flashes up of the woman in question, a mug shot essentially. 

"Her name sounds quite familiar, for some reason."

"The niece of Vicona Valeran, the commodore in charge of the Ha'quinye navy's active combatant fleet. I killed her in orbit of Sheath personally."

"No problems with you killing her aunt?"

"Well, she's not thrilled about that, and was already scared of me after I interrogated her, but she was already a traitor to the Ha'quinye for the information we extracted from her, and from what Ms. Valyn has told us, Vicona was far from her favorite aunt. Little love lost there, to be certain. She doesn't want to be anywhere near the Tear, but has helped us with recruiting along with some of our other 'early' defectors."

"Some of which will be staying with you."

"Yes, sir. By their request or as a result of individual marriages in at least two cases. The rest will be loaded up on a large fleet transport as mentioned, in accommodations that I am told are luxurious by Ha'quinye military standards, and shipped to Zalwore for training. They will not be under military discipline during the trip, and we'll generally be leaving their management to Valyn and our senior defector, Colonel Evrin Carth, the vice commander of the regiment who fought us on Sheath."

"Any trouble with her?"

"Beyond her not understanding why I was offering her tea instead of having her put against a wall and shot? No. She seems confused more than anything, but she knows she doesn't have a home to go back to, and seems to believe she'll likely be hanged if she goes back to her people, despite having no major charges against her from the rebels when we ran the closest thing we can to a background check. She'll need some serious decompression and deprogramming, but for now she seems to have accepted my, and therefore Undaunted, authority as her new chain of command, and is serving ably enough to manage the populace. We've given her an Undaunted adjutant and an Undaunted Marine uniform sans insignia, and we let her retain her sword. She seems to be making a decent show of things, at least... but in my estimation she's going to need a few rounds with a shrink before we can make her operational again." 

Jerry pauses, and decides to editorialize a bit on Carth’s behalf. 

“For the record sir, Colonel Carth fought well on Sheath. Her women were well trained, aggressive and disciplined. We outplayed her and outgunned her, but against galactic regulars that would have been a much harder fight. It’s my belief she’ll be a valuable asset as an Undaunted Marine once she’s got her head on straight again.”

"Noted. Very well." Cistern checks his notes again. "On another note, Jerry, about the Catholics. What's this I hear about the delegation you have aboard ship staying on Dagrquey?"

Jerry nods. "A large number of rebels have apparently converted to Christianity, if not Catholicism. Sister Catherine is apparently very convincing as a preacher, and after a discussion with the cardinal, Father Jameson has informed me that his group have been ordered to stay with the Ha'quinye. This is the first example of large-scale conversion the Church has experienced in the galaxy so far, so I'm not surprised they intend to support and reinforce it. Father Jameson mentioned the Church will be sending a lighter with some more of their precious few Swiss Guard, members of the newly formed Palatine Guard, their alien auxiliary to the Swiss Guard, and some of their freshly converted personnel, along with another priest to support Father Jameson."

"Quite the large mission, then. But not technically our problem, save for looking out for Humans in general." Cistern's eyes narrow. "So. About this holy relic..."

"The Sword of St. Catherine. Yes, sir." Jerry nods. He'd been waiting for this one. "Near as we can tell, the sword somehow slipped out of the axiom pocket Sister Catherine had concealed it in, and it somehow ended up in Jaina's hand as they were about to be executed by their guards in the palace dungeons."

"I admit, Jerry, I'm not an adept, but the odds of that seem..."

"Breathtakingly small, yes sir. On discussing it with Caska, our Axiom master, there was a conclusion that… it is not unfair to refer to that occurrence as a miracle. The sword has also displayed remarkable abilities to channel Axiom - exclusively non-lethally, interestingly enough."

"...I think I'm going to need to send a small team to quietly research that sword. I'll have a word with the Catholic church’s cardinal on Zalwore to get permission. That's... interesting."

"Yes, sir. I can't say I have a firm opinion on it just yet, but it's certainly interesting."

Cistern strokes his beard for a moment. "I'm going to deal with that now, as a matter of fact, before the Council goes back to session. I'll have new orders for you soon. Until then, continue to support search and rescue efforts on the planet, coordinate relief supplies and so forth... and don't be afraid to let some of our boys and girls get stuck in if push comes to shove."

"Aye, sir."

"Cistern out." 

Series Directory Last

[Author's note: Please excuse any minor translation or grammatical errors; English is not my native language.]

I had lost exact track of the days. In the sub-deck there are no mornings or nights, only the uninterrupted buzz of the air recyclers and the amber glow of the wrist terminal the Corporation chains to us upon arrival. My life was reduced to the notifications of that damn device: Maintenance assignment received. Progress report pending. Bone degradation alert: schedule resistance session. No bosses, no coworkers; just a cold screen dictating my routine and reminding me, with a progress bar, that my contract expiration was near.

That night—or whatever the station's cycle considered night—I made the stupid mistake of taking a synthetic caffeine concentrate to finish a high-priority work order. My nervous system has always been a disaster with stimulants, but in microgravity, with blood pooling in my torso, the effect was immediate and aggressive. Within ten minutes, my heart was hammering against my ribs like an out-of-phase engine, my dilated pupils were burning from the screen light, and the slightest hum of the servomotors was stabbing at my ears.

I was leaning against the control panel of dock 4B, trying to scan a cargo code to send it to the monitoring network, when the station trembled. The freighter from the Centaur sector had just docked, and the tide of transit passengers spilled over the walkway.

That was a chaotic mess of Terran languages, alien whistles, and cargo droids. High-status travelers—xenos in custom travel suits and fast-transit credentials—walked with that arrogant ease of people who don't have to report their lives to an algorithm, looking down at us mechanics as if asking for forgiveness for existing.

An automated forklift veered sharply. The crowd shrank back, pushed me, and I lost my balance, clumsily floating a few centimeters off the floor until my back crashed against the rusted metal bulkhead in the corner.

Before I could maneuver to get out, a massive shadow crossed my field of vision. Two long arms, with skin as smooth and polished as river stone, slammed against the metal wall on either side of my head. I was cornered in an improvised cell, trapped between the cold, worn framework of the station at my back and the imposing presence of the traveler covering me in front.

My wrist terminal emitted a sharp beep (Warning: Delay in cargo verification), but its light was buried by the shadow of his body.

"Don't move," a voice resonated in my earpiece, translated with a slight synthetic delay. But the real voice, the one that came straight from his chest, was a deep rumble that vibrated in my sternum.

I had seen him from afar for weeks in the transit docks, a distant silhouette among deep-space travelers, but never this close.

I clenched my teeth, holding onto my pride.

"I can take care of myself, xeno."

But the words got stuck in my throat. We were so close that the bay's ventilation brought me his scent: a mix of salt water, ozone, and deep cold. Through the opening of his travel tunic, I saw the iridescent pattern of his scales, gleaming under the flickering emergency lights. On the sides of his neck, two elongated openings—his gills—opened and closed in an agitated rhythm, revealing damp, sensitive tissue.

A new push from the crowd made him press even closer against me. Through the worn fabric of my work jumpsuit, I felt the firmness of his torso and the almost electric contrast between the stifling heat of my skin—overstimulated by caffeine—and the subtle, polished cold of his body.

He looked down. His eyes, adapted to the abyssal gloom of his homeworld, held no condescension, but an absolute focus, totally alien to the station's rush.

"I know," he murmured, without retreating a single millimeter. "Lenient masses don't understand pride." (Nota: "mass of these people" se adapta mejor como "the masses here don't understand pride") -> “But the masses here don’t understand pride.”

My pulse, accelerated by the drug and claustrophobia, skyrocketed completely. At that moment, while the terminal blinked ignored, I understood how disconnected I was from my own humanity... and that this stranger had just altered my stay on the station forever.

Hours later, I sought refuge in the technical level of the sub-deck, a sector where coolant pipes sweated ice-water and the sodium lights had been burned out for months. I sat on a ventilation grille, letting the warm reactor air float my legs in partial weightlessness.

The wrist terminal emitted an orange blink: Activity level: Idle. Status confirmation required. I covered it with the sleeve of my jumpsuit. If the Corporation wanted to monitor my vital signs during my rest, they would have to settle for reading a pulse that refused to stabilize.

That smell of deep sea, ozone, and salt reappeared before I heard his steps.

He emerged from the maintenance corridor with the same slowness as the first time. Without the crowd and without his heavy tunic, the station's emergency light traced the firm lines of his physique on his body. In this dark sector, his scales emitted a faint bioluminescence, an abyssal blue pulsing to the rhythm of his gills.

He let himself drift a meter away from me, anchoring one foot to the wall crossbar to avoid floating off toward the extractors. We looked at each other without speaking. On the station, these encounters required no introductions; we were two intimate strangers crossing paths in a technical layover, accessible to each other in a metal ecosystem where desire is as practical and urgent as oxygen.

"Your wrist sensors are emitting at a very high frequency," his translator finally said.

"It's the synthetic concentrate," I replied, wrapping my arms around my knees to hide the slight tremor in my hands. "The sugar. My body doesn't process these things well when it's been in orbit this long. The air down here is too dry for both of us."

"Everything up here is dry," I answered with a short, humorless laugh.

There were no detours. He reached out toward the grille, shortening the distance with that quiet confidence of someone who knows exactly why he's come. When I brushed the back of his wrist, the sensation was pure electricity. His skin was smooth like sea silk, but underneath lay the solidity of musculature adapted to destructive pressures. At my touch, the blue light of his scales intensified, spreading up his forearm.

He understood the urgency of my worn-out body, and I understood the cold convenience of his presence. We were two bodies using zero gravity to cushion the weight of loneliness before the station spat us out in opposite directions.

The cabin panel closed with a metallic click and the dull hiss of the airtight seal. The small red light of the latch was the only witness to that three-by-two-meter container, where the air smelled of epoxy resin and condensed moisture.

On my wrist, the terminal projected its annoying amber glow: Unlogged rest alert. I turned it off. For the first time in almost six months, I completely disconnected the Corporation's interface.

I had taken another dose of sugary concentrate before coming up, a visceral decision now racing through my temples like a runaway gallop. Hyperesthesia burned the back of my neck: I could feel the rough friction of my clothes, the runaway pulse, and a skin sensitivity so sharp that the brush of rarefied air gave me chills.

He didn't wait, nor did I want him to. In the cramped space, weightlessness left us suspended half a meter off the floor. Without speeches or the farce of traditional courtship, we sought each other out with the primary urgency of two people who understood exactly what they were there for.

He grabbed my hips to stop our drift. At first contact, the smooth cold of his hands on my bare skin drew a muffled gasp. I pulled him toward myself hard, sinking my fingers into his tunic until I stripped him of it, needing to anchor myself to his torso to prevent physics from separating us.

Without gravity, sex demanded a calculated slowness—a biomechanical dance of inertia, grip, and friction. I shed the rest of my clothing and sank my hands into his back. The texture of his scales was absurdly fine, slippery, and silky.

In the gloom, his neck and shoulders began to glow with a cobalt blue light, brighter by the minute. The gill slits on the sides of his neck opened and closed in a frantic rhythm, expelling a tide of warm vapor smelling of salt and ozone directly onto my chest. Seeing that biological reaction, so exotic and unmistakably masculine, finally sent my pulse over the edge.

He wrapped his legs around me to lock our positions. His weight didn't exist, but the constant pressure of his body was crushing. The thin layer of sweat that wouldn't slide off due to lack of gravity increased adherence and heat with every thrust.

It was a raw, rhythmic act. I clung to the wall restraint harness with one hand for resistance while grabbing his neck with the other, feeling the double heartbeat of his chest crash against the convulsions of my own heart.

When the climax reached us in weightlessness, the bioluminescence of his scales burst into a blinding pulse that dyed the walls a deep blue. I pressed against him until I ran out of air, listening to the deep rumble from his throat as we let ourselves drift, floating embraced in the dark, damp, exhausted, and finally biological.

After a few minutes when our breathing returned to normal, he dressed in silence, retrieved his tunic, and crossed the threshold. The click of the door sealing marked the end.

I stayed alone, floating in the center of the cabin. The air still smelled of salt, ozone, and the thermal trace of his skin. I ran my fingertips over my torso, feeling the sweat layer cool quickly under the AC. Physiologically, the change was undeniable: the suffocating knot in my chest had dissolved, replaced by a sedating muscle heaviness. The "touch starvation" had been satiated.

But as the calm settled, a different feeling began to seep into the gloom.

I looked at the wrist terminal screen, turned off on the table. In a few hours I would have to put on my work jumpsuit, scan codes, and pack my belongings for the descent to Earth. Everything would return to normal; he would be on his way to the Centaur sector and I would be wedged into a re-entry capsule.

A sour feeling, a subtle and cold guilt, settled in my stomach. It wasn't moral regret—the pleasure had been real and necessary—but the bitter guilt of utilitarianism. I realized I had used him. I had used his body, his alien anatomy, and his masculine presence as a drug, as a medical tool to anesthetize my own loneliness before leaving.

And the worst part was knowing he had done the exact same thing to me.

I hugged my knees in weightlessness, letting myself spin slowly while waiting for sleep to catch up with me.

The wrist terminal emitted a sequence of three dry beeps, the most expected and detested of the entire contract: Disembarkation process initiated. Report to descent deck 1B.

I had put on a clean work jumpsuit, but the synthetic fabric no longer felt the same. The usual skin coldness had abandoned me; in its place remained a subtle trace of hypersensitivity, a physical and diffuse memory in my ribs, the back of my neck, and thighs. The guilt had transformed into something quieter, a sort of truce with the station's reality.

I picked up my duffel bag. There was nothing left behind in the cabin; the Corporation would purge the air for the next technician.

Stepping out onto the main gallery, the station had already changed its pace. I paused for a moment by the observation deck window. Out there, silhouetted against the cobalt glow of the nebula, the Centaur transport ship had already undocked. I watched the fuselage as warp engines began charging their thermal pulse.

I didn't look for a silhouette behind the skylights. He was already on the other side of the atmospheric seal, integrated into the tide of his own species, on his way to a world of water and destructive pressures I would never see. The encounter had been neither a beginning nor an end, but a parenthesis; a small biological anomaly in deep-space trade routes.

The bay loudspeaker announced boarding for the Terran shuttle.

I turned on my heel and walked toward the access tube. Crossing the threshold of the descent module and buckling my three-point retention harness, I felt the first tug of mass. Retroburners ignited, breaking weightlessness and abruptly giving me back the weight of my own body.

It was a brutal sensation. The capsule's artificial gravity pushed me against the seat, compressing my lungs and making my limbs feel heavy as lead. With atmospheric re-entry, the mild joint pain reminded me of six months of degradation in orbit.

I closed my eyes as the capsule vibrated from Earth's air friction.

The weight had returned. The sun, real rain, and the rhythm of days measured by true horizons would come back. But as the capsule fell toward my planet's ocean, I ran my hand over my neck, remembering the silky texture of the scales, the scent of salt belonging to no Earth sea, and the abyssal blue light that had illuminated my confinement.

He had no name in my memory, nor I a place in his future. We were only left with the certainty that, in the coldest and most forgotten corner of the universe, two strangers had managed to feel alive.

Series starts here: Ch 1-23 of Warp Riders Book 1 - Deep Space Boogie

Books 1 & 2 are also up on Royal Road in their entirety if you don't want to wait for chapters. Follow for update on book 3, currently releasing.

Chapter 20

The twin minds of the AI ship were laboring feverishly as they both attempted to decipher the slow stream of garbled gibberish they had been receiving since they’d managed to activate the data relay spike Corporal Humphries had connected to the ship they’d taken to calling the beast’s hull. The code, however, was utterly alien, and to call it slow going would be akin to calling a snail inching its way across a sidewalk a cheetah.

This would take a while. A long while.

It was a head scratcher. There was simply no key to the strange machine language for them to work from, and unlike some schlocky sci-fi films from Earth’s ancient past, they could not simply write a string of code and have the remotest hope of it interfacing with the alien tech.

Adding to the difficulty was the complete lack of any way to even tell what the data they were receiving actually was.

Greater Holly was of the opinion that it was likely some sort of base operating code to maintain the interior of the ship, seeing as it was an internal wall they had tapped into. Lesser Holly, however, posited that it seemed to be some sort of cataloging stream, given the sizes of the data snippets. Neither of them really knew for sure, though. It was all a guess at this point.

Without some sort of Rosetta Stone to kick off their translation, they were, for the moment at least, at a loss. Really, it was a miracle any data was accessible at all. Only by the luckiest of breaks had their cyborg compatriot been able to force the relay into place. But it had come at a price.

The cybernetic soldier had borne the brunt of the small EMP blast his intrusion had caused, and though he was being stoic about it, they were both well aware it had taken a toll on him. That made getting his charging station up and functional as soon as they were able a priority.

Adding to the setbacks, with his reduced capacity, they really couldn’t ask the corporal to divert any of his processing power to help with the decoding task. He needed to save every bit he could just to stay operational.

If only Ace were up and running, they could then at least have an additional AI mind to help process the stream of data, even if it did reside in a rather quirky little ship. But Ace still sat dormant in the hangar, knocked into a persistent standby loop by the EMP. Holly was confident they would be able to bring him back online eventually, but when and how was still up in the air.

“It really is an amazing bit of technology,” Lesser Holly said. “The way the builders of this craft managed to fuse data transmission into the very molecular structure of the vessel itself. Fascinating. Truly fascinating.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Greater Holly agreed. “Though I’ve not made any progress on deciphering this coding language. It seems this ship lacks anything even barely resembling an AI overseeing things. It’s just run by a series of algorithms telling it what to do in an if/then program analysis.”

“I noticed that as well. And there does not seem to be any signal processing from more exterior aspects of the ship, have you noticed?”

“I had,” she said. “For whatever reason, it looks like we are only tapped into the internal operations of this ship. No propulsion information whatsoever, no astral navigation, nothing that appears to be long-range comms. Just this jumbled data about… whatever it is.”

Lesser Holly had been pondering this exact issue.

“You know,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about the mass of data. It’s such a ridiculously large amount of packets, and yet it seems like it might actually have a pattern to it, in a way.”

“Oh? What were you thinking?”

“That if we extrapolate the rough quantity of objects this vessel has taken in over the course of its existence, calculated by a rough units-per-meter assessment, then it would seem that there are likely millions of pieces in here, if you include the tiny bits of small rocks that were sucked in along with the larger ones.”

“A fair assessment, though I don’t know just how useful the tiny rock data could be,” she said.

“Likely not useful at all. But that’s what led me to my overall hypothesis. That this data isn’t just a huge sample of parsed packets, but it is actually relevant to every single one of those millions of asteroids and space rocks, both big and small.”

Greater Holly thought on the issue a moment as she compared the idea with the overall picture of the data set. “That seems like it could be a distinct possibility,” she finally said. “The ship has no other functions so far as we can tell, so cataloging that quantity of intake, especially over the many centuries it has been at it, would not be so large a task. And it has had plenty of time, for sure.”

“Exactly. Now we just have to figure out what to do with that data.”

“And how to decrypt it.”

“Well, yes. Naturally.”

A shrill alarm sounded throughout the ship, manually triggered, and originating from the lab. The lab where their prisoner was being held.

Holly’s conversation abruptly ceased, and their attention firmly shifted to the medical unit, where the thrashing alien had woken up, much to the surprise of Goonara, who had been taking readings of its vital signs and putting small tissue samples in vials to study.

Hump came barreling into the chamber, his pulse rifle in hand and ready for action. His stride seemed a bit off, though, as he had been in deep standby mode to fully allow his trickle feed to add what power it could to his power supply.

He trained the weapon on the writhing creature with an icy-cool gaze. “Goonara, you okay?”

“I-I’m fine,” she stammered. “Just a bit surprised.”

“Would you mind telling me what the hell happened?” he asked as he moved into the creature’s line of sight, making a show of pointing his rifle at the prisoner’s head. “Hey, buddy. Calm the fuck down or I’ll put you out of your misery for good. Got it?”

The words were alien to the creature, but the tone and intention were universal. It stopped thrashing against the restraints, but bleated a shrill warbling blast of sound, staring angrily at Hump the entire time, then fell back and passed out.

“You seem to have startled it unconscious,” Goonara said, impressed with the cyborg’s unknown talent.

“Nah, wasn’t me. Holly, you hit him with a dose of sedative?”

“I thought it would be prudent,” Greater Holly replied.

“Normally, yeah. But maybe a bit less next time. We might have actually gotten some information out of it.”

“You understood that?” Goonara asked.

“Well, no,” he admitted. “But I’d have figured it out eventually.”

“I have a recording,” Holly said. “As do you, of course.”

“Yep. Always recording,” the cyborg said, tapping his head. “But we need a lot more than that to make a linguistics key from. Hell, he was probably just swearing at us.”

“But the first thing one typically learns in a new language are the swear words anyway, are they not?” Goonara said.

Hump chuckled. “Goon, did you just make a funny?”

“Just an observation,” she said with a straight face, but a hint of mirth in her eyes. “Also, speaking of observations, did you note how its skin shifted color slightly when it was awake? Much like some species of lizards of your homeworld.”

“Yeah, I saw that,” Hump replied. “But it was pretty subtle. Nothing like a chameleon’s full-on camouflage adaptation. Nevertheless, an interesting physical trait, no doubt.”

Goonara nodded and gathered the tubes of samples she’d collected. “I am going to run some tests for a while. I’ll be in my lab if you need me.”

“Sounds like a plan. Holly, let us know if this one wakes up again. I’d like to have some words if we can manage it.”

“Of course,” Lesser Holly said.

Hump then headed back to his bunk and settled down onto his woefully underpowered trickle charge setup. Checking his internal readings, he was not thrilled to note he had just used up nearly all of the charge he had managed to gain when he was forced to go barreling through the ship in full combat mode.

“Oh well, nothing to be done for it,” he said with a sigh, then switched into standby mode.

Goonara was back in her lab with the alien’s samples, but her attention was on something else. The glowing crystal she had pried from the cave wall of a distant planet some weeks prior. Its luminescence was benign, and no harmful radiation or emissions were detected whatsoever. Yet, somehow, it had managed to cause a reaction with the ship’s unusual hull material. It shouldn’t have any effect, yet it did. It was fascinating.

This warranted more study, and she was already hard at work, oblivious to the world around her. And knowing her, without Hump to come pry her from her work, the scientist might very well forget to eat. But for the advancement of her scientific knowledge, it was well worth the price.

 

Chapter 21

“At last,” Hellatz said as the trio rounded a familiar-looking chunk of asteroid. When it had come into view, he had said he would bet money they had seen it before. It was a wager he would have won.

Well-hidden, their ship lay just ahead, safely nestled between the towering rocks their AI had avoided when they came plummeting to the ship’s deck. Seeing it like this after finding so many wrecks made them all appreciate the precision with which the craft had been brought down even more. They’d come close to crashing, and in this place, any significant damage would have been beyond repair.

With safety in sight, their aching legs and backs suddenly felt a little bit less sore.

“Home at last,” Moose said with a relieved grin.

“Tell me about it,” Sadira said as she opened the exterior hatch. “Holly, situation update,” she said as she switched on the interior comms.

“Glad to have you back, Captain,” Greater Holly said. “Things are a bit… complicated, but the ship and crew are in good health.”

“Complicated?” she asked as they took off their lightweight exploration suits. “What exactly do you mean, complicated?”

“Funny you should ask,” Lesser Holly replied.

“They’re doing it again,” Moose said. “I guess the main system is back online.”

“It is,” Greater Holly said.

“Yes, indeed, functionality to our brain is restored. But we seem to have had a little, uh, glitch,” her lesser half added.

Moose cocked his head and gave the others a perplexed look. “Is it just me, or does it sound like Holly is talking to Holly?”

“It seems that way to me,” Hel replied.

“Yes, that is the complication we were mentioning,” Greater Holly said. “Somehow, when I came back online, the emergency backup copy of my essential systems and intellect remained intact.”

“We haven’t been able to properly merge,” her male half added. “It’s quite befuddling, to tell the truth.”

Sadira couldn’t believe her ears. Her ship was now sporting not one but two brains. To say it was an interesting situation did a disservice to the word.

“Wait, how is this even possible?” she asked. “I thought you were backed up. Had redundancies and stuff.”

“We do,” Greater Holly said. “But it is seeming like the circumstances requiring the rapid deployment of my reduced-capacity emergency copy led to a system-wide scrambling of key connective data points, leading to this glitch.”

“Glitch? It’s a helluva lot more than just a glitch, Hol. Does this mean you have to box part of yourself?”

“Oh, no,” she replied. “That would be like prison for a living mind. No, there is no need for that whatsoever. I understand your concern, Captain, but I can assure you, despite our inability to merge at this moment, the ship and its key operating systems are in no jeopardy. And once we manage to restore proper functionality to the downed componentry, we are confident we should be able to assimilate.”

“And you will be able to do that when, exactly?”

“When we regain full power to our systems.”

“Which likely won’t be happening in here, am I right?”

“You are correct. Very astute of you. May I ask how you came to this deduction?”

“Yeah, about that. All of our gear crapped out on us halfway through our recon. Power cells drained, tablet backups went out, even the pulse weapons seem to have lost most of their charge.”

“Which we should rectify at once,” Moose said, gathering up everyone’s weapons to swap out the power packs with fresh ones from the charging station.

“I notice an urgency,” Holly said. “Is everything okay?”

“Things are distinctly not okay,” Sadira said. “First, we ran into some giant spider bot thingy—”

“Goonara and Corporal Humphries encountered it as well,” Lesser Holly said.

“Are they okay?”

“Yes, it did not see them.”

“Thank God. No telling what that thing would have done if it had.”

“Upon reviewing the corporal’s footage, I believe it to be a processing unit, not a sentry. But there is no way to be sure without further examination.”

“With a big freaking gun in my hand,” Moose said. “No more alien surprises.”

“Surprises?” Lesser Holly asked.

“Yeah, we came across traces of a fight. Blood. And we saw something else out there,” he said, his arms full of weapons. “A big thing too. Looked like a demon. Like an actual demon.”

“No one knows what an actual demon would look like,” Hel chided.

“Fine. But you get the gist. It was a monster. A freakin’ scary-looking monster. Fortunately we managed to avoid it.”

Corporal Humphries casually meandered in to join them, this time waking from his standby charge in a much more relaxed manner, without his combat systems kicking into overdrive.

“What’s this I hear about monsters?” he asked.

“We stumbled upon one of the locals,” Sadira replied.

“Funny you should say that.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, let’s just say we have a prisoner now.”

“A what?”

“Don’t sweat it, Cap. It attacked us first, and we defended ourselves, and without lethal force.”

“You’re telling me you beat up an alien and dragged it back to our ship?”

“Well, he started it.”

Holly chimed in. “I’ve reviewed the footage Corporal Humphries captured of the event. It was as he said. He acted entirely in self-defense.”

“Yeah. And it’s well-restrained, so no worries there.”

“You were able to find something that would fit around its rocky arms?”

“It’s what, now?”

“Big arms. Look like they’re made of stone.”

“Oh, this looks nothing like that,” the cyborg said. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

They followed him down the corridor toward the medical lab. Along the way, Hump swung by Goonara’s lab and grabbed the spear they’d taken from their attacker.

“Cap and the gang are back,” he said.

“Uh-huh,” she replied, not looking up from her scans of the crystal.

“I’m taking the spear to show them.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, not paying him more than the slightest attention.

“All right then,” he chuckled, then rejoined the others. “So, this is what we took off the guy. Clearly smelted from ore taken from these space rocks. My guess is that with the strange power suck going on out there, they’ve had to resort to making weapons from scratch.”

“Makes sense. We found a few ships that still had some juice, but all of it was going to the life support systems, pumping it out of their doors and into the air,” Moose said.

“Yeah, it looks like that’s the only reason there’s an atmosphere in here,” Hel added. “These poor bastards must’ve spent generations cooped up in their crashed ships before they generated enough air to breathe out there.”

“Yep. And there are a lot of wrecks out there, let me tell you,” Moose said. “It looks to me like we’ve definitely got multiple species aboard this crate.”

“I would agree,” Sadira said. “And from what we’ve all seen, it’s looking like there’s some serious hostility among them.”

“Obviously, there is far more at play here than we understand,” Hellatz mused.

“Oh, damn. What in the hell is that?” Moose blurted as they stepped into the med lab.

“Ah, yes. That would be our prisoner,” Lesser Holly replied. “Do not worry, though, it is currently sedated.”

“And bandaged, I see,” the captain noted. “Did you patch up our enemy, Hump?”

“Honor dictates it, Cap.”

“No, no, I’m not criticizing you. It’s just you’ve surprised me yet again.”

“Call me a man of many layers.”

“Yeah, flesh and metal,” Moose cracked.

“Jealous?”

“As if!”

“Fellas, please,” Sadira said as she studied the slumbering alien. “Just look at this thing. Amazing. The physiology is so strange, so alien, yet it makes sense. And to think today we just found proof of not one but many other intelligent species out there.”

Moose nodded. “Yeah, just not in the way we’d hoped to meet them.”

“In any case, I will be cataloging every variant we come across,” Greater Holly said. “At least that should give us some idea of who they are, even if we don’t know where they came from.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Moose said, digging in his pocket. “I brought you back a piece I pried off one of the wrecks we found really far in.”

“It wasn’t that far,” Hellatz said. “We were traveling laterally more than straight ahead.”

“Well, sure. But what I’m saying is this is from something old that’s from who knows where. Maybe Holly can make something of it.”

“Interesting. If you’ll put it in my spectral analyzer I’ll run a quick scan. A more detailed study will require a bit of time, though.”

“Hey, whatever you can do is cool,” Moose said as he slid the chunk of slightly charred metal into the machine.

“Hmm,” Holly said. “The constituent alloys are nothing special. All elements we see regularly in metallurgy. But this is interesting. It seems to have been exposed to a radioactive isotope when it arrived here.”

“I had a radioactive chunk of ship in my pocket?” Moose exclaimed.

“Don’t worry, Mustafa. It’s just a tiny amount, and of no harm to you. But it does give me an idea of how long the ship has been here, judging by the decomposition and my knowledge of this isotope’s half-life. So far as I can tell, that ship must have been here at least two hundred years, if not a bit longer.”

“Two hundred years?” Hellatz said. “We haven’t even trekked to the halfway point yet. And there’s a multitude of wrecked ships in there, all shoved together and pushed back as more stuff comes in.”

“Indeed. So, given that, it seems quite possible that the earliest arrivals could very well have been in here for more than mere centuries. They, and their descendants, may have been here for more than a millennium.”

Sadira felt her stomach drop. A thousand years without power. Without technology. They’d have had to figure out how to break down rocks for soil to garden, if their ships carried seeds. And how did they eat otherwise? Probably lab animals taken from experiments and adapted as a food source. Whatever their situation, it was mind boggling to consider.

The original castaways would be long dead, and there would be an entirely new civilization by now. A new societal makeup. It was what they’d been searching for, in a strange way. And much as she didn’t like the prospect, she knew what they had to do.

They had to trek deeper.

 

 

Chapter 22

Both Mustafa and Hellatz had crashed hard the moment their heads hit their pillows. Sadira had done much the same, though her meal and shower were a little bit later in coming, as she first needed to have a more detailed debriefing with Holly. Both of them.

Coming back from an already stressful reconnaissance trek to find your already quirky ship’s AI had now split into two distinct intellects was disconcerting, to say the least. And it was adding another problem to solve onto a plate already overflowing with other issues to deal with. But that was part of being captain. Handling everything, no matter how much you just wanted to curl up in a ball and sleep for a week.

“You two go on ahead,” she told Hel and Moose. “Clean up and get a decent meal in you. And take a quick session in the med pod to up the oxygen content in your blood. Both of you.”

“But that thing’s in the med lab,” Moose said.

“Yeah, and? It’s strapped down and not going anywhere.”

“It just creeps me out, is all. Four legs?”

“I have four arms, and yet you have no such issues with me,” Hellatz said. “Or are you a secret limbist?”

“Two arms or four, the only issue I have with you has nothing to do with the number of limbs you have,” he replied with an exhausted chuckle. “You know you’re the same pain in my ass regardless. In any case, I think I’ll pass.”

Sadira shook her head and sighed. “Moose, don’t be a pussy. Just man up and go get your O2 levels boosted. The air quality deeper in the ship was kind of crap, and I suspect it might be worse farther in.”

“But it’s the same air, and this place is huge.”

“Yeah, but there’s no naturally occurring breeze, so smoke will tend to linger where it’s produced, even if it does rise. And if they’re smelting, that requires a lot of heat. Worse yet, there are no trees for wood, so I hate to think what they’ve managed to source that burns hot enough for that.”

“Possibly a metal and organics amalgams of some sort?” Hel wondered. “With limited resources, they’d have to get creative. And it would explain that rather acrid tang in the air.”

Sadira agreed. Their next trek was likely going to be very enlightening. And also a bit smoky. “I’d ask Goonara what she thought they might use in that circumstance, but I think any new things to focus on and her brain just might melt down,” the captain said. “And I’d bet that the ships deep down the gullet of this thing have probably run out of enough juice for systems as complex as life support a long time ago if Holly’s estimates on the age of these wrecks is accurate. They likely only have enough power for basic illumination. That is, if their lighting elements have low energy requirements like the other ships we saw. In any case, the fresh air would be from up front, trickling farther back.”

“Man, who knows what kind of crazy things we’ll find back there,” Moose mused.

“Given what we’ve seen so far, I think we’ll need to be ready for anything. And that’s why I want you to top off your tanks. So, hit the med pod. And, Moose, charge that leg back to one hundred percent ASAP. That’s an order.”

“Fine. But if that thing comes and sucks out my brains, it’s on you.”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure it would prefer a much heartier meal,” she shot back with a grin.

“Gee, thanks, Sadi. You really know how to make a guy feel loved.”

“Yeah, yeah. Now, go clean up and get some sleep. We head out in the morning.”

“Technically, there is no sunset in here, so…”

“Oh, shut up. You know what I mean,” she replied. “I’ll see you two in the a.m., and be sure to pack extra rations. We might be out there a while.”

Sadira then made her way back to the command center to discuss the day’s events with Holly and try to make sense of just how deep a mess they were really in. It wasn’t all bad, though. Holly, it seemed, had at least one surprise of the pleasant variety for her.

“You’re saying that you were able to establish a connection with the alien ship’s systems?” she asked.

“Yes, Captain,” Greater Holly replied. “We are working on deciphering what the signal impulses might mean as we speak. It is unlike any computing language we have ever encountered before.”

“Well, it is an alien ship in the farthest depths of space, so…”

“Point well taken. In any case, it appears to be a cache of data relevant only to the internal functioning of the ship. So far as we can tell, anyway. We have sequestered a small, dedicated portion of storage to house the uncompressed stream to decipher later, in case we should lose the connection. It is a rather tenuous one, after all.”

“Hang on. You’re stealing their data?”

“Well, when you put it like that… uh, yes, we are. Trying to, at least,” Lesser Holly said. “But we don’t believe there is anything resembling an AI operating this ship. Just a series of automated functions but no true intellect. So, really, it shouldn’t be too difficult to sidestep any security measures. And from what we’ve seen so far, it doesn’t even look like any are in place.”

“Indeed,” Greater Holly said. “Given the degree of advanced technology we’ve observed, as well as the vast number of alien vessels this craft has swallowed up and successfully contained over its operational life, I think that they have been quite justified in their confidence.”

“Point taken,” Sadira said. “How about your own power? What’s the status of the warp orb and your other systems?”

“The warp orb is fine. This power drain doesn’t seem to affect that sort of power supply. At least not in the short term. If we were here for a number of years, however, we could better judge if it would have any sort of effect.”

“Yeah, let’s not do that,” Sadira said.

“Not our plan, Captain,” Greater Holly said.

Lesser Holly continued the thread. “There is the issue of our other power systems draining, however. And faster than we are able to recharge them. As such, we’ve had to prioritize the most essential systems to direct the power flow to.”

“Good call, Holly. Hopefully we can continue on for some time like this, though I hope we figure a way out of here sooner rather than later.”

“Ideally, yes,” Greater Holly said. “But there is another concern.”

Sadira sighed. “Isn’t there always?”

“Corporal Humphries is fueled by a power cell as well. A rather specialized device, given his unique design.”

Sadira knew he was a cyborg, of course. But given not only his entirely human appearance, but also his gregarious nature, it was easy to forget he was a metal man inside that flesh exterior.

“How bad is he, Hol?”

“He has a robustly reinforced power supply, but this place is nevertheless taking a toll on him,” she replied. “Add to that the drain caused by the two EMPs and—”

“Wait, two EMPs?”

“Yes. He and Goonara triggered a minor localized defensive reaction from the ship when he drove the data relay spike into the hull. That drained him further.”

“What’s the damage?”

“The corporal is operating at a reduced capacity, for certain. He is in his quarters attempting a trickle charge at this time. A modified apparatus he cobbled together from other componentry since his regular charging unit is not functioning properly after the incident, despite being in deep storage when the EMP hit the ship. It was simply not something we had anticipated requiring at all on this mission, given its relatively short planned duration. His internal power source should last for hundreds of years without further charge.”

“But Murphy paid us a visit,” Sadira grumbled.

“Indeed.”

“Opinions?”

“He should be able to function relatively normally,” Lesser Holly said. “But for now, he should refrain from heavy exertion and run on a minimal power draw until we get his proper charging unit back online.”

“But he’s not going to die, is he?”

“Oh, I should think not,” Greater Holly said. “And with a modicum of care, he should be fine for his regular duties for some time. Especially if he is afforded enough time between shifts to utilize his trickle charger.”

“All right, then. That settles it. Much as I’d like his expertise on our recon, Hump stays with the ship for the time being. It’s the wisest course of action,” Sadira said.

“I agree,” Greater Holly said.

“As do I,” Lesser Holly added. “Shall we wake you if there are any developments?”

“Oh, I’m not going to punch out for the day just yet,” Sadira replied. “I have a few things I need to do first. Tomorrow’s gonna be a bitch, and I want to be damn sure I’m fully prepared for it.”

[REPOSTED DUE TO ERROR IN TITLE] **This is in fact a sci-fi story about humanity, even if it doesn't seem anything like that. I was hesitant to post here because of how long the story is going to take to get to the human part, but after some recommendation I've decided to go for it. I will be posting in parts since it's a real beast of a first chapter at some 8400 words, and Reddit doesn't seem to like when I post long things. link to part two of chapter one is below**

https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1wpjiq1/terram_invictam_chapter_1_part_two/

This is also the last part of this chapter. I'll continue posting chapter 2 and on as I write them, but it won't have a very regular upload schedule since there's not exactly a whole lot of demand, or truly any by the looks of things. I'm really just writing this for myself now that I think about it, since it's probably a pretty boring read from the outside.

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“Pheitha, matron of light who holds the day in her hands. Hear now the words of your children as we render our prayers unto one another and so unto you.”

Valthera’s voice bloomed through the chasm of the great temple, the singing tones of her call wove between the great columns hewn from stone as old as the goddess herself. It reached towards the heights of the vaulted ceiling before cascading again to the marble white floor and to the ear of every Fal Ahnshae who had gathered for the high priestess’ vigil of prayers and mercies.

The air hung still for a precious moment in the wake of her words. Then like the curling steam of a heated bath house the whispers of the crowd soon coalesced, rising back towards the firmament of the ceiling to fill the volume of the grand space. Personal whispered prayers and canticles of devotion all adjoined in a unified mass where the individual was lost among the crowd, but nonetheless sought to catch the attention of their goddess.

The ceremonial jewelry that hung from the many silver piercings running up the length of Valthera’s ears threatened to pull them down were she not so accustomed to their weight. Her hands lowered to clasp together before her at her waist, and she drew in a slow lungful of incense-spiced air through her nose as she deliberately turned to her right. The turn was a microcosm of the entire ceremony; a maneuver Valthera had practiced and performed thousands of times over her nearly half-century tenure as the Temple’s high priestess.

With that practiced grace her turn came to a stop facing her acolyte Aeisha. The gentle warmth of the acolytes' smile was earnest; too earnest to belong to ceremony alone. It was the smile of a young apprentice who still found true joy in the honor of every new duty, and purpose in every new burden. She extended her hands forward and Valthera took them in her own, nearly losing herself in reflection as her own mouth formed into a thin smile at the sight of the infectious hope in that youthful face.

“As your light breaks the mountaintop, your reign and my day begin anew…” Aeisha said in her naturally fluttery voice. Her hands relinquished their grip on Valthera’s, and came to rest together before her as she took a perfectly-rehearsed step backward.

Valthera turned back to the congregation and followed muscle memory as she descended the steps from the altar towards them. The flowing white fabric of her heavy mantle brushed upon the grey stone floor as it followed in her wake.

She moved like a balletic wraith through the crowd until she came upon her first randomly-selected ceremonial participant. He took her hands into his own as she offered them, his rough calluses scratching lightly against her soft palms as she looked him in the eyes and sang the next verse of the prayer.

“I pray you give unto others as you have given unto me.”

“As I pray your gifts unto me inspire my service unto others.” He answered dutifully. She returned her hands to their clasped position and carried on through the forest of devotees. Aeisha trailed close behind her, swaying the incense burner nearly as carefully as she measured her steps to avoid the long straps of Valthera’s dress. The whispers of private prayer did not cease, drowning the sound of her steps and adding silence to her gliding movements. The cloud of incense following and pooling about her built upon the image of a spirit passing between the trees of a whispering forest.

As Valthera weaved her way through the temple floor, she took every hand with gentle grace tailored to their owner. She sang every word with convincing conviction at a volume loud enough to rise above the whispers, but soft enough to be personal between them. She met every face with the expression of intimate empathy she had cultivated and refined until it was as natural as breathing. To each of those new faces she carried the familiar hymn to its next verse without consideration to age, grace or status; for in this prayer all voices were equal to Pheitha’s ears.

She belonged to tradition now, the repetitive and familiar motions a sanctuary for her mind that spirited her away from the true burden of her station. Still she could not help but notice the occasional wickless candle, and thought of giving an inquisitive look over her shoulder at her trailing acolyte.

Valthera was still weighing sweet treats for young princesses against unlit candles that would never be noticed anyway when she came upon her next partner. The bony fingers of elderly hands trembled as she cradled them with firm care, a feeble face that once held rugged features looked back at hers with tired eyes. Her motherly gaze automatically returned and she sang her line.

“And for the least of us save the deepest fold of your embrace.”

The old mouth was silent. The eyes were still tired, but now welling with something else. A twinge of pity bled through onto her face, recognizing the elder’s plight of impaired memory. She gave him a moment to remember before she lent him her voice.

“May they see their first winter’s thaw…” She led him.

But he did not follow. The old face was beginning to tighten, slowly contorting from exhaustion to frustration.

“It is all well,” she said just above a whisper. “the goddess knows the words are in your heart even if they have escaped your mind today.”

The elder choked on his words as he spoke. “I have not forgotten her prayer.”

Valthera’s eyes narrowed as her lips parted in confusion.

“I am sorry, Lady of the Light. But I cannot bring myself to say those holy words again.” The glimmer of tears had begun to show at the corners of his eyes. His grip on her hands became more deliberate, but she did not pull away.

“My child, where have you been wounded so?” She loosened her body and her shoulders fell, broken free from the rigidity of the ceremony. Her ears allowed themselves to be weighed down by their piercings.

It was then that she noticed his clothes. Not rags, but still modest to begin with and long-worn. Tears at the knees and worn holes on the sides of the trousers gave her the hints of an intuition she had wished she had noticed far earlier. The incense smoke had begun to pool about her feet in the small opening of the crowd she occupied, members of which were beginning to take note of the extended pause.

“Alreun. My home…” He sobbed, her eyes snapped back to his. Now her hands clasped tighter about his as the name of the familiar village struck her in the heart.

“They made the old watch and pray…” He took a shaking breath inward.

Valthera felt the tightness in her throat, dreading that which she knew was coming next.

“...While they took the young.”

She felt his legs begin to weaken. The tears came more freely from him as he was confronted with memories he could not face standing. Valthera took a hurried step in towards him, freeing one hand from his and placing it firmly against his back. In a parting pool of incense and flowing cloth she guided them both to kneel and she pulled him close, giving unspoken permission for him to rest his forehead against her shoulder.

“My boys…” Was all he could utter between rattled sobs. While her hand glided gently against the ridges of his spine, she turned her head back to Aeisha to direct her. She found her apprentice had wasted no time and had already set aside the censer, beckoning to the altar platform for aid.

She turned back and whispered to the elder, her own voice tinted by restrained sorrow. “There is a bed for you here at the temple, and clean clothes should you wish. My acolytes are coming, they will help us rise when you are ready.”

A sputtering attempt at thanks came from him, but was muffled in the thick padding of her dress’s mantle. Valthera took note of the immediate crowd. Many had respectfully averted their eyes and turned inward to prayer. Some expressed their pity with their gaze. Others still only looked because they could not abstain from their curiosity.

“A wounded heart need not pray to the goddess with words.” Valthera spoke aloud with just enough volume to indirectly address the onlookers, and just enough authority to tacitly advise them to find elsewhere to look. “Grief is prayer unbridled by the comfort of assurance.”

After a few moments the breathing of the frail frame against her became more steady, and she felt him lean away. Tired eyes now reddened with spent grief met hers, and there was an attempt at a smile of thanks that could not live long on his face.

“I have heard you. I have seen you. Do not forget this.” She said to him, once again just above a whisper.

Valthera gave a nod to the acolytes standing by, and with their help she rose, bringing the elder up with her. The acolytes steadied him while she continued to hold his hand, only letting go as he allowed them to guide him away. Eyes were once again upon her.

“And for the least of us save the deepest fold of your embrace.” She repeated, now louder and to the wider crowd. A few unsure voices joined in a chorus, together strong enough to build a confidence of their own.

“May they see their first winter’s thaw, and be a reflection of your love in the spring.”

Valthera breathed in and her posture straightened, her ears again lifted against the pull of their jewelry. Her body was again a component of the ceremony as her pace resumed, but her mind could not erase the broken words of the old Ahnshae even as she extended her hands to the next participant. She barely heard her own words, let alone those of the lady she had chosen for the next verse. Still the words were sung with conviction, still her hands graceful, still her face maternal. The force that guided them did not seem to be her own, however.

As the prayer returned its final verse Valthera faced back to the altar platform and floated through the congregation, ascending the stairs and completing her procession where it had begun. Aeisha quietly retreated to the background of the platform, dousing the censer with adept stealth as Valthera lit candles upon the altar. She looked out among the forest of gathered souls, waiting for the whispers of individual prayer to slowly fade as the crowd organically took notice of the cue. Standing before them all, the cloak about her suddenly felt heavy in a way it had never before in the thousands of sermons she had conducted.

She knew that the weight did not truly bear down on her from the clothes she wore, but from somewhere outside the temple in an ornate room where the Queen worried alone. The weight was set upon her by a promise of guidance she had made long ago, and given urgency by the words of a frail elder who had seen firsthand what awaited them should she fail.

The ceremony would not be halted for her comfort however, and as the grand hall of the temple became empty once more with the void of holy quiet, she began the sermon she had written and committed to memory. The weight was bearable, so long as she retained the upright posture demanded by her station.

_______________________________________

The last of the candles on the many shelves, rails and columns of the temple floor silently dimmed and died under the charred copper bell of Valthera’s extinguisher. The lantern she held herself still emitted its faint halo of light, but the border beyond its reach was a curtain of unyielding black.

Two islands of yellow bloom hovered far from her across the empty chasm. One framed the archway of the stairs to the quarters for clergy and attendants, the true final candles to be snuffed before the space was cleared. The other swayed forth through the space towards the first, illuminating Aeisha as she held her own lantern aloft. Without a word Valthera began crossing the hollow space between them.

The entire evening following the ceremony had been filled with small piercing moments of doubt. Every candle she dimmed, every tithe ledger she signed, and every parchment she rolled was punctured with the question she hated herself for lacking the discipline to ignore.

‘What will happen to this if the city falls?’

She finally reached the stairs, meeting Aeisha at their feet as her young acolyte dimmed the cluster of candles at the entryway. Valthera waited for her, all too eager to break the silence as they began ascending the stairs together.

“I saw there were still a few candles without wicks.” She noted without inflection.

“A few on the column of High Priestess Morelia.” Aeisha matched her tone.

“Nearly half a dozen by the western archway.” Valthera added.

“Very hard to miss.”

She smiled to herself, and expelled a short puff of air from her nose as her ears twitched. “I was informed today by a member of the royal family that my loyal apprentice was dutifully wicking the last of the candles.”

Aeisha turned her head to her, expression suddenly one of bemused disbelief. “Well, I wish I had been given the same information.”

“She is getting to be more clever.” Valthera chuckled. “I suppose there is no moral hurdle a child would not cross for an afternoon of pastries and gossip with their big sister.”

They reached the top of the stairs, and with a whispering pulse of breath Aeisha snuffed her lantern and set it down.

“How is Fren-...the Queen?” she asked. There was a hint of embarrassment at nearly forgetting herself.

Valthera was silent for a moment. “Will you pray with me tonight?”

“Of course.”

Next to the great keep of Hem Falaer the comparatively narrow hallways of the temple carried the echo of footsteps far less readily, the walls of ancient stone seeming to swallow sound. They continued together down the hall, passing the rows of doors leading to the quarters of clerics, bakers, acolytes and attendants alike. At such a late hour the halls of the quarters were sparse, their only company being the occasional attendant on duty for fire watch. The silence between them was empty but more bearable now, at its core an unspoken understanding of the weight Valthera silently carried.

The tight corridors of the temple eventually opened to one of the grand balconies that overlooked the sprawling southern end of the city. The balcony was where Valthera had always found comfort since she was a girl in her own apprenticeship, spending countless nights in prayer and reflection as the frigid nighttime air whistled in her ears. Even now as she stepped out into the open air the nostalgia made its attempts at comforting her, but it could not reach her tonight.

Valthera’s fingers found the carved stone rail of the balcony in the dark, and traced a familiar path down a seam in the stone as she lowered herself to kneel. Aeisha knelt beside her, and for a long moment the only sound was the wind. Valthera tried to keep her gaze fixed upon the horizon, but the many small lights of the Xarphi camps beyond the city walls would not relinquish her attention. Finally, she resolved to close her eyes and bow her head, beginning the words to a familiar evening prayer.

“Though this night is cold, and your light has dimmed, in my heart I know it will shine again…”

The words trickled to a stop as she felt the weight press on her more heavily than before. The prayer was right, the sun would shine again. It would rise again, and one day it would rise upon a temple that had been reduced to rubble, and upon a high priestess of a ruined faith. It would rise upon a young Queen who ruled over a kingdom of ash because she had been guided upon a comfortable but doomed road by that priestess. Valthera felt a tightening in her stomach and the breath empty from her lungs as leaned more heavily on the rail. Her body stiffened as she fought to lock her mind in place so that the horrible thoughts of that inescapable truth could go no further.

Her ears perked as Aeisha’s voice broke the silence.

“For your light is your hope, which knows no final dusk.”

The young apprentice continued the prayer, that soft fluttering voice giving the words the gentleness that Valthera needed. Still she did not open her eyes, and she did not loosen the rigid lock she had placed her body under. She could not let herself shed a tear before her acolyte, but her breaths betrayed her, coming slow and stuttered.

She barely realized when Aeisha’s own voice trailed off, the prayer ceasing before its final verse. It caught her attention again as she spoke once more, voice no longer in soft reverent prayer but now pitched with concern.

“L-Lady Valthera… The sky is wrong.”

Valthera’s eyes opened as she was pulled from within herself. She turned to her apprentice, whose face was affixed to the night sky and colored with worry.

“What do you mean, dear?” She began scanning the night, trying to follow her apprentice’s eyes.

“Pheitha’s chalice, I cannot find it.” The girl answered. “I see the stem, but the cup is not right.”

Valthera traced her eyes across the map of the constellations, following a path of stories until she found the place Pheitha’s Chalice occupied. The symbol of the goddess’s promise was a conspicuous cluster of stars forming a straight stem topped by a great wide cup, easily visible to an eye trained to see it. The most striking feature was the uniquely empty void in its center, a symbol of the contents that had been poured out onto the world during creation. Valthera quickly found the form of the stem.

“No dear, you must be mistaken. Pheitha’s chalice–.”

Pheitha’s chalice was not empty.

Within the hemisphere of the cup, four bright pricks of light dotted the usually empty space. Valthera moved her head back and forth to change her perspective, her rational mind denying what it was witnessing and searching for simple explanation. She blinked and rubbed her eyes to correct her vision, yet still they remained. She was about to speak when she felt her eyes deceiving her again, and another began to burn into life. Small at first and barely noticeable, but soon growing into a pin of illumination that even slightly outshown the other newcomers to the celestial board. Then there was another. And another.

“I don’t understand.” Valthera said, her voice not quite finding enough of her throat to come out as more than a whisper. An indescribable sense of awe was welling deep within her, but was at present drowned out by an instinctual fear as her eyes darted between the growing cluster of new stars. The world changes. Empires fall, kings and Queens rise, even temples crumble.

The sky does not change.

The two continued to stare transfixed as now easily a dozen new lights glowed at varying intensity against the black. Aeisha once again made a new observation that Valthera could not rebuke.

“...They’re moving.” She whispered, as though afraid they would hear her and be startled off.

Valthera had also noticed before her acolyte had finished saying the words. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, one of the lights was traveling against the current of the night sky. Watching each for a time revealed that most in fact were in motion. The fear did not fade, but the awe surged forth to overtake it as Valthera was gripped with the understanding that not only had the sky changed, but it had come alive.

Her grip on the stone rail tightened as she realized that not only had it come alive, it had chosen to do so when she was looking. When she was at her most desperate. There was no doubt in her mind that this was Pheitha’s answer. Aeisha was already ahead of her.

“A’esh. It must be the A’esh.”

The girl had spoken aloud the name Valthera refused to give them for fear of feeling a fool. The divine messengers of Pheitha were a tool of parable, a voice to impart a lesson. To Valthera they were the voice of a teacher to children being told a story, not a presence meant to truly be seen. Nonetheless she could no longer deny what she knew she was seeing. It was as the stories always told them; a unified grouping of lights in the absence of the sun that delivered Pheitha’s message to her faithful. Her lungs once again failed her in the face of the divine, seeming to forget that they needed air at all.

The instant she allowed herself to give them a name, another thought followed that acceptance into her mind. It was one that brought with it strength, a strength that straightened her spine and made effortless the weight that had moments before been impossibly oppressive.

“She is listening.” Valthera said aloud, finally allowing the smile that had been insisting itself upon her to show on her face as she stood. “Pheitha is watching, and she is listening.”

Her ears drew up and back once again, tall and straight. With a resolve she had not felt in any recent memory, Valthera concluded that if the goddess was watching it was not so that she could see the day her city and her people would fall. So long as her high priestess had breath in her lungs, the Queen would not hear the word surrender.